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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of King Solomon’s Mines, by H. Rider Haggard
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: King Solomon’s Mines
+
+Author: H. Rider Haggard
+
+Release Date: May, 2000 [eBook #2166]
+[Most recently updated: November 18, 2020]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: John Bickers and Dagny. HTML version by Al Haines.
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KING SOLOMON’S MINES ***
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+King Solomon’s Mines
+
+by H. Rider Haggard
+
+
+Contents
+
+ INTRODUCTION
+ I. I MEET SIR HENRY CURTIS
+ II. THE LEGEND OF SOLOMON’S MINES
+ III. UMBOPA ENTERS OUR SERVICE
+ IV. AN ELEPHANT HUNT
+ V. OUR MARCH INTO THE DESERT
+ VI. WATER! WATER!
+ VII. SOLOMON’S ROAD
+ VIII. WE ENTER KUKUANALAND
+ IX. TWALA THE KING
+ X. THE WITCH-HUNT
+ XI. WE GIVE A SIGN
+ XII. BEFORE THE BATTLE
+ XIII. THE ATTACK
+ XIV. THE LAST STAND OF THE GREYS
+ XV. GOOD FALLS SICK
+ XVI. THE PLACE OF DEATH
+ XVII. SOLOMON’S TREASURE CHAMBER
+ XVIII. WE ABANDON HOPE
+ XIX. IGNOSI’S FAREWELL
+ XX. FOUND
+
+
+PREPARER’S NOTE
+
+This was typed from a 1907 edition published by Cassell and Company,
+Limited.
+
+
+
+
+DEDICATION
+
+This faithful but unpretending record
+of a remarkable adventure
+is hereby respectfully dedicated
+by the narrator,
+
+ALLAN QUATERMAIN,
+
+to all the big and little boys
+who read it.
+
+
+
+
+AUTHOR’S NOTE
+
+
+The author ventures to take this opportunity to thank his readers for
+the kind reception they have accorded to the successive editions of
+this tale during the last twelve years. He hopes that in its present
+form it will fall into the hands of an even wider public, and that in
+years to come it may continue to afford amusement to those who are
+still young enough at heart to love a story of treasure, war, and wild
+adventure.
+
+Ditchingham,
+11 March, 1898.
+
+
+
+
+POST SCRIPTUM
+
+
+Now, in 1907, on the occasion of the issue of this edition, I can only
+add how glad I am that my romance should continue to please so many
+readers. Imagination has been verified by fact; the King Solomon’s
+Mines I dreamed of have been discovered, and are putting out their gold
+once more, and, according to the latest reports, their diamonds also;
+the Kukuanas or, rather, the Matabele, have been tamed by the white
+man’s bullets, but still there seem to be many who find pleasure in
+these simple pages. That they may continue so to do, even to the third
+and fourth generation, or perhaps longer still, would, I am sure, be
+the hope of our old and departed friend, Allan Quatermain.
+
+H. Rider Haggard.
+Ditchingham, 1907.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+Now that this book is printed, and about to be given to the world, a
+sense of its shortcomings both in style and contents, weighs very
+heavily upon me. As regards the latter, I can only say that it does not
+pretend to be a full account of everything we did and saw. There are
+many things connected with our journey into Kukuanaland that I should
+have liked to dwell upon at length, which, as it is, have been scarcely
+alluded to. Amongst these are the curious legends which I collected
+about the chain armour that saved us from destruction in the great
+battle of Loo, and also about the “Silent Ones” or Colossi at the mouth
+of the stalactite cave. Again, if I had given way to my own impulses, I
+should have wished to go into the differences, some of which are to my
+mind very suggestive, between the Zulu and Kukuana dialects. Also a few
+pages might have been given up profitably to the consideration of the
+indigenous flora and fauna of Kukuanaland.[1] Then there remains the
+most interesting subject—that, as it is, has only been touched on
+incidentally—of the magnificent system of military organisation in
+force in that country, which, in my opinion, is much superior to that
+inaugurated by Chaka in Zululand, inasmuch as it permits of even more
+rapid mobilisation, and does not necessitate the employment of the
+pernicious system of enforced celibacy. Lastly, I have scarcely spoken
+of the domestic and family customs of the Kukuanas, many of which are
+exceedingly quaint, or of their proficiency in the art of smelting and
+welding metals. This science they carry to considerable perfection, of
+which a good example is to be seen in their “tollas,” or heavy throwing
+knives, the backs of these weapons being made of hammered iron, and the
+edges of beautiful steel welded with great skill on to the iron frames.
+The fact of the matter is, I thought, with Sir Henry Curtis and Captain
+Good, that the best plan would be to tell my story in a plain,
+straightforward manner, and to leave these matters to be dealt with
+subsequently in whatever way ultimately may appear to be desirable. In
+the meanwhile I shall, of course, be delighted to give all information
+in my power to anybody interested in such things.
+
+And now it only remains for me to offer apologies for my blunt way of
+writing. I can but say in excuse of it that I am more accustomed to
+handle a rifle than a pen, and cannot make any pretence to the grand
+literary flights and flourishes which I see in novels—for sometimes I
+like to read a novel. I suppose they—the flights and flourishes—are
+desirable, and I regret not being able to supply them; but at the same
+time I cannot help thinking that simple things are always the most
+impressive, and that books are easier to understand when they are
+written in plain language, though perhaps I have no right to set up an
+opinion on such a matter. “A sharp spear,” runs the Kukuana saying,
+“needs no polish”; and on the same principle I venture to hope that a
+true story, however strange it may be, does not require to be decked
+out in fine words.
+
+ALLAN QUATERMAIN.
+
+ [1] I discovered eight varieties of antelope, with which I was
+ previously totally unacquainted, and many new species of plants, for
+ the most part of the bulbous tribe.—A.Q.
+
+
+
+
+KING SOLOMON’S MINES
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+I MEET SIR HENRY CURTIS
+
+
+It is a curious thing that at my age—fifty-five last birthday—I should
+find myself taking up a pen to try to write a history. I wonder what
+sort of a history it will be when I have finished it, if ever I come to
+the end of the trip! I have done a good many things in my life, which
+seems a long one to me, owing to my having begun work so young,
+perhaps. At an age when other boys are at school I was earning my
+living as a trader in the old Colony. I have been trading, hunting,
+fighting, or mining ever since. And yet it is only eight months ago
+that I made my pile. It is a big pile now that I have got it—I don’t
+yet know how big—but I do not think I would go through the last fifteen
+or sixteen months again for it; no, not if I knew that I should come
+out safe at the end, pile and all. But then I am a timid man, and
+dislike violence; moreover, I am almost sick of adventure. I wonder why
+I am going to write this book: it is not in my line. I am not a
+literary man, though very devoted to the Old Testament and also to the
+“Ingoldsby Legends.” Let me try to set down my reasons, just to see if
+I have any.
+
+First reason: Because Sir Henry Curtis and Captain John Good asked me.
+
+Second reason: Because I am laid up here at Durban with the pain in my
+left leg. Ever since that confounded lion got hold of me I have been
+liable to this trouble, and being rather bad just now, it makes me limp
+more than ever. There must be some poison in a lion’s teeth, otherwise
+how is it that when your wounds are healed they break out again,
+generally, mark you, at the same time of year that you got your
+mauling? It is a hard thing when one has shot sixty-five lions or more,
+as I have in the course of my life, that the sixty-sixth should chew
+your leg like a quid of tobacco. It breaks the routine of the thing,
+and putting other considerations aside, I am an orderly man and don’t
+like that. This is by the way.
+
+Third reason: Because I want my boy Harry, who is over there at the
+hospital in London studying to become a doctor, to have something to
+amuse him and keep him out of mischief for a week or so. Hospital work
+must sometimes pall and grow rather dull, for even of cutting up dead
+bodies there may come satiety, and as this history will not be dull,
+whatever else it may be, it will put a little life into things for a
+day or two while Harry is reading of our adventures.
+
+Fourth reason and last: Because I am going to tell the strangest story
+that I remember. It may seem a queer thing to say, especially
+considering that there is no woman in it—except Foulata. Stop, though!
+there is Gagaoola, if she was a woman, and not a fiend. But she was a
+hundred at least, and therefore not marriageable, so I don’t count her.
+At any rate, I can safely say that there is not a _petticoat_ in the
+whole history.
+
+Well, I had better come to the yoke. It is a stiff place, and I feel as
+though I were bogged up to the axle. But, “_sutjes, sutjes_,” as the
+Boers say—I am sure I don’t know how they spell it—softly does it. A
+strong team will come through at last, that is, if they are not too
+poor. You can never do anything with poor oxen. Now to make a start.
+
+I, Allan Quatermain, of Durban, Natal, Gentleman, make oath and
+say—That’s how I headed my deposition before the magistrate about poor
+Khiva’s and Ventvögel’s sad deaths; but somehow it doesn’t seem quite
+the right way to begin a book. And, besides, am I a gentleman? What is
+a gentleman? I don’t quite know, and yet I have had to do with
+niggers—no, I will scratch out that word “niggers,” for I do not like
+it. I’ve known natives who _are_, and so you will say, Harry, my boy,
+before you have done with this tale, and I have known mean whites with
+lots of money and fresh out from home, too, who _are not_.
+
+At any rate, I was born a gentleman, though I have been nothing but a
+poor travelling trader and hunter all my life. Whether I have remained
+so I know not, you must judge of that. Heaven knows I’ve tried. I have
+killed many men in my time, yet I have never slain wantonly or stained
+my hand in innocent blood, but only in self-defence. The Almighty gave
+us our lives, and I suppose He meant us to defend them, at least I have
+always acted on that, and I hope it will not be brought up against me
+when my clock strikes. There, there, it is a cruel and a wicked world,
+and for a timid man I have been mixed up in a great deal of fighting. I
+cannot tell the rights of it, but at any rate I have never stolen,
+though once I cheated a Kafir out of a herd of cattle. But then he had
+done me a dirty turn, and it has troubled me ever since into the
+bargain.
+
+Well, it is eighteen months or so ago since first I met Sir Henry
+Curtis and Captain Good. It was in this way. I had been up elephant
+hunting beyond Bamangwato, and had met with bad luck. Everything went
+wrong that trip, and to top up with I got the fever badly. So soon as I
+was well enough I trekked down to the Diamond Fields, sold such ivory
+as I had, together with my wagon and oxen, discharged my hunters, and
+took the post-cart to the Cape. After spending a week in Cape Town,
+finding that they overcharged me at the hotel, and having seen
+everything there was to see, including the botanical gardens, which
+seem to me likely to confer a great benefit on the country, and the new
+Houses of Parliament, which I expect will do nothing of the sort, I
+determined to go back to Natal by the _Dunkeld_, then lying at the
+docks waiting for the _Edinburgh Castle_ due in from England. I took my
+berth and went aboard, and that afternoon the Natal passengers from the
+_Edinburgh Castle_ transhipped, and we weighed and put to sea.
+
+Among these passengers who came on board were two who excited my
+curiosity. One, a gentleman of about thirty, was perhaps the
+biggest-chested and longest-armed man I ever saw. He had yellow hair, a
+thick yellow beard, clear-cut features, and large grey eyes set deep in
+his head. I never saw a finer-looking man, and somehow he reminded me
+of an ancient Dane. Not that I know much of ancient Danes, though I
+knew a modern Dane who did me out of ten pounds; but I remember once
+seeing a picture of some of those gentry, who, I take it, were a kind
+of white Zulus. They were drinking out of big horns, and their long
+hair hung down their backs. As I looked at my friend standing there by
+the companion-ladder, I thought that if he only let his grow a little,
+put one of those chain shirts on to his great shoulders, and took hold
+of a battle-axe and a horn mug, he might have sat as a model for that
+picture. And by the way it is a curious thing, and just shows how the
+blood will out, I discovered afterwards that Sir Henry Curtis, for that
+was the big man’s name, is of Danish blood.[2] He also reminded me
+strongly of somebody else, but at the time I could not remember who it
+was.
+
+ [2] Mr. Quatermain’s ideas about ancient Danes seem to be rather
+ confused; we have always understood that they were dark-haired people.
+ Probably he was thinking of Saxons.—Editor.
+
+The other man, who stood talking to Sir Henry, was stout and dark, and
+of quite a different cut. I suspected at once that he was a naval
+officer; I don’t know why, but it is difficult to mistake a navy man. I
+have gone shooting trips with several of them in the course of my life,
+and they have always proved themselves the best and bravest and nicest
+fellows I ever met, though sadly given, some of them, to the use of
+profane language. I asked a page or two back, what is a gentleman? I’ll
+answer the question now: A Royal Naval officer is, in a general sort of
+way, though of course there may be a black sheep among them here and
+there. I fancy it is just the wide seas and the breath of God’s winds
+that wash their hearts and blow the bitterness out of their minds and
+make them what men ought to be.
+
+Well, to return, I proved right again; I ascertained that the dark man
+_was_ a naval officer, a lieutenant of thirty-one, who, after seventeen
+years’ service, had been turned out of her Majesty’s employ with the
+barren honour of a commander’s rank, because it was impossible that he
+should be promoted. This is what people who serve the Queen have to
+expect: to be shot out into the cold world to find a living just when
+they are beginning really to understand their work, and to reach the
+prime of life. I suppose they don’t mind it, but for my own part I had
+rather earn my bread as a hunter. One’s halfpence are as scarce
+perhaps, but you do not get so many kicks.
+
+The officer’s name I found out—by referring to the passengers’
+lists—was Good—Captain John Good. He was broad, of medium height, dark,
+stout, and rather a curious man to look at. He was so very neat and so
+very clean-shaved, and he always wore an eye-glass in his right eye. It
+seemed to grow there, for it had no string, and he never took it out
+except to wipe it. At first I thought he used to sleep in it, but
+afterwards I found that this was a mistake. He put it in his trousers
+pocket when he went to bed, together with his false teeth, of which he
+had two beautiful sets that, my own being none of the best, have often
+caused me to break the tenth commandment. But I am anticipating.
+
+Soon after we had got under way evening closed in, and brought with it
+very dirty weather. A keen breeze sprung up off land, and a kind of
+aggravated Scotch mist soon drove everybody from the deck. As for the
+_Dunkeld_, she is a flat-bottomed punt, and going up light as she was,
+she rolled very heavily. It almost seemed as though she would go right
+over, but she never did. It was quite impossible to walk about, so I
+stood near the engines where it was warm, and amused myself with
+watching the pendulum, which was fixed opposite to me, swinging slowly
+backwards and forwards as the vessel rolled, and marking the angle she
+touched at each lurch.
+
+“That pendulum’s wrong; it is not properly weighted,” suddenly said a
+somewhat testy voice at my shoulder. Looking round I saw the naval
+officer whom I had noticed when the passengers came aboard.
+
+“Indeed, now what makes you think so?” I asked.
+
+“Think so. I don’t think at all. Why there”—as she righted herself
+after a roll—“if the ship had really rolled to the degree that thing
+pointed to, then she would never have rolled again, that’s all. But it
+is just like these merchant skippers, they are always so confoundedly
+careless.”
+
+Just then the dinner-bell rang, and I was not sorry, for it is a
+dreadful thing to have to listen to an officer of the Royal Navy when
+he gets on to that subject. I only know one worse thing, and that is to
+hear a merchant skipper express his candid opinion of officers of the
+Royal Navy.
+
+Captain Good and I went down to dinner together, and there we found Sir
+Henry Curtis already seated. He and Captain Good were placed together,
+and I sat opposite to them. The captain and I soon fell into talk about
+shooting and what not; he asking me many questions, for he is very
+inquisitive about all sorts of things, and I answering them as well as
+I could. Presently he got on to elephants.
+
+“Ah, sir,” called out somebody who was sitting near me, “you’ve reached
+the right man for that; Hunter Quatermain should be able to tell you
+about elephants if anybody can.”
+
+Sir Henry, who had been sitting quite quiet listening to our talk,
+started visibly.
+
+“Excuse me, sir,” he said, leaning forward across the table, and
+speaking in a low deep voice, a very suitable voice, it seemed to me,
+to come out of those great lungs. “Excuse me, sir, but is your name
+Allan Quatermain?”
+
+I said that it was.
+
+The big man made no further remark, but I heard him mutter “fortunate”
+into his beard.
+
+Presently dinner came to an end, and as we were leaving the saloon Sir
+Henry strolled up and asked me if I would come into his cabin to smoke
+a pipe. I accepted, and he led the way to the _Dunkeld_ deck cabin, and
+a very good cabin it is. It had been two cabins, but when Sir Garnet
+Wolseley or one of those big swells went down the coast in the
+_Dunkeld_, they knocked away the partition and have never put it up
+again. There was a sofa in the cabin, and a little table in front of
+it. Sir Henry sent the steward for a bottle of whisky, and the three of
+us sat down and lit our pipes.
+
+“Mr. Quatermain,” said Sir Henry Curtis, when the man had brought the
+whisky and lit the lamp, “the year before last about this time, you
+were, I believe, at a place called Bamangwato, to the north of the
+Transvaal.”
+
+“I was,” I answered, rather surprised that this gentleman should be so
+well acquainted with my movements, which were not, so far as I was
+aware, considered of general interest.
+
+“You were trading there, were you not?” put in Captain Good, in his
+quick way.
+
+“I was. I took up a wagon-load of goods, made a camp outside the
+settlement, and stopped till I had sold them.”
+
+Sir Henry was sitting opposite to me in a Madeira chair, his arms
+leaning on the table. He now looked up, fixing his large grey eyes full
+upon my face. There was a curious anxiety in them, I thought.
+
+“Did you happen to meet a man called Neville there?”
+
+“Oh, yes; he outspanned alongside of me for a fortnight to rest his
+oxen before going on to the interior. I had a letter from a lawyer a
+few months back, asking me if I knew what had become of him, which I
+answered to the best of my ability at the time.”
+
+“Yes,” said Sir Henry, “your letter was forwarded to me. You said in it
+that the gentleman called Neville left Bamangwato at the beginning of
+May in a wagon with a driver, a voorlooper, and a Kafir hunter called
+Jim, announcing his intention of trekking if possible as far as Inyati,
+the extreme trading post in the Matabele country, where he would sell
+his wagon and proceed on foot. You also said that he did sell his
+wagon, for six months afterwards you saw the wagon in the possession of
+a Portuguese trader, who told you that he had bought it at Inyati from
+a white man whose name he had forgotten, and that he believed the white
+man with the native servant had started off for the interior on a
+shooting trip.”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+Then came a pause.
+
+“Mr. Quatermain,” said Sir Henry suddenly, “I suppose you know or can
+guess nothing more of the reasons of my—of Mr. Neville’s journey to the
+northward, or as to what point that journey was directed?”
+
+“I heard something,” I answered, and stopped. The subject was one which
+I did not care to discuss.
+
+Sir Henry and Captain Good looked at each other, and Captain Good
+nodded.
+
+“Mr. Quatermain,” went on the former, “I am going to tell you a story,
+and ask your advice, and perhaps your assistance. The agent who
+forwarded me your letter told me that I might rely on it implicitly, as
+you were,” he said, “well known and universally respected in Natal, and
+especially noted for your discretion.”
+
+I bowed and drank some whisky and water to hide my confusion, for I am
+a modest man—and Sir Henry went on.
+
+“Mr. Neville was my brother.”
+
+“Oh,” I said, starting, for now I knew of whom Sir Henry had reminded
+me when first I saw him. His brother was a much smaller man and had a
+dark beard, but now that I thought of it, he possessed eyes of the same
+shade of grey and with the same keen look in them: the features too
+were not unlike.
+
+“He was,” went on Sir Henry, “my only and younger brother, and till
+five years ago I do not suppose that we were ever a month away from
+each other. But just about five years ago a misfortune befell us, as
+sometimes does happen in families. We quarrelled bitterly, and I
+behaved unjustly to my brother in my anger.”
+
+Here Captain Good nodded his head vigorously to himself. The ship gave
+a big roll just then, so that the looking-glass, which was fixed
+opposite us to starboard, was for a moment nearly over our heads, and
+as I was sitting with my hands in my pockets and staring upwards, I
+could see him nodding like anything.
+
+“As I daresay you know,” went on Sir Henry, “if a man dies intestate,
+and has no property but land, real property it is called in England, it
+all descends to his eldest son. It so happened that just at the time
+when we quarrelled our father died intestate. He had put off making his
+will until it was too late. The result was that my brother, who had not
+been brought up to any profession, was left without a penny. Of course
+it would have been my duty to provide for him, but at the time the
+quarrel between us was so bitter that I did not—to my shame I say it
+(and he sighed deeply)—offer to do anything. It was not that I grudged
+him justice, but I waited for him to make advances, and he made none. I
+am sorry to trouble you with all this, Mr. Quatermain, but I must to
+make things clear, eh, Good?”
+
+“Quite so, quite so,” said the captain. “Mr. Quatermain will, I am
+sure, keep this history to himself.”
+
+“Of course,” said I, for I rather pride myself on my discretion, for
+which, as Sir Henry had heard, I have some repute.
+
+“Well,” went on Sir Henry, “my brother had a few hundred pounds to his
+account at the time. Without saying anything to me he drew out this
+paltry sum, and, having adopted the name of Neville, started off for
+South Africa in the wild hope of making a fortune. This I learned
+afterwards. Some three years passed, and I heard nothing of my brother,
+though I wrote several times. Doubtless the letters never reached him.
+But as time went on I grew more and more troubled about him. I found
+out, Mr. Quatermain, that blood is thicker than water.”
+
+“That’s true,” said I, thinking of my boy Harry.
+
+“I found out, Mr. Quatermain, that I would have given half my fortune
+to know that my brother George, the only relation I possess, was safe
+and well, and that I should see him again.”
+
+“But you never did, Curtis,” jerked out Captain Good, glancing at the
+big man’s face.
+
+“Well, Mr. Quatermain, as time went on I became more and more anxious
+to find out if my brother was alive or dead, and if alive to get him
+home again. I set enquiries on foot, and your letter was one of the
+results. So far as it went it was satisfactory, for it showed that till
+lately George was alive, but it did not go far enough. So, to cut a
+long story short, I made up my mind to come out and look for him
+myself, and Captain Good was so kind as to come with me.”
+
+“Yes,” said the captain; “nothing else to do, you see. Turned out by my
+Lords of the Admiralty to starve on half pay. And now perhaps, sir, you
+will tell us what you know or have heard of the gentleman called
+Neville.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+THE LEGEND OF SOLOMON’S MINES
+
+
+“What was it that you heard about my brother’s journey at Bamangwato?”
+asked Sir Henry, as I paused to fill my pipe before replying to Captain
+Good.
+
+“I heard this,” I answered, “and I have never mentioned it to a soul
+till to-day. I heard that he was starting for Solomon’s Mines.”
+
+“Solomon’s Mines?” ejaculated both my hearers at once. “Where are
+they?”
+
+“I don’t know,” I said; “I know where they are said to be. Once I saw
+the peaks of the mountains that border them, but there were a hundred
+and thirty miles of desert between me and them, and I am not aware that
+any white man ever got across it save one. But perhaps the best thing I
+can do is to tell you the legend of Solomon’s Mines as I know it, you
+passing your word not to reveal anything I tell you without my
+permission. Do you agree to that? I have my reasons for asking.”
+
+Sir Henry nodded, and Captain Good replied, “Certainly, certainly.”
+
+“Well,” I began, “as you may guess, generally speaking, elephant
+hunters are a rough set of men, who do not trouble themselves with much
+beyond the facts of life and the ways of Kafirs. But here and there you
+meet a man who takes the trouble to collect traditions from the
+natives, and tries to make out a little piece of the history of this
+dark land. It was such a man as this who first told me the legend of
+Solomon’s Mines, now a matter of nearly thirty years ago. That was when
+I was on my first elephant hunt in the Matabele country. His name was
+Evans, and he was killed the following year, poor fellow, by a wounded
+buffalo, and lies buried near the Zambesi Falls. I was telling Evans
+one night, I remember, of some wonderful workings I had found whilst
+hunting koodoo and eland in what is now the Lydenburg district of the
+Transvaal. I see they have come across these workings again lately in
+prospecting for gold, but I knew of them years ago. There is a great
+wide wagon road cut out of the solid rock, and leading to the mouth of
+the working or gallery. Inside the mouth of this gallery are stacks of
+gold quartz piled up ready for roasting, which shows that the workers,
+whoever they were, must have left in a hurry. Also, about twenty paces
+in, the gallery is built across, and a beautiful bit of masonry it is.”
+
+“‘Ay,’ said Evans, ‘but I will spin you a queerer yarn than that’; and
+he went on to tell me how he had found in the far interior a ruined
+city, which he believed to be the Ophir of the Bible, and, by the way,
+other more learned men have said the same long since poor Evans’s time.
+I was, I remember, listening open-eared to all these wonders, for I was
+young at the time, and this story of an ancient civilisation and of the
+treasures which those old Jewish or Phoenician adventurers used to
+extract from a country long since lapsed into the darkest barbarism
+took a great hold upon my imagination, when suddenly he said to me,
+‘Lad, did you ever hear of the Suliman Mountains up to the north-west
+of the Mushakulumbwe country?’ I told him I never had. ‘Ah, well,’ he
+said, ‘that is where Solomon really had his mines, his diamond mines, I
+mean.’
+
+“‘How do you know that?’ I asked.
+
+“‘Know it! why, what is “Suliman” but a corruption of Solomon?[3]
+Besides, an old Isanusi or witch doctoress up in the Manica country
+told me all about it. She said that the people who lived across those
+mountains were a “branch” of the Zulus, speaking a dialect of Zulu, but
+finer and bigger men even; that there lived among them great wizards,
+who had learnt their art from white men when “all the world was dark,”
+and who had the secret of a wonderful mine of “bright stones.”’
+
+ [3] Suliman is the Arabic form of Solomon.—_Editor_.
+
+“Well, I laughed at this story at the time, though it interested me,
+for the Diamond Fields were not discovered then, but poor Evans went
+off and was killed, and for twenty years I never thought any more of
+the matter. However, just twenty years afterwards—and that is a long
+time, gentlemen; an elephant hunter does not often live for twenty
+years at his business—I heard something more definite about Suliman’s
+Mountains and the country which lies beyond them. I was up beyond the
+Manica country, at a place called Sitanda’s Kraal, and a miserable
+place it was, for a man could get nothing to eat, and there was but
+little game about. I had an attack of fever, and was in a bad way
+generally, when one day a Portugee arrived with a single companion—a
+half-breed. Now I know your low-class Delagoa Portugee well. There is
+no greater devil unhung in a general way, battening as he does upon
+human agony and flesh in the shape of slaves. But this was quite a
+different type of man to the mean fellows whom I had been accustomed to
+meet; indeed, in appearance he reminded me more of the polite doms I
+have read about, for he was tall and thin, with large dark eyes and
+curling grey mustachios. We talked together for a while, for he could
+speak broken English, and I understood a little Portugee, and he told
+me that his name was José Silvestre, and that he had a place near
+Delagoa Bay. When he went on next day with his half-breed companion, he
+said ‘Good-bye,’ taking off his hat quite in the old style.
+
+“‘Good-bye, señor,’ he said; ‘if ever we meet again I shall be the
+richest man in the world, and I will remember you.’ I laughed a
+little—I was too weak to laugh much—and watched him strike out for the
+great desert to the west, wondering if he was mad, or what he thought
+he was going to find there.
+
+“A week passed, and I got the better of my fever. One evening I was
+sitting on the ground in front of the little tent I had with me,
+chewing the last leg of a miserable fowl I had bought from a native for
+a bit of cloth worth twenty fowls, and staring at the hot red sun
+sinking down over the desert, when suddenly I saw a figure, apparently
+that of a European, for it wore a coat, on the slope of the rising
+ground opposite to me, about three hundred yards away. The figure crept
+along on its hands and knees, then it got up and staggered forward a
+few yards on its legs, only to fall and crawl again. Seeing that it
+must be somebody in distress, I sent one of my hunters to help him, and
+presently he arrived, and who do you suppose it turned out to be?”
+
+“José Silvestre, of course,” said Captain Good.
+
+“Yes, José Silvestre, or rather his skeleton and a little skin. His
+face was a bright yellow with bilious fever, and his large dark eyes
+stood nearly out of his head, for all the flesh had gone. There was
+nothing but yellow parchment-like skin, white hair, and the gaunt bones
+sticking up beneath.
+
+“‘Water! for the sake of Christ, water!’ he moaned and I saw that his
+lips were cracked, and his tongue, which protruded between them, was
+swollen and blackish.
+
+“I gave him water with a little milk in it, and he drank it in great
+gulps, two quarts or so, without stopping. I would not let him have any
+more. Then the fever took him again, and he fell down and began to rave
+about Suliman’s Mountains, and the diamonds, and the desert. I carried
+him into the tent and did what I could for him, which was little
+enough; but I saw how it must end. About eleven o’clock he grew
+quieter, and I lay down for a little rest and went to sleep. At dawn I
+woke again, and in the half light saw Silvestre sitting up, a strange,
+gaunt form, and gazing out towards the desert. Presently the first ray
+of the sun shot right across the wide plain before us till it reached
+the faraway crest of one of the tallest of the Suliman Mountains more
+than a hundred miles away.
+
+“‘There it is!’ cried the dying man in Portuguese, and pointing with
+his long, thin arm, ‘but I shall never reach it, never. No one will
+ever reach it!’
+
+“Suddenly, he paused, and seemed to take a resolution. ‘Friend,’ he
+said, turning towards me, ‘are you there? My eyes grow dark.’
+
+“‘Yes,’ I said; ‘yes, lie down now, and rest.’
+
+“‘Ay,’ he answered, ‘I shall rest soon, I have time to rest—all
+eternity. Listen, I am dying! You have been good to me. I will give you
+the writing. Perhaps you will get there if you can live to pass the
+desert, which has killed my poor servant and me.’
+
+“Then he groped in his shirt and brought out what I thought was a Boer
+tobacco pouch made of the skin of the Swart-vet-pens or sable antelope.
+It was fastened with a little strip of hide, what we call a rimpi, and
+this he tried to loose, but could not. He handed it to me. ‘Untie it,’
+he said. I did so, and extracted a bit of torn yellow linen on which
+something was written in rusty letters. Inside this rag was a paper.
+
+“Then he went on feebly, for he was growing weak: ‘The paper has all
+that is on the linen. It took me years to read. Listen: my ancestor, a
+political refugee from Lisbon, and one of the first Portuguese who
+landed on these shores, wrote that when he was dying on those mountains
+which no white foot ever pressed before or since. His name was José da
+Silvestra, and he lived three hundred years ago. His slave, who waited
+for him on this side of the mountains, found him dead, and brought the
+writing home to Delagoa. It has been in the family ever since, but none
+have cared to read it, till at last I did. And I have lost my life over
+it, but another may succeed, and become the richest man in the
+world—the richest man in the world. Only give it to no one, señor; go
+yourself!’
+
+“Then he began to wander again, and in an hour it was all over.
+
+“God rest him! he died very quietly, and I buried him deep, with big
+boulders on his breast; so I do not think that the jackals can have dug
+him up. And then I came away.”
+
+“Ay, but the document?” said Sir Henry, in a tone of deep interest.
+
+“Yes, the document; what was in it?” added the captain.
+
+“Well, gentlemen, if you like I will tell you. I have never showed it
+to anybody yet except to a drunken old Portuguese trader who translated
+it for me, and had forgotten all about it by the next morning. The
+original rag is at my home in Durban, together with poor Dom José’s
+translation, but I have the English rendering in my pocket-book, and a
+facsimile of the map, if it can be called a map. Here it is.”
+
+“I, José da Silvestra, who am now dying of hunger in the little cave
+where no snow is on the north side of the nipple of the southernmost of
+the two mountains I have named Sheba’s Breasts, write this in the year
+1590 with a cleft bone upon a remnant of my raiment, my blood being the
+ink. If my slave should find it when he comes, and should bring it to
+Delagoa, let my friend (name illegible) bring the matter to the
+knowledge of the king, that he may send an army which, if they live
+through the desert and the mountains, and can overcome the brave
+Kukuanes and their devilish arts, to which end many priests should be
+brought, will make him the richest king since Solomon. With my own eyes
+I have seen the countless diamonds stored in Solomon’s treasure chamber
+behind the white Death; but through the treachery of Gagool the
+witch-finder I might bring nought away, scarcely my life. Let him who
+comes follow the map, and climb the snow of Sheba’s left breast till he
+reaches the nipple, on the north side of which is the great road
+Solomon made, from whence three days’ journey to the King’s Palace. Let
+him kill Gagool. Pray for my soul. Farewell.
+
+JOSÉ DA SILVESTRA.”[4]
+
+ [4] Eu José da Silvestra que estou morrendo de fome ná pequena cova
+ onde não ha neve ao lado norte do bico mais ao sul das duas montanhas
+ que chamei seio de Sheba; escrevo isto no anno 1590; escrevo isto com
+ um pedaço d’ôsso n’ um farrapo de minha roupa e com sangue meu por
+ tinta; se o meu escravo dér com isto quando venha ao levar para
+ Lourenzo Marquez, que o meu amigo ———— leve a cousa ao conhecimento d’
+ El Rei, para que possa mandar um exercito que, se desfiler pelo
+ deserto e pelas montonhas e mesmo sobrepujar os bravos Kukuanes e suas
+ artes diabolicas, pelo que se deviam trazer muitos padres Far o Rei
+ mais rico depois de Salomão. Com meus proprios olhos vé os di amantes
+ sem conto guardados nas camaras do thesouro de Salomão a traz da morte
+ branca, mas pela traição de Gagoal a feiticeira achadora, nada poderia
+ levar, e apenas a minha vida. Quem vier siga o mappa e trepe pela neve
+ de Sheba peito à esquerda até chegar ao bica, do lado norte do qual
+ està a grande estrada do Solomão por elle feita, donde ha tres dias de
+ jornada até ao Palacio do Rei. Mate Gagoal. Reze por minha alma.
+ Adeos.
+
+JOSÉ DA SILVESTRA.
+
+[Illustration: Messen SKETCH MAP OF THE ROUTE TO KING SOLOMON’S MINES]
+
+When I had finished reading the above, and shown the copy of the map,
+drawn by the dying hand of the old Dom with his blood for ink, there
+followed a silence of astonishment.
+
+“Well,” said Captain Good, “I have been round the world twice, and put
+in at most ports, but may I be hung for a mutineer if ever I heard a
+yarn like this out of a story book, or in it either, for the matter of
+that.”
+
+“It’s a queer tale, Mr. Quatermain,” said Sir Henry. “I suppose you are
+not hoaxing us? It is, I know, sometimes thought allowable to take in a
+greenhorn.”
+
+“If you think that, Sir Henry,” I said, much put out, and pocketing my
+paper—for I do not like to be thought one of those silly fellows who
+consider it witty to tell lies, and who are for ever boasting to
+newcomers of extraordinary hunting adventures which never happened—“if
+you think that, why, there is an end to the matter,” and I rose to go.
+
+Sir Henry laid his large hand upon my shoulder. “Sit down, Mr.
+Quatermain,” he said, “I beg your pardon; I see very well you do not
+wish to deceive us, but the story sounded so strange that I could
+hardly believe it.”
+
+“You shall see the original map and writing when we reach Durban,” I
+answered, somewhat mollified, for really when I came to consider the
+question it was scarcely wonderful that he should doubt my good faith.
+
+“But,” I went on, “I have not told you about your brother. I knew the
+man Jim who was with him. He was a Bechuana by birth, a good hunter,
+and for a native a very clever man. That morning on which Mr. Neville
+was starting I saw Jim standing by my wagon and cutting up tobacco on
+the disselboom.
+
+“‘Jim,’ said I, ‘where are you off to this trip? It is elephants?’
+
+“‘No, Baas,’ he answered, ‘we are after something worth much more than
+ivory.’
+
+“‘And what might that be?’ I said, for I was curious. ‘Is it gold?’
+
+“‘No, Baas, something worth more than gold,’ and he grinned.
+
+“I asked no more questions, for I did not like to lower my dignity by
+seeming inquisitive, but I was puzzled. Presently Jim finished cutting
+his tobacco.
+
+“‘Baas,’ said he.
+
+“I took no notice.
+
+“‘Baas,’ said he again.
+
+“‘Eh, boy, what is it?’ I asked.
+
+“‘Baas, we are going after diamonds.’
+
+“‘Diamonds! why, then, you are steering in the wrong direction; you
+should head for the Fields.’
+
+“‘Baas, have you ever heard of Suliman’s Berg?’—that is, Solomon’s
+Mountains, Sir Henry.
+
+“‘Ay!’
+
+“‘Have you ever heard of the diamonds there?’
+
+“‘I have heard a foolish story, Jim.’
+
+“‘It is no story, Baas. Once I knew a woman who came from there, and
+reached Natal with her child, she told me:—she is dead now.’
+
+“‘Your master will feed the aasvögels’—that is, vultures—‘Jim, if he
+tries to reach Suliman’s country, and so will you if they can get any
+pickings off your worthless old carcass,’ said I.
+
+“He grinned. ‘Mayhap, Baas. Man must die; I’d rather like to try a new
+country myself; the elephants are getting worked out about here.’
+
+“‘Ah! my boy,’ I said, ‘you wait till the “pale old man” gets a grip of
+your yellow throat, and then we shall hear what sort of a tune you
+sing.’
+
+“Half an hour after that I saw Neville’s wagon move off. Presently Jim
+came back running. ‘Good-bye, Baas,’ he said. ‘I didn’t like to start
+without bidding you good-bye, for I daresay you are right, and that we
+shall never trek south again.’
+
+“‘Is your master really going to Suliman’s Berg, Jim, or are you
+lying?’
+
+“‘No,’ he answered, ‘he is going. He told me he was bound to make his
+fortune somehow, or try to; so he might as well have a fling for the
+diamonds.’
+
+“‘Oh!’ I said; ‘wait a bit, Jim; will you take a note to your master,
+Jim, and promise not to give it to him till you reach Inyati?’ which
+was some hundred miles off.
+
+“‘Yes, Baas.’
+
+“So I took a scrap of paper, and wrote on it, ‘Let him who comes . . .
+climb the snow of Sheba’s left breast, till he reaches the nipple, on
+the north side of which is Solomon’s great road.’
+
+“‘Now, Jim,’ I said, ‘when you give this to your master, tell him he
+had better follow the advice on it implicitly. You are not to give it
+to him now, because I don’t want him back asking me questions which I
+won’t answer. Now be off, you idle fellow, the wagon is nearly out of
+sight.’
+
+“Jim took the note and went, and that is all I know about your brother,
+Sir Henry; but I am much afraid—”
+
+“Mr. Quatermain,” said Sir Henry, “I am going to look for my brother; I
+am going to trace him to Suliman’s Mountains, and over them if
+necessary, till I find him, or until I know that he is dead. Will you
+come with me?”
+
+I am, as I think I have said, a cautious man, indeed a timid one, and
+this suggestion frightened me. It seemed to me that to undertake such a
+journey would be to go to certain death, and putting other
+considerations aside, as I had a son to support, I could not afford to
+die just then.
+
+“No, thank you, Sir Henry, I think I had rather not,” I answered. “I am
+too old for wild-goose chases of that sort, and we should only end up
+like my poor friend Silvestre. I have a son dependent on me, so I
+cannot afford to risk my life foolishly.”
+
+Both Sir Henry and Captain Good looked very disappointed.
+
+“Mr. Quatermain,” said the former, “I am well off, and I am bent upon
+this business. You may put the remuneration for your services at
+whatever figure you like in reason, and it shall be paid over to you
+before we start. Moreover, I will arrange in the event of anything
+untoward happening to us or to you, that your son shall be suitably
+provided for. You will see from this offer how necessary I think your
+presence. Also if by chance we should reach this place, and find
+diamonds, they shall belong to you and Good equally. I do not want
+them. But of course that promise is worth nothing at all, though the
+same thing would apply to any ivory we might get. You may pretty well
+make your own terms with me, Mr. Quatermain; and of course I shall pay
+all expenses.”
+
+“Sir Henry,” said I, “this is the most liberal proposal I ever had, and
+one not to be sneezed at by a poor hunter and trader. But the job is
+the biggest I have come across, and I must take time to think it over.
+I will give you my answer before we get to Durban.”
+
+“Very good,” answered Sir Henry.
+
+Then I said good-night and turned in, and dreamt about poor long-dead
+Silvestre and the diamonds.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+UMBOPA ENTERS OUR SERVICE
+
+
+It takes from four to five days, according to the speed of the vessel
+and the state of the weather, to run up from the Cape to Durban.
+Sometimes, if the landing is bad at East London, where they have not
+yet made that wonderful harbour they talk so much of, and sink such a
+mint of money in, a ship is delayed for twenty-four hours before the
+cargo boats can get out to take off the goods. But on this occasion we
+had not to wait at all, for there were no breakers on the Bar to speak
+of, and the tugs came out at once with the long strings of ugly
+flat-bottomed boats behind them, into which the packages were bundled
+with a crash. It did not matter what they might be, over they went
+slap-bang; whether they contained china or woollen goods they met with
+the same treatment. I saw one case holding four dozen of champagne
+smashed all to bits, and there was the champagne fizzing and boiling
+about in the bottom of the dirty cargo boat. It was a wicked waste, and
+evidently so the Kafirs in the boat thought, for they found a couple of
+unbroken bottles, and knocking off the necks drank the contents. But
+they had not allowed for the expansion caused by the fizz in the wine,
+and, feeling themselves swelling, rolled about in the bottom of the
+boat, calling out that the good liquor was “tagati”—that is, bewitched.
+I spoke to them from the vessel, and told them it was the white man’s
+strongest medicine, and that they were as good as dead men. Those
+Kafirs went to the shore in a very great fright, and I do not think
+that they will touch champagne again.
+
+Well, all the time that we were steaming up to Natal I was thinking
+over Sir Henry Curtis’s offer. We did not speak any more on the subject
+for a day or two, though I told them many hunting yarns, all true ones.
+There is no need to tell lies about hunting, for so many curious things
+happen within the knowledge of a man whose business it is to hunt; but
+this is by the way.
+
+At last, one beautiful evening in January, which is our hottest month,
+we steamed past the coast of Natal, expecting to make Durban Point by
+sunset. It is a lovely coast all along from East London, with its red
+sandhills and wide sweeps of vivid green, dotted here and there with
+Kafir kraals, and bordered by a ribbon of white surf, which spouts up
+in pillars of foam where it hits the rocks. But just before you come to
+Durban there is a peculiar richness about the landscape. There are the
+sheer kloofs cut in the hills by the rushing rains of centuries, down
+which the rivers sparkle; there is the deepest green of the bush,
+growing as God planted it, and the other greens of the mealie gardens
+and the sugar patches, while now and again a white house, smiling out
+at the placid sea, puts a finish and gives an air of homeliness to the
+scene. For to my mind, however beautiful a view may be, it requires the
+presence of man to make it complete, but perhaps that is because I have
+lived so much in the wilderness, and therefore know the value of
+civilisation, though to be sure it drives away the game. The Garden of
+Eden, no doubt, looked fair before man was, but I always think that it
+must have been fairer when Eve adorned it.
+
+To return, we had miscalculated a little, and the sun was well down
+before we dropped anchor off the Point, and heard the gun which told
+the good folks of Durban that the English Mail was in. It was too late
+to think of getting over the Bar that night, so we went comfortably to
+dinner, after seeing the Mails carried off in the life-boat.
+
+When we came up again the moon was out, and shining so brightly over
+sea and shore that she almost paled the quick, large flashes from the
+lighthouse. From the shore floated sweet spicy odours that always
+remind me of hymns and missionaries, and in the windows of the houses
+on the Berea sparkled a hundred lights. From a large brig lying near
+also came the music of the sailors as they worked at getting the anchor
+up in order to be ready for the wind. Altogether it was a perfect
+night, such a night as you sometimes get in Southern Africa, and it
+threw a garment of peace over everybody as the moon threw a garment of
+silver over everything. Even the great bulldog, belonging to a sporting
+passenger, seemed to yield to its gentle influences, and forgetting his
+yearning to come to close quarters with the baboon in a cage on the
+foc’sle, snored happily at the door of the cabin, dreaming no doubt
+that he had finished him, and happy in his dream.
+
+We three—that is, Sir Henry Curtis, Captain Good, and myself—went and
+sat by the wheel, and were quiet for a while.
+
+“Well, Mr. Quatermain,” said Sir Henry presently, “have you been
+thinking about my proposals?”
+
+“Ay,” echoed Captain Good, “what do you think of them, Mr. Quatermain?
+I hope that you are going to give us the pleasure of your company so
+far as Solomon’s Mines, or wherever the gentleman you knew as Neville
+may have got to.”
+
+I rose and knocked out my pipe before I answered. I had not made up my
+mind, and wanted an additional moment to decide. Before the burning
+tobacco had fallen into the sea I had decided; just that little extra
+second did the trick. It is often the way when you have been bothering
+a long time over a thing.
+
+“Yes, gentlemen,” I said, sitting down again, “I will go, and by your
+leave I will tell you why, and on what conditions. First for the terms
+which I ask.
+
+“1. You are to pay all expenses, and any ivory or other valuables we
+may get is to be divided between Captain Good and myself.
+
+“2. That you give me £500 for my services on the trip before we start,
+I undertaking to serve you faithfully till you choose to abandon the
+enterprise, or till we succeed, or disaster overtakes us.
+
+“3. That before we trek you execute a deed agreeing, in the event of my
+death or disablement, to pay my boy Harry, who is studying medicine
+over there in London, at Guy’s Hospital, a sum of £200 a year for five
+years, by which time he ought to be able to earn a living for himself
+if he is worth his salt. That is all, I think, and I daresay you will
+say quite enough too.”
+
+“No,” answered Sir Henry, “I accept them gladly. I am bent upon this
+project, and would pay more than that for your help, considering the
+peculiar and exclusive knowledge which you possess.”
+
+“Pity I did not ask it, then, but I won’t go back on my word. And now
+that I have got my terms I will tell you my reasons for making up my
+mind to go. First of all, gentlemen, I have been observing you both for
+the last few days, and if you will not think me impertinent I may say
+that I like you, and believe that we shall come up well to the yoke
+together. That is something, let me tell you, when one has a long
+journey like this before one.
+
+“And now as to the journey itself, I tell you flatly, Sir Henry and
+Captain Good, that I do not think it probable we can come out of it
+alive, that is, if we attempt to cross the Suliman Mountains. What was
+the fate of the old Dom da Silvestra three hundred years ago? What was
+the fate of his descendant twenty years ago? What has been your
+brother’s fate? I tell you frankly, gentlemen, that as their fates were
+so I believe ours will be.”
+
+I paused to watch the effect of my words. Captain Good looked a little
+uncomfortable, but Sir Henry’s face did not change. “We must take our
+chance,” he said.
+
+“You may perhaps wonder,” I went on, “why, if I think this, I, who am,
+as I told you, a timid man, should undertake such a journey. It is for
+two reasons. First I am a fatalist, and believe that my time is
+appointed to come quite without reference to my own movements and will,
+and that if I am to go to Suliman’s Mountains to be killed, I shall go
+there and shall be killed. God Almighty, no doubt, knows His mind about
+me, so I need not trouble on that point. Secondly, I am a poor man. For
+nearly forty years I have hunted and traded, but I have never made more
+than a living. Well, gentlemen, I don’t know if you are aware that the
+average life of an elephant hunter from the time he takes to the trade
+is between four and five years. So you see I have lived through about
+seven generations of my class, and I should think that my time cannot
+be far off, anyway. Now, if anything were to happen to me in the
+ordinary course of business, by the time my debts are paid there would
+be nothing left to support my son Harry whilst he was getting in the
+way of earning a living, whereas now he will be set up for five years.
+There is the whole affair in a nutshell.”
+
+“Mr. Quatermain,” said Sir Henry, who had been giving me his most
+serious attention, “your motives for undertaking an enterprise which
+you believe can only end in disaster reflect a great deal of credit on
+you. Whether or not you are right, of course time and the event alone
+can show. But whether you are right or wrong, I may as well tell you at
+once that I am going through with it to the end, sweet or bitter. If we
+are to be knocked on the head, all I have to say is, that I hope we get
+a little shooting first, eh, Good?”
+
+“Yes, yes,” put in the captain. “We have all three of us been
+accustomed to face danger, and to hold our lives in our hands in
+various ways, so it is no good turning back now. And now I vote we go
+down to the saloon and take an observation just for luck, you know.”
+And we did—through the bottom of a tumbler.
+
+Next day we went ashore, and I put up Sir Henry and Captain Good at the
+little shanty I have built on the Berea, and which I call my home.
+There are only three rooms and a kitchen in it, and it is constructed
+of green brick with a galvanised iron roof, but there is a good garden
+with the best loquot trees in it that I know, and some nice young
+mangoes, of which I hope great things. The curator of the botanical
+gardens gave them to me. It is looked after by an old hunter of mine
+named Jack, whose thigh was so badly broken by a buffalo cow in
+Sikukunis country that he will never hunt again. But he can potter
+about and garden, being a Griqua by birth. You will never persuade a
+Zulu to take much interest in gardening. It is a peaceful art, and
+peaceful arts are not in his line.
+
+Sir Henry and Good slept in a tent pitched in my little grove of orange
+trees at the end of the garden, for there was no room for them in the
+house, and what with the smell of the bloom, and the sight of the green
+and golden fruit—in Durban you will see all three on the tree
+together—I daresay it is a pleasant place enough, for we have few
+mosquitos here on the Berea, unless there happens to come an unusually
+heavy rain.
+
+Well, to get on—for if I do not, Harry, you will be tired of my story
+before ever we fetch up at Suliman’s Mountains—having once made up my
+mind to go I set about making the necessary preparations. First I
+secured the deed from Sir Henry, providing for you, my boy, in case of
+accidents. There was some difficulty about its legal execution, as Sir
+Henry was a stranger here, and the property to be charged is over the
+water; but it was ultimately got over with the help of a lawyer, who
+charged £20 for the job—a price that I thought outrageous. Then I
+pocketed my cheque for £500.
+
+Having paid this tribute to my bump of caution, I purchased a wagon and
+a span of oxen on Sir Henry’s behalf, and beauties they were. It was a
+twenty-two-foot wagon with iron axles, very strong, very light, and
+built throughout of stink wood; not quite a new one, having been to the
+Diamond Fields and back, but, in my opinion, all the better for that,
+for I could see that the wood was well seasoned. If anything is going
+to give in a wagon, or if there is green wood in it, it will show out
+on the first trip. This particular vehicle was what we call a
+“half-tented” wagon, that is to say, only covered in over the after
+twelve feet, leaving all the front part free for the necessaries we had
+to carry with us. In this after part were a hide “cartle,” or bed, on
+which two people could sleep, also racks for rifles, and many other
+little conveniences. I gave £125 for it, and think that it was cheap at
+the price.
+
+Then I bought a beautiful team of twenty Zulu oxen, which I had kept my
+eye on for a year or two. Sixteen oxen is the usual number for a team,
+but I took four extra to allow for casualties. These Zulu cattle are
+small and light, not more than half the size of the Africander oxen,
+which are generally used for transport purposes; but they will live
+where the Africanders would starve, and with a moderate load can make
+five miles a day better going, being quicker and not so liable to
+become footsore. What is more, this lot were thoroughly “salted,” that
+is, they had worked all over South Africa, and so had become proof,
+comparatively speaking, against red water, which so frequently destroys
+whole teams of oxen when they get on to strange “veldt” or grass
+country. As for “lung sick,” which is a dreadful form of pneumonia,
+very prevalent in this country, they had all been inoculated against
+it. This is done by cutting a slit in the tail of an ox, and binding in
+a piece of the diseased lung of an animal which has died of the
+sickness. The result is that the ox sickens, takes the disease in a
+mild form, which causes its tail to drop off, as a rule about a foot
+from the root, and becomes proof against future attacks. It seems cruel
+to rob the animal of his tail, especially in a country where there are
+so many flies, but it is better to sacrifice the tail and keep the ox
+than to lose both tail and ox, for a tail without an ox is not much
+good, except to dust with. Still it does look odd to trek along behind
+twenty stumps, where there ought to be tails. It seems as though Nature
+made a trifling mistake, and stuck the stern ornaments of a lot of
+prize bull-dogs on to the rumps of the oxen.
+
+Next came the question of provisioning and medicines, one which
+required the most careful consideration, for what we had to do was to
+avoid lumbering the wagon, and yet to take everything absolutely
+necessary. Fortunately, it turned out that Good is a bit of a doctor,
+having at some point in his previous career managed to pass through a
+course of medical and surgical instruction, which he has more or less
+kept up. He is not, of course, qualified, but he knows more about it
+than many a man who can write M.D. after his name, as we found out
+afterwards, and he had a splendid travelling medicine chest and a set
+of instruments. Whilst we were at Durban he cut off a Kafir’s big toe
+in a way which it was a pleasure to see. But he was quite nonplussed
+when the Kafir, who had sat stolidly watching the operation, asked him
+to put on another, saying that a “white one” would do at a pinch.
+
+There remained, when these questions were satisfactorily settled, two
+further important points for consideration, namely, that of arms and
+that of servants. As to the arms I cannot do better than put down a
+list of those which we finally decided on from among the ample store
+that Sir Henry had brought with him from England, and those which I
+owned. I copy it from my pocket-book, where I made the entry at the
+time.
+
+“Three heavy breech-loading double-eight elephant guns, weighing about
+fifteen pounds each, to carry a charge of eleven drachms of black
+powder.” Two of these were by a well-known London firm, most excellent
+makers, but I do not know by whom mine, which is not so highly
+finished, was made. I have used it on several trips, and shot a good
+many elephants with it, and it has always proved a most superior
+weapon, thoroughly to be relied on.
+
+“Three double-500 Expresses, constructed to stand a charge of six
+drachms,” sweet weapons, and admirable for medium-sized game, such as
+eland or sable antelope, or for men, especially in an open country and
+with the semi-hollow bullet.
+
+“One double No. 12 central-fire Keeper’s shot-gun, full choke both
+barrels.” This gun proved of the greatest service to us afterwards in
+shooting game for the pot.
+
+“Three Winchester repeating rifles (not carbines), spare guns.
+
+“Three single-action Colt’s revolvers, with the heavier, or American
+pattern of cartridge.”
+
+This was our total armament, and doubtless the reader will observe that
+the weapons of each class were of the same make and calibre, so that
+the cartridges were interchangeable, a very important point. I make no
+apology for detailing it at length, as every experienced hunter will
+know how vital a proper supply of guns and ammunition is to the success
+of an expedition.
+
+Now as to the men who were to go with us. After much consultation we
+decided that their number should be limited to five, namely, a driver,
+a leader, and three servants.
+
+The driver and leader I found without much difficulty, two Zulus, named
+respectively Goza and Tom; but to get the servants proved a more
+difficult matter. It was necessary that they should be thoroughly
+trustworthy and brave men, as in a business of this sort our lives
+might depend upon their conduct. At last I secured two, one a Hottentot
+named Ventvögel, or “windbird,” and one a little Zulu named Khiva, who
+had the merit of speaking English perfectly. Ventvögel I had known
+before; he was one of the most perfect “spoorers,” that is, game
+trackers, I ever had to do with, and tough as whipcord. He never seemed
+to tire. But he had one failing, so common with his race, drink. Put
+him within reach of a bottle of gin and you could not trust him.
+However, as we were going beyond the region of grog-shops this little
+weakness of his did not so much matter.
+
+Having secured these two men I looked in vain for a third to suit my
+purpose, so we determined to start without one, trusting to luck to
+find a suitable man on our way up country. But, as it happened, on the
+evening before the day we had fixed for our departure the Zulu Khiva
+informed me that a Kafir was waiting to see me. Accordingly, when we
+had done dinner, for we were at table at the time, I told Khiva to
+bring him in. Presently a tall, handsome-looking man, somewhere about
+thirty years of age, and very light-coloured for a Zulu, entered, and
+lifting his knob-stick by way of salute, squatted himself down in the
+corner on his haunches, and sat silent. I did not take any notice of
+him for a while, for it is a great mistake to do so. If you rush into
+conversation at once, a Zulu is apt to think you a person of little
+dignity or consequence. I observed, however, that he was a “Keshla” or
+ringed man; that is, he wore on his head the black ring, made of a
+species of gum polished with fat and worked up in the hair, which is
+usually assumed by Zulus on attaining a certain age or dignity. Also it
+struck me that his face was familiar to me.
+
+“Well,” I said at last, “What is your name?”
+
+“Umbopa,” answered the man in a slow, deep voice.
+
+“I have seen your face before.”
+
+“Yes; the Inkoosi, the chief, my father, saw my face at the place of
+the Little Hand”—that is, Isandhlwana—“on the day before the battle.”
+
+Then I remembered. I was one of Lord Chelmsford’s guides in that
+unlucky Zulu War, and had the good fortune to leave the camp in charge
+of some wagons on the day before the battle. While I was waiting for
+the cattle to be inspanned I fell into conversation with this man, who
+held some small command among the native auxiliaries, and he had
+expressed to me his doubts as to the safety of the camp. At the time I
+told him to hold his tongue, and leave such matters to wiser heads; but
+afterwards I thought of his words.
+
+“I remember,” I said; “what is it you want?”
+
+“It is this, ‘Macumazahn.’” That is my Kafir name, and means the man
+who gets up in the middle of the night, or, in vulgar English, he who
+keeps his eyes open. “I hear that you go on a great expedition far into
+the North with the white chiefs from over the water. Is it a true
+word?”
+
+“It is.”
+
+“I hear that you go even to the Lukanga River, a moon’s journey beyond
+the Manica country. Is this so also, ‘Macumazahn?’”
+
+“Why do you ask whither we go? What is it to you?” I answered
+suspiciously, for the objects of our journey had been kept a dead
+secret.
+
+“It is this, O white men, that if indeed you travel so far I would
+travel with you.”
+
+There was a certain assumption of dignity in the man’s mode of speech,
+and especially in his use of the words “O white men,” instead of “O
+Inkosis,” or chiefs, which struck me.
+
+“You forget yourself a little,” I said. “Your words run out unawares.
+That is not the way to speak. What is your name, and where is your
+kraal? Tell us, that we may know with whom we have to deal.”
+
+“My name is Umbopa. I am of the Zulu people, yet not of them. The house
+of my tribe is in the far North; it was left behind when the Zulus came
+down here a ‘thousand years ago,’ long before Chaka reigned in
+Zululand. I have no kraal. I have wandered for many years. I came from
+the North as a child to Zululand. I was Cetewayo’s man in the
+Nkomabakosi Regiment, serving there under the great Captain,
+Umslopogaasi of the Axe,[5] who taught my hands to fight. Afterwards I
+ran away from Zululand and came to Natal because I wanted to see the
+white man’s ways. Next I fought against Cetewayo in the war. Since then
+I have been working in Natal. Now I am tired, and would go North again.
+Here is not my place. I want no money, but I am a brave man, and am
+worth my place and meat. I have spoken.”
+
+ [5] For the history of Umslopogaasi and his Axe, the reader is
+ referred to the books called “Allan Quatermain” and “Nada the
+ Lily.”—_Editor_.
+
+I was rather puzzled by this man and his way of speech. It was evident
+to me from his manner that in the main he was telling the truth, but
+somehow he seemed different from the ordinary run of Zulus, and I
+rather mistrusted his offer to come without pay. Being in a difficulty,
+I translated his words to Sir Henry and Good, and asked them their
+opinion.
+
+Sir Henry told me to ask him to stand up. Umbopa did so, at the same
+time slipping off the long military great coat which he wore, and
+revealing himself naked except for the moocha round his centre and a
+necklace of lions’ claws. Certainly he was a magnificent-looking man; I
+never saw a finer native. Standing about six foot three high he was
+broad in proportion, and very shapely. In that light, too, his skin
+looked scarcely more than dark, except here and there where deep black
+scars marked old assegai wounds. Sir Henry walked up to him and looked
+into his proud, handsome face.
+
+“They make a good pair, don’t they?” said Good; “one as big as the
+other.”
+
+“I like your looks, Mr. Umbopa, and I will take you as my servant,”
+said Sir Henry in English.
+
+Umbopa evidently understood him, for he answered in Zulu, “It is well”;
+and then added, with a glance at the white man’s great stature and
+breadth, “We are men, thou and I.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+AN ELEPHANT HUNT
+
+
+Now I do not propose to narrate at full length all the incidents of our
+long travel up to Sitanda’s Kraal, near the junction of the Lukanga and
+Kalukwe Rivers. It was a journey of more than a thousand miles from
+Durban, the last three hundred or so of which we had to make on foot,
+owing to the frequent presence of the dreadful “tsetse” fly, whose bite
+is fatal to all animals except donkeys and men.
+
+We left Durban at the end of January, and it was in the second week of
+May that we camped near Sitanda’s Kraal. Our adventures on the way were
+many and various, but as they are of the sort which befall every
+African hunter—with one exception to be presently detailed—I shall not
+set them down here, lest I should render this history too wearisome.
+
+At Inyati, the outlying trading station in the Matabele country, of
+which Lobengula (a great and cruel scoundrel) is king, with many
+regrets we parted from our comfortable wagon. Only twelve oxen remained
+to us out of the beautiful span of twenty which I had bought at Durban.
+One we lost from the bite of a cobra, three had perished from “poverty”
+and the want of water, one strayed, and the other three died from
+eating the poisonous herb called “tulip.” Five more sickened from this
+cause, but we managed to cure them with doses of an infusion made by
+boiling down the tulip leaves. If administered in time this is a very
+effective antidote.
+
+The wagon and the oxen we left in the immediate charge of Goza and Tom,
+our driver and leader, both trustworthy boys, requesting a worthy
+Scotch missionary who lived in this distant place to keep an eye on
+them. Then, accompanied by Umbopa, Khiva, Ventvögel, and half a dozen
+bearers whom we hired on the spot, we started off on foot upon our wild
+quest. I remember we were all a little silent on the occasion of this
+departure, and I think that each of us was wondering if we should ever
+see our wagon again; for my part I never expected to do so. For a while
+we tramped on in silence, till Umbopa, who was marching in front, broke
+into a Zulu chant about how some brave men, tired of life and the
+tameness of things, started off into a vast wilderness to find new
+things or die, and how, lo and behold! when they had travelled far into
+the wilderness they found that it was not a wilderness at all, but a
+beautiful place full of young wives and fat cattle, of game to hunt and
+enemies to kill.
+
+Then we all laughed and took it for a good omen. Umbopa was a cheerful
+savage, in a dignified sort of way, when he was not suffering from one
+of his fits of brooding, and he had a wonderful knack of keeping up our
+spirits. We all grew very fond of him.
+
+And now for the one adventure to which I am going to treat myself, for
+I do dearly love a hunting yarn.
+
+About a fortnight’s march from Inyati we came across a peculiarly
+beautiful bit of well-watered woodland country. The kloofs in the hills
+were covered with dense bush, “idoro” bush as the natives call it, and
+in some places, with the “wacht-een-beche,” or “wait-a-little thorn,”
+and there were great quantities of the lovely “machabell” tree, laden
+with refreshing yellow fruit having enormous stones. This tree is the
+elephant’s favourite food, and there were not wanting signs that the
+great brutes had been about, for not only was their spoor frequent, but
+in many places the trees were broken down and even uprooted. The
+elephant is a destructive feeder.
+
+One evening, after a long day’s march, we came to a spot of great
+loveliness. At the foot of a bush-clad hill lay a dry river-bed, in
+which, however, were to be found pools of crystal water all trodden
+round with the hoof-prints of game. Facing this hill was a park-like
+plain, where grew clumps of flat-topped mimosa, varied with occasional
+glossy-leaved machabells, and all round stretched the sea of pathless,
+silent bush.
+
+As we emerged into this river-bed path suddenly we started a troop of
+tall giraffes, who galloped, or rather sailed off, in their strange
+gait, their tails screwed up over their backs, and their hoofs rattling
+like castanets. They were about three hundred yards from us, and
+therefore practically out of shot, but Good, who was walking ahead, and
+who had an express loaded with solid ball in his hand, could not resist
+temptation. Lifting his gun, he let drive at the last, a young cow. By
+some extraordinary chance the ball struck it full on the back of the
+neck, shattering the spinal column, and that giraffe went rolling head
+over heels just like a rabbit. I never saw a more curious thing.
+
+“Curse it!” said Good—for I am sorry to say he had a habit of using
+strong language when excited—contracted, no doubt, in the course of his
+nautical career; “curse it! I’ve killed him.”
+
+“_Ou_, Bougwan,” ejaculated the Kafirs; “_ou! ou!_”
+
+They called Good “Bougwan,” or Glass Eye, because of his eye-glass.
+
+“Oh, ‘Bougwan!’” re-echoed Sir Henry and I, and from that day Good’s
+reputation as a marvellous shot was established, at any rate among the
+Kafirs. Really he was a bad one, but whenever he missed we overlooked
+it for the sake of that giraffe.
+
+Having set some of the “boys” to cut off the best of the giraffe’s
+meat, we went to work to build a “scherm” near one of the pools and
+about a hundred yards to its right. This is done by cutting a quantity
+of thorn bushes and piling them in the shape of a circular hedge. Then
+the space enclosed is smoothed, and dry tambouki grass, if obtainable,
+is made into a bed in the centre, and a fire or fires lighted.
+
+By the time the “scherm” was finished the moon peeped up, and our
+dinners of giraffe steaks and roasted marrow-bones were ready. How we
+enjoyed those marrow-bones, though it was rather a job to crack them! I
+know of no greater luxury than giraffe marrow, unless it is elephant’s
+heart, and we had that on the morrow. We ate our simple meal by the
+light of the moon, pausing at times to thank Good for his wonderful
+shot; then we began to smoke and yarn, and a curious picture we must
+have made squatting there round the fire. I, with my short grizzled
+hair sticking up straight, and Sir Henry with his yellow locks, which
+were getting rather long, were rather a contrast, especially as I am
+thin, and short, and dark, weighing only nine stone and a half, and Sir
+Henry is tall, and broad, and fair, and weighs fifteen. But perhaps the
+most curious-looking of the three, taking all the circumstances of the
+case into consideration, was Captain John Good, R.N. There he sat upon
+a leather bag, looking just as though he had come in from a comfortable
+day’s shooting in a civilised country, absolutely clean, tidy, and well
+dressed. He wore a shooting suit of brown tweed, with a hat to match,
+and neat gaiters. As usual, he was beautifully shaved, his eye-glass
+and his false teeth appeared to be in perfect order, and altogether he
+looked the neatest man I ever had to do with in the wilderness. He even
+sported a collar, of which he had a supply, made of white gutta-percha.
+
+“You see, they weigh so little,” he said to me innocently, when I
+expressed my astonishment at the fact; “and I always like to turn out
+like a gentleman.” Ah! if he could have foreseen the future and the
+raiment prepared for him.
+
+Well, there we three sat yarning away in the beautiful moonlight, and
+watching the Kafirs a few yards off sucking their intoxicating “daccha”
+from a pipe of which the mouthpiece was made of the horn of an eland,
+till one by one they rolled themselves up in their blankets and went to
+sleep by the fire, that is, all except Umbopa, who was a little apart,
+his chin resting on his hand, and thinking deeply. I noticed that he
+never mixed much with the other Kafirs.
+
+Presently, from the depths of the bush behind us, came a loud “_woof_,
+_woof_!” “That’s a lion,” said I, and we all started up to listen.
+Hardly had we done so, when from the pool, about a hundred yards off,
+we heard the strident trumpeting of an elephant. “_Unkungunklovo_!
+_Indlovu_!” “Elephant! Elephant!” whispered the Kafirs, and a few
+minutes afterwards we saw a succession of vast shadowy forms moving
+slowly from the direction of the water towards the bush.
+
+Up jumped Good, burning for slaughter, and thinking, perhaps, that it
+was as easy to kill elephant as he had found it to shoot giraffe, but I
+caught him by the arm and pulled him down.
+
+“It’s no good,” I whispered, “let them go.”
+
+“It seems that we are in a paradise of game. I vote we stop here a day
+or two, and have a go at them,” said Sir Henry, presently.
+
+I was rather surprised, for hitherto Sir Henry had always been for
+pushing forward as fast as possible, more especially since we
+ascertained at Inyati that about two years ago an Englishman of the
+name of Neville _had_ sold his wagon there, and gone on up country. But
+I suppose his hunter instincts got the better of him for a while.
+
+Good jumped at the idea, for he was longing to have a shot at those
+elephants; and so, to speak the truth, did I, for it went against my
+conscience to let such a herd as that escape without a pull at them.
+
+“All right, my hearties,” said I. “I think we want a little recreation.
+And now let’s turn in, for we ought to be off by dawn, and then perhaps
+we may catch them feeding before they move on.”
+
+The others agreed, and we proceeded to make our preparations. Good took
+off his clothes, shook them, put his eye-glass and his false teeth into
+his trousers pocket, and folding each article neatly, placed it out of
+the dew under a corner of his mackintosh sheet. Sir Henry and I
+contented ourselves with rougher arrangements, and soon were curled up
+in our blankets, and dropping off into the dreamless sleep that rewards
+the traveller.
+
+Going, going, go—What was that?
+
+Suddenly, from the direction of the water came sounds of violent
+scuffling, and next instant there broke upon our ears a succession of
+the most awful roars. There was no mistaking their origin; only a lion
+could make such a noise as that. We all jumped up and looked towards
+the water, in the direction of which we saw a confused mass, yellow and
+black in colour, staggering and struggling towards us. We seized our
+rifles, and slipping on our veldtschoons, that is shoes made of
+untanned hide, ran out of the scherm. By this time the mass had fallen,
+and was rolling over and over on the ground, and when we reached the
+spot it struggled no longer, but lay quite still.
+
+Now we saw what it was. On the grass there lay a sable antelope
+bull—the most beautiful of all the African antelopes—quite dead, and
+transfixed by its great curved horns was a magnificent black-maned
+lion, also dead. Evidently what had happened was this: The sable
+antelope had come down to drink at the pool where the lion—no doubt the
+same which we had heard—was lying in wait. While the antelope drank,
+the lion had sprung upon him, only to be received upon the sharp curved
+horns and transfixed. Once before I saw a similar thing happen. Then
+the lion, unable to free himself, had torn and bitten at the back and
+neck of the bull, which, maddened with fear and pain, had rushed on
+until it dropped dead.
+
+As soon as we had examined the beasts sufficiently we called the
+Kafirs, and between us managed to drag their carcases up to the scherm.
+After that we went in and lay down, to wake no more till dawn.
+
+With the first light we were up and making ready for the fray. We took
+with us the three eight-bore rifles, a good supply of ammunition, and
+our large water-bottles, filled with weak cold tea, which I have always
+found the best stuff to shoot on. After swallowing a little breakfast
+we started, Umbopa, Khiva, and Ventvögel accompanying us. The other
+Kafirs we left with instructions to skin the lion and the sable
+antelope, and to cut up the latter.
+
+We had no difficulty in finding the broad elephant trail, which
+Ventvögel, after examination, pronounced to have been made by between
+twenty and thirty elephants, most of them full-grown bulls. But the
+herd had moved on some way during the night, and it was nine o’clock,
+and already very hot, before, by the broken trees, bruised leaves and
+bark, and smoking droppings, we knew that we could not be far from
+them.
+
+Presently we caught sight of the herd, which numbered, as Ventvögel had
+said, between twenty and thirty, standing in a hollow, having finished
+their morning meal, and flapping their great ears. It was a splendid
+sight, for they were only about two hundred yards from us. Taking a
+handful of dry grass, I threw it into the air to see how the wind was;
+for if once they winded us I knew they would be off before we could get
+a shot. Finding that, if anything, it blew from the elephants to us, we
+crept on stealthily, and thanks to the cover managed to get within
+forty yards or so of the great brutes. Just in front of us, and
+broadside on, stood three splendid bulls, one of them with enormous
+tusks. I whispered to the others that I would take the middle one; Sir
+Henry covering the elephant to the left, and Good the bull with the big
+tusks.
+
+“Now,” I whispered.
+
+Boom! boom! boom! went the three heavy rifles, and down came Sir
+Henry’s elephant dead as a hammer, shot right through the heart. Mine
+fell on to its knees and I thought that he was going to die, but in
+another moment he was up and off, tearing along straight past me. As he
+went I gave him the second barrel in the ribs, and this brought him
+down in good earnest. Hastily slipping in two fresh cartridges I ran
+close up to him, and a ball through the brain put an end to the poor
+brute’s struggles. Then I turned to see how Good had fared with the big
+bull, which I had heard screaming with rage and pain as I gave mine its
+quietus. On reaching the captain I found him in a great state of
+excitement. It appeared that on receiving the bullet the bull had
+turned and come straight for his assailant, who had barely time to get
+out of his way, and then charged on blindly past him, in the direction
+of our encampment. Meanwhile the herd had crashed off in wild alarm in
+the other direction.
+
+For awhile we debated whether to go after the wounded bull or to follow
+the herd, and finally deciding for the latter alternative, departed,
+thinking that we had seen the last of those big tusks. I have often
+wished since that we had. It was easy work to follow the elephants, for
+they had left a trail like a carriage road behind them, crushing down
+the thick bush in their furious flight as though it were tambouki
+grass.
+
+But to come up with them was another matter, and we had struggled on
+under the broiling sun for over two hours before we found them. With
+the exception of one bull, they were standing together, and I could
+see, from their unquiet way and the manner in which they kept lifting
+their trunks to test the air, that they were on the look-out for
+mischief. The solitary bull stood fifty yards or so to this side of the
+herd, over which he was evidently keeping sentry, and about sixty yards
+from us. Thinking that he would see or wind us, and that it would
+probably start them off again if we tried to get nearer, especially as
+the ground was rather open, we all aimed at this bull, and at my
+whispered word, we fired. The three shots took effect, and down he went
+dead. Again the herd started, but unfortunately for them about a
+hundred yards further on was a nullah, or dried-out water track, with
+steep banks, a place very much resembling the one where the Prince
+Imperial was killed in Zululand. Into this the elephants plunged, and
+when we reached the edge we found them struggling in wild confusion to
+get up the other bank, filling the air with their screams, and
+trumpeting as they pushed one another aside in their selfish panic,
+just like so many human beings. Now was our opportunity, and firing
+away as quickly as we could load, we killed five of the poor beasts,
+and no doubt should have bagged the whole herd, had they not suddenly
+given up their attempts to climb the bank and rushed headlong down the
+nullah. We were too tired to follow them, and perhaps also a little
+sick of slaughter, eight elephants being a pretty good bag for one day.
+
+So after we were rested a little, and the Kafirs had cut out the hearts
+of two of the dead elephants for supper, we started homewards, very
+well pleased with our day’s work, having made up our minds to send the
+bearers on the morrow to chop away the tusks.
+
+Shortly after we re-passed the spot where Good had wounded the
+patriarchal bull we came across a herd of eland, but did not shoot at
+them, as we had plenty of meat. They trotted past us, and then stopped
+behind a little patch of bush about a hundred yards away, wheeling
+round to look at us. As Good was anxious to get a near view of them,
+never having seen an eland close, he handed his rifle to Umbopa, and,
+followed by Khiva, strolled up to the patch of bush. We sat down and
+waited for him, not sorry of the excuse for a little rest.
+
+The sun was just going down in its reddest glory, and Sir Henry and I
+were admiring the lovely scene, when suddenly we heard an elephant
+scream, and saw its huge and rushing form with uplifted trunk and tail
+silhouetted against the great fiery globe of the sun. Next second we
+saw something else, and that was Good and Khiva tearing back towards us
+with the wounded bull—for it was he—charging after them. For a moment
+we did not dare to fire—though at that distance it would have been of
+little use if we had done so—for fear of hitting one of them, and the
+next a dreadful thing happened—Good fell a victim to his passion for
+civilised dress. Had he consented to discard his trousers and gaiters
+like the rest of us, and to hunt in a flannel shirt and a pair of
+veldt-schoons, it would have been all right. But as it was, his
+trousers cumbered him in that desperate race, and presently, when he
+was about sixty yards from us, his boot, polished by the dry grass,
+slipped, and down he went on his face right in front of the elephant.
+
+We gave a gasp, for we knew that he must die, and ran as hard as we
+could towards him. In three seconds it had ended, but not as we
+thought. Khiva, the Zulu boy, saw his master fall, and brave lad as he
+was, turned and flung his assegai straight into the elephant’s face. It
+stuck in his trunk.
+
+With a scream of pain, the brute seized the poor Zulu, hurled him to
+the earth, and placing one huge foot on to his body about the middle,
+twined its trunk round his upper part and _tore him in two_.
+
+We rushed up mad with horror, and fired again and again, till presently
+the elephant fell upon the fragments of the Zulu.
+
+As for Good, he rose and wrung his hands over the brave man who had
+given his life to save him, and, though I am an old hand, I felt a lump
+grow in my throat. Umbopa stood contemplating the huge dead elephant
+and the mangled remains of poor Khiva.
+
+“Ah, well,” he said presently, “he is dead, but he died like a man!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+OUR MARCH INTO THE DESERT
+
+
+We had killed nine elephants, and it took us two days to cut out the
+tusks, and having brought them into camp, to bury them carefully in the
+sand under a large tree, which made a conspicuous mark for miles round.
+It was a wonderfully fine lot of ivory. I never saw a better, averaging
+as it did between forty and fifty pounds a tusk. The tusks of the great
+bull that killed poor Khiva scaled one hundred and seventy pounds the
+pair, so nearly as we could judge.
+
+As for Khiva himself, we buried what remained of him in an ant-bear
+hole, together with an assegai to protect himself with on his journey
+to a better world. On the third day we marched again, hoping that we
+might live to return to dig up our buried ivory, and in due course,
+after a long and wearisome tramp, and many adventures which I have not
+space to detail, we reached Sitanda’s Kraal, near the Lukanga River,
+the real starting-point of our expedition. Very well do I recollect our
+arrival at that place. To the right was a scattered native settlement
+with a few stone cattle kraals and some cultivated lands down by the
+water, where these savages grew their scanty supply of grain, and
+beyond it stretched great tracts of waving “veld” covered with tall
+grass, over which herds of the smaller game were wandering. To the left
+lay the vast desert. This spot appears to be the outpost of the fertile
+country, and it would be difficult to say to what natural causes such
+an abrupt change in the character of the soil is due. But so it is.
+
+Just below our encampment flowed a little stream, on the farther side
+of which is a stony slope, the same down which, twenty years before, I
+had seen poor Silvestre creeping back after his attempt to reach
+Solomon’s Mines, and beyond that slope begins the waterless desert,
+covered with a species of karoo shrub.
+
+It was evening when we pitched our camp, and the great ball of the sun
+was sinking into the desert, sending glorious rays of many-coloured
+light flying all over its vast expanse. Leaving Good to superintend the
+arrangement of our little camp, I took Sir Henry with me, and walking
+to the top of the slope opposite, we gazed across the desert. The air
+was very clear, and far, far away I could distinguish the faint blue
+outlines, here and there capped with white, of the Suliman Berg.
+
+“There,” I said, “there is the wall round Solomon’s Mines, but God
+knows if we shall ever climb it.”
+
+“My brother should be there, and if he is, I shall reach him somehow,”
+said Sir Henry, in that tone of quiet confidence which marked the man.
+
+“I hope so,” I answered, and turned to go back to the camp, when I saw
+that we were not alone. Behind us, also gazing earnestly towards the
+far-off mountains, stood the great Kafir Umbopa.
+
+The Zulu spoke when he saw that I had observed him, addressing Sir
+Henry, to whom he had attached himself.
+
+“Is it to that land that thou wouldst journey, Incubu?” (a native word
+meaning, I believe, an elephant, and the name given to Sir Henry by the
+Kafirs), he said, pointing towards the mountain with his broad assegai.
+
+I asked him sharply what he meant by addressing his master in that
+familiar way. It is very well for natives to have a name for one among
+themselves, but it is not decent that they should call a white man by
+their heathenish appellations to his face. The Zulu laughed a quiet
+little laugh which angered me.
+
+“How dost thou know that I am not the equal of the Inkosi whom I
+serve?” he said. “He is of a royal house, no doubt; one can see it in
+his size and by his mien; so, mayhap, am I. At least, I am as great a
+man. Be my mouth, O Macumazahn, and say my words to the Inkoos Incubu,
+my master, for I would speak to him and to thee.”
+
+I was angry with the man, for I am not accustomed to be talked to in
+that way by Kafirs, but somehow he impressed me, and besides I was
+curious to know what he had to say. So I translated, expressing my
+opinion at the same time that he was an impudent fellow, and that his
+swagger was outrageous.
+
+“Yes, Umbopa,” answered Sir Henry, “I would journey there.”
+
+“The desert is wide and there is no water in it, the mountains are high
+and covered with snow, and man cannot say what lies beyond them behind
+the place where the sun sets; how shalt thou come thither, Incubu, and
+wherefore dost thou go?”
+
+I translated again.
+
+“Tell him,” answered Sir Henry, “that I go because I believe that a man
+of my blood, my brother, has gone there before me, and I journey to
+seek him.”
+
+“That is so, Incubu; a Hottentot I met on the road told me that a white
+man went out into the desert two years ago towards those mountains with
+one servant, a hunter. They never came back.”
+
+“How do you know it was my brother?” asked Sir Henry.
+
+“Nay, I know not. But the Hottentot, when I asked what the white man
+was like, said that he had thine eyes and a black beard. He said, too,
+that the name of the hunter with him was Jim; that he was a Bechuana
+hunter and wore clothes.”
+
+“There is no doubt about it,” said I; “I knew Jim well.”
+
+Sir Henry nodded. “I was sure of it,” he said. “If George set his mind
+upon a thing he generally did it. It was always so from his boyhood. If
+he meant to cross the Suliman Berg he has crossed it, unless some
+accident overtook him, and we must look for him on the other side.”
+
+Umbopa understood English, though he rarely spoke it.
+
+“It is a far journey, Incubu,” he put in, and I translated his remark.
+
+“Yes,” answered Sir Henry, “it is far. But there is no journey upon
+this earth that a man may not make if he sets his heart to it. There is
+nothing, Umbopa, that he cannot do, there are no mountains he may not
+climb, there are no deserts he cannot cross, save a mountain and a
+desert of which you are spared the knowledge, if love leads him and he
+holds his life in his hands counting it as nothing, ready to keep it or
+lose it as Heaven above may order.”
+
+I translated.
+
+“Great words, my father,” answered the Zulu—I always called him a Zulu,
+though he was not really one—“great swelling words fit to fill the
+mouth of a man. Thou art right, my father Incubu. Listen! what is life?
+It is a feather, it is the seed of the grass, blown hither and thither,
+sometimes multiplying itself and dying in the act, sometimes carried
+away into the heavens. But if that seed be good and heavy it may
+perchance travel a little way on the road it wills. It is well to try
+and journey one’s road and to fight with the air. Man must die. At the
+worst he can but die a little sooner. I will go with thee across the
+desert and over the mountains, unless perchance I fall to the ground on
+the way, my father.”
+
+He paused awhile, and then went on with one of those strange bursts of
+rhetorical eloquence that Zulus sometimes indulge in, which to my mind,
+full though they are of vain repetitions, show that the race is by no
+means devoid of poetic instinct and of intellectual power.
+
+“What is life? Tell me, O white men, who are wise, who know the secrets
+of the world, and of the world of stars, and the world that lies above
+and around the stars; who flash your words from afar without a voice;
+tell me, white men, the secret of our life—whither it goes and whence
+it comes!
+
+“You cannot answer me; you know not. Listen, I will answer. Out of the
+dark we came, into the dark we go. Like a storm-driven bird at night we
+fly out of the Nowhere; for a moment our wings are seen in the light of
+the fire, and, lo! we are gone again into the Nowhere. Life is nothing.
+Life is all. It is the Hand with which we hold off Death. It is the
+glow-worm that shines in the night-time and is black in the morning; it
+is the white breath of the oxen in winter; it is the little shadow that
+runs across the grass and loses itself at sunset.”
+
+“You are a strange man,” said Sir Henry, when he had ceased.
+
+Umbopa laughed. “It seems to me that we are much alike, Incubu. Perhaps
+_I_ seek a brother over the mountains.”
+
+I looked at him suspiciously. “What dost thou mean?” I asked; “what
+dost thou know of those mountains?”
+
+“A little; a very little. There is a strange land yonder, a land of
+witchcraft and beautiful things; a land of brave people, and of trees,
+and streams, and snowy peaks, and of a great white road. I have heard
+of it. But what is the good of talking? It grows dark. Those who live
+to see will see.”
+
+Again I looked at him doubtfully. The man knew too much.
+
+“You need not fear me, Macumazahn,” he said, interpreting my look. “I
+dig no holes for you to fall in. I make no plots. If ever we cross
+those mountains behind the sun I will tell what I know. But Death sits
+upon them. Be wise and turn back. Go and hunt elephants, my masters. I
+have spoken.”
+
+And without another word he lifted his spear in salutation, and
+returned towards the camp, where shortly afterwards we found him
+cleaning a gun like any other Kafir.
+
+“That is an odd man,” said Sir Henry.
+
+“Yes,” answered I, “too odd by half. I don’t like his little ways. He
+knows something, and will not speak out. But I suppose it is no use
+quarrelling with him. We are in for a curious trip, and a mysterious
+Zulu won’t make much difference one way or another.”
+
+Next day we made our arrangements for starting. Of course it was
+impossible to drag our heavy elephant rifles and other kit with us
+across the desert, so, dismissing our bearers, we made an arrangement
+with an old native who had a kraal close by to take care of them till
+we returned. It went to my heart to leave such things as those sweet
+tools to the tender mercies of an old thief of a savage whose greedy
+eyes I could see gloating over them. But I took some precautions.
+
+First of all I loaded all the rifles, placing them at full cock, and
+informed him that if he touched them they would go off. He tried the
+experiment instantly with my eight-bore, and it did go off, and blew a
+hole right through one of his oxen, which were just then being driven
+up to the kraal, to say nothing of knocking him head over heels with
+the recoil. He got up considerably startled, and not at all pleased at
+the loss of the ox, which he had the impudence to ask me to pay for,
+and nothing would induce him to touch the guns again.
+
+“Put the live devils out of the way up there in the thatch,” he said,
+“or they will murder us all.”
+
+Then I told him that, when we came back, if one of those things was
+missing I would kill him and his people by witchcraft; and if we died
+and he tried to steal the rifles I would come and haunt him and turn
+his cattle mad and his milk sour till life was a weariness, and would
+make the devils in the guns come out and talk to him in a way he did
+not like, and generally gave him a good idea of judgment to come. After
+that he promised to look after them as though they were his father’s
+spirit. He was a very superstitious old Kafir and a great villain.
+
+Having thus disposed of our superfluous gear we arranged the kit we
+five—Sir Henry, Good, myself, Umbopa, and the Hottentot Ventvögel—were
+to take with us on our journey. It was small enough, but do what we
+would we could not get its weight down under about forty pounds a man.
+This is what it consisted of:—
+
+The three express rifles and two hundred rounds of ammunition.
+
+The two Winchester repeating rifles (for Umbopa and Ventvögel), with
+two hundred rounds of cartridge.
+
+Five Cochrane’s water-bottles, each holding four pints.
+
+Five blankets.
+
+Twenty-five pounds’ weight of biltong—i.e. sun-dried game flesh.
+
+Ten pounds’ weight of best mixed beads for gifts.
+
+A selection of medicine, including an ounce of quinine, and one or two
+small surgical instruments.
+
+Our knives, a few sundries, such as a compass, matches, a pocket
+filter, tobacco, a trowel, a bottle of brandy, and the clothes we stood
+in.
+
+This was our total equipment, a small one indeed for such a venture,
+but we dared not attempt to carry more. Indeed, that load was a heavy
+one per man with which to travel across the burning desert, for in such
+places every additional ounce tells. But we could not see our way to
+reducing the weight. There was nothing taken but what was absolutely
+necessary.
+
+With great difficulty, and by the promise of a present of a good
+hunting-knife each, I succeeded in persuading three wretched natives
+from the village to come with us for the first stage, twenty miles, and
+to carry a large gourd holding a gallon of water apiece. My object was
+to enable us to refill our water-bottles after the first night’s march,
+for we determined to start in the cool of the evening. I gave out to
+these natives that we were going to shoot ostriches, with which the
+desert abounded. They jabbered and shrugged their shoulders, saying
+that we were mad and should perish of thirst, which I must say seemed
+probable; but being desirous of obtaining the knives, which were almost
+unknown treasures up there, they consented to come, having probably
+reflected that, after all, our subsequent extinction would be no affair
+of theirs.
+
+All next day we rested and slept, and at sunset ate a hearty meal of
+fresh beef washed down with tea, the last, as Good remarked sadly, we
+were likely to drink for many a long day. Then, having made our final
+preparations, we lay down and waited for the moon to rise. At last,
+about nine o’clock, up she came in all her glory, flooding the wild
+country with light, and throwing a silver sheen on the expanse of
+rolling desert before us, which looked as solemn and quiet and as alien
+to man as the star-studded firmament above. We rose up, and in a few
+minutes were ready, and yet we hesitated a little, as human nature is
+prone to hesitate on the threshold of an irrevocable step. We three
+white men stood by ourselves. Umbopa, assegai in hand and a rifle
+across his shoulders, looked out fixedly across the desert a few paces
+ahead of us; while the hired natives, with the gourds of water, and
+Ventvögel, were gathered in a little knot behind.
+
+“Gentlemen,” said Sir Henry presently, in his deep voice, “we are going
+on about as strange a journey as men can make in this world. It is very
+doubtful if we can succeed in it. But we are three men who will stand
+together for good or for evil to the last. Now before we start let us
+for a moment pray to the Power who shapes the destinies of men, and who
+ages since has marked out our paths, that it may please Him to direct
+our steps in accordance with His will.”
+
+Taking off his hat, for the space of a minute or so, he covered his
+face with his hands, and Good and I did likewise.
+
+I do not say that I am a first-rate praying man, few hunters are, and
+as for Sir Henry, I never heard him speak like that before, and only
+once since, though deep down in his heart I believe that he is very
+religious. Good too is pious, though apt to swear. Anyhow I do not
+remember, excepting on one single occasion, ever putting up a better
+prayer in my life than I did during that minute, and somehow I felt the
+happier for it. Our future was so completely unknown, and I think that
+the unknown and the awful always bring a man nearer to his Maker.
+
+“And now,” said Sir Henry, “_trek_!”
+
+So we started.
+
+We had nothing to guide ourselves by except the distant mountains and
+old José da Silvestra’s chart, which, considering that it was drawn by
+a dying and half-distraught man on a fragment of linen three centuries
+ago, was not a very satisfactory sort of thing to work with. Still, our
+sole hope of success depended upon it, such as it was. If we failed in
+finding that pool of bad water which the old Dom marked as being
+situated in the middle of the desert, about sixty miles from our
+starting-point, and as far from the mountains, in all probability we
+must perish miserably of thirst. But to my mind the chances of our
+finding it in that great sea of sand and karoo scrub seemed almost
+infinitesimal. Even supposing that da Silvestra had marked the pool
+correctly, what was there to prevent its having been dried up by the
+sun generations ago, or trampled in by game, or filled with the
+drifting sand?
+
+On we tramped silently as shades through the night and in the heavy
+sand. The karoo bushes caught our feet and retarded us, and the sand
+worked into our veldtschoons and Good’s shooting-boots, so that every
+few miles we had to stop and empty them; but still the night kept
+fairly cool, though the atmosphere was thick and heavy, giving a sort
+of creamy feel to the air, and we made fair progress. It was very
+silent and lonely there in the desert, oppressively so indeed. Good
+felt this, and once began to whistle “The Girl I left behind me,” but
+the notes sounded lugubrious in that vast place, and he gave it up.
+
+Shortly afterwards a little incident occurred which, though it startled
+us at the time, gave rise to a laugh. Good was leading, as the holder
+of the compass, which, being a sailor, of course he understood
+thoroughly, and we were toiling along in single file behind him, when
+suddenly we heard the sound of an exclamation, and he vanished. Next
+second there arose all around us a most extraordinary hubbub, snorts,
+groans, and wild sounds of rushing feet. In the faint light, too, we
+could descry dim galloping forms half hidden by wreaths of sand. The
+natives threw down their loads and prepared to bolt, but remembering
+that there was nowhere to run to, they cast themselves upon the ground
+and howled out that it was ghosts. As for Sir Henry and myself, we
+stood amazed; nor was our amazement lessened when we perceived the form
+of Good careering off in the direction of the mountains, apparently
+mounted on the back of a horse and halloaing wildly. In another second
+he threw up his arms, and we heard him come to the earth with a thud.
+
+Then I saw what had happened; we had stumbled upon a herd of sleeping
+quagga, on to the back of one of which Good actually had fallen, and
+the brute naturally enough got up and made off with him. Calling out to
+the others that it was all right, I ran towards Good, much afraid lest
+he should be hurt, but to my great relief I found him sitting in the
+sand, his eye-glass still fixed firmly in his eye, rather shaken and
+very much frightened, but not in any way injured.
+
+After this we travelled on without any further misadventure till about
+one o’clock, when we called a halt, and having drunk a little water,
+not much, for water was precious, and rested for half an hour, we
+started again.
+
+On, on we went, till at last the east began to blush like the cheek of
+a girl. Then there came faint rays of primrose light, that changed
+presently to golden bars, through which the dawn glided out across the
+desert. The stars grew pale and paler still, till at last they
+vanished; the golden moon waxed wan, and her mountain ridges stood out
+against her sickly face like the bones on the cheek of a dying man.
+Then came spear upon spear of light flashing far away across the
+boundless wilderness, piercing and firing the veils of mist, till the
+desert was draped in a tremulous golden glow, and it was day.
+
+Still we did not halt, though by this time we should have been glad
+enough to do so, for we knew that when once the sun was fully up it
+would be almost impossible for us to travel. At length, about an hour
+later, we spied a little pile of boulders rising out of the plain, and
+to this we dragged ourselves. As luck would have it, here we found an
+overhanging slab of rock carpeted beneath with smooth sand, which
+afforded a most grateful shelter from the heat. Underneath this we
+crept, and each of us having drunk some water and eaten a bit of
+biltong, we lay down and soon were sound asleep.
+
+It was three o’clock in the afternoon before we woke, to find our
+bearers preparing to return. They had seen enough of the desert
+already, and no number of knives would have tempted them to come a step
+farther. So we took a hearty drink, and having emptied our
+water-bottles, filled them up again from the gourds that they had
+brought with them, and then watched them depart on their twenty miles’
+tramp home.
+
+At half-past four we also started. It was lonely and desolate work, for
+with the exception of a few ostriches there was not a single living
+creature to be seen on all the vast expanse of sandy plain. Evidently
+it was too dry for game, and with the exception of a deadly-looking
+cobra or two we saw no reptiles. One insect, however, we found
+abundant, and that was the common or house fly. There they came, “not
+as single spies, but in battalions,” as I think the Old Testament[6]
+says somewhere. He is an extraordinary insect is the house fly. Go
+where you will you find him, and so it must have been always. I have
+seen him enclosed in amber, which is, I was told, quite half a million
+years old, looking exactly like his descendant of to-day, and I have
+little doubt but that when the last man lies dying on the earth he will
+be buzzing round—if this event happens to occur in summer—watching for
+an opportunity to settle on his nose.
+
+ [6] Readers must beware of accepting Mr. Quatermain’s references as
+ accurate, as, it has been found, some are prone to do. Although his
+ reading evidently was limited, the impression produced by it upon his
+ mind was mixed. Thus to him the Old Testament and Shakespeare were
+ interchangeable authorities.—_Editor_.
+
+At sunset we halted, waiting for the moon to rise. At last she came up,
+beautiful and serene as ever, and, with one halt about two o’clock in
+the morning, we trudged on wearily through the night, till at last the
+welcome sun put a period to our labours. We drank a little and flung
+ourselves down on the sand, thoroughly tired out, and soon were all
+asleep. There was no need to set a watch, for we had nothing to fear
+from anybody or anything in that vast untenanted plain. Our only
+enemies were heat, thirst, and flies, but far rather would I have faced
+any danger from man or beast than that awful trinity. This time we were
+not so lucky as to find a sheltering rock to guard us from the glare of
+the sun, with the result that about seven o’clock we woke up
+experiencing the exact sensations one would attribute to a beefsteak on
+a gridiron. We were literally being baked through and through. The
+burning sun seemed to be sucking our very blood out of us. We sat up
+and gasped.
+
+“Phew,” said I, grabbing at the halo of flies which buzzed cheerfully
+round my head. The heat did not affect _them_.
+
+“My word!” said Sir Henry.
+
+“It is hot!” echoed Good.
+
+It was hot, indeed, and there was not a bit of shelter to be found.
+Look where we would there was no rock or tree, nothing but an unending
+glare, rendered dazzling by the heated air that danced over the surface
+of the desert as it dances over a red-hot stove.
+
+“What is to be done?” asked Sir Henry; “we can’t stand this for long.”
+
+We looked at each other blankly.
+
+“I have it,” said Good, “we must dig a hole, get in it, and cover
+ourselves with the karoo bushes.”
+
+It did not seem a very promising suggestion, but at least it was better
+than nothing, so we set to work, and, with the trowel we had brought
+with us and the help of our hands, in about an hour we succeeded in
+delving out a patch of ground some ten feet long by twelve wide to the
+depth of two feet. Then we cut a quantity of low scrub with our
+hunting-knives, and creeping into the hole, pulled it over us all, with
+the exception of Ventvögel, on whom, being a Hottentot, the heat had no
+particular effect. This gave us some slight shelter from the burning
+rays of the sun, but the atmosphere in that amateur grave can be better
+imagined than described. The Black Hole of Calcutta must have been a
+fool to it; indeed, to this moment I do not know how we lived through
+the day. There we lay panting, and every now and again moistening our
+lips from our scanty supply of water. Had we followed our inclinations
+we should have finished all we possessed in the first two hours, but we
+were forced to exercise the most rigid care, for if our water failed us
+we knew that very soon we must perish miserably.
+
+But everything has an end, if only you live long enough to see it, and
+somehow that miserable day wore on towards evening. About three o’clock
+in the afternoon we determined that we could bear it no longer. It
+would be better to die walking than to be killed slowly by heat and
+thirst in this dreadful hole. So taking each of us a little drink from
+our fast diminishing supply of water, now warmed to about the same
+temperature as a man’s blood, we staggered forward.
+
+We had then covered some fifty miles of wilderness. If the reader will
+refer to the rough copy and translation of old da Silvestra’s map, he
+will see that the desert is marked as measuring forty leagues across,
+and the “pan bad water” is set down as being about in the middle of it.
+Now forty leagues is one hundred and twenty miles, consequently we
+ought at the most to be within twelve or fifteen miles of the water if
+any should really exist.
+
+Through the afternoon we crept slowly and painfully along, scarcely
+doing more than a mile and a half in an hour. At sunset we rested
+again, waiting for the moon, and after drinking a little managed to get
+some sleep.
+
+Before we lay down, Umbopa pointed out to us a slight and indistinct
+hillock on the flat surface of the plain about eight miles away. At the
+distance it looked like an ant-hill, and as I was dropping off to sleep
+I fell to wondering what it could be.
+
+With the moon we marched again, feeling dreadfully exhausted, and
+suffering tortures from thirst and prickly heat. Nobody who has not
+felt it can know what we went through. We walked no longer, we
+staggered, now and again falling from exhaustion, and being obliged to
+call a halt every hour or so. We had scarcely energy left in us to
+speak. Up to this Good had chatted and joked, for he is a merry fellow;
+but now he had not a joke in him.
+
+At last, about two o’clock, utterly worn out in body and mind, we came
+to the foot of the queer hill, or sand koppie, which at first sight
+resembled a gigantic ant-heap about a hundred feet high, and covering
+at the base nearly two acres of ground.
+
+Here we halted, and driven to it by our desperate thirst, sucked down
+our last drops of water. We had but half a pint a head, and each of us
+could have drunk a gallon.
+
+Then we lay down. Just as I was dropping off to sleep I heard Umbopa
+remark to himself in Zulu—
+
+“If we cannot find water we shall all be dead before the moon rises
+to-morrow.”
+
+I shuddered, hot as it was. The near prospect of such an awful death is
+not pleasant, but even the thought of it could not keep me from
+sleeping.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+WATER! WATER!
+
+
+Two hours later, that is, about four o’clock, I woke up, for so soon as
+the first heavy demand of bodily fatigue had been satisfied, the
+torturing thirst from which I was suffering asserted itself. I could
+sleep no more. I had been dreaming that I was bathing in a running
+stream, with green banks and trees upon them, and I awoke to find
+myself in this arid wilderness, and to remember, as Umbopa had said,
+that if we did not find water this day we must perish miserably. No
+human creature could live long without water in that heat. I sat up and
+rubbed my grimy face with my dry and horny hands, as my lips and
+eyelids were stuck together, and it was only after some friction and
+with an effort that I was able to open them. It was not far from dawn,
+but there was none of the bright feel of dawn in the air, which was
+thick with a hot murkiness that I cannot describe. The others were
+still sleeping.
+
+Presently it began to grow light enough to read, so I drew out a little
+pocket copy of the “Ingoldsby Legends” which I had brought with me, and
+read “The Jackdaw of Rheims.” When I got to where
+
+  “A nice little boy held a golden ewer,
+  Embossed, and filled with water as pure
+  As any that flows between Rheims and Namur,”
+
+literally I smacked my cracking lips, or rather tried to smack them.
+The mere thought of that pure water made me mad. If the Cardinal had
+been there with his bell, book, and candle, I would have whipped in and
+drunk his water up; yes, even if he had filled it already with the suds
+of soap “worthy of washing the hands of the Pope,” and I knew that the
+whole consecrated curse of the Catholic Church should fall upon me for
+so doing. I almost think that I must have been a little light-headed
+with thirst, weariness and the want of food; for I fell to thinking how
+astonished the Cardinal and his nice little boy and the jackdaw would
+have looked to see a burnt up, brown-eyed, grizzly-haired little
+elephant hunter suddenly bound between them, put his dirty face into
+the basin, and swallow every drop of the precious water. The idea
+amused me so much that I laughed or rather cackled aloud, which woke
+the others, and they began to rub _their_ dirty faces and drag _their_
+gummed-up lips and eyelids apart.
+
+As soon as we were all well awake we began to discuss the situation,
+which was serious enough. Not a drop of water was left. We turned the
+bottles upside down, and licked their tops, but it was a failure; they
+were dry as a bone. Good, who had charge of the flask of brandy, got it
+out and looked at it longingly; but Sir Henry promptly took it away
+from him, for to drink raw spirit would only have been to precipitate
+the end.
+
+“If we do not find water we shall die,” he said.
+
+“If we can trust to the old Dom’s map there should be some about,” I
+said; but nobody seemed to derive much satisfaction from this remark.
+It was so evident that no great faith could be put in the map. Now it
+was gradually growing light, and as we sat staring blankly at each
+other, I observed the Hottentot Ventvögel rise and begin to walk about
+with his eyes on the ground. Presently he stopped short, and uttering a
+guttural exclamation, pointed to the earth.
+
+“What is it?” we exclaimed; and rising simultaneously we went to where
+he was standing staring at the sand.
+
+“Well,” I said, “it is fresh Springbok spoor; what of it?”
+
+“Springbucks do not go far from water,” he answered in Dutch.
+
+“No,” I answered, “I forgot; and thank God for it.”
+
+This little discovery put new life into us; for it is wonderful, when a
+man is in a desperate position, how he catches at the slightest hope,
+and feels almost happy. On a dark night a single star is better than
+nothing.
+
+Meanwhile Ventvögel was lifting his snub nose, and sniffing the hot air
+for all the world like an old Impala ram who scents danger. Presently
+he spoke again.
+
+“I _smell_ water,” he said.
+
+Then we felt quite jubilant, for we knew what a wonderful instinct
+these wild-bred men possess.
+
+Just at that moment the sun came up gloriously, and revealed so grand a
+sight to our astonished eyes that for a moment or two we even forgot
+our thirst.
+
+There, not more than forty or fifty miles from us, glittering like
+silver in the early rays of the morning sun, soared Sheba’s Breasts;
+and stretching away for hundreds of miles on either side of them ran
+the great Suliman Berg. Now that, sitting here, I attempt to describe
+the extraordinary grandeur and beauty of that sight, language seems to
+fail me. I am impotent even before its memory. Straight before us, rose
+two enormous mountains, the like of which are not, I believe, to be
+seen in Africa, if indeed there are any other such in the world,
+measuring each of them at least fifteen thousand feet in height,
+standing not more than a dozen miles apart, linked together by a
+precipitous cliff of rock, and towering in awful white solemnity
+straight into the sky. These mountains placed thus, like the pillars of
+a gigantic gateway, are shaped after the fashion of a woman’s breasts,
+and at times the mists and shadows beneath them take the form of a
+recumbent woman, veiled mysteriously in sleep. Their bases swell gently
+from the plain, looking at that distance perfectly round and smooth;
+and upon the top of each is a vast hillock covered with snow, exactly
+corresponding to the nipple on the female breast. The stretch of cliff
+that connects them appears to be some thousands of feet in height, and
+perfectly precipitous, and on each flank of them, so far as the eye can
+reach, extend similar lines of cliff, broken only here and there by
+flat table-topped mountains, something like the world-famed one at Cape
+Town; a formation, by the way, that is very common in Africa.
+
+To describe the comprehensive grandeur of that view is beyond my
+powers. There was something so inexpressibly solemn and overpowering
+about those huge volcanoes—for doubtless they are extinct
+volcanoes—that it quite awed us. For a while the morning lights played
+upon the snow and the brown and swelling masses beneath, and then, as
+though to veil the majestic sight from our curious eyes, strange
+vapours and clouds gathered and increased around the mountains, till
+presently we could only trace their pure and gigantic outlines, showing
+ghostlike through the fleecy envelope. Indeed, as we afterwards
+discovered, usually they were wrapped in this gauze-like mist, which
+doubtless accounted for our not having seen them more clearly before.
+
+Sheba’s Breasts had scarcely vanished into cloud-clad privacy, before
+our thirst—literally a burning question—reasserted itself.
+
+It was all very well for Ventvögel to say that he smelt water, but we
+could see no signs of it, look which way we would. So far as the eye
+might reach there was nothing but arid sweltering sand and karoo scrub.
+We walked round the hillock and gazed about anxiously on the other
+side, but it was the same story, not a drop of water could be found;
+there was no indication of a pan, a pool, or a spring.
+
+“You are a fool,” I said angrily to Ventvögel; “there is no water.”
+
+But still he lifted his ugly snub nose and sniffed.
+
+“I smell it, Baas,” he answered; “it is somewhere in the air.”
+
+“Yes,” I said, “no doubt it is in the clouds, and about two months
+hence it will fall and wash our bones.”
+
+Sir Henry stroked his yellow beard thoughtfully. “Perhaps it is on the
+top of the hill,” he suggested.
+
+“Rot,” said Good; “whoever heard of water being found at the top of a
+hill!”
+
+“Let us go and look,” I put in, and hopelessly enough we scrambled up
+the sandy sides of the hillock, Umbopa leading. Presently he stopped as
+though he was petrified.
+
+“_Nanzia manzie_!” that is, “Here is water!” he cried with a loud
+voice.
+
+We rushed up to him, and there, sure enough, in a deep cut or
+indentation on the very top of the sand koppie, was an undoubted pool
+of water. How it came to be in such a strange place we did not stop to
+inquire, nor did we hesitate at its black and unpleasant appearance. It
+was water, or a good imitation of it, and that was enough for us. We
+gave a bound and a rush, and in another second we were all down on our
+stomachs sucking up the uninviting fluid as though it were nectar fit
+for the gods. Heavens, how we did drink! Then when we had done drinking
+we tore off our clothes and sat down in the pool, absorbing the
+moisture through our parched skins. You, Harry, my boy, who have only
+to turn on a couple of taps to summon “hot” and “cold” from an unseen,
+vasty cistern, can have little idea of the luxury of that muddy wallow
+in brackish tepid water.
+
+After a while we rose from it, refreshed indeed, and fell to on our
+“biltong,” of which we had scarcely been able to touch a mouthful for
+twenty-four hours, and ate our fill. Then we smoked a pipe, and lay
+down by the side of that blessed pool, under the overhanging shadow of
+its bank, and slept till noon.
+
+All that day we rested there by the water, thanking our stars that we
+had been lucky enough to find it, bad as it was, and not forgetting to
+render a due share of gratitude to the shade of the long-departed da
+Silvestra, who had set its position down so accurately on the tail of
+his shirt. The wonderful thing to us was that the pan should have
+lasted so long, and the only way in which I can account for this is on
+the supposition that it is fed by some spring deep down in the sand.
+
+Having filled both ourselves and our water-bottles as full as possible,
+in far better spirits we started off again with the moon. That night we
+covered nearly five-and-twenty miles; but, needless to say, found no
+more water, though we were lucky enough the following day to get a
+little shade behind some ant-heaps. When the sun rose, and, for awhile,
+cleared away the mysterious mists, Suliman’s Berg with the two majestic
+Breasts, now only about twenty miles off, seemed to be towering right
+above us, and looked grander than ever. At the approach of evening we
+marched again, and, to cut a long story short, by daylight next morning
+found ourselves upon the lowest slopes of Sheba’s left breast, for
+which we had been steadily steering. By this time our water was
+exhausted once more, and we were suffering severely from thirst, nor
+indeed could we see any chance of relieving it till we reached the snow
+line far, far above us. After resting an hour or two, driven to it by
+our torturing thirst, we went on, toiling painfully in the burning heat
+up the lava slopes, for we found that the huge base of the mountain was
+composed entirely of lava beds belched from the bowels of the earth in
+some far past age.
+
+By eleven o’clock we were utterly exhausted, and, generally speaking,
+in a very bad state indeed. The lava clinker, over which we must drag
+ourselves, though smooth compared with some clinker I have heard of,
+such as that on the Island of Ascension, for instance, was yet rough
+enough to make our feet very sore, and this, together with our other
+miseries, had pretty well finished us. A few hundred yards above us
+were some large lumps of lava, and towards these we steered with the
+intention of lying down beneath their shade. We reached them, and to
+our surprise, so far as we had a capacity for surprise left in us, on a
+little plateau or ridge close by we saw that the clinker was covered
+with a dense green growth. Evidently soil formed of decomposed lava had
+rested there, and in due course had become the receptacle of seeds
+deposited by birds. But we did not take much further interest in the
+green growth, for one cannot live on grass like Nebuchadnezzar. That
+requires a special dispensation of Providence and peculiar digestive
+organs.
+
+So we sat down under the rocks and groaned, and for one I wished
+heartily that we had never started on this fool’s errand. As we were
+sitting there I saw Umbopa get up and hobble towards the patch of
+green, and a few minutes afterwards, to my great astonishment, I
+perceived that usually very dignified individual dancing and shouting
+like a maniac, and waving something green. Off we all scrambled towards
+him as fast as our wearied limbs would carry us, hoping that he had
+found water.
+
+“What is it, Umbopa, son of a fool?” I shouted in Zulu.
+
+“It is food and water, Macumazahn,” and again he waved the green thing.
+
+Then I saw what he had found. It was a melon. We had hit upon a patch
+of wild melons, thousands of them, and dead ripe.
+
+“Melons!” I yelled to Good, who was next me; and in another minute his
+false teeth were fixed in one of them.
+
+I think we ate about six each before we had done, and poor fruit as
+they were, I doubt if I ever thought anything nicer.
+
+But melons are not very nutritious, and when we had satisfied our
+thirst with their pulpy substance, and put a stock to cool by the
+simple process of cutting them in two and setting them end on in the
+hot sun to grow cold by evaporation, we began to feel exceedingly
+hungry. We had still some biltong left, but our stomachs turned from
+biltong, and besides, we were obliged to be very sparing of it, for we
+could not say when we should find more food. Just at this moment a
+lucky thing chanced. Looking across the desert I saw a flock of about
+ten large birds flying straight towards us.
+
+“_Skit, Baas, skit!_” “Shoot, master, shoot!” whispered the Hottentot,
+throwing himself on his face, an example which we all followed.
+
+Then I saw that the birds were a flock of _pauw_ or bustards, and that
+they would pass within fifty yards of my head. Taking one of the
+repeating Winchesters, I waited till they were nearly over us, and then
+jumped to my feet. On seeing me the _pauw_ bunched up together, as I
+expected that they would, and I fired two shots straight into the thick
+of them, and, as luck would have it, brought one down, a fine fellow,
+that weighed about twenty pounds. In half an hour we had a fire made of
+dry melon stalks, and he was toasting over it, and we made such a feed
+as we had not tasted for a week. We ate that _pauw_; nothing was left
+of him but his leg-bones and his beak, and we felt not a little the
+better afterwards.
+
+That night we went on again with the moon, carrying as many melons as
+we could with us. As we ascended we found the air grew cooler and
+cooler, which was a great relief to us, and at dawn, so far as we could
+judge, we were not more than about a dozen miles from the snow line.
+Here we discovered more melons, and so had no longer any anxiety about
+water, for we knew that we should soon get plenty of snow. But the
+ascent had now become very precipitous, and we made but slow progress,
+not more than a mile an hour. Also that night we ate our last morsel of
+biltong. As yet, with the exception of the _pauw_, we had seen no
+living thing on the mountain, nor had we come across a single spring or
+stream of water, which struck us as very odd, considering the expanse
+of snow above us, which must, we thought, melt sometimes. But as we
+afterwards discovered, owing to a cause which it is quite beyond my
+power to explain, all the streams flowed down upon the north side of
+the mountains.
+
+Now we began to grow very anxious about food. We had escaped death by
+thirst, but it seemed probable that it was only to die of hunger. The
+events of the next three miserable days are best described by copying
+the entries made at the time in my note-book.
+
+“21st May.—Started 11 a.m., finding the atmosphere quite cold enough to
+travel by day, and carrying some water-melons with us. Struggled on all
+day, but found no more melons, having evidently passed out of their
+district. Saw no game of any sort. Halted for the night at sundown,
+having had no food for many hours. Suffered much during the night from
+cold.
+
+“22nd.—Started at sunrise again, feeling very faint and weak. Only made
+about five miles all day; found some patches of snow, of which we ate,
+but nothing else. Camped at night under the edge of a great plateau.
+Cold bitter. Drank a little brandy each, and huddled ourselves
+together, each wrapped up in his blanket, to keep ourselves alive. Are
+now suffering frightfully from starvation and weariness. Thought that
+Ventvögel would have died during the night.
+
+“23rd.—Struggled forward once more as soon as the sun was well up, and
+had thawed our limbs a little. We are now in a dreadful plight, and I
+fear that unless we get food this will be our last day’s journey. But
+little brandy left. Good, Sir Henry, and Umbopa bear up wonderfully,
+but Ventvögel is in a very bad way. Like most Hottentots, he cannot
+stand cold. Pangs of hunger not so bad, but have a sort of numb feeling
+about the stomach. Others say the same. We are now on a level with the
+precipitous chain, or wall of lava, linking the two Breasts, and the
+view is glorious. Behind us the glowing desert rolls away to the
+horizon, and before us lie mile upon mile of smooth hard snow almost
+level, but swelling gently upwards, out of the centre of which the
+nipple of the mountain, that appears to be some miles in circumference,
+rises about four thousand feet into the sky. Not a living thing is to
+be seen. God help us; I fear that our time has come.”
+
+And now I will drop the journal, partly because it is not very
+interesting reading; also what follows requires telling rather more
+fully.
+
+All that day—the 23rd May—we struggled slowly up the incline of snow,
+lying down from time to time to rest. A strange gaunt crew we must have
+looked, while, laden as we were, we dragged our weary feet over the
+dazzling plain, glaring round us with hungry eyes. Not that there was
+much use in glaring, for we could see nothing to eat. We did not
+accomplish more than seven miles that day. Just before sunset we found
+ourselves exactly under the nipple of Sheba’s left Breast, which
+towered thousands of feet into the air, a vast smooth hillock of frozen
+snow. Weak as we were, we could not but appreciate the wonderful scene,
+made even more splendid by the flying rays of light from the setting
+sun, which here and there stained the snow blood-red, and crowned the
+great dome above us with a diadem of glory.
+
+“I say,” gasped Good, presently, “we ought to be somewhere near that
+cave the old gentleman wrote about.”
+
+“Yes,” said I, “if there is a cave.”
+
+“Come, Quatermain,” groaned Sir Henry, “don’t talk like that; I have
+every faith in the Dom; remember the water! We shall find the place
+soon.”
+
+“If we don’t find it before dark we are dead men, that is all about
+it,” was my consolatory reply.
+
+For the next ten minutes we trudged in silence, when suddenly Umbopa,
+who was marching along beside me, wrapped in his blanket, and with a
+leather belt strapped so tightly round his stomach, to “make his hunger
+small,” as he said, that his waist looked like a girl’s, caught me by
+the arm.
+
+“Look!” he said, pointing towards the springing slope of the nipple.
+
+I followed his glance, and some two hundred yards from us perceived
+what appeared to be a hole in the snow.
+
+“It is the cave,” said Umbopa.
+
+We made the best of our way to the spot, and found sure enough that the
+hole was the mouth of a cavern, no doubt the same as that of which da
+Silvestra wrote. We were not too soon, for just as we reached shelter
+the sun went down with startling rapidity, leaving the world nearly
+dark, for in these latitudes there is but little twilight. So we crept
+into the cave, which did not appear to be very big, and huddling
+ourselves together for warmth, swallowed what remained of our
+brandy—barely a mouthful each—and tried to forget our miseries in
+sleep. But the cold was too intense to allow us to do so, for I am
+convinced that at this great altitude the thermometer cannot have
+marked less than fourteen or fifteen degrees below freezing point. What
+such a temperature meant to us, enervated as we were by hardship, want
+of food, and the great heat of the desert, the reader may imagine
+better than I can describe. Suffice it to say that it was something as
+near death from exposure as I have ever felt. There we sat hour after
+hour through the still and bitter night, feeling the frost wander round
+and nip us now in the finger, now in the foot, now in the face. In vain
+did we huddle up closer and closer; there was no warmth in our
+miserable starved carcases. Sometimes one of us would drop into an
+uneasy slumber for a few minutes, but we could not sleep much, and
+perhaps this was fortunate, for if we had I doubt if we should have
+ever woke again. Indeed, I believe that it was only by force of will
+that we kept ourselves alive at all.
+
+Not very long before dawn I heard the Hottentot Ventvögel, whose teeth
+had been chattering all night like castanets, give a deep sigh. Then
+his teeth stopped chattering. I did not think anything of it at the
+time, concluding that he had gone to sleep. His back was resting
+against mine, and it seemed to grow colder and colder, till at last it
+felt like ice.
+
+At length the air began to grow grey with light, then golden arrows
+sped across the snow, and at last the glorious sun peeped above the
+lava wall and looked in upon our half-frozen forms. Also it looked upon
+Ventvögel, sitting there amongst us, _stone dead_. No wonder his back
+felt cold, poor fellow. He had died when I heard him sigh, and was now
+frozen almost stiff. Shocked beyond measure, we dragged ourselves from
+the corpse—how strange is that horror we mortals have of the
+companionship of a dead body—and left it sitting there, its arms
+clasped about its knees.
+
+By this time the sunlight was pouring its cold rays, for here they were
+cold, straight into the mouth of the cave. Suddenly I heard an
+exclamation of fear from someone, and turned my head.
+
+And this is what I saw: Sitting at the end of the cavern—it was not
+more than twenty feet long—was another form, of which the head rested
+on its chest and the long arms hung down. I stared at it, and saw that
+this too was a _dead man_, and, what was more, a white man.
+
+The others saw also, and the sight proved too much for our shattered
+nerves. One and all we scrambled out of the cave as fast as our
+half-frozen limbs would carry us.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+SOLOMON’S ROAD
+
+
+Outside the cavern we halted, feeling rather foolish.
+
+“I am going back,” said Sir Henry.
+
+“Why?” asked Good.
+
+“Because it has struck me that—what we saw—may be my brother.”
+
+This was a new idea, and we re-entered the place to put it to the
+proof. After the bright light outside, our eyes, weak as they were with
+staring at the snow, could not pierce the gloom of the cave for a
+while. Presently, however, they grew accustomed to the semi-darkness,
+and we advanced towards the dead man.
+
+Sir Henry knelt down and peered into his face.
+
+“Thank God,” he said, with a sigh of relief, “it is _not_ my brother.”
+
+Then I drew near and looked. The body was that of a tall man in middle
+life with aquiline features, grizzled hair, and a long black moustache.
+The skin was perfectly yellow, and stretched tightly over the bones.
+Its clothing, with the exception of what seemed to be the remains of a
+woollen pair of hose, had been removed, leaving the skeleton-like frame
+naked. Round the neck of the corpse, which was frozen perfectly stiff,
+hung a yellow ivory crucifix.
+
+“Who on earth can it be?” said I.
+
+“Can’t you guess?” asked Good.
+
+I shook my head.
+
+“Why, the old Dom, José da Silvestra, of course—who else?”
+
+“Impossible,” I gasped; “he died three hundred years ago.”
+
+“And what is there to prevent him from lasting for three thousand years
+in this atmosphere, I should like to know?” asked Good. “If only the
+temperature is sufficiently low, flesh and blood will keep fresh as New
+Zealand mutton for ever, and Heaven knows it is cold enough here. The
+sun never gets in here; no animal comes here to tear or destroy. No
+doubt his slave, of whom he speaks on the writing, took off his clothes
+and left him. He could not have buried him alone. Look!” he went on,
+stooping down to pick up a queerly-shaped bone scraped at the end into
+a sharp point, “here is the ‘cleft bone’ that Silvestra used to draw
+the map with.”
+
+We gazed for a moment astonished, forgetting our own miseries in this
+extraordinary and, as it seemed to us, semi-miraculous sight.
+
+“Ay,” said Sir Henry, “and this is where he got his ink from,” and he
+pointed to a small wound on the Dom’s left arm. “Did ever man see such
+a thing before?”
+
+There was no longer any doubt about the matter, which for my own part I
+confess perfectly appalled me. There he sat, the dead man, whose
+directions, written some ten generations ago, had led us to this spot.
+Here in my own hand was the rude pen with which he had written them,
+and about his neck hung the crucifix that his dying lips had kissed.
+Gazing at him, my imagination could reconstruct the last scene of the
+drama, the traveller dying of cold and starvation, yet striving to
+convey to the world the great secret which he had discovered:—the awful
+loneliness of his death, of which the evidence sat before us. It even
+seemed to me that I could trace in his strongly-marked features a
+likeness to those of my poor friend Silvestre his descendant, who had
+died twenty years before in my arms, but perhaps that was fancy. At any
+rate, there he sat, a sad memento of the fate that so often overtakes
+those who would penetrate into the unknown; and there doubtless he will
+still sit, crowned with the dread majesty of death, for centuries yet
+unborn, to startle the eyes of wanderers like ourselves, if ever any
+such should come again to invade his loneliness. The thing overpowered
+us, already almost perished as we were with cold and hunger.
+
+“Let us go,” said Sir Henry in a low voice; “stay, we will give him a
+companion,” and lifting up the dead body of the Hottentot Ventvögel, he
+placed it near to that of the old Dom. Then he stooped, and with a jerk
+broke the rotten string of the crucifix which hung round da Silvestra’s
+neck, for his fingers were too cold to attempt to unfasten it. I
+believe that he has it still. I took the bone pen, and it is before me
+as I write—sometimes I use it to sign my name.
+
+Then leaving these two, the proud white man of a past age, and the poor
+Hottentot, to keep their eternal vigil in the midst of the eternal
+snows, we crept out of the cave into the welcome sunshine and resumed
+our path, wondering in our hearts how many hours it would be before we
+were even as they are.
+
+When we had walked about half a mile we came to the edge of the
+plateau, for the nipple of the mountain does not rise out of its exact
+centre, though from the desert side it had seemed to do so. What lay
+below us we could not see, for the landscape was wreathed in billows of
+morning fog. Presently, however, the higher layers of mist cleared a
+little, and revealed, at the end of a long slope of snow, a patch of
+green grass, some five hundred yards beneath us, through which a stream
+was running. Nor was this all. By the stream, basking in the bright
+sun, stood and lay a group of from ten to fifteen _large antelopes_—at
+that distance we could not see of what species.
+
+The sight filled us with an unreasoning joy. If only we could get it,
+there was food in plenty. But the question was how to do so. The beasts
+were fully six hundred yards off, a very long shot, and one not to be
+depended on when our lives hung on the results.
+
+Rapidly we discussed the advisability of trying to stalk the game, but
+in the end dismissed it reluctantly. To begin with, the wind was not
+favourable, and further, we must certainly be perceived, however
+careful we were, against the blinding background of snow, which we
+should be obliged to traverse.
+
+“Well, we must have a try from where we are,” said Sir Henry. “Which
+shall it be, Quatermain, the repeating rifles or the expresses?”
+
+Here again was a question. The Winchester repeaters—of which we had
+two, Umbopa carrying poor Ventvögel’s as well as his own—were sighted
+up to a thousand yards, whereas the expresses were only sighted to
+three hundred and fifty, beyond which distance shooting with them was
+more or less guess-work. On the other hand, if they did hit, the
+express bullets, being “expanding,” were much more likely to bring the
+game down. It was a knotty point, but I made up my mind that we must
+risk it and use the expresses.
+
+“Let each of us take the buck opposite to him. Aim well at the point of
+the shoulder and high up,” said I; “and Umbopa, do you give the word,
+so that we may all fire together.”
+
+Then came a pause, each of us aiming his level best, as indeed a man is
+likely to do when he knows that life itself depends upon the shot.
+
+“Fire,” said Umbopa in Zulu, and at almost the same instant the three
+rifles rang out loudly; three clouds of smoke hung for a moment before
+us, and a hundred echoes went flying over the silent snow. Presently
+the smoke cleared, and revealed—oh, joy!—a great buck lying on its back
+and kicking furiously in its death agony. We gave a yell of triumph—we
+were saved—we should not starve. Weak as we were, we rushed down the
+intervening slope of snow, and in ten minutes from the time of
+shooting, that animal’s heart and liver were lying before us. But now a
+new difficulty arose, we had no fuel, and therefore could make no fire
+to cook them. We gazed at each other in dismay.
+
+“Starving men should not be fanciful,” said Good; “we must eat raw
+meat.”
+
+There was no other way out of the dilemma, and our gnawing hunger made
+the proposition less distasteful than it would otherwise have been. So
+we took the heart and liver and buried them for a few minutes in a
+patch of snow to cool them. Then we washed them in the ice-cold water
+of the stream, and lastly ate them greedily. It sounds horrible enough,
+but honestly, I never tasted anything so good as that raw meat. In a
+quarter of an hour we were changed men. Our life and vigour came back
+to us, our feeble pulses grew strong again, and the blood went coursing
+through our veins. But mindful of the results of over-feeding on
+starved stomachs, we were careful not to eat too much, stopping whilst
+we were still hungry.
+
+“Thank Heaven!” said Sir Henry; “that brute has saved our lives. What
+is it, Quatermain?”
+
+I rose and went to look at the antelope, for I was not certain. It was
+about the size of a donkey, with large curved horns. I had never seen
+one like it before; the species was new to me. It was brown in colour,
+with faint red stripes, and grew a thick coat. I afterwards discovered
+that the natives of that wonderful country call these bucks “_inco_.”
+They are very rare, and only found at a great altitude where no other
+game will live. This animal was fairly hit high up in the shoulder,
+though whose bullet brought it down we could not, of course, discover.
+I believe that Good, mindful of his marvellous shot at the giraffe,
+secretly set it down to his own prowess, and we did not contradict him.
+
+We had been so busy satisfying our hunger that hitherto we had not
+found time to look about us. But now, having set Umbopa to cut off as
+much of the best meat as we were likely to be able to carry, we began
+to inspect our surroundings. The mist had cleared away, for it was
+eight o’clock, and the sun had sucked it up, so we were able to take in
+all the country before us at a glance. I know not how to describe the
+glorious panorama which unfolded itself to our gaze. I have never seen
+anything like it before, nor shall, I suppose, again.
+
+Behind and over us towered Sheba’s snowy Breasts, and below, some five
+thousand feet beneath where we stood, lay league on league of the most
+lovely champaign country. Here were dense patches of lofty forest,
+there a great river wound its silvery way. To the left stretched a vast
+expanse of rich, undulating veld or grass land, whereon we could just
+make out countless herds of game or cattle, at that distance we could
+not tell which. This expanse appeared to be ringed in by a wall of
+distant mountains. To the right the country was more or less
+mountainous; that is, solitary hills stood up from its level, with
+stretches of cultivated land between, amongst which we could see groups
+of dome-shaped huts. The landscape lay before us as a map, wherein
+rivers flashed like silver snakes, and Alp-like peaks crowned with
+wildly twisted snow wreaths rose in grandeur, whilst over all was the
+glad sunlight and the breath of Nature’s happy life.
+
+Two curious things struck us as we gazed. First, that the country
+before us must lie at least three thousand feet higher than the desert
+we had crossed, and secondly, that all the rivers flowed from south to
+north. As we had painful reason to know, there was no water upon the
+southern side of the vast range on which we stood, but on the northern
+face were many streams, most of which appeared to unite with the great
+river we could see winding away farther than our eyes could follow.
+
+We sat down for a while and gazed in silence at this wonderful view.
+Presently Sir Henry spoke.
+
+“Isn’t there something on the map about Solomon’s Great Road?” he said.
+
+I nodded, for I was still gazing out over the far country.
+
+“Well, look; there it is!” and he pointed a little to our right.
+
+Good and I looked accordingly, and there, winding away towards the
+plain, was what appeared to be a wide turnpike road. We had not seen it
+at first because, on reaching the plain, it turned behind some broken
+country. We did not say anything, at least, not much; we were beginning
+to lose the sense of wonder. Somehow it did not seem particularly
+unnatural that we should find a sort of Roman road in this strange
+land. We accepted the fact, that was all.
+
+“Well,” said Good, “it must be quite near us if we cut off to the
+right. Hadn’t we better be making a start?”
+
+This was sound advice, and so soon as we had washed our faces and hands
+in the stream we acted on it. For a mile or more we made our way over
+boulders and across patches of snow, till suddenly, on reaching the top
+of the little rise, we found the road at our feet. It was a splendid
+road cut out of the solid rock, at least fifty feet wide, and
+apparently well kept; though the odd thing was that it seemed to begin
+there. We walked down and stood on it, but one single hundred paces
+behind us, in the direction of Sheba’s Breasts, it vanished, the entire
+surface of the mountain being strewn with boulders interspersed with
+patches of snow.
+
+“What do you make of this, Quatermain?” asked Sir Henry.
+
+I shook my head, I could make nothing of the thing.
+
+“I have it!” said Good; “the road no doubt ran right over the range and
+across the desert on the other side, but the sand there has covered it
+up, and above us it has been obliterated by some volcanic eruption of
+molten lava.”
+
+This seemed a good suggestion; at any rate, we accepted it, and
+proceeded down the mountain. It proved a very different business
+travelling along down hill on that magnificent pathway with full
+stomachs from what it was travelling uphill over the snow quite starved
+and almost frozen. Indeed, had it not been for melancholy recollections
+of poor Ventvögel’s sad fate, and of that grim cave where he kept
+company with the old Dom, we should have felt positively cheerful,
+notwithstanding the sense of unknown dangers before us. Every mile we
+walked the atmosphere grew softer and balmier, and the country before
+us shone with a yet more luminous beauty. As for the road itself, I
+never saw such an engineering work, though Sir Henry said that the
+great road over the St. Gothard in Switzerland is very similar. No
+difficulty had been too great for the Old World engineer who laid it
+out. At one place we came to a ravine three hundred feet broad and at
+least a hundred feet deep. This vast gulf was actually filled in with
+huge blocks of dressed stone, having arches pierced through them at the
+bottom for a waterway, over which the road went on sublimely. At
+another place it was cut in zigzags out of the side of a precipice five
+hundred feet deep, and in a third it tunnelled through the base of an
+intervening ridge, a space of thirty yards or more.
+
+Here we noticed that the sides of the tunnel were covered with quaint
+sculptures, mostly of mailed figures driving in chariots. One, which
+was exceedingly beautiful, represented a whole battle scene with a
+convoy of captives being marched off in the distance.
+
+“Well,” said Sir Henry, after inspecting this ancient work of art, “it
+is very well to call this Solomon’s Road, but my humble opinion is that
+the Egyptians had been here before Solomon’s people ever set a foot on
+it. If this isn’t Egyptian or Phoenician handiwork, I must say that it
+is very like it.”
+
+By midday we had advanced sufficiently down the mountain to search the
+region where wood was to be met with. First we came to scattered bushes
+which grew more and more frequent, till at last we found the road
+winding through a vast grove of silver trees similar to those which are
+to be seen on the slopes of Table Mountain at Cape Town. I had never
+before met with them in all my wanderings, except at the Cape, and
+their appearance here astonished me greatly.
+
+“Ah!” said Good, surveying these shining-leaved trees with evident
+enthusiasm, “here is lots of wood, let us stop and cook some dinner; I
+have about digested that raw heart.”
+
+Nobody objected to this, so leaving the road we made our way to a
+stream which was babbling away not far off, and soon had a goodly fire
+of dry boughs blazing. Cutting off some substantial hunks from the
+flesh of the _inco_ which we had brought with us, we proceeded to toast
+them on the end of sharp sticks, as one sees the Kafirs do, and ate
+them with relish. After filling ourselves, we lit our pipes and gave
+ourselves up to enjoyment that, compared with the hardships we had
+recently undergone, seemed almost heavenly.
+
+The brook, of which the banks were clothed with dense masses of a
+gigantic species of maidenhair fern interspersed with feathery tufts of
+wild asparagus, sung merrily at our side, the soft air murmured through
+the leaves of the silver trees, doves cooed around, and bright-winged
+birds flashed like living gems from bough to bough. It was a Paradise.
+
+The magic of the place combined with an overwhelming sense of dangers
+left behind, and of the promised land reached at last, seemed to charm
+us into silence. Sir Henry and Umbopa sat conversing in a mixture of
+broken English and Kitchen Zulu in a low voice, but earnestly enough,
+and I lay, with my eyes half shut, upon that fragrant bed of fern and
+watched them.
+
+Presently I missed Good, and I looked to see what had become of him.
+Soon I observed him sitting by the bank of the stream, in which he had
+been bathing. He had nothing on but his flannel shirt, and his natural
+habits of extreme neatness having reasserted themselves, he was
+actively employed in making a most elaborate toilet. He had washed his
+gutta-percha collar, had thoroughly shaken out his trousers, coat and
+waistcoat, and was now folding them up neatly till he was ready to put
+them on, shaking his head sadly as he scanned the numerous rents and
+tears in them, which naturally had resulted from our frightful journey.
+Then he took his boots, scrubbed them with a handful of fern, and
+finally rubbed them over with a piece of fat, which he had carefully
+saved from the _inco_ meat, till they looked, comparatively speaking,
+respectable. Having inspected them judiciously through his eye-glass,
+he put the boots on and began a fresh operation. From a little bag that
+he carried he produced a pocket-comb in which was fixed a tiny
+looking-glass, and in this he surveyed himself. Apparently he was not
+satisfied, for he proceeded to do his hair with great care. Then came a
+pause whilst he again contemplated the effect; still it was not
+satisfactory. He felt his chin, on which the accumulated scrub of a ten
+days’ beard was flourishing.
+
+“Surely,” thought I, “he is not going to try to shave.” But so it was.
+Taking the piece of fat with which he had greased his boots, Good
+washed it thoroughly in the stream. Then diving again into the bag he
+brought out a little pocket razor with a guard to it, such as are
+bought by people who are afraid of cutting themselves, or by those
+about to undertake a sea voyage. Then he rubbed his face and chin
+vigorously with the fat and began. Evidently it proved a painful
+process, for he groaned very much over it, and I was convulsed with
+inward laughter as I watched him struggling with that stubbly beard. It
+seemed so very odd that a man should take the trouble to shave himself
+with a piece of fat in such a place and in our circumstances. At last
+he succeeded in getting the hair off the right side of his face and
+chin, when suddenly I, who was watching, became conscious of a flash of
+light that passed just by his head.
+
+Good sprang up with a profane exclamation (if it had not been a safety
+razor he would certainly have cut his throat), and so did I, without
+the exclamation, and this was what I saw. Standing not more than twenty
+paces from where I was, and ten from Good, were a group of men. They
+were very tall and copper-coloured, and some of them wore great plumes
+of black feathers and short cloaks of leopard skins; this was all I
+noticed at the moment. In front of them stood a youth of about
+seventeen, his hand still raised and his body bent forward in the
+attitude of a Grecian statue of a spear-thrower. Evidently the flash of
+light had been caused by a weapon which he had hurled.
+
+As I looked an old soldier-like man stepped forward out of the group,
+and catching the youth by the arm said something to him. Then they
+advanced upon us.
+
+Sir Henry, Good, and Umbopa by this time had seized their rifles and
+lifted them threateningly. The party of natives still came on. It
+struck me that they could not know what rifles were, or they would not
+have treated them with such contempt.
+
+“Put down your guns!” I halloed to the others, seeing that our only
+chance of safety lay in conciliation. They obeyed, and walking to the
+front I addressed the elderly man who had checked the youth.
+
+“Greeting,” I said in Zulu, not knowing what language to use. To my
+surprise I was understood.
+
+“Greeting,” answered the old man, not, indeed, in the same tongue, but
+in a dialect so closely allied to it that neither Umbopa nor myself had
+any difficulty in understanding him. Indeed, as we afterwards found
+out, the language spoken by this people is an old-fashioned form of the
+Zulu tongue, bearing about the same relationship to it that the English
+of Chaucer does to the English of the nineteenth century.
+
+“Whence come you?” he went on, “who are you? and why are the faces of
+three of you white, and the face of the fourth as the face of our
+mother’s sons?” and he pointed to Umbopa. I looked at Umbopa as he said
+it, and it flashed across me that he was right. The face of Umbopa was
+like the faces of the men before me, and so was his great form like
+their forms. But I had not time to reflect on this coincidence.
+
+“We are strangers, and come in peace,” I answered, speaking very
+slowly, so that he might understand me, “and this man is our servant.”
+
+“You lie,” he answered; “no strangers can cross the mountains where all
+things perish. But what do your lies matter?—if ye are strangers then
+ye must die, for no strangers may live in the land of the Kukuanas. It
+is the king’s law. Prepare then to die, O strangers!”
+
+I was slightly staggered at this, more especially as I saw the hands of
+some of the men steal down to their sides, where hung on each what
+looked to me like a large and heavy knife.
+
+“What does that beggar say?” asked Good.
+
+“He says we are going to be killed,” I answered grimly.
+
+“Oh, Lord!” groaned Good; and, as was his way when perplexed, he put
+his hand to his false teeth, dragging the top set down and allowing
+them to fly back to his jaw with a snap. It was a most fortunate move,
+for next second the dignified crowd of Kukuanas uttered a simultaneous
+yell of horror, and bolted back some yards.
+
+“What’s up?” said I.
+
+“It’s his teeth,” whispered Sir Henry excitedly. “He moved them. Take
+them out, Good, take them out!”
+
+He obeyed, slipping the set into the sleeve of his flannel shirt.
+
+In another second curiosity had overcome fear, and the men advanced
+slowly. Apparently they had now forgotten their amiable intention of
+killing us.
+
+“How is it, O strangers,” asked the old man solemnly, “that this fat
+man (pointing to Good, who was clad in nothing but boots and a flannel
+shirt, and had only half finished his shaving), whose body is clothed,
+and whose legs are bare, who grows hair on one side of his sickly face
+and not on the other, and who wears one shining and transparent eye—how
+is it, I ask, that he has teeth which move of themselves, coming away
+from the jaws and returning of their own will?”
+
+“Open your mouth,” I said to Good, who promptly curled up his lips and
+grinned at the old gentleman like an angry dog, revealing to his
+astonished gaze two thin red lines of gum as utterly innocent of
+ivories as a new-born elephant. The audience gasped.
+
+“Where are his teeth?” they shouted; “with our eyes we saw them.”
+
+Turning his head slowly and with a gesture of ineffable contempt, Good
+swept his hand across his mouth. Then he grinned again, and lo, there
+were two rows of lovely teeth.
+
+Now the young man who had flung the knife threw himself down on the
+grass and gave vent to a prolonged howl of terror; and as for the old
+gentleman, his knees knocked together with fear.
+
+“I see that ye are spirits,” he said falteringly; “did ever man born of
+woman have hair on one side of his face and not on the other, or a
+round and transparent eye, or teeth which moved and melted away and
+grew again? Pardon us, O my lords.”
+
+Here was luck indeed, and, needless to say, I jumped at the chance.
+
+“It is granted,” I said with an imperial smile. “Nay, ye shall know the
+truth. We come from another world, though we are men such as ye; we
+come,” I went on, “from the biggest star that shines at night.”
+
+“Oh! oh!” groaned the chorus of astonished aborigines.
+
+“Yes,” I went on, “we do, indeed”; and again I smiled benignly, as I
+uttered that amazing lie. “We come to stay with you a little while, and
+to bless you by our sojourn. Ye will see, O friends, that I have
+prepared myself for this visit by the learning of your language.”
+
+“It is so, it is so,” said the chorus.
+
+“Only, my lord,” put in the old gentleman, “thou hast learnt it very
+badly.”
+
+I cast an indignant glance at him, and he quailed.
+
+“Now friends,” I continued, “ye might think that after so long a
+journey we should find it in our hearts to avenge such a reception,
+mayhap to strike cold in death the imperious hand that—that, in
+short—threw a knife at the head of him whose teeth come and go.”
+
+“Spare him, my lords,” said the old man in supplication; “he is the
+king’s son, and I am his uncle. If anything befalls him his blood will
+be required at my hands.”
+
+“Yes, that is certainly so,” put in the young man with great emphasis.
+
+“Ye may perhaps doubt our power to avenge,” I went on, heedless of this
+by-play. “Stay, I will show you. Here, thou dog and slave (addressing
+Umbopa in a savage tone), give me the magic tube that speaks”; and I
+tipped a wink towards my express rifle.
+
+Umbopa rose to the occasion, and with something as nearly resembling a
+grin as I have ever seen on his dignified face he handed me the gun.
+
+“It is here, O Lord of Lords,” he said with a deep obeisance.
+
+Now just before I had asked for the rifle I had perceived a little
+_klipspringer_ antelope standing on a mass of rock about seventy yards
+away, and determined to risk the shot.
+
+“Ye see that buck,” I said, pointing the animal out to the party before
+me. “Tell me, is it possible for man born of woman to kill it from here
+with a noise?”
+
+“It is not possible, my lord,” answered the old man.
+
+“Yet shall I kill it,” I said quietly.
+
+The old man smiled. “That my lord cannot do,” he answered.
+
+I raised the rifle and covered the buck. It was a small animal, and one
+which a man might well be excused for missing, but I knew that it would
+not do to miss.
+
+I drew a deep breath, and slowly pressed on the trigger. The buck stood
+still as a stone.
+
+“Bang! thud!” The antelope sprang into the air and fell on the rock
+dead as a door nail.
+
+A groan of simultaneous terror burst from the group before us.
+
+“If you want meat,” I remarked coolly, “go fetch that buck.”
+
+The old man made a sign, and one of his followers departed, and
+presently returned bearing the _klipspringer_. I noticed with
+satisfaction that I had hit it fairly behind the shoulder. They
+gathered round the poor creature’s body, gazing at the bullet-hole in
+consternation.
+
+“Ye see,” I said, “I do not speak empty words.”
+
+There was no answer.
+
+“If ye yet doubt our power,” I went on, “let one of you go stand upon
+that rock that I may make him as this buck.”
+
+None of them seemed at all inclined to take the hint, till at last the
+king’s son spoke.
+
+“It is well said. Do thou, my uncle, go stand upon the rock. It is but
+a buck that the magic has killed. Surely it cannot kill a man.”
+
+The old gentleman did not take the suggestion in good part. Indeed, he
+seemed hurt.
+
+“No! no!” he ejaculated hastily, “my old eyes have seen enough. These
+are wizards, indeed. Let us bring them to the king. Yet if any should
+wish a further proof, let _him_ stand upon the rock, that the magic
+tube may speak with him.”
+
+There was a most general and hasty expression of dissent.
+
+“Let not good magic be wasted on our poor bodies,” said one; “we are
+satisfied. All the witchcraft of our people cannot show the like of
+this.”
+
+“It is so,” remarked the old gentleman, in a tone of intense relief;
+“without any doubt it is so. Listen, children of the Stars, children of
+the shining Eye and the movable Teeth, who roar out in thunder, and
+slay from afar. I am Infadoos, son of Kafa, once king of the Kukuana
+people. This youth is Scragga.”
+
+“He nearly scragged me,” murmured Good.
+
+“Scragga, son of Twala, the great king—Twala, husband of a thousand
+wives, chief and lord paramount of the Kukuanas, keeper of the great
+Road, terror of his enemies, student of the Black Arts, leader of a
+hundred thousand warriors, Twala the One-eyed, the Black, the
+Terrible.”
+
+“So,” said I superciliously, “lead us then to Twala. We do not talk
+with low people and underlings.”
+
+“It is well, my lords, we will lead you; but the way is long. We are
+hunting three days’ journey from the place of the king. But let my
+lords have patience, and we will lead them.”
+
+“So be it,” I said carelessly; “all time is before us, for we do not
+die. We are ready, lead on. But Infadoos, and thou Scragga, beware!
+Play us no monkey tricks, set for us no foxes’ snares, for before your
+brains of mud have thought of them we shall know and avenge. The light
+of the transparent eye of him with the bare legs and the half-haired
+face shall destroy you, and go through your land; his vanishing teeth
+shall affix themselves fast in you and eat you up, you and your wives
+and children; the magic tubes shall argue with you loudly, and make you
+as sieves. Beware!”
+
+This magnificent address did not fail of its effect; indeed, it might
+almost have been spared, so deeply were our friends already impressed
+with our powers.
+
+The old man made a deep obeisance, and murmured the words, “_Koom
+Koom_,” which I afterwards discovered was their royal salute,
+corresponding to the _Bayéte_ of the Zulus, and turning, addressed his
+followers. These at once proceeded to lay hold of all our goods and
+chattels, in order to bear them for us, excepting only the guns, which
+they would on no account touch. They even seized Good’s clothes, that,
+as the reader may remember, were neatly folded up beside him.
+
+He saw and made a dive for them, and a loud altercation ensued.
+
+“Let not my lord of the transparent Eye and the melting Teeth touch
+them,” said the old man. “Surely his slave shall carry the things.”
+
+“But I want to put ’em on!” roared Good, in nervous English.
+
+Umbopa translated.
+
+“Nay, my lord,” answered Infadoos, “would my lord cover up his
+beautiful white legs (although he is so dark Good has a singularly
+white skin) from the eyes of his servants? Have we offended my lord
+that he should do such a thing?”
+
+Here I nearly exploded with laughing; and meanwhile one of the men
+started on with the garments.
+
+“Damn it!” roared Good, “that black villain has got my trousers.”
+
+“Look here, Good,” said Sir Henry; “you have appeared in this country
+in a certain character, and you must live up to it. It will never do
+for you to put on trousers again. Henceforth you must exist in a
+flannel shirt, a pair of boots, and an eye-glass.”
+
+“Yes,” I said, “and with whiskers on one side of your face and not on
+the other. If you change any of these things the people will think that
+we are impostors. I am very sorry for you, but, seriously, you must. If
+once they begin to suspect us our lives will not be worth a brass
+farthing.”
+
+“Do you really think so?” said Good gloomily.
+
+“I do, indeed. Your ‘beautiful white legs’ and your eye-glass are now
+_the_ features of our party, and as Sir Henry says, you must live up to
+them. Be thankful that you have got your boots on, and that the air is
+warm.”
+
+Good sighed, and said no more, but it took him a fortnight to become
+accustomed to his new and scant attire.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+WE ENTER KUKUANALAND
+
+
+All that afternoon we travelled along the magnificent roadway, which
+trended steadily in a north-westerly direction. Infadoos and Scragga
+walked with us, but their followers marched about one hundred paces
+ahead.
+
+“Infadoos,” I said at length, “who made this road?”
+
+“It was made, my lord, of old time, none know how or when, not even the
+wise woman Gagool, who has lived for generations. We are not old enough
+to remember its making. None can fashion such roads now, but the king
+suffers no grass to grow upon it.”
+
+“And whose are the writings on the wall of the caves through which we
+have passed on the road?” I asked, referring to the Egyptian-like
+sculptures that we had seen.
+
+“My lord, the hands that made the road wrote the wonderful writings. We
+know not who wrote them.”
+
+“When did the Kukuana people come into this country?”
+
+“My lord, the race came down here like the breath of a storm ten
+thousand thousand moons ago, from the great lands which lie there
+beyond,” and he pointed to the north. “They could travel no further
+because of the high mountains which ring in the land, so say the old
+voices of our fathers that have descended to us the children, and so
+says Gagool, the wise woman, the smeller out of witches,” and again he
+pointed to the snow-clad peaks. “The country, too, was good, so they
+settled here and grew strong and powerful, and now our numbers are like
+the sea sand, and when Twala the king calls up his regiments their
+plumes cover the plain so far as the eye of man can reach.”
+
+“And if the land is walled in with mountains, who is there for the
+regiments to fight with?”
+
+“Nay, my lord, the country is open there towards the north, and now and
+again warriors sweep down upon us in clouds from a land we know not,
+and we slay them. It is the third part of the life of a man since there
+was a war. Many thousands died in it, but we destroyed those who came
+to eat us up. So since then there has been no war.”
+
+“Your warriors must grow weary of resting on their spears, Infadoos.”
+
+“My lord, there was one war, just after we destroyed the people that
+came down upon us, but it was a civil war; dog ate dog.”
+
+“How was that?”
+
+“My lord the king, my half-brother, had a brother born at the same
+birth, and of the same woman. It is not our custom, my lord, to suffer
+twins to live; the weaker must always die. But the mother of the king
+hid away the feebler child, which was born the last, for her heart
+yearned over it, and that child is Twala the king. I am his younger
+brother, born of another wife.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“My lord, Kafa, our father, died when we came to manhood, and my
+brother Imotu was made king in his place, and for a space reigned and
+had a son by his favourite wife. When the babe was three years old,
+just after the great war, during which no man could sow or reap, a
+famine came upon the land, and the people murmured because of the
+famine, and looked round like a starved lion for something to rend.
+Then it was that Gagool, the wise and terrible woman, who does not die,
+made a proclamation to the people, saying, ‘The king Imotu is no king.’
+And at the time Imotu was sick with a wound, and lay in his kraal not
+able to move.
+
+“Then Gagool went into a hut and led out Twala, my half-brother, and
+twin brother to the king, whom she had hidden among the caves and rocks
+since he was born, and stripping the ‘_moocha_’ (waist-cloth) off his
+loins, showed the people of the Kukuanas the mark of the sacred snake
+coiled round his middle, wherewith the eldest son of the king is marked
+at birth, and cried out loud, ‘Behold your king whom I have saved for
+you even to this day!’
+
+“Now the people being mad with hunger, and altogether bereft of reason
+and the knowledge of truth, cried out—‘_The king! The king!_’ but I
+knew that it was not so, for Imotu my brother was the elder of the
+twins, and our lawful king. Then just as the tumult was at its height
+Imotu the king, though he was very sick, crawled from his hut holding
+his wife by the hand, and followed by his little son Ignosi—that is, by
+interpretation, the Lightning.
+
+“‘What is this noise?’ he asked. ‘Why cry ye _The king! The king!_’
+
+“Then Twala, his twin brother, born of the same woman, and in the same
+hour, ran to him, and taking him by the hair, stabbed him through the
+heart with his knife. And the people being fickle, and ever ready to
+worship the rising sun, clapped their hands and cried, ‘_Twala is
+king!_ Now we know that Twala is king!’”
+
+“And what became of Imotu’s wife and her son Ignosi? Did Twala kill
+them too?”
+
+“Nay, my lord. When she saw that her lord was dead the queen seized the
+child with a cry and ran away. Two days afterward she came to a kraal
+very hungry, and none would give her milk or food, now that her lord
+the king was dead, for all men hate the unfortunate. But at nightfall a
+little child, a girl, crept out and brought her corn to eat, and she
+blessed the child, and went on towards the mountains with her boy
+before the sun rose again, and there she must have perished, for none
+have seen her since, nor the child Ignosi.”
+
+“Then if this child Ignosi had lived he would be the true king of the
+Kukuana people?”
+
+“That is so, my lord; the sacred snake is round his middle. If he lives
+he is king; but, alas! he is long dead.”
+
+“See, my lord,” and Infadoos pointed to a vast collection of huts
+surrounded by a fence, which was in its turn encircled by a great
+ditch, that lay on the plain beneath us. “That is the kraal where the
+wife of Imotu was last seen with the child Ignosi. It is there that we
+shall sleep to-night, if, indeed,” he added doubtfully, “my lords sleep
+at all upon this earth.”
+
+“When we are among the Kukuanas, my good friend Infadoos, we do as the
+Kukuanas do,” I said majestically, and turned round quickly to address
+Good, who was tramping along sullenly behind, his mind fully occupied
+with unsatisfactory attempts to prevent his flannel shirt from flapping
+in the evening breeze. To my astonishment I butted into Umbopa, who was
+walking along immediately behind me, and very evidently had been
+listening with the greatest interest to my conversation with Infadoos.
+The expression on his face was most curious, and gave me the idea of a
+man who was struggling with partial success to bring something long ago
+forgotten back into his mind.
+
+All this while we had been pressing on at a good rate towards the
+undulating plain beneath us. The mountains we had crossed now loomed
+high above our heads, and Sheba’s Breasts were veiled modestly in
+diaphanous wreaths of mist. As we went the country grew more and more
+lovely. The vegetation was luxuriant, without being tropical; the sun
+was bright and warm, but not burning; and a gracious breeze blew softly
+along the odorous slopes of the mountains. Indeed, this new land was
+little less than an earthly paradise; in beauty, in natural wealth, and
+in climate I have never seen its like. The Transvaal is a fine country,
+but it is nothing to Kukuanaland.
+
+So soon as we started Infadoos had despatched a runner to warn the
+people of the kraal, which, by the way, was in his military command, of
+our arrival. This man had departed at an extraordinary speed, which
+Infadoos informed me he would keep up all the way, as running was an
+exercise much practised among his people.
+
+The result of this message now became apparent. When we arrived within
+two miles of the kraal we could see that company after company of men
+were issuing from its gates and marching towards us.
+
+Sir Henry laid his hand upon my arm, and remarked that it looked as
+though we were going to meet with a warm reception. Something in his
+tone attracted Infadoos’ attention.
+
+“Let not my lords be afraid,” he said hastily, “for in my breast there
+dwells no guile. This regiment is one under my command, and comes out
+by my orders to greet you.”
+
+I nodded easily, though I was not quite easy in my mind.
+
+About half a mile from the gates of this kraal is a long stretch of
+rising ground sloping gently upwards from the road, and here the
+companies formed. It was a splendid sight to see them, each company
+about three hundred strong, charging swiftly up the rise, with flashing
+spears and waving plumes, to take their appointed place. By the time we
+reached the slope twelve such companies, or in all three thousand six
+hundred men, had passed out and taken up their positions along the
+road.
+
+Presently we came to the first company, and were able to gaze in
+astonishment on the most magnificent set of warriors that I have ever
+seen. They were all men of mature age, mostly veterans of about forty,
+and not one of them was under six feet in height, whilst many stood six
+feet three or four. They wore upon their heads heavy black plumes of
+Sakaboola feathers, like those which adorned our guides. About their
+waists and beneath the right knees were bound circlets of white ox
+tails, while in their left hands they carried round shields measuring
+about twenty inches across. These shields are very curious. The
+framework is made of an iron plate beaten out thin, over which is
+stretched milk-white ox-hide.
+
+The weapons that each man bore were simple, but most effective,
+consisting of a short and very heavy two-edged spear with a wooden
+shaft, the blade being about six inches across at the widest part.
+These spears are not used for throwing but like the Zulu “_bangwan_,”
+or stabbing assegai, are for close quarters only, when the wound
+inflicted by them is terrible. In addition to his _bangwan_ every man
+carried three large and heavy knives, each knife weighing about two
+pounds. One knife was fixed in the ox-tail girdle, and the other two at
+the back of the round shield. These knives, which are called “_tollas_”
+by the Kukuanas, take the place of the throwing assegai of the Zulus.
+The Kukuana warriors can cast them with great accuracy to a distance of
+fifty yards, and it is their custom on charging to hurl a volley of
+them at the enemy as they come to close quarters.
+
+Each company remained still as a collection of bronze statues till we
+were opposite to it, when at a signal given by its commanding officer,
+who, distinguished by a leopard skin cloak, stood some paces in front,
+every spear was raised into the air, and from three hundred throats
+sprang forth with a sudden roar the royal salute of “_Koom_.” Then, so
+soon as we had passed, the company formed up behind us and followed us
+towards the kraal, till at last the whole regiment of the “Greys”—so
+called from their white shields—the crack corps of the Kukuana people,
+was marching in our rear with a tread that shook the ground.
+
+At length, branching off from Solomon’s Great Road, we came to the wide
+fosse surrounding the kraal, which is at least a mile round, and fenced
+with a strong palisade of piles formed of the trunks of trees. At the
+gateway this fosse is spanned by a primitive drawbridge, which was let
+down by the guard to allow us to pass in. The kraal is exceedingly well
+laid out. Through the centre runs a wide pathway intersected at right
+angles by other pathways so arranged as to cut the huts into square
+blocks, each block being the quarters of a company. The huts are
+dome-shaped, and built, like those of the Zulus, of a framework of
+wattle, beautifully thatched with grass; but, unlike the Zulu huts,
+they have doorways through which men could walk. Also they are much
+larger, and surrounded by a verandah about six feet wide, beautifully
+paved with powdered lime trodden hard.
+
+All along each side of this wide pathway that pierces the kraal were
+ranged hundreds of women, brought out by curiosity to look at us. These
+women, for a native race, are exceedingly handsome. They are tall and
+graceful, and their figures are wonderfully fine. The hair, though
+short, is rather curly than woolly, the features are frequently
+aquiline, and the lips are not unpleasantly thick, as is the case among
+most African races. But what struck us most was their exceedingly quiet
+and dignified air. They were as well-bred in their way as the
+_habituées_ of a fashionable drawing-room, and in this respect they
+differ from Zulu women and their cousins the Masai who inhabit the
+district beyond Zanzibar. Their curiosity had brought them out to see
+us, but they allowed no rude expressions of astonishment or savage
+criticism to pass their lips as we trudged wearily in front of them.
+Not even when old Infadoos with a surreptitious motion of the hand
+pointed out the crowning wonder of poor Good’s “beautiful white legs,”
+did they suffer the feeling of intense admiration which evidently
+mastered their minds to find expression. They fixed their dark eyes
+upon this new and snowy loveliness, for, as I think I have said, Good’s
+skin is exceedingly white, and that was all. But it was quite enough
+for Good, who is modest by nature.
+
+When we reached the centre of the kraal, Infadoos halted at the door of
+a large hut, which was surrounded at a distance by a circle of smaller
+ones.
+
+“Enter, Sons of the Stars,” he said, in a magniloquent voice, “and
+deign to rest awhile in our humble habitations. A little food shall be
+brought to you, so that ye may have no need to draw your belts tight
+from hunger; some honey and some milk, and an ox or two, and a few
+sheep; not much, my lords, but still a little food.”
+
+“It is good,” said I. “Infadoos; we are weary with travelling through
+realms of air; now let us rest.”
+
+Accordingly we entered the hut, which we found amply prepared for our
+comfort. Couches of tanned skins were spread for us to lie on, and
+water was placed for us to wash in.
+
+Presently we heard a shouting outside, and stepping to the door, saw a
+line of damsels bearing milk and roasted mealies, and honey in a pot.
+Behind these were some youths driving a fat young ox. We received the
+gifts, and then one of the young men drew the knife from his girdle and
+dexterously cut the ox’s throat. In ten minutes it was dead, skinned,
+and jointed. The best of the meat was then cut off for us, and the
+rest, in the name of our party, I presented to the warriors round us,
+who took it and distributed the “white lords’ gift.”
+
+Umbopa set to work, with the assistance of an extremely prepossessing
+young woman, to boil our portion in a large earthenware pot over a fire
+which was built outside the hut, and when it was nearly ready we sent a
+message to Infadoos, and asked him and Scragga, the king’s son, to join
+us.
+
+Presently they came, and sitting down upon little stools, of which
+there were several about the hut, for the Kukuanas do not in general
+squat upon their haunches like the Zulus, they helped us to get through
+our dinner. The old gentleman was most affable and polite, but it
+struck me that the young one regarded us with doubt. Together with the
+rest of the party, he had been overawed by our white appearance and by
+our magic properties; but it seemed to me that, on discovering that we
+ate, drank, and slept like other mortals, his awe was beginning to wear
+off, and to be replaced by a sullen suspicion—which made me feel rather
+uncomfortable.
+
+In the course of our meal Sir Henry suggested to me that it might be
+well to try to discover if our hosts knew anything of his brother’s
+fate, or if they had ever seen or heard of him; but, on the whole, I
+thought that it would be wiser to say nothing of the matter at this
+time. It was difficult to explain a relative lost from “the Stars.”
+
+After supper we produced our pipes and lit them; a proceeding which
+filled Infadoos and Scragga with astonishment. The Kukuanas were
+evidently unacquainted with the divine delights of tobacco-smoke. The
+herb is grown among them extensively; but, like the Zulus, they use it
+for snuff only, and quite failed to identify it in its new form.
+
+Presently I asked Infadoos when we were to proceed on our journey, and
+was delighted to learn that preparations had been made for us to leave
+on the following morning, messengers having already departed to inform
+Twala the king of our coming.
+
+It appeared that Twala was at his principal place, known as Loo, making
+ready for the great annual feast which was to be held in the first week
+of June. At this gathering all the regiments, with the exception of
+certain detachments left behind for garrison purposes, are brought up
+and paraded before the king; and the great annual witch-hunt, of which
+more by-and-by, is held.
+
+We were to start at dawn; and Infadoos, who was to accompany us,
+expected that we should reach Loo on the night of the second day,
+unless we were detained by accident or by swollen rivers.
+
+When they had given us this information our visitors bade us
+good-night; and, having arranged to watch turn and turn about, three of
+us flung ourselves down and slept the sweet sleep of the weary, whilst
+the fourth sat up on the look-out for possible treachery.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+TWALA THE KING
+
+
+It will not be necessary for me to detail at length the incidents of
+our journey to Loo. It took two full days’ travelling along Solomon’s
+Great Road, which pursued its even course right into the heart of
+Kukuanaland. Suffice it to say that as we went the country seemed to
+grow richer and richer, and the kraals, with their wide surrounding
+belts of cultivation, more and more numerous. They were all built upon
+the same principles as the first camp which we had reached, and were
+guarded by ample garrisons of troops. Indeed, in Kukuanaland, as among
+the Germans, the Zulus, and the Masai, every able-bodied man is a
+soldier, so that the whole force of the nation is available for its
+wars, offensive or defensive. As we travelled we were overtaken by
+thousands of warriors hurrying up to Loo to be present at the great
+annual review and festival, and more splendid troops I never saw.
+
+At sunset on the second day, we stopped to rest awhile upon the summit
+of some heights over which the road ran, and there on a beautiful and
+fertile plain before us lay Loo itself. For a native town it is an
+enormous place, quite five miles round, I should say, with outlying
+kraals projecting from it, that serve on grand occasions as cantonments
+for the regiments, and a curious horseshoe-shaped hill, with which we
+were destined to become better acquainted, about two miles to the
+north. It is beautifully situated, and through the centre of the kraal,
+dividing it into two portions, runs a river, which appeared to be
+bridged in several places, the same indeed that we had seen from the
+slopes of Sheba’s Breasts. Sixty or seventy miles away three great
+snow-capped mountains, placed at the points of a triangle, started out
+of the level plain. The conformation of these mountains is unlike that
+of Sheba’s Breasts, being sheer and precipitous, instead of smooth and
+rounded.
+
+Infadoos saw us looking at them, and volunteered a remark.
+
+“The road ends there,” he said, pointing to the mountains known among
+the Kukuanas as the “Three Witches.”
+
+“Why does it end?” I asked.
+
+“Who knows?” he answered with a shrug; “the mountains are full of
+caves, and there is a great pit between them. It is there that the wise
+men of old time used to go to get whatever it was they came for to this
+country, and it is there now that our kings are buried in the Place of
+Death.”
+
+“What was it they came for?” I asked eagerly.
+
+“Nay, I know not. My lords who have dropped from the Stars should
+know,” he answered with a quick look. Evidently he knew more than he
+chose to say.
+
+“Yes,” I went on, “you are right, in the Stars we learn many things. I
+have heard, for instance, that the wise men of old came to these
+mountains to find bright stones, pretty playthings, and yellow iron.”
+
+“My lord is wise,” he answered coldly; “I am but a child and cannot
+talk with my lord on such matters. My lord must speak with Gagool the
+old, at the king’s place, who is wise even as my lord,” and he went
+away.
+
+So soon as he was gone I turned to the others, and pointed out the
+mountains. “There are Solomon’s diamond mines,” I said.
+
+Umbopa was standing with them, apparently plunged in one of the fits of
+abstraction which were common to him, and caught my words.
+
+“Yes, Macumazahn,” he put in, in Zulu, “the diamonds are surely there,
+and you shall have them, since you white men are so fond of toys and
+money.”
+
+“How dost thou know that, Umbopa?” I asked sharply, for I did not like
+his mysterious ways.
+
+He laughed. “I dreamed it in the night, white men;” then he too turned
+on his heel and went.
+
+“Now what,” said Sir Henry, “is our black friend driving at? He knows
+more than he chooses to say, that is clear. By the way, Quatermain, has
+he heard anything of—of my brother?”
+
+“Nothing; he has asked everyone he has become friendly with, but they
+all declare that no white man has ever been seen in the country
+before.”
+
+“Do you suppose that he got here at all?” suggested Good; “we have only
+reached the place by a miracle; is it likely he could have reached it
+without the map?”
+
+“I don’t know,” said Sir Henry gloomily, “but somehow I think that I
+shall find him.”
+
+Slowly the sun sank, then suddenly darkness rushed down on the land
+like a tangible thing. There was no breathing-space between the day and
+night, no soft transformation scene, for in these latitudes twilight
+does not exist. The change from day to night is as quick and as
+absolute as the change from life to death. The sun sank and the world
+was wreathed in shadows. But not for long, for see in the west there is
+a glow, then come rays of silver light, and at last the full and
+glorious moon lights up the plain and shoots its gleaming arrows far
+and wide, filling the earth with a faint refulgence.
+
+We stood and watched the lovely sight, whilst the stars grew pale
+before this chastened majesty, and felt our hearts lifted up in the
+presence of a beauty that I cannot describe. Mine has been a rough
+life, but there are a few things I am thankful to have lived for, and
+one of them is to have seen that moon shine over Kukuanaland.
+
+Presently our meditations were broken in upon by our polite friend
+Infadoos.
+
+“If my lords are rested we will journey on to Loo, where a hut is made
+ready for my lords to-night. The moon is now bright, so that we shall
+not fall by the way.”
+
+We assented, and in an hour’s time were at the outskirts of the town,
+of which the extent, mapped out as it was by thousands of camp fires,
+appeared absolutely endless. Indeed, Good, who is always fond of a bad
+joke, christened it “Unlimited Loo.” Soon we came to a moat with a
+drawbridge, where we were met by the rattling of arms and the hoarse
+challenge of a sentry. Infadoos gave some password that I could not
+catch, which was met with a salute, and we passed on through the
+central street of the great grass city. After nearly half an hour’s
+tramp, past endless lines of huts, Infadoos halted at last by the gate
+of a little group of huts which surrounded a small courtyard of
+powdered limestone, and informed us that these were to be our “poor”
+quarters.
+
+We entered, and found that a hut had been assigned to each of us. These
+huts were superior to any that we had yet seen, and in each was a most
+comfortable bed made of tanned skins, spread upon mattresses of
+aromatic grass. Food too was ready for us, and so soon as we had washed
+ourselves with water, which stood ready in earthenware jars, some young
+women of handsome appearance brought us roasted meats, and mealie cobs
+daintily served on wooden platters, and presented them to us with deep
+obeisances.
+
+We ate and drank, and then, the beds having been all moved into one hut
+by our request, a precaution at which the amiable young ladies smiled,
+we flung ourselves down to sleep, thoroughly wearied with our long
+journey.
+
+When we woke it was to find the sun high in the heavens, and the female
+attendants, who did not seem to be troubled by any false shame, already
+standing inside the hut, having been ordered to attend and help us to
+“make ready.”
+
+“Make ready, indeed,” growled Good; “when one has only a flannel shirt
+and a pair of boots, that does not take long. I wish you would ask them
+for my trousers, Quatermain.”
+
+I asked accordingly, but was informed that these sacred relics had
+already been taken to the king, who would see us in the forenoon.
+
+Somewhat to their astonishment and disappointment, having requested the
+young ladies to step outside, we proceeded to make the best toilet of
+which the circumstances admitted. Good even went the length of again
+shaving the right side of his face; the left, on which now appeared a
+very fair crop of whiskers, we impressed upon him he must on no account
+touch. As for ourselves, we were contented with a good wash and combing
+our hair. Sir Henry’s yellow locks were now almost upon his shoulders,
+and he looked more like an ancient Dane than ever, while my grizzled
+scrub was fully an inch long, instead of half an inch, which in a
+general way I considered my maximum length.
+
+By the time that we had eaten our breakfast, and smoked a pipe, a
+message was brought to us by no less a personage than Infadoos himself
+that Twala the king was ready to see us, if we would be pleased to
+come.
+
+We remarked in reply that we should prefer to wait till the sun was a
+little higher, we were yet weary with our journey, &c., &c. It is
+always well, when dealing with uncivilised people, not to be in too
+great a hurry. They are apt to mistake politeness for awe or servility.
+So, although we were quite as anxious to see Twala as Twala could be to
+see us, we sat down and waited for an hour, employing the interval in
+preparing such presents as our slender stock of goods permitted—namely,
+the Winchester rifle which had been used by poor Ventvögel, and some
+beads. The rifle and ammunition we determined to present to his royal
+highness, and the beads were for his wives and courtiers. We had
+already given a few to Infadoos and Scragga, and found that they were
+delighted with them, never having seen such things before. At length we
+declared that we were ready, and guided by Infadoos, started off to the
+audience, Umbopa carrying the rifle and beads.
+
+After walking a few hundred yards we came to an enclosure, something
+like that surrounding the huts which had been allotted to us, only
+fifty times as big, for it could not have covered less than six or
+seven acres of ground. All round the outside fence stood a row of huts,
+which were the habitations of the king’s wives. Exactly opposite the
+gateway, on the further side of the open space, was a very large hut,
+built by itself, in which his majesty resided. All the rest was open
+ground; that is to say, it would have been open had it not been filled
+by company after company of warriors, who were mustered there to the
+number of seven or eight thousand. These men stood still as statues as
+we advanced through them, and it would be impossible to give an
+adequate idea of the grandeur of the spectacle which they presented,
+with their waving plumes, their glancing spears, and iron-backed
+ox-hide shields.
+
+The space in front of the large hut was empty, but before it were
+placed several stools. On three of these, at a sign from Infadoos, we
+seated ourselves, Umbopa standing behind us. As for Infadoos, he took
+up a position by the door of the hut. So we waited for ten minutes or
+more in the midst of a dead silence, but conscious that we were the
+object of the concentrated gaze of some eight thousand pairs of eyes.
+It was a somewhat trying ordeal, but we carried it off as best we
+could. At length the door of the hut opened, and a gigantic figure,
+with a splendid tiger-skin karross flung over its shoulders, stepped
+out, followed by the boy Scragga, and what appeared to us to be a
+withered-up monkey, wrapped in a fur cloak. The figure seated itself
+upon a stool, Scragga took his stand behind it, and the withered-up
+monkey crept on all fours into the shade of the hut and squatted down.
+
+Still there was silence.
+
+Then the gigantic figure slipped off the karross and stood up before
+us, a truly alarming spectacle. It was that of an enormous man with the
+most entirely repulsive countenance we had ever beheld. This man’s lips
+were as thick as a Negro’s, the nose was flat, he had but one gleaming
+black eye, for the other was represented by a hollow in the face, and
+his whole expression was cruel and sensual to a degree. From the large
+head rose a magnificent plume of white ostrich feathers, his body was
+clad in a shirt of shining chain armour, whilst round the waist and
+right knee were the usual garnishes of white ox-tail. In his right hand
+was a huge spear, about the neck a thick torque of gold, and bound on
+the forehead shone dully a single and enormous uncut diamond.
+
+Still there was silence; but not for long. Presently the man, whom we
+rightly guessed to be the king, raised the great javelin in his hand.
+Instantly eight thousand spears were lifted in answer, and from eight
+thousand throats rang out the royal salute of “_Koom_.” Three times
+this was repeated, and each time the earth shook with the noise, that
+can only be compared to the deepest notes of thunder.
+
+“Be humble, O people,” piped out a thin voice which seemed to come from
+the monkey in the shade, “it is the king.”
+
+“_It is the king_,” boomed out the eight thousand throats in answer.
+“_Be humble, O people, it is the king._”
+
+Then there was silence again—dead silence. Presently, however, it was
+broken. A soldier on our left dropped his shield, which fell with a
+clatter on to the limestone flooring.
+
+Twala turned his one cold eye in the direction of the noise.
+
+“Come hither, thou,” he said, in a cold voice.
+
+A fine young man stepped out of the ranks, and stood before him.
+
+“It was thy shield that fell, thou awkward dog. Wilt thou make me a
+reproach in the eyes of these strangers from the Stars? What hast thou
+to say for thyself?”
+
+We saw the poor fellow turn pale under his dusky skin.
+
+“It was by chance, O Calf of the Black Cow,” he murmured.
+
+“Then it is a chance for which thou must pay. Thou hast made me
+foolish; prepare for death.”
+
+“I am the king’s ox,” was the low answer.
+
+“Scragga,” roared the king, “let me see how thou canst use thy spear.
+Kill me this blundering fool.”
+
+Scragga stepped forward with an ill-favoured grin, and lifted his
+spear. The poor victim covered his eyes with his hand and stood still.
+As for us, we were petrified with horror.
+
+“Once, twice,” he waved the spear, and then struck, ah! right home—the
+spear stood out a foot behind the soldier’s back. He flung up his hands
+and dropped dead. From the multitude about us rose something like a
+murmur, it rolled round and round, and died away. The tragedy was
+finished; there lay the corpse, and we had not yet realised that it had
+been enacted. Sir Henry sprang up and swore a great oath, then,
+overpowered by the sense of silence, sat down again.
+
+“The thrust was a good one,” said the king; “take him away.”
+
+Four men stepped out of the ranks, and lifting the body of the murdered
+man, carried it thence.
+
+“Cover up the blood-stains, cover them up,” piped out the thin voice
+that proceeded from the monkey-like figure; “the king’s word is spoken,
+the king’s doom is done!”
+
+Thereupon a girl came forward from behind the hut, bearing a jar filled
+with powdered lime, which she scattered over the red mark, blotting it
+from sight.
+
+Sir Henry meanwhile was boiling with rage at what had happened; indeed,
+it was with difficulty that we could keep him still.
+
+“Sit down, for heaven’s sake,” I whispered; “our lives depend on it.”
+
+He yielded and remained quiet.
+
+Twala sat silent until the traces of the tragedy had been removed, then
+he addressed us.
+
+“White people,” he said, “who come hither, whence I know not, and why I
+know not, greeting.”
+
+“Greeting, Twala, King of the Kukuanas,” I answered.
+
+“White people, whence come ye, and what seek ye?”
+
+“We come from the Stars, ask us not how. We come to see this land.”
+
+“Ye journey from far to see a little thing. And that man with you,”
+pointing to Umbopa, “does he also come from the Stars?”
+
+“Even so; there are people of thy colour in the heavens above; but ask
+not of matters too high for thee, Twala the king.”
+
+“Ye speak with a loud voice, people of the Stars,” Twala answered in a
+tone which I scarcely liked. “Remember that the Stars are far off, and
+ye are here. How if I make you as him whom they bore away?”
+
+I laughed out loud, though there was little laughter in my heart.
+
+“O king,” I said, “be careful, walk warily over hot stones, lest thou
+shouldst burn thy feet; hold the spear by the handle, lest thou should
+cut thy hands. Touch but one hair of our heads, and destruction shall
+come upon thee. What, have not these”—pointing to Infadoos and Scragga,
+who, young villain that he was, was employed in cleaning the blood of
+the soldier off his spear—“told thee what manner of men we are? Hast
+thou seen the like of us?” and I pointed to Good, feeling quite sure
+that he had never seen anybody before who looked in the least like
+_him_ as he then appeared.
+
+“It is true, I have not,” said the king, surveying Good with interest.
+
+“Have they not told thee how we strike with death from afar?” I went
+on.
+
+“They have told me, but I believe them not. Let me see you kill. Kill
+me a man among those who stand yonder”—and he pointed to the opposite
+side of the kraal—“and I will believe.”
+
+“Nay,” I answered; “we shed no blood of men except in just punishment;
+but if thou wilt see, bid thy servants drive in an ox through the kraal
+gates, and before he has run twenty paces I will strike him dead.”
+
+“Nay,” laughed the king, “kill me a man and I will believe.”
+
+“Good, O king, so be it,” I answered coolly; “do thou walk across the
+open space, and before thy feet reach the gate thou shalt be dead; or
+if thou wilt not, send thy son Scragga” (whom at that moment it would
+have given me much pleasure to shoot).
+
+On hearing this suggestion Scragga uttered a sort of howl, and bolted
+into the hut.
+
+Twala frowned majestically; the suggestion did not please him.
+
+“Let a young ox be driven in,” he said.
+
+Two men at once departed, running swiftly.
+
+“Now, Sir Henry,” said I, “do you shoot. I want to show this ruffian
+that I am not the only magician of the party.”
+
+Sir Henry accordingly took his “express,” and made ready.
+
+“I hope I shall make a good shot,” he groaned.
+
+“You must,” I answered. “If you miss with the first barrel, let him
+have the second. Sight for 150 yards, and wait till the beast turns
+broadside on.”
+
+Then came a pause, until presently we caught sight of an ox running
+straight for the kraal gate. It came on through the gate, then,
+catching sight of the vast concourse of people, stopped stupidly,
+turned round, and bellowed.
+
+“Now’s your time,” I whispered.
+
+Up went the rifle.
+
+Bang! _thud_! and the ox was kicking on his back, shot in the ribs. The
+semi-hollow bullet had done its work well, and a sigh of astonishment
+went up from the assembled thousands.
+
+I turned round coolly—
+
+“Have I lied, O king?”
+
+“Nay, white man, it is the truth,” was the somewhat awed answer.
+
+“Listen, Twala,” I went on. “Thou hast seen. Now know we come in peace,
+not in war. See,” and I held up the Winchester repeater; “here is a
+hollow staff that shall enable thee to kill even as we kill, only I lay
+this charm upon it, thou shalt kill no man with it. If thou liftest it
+against a man, it shall kill thee. Stay, I will show thee. Bid a
+soldier step forty paces and place the shaft of a spear in the ground
+so that the flat blade looks towards us.”
+
+In a few seconds it was done.
+
+“Now, see, I will break yonder spear.”
+
+Taking a careful sight I fired. The bullet struck the flat of the
+spear, and shattered the blade into fragments.
+
+Again the sigh of astonishment went up.
+
+“Now, Twala, we give this magic tube to thee, and by-and-by I will show
+thee how to use it; but beware how thou turnest the magic of the Stars
+against a man of earth,” and I handed him the rifle.
+
+The king took it very gingerly, and laid it down at his feet. As he did
+so I observed the wizened monkey-like figure creeping from the shadow
+of the hut. It crept on all fours, but when it reached the place where
+the king sat it rose upon its feet, and throwing the furry covering
+from its face, revealed a most extraordinary and weird countenance.
+Apparently it was that of a woman of great age so shrunken that in size
+it seemed no larger than the face of a year-old child, although made up
+of a number of deep and yellow wrinkles. Set in these wrinkles was a
+sunken slit, that represented the mouth, beneath which the chin curved
+outwards to a point. There was no nose to speak of; indeed, the visage
+might have been taken for that of a sun-dried corpse had it not been
+for a pair of large black eyes, still full of fire and intelligence,
+which gleamed and played under the snow-white eyebrows, and the
+projecting parchment-coloured skull, like jewels in a charnel-house. As
+for the head itself, it was perfectly bare, and yellow in hue, while
+its wrinkled scalp moved and contracted like the hood of a cobra.
+
+The figure to which this fearful countenance belonged, a countenance so
+fearful indeed that it caused a shiver of fear to pass through us as we
+gazed on it, stood still for a moment. Then suddenly it projected a
+skinny claw armed with nails nearly an inch long, and laying it on the
+shoulder of Twala the king, began to speak in a thin and piercing
+voice—
+
+“Listen, O king! Listen, O warriors! Listen, O mountains and plains and
+rivers, home of the Kukuana race! Listen, O skies and sun, O rain and
+storm and mist! Listen, O men and women, O youths and maidens, and O ye
+babes unborn! Listen, all things that live and must die! Listen, all
+dead things that shall live again—again to die! Listen, the spirit of
+life is in me and I prophesy. I prophesy! I prophesy!”
+
+The words died away in a faint wail, and dread seemed to seize upon the
+hearts of all who heard them, including our own. This old woman was
+very terrible.
+
+“_Blood! blood! blood!_ rivers of blood; blood everywhere. I see it, I
+smell it, I taste it—it is salt! it runs red upon the ground, it rains
+down from the skies.
+
+“_Footsteps! footsteps! footsteps!_ the tread of the white man coming
+from afar. It shakes the earth; the earth trembles before her master.
+
+“Blood is good, the red blood is bright; there is no smell like the
+smell of new-shed blood. The lions shall lap it and roar, the vultures
+shall wash their wings in it and shriek with joy.
+
+“I am old! I am old! I have seen much blood; _ha, ha!_ but I shall see
+more ere I die, and be merry. How old am I, think ye? Your fathers knew
+me, and _their_ fathers knew me, and _their_ fathers’ fathers’ fathers.
+I have seen the white man and know his desires. I am old, but the
+mountains are older than I. Who made the great road, tell me? Who wrote
+the pictures on the rocks, tell me? Who reared up the three Silent Ones
+yonder, that gaze across the pit, tell me?” and she pointed towards the
+three precipitous mountains which we had noticed on the previous night.
+
+“Ye know not, but I know. It was a white people who were before ye are,
+who shall be when ye are not, who shall eat you up and destroy you.
+_Yea! yea! yea!_
+
+“And what came they for, the White Ones, the Terrible Ones, the skilled
+in magic and all learning, the strong, the unswerving? What is that
+bright stone upon thy forehead, O king? Whose hands made the iron
+garments upon thy breast, O king? Ye know not, but I know. I the Old
+One, I the Wise One, I the _Isanusi_, the witch doctress!”
+
+Then she turned her bald vulture-head towards us.
+
+“What seek ye, white men of the Stars—ah, yes, of the Stars? Do ye seek
+a lost one? Ye shall not find him here. He is not here. Never for ages
+upon ages has a white foot pressed this land; never except once, and I
+remember that he left it but to die. Ye come for bright stones; I know
+it—I know it; ye shall find them when the blood is dry; but shall ye
+return whence ye came, or shall ye stop with me? _Ha! ha! ha!_
+
+“And thou, thou with the dark skin and the proud bearing,” and she
+pointed her skinny finger at Umbopa, “who art _thou_, and what seekest
+_thou_? Not stones that shine, not yellow metal that gleams, these thou
+leavest to ‘white men from the Stars.’ Methinks I know thee; methinks I
+can smell the smell of the blood in thy heart. Strip off the girdle—”
+
+Here the features of this extraordinary creature became convulsed, and
+she fell to the ground foaming in an epileptic fit, and was carried
+into the hut.
+
+The king rose up trembling, and waved his hand. Instantly the regiments
+began to file off, and in ten minutes, save for ourselves, the king,
+and a few attendants, the great space was left empty.
+
+“White people,” he said, “it passes in my mind to kill you. Gagool has
+spoken strange words. What say ye?”
+
+I laughed. “Be careful, O king, we are not easy to slay. Thou hast seen
+the fate of the ox; wouldst thou be as the ox is?”
+
+The king frowned. “It is not well to threaten a king.”
+
+“We threaten not, we speak what is true. Try to kill us, O king, and
+learn.”
+
+The great savage put his hand to his forehead and thought.
+
+“Go in peace,” he said at length. “To-night is the great dance. Ye
+shall see it. Fear not that I shall set a snare for you. To-morrow I
+will think.”
+
+“It is well, O king,” I answered unconcernedly, and then, accompanied
+by Infadoos, we rose and went back to our kraal.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+THE WITCH-HUNT
+
+
+On reaching our hut I motioned to Infadoos to enter with us.
+
+“Now, Infadoos,” I said, “we would speak with thee.”
+
+“Let my lords say on.”
+
+“It seems to us, Infadoos, that Twala the king is a cruel man.”
+
+“It is so, my lords. Alas! the land cries out because of his cruelties.
+To-night ye shall see. It is the great witch-hunt, and many will be
+smelt out as wizards and slain. No man’s life is safe. If the king
+covets a man’s cattle, or a man’s wife, or if he fears a man that he
+should excite a rebellion against him, then Gagool, whom ye saw, or
+some of the witch-finding women whom she has taught, will smell that
+man out as a wizard, and he will be killed. Many must die before the
+moon grows pale to-night. It is ever so. Perhaps I too shall be killed.
+As yet I have been spared because I am skilled in war, and am beloved
+by the soldiers; but I know not how long I have to live. The land
+groans at the cruelties of Twala the king; it is wearied of him and his
+red ways.”
+
+“Then why is it, Infadoos, that the people do not cast him down?”
+
+“Nay, my lords, he is the king, and if he were killed Scragga would
+reign in his place, and the heart of Scragga is blacker than the heart
+of Twala his father. If Scragga were king his yoke upon our neck would
+be heavier than the yoke of Twala. If Imotu had never been slain, or if
+Ignosi his son had lived, it might have been otherwise; but they are
+both dead.”
+
+“How knowest thou that Ignosi is dead?” said a voice behind us. We
+looked round astonished to see who spoke. It was Umbopa.
+
+“What meanest thou, boy?” asked Infadoos; “who told thee to speak?”
+
+“Listen, Infadoos,” was the answer, “and I will tell thee a story.
+Years ago the king Imotu was killed in this country and his wife fled
+with the boy Ignosi. Is it not so?”
+
+“It is so.”
+
+“It was said that the woman and her son died upon the mountains. Is it
+not so?”
+
+“It is even so.”
+
+“Well, it came to pass that the mother and the boy Ignosi did not die.
+They crossed the mountains and were led by a tribe of wandering desert
+men across the sands beyond, till at last they came to water and grass
+and trees again.”
+
+“How knowest thou this?”
+
+“Listen. They travelled on and on, many months’ journey, till they
+reached a land where a people called the Amazulu, who also are of the
+Kukuana stock, live by war, and with them they tarried many years, till
+at length the mother died. Then the son Ignosi became a wanderer again,
+and journeyed into a land of wonders, where white people live, and for
+many more years he learned the wisdom of the white people.”
+
+“It is a pretty story,” said Infadoos incredulously.
+
+“For years he lived there working as a servant and a soldier, but
+holding in his heart all that his mother had told him of his own place,
+and casting about in his mind to find how he might journey thither to
+see his people and his father’s house before he died. For long years he
+lived and waited, and at last the time came, as it ever comes to him
+who can wait for it, and he met some white men who would seek this
+unknown land, and joined himself to them. The white men started and
+travelled on and on, seeking for one who is lost. They crossed the
+burning desert, they crossed the snow-clad mountains, and at last
+reached the land of the Kukuanas, and there they found _thee_, O
+Infadoos.”
+
+“Surely thou art mad to talk thus,” said the astonished old soldier.
+
+“Thou thinkest so; see, I will show thee, O my uncle.
+
+“_I am Ignosi, rightful king of the Kukuanas!_”
+
+Then with a single movement Umbopa slipped off his “moocha” or girdle,
+and stood naked before us.
+
+“Look,” he said; “what is this?” and he pointed to the picture of a
+great snake tattooed in blue round his middle, its tail disappearing
+into its open mouth just above where the thighs are set into the body.
+
+Infadoos looked, his eyes starting nearly out of his head. Then he fell
+upon his knees.
+
+“_Koom! Koom!_” he ejaculated; “it is my brother’s son; it is the
+king.”
+
+“Did I not tell thee so, my uncle? Rise; I am not yet the king, but
+with thy help, and with the help of these brave white men, who are my
+friends, I shall be. Yet the old witch Gagool was right, the land shall
+run with blood first, and hers shall run with it, if she has any and
+can die, for she killed my father with her words, and drove my mother
+forth. And now, Infadoos, choose thou. Wilt thou put thy hands between
+my hands and be my man? Wilt thou share the dangers that lie before me,
+and help me to overthrow this tyrant and murderer, or wilt thou not?
+Choose thou.”
+
+The old man put his hand to his head and thought. Then he rose, and
+advancing to where Umbopa, or rather Ignosi, stood, he knelt before
+him, and took his hand.
+
+“Ignosi, rightful king of the Kukuanas, I put my hand between thy
+hands, and am thy man till death. When thou wast a babe I dandled thee
+upon my knees, now shall my old arm strike for thee and freedom.”
+
+“It is well, Infadoos; if I conquer, thou shalt be the greatest man in
+the kingdom after its king. If I fail, thou canst only die, and death
+is not far off from thee. Rise, my uncle.”
+
+“And ye, white men, will ye help me? What have I to offer you! The
+white stones! If I conquer and can find them, ye shall have as many as
+ye can carry hence. Will that suffice you?”
+
+I translated this remark.
+
+“Tell him,” answered Sir Henry, “that he mistakes an Englishman. Wealth
+is good, and if it comes in our way we will take it; but a gentleman
+does not sell himself for wealth. Still, speaking for myself, I say
+this. I have always liked Umbopa, and so far as lies in me I will stand
+by him in this business. It will be very pleasant to me to try to
+square matters with that cruel devil Twala. What do you say, Good, and
+you, Quatermain?”
+
+“Well,” said Good, “to adopt the language of hyperbole, in which all
+these people seem to indulge, you can tell him that a row is surely
+good, and warms the cockles of the heart, and that so far as I am
+concerned I’m his boy. My only stipulation is that he allows me to wear
+trousers.”
+
+I translated the substance of these answers.
+
+“It is well, my friends,” said Ignosi, late Umbopa; “and what sayest
+thou, Macumazahn, art thou also with me, old hunter, cleverer than a
+wounded buffalo?”
+
+I thought awhile and scratched my head.
+
+“Umbopa, or Ignosi,” I said, “I don’t like revolutions. I am a man of
+peace and a bit of a coward”—here Umbopa smiled—“but, on the other
+hand, I stick up for my friends, Ignosi. You have stuck to us and
+played the part of a man, and I will stick by you. But mind you, I am a
+trader, and have to make my living, so I accept your offer about those
+diamonds in case we should ever be in a position to avail ourselves of
+it. Another thing: we came, as you know, to look for Incubu’s (Sir
+Henry’s) lost brother. You must help us to find him.”
+
+“That I will do,” answered Ignosi. “Stay, Infadoos, by the sign of the
+snake about my middle, tell me the truth. Has any white man to thy
+knowledge set his foot within the land?”
+
+“None, O Ignosi.”
+
+“If any white man had been seen or heard of, wouldst thou have known?”
+
+“I should certainly have known.”
+
+“Thou hearest, Incubu,” said Ignosi to Sir Henry; “he has not been
+here.”
+
+“Well, well,” said Sir Henry, with a sigh; “there it is; I suppose that
+he never got so far. Poor fellow, poor fellow! So it has all been for
+nothing. God’s will be done.”
+
+“Now for business,” I put in, anxious to escape from a painful subject.
+“It is very well to be a king by right divine, Ignosi, but how dost
+thou propose to become a king indeed?”
+
+“Nay, I know not. Infadoos, hast thou a plan?”
+
+“Ignosi, Son of the Lightning,” answered his uncle, “to-night is the
+great dance and witch-hunt. Many shall be smelt out and perish, and in
+the hearts of many others there will be grief and anguish and fury
+against the king Twala. When the dance is over, then I will speak to
+some of the great chiefs, who in turn, if I can win them over, will
+speak to their regiments. I shall speak to the chiefs softly at first,
+and bring them to see that thou art indeed the king, and I think that
+by to-morrow’s light thou shalt have twenty thousand spears at thy
+command. And now I must go and think, and hear, and make ready. After
+the dance is done, if I am yet alive, and we are all alive, I will meet
+thee here, and we can talk. At the best there must be war.”
+
+At this moment our conference was interrupted by the cry that
+messengers had come from the king. Advancing to the door of the hut we
+ordered that they should be admitted, and presently three men entered,
+each bearing a shining shirt of chain armour, and a magnificent
+battle-axe.
+
+“The gifts of my lord the king to the white men from the Stars!” said a
+herald who came with them.
+
+“We thank the king,” I answered; “withdraw.”
+
+The men went, and we examined the armour with great interest. It was
+the most wonderful chain work that either of us had ever seen. A whole
+coat fell together so closely that it formed a mass of links scarcely
+too big to be covered with both hands.
+
+“Do you make these things in this country, Infadoos?” I asked; “they
+are very beautiful.”
+
+“Nay, my lord, they came down to us from our forefathers. We know not
+who made them, and there are but few left.[7] None but those of royal
+blood may be clad in them. They are magic coats through which no spear
+can pass, and those who wear them are well-nigh safe in the battle. The
+king is well pleased or much afraid, or he would not have sent these
+garments of steel. Clothe yourselves in them to-night, my lords.”
+
+ [7] In the Soudan swords and coats of mail are still worn by Arabs,
+ whose ancestors must have stripped them from the bodies of
+ Crusaders.—_Editor_.
+
+The remainder of that day we spent quietly, resting and talking over
+the situation, which was sufficiently exciting. At last the sun went
+down, the thousand watch fires glowed out, and through the darkness we
+heard the tramp of many feet and the clashing of hundreds of spears, as
+the regiments passed to their appointed places to be ready for the
+great dance. Then the full moon shone out in splendour, and as we stood
+watching her rays, Infadoos arrived, clad in his war dress, and
+accompanied by a guard of twenty men to escort us to the dance. As he
+recommended, we had already donned the shirts of chain armour which the
+king had sent us, putting them on under our ordinary clothing, and
+finding to our surprise that they were neither very heavy nor
+uncomfortable. These steel shirts, which evidently had been made for
+men of a very large stature, hung somewhat loosely upon Good and
+myself, but Sir Henry’s fitted his magnificent frame like a glove. Then
+strapping our revolvers round our waists, and taking in our hands the
+battle-axes which the king had sent with the armour, we started.
+
+On arriving at the great kraal, where we had that morning been received
+by the king, we found that it was closely packed with some twenty
+thousand men arranged round it in regiments. These regiments were in
+turn divided into companies, and between each company ran a little path
+to allow space for the witch-finders to pass up and down. Anything more
+imposing than the sight that was presented by this vast and orderly
+concourse of armed men it is impossible to conceive. There they stood
+perfectly silent, and the moon poured her light upon the forest of
+their raised spears, upon their majestic forms, waving plumes, and the
+harmonious shading of their various-coloured shields. Wherever we
+looked were line upon line of dim faces surmounted by range upon range
+of shimmering spears.
+
+“Surely,” I said to Infadoos, “the whole army is here?”
+
+“Nay, Macumazahn,” he answered, “but a third of it. One third is
+present at this dance each year, another third is mustered outside in
+case there should be trouble when the killing begins, ten thousand more
+garrison the outposts round Loo, and the rest watch at the kraals in
+the country. Thou seest it is a great people.”
+
+“They are very silent,” said Good; and indeed the intense stillness
+among such a vast concourse of living men was almost overpowering.
+
+“What says Bougwan?” asked Infadoos.
+
+I translated.
+
+“Those over whom the shadow of Death is hovering are silent,” he
+answered grimly.
+
+“Will many be killed?”
+
+“Very many.”
+
+“It seems,” I said to the others, “that we are going to assist at a
+gladiatorial show arranged regardless of expense.”
+
+Sir Henry shivered, and Good said he wished that we could get out of
+it.
+
+“Tell me,” I asked Infadoos, “are we in danger?”
+
+“I know not, my lords, I trust not; but do not seem afraid. If ye live
+through the night all may go well with you. The soldiers murmur against
+the king.”
+
+All this while we had been advancing steadily towards the centre of the
+open space, in the midst of which were placed some stools. As we
+proceeded we perceived another small party coming from the direction of
+the royal hut.
+
+“It is the king Twala, Scragga his son, and Gagool the old; and see,
+with them are those who slay,” said Infadoos, pointing to a little
+group of about a dozen gigantic and savage-looking men, armed with
+spears in one hand and heavy kerries in the other.
+
+The king seated himself upon the centre stool, Gagool crouched at his
+feet, and the others stood behind him.
+
+“Greeting, white lords,” Twala cried, as we came up; “be seated, waste
+not precious time—the night is all too short for the deeds that must be
+done. Ye come in a good hour, and shall see a glorious show. Look
+round, white lords; look round,” and he rolled his one wicked eye from
+regiment to regiment. “Can the Stars show you such a sight as this? See
+how they shake in their wickedness, all those who have evil in their
+hearts and fear the judgment of ‘Heaven above.’”
+
+“_Begin! begin!_” piped Gagool, in her thin piercing voice; “the hyænas
+are hungry, they howl for food. _Begin! begin!_”
+
+Then for a moment there was intense stillness, made horrible by a
+presage of what was to come.
+
+The king lifted his spear, and suddenly twenty thousand feet were
+raised, as though they belonged to one man, and brought down with a
+stamp upon the earth. This was repeated three times, causing the solid
+ground to shake and tremble. Then from a far point of the circle a
+solitary voice began a wailing song, of which the refrain ran something
+as follows:—
+
+“_What is the lot of man born of woman?_”
+
+Back came the answer rolling out from every throat in that vast
+company—
+
+“_Death!_”
+
+Gradually, however, the song was taken up by company after company,
+till the whole armed multitude were singing it, and I could no longer
+follow the words, except in so far as they appeared to represent
+various phases of human passions, fears, and joys. Now it seemed to be
+a love song, now a majestic swelling war chant, and last of all a death
+dirge ending suddenly in one heart-breaking wail that went echoing and
+rolling away in a volume of blood-curdling sound.
+
+Again silence fell upon the place, and again it was broken by the king
+lifting his hand. Instantly we heard a pattering of feet, and from out
+of the masses of warriors strange and awful figures appeared running
+towards us. As they drew near we saw that these were women, most of
+them aged, for their white hair, ornamented with small bladders taken
+from fish, streamed out behind them. Their faces were painted in
+stripes of white and yellow; down their backs hung snake-skins, and
+round their waists rattled circlets of human bones, while each held a
+small forked wand in her shrivelled hand. In all there were ten of
+them. When they arrived in front of us they halted, and one of them,
+pointing with her wand towards the crouching figure of Gagool, cried
+out—
+
+“Mother, old mother, we are here.”
+
+“_Good! good! good!_” answered that aged Iniquity. “Are your eyes keen,
+_Isanusis_ [witch doctresses], ye seers in dark places?”
+
+“Mother, they are keen.”
+
+“_Good! good! good!_ Are your ears open, _Isanusis_, ye who hear words
+that come not from the tongue?”
+
+“Mother, they are open.”
+
+“_Good! good! good!_ Are your senses awake, _Isanusis_—can ye smell
+blood, can ye purge the land of the wicked ones who compass evil
+against the king and against their neighbours? Are ye ready to do the
+justice of ‘Heaven above,’ ye whom I have taught, who have eaten of the
+bread of my wisdom, and drunk of the water of my magic?”
+
+“Mother, we can.”
+
+“Then go! Tarry not, ye vultures; see, the slayers”—pointing to the
+ominous group of executioners behind—“make sharp their spears; the
+white men from afar are hungry to see. _Go!_”
+
+With a wild yell Gagool’s horrid ministers broke away in every
+direction, like fragments from a shell, the dry bones round their
+waists rattling as they ran, and headed for various points of the dense
+human circle. We could not watch them all, so we fixed our eyes upon
+the _Isanusi_ nearest to us. When she came to within a few paces of the
+warriors she halted and began to dance wildly, turning round and round
+with an almost incredible rapidity, and shrieking out sentences such as
+“I smell him, the evil-doer!” “He is near, he who poisoned his mother!”
+“I hear the thoughts of him who thought evil of the king!”
+
+Quicker and quicker she danced, till she lashed herself into such a
+frenzy of excitement that the foam flew in specks from her gnashing
+jaws, till her eyes seemed to start from her head, and her flesh to
+quiver visibly. Suddenly she stopped dead and stiffened all over, like
+a pointer dog when he scents game, and then with outstretched wand she
+began to creep stealthily towards the soldiers before her. It seemed to
+us that as she came their stoicism gave way, and that they shrank from
+her. As for ourselves, we followed her movements with a horrible
+fascination. Presently, still creeping and crouching like a dog, the
+_Isanusi_ was before them. Then she halted and pointed, and again crept
+on a pace or two.
+
+Suddenly the end came. With a shriek she sprang in and touched a tall
+warrior with her forked wand. Instantly two of his comrades, those
+standing immediately next to him, seized the doomed man, each by one
+arm, and advanced with him towards the king.
+
+He did not resist, but we saw that he dragged his limbs as though they
+were paralysed, and that his fingers, from which the spear had fallen,
+were limp like those of a man newly dead.
+
+As he came, two of the villainous executioners stepped forward to meet
+him. Presently they met, and the executioners turned round, looking
+towards the king as though for orders.
+
+“_Kill!_” said the king.
+
+“_Kill!_” squeaked Gagool.
+
+“_Kill!_” re-echoed Scragga, with a hollow chuckle.
+
+Almost before the words were uttered the horrible deed was done. One
+man had driven his spear into the victim’s heart, and to make assurance
+double sure, the other had dashed out his brains with a great club.
+
+“_One_,” counted Twala the king, just like a black Madame Defarge, as
+Good said, and the body was dragged a few paces away and stretched out.
+
+Hardly was the thing done before another poor wretch was brought up,
+like an ox to the slaughter. This time we could see, from the
+leopard-skin cloak which he wore, that the man was a person of rank.
+Again the awful syllables were spoken, and the victim fell dead.
+
+“_Two_,” counted the king.
+
+And so the deadly game went on, till about a hundred bodies were
+stretched in rows behind us. I have heard of the gladiatorial shows of
+the Cæsars, and of the Spanish bull-fights, but I take the liberty of
+doubting if either of them could be half so horrible as this Kukuana
+witch-hunt. Gladiatorial shows and Spanish bull-fights at any rate
+contributed to the public amusement, which certainly was not the case
+here. The most confirmed sensation-monger would fight shy of sensation
+if he knew that it was well on the cards that he would, in his own
+proper person, be the subject of the next “event.”
+
+Once we rose and tried to remonstrate, but were sternly repressed by
+Twala.
+
+“Let the law take its course, white men. These dogs are magicians and
+evil-doers; it is well that they should die,” was the only answer
+vouchsafed to us.
+
+About half-past ten there was a pause. The witch-finders gathered
+themselves together, apparently exhausted with their bloody work, and
+we thought that the performance was done with. But it was not so, for
+presently, to our surprise, the ancient woman, Gagool, rose from her
+crouching position, and supporting herself with a stick, staggered off
+into the open space. It was an extraordinary sight to see this
+frightful vulture-headed old creature, bent nearly double with extreme
+age, gather strength by degrees, until at last she rushed about almost
+as actively as her ill-omened pupils. To and fro she ran, chanting to
+herself, till suddenly she made a dash at a tall man standing in front
+of one of the regiments, and touched him. As she did this a sort of
+groan went up from the regiment which evidently he commanded. But two
+of its officers seized him all the same, and brought him up for
+execution. We learned afterwards that he was a man of great wealth and
+importance, being indeed a cousin of the king.
+
+He was slain, and Twala counted one hundred and three. Then Gagool
+again sprang to and fro, gradually drawing nearer and nearer to
+ourselves.
+
+“Hang me if I don’t believe she is going to try her games on us,”
+ejaculated Good in horror.
+
+“Nonsense!” said Sir Henry.
+
+As for myself, when I saw that old fiend dancing nearer and nearer, my
+heart positively sank into my boots. I glanced behind us at the long
+rows of corpses, and shivered.
+
+Nearer and nearer waltzed Gagool, looking for all the world like an
+animated crooked stick or comma, her horrid eyes gleaming and glowing
+with a most unholy lustre.
+
+Nearer she came, and yet nearer, every creature in that vast assemblage
+watching her movements with intense anxiety. At last she stood still
+and pointed.
+
+“Which is it to be?” asked Sir Henry to himself.
+
+In a moment all doubts were at rest, for the old hag had rushed in and
+touched Umbopa, alias Ignosi, on the shoulder.
+
+“I smell him out,” she shrieked. “Kill him, kill him, he is full of
+evil; kill him, the stranger, before blood flows from him. Slay him, O
+king.”
+
+There was a pause, of which I instantly took advantage.
+
+“O king,” I called out, rising from my seat, “this man is the servant
+of thy guests, he is their dog; whosoever sheds the blood of our dog
+sheds our blood. By the sacred law of hospitality I claim protection
+for him.”
+
+“Gagool, mother of the witch-finders, has smelt him out; he must die,
+white men,” was the sullen answer.
+
+“Nay, he shall not die,” I replied; “he who tries to touch him shall
+die indeed.”
+
+“Seize him!” roared Twala to the executioners; who stood round red to
+the eyes with the blood of their victims.
+
+They advanced towards us, and then hesitated. As for Ignosi, he
+clutched his spear, and raised it as though determined to sell his life
+dearly.
+
+“Stand back, ye dogs!” I shouted, “if ye would see to-morrow’s light.
+Touch one hair of his head and your king dies,” and I covered Twala
+with my revolver. Sir Henry and Good also drew their pistols, Sir Henry
+pointing his at the leading executioner, who was advancing to carry out
+the sentence, and Good taking a deliberate aim at Gagool.
+
+Twala winced perceptibly as my barrel came in a line with his broad
+chest.
+
+“Well,” I said, “what is it to be, Twala?”
+
+Then he spoke.
+
+“Put away your magic tubes,” he said; “ye have adjured me in the name
+of hospitality, and for that reason, but not from fear of what ye can
+do, I spare him. Go in peace.”
+
+“It is well,” I answered unconcernedly; “we are weary of slaughter, and
+would sleep. Is the dance ended?”
+
+“It is ended,” Twala answered sulkily. “Let these dead dogs,” pointing
+to the long rows of corpses, “be flung out to the hyænas and the
+vultures,” and he lifted his spear.
+
+Instantly the regiments began to defile through the kraal gateway in
+perfect silence, a fatigue party only remaining behind to drag away the
+corpses of those who had been sacrificed.
+
+Then we rose also, and making our salaam to his majesty, which he
+hardly deigned to acknowledge, we departed to our huts.
+
+“Well,” said Sir Henry, as we sat down, having first lit a lamp of the
+sort used by the Kukuanas, of which the wick is made from the fibre of
+a species of palm leaf, and the oil from clarified hippopotamus fat,
+“well, I feel uncommonly inclined to be sick.”
+
+“If I had any doubts about helping Umbopa to rebel against that
+infernal blackguard,” put in Good, “they are gone now. It was as much
+as I could do to sit still while that slaughter was going on. I tried
+to keep my eyes shut, but they would open just at the wrong time. I
+wonder where Infadoos is. Umbopa, my friend, you ought to be grateful
+to us; your skin came near to having an air-hole made in it.”
+
+“I am grateful, Bougwan,” was Umbopa’s answer, when I had translated,
+“and I shall not forget. As for Infadoos, he will be here by-and-by. We
+must wait.”
+
+So we lit our pipes and waited.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+WE GIVE A SIGN
+
+
+For a long while—two hours, I should think—we sat there in silence,
+being too much overwhelmed by the recollection of the horrors we had
+seen to talk. At last, just as we were thinking of turning in—for the
+night drew nigh to dawn—we heard a sound of steps. Then came the
+challenge of a sentry posted at the kraal gate, which apparently was
+answered, though not in an audible tone, for the steps still advanced;
+and in another second Infadoos had entered the hut, followed by some
+half-dozen stately-looking chiefs.
+
+“My lords,” he said, “I have come according to my word. My lords and
+Ignosi, rightful king of the Kukuanas, I have brought with me these
+men,” pointing to the row of chiefs, “who are great men among us,
+having each one of them the command of three thousand soldiers, that
+live but to do their bidding, under the king’s. I have told them of
+what I have seen, and what my ears have heard. Now let them also behold
+the sacred snake around thee, and hear thy story, Ignosi, that they may
+say whether or no they will make cause with thee against Twala the
+king.”
+
+By way of answer Ignosi again stripped off his girdle, and exhibited
+the snake tattooed about him. Each chief in turn drew near and examined
+the sign by the dim light of the lamp, and without saying a word passed
+on to the other side.
+
+Then Ignosi resumed his moocha, and addressing them, repeated the
+history he had detailed in the morning.
+
+“Now ye have heard, chiefs,” said Infadoos, when he had done, “what say
+ye: will ye stand by this man and help him to his father’s throne, or
+will ye not? The land cries out against Twala, and the blood of the
+people flows like the waters in spring. Ye have seen to-night. Two
+other chiefs there were with whom I had it in my mind to speak, and
+where are they now? The hyænas howl over their corpses. Soon shall ye
+be as they are if ye strike not. Choose then, my brothers.”
+
+The eldest of the six men, a short, thick-set warrior, with white hair,
+stepped forward a pace and answered—
+
+“Thy words are true, Infadoos; the land cries out. My own brother is
+among those who died to-night; but this is a great matter, and the
+thing is hard to believe. How know we that if we lift our spears it may
+not be for a thief and a liar? It is a great matter, I say, of which
+none can see the end. For of this be sure, blood will flow in rivers
+before the deed is done; many will still cleave to the king, for men
+worship the sun that still shines bright in the heavens, rather than
+that which has not risen. These white men from the Stars, their magic
+is great, and Ignosi is under the cover of their wing. If he be indeed
+the rightful king, let them give us a sign, and let the people have a
+sign, that all may see. So shall men cleave to us, knowing of a truth
+that the white man’s magic is with them.”
+
+“Ye have the sign of the snake,” I answered.
+
+“My lord, it is not enough. The snake may have been placed there since
+the man’s childhood. Show us a sign, and it will suffice. But we will
+not move without a sign.”
+
+The others gave a decided assent, and I turned in perplexity to Sir
+Henry and Good, and explained the situation.
+
+“I think that I have it,” said Good exultingly; “ask them to give us a
+moment to think.”
+
+I did so, and the chiefs withdrew. So soon as they had gone Good went
+to the little box where he kept his medicines, unlocked it, and took
+out a note-book, in the fly-leaves of which was an almanack. “Now look
+here, you fellows, isn’t to-morrow the 4th of June?” he said.
+
+We had kept a careful note of the days, so were able to answer that it
+was.
+
+“Very good; then here we have it—‘4 June, total eclipse of the moon
+commences at 8.15 Greenwich time, visible in Teneriffe—_South Africa_,
+&c.’ There’s a sign for you. Tell them we will darken the moon
+to-morrow night.”
+
+The idea was a splendid one; indeed, the only weak spot about it was a
+fear lest Good’s almanack might be incorrect. If we made a false
+prophecy on such a subject, our prestige would be gone for ever, and so
+would Ignosi’s chance of the throne of the Kukuanas.
+
+“Suppose that the almanack is wrong,” suggested Sir Henry to Good, who
+was busily employed in working out something on a blank page of the
+book.
+
+“I see no reason to suppose anything of the sort,” was his answer.
+“Eclipses always come up to time; at least that is my experience of
+them, and it especially states that this one will be visible in South
+Africa. I have worked out the reckonings as well as I can, without
+knowing our exact position; and I make out that the eclipse should
+begin here about ten o’clock tomorrow night, and last till half-past
+twelve. For an hour and a half or so there should be almost total
+darkness.”
+
+“Well,” said Sir Henry, “I suppose we had better risk it.”
+
+I acquiesced, though doubtfully, for eclipses are queer cattle to deal
+with—it might be a cloudy night, for instance, or our dates might be
+wrong—and sent Umbopa to summon the chiefs back. Presently they came,
+and I addressed them thus—
+
+“Great men of the Kukuanas, and thou, Infadoos, listen. We love not to
+show our powers, for to do so is to interfere with the course of
+nature, and to plunge the world into fear and confusion. But since this
+matter is a great one, and as we are angered against the king because
+of the slaughter we have seen, and because of the act of the _Isanusi_
+Gagool, who would have put our friend Ignosi to death, we have
+determined to break a rule, and to give such a sign as all men may see.
+Come hither”; and I led them to the door of the hut and pointed to the
+red ball of the moon. “What see ye there?”
+
+“We see the sinking moon,” answered the spokesman of the party.
+
+“It is so. Now tell me, can any mortal man put out that moon before her
+hour of setting, and bring the curtain of black night down upon the
+land?”
+
+The chief laughed a little at the question. “No, my lord, that no man
+can do. The moon is stronger than man who looks on her, nor can she
+vary in her courses.”
+
+“Ye say so. Yet I tell you that to-morrow night, about two hours before
+midnight, we will cause the moon to be eaten up for a space of an hour
+and half an hour. Yes, deep darkness shall cover the earth, and it
+shall be for a sign that Ignosi is indeed king of the Kukuanas. If we
+do this thing, will ye be satisfied?”
+
+“Yea, my lords,” answered the old chief with a smile, which was
+reflected on the faces of his companions; “_if_ ye do this thing, we
+will be satisfied indeed.”
+
+“It shall be done; we three, Incubu, Bougwan, and Macumazahn, have said
+it, and it shall be done. Dost thou hear, Infadoos?”
+
+“I hear, my lord, but it is a wonderful thing that ye promise, to put
+out the moon, the mother of the world, when she is at her full.”
+
+“Yet shall we do it, Infadoos.”
+
+“It is well, my lords. To-day, two hours after sunset, Twala will send
+for my lords to witness the girls dance, and one hour after the dance
+begins the girl whom Twala thinks the fairest shall be killed by
+Scragga, the king’s son, as a sacrifice to the Silent Ones, who sit and
+keep watch by the mountains yonder,” and he pointed towards the three
+strange-looking peaks where Solomon’s road was supposed to end. “Then
+let my lords darken the moon, and save the maiden’s life, and the
+people will believe indeed.”
+
+“Ay,” said the old chief, still smiling a little, “the people will
+believe indeed.”
+
+“Two miles from Loo,” went on Infadoos, “there is a hill curved like a
+new moon, a stronghold, where my regiment, and three other regiments
+which these chiefs command, are stationed. This morning we will make a
+plan whereby two or three other regiments may be moved there also.
+Then, if in truth my lords can darken the moon, in the darkness I will
+take my lords by the hand and lead them out of Loo to this place, where
+they shall be safe, and thence we can make war upon Twala the king.”
+
+“It is good,” said I. “Now leave us to sleep awhile and to make ready
+our magic.”
+
+Infadoos rose, and, having saluted us, departed with the chiefs.
+
+“My friends,” said Ignosi, so soon as they were gone, “can ye do this
+wonderful thing, or were ye speaking empty words to the captains?”
+
+“We believe that we can do it, Umbopa—Ignosi, I mean.”
+
+“It is strange,” he answered, “and had ye not been Englishmen I would
+not have believed it; but I have learned that English ‘gentlemen’ tell
+no lies. If we live through the matter, be sure that I will repay you.”
+
+“Ignosi,” said Sir Henry, “promise me one thing.”
+
+“I will promise, Incubu, my friend, even before I hear it,” answered
+the big man with a smile. “What is it?”
+
+“This: that if ever you come to be king of this people you will do away
+with the smelling out of wizards such as we saw last night; and that
+the killing of men without trial shall no longer take place in the
+land.”
+
+Ignosi thought for a moment after I had translated this request, and
+then answered—
+
+“The ways of black people are not as the ways of white men, Incubu, nor
+do we value life so highly. Yet I will promise. If it be in my power to
+hold them back, the witch-finders shall hunt no more, nor shall any man
+die the death without trial or judgment.”
+
+“That’s a bargain, then,” said Sir Henry; “and now let us get a little
+rest.”
+
+Thoroughly wearied out, we were soon sound asleep, and slept till
+Ignosi woke us about eleven o’clock. Then we rose, washed, and ate a
+hearty breakfast. After that we went outside the hut and walked about,
+amusing ourselves with examining the structure of the Kukuana huts and
+observing the customs of the women.
+
+“I hope that eclipse will come off,” said Sir Henry presently.
+
+“If it does not it will soon be all up with us,” I answered mournfully;
+“for so sure as we are living men some of those chiefs will tell the
+whole story to the king, and then there will be another sort of
+eclipse, and one that we shall certainly not like.”
+
+Returning to the hut we ate some dinner, and passed the rest of the day
+in receiving visits of ceremony and curiosity. At length the sun set,
+and we enjoyed a couple of hours of such quiet as our melancholy
+forebodings would allow to us. Finally, about half-past eight, a
+messenger came from Twala to bid us to the great annual “dance of
+girls” which was about to be celebrated.
+
+Hastily we put on the chain shirts that the king had sent us, and
+taking our rifles and ammunition with us, so as to have them handy in
+case we had to fly, as suggested by Infadoos, we started boldly enough,
+though with inward fear and trembling. The great space in front of the
+king’s kraal bore a very different appearance from that which it had
+presented on the previous evening. In place of the grim ranks of
+serried warriors were company after company of Kukuana girls, not
+over-dressed, so far as clothing went, but each crowned with a wreath
+of flowers, and holding a palm leaf in one hand and a white arum lily
+in the other. In the centre of the open moonlit space sat Twala the
+king, with old Gagool at his feet, attended by Infadoos, the boy
+Scragga, and twelve guards. There were also present about a score of
+chiefs, amongst whom I recognised most of our friends of the night
+before.
+
+Twala greeted us with much apparent cordiality, though I saw him fix
+his one eye viciously on Umbopa.
+
+“Welcome, white men from the Stars,” he said; “this is another sight
+from that which your eyes gazed on by the light of last night’s moon,
+but it is not so good a sight. Girls are pleasant, and were it not for
+such as these,” and he pointed round him, “we should none of us be here
+this day; but men are better. Kisses and the tender words of women are
+sweet, but the sound of the clashing of the spears of warriors, and the
+smell of men’s blood, are sweeter far! Would ye have wives from among
+our people, white men? If so, choose the fairest here, and ye shall
+have them, as many as ye will,” and he paused for an answer.
+
+As the prospect did not seem to be without attractions for Good, who,
+like most sailors, is of a susceptible nature,—being elderly and wise,
+foreseeing the endless complications that anything of the sort would
+involve, for women bring trouble so surely as the night follows the
+day, I put in a hasty answer—
+
+“Thanks to thee, O king, but we white men wed only with white women
+like ourselves. Your maidens are fair, but they are not for us!”
+
+The king laughed. “It is well. In our land there is a proverb which
+runs, ‘Women’s eyes are always bright, whatever the colour,’ and
+another that says, ‘Love her who is present, for be sure she who is
+absent is false to thee;’ but perhaps these things are not so in the
+Stars. In a land where men are white all things are possible. So be it,
+white men; the girls will not go begging! Welcome again; and welcome,
+too, thou black one; if Gagool here had won her way, thou wouldst have
+been stiff and cold by now. It is lucky for thee that thou too camest
+from the Stars; ha! ha!”
+
+“I can kill thee before thou killest me, O king,” was Ignosi’s calm
+answer, “and thou shalt be stiff before my limbs cease to bend.”
+
+Twala started. “Thou speakest boldly, boy,” he replied angrily;
+“presume not too far.”
+
+“He may well be bold in whose lips are truth. The truth is a sharp
+spear which flies home and misses not. It is a message from ‘the
+Stars,’ O king.”
+
+Twala scowled, and his one eye gleamed fiercely, but he said nothing
+more.
+
+“Let the dance begin,” he cried, and then the flower-crowned girls
+sprang forward in companies, singing a sweet song and waving the
+delicate palms and white lilies. On they danced, looking faint and
+spiritual in the soft, sad light of the risen moon; now whirling round
+and round, now meeting in mimic warfare, swaying, eddying here and
+there, coming forward, falling back in an ordered confusion delightful
+to witness. At last they paused, and a beautiful young woman sprang out
+of the ranks and began to pirouette in front of us with a grace and
+vigour which would have put most ballet girls to shame. At length she
+retired exhausted, and another took her place, then another and
+another, but none of them, either in grace, skill, or personal
+attractions, came up to the first.
+
+When the chosen girls had all danced, the king lifted his hand.
+
+“Which deem ye the fairest, white men?” he asked.
+
+“The first,” said I unthinkingly. Next second I regretted it, for I
+remembered that Infadoos had told us that the fairest woman must be
+offered up as a sacrifice.
+
+“Then is my mind as your minds, and my eyes as your eyes. She is the
+fairest! and a sorry thing it is for her, for she must die!”
+
+“_Ay, must die!_” piped out Gagool, casting a glance of her quick eyes
+in the direction of the poor girl, who, as yet ignorant of the awful
+fate in store for her, was standing some ten yards off in front of a
+company of maidens, engaged in nervously picking a flower from her
+wreath to pieces, petal by petal.
+
+“Why, O king?” said I, restraining my indignation with difficulty; “the
+girl has danced well, and pleased us; she is fair too; it would be hard
+to reward her with death.”
+
+Twala laughed as he answered—
+
+“It is our custom, and the figures who sit in stone yonder,” and he
+pointed towards the three distant peaks, “must have their due. Did I
+fail to put the fairest girl to death to-day, misfortune would fall
+upon me and my house. Thus runs the prophecy of my people: ‘If the king
+offer not a sacrifice of a fair girl, on the day of the dance of
+maidens, to the Old Ones who sit and watch on the mountains, then shall
+he fall, and his house.’ Look ye, white men, my brother who reigned
+before me offered not the sacrifice, because of the tears of the woman,
+and he fell, and his house, and I reign in his stead. It is finished;
+she must die!” Then turning to the guards—“Bring her hither; Scragga,
+make sharp thy spear.”
+
+Two of the men stepped forward, and as they advanced, the girl, for the
+first time realising her impending fate, screamed aloud and turned to
+fly. But the strong hands caught her fast, and brought her, struggling
+and weeping, before us.
+
+“What is thy name, girl?” piped Gagool. “What! wilt thou not answer?
+Shall the king’s son do his work at once?”
+
+At this hint, Scragga, looking more evil than ever, advanced a step and
+lifted his great spear, and at that moment I saw Good’s hand creep to
+his revolver. The poor girl caught the faint glint of steel through her
+tears, and it sobered her anguish. She ceased struggling, and clasping
+her hands convulsively, stood shuddering from head to foot.
+
+“See,” cried Scragga in high glee, “she shrinks from the sight of my
+little plaything even before she has tasted it,” and he tapped the
+broad blade of his spear.
+
+“If ever I get the chance you shall pay for that, you young hound!” I
+heard Good mutter beneath his breath.
+
+“Now that thou art quiet, give us thy name, my dear. Come, speak out,
+and fear not,” said Gagool in mockery.
+
+“Oh, mother,” answered the girl, in trembling accents, “my name is
+Foulata, of the house of Suko. Oh, mother, why must I die? I have done
+no wrong!”
+
+“Be comforted,” went on the old woman in her hateful tone of mockery.
+“Thou must die, indeed, as a sacrifice to the Old Ones who sit yonder,”
+and she pointed to the peaks; “but it is better to sleep in the night
+than to toil in the daytime; it is better to die than to live, and thou
+shalt die by the royal hand of the king’s own son.”
+
+The girl Foulata wrung her hands in anguish, and cried out aloud, “Oh,
+cruel! and I so young! What have I done that I should never again see
+the sun rise out of the night, or the stars come following on his track
+in the evening, that I may no more gather the flowers when the dew is
+heavy, or listen to the laughing of the waters? Woe is me, that I shall
+never see my father’s hut again, nor feel my mother’s kiss, nor tend
+the lamb that is sick! Woe is me, that no lover shall put his arm
+around me and look into my eyes, nor shall men children be born of me!
+Oh, cruel, cruel!”
+
+And again she wrung her hands and turned her tear-stained
+flower-crowned face to Heaven, looking so lovely in her despair—for she
+was indeed a beautiful woman—that assuredly the sight of her would have
+melted the hearts of any less cruel than were the three fiends before
+us. Prince Arthur’s appeal to the ruffians who came to blind him was
+not more touching than that of this savage girl.
+
+But it did not move Gagool or Gagool’s master, though I saw signs of
+pity among the guards behind, and on the faces of the chiefs; and as
+for Good, he gave a fierce snort of indignation, and made a motion as
+though to go to her assistance. With all a woman’s quickness, the
+doomed girl interpreted what was passing in his mind, and by a sudden
+movement flung herself before him, and clasped his “beautiful white
+legs” with her hands.
+
+“Oh, white father from the Stars!” she cried, “throw over me the mantle
+of thy protection; let me creep into the shadow of thy strength, that I
+may be saved. Oh, keep me from these cruel men and from the mercies of
+Gagool!”
+
+“All right, my hearty, I’ll look after you,” sang out Good in nervous
+Saxon. “Come, get up, there’s a good girl,” and he stooped and caught
+her hand.
+
+Twala turned and motioned to his son, who advanced with his spear
+lifted.
+
+“Now’s your time,” whispered Sir Henry to me; “what are you waiting
+for?”
+
+“I am waiting for that eclipse,” I answered; “I have had my eye on the
+moon for the last half-hour, and I never saw it look healthier.”
+
+“Well, you must risk it now, or the girl will be killed. Twala is
+losing patience.”
+
+Recognising the force of the argument, and having cast one more
+despairing look at the bright face of the moon, for never did the most
+ardent astronomer with a theory to prove await a celestial event with
+such anxiety, I stepped with all the dignity that I could command
+between the prostrate girl and the advancing spear of Scragga.
+
+“King,” I said, “it shall not be; we will not endure this thing; let
+the girl go in safety.”
+
+Twala rose from his seat in wrath and astonishment, and from the chiefs
+and serried ranks of maidens who had closed in slowly upon us in
+anticipation of the tragedy came a murmur of amazement.
+
+“_Shall not be!_ thou white dog, that yappest at the lion in his cave;
+_shall not be!_ art thou mad? Be careful, lest this chicken’s fate
+overtake thee, and those with thee. How canst thou save her or thyself?
+Who art thou that thou settest thyself between me and my will? Back, I
+say. Scragga, kill her! Ho, guards! seize these men.”
+
+At his cry armed men ran swiftly from behind the hut, where they had
+evidently been placed beforehand.
+
+Sir Henry, Good, and Umbopa ranged themselves alongside of me, and
+lifted their rifles.
+
+“Stop!” I shouted boldly, though at the moment my heart was in my
+boots. “Stop! we, the white men from the Stars, say that it shall not
+be. Come but one pace nearer, and we will put out the moon like a
+wind-blown lamp, as we who dwell in her House can do, and plunge the
+land in darkness. Dare to disobey, and ye shall taste of our magic.”
+
+My threat produced an effect; the men halted, and Scragga stood still
+before us, his spear lifted.
+
+“Hear him! hear him!” piped Gagool; “hear the liar who says that he
+will put out the moon like a lamp. Let him do it, and the girl shall be
+spared. Yes, let him do it, or die by the girl, he and those with him.”
+
+I glanced up at the moon despairingly, and now to my intense joy and
+relief saw that we—or rather the almanack—had made no mistake. On the
+edge of the great orb lay a faint rim of shadow, while a smoky hue grew
+and gathered upon its bright surface. Never shall I forget that
+supreme, that superb moment of relief.
+
+Then I lifted my hand solemnly towards the sky, an example which Sir
+Henry and Good followed, and quoted a line or two from the “Ingoldsby
+Legends” at it in the most impressive tones that I could command. Sir
+Henry followed suit with a verse out of the Old Testament, and
+something about Balbus building a wall, in Latin, whilst Good addressed
+the Queen of Night in a volume of the most classical bad language which
+he could think of.
+
+Slowly the penumbra, the shadow of a shadow, crept on over the bright
+surface, and as it crept I heard deep gasps of fear rising from the
+multitude around.
+
+“Look, O king!” I cried; “look, Gagool! Look, chiefs and people and
+women, and see if the white men from the Stars keep their word, or if
+they be but empty liars!
+
+“The moon grows black before your eyes; soon there will be darkness—ay,
+darkness in the hour of the full moon. Ye have asked for a sign; it is
+given to you. Grow dark, O Moon! withdraw thy light, thou pure and holy
+One; bring the proud heart of usurping murderers to the dust, and eat
+up the world with shadows.”
+
+A groan of terror burst from the onlookers. Some stood petrified with
+dread, others threw themselves upon their knees and cried aloud. As for
+the king, he sat still and turned pale beneath his dusky skin. Only
+Gagool kept her courage.
+
+“It will pass,” she cried; “I have often seen the like before; no man
+can put out the moon; lose not heart; sit still—the shadow will pass.”
+
+“Wait, and ye shall see,” I replied, hopping with excitement. “O Moon!
+Moon! Moon! wherefore art thou so cold and fickle?” This appropriate
+quotation was from the pages of a popular romance that I chanced to
+have read recently, though now I come to think of it, it was ungrateful
+of me to abuse the Lady of the Heavens, who was showing herself to be
+the truest of friends to us, however she may have behaved to the
+impassioned lover in the novel. Then I added: “Keep it up, Good, I
+can’t remember any more poetry. Curse away, there’s a good fellow.”
+
+Good responded nobly to this tax upon his inventive faculties. Never
+before had I the faintest conception of the breadth and depth and
+height of a naval officer’s objurgatory powers. For ten minutes he went
+on in several languages without stopping, and he scarcely ever repeated
+himself.
+
+Meanwhile the dark ring crept on, while all that great assembly fixed
+their eyes upon the sky and stared and stared in fascinated silence.
+Strange and unholy shadows encroached upon the moonlight, an ominous
+quiet filled the place. Everything grew still as death. Slowly and in
+the midst of this most solemn silence the minutes sped away, and while
+they sped the full moon passed deeper and deeper into the shadow of the
+earth, as the inky segment of its circle slid in awful majesty across
+the lunar craters. The great pale orb seemed to draw near and to grow
+in size. She turned a coppery hue, then that portion of her surface
+which was unobscured as yet grew grey and ashen, and at length, as
+totality approached, her mountains and her plains were to be seen
+glowing luridly through a crimson gloom.
+
+On, yet on, crept the ring of darkness; it was now more than half
+across the blood-red orb. The air grew thick, and still more deeply
+tinged with dusky crimson. On, yet on, till we could scarcely see the
+fierce faces of the group before us. No sound rose now from the
+spectators, and at last Good stopped swearing.
+
+“The moon is dying—the white wizards have killed the moon,” yelled the
+prince Scragga at last. “We shall all perish in the dark,” and animated
+by fear or fury, or by both, he lifted his spear and drove it with all
+his force at Sir Henry’s breast. But he forgot the mail shirts that the
+king had given us, and which we wore beneath our clothing. The steel
+rebounded harmless, and before he could repeat the blow Curtis had
+snatched the spear from his hand and sent it straight through him.
+
+Scragga dropped dead.
+
+At the sight, and driven mad with fear of the gathering darkness, and
+of the unholy shadow which, as they believed, was swallowing the moon,
+the companies of girls broke up in wild confusion, and ran screeching
+for the gateways. Nor did the panic stop there. The king himself,
+followed by his guards, some of the chiefs, and Gagool, who hobbled
+away after them with marvellous alacrity, fled for the huts, so that in
+another minute we ourselves, the would-be victim Foulata, Infadoos, and
+most of the chiefs who had interviewed us on the previous night, were
+left alone upon the scene, together with the dead body of Scragga,
+Twala’s son.
+
+“Chiefs,” I said, “we have given you the sign. If ye are satisfied, let
+us fly swiftly to the place of which ye spoke. The charm cannot now be
+stopped. It will work for an hour and the half of an hour. Let us cover
+ourselves in the darkness.”
+
+“Come,” said Infadoos, turning to go, an example which was followed by
+the awed captains, ourselves, and the girl Foulata, whom Good took by
+the arm.
+
+Before we reached the gate of the kraal the moon went out utterly, and
+from every quarter of the firmament the stars rushed forth into the
+inky sky.
+
+Holding each other by the hand we stumbled on through the darkness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+BEFORE THE BATTLE
+
+
+Luckily for us, Infadoos and the chiefs knew all the paths of the great
+town perfectly, so that we passed by side-ways unmolested, and
+notwithstanding the gloom we made fair progress.
+
+For an hour or more we journeyed on, till at length the eclipse began
+to pass, and that edge of the moon which had disappeared the first
+became again visible. Suddenly, as we watched, there burst from it a
+silver streak of light, accompanied by a wondrous ruddy glow, which
+hung upon the blackness of the sky like a celestial lamp, and a wild
+and lovely sight it was. In another five minutes the stars began to
+fade, and there was sufficient light to see our whereabouts. We then
+discovered that we were clear of the town of Loo, and approaching a
+large flat-topped hill, measuring some two miles in circumference. This
+hill, which is of a formation common in South Africa, is not very high;
+indeed, its greatest elevation is scarcely more than 200 feet, but it
+is shaped like a horseshoe, and its sides are rather precipitous and
+strewn with boulders. On the grass table-land at its summit is ample
+camping-ground, which had been utilised as a military cantonment of no
+mean strength. Its ordinary garrison was one regiment of three thousand
+men, but as we toiled up the steep side of the mountain in the
+returning moonlight we perceived that there were several of such
+regiments encamped there.
+
+Reaching the table-land at last, we found crowds of men roused from
+their sleep, shivering with fear and huddled up together in the utmost
+consternation at the natural phenomenon which they were witnessing.
+Passing through these without a word, we gained a hut in the centre of
+the ground, where we were astonished to find two men waiting, laden
+with our few goods and chattels, which of course we had been obliged to
+leave behind in our hasty flight.
+
+“I sent for them,” explained Infadoos; “and also for these,” and he
+lifted up Good’s long-lost trousers.
+
+With an exclamation of rapturous delight Good sprang at them, and
+instantly proceeded to put them on.
+
+“Surely my lord will not hide his beautiful white legs!” exclaimed
+Infadoos regretfully.
+
+But Good persisted, and once only did the Kukuana people get the chance
+of seeing his beautiful legs again. Good is a very modest man.
+Henceforward they had to satisfy their æsthetic longings with his one
+whisker, his transparent eye, and his movable teeth.
+
+Still gazing with fond remembrance at Good’s trousers, Infadoos next
+informed us that he had commanded the regiments to muster so soon as
+the day broke, in order to explain to them fully the origin and
+circumstances of the rebellion which was decided on by the chiefs, and
+to introduce to them the rightful heir to the throne, Ignosi.
+
+Accordingly, when the sun was up, the troops—in all some twenty
+thousand men, and the flower of the Kukuana army—were mustered on a
+large open space, to which we went. The men were drawn up in three
+sides of a dense square, and presented a magnificent spectacle. We took
+our station on the open side of the square, and were speedily
+surrounded by all the principal chiefs and officers.
+
+These, after silence had been proclaimed, Infadoos proceeded to
+address. He narrated to them in vigorous and graceful language—for,
+like most Kukuanas of high rank, he was a born orator—the history of
+Ignosi’s father, and of how he had been basely murdered by Twala the
+king, and his wife and child driven out to starve. Then he pointed out
+that the people suffered and groaned under Twala’s cruel rule,
+instancing the proceedings of the previous night, when, under pretence
+of their being evil-doers, many of the noblest in the land had been
+dragged forth and wickedly done to death. Next he went on to say that
+the white lords from the Stars, looking down upon their country, had
+perceived its trouble, and determined, at great personal inconvenience,
+to alleviate its lot: That they had accordingly taken the real king of
+the Kukuanas, Ignosi, who was languishing in exile, by the hand, and
+led him over the mountains: That they had seen the wickedness of
+Twala’s doings, and for a sign to the wavering, and to save the life of
+the girl Foulata, actually, by the exercise of their high magic, had
+put out the moon and slain the young fiend Scragga; and that they were
+prepared to stand by them, and assist them to overthrow Twala, and set
+up the rightful king, Ignosi, in his place.
+
+He finished his discourse amidst a murmur of approbation. Then Ignosi
+stepped forward and began to speak. Having reiterated all that Infadoos
+his uncle had said, he concluded a powerful speech in these words:—
+
+“O chiefs, captains, soldiers, and people, ye have heard my words. Now
+must ye make choice between me and him who sits upon my throne, the
+uncle who killed his brother, and hunted his brother’s child forth to
+die in the cold and the night. That I am indeed the king
+these”—pointing to the chiefs—“can tell you, for they have seen the
+snake about my middle. If I were not the king, would these white men be
+on my side with all their magic? Tremble, chiefs, captains, soldiers,
+and people! Is not the darkness they have brought upon the land to
+confound Twala and cover our flight, darkness even in the hour of the
+full moon, yet before your eyes?”
+
+“It is,” answered the soldiers.
+
+“I am the king; I say to you, I am the king,” went on Ignosi, drawing
+up his great stature to its full, and lifting his broad-bladed
+battle-axe above his head. “If there be any man among you who says that
+it is not so, let him stand forth and I will fight him now, and his
+blood shall be a red token that I tell you true. Let him stand forth, I
+say;” and he shook the great axe till it flashed in the sunlight.
+
+As nobody seemed inclined to respond to this heroic version of “Dilly,
+Dilly, come and be killed,” our late henchman proceeded with his
+address.
+
+“I am indeed the king, and should ye stand by my side in the battle, if
+I win the day ye shall go with me to victory and honour. I will give
+you oxen and wives, and ye shall take place of all the regiments; and
+if ye fall, I will fall with you.
+
+“And behold, I give you this promise, that when I sit upon the seat of
+my fathers, bloodshed shall cease in the land. No longer shall ye cry
+for justice to find slaughter, no longer shall the witch-finder hunt
+you out so that ye may be slain without a cause. No man shall die save
+he who offends against the laws. The ‘eating up’ of your kraals shall
+cease; each one of you shall sleep secure in his own hut and fear
+naught, and justice shall walk blindfold throughout the land. Have ye
+chosen, chiefs, captains, soldiers, and people?”
+
+“We have chosen, O king,” came back the answer.
+
+“It is well. Turn your heads and see how Twala’s messengers go forth
+from the great town, east and west, and north and south, to gather a
+mighty army to slay me and you, and these my friends and protectors.
+To-morrow, or perchance the next day, he will come against us with all
+who are faithful to him. Then I shall see the man who is indeed my man,
+the man who fears not to die for his cause; and I tell you that he
+shall not be forgotten in the time of spoil. I have spoken, O chiefs,
+captains, soldiers, and people. Now go to your huts and make you ready
+for war.”
+
+There was a pause, till presently one of the chiefs lifted his hand,
+and out rolled the royal salute, “_Koom._” It was a sign that the
+soldiers accepted Ignosi as their king. Then they marched off in
+battalions.
+
+Half an hour afterwards we held a council of war, at which all the
+commanders of regiments were present. It was evident to us that before
+very long we should be attacked in overwhelming force. Indeed, from our
+point of vantage on the hill we could see troops mustering, and runners
+going forth from Loo in every direction, doubtless to summon soldiers
+to the king’s assistance. We had on our side about twenty thousand men,
+composed of seven of the best regiments in the country. Twala, so
+Infadoos and the chiefs calculated, had at least thirty to thirty-five
+thousand on whom he could rely at present assembled in Loo, and they
+thought that by midday on the morrow he would be able to gather another
+five thousand or more to his aid. It was, of course, possible that some
+of his troops would desert and come over to us, but it was not a
+contingency which could be reckoned on. Meanwhile, it was clear that
+active preparations were being made by Twala to subdue us. Already
+strong bodies of armed men were patrolling round and round the foot of
+the hill, and there were other signs also of coming assault.
+
+Infadoos and the chiefs, however, were of opinion that no attack would
+take place that day, which would be devoted to preparation and to the
+removal of every available means of the moral effect produced upon the
+minds of the soldiery by the supposed magical darkening of the moon.
+The onslaught would be on the morrow, they said, and they proved to be
+right.
+
+Meanwhile, we set to work to strengthen the position in all ways
+possible. Almost every man was turned out, and in the course of the
+day, which seemed far too short, much was done. The paths up the
+hill—that was rather a sanatorium than a fortress, being used generally
+as the camping place of regiments suffering from recent service in
+unhealthy portions of the country—were carefully blocked with masses of
+stones, and every other approach was made as impregnable as time would
+allow. Piles of boulders were collected at various spots to be rolled
+down upon an advancing enemy, stations were appointed to the different
+regiments, and all preparation was made which our joint ingenuity could
+suggest.
+
+Just before sundown, as we rested after our toil, we perceived a small
+company of men advancing towards us from the direction of Loo, one of
+whom bore a palm leaf in his hand for a sign that he came as a herald.
+
+As he drew near, Ignosi, Infadoos, one or two chiefs and ourselves,
+went down to the foot of the mountain to meet him. He was a
+gallant-looking fellow, wearing the regulation leopard-skin cloak.
+
+“Greeting!” he cried, as he came; “the king’s greeting to those who
+make unholy war against the king; the lion’s greeting to the jackals
+that snarl around his heels.”
+
+“Speak,” I said.
+
+“These are the king’s words. Surrender to the king’s mercy ere a worse
+thing befall you. Already the shoulder has been torn from the black
+bull, and the king drives him bleeding about the camp.”[8]
+
+ [8] This cruel custom is not confined to the Kukuanas, but is by no
+ means uncommon amongst African tribes on the occasion of the outbreak
+ of war or any other important public event.—A.Q.
+
+“What are Twala’s terms?” I asked from curiosity.
+
+“His terms are merciful, worthy of a great king. These are the words of
+Twala, the one-eyed, the mighty, the husband of a thousand wives, lord
+of the Kukuanas, keeper of the Great Road (Solomon’s Road), beloved of
+the Strange Ones who sit in silence at the mountains yonder (the Three
+Witches), Calf of the Black Cow, Elephant whose tread shakes the earth,
+Terror of the evil-doer, Ostrich whose feet devour the desert, huge
+One, black One, wise One, king from generation to generation! these are
+the words of Twala: ‘I will have mercy and be satisfied with a little
+blood. One in every ten shall die, the rest shall go free; but the
+white man Incubu, who slew Scragga my son, and the black man his
+servant, who pretends to my throne, and Infadoos my brother, who brews
+rebellion against me, these shall die by torture as an offering to the
+Silent Ones.’ Such are the merciful words of Twala.”
+
+After consulting with the others a little, I answered him in a loud
+voice, so that the soldiers might hear, thus—
+
+“Go back, thou dog, to Twala, who sent thee, and say that we, Ignosi,
+veritable king of the Kukuanas, Incubu, Bougwan, and Macumazahn, the
+wise ones from the Stars, who make dark the moon, Infadoos, of the
+royal house, and the chiefs, captains, and people here gathered, make
+answer and say, ‘That we will not surrender; that before the sun has
+gone down twice, Twala’s corpse shall stiffen at Twala’s gate, and
+Ignosi, whose father Twala slew, shall reign in his stead.’ Now go, ere
+we whip thee away, and beware how thou dost lift a hand against such as
+we are.”
+
+The herald laughed loudly. “Ye frighten not men with such swelling
+words,” he cried out. “Show yourselves as bold to-morrow, O ye who
+darken the moon. Be bold, fight, and be merry, before the crows pick
+your bones till they are whiter than your faces. Farewell; perhaps we
+may meet in the fight; fly not to the Stars, but wait for me, I pray,
+white men.” With this shaft of sarcasm he retired, and almost
+immediately the sun sank.
+
+That night was a busy one, for weary as we were, so far as was possible
+by the moonlight all preparations for the morrow’s fight were
+continued, and messengers were constantly coming and going from the
+place where we sat in council. At last, about an hour after midnight,
+everything that could be done was done, and the camp, save for the
+occasional challenge of a sentry, sank into silence. Sir Henry and I,
+accompanied by Ignosi and one of the chiefs, descended the hill and
+made a round of the pickets. As we went, suddenly, from all sorts of
+unexpected places, spears gleamed out in the moonlight, only to vanish
+again when we uttered the password. It was clear to us that none were
+sleeping at their posts. Then we returned, picking our way warily
+through thousands of sleeping warriors, many of whom were taking their
+last earthly rest.
+
+The moonlight flickering along their spears played upon their features
+and made them ghastly; the chilly night wind tossed their tall and
+hearse-like plumes. There they lay in wild confusion, with arms
+outstretched and twisted limbs; their stern, stalwart forms looking
+weird and unhuman in the moonlight.
+
+“How many of these do you suppose will be alive at this time
+to-morrow?” asked Sir Henry.
+
+I shook my head and looked again at the sleeping men, and to my tired
+and yet excited imagination it seemed as though Death had already
+touched them. My mind’s eye singled out those who were sealed to
+slaughter, and there rushed in upon my heart a great sense of the
+mystery of human life, and an overwhelming sorrow at its futility and
+sadness. To-night these thousands slept their healthy sleep, to-morrow
+they, and many others with them, ourselves perhaps among them, would be
+stiffening in the cold; their wives would be widows, their children
+fatherless, and their place know them no more for ever. Only the old
+moon would shine on serenely, the night wind would stir the grasses,
+and the wide earth would take its rest, even as it did æons before we
+were, and will do æons after we have been forgotten.
+
+Yet man dies not whilst the world, at once his mother and his monument,
+remains. His name is lost, indeed, but the breath he breathed still
+stirs the pine-tops on the mountains, the sound of the words he spoke
+yet echoes on through space; the thoughts his brain gave birth to we
+have inherited to-day; his passions are our cause of life; the joys and
+sorrows that he knew are our familiar friends—the end from which he
+fled aghast will surely overtake us also!
+
+Truly the universe is full of ghosts, not sheeted churchyard spectres,
+but the inextinguishable elements of individual life, which having once
+been, can never _die_, though they blend and change, and change again
+for ever.
+
+All sorts of reflections of this nature passed through my mind—for as I
+grow older I regret to say that a detestable habit of thinking seems to
+be getting a hold of me—while I stood and stared at those grim yet
+fantastic lines of warriors, sleeping, as their saying goes, “upon
+their spears.”
+
+“Curtis,” I said, “I am in a condition of pitiable fear.”
+
+Sir Henry stroked his yellow beard and laughed, as he answered—
+
+“I have heard you make that sort of remark before, Quatermain.”
+
+“Well, I mean it now. Do you know, I very much doubt if one of us will
+be alive to-morrow night. We shall be attacked in overwhelming force,
+and it is quite a chance if we can hold this place.”
+
+“We’ll give a good account of some of them, at any rate. Look here,
+Quatermain, this business is nasty, and one with which, properly
+speaking, we ought not to be mixed up, but we are in for it, so we must
+make the best of our job. Speaking personally, I had rather be killed
+fighting than any other way, and now that there seems little chance of
+our finding my poor brother, it makes the idea easier to me. But
+fortune favours the brave, and we may succeed. Anyway, the battle will
+be awful, and having a reputation to keep up, we shall need to be in
+the thick of the thing.”
+
+He made this last remark in a mournful voice, but there was a gleam in
+his eye which belied its melancholy. I have an idea Sir Henry Curtis
+actually likes fighting.
+
+After this we went to sleep for a couple of hours or so.
+
+Just about dawn we were awakened by Infadoos, who came to say that
+great activity was to be observed in Loo, and that parties of the
+king’s skirmishers were driving in our outposts.
+
+We rose and dressed ourselves for the fray, each putting on his chain
+armour shirt, for which garments at the present juncture we felt
+exceedingly thankful. Sir Henry went the whole length about the matter,
+and dressed himself like a native warrior. “When you are in
+Kukuanaland, do as the Kukuanas do,” he remarked, as he drew the
+shining steel over his broad breast, which it fitted like a glove. Nor
+did he stop there. At his request Infadoos had provided him with a
+complete set of native war uniform. Round his throat he fastened the
+leopard-skin cloak of a commanding officer, on his brows he bound the
+plume of black ostrich feathers worn only by generals of high rank, and
+about his middle a magnificent moocha of white ox-tails. A pair of
+sandals, a leglet of goat’s hair, a heavy battle-axe with a
+rhinoceros-horn handle, a round iron shield covered with white ox-hide,
+and the regulation number of _tollas_, or throwing-knives, made up his
+equipment, to which, however, he added his revolver. The dress was, no
+doubt, a savage one, but I am bound to say that I seldom saw a finer
+sight than Sir Henry Curtis presented in this guise. It showed off his
+magnificent physique to the greatest advantage, and when Ignosi arrived
+presently, arrayed in a similar costume, I thought to myself that I had
+never before seen two such splendid men.
+
+As for Good and myself, the armour did not suit us nearly so well. To
+begin with, Good insisted upon keeping on his new-found trousers, and a
+stout, short gentleman with an eye-glass, and one half of his face
+shaved, arrayed in a mail shirt, carefully tucked into a very seedy
+pair of corduroys, looks more remarkable than imposing. In my case, the
+chain shirt being too big for me, I put it on over all my clothes,
+which caused it to bulge in a somewhat ungainly fashion. I discarded my
+trousers, however, retaining only my veldtschoons, having determined to
+go into battle with bare legs, in order to be the lighter for running,
+in case it became necessary to retire quickly. The mail coat, a spear,
+a shield, that I did not know how to use, a couple of _tollas_, a
+revolver, and a huge plume, which I pinned into the top of my shooting
+hat, in order to give a bloodthirsty finish to my appearance, completed
+my modest equipment. In addition to all these articles, of course we
+had our rifles, but as ammunition was scarce, and as they would be
+useless in case of a charge, we arranged that they should be carried
+behind us by bearers.
+
+When at length we had equipped ourselves, we swallowed some food
+hastily, and then started out to see how things were going on. At one
+point in the table-land of the mountain, there was a little koppie of
+brown stone, which served the double purpose of head-quarters and of a
+conning tower. Here we found Infadoos surrounded by his own regiment,
+the Greys, which was undoubtedly the finest in the Kukuana army, and
+the same that we had first seen at the outlying kraal. This regiment,
+now three thousand five hundred strong, was being held in reserve, and
+the men were lying down on the grass in companies, and watching the
+king’s forces creep out of Loo in long ant-like columns. There seemed
+to be no end to the length of these columns—three in all, and each of
+them numbering, as we judged, at least eleven or twelve thousand men.
+
+As soon as they were clear of the town the regiments formed up. Then
+one body marched off to the right, one to the left, and the third came
+on slowly towards us.
+
+“Ah,” said Infadoos, “they are going to attack us on three sides at
+once.”
+
+This seemed rather serious news, for our position on the top of the
+mountain, which measured a mile and a half in circumference, being an
+extended one, it was important to us to concentrate our comparatively
+small defending force as much as possible. But since it was impossible
+for us to dictate in what way we should be assailed, we had to make the
+best of it, and accordingly sent orders to the various regiments to
+prepare to receive the separate onslaughts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+THE ATTACK
+
+
+Slowly, and without the slightest appearance of haste or excitement,
+the three columns crept on. When within about five hundred yards of us,
+the main or centre column halted at the root of a tongue of open plain
+which ran up into the hill, to give time to the other divisions to
+circumvent our position, which was shaped more or less in the form of a
+horse-shoe, with its two points facing towards the town of Loo. The
+object of this manoeuvre was that the threefold assault should be
+delivered simultaneously.
+
+“Oh, for a gatling!” groaned Good, as he contemplated the serried
+phalanxes beneath us. “I would clear that plain in twenty minutes.”
+
+“We have not got one, so it is no use yearning for it; but suppose you
+try a shot, Quatermain,” said Sir Henry. “See how near you can go to
+that tall fellow who appears to be in command. Two to one you miss him,
+and an even sovereign, to be honestly paid if ever we get out of this,
+that you don’t drop the bullet within five yards.”
+
+This piqued me, so, loading the express with solid ball, I waited till
+my friend walked some ten yards out from his force, in order to get a
+better view of our position, accompanied only by an orderly; then,
+lying down and resting the express on a rock, I covered him. The rifle,
+like all expresses, was only sighted to three hundred and fifty yards,
+so to allow for the drop in trajectory I took him half-way down the
+neck, which ought, I calculated, to find him in the chest. He stood
+quite still and gave me every opportunity, but whether it was the
+excitement or the wind, or the fact of the man being a long shot, I
+don’t know, but this was what happened. Getting dead on, as I thought,
+a fine sight, I pressed, and when the puff of smoke had cleared away,
+to my disgust, I saw my man standing there unharmed, whilst his
+orderly, who was at least three paces to the left, was stretched upon
+the ground apparently dead. Turning swiftly, the officer I had aimed at
+began to run towards his men in evident alarm.
+
+“Bravo, Quatermain!” sang out Good; “you’ve frightened him.”
+
+This made me very angry, for, if possible to avoid it, I hate to miss
+in public. When a man is master of only one art he likes to keep up his
+reputation in that art. Moved quite out of myself at my failure, I did
+a rash thing. Rapidly covering the general as he ran, I let drive with
+the second barrel. Instantly the poor man threw up his arms, and fell
+forward on to his face. This time I had made no mistake; and—I say it
+as a proof of how little we think of others when our own safety, pride,
+or reputation is in question—I was brute enough to feel delighted at
+the sight.
+
+The regiments who had seen the feat cheered wildly at this exhibition
+of the white man’s magic, which they took as an omen of success, while
+the force the general had belonged to—which, indeed, as we ascertained
+afterwards, he had commanded—fell back in confusion. Sir Henry and Good
+now took up their rifles and began to fire, the latter industriously
+“browning” the dense mass before him with another Winchester repeater,
+and I also had another shot or two, with the result, so far as we could
+judge, that we put some six or eight men _hors de combat_ before they
+were out of range.
+
+Just as we stopped firing there came an ominous roar from our far
+right, then a similar roar rose on our left. The two other divisions
+were engaging us.
+
+At the sound, the mass of men before us opened out a little, and
+advanced towards the hill and up the spit of bare grass land at a slow
+trot, singing a deep-throated song as they ran. We kept up a steady
+fire from our rifles as they came, Ignosi joining in occasionally, and
+accounted for several men, but of course we produced no more effect
+upon that mighty rush of armed humanity than he who throws pebbles does
+on the breaking wave.
+
+On they came, with a shout and the clashing of spears; now they were
+driving in the pickets we had placed among the rocks at the foot of the
+hill. After that the advance was a little slower, for though as yet we
+had offered no serious opposition, the attacking forces must climb up
+hill, and they came slowly to save their breath. Our first line of
+defence was about half-way down the side of the slope, our second fifty
+yards further back, while our third occupied the edge of the plateau.
+
+On they stormed, shouting their war-cry, “_Twala! Twala! Chiele!
+Chiele!_” (Twala! Twala! Smite! Smite!) “_Ignosi! Ignosi! Chiele!
+Chiele!_” answered our people. They were quite close now, and the
+_tollas_, or throwing-knives, began to flash backwards and forwards,
+and now with an awful yell the battle closed in.
+
+To and fro swayed the mass of struggling warriors, men falling fast as
+leaves in an autumn wind; but before long the superior weight of the
+attacking force began to tell, and our first line of defence was slowly
+pressed back till it merged into the second. Here the struggle was very
+fierce, but again our people were driven back and up, till at length,
+within twenty minutes of the commencement of the fight, our third line
+came into action.
+
+But by this time the assailants were much exhausted, and besides had
+lost many men killed and wounded, and to break through that third
+impenetrable hedge of spears proved beyond their powers. For a while
+the seething lines of savages swung backwards and forwards, in the
+fierce ebb and flow of battle, and the issue was doubtful. Sir Henry
+watched the desperate struggle with a kindling eye, and then without a
+word he rushed off, followed by Good, and flung himself into the
+hottest of the fray. As for myself, I stopped where I was.
+
+The soldiers caught sight of his tall form as he plunged into battle,
+and there rose a cry of—
+
+“_Nanzia Incubu! Nanzia Unkungunklovo!_” (Here is the Elephant!)
+“_Chiele! Chiele!_”
+
+From that moment the end was no longer in doubt. Inch by inch, fighting
+with splendid gallantry, the attacking force was pressed back down the
+hillside, till at last it retreated upon its reserves in something like
+confusion. At that instant, too, a messenger arrived to say that the
+left attack had been repulsed; and I was just beginning to congratulate
+myself, believing that the affair was over for the present, when, to
+our horror, we perceived our men who had been engaged in the right
+defence being driven towards us across the plain, followed by swarms of
+the enemy, who had evidently succeeded at this point.
+
+Ignosi, who was standing by me, took in the situation at a glance, and
+issued a rapid order. Instantly the reserve regiment around us, the
+Greys, extended itself.
+
+Again Ignosi gave a word of command, which was taken up and repeated by
+the captains, and in another second, to my intense disgust, I found
+myself involved in a furious onslaught upon the advancing foe. Getting
+as much as I could behind Ignosi’s huge frame, I made the best of a bad
+job, and toddled along to be killed as though I liked it. In a minute
+or two—we were plunging through the flying groups of our men, who at
+once began to re-form behind us, and then I am sure I do not know what
+happened. All I can remember is a dreadful rolling noise of the meeting
+of shields, and the sudden apparition of a huge ruffian, whose eyes
+seemed literally to be starting out of his head, making straight at me
+with a bloody spear. But—I say it with pride—I rose—or rather sank—to
+the occasion. It was one before which most people would have collapsed
+once and for all. Seeing that if I stood where I was I must be killed,
+as the horrid apparition came I flung myself down in front of him so
+cleverly that, being unable to stop himself, he took a header right
+over my prostrate form. Before he could rise again, _I_ had risen and
+settled the matter from behind with my revolver.
+
+Shortly after this somebody knocked me down, and I remember no more of
+that charge.
+
+When I came to I found myself back at the koppie, with Good bending
+over me holding some water in a gourd.
+
+“How do you feel, old fellow?” he asked anxiously.
+
+I got up and shook myself before replying.
+
+“Pretty well, thank you,” I answered.
+
+“Thank Heaven! When I saw them carry you in, I felt quite sick; I
+thought you were done for.”
+
+“Not this time, my boy. I fancy I only got a rap on the head, which
+knocked me stupid. How has it ended?”
+
+“They are repulsed at every point for a while. The loss is dreadfully
+heavy; we have quite two thousand killed and wounded, and they must
+have lost three. Look, there’s a sight!” and he pointed to long lines
+of men advancing by fours.
+
+In the centre of every group of four, and being borne by it, was a kind
+of hide tray, of which a Kukuana force always carries a quantity, with
+a loop for a handle at each corner. On these trays—and their number
+seemed endless—lay wounded men, who as they arrived were hastily
+examined by the medicine men, of whom ten were attached to a regiment.
+If the wound was not of a fatal character the sufferer was taken away
+and attended to as carefully as circumstances would allow. But if, on
+the other hand, the injured man’s condition proved hopeless, what
+followed was very dreadful, though doubtless it may have been the
+truest mercy. One of the doctors, under pretence of carrying out an
+examination, swiftly opened an artery with a sharp knife, and in a
+minute or two the sufferer expired painlessly. There were many cases
+that day in which this was done. In fact, it was done in the majority
+of cases when the wound was in the body, for the gash made by the entry
+of the enormously broad spears used by the Kukuanas generally rendered
+recovery impossible. In most instances the poor sufferers were already
+unconscious, and in others the fatal “nick” of the artery was inflicted
+so swiftly and painlessly that they did not seem to notice it. Still it
+was a ghastly sight, and one from which we were glad to escape; indeed,
+I never remember anything of the kind that affected me more than seeing
+those gallant soldiers thus put out of pain by the red-handed medicine
+men, except, indeed, on one occasion when, after an attack, I saw a
+force of Swazis burying their hopelessly wounded _alive_.
+
+Hurrying from this dreadful scene to the further side of the koppie, we
+found Sir Henry, who still held a battle-axe in his hand, Ignosi,
+Infadoos, and one or two of the chiefs in deep consultation.
+
+“Thank Heaven, here you are, Quatermain! I can’t quite make out what
+Ignosi wants to do. It seems that though we have beaten off the attack,
+Twala is now receiving large reinforcements, and is showing a
+disposition to invest us, with the view of starving us out.”
+
+“That’s awkward.”
+
+“Yes; especially as Infadoos says that the water supply has given out.”
+
+“My lord, that is so,” said Infadoos; “the spring cannot supply the
+wants of so great a multitude, and it is failing rapidly. Before night
+we shall all be thirsty. Listen, Macumazahn. Thou art wise, and hast
+doubtless seen many wars in the lands from whence thou camest—that is
+if indeed they make wars in the Stars. Now tell us, what shall we do?
+Twala has brought up many fresh men to take the place of those who have
+fallen. Yet Twala has learnt his lesson; the hawk did not think to find
+the heron ready; but our beak has pierced his breast; he fears to
+strike at us again. We too are wounded, and he will wait for us to die;
+he will wind himself round us like a snake round a buck, and fight the
+fight of ‘sit down.’”
+
+“I hear thee,” I said.
+
+“So, Macumazahn, thou seest we have no water here, and but a little
+food, and we must choose between these three things—to languish like a
+starving lion in his den, or to strive to break away towards the north,
+or”—and here he rose and pointed towards the dense mass of our foes—“to
+launch ourselves straight at Twala’s throat. Incubu, the great
+warrior—for to-day he fought like a buffalo in a net, and Twala’s
+soldiers went down before his axe like young corn before the hail; with
+these eyes I saw it—Incubu says ‘Charge’; but the Elephant is ever
+prone to charge. Now what says Macumazahn, the wily old fox, who has
+seen much, and loves to bite his enemy from behind? The last word is in
+Ignosi the king, for it is a king’s right to speak of war; but let us
+hear thy voice, O Macumazahn, who watchest by night, and the voice too
+of him of the transparent eye.”
+
+“What sayest thou, Ignosi,” I asked.
+
+“Nay, my father,” answered our quondam servant, who now, clad as he was
+in the full panoply of savage war, looked every inch a warrior king,
+“do thou speak, and let me, who am but a child in wisdom beside thee,
+hearken to thy words.”
+
+Thus adjured, after taking hasty counsel with Good and Sir Henry, I
+delivered my opinion briefly to the effect that, being trapped, our
+best chance, especially in view of the failure of our water supply, was
+to initiate an attack upon Twala’s forces. Then I recommended that the
+attack should be delivered at once, “before our wounds grew stiff,” and
+also before the sight of Twala’s overpowering force caused the hearts
+of our soldiers “to wax small like fat before a fire.” Otherwise, I
+pointed out, some of the captains might change their minds, and, making
+peace with Twala, desert to him, or even betray us into his hands.
+
+This expression of opinion seemed, on the whole, to be favourably
+received; indeed, among the Kukuanas my utterances met with a respect
+which has never been accorded to them before or since. But the real
+decision as to our plans lay with Ignosi, who, since he had been
+recognised as rightful king, could exercise the almost unbounded rights
+of sovereignty, including, of course, the final decision on matters of
+generalship, and it was to him that all eyes were now turned.
+
+At length, after a pause, during which he appeared to be thinking
+deeply, he spoke.
+
+“Incubu, Macumazahn, and Bougwan, brave white men, and my friends;
+Infadoos, my uncle, and chiefs; my heart is fixed. I will strike at
+Twala this day, and set my fortunes on the blow, ay, and my life—my
+life and your lives also. Listen; thus will I strike. Ye see how the
+hill curves round like the half-moon, and how the plain runs like a
+green tongue towards us within the curve?”
+
+“We see,” I answered.
+
+“Good; it is now mid-day, and the men eat and rest after the toil of
+battle. When the sun has turned and travelled a little way towards the
+darkness, let thy regiment, my uncle, advance with one other down to
+the green tongue, and it shall be that when Twala sees it he will hurl
+his force at it to crush it. But the spot is narrow, and the regiments
+can come against thee one at a time only; so may they be destroyed one
+by one, and the eyes of all Twala’s army shall be fixed upon a struggle
+the like of which has not been seen by living man. And with thee, my
+uncle, shall go Incubu my friend, that when Twala sees his battle-axe
+flashing in the first rank of the Greys his heart may grow faint. And I
+will come with the second regiment, that which follows thee, so that if
+ye are destroyed, as it might happen, there may yet be a king left to
+fight for; and with me shall come Macumazahn the wise.”
+
+“It is well, O king,” said Infadoos, apparently contemplating the
+certainty of the complete annihilation of his regiment with perfect
+calmness. Truly, these Kukuanas are a wonderful people. Death has no
+terrors for them when it is incurred in the course of duty.
+
+“And whilst the eyes of the multitude of Twala’s soldiers are thus
+fixed upon the fight,” went on Ignosi, “behold, one-third of the men
+who are left alive to us (i.e. about 6,000) shall creep along the right
+horn of the hill and fall upon the left flank of Twala’s force, and
+one-third shall creep along the left horn and fall upon Twala’s right
+flank. And when I see that the horns are ready to toss Twala, then will
+I, with the men who remain to me, charge home in Twala’s face, and if
+fortune goes with us the day will be ours, and before Night drives her
+black oxen from the mountains to the mountains we shall sit in peace at
+Loo. And now let us eat and make ready; and, Infadoos, do thou prepare,
+that the plan be carried out without fail; and stay, let my white
+father Bougwan go with the right horn, that his shining eye may give
+courage to the captains.”
+
+The arrangements for attack thus briefly indicated were set in motion
+with a rapidity that spoke well for the perfection of the Kukuana
+military system. Within little more than an hour rations had been
+served out and devoured, the divisions were formed, the scheme of
+onslaught was explained to the leaders, and the whole force, numbering
+about 18,000 men, was ready to move, with the exception of a guard left
+in charge of the wounded.
+
+Presently Good came up to Sir Henry and myself.
+
+“Good-bye, you fellows,” he said; “I am off with the right wing
+according to orders; and so I have come to shake hands, in case we
+should not meet again, you know,” he added significantly.
+
+We shook hands in silence, and not without the exhibition of as much
+emotion as Anglo-Saxons are wont to show.
+
+“It is a queer business,” said Sir Henry, his deep voice shaking a
+little, “and I confess I never expect to see to-morrow’s sun. So far as
+I can make out, the Greys, with whom I am to go, are to fight until
+they are wiped out in order to enable the wings to slip round unawares
+and outflank Twala. Well, so be it; at any rate, it will be a man’s
+death. Good-bye, old fellow. God bless you! I hope you will pull
+through and live to collar the diamonds; but if you do, take my advice
+and don’t have anything more to do with Pretenders!”
+
+In another second Good had wrung us both by the hand and gone; and then
+Infadoos came up and led off Sir Henry to his place in the forefront of
+the Greys, whilst, with many misgivings, I departed with Ignosi to my
+station in the second attacking regiment.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+THE LAST STAND OF THE GREYS
+
+
+In a few more minutes the regiments destined to carry out the flanking
+movements had tramped off in silence, keeping carefully to the lee of
+the rising ground in order to conceal their advance from the keen eyes
+of Twala’s scouts.
+
+Half an hour or more was allowed to elapse between the setting out of
+the horns or wings of the army before any stir was made by the Greys
+and their supporting regiment, known as the Buffaloes, which formed its
+chest, and were destined to bear the brunt of the battle.
+
+Both of these regiments were almost perfectly fresh, and of full
+strength, the Greys having been in reserve in the morning, and having
+lost but a small number of men in sweeping back that part of the attack
+which had proved successful in breaking the line of defence, on the
+occasion when I charged with them and was stunned for my pains. As for
+the Buffaloes, they had formed the third line of defence on the left,
+and since the attacking force at that point had not succeeded in
+breaking through the second, they had scarcely come into action at all.
+
+Infadoos, who was a wary old general, and knew the absolute importance
+of keeping up the spirits of his men on the eve of such a desperate
+encounter, employed the pause in addressing his own regiment, the
+Greys, in poetical language: explaining to them the honour that they
+were receiving in being put thus in the forefront of the battle, and in
+having the great white warrior from the Stars to fight with them in
+their ranks; and promising large rewards of cattle and promotion to all
+who survived in the event of Ignosi’s arms being successful.
+
+I looked down the long lines of waving black plumes and stern faces
+beneath them, and sighed to think that within one short hour most, if
+not all, of those magnificent veteran warriors, not a man of whom was
+under forty years of age, would be laid dead or dying in the dust. It
+could not be otherwise; they were being condemned, with that wise
+recklessness of human life which marks the great general, and often
+saves his forces and attains his ends, to certain slaughter, in order
+to give their cause and the remainder of the army a chance of success.
+They were foredoomed to die, and they knew the truth. It was to be
+their task to engage regiment after regiment of Twala’s army on the
+narrow strip of green beneath us, till they were exterminated or till
+the wings found a favourable opportunity for their onslaught. And yet
+they never hesitated, nor could I detect a sign of fear upon the face
+of a single warrior. There they were—going to certain death, about to
+quit the blessed light of day for ever, and yet able to contemplate
+their doom without a tremor. Even at that moment I could not help
+contrasting their state of mind with my own, which was far from
+comfortable, and breathing a sigh of envy and admiration. Never before
+had I seen such an absolute devotion to the idea of duty, and such a
+complete indifference to its bitter fruits.
+
+“Behold your king!” ended old Infadoos, pointing to Ignosi; “go fight
+and fall for him, as is the duty of brave men, and cursed and shameful
+for ever be the name of him who shrinks from death for his king, or who
+turns his back to the foe. Behold your king, chiefs, captains, and
+soldiers! Now do your homage to the sacred Snake, and then follow on,
+that Incubu and I may show you a road to the heart of Twala’s host.”
+
+There was a moment’s pause, then suddenly a murmur arose from the
+serried phalanxes before us, a sound like the distant whisper of the
+sea, caused by the gentle tapping of the handles of six thousand spears
+against their holders’ shields. Slowly it swelled, till its growing
+volume deepened and widened into a roar of rolling noise, that echoed
+like thunder against the mountains, and filled the air with heavy waves
+of sound. Then it decreased, and by faint degrees died away into
+nothing, and suddenly out crashed the royal salute.
+
+Ignosi, I thought to myself, might well be a proud man that day, for no
+Roman emperor ever had such a salutation from gladiators “about to
+die.”
+
+Ignosi acknowledged this magnificent act of homage by lifting his
+battle-axe, and then the Greys filed off in a triple-line formation,
+each line containing about one thousand fighting men, exclusive of
+officers. When the last companies had advanced some five hundred yards,
+Ignosi put himself at the head of the Buffaloes, which regiment was
+drawn up in a similar three-fold formation, and gave the word to march,
+and off we went, I, needless to say, uttering the most heartfelt
+prayers that I might emerge from that entertainment with a whole skin.
+Many a queer position have I found myself in, but never before in one
+quite so unpleasant as the present, or one in which my chance of coming
+off safe was smaller.
+
+By the time that we reached the edge of the plateau the Greys were
+already half-way down the slope ending in the tongue of grass land that
+ran up into the bend of the mountain, something as the frog of a
+horse’s foot runs up into the shoe. The excitement in Twala’s camp on
+the plain beyond was very great, and regiment after regiment was
+starting forward at a long swinging trot in order to reach the root of
+the tongue of land before the attacking force could emerge into the
+plain of Loo.
+
+This tongue, which was some four hundred yards in depth, even at its
+root or widest part was not more than six hundred and fifty paces
+across, while at its tip it scarcely measured ninety. The Greys, who,
+in passing down the side of the hill and on to the tip of the tongue,
+had formed into a column, on reaching the spot where it broadened out
+again, reassumed their triple-line formation, and halted dead.
+
+Then we—that is, the Buffaloes—moved down the tip of the tongue and
+took our stand in reserve, about one hundred yards behind the last line
+of the Greys, and on slightly higher ground. Meanwhile we had leisure
+to observe Twala’s entire force, which evidently had been reinforced
+since the morning attack, and could not now, notwithstanding their
+losses, number less than forty thousand, moving swiftly up towards us.
+But as they drew near the root of the tongue they hesitated, having
+discovered that only one regiment could advance into the gorge at a
+time, and that there, some seventy yards from the mouth of it,
+unassailable except in front, on account of the high walls of
+boulder-strewn ground on each side, stood the famous regiment of Greys,
+the pride and glory of the Kukuana army, ready to hold the way against
+their power as the three Romans once held the bridge against thousands.
+
+They hesitated, and finally stopped their advance; there was no
+eagerness to cross spears with these three grim ranks of warriors who
+stood so firm and ready. Presently, however, a tall general, wearing
+the customary head-dress of nodding ostrich plumes, appeared, attended
+by a group of chiefs and orderlies, being, I thought, none other than
+Twala himself. He gave an order, and the first regiment, raising a
+shout, charged up towards the Greys, who remained perfectly still and
+silent till the attacking troops were within forty yards, and a volley
+of _tollas_, or throwing-knives, came rattling among their ranks.
+
+Then suddenly with a bound and a roar, they sprang forward with
+uplifted spears, and the regiment met in deadly strife. Next second the
+roll of the meeting shields came to our ears like the sound of thunder,
+and the plain seemed to be alive with flashes of light reflected from
+the shimmering spears. To and fro swung the surging mass of struggling,
+stabbing humanity, but not for long. Suddenly the attacking lines began
+to grow thinner, and then with a slow, long heave the Greys passed over
+them, just as a great wave heaves up its bulk and passes over a sunken
+ridge. It was done; that regiment was completely destroyed, but the
+Greys had but two lines left now; a third of their number were dead.
+
+Closing up shoulder to shoulder, once more they halted in silence and
+awaited attack; and I was rejoiced to catch sight of Sir Henry’s yellow
+beard as he moved to and fro arranging the ranks. So he was yet alive!
+
+Meanwhile we moved on to the ground of the encounter, which was
+cumbered by about four thousand prostrate human beings, dead, dying,
+and wounded, and literally stained red with blood. Ignosi issued an
+order, which was rapidly passed down the ranks, to the effect that none
+of the enemy’s wounded were to be killed, and so far as we could see
+this command was scrupulously carried out. It would have been a
+shocking sight, if we had found time to think of such things.
+
+But now a second regiment, distinguished by white plumes, kilts, and
+shields, was moving to the attack of the two thousand remaining Greys,
+who stood waiting in the same ominous silence as before, till the foe
+was within forty yards or so, when they hurled themselves with
+irresistible force upon them. Again there came the awful roll of the
+meeting shields, and as we watched the tragedy repeated itself.
+
+But this time the issue was left longer in doubt; indeed, it seemed for
+awhile almost impossible that the Greys should again prevail. The
+attacking regiment, which was formed of young men, fought with the
+utmost fury, and at first seemed by sheer weight to be driving the
+veterans back. The slaughter was truly awful, hundreds falling every
+minute; and from among the shouts of the warriors and the groans of the
+dying, set to the music of clashing spears, came a continuous hissing
+undertone of “_S’gee, s’gee_,” the note of triumph of each victor as he
+passed his assegai through and through the body of his fallen foe.
+
+But perfect discipline and steady and unchanging valour can do wonders,
+and one veteran soldier is worth two young ones, as soon became
+apparent in the present case. For just when we thought that it was all
+over with the Greys, and were preparing to take their place so soon as
+they made room by being destroyed, I heard Sir Henry’s deep voice
+ringing out through the din, and caught a glimpse of his circling
+battle-axe as he waved it high above his plumes. Then came a change;
+the Greys ceased to give; they stood still as a rock, against which the
+furious waves of spearmen broke again and again, only to recoil.
+Presently they began to move once more—forward this time; as they had
+no firearms there was no smoke, so we could see it all. Another minute
+and the onslaught grew fainter.
+
+“Ah, these are _men_, indeed; they will conquer again,” called out
+Ignosi, who was grinding his teeth with excitement at my side. “See, it
+is done!”
+
+Suddenly, like puffs of smoke from the mouth of a cannon, the attacking
+regiment broke away in flying groups, their white head-dresses
+streaming behind them in the wind, and left their opponents victors,
+indeed, but, alas! no more a regiment. Of the gallant triple line,
+which forty minutes before had gone into action three thousand strong,
+there remained at most some six hundred blood-spattered men; the rest
+were under foot. And yet they cheered and waved their spears in
+triumph, and then, instead of falling back upon us as we expected, they
+ran forward, for a hundred yards or so, after the flying groups of
+foemen, took possession of a rising knoll of ground, and, resuming
+their triple formation, formed a threefold ring around its base. And
+there, thanks be to Heaven, standing on the top of the mound for a
+minute, I saw Sir Henry, apparently unharmed, and with him our old
+friend Infadoos. Then Twala’s regiments rolled down upon the doomed
+band, and once more the battle closed in.
+
+As those who read this history will probably long ago have gathered, I
+am, to be honest, a bit of a coward, and certainly in no way given to
+fighting, though somehow it has often been my lot to get into
+unpleasant positions, and to be obliged to shed man’s blood. But I have
+always hated it, and kept my own blood as undiminished in quantity as
+possible, sometimes by a judicious use of my heels. At this moment,
+however, for the first time in my life, I felt my bosom burn with
+martial ardour. Warlike fragments from the “Ingoldsby Legends,”
+together with numbers of sanguinary verses in the Old Testament, sprang
+up in my brain like mushrooms in the dark; my blood, which hitherto had
+been half-frozen with horror, went beating through my veins, and there
+came upon me a savage desire to kill and spare not. I glanced round at
+the serried ranks of warriors behind us, and somehow, all in an
+instant, I began to wonder if my face looked like theirs. There they
+stood, the hands twitching, the lips apart, the fierce features
+instinct with the hungry lust of battle, and in the eyes a look like
+the glare of a bloodhound when after long pursuit he sights his quarry.
+
+Only Ignosi’s heart, to judge from his comparative self-possession,
+seemed, to all appearances, to beat as calmly as ever beneath his
+leopard-skin cloak, though even _he_ still ground his teeth. I could
+bear it no longer.
+
+“Are we to stand here till we put out roots, Umbopa—Ignosi, I
+mean—while Twala swallows our brothers yonder?” I asked.
+
+“Nay, Macumazahn,” was the answer; “see, now is the ripe moment: let us
+pluck it.”
+
+As he spoke a fresh regiment rushed past the ring upon the little
+mound, and wheeling round, attacked it from the hither side.
+
+Then, lifting his battle-axe, Ignosi gave the signal to advance, and,
+screaming the wild Kukuana war-cry, the Buffaloes charged home with a
+rush like the rush of the sea.
+
+What followed immediately on this it is out of my power to tell. All I
+can remember is an irregular yet ordered advance, that seemed to shake
+the ground; a sudden change of front and forming up on the part of the
+regiment against which the charge was directed; then an awful shock, a
+dull roar of voices, and a continuous flashing of spears, seen through
+a red mist of blood.
+
+When my mind cleared I found myself standing inside the remnant of the
+Greys near the top of the mound, and just behind no less a person than
+Sir Henry himself. How I got there I had at the moment no idea, but Sir
+Henry afterwards told me that I was borne up by the first furious
+charge of the Buffaloes almost to his feet, and then left, as they in
+turn were pressed back. Thereon he dashed out of the circle and dragged
+me into shelter.
+
+As for the fight that followed, who can describe it? Again and again
+the multitudes surged against our momentarily lessening circle, and
+again and again we beat them back.
+
+     “The stubborn spearmen still made good
+     The dark impenetrable wood,
+     Each stepping where his comrade stood
+         The instant that he fell,”
+
+as someone or other beautifully says.
+
+It was a splendid thing to see those brave battalions come on time
+after time over the barriers of their dead, sometimes lifting corpses
+before them to receive our spear-thrusts, only to leave their own
+corpses to swell the rising piles. It was a gallant sight to see that
+old warrior, Infadoos, as cool as though he were on parade, shouting
+out orders, taunts, and even jests, to keep up the spirit of his few
+remaining men, and then, as each charge rolled on, stepping forward to
+wherever the fighting was thickest, to bear his share in its repulse.
+And yet more gallant was the vision of Sir Henry, whose ostrich plumes
+had been shorn off by a spear thrust, so that his long yellow hair
+streamed out in the breeze behind him. There he stood, the great Dane,
+for he was nothing else, his hands, his axe, and his armour all red
+with blood, and none could live before his stroke. Time after time I
+saw it sweeping down, as some great warrior ventured to give him
+battle, and as he struck he shouted “_O-hoy! O-hoy!_” like his
+Berserkir forefathers, and the blow went crashing through shield and
+spear, through head-dress, hair, and skull, till at last none would of
+their own will come near the great white “_umtagati_,” the wizard, who
+killed and failed not.
+
+But suddenly there rose a cry of “_Twala, y’ Twala_,” and out of the
+press sprang forward none other than the gigantic one-eyed king
+himself, also armed with battle-axe and shield, and clad in chain
+armour.
+
+“Where art thou, Incubu, thou white man, who slewest Scragga my son—see
+if thou canst slay me!” he shouted, and at the same time hurled a
+_tolla_ straight at Sir Henry, who fortunately saw it coming, and
+caught it on his shield, which it transfixed, remaining wedged in the
+iron plate behind the hide.
+
+Then, with a cry, Twala sprang forward straight at him, and with his
+battle-axe struck him such a blow upon the shield that the mere force
+and shock of it brought Sir Henry, strong man as he is, down upon his
+knees.
+
+But at this time the matter went no further, for that instant there
+rose from the regiments pressing round us something like a shout of
+dismay, and on looking up I saw the cause.
+
+To the right and to the left the plain was alive with the plumes of
+charging warriors. The outflanking squadrons had come to our relief.
+The time could not have been better chosen. All Twala’s army, as Ignosi
+predicted would be the case, had fixed their attention on the bloody
+struggle which was raging round the remnant of the Greys and that of
+the Buffaloes, who were now carrying on a battle of their own at a
+little distance, which two regiments had formed the chest of our army.
+It was not until our horns were about to close upon them that they had
+dreamed of their approach, for they believed these forces to be hidden
+in reserve upon the crest of the moon-shaped hill. And now, before they
+could even assume a proper formation for defence, the outflanking
+_Impis_ had leapt, like greyhounds, on their flanks.
+
+In five minutes the fate of the battle was decided. Taken on both
+flanks, and dismayed at the awful slaughter inflicted upon them by the
+Greys and Buffaloes, Twala’s regiments broke into flight, and soon the
+whole plain between us and Loo was scattered with groups of running
+soldiers making good their retreat. As for the hosts that had so
+recently surrounded us and the Buffaloes, they melted away as though by
+magic, and presently we were left standing there like a rock from which
+the sea has retreated. But what a sight it was! Around us the dead and
+dying lay in heaped-up masses, and of the gallant Greys there remained
+but ninety-five men upon their feet. More than three thousand four
+hundred had fallen in this one regiment, most of them never to rise
+again.
+
+“Men,” said Infadoos calmly, as between the intervals of binding a
+wound on his arm he surveyed what remained to him of his corps, “ye
+have kept up the reputation of your regiment, and this day’s fighting
+will be well spoken of by your children’s children.” Then he turned
+round and shook Sir Henry Curtis by the hand. “Thou art a great
+captain, Incubu,” he said simply; “I have lived a long life among
+warriors, and have known many a brave one, yet have I never seen a man
+like unto thee.”
+
+At this moment the Buffaloes began to march past our position on the
+road to Loo, and as they went a message was brought to us from Ignosi
+requesting Infadoos, Sir Henry, and myself to join them. Accordingly,
+orders having been issued to the remaining ninety men of the Greys to
+employ themselves in collecting the wounded, we joined Ignosi, who
+informed us that he was pressing on to Loo to complete the victory by
+capturing Twala, if that should be possible. Before we had gone far,
+suddenly we discovered the figure of Good sitting on an ant-heap about
+one hundred paces from us. Close beside him was the body of a Kukuana.
+
+“He must be wounded,” said Sir Henry anxiously. As he made the remark,
+an untoward thing happened. The dead body of the Kukuana soldier, or
+rather what had appeared to be his dead body, suddenly sprang up,
+knocked Good head over heels off the ant-heap, and began to spear him.
+We rushed forward in terror, and as we drew near we saw the brawny
+warrior making dig after dig at the prostrate Good, who at each prod
+jerked all his limbs into the air. Seeing us coming, the Kukuana gave
+one final and most vicious dig, and with a shout of “Take that,
+wizard!” bolted away. Good did not move, and we concluded that our poor
+comrade was done for. Sadly we came towards him, and were astonished to
+find him pale and faint indeed, but with a serene smile upon his face,
+and his eyeglass still fixed in his eye.
+
+“Capital armour this,” he murmured, on catching sight of our faces
+bending over him. “How sold that beggar must have been,” and then he
+fainted. On examination we discovered that he had been seriously
+wounded in the leg by a _tolla_ in the course of the pursuit, but that
+the chain armour had prevented his last assailant’s spear from doing
+anything more than bruise him badly. It was a merciful escape. As
+nothing could be done for him at the moment, he was placed on one of
+the wicker shields used for the wounded, and carried along with us.
+
+On arriving before the nearest gate of Loo we found one of our
+regiments watching it in obedience to orders received from Ignosi. The
+other regiments were in the same way guarding the different exits to
+the town. The officer in command of this regiment saluted Ignosi as
+king, and informed him that Twala’s army had taken refuge in the town,
+whither Twala himself had also escaped, but he thought that they were
+thoroughly demoralised, and would surrender. Thereupon Ignosi, after
+taking counsel with us, sent forward heralds to each gate ordering the
+defenders to open, and promising on his royal word life and forgiveness
+to every soldier who laid down his arms, but saying that if they did
+not do so before nightfall he would certainly burn the town and all
+within its gates. This message was not without its effect. Half an hour
+later, amid the shouts and cheers of the Buffaloes, the bridge was
+dropped across the fosse, and the gates upon the further side were
+flung open.
+
+Taking due precautions against treachery, we marched on into the town.
+All along the roadways stood thousands of dejected warriors, their
+heads drooping, and their shields and spears at their feet, who, headed
+by their officers, saluted Ignosi as king as he passed. On we marched,
+straight to Twala’s kraal. When we reached the great space, where a day
+or two previously we had seen the review and the witch hunt, we found
+it deserted. No, not quite deserted, for there, on the further side, in
+front of his hut, sat Twala himself, with but one attendant—Gagool.
+
+It was a melancholy sight to see him seated, his battle-axe and shield
+by his side, his chin upon his mailed breast, with but one old crone
+for companion, and notwithstanding his crimes and misdeeds, a pang of
+compassion shot through me as I looked upon Twala thus “fallen from his
+high estate.” Not a soldier of all his armies, not a courtier out of
+the hundreds who had cringed round him, not even a solitary wife,
+remained to share his fate or halve the bitterness of his fall. Poor
+savage! he was learning the lesson which Fate teaches to most of us who
+live long enough, that the eyes of mankind are blind to the
+discredited, and that he who is defenceless and fallen finds few
+friends and little mercy. Nor, indeed, in this case did he deserve any.
+
+Filing through the kraal gate, we marched across the open space to
+where the ex-king sat. When within about fifty yards of him the
+regiment was halted, and accompanied only by a small guard we advanced
+towards him, Gagool reviling us bitterly as we came. As we drew near,
+Twala, for the first time, lifted his plumed head, and fixed his one
+eye, which seemed to flash with suppressed fury almost as brightly as
+the great diamond bound round his forehead, upon his successful
+rival—Ignosi.
+
+“Hail, O king!” he said, with bitter mockery; “thou who hast eaten of
+my bread, and now by the aid of the white man’s magic hast seduced my
+regiments and defeated mine army, hail! What fate hast thou in store
+for me, O king?”
+
+“The fate thou gavest to my father, whose throne thou hast sat on these
+many years!” was the stern answer.
+
+“It is good. I will show thee how to die, that thou mayest remember it
+against thine own time. See, the sun sinks in blood,” and he pointed
+with his battle-axe towards the setting orb; “it is well that my sun
+should go down in its company. And now, O king! I am ready to die, but
+I crave the boon of the Kukuana royal House[9] to die fighting. Thou
+canst not refuse it, or even those cowards who fled to-day will hold
+thee shamed.”
+
+ [9] It is a law amongst the Kukuanas that no man of the direct royal
+ blood can be put to death, unless by his own consent, which is,
+ however, never refused. He is allowed to choose a succession of
+ antagonists, to be approved by the king, with whom he fights, till one
+ of them kills him.—A.Q.
+
+“It is granted. Choose—with whom wilt thou fight? Myself I cannot fight
+with thee, for the king fights not except in war.”
+
+Twala’s sombre eye ran up and down our ranks, and I felt, as for a
+moment it rested on myself, that the position had developed a new
+horror. What if he chose to begin by fighting _me_? What chance should
+I have against a desperate savage six feet five high, and broad in
+proportion? I might as well commit suicide at once. Hastily I made up
+my mind to decline the combat, even if I were hooted out of Kukuanaland
+as a consequence. It is, I think, better to be hooted than to be
+quartered with a battle-axe.
+
+Presently Twala spoke.
+
+“Incubu, what sayest thou, shall we end what we began to-day, or shall
+I call thee coward, white—even to the liver?”
+
+“Nay,” interposed Ignosi hastily; “thou shalt not fight with Incubu.”
+
+“Not if he is afraid,” said Twala.
+
+Unfortunately Sir Henry understood this remark, and the blood flamed up
+into his cheeks.
+
+“I will fight him,” he said; “he shall see if I am afraid.”
+
+“For Heaven’s sake,” I entreated, “don’t risk your life against that of
+a desperate man. Anybody who saw you to-day will know that you are
+brave enough.”
+
+“I will fight him,” was the sullen answer. “No living man shall call me
+a coward. I am ready now!” and he stepped forward and lifted his axe.
+
+I wrung my hands over this absurd piece of Quixotism; but if he was
+determined on this deed, of course I could not stop him.
+
+“Fight not, my white brother,” said Ignosi, laying his hand
+affectionately on Sir Henry’s arm; “thou hast fought enough, and if
+aught befell thee at his hands it would cut my heart in twain.”
+
+“I will fight, Ignosi,” was Sir Henry’s answer.
+
+“It is well, Incubu; thou art a brave man. It will be a good fray.
+Behold, Twala, the Elephant is ready for thee.”
+
+The ex-king laughed savagely, and stepping forward faced Curtis. For a
+moment they stood thus, and the light of the sinking sun caught their
+stalwart frames and clothed them both in fire. They were a well-matched
+pair.
+
+Then they began to circle round each other, their battle-axes raised.
+
+Suddenly Sir Henry sprang forward and struck a fearful blow at Twala,
+who stepped to one side. So heavy was the stroke that the striker half
+overbalanced himself, a circumstance of which his antagonist took a
+prompt advantage. Circling his massive battle-axe round his head, he
+brought it down with tremendous force. My heart jumped into my mouth; I
+thought that the affair was already finished. But no; with a quick
+upward movement of the left arm Sir Henry interposed his shield between
+himself and the axe, with the result that its outer edge was shorn
+away, the axe falling on his left shoulder, but not heavily enough to
+do any serious damage. In another moment Sir Henry got in a second
+blow, which was also received by Twala upon his shield.
+
+Then followed blow upon blow, that were, in turn, either received upon
+the shields or avoided. The excitement grew intense; the regiment which
+was watching the encounter forgot its discipline, and, drawing near,
+shouted and groaned at every stroke. Just at this time, too, Good, who
+had been laid upon the ground by me, recovered from his faint, and,
+sitting up, perceived what was going on. In an instant he was up, and
+catching hold of my arm, hopped about from place to place on one leg,
+dragging me after him, and yelling encouragements to Sir Henry—
+
+“Go it, old fellow!” he hallooed. “That was a good one! Give it him
+amidships,” and so on.
+
+Presently Sir Henry, having caught a fresh stroke upon his shield, hit
+out with all his force. The blow cut through Twala’s shield and through
+the tough chain armour behind it, gashing him in the shoulder. With a
+yell of pain and fury Twala returned the blow with interest, and, such
+was his strength, shore right through the rhinoceros’ horn handle of
+his antagonists battle-axe, strengthened as it was with bands of steel,
+wounding Curtis in the face.
+
+A cry of dismay rose from the Buffaloes as our hero’s broad axe-head
+fell to the ground; and Twala, again raising his weapon, flew at him
+with a shout. I shut my eyes. When I opened them again it was to see
+Sir Henry’s shield lying on the ground, and Sir Henry himself with his
+great arms twined round Twala’s middle. To and fro they swung, hugging
+each other like bears, straining with all their mighty muscles for dear
+life, and dearer honour. With a supreme effort Twala swung the
+Englishman clean off his feet, and down they came together, rolling
+over and over on the lime paving, Twala striking out at Curtis’ head
+with the battle-axe, and Sir Henry trying to drive the _tolla_ he had
+drawn from his belt through Twala’s armour.
+
+It was a mighty struggle, and an awful thing to see.
+
+“Get his axe!” yelled Good; and perhaps our champion heard him.
+
+At any rate, dropping the _tolla_, he snatched at the axe, which was
+fastened to Twala’s wrist by a strip of buffalo hide, and still rolling
+over and over, they fought for it like wild cats, drawing their breath
+in heavy gasps. Suddenly the hide string burst, and then, with a great
+effort, Sir Henry freed himself, the weapon remaining in his hand.
+Another second and he was upon his feet, the red blood streaming from
+the wound in his face, and so was Twala. Drawing the heavy _tolla_ from
+his belt, he reeled straight at Curtis and struck him in the breast.
+The stab came home true and strong, but whoever it was who made that
+chain armour, he understood his art, for it withstood the steel. Again
+Twala struck out with a savage yell, and again the sharp knife
+rebounded, and Sir Henry went staggering back. Once more Twala came on,
+and as he came our great Englishman gathered himself together, and
+swinging the big axe round his head with both hands, hit at him with
+all his force.
+
+There was a shriek of excitement from a thousand throats, and, behold!
+Twala’s head seemed to spring from his shoulders: then it fell and came
+rolling and bounding along the ground towards Ignosi, stopping just at
+his feet. For a second the corpse stood upright; then with a dull crash
+it came to the earth, and the gold torque from its neck rolled away
+across the pavement. As it did so Sir Henry, overpowered by faintness
+and loss of blood, fell heavily across the body of the dead king.
+
+In a second he was lifted up, and eager hands were pouring water on his
+face. Another minute, and the grey eyes opened wide.
+
+He was not dead.
+
+Then I, just as the sun sank, stepping to where Twala’s head lay in the
+dust, unloosed the diamond from the dead brows, and handed it to
+Ignosi.
+
+“Take it,” I said, “lawful king of the Kukuanas—king by birth and
+victory.”
+
+Ignosi bound the diadem upon his brows. Then advancing, he placed his
+foot upon the broad chest of his headless foe and broke out into a
+chant, or rather a pæan of triumph, so beautiful, and yet so utterly
+savage, that I despair of being able to give an adequate version of his
+words. Once I heard a scholar with a fine voice read aloud from the
+Greek poet Homer, and I remember that the sound of the rolling lines
+seemed to make my blood stand still. Ignosi’s chant, uttered as it was
+in a language as beautiful and sonorous as the old Greek, produced
+exactly the same effect on me, although I was exhausted with toil and
+many emotions.
+
+“Now,” he began, “now our rebellion is swallowed up in victory, and our
+evil-doing is justified by strength.
+
+“In the morning the oppressors arose and stretched themselves; they
+bound on their harness and made them ready to war.
+
+“They rose up and tossed their spears: the soldiers called to the
+captains, ‘Come, lead us’—and the captains cried to the king, ‘Direct
+thou the battle.’
+
+“They laughed in their pride, twenty thousand men, and yet a twenty
+thousand.
+
+“Their plumes covered the valleys as the plumes of a bird cover her
+nest; they shook their shields and shouted, yea, they shook their
+shields in the sunlight; they lusted for battle and were glad.
+
+“They came up against me; their strong ones ran swiftly to slay me;
+they cried, ‘Ha! ha! he is as one already dead.’
+
+“Then breathed I on them, and my breath was as the breath of a wind,
+and lo! they were not.
+
+“My lightnings pierced them; I licked up their strength with the
+lightning of my spears; I shook them to the ground with the thunder of
+my shoutings.
+
+“They broke—they scattered—they were gone as the mists of the morning.
+
+“They are food for the kites and the foxes, and the place of battle is
+fat with their blood.
+
+“Where are the mighty ones who rose up in the morning?
+
+“Where are the proud ones who tossed their spears and cried, ‘He is as
+a man already dead’?
+
+“They bow their heads, but not in sleep; they are stretched out, but
+not in sleep.
+
+“They are forgotten; they have gone into the blackness; they dwell in
+the dead moons; yea, others shall lead away their wives, and their
+children shall remember them no more.
+
+“And I—! the king—like an eagle I have found my eyrie.
+
+“Behold! far have I flown in the night season, yet have I returned to
+my young at the daybreak.
+
+“Shelter ye under the shadow of my wings, O people, and I will comfort
+you, and ye shall not be dismayed.
+
+“Now is the good time, the time of spoil.
+
+“Mine are the cattle on the mountains, mine are the virgins in the
+kraals.
+
+“The winter is overpast with storms, the summer is come with flowers.
+
+“Now Evil shall cover up her face, now Mercy and Gladness shall dwell
+in the land.
+
+“Rejoice, rejoice, my people!
+
+“Let all the stars rejoice in that this tyranny is trodden down, in
+that I am the king.”
+
+Ignosi ceased his song, and out of the gathering gloom came back the
+deep reply—
+
+“_Thou art the king!_”
+
+Thus was my prophecy to the herald fulfilled, and within the
+forty-eight hours Twala’s headless corpse was stiffening at Twala’s
+gate.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+GOOD FALLS SICK
+
+
+After the fight was ended, Sir Henry and Good were carried into Twala’s
+hut, where I joined them. They were both utterly exhausted by exertion
+and loss of blood, and, indeed, my own condition was little better. I
+am very wiry, and can stand more fatigue than most men, probably on
+account of my light weight and long training; but that night I was
+quite done up, and, as is always the case with me when exhausted, that
+old wound which the lion gave me began to pain. Also my head was aching
+violently from the blow I had received in the morning, when I was
+knocked senseless. Altogether, a more miserable trio than we were that
+evening it would have been difficult to discover; and our only comfort
+lay in the reflection that we were exceedingly fortunate to be there to
+feel miserable, instead of being stretched dead upon the plain, as so
+many thousands of brave men were that night, who had risen well and
+strong in the morning.
+
+Somehow, with the assistance of the beautiful Foulata, who, since we
+had been the means of saving her life, had constituted herself our
+handmaiden, and especially Good’s, we managed to get off the chain
+shirts, which had certainly saved the lives of two of us that day. As I
+expected, we found that the flesh underneath was terribly contused, for
+though the steel links had kept the weapons from entering, they had not
+prevented them from bruising. Both Sir Henry and Good were a mass of
+contusions, and I was by no means free. As a remedy Foulata brought us
+some pounded green leaves, with an aromatic odour, which, when applied
+as a plaster, gave us considerable relief.
+
+But though the bruises were painful, they did not give us such anxiety
+as Sir Henry’s and Good’s wounds. Good had a hole right through the
+fleshy part of his “beautiful white leg,” from which he had lost a
+great deal of blood; and Sir Henry, with other hurts, had a deep cut
+over the jaw, inflicted by Twala’s battle-axe. Luckily Good is a very
+decent surgeon, and so soon as his small box of medicines was
+forthcoming, having thoroughly cleansed the wounds, he managed to
+stitch up first Sir Henry’s and then his own pretty satisfactorily,
+considering the imperfect light given by the primitive Kukuana lamp in
+the hut. Afterwards he plentifully smeared the injured places with some
+antiseptic ointment, of which there was a pot in the little box, and we
+covered them with the remains of a pocket-handkerchief which we
+possessed.
+
+Meanwhile Foulata had prepared us some strong broth, for we were too
+weary to eat. This we swallowed, and then threw ourselves down on the
+piles of magnificent karrosses, or fur rugs, which were scattered about
+the dead king’s great hut. By a very strange instance of the irony of
+fate, it was on Twala’s own couch, and wrapped in Twala’s own
+particular karross, that Sir Henry, the man who had slain him, slept
+that night.
+
+I say slept; but after that day’s work, sleep was indeed difficult. To
+begin with, in very truth the air was full
+
+       “Of farewells to the dying
+       And mournings for the dead.”
+
+From every direction came the sound of the wailing of women whose
+husbands, sons, and brothers had perished in the battle. No wonder that
+they wailed, for over twelve thousand men, or nearly a fifth of the
+Kukuana army, had been destroyed in that awful struggle. It was
+heart-rending to lie and listen to their cries for those who never
+would return; and it made me understand the full horror of the work
+done that day to further man’s ambition. Towards midnight, however, the
+ceaseless crying of the women grew less frequent, till at length the
+silence was only broken at intervals of a few minutes by a long
+piercing howl that came from a hut in our immediate rear, which, as I
+afterwards discovered, proceeded from Gagool “keening” over the dead
+king Twala.
+
+After that I got a little fitful sleep, only to wake from time to time
+with a start, thinking that I was once more an actor in the terrible
+events of the last twenty-four hours. Now I seemed to see that warrior
+whom my hand had sent to his last account charging at me on the
+mountain-top; now I was once more in that glorious ring of Greys, which
+made its immortal stand against all Twala’s regiments upon the little
+mound; and now again I saw Twala’s plumed and gory head roll past my
+feet with gnashing teeth and glaring eye.
+
+At last, somehow or other, the night passed away; but when dawn broke I
+found that my companions had slept no better than myself. Good, indeed,
+was in a high fever, and very soon afterwards began to grow
+light-headed, and also, to my alarm, to spit blood, the result, no
+doubt, of some internal injury, inflicted during the desperate efforts
+made by the Kukuana warrior on the previous day to force his big spear
+through the chain armour. Sir Henry, however, seemed pretty fresh,
+notwithstanding his wound on the face, which made eating difficult and
+laughter an impossibility, though he was so sore and stiff that he
+could scarcely stir.
+
+About eight o’clock we had a visit from Infadoos, who appeared but
+little the worse—tough old warrior that he was—for his exertions in the
+battle, although he informed us that he had been up all night. He was
+delighted to see us, but much grieved at Good’s condition, and shook
+our hands cordially. I noticed, however, that he addressed Sir Henry
+with a kind of reverence, as though he were something more than man;
+and, indeed, as we afterwards found out, the great Englishman was
+looked on throughout Kukuanaland as a supernatural being. No man, the
+soldiers said, could have fought as he fought or, at the end of a day
+of such toil and bloodshed, could have slain Twala, who, in addition to
+being the king, was supposed to be the strongest warrior in the
+country, in single combat, shearing through his bull-neck at a stroke.
+Indeed, that stroke became proverbial in Kukuanaland, and any
+extraordinary blow or feat of strength was henceforth known as
+“Incubu’s blow.”
+
+Infadoos told us also that all Twala’s regiments had submitted to
+Ignosi, and that like submissions were beginning to arrive from chiefs
+in the outlying country. Twala’s death at the hands of Sir Henry had
+put an end to all further chance of disturbance; for Scragga had been
+his only legitimate son, so there was no rival claimant to the throne
+left alive.
+
+I remarked that Ignosi had swum to power through blood. The old chief
+shrugged his shoulders. “Yes,” he answered; “but the Kukuana people can
+only be kept cool by letting their blood flow sometimes. Many are
+killed, indeed, but the women are left, and others must soon grow up to
+take the places of the fallen. After this the land would be quiet for a
+while.”
+
+Afterwards, in the course of the morning, we had a short visit from
+Ignosi, on whose brows the royal diadem was now bound. As I
+contemplated him advancing with kingly dignity, an obsequious guard
+following his steps, I could not help recalling to my mind the tall
+Zulu who had presented himself to us at Durban some few months back,
+asking to be taken into our service, and reflecting on the strange
+revolutions of the wheel of fortune.
+
+“Hail, O king!” I said, rising.
+
+“Yes, Macumazahn. King at last, by the might of your three right
+hands,” was the ready answer.
+
+All was, he said, going well; and he hoped to arrange a great feast in
+two weeks’ time in order to show himself to the people.
+
+I asked him what he had settled to do with Gagool.
+
+“She is the evil genius of the land,” he answered, “and I shall kill
+her, and all the witch doctors with her! She has lived so long that
+none can remember when she was not very old, and she it is who has
+always trained the witch-hunters, and made the land wicked in the sight
+of the heavens above.”
+
+“Yet she knows much,” I replied; “it is easier to destroy knowledge,
+Ignosi, than to gather it.”
+
+“That is so,” he said thoughtfully. “She, and she only, knows the
+secret of the ‘Three Witches,’ yonder, whither the great road runs,
+where the kings are buried, and the Silent Ones sit.”
+
+“Yes, and the diamonds are. Forget not thy promise, Ignosi; thou must
+lead us to the mines, even if thou hast to spare Gagool alive to show
+the way.”
+
+“I will not forget, Macumazahn, and I will think on what thou sayest.”
+
+After Ignosi’s visit I went to see Good, and found him quite delirious.
+The fever set up by his wound seemed to have taken a firm hold of his
+system, and to be complicated with an internal injury. For four or five
+days his condition was most critical; indeed, I believe firmly that had
+it not been for Foulata’s indefatigable nursing he must have died.
+
+Women are women, all the world over, whatever their colour. Yet somehow
+it seemed curious to watch this dusky beauty bending night and day over
+the fevered man’s couch, and performing all the merciful errands of a
+sick-room swiftly, gently, and with as fine an instinct as that of a
+trained hospital nurse. For the first night or two I tried to help her,
+and so did Sir Henry as soon as his stiffness allowed him to move, but
+Foulata bore our interference with impatience, and finally insisted
+upon our leaving him to her, saying that our movements made him
+restless, which I think was true. Day and night she watched him and
+tended him, giving him his only medicine, a native cooling drink made
+of milk, in which was infused juice from the bulb of a species of
+tulip, and keeping the flies from settling on him. I can see the whole
+picture now as it appeared night after night by the light of our
+primitive lamp; Good tossing to and fro, his features emaciated, his
+eyes shining large and luminous, and jabbering nonsense by the yard;
+and seated on the ground by his side, her back resting against the wall
+of the hut, the soft-eyed, shapely Kukuana beauty, her face, weary as
+it was with her long vigil, animated by a look of infinite
+compassion—or was it something more than compassion?
+
+For two days we thought that he must die, and crept about with heavy
+hearts.
+
+Only Foulata would not believe it.
+
+“He will live,” she said.
+
+For three hundred yards or more around Twala’s chief hut, where the
+sufferer lay, there was silence; for by the king’s order all who lived
+in the habitations behind it, except Sir Henry and myself, had been
+removed, lest any noise should come to the sick man’s ears. One night,
+it was the fifth of Good’s illness, as was my habit, I went across to
+see how he was doing before turning in for a few hours.
+
+I entered the hut carefully. The lamp placed upon the floor showed the
+figure of Good tossing no more, but lying quite still.
+
+So it had come at last! In the bitterness of my heart I gave something
+like a sob.
+
+“Hush—h—h!” came from the patch of dark shadow behind Good’s head.
+
+Then, creeping closer, I saw that he was not dead, but sleeping
+soundly, with Foulata’s taper fingers clasped tightly in his poor white
+hand. The crisis had passed, and he would live. He slept like that for
+eighteen hours; and I scarcely like to say it, for fear I should not be
+believed, but during the entire period did this devoted girl sit by
+him, fearing that if she moved and drew away her hand it would wake
+him. What she must have suffered from cramp and weariness, to say
+nothing of want of food, nobody will ever know; but it is the fact
+that, when at last he woke, she had to be carried away—her limbs were
+so stiff that she could not move them.
+
+After the turn had once been taken, Good’s recovery was rapid and
+complete. It was not till he was nearly well that Sir Henry told him of
+all he owed to Foulata; and when he came to the story of how she sat by
+his side for eighteen hours, fearing lest by moving she should wake
+him, the honest sailor’s eyes filled with tears. He turned and went
+straight to the hut where Foulata was preparing the mid-day meal, for
+we were back in our old quarters now, taking me with him to interpret
+in case he could not make his meaning clear to her, though I am bound
+to say that she understood him marvellously as a rule, considering how
+extremely limited was his foreign vocabulary.
+
+“Tell her,” said Good, “that I owe her my life, and that I will never
+forget her kindness to my dying day.”
+
+I interpreted, and under her dark skin she actually seemed to blush.
+
+Turning to him with one of those swift and graceful motions that in her
+always reminded me of the flight of a wild bird, Foulata answered
+softly, glancing at him with her large brown eyes—
+
+“Nay, my lord; my lord forgets! Did he not save _my_ life, and am I not
+my lord’s handmaiden?”
+
+It will be observed that the young lady appeared entirely to have
+forgotten the share which Sir Henry and myself had taken in her
+preservation from Twala’s clutches. But that is the way of women! I
+remember my dear wife was just the same. Well, I retired from that
+little interview sad at heart. I did not like Miss Foulata’s soft
+glances, for I knew the fatal amorous propensities of sailors in
+general, and of Good in particular.
+
+There are two things in the world, as I have found out, which cannot be
+prevented: you cannot keep a Zulu from fighting, or a sailor from
+falling in love upon the slightest provocation!
+
+It was a few days after this last occurrence that Ignosi held his great
+“indaba,” or council, and was formally recognised as king by the
+“indunas,” or head men, of Kukuanaland. The spectacle was a most
+imposing one, including as it did a grand review of troops. On this day
+the remaining fragments of the Greys were formally paraded, and in the
+face of the army thanked for their splendid conduct in the battle. To
+each man the king made a large present of cattle, promoting them one
+and all to the rank of officers in the new corps of Greys which was in
+process of formation. An order was also promulgated throughout the
+length and breadth of Kukuanaland that, whilst we honoured the country
+by our presence, we three were to be greeted with the royal salute, and
+to be treated with the same ceremony and respect that was by custom
+accorded to the king. Also the power of life and death was publicly
+conferred upon us. Ignosi, too, in the presence of his people,
+reaffirmed the promises which he had made, to the effect that no man’s
+blood should be shed without trial, and that witch-hunting should cease
+in the land.
+
+When the ceremony was over we waited upon Ignosi, and informed him that
+we were now anxious to investigate the mystery of the mines to which
+Solomon’s Road ran, asking him if he had discovered anything about
+them.
+
+“My friends,” he answered, “I have discovered this. It is there that
+the three great figures sit, who here are called the ‘Silent Ones,’ and
+to whom Twala would have offered the girl Foulata as a sacrifice. It is
+there, too, in a great cave deep in the mountain, that the kings of the
+land are buried; there ye shall find Twala’s body, sitting with those
+who went before him. There, also, is a deep pit, which, at some time,
+long-dead men dug out, mayhap for the stones ye speak of, such as I
+have heard men in Natal tell of at Kimberley. There, too, in the Place
+of Death is a secret chamber, known to none but the king and Gagool.
+But Twala, who knew it, is dead, and I know it not, nor know I what is
+in it. Yet there is a legend in the land that once, many generations
+gone, a white man crossed the mountains, and was led by a woman to the
+secret chamber and shown the wealth hidden in it. But before he could
+take it she betrayed him, and he was driven by the king of that day
+back to the mountains, and since then no man has entered the place.”
+
+“The story is surely true, Ignosi, for on the mountains we found the
+white man,” I said.
+
+“Yes, we found him. And now I have promised you that if ye can come to
+that chamber, and the stones are there—”
+
+“The gem upon thy forehead proves that they are there,” I put in,
+pointing to the great diamond I had taken from Twala’s dead brows.
+
+“Mayhap; if they are there,” he said, “ye shall have as many as ye can
+take hence—if indeed ye would leave me, my brothers.”
+
+“First we must find the chamber,” said I.
+
+“There is but one who can show it to thee—Gagool.”
+
+“And if she will not?”
+
+“Then she must die,” said Ignosi sternly. “I have saved her alive but
+for this. Stay, she shall choose,” and calling to a messenger he
+ordered Gagool to be brought before him.
+
+In a few minutes she came, hurried along by two guards, whom she was
+cursing as she walked.
+
+“Leave her,” said the king to the guards.
+
+So soon as their support was withdrawn, the withered old bundle—for she
+looked more like a bundle than anything else, out of which her two
+bright and wicked eyes gleamed like those of a snake—sank in a heap on
+to the floor.
+
+“What will ye with me, Ignosi?” she piped. “Ye dare not touch me. If ye
+touch me I will slay you as ye sit. Beware of my magic.”
+
+“Thy magic could not save Twala, old she-wolf, and it cannot hurt me,”
+was the answer. “Listen; I will this of thee, that thou reveal to us
+the chamber where are the shining stones.”
+
+“Ha! ha!” she piped, “none know its secret but I, and I will never tell
+thee. The white devils shall go hence empty-handed.”
+
+“Thou shalt tell me. I will make thee tell me.”
+
+“How, O king? Thou art great, but can thy power wring the truth from a
+woman?”
+
+“It is difficult, yet will I do so.”
+
+“How, O king?”
+
+“Nay, thus; if thou tellest not thou shalt slowly die.”
+
+“Die!” she shrieked in terror and fury; “ye dare not touch me—man, ye
+know not who I am. How old think ye am I? I knew your fathers, and your
+fathers’ fathers’ fathers. When the country was young I was here; when
+the country grows old I shall still be here. I cannot die unless I be
+killed by chance, for none dare slay me.”
+
+“Yet will I slay thee. See, Gagool, mother of evil, thou art so old
+that thou canst no longer love thy life. What can life be to such a hag
+as thou, who hast no shape, nor form, nor hair, nor teeth—hast naught,
+save wickedness and evil eyes? It will be mercy to make an end of thee,
+Gagool.”
+
+“Thou fool,” shrieked the old fiend, “thou accursed fool, deemest thou
+that life is sweet only to the young? It is not so, and naught thou
+knowest of the heart of man to think it. To the young, indeed, death is
+sometimes welcome, for the young can feel. They love and suffer, and it
+wrings them to see their beloved pass to the land of shadows. But the
+old feel not, they love not, and, _ha! ha!_ they laugh to see another
+go out into the dark; _ha! ha!_ they laugh to see the evil that is done
+under the stars. All they love is life, the warm, warm sun, and the
+sweet, sweet air. They are afraid of the cold, afraid of the cold and
+the dark, _ha! ha! ha!_” and the old hag writhed in ghastly merriment
+on the ground.
+
+“Cease thine evil talk and answer me,” said Ignosi angrily. “Wilt thou
+show the place where the stones are, or wilt thou not? If thou wilt not
+thou diest, even now,” and he seized a spear and held it over her.
+
+“I will not show it; thou darest not kill me, darest not! He who slays
+me will be accursed for ever.”
+
+Slowly Ignosi brought down the spear till it pricked the prostrate heap
+of rags.
+
+With a wild yell Gagool sprang to her feet, then fell again and rolled
+upon the floor.
+
+“Nay, I will show thee. Only let me live, let me sit in the sun and
+have a bit of meat to suck, and I will show thee.”
+
+“It is well. I thought that I should find a way to reason with thee.
+To-morrow shalt thou go with Infadoos and my white brothers to the
+place, and beware how thou failest, for if thou showest it not, then
+thou shalt slowly die. I have spoken.”
+
+“I will not fail, Ignosi. I always keep my word—_ha! ha! ha!_ Once
+before a woman showed the chamber to a white man, and behold! evil
+befell him,” and here her wicked eyes glinted. “Her name was Gagool
+also. Perchance I was that woman.”
+
+“Thou liest,” I said, “that was ten generations gone.”
+
+“Mayhap, mayhap; when one lives long one forgets. Perhaps it was my
+mother’s mother who told me; surely her name was Gagool also. But mark,
+ye will find in the place where the bright things are a bag of hide
+full of stones. The man filled that bag, but he never took it away.
+Evil befell him, I say, evil befell him! Perhaps it was my mother’s
+mother who told me. It will be a merry journey—we can see the bodies of
+those who died in the battle as we go. Their eyes will be gone by now,
+and their ribs will be hollow. _Ha! ha! ha!_”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+THE PLACE OF DEATH
+
+
+It was already dark on the third day after the scene described in the
+previous chapter when we camped in some huts at the foot of the “Three
+Witches,” as the triangle of mountains is called to which Solomon’s
+Great Road runs. Our party consisted of our three selves and Foulata,
+who waited on us—especially on Good—Infadoos, Gagool, who was borne
+along in a litter, inside which she could be heard muttering and
+cursing all day long, and a party of guards and attendants. The
+mountains, or rather the three peaks of the mountain, for the mass was
+evidently the result of a solitary upheaval, were, as I have said, in
+the form of a triangle, of which the base was towards us, one peak
+being on our right, one on our left, and one straight in front of us.
+Never shall I forget the sight afforded by those three towering peaks
+in the early sunlight of the following morning. High, high above us, up
+into the blue air, soared their twisted snow-wreaths. Beneath the
+snow-line the peaks were purple with heaths, and so were the wild moors
+that ran up the slopes towards them. Straight before us the white
+ribbon of Solomon’s Great Road stretched away uphill to the foot of the
+centre peak, about five miles from us, and there stopped. It was its
+terminus.
+
+I had better leave the feelings of intense excitement with which we set
+out on our march that morning to the imagination of those who read this
+history. At last we were drawing near to the wonderful mines that had
+been the cause of the miserable death of the old Portuguese Dom three
+centuries ago, of my poor friend, his ill-starred descendant, and also,
+as we feared, of George Curtis, Sir Henry’s brother. Were we destined,
+after all that we had gone through, to fare any better? Evil befell
+them, as that old fiend Gagool said; would it also befall us? Somehow,
+as we were marching up that last stretch of beautiful road, I could not
+help feeling a little superstitious about the matter, and so I think
+did Good and Sir Henry.
+
+For an hour and a half or more we tramped on up the heather-fringed
+way, going so fast in our excitement that the bearers of Gagool’s
+hammock could scarcely keep pace with us, and its occupant piped out to
+us to stop.
+
+“Walk more slowly, white men,” she said, projecting her hideous
+shrivelled countenance between the grass curtains, and fixing her
+gleaming eyes upon us; “why will ye run to meet the evil that shall
+befall you, ye seekers after treasure?” and she laughed that horrible
+laugh which always sent a cold shiver down my back, and for a while
+quite took the enthusiasm out of us.
+
+However, on we went, till we saw before us, and between ourselves and
+the peak, a vast circular hole with sloping sides, three hundred feet
+or more in depth, and quite half a mile round.
+
+“Can’t you guess what this is?” I said to Sir Henry and Good, who were
+staring in astonishment at the awful pit before us.
+
+They shook their heads.
+
+“Then it is clear that you have never seen the diamond diggings at
+Kimberley. You may depend on it that this is Solomon’s Diamond Mine.
+Look there,” I said, pointing to the strata of stiff blue clay which
+were yet to be seen among the grass and bushes that clothed the sides
+of the pit, “the formation is the same. I’ll be bound that if we went
+down there we should find ‘pipes’ of soapy brecciated rock. Look, too,”
+and I pointed to a series of worn flat slabs of stone that were placed
+on a gentle slope below the level of a watercourse which in some past
+age had been cut out of the solid rock; “if those are not tables once
+used to wash the ‘stuff,’ I’m a Dutchman.”
+
+At the edge of this vast hole, which was none other than the pit marked
+on the old Dom’s map, the Great Road branched into two and circumvented
+it. In many places, by the way, this surrounding road was built
+entirely out of blocks of stone, apparently with the object of
+supporting the edges of the pit and preventing falls of reef. Along
+this path we pressed, driven by curiosity to see what were the three
+towering objects which we could discern from the hither side of the
+great gulf. As we drew near we perceived that they were Colossi of some
+sort or another, and rightly conjectured that before us sat the three
+“Silent Ones” that are held in such awe by the Kukuana people. But it
+was not until we were quite close to them that we recognised the full
+majesty of these “Silent Ones.”
+
+There, upon huge pedestals of dark rock, sculptured with rude emblems
+of the Phallic worship, separated from each other by a distance of
+forty paces, and looking down the road which crossed some sixty miles
+of plain to Loo, were three colossal seated forms—two male and one
+female—each measuring about thirty feet from the crown of its head to
+the pedestal.
+
+The female form, which was nude, was of great though severe beauty, but
+unfortunately the features had been injured by centuries of exposure to
+the weather. Rising from either side of her head were the points of a
+crescent. The two male Colossi, on the contrary, were draped, and
+presented a terrifying cast of features, especially the one to our
+right, which had the face of a devil. That to our left was serene in
+countenance, but the calm upon it seemed dreadful. It was the calm of
+that inhuman cruelty, Sir Henry remarked, which the ancients attributed
+to beings potent for good, who could yet watch the sufferings of
+humanity, if not without rejoicing, at least without sorrow. These
+three statues form a most awe-inspiring trinity, as they sit there in
+their solitude, and gaze out across the plain for ever.
+
+Contemplating these “Silent Ones,” as the Kukuanas call them, an
+intense curiosity again seized us to know whose were the hands which
+had shaped them, who it was that had dug the pit and made the road.
+Whilst I was gazing and wondering, suddenly it occurred to me—being
+familiar with the Old Testament—that Solomon went astray after strange
+gods, the names of three of whom I remembered—“Ashtoreth, the goddess
+of the Zidonians, Chemosh, the god of the Moabites, and Milcom, the god
+of the children of Ammon”—and I suggested to my companions that the
+figures before us might represent these false and exploded divinities.
+
+“Hum,” said Sir Henry, who is a scholar, having taken a high degree in
+classics at college, “there may be something in that; Ashtoreth of the
+Hebrews was the Astarte of the Phoenicians, who were the great traders
+of Solomon’s time. Astarte, who afterwards became the Aphrodite of the
+Greeks, was represented with horns like the half-moon, and there on the
+brow of the female figure are distinct horns. Perhaps these Colossi
+were designed by some Phoenician official who managed the mines. Who
+can say?”[10]
+
+ [10] Compare Milton, “Paradise Lost,” Book i.:—
+
+                        “With these in troop
+    Came Ashtoreth, whom the Phoenicians called
+    Astarté, Queen of Heaven, with crescent horns;
+    To whose bright image nightly by the moon
+    Sidonian virgins paid their vows and songs.”
+
+Before we had finished examining these extraordinary relics of remote
+antiquity, Infadoos came up, and having saluted the “Silent Ones” by
+lifting his spear, asked us if we intended entering the “Place of
+Death” at once, or if we would wait till after we had taken food at
+mid-day. If we were ready to go at once, Gagool had announced her
+willingness to guide us. As it was not later than eleven o’clock—driven
+to it by a burning curiosity—we announced our intention of proceeding
+instantly, and I suggested that, in case we should be detained in the
+cave, we should take some food with us. Accordingly Gagool’s litter was
+brought up, and that lady herself assisted out of it. Meanwhile
+Foulata, at my request, stored some “biltong,” or dried game-flesh,
+together with a couple of gourds of water, in a reed basket with a
+hinged cover. Straight in front of us, at a distance of some fifty
+paces from the backs of the Colossi, rose a sheer wall of rock, eighty
+feet or more in height, that gradually sloped upwards till it formed
+the base of the lofty snow-wreathed peak, which soared into the air
+three thousand feet above us. As soon as she was clear of her hammock,
+Gagool cast one evil grin upon us, and then, leaning on a stick,
+hobbled off towards the face of this wall. We followed her till we came
+to a narrow portal solidly arched that looked like the opening of a
+gallery of a mine.
+
+Here Gagool was waiting for us, still with that evil grin upon her
+horrid face.
+
+“Now, white men from the Stars,” she piped; “great warriors, Incubu,
+Bougwan, and Macumazahn the wise, are ye ready? Behold, I am here to do
+the bidding of my lord the king, and to show you the store of bright
+stones. _Ha! ha! ha!_”
+
+“We are ready,” I said.
+
+“Good, good! Make strong your hearts to bear what ye shall see. Comest
+thou too, Infadoos, thou who didst betray thy master?”
+
+Infadoos frowned as he answered—
+
+“Nay, I come not; it is not for me to enter there. But thou, Gagool,
+curb thy tongue, and beware how thou dealest with my lords. At thy
+hands will I require them, and if a hair of them be hurt, Gagool, be’st
+thou fifty times a witch, thou shalt die. Hearest thou?”
+
+“I hear, Infadoos; I know thee, thou didst ever love big words; when
+thou wast a babe I remember thou didst threaten thine own mother. That
+was but the other day. But, fear not, fear not, I live only to do the
+bidding of the king. I have done the bidding of many kings, Infadoos,
+till in the end they did mine. _Ha! ha!_ I go to look upon their faces
+once more, and Twala’s also! Come on, come on, here is the lamp,” and
+she drew a large gourd full of oil, and fitted with a rush wick, from
+under her fur cloak.
+
+“Art thou coming, Foulata?” asked Good in his villainous Kitchen
+Kukuana, in which he had been improving himself under that young lady’s
+tuition.
+
+“I fear, my lord,” the girl answered timidly.
+
+“Then give me the basket.”
+
+“Nay, my lord, whither thou goest there I go also.”
+
+“The deuce you will!” thought I to myself; “that may be rather awkward
+if we ever get out of this.”
+
+Without further ado Gagool plunged into the passage, which was wide
+enough to admit of two walking abreast, and quite dark. We followed the
+sound of her voice as she piped to us to come on, in some fear and
+trembling, which was not allayed by the flutter of a sudden rush of
+wings.
+
+“Hullo! what’s that?” halloed Good; “somebody hit me in the face.”
+
+“Bats,” said I; “on you go.”
+
+When, so far as we could judge, we had gone some fifty paces, we
+perceived that the passage was growing faintly light. Another minute,
+and we were in perhaps the most wonderful place that the eyes of living
+man have beheld.
+
+Let the reader picture to himself the hall of the vastest cathedral he
+ever stood in, windowless indeed, but dimly lighted from above,
+presumably by shafts connected with the outer air and driven in the
+roof, which arched away a hundred feet above our heads, and he will get
+some idea of the size of the enormous cave in which we found ourselves,
+with the difference that this cathedral designed by nature was loftier
+and wider than any built by man. But its stupendous size was the least
+of the wonders of the place, for running in rows adown its length were
+gigantic pillars of what looked like ice, but were, in reality, huge
+stalactites. It is impossible for me to convey any idea of the
+overpowering beauty and grandeur of these pillars of white spar, some
+of which were not less than twenty feet in diameter at the base, and
+sprang up in lofty and yet delicate beauty sheer to the distant roof.
+Others again were in process of formation. On the rock floor there was
+in these cases what looked, Sir Henry said, exactly like a broken
+column in an old Grecian temple, whilst high above, depending from the
+roof, the point of a huge icicle could be dimly seen.
+
+Even as we gazed we could hear the process going on, for presently with
+a tiny splash a drop of water would fall from the far-off icicle on to
+the column below. On some columns the drops only fell once in two or
+three minutes, and in these cases it would be an interesting
+calculation to discover how long, at that rate of dripping, it would
+take to form a pillar, say eighty feet by ten in diameter. That the
+process, in at least one instance, was incalculably slow, the following
+example will suffice to show. Cut on one of these pillars we discovered
+the crude likeness of a mummy, by the head of which sat what appeared
+to be the figure of an Egyptian god, doubtless the handiwork of some
+old-world labourer in the mine. This work of art was executed at the
+natural height at which an idle fellow, be he Phoenician workman or
+British cad, is in the habit of trying to immortalise himself at the
+expense of nature’s masterpieces, namely, about five feet from the
+ground. Yet at the time that we saw it, which _must_ have been nearly
+three thousand years after the date of the execution of the carving,
+the column was only eight feet high, and was still in process of
+formation, which gives a rate of growth of a foot to a thousand years,
+or an inch and a fraction to a century. This we knew because, as we
+were standing by it, we heard a drop of water fall.
+
+Sometimes the stalagmites took strange forms, presumably where the
+dropping of the water had not always been on the same spot. Thus, one
+huge mass, which must have weighed a hundred tons or so, was in the
+shape of a pulpit, beautifully fretted over outside with a design that
+looked like lace. Others resembled strange beasts, and on the sides of
+the cave were fanlike ivory tracings, such as the frost leaves upon a
+pane.
+
+Out of the vast main aisle there opened here and there smaller caves,
+exactly, Sir Henry said, as chapels open out of great cathedrals. Some
+were large, but one or two—and this is a wonderful instance of how
+nature carries out her handiwork by the same unvarying laws, utterly
+irrespective of size—were tiny. One little nook, for instance, was no
+larger than an unusually big doll’s house, and yet it might have been a
+model for the whole place, for the water dropped, tiny icicles hung,
+and spar columns were forming in just the same way.
+
+We had not, however, enough time to examine this beautiful cavern so
+thoroughly as we should have liked to do, since unfortunately, Gagool
+seemed to be indifferent as to stalactites, and only anxious to get her
+business over. This annoyed me the more, as I was particularly anxious
+to discover, if possible, by what system the light was admitted into
+the cave, and whether it was by the hand of man or by that of nature
+that this was done; also if the place had been used in any way in
+ancient times, as seemed probable. However, we consoled ourselves with
+the idea that we would investigate it thoroughly on our way back, and
+followed on at the heels of our uncanny guide.
+
+On she led us, straight to the top of the vast and silent cave, where
+we found another doorway, not arched as the first was, but square at
+the top, something like the doorways of Egyptian temples.
+
+“Are ye prepared to enter the Place of Death, white men?” asked Gagool,
+evidently with a view to making us feel uncomfortable.
+
+“Lead on, Macduff,” said Good solemnly, trying to look as though he was
+not at all alarmed, as indeed we all did except Foulata, who caught
+Good by the arm for protection.
+
+“This is getting rather ghastly,” said Sir Henry, peeping into the dark
+passageway. “Come on, Quatermain—_seniores priores_. We mustn’t keep
+the old lady waiting!” and he politely made way for me to lead the van,
+for which inwardly I did not bless him.
+
+_Tap, tap,_ went old Gagool’s stick down the passage, as she trotted
+along, chuckling hideously; and still overcome by some unaccountable
+presentiment of evil, I hung back.
+
+“Come, get on, old fellow,” said Good, “or we shall lose our fair
+guide.”
+
+Thus adjured, I started down the passage, and after about twenty paces
+found myself in a gloomy apartment some forty feet long, by thirty
+broad, and thirty high, which in some past age evidently had been
+hollowed, by hand-labour, out of the mountain. This apartment was not
+nearly so well lighted as the vast stalactite ante-cave, and at the
+first glance all I could discern was a massive stone table running down
+its length, with a colossal white figure at its head, and life-sized
+white figures all round it. Next I discovered a brown thing, seated on
+the table in the centre, and in another moment my eyes grew accustomed
+to the light, and I saw what all these things were, and was tailing out
+of the place as hard as my legs could carry me.
+
+I am not a nervous man in a general way, and very little troubled with
+superstitions, of which I have lived to see the folly; but I am free to
+own that this sight quite upset me, and had it not been that Sir Henry
+caught me by the collar and held me, I do honestly believe that in
+another five minutes I should have been outside the stalactite cave,
+and that a promise of all the diamonds in Kimberley would not have
+induced me to enter it again. But he held me tight, so I stopped
+because I could not help myself. Next second, however, _his_ eyes
+became accustomed to the light, and he let go of me, and began to mop
+the perspiration off his forehead. As for Good, he swore feebly, while
+Foulata threw her arms round his neck and shrieked.
+
+Only Gagool chuckled loud and long.
+
+It _was_ a ghastly sight. There at the end of the long stone table,
+holding in his skeleton fingers a great white spear, sat _Death_
+himself, shaped in the form of a colossal human skeleton, fifteen feet
+or more in height. High above his head he held the spear, as though in
+the act to strike; one bony hand rested on the stone table before him,
+in the position a man assumes on rising from his seat, whilst his frame
+was bent forward so that the vertebræ of the neck and the grinning,
+gleaming skull projected towards us, and fixed its hollow eye-places
+upon us, the jaws a little open, as though it were about to speak.
+
+“Great heavens!” said I faintly, at last, “what can it be?”
+
+“And what are _those things_?” asked Good, pointing to the white
+company round the table.
+
+“And what on earth is _that thing_?” said Sir Henry, pointing to the
+brown creature seated on the table.
+
+“_Hee! hee! hee!_” laughed Gagool. “To those who enter the Hall of the
+Dead, evil comes. _Hee! hee! hee! ha! ha!_”
+
+“Come, Incubu, brave in battle, come and see him thou slewest;” and the
+old creature caught Curtis’ coat in her skinny fingers, and led him
+away towards the table. We followed.
+
+Presently she stopped and pointed at the brown object seated on the
+table. Sir Henry looked, and started back with an exclamation; and no
+wonder, for there, quite naked, the head which Curtis’ battle-axe had
+shorn from the body resting on its knees, was the gaunt corpse of
+Twala, the last king of the Kukuanas. Yes, there, the head perched upon
+the knees, it sat in all its ugliness, the vertebræ projecting a full
+inch above the level of the shrunken flesh of the neck, for all the
+world like a black double of Hamilton Tighe.[11] Over the surface of
+the corpse there was gathered a thin glassy film, that made its
+appearance yet more appalling, for which we were, at the moment, quite
+unable to account, till presently we observed that from the roof of the
+chamber the water fell steadily, _drip! drop! drip!_ on to the neck of
+the corpse, whence it ran down over the entire surface, and finally
+escaped into the rock through a tiny hole in the table. Then I guessed
+what the film was—_Twala’s body was being transformed into a
+stalactite._
+
+ [11] “Now haste ye, my handmaidens, haste and see
+How he sits there and glowers with his head on his knee.”
+
+A look at the white forms seated on the stone bench which ran round
+that ghastly board confirmed this view. They were human bodies indeed,
+or rather they had been human; now they were _stalactites_. This was
+the way in which the Kukuana people had from time immemorial preserved
+their royal dead. They petrified them. What the exact system might be,
+if there was any, beyond the placing of them for a long period of years
+under the drip, I never discovered, but there they sat, iced over and
+preserved for ever by the siliceous fluid.
+
+Anything more awe-inspiring than the spectacle of this long line of
+departed royalties (there were twenty-seven of them, the last being
+Ignosi’s father), wrapped, each of them, in a shroud of ice-like spar,
+through which the features could be dimly discovered, and seated round
+that inhospitable board, with Death himself for a host, it is
+impossible to imagine. That the practice of thus preserving their kings
+must have been an ancient one is evident from the number, which,
+allowing for an average reign of fifteen years, supposing that every
+king who reigned was placed here—an improbable thing, as some are sure
+to have perished in battle far from home—would fix the date of its
+commencement at four and a quarter centuries back.
+
+But the colossal Death, who sits at the head of the board, is far older
+than that, and, unless I am much mistaken, owes his origin to the same
+artist who designed the three Colossi. He is hewn out of a single
+stalactite, and, looked at as a work of art, is most admirably
+conceived and executed. Good, who understands such things, declared
+that, so far as he could see, the anatomical design of the skeleton is
+perfect down to the smallest bones.
+
+My own idea is, that this terrific object was a freak of fancy on the
+part of some old-world sculptor, and that its presence had suggested to
+the Kukuanas the idea of placing their royal dead under its awful
+presidency. Or perhaps it was set there to frighten away any marauders
+who might have designs upon the treasure chamber beyond. I cannot say.
+All I can do is to describe it as it is, and the reader must form his
+own conclusion.
+
+Such, at any rate, was the White Death and such were the White Dead!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+SOLOMON’S TREASURE CHAMBER
+
+
+While we were engaged in recovering from our fright, and in examining
+the grisly wonders of the Place of Death, Gagool had been differently
+occupied. Somehow or other—for she was marvellously active when she
+chose—she had scrambled on to the great table, and made her way to
+where our departed friend Twala was placed, under the drip, to see,
+suggested Good, how he was “pickling,” or for some dark purpose of her
+own. Then, after bending down to kiss his icy lips as though in
+affectionate greeting, she hobbled back, stopping now and again to
+address the remark, the tenor of which I could not catch, to one or
+other of the shrouded forms, just as you or I might welcome an old
+acquaintance. Having gone through this mysterious and horrible
+ceremony, she squatted herself down on the table immediately under the
+White Death, and began, so far as I could make out, to offer up
+prayers. The spectacle of this wicked creature pouring out
+supplications, evil ones no doubt, to the arch enemy of mankind, was so
+uncanny that it caused us to hasten our inspection.
+
+“Now, Gagool,” said I, in a low voice—somehow one did not dare to speak
+above a whisper in that place—“lead us to the chamber.”
+
+The old witch promptly scrambled down from the table.
+
+“My lords are not afraid?” she said, leering up into my face.
+
+“Lead on.”
+
+“Good, my lords;” and she hobbled round to the back of the great Death.
+“Here is the chamber; let my lords light the lamp, and enter,” and she
+placed the gourd full of oil upon the floor, and leaned herself against
+the side of the cave. I took out a match, of which we had still a few
+in a box, and lit a rush wick, and then looked for the doorway, but
+there was nothing before us except the solid rock. Gagool grinned. “The
+way is there, my lords. _Ha! ha! ha!_”
+
+“Do not jest with us,” I said sternly.
+
+“I jest not, my lords. See!” and she pointed at the rock.
+
+As she did so, on holding up the lamp we perceived that a mass of stone
+was rising slowly from the floor and vanishing into the rock above,
+where doubtless there is a cavity prepared to receive it. The mass was
+of the width of a good-sized door, about ten feet high and not less
+than five feet thick. It must have weighed at least twenty or thirty
+tons, and was clearly moved upon some simple balance principle of
+counter-weights, probably the same as that by which the opening and
+shutting of an ordinary modern window is arranged. How the principle
+was set in motion, of course none of us saw; Gagool was careful to
+avoid this; but I have little doubt that there was some very simple
+lever, which was moved ever so little by pressure at a secret spot,
+thereby throwing additional weight on to the hidden counter-balances,
+and causing the monolith to be lifted from the ground.
+
+Very slowly and gently the great stone raised itself, till at last it
+had vanished altogether, and a dark hole presented itself to us in the
+place which the door had filled.
+
+Our excitement was so intense, as we saw the way to Solomon’s treasure
+chamber thrown open at last, that I for one began to tremble and shake.
+Would it prove a hoax after all, I wondered, or was old Da Silvestra
+right? Were there vast hoards of wealth hidden in that dark place,
+hoards which would make us the richest men in the whole world? We
+should know in a minute or two.
+
+“Enter, white men from the Stars,” said Gagool, advancing into the
+doorway; “but first hear your servant, Gagool the old. The bright
+stones that ye will see were dug out of the pit over which the Silent
+Ones are set, and stored here, I know not by whom, for that was done
+longer ago than even I remember. But once has this place been entered
+since the time that those who hid the stones departed in haste, leaving
+them behind. The report of the treasure went down indeed among the
+people who lived in the country from age to age, but none knew where
+the chamber was, nor the secret of the door. But it happened that a
+white man reached this country from over the mountains—perchance he too
+came ‘from the Stars’—and was well received by the king of that day. He
+it is who sits yonder,” and she pointed to the fifth king at the table
+of the Dead. “And it came to pass that he and a woman of the country
+who was with him journeyed to this place, and that by chance the woman
+learnt the secret of the door—a thousand years might ye search, but ye
+should never find that secret. Then the white man entered with the
+woman, and found the stones, and filled with stones the skin of a small
+goat, which the woman had with her to hold food. And as he was going
+from the chamber he took up one more stone, a large one, and held it in
+his hand.”
+
+Here she paused.
+
+“Well,” I asked, breathless with interest as we all were, “what
+happened to Da Silvestra?”
+
+The old hag started at the mention of the name.
+
+“How knowest thou the dead man’s name?” she asked sharply; and then,
+without waiting for an answer, went on—
+
+“None can tell what happened; but it came about that the white man was
+frightened, for he flung down the goat-skin, with the stones, and fled
+out with only the one stone in his hand, and that the king took, and it
+is the stone which thou, Macumazahn, didst take from Twala’s brow.”
+
+“Have none entered here since?” I asked, peering again down the dark
+passage.
+
+“None, my lords. Only the secret of the door has been kept, and every
+king has opened it, though he has not entered. There is a saying, that
+those who enter there will die within a moon, even as the white man
+died in the cave upon the mountain, where ye found him, Macumazahn, and
+therefore the kings do not enter. _Ha! ha!_ mine are true words.”
+
+Our eyes met as she said it, and I turned sick and cold. How did the
+old hag know all these things?
+
+“Enter, my lords. If I speak truth, the goat-skin with the stones will
+lie upon the floor; and if there is truth as to whether it is death to
+enter here, that ye will learn afterwards. _Ha! ha! ha!_” and she
+hobbled through the doorway, bearing the light with her; but I confess
+that once more I hesitated about following.
+
+“Oh, confound it all!” said Good; “here goes. I am not going to be
+frightened by that old devil;” and followed by Foulata, who, however,
+evidently did not at all like the business, for she was shivering with
+fear, he plunged into the passage after Gagool—an example which we
+quickly followed.
+
+A few yards down the passage, in the narrow way hewn out of the living
+rock, Gagool had paused, and was waiting for us.
+
+“See, my lords,” she said, holding the light before her, “those who
+stored the treasure here fled in haste, and bethought them to guard
+against any who should find the secret of the door, but had not the
+time,” and she pointed to large square blocks of stone, which, to the
+height of two courses (about two feet three), had been placed across
+the passage with a view to walling it up. Along the side of the passage
+were similar blocks ready for use, and, most curious of all, a heap of
+mortar and a couple of trowels, which tools, so far as we had time to
+examine them, appeared to be of a similar shape and make to those used
+by workmen to this day.
+
+Here Foulata, who had been in a state of great fear and agitation
+throughout, said that she felt faint and could go no farther, but would
+wait there. Accordingly we set her down on the unfinished wall, placing
+the basket of provisions by her side, and left her to recover.
+
+Following the passage for about fifteen paces farther, we came suddenly
+to an elaborately painted wooden door. It was standing wide open.
+Whoever was last there had either not found the time to shut it, or had
+forgotten to do so.
+
+_Across the threshold of this door lay a skin bag, formed of a
+goat-skin, that appeared to be full of pebbles._
+
+“_Hee! hee!_ white men,” sniggered Gagool, as the light from the lamp
+fell upon it. “What did I tell you, that the white man who came here
+fled in haste, and dropped the woman’s bag—behold it! Look within also
+and ye will find a water-gourd amongst the stones.”
+
+Good stooped down and lifted it. It was heavy and jingled.
+
+“By Jove! I believe it’s full of diamonds,” he said, in an awed
+whisper; and, indeed, the idea of a small goat-skin full of diamonds is
+enough to awe anybody.
+
+“Go on,” said Sir Henry impatiently. “Here, old lady, give me the
+lamp,” and taking it from Gagool’s hand, he stepped through the doorway
+and held it high above his head.
+
+We pressed in after him, forgetful for the moment of the bag of
+diamonds, and found ourselves in King Solomon’s treasure chamber.
+
+At first, all that the somewhat faint light given by the lamp revealed
+was a room hewn out of the living rock, and apparently not more than
+ten feet square. Next there came into sight, stored one on the other to
+the arch of the roof, a splendid collection of elephant-tusks. How many
+of them there were we did not know, for of course we could not see to
+what depth they went back, but there could not have been less than the
+ends of four or five hundred tusks of the first quality visible to our
+eyes. There, alone, was enough ivory to make a man wealthy for life.
+Perhaps, I thought, it was from this very store that Solomon drew the
+raw material for his “great throne of ivory,” of which “there was not
+the like made in any kingdom.”
+
+On the opposite side of the chamber were about a score of wooden boxes,
+something like Martini-Henry ammunition boxes, only rather larger, and
+painted red.
+
+“There are the diamonds,” cried I; “bring the light.”
+
+Sir Henry did so, holding it close to the top box, of which the lid,
+rendered rotten by time even in that dry place, appeared to have been
+smashed in, probably by Da Silvestra himself. Pushing my hand through
+the hole in the lid I drew it out full, not of diamonds, but of gold
+pieces, of a shape that none of us had seen before, and with what
+looked like Hebrew characters stamped upon them.
+
+“Ah!” I said, replacing the coin, “we shan’t go back empty-handed,
+anyhow. There must be a couple of thousand pieces in each box, and
+there are eighteen boxes. I suppose this was the money to pay the
+workmen and merchants.”
+
+“Well,” put in Good, “I think that is the lot; I don’t see any
+diamonds, unless the old Portuguese put them all into his bag.”
+
+“Let my lords look yonder where it is darkest, if they would find the
+stones,” said Gagool, interpreting our looks. “There my lords will find
+a nook, and three stone chests in the nook, two sealed and one open.”
+
+Before translating this to Sir Henry, who carried the light, I could
+not resist asking how she knew these things, if no one had entered the
+place since the white man, generations ago.
+
+“Ah, Macumazahn, the watcher by night,” was the mocking answer, “ye who
+dwell in the stars, do ye not know that some live long, and that some
+have eyes which can see through rock? _Ha! ha! ha!_”
+
+“Look in that corner, Curtis,” I said, indicating the spot Gagool had
+pointed out.
+
+“Hullo, you fellows,” he cried, “here’s a recess. Great heavens! see
+here.”
+
+We hurried up to where he was standing in a nook, shaped something like
+a small bow window. Against the wall of this recess were placed three
+stone chests, each about two feet square. Two were fitted with stone
+lids, the lid of the third rested against the side of the chest, which
+was open.
+
+“_See!_” he repeated hoarsely, holding the lamp over the open chest. We
+looked, and for a moment could make nothing out, on account of a
+silvery sheen which dazzled us. When our eyes grew used to it we saw
+that the chest was three-parts full of uncut diamonds, most of them of
+considerable size. Stooping, I picked some up. Yes, there was no doubt
+of it, there was the unmistakable soapy feel about them.
+
+I fairly gasped as I dropped them.
+
+“We are the richest men in the whole world,” I said. “Monte Christo was
+a fool to us.”
+
+“We shall flood the market with diamonds,” said Good.
+
+“Got to get them there first,” suggested Sir Henry.
+
+We stood still with pale faces and stared at each other, the lantern in
+the middle and the glimmering gems below, as though we were
+conspirators about to commit a crime, instead of being, as we thought,
+the most fortunate men on earth.
+
+“_Hee! hee! hee!_” cackled old Gagool behind us, as she flitted about
+like a vampire bat. “There are the bright stones ye love, white men, as
+many as ye will; take them, run them through your fingers, _eat_ of
+them, _hee! hee! drink_ of them, _ha! ha!_”
+
+At that moment there was something so ridiculous to my mind at the idea
+of eating and drinking diamonds, that I began to laugh outrageously, an
+example which the others followed, without knowing why. There we stood
+and shrieked with laughter over the gems that were ours, which had been
+found for _us_ thousands of years ago by the patient delvers in the
+great hole yonder, and stored for _us_ by Solomon’s long-dead overseer,
+whose name, perchance, was written in the characters stamped on the
+faded wax that yet adhered to the lids of the chest. Solomon never got
+them, nor David, or Da Silvestra, nor anybody else. _We_ had got them:
+there before us were millions of pounds’ worth of diamonds, and
+thousands of pounds’ worth of gold and ivory only waiting to be taken
+away.
+
+Suddenly the fit passed off, and we stopped laughing.
+
+“Open the other chests, white men,” croaked Gagool, “there are surely
+more therein. Take your fill, white lords! _Ha! ha!_ take your fill.”
+
+Thus adjured, we set to work to pull up the stone lids on the other
+two, first—not without a feeling of sacrilege—breaking the seals that
+fastened them.
+
+Hoorah! they were full too, full to the brim; at least, the second one
+was; no wretched burglarious Da Silvestra had been filling goat-skins
+out of that. As for the third chest, it was only about a fourth full,
+but the stones were all picked ones; none less than twenty carats, and
+some of them as large as pigeon-eggs. A good many of these bigger ones,
+however, we could see by holding them up to the light, were a little
+yellow, “off coloured,” as they call it at Kimberley.
+
+What we did _not_ see, however, was the look of fearful malevolence
+that old Gagool favoured us with as she crept, crept like a snake, out
+of the treasure chamber and down the passage towards the door of solid
+rock.
+
+
+Hark! Cry upon cry comes ringing up the vaulted path. It is Foulata’s
+voice!
+
+“_Oh, Bougwan! help! help! the stone falls!_”
+
+“Leave go, girl! Then—”
+
+“_Help! help! she has stabbed me!_”
+
+By now we are running down the passage, and this is what the light from
+the lamp shows us. The door of the rock is closing down slowly; it is
+not three feet from the floor. Near it struggle Foulata and Gagool. The
+red blood of the former runs to her knee, but still the brave girl
+holds the old witch, who fights like a wild cat. Ah! she is free!
+Foulata falls, and Gagool throws herself on the ground, to twist like a
+snake through the crack of the closing stone. She is under—ah! god! too
+late! too late! The stone nips her, and she yells in agony. Down, down
+it comes, all the thirty tons of it, slowly pressing her old body
+against the rock below. Shriek upon shriek, such as we have never
+heard, then a long sickening _crunch_, and the door was shut just as,
+rushing down the passage, we hurled ourselves against it.
+
+It was all done in four seconds.
+
+Then we turned to Foulata. The poor girl was stabbed in the body, and I
+saw that she could not live long.
+
+“Ah! Bougwan, I die!” gasped the beautiful creature. “She crept
+out—Gagool; I did not see her, I was faint—and the door began to fall;
+then she came back, and was looking up the path—I saw her come in
+through the slowly falling door, and caught her and held her, and she
+stabbed me, and _I die_, Bougwan!”
+
+“Poor girl! poor girl!” Good cried in his distress; and then, as he
+could do nothing else, he fell to kissing her.
+
+“Bougwan,” she said, after a pause, “is Macumazahn there? It grows so
+dark, I cannot see.”
+
+“Here I am, Foulata.”
+
+“Macumazahn, be my tongue for a moment, I pray thee, for Bougwan cannot
+understand me, and before I go into the darkness I would speak to him a
+word.”
+
+“Say on, Foulata, I will render it.”
+
+“Say to my lord, Bougwan, that—I love him, and that I am glad to die
+because I know that he cannot cumber his life with such as I am, for
+the sun may not mate with the darkness, nor the white with the black.
+
+“Say that, since I saw him, at times I have felt as though there were a
+bird in my bosom, which would one day fly hence and sing elsewhere.
+Even now, though I cannot lift my hand, and my brain grows cold, I do
+not feel as though my heart were dying; it is so full of love that it
+could live ten thousand years, and yet be young. Say that if I live
+again, mayhap I shall see him in the Stars, and that—I will search them
+all, though perchance there I should still be black and he would—still
+be white. Say—nay, Macumazahn, say no more, save that I love—Oh, hold
+me closer, Bougwan, I cannot feel thine arms—_oh! oh!_”
+
+“She is dead—she is dead!” muttered Good, rising in grief, the tears
+running down his honest face.
+
+“You need not let that trouble you, old fellow,” said Sir Henry.
+
+“Eh!” exclaimed Good; “what do you mean?”
+
+“I mean that you will soon be in a position to join her. _Man, don’t
+you see that we are buried alive?_”
+
+Until Sir Henry uttered these words I do not think that the full horror
+of what had happened had come home to us, preoccupied as we were with
+the sight of poor Foulata’s end. But now we understood. The ponderous
+mass of rock had closed, probably for ever, for the only brain which
+knew its secret was crushed to powder beneath its weight. This was a
+door that none could hope to force with anything short of dynamite in
+large quantities. And we were on the wrong side!
+
+For a few minutes we stood horrified, there over the corpse of Foulata.
+All the manhood seemed to have gone out of us. The first shock of this
+idea of the slow and miserable end that awaited us was overpowering. We
+saw it all now; that fiend Gagool had planned this snare for us from
+the first.
+
+It would have been just the jest that her evil mind would have rejoiced
+in, the idea of the three white men, whom, for some reason of her own,
+she had always hated, slowly perishing of thirst and hunger in the
+company of the treasure they had coveted. Now I saw the point of that
+sneer of hers about eating and drinking the diamonds. Probably somebody
+had tried to serve the poor old Dom in the same way, when he abandoned
+the skin full of jewels.
+
+“This will never do,” said Sir Henry hoarsely; “the lamp will soon go
+out. Let us see if we can’t find the spring that works the rock.”
+
+We sprang forward with desperate energy, and, standing in a bloody
+ooze, began to feel up and down the door and the sides of the passage.
+But no knob or spring could we discover.
+
+“Depend on it,” I said, “it does not work from the inside; if it did
+Gagool would not have risked trying to crawl underneath the stone. It
+was the knowledge of this that made her try to escape at all hazards,
+curse her.”
+
+“At all events,” said Sir Henry, with a hard little laugh, “retribution
+was swift; hers was almost as awful an end as ours is likely to be. We
+can do nothing with the door; let us go back to the treasure room.”
+
+We turned and went, and as we passed it I perceived by the unfinished
+wall across the passage the basket of food which poor Foulata had
+carried. I took it up, and brought it with me to the accursed treasure
+chamber that was to be our grave. Then we returned and reverently bore
+in Foulata’s corpse, laying it on the floor by the boxes of coin.
+
+Next we seated ourselves, leaning our backs against the three stone
+chests which contained the priceless treasure.
+
+“Let us divide the food,” said Sir Henry, “so as to make it last as
+long as possible.” Accordingly we did so. It would, we reckoned, make
+four infinitesimally small meals for each of us, enough, say, to
+support life for a couple of days. Besides the “biltong,” or dried
+game-flesh, there were two gourds of water, each of which held not more
+than a quart.
+
+“Now,” said Sir Henry grimly, “let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we
+die.”
+
+We each ate a small portion of the “biltong,” and drank a sip of water.
+Needless to say, we had but little appetite, though we were sadly in
+need of food, and felt better after swallowing it. Then we got up and
+made a systematic examination of the walls of our prison-house, in the
+faint hope of finding some means of exit, sounding them and the floor
+carefully.
+
+There was none. It was not probable that there would be any to a
+treasure chamber.
+
+The lamp began to burn dim. The fat was nearly exhausted.
+
+“Quatermain,” said Sir Henry, “what is the time—your watch goes?”
+
+I drew it out, and looked at it. It was six o’clock; we had entered the
+cave at eleven.
+
+“Infadoos will miss us,” I suggested. “If we do not return to-night he
+will search for us in the morning, Curtis.”
+
+“He may search in vain. He does not know the secret of the door, nor
+even where it is. No living person knew it yesterday, except Gagool.
+To-day no one knows it. Even if he found the door he could not break it
+down. All the Kukuana army could not break through five feet of living
+rock. My friends, I see nothing for it but to bow ourselves to the will
+of the Almighty. The search for treasure has brought many to a bad end;
+we shall go to swell their number.”
+
+The lamp grew dimmer yet.
+
+Presently it flared up and showed the whole scene in strong relief, the
+great mass of white tusks, the boxes of gold, the corpse of the poor
+Foulata stretched before them, the goat-skin full of treasure, the dim
+glimmer of the diamonds, and the wild, wan faces of us three white men
+seated there awaiting death by starvation.
+
+Then the flame sank and expired.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+WE ABANDON HOPE
+
+
+I can give no adequate description of the horrors of the night which
+followed. Mercifully they were to some extent mitigated by sleep, for
+even in such a position as ours wearied nature will sometimes assert
+itself. But I, at any rate, found it impossible to sleep much. Putting
+aside the terrifying thought of our impending doom—for the bravest man
+on earth might well quail from such a fate as awaited us, and I never
+made any pretensions to be brave—the _silence_ itself was too great to
+allow of it. Reader, you may have lain awake at night and thought the
+quiet oppressive, but I say with confidence that you can have no idea
+what a vivid, tangible thing is perfect stillness. On the surface of
+the earth there is always some sound or motion, and though it may in
+itself be imperceptible, yet it deadens the sharp edge of absolute
+silence. But here there was none. We were buried in the bowels of a
+huge snow-clad peak. Thousands of feet above us the fresh air rushed
+over the white snow, but no sound of it reached us. We were separated
+by a long tunnel and five feet of rock even from the awful chamber of
+the Dead; and the dead make no noise. Did we not know it who lay by
+poor Foulata’s side? The crashing of all the artillery of earth and
+heaven could not have come to our ears in our living tomb. We were cut
+off from every echo of the world—we were as men already in the grave.
+
+Then the irony of the situation forced itself upon me. There around us
+lay treasures enough to pay off a moderate national debt, or to build a
+fleet of ironclads, and yet we would have bartered them all gladly for
+the faintest chance of escape. Soon, doubtless, we should be rejoiced
+to exchange them for a bit of food or a cup of water, and, after that,
+even for the privilege of a speedy close to our sufferings. Truly
+wealth, which men spend their lives in acquiring, is a valueless thing
+at the last.
+
+And so the night wore on.
+
+“Good,” said Sir Henry’s voice at last, and it sounded awful in the
+intense stillness, “how many matches have you in the box?”
+
+“Eight, Curtis.”
+
+“Strike one and let us see the time.”
+
+He did so, and in contrast to the dense darkness the flame nearly
+blinded us. It was five o’clock by my watch. The beautiful dawn was now
+blushing on the snow-wreaths far over our heads, and the breeze would
+be stirring the night mists in the hollows.
+
+“We had better eat something and keep up our strength,” I suggested.
+
+“What is the good of eating?” answered Good; “the sooner we die and get
+it over the better.”
+
+“While there is life there is hope,” said Sir Henry.
+
+Accordingly we ate and sipped some water, and another period of time
+elapsed. Then Sir Henry suggested that it might be well to get as near
+the door as possible and halloa, on the faint chance of somebody
+catching a sound outside. Accordingly Good, who, from long practice at
+sea, has a fine piercing note, groped his way down the passage and set
+to work. I must say that he made a most diabolical noise. I never heard
+such yells; but it might have been a mosquito buzzing for all the
+effect they produced.
+
+After a while he gave it up and came back very thirsty, and had to
+drink. Then we stopped yelling, as it encroached on the supply of
+water.
+
+So we sat down once more against the chests of useless diamonds in that
+dreadful inaction which was one of the hardest circumstances of our
+fate; and I am bound to say that, for my part, I gave way in despair.
+Laying my head against Sir Henry’s broad shoulder I burst into tears;
+and I think that I heard Good gulping away on the other side, and
+swearing hoarsely at himself for doing so.
+
+Ah, how good and brave that great man was! Had we been two frightened
+children, and he our nurse, he could not have treated us more tenderly.
+Forgetting his own share of miseries, he did all he could to soothe our
+broken nerves, telling stories of men who had been in somewhat similar
+circumstances, and miraculously escaped; and when these failed to cheer
+us, pointing out how, after all, it was only anticipating an end which
+must come to us all, that it would soon be over, and that death from
+exhaustion was a merciful one (which is not true). Then, in a diffident
+sort of way, as once before I had heard him do, he suggested that we
+should throw ourselves on the mercy of a higher Power, which for my
+part I did with great vigour.
+
+His is a beautiful character, very quiet, but very strong.
+
+And so somehow the day went as the night had gone, if, indeed, one can
+use these terms where all was densest night, and when I lit a match to
+see the time it was seven o’clock.
+
+Once more we ate and drank, and as we did so an idea occurred to me.
+
+“How is it,” said I, “that the air in this place keeps fresh? It is
+thick and heavy, but it is perfectly fresh.”
+
+“Great heavens!” said Good, starting up, “I never thought of that. It
+can’t come through the stone door, for it’s air-tight, if ever a door
+was. It must come from somewhere. If there were no current of air in
+the place we should have been stifled or poisoned when we first came
+in. Let us have a look.”
+
+It was wonderful what a change this mere spark of hope wrought in us.
+In a moment we were all three groping about on our hands and knees,
+feeling for the slightest indication of a draught. Presently my ardour
+received a check. I put my hand on something cold. It was dead
+Foulata’s face.
+
+For an hour or more we went on feeling about, till at last Sir Henry
+and I gave it up in despair, having been considerably hurt by
+constantly knocking our heads against tusks, chests, and the sides of
+the chamber. But Good still persevered, saying, with an approach to
+cheerfulness, that it was better than doing nothing.
+
+“I say, you fellows,” he said presently, in a constrained sort of
+voice, “come here.”
+
+Needless to say we scrambled towards him quickly enough.
+
+“Quatermain, put your hand here where mine is. Now, do you feel
+anything?”
+
+“I _think_ I feel air coming up.”
+
+“Now listen.” He rose and stamped upon the place, and a flame of hope
+shot up in our hearts. _It rang hollow._
+
+With trembling hands I lit a match. I had only three left, and we saw
+that we were in the angle of the far corner of the chamber, a fact that
+accounted for our not having noticed the hollow sound of the place
+during our former exhaustive examination. As the match burnt we
+scrutinised the spot. There was a join in the solid rock floor, and,
+great heavens! there, let in level with the rock, was a stone ring. We
+said no word, we were too excited, and our hearts beat too wildly with
+hope to allow us to speak. Good had a knife, at the back of which was
+one of those hooks that are made to extract stones from horses’ hoofs.
+He opened it, and scratched round the ring with it. Finally he worked
+it under, and levered away gently for fear of breaking the hook. The
+ring began to move. Being of stone it had not rusted fast in all the
+centuries it had lain there, as would have been the case had it been of
+iron. Presently it was upright. Then he thrust his hands into it and
+tugged with all his force, but nothing budged.
+
+“Let me try,” I said impatiently, for the situation of the stone, right
+in the angle of the corner, was such that it was impossible for two to
+pull at once. I took hold and strained away, but no results.
+
+Then Sir Henry tried and failed.
+
+Taking the hook again, Good scratched all round the crack where we felt
+the air coming up.
+
+“Now, Curtis,” he said, “tackle on, and put your back into it; you are
+as strong as two. Stop,” and he took off a stout black silk
+handkerchief, which, true to his habits of neatness, he still wore, and
+ran it through the ring. “Quatermain, get Curtis round the middle and
+pull for dear life when I give the word. _Now._”
+
+Sir Henry put out all his enormous strength, and Good and I did the
+same, with such power as nature had given us.
+
+“Heave! heave! it’s giving,” gasped Sir Henry; and I heard the muscles
+of his great back cracking. Suddenly there was a grating sound, then a
+rush of air, and we were all on our backs on the floor with a heavy
+flag-stone upon the top of us. Sir Henry’s strength had done it, and
+never did muscular power stand a man in better stead.
+
+“Light a match, Quatermain,” he said, so soon as we had picked
+ourselves up and got our breath; “carefully, now.”
+
+I did so, and there before us, Heaven be praised! was the _first step
+of a stone stair._
+
+“Now what is to be done?” asked Good.
+
+“Follow the stair, of course, and trust to Providence.”
+
+“Stop!” said Sir Henry; “Quatermain, get the bit of biltong and the
+water that are left; we may want them.”
+
+I went, creeping back to our place by the chests for that purpose, and
+as I was coming away an idea struck me. We had not thought much of the
+diamonds for the last twenty-four hours or so; indeed, the very idea of
+diamonds was nauseous, seeing what they had entailed upon us; but,
+reflected I, I may as well pocket some in case we ever should get out
+of this ghastly hole. So I just put my fist into the first chest and
+filled all the available pockets of my old shooting-coat and trousers,
+topping up—this was a happy thought—with a few handfuls of big ones
+from the third chest. Also, by an afterthought, I stuffed Foulata’s
+basket, which, except for one water-gourd and a little biltong, was
+empty now, with great quantities of the stones.
+
+“I say, you fellows,” I sang out, “won’t you take some diamonds with
+you? I’ve filled my pockets and the basket.”
+
+“Oh, come on, Quatermain! and hang the diamonds!” said Sir Henry. “I
+hope that I may never see another.”
+
+As for Good, he made no answer. He was, I think, taking his last
+farewell of all that was left of the poor girl who had loved him so
+well. And curious as it may seem to you, my reader, sitting at home at
+ease and reflecting on the vast, indeed the immeasurable, wealth which
+we were thus abandoning, I can assure you that if you had passed some
+twenty-eight hours with next to nothing to eat and drink in that place,
+you would not have cared to cumber yourself with diamonds whilst
+plunging down into the unknown bowels of the earth, in the wild hope of
+escape from an agonising death. If from the habits of a lifetime, it
+had not become a sort of second nature with me never to leave anything
+worth having behind if there was the slightest chance of my being able
+to carry it away, I am sure that I should not have bothered to fill my
+pockets and that basket.
+
+“Come on, Quatermain,” repeated Sir Henry, who was already standing on
+the first step of the stone stair. “Steady, I will go first.”
+
+“Mind where you put your feet, there may be some awful hole
+underneath,” I answered.
+
+“Much more likely to be another room,” said Sir Henry, while he
+descended slowly, counting the steps as he went.
+
+When he got to “fifteen” he stopped. “Here’s the bottom,” he said.
+“Thank goodness! I think it’s a passage. Follow me down.”
+
+Good went next, and I came last, carrying the basket, and on reaching
+the bottom lit one of the two remaining matches. By its light we could
+just see that we were standing in a narrow tunnel, which ran right and
+left at right angles to the staircase we had descended. Before we could
+make out any more, the match burnt my fingers and went out. Then arose
+the delicate question of which way to go. Of course, it was impossible
+to know what the tunnel was, or where it led to, and yet to turn one
+way might lead us to safety, and the other to destruction. We were
+utterly perplexed, till suddenly it struck Good that when I had lit the
+match the draught of the passage blew the flame to the left.
+
+“Let us go against the draught,” he said; “air draws inwards, not
+outwards.”
+
+We took this suggestion, and feeling along the wall with our hands,
+whilst trying the ground before us at every step, we departed from that
+accursed treasure chamber on our terrible quest for life. If ever it
+should be entered again by living man, which I do not think probable,
+he will find tokens of our visit in the open chests of jewels, the
+empty lamp, and the white bones of poor Foulata.
+
+When we had groped our way for about a quarter of an hour along the
+passage, suddenly it took a sharp turn, or else was bisected by
+another, which we followed, only in course of time to be led into a
+third. And so it went on for some hours. We seemed to be in a stone
+labyrinth that led nowhere. What all these passages are, of course I
+cannot say, but we thought that they must be the ancient workings of a
+mine, of which the various shafts and adits travelled hither and
+thither as the ore led them. This is the only way in which we could
+account for such a multitude of galleries.
+
+At length we halted, thoroughly worn out with fatigue and with that
+hope deferred which maketh the heart sick, and ate up our poor
+remaining piece of biltong and drank our last sup of water, for our
+throats were like lime-kilns. It seemed to us that we had escaped Death
+in the darkness of the treasure chamber only to meet him in the
+darkness of the tunnels.
+
+As we stood, once more utterly depressed, I thought that I caught a
+sound, to which I called the attention of the others. It was very faint
+and very far off, but it _was_ a sound, a faint, murmuring sound, for
+the others heard it too, and no words can describe the blessedness of
+it after all those hours of utter, awful stillness.
+
+“By heaven! it’s running water,” said Good. “Come on.”
+
+Off we started again in the direction from which the faint murmur
+seemed to come, groping our way as before along the rocky walls. I
+remember that I laid down the basket full of diamonds, wishing to be
+rid of its weight, but on second thoughts took it up again. One might
+as well die rich as poor, I reflected. As we went the sound became more
+and more audible, till at last it seemed quite loud in the quiet. On,
+yet on; now we could distinctly make out the unmistakable swirl of
+rushing water. And yet how could there be running water in the bowels
+of the earth? Now we were quite near it, and Good, who was leading,
+swore that he could smell it.
+
+“Go gently, Good,” said Sir Henry, “we must be close.” _Splash!_ and a
+cry from Good.
+
+He had fallen in.
+
+“Good! Good! where are you?” we shouted, in terrified distress. To our
+intense relief an answer came back in a choky voice.
+
+“All right; I’ve got hold of a rock. Strike a light to show me where
+you are.”
+
+Hastily I lit the last remaining match. Its faint gleam discovered to
+us a dark mass of water running at our feet. How wide it was we could
+not see, but there, some way out, was the dark form of our companion
+hanging on to a projecting rock.
+
+“Stand clear to catch me,” sung out Good. “I must swim for it.”
+
+Then we heard a splash, and a great struggle. Another minute and he had
+grabbed at and caught Sir Henry’s outstretched hand, and we had pulled
+him up high and dry into the tunnel.
+
+“My word!” he said, between his gasps, “that was touch and go. If I
+hadn’t managed to catch that rock, and known how to swim, I should have
+been done. It runs like a mill-race, and I could feel no bottom.”
+
+We dared not follow the banks of the subterranean river for fear lest
+we should fall into it again in the darkness. So after Good had rested
+a while, and we had drunk our fill of the water, which was sweet and
+fresh, and washed our faces, that needed it sadly, as well as we could,
+we started from the banks of this African Styx, and began to retrace
+our steps along the tunnel, Good dripping unpleasantly in front of us.
+At length we came to another gallery leading to our right.
+
+“We may as well take it,” said Sir Henry wearily; “all roads are alike
+here; we can only go on till we drop.”
+
+Slowly, for a long, long while, we stumbled, utterly exhausted, along
+this new tunnel, Sir Henry now leading the way. Again I thought of
+abandoning that basket, but did not.
+
+Suddenly he stopped, and we bumped up against him.
+
+“Look!” he whispered, “is my brain going, or is that light?”
+
+We stared with all our eyes, and there, yes, there, far ahead of us,
+was a faint, glimmering spot, no larger than a cottage window pane. It
+was so faint that I doubt if any eyes, except those which, like ours,
+had for days seen nothing but blackness, could have perceived it at
+all.
+
+With a gasp of hope we pushed on. In five minutes there was no longer
+any doubt; it _was_ a patch of faint light. A minute more and a breath
+of real live air was fanning us. On we struggled. All at once the
+tunnel narrowed. Sir Henry went on his knees. Smaller yet it grew, till
+it was only the size of a large fox’s earth—it was _earth_ now, mind
+you; the rock had ceased.
+
+A squeeze, a struggle, and Sir Henry was out, and so was Good, and so
+was I, dragging Foulata’s basket after me; and there above us were the
+blessed stars, and in our nostrils was the sweet air. Then suddenly
+something gave, and we were all rolling over and over and over through
+grass and bushes and soft, wet soil.
+
+The basket caught in something and I stopped. Sitting up I halloed
+lustily. An answering shout came from below, where Sir Henry’s wild
+career had been checked by some level ground. I scrambled to him, and
+found him unhurt, though breathless. Then we looked for Good. A little
+way off we discovered him also, hammed in a forked root. He was a good
+deal knocked about, but soon came to himself.
+
+We sat down together, there on the grass, and the revulsion of feeling
+was so great that really I think we cried with joy. We had escaped from
+that awful dungeon, which was so near to becoming our grave. Surely
+some merciful Power guided our footsteps to the jackal hole, for that
+is what it must have been, at the termination of the tunnel. And see,
+yonder on the mountains the dawn we had never thought to look upon
+again was blushing rosy red.
+
+Presently the grey light stole down the slopes, and we saw that we were
+at the bottom, or rather, nearly at the bottom, of the vast pit in
+front of the entrance to the cave. Now we could make out the dim forms
+of the three Colossi who sat upon its verge. Doubtless those awful
+passages, along which we had wandered the livelong night, had been
+originally in some way connected with the great diamond mine. As for
+the subterranean river in the bowels of the mountain, Heaven only knows
+what it is, or whence it flows, or whither it goes. I, for one, have no
+anxiety to trace its course.
+
+Lighter it grew, and lighter yet. We could see each other now, and such
+a spectacle as we presented I have never set eyes on before or since.
+Gaunt-cheeked, hollow-eyed wretches, smeared all over with dust and
+mud, bruised, bleeding, the long fear of imminent death yet written on
+our countenances, we were, indeed, a sight to frighten the daylight.
+And yet it is a solemn fact that Good’s eye-glass was still fixed in
+Good’s eye. I doubt whether he had ever taken it out at all. Neither
+the darkness, nor the plunge in the subterranean river, nor the roll
+down the slope, had been able to separate Good and his eye-glass.
+
+Presently we rose, fearing that our limbs would stiffen if we stopped
+there longer, and commenced with slow and painful steps to struggle up
+the sloping sides of the great pit. For an hour or more we toiled
+steadfastly up the blue clay, dragging ourselves on by the help of the
+roots and grasses with which it was clothed. But now I had no more
+thought of leaving the basket; indeed, nothing but death should have
+parted us.
+
+At last it was done, and we stood by the great road, on that side of
+the pit which is opposite to the Colossi.
+
+At the side of the road, a hundred yards off, a fire was burning in
+front of some huts, and round the fire were figures. We staggered
+towards them, supporting one another, and halting every few paces.
+Presently one of the figures rose, saw us and fell on to the ground,
+crying out for fear.
+
+“Infadoos, Infadoos! it is we, thy friends.”
+
+He rose; he ran to us, staring wildly, and still shaking with fear.
+
+“Oh, my lords, my lords, it is indeed you come back from the dead!—come
+back from the dead!”
+
+And the old warrior flung himself down before us, and clasping Sir
+Henry’s knees, he wept aloud for joy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+IGNOSI’S FAREWELL
+
+
+Ten days from that eventful morning found us once more in our old
+quarters at Loo; and, strange to say, but little the worse for our
+terrible experience, except that my stubbly hair came out of the
+treasure cave about three shades greyer than it went in, and that Good
+never was quite the same after Foulata’s death, which seemed to move
+him very greatly. I am bound to say, looking at the thing from the
+point of view of an oldish man of the world, that I consider her
+removal was a fortunate occurrence, since, otherwise, complications
+would have been sure to ensue. The poor creature was no ordinary native
+girl, but a person of great, I had almost said stately, beauty, and of
+considerable refinement of mind. But no amount of beauty or refinement
+could have made an entanglement between Good and herself a desirable
+occurrence; for, as she herself put it, “Can the sun mate with the
+darkness, or the white with the black?”
+
+I need hardly state that we never again penetrated into Solomon’s
+treasure chamber. After we had recovered from our fatigues, a process
+which took us forty-eight hours, we descended into the great pit in the
+hope of finding the hole by which we had crept out of the mountain, but
+with no success. To begin with, rain had fallen, and obliterated our
+spoor; and what is more, the sides of the vast pit were full of
+ant-bear and other holes. It was impossible to say to which of these we
+owed our salvation. Also, on the day before we started back to Loo, we
+made a further examination of the wonders of the stalactite cave, and,
+drawn by a kind of restless feeling, even penetrated once more into the
+Chamber of the Dead. Passing beneath the spear of the White Death we
+gazed, with sensations which it would be quite impossible for me to
+describe, at the mass of rock that had shut us off from escape,
+thinking the while of priceless treasures beyond, of the mysterious old
+hag whose flattened fragments lay crushed beneath it, and of the fair
+girl of whose tomb it was the portal. I say gazed at the “rock,” for,
+examine as we could, we could find no traces of the join of the sliding
+door; nor, indeed, could we hit upon the secret, now utterly lost, that
+worked it, though we tried for an hour or more. It is certainly a
+marvellous bit of mechanism, characteristic, in its massive and yet
+inscrutable simplicity, of the age which produced it; and I doubt if
+the world has such another to show.
+
+At last we gave it up in disgust; though, if the mass had suddenly
+risen before our eyes, I doubt if we should have screwed up courage to
+step over Gagool’s mangled remains, and once more enter the treasure
+chamber, even in the sure and certain hope of unlimited diamonds. And
+yet I could have cried at the idea of leaving all that treasure, the
+biggest treasure probably that in the world’s history has ever been
+accumulated in one spot. But there was no help for it. Only dynamite
+could force its way through five feet of solid rock.
+
+So we left it. Perhaps, in some remote unborn century, a more fortunate
+explorer may hit upon the “Open Sesame,” and flood the world with gems.
+But, myself, I doubt it. Somehow, I seem to feel that the tens of
+millions of pounds’ worth of jewels which lie in the three stone
+coffers will never shine round the neck of an earthly beauty. They and
+Foulata’s bones will keep cold company till the end of all things.
+
+With a sigh of disappointment we made our way back, and next day
+started for Loo. And yet it was really very ungrateful of us to be
+disappointed; for, as the reader will remember, by a lucky thought, I
+had taken the precaution to fill the wide pockets of my old shooting
+coat and trousers with gems before we left our prison-house, also
+Foulata’s basket, which held twice as many more, notwithstanding that
+the water bottle had occupied some of its space. A good many of these
+fell out in the course of our roll down the side of the pit, including
+several of the big ones, which I had crammed in on the top in my coat
+pockets. But, comparatively speaking, an enormous quantity still
+remained, including ninety-three large stones ranging from over two
+hundred to seventy carats in weight. My old shooting coat and the
+basket still held sufficient treasure to make us all, if not
+millionaires as the term is understood in America, at least exceedingly
+wealthy men, and yet to keep enough stones each to make the three
+finest sets of gems in Europe. So we had not done so badly.
+
+On arriving at Loo we were most cordially received by Ignosi, whom we
+found well, and busily engaged in consolidating his power, and
+reorganising the regiments which had suffered most in the great
+struggle with Twala.
+
+He listened with intense interest to our wonderful story; but when we
+told him of old Gagool’s frightful end he grew thoughtful.
+
+“Come hither,” he called, to a very old Induna or councillor, who was
+sitting with others in a circle round the king, but out of ear-shot.
+The ancient man rose, approached, saluted, and seated himself.
+
+“Thou art aged,” said Ignosi.
+
+“Ay, my lord the king! Thy father’s father and I were born on the same
+day.”
+
+“Tell me, when thou wast little, didst thou know Gagaoola the witch
+doctress?”
+
+“Ay, my lord the king!”
+
+“How was she then—young, like thee?”
+
+“Not so, my lord the king! She was even as she is now and as she was in
+the days of my great grandfather before me; old and dried, very ugly,
+and full of wickedness.”
+
+“She is no more; she is dead.”
+
+“So, O king! then is an ancient curse taken from the land.”
+
+“Go!”
+
+“_Koom!_ I go, Black Puppy, who tore out the old dog’s throat. _Koom!_”
+
+“Ye see, my brothers,” said Ignosi, “this was a strange woman, and I
+rejoice that she is dead. She would have let you die in the dark place,
+and mayhap afterwards she had found a way to slay me, as she found a
+way to slay my father, and set up Twala, whom her black heart loved, in
+his place. Now go on with the tale; surely there never was its like!”
+
+After I had narrated all the story of our escape, as we had agreed
+between ourselves that I should, I took the opportunity to address
+Ignosi as to our departure from Kukuanaland.
+
+“And now, Ignosi,” I said, “the time has come for us to bid thee
+farewell, and start to see our own land once more. Behold, Ignosi, thou
+camest with us a servant, and now we leave thee a mighty king. If thou
+art grateful to us, remember to do even as thou didst promise: to rule
+justly, to respect the law, and to put none to death without a cause.
+So shalt thou prosper. To-morrow, at break of day, Ignosi, thou wilt
+give us an escort who shall lead us across the mountains. Is it not so,
+O king?”
+
+Ignosi covered his face with his hands for a while before answering.
+
+“My heart is sore,” he said at last; “your words split my heart in
+twain. What have I done to you, Incubu, Macumazahn, and Bougwan, that
+ye should leave me desolate? Ye who stood by me in rebellion and in
+battle, will ye leave me in the day of peace and victory? What will
+ye—wives? Choose from among the maidens! A place to live in? Behold,
+the land is yours as far as ye can see. The white man’s houses? Ye
+shall teach my people how to build them. Cattle for beef and milk?
+Every married man shall bring you an ox or a cow. Wild game to hunt?
+Does not the elephant walk through my forests, and the river-horse
+sleep in the reeds? Would ye make war? My Impis wait your word. If
+there is anything more which I can give, that will I give you.”
+
+“Nay, Ignosi, we want none of these things,” I answered; “we would seek
+our own place.”
+
+“Now do I learn,” said Ignosi bitterly, and with flashing eyes, “that
+ye love the bright stones more than me, your friend. Ye have the
+stones; now ye would go to Natal and across the moving black water and
+sell them, and be rich, as it is the desire of a white man’s heart to
+be. Cursed for your sake be the white stones, and cursed he who seeks
+them. Death shall it be to him who sets foot in the place of Death to
+find them. I have spoken. White men, ye can go.”
+
+I laid my hand upon his arm. “Ignosi,” I said, “tell us, when thou
+didst wander in Zululand, and among the white people of Natal, did not
+thine heart turn to the land thy mother told thee of, thy native place,
+where thou didst see the light, and play when thou wast little, the
+land where thy place was?”
+
+“It was even so, Macumazahn.”
+
+“In like manner, Ignosi, do our hearts turn to our land and to our own
+place.”
+
+Then came a silence. When Ignosi broke it, it was in a different voice.
+
+“I do perceive that now as ever thy words are wise and full of reason,
+Macumazahn; that which flies in the air loves not to run along the
+ground; the white man loves not to live on the level of the black or to
+house among his kraals. Well, ye must go, and leave my heart sore,
+because ye will be as dead to me, since from where ye are no tidings
+can come to me.
+
+“But listen, and let all your brothers know my words. No other white
+man shall cross the mountains, even if any man live to come so far. I
+will see no traders with their guns and gin. My people shall fight with
+the spear, and drink water, like their forefathers before them. I will
+have no praying-men to put a fear of death into men’s hearts, to stir
+them up against the law of the king, and make a path for the white folk
+who follow to run on. If a white man comes to my gates I will send him
+back; if a hundred come I will push them back; if armies come, I will
+make war on them with all my strength, and they shall not prevail
+against me. None shall ever seek for the shining stones: no, not an
+army, for if they come I will send a regiment and fill up the pit, and
+break down the white columns in the caves and choke them with rocks, so
+that none can reach even to that door of which ye speak, and whereof
+the way to move it is lost. But for you three, Incubu, Macumazahn, and
+Bougwan, the path is always open; for, behold, ye are dearer to me than
+aught that breathes.
+
+“And ye would go. Infadoos, my uncle, and my Induna, shall take you by
+the hand and guide you with a regiment. There is, as I have learned,
+another way across the mountains that he shall show you. Farewell, my
+brothers, brave white men. See me no more, for I have no heart to bear
+it. Behold! I make a decree, and it shall be published from the
+mountains to the mountains; your names, Incubu, Macumazahn, and
+Bougwan, shall be “_hlonipa_” even as the names of dead kings, and he
+who speaks them shall die.[12] So shall your memory be preserved in the
+land for ever.
+
+ [12] This extraordinary and negative way of showing intense respect is
+ by no means unknown among African people, and the result is that if,
+ as is usual, the name in question has a significance, the meaning must
+ be expressed by an idiom or other word. In this way a memory is
+ preserved for generations, or until the new word utterly supplants the
+ old one.—A.Q.
+
+
+“Go now, ere my eyes rain tears like a woman’s. At times as ye look
+back down the path of life, or when ye are old and gather yourselves
+together to crouch before the fire, because for you the sun has no more
+heat, ye will think of how we stood shoulder to shoulder, in that great
+battle which thy wise words planned, Macumazahn; of how thou wast the
+point of the horn that galled Twala’s flank, Bougwan; whilst thou stood
+in the ring of the Greys, Incubu, and men went down before thine axe
+like corn before a sickle; ay, and of how thou didst break that wild
+bull Twala’s strength, and bring his pride to dust. Fare ye well for
+ever, Incubu, Macumazahn, and Bougwan, my lords and my friends.”
+
+Ignosi rose and looked earnestly at us for a few seconds. Then he threw
+the corner of his karross over his head, so as to cover his face from
+us.
+
+We went in silence.
+
+Next day at dawn we left Loo, escorted by our old friend Infadoos, who
+was heart-broken at our departure, and by the regiment of Buffaloes.
+Early as was the hour, all the main street of the town was lined with
+multitudes of people, who gave us the royal salute as we passed at the
+head of the regiment, while the women blessed us for having rid the
+land of Twala, throwing flowers before us as we went. It was really
+very affecting, and not the sort of thing one is accustomed to meet
+with from natives.
+
+One ludicrous incident occurred, however, which I rather welcomed, as
+it gave us something to laugh at.
+
+Just before we reached the confines of the town, a pretty young girl,
+with some lovely lilies in her hand, ran forward and presented them to
+Good—somehow they all seemed to like Good; I think his eye-glass and
+solitary whisker gave him a fictitious value—and then said that she had
+a boon to ask.
+
+“Speak on,” he answered.
+
+“Let my lord show his servant his beautiful white legs, that his
+servant may look upon them, and remember them all her days, and tell of
+them to her children; his servant has travelled four days’ journey to
+see them, for the fame of them has gone throughout the land.”
+
+“I’ll be hanged if I do!” exclaimed Good excitedly.
+
+“Come, come, my dear fellow,” said Sir Henry, “you can’t refuse to
+oblige a lady.”
+
+“I won’t,” replied Good obstinately; “it is positively indecent.”
+
+However, in the end he consented to draw up his trousers to the knee,
+amidst notes of rapturous admiration from all the women present,
+especially the gratified young lady, and in this guise he had to walk
+till we got clear of the town.
+
+Good’s legs, I fear, will never be so greatly admired again. Of his
+melting teeth, and even of his “transparent eye,” the Kukuanas wearied
+more or less, but of his legs never.
+
+As we travelled, Infadoos told us that there was another pass over the
+mountains to the north of the one followed by Solomon’s Great Road, or
+rather that there was a place where it was possible to climb down the
+wall of cliff which separates Kukuanaland from the desert, and is
+broken by the towering shapes of Sheba’s Breasts. It appeared, also,
+that rather more than two years previously a party of Kukuana hunters
+had descended this path into the desert in search of ostriches, whose
+plumes are much prized among them for war head-dresses, and that in the
+course of their hunt they had been led far from the mountains and were
+much troubled by thirst. Seeing trees on the horizon, however, they
+walked towards them, and discovered a large and fertile oasis some
+miles in extent, and plentifully watered. It was by way of this oasis
+that Infadoos suggested we should return, and the idea seemed to us a
+good one, for it appeared that we should thus escape the rigours of the
+mountain pass. Also some of the hunters were in attendance to guide us
+to the oasis, from which, they stated, they could perceive other
+fertile spots far away in the desert.[13]
+
+ [13] It often puzzled all of us to understand how it was possible that
+ Ignosi’s mother, bearing the child with her, should have survived the
+ dangers of her journey across the mountains and the desert, dangers
+ which so nearly proved fatal to ourselves. It has since occurred to
+ me, and I give the idea to the reader for what it is worth, that she
+ must have taken this second route, and wandered out like Hagar into
+ the wilderness. If she did so, there is no longer anything
+ inexplicable about the story, since, as Ignosi himself related, she
+ may well have been picked up by some ostrich hunters before she or the
+ child was exhausted, was led by them to the oasis, and thence by
+ stages to the fertile country, and so on by slow degrees southwards to
+ Zululand.—A.Q.
+
+Travelling easily, on the night of the fourth day’s journey we found
+ourselves once more on the crest of the mountains that separate
+Kukuanaland from the desert, which rolled away in sandy billows at our
+feet, and about twenty-five miles to the north of Sheba’s Breasts.
+
+At dawn on the following day, we were led to the edge of a very
+precipitous chasm, by which we were to descend the precipice, and gain
+the plain two thousand and more feet below.
+
+Here we bade farewell to that true friend and sturdy old warrior,
+Infadoos, who solemnly wished all good upon us, and nearly wept with
+grief. “Never, my lords,” he said, “shall mine old eyes see the like of
+you again. Ah! the way that Incubu cut his men down in the battle! Ah!
+for the sight of that stroke with which he swept off my brother Twala’s
+head! It was beautiful—beautiful! I may never hope to see such another,
+except perchance in happy dreams.”
+
+We were very sorry to part from him; indeed, Good was so moved that he
+gave him as a souvenir—what do you think?—an _eye-glass_; afterwards we
+discovered that it was a spare one. Infadoos was delighted, foreseeing
+that the possession of such an article would increase his prestige
+enormously, and after several vain attempts he actually succeeded in
+screwing it into his own eye. Anything more incongruous than the old
+warrior looked with an eye-glass I never saw. Eye-glasses do not go
+well with leopard-skin cloaks and black ostrich plumes.
+
+Then, after seeing that our guides were well laden with water and
+provisions, and having received a thundering farewell salute from the
+Buffaloes, we wrung Infadoos by the hand, and began our downward climb.
+A very arduous business it proved to be, but somehow that evening we
+found ourselves at the bottom without accident.
+
+“Do you know,” said Sir Henry that night, as we sat by our fire and
+gazed up at the beetling cliffs above us, “I think that there are worse
+places than Kukuanaland in the world, and that I have known unhappier
+times than the last month or two, though I have never spent such queer
+ones. Eh! you fellows?”
+
+“I almost wish I were back,” said Good, with a sigh.
+
+As for myself, I reflected that all’s well that ends well; but in the
+course of a long life of shaves, I never had such shaves as those which
+I had recently experienced. The thought of that battle makes me feel
+cold all over, and as for our experience in the treasure chamber—!
+
+Next morning we started on a toilsome trudge across the desert, having
+with us a good supply of water carried by our five guides, and camped
+that night in the open, marching again at dawn on the morrow.
+
+By noon of the third day’s journey we could see the trees of the oasis
+of which the guides spoke, and within an hour of sundown we were
+walking once more upon grass and listening to the sound of running
+water.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+FOUND
+
+
+And now I come to perhaps the strangest adventure that happened to us
+in all this strange business, and one which shows how wonderfully
+things are brought about.
+
+I was walking along quietly, some way in front of the other two, down
+the banks of the stream which runs from the oasis till it is swallowed
+up in the hungry desert sands, when suddenly I stopped and rubbed my
+eyes, as well I might. There, not twenty yards in front of me, placed
+in a charming situation, under the shade of a species of fig-tree, and
+facing to the stream, was a cosy hut, built more or less on the Kafir
+principle with grass and withes, but having a full-length door instead
+of a bee-hole.
+
+“What the dickens,” said I to myself, “can a hut be doing here?” Even
+as I said it the door of the hut opened, and there limped out of it a
+_white man_ clothed in skins, and with an enormous black beard. I
+thought that I must have got a touch of the sun. It was impossible. No
+hunter ever came to such a place as this. Certainly no hunter would
+ever settle in it. I stared and stared, and so did the other man, and
+just at that juncture Sir Henry and Good walked up.
+
+“Look here, you fellows,” I said, “is that a white man, or am I mad?”
+
+Sir Henry looked, and Good looked, and then all of a sudden the lame
+white man with a black beard uttered a great cry, and began hobbling
+towards us. When he was close he fell down in a sort of faint.
+
+With a spring Sir Henry was by his side.
+
+“Great Powers!” he cried, “_it is my brother George!_”
+
+At the sound of this disturbance, another figure, also clad in skins,
+emerged from the hut, a gun in his hand, and ran towards us. On seeing
+me he too gave a cry.
+
+“Macumazahn,” he halloed, “don’t you know me, Baas? I’m Jim the hunter.
+I lost the note you gave me to give to the Baas, and we have been here
+nearly two years.” And the fellow fell at my feet, and rolled over and
+over, weeping for joy.
+
+“You careless scoundrel!” I said; “you ought to be well
+_sjambocked_”—that is, hided.
+
+Meanwhile the man with the black beard had recovered and risen, and he
+and Sir Henry were pump-handling away at each other, apparently without
+a word to say. But whatever they had quarrelled about in the past—I
+suspect it was a lady, though I never asked—it was evidently forgotten
+now.
+
+“My dear old fellow,” burst out Sir Henry at last, “I thought you were
+dead. I have been over Solomon’s Mountains to find you. I had given up
+all hope of ever seeing you again, and now I come across you perched in
+the desert, like an old _aasvögel_.”[14]
+
+ [14] Vulture.
+
+“I tried to cross Solomon’s Mountains nearly two years ago,” was the
+answer, spoken in the hesitating voice of a man who has had little
+recent opportunity of using his tongue, “but when I reached here a
+boulder fell on my leg and crushed it, and I have been able to go
+neither forward nor back.”
+
+Then I came up. “How do you do, Mr. Neville?” I said; “do you remember
+me?”
+
+“Why,” he said, “isn’t it Hunter Quatermain, eh, and Good too? Hold on
+a minute, you fellows, I am getting dizzy again. It is all so very
+strange, and, when a man has ceased to hope, so very happy!”
+
+That evening, over the camp fire, George Curtis told us his story,
+which, in its way, was almost as eventful as our own, and, put shortly,
+amounted to this. A little less than two years before, he had started
+from Sitanda’s Kraal, to try to reach Suliman’s Berg. As for the note I
+had sent him by Jim, that worthy lost it, and he had never heard of it
+till to-day. But, acting upon information he had received from the
+natives, he headed not for Sheba’s Breasts, but for the ladder-like
+descent of the mountains down which we had just come, which is clearly
+a better route than that marked out in old Dom Silvestra’s plan. In the
+desert he and Jim had suffered great hardships, but finally they
+reached this oasis, where a terrible accident befell George Curtis. On
+the day of their arrival he was sitting by the stream, and Jim was
+extracting the honey from the nest of a stingless bee which is to be
+found in the desert, on the top of a bank immediately above him. In so
+doing he loosened a great boulder of rock, which fell upon George
+Curtis’s right leg, crushing it frightfully. From that day he had been
+so lame that he found it impossible to go either forward or back, and
+had preferred to take the chances of dying in the oasis to the
+certainty of perishing in the desert.
+
+As for food, however, they got on pretty well, for they had a good
+supply of ammunition, and the oasis was frequented, especially at
+night, by large quantities of game, which came thither for water. These
+they shot, or trapped in pitfalls, using the flesh for food, and, after
+their clothes wore out, the hides for clothing.
+
+“And so,” George Curtis ended, “we have lived for nearly two years,
+like a second Robinson Crusoe and his man Friday, hoping against hope
+that some natives might come here to help us away, but none have come.
+Only last night we settled that Jim should leave me, and try to reach
+Sitanda’s Kraal to get assistance. He was to go to-morrow, but I had
+little hope of ever seeing him back again. And now _you_, of all people
+in the world, _you_, who, as I fancied, had long ago forgotten all
+about me, and were living comfortably in old England, turn up in a
+promiscuous way and find me where you least expected. It is the most
+wonderful thing that I have ever heard of, and the most merciful too.”
+
+Then Sir Henry set to work, and told him the main facts of our
+adventures, sitting till late into the night to do it.
+
+“By Jove!” said George Curtis, when I showed him some of the diamonds:
+“well, at least you have got something for your pains, besides my
+worthless self.”
+
+Sir Henry laughed. “They belong to Quatermain and Good. It was a part
+of the bargain that they should divide any spoils there might be.”
+
+This remark set me thinking, and having spoken to Good, I told Sir
+Henry that it was our joint wish that he should take a third portion of
+the diamonds, or, if he would not, that his share should be handed to
+his brother, who had suffered even more than ourselves on the chance of
+getting them. Finally, we prevailed upon him to consent to this
+arrangement, but George Curtis did not know of it until some time
+afterwards.
+
+
+Here, at this point, I think that I shall end my history. Our journey
+across the desert back to Sitanda’s Kraal was most arduous, especially
+as we had to support George Curtis, whose right leg was very weak
+indeed, and continually threw out splinters of bone. But we did
+accomplish it somehow, and to give its details would only be to
+reproduce much of what happened to us on the former occasion.
+
+Six months from the date of our re-arrival at Sitanda’s, where we found
+our guns and other goods quite safe, though the old rascal in charge
+was much disgusted at our surviving to claim them, saw us all once more
+safe and sound at my little place on the Berea, near Durban, where I am
+now writing. Thence I bid farewell to all who have accompanied me
+through the strangest trip I ever made in the course of a long and
+varied experience.
+
+P.S.—Just as I had written the last word, a Kafir came up my avenue of
+orange trees, carrying a letter in a cleft stick, which he had brought
+from the post. It turned out to be from Sir Henry, and as it speaks for
+itself I give it in full.
+
+October 1, 1884.
+Brayley Hall, Yorkshire.
+
+My Dear Quatermain,
+    I send you a line a few mails back to say that the three of us,
+    George, Good, and myself, fetched up all right in England. We got
+    off the boat at Southampton, and went up to town. You should have
+    seen what a swell Good turned out the very next day, beautifully
+    shaved, frock coat fitting like a glove, brand new eye-glass, etc.,
+    etc. I went and walked in the park with him, where I met some
+    people I know, and at once told them the story of his “beautiful
+    white legs.”
+    He is furious, especially as some ill-natured person has printed it
+    in a Society paper.
+    To come to business, Good and I took the diamonds to Streeter’s to
+    be valued, as we arranged, and really I am afraid to tell you what
+    they put them at, it seems so enormous. They say that of course it
+    is more or less guess-work, as such stones have never to their
+    knowledge been put on the market in anything like such quantities.
+    It appears that (with the exception of one or two of the largest)
+    they are of the finest water, and equal in every way to the best
+    Brazilian stones. I asked them if they would buy them, but they
+    said that it was beyond their power to do so, and recommended us to
+    sell by degrees, over a period of years indeed, for fear lest we
+    should flood the market. They offer, however, a hundred and eighty
+    thousand for a very small portion of them.
+    You must come home, Quatermain, and see about these things,
+    especially if you insist upon making the magnificent present of the
+    third share, which does _not_ belong to me, to my brother George.
+    As for Good, he is _no good_. His time is too much occupied in
+    shaving, and other matters connected with the vain adorning of the
+    body. But I think he is still down on his luck about Foulata. He
+    told me that since he had been home he hadn’t seen a woman to touch
+    her, either as regards her figure or the sweetness of her
+    expression.
+    I want you to come home, my dear old comrade, and to buy a house
+    near here. You have done your day’s work, and have lots of money
+    now, and there is a place for sale quite close which would suit you
+    admirably. Do come; the sooner the better; you can finish writing
+    the story of our adventures on board ship. We have refused to tell
+    the tale till it is written by you, for fear lest we shall not be
+    believed. If you start on receipt of this you will reach here by
+    Christmas, and I book you to stay with me for that. Good is coming,
+    and George; and so, by the way, is your boy Harry (there’s a bribe
+    for you). I have had him down for a week’s shooting, and like him.
+    He is a cool young hand; he shot me in the leg, cut out the
+    pellets, and then remarked upon the advantages of having a medical
+    student with every shooting party!
+    Good-bye, old boy; I can’t say any more, but I know that you will
+    come, if it is only to oblige
+
+Your sincere friend,
+HENRY CURTIS.
+
+P.S.—The tusks of the great bull that killed poor Khiva have now been
+put up in the hall here, over the pair of buffalo horns you gave me,
+and look magnificent; and the axe with which I chopped off Twala’s head
+is fixed above my writing-table. I wish that we could have managed to
+bring away the coats of chain armour. Don’t lose poor Foulata’s basket
+in which you brought away the diamonds.
+
+H.C.
+
+To-day is Tuesday. There is a steamer going on Friday, and I really
+think that I must take Curtis at his word, and sail by her for England,
+if it is only to see you, Harry, my boy, and to look after the printing
+of this history, which is a task that I do not like to trust to anybody
+else.
+
+ALLAN QUATERMAIN.
+
+
+
+
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+<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold;'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of King Solomon’s Mines, by H. Rider Haggard</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
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+country where you are located before using this eBook.
+</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: King Solomon’s Mines</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: H. Rider Haggard</div>
+<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Release Date: May, 2000 [eBook #2166]<br />
+[Most recently updated: November 18, 2020]</div>
+<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div>
+<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: John Bickers and Dagny. HTML version by Al Haines.</div>
+<div style='margin-top:2em;margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KING SOLOMON’S MINES ***</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:55%;">
+<img src="images/cover.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h1>King Solomon&rsquo;s Mines</h1>
+
+<h2>by H. Rider Haggard</h2>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>Contents</h2>
+
+<table summary="" style="">
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#pref01">INTRODUCTION</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap01">I. I MEET SIR HENRY CURTIS</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap02">II. THE LEGEND OF SOLOMON&rsquo;S MINES</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap03">III. UMBOPA ENTERS OUR SERVICE</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap04">IV. AN ELEPHANT HUNT</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap05">V. OUR MARCH INTO THE DESERT</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap06">VI. WATER! WATER!</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap07">VII. SOLOMON&rsquo;S ROAD</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap08">VIII. WE ENTER KUKUANALAND</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap09">IX. TWALA THE KING</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap10">X. THE WITCH-HUNT</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap11">XI. WE GIVE A SIGN</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap12">XII. BEFORE THE BATTLE</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap13">XIII. THE ATTACK</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap14">XIV. THE LAST STAND OF THE GREYS</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap15">XV. GOOD FALLS SICK</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap16">XVI. THE PLACE OF DEATH</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap17">XVII. SOLOMON&rsquo;S TREASURE CHAMBER</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap18">XVIII. WE ABANDON HOPE</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap19">XIX. IGNOSI&rsquo;S FAREWELL</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap20">XX. FOUND</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+PREPARER&rsquo;S NOTE <br />
+<br />
+This was typed from a 1907 edition published by Cassell and Company, Limited.
+</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p class="center">
+DEDICATION<br />
+<br />
+This faithful but unpretending record<br />
+of a remarkable adventure<br />
+is hereby respectfully dedicated<br />
+by the narrator,<br />
+<br />
+ALLAN QUATERMAIN,<br />
+<br />
+to all the big and little boys<br />
+who read it.<br />
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2>AUTHOR&rsquo;S NOTE</h2>
+
+<p>
+The author ventures to take this opportunity to thank his readers for the kind
+reception they have accorded to the successive editions of this tale during the
+last twelve years. He hopes that in its present form it will fall into the
+hands of an even wider public, and that in years to come it may continue to
+afford amusement to those who are still young enough at heart to love a story
+of treasure, war, and wild adventure.<br />
+<br />
+Ditchingham,<br />
+11 March, 1898.
+</p>
+
+<h2>POST SCRIPTUM</h2>
+
+<p>
+Now, in 1907, on the occasion of the issue of this edition, I can only add how
+glad I am that my romance should continue to please so many readers.
+Imagination has been verified by fact; the King Solomon&rsquo;s Mines I dreamed
+of have been discovered, and are putting out their gold once more, and,
+according to the latest reports, their diamonds also; the Kukuanas or, rather,
+the Matabele, have been tamed by the white man&rsquo;s bullets, but still there
+seem to be many who find pleasure in these simple pages. That they may continue
+so to do, even to the third and fourth generation, or perhaps longer still,
+would, I am sure, be the hope of our old and departed friend, Allan
+Quatermain.<br />
+<br />
+H. Rider Haggard.<br />
+Ditchingham, 1907.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="pref01"></a>INTRODUCTION</h2>
+
+<p>
+Now that this book is printed, and about to be given to the world, a sense of
+its shortcomings both in style and contents, weighs very heavily upon me. As
+regards the latter, I can only say that it does not pretend to be a full
+account of everything we did and saw. There are many things connected with our
+journey into Kukuanaland that I should have liked to dwell upon at length,
+which, as it is, have been scarcely alluded to. Amongst these are the curious
+legends which I collected about the chain armour that saved us from destruction
+in the great battle of Loo, and also about the &ldquo;Silent Ones&rdquo; or
+Colossi at the mouth of the stalactite cave. Again, if I had given way to my
+own impulses, I should have wished to go into the differences, some of which
+are to my mind very suggestive, between the Zulu and Kukuana dialects. Also a
+few pages might have been given up profitably to the consideration of the
+indigenous flora and fauna of Kukuanaland.<a href="#fn-1" name="fnref-1" id="fnref-1"><sup>[1]</sup></a>
+Then there remains the most interesting subject&mdash;that, as it is, has only
+been touched on incidentally&mdash;of the magnificent system of military
+organisation in force in that country, which, in my opinion, is much superior
+to that inaugurated by Chaka in Zululand, inasmuch as it permits of even more
+rapid mobilisation, and does not necessitate the employment of the pernicious
+system of enforced celibacy. Lastly, I have scarcely spoken of the domestic and
+family customs of the Kukuanas, many of which are exceedingly quaint, or of
+their proficiency in the art of smelting and welding metals. This science they
+carry to considerable perfection, of which a good example is to be seen in
+their &ldquo;tollas,&rdquo; or heavy throwing knives, the backs of these
+weapons being made of hammered iron, and the edges of beautiful steel welded
+with great skill on to the iron frames. The fact of the matter is, I thought,
+with Sir Henry Curtis and Captain Good, that the best plan would be to tell my
+story in a plain, straightforward manner, and to leave these matters to be
+dealt with subsequently in whatever way ultimately may appear to be desirable.
+In the meanwhile I shall, of course, be delighted to give all information in my
+power to anybody interested in such things.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And now it only remains for me to offer apologies for my blunt way of writing.
+I can but say in excuse of it that I am more accustomed to handle a rifle than
+a pen, and cannot make any pretence to the grand literary flights and
+flourishes which I see in novels&mdash;for sometimes I like to read a novel. I
+suppose they&mdash;the flights and flourishes&mdash;are desirable, and I regret
+not being able to supply them; but at the same time I cannot help thinking that
+simple things are always the most impressive, and that books are easier to
+understand when they are written in plain language, though perhaps I have no
+right to set up an opinion on such a matter. &ldquo;A sharp spear,&rdquo; runs
+the Kukuana saying, &ldquo;needs no polish&rdquo;; and on the same principle I
+venture to hope that a true story, however strange it may be, does not require
+to be decked out in fine words.
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+A<small>LLAN</small> Q<small>UATERMAIN</small>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-1" id="fn-1"></a> <a href="#fnref-1">[1]</a>
+I discovered eight varieties of antelope, with which I was previously totally
+unacquainted, and many new species of plants, for the most part of the bulbous
+tribe.&mdash;A.Q.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2>KING SOLOMON&rsquo;S MINES</h2>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap01"></a>CHAPTER I.<br />
+I MEET SIR HENRY CURTIS</h2>
+
+<p>
+It is a curious thing that at my age&mdash;fifty-five last birthday&mdash;I
+should find myself taking up a pen to try to write a history. I wonder what
+sort of a history it will be when I have finished it, if ever I come to the end
+of the trip! I have done a good many things in my life, which seems a long one
+to me, owing to my having begun work so young, perhaps. At an age when other
+boys are at school I was earning my living as a trader in the old Colony. I
+have been trading, hunting, fighting, or mining ever since. And yet it is only
+eight months ago that I made my pile. It is a big pile now that I have got
+it&mdash;I don&rsquo;t yet know how big&mdash;but I do not think I would go
+through the last fifteen or sixteen months again for it; no, not if I knew that
+I should come out safe at the end, pile and all. But then I am a timid man, and
+dislike violence; moreover, I am almost sick of adventure. I wonder why I am
+going to write this book: it is not in my line. I am not a literary man, though
+very devoted to the Old Testament and also to the &ldquo;Ingoldsby
+Legends.&rdquo; Let me try to set down my reasons, just to see if I have any.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+First reason: Because Sir Henry Curtis and Captain John Good asked me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Second reason: Because I am laid up here at Durban with the pain in my left
+leg. Ever since that confounded lion got hold of me I have been liable to this
+trouble, and being rather bad just now, it makes me limp more than ever. There
+must be some poison in a lion&rsquo;s teeth, otherwise how is it that when your
+wounds are healed they break out again, generally, mark you, at the same time
+of year that you got your mauling? It is a hard thing when one has shot
+sixty-five lions or more, as I have in the course of my life, that the
+sixty-sixth should chew your leg like a quid of tobacco. It breaks the routine
+of the thing, and putting other considerations aside, I am an orderly man and
+don&rsquo;t like that. This is by the way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Third reason: Because I want my boy Harry, who is over there at the hospital in
+London studying to become a doctor, to have something to amuse him and keep him
+out of mischief for a week or so. Hospital work must sometimes pall and grow
+rather dull, for even of cutting up dead bodies there may come satiety, and as
+this history will not be dull, whatever else it may be, it will put a little
+life into things for a day or two while Harry is reading of our adventures.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fourth reason and last: Because I am going to tell the strangest story that I
+remember. It may seem a queer thing to say, especially considering that there
+is no woman in it&mdash;except Foulata. Stop, though! there is Gagaoola, if she
+was a woman, and not a fiend. But she was a hundred at least, and therefore not
+marriageable, so I don&rsquo;t count her. At any rate, I can safely say that
+there is not a <i>petticoat</i> in the whole history.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Well, I had better come to the yoke. It is a stiff place, and I feel as though
+I were bogged up to the axle. But, &ldquo;<i>sutjes, sutjes</i>,&rdquo; as the
+Boers say&mdash;I am sure I don&rsquo;t know how they spell it&mdash;softly
+does it. A strong team will come through at last, that is, if they are not too
+poor. You can never do anything with poor oxen. Now to make a start.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I, Allan Quatermain, of Durban, Natal, Gentleman, make oath and
+say&mdash;That&rsquo;s how I headed my deposition before the magistrate about
+poor Khiva&rsquo;s and Ventvögel&rsquo;s sad deaths; but somehow it
+doesn&rsquo;t seem quite the right way to begin a book. And, besides, am I a
+gentleman? What is a gentleman? I don&rsquo;t quite know, and yet I have had to
+do with niggers&mdash;no, I will scratch out that word &ldquo;niggers,&rdquo;
+for I do not like it. I&rsquo;ve known natives who <i>are</i>, and so you will
+say, Harry, my boy, before you have done with this tale, and I have known mean
+whites with lots of money and fresh out from home, too, who <i>are not</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At any rate, I was born a gentleman, though I have been nothing but a poor
+travelling trader and hunter all my life. Whether I have remained so I know
+not, you must judge of that. Heaven knows I&rsquo;ve tried. I have killed many
+men in my time, yet I have never slain wantonly or stained my hand in innocent
+blood, but only in self-defence. The Almighty gave us our lives, and I suppose
+He meant us to defend them, at least I have always acted on that, and I hope it
+will not be brought up against me when my clock strikes. There, there, it is a
+cruel and a wicked world, and for a timid man I have been mixed up in a great
+deal of fighting. I cannot tell the rights of it, but at any rate I have never
+stolen, though once I cheated a Kafir out of a herd of cattle. But then he had
+done me a dirty turn, and it has troubled me ever since into the bargain.
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+Well, it is eighteen months or so ago since first I met Sir Henry Curtis and
+Captain Good. It was in this way. I had been up elephant hunting beyond
+Bamangwato, and had met with bad luck. Everything went wrong that trip, and to
+top up with I got the fever badly. So soon as I was well enough I trekked down
+to the Diamond Fields, sold such ivory as I had, together with my wagon and
+oxen, discharged my hunters, and took the post-cart to the Cape. After spending
+a week in Cape Town, finding that they overcharged me at the hotel, and having
+seen everything there was to see, including the botanical gardens, which seem
+to me likely to confer a great benefit on the country, and the new Houses of
+Parliament, which I expect will do nothing of the sort, I determined to go back
+to Natal by the <i>Dunkeld</i>, then lying at the docks waiting for the
+<i>Edinburgh Castle</i> due in from England. I took my berth and went aboard,
+and that afternoon the Natal passengers from the <i>Edinburgh Castle</i>
+transhipped, and we weighed and put to sea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Among these passengers who came on board were two who excited my curiosity.
+One, a gentleman of about thirty, was perhaps the biggest-chested and
+longest-armed man I ever saw. He had yellow hair, a thick yellow beard,
+clear-cut features, and large grey eyes set deep in his head. I never saw a
+finer-looking man, and somehow he reminded me of an ancient Dane. Not that I
+know much of ancient Danes, though I knew a modern Dane who did me out of ten
+pounds; but I remember once seeing a picture of some of those gentry, who, I
+take it, were a kind of white Zulus. They were drinking out of big horns, and
+their long hair hung down their backs. As I looked at my friend standing there
+by the companion-ladder, I thought that if he only let his grow a little, put
+one of those chain shirts on to his great shoulders, and took hold of a
+battle-axe and a horn mug, he might have sat as a model for that picture. And
+by the way it is a curious thing, and just shows how the blood will out, I
+discovered afterwards that Sir Henry Curtis, for that was the big man&rsquo;s
+name, is of Danish blood.<a href="#fn-2" name="fnref-2" id="fnref-2"><sup>[2]</sup></a>
+He also reminded me strongly of somebody else, but at the time I could not
+remember who it was.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-2" id="fn-2"></a> <a href="#fnref-2">[2]</a>
+Mr. Quatermain&rsquo;s ideas about ancient Danes seem to be rather confused; we
+have always understood that they were dark-haired people. Probably he was
+thinking of Saxons.&mdash;Editor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The other man, who stood talking to Sir Henry, was stout and dark, and of quite
+a different cut. I suspected at once that he was a naval officer; I don&rsquo;t
+know why, but it is difficult to mistake a navy man. I have gone shooting trips
+with several of them in the course of my life, and they have always proved
+themselves the best and bravest and nicest fellows I ever met, though sadly
+given, some of them, to the use of profane language. I asked a page or two
+back, what is a gentleman? I&rsquo;ll answer the question now: A Royal Naval
+officer is, in a general sort of way, though of course there may be a black
+sheep among them here and there. I fancy it is just the wide seas and the
+breath of God&rsquo;s winds that wash their hearts and blow the bitterness out
+of their minds and make them what men ought to be.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Well, to return, I proved right again; I ascertained that the dark man
+<i>was</i> a naval officer, a lieutenant of thirty-one, who, after seventeen
+years&rsquo; service, had been turned out of her Majesty&rsquo;s employ with
+the barren honour of a commander&rsquo;s rank, because it was impossible that
+he should be promoted. This is what people who serve the Queen have to expect:
+to be shot out into the cold world to find a living just when they are
+beginning really to understand their work, and to reach the prime of life. I
+suppose they don&rsquo;t mind it, but for my own part I had rather earn my
+bread as a hunter. One&rsquo;s halfpence are as scarce perhaps, but you do not
+get so many kicks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The officer&rsquo;s name I found out&mdash;by referring to the
+passengers&rsquo; lists&mdash;was Good&mdash;Captain John Good. He was broad,
+of medium height, dark, stout, and rather a curious man to look at. He was so
+very neat and so very clean-shaved, and he always wore an eye-glass in his
+right eye. It seemed to grow there, for it had no string, and he never took it
+out except to wipe it. At first I thought he used to sleep in it, but
+afterwards I found that this was a mistake. He put it in his trousers pocket
+when he went to bed, together with his false teeth, of which he had two
+beautiful sets that, my own being none of the best, have often caused me to
+break the tenth commandment. But I am anticipating.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Soon after we had got under way evening closed in, and brought with it very
+dirty weather. A keen breeze sprung up off land, and a kind of aggravated
+Scotch mist soon drove everybody from the deck. As for the <i>Dunkeld</i>, she
+is a flat-bottomed punt, and going up light as she was, she rolled very
+heavily. It almost seemed as though she would go right over, but she never did.
+It was quite impossible to walk about, so I stood near the engines where it was
+warm, and amused myself with watching the pendulum, which was fixed opposite to
+me, swinging slowly backwards and forwards as the vessel rolled, and marking
+the angle she touched at each lurch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That pendulum&rsquo;s wrong; it is not properly weighted,&rdquo;
+suddenly said a somewhat testy voice at my shoulder. Looking round I saw the
+naval officer whom I had noticed when the passengers came aboard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed, now what makes you think so?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Think so. I don&rsquo;t think at all. Why there&rdquo;&mdash;as she
+righted herself after a roll&mdash;&ldquo;if the ship had really rolled to the
+degree that thing pointed to, then she would never have rolled again,
+that&rsquo;s all. But it is just like these merchant skippers, they are always
+so confoundedly careless.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Just then the dinner-bell rang, and I was not sorry, for it is a dreadful thing
+to have to listen to an officer of the Royal Navy when he gets on to that
+subject. I only know one worse thing, and that is to hear a merchant skipper
+express his candid opinion of officers of the Royal Navy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Captain Good and I went down to dinner together, and there we found Sir Henry
+Curtis already seated. He and Captain Good were placed together, and I sat
+opposite to them. The captain and I soon fell into talk about shooting and what
+not; he asking me many questions, for he is very inquisitive about all sorts of
+things, and I answering them as well as I could. Presently he got on to
+elephants.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, sir,&rdquo; called out somebody who was sitting near me,
+&ldquo;you&rsquo;ve reached the right man for that; Hunter Quatermain should be
+able to tell you about elephants if anybody can.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sir Henry, who had been sitting quite quiet listening to our talk, started
+visibly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Excuse me, sir,&rdquo; he said, leaning forward across the table, and
+speaking in a low deep voice, a very suitable voice, it seemed to me, to come
+out of those great lungs. &ldquo;Excuse me, sir, but is your name Allan
+Quatermain?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I said that it was.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The big man made no further remark, but I heard him mutter
+&ldquo;fortunate&rdquo; into his beard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Presently dinner came to an end, and as we were leaving the saloon Sir Henry
+strolled up and asked me if I would come into his cabin to smoke a pipe. I
+accepted, and he led the way to the <i>Dunkeld</i> deck cabin, and a very good
+cabin it is. It had been two cabins, but when Sir Garnet Wolseley or one of
+those big swells went down the coast in the <i>Dunkeld</i>, they knocked away
+the partition and have never put it up again. There was a sofa in the cabin,
+and a little table in front of it. Sir Henry sent the steward for a bottle of
+whisky, and the three of us sat down and lit our pipes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Quatermain,&rdquo; said Sir Henry Curtis, when the man had brought
+the whisky and lit the lamp, &ldquo;the year before last about this time, you
+were, I believe, at a place called Bamangwato, to the north of the
+Transvaal.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was,&rdquo; I answered, rather surprised that this gentleman should be
+so well acquainted with my movements, which were not, so far as I was aware,
+considered of general interest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You were trading there, were you not?&rdquo; put in Captain Good, in his
+quick way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was. I took up a wagon-load of goods, made a camp outside the
+settlement, and stopped till I had sold them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sir Henry was sitting opposite to me in a Madeira chair, his arms leaning on
+the table. He now looked up, fixing his large grey eyes full upon my face.
+There was a curious anxiety in them, I thought.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did you happen to meet a man called Neville there?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, yes; he outspanned alongside of me for a fortnight to rest his oxen
+before going on to the interior. I had a letter from a lawyer a few months
+back, asking me if I knew what had become of him, which I answered to the best
+of my ability at the time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Sir Henry, &ldquo;your letter was forwarded to me. You
+said in it that the gentleman called Neville left Bamangwato at the beginning
+of May in a wagon with a driver, a voorlooper, and a Kafir hunter called Jim,
+announcing his intention of trekking if possible as far as Inyati, the extreme
+trading post in the Matabele country, where he would sell his wagon and proceed
+on foot. You also said that he did sell his wagon, for six months afterwards
+you saw the wagon in the possession of a Portuguese trader, who told you that
+he had bought it at Inyati from a white man whose name he had forgotten, and
+that he believed the white man with the native servant had started off for the
+interior on a shooting trip.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then came a pause.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Quatermain,&rdquo; said Sir Henry suddenly, &ldquo;I suppose you
+know or can guess nothing more of the reasons of my&mdash;of Mr.
+Neville&rsquo;s journey to the northward, or as to what point that journey was
+directed?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I heard something,&rdquo; I answered, and stopped. The subject was one
+which I did not care to discuss.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sir Henry and Captain Good looked at each other, and Captain Good nodded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Quatermain,&rdquo; went on the former, &ldquo;I am going to tell you
+a story, and ask your advice, and perhaps your assistance. The agent who
+forwarded me your letter told me that I might rely on it implicitly, as you
+were,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;well known and universally respected in Natal, and
+especially noted for your discretion.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I bowed and drank some whisky and water to hide my confusion, for I am a modest
+man&mdash;and Sir Henry went on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Neville was my brother.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; I said, starting, for now I knew of whom Sir Henry had
+reminded me when first I saw him. His brother was a much smaller man and had a
+dark beard, but now that I thought of it, he possessed eyes of the same shade
+of grey and with the same keen look in them: the features too were not unlike.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He was,&rdquo; went on Sir Henry, &ldquo;my only and younger brother,
+and till five years ago I do not suppose that we were ever a month away from
+each other. But just about five years ago a misfortune befell us, as sometimes
+does happen in families. We quarrelled bitterly, and I behaved unjustly to my
+brother in my anger.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here Captain Good nodded his head vigorously to himself. The ship gave a big
+roll just then, so that the looking-glass, which was fixed opposite us to
+starboard, was for a moment nearly over our heads, and as I was sitting with my
+hands in my pockets and staring upwards, I could see him nodding like anything.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;As I daresay you know,&rdquo; went on Sir Henry, &ldquo;if a man dies
+intestate, and has no property but land, real property it is called in England,
+it all descends to his eldest son. It so happened that just at the time when we
+quarrelled our father died intestate. He had put off making his will until it
+was too late. The result was that my brother, who had not been brought up to
+any profession, was left without a penny. Of course it would have been my duty
+to provide for him, but at the time the quarrel between us was so bitter that I
+did not&mdash;to my shame I say it (and he sighed deeply)&mdash;offer to do
+anything. It was not that I grudged him justice, but I waited for him to make
+advances, and he made none. I am sorry to trouble you with all this, Mr.
+Quatermain, but I must to make things clear, eh, Good?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Quite so, quite so,&rdquo; said the captain. &ldquo;Mr. Quatermain will,
+I am sure, keep this history to himself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; said I, for I rather pride myself on my discretion,
+for which, as Sir Henry had heard, I have some repute.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; went on Sir Henry, &ldquo;my brother had a few hundred
+pounds to his account at the time. Without saying anything to me he drew out
+this paltry sum, and, having adopted the name of Neville, started off for South
+Africa in the wild hope of making a fortune. This I learned afterwards. Some
+three years passed, and I heard nothing of my brother, though I wrote several
+times. Doubtless the letters never reached him. But as time went on I grew more
+and more troubled about him. I found out, Mr. Quatermain, that blood is thicker
+than water.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s true,&rdquo; said I, thinking of my boy Harry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I found out, Mr. Quatermain, that I would have given half my fortune to
+know that my brother George, the only relation I possess, was safe and well,
+and that I should see him again.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you never did, Curtis,&rdquo; jerked out Captain Good, glancing at
+the big man&rsquo;s face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, Mr. Quatermain, as time went on I became more and more anxious to
+find out if my brother was alive or dead, and if alive to get him home again. I
+set enquiries on foot, and your letter was one of the results. So far as it
+went it was satisfactory, for it showed that till lately George was alive, but
+it did not go far enough. So, to cut a long story short, I made up my mind to
+come out and look for him myself, and Captain Good was so kind as to come with
+me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said the captain; &ldquo;nothing else to do, you see. Turned
+out by my Lords of the Admiralty to starve on half pay. And now perhaps, sir,
+you will tell us what you know or have heard of the gentleman called
+Neville.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap02"></a>CHAPTER II.<br />
+THE LEGEND OF SOLOMON&rsquo;S MINES</h2>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What was it that you heard about my brother&rsquo;s journey at
+Bamangwato?&rdquo; asked Sir Henry, as I paused to fill my pipe before replying
+to Captain Good.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I heard this,&rdquo; I answered, &ldquo;and I have never mentioned it to
+a soul till to-day. I heard that he was starting for Solomon&rsquo;s
+Mines.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Solomon&rsquo;s Mines?&rdquo; ejaculated both my hearers at once.
+&ldquo;Where are they?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; I said; &ldquo;I know where they are said to
+be. Once I saw the peaks of the mountains that border them, but there were a
+hundred and thirty miles of desert between me and them, and I am not aware that
+any white man ever got across it save one. But perhaps the best thing I can do
+is to tell you the legend of Solomon&rsquo;s Mines as I know it, you passing
+your word not to reveal anything I tell you without my permission. Do you agree
+to that? I have my reasons for asking.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sir Henry nodded, and Captain Good replied, &ldquo;Certainly, certainly.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; I began, &ldquo;as you may guess, generally speaking,
+elephant hunters are a rough set of men, who do not trouble themselves with
+much beyond the facts of life and the ways of Kafirs. But here and there you
+meet a man who takes the trouble to collect traditions from the natives, and
+tries to make out a little piece of the history of this dark land. It was such
+a man as this who first told me the legend of Solomon&rsquo;s Mines, now a
+matter of nearly thirty years ago. That was when I was on my first elephant
+hunt in the Matabele country. His name was Evans, and he was killed the
+following year, poor fellow, by a wounded buffalo, and lies buried near the
+Zambesi Falls. I was telling Evans one night, I remember, of some wonderful
+workings I had found whilst hunting koodoo and eland in what is now the
+Lydenburg district of the Transvaal. I see they have come across these workings
+again lately in prospecting for gold, but I knew of them years ago. There is a
+great wide wagon road cut out of the solid rock, and leading to the mouth of
+the working or gallery. Inside the mouth of this gallery are stacks of gold
+quartz piled up ready for roasting, which shows that the workers, whoever they
+were, must have left in a hurry. Also, about twenty paces in, the gallery is
+built across, and a beautiful bit of masonry it is.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Ay,&rsquo; said Evans, &lsquo;but I will spin you a queerer yarn
+than that&rsquo;; and he went on to tell me how he had found in the far
+interior a ruined city, which he believed to be the Ophir of the Bible, and, by
+the way, other more learned men have said the same long since poor
+Evans&rsquo;s time. I was, I remember, listening open-eared to all these
+wonders, for I was young at the time, and this story of an ancient civilisation
+and of the treasures which those old Jewish or Phoenician adventurers used to
+extract from a country long since lapsed into the darkest barbarism took a
+great hold upon my imagination, when suddenly he said to me, &lsquo;Lad, did
+you ever hear of the Suliman Mountains up to the north-west of the
+Mushakulumbwe country?&rsquo; I told him I never had. &lsquo;Ah, well,&rsquo;
+he said, &lsquo;that is where Solomon really had his mines, his diamond mines,
+I mean.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;How do you know that?&rsquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Know it! why, what is &ldquo;Suliman&rdquo; but a corruption of
+Solomon?<a href="#fn-3" name="fnref-3" id="fnref-3"><sup>[3]</sup></a> Besides,
+an old Isanusi or witch doctoress up in the Manica country told me all about
+it. She said that the people who lived across those mountains were a
+&ldquo;branch&rdquo; of the Zulus, speaking a dialect of Zulu, but finer and
+bigger men even; that there lived among them great wizards, who had learnt
+their art from white men when &ldquo;all the world was dark,&rdquo; and who had
+the secret of a wonderful mine of &ldquo;bright stones.&rdquo;&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-3" id="fn-3"></a> <a href="#fnref-3">[3]</a>
+Suliman is the Arabic form of Solomon.&mdash;<i>Editor</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I laughed at this story at the time, though it interested me, for
+the Diamond Fields were not discovered then, but poor Evans went off and was
+killed, and for twenty years I never thought any more of the matter. However,
+just twenty years afterwards&mdash;and that is a long time, gentlemen; an
+elephant hunter does not often live for twenty years at his business&mdash;I
+heard something more definite about Suliman&rsquo;s Mountains and the country
+which lies beyond them. I was up beyond the Manica country, at a place called
+Sitanda&rsquo;s Kraal, and a miserable place it was, for a man could get
+nothing to eat, and there was but little game about. I had an attack of fever,
+and was in a bad way generally, when one day a Portugee arrived with a single
+companion&mdash;a half-breed. Now I know your low-class Delagoa Portugee well.
+There is no greater devil unhung in a general way, battening as he does upon
+human agony and flesh in the shape of slaves. But this was quite a different
+type of man to the mean fellows whom I had been accustomed to meet; indeed, in
+appearance he reminded me more of the polite doms I have read about, for he was
+tall and thin, with large dark eyes and curling grey mustachios. We talked
+together for a while, for he could speak broken English, and I understood a
+little Portugee, and he told me that his name was José Silvestre, and that he
+had a place near Delagoa Bay. When he went on next day with his half-breed
+companion, he said &lsquo;Good-bye,&rsquo; taking off his hat quite in the old
+style.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Good-bye, señor,&rsquo; he said; &lsquo;if ever we meet again I
+shall be the richest man in the world, and I will remember you.&rsquo; I
+laughed a little&mdash;I was too weak to laugh much&mdash;and watched him
+strike out for the great desert to the west, wondering if he was mad, or what
+he thought he was going to find there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A week passed, and I got the better of my fever. One evening I was
+sitting on the ground in front of the little tent I had with me, chewing the
+last leg of a miserable fowl I had bought from a native for a bit of cloth
+worth twenty fowls, and staring at the hot red sun sinking down over the
+desert, when suddenly I saw a figure, apparently that of a European, for it
+wore a coat, on the slope of the rising ground opposite to me, about three
+hundred yards away. The figure crept along on its hands and knees, then it got
+up and staggered forward a few yards on its legs, only to fall and crawl again.
+Seeing that it must be somebody in distress, I sent one of my hunters to help
+him, and presently he arrived, and who do you suppose it turned out to
+be?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;José Silvestre, of course,&rdquo; said Captain Good.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, José Silvestre, or rather his skeleton and a little skin. His face
+was a bright yellow with bilious fever, and his large dark eyes stood nearly
+out of his head, for all the flesh had gone. There was nothing but yellow
+parchment-like skin, white hair, and the gaunt bones sticking up beneath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Water! for the sake of Christ, water!&rsquo; he moaned and I saw
+that his lips were cracked, and his tongue, which protruded between them, was
+swollen and blackish.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I gave him water with a little milk in it, and he drank it in great
+gulps, two quarts or so, without stopping. I would not let him have any more.
+Then the fever took him again, and he fell down and began to rave about
+Suliman&rsquo;s Mountains, and the diamonds, and the desert. I carried him into
+the tent and did what I could for him, which was little enough; but I saw how
+it must end. About eleven o&rsquo;clock he grew quieter, and I lay down for a
+little rest and went to sleep. At dawn I woke again, and in the half light saw
+Silvestre sitting up, a strange, gaunt form, and gazing out towards the desert.
+Presently the first ray of the sun shot right across the wide plain before us
+till it reached the faraway crest of one of the tallest of the Suliman
+Mountains more than a hundred miles away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;There it is!&rsquo; cried the dying man in Portuguese, and
+pointing with his long, thin arm, &lsquo;but I shall never reach it, never. No
+one will ever reach it!&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Suddenly, he paused, and seemed to take a resolution.
+&lsquo;Friend,&rsquo; he said, turning towards me, &lsquo;are you there? My
+eyes grow dark.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Yes,&rsquo; I said; &lsquo;yes, lie down now, and rest.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Ay,&rsquo; he answered, &lsquo;I shall rest soon, I have time to
+rest&mdash;all eternity. Listen, I am dying! You have been good to me. I will
+give you the writing. Perhaps you will get there if you can live to pass the
+desert, which has killed my poor servant and me.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then he groped in his shirt and brought out what I thought was a Boer
+tobacco pouch made of the skin of the Swart-vet-pens or sable antelope. It was
+fastened with a little strip of hide, what we call a rimpi, and this he tried
+to loose, but could not. He handed it to me. &lsquo;Untie it,&rsquo; he said. I
+did so, and extracted a bit of torn yellow linen on which something was written
+in rusty letters. Inside this rag was a paper.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then he went on feebly, for he was growing weak: &lsquo;The paper has
+all that is on the linen. It took me years to read. Listen: my ancestor, a
+political refugee from Lisbon, and one of the first Portuguese who landed on
+these shores, wrote that when he was dying on those mountains which no white
+foot ever pressed before or since. His name was José da Silvestra, and he lived
+three hundred years ago. His slave, who waited for him on this side of the
+mountains, found him dead, and brought the writing home to Delagoa. It has been
+in the family ever since, but none have cared to read it, till at last I did.
+And I have lost my life over it, but another may succeed, and become the
+richest man in the world&mdash;the richest man in the world. Only give it to no
+one, señor; go yourself!&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then he began to wander again, and in an hour it was all over.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;God rest him! he died very quietly, and I buried him deep, with big
+boulders on his breast; so I do not think that the jackals can have dug him up.
+And then I came away.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, but the document?&rdquo; said Sir Henry, in a tone of deep interest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, the document; what was in it?&rdquo; added the captain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, gentlemen, if you like I will tell you. I have never showed it to
+anybody yet except to a drunken old Portuguese trader who translated it for me,
+and had forgotten all about it by the next morning. The original rag is at my
+home in Durban, together with poor Dom José&rsquo;s translation, but I have the
+English rendering in my pocket-book, and a facsimile of the map, if it can be
+called a map. Here it is.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+&ldquo;I, José da Silvestra, who am now dying of hunger in the little cave
+where no snow is on the north side of the nipple of the southernmost of the two
+mountains I have named Sheba&rsquo;s Breasts, write this in the year 1590 with
+a cleft bone upon a remnant of my raiment, my blood being the ink. If my slave
+should find it when he comes, and should bring it to Delagoa, let my friend
+(name illegible) bring the matter to the knowledge of the king, that he may
+send an army which, if they live through the desert and the mountains, and can
+overcome the brave Kukuanes and their devilish arts, to which end many priests
+should be brought, will make him the richest king since Solomon. With my own
+eyes I have seen the countless diamonds stored in Solomon&rsquo;s treasure
+chamber behind the white Death; but through the treachery of Gagool the
+witch-finder I might bring nought away, scarcely my life. Let him who comes
+follow the map, and climb the snow of Sheba&rsquo;s left breast till he reaches
+the nipple, on the north side of which is the great road Solomon made, from
+whence three days&rsquo; journey to the King&rsquo;s Palace. Let him kill
+Gagool. Pray for my soul. Farewell.
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+J<small>OSÉ DA</small> S<small>ILVESTRA</small>.&rdquo;<a href="#fn-4" name="fnref-4" id="fnref-4"><sup>[4]</sup></a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-4" id="fn-4"></a> <a href="#fnref-4">[4]</a>
+Eu José da Silvestra que estou morrendo de fome ná pequena cova onde não ha
+neve ao lado norte do bico mais ao sul das duas montanhas que chamei seio de
+Sheba; escrevo isto no anno 1590; escrevo isto com um pedaço d&rsquo;ôsso
+n&rsquo; um farrapo de minha roupa e com sangue meu por tinta; se o meu escravo
+dér com isto quando venha ao levar para Lourenzo Marquez, que o meu amigo
+&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash; leve a cousa ao conhecimento d&rsquo; El Rei, para
+que possa mandar um exercito que, se desfiler pelo deserto e pelas montonhas e
+mesmo sobrepujar os bravos Kukuanes e suas artes diabolicas, pelo que se deviam
+trazer muitos padres Far o Rei mais rico depois de Salomão. Com meus proprios
+olhos vé os di amantes sem conto guardados nas camaras do thesouro de Salomão a
+traz da morte branca, mas pela traição de Gagoal a feiticeira achadora, nada
+poderia levar, e apenas a minha vida. Quem vier siga o mappa e trepe pela neve
+de Sheba peito à esquerda até chegar ao bica, do lado norte do qual està a
+grande estrada do Solomão por elle feita, donde ha tres dias de jornada até ao
+Palacio do Rei. Mate Gagoal. Reze por minha alma. Adeos.
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+J<small>OSÉ DA</small> S<small>ILVESTRA</small>.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a href="images/map.jpg">
+<img src="images/map.jpg" width="420" height="600" alt="Illustration:
+Messen" /></a>
+<p class="caption">SKETCH MAP OF THE ROUTE TO KING SOLOMON&rsquo;S MINES</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="p2">
+When I had finished reading the above, and shown the copy of the map, drawn by
+the dying hand of the old Dom with his blood for ink, there followed a silence
+of astonishment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Captain Good, &ldquo;I have been round the world
+twice, and put in at most ports, but may I be hung for a mutineer if ever I
+heard a yarn like this out of a story book, or in it either, for the matter of
+that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a queer tale, Mr. Quatermain,&rdquo; said Sir Henry. &ldquo;I
+suppose you are not hoaxing us? It is, I know, sometimes thought allowable to
+take in a greenhorn.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you think that, Sir Henry,&rdquo; I said, much put out, and pocketing
+my paper&mdash;for I do not like to be thought one of those silly fellows who
+consider it witty to tell lies, and who are for ever boasting to newcomers of
+extraordinary hunting adventures which never happened&mdash;&ldquo;if you think
+that, why, there is an end to the matter,&rdquo; and I rose to go.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sir Henry laid his large hand upon my shoulder. &ldquo;Sit down, Mr.
+Quatermain,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I beg your pardon; I see very well you do
+not wish to deceive us, but the story sounded so strange that I could hardly
+believe it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You shall see the original map and writing when we reach Durban,&rdquo;
+I answered, somewhat mollified, for really when I came to consider the question
+it was scarcely wonderful that he should doubt my good faith.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But,&rdquo; I went on, &ldquo;I have not told you about your brother. I
+knew the man Jim who was with him. He was a Bechuana by birth, a good hunter,
+and for a native a very clever man. That morning on which Mr. Neville was
+starting I saw Jim standing by my wagon and cutting up tobacco on the
+disselboom.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Jim,&rsquo; said I, &lsquo;where are you off to this trip? It is
+elephants?&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;No, Baas,&rsquo; he answered, &lsquo;we are after something worth
+much more than ivory.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;And what might that be?&rsquo; I said, for I was curious.
+&lsquo;Is it gold?&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;No, Baas, something worth more than gold,&rsquo; and he grinned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I asked no more questions, for I did not like to lower my dignity by
+seeming inquisitive, but I was puzzled. Presently Jim finished cutting his
+tobacco.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Baas,&rsquo; said he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I took no notice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Baas,&rsquo; said he again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Eh, boy, what is it?&rsquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Baas, we are going after diamonds.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Diamonds! why, then, you are steering in the wrong direction; you
+should head for the Fields.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Baas, have you ever heard of Suliman&rsquo;s
+Berg?&rsquo;&mdash;that is, Solomon&rsquo;s Mountains, Sir Henry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Ay!&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Have you ever heard of the diamonds there?&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;I have heard a foolish story, Jim.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;It is no story, Baas. Once I knew a woman who came from there,
+and reached Natal with her child, she told me:&mdash;she is dead now.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Your master will feed the aasvögels&rsquo;&mdash;that is,
+vultures&mdash;&lsquo;Jim, if he tries to reach Suliman&rsquo;s country, and so
+will you if they can get any pickings off your worthless old carcass,&rsquo;
+said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He grinned. &lsquo;Mayhap, Baas. Man must die; I&rsquo;d rather like to
+try a new country myself; the elephants are getting worked out about
+here.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Ah! my boy,&rsquo; I said, &lsquo;you wait till the &ldquo;pale
+old man&rdquo; gets a grip of your yellow throat, and then we shall hear what
+sort of a tune you sing.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Half an hour after that I saw Neville&rsquo;s wagon move off. Presently
+Jim came back running. &lsquo;Good-bye, Baas,&rsquo; he said. &lsquo;I
+didn&rsquo;t like to start without bidding you good-bye, for I daresay you are
+right, and that we shall never trek south again.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Is your master really going to Suliman&rsquo;s Berg, Jim, or are
+you lying?&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;No,&rsquo; he answered, &lsquo;he is going. He told me he was
+bound to make his fortune somehow, or try to; so he might as well have a fling
+for the diamonds.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Oh!&rsquo; I said; &lsquo;wait a bit, Jim; will you take a note
+to your master, Jim, and promise not to give it to him till you reach
+Inyati?&rsquo; which was some hundred miles off.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Yes, Baas.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So I took a scrap of paper, and wrote on it, &lsquo;Let him who comes .
+. . climb the snow of Sheba&rsquo;s left breast, till he reaches the nipple, on
+the north side of which is Solomon&rsquo;s great road.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Now, Jim,&rsquo; I said, &lsquo;when you give this to your
+master, tell him he had better follow the advice on it implicitly. You are not
+to give it to him now, because I don&rsquo;t want him back asking me questions
+which I won&rsquo;t answer. Now be off, you idle fellow, the wagon is nearly
+out of sight.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Jim took the note and went, and that is all I know about your brother,
+Sir Henry; but I am much afraid&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Quatermain,&rdquo; said Sir Henry, &ldquo;I am going to look for my
+brother; I am going to trace him to Suliman&rsquo;s Mountains, and over them if
+necessary, till I find him, or until I know that he is dead. Will you come with
+me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I am, as I think I have said, a cautious man, indeed a timid one, and this
+suggestion frightened me. It seemed to me that to undertake such a journey
+would be to go to certain death, and putting other considerations aside, as I
+had a son to support, I could not afford to die just then.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, thank you, Sir Henry, I think I had rather not,&rdquo; I answered.
+&ldquo;I am too old for wild-goose chases of that sort, and we should only end
+up like my poor friend Silvestre. I have a son dependent on me, so I cannot
+afford to risk my life foolishly.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Both Sir Henry and Captain Good looked very disappointed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Quatermain,&rdquo; said the former, &ldquo;I am well off, and I am
+bent upon this business. You may put the remuneration for your services at
+whatever figure you like in reason, and it shall be paid over to you before we
+start. Moreover, I will arrange in the event of anything untoward happening to
+us or to you, that your son shall be suitably provided for. You will see from
+this offer how necessary I think your presence. Also if by chance we should
+reach this place, and find diamonds, they shall belong to you and Good equally.
+I do not want them. But of course that promise is worth nothing at all, though
+the same thing would apply to any ivory we might get. You may pretty well make
+your own terms with me, Mr. Quatermain; and of course I shall pay all
+expenses.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sir Henry,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;this is the most liberal proposal I
+ever had, and one not to be sneezed at by a poor hunter and trader. But the job
+is the biggest I have come across, and I must take time to think it over. I
+will give you my answer before we get to Durban.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very good,&rdquo; answered Sir Henry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then I said good-night and turned in, and dreamt about poor long-dead Silvestre
+and the diamonds.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap03"></a>CHAPTER III.<br />
+UMBOPA ENTERS OUR SERVICE</h2>
+
+<p>
+It takes from four to five days, according to the speed of the vessel and the
+state of the weather, to run up from the Cape to Durban. Sometimes, if the
+landing is bad at East London, where they have not yet made that wonderful
+harbour they talk so much of, and sink such a mint of money in, a ship is
+delayed for twenty-four hours before the cargo boats can get out to take off
+the goods. But on this occasion we had not to wait at all, for there were no
+breakers on the Bar to speak of, and the tugs came out at once with the long
+strings of ugly flat-bottomed boats behind them, into which the packages were
+bundled with a crash. It did not matter what they might be, over they went
+slap-bang; whether they contained china or woollen goods they met with the same
+treatment. I saw one case holding four dozen of champagne smashed all to bits,
+and there was the champagne fizzing and boiling about in the bottom of the
+dirty cargo boat. It was a wicked waste, and evidently so the Kafirs in the
+boat thought, for they found a couple of unbroken bottles, and knocking off the
+necks drank the contents. But they had not allowed for the expansion caused by
+the fizz in the wine, and, feeling themselves swelling, rolled about in the
+bottom of the boat, calling out that the good liquor was
+&ldquo;tagati&rdquo;&mdash;that is, bewitched. I spoke to them from the vessel,
+and told them it was the white man&rsquo;s strongest medicine, and that they
+were as good as dead men. Those Kafirs went to the shore in a very great
+fright, and I do not think that they will touch champagne again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Well, all the time that we were steaming up to Natal I was thinking over Sir
+Henry Curtis&rsquo;s offer. We did not speak any more on the subject for a day
+or two, though I told them many hunting yarns, all true ones. There is no need
+to tell lies about hunting, for so many curious things happen within the
+knowledge of a man whose business it is to hunt; but this is by the way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last, one beautiful evening in January, which is our hottest month, we
+steamed past the coast of Natal, expecting to make Durban Point by sunset. It
+is a lovely coast all along from East London, with its red sandhills and wide
+sweeps of vivid green, dotted here and there with Kafir kraals, and bordered by
+a ribbon of white surf, which spouts up in pillars of foam where it hits the
+rocks. But just before you come to Durban there is a peculiar richness about
+the landscape. There are the sheer kloofs cut in the hills by the rushing rains
+of centuries, down which the rivers sparkle; there is the deepest green of the
+bush, growing as God planted it, and the other greens of the mealie gardens and
+the sugar patches, while now and again a white house, smiling out at the placid
+sea, puts a finish and gives an air of homeliness to the scene. For to my mind,
+however beautiful a view may be, it requires the presence of man to make it
+complete, but perhaps that is because I have lived so much in the wilderness,
+and therefore know the value of civilisation, though to be sure it drives away
+the game. The Garden of Eden, no doubt, looked fair before man was, but I
+always think that it must have been fairer when Eve adorned it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To return, we had miscalculated a little, and the sun was well down before we
+dropped anchor off the Point, and heard the gun which told the good folks of
+Durban that the English Mail was in. It was too late to think of getting over
+the Bar that night, so we went comfortably to dinner, after seeing the Mails
+carried off in the life-boat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When we came up again the moon was out, and shining so brightly over sea and
+shore that she almost paled the quick, large flashes from the lighthouse. From
+the shore floated sweet spicy odours that always remind me of hymns and
+missionaries, and in the windows of the houses on the Berea sparkled a hundred
+lights. From a large brig lying near also came the music of the sailors as they
+worked at getting the anchor up in order to be ready for the wind. Altogether
+it was a perfect night, such a night as you sometimes get in Southern Africa,
+and it threw a garment of peace over everybody as the moon threw a garment of
+silver over everything. Even the great bulldog, belonging to a sporting
+passenger, seemed to yield to its gentle influences, and forgetting his
+yearning to come to close quarters with the baboon in a cage on the
+foc&rsquo;sle, snored happily at the door of the cabin, dreaming no doubt that
+he had finished him, and happy in his dream.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We three&mdash;that is, Sir Henry Curtis, Captain Good, and myself&mdash;went
+and sat by the wheel, and were quiet for a while.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, Mr. Quatermain,&rdquo; said Sir Henry presently, &ldquo;have you
+been thinking about my proposals?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay,&rdquo; echoed Captain Good, &ldquo;what do you think of them, Mr.
+Quatermain? I hope that you are going to give us the pleasure of your company
+so far as Solomon&rsquo;s Mines, or wherever the gentleman you knew as Neville
+may have got to.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I rose and knocked out my pipe before I answered. I had not made up my mind,
+and wanted an additional moment to decide. Before the burning tobacco had
+fallen into the sea I had decided; just that little extra second did the trick.
+It is often the way when you have been bothering a long time over a thing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, gentlemen,&rdquo; I said, sitting down again, &ldquo;I will go, and
+by your leave I will tell you why, and on what conditions. First for the terms
+which I ask.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;1. You are to pay all expenses, and any ivory or other valuables we may
+get is to be divided between Captain Good and myself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;2. That you give me £500 for my services on the trip before we start, I
+undertaking to serve you faithfully till you choose to abandon the enterprise,
+or till we succeed, or disaster overtakes us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;3. That before we trek you execute a deed agreeing, in the event of my
+death or disablement, to pay my boy Harry, who is studying medicine over there
+in London, at Guy&rsquo;s Hospital, a sum of £200 a year for five years, by
+which time he ought to be able to earn a living for himself if he is worth his
+salt. That is all, I think, and I daresay you will say quite enough too.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; answered Sir Henry, &ldquo;I accept them gladly. I am bent
+upon this project, and would pay more than that for your help, considering the
+peculiar and exclusive knowledge which you possess.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pity I did not ask it, then, but I won&rsquo;t go back on my word. And
+now that I have got my terms I will tell you my reasons for making up my mind
+to go. First of all, gentlemen, I have been observing you both for the last few
+days, and if you will not think me impertinent I may say that I like you, and
+believe that we shall come up well to the yoke together. That is something, let
+me tell you, when one has a long journey like this before one.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now as to the journey itself, I tell you flatly, Sir Henry and
+Captain Good, that I do not think it probable we can come out of it alive, that
+is, if we attempt to cross the Suliman Mountains. What was the fate of the old
+Dom da Silvestra three hundred years ago? What was the fate of his descendant
+twenty years ago? What has been your brother&rsquo;s fate? I tell you frankly,
+gentlemen, that as their fates were so I believe ours will be.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I paused to watch the effect of my words. Captain Good looked a little
+uncomfortable, but Sir Henry&rsquo;s face did not change. &ldquo;We must take
+our chance,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You may perhaps wonder,&rdquo; I went on, &ldquo;why, if I think this,
+I, who am, as I told you, a timid man, should undertake such a journey. It is
+for two reasons. First I am a fatalist, and believe that my time is appointed
+to come quite without reference to my own movements and will, and that if I am
+to go to Suliman&rsquo;s Mountains to be killed, I shall go there and shall be
+killed. God Almighty, no doubt, knows His mind about me, so I need not trouble
+on that point. Secondly, I am a poor man. For nearly forty years I have hunted
+and traded, but I have never made more than a living. Well, gentlemen, I
+don&rsquo;t know if you are aware that the average life of an elephant hunter
+from the time he takes to the trade is between four and five years. So you see
+I have lived through about seven generations of my class, and I should think
+that my time cannot be far off, anyway. Now, if anything were to happen to me
+in the ordinary course of business, by the time my debts are paid there would
+be nothing left to support my son Harry whilst he was getting in the way of
+earning a living, whereas now he will be set up for five years. There is the
+whole affair in a nutshell.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Quatermain,&rdquo; said Sir Henry, who had been giving me his most
+serious attention, &ldquo;your motives for undertaking an enterprise which you
+believe can only end in disaster reflect a great deal of credit on you. Whether
+or not you are right, of course time and the event alone can show. But whether
+you are right or wrong, I may as well tell you at once that I am going through
+with it to the end, sweet or bitter. If we are to be knocked on the head, all I
+have to say is, that I hope we get a little shooting first, eh, Good?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, yes,&rdquo; put in the captain. &ldquo;We have all three of us been
+accustomed to face danger, and to hold our lives in our hands in various ways,
+so it is no good turning back now. And now I vote we go down to the saloon and
+take an observation just for luck, you know.&rdquo; And we did&mdash;through
+the bottom of a tumbler.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Next day we went ashore, and I put up Sir Henry and Captain Good at the little
+shanty I have built on the Berea, and which I call my home. There are only
+three rooms and a kitchen in it, and it is constructed of green brick with a
+galvanised iron roof, but there is a good garden with the best loquot trees in
+it that I know, and some nice young mangoes, of which I hope great things. The
+curator of the botanical gardens gave them to me. It is looked after by an old
+hunter of mine named Jack, whose thigh was so badly broken by a buffalo cow in
+Sikukunis country that he will never hunt again. But he can potter about and
+garden, being a Griqua by birth. You will never persuade a Zulu to take much
+interest in gardening. It is a peaceful art, and peaceful arts are not in his
+line.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sir Henry and Good slept in a tent pitched in my little grove of orange trees
+at the end of the garden, for there was no room for them in the house, and what
+with the smell of the bloom, and the sight of the green and golden
+fruit&mdash;in Durban you will see all three on the tree together&mdash;I
+daresay it is a pleasant place enough, for we have few mosquitos here on the
+Berea, unless there happens to come an unusually heavy rain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Well, to get on&mdash;for if I do not, Harry, you will be tired of my story
+before ever we fetch up at Suliman&rsquo;s Mountains&mdash;having once made up
+my mind to go I set about making the necessary preparations. First I secured
+the deed from Sir Henry, providing for you, my boy, in case of accidents. There
+was some difficulty about its legal execution, as Sir Henry was a stranger
+here, and the property to be charged is over the water; but it was ultimately
+got over with the help of a lawyer, who charged £20 for the job&mdash;a price
+that I thought outrageous. Then I pocketed my cheque for £500.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Having paid this tribute to my bump of caution, I purchased a wagon and a span
+of oxen on Sir Henry&rsquo;s behalf, and beauties they were. It was a
+twenty-two-foot wagon with iron axles, very strong, very light, and built
+throughout of stink wood; not quite a new one, having been to the Diamond
+Fields and back, but, in my opinion, all the better for that, for I could see
+that the wood was well seasoned. If anything is going to give in a wagon, or if
+there is green wood in it, it will show out on the first trip. This particular
+vehicle was what we call a &ldquo;half-tented&rdquo; wagon, that is to say,
+only covered in over the after twelve feet, leaving all the front part free for
+the necessaries we had to carry with us. In this after part were a hide
+&ldquo;cartle,&rdquo; or bed, on which two people could sleep, also racks for
+rifles, and many other little conveniences. I gave £125 for it, and think that
+it was cheap at the price.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then I bought a beautiful team of twenty Zulu oxen, which I had kept my eye on
+for a year or two. Sixteen oxen is the usual number for a team, but I took four
+extra to allow for casualties. These Zulu cattle are small and light, not more
+than half the size of the Africander oxen, which are generally used for
+transport purposes; but they will live where the Africanders would starve, and
+with a moderate load can make five miles a day better going, being quicker and
+not so liable to become footsore. What is more, this lot were thoroughly
+&ldquo;salted,&rdquo; that is, they had worked all over South Africa, and so
+had become proof, comparatively speaking, against red water, which so
+frequently destroys whole teams of oxen when they get on to strange
+&ldquo;veldt&rdquo; or grass country. As for &ldquo;lung sick,&rdquo; which is
+a dreadful form of pneumonia, very prevalent in this country, they had all been
+inoculated against it. This is done by cutting a slit in the tail of an ox, and
+binding in a piece of the diseased lung of an animal which has died of the
+sickness. The result is that the ox sickens, takes the disease in a mild form,
+which causes its tail to drop off, as a rule about a foot from the root, and
+becomes proof against future attacks. It seems cruel to rob the animal of his
+tail, especially in a country where there are so many flies, but it is better
+to sacrifice the tail and keep the ox than to lose both tail and ox, for a tail
+without an ox is not much good, except to dust with. Still it does look odd to
+trek along behind twenty stumps, where there ought to be tails. It seems as
+though Nature made a trifling mistake, and stuck the stern ornaments of a lot
+of prize bull-dogs on to the rumps of the oxen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Next came the question of provisioning and medicines, one which required the
+most careful consideration, for what we had to do was to avoid lumbering the
+wagon, and yet to take everything absolutely necessary. Fortunately, it turned
+out that Good is a bit of a doctor, having at some point in his previous career
+managed to pass through a course of medical and surgical instruction, which he
+has more or less kept up. He is not, of course, qualified, but he knows more
+about it than many a man who can write M.D. after his name, as we found out
+afterwards, and he had a splendid travelling medicine chest and a set of
+instruments. Whilst we were at Durban he cut off a Kafir&rsquo;s big toe in a
+way which it was a pleasure to see. But he was quite nonplussed when the Kafir,
+who had sat stolidly watching the operation, asked him to put on another,
+saying that a &ldquo;white one&rdquo; would do at a pinch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There remained, when these questions were satisfactorily settled, two further
+important points for consideration, namely, that of arms and that of servants.
+As to the arms I cannot do better than put down a list of those which we
+finally decided on from among the ample store that Sir Henry had brought with
+him from England, and those which I owned. I copy it from my pocket-book, where
+I made the entry at the time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Three heavy breech-loading double-eight elephant guns, weighing about
+fifteen pounds each, to carry a charge of eleven drachms of black
+powder.&rdquo; Two of these were by a well-known London firm, most excellent
+makers, but I do not know by whom mine, which is not so highly finished, was
+made. I have used it on several trips, and shot a good many elephants with it,
+and it has always proved a most superior weapon, thoroughly to be relied on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Three double-500 Expresses, constructed to stand a charge of six
+drachms,&rdquo; sweet weapons, and admirable for medium-sized game, such as
+eland or sable antelope, or for men, especially in an open country and with the
+semi-hollow bullet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;One double No. 12 central-fire Keeper&rsquo;s shot-gun, full choke both
+barrels.&rdquo; This gun proved of the greatest service to us afterwards in
+shooting game for the pot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Three Winchester repeating rifles (not carbines), spare guns.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Three single-action Colt&rsquo;s revolvers, with the heavier, or
+American pattern of cartridge.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was our total armament, and doubtless the reader will observe that the
+weapons of each class were of the same make and calibre, so that the cartridges
+were interchangeable, a very important point. I make no apology for detailing
+it at length, as every experienced hunter will know how vital a proper supply
+of guns and ammunition is to the success of an expedition.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now as to the men who were to go with us. After much consultation we decided
+that their number should be limited to five, namely, a driver, a leader, and
+three servants.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The driver and leader I found without much difficulty, two Zulus, named
+respectively Goza and Tom; but to get the servants proved a more difficult
+matter. It was necessary that they should be thoroughly trustworthy and brave
+men, as in a business of this sort our lives might depend upon their conduct.
+At last I secured two, one a Hottentot named Ventvögel, or
+&ldquo;windbird,&rdquo; and one a little Zulu named Khiva, who had the merit of
+speaking English perfectly. Ventvögel I had known before; he was one of the
+most perfect &ldquo;spoorers,&rdquo; that is, game trackers, I ever had to do
+with, and tough as whipcord. He never seemed to tire. But he had one failing,
+so common with his race, drink. Put him within reach of a bottle of gin and you
+could not trust him. However, as we were going beyond the region of grog-shops
+this little weakness of his did not so much matter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Having secured these two men I looked in vain for a third to suit my purpose,
+so we determined to start without one, trusting to luck to find a suitable man
+on our way up country. But, as it happened, on the evening before the day we
+had fixed for our departure the Zulu Khiva informed me that a Kafir was waiting
+to see me. Accordingly, when we had done dinner, for we were at table at the
+time, I told Khiva to bring him in. Presently a tall, handsome-looking man,
+somewhere about thirty years of age, and very light-coloured for a Zulu,
+entered, and lifting his knob-stick by way of salute, squatted himself down in
+the corner on his haunches, and sat silent. I did not take any notice of him
+for a while, for it is a great mistake to do so. If you rush into conversation
+at once, a Zulu is apt to think you a person of little dignity or consequence.
+I observed, however, that he was a &ldquo;Keshla&rdquo; or ringed man; that is,
+he wore on his head the black ring, made of a species of gum polished with fat
+and worked up in the hair, which is usually assumed by Zulus on attaining a
+certain age or dignity. Also it struck me that his face was familiar to me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; I said at last, &ldquo;What is your name?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Umbopa,&rdquo; answered the man in a slow, deep voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have seen your face before.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes; the Inkoosi, the chief, my father, saw my face at the place of the
+Little Hand&rdquo;&mdash;that is, Isandhlwana&mdash;&ldquo;on the day before
+the battle.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then I remembered. I was one of Lord Chelmsford&rsquo;s guides in that unlucky
+Zulu War, and had the good fortune to leave the camp in charge of some wagons
+on the day before the battle. While I was waiting for the cattle to be
+inspanned I fell into conversation with this man, who held some small command
+among the native auxiliaries, and he had expressed to me his doubts as to the
+safety of the camp. At the time I told him to hold his tongue, and leave such
+matters to wiser heads; but afterwards I thought of his words.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I remember,&rdquo; I said; &ldquo;what is it you want?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is this, &lsquo;Macumazahn.&rsquo;&rdquo; That is my Kafir name, and
+means the man who gets up in the middle of the night, or, in vulgar English, he
+who keeps his eyes open. &ldquo;I hear that you go on a great expedition far
+into the North with the white chiefs from over the water. Is it a true
+word?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I hear that you go even to the Lukanga River, a moon&rsquo;s journey
+beyond the Manica country. Is this so also, &lsquo;Macumazahn?&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why do you ask whither we go? What is it to you?&rdquo; I answered
+suspiciously, for the objects of our journey had been kept a dead secret.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is this, O white men, that if indeed you travel so far I would travel
+with you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a certain assumption of dignity in the man&rsquo;s mode of speech,
+and especially in his use of the words &ldquo;O white men,&rdquo; instead of
+&ldquo;O Inkosis,&rdquo; or chiefs, which struck me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You forget yourself a little,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Your words run out
+unawares. That is not the way to speak. What is your name, and where is your
+kraal? Tell us, that we may know with whom we have to deal.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My name is Umbopa. I am of the Zulu people, yet not of them. The house
+of my tribe is in the far North; it was left behind when the Zulus came down
+here a &lsquo;thousand years ago,&rsquo; long before Chaka reigned in Zululand.
+I have no kraal. I have wandered for many years. I came from the North as a
+child to Zululand. I was Cetewayo&rsquo;s man in the Nkomabakosi Regiment,
+serving there under the great Captain, Umslopogaasi of the Axe,<a href="#fn-5" name="fnref-5" id="fnref-5"><sup>[5]</sup></a>
+who taught my hands to fight. Afterwards I ran away from Zululand and came to
+Natal because I wanted to see the white man&rsquo;s ways. Next I fought against
+Cetewayo in the war. Since then I have been working in Natal. Now I am tired,
+and would go North again. Here is not my place. I want no money, but I am a
+brave man, and am worth my place and meat. I have spoken.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-5" id="fn-5"></a> <a href="#fnref-5">[5]</a>
+For the history of Umslopogaasi and his Axe, the reader is referred to the
+books called &ldquo;Allan Quatermain&rdquo; and &ldquo;Nada the
+Lily.&rdquo;&mdash;<i>Editor</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was rather puzzled by this man and his way of speech. It was evident to me
+from his manner that in the main he was telling the truth, but somehow he
+seemed different from the ordinary run of Zulus, and I rather mistrusted his
+offer to come without pay. Being in a difficulty, I translated his words to Sir
+Henry and Good, and asked them their opinion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sir Henry told me to ask him to stand up. Umbopa did so, at the same time
+slipping off the long military great coat which he wore, and revealing himself
+naked except for the moocha round his centre and a necklace of lions&rsquo;
+claws. Certainly he was a magnificent-looking man; I never saw a finer native.
+Standing about six foot three high he was broad in proportion, and very
+shapely. In that light, too, his skin looked scarcely more than dark, except
+here and there where deep black scars marked old assegai wounds. Sir Henry
+walked up to him and looked into his proud, handsome face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They make a good pair, don&rsquo;t they?&rdquo; said Good; &ldquo;one as
+big as the other.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I like your looks, Mr. Umbopa, and I will take you as my servant,&rdquo;
+said Sir Henry in English.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Umbopa evidently understood him, for he answered in Zulu, &ldquo;It is
+well&rdquo;; and then added, with a glance at the white man&rsquo;s great
+stature and breadth, &ldquo;We are men, thou and I.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap04"></a>CHAPTER IV.<br />
+AN ELEPHANT HUNT</h2>
+
+<p>
+Now I do not propose to narrate at full length all the incidents of our long
+travel up to Sitanda&rsquo;s Kraal, near the junction of the Lukanga and
+Kalukwe Rivers. It was a journey of more than a thousand miles from Durban, the
+last three hundred or so of which we had to make on foot, owing to the frequent
+presence of the dreadful &ldquo;tsetse&rdquo; fly, whose bite is fatal to all
+animals except donkeys and men.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We left Durban at the end of January, and it was in the second week of May that
+we camped near Sitanda&rsquo;s Kraal. Our adventures on the way were many and
+various, but as they are of the sort which befall every African
+hunter&mdash;with one exception to be presently detailed&mdash;I shall not set
+them down here, lest I should render this history too wearisome.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At Inyati, the outlying trading station in the Matabele country, of which
+Lobengula (a great and cruel scoundrel) is king, with many regrets we parted
+from our comfortable wagon. Only twelve oxen remained to us out of the
+beautiful span of twenty which I had bought at Durban. One we lost from the
+bite of a cobra, three had perished from &ldquo;poverty&rdquo; and the want of
+water, one strayed, and the other three died from eating the poisonous herb
+called &ldquo;tulip.&rdquo; Five more sickened from this cause, but we managed
+to cure them with doses of an infusion made by boiling down the tulip leaves.
+If administered in time this is a very effective antidote.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The wagon and the oxen we left in the immediate charge of Goza and Tom, our
+driver and leader, both trustworthy boys, requesting a worthy Scotch missionary
+who lived in this distant place to keep an eye on them. Then, accompanied by
+Umbopa, Khiva, Ventvögel, and half a dozen bearers whom we hired on the spot,
+we started off on foot upon our wild quest. I remember we were all a little
+silent on the occasion of this departure, and I think that each of us was
+wondering if we should ever see our wagon again; for my part I never expected
+to do so. For a while we tramped on in silence, till Umbopa, who was marching
+in front, broke into a Zulu chant about how some brave men, tired of life and
+the tameness of things, started off into a vast wilderness to find new things
+or die, and how, lo and behold! when they had travelled far into the wilderness
+they found that it was not a wilderness at all, but a beautiful place full of
+young wives and fat cattle, of game to hunt and enemies to kill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then we all laughed and took it for a good omen. Umbopa was a cheerful savage,
+in a dignified sort of way, when he was not suffering from one of his fits of
+brooding, and he had a wonderful knack of keeping up our spirits. We all grew
+very fond of him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And now for the one adventure to which I am going to treat myself, for I do
+dearly love a hunting yarn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+About a fortnight&rsquo;s march from Inyati we came across a peculiarly
+beautiful bit of well-watered woodland country. The kloofs in the hills were
+covered with dense bush, &ldquo;idoro&rdquo; bush as the natives call it, and
+in some places, with the &ldquo;wacht-een-beche,&rdquo; or &ldquo;wait-a-little
+thorn,&rdquo; and there were great quantities of the lovely
+&ldquo;machabell&rdquo; tree, laden with refreshing yellow fruit having
+enormous stones. This tree is the elephant&rsquo;s favourite food, and there
+were not wanting signs that the great brutes had been about, for not only was
+their spoor frequent, but in many places the trees were broken down and even
+uprooted. The elephant is a destructive feeder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One evening, after a long day&rsquo;s march, we came to a spot of great
+loveliness. At the foot of a bush-clad hill lay a dry river-bed, in which,
+however, were to be found pools of crystal water all trodden round with the
+hoof-prints of game. Facing this hill was a park-like plain, where grew clumps
+of flat-topped mimosa, varied with occasional glossy-leaved machabells, and all
+round stretched the sea of pathless, silent bush.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As we emerged into this river-bed path suddenly we started a troop of tall
+giraffes, who galloped, or rather sailed off, in their strange gait, their
+tails screwed up over their backs, and their hoofs rattling like castanets.
+They were about three hundred yards from us, and therefore practically out of
+shot, but Good, who was walking ahead, and who had an express loaded with solid
+ball in his hand, could not resist temptation. Lifting his gun, he let drive at
+the last, a young cow. By some extraordinary chance the ball struck it full on
+the back of the neck, shattering the spinal column, and that giraffe went
+rolling head over heels just like a rabbit. I never saw a more curious thing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Curse it!&rdquo; said Good&mdash;for I am sorry to say he had a habit of
+using strong language when excited&mdash;contracted, no doubt, in the course of
+his nautical career; &ldquo;curse it! I&rsquo;ve killed him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Ou</i>, Bougwan,&rdquo; ejaculated the Kafirs; &ldquo;<i>ou!
+ou!</i>&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They called Good &ldquo;Bougwan,&rdquo; or Glass Eye, because of his eye-glass.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, &lsquo;Bougwan!&rsquo;&rdquo; re-echoed Sir Henry and I, and from
+that day Good&rsquo;s reputation as a marvellous shot was established, at any
+rate among the Kafirs. Really he was a bad one, but whenever he missed we
+overlooked it for the sake of that giraffe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Having set some of the &ldquo;boys&rdquo; to cut off the best of the
+giraffe&rsquo;s meat, we went to work to build a &ldquo;scherm&rdquo; near one
+of the pools and about a hundred yards to its right. This is done by cutting a
+quantity of thorn bushes and piling them in the shape of a circular hedge. Then
+the space enclosed is smoothed, and dry tambouki grass, if obtainable, is made
+into a bed in the centre, and a fire or fires lighted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By the time the &ldquo;scherm&rdquo; was finished the moon peeped up, and our
+dinners of giraffe steaks and roasted marrow-bones were ready. How we enjoyed
+those marrow-bones, though it was rather a job to crack them! I know of no
+greater luxury than giraffe marrow, unless it is elephant&rsquo;s heart, and we
+had that on the morrow. We ate our simple meal by the light of the moon,
+pausing at times to thank Good for his wonderful shot; then we began to smoke
+and yarn, and a curious picture we must have made squatting there round the
+fire. I, with my short grizzled hair sticking up straight, and Sir Henry with
+his yellow locks, which were getting rather long, were rather a contrast,
+especially as I am thin, and short, and dark, weighing only nine stone and a
+half, and Sir Henry is tall, and broad, and fair, and weighs fifteen. But
+perhaps the most curious-looking of the three, taking all the circumstances of
+the case into consideration, was Captain John Good, R.N. There he sat upon a
+leather bag, looking just as though he had come in from a comfortable
+day&rsquo;s shooting in a civilised country, absolutely clean, tidy, and well
+dressed. He wore a shooting suit of brown tweed, with a hat to match, and neat
+gaiters. As usual, he was beautifully shaved, his eye-glass and his false teeth
+appeared to be in perfect order, and altogether he looked the neatest man I
+ever had to do with in the wilderness. He even sported a collar, of which he
+had a supply, made of white gutta-percha.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You see, they weigh so little,&rdquo; he said to me innocently, when I
+expressed my astonishment at the fact; &ldquo;and I always like to turn out
+like a gentleman.&rdquo; Ah! if he could have foreseen the future and the
+raiment prepared for him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Well, there we three sat yarning away in the beautiful moonlight, and watching
+the Kafirs a few yards off sucking their intoxicating &ldquo;daccha&rdquo; from
+a pipe of which the mouthpiece was made of the horn of an eland, till one by
+one they rolled themselves up in their blankets and went to sleep by the fire,
+that is, all except Umbopa, who was a little apart, his chin resting on his
+hand, and thinking deeply. I noticed that he never mixed much with the other
+Kafirs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Presently, from the depths of the bush behind us, came a loud
+&ldquo;<i>woof</i>, <i>woof</i>!&rdquo; &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a lion,&rdquo; said
+I, and we all started up to listen. Hardly had we done so, when from the pool,
+about a hundred yards off, we heard the strident trumpeting of an elephant.
+&ldquo;<i>Unkungunklovo</i>! <i>Indlovu</i>!&rdquo; &ldquo;Elephant!
+Elephant!&rdquo; whispered the Kafirs, and a few minutes afterwards we saw a
+succession of vast shadowy forms moving slowly from the direction of the water
+towards the bush.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Up jumped Good, burning for slaughter, and thinking, perhaps, that it was as
+easy to kill elephant as he had found it to shoot giraffe, but I caught him by
+the arm and pulled him down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s no good,&rdquo; I whispered, &ldquo;let them go.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It seems that we are in a paradise of game. I vote we stop here a day or
+two, and have a go at them,&rdquo; said Sir Henry, presently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was rather surprised, for hitherto Sir Henry had always been for pushing
+forward as fast as possible, more especially since we ascertained at Inyati
+that about two years ago an Englishman of the name of Neville <i>had</i> sold
+his wagon there, and gone on up country. But I suppose his hunter instincts got
+the better of him for a while.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Good jumped at the idea, for he was longing to have a shot at those elephants;
+and so, to speak the truth, did I, for it went against my conscience to let
+such a herd as that escape without a pull at them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All right, my hearties,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I think we want a little
+recreation. And now let&rsquo;s turn in, for we ought to be off by dawn, and
+then perhaps we may catch them feeding before they move on.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The others agreed, and we proceeded to make our preparations. Good took off his
+clothes, shook them, put his eye-glass and his false teeth into his trousers
+pocket, and folding each article neatly, placed it out of the dew under a
+corner of his mackintosh sheet. Sir Henry and I contented ourselves with
+rougher arrangements, and soon were curled up in our blankets, and dropping off
+into the dreamless sleep that rewards the traveller.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Going, going, go&mdash;What was that?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly, from the direction of the water came sounds of violent scuffling, and
+next instant there broke upon our ears a succession of the most awful roars.
+There was no mistaking their origin; only a lion could make such a noise as
+that. We all jumped up and looked towards the water, in the direction of which
+we saw a confused mass, yellow and black in colour, staggering and struggling
+towards us. We seized our rifles, and slipping on our veldtschoons, that is
+shoes made of untanned hide, ran out of the scherm. By this time the mass had
+fallen, and was rolling over and over on the ground, and when we reached the
+spot it struggled no longer, but lay quite still.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now we saw what it was. On the grass there lay a sable antelope bull&mdash;the
+most beautiful of all the African antelopes&mdash;quite dead, and transfixed by
+its great curved horns was a magnificent black-maned lion, also dead. Evidently
+what had happened was this: The sable antelope had come down to drink at the
+pool where the lion&mdash;no doubt the same which we had heard&mdash;was lying
+in wait. While the antelope drank, the lion had sprung upon him, only to be
+received upon the sharp curved horns and transfixed. Once before I saw a
+similar thing happen. Then the lion, unable to free himself, had torn and
+bitten at the back and neck of the bull, which, maddened with fear and pain,
+had rushed on until it dropped dead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As soon as we had examined the beasts sufficiently we called the Kafirs, and
+between us managed to drag their carcases up to the scherm. After that we went
+in and lay down, to wake no more till dawn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With the first light we were up and making ready for the fray. We took with us
+the three eight-bore rifles, a good supply of ammunition, and our large
+water-bottles, filled with weak cold tea, which I have always found the best
+stuff to shoot on. After swallowing a little breakfast we started, Umbopa,
+Khiva, and Ventvögel accompanying us. The other Kafirs we left with
+instructions to skin the lion and the sable antelope, and to cut up the latter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We had no difficulty in finding the broad elephant trail, which Ventvögel,
+after examination, pronounced to have been made by between twenty and thirty
+elephants, most of them full-grown bulls. But the herd had moved on some way
+during the night, and it was nine o&rsquo;clock, and already very hot, before,
+by the broken trees, bruised leaves and bark, and smoking droppings, we knew
+that we could not be far from them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Presently we caught sight of the herd, which numbered, as Ventvögel had said,
+between twenty and thirty, standing in a hollow, having finished their morning
+meal, and flapping their great ears. It was a splendid sight, for they were
+only about two hundred yards from us. Taking a handful of dry grass, I threw it
+into the air to see how the wind was; for if once they winded us I knew they
+would be off before we could get a shot. Finding that, if anything, it blew
+from the elephants to us, we crept on stealthily, and thanks to the cover
+managed to get within forty yards or so of the great brutes. Just in front of
+us, and broadside on, stood three splendid bulls, one of them with enormous
+tusks. I whispered to the others that I would take the middle one; Sir Henry
+covering the elephant to the left, and Good the bull with the big tusks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now,&rdquo; I whispered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Boom! boom! boom! went the three heavy rifles, and down came Sir Henry&rsquo;s
+elephant dead as a hammer, shot right through the heart. Mine fell on to its
+knees and I thought that he was going to die, but in another moment he was up
+and off, tearing along straight past me. As he went I gave him the second
+barrel in the ribs, and this brought him down in good earnest. Hastily slipping
+in two fresh cartridges I ran close up to him, and a ball through the brain put
+an end to the poor brute&rsquo;s struggles. Then I turned to see how Good had
+fared with the big bull, which I had heard screaming with rage and pain as I
+gave mine its quietus. On reaching the captain I found him in a great state of
+excitement. It appeared that on receiving the bullet the bull had turned and
+come straight for his assailant, who had barely time to get out of his way, and
+then charged on blindly past him, in the direction of our encampment. Meanwhile
+the herd had crashed off in wild alarm in the other direction.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For awhile we debated whether to go after the wounded bull or to follow the
+herd, and finally deciding for the latter alternative, departed, thinking that
+we had seen the last of those big tusks. I have often wished since that we had.
+It was easy work to follow the elephants, for they had left a trail like a
+carriage road behind them, crushing down the thick bush in their furious flight
+as though it were tambouki grass.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But to come up with them was another matter, and we had struggled on under the
+broiling sun for over two hours before we found them. With the exception of one
+bull, they were standing together, and I could see, from their unquiet way and
+the manner in which they kept lifting their trunks to test the air, that they
+were on the look-out for mischief. The solitary bull stood fifty yards or so to
+this side of the herd, over which he was evidently keeping sentry, and about
+sixty yards from us. Thinking that he would see or wind us, and that it would
+probably start them off again if we tried to get nearer, especially as the
+ground was rather open, we all aimed at this bull, and at my whispered word, we
+fired. The three shots took effect, and down he went dead. Again the herd
+started, but unfortunately for them about a hundred yards further on was a
+nullah, or dried-out water track, with steep banks, a place very much
+resembling the one where the Prince Imperial was killed in Zululand. Into this
+the elephants plunged, and when we reached the edge we found them struggling in
+wild confusion to get up the other bank, filling the air with their screams,
+and trumpeting as they pushed one another aside in their selfish panic, just
+like so many human beings. Now was our opportunity, and firing away as quickly
+as we could load, we killed five of the poor beasts, and no doubt should have
+bagged the whole herd, had they not suddenly given up their attempts to climb
+the bank and rushed headlong down the nullah. We were too tired to follow them,
+and perhaps also a little sick of slaughter, eight elephants being a pretty
+good bag for one day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So after we were rested a little, and the Kafirs had cut out the hearts of two
+of the dead elephants for supper, we started homewards, very well pleased with
+our day&rsquo;s work, having made up our minds to send the bearers on the
+morrow to chop away the tusks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Shortly after we re-passed the spot where Good had wounded the patriarchal bull
+we came across a herd of eland, but did not shoot at them, as we had plenty of
+meat. They trotted past us, and then stopped behind a little patch of bush
+about a hundred yards away, wheeling round to look at us. As Good was anxious
+to get a near view of them, never having seen an eland close, he handed his
+rifle to Umbopa, and, followed by Khiva, strolled up to the patch of bush. We
+sat down and waited for him, not sorry of the excuse for a little rest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The sun was just going down in its reddest glory, and Sir Henry and I were
+admiring the lovely scene, when suddenly we heard an elephant scream, and saw
+its huge and rushing form with uplifted trunk and tail silhouetted against the
+great fiery globe of the sun. Next second we saw something else, and that was
+Good and Khiva tearing back towards us with the wounded bull&mdash;for it was
+he&mdash;charging after them. For a moment we did not dare to fire&mdash;though
+at that distance it would have been of little use if we had done so&mdash;for
+fear of hitting one of them, and the next a dreadful thing happened&mdash;Good
+fell a victim to his passion for civilised dress. Had he consented to discard
+his trousers and gaiters like the rest of us, and to hunt in a flannel shirt
+and a pair of veldt-schoons, it would have been all right. But as it was, his
+trousers cumbered him in that desperate race, and presently, when he was about
+sixty yards from us, his boot, polished by the dry grass, slipped, and down he
+went on his face right in front of the elephant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We gave a gasp, for we knew that he must die, and ran as hard as we could
+towards him. In three seconds it had ended, but not as we thought. Khiva, the
+Zulu boy, saw his master fall, and brave lad as he was, turned and flung his
+assegai straight into the elephant&rsquo;s face. It stuck in his trunk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With a scream of pain, the brute seized the poor Zulu, hurled him to the earth,
+and placing one huge foot on to his body about the middle, twined its trunk
+round his upper part and <i>tore him in two</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We rushed up mad with horror, and fired again and again, till presently the
+elephant fell upon the fragments of the Zulu.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As for Good, he rose and wrung his hands over the brave man who had given his
+life to save him, and, though I am an old hand, I felt a lump grow in my
+throat. Umbopa stood contemplating the huge dead elephant and the mangled
+remains of poor Khiva.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, well,&rdquo; he said presently, &ldquo;he is dead, but he died like
+a man!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap05"></a>CHAPTER V.<br />
+OUR MARCH INTO THE DESERT</h2>
+
+<p>
+We had killed nine elephants, and it took us two days to cut out the tusks, and
+having brought them into camp, to bury them carefully in the sand under a large
+tree, which made a conspicuous mark for miles round. It was a wonderfully fine
+lot of ivory. I never saw a better, averaging as it did between forty and fifty
+pounds a tusk. The tusks of the great bull that killed poor Khiva scaled one
+hundred and seventy pounds the pair, so nearly as we could judge.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As for Khiva himself, we buried what remained of him in an ant-bear hole,
+together with an assegai to protect himself with on his journey to a better
+world. On the third day we marched again, hoping that we might live to return
+to dig up our buried ivory, and in due course, after a long and wearisome
+tramp, and many adventures which I have not space to detail, we reached
+Sitanda&rsquo;s Kraal, near the Lukanga River, the real starting-point of our
+expedition. Very well do I recollect our arrival at that place. To the right
+was a scattered native settlement with a few stone cattle kraals and some
+cultivated lands down by the water, where these savages grew their scanty
+supply of grain, and beyond it stretched great tracts of waving
+&ldquo;veld&rdquo; covered with tall grass, over which herds of the smaller
+game were wandering. To the left lay the vast desert. This spot appears to be
+the outpost of the fertile country, and it would be difficult to say to what
+natural causes such an abrupt change in the character of the soil is due. But
+so it is.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Just below our encampment flowed a little stream, on the farther side of which
+is a stony slope, the same down which, twenty years before, I had seen poor
+Silvestre creeping back after his attempt to reach Solomon&rsquo;s Mines, and
+beyond that slope begins the waterless desert, covered with a species of karoo
+shrub.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was evening when we pitched our camp, and the great ball of the sun was
+sinking into the desert, sending glorious rays of many-coloured light flying
+all over its vast expanse. Leaving Good to superintend the arrangement of our
+little camp, I took Sir Henry with me, and walking to the top of the slope
+opposite, we gazed across the desert. The air was very clear, and far, far away
+I could distinguish the faint blue outlines, here and there capped with white,
+of the Suliman Berg.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;there is the wall round Solomon&rsquo;s
+Mines, but God knows if we shall ever climb it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My brother should be there, and if he is, I shall reach him
+somehow,&rdquo; said Sir Henry, in that tone of quiet confidence which marked
+the man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I hope so,&rdquo; I answered, and turned to go back to the camp, when I
+saw that we were not alone. Behind us, also gazing earnestly towards the
+far-off mountains, stood the great Kafir Umbopa.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Zulu spoke when he saw that I had observed him, addressing Sir Henry, to
+whom he had attached himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is it to that land that thou wouldst journey, Incubu?&rdquo; (a native
+word meaning, I believe, an elephant, and the name given to Sir Henry by the
+Kafirs), he said, pointing towards the mountain with his broad assegai.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I asked him sharply what he meant by addressing his master in that familiar
+way. It is very well for natives to have a name for one among themselves, but
+it is not decent that they should call a white man by their heathenish
+appellations to his face. The Zulu laughed a quiet little laugh which angered
+me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How dost thou know that I am not the equal of the Inkosi whom I
+serve?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;He is of a royal house, no doubt; one can see it
+in his size and by his mien; so, mayhap, am I. At least, I am as great a man.
+Be my mouth, O Macumazahn, and say my words to the Inkoos Incubu, my master,
+for I would speak to him and to thee.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was angry with the man, for I am not accustomed to be talked to in that way
+by Kafirs, but somehow he impressed me, and besides I was curious to know what
+he had to say. So I translated, expressing my opinion at the same time that he
+was an impudent fellow, and that his swagger was outrageous.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, Umbopa,&rdquo; answered Sir Henry, &ldquo;I would journey
+there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The desert is wide and there is no water in it, the mountains are high
+and covered with snow, and man cannot say what lies beyond them behind the
+place where the sun sets; how shalt thou come thither, Incubu, and wherefore
+dost thou go?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I translated again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tell him,&rdquo; answered Sir Henry, &ldquo;that I go because I believe
+that a man of my blood, my brother, has gone there before me, and I journey to
+seek him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That is so, Incubu; a Hottentot I met on the road told me that a white
+man went out into the desert two years ago towards those mountains with one
+servant, a hunter. They never came back.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How do you know it was my brother?&rdquo; asked Sir Henry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nay, I know not. But the Hottentot, when I asked what the white man was
+like, said that he had thine eyes and a black beard. He said, too, that the
+name of the hunter with him was Jim; that he was a Bechuana hunter and wore
+clothes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is no doubt about it,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;I knew Jim
+well.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sir Henry nodded. &ldquo;I was sure of it,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;If George set
+his mind upon a thing he generally did it. It was always so from his boyhood.
+If he meant to cross the Suliman Berg he has crossed it, unless some accident
+overtook him, and we must look for him on the other side.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Umbopa understood English, though he rarely spoke it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is a far journey, Incubu,&rdquo; he put in, and I translated his
+remark.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; answered Sir Henry, &ldquo;it is far. But there is no
+journey upon this earth that a man may not make if he sets his heart to it.
+There is nothing, Umbopa, that he cannot do, there are no mountains he may not
+climb, there are no deserts he cannot cross, save a mountain and a desert of
+which you are spared the knowledge, if love leads him and he holds his life in
+his hands counting it as nothing, ready to keep it or lose it as Heaven above
+may order.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I translated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Great words, my father,&rdquo; answered the Zulu&mdash;I always called
+him a Zulu, though he was not really one&mdash;&ldquo;great swelling words fit
+to fill the mouth of a man. Thou art right, my father Incubu. Listen! what is
+life? It is a feather, it is the seed of the grass, blown hither and thither,
+sometimes multiplying itself and dying in the act, sometimes carried away into
+the heavens. But if that seed be good and heavy it may perchance travel a
+little way on the road it wills. It is well to try and journey one&rsquo;s road
+and to fight with the air. Man must die. At the worst he can but die a little
+sooner. I will go with thee across the desert and over the mountains, unless
+perchance I fall to the ground on the way, my father.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He paused awhile, and then went on with one of those strange bursts of
+rhetorical eloquence that Zulus sometimes indulge in, which to my mind, full
+though they are of vain repetitions, show that the race is by no means devoid
+of poetic instinct and of intellectual power.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is life? Tell me, O white men, who are wise, who know the secrets
+of the world, and of the world of stars, and the world that lies above and
+around the stars; who flash your words from afar without a voice; tell me,
+white men, the secret of our life&mdash;whither it goes and whence it comes!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You cannot answer me; you know not. Listen, I will answer. Out of the
+dark we came, into the dark we go. Like a storm-driven bird at night we fly out
+of the Nowhere; for a moment our wings are seen in the light of the fire, and,
+lo! we are gone again into the Nowhere. Life is nothing. Life is all. It is the
+Hand with which we hold off Death. It is the glow-worm that shines in the
+night-time and is black in the morning; it is the white breath of the oxen in
+winter; it is the little shadow that runs across the grass and loses itself at
+sunset.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are a strange man,&rdquo; said Sir Henry, when he had ceased.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Umbopa laughed. &ldquo;It seems to me that we are much alike, Incubu. Perhaps
+<i>I</i> seek a brother over the mountains.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I looked at him suspiciously. &ldquo;What dost thou mean?&rdquo; I asked;
+&ldquo;what dost thou know of those mountains?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A little; a very little. There is a strange land yonder, a land of
+witchcraft and beautiful things; a land of brave people, and of trees, and
+streams, and snowy peaks, and of a great white road. I have heard of it. But
+what is the good of talking? It grows dark. Those who live to see will
+see.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Again I looked at him doubtfully. The man knew too much.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You need not fear me, Macumazahn,&rdquo; he said, interpreting my look.
+&ldquo;I dig no holes for you to fall in. I make no plots. If ever we cross
+those mountains behind the sun I will tell what I know. But Death sits upon
+them. Be wise and turn back. Go and hunt elephants, my masters. I have
+spoken.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And without another word he lifted his spear in salutation, and returned
+towards the camp, where shortly afterwards we found him cleaning a gun like any
+other Kafir.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That is an odd man,&rdquo; said Sir Henry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; answered I, &ldquo;too odd by half. I don&rsquo;t like his
+little ways. He knows something, and will not speak out. But I suppose it is no
+use quarrelling with him. We are in for a curious trip, and a mysterious Zulu
+won&rsquo;t make much difference one way or another.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Next day we made our arrangements for starting. Of course it was impossible to
+drag our heavy elephant rifles and other kit with us across the desert, so,
+dismissing our bearers, we made an arrangement with an old native who had a
+kraal close by to take care of them till we returned. It went to my heart to
+leave such things as those sweet tools to the tender mercies of an old thief of
+a savage whose greedy eyes I could see gloating over them. But I took some
+precautions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+First of all I loaded all the rifles, placing them at full cock, and informed
+him that if he touched them they would go off. He tried the experiment
+instantly with my eight-bore, and it did go off, and blew a hole right through
+one of his oxen, which were just then being driven up to the kraal, to say
+nothing of knocking him head over heels with the recoil. He got up considerably
+startled, and not at all pleased at the loss of the ox, which he had the
+impudence to ask me to pay for, and nothing would induce him to touch the guns
+again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Put the live devils out of the way up there in the thatch,&rdquo; he
+said, &ldquo;or they will murder us all.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then I told him that, when we came back, if one of those things was missing I
+would kill him and his people by witchcraft; and if we died and he tried to
+steal the rifles I would come and haunt him and turn his cattle mad and his
+milk sour till life was a weariness, and would make the devils in the guns come
+out and talk to him in a way he did not like, and generally gave him a good
+idea of judgment to come. After that he promised to look after them as though
+they were his father&rsquo;s spirit. He was a very superstitious old Kafir and
+a great villain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Having thus disposed of our superfluous gear we arranged the kit we
+five&mdash;Sir Henry, Good, myself, Umbopa, and the Hottentot
+Ventvögel&mdash;were to take with us on our journey. It was small enough, but
+do what we would we could not get its weight down under about forty pounds a
+man. This is what it consisted of:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The three express rifles and two hundred rounds of ammunition.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The two Winchester repeating rifles (for Umbopa and Ventvögel), with two
+hundred rounds of cartridge.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Five Cochrane&rsquo;s water-bottles, each holding four pints.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Five blankets.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Twenty-five pounds&rsquo; weight of biltong&mdash;i.e. sun-dried game flesh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ten pounds&rsquo; weight of best mixed beads for gifts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A selection of medicine, including an ounce of quinine, and one or two small
+surgical instruments.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Our knives, a few sundries, such as a compass, matches, a pocket filter,
+tobacco, a trowel, a bottle of brandy, and the clothes we stood in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was our total equipment, a small one indeed for such a venture, but we
+dared not attempt to carry more. Indeed, that load was a heavy one per man with
+which to travel across the burning desert, for in such places every additional
+ounce tells. But we could not see our way to reducing the weight. There was
+nothing taken but what was absolutely necessary.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With great difficulty, and by the promise of a present of a good hunting-knife
+each, I succeeded in persuading three wretched natives from the village to come
+with us for the first stage, twenty miles, and to carry a large gourd holding a
+gallon of water apiece. My object was to enable us to refill our water-bottles
+after the first night&rsquo;s march, for we determined to start in the cool of
+the evening. I gave out to these natives that we were going to shoot ostriches,
+with which the desert abounded. They jabbered and shrugged their shoulders,
+saying that we were mad and should perish of thirst, which I must say seemed
+probable; but being desirous of obtaining the knives, which were almost unknown
+treasures up there, they consented to come, having probably reflected that,
+after all, our subsequent extinction would be no affair of theirs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All next day we rested and slept, and at sunset ate a hearty meal of fresh beef
+washed down with tea, the last, as Good remarked sadly, we were likely to drink
+for many a long day. Then, having made our final preparations, we lay down and
+waited for the moon to rise. At last, about nine o&rsquo;clock, up she came in
+all her glory, flooding the wild country with light, and throwing a silver
+sheen on the expanse of rolling desert before us, which looked as solemn and
+quiet and as alien to man as the star-studded firmament above. We rose up, and
+in a few minutes were ready, and yet we hesitated a little, as human nature is
+prone to hesitate on the threshold of an irrevocable step. We three white men
+stood by ourselves. Umbopa, assegai in hand and a rifle across his shoulders,
+looked out fixedly across the desert a few paces ahead of us; while the hired
+natives, with the gourds of water, and Ventvögel, were gathered in a little
+knot behind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Gentlemen,&rdquo; said Sir Henry presently, in his deep voice, &ldquo;we
+are going on about as strange a journey as men can make in this world. It is
+very doubtful if we can succeed in it. But we are three men who will stand
+together for good or for evil to the last. Now before we start let us for a
+moment pray to the Power who shapes the destinies of men, and who ages since
+has marked out our paths, that it may please Him to direct our steps in
+accordance with His will.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Taking off his hat, for the space of a minute or so, he covered his face with
+his hands, and Good and I did likewise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I do not say that I am a first-rate praying man, few hunters are, and as for
+Sir Henry, I never heard him speak like that before, and only once since,
+though deep down in his heart I believe that he is very religious. Good too is
+pious, though apt to swear. Anyhow I do not remember, excepting on one single
+occasion, ever putting up a better prayer in my life than I did during that
+minute, and somehow I felt the happier for it. Our future was so completely
+unknown, and I think that the unknown and the awful always bring a man nearer
+to his Maker.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now,&rdquo; said Sir Henry, &ldquo;<i>trek</i>!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So we started.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We had nothing to guide ourselves by except the distant mountains and old José
+da Silvestra&rsquo;s chart, which, considering that it was drawn by a dying and
+half-distraught man on a fragment of linen three centuries ago, was not a very
+satisfactory sort of thing to work with. Still, our sole hope of success
+depended upon it, such as it was. If we failed in finding that pool of bad
+water which the old Dom marked as being situated in the middle of the desert,
+about sixty miles from our starting-point, and as far from the mountains, in
+all probability we must perish miserably of thirst. But to my mind the chances
+of our finding it in that great sea of sand and karoo scrub seemed almost
+infinitesimal. Even supposing that da Silvestra had marked the pool correctly,
+what was there to prevent its having been dried up by the sun generations ago,
+or trampled in by game, or filled with the drifting sand?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On we tramped silently as shades through the night and in the heavy sand. The
+karoo bushes caught our feet and retarded us, and the sand worked into our
+veldtschoons and Good&rsquo;s shooting-boots, so that every few miles we had to
+stop and empty them; but still the night kept fairly cool, though the
+atmosphere was thick and heavy, giving a sort of creamy feel to the air, and we
+made fair progress. It was very silent and lonely there in the desert,
+oppressively so indeed. Good felt this, and once began to whistle &ldquo;The
+Girl I left behind me,&rdquo; but the notes sounded lugubrious in that vast
+place, and he gave it up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Shortly afterwards a little incident occurred which, though it startled us at
+the time, gave rise to a laugh. Good was leading, as the holder of the compass,
+which, being a sailor, of course he understood thoroughly, and we were toiling
+along in single file behind him, when suddenly we heard the sound of an
+exclamation, and he vanished. Next second there arose all around us a most
+extraordinary hubbub, snorts, groans, and wild sounds of rushing feet. In the
+faint light, too, we could descry dim galloping forms half hidden by wreaths of
+sand. The natives threw down their loads and prepared to bolt, but remembering
+that there was nowhere to run to, they cast themselves upon the ground and
+howled out that it was ghosts. As for Sir Henry and myself, we stood amazed;
+nor was our amazement lessened when we perceived the form of Good careering off
+in the direction of the mountains, apparently mounted on the back of a horse
+and halloaing wildly. In another second he threw up his arms, and we heard him
+come to the earth with a thud.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then I saw what had happened; we had stumbled upon a herd of sleeping quagga,
+on to the back of one of which Good actually had fallen, and the brute
+naturally enough got up and made off with him. Calling out to the others that
+it was all right, I ran towards Good, much afraid lest he should be hurt, but
+to my great relief I found him sitting in the sand, his eye-glass still fixed
+firmly in his eye, rather shaken and very much frightened, but not in any way
+injured.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After this we travelled on without any further misadventure till about one
+o&rsquo;clock, when we called a halt, and having drunk a little water, not
+much, for water was precious, and rested for half an hour, we started again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On, on we went, till at last the east began to blush like the cheek of a girl.
+Then there came faint rays of primrose light, that changed presently to golden
+bars, through which the dawn glided out across the desert. The stars grew pale
+and paler still, till at last they vanished; the golden moon waxed wan, and her
+mountain ridges stood out against her sickly face like the bones on the cheek
+of a dying man. Then came spear upon spear of light flashing far away across
+the boundless wilderness, piercing and firing the veils of mist, till the
+desert was draped in a tremulous golden glow, and it was day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Still we did not halt, though by this time we should have been glad enough to
+do so, for we knew that when once the sun was fully up it would be almost
+impossible for us to travel. At length, about an hour later, we spied a little
+pile of boulders rising out of the plain, and to this we dragged ourselves. As
+luck would have it, here we found an overhanging slab of rock carpeted beneath
+with smooth sand, which afforded a most grateful shelter from the heat.
+Underneath this we crept, and each of us having drunk some water and eaten a
+bit of biltong, we lay down and soon were sound asleep.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was three o&rsquo;clock in the afternoon before we woke, to find our bearers
+preparing to return. They had seen enough of the desert already, and no number
+of knives would have tempted them to come a step farther. So we took a hearty
+drink, and having emptied our water-bottles, filled them up again from the
+gourds that they had brought with them, and then watched them depart on their
+twenty miles&rsquo; tramp home.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At half-past four we also started. It was lonely and desolate work, for with
+the exception of a few ostriches there was not a single living creature to be
+seen on all the vast expanse of sandy plain. Evidently it was too dry for game,
+and with the exception of a deadly-looking cobra or two we saw no reptiles. One
+insect, however, we found abundant, and that was the common or house fly. There
+they came, &ldquo;not as single spies, but in battalions,&rdquo; as I think the
+Old Testament<a href="#fn-6" name="fnref-6" id="fnref-6"><sup>[6]</sup></a>
+says somewhere. He is an extraordinary insect is the house fly. Go where you
+will you find him, and so it must have been always. I have seen him enclosed in
+amber, which is, I was told, quite half a million years old, looking exactly
+like his descendant of to-day, and I have little doubt but that when the last
+man lies dying on the earth he will be buzzing round&mdash;if this event
+happens to occur in summer&mdash;watching for an opportunity to settle on his
+nose.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-6" id="fn-6"></a> <a href="#fnref-6">[6]</a>
+Readers must beware of accepting Mr. Quatermain&rsquo;s references as accurate,
+as, it has been found, some are prone to do. Although his reading evidently was
+limited, the impression produced by it upon his mind was mixed. Thus to him the
+Old Testament and Shakespeare were interchangeable
+authorities.&mdash;<i>Editor</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At sunset we halted, waiting for the moon to rise. At last she came up,
+beautiful and serene as ever, and, with one halt about two o&rsquo;clock in the
+morning, we trudged on wearily through the night, till at last the welcome sun
+put a period to our labours. We drank a little and flung ourselves down on the
+sand, thoroughly tired out, and soon were all asleep. There was no need to set
+a watch, for we had nothing to fear from anybody or anything in that vast
+untenanted plain. Our only enemies were heat, thirst, and flies, but far rather
+would I have faced any danger from man or beast than that awful trinity. This
+time we were not so lucky as to find a sheltering rock to guard us from the
+glare of the sun, with the result that about seven o&rsquo;clock we woke up
+experiencing the exact sensations one would attribute to a beefsteak on a
+gridiron. We were literally being baked through and through. The burning sun
+seemed to be sucking our very blood out of us. We sat up and gasped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Phew,&rdquo; said I, grabbing at the halo of flies which buzzed
+cheerfully round my head. The heat did not affect <i>them</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My word!&rdquo; said Sir Henry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is hot!&rdquo; echoed Good.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was hot, indeed, and there was not a bit of shelter to be found. Look where
+we would there was no rock or tree, nothing but an unending glare, rendered
+dazzling by the heated air that danced over the surface of the desert as it
+dances over a red-hot stove.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is to be done?&rdquo; asked Sir Henry; &ldquo;we can&rsquo;t stand
+this for long.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We looked at each other blankly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have it,&rdquo; said Good, &ldquo;we must dig a hole, get in it, and
+cover ourselves with the karoo bushes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It did not seem a very promising suggestion, but at least it was better than
+nothing, so we set to work, and, with the trowel we had brought with us and the
+help of our hands, in about an hour we succeeded in delving out a patch of
+ground some ten feet long by twelve wide to the depth of two feet. Then we cut
+a quantity of low scrub with our hunting-knives, and creeping into the hole,
+pulled it over us all, with the exception of Ventvögel, on whom, being a
+Hottentot, the heat had no particular effect. This gave us some slight shelter
+from the burning rays of the sun, but the atmosphere in that amateur grave can
+be better imagined than described. The Black Hole of Calcutta must have been a
+fool to it; indeed, to this moment I do not know how we lived through the day.
+There we lay panting, and every now and again moistening our lips from our
+scanty supply of water. Had we followed our inclinations we should have
+finished all we possessed in the first two hours, but we were forced to
+exercise the most rigid care, for if our water failed us we knew that very soon
+we must perish miserably.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But everything has an end, if only you live long enough to see it, and somehow
+that miserable day wore on towards evening. About three o&rsquo;clock in the
+afternoon we determined that we could bear it no longer. It would be better to
+die walking than to be killed slowly by heat and thirst in this dreadful hole.
+So taking each of us a little drink from our fast diminishing supply of water,
+now warmed to about the same temperature as a man&rsquo;s blood, we staggered
+forward.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We had then covered some fifty miles of wilderness. If the reader will refer to
+the rough copy and translation of old da Silvestra&rsquo;s map, he will see
+that the desert is marked as measuring forty leagues across, and the &ldquo;pan
+bad water&rdquo; is set down as being about in the middle of it. Now forty
+leagues is one hundred and twenty miles, consequently we ought at the most to
+be within twelve or fifteen miles of the water if any should really exist.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Through the afternoon we crept slowly and painfully along, scarcely doing more
+than a mile and a half in an hour. At sunset we rested again, waiting for the
+moon, and after drinking a little managed to get some sleep.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before we lay down, Umbopa pointed out to us a slight and indistinct hillock on
+the flat surface of the plain about eight miles away. At the distance it looked
+like an ant-hill, and as I was dropping off to sleep I fell to wondering what
+it could be.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With the moon we marched again, feeling dreadfully exhausted, and suffering
+tortures from thirst and prickly heat. Nobody who has not felt it can know what
+we went through. We walked no longer, we staggered, now and again falling from
+exhaustion, and being obliged to call a halt every hour or so. We had scarcely
+energy left in us to speak. Up to this Good had chatted and joked, for he is a
+merry fellow; but now he had not a joke in him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last, about two o&rsquo;clock, utterly worn out in body and mind, we came to
+the foot of the queer hill, or sand koppie, which at first sight resembled a
+gigantic ant-heap about a hundred feet high, and covering at the base nearly
+two acres of ground.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here we halted, and driven to it by our desperate thirst, sucked down our last
+drops of water. We had but half a pint a head, and each of us could have drunk
+a gallon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then we lay down. Just as I was dropping off to sleep I heard Umbopa remark to
+himself in Zulu&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If we cannot find water we shall all be dead before the moon rises
+to-morrow.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I shuddered, hot as it was. The near prospect of such an awful death is not
+pleasant, but even the thought of it could not keep me from sleeping.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap06"></a>CHAPTER VI.<br />
+WATER! WATER!</h2>
+
+<p>
+Two hours later, that is, about four o&rsquo;clock, I woke up, for so soon as
+the first heavy demand of bodily fatigue had been satisfied, the torturing
+thirst from which I was suffering asserted itself. I could sleep no more. I had
+been dreaming that I was bathing in a running stream, with green banks and
+trees upon them, and I awoke to find myself in this arid wilderness, and to
+remember, as Umbopa had said, that if we did not find water this day we must
+perish miserably. No human creature could live long without water in that heat.
+I sat up and rubbed my grimy face with my dry and horny hands, as my lips and
+eyelids were stuck together, and it was only after some friction and with an
+effort that I was able to open them. It was not far from dawn, but there was
+none of the bright feel of dawn in the air, which was thick with a hot
+murkiness that I cannot describe. The others were still sleeping.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Presently it began to grow light enough to read, so I drew out a little pocket
+copy of the &ldquo;Ingoldsby Legends&rdquo; which I had brought with me, and
+read &ldquo;The Jackdaw of Rheims.&rdquo; When I got to where
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+  &ldquo;A nice little boy held a golden ewer,<br />
+  Embossed, and filled with water as pure<br />
+  As any that flows between Rheims and Namur,&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+literally I smacked my cracking lips, or rather tried to smack them. The mere
+thought of that pure water made me mad. If the Cardinal had been there with his
+bell, book, and candle, I would have whipped in and drunk his water up; yes,
+even if he had filled it already with the suds of soap &ldquo;worthy of washing
+the hands of the Pope,&rdquo; and I knew that the whole consecrated curse of
+the Catholic Church should fall upon me for so doing. I almost think that I
+must have been a little light-headed with thirst, weariness and the want of
+food; for I fell to thinking how astonished the Cardinal and his nice little
+boy and the jackdaw would have looked to see a burnt up, brown-eyed,
+grizzly-haired little elephant hunter suddenly bound between them, put his
+dirty face into the basin, and swallow every drop of the precious water. The
+idea amused me so much that I laughed or rather cackled aloud, which woke the
+others, and they began to rub <i>their</i> dirty faces and drag <i>their</i>
+gummed-up lips and eyelids apart.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As soon as we were all well awake we began to discuss the situation, which was
+serious enough. Not a drop of water was left. We turned the bottles upside
+down, and licked their tops, but it was a failure; they were dry as a bone.
+Good, who had charge of the flask of brandy, got it out and looked at it
+longingly; but Sir Henry promptly took it away from him, for to drink raw
+spirit would only have been to precipitate the end.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If we do not find water we shall die,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If we can trust to the old Dom&rsquo;s map there should be some
+about,&rdquo; I said; but nobody seemed to derive much satisfaction from this
+remark. It was so evident that no great faith could be put in the map. Now it
+was gradually growing light, and as we sat staring blankly at each other, I
+observed the Hottentot Ventvögel rise and begin to walk about with his eyes on
+the ground. Presently he stopped short, and uttering a guttural exclamation,
+pointed to the earth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; we exclaimed; and rising simultaneously we went to
+where he was standing staring at the sand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;it is fresh Springbok spoor; what of
+it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Springbucks do not go far from water,&rdquo; he answered in Dutch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; I answered, &ldquo;I forgot; and thank God for it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This little discovery put new life into us; for it is wonderful, when a man is
+in a desperate position, how he catches at the slightest hope, and feels almost
+happy. On a dark night a single star is better than nothing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile Ventvögel was lifting his snub nose, and sniffing the hot air for all
+the world like an old Impala ram who scents danger. Presently he spoke again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I <i>smell</i> water,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then we felt quite jubilant, for we knew what a wonderful instinct these
+wild-bred men possess.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Just at that moment the sun came up gloriously, and revealed so grand a sight
+to our astonished eyes that for a moment or two we even forgot our thirst.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There, not more than forty or fifty miles from us, glittering like silver in
+the early rays of the morning sun, soared Sheba&rsquo;s Breasts; and stretching
+away for hundreds of miles on either side of them ran the great Suliman Berg.
+Now that, sitting here, I attempt to describe the extraordinary grandeur and
+beauty of that sight, language seems to fail me. I am impotent even before its
+memory. Straight before us, rose two enormous mountains, the like of which are
+not, I believe, to be seen in Africa, if indeed there are any other such in the
+world, measuring each of them at least fifteen thousand feet in height,
+standing not more than a dozen miles apart, linked together by a precipitous
+cliff of rock, and towering in awful white solemnity straight into the sky.
+These mountains placed thus, like the pillars of a gigantic gateway, are shaped
+after the fashion of a woman&rsquo;s breasts, and at times the mists and
+shadows beneath them take the form of a recumbent woman, veiled mysteriously in
+sleep. Their bases swell gently from the plain, looking at that distance
+perfectly round and smooth; and upon the top of each is a vast hillock covered
+with snow, exactly corresponding to the nipple on the female breast. The
+stretch of cliff that connects them appears to be some thousands of feet in
+height, and perfectly precipitous, and on each flank of them, so far as the eye
+can reach, extend similar lines of cliff, broken only here and there by flat
+table-topped mountains, something like the world-famed one at Cape Town; a
+formation, by the way, that is very common in Africa.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To describe the comprehensive grandeur of that view is beyond my powers. There
+was something so inexpressibly solemn and overpowering about those huge
+volcanoes&mdash;for doubtless they are extinct volcanoes&mdash;that it quite
+awed us. For a while the morning lights played upon the snow and the brown and
+swelling masses beneath, and then, as though to veil the majestic sight from
+our curious eyes, strange vapours and clouds gathered and increased around the
+mountains, till presently we could only trace their pure and gigantic outlines,
+showing ghostlike through the fleecy envelope. Indeed, as we afterwards
+discovered, usually they were wrapped in this gauze-like mist, which doubtless
+accounted for our not having seen them more clearly before.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sheba&rsquo;s Breasts had scarcely vanished into cloud-clad privacy, before our
+thirst&mdash;literally a burning question&mdash;reasserted itself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was all very well for Ventvögel to say that he smelt water, but we could see
+no signs of it, look which way we would. So far as the eye might reach there
+was nothing but arid sweltering sand and karoo scrub. We walked round the
+hillock and gazed about anxiously on the other side, but it was the same story,
+not a drop of water could be found; there was no indication of a pan, a pool,
+or a spring.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are a fool,&rdquo; I said angrily to Ventvögel; &ldquo;there is no
+water.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But still he lifted his ugly snub nose and sniffed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I smell it, Baas,&rdquo; he answered; &ldquo;it is somewhere in the
+air.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;no doubt it is in the clouds, and about two
+months hence it will fall and wash our bones.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sir Henry stroked his yellow beard thoughtfully. &ldquo;Perhaps it is on the
+top of the hill,&rdquo; he suggested.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Rot,&rdquo; said Good; &ldquo;whoever heard of water being found at the
+top of a hill!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let us go and look,&rdquo; I put in, and hopelessly enough we scrambled
+up the sandy sides of the hillock, Umbopa leading. Presently he stopped as
+though he was petrified.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Nanzia manzie</i>!&rdquo; that is, &ldquo;Here is water!&rdquo; he
+cried with a loud voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We rushed up to him, and there, sure enough, in a deep cut or indentation on
+the very top of the sand koppie, was an undoubted pool of water. How it came to
+be in such a strange place we did not stop to inquire, nor did we hesitate at
+its black and unpleasant appearance. It was water, or a good imitation of it,
+and that was enough for us. We gave a bound and a rush, and in another second
+we were all down on our stomachs sucking up the uninviting fluid as though it
+were nectar fit for the gods. Heavens, how we did drink! Then when we had done
+drinking we tore off our clothes and sat down in the pool, absorbing the
+moisture through our parched skins. You, Harry, my boy, who have only to turn
+on a couple of taps to summon &ldquo;hot&rdquo; and &ldquo;cold&rdquo; from an
+unseen, vasty cistern, can have little idea of the luxury of that muddy wallow
+in brackish tepid water.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After a while we rose from it, refreshed indeed, and fell to on our
+&ldquo;biltong,&rdquo; of which we had scarcely been able to touch a mouthful
+for twenty-four hours, and ate our fill. Then we smoked a pipe, and lay down by
+the side of that blessed pool, under the overhanging shadow of its bank, and
+slept till noon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All that day we rested there by the water, thanking our stars that we had been
+lucky enough to find it, bad as it was, and not forgetting to render a due
+share of gratitude to the shade of the long-departed da Silvestra, who had set
+its position down so accurately on the tail of his shirt. The wonderful thing
+to us was that the pan should have lasted so long, and the only way in which I
+can account for this is on the supposition that it is fed by some spring deep
+down in the sand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Having filled both ourselves and our water-bottles as full as possible, in far
+better spirits we started off again with the moon. That night we covered nearly
+five-and-twenty miles; but, needless to say, found no more water, though we
+were lucky enough the following day to get a little shade behind some
+ant-heaps. When the sun rose, and, for awhile, cleared away the mysterious
+mists, Suliman&rsquo;s Berg with the two majestic Breasts, now only about
+twenty miles off, seemed to be towering right above us, and looked grander than
+ever. At the approach of evening we marched again, and, to cut a long story
+short, by daylight next morning found ourselves upon the lowest slopes of
+Sheba&rsquo;s left breast, for which we had been steadily steering. By this
+time our water was exhausted once more, and we were suffering severely from
+thirst, nor indeed could we see any chance of relieving it till we reached the
+snow line far, far above us. After resting an hour or two, driven to it by our
+torturing thirst, we went on, toiling painfully in the burning heat up the lava
+slopes, for we found that the huge base of the mountain was composed entirely
+of lava beds belched from the bowels of the earth in some far past age.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By eleven o&rsquo;clock we were utterly exhausted, and, generally speaking, in
+a very bad state indeed. The lava clinker, over which we must drag ourselves,
+though smooth compared with some clinker I have heard of, such as that on the
+Island of Ascension, for instance, was yet rough enough to make our feet very
+sore, and this, together with our other miseries, had pretty well finished us.
+A few hundred yards above us were some large lumps of lava, and towards these
+we steered with the intention of lying down beneath their shade. We reached
+them, and to our surprise, so far as we had a capacity for surprise left in us,
+on a little plateau or ridge close by we saw that the clinker was covered with
+a dense green growth. Evidently soil formed of decomposed lava had rested
+there, and in due course had become the receptacle of seeds deposited by birds.
+But we did not take much further interest in the green growth, for one cannot
+live on grass like Nebuchadnezzar. That requires a special dispensation of
+Providence and peculiar digestive organs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So we sat down under the rocks and groaned, and for one I wished heartily that
+we had never started on this fool&rsquo;s errand. As we were sitting there I
+saw Umbopa get up and hobble towards the patch of green, and a few minutes
+afterwards, to my great astonishment, I perceived that usually very dignified
+individual dancing and shouting like a maniac, and waving something green. Off
+we all scrambled towards him as fast as our wearied limbs would carry us,
+hoping that he had found water.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is it, Umbopa, son of a fool?&rdquo; I shouted in Zulu.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is food and water, Macumazahn,&rdquo; and again he waved the green
+thing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then I saw what he had found. It was a melon. We had hit upon a patch of wild
+melons, thousands of them, and dead ripe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Melons!&rdquo; I yelled to Good, who was next me; and in another minute
+his false teeth were fixed in one of them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I think we ate about six each before we had done, and poor fruit as they were,
+I doubt if I ever thought anything nicer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But melons are not very nutritious, and when we had satisfied our thirst with
+their pulpy substance, and put a stock to cool by the simple process of cutting
+them in two and setting them end on in the hot sun to grow cold by evaporation,
+we began to feel exceedingly hungry. We had still some biltong left, but our
+stomachs turned from biltong, and besides, we were obliged to be very sparing
+of it, for we could not say when we should find more food. Just at this moment
+a lucky thing chanced. Looking across the desert I saw a flock of about ten
+large birds flying straight towards us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Skit, Baas, skit!</i>&rdquo; &ldquo;Shoot, master, shoot!&rdquo;
+whispered the Hottentot, throwing himself on his face, an example which we all
+followed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then I saw that the birds were a flock of <i>pauw</i> or bustards, and that
+they would pass within fifty yards of my head. Taking one of the repeating
+Winchesters, I waited till they were nearly over us, and then jumped to my
+feet. On seeing me the <i>pauw</i> bunched up together, as I expected that they
+would, and I fired two shots straight into the thick of them, and, as luck
+would have it, brought one down, a fine fellow, that weighed about twenty
+pounds. In half an hour we had a fire made of dry melon stalks, and he was
+toasting over it, and we made such a feed as we had not tasted for a week. We
+ate that <i>pauw</i>; nothing was left of him but his leg-bones and his beak,
+and we felt not a little the better afterwards.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That night we went on again with the moon, carrying as many melons as we could
+with us. As we ascended we found the air grew cooler and cooler, which was a
+great relief to us, and at dawn, so far as we could judge, we were not more
+than about a dozen miles from the snow line. Here we discovered more melons,
+and so had no longer any anxiety about water, for we knew that we should soon
+get plenty of snow. But the ascent had now become very precipitous, and we made
+but slow progress, not more than a mile an hour. Also that night we ate our
+last morsel of biltong. As yet, with the exception of the <i>pauw</i>, we had
+seen no living thing on the mountain, nor had we come across a single spring or
+stream of water, which struck us as very odd, considering the expanse of snow
+above us, which must, we thought, melt sometimes. But as we afterwards
+discovered, owing to a cause which it is quite beyond my power to explain, all
+the streams flowed down upon the north side of the mountains.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now we began to grow very anxious about food. We had escaped death by thirst,
+but it seemed probable that it was only to die of hunger. The events of the
+next three miserable days are best described by copying the entries made at the
+time in my note-book.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;21st May.&mdash;Started 11 a.m., finding the atmosphere quite cold
+enough to travel by day, and carrying some water-melons with us. Struggled on
+all day, but found no more melons, having evidently passed out of their
+district. Saw no game of any sort. Halted for the night at sundown, having had
+no food for many hours. Suffered much during the night from cold.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;22nd.&mdash;Started at sunrise again, feeling very faint and weak. Only
+made about five miles all day; found some patches of snow, of which we ate, but
+nothing else. Camped at night under the edge of a great plateau. Cold bitter.
+Drank a little brandy each, and huddled ourselves together, each wrapped up in
+his blanket, to keep ourselves alive. Are now suffering frightfully from
+starvation and weariness. Thought that Ventvögel would have died during the
+night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;23rd.&mdash;Struggled forward once more as soon as the sun was well up,
+and had thawed our limbs a little. We are now in a dreadful plight, and I fear
+that unless we get food this will be our last day&rsquo;s journey. But little
+brandy left. Good, Sir Henry, and Umbopa bear up wonderfully, but Ventvögel is
+in a very bad way. Like most Hottentots, he cannot stand cold. Pangs of hunger
+not so bad, but have a sort of numb feeling about the stomach. Others say the
+same. We are now on a level with the precipitous chain, or wall of lava,
+linking the two Breasts, and the view is glorious. Behind us the glowing desert
+rolls away to the horizon, and before us lie mile upon mile of smooth hard snow
+almost level, but swelling gently upwards, out of the centre of which the
+nipple of the mountain, that appears to be some miles in circumference, rises
+about four thousand feet into the sky. Not a living thing is to be seen. God
+help us; I fear that our time has come.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And now I will drop the journal, partly because it is not very interesting
+reading; also what follows requires telling rather more fully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All that day&mdash;the 23rd May&mdash;we struggled slowly up the incline of
+snow, lying down from time to time to rest. A strange gaunt crew we must have
+looked, while, laden as we were, we dragged our weary feet over the dazzling
+plain, glaring round us with hungry eyes. Not that there was much use in
+glaring, for we could see nothing to eat. We did not accomplish more than seven
+miles that day. Just before sunset we found ourselves exactly under the nipple
+of Sheba&rsquo;s left Breast, which towered thousands of feet into the air, a
+vast smooth hillock of frozen snow. Weak as we were, we could not but
+appreciate the wonderful scene, made even more splendid by the flying rays of
+light from the setting sun, which here and there stained the snow blood-red,
+and crowned the great dome above us with a diadem of glory.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say,&rdquo; gasped Good, presently, &ldquo;we ought to be somewhere
+near that cave the old gentleman wrote about.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;if there is a cave.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come, Quatermain,&rdquo; groaned Sir Henry, &ldquo;don&rsquo;t talk like
+that; I have every faith in the Dom; remember the water! We shall find the
+place soon.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If we don&rsquo;t find it before dark we are dead men, that is all about
+it,&rdquo; was my consolatory reply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For the next ten minutes we trudged in silence, when suddenly Umbopa, who was
+marching along beside me, wrapped in his blanket, and with a leather belt
+strapped so tightly round his stomach, to &ldquo;make his hunger small,&rdquo;
+as he said, that his waist looked like a girl&rsquo;s, caught me by the arm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look!&rdquo; he said, pointing towards the springing slope of the
+nipple.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I followed his glance, and some two hundred yards from us perceived what
+appeared to be a hole in the snow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is the cave,&rdquo; said Umbopa.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We made the best of our way to the spot, and found sure enough that the hole
+was the mouth of a cavern, no doubt the same as that of which da Silvestra
+wrote. We were not too soon, for just as we reached shelter the sun went down
+with startling rapidity, leaving the world nearly dark, for in these latitudes
+there is but little twilight. So we crept into the cave, which did not appear
+to be very big, and huddling ourselves together for warmth, swallowed what
+remained of our brandy&mdash;barely a mouthful each&mdash;and tried to forget
+our miseries in sleep. But the cold was too intense to allow us to do so, for I
+am convinced that at this great altitude the thermometer cannot have marked
+less than fourteen or fifteen degrees below freezing point. What such a
+temperature meant to us, enervated as we were by hardship, want of food, and
+the great heat of the desert, the reader may imagine better than I can
+describe. Suffice it to say that it was something as near death from exposure
+as I have ever felt. There we sat hour after hour through the still and bitter
+night, feeling the frost wander round and nip us now in the finger, now in the
+foot, now in the face. In vain did we huddle up closer and closer; there was no
+warmth in our miserable starved carcases. Sometimes one of us would drop into
+an uneasy slumber for a few minutes, but we could not sleep much, and perhaps
+this was fortunate, for if we had I doubt if we should have ever woke again.
+Indeed, I believe that it was only by force of will that we kept ourselves
+alive at all.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Not very long before dawn I heard the Hottentot Ventvögel, whose teeth had been
+chattering all night like castanets, give a deep sigh. Then his teeth stopped
+chattering. I did not think anything of it at the time, concluding that he had
+gone to sleep. His back was resting against mine, and it seemed to grow colder
+and colder, till at last it felt like ice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At length the air began to grow grey with light, then golden arrows sped across
+the snow, and at last the glorious sun peeped above the lava wall and looked in
+upon our half-frozen forms. Also it looked upon Ventvögel, sitting there
+amongst us, <i>stone dead</i>. No wonder his back felt cold, poor fellow. He
+had died when I heard him sigh, and was now frozen almost stiff. Shocked beyond
+measure, we dragged ourselves from the corpse&mdash;how strange is that horror
+we mortals have of the companionship of a dead body&mdash;and left it sitting
+there, its arms clasped about its knees.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By this time the sunlight was pouring its cold rays, for here they were cold,
+straight into the mouth of the cave. Suddenly I heard an exclamation of fear
+from someone, and turned my head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And this is what I saw: Sitting at the end of the cavern&mdash;it was not more
+than twenty feet long&mdash;was another form, of which the head rested on its
+chest and the long arms hung down. I stared at it, and saw that this too was a
+<i>dead man</i>, and, what was more, a white man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The others saw also, and the sight proved too much for our shattered nerves.
+One and all we scrambled out of the cave as fast as our half-frozen limbs would
+carry us.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap07"></a>CHAPTER VII.<br />
+SOLOMON&rsquo;S ROAD</h2>
+
+<p>
+Outside the cavern we halted, feeling rather foolish.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am going back,&rdquo; said Sir Henry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why?&rdquo; asked Good.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Because it has struck me that&mdash;what we saw&mdash;may be my
+brother.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was a new idea, and we re-entered the place to put it to the proof. After
+the bright light outside, our eyes, weak as they were with staring at the snow,
+could not pierce the gloom of the cave for a while. Presently, however, they
+grew accustomed to the semi-darkness, and we advanced towards the dead man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sir Henry knelt down and peered into his face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thank God,&rdquo; he said, with a sigh of relief, &ldquo;it is
+<i>not</i> my brother.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then I drew near and looked. The body was that of a tall man in middle life
+with aquiline features, grizzled hair, and a long black moustache. The skin was
+perfectly yellow, and stretched tightly over the bones. Its clothing, with the
+exception of what seemed to be the remains of a woollen pair of hose, had been
+removed, leaving the skeleton-like frame naked. Round the neck of the corpse,
+which was frozen perfectly stiff, hung a yellow ivory crucifix.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who on earth can it be?&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can&rsquo;t you guess?&rdquo; asked Good.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I shook my head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, the old Dom, José da Silvestra, of course&mdash;who else?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Impossible,&rdquo; I gasped; &ldquo;he died three hundred years
+ago.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what is there to prevent him from lasting for three thousand years
+in this atmosphere, I should like to know?&rdquo; asked Good. &ldquo;If only
+the temperature is sufficiently low, flesh and blood will keep fresh as New
+Zealand mutton for ever, and Heaven knows it is cold enough here. The sun never
+gets in here; no animal comes here to tear or destroy. No doubt his slave, of
+whom he speaks on the writing, took off his clothes and left him. He could not
+have buried him alone. Look!&rdquo; he went on, stooping down to pick up a
+queerly-shaped bone scraped at the end into a sharp point, &ldquo;here is the
+&lsquo;cleft bone&rsquo; that Silvestra used to draw the map with.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We gazed for a moment astonished, forgetting our own miseries in this
+extraordinary and, as it seemed to us, semi-miraculous sight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay,&rdquo; said Sir Henry, &ldquo;and this is where he got his ink
+from,&rdquo; and he pointed to a small wound on the Dom&rsquo;s left arm.
+&ldquo;Did ever man see such a thing before?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was no longer any doubt about the matter, which for my own part I confess
+perfectly appalled me. There he sat, the dead man, whose directions, written
+some ten generations ago, had led us to this spot. Here in my own hand was the
+rude pen with which he had written them, and about his neck hung the crucifix
+that his dying lips had kissed. Gazing at him, my imagination could reconstruct
+the last scene of the drama, the traveller dying of cold and starvation, yet
+striving to convey to the world the great secret which he had
+discovered:&mdash;the awful loneliness of his death, of which the evidence sat
+before us. It even seemed to me that I could trace in his strongly-marked
+features a likeness to those of my poor friend Silvestre his descendant, who
+had died twenty years before in my arms, but perhaps that was fancy. At any
+rate, there he sat, a sad memento of the fate that so often overtakes those who
+would penetrate into the unknown; and there doubtless he will still sit,
+crowned with the dread majesty of death, for centuries yet unborn, to startle
+the eyes of wanderers like ourselves, if ever any such should come again to
+invade his loneliness. The thing overpowered us, already almost perished as we
+were with cold and hunger.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let us go,&rdquo; said Sir Henry in a low voice; &ldquo;stay, we will
+give him a companion,&rdquo; and lifting up the dead body of the Hottentot
+Ventvögel, he placed it near to that of the old Dom. Then he stooped, and with
+a jerk broke the rotten string of the crucifix which hung round da
+Silvestra&rsquo;s neck, for his fingers were too cold to attempt to unfasten
+it. I believe that he has it still. I took the bone pen, and it is before me as
+I write&mdash;sometimes I use it to sign my name.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then leaving these two, the proud white man of a past age, and the poor
+Hottentot, to keep their eternal vigil in the midst of the eternal snows, we
+crept out of the cave into the welcome sunshine and resumed our path, wondering
+in our hearts how many hours it would be before we were even as they are.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When we had walked about half a mile we came to the edge of the plateau, for
+the nipple of the mountain does not rise out of its exact centre, though from
+the desert side it had seemed to do so. What lay below us we could not see, for
+the landscape was wreathed in billows of morning fog. Presently, however, the
+higher layers of mist cleared a little, and revealed, at the end of a long
+slope of snow, a patch of green grass, some five hundred yards beneath us,
+through which a stream was running. Nor was this all. By the stream, basking in
+the bright sun, stood and lay a group of from ten to fifteen <i>large
+antelopes</i>&mdash;at that distance we could not see of what species.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The sight filled us with an unreasoning joy. If only we could get it, there was
+food in plenty. But the question was how to do so. The beasts were fully six
+hundred yards off, a very long shot, and one not to be depended on when our
+lives hung on the results.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rapidly we discussed the advisability of trying to stalk the game, but in the
+end dismissed it reluctantly. To begin with, the wind was not favourable, and
+further, we must certainly be perceived, however careful we were, against the
+blinding background of snow, which we should be obliged to traverse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, we must have a try from where we are,&rdquo; said Sir Henry.
+&ldquo;Which shall it be, Quatermain, the repeating rifles or the
+expresses?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here again was a question. The Winchester repeaters&mdash;of which we had two,
+Umbopa carrying poor Ventvögel&rsquo;s as well as his own&mdash;were sighted up
+to a thousand yards, whereas the expresses were only sighted to three hundred
+and fifty, beyond which distance shooting with them was more or less
+guess-work. On the other hand, if they did hit, the express bullets, being
+&ldquo;expanding,&rdquo; were much more likely to bring the game down. It was a
+knotty point, but I made up my mind that we must risk it and use the expresses.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let each of us take the buck opposite to him. Aim well at the point of
+the shoulder and high up,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;and Umbopa, do you give the
+word, so that we may all fire together.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then came a pause, each of us aiming his level best, as indeed a man is likely
+to do when he knows that life itself depends upon the shot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Fire,&rdquo; said Umbopa in Zulu, and at almost the same instant the
+three rifles rang out loudly; three clouds of smoke hung for a moment before
+us, and a hundred echoes went flying over the silent snow. Presently the smoke
+cleared, and revealed&mdash;oh, joy!&mdash;a great buck lying on its back and
+kicking furiously in its death agony. We gave a yell of triumph&mdash;we were
+saved&mdash;we should not starve. Weak as we were, we rushed down the
+intervening slope of snow, and in ten minutes from the time of shooting, that
+animal&rsquo;s heart and liver were lying before us. But now a new difficulty
+arose, we had no fuel, and therefore could make no fire to cook them. We gazed
+at each other in dismay.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Starving men should not be fanciful,&rdquo; said Good; &ldquo;we must
+eat raw meat.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was no other way out of the dilemma, and our gnawing hunger made the
+proposition less distasteful than it would otherwise have been. So we took the
+heart and liver and buried them for a few minutes in a patch of snow to cool
+them. Then we washed them in the ice-cold water of the stream, and lastly ate
+them greedily. It sounds horrible enough, but honestly, I never tasted anything
+so good as that raw meat. In a quarter of an hour we were changed men. Our life
+and vigour came back to us, our feeble pulses grew strong again, and the blood
+went coursing through our veins. But mindful of the results of over-feeding on
+starved stomachs, we were careful not to eat too much, stopping whilst we were
+still hungry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thank Heaven!&rdquo; said Sir Henry; &ldquo;that brute has saved our
+lives. What is it, Quatermain?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I rose and went to look at the antelope, for I was not certain. It was about
+the size of a donkey, with large curved horns. I had never seen one like it
+before; the species was new to me. It was brown in colour, with faint red
+stripes, and grew a thick coat. I afterwards discovered that the natives of
+that wonderful country call these bucks &ldquo;<i>inco</i>.&rdquo; They are
+very rare, and only found at a great altitude where no other game will live.
+This animal was fairly hit high up in the shoulder, though whose bullet brought
+it down we could not, of course, discover. I believe that Good, mindful of his
+marvellous shot at the giraffe, secretly set it down to his own prowess, and we
+did not contradict him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We had been so busy satisfying our hunger that hitherto we had not found time
+to look about us. But now, having set Umbopa to cut off as much of the best
+meat as we were likely to be able to carry, we began to inspect our
+surroundings. The mist had cleared away, for it was eight o&rsquo;clock, and
+the sun had sucked it up, so we were able to take in all the country before us
+at a glance. I know not how to describe the glorious panorama which unfolded
+itself to our gaze. I have never seen anything like it before, nor shall, I
+suppose, again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Behind and over us towered Sheba&rsquo;s snowy Breasts, and below, some five
+thousand feet beneath where we stood, lay league on league of the most lovely
+champaign country. Here were dense patches of lofty forest, there a great river
+wound its silvery way. To the left stretched a vast expanse of rich, undulating
+veld or grass land, whereon we could just make out countless herds of game or
+cattle, at that distance we could not tell which. This expanse appeared to be
+ringed in by a wall of distant mountains. To the right the country was more or
+less mountainous; that is, solitary hills stood up from its level, with
+stretches of cultivated land between, amongst which we could see groups of
+dome-shaped huts. The landscape lay before us as a map, wherein rivers flashed
+like silver snakes, and Alp-like peaks crowned with wildly twisted snow wreaths
+rose in grandeur, whilst over all was the glad sunlight and the breath of
+Nature&rsquo;s happy life.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Two curious things struck us as we gazed. First, that the country before us
+must lie at least three thousand feet higher than the desert we had crossed,
+and secondly, that all the rivers flowed from south to north. As we had painful
+reason to know, there was no water upon the southern side of the vast range on
+which we stood, but on the northern face were many streams, most of which
+appeared to unite with the great river we could see winding away farther than
+our eyes could follow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We sat down for a while and gazed in silence at this wonderful view. Presently
+Sir Henry spoke.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t there something on the map about Solomon&rsquo;s Great
+Road?&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I nodded, for I was still gazing out over the far country.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, look; there it is!&rdquo; and he pointed a little to our right.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Good and I looked accordingly, and there, winding away towards the plain, was
+what appeared to be a wide turnpike road. We had not seen it at first because,
+on reaching the plain, it turned behind some broken country. We did not say
+anything, at least, not much; we were beginning to lose the sense of wonder.
+Somehow it did not seem particularly unnatural that we should find a sort of
+Roman road in this strange land. We accepted the fact, that was all.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Good, &ldquo;it must be quite near us if we cut off to
+the right. Hadn&rsquo;t we better be making a start?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was sound advice, and so soon as we had washed our faces and hands in the
+stream we acted on it. For a mile or more we made our way over boulders and
+across patches of snow, till suddenly, on reaching the top of the little rise,
+we found the road at our feet. It was a splendid road cut out of the solid
+rock, at least fifty feet wide, and apparently well kept; though the odd thing
+was that it seemed to begin there. We walked down and stood on it, but one
+single hundred paces behind us, in the direction of Sheba&rsquo;s Breasts, it
+vanished, the entire surface of the mountain being strewn with boulders
+interspersed with patches of snow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What do you make of this, Quatermain?&rdquo; asked Sir Henry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I shook my head, I could make nothing of the thing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have it!&rdquo; said Good; &ldquo;the road no doubt ran right over the
+range and across the desert on the other side, but the sand there has covered
+it up, and above us it has been obliterated by some volcanic eruption of molten
+lava.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This seemed a good suggestion; at any rate, we accepted it, and proceeded down
+the mountain. It proved a very different business travelling along down hill on
+that magnificent pathway with full stomachs from what it was travelling uphill
+over the snow quite starved and almost frozen. Indeed, had it not been for
+melancholy recollections of poor Ventvögel&rsquo;s sad fate, and of that grim
+cave where he kept company with the old Dom, we should have felt positively
+cheerful, notwithstanding the sense of unknown dangers before us. Every mile we
+walked the atmosphere grew softer and balmier, and the country before us shone
+with a yet more luminous beauty. As for the road itself, I never saw such an
+engineering work, though Sir Henry said that the great road over the St.
+Gothard in Switzerland is very similar. No difficulty had been too great for
+the Old World engineer who laid it out. At one place we came to a ravine three
+hundred feet broad and at least a hundred feet deep. This vast gulf was
+actually filled in with huge blocks of dressed stone, having arches pierced
+through them at the bottom for a waterway, over which the road went on
+sublimely. At another place it was cut in zigzags out of the side of a
+precipice five hundred feet deep, and in a third it tunnelled through the base
+of an intervening ridge, a space of thirty yards or more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here we noticed that the sides of the tunnel were covered with quaint
+sculptures, mostly of mailed figures driving in chariots. One, which was
+exceedingly beautiful, represented a whole battle scene with a convoy of
+captives being marched off in the distance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Sir Henry, after inspecting this ancient work of art,
+&ldquo;it is very well to call this Solomon&rsquo;s Road, but my humble opinion
+is that the Egyptians had been here before Solomon&rsquo;s people ever set a
+foot on it. If this isn&rsquo;t Egyptian or Phoenician handiwork, I must say
+that it is very like it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By midday we had advanced sufficiently down the mountain to search the region
+where wood was to be met with. First we came to scattered bushes which grew
+more and more frequent, till at last we found the road winding through a vast
+grove of silver trees similar to those which are to be seen on the slopes of
+Table Mountain at Cape Town. I had never before met with them in all my
+wanderings, except at the Cape, and their appearance here astonished me
+greatly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; said Good, surveying these shining-leaved trees with evident
+enthusiasm, &ldquo;here is lots of wood, let us stop and cook some dinner; I
+have about digested that raw heart.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nobody objected to this, so leaving the road we made our way to a stream which
+was babbling away not far off, and soon had a goodly fire of dry boughs
+blazing. Cutting off some substantial hunks from the flesh of the <i>inco</i>
+which we had brought with us, we proceeded to toast them on the end of sharp
+sticks, as one sees the Kafirs do, and ate them with relish. After filling
+ourselves, we lit our pipes and gave ourselves up to enjoyment that, compared
+with the hardships we had recently undergone, seemed almost heavenly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The brook, of which the banks were clothed with dense masses of a gigantic
+species of maidenhair fern interspersed with feathery tufts of wild asparagus,
+sung merrily at our side, the soft air murmured through the leaves of the
+silver trees, doves cooed around, and bright-winged birds flashed like living
+gems from bough to bough. It was a Paradise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The magic of the place combined with an overwhelming sense of dangers left
+behind, and of the promised land reached at last, seemed to charm us into
+silence. Sir Henry and Umbopa sat conversing in a mixture of broken English and
+Kitchen Zulu in a low voice, but earnestly enough, and I lay, with my eyes half
+shut, upon that fragrant bed of fern and watched them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Presently I missed Good, and I looked to see what had become of him. Soon I
+observed him sitting by the bank of the stream, in which he had been bathing.
+He had nothing on but his flannel shirt, and his natural habits of extreme
+neatness having reasserted themselves, he was actively employed in making a
+most elaborate toilet. He had washed his gutta-percha collar, had thoroughly
+shaken out his trousers, coat and waistcoat, and was now folding them up neatly
+till he was ready to put them on, shaking his head sadly as he scanned the
+numerous rents and tears in them, which naturally had resulted from our
+frightful journey. Then he took his boots, scrubbed them with a handful of
+fern, and finally rubbed them over with a piece of fat, which he had carefully
+saved from the <i>inco</i> meat, till they looked, comparatively speaking,
+respectable. Having inspected them judiciously through his eye-glass, he put
+the boots on and began a fresh operation. From a little bag that he carried he
+produced a pocket-comb in which was fixed a tiny looking-glass, and in this he
+surveyed himself. Apparently he was not satisfied, for he proceeded to do his
+hair with great care. Then came a pause whilst he again contemplated the
+effect; still it was not satisfactory. He felt his chin, on which the
+accumulated scrub of a ten days&rsquo; beard was flourishing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Surely,&rdquo; thought I, &ldquo;he is not going to try to shave.&rdquo;
+But so it was. Taking the piece of fat with which he had greased his boots,
+Good washed it thoroughly in the stream. Then diving again into the bag he
+brought out a little pocket razor with a guard to it, such as are bought by
+people who are afraid of cutting themselves, or by those about to undertake a
+sea voyage. Then he rubbed his face and chin vigorously with the fat and began.
+Evidently it proved a painful process, for he groaned very much over it, and I
+was convulsed with inward laughter as I watched him struggling with that
+stubbly beard. It seemed so very odd that a man should take the trouble to
+shave himself with a piece of fat in such a place and in our circumstances. At
+last he succeeded in getting the hair off the right side of his face and chin,
+when suddenly I, who was watching, became conscious of a flash of light that
+passed just by his head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Good sprang up with a profane exclamation (if it had not been a safety razor he
+would certainly have cut his throat), and so did I, without the exclamation,
+and this was what I saw. Standing not more than twenty paces from where I was,
+and ten from Good, were a group of men. They were very tall and
+copper-coloured, and some of them wore great plumes of black feathers and short
+cloaks of leopard skins; this was all I noticed at the moment. In front of them
+stood a youth of about seventeen, his hand still raised and his body bent
+forward in the attitude of a Grecian statue of a spear-thrower. Evidently the
+flash of light had been caused by a weapon which he had hurled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As I looked an old soldier-like man stepped forward out of the group, and
+catching the youth by the arm said something to him. Then they advanced upon
+us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sir Henry, Good, and Umbopa by this time had seized their rifles and lifted
+them threateningly. The party of natives still came on. It struck me that they
+could not know what rifles were, or they would not have treated them with such
+contempt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Put down your guns!&rdquo; I halloed to the others, seeing that our only
+chance of safety lay in conciliation. They obeyed, and walking to the front I
+addressed the elderly man who had checked the youth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Greeting,&rdquo; I said in Zulu, not knowing what language to use. To my
+surprise I was understood.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Greeting,&rdquo; answered the old man, not, indeed, in the same tongue,
+but in a dialect so closely allied to it that neither Umbopa nor myself had any
+difficulty in understanding him. Indeed, as we afterwards found out, the
+language spoken by this people is an old-fashioned form of the Zulu tongue,
+bearing about the same relationship to it that the English of Chaucer does to
+the English of the nineteenth century.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Whence come you?&rdquo; he went on, &ldquo;who are you? and why are the
+faces of three of you white, and the face of the fourth as the face of our
+mother&rsquo;s sons?&rdquo; and he pointed to Umbopa. I looked at Umbopa as he
+said it, and it flashed across me that he was right. The face of Umbopa was
+like the faces of the men before me, and so was his great form like their
+forms. But I had not time to reflect on this coincidence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We are strangers, and come in peace,&rdquo; I answered, speaking very
+slowly, so that he might understand me, &ldquo;and this man is our
+servant.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You lie,&rdquo; he answered; &ldquo;no strangers can cross the mountains
+where all things perish. But what do your lies matter?&mdash;if ye are
+strangers then ye must die, for no strangers may live in the land of the
+Kukuanas. It is the king&rsquo;s law. Prepare then to die, O strangers!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was slightly staggered at this, more especially as I saw the hands of some of
+the men steal down to their sides, where hung on each what looked to me like a
+large and heavy knife.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What does that beggar say?&rdquo; asked Good.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He says we are going to be killed,&rdquo; I answered grimly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, Lord!&rdquo; groaned Good; and, as was his way when perplexed, he
+put his hand to his false teeth, dragging the top set down and allowing them to
+fly back to his jaw with a snap. It was a most fortunate move, for next second
+the dignified crowd of Kukuanas uttered a simultaneous yell of horror, and
+bolted back some yards.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s up?&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s his teeth,&rdquo; whispered Sir Henry excitedly. &ldquo;He
+moved them. Take them out, Good, take them out!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He obeyed, slipping the set into the sleeve of his flannel shirt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In another second curiosity had overcome fear, and the men advanced slowly.
+Apparently they had now forgotten their amiable intention of killing us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How is it, O strangers,&rdquo; asked the old man solemnly, &ldquo;that
+this fat man (pointing to Good, who was clad in nothing but boots and a flannel
+shirt, and had only half finished his shaving), whose body is clothed, and
+whose legs are bare, who grows hair on one side of his sickly face and not on
+the other, and who wears one shining and transparent eye&mdash;how is it, I
+ask, that he has teeth which move of themselves, coming away from the jaws and
+returning of their own will?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Open your mouth,&rdquo; I said to Good, who promptly curled up his lips
+and grinned at the old gentleman like an angry dog, revealing to his astonished
+gaze two thin red lines of gum as utterly innocent of ivories as a new-born
+elephant. The audience gasped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where are his teeth?&rdquo; they shouted; &ldquo;with our eyes we saw
+them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Turning his head slowly and with a gesture of ineffable contempt, Good swept
+his hand across his mouth. Then he grinned again, and lo, there were two rows
+of lovely teeth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now the young man who had flung the knife threw himself down on the grass and
+gave vent to a prolonged howl of terror; and as for the old gentleman, his
+knees knocked together with fear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I see that ye are spirits,&rdquo; he said falteringly; &ldquo;did ever
+man born of woman have hair on one side of his face and not on the other, or a
+round and transparent eye, or teeth which moved and melted away and grew again?
+Pardon us, O my lords.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here was luck indeed, and, needless to say, I jumped at the chance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is granted,&rdquo; I said with an imperial smile. &ldquo;Nay, ye
+shall know the truth. We come from another world, though we are men such as ye;
+we come,&rdquo; I went on, &ldquo;from the biggest star that shines at
+night.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh! oh!&rdquo; groaned the chorus of astonished aborigines.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I went on, &ldquo;we do, indeed&rdquo;; and again I smiled
+benignly, as I uttered that amazing lie. &ldquo;We come to stay with you a
+little while, and to bless you by our sojourn. Ye will see, O friends, that I
+have prepared myself for this visit by the learning of your language.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is so, it is so,&rdquo; said the chorus.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Only, my lord,&rdquo; put in the old gentleman, &ldquo;thou hast learnt
+it very badly.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I cast an indignant glance at him, and he quailed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now friends,&rdquo; I continued, &ldquo;ye might think that after so
+long a journey we should find it in our hearts to avenge such a reception,
+mayhap to strike cold in death the imperious hand that&mdash;that, in
+short&mdash;threw a knife at the head of him whose teeth come and go.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Spare him, my lords,&rdquo; said the old man in supplication; &ldquo;he
+is the king&rsquo;s son, and I am his uncle. If anything befalls him his blood
+will be required at my hands.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, that is certainly so,&rdquo; put in the young man with great
+emphasis.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ye may perhaps doubt our power to avenge,&rdquo; I went on, heedless of
+this by-play. &ldquo;Stay, I will show you. Here, thou dog and slave
+(addressing Umbopa in a savage tone), give me the magic tube that
+speaks&rdquo;; and I tipped a wink towards my express rifle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Umbopa rose to the occasion, and with something as nearly resembling a grin as
+I have ever seen on his dignified face he handed me the gun.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is here, O Lord of Lords,&rdquo; he said with a deep obeisance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now just before I had asked for the rifle I had perceived a little
+<i>klipspringer</i> antelope standing on a mass of rock about seventy yards
+away, and determined to risk the shot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ye see that buck,&rdquo; I said, pointing the animal out to the party
+before me. &ldquo;Tell me, is it possible for man born of woman to kill it from
+here with a noise?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is not possible, my lord,&rdquo; answered the old man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yet shall I kill it,&rdquo; I said quietly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The old man smiled. &ldquo;That my lord cannot do,&rdquo; he answered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I raised the rifle and covered the buck. It was a small animal, and one which a
+man might well be excused for missing, but I knew that it would not do to miss.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I drew a deep breath, and slowly pressed on the trigger. The buck stood still
+as a stone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Bang! thud!&rdquo; The antelope sprang into the air and fell on the rock
+dead as a door nail.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A groan of simultaneous terror burst from the group before us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you want meat,&rdquo; I remarked coolly, &ldquo;go fetch that
+buck.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The old man made a sign, and one of his followers departed, and presently
+returned bearing the <i>klipspringer</i>. I noticed with satisfaction that I
+had hit it fairly behind the shoulder. They gathered round the poor
+creature&rsquo;s body, gazing at the bullet-hole in consternation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ye see,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;I do not speak empty words.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was no answer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If ye yet doubt our power,&rdquo; I went on, &ldquo;let one of you go
+stand upon that rock that I may make him as this buck.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+None of them seemed at all inclined to take the hint, till at last the
+king&rsquo;s son spoke.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is well said. Do thou, my uncle, go stand upon the rock. It is but a
+buck that the magic has killed. Surely it cannot kill a man.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The old gentleman did not take the suggestion in good part. Indeed, he seemed
+hurt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No! no!&rdquo; he ejaculated hastily, &ldquo;my old eyes have seen
+enough. These are wizards, indeed. Let us bring them to the king. Yet if any
+should wish a further proof, let <i>him</i> stand upon the rock, that the magic
+tube may speak with him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a most general and hasty expression of dissent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let not good magic be wasted on our poor bodies,&rdquo; said one;
+&ldquo;we are satisfied. All the witchcraft of our people cannot show the like
+of this.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is so,&rdquo; remarked the old gentleman, in a tone of intense
+relief; &ldquo;without any doubt it is so. Listen, children of the Stars,
+children of the shining Eye and the movable Teeth, who roar out in thunder, and
+slay from afar. I am Infadoos, son of Kafa, once king of the Kukuana people.
+This youth is Scragga.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He nearly scragged me,&rdquo; murmured Good.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Scragga, son of Twala, the great king&mdash;Twala, husband of a thousand
+wives, chief and lord paramount of the Kukuanas, keeper of the great Road,
+terror of his enemies, student of the Black Arts, leader of a hundred thousand
+warriors, Twala the One-eyed, the Black, the Terrible.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So,&rdquo; said I superciliously, &ldquo;lead us then to Twala. We do
+not talk with low people and underlings.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is well, my lords, we will lead you; but the way is long. We are
+hunting three days&rsquo; journey from the place of the king. But let my lords
+have patience, and we will lead them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So be it,&rdquo; I said carelessly; &ldquo;all time is before us, for we
+do not die. We are ready, lead on. But Infadoos, and thou Scragga, beware! Play
+us no monkey tricks, set for us no foxes&rsquo; snares, for before your brains
+of mud have thought of them we shall know and avenge. The light of the
+transparent eye of him with the bare legs and the half-haired face shall
+destroy you, and go through your land; his vanishing teeth shall affix
+themselves fast in you and eat you up, you and your wives and children; the
+magic tubes shall argue with you loudly, and make you as sieves. Beware!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This magnificent address did not fail of its effect; indeed, it might almost
+have been spared, so deeply were our friends already impressed with our powers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The old man made a deep obeisance, and murmured the words, &ldquo;<i>Koom
+Koom</i>,&rdquo; which I afterwards discovered was their royal salute,
+corresponding to the <i>Bayéte</i> of the Zulus, and turning, addressed his
+followers. These at once proceeded to lay hold of all our goods and chattels,
+in order to bear them for us, excepting only the guns, which they would on no
+account touch. They even seized Good&rsquo;s clothes, that, as the reader may
+remember, were neatly folded up beside him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He saw and made a dive for them, and a loud altercation ensued.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let not my lord of the transparent Eye and the melting Teeth touch
+them,&rdquo; said the old man. &ldquo;Surely his slave shall carry the
+things.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I want to put &rsquo;em on!&rdquo; roared Good, in nervous English.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Umbopa translated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nay, my lord,&rdquo; answered Infadoos, &ldquo;would my lord cover up
+his beautiful white legs (although he is so dark Good has a singularly white
+skin) from the eyes of his servants? Have we offended my lord that he should do
+such a thing?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here I nearly exploded with laughing; and meanwhile one of the men started on
+with the garments.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Damn it!&rdquo; roared Good, &ldquo;that black villain has got my
+trousers.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look here, Good,&rdquo; said Sir Henry; &ldquo;you have appeared in this
+country in a certain character, and you must live up to it. It will never do
+for you to put on trousers again. Henceforth you must exist in a flannel shirt,
+a pair of boots, and an eye-glass.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;and with whiskers on one side of your face
+and not on the other. If you change any of these things the people will think
+that we are impostors. I am very sorry for you, but, seriously, you must. If
+once they begin to suspect us our lives will not be worth a brass
+farthing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you really think so?&rdquo; said Good gloomily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do, indeed. Your &lsquo;beautiful white legs&rsquo; and your eye-glass
+are now <i>the</i> features of our party, and as Sir Henry says, you must live
+up to them. Be thankful that you have got your boots on, and that the air is
+warm.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Good sighed, and said no more, but it took him a fortnight to become accustomed
+to his new and scant attire.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap08"></a>CHAPTER VIII.<br />
+WE ENTER KUKUANALAND</h2>
+
+<p>
+All that afternoon we travelled along the magnificent roadway, which trended
+steadily in a north-westerly direction. Infadoos and Scragga walked with us,
+but their followers marched about one hundred paces ahead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Infadoos,&rdquo; I said at length, &ldquo;who made this road?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was made, my lord, of old time, none know how or when, not even the
+wise woman Gagool, who has lived for generations. We are not old enough to
+remember its making. None can fashion such roads now, but the king suffers no
+grass to grow upon it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And whose are the writings on the wall of the caves through which we
+have passed on the road?&rdquo; I asked, referring to the Egyptian-like
+sculptures that we had seen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My lord, the hands that made the road wrote the wonderful writings. We
+know not who wrote them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;When did the Kukuana people come into this country?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My lord, the race came down here like the breath of a storm ten thousand
+thousand moons ago, from the great lands which lie there beyond,&rdquo; and he
+pointed to the north. &ldquo;They could travel no further because of the high
+mountains which ring in the land, so say the old voices of our fathers that
+have descended to us the children, and so says Gagool, the wise woman, the
+smeller out of witches,&rdquo; and again he pointed to the snow-clad peaks.
+&ldquo;The country, too, was good, so they settled here and grew strong and
+powerful, and now our numbers are like the sea sand, and when Twala the king
+calls up his regiments their plumes cover the plain so far as the eye of man
+can reach.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And if the land is walled in with mountains, who is there for the
+regiments to fight with?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nay, my lord, the country is open there towards the north, and now and
+again warriors sweep down upon us in clouds from a land we know not, and we
+slay them. It is the third part of the life of a man since there was a war.
+Many thousands died in it, but we destroyed those who came to eat us up. So
+since then there has been no war.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your warriors must grow weary of resting on their spears,
+Infadoos.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My lord, there was one war, just after we destroyed the people that came
+down upon us, but it was a civil war; dog ate dog.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How was that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My lord the king, my half-brother, had a brother born at the same birth,
+and of the same woman. It is not our custom, my lord, to suffer twins to live;
+the weaker must always die. But the mother of the king hid away the feebler
+child, which was born the last, for her heart yearned over it, and that child
+is Twala the king. I am his younger brother, born of another wife.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My lord, Kafa, our father, died when we came to manhood, and my brother
+Imotu was made king in his place, and for a space reigned and had a son by his
+favourite wife. When the babe was three years old, just after the great war,
+during which no man could sow or reap, a famine came upon the land, and the
+people murmured because of the famine, and looked round like a starved lion for
+something to rend. Then it was that Gagool, the wise and terrible woman, who
+does not die, made a proclamation to the people, saying, &lsquo;The king Imotu
+is no king.&rsquo; And at the time Imotu was sick with a wound, and lay in his
+kraal not able to move.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then Gagool went into a hut and led out Twala, my half-brother, and twin
+brother to the king, whom she had hidden among the caves and rocks since he was
+born, and stripping the &lsquo;<i>moocha</i>&rsquo; (waist-cloth) off his
+loins, showed the people of the Kukuanas the mark of the sacred snake coiled
+round his middle, wherewith the eldest son of the king is marked at birth, and
+cried out loud, &lsquo;Behold your king whom I have saved for you even to this
+day!&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now the people being mad with hunger, and altogether bereft of reason
+and the knowledge of truth, cried out&mdash;&lsquo;<i>The king! The
+king!</i>&rsquo; but I knew that it was not so, for Imotu my brother was the
+elder of the twins, and our lawful king. Then just as the tumult was at its
+height Imotu the king, though he was very sick, crawled from his hut holding
+his wife by the hand, and followed by his little son Ignosi&mdash;that is, by
+interpretation, the Lightning.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;What is this noise?&rsquo; he asked. &lsquo;Why cry ye <i>The
+king! The king!</i>&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then Twala, his twin brother, born of the same woman, and in the same
+hour, ran to him, and taking him by the hair, stabbed him through the heart
+with his knife. And the people being fickle, and ever ready to worship the
+rising sun, clapped their hands and cried, &lsquo;<i>Twala is king!</i> Now we
+know that Twala is king!&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what became of Imotu&rsquo;s wife and her son Ignosi? Did Twala kill
+them too?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nay, my lord. When she saw that her lord was dead the queen seized the
+child with a cry and ran away. Two days afterward she came to a kraal very
+hungry, and none would give her milk or food, now that her lord the king was
+dead, for all men hate the unfortunate. But at nightfall a little child, a
+girl, crept out and brought her corn to eat, and she blessed the child, and
+went on towards the mountains with her boy before the sun rose again, and there
+she must have perished, for none have seen her since, nor the child
+Ignosi.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then if this child Ignosi had lived he would be the true king of the
+Kukuana people?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That is so, my lord; the sacred snake is round his middle. If he lives
+he is king; but, alas! he is long dead.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;See, my lord,&rdquo; and Infadoos pointed to a vast collection of huts
+surrounded by a fence, which was in its turn encircled by a great ditch, that
+lay on the plain beneath us. &ldquo;That is the kraal where the wife of Imotu
+was last seen with the child Ignosi. It is there that we shall sleep to-night,
+if, indeed,&rdquo; he added doubtfully, &ldquo;my lords sleep at all upon this
+earth.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;When we are among the Kukuanas, my good friend Infadoos, we do as the
+Kukuanas do,&rdquo; I said majestically, and turned round quickly to address
+Good, who was tramping along sullenly behind, his mind fully occupied with
+unsatisfactory attempts to prevent his flannel shirt from flapping in the
+evening breeze. To my astonishment I butted into Umbopa, who was walking along
+immediately behind me, and very evidently had been listening with the greatest
+interest to my conversation with Infadoos. The expression on his face was most
+curious, and gave me the idea of a man who was struggling with partial success
+to bring something long ago forgotten back into his mind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All this while we had been pressing on at a good rate towards the undulating
+plain beneath us. The mountains we had crossed now loomed high above our heads,
+and Sheba&rsquo;s Breasts were veiled modestly in diaphanous wreaths of mist.
+As we went the country grew more and more lovely. The vegetation was luxuriant,
+without being tropical; the sun was bright and warm, but not burning; and a
+gracious breeze blew softly along the odorous slopes of the mountains. Indeed,
+this new land was little less than an earthly paradise; in beauty, in natural
+wealth, and in climate I have never seen its like. The Transvaal is a fine
+country, but it is nothing to Kukuanaland.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So soon as we started Infadoos had despatched a runner to warn the people of
+the kraal, which, by the way, was in his military command, of our arrival. This
+man had departed at an extraordinary speed, which Infadoos informed me he would
+keep up all the way, as running was an exercise much practised among his
+people.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The result of this message now became apparent. When we arrived within two
+miles of the kraal we could see that company after company of men were issuing
+from its gates and marching towards us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sir Henry laid his hand upon my arm, and remarked that it looked as though we
+were going to meet with a warm reception. Something in his tone attracted
+Infadoos&rsquo; attention.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let not my lords be afraid,&rdquo; he said hastily, &ldquo;for in my
+breast there dwells no guile. This regiment is one under my command, and comes
+out by my orders to greet you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I nodded easily, though I was not quite easy in my mind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+About half a mile from the gates of this kraal is a long stretch of rising
+ground sloping gently upwards from the road, and here the companies formed. It
+was a splendid sight to see them, each company about three hundred strong,
+charging swiftly up the rise, with flashing spears and waving plumes, to take
+their appointed place. By the time we reached the slope twelve such companies,
+or in all three thousand six hundred men, had passed out and taken up their
+positions along the road.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Presently we came to the first company, and were able to gaze in astonishment
+on the most magnificent set of warriors that I have ever seen. They were all
+men of mature age, mostly veterans of about forty, and not one of them was
+under six feet in height, whilst many stood six feet three or four. They wore
+upon their heads heavy black plumes of Sakaboola feathers, like those which
+adorned our guides. About their waists and beneath the right knees were bound
+circlets of white ox tails, while in their left hands they carried round
+shields measuring about twenty inches across. These shields are very curious.
+The framework is made of an iron plate beaten out thin, over which is stretched
+milk-white ox-hide.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The weapons that each man bore were simple, but most effective, consisting of a
+short and very heavy two-edged spear with a wooden shaft, the blade being about
+six inches across at the widest part. These spears are not used for throwing
+but like the Zulu &ldquo;<i>bangwan</i>,&rdquo; or stabbing assegai, are for
+close quarters only, when the wound inflicted by them is terrible. In addition
+to his <i>bangwan</i> every man carried three large and heavy knives, each
+knife weighing about two pounds. One knife was fixed in the ox-tail girdle, and
+the other two at the back of the round shield. These knives, which are called
+&ldquo;<i>tollas</i>&rdquo; by the Kukuanas, take the place of the throwing
+assegai of the Zulus. The Kukuana warriors can cast them with great accuracy to
+a distance of fifty yards, and it is their custom on charging to hurl a volley
+of them at the enemy as they come to close quarters.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Each company remained still as a collection of bronze statues till we were
+opposite to it, when at a signal given by its commanding officer, who,
+distinguished by a leopard skin cloak, stood some paces in front, every spear
+was raised into the air, and from three hundred throats sprang forth with a
+sudden roar the royal salute of &ldquo;<i>Koom</i>.&rdquo; Then, so soon as we
+had passed, the company formed up behind us and followed us towards the kraal,
+till at last the whole regiment of the &ldquo;Greys&rdquo;&mdash;so called from
+their white shields&mdash;the crack corps of the Kukuana people, was marching
+in our rear with a tread that shook the ground.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At length, branching off from Solomon&rsquo;s Great Road, we came to the wide
+fosse surrounding the kraal, which is at least a mile round, and fenced with a
+strong palisade of piles formed of the trunks of trees. At the gateway this
+fosse is spanned by a primitive drawbridge, which was let down by the guard to
+allow us to pass in. The kraal is exceedingly well laid out. Through the centre
+runs a wide pathway intersected at right angles by other pathways so arranged
+as to cut the huts into square blocks, each block being the quarters of a
+company. The huts are dome-shaped, and built, like those of the Zulus, of a
+framework of wattle, beautifully thatched with grass; but, unlike the Zulu
+huts, they have doorways through which men could walk. Also they are much
+larger, and surrounded by a verandah about six feet wide, beautifully paved
+with powdered lime trodden hard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All along each side of this wide pathway that pierces the kraal were ranged
+hundreds of women, brought out by curiosity to look at us. These women, for a
+native race, are exceedingly handsome. They are tall and graceful, and their
+figures are wonderfully fine. The hair, though short, is rather curly than
+woolly, the features are frequently aquiline, and the lips are not unpleasantly
+thick, as is the case among most African races. But what struck us most was
+their exceedingly quiet and dignified air. They were as well-bred in their way
+as the <i>habituées</i> of a fashionable drawing-room, and in this respect they
+differ from Zulu women and their cousins the Masai who inhabit the district
+beyond Zanzibar. Their curiosity had brought them out to see us, but they
+allowed no rude expressions of astonishment or savage criticism to pass their
+lips as we trudged wearily in front of them. Not even when old Infadoos with a
+surreptitious motion of the hand pointed out the crowning wonder of poor
+Good&rsquo;s &ldquo;beautiful white legs,&rdquo; did they suffer the feeling of
+intense admiration which evidently mastered their minds to find expression.
+They fixed their dark eyes upon this new and snowy loveliness, for, as I think
+I have said, Good&rsquo;s skin is exceedingly white, and that was all. But it
+was quite enough for Good, who is modest by nature.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When we reached the centre of the kraal, Infadoos halted at the door of a large
+hut, which was surrounded at a distance by a circle of smaller ones.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Enter, Sons of the Stars,&rdquo; he said, in a magniloquent voice,
+&ldquo;and deign to rest awhile in our humble habitations. A little food shall
+be brought to you, so that ye may have no need to draw your belts tight from
+hunger; some honey and some milk, and an ox or two, and a few sheep; not much,
+my lords, but still a little food.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is good,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;Infadoos; we are weary with travelling
+through realms of air; now let us rest.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Accordingly we entered the hut, which we found amply prepared for our comfort.
+Couches of tanned skins were spread for us to lie on, and water was placed for
+us to wash in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Presently we heard a shouting outside, and stepping to the door, saw a line of
+damsels bearing milk and roasted mealies, and honey in a pot. Behind these were
+some youths driving a fat young ox. We received the gifts, and then one of the
+young men drew the knife from his girdle and dexterously cut the ox&rsquo;s
+throat. In ten minutes it was dead, skinned, and jointed. The best of the meat
+was then cut off for us, and the rest, in the name of our party, I presented to
+the warriors round us, who took it and distributed the &ldquo;white
+lords&rsquo; gift.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Umbopa set to work, with the assistance of an extremely prepossessing young
+woman, to boil our portion in a large earthenware pot over a fire which was
+built outside the hut, and when it was nearly ready we sent a message to
+Infadoos, and asked him and Scragga, the king&rsquo;s son, to join us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Presently they came, and sitting down upon little stools, of which there were
+several about the hut, for the Kukuanas do not in general squat upon their
+haunches like the Zulus, they helped us to get through our dinner. The old
+gentleman was most affable and polite, but it struck me that the young one
+regarded us with doubt. Together with the rest of the party, he had been
+overawed by our white appearance and by our magic properties; but it seemed to
+me that, on discovering that we ate, drank, and slept like other mortals, his
+awe was beginning to wear off, and to be replaced by a sullen
+suspicion&mdash;which made me feel rather uncomfortable.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the course of our meal Sir Henry suggested to me that it might be well to
+try to discover if our hosts knew anything of his brother&rsquo;s fate, or if
+they had ever seen or heard of him; but, on the whole, I thought that it would
+be wiser to say nothing of the matter at this time. It was difficult to explain
+a relative lost from &ldquo;the Stars.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After supper we produced our pipes and lit them; a proceeding which filled
+Infadoos and Scragga with astonishment. The Kukuanas were evidently
+unacquainted with the divine delights of tobacco-smoke. The herb is grown among
+them extensively; but, like the Zulus, they use it for snuff only, and quite
+failed to identify it in its new form.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Presently I asked Infadoos when we were to proceed on our journey, and was
+delighted to learn that preparations had been made for us to leave on the
+following morning, messengers having already departed to inform Twala the king
+of our coming.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It appeared that Twala was at his principal place, known as Loo, making ready
+for the great annual feast which was to be held in the first week of June. At
+this gathering all the regiments, with the exception of certain detachments
+left behind for garrison purposes, are brought up and paraded before the king;
+and the great annual witch-hunt, of which more by-and-by, is held.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We were to start at dawn; and Infadoos, who was to accompany us, expected that
+we should reach Loo on the night of the second day, unless we were detained by
+accident or by swollen rivers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When they had given us this information our visitors bade us good-night; and,
+having arranged to watch turn and turn about, three of us flung ourselves down
+and slept the sweet sleep of the weary, whilst the fourth sat up on the
+look-out for possible treachery.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap09"></a>CHAPTER IX.<br />
+TWALA THE KING</h2>
+
+<p>
+It will not be necessary for me to detail at length the incidents of our
+journey to Loo. It took two full days&rsquo; travelling along Solomon&rsquo;s
+Great Road, which pursued its even course right into the heart of Kukuanaland.
+Suffice it to say that as we went the country seemed to grow richer and richer,
+and the kraals, with their wide surrounding belts of cultivation, more and more
+numerous. They were all built upon the same principles as the first camp which
+we had reached, and were guarded by ample garrisons of troops. Indeed, in
+Kukuanaland, as among the Germans, the Zulus, and the Masai, every able-bodied
+man is a soldier, so that the whole force of the nation is available for its
+wars, offensive or defensive. As we travelled we were overtaken by thousands of
+warriors hurrying up to Loo to be present at the great annual review and
+festival, and more splendid troops I never saw.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At sunset on the second day, we stopped to rest awhile upon the summit of some
+heights over which the road ran, and there on a beautiful and fertile plain
+before us lay Loo itself. For a native town it is an enormous place, quite five
+miles round, I should say, with outlying kraals projecting from it, that serve
+on grand occasions as cantonments for the regiments, and a curious
+horseshoe-shaped hill, with which we were destined to become better acquainted,
+about two miles to the north. It is beautifully situated, and through the
+centre of the kraal, dividing it into two portions, runs a river, which
+appeared to be bridged in several places, the same indeed that we had seen from
+the slopes of Sheba&rsquo;s Breasts. Sixty or seventy miles away three great
+snow-capped mountains, placed at the points of a triangle, started out of the
+level plain. The conformation of these mountains is unlike that of
+Sheba&rsquo;s Breasts, being sheer and precipitous, instead of smooth and
+rounded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Infadoos saw us looking at them, and volunteered a remark.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The road ends there,&rdquo; he said, pointing to the mountains known
+among the Kukuanas as the &ldquo;Three Witches.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why does it end?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who knows?&rdquo; he answered with a shrug; &ldquo;the mountains are
+full of caves, and there is a great pit between them. It is there that the wise
+men of old time used to go to get whatever it was they came for to this
+country, and it is there now that our kings are buried in the Place of
+Death.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What was it they came for?&rdquo; I asked eagerly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nay, I know not. My lords who have dropped from the Stars should
+know,&rdquo; he answered with a quick look. Evidently he knew more than he
+chose to say.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I went on, &ldquo;you are right, in the Stars we learn many
+things. I have heard, for instance, that the wise men of old came to these
+mountains to find bright stones, pretty playthings, and yellow iron.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My lord is wise,&rdquo; he answered coldly; &ldquo;I am but a child and
+cannot talk with my lord on such matters. My lord must speak with Gagool the
+old, at the king&rsquo;s place, who is wise even as my lord,&rdquo; and he went
+away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So soon as he was gone I turned to the others, and pointed out the mountains.
+&ldquo;There are Solomon&rsquo;s diamond mines,&rdquo; I said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Umbopa was standing with them, apparently plunged in one of the fits of
+abstraction which were common to him, and caught my words.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, Macumazahn,&rdquo; he put in, in Zulu, &ldquo;the diamonds are
+surely there, and you shall have them, since you white men are so fond of toys
+and money.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How dost thou know that, Umbopa?&rdquo; I asked sharply, for I did not
+like his mysterious ways.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He laughed. &ldquo;I dreamed it in the night, white men;&rdquo; then he too
+turned on his heel and went.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now what,&rdquo; said Sir Henry, &ldquo;is our black friend driving at?
+He knows more than he chooses to say, that is clear. By the way, Quatermain,
+has he heard anything of&mdash;of my brother?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nothing; he has asked everyone he has become friendly with, but they all
+declare that no white man has ever been seen in the country before.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you suppose that he got here at all?&rdquo; suggested Good; &ldquo;we
+have only reached the place by a miracle; is it likely he could have reached it
+without the map?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; said Sir Henry gloomily, &ldquo;but somehow I
+think that I shall find him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Slowly the sun sank, then suddenly darkness rushed down on the land like a
+tangible thing. There was no breathing-space between the day and night, no soft
+transformation scene, for in these latitudes twilight does not exist. The
+change from day to night is as quick and as absolute as the change from life to
+death. The sun sank and the world was wreathed in shadows. But not for long,
+for see in the west there is a glow, then come rays of silver light, and at
+last the full and glorious moon lights up the plain and shoots its gleaming
+arrows far and wide, filling the earth with a faint refulgence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We stood and watched the lovely sight, whilst the stars grew pale before this
+chastened majesty, and felt our hearts lifted up in the presence of a beauty
+that I cannot describe. Mine has been a rough life, but there are a few things
+I am thankful to have lived for, and one of them is to have seen that moon
+shine over Kukuanaland.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Presently our meditations were broken in upon by our polite friend Infadoos.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If my lords are rested we will journey on to Loo, where a hut is made
+ready for my lords to-night. The moon is now bright, so that we shall not fall
+by the way.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We assented, and in an hour&rsquo;s time were at the outskirts of the town, of
+which the extent, mapped out as it was by thousands of camp fires, appeared
+absolutely endless. Indeed, Good, who is always fond of a bad joke, christened
+it &ldquo;Unlimited Loo.&rdquo; Soon we came to a moat with a drawbridge, where
+we were met by the rattling of arms and the hoarse challenge of a sentry.
+Infadoos gave some password that I could not catch, which was met with a
+salute, and we passed on through the central street of the great grass city.
+After nearly half an hour&rsquo;s tramp, past endless lines of huts, Infadoos
+halted at last by the gate of a little group of huts which surrounded a small
+courtyard of powdered limestone, and informed us that these were to be our
+&ldquo;poor&rdquo; quarters.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We entered, and found that a hut had been assigned to each of us. These huts
+were superior to any that we had yet seen, and in each was a most comfortable
+bed made of tanned skins, spread upon mattresses of aromatic grass. Food too
+was ready for us, and so soon as we had washed ourselves with water, which
+stood ready in earthenware jars, some young women of handsome appearance
+brought us roasted meats, and mealie cobs daintily served on wooden platters,
+and presented them to us with deep obeisances.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We ate and drank, and then, the beds having been all moved into one hut by our
+request, a precaution at which the amiable young ladies smiled, we flung
+ourselves down to sleep, thoroughly wearied with our long journey.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When we woke it was to find the sun high in the heavens, and the female
+attendants, who did not seem to be troubled by any false shame, already
+standing inside the hut, having been ordered to attend and help us to
+&ldquo;make ready.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Make ready, indeed,&rdquo; growled Good; &ldquo;when one has only a
+flannel shirt and a pair of boots, that does not take long. I wish you would
+ask them for my trousers, Quatermain.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I asked accordingly, but was informed that these sacred relics had already been
+taken to the king, who would see us in the forenoon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Somewhat to their astonishment and disappointment, having requested the young
+ladies to step outside, we proceeded to make the best toilet of which the
+circumstances admitted. Good even went the length of again shaving the right
+side of his face; the left, on which now appeared a very fair crop of whiskers,
+we impressed upon him he must on no account touch. As for ourselves, we were
+contented with a good wash and combing our hair. Sir Henry&rsquo;s yellow locks
+were now almost upon his shoulders, and he looked more like an ancient Dane
+than ever, while my grizzled scrub was fully an inch long, instead of half an
+inch, which in a general way I considered my maximum length.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By the time that we had eaten our breakfast, and smoked a pipe, a message was
+brought to us by no less a personage than Infadoos himself that Twala the king
+was ready to see us, if we would be pleased to come.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We remarked in reply that we should prefer to wait till the sun was a little
+higher, we were yet weary with our journey, &amp;c., &amp;c. It is always well,
+when dealing with uncivilised people, not to be in too great a hurry. They are
+apt to mistake politeness for awe or servility. So, although we were quite as
+anxious to see Twala as Twala could be to see us, we sat down and waited for an
+hour, employing the interval in preparing such presents as our slender stock of
+goods permitted&mdash;namely, the Winchester rifle which had been used by poor
+Ventvögel, and some beads. The rifle and ammunition we determined to present to
+his royal highness, and the beads were for his wives and courtiers. We had
+already given a few to Infadoos and Scragga, and found that they were delighted
+with them, never having seen such things before. At length we declared that we
+were ready, and guided by Infadoos, started off to the audience, Umbopa
+carrying the rifle and beads.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After walking a few hundred yards we came to an enclosure, something like that
+surrounding the huts which had been allotted to us, only fifty times as big,
+for it could not have covered less than six or seven acres of ground. All round
+the outside fence stood a row of huts, which were the habitations of the
+king&rsquo;s wives. Exactly opposite the gateway, on the further side of the
+open space, was a very large hut, built by itself, in which his majesty
+resided. All the rest was open ground; that is to say, it would have been open
+had it not been filled by company after company of warriors, who were mustered
+there to the number of seven or eight thousand. These men stood still as
+statues as we advanced through them, and it would be impossible to give an
+adequate idea of the grandeur of the spectacle which they presented, with their
+waving plumes, their glancing spears, and iron-backed ox-hide shields.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The space in front of the large hut was empty, but before it were placed
+several stools. On three of these, at a sign from Infadoos, we seated
+ourselves, Umbopa standing behind us. As for Infadoos, he took up a position by
+the door of the hut. So we waited for ten minutes or more in the midst of a
+dead silence, but conscious that we were the object of the concentrated gaze of
+some eight thousand pairs of eyes. It was a somewhat trying ordeal, but we
+carried it off as best we could. At length the door of the hut opened, and a
+gigantic figure, with a splendid tiger-skin karross flung over its shoulders,
+stepped out, followed by the boy Scragga, and what appeared to us to be a
+withered-up monkey, wrapped in a fur cloak. The figure seated itself upon a
+stool, Scragga took his stand behind it, and the withered-up monkey crept on
+all fours into the shade of the hut and squatted down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Still there was silence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then the gigantic figure slipped off the karross and stood up before us, a
+truly alarming spectacle. It was that of an enormous man with the most entirely
+repulsive countenance we had ever beheld. This man&rsquo;s lips were as thick
+as a Negro&rsquo;s, the nose was flat, he had but one gleaming black eye, for
+the other was represented by a hollow in the face, and his whole expression was
+cruel and sensual to a degree. From the large head rose a magnificent plume of
+white ostrich feathers, his body was clad in a shirt of shining chain armour,
+whilst round the waist and right knee were the usual garnishes of white
+ox-tail. In his right hand was a huge spear, about the neck a thick torque of
+gold, and bound on the forehead shone dully a single and enormous uncut
+diamond.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Still there was silence; but not for long. Presently the man, whom we rightly
+guessed to be the king, raised the great javelin in his hand. Instantly eight
+thousand spears were lifted in answer, and from eight thousand throats rang out
+the royal salute of &ldquo;<i>Koom</i>.&rdquo; Three times this was repeated,
+and each time the earth shook with the noise, that can only be compared to the
+deepest notes of thunder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Be humble, O people,&rdquo; piped out a thin voice which seemed to come
+from the monkey in the shade, &ldquo;it is the king.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>It is the king</i>,&rdquo; boomed out the eight thousand throats in
+answer. &ldquo;<i>Be humble, O people, it is the king.</i>&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then there was silence again&mdash;dead silence. Presently, however, it was
+broken. A soldier on our left dropped his shield, which fell with a clatter on
+to the limestone flooring.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Twala turned his one cold eye in the direction of the noise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come hither, thou,&rdquo; he said, in a cold voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A fine young man stepped out of the ranks, and stood before him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was thy shield that fell, thou awkward dog. Wilt thou make me a
+reproach in the eyes of these strangers from the Stars? What hast thou to say
+for thyself?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We saw the poor fellow turn pale under his dusky skin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was by chance, O Calf of the Black Cow,&rdquo; he murmured.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then it is a chance for which thou must pay. Thou hast made me foolish;
+prepare for death.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am the king&rsquo;s ox,&rdquo; was the low answer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Scragga,&rdquo; roared the king, &ldquo;let me see how thou canst use
+thy spear. Kill me this blundering fool.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Scragga stepped forward with an ill-favoured grin, and lifted his spear. The
+poor victim covered his eyes with his hand and stood still. As for us, we were
+petrified with horror.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Once, twice,&rdquo; he waved the spear, and then struck, ah! right
+home&mdash;the spear stood out a foot behind the soldier&rsquo;s back. He flung
+up his hands and dropped dead. From the multitude about us rose something like
+a murmur, it rolled round and round, and died away. The tragedy was finished;
+there lay the corpse, and we had not yet realised that it had been enacted. Sir
+Henry sprang up and swore a great oath, then, overpowered by the sense of
+silence, sat down again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The thrust was a good one,&rdquo; said the king; &ldquo;take him
+away.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Four men stepped out of the ranks, and lifting the body of the murdered man,
+carried it thence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Cover up the blood-stains, cover them up,&rdquo; piped out the thin
+voice that proceeded from the monkey-like figure; &ldquo;the king&rsquo;s word
+is spoken, the king&rsquo;s doom is done!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thereupon a girl came forward from behind the hut, bearing a jar filled with
+powdered lime, which she scattered over the red mark, blotting it from sight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sir Henry meanwhile was boiling with rage at what had happened; indeed, it was
+with difficulty that we could keep him still.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sit down, for heaven&rsquo;s sake,&rdquo; I whispered; &ldquo;our lives
+depend on it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He yielded and remained quiet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Twala sat silent until the traces of the tragedy had been removed, then he
+addressed us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;White people,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;who come hither, whence I know not,
+and why I know not, greeting.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Greeting, Twala, King of the Kukuanas,&rdquo; I answered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;White people, whence come ye, and what seek ye?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We come from the Stars, ask us not how. We come to see this land.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ye journey from far to see a little thing. And that man with you,&rdquo;
+pointing to Umbopa, &ldquo;does he also come from the Stars?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Even so; there are people of thy colour in the heavens above; but ask
+not of matters too high for thee, Twala the king.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ye speak with a loud voice, people of the Stars,&rdquo; Twala answered
+in a tone which I scarcely liked. &ldquo;Remember that the Stars are far off,
+and ye are here. How if I make you as him whom they bore away?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I laughed out loud, though there was little laughter in my heart.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O king,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;be careful, walk warily over hot stones,
+lest thou shouldst burn thy feet; hold the spear by the handle, lest thou
+should cut thy hands. Touch but one hair of our heads, and destruction shall
+come upon thee. What, have not these&rdquo;&mdash;pointing to Infadoos and
+Scragga, who, young villain that he was, was employed in cleaning the blood of
+the soldier off his spear&mdash;&ldquo;told thee what manner of men we are?
+Hast thou seen the like of us?&rdquo; and I pointed to Good, feeling quite sure
+that he had never seen anybody before who looked in the least like <i>him</i>
+as he then appeared.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is true, I have not,&rdquo; said the king, surveying Good with
+interest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have they not told thee how we strike with death from afar?&rdquo; I
+went on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They have told me, but I believe them not. Let me see you kill. Kill me
+a man among those who stand yonder&rdquo;&mdash;and he pointed to the opposite
+side of the kraal&mdash;&ldquo;and I will believe.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nay,&rdquo; I answered; &ldquo;we shed no blood of men except in just
+punishment; but if thou wilt see, bid thy servants drive in an ox through the
+kraal gates, and before he has run twenty paces I will strike him dead.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nay,&rdquo; laughed the king, &ldquo;kill me a man and I will
+believe.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good, O king, so be it,&rdquo; I answered coolly; &ldquo;do thou walk
+across the open space, and before thy feet reach the gate thou shalt be dead;
+or if thou wilt not, send thy son Scragga&rdquo; (whom at that moment it would
+have given me much pleasure to shoot).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On hearing this suggestion Scragga uttered a sort of howl, and bolted into the
+hut.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Twala frowned majestically; the suggestion did not please him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let a young ox be driven in,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Two men at once departed, running swiftly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, Sir Henry,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;do you shoot. I want to show this
+ruffian that I am not the only magician of the party.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sir Henry accordingly took his &ldquo;express,&rdquo; and made ready.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I hope I shall make a good shot,&rdquo; he groaned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You must,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;If you miss with the first barrel,
+let him have the second. Sight for 150 yards, and wait till the beast turns
+broadside on.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then came a pause, until presently we caught sight of an ox running straight
+for the kraal gate. It came on through the gate, then, catching sight of the
+vast concourse of people, stopped stupidly, turned round, and bellowed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now&rsquo;s your time,&rdquo; I whispered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Up went the rifle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bang! <i>thud</i>! and the ox was kicking on his back, shot in the ribs. The
+semi-hollow bullet had done its work well, and a sigh of astonishment went up
+from the assembled thousands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I turned round coolly&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have I lied, O king?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nay, white man, it is the truth,&rdquo; was the somewhat awed answer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Listen, Twala,&rdquo; I went on. &ldquo;Thou hast seen. Now know we come
+in peace, not in war. See,&rdquo; and I held up the Winchester repeater;
+&ldquo;here is a hollow staff that shall enable thee to kill even as we kill,
+only I lay this charm upon it, thou shalt kill no man with it. If thou liftest
+it against a man, it shall kill thee. Stay, I will show thee. Bid a soldier
+step forty paces and place the shaft of a spear in the ground so that the flat
+blade looks towards us.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In a few seconds it was done.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, see, I will break yonder spear.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Taking a careful sight I fired. The bullet struck the flat of the spear, and
+shattered the blade into fragments.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Again the sigh of astonishment went up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, Twala, we give this magic tube to thee, and by-and-by I will show
+thee how to use it; but beware how thou turnest the magic of the Stars against
+a man of earth,&rdquo; and I handed him the rifle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The king took it very gingerly, and laid it down at his feet. As he did so I
+observed the wizened monkey-like figure creeping from the shadow of the hut. It
+crept on all fours, but when it reached the place where the king sat it rose
+upon its feet, and throwing the furry covering from its face, revealed a most
+extraordinary and weird countenance. Apparently it was that of a woman of great
+age so shrunken that in size it seemed no larger than the face of a year-old
+child, although made up of a number of deep and yellow wrinkles. Set in these
+wrinkles was a sunken slit, that represented the mouth, beneath which the chin
+curved outwards to a point. There was no nose to speak of; indeed, the visage
+might have been taken for that of a sun-dried corpse had it not been for a pair
+of large black eyes, still full of fire and intelligence, which gleamed and
+played under the snow-white eyebrows, and the projecting parchment-coloured
+skull, like jewels in a charnel-house. As for the head itself, it was perfectly
+bare, and yellow in hue, while its wrinkled scalp moved and contracted like the
+hood of a cobra.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The figure to which this fearful countenance belonged, a countenance so fearful
+indeed that it caused a shiver of fear to pass through us as we gazed on it,
+stood still for a moment. Then suddenly it projected a skinny claw armed with
+nails nearly an inch long, and laying it on the shoulder of Twala the king,
+began to speak in a thin and piercing voice&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Listen, O king! Listen, O warriors! Listen, O mountains and plains and
+rivers, home of the Kukuana race! Listen, O skies and sun, O rain and storm and
+mist! Listen, O men and women, O youths and maidens, and O ye babes unborn!
+Listen, all things that live and must die! Listen, all dead things that shall
+live again&mdash;again to die! Listen, the spirit of life is in me and I
+prophesy. I prophesy! I prophesy!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The words died away in a faint wail, and dread seemed to seize upon the hearts
+of all who heard them, including our own. This old woman was very terrible.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Blood! blood! blood!</i> rivers of blood; blood everywhere. I see it,
+I smell it, I taste it&mdash;it is salt! it runs red upon the ground, it rains
+down from the skies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Footsteps! footsteps! footsteps!</i> the tread of the white man
+coming from afar. It shakes the earth; the earth trembles before her master.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Blood is good, the red blood is bright; there is no smell like the smell
+of new-shed blood. The lions shall lap it and roar, the vultures shall wash
+their wings in it and shriek with joy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am old! I am old! I have seen much blood; <i>ha, ha!</i> but I shall
+see more ere I die, and be merry. How old am I, think ye? Your fathers knew me,
+and <i>their</i> fathers knew me, and <i>their</i> fathers&rsquo;
+fathers&rsquo; fathers. I have seen the white man and know his desires. I am
+old, but the mountains are older than I. Who made the great road, tell me? Who
+wrote the pictures on the rocks, tell me? Who reared up the three Silent Ones
+yonder, that gaze across the pit, tell me?&rdquo; and she pointed towards the
+three precipitous mountains which we had noticed on the previous night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ye know not, but I know. It was a white people who were before ye are,
+who shall be when ye are not, who shall eat you up and destroy you. <i>Yea!
+yea! yea!</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what came they for, the White Ones, the Terrible Ones, the skilled
+in magic and all learning, the strong, the unswerving? What is that bright
+stone upon thy forehead, O king? Whose hands made the iron garments upon thy
+breast, O king? Ye know not, but I know. I the Old One, I the Wise One, I the
+<i>Isanusi</i>, the witch doctress!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then she turned her bald vulture-head towards us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What seek ye, white men of the Stars&mdash;ah, yes, of the Stars? Do ye
+seek a lost one? Ye shall not find him here. He is not here. Never for ages
+upon ages has a white foot pressed this land; never except once, and I remember
+that he left it but to die. Ye come for bright stones; I know it&mdash;I know
+it; ye shall find them when the blood is dry; but shall ye return whence ye
+came, or shall ye stop with me? <i>Ha! ha! ha!</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And thou, thou with the dark skin and the proud bearing,&rdquo; and she
+pointed her skinny finger at Umbopa, &ldquo;who art <i>thou</i>, and what
+seekest <i>thou</i>? Not stones that shine, not yellow metal that gleams, these
+thou leavest to &lsquo;white men from the Stars.&rsquo; Methinks I know thee;
+methinks I can smell the smell of the blood in thy heart. Strip off the
+girdle&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here the features of this extraordinary creature became convulsed, and she fell
+to the ground foaming in an epileptic fit, and was carried into the hut.
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+The king rose up trembling, and waved his hand. Instantly the regiments began
+to file off, and in ten minutes, save for ourselves, the king, and a few
+attendants, the great space was left empty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;White people,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;it passes in my mind to kill you.
+Gagool has spoken strange words. What say ye?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I laughed. &ldquo;Be careful, O king, we are not easy to slay. Thou hast seen
+the fate of the ox; wouldst thou be as the ox is?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The king frowned. &ldquo;It is not well to threaten a king.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We threaten not, we speak what is true. Try to kill us, O king, and
+learn.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The great savage put his hand to his forehead and thought.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Go in peace,&rdquo; he said at length. &ldquo;To-night is the great
+dance. Ye shall see it. Fear not that I shall set a snare for you. To-morrow I
+will think.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is well, O king,&rdquo; I answered unconcernedly, and then,
+accompanied by Infadoos, we rose and went back to our kraal.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap10"></a>CHAPTER X.<br />
+THE WITCH-HUNT</h2>
+
+<p>
+On reaching our hut I motioned to Infadoos to enter with us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, Infadoos,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;we would speak with thee.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let my lords say on.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It seems to us, Infadoos, that Twala the king is a cruel man.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is so, my lords. Alas! the land cries out because of his cruelties.
+To-night ye shall see. It is the great witch-hunt, and many will be smelt out
+as wizards and slain. No man&rsquo;s life is safe. If the king covets a
+man&rsquo;s cattle, or a man&rsquo;s wife, or if he fears a man that he should
+excite a rebellion against him, then Gagool, whom ye saw, or some of the
+witch-finding women whom she has taught, will smell that man out as a wizard,
+and he will be killed. Many must die before the moon grows pale to-night. It is
+ever so. Perhaps I too shall be killed. As yet I have been spared because I am
+skilled in war, and am beloved by the soldiers; but I know not how long I have
+to live. The land groans at the cruelties of Twala the king; it is wearied of
+him and his red ways.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then why is it, Infadoos, that the people do not cast him down?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nay, my lords, he is the king, and if he were killed Scragga would reign
+in his place, and the heart of Scragga is blacker than the heart of Twala his
+father. If Scragga were king his yoke upon our neck would be heavier than the
+yoke of Twala. If Imotu had never been slain, or if Ignosi his son had lived,
+it might have been otherwise; but they are both dead.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How knowest thou that Ignosi is dead?&rdquo; said a voice behind us. We
+looked round astonished to see who spoke. It was Umbopa.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What meanest thou, boy?&rdquo; asked Infadoos; &ldquo;who told thee to
+speak?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Listen, Infadoos,&rdquo; was the answer, &ldquo;and I will tell thee a
+story. Years ago the king Imotu was killed in this country and his wife fled
+with the boy Ignosi. Is it not so?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is so.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was said that the woman and her son died upon the mountains. Is it
+not so?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is even so.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, it came to pass that the mother and the boy Ignosi did not die.
+They crossed the mountains and were led by a tribe of wandering desert men
+across the sands beyond, till at last they came to water and grass and trees
+again.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How knowest thou this?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Listen. They travelled on and on, many months&rsquo; journey, till they
+reached a land where a people called the Amazulu, who also are of the Kukuana
+stock, live by war, and with them they tarried many years, till at length the
+mother died. Then the son Ignosi became a wanderer again, and journeyed into a
+land of wonders, where white people live, and for many more years he learned
+the wisdom of the white people.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is a pretty story,&rdquo; said Infadoos incredulously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;For years he lived there working as a servant and a soldier, but holding
+in his heart all that his mother had told him of his own place, and casting
+about in his mind to find how he might journey thither to see his people and
+his father&rsquo;s house before he died. For long years he lived and waited,
+and at last the time came, as it ever comes to him who can wait for it, and he
+met some white men who would seek this unknown land, and joined himself to
+them. The white men started and travelled on and on, seeking for one who is
+lost. They crossed the burning desert, they crossed the snow-clad mountains,
+and at last reached the land of the Kukuanas, and there they found <i>thee</i>,
+O Infadoos.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Surely thou art mad to talk thus,&rdquo; said the astonished old
+soldier.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thou thinkest so; see, I will show thee, O my uncle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>I am Ignosi, rightful king of the Kukuanas!</i>&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then with a single movement Umbopa slipped off his &ldquo;moocha&rdquo; or
+girdle, and stood naked before us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;what is this?&rdquo; and he pointed to the
+picture of a great snake tattooed in blue round his middle, its tail
+disappearing into its open mouth just above where the thighs are set into the
+body.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Infadoos looked, his eyes starting nearly out of his head. Then he fell upon
+his knees.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Koom! Koom!</i>&rdquo; he ejaculated; &ldquo;it is my brother&rsquo;s
+son; it is the king.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did I not tell thee so, my uncle? Rise; I am not yet the king, but with
+thy help, and with the help of these brave white men, who are my friends, I
+shall be. Yet the old witch Gagool was right, the land shall run with blood
+first, and hers shall run with it, if she has any and can die, for she killed
+my father with her words, and drove my mother forth. And now, Infadoos, choose
+thou. Wilt thou put thy hands between my hands and be my man? Wilt thou share
+the dangers that lie before me, and help me to overthrow this tyrant and
+murderer, or wilt thou not? Choose thou.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The old man put his hand to his head and thought. Then he rose, and advancing
+to where Umbopa, or rather Ignosi, stood, he knelt before him, and took his
+hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ignosi, rightful king of the Kukuanas, I put my hand between thy hands,
+and am thy man till death. When thou wast a babe I dandled thee upon my knees,
+now shall my old arm strike for thee and freedom.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is well, Infadoos; if I conquer, thou shalt be the greatest man in
+the kingdom after its king. If I fail, thou canst only die, and death is not
+far off from thee. Rise, my uncle.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And ye, white men, will ye help me? What have I to offer you! The white
+stones! If I conquer and can find them, ye shall have as many as ye can carry
+hence. Will that suffice you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I translated this remark.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tell him,&rdquo; answered Sir Henry, &ldquo;that he mistakes an
+Englishman. Wealth is good, and if it comes in our way we will take it; but a
+gentleman does not sell himself for wealth. Still, speaking for myself, I say
+this. I have always liked Umbopa, and so far as lies in me I will stand by him
+in this business. It will be very pleasant to me to try to square matters with
+that cruel devil Twala. What do you say, Good, and you, Quatermain?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Good, &ldquo;to adopt the language of hyperbole, in
+which all these people seem to indulge, you can tell him that a row is surely
+good, and warms the cockles of the heart, and that so far as I am concerned
+I&rsquo;m his boy. My only stipulation is that he allows me to wear
+trousers.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I translated the substance of these answers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is well, my friends,&rdquo; said Ignosi, late Umbopa; &ldquo;and what
+sayest thou, Macumazahn, art thou also with me, old hunter, cleverer than a
+wounded buffalo?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I thought awhile and scratched my head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Umbopa, or Ignosi,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like revolutions.
+I am a man of peace and a bit of a coward&rdquo;&mdash;here Umbopa
+smiled&mdash;&ldquo;but, on the other hand, I stick up for my friends, Ignosi.
+You have stuck to us and played the part of a man, and I will stick by you. But
+mind you, I am a trader, and have to make my living, so I accept your offer
+about those diamonds in case we should ever be in a position to avail ourselves
+of it. Another thing: we came, as you know, to look for Incubu&rsquo;s (Sir
+Henry&rsquo;s) lost brother. You must help us to find him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That I will do,&rdquo; answered Ignosi. &ldquo;Stay, Infadoos, by the
+sign of the snake about my middle, tell me the truth. Has any white man to thy
+knowledge set his foot within the land?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;None, O Ignosi.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If any white man had been seen or heard of, wouldst thou have
+known?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should certainly have known.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thou hearest, Incubu,&rdquo; said Ignosi to Sir Henry; &ldquo;he has not
+been here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, well,&rdquo; said Sir Henry, with a sigh; &ldquo;there it is; I
+suppose that he never got so far. Poor fellow, poor fellow! So it has all been
+for nothing. God&rsquo;s will be done.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now for business,&rdquo; I put in, anxious to escape from a painful
+subject. &ldquo;It is very well to be a king by right divine, Ignosi, but how
+dost thou propose to become a king indeed?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nay, I know not. Infadoos, hast thou a plan?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ignosi, Son of the Lightning,&rdquo; answered his uncle, &ldquo;to-night
+is the great dance and witch-hunt. Many shall be smelt out and perish, and in
+the hearts of many others there will be grief and anguish and fury against the
+king Twala. When the dance is over, then I will speak to some of the great
+chiefs, who in turn, if I can win them over, will speak to their regiments. I
+shall speak to the chiefs softly at first, and bring them to see that thou art
+indeed the king, and I think that by to-morrow&rsquo;s light thou shalt have
+twenty thousand spears at thy command. And now I must go and think, and hear,
+and make ready. After the dance is done, if I am yet alive, and we are all
+alive, I will meet thee here, and we can talk. At the best there must be
+war.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this moment our conference was interrupted by the cry that messengers had
+come from the king. Advancing to the door of the hut we ordered that they
+should be admitted, and presently three men entered, each bearing a shining
+shirt of chain armour, and a magnificent battle-axe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The gifts of my lord the king to the white men from the Stars!&rdquo;
+said a herald who came with them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We thank the king,&rdquo; I answered; &ldquo;withdraw.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The men went, and we examined the armour with great interest. It was the most
+wonderful chain work that either of us had ever seen. A whole coat fell
+together so closely that it formed a mass of links scarcely too big to be
+covered with both hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you make these things in this country, Infadoos?&rdquo; I asked;
+&ldquo;they are very beautiful.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nay, my lord, they came down to us from our forefathers. We know not who
+made them, and there are but few left.<a href="#fn-7" name="fnref-7" id="fnref-7"><sup>[7]</sup></a>
+None but those of royal blood may be clad in them. They are magic coats through
+which no spear can pass, and those who wear them are well-nigh safe in the
+battle. The king is well pleased or much afraid, or he would not have sent
+these garments of steel. Clothe yourselves in them to-night, my lords.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-7" id="fn-7"></a> <a href="#fnref-7">[7]</a>
+In the Soudan swords and coats of mail are still worn by Arabs, whose ancestors
+must have stripped them from the bodies of Crusaders.&mdash;<i>Editor</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The remainder of that day we spent quietly, resting and talking over the
+situation, which was sufficiently exciting. At last the sun went down, the
+thousand watch fires glowed out, and through the darkness we heard the tramp of
+many feet and the clashing of hundreds of spears, as the regiments passed to
+their appointed places to be ready for the great dance. Then the full moon
+shone out in splendour, and as we stood watching her rays, Infadoos arrived,
+clad in his war dress, and accompanied by a guard of twenty men to escort us to
+the dance. As he recommended, we had already donned the shirts of chain armour
+which the king had sent us, putting them on under our ordinary clothing, and
+finding to our surprise that they were neither very heavy nor uncomfortable.
+These steel shirts, which evidently had been made for men of a very large
+stature, hung somewhat loosely upon Good and myself, but Sir Henry&rsquo;s
+fitted his magnificent frame like a glove. Then strapping our revolvers round
+our waists, and taking in our hands the battle-axes which the king had sent
+with the armour, we started.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On arriving at the great kraal, where we had that morning been received by the
+king, we found that it was closely packed with some twenty thousand men
+arranged round it in regiments. These regiments were in turn divided into
+companies, and between each company ran a little path to allow space for the
+witch-finders to pass up and down. Anything more imposing than the sight that
+was presented by this vast and orderly concourse of armed men it is impossible
+to conceive. There they stood perfectly silent, and the moon poured her light
+upon the forest of their raised spears, upon their majestic forms, waving
+plumes, and the harmonious shading of their various-coloured shields. Wherever
+we looked were line upon line of dim faces surmounted by range upon range of
+shimmering spears.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Surely,&rdquo; I said to Infadoos, &ldquo;the whole army is here?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nay, Macumazahn,&rdquo; he answered, &ldquo;but a third of it. One third
+is present at this dance each year, another third is mustered outside in case
+there should be trouble when the killing begins, ten thousand more garrison the
+outposts round Loo, and the rest watch at the kraals in the country. Thou seest
+it is a great people.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They are very silent,&rdquo; said Good; and indeed the intense stillness
+among such a vast concourse of living men was almost overpowering.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What says Bougwan?&rdquo; asked Infadoos.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I translated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Those over whom the shadow of Death is hovering are silent,&rdquo; he
+answered grimly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Will many be killed?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very many.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It seems,&rdquo; I said to the others, &ldquo;that we are going to
+assist at a gladiatorial show arranged regardless of expense.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sir Henry shivered, and Good said he wished that we could get out of it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tell me,&rdquo; I asked Infadoos, &ldquo;are we in danger?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know not, my lords, I trust not; but do not seem afraid. If ye live
+through the night all may go well with you. The soldiers murmur against the
+king.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All this while we had been advancing steadily towards the centre of the open
+space, in the midst of which were placed some stools. As we proceeded we
+perceived another small party coming from the direction of the royal hut.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is the king Twala, Scragga his son, and Gagool the old; and see, with
+them are those who slay,&rdquo; said Infadoos, pointing to a little group of
+about a dozen gigantic and savage-looking men, armed with spears in one hand
+and heavy kerries in the other.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The king seated himself upon the centre stool, Gagool crouched at his feet, and
+the others stood behind him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Greeting, white lords,&rdquo; Twala cried, as we came up; &ldquo;be
+seated, waste not precious time&mdash;the night is all too short for the deeds
+that must be done. Ye come in a good hour, and shall see a glorious show. Look
+round, white lords; look round,&rdquo; and he rolled his one wicked eye from
+regiment to regiment. &ldquo;Can the Stars show you such a sight as this? See
+how they shake in their wickedness, all those who have evil in their hearts and
+fear the judgment of &lsquo;Heaven above.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Begin! begin!</i>&rdquo; piped Gagool, in her thin piercing voice;
+&ldquo;the hyænas are hungry, they howl for food. <i>Begin! begin!</i>&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then for a moment there was intense stillness, made horrible by a presage of
+what was to come.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The king lifted his spear, and suddenly twenty thousand feet were raised, as
+though they belonged to one man, and brought down with a stamp upon the earth.
+This was repeated three times, causing the solid ground to shake and tremble.
+Then from a far point of the circle a solitary voice began a wailing song, of
+which the refrain ran something as follows:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>What is the lot of man born of woman?</i>&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Back came the answer rolling out from every throat in that vast company&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Death!</i>&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Gradually, however, the song was taken up by company after company, till the
+whole armed multitude were singing it, and I could no longer follow the words,
+except in so far as they appeared to represent various phases of human
+passions, fears, and joys. Now it seemed to be a love song, now a majestic
+swelling war chant, and last of all a death dirge ending suddenly in one
+heart-breaking wail that went echoing and rolling away in a volume of
+blood-curdling sound.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Again silence fell upon the place, and again it was broken by the king lifting
+his hand. Instantly we heard a pattering of feet, and from out of the masses of
+warriors strange and awful figures appeared running towards us. As they drew
+near we saw that these were women, most of them aged, for their white hair,
+ornamented with small bladders taken from fish, streamed out behind them. Their
+faces were painted in stripes of white and yellow; down their backs hung
+snake-skins, and round their waists rattled circlets of human bones, while each
+held a small forked wand in her shrivelled hand. In all there were ten of them.
+When they arrived in front of us they halted, and one of them, pointing with
+her wand towards the crouching figure of Gagool, cried out&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mother, old mother, we are here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Good! good! good!</i>&rdquo; answered that aged Iniquity. &ldquo;Are
+your eyes keen, <i>Isanusis</i> [witch doctresses], ye seers in dark
+places?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mother, they are keen.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Good! good! good!</i> Are your ears open, <i>Isanusis</i>, ye who
+hear words that come not from the tongue?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mother, they are open.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Good! good! good!</i> Are your senses awake,
+<i>Isanusis</i>&mdash;can ye smell blood, can ye purge the land of the wicked
+ones who compass evil against the king and against their neighbours? Are ye
+ready to do the justice of &lsquo;Heaven above,&rsquo; ye whom I have taught,
+who have eaten of the bread of my wisdom, and drunk of the water of my
+magic?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mother, we can.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then go! Tarry not, ye vultures; see, the slayers&rdquo;&mdash;pointing
+to the ominous group of executioners behind&mdash;&ldquo;make sharp their
+spears; the white men from afar are hungry to see. <i>Go!</i>&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With a wild yell Gagool&rsquo;s horrid ministers broke away in every direction,
+like fragments from a shell, the dry bones round their waists rattling as they
+ran, and headed for various points of the dense human circle. We could not
+watch them all, so we fixed our eyes upon the <i>Isanusi</i> nearest to us.
+When she came to within a few paces of the warriors she halted and began to
+dance wildly, turning round and round with an almost incredible rapidity, and
+shrieking out sentences such as &ldquo;I smell him, the evil-doer!&rdquo;
+&ldquo;He is near, he who poisoned his mother!&rdquo; &ldquo;I hear the
+thoughts of him who thought evil of the king!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Quicker and quicker she danced, till she lashed herself into such a frenzy of
+excitement that the foam flew in specks from her gnashing jaws, till her eyes
+seemed to start from her head, and her flesh to quiver visibly. Suddenly she
+stopped dead and stiffened all over, like a pointer dog when he scents game,
+and then with outstretched wand she began to creep stealthily towards the
+soldiers before her. It seemed to us that as she came their stoicism gave way,
+and that they shrank from her. As for ourselves, we followed her movements with
+a horrible fascination. Presently, still creeping and crouching like a dog, the
+<i>Isanusi</i> was before them. Then she halted and pointed, and again crept on
+a pace or two.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly the end came. With a shriek she sprang in and touched a tall warrior
+with her forked wand. Instantly two of his comrades, those standing immediately
+next to him, seized the doomed man, each by one arm, and advanced with him
+towards the king.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He did not resist, but we saw that he dragged his limbs as though they were
+paralysed, and that his fingers, from which the spear had fallen, were limp
+like those of a man newly dead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As he came, two of the villainous executioners stepped forward to meet him.
+Presently they met, and the executioners turned round, looking towards the king
+as though for orders.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Kill!</i>&rdquo; said the king.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Kill!</i>&rdquo; squeaked Gagool.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Kill!</i>&rdquo; re-echoed Scragga, with a hollow chuckle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Almost before the words were uttered the horrible deed was done. One man had
+driven his spear into the victim&rsquo;s heart, and to make assurance double
+sure, the other had dashed out his brains with a great club.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>One</i>,&rdquo; counted Twala the king, just like a black Madame
+Defarge, as Good said, and the body was dragged a few paces away and stretched
+out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hardly was the thing done before another poor wretch was brought up, like an ox
+to the slaughter. This time we could see, from the leopard-skin cloak which he
+wore, that the man was a person of rank. Again the awful syllables were spoken,
+and the victim fell dead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Two</i>,&rdquo; counted the king.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And so the deadly game went on, till about a hundred bodies were stretched in
+rows behind us. I have heard of the gladiatorial shows of the Cæsars, and of
+the Spanish bull-fights, but I take the liberty of doubting if either of them
+could be half so horrible as this Kukuana witch-hunt. Gladiatorial shows and
+Spanish bull-fights at any rate contributed to the public amusement, which
+certainly was not the case here. The most confirmed sensation-monger would
+fight shy of sensation if he knew that it was well on the cards that he would,
+in his own proper person, be the subject of the next &ldquo;event.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Once we rose and tried to remonstrate, but were sternly repressed by Twala.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let the law take its course, white men. These dogs are magicians and
+evil-doers; it is well that they should die,&rdquo; was the only answer
+vouchsafed to us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+About half-past ten there was a pause. The witch-finders gathered themselves
+together, apparently exhausted with their bloody work, and we thought that the
+performance was done with. But it was not so, for presently, to our surprise,
+the ancient woman, Gagool, rose from her crouching position, and supporting
+herself with a stick, staggered off into the open space. It was an
+extraordinary sight to see this frightful vulture-headed old creature, bent
+nearly double with extreme age, gather strength by degrees, until at last she
+rushed about almost as actively as her ill-omened pupils. To and fro she ran,
+chanting to herself, till suddenly she made a dash at a tall man standing in
+front of one of the regiments, and touched him. As she did this a sort of groan
+went up from the regiment which evidently he commanded. But two of its officers
+seized him all the same, and brought him up for execution. We learned
+afterwards that he was a man of great wealth and importance, being indeed a
+cousin of the king.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was slain, and Twala counted one hundred and three. Then Gagool again sprang
+to and fro, gradually drawing nearer and nearer to ourselves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hang me if I don&rsquo;t believe she is going to try her games on
+us,&rdquo; ejaculated Good in horror.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nonsense!&rdquo; said Sir Henry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As for myself, when I saw that old fiend dancing nearer and nearer, my heart
+positively sank into my boots. I glanced behind us at the long rows of corpses,
+and shivered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nearer and nearer waltzed Gagool, looking for all the world like an animated
+crooked stick or comma, her horrid eyes gleaming and glowing with a most unholy
+lustre.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nearer she came, and yet nearer, every creature in that vast assemblage
+watching her movements with intense anxiety. At last she stood still and
+pointed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Which is it to be?&rdquo; asked Sir Henry to himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In a moment all doubts were at rest, for the old hag had rushed in and touched
+Umbopa, alias Ignosi, on the shoulder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I smell him out,&rdquo; she shrieked. &ldquo;Kill him, kill him, he is
+full of evil; kill him, the stranger, before blood flows from him. Slay him, O
+king.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a pause, of which I instantly took advantage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O king,&rdquo; I called out, rising from my seat, &ldquo;this man is the
+servant of thy guests, he is their dog; whosoever sheds the blood of our dog
+sheds our blood. By the sacred law of hospitality I claim protection for
+him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Gagool, mother of the witch-finders, has smelt him out; he must die,
+white men,&rdquo; was the sullen answer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nay, he shall not die,&rdquo; I replied; &ldquo;he who tries to touch
+him shall die indeed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Seize him!&rdquo; roared Twala to the executioners; who stood round red
+to the eyes with the blood of their victims.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They advanced towards us, and then hesitated. As for Ignosi, he clutched his
+spear, and raised it as though determined to sell his life dearly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Stand back, ye dogs!&rdquo; I shouted, &ldquo;if ye would see
+to-morrow&rsquo;s light. Touch one hair of his head and your king dies,&rdquo;
+and I covered Twala with my revolver. Sir Henry and Good also drew their
+pistols, Sir Henry pointing his at the leading executioner, who was advancing
+to carry out the sentence, and Good taking a deliberate aim at Gagool.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Twala winced perceptibly as my barrel came in a line with his broad chest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;what is it to be, Twala?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then he spoke.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Put away your magic tubes,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;ye have adjured me in
+the name of hospitality, and for that reason, but not from fear of what ye can
+do, I spare him. Go in peace.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is well,&rdquo; I answered unconcernedly; &ldquo;we are weary of
+slaughter, and would sleep. Is the dance ended?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is ended,&rdquo; Twala answered sulkily. &ldquo;Let these dead
+dogs,&rdquo; pointing to the long rows of corpses, &ldquo;be flung out to the
+hyænas and the vultures,&rdquo; and he lifted his spear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Instantly the regiments began to defile through the kraal gateway in perfect
+silence, a fatigue party only remaining behind to drag away the corpses of
+those who had been sacrificed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then we rose also, and making our salaam to his majesty, which he hardly
+deigned to acknowledge, we departed to our huts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Sir Henry, as we sat down, having first lit a lamp of
+the sort used by the Kukuanas, of which the wick is made from the fibre of a
+species of palm leaf, and the oil from clarified hippopotamus fat, &ldquo;well,
+I feel uncommonly inclined to be sick.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If I had any doubts about helping Umbopa to rebel against that infernal
+blackguard,&rdquo; put in Good, &ldquo;they are gone now. It was as much as I
+could do to sit still while that slaughter was going on. I tried to keep my
+eyes shut, but they would open just at the wrong time. I wonder where Infadoos
+is. Umbopa, my friend, you ought to be grateful to us; your skin came near to
+having an air-hole made in it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am grateful, Bougwan,&rdquo; was Umbopa&rsquo;s answer, when I had
+translated, &ldquo;and I shall not forget. As for Infadoos, he will be here
+by-and-by. We must wait.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So we lit our pipes and waited.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap11"></a>CHAPTER XI.<br />
+WE GIVE A SIGN</h2>
+
+<p>
+For a long while&mdash;two hours, I should think&mdash;we sat there in silence,
+being too much overwhelmed by the recollection of the horrors we had seen to
+talk. At last, just as we were thinking of turning in&mdash;for the night drew
+nigh to dawn&mdash;we heard a sound of steps. Then came the challenge of a
+sentry posted at the kraal gate, which apparently was answered, though not in
+an audible tone, for the steps still advanced; and in another second Infadoos
+had entered the hut, followed by some half-dozen stately-looking chiefs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My lords,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I have come according to my word. My
+lords and Ignosi, rightful king of the Kukuanas, I have brought with me these
+men,&rdquo; pointing to the row of chiefs, &ldquo;who are great men among us,
+having each one of them the command of three thousand soldiers, that live but
+to do their bidding, under the king&rsquo;s. I have told them of what I have
+seen, and what my ears have heard. Now let them also behold the sacred snake
+around thee, and hear thy story, Ignosi, that they may say whether or no they
+will make cause with thee against Twala the king.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By way of answer Ignosi again stripped off his girdle, and exhibited the snake
+tattooed about him. Each chief in turn drew near and examined the sign by the
+dim light of the lamp, and without saying a word passed on to the other side.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Ignosi resumed his moocha, and addressing them, repeated the history he
+had detailed in the morning.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now ye have heard, chiefs,&rdquo; said Infadoos, when he had done,
+&ldquo;what say ye: will ye stand by this man and help him to his
+father&rsquo;s throne, or will ye not? The land cries out against Twala, and
+the blood of the people flows like the waters in spring. Ye have seen to-night.
+Two other chiefs there were with whom I had it in my mind to speak, and where
+are they now? The hyænas howl over their corpses. Soon shall ye be as they are
+if ye strike not. Choose then, my brothers.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The eldest of the six men, a short, thick-set warrior, with white hair, stepped
+forward a pace and answered&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thy words are true, Infadoos; the land cries out. My own brother is
+among those who died to-night; but this is a great matter, and the thing is
+hard to believe. How know we that if we lift our spears it may not be for a
+thief and a liar? It is a great matter, I say, of which none can see the end.
+For of this be sure, blood will flow in rivers before the deed is done; many
+will still cleave to the king, for men worship the sun that still shines bright
+in the heavens, rather than that which has not risen. These white men from the
+Stars, their magic is great, and Ignosi is under the cover of their wing. If he
+be indeed the rightful king, let them give us a sign, and let the people have a
+sign, that all may see. So shall men cleave to us, knowing of a truth that the
+white man&rsquo;s magic is with them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ye have the sign of the snake,&rdquo; I answered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My lord, it is not enough. The snake may have been placed there since
+the man&rsquo;s childhood. Show us a sign, and it will suffice. But we will not
+move without a sign.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The others gave a decided assent, and I turned in perplexity to Sir Henry and
+Good, and explained the situation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think that I have it,&rdquo; said Good exultingly; &ldquo;ask them to
+give us a moment to think.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I did so, and the chiefs withdrew. So soon as they had gone Good went to the
+little box where he kept his medicines, unlocked it, and took out a note-book,
+in the fly-leaves of which was an almanack. &ldquo;Now look here, you fellows,
+isn&rsquo;t to-morrow the 4th of June?&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We had kept a careful note of the days, so were able to answer that it was.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very good; then here we have it&mdash;&lsquo;4 June, total eclipse of
+the moon commences at 8.15 Greenwich time, visible in Teneriffe&mdash;<i>South
+Africa</i>, &amp;c.&rsquo; There&rsquo;s a sign for you. Tell them we will
+darken the moon to-morrow night.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The idea was a splendid one; indeed, the only weak spot about it was a fear
+lest Good&rsquo;s almanack might be incorrect. If we made a false prophecy on
+such a subject, our prestige would be gone for ever, and so would
+Ignosi&rsquo;s chance of the throne of the Kukuanas.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Suppose that the almanack is wrong,&rdquo; suggested Sir Henry to Good,
+who was busily employed in working out something on a blank page of the book.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I see no reason to suppose anything of the sort,&rdquo; was his answer.
+&ldquo;Eclipses always come up to time; at least that is my experience of them,
+and it especially states that this one will be visible in South Africa. I have
+worked out the reckonings as well as I can, without knowing our exact position;
+and I make out that the eclipse should begin here about ten o&rsquo;clock
+tomorrow night, and last till half-past twelve. For an hour and a half or so
+there should be almost total darkness.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Sir Henry, &ldquo;I suppose we had better risk
+it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I acquiesced, though doubtfully, for eclipses are queer cattle to deal
+with&mdash;it might be a cloudy night, for instance, or our dates might be
+wrong&mdash;and sent Umbopa to summon the chiefs back. Presently they came, and
+I addressed them thus&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Great men of the Kukuanas, and thou, Infadoos, listen. We love not to
+show our powers, for to do so is to interfere with the course of nature, and to
+plunge the world into fear and confusion. But since this matter is a great one,
+and as we are angered against the king because of the slaughter we have seen,
+and because of the act of the <i>Isanusi</i> Gagool, who would have put our
+friend Ignosi to death, we have determined to break a rule, and to give such a
+sign as all men may see. Come hither&rdquo;; and I led them to the door of the
+hut and pointed to the red ball of the moon. &ldquo;What see ye there?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We see the sinking moon,&rdquo; answered the spokesman of the party.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is so. Now tell me, can any mortal man put out that moon before her
+hour of setting, and bring the curtain of black night down upon the
+land?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The chief laughed a little at the question. &ldquo;No, my lord, that no man can
+do. The moon is stronger than man who looks on her, nor can she vary in her
+courses.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ye say so. Yet I tell you that to-morrow night, about two hours before
+midnight, we will cause the moon to be eaten up for a space of an hour and half
+an hour. Yes, deep darkness shall cover the earth, and it shall be for a sign
+that Ignosi is indeed king of the Kukuanas. If we do this thing, will ye be
+satisfied?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yea, my lords,&rdquo; answered the old chief with a smile, which was
+reflected on the faces of his companions; &ldquo;<i>if</i> ye do this thing, we
+will be satisfied indeed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It shall be done; we three, Incubu, Bougwan, and Macumazahn, have said
+it, and it shall be done. Dost thou hear, Infadoos?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I hear, my lord, but it is a wonderful thing that ye promise, to put out
+the moon, the mother of the world, when she is at her full.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yet shall we do it, Infadoos.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is well, my lords. To-day, two hours after sunset, Twala will send
+for my lords to witness the girls dance, and one hour after the dance begins
+the girl whom Twala thinks the fairest shall be killed by Scragga, the
+king&rsquo;s son, as a sacrifice to the Silent Ones, who sit and keep watch by
+the mountains yonder,&rdquo; and he pointed towards the three strange-looking
+peaks where Solomon&rsquo;s road was supposed to end. &ldquo;Then let my lords
+darken the moon, and save the maiden&rsquo;s life, and the people will believe
+indeed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay,&rdquo; said the old chief, still smiling a little, &ldquo;the people
+will believe indeed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Two miles from Loo,&rdquo; went on Infadoos, &ldquo;there is a hill
+curved like a new moon, a stronghold, where my regiment, and three other
+regiments which these chiefs command, are stationed. This morning we will make
+a plan whereby two or three other regiments may be moved there also. Then, if
+in truth my lords can darken the moon, in the darkness I will take my lords by
+the hand and lead them out of Loo to this place, where they shall be safe, and
+thence we can make war upon Twala the king.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is good,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;Now leave us to sleep awhile and to
+make ready our magic.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Infadoos rose, and, having saluted us, departed with the chiefs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My friends,&rdquo; said Ignosi, so soon as they were gone, &ldquo;can ye
+do this wonderful thing, or were ye speaking empty words to the
+captains?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We believe that we can do it, Umbopa&mdash;Ignosi, I mean.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is strange,&rdquo; he answered, &ldquo;and had ye not been Englishmen
+I would not have believed it; but I have learned that English
+&lsquo;gentlemen&rsquo; tell no lies. If we live through the matter, be sure
+that I will repay you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ignosi,&rdquo; said Sir Henry, &ldquo;promise me one thing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will promise, Incubu, my friend, even before I hear it,&rdquo;
+answered the big man with a smile. &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This: that if ever you come to be king of this people you will do away
+with the smelling out of wizards such as we saw last night; and that the
+killing of men without trial shall no longer take place in the land.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ignosi thought for a moment after I had translated this request, and then
+answered&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The ways of black people are not as the ways of white men, Incubu, nor
+do we value life so highly. Yet I will promise. If it be in my power to hold
+them back, the witch-finders shall hunt no more, nor shall any man die the
+death without trial or judgment.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a bargain, then,&rdquo; said Sir Henry; &ldquo;and now let
+us get a little rest.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thoroughly wearied out, we were soon sound asleep, and slept till Ignosi woke
+us about eleven o&rsquo;clock. Then we rose, washed, and ate a hearty
+breakfast. After that we went outside the hut and walked about, amusing
+ourselves with examining the structure of the Kukuana huts and observing the
+customs of the women.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I hope that eclipse will come off,&rdquo; said Sir Henry presently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If it does not it will soon be all up with us,&rdquo; I answered
+mournfully; &ldquo;for so sure as we are living men some of those chiefs will
+tell the whole story to the king, and then there will be another sort of
+eclipse, and one that we shall certainly not like.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Returning to the hut we ate some dinner, and passed the rest of the day in
+receiving visits of ceremony and curiosity. At length the sun set, and we
+enjoyed a couple of hours of such quiet as our melancholy forebodings would
+allow to us. Finally, about half-past eight, a messenger came from Twala to bid
+us to the great annual &ldquo;dance of girls&rdquo; which was about to be
+celebrated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hastily we put on the chain shirts that the king had sent us, and taking our
+rifles and ammunition with us, so as to have them handy in case we had to fly,
+as suggested by Infadoos, we started boldly enough, though with inward fear and
+trembling. The great space in front of the king&rsquo;s kraal bore a very
+different appearance from that which it had presented on the previous evening.
+In place of the grim ranks of serried warriors were company after company of
+Kukuana girls, not over-dressed, so far as clothing went, but each crowned with
+a wreath of flowers, and holding a palm leaf in one hand and a white arum lily
+in the other. In the centre of the open moonlit space sat Twala the king, with
+old Gagool at his feet, attended by Infadoos, the boy Scragga, and twelve
+guards. There were also present about a score of chiefs, amongst whom I
+recognised most of our friends of the night before.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Twala greeted us with much apparent cordiality, though I saw him fix his one
+eye viciously on Umbopa.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Welcome, white men from the Stars,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;this is
+another sight from that which your eyes gazed on by the light of last
+night&rsquo;s moon, but it is not so good a sight. Girls are pleasant, and were
+it not for such as these,&rdquo; and he pointed round him, &ldquo;we should
+none of us be here this day; but men are better. Kisses and the tender words of
+women are sweet, but the sound of the clashing of the spears of warriors, and
+the smell of men&rsquo;s blood, are sweeter far! Would ye have wives from among
+our people, white men? If so, choose the fairest here, and ye shall have them,
+as many as ye will,&rdquo; and he paused for an answer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As the prospect did not seem to be without attractions for Good, who, like most
+sailors, is of a susceptible nature,&mdash;being elderly and wise, foreseeing
+the endless complications that anything of the sort would involve, for women
+bring trouble so surely as the night follows the day, I put in a hasty
+answer&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thanks to thee, O king, but we white men wed only with white women like
+ourselves. Your maidens are fair, but they are not for us!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The king laughed. &ldquo;It is well. In our land there is a proverb which runs,
+&lsquo;Women&rsquo;s eyes are always bright, whatever the colour,&rsquo; and
+another that says, &lsquo;Love her who is present, for be sure she who is
+absent is false to thee;&rsquo; but perhaps these things are not so in the
+Stars. In a land where men are white all things are possible. So be it, white
+men; the girls will not go begging! Welcome again; and welcome, too, thou black
+one; if Gagool here had won her way, thou wouldst have been stiff and cold by
+now. It is lucky for thee that thou too camest from the Stars; ha! ha!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can kill thee before thou killest me, O king,&rdquo; was
+Ignosi&rsquo;s calm answer, &ldquo;and thou shalt be stiff before my limbs
+cease to bend.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Twala started. &ldquo;Thou speakest boldly, boy,&rdquo; he replied angrily;
+&ldquo;presume not too far.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He may well be bold in whose lips are truth. The truth is a sharp spear
+which flies home and misses not. It is a message from &lsquo;the Stars,&rsquo;
+O king.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Twala scowled, and his one eye gleamed fiercely, but he said nothing more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let the dance begin,&rdquo; he cried, and then the flower-crowned girls
+sprang forward in companies, singing a sweet song and waving the delicate palms
+and white lilies. On they danced, looking faint and spiritual in the soft, sad
+light of the risen moon; now whirling round and round, now meeting in mimic
+warfare, swaying, eddying here and there, coming forward, falling back in an
+ordered confusion delightful to witness. At last they paused, and a beautiful
+young woman sprang out of the ranks and began to pirouette in front of us with
+a grace and vigour which would have put most ballet girls to shame. At length
+she retired exhausted, and another took her place, then another and another,
+but none of them, either in grace, skill, or personal attractions, came up to
+the first.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the chosen girls had all danced, the king lifted his hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Which deem ye the fairest, white men?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The first,&rdquo; said I unthinkingly. Next second I regretted it, for I
+remembered that Infadoos had told us that the fairest woman must be offered up
+as a sacrifice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then is my mind as your minds, and my eyes as your eyes. She is the
+fairest! and a sorry thing it is for her, for she must die!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Ay, must die!</i>&rdquo; piped out Gagool, casting a glance of her
+quick eyes in the direction of the poor girl, who, as yet ignorant of the awful
+fate in store for her, was standing some ten yards off in front of a company of
+maidens, engaged in nervously picking a flower from her wreath to pieces, petal
+by petal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, O king?&rdquo; said I, restraining my indignation with difficulty;
+&ldquo;the girl has danced well, and pleased us; she is fair too; it would be
+hard to reward her with death.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Twala laughed as he answered&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is our custom, and the figures who sit in stone yonder,&rdquo; and he
+pointed towards the three distant peaks, &ldquo;must have their due. Did I fail
+to put the fairest girl to death to-day, misfortune would fall upon me and my
+house. Thus runs the prophecy of my people: &lsquo;If the king offer not a
+sacrifice of a fair girl, on the day of the dance of maidens, to the Old Ones
+who sit and watch on the mountains, then shall he fall, and his house.&rsquo;
+Look ye, white men, my brother who reigned before me offered not the sacrifice,
+because of the tears of the woman, and he fell, and his house, and I reign in
+his stead. It is finished; she must die!&rdquo; Then turning to the
+guards&mdash;&ldquo;Bring her hither; Scragga, make sharp thy spear.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Two of the men stepped forward, and as they advanced, the girl, for the first
+time realising her impending fate, screamed aloud and turned to fly. But the
+strong hands caught her fast, and brought her, struggling and weeping, before
+us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is thy name, girl?&rdquo; piped Gagool. &ldquo;What! wilt thou not
+answer? Shall the king&rsquo;s son do his work at once?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this hint, Scragga, looking more evil than ever, advanced a step and lifted
+his great spear, and at that moment I saw Good&rsquo;s hand creep to his
+revolver. The poor girl caught the faint glint of steel through her tears, and
+it sobered her anguish. She ceased struggling, and clasping her hands
+convulsively, stood shuddering from head to foot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;See,&rdquo; cried Scragga in high glee, &ldquo;she shrinks from the
+sight of my little plaything even before she has tasted it,&rdquo; and he
+tapped the broad blade of his spear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If ever I get the chance you shall pay for that, you young hound!&rdquo;
+I heard Good mutter beneath his breath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now that thou art quiet, give us thy name, my dear. Come, speak out, and
+fear not,&rdquo; said Gagool in mockery.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, mother,&rdquo; answered the girl, in trembling accents, &ldquo;my
+name is Foulata, of the house of Suko. Oh, mother, why must I die? I have done
+no wrong!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Be comforted,&rdquo; went on the old woman in her hateful tone of
+mockery. &ldquo;Thou must die, indeed, as a sacrifice to the Old Ones who sit
+yonder,&rdquo; and she pointed to the peaks; &ldquo;but it is better to sleep
+in the night than to toil in the daytime; it is better to die than to live, and
+thou shalt die by the royal hand of the king&rsquo;s own son.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The girl Foulata wrung her hands in anguish, and cried out aloud, &ldquo;Oh,
+cruel! and I so young! What have I done that I should never again see the sun
+rise out of the night, or the stars come following on his track in the evening,
+that I may no more gather the flowers when the dew is heavy, or listen to the
+laughing of the waters? Woe is me, that I shall never see my father&rsquo;s hut
+again, nor feel my mother&rsquo;s kiss, nor tend the lamb that is sick! Woe is
+me, that no lover shall put his arm around me and look into my eyes, nor shall
+men children be born of me! Oh, cruel, cruel!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And again she wrung her hands and turned her tear-stained flower-crowned face
+to Heaven, looking so lovely in her despair&mdash;for she was indeed a
+beautiful woman&mdash;that assuredly the sight of her would have melted the
+hearts of any less cruel than were the three fiends before us. Prince
+Arthur&rsquo;s appeal to the ruffians who came to blind him was not more
+touching than that of this savage girl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But it did not move Gagool or Gagool&rsquo;s master, though I saw signs of pity
+among the guards behind, and on the faces of the chiefs; and as for Good, he
+gave a fierce snort of indignation, and made a motion as though to go to her
+assistance. With all a woman&rsquo;s quickness, the doomed girl interpreted
+what was passing in his mind, and by a sudden movement flung herself before
+him, and clasped his &ldquo;beautiful white legs&rdquo; with her hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, white father from the Stars!&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;throw over me
+the mantle of thy protection; let me creep into the shadow of thy strength,
+that I may be saved. Oh, keep me from these cruel men and from the mercies of
+Gagool!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All right, my hearty, I&rsquo;ll look after you,&rdquo; sang out Good in
+nervous Saxon. &ldquo;Come, get up, there&rsquo;s a good girl,&rdquo; and he
+stooped and caught her hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Twala turned and motioned to his son, who advanced with his spear lifted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now&rsquo;s your time,&rdquo; whispered Sir Henry to me; &ldquo;what are
+you waiting for?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am waiting for that eclipse,&rdquo; I answered; &ldquo;I have had my
+eye on the moon for the last half-hour, and I never saw it look
+healthier.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, you must risk it now, or the girl will be killed. Twala is losing
+patience.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Recognising the force of the argument, and having cast one more despairing look
+at the bright face of the moon, for never did the most ardent astronomer with a
+theory to prove await a celestial event with such anxiety, I stepped with all
+the dignity that I could command between the prostrate girl and the advancing
+spear of Scragga.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;King,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;it shall not be; we will not endure this
+thing; let the girl go in safety.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Twala rose from his seat in wrath and astonishment, and from the chiefs and
+serried ranks of maidens who had closed in slowly upon us in anticipation of
+the tragedy came a murmur of amazement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Shall not be!</i> thou white dog, that yappest at the lion in his
+cave; <i>shall not be!</i> art thou mad? Be careful, lest this chicken&rsquo;s
+fate overtake thee, and those with thee. How canst thou save her or thyself?
+Who art thou that thou settest thyself between me and my will? Back, I say.
+Scragga, kill her! Ho, guards! seize these men.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At his cry armed men ran swiftly from behind the hut, where they had evidently
+been placed beforehand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sir Henry, Good, and Umbopa ranged themselves alongside of me, and lifted their
+rifles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Stop!&rdquo; I shouted boldly, though at the moment my heart was in my
+boots. &ldquo;Stop! we, the white men from the Stars, say that it shall not be.
+Come but one pace nearer, and we will put out the moon like a wind-blown lamp,
+as we who dwell in her House can do, and plunge the land in darkness. Dare to
+disobey, and ye shall taste of our magic.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My threat produced an effect; the men halted, and Scragga stood still before
+us, his spear lifted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hear him! hear him!&rdquo; piped Gagool; &ldquo;hear the liar who says
+that he will put out the moon like a lamp. Let him do it, and the girl shall be
+spared. Yes, let him do it, or die by the girl, he and those with him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I glanced up at the moon despairingly, and now to my intense joy and relief saw
+that we&mdash;or rather the almanack&mdash;had made no mistake. On the edge of
+the great orb lay a faint rim of shadow, while a smoky hue grew and gathered
+upon its bright surface. Never shall I forget that supreme, that superb moment
+of relief.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then I lifted my hand solemnly towards the sky, an example which Sir Henry and
+Good followed, and quoted a line or two from the &ldquo;Ingoldsby
+Legends&rdquo; at it in the most impressive tones that I could command. Sir
+Henry followed suit with a verse out of the Old Testament, and something about
+Balbus building a wall, in Latin, whilst Good addressed the Queen of Night in a
+volume of the most classical bad language which he could think of.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Slowly the penumbra, the shadow of a shadow, crept on over the bright surface,
+and as it crept I heard deep gasps of fear rising from the multitude around.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look, O king!&rdquo; I cried; &ldquo;look, Gagool! Look, chiefs and
+people and women, and see if the white men from the Stars keep their word, or
+if they be but empty liars!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The moon grows black before your eyes; soon there will be
+darkness&mdash;ay, darkness in the hour of the full moon. Ye have asked for a
+sign; it is given to you. Grow dark, O Moon! withdraw thy light, thou pure and
+holy One; bring the proud heart of usurping murderers to the dust, and eat up
+the world with shadows.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A groan of terror burst from the onlookers. Some stood petrified with dread,
+others threw themselves upon their knees and cried aloud. As for the king, he
+sat still and turned pale beneath his dusky skin. Only Gagool kept her courage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It will pass,&rdquo; she cried; &ldquo;I have often seen the like
+before; no man can put out the moon; lose not heart; sit still&mdash;the shadow
+will pass.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wait, and ye shall see,&rdquo; I replied, hopping with excitement.
+&ldquo;O Moon! Moon! Moon! wherefore art thou so cold and fickle?&rdquo; This
+appropriate quotation was from the pages of a popular romance that I chanced to
+have read recently, though now I come to think of it, it was ungrateful of me
+to abuse the Lady of the Heavens, who was showing herself to be the truest of
+friends to us, however she may have behaved to the impassioned lover in the
+novel. Then I added: &ldquo;Keep it up, Good, I can&rsquo;t remember any more
+poetry. Curse away, there&rsquo;s a good fellow.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Good responded nobly to this tax upon his inventive faculties. Never before had
+I the faintest conception of the breadth and depth and height of a naval
+officer&rsquo;s objurgatory powers. For ten minutes he went on in several
+languages without stopping, and he scarcely ever repeated himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile the dark ring crept on, while all that great assembly fixed their
+eyes upon the sky and stared and stared in fascinated silence. Strange and
+unholy shadows encroached upon the moonlight, an ominous quiet filled the
+place. Everything grew still as death. Slowly and in the midst of this most
+solemn silence the minutes sped away, and while they sped the full moon passed
+deeper and deeper into the shadow of the earth, as the inky segment of its
+circle slid in awful majesty across the lunar craters. The great pale orb
+seemed to draw near and to grow in size. She turned a coppery hue, then that
+portion of her surface which was unobscured as yet grew grey and ashen, and at
+length, as totality approached, her mountains and her plains were to be seen
+glowing luridly through a crimson gloom.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On, yet on, crept the ring of darkness; it was now more than half across the
+blood-red orb. The air grew thick, and still more deeply tinged with dusky
+crimson. On, yet on, till we could scarcely see the fierce faces of the group
+before us. No sound rose now from the spectators, and at last Good stopped
+swearing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The moon is dying&mdash;the white wizards have killed the moon,&rdquo;
+yelled the prince Scragga at last. &ldquo;We shall all perish in the
+dark,&rdquo; and animated by fear or fury, or by both, he lifted his spear and
+drove it with all his force at Sir Henry&rsquo;s breast. But he forgot the mail
+shirts that the king had given us, and which we wore beneath our clothing. The
+steel rebounded harmless, and before he could repeat the blow Curtis had
+snatched the spear from his hand and sent it straight through him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Scragga dropped dead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the sight, and driven mad with fear of the gathering darkness, and of the
+unholy shadow which, as they believed, was swallowing the moon, the companies
+of girls broke up in wild confusion, and ran screeching for the gateways. Nor
+did the panic stop there. The king himself, followed by his guards, some of the
+chiefs, and Gagool, who hobbled away after them with marvellous alacrity, fled
+for the huts, so that in another minute we ourselves, the would-be victim
+Foulata, Infadoos, and most of the chiefs who had interviewed us on the
+previous night, were left alone upon the scene, together with the dead body of
+Scragga, Twala&rsquo;s son.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Chiefs,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;we have given you the sign. If ye are
+satisfied, let us fly swiftly to the place of which ye spoke. The charm cannot
+now be stopped. It will work for an hour and the half of an hour. Let us cover
+ourselves in the darkness.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come,&rdquo; said Infadoos, turning to go, an example which was followed
+by the awed captains, ourselves, and the girl Foulata, whom Good took by the
+arm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before we reached the gate of the kraal the moon went out utterly, and from
+every quarter of the firmament the stars rushed forth into the inky sky.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Holding each other by the hand we stumbled on through the darkness.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap12"></a>CHAPTER XII.<br />
+BEFORE THE BATTLE</h2>
+
+<p>
+Luckily for us, Infadoos and the chiefs knew all the paths of the great town
+perfectly, so that we passed by side-ways unmolested, and notwithstanding the
+gloom we made fair progress.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For an hour or more we journeyed on, till at length the eclipse began to pass,
+and that edge of the moon which had disappeared the first became again visible.
+Suddenly, as we watched, there burst from it a silver streak of light,
+accompanied by a wondrous ruddy glow, which hung upon the blackness of the sky
+like a celestial lamp, and a wild and lovely sight it was. In another five
+minutes the stars began to fade, and there was sufficient light to see our
+whereabouts. We then discovered that we were clear of the town of Loo, and
+approaching a large flat-topped hill, measuring some two miles in
+circumference. This hill, which is of a formation common in South Africa, is
+not very high; indeed, its greatest elevation is scarcely more than 200 feet,
+but it is shaped like a horseshoe, and its sides are rather precipitous and
+strewn with boulders. On the grass table-land at its summit is ample
+camping-ground, which had been utilised as a military cantonment of no mean
+strength. Its ordinary garrison was one regiment of three thousand men, but as
+we toiled up the steep side of the mountain in the returning moonlight we
+perceived that there were several of such regiments encamped there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Reaching the table-land at last, we found crowds of men roused from their
+sleep, shivering with fear and huddled up together in the utmost consternation
+at the natural phenomenon which they were witnessing. Passing through these
+without a word, we gained a hut in the centre of the ground, where we were
+astonished to find two men waiting, laden with our few goods and chattels,
+which of course we had been obliged to leave behind in our hasty flight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I sent for them,&rdquo; explained Infadoos; &ldquo;and also for
+these,&rdquo; and he lifted up Good&rsquo;s long-lost trousers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With an exclamation of rapturous delight Good sprang at them, and instantly
+proceeded to put them on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Surely my lord will not hide his beautiful white legs!&rdquo; exclaimed
+Infadoos regretfully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Good persisted, and once only did the Kukuana people get the chance of
+seeing his beautiful legs again. Good is a very modest man. Henceforward they
+had to satisfy their æsthetic longings with his one whisker, his transparent
+eye, and his movable teeth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Still gazing with fond remembrance at Good&rsquo;s trousers, Infadoos next
+informed us that he had commanded the regiments to muster so soon as the day
+broke, in order to explain to them fully the origin and circumstances of the
+rebellion which was decided on by the chiefs, and to introduce to them the
+rightful heir to the throne, Ignosi.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Accordingly, when the sun was up, the troops&mdash;in all some twenty thousand
+men, and the flower of the Kukuana army&mdash;were mustered on a large open
+space, to which we went. The men were drawn up in three sides of a dense
+square, and presented a magnificent spectacle. We took our station on the open
+side of the square, and were speedily surrounded by all the principal chiefs
+and officers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These, after silence had been proclaimed, Infadoos proceeded to address. He
+narrated to them in vigorous and graceful language&mdash;for, like most
+Kukuanas of high rank, he was a born orator&mdash;the history of Ignosi&rsquo;s
+father, and of how he had been basely murdered by Twala the king, and his wife
+and child driven out to starve. Then he pointed out that the people suffered
+and groaned under Twala&rsquo;s cruel rule, instancing the proceedings of the
+previous night, when, under pretence of their being evil-doers, many of the
+noblest in the land had been dragged forth and wickedly done to death. Next he
+went on to say that the white lords from the Stars, looking down upon their
+country, had perceived its trouble, and determined, at great personal
+inconvenience, to alleviate its lot: That they had accordingly taken the real
+king of the Kukuanas, Ignosi, who was languishing in exile, by the hand, and
+led him over the mountains: That they had seen the wickedness of Twala&rsquo;s
+doings, and for a sign to the wavering, and to save the life of the girl
+Foulata, actually, by the exercise of their high magic, had put out the moon
+and slain the young fiend Scragga; and that they were prepared to stand by
+them, and assist them to overthrow Twala, and set up the rightful king, Ignosi,
+in his place.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He finished his discourse amidst a murmur of approbation. Then Ignosi stepped
+forward and began to speak. Having reiterated all that Infadoos his uncle had
+said, he concluded a powerful speech in these words:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O chiefs, captains, soldiers, and people, ye have heard my words. Now
+must ye make choice between me and him who sits upon my throne, the uncle who
+killed his brother, and hunted his brother&rsquo;s child forth to die in the
+cold and the night. That I am indeed the king these&rdquo;&mdash;pointing to
+the chiefs&mdash;&ldquo;can tell you, for they have seen the snake about my
+middle. If I were not the king, would these white men be on my side with all
+their magic? Tremble, chiefs, captains, soldiers, and people! Is not the
+darkness they have brought upon the land to confound Twala and cover our
+flight, darkness even in the hour of the full moon, yet before your
+eyes?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is,&rdquo; answered the soldiers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am the king; I say to you, I am the king,&rdquo; went on Ignosi,
+drawing up his great stature to its full, and lifting his broad-bladed
+battle-axe above his head. &ldquo;If there be any man among you who says that
+it is not so, let him stand forth and I will fight him now, and his blood shall
+be a red token that I tell you true. Let him stand forth, I say;&rdquo; and he
+shook the great axe till it flashed in the sunlight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As nobody seemed inclined to respond to this heroic version of &ldquo;Dilly,
+Dilly, come and be killed,&rdquo; our late henchman proceeded with his address.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am indeed the king, and should ye stand by my side in the battle, if I
+win the day ye shall go with me to victory and honour. I will give you oxen and
+wives, and ye shall take place of all the regiments; and if ye fall, I will
+fall with you.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And behold, I give you this promise, that when I sit upon the seat of my
+fathers, bloodshed shall cease in the land. No longer shall ye cry for justice
+to find slaughter, no longer shall the witch-finder hunt you out so that ye may
+be slain without a cause. No man shall die save he who offends against the
+laws. The &lsquo;eating up&rsquo; of your kraals shall cease; each one of you
+shall sleep secure in his own hut and fear naught, and justice shall walk
+blindfold throughout the land. Have ye chosen, chiefs, captains, soldiers, and
+people?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We have chosen, O king,&rdquo; came back the answer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is well. Turn your heads and see how Twala&rsquo;s messengers go
+forth from the great town, east and west, and north and south, to gather a
+mighty army to slay me and you, and these my friends and protectors. To-morrow,
+or perchance the next day, he will come against us with all who are faithful to
+him. Then I shall see the man who is indeed my man, the man who fears not to
+die for his cause; and I tell you that he shall not be forgotten in the time of
+spoil. I have spoken, O chiefs, captains, soldiers, and people. Now go to your
+huts and make you ready for war.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a pause, till presently one of the chiefs lifted his hand, and out
+rolled the royal salute, &ldquo;<i>Koom.</i>&rdquo; It was a sign that the
+soldiers accepted Ignosi as their king. Then they marched off in battalions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Half an hour afterwards we held a council of war, at which all the commanders
+of regiments were present. It was evident to us that before very long we should
+be attacked in overwhelming force. Indeed, from our point of vantage on the
+hill we could see troops mustering, and runners going forth from Loo in every
+direction, doubtless to summon soldiers to the king&rsquo;s assistance. We had
+on our side about twenty thousand men, composed of seven of the best regiments
+in the country. Twala, so Infadoos and the chiefs calculated, had at least
+thirty to thirty-five thousand on whom he could rely at present assembled in
+Loo, and they thought that by midday on the morrow he would be able to gather
+another five thousand or more to his aid. It was, of course, possible that some
+of his troops would desert and come over to us, but it was not a contingency
+which could be reckoned on. Meanwhile, it was clear that active preparations
+were being made by Twala to subdue us. Already strong bodies of armed men were
+patrolling round and round the foot of the hill, and there were other signs
+also of coming assault.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Infadoos and the chiefs, however, were of opinion that no attack would take
+place that day, which would be devoted to preparation and to the removal of
+every available means of the moral effect produced upon the minds of the
+soldiery by the supposed magical darkening of the moon. The onslaught would be
+on the morrow, they said, and they proved to be right.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile, we set to work to strengthen the position in all ways possible.
+Almost every man was turned out, and in the course of the day, which seemed far
+too short, much was done. The paths up the hill&mdash;that was rather a
+sanatorium than a fortress, being used generally as the camping place of
+regiments suffering from recent service in unhealthy portions of the
+country&mdash;were carefully blocked with masses of stones, and every other
+approach was made as impregnable as time would allow. Piles of boulders were
+collected at various spots to be rolled down upon an advancing enemy, stations
+were appointed to the different regiments, and all preparation was made which
+our joint ingenuity could suggest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Just before sundown, as we rested after our toil, we perceived a small company
+of men advancing towards us from the direction of Loo, one of whom bore a palm
+leaf in his hand for a sign that he came as a herald.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As he drew near, Ignosi, Infadoos, one or two chiefs and ourselves, went down
+to the foot of the mountain to meet him. He was a gallant-looking fellow,
+wearing the regulation leopard-skin cloak.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Greeting!&rdquo; he cried, as he came; &ldquo;the king&rsquo;s greeting
+to those who make unholy war against the king; the lion&rsquo;s greeting to the
+jackals that snarl around his heels.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Speak,&rdquo; I said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;These are the king&rsquo;s words. Surrender to the king&rsquo;s mercy
+ere a worse thing befall you. Already the shoulder has been torn from the black
+bull, and the king drives him bleeding about the camp.&rdquo;<a href="#fn-8" name="fnref-8" id="fnref-8"><sup>[8]</sup></a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-8" id="fn-8"></a> <a href="#fnref-8">[8]</a>
+This cruel custom is not confined to the Kukuanas, but is by no means uncommon
+amongst African tribes on the occasion of the outbreak of war or any other
+important public event.&mdash;A.Q.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What are Twala&rsquo;s terms?&rdquo; I asked from curiosity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;His terms are merciful, worthy of a great king. These are the words of
+Twala, the one-eyed, the mighty, the husband of a thousand wives, lord of the
+Kukuanas, keeper of the Great Road (Solomon&rsquo;s Road), beloved of the
+Strange Ones who sit in silence at the mountains yonder (the Three Witches),
+Calf of the Black Cow, Elephant whose tread shakes the earth, Terror of the
+evil-doer, Ostrich whose feet devour the desert, huge One, black One, wise One,
+king from generation to generation! these are the words of Twala: &lsquo;I will
+have mercy and be satisfied with a little blood. One in every ten shall die,
+the rest shall go free; but the white man Incubu, who slew Scragga my son, and
+the black man his servant, who pretends to my throne, and Infadoos my brother,
+who brews rebellion against me, these shall die by torture as an offering to
+the Silent Ones.&rsquo; Such are the merciful words of Twala.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After consulting with the others a little, I answered him in a loud voice, so
+that the soldiers might hear, thus&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Go back, thou dog, to Twala, who sent thee, and say that we, Ignosi,
+veritable king of the Kukuanas, Incubu, Bougwan, and Macumazahn, the wise ones
+from the Stars, who make dark the moon, Infadoos, of the royal house, and the
+chiefs, captains, and people here gathered, make answer and say, &lsquo;That we
+will not surrender; that before the sun has gone down twice, Twala&rsquo;s
+corpse shall stiffen at Twala&rsquo;s gate, and Ignosi, whose father Twala
+slew, shall reign in his stead.&rsquo; Now go, ere we whip thee away, and
+beware how thou dost lift a hand against such as we are.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The herald laughed loudly. &ldquo;Ye frighten not men with such swelling
+words,&rdquo; he cried out. &ldquo;Show yourselves as bold to-morrow, O ye who
+darken the moon. Be bold, fight, and be merry, before the crows pick your bones
+till they are whiter than your faces. Farewell; perhaps we may meet in the
+fight; fly not to the Stars, but wait for me, I pray, white men.&rdquo; With
+this shaft of sarcasm he retired, and almost immediately the sun sank.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That night was a busy one, for weary as we were, so far as was possible by the
+moonlight all preparations for the morrow&rsquo;s fight were continued, and
+messengers were constantly coming and going from the place where we sat in
+council. At last, about an hour after midnight, everything that could be done
+was done, and the camp, save for the occasional challenge of a sentry, sank
+into silence. Sir Henry and I, accompanied by Ignosi and one of the chiefs,
+descended the hill and made a round of the pickets. As we went, suddenly, from
+all sorts of unexpected places, spears gleamed out in the moonlight, only to
+vanish again when we uttered the password. It was clear to us that none were
+sleeping at their posts. Then we returned, picking our way warily through
+thousands of sleeping warriors, many of whom were taking their last earthly
+rest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The moonlight flickering along their spears played upon their features and
+made them ghastly; the chilly night wind tossed their tall and hearse-like
+plumes. There they lay in wild confusion, with arms outstretched and twisted
+limbs; their stern, stalwart forms looking weird and unhuman in the moonlight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How many of these do you suppose will be alive at this time
+to-morrow?&rdquo; asked Sir Henry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I shook my head and looked again at the sleeping men, and to my tired and yet
+excited imagination it seemed as though Death had already touched them. My
+mind&rsquo;s eye singled out those who were sealed to slaughter, and there
+rushed in upon my heart a great sense of the mystery of human life, and an
+overwhelming sorrow at its futility and sadness. To-night these thousands slept
+their healthy sleep, to-morrow they, and many others with them, ourselves
+perhaps among them, would be stiffening in the cold; their wives would be
+widows, their children fatherless, and their place know them no more for ever.
+Only the old moon would shine on serenely, the night wind would stir the
+grasses, and the wide earth would take its rest, even as it did æons before we
+were, and will do æons after we have been forgotten.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yet man dies not whilst the world, at once his mother and his monument,
+remains. His name is lost, indeed, but the breath he breathed still stirs the
+pine-tops on the mountains, the sound of the words he spoke yet echoes on
+through space; the thoughts his brain gave birth to we have inherited to-day;
+his passions are our cause of life; the joys and sorrows that he knew are our
+familiar friends&mdash;the end from which he fled aghast will surely overtake
+us also!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Truly the universe is full of ghosts, not sheeted churchyard spectres, but the
+inextinguishable elements of individual life, which having once been, can never
+<i>die</i>, though they blend and change, and change again for ever.
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+All sorts of reflections of this nature passed through my mind&mdash;for as I
+grow older I regret to say that a detestable habit of thinking seems to be
+getting a hold of me&mdash;while I stood and stared at those grim yet fantastic
+lines of warriors, sleeping, as their saying goes, &ldquo;upon their
+spears.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Curtis,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;I am in a condition of pitiable
+fear.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sir Henry stroked his yellow beard and laughed, as he answered&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have heard you make that sort of remark before, Quatermain.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I mean it now. Do you know, I very much doubt if one of us will be
+alive to-morrow night. We shall be attacked in overwhelming force, and it is
+quite a chance if we can hold this place.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll give a good account of some of them, at any rate. Look here,
+Quatermain, this business is nasty, and one with which, properly speaking, we
+ought not to be mixed up, but we are in for it, so we must make the best of our
+job. Speaking personally, I had rather be killed fighting than any other way,
+and now that there seems little chance of our finding my poor brother, it makes
+the idea easier to me. But fortune favours the brave, and we may succeed.
+Anyway, the battle will be awful, and having a reputation to keep up, we shall
+need to be in the thick of the thing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He made this last remark in a mournful voice, but there was a gleam in his eye
+which belied its melancholy. I have an idea Sir Henry Curtis actually likes
+fighting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After this we went to sleep for a couple of hours or so.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Just about dawn we were awakened by Infadoos, who came to say that great
+activity was to be observed in Loo, and that parties of the king&rsquo;s
+skirmishers were driving in our outposts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We rose and dressed ourselves for the fray, each putting on his chain armour
+shirt, for which garments at the present juncture we felt exceedingly thankful.
+Sir Henry went the whole length about the matter, and dressed himself like a
+native warrior. &ldquo;When you are in Kukuanaland, do as the Kukuanas
+do,&rdquo; he remarked, as he drew the shining steel over his broad breast,
+which it fitted like a glove. Nor did he stop there. At his request Infadoos
+had provided him with a complete set of native war uniform. Round his throat he
+fastened the leopard-skin cloak of a commanding officer, on his brows he bound
+the plume of black ostrich feathers worn only by generals of high rank, and
+about his middle a magnificent moocha of white ox-tails. A pair of sandals, a
+leglet of goat&rsquo;s hair, a heavy battle-axe with a rhinoceros-horn handle,
+a round iron shield covered with white ox-hide, and the regulation number of
+<i>tollas</i>, or throwing-knives, made up his equipment, to which, however, he
+added his revolver. The dress was, no doubt, a savage one, but I am bound to
+say that I seldom saw a finer sight than Sir Henry Curtis presented in this
+guise. It showed off his magnificent physique to the greatest advantage, and
+when Ignosi arrived presently, arrayed in a similar costume, I thought to
+myself that I had never before seen two such splendid men.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As for Good and myself, the armour did not suit us nearly so well. To begin
+with, Good insisted upon keeping on his new-found trousers, and a stout, short
+gentleman with an eye-glass, and one half of his face shaved, arrayed in a mail
+shirt, carefully tucked into a very seedy pair of corduroys, looks more
+remarkable than imposing. In my case, the chain shirt being too big for me, I
+put it on over all my clothes, which caused it to bulge in a somewhat ungainly
+fashion. I discarded my trousers, however, retaining only my veldtschoons,
+having determined to go into battle with bare legs, in order to be the lighter
+for running, in case it became necessary to retire quickly. The mail coat, a
+spear, a shield, that I did not know how to use, a couple of <i>tollas</i>, a
+revolver, and a huge plume, which I pinned into the top of my shooting hat, in
+order to give a bloodthirsty finish to my appearance, completed my modest
+equipment. In addition to all these articles, of course we had our rifles, but
+as ammunition was scarce, and as they would be useless in case of a charge, we
+arranged that they should be carried behind us by bearers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When at length we had equipped ourselves, we swallowed some food hastily, and
+then started out to see how things were going on. At one point in the
+table-land of the mountain, there was a little koppie of brown stone, which
+served the double purpose of head-quarters and of a conning tower. Here we
+found Infadoos surrounded by his own regiment, the Greys, which was undoubtedly
+the finest in the Kukuana army, and the same that we had first seen at the
+outlying kraal. This regiment, now three thousand five hundred strong, was
+being held in reserve, and the men were lying down on the grass in companies,
+and watching the king&rsquo;s forces creep out of Loo in long ant-like columns.
+There seemed to be no end to the length of these columns&mdash;three in all,
+and each of them numbering, as we judged, at least eleven or twelve thousand
+men.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As soon as they were clear of the town the regiments formed up. Then one body
+marched off to the right, one to the left, and the third came on slowly towards
+us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; said Infadoos, &ldquo;they are going to attack us on three
+sides at once.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This seemed rather serious news, for our position on the top of the mountain,
+which measured a mile and a half in circumference, being an extended one, it
+was important to us to concentrate our comparatively small defending force as
+much as possible. But since it was impossible for us to dictate in what way we
+should be assailed, we had to make the best of it, and accordingly sent orders
+to the various regiments to prepare to receive the separate onslaughts.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap13"></a>CHAPTER XIII.<br />
+THE ATTACK</h2>
+
+<p>
+Slowly, and without the slightest appearance of haste or excitement, the three
+columns crept on. When within about five hundred yards of us, the main or
+centre column halted at the root of a tongue of open plain which ran up into
+the hill, to give time to the other divisions to circumvent our position, which
+was shaped more or less in the form of a horse-shoe, with its two points facing
+towards the town of Loo. The object of this manoeuvre was that the threefold
+assault should be delivered simultaneously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, for a gatling!&rdquo; groaned Good, as he contemplated the serried
+phalanxes beneath us. &ldquo;I would clear that plain in twenty minutes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We have not got one, so it is no use yearning for it; but suppose you
+try a shot, Quatermain,&rdquo; said Sir Henry. &ldquo;See how near you can go
+to that tall fellow who appears to be in command. Two to one you miss him, and
+an even sovereign, to be honestly paid if ever we get out of this, that you
+don&rsquo;t drop the bullet within five yards.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This piqued me, so, loading the express with solid ball, I waited till my
+friend walked some ten yards out from his force, in order to get a better view
+of our position, accompanied only by an orderly; then, lying down and resting
+the express on a rock, I covered him. The rifle, like all expresses, was only
+sighted to three hundred and fifty yards, so to allow for the drop in
+trajectory I took him half-way down the neck, which ought, I calculated, to
+find him in the chest. He stood quite still and gave me every opportunity, but
+whether it was the excitement or the wind, or the fact of the man being a long
+shot, I don&rsquo;t know, but this was what happened. Getting dead on, as I
+thought, a fine sight, I pressed, and when the puff of smoke had cleared away,
+to my disgust, I saw my man standing there unharmed, whilst his orderly, who
+was at least three paces to the left, was stretched upon the ground apparently
+dead. Turning swiftly, the officer I had aimed at began to run towards his men
+in evident alarm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Bravo, Quatermain!&rdquo; sang out Good; &ldquo;you&rsquo;ve frightened
+him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This made me very angry, for, if possible to avoid it, I hate to miss in
+public. When a man is master of only one art he likes to keep up his reputation
+in that art. Moved quite out of myself at my failure, I did a rash thing.
+Rapidly covering the general as he ran, I let drive with the second barrel.
+Instantly the poor man threw up his arms, and fell forward on to his face. This
+time I had made no mistake; and&mdash;I say it as a proof of how little we
+think of others when our own safety, pride, or reputation is in
+question&mdash;I was brute enough to feel delighted at the sight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The regiments who had seen the feat cheered wildly at this exhibition of the
+white man&rsquo;s magic, which they took as an omen of success, while the force
+the general had belonged to&mdash;which, indeed, as we ascertained afterwards,
+he had commanded&mdash;fell back in confusion. Sir Henry and Good now took up
+their rifles and began to fire, the latter industriously &ldquo;browning&rdquo;
+the dense mass before him with another Winchester repeater, and I also had
+another shot or two, with the result, so far as we could judge, that we put
+some six or eight men <i>hors de combat</i> before they were out of range.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Just as we stopped firing there came an ominous roar from our far right, then a
+similar roar rose on our left. The two other divisions were engaging us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the sound, the mass of men before us opened out a little, and advanced
+towards the hill and up the spit of bare grass land at a slow trot, singing a
+deep-throated song as they ran. We kept up a steady fire from our rifles as
+they came, Ignosi joining in occasionally, and accounted for several men, but
+of course we produced no more effect upon that mighty rush of armed humanity
+than he who throws pebbles does on the breaking wave.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On they came, with a shout and the clashing of spears; now they were driving in
+the pickets we had placed among the rocks at the foot of the hill. After that
+the advance was a little slower, for though as yet we had offered no serious
+opposition, the attacking forces must climb up hill, and they came slowly to
+save their breath. Our first line of defence was about half-way down the side
+of the slope, our second fifty yards further back, while our third occupied the
+edge of the plateau.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On they stormed, shouting their war-cry, &ldquo;<i>Twala! Twala! Chiele!
+Chiele!</i>&rdquo; (Twala! Twala! Smite! Smite!) &ldquo;<i>Ignosi! Ignosi!
+Chiele! Chiele!</i>&rdquo; answered our people. They were quite close now, and
+the <i>tollas</i>, or throwing-knives, began to flash backwards and forwards,
+and now with an awful yell the battle closed in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To and fro swayed the mass of struggling warriors, men falling fast as leaves
+in an autumn wind; but before long the superior weight of the attacking force
+began to tell, and our first line of defence was slowly pressed back till it
+merged into the second. Here the struggle was very fierce, but again our people
+were driven back and up, till at length, within twenty minutes of the
+commencement of the fight, our third line came into action.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But by this time the assailants were much exhausted, and besides had lost many
+men killed and wounded, and to break through that third impenetrable hedge of
+spears proved beyond their powers. For a while the seething lines of savages
+swung backwards and forwards, in the fierce ebb and flow of battle, and the
+issue was doubtful. Sir Henry watched the desperate struggle with a kindling
+eye, and then without a word he rushed off, followed by Good, and flung himself
+into the hottest of the fray. As for myself, I stopped where I was.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The soldiers caught sight of his tall form as he plunged into battle, and there
+rose a cry of&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Nanzia Incubu! Nanzia Unkungunklovo!</i>&rdquo; (Here is the
+Elephant!) &ldquo;<i>Chiele! Chiele!</i>&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From that moment the end was no longer in doubt. Inch by inch, fighting with
+splendid gallantry, the attacking force was pressed back down the hillside,
+till at last it retreated upon its reserves in something like confusion. At
+that instant, too, a messenger arrived to say that the left attack had been
+repulsed; and I was just beginning to congratulate myself, believing that the
+affair was over for the present, when, to our horror, we perceived our men who
+had been engaged in the right defence being driven towards us across the plain,
+followed by swarms of the enemy, who had evidently succeeded at this point.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ignosi, who was standing by me, took in the situation at a glance, and issued a
+rapid order. Instantly the reserve regiment around us, the Greys, extended
+itself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Again Ignosi gave a word of command, which was taken up and repeated by the
+captains, and in another second, to my intense disgust, I found myself involved
+in a furious onslaught upon the advancing foe. Getting as much as I could
+behind Ignosi&rsquo;s huge frame, I made the best of a bad job, and toddled
+along to be killed as though I liked it. In a minute or two&mdash;we were
+plunging through the flying groups of our men, who at once began to re-form
+behind us, and then I am sure I do not know what happened. All I can remember
+is a dreadful rolling noise of the meeting of shields, and the sudden
+apparition of a huge ruffian, whose eyes seemed literally to be starting out of
+his head, making straight at me with a bloody spear. But&mdash;I say it with
+pride&mdash;I rose&mdash;or rather sank&mdash;to the occasion. It was one
+before which most people would have collapsed once and for all. Seeing that if
+I stood where I was I must be killed, as the horrid apparition came I flung
+myself down in front of him so cleverly that, being unable to stop himself, he
+took a header right over my prostrate form. Before he could rise again,
+<i>I</i> had risen and settled the matter from behind with my revolver.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Shortly after this somebody knocked me down, and I remember no more of that
+charge.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When I came to I found myself back at the koppie, with Good bending over me
+holding some water in a gourd.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How do you feel, old fellow?&rdquo; he asked anxiously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I got up and shook myself before replying.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pretty well, thank you,&rdquo; I answered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thank Heaven! When I saw them carry you in, I felt quite sick; I thought
+you were done for.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not this time, my boy. I fancy I only got a rap on the head, which
+knocked me stupid. How has it ended?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They are repulsed at every point for a while. The loss is dreadfully
+heavy; we have quite two thousand killed and wounded, and they must have lost
+three. Look, there&rsquo;s a sight!&rdquo; and he pointed to long lines of men
+advancing by fours.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the centre of every group of four, and being borne by it, was a kind of hide
+tray, of which a Kukuana force always carries a quantity, with a loop for a
+handle at each corner. On these trays&mdash;and their number seemed
+endless&mdash;lay wounded men, who as they arrived were hastily examined by the
+medicine men, of whom ten were attached to a regiment. If the wound was not of
+a fatal character the sufferer was taken away and attended to as carefully as
+circumstances would allow. But if, on the other hand, the injured man&rsquo;s
+condition proved hopeless, what followed was very dreadful, though doubtless it
+may have been the truest mercy. One of the doctors, under pretence of carrying
+out an examination, swiftly opened an artery with a sharp knife, and in a
+minute or two the sufferer expired painlessly. There were many cases that day
+in which this was done. In fact, it was done in the majority of cases when the
+wound was in the body, for the gash made by the entry of the enormously broad
+spears used by the Kukuanas generally rendered recovery impossible. In most
+instances the poor sufferers were already unconscious, and in others the fatal
+&ldquo;nick&rdquo; of the artery was inflicted so swiftly and painlessly that
+they did not seem to notice it. Still it was a ghastly sight, and one from
+which we were glad to escape; indeed, I never remember anything of the kind
+that affected me more than seeing those gallant soldiers thus put out of pain
+by the red-handed medicine men, except, indeed, on one occasion when, after an
+attack, I saw a force of Swazis burying their hopelessly wounded <i>alive</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hurrying from this dreadful scene to the further side of the koppie, we found
+Sir Henry, who still held a battle-axe in his hand, Ignosi, Infadoos, and one
+or two of the chiefs in deep consultation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thank Heaven, here you are, Quatermain! I can&rsquo;t quite make out
+what Ignosi wants to do. It seems that though we have beaten off the attack,
+Twala is now receiving large reinforcements, and is showing a disposition to
+invest us, with the view of starving us out.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s awkward.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes; especially as Infadoos says that the water supply has given
+out.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My lord, that is so,&rdquo; said Infadoos; &ldquo;the spring cannot
+supply the wants of so great a multitude, and it is failing rapidly. Before
+night we shall all be thirsty. Listen, Macumazahn. Thou art wise, and hast
+doubtless seen many wars in the lands from whence thou camest&mdash;that is if
+indeed they make wars in the Stars. Now tell us, what shall we do? Twala has
+brought up many fresh men to take the place of those who have fallen. Yet Twala
+has learnt his lesson; the hawk did not think to find the heron ready; but our
+beak has pierced his breast; he fears to strike at us again. We too are
+wounded, and he will wait for us to die; he will wind himself round us like a
+snake round a buck, and fight the fight of &lsquo;sit down.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I hear thee,&rdquo; I said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So, Macumazahn, thou seest we have no water here, and but a little food,
+and we must choose between these three things&mdash;to languish like a starving
+lion in his den, or to strive to break away towards the north,
+or&rdquo;&mdash;and here he rose and pointed towards the dense mass of our
+foes&mdash;&ldquo;to launch ourselves straight at Twala&rsquo;s throat. Incubu,
+the great warrior&mdash;for to-day he fought like a buffalo in a net, and
+Twala&rsquo;s soldiers went down before his axe like young corn before the
+hail; with these eyes I saw it&mdash;Incubu says &lsquo;Charge&rsquo;; but the
+Elephant is ever prone to charge. Now what says Macumazahn, the wily old fox,
+who has seen much, and loves to bite his enemy from behind? The last word is in
+Ignosi the king, for it is a king&rsquo;s right to speak of war; but let us
+hear thy voice, O Macumazahn, who watchest by night, and the voice too of him
+of the transparent eye.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What sayest thou, Ignosi,&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nay, my father,&rdquo; answered our quondam servant, who now, clad as he
+was in the full panoply of savage war, looked every inch a warrior king,
+&ldquo;do thou speak, and let me, who am but a child in wisdom beside thee,
+hearken to thy words.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus adjured, after taking hasty counsel with Good and Sir Henry, I delivered
+my opinion briefly to the effect that, being trapped, our best chance,
+especially in view of the failure of our water supply, was to initiate an
+attack upon Twala&rsquo;s forces. Then I recommended that the attack should be
+delivered at once, &ldquo;before our wounds grew stiff,&rdquo; and also before
+the sight of Twala&rsquo;s overpowering force caused the hearts of our soldiers
+&ldquo;to wax small like fat before a fire.&rdquo; Otherwise, I pointed out,
+some of the captains might change their minds, and, making peace with Twala,
+desert to him, or even betray us into his hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This expression of opinion seemed, on the whole, to be favourably received;
+indeed, among the Kukuanas my utterances met with a respect which has never
+been accorded to them before or since. But the real decision as to our plans
+lay with Ignosi, who, since he had been recognised as rightful king, could
+exercise the almost unbounded rights of sovereignty, including, of course, the
+final decision on matters of generalship, and it was to him that all eyes were
+now turned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At length, after a pause, during which he appeared to be thinking deeply, he
+spoke.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Incubu, Macumazahn, and Bougwan, brave white men, and my friends;
+Infadoos, my uncle, and chiefs; my heart is fixed. I will strike at Twala this
+day, and set my fortunes on the blow, ay, and my life&mdash;my life and your
+lives also. Listen; thus will I strike. Ye see how the hill curves round like
+the half-moon, and how the plain runs like a green tongue towards us within the
+curve?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We see,&rdquo; I answered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good; it is now mid-day, and the men eat and rest after the toil of
+battle. When the sun has turned and travelled a little way towards the
+darkness, let thy regiment, my uncle, advance with one other down to the green
+tongue, and it shall be that when Twala sees it he will hurl his force at it to
+crush it. But the spot is narrow, and the regiments can come against thee one
+at a time only; so may they be destroyed one by one, and the eyes of all
+Twala&rsquo;s army shall be fixed upon a struggle the like of which has not
+been seen by living man. And with thee, my uncle, shall go Incubu my friend,
+that when Twala sees his battle-axe flashing in the first rank of the Greys his
+heart may grow faint. And I will come with the second regiment, that which
+follows thee, so that if ye are destroyed, as it might happen, there may yet be
+a king left to fight for; and with me shall come Macumazahn the wise.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is well, O king,&rdquo; said Infadoos, apparently contemplating the
+certainty of the complete annihilation of his regiment with perfect calmness.
+Truly, these Kukuanas are a wonderful people. Death has no terrors for them
+when it is incurred in the course of duty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And whilst the eyes of the multitude of Twala&rsquo;s soldiers are thus
+fixed upon the fight,&rdquo; went on Ignosi, &ldquo;behold, one-third of the
+men who are left alive to us (i.e. about 6,000) shall creep along the right
+horn of the hill and fall upon the left flank of Twala&rsquo;s force, and
+one-third shall creep along the left horn and fall upon Twala&rsquo;s right
+flank. And when I see that the horns are ready to toss Twala, then will I, with
+the men who remain to me, charge home in Twala&rsquo;s face, and if fortune
+goes with us the day will be ours, and before Night drives her black oxen from
+the mountains to the mountains we shall sit in peace at Loo. And now let us eat
+and make ready; and, Infadoos, do thou prepare, that the plan be carried out
+without fail; and stay, let my white father Bougwan go with the right horn,
+that his shining eye may give courage to the captains.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The arrangements for attack thus briefly indicated were set in motion with a
+rapidity that spoke well for the perfection of the Kukuana military system.
+Within little more than an hour rations had been served out and devoured, the
+divisions were formed, the scheme of onslaught was explained to the leaders,
+and the whole force, numbering about 18,000 men, was ready to move, with the
+exception of a guard left in charge of the wounded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Presently Good came up to Sir Henry and myself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good-bye, you fellows,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;I am off with the right
+wing according to orders; and so I have come to shake hands, in case we should
+not meet again, you know,&rdquo; he added significantly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We shook hands in silence, and not without the exhibition of as much emotion as
+Anglo-Saxons are wont to show.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is a queer business,&rdquo; said Sir Henry, his deep voice shaking a
+little, &ldquo;and I confess I never expect to see to-morrow&rsquo;s sun. So
+far as I can make out, the Greys, with whom I am to go, are to fight until they
+are wiped out in order to enable the wings to slip round unawares and outflank
+Twala. Well, so be it; at any rate, it will be a man&rsquo;s death. Good-bye,
+old fellow. God bless you! I hope you will pull through and live to collar the
+diamonds; but if you do, take my advice and don&rsquo;t have anything more to
+do with Pretenders!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In another second Good had wrung us both by the hand and gone; and then
+Infadoos came up and led off Sir Henry to his place in the forefront of the
+Greys, whilst, with many misgivings, I departed with Ignosi to my station in
+the second attacking regiment.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap14"></a>CHAPTER XIV.<br />
+THE LAST STAND OF THE GREYS</h2>
+
+<p>
+In a few more minutes the regiments destined to carry out the flanking
+movements had tramped off in silence, keeping carefully to the lee of the
+rising ground in order to conceal their advance from the keen eyes of
+Twala&rsquo;s scouts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Half an hour or more was allowed to elapse between the setting out of the horns
+or wings of the army before any stir was made by the Greys and their supporting
+regiment, known as the Buffaloes, which formed its chest, and were destined to
+bear the brunt of the battle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Both of these regiments were almost perfectly fresh, and of full strength, the
+Greys having been in reserve in the morning, and having lost but a small number
+of men in sweeping back that part of the attack which had proved successful in
+breaking the line of defence, on the occasion when I charged with them and was
+stunned for my pains. As for the Buffaloes, they had formed the third line of
+defence on the left, and since the attacking force at that point had not
+succeeded in breaking through the second, they had scarcely come into action at
+all.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Infadoos, who was a wary old general, and knew the absolute importance of
+keeping up the spirits of his men on the eve of such a desperate encounter,
+employed the pause in addressing his own regiment, the Greys, in poetical
+language: explaining to them the honour that they were receiving in being put
+thus in the forefront of the battle, and in having the great white warrior from
+the Stars to fight with them in their ranks; and promising large rewards of
+cattle and promotion to all who survived in the event of Ignosi&rsquo;s arms
+being successful.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I looked down the long lines of waving black plumes and stern faces beneath
+them, and sighed to think that within one short hour most, if not all, of those
+magnificent veteran warriors, not a man of whom was under forty years of age,
+would be laid dead or dying in the dust. It could not be otherwise; they were
+being condemned, with that wise recklessness of human life which marks the
+great general, and often saves his forces and attains his ends, to certain
+slaughter, in order to give their cause and the remainder of the army a chance
+of success. They were foredoomed to die, and they knew the truth. It was to be
+their task to engage regiment after regiment of Twala&rsquo;s army on the
+narrow strip of green beneath us, till they were exterminated or till the wings
+found a favourable opportunity for their onslaught. And yet they never
+hesitated, nor could I detect a sign of fear upon the face of a single warrior.
+There they were&mdash;going to certain death, about to quit the blessed light
+of day for ever, and yet able to contemplate their doom without a tremor. Even
+at that moment I could not help contrasting their state of mind with my own,
+which was far from comfortable, and breathing a sigh of envy and admiration.
+Never before had I seen such an absolute devotion to the idea of duty, and such
+a complete indifference to its bitter fruits.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Behold your king!&rdquo; ended old Infadoos, pointing to Ignosi;
+&ldquo;go fight and fall for him, as is the duty of brave men, and cursed and
+shameful for ever be the name of him who shrinks from death for his king, or
+who turns his back to the foe. Behold your king, chiefs, captains, and
+soldiers! Now do your homage to the sacred Snake, and then follow on, that
+Incubu and I may show you a road to the heart of Twala&rsquo;s host.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a moment&rsquo;s pause, then suddenly a murmur arose from the serried
+phalanxes before us, a sound like the distant whisper of the sea, caused by the
+gentle tapping of the handles of six thousand spears against their
+holders&rsquo; shields. Slowly it swelled, till its growing volume deepened and
+widened into a roar of rolling noise, that echoed like thunder against the
+mountains, and filled the air with heavy waves of sound. Then it decreased, and
+by faint degrees died away into nothing, and suddenly out crashed the royal
+salute.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ignosi, I thought to myself, might well be a proud man that day, for no Roman
+emperor ever had such a salutation from gladiators &ldquo;about to die.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ignosi acknowledged this magnificent act of homage by lifting his battle-axe,
+and then the Greys filed off in a triple-line formation, each line containing
+about one thousand fighting men, exclusive of officers. When the last companies
+had advanced some five hundred yards, Ignosi put himself at the head of the
+Buffaloes, which regiment was drawn up in a similar three-fold formation, and
+gave the word to march, and off we went, I, needless to say, uttering the most
+heartfelt prayers that I might emerge from that entertainment with a whole
+skin. Many a queer position have I found myself in, but never before in one
+quite so unpleasant as the present, or one in which my chance of coming off
+safe was smaller.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By the time that we reached the edge of the plateau the Greys were already
+half-way down the slope ending in the tongue of grass land that ran up into the
+bend of the mountain, something as the frog of a horse&rsquo;s foot runs up
+into the shoe. The excitement in Twala&rsquo;s camp on the plain beyond was
+very great, and regiment after regiment was starting forward at a long swinging
+trot in order to reach the root of the tongue of land before the attacking
+force could emerge into the plain of Loo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This tongue, which was some four hundred yards in depth, even at its root or
+widest part was not more than six hundred and fifty paces across, while at its
+tip it scarcely measured ninety. The Greys, who, in passing down the side of
+the hill and on to the tip of the tongue, had formed into a column, on reaching
+the spot where it broadened out again, reassumed their triple-line formation,
+and halted dead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then we&mdash;that is, the Buffaloes&mdash;moved down the tip of the tongue and
+took our stand in reserve, about one hundred yards behind the last line of the
+Greys, and on slightly higher ground. Meanwhile we had leisure to observe
+Twala&rsquo;s entire force, which evidently had been reinforced since the
+morning attack, and could not now, notwithstanding their losses, number less
+than forty thousand, moving swiftly up towards us. But as they drew near the
+root of the tongue they hesitated, having discovered that only one regiment
+could advance into the gorge at a time, and that there, some seventy yards from
+the mouth of it, unassailable except in front, on account of the high walls of
+boulder-strewn ground on each side, stood the famous regiment of Greys, the
+pride and glory of the Kukuana army, ready to hold the way against their power
+as the three Romans once held the bridge against thousands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They hesitated, and finally stopped their advance; there was no eagerness to
+cross spears with these three grim ranks of warriors who stood so firm and
+ready. Presently, however, a tall general, wearing the customary head-dress of
+nodding ostrich plumes, appeared, attended by a group of chiefs and orderlies,
+being, I thought, none other than Twala himself. He gave an order, and the
+first regiment, raising a shout, charged up towards the Greys, who remained
+perfectly still and silent till the attacking troops were within forty yards,
+and a volley of <i>tollas</i>, or throwing-knives, came rattling among their
+ranks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then suddenly with a bound and a roar, they sprang forward with uplifted
+spears, and the regiment met in deadly strife. Next second the roll of the
+meeting shields came to our ears like the sound of thunder, and the plain
+seemed to be alive with flashes of light reflected from the shimmering spears.
+To and fro swung the surging mass of struggling, stabbing humanity, but not for
+long. Suddenly the attacking lines began to grow thinner, and then with a slow,
+long heave the Greys passed over them, just as a great wave heaves up its bulk
+and passes over a sunken ridge. It was done; that regiment was completely
+destroyed, but the Greys had but two lines left now; a third of their number
+were dead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Closing up shoulder to shoulder, once more they halted in silence and awaited
+attack; and I was rejoiced to catch sight of Sir Henry&rsquo;s yellow beard as
+he moved to and fro arranging the ranks. So he was yet alive!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile we moved on to the ground of the encounter, which was cumbered by
+about four thousand prostrate human beings, dead, dying, and wounded, and
+literally stained red with blood. Ignosi issued an order, which was rapidly
+passed down the ranks, to the effect that none of the enemy&rsquo;s wounded
+were to be killed, and so far as we could see this command was scrupulously
+carried out. It would have been a shocking sight, if we had found time to think
+of such things.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But now a second regiment, distinguished by white plumes, kilts, and shields,
+was moving to the attack of the two thousand remaining Greys, who stood waiting
+in the same ominous silence as before, till the foe was within forty yards or
+so, when they hurled themselves with irresistible force upon them. Again there
+came the awful roll of the meeting shields, and as we watched the tragedy
+repeated itself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But this time the issue was left longer in doubt; indeed, it seemed for awhile
+almost impossible that the Greys should again prevail. The attacking regiment,
+which was formed of young men, fought with the utmost fury, and at first seemed
+by sheer weight to be driving the veterans back. The slaughter was truly awful,
+hundreds falling every minute; and from among the shouts of the warriors and
+the groans of the dying, set to the music of clashing spears, came a continuous
+hissing undertone of &ldquo;<i>S&rsquo;gee, s&rsquo;gee</i>,&rdquo; the note of
+triumph of each victor as he passed his assegai through and through the body of
+his fallen foe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But perfect discipline and steady and unchanging valour can do wonders, and one
+veteran soldier is worth two young ones, as soon became apparent in the present
+case. For just when we thought that it was all over with the Greys, and were
+preparing to take their place so soon as they made room by being destroyed, I
+heard Sir Henry&rsquo;s deep voice ringing out through the din, and caught a
+glimpse of his circling battle-axe as he waved it high above his plumes. Then
+came a change; the Greys ceased to give; they stood still as a rock, against
+which the furious waves of spearmen broke again and again, only to recoil.
+Presently they began to move once more&mdash;forward this time; as they had no
+firearms there was no smoke, so we could see it all. Another minute and the
+onslaught grew fainter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, these are <i>men</i>, indeed; they will conquer again,&rdquo; called
+out Ignosi, who was grinding his teeth with excitement at my side. &ldquo;See,
+it is done!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly, like puffs of smoke from the mouth of a cannon, the attacking
+regiment broke away in flying groups, their white head-dresses streaming behind
+them in the wind, and left their opponents victors, indeed, but, alas! no more
+a regiment. Of the gallant triple line, which forty minutes before had gone
+into action three thousand strong, there remained at most some six hundred
+blood-spattered men; the rest were under foot. And yet they cheered and waved
+their spears in triumph, and then, instead of falling back upon us as we
+expected, they ran forward, for a hundred yards or so, after the flying groups
+of foemen, took possession of a rising knoll of ground, and, resuming their
+triple formation, formed a threefold ring around its base. And there, thanks be
+to Heaven, standing on the top of the mound for a minute, I saw Sir Henry,
+apparently unharmed, and with him our old friend Infadoos. Then Twala&rsquo;s
+regiments rolled down upon the doomed band, and once more the battle closed in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As those who read this history will probably long ago have gathered, I am, to
+be honest, a bit of a coward, and certainly in no way given to fighting, though
+somehow it has often been my lot to get into unpleasant positions, and to be
+obliged to shed man&rsquo;s blood. But I have always hated it, and kept my own
+blood as undiminished in quantity as possible, sometimes by a judicious use of
+my heels. At this moment, however, for the first time in my life, I felt my
+bosom burn with martial ardour. Warlike fragments from the &ldquo;Ingoldsby
+Legends,&rdquo; together with numbers of sanguinary verses in the Old
+Testament, sprang up in my brain like mushrooms in the dark; my blood, which
+hitherto had been half-frozen with horror, went beating through my veins, and
+there came upon me a savage desire to kill and spare not. I glanced round at
+the serried ranks of warriors behind us, and somehow, all in an instant, I
+began to wonder if my face looked like theirs. There they stood, the hands
+twitching, the lips apart, the fierce features instinct with the hungry lust of
+battle, and in the eyes a look like the glare of a bloodhound when after long
+pursuit he sights his quarry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Only Ignosi&rsquo;s heart, to judge from his comparative self-possession,
+seemed, to all appearances, to beat as calmly as ever beneath his leopard-skin
+cloak, though even <i>he</i> still ground his teeth. I could bear it no longer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are we to stand here till we put out roots, Umbopa&mdash;Ignosi, I
+mean&mdash;while Twala swallows our brothers yonder?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nay, Macumazahn,&rdquo; was the answer; &ldquo;see, now is the ripe
+moment: let us pluck it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As he spoke a fresh regiment rushed past the ring upon the little mound, and
+wheeling round, attacked it from the hither side.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then, lifting his battle-axe, Ignosi gave the signal to advance, and, screaming
+the wild Kukuana war-cry, the Buffaloes charged home with a rush like the rush
+of the sea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What followed immediately on this it is out of my power to tell. All I can
+remember is an irregular yet ordered advance, that seemed to shake the ground;
+a sudden change of front and forming up on the part of the regiment against
+which the charge was directed; then an awful shock, a dull roar of voices, and
+a continuous flashing of spears, seen through a red mist of blood.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When my mind cleared I found myself standing inside the remnant of the Greys
+near the top of the mound, and just behind no less a person than Sir Henry
+himself. How I got there I had at the moment no idea, but Sir Henry afterwards
+told me that I was borne up by the first furious charge of the Buffaloes almost
+to his feet, and then left, as they in turn were pressed back. Thereon he
+dashed out of the circle and dragged me into shelter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As for the fight that followed, who can describe it? Again and again the
+multitudes surged against our momentarily lessening circle, and again and again
+we beat them back.
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;The stubborn spearmen still made good<br />
+The dark impenetrable wood,<br />
+Each stepping where his comrade stood<br />
+    The instant that he fell,&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+as someone or other beautifully says.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a splendid thing to see those brave battalions come on time after time
+over the barriers of their dead, sometimes lifting corpses before them to
+receive our spear-thrusts, only to leave their own corpses to swell the rising
+piles. It was a gallant sight to see that old warrior, Infadoos, as cool as
+though he were on parade, shouting out orders, taunts, and even jests, to keep
+up the spirit of his few remaining men, and then, as each charge rolled on,
+stepping forward to wherever the fighting was thickest, to bear his share in
+its repulse. And yet more gallant was the vision of Sir Henry, whose ostrich
+plumes had been shorn off by a spear thrust, so that his long yellow hair
+streamed out in the breeze behind him. There he stood, the great Dane, for he
+was nothing else, his hands, his axe, and his armour all red with blood, and
+none could live before his stroke. Time after time I saw it sweeping down, as
+some great warrior ventured to give him battle, and as he struck he shouted
+&ldquo;<i>O-hoy! O-hoy!</i>&rdquo; like his Berserkir forefathers, and the blow
+went crashing through shield and spear, through head-dress, hair, and skull,
+till at last none would of their own will come near the great white
+&ldquo;<i>umtagati</i>,&rdquo; the wizard, who killed and failed not.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But suddenly there rose a cry of &ldquo;<i>Twala, y&rsquo; Twala</i>,&rdquo;
+and out of the press sprang forward none other than the gigantic one-eyed king
+himself, also armed with battle-axe and shield, and clad in chain armour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where art thou, Incubu, thou white man, who slewest Scragga my
+son&mdash;see if thou canst slay me!&rdquo; he shouted, and at the same time
+hurled a <i>tolla</i> straight at Sir Henry, who fortunately saw it coming, and
+caught it on his shield, which it transfixed, remaining wedged in the iron
+plate behind the hide.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then, with a cry, Twala sprang forward straight at him, and with his battle-axe
+struck him such a blow upon the shield that the mere force and shock of it
+brought Sir Henry, strong man as he is, down upon his knees.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But at this time the matter went no further, for that instant there rose from
+the regiments pressing round us something like a shout of dismay, and on
+looking up I saw the cause.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To the right and to the left the plain was alive with the plumes of charging
+warriors. The outflanking squadrons had come to our relief. The time could not
+have been better chosen. All Twala&rsquo;s army, as Ignosi predicted would be
+the case, had fixed their attention on the bloody struggle which was raging
+round the remnant of the Greys and that of the Buffaloes, who were now carrying
+on a battle of their own at a little distance, which two regiments had formed
+the chest of our army. It was not until our horns were about to close upon them
+that they had dreamed of their approach, for they believed these forces to be
+hidden in reserve upon the crest of the moon-shaped hill. And now, before they
+could even assume a proper formation for defence, the outflanking <i>Impis</i>
+had leapt, like greyhounds, on their flanks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In five minutes the fate of the battle was decided. Taken on both flanks, and
+dismayed at the awful slaughter inflicted upon them by the Greys and Buffaloes,
+Twala&rsquo;s regiments broke into flight, and soon the whole plain between us
+and Loo was scattered with groups of running soldiers making good their
+retreat. As for the hosts that had so recently surrounded us and the Buffaloes,
+they melted away as though by magic, and presently we were left standing there
+like a rock from which the sea has retreated. But what a sight it was! Around
+us the dead and dying lay in heaped-up masses, and of the gallant Greys there
+remained but ninety-five men upon their feet. More than three thousand four
+hundred had fallen in this one regiment, most of them never to rise again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Men,&rdquo; said Infadoos calmly, as between the intervals of binding a
+wound on his arm he surveyed what remained to him of his corps, &ldquo;ye have
+kept up the reputation of your regiment, and this day&rsquo;s fighting will be
+well spoken of by your children&rsquo;s children.&rdquo; Then he turned round
+and shook Sir Henry Curtis by the hand. &ldquo;Thou art a great captain,
+Incubu,&rdquo; he said simply; &ldquo;I have lived a long life among warriors,
+and have known many a brave one, yet have I never seen a man like unto
+thee.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this moment the Buffaloes began to march past our position on the road to
+Loo, and as they went a message was brought to us from Ignosi requesting
+Infadoos, Sir Henry, and myself to join them. Accordingly, orders having been
+issued to the remaining ninety men of the Greys to employ themselves in
+collecting the wounded, we joined Ignosi, who informed us that he was pressing
+on to Loo to complete the victory by capturing Twala, if that should be
+possible. Before we had gone far, suddenly we discovered the figure of Good
+sitting on an ant-heap about one hundred paces from us. Close beside him was
+the body of a Kukuana.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He must be wounded,&rdquo; said Sir Henry anxiously. As he made the
+remark, an untoward thing happened. The dead body of the Kukuana soldier, or
+rather what had appeared to be his dead body, suddenly sprang up, knocked Good
+head over heels off the ant-heap, and began to spear him. We rushed forward in
+terror, and as we drew near we saw the brawny warrior making dig after dig at
+the prostrate Good, who at each prod jerked all his limbs into the air. Seeing
+us coming, the Kukuana gave one final and most vicious dig, and with a shout of
+&ldquo;Take that, wizard!&rdquo; bolted away. Good did not move, and we
+concluded that our poor comrade was done for. Sadly we came towards him, and
+were astonished to find him pale and faint indeed, but with a serene smile upon
+his face, and his eyeglass still fixed in his eye.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Capital armour this,&rdquo; he murmured, on catching sight of our faces
+bending over him. &ldquo;How sold that beggar must have been,&rdquo; and then
+he fainted. On examination we discovered that he had been seriously wounded in
+the leg by a <i>tolla</i> in the course of the pursuit, but that the chain
+armour had prevented his last assailant&rsquo;s spear from doing anything more
+than bruise him badly. It was a merciful escape. As nothing could be done for
+him at the moment, he was placed on one of the wicker shields used for the
+wounded, and carried along with us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On arriving before the nearest gate of Loo we found one of our regiments
+watching it in obedience to orders received from Ignosi. The other regiments
+were in the same way guarding the different exits to the town. The officer in
+command of this regiment saluted Ignosi as king, and informed him that
+Twala&rsquo;s army had taken refuge in the town, whither Twala himself had also
+escaped, but he thought that they were thoroughly demoralised, and would
+surrender. Thereupon Ignosi, after taking counsel with us, sent forward heralds
+to each gate ordering the defenders to open, and promising on his royal word
+life and forgiveness to every soldier who laid down his arms, but saying that
+if they did not do so before nightfall he would certainly burn the town and all
+within its gates. This message was not without its effect. Half an hour later,
+amid the shouts and cheers of the Buffaloes, the bridge was dropped across the
+fosse, and the gates upon the further side were flung open.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Taking due precautions against treachery, we marched on into the town. All
+along the roadways stood thousands of dejected warriors, their heads drooping,
+and their shields and spears at their feet, who, headed by their officers,
+saluted Ignosi as king as he passed. On we marched, straight to Twala&rsquo;s
+kraal. When we reached the great space, where a day or two previously we had
+seen the review and the witch hunt, we found it deserted. No, not quite
+deserted, for there, on the further side, in front of his hut, sat Twala
+himself, with but one attendant&mdash;Gagool.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a melancholy sight to see him seated, his battle-axe and shield by his
+side, his chin upon his mailed breast, with but one old crone for companion,
+and notwithstanding his crimes and misdeeds, a pang of compassion shot through
+me as I looked upon Twala thus &ldquo;fallen from his high estate.&rdquo; Not a
+soldier of all his armies, not a courtier out of the hundreds who had cringed
+round him, not even a solitary wife, remained to share his fate or halve the
+bitterness of his fall. Poor savage! he was learning the lesson which Fate
+teaches to most of us who live long enough, that the eyes of mankind are blind
+to the discredited, and that he who is defenceless and fallen finds few friends
+and little mercy. Nor, indeed, in this case did he deserve any.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Filing through the kraal gate, we marched across the open space to where the
+ex-king sat. When within about fifty yards of him the regiment was halted, and
+accompanied only by a small guard we advanced towards him, Gagool reviling us
+bitterly as we came. As we drew near, Twala, for the first time, lifted his
+plumed head, and fixed his one eye, which seemed to flash with suppressed fury
+almost as brightly as the great diamond bound round his forehead, upon his
+successful rival&mdash;Ignosi.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hail, O king!&rdquo; he said, with bitter mockery; &ldquo;thou who hast
+eaten of my bread, and now by the aid of the white man&rsquo;s magic hast
+seduced my regiments and defeated mine army, hail! What fate hast thou in store
+for me, O king?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The fate thou gavest to my father, whose throne thou hast sat on these
+many years!&rdquo; was the stern answer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is good. I will show thee how to die, that thou mayest remember it
+against thine own time. See, the sun sinks in blood,&rdquo; and he pointed with
+his battle-axe towards the setting orb; &ldquo;it is well that my sun should go
+down in its company. And now, O king! I am ready to die, but I crave the boon
+of the Kukuana royal House<a href="#fn-9" name="fnref-9" id="fnref-9"><sup>[9]</sup></a>
+to die fighting. Thou canst not refuse it, or even those cowards who fled
+to-day will hold thee shamed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-9" id="fn-9"></a> <a href="#fnref-9">[9]</a>
+It is a law amongst the Kukuanas that no man of the direct royal blood can be
+put to death, unless by his own consent, which is, however, never refused. He
+is allowed to choose a succession of antagonists, to be approved by the king,
+with whom he fights, till one of them kills him.&mdash;A.Q.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is granted. Choose&mdash;with whom wilt thou fight? Myself I cannot
+fight with thee, for the king fights not except in war.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Twala&rsquo;s sombre eye ran up and down our ranks, and I felt, as for a moment
+it rested on myself, that the position had developed a new horror. What if he
+chose to begin by fighting <i>me</i>? What chance should I have against a
+desperate savage six feet five high, and broad in proportion? I might as well
+commit suicide at once. Hastily I made up my mind to decline the combat, even
+if I were hooted out of Kukuanaland as a consequence. It is, I think, better to
+be hooted than to be quartered with a battle-axe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Presently Twala spoke.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Incubu, what sayest thou, shall we end what we began to-day, or shall I
+call thee coward, white&mdash;even to the liver?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nay,&rdquo; interposed Ignosi hastily; &ldquo;thou shalt not fight with
+Incubu.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not if he is afraid,&rdquo; said Twala.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Unfortunately Sir Henry understood this remark, and the blood flamed up into
+his cheeks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will fight him,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;he shall see if I am
+afraid.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;For Heaven&rsquo;s sake,&rdquo; I entreated, &ldquo;don&rsquo;t risk
+your life against that of a desperate man. Anybody who saw you to-day will know
+that you are brave enough.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will fight him,&rdquo; was the sullen answer. &ldquo;No living man
+shall call me a coward. I am ready now!&rdquo; and he stepped forward and
+lifted his axe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I wrung my hands over this absurd piece of Quixotism; but if he was determined
+on this deed, of course I could not stop him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Fight not, my white brother,&rdquo; said Ignosi, laying his hand
+affectionately on Sir Henry&rsquo;s arm; &ldquo;thou hast fought enough, and if
+aught befell thee at his hands it would cut my heart in twain.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will fight, Ignosi,&rdquo; was Sir Henry&rsquo;s answer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is well, Incubu; thou art a brave man. It will be a good fray.
+Behold, Twala, the Elephant is ready for thee.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The ex-king laughed savagely, and stepping forward faced Curtis. For a moment
+they stood thus, and the light of the sinking sun caught their stalwart frames
+and clothed them both in fire. They were a well-matched pair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then they began to circle round each other, their battle-axes raised.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly Sir Henry sprang forward and struck a fearful blow at Twala, who
+stepped to one side. So heavy was the stroke that the striker half overbalanced
+himself, a circumstance of which his antagonist took a prompt advantage.
+Circling his massive battle-axe round his head, he brought it down with
+tremendous force. My heart jumped into my mouth; I thought that the affair was
+already finished. But no; with a quick upward movement of the left arm Sir
+Henry interposed his shield between himself and the axe, with the result that
+its outer edge was shorn away, the axe falling on his left shoulder, but not
+heavily enough to do any serious damage. In another moment Sir Henry got in a
+second blow, which was also received by Twala upon his shield.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then followed blow upon blow, that were, in turn, either received upon the
+shields or avoided. The excitement grew intense; the regiment which was
+watching the encounter forgot its discipline, and, drawing near, shouted and
+groaned at every stroke. Just at this time, too, Good, who had been laid upon
+the ground by me, recovered from his faint, and, sitting up, perceived what was
+going on. In an instant he was up, and catching hold of my arm, hopped about
+from place to place on one leg, dragging me after him, and yelling
+encouragements to Sir Henry&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Go it, old fellow!&rdquo; he hallooed. &ldquo;That was a good one! Give
+it him amidships,&rdquo; and so on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Presently Sir Henry, having caught a fresh stroke upon his shield, hit out with
+all his force. The blow cut through Twala&rsquo;s shield and through the tough
+chain armour behind it, gashing him in the shoulder. With a yell of pain and
+fury Twala returned the blow with interest, and, such was his strength, shore
+right through the rhinoceros&rsquo; horn handle of his antagonists battle-axe,
+strengthened as it was with bands of steel, wounding Curtis in the face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A cry of dismay rose from the Buffaloes as our hero&rsquo;s broad axe-head fell
+to the ground; and Twala, again raising his weapon, flew at him with a shout. I
+shut my eyes. When I opened them again it was to see Sir Henry&rsquo;s shield
+lying on the ground, and Sir Henry himself with his great arms twined round
+Twala&rsquo;s middle. To and fro they swung, hugging each other like bears,
+straining with all their mighty muscles for dear life, and dearer honour. With
+a supreme effort Twala swung the Englishman clean off his feet, and down they
+came together, rolling over and over on the lime paving, Twala striking out at
+Curtis&rsquo; head with the battle-axe, and Sir Henry trying to drive the
+<i>tolla</i> he had drawn from his belt through Twala&rsquo;s armour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a mighty struggle, and an awful thing to see.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Get his axe!&rdquo; yelled Good; and perhaps our champion heard him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At any rate, dropping the <i>tolla</i>, he snatched at the axe, which was
+fastened to Twala&rsquo;s wrist by a strip of buffalo hide, and still rolling
+over and over, they fought for it like wild cats, drawing their breath in heavy
+gasps. Suddenly the hide string burst, and then, with a great effort, Sir Henry
+freed himself, the weapon remaining in his hand. Another second and he was upon
+his feet, the red blood streaming from the wound in his face, and so was Twala.
+Drawing the heavy <i>tolla</i> from his belt, he reeled straight at Curtis and
+struck him in the breast. The stab came home true and strong, but whoever it
+was who made that chain armour, he understood his art, for it withstood the
+steel. Again Twala struck out with a savage yell, and again the sharp knife
+rebounded, and Sir Henry went staggering back. Once more Twala came on, and as
+he came our great Englishman gathered himself together, and swinging the big
+axe round his head with both hands, hit at him with all his force.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a shriek of excitement from a thousand throats, and, behold!
+Twala&rsquo;s head seemed to spring from his shoulders: then it fell and came
+rolling and bounding along the ground towards Ignosi, stopping just at his
+feet. For a second the corpse stood upright; then with a dull crash it came to
+the earth, and the gold torque from its neck rolled away across the pavement.
+As it did so Sir Henry, overpowered by faintness and loss of blood, fell
+heavily across the body of the dead king.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In a second he was lifted up, and eager hands were pouring water on his face.
+Another minute, and the grey eyes opened wide.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was not dead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then I, just as the sun sank, stepping to where Twala&rsquo;s head lay in the
+dust, unloosed the diamond from the dead brows, and handed it to Ignosi.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Take it,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;lawful king of the Kukuanas&mdash;king by
+birth and victory.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ignosi bound the diadem upon his brows. Then advancing, he placed his foot upon
+the broad chest of his headless foe and broke out into a chant, or rather a
+pæan of triumph, so beautiful, and yet so utterly savage, that I despair of
+being able to give an adequate version of his words. Once I heard a scholar
+with a fine voice read aloud from the Greek poet Homer, and I remember that the
+sound of the rolling lines seemed to make my blood stand still. Ignosi&rsquo;s
+chant, uttered as it was in a language as beautiful and sonorous as the old
+Greek, produced exactly the same effect on me, although I was exhausted with
+toil and many emotions.
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+&ldquo;Now,&rdquo; he began, &ldquo;now our rebellion is swallowed up in
+victory, and our evil-doing is justified by strength.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In the morning the oppressors arose and stretched themselves; they bound
+on their harness and made them ready to war.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They rose up and tossed their spears: the soldiers called to the
+captains, &lsquo;Come, lead us&rsquo;&mdash;and the captains cried to the king,
+&lsquo;Direct thou the battle.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They laughed in their pride, twenty thousand men, and yet a twenty
+thousand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Their plumes covered the valleys as the plumes of a bird cover her nest;
+they shook their shields and shouted, yea, they shook their shields in the
+sunlight; they lusted for battle and were glad.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They came up against me; their strong ones ran swiftly to slay me; they
+cried, &lsquo;Ha! ha! he is as one already dead.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+&ldquo;Then breathed I on them, and my breath was as the breath of a wind, and
+lo! they were not.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My lightnings pierced them; I licked up their strength with the
+lightning of my spears; I shook them to the ground with the thunder of my
+shoutings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They broke&mdash;they scattered&mdash;they were gone as the mists of the
+morning.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They are food for the kites and the foxes, and the place of battle is
+fat with their blood.
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+&ldquo;Where are the mighty ones who rose up in the morning?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where are the proud ones who tossed their spears and cried, &lsquo;He is
+as a man already dead&rsquo;?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They bow their heads, but not in sleep; they are stretched out, but not
+in sleep.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They are forgotten; they have gone into the blackness; they dwell in the
+dead moons; yea, others shall lead away their wives, and their children shall
+remember them no more.
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+&ldquo;And I&mdash;! the king&mdash;like an eagle I have found my eyrie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Behold! far have I flown in the night season, yet have I returned to my
+young at the daybreak.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Shelter ye under the shadow of my wings, O people, and I will comfort
+you, and ye shall not be dismayed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now is the good time, the time of spoil.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mine are the cattle on the mountains, mine are the virgins in the
+kraals.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The winter is overpast with storms, the summer is come with flowers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now Evil shall cover up her face, now Mercy and Gladness shall dwell in
+the land.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Rejoice, rejoice, my people!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let all the stars rejoice in that this tyranny is trodden down, in that
+I am the king.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+Ignosi ceased his song, and out of the gathering gloom came back the deep
+reply&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Thou art the king!</i>&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+Thus was my prophecy to the herald fulfilled, and within the forty-eight hours
+Twala&rsquo;s headless corpse was stiffening at Twala&rsquo;s gate.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap15"></a>CHAPTER XV.<br />
+GOOD FALLS SICK</h2>
+
+<p>
+After the fight was ended, Sir Henry and Good were carried into Twala&rsquo;s
+hut, where I joined them. They were both utterly exhausted by exertion and loss
+of blood, and, indeed, my own condition was little better. I am very wiry, and
+can stand more fatigue than most men, probably on account of my light weight
+and long training; but that night I was quite done up, and, as is always the
+case with me when exhausted, that old wound which the lion gave me began to
+pain. Also my head was aching violently from the blow I had received in the
+morning, when I was knocked senseless. Altogether, a more miserable trio than
+we were that evening it would have been difficult to discover; and our only
+comfort lay in the reflection that we were exceedingly fortunate to be there to
+feel miserable, instead of being stretched dead upon the plain, as so many
+thousands of brave men were that night, who had risen well and strong in the
+morning.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Somehow, with the assistance of the beautiful Foulata, who, since we had been
+the means of saving her life, had constituted herself our handmaiden, and
+especially Good&rsquo;s, we managed to get off the chain shirts, which had
+certainly saved the lives of two of us that day. As I expected, we found that
+the flesh underneath was terribly contused, for though the steel links had kept
+the weapons from entering, they had not prevented them from bruising. Both Sir
+Henry and Good were a mass of contusions, and I was by no means free. As a
+remedy Foulata brought us some pounded green leaves, with an aromatic odour,
+which, when applied as a plaster, gave us considerable relief.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But though the bruises were painful, they did not give us such anxiety as Sir
+Henry&rsquo;s and Good&rsquo;s wounds. Good had a hole right through the fleshy
+part of his &ldquo;beautiful white leg,&rdquo; from which he had lost a great
+deal of blood; and Sir Henry, with other hurts, had a deep cut over the jaw,
+inflicted by Twala&rsquo;s battle-axe. Luckily Good is a very decent surgeon,
+and so soon as his small box of medicines was forthcoming, having thoroughly
+cleansed the wounds, he managed to stitch up first Sir Henry&rsquo;s and then
+his own pretty satisfactorily, considering the imperfect light given by the
+primitive Kukuana lamp in the hut. Afterwards he plentifully smeared the
+injured places with some antiseptic ointment, of which there was a pot in the
+little box, and we covered them with the remains of a pocket-handkerchief which
+we possessed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile Foulata had prepared us some strong broth, for we were too weary to
+eat. This we swallowed, and then threw ourselves down on the piles of
+magnificent karrosses, or fur rugs, which were scattered about the dead
+king&rsquo;s great hut. By a very strange instance of the irony of fate, it was
+on Twala&rsquo;s own couch, and wrapped in Twala&rsquo;s own particular
+karross, that Sir Henry, the man who had slain him, slept that night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I say slept; but after that day&rsquo;s work, sleep was indeed difficult. To
+begin with, in very truth the air was full
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+  &ldquo;Of farewells to the dying<br />
+  And mournings for the dead.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From every direction came the sound of the wailing of women whose husbands,
+sons, and brothers had perished in the battle. No wonder that they wailed, for
+over twelve thousand men, or nearly a fifth of the Kukuana army, had been
+destroyed in that awful struggle. It was heart-rending to lie and listen to
+their cries for those who never would return; and it made me understand the
+full horror of the work done that day to further man&rsquo;s ambition. Towards
+midnight, however, the ceaseless crying of the women grew less frequent, till
+at length the silence was only broken at intervals of a few minutes by a long
+piercing howl that came from a hut in our immediate rear, which, as I
+afterwards discovered, proceeded from Gagool &ldquo;keening&rdquo; over the
+dead king Twala.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After that I got a little fitful sleep, only to wake from time to time with a
+start, thinking that I was once more an actor in the terrible events of the
+last twenty-four hours. Now I seemed to see that warrior whom my hand had sent
+to his last account charging at me on the mountain-top; now I was once more in
+that glorious ring of Greys, which made its immortal stand against all
+Twala&rsquo;s regiments upon the little mound; and now again I saw
+Twala&rsquo;s plumed and gory head roll past my feet with gnashing teeth and
+glaring eye.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last, somehow or other, the night passed away; but when dawn broke I found
+that my companions had slept no better than myself. Good, indeed, was in a high
+fever, and very soon afterwards began to grow light-headed, and also, to my
+alarm, to spit blood, the result, no doubt, of some internal injury, inflicted
+during the desperate efforts made by the Kukuana warrior on the previous day to
+force his big spear through the chain armour. Sir Henry, however, seemed pretty
+fresh, notwithstanding his wound on the face, which made eating difficult and
+laughter an impossibility, though he was so sore and stiff that he could
+scarcely stir.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+About eight o&rsquo;clock we had a visit from Infadoos, who appeared but little
+the worse&mdash;tough old warrior that he was&mdash;for his exertions in the
+battle, although he informed us that he had been up all night. He was delighted
+to see us, but much grieved at Good&rsquo;s condition, and shook our hands
+cordially. I noticed, however, that he addressed Sir Henry with a kind of
+reverence, as though he were something more than man; and, indeed, as we
+afterwards found out, the great Englishman was looked on throughout Kukuanaland
+as a supernatural being. No man, the soldiers said, could have fought as he
+fought or, at the end of a day of such toil and bloodshed, could have slain
+Twala, who, in addition to being the king, was supposed to be the strongest
+warrior in the country, in single combat, shearing through his bull-neck at a
+stroke. Indeed, that stroke became proverbial in Kukuanaland, and any
+extraordinary blow or feat of strength was henceforth known as
+&ldquo;Incubu&rsquo;s blow.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Infadoos told us also that all Twala&rsquo;s regiments had submitted to Ignosi,
+and that like submissions were beginning to arrive from chiefs in the outlying
+country. Twala&rsquo;s death at the hands of Sir Henry had put an end to all
+further chance of disturbance; for Scragga had been his only legitimate son, so
+there was no rival claimant to the throne left alive.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I remarked that Ignosi had swum to power through blood. The old chief shrugged
+his shoulders. &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he answered; &ldquo;but the Kukuana people
+can only be kept cool by letting their blood flow sometimes. Many are killed,
+indeed, but the women are left, and others must soon grow up to take the places
+of the fallen. After this the land would be quiet for a while.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Afterwards, in the course of the morning, we had a short visit from Ignosi, on
+whose brows the royal diadem was now bound. As I contemplated him advancing
+with kingly dignity, an obsequious guard following his steps, I could not help
+recalling to my mind the tall Zulu who had presented himself to us at Durban
+some few months back, asking to be taken into our service, and reflecting on
+the strange revolutions of the wheel of fortune.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hail, O king!&rdquo; I said, rising.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, Macumazahn. King at last, by the might of your three right
+hands,&rdquo; was the ready answer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All was, he said, going well; and he hoped to arrange a great feast in two
+weeks&rsquo; time in order to show himself to the people.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I asked him what he had settled to do with Gagool.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She is the evil genius of the land,&rdquo; he answered, &ldquo;and I
+shall kill her, and all the witch doctors with her! She has lived so long that
+none can remember when she was not very old, and she it is who has always
+trained the witch-hunters, and made the land wicked in the sight of the heavens
+above.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yet she knows much,&rdquo; I replied; &ldquo;it is easier to destroy
+knowledge, Ignosi, than to gather it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That is so,&rdquo; he said thoughtfully. &ldquo;She, and she only, knows
+the secret of the &lsquo;Three Witches,&rsquo; yonder, whither the great road
+runs, where the kings are buried, and the Silent Ones sit.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, and the diamonds are. Forget not thy promise, Ignosi; thou must
+lead us to the mines, even if thou hast to spare Gagool alive to show the
+way.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will not forget, Macumazahn, and I will think on what thou
+sayest.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After Ignosi&rsquo;s visit I went to see Good, and found him quite delirious.
+The fever set up by his wound seemed to have taken a firm hold of his system,
+and to be complicated with an internal injury. For four or five days his
+condition was most critical; indeed, I believe firmly that had it not been for
+Foulata&rsquo;s indefatigable nursing he must have died.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Women are women, all the world over, whatever their colour. Yet somehow it
+seemed curious to watch this dusky beauty bending night and day over the
+fevered man&rsquo;s couch, and performing all the merciful errands of a
+sick-room swiftly, gently, and with as fine an instinct as that of a trained
+hospital nurse. For the first night or two I tried to help her, and so did Sir
+Henry as soon as his stiffness allowed him to move, but Foulata bore our
+interference with impatience, and finally insisted upon our leaving him to her,
+saying that our movements made him restless, which I think was true. Day and
+night she watched him and tended him, giving him his only medicine, a native
+cooling drink made of milk, in which was infused juice from the bulb of a
+species of tulip, and keeping the flies from settling on him. I can see the
+whole picture now as it appeared night after night by the light of our
+primitive lamp; Good tossing to and fro, his features emaciated, his eyes
+shining large and luminous, and jabbering nonsense by the yard; and seated on
+the ground by his side, her back resting against the wall of the hut, the
+soft-eyed, shapely Kukuana beauty, her face, weary as it was with her long
+vigil, animated by a look of infinite compassion&mdash;or was it something more
+than compassion?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For two days we thought that he must die, and crept about with heavy hearts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Only Foulata would not believe it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He will live,&rdquo; she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For three hundred yards or more around Twala&rsquo;s chief hut, where the
+sufferer lay, there was silence; for by the king&rsquo;s order all who lived in
+the habitations behind it, except Sir Henry and myself, had been removed, lest
+any noise should come to the sick man&rsquo;s ears. One night, it was the fifth
+of Good&rsquo;s illness, as was my habit, I went across to see how he was doing
+before turning in for a few hours.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I entered the hut carefully. The lamp placed upon the floor showed the figure
+of Good tossing no more, but lying quite still.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So it had come at last! In the bitterness of my heart I gave something like a
+sob.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hush&mdash;h&mdash;h!&rdquo; came from the patch of dark shadow behind
+Good&rsquo;s head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then, creeping closer, I saw that he was not dead, but sleeping soundly, with
+Foulata&rsquo;s taper fingers clasped tightly in his poor white hand. The
+crisis had passed, and he would live. He slept like that for eighteen hours;
+and I scarcely like to say it, for fear I should not be believed, but during
+the entire period did this devoted girl sit by him, fearing that if she moved
+and drew away her hand it would wake him. What she must have suffered from
+cramp and weariness, to say nothing of want of food, nobody will ever know; but
+it is the fact that, when at last he woke, she had to be carried away&mdash;her
+limbs were so stiff that she could not move them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After the turn had once been taken, Good&rsquo;s recovery was rapid and
+complete. It was not till he was nearly well that Sir Henry told him of all he
+owed to Foulata; and when he came to the story of how she sat by his side for
+eighteen hours, fearing lest by moving she should wake him, the honest
+sailor&rsquo;s eyes filled with tears. He turned and went straight to the hut
+where Foulata was preparing the mid-day meal, for we were back in our old
+quarters now, taking me with him to interpret in case he could not make his
+meaning clear to her, though I am bound to say that she understood him
+marvellously as a rule, considering how extremely limited was his foreign
+vocabulary.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tell her,&rdquo; said Good, &ldquo;that I owe her my life, and that I
+will never forget her kindness to my dying day.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I interpreted, and under her dark skin she actually seemed to blush.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Turning to him with one of those swift and graceful motions that in her always
+reminded me of the flight of a wild bird, Foulata answered softly, glancing at
+him with her large brown eyes&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nay, my lord; my lord forgets! Did he not save <i>my</i> life, and am I
+not my lord&rsquo;s handmaiden?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It will be observed that the young lady appeared entirely to have forgotten the
+share which Sir Henry and myself had taken in her preservation from
+Twala&rsquo;s clutches. But that is the way of women! I remember my dear wife
+was just the same. Well, I retired from that little interview sad at heart. I
+did not like Miss Foulata&rsquo;s soft glances, for I knew the fatal amorous
+propensities of sailors in general, and of Good in particular.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There are two things in the world, as I have found out, which cannot be
+prevented: you cannot keep a Zulu from fighting, or a sailor from falling in
+love upon the slightest provocation!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a few days after this last occurrence that Ignosi held his great
+&ldquo;indaba,&rdquo; or council, and was formally recognised as king by the
+&ldquo;indunas,&rdquo; or head men, of Kukuanaland. The spectacle was a most
+imposing one, including as it did a grand review of troops. On this day the
+remaining fragments of the Greys were formally paraded, and in the face of the
+army thanked for their splendid conduct in the battle. To each man the king
+made a large present of cattle, promoting them one and all to the rank of
+officers in the new corps of Greys which was in process of formation. An order
+was also promulgated throughout the length and breadth of Kukuanaland that,
+whilst we honoured the country by our presence, we three were to be greeted
+with the royal salute, and to be treated with the same ceremony and respect
+that was by custom accorded to the king. Also the power of life and death was
+publicly conferred upon us. Ignosi, too, in the presence of his people,
+reaffirmed the promises which he had made, to the effect that no man&rsquo;s
+blood should be shed without trial, and that witch-hunting should cease in the
+land.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the ceremony was over we waited upon Ignosi, and informed him that we were
+now anxious to investigate the mystery of the mines to which Solomon&rsquo;s
+Road ran, asking him if he had discovered anything about them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My friends,&rdquo; he answered, &ldquo;I have discovered this. It is
+there that the three great figures sit, who here are called the &lsquo;Silent
+Ones,&rsquo; and to whom Twala would have offered the girl Foulata as a
+sacrifice. It is there, too, in a great cave deep in the mountain, that the
+kings of the land are buried; there ye shall find Twala&rsquo;s body, sitting
+with those who went before him. There, also, is a deep pit, which, at some
+time, long-dead men dug out, mayhap for the stones ye speak of, such as I have
+heard men in Natal tell of at Kimberley. There, too, in the Place of Death is a
+secret chamber, known to none but the king and Gagool. But Twala, who knew it,
+is dead, and I know it not, nor know I what is in it. Yet there is a legend in
+the land that once, many generations gone, a white man crossed the mountains,
+and was led by a woman to the secret chamber and shown the wealth hidden in it.
+But before he could take it she betrayed him, and he was driven by the king of
+that day back to the mountains, and since then no man has entered the
+place.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The story is surely true, Ignosi, for on the mountains we found the
+white man,&rdquo; I said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, we found him. And now I have promised you that if ye can come to
+that chamber, and the stones are there&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The gem upon thy forehead proves that they are there,&rdquo; I put in,
+pointing to the great diamond I had taken from Twala&rsquo;s dead brows.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mayhap; if they are there,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;ye shall have as many
+as ye can take hence&mdash;if indeed ye would leave me, my brothers.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;First we must find the chamber,&rdquo; said I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is but one who can show it to thee&mdash;Gagool.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And if she will not?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then she must die,&rdquo; said Ignosi sternly. &ldquo;I have saved her
+alive but for this. Stay, she shall choose,&rdquo; and calling to a messenger
+he ordered Gagool to be brought before him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In a few minutes she came, hurried along by two guards, whom she was cursing as
+she walked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Leave her,&rdquo; said the king to the guards.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So soon as their support was withdrawn, the withered old bundle&mdash;for she
+looked more like a bundle than anything else, out of which her two bright and
+wicked eyes gleamed like those of a snake&mdash;sank in a heap on to the floor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What will ye with me, Ignosi?&rdquo; she piped. &ldquo;Ye dare not touch
+me. If ye touch me I will slay you as ye sit. Beware of my magic.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thy magic could not save Twala, old she-wolf, and it cannot hurt
+me,&rdquo; was the answer. &ldquo;Listen; I will this of thee, that thou reveal
+to us the chamber where are the shining stones.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ha! ha!&rdquo; she piped, &ldquo;none know its secret but I, and I will
+never tell thee. The white devils shall go hence empty-handed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thou shalt tell me. I will make thee tell me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How, O king? Thou art great, but can thy power wring the truth from a
+woman?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is difficult, yet will I do so.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How, O king?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nay, thus; if thou tellest not thou shalt slowly die.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Die!&rdquo; she shrieked in terror and fury; &ldquo;ye dare not touch
+me&mdash;man, ye know not who I am. How old think ye am I? I knew your fathers,
+and your fathers&rsquo; fathers&rsquo; fathers. When the country was young I
+was here; when the country grows old I shall still be here. I cannot die unless
+I be killed by chance, for none dare slay me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yet will I slay thee. See, Gagool, mother of evil, thou art so old that
+thou canst no longer love thy life. What can life be to such a hag as thou, who
+hast no shape, nor form, nor hair, nor teeth&mdash;hast naught, save wickedness
+and evil eyes? It will be mercy to make an end of thee, Gagool.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thou fool,&rdquo; shrieked the old fiend, &ldquo;thou accursed fool,
+deemest thou that life is sweet only to the young? It is not so, and naught
+thou knowest of the heart of man to think it. To the young, indeed, death is
+sometimes welcome, for the young can feel. They love and suffer, and it wrings
+them to see their beloved pass to the land of shadows. But the old feel not,
+they love not, and, <i>ha! ha!</i> they laugh to see another go out into the
+dark; <i>ha! ha!</i> they laugh to see the evil that is done under the stars.
+All they love is life, the warm, warm sun, and the sweet, sweet air. They are
+afraid of the cold, afraid of the cold and the dark, <i>ha! ha! ha!</i>&rdquo;
+and the old hag writhed in ghastly merriment on the ground.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Cease thine evil talk and answer me,&rdquo; said Ignosi angrily.
+&ldquo;Wilt thou show the place where the stones are, or wilt thou not? If thou
+wilt not thou diest, even now,&rdquo; and he seized a spear and held it over
+her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will not show it; thou darest not kill me, darest not! He who slays me
+will be accursed for ever.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Slowly Ignosi brought down the spear till it pricked the prostrate heap of
+rags.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With a wild yell Gagool sprang to her feet, then fell again and rolled upon the
+floor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nay, I will show thee. Only let me live, let me sit in the sun and have
+a bit of meat to suck, and I will show thee.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is well. I thought that I should find a way to reason with thee.
+To-morrow shalt thou go with Infadoos and my white brothers to the place, and
+beware how thou failest, for if thou showest it not, then thou shalt slowly
+die. I have spoken.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will not fail, Ignosi. I always keep my word&mdash;<i>ha! ha! ha!</i>
+Once before a woman showed the chamber to a white man, and behold! evil befell
+him,&rdquo; and here her wicked eyes glinted. &ldquo;Her name was Gagool also.
+Perchance I was that woman.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thou liest,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;that was ten generations gone.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mayhap, mayhap; when one lives long one forgets. Perhaps it was my
+mother&rsquo;s mother who told me; surely her name was Gagool also. But mark,
+ye will find in the place where the bright things are a bag of hide full of
+stones. The man filled that bag, but he never took it away. Evil befell him, I
+say, evil befell him! Perhaps it was my mother&rsquo;s mother who told me. It
+will be a merry journey&mdash;we can see the bodies of those who died in the
+battle as we go. Their eyes will be gone by now, and their ribs will be hollow.
+<i>Ha! ha! ha!</i>&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap16"></a>CHAPTER XVI.<br />
+THE PLACE OF DEATH</h2>
+
+<p>
+It was already dark on the third day after the scene described in the previous
+chapter when we camped in some huts at the foot of the &ldquo;Three
+Witches,&rdquo; as the triangle of mountains is called to which Solomon&rsquo;s
+Great Road runs. Our party consisted of our three selves and Foulata, who
+waited on us&mdash;especially on Good&mdash;Infadoos, Gagool, who was borne
+along in a litter, inside which she could be heard muttering and cursing all
+day long, and a party of guards and attendants. The mountains, or rather the
+three peaks of the mountain, for the mass was evidently the result of a
+solitary upheaval, were, as I have said, in the form of a triangle, of which
+the base was towards us, one peak being on our right, one on our left, and one
+straight in front of us. Never shall I forget the sight afforded by those three
+towering peaks in the early sunlight of the following morning. High, high above
+us, up into the blue air, soared their twisted snow-wreaths. Beneath the
+snow-line the peaks were purple with heaths, and so were the wild moors that
+ran up the slopes towards them. Straight before us the white ribbon of
+Solomon&rsquo;s Great Road stretched away uphill to the foot of the centre
+peak, about five miles from us, and there stopped. It was its terminus.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I had better leave the feelings of intense excitement with which we set out on
+our march that morning to the imagination of those who read this history. At
+last we were drawing near to the wonderful mines that had been the cause of the
+miserable death of the old Portuguese Dom three centuries ago, of my poor
+friend, his ill-starred descendant, and also, as we feared, of George Curtis,
+Sir Henry&rsquo;s brother. Were we destined, after all that we had gone
+through, to fare any better? Evil befell them, as that old fiend Gagool said;
+would it also befall us? Somehow, as we were marching up that last stretch of
+beautiful road, I could not help feeling a little superstitious about the
+matter, and so I think did Good and Sir Henry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For an hour and a half or more we tramped on up the heather-fringed way, going
+so fast in our excitement that the bearers of Gagool&rsquo;s hammock could
+scarcely keep pace with us, and its occupant piped out to us to stop.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Walk more slowly, white men,&rdquo; she said, projecting her hideous
+shrivelled countenance between the grass curtains, and fixing her gleaming eyes
+upon us; &ldquo;why will ye run to meet the evil that shall befall you, ye
+seekers after treasure?&rdquo; and she laughed that horrible laugh which always
+sent a cold shiver down my back, and for a while quite took the enthusiasm out
+of us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+However, on we went, till we saw before us, and between ourselves and the peak,
+a vast circular hole with sloping sides, three hundred feet or more in depth,
+and quite half a mile round.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can&rsquo;t you guess what this is?&rdquo; I said to Sir Henry and Good,
+who were staring in astonishment at the awful pit before us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They shook their heads.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then it is clear that you have never seen the diamond diggings at
+Kimberley. You may depend on it that this is Solomon&rsquo;s Diamond Mine. Look
+there,&rdquo; I said, pointing to the strata of stiff blue clay which were yet
+to be seen among the grass and bushes that clothed the sides of the pit,
+&ldquo;the formation is the same. I&rsquo;ll be bound that if we went down
+there we should find &lsquo;pipes&rsquo; of soapy brecciated rock. Look,
+too,&rdquo; and I pointed to a series of worn flat slabs of stone that were
+placed on a gentle slope below the level of a watercourse which in some past
+age had been cut out of the solid rock; &ldquo;if those are not tables once
+used to wash the &lsquo;stuff,&rsquo; I&rsquo;m a Dutchman.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the edge of this vast hole, which was none other than the pit marked on the
+old Dom&rsquo;s map, the Great Road branched into two and circumvented it. In
+many places, by the way, this surrounding road was built entirely out of blocks
+of stone, apparently with the object of supporting the edges of the pit and
+preventing falls of reef. Along this path we pressed, driven by curiosity to
+see what were the three towering objects which we could discern from the hither
+side of the great gulf. As we drew near we perceived that they were Colossi of
+some sort or another, and rightly conjectured that before us sat the three
+&ldquo;Silent Ones&rdquo; that are held in such awe by the Kukuana people. But
+it was not until we were quite close to them that we recognised the full
+majesty of these &ldquo;Silent Ones.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There, upon huge pedestals of dark rock, sculptured with rude emblems of the
+Phallic worship, separated from each other by a distance of forty paces, and
+looking down the road which crossed some sixty miles of plain to Loo, were
+three colossal seated forms&mdash;two male and one female&mdash;each measuring
+about thirty feet from the crown of its head to the pedestal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The female form, which was nude, was of great though severe beauty, but
+unfortunately the features had been injured by centuries of exposure to the
+weather. Rising from either side of her head were the points of a crescent. The
+two male Colossi, on the contrary, were draped, and presented a terrifying cast
+of features, especially the one to our right, which had the face of a devil.
+That to our left was serene in countenance, but the calm upon it seemed
+dreadful. It was the calm of that inhuman cruelty, Sir Henry remarked, which
+the ancients attributed to beings potent for good, who could yet watch the
+sufferings of humanity, if not without rejoicing, at least without sorrow.
+These three statues form a most awe-inspiring trinity, as they sit there in
+their solitude, and gaze out across the plain for ever.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Contemplating these &ldquo;Silent Ones,&rdquo; as the Kukuanas call them, an
+intense curiosity again seized us to know whose were the hands which had shaped
+them, who it was that had dug the pit and made the road. Whilst I was gazing
+and wondering, suddenly it occurred to me&mdash;being familiar with the Old
+Testament&mdash;that Solomon went astray after strange gods, the names of three
+of whom I remembered&mdash;&ldquo;Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Zidonians,
+Chemosh, the god of the Moabites, and Milcom, the god of the children of
+Ammon&rdquo;&mdash;and I suggested to my companions that the figures before us
+might represent these false and exploded divinities.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hum,&rdquo; said Sir Henry, who is a scholar, having taken a high degree
+in classics at college, &ldquo;there may be something in that; Ashtoreth of the
+Hebrews was the Astarte of the Phoenicians, who were the great traders of
+Solomon&rsquo;s time. Astarte, who afterwards became the Aphrodite of the
+Greeks, was represented with horns like the half-moon, and there on the brow of
+the female figure are distinct horns. Perhaps these Colossi were designed by
+some Phoenician official who managed the mines. Who can say?&rdquo;<a href="#fn-10" name="fnref-10" id="fnref-10"><sup>[10]</sup></a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-10" id="fn-10"></a> <a href="#fnref-10">[10]</a>
+Compare Milton, &ldquo;Paradise Lost,&rdquo; Book i.:&mdash;<br />
+<br />
+                        &ldquo;With these in troop<br />
+    Came Ashtoreth, whom the Phoenicians called<br />
+    Astarté, Queen of Heaven, with crescent horns;<br />
+    To whose bright image nightly by the moon<br />
+    Sidonian virgins paid their vows and songs.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before we had finished examining these extraordinary relics of remote
+antiquity, Infadoos came up, and having saluted the &ldquo;Silent Ones&rdquo;
+by lifting his spear, asked us if we intended entering the &ldquo;Place of
+Death&rdquo; at once, or if we would wait till after we had taken food at
+mid-day. If we were ready to go at once, Gagool had announced her willingness
+to guide us. As it was not later than eleven o&rsquo;clock&mdash;driven to it
+by a burning curiosity&mdash;we announced our intention of proceeding
+instantly, and I suggested that, in case we should be detained in the cave, we
+should take some food with us. Accordingly Gagool&rsquo;s litter was brought
+up, and that lady herself assisted out of it. Meanwhile Foulata, at my request,
+stored some &ldquo;biltong,&rdquo; or dried game-flesh, together with a couple
+of gourds of water, in a reed basket with a hinged cover. Straight in front of
+us, at a distance of some fifty paces from the backs of the Colossi, rose a
+sheer wall of rock, eighty feet or more in height, that gradually sloped
+upwards till it formed the base of the lofty snow-wreathed peak, which soared
+into the air three thousand feet above us. As soon as she was clear of her
+hammock, Gagool cast one evil grin upon us, and then, leaning on a stick,
+hobbled off towards the face of this wall. We followed her till we came to a
+narrow portal solidly arched that looked like the opening of a gallery of a
+mine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here Gagool was waiting for us, still with that evil grin upon her horrid face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, white men from the Stars,&rdquo; she piped; &ldquo;great warriors,
+Incubu, Bougwan, and Macumazahn the wise, are ye ready? Behold, I am here to do
+the bidding of my lord the king, and to show you the store of bright stones.
+<i>Ha! ha! ha!</i>&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We are ready,&rdquo; I said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good, good! Make strong your hearts to bear what ye shall see. Comest
+thou too, Infadoos, thou who didst betray thy master?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Infadoos frowned as he answered&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nay, I come not; it is not for me to enter there. But thou, Gagool, curb
+thy tongue, and beware how thou dealest with my lords. At thy hands will I
+require them, and if a hair of them be hurt, Gagool, be&rsquo;st thou fifty
+times a witch, thou shalt die. Hearest thou?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I hear, Infadoos; I know thee, thou didst ever love big words; when thou
+wast a babe I remember thou didst threaten thine own mother. That was but the
+other day. But, fear not, fear not, I live only to do the bidding of the king.
+I have done the bidding of many kings, Infadoos, till in the end they did mine.
+<i>Ha! ha!</i> I go to look upon their faces once more, and Twala&rsquo;s also!
+Come on, come on, here is the lamp,&rdquo; and she drew a large gourd full of
+oil, and fitted with a rush wick, from under her fur cloak.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Art thou coming, Foulata?&rdquo; asked Good in his villainous Kitchen
+Kukuana, in which he had been improving himself under that young lady&rsquo;s
+tuition.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I fear, my lord,&rdquo; the girl answered timidly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then give me the basket.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nay, my lord, whither thou goest there I go also.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The deuce you will!&rdquo; thought I to myself; &ldquo;that may be
+rather awkward if we ever get out of this.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Without further ado Gagool plunged into the passage, which was wide enough to
+admit of two walking abreast, and quite dark. We followed the sound of her
+voice as she piped to us to come on, in some fear and trembling, which was not
+allayed by the flutter of a sudden rush of wings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hullo! what&rsquo;s that?&rdquo; halloed Good; &ldquo;somebody hit me in
+the face.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Bats,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;on you go.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When, so far as we could judge, we had gone some fifty paces, we perceived that
+the passage was growing faintly light. Another minute, and we were in perhaps
+the most wonderful place that the eyes of living man have beheld.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Let the reader picture to himself the hall of the vastest cathedral he ever
+stood in, windowless indeed, but dimly lighted from above, presumably by shafts
+connected with the outer air and driven in the roof, which arched away a
+hundred feet above our heads, and he will get some idea of the size of the
+enormous cave in which we found ourselves, with the difference that this
+cathedral designed by nature was loftier and wider than any built by man. But
+its stupendous size was the least of the wonders of the place, for running in
+rows adown its length were gigantic pillars of what looked like ice, but were,
+in reality, huge stalactites. It is impossible for me to convey any idea of the
+overpowering beauty and grandeur of these pillars of white spar, some of which
+were not less than twenty feet in diameter at the base, and sprang up in lofty
+and yet delicate beauty sheer to the distant roof. Others again were in process
+of formation. On the rock floor there was in these cases what looked, Sir Henry
+said, exactly like a broken column in an old Grecian temple, whilst high above,
+depending from the roof, the point of a huge icicle could be dimly seen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Even as we gazed we could hear the process going on, for presently with a tiny
+splash a drop of water would fall from the far-off icicle on to the column
+below. On some columns the drops only fell once in two or three minutes, and in
+these cases it would be an interesting calculation to discover how long, at
+that rate of dripping, it would take to form a pillar, say eighty feet by ten
+in diameter. That the process, in at least one instance, was incalculably slow,
+the following example will suffice to show. Cut on one of these pillars we
+discovered the crude likeness of a mummy, by the head of which sat what
+appeared to be the figure of an Egyptian god, doubtless the handiwork of some
+old-world labourer in the mine. This work of art was executed at the natural
+height at which an idle fellow, be he Phoenician workman or British cad, is in
+the habit of trying to immortalise himself at the expense of nature&rsquo;s
+masterpieces, namely, about five feet from the ground. Yet at the time that we
+saw it, which <i>must</i> have been nearly three thousand years after the date
+of the execution of the carving, the column was only eight feet high, and was
+still in process of formation, which gives a rate of growth of a foot to a
+thousand years, or an inch and a fraction to a century. This we knew because,
+as we were standing by it, we heard a drop of water fall.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sometimes the stalagmites took strange forms, presumably where the dropping of
+the water had not always been on the same spot. Thus, one huge mass, which must
+have weighed a hundred tons or so, was in the shape of a pulpit, beautifully
+fretted over outside with a design that looked like lace. Others resembled
+strange beasts, and on the sides of the cave were fanlike ivory tracings, such
+as the frost leaves upon a pane.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Out of the vast main aisle there opened here and there smaller caves, exactly,
+Sir Henry said, as chapels open out of great cathedrals. Some were large, but
+one or two&mdash;and this is a wonderful instance of how nature carries out her
+handiwork by the same unvarying laws, utterly irrespective of size&mdash;were
+tiny. One little nook, for instance, was no larger than an unusually big
+doll&rsquo;s house, and yet it might have been a model for the whole place, for
+the water dropped, tiny icicles hung, and spar columns were forming in just the
+same way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We had not, however, enough time to examine this beautiful cavern so thoroughly
+as we should have liked to do, since unfortunately, Gagool seemed to be
+indifferent as to stalactites, and only anxious to get her business over. This
+annoyed me the more, as I was particularly anxious to discover, if possible, by
+what system the light was admitted into the cave, and whether it was by the
+hand of man or by that of nature that this was done; also if the place had been
+used in any way in ancient times, as seemed probable. However, we consoled
+ourselves with the idea that we would investigate it thoroughly on our way
+back, and followed on at the heels of our uncanny guide.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On she led us, straight to the top of the vast and silent cave, where we found
+another doorway, not arched as the first was, but square at the top, something
+like the doorways of Egyptian temples.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are ye prepared to enter the Place of Death, white men?&rdquo; asked
+Gagool, evidently with a view to making us feel uncomfortable.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Lead on, Macduff,&rdquo; said Good solemnly, trying to look as though he
+was not at all alarmed, as indeed we all did except Foulata, who caught Good by
+the arm for protection.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is getting rather ghastly,&rdquo; said Sir Henry, peeping into the
+dark passageway. &ldquo;Come on, Quatermain&mdash;<i>seniores priores</i>. We
+mustn&rsquo;t keep the old lady waiting!&rdquo; and he politely made way for me
+to lead the van, for which inwardly I did not bless him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Tap, tap,</i> went old Gagool&rsquo;s stick down the passage, as she trotted
+along, chuckling hideously; and still overcome by some unaccountable
+presentiment of evil, I hung back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come, get on, old fellow,&rdquo; said Good, &ldquo;or we shall lose our
+fair guide.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus adjured, I started down the passage, and after about twenty paces found
+myself in a gloomy apartment some forty feet long, by thirty broad, and thirty
+high, which in some past age evidently had been hollowed, by hand-labour, out
+of the mountain. This apartment was not nearly so well lighted as the vast
+stalactite ante-cave, and at the first glance all I could discern was a massive
+stone table running down its length, with a colossal white figure at its head,
+and life-sized white figures all round it. Next I discovered a brown thing,
+seated on the table in the centre, and in another moment my eyes grew
+accustomed to the light, and I saw what all these things were, and was tailing
+out of the place as hard as my legs could carry me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I am not a nervous man in a general way, and very little troubled with
+superstitions, of which I have lived to see the folly; but I am free to own
+that this sight quite upset me, and had it not been that Sir Henry caught me by
+the collar and held me, I do honestly believe that in another five minutes I
+should have been outside the stalactite cave, and that a promise of all the
+diamonds in Kimberley would not have induced me to enter it again. But he held
+me tight, so I stopped because I could not help myself. Next second, however,
+<i>his</i> eyes became accustomed to the light, and he let go of me, and began
+to mop the perspiration off his forehead. As for Good, he swore feebly, while
+Foulata threw her arms round his neck and shrieked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Only Gagool chuckled loud and long.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It <i>was</i> a ghastly sight. There at the end of the long stone table,
+holding in his skeleton fingers a great white spear, sat <i>Death</i> himself,
+shaped in the form of a colossal human skeleton, fifteen feet or more in
+height. High above his head he held the spear, as though in the act to strike;
+one bony hand rested on the stone table before him, in the position a man
+assumes on rising from his seat, whilst his frame was bent forward so that the
+vertebræ of the neck and the grinning, gleaming skull projected towards us, and
+fixed its hollow eye-places upon us, the jaws a little open, as though it were
+about to speak.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Great heavens!&rdquo; said I faintly, at last, &ldquo;what can it
+be?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what are <i>those things</i>?&rdquo; asked Good, pointing to the
+white company round the table.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what on earth is <i>that thing</i>?&rdquo; said Sir Henry, pointing
+to the brown creature seated on the table.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Hee! hee! hee!</i>&rdquo; laughed Gagool. &ldquo;To those who enter
+the Hall of the Dead, evil comes. <i>Hee! hee! hee! ha! ha!</i>&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come, Incubu, brave in battle, come and see him thou slewest;&rdquo; and
+the old creature caught Curtis&rsquo; coat in her skinny fingers, and led him
+away towards the table. We followed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Presently she stopped and pointed at the brown object seated on the table. Sir
+Henry looked, and started back with an exclamation; and no wonder, for there,
+quite naked, the head which Curtis&rsquo; battle-axe had shorn from the body
+resting on its knees, was the gaunt corpse of Twala, the last king of the
+Kukuanas. Yes, there, the head perched upon the knees, it sat in all its
+ugliness, the vertebræ projecting a full inch above the level of the shrunken
+flesh of the neck, for all the world like a black double of Hamilton Tighe.<a href="#fn-11" name="fnref-11" id="fnref-11"><sup>[11]</sup></a>
+Over the surface of the corpse there was gathered a thin glassy film, that made
+its appearance yet more appalling, for which we were, at the moment, quite
+unable to account, till presently we observed that from the roof of the chamber
+the water fell steadily, <i>drip! drop! drip!</i> on to the neck of the corpse,
+whence it ran down over the entire surface, and finally escaped into the rock
+through a tiny hole in the table. Then I guessed what the film
+was&mdash;<i>Twala&rsquo;s body was being transformed into a stalactite.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-11" id="fn-11"></a> <a href="#fnref-11">[11]</a>
+&ldquo;Now haste ye, my handmaidens, haste and see<br />
+How he sits there and glowers with his head on his knee.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A look at the white forms seated on the stone bench which ran round that
+ghastly board confirmed this view. They were human bodies indeed, or rather
+they had been human; now they were <i>stalactites</i>. This was the way in
+which the Kukuana people had from time immemorial preserved their royal dead.
+They petrified them. What the exact system might be, if there was any, beyond
+the placing of them for a long period of years under the drip, I never
+discovered, but there they sat, iced over and preserved for ever by the
+siliceous fluid.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anything more awe-inspiring than the spectacle of this long line of departed
+royalties (there were twenty-seven of them, the last being Ignosi&rsquo;s
+father), wrapped, each of them, in a shroud of ice-like spar, through which the
+features could be dimly discovered, and seated round that inhospitable board,
+with Death himself for a host, it is impossible to imagine. That the practice
+of thus preserving their kings must have been an ancient one is evident from
+the number, which, allowing for an average reign of fifteen years, supposing
+that every king who reigned was placed here&mdash;an improbable thing, as some
+are sure to have perished in battle far from home&mdash;would fix the date of
+its commencement at four and a quarter centuries back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the colossal Death, who sits at the head of the board, is far older than
+that, and, unless I am much mistaken, owes his origin to the same artist who
+designed the three Colossi. He is hewn out of a single stalactite, and, looked
+at as a work of art, is most admirably conceived and executed. Good, who
+understands such things, declared that, so far as he could see, the anatomical
+design of the skeleton is perfect down to the smallest bones.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My own idea is, that this terrific object was a freak of fancy on the part of
+some old-world sculptor, and that its presence had suggested to the Kukuanas
+the idea of placing their royal dead under its awful presidency. Or perhaps it
+was set there to frighten away any marauders who might have designs upon the
+treasure chamber beyond. I cannot say. All I can do is to describe it as it is,
+and the reader must form his own conclusion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Such, at any rate, was the White Death and such were the White Dead!
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap17"></a>CHAPTER XVII.<br />
+SOLOMON&rsquo;S TREASURE CHAMBER</h2>
+
+<p>
+While we were engaged in recovering from our fright, and in examining the
+grisly wonders of the Place of Death, Gagool had been differently occupied.
+Somehow or other&mdash;for she was marvellously active when she chose&mdash;she
+had scrambled on to the great table, and made her way to where our departed
+friend Twala was placed, under the drip, to see, suggested Good, how he was
+&ldquo;pickling,&rdquo; or for some dark purpose of her own. Then, after
+bending down to kiss his icy lips as though in affectionate greeting, she
+hobbled back, stopping now and again to address the remark, the tenor of which
+I could not catch, to one or other of the shrouded forms, just as you or I
+might welcome an old acquaintance. Having gone through this mysterious and
+horrible ceremony, she squatted herself down on the table immediately under the
+White Death, and began, so far as I could make out, to offer up prayers. The
+spectacle of this wicked creature pouring out supplications, evil ones no
+doubt, to the arch enemy of mankind, was so uncanny that it caused us to hasten
+our inspection.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, Gagool,&rdquo; said I, in a low voice&mdash;somehow one did not
+dare to speak above a whisper in that place&mdash;&ldquo;lead us to the
+chamber.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The old witch promptly scrambled down from the table.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My lords are not afraid?&rdquo; she said, leering up into my face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Lead on.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good, my lords;&rdquo; and she hobbled round to the back of the great
+Death. &ldquo;Here is the chamber; let my lords light the lamp, and
+enter,&rdquo; and she placed the gourd full of oil upon the floor, and leaned
+herself against the side of the cave. I took out a match, of which we had still
+a few in a box, and lit a rush wick, and then looked for the doorway, but there
+was nothing before us except the solid rock. Gagool grinned. &ldquo;The way is
+there, my lords. <i>Ha! ha! ha!</i>&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do not jest with us,&rdquo; I said sternly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I jest not, my lords. See!&rdquo; and she pointed at the rock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As she did so, on holding up the lamp we perceived that a mass of stone was
+rising slowly from the floor and vanishing into the rock above, where doubtless
+there is a cavity prepared to receive it. The mass was of the width of a
+good-sized door, about ten feet high and not less than five feet thick. It must
+have weighed at least twenty or thirty tons, and was clearly moved upon some
+simple balance principle of counter-weights, probably the same as that by which
+the opening and shutting of an ordinary modern window is arranged. How the
+principle was set in motion, of course none of us saw; Gagool was careful to
+avoid this; but I have little doubt that there was some very simple lever,
+which was moved ever so little by pressure at a secret spot, thereby throwing
+additional weight on to the hidden counter-balances, and causing the monolith
+to be lifted from the ground.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Very slowly and gently the great stone raised itself, till at last it had
+vanished altogether, and a dark hole presented itself to us in the place which
+the door had filled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Our excitement was so intense, as we saw the way to Solomon&rsquo;s treasure
+chamber thrown open at last, that I for one began to tremble and shake. Would
+it prove a hoax after all, I wondered, or was old Da Silvestra right? Were
+there vast hoards of wealth hidden in that dark place, hoards which would make
+us the richest men in the whole world? We should know in a minute or two.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Enter, white men from the Stars,&rdquo; said Gagool, advancing into the
+doorway; &ldquo;but first hear your servant, Gagool the old. The bright stones
+that ye will see were dug out of the pit over which the Silent Ones are set,
+and stored here, I know not by whom, for that was done longer ago than even I
+remember. But once has this place been entered since the time that those who
+hid the stones departed in haste, leaving them behind. The report of the
+treasure went down indeed among the people who lived in the country from age to
+age, but none knew where the chamber was, nor the secret of the door. But it
+happened that a white man reached this country from over the
+mountains&mdash;perchance he too came &lsquo;from the Stars&rsquo;&mdash;and
+was well received by the king of that day. He it is who sits yonder,&rdquo; and
+she pointed to the fifth king at the table of the Dead. &ldquo;And it came to
+pass that he and a woman of the country who was with him journeyed to this
+place, and that by chance the woman learnt the secret of the door&mdash;a
+thousand years might ye search, but ye should never find that secret. Then the
+white man entered with the woman, and found the stones, and filled with stones
+the skin of a small goat, which the woman had with her to hold food. And as he
+was going from the chamber he took up one more stone, a large one, and held it
+in his hand.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here she paused.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; I asked, breathless with interest as we all were,
+&ldquo;what happened to Da Silvestra?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The old hag started at the mention of the name.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How knowest thou the dead man&rsquo;s name?&rdquo; she asked sharply;
+and then, without waiting for an answer, went on&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;None can tell what happened; but it came about that the white man was
+frightened, for he flung down the goat-skin, with the stones, and fled out with
+only the one stone in his hand, and that the king took, and it is the stone
+which thou, Macumazahn, didst take from Twala&rsquo;s brow.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have none entered here since?&rdquo; I asked, peering again down the
+dark passage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;None, my lords. Only the secret of the door has been kept, and every
+king has opened it, though he has not entered. There is a saying, that those
+who enter there will die within a moon, even as the white man died in the cave
+upon the mountain, where ye found him, Macumazahn, and therefore the kings do
+not enter. <i>Ha! ha!</i> mine are true words.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Our eyes met as she said it, and I turned sick and cold. How did the old hag
+know all these things?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Enter, my lords. If I speak truth, the goat-skin with the stones will
+lie upon the floor; and if there is truth as to whether it is death to enter
+here, that ye will learn afterwards. <i>Ha! ha! ha!</i>&rdquo; and she hobbled
+through the doorway, bearing the light with her; but I confess that once more I
+hesitated about following.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, confound it all!&rdquo; said Good; &ldquo;here goes. I am not going
+to be frightened by that old devil;&rdquo; and followed by Foulata, who,
+however, evidently did not at all like the business, for she was shivering with
+fear, he plunged into the passage after Gagool&mdash;an example which we
+quickly followed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A few yards down the passage, in the narrow way hewn out of the living rock,
+Gagool had paused, and was waiting for us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;See, my lords,&rdquo; she said, holding the light before her,
+&ldquo;those who stored the treasure here fled in haste, and bethought them to
+guard against any who should find the secret of the door, but had not the
+time,&rdquo; and she pointed to large square blocks of stone, which, to the
+height of two courses (about two feet three), had been placed across the
+passage with a view to walling it up. Along the side of the passage were
+similar blocks ready for use, and, most curious of all, a heap of mortar and a
+couple of trowels, which tools, so far as we had time to examine them, appeared
+to be of a similar shape and make to those used by workmen to this day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here Foulata, who had been in a state of great fear and agitation throughout,
+said that she felt faint and could go no farther, but would wait there.
+Accordingly we set her down on the unfinished wall, placing the basket of
+provisions by her side, and left her to recover.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Following the passage for about fifteen paces farther, we came suddenly to an
+elaborately painted wooden door. It was standing wide open. Whoever was last
+there had either not found the time to shut it, or had forgotten to do so.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Across the threshold of this door lay a skin bag, formed of a goat-skin,
+that appeared to be full of pebbles.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Hee! hee!</i> white men,&rdquo; sniggered Gagool, as the light from
+the lamp fell upon it. &ldquo;What did I tell you, that the white man who came
+here fled in haste, and dropped the woman&rsquo;s bag&mdash;behold it! Look
+within also and ye will find a water-gourd amongst the stones.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Good stooped down and lifted it. It was heavy and jingled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By Jove! I believe it&rsquo;s full of diamonds,&rdquo; he said, in an
+awed whisper; and, indeed, the idea of a small goat-skin full of diamonds is
+enough to awe anybody.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Go on,&rdquo; said Sir Henry impatiently. &ldquo;Here, old lady, give me
+the lamp,&rdquo; and taking it from Gagool&rsquo;s hand, he stepped through the
+doorway and held it high above his head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We pressed in after him, forgetful for the moment of the bag of diamonds, and
+found ourselves in King Solomon&rsquo;s treasure chamber.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At first, all that the somewhat faint light given by the lamp revealed was a
+room hewn out of the living rock, and apparently not more than ten feet square.
+Next there came into sight, stored one on the other to the arch of the roof, a
+splendid collection of elephant-tusks. How many of them there were we did not
+know, for of course we could not see to what depth they went back, but there
+could not have been less than the ends of four or five hundred tusks of the
+first quality visible to our eyes. There, alone, was enough ivory to make a man
+wealthy for life. Perhaps, I thought, it was from this very store that Solomon
+drew the raw material for his &ldquo;great throne of ivory,&rdquo; of which
+&ldquo;there was not the like made in any kingdom.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the opposite side of the chamber were about a score of wooden boxes,
+something like Martini-Henry ammunition boxes, only rather larger, and painted
+red.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There are the diamonds,&rdquo; cried I; &ldquo;bring the light.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sir Henry did so, holding it close to the top box, of which the lid, rendered
+rotten by time even in that dry place, appeared to have been smashed in,
+probably by Da Silvestra himself. Pushing my hand through the hole in the lid I
+drew it out full, not of diamonds, but of gold pieces, of a shape that none of
+us had seen before, and with what looked like Hebrew characters stamped upon
+them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; I said, replacing the coin, &ldquo;we shan&rsquo;t go back
+empty-handed, anyhow. There must be a couple of thousand pieces in each box,
+and there are eighteen boxes. I suppose this was the money to pay the workmen
+and merchants.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; put in Good, &ldquo;I think that is the lot; I don&rsquo;t
+see any diamonds, unless the old Portuguese put them all into his bag.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let my lords look yonder where it is darkest, if they would find the
+stones,&rdquo; said Gagool, interpreting our looks. &ldquo;There my lords will
+find a nook, and three stone chests in the nook, two sealed and one
+open.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before translating this to Sir Henry, who carried the light, I could not resist
+asking how she knew these things, if no one had entered the place since the
+white man, generations ago.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, Macumazahn, the watcher by night,&rdquo; was the mocking answer,
+&ldquo;ye who dwell in the stars, do ye not know that some live long, and that
+some have eyes which can see through rock? <i>Ha! ha! ha!</i>&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look in that corner, Curtis,&rdquo; I said, indicating the spot Gagool
+had pointed out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hullo, you fellows,&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;here&rsquo;s a recess. Great
+heavens! see here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We hurried up to where he was standing in a nook, shaped something like a small
+bow window. Against the wall of this recess were placed three stone chests,
+each about two feet square. Two were fitted with stone lids, the lid of the
+third rested against the side of the chest, which was open.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>See!</i>&rdquo; he repeated hoarsely, holding the lamp over the open
+chest. We looked, and for a moment could make nothing out, on account of a
+silvery sheen which dazzled us. When our eyes grew used to it we saw that the
+chest was three-parts full of uncut diamonds, most of them of considerable
+size. Stooping, I picked some up. Yes, there was no doubt of it, there was the
+unmistakable soapy feel about them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I fairly gasped as I dropped them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We are the richest men in the whole world,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Monte
+Christo was a fool to us.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We shall flood the market with diamonds,&rdquo; said Good.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Got to get them there first,&rdquo; suggested Sir Henry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We stood still with pale faces and stared at each other, the lantern in the
+middle and the glimmering gems below, as though we were conspirators about to
+commit a crime, instead of being, as we thought, the most fortunate men on
+earth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Hee! hee! hee!</i>&rdquo; cackled old Gagool behind us, as she
+flitted about like a vampire bat. &ldquo;There are the bright stones ye love,
+white men, as many as ye will; take them, run them through your fingers,
+<i>eat</i> of them, <i>hee! hee! drink</i> of them, <i>ha! ha!</i>&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At that moment there was something so ridiculous to my mind at the idea of
+eating and drinking diamonds, that I began to laugh outrageously, an example
+which the others followed, without knowing why. There we stood and shrieked
+with laughter over the gems that were ours, which had been found for <i>us</i>
+thousands of years ago by the patient delvers in the great hole yonder, and
+stored for <i>us</i> by Solomon&rsquo;s long-dead overseer, whose name,
+perchance, was written in the characters stamped on the faded wax that yet
+adhered to the lids of the chest. Solomon never got them, nor David, or Da
+Silvestra, nor anybody else. <i>We</i> had got them: there before us were
+millions of pounds&rsquo; worth of diamonds, and thousands of pounds&rsquo;
+worth of gold and ivory only waiting to be taken away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly the fit passed off, and we stopped laughing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Open the other chests, white men,&rdquo; croaked Gagool, &ldquo;there
+are surely more therein. Take your fill, white lords! <i>Ha! ha!</i> take your
+fill.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus adjured, we set to work to pull up the stone lids on the other two,
+first&mdash;not without a feeling of sacrilege&mdash;breaking the seals that
+fastened them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hoorah! they were full too, full to the brim; at least, the second one was; no
+wretched burglarious Da Silvestra had been filling goat-skins out of that. As
+for the third chest, it was only about a fourth full, but the stones were all
+picked ones; none less than twenty carats, and some of them as large as
+pigeon-eggs. A good many of these bigger ones, however, we could see by holding
+them up to the light, were a little yellow, &ldquo;off coloured,&rdquo; as they
+call it at Kimberley.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What we did <i>not</i> see, however, was the look of fearful malevolence that
+old Gagool favoured us with as she crept, crept like a snake, out of the
+treasure chamber and down the passage towards the door of solid rock.
+</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>
+Hark! Cry upon cry comes ringing up the vaulted path. It is Foulata&rsquo;s
+voice!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Oh, Bougwan! help! help! the stone falls!</i>&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Leave go, girl! Then&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Help! help! she has stabbed me!</i>&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By now we are running down the passage, and this is what the light from the
+lamp shows us. The door of the rock is closing down slowly; it is not three
+feet from the floor. Near it struggle Foulata and Gagool. The red blood of the
+former runs to her knee, but still the brave girl holds the old witch, who
+fights like a wild cat. Ah! she is free! Foulata falls, and Gagool throws
+herself on the ground, to twist like a snake through the crack of the closing
+stone. She is under&mdash;ah! god! too late! too late! The stone nips her, and
+she yells in agony. Down, down it comes, all the thirty tons of it, slowly
+pressing her old body against the rock below. Shriek upon shriek, such as we
+have never heard, then a long sickening <i>crunch</i>, and the door was shut
+just as, rushing down the passage, we hurled ourselves against it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was all done in four seconds.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then we turned to Foulata. The poor girl was stabbed in the body, and I saw
+that she could not live long.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah! Bougwan, I die!&rdquo; gasped the beautiful creature. &ldquo;She
+crept out&mdash;Gagool; I did not see her, I was faint&mdash;and the door began
+to fall; then she came back, and was looking up the path&mdash;I saw her come
+in through the slowly falling door, and caught her and held her, and she
+stabbed me, and <i>I die</i>, Bougwan!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Poor girl! poor girl!&rdquo; Good cried in his distress; and then, as he
+could do nothing else, he fell to kissing her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Bougwan,&rdquo; she said, after a pause, &ldquo;is Macumazahn there? It
+grows so dark, I cannot see.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here I am, Foulata.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Macumazahn, be my tongue for a moment, I pray thee, for Bougwan cannot
+understand me, and before I go into the darkness I would speak to him a
+word.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Say on, Foulata, I will render it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Say to my lord, Bougwan, that&mdash;I love him, and that I am glad to
+die because I know that he cannot cumber his life with such as I am, for the
+sun may not mate with the darkness, nor the white with the black.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Say that, since I saw him, at times I have felt as though there were a
+bird in my bosom, which would one day fly hence and sing elsewhere. Even now,
+though I cannot lift my hand, and my brain grows cold, I do not feel as though
+my heart were dying; it is so full of love that it could live ten thousand
+years, and yet be young. Say that if I live again, mayhap I shall see him in
+the Stars, and that&mdash;I will search them all, though perchance there I
+should still be black and he would&mdash;still be white. Say&mdash;nay,
+Macumazahn, say no more, save that I love&mdash;Oh, hold me closer, Bougwan, I
+cannot feel thine arms&mdash;<i>oh! oh!</i>&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She is dead&mdash;she is dead!&rdquo; muttered Good, rising in grief,
+the tears running down his honest face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You need not let that trouble you, old fellow,&rdquo; said Sir Henry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Eh!&rdquo; exclaimed Good; &ldquo;what do you mean?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I mean that you will soon be in a position to join her. <i>Man,
+don&rsquo;t you see that we are buried alive?</i>&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Until Sir Henry uttered these words I do not think that the full horror of what
+had happened had come home to us, preoccupied as we were with the sight of poor
+Foulata&rsquo;s end. But now we understood. The ponderous mass of rock had
+closed, probably for ever, for the only brain which knew its secret was crushed
+to powder beneath its weight. This was a door that none could hope to force
+with anything short of dynamite in large quantities. And we were on the wrong
+side!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For a few minutes we stood horrified, there over the corpse of Foulata. All the
+manhood seemed to have gone out of us. The first shock of this idea of the slow
+and miserable end that awaited us was overpowering. We saw it all now; that
+fiend Gagool had planned this snare for us from the first.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It would have been just the jest that her evil mind would have rejoiced in, the
+idea of the three white men, whom, for some reason of her own, she had always
+hated, slowly perishing of thirst and hunger in the company of the treasure
+they had coveted. Now I saw the point of that sneer of hers about eating and
+drinking the diamonds. Probably somebody had tried to serve the poor old Dom in
+the same way, when he abandoned the skin full of jewels.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This will never do,&rdquo; said Sir Henry hoarsely; &ldquo;the lamp will
+soon go out. Let us see if we can&rsquo;t find the spring that works the
+rock.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We sprang forward with desperate energy, and, standing in a bloody ooze, began
+to feel up and down the door and the sides of the passage. But no knob or
+spring could we discover.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Depend on it,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;it does not work from the inside; if
+it did Gagool would not have risked trying to crawl underneath the stone. It
+was the knowledge of this that made her try to escape at all hazards, curse
+her.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;At all events,&rdquo; said Sir Henry, with a hard little laugh,
+&ldquo;retribution was swift; hers was almost as awful an end as ours is likely
+to be. We can do nothing with the door; let us go back to the treasure
+room.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We turned and went, and as we passed it I perceived by the unfinished wall
+across the passage the basket of food which poor Foulata had carried. I took it
+up, and brought it with me to the accursed treasure chamber that was to be our
+grave. Then we returned and reverently bore in Foulata&rsquo;s corpse, laying
+it on the floor by the boxes of coin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Next we seated ourselves, leaning our backs against the three stone chests
+which contained the priceless treasure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let us divide the food,&rdquo; said Sir Henry, &ldquo;so as to make it
+last as long as possible.&rdquo; Accordingly we did so. It would, we reckoned,
+make four infinitesimally small meals for each of us, enough, say, to support
+life for a couple of days. Besides the &ldquo;biltong,&rdquo; or dried
+game-flesh, there were two gourds of water, each of which held not more than a
+quart.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now,&rdquo; said Sir Henry grimly, &ldquo;let us eat and drink, for
+to-morrow we die.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We each ate a small portion of the &ldquo;biltong,&rdquo; and drank a sip of
+water. Needless to say, we had but little appetite, though we were sadly in
+need of food, and felt better after swallowing it. Then we got up and made a
+systematic examination of the walls of our prison-house, in the faint hope of
+finding some means of exit, sounding them and the floor carefully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was none. It was not probable that there would be any to a treasure
+chamber.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The lamp began to burn dim. The fat was nearly exhausted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Quatermain,&rdquo; said Sir Henry, &ldquo;what is the time&mdash;your
+watch goes?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I drew it out, and looked at it. It was six o&rsquo;clock; we had entered the
+cave at eleven.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Infadoos will miss us,&rdquo; I suggested. &ldquo;If we do not return
+to-night he will search for us in the morning, Curtis.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He may search in vain. He does not know the secret of the door, nor even
+where it is. No living person knew it yesterday, except Gagool. To-day no one
+knows it. Even if he found the door he could not break it down. All the Kukuana
+army could not break through five feet of living rock. My friends, I see
+nothing for it but to bow ourselves to the will of the Almighty. The search for
+treasure has brought many to a bad end; we shall go to swell their
+number.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The lamp grew dimmer yet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Presently it flared up and showed the whole scene in strong relief, the great
+mass of white tusks, the boxes of gold, the corpse of the poor Foulata
+stretched before them, the goat-skin full of treasure, the dim glimmer of the
+diamonds, and the wild, wan faces of us three white men seated there awaiting
+death by starvation.
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+Then the flame sank and expired.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap18"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.<br />
+WE ABANDON HOPE</h2>
+
+<p>
+I can give no adequate description of the horrors of the night which followed.
+Mercifully they were to some extent mitigated by sleep, for even in such a
+position as ours wearied nature will sometimes assert itself. But I, at any
+rate, found it impossible to sleep much. Putting aside the terrifying thought
+of our impending doom&mdash;for the bravest man on earth might well quail from
+such a fate as awaited us, and I never made any pretensions to be
+brave&mdash;the <i>silence</i> itself was too great to allow of it. Reader, you
+may have lain awake at night and thought the quiet oppressive, but I say with
+confidence that you can have no idea what a vivid, tangible thing is perfect
+stillness. On the surface of the earth there is always some sound or motion,
+and though it may in itself be imperceptible, yet it deadens the sharp edge of
+absolute silence. But here there was none. We were buried in the bowels of a
+huge snow-clad peak. Thousands of feet above us the fresh air rushed over the
+white snow, but no sound of it reached us. We were separated by a long tunnel
+and five feet of rock even from the awful chamber of the Dead; and the dead
+make no noise. Did we not know it who lay by poor Foulata&rsquo;s side? The
+crashing of all the artillery of earth and heaven could not have come to our
+ears in our living tomb. We were cut off from every echo of the world&mdash;we
+were as men already in the grave.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then the irony of the situation forced itself upon me. There around us lay
+treasures enough to pay off a moderate national debt, or to build a fleet of
+ironclads, and yet we would have bartered them all gladly for the faintest
+chance of escape. Soon, doubtless, we should be rejoiced to exchange them for a
+bit of food or a cup of water, and, after that, even for the privilege of a
+speedy close to our sufferings. Truly wealth, which men spend their lives in
+acquiring, is a valueless thing at the last.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And so the night wore on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good,&rdquo; said Sir Henry&rsquo;s voice at last, and it sounded awful
+in the intense stillness, &ldquo;how many matches have you in the box?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Eight, Curtis.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Strike one and let us see the time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He did so, and in contrast to the dense darkness the flame nearly blinded us.
+It was five o&rsquo;clock by my watch. The beautiful dawn was now blushing on
+the snow-wreaths far over our heads, and the breeze would be stirring the night
+mists in the hollows.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We had better eat something and keep up our strength,&rdquo; I
+suggested.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is the good of eating?&rdquo; answered Good; &ldquo;the sooner we
+die and get it over the better.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;While there is life there is hope,&rdquo; said Sir Henry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Accordingly we ate and sipped some water, and another period of time elapsed.
+Then Sir Henry suggested that it might be well to get as near the door as
+possible and halloa, on the faint chance of somebody catching a sound outside.
+Accordingly Good, who, from long practice at sea, has a fine piercing note,
+groped his way down the passage and set to work. I must say that he made a most
+diabolical noise. I never heard such yells; but it might have been a mosquito
+buzzing for all the effect they produced.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After a while he gave it up and came back very thirsty, and had to drink. Then
+we stopped yelling, as it encroached on the supply of water.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So we sat down once more against the chests of useless diamonds in that
+dreadful inaction which was one of the hardest circumstances of our fate; and I
+am bound to say that, for my part, I gave way in despair. Laying my head
+against Sir Henry&rsquo;s broad shoulder I burst into tears; and I think that I
+heard Good gulping away on the other side, and swearing hoarsely at himself for
+doing so.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ah, how good and brave that great man was! Had we been two frightened children,
+and he our nurse, he could not have treated us more tenderly. Forgetting his
+own share of miseries, he did all he could to soothe our broken nerves, telling
+stories of men who had been in somewhat similar circumstances, and miraculously
+escaped; and when these failed to cheer us, pointing out how, after all, it was
+only anticipating an end which must come to us all, that it would soon be over,
+and that death from exhaustion was a merciful one (which is not true). Then, in
+a diffident sort of way, as once before I had heard him do, he suggested that
+we should throw ourselves on the mercy of a higher Power, which for my part I
+did with great vigour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His is a beautiful character, very quiet, but very strong.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And so somehow the day went as the night had gone, if, indeed, one can use
+these terms where all was densest night, and when I lit a match to see the time
+it was seven o&rsquo;clock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Once more we ate and drank, and as we did so an idea occurred to me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How is it,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;that the air in this place keeps fresh?
+It is thick and heavy, but it is perfectly fresh.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Great heavens!&rdquo; said Good, starting up, &ldquo;I never thought of
+that. It can&rsquo;t come through the stone door, for it&rsquo;s air-tight, if
+ever a door was. It must come from somewhere. If there were no current of air
+in the place we should have been stifled or poisoned when we first came in. Let
+us have a look.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was wonderful what a change this mere spark of hope wrought in us. In a
+moment we were all three groping about on our hands and knees, feeling for the
+slightest indication of a draught. Presently my ardour received a check. I put
+my hand on something cold. It was dead Foulata&rsquo;s face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For an hour or more we went on feeling about, till at last Sir Henry and I gave
+it up in despair, having been considerably hurt by constantly knocking our
+heads against tusks, chests, and the sides of the chamber. But Good still
+persevered, saying, with an approach to cheerfulness, that it was better than
+doing nothing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say, you fellows,&rdquo; he said presently, in a constrained sort of
+voice, &ldquo;come here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Needless to say we scrambled towards him quickly enough.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Quatermain, put your hand here where mine is. Now, do you feel
+anything?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I <i>think</i> I feel air coming up.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now listen.&rdquo; He rose and stamped upon the place, and a flame of
+hope shot up in our hearts. <i>It rang hollow.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With trembling hands I lit a match. I had only three left, and we saw that we
+were in the angle of the far corner of the chamber, a fact that accounted for
+our not having noticed the hollow sound of the place during our former
+exhaustive examination. As the match burnt we scrutinised the spot. There was a
+join in the solid rock floor, and, great heavens! there, let in level with the
+rock, was a stone ring. We said no word, we were too excited, and our hearts
+beat too wildly with hope to allow us to speak. Good had a knife, at the back
+of which was one of those hooks that are made to extract stones from
+horses&rsquo; hoofs. He opened it, and scratched round the ring with it.
+Finally he worked it under, and levered away gently for fear of breaking the
+hook. The ring began to move. Being of stone it had not rusted fast in all the
+centuries it had lain there, as would have been the case had it been of iron.
+Presently it was upright. Then he thrust his hands into it and tugged with all
+his force, but nothing budged.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let me try,&rdquo; I said impatiently, for the situation of the stone,
+right in the angle of the corner, was such that it was impossible for two to
+pull at once. I took hold and strained away, but no results.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Sir Henry tried and failed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Taking the hook again, Good scratched all round the crack where we felt the air
+coming up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, Curtis,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;tackle on, and put your back into
+it; you are as strong as two. Stop,&rdquo; and he took off a stout black silk
+handkerchief, which, true to his habits of neatness, he still wore, and ran it
+through the ring. &ldquo;Quatermain, get Curtis round the middle and pull for
+dear life when I give the word. <i>Now.</i>&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sir Henry put out all his enormous strength, and Good and I did the same, with
+such power as nature had given us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Heave! heave! it&rsquo;s giving,&rdquo; gasped Sir Henry; and I heard
+the muscles of his great back cracking. Suddenly there was a grating sound,
+then a rush of air, and we were all on our backs on the floor with a heavy
+flag-stone upon the top of us. Sir Henry&rsquo;s strength had done it, and
+never did muscular power stand a man in better stead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Light a match, Quatermain,&rdquo; he said, so soon as we had picked
+ourselves up and got our breath; &ldquo;carefully, now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I did so, and there before us, Heaven be praised! was the <i>first step of a
+stone stair.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now what is to be done?&rdquo; asked Good.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Follow the stair, of course, and trust to Providence.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Stop!&rdquo; said Sir Henry; &ldquo;Quatermain, get the bit of biltong
+and the water that are left; we may want them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I went, creeping back to our place by the chests for that purpose, and as I was
+coming away an idea struck me. We had not thought much of the diamonds for the
+last twenty-four hours or so; indeed, the very idea of diamonds was nauseous,
+seeing what they had entailed upon us; but, reflected I, I may as well pocket
+some in case we ever should get out of this ghastly hole. So I just put my fist
+into the first chest and filled all the available pockets of my old
+shooting-coat and trousers, topping up&mdash;this was a happy
+thought&mdash;with a few handfuls of big ones from the third chest. Also, by an
+afterthought, I stuffed Foulata&rsquo;s basket, which, except for one
+water-gourd and a little biltong, was empty now, with great quantities of the
+stones.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say, you fellows,&rdquo; I sang out, &ldquo;won&rsquo;t you take some
+diamonds with you? I&rsquo;ve filled my pockets and the basket.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, come on, Quatermain! and hang the diamonds!&rdquo; said Sir Henry.
+&ldquo;I hope that I may never see another.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As for Good, he made no answer. He was, I think, taking his last farewell of
+all that was left of the poor girl who had loved him so well. And curious as it
+may seem to you, my reader, sitting at home at ease and reflecting on the vast,
+indeed the immeasurable, wealth which we were thus abandoning, I can assure you
+that if you had passed some twenty-eight hours with next to nothing to eat and
+drink in that place, you would not have cared to cumber yourself with diamonds
+whilst plunging down into the unknown bowels of the earth, in the wild hope of
+escape from an agonising death. If from the habits of a lifetime, it had not
+become a sort of second nature with me never to leave anything worth having
+behind if there was the slightest chance of my being able to carry it away, I
+am sure that I should not have bothered to fill my pockets and that basket.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come on, Quatermain,&rdquo; repeated Sir Henry, who was already standing
+on the first step of the stone stair. &ldquo;Steady, I will go first.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mind where you put your feet, there may be some awful hole
+underneath,&rdquo; I answered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Much more likely to be another room,&rdquo; said Sir Henry, while he
+descended slowly, counting the steps as he went.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When he got to &ldquo;fifteen&rdquo; he stopped. &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s the
+bottom,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Thank goodness! I think it&rsquo;s a passage.
+Follow me down.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Good went next, and I came last, carrying the basket, and on reaching the
+bottom lit one of the two remaining matches. By its light we could just see
+that we were standing in a narrow tunnel, which ran right and left at right
+angles to the staircase we had descended. Before we could make out any more,
+the match burnt my fingers and went out. Then arose the delicate question of
+which way to go. Of course, it was impossible to know what the tunnel was, or
+where it led to, and yet to turn one way might lead us to safety, and the other
+to destruction. We were utterly perplexed, till suddenly it struck Good that
+when I had lit the match the draught of the passage blew the flame to the left.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let us go against the draught,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;air draws inwards,
+not outwards.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We took this suggestion, and feeling along the wall with our hands, whilst
+trying the ground before us at every step, we departed from that accursed
+treasure chamber on our terrible quest for life. If ever it should be entered
+again by living man, which I do not think probable, he will find tokens of our
+visit in the open chests of jewels, the empty lamp, and the white bones of poor
+Foulata.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When we had groped our way for about a quarter of an hour along the passage,
+suddenly it took a sharp turn, or else was bisected by another, which we
+followed, only in course of time to be led into a third. And so it went on for
+some hours. We seemed to be in a stone labyrinth that led nowhere. What all
+these passages are, of course I cannot say, but we thought that they must be
+the ancient workings of a mine, of which the various shafts and adits travelled
+hither and thither as the ore led them. This is the only way in which we could
+account for such a multitude of galleries.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At length we halted, thoroughly worn out with fatigue and with that hope
+deferred which maketh the heart sick, and ate up our poor remaining piece of
+biltong and drank our last sup of water, for our throats were like lime-kilns.
+It seemed to us that we had escaped Death in the darkness of the treasure
+chamber only to meet him in the darkness of the tunnels.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As we stood, once more utterly depressed, I thought that I caught a sound, to
+which I called the attention of the others. It was very faint and very far off,
+but it <i>was</i> a sound, a faint, murmuring sound, for the others heard it
+too, and no words can describe the blessedness of it after all those hours of
+utter, awful stillness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By heaven! it&rsquo;s running water,&rdquo; said Good. &ldquo;Come
+on.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Off we started again in the direction from which the faint murmur seemed to
+come, groping our way as before along the rocky walls. I remember that I laid
+down the basket full of diamonds, wishing to be rid of its weight, but on
+second thoughts took it up again. One might as well die rich as poor, I
+reflected. As we went the sound became more and more audible, till at last it
+seemed quite loud in the quiet. On, yet on; now we could distinctly make out
+the unmistakable swirl of rushing water. And yet how could there be running
+water in the bowels of the earth? Now we were quite near it, and Good, who was
+leading, swore that he could smell it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Go gently, Good,&rdquo; said Sir Henry, &ldquo;we must be close.&rdquo;
+<i>Splash!</i> and a cry from Good.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had fallen in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good! Good! where are you?&rdquo; we shouted, in terrified distress. To
+our intense relief an answer came back in a choky voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All right; I&rsquo;ve got hold of a rock. Strike a light to show me
+where you are.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hastily I lit the last remaining match. Its faint gleam discovered to us a dark
+mass of water running at our feet. How wide it was we could not see, but there,
+some way out, was the dark form of our companion hanging on to a projecting
+rock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Stand clear to catch me,&rdquo; sung out Good. &ldquo;I must swim for
+it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then we heard a splash, and a great struggle. Another minute and he had grabbed
+at and caught Sir Henry&rsquo;s outstretched hand, and we had pulled him up
+high and dry into the tunnel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My word!&rdquo; he said, between his gasps, &ldquo;that was touch and
+go. If I hadn&rsquo;t managed to catch that rock, and known how to swim, I
+should have been done. It runs like a mill-race, and I could feel no
+bottom.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We dared not follow the banks of the subterranean river for fear lest we should
+fall into it again in the darkness. So after Good had rested a while, and we
+had drunk our fill of the water, which was sweet and fresh, and washed our
+faces, that needed it sadly, as well as we could, we started from the banks of
+this African Styx, and began to retrace our steps along the tunnel, Good
+dripping unpleasantly in front of us. At length we came to another gallery
+leading to our right.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We may as well take it,&rdquo; said Sir Henry wearily; &ldquo;all roads
+are alike here; we can only go on till we drop.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Slowly, for a long, long while, we stumbled, utterly exhausted, along this new
+tunnel, Sir Henry now leading the way. Again I thought of abandoning that
+basket, but did not.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly he stopped, and we bumped up against him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look!&rdquo; he whispered, &ldquo;is my brain going, or is that
+light?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We stared with all our eyes, and there, yes, there, far ahead of us, was a
+faint, glimmering spot, no larger than a cottage window pane. It was so faint
+that I doubt if any eyes, except those which, like ours, had for days seen
+nothing but blackness, could have perceived it at all.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With a gasp of hope we pushed on. In five minutes there was no longer any
+doubt; it <i>was</i> a patch of faint light. A minute more and a breath of real
+live air was fanning us. On we struggled. All at once the tunnel narrowed. Sir
+Henry went on his knees. Smaller yet it grew, till it was only the size of a
+large fox&rsquo;s earth&mdash;it was <i>earth</i> now, mind you; the rock had
+ceased.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A squeeze, a struggle, and Sir Henry was out, and so was Good, and so was I,
+dragging Foulata&rsquo;s basket after me; and there above us were the blessed
+stars, and in our nostrils was the sweet air. Then suddenly something gave, and
+we were all rolling over and over and over through grass and bushes and soft,
+wet soil.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The basket caught in something and I stopped. Sitting up I halloed lustily. An
+answering shout came from below, where Sir Henry&rsquo;s wild career had been
+checked by some level ground. I scrambled to him, and found him unhurt, though
+breathless. Then we looked for Good. A little way off we discovered him also,
+hammed in a forked root. He was a good deal knocked about, but soon came to
+himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We sat down together, there on the grass, and the revulsion of feeling was so
+great that really I think we cried with joy. We had escaped from that awful
+dungeon, which was so near to becoming our grave. Surely some merciful Power
+guided our footsteps to the jackal hole, for that is what it must have been, at
+the termination of the tunnel. And see, yonder on the mountains the dawn we had
+never thought to look upon again was blushing rosy red.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Presently the grey light stole down the slopes, and we saw that we were at the
+bottom, or rather, nearly at the bottom, of the vast pit in front of the
+entrance to the cave. Now we could make out the dim forms of the three Colossi
+who sat upon its verge. Doubtless those awful passages, along which we had
+wandered the livelong night, had been originally in some way connected with the
+great diamond mine. As for the subterranean river in the bowels of the
+mountain, Heaven only knows what it is, or whence it flows, or whither it goes.
+I, for one, have no anxiety to trace its course.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lighter it grew, and lighter yet. We could see each other now, and such a
+spectacle as we presented I have never set eyes on before or since.
+Gaunt-cheeked, hollow-eyed wretches, smeared all over with dust and mud,
+bruised, bleeding, the long fear of imminent death yet written on our
+countenances, we were, indeed, a sight to frighten the daylight. And yet it is
+a solemn fact that Good&rsquo;s eye-glass was still fixed in Good&rsquo;s eye.
+I doubt whether he had ever taken it out at all. Neither the darkness, nor the
+plunge in the subterranean river, nor the roll down the slope, had been able to
+separate Good and his eye-glass.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Presently we rose, fearing that our limbs would stiffen if we stopped there
+longer, and commenced with slow and painful steps to struggle up the sloping
+sides of the great pit. For an hour or more we toiled steadfastly up the blue
+clay, dragging ourselves on by the help of the roots and grasses with which it
+was clothed. But now I had no more thought of leaving the basket; indeed,
+nothing but death should have parted us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last it was done, and we stood by the great road, on that side of the pit
+which is opposite to the Colossi.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the side of the road, a hundred yards off, a fire was burning in front of
+some huts, and round the fire were figures. We staggered towards them,
+supporting one another, and halting every few paces. Presently one of the
+figures rose, saw us and fell on to the ground, crying out for fear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Infadoos, Infadoos! it is we, thy friends.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He rose; he ran to us, staring wildly, and still shaking with fear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, my lords, my lords, it is indeed you come back from the
+dead!&mdash;come back from the dead!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And the old warrior flung himself down before us, and clasping Sir
+Henry&rsquo;s knees, he wept aloud for joy.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap19"></a>CHAPTER XIX.<br />
+IGNOSI&rsquo;S FAREWELL</h2>
+
+<p>
+Ten days from that eventful morning found us once more in our old quarters at
+Loo; and, strange to say, but little the worse for our terrible experience,
+except that my stubbly hair came out of the treasure cave about three shades
+greyer than it went in, and that Good never was quite the same after
+Foulata&rsquo;s death, which seemed to move him very greatly. I am bound to
+say, looking at the thing from the point of view of an oldish man of the world,
+that I consider her removal was a fortunate occurrence, since, otherwise,
+complications would have been sure to ensue. The poor creature was no ordinary
+native girl, but a person of great, I had almost said stately, beauty, and of
+considerable refinement of mind. But no amount of beauty or refinement could
+have made an entanglement between Good and herself a desirable occurrence; for,
+as she herself put it, &ldquo;Can the sun mate with the darkness, or the white
+with the black?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I need hardly state that we never again penetrated into Solomon&rsquo;s
+treasure chamber. After we had recovered from our fatigues, a process which
+took us forty-eight hours, we descended into the great pit in the hope of
+finding the hole by which we had crept out of the mountain, but with no
+success. To begin with, rain had fallen, and obliterated our spoor; and what is
+more, the sides of the vast pit were full of ant-bear and other holes. It was
+impossible to say to which of these we owed our salvation. Also, on the day
+before we started back to Loo, we made a further examination of the wonders of
+the stalactite cave, and, drawn by a kind of restless feeling, even penetrated
+once more into the Chamber of the Dead. Passing beneath the spear of the White
+Death we gazed, with sensations which it would be quite impossible for me to
+describe, at the mass of rock that had shut us off from escape, thinking the
+while of priceless treasures beyond, of the mysterious old hag whose flattened
+fragments lay crushed beneath it, and of the fair girl of whose tomb it was the
+portal. I say gazed at the &ldquo;rock,&rdquo; for, examine as we could, we
+could find no traces of the join of the sliding door; nor, indeed, could we hit
+upon the secret, now utterly lost, that worked it, though we tried for an hour
+or more. It is certainly a marvellous bit of mechanism, characteristic, in its
+massive and yet inscrutable simplicity, of the age which produced it; and I
+doubt if the world has such another to show.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last we gave it up in disgust; though, if the mass had suddenly risen before
+our eyes, I doubt if we should have screwed up courage to step over
+Gagool&rsquo;s mangled remains, and once more enter the treasure chamber, even
+in the sure and certain hope of unlimited diamonds. And yet I could have cried
+at the idea of leaving all that treasure, the biggest treasure probably that in
+the world&rsquo;s history has ever been accumulated in one spot. But there was
+no help for it. Only dynamite could force its way through five feet of solid
+rock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So we left it. Perhaps, in some remote unborn century, a more fortunate
+explorer may hit upon the &ldquo;Open Sesame,&rdquo; and flood the world with
+gems. But, myself, I doubt it. Somehow, I seem to feel that the tens of
+millions of pounds&rsquo; worth of jewels which lie in the three stone coffers
+will never shine round the neck of an earthly beauty. They and Foulata&rsquo;s
+bones will keep cold company till the end of all things.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With a sigh of disappointment we made our way back, and next day started for
+Loo. And yet it was really very ungrateful of us to be disappointed; for, as
+the reader will remember, by a lucky thought, I had taken the precaution to
+fill the wide pockets of my old shooting coat and trousers with gems before we
+left our prison-house, also Foulata&rsquo;s basket, which held twice as many
+more, notwithstanding that the water bottle had occupied some of its space. A
+good many of these fell out in the course of our roll down the side of the pit,
+including several of the big ones, which I had crammed in on the top in my coat
+pockets. But, comparatively speaking, an enormous quantity still remained,
+including ninety-three large stones ranging from over two hundred to seventy
+carats in weight. My old shooting coat and the basket still held sufficient
+treasure to make us all, if not millionaires as the term is understood in
+America, at least exceedingly wealthy men, and yet to keep enough stones each
+to make the three finest sets of gems in Europe. So we had not done so badly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On arriving at Loo we were most cordially received by Ignosi, whom we found
+well, and busily engaged in consolidating his power, and reorganising the
+regiments which had suffered most in the great struggle with Twala.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He listened with intense interest to our wonderful story; but when we told him
+of old Gagool&rsquo;s frightful end he grew thoughtful.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come hither,&rdquo; he called, to a very old Induna or councillor, who
+was sitting with others in a circle round the king, but out of ear-shot. The
+ancient man rose, approached, saluted, and seated himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thou art aged,&rdquo; said Ignosi.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, my lord the king! Thy father&rsquo;s father and I were born on the
+same day.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tell me, when thou wast little, didst thou know Gagaoola the witch
+doctress?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, my lord the king!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How was she then&mdash;young, like thee?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not so, my lord the king! She was even as she is now and as she was in
+the days of my great grandfather before me; old and dried, very ugly, and full
+of wickedness.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She is no more; she is dead.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So, O king! then is an ancient curse taken from the land.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Go!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Koom!</i> I go, Black Puppy, who tore out the old dog&rsquo;s throat.
+<i>Koom!</i>&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ye see, my brothers,&rdquo; said Ignosi, &ldquo;this was a strange
+woman, and I rejoice that she is dead. She would have let you die in the dark
+place, and mayhap afterwards she had found a way to slay me, as she found a way
+to slay my father, and set up Twala, whom her black heart loved, in his place.
+Now go on with the tale; surely there never was its like!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After I had narrated all the story of our escape, as we had agreed between
+ourselves that I should, I took the opportunity to address Ignosi as to our
+departure from Kukuanaland.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now, Ignosi,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;the time has come for us to bid
+thee farewell, and start to see our own land once more. Behold, Ignosi, thou
+camest with us a servant, and now we leave thee a mighty king. If thou art
+grateful to us, remember to do even as thou didst promise: to rule justly, to
+respect the law, and to put none to death without a cause. So shalt thou
+prosper. To-morrow, at break of day, Ignosi, thou wilt give us an escort who
+shall lead us across the mountains. Is it not so, O king?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ignosi covered his face with his hands for a while before answering.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My heart is sore,&rdquo; he said at last; &ldquo;your words split my
+heart in twain. What have I done to you, Incubu, Macumazahn, and Bougwan, that
+ye should leave me desolate? Ye who stood by me in rebellion and in battle,
+will ye leave me in the day of peace and victory? What will ye&mdash;wives?
+Choose from among the maidens! A place to live in? Behold, the land is yours as
+far as ye can see. The white man&rsquo;s houses? Ye shall teach my people how
+to build them. Cattle for beef and milk? Every married man shall bring you an
+ox or a cow. Wild game to hunt? Does not the elephant walk through my forests,
+and the river-horse sleep in the reeds? Would ye make war? My Impis wait your
+word. If there is anything more which I can give, that will I give you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nay, Ignosi, we want none of these things,&rdquo; I answered; &ldquo;we
+would seek our own place.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now do I learn,&rdquo; said Ignosi bitterly, and with flashing eyes,
+&ldquo;that ye love the bright stones more than me, your friend. Ye have the
+stones; now ye would go to Natal and across the moving black water and sell
+them, and be rich, as it is the desire of a white man&rsquo;s heart to be.
+Cursed for your sake be the white stones, and cursed he who seeks them. Death
+shall it be to him who sets foot in the place of Death to find them. I have
+spoken. White men, ye can go.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I laid my hand upon his arm. &ldquo;Ignosi,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;tell us, when
+thou didst wander in Zululand, and among the white people of Natal, did not
+thine heart turn to the land thy mother told thee of, thy native place, where
+thou didst see the light, and play when thou wast little, the land where thy
+place was?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was even so, Macumazahn.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In like manner, Ignosi, do our hearts turn to our land and to our own
+place.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then came a silence. When Ignosi broke it, it was in a different voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do perceive that now as ever thy words are wise and full of reason,
+Macumazahn; that which flies in the air loves not to run along the ground; the
+white man loves not to live on the level of the black or to house among his
+kraals. Well, ye must go, and leave my heart sore, because ye will be as dead
+to me, since from where ye are no tidings can come to me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But listen, and let all your brothers know my words. No other white man
+shall cross the mountains, even if any man live to come so far. I will see no
+traders with their guns and gin. My people shall fight with the spear, and
+drink water, like their forefathers before them. I will have no praying-men to
+put a fear of death into men&rsquo;s hearts, to stir them up against the law of
+the king, and make a path for the white folk who follow to run on. If a white
+man comes to my gates I will send him back; if a hundred come I will push them
+back; if armies come, I will make war on them with all my strength, and they
+shall not prevail against me. None shall ever seek for the shining stones: no,
+not an army, for if they come I will send a regiment and fill up the pit, and
+break down the white columns in the caves and choke them with rocks, so that
+none can reach even to that door of which ye speak, and whereof the way to move
+it is lost. But for you three, Incubu, Macumazahn, and Bougwan, the path is
+always open; for, behold, ye are dearer to me than aught that breathes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And ye would go. Infadoos, my uncle, and my Induna, shall take you by
+the hand and guide you with a regiment. There is, as I have learned, another
+way across the mountains that he shall show you. Farewell, my brothers, brave
+white men. See me no more, for I have no heart to bear it. Behold! I make a
+decree, and it shall be published from the mountains to the mountains; your
+names, Incubu, Macumazahn, and Bougwan, shall be &ldquo;<i>hlonipa</i>&rdquo;
+even as the names of dead kings, and he who speaks them shall die.<a href="#fn-12" name="fnref-12" id="fnref-12"><sup>[12]</sup></a>
+So shall your memory be preserved in the land for ever.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-12" id="fn-12"></a> <a href="#fnref-12">[12]</a>
+This extraordinary and negative way of showing intense respect is by no means
+unknown among African people, and the result is that if, as is usual, the name
+in question has a significance, the meaning must be expressed by an idiom or
+other word. In this way a memory is preserved for generations, or until the new
+word utterly supplants the old one.&mdash;A.Q.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Go now, ere my eyes rain tears like a woman&rsquo;s. At times as ye look
+back down the path of life, or when ye are old and gather yourselves together
+to crouch before the fire, because for you the sun has no more heat, ye will
+think of how we stood shoulder to shoulder, in that great battle which thy wise
+words planned, Macumazahn; of how thou wast the point of the horn that galled
+Twala&rsquo;s flank, Bougwan; whilst thou stood in the ring of the Greys,
+Incubu, and men went down before thine axe like corn before a sickle; ay, and
+of how thou didst break that wild bull Twala&rsquo;s strength, and bring his
+pride to dust. Fare ye well for ever, Incubu, Macumazahn, and Bougwan, my lords
+and my friends.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ignosi rose and looked earnestly at us for a few seconds. Then he threw the
+corner of his karross over his head, so as to cover his face from us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We went in silence.
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+Next day at dawn we left Loo, escorted by our old friend Infadoos, who was
+heart-broken at our departure, and by the regiment of Buffaloes. Early as was
+the hour, all the main street of the town was lined with multitudes of people,
+who gave us the royal salute as we passed at the head of the regiment, while
+the women blessed us for having rid the land of Twala, throwing flowers before
+us as we went. It was really very affecting, and not the sort of thing one is
+accustomed to meet with from natives.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One ludicrous incident occurred, however, which I rather welcomed, as it gave
+us something to laugh at.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Just before we reached the confines of the town, a pretty young girl, with some
+lovely lilies in her hand, ran forward and presented them to Good&mdash;somehow
+they all seemed to like Good; I think his eye-glass and solitary whisker gave
+him a fictitious value&mdash;and then said that she had a boon to ask.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Speak on,&rdquo; he answered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let my lord show his servant his beautiful white legs, that his servant
+may look upon them, and remember them all her days, and tell of them to her
+children; his servant has travelled four days&rsquo; journey to see them, for
+the fame of them has gone throughout the land.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll be hanged if I do!&rdquo; exclaimed Good excitedly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come, come, my dear fellow,&rdquo; said Sir Henry, &ldquo;you
+can&rsquo;t refuse to oblige a lady.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I won&rsquo;t,&rdquo; replied Good obstinately; &ldquo;it is positively
+indecent.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+However, in the end he consented to draw up his trousers to the knee, amidst
+notes of rapturous admiration from all the women present, especially the
+gratified young lady, and in this guise he had to walk till we got clear of the
+town.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Good&rsquo;s legs, I fear, will never be so greatly admired again. Of his
+melting teeth, and even of his &ldquo;transparent eye,&rdquo; the Kukuanas
+wearied more or less, but of his legs never.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As we travelled, Infadoos told us that there was another pass over the
+mountains to the north of the one followed by Solomon&rsquo;s Great Road, or
+rather that there was a place where it was possible to climb down the wall of
+cliff which separates Kukuanaland from the desert, and is broken by the
+towering shapes of Sheba&rsquo;s Breasts. It appeared, also, that rather more
+than two years previously a party of Kukuana hunters had descended this path
+into the desert in search of ostriches, whose plumes are much prized among them
+for war head-dresses, and that in the course of their hunt they had been led
+far from the mountains and were much troubled by thirst. Seeing trees on the
+horizon, however, they walked towards them, and discovered a large and fertile
+oasis some miles in extent, and plentifully watered. It was by way of this
+oasis that Infadoos suggested we should return, and the idea seemed to us a
+good one, for it appeared that we should thus escape the rigours of the
+mountain pass. Also some of the hunters were in attendance to guide us to the
+oasis, from which, they stated, they could perceive other fertile spots far
+away in the desert.<a href="#fn-13" name="fnref-13" id="fnref-13"><sup>[13]</sup></a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-13" id="fn-13"></a> <a href="#fnref-13">[13]</a>
+It often puzzled all of us to understand how it was possible that
+Ignosi&rsquo;s mother, bearing the child with her, should have survived the
+dangers of her journey across the mountains and the desert, dangers which so
+nearly proved fatal to ourselves. It has since occurred to me, and I give the
+idea to the reader for what it is worth, that she must have taken this second
+route, and wandered out like Hagar into the wilderness. If she did so, there is
+no longer anything inexplicable about the story, since, as Ignosi himself
+related, she may well have been picked up by some ostrich hunters before she or
+the child was exhausted, was led by them to the oasis, and thence by stages to
+the fertile country, and so on by slow degrees southwards to
+Zululand.&mdash;A.Q.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Travelling easily, on the night of the fourth day&rsquo;s journey we found
+ourselves once more on the crest of the mountains that separate Kukuanaland
+from the desert, which rolled away in sandy billows at our feet, and about
+twenty-five miles to the north of Sheba&rsquo;s Breasts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At dawn on the following day, we were led to the edge of a very precipitous
+chasm, by which we were to descend the precipice, and gain the plain two
+thousand and more feet below.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here we bade farewell to that true friend and sturdy old warrior, Infadoos, who
+solemnly wished all good upon us, and nearly wept with grief. &ldquo;Never, my
+lords,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;shall mine old eyes see the like of you again.
+Ah! the way that Incubu cut his men down in the battle! Ah! for the sight of
+that stroke with which he swept off my brother Twala&rsquo;s head! It was
+beautiful&mdash;beautiful! I may never hope to see such another, except
+perchance in happy dreams.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We were very sorry to part from him; indeed, Good was so moved that he gave him
+as a souvenir&mdash;what do you think?&mdash;an <i>eye-glass</i>; afterwards we
+discovered that it was a spare one. Infadoos was delighted, foreseeing that the
+possession of such an article would increase his prestige enormously, and after
+several vain attempts he actually succeeded in screwing it into his own eye.
+Anything more incongruous than the old warrior looked with an eye-glass I never
+saw. Eye-glasses do not go well with leopard-skin cloaks and black ostrich
+plumes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then, after seeing that our guides were well laden with water and provisions,
+and having received a thundering farewell salute from the Buffaloes, we wrung
+Infadoos by the hand, and began our downward climb. A very arduous business it
+proved to be, but somehow that evening we found ourselves at the bottom without
+accident.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you know,&rdquo; said Sir Henry that night, as we sat by our fire and
+gazed up at the beetling cliffs above us, &ldquo;I think that there are worse
+places than Kukuanaland in the world, and that I have known unhappier times
+than the last month or two, though I have never spent such queer ones. Eh! you
+fellows?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I almost wish I were back,&rdquo; said Good, with a sigh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As for myself, I reflected that all&rsquo;s well that ends well; but in the
+course of a long life of shaves, I never had such shaves as those which I had
+recently experienced. The thought of that battle makes me feel cold all over,
+and as for our experience in the treasure chamber&mdash;!
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+Next morning we started on a toilsome trudge across the desert, having with us
+a good supply of water carried by our five guides, and camped that night in the
+open, marching again at dawn on the morrow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By noon of the third day&rsquo;s journey we could see the trees of the oasis of
+which the guides spoke, and within an hour of sundown we were walking once more
+upon grass and listening to the sound of running water.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap20"></a>CHAPTER XX.<br />
+FOUND</h2>
+
+<p>
+And now I come to perhaps the strangest adventure that happened to us in all
+this strange business, and one which shows how wonderfully things are brought
+about.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was walking along quietly, some way in front of the other two, down the banks
+of the stream which runs from the oasis till it is swallowed up in the hungry
+desert sands, when suddenly I stopped and rubbed my eyes, as well I might.
+There, not twenty yards in front of me, placed in a charming situation, under
+the shade of a species of fig-tree, and facing to the stream, was a cosy hut,
+built more or less on the Kafir principle with grass and withes, but having a
+full-length door instead of a bee-hole.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What the dickens,&rdquo; said I to myself, &ldquo;can a hut be doing
+here?&rdquo; Even as I said it the door of the hut opened, and there limped out
+of it a <i>white man</i> clothed in skins, and with an enormous black beard. I
+thought that I must have got a touch of the sun. It was impossible. No hunter
+ever came to such a place as this. Certainly no hunter would ever settle in it.
+I stared and stared, and so did the other man, and just at that juncture Sir
+Henry and Good walked up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look here, you fellows,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;is that a white man, or am
+I mad?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sir Henry looked, and Good looked, and then all of a sudden the lame white man
+with a black beard uttered a great cry, and began hobbling towards us. When he
+was close he fell down in a sort of faint.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With a spring Sir Henry was by his side.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Great Powers!&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;<i>it is my brother
+George!</i>&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the sound of this disturbance, another figure, also clad in skins, emerged
+from the hut, a gun in his hand, and ran towards us. On seeing me he too gave a
+cry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Macumazahn,&rdquo; he halloed, &ldquo;don&rsquo;t you know me, Baas?
+I&rsquo;m Jim the hunter. I lost the note you gave me to give to the Baas, and
+we have been here nearly two years.&rdquo; And the fellow fell at my feet, and
+rolled over and over, weeping for joy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You careless scoundrel!&rdquo; I said; &ldquo;you ought to be well
+<i>sjambocked</i>&rdquo;&mdash;that is, hided.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile the man with the black beard had recovered and risen, and he and Sir
+Henry were pump-handling away at each other, apparently without a word to say.
+But whatever they had quarrelled about in the past&mdash;I suspect it was a
+lady, though I never asked&mdash;it was evidently forgotten now.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My dear old fellow,&rdquo; burst out Sir Henry at last, &ldquo;I thought
+you were dead. I have been over Solomon&rsquo;s Mountains to find you. I had
+given up all hope of ever seeing you again, and now I come across you perched
+in the desert, like an old <i>aasvögel</i>.&rdquo;<a href="#fn-14" name="fnref-14" id="fnref-14"><sup>[14]</sup></a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-14" id="fn-14"></a> <a href="#fnref-14">[14]</a>
+Vulture.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I tried to cross Solomon&rsquo;s Mountains nearly two years ago,&rdquo;
+was the answer, spoken in the hesitating voice of a man who has had little
+recent opportunity of using his tongue, &ldquo;but when I reached here a
+boulder fell on my leg and crushed it, and I have been able to go neither
+forward nor back.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then I came up. &ldquo;How do you do, Mr. Neville?&rdquo; I said; &ldquo;do you
+remember me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;isn&rsquo;t it Hunter Quatermain, eh, and
+Good too? Hold on a minute, you fellows, I am getting dizzy again. It is all so
+very strange, and, when a man has ceased to hope, so very happy!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That evening, over the camp fire, George Curtis told us his story, which, in
+its way, was almost as eventful as our own, and, put shortly, amounted to this.
+A little less than two years before, he had started from Sitanda&rsquo;s Kraal,
+to try to reach Suliman&rsquo;s Berg. As for the note I had sent him by Jim,
+that worthy lost it, and he had never heard of it till to-day. But, acting upon
+information he had received from the natives, he headed not for Sheba&rsquo;s
+Breasts, but for the ladder-like descent of the mountains down which we had
+just come, which is clearly a better route than that marked out in old Dom
+Silvestra&rsquo;s plan. In the desert he and Jim had suffered great hardships,
+but finally they reached this oasis, where a terrible accident befell George
+Curtis. On the day of their arrival he was sitting by the stream, and Jim was
+extracting the honey from the nest of a stingless bee which is to be found in
+the desert, on the top of a bank immediately above him. In so doing he loosened
+a great boulder of rock, which fell upon George Curtis&rsquo;s right leg,
+crushing it frightfully. From that day he had been so lame that he found it
+impossible to go either forward or back, and had preferred to take the chances
+of dying in the oasis to the certainty of perishing in the desert.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As for food, however, they got on pretty well, for they had a good supply of
+ammunition, and the oasis was frequented, especially at night, by large
+quantities of game, which came thither for water. These they shot, or trapped
+in pitfalls, using the flesh for food, and, after their clothes wore out, the
+hides for clothing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And so,&rdquo; George Curtis ended, &ldquo;we have lived for nearly two
+years, like a second Robinson Crusoe and his man Friday, hoping against hope
+that some natives might come here to help us away, but none have come. Only
+last night we settled that Jim should leave me, and try to reach
+Sitanda&rsquo;s Kraal to get assistance. He was to go to-morrow, but I had
+little hope of ever seeing him back again. And now <i>you</i>, of all people in
+the world, <i>you</i>, who, as I fancied, had long ago forgotten all about me,
+and were living comfortably in old England, turn up in a promiscuous way and
+find me where you least expected. It is the most wonderful thing that I have
+ever heard of, and the most merciful too.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Sir Henry set to work, and told him the main facts of our adventures,
+sitting till late into the night to do it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By Jove!&rdquo; said George Curtis, when I showed him some of the
+diamonds: &ldquo;well, at least you have got something for your pains, besides
+my worthless self.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sir Henry laughed. &ldquo;They belong to Quatermain and Good. It was a part of
+the bargain that they should divide any spoils there might be.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This remark set me thinking, and having spoken to Good, I told Sir Henry that
+it was our joint wish that he should take a third portion of the diamonds, or,
+if he would not, that his share should be handed to his brother, who had
+suffered even more than ourselves on the chance of getting them. Finally, we
+prevailed upon him to consent to this arrangement, but George Curtis did not
+know of it until some time afterwards.
+</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>
+Here, at this point, I think that I shall end my history. Our journey across
+the desert back to Sitanda&rsquo;s Kraal was most arduous, especially as we had
+to support George Curtis, whose right leg was very weak indeed, and continually
+threw out splinters of bone. But we did accomplish it somehow, and to give its
+details would only be to reproduce much of what happened to us on the former
+occasion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Six months from the date of our re-arrival at Sitanda&rsquo;s, where we found
+our guns and other goods quite safe, though the old rascal in charge was much
+disgusted at our surviving to claim them, saw us all once more safe and sound
+at my little place on the Berea, near Durban, where I am now writing. Thence I
+bid farewell to all who have accompanied me through the strangest trip I ever
+made in the course of a long and varied experience.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+P.S.&mdash;Just as I had written the last word, a Kafir came up my avenue of
+orange trees, carrying a letter in a cleft stick, which he had brought from the
+post. It turned out to be from Sir Henry, and as it speaks for itself I give it
+in full.
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+October 1, 1884.<br />
+Brayley Hall, Yorkshire.
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+My Dear Quatermain,<br />
+    I send you a line a few mails back to say that the three of us, George,
+Good, and myself, fetched up all right in England. We got off the boat at
+Southampton, and went up to town. You should have seen what a swell Good turned
+out the very next day, beautifully shaved, frock coat fitting like a glove,
+brand new eye-glass, etc., etc. I went and walked in the park with him, where I
+met some people I know, and at once told them the story of his &ldquo;beautiful
+white legs.&rdquo;<br />
+    He is furious, especially as some ill-natured person has printed it in a
+Society paper.<br />
+    To come to business, Good and I took the diamonds to Streeter&rsquo;s to be
+valued, as we arranged, and really I am afraid to tell you what they put them
+at, it seems so enormous. They say that of course it is more or less
+guess-work, as such stones have never to their knowledge been put on the market
+in anything like such quantities. It appears that (with the exception of one or
+two of the largest) they are of the finest water, and equal in every way to the
+best Brazilian stones. I asked them if they would buy them, but they said that
+it was beyond their power to do so, and recommended us to sell by degrees, over
+a period of years indeed, for fear lest we should flood the market. They offer,
+however, a hundred and eighty thousand for a very small portion of them.<br />
+    You must come home, Quatermain, and see about these things, especially if
+you insist upon making the magnificent present of the third share, which does
+<i>not</i> belong to me, to my brother George. As for Good, he is <i>no
+good</i>. His time is too much occupied in shaving, and other matters connected
+with the vain adorning of the body. But I think he is still down on his luck
+about Foulata. He told me that since he had been home he hadn&rsquo;t seen a
+woman to touch her, either as regards her figure or the sweetness of her
+expression.<br />
+    I want you to come home, my dear old comrade, and to buy a house near here.
+You have done your day&rsquo;s work, and have lots of money now, and there is a
+place for sale quite close which would suit you admirably. Do come; the sooner
+the better; you can finish writing the story of our adventures on board ship.
+We have refused to tell the tale till it is written by you, for fear lest we
+shall not be believed. If you start on receipt of this you will reach here by
+Christmas, and I book you to stay with me for that. Good is coming, and George;
+and so, by the way, is your boy Harry (there&rsquo;s a bribe for you). I have
+had him down for a week&rsquo;s shooting, and like him. He is a cool young
+hand; he shot me in the leg, cut out the pellets, and then remarked upon the
+advantages of having a medical student with every shooting party!<br />
+    Good-bye, old boy; I can&rsquo;t say any more, but I know that you will
+come, if it is only to oblige
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+Your sincere friend,<br />
+H<small>ENRY</small> C<small>URTIS</small>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+P.S.&mdash;The tusks of the great bull that killed poor Khiva have now been put
+up in the hall here, over the pair of buffalo horns you gave me, and look
+magnificent; and the axe with which I chopped off Twala&rsquo;s head is fixed
+above my writing-table. I wish that we could have managed to bring away the
+coats of chain armour. Don&rsquo;t lose poor Foulata&rsquo;s basket in which
+you brought away the diamonds.
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+H.C.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To-day is Tuesday. There is a steamer going on Friday, and I really think that
+I must take Curtis at his word, and sail by her for England, if it is only to
+see you, Harry, my boy, and to look after the printing of this history, which
+is a task that I do not like to trust to anybody else.
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+A<small>LLAN</small> Q<small>UATERMAIN</small>.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div style='display:block;margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KING SOLOMON’S MINES ***</div>
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+eBook #2166 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2166)
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of King Solomon's Mines, by H. Rider Haggard
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
+
+
+Title: King Solomon's Mines
+
+Author: H. Rider Haggard
+
+Posting Date: January 15, 2009 [EBook #2166]
+Release Date: October 11, 2005
+Last updated: August 18, 2011
+Last updated: October 10, 2012
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KING SOLOMON'S MINES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by John Bickers and Dagny.  HTML version by Al Haines.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+KING SOLOMON'S MINES
+
+
+by
+
+H. RIDER HAGGARD
+
+
+
+  DEDICATION
+
+  This faithful but unpretending record
+  of a remarkable adventure
+  is hereby respectfully dedicated
+  by the narrator,
+
+  ALLAN QUATERMAIN,
+
+  to all the big and little boys
+  who read it.
+
+
+
+PREPARER'S NOTE
+
+  This was typed from a 1907 edition published by Cassell and
+  Company, Limited.
+
+
+
+AUTHOR'S NOTE
+
+  The author ventures to take this opportunity to thank his readers
+  for the kind reception they have accorded to the successive
+  editions of this tale during the last twelve years. He hopes that
+  in its present form it will fall into the hands of an even wider
+  public, and that in years to come it may continue to afford
+  amusement to those who are still young enough at heart to love a
+  story of treasure, war, and wild adventure.
+
+  Ditchingham,
+  11 March, 1898.
+
+
+
+POST SCRIPTUM
+
+  Now, in 1907, on the occasion of the issue of this edition, I can
+  only add how glad I am that my romance should continue to please
+  so many readers. Imagination has been verified by fact; the King
+  Solomon's Mines I dreamed of have been discovered, and are putting
+  out their gold once more, and, according to the latest reports,
+  their diamonds also; the Kukuanas or, rather, the Matabele, have
+  been tamed by the white man's bullets, but still there seem to be
+  many who find pleasure in these simple pages. That they may
+  continue so to do, even to the third and fourth generation, or
+  perhaps longer still, would, I am sure, be the hope of our old and
+  departed friend, Allan Quatermain.
+
+  H. Rider Haggard.
+  Ditchingham, 1907.
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+Now that this book is printed, and about to be given to the world, a
+sense of its shortcomings both in style and contents, weighs very
+heavily upon me. As regards the latter, I can only say that it does not
+pretend to be a full account of everything we did and saw. There are
+many things connected with our journey into Kukuanaland that I should
+have liked to dwell upon at length, which, as it is, have been scarcely
+alluded to. Amongst these are the curious legends which I collected
+about the chain armour that saved us from destruction in the great
+battle of Loo, and also about the "Silent Ones" or Colossi at the mouth
+of the stalactite cave. Again, if I had given way to my own impulses, I
+should have wished to go into the differences, some of which are to my
+mind very suggestive, between the Zulu and Kukuana dialects. Also a few
+pages might have been given up profitably to the consideration of the
+indigenous flora and fauna of Kukuanaland.[1] Then there remains the
+most interesting subject--that, as it is, has only been touched on
+incidentally--of the magnificent system of military organisation in
+force in that country, which, in my opinion, is much superior to that
+inaugurated by Chaka in Zululand, inasmuch as it permits of even more
+rapid mobilisation, and does not necessitate the employment of the
+pernicious system of enforced celibacy. Lastly, I have scarcely spoken
+of the domestic and family customs of the Kukuanas, many of which are
+exceedingly quaint, or of their proficiency in the art of smelting and
+welding metals. This science they carry to considerable perfection, of
+which a good example is to be seen in their "tollas," or heavy throwing
+knives, the backs of these weapons being made of hammered iron, and the
+edges of beautiful steel welded with great skill on to the iron frames.
+The fact of the matter is, I thought, with Sir Henry Curtis and Captain
+Good, that the best plan would be to tell my story in a plain,
+straightforward manner, and to leave these matters to be dealt with
+subsequently in whatever way ultimately may appear to be desirable. In
+the meanwhile I shall, of course, be delighted to give all information
+in my power to anybody interested in such things.
+
+And now it only remains for me to offer apologies for my blunt way of
+writing. I can but say in excuse of it that I am more accustomed to
+handle a rifle than a pen, and cannot make any pretence to the grand
+literary flights and flourishes which I see in novels--for sometimes I
+like to read a novel. I suppose they--the flights and flourishes--are
+desirable, and I regret not being able to supply them; but at the same
+time I cannot help thinking that simple things are always the most
+impressive, and that books are easier to understand when they are
+written in plain language, though perhaps I have no right to set up an
+opinion on such a matter. "A sharp spear," runs the Kukuana saying,
+"needs no polish"; and on the same principle I venture to hope that a
+true story, however strange it may be, does not require to be decked
+out in fine words.
+
+Allan Quatermain.
+
+
+[1] I discovered eight varieties of antelope, with which I was
+previously totally unacquainted, and many new species of plants, for
+the most part of the bulbous tribe.--A.Q.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+       I  I MEET SIR HENRY CURTIS
+      II  THE LEGEND OF SOLOMON'S MINES
+     III  UMBOPA ENTERS OUR SERVICE
+      IV  AN ELEPHANT HUNT
+       V  OUR MARCH INTO THE DESERT
+      VI  WATER! WATER!
+     VII  SOLOMON'S ROAD
+    VIII  WE ENTER KUKUANALAND
+      IX  TWALA THE KING
+       X  THE WITCH-HUNT
+      XI  WE GIVE A SIGN
+     XII  BEFORE THE BATTLE
+    XIII  THE ATTACK
+     XIV  THE LAST STAND OF THE GREYS
+      XV  GOOD FALLS SICK
+     XVI  THE PLACE OF DEATH
+    XVII  SOLOMON'S TREASURE CHAMBER
+   XVIII  WE ABANDON HOPE
+     XIX  IGNOSI'S FAREWELL
+      XX  FOUND
+
+
+
+
+KING SOLOMON'S MINES
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+I MEET SIR HENRY CURTIS
+
+It is a curious thing that at my age--fifty-five last birthday--I
+should find myself taking up a pen to try to write a history. I wonder
+what sort of a history it will be when I have finished it, if ever I
+come to the end of the trip! I have done a good many things in my life,
+which seems a long one to me, owing to my having begun work so young,
+perhaps. At an age when other boys are at school I was earning my
+living as a trader in the old Colony. I have been trading, hunting,
+fighting, or mining ever since. And yet it is only eight months ago
+that I made my pile. It is a big pile now that I have got it--I don't
+yet know how big--but I do not think I would go through the last
+fifteen or sixteen months again for it; no, not if I knew that I should
+come out safe at the end, pile and all. But then I am a timid man, and
+dislike violence; moreover, I am almost sick of adventure. I wonder why
+I am going to write this book: it is not in my line. I am not a
+literary man, though very devoted to the Old Testament and also to the
+"Ingoldsby Legends." Let me try to set down my reasons, just to see if
+I have any.
+
+First reason: Because Sir Henry Curtis and Captain John Good asked me.
+
+Second reason: Because I am laid up here at Durban with the pain in my
+left leg. Ever since that confounded lion got hold of me I have been
+liable to this trouble, and being rather bad just now, it makes me limp
+more than ever. There must be some poison in a lion's teeth, otherwise
+how is it that when your wounds are healed they break out again,
+generally, mark you, at the same time of year that you got your
+mauling? It is a hard thing when one has shot sixty-five lions or more,
+as I have in the course of my life, that the sixty-sixth should chew
+your leg like a quid of tobacco. It breaks the routine of the thing,
+and putting other considerations aside, I am an orderly man and don't
+like that. This is by the way.
+
+Third reason: Because I want my boy Harry, who is over there at the
+hospital in London studying to become a doctor, to have something to
+amuse him and keep him out of mischief for a week or so. Hospital work
+must sometimes pall and grow rather dull, for even of cutting up dead
+bodies there may come satiety, and as this history will not be dull,
+whatever else it may be, it will put a little life into things for a
+day or two while Harry is reading of our adventures.
+
+Fourth reason and last: Because I am going to tell the strangest story
+that I remember. It may seem a queer thing to say, especially
+considering that there is no woman in it--except Foulata. Stop, though!
+there is Gagaoola, if she was a woman, and not a fiend. But she was a
+hundred at least, and therefore not marriageable, so I don't count her.
+At any rate, I can safely say that there is not a _petticoat_ in the
+whole history.
+
+Well, I had better come to the yoke. It is a stiff place, and I feel as
+though I were bogged up to the axle. But, "_sutjes, sutjes_," as the
+Boers say--I am sure I don't know how they spell it--softly does it. A
+strong team will come through at last, that is, if they are not too
+poor. You can never do anything with poor oxen. Now to make a start.
+
+I, Allan Quatermain, of Durban, Natal, Gentleman, make oath and
+say--That's how I headed my deposition before the magistrate about poor
+Khiva's and Ventv�gel's sad deaths; but somehow it doesn't seem quite
+the right way to begin a book. And, besides, am I a gentleman? What is
+a gentleman? I don't quite know, and yet I have had to do with
+niggers--no, I will scratch out that word "niggers," for I do not like
+it. I've known natives who _are_, and so you will say, Harry, my boy,
+before you have done with this tale, and I have known mean whites with
+lots of money and fresh out from home, too, who _are not_.
+
+At any rate, I was born a gentleman, though I have been nothing but a
+poor travelling trader and hunter all my life. Whether I have remained
+so I known not, you must judge of that. Heaven knows I've tried. I have
+killed many men in my time, yet I have never slain wantonly or stained
+my hand in innocent blood, but only in self-defence. The Almighty gave
+us our lives, and I suppose He meant us to defend them, at least I have
+always acted on that, and I hope it will not be brought up against me
+when my clock strikes. There, there, it is a cruel and a wicked world,
+and for a timid man I have been mixed up in a great deal of fighting. I
+cannot tell the rights of it, but at any rate I have never stolen,
+though once I cheated a Kafir out of a herd of cattle. But then he had
+done me a dirty turn, and it has troubled me ever since into the
+bargain.
+
+
+Well, it is eighteen months or so ago since first I met Sir Henry
+Curtis and Captain Good. It was in this way. I had been up elephant
+hunting beyond Bamangwato, and had met with bad luck. Everything went
+wrong that trip, and to top up with I got the fever badly. So soon as I
+was well enough I trekked down to the Diamond Fields, sold such ivory
+as I had, together with my wagon and oxen, discharged my hunters, and
+took the post-cart to the Cape. After spending a week in Cape Town,
+finding that they overcharged me at the hotel, and having seen
+everything there was to see, including the botanical gardens, which
+seem to me likely to confer a great benefit on the country, and the new
+Houses of Parliament, which I expect will do nothing of the sort, I
+determined to go back to Natal by the _Dunkeld_, then lying at the
+docks waiting for the _Edinburgh Castle_ due in from England. I took my
+berth and went aboard, and that afternoon the Natal passengers from the
+_Edinburgh Castle_ transhipped, and we weighed and put to sea.
+
+Among these passengers who came on board were two who excited my
+curiosity. One, a gentleman of about thirty, was perhaps the
+biggest-chested and longest-armed man I ever saw. He had yellow hair, a
+thick yellow beard, clear-cut features, and large grey eyes set deep in
+his head. I never saw a finer-looking man, and somehow he reminded me
+of an ancient Dane. Not that I know much of ancient Danes, though I
+knew a modern Dane who did me out of ten pounds; but I remember once
+seeing a picture of some of those gentry, who, I take it, were a kind
+of white Zulus. They were drinking out of big horns, and their long
+hair hung down their backs. As I looked at my friend standing there by
+the companion-ladder, I thought that if he only let his grow a little,
+put one of those chain shirts on to his great shoulders, and took hold
+of a battle-axe and a horn mug, he might have sat as a model for that
+picture. And by the way it is a curious thing, and just shows how the
+blood will out, I discovered afterwards that Sir Henry Curtis, for that
+was the big man's name, is of Danish blood.[1] He also reminded me
+strongly of somebody else, but at the time I could not remember who it
+was.
+
+The other man, who stood talking to Sir Henry, was stout and dark, and
+of quite a different cut. I suspected at once that he was a naval
+officer; I don't know why, but it is difficult to mistake a navy man. I
+have gone shooting trips with several of them in the course of my life,
+and they have always proved themselves the best and bravest and nicest
+fellows I ever met, though sadly given, some of them, to the use of
+profane language. I asked a page or two back, what is a gentleman? I'll
+answer the question now: A Royal Naval officer is, in a general sort of
+way, though of course there may be a black sheep among them here and
+there. I fancy it is just the wide seas and the breath of God's winds
+that wash their hearts and blow the bitterness out of their minds and
+make them what men ought to be.
+
+Well, to return, I proved right again; I ascertained that the dark man
+_was_ a naval officer, a lieutenant of thirty-one, who, after seventeen
+years' service, had been turned out of her Majesty's employ with the
+barren honour of a commander's rank, because it was impossible that he
+should be promoted. This is what people who serve the Queen have to
+expect: to be shot out into the cold world to find a living just when
+they are beginning really to understand their work, and to reach the
+prime of life. I suppose they don't mind it, but for my own part I had
+rather earn my bread as a hunter. One's halfpence are as scarce
+perhaps, but you do not get so many kicks.
+
+The officer's name I found out--by referring to the passengers'
+lists--was Good--Captain John Good. He was broad, of medium height,
+dark, stout, and rather a curious man to look at. He was so very neat
+and so very clean-shaved, and he always wore an eye-glass in his right
+eye. It seemed to grow there, for it had no string, and he never took
+it out except to wipe it. At first I thought he used to sleep in it,
+but afterwards I found that this was a mistake. He put it in his
+trousers pocket when he went to bed, together with his false teeth, of
+which he had two beautiful sets that, my own being none of the best,
+have often caused me to break the tenth commandment. But I am
+anticipating.
+
+Soon after we had got under way evening closed in, and brought with it
+very dirty weather. A keen breeze sprung up off land, and a kind of
+aggravated Scotch mist soon drove everybody from the deck. As for the
+_Dunkeld_, she is a flat-bottomed punt, and going up light as she was,
+she rolled very heavily. It almost seemed as though she would go right
+over, but she never did. It was quite impossible to walk about, so I
+stood near the engines where it was warm, and amused myself with
+watching the pendulum, which was fixed opposite to me, swinging slowly
+backwards and forwards as the vessel rolled, and marking the angle she
+touched at each lurch.
+
+"That pendulum's wrong; it is not properly weighted," suddenly said a
+somewhat testy voice at my shoulder. Looking round I saw the naval
+officer whom I had noticed when the passengers came aboard.
+
+"Indeed, now what makes you think so?" I asked.
+
+"Think so. I don't think at all. Why there"--as she righted herself
+after a roll--"if the ship had really rolled to the degree that thing
+pointed to, then she would never have rolled again, that's all. But it
+is just like these merchant skippers, they are always so confoundedly
+careless."
+
+Just then the dinner-bell rang, and I was not sorry, for it is a
+dreadful thing to have to listen to an officer of the Royal Navy when
+he gets on to that subject. I only know one worse thing, and that is to
+hear a merchant skipper express his candid opinion of officers of the
+Royal Navy.
+
+Captain Good and I went down to dinner together, and there we found Sir
+Henry Curtis already seated. He and Captain Good were placed together,
+and I sat opposite to them. The captain and I soon fell into talk about
+shooting and what not; he asking me many questions, for he is very
+inquisitive about all sorts of things, and I answering them as well as
+I could. Presently he got on to elephants.
+
+"Ah, sir," called out somebody who was sitting near me, "you've reached
+the right man for that; Hunter Quatermain should be able to tell you
+about elephants if anybody can."
+
+Sir Henry, who had been sitting quite quiet listening to our talk,
+started visibly.
+
+"Excuse me, sir," he said, leaning forward across the table, and
+speaking in a low deep voice, a very suitable voice, it seemed to me,
+to come out of those great lungs. "Excuse me, sir, but is your name
+Allan Quatermain?"
+
+I said that it was.
+
+The big man made no further remark, but I heard him mutter "fortunate"
+into his beard.
+
+Presently dinner came to an end, and as we were leaving the saloon Sir
+Henry strolled up and asked me if I would come into his cabin to smoke
+a pipe. I accepted, and he led the way to the _Dunkeld_ deck cabin, and
+a very good cabin it is. It had been two cabins, but when Sir Garnet
+Wolseley or one of those big swells went down the coast in the
+_Dunkeld_, they knocked away the partition and have never put it up
+again. There was a sofa in the cabin, and a little table in front of
+it. Sir Henry sent the steward for a bottle of whisky, and the three of
+us sat down and lit our pipes.
+
+"Mr. Quatermain," said Sir Henry Curtis, when the man had brought the
+whisky and lit the lamp, "the year before last about this time, you
+were, I believe, at a place called Bamangwato, to the north of the
+Transvaal."
+
+"I was," I answered, rather surprised that this gentleman should be so
+well acquainted with my movements, which were not, so far as I was
+aware, considered of general interest.
+
+"You were trading there, were you not?" put in Captain Good, in his
+quick way.
+
+"I was. I took up a wagon-load of goods, made a camp outside the
+settlement, and stopped till I had sold them."
+
+Sir Henry was sitting opposite to me in a Madeira chair, his arms
+leaning on the table. He now looked up, fixing his large grey eyes full
+upon my face. There was a curious anxiety in them, I thought.
+
+"Did you happen to meet a man called Neville there?"
+
+"Oh, yes; he outspanned alongside of me for a fortnight to rest his
+oxen before going on to the interior. I had a letter from a lawyer a
+few months back, asking me if I knew what had become of him, which I
+answered to the best of my ability at the time."
+
+"Yes," said Sir Henry, "your letter was forwarded to me. You said in it
+that the gentleman called Neville left Bamangwato at the beginning of
+May in a wagon with a driver, a voorlooper, and a Kafir hunter called
+Jim, announcing his intention of trekking if possible as far as Inyati,
+the extreme trading post in the Matabele country, where he would sell
+his wagon and proceed on foot. You also said that he did sell his
+wagon, for six months afterwards you saw the wagon in the possession of
+a Portuguese trader, who told you that he had bought it at Inyati from
+a white man whose name he had forgotten, and that he believed the white
+man with the native servant had started off for the interior on a
+shooting trip."
+
+"Yes."
+
+Then came a pause.
+
+"Mr. Quatermain," said Sir Henry suddenly, "I suppose you know or can
+guess nothing more of the reasons of my--of Mr. Neville's journey to
+the northward, or as to what point that journey was directed?"
+
+"I heard something," I answered, and stopped. The subject was one which
+I did not care to discuss.
+
+Sir Henry and Captain Good looked at each other, and Captain Good
+nodded.
+
+"Mr. Quatermain," went on the former, "I am going to tell you a story,
+and ask your advice, and perhaps your assistance. The agent who
+forwarded me your letter told me that I might rely on it implicitly, as
+you were," he said, "well known and universally respected in Natal, and
+especially noted for your discretion."
+
+I bowed and drank some whisky and water to hide my confusion, for I am
+a modest man--and Sir Henry went on.
+
+"Mr. Neville was my brother."
+
+"Oh," I said, starting, for now I knew of whom Sir Henry had reminded
+me when first I saw him. His brother was a much smaller man and had a
+dark beard, but now that I thought of it, he possessed eyes of the same
+shade of grey and with the same keen look in them: the features too
+were not unlike.
+
+"He was," went on Sir Henry, "my only and younger brother, and till
+five years ago I do not suppose that we were ever a month away from
+each other. But just about five years ago a misfortune befell us, as
+sometimes does happen in families. We quarrelled bitterly, and I
+behaved unjustly to my brother in my anger."
+
+Here Captain Good nodded his head vigorously to himself. The ship gave
+a big roll just then, so that the looking-glass, which was fixed
+opposite us to starboard, was for a moment nearly over our heads, and
+as I was sitting with my hands in my pockets and staring upwards, I
+could see him nodding like anything.
+
+"As I daresay you know," went on Sir Henry, "if a man dies intestate,
+and has no property but land, real property it is called in England, it
+all descends to his eldest son. It so happened that just at the time
+when we quarrelled our father died intestate. He had put off making his
+will until it was too late. The result was that my brother, who had not
+been brought up to any profession, was left without a penny. Of course
+it would have been my duty to provide for him, but at the time the
+quarrel between us was so bitter that I did not--to my shame I say it
+(and he sighed deeply)--offer to do anything. It was not that I grudged
+him justice, but I waited for him to make advances, and he made none. I
+am sorry to trouble you with all this, Mr. Quatermain, but I must to
+make things clear, eh, Good?"
+
+"Quite so, quite so," said the captain. "Mr. Quatermain will, I am
+sure, keep this history to himself."
+
+"Of course," said I, for I rather pride myself on my discretion, for
+which, as Sir Henry had heard, I have some repute.
+
+"Well," went on Sir Henry, "my brother had a few hundred pounds to his
+account at the time. Without saying anything to me he drew out this
+paltry sum, and, having adopted the name of Neville, started off for
+South Africa in the wild hope of making a fortune. This I learned
+afterwards. Some three years passed, and I heard nothing of my brother,
+though I wrote several times. Doubtless the letters never reached him.
+But as time went on I grew more and more troubled about him. I found
+out, Mr. Quatermain, that blood is thicker than water."
+
+"That's true," said I, thinking of my boy Harry.
+
+"I found out, Mr. Quatermain, that I would have given half my fortune
+to know that my brother George, the only relation I possess, was safe
+and well, and that I should see him again."
+
+"But you never did, Curtis," jerked out Captain Good, glancing at the
+big man's face.
+
+"Well, Mr. Quatermain, as time went on I became more and more anxious
+to find out if my brother was alive or dead, and if alive to get him
+home again. I set enquiries on foot, and your letter was one of the
+results. So far as it went it was satisfactory, for it showed that till
+lately George was alive, but it did not go far enough. So, to cut a
+long story short, I made up my mind to come out and look for him
+myself, and Captain Good was so kind as to come with me."
+
+"Yes," said the captain; "nothing else to do, you see. Turned out by my
+Lords of the Admiralty to starve on half pay. And now perhaps, sir, you
+will tell us what you know or have heard of the gentleman called
+Neville."
+
+
+[1] Mr. Quatermain's ideas about ancient Danes seem to be rather
+confused; we have always understood that they were dark-haired people.
+Probably he was thinking of Saxons.--Editor.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE LEGEND OF SOLOMON'S MINES
+
+"What was it that you heard about my brother's journey at Bamangwato?"
+asked Sir Henry, as I paused to fill my pipe before replying to Captain
+Good.
+
+"I heard this," I answered, "and I have never mentioned it to a soul
+till to-day. I heard that he was starting for Solomon's Mines."
+
+"Solomon's Mines?" ejaculated both my hearers at once. "Where are they?"
+
+"I don't know," I said; "I know where they are said to be. Once I saw
+the peaks of the mountains that border them, but there were a hundred
+and thirty miles of desert between me and them, and I am not aware that
+any white man ever got across it save one. But perhaps the best thing I
+can do is to tell you the legend of Solomon's Mines as I know it, you
+passing your word not to reveal anything I tell you without my
+permission. Do you agree to that? I have my reasons for asking."
+
+Sir Henry nodded, and Captain Good replied, "Certainly, certainly."
+
+"Well," I began, "as you may guess, generally speaking, elephant
+hunters are a rough set of men, who do not trouble themselves with much
+beyond the facts of life and the ways of Kafirs. But here and there you
+meet a man who takes the trouble to collect traditions from the
+natives, and tries to make out a little piece of the history of this
+dark land. It was such a man as this who first told me the legend of
+Solomon's Mines, now a matter of nearly thirty years ago. That was when
+I was on my first elephant hunt in the Matabele country. His name was
+Evans, and he was killed the following year, poor fellow, by a wounded
+buffalo, and lies buried near the Zambesi Falls. I was telling Evans
+one night, I remember, of some wonderful workings I had found whilst
+hunting koodoo and eland in what is now the Lydenburg district of the
+Transvaal. I see they have come across these workings again lately in
+prospecting for gold, but I knew of them years ago. There is a great
+wide wagon road cut out of the solid rock, and leading to the mouth of
+the working or gallery. Inside the mouth of this gallery are stacks of
+gold quartz piled up ready for roasting, which shows that the workers,
+whoever they were, must have left in a hurry. Also, about twenty paces
+in, the gallery is built across, and a beautiful bit of masonry it is."
+
+"'Ay,' said Evans, 'but I will spin you a queerer yarn than that'; and
+he went on to tell me how he had found in the far interior a ruined
+city, which he believed to be the Ophir of the Bible, and, by the way,
+other more learned men have said the same long since poor Evans's time.
+I was, I remember, listening open-eared to all these wonders, for I was
+young at the time, and this story of an ancient civilisation and of the
+treasures which those old Jewish or Phoenician adventurers used to
+extract from a country long since lapsed into the darkest barbarism
+took a great hold upon my imagination, when suddenly he said to me,
+'Lad, did you ever hear of the Suliman Mountains up to the north-west
+of the Mushakulumbwe country?' I told him I never had. 'Ah, well,' he
+said, 'that is where Solomon really had his mines, his diamond mines, I
+mean.'
+
+"'How do you know that?' I asked.
+
+"'Know it! why, what is "Suliman" but a corruption of Solomon?[1]
+Besides, an old Isanusi or witch doctoress up in the Manica country
+told me all about it. She said that the people who lived across those
+mountains were a "branch" of the Zulus, speaking a dialect of Zulu, but
+finer and bigger men even; that there lived among them great wizards,
+who had learnt their art from white men when "all the world was dark,"
+and who had the secret of a wonderful mine of "bright stones."'
+
+"Well, I laughed at this story at the time, though it interested me,
+for the Diamond Fields were not discovered then, but poor Evans went
+off and was killed, and for twenty years I never thought any more of
+the matter. However, just twenty years afterwards--and that is a long
+time, gentlemen; an elephant hunter does not often live for twenty
+years at his business--I heard something more definite about Suliman's
+Mountains and the country which lies beyond them. I was up beyond the
+Manica country, at a place called Sitanda's Kraal, and a miserable
+place it was, for a man could get nothing to eat, and there was but
+little game about. I had an attack of fever, and was in a bad way
+generally, when one day a Portugee arrived with a single companion--a
+half-breed. Now I know your low-class Delagoa Portugee well. There is
+no greater devil unhung in a general way, battening as he does upon
+human agony and flesh in the shape of slaves. But this was quite a
+different type of man to the mean fellows whom I had been accustomed to
+meet; indeed, in appearance he reminded me more of the polite doms I
+have read about, for he was tall and thin, with large dark eyes and
+curling grey mustachios. We talked together for a while, for he could
+speak broken English, and I understood a little Portugee, and he told
+me that his name was Jos� Silvestre, and that he had a place near
+Delagoa Bay. When he went on next day with his half-breed companion, he
+said 'Good-bye,' taking off his hat quite in the old style.
+
+"'Good-bye, senor,' he said; 'if ever we meet again I shall be the
+richest man in the world, and I will remember you.' I laughed a
+little--I was too weak to laugh much--and watched him strike out for
+the great desert to the west, wondering if he was mad, or what he
+thought he was going to find there.
+
+"A week passed, and I got the better of my fever. One evening I was
+sitting on the ground in front of the little tent I had with me,
+chewing the last leg of a miserable fowl I had bought from a native for
+a bit of cloth worth twenty fowls, and staring at the hot red sun
+sinking down over the desert, when suddenly I saw a figure, apparently
+that of a European, for it wore a coat, on the slope of the rising
+ground opposite to me, about three hundred yards away. The figure crept
+along on its hands and knees, then it got up and staggered forward a
+few yards on its legs, only to fall and crawl again. Seeing that it
+must be somebody in distress, I sent one of my hunters to help him, and
+presently he arrived, and who do you suppose it turned out to be?"
+
+"Jos� Silvestre, of course," said Captain Good.
+
+"Yes, Jos� Silvestre, or rather his skeleton and a little skin. His
+face was a bright yellow with bilious fever, and his large dark eyes
+stood nearly out of his head, for all the flesh had gone. There was
+nothing but yellow parchment-like skin, white hair, and the gaunt bones
+sticking up beneath.
+
+"'Water! for the sake of Christ, water!' he moaned and I saw that his
+lips were cracked, and his tongue, which protruded between them, was
+swollen and blackish.
+
+"I gave him water with a little milk in it, and he drank it in great
+gulps, two quarts or so, without stopping. I would not let him have any
+more. Then the fever took him again, and he fell down and began to rave
+about Suliman's Mountains, and the diamonds, and the desert. I carried
+him into the tent and did what I could for him, which was little
+enough; but I saw how it must end. About eleven o'clock he grew
+quieter, and I lay down for a little rest and went to sleep. At dawn I
+woke again, and in the half light saw Silvestre sitting up, a strange,
+gaunt form, and gazing out towards the desert. Presently the first ray
+of the sun shot right across the wide plain before us till it reached
+the faraway crest of one of the tallest of the Suliman Mountains more
+than a hundred miles away.
+
+"'There it is!' cried the dying man in Portuguese, and pointing with
+his long, thin arm, 'but I shall never reach it, never. No one will
+ever reach it!'
+
+"Suddenly, he paused, and seemed to take a resolution. 'Friend,' he
+said, turning towards me, 'are you there? My eyes grow dark.'
+
+"'Yes,' I said; 'yes, lie down now, and rest.'
+
+"'Ay,' he answered, 'I shall rest soon, I have time to rest--all
+eternity. Listen, I am dying! You have been good to me. I will give you
+the writing. Perhaps you will get there if you can live to pass the
+desert, which has killed my poor servant and me.'
+
+"Then he groped in his shirt and brought out what I thought was a Boer
+tobacco pouch made of the skin of the Swart-vet-pens or sable antelope.
+It was fastened with a little strip of hide, what we call a rimpi, and
+this he tried to loose, but could not. He handed it to me. 'Untie it,'
+he said. I did so, and extracted a bit of torn yellow linen on which
+something was written in rusty letters. Inside this rag was a paper.
+
+"Then he went on feebly, for he was growing weak: 'The paper has all
+that is on the linen. It took me years to read. Listen: my ancestor, a
+political refugee from Lisbon, and one of the first Portuguese who
+landed on these shores, wrote that when he was dying on those mountains
+which no white foot ever pressed before or since. His name was Jos� da
+Silvestra, and he lived three hundred years ago. His slave, who waited
+for him on this side of the mountains, found him dead, and brought the
+writing home to Delagoa. It has been in the family ever since, but none
+have cared to read it, till at last I did. And I have lost my life over
+it, but another may succeed, and become the richest man in the
+world--the richest man in the world. Only give it to no one, senor; go
+yourself!'
+
+"Then he began to wander again, and in an hour it was all over.
+
+"God rest him! he died very quietly, and I buried him deep, with big
+boulders on his breast; so I do not think that the jackals can have dug
+him up. And then I came away."
+
+"Ay, but the document?" said Sir Henry, in a tone of deep interest.
+
+"Yes, the document; what was in it?" added the captain.
+
+"Well, gentlemen, if you like I will tell you. I have never showed it
+to anybody yet except to a drunken old Portuguese trader who translated
+it for me, and had forgotten all about it by the next morning. The
+original rag is at my home in Durban, together with poor Dom Jos�'s
+translation, but I have the English rendering in my pocket-book, and a
+facsimile of the map, if it can be called a map. Here it is."
+
+[Illustration: MAP]
+
+  "I, Jos� da Silvestra, who am now dying of hunger in the little
+  cave where no snow is on the north side of the nipple of the
+  southernmost of the two mountains I have named Sheba's Breasts,
+  write this in the year 1590 with a cleft bone upon a remnant of my
+  raiment, my blood being the ink. If my slave should find it when
+  he comes, and should bring it to Delagoa, let my friend (name
+  illegible) bring the matter to the knowledge of the king, that he
+  may send an army which, if they live through the desert and the
+  mountains, and can overcome the brave Kukuanes and their devilish
+  arts, to which end many priests should be brought, will make him
+  the richest king since Solomon. With my own eyes I have seen the
+  countless diamonds stored in Solomon's treasure chamber behind the
+  white Death; but through the treachery of Gagool the witch-finder
+  I might bring nought away, scarcely my life. Let him who comes
+  follow the map, and climb the snow of Sheba's left breast till he
+  reaches the nipple, on the north side of which is the great road
+  Solomon made, from whence three days' journey to the King's
+  Palace. Let him kill Gagool. Pray for my soul. Farewell.
+
+Jos� da Silvestra."[2]
+
+
+When I had finished reading the above, and shown the copy of the map,
+drawn by the dying hand of the old Dom with his blood for ink, there
+followed a silence of astonishment.
+
+"Well," said Captain Good, "I have been round the world twice, and put
+in at most ports, but may I be hung for a mutineer if ever I heard a
+yarn like this out of a story book, or in it either, for the matter of
+that."
+
+"It's a queer tale, Mr. Quatermain," said Sir Henry. "I suppose you are
+not hoaxing us? It is, I know, sometimes thought allowable to take in a
+greenhorn."
+
+"If you think that, Sir Henry," I said, much put out, and pocketing my
+paper--for I do not like to be thought one of those silly fellows who
+consider it witty to tell lies, and who are for ever boasting to
+newcomers of extraordinary hunting adventures which never happened--"if
+you think that, why, there is an end to the matter," and I rose to go.
+
+Sir Henry laid his large hand upon my shoulder. "Sit down, Mr.
+Quatermain," he said, "I beg your pardon; I see very well you do not
+wish to deceive us, but the story sounded so strange that I could
+hardly believe it."
+
+"You shall see the original map and writing when we reach Durban," I
+answered, somewhat mollified, for really when I came to consider the
+question it was scarcely wonderful that he should doubt my good faith.
+
+"But," I went on, "I have not told you about your brother. I knew the
+man Jim who was with him. He was a Bechuana by birth, a good hunter,
+and for a native a very clever man. That morning on which Mr. Neville
+was starting I saw Jim standing by my wagon and cutting up tobacco on
+the disselboom.
+
+"'Jim,' said I, 'where are you off to this trip? It is elephants?'
+
+"'No, Baas,' he answered, 'we are after something worth much more than
+ivory.'
+
+"'And what might that be?' I said, for I was curious. 'Is it gold?'
+
+"'No, Baas, something worth more than gold,' and he grinned.
+
+"I asked no more questions, for I did not like to lower my dignity by
+seeming inquisitive, but I was puzzled. Presently Jim finished cutting
+his tobacco.
+
+"'Baas,' said he.
+
+"I took no notice.
+
+"'Baas,' said he again.
+
+"'Eh, boy, what is it?' I asked.
+
+"'Baas, we are going after diamonds.'
+
+"'Diamonds! why, then, you are steering in the wrong direction; you
+should head for the Fields.'
+
+"'Baas, have you ever heard of Suliman's Berg?'--that is, Solomon's
+Mountains, Sir Henry.
+
+"'Ay!'
+
+"'Have you ever heard of the diamonds there?'
+
+"'I have heard a foolish story, Jim.'
+
+"'It is no story, Baas. Once I knew a woman who came from there, and
+reached Natal with her child, she told me:--she is dead now.'
+
+"'Your master will feed the assv�gels'--that is, vultures--'Jim, if he
+tries to reach Suliman's country, and so will you if they can get any
+pickings off your worthless old carcass,' said I.
+
+"He grinned. 'Mayhap, Baas. Man must die; I'd rather like to try a new
+country myself; the elephants are getting worked out about here.'
+
+"'Ah! my boy,' I said, 'you wait till the "pale old man" gets a grip of
+your yellow throat, and then we shall hear what sort of a tune you
+sing.'
+
+"Half an hour after that I saw Neville's wagon move off. Presently Jim
+came back running. 'Good-bye, Baas,' he said. 'I didn't like to start
+without bidding you good-bye, for I daresay you are right, and that we
+shall never trek south again.'
+
+"'Is your master really going to Suliman's Berg, Jim, or are you lying?'
+
+"'No,' he answered, 'he is going. He told me he was bound to make his
+fortune somehow, or try to; so he might as well have a fling for the
+diamonds.'
+
+"'Oh!' I said; 'wait a bit, Jim; will you take a note to your master,
+Jim, and promise not to give it to him till you reach Inyati?' which
+was some hundred miles off.
+
+"'Yes, Baas.'
+
+"So I took a scrap of paper, and wrote on it, 'Let him who comes . . .
+climb the snow of Sheba's left breast, till he reaches the nipple, on
+the north side of which is Solomon's great road.'
+
+"'Now, Jim,' I said, 'when you give this to your master, tell him he
+had better follow the advice on it implicitly. You are not to give it
+to him now, because I don't want him back asking me questions which I
+won't answer. Now be off, you idle fellow, the wagon is nearly out of
+sight.'
+
+"Jim took the note and went, and that is all I know about your brother,
+Sir Henry; but I am much afraid--"
+
+"Mr. Quatermain," said Sir Henry, "I am going to look for my brother; I
+am going to trace him to Suliman's Mountains, and over them if
+necessary, till I find him, or until I know that he is dead. Will you
+come with me?"
+
+I am, as I think I have said, a cautious man, indeed a timid one, and
+this suggestion frightened me. It seemed to me that to undertake such a
+journey would be to go to certain death, and putting other
+considerations aside, as I had a son to support, I could not afford to
+die just then.
+
+"No, thank you, Sir Henry, I think I had rather not," I answered. "I am
+too old for wild-goose chases of that sort, and we should only end up
+like my poor friend Silvestre. I have a son dependent on me, so I
+cannot afford to risk my life foolishly."
+
+Both Sir Henry and Captain Good looked very disappointed.
+
+"Mr. Quatermain," said the former, "I am well off, and I am bent upon
+this business. You may put the remuneration for your services at
+whatever figure you like in reason, and it shall be paid over to you
+before we start. Moreover, I will arrange in the event of anything
+untoward happening to us or to you, that your son shall be suitably
+provided for. You will see from this offer how necessary I think your
+presence. Also if by chance we should reach this place, and find
+diamonds, they shall belong to you and Good equally. I do not want
+them. But of course that promise is worth nothing at all, though the
+same thing would apply to any ivory we might get. You may pretty well
+make your own terms with me, Mr. Quatermain; and of course I shall pay
+all expenses."
+
+"Sir Henry," said I, "this is the most liberal proposal I ever had, and
+one not to be sneezed at by a poor hunter and trader. But the job is
+the biggest I have come across, and I must take time to think it over.
+I will give you my answer before we get to Durban."
+
+"Very good," answered Sir Henry.
+
+Then I said good-night and turned in, and dreamt about poor long-dead
+Silvestre and the diamonds.
+
+
+[1] Suliman is the Arabic form of Solomon.--Editor.
+
+[2] Eu Jos� da Silvestra que estou morrendo de fome n� pequena cova
+    onde n�o ha neve ao lado norte do bico mais ao sul das duas
+    montanhas que chamei scio de Sheba; escrevo isto no anno 1590;
+    escrevo isto com um peda�o d'�sso n' um farrapo de minha roupa e
+    com sangue meu por tinta; se o meu escravo d�r com isto quando
+    venha ao levar para Lourenzo Marquez, que o meu amigo ---------
+    leve a cousa ao conhecimento d' El Rei, para que possa mandar um
+    exercito que, se desfiler pelo deserto e pelas montonhas e mesmo
+    sobrepujar os bravos Kukuanes e suas artes diabolicas, pelo que se
+    deviam trazer muitos padres Far o Rei mais rico depois de Salom�o
+    Com meus proprios olhos v� os di amantes sem conto guardados nas
+    camaras do thesouro de Salom�o a traz da morte branca, mas pela
+    trai��o de Gagoal a feiticeira achadora, nada poderia levar, e
+    apenas a minha vida. Quem vier siga o mappa e trepe pela neve de
+    Sheba peito � esquerda at� chegar ao bica, do lado norte do qual
+    est� a grande estrada do Solom�o por elle feita, donde ha tres
+    dias de jornada at� ao Palacio do Rei. Mate Gagoal. Reze por minha
+    alma. Adeos.                                Jos� da Silvestra.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+UMBOPA ENTERS OUR SERVICE
+
+It takes from four to five days, according to the speed of the vessel
+and the state of the weather, to run up from the Cape to Durban.
+Sometimes, if the landing is bad at East London, where they have not
+yet made that wonderful harbour they talk so much of, and sink such a
+mint of money in, a ship is delayed for twenty-four hours before the
+cargo boats can get out to take off the goods. But on this occasion we
+had not to wait at all, for there were no breakers on the Bar to speak
+of, and the tugs came out at once with the long strings of ugly
+flat-bottomed boats behind them, into which the packages were bundled
+with a crash. It did not matter what they might be, over they went
+slap-bang; whether they contained china or woollen goods they met with
+the same treatment. I saw one case holding four dozen of champagne
+smashed all to bits, and there was the champagne fizzing and boiling
+about in the bottom of the dirty cargo boat. It was a wicked waste, and
+evidently so the Kafirs in the boat thought, for they found a couple of
+unbroken bottles, and knocking off the necks drank the contents. But
+they had not allowed for the expansion caused by the fizz in the wine,
+and, feeling themselves swelling, rolled about in the bottom of the
+boat, calling out that the good liquor was "tagati"--that is,
+bewitched. I spoke to them from the vessel, and told them it was the
+white man's strongest medicine, and that they were as good as dead men.
+Those Kafirs went to the shore in a very great fright, and I do not
+think that they will touch champagne again.
+
+Well, all the time that we were steaming up to Natal I was thinking
+over Sir Henry Curtis's offer. We did not speak any more on the subject
+for a day or two, though I told them many hunting yarns, all true ones.
+There is no need to tell lies about hunting, for so many curious things
+happen within the knowledge of a man whose business it is to hunt; but
+this is by the way.
+
+At last, one beautiful evening in January, which is our hottest month,
+we steamed past the coast of Natal, expecting to make Durban Point by
+sunset. It is a lovely coast all along from East London, with its red
+sandhills and wide sweeps of vivid green, dotted here and there with
+Kafir kraals, and bordered by a ribbon of white surf, which spouts up
+in pillars of foam where it hits the rocks. But just before you come to
+Durban there is a peculiar richness about the landscape. There are the
+sheer kloofs cut in the hills by the rushing rains of centuries, down
+which the rivers sparkle; there is the deepest green of the bush,
+growing as God planted it, and the other greens of the mealie gardens
+and the sugar patches, while now and again a white house, smiling out
+at the placid sea, puts a finish and gives an air of homeliness to the
+scene. For to my mind, however beautiful a view may be, it requires the
+presence of man to make it complete, but perhaps that is because I have
+lived so much in the wilderness, and therefore know the value of
+civilisation, though to be sure it drives away the game. The Garden of
+Eden, no doubt, looked fair before man was, but I always think that it
+must have been fairer when Eve adorned it.
+
+To return, we had miscalculated a little, and the sun was well down
+before we dropped anchor off the Point, and heard the gun which told
+the good folks of Durban that the English Mail was in. It was too late
+to think of getting over the Bar that night, so we went comfortably to
+dinner, after seeing the Mails carried off in the life-boat.
+
+When we came up again the moon was out, and shining so brightly over
+sea and shore that she almost paled the quick, large flashes from the
+lighthouse. From the shore floated sweet spicy odours that always
+remind me of hymns and missionaries, and in the windows of the houses
+on the Berea sparkled a hundred lights. From a large brig lying near
+also came the music of the sailors as they worked at getting the anchor
+up in order to be ready for the wind. Altogether it was a perfect
+night, such a night as you sometimes get in Southern Africa, and it
+threw a garment of peace over everybody as the moon threw a garment of
+silver over everything. Even the great bulldog, belonging to a sporting
+passenger, seemed to yield to its gentle influences, and forgetting his
+yearning to come to close quarters with the baboon in a cage on the
+foc'sle, snored happily at the door of the cabin, dreaming no doubt
+that he had finished him, and happy in his dream.
+
+We three--that is, Sir Henry Curtis, Captain Good, and myself--went and
+sat by the wheel, and were quiet for a while.
+
+"Well, Mr. Quatermain," said Sir Henry presently, "have you been
+thinking about my proposals?"
+
+"Ay," echoed Captain Good, "what do you think of them, Mr. Quatermain?
+I hope that you are going to give us the pleasure of your company so
+far as Solomon's Mines, or wherever the gentleman you knew as Neville
+may have got to."
+
+I rose and knocked out my pipe before I answered. I had not made up my
+mind, and wanted an additional moment to decide. Before the burning
+tobacco had fallen into the sea I had decided; just that little extra
+second did the trick. It is often the way when you have been bothering
+a long time over a thing.
+
+"Yes, gentlemen," I said, sitting down again, "I will go, and by your
+leave I will tell you why, and on what conditions. First for the terms
+which I ask.
+
+"1. You are to pay all expenses, and any ivory or other valuables we
+may get is to be divided between Captain Good and myself.
+
+"2. That you give me �500 for my services on the trip before we start,
+I undertaking to serve you faithfully till you choose to abandon the
+enterprise, or till we succeed, or disaster overtakes us.
+
+"3. That before we trek you execute a deed agreeing, in the event of my
+death or disablement, to pay my boy Harry, who is studying medicine
+over there in London, at Guy's Hospital, a sum of �200 a year for five
+years, by which time he ought to be able to earn a living for himself
+if he is worth his salt. That is all, I think, and I daresay you will
+say quite enough too."
+
+"No," answered Sir Henry, "I accept them gladly. I am bent upon this
+project, and would pay more than that for your help, considering the
+peculiar and exclusive knowledge which you possess."
+
+"Pity I did not ask it, then, but I won't go back on my word. And now
+that I have got my terms I will tell you my reasons for making up my
+mind to go. First of all, gentlemen, I have been observing you both for
+the last few days, and if you will not think me impertinent I may say
+that I like you, and believe that we shall come up well to the yoke
+together. That is something, let me tell you, when one has a long
+journey like this before one.
+
+"And now as to the journey itself, I tell you flatly, Sir Henry and
+Captain Good, that I do not think it probable we can come out of it
+alive, that is, if we attempt to cross the Suliman Mountains. What was
+the fate of the old Dom da Silvestra three hundred years ago? What was
+the fate of his descendant twenty years ago? What has been your
+brother's fate? I tell you frankly, gentlemen, that as their fates were
+so I believe ours will be."
+
+I paused to watch the effect of my words. Captain Good looked a little
+uncomfortable, but Sir Henry's face did not change. "We must take our
+chance," he said.
+
+"You may perhaps wonder," I went on, "why, if I think this, I, who am,
+as I told you, a timid man, should undertake such a journey. It is for
+two reasons. First I am a fatalist, and believe that my time is
+appointed to come quite without reference to my own movements and will,
+and that if I am to go to Suliman's Mountains to be killed, I shall go
+there and shall be killed. God Almighty, no doubt, knows His mind about
+me, so I need not trouble on that point. Secondly, I am a poor man. For
+nearly forty years I have hunted and traded, but I have never made more
+than a living. Well, gentlemen, I don't know if you are aware that the
+average life of an elephant hunter from the time he takes to the trade
+is between four and five years. So you see I have lived through about
+seven generations of my class, and I should think that my time cannot
+be far off, anyway. Now, if anything were to happen to me in the
+ordinary course of business, by the time my debts are paid there would
+be nothing left to support my son Harry whilst he was getting in the
+way of earning a living, whereas now he will be set up for five years.
+There is the whole affair in a nutshell."
+
+"Mr. Quatermain," said Sir Henry, who had been giving me his most
+serious attention, "your motives for undertaking an enterprise which
+you believe can only end in disaster reflect a great deal of credit on
+you. Whether or not you are right, of course time and the event alone
+can show. But whether you are right or wrong, I may as well tell you at
+once that I am going through with it to the end, sweet or bitter. If we
+are to be knocked on the head, all I have to say is, that I hope we get
+a little shooting first, eh, Good?"
+
+"Yes, yes," put in the captain. "We have all three of us been
+accustomed to face danger, and to hold our lives in our hands in
+various ways, so it is no good turning back now. And now I vote we go
+down to the saloon and take an observation just for luck, you know."
+And we did--through the bottom of a tumbler.
+
+Next day we went ashore, and I put up Sir Henry and Captain Good at the
+little shanty I have built on the Berea, and which I call my home.
+There are only three rooms and a kitchen in it, and it is constructed
+of green brick with a galvanised iron roof, but there is a good garden
+with the best loquot trees in it that I know, and some nice young
+mangoes, of which I hope great things. The curator of the botanical
+gardens gave them to me. It is looked after by an old hunter of mine
+named Jack, whose thigh was so badly broken by a buffalo cow in
+Sikukunis country that he will never hunt again. But he can potter
+about and garden, being a Griqua by birth. You will never persuade a
+Zulu to take much interest in gardening. It is a peaceful art, and
+peaceful arts are not in his line.
+
+Sir Henry and Good slept in a tent pitched in my little grove of orange
+trees at the end of the garden, for there was no room for them in the
+house, and what with the smell of the bloom, and the sight of the green
+and golden fruit--in Durban you will see all three on the tree
+together--I daresay it is a pleasant place enough, for we have few
+mosquitos here on the Berea, unless there happens to come an unusually
+heavy rain.
+
+Well, to get on--for if I do not, Harry, you will be tired of my story
+before ever we fetch up at Suliman's Mountains--having once made up my
+mind to go I set about making the necessary preparations. First I
+secured the deed from Sir Henry, providing for you, my boy, in case of
+accidents. There was some difficulty about its legal execution, as Sir
+Henry was a stranger here, and the property to be charged is over the
+water; but it was ultimately got over with the help of a lawyer, who
+charged �20 for the job--a price that I thought outrageous. Then I
+pocketed my cheque for �500.
+
+Having paid this tribute to my bump of caution, I purchased a wagon and
+a span of oxen on Sir Henry's behalf, and beauties they were. It was a
+twenty-two-foot wagon with iron axles, very strong, very light, and
+built throughout of stink wood; not quite a new one, having been to the
+Diamond Fields and back, but, in my opinion, all the better for that,
+for I could see that the wood was well seasoned. If anything is going
+to give in a wagon, or if there is green wood in it, it will show out
+on the first trip. This particular vehicle was what we call a
+"half-tented" wagon, that is to say, only covered in over the after
+twelve feet, leaving all the front part free for the necessaries we had
+to carry with us. In this after part were a hide "cartle," or bed, on
+which two people could sleep, also racks for rifles, and many other
+little conveniences. I gave �125 for it, and think that it was cheap at
+the price.
+
+Then I bought a beautiful team of twenty Zulu oxen, which I had kept my
+eye on for a year or two. Sixteen oxen is the usual number for a team,
+but I took four extra to allow for casualties. These Zulu cattle are
+small and light, not more than half the size of the Africander oxen,
+which are generally used for transport purposes; but they will live
+where the Africanders would starve, and with a moderate load can make
+five miles a day better going, being quicker and not so liable to
+become footsore. What is more, this lot were thoroughly "salted," that
+is, they had worked all over South Africa, and so had become proof,
+comparatively speaking, against red water, which so frequently destroys
+whole teams of oxen when they get on to strange "veldt" or grass
+country. As for "lung sick," which is a dreadful form of pneumonia,
+very prevalent in this country, they had all been inoculated against
+it. This is done by cutting a slit in the tail of an ox, and binding in
+a piece of the diseased lung of an animal which has died of the
+sickness. The result is that the ox sickens, takes the disease in a
+mild form, which causes its tail to drop off, as a rule about a foot
+from the root, and becomes proof against future attacks. It seems cruel
+to rob the animal of his tail, especially in a country where there are
+so many flies, but it is better to sacrifice the tail and keep the ox
+than to lose both tail and ox, for a tail without an ox is not much
+good, except to dust with. Still it does look odd to trek along behind
+twenty stumps, where there ought to be tails. It seems as though Nature
+made a trifling mistake, and stuck the stern ornaments of a lot of
+prize bull-dogs on to the rumps of the oxen.
+
+Next came the question of provisioning and medicines, one which
+required the most careful consideration, for what we had to do was to
+avoid lumbering the wagon, and yet to take everything absolutely
+necessary. Fortunately, it turned out that Good is a bit of a doctor,
+having at some point in his previous career managed to pass through a
+course of medical and surgical instruction, which he has more or less
+kept up. He is not, of course, qualified, but he knows more about it
+than many a man who can write M.D. after his name, as we found out
+afterwards, and he had a splendid travelling medicine chest and a set
+of instruments. Whilst we were at Durban he cut off a Kafir's big toe
+in a way which it was a pleasure to see. But he was quite nonplussed
+when the Kafir, who had sat stolidly watching the operation, asked him
+to put on another, saying that a "white one" would do at a pinch.
+
+There remained, when these questions were satisfactorily settled, two
+further important points for consideration, namely, that of arms and
+that of servants. As to the arms I cannot do better than put down a
+list of those which we finally decided on from among the ample store
+that Sir Henry had brought with him from England, and those which I
+owned. I copy it from my pocket-book, where I made the entry at the
+time.
+
+"Three heavy breech-loading double-eight elephant guns, weighing about
+fifteen pounds each, to carry a charge of eleven drachms of black
+powder." Two of these were by a well-known London firm, most excellent
+makers, but I do not know by whom mine, which is not so highly
+finished, was made. I have used it on several trips, and shot a good
+many elephants with it, and it has always proved a most superior
+weapon, thoroughly to be relied on.
+
+"Three double-500 Expresses, constructed to stand a charge of six
+drachms," sweet weapons, and admirable for medium-sized game, such as
+eland or sable antelope, or for men, especially in an open country and
+with the semi-hollow bullet.
+
+"One double No. 12 central-fire Keeper's shot-gun, full choke both
+barrels." This gun proved of the greatest service to us afterwards in
+shooting game for the pot.
+
+"Three Winchester repeating rifles (not carbines), spare guns.
+
+"Three single-action Colt's revolvers, with the heavier, or American
+pattern of cartridge."
+
+This was our total armament, and doubtless the reader will observe that
+the weapons of each class were of the same make and calibre, so that
+the cartridges were interchangeable, a very important point. I make no
+apology for detailing it at length, as every experienced hunter will
+know how vital a proper supply of guns and ammunition is to the success
+of an expedition.
+
+Now as to the men who were to go with us. After much consultation we
+decided that their number should be limited to five, namely, a driver,
+a leader, and three servants.
+
+The driver and leader I found without much difficulty, two Zulus, named
+respectively Goza and Tom; but to get the servants proved a more
+difficult matter. It was necessary that they should be thoroughly
+trustworthy and brave men, as in a business of this sort our lives
+might depend upon their conduct. At last I secured two, one a Hottentot
+named Ventv�gel, or "windbird," and one a little Zulu named Khiva, who
+had the merit of speaking English perfectly. Ventv�gel I had known
+before; he was one of the most perfect "spoorers," that is, game
+trackers, I ever had to do with, and tough as whipcord. He never seemed
+to tire. But he had one failing, so common with his race, drink. Put
+him within reach of a bottle of gin and you could not trust him.
+However, as we were going beyond the region of grog-shops this little
+weakness of his did not so much matter.
+
+Having secured these two men I looked in vain for a third to suit my
+purpose, so we determined to start without one, trusting to luck to
+find a suitable man on our way up country. But, as it happened, on the
+evening before the day we had fixed for our departure the Zulu Khiva
+informed me that a Kafir was waiting to see me. Accordingly, when we
+had done dinner, for we were at table at the time, I told Khiva to
+bring him in. Presently a tall, handsome-looking man, somewhere about
+thirty years of age, and very light-coloured for a Zulu, entered, and
+lifting his knob-stick by way of salute, squatted himself down in the
+corner on his haunches, and sat silent. I did not take any notice of
+him for a while, for it is a great mistake to do so. If you rush into
+conversation at once, a Zulu is apt to think you a person of little
+dignity or consequence. I observed, however, that he was a "Keshla" or
+ringed man; that is, he wore on his head the black ring, made of a
+species of gum polished with fat and worked up in the hair, which is
+usually assumed by Zulus on attaining a certain age or dignity. Also it
+struck me that his face was familiar to me.
+
+"Well," I said at last, "What is your name?"
+
+"Umbopa," answered the man in a slow, deep voice.
+
+"I have seen your face before."
+
+"Yes; the Inkoosi, the chief, my father, saw my face at the place of
+the Little Hand"--that is, Isandhlwana--"on the day before the battle."
+
+Then I remembered. I was one of Lord Chelmsford's guides in that
+unlucky Zulu War, and had the good fortune to leave the camp in charge
+of some wagons on the day before the battle. While I was waiting for
+the cattle to be inspanned I fell into conversation with this man, who
+held some small command among the native auxiliaries, and he had
+expressed to me his doubts as to the safety of the camp. At the time I
+told him to hold his tongue, and leave such matters to wiser heads; but
+afterwards I thought of his words.
+
+"I remember," I said; "what is it you want?"
+
+"It is this, 'Macumazahn.'" That is my Kafir name, and means the man
+who gets up in the middle of the night, or, in vulgar English, he who
+keeps his eyes open. "I hear that you go on a great expedition far into
+the North with the white chiefs from over the water. Is it a true word?"
+
+"It is."
+
+"I hear that you go even to the Lukanga River, a moon's journey beyond
+the Manica country. Is this so also, 'Macumazahn?'"
+
+"Why do you ask whither we go? What is it to you?" I answered
+suspiciously, for the objects of our journey had been kept a dead
+secret.
+
+"It is this, O white men, that if indeed you travel so far I would
+travel with you."
+
+There was a certain assumption of dignity in the man's mode of speech,
+and especially in his use of the words "O white men," instead of "O
+Inkosis," or chiefs, which struck me.
+
+"You forget yourself a little," I said. "Your words run out unawares.
+That is not the way to speak. What is your name, and where is your
+kraal? Tell us, that we may know with whom we have to deal."
+
+"My name is Umbopa. I am of the Zulu people, yet not of them. The house
+of my tribe is in the far North; it was left behind when the Zulus came
+down here a 'thousand years ago,' long before Chaka reigned in
+Zululand. I have no kraal. I have wandered for many years. I came from
+the North as a child to Zululand. I was Cetewayo's man in the
+Nkomabakosi Regiment, serving there under the great Captain,
+Umslopogaasi of the Axe,[1] who taught my hands to fight. Afterwards I
+ran away from Zululand and came to Natal because I wanted to see the
+white man's ways. Next I fought against Cetewayo in the war. Since then
+I have been working in Natal. Now I am tired, and would go North again.
+Here is not my place. I want no money, but I am a brave man, and am
+worth my place and meat. I have spoken."
+
+I was rather puzzled by this man and his way of speech. It was evident
+to me from his manner that in the main he was telling the truth, but
+somehow he seemed different from the ordinary run of Zulus, and I
+rather mistrusted his offer to come without pay. Being in a difficulty,
+I translated his words to Sir Henry and Good, and asked them their
+opinion.
+
+Sir Henry told me to ask him to stand up. Umbopa did so, at the same
+time slipping off the long military great coat which he wore, and
+revealing himself naked except for the moocha round his centre and a
+necklace of lions' claws. Certainly he was a magnificent-looking man; I
+never saw a finer native. Standing about six foot three high he was
+broad in proportion, and very shapely. In that light, too, his skin
+looked scarcely more than dark, except here and there where deep black
+scars marked old assegai wounds. Sir Henry walked up to him and looked
+into his proud, handsome face.
+
+"They make a good pair, don't they?" said Good; "one as big as the
+other."
+
+"I like your looks, Mr. Umbopa, and I will take you as my servant,"
+said Sir Henry in English.
+
+Umbopa evidently understood him, for he answered in Zulu, "It is well";
+and then added, with a glance at the white man's great stature and
+breadth, "We are men, thou and I."
+
+
+[1] For the history of Umslopogaasi and his Axe, the reader is referred
+to the books called "Allan Quatermain" and "Nada the Lily."--Editor.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+AN ELEPHANT HUNT
+
+Now I do not propose to narrate at full length all the incidents of our
+long travel up to Sitanda's Kraal, near the junction of the Lukanga and
+Kalukwe Rivers. It was a journey of more than a thousand miles from
+Durban, the last three hundred or so of which we had to make on foot,
+owing to the frequent presence of the dreadful "tsetse" fly, whose bite
+is fatal to all animals except donkeys and men.
+
+We left Durban at the end of January, and it was in the second week of
+May that we camped near Sitanda's Kraal. Our adventures on the way were
+many and various, but as they are of the sort which befall every
+African hunter--with one exception to be presently detailed--I shall
+not set them down here, lest I should render this history too wearisome.
+
+At Inyati, the outlying trading station in the Matabele country, of
+which Lobengula (a great and cruel scoundrel) is king, with many
+regrets we parted from our comfortable wagon. Only twelve oxen remained
+to us out of the beautiful span of twenty which I had bought at Durban.
+One we lost from the bite of a cobra, three had perished from "poverty"
+and the want of water, one strayed, and the other three died from
+eating the poisonous herb called "tulip." Five more sickened from this
+cause, but we managed to cure them with doses of an infusion made by
+boiling down the tulip leaves. If administered in time this is a very
+effective antidote.
+
+The wagon and the oxen we left in the immediate charge of Goza and Tom,
+our driver and leader, both trustworthy boys, requesting a worthy
+Scotch missionary who lived in this distant place to keep an eye on
+them. Then, accompanied by Umbopa, Khiva, Ventv�gel, and half a dozen
+bearers whom we hired on the spot, we started off on foot upon our wild
+quest. I remember we were all a little silent on the occasion of this
+departure, and I think that each of us was wondering if we should ever
+see our wagon again; for my part I never expected to do so. For a while
+we tramped on in silence, till Umbopa, who was marching in front, broke
+into a Zulu chant about how some brave men, tired of life and the
+tameness of things, started off into a vast wilderness to find new
+things or die, and how, lo and behold! when they had travelled far into
+the wilderness they found that it was not a wilderness at all, but a
+beautiful place full of young wives and fat cattle, of game to hunt and
+enemies to kill.
+
+Then we all laughed and took it for a good omen. Umbopa was a cheerful
+savage, in a dignified sort of way, when he was not suffering from one
+of his fits of brooding, and he had a wonderful knack of keeping up our
+spirits. We all grew very fond of him.
+
+And now for the one adventure to which I am going to treat myself, for
+I do dearly love a hunting yarn.
+
+About a fortnight's march from Inyati we came across a peculiarly
+beautiful bit of well-watered woodland country. The kloofs in the hills
+were covered with dense bush, "idoro" bush as the natives call it, and
+in some places, with the "wacht-een-beche," or "wait-a-little thorn,"
+and there were great quantities of the lovely "machabell" tree, laden
+with refreshing yellow fruit having enormous stones. This tree is the
+elephant's favourite food, and there were not wanting signs that the
+great brutes had been about, for not only was their spoor frequent, but
+in many places the trees were broken down and even uprooted. The
+elephant is a destructive feeder.
+
+One evening, after a long day's march, we came to a spot of great
+loveliness. At the foot of a bush-clad hill lay a dry river-bed, in
+which, however, were to be found pools of crystal water all trodden
+round with the hoof-prints of game. Facing this hill was a park-like
+plain, where grew clumps of flat-topped mimosa, varied with occasional
+glossy-leaved machabells, and all round stretched the sea of pathless,
+silent bush.
+
+As we emerged into this river-bed path suddenly we started a troop of
+tall giraffes, who galloped, or rather sailed off, in their strange
+gait, their tails screwed up over their backs, and their hoofs rattling
+like castanets. They were about three hundred yards from us, and
+therefore practically out of shot, but Good, who was walking ahead, and
+who had an express loaded with solid ball in his hand, could not resist
+temptation. Lifting his gun, he let drive at the last, a young cow. By
+some extraordinary chance the ball struck it full on the back of the
+neck, shattering the spinal column, and that giraffe went rolling head
+over heels just like a rabbit. I never saw a more curious thing.
+
+"Curse it!" said Good--for I am sorry to say he had a habit of using
+strong language when excited--contracted, no doubt, in the course of
+his nautical career; "curse it! I've killed him."
+
+"_Ou_, Bougwan," ejaculated the Kafirs; "_ou! ou!_"
+
+They called Good "Bougwan," or Glass Eye, because of his eye-glass.
+
+"Oh, 'Bougwan!'" re-echoed Sir Henry and I, and from that day Good's
+reputation as a marvellous shot was established, at any rate among the
+Kafirs. Really he was a bad one, but whenever he missed we overlooked
+it for the sake of that giraffe.
+
+Having set some of the "boys" to cut off the best of the giraffe's
+meat, we went to work to build a "scherm" near one of the pools and
+about a hundred yards to its right. This is done by cutting a quantity
+of thorn bushes and piling them in the shape of a circular hedge. Then
+the space enclosed is smoothed, and dry tambouki grass, if obtainable,
+is made into a bed in the centre, and a fire or fires lighted.
+
+By the time the "scherm" was finished the moon peeped up, and our
+dinners of giraffe steaks and roasted marrow-bones were ready. How we
+enjoyed those marrow-bones, though it was rather a job to crack them! I
+know of no greater luxury than giraffe marrow, unless it is elephant's
+heart, and we had that on the morrow. We ate our simple meal by the
+light of the moon, pausing at times to thank Good for his wonderful
+shot; then we began to smoke and yarn, and a curious picture we must
+have made squatting there round the fire. I, with my short grizzled
+hair sticking up straight, and Sir Henry with his yellow locks, which
+were getting rather long, were rather a contrast, especially as I am
+thin, and short, and dark, weighing only nine stone and a half, and Sir
+Henry is tall, and broad, and fair, and weighs fifteen. But perhaps the
+most curious-looking of the three, taking all the circumstances of the
+case into consideration, was Captain John Good, R.N. There he sat upon
+a leather bag, looking just as though he had come in from a comfortable
+day's shooting in a civilised country, absolutely clean, tidy, and well
+dressed. He wore a shooting suit of brown tweed, with a hat to match,
+and neat gaiters. As usual, he was beautifully shaved, his eye-glass
+and his false teeth appeared to be in perfect order, and altogether he
+looked the neatest man I ever had to do with in the wilderness. He even
+sported a collar, of which he had a supply, made of white gutta-percha.
+
+"You see, they weigh so little," he said to me innocently, when I
+expressed my astonishment at the fact; "and I always like to turn out
+like a gentleman." Ah! if he could have foreseen the future and the
+raiment prepared for him.
+
+Well, there we three sat yarning away in the beautiful moonlight, and
+watching the Kafirs a few yards off sucking their intoxicating "daccha"
+from a pipe of which the mouthpiece was made of the horn of an eland,
+till one by one they rolled themselves up in their blankets and went to
+sleep by the fire, that is, all except Umbopa, who was a little apart,
+his chin resting on his hand, and thinking deeply. I noticed that he
+never mixed much with the other Kafirs.
+
+Presently, from the depths of the bush behind us, came a loud "_woof_,
+_woof_!" "That's a lion," said I, and we all started up to listen.
+Hardly had we done so, when from the pool, about a hundred yards off,
+we heard the strident trumpeting of an elephant. "_Unkungunklovo_!
+_Indlovu_!" "Elephant! Elephant!" whispered the Kafirs, and a few
+minutes afterwards we saw a succession of vast shadowy forms moving
+slowly from the direction of the water towards the bush.
+
+Up jumped Good, burning for slaughter, and thinking, perhaps, that it
+was as easy to kill elephant as he had found it to shoot giraffe, but I
+caught him by the arm and pulled him down.
+
+"It's no good," I whispered, "let them go."
+
+"It seems that we are in a paradise of game. I vote we stop here a day
+or two, and have a go at them," said Sir Henry, presently.
+
+I was rather surprised, for hitherto Sir Henry had always been for
+pushing forward as fast as possible, more especially since we
+ascertained at Inyati that about two years ago an Englishman of the
+name of Neville _had_ sold his wagon there, and gone on up country. But
+I suppose his hunter instincts got the better of him for a while.
+
+Good jumped at the idea, for he was longing to have a shot at those
+elephants; and so, to speak the truth, did I, for it went against my
+conscience to let such a herd as that escape without a pull at them.
+
+"All right, my hearties," said I. "I think we want a little recreation.
+And now let's turn in, for we ought to be off by dawn, and then perhaps
+we may catch them feeding before they move on."
+
+The others agreed, and we proceeded to make our preparations. Good took
+off his clothes, shook them, put his eye-glass and his false teeth into
+his trousers pocket, and folding each article neatly, placed it out of
+the dew under a corner of his mackintosh sheet. Sir Henry and I
+contented ourselves with rougher arrangements, and soon were curled up
+in our blankets, and dropping off into the dreamless sleep that rewards
+the traveller.
+
+Going, going, go--What was that?
+
+Suddenly, from the direction of the water came sounds of violent
+scuffling, and next instant there broke upon our ears a succession of
+the most awful roars. There was no mistaking their origin; only a lion
+could make such a noise as that. We all jumped up and looked towards
+the water, in the direction of which we saw a confused mass, yellow and
+black in colour, staggering and struggling towards us. We seized our
+rifles, and slipping on our veldtschoons, that is shoes made of
+untanned hide, ran out of the scherm. By this time the mass had fallen,
+and was rolling over and over on the ground, and when we reached the
+spot it struggled no longer, but lay quite still.
+
+Now we saw what it was. On the grass there lay a sable antelope
+bull--the most beautiful of all the African antelopes--quite dead, and
+transfixed by its great curved horns was a magnificent black-maned
+lion, also dead. Evidently what had happened was this: The sable
+antelope had come down to drink at the pool where the lion--no doubt
+the same which we had heard--was lying in wait. While the antelope
+drank, the lion had sprung upon him, only to be received upon the sharp
+curved horns and transfixed. Once before I saw a similar thing happen.
+Then the lion, unable to free himself, had torn and bitten at the back
+and neck of the bull, which, maddened with fear and pain, had rushed on
+until it dropped dead.
+
+As soon as we had examined the beasts sufficiently we called the
+Kafirs, and between us managed to drag their carcases up to the scherm.
+After that we went in and lay down, to wake no more till dawn.
+
+With the first light we were up and making ready for the fray. We took
+with us the three eight-bore rifles, a good supply of ammunition, and
+our large water-bottles, filled with weak cold tea, which I have always
+found the best stuff to shoot on. After swallowing a little breakfast
+we started, Umbopa, Khiva, and Ventv�gel accompanying us. The other
+Kafirs we left with instructions to skin the lion and the sable
+antelope, and to cut up the latter.
+
+We had no difficulty in finding the broad elephant trail, which
+Ventv�gel, after examination, pronounced to have been made by between
+twenty and thirty elephants, most of them full-grown bulls. But the
+herd had moved on some way during the night, and it was nine o'clock,
+and already very hot, before, by the broken trees, bruised leaves and
+bark, and smoking droppings, we knew that we could not be far from them.
+
+Presently we caught sight of the herd, which numbered, as Ventv�gel had
+said, between twenty and thirty, standing in a hollow, having finished
+their morning meal, and flapping their great ears. It was a splendid
+sight, for they were only about two hundred yards from us. Taking a
+handful of dry grass, I threw it into the air to see how the wind was;
+for if once they winded us I knew they would be off before we could get
+a shot. Finding that, if anything, it blew from the elephants to us, we
+crept on stealthily, and thanks to the cover managed to get within
+forty yards or so of the great brutes. Just in front of us, and
+broadside on, stood three splendid bulls, one of them with enormous
+tusks. I whispered to the others that I would take the middle one; Sir
+Henry covering the elephant to the left, and Good the bull with the big
+tusks.
+
+"Now," I whispered.
+
+Boom! boom! boom! went the three heavy rifles, and down came Sir
+Henry's elephant dead as a hammer, shot right through the heart. Mine
+fell on to its knees and I thought that he was going to die, but in
+another moment he was up and off, tearing along straight past me. As he
+went I gave him the second barrel in the ribs, and this brought him
+down in good earnest. Hastily slipping in two fresh cartridges I ran
+close up to him, and a ball through the brain put an end to the poor
+brute's struggles. Then I turned to see how Good had fared with the big
+bull, which I had heard screaming with rage and pain as I gave mine its
+quietus. On reaching the captain I found him in a great state of
+excitement. It appeared that on receiving the bullet the bull had
+turned and come straight for his assailant, who had barely time to get
+out of his way, and then charged on blindly past him, in the direction
+of our encampment. Meanwhile the herd had crashed off in wild alarm in
+the other direction.
+
+For awhile we debated whether to go after the wounded bull or to follow
+the herd, and finally deciding for the latter alternative, departed,
+thinking that we had seen the last of those big tusks. I have often
+wished since that we had. It was easy work to follow the elephants, for
+they had left a trail like a carriage road behind them, crushing down
+the thick bush in their furious flight as though it were tambouki grass.
+
+But to come up with them was another matter, and we had struggled on
+under the broiling sun for over two hours before we found them. With
+the exception of one bull, they were standing together, and I could
+see, from their unquiet way and the manner in which they kept lifting
+their trunks to test the air, that they were on the look-out for
+mischief. The solitary bull stood fifty yards or so to this side of the
+herd, over which he was evidently keeping sentry, and about sixty yards
+from us. Thinking that he would see or wind us, and that it would
+probably start them off again if we tried to get nearer, especially as
+the ground was rather open, we all aimed at this bull, and at my
+whispered word, we fired. The three shots took effect, and down he went
+dead. Again the herd started, but unfortunately for them about a
+hundred yards further on was a nullah, or dried-out water track, with
+steep banks, a place very much resembling the one where the Prince
+Imperial was killed in Zululand. Into this the elephants plunged, and
+when we reached the edge we found them struggling in wild confusion to
+get up the other bank, filling the air with their screams, and
+trumpeting as they pushed one another aside in their selfish panic,
+just like so many human beings. Now was our opportunity, and firing
+away as quickly as we could load, we killed five of the poor beasts,
+and no doubt should have bagged the whole herd, had they not suddenly
+given up their attempts to climb the bank and rushed headlong down the
+nullah. We were too tired to follow them, and perhaps also a little
+sick of slaughter, eight elephants being a pretty good bag for one day.
+
+So after we were rested a little, and the Kafirs had cut out the hearts
+of two of the dead elephants for supper, we started homewards, very
+well pleased with our day's work, having made up our minds to send the
+bearers on the morrow to chop away the tusks.
+
+Shortly after we re-passed the spot where Good had wounded the
+patriarchal bull we came across a herd of eland, but did not shoot at
+them, as we had plenty of meat. They trotted past us, and then stopped
+behind a little patch of bush about a hundred yards away, wheeling
+round to look at us. As Good was anxious to get a near view of them,
+never having seen an eland close, he handed his rifle to Umbopa, and,
+followed by Khiva, strolled up to the patch of bush. We sat down and
+waited for him, not sorry of the excuse for a little rest.
+
+The sun was just going down in its reddest glory, and Sir Henry and I
+were admiring the lovely scene, when suddenly we heard an elephant
+scream, and saw its huge and rushing form with uplifted trunk and tail
+silhouetted against the great fiery globe of the sun. Next second we
+saw something else, and that was Good and Khiva tearing back towards us
+with the wounded bull--for it was he--charging after them. For a moment
+we did not dare to fire--though at that distance it would have been of
+little use if we had done so--for fear of hitting one of them, and the
+next a dreadful thing happened--Good fell a victim to his passion for
+civilised dress. Had he consented to discard his trousers and gaiters
+like the rest of us, and to hunt in a flannel shirt and a pair of
+veldt-schoons, it would have been all right. But as it was, his
+trousers cumbered him in that desperate race, and presently, when he
+was about sixty yards from us, his boot, polished by the dry grass,
+slipped, and down he went on his face right in front of the elephant.
+
+We gave a gasp, for we knew that he must die, and ran as hard as we
+could towards him. In three seconds it had ended, but not as we
+thought. Khiva, the Zulu boy, saw his master fall, and brave lad as he
+was, turned and flung his assegai straight into the elephant's face. It
+stuck in his trunk.
+
+With a scream of pain, the brute seized the poor Zulu, hurled him to
+the earth, and placing one huge foot on to his body about the middle,
+twined its trunk round his upper part and _tore him in two_.
+
+We rushed up mad with horror, and fired again and again, till presently
+the elephant fell upon the fragments of the Zulu.
+
+As for Good, he rose and wrung his hands over the brave man who had
+given his life to save him, and, though I am an old hand, I felt a lump
+grow in my throat. Umbopa stood contemplating the huge dead elephant
+and the mangled remains of poor Khiva.
+
+"Ah, well," he said presently, "he is dead, but he died like a man!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+OUR MARCH INTO THE DESERT
+
+We had killed nine elephants, and it took us two days to cut out the
+tusks, and having brought them into camp, to bury them carefully in the
+sand under a large tree, which made a conspicuous mark for miles round.
+It was a wonderfully fine lot of ivory. I never saw a better, averaging
+as it did between forty and fifty pounds a tusk. The tusks of the great
+bull that killed poor Khiva scaled one hundred and seventy pounds the
+pair, so nearly as we could judge.
+
+As for Khiva himself, we buried what remained of him in an ant-bear
+hole, together with an assegai to protect himself with on his journey
+to a better world. On the third day we marched again, hoping that we
+might live to return to dig up our buried ivory, and in due course,
+after a long and wearisome tramp, and many adventures which I have not
+space to detail, we reached Sitanda's Kraal, near the Lukanga River,
+the real starting-point of our expedition. Very well do I recollect our
+arrival at that place. To the right was a scattered native settlement
+with a few stone cattle kraals and some cultivated lands down by the
+water, where these savages grew their scanty supply of grain, and
+beyond it stretched great tracts of waving "veld" covered with tall
+grass, over which herds of the smaller game were wandering. To the left
+lay the vast desert. This spot appears to be the outpost of the fertile
+country, and it would be difficult to say to what natural causes such
+an abrupt change in the character of the soil is due. But so it is.
+
+Just below our encampment flowed a little stream, on the farther side
+of which is a stony slope, the same down which, twenty years before, I
+had seen poor Silvestre creeping back after his attempt to reach
+Solomon's Mines, and beyond that slope begins the waterless desert,
+covered with a species of karoo shrub.
+
+It was evening when we pitched our camp, and the great ball of the sun
+was sinking into the desert, sending glorious rays of many-coloured
+light flying all over its vast expanse. Leaving Good to superintend the
+arrangement of our little camp, I took Sir Henry with me, and walking
+to the top of the slope opposite, we gazed across the desert. The air
+was very clear, and far, far away I could distinguish the faint blue
+outlines, here and there capped with white, of the Suliman Berg.
+
+"There," I said, "there is the wall round Solomon's Mines, but God
+knows if we shall ever climb it."
+
+"My brother should be there, and if he is, I shall reach him somehow,"
+said Sir Henry, in that tone of quiet confidence which marked the man.
+
+"I hope so," I answered, and turned to go back to the camp, when I saw
+that we were not alone. Behind us, also gazing earnestly towards the
+far-off mountains, stood the great Kafir Umbopa.
+
+The Zulu spoke when he saw that I had observed him, addressing Sir
+Henry, to whom he had attached himself.
+
+"Is it to that land that thou wouldst journey, Incubu?" (a native word
+meaning, I believe, an elephant, and the name given to Sir Henry by the
+Kafirs), he said, pointing towards the mountain with his broad assegai.
+
+I asked him sharply what he meant by addressing his master in that
+familiar way. It is very well for natives to have a name for one among
+themselves, but it is not decent that they should call a white man by
+their heathenish appellations to his face. The Zulu laughed a quiet
+little laugh which angered me.
+
+"How dost thou know that I am not the equal of the Inkosi whom I
+serve?" he said. "He is of a royal house, no doubt; one can see it in
+his size and by his mien; so, mayhap, am I. At least, I am as great a
+man. Be my mouth, O Macumazahn, and say my words to the Inkoos Incubu,
+my master, for I would speak to him and to thee."
+
+I was angry with the man, for I am not accustomed to be talked to in
+that way by Kafirs, but somehow he impressed me, and besides I was
+curious to know what he had to say. So I translated, expressing my
+opinion at the same time that he was an impudent fellow, and that his
+swagger was outrageous.
+
+"Yes, Umbopa," answered Sir Henry, "I would journey there."
+
+"The desert is wide and there is no water in it, the mountains are high
+and covered with snow, and man cannot say what lies beyond them behind
+the place where the sun sets; how shalt thou come thither, Incubu, and
+wherefore dost thou go?"
+
+I translated again.
+
+"Tell him," answered Sir Henry, "that I go because I believe that a man
+of my blood, my brother, has gone there before me, and I journey to
+seek him."
+
+"That is so, Incubu; a Hottentot I met on the road told me that a white
+man went out into the desert two years ago towards those mountains with
+one servant, a hunter. They never came back."
+
+"How do you know it was my brother?" asked Sir Henry.
+
+"Nay, I know not. But the Hottentot, when I asked what the white man
+was like, said that he had thine eyes and a black beard. He said, too,
+that the name of the hunter with him was Jim; that he was a Bechuana
+hunter and wore clothes."
+
+"There is no doubt about it," said I; "I knew Jim well."
+
+Sir Henry nodded. "I was sure of it," he said. "If George set his mind
+upon a thing he generally did it. It was always so from his boyhood. If
+he meant to cross the Suliman Berg he has crossed it, unless some
+accident overtook him, and we must look for him on the other side."
+
+Umbopa understood English, though he rarely spoke it.
+
+"It is a far journey, Incubu," he put in, and I translated his remark.
+
+"Yes," answered Sir Henry, "it is far. But there is no journey upon
+this earth that a man may not make if he sets his heart to it. There is
+nothing, Umbopa, that he cannot do, there are no mountains he may not
+climb, there are no deserts he cannot cross, save a mountain and a
+desert of which you are spared the knowledge, if love leads him and he
+holds his life in his hands counting it as nothing, ready to keep it or
+lose it as Heaven above may order."
+
+I translated.
+
+"Great words, my father," answered the Zulu--I always called him a
+Zulu, though he was not really one--"great swelling words fit to fill
+the mouth of a man. Thou art right, my father Incubu. Listen! what is
+life? It is a feather, it is the seed of the grass, blown hither and
+thither, sometimes multiplying itself and dying in the act, sometimes
+carried away into the heavens. But if that seed be good and heavy it
+may perchance travel a little way on the road it wills. It is well to
+try and journey one's road and to fight with the air. Man must die. At
+the worst he can but die a little sooner. I will go with thee across
+the desert and over the mountains, unless perchance I fall to the
+ground on the way, my father."
+
+He paused awhile, and then went on with one of those strange bursts of
+rhetorical eloquence that Zulus sometimes indulge in, which to my mind,
+full though they are of vain repetitions, show that the race is by no
+means devoid of poetic instinct and of intellectual power.
+
+"What is life? Tell me, O white men, who are wise, who know the secrets
+of the world, and of the world of stars, and the world that lies above
+and around the stars; who flash your words from afar without a voice;
+tell me, white men, the secret of our life--whither it goes and whence
+it comes!
+
+"You cannot answer me; you know not. Listen, I will answer. Out of the
+dark we came, into the dark we go. Like a storm-driven bird at night we
+fly out of the Nowhere; for a moment our wings are seen in the light of
+the fire, and, lo! we are gone again into the Nowhere. Life is nothing.
+Life is all. It is the Hand with which we hold off Death. It is the
+glow-worm that shines in the night-time and is black in the morning; it
+is the white breath of the oxen in winter; it is the little shadow that
+runs across the grass and loses itself at sunset."
+
+"You are a strange man," said Sir Henry, when he had ceased.
+
+Umbopa laughed. "It seems to me that we are much alike, Incubu. Perhaps
+_I_ seek a brother over the mountains."
+
+I looked at him suspiciously. "What dost thou mean?" I asked; "what
+dost thou know of those mountains?"
+
+"A little; a very little. There is a strange land yonder, a land of
+witchcraft and beautiful things; a land of brave people, and of trees,
+and streams, and snowy peaks, and of a great white road. I have heard
+of it. But what is the good of talking? It grows dark. Those who live
+to see will see."
+
+Again I looked at him doubtfully. The man knew too much.
+
+"You need not fear me, Macumazahn," he said, interpreting my look. "I
+dig no holes for you to fall in. I make no plots. If ever we cross
+those mountains behind the sun I will tell what I know. But Death sits
+upon them. Be wise and turn back. Go and hunt elephants, my masters. I
+have spoken."
+
+And without another word he lifted his spear in salutation, and
+returned towards the camp, where shortly afterwards we found him
+cleaning a gun like any other Kafir.
+
+"That is an odd man," said Sir Henry.
+
+"Yes," answered I, "too odd by half. I don't like his little ways. He
+knows something, and will not speak out. But I suppose it is no use
+quarrelling with him. We are in for a curious trip, and a mysterious
+Zulu won't make much difference one way or another."
+
+Next day we made our arrangements for starting. Of course it was
+impossible to drag our heavy elephant rifles and other kit with us
+across the desert, so, dismissing our bearers, we made an arrangement
+with an old native who had a kraal close by to take care of them till
+we returned. It went to my heart to leave such things as those sweet
+tools to the tender mercies of an old thief of a savage whose greedy
+eyes I could see gloating over them. But I took some precautions.
+
+First of all I loaded all the rifles, placing them at full cock, and
+informed him that if he touched them they would go off. He tried the
+experiment instantly with my eight-bore, and it did go off, and blew a
+hole right through one of his oxen, which were just then being driven
+up to the kraal, to say nothing of knocking him head over heels with
+the recoil. He got up considerably startled, and not at all pleased at
+the loss of the ox, which he had the impudence to ask me to pay for,
+and nothing would induce him to touch the guns again.
+
+"Put the live devils out of the way up there in the thatch," he said,
+"or they will murder us all."
+
+Then I told him that, when we came back, if one of those things was
+missing I would kill him and his people by witchcraft; and if we died
+and he tried to steal the rifles I would come and haunt him and turn
+his cattle mad and his milk sour till life was a weariness, and would
+make the devils in the guns come out and talk to him in a way he did
+not like, and generally gave him a good idea of judgment to come. After
+that he promised to look after them as though they were his father's
+spirit. He was a very superstitious old Kafir and a great villain.
+
+Having thus disposed of our superfluous gear we arranged the kit we
+five--Sir Henry, Good, myself, Umbopa, and the Hottentot
+Ventv�gel--were to take with us on our journey. It was small enough,
+but do what we would we could not get its weight down under about forty
+pounds a man. This is what it consisted of:--
+
+The three express rifles and two hundred rounds of ammunition.
+
+The two Winchester repeating rifles (for Umbopa and Ventv�gel), with
+two hundred rounds of cartridge.
+
+Five Cochrane's water-bottles, each holding four pints.
+
+Five blankets.
+
+Twenty-five pounds' weight of biltong--i.e. sun-dried game flesh.
+
+Ten pounds' weight of best mixed beads for gifts.
+
+A selection of medicine, including an ounce of quinine, and one or two
+small surgical instruments.
+
+Our knives, a few sundries, such as a compass, matches, a pocket
+filter, tobacco, a trowel, a bottle of brandy, and the clothes we stood
+in.
+
+This was our total equipment, a small one indeed for such a venture,
+but we dared not attempt to carry more. Indeed, that load was a heavy
+one per man with which to travel across the burning desert, for in such
+places every additional ounce tells. But we could not see our way to
+reducing the weight. There was nothing taken but what was absolutely
+necessary.
+
+With great difficulty, and by the promise of a present of a good
+hunting-knife each, I succeeded in persuading three wretched natives
+from the village to come with us for the first stage, twenty miles, and
+to carry a large gourd holding a gallon of water apiece. My object was
+to enable us to refill our water-bottles after the first night's march,
+for we determined to start in the cool of the evening. I gave out to
+these natives that we were going to shoot ostriches, with which the
+desert abounded. They jabbered and shrugged their shoulders, saying
+that we were mad and should perish of thirst, which I must say seemed
+probable; but being desirous of obtaining the knives, which were almost
+unknown treasures up there, they consented to come, having probably
+reflected that, after all, our subsequent extinction would be no affair
+of theirs.
+
+All next day we rested and slept, and at sunset ate a hearty meal of
+fresh beef washed down with tea, the last, as Good remarked sadly, we
+were likely to drink for many a long day. Then, having made our final
+preparations, we lay down and waited for the moon to rise. At last,
+about nine o'clock, up she came in all her glory, flooding the wild
+country with light, and throwing a silver sheen on the expanse of
+rolling desert before us, which looked as solemn and quiet and as alien
+to man as the star-studded firmament above. We rose up, and in a few
+minutes were ready, and yet we hesitated a little, as human nature is
+prone to hesitate on the threshold of an irrevocable step. We three
+white men stood by ourselves. Umbopa, assegai in hand and a rifle
+across his shoulders, looked out fixedly across the desert a few paces
+ahead of us; while the hired natives, with the gourds of water, and
+Ventv�gel, were gathered in a little knot behind.
+
+"Gentlemen," said Sir Henry presently, in his deep voice, "we are going
+on about as strange a journey as men can make in this world. It is very
+doubtful if we can succeed in it. But we are three men who will stand
+together for good or for evil to the last. Now before we start let us
+for a moment pray to the Power who shapes the destinies of men, and who
+ages since has marked out our paths, that it may please Him to direct
+our steps in accordance with His will."
+
+Taking off his hat, for the space of a minute or so, he covered his
+face with his hands, and Good and I did likewise.
+
+I do not say that I am a first-rate praying man, few hunters are, and
+as for Sir Henry, I never heard him speak like that before, and only
+once since, though deep down in his heart I believe that he is very
+religious. Good too is pious, though apt to swear. Anyhow I do not
+remember, excepting on one single occasion, ever putting up a better
+prayer in my life than I did during that minute, and somehow I felt the
+happier for it. Our future was so completely unknown, and I think that
+the unknown and the awful always bring a man nearer to his Maker.
+
+"And now," said Sir Henry, "_trek_!"
+
+So we started.
+
+We had nothing to guide ourselves by except the distant mountains and
+old Jos� da Silvestre's chart, which, considering that it was drawn by
+a dying and half-distraught man on a fragment of linen three centuries
+ago, was not a very satisfactory sort of thing to work with. Still,
+our sole hope of success depended upon it, such as it was. If we failed
+in finding that pool of bad water which the old Dom marked as being
+situated in the middle of the desert, about sixty miles from our
+starting-point, and as far from the mountains, in all probability we
+must perish miserably of thirst. But to my mind the chances of our
+finding it in that great sea of sand and karoo scrub seemed almost
+infinitesimal. Even supposing that da Silvestra had marked the pool
+correctly, what was there to prevent its having been dried up by the
+sun generations ago, or trampled in by game, or filled with the
+drifting sand?
+
+On we tramped silently as shades through the night and in the heavy
+sand. The karoo bushes caught our feet and retarded us, and the sand
+worked into our veldtschoons and Good's shooting-boots, so that every
+few miles we had to stop and empty them; but still the night kept
+fairly cool, though the atmosphere was thick and heavy, giving a sort
+of creamy feel to the air, and we made fair progress. It was very
+silent and lonely there in the desert, oppressively so indeed. Good
+felt this, and once began to whistle "The Girl I left behind me," but
+the notes sounded lugubrious in that vast place, and he gave it up.
+
+Shortly afterwards a little incident occurred which, though it startled
+us at the time, gave rise to a laugh. Good was leading, as the holder
+of the compass, which, being a sailor, of course he understood
+thoroughly, and we were toiling along in single file behind him, when
+suddenly we heard the sound of an exclamation, and he vanished. Next
+second there arose all around us a most extraordinary hubbub, snorts,
+groans, and wild sounds of rushing feet. In the faint light, too, we
+could descry dim galloping forms half hidden by wreaths of sand. The
+natives threw down their loads and prepared to bolt, but remembering
+that there was nowhere to run to, they cast themselves upon the ground
+and howled out that it was ghosts. As for Sir Henry and myself, we
+stood amazed; nor was our amazement lessened when we perceived the form
+of Good careering off in the direction of the mountains, apparently
+mounted on the back of a horse and halloaing wildly. In another second
+he threw up his arms, and we heard him come to the earth with a thud.
+
+Then I saw what had happened; we had stumbled upon a herd of sleeping
+quagga, on to the back of one of which Good actually had fallen, and
+the brute naturally enough got up and made off with him. Calling out to
+the others that it was all right, I ran towards Good, much afraid lest
+he should be hurt, but to my great relief I found him sitting in the
+sand, his eye-glass still fixed firmly in his eye, rather shaken and
+very much frightened, but not in any way injured.
+
+After this we travelled on without any further misadventure till about
+one o'clock, when we called a halt, and having drunk a little water,
+not much, for water was precious, and rested for half an hour, we
+started again.
+
+On, on we went, till at last the east began to blush like the cheek of
+a girl. Then there came faint rays of primrose light, that changed
+presently to golden bars, through which the dawn glided out across the
+desert. The stars grew pale and paler still, till at last they
+vanished; the golden moon waxed wan, and her mountain ridges stood out
+against her sickly face like the bones on the cheek of a dying man.
+Then came spear upon spear of light flashing far away across the
+boundless wilderness, piercing and firing the veils of mist, till the
+desert was draped in a tremulous golden glow, and it was day.
+
+Still we did not halt, though by this time we should have been glad
+enough to do so, for we knew that when once the sun was fully up it
+would be almost impossible for us to travel. At length, about an hour
+later, we spied a little pile of boulders rising out of the plain, and
+to this we dragged ourselves. As luck would have it, here we found an
+overhanging slab of rock carpeted beneath with smooth sand, which
+afforded a most grateful shelter from the heat. Underneath this we
+crept, and each of us having drunk some water and eaten a bit of
+biltong, we lay down and soon were sound asleep.
+
+It was three o'clock in the afternoon before we woke, to find our
+bearers preparing to return. They had seen enough of the desert
+already, and no number of knives would have tempted them to come a step
+farther. So we took a hearty drink, and having emptied our
+water-bottles, filled them up again from the gourds that they had
+brought with them, and then watched them depart on their twenty miles'
+tramp home.
+
+At half-past four we also started. It was lonely and desolate work, for
+with the exception of a few ostriches there was not a single living
+creature to be seen on all the vast expanse of sandy plain. Evidently
+it was too dry for game, and with the exception of a deadly-looking
+cobra or two we saw no reptiles. One insect, however, we found
+abundant, and that was the common or house fly. There they came, "not
+as single spies, but in battalions," as I think the Old Testament[1]
+says somewhere. He is an extraordinary insect is the house fly. Go
+where you will you find him, and so it must have been always. I have
+seen him enclosed in amber, which is, I was told, quite half a million
+years old, looking exactly like his descendant of to-day, and I have
+little doubt but that when the last man lies dying on the earth he will
+be buzzing round--if this event happens to occur in summer--watching
+for an opportunity to settle on his nose.
+
+At sunset we halted, waiting for the moon to rise. At last she came up,
+beautiful and serene as ever, and, with one halt about two o'clock in
+the morning, we trudged on wearily through the night, till at last the
+welcome sun put a period to our labours. We drank a little and flung
+ourselves down on the sand, thoroughly tired out, and soon were all
+asleep. There was no need to set a watch, for we had nothing to fear
+from anybody or anything in that vast untenanted plain. Our only
+enemies were heat, thirst, and flies, but far rather would I have faced
+any danger from man or beast than that awful trinity. This time we were
+not so lucky as to find a sheltering rock to guard us from the glare of
+the sun, with the result that about seven o'clock we woke up
+experiencing the exact sensations one would attribute to a beefsteak on
+a gridiron. We were literally being baked through and through. The
+burning sun seemed to be sucking our very blood out of us. We sat up
+and gasped.
+
+"Phew," said I, grabbing at the halo of flies which buzzed cheerfully
+round my head. The heat did not affect _them_.
+
+"My word!" said Sir Henry.
+
+"It is hot!" echoed Good.
+
+It was hot, indeed, and there was not a bit of shelter to be found.
+Look where we would there was no rock or tree, nothing but an unending
+glare, rendered dazzling by the heated air that danced over the surface
+of the desert as it dances over a red-hot stove.
+
+"What is to be done?" asked Sir Henry; "we can't stand this for long."
+
+We looked at each other blankly.
+
+"I have it," said Good, "we must dig a hole, get in it, and cover
+ourselves with the karoo bushes."
+
+It did not seem a very promising suggestion, but at least it was better
+than nothing, so we set to work, and, with the trowel we had brought
+with us and the help of our hands, in about an hour we succeeded in
+delving out a patch of ground some ten feet long by twelve wide to the
+depth of two feet. Then we cut a quantity of low scrub with our
+hunting-knives, and creeping into the hole, pulled it over us all, with
+the exception of Ventv�gel, on whom, being a Hottentot, the heat had no
+particular effect. This gave us some slight shelter from the burning
+rays of the sun, but the atmosphere in that amateur grave can be better
+imagined than described. The Black Hole of Calcutta must have been a
+fool to it; indeed, to this moment I do not know how we lived through
+the day. There we lay panting, and every now and again moistening our
+lips from our scanty supply of water. Had we followed our inclinations
+we should have finished all we possessed in the first two hours, but we
+were forced to exercise the most rigid care, for if our water failed us
+we knew that very soon we must perish miserably.
+
+But everything has an end, if only you live long enough to see it, and
+somehow that miserable day wore on towards evening. About three o'clock
+in the afternoon we determined that we could bear it no longer. It
+would be better to die walking that to be killed slowly by heat and
+thirst in this dreadful hole. So taking each of us a little drink from
+our fast diminishing supply of water, now warmed to about the same
+temperature as a man's blood, we staggered forward.
+
+We had then covered some fifty miles of wilderness. If the reader will
+refer to the rough copy and translation of old da Silvestra's map, he
+will see that the desert is marked as measuring forty leagues across,
+and the "pan bad water" is set down as being about in the middle of it.
+Now forty leagues is one hundred and twenty miles, consequently we
+ought at the most to be within twelve or fifteen miles of the water if
+any should really exist.
+
+Through the afternoon we crept slowly and painfully along, scarcely
+doing more than a mile and a half in an hour. At sunset we rested
+again, waiting for the moon, and after drinking a little managed to get
+some sleep.
+
+Before we lay down, Umbopa pointed out to us a slight and indistinct
+hillock on the flat surface of the plain about eight miles away. At the
+distance it looked like an ant-hill, and as I was dropping off to sleep
+I fell to wondering what it could be.
+
+With the moon we marched again, feeling dreadfully exhausted, and
+suffering tortures from thirst and prickly heat. Nobody who has not
+felt it can know what we went through. We walked no longer, we
+staggered, now and again falling from exhaustion, and being obliged to
+call a halt every hour or so. We had scarcely energy left in us to
+speak. Up to this Good had chatted and joked, for he is a merry fellow;
+but now he had not a joke in him.
+
+At last, about two o'clock, utterly worn out in body and mind, we came
+to the foot of the queer hill, or sand koppie, which at first sight
+resembled a gigantic ant-heap about a hundred feet high, and covering
+at the base nearly two acres of ground.
+
+Here we halted, and driven to it by our desperate thirst, sucked down
+our last drops of water. We had but half a pint a head, and each of us
+could have drunk a gallon.
+
+Then we lay down. Just as I was dropping off to sleep I heard Umbopa
+remark to himself in Zulu--
+
+"If we cannot find water we shall all be dead before the moon rises
+to-morrow."
+
+I shuddered, hot as it was. The near prospect of such an awful death is
+not pleasant, but even the thought of it could not keep me from
+sleeping.
+
+
+[1] Readers must beware of accepting Mr. Quatermain's references as
+accurate, as, it has been found, some are prone to do. Although his
+reading evidently was limited, the impression produced by it upon his
+mind was mixed. Thus to him the Old Testament and Shakespeare were
+interchangeable authorities.--Editor.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+WATER! WATER!
+
+Two hours later, that is, about four o'clock, I woke up, for so soon as
+the first heavy demand of bodily fatigue had been satisfied, the
+torturing thirst from which I was suffering asserted itself. I could
+sleep no more. I had been dreaming that I was bathing in a running
+stream, with green banks and trees upon them, and I awoke to find
+myself in this arid wilderness, and to remember, as Umbopa had said,
+that if we did not find water this day we must perish miserably. No
+human creature could live long without water in that heat. I sat up and
+rubbed my grimy face with my dry and horny hands, as my lips and
+eyelids were stuck together, and it was only after some friction and
+with an effort that I was able to open them. It was not far from dawn,
+but there was none of the bright feel of dawn in the air, which was
+thick with a hot murkiness that I cannot describe. The others were
+still sleeping.
+
+Presently it began to grow light enough to read, so I drew out a little
+pocket copy of the "Ingoldsby Legends" which I had brought with me, and
+read "The Jackdaw of Rheims." When I got to where
+
+  "A nice little boy held a golden ewer,
+  Embossed, and filled with water as pure
+  As any that flows between Rheims and Namur,"
+
+literally I smacked my cracking lips, or rather tried to smack them.
+The mere thought of that pure water made me mad. If the Cardinal had
+been there with his bell, book, and candle, I would have whipped in and
+drunk his water up; yes, even if he had filled it already with the suds
+of soap "worthy of washing the hands of the Pope," and I knew that the
+whole consecrated curse of the Catholic Church should fall upon me for
+so doing. I almost think that I must have been a little light-headed
+with thirst, weariness and the want of food; for I fell to thinking how
+astonished the Cardinal and his nice little boy and the jackdaw would
+have looked to see a burnt up, brown-eyed, grizzly-haired little
+elephant hunter suddenly bound between them, put his dirty face into
+the basin, and swallow every drop of the precious water. The idea
+amused me so much that I laughed or rather cackled aloud, which woke
+the others, and they began to rub _their_ dirty faces and drag _their_
+gummed-up lips and eyelids apart.
+
+As soon as we were all well awake we began to discuss the situation,
+which was serious enough. Not a drop of water was left. We turned the
+bottles upside down, and licked their tops, but it was a failure; they
+were dry as a bone. Good, who had charge of the flask of brandy, got it
+out and looked at it longingly; but Sir Henry promptly took it away
+from him, for to drink raw spirit would only have been to precipitate
+the end.
+
+"If we do not find water we shall die," he said.
+
+"If we can trust to the old Dom's map there should be some about," I
+said; but nobody seemed to derive much satisfaction from this remark.
+It was so evident that no great faith could be put in the map. Now it
+was gradually growing light, and as we sat staring blankly at each
+other, I observed the Hottentot Ventv�gel rise and begin to walk about
+with his eyes on the ground. Presently he stopped short, and uttering a
+guttural exclamation, pointed to the earth.
+
+"What is it?" we exclaimed; and rising simultaneously we went to where
+he was standing staring at the sand.
+
+"Well," I said, "it is fresh Springbok spoor; what of it?"
+
+"Springbucks do not go far from water," he answered in Dutch.
+
+"No," I answered, "I forgot; and thank God for it."
+
+This little discovery put new life into us; for it is wonderful, when a
+man is in a desperate position, how he catches at the slightest hope,
+and feels almost happy. On a dark night a single star is better than
+nothing.
+
+Meanwhile Ventv�gel was lifting his snub nose, and sniffing the hot air
+for all the world like an old Impala ram who scents danger. Presently
+he spoke again.
+
+"I _smell_ water," he said.
+
+Then we felt quite jubilant, for we knew what a wonderful instinct
+these wild-bred men possess.
+
+Just at that moment the sun came up gloriously, and revealed so grand a
+sight to our astonished eyes that for a moment or two we even forgot
+our thirst.
+
+There, not more than forty or fifty miles from us, glittering like
+silver in the early rays of the morning sun, soared Sheba's Breasts;
+and stretching away for hundreds of miles on either side of them ran
+the great Suliman Berg. Now that, sitting here, I attempt to describe
+the extraordinary grandeur and beauty of that sight, language seems to
+fail me. I am impotent even before its memory. Straight before us, rose
+two enormous mountains, the like of which are not, I believe, to be
+seen in Africa, if indeed there are any other such in the world,
+measuring each of them at least fifteen thousand feet in height,
+standing not more than a dozen miles apart, linked together by a
+precipitous cliff of rock, and towering in awful white solemnity
+straight into the sky. These mountains placed thus, like the pillars of
+a gigantic gateway, are shaped after the fashion of a woman's breasts,
+and at times the mists and shadows beneath them take the form of a
+recumbent woman, veiled mysteriously in sleep. Their bases swell gently
+from the plain, looking at that distance perfectly round and smooth;
+and upon the top of each is a vast hillock covered with snow, exactly
+corresponding to the nipple on the female breast. The stretch of cliff
+that connects them appears to be some thousands of feet in height, and
+perfectly precipitous, and on each flank of them, so far as the eye can
+reach, extent similar lines of cliff, broken only here and there by
+flat table-topped mountains, something like the world-famed one at Cape
+Town; a formation, by the way, that is very common in Africa.
+
+To describe the comprehensive grandeur of that view is beyond my
+powers. There was something so inexpressibly solemn and overpowering
+about those huge volcanoes--for doubtless they are extinct
+volcanoes--that it quite awed us. For a while the morning lights played
+upon the snow and the brown and swelling masses beneath, and then, as
+though to veil the majestic sight from our curious eyes, strange
+vapours and clouds gathered and increased around the mountains, till
+presently we could only trace their pure and gigantic outlines, showing
+ghostlike through the fleecy envelope. Indeed, as we afterwards
+discovered, usually they were wrapped in this gauze-like mist, which
+doubtless accounted for our not having seen them more clearly before.
+
+Sheba's Breasts had scarcely vanished into cloud-clad privacy, before
+our thirst--literally a burning question--reasserted itself.
+
+It was all very well for Ventv�gel to say that he smelt water, but we
+could see no signs of it, look which way we would. So far as the eye
+might reach there was nothing but arid sweltering sand and karoo scrub.
+We walked round the hillock and gazed about anxiously on the other
+side, but it was the same story, not a drop of water could be found;
+there was no indication of a pan, a pool, or a spring.
+
+"You are a fool," I said angrily to Ventv�gel; "there is no water."
+
+But still he lifted his ugly snub nose and sniffed.
+
+"I smell it, Baas," he answered; "it is somewhere in the air."
+
+"Yes," I said, "no doubt it is in the clouds, and about two months
+hence it will fall and wash our bones."
+
+Sir Henry stroked his yellow beard thoughtfully. "Perhaps it is on the
+top of the hill," he suggested.
+
+"Rot," said Good; "whoever heard of water being found at the top of a
+hill!"
+
+"Let us go and look," I put in, and hopelessly enough we scrambled up
+the sandy sides of the hillock, Umbopa leading. Presently he stopped as
+though he was petrified.
+
+"_Nanzia manzie_!" that is, "Here is water!" he cried with a loud voice.
+
+We rushed up to him, and there, sure enough, in a deep cut or
+indentation on the very top of the sand koppie, was an undoubted pool
+of water. How it came to be in such a strange place we did not stop to
+inquire, nor did we hesitate at its black and unpleasant appearance. It
+was water, or a good imitation of it, and that was enough for us. We
+gave a bound and a rush, and in another second we were all down on our
+stomachs sucking up the uninviting fluid as though it were nectar fit
+for the gods. Heavens, how we did drink! Then when we had done drinking
+we tore off our clothes and sat down in the pool, absorbing the
+moisture through our parched skins. You, Harry, my boy, who have only
+to turn on a couple of taps to summon "hot" and "cold" from an unseen,
+vasty cistern, can have little idea of the luxury of that muddy wallow
+in brackish tepid water.
+
+After a while we rose from it, refreshed indeed, and fell to on our
+"biltong," of which we had scarcely been able to touch a mouthful for
+twenty-four hours, and ate our fill. Then we smoked a pipe, and lay
+down by the side of that blessed pool, under the overhanging shadow of
+its bank, and slept till noon.
+
+All that day we rested there by the water, thanking our stars that we
+had been lucky enough to find it, bad as it was, and not forgetting to
+render a due share of gratitude to the shade of the long-departed da
+Silvestra, who had set its position down so accurately on the tail of
+his shirt. The wonderful thing to us was that the pan should have
+lasted so long, and the only way in which I can account for this is on
+the supposition that it is fed by some spring deep down in the sand.
+
+Having filled both ourselves and our water-bottles as full as possible,
+in far better spirits we started off again with the moon. That night we
+covered nearly five-and-twenty miles; but, needless to say, found no
+more water, though we were lucky enough the following day to get a
+little shade behind some ant-heaps. When the sun rose, and, for awhile,
+cleared away the mysterious mists, Suliman's Berg with the two majestic
+Breasts, now only about twenty miles off, seemed to be towering right
+above us, and looked grander than ever. At the approach of evening we
+marched again, and, to cut a long story short, by daylight next morning
+found ourselves upon the lowest slopes of Sheba's left breast, for
+which we had been steadily steering. By this time our water was
+exhausted once more, and we were suffering severely from thirst, nor
+indeed could we see any chance of relieving it till we reached the snow
+line far, far above us. After resting an hour or two, driven to it by
+our torturing thirst, we went on, toiling painfully in the burning heat
+up the lava slopes, for we found that the huge base of the mountain was
+composed entirely of lava beds belched from the bowels of the earth in
+some far past age.
+
+By eleven o'clock we were utterly exhausted, and, generally speaking,
+in a very bad state indeed. The lava clinker, over which we must drag
+ourselves, though smooth compared with some clinker I have heard of,
+such as that on the Island of Ascension, for instance, was yet rough
+enough to make our feet very sore, and this, together with our other
+miseries, had pretty well finished us. A few hundred yards above us
+were some large lumps of lava, and towards these we steered with the
+intention of lying down beneath their shade. We reached them, and to
+our surprise, so far as we had a capacity for surprise left in us, on a
+little plateau or ridge close by we saw that the clinker was covered
+with a dense green growth. Evidently soil formed of decomposed lava had
+rested there, and in due course had become the receptacle of seeds
+deposited by birds. But we did not take much further interest in the
+green growth, for one cannot live on grass like Nebuchadnezzar. That
+requires a special dispensation of Providence and peculiar digestive
+organs.
+
+So we sat down under the rocks and groaned, and for one I wished
+heartily that we had never started on this fool's errand. As we were
+sitting there I saw Umbopa get up and hobble towards the patch of
+green, and a few minutes afterwards, to my great astonishment, I
+perceived that usually very dignified individual dancing and shouting
+like a maniac, and waving something green. Off we all scrambled towards
+him as fast as our wearied limbs would carry us, hoping that he had
+found water.
+
+"What is it, Umbopa, son of a fool?" I shouted in Zulu.
+
+"It is food and water, Macumazahn," and again he waved the green thing.
+
+Then I saw what he had found. It was a melon. We had hit upon a patch
+of wild melons, thousands of them, and dead ripe.
+
+"Melons!" I yelled to Good, who was next me; and in another minute his
+false teeth were fixed in one of them.
+
+I think we ate about six each before we had done, and poor fruit as
+they were, I doubt if I ever thought anything nicer.
+
+But melons are not very nutritious, and when we had satisfied our
+thirst with their pulpy substance, and put a stock to cool by the
+simple process of cutting them in two and setting them end on in the
+hot sun to grow cold by evaporation, we began to feel exceedingly
+hungry. We had still some biltong left, but our stomachs turned from
+biltong, and besides, we were obliged to be very sparing of it, for we
+could not say when we should find more food. Just at this moment a
+lucky thing chanced. Looking across the desert I saw a flock of about
+ten large birds flying straight towards us.
+
+"_Skit, Baas, skit!_" "Shoot, master, shoot!" whispered the Hottentot,
+throwing himself on his face, an example which we all followed.
+
+Then I saw that the birds were a flock of _pauw_ or bustards, and that
+they would pass within fifty yards of my head. Taking one of the
+repeating Winchesters, I waited till they were nearly over us, and then
+jumped to my feet. On seeing me the _pauw_ bunched up together, as I
+expected that they would, and I fired two shots straight into the thick
+of them, and, as luck would have it, brought one down, a fine fellow,
+that weighed about twenty pounds. In half an hour we had a fire made of
+dry melon stalks, and he was toasting over it, and we made such a feed
+as we had not tasted for a week. We ate that _pauw_; nothing was left
+of him but his leg-bones and his beak, and we felt not a little the
+better afterwards.
+
+That night we went on again with the moon, carrying as many melons as
+we could with us. As we ascended we found the air grew cooler and
+cooler, which was a great relief to us, and at dawn, so far as we could
+judge, we were not more than about a dozen miles from the snow line.
+Here we discovered more melons, and so had no longer any anxiety about
+water, for we knew that we should soon get plenty of snow. But the
+ascent had now become very precipitous, and we made but slow progress,
+not more than a mile an hour. Also that night we ate our last morsel of
+biltong. As yet, with the exception of the _pauw_, we had seen no
+living thing on the mountain, nor had we come across a single spring or
+stream of water, which struck us as very odd, considering the expanse
+of snow above us, which must, we thought, melt sometimes. But as we
+afterwards discovered, owing to a cause which it is quite beyond my
+power to explain, all the streams flowed down upon the north side of
+the mountains.
+
+Now we began to grow very anxious about food. We had escaped death by
+thirst, but it seemed probable that it was only to die of hunger. The
+events of the next three miserable days are best described by copying
+the entries made at the time in my note-book.
+
+"21st May.--Started 11 a.m., finding the atmosphere quite cold enough
+to travel by day, and carrying some water-melons with us. Struggled on
+all day, but found no more melons, having evidently passed out of their
+district. Saw no game of any sort. Halted for the night at sundown,
+having had no food for many hours. Suffered much during the night from
+cold.
+
+"22nd.--Started at sunrise again, feeling very faint and weak. Only
+made about five miles all day; found some patches of snow, of which we
+ate, but nothing else. Camped at night under the edge of a great
+plateau. Cold bitter. Drank a little brandy each, and huddled ourselves
+together, each wrapped up in his blanket, to keep ourselves alive. Are
+now suffering frightfully from starvation and weariness. Thought that
+Ventv�gel would have died during the night.
+
+"23rd.--Struggled forward once more as soon as the sun was well up, and
+had thawed our limbs a little. We are now in a dreadful plight, and I
+fear that unless we get food this will be our last day's journey. But
+little brandy left. Good, Sir Henry, and Umbopa bear up wonderfully,
+but Ventv�gel is in a very bad way. Like most Hottentots, he cannot
+stand cold. Pangs of hunger not so bad, but have a sort of numb feeling
+about the stomach. Others say the same. We are now on a level with the
+precipitous chain, or wall of lava, linking the two Breasts, and the
+view is glorious. Behind us the glowing desert rolls away to the
+horizon, and before us lie mile upon mile of smooth hard snow almost
+level, but swelling gently upwards, out of the centre of which the
+nipple of the mountain, that appears to be some miles in circumference,
+rises about four thousand feet into the sky. Not a living thing is to
+be seen. God help us; I fear that our time has come."
+
+And now I will drop the journal, partly because it is not very
+interesting reading; also what follows requires telling rather more
+fully.
+
+All that day--the 23rd May--we struggled slowly up the incline of snow,
+lying down from time to time to rest. A strange gaunt crew we must have
+looked, while, laden as we were, we dragged our weary feet over the
+dazzling plain, glaring round us with hungry eyes. Not that there was
+much use in glaring, for we could see nothing to eat. We did not
+accomplish more than seven miles that day. Just before sunset we found
+ourselves exactly under the nipple of Sheba's left Breast, which
+towered thousands of feet into the air, a vast smooth hillock of frozen
+snow. Weak as we were, we could not but appreciate the wonderful scene,
+made even more splendid by the flying rays of light from the setting
+sun, which here and there stained the snow blood-red, and crowned the
+great dome above us with a diadem of glory.
+
+"I say," gasped Good, presently, "we ought to be somewhere near that
+cave the old gentleman wrote about."
+
+"Yes," said I, "if there is a cave."
+
+"Come, Quatermain," groaned Sir Henry, "don't talk like that; I have
+every faith in the Dom; remember the water! We shall find the place
+soon."
+
+"If we don't find it before dark we are dead men, that is all about
+it," was my consolatory reply.
+
+For the next ten minutes we trudged in silence, when suddenly Umbopa,
+who was marching along beside me, wrapped in his blanket, and with a
+leather belt strapped so tightly round his stomach, to "make his hunger
+small," as he said, that his waist looked like a girl's, caught me by
+the arm.
+
+"Look!" he said, pointing towards the springing slope of the nipple.
+
+I followed his glance, and some two hundred yards from us perceived
+what appeared to be a hole in the snow.
+
+"It is the cave," said Umbopa.
+
+We made the best of our way to the spot, and found sure enough that the
+hole was the mouth of a cavern, no doubt the same as that of which da
+Silvestra wrote. We were not too soon, for just as we reached shelter
+the sun went down with startling rapidity, leaving the world nearly
+dark, for in these latitudes there is but little twilight. So we crept
+into the cave, which did not appear to be very big, and huddling
+ourselves together for warmth, swallowed what remained of our
+brandy--barely a mouthful each--and tried to forget our miseries in
+sleep. But the cold was too intense to allow us to do so, for I am
+convinced that at this great altitude the thermometer cannot have
+marked less than fourteen or fifteen degrees below freezing point. What
+such a temperature meant to us, enervated as we were by hardship, want
+of food, and the great heat of the desert, the reader may imagine
+better than I can describe. Suffice it to say that it was something as
+near death from exposure as I have ever felt. There we sat hour after
+hour through the still and bitter night, feeling the frost wander round
+and nip us now in the finger, now in the foot, now in the face. In vain
+did we huddle up closer and closer; there was no warmth in our
+miserable starved carcases. Sometimes one of us would drop into an
+uneasy slumber for a few minutes, but we could not sleep much, and
+perhaps this was fortunate, for if we had I doubt if we should have
+ever woke again. Indeed, I believe that it was only by force of will
+that we kept ourselves alive at all.
+
+Not very long before dawn I heard the Hottentot Ventv�gel, whose teeth
+had been chattering all night like castanets, give a deep sigh. Then
+his teeth stopped chattering. I did not think anything of it at the
+time, concluding that he had gone to sleep. His back was resting
+against mine, and it seemed to grow colder and colder, till at last it
+felt like ice.
+
+At length the air began to grow grey with light, then golden arrows
+sped across the snow, and at last the glorious sun peeped above the
+lava wall and looked in upon our half-frozen forms. Also it looked upon
+Ventv�gel, sitting there amongst us, _stone dead_. No wonder his back
+felt cold, poor fellow. He had died when I heard him sigh, and was now
+frozen almost stiff. Shocked beyond measure, we dragged ourselves from
+the corpse--how strange is that horror we mortals have of the
+companionship of a dead body--and left it sitting there, its arms
+clasped about its knees.
+
+By this time the sunlight was pouring its cold rays, for here they were
+cold, straight into the mouth of the cave. Suddenly I heard an
+exclamation of fear from someone, and turned my head.
+
+And this is what I saw: Sitting at the end of the cavern--it was not
+more than twenty feet long--was another form, of which the head rested
+on its chest and the long arms hung down. I stared at it, and saw that
+this too was a _dead man_, and, what was more, a white man.
+
+The others saw also, and the sight proved too much for our shattered
+nerves. One and all we scrambled out of the cave as fast as our
+half-frozen limbs would carry us.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+SOLOMON'S ROAD
+
+Outside the cavern we halted, feeling rather foolish.
+
+"I am going back," said Sir Henry.
+
+"Why?" asked Good.
+
+"Because it has struck me that--what we saw--may be my brother."
+
+This was a new idea, and we re-entered the place to put it to the
+proof. After the bright light outside, our eyes, weak as they were with
+staring at the snow, could not pierce the gloom of the cave for a
+while. Presently, however, they grew accustomed to the semi-darkness,
+and we advanced towards the dead man.
+
+Sir Henry knelt down and peered into his face.
+
+"Thank God," he said, with a sigh of relief, "it is _not_ my brother."
+
+Then I drew near and looked. The body was that of a tall man in middle
+life with aquiline features, grizzled hair, and a long black moustache.
+The skin was perfectly yellow, and stretched tightly over the bones.
+Its clothing, with the exception of what seemed to be the remains of a
+woollen pair of hose, had been removed, leaving the skeleton-like frame
+naked. Round the neck of the corpse, which was frozen perfectly stiff,
+hung a yellow ivory crucifix.
+
+"Who on earth can it be?" said I.
+
+"Can't you guess?" asked Good.
+
+I shook my head.
+
+"Why, the old Dom, Jos� da Silvestra, of course--who else?"
+
+"Impossible," I gasped; "he died three hundred years ago."
+
+"And what is there to prevent him from lasting for three thousand years
+in this atmosphere, I should like to know?" asked Good. "If only the
+temperature is sufficiently low, flesh and blood will keep fresh as New
+Zealand mutton for ever, and Heaven knows it is cold enough here. The
+sun never gets in here; no animal comes here to tear or destroy. No
+doubt his slave, of whom he speaks on the writing, took off his clothes
+and left him. He could not have buried him alone. Look!" he went on,
+stooping down to pick up a queerly-shaped bone scraped at the end into
+a sharp point, "here is the 'cleft bone' that Silvestra used to draw
+the map with."
+
+We gazed for a moment astonished, forgetting our own miseries in this
+extraordinary and, as it seemed to us, semi-miraculous sight.
+
+"Ay," said Sir Henry, "and this is where he got his ink from," and he
+pointed to a small wound on the Dom's left arm. "Did ever man see such
+a thing before?"
+
+There was no longer any doubt about the matter, which for my own part I
+confess perfectly appalled me. There he sat, the dead man, whose
+directions, written some ten generations ago, had led us to this spot.
+Here in my own hand was the rude pen with which he had written them,
+and about his neck hung the crucifix that his dying lips had kissed.
+Gazing at him, my imagination could reconstruct the last scene of the
+drama, the traveller dying of cold and starvation, yet striving to
+convey to the world the great secret which he had discovered:--the
+awful loneliness of his death, of which the evidence sat before us. It
+even seemed to me that I could trace in his strongly-marked features a
+likeness to those of my poor friend Silvestre his descendant, who had
+died twenty years before in my arms, but perhaps that was fancy. At any
+rate, there he sat, a sad memento of the fate that so often overtakes
+those who would penetrate into the unknown; and there doubtless he will
+still sit, crowned with the dread majesty of death, for centuries yet
+unborn, to startle the eyes of wanderers like ourselves, if ever any
+such should come again to invade his loneliness. The thing overpowered
+us, already almost perished as we were with cold and hunger.
+
+"Let us go," said Sir Henry in a low voice; "stay, we will give him a
+companion," and lifting up the dead body of the Hottentot Ventv�gel, he
+placed it near to that of the old Dom. Then he stooped, and with a jerk
+broke the rotten string of the crucifix which hung round da Silvestra's
+neck, for his fingers were too cold to attempt to unfasten it. I
+believe that he has it still. I took the bone pen, and it is before me
+as I write--sometimes I use it to sign my name.
+
+Then leaving these two, the proud white man of a past age, and the poor
+Hottentot, to keep their eternal vigil in the midst of the eternal
+snows, we crept out of the cave into the welcome sunshine and resumed
+our path, wondering in our hearts how many hours it would be before we
+were even as they are.
+
+When we had walked about half a mile we came to the edge of the
+plateau, for the nipple of the mountain does not rise out of its exact
+centre, though from the desert side it had seemed to do so. What lay
+below us we could not see, for the landscape was wreathed in billows of
+morning fog. Presently, however, the higher layers of mist cleared a
+little, and revealed, at the end of a long slope of snow, a patch of
+green grass, some five hundred yards beneath us, through which a stream
+was running. Nor was this all. By the stream, basking in the bright
+sun, stood and lay a group of from ten to fifteen _large antelopes_--at
+that distance we could not see of what species.
+
+The sight filled us with an unreasoning joy. If only we could get it,
+there was food in plenty. But the question was how to do so. The beasts
+were fully six hundred yards off, a very long shot, and one not to be
+depended on when our lives hung on the results.
+
+Rapidly we discussed the advisability of trying to stalk the game, but
+in the end dismissed it reluctantly. To begin with, the wind was not
+favourable, and further, we must certainly be perceived, however
+careful we were, against the blinding background of snow, which we
+should be obliged to traverse.
+
+"Well, we must have a try from where we are," said Sir Henry. "Which
+shall it be, Quatermain, the repeating rifles or the expresses?"
+
+Here again was a question. The Winchester repeaters--of which we had
+two, Umbopa carrying poor Ventv�gel's as well as his own--were sighted
+up to a thousand yards, whereas the expresses were only sighted to
+three hundred and fifty, beyond which distance shooting with them was
+more or less guess-work. On the other hand, if they did hit, the
+express bullets, being "expanding," were much more likely to bring the
+game down. It was a knotty point, but I made up my mind that we must
+risk it and use the expresses.
+
+"Let each of us take the buck opposite to him. Aim well at the point of
+the shoulder and high up," said I; "and Umbopa, do you give the word,
+so that we may all fire together."
+
+Then came a pause, each of us aiming his level best, as indeed a man is
+likely to do when he knows that life itself depends upon the shot.
+
+"Fire," said Umbopa in Zulu, and at almost the same instant the three
+rifles rang out loudly; three clouds of smoke hung for a moment before
+us, and a hundred echoes went flying over the silent snow. Presently
+the smoke cleared, and revealed--oh, joy!--a great buck lying on its
+back and kicking furiously in its death agony. We gave a yell of
+triumph--we were saved--we should not starve. Weak as we were, we
+rushed down the intervening slope of snow, and in ten minutes from the
+time of shooting, that animal's heart and liver were lying before us.
+But now a new difficulty arose, we had no fuel, and therefore could
+make no fire to cook them. We gazed at each other in dismay.
+
+"Starving men should not be fanciful," said Good; "we must eat raw
+meat."
+
+There was no other way out of the dilemma, and our gnawing hunger made
+the proposition less distasteful than it would otherwise have been. So
+we took the heart and liver and buried them for a few minutes in a
+patch of snow to cool them. Then we washed them in the ice-cold water
+of the stream, and lastly ate them greedily. It sounds horrible enough,
+but honestly, I never tasted anything so good as that raw meat. In a
+quarter of an hour we were changed men. Our life and vigour came back
+to us, our feeble pulses grew strong again, and the blood went coursing
+through our veins. But mindful of the results of over-feeding on
+starved stomachs, we were careful not to eat too much, stopping whilst
+we were still hungry.
+
+"Thank Heaven!" said Sir Henry; "that brute has saved our lives. What
+is it, Quatermain?"
+
+I rose and went to look at the antelope, for I was not certain. It was
+about the size of a donkey, with large curved horns. I had never seen
+one like it before; the species was new to me. It was brown in colour,
+with faint red stripes, and grew a thick coat. I afterwards discovered
+that the natives of that wonderful country call these bucks "_inco_."
+They are very rare, and only found at a great altitude where no other
+game will live. This animal was fairly hit high up in the shoulder,
+though whose bullet brought it down we could not, of course, discover.
+I believe that Good, mindful of his marvellous shot at the giraffe,
+secretly set it down to his own prowess, and we did not contradict him.
+
+We had been so busy satisfying our hunger that hitherto we had not
+found time to look about us. But now, having set Umbopa to cut off as
+much of the best meat as we were likely to be able to carry, we began
+to inspect our surroundings. The mist had cleared away, for it was
+eight o'clock, and the sun had sucked it up, so we were able to take in
+all the country before us at a glance. I know not how to describe the
+glorious panorama which unfolded itself to our gaze. I have never seen
+anything like it before, nor shall, I suppose, again.
+
+Behind and over us towered Sheba's snowy Breasts, and below, some five
+thousand feet beneath where we stood, lay league on league of the most
+lovely champaign country. Here were dense patches of lofty forest,
+there a great river wound its silvery way. To the left stretched a vast
+expanse of rich, undulating veld or grass land, whereon we could just
+make out countless herds of game or cattle, at that distance we could
+not tell which. This expanse appeared to be ringed in by a wall of
+distant mountains. To the right the country was more or less
+mountainous; that is, solitary hills stood up from its level, with
+stretches of cultivated land between, amongst which we could see groups
+of dome-shaped huts. The landscape lay before us as a map, wherein
+rivers flashed like silver snakes, and Alp-like peaks crowned with
+wildly twisted snow wreaths rose in grandeur, whilst over all was the
+glad sunlight and the breath of Nature's happy life.
+
+Two curious things struck us as we gazed. First, that the country
+before us must lie at least three thousand feet higher than the desert
+we had crossed, and secondly, that all the rivers flowed from south to
+north. As we had painful reason to know, there was no water upon the
+southern side of the vast range on which we stood, but on the northern
+face were many streams, most of which appeared to unite with the great
+river we could see winding away farther than our eyes could follow.
+
+We sat down for a while and gazed in silence at this wonderful view.
+Presently Sir Henry spoke.
+
+"Isn't there something on the map about Solomon's Great Road?" he said.
+
+I nodded, for I was still gazing out over the far country.
+
+"Well, look; there it is!" and he pointed a little to our right.
+
+Good and I looked accordingly, and there, winding away towards the
+plain, was what appeared to be a wide turnpike road. We had not seen it
+at first because, on reaching the plain, it turned behind some broken
+country. We did not say anything, at least, not much; we were beginning
+to lose the sense of wonder. Somehow it did not seem particularly
+unnatural that we should find a sort of Roman road in this strange
+land. We accepted the fact, that was all.
+
+"Well," said Good, "it must be quite near us if we cut off to the
+right. Hadn't we better be making a start?"
+
+This was sound advice, and so soon as we had washed our faces and hands
+in the stream we acted on it. For a mile or more we made our way over
+boulders and across patches of snow, till suddenly, on reaching the top
+of the little rise, we found the road at our feet. It was a splendid
+road cut out of the solid rock, at least fifty feet wide, and
+apparently well kept; though the odd thing was that it seemed to begin
+there. We walked down and stood on it, but one single hundred paces
+behind us, in the direction of Sheba's Breasts, it vanished, the entire
+surface of the mountain being strewn with boulders interspersed with
+patches of snow.
+
+"What do you make of this, Quatermain?" asked Sir Henry.
+
+I shook my head, I could make nothing of the thing.
+
+"I have it!" said Good; "the road no doubt ran right over the range and
+across the desert on the other side, but the sand there has covered it
+up, and above us it has been obliterated by some volcanic eruption of
+molten lava."
+
+This seemed a good suggestion; at any rate, we accepted it, and
+proceeded down the mountain. It proved a very different business
+travelling along down hill on that magnificent pathway with full
+stomachs from what it was travelling uphill over the snow quite starved
+and almost frozen. Indeed, had it not been for melancholy recollections
+of poor Ventv�gel's sad fate, and of that grim cave where he kept
+company with the old Dom, we should have felt positively cheerful,
+notwithstanding the sense of unknown dangers before us. Every mile we
+walked the atmosphere grew softer and balmier, and the country before
+us shone with a yet more luminous beauty. As for the road itself, I
+never saw such an engineering work, though Sir Henry said that the
+great road over the St. Gothard in Switzerland is very similar. No
+difficulty had been too great for the Old World engineer who laid it
+out. At one place we came to a ravine three hundred feet broad and at
+least a hundred feet deep. This vast gulf was actually filled in with
+huge blocks of dressed stone, having arches pierced through them at the
+bottom for a waterway, over which the road went on sublimely. At
+another place it was cut in zigzags out of the side of a precipice five
+hundred feet deep, and in a third it tunnelled through the base of an
+intervening ridge, a space of thirty yards or more.
+
+Here we noticed that the sides of the tunnel were covered with quaint
+sculptures, mostly of mailed figures driving in chariots. One, which
+was exceedingly beautiful, represented a whole battle scene with a
+convoy of captives being marched off in the distance.
+
+"Well," said Sir Henry, after inspecting this ancient work of art, "it
+is very well to call this Solomon's Road, but my humble opinion is that
+the Egyptians had been here before Solomon's people ever set a foot on
+it. If this isn't Egyptian or Phoenician handiwork, I must say that it
+is very like it."
+
+By midday we had advanced sufficiently down the mountain to search the
+region where wood was to be met with. First we came to scattered bushes
+which grew more and more frequent, till at last we found the road
+winding through a vast grove of silver trees similar to those which are
+to be seen on the slopes of Table Mountain at Cape Town. I had never
+before met with them in all my wanderings, except at the Cape, and
+their appearance here astonished me greatly.
+
+"Ah!" said Good, surveying these shining-leaved trees with evident
+enthusiasm, "here is lots of wood, let us stop and cook some dinner; I
+have about digested that raw heart."
+
+Nobody objected to this, so leaving the road we made our way to a
+stream which was babbling away not far off, and soon had a goodly fire
+of dry boughs blazing. Cutting off some substantial hunks from the
+flesh of the _inco_ which we had brought with us, we proceeded to toast
+them on the end of sharp sticks, as one sees the Kafirs do, and ate
+them with relish. After filling ourselves, we lit our pipes and gave
+ourselves up to enjoyment that, compared with the hardships we had
+recently undergone, seemed almost heavenly.
+
+The brook, of which the banks were clothed with dense masses of a
+gigantic species of maidenhair fern interspersed with feathery tufts of
+wild asparagus, sung merrily at our side, the soft air murmured through
+the leaves of the silver trees, doves cooed around, and bright-winged
+birds flashed like living gems from bough to bough. It was a Paradise.
+
+The magic of the place combined with an overwhelming sense of dangers
+left behind, and of the promised land reached at last, seemed to charm
+us into silence. Sir Henry and Umbopa sat conversing in a mixture of
+broken English and Kitchen Zulu in a low voice, but earnestly enough,
+and I lay, with my eyes half shut, upon that fragrant bed of fern and
+watched them.
+
+Presently I missed Good, and I looked to see what had become of him.
+Soon I observed him sitting by the bank of the stream, in which he had
+been bathing. He had nothing on but his flannel shirt, and his natural
+habits of extreme neatness having reasserted themselves, he was
+actively employed in making a most elaborate toilet. He had washed his
+gutta-percha collar, had thoroughly shaken out his trousers, coat and
+waistcoat, and was now folding them up neatly till he was ready to put
+them on, shaking his head sadly as he scanned the numerous rents and
+tears in them, which naturally had resulted from our frightful journey.
+Then he took his boots, scrubbed them with a handful of fern, and
+finally rubbed them over with a piece of fat, which he had carefully
+saved from the _inco_ meat, till they looked, comparatively speaking,
+respectable. Having inspected them judiciously through his eye-glass,
+he put the boots on and began a fresh operation. From a little bag that
+he carried he produced a pocket-comb in which was fixed a tiny
+looking-glass, and in this he surveyed himself. Apparently he was not
+satisfied, for he proceeded to do his hair with great care. Then came a
+pause whilst he again contemplated the effect; still it was not
+satisfactory. He felt his chin, on which the accumulated scrub of a ten
+days' beard was flourishing.
+
+"Surely," thought I, "he is not going to try to shave." But so it was.
+Taking the piece of fat with which he had greased his boots, Good
+washed it thoroughly in the stream. Then diving again into the bag he
+brought out a little pocket razor with a guard to it, such as are
+bought by people who are afraid of cutting themselves, or by those
+about to undertake a sea voyage. Then he rubbed his face and chin
+vigorously with the fat and began. Evidently it proved a painful
+process, for he groaned very much over it, and I was convulsed with
+inward laughter as I watched him struggling with that stubbly beard. It
+seemed so very odd that a man should take the trouble to shave himself
+with a piece of fat in such a place and in our circumstances. At last
+he succeeded in getting the hair off the right side of his face and
+chin, when suddenly I, who was watching, became conscious of a flash of
+light that passed just by his head.
+
+Good sprang up with a profane exclamation (if it had not been a safety
+razor he would certainly have cut his throat), and so did I, without
+the exclamation, and this was what I saw. Standing not more than twenty
+paces from where I was, and ten from Good, were a group of men. They
+were very tall and copper-coloured, and some of them wore great plumes
+of black feathers and short cloaks of leopard skins; this was all I
+noticed at the moment. In front of them stood a youth of about
+seventeen, his hand still raised and his body bent forward in the
+attitude of a Grecian statue of a spear-thrower. Evidently the flash of
+light had been caused by a weapon which he had hurled.
+
+As I looked an old soldier-like man stepped forward out of the group,
+and catching the youth by the arm said something to him. Then they
+advanced upon us.
+
+Sir Henry, Good, and Umbopa by this time had seized their rifles and
+lifted them threateningly. The party of natives still came on. It
+struck me that they could not know what rifles were, or they would not
+have treated them with such contempt.
+
+"Put down your guns!" I halloed to the others, seeing that our only
+chance of safety lay in conciliation. They obeyed, and walking to the
+front I addressed the elderly man who had checked the youth.
+
+"Greeting," I said in Zulu, not knowing what language to use. To my
+surprise I was understood.
+
+"Greeting," answered the old man, not, indeed, in the same tongue, but
+in a dialect so closely allied to it that neither Umbopa nor myself had
+any difficulty in understanding him. Indeed, as we afterwards found
+out, the language spoken by this people is an old-fashioned form of the
+Zulu tongue, bearing about the same relationship to it that the English
+of Chaucer does to the English of the nineteenth century.
+
+"Whence come you?" he went on, "who are you? and why are the faces of
+three of you white, and the face of the fourth as the face of our
+mother's sons?" and he pointed to Umbopa. I looked at Umbopa as he said
+it, and it flashed across me that he was right. The face of Umbopa was
+like the faces of the men before me, and so was his great form like
+their forms. But I had not time to reflect on this coincidence.
+
+"We are strangers, and come in peace," I answered, speaking very
+slowly, so that he might understand me, "and this man is our servant."
+
+"You lie," he answered; "no strangers can cross the mountains where all
+things perish. But what do your lies matter?--if ye are strangers then
+ye must die, for no strangers may live in the land of the Kukuanas. It
+is the king's law. Prepare then to die, O strangers!"
+
+I was slightly staggered at this, more especially as I saw the hands of
+some of the men steal down to their sides, where hung on each what
+looked to me like a large and heavy knife.
+
+"What does that beggar say?" asked Good.
+
+"He says we are going to be killed," I answered grimly.
+
+"Oh, Lord!" groaned Good; and, as was his way when perplexed, he put
+his hand to his false teeth, dragging the top set down and allowing
+them to fly back to his jaw with a snap. It was a most fortunate move,
+for next second the dignified crowd of Kukuanas uttered a simultaneous
+yell of horror, and bolted back some yards.
+
+"What's up?" said I.
+
+"It's his teeth," whispered Sir Henry excitedly. "He moved them. Take
+them out, Good, take them out!"
+
+He obeyed, slipping the set into the sleeve of his flannel shirt.
+
+In another second curiosity had overcome fear, and the men advanced
+slowly. Apparently they had now forgotten their amiable intention of
+killing us.
+
+"How is it, O strangers," asked the old man solemnly, "that this fat
+man (pointing to Good, who was clad in nothing but boots and a flannel
+shirt, and had only half finished his shaving), whose body is clothed,
+and whose legs are bare, who grows hair on one side of his sickly face
+and not on the other, and who wears one shining and transparent
+eye--how is it, I ask, that he has teeth which move of themselves,
+coming away from the jaws and returning of their own will?"
+
+"Open your mouth," I said to Good, who promptly curled up his lips and
+grinned at the old gentleman like an angry dog, revealing to his
+astonished gaze two thin red lines of gum as utterly innocent of
+ivories as a new-born elephant. The audience gasped.
+
+"Where are his teeth?" they shouted; "with our eyes we saw them."
+
+Turning his head slowly and with a gesture of ineffable contempt, Good
+swept his hand across his mouth. Then he grinned again, and lo, there
+were two rows of lovely teeth.
+
+Now the young man who had flung the knife threw himself down on the
+grass and gave vent to a prolonged howl of terror; and as for the old
+gentleman, his knees knocked together with fear.
+
+"I see that ye are spirits," he said falteringly; "did ever man born of
+woman have hair on one side of his face and not on the other, or a
+round and transparent eye, or teeth which moved and melted away and
+grew again? Pardon us, O my lords."
+
+Here was luck indeed, and, needless to say, I jumped at the chance.
+
+"It is granted," I said with an imperial smile. "Nay, ye shall know the
+truth. We come from another world, though we are men such as ye; we
+come," I went on, "from the biggest star that shines at night."
+
+"Oh! oh!" groaned the chorus of astonished aborigines.
+
+"Yes," I went on, "we do, indeed"; and again I smiled benignly, as I
+uttered that amazing lie. "We come to stay with you a little while, and
+to bless you by our sojourn. Ye will see, O friends, that I have
+prepared myself for this visit by the learning of your language."
+
+"It is so, it is so," said the chorus.
+
+"Only, my lord," put in the old gentleman, "thou hast learnt it very
+badly."
+
+I cast an indignant glance at him, and he quailed.
+
+"Now friends," I continued, "ye might think that after so long a
+journey we should find it in our hearts to avenge such a reception,
+mayhap to strike cold in death the imperious hand that--that, in
+short--threw a knife at the head of him whose teeth come and go."
+
+"Spare him, my lords," said the old man in supplication; "he is the
+king's son, and I am his uncle. If anything befalls him his blood will
+be required at my hands."
+
+"Yes, that is certainly so," put in the young man with great emphasis.
+
+"Ye may perhaps doubt our power to avenge," I went on, heedless of this
+by-play. "Stay, I will show you. Here, thou dog and slave (addressing
+Umbopa in a savage tone), give me the magic tube that speaks"; and I
+tipped a wink towards my express rifle.
+
+Umbopa rose to the occasion, and with something as nearly resembling a
+grin as I have ever seen on his dignified face he handed me the gun.
+
+"It is here, O Lord of Lords," he said with a deep obeisance.
+
+Now just before I had asked for the rifle I had perceived a little
+_klipspringer_ antelope standing on a mass of rock about seventy yards
+away, and determined to risk the shot.
+
+"Ye see that buck," I said, pointing the animal out to the party before
+me. "Tell me, is it possible for man born of woman to kill it from here
+with a noise?"
+
+"It is not possible, my lord," answered the old man.
+
+"Yet shall I kill it," I said quietly.
+
+The old man smiled. "That my lord cannot do," he answered.
+
+I raised the rifle and covered the buck. It was a small animal, and one
+which a man might well be excused for missing, but I knew that it would
+not do to miss.
+
+I drew a deep breath, and slowly pressed on the trigger. The buck stood
+still as a stone.
+
+"Bang! thud!" The antelope sprang into the air and fell on the rock
+dead as a door nail.
+
+A groan of simultaneous terror burst from the group before us.
+
+"If you want meat," I remarked coolly, "go fetch that buck."
+
+The old man made a sign, and one of his followers departed, and
+presently returned bearing the _klipspringer_. I noticed with
+satisfaction that I had hit it fairly behind the shoulder. They
+gathered round the poor creature's body, gazing at the bullet-hole in
+consternation.
+
+"Ye see," I said, "I do not speak empty words."
+
+There was no answer.
+
+"If ye yet doubt our power," I went on, "let one of you go stand upon
+that rock that I may make him as this buck."
+
+None of them seemed at all inclined to take the hint, till at last the
+king's son spoke.
+
+"It is well said. Do thou, my uncle, go stand upon the rock. It is but
+a buck that the magic has killed. Surely it cannot kill a man."
+
+The old gentleman did not take the suggestion in good part. Indeed, he
+seemed hurt.
+
+"No! no!" he ejaculated hastily, "my old eyes have seen enough. These
+are wizards, indeed. Let us bring them to the king. Yet if any should
+wish a further proof, let _him_ stand upon the rock, that the magic
+tube may speak with him."
+
+There was a most general and hasty expression of dissent.
+
+"Let not good magic be wasted on our poor bodies," said one; "we are
+satisfied. All the witchcraft of our people cannot show the like of
+this."
+
+"It is so," remarked the old gentleman, in a tone of intense relief;
+"without any doubt it is so. Listen, children of the Stars, children of
+the shining Eye and the movable Teeth, who roar out in thunder, and
+slay from afar. I am Infadoos, son of Kafa, once king of the Kukuana
+people. This youth is Scragga."
+
+"He nearly scragged me," murmured Good.
+
+"Scragga, son of Twala, the great king--Twala, husband of a thousand
+wives, chief and lord paramount of the Kukuanas, keeper of the great
+Road, terror of his enemies, student of the Black Arts, leader of a
+hundred thousand warriors, Twala the One-eyed, the Black, the Terrible."
+
+"So," said I superciliously, "lead us then to Twala. We do not talk
+with low people and underlings."
+
+"It is well, my lords, we will lead you; but the way is long. We are
+hunting three days' journey from the place of the king. But let my
+lords have patience, and we will lead them."
+
+"So be it," I said carelessly; "all time is before us, for we do not
+die. We are ready, lead on. But Infadoos, and thou Scragga, beware!
+Play us no monkey tricks, set for us no foxes' snares, for before your
+brains of mud have thought of them we shall know and avenge. The light
+of the transparent eye of him with the bare legs and the half-haired
+face shall destroy you, and go through your land; his vanishing teeth
+shall affix themselves fast in you and eat you up, you and your wives
+and children; the magic tubes shall argue with you loudly, and make you
+as sieves. Beware!"
+
+This magnificent address did not fail of its effect; indeed, it might
+almost have been spared, so deeply were our friends already impressed
+with our powers.
+
+The old man made a deep obeisance, and murmured the words, "_Koom
+Koom_," which I afterwards discovered was their royal salute,
+corresponding to the _Bay�te_ of the Zulus, and turning, addressed his
+followers. These at once proceeded to lay hold of all our goods and
+chattels, in order to bear them for us, excepting only the guns, which
+they would on no account touch. They even seized Good's clothes, that,
+as the reader may remember, were neatly folded up beside him.
+
+He saw and made a dive for them, and a loud altercation ensued.
+
+"Let not my lord of the transparent Eye and the melting Teeth touch
+them," said the old man. "Surely his slave shall carry the things."
+
+"But I want to put 'em on!" roared Good, in nervous English.
+
+Umbopa translated.
+
+"Nay, my lord," answered Infadoos, "would my lord cover up his
+beautiful white legs (although he is so dark Good has a singularly
+white skin) from the eyes of his servants? Have we offended my lord
+that he should do such a thing?"
+
+Here I nearly exploded with laughing; and meanwhile one of the men
+started on with the garments.
+
+"Damn it!" roared Good, "that black villain has got my trousers."
+
+"Look here, Good," said Sir Henry; "you have appeared in this country
+in a certain character, and you must live up to it. It will never do
+for you to put on trousers again. Henceforth you must exist in a
+flannel shirt, a pair of boots, and an eye-glass."
+
+"Yes," I said, "and with whiskers on one side of your face and not on
+the other. If you change any of these things the people will think that
+we are impostors. I am very sorry for you, but, seriously, you must. If
+once they begin to suspect us our lives will not be worth a brass
+farthing."
+
+"Do you really think so?" said Good gloomily.
+
+"I do, indeed. Your 'beautiful white legs' and your eye-glass are now
+_the_ features of our party, and as Sir Henry says, you must live up to
+them. Be thankful that you have got your boots on, and that the air is
+warm."
+
+Good sighed, and said no more, but it took him a fortnight to become
+accustomed to his new and scant attire.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+WE ENTER KUKUANALAND
+
+All that afternoon we travelled along the magnificent roadway, which
+trended steadily in a north-westerly direction. Infadoos and Scragga
+walked with us, but their followers marched about one hundred paces
+ahead.
+
+"Infadoos," I said at length, "who made this road?"
+
+"It was made, my lord, of old time, none know how or when, not even the
+wise woman Gagool, who has lived for generations. We are not old enough
+to remember its making. None can fashion such roads now, but the king
+suffers no grass to grow upon it."
+
+"And whose are the writings on the wall of the caves through which we
+have passed on the road?" I asked, referring to the Egyptian-like
+sculptures that we had seen.
+
+"My lord, the hands that made the road wrote the wonderful writings. We
+know not who wrote them."
+
+"When did the Kukuana people come into this country?"
+
+"My lord, the race came down here like the breath of a storm ten
+thousand thousand moons ago, from the great lands which lie there
+beyond," and he pointed to the north. "They could travel no further
+because of the high mountains which ring in the land, so say the old
+voices of our fathers that have descended to us the children, and so
+says Gagool, the wise woman, the smeller out of witches," and again he
+pointed to the snow-clad peaks. "The country, too, was good, so they
+settled here and grew strong and powerful, and now our numbers are like
+the sea sand, and when Twala the king calls up his regiments their
+plumes cover the plain so far as the eye of man can reach."
+
+"And if the land is walled in with mountains, who is there for the
+regiments to fight with?"
+
+"Nay, my lord, the country is open there towards the north, and now and
+again warriors sweep down upon us in clouds from a land we know not,
+and we slay them. It is the third part of the life of a man since there
+was a war. Many thousands died in it, but we destroyed those who came
+to eat us up. So since then there has been no war."
+
+"Your warriors must grow weary of resting on their spears, Infadoos."
+
+"My lord, there was one war, just after we destroyed the people that
+came down upon us, but it was a civil war; dog ate dog."
+
+"How was that?"
+
+"My lord the king, my half-brother, had a brother born at the same
+birth, and of the same woman. It is not our custom, my lord, to suffer
+twins to live; the weaker must always die. But the mother of the king
+hid away the feebler child, which was born the last, for her heart
+yearned over it, and that child is Twala the king. I am his younger
+brother, born of another wife."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"My lord, Kafa, our father, died when we came to manhood, and my
+brother Imotu was made king in his place, and for a space reigned and
+had a son by his favourite wife. When the babe was three years old,
+just after the great war, during which no man could sow or reap, a
+famine came upon the land, and the people murmured because of the
+famine, and looked round like a starved lion for something to rend.
+Then it was that Gagool, the wise and terrible woman, who does not die,
+made a proclamation to the people, saying, 'The king Imotu is no king.'
+And at the time Imotu was sick with a wound, and lay in his kraal not
+able to move.
+
+"Then Gagool went into a hut and led out Twala, my half-brother, and
+twin brother to the king, whom she had hidden among the caves and rocks
+since he was born, and stripping the '_moocha_' (waist-cloth) off his
+loins, showed the people of the Kukuanas the mark of the sacred snake
+coiled round his middle, wherewith the eldest son of the king is marked
+at birth, and cried out loud, 'Behold your king whom I have saved for
+you even to this day!'
+
+"Now the people being mad with hunger, and altogether bereft of reason
+and the knowledge of truth, cried out--'_The king! The king!_' but I
+knew that it was not so, for Imotu my brother was the elder of the
+twins, and our lawful king. Then just as the tumult was at its height
+Imotu the king, though he was very sick, crawled from his hut holding
+his wife by the hand, and followed by his little son Ignosi--that is,
+by interpretation, the Lightning.
+
+"'What is this noise?' he asked. 'Why cry ye _The king! The king!_'
+
+"Then Twala, his twin brother, born of the same woman, and in the same
+hour, ran to him, and taking him by the hair, stabbed him through the
+heart with his knife. And the people being fickle, and ever ready to
+worship the rising sun, clapped their hands and cried, '_Twala is
+king!_ Now we know that Twala is king!'"
+
+"And what became of Imotu's wife and her son Ignosi? Did Twala kill
+them too?"
+
+"Nay, my lord. When she saw that her lord was dead the queen seized the
+child with a cry and ran away. Two days afterward she came to a kraal
+very hungry, and none would give her milk or food, now that her lord
+the king was dead, for all men hate the unfortunate. But at nightfall a
+little child, a girl, crept out and brought her corn to eat, and she
+blessed the child, and went on towards the mountains with her boy
+before the sun rose again, and there she must have perished, for none
+have seen her since, nor the child Ignosi."
+
+"Then if this child Ignosi had lived he would be the true king of the
+Kukuana people?"
+
+"That is so, my lord; the sacred snake is round his middle. If he lives
+he is king; but, alas! he is long dead."
+
+"See, my lord," and Infadoos pointed to a vast collection of huts
+surrounded by a fence, which was in its turn encircled by a great
+ditch, that lay on the plain beneath us. "That is the kraal where the
+wife of Imotu was last seen with the child Ignosi. It is there that we
+shall sleep to-night, if, indeed," he added doubtfully, "my lords sleep
+at all upon this earth."
+
+"When we are among the Kukuanas, my good friend Infadoos, we do as the
+Kukuanas do," I said majestically, and turned round quickly to address
+Good, who was tramping along sullenly behind, his mind fully occupied
+with unsatisfactory attempts to prevent his flannel shirt from flapping
+in the evening breeze. To my astonishment I butted into Umbopa, who was
+walking along immediately behind me, and very evidently had been
+listening with the greatest interest to my conversation with Infadoos.
+The expression on his face was most curious, and gave me the idea of a
+man who was struggling with partial success to bring something long ago
+forgotten back into his mind.
+
+All this while we had been pressing on at a good rate towards the
+undulating plain beneath us. The mountains we had crossed now loomed
+high above our heads, and Sheba's Breasts were veiled modestly in
+diaphanous wreaths of mist. As we went the country grew more and more
+lovely. The vegetation was luxuriant, without being tropical; the sun
+was bright and warm, but not burning; and a gracious breeze blew softly
+along the odorous slopes of the mountains. Indeed, this new land was
+little less than an earthly paradise; in beauty, in natural wealth, and
+in climate I have never seen its like. The Transvaal is a fine country,
+but it is nothing to Kukuanaland.
+
+So soon as we started Infadoos had despatched a runner to warn the
+people of the kraal, which, by the way, was in his military command, of
+our arrival. This man had departed at an extraordinary speed, which
+Infadoos informed me he would keep up all the way, as running was an
+exercise much practised among his people.
+
+The result of this message now became apparent. When we arrived within
+two miles of the kraal we could see that company after company of men
+were issuing from its gates and marching towards us.
+
+Sir Henry laid his hand upon my arm, and remarked that it looked as
+though we were going to meet with a warm reception. Something in his
+tone attracted Infadoos' attention.
+
+"Let not my lords be afraid," he said hastily, "for in my breast there
+dwells no guile. This regiment is one under my command, and comes out
+by my orders to greet you."
+
+I nodded easily, though I was not quite easy in my mind.
+
+About half a mile from the gates of this kraal is a long stretch of
+rising ground sloping gently upwards from the road, and here the
+companies formed. It was a splendid sight to see them, each company
+about three hundred strong, charging swiftly up the rise, with flashing
+spears and waving plumes, to take their appointed place. By the time we
+reached the slope twelve such companies, or in all three thousand six
+hundred men, had passed out and taken up their positions along the road.
+
+Presently we came to the first company, and were able to gaze in
+astonishment on the most magnificent set of warriors that I have ever
+seen. They were all men of mature age, mostly veterans of about forty,
+and not one of them was under six feet in height, whilst many stood six
+feet three or four. They wore upon their heads heavy black plumes of
+Sakaboola feathers, like those which adorned our guides. About their
+waists and beneath the right knees were bound circlets of white ox
+tails, while in their left hands they carried round shields measuring
+about twenty inches across. These shields are very curious. The
+framework is made of an iron plate beaten out thin, over which is
+stretched milk-white ox-hide.
+
+The weapons that each man bore were simple, but most effective,
+consisting of a short and very heavy two-edged spear with a wooden
+shaft, the blade being about six inches across at the widest part.
+These spears are not used for throwing but like the Zulu "_bangwan_,"
+or stabbing assegai, are for close quarters only, when the wound
+inflicted by them is terrible. In addition to his _bangwan_ every man
+carried three large and heavy knives, each knife weighing about two
+pounds. One knife was fixed in the ox-tail girdle, and the other two at
+the back of the round shield. These knives, which are called "_tollas_"
+by the Kukuanas, take the place of the throwing assegai of the Zulus.
+The Kukuana warriors can cast them with great accuracy to a distance of
+fifty yards, and it is their custom on charging to hurl a volley of
+them at the enemy as they come to close quarters.
+
+Each company remained still as a collection of bronze statues till we
+were opposite to it, when at a signal given by its commanding officer,
+who, distinguished by a leopard skin cloak, stood some paces in front,
+every spear was raised into the air, and from three hundred throats
+sprang forth with a sudden roar the royal salute of "_Koom_." Then, so
+soon as we had passed, the company formed up behind us and followed us
+towards the kraal, till at last the whole regiment of the "Greys"--so
+called from their white shields--the crack corps of the Kukuana people,
+was marching in our rear with a tread that shook the ground.
+
+At length, branching off from Solomon's Great Road, we came to the wide
+fosse surrounding the kraal, which is at least a mile round, and fenced
+with a strong palisade of piles formed of the trunks of trees. At the
+gateway this fosse is spanned by a primitive drawbridge, which was let
+down by the guard to allow us to pass in. The kraal is exceedingly well
+laid out. Through the centre runs a wide pathway intersected at right
+angles by other pathways so arranged as to cut the huts into square
+blocks, each block being the quarters of a company. The huts are
+dome-shaped, and built, like those of the Zulus, of a framework of
+wattle, beautifully thatched with grass; but, unlike the Zulu huts,
+they have doorways through which men could walk. Also they are much
+larger, and surrounded by a verandah about six feet wide, beautifully
+paved with powdered lime trodden hard.
+
+All along each side of this wide pathway that pierces the kraal were
+ranged hundreds of women, brought out by curiosity to look at us. These
+women, for a native race, are exceedingly handsome. They are tall and
+graceful, and their figures are wonderfully fine. The hair, though
+short, is rather curly than woolly, the features are frequently
+aquiline, and the lips are not unpleasantly thick, as is the case among
+most African races. But what struck us most was their exceedingly quiet
+and dignified air. They were as well-bred in their way as the
+_habitu�es_ of a fashionable drawing-room, and in this respect they
+differ from Zulu women and their cousins the Masai who inhabit the
+district beyond Zanzibar. Their curiosity had brought them out to see
+us, but they allowed no rude expressions of astonishment or savage
+criticism to pass their lips as we trudged wearily in front of them.
+Not even when old Infadoos with a surreptitious motion of the hand
+pointed out the crowning wonder of poor Good's "beautiful white legs,"
+did they suffer the feeling of intense admiration which evidently
+mastered their minds to find expression. They fixed their dark eyes
+upon this new and snowy loveliness, for, as I think I have said, Good's
+skin is exceedingly white, and that was all. But it was quite enough
+for Good, who is modest by nature.
+
+When we reached the centre of the kraal, Infadoos halted at the door of
+a large hut, which was surrounded at a distance by a circle of smaller
+ones.
+
+"Enter, Sons of the Stars," he said, in a magniloquent voice, "and
+deign to rest awhile in our humble habitations. A little food shall be
+brought to you, so that ye may have no need to draw your belts tight
+from hunger; some honey and some milk, and an ox or two, and a few
+sheep; not much, my lords, but still a little food."
+
+"It is good," said I. "Infadoos; we are weary with travelling through
+realms of air; now let us rest."
+
+Accordingly we entered the hut, which we found amply prepared for our
+comfort. Couches of tanned skins were spread for us to lie on, and
+water was placed for us to wash in.
+
+Presently we heard a shouting outside, and stepping to the door, saw a
+line of damsels bearing milk and roasted mealies, and honey in a pot.
+Behind these were some youths driving a fat young ox. We received the
+gifts, and then one of the young men drew the knife from his girdle and
+dexterously cut the ox's throat. In ten minutes it was dead, skinned,
+and jointed. The best of the meat was then cut off for us, and the
+rest, in the name of our party, I presented to the warriors round us,
+who took it and distributed the "white lords' gift."
+
+Umbopa set to work, with the assistance of an extremely prepossessing
+young woman, to boil our portion in a large earthenware pot over a fire
+which was built outside the hut, and when it was nearly ready we sent a
+message to Infadoos, and asked him and Scragga, the king's son, to join
+us.
+
+Presently they came, and sitting down upon little stools, of which
+there were several about the hut, for the Kukuanas do not in general
+squat upon their haunches like the Zulus, they helped us to get through
+our dinner. The old gentleman was most affable and polite, but it
+struck me that the young one regarded us with doubt. Together with the
+rest of the party, he had been overawed by our white appearance and by
+our magic properties; but it seemed to me that, on discovering that we
+ate, drank, and slept like other mortals, his awe was beginning to wear
+off, and to be replaced by a sullen suspicion--which made me feel
+rather uncomfortable.
+
+In the course of our meal Sir Henry suggested to me that it might be
+well to try to discover if our hosts knew anything of his brother's
+fate, or if they had ever seen or heard of him; but, on the whole, I
+thought that it would be wiser to say nothing of the matter at this
+time. It was difficult to explain a relative lost from "the Stars."
+
+After supper we produced our pipes and lit them; a proceeding which
+filled Infadoos and Scragga with astonishment. The Kukuanas were
+evidently unacquainted with the divine delights of tobacco-smoke. The
+herb is grown among them extensively; but, like the Zulus, they use it
+for snuff only, and quite failed to identify it in its new form.
+
+Presently I asked Infadoos when we were to proceed on our journey, and
+was delighted to learn that preparations had been made for us to leave
+on the following morning, messengers having already departed to inform
+Twala the king of our coming.
+
+It appeared that Twala was at his principal place, known as Loo, making
+ready for the great annual feast which was to be held in the first week
+of June. At this gathering all the regiments, with the exception of
+certain detachments left behind for garrison purposes, are brought up
+and paraded before the king; and the great annual witch-hunt, of which
+more by-and-by, is held.
+
+We were to start at dawn; and Infadoos, who was to accompany us,
+expected that we should reach Loo on the night of the second day,
+unless we were detained by accident or by swollen rivers.
+
+When they had given us this information our visitors bade us
+good-night; and, having arranged to watch turn and turn about, three of
+us flung ourselves down and slept the sweet sleep of the weary, whilst
+the fourth sat up on the look-out for possible treachery.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+TWALA THE KING
+
+It will not be necessary for me to detail at length the incidents of
+our journey to Loo. It took two full days' travelling along Solomon's
+Great Road, which pursued its even course right into the heart of
+Kukuanaland. Suffice it to say that as we went the country seemed to
+grow richer and richer, and the kraals, with their wide surrounding
+belts of cultivation, more and more numerous. They were all built upon
+the same principles as the first camp which we had reached, and were
+guarded by ample garrisons of troops. Indeed, in Kukuanaland, as among
+the Germans, the Zulus, and the Masai, every able-bodied man is a
+soldier, so that the whole force of the nation is available for its
+wars, offensive or defensive. As we travelled we were overtaken by
+thousands of warriors hurrying up to Loo to be present at the great
+annual review and festival, and more splendid troops I never saw.
+
+At sunset on the second day, we stopped to rest awhile upon the summit
+of some heights over which the road ran, and there on a beautiful and
+fertile plain before us lay Loo itself. For a native town it is an
+enormous place, quite five miles round, I should say, with outlying
+kraals projecting from it, that serve on grand occasions as cantonments
+for the regiments, and a curious horseshoe-shaped hill, with which we
+were destined to become better acquainted, about two miles to the
+north. It is beautifully situated, and through the centre of the kraal,
+dividing it into two portions, runs a river, which appeared to be
+bridged in several places, the same indeed that we had seen from the
+slopes of Sheba's Breasts. Sixty or seventy miles away three great
+snow-capped mountains, placed at the points of a triangle, started out
+of the level plain. The conformation of these mountains is unlike that
+of Sheba's Breasts, being sheer and precipitous, instead of smooth and
+rounded.
+
+Infadoos saw us looking at them, and volunteered a remark.
+
+"The road ends there," he said, pointing to the mountains known among
+the Kukuanas as the "Three Witches."
+
+"Why does it end?" I asked.
+
+"Who knows?" he answered with a shrug; "the mountains are full of
+caves, and there is a great pit between them. It is there that the wise
+men of old time used to go to get whatever it was they came for to this
+country, and it is there now that our kings are buried in the Place of
+Death."
+
+"What was it they came for?" I asked eagerly.
+
+"Nay, I know not. My lords who have dropped from the Stars should
+know," he answered with a quick look. Evidently he knew more than he
+chose to say.
+
+"Yes," I went on, "you are right, in the Stars we learn many things. I
+have heard, for instance, that the wise men of old came to these
+mountains to find bright stones, pretty playthings, and yellow iron."
+
+"My lord is wise," he answered coldly; "I am but a child and cannot
+talk with my lord on such matters. My lord must speak with Gagool the
+old, at the king's place, who is wise even as my lord," and he went
+away.
+
+So soon as he was gone I turned to the others, and pointed out the
+mountains. "There are Solomon's diamond mines," I said.
+
+Umbopa was standing with them, apparently plunged in one of the fits of
+abstraction which were common to him, and caught my words.
+
+"Yes, Macumazahn," he put in, in Zulu, "the diamonds are surely there,
+and you shall have them, since you white men are so fond of toys and
+money."
+
+"How dost thou know that, Umbopa?" I asked sharply, for I did not like
+his mysterious ways.
+
+He laughed. "I dreamed it in the night, white men;" then he too turned
+on his heel and went.
+
+"Now what," said Sir Henry, "is our black friend driving at? He knows
+more than he chooses to say, that is clear. By the way, Quatermain, has
+he heard anything of--of my brother?"
+
+"Nothing; he has asked everyone he has become friendly with, but they
+all declare that no white man has ever been seen in the country before."
+
+"Do you suppose that he got here at all?" suggested Good; "we have only
+reached the place by a miracle; is it likely he could have reached it
+without the map?"
+
+"I don't know," said Sir Henry gloomily, "but somehow I think that I
+shall find him."
+
+Slowly the sun sank, then suddenly darkness rushed down on the land
+like a tangible thing. There was no breathing-space between the day and
+night, no soft transformation scene, for in these latitudes twilight
+does not exist. The change from day to night is as quick and as
+absolute as the change from life to death. The sun sank and the world
+was wreathed in shadows. But not for long, for see in the west there is
+a glow, then come rays of silver light, and at last the full and
+glorious moon lights up the plain and shoots its gleaming arrows far
+and wide, filling the earth with a faint refulgence.
+
+We stood and watched the lovely sight, whilst the stars grew pale
+before this chastened majesty, and felt our hearts lifted up in the
+presence of a beauty that I cannot describe. Mine has been a rough
+life, but there are a few things I am thankful to have lived for, and
+one of them is to have seen that moon shine over Kukuanaland.
+
+Presently our meditations were broken in upon by our polite friend
+Infadoos.
+
+"If my lords are rested we will journey on to Loo, where a hut is made
+ready for my lords to-night. The moon is now bright, so that we shall
+not fall by the way."
+
+We assented, and in an hour's time were at the outskirts of the town,
+of which the extent, mapped out as it was by thousands of camp fires,
+appeared absolutely endless. Indeed, Good, who is always fond of a bad
+joke, christened it "Unlimited Loo." Soon we came to a moat with a
+drawbridge, where we were met by the rattling of arms and the hoarse
+challenge of a sentry. Infadoos gave some password that I could not
+catch, which was met with a salute, and we passed on through the
+central street of the great grass city. After nearly half an hour's
+tramp, past endless lines of huts, Infadoos halted at last by the gate
+of a little group of huts which surrounded a small courtyard of
+powdered limestone, and informed us that these were to be our "poor"
+quarters.
+
+We entered, and found that a hut had been assigned to each of us. These
+huts were superior to any that we had yet seen, and in each was a most
+comfortable bed made of tanned skins, spread upon mattresses of
+aromatic grass. Food too was ready for us, and so soon as we had washed
+ourselves with water, which stood ready in earthenware jars, some young
+women of handsome appearance brought us roasted meats, and mealie cobs
+daintily served on wooden platters, and presented them to us with deep
+obeisances.
+
+We ate and drank, and then, the beds having been all moved into one hut
+by our request, a precaution at which the amiable young ladies smiled,
+we flung ourselves down to sleep, thoroughly wearied with our long
+journey.
+
+When we woke it was to find the sun high in the heavens, and the female
+attendants, who did not seem to be troubled by any false shame, already
+standing inside the hut, having been ordered to attend and help us to
+"make ready."
+
+"Make ready, indeed," growled Good; "when one has only a flannel shirt
+and a pair of boots, that does not take long. I wish you would ask them
+for my trousers, Quatermain."
+
+I asked accordingly, but was informed that these sacred relics had
+already been taken to the king, who would see us in the forenoon.
+
+Somewhat to their astonishment and disappointment, having requested the
+young ladies to step outside, we proceeded to make the best toilet of
+which the circumstances admitted. Good even went the length of again
+shaving the right side of his face; the left, on which now appeared a
+very fair crop of whiskers, we impressed upon him he must on no account
+touch. As for ourselves, we were contented with a good wash and combing
+our hair. Sir Henry's yellow locks were now almost upon his shoulders,
+and he looked more like an ancient Dane than ever, while my grizzled
+scrub was fully an inch long, instead of half an inch, which in a
+general way I considered my maximum length.
+
+By the time that we had eaten our breakfast, and smoked a pipe, a
+message was brought to us by no less a personage than Infadoos himself
+that Twala the king was ready to see us, if we would be pleased to come.
+
+We remarked in reply that we should prefer to wait till the sun was a
+little higher, we were yet weary with our journey, &c., &c. It is
+always well, when dealing with uncivilised people, not to be in too
+great a hurry. They are apt to mistake politeness for awe or servility.
+So, although we were quite as anxious to see Twala as Twala could be to
+see us, we sat down and waited for an hour, employing the interval in
+preparing such presents as our slender stock of goods
+permitted--namely, the Winchester rifle which had been used by poor
+Ventv�gel, and some beads. The rifle and ammunition we determined to
+present to his royal highness, and the beads were for his wives and
+courtiers. We had already given a few to Infadoos and Scragga, and
+found that they were delighted with them, never having seen such things
+before. At length we declared that we were ready, and guided by
+Infadoos, started off to the audience, Umbopa carrying the rifle and
+beads.
+
+After walking a few hundred yards we came to an enclosure, something
+like that surrounding the huts which had been allotted to us, only
+fifty times as big, for it could not have covered less than six or
+seven acres of ground. All round the outside fence stood a row of huts,
+which were the habitations of the king's wives. Exactly opposite the
+gateway, on the further side of the open space, was a very large hut,
+built by itself, in which his majesty resided. All the rest was open
+ground; that is to say, it would have been open had it not been filled
+by company after company of warriors, who were mustered there to the
+number of seven or eight thousand. These men stood still as statues as
+we advanced through them, and it would be impossible to give an
+adequate idea of the grandeur of the spectacle which they presented,
+with their waving plumes, their glancing spears, and iron-backed
+ox-hide shields.
+
+The space in front of the large hut was empty, but before it were
+placed several stools. On three of these, at a sign from Infadoos, we
+seated ourselves, Umbopa standing behind us. As for Infadoos, he took
+up a position by the door of the hut. So we waited for ten minutes or
+more in the midst of a dead silence, but conscious that we were the
+object of the concentrated gaze of some eight thousand pairs of eyes.
+It was a somewhat trying ordeal, but we carried it off as best we
+could. At length the door of the hut opened, and a gigantic figure,
+with a splendid tiger-skin karross flung over its shoulders, stepped
+out, followed by the boy Scragga, and what appeared to us to be a
+withered-up monkey, wrapped in a fur cloak. The figure seated itself
+upon a stool, Scragga took his stand behind it, and the withered-up
+monkey crept on all fours into the shade of the hut and squatted down.
+
+Still there was silence.
+
+Then the gigantic figure slipped off the karross and stood up before
+us, a truly alarming spectacle. It was that of an enormous man with the
+most entirely repulsive countenance we had ever beheld. This man's lips
+were as thick as a Negro's, the nose was flat, he had but one gleaming
+black eye, for the other was represented by a hollow in the face, and
+his whole expression was cruel and sensual to a degree. From the large
+head rose a magnificent plume of white ostrich feathers, his body was
+clad in a shirt of shining chain armour, whilst round the waist and
+right knee were the usual garnishes of white ox-tail. In his right hand
+was a huge spear, about the neck a thick torque of gold, and bound on
+the forehead shone dully a single and enormous uncut diamond.
+
+Still there was silence; but not for long. Presently the man, whom we
+rightly guessed to be the king, raised the great javelin in his hand.
+Instantly eight thousand spears were lifted in answer, and from eight
+thousand throats rang out the royal salute of "_Koom_." Three times
+this was repeated, and each time the earth shook with the noise, that
+can only be compared to the deepest notes of thunder.
+
+"Be humble, O people," piped out a thin voice which seemed to come from
+the monkey in the shade, "it is the king."
+
+"_It is the king_," boomed out the eight thousand throats in answer.
+"_Be humble, O people, it is the king._"
+
+Then there was silence again--dead silence. Presently, however, it was
+broken. A soldier on our left dropped his shield, which fell with a
+clatter on to the limestone flooring.
+
+Twala turned his one cold eye in the direction of the noise.
+
+"Come hither, thou," he said, in a cold voice.
+
+A fine young man stepped out of the ranks, and stood before him.
+
+"It was thy shield that fell, thou awkward dog. Wilt thou make me a
+reproach in the eyes of these strangers from the Stars? What hast thou
+to say for thyself?"
+
+We saw the poor fellow turn pale under his dusky skin.
+
+"It was by chance, O Calf of the Black Cow," he murmured.
+
+"Then it is a chance for which thou must pay. Thou hast made me
+foolish; prepare for death."
+
+"I am the king's ox," was the low answer.
+
+"Scragga," roared the king, "let me see how thou canst use thy spear.
+Kill me this blundering fool."
+
+Scragga stepped forward with an ill-favoured grin, and lifted his
+spear. The poor victim covered his eyes with his hand and stood still.
+As for us, we were petrified with horror.
+
+"Once, twice," he waved the spear, and then struck, ah! right home--the
+spear stood out a foot behind the soldier's back. He flung up his hands
+and dropped dead. From the multitude about us rose something like a
+murmur, it rolled round and round, and died away. The tragedy was
+finished; there lay the corpse, and we had not yet realised that it had
+been enacted. Sir Henry sprang up and swore a great oath, then,
+overpowered by the sense of silence, sat down again.
+
+"The thrust was a good one," said the king; "take him away."
+
+Four men stepped out of the ranks, and lifting the body of the murdered
+man, carried it thence.
+
+"Cover up the blood-stains, cover them up," piped out the thin voice
+that proceeded from the monkey-like figure; "the king's word is spoken,
+the king's doom is done!"
+
+Thereupon a girl came forward from behind the hut, bearing a jar filled
+with powdered lime, which she scattered over the red mark, blotting it
+from sight.
+
+Sir Henry meanwhile was boiling with rage at what had happened; indeed,
+it was with difficulty that we could keep him still.
+
+"Sit down, for heaven's sake," I whispered; "our lives depend on it."
+
+He yielded and remained quiet.
+
+Twala sat silent until the traces of the tragedy had been removed, then
+he addressed us.
+
+"White people," he said, "who come hither, whence I know not, and why I
+know not, greeting."
+
+"Greeting, Twala, King of the Kukuanas," I answered.
+
+"White people, whence come ye, and what seek ye?"
+
+"We come from the Stars, ask us not how. We come to see this land."
+
+"Ye journey from far to see a little thing. And that man with you,"
+pointing to Umbopa, "does he also come from the Stars?"
+
+"Even so; there are people of thy colour in the heavens above; but ask
+not of matters too high for thee, Twala the king."
+
+"Ye speak with a loud voice, people of the Stars," Twala answered in a
+tone which I scarcely liked. "Remember that the Stars are far off, and
+ye are here. How if I make you as him whom they bore away?"
+
+I laughed out loud, though there was little laughter in my heart.
+
+"O king," I said, "be careful, walk warily over hot stones, lest thou
+shouldst burn thy feet; hold the spear by the handle, lest thou should
+cut thy hands. Touch but one hair of our heads, and destruction shall
+come upon thee. What, have not these"--pointing to Infadoos and
+Scragga, who, young villain that he was, was employed in cleaning the
+blood of the soldier off his spear--"told thee what manner of men we
+are? Hast thou seen the like of us?" and I pointed to Good, feeling
+quite sure that he had never seen anybody before who looked in the
+least like _him_ as he then appeared.
+
+"It is true, I have not," said the king, surveying Good with interest.
+
+"Have they not told thee how we strike with death from afar?" I went on.
+
+"They have told me, but I believe them not. Let me see you kill. Kill
+me a man among those who stand yonder"--and he pointed to the opposite
+side of the kraal--"and I will believe."
+
+"Nay," I answered; "we shed no blood of men except in just punishment;
+but if thou wilt see, bid thy servants drive in an ox through the kraal
+gates, and before he has run twenty paces I will strike him dead."
+
+"Nay," laughed the king, "kill me a man and I will believe."
+
+"Good, O king, so be it," I answered coolly; "do thou walk across the
+open space, and before thy feet reach the gate thou shalt be dead; or
+if thou wilt not, send thy son Scragga" (whom at that moment it would
+have given me much pleasure to shoot).
+
+On hearing this suggestion Scragga uttered a sort of howl, and bolted
+into the hut.
+
+Twala frowned majestically; the suggestion did not please him.
+
+"Let a young ox be driven in," he said.
+
+Two men at once departed, running swiftly.
+
+"Now, Sir Henry," said I, "do you shoot. I want to show this ruffian
+that I am not the only magician of the party."
+
+Sir Henry accordingly took his "express," and made ready.
+
+"I hope I shall make a good shot," he groaned.
+
+"You must," I answered. "If you miss with the first barrel, let him
+have the second. Sight for 150 yards, and wait till the beast turns
+broadside on."
+
+Then came a pause, until presently we caught sight of an ox running
+straight for the kraal gate. It came on through the gate, then,
+catching sight of the vast concourse of people, stopped stupidly,
+turned round, and bellowed.
+
+"Now's your time," I whispered.
+
+Up went the rifle.
+
+Bang! _thud_! and the ox was kicking on his back, shot in the ribs. The
+semi-hollow bullet had done its work well, and a sigh of astonishment
+went up from the assembled thousands.
+
+I turned round coolly--
+
+"Have I lied, O king?"
+
+"Nay, white man, it is the truth," was the somewhat awed answer.
+
+"Listen, Twala," I went on. "Thou hast seen. Now know we come in peace,
+not in war. See," and I held up the Winchester repeater; "here is a
+hollow staff that shall enable thee to kill even as we kill, only I lay
+this charm upon it, thou shalt kill no man with it. If thou liftest it
+against a man, it shall kill thee. Stay, I will show thee. Bid a
+soldier step forty paces and place the shaft of a spear in the ground
+so that the flat blade looks towards us."
+
+In a few seconds it was done.
+
+"Now, see, I will break yonder spear."
+
+Taking a careful sight I fired. The bullet struck the flat of the
+spear, and shattered the blade into fragments.
+
+Again the sigh of astonishment went up.
+
+"Now, Twala, we give this magic tube to thee, and by-and-by I will show
+thee how to use it; but beware how thou turnest the magic of the Stars
+against a man of earth," and I handed him the rifle.
+
+The king took it very gingerly, and laid it down at his feet. As he did
+so I observed the wizened monkey-like figure creeping from the shadow
+of the hut. It crept on all fours, but when it reached the place where
+the king sat it rose upon its feet, and throwing the furry covering
+from its face, revealed a most extraordinary and weird countenance.
+Apparently it was that of a woman of great age so shrunken that in size
+it seemed no larger than the face of a year-old child, although made up
+of a number of deep and yellow wrinkles. Set in these wrinkles was a
+sunken slit, that represented the mouth, beneath which the chin curved
+outwards to a point. There was no nose to speak of; indeed, the visage
+might have been taken for that of a sun-dried corpse had it not been
+for a pair of large black eyes, still full of fire and intelligence,
+which gleamed and played under the snow-white eyebrows, and the
+projecting parchment-coloured skull, like jewels in a charnel-house. As
+for the head itself, it was perfectly bare, and yellow in hue, while
+its wrinkled scalp moved and contracted like the hood of a cobra.
+
+The figure to which this fearful countenance belonged, a countenance so
+fearful indeed that it caused a shiver of fear to pass through us as we
+gazed on it, stood still for a moment. Then suddenly it projected a
+skinny claw armed with nails nearly an inch long, and laying it on the
+shoulder of Twala the king, began to speak in a thin and piercing
+voice--
+
+"Listen, O king! Listen, O warriors! Listen, O mountains and plains and
+rivers, home of the Kukuana race! Listen, O skies and sun, O rain and
+storm and mist! Listen, O men and women, O youths and maidens, and O ye
+babes unborn! Listen, all things that live and must die! Listen, all
+dead things that shall live again--again to die! Listen, the spirit of
+life is in me and I prophesy. I prophesy! I prophesy!"
+
+The words died away in a faint wail, and dread seemed to seize upon the
+hearts of all who heard them, including our own. This old woman was
+very terrible.
+
+"_Blood! blood! blood!_ rivers of blood; blood everywhere. I see it, I
+smell it, I taste it--it is salt! it runs red upon the ground, it rains
+down from the skies.
+
+"_Footsteps! footsteps! footsteps!_ the tread of the white man coming
+from afar. It shakes the earth; the earth trembles before her master.
+
+"Blood is good, the red blood is bright; there is no smell like the
+smell of new-shed blood. The lions shall lap it and roar, the vultures
+shall wash their wings in it and shriek with joy.
+
+"I am old! I am old! I have seen much blood; _ha, ha!_ but I shall see
+more ere I die, and be merry. How old am I, think ye? Your fathers knew
+me, and _their_ fathers knew me, and _their_ fathers' fathers' fathers.
+I have seen the white man and know his desires. I am old, but the
+mountains are older than I. Who made the great road, tell me? Who wrote
+the pictures on the rocks, tell me? Who reared up the three Silent Ones
+yonder, that gaze across the pit, tell me?" and she pointed towards the
+three precipitous mountains which we had noticed on the previous night.
+
+"Ye know not, but I know. It was a white people who were before ye are,
+who shall be when ye are not, who shall eat you up and destroy you.
+_Yea! yea! yea!_
+
+"And what came they for, the White Ones, the Terrible Ones, the skilled
+in magic and all learning, the strong, the unswerving? What is that
+bright stone upon thy forehead, O king? Whose hands made the iron
+garments upon thy breast, O king? Ye know not, but I know. I the Old
+One, I the Wise One, I the _Isanusi_, the witch doctress!"
+
+Then she turned her bald vulture-head towards us.
+
+"What seek ye, white men of the Stars--ah, yes, of the Stars? Do ye
+seek a lost one? Ye shall not find him here. He is not here. Never for
+ages upon ages has a white foot pressed this land; never except once,
+and I remember that he left it but to die. Ye come for bright stones; I
+know it--I know it; ye shall find them when the blood is dry; but shall
+ye return whence ye came, or shall ye stop with me? _Ha! ha! ha!_
+
+"And thou, thou with the dark skin and the proud bearing," and she
+pointed her skinny finger at Umbopa, "who art _thou_, and what seekest
+_thou_? Not stones that shine, not yellow metal that gleams, these thou
+leavest to 'white men from the Stars.' Methinks I know thee; methinks I
+can smell the smell of the blood in thy heart. Strip off the girdle--"
+
+Here the features of this extraordinary creature became convulsed, and
+she fell to the ground foaming in an epileptic fit, and was carried
+into the hut.
+
+The king rose up trembling, and waved his hand. Instantly the regiments
+began to file off, and in ten minutes, save for ourselves, the king,
+and a few attendants, the great space was left empty.
+
+"White people," he said, "it passes in my mind to kill you. Gagool has
+spoken strange words. What say ye?"
+
+I laughed. "Be careful, O king, we are not easy to slay. Thou hast seen
+the fate of the ox; wouldst thou be as the ox is?"
+
+The king frowned. "It is not well to threaten a king."
+
+"We threaten not, we speak what is true. Try to kill us, O king, and
+learn."
+
+The great savage put his hand to his forehead and thought.
+
+"Go in peace," he said at length. "To-night is the great dance. Ye
+shall see it. Fear not that I shall set a snare for you. To-morrow I
+will think."
+
+"It is well, O king," I answered unconcernedly, and then, accompanied
+by Infadoos, we rose and went back to our kraal.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE WITCH-HUNT
+
+On reaching our hut I motioned to Infadoos to enter with us.
+
+"Now, Infadoos," I said, "we would speak with thee."
+
+"Let my lords say on."
+
+"It seems to us, Infadoos, that Twala the king is a cruel man."
+
+"It is so, my lords. Alas! the land cries out because of his cruelties.
+To-night ye shall see. It is the great witch-hunt, and many will be
+smelt out as wizards and slain. No man's life is safe. If the king
+covets a man's cattle, or a man's wife, or if he fears a man that he
+should excite a rebellion against him, then Gagool, whom ye saw, or
+some of the witch-finding women whom she has taught, will smell that
+man out as a wizard, and he will be killed. Many must die before the
+moon grows pale to-night. It is ever so. Perhaps I too shall be killed.
+As yet I have been spared because I am skilled in war, and am beloved
+by the soldiers; but I know not how long I have to live. The land
+groans at the cruelties of Twala the king; it is wearied of him and his
+red ways."
+
+"Then why is it, Infadoos, that the people do not cast him down?"
+
+"Nay, my lords, he is the king, and if he were killed Scragga would
+reign in his place, and the heart of Scragga is blacker than the heart
+of Twala his father. If Scragga were king his yoke upon our neck would
+be heavier than the yoke of Twala. If Imotu had never been slain, or if
+Ignosi his son had lived, it might have been otherwise; but they are
+both dead."
+
+"How knowest thou that Ignosi is dead?" said a voice behind us. We
+looked round astonished to see who spoke. It was Umbopa.
+
+"What meanest thou, boy?" asked Infadoos; "who told thee to speak?"
+
+"Listen, Infadoos," was the answer, "and I will tell thee a story.
+Years ago the king Imotu was killed in this country and his wife fled
+with the boy Ignosi. Is it not so?"
+
+"It is so."
+
+"It was said that the woman and her son died upon the mountains. Is it
+not so?"
+
+"It is even so."
+
+"Well, it came to pass that the mother and the boy Ignosi did not die.
+They crossed the mountains and were led by a tribe of wandering desert
+men across the sands beyond, till at last they came to water and grass
+and trees again."
+
+"How knowest thou this?"
+
+"Listen. They travelled on and on, many months' journey, till they
+reached a land where a people called the Amazulu, who also are of the
+Kukuana stock, live by war, and with them they tarried many years, till
+at length the mother died. Then the son Ignosi became a wanderer again,
+and journeyed into a land of wonders, where white people live, and for
+many more years he learned the wisdom of the white people."
+
+"It is a pretty story," said Infadoos incredulously.
+
+"For years he lived there working as a servant and a soldier, but
+holding in his heart all that his mother had told him of his own place,
+and casting about in his mind to find how he might journey thither to
+see his people and his father's house before he died. For long years he
+lived and waited, and at last the time came, as it ever comes to him
+who can wait for it, and he met some white men who would seek this
+unknown land, and joined himself to them. The white men started and
+travelled on and on, seeking for one who is lost. They crossed the
+burning desert, they crossed the snow-clad mountains, and at last
+reached the land of the Kukuanas, and there they found _thee_, O
+Infadoos."
+
+"Surely thou art mad to talk thus," said the astonished old soldier.
+
+"Thou thinkest so; see, I will show thee, O my uncle.
+
+"_I am Ignosi, rightful king of the Kukuanas!_"
+
+Then with a single movement Umbopa slipped off his "moocha" or girdle,
+and stood naked before us.
+
+"Look," he said; "what is this?" and he pointed to the picture of a
+great snake tattooed in blue round his middle, its tail disappearing
+into its open mouth just above where the thighs are set into the body.
+
+Infadoos looked, his eyes starting nearly out of his head. Then he fell
+upon his knees.
+
+"_Koom! Koom!_" he ejaculated; "it is my brother's son; it is the king."
+
+"Did I not tell thee so, my uncle? Rise; I am not yet the king, but
+with thy help, and with the help of these brave white men, who are my
+friends, I shall be. Yet the old witch Gagool was right, the land shall
+run with blood first, and hers shall run with it, if she has any and
+can die, for she killed my father with her words, and drove my mother
+forth. And now, Infadoos, choose thou. Wilt thou put thy hands between
+my hands and be my man? Wilt thou share the dangers that lie before me,
+and help me to overthrow this tyrant and murderer, or wilt thou not?
+Choose thou."
+
+The old man put his hand to his head and thought. Then he rose, and
+advancing to where Umbopa, or rather Ignosi, stood, he knelt before
+him, and took his hand.
+
+"Ignosi, rightful king of the Kukuanas, I put my hand between thy
+hands, and am thy man till death. When thou wast a babe I dandled thee
+upon my knees, now shall my old arm strike for thee and freedom."
+
+"It is well, Infadoos; if I conquer, thou shalt be the greatest man in
+the kingdom after its king. If I fail, thou canst only die, and death
+is not far off from thee. Rise, my uncle."
+
+"And ye, white men, will ye help me? What have I to offer you! The
+white stones! If I conquer and can find them, ye shall have as many as
+ye can carry hence. Will that suffice you?"
+
+I translated this remark.
+
+"Tell him," answered Sir Henry, "that he mistakes an Englishman. Wealth
+is good, and if it comes in our way we will take it; but a gentleman
+does not sell himself for wealth. Still, speaking for myself, I say
+this. I have always liked Umbopa, and so far as lies in me I will stand
+by him in this business. It will be very pleasant to me to try to
+square matters with that cruel devil Twala. What do you say, Good, and
+you, Quatermain?"
+
+"Well," said Good, "to adopt the language of hyperbole, in which all
+these people seem to indulge, you can tell him that a row is surely
+good, and warms the cockles of the heart, and that so far as I am
+concerned I'm his boy. My only stipulation is that he allows me to wear
+trousers."
+
+I translated the substance of these answers.
+
+"It is well, my friends," said Ignosi, late Umbopa; "and what sayest
+thou, Macumazahn, art thou also with me, old hunter, cleverer than a
+wounded buffalo?"
+
+I thought awhile and scratched my head.
+
+"Umbopa, or Ignosi," I said, "I don't like revolutions. I am a man of
+peace and a bit of a coward"--here Umbopa smiled--"but, on the other
+hand, I stick up for my friends, Ignosi. You have stuck to us and
+played the part of a man, and I will stick by you. But mind you, I am a
+trader, and have to make my living, so I accept your offer about those
+diamonds in case we should ever be in a position to avail ourselves of
+it. Another thing: we came, as you know, to look for Incubu's (Sir
+Henry's) lost brother. You must help us to find him."
+
+"That I will do," answered Ignosi. "Stay, Infadoos, by the sign of the
+snake about my middle, tell me the truth. Has any white man to thy
+knowledge set his foot within the land?"
+
+"None, O Ignosi."
+
+"If any white man had been seen or heard of, wouldst thou have known?"
+
+"I should certainly have known."
+
+"Thou hearest, Incubu," said Ignosi to Sir Henry; "he has not been
+here."
+
+"Well, well," said Sir Henry, with a sigh; "there it is; I suppose that
+he never got so far. Poor fellow, poor fellow! So it has all been for
+nothing. God's will be done."
+
+"Now for business," I put in, anxious to escape from a painful subject.
+"It is very well to be a king by right divine, Ignosi, but how dost
+thou propose to become a king indeed?"
+
+"Nay, I know not. Infadoos, hast thou a plan?"
+
+"Ignosi, Son of the Lightning," answered his uncle, "to-night is the
+great dance and witch-hunt. Many shall be smelt out and perish, and in
+the hearts of many others there will be grief and anguish and fury
+against the king Twala. When the dance is over, then I will speak to
+some of the great chiefs, who in turn, if I can win them over, will
+speak to their regiments. I shall speak to the chiefs softly at first,
+and bring them to see that thou art indeed the king, and I think that
+by to-morrow's light thou shalt have twenty thousand spears at thy
+command. And now I must go and think, and hear, and make ready. After
+the dance is done, if I am yet alive, and we are all alive, I will meet
+thee here, and we can talk. At the best there must be war."
+
+At this moment our conference was interrupted by the cry that
+messengers had come from the king. Advancing to the door of the hut we
+ordered that they should be admitted, and presently three men entered,
+each bearing a shining shirt of chain armour, and a magnificent
+battle-axe.
+
+"The gifts of my lord the king to the white men from the Stars!" said a
+herald who came with them.
+
+"We thank the king," I answered; "withdraw."
+
+The men went, and we examined the armour with great interest. It was
+the most wonderful chain work that either of us had ever seen. A whole
+coat fell together so closely that it formed a mass of links scarcely
+too big to be covered with both hands.
+
+"Do you make these things in this country, Infadoos?" I asked; "they
+are very beautiful."
+
+"Nay, my lord, they came down to us from our forefathers. We know not
+who made them, and there are but few left.[1] None but those of royal
+blood may be clad in them. They are magic coats through which no spear
+can pass, and those who wear them are well-nigh safe in the battle. The
+king is well pleased or much afraid, or he would not have sent these
+garments of steel. Clothe yourselves in them to-night, my lords."
+
+The remainder of that day we spent quietly, resting and talking over
+the situation, which was sufficiently exciting. At last the sun went
+down, the thousand watch fires glowed out, and through the darkness we
+heard the tramp of many feet and the clashing of hundreds of spears, as
+the regiments passed to their appointed places to be ready for the
+great dance. Then the full moon shone out in splendour, and as we stood
+watching her rays, Infadoos arrived, clad in his war dress, and
+accompanied by a guard of twenty men to escort us to the dance. As he
+recommended, we had already donned the shirts of chain armour which the
+king had sent us, putting them on under our ordinary clothing, and
+finding to our surprise that they were neither very heavy nor
+uncomfortable. These steel shirts, which evidently had been made for
+men of a very large stature, hung somewhat loosely upon Good and
+myself, but Sir Henry's fitted his magnificent frame like a glove. Then
+strapping our revolvers round our waists, and taking in our hands the
+battle-axes which the king had sent with the armour, we started.
+
+On arriving at the great kraal, where we had that morning been received
+by the king, we found that it was closely packed with some twenty
+thousand men arranged round it in regiments. These regiments were in
+turn divided into companies, and between each company ran a little path
+to allow space for the witch-finders to pass up and down. Anything more
+imposing than the sight that was presented by this vast and orderly
+concourse of armed men it is impossible to conceive. There they stood
+perfectly silent, and the moon poured her light upon the forest of
+their raised spears, upon their majestic forms, waving plumes, and the
+harmonious shading of their various-coloured shields. Wherever we
+looked were line upon line of dim faces surmounted by range upon range
+of shimmering spears.
+
+"Surely," I said to Infadoos, "the whole army is here?"
+
+"Nay, Macumazahn," he answered, "but a third of it. One third is
+present at this dance each year, another third is mustered outside in
+case there should be trouble when the killing begins, ten thousand more
+garrison the outposts round Loo, and the rest watch at the kraals in
+the country. Thou seest it is a great people."
+
+"They are very silent," said Good; and indeed the intense stillness
+among such a vast concourse of living men was almost overpowering.
+
+"What says Bougwan?" asked Infadoos.
+
+I translated.
+
+"Those over whom the shadow of Death is hovering are silent," he
+answered grimly.
+
+"Will many be killed?"
+
+"Very many."
+
+"It seems," I said to the others, "that we are going to assist at a
+gladiatorial show arranged regardless of expense."
+
+Sir Henry shivered, and Good said he wished that we could get out of it.
+
+"Tell me," I asked Infadoos, "are we in danger?"
+
+"I know not, my lords, I trust not; but do not seem afraid. If ye live
+through the night all may go well with you. The soldiers murmur against
+the king."
+
+All this while we had been advancing steadily towards the centre of the
+open space, in the midst of which were placed some stools. As we
+proceeded we perceived another small party coming from the direction of
+the royal hut.
+
+"It is the king Twala, Scragga his son, and Gagool the old; and see,
+with them are those who slay," said Infadoos, pointing to a little
+group of about a dozen gigantic and savage-looking men, armed with
+spears in one hand and heavy kerries in the other.
+
+The king seated himself upon the centre stool, Gagool crouched at his
+feet, and the others stood behind him.
+
+"Greeting, white lords," Twala cried, as we came up; "be seated, waste
+not precious time--the night is all too short for the deeds that must
+be done. Ye come in a good hour, and shall see a glorious show. Look
+round, white lords; look round," and he rolled his one wicked eye from
+regiment to regiment. "Can the Stars show you such a sight as this? See
+how they shake in their wickedness, all those who have evil in their
+hearts and fear the judgment of 'Heaven above.'"
+
+"_Begin! begin!_" piped Gagool, in her thin piercing voice; "the hy�nas
+are hungry, they howl for food. _Begin! begin!_"
+
+Then for a moment there was intense stillness, made horrible by a
+presage of what was to come.
+
+The king lifted his spear, and suddenly twenty thousand feet were
+raised, as though they belonged to one man, and brought down with a
+stamp upon the earth. This was repeated three times, causing the solid
+ground to shake and tremble. Then from a far point of the circle a
+solitary voice began a wailing song, of which the refrain ran something
+as follows:--
+
+"_What is the lot of man born of woman?_"
+
+Back came the answer rolling out from every throat in that vast
+company--
+
+"_Death!_"
+
+Gradually, however, the song was taken up by company after company,
+till the whole armed multitude were singing it, and I could no longer
+follow the words, except in so far as they appeared to represent
+various phases of human passions, fears, and joys. Now it seemed to be
+a love song, now a majestic swelling war chant, and last of all a death
+dirge ending suddenly in one heart-breaking wail that went echoing and
+rolling away in a volume of blood-curdling sound.
+
+Again silence fell upon the place, and again it was broken by the king
+lifting his hand. Instantly we heard a pattering of feet, and from out
+of the masses of warriors strange and awful figures appeared running
+towards us. As they drew near we saw that these were women, most of
+them aged, for their white hair, ornamented with small bladders taken
+from fish, streamed out behind them. Their faces were painted in
+stripes of white and yellow; down their backs hung snake-skins, and
+round their waists rattled circlets of human bones, while each held a
+small forked wand in her shrivelled hand. In all there were ten of
+them. When they arrived in front of us they halted, and one of them,
+pointing with her wand towards the crouching figure of Gagool, cried
+out--
+
+"Mother, old mother, we are here."
+
+"_Good! good! good!_" answered that aged Iniquity. "Are your eyes keen,
+_Isanusis_ [witch doctresses], ye seers in dark places?"
+
+"Mother, they are keen."
+
+"_Good! good! good!_ Are your ears open, _Isanusis_, ye who hear words
+that come not from the tongue?"
+
+"Mother, they are open."
+
+"_Good! good! good!_ Are your senses awake, _Isanusis_--can ye smell
+blood, can ye purge the land of the wicked ones who compass evil
+against the king and against their neighbours? Are ye ready to do the
+justice of 'Heaven above,' ye whom I have taught, who have eaten of the
+bread of my wisdom, and drunk of the water of my magic?"
+
+"Mother, we can."
+
+"Then go! Tarry not, ye vultures; see, the slayers"--pointing to the
+ominous group of executioners behind--"make sharp their spears; the
+white men from afar are hungry to see. _Go!_"
+
+With a wild yell Gagool's horrid ministers broke away in every
+direction, like fragments from a shell, the dry bones round their
+waists rattling as they ran, and headed for various points of the dense
+human circle. We could not watch them all, so we fixed our eyes upon
+the _Isanusi_ nearest to us. When she came to within a few paces of the
+warriors she halted and began to dance wildly, turning round and round
+with an almost incredible rapidity, and shrieking out sentences such as
+"I smell him, the evil-doer!" "He is near, he who poisoned his mother!"
+"I hear the thoughts of him who thought evil of the king!"
+
+Quicker and quicker she danced, till she lashed herself into such a
+frenzy of excitement that the foam flew in specks from her gnashing
+jaws, till her eyes seemed to start from her head, and her flesh to
+quiver visibly. Suddenly she stopped dead and stiffened all over, like
+a pointer dog when he scents game, and then with outstretched wand she
+began to creep stealthily towards the soldiers before her. It seemed to
+us that as she came their stoicism gave way, and that they shrank from
+her. As for ourselves, we followed her movements with a horrible
+fascination. Presently, still creeping and crouching like a dog, the
+_Isanusi_ was before them. Then she halted and pointed, and again crept
+on a pace or two.
+
+Suddenly the end came. With a shriek she sprang in and touched a tall
+warrior with her forked wand. Instantly two of his comrades, those
+standing immediately next to him, seized the doomed man, each by one
+arm, and advanced with him towards the king.
+
+He did not resist, but we saw that he dragged his limbs as though they
+were paralysed, and that his fingers, from which the spear had fallen,
+were limp like those of a man newly dead.
+
+As he came, two of the villainous executioners stepped forward to meet
+him. Presently they met, and the executioners turned round, looking
+towards the king as though for orders.
+
+"_Kill!_" said the king.
+
+"_Kill!_" squeaked Gagool.
+
+"_Kill!_" re-echoed Scragga, with a hollow chuckle.
+
+Almost before the words were uttered the horrible dead was done. One
+man had driven his spear into the victim's heart, and to make assurance
+double sure, the other had dashed out his brains with a great club.
+
+"_One_," counted Twala the king, just like a black Madame Defarge, as
+Good said, and the body was dragged a few paces away and stretched out.
+
+Hardly was the thing done before another poor wretch was brought up,
+like an ox to the slaughter. This time we could see, from the
+leopard-skin cloak which he wore, that the man was a person of rank.
+Again the awful syllables were spoken, and the victim fell dead.
+
+"_Two_," counted the king.
+
+And so the deadly game went on, till about a hundred bodies were
+stretched in rows behind us. I have heard of the gladiatorial shows of
+the C�sars, and of the Spanish bull-fights, but I take the liberty of
+doubting if either of them could be half so horrible as this Kukuana
+witch-hunt. Gladiatorial shows and Spanish bull-fights at any rate
+contributed to the public amusement, which certainly was not the case
+here. The most confirmed sensation-monger would fight shy of sensation
+if he knew that it was well on the cards that he would, in his own
+proper person, be the subject of the next "event."
+
+Once we rose and tried to remonstrate, but were sternly repressed by
+Twala.
+
+"Let the law take its course, white men. These dogs are magicians and
+evil-doers; it is well that they should die," was the only answer
+vouchsafed to us.
+
+About half-past ten there was a pause. The witch-finders gathered
+themselves together, apparently exhausted with their bloody work, and
+we thought that the performance was done with. But it was not so, for
+presently, to our surprise, the ancient woman, Gagool, rose from her
+crouching position, and supporting herself with a stick, staggered off
+into the open space. It was an extraordinary sight to see this
+frightful vulture-headed old creature, bent nearly double with extreme
+age, gather strength by degrees, until at last she rushed about almost
+as actively as her ill-omened pupils. To and fro she ran, chanting to
+herself, till suddenly she made a dash at a tall man standing in front
+of one of the regiments, and touched him. As she did this a sort of
+groan went up from the regiment which evidently he commanded. But two
+of its officers seized him all the same, and brought him up for
+execution. We learned afterwards that he was a man of great wealth and
+importance, being indeed a cousin of the king.
+
+He was slain, and Twala counted one hundred and three. Then Gagool
+again sprang to and fro, gradually drawing nearer and nearer to
+ourselves.
+
+"Hang me if I don't believe she is going to try her games on us,"
+ejaculated Good in horror.
+
+"Nonsense!" said Sir Henry.
+
+As for myself, when I saw that old fiend dancing nearer and nearer, my
+heart positively sank into my boots. I glanced behind us at the long
+rows of corpses, and shivered.
+
+Nearer and nearer waltzed Gagool, looking for all the world like an
+animated crooked stick or comma, her horrid eyes gleaming and glowing
+with a most unholy lustre.
+
+Nearer she came, and yet nearer, every creature in that vast assemblage
+watching her movements with intense anxiety. At last she stood still
+and pointed.
+
+"Which is it to be?" asked Sir Henry to himself.
+
+In a moment all doubts were at rest, for the old hag had rushed in and
+touched Umbopa, alias Ignosi, on the shoulder.
+
+"I smell him out," she shrieked. "Kill him, kill him, he is full of
+evil; kill him, the stranger, before blood flows from him. Slay him, O
+king."
+
+There was a pause, of which I instantly took advantage.
+
+"O king," I called out, rising from my seat, "this man is the servant
+of thy guests, he is their dog; whosoever sheds the blood of our dog
+sheds our blood. By the sacred law of hospitality I claim protection
+for him."
+
+"Gagool, mother of the witch-finders, has smelt him out; he must die,
+white men," was the sullen answer.
+
+"Nay, he shall not die," I replied; "he who tries to touch him shall
+die indeed."
+
+"Seize him!" roared Twala to the executioners; who stood round red to
+the eyes with the blood of their victims.
+
+They advanced towards us, and then hesitated. As for Ignosi, he
+clutched his spear, and raised it as though determined to sell his life
+dearly.
+
+"Stand back, ye dogs!" I shouted, "if ye would see to-morrow's light.
+Touch one hair of his head and your king dies," and I covered Twala
+with my revolver. Sir Henry and Good also drew their pistols, Sir Henry
+pointing his at the leading executioner, who was advancing to carry out
+the sentence, and Good taking a deliberate aim at Gagool.
+
+Twala winced perceptibly as my barrel came in a line with his broad
+chest.
+
+"Well," I said, "what is it to be, Twala?"
+
+Then he spoke.
+
+"Put away your magic tubes," he said; "ye have adjured me in the name
+of hospitality, and for that reason, but not from fear of what ye can
+do, I spare him. Go in peace."
+
+"It is well," I answered unconcernedly; "we are weary of slaughter, and
+would sleep. Is the dance ended?"
+
+"It is ended," Twala answered sulkily. "Let these dead dogs," pointing
+to the long rows of corpses, "be flung out to the hy�nas and the
+vultures," and he lifted his spear.
+
+Instantly the regiments began to defile through the kraal gateway in
+perfect silence, a fatigue party only remaining behind to drag away the
+corpses of those who had been sacrificed.
+
+Then we rose also, and making our salaam to his majesty, which he
+hardly deigned to acknowledge, we departed to our huts.
+
+"Well," said Sir Henry, as we sat down, having first lit a lamp of the
+sort used by the Kukuanas, of which the wick is made from the fibre of
+a species of palm leaf, and the oil from clarified hippopotamus fat,
+"well, I feel uncommonly inclined to be sick."
+
+"If I had any doubts about helping Umbopa to rebel against that
+infernal blackguard," put in Good, "they are gone now. It was as much
+as I could do to sit still while that slaughter was going on. I tried
+to keep my eyes shut, but they would open just at the wrong time. I
+wonder where Infadoos is. Umbopa, my friend, you ought to be grateful
+to us; your skin came near to having an air-hole made in it."
+
+"I am grateful, Bougwan," was Umbopa's answer, when I had translated,
+"and I shall not forget. As for Infadoos, he will be here by-and-by. We
+must wait."
+
+So we lit our pipes and waited.
+
+
+[1] In the Soudan swords and coats of mail are still worn by Arabs,
+whose ancestors must have stripped them from the bodies of
+Crusaders.--Editor.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+WE GIVE A SIGN
+
+For a long while--two hours, I should think--we sat there in silence,
+being too much overwhelmed by the recollection of the horrors we had
+seen to talk. At last, just as we were thinking of turning in--for the
+night drew nigh to dawn--we heard a sound of steps. Then came the
+challenge of a sentry posted at the kraal gate, which apparently was
+answered, though not in an audible tone, for the steps still advanced;
+and in another second Infadoos had entered the hut, followed by some
+half-dozen stately-looking chiefs.
+
+"My lords," he said, "I have come according to my word. My lords and
+Ignosi, rightful king of the Kukuanas, I have brought with me these
+men," pointing to the row of chiefs, "who are great men among us,
+having each one of them the command of three thousand soldiers, that
+live but to do their bidding, under the king's. I have told them of
+what I have seen, and what my ears have heard. Now let them also behold
+the sacred snake around thee, and hear thy story, Ignosi, that they may
+say whether or no they will make cause with thee against Twala the
+king."
+
+By way of answer Ignosi again stripped off his girdle, and exhibited
+the snake tattooed about him. Each chief in turn drew near and examined
+the sign by the dim light of the lamp, and without saying a word passed
+on to the other side.
+
+Then Ignosi resumed his moocha, and addressing them, repeated the
+history he had detailed in the morning.
+
+"Now ye have heard, chiefs," said Infadoos, when he had done, "what say
+ye: will ye stand by this man and help him to his father's throne, or
+will ye not? The land cries out against Twala, and the blood of the
+people flows like the waters in spring. Ye have seen to-night. Two
+other chiefs there were with whom I had it in my mind to speak, and
+where are they now? The hy�nas howl over their corpses. Soon shall ye
+be as they are if ye strike not. Choose then, my brothers."
+
+The eldest of the six men, a short, thick-set warrior, with white hair,
+stepped forward a pace and answered--
+
+"Thy words are true, Infadoos; the land cries out. My own brother is
+among those who died to-night; but this is a great matter, and the
+thing is hard to believe. How know we that if we lift our spears it may
+not be for a thief and a liar? It is a great matter, I say, of which
+none can see the end. For of this be sure, blood will flow in rivers
+before the deed is done; many will still cleave to the king, for men
+worship the sun that still shines bright in the heavens, rather than
+that which has not risen. These white men from the Stars, their magic
+is great, and Ignosi is under the cover of their wing. If he be indeed
+the rightful king, let them give us a sign, and let the people have a
+sign, that all may see. So shall men cleave to us, knowing of a truth
+that the white man's magic is with them."
+
+"Ye have the sign of the snake," I answered.
+
+"My lord, it is not enough. The snake may have been placed there since
+the man's childhood. Show us a sign, and it will suffice. But we will
+not move without a sign."
+
+The others gave a decided assent, and I turned in perplexity to Sir
+Henry and Good, and explained the situation.
+
+"I think that I have it," said Good exultingly; "ask them to give us a
+moment to think."
+
+I did so, and the chiefs withdrew. So soon as they had gone Good went
+to the little box where he kept his medicines, unlocked it, and took
+out a note-book, in the fly-leaves of which was an almanack. "Now look
+here, you fellows, isn't to-morrow the 4th of June?" he said.
+
+We had kept a careful note of the days, so were able to answer that it
+was.
+
+"Very good; then here we have it--'4 June, total eclipse of the moon
+commences at 8.15 Greenwich time, visible in Teneriffe--_South Africa_,
+&c.' There's a sign for you. Tell them we will darken the moon
+to-morrow night."
+
+The idea was a splendid one; indeed, the only weak spot about it was a
+fear lest Good's almanack might be incorrect. If we made a false
+prophecy on such a subject, our prestige would be gone for ever, and so
+would Ignosi's chance of the throne of the Kukuanas.
+
+"Suppose that the almanack is wrong," suggested Sir Henry to Good, who
+was busily employed in working out something on a blank page of the
+book.
+
+"I see no reason to suppose anything of the sort," was his answer.
+"Eclipses always come up to time; at least that is my experience of
+them, and it especially states that this one will be visible in South
+Africa. I have worked out the reckonings as well as I can, without
+knowing our exact position; and I make out that the eclipse should
+begin here about ten o'clock tomorrow night, and last till half-past
+twelve. For an hour and a half or so there should be almost total
+darkness."
+
+"Well," said Sir Henry, "I suppose we had better risk it."
+
+I acquiesced, though doubtfully, for eclipses are queer cattle to deal
+with--it might be a cloudy night, for instance, or our dates might be
+wrong--and sent Umbopa to summon the chiefs back. Presently they came,
+and I addressed them thus--
+
+"Great men of the Kukuanas, and thou, Infadoos, listen. We love not to
+show our powers, for to do so is to interfere with the course of
+nature, and to plunge the world into fear and confusion. But since this
+matter is a great one, and as we are angered against the king because
+of the slaughter we have seen, and because of the act of the _Isanusi_
+Gagool, who would have put our friend Ignosi to death, we have
+determined to break a rule, and to give such a sign as all men may see.
+Come hither"; and I led them to the door of the hut and pointed to the
+red ball of the moon. "What see ye there?"
+
+"We see the sinking moon," answered the spokesman of the party.
+
+"It is so. Now tell me, can any mortal man put out that moon before her
+hour of setting, and bring the curtain of black night down upon the
+land?"
+
+The chief laughed a little at the question. "No, my lord, that no man
+can do. The moon is stronger than man who looks on her, nor can she
+vary in her courses."
+
+"Ye say so. Yet I tell you that to-morrow night, about two hours before
+midnight, we will cause the moon to be eaten up for a space of an hour
+and half an hour. Yes, deep darkness shall cover the earth, and it
+shall be for a sign that Ignosi is indeed king of the Kukuanas. If we
+do this thing, will ye be satisfied?"
+
+"Yea, my lords," answered the old chief with a smile, which was
+reflected on the faces of his companions; "_if_ ye do this thing, we
+will be satisfied indeed."
+
+"It shall be done; we three, Incubu, Bougwan, and Macumazahn, have said
+it, and it shall be done. Dost thou hear, Infadoos?"
+
+"I hear, my lord, but it is a wonderful thing that ye promise, to put
+out the moon, the mother of the world, when she is at her full."
+
+"Yet shall we do it, Infadoos."
+
+"It is well, my lords. To-day, two hours after sunset, Twala will send
+for my lords to witness the girls dance, and one hour after the dance
+begins the girl whom Twala thinks the fairest shall be killed by
+Scragga, the king's son, as a sacrifice to the Silent Ones, who sit and
+keep watch by the mountains yonder," and he pointed towards the three
+strange-looking peaks where Solomon's road was supposed to end. "Then
+let my lords darken the moon, and save the maiden's life, and the
+people will believe indeed."
+
+"Ay," said the old chief, still smiling a little, "the people will
+believe indeed."
+
+"Two miles from Loo," went on Infadoos, "there is a hill curved like a
+new moon, a stronghold, where my regiment, and three other regiments
+which these chiefs command, are stationed. This morning we will make a
+plan whereby two or three other regiments may be moved there also.
+Then, if in truth my lords can darken the moon, in the darkness I will
+take my lords by the hand and lead them out of Loo to this place, where
+they shall be safe, and thence we can make war upon Twala the king."
+
+"It is good," said I. "Let leave us to sleep awhile and to make ready
+our magic."
+
+Infadoos rose, and, having saluted us, departed with the chiefs.
+
+"My friends," said Ignosi, so soon as they were gone, "can ye do this
+wonderful thing, or were ye speaking empty words to the captains?"
+
+"We believe that we can do it, Umbopa--Ignosi, I mean."
+
+"It is strange," he answered, "and had ye not been Englishmen I would
+not have believed it; but I have learned that English 'gentlemen' tell
+no lies. If we live through the matter, be sure that I will repay you."
+
+"Ignosi," said Sir Henry, "promise me one thing."
+
+"I will promise, Incubu, my friend, even before I hear it," answered
+the big man with a smile. "What is it?"
+
+"This: that if ever you come to be king of this people you will do away
+with the smelling out of wizards such as we saw last night; and that
+the killing of men without trial shall no longer take place in the
+land."
+
+Ignosi thought for a moment after I had translated this request, and
+then answered--
+
+"The ways of black people are not as the ways of white men, Incubu, nor
+do we value life so highly. Yet I will promise. If it be in my power to
+hold them back, the witch-finders shall hunt no more, nor shall any man
+die the death without trial or judgment."
+
+"That's a bargain, then," said Sir Henry; "and now let us get a little
+rest."
+
+Thoroughly wearied out, we were soon sound asleep, and slept till
+Ignosi woke us about eleven o'clock. Then we rose, washed, and ate a
+hearty breakfast. After that we went outside the hut and walked about,
+amusing ourselves with examining the structure of the Kukuana huts and
+observing the customs of the women.
+
+"I hope that eclipse will come off," said Sir Henry presently.
+
+"If it does not it will soon be all up with us," I answered mournfully;
+"for so sure as we are living men some of those chiefs will tell the
+whole story to the king, and then there will be another sort of
+eclipse, and one that we shall certainly not like."
+
+Returning to the hut we ate some dinner, and passed the rest of the day
+in receiving visits of ceremony and curiosity. At length the sun set,
+and we enjoyed a couple of hours of such quiet as our melancholy
+forebodings would allow to us. Finally, about half-past eight, a
+messenger came from Twala to bid us to the great annual "dance of
+girls" which was about to be celebrated.
+
+Hastily we put on the chain shirts that the king had sent us, and
+taking our rifles and ammunition with us, so as to have them handy in
+case we had to fly, as suggested by Infadoos, we started boldly enough,
+though with inward fear and trembling. The great space in front of the
+king's kraal bore a very different appearance from that which it had
+presented on the previous evening. In place of the grim ranks of
+serried warriors were company after company of Kukuana girls, not
+over-dressed, so far as clothing went, but each crowned with a wreath
+of flowers, and holding a palm leaf in one hand and a white arum lily
+in the other. In the centre of the open moonlit space sat Twala the
+king, with old Gagool at his feet, attended by Infadoos, the boy
+Scragga, and twelve guards. There were also present about a score of
+chiefs, amongst whom I recognised most of our friends of the night
+before.
+
+Twala greeted us with much apparent cordiality, though I saw him fix
+his one eye viciously on Umbopa.
+
+"Welcome, white men from the Stars," he said; "this is another sight
+from that which your eyes gazed on by the light of last night's moon,
+but it is not so good a sight. Girls are pleasant, and were it not for
+such as these," and he pointed round him, "we should none of us be here
+this day; but men are better. Kisses and the tender words of women are
+sweet, but the sound of the clashing of the spears of warriors, and the
+smell of men's blood, are sweeter far! Would ye have wives from among
+our people, white men? If so, choose the fairest here, and ye shall
+have them, as many as ye will," and he paused for an answer.
+
+As the prospect did not seem to be without attractions for Good, who,
+like most sailors, is of a susceptible nature,--being elderly and wise,
+foreseeing the endless complications that anything of the sort would
+involve, for women bring trouble so surely as the night follows the
+day, I put in a hasty answer--
+
+"Thanks to thee, O king, but we white men wed only with white women
+like ourselves. Your maidens are fair, but they are not for us!"
+
+The king laughed. "It is well. In our land there is a proverb which
+runs, 'Women's eyes are always bright, whatever the colour,' and
+another that says, 'Love her who is present, for be sure she who is
+absent is false to thee;' but perhaps these things are not so in the
+Stars. In a land where men are white all things are possible. So be it,
+white men; the girls will not go begging! Welcome again; and welcome,
+too, thou black one; if Gagool here had won her way, thou wouldst have
+been stiff and cold by now. It is lucky for thee that thou too camest
+from the Stars; ha! ha!"
+
+"I can kill thee before thou killest me, O king," was Ignosi's calm
+answer, "and thou shalt be stiff before my limbs cease to bend."
+
+Twala started. "Thou speakest boldly, boy," he replied angrily;
+"presume not too far."
+
+"He may well be bold in whose lips are truth. The truth is a sharp
+spear which flies home and misses not. It is a message from 'the
+Stars,' O king."
+
+Twala scowled, and his one eye gleamed fiercely, but he said nothing
+more.
+
+"Let the dance begin," he cried, and then the flower-crowned girls
+sprang forward in companies, singing a sweet song and waving the
+delicate palms and white lilies. On they danced, looking faint and
+spiritual in the soft, sad light of the risen moon; now whirling round
+and round, now meeting in mimic warfare, swaying, eddying here and
+there, coming forward, falling back in an ordered confusion delightful
+to witness. At last they paused, and a beautiful young woman sprang out
+of the ranks and began to pirouette in front of us with a grace and
+vigour which would have put most ballet girls to shame. At length she
+retired exhausted, and another took her place, then another and
+another, but none of them, either in grace, skill, or personal
+attractions, came up to the first.
+
+When the chosen girls had all danced, the king lifted his hand.
+
+"Which deem ye the fairest, white men?" he asked.
+
+"The first," said I unthinkingly. Next second I regretted it, for I
+remembered that Infadoos had told us that the fairest woman must be
+offered up as a sacrifice.
+
+"Then is my mind as your minds, and my eyes as your eyes. She is the
+fairest! and a sorry thing it is for her, for she must die!"
+
+"_Ay, must die!_" piped out Gagool, casting a glance of her quick eyes
+in the direction of the poor girl, who, as yet ignorant of the awful
+fate in store for her, was standing some ten yards off in front of a
+company of maidens, engaged in nervously picking a flower from her
+wreath to pieces, petal by petal.
+
+"Why, O king?" said I, restraining my indignation with difficulty; "the
+girl has danced well, and pleased us; she is fair too; it would be hard
+to reward her with death."
+
+Twala laughed as he answered--
+
+"It is our custom, and the figures who sit in stone yonder," and he
+pointed towards the three distant peaks, "must have their due. Did I
+fail to put the fairest girl to death to-day, misfortune would fall
+upon me and my house. Thus runs the prophecy of my people: 'If the king
+offer not a sacrifice of a fair girl, on the day of the dance of
+maidens, to the Old Ones who sit and watch on the mountains, then shall
+he fall, and his house.' Look ye, white men, my brother who reigned
+before me offered not the sacrifice, because of the tears of the woman,
+and he fell, and his house, and I reign in his stead. It is finished;
+she must die!" Then turning to the guards--"Bring her hither; Scragga,
+make sharp thy spear."
+
+Two of the men stepped forward, and as they advanced, the girl, for the
+first time realising her impending fate, screamed aloud and turned to
+fly. But the strong hands caught her fast, and brought her, struggling
+and weeping, before us.
+
+"What is thy name, girl?" piped Gagool. "What! wilt thou not answer?
+Shall the king's son do his work at once?"
+
+At this hint, Scragga, looking more evil than ever, advanced a step and
+lifted his great spear, and at that moment I saw Good's hand creep to
+his revolver. The poor girl caught the faint glint of steel through her
+tears, and it sobered her anguish. She ceased struggling, and clasping
+her hands convulsively, stood shuddering from head to foot.
+
+"See," cried Scragga in high glee, "she shrinks from the sight of my
+little plaything even before she has tasted it," and he tapped the
+broad blade of his spear.
+
+"If ever I get the chance you shall pay for that, you young hound!" I
+heard Good mutter beneath his breath.
+
+"Now that thou art quiet, give us thy name, my dear. Come, speak out,
+and fear not," said Gagool in mockery.
+
+"Oh, mother," answered the girl, in trembling accents, "my name is
+Foulata, of the house of Suko. Oh, mother, why must I die? I have done
+no wrong!"
+
+"Be comforted," went on the old woman in her hateful tone of mockery.
+"Thou must die, indeed, as a sacrifice to the Old Ones who sit yonder,"
+and she pointed to the peaks; "but it is better to sleep in the night
+than to toil in the daytime; it is better to die than to live, and thou
+shalt die by the royal hand of the king's own son."
+
+The girl Foulata wrung her hands in anguish, and cried out aloud, "Oh,
+cruel! and I so young! What have I done that I should never again see
+the sun rise out of the night, or the stars come following on his track
+in the evening, that I may no more gather the flowers when the dew is
+heavy, or listen to the laughing of the waters? Woe is me, that I shall
+never see my father's hut again, nor feel my mother's kiss, nor tend
+the lamb that is sick! Woe is me, that no lover shall put his arm
+around me and look into my eyes, nor shall men children be born of me!
+Oh, cruel, cruel!"
+
+And again she wrung her hands and turned her tear-stained
+flower-crowned face to Heaven, looking so lovely in her despair--for
+she was indeed a beautiful woman--that assuredly the sight of her would
+have melted the hearts of any less cruel than were the three fiends
+before us. Prince Arthur's appeal to the ruffians who came to blind him
+was not more touching than that of this savage girl.
+
+But it did not move Gagool or Gagool's master, though I saw signs of
+pity among the guards behind, and on the faces of the chiefs; and as
+for Good, he gave a fierce snort of indignation, and made a motion as
+though to go to her assistance. With all a woman's quickness, the
+doomed girl interpreted what was passing in his mind, and by a sudden
+movement flung herself before him, and clasped his "beautiful white
+legs" with her hands.
+
+"Oh, white father from the Stars!" she cried, "throw over me the mantle
+of thy protection; let me creep into the shadow of thy strength, that I
+may be saved. Oh, keep me from these cruel men and from the mercies of
+Gagool!"
+
+"All right, my hearty, I'll look after you," sang out Good in nervous
+Saxon. "Come, get up, there's a good girl," and he stooped and caught
+her hand.
+
+Twala turned and motioned to his son, who advanced with his spear
+lifted.
+
+"Now's your time," whispered Sir Henry to me; "what are you waiting
+for?"
+
+"I am waiting for that eclipse," I answered; "I have had my eye on the
+moon for the last half-hour, and I never saw it look healthier."
+
+"Well, you must risk it now, or the girl will be killed. Twala is
+losing patience."
+
+Recognising the force of the argument, and having cast one more
+despairing look at the bright face of the moon, for never did the most
+ardent astronomer with a theory to prove await a celestial event with
+such anxiety, I stepped with all the dignity that I could command
+between the prostrate girl and the advancing spear of Scragga.
+
+"King," I said, "it shall not be; we will not endure this thing; let
+the girl go in safety."
+
+Twala rose from his seat in wrath and astonishment, and from the chiefs
+and serried ranks of maidens who had closed in slowly upon us in
+anticipation of the tragedy came a murmur of amazement.
+
+"_Shall not be!_ thou white dog, that yappest at the lion in his cave;
+_shall not be!_ art thou mad? Be careful, lest this chicken's fate
+overtake thee, and those with thee. How canst thou save her or thyself?
+Who art thou that thou settest thyself between me and my will? Back, I
+say. Scragga, kill her! Ho, guards! seize these men."
+
+At his cry armed men ran swiftly from behind the hut, where they had
+evidently been placed beforehand.
+
+Sir Henry, Good, and Umbopa ranged themselves alongside of me, and
+lifted their rifles.
+
+"Stop!" I shouted boldly, though at the moment my heart was in my
+boots. "Stop! we, the white men from the Stars, say that it shall not
+be. Come but one pace nearer, and we will put out the moon like a
+wind-blown lamp, as we who dwell in her House can do, and plunge the
+land in darkness. Dare to disobey, and ye shall taste of our magic."
+
+My threat produced an effect; the men halted, and Scragga stood still
+before us, his spear lifted.
+
+"Hear him! hear him!" piped Gagool; "hear the liar who says that he
+will put out the moon like a lamp. Let him do it, and the girl shall be
+speared. Yes, let him do it, or die by the girl, he and those with him."
+
+I glanced up at the moon despairingly, and now to my intense joy and
+relief saw that we--or rather the almanack--had made no mistake. On the
+edge of the great orb lay a faint rim of shadow, while a smoky hue grew
+and gathered upon its bright surface. Never shall I forget that
+supreme, that superb moment of relief.
+
+Then I lifted my hand solemnly towards the sky, an example which Sir
+Henry and Good followed, and quoted a line or two from the "Ingoldsby
+Legends" at it in the most impressive tones that I could command. Sir
+Henry followed suit with a verse out of the Old Testament, and
+something about Balbus building a wall, in Latin, whilst Good addressed
+the Queen of Night in a volume of the most classical bad language which
+he could think of.
+
+Slowly the penumbra, the shadow of a shadow, crept on over the bright
+surface, and as it crept I heard deep gasps of fear rising from the
+multitude around.
+
+"Look, O king!" I cried; "look, Gagool! Look, chiefs and people and
+women, and see if the white men from the Stars keep their word, or if
+they be but empty liars!
+
+"The moon grows black before your eyes; soon there will be
+darkness--ay, darkness in the hour of the full moon. Ye have asked for
+a sign; it is given to you. Grow dark, O Moon! withdraw thy light, thou
+pure and holy One; bring the proud heart of usurping murderers to the
+dust, and eat up the world with shadows."
+
+A groan of terror burst from the onlookers. Some stood petrified with
+dread, others threw themselves upon their knees and cried aloud. As for
+the king, he sat still and turned pale beneath his dusky skin. Only
+Gagool kept her courage.
+
+"It will pass," she cried; "I have often seen the like before; no man
+can put out the moon; lose not heart; sit still--the shadow will pass."
+
+"Wait, and ye shall see," I replied, hopping with excitement. "O Moon!
+Moon! Moon! wherefore art thou so cold and fickle?" This appropriate
+quotation was from the pages of a popular romance that I chanced to
+have read recently, though now I come to think of it, it was ungrateful
+of me to abuse the Lady of the Heavens, who was showing herself to be
+the truest of friends to us, however she may have behaved to the
+impassioned lover in the novel. Then I added: "Keep it up, Good, I
+can't remember any more poetry. Curse away, there's a good fellow."
+
+Good responded nobly to this tax upon his inventive faculties. Never
+before had I the faintest conception of the breadth and depth and
+height of a naval officer's objurgatory powers. For ten minutes he went
+on in several languages without stopping, and he scarcely ever repeated
+himself.
+
+Meanwhile the dark ring crept on, while all that great assembly fixed
+their eyes upon the sky and stared and stared in fascinated silence.
+Strange and unholy shadows encroached upon the moonlight, an ominous
+quiet filled the place. Everything grew still as death. Slowly and in
+the midst of this most solemn silence the minutes sped away, and while
+they sped the full moon passed deeper and deeper into the shadow of the
+earth, as the inky segment of its circle slid in awful majesty across
+the lunar craters. The great pale orb seemed to draw near and to grow
+in size. She turned a coppery hue, then that portion of her surface
+which was unobscured as yet grew grey and ashen, and at length, as
+totality approached, her mountains and her plains were to be seen
+glowing luridly through a crimson gloom.
+
+On, yet on, crept the ring of darkness; it was now more than half
+across the blood-red orb. The air grew thick, and still more deeply
+tinged with dusky crimson. On, yet on, till we could scarcely see the
+fierce faces of the group before us. No sound rose now from the
+spectators, and at last Good stopped swearing.
+
+"The moon is dying--the white wizards have killed the moon," yelled the
+prince Scragga at last. "We shall all perish in the dark," and animated
+by fear or fury, or by both, he lifted his spear and drove it with all
+his force at Sir Henry's breast. But he forgot the mail shirts that the
+king had given us, and which we wore beneath our clothing. The steel
+rebounded harmless, and before he could repeat the blow Curtis had
+snatched the spear from his hand and sent it straight through him.
+
+Scragga dropped dead.
+
+At the sight, and driven mad with fear of the gathering darkness, and
+of the unholy shadow which, as they believed, was swallowing the moon,
+the companies of girls broke up in wild confusion, and ran screeching
+for the gateways. Nor did the panic stop there. The king himself,
+followed by his guards, some of the chiefs, and Gagool, who hobbled
+away after them with marvellous alacrity, fled for the huts, so that in
+another minute we ourselves, the would-be victim Foulata, Infadoos, and
+most of the chiefs who had interviewed us on the previous night, were
+left alone upon the scene, together with the dead body of Scragga,
+Twala's son.
+
+"Chiefs," I said, "we have given you the sign. If ye are satisfied, let
+us fly swiftly to the place of which ye spoke. The charm cannot now be
+stopped. It will work for an hour and the half of an hour. Let us cover
+ourselves in the darkness."
+
+"Come," said Infadoos, turning to go, an example which was followed by
+the awed captains, ourselves, and the girl Foulata, whom Good took by
+the arm.
+
+Before we reached the gate of the kraal the moon went out utterly, and
+from every quarter of the firmament the stars rushed forth into the
+inky sky.
+
+Holding each other by the hand we stumbled on through the darkness.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+BEFORE THE BATTLE
+
+Luckily for us, Infadoos and the chiefs knew all the paths of the great
+town perfectly, so that we passed by side-ways unmolested, and
+notwithstanding the gloom we made fair progress.
+
+For an hour or more we journeyed on, till at length the eclipse began
+to pass, and that edge of the moon which had disappeared the first
+became again visible. Suddenly, as we watched, there burst from it a
+silver streak of light, accompanied by a wondrous ruddy glow, which
+hung upon the blackness of the sky like a celestial lamp, and a wild
+and lovely sight it was. In another five minutes the stars began to
+fade, and there was sufficient light to see our whereabouts. We then
+discovered that we were clear of the town of Loo, and approaching a
+large flat-topped hill, measuring some two miles in circumference. This
+hill, which is of a formation common in South Africa, is not very high;
+indeed, its greatest elevation is scarcely more than 200 feet, but it
+is shaped like a horseshoe, and its sides are rather precipitous and
+strewn with boulders. On the grass table-land at its summit is ample
+camping-ground, which had been utilised as a military cantonment of no
+mean strength. Its ordinary garrison was one regiment of three thousand
+men, but as we toiled up the steep side of the mountain in the
+returning moonlight we perceived that there were several of such
+regiments encamped there.
+
+Reaching the table-land at last, we found crowds of men roused from
+their sleep, shivering with fear and huddled up together in the utmost
+consternation at the natural phenomenon which they were witnessing.
+Passing through these without a word, we gained a hut in the centre of
+the ground, where we were astonished to find two men waiting, laden
+with our few goods and chattels, which of course we had been obliged to
+leave behind in our hasty flight.
+
+"I sent for them," explained Infadoos; "and also for these," and he
+lifted up Good's long-lost trousers.
+
+With an exclamation of rapturous delight Good sprang at them, and
+instantly proceeded to put them on.
+
+"Surely my lord will not hide his beautiful white legs!" exclaimed
+Infadoos regretfully.
+
+But Good persisted, and once only did the Kukuana people get the chance
+of seeing his beautiful legs again. Good is a very modest man.
+Henceforward they had to satisfy their �sthetic longings with his one
+whisker, his transparent eye, and his movable teeth.
+
+Still gazing with fond remembrance at Good's trousers, Infadoos next
+informed us that he had commanded the regiments to muster so soon as
+the day broke, in order to explain to them fully the origin and
+circumstances of the rebellion which was decided on by the chiefs, and
+to introduce to them the rightful heir to the throne, Ignosi.
+
+Accordingly, when the sun was up, the troops--in all some twenty
+thousand men, and the flower of the Kukuana army--were mustered on a
+large open space, to which we went. The men were drawn up in three
+sides of a dense square, and presented a magnificent spectacle. We took
+our station on the open side of the square, and were speedily
+surrounded by all the principal chiefs and officers.
+
+These, after silence had been proclaimed, Infadoos proceeded to
+address. He narrated to them in vigorous and graceful language--for,
+like most Kukuanas of high rank, he was a born orator--the history of
+Ignosi's father, and of how he had been basely murdered by Twala the
+king, and his wife and child driven out to starve. Then he pointed out
+that the people suffered and groaned under Twala's cruel rule,
+instancing the proceedings of the previous night, when, under pretence
+of their being evil-doers, many of the noblest in the land had been
+dragged forth and wickedly done to death. Next he went on to say that
+the white lords from the Stars, looking down upon their country, had
+perceived its trouble, and determined, at great personal inconvenience,
+to alleviate its lot: That they had accordingly taken the real king of
+the Kukuanas, Ignosi, who was languishing in exile, by the hand, and
+led him over the mountains: That they had seen the wickedness of
+Twala's doings, and for a sign to the wavering, and to save the life of
+the girl Foulata, actually, by the exercise of their high magic, had
+put out the moon and slain the young fiend Scragga; and that they were
+prepared to stand by them, and assist them to overthrow Twala, and set
+up the rightful king, Ignosi, in his place.
+
+He finished his discourse amidst a murmur of approbation. Then Ignosi
+stepped forward and began to speak. Having reiterated all that Infadoos
+his uncle had said, he concluded a powerful speech in these words:--
+
+"O chiefs, captains, soldiers, and people, ye have heard my words. Now
+must ye make choice between me and him who sits upon my throne, the
+uncle who killed his brother, and hunted his brother's child forth to
+die in the cold and the night. That I am indeed the king
+these"--pointing to the chiefs--"can tell you, for they have seen the
+snake about my middle. If I were not the king, would these white men be
+on my side with all their magic? Tremble, chiefs, captains, soldiers,
+and people! Is not the darkness they have brought upon the land to
+confound Twala and cover our flight, darkness even in the hour of the
+full moon, yet before your eyes?"
+
+"It is," answered the soldiers.
+
+"I am the king; I say to you, I am the king," went on Ignosi, drawing
+up his great stature to its full, and lifting his broad-bladed
+battle-axe above his head. "If there be any man among you who says that
+it is not so, let him stand forth and I will fight him now, and his
+blood shall be a red token that I tell you true. Let him stand forth, I
+say;" and he shook the great axe till it flashed in the sunlight.
+
+As nobody seemed inclined to respond to this heroic version of "Dilly,
+Dilly, come and be killed," our late henchman proceeded with his
+address.
+
+"I am indeed the king, and should ye stand by my side in the battle, if
+I win the day ye shall go with me to victory and honour. I will give
+you oxen and wives, and ye shall take place of all the regiments; and
+if ye fall, I will fall with you.
+
+"And behold, I give you this promise, that when I sit upon the seat of
+my fathers, bloodshed shall cease in the land. No longer shall ye cry
+for justice to find slaughter, no longer shall the witch-finder hunt
+you out so that ye may be slain without a cause. No man shall die save
+he who offends against the laws. The 'eating up' of your kraals shall
+cease; each one of you shall sleep secure in his own hut and fear
+naught, and justice shall walk blindfold throughout the land. Have ye
+chosen, chiefs, captains, soldiers, and people?"
+
+"We have chosen, O king," came back the answer.
+
+"It is well. Turn your heads and see how Twala's messengers go forth
+from the great town, east and west, and north and south, to gather a
+mighty army to slay me and you, and these my friends and protectors.
+To-morrow, or perchance the next day, he will come against us with all
+who are faithful to him. Then I shall see the man who is indeed my man,
+the man who fears not to die for his cause; and I tell you that he
+shall not be forgotten in the time of spoil. I have spoken, O chiefs,
+captains, soldiers, and people. Now go to your huts and make you ready
+for war."
+
+There was a pause, till presently one of the chiefs lifted his hand,
+and out rolled the royal salute, "_Koom._" It was a sign that the
+soldiers accepted Ignosi as their king. Then they marched off in
+battalions.
+
+Half an hour afterwards we held a council of war, at which all the
+commanders of regiments were present. It was evident to us that before
+very long we should be attacked in overwhelming force. Indeed, from our
+point of vantage on the hill we could see troops mustering, and runners
+going forth from Loo in every direction, doubtless to summon soldiers
+to the king's assistance. We had on our side about twenty thousand men,
+composed of seven of the best regiments in the country. Twala, so
+Infadoos and the chiefs calculated, had at least thirty to thirty-five
+thousand on whom he could rely at present assembled in Loo, and they
+thought that by midday on the morrow he would be able to gather another
+five thousand or more to his aid. It was, of course, possible that some
+of his troops would desert and come over to us, but it was not a
+contingency which could be reckoned on. Meanwhile, it was clear that
+active preparations were being made by Twala to subdue us. Already
+strong bodies of armed men were patrolling round and round the foot of
+the hill, and there were other signs also of coming assault.
+
+Infadoos and the chiefs, however, were of opinion that no attack would
+take place that day, which would be devoted to preparation and to the
+removal of every available means of the moral effect produced upon the
+minds of the soldiery by the supposed magical darkening of the moon.
+The onslaught would be on the morrow, they said, and they proved to be
+right.
+
+Meanwhile, we set to work to strengthen the position in all ways
+possible. Almost every man was turned out, and in the course of the
+day, which seemed far too short, much was done. The paths up the
+hill--that was rather a sanatorium than a fortress, being used
+generally as the camping place of regiments suffering from recent
+service in unhealthy portions of the country--were carefully blocked
+with masses of stones, and every other approach was made as impregnable
+as time would allow. Piles of boulders were collected at various spots
+to be rolled down upon an advancing enemy, stations were appointed to
+the different regiments, and all preparation was made which our joint
+ingenuity could suggest.
+
+Just before sundown, as we rested after our toil, we perceived a small
+company of men advancing towards us from the direction of Loo, one of
+whom bore a palm leaf in his hand for a sign that he came as a herald.
+
+As he drew near, Ignosi, Infadoos, one or two chiefs and ourselves,
+went down to the foot of the mountain to meet him. He was a
+gallant-looking fellow, wearing the regulation leopard-skin cloak.
+
+"Greeting!" he cried, as he came; "the king's greeting to those who
+make unholy war against the king; the lion's greeting to the jackals
+that snarl around his heels."
+
+"Speak," I said.
+
+"These are the king's words. Surrender to the king's mercy ere a worse
+thing befall you. Already the shoulder has been torn from the black
+bull, and the king drives him bleeding about the camp."[1]
+
+"What are Twala's terms?" I asked from curiosity.
+
+"His terms are merciful, worthy of a great king. These are the words of
+Twala, the one-eyed, the mighty, the husband of a thousand wives, lord
+of the Kukuanas, keeper of the Great Road (Solomon's Road), beloved of
+the Strange Ones who sit in silence at the mountains yonder (the Three
+Witches), Calf of the Black Cow, Elephant whose tread shakes the earth,
+Terror of the evil-doer, Ostrich whose feet devour the desert, huge
+One, black One, wise One, king from generation to generation! these are
+the words of Twala: 'I will have mercy and be satisfied with a little
+blood. One in every ten shall die, the rest shall go free; but the
+white man Incubu, who slew Scragga my son, and the black man his
+servant, who pretends to my throne, and Infadoos my brother, who brews
+rebellion against me, these shall die by torture as an offering to the
+Silent Ones.' Such are the merciful words of Twala."
+
+After consulting with the others a little, I answered him in a loud
+voice, so that the soldiers might hear, thus--
+
+"Go back, thou dog, to Twala, who sent thee, and say that we, Ignosi,
+veritable king of the Kukuanas, Incubu, Bougwan, and Macumazahn, the
+wise ones from the Stars, who make dark the moon, Infadoos, of the
+royal house, and the chiefs, captains, and people here gathered, make
+answer and say, 'That we will not surrender; that before the sun has
+gone down twice, Twala's corpse shall stiffen at Twala's gate, and
+Ignosi, whose father Twala slew, shall reign in his stead.' Now go, ere
+we whip thee away, and beware how thou dost lift a hand against such as
+we are."
+
+The herald laughed loudly. "Ye frighten not men with such swelling
+words," he cried out. "Show yourselves as bold to-morrow, O ye who
+darken the moon. Be bold, fight, and be merry, before the crows pick
+your bones till they are whiter than your faces. Farewell; perhaps we
+may meet in the fight; fly not to the Stars, but wait for me, I pray,
+white men." With this shaft of sarcasm he retired, and almost
+immediately the sun sank.
+
+That night was a busy one, for weary as we were, so far as was possible
+by the moonlight all preparations for the morrow's fight were
+continued, and messengers were constantly coming and going from the
+place where we sat in council. At last, about an hour after midnight,
+everything that could be done was done, and the camp, save for the
+occasional challenge of a sentry, sank into silence. Sir Henry and I,
+accompanied by Ignosi and one of the chiefs, descended the hill and
+made a round of the pickets. As we went, suddenly, from all sorts of
+unexpected places, spears gleamed out in the moonlight, only to vanish
+again when we uttered the password. It was clear to us that none were
+sleeping at their posts. Then we returned, picking our way warily
+through thousands of sleeping warriors, many of whom were taking their
+last earthly rest.
+
+The moonlight flickering along their spears, played upon their features
+and made them ghastly; the chilly night wind tossed their tall and
+hearse-like plumes. There they lay in wild confusion, with arms
+outstretched and twisted limbs; their stern, stalwart forms looking
+weird and unhuman in the moonlight.
+
+"How many of these do you suppose will be alive at this time
+to-morrow?" asked Sir Henry.
+
+I shook my head and looked again at the sleeping men, and to my tired
+and yet excited imagination it seemed as though Death had already
+touched them. My mind's eye singled out those who were sealed to
+slaughter, and there rushed in upon my heart a great sense of the
+mystery of human life, and an overwhelming sorrow at its futility and
+sadness. To-night these thousands slept their healthy sleep, to-morrow
+they, and many others with them, ourselves perhaps among them, would be
+stiffening in the cold; their wives would be widows, their children
+fatherless, and their place know them no more for ever. Only the old
+moon would shine on serenely, the night wind would stir the grasses,
+and the wide earth would take its rest, even as it did �ons before we
+were, and will do �ons after we have been forgotten.
+
+Yet man dies not whilst the world, at once his mother and his monument,
+remains. His name is lost, indeed, but the breath he breathed still
+stirs the pine-tops on the mountains, the sound of the words he spoke
+yet echoes on through space; the thoughts his brain gave birth to we
+have inherited to-day; his passions are our cause of life; the joys and
+sorrows that he knew are our familiar friends--the end from which he
+fled aghast will surely overtake us also!
+
+Truly the universe is full of ghosts, not sheeted churchyard spectres,
+but the inextinguishable elements of individual life, which having once
+been, can never _die_, though they blend and change, and change again
+for ever.
+
+
+All sorts of reflections of this nature passed through my mind--for as
+I grow older I regret to say that a detestable habit of thinking seems
+to be getting a hold of me--while I stood and stared at those grim yet
+fantastic lines of warriors, sleeping, as their saying goes, "upon
+their spears."
+
+"Curtis," I said, "I am in a condition of pitiable fear."
+
+Sir Henry stroked his yellow beard and laughed, as he answered--
+
+"I have heard you make that sort of remark before, Quatermain."
+
+"Well, I mean it now. Do you know, I very much doubt if one of us will
+be alive to-morrow night. We shall be attacked in overwhelming force,
+and it is quite a chance if we can hold this place."
+
+"We'll give a good account of some of them, at any rate. Look here,
+Quatermain, this business is nasty, and one with which, properly
+speaking, we ought not to be mixed up, but we are in for it, so we must
+make the best of our job. Speaking personally, I had rather be killed
+fighting than any other way, and now that there seems little chance of
+our finding my poor brother, it makes the idea easier to me. But
+fortune favours the brave, and we may succeed. Anyway, the battle will
+be awful, and having a reputation to keep up, we shall need to be in
+the thick of the thing."
+
+He made this last remark in a mournful voice, but there was a gleam in
+his eye which belied its melancholy. I have an idea Sir Henry Curtis
+actually likes fighting.
+
+After this we went to sleep for a couple of hours or so.
+
+Just about dawn we were awakened by Infadoos, who came to say that
+great activity was to be observed in Loo, and that parties of the
+king's skirmishers were driving in our outposts.
+
+We rose and dressed ourselves for the fray, each putting on his chain
+armour shirt, for which garments at the present juncture we felt
+exceedingly thankful. Sir Henry went the whole length about the matter,
+and dressed himself like a native warrior. "When you are in
+Kukuanaland, do as the Kukuanas do," he remarked, as he drew the
+shining steel over his broad breast, which it fitted like a glove. Nor
+did he stop there. At his request Infadoos had provided him with a
+complete set of native war uniform. Round his throat he fastened the
+leopard-skin cloak of a commanding officer, on his brows he bound the
+plume of black ostrich feathers worn only by generals of high rank, and
+about his middle a magnificent moocha of white ox-tails. A pair of
+sandals, a leglet of goat's hair, a heavy battle-axe with a
+rhinoceros-horn handle, a round iron shield covered with white ox-hide,
+and the regulation number of _tollas_, or throwing-knives, made up his
+equipment, to which, however, he added his revolver. The dress was, no
+doubt, a savage one, but I am bound to say that I seldom saw a finer
+sight than Sir Henry Curtis presented in this guise. It showed off his
+magnificent physique to the greatest advantage, and when Ignosi arrived
+presently, arrayed in a similar costume, I thought to myself that I had
+never before seen two such splendid men.
+
+As for Good and myself, the armour did not suit us nearly so well. To
+begin with, Good insisted upon keeping on his new-found trousers, and a
+stout, short gentleman with an eye-glass, and one half of his face
+shaved, arrayed in a mail shirt, carefully tucked into a very seedy
+pair of corduroys, looks more remarkable than imposing. In my case, the
+chain shirt being too big for me, I put it on over all my clothes,
+which caused it to bulge in a somewhat ungainly fashion. I discarded my
+trousers, however, retaining only my veldtschoons, having determined to
+go into battle with bare legs, in order to be the lighter for running,
+in case it became necessary to retire quickly. The mail coat, a spear,
+a shield, that I did not know how to use, a couple of _tollas_, a
+revolver, and a huge plume, which I pinned into the top of my shooting
+hat, in order to give a bloodthirsty finish to my appearance, completed
+my modest equipment. In addition to all these articles, of course we
+had our rifles, but as ammunition was scarce, and as they would be
+useless in case of a charge, we arranged that they should be carried
+behind us by bearers.
+
+When at length we had equipped ourselves, we swallowed some food
+hastily, and then started out to see how things were going on. At one
+point in the table-land of the mountain, there was a little koppie of
+brown stone, which served the double purpose of head-quarters and of a
+conning tower. Here we found Infadoos surrounded by his own regiment,
+the Greys, which was undoubtedly the finest in the Kukuana army, and
+the same that we had first seen at the outlying kraal. This regiment,
+now three thousand five hundred strong, was being held in reserve, and
+the men were lying down on the grass in companies, and watching the
+king's forces creep out of Loo in long ant-like columns. There seemed
+to be no end to the length of these columns--three in all, and each of
+them numbering, as we judged, at least eleven or twelve thousand men.
+
+As soon as they were clear of the town the regiments formed up. Then
+one body marched off to the right, one to the left, and the third came
+on slowly towards us.
+
+"Ah," said Infadoos, "they are going to attack us on three sides at
+once."
+
+This seemed rather serious news, for our position on the top of the
+mountain, which measured a mile and a half in circumference, being an
+extended one, it was important to us to concentrate our comparatively
+small defending force as much as possible. But since it was impossible
+for us to dictate in what way we should be assailed, we had to make the
+best of it, and accordingly sent orders to the various regiments to
+prepare to receive the separate onslaughts.
+
+
+[1] This cruel custom is not confined to the Kukuanas, but is by no
+means uncommon amongst African tribes on the occasion of the outbreak
+of war or any other important public event.--A.Q.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE ATTACK
+
+Slowly, and without the slightest appearance of haste or excitement,
+the three columns crept on. When within about five hundred yards of us,
+the main or centre column halted at the root of a tongue of open plain
+which ran up into the hill, to give time to the other divisions to
+circumvent our position, which was shaped more or less in the form of a
+horse-shoe, with its two points facing towards the town of Loo. The
+object of this manoeuvre was that the threefold assault should be
+delivered simultaneously.
+
+"Oh, for a gatling!" groaned Good, as he contemplated the serried
+phalanxes beneath us. "I would clear that plain in twenty minutes."
+
+"We have not got one, so it is no use yearning for it; but suppose you
+try a shot, Quatermain," said Sir Henry. "See how near you can go to
+that tall fellow who appears to be in command. Two to one you miss him,
+and an even sovereign, to be honestly paid if ever we get out of this,
+that you don't drop the bullet within five yards."
+
+
+This piqued me, so, loading the express with solid ball, I waited till
+my friend walked some ten yards out from his force, in order to get a
+better view of our position, accompanied only by an orderly; then,
+lying down and resting the express on a rock, I covered him. The rifle,
+like all expresses, was only sighted to three hundred and fifty yards,
+so to allow for the drop in trajectory I took him half-way down the
+neck, which ought, I calculated, to find him in the chest. He stood
+quite still and gave me every opportunity, but whether it was the
+excitement or the wind, or the fact of the man being a long shot, I
+don't know, but this was what happened. Getting dead on, as I thought,
+a fine sight, I pressed, and when the puff of smoke had cleared away,
+to my disgust, I saw my man standing there unharmed, whilst his
+orderly, who was at least three paces to the left, was stretched upon
+the ground apparently dead. Turning swiftly, the officer I had aimed at
+began to run towards his men in evident alarm.
+
+"Bravo, Quatermain!" sang out Good; "you've frightened him."
+
+This made me very angry, for, if possible to avoid it, I hate to miss
+in public. When a man is master of only one art he likes to keep up his
+reputation in that art. Moved quite out of myself at my failure, I did
+a rash thing. Rapidly covering the general as he ran, I let drive with
+the second barrel. Instantly the poor man threw up his arms, and fell
+forward on to his face. This time I had made no mistake; and--I say it
+as a proof of how little we think of others when our own safety, pride,
+or reputation is in question--I was brute enough to feel delighted at
+the sight.
+
+The regiments who had seen the feat cheered wildly at this exhibition
+of the white man's magic, which they took as an omen of success, while
+the force the general had belonged to--which, indeed, as we ascertained
+afterwards, he had commanded--fell back in confusion. Sir Henry and
+Good now took up their rifles and began to fire, the latter
+industriously "browning" the dense mass before him with another
+Winchester repeater, and I also had another shot or two, with the
+result, so far as we could judge, that we put some six or eight men
+_hors de combat_ before they were out of range.
+
+Just as we stopped firing there came an ominous roar from our far
+right, then a similar roar rose on our left. The two other divisions
+were engaging us.
+
+At the sound, the mass of men before us opened out a little, and
+advanced towards the hill and up the spit of bare grass land at a slow
+trot, singing a deep-throated song as they ran. We kept up a steady
+fire from our rifles as they came, Ignosi joining in occasionally, and
+accounted for several men, but of course we produced no more effect
+upon that mighty rush of armed humanity than he who throws pebbles does
+on the breaking wave.
+
+On they came, with a shout and the clashing of spears; now they were
+driving in the pickets we had placed among the rocks at the foot of the
+hill. After that the advance was a little slower, for though as yet we
+had offered no serious opposition, the attacking forces must climb up
+hill, and they came slowly to save their breath. Our first line of
+defence was about half-way down the side of the slope, our second fifty
+yards further back, while our third occupied the edge of the plateau.
+
+On they stormed, shouting their war-cry, "_Twala! Twala! Chiele!
+Chiele!_" (Twala! Twala! Smite! Smite!) "_Ignosi! Ignosi! Chiele!
+Chiele!_" answered our people. They were quite close now, and the
+_tollas_, or throwing-knives, began to flash backwards and forwards,
+and now with an awful yell the battle closed in.
+
+To and fro swayed the mass of struggling warriors, men falling fast as
+leaves in an autumn wind; but before long the superior weight of the
+attacking force began to tell, and our first line of defence was slowly
+pressed back till it merged into the second. Here the struggle was very
+fierce, but again our people were driven back and up, till at length,
+within twenty minutes of the commencement of the fight, our third line
+came into action.
+
+But by this time the assailants were much exhausted, and besides had
+lost many men killed and wounded, and to break through that third
+impenetrable hedge of spears proved beyond their powers. For a while
+the seething lines of savages swung backwards and forwards, in the
+fierce ebb and flow of battle, and the issue was doubtful. Sir Henry
+watched the desperate struggle with a kindling eye, and then without a
+word he rushed off, followed by Good, and flung himself into the
+hottest of the fray. As for myself, I stopped where I was.
+
+The soldiers caught sight of his tall form as he plunged into battle,
+and there rose a cry of--
+
+"_Nanzia Incubu! Nanzia Unkungunklovo!_" (Here is the Elephant!)
+"_Chiele! Chiele!_"
+
+From that moment the end was no longer in doubt. Inch by inch, fighting
+with splendid gallantry, the attacking force was pressed back down the
+hillside, till at last it retreated upon its reserves in something like
+confusion. At that instant, too, a messenger arrived to say that the
+left attack had been repulsed; and I was just beginning to congratulate
+myself, believing that the affair was over for the present, when, to
+our horror, we perceived our men who had been engaged in the right
+defence being driven towards us across the plain, followed by swarms of
+the enemy, who had evidently succeeded at this point.
+
+Ignosi, who was standing by me, took in the situation at a glance, and
+issued a rapid order. Instantly the reserve regiment around us, the
+Greys, extended itself.
+
+Again Ignosi gave a word of command, which was taken up and repeated by
+the captains, and in another second, to my intense disgust, I found
+myself involved in a furious onslaught upon the advancing foe. Getting
+as much as I could behind Ignosi's huge frame, I made the best of a bad
+job, and toddled along to be killed as though I liked it. In a minute
+or two--we were plunging through the flying groups of our men, who at
+once began to re-form behind us, and then I am sure I do not know what
+happened. All I can remember is a dreadful rolling noise of the meeting
+of shields, and the sudden apparition of a huge ruffian, whose eyes
+seemed literally to be starting out of his head, making straight at me
+with a bloody spear. But--I say it with pride--I rose--or rather
+sank--to the occasion. It was one before which most people would have
+collapsed once and for all. Seeing that if I stood where I was I must
+be killed, as the horrid apparition came I flung myself down in front
+of him so cleverly that, being unable to stop himself, he took a header
+right over my prostrate form. Before he could rise again, _I_ had risen
+and settled the matter from behind with my revolver.
+
+Shortly after this somebody knocked me down, and I remember no more of
+that charge.
+
+When I came to I found myself back at the koppie, with Good bending
+over me holding some water in a gourd.
+
+"How do you feel, old fellow?" he asked anxiously.
+
+I got up and shook myself before replying.
+
+"Pretty well, thank you," I answered.
+
+"Thank Heaven! When I saw them carry you in, I felt quite sick; I
+thought you were done for."
+
+"Not this time, my boy. I fancy I only got a rap on the head, which
+knocked me stupid. How has it ended?"
+
+"They are repulsed at every point for a while. The loss is dreadfully
+heavy; we have quite two thousand killed and wounded, and they must
+have lost three. Look, there's a sight!" and he pointed to long lines
+of men advancing by fours.
+
+In the centre of every group of four, and being borne by it, was a kind
+of hide tray, of which a Kukuana force always carries a quantity, with
+a loop for a handle at each corner. On these trays--and their number
+seemed endless--lay wounded men, who as they arrived were hastily
+examined by the medicine men, of whom ten were attached to a regiment.
+If the wound was not of a fatal character the sufferer was taken away
+and attended to as carefully as circumstances would allow. But if, on
+the other hand, the injured man's condition proved hopeless, what
+followed was very dreadful, though doubtless it may have been the
+truest mercy. One of the doctors, under pretence of carrying out an
+examination, swiftly opened an artery with a sharp knife, and in a
+minute or two the sufferer expired painlessly. There were many cases
+that day in which this was done. In fact, it was done in the majority
+of cases when the wound was in the body, for the gash made by the entry
+of the enormously broad spears used by the Kukuanas generally rendered
+recovery impossible. In most instances the poor sufferers were already
+unconscious, and in others the fatal "nick" of the artery was inflicted
+so swiftly and painlessly that they did not seem to notice it. Still it
+was a ghastly sight, and one from which we were glad to escape; indeed,
+I never remember anything of the kind that affected me more than seeing
+those gallant soldiers thus put out of pain by the red-handed medicine
+men, except, indeed, on one occasion when, after an attack, I saw a
+force of Swazis burying their hopelessly wounded _alive_.
+
+Hurrying from this dreadful scene to the further side of the koppie, we
+found Sir Henry, who still held a battle-axe in his hand, Ignosi,
+Infadoos, and one or two of the chiefs in deep consultation.
+
+"Thank Heaven, here you are, Quatermain! I can't quite make out what
+Ignosi wants to do. It seems that though we have beaten off the attack,
+Twala is now receiving large reinforcements, and is showing a
+disposition to invest us, with the view of starving us out."
+
+"That's awkward."
+
+"Yes; especially as Infadoos says that the water supply has given out."
+
+"My lord, that is so," said Infadoos; "the spring cannot supply the
+wants of so great a multitude, and it is failing rapidly. Before night
+we shall all be thirsty. Listen, Macumazahn. Thou art wise, and hast
+doubtless seen many wars in the lands from whence thou camest--that is
+if indeed they make wars in the Stars. Now tell us, what shall we do?
+Twala has brought up many fresh men to take the place of those who have
+fallen. Yet Twala has learnt his lesson; the hawk did not think to find
+the heron ready; but our beak has pierced his breast; he fears to
+strike at us again. We too are wounded, and he will wait for us to die;
+he will wind himself round us like a snake round a buck, and fight the
+fight of 'sit down.'"
+
+"I hear thee," I said.
+
+"So, Macumazahn, thou seest we have no water here, and but a little
+food, and we must choose between these three things--to languish like a
+starving lion in his den, or to strive to break away towards the north,
+or"--and here he rose and pointed towards the dense mass of our
+foes--"to launch ourselves straight at Twala's throat. Incubu, the
+great warrior--for to-day he fought like a buffalo in a net, and
+Twala's soldiers went down before his axe like young corn before the
+hail; with these eyes I saw it--Incubu says 'Charge'; but the Elephant
+is ever prone to charge. Now what says Macumazahn, the wily old fox,
+who has seen much, and loves to bite his enemy from behind? The last
+word is in Ignosi the king, for it is a king's right to speak of war;
+but let us hear thy voice, O Macumazahn, who watchest by night, and the
+voice too of him of the transparent eye."
+
+"What sayest thou, Ignosi," I asked.
+
+"Nay, my father," answered our quondam servant, who now, clad as he was
+in the full panoply of savage war, looked every inch a warrior king,
+"do thou speak, and let me, who am but a child in wisdom beside thee,
+hearken to thy words."
+
+Thus adjured, after taking hasty counsel with Good and Sir Henry, I
+delivered my opinion briefly to the effect that, being trapped, our
+best chance, especially in view of the failure of our water supply, was
+to initiate an attack upon Twala's forces. Then I recommended that the
+attack should be delivered at once, "before our wounds grew stiff," and
+also before the sight of Twala's overpowering force caused the hearts
+of our soldiers "to wax small like fat before a fire." Otherwise, I
+pointed out, some of the captains might change their minds, and, making
+peace with Twala, desert to him, or even betray us into his hands.
+
+This expression of opinion seemed, on the whole, to be favourably
+received; indeed, among the Kukuanas my utterances met with a respect
+which has never been accorded to them before or since. But the real
+decision as to our plans lay with Ignosi, who, since he had been
+recognised as rightful king, could exercise the almost unbounded rights
+of sovereignty, including, of course, the final decision on matters of
+generalship, and it was to him that all eyes were now turned.
+
+At length, after a pause, during which he appeared to be thinking
+deeply, he spoke.
+
+"Incubu, Macumazahn, and Bougwan, brave white men, and my friends;
+Infadoos, my uncle, and chiefs; my heart is fixed. I will strike at
+Twala this day, and set my fortunes on the blow, ay, and my life--my
+life and your lives also. Listen; thus will I strike. Ye see how the
+hill curves round like the half-moon, and how the plain runs like a
+green tongue towards us within the curve?"
+
+"We see," I answered.
+
+"Good; it is now mid-day, and the men eat and rest after the toil of
+battle. When the sun has turned and travelled a little way towards the
+darkness, let thy regiment, my uncle, advance with one other down to
+the green tongue, and it shall be that when Twala sees it he will hurl
+his force at it to crush it. But the spot is narrow, and the regiments
+can come against thee one at a time only; so may they be destroyed one
+by one, and the eyes of all Twala's army shall be fixed upon a struggle
+the like of which has not been seen by living man. And with thee, my
+uncle, shall go Incubu my friend, that when Twala sees his battle-axe
+flashing in the first rank of the Greys his heart may grow faint. And I
+will come with the second regiment, that which follows thee, so that if
+ye are destroyed, as it might happen, there may yet be a king left to
+fight for; and with me shall come Macumazahn the wise."
+
+"It is well, O king," said Infadoos, apparently contemplating the
+certainty of the complete annihilation of his regiment with perfect
+calmness. Truly, these Kukuanas are a wonderful people. Death has no
+terrors for them when it is incurred in the course of duty.
+
+"And whilst the eyes of the multitude of Twala's soldiers are thus
+fixed upon the fight," went on Ignosi, "behold, one-third of the men
+who are left alive to us (i.e. about 6,000) shall creep along the right
+horn of the hill and fall upon the left flank of Twala's force, and
+one-third shall creep along the left horn and fall upon Twala's right
+flank. And when I see that the horns are ready to toss Twala, then will
+I, with the men who remain to me, charge home in Twala's face, and if
+fortune goes with us the day will be ours, and before Night drives her
+black oxen from the mountains to the mountains we shall sit in peace at
+Loo. And now let us eat and make ready; and, Infadoos, do thou prepare,
+that the plan be carried out without fail; and stay, let my white
+father Bougwan go with the right horn, that his shining eye may give
+courage to the captains."
+
+The arrangements for attack thus briefly indicated were set in motion
+with a rapidity that spoke well for the perfection of the Kukuana
+military system. Within little more than an hour rations had been
+served out and devoured, the divisions were formed, the scheme of
+onslaught was explained to the leaders, and the whole force, numbering
+about 18,000 men, was ready to move, with the exception of a guard left
+in charge of the wounded.
+
+Presently Good came up to Sir Henry and myself.
+
+"Good-bye, you fellows," he said; "I am off with the right wing
+according to orders; and so I have come to shake hands, in case we
+should not meet again, you know," he added significantly.
+
+We shook hands in silence, and not without the exhibition of as much
+emotion as Anglo-Saxons are wont to show.
+
+"It is a queer business," said Sir Henry, his deep voice shaking a
+little, "and I confess I never expect to see to-morrow's sun. So far as
+I can make out, the Greys, with whom I am to go, are to fight until
+they are wiped out in order to enable the wings to slip round unawares
+and outflank Twala. Well, so be it; at any rate, it will be a man's
+death. Good-bye, old fellow. God bless you! I hope you will pull
+through and live to collar the diamonds; but if you do, take my advice
+and don't have anything more to do with Pretenders!"
+
+In another second Good had wrung us both by the hand and gone; and then
+Infadoos came up and led off Sir Henry to his place in the forefront of
+the Greys, whilst, with many misgivings, I departed with Ignosi to my
+station in the second attacking regiment.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE LAST STAND OF THE GREYS
+
+In a few more minutes the regiments destined to carry out the flanking
+movements had tramped off in silence, keeping carefully to the lee of
+the rising ground in order to conceal their advance from the keen eyes
+of Twala's scouts.
+
+Half an hour or more was allowed to elapse between the setting out of
+the horns or wings of the army before any stir was made by the Greys
+and their supporting regiment, known as the Buffaloes, which formed its
+chest, and were destined to bear the brunt of the battle.
+
+Both of these regiments were almost perfectly fresh, and of full
+strength, the Greys having been in reserve in the morning, and having
+lost but a small number of men in sweeping back that part of the attack
+which had proved successful in breaking the line of defence, on the
+occasion when I charged with them and was stunned for my pains. As for
+the Buffaloes, they had formed the third line of defence on the left,
+and since the attacking force at that point had not succeeded in
+breaking through the second, they had scarcely come into action at all.
+
+Infadoos, who was a wary old general, and knew the absolute importance
+of keeping up the spirits of his men on the eve of such a desperate
+encounter, employed the pause in addressing his own regiment, the
+Greys, in poetical language: explaining to them the honour that they
+were receiving in being put thus in the forefront of the battle, and in
+having the great white warrior from the Stars to fight with them in
+their ranks; and promising large rewards of cattle and promotion to all
+who survived in the event of Ignosi's arms being successful.
+
+I looked down the long lines of waving black plumes and stern faces
+beneath them, and sighed to think that within one short hour most, if
+not all, of those magnificent veteran warriors, not a man of whom was
+under forty years of age, would be laid dead or dying in the dust. It
+could not be otherwise; they were being condemned, with that wise
+recklessness of human life which marks the great general, and often
+saves his forces and attains his ends, to certain slaughter, in order
+to give their cause and the remainder of the army a chance of success.
+They were foredoomed to die, and they knew the truth. It was to be
+their task to engage regiment after regiment of Twala's army on the
+narrow strip of green beneath us, till they were exterminated or till
+the wings found a favourable opportunity for their onslaught. And yet
+they never hesitated, nor could I detect a sign of fear upon the face
+of a single warrior. There they were--going to certain death, about to
+quit the blessed light of day for ever, and yet able to contemplate
+their doom without a tremor. Even at that moment I could not help
+contrasting their state of mind with my own, which was far from
+comfortable, and breathing a sigh of envy and admiration. Never before
+had I seen such an absolute devotion to the idea of duty, and such a
+complete indifference to its bitter fruits.
+
+"Behold your king!" ended old Infadoos, pointing to Ignosi; "go fight
+and fall for him, as is the duty of brave men, and cursed and shameful
+for ever be the name of him who shrinks from death for his king, or who
+turns his back to the foe. Behold your king, chiefs, captains, and
+soldiers! Now do your homage to the sacred Snake, and then follow on,
+that Incubu and I may show you a road to the heart of Twala's host."
+
+There was a moment's pause, then suddenly a murmur arose from the
+serried phalanxes before us, a sound like the distant whisper of the
+sea, caused by the gentle tapping of the handles of six thousand spears
+against their holders' shields. Slowly it swelled, till its growing
+volume deepened and widened into a roar of rolling noise, that echoed
+like thunder against the mountains, and filled the air with heavy waves
+of sound. Then it decreased, and by faint degrees died away into
+nothing, and suddenly out crashed the royal salute.
+
+Ignosi, I thought to myself, might well be a proud man that day, for no
+Roman emperor ever had such a salutation from gladiators "about to die."
+
+Ignosi acknowledged this magnificent act of homage by lifting his
+battle-axe, and then the Greys filed off in a triple-line formation,
+each line containing about one thousand fighting men, exclusive of
+officers. When the last companies had advanced some five hundred yards,
+Ignosi put himself at the head of the Buffaloes, which regiment was
+drawn up in a similar three-fold formation, and gave the word to march,
+and off we went, I, needless to say, uttering the most heartfelt
+prayers that I might emerge from that entertainment with a whole skin.
+Many a queer position have I found myself in, but never before in one
+quite so unpleasant as the present, or one in which my chance of coming
+off safe was smaller.
+
+By the time that we reached the edge of the plateau the Greys were
+already half-way down the slope ending in the tongue of grass land that
+ran up into the bend of the mountain, something as the frog of a
+horse's foot runs up into the shoe. The excitement in Twala's camp on
+the plain beyond was very great, and regiment after regiment was
+starting forward at a long swinging trot in order to reach the root of
+the tongue of land before the attacking force could emerge into the
+plain of Loo.
+
+This tongue, which was some four hundred yards in depth, even at its
+root or widest part was not more than six hundred and fifty paces
+across, while at its tip it scarcely measured ninety. The Greys, who,
+in passing down the side of the hill and on to the tip of the tongue,
+had formed into a column, on reaching the spot where it broadened out
+again, reassumed their triple-line formation, and halted dead.
+
+Then we--that is, the Buffaloes--moved down the tip of the tongue and
+took our stand in reserve, about one hundred yards behind the last line
+of the Greys, and on slightly higher ground. Meanwhile we had leisure
+to observe Twala's entire force, which evidently had been reinforced
+since the morning attack, and could not now, notwithstanding their
+losses, number less than forty thousand, moving swiftly up towards us.
+But as they drew near the root of the tongue they hesitated, having
+discovered that only one regiment could advance into the gorge at a
+time, and that there, some seventy yards from the mouth of it,
+unassailable except in front, on account of the high walls of
+boulder-strewn ground on each side, stood the famous regiment of Greys,
+the pride and glory of the Kukuana army, ready to hold the way against
+their power as the three Romans once held the bridge against thousands.
+
+They hesitated, and finally stopped their advance; there was no
+eagerness to cross spears with these three grim ranks of warriors who
+stood so firm and ready. Presently, however, a tall general, wearing
+the customary head-dress of nodding ostrich plumes, appeared, attended
+by a group of chiefs and orderlies, being, I thought, none other than
+Twala himself. He gave an order, and the first regiment, raising a
+shout, charged up towards the Greys, who remained perfectly still and
+silent till the attacking troops were within forty yards, and a volley
+of _tollas_, or throwing-knives, came rattling among their ranks.
+
+Then suddenly with a bound and a roar, they sprang forward with
+uplifted spears, and the regiment met in deadly strife. Next second the
+roll of the meeting shields came to our ears like the sound of thunder,
+and the plain seemed to be alive with flashes of light reflected from
+the shimmering spears. To and fro swung the surging mass of struggling,
+stabbing humanity, but not for long. Suddenly the attacking lines began
+to grow thinner, and then with a slow, long heave the Greys passed over
+them, just as a great wave heaves up its bulk and passes over a sunken
+ridge. It was done; that regiment was completely destroyed, but the
+Greys had but two lines left now; a third of their number were dead.
+
+Closing up shoulder to shoulder, once more they halted in silence and
+awaited attack; and I was rejoiced to catch sight of Sir Henry's yellow
+beard as he moved to and fro arranging the ranks. So he was yet alive!
+
+Meanwhile we moved on to the ground of the encounter, which was
+cumbered by about four thousand prostrate human beings, dead, dying,
+and wounded, and literally stained red with blood. Ignosi issued an
+order, which was rapidly passed down the ranks, to the effect that none
+of the enemy's wounded were to be killed, and so far as we could see
+this command was scrupulously carried out. It would have been a
+shocking sight, if we had found time to think of such things.
+
+But now a second regiment, distinguished by white plumes, kilts, and
+shields, was moving to the attack of the two thousand remaining Greys,
+who stood waiting in the same ominous silence as before, till the foe
+was within forty yards or so, when they hurled themselves with
+irresistible force upon them. Again there came the awful roll of the
+meeting shields, and as we watched the tragedy repeated itself.
+
+But this time the issue was left longer in doubt; indeed, it seemed for
+awhile almost impossible that the Greys should again prevail. The
+attacking regiment, which was formed of young men, fought with the
+utmost fury, and at first seemed by sheer weight to be driving the
+veterans back. The slaughter was truly awful, hundreds falling every
+minute; and from among the shouts of the warriors and the groans of the
+dying, set to the music of clashing spears, came a continuous hissing
+undertone of "_S'gee, s'gee_," the note of triumph of each victor as he
+passed his assegai through and through the body of his fallen foe.
+
+But perfect discipline and steady and unchanging valour can do wonders,
+and one veteran soldier is worth two young ones, as soon became
+apparent in the present case. For just when we thought that it was all
+over with the Greys, and were preparing to take their place so soon as
+they made room by being destroyed, I heard Sir Henry's deep voice
+ringing out through the din, and caught a glimpse of his circling
+battle-axe as he waved it high above his plumes. Then came a change;
+the Greys ceased to give; they stood still as a rock, against which the
+furious waves of spearmen broke again and again, only to recoil.
+Presently they began to move once more--forward this time; as they had
+no firearms there was no smoke, so we could see it all. Another minute
+and the onslaught grew fainter.
+
+"Ah, these are _men_, indeed; they will conquer again," called out
+Ignosi, who was grinding his teeth with excitement at my side. "See, it
+is done!"
+
+Suddenly, like puffs of smoke from the mouth of a cannon, the attacking
+regiment broke away in flying groups, their white head-dresses
+streaming behind them in the wind, and left their opponents victors,
+indeed, but, alas! no more a regiment. Of the gallant triple line,
+which forty minutes before had gone into action three thousand strong,
+there remained at most some six hundred blood-spattered men; the rest
+were under foot. And yet they cheered and waved their spears in
+triumph, and then, instead of falling back upon us as we expected, they
+ran forward, for a hundred yards or so, after the flying groups of
+foemen, took possession of a rising knoll of ground, and, resuming
+their triple formation, formed a threefold ring around its base. And
+there, thanks be to Heaven, standing on the top of the mound for a
+minute, I saw Sir Henry, apparently unharmed, and with him our old
+friend Infadoos. Then Twala's regiments rolled down upon the doomed
+band, and once more the battle closed in.
+
+As those who read this history will probably long ago have gathered, I
+am, to be honest, a bit of a coward, and certainly in no way given to
+fighting, though somehow it has often been my lot to get into
+unpleasant positions, and to be obliged to shed man's blood. But I have
+always hated it, and kept my own blood as undiminished in quantity as
+possible, sometimes by a judicious use of my heels. At this moment,
+however, for the first time in my life, I felt my bosom burn with
+martial ardour. Warlike fragments from the "Ingoldsby Legends,"
+together with numbers of sanguinary verses in the Old Testament, sprang
+up in my brain like mushrooms in the dark; my blood, which hitherto had
+been half-frozen with horror, went beating through my veins, and there
+came upon me a savage desire to kill and spare not. I glanced round at
+the serried ranks of warriors behind us, and somehow, all in an
+instant, I began to wonder if my face looked like theirs. There they
+stood, the hands twitching, the lips apart, the fierce features
+instinct with the hungry lust of battle, and in the eyes a look like
+the glare of a bloodhound when after long pursuit he sights his quarry.
+
+Only Ignosi's heart, to judge from his comparative self-possession,
+seemed, to all appearances, to beat as calmly as ever beneath his
+leopard-skin cloak, though even _he_ still ground his teeth. I could
+bear it no longer.
+
+"Are we to stand here till we put out roots, Umbopa--Ignosi, I
+mean--while Twala swallows our brothers yonder?" I asked.
+
+"Nay, Macumazahn," was the answer; "see, now is the ripe moment: let us
+pluck it."
+
+As he spoke a fresh regiment rushed past the ring upon the little
+mound, and wheeling round, attacked it from the hither side.
+
+Then, lifting his battle-axe, Ignosi gave the signal to advance, and,
+screaming the wild Kukuana war-cry, the Buffaloes charged home with a
+rush like the rush of the sea.
+
+What followed immediately on this it is out of my power to tell. All I
+can remember is an irregular yet ordered advance, that seemed to shake
+the ground; a sudden change of front and forming up on the part of the
+regiment against which the charge was directed; then an awful shock, a
+dull roar of voices, and a continuous flashing of spears, seen through
+a red mist of blood.
+
+When my mind cleared I found myself standing inside the remnant of the
+Greys near the top of the mound, and just behind no less a person than
+Sir Henry himself. How I got there I had at the moment no idea, but Sir
+Henry afterwards told me that I was borne up by the first furious
+charge of the Buffaloes almost to his feet, and then left, as they in
+turn were pressed back. Thereon he dashed out of the circle and dragged
+me into shelter.
+
+As for the fight that followed, who can describe it? Again and again
+the multitudes surged against our momentarily lessening circle, and
+again and again we beat them back.
+
+ "The stubborn spearmen still made good
+  The dark impenetrable wood,
+  Each stepping where his comrade stood
+    The instant that he fell,"
+
+as someone or other beautifully says.
+
+It was a splendid thing to see those brave battalions come on time
+after time over the barriers of their dead, sometimes lifting corpses
+before them to receive our spear-thrusts, only to leave their own
+corpses to swell the rising piles. It was a gallant sight to see that
+old warrior, Infadoos, as cool as though he were on parade, shouting
+out orders, taunts, and even jests, to keep up the spirit of his few
+remaining men, and then, as each charge rolled on, stepping forward to
+wherever the fighting was thickest, to bear his share in its repulse.
+And yet more gallant was the vision of Sir Henry, whose ostrich plumes
+had been shorn off by a spear thrust, so that his long yellow hair
+streamed out in the breeze behind him. There he stood, the great Dane,
+for he was nothing else, his hands, his axe, and his armour all red
+with blood, and none could live before his stroke. Time after time I
+saw it sweeping down, as some great warrior ventured to give him
+battle, and as he struck he shouted "_O-hoy! O-hoy!_" like his
+Berserkir forefathers, and the blow went crashing through shield and
+spear, through head-dress, hair, and skull, till at last none would of
+their own will come near the great white "_umtagati_," the wizard, who
+killed and failed not.
+
+But suddenly there rose a cry of "_Twala, y' Twala_," and out of the
+press sprang forward none other than the gigantic one-eyed king
+himself, also armed with battle-axe and shield, and clad in chain
+armour.
+
+"Where art thou, Incubu, thou white man, who slewest Scragga my
+son--see if thou canst slay me!" he shouted, and at the same time
+hurled a _tolla_ straight at Sir Henry, who fortunately saw it coming,
+and caught it on his shield, which it transfixed, remaining wedged in
+the iron plate behind the hide.
+
+Then, with a cry, Twala sprang forward straight at him, and with his
+battle-axe struck him such a blow upon the shield that the mere force
+and shock of it brought Sir Henry, strong man as he is, down upon his
+knees.
+
+But at this time the matter went no further, for that instant there
+rose from the regiments pressing round us something like a shout of
+dismay, and on looking up I saw the cause.
+
+To the right and to the left the plain was alive with the plumes of
+charging warriors. The outflanking squadrons had come to our relief.
+The time could not have been better chosen. All Twala's army, as Ignosi
+predicted would be the case, had fixed their attention on the bloody
+struggle which was raging round the remnant of the Greys and that of
+the Buffaloes, who were now carrying on a battle of their own at a
+little distance, which two regiments had formed the chest of our army.
+It was not until our horns were about to close upon them that they had
+dreamed of their approach, for they believed these forces to be hidden
+in reserve upon the crest of the moon-shaped hill. And now, before they
+could even assume a proper formation for defence, the outflanking
+_Impis_ had leapt, like greyhounds, on their flanks.
+
+In five minutes the fate of the battle was decided. Taken on both
+flanks, and dismayed at the awful slaughter inflicted upon them by the
+Greys and Buffaloes, Twala's regiments broke into flight, and soon the
+whole plain between us and Loo was scattered with groups of running
+soldiers making good their retreat. As for the hosts that had so
+recently surrounded us and the Buffaloes, they melted away as though by
+magic, and presently we were left standing there like a rock from which
+the sea has retreated. But what a sight it was! Around us the dead and
+dying lay in heaped-up masses, and of the gallant Greys there remained
+but ninety-five men upon their feet. More than three thousand four
+hundred had fallen in this one regiment, most of them never to rise
+again.
+
+"Men," said Infadoos calmly, as between the intervals of binding a
+wound on his arm he surveyed what remained to him of his corps, "ye
+have kept up the reputation of your regiment, and this day's fighting
+will be well spoken of by your children's children." Then he turned
+round and shook Sir Henry Curtis by the hand. "Thou art a great
+captain, Incubu," he said simply; "I have lived a long life among
+warriors, and have known many a brave one, yet have I never seen a man
+like unto thee."
+
+At this moment the Buffaloes began to march past our position on the
+road to Loo, and as they went a message was brought to us from Ignosi
+requesting Infadoos, Sir Henry, and myself to join them. Accordingly,
+orders having been issued to the remaining ninety men of the Greys to
+employ themselves in collecting the wounded, we joined Ignosi, who
+informed us that he was pressing on to Loo to complete the victory by
+capturing Twala, if that should be possible. Before we had gone far,
+suddenly we discovered the figure of Good sitting on an ant-heap about
+one hundred paces from us. Close beside him was the body of a Kukuana.
+
+"He must be wounded," said Sir Henry anxiously. As he made the remark,
+an untoward thing happened. The dead body of the Kukuana soldier, or
+rather what had appeared to be his dead body, suddenly sprang up,
+knocked Good head over heels off the ant-heap, and began to spear him.
+We rushed forward in terror, and as we drew near we saw the brawny
+warrior making dig after dig at the prostrate Good, who at each prod
+jerked all his limbs into the air. Seeing us coming, the Kukuana gave
+one final and most vicious dig, and with a shout of "Take that,
+wizard!" bolted away. Good did not move, and we concluded that our poor
+comrade was done for. Sadly we came towards him, and were astonished to
+find him pale and faint indeed, but with a serene smile upon his face,
+and his eyeglass still fixed in his eye.
+
+"Capital armour this," he murmured, on catching sight of our faces
+bending over him. "How sold that beggar must have been," and then he
+fainted. On examination we discovered that he had been seriously
+wounded in the leg by a _tolla_ in the course of the pursuit, but that
+the chain armour had prevented his last assailant's spear from doing
+anything more than bruise him badly. It was a merciful escape. As
+nothing could be done for him at the moment, he was placed on one of
+the wicker shields used for the wounded, and carried along with us.
+
+On arriving before the nearest gate of Loo we found one of our
+regiments watching it in obedience to orders received from Ignosi. The
+other regiments were in the same way guarding the different exits to
+the town. The officer in command of this regiment saluted Ignosi as
+king, and informed him that Twala's army had taken refuge in the town,
+whither Twala himself had also escaped, but he thought that they were
+thoroughly demoralised, and would surrender. Thereupon Ignosi, after
+taking counsel with us, sent forward heralds to each gate ordering the
+defenders to open, and promising on his royal word life and forgiveness
+to every soldier who laid down his arms, but saying that if they did
+not do so before nightfall he would certainly burn the town and all
+within its gates. This message was not without its effect. Half an hour
+later, amid the shouts and cheers of the Buffaloes, the bridge was
+dropped across the fosse, and the gates upon the further side were
+flung open.
+
+Taking due precautions against treachery, we marched on into the town.
+All along the roadways stood thousands of dejected warriors, their
+heads drooping, and their shields and spears at their feet, who, headed
+by their officers, saluted Ignosi as king as he passed. On we marched,
+straight to Twala's kraal. When we reached the great space, where a day
+or two previously we had seen the review and the witch hunt, we found
+it deserted. No, not quite deserted, for there, on the further side, in
+front of his hut, sat Twala himself, with but one attendant--Gagool.
+
+It was a melancholy sight to see him seated, his battle-axe and shield
+by his side, his chin upon his mailed breast, with but one old crone
+for companion, and notwithstanding his crimes and misdeeds, a pang of
+compassion shot through me as I looked upon Twala thus "fallen from his
+high estate." Not a soldier of all his armies, not a courtier out of
+the hundreds who had cringed round him, not even a solitary wife,
+remained to share his fate or halve the bitterness of his fall. Poor
+savage! he was learning the lesson which Fate teaches to most of us who
+live long enough, that the eyes of mankind are blind to the
+discredited, and that he who is defenceless and fallen finds few
+friends and little mercy. Nor, indeed, in this case did he deserve any.
+
+Filing through the kraal gate, we marched across the open space to
+where the ex-king sat. When within about fifty yards of him the
+regiment was halted, and accompanied only by a small guard we advanced
+towards him, Gagool reviling us bitterly as we came. As we drew near,
+Twala, for the first time, lifted his plumed head, and fixed his one
+eye, which seemed to flash with suppressed fury almost as brightly as
+the great diamond bound round his forehead, upon his successful
+rival--Ignosi.
+
+"Hail, O king!" he said, with bitter mockery; "thou who hast eaten of
+my bread, and now by the aid of the white man's magic hast seduced my
+regiments and defeated mine army, hail! What fate hast thou in store
+for me, O king?"
+
+"The fate thou gavest to my father, whose throne thou hast sat on these
+many years!" was the stern answer.
+
+"It is good. I will show thee how to die, that thou mayest remember it
+against thine own time. See, the sun sinks in blood," and he pointed
+with his battle-axe towards the setting orb; "it is well that my sun
+should go down in its company. And now, O king! I am ready to die, but
+I crave the boon of the Kukuana royal House[1] to die fighting. Thou
+canst not refuse it, or even those cowards who fled to-day will hold thee
+shamed."
+
+"It is granted. Choose--with whom wilt thou fight? Myself I cannot
+fight with thee, for the king fights not except in war."
+
+Twala's sombre eye ran up and down our ranks, and I felt, as for a
+moment it rested on myself, that the position had developed a new
+horror. What if he chose to begin by fighting _me_? What chance should
+I have against a desperate savage six feet five high, and broad in
+proportion? I might as well commit suicide at once. Hastily I made up
+my mind to decline the combat, even if I were hooted out of Kukuanaland
+as a consequence. It is, I think, better to be hooted than to be
+quartered with a battle-axe.
+
+Presently Twala spoke.
+
+"Incubu, what sayest thou, shall we end what we began to-day, or shall
+I call thee coward, white--even to the liver?"
+
+"Nay," interposed Ignosi hastily; "thou shalt not fight with Incubu."
+
+"Not if he is afraid," said Twala.
+
+Unfortunately Sir Henry understood this remark, and the blood flamed up
+into his cheeks.
+
+"I will fight him," he said; "he shall see if I am afraid."
+
+"For Heaven's sake," I entreated, "don't risk your life against that of
+a desperate man. Anybody who saw you to-day will know that you are
+brave enough."
+
+"I will fight him," was the sullen answer. "No living man shall call me
+a coward. I am ready now!" and he stepped forward and lifted his axe.
+
+I wrung my hands over this absurd piece of Quixotism; but if he was
+determined on this deed, of course I could not stop him.
+
+"Fight not, my white brother," said Ignosi, laying his hand
+affectionately on Sir Henry's arm; "thou hast fought enough, and if
+aught befell thee at his hands it would cut my heart in twain."
+
+"I will fight, Ignosi," was Sir Henry's answer.
+
+"It is well, Incubu; thou art a brave man. It will be a good fray.
+Behold, Twala, the Elephant is ready for thee."
+
+The ex-king laughed savagely, and stepping forward faced Curtis. For a
+moment they stood thus, and the light of the sinking sun caught their
+stalwart frames and clothed them both in fire. They were a well-matched
+pair.
+
+Then they began to circle round each other, their battle-axes raised.
+
+Suddenly Sir Henry sprang forward and struck a fearful blow at Twala,
+who stepped to one side. So heavy was the stroke that the striker half
+overbalanced himself, a circumstance of which his antagonist took a
+prompt advantage. Circling his massive battle-axe round his head, he
+brought it down with tremendous force. My heart jumped into my mouth; I
+thought that the affair was already finished. But no; with a quick
+upward movement of the left arm Sir Henry interposed his shield between
+himself and the axe, with the result that its outer edge was shorn
+away, the axe falling on his left shoulder, but not heavily enough to
+do any serious damage. In another moment Sir Henry got in a second
+blow, which was also received by Twala upon his shield.
+
+Then followed blow upon blow, that were, in turn, either received upon
+the shields or avoided. The excitement grew intense; the regiment which
+was watching the encounter forgot its discipline, and, drawing near,
+shouted and groaned at every stroke. Just at this time, too, Good, who
+had been laid upon the ground by me, recovered from his faint, and,
+sitting up, perceived what was going on. In an instant he was up, and
+catching hold of my arm, hopped about from place to place on one leg,
+dragging me after him, and yelling encouragements to Sir Henry--
+
+"Go it, old fellow!" he hallooed. "That was a good one! Give it him
+amidships," and so on.
+
+Presently Sir Henry, having caught a fresh stroke upon his shield, hit
+out with all his force. The blow cut through Twala's shield and through
+the tough chain armour behind it, gashing him in the shoulder. With a
+yell of pain and fury Twala returned the blow with interest, and, such
+was his strength, shore right through the rhinoceros' horn handle of
+his antagonists battle-axe, strengthened as it was with bands of steel,
+wounding Curtis in the face.
+
+A cry of dismay rose from the Buffaloes as our hero's broad axe-head
+fell to the ground; and Twala, again raising his weapon, flew at him
+with a shout. I shut my eyes. When I opened them again it was to see
+Sir Henry's shield lying on the ground, and Sir Henry himself with his
+great arms twined round Twala's middle. To and fro they swung, hugging
+each other like bears, straining with all their mighty muscles for dear
+life, and dearer honour. With a supreme effort Twala swung the
+Englishman clean off his feet, and down they came together, rolling
+over and over on the lime paving, Twala striking out at Curtis' head
+with the battle-axe, and Sir Henry trying to drive the _tolla_ he had
+drawn from his belt through Twala's armour.
+
+It was a mighty struggle, and an awful thing to see.
+
+"Get his axe!" yelled Good; and perhaps our champion heard him.
+
+At any rate, dropping the _tolla_, he snatched at the axe, which was
+fastened to Twala's wrist by a strip of buffalo hide, and still rolling
+over and over, they fought for it like wild cats, drawing their breath
+in heavy gasps. Suddenly the hide string burst, and then, with a great
+effort, Sir Henry freed himself, the weapon remaining in his hand.
+Another second and he was upon his feet, the red blood streaming from
+the wound in his face, and so was Twala. Drawing the heavy _tolla_ from
+his belt, he reeled straight at Curtis and struck him in the breast.
+The stab came home true and strong, but whoever it was who made that
+chain armour, he understood his art, for it withstood the steel. Again
+Twala struck out with a savage yell, and again the sharp knife
+rebounded, and Sir Henry went staggering back. Once more Twala came on,
+and as he came our great Englishman gathered himself together, and
+swinging the big axe round his head with both hands, hit at him with
+all his force.
+
+There was a shriek of excitement from a thousand throats, and, behold!
+Twala's head seemed to spring from his shoulders: then it fell and came
+rolling and bounding along the ground towards Ignosi, stopping just at
+his feet. For a second the corpse stood upright; then with a dull crash
+it came to the earth, and the gold torque from its neck rolled away
+across the pavement. As it did so Sir Henry, overpowered by faintness
+and loss of blood, fell heavily across the body of the dead king.
+
+In a second he was lifted up, and eager hands were pouring water on his
+face. Another minute, and the grey eyes opened wide.
+
+He was not dead.
+
+Then I, just as the sun sank, stepping to where Twala's head lay in the
+dust, unloosed the diamond from the dead brows, and handed it to Ignosi.
+
+"Take it," I said, "lawful king of the Kukuanas--king by birth and
+victory."
+
+Ignosi bound the diadem upon his brows. Then advancing, he placed his
+foot upon the broad chest of his headless foe and broke out into a
+chant, or rather a p�an of triumph, so beautiful, and yet so utterly
+savage, that I despair of being able to give an adequate version of his
+words. Once I heard a scholar with a fine voice read aloud from the
+Greek poet Homer, and I remember that the sound of the rolling lines
+seemed to make my blood stand still. Ignosi's chant, uttered as it was
+in a language as beautiful and sonorous as the old Greek, produced
+exactly the same effect on me, although I was exhausted with toil and
+many emotions.
+
+"Now," he began, "now our rebellion is swallowed up in victory, and our
+evil-doing is justified by strength.
+
+"In the morning the oppressors arose and stretched themselves; they
+bound on their harness and made them ready to war.
+
+"They rose up and tossed their spears: the soldiers called to the
+captains, 'Come, lead us'--and the captains cried to the king, 'Direct
+thou the battle.'
+
+"They laughed in their pride, twenty thousand men, and yet a twenty
+thousand.
+
+"Their plumes covered the valleys as the plumes of a bird cover her
+nest; they shook their shields and shouted, yea, they shook their
+shields in the sunlight; they lusted for battle and were glad.
+
+"They came up against me; their strong ones ran swiftly to slay me;
+they cried, 'Ha! ha! he is as one already dead.'
+
+
+
+"Then breathed I on them, and my breath was as the breath of a wind,
+and lo! they were not.
+
+"My lightnings pierced them; I licked up their strength with the
+lightning of my spears; I shook them to the ground with the thunder of
+my shoutings.
+
+"They broke--they scattered--they were gone as the mists of the morning.
+
+"They are food for the kites and the foxes, and the place of battle is
+fat with their blood.
+
+
+"Where are the mighty ones who rose up in the morning?
+
+"Where are the proud ones who tossed their spears and cried, 'He is as
+a man already dead'?
+
+"They bow their heads, but not in sleep; they are stretched out, but
+not in sleep.
+
+"They are forgotten; they have gone into the blackness; they dwell in
+the dead moons; yea, others shall lead away their wives, and their
+children shall remember them no more.
+
+
+"And I--! the king--like an eagle I have found my eyrie.
+
+"Behold! far have I flown in the night season, yet have I returned to
+my young at the daybreak.
+
+"Shelter ye under the shadow of my wings, O people, and I will comfort
+you, and ye shall not be dismayed.
+
+"Now is the good time, the time of spoil.
+
+"Mine are the cattle on the mountains, mine are the virgins in the
+kraals.
+
+"The winter is overpast with storms, the summer is come with flowers.
+
+"Now Evil shall cover up her face, now Mercy and Gladness shall dwell
+in the land.
+
+"Rejoice, rejoice, my people!
+
+"Let all the stars rejoice in that this tyranny is trodden down, in
+that I am the king."
+
+
+Ignosi ceased his song, and out of the gathering gloom came back the
+deep reply--
+
+"_Thou art the king!_"
+
+
+Thus was my prophecy to the herald fulfilled, and within the
+forty-eight hours Twala's headless corpse was stiffening at Twala's
+gate.
+
+
+[1] It is a law amongst the Kukuanas that no man of the direct royal
+blood can be put to death, unless by his own consent, which is,
+however, never refused. He is allowed to choose a succession of
+antagonists, to be approved by the king, with whom he fights, till one
+of them kills him.--A.Q.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+GOOD FALLS SICK
+
+After the fight was ended, Sir Henry and Good were carried into Twala's
+hut, where I joined them. They were both utterly exhausted by exertion
+and loss of blood, and, indeed, my own condition was little better. I
+am very wiry, and can stand more fatigue than most men, probably on
+account of my light weight and long training; but that night I was
+quite done up, and, as is always the case with me when exhausted, that
+old wound which the lion gave me began to pain. Also my head was aching
+violently from the blow I had received in the morning, when I was
+knocked senseless. Altogether, a more miserable trio than we were that
+evening it would have been difficult to discover; and our only comfort
+lay in the reflection that we were exceedingly fortunate to be there to
+feel miserable, instead of being stretched dead upon the plain, as so
+many thousands of brave men were that night, who had risen well and
+strong in the morning.
+
+Somehow, with the assistance of the beautiful Foulata, who, since we
+had been the means of saving her life, had constituted herself our
+handmaiden, and especially Good's, we managed to get off the chain
+shirts, which had certainly saved the lives of two of us that day. As I
+expected, we found that the flesh underneath was terribly contused, for
+though the steel links had kept the weapons from entering, they had not
+prevented them from bruising. Both Sir Henry and Good were a mass of
+contusions, and I was by no means free. As a remedy Foulata brought us
+some pounded green leaves, with an aromatic odour, which, when applied
+as a plaster, gave us considerable relief.
+
+But though the bruises were painful, they did not give us such anxiety
+as Sir Henry's and Good's wounds. Good had a hole right through the
+fleshy part of his "beautiful white leg," from which he had lost a
+great deal of blood; and Sir Henry, with other hurts, had a deep cut
+over the jaw, inflicted by Twala's battle-axe. Luckily Good is a very
+decent surgeon, and so soon as his small box of medicines was
+forthcoming, having thoroughly cleansed the wounds, he managed to
+stitch up first Sir Henry's and then his own pretty satisfactorily,
+considering the imperfect light given by the primitive Kukuana lamp in
+the hut. Afterwards he plentifully smeared the injured places with some
+antiseptic ointment, of which there was a pot in the little box, and we
+covered them with the remains of a pocket-handkerchief which we
+possessed.
+
+Meanwhile Foulata had prepared us some strong broth, for we were too
+weary to eat. This we swallowed, and then threw ourselves down on the
+piles of magnificent karrosses, or fur rugs, which were scattered about
+the dead king's great hut. By a very strange instance of the irony of
+fate, it was on Twala's own couch, and wrapped in Twala's own
+particular karross, that Sir Henry, the man who had slain him, slept
+that night.
+
+I say slept; but after that day's work, sleep was indeed difficult. To
+begin with, in very truth the air was full
+
+ "Of farewells to the dying
+  And mournings for the dead."
+
+From every direction came the sound of the wailing of women whose
+husbands, sons, and brothers had perished in the battle. No wonder that
+they wailed, for over twelve thousand men, or nearly a fifth of the
+Kukuana army, had been destroyed in that awful struggle. It was
+heart-rending to lie and listen to their cries for those who never
+would return; and it made me understand the full horror of the work
+done that day to further man's ambition. Towards midnight, however, the
+ceaseless crying of the women grew less frequent, till at length the
+silence was only broken at intervals of a few minutes by a long
+piercing howl that came from a hut in our immediate rear, which, as I
+afterwards discovered, proceeded from Gagool "keening" over the dead
+king Twala.
+
+After that I got a little fitful sleep, only to wake from time to time
+with a start, thinking that I was once more an actor in the terrible
+events of the last twenty-four hours. Now I seemed to see that warrior
+whom my hand had sent to his last account charging at me on the
+mountain-top; now I was once more in that glorious ring of Greys, which
+made its immortal stand against all Twala's regiments upon the little
+mound; and now again I saw Twala's plumed and gory head roll past my
+feet with gnashing teeth and glaring eye.
+
+At last, somehow or other, the night passed away; but when dawn broke I
+found that my companions had slept no better than myself. Good, indeed,
+was in a high fever, and very soon afterwards began to grow
+light-headed, and also, to my alarm, to spit blood, the result, no
+doubt, of some internal injury, inflicted during the desperate efforts
+made by the Kukuana warrior on the previous day to force his big spear
+through the chain armour. Sir Henry, however, seemed pretty fresh,
+notwithstanding his wound on the face, which made eating difficult and
+laughter an impossibility, though he was so sore and stiff that he
+could scarcely stir.
+
+About eight o'clock we had a visit from Infadoos, who appeared but
+little the worse--tough old warrior that he was--for his exertions in
+the battle, although he informed us that he had been up all night. He
+was delighted to see us, but much grieved at Good's condition, and
+shook our hands cordially. I noticed, however, that he addressed Sir
+Henry with a kind of reverence, as though he were something more than
+man; and, indeed, as we afterwards found out, the great Englishman was
+looked on throughout Kukuanaland as a supernatural being. No man, the
+soldiers said, could have fought as he fought or, at the end of a day
+of such toil and bloodshed, could have slain Twala, who, in addition to
+being the king, was supposed to be the strongest warrior in the
+country, in single combat, shearing through his bull-neck at a stroke.
+Indeed, that stroke became proverbial in Kukuanaland, and any
+extraordinary blow or feat of strength was henceforth known as
+"Incubu's blow."
+
+Infadoos told us also that all Twala's regiments had submitted to
+Ignosi, and that like submissions were beginning to arrive from chiefs
+in the outlying country. Twala's death at the hands of Sir Henry had
+put an end to all further chance of disturbance; for Scragga had been
+his only legitimate son, so there was no rival claimant to the throne
+left alive.
+
+I remarked that Ignosi had swum to power through blood. The old chief
+shrugged his shoulders. "Yes," he answered; "but the Kukuana people can
+only be kept cool by letting their blood flow sometimes. Many are
+killed, indeed, but the women are left, and others must soon grow up to
+take the places of the fallen. After this the land would be quiet for a
+while."
+
+Afterwards, in the course of the morning, we had a short visit from
+Ignosi, on whose brows the royal diadem was now bound. As I
+contemplated him advancing with kingly dignity, an obsequious guard
+following his steps, I could not help recalling to my mind the tall
+Zulu who had presented himself to us at Durban some few months back,
+asking to be taken into our service, and reflecting on the strange
+revolutions of the wheel of fortune.
+
+"Hail, O king!" I said, rising.
+
+"Yes, Macumazahn. King at last, by the might of your three right
+hands," was the ready answer.
+
+All was, he said, going well; and he hoped to arrange a great feast in
+two weeks' time in order to show himself to the people.
+
+I asked him what he had settled to do with Gagool.
+
+"She is the evil genius of the land," he answered, "and I shall kill
+her, and all the witch doctors with her! She has lived so long that
+none can remember when she was not very old, and she it is who has
+always trained the witch-hunters, and made the land wicked in the sight
+of the heavens above."
+
+"Yet she knows much," I replied; "it is easier to destroy knowledge,
+Ignosi, than to gather it."
+
+"That is so," he said thoughtfully. "She, and she only, knows the
+secret of the 'Three Witches,' yonder, whither the great road runs,
+where the kings are buried, and the Silent Ones sit."
+
+"Yes, and the diamonds are. Forget not thy promise, Ignosi; thou must
+lead us to the mines, even if thou hast to spare Gagool alive to show
+the way."
+
+"I will not forget, Macumazahn, and I will think on what thou sayest."
+
+After Ignosi's visit I went to see Good, and found him quite delirious.
+The fever set up by his wound seemed to have taken a firm hold of his
+system, and to be complicated with an internal injury. For four or five
+days his condition was most critical; indeed, I believe firmly that had
+it not been for Foulata's indefatigable nursing he must have died.
+
+Women are women, all the world over, whatever their colour. Yet somehow
+it seemed curious to watch this dusky beauty bending night and day over
+the fevered man's couch, and performing all the merciful errands of a
+sick-room swiftly, gently, and with as fine an instinct as that of a
+trained hospital nurse. For the first night or two I tried to help her,
+and so did Sir Henry as soon as his stiffness allowed him to move, but
+Foulata bore our interference with impatience, and finally insisted
+upon our leaving him to her, saying that our movements made him
+restless, which I think was true. Day and night she watched him and
+tended him, giving him his only medicine, a native cooling drink made
+of milk, in which was infused juice from the bulb of a species of
+tulip, and keeping the flies from settling on him. I can see the whole
+picture now as it appeared night after night by the light of our
+primitive lamp; Good tossing to and fro, his features emaciated, his
+eyes shining large and luminous, and jabbering nonsense by the yard;
+and seated on the ground by his side, her back resting against the wall
+of the hut, the soft-eyed, shapely Kukuana beauty, her face, weary as
+it was with her long vigil, animated by a look of infinite
+compassion--or was it something more than compassion?
+
+For two days we thought that he must die, and crept about with heavy
+hearts.
+
+Only Foulata would not believe it.
+
+"He will live," she said.
+
+For three hundred yards or more around Twala's chief hut, where the
+sufferer lay, there was silence; for by the king's order all who lived
+in the habitations behind it, except Sir Henry and myself, had been
+removed, lest any noise should come to the sick man's ears. One night,
+it was the fifth of Good's illness, as was my habit, I went across to
+see how he was doing before turning in for a few hours.
+
+I entered the hut carefully. The lamp placed upon the floor showed the
+figure of Good tossing no more, but lying quite still.
+
+So it had come at last! In the bitterness of my heart I gave something
+like a sob.
+
+"Hush--h--h!" came from the patch of dark shadow behind Good's head.
+
+Then, creeping closer, I saw that he was not dead, but sleeping
+soundly, with Foulata's taper fingers clasped tightly in his poor white
+hand. The crisis had passed, and he would live. He slept like that for
+eighteen hours; and I scarcely like to say it, for fear I should not be
+believed, but during the entire period did this devoted girl sit by
+him, fearing that if she moved and drew away her hand it would wake
+him. What she must have suffered from cramp and weariness, to say
+nothing of want of food, nobody will ever know; but it is the fact
+that, when at last he woke, she had to be carried away--her limbs were
+so stiff that she could not move them.
+
+
+After the turn had once been taken, Good's recovery was rapid and
+complete. It was not till he was nearly well that Sir Henry told him of
+all he owed to Foulata; and when he came to the story of how she sat by
+his side for eighteen hours, fearing lest by moving she should wake
+him, the honest sailor's eyes filled with tears. He turned and went
+straight to the hut where Foulata was preparing the mid-day meal, for
+we were back in our old quarters now, taking me with him to interpret
+in case he could not make his meaning clear to her, though I am bound
+to say that she understood him marvellously as a rule, considering how
+extremely limited was his foreign vocabulary.
+
+"Tell her," said Good, "that I owe her my life, and that I will never
+forget her kindness to my dying day."
+
+I interpreted, and under her dark skin she actually seemed to blush.
+
+Turning to him with one of those swift and graceful motions that in her
+always reminded me of the flight of a wild bird, Foulata answered
+softly, glancing at him with her large brown eyes--
+
+"Nay, my lord; my lord forgets! Did he not save _my_ life, and am I not
+my lord's handmaiden?"
+
+It will be observed that the young lady appeared entirely to have
+forgotten the share which Sir Henry and myself had taken in her
+preservation from Twala's clutches. But that is the way of women! I
+remember my dear wife was just the same. Well, I retired from that
+little interview sad at heart. I did not like Miss Foulata's soft
+glances, for I knew the fatal amorous propensities of sailors in
+general, and of Good in particular.
+
+There are two things in the world, as I have found out, which cannot be
+prevented: you cannot keep a Zulu from fighting, or a sailor from
+falling in love upon the slightest provocation!
+
+It was a few days after this last occurrence that Ignosi held his great
+"indaba," or council, and was formally recognised as king by the
+"indunas," or head men, of Kukuanaland. The spectacle was a most
+imposing one, including as it did a grand review of troops. On this day
+the remaining fragments of the Greys were formally paraded, and in the
+face of the army thanked for their splendid conduct in the battle. To
+each man the king made a large present of cattle, promoting them one
+and all to the rank of officers in the new corps of Greys which was in
+process of formation. An order was also promulgated throughout the
+length and breadth of Kukuanaland that, whilst we honoured the country
+by our presence, we three were to be greeted with the royal salute, and
+to be treated with the same ceremony and respect that was by custom
+accorded to the king. Also the power of life and death was publicly
+conferred upon us. Ignosi, too, in the presence of his people,
+reaffirmed the promises which he had made, to the effect that no man's
+blood should be shed without trial, and that witch-hunting should cease
+in the land.
+
+When the ceremony was over we waited upon Ignosi, and informed him that
+we were now anxious to investigate the mystery of the mines to which
+Solomon's Road ran, asking him if he had discovered anything about them.
+
+"My friends," he answered, "I have discovered this. It is there that
+the three great figures sit, who here are called the 'Silent Ones,' and
+to whom Twala would have offered the girl Foulata as a sacrifice. It is
+there, too, in a great cave deep in the mountain, that the kings of the
+land are buried; there ye shall find Twala's body, sitting with those
+who went before him. There, also, is a deep pit, which, at some time,
+long-dead men dug out, mayhap for the stones ye speak of, such as I
+have heard men in Natal tell of at Kimberley. There, too, in the Place
+of Death is a secret chamber, known to none but the king and Gagool.
+But Twala, who knew it, is dead, and I know it not, nor know I what is
+in it. Yet there is a legend in the land that once, many generations
+gone, a white man crossed the mountains, and was led by a woman to the
+secret chamber and shown the wealth hidden in it. But before he could
+take it she betrayed him, and he was driven by the king of that day
+back to the mountains, and since then no man has entered the place."
+
+"The story is surely true, Ignosi, for on the mountains we found the
+white man," I said.
+
+"Yes, we found him. And now I have promised you that if ye can come to
+that chamber, and the stones are there--"
+
+"The gem upon thy forehead proves that they are there," I put in,
+pointing to the great diamond I had taken from Twala's dead brows.
+
+"Mayhap; if they are there," he said, "ye shall have as many as ye can
+take hence--if indeed ye would leave me, my brothers."
+
+"First we must find the chamber," said I.
+
+"There is but one who can show it to thee--Gagool."
+
+"And if she will not?"
+
+"Then she must die," said Ignosi sternly. "I have saved her alive but
+for this. Stay, she shall choose," and calling to a messenger he
+ordered Gagool to be brought before him.
+
+In a few minutes she came, hurried along by two guards, whom she was
+cursing as she walked.
+
+"Leave her," said the king to the guards.
+
+So soon as their support was withdrawn, the withered old bundle--for
+she looked more like a bundle than anything else, out of which her two
+bright and wicked eyes gleamed like those of a snake--sank in a heap on
+to the floor.
+
+"What will ye with me, Ignosi?" she piped. "Ye dare not touch me. If ye
+touch me I will slay you as ye sit. Beware of my magic."
+
+"Thy magic could not save Twala, old she-wolf, and it cannot hurt me,"
+was the answer. "Listen; I will this of thee, that thou reveal to us
+the chamber where are the shining stones."
+
+"Ha! ha!" she piped, "none know its secret but I, and I will never tell
+thee. The white devils shall go hence empty-handed."
+
+"Thou shalt tell me. I will make thee tell me."
+
+"How, O king? Thou art great, but can thy power wring the truth from a
+woman?"
+
+"It is difficult, yet will I do so."
+
+"How, O king?"
+
+"Nay, thus; if thou tellest not thou shalt slowly die."
+
+"Die!" she shrieked in terror and fury; "ye dare not touch me--man, ye
+know not who I am. How old think ye am I? I knew your fathers, and your
+fathers' fathers' fathers. When the country was young I was here; when
+the country grows old I shall still be here. I cannot die unless I be
+killed by chance, for none dare slay me."
+
+"Yet will I slay thee. See, Gagool, mother of evil, thou art so old
+that thou canst no longer love thy life. What can life be to such a hag
+as thou, who hast no shape, nor form, nor hair, nor teeth--hast naught,
+save wickedness and evil eyes? It will be mercy to make an end of thee,
+Gagool."
+
+"Thou fool," shrieked the old fiend, "thou accursed fool, deemest thou
+that life is sweet only to the young? It is not so, and naught thou
+knowest of the heart of man to think it. To the young, indeed, death is
+sometimes welcome, for the young can feel. They love and suffer, and it
+wrings them to see their beloved pass to the land of shadows. But the
+old feel not, they love not, and, _ha! ha!_ they laugh to see another
+go out into the dark; _ha! ha!_ they laugh to see the evil that is done
+under the stars. All they love is life, the warm, warm sun, and the
+sweet, sweet air. They are afraid of the cold, afraid of the cold and
+the dark, _ha! ha! ha!_" and the old hag writhed in ghastly merriment
+on the ground.
+
+"Cease thine evil talk and answer me," said Ignosi angrily. "Wilt thou
+show the place where the stones are, or wilt thou not? If thou wilt not
+thou diest, even now," and he seized a spear and held it over her.
+
+"I will not show it; thou darest not kill me, darest not! He who slays
+me will be accursed for ever."
+
+Slowly Ignosi brought down the spear till it pricked the prostrate heap
+of rags.
+
+With a wild yell Gagool sprang to her feet, then fell again and rolled
+upon the floor.
+
+"Nay, I will show thee. Only let me live, let me sit in the sun and
+have a bit of meat to suck, and I will show thee."
+
+"It is well. I thought that I should find a way to reason with thee.
+To-morrow shalt thou go with Infadoos and my white brothers to the
+place, and beware how thou failest, for if thou showest it not, then
+thou shalt slowly die. I have spoken."
+
+"I will not fail, Ignosi. I always keep my word--_ha! ha! ha!_ Once
+before a woman showed the chamber to a white man, and behold! evil
+befell him," and here her wicked eyes glinted. "Her name was Gagool
+also. Perchance I was that woman."
+
+"Thou liest," I said, "that was ten generations gone."
+
+"Mayhap, mayhap; when one lives long one forgets. Perhaps it was my
+mother's mother who told me; surely her name was Gagool also. But mark,
+ye will find in the place where the bright things are a bag of hide
+full of stones. The man filled that bag, but he never took it away.
+Evil befell him, I say, evil befell him! Perhaps it was my mother's
+mother who told me. It will be a merry journey--we can see the bodies
+of those who died in the battle as we go. Their eyes will be gone by
+now, and their ribs will be hollow. _Ha! ha! ha!_"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE PLACE OF DEATH
+
+It was already dark on the third day after the scene described in the
+previous chapter when we camped in some huts at the foot of the "Three
+Witches," as the triangle of mountains is called to which Solomon's
+Great Road runs. Our party consisted of our three selves and Foulata,
+who waited on us--especially on Good--Infadoos, Gagool, who was borne
+along in a litter, inside which she could be heard muttering and
+cursing all day long, and a party of guards and attendants. The
+mountains, or rather the three peaks of the mountain, for the mass was
+evidently the result of a solitary upheaval, were, as I have said, in
+the form of a triangle, of which the base was towards us, one peak
+being on our right, one on our left, and one straight in front of us.
+Never shall I forget the sight afforded by those three towering peaks
+in the early sunlight of the following morning. High, high above us, up
+into the blue air, soared their twisted snow-wreaths. Beneath the
+snow-line the peaks were purple with heaths, and so were the wild moors
+that ran up the slopes towards them. Straight before us the white
+ribbon of Solomon's Great Road stretched away uphill to the foot of the
+centre peak, about five miles from us, and there stopped. It was its
+terminus.
+
+I had better leave the feelings of intense excitement with which we set
+out on our march that morning to the imagination of those who read this
+history. At last we were drawing near to the wonderful mines that had
+been the cause of the miserable death of the old Portuguese Dom three
+centuries ago, of my poor friend, his ill-starred descendant, and also,
+as we feared, of George Curtis, Sir Henry's brother. Were we destined,
+after all that we had gone through, to fare any better? Evil befell
+them, as that old fiend Gagool said; would it also befall us? Somehow,
+as we were marching up that last stretch of beautiful road, I could not
+help feeling a little superstitious about the matter, and so I think
+did Good and Sir Henry.
+
+For an hour and a half or more we tramped on up the heather-fringed
+way, going so fast in our excitement that the bearers of Gagool's
+hammock could scarcely keep pace with us, and its occupant piped out to
+us to stop.
+
+"Walk more slowly, white men," she said, projecting her hideous
+shrivelled countenance between the grass curtains, and fixing her
+gleaming eyes upon us; "why will ye run to meet the evil that shall
+befall you, ye seekers after treasure?" and she laughed that horrible
+laugh which always sent a cold shiver down my back, and for a while
+quite took the enthusiasm out of us.
+
+However, on we went, till we saw before us, and between ourselves and
+the peak, a vast circular hole with sloping sides, three hundred feet
+or more in depth, and quite half a mile round.
+
+"Can't you guess what this is?" I said to Sir Henry and Good, who were
+staring in astonishment at the awful pit before us.
+
+They shook their heads.
+
+"Then it is clear that you have never seen the diamond diggings at
+Kimberley. You may depend on it that this is Solomon's Diamond Mine.
+Look there," I said, pointing to the strata of stiff blue clay which
+were yet to be seen among the grass and bushes that clothed the sides
+of the pit, "the formation is the same. I'll be bound that if we went
+down there we should find 'pipes' of soapy brecciated rock. Look, too,"
+and I pointed to a series of worn flat slabs of stone that were placed
+on a gentle slope below the level of a watercourse which in some past
+age had been cut out of the solid rock; "if those are not tables once
+used to wash the 'stuff,' I'm a Dutchman."
+
+At the edge of this vast hole, which was none other than the pit marked
+on the old Dom's map, the Great Road branched into two and circumvented
+it. In many places, by the way, this surrounding road was built
+entirely out of blocks of stone, apparently with the object of
+supporting the edges of the pit and preventing falls of reef. Along
+this path we pressed, driven by curiosity to see what were the three
+towering objects which we could discern from the hither side of the
+great gulf. As we drew near we perceived that they were Colossi of some
+sort or another, and rightly conjectured that before us sat the three
+"Silent Ones" that are held in such awe by the Kukuana people. But it
+was not until we were quite close to them that we recognised the full
+majesty of these "Silent Ones."
+
+There, upon huge pedestals of dark rock, sculptured with rude emblems
+of the Phallic worship, separated from each other by a distance of
+forty paces, and looking down the road which crossed some sixty miles
+of plain to Loo, were three colossal seated forms--two male and one
+female--each measuring about thirty feet from the crown of its head to
+the pedestal.
+
+The female form, which was nude, was of great though severe beauty, but
+unfortunately the features had been injured by centuries of exposure to
+the weather. Rising from either side of her head were the points of a
+crescent. The two male Colossi, on the contrary, were draped, and
+presented a terrifying cast of features, especially the one to our
+right, which had the face of a devil. That to our left was serene in
+countenance, but the calm upon it seemed dreadful. It was the calm of
+that inhuman cruelty, Sir Henry remarked, which the ancients attributed
+to beings potent for good, who could yet watch the sufferings of
+humanity, if not without rejoicing, at least without sorrow. These
+three statues form a most awe-inspiring trinity, as they sit there in
+their solitude, and gaze out across the plain for ever.
+
+Contemplating these "Silent Ones," as the Kukuanas call them, an
+intense curiosity again seized us to know whose were the hands which
+had shaped them, who it was that had dug the pit and made the road.
+Whilst I was gazing and wondering, suddenly it occurred to me--being
+familiar with the Old Testament--that Solomon went astray after strange
+gods, the names of three of whom I remembered--"Ashtoreth, the goddess
+of the Zidonians, Chemosh, the god of the Moabites, and Milcom, the god
+of the children of Ammon"--and I suggested to my companions that the
+figures before us might represent these false and exploded divinities.
+
+"Hum," said Sir Henry, who is a scholar, having taken a high degree in
+classics at college, "there may be something in that; Ashtoreth of the
+Hebrews was the Astarte of the Phoenicians, who were the great traders
+of Solomon's time. Astarte, who afterwards became the Aphrodite of the
+Greeks, was represented with horns like the half-moon, and there on the
+brow of the female figure are distinct horns. Perhaps these Colossi
+were designed by some Phoenician official who managed the mines. Who
+can say?"[1]
+
+Before we had finished examining these extraordinary relics of remote
+antiquity, Infadoos came up, and having saluted the "Silent Ones" by
+lifting his spear, asked us if we intended entering the "Place of
+Death" at once, or if we would wait till after we had taken food at
+mid-day. If we were ready to go at once, Gagool had announced her
+willingness to guide us. As it was not later than eleven
+o'clock--driven to it by a burning curiosity--we announced our
+intention of proceeding instantly, and I suggested that, in case we
+should be detained in the cave, we should take some food with us.
+Accordingly Gagool's litter was brought up, and that lady herself
+assisted out of it. Meanwhile Foulata, at my request, stored some
+"biltong," or dried game-flesh, together with a couple of gourds of
+water, in a reed basket with a hinged cover. Straight in front of us,
+at a distance of some fifty paces from the backs of the Colossi, rose a
+sheer wall of rock, eighty feet or more in height, that gradually
+sloped upwards till it formed the base of the lofty snow-wreathed peak,
+which soared into the air three thousand feet above us. As soon as she
+was clear of her hammock, Gagool cast one evil grin upon us, and then,
+leaning on a stick, hobbled off towards the face of this wall. We
+followed her till we came to a narrow portal solidly arched that looked
+like the opening of a gallery of a mine.
+
+Here Gagool was waiting for us, still with that evil grin upon her
+horrid face.
+
+"Now, white men from the Stars," she piped; "great warriors, Incubu,
+Bougwan, and Macumazahn the wise, are ye ready? Behold, I am here to do
+the bidding of my lord the king, and to show you the store of bright
+stones. _Ha! ha! ha!_"
+
+"We are ready," I said.
+
+"Good, good! Make strong your hearts to bear what ye shall see. Comest
+thou too, Infadoos, thou who didst betray thy master?"
+
+Infadoos frowned as he answered--
+
+"Nay, I come not; it is not for me to enter there. But thou, Gagool,
+curb thy tongue, and beware how thou dealest with my lords. At thy
+hands will I require them, and if a hair of them be hurt, Gagool, be'st
+thou fifty times a witch, thou shalt die. Hearest thou?"
+
+"I hear Infadoos; I know thee, thou didst ever love big words; when
+thou wast a babe I remember thou didst threaten thine own mother. That
+was but the other day. But, fear not, fear not, I live only to do the
+bidding of the king. I have done the bidding of many kings, Infadoos,
+till in the end they did mine. _Ha! ha!_ I go to look upon their faces
+once more, and Twala's also! Come on, come on, here is the lamp," and
+she drew a large gourd full of oil, and fitted with a rush wick, from
+under her fur cloak.
+
+"Art thou coming, Foulata?" asked Good in his villainous Kitchen
+Kukuana, in which he had been improving himself under that young lady's
+tuition.
+
+"I fear, my lord," the girl answered timidly.
+
+"Then give me the basket."
+
+"Nay, my lord, whither thou goest there I go also."
+
+"The deuce you will!" thought I to myself; "that may be rather awkward
+if we ever get out of this."
+
+Without further ado Gagool plunged into the passage, which was wide
+enough to admit of two walking abreast, and quite dark. We followed the
+sound of her voice as she piped to us to come on, in some fear and
+trembling, which was not allayed by the flutter of a sudden rush of
+wings.
+
+"Hullo! what's that?" halloed Good; "somebody hit me in the face."
+
+"Bats," said I; "on you go."
+
+When, so far as we could judge, we had gone some fifty paces, we
+perceived that the passage was growing faintly light. Another minute,
+and we were in perhaps the most wonderful place that the eyes of living
+man have beheld.
+
+Let the reader picture to himself the hall of the vastest cathedral he
+ever stood in, windowless indeed, but dimly lighted from above,
+presumably by shafts connected with the outer air and driven in the
+roof, which arched away a hundred feet above our heads, and he will get
+some idea of the size of the enormous cave in which we found ourselves,
+with the difference that this cathedral designed by nature was loftier
+and wider than any built by man. But its stupendous size was the least
+of the wonders of the place, for running in rows adown its length were
+gigantic pillars of what looked like ice, but were, in reality, huge
+stalactites. It is impossible for me to convey any idea of the
+overpowering beauty and grandeur of these pillars of white spar, some
+of which were not less than twenty feet in diameter at the base, and
+sprang up in lofty and yet delicate beauty sheer to the distant roof.
+Others again were in process of formation. On the rock floor there was
+in these cases what looked, Sir Henry said, exactly like a broken
+column in an old Grecian temple, whilst high above, depending from the
+roof, the point of a huge icicle could be dimly seen.
+
+Even as we gazed we could hear the process going on, for presently with
+a tiny splash a drop of water would fall from the far-off icicle on to
+the column below. On some columns the drops only fell once in two or
+three minutes, and in these cases it would be an interesting
+calculation to discover how long, at that rate of dripping, it would
+take to form a pillar, say eighty feet by ten in diameter. That the
+process, in at least one instance, was incalculably slow, the following
+example will suffice to show. Cut on one of these pillars we discovered
+the crude likeness of a mummy, by the head of which sat what appeared
+to be the figure of an Egyptian god, doubtless the handiwork of some
+old-world labourer in the mine. This work of art was executed at the
+natural height at which an idle fellow, be he Phoenician workman or
+British cad, is in the habit of trying to immortalise himself at the
+expense of nature's masterpieces, namely, about five feet from the
+ground. Yet at the time that we saw it, which _must_ have been nearly
+three thousand years after the date of the execution of the carving,
+the column was only eight feet high, and was still in process of
+formation, which gives a rate of growth of a foot to a thousand years,
+or an inch and a fraction to a century. This we knew because, as we
+were standing by it, we heard a drop of water fall.
+
+Sometimes the stalagmites took strange forms, presumably where the
+dropping of the water had not always been on the same spot. Thus, one
+huge mass, which must have weighed a hundred tons or so, was in the
+shape of a pulpit, beautifully fretted over outside with a design that
+looked like lace. Others resembled strange beasts, and on the sides of
+the cave were fanlike ivory tracings, such as the frost leaves upon a
+pane.
+
+Out of the vast main aisle there opened here and there smaller caves,
+exactly, Sir Henry said, as chapels open out of great cathedrals. Some
+were large, but one or two--and this is a wonderful instance of how
+nature carries out her handiwork by the same unvarying laws, utterly
+irrespective of size--were tiny. One little nook, for instance, was no
+larger than an unusually big doll's house, and yet it might have been a
+model for the whole place, for the water dropped, tiny icicles hung,
+and spar columns were forming in just the same way.
+
+We had not, however, enough time to examine this beautiful cavern so
+thoroughly as we should have liked to do, since unfortunately, Gagool
+seemed to be indifferent as to stalactites, and only anxious to get her
+business over. This annoyed me the more, as I was particularly anxious
+to discover, if possible, by what system the light was admitted into
+the cave, and whether it was by the hand of man or by that of nature
+that this was done; also if the place had been used in any way in
+ancient times, as seemed probable. However, we consoled ourselves with
+the idea that we would investigate it thoroughly on our way back, and
+followed on at the heels of our uncanny guide.
+
+On she led us, straight to the top of the vast and silent cave, where
+we found another doorway, not arched as the first was, but square at
+the top, something like the doorways of Egyptian temples.
+
+"Are ye prepared to enter the Place of Death, white men?" asked Gagool,
+evidently with a view to making us feel uncomfortable.
+
+"Lead on, Macduff," said Good solemnly, trying to look as though he was
+not at all alarmed, as indeed we all did except Foulata, who caught
+Good by the arm for protection.
+
+"This is getting rather ghastly," said Sir Henry, peeping into the dark
+passageway. "Come on, Quatermain--_seniores priores_. We mustn't keep
+the old lady waiting!" and he politely made way for me to lead the van,
+for which inwardly I did not bless him.
+
+_Tap, tap,_ went old Gagool's stick down the passage, as she trotted
+along, chuckling hideously; and still overcome by some unaccountable
+presentiment of evil, I hung back.
+
+"Come, get on, old fellow," said Good, "or we shall lose our fair
+guide."
+
+Thus adjured, I started down the passage, and after about twenty paces
+found myself in a gloomy apartment some forty feet long, by thirty
+broad, and thirty high, which in some past age evidently had been
+hollowed, by hand-labour, out of the mountain. This apartment was not
+nearly so well lighted as the vast stalactite ante-cave, and at the
+first glance all I could discern was a massive stone table running down
+its length, with a colossal white figure at its head, and life-sized
+white figures all round it. Next I discovered a brown thing, seated on
+the table in the centre, and in another moment my eyes grew accustomed
+to the light, and I saw what all these things were, and was tailing out
+of the place as hard as my legs could carry me.
+
+I am not a nervous man in a general way, and very little troubled with
+superstitions, of which I have lived to see the folly; but I am free to
+own that this sight quite upset me, and had it not been that Sir Henry
+caught me by the collar and held me, I do honestly believe that in
+another five minutes I should have been outside the stalactite cave,
+and that a promise of all the diamonds in Kimberley would not have
+induced me to enter it again. But he held me tight, so I stopped
+because I could not help myself. Next second, however, _his_ eyes
+became accustomed to the light, and he let go of me, and began to mop
+the perspiration off his forehead. As for Good, he swore feebly, while
+Foulata threw her arms round his neck and shrieked.
+
+Only Gagool chuckled loud and long.
+
+It _was_ a ghastly sight. There at the end of the long stone table,
+holding in his skeleton fingers a great white spear, sat _Death_
+himself, shaped in the form of a colossal human skeleton, fifteen feet
+or more in height. High above his head he held the spear, as though in
+the act to strike; one bony hand rested on the stone table before him,
+in the position a man assumes on rising from his seat, whilst his frame
+was bent forward so that the vertebr� of the neck and the grinning,
+gleaming skull projected towards us, and fixed its hollow eye-places
+upon us, the jaws a little open, as though it were about to speak.
+
+"Great heavens!" said I faintly, at last, "what can it be?"
+
+"And what are _those things_?" asked Good, pointing to the white
+company round the table.
+
+"And what on earth is _that thing_?" said Sir Henry, pointing to the
+brown creature seated on the table.
+
+"_Hee! hee! hee!_" laughed Gagool. "To those who enter the Hall of the
+Dead, evil comes. _Hee! hee! hee! ha! ha!_"
+
+"Come, Incubu, brave in battle, come and see him thou slewest;" and the
+old creature caught Curtis' coat in her skinny fingers, and led him
+away towards the table. We followed.
+
+Presently she stopped and pointed at the brown object seated on the
+table. Sir Henry looked, and started back with an exclamation; and no
+wonder, for there, quite naked, the head which Curtis' battle-axe had
+shorn from the body resting on its knees, was the gaunt corpse of
+Twala, the last king of the Kukuanas. Yes, there, the head perched upon
+the knees, it sat in all its ugliness, the vertebr� projecting a full
+inch above the level of the shrunken flesh of the neck, for all the
+world like a black double of Hamilton Tighe.[2] Over the surface of the
+corpse there was gathered a thin glassy film, that made its appearance
+yet more appalling, for which we were, at the moment, quite unable to
+account, till presently we observed that from the roof of the chamber
+the water fell steadily, _drip! drop! drip!_ on to the neck of the
+corpse, whence it ran down over the entire surface, and finally escaped
+into the rock through a tiny hole in the table. Then I guessed what the
+film was--_Twala's body was being transformed into a stalactite._
+
+A look at the white forms seated on the stone bench which ran round
+that ghastly board confirmed this view. They were human bodies indeed,
+or rather they had been human; now they were _stalactites_. This was
+the way in which the Kukuana people had from time immemorial preserved
+their royal dead. They petrified them. What the exact system might be,
+if there was any, beyond the placing of them for a long period of years
+under the drip, I never discovered, but there they sat, iced over and
+preserved for ever by the siliceous fluid.
+
+Anything more awe-inspiring than the spectacle of this long line of
+departed royalties (there were twenty-seven of them, the last being
+Ignosi's father), wrapped, each of them, in a shroud of ice-like spar,
+through which the features could be dimly discovered, and seated round
+that inhospitable board, with Death himself for a host, it is
+impossible to imagine. That the practice of thus preserving their kings
+must have been an ancient one is evident from the number, which,
+allowing for an average reign of fifteen years, supposing that every
+king who reigned was placed here--an improbable thing, as some are sure
+to have perished in battle far from home--would fix the date of its
+commencement at four and a quarter centuries back.
+
+But the colossal Death, who sits at the head of the board, is far older
+than that, and, unless I am much mistaken, owes his origin to the same
+artist who designed the three Colossi. He is hewn out of a single
+stalactite, and, looked at as a work of art, is most admirably
+conceived and executed. Good, who understands such things, declared
+that, so far as he could see, the anatomical design of the skeleton is
+perfect down to the smallest bones.
+
+My own idea is, that this terrific object was a freak of fancy on the
+part of some old-world sculptor, and that its presence had suggested to
+the Kukuanas the idea of placing their royal dead under its awful
+presidency. Or perhaps it was set there to frighten away any marauders
+who might have designs upon the treasure chamber beyond. I cannot say.
+All I can do is to describe it as it is, and the reader must form his
+own conclusion.
+
+Such, at any rate, was the White Death and such were the White Dead!
+
+
+[1] Compare Milton, "Paradise Lost," Book i.:--
+
+                      "With these in troop
+    Came Ashtoreth, whom the Phoenicians called
+    Astart�, Queen of Heaven, with crescent horns;
+    To whose bright image nightly by the moon
+    Sidonian virgins paid their vows and songs."
+
+[2] "Now haste ye, my handmaidens, haste and see
+    How he sits there and glowers with his head on his knee."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+SOLOMON'S TREASURE CHAMBER
+
+While we were engaged in recovering from our fright, and in examining
+the grisly wonders of the Place of Death, Gagool had been differently
+occupied. Somehow or other--for she was marvellously active when she
+chose--she had scrambled on to the great table, and made her way to
+where our departed friend Twala was placed, under the drip, to see,
+suggested Good, how he was "pickling," or for some dark purpose of her
+own. Then, after bending down to kiss his icy lips as though in
+affectionate greeting, she hobbled back, stopping now and again to
+address the remark, the tenor of which I could not catch, to one or
+other of the shrouded forms, just as you or I might welcome an old
+acquaintance. Having gone through this mysterious and horrible
+ceremony, she squatted herself down on the table immediately under the
+White Death, and began, so far as I could make out, to offer up
+prayers. The spectacle of this wicked creature pouring out
+supplications, evil ones no doubt, to the arch enemy of mankind, was so
+uncanny that it caused us to hasten our inspection.
+
+"Now, Gagool," said I, in a low voice--somehow one did not dare to
+speak above a whisper in that place--"lead us to the chamber."
+
+The old witch promptly scrambled down from the table.
+
+"My lords are not afraid?" she said, leering up into my face.
+
+"Lead on."
+
+"Good, my lords;" and she hobbled round to the back of the great Death.
+"Here is the chamber; let my lords light the lamp, and enter," and she
+placed the gourd full of oil upon the floor, and leaned herself against
+the side of the cave. I took out a match, of which we had still a few
+in a box, and lit a rush wick, and then looked for the doorway, but
+there was nothing before us except the solid rock. Gagool grinned. "The
+way is there, my lords. _Ha! ha! ha!_"
+
+"Do not jest with us," I said sternly.
+
+"I jest not, my lords. See!" and she pointed at the rock.
+
+As she did so, on holding up the lamp we perceived that a mass of stone
+was rising slowly from the floor and vanishing into the rock above,
+where doubtless there is a cavity prepared to receive it. The mass was
+of the width of a good-sized door, about ten feet high and not less
+than five feet thick. It must have weighed at least twenty or thirty
+tons, and was clearly moved upon some simple balance principle of
+counter-weights, probably the same as that by which the opening and
+shutting of an ordinary modern window is arranged. How the principle
+was set in motion, of course none of us saw; Gagool was careful to
+avoid this; but I have little doubt that there was some very simple
+lever, which was moved ever so little by pressure at a secret spot,
+thereby throwing additional weight on to the hidden counter-balances,
+and causing the monolith to be lifted from the ground.
+
+Very slowly and gently the great stone raised itself, till at last it
+had vanished altogether, and a dark hole presented itself to us in the
+place which the door had filled.
+
+Our excitement was so intense, as we saw the way to Solomon's treasure
+chamber thrown open at last, that I for one began to tremble and shake.
+Would it prove a hoax after all, I wondered, or was old Da Silvestra
+right? Were there vast hoards of wealth hidden in that dark place,
+hoards which would make us the richest men in the whole world? We
+should know in a minute or two.
+
+"Enter, white men from the Stars," said Gagool, advancing into the
+doorway; "but first hear your servant, Gagool the old. The bright
+stones that ye will see were dug out of the pit over which the Silent
+Ones are set, and stored here, I know not by whom, for that was done
+longer ago than even I remember. But once has this place been entered
+since the time that those who hid the stones departed in haste, leaving
+them behind. The report of the treasure went down indeed among the
+people who lived in the country from age to age, but none knew where
+the chamber was, nor the secret of the door. But it happened that a
+white man reached this country from over the mountains--perchance he
+too came 'from the Stars'--and was well received by the king of that
+day. He it is who sits yonder," and she pointed to the fifth king at
+the table of the Dead. "And it came to pass that he and a woman of the
+country who was with him journeyed to this place, and that by chance
+the woman learnt the secret of the door--a thousand years might ye
+search, but ye should never find that secret. Then the white man
+entered with the woman, and found the stones, and filled with stones
+the skin of a small goat, which the woman had with her to hold food.
+And as he was going from the chamber he took up one more stone, a large
+one, and held it in his hand."
+
+Here she paused.
+
+"Well," I asked, breathless with interest as we all were, "what
+happened to Da Silvestra?"
+
+The old hag started at the mention of the name.
+
+"How knowest thou the dead man's name?" she asked sharply; and then,
+without waiting for an answer, went on--
+
+"None can tell what happened; but it came about that the white man was
+frightened, for he flung down the goat-skin, with the stones, and fled
+out with only the one stone in his hand, and that the king took, and it
+is the stone which thou, Macumazahn, didst take from Twala's brow."
+
+"Have none entered here since?" I asked, peering again down the dark
+passage.
+
+"None, my lords. Only the secret of the door has been kept, and every
+king has opened it, though he has not entered. There is a saying, that
+those who enter there will die within a moon, even as the white man
+died in the cave upon the mountain, where ye found him, Macumazahn, and
+therefore the kings do not enter. _Ha! ha!_ mine are true words."
+
+Our eyes met as she said it, and I turned sick and cold. How did the
+old hag know all these things?
+
+"Enter, my lords. If I speak truth, the goat-skin with the stones will
+lie upon the floor; and if there is truth as to whether it is death to
+enter here, that ye will learn afterwards. _Ha! ha! ha!_" and she
+hobbled through the doorway, bearing the light with her; but I confess
+that once more I hesitated about following.
+
+"Oh, confound it all!" said Good; "here goes. I am not going to be
+frightened by that old devil;" and followed by Foulata, who, however,
+evidently did not at all like the business, for she was shivering with
+fear, he plunged into the passage after Gagool--an example which we
+quickly followed.
+
+A few yards down the passage, in the narrow way hewn out of the living
+rock, Gagool had paused, and was waiting for us.
+
+"See, my lords," she said, holding the light before her, "those who
+stored the treasure here fled in haste, and bethought them to guard
+against any who should find the secret of the door, but had not the
+time," and she pointed to large square blocks of stone, which, to the
+height of two courses (about two feet three), had been placed across
+the passage with a view to walling it up. Along the side of the passage
+were similar blocks ready for use, and, most curious of all, a heap of
+mortar and a couple of trowels, which tools, so far as we had time to
+examine them, appeared to be of a similar shape and make to those used
+by workmen to this day.
+
+Here Foulata, who had been in a state of great fear and agitation
+throughout, said that she felt faint and could go no farther, but would
+wait there. Accordingly we set her down on the unfinished wall, placing
+the basket of provisions by her side, and left her to recover.
+
+Following the passage for about fifteen paces farther, we came suddenly
+to an elaborately painted wooden door. It was standing wide open.
+Whoever was last there had either not found the time to shut it, or had
+forgotten to do so.
+
+_Across the threshold of this door lay a skin bag, formed of a
+goat-skin, that appeared to be full of pebbles._
+
+"_Hee! hee!_ white men," sniggered Gagool, as the light from the lamp
+fell upon it. "What did I tell you, that the white man who came here
+fled in haste, and dropped the woman's bag--behold it! Look within also
+and ye will find a water-gourd amongst the stones."
+
+Good stooped down and lifted it. It was heavy and jingled.
+
+"By Jove! I believe it's full of diamonds," he said, in an awed
+whisper; and, indeed, the idea of a small goat-skin full of diamonds is
+enough to awe anybody.
+
+"Go on," said Sir Henry impatiently. "Here, old lady, give me the
+lamp," and taking it from Gagool's hand, he stepped through the doorway
+and held it high above his head.
+
+We pressed in after him, forgetful for the moment of the bag of
+diamonds, and found ourselves in King Solomon's treasure chamber.
+
+At first, all that the somewhat faint light given by the lamp revealed
+was a room hewn out of the living rock, and apparently not more than
+ten feet square. Next there came into sight, stored one on the other to
+the arch of the roof, a splendid collection of elephant-tusks. How many
+of them there were we did not know, for of course we could not see to
+what depth they went back, but there could not have been less than the
+ends of four or five hundred tusks of the first quality visible to our
+eyes. There, alone, was enough ivory to make a man wealthy for life.
+Perhaps, I thought, it was from this very store that Solomon drew the
+raw material for his "great throne of ivory," of which "there was not
+the like made in any kingdom."
+
+On the opposite side of the chamber were about a score of wooden boxes,
+something like Martini-Henry ammunition boxes, only rather larger, and
+painted red.
+
+"There are the diamonds," cried I; "bring the light."
+
+Sir Henry did so, holding it close to the top box, of which the lid,
+rendered rotten by time even in that dry place, appeared to have been
+smashed in, probably by Da Silvestra himself. Pushing my hand through
+the hole in the lid I drew it out full, not of diamonds, but of gold
+pieces, of a shape that none of us had seen before, and with what
+looked like Hebrew characters stamped upon them.
+
+"Ah!" I said, replacing the coin, "we shan't go back empty-handed,
+anyhow. There must be a couple of thousand pieces in each box, and
+there are eighteen boxes. I suppose this was the money to pay the
+workmen and merchants."
+
+"Well," put in Good, "I think that is the lot; I don't see any
+diamonds, unless the old Portuguese put them all into his bag."
+
+"Let my lords look yonder where it is darkest, if they would find the
+stones," said Gagool, interpreting our looks. "There my lords will find
+a nook, and three stone chests in the nook, two sealed and one open."
+
+Before translating this to Sir Henry, who carried the light, I could
+not resist asking how she knew these things, if no one had entered the
+place since the white man, generations ago.
+
+"Ah, Macumazahn, the watcher by night," was the mocking answer, "ye who
+dwell in the stars, do ye not know that some live long, and that some
+have eyes which can see through rock? _Ha! ha! ha!_"
+
+"Look in that corner, Curtis," I said, indicating the spot Gagool had
+pointed out.
+
+"Hullo, you fellows," he cried, "here's a recess. Great heavens! see
+here."
+
+We hurried up to where he was standing in a nook, shaped something like
+a small bow window. Against the wall of this recess were placed three
+stone chests, each about two feet square. Two were fitted with stone
+lids, the lid of the third rested against the side of the chest, which
+was open.
+
+"_See!_" he repeated hoarsely, holding the lamp over the open chest. We
+looked, and for a moment could make nothing out, on account of a
+silvery sheen which dazzled us. When our eyes grew used to it we saw
+that the chest was three-parts full of uncut diamonds, most of them of
+considerable size. Stooping, I picked some up. Yes, there was no doubt
+of it, there was the unmistakable soapy feel about them.
+
+I fairly gasped as I dropped them.
+
+"We are the richest men in the whole world," I said. "Monte Christo was
+a fool to us."
+
+"We shall flood the market with diamonds," said Good.
+
+"Got to get them there first," suggested Sir Henry.
+
+We stood still with pale faces and stared at each other, the lantern in
+the middle and the glimmering gems below, as though we were
+conspirators about to commit a crime, instead of being, as we thought,
+the most fortunate men on earth.
+
+"_Hee! hee! hee!_" cackled old Gagool behind us, as she flitted about
+like a vampire bat. "There are the bright stones ye love, white men, as
+many as ye will; take them, run them through your fingers, _eat_ of
+them, _hee! hee! drink_ of them, _ha! ha!_"
+
+At that moment there was something so ridiculous to my mind at the idea
+of eating and drinking diamonds, that I began to laugh outrageously, an
+example which the others followed, without knowing why. There we stood
+and shrieked with laughter over the gems that were ours, which had been
+found for _us_ thousands of years ago by the patient delvers in the
+great hole yonder, and stored for _us_ by Solomon's long-dead overseer,
+whose name, perchance, was written in the characters stamped on the
+faded wax that yet adhered to the lids of the chest. Solomon never got
+them, nor David, or Da Silvestra, nor anybody else. _We_ had got them:
+there before us were millions of pounds' worth of diamonds, and
+thousands of pounds' worth of gold and ivory only waiting to be taken
+away.
+
+Suddenly the fit passed off, and we stopped laughing.
+
+"Open the other chests, white men," croaked Gagool, "there are surely
+more therein. Take your fill, white lords! _Ha! ha!_ take your fill."
+
+Thus adjured, we set to work to pull up the stone lids on the other
+two, first--not without a feeling of sacrilege--breaking the seals that
+fastened them.
+
+Hoorah! they were full too, full to the brim; at least, the second one
+was; no wretched burglarious Da Silvestra had been filling goat-skins
+out of that. As for the third chest, it was only about a fourth full,
+but the stones were all picked ones; none less than twenty carats, and
+some of them as large as pigeon-eggs. A good many of these bigger ones,
+however, we could see by holding them up to the light, were a little
+yellow, "off coloured," as they call it at Kimberley.
+
+What we did _not_ see, however, was the look of fearful malevolence
+that old Gagool favoured us with as she crept, crept like a snake, out
+of the treasure chamber and down the passage towards the door of solid
+rock.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Hark! Cry upon cry comes ringing up the vaulted path. It is Foulata's
+voice!
+
+"_Oh, Bougwan! help! help! the stone falls!_"
+
+"Leave go, girl! Then--"
+
+"_Help! help! she has stabbed me!_"
+
+By now we are running down the passage, and this is what the light from
+the lamp shows us. The door of the rock is closing down slowly; it is
+not three feet from the floor. Near it struggle Foulata and Gagool. The
+red blood of the former runs to her knee, but still the brave girl
+holds the old witch, who fights like a wild cat. Ah! she is free!
+Foulata falls, and Gagool throws herself on the ground, to twist like a
+snake through the crack of the closing stone. She is under--ah! god!
+too late! too late! The stone nips her, and she yells in agony. Down,
+down it comes, all the thirty tons of it, slowly pressing her old body
+against the rock below. Shriek upon shriek, such as we have never
+heard, then a long sickening _crunch_, and the door was shut just as,
+rushing down the passage, we hurled ourselves against it.
+
+It was all done in four seconds.
+
+Then we turned to Foulata. The poor girl was stabbed in the body, and I
+saw that she could not live long.
+
+"Ah! Bougwan, I die!" gasped the beautiful creature. "She crept
+out--Gagool; I did not see her, I was faint--and the door began to
+fall; then she came back, and was looking up the path--I saw her come
+in through the slowly falling door, and caught her and held her, and
+she stabbed me, and _I die_, Bougwan!"
+
+"Poor girl! poor girl!" Good cried in his distress; and then, as he
+could do nothing else, he fell to kissing her.
+
+"Bougwan," she said, after a pause, "is Macumazahn there? It grows so
+dark, I cannot see."
+
+"Here I am, Foulata."
+
+"Macumazahn, be my tongue for a moment, I pray thee, for Bougwan cannot
+understand me, and before I go into the darkness I would speak to him a
+word."
+
+"Say on, Foulata, I will render it."
+
+"Say to my lord, Bougwan, that--I love him, and that I am glad to die
+because I know that he cannot cumber his life with such as I am, for
+the sun may not mate with the darkness, nor the white with the black.
+
+"Say that, since I saw him, at times I have felt as though there were a
+bird in my bosom, which would one day fly hence and sing elsewhere.
+Even now, though I cannot lift my hand, and my brain grows cold, I do
+not feel as though my heart were dying; it is so full of love that it
+could live ten thousand years, and yet be young. Say that if I live
+again, mayhap I shall see him in the Stars, and that--I will search
+them all, though perchance there I should still be black and he
+would--still be white. Say--nay, Macumazahn, say no more, save that I
+love--Oh, hold me closer, Bougwan, I cannot feel thine arms--_oh! oh!_"
+
+"She is dead--she is dead!" muttered Good, rising in grief, the tears
+running down his honest face.
+
+"You need not let that trouble you, old fellow," said Sir Henry.
+
+"Eh!" exclaimed Good; "what do you mean?"
+
+"I mean that you will soon be in a position to join her. _Man, don't
+you see that we are buried alive?_"
+
+Until Sir Henry uttered these words I do not think that the full horror
+of what had happened had come home to us, preoccupied as we were with
+the sight of poor Foulata's end. But now we understood. The ponderous
+mass of rock had closed, probably for ever, for the only brain which
+knew its secret was crushed to powder beneath its weight. This was a
+door that none could hope to force with anything short of dynamite in
+large quantities. And we were on the wrong side!
+
+For a few minutes we stood horrified, there over the corpse of Foulata.
+All the manhood seemed to have gone out of us. The first shock of this
+idea of the slow and miserable end that awaited us was overpowering. We
+saw it all now; that fiend Gagool had planned this snare for us from
+the first.
+
+It would have been just the jest that her evil mind would have rejoiced
+in, the idea of the three white men, whom, for some reason of her own,
+she had always hated, slowly perishing of thirst and hunger in the
+company of the treasure they had coveted. Now I saw the point of that
+sneer of hers about eating and drinking the diamonds. Probably somebody
+had tried to serve the poor old Dom in the same way, when he abandoned
+the skin full of jewels.
+
+"This will never do," said Sir Henry hoarsely; "the lamp will soon go
+out. Let us see if we can't find the spring that works the rock."
+
+We sprang forward with desperate energy, and, standing in a bloody
+ooze, began to feel up and down the door and the sides of the passage.
+But no knob or spring could we discover.
+
+"Depend on it," I said, "it does not work from the inside; if it did
+Gagool would not have risked trying to crawl underneath the stone. It
+was the knowledge of this that made her try to escape at all hazards,
+curse her."
+
+"At all events," said Sir Henry, with a hard little laugh, "retribution
+was swift; hers was almost as awful an end as ours is likely to be. We
+can do nothing with the door; let us go back to the treasure room."
+
+We turned and went, and as we passed it I perceived by the unfinished
+wall across the passage the basket of food which poor Foulata had
+carried. I took it up, and brought it with me to the accursed treasure
+chamber that was to be our grave. Then we returned and reverently bore
+in Foulata's corpse, laying it on the floor by the boxes of coin.
+
+Next we seated ourselves, leaning our backs against the three stone
+chests which contained the priceless treasure.
+
+"Let us divide the food," said Sir Henry, "so as to make it last as
+long as possible." Accordingly we did so. It would, we reckoned, make
+four infinitesimally small meals for each of us, enough, say, to
+support life for a couple of days. Besides the "biltong," or dried
+game-flesh, there were two gourds of water, each of which held not more
+than a quart.
+
+"Now," said Sir Henry grimly, "let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we
+die."
+
+We each ate a small portion of the "biltong," and drank a sip of water.
+Needless to say, we had but little appetite, though we were sadly in
+need of food, and felt better after swallowing it. Then we got up and
+made a systematic examination of the walls of our prison-house, in the
+faint hope of finding some means of exit, sounding them and the floor
+carefully.
+
+There was none. It was not probable that there would be any to a
+treasure chamber.
+
+The lamp began to burn dim. The fat was nearly exhausted.
+
+"Quatermain," said Sir Henry, "what is the time--your watch goes?"
+
+I drew it out, and looked at it. It was six o'clock; we had entered the
+cave at eleven.
+
+"Infadoos will miss us," I suggested. "If we do not return to-night he
+will search for us in the morning, Curtis."
+
+"He may search in vain. He does not know the secret of the door, nor
+even where it is. No living person knew it yesterday, except Gagool.
+To-day no one knows it. Even if he found the door he could not break it
+down. All the Kukuana army could not break through five feet of living
+rock. My friends, I see nothing for it but to bow ourselves to the will
+of the Almighty. The search for treasure has brought many to a bad end;
+we shall go to swell their number."
+
+The lamp grew dimmer yet.
+
+Presently it flared up and showed the whole scene in strong relief, the
+great mass of white tusks, the boxes of gold, the corpse of the poor
+Foulata stretched before them, the goat-skin full of treasure, the dim
+glimmer of the diamonds, and the wild, wan faces of us three white men
+seated there awaiting death by starvation.
+
+
+Then the flame sank and expired.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+WE ABANDON HOPE
+
+I can give no adequate description of the horrors of the night which
+followed. Mercifully they were to some extent mitigated by sleep, for
+even in such a position as ours wearied nature will sometimes assert
+itself. But I, at any rate, found it impossible to sleep much. Putting
+aside the terrifying thought of our impending doom--for the bravest man
+on earth might well quail from such a fate as awaited us, and I never
+made any pretensions to be brave--the _silence_ itself was too great to
+allow of it. Reader, you may have lain awake at night and thought the
+quiet oppressive, but I say with confidence that you can have no idea
+what a vivid, tangible thing is perfect stillness. On the surface of
+the earth there is always some sound or motion, and though it may in
+itself be imperceptible, yet it deadens the sharp edge of absolute
+silence. But here there was none. We were buried in the bowels of a
+huge snow-clad peak. Thousands of feet above us the fresh air rushed
+over the white snow, but no sound of it reached us. We were separated
+by a long tunnel and five feet of rock even from the awful chamber of
+the Dead; and the dead make no noise. Did we not know it who lay by
+poor Foulata's side? The crashing of all the artillery of earth and
+heaven could not have come to our ears in our living tomb. We were cut
+off from every echo of the world--we were as men already in the grave.
+
+Then the irony of the situation forced itself upon me. There around us
+lay treasures enough to pay off a moderate national debt, or to build a
+fleet of ironclads, and yet we would have bartered them all gladly for
+the faintest chance of escape. Soon, doubtless, we should be rejoiced
+to exchange them for a bit of food or a cup of water, and, after that,
+even for the privilege of a speedy close to our sufferings. Truly
+wealth, which men spend their lives in acquiring, is a valueless thing
+at the last.
+
+And so the night wore on.
+
+"Good," said Sir Henry's voice at last, and it sounded awful in the
+intense stillness, "how many matches have you in the box?"
+
+"Eight, Curtis."
+
+"Strike one and let us see the time."
+
+He did so, and in contrast to the dense darkness the flame nearly
+blinded us. It was five o'clock by my watch. The beautiful dawn was now
+blushing on the snow-wreaths far over our heads, and the breeze would
+be stirring the night mists in the hollows.
+
+"We had better eat something and keep up our strength," I suggested.
+
+"What is the good of eating?" answered Good; "the sooner we die and get
+it over the better."
+
+"While there is life there is hope," said Sir Henry.
+
+Accordingly we ate and sipped some water, and another period of time
+elapsed. Then Sir Henry suggested that it might be well to get as near
+the door as possible and halloa, on the faint chance of somebody
+catching a sound outside. Accordingly Good, who, from long practice at
+sea, has a fine piercing note, groped his way down the passage and set
+to work. I must say that he made a most diabolical noise. I never heard
+such yells; but it might have been a mosquito buzzing for all the
+effect they produced.
+
+After a while he gave it up and came back very thirsty, and had to
+drink. Then we stopped yelling, as it encroached on the supply of water.
+
+So we sat down once more against the chests of useless diamonds in that
+dreadful inaction which was one of the hardest circumstances of our
+fate; and I am bound to say that, for my part, I gave way in despair.
+Laying my head against Sir Henry's broad shoulder I burst into tears;
+and I think that I heard Good gulping away on the other side, and
+swearing hoarsely at himself for doing so.
+
+Ah, how good and brave that great man was! Had we been two frightened
+children, and he our nurse, he could not have treated us more tenderly.
+Forgetting his own share of miseries, he did all he could to soothe our
+broken nerves, telling stories of men who had been in somewhat similar
+circumstances, and miraculously escaped; and when these failed to cheer
+us, pointing out how, after all, it was only anticipating an end which
+must come to us all, that it would soon be over, and that death from
+exhaustion was a merciful one (which is not true). Then, in a diffident
+sort of way, as once before I had heard him do, he suggested that we
+should throw ourselves on the mercy of a higher Power, which for my
+part I did with great vigour.
+
+His is a beautiful character, very quiet, but very strong.
+
+And so somehow the day went as the night had gone, if, indeed, one can
+use these terms where all was densest night, and when I lit a match to
+see the time it was seven o'clock.
+
+Once more we ate and drank, and as we did so an idea occurred to me.
+
+"How is it," said I, "that the air in this place keeps fresh? It is
+thick and heavy, but it is perfectly fresh."
+
+"Great heavens!" said Good, starting up, "I never thought of that. It
+can't come through the stone door, for it's air-tight, if ever a door
+was. It must come from somewhere. If there were no current of air in
+the place we should have been stifled or poisoned when we first came
+in. Let us have a look."
+
+It was wonderful what a change this mere spark of hope wrought in us.
+In a moment we were all three groping about on our hands and knees,
+feeling for the slightest indication of a draught. Presently my ardour
+received a check. I put my hand on something cold. It was dead
+Foulata's face.
+
+For an hour or more we went on feeling about, till at last Sir Henry
+and I gave it up in despair, having been considerably hurt by
+constantly knocking our heads against tusks, chests, and the sides of
+the chamber. But Good still persevered, saying, with an approach to
+cheerfulness, that it was better than doing nothing.
+
+"I say, you fellows," he said presently, in a constrained sort of
+voice, "come here."
+
+Needless to say we scrambled towards him quickly enough.
+
+"Quatermain, put your hand here where mine is. Now, do you feel
+anything?"
+
+"I _think_ I feel air coming up."
+
+"Now listen." He rose and stamped upon the place, and a flame of hope
+shot up in our hearts. _It rang hollow._
+
+With trembling hands I lit a match. I had only three left, and we saw
+that we were in the angle of the far corner of the chamber, a fact that
+accounted for our not having noticed the hollow sound of the place
+during our former exhaustive examination. As the match burnt we
+scrutinised the spot. There was a join in the solid rock floor, and,
+great heavens! there, let in level with the rock, was a stone ring. We
+said no word, we were too excited, and our hearts beat too wildly with
+hope to allow us to speak. Good had a knife, at the back of which was
+one of those hooks that are made to extract stones from horses' hoofs.
+He opened it, and scratched round the ring with it. Finally he worked
+it under, and levered away gently for fear of breaking the hook. The
+ring began to move. Being of stone it had not rusted fast in all the
+centuries it had lain there, as would have been the case had it been of
+iron. Presently it was upright. Then he thrust his hands into it and
+tugged with all his force, but nothing budged.
+
+"Let me try," I said impatiently, for the situation of the stone, right
+in the angle of the corner, was such that it was impossible for two to
+pull at once. I took hold and strained away, but no results.
+
+Then Sir Henry tried and failed.
+
+Taking the hook again, Good scratched all round the crack where we felt
+the air coming up.
+
+"Now, Curtis," he said, "tackle on, and put your back into it; you are
+as strong as two. Stop," and he took off a stout black silk
+handkerchief, which, true to his habits of neatness, he still wore, and
+ran it through the ring. "Quatermain, get Curtis round the middle and
+pull for dear life when I give the word. _Now._"
+
+Sir Henry put out all his enormous strength, and Good and I did the
+same, with such power as nature had given us.
+
+"Heave! heave! it's giving," gasped Sir Henry; and I heard the muscles
+of his great back cracking. Suddenly there was a grating sound, then a
+rush of air, and we were all on our backs on the floor with a heavy
+flag-stone upon the top of us. Sir Henry's strength had done it, and
+never did muscular power stand a man in better stead.
+
+"Light a match, Quatermain," he said, so soon as we had picked
+ourselves up and got our breath; "carefully, now."
+
+I did so, and there before us, Heaven be praised! was the _first step
+of a stone stair._
+
+"Now what is to be done?" asked Good.
+
+"Follow the stair, of course, and trust to Providence."
+
+"Stop!" said Sir Henry; "Quatermain, get the bit of biltong and the
+water that are left; we may want them."
+
+I went, creeping back to our place by the chests for that purpose, and
+as I was coming away an idea struck me. We had not thought much of the
+diamonds for the last twenty-four hours or so; indeed, the very idea of
+diamonds was nauseous, seeing what they had entailed upon us; but,
+reflected I, I may as well pocket some in case we ever should get out
+of this ghastly hole. So I just put my fist into the first chest and
+filled all the available pockets of my old shooting-coat and trousers,
+topping up--this was a happy thought--with a few handfuls of big ones
+from the third chest. Also, by an afterthought, I stuffed Foulata's
+basket, which, except for one water-gourd and a little biltong, was
+empty now, with great quantities of the stones.
+
+"I say, you fellows," I sang out, "won't you take some diamonds with
+you? I've filled my pockets and the basket."
+
+"Oh, come on, Quatermain! and hang the diamonds!" said Sir Henry. "I
+hope that I may never see another."
+
+As for Good, he made no answer. He was, I think, taking his last
+farewell of all that was left of the poor girl who had loved him so
+well. And curious as it may seem to you, my reader, sitting at home at
+ease and reflecting on the vast, indeed the immeasurable, wealth which
+we were thus abandoning, I can assure you that if you had passed some
+twenty-eight hours with next to nothing to eat and drink in that place,
+you would not have cared to cumber yourself with diamonds whilst
+plunging down into the unknown bowels of the earth, in the wild hope of
+escape from an agonising death. If from the habits of a lifetime, it
+had not become a sort of second nature with me never to leave anything
+worth having behind if there was the slightest chance of my being able
+to carry it away, I am sure that I should not have bothered to fill my
+pockets and that basket.
+
+"Come on, Quatermain," repeated Sir Henry, who was already standing on
+the first step of the stone stair. "Steady, I will go first."
+
+"Mind where you put your feet, there may be some awful hole
+underneath," I answered.
+
+"Much more likely to be another room," said Sir Henry, while he
+descended slowly, counting the steps as he went.
+
+When he got to "fifteen" he stopped. "Here's the bottom," he said.
+"Thank goodness! I think it's a passage. Follow me down."
+
+Good went next, and I came last, carrying the basket, and on reaching
+the bottom lit one of the two remaining matches. By its light we could
+just see that we were standing in a narrow tunnel, which ran right and
+left at right angles to the staircase we had descended. Before we could
+make out any more, the match burnt my fingers and went out. Then arose
+the delicate question of which way to go. Of course, it was impossible
+to know what the tunnel was, or where it led to, and yet to turn one
+way might lead us to safety, and the other to destruction. We were
+utterly perplexed, till suddenly it struck Good that when I had lit the
+match the draught of the passage blew the flame to the left.
+
+"Let us go against the draught," he said; "air draws inwards, not
+outwards."
+
+We took this suggestion, and feeling along the wall with our hands,
+whilst trying the ground before us at every step, we departed from that
+accursed treasure chamber on our terrible quest for life. If ever it
+should be entered again by living man, which I do not think probable,
+he will find tokens of our visit in the open chests of jewels, the
+empty lamp, and the white bones of poor Foulata.
+
+When we had groped our way for about a quarter of an hour along the
+passage, suddenly it took a sharp turn, or else was bisected by
+another, which we followed, only in course of time to be led into a
+third. And so it went on for some hours. We seemed to be in a stone
+labyrinth that led nowhere. What all these passages are, of course I
+cannot say, but we thought that they must be the ancient workings of a
+mine, of which the various shafts and adits travelled hither and
+thither as the ore led them. This is the only way in which we could
+account for such a multitude of galleries.
+
+At length we halted, thoroughly worn out with fatigue and with that
+hope deferred which maketh the heart sick, and ate up our poor
+remaining piece of biltong and drank our last sup of water, for our
+throats were like lime-kilns. It seemed to us that we had escaped Death
+in the darkness of the treasure chamber only to meet him in the
+darkness of the tunnels.
+
+As we stood, once more utterly depressed, I thought that I caught a
+sound, to which I called the attention of the others. It was very faint
+and very far off, but it _was_ a sound, a faint, murmuring sound, for
+the others heard it too, and no words can describe the blessedness of
+it after all those hours of utter, awful stillness.
+
+"By heaven! it's running water," said Good. "Come on."
+
+Off we started again in the direction from which the faint murmur
+seemed to come, groping our way as before along the rocky walls. I
+remember that I laid down the basket full of diamonds, wishing to be
+rid of its weight, but on second thoughts took it up again. One might
+as well die rich as poor, I reflected. As we went the sound became more
+and more audible, till at last it seemed quite loud in the quiet. On,
+yet on; now we could distinctly make out the unmistakable swirl of
+rushing water. And yet how could there be running water in the bowels
+of the earth? Now we were quite near it, and Good, who was leading,
+swore that he could smell it.
+
+"Go gently, Good," said Sir Henry, "we must be close." _Splash!_ and a
+cry from Good.
+
+He had fallen in.
+
+"Good! Good! where are you?" we shouted, in terrified distress. To our
+intense relief an answer came back in a choky voice.
+
+"All right; I've got hold of a rock. Strike a light to show me where
+you are."
+
+Hastily I lit the last remaining match. Its faint gleam discovered to
+us a dark mass of water running at our feet. How wide it was we could
+not see, but there, some way out, was the dark form of our companion
+hanging on to a projecting rock.
+
+"Stand clear to catch me," sung out Good. "I must swim for it."
+
+Then we heard a splash, and a great struggle. Another minute and he had
+grabbed at and caught Sir Henry's outstretched hand, and we had pulled
+him up high and dry into the tunnel.
+
+"My word!" he said, between his gasps, "that was touch and go. If I
+hadn't managed to catch that rock, and known how to swim, I should have
+been done. It runs like a mill-race, and I could feel no bottom."
+
+We dared not follow the banks of the subterranean river for fear lest
+we should fall into it again in the darkness. So after Good had rested
+a while, and we had drunk our fill of the water, which was sweet and
+fresh, and washed our faces, that needed it sadly, as well as we could,
+we started from the banks of this African Styx, and began to retrace
+our steps along the tunnel, Good dripping unpleasantly in front of us.
+At length we came to another gallery leading to our right.
+
+"We may as well take it," said Sir Henry wearily; "all roads are alike
+here; we can only go on till we drop."
+
+Slowly, for a long, long while, we stumbled, utterly exhausted, along
+this new tunnel, Sir Henry now leading the way. Again I thought of
+abandoning that basket, but did not.
+
+Suddenly he stopped, and we bumped up against him.
+
+"Look!" he whispered, "is my brain going, or is that light?"
+
+We stared with all our eyes, and there, yes, there, far ahead of us,
+was a faint, glimmering spot, no larger than a cottage window pane. It
+was so faint that I doubt if any eyes, except those which, like ours,
+had for days seen nothing but blackness, could have perceived it at all.
+
+With a gasp of hope we pushed on. In five minutes there was no longer
+any doubt; it _was_ a patch of faint light. A minute more and a breath
+of real live air was fanning us. On we struggled. All at once the
+tunnel narrowed. Sir Henry went on his knees. Smaller yet it grew, till
+it was only the size of a large fox's earth--it was _earth_ now, mind
+you; the rock had ceased.
+
+A squeeze, a struggle, and Sir Henry was out, and so was Good, and so
+was I, dragging Foulata's basket after me; and there above us were the
+blessed stars, and in our nostrils was the sweet air. Then suddenly
+something gave, and we were all rolling over and over and over through
+grass and bushes and soft, wet soil.
+
+The basket caught in something and I stopped. Sitting up I halloed
+lustily. An answering shout came from below, where Sir Henry's wild
+career had been checked by some level ground. I scrambled to him, and
+found him unhurt, though breathless. Then we looked for Good. A little
+way off we discovered him also, hammed in a forked root. He was a good
+deal knocked about, but soon came to himself.
+
+We sat down together, there on the grass, and the revulsion of feeling
+was so great that really I think we cried with joy. We had escaped from
+that awful dungeon, which was so near to becoming our grave. Surely
+some merciful Power guided our footsteps to the jackal hole, for that
+is what it must have been, at the termination of the tunnel. And see,
+yonder on the mountains the dawn we had never thought to look upon
+again was blushing rosy red.
+
+Presently the grey light stole down the slopes, and we saw that we were
+at the bottom, or rather, nearly at the bottom, of the vast pit in
+front of the entrance to the cave. Now we could make out the dim forms
+of the three Colossi who sat upon its verge. Doubtless those awful
+passages, along which we had wandered the livelong night, had been
+originally in some way connected with the great diamond mine. As for
+the subterranean river in the bowels of the mountain, Heaven only knows
+what it is, or whence it flows, or whither it goes. I, for one, have no
+anxiety to trace its course.
+
+Lighter it grew, and lighter yet. We could see each other now, and such
+a spectacle as we presented I have never set eyes on before or since.
+Gaunt-cheeked, hollow-eyed wretches, smeared all over with dust and
+mud, bruised, bleeding, the long fear of imminent death yet written on
+our countenances, we were, indeed, a sight to frighten the daylight.
+And yet it is a solemn fact that Good's eye-glass was still fixed in
+Good's eye. I doubt whether he had ever taken it out at all. Neither
+the darkness, nor the plunge in the subterranean river, nor the roll
+down the slope, had been able to separate Good and his eye-glass.
+
+Presently we rose, fearing that our limbs would stiffen if we stopped
+there longer, and commenced with slow and painful steps to struggle up
+the sloping sides of the great pit. For an hour or more we toiled
+steadfastly up the blue clay, dragging ourselves on by the help of the
+roots and grasses with which it was clothed. But now I had no more
+thought of leaving the basket; indeed, nothing but death should have
+parted us.
+
+At last it was done, and we stood by the great road, on that side of
+the pit which is opposite to the Colossi.
+
+At the side of the road, a hundred yards off, a fire was burning in
+front of some huts, and round the fire were figures. We staggered
+towards them, supporting one another, and halting every few paces.
+Presently one of the figures rose, saw us and fell on to the ground,
+crying out for fear.
+
+"Infadoos, Infadoos! it is we, thy friends."
+
+He rose; he ran to us, staring wildly, and still shaking with fear.
+
+"Oh, my lords, my lords, it is indeed you come back from the
+dead!--come back from the dead!"
+
+And the old warrior flung himself down before us, and clasping Sir
+Henry's knees, he wept aloud for joy.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+IGNOSI'S FAREWELL
+
+Ten days from that eventful morning found us once more in our old
+quarters at Loo; and, strange to say, but little the worse for our
+terrible experience, except that my stubbly hair came out of the
+treasure cave about three shades greyer than it went in, and that Good
+never was quite the same after Foulata's death, which seemed to move
+him very greatly. I am bound to say, looking at the thing from the
+point of view of an oldish man of the world, that I consider her
+removal was a fortunate occurrence, since, otherwise, complications
+would have been sure to ensue. The poor creature was no ordinary native
+girl, but a person of great, I had almost said stately, beauty, and of
+considerable refinement of mind. But no amount of beauty or refinement
+could have made an entanglement between Good and herself a desirable
+occurrence; for, as she herself put it, "Can the sun mate with the
+darkness, or the white with the black?"
+
+I need hardly state that we never again penetrated into Solomon's
+treasure chamber. After we had recovered from our fatigues, a process
+which took us forty-eight hours, we descended into the great pit in the
+hope of finding the hole by which we had crept out of the mountain, but
+with no success. To begin with, rain had fallen, and obliterated our
+spoor; and what is more, the sides of the vast pit were full of
+ant-bear and other holes. It was impossible to say to which of these we
+owed our salvation. Also, on the day before we started back to Loo, we
+made a further examination of the wonders of the stalactite cave, and,
+drawn by a kind of restless feeling, even penetrated once more into the
+Chamber of the Dead. Passing beneath the spear of the White Death we
+gazed, with sensations which it would be quite impossible for me to
+describe, at the mass of rock that had shut us off from escape,
+thinking the while of priceless treasures beyond, of the mysterious old
+hag whose flattened fragments lay crushed beneath it, and of the fair
+girl of whose tomb it was the portal. I say gazed at the "rock," for,
+examine as we could, we could find no traces of the join of the sliding
+door; nor, indeed, could we hit upon the secret, now utterly lost, that
+worked it, though we tried for an hour or more. It is certainly a
+marvellous bit of mechanism, characteristic, in its massive and yet
+inscrutable simplicity, of the age which produced it; and I doubt if
+the world has such another to show.
+
+At last we gave it up in disgust; though, if the mass had suddenly
+risen before our eyes, I doubt if we should have screwed up courage to
+step over Gagool's mangled remains, and once more enter the treasure
+chamber, even in the sure and certain hope of unlimited diamonds. And
+yet I could have cried at the idea of leaving all that treasure, the
+biggest treasure probably that in the world's history has ever been
+accumulated in one spot. But there was no help for it. Only dynamite
+could force its way through five feet of solid rock.
+
+So we left it. Perhaps, in some remote unborn century, a more fortunate
+explorer may hit upon the "Open Sesame," and flood the world with gems.
+But, myself, I doubt it. Somehow, I seem to feel that the tens of
+millions of pounds' worth of jewels which lie in the three stone
+coffers will never shine round the neck of an earthly beauty. They and
+Foulata's bones will keep cold company till the end of all things.
+
+With a sigh of disappointment we made our way back, and next day
+started for Loo. And yet it was really very ungrateful of us to be
+disappointed; for, as the reader will remember, by a lucky thought, I
+had taken the precaution to fill the wide pockets of my old shooting
+coat and trousers with gems before we left our prison-house, also
+Foulata's basket, which held twice as many more, notwithstanding that
+the water bottle had occupied some of its space. A good many of these
+fell out in the course of our roll down the side of the pit, including
+several of the big ones, which I had crammed in on the top in my coat
+pockets. But, comparatively speaking, an enormous quantity still
+remained, including ninety-three large stones ranging from over two
+hundred to seventy carats in weight. My old shooting coat and the
+basket still held sufficient treasure to make us all, if not
+millionaires as the term is understood in America, at least exceedingly
+wealthy men, and yet to keep enough stones each to make the three
+finest sets of gems in Europe. So we had not done so badly.
+
+On arriving at Loo we were most cordially received by Ignosi, whom we
+found well, and busily engaged in consolidating his power, and
+reorganising the regiments which had suffered most in the great
+struggle with Twala.
+
+He listened with intense interest to our wonderful story; but when we
+told him of old Gagool's frightful end he grew thoughtful.
+
+"Come hither," he called, to a very old Induna or councillor, who was
+sitting with others in a circle round the king, but out of ear-shot.
+The ancient man rose, approached, saluted, and seated himself.
+
+"Thou art aged," said Ignosi.
+
+"Ay, my lord the king! Thy father's father and I were born on the same
+day."
+
+"Tell me, when thou wast little, didst thou know Gagaoola the witch
+doctress?"
+
+"Ay, my lord the king!"
+
+"How was she then--young, like thee?"
+
+"Not so, my lord the king! She was even as she is now and as she was in
+the days of my great grandfather before me; old and dried, very ugly,
+and full of wickedness."
+
+"She is no more; she is dead."
+
+"So, O king! then is an ancient curse taken from the land."
+
+"Go!"
+
+"_Koom!_ I go, Black Puppy, who tore out the old dog's throat. _Koom!_"
+
+"Ye see, my brothers," said Ignosi, "this was a strange woman, and I
+rejoice that she is dead. She would have let you die in the dark place,
+and mayhap afterwards she had found a way to slay me, as she found a
+way to slay my father, and set up Twala, whom her black heart loved, in
+his place. Now go on with the tale; surely there never was its like!"
+
+After I had narrated all the story of our escape, as we had agreed
+between ourselves that I should, I took the opportunity to address
+Ignosi as to our departure from Kukuanaland.
+
+"And now, Ignosi," I said, "the time has come for us to bid thee
+farewell, and start to see our own land once more. Behold, Ignosi, thou
+camest with us a servant, and now we leave thee a mighty king. If thou
+art grateful to us, remember to do even as thou didst promise: to rule
+justly, to respect the law, and to put none to death without a cause.
+So shalt thou prosper. To-morrow, at break of day, Ignosi, thou wilt
+give us an escort who shall lead us across the mountains. Is it not so,
+O king?"
+
+Ignosi covered his face with his hands for a while before answering.
+
+"My heart is sore," he said at last; "your words split my heart in
+twain. What have I done to you, Incubu, Macumazahn, and Bougwan, that
+ye should leave me desolate? Ye who stood by me in rebellion and in
+battle, will ye leave me in the day of peace and victory? What will
+ye--wives? Choose from among the maidens! A place to live in? Behold,
+the land is yours as far as ye can see. The white man's houses? Ye
+shall teach my people how to build them. Cattle for beef and milk?
+Every married man shall bring you an ox or a cow. Wild game to hunt?
+Does not the elephant walk through my forests, and the river-horse
+sleep in the reeds? Would ye make war? My Impis wait your word. If
+there is anything more which I can give, that will I give you."
+
+"Nay, Ignosi, we want none of these things," I answered; "we would seek
+our own place."
+
+"Now do I learn," said Ignosi bitterly, and with flashing eyes, "that
+ye love the bright stones more than me, your friend. Ye have the
+stones; now ye would go to Natal and across the moving black water and
+sell them, and be rich, as it is the desire of a white man's heart to
+be. Cursed for your sake be the white stones, and cursed he who seeks
+them. Death shall it be to him who sets foot in the place of Death to
+find them. I have spoken. White men, ye can go."
+
+I laid my hand upon his arm. "Ignosi," I said, "tell us, when thou
+didst wander in Zululand, and among the white people of Natal, did not
+thine heart turn to the land thy mother told thee of, thy native place,
+where thou didst see the light, and play when thou wast little, the
+land where thy place was?"
+
+"It was even so, Macumazahn."
+
+"In like manner, Ignosi, do our hearts turn to our land and to our own
+place."
+
+Then came a silence. When Ignosi broke it, it was in a different voice.
+
+"I do perceive that now as ever thy words are wise and full of reason,
+Macumazahn; that which flies in the air loves not to run along the
+ground; the white man loves not to live on the level of the black or to
+house among his kraals. Well, ye must go, and leave my heart sore,
+because ye will be as dead to me, since from where ye are no tidings
+can come to me.
+
+"But listen, and let all your brothers know my words. No other white
+man shall cross the mountains, even if any man live to come so far. I
+will see no traders with their guns and gin. My people shall fight with
+the spear, and drink water, like their forefathers before them. I will
+have no praying-men to put a fear of death into men's hearts, to stir
+them up against the law of the king, and make a path for the white folk
+who follow to run on. If a white man comes to my gates I will send him
+back; if a hundred come I will push them back; if armies come, I will
+make war on them with all my strength, and they shall not prevail
+against me. None shall ever seek for the shining stones: no, not an
+army, for if they come I will send a regiment and fill up the pit, and
+break down the white columns in the caves and choke them with rocks, so
+that none can reach even to that door of which ye speak, and whereof
+the way to move it is lost. But for you three, Incubu, Macumazahn, and
+Bougwan, the path is always open; for, behold, ye are dearer to me than
+aught that breathes.
+
+"And ye would go. Infadoos, my uncle, and my Induna, shall take you by
+the hand and guide you with a regiment. There is, as I have learned,
+another way across the mountains that he shall show you. Farewell, my
+brothers, brave white men. See me no more, for I have no heart to bear
+it. Behold! I make a decree, and it shall be published from the
+mountains to the mountains; your names, Incubu, Macumazahn, and
+Bougwan, shall be "_hlonipa_" even as the names of dead kings, and he
+who speaks them shall die.[1] So shall your memory be preserved in the
+land for ever.
+
+"Go now, ere my eyes rain tears like a woman's. At times as ye look
+back down the path of life, or when ye are old and gather yourselves
+together to crouch before the fire, because for you the sun has no more
+heat, ye will think of how we stood shoulder to shoulder, in that great
+battle which thy wise words planned, Macumazahn; of how thou wast the
+point of the horn that galled Twala's flank, Bougwan; whilst thou stood
+in the ring of the Greys, Incubu, and men went down before thine axe
+like corn before a sickle; ay, and of how thou didst break that wild
+bull Twala's strength, and bring his pride to dust. Fare ye well for
+ever, Incubu, Macumazahn, and Bougwan, my lords and my friends."
+
+Ignosi rose and looked earnestly at us for a few seconds. Then he threw
+the corner of his karross over his head, so as to cover his face from
+us.
+
+We went in silence.
+
+
+Next day at dawn we left Loo, escorted by our old friend Infadoos, who
+was heart-broken at our departure, and by the regiment of Buffaloes.
+Early as was the hour, all the main street of the town was lined with
+multitudes of people, who gave us the royal salute as we passed at the
+head of the regiment, while the women blessed us for having rid the
+land of Twala, throwing flowers before us as we went. It was really
+very affecting, and not the sort of thing one is accustomed to meet
+with from natives.
+
+One ludicrous incident occurred, however, which I rather welcomed, as
+it gave us something to laugh at.
+
+Just before we reached the confines of the town, a pretty young girl,
+with some lovely lilies in her hand, ran forward and presented them to
+Good--somehow they all seemed to like Good; I think his eye-glass and
+solitary whisker gave him a fictitious value--and then said that she
+had a boon to ask.
+
+"Speak on," he answered.
+
+"Let my lord show his servant his beautiful white legs, that his
+servant may look upon them, and remember them all her days, and tell of
+them to her children; his servant has travelled four days' journey to
+see them, for the fame of them has gone throughout the land."
+
+"I'll be hanged if I do!" exclaimed Good excitedly.
+
+"Come, come, my dear fellow," said Sir Henry, "you can't refuse to
+oblige a lady."
+
+"I won't," replied Good obstinately; "it is positively indecent."
+
+However, in the end he consented to draw up his trousers to the knee,
+amidst notes of rapturous admiration from all the women present,
+especially the gratified young lady, and in this guise he had to walk
+till we got clear of the town.
+
+Good's legs, I fear, will never be so greatly admired again. Of his
+melting teeth, and even of his "transparent eye," the Kukuanas wearied
+more or less, but of his legs never.
+
+As we travelled, Infadoos told us that there was another pass over the
+mountains to the north of the one followed by Solomon's Great Road, or
+rather that there was a place where it was possible to climb down the
+wall of cliff which separates Kukuanaland from the desert, and is
+broken by the towering shapes of Sheba's Breasts. It appeared, also,
+that rather more than two years previously a party of Kukuana hunters
+had descended this path into the desert in search of ostriches, whose
+plumes are much prized among them for war head-dresses, and that in the
+course of their hunt they had been led far from the mountains and were
+much troubled by thirst. Seeing trees on the horizon, however, they
+walked towards them, and discovered a large and fertile oasis some
+miles in extent, and plentifully watered. It was by way of this oasis
+that Infadoos suggested we should return, and the idea seemed to us a
+good one, for it appeared that we should thus escape the rigours of the
+mountain pass. Also some of the hunters were in attendance to guide us
+to the oasis, from which, they stated, they could perceive other
+fertile spots far away in the desert.[2]
+
+Travelling easily, on the night of the fourth day's journey we found
+ourselves once more on the crest of the mountains that separate
+Kukuanaland from the desert, which rolled away in sandy billows at our
+feet, and about twenty-five miles to the north of Sheba's Breasts.
+
+At dawn on the following day, we were led to the edge of a very
+precipitous chasm, by which we were to descend the precipice, and gain
+the plain two thousand and more feet below.
+
+Here we bade farewell to that true friend and sturdy old warrior,
+Infadoos, who solemnly wished all good upon us, and nearly wept with
+grief. "Never, my lords," he said, "shall mine old eyes see the like of
+you again. Ah! the way that Incubu cut his men down in the battle! Ah!
+for the sight of that stroke with which he swept off my brother Twala's
+head! It was beautiful--beautiful! I may never hope to see such
+another, except perchance in happy dreams."
+
+We were very sorry to part from him; indeed, Good was so moved that he
+gave him as a souvenir--what do you think?--an _eye-glass_; afterwards
+we discovered that it was a spare one. Infadoos was delighted,
+foreseeing that the possession of such an article would increase his
+prestige enormously, and after several vain attempts he actually
+succeeded in screwing it into his own eye. Anything more incongruous
+than the old warrior looked with an eye-glass I never saw. Eye-glasses
+do not go well with leopard-skin cloaks and black ostrich plumes.
+
+Then, after seeing that our guides were well laden with water and
+provisions, and having received a thundering farewell salute from the
+Buffaloes, we wrung Infadoos by the hand, and began our downward climb.
+A very arduous business it proved to be, but somehow that evening we
+found ourselves at the bottom without accident.
+
+"Do you know," said Sir Henry that night, as we sat by our fire and
+gazed up at the beetling cliffs above us, "I think that there are worse
+places than Kukuanaland in the world, and that I have known unhappier
+times than the last month or two, though I have never spent such queer
+ones. Eh! you fellows?"
+
+"I almost wish I were back," said Good, with a sigh.
+
+As for myself, I reflected that all's well that ends well; but in the
+course of a long life of shaves, I never had such shaves as those which
+I had recently experienced. The thought of that battle makes me feel
+cold all over, and as for our experience in the treasure chamber--!
+
+
+Next morning we started on a toilsome trudge across the desert, having
+with us a good supply of water carried by our five guides, and camped
+that night in the open, marching again at dawn on the morrow.
+
+By noon of the third day's journey we could see the trees of the oasis
+of which the guides spoke, and within an hour of sundown we were
+walking once more upon grass and listening to the sound of running
+water.
+
+
+[1] This extraordinary and negative way of showing intense respect is
+by no means unknown among African people, and the result is that if, as
+is usual, the name in question has a significance, the meaning must be
+expressed by an idiom or other word. In this way a memory is preserved
+for generations, or until the new word utterly supplants the old.
+
+[2] It often puzzled all of us to understand how it was possible that
+Ignosi's mother, bearing the child with her, should have survived the
+dangers of her journey across the mountains and the desert, dangers
+which so nearly proved fatal to ourselves. It has since occurred to me,
+and I give the idea to the reader for what it is worth, that she must
+have taken this second route, and wandered out like Hagar into the
+wilderness. If she did so, there is no longer anything inexplicable
+about the story, since, as Ignosi himself related, she may well have
+been picked up by some ostrich hunters before she or the child was
+exhausted, was led by them to the oasis, and thence by stages to the
+fertile country, and so on by slow degrees southwards to Zululand.--A.Q.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+FOUND
+
+And now I come to perhaps the strangest adventure that happened to us
+in all this strange business, and one which shows how wonderfully
+things are brought about.
+
+I was walking along quietly, some way in front of the other two, down
+the banks of the stream which runs from the oasis till it is swallowed
+up in the hungry desert sands, when suddenly I stopped and rubbed my
+eyes, as well I might. There, not twenty yards in front of me, placed
+in a charming situation, under the shade of a species of fig-tree, and
+facing to the stream, was a cosy hut, built more or less on the Kafir
+principle with grass and withes, but having a full-length door instead
+of a bee-hole.
+
+"What the dickens," said I to myself, "can a hut be doing here?" Even
+as I said it the door of the hut opened, and there limped out of it a
+_white man_ clothed in skins, and with an enormous black beard. I
+thought that I must have got a touch of the sun. It was impossible. No
+hunter ever came to such a place as this. Certainly no hunter would
+ever settle in it. I stared and stared, and so did the other man, and
+just at that juncture Sir Henry and Good walked up.
+
+"Look here, you fellows," I said, "is that a white man, or am I mad?"
+
+Sir Henry looked, and Good looked, and then all of a sudden the lame
+white man with a black beard uttered a great cry, and began hobbling
+towards us. When he was close he fell down in a sort of faint.
+
+With a spring Sir Henry was by his side.
+
+"Great Powers!" he cried, "_it is my brother George!_"
+
+At the sound of this disturbance, another figure, also clad in skins,
+emerged from the hut, a gun in his hand, and ran towards us. On seeing
+me he too gave a cry.
+
+"Macumazahn," he halloed, "don't you know me, Baas? I'm Jim the hunter.
+I lost the note you gave me to give to the Baas, and we have been here
+nearly two years." And the fellow fell at my feet, and rolled over and
+over, weeping for joy.
+
+"You careless scoundrel!" I said; "you ought to be well
+_sjambocked_"--that is, hided.
+
+Meanwhile the man with the black beard had recovered and risen, and he
+and Sir Henry were pump-handling away at each other, apparently without
+a word to say. But whatever they had quarrelled about in the past--I
+suspect it was a lady, though I never asked--it was evidently forgotten
+now.
+
+"My dear old fellow," burst out Sir Henry at last, "I thought you were
+dead. I have been over Solomon's Mountains to find you. I had given up
+all hope of ever seeing you again, and now I come across you perched in
+the desert, like an old _assv�gel_."[1]
+
+"I tried to cross Solomon's Mountains nearly two years ago," was the
+answer, spoken in the hesitating voice of a man who has had little
+recent opportunity of using his tongue, "but when I reached here a
+boulder fell on my leg and crushed it, and I have been able to go
+neither forward nor back."
+
+Then I came up. "How do you do, Mr. Neville?" I said; "do you remember
+me?"
+
+"Why," he said, "isn't it Hunter Quatermain, eh, and Good too? Hold on
+a minute, you fellows, I am getting dizzy again. It is all so very
+strange, and, when a man has ceased to hope, so very happy!"
+
+That evening, over the camp fire, George Curtis told us his story,
+which, in its way, was almost as eventful as our own, and, put shortly,
+amounted to this. A little less than two years before, he had started
+from Sitanda's Kraal, to try to reach Suliman's Berg. As for the note I
+had sent him by Jim, that worthy lost it, and he had never heard of it
+till to-day. But, acting upon information he had received from the
+natives, he headed not for Sheba's Breasts, but for the ladder-like
+descent of the mountains down which we had just come, which is clearly
+a better route than that marked out in old Dom Silvestra's plan. In the
+desert he and Jim had suffered great hardships, but finally they
+reached this oasis, where a terrible accident befell George Curtis. On
+the day of their arrival he was sitting by the stream, and Jim was
+extracting the honey from the nest of a stingless bee which is to be
+found in the desert, on the top of a bank immediately above him. In so
+doing he loosened a great boulder of rock, which fell upon George
+Curtis's right leg, crushing it frightfully. From that day he had been
+so lame that he found it impossible to go either forward or back, and
+had preferred to take the chances of dying in the oasis to the
+certainty of perishing in the desert.
+
+As for food, however, they got on pretty well, for they had a good
+supply of ammunition, and the oasis was frequented, especially at
+night, by large quantities of game, which came thither for water. These
+they shot, or trapped in pitfalls, using the flesh for food, and, after
+their clothes wore out, the hides for clothing.
+
+"And so," George Curtis ended, "we have lived for nearly two years,
+like a second Robinson Crusoe and his man Friday, hoping against hope
+that some natives might come here to help us away, but none have come.
+Only last night we settled that Jim should leave me, and try to reach
+Sitanda's Kraal to get assistance. He was to go to-morrow, but I had
+little hope of ever seeing him back again. And now _you_, of all people
+in the world, _you_, who, as I fancied, had long ago forgotten all
+about me, and were living comfortably in old England, turn up in a
+promiscuous way and find me where you least expected. It is the most
+wonderful thing that I have ever heard of, and the most merciful too."
+
+Then Sir Henry set to work, and told him the main facts of our
+adventures, sitting till late into the night to do it.
+
+"By Jove!" said George Curtis, when I showed him some of the diamonds:
+"well, at least you have got something for your pains, besides my
+worthless self."
+
+Sir Henry laughed. "They belong to Quatermain and Good. It was a part
+of the bargain that they should divide any spoils there might be."
+
+This remark set me thinking, and having spoken to Good, I told Sir
+Henry that it was our joint wish that he should take a third portion of
+the diamonds, or, if he would not, that his share should be handed to
+his brother, who had suffered even more than ourselves on the chance of
+getting them. Finally, we prevailed upon him to consent to this
+arrangement, but George Curtis did not know of it until some time
+afterwards.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Here, at this point, I think that I shall end my history. Our journey
+across the desert back to Sitanda's Kraal was most arduous, especially
+as we had to support George Curtis, whose right leg was very weak
+indeed, and continually threw out splinters of bone. But we did
+accomplish it somehow, and to give its details would only be to
+reproduce much of what happened to us on the former occasion.
+
+Six months from the date of our re-arrival at Sitanda's, where we found
+our guns and other goods quite safe, though the old rascal in charge
+was much disgusted at our surviving to claim them, saw us all once more
+safe and sound at my little place on the Berea, near Durban, where I am
+now writing. Thence I bid farewell to all who have accompanied me
+through the strangest trip I ever made in the course of a long and
+varied experience.
+
+P.S.--Just as I had written the last word, a Kafir came up my avenue of
+orange trees, carrying a letter in a cleft stick, which he had brought
+from the post. It turned out to be from Sir Henry, and as it speaks for
+itself I give it in full.
+
+  October 1, 1884.
+  Brayley Hall, Yorkshire.
+
+  My Dear Quatermain,
+
+  I send you a line a few mails back to say that the three of us,
+  George, Good, and myself, fetched up all right in England. We got
+  off the boat at Southampton, and went up to town. You should have
+  seen what a swell Good turned out the very next day, beautifully
+  shaved, frock coat fitting like a glove, brand new eye-glass,
+  etc., etc. I went and walked in the park with him, where I met
+  some people I know, and at once told them the story of his
+  "beautiful white legs."
+
+  He is furious, especially as some ill-natured person has printed
+  it in a Society paper.
+
+  To come to business, Good and I took the diamonds to Streeter's to
+  be valued, as we arranged, and really I am afraid to tell you what
+  they put them at, it seems so enormous. They say that of course it
+  is more or less guess-work, as such stones have never to their
+  knowledge been put on the market in anything like such quantities.
+  It appears that (with the exception of one or two of the largest)
+  they are of the finest water, and equal in every way to the best
+  Brazilian stones. I asked them if they would buy them, but they
+  said that it was beyond their power to do so, and recommended us
+  to sell by degrees, over a period of years indeed, for fear lest
+  we should flood the market. They offer, however, a hundred and
+  eighty thousand for a very small portion of them.
+
+  You must come home, Quatermain, and see about these things,
+  especially if you insist upon making the magnificent present of
+  the third share, which does _not_ belong to me, to my brother
+  George. As for Good, he is _no good_. His time is too much
+  occupied in shaving, and other matters connected with the vain
+  adorning of the body. But I think he is still down on his luck
+  about Foulata. He told me that since he had been home he hadn't
+  seen a woman to touch her, either as regards her figure or the
+  sweetness of her expression.
+
+  I want you to come home, my dear old comrade, and to buy a house
+  near here. You have done your day's work, and have lots of money
+  now, and there is a place for sale quite close which would suit
+  you admirably. Do come; the sooner the better; you can finish
+  writing the story of our adventures on board ship. We have refused
+  to tell the tale till it is written by you, for fear lest we shall
+  not be believed. If you start on receipt of this you will reach
+  here by Christmas, and I book you to stay with me for that. Good
+  is coming, and George; and so, by the way, is your boy Harry
+  (there's a bribe for you). I have had him down for a week's
+  shooting, and like him. He is a cool young hand; he shot me in the
+  leg, cut out the pellets, and then remarked upon the advantages of
+  having a medical student with every shooting party!
+
+  Good-bye, old boy; I can't say any more, but I know that you will
+  come, if it is only to oblige
+
+  Your sincere friend,
+  Henry Curtis.
+
+  P.S.--The tusks of the great bull that killed poor Khiva have now
+  been put up in the hall here, over the pair of buffalo horns you
+  gave me, and look magnificent; and the axe with which I chopped
+  off Twala's head is fixed above my writing-table. I wish that we
+  could have managed to bring away the coats of chain armour. Don't
+  lose poor Foulata's basket in which you brought away the diamonds.
+
+  H.C.
+
+To-day is Tuesday. There is a steamer going on Friday, and I really
+think that I must take Curtis at his word, and sail by her for England,
+if it is only to see you, Harry, my boy, and to look after the printing
+of this history, which is a task that I do not like to trust to anybody
+else.
+
+
+ALLAN QUATERMAIN.
+
+
+[1] Vulture.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's King Solomon's Mines, by H. Rider Haggard
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diff --git a/old/2166.txt b/old/2166.txt
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of King Solomon's Mines, by H. Rider Haggard
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
+
+
+Title: King Solomon's Mines
+
+Author: H. Rider Haggard
+
+Posting Date: January 15, 2009 [EBook #2166]
+Release Date: October 11, 2005
+Last updated: August 18, 2011
+Last updated: October 10, 2012
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KING SOLOMON'S MINES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by John Bickers and Dagny.  HTML version by Al Haines.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+KING SOLOMON'S MINES
+
+
+by
+
+H. RIDER HAGGARD
+
+
+
+  DEDICATION
+
+  This faithful but unpretending record
+  of a remarkable adventure
+  is hereby respectfully dedicated
+  by the narrator,
+
+  ALLAN QUATERMAIN,
+
+  to all the big and little boys
+  who read it.
+
+
+
+PREPARER'S NOTE
+
+  This was typed from a 1907 edition published by Cassell and
+  Company, Limited.
+
+
+
+AUTHOR'S NOTE
+
+  The author ventures to take this opportunity to thank his readers
+  for the kind reception they have accorded to the successive
+  editions of this tale during the last twelve years. He hopes that
+  in its present form it will fall into the hands of an even wider
+  public, and that in years to come it may continue to afford
+  amusement to those who are still young enough at heart to love a
+  story of treasure, war, and wild adventure.
+
+  Ditchingham,
+  11 March, 1898.
+
+
+
+POST SCRIPTUM
+
+  Now, in 1907, on the occasion of the issue of this edition, I can
+  only add how glad I am that my romance should continue to please
+  so many readers. Imagination has been verified by fact; the King
+  Solomon's Mines I dreamed of have been discovered, and are putting
+  out their gold once more, and, according to the latest reports,
+  their diamonds also; the Kukuanas or, rather, the Matabele, have
+  been tamed by the white man's bullets, but still there seem to be
+  many who find pleasure in these simple pages. That they may
+  continue so to do, even to the third and fourth generation, or
+  perhaps longer still, would, I am sure, be the hope of our old and
+  departed friend, Allan Quatermain.
+
+  H. Rider Haggard.
+  Ditchingham, 1907.
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+Now that this book is printed, and about to be given to the world, a
+sense of its shortcomings both in style and contents, weighs very
+heavily upon me. As regards the latter, I can only say that it does not
+pretend to be a full account of everything we did and saw. There are
+many things connected with our journey into Kukuanaland that I should
+have liked to dwell upon at length, which, as it is, have been scarcely
+alluded to. Amongst these are the curious legends which I collected
+about the chain armour that saved us from destruction in the great
+battle of Loo, and also about the "Silent Ones" or Colossi at the mouth
+of the stalactite cave. Again, if I had given way to my own impulses, I
+should have wished to go into the differences, some of which are to my
+mind very suggestive, between the Zulu and Kukuana dialects. Also a few
+pages might have been given up profitably to the consideration of the
+indigenous flora and fauna of Kukuanaland.[1] Then there remains the
+most interesting subject--that, as it is, has only been touched on
+incidentally--of the magnificent system of military organisation in
+force in that country, which, in my opinion, is much superior to that
+inaugurated by Chaka in Zululand, inasmuch as it permits of even more
+rapid mobilisation, and does not necessitate the employment of the
+pernicious system of enforced celibacy. Lastly, I have scarcely spoken
+of the domestic and family customs of the Kukuanas, many of which are
+exceedingly quaint, or of their proficiency in the art of smelting and
+welding metals. This science they carry to considerable perfection, of
+which a good example is to be seen in their "tollas," or heavy throwing
+knives, the backs of these weapons being made of hammered iron, and the
+edges of beautiful steel welded with great skill on to the iron frames.
+The fact of the matter is, I thought, with Sir Henry Curtis and Captain
+Good, that the best plan would be to tell my story in a plain,
+straightforward manner, and to leave these matters to be dealt with
+subsequently in whatever way ultimately may appear to be desirable. In
+the meanwhile I shall, of course, be delighted to give all information
+in my power to anybody interested in such things.
+
+And now it only remains for me to offer apologies for my blunt way of
+writing. I can but say in excuse of it that I am more accustomed to
+handle a rifle than a pen, and cannot make any pretence to the grand
+literary flights and flourishes which I see in novels--for sometimes I
+like to read a novel. I suppose they--the flights and flourishes--are
+desirable, and I regret not being able to supply them; but at the same
+time I cannot help thinking that simple things are always the most
+impressive, and that books are easier to understand when they are
+written in plain language, though perhaps I have no right to set up an
+opinion on such a matter. "A sharp spear," runs the Kukuana saying,
+"needs no polish"; and on the same principle I venture to hope that a
+true story, however strange it may be, does not require to be decked
+out in fine words.
+
+Allan Quatermain.
+
+
+[1] I discovered eight varieties of antelope, with which I was
+previously totally unacquainted, and many new species of plants, for
+the most part of the bulbous tribe.--A.Q.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+       I  I MEET SIR HENRY CURTIS
+      II  THE LEGEND OF SOLOMON'S MINES
+     III  UMBOPA ENTERS OUR SERVICE
+      IV  AN ELEPHANT HUNT
+       V  OUR MARCH INTO THE DESERT
+      VI  WATER! WATER!
+     VII  SOLOMON'S ROAD
+    VIII  WE ENTER KUKUANALAND
+      IX  TWALA THE KING
+       X  THE WITCH-HUNT
+      XI  WE GIVE A SIGN
+     XII  BEFORE THE BATTLE
+    XIII  THE ATTACK
+     XIV  THE LAST STAND OF THE GREYS
+      XV  GOOD FALLS SICK
+     XVI  THE PLACE OF DEATH
+    XVII  SOLOMON'S TREASURE CHAMBER
+   XVIII  WE ABANDON HOPE
+     XIX  IGNOSI'S FAREWELL
+      XX  FOUND
+
+
+
+
+KING SOLOMON'S MINES
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+I MEET SIR HENRY CURTIS
+
+It is a curious thing that at my age--fifty-five last birthday--I
+should find myself taking up a pen to try to write a history. I wonder
+what sort of a history it will be when I have finished it, if ever I
+come to the end of the trip! I have done a good many things in my life,
+which seems a long one to me, owing to my having begun work so young,
+perhaps. At an age when other boys are at school I was earning my
+living as a trader in the old Colony. I have been trading, hunting,
+fighting, or mining ever since. And yet it is only eight months ago
+that I made my pile. It is a big pile now that I have got it--I don't
+yet know how big--but I do not think I would go through the last
+fifteen or sixteen months again for it; no, not if I knew that I should
+come out safe at the end, pile and all. But then I am a timid man, and
+dislike violence; moreover, I am almost sick of adventure. I wonder why
+I am going to write this book: it is not in my line. I am not a
+literary man, though very devoted to the Old Testament and also to the
+"Ingoldsby Legends." Let me try to set down my reasons, just to see if
+I have any.
+
+First reason: Because Sir Henry Curtis and Captain John Good asked me.
+
+Second reason: Because I am laid up here at Durban with the pain in my
+left leg. Ever since that confounded lion got hold of me I have been
+liable to this trouble, and being rather bad just now, it makes me limp
+more than ever. There must be some poison in a lion's teeth, otherwise
+how is it that when your wounds are healed they break out again,
+generally, mark you, at the same time of year that you got your
+mauling? It is a hard thing when one has shot sixty-five lions or more,
+as I have in the course of my life, that the sixty-sixth should chew
+your leg like a quid of tobacco. It breaks the routine of the thing,
+and putting other considerations aside, I am an orderly man and don't
+like that. This is by the way.
+
+Third reason: Because I want my boy Harry, who is over there at the
+hospital in London studying to become a doctor, to have something to
+amuse him and keep him out of mischief for a week or so. Hospital work
+must sometimes pall and grow rather dull, for even of cutting up dead
+bodies there may come satiety, and as this history will not be dull,
+whatever else it may be, it will put a little life into things for a
+day or two while Harry is reading of our adventures.
+
+Fourth reason and last: Because I am going to tell the strangest story
+that I remember. It may seem a queer thing to say, especially
+considering that there is no woman in it--except Foulata. Stop, though!
+there is Gagaoola, if she was a woman, and not a fiend. But she was a
+hundred at least, and therefore not marriageable, so I don't count her.
+At any rate, I can safely say that there is not a _petticoat_ in the
+whole history.
+
+Well, I had better come to the yoke. It is a stiff place, and I feel as
+though I were bogged up to the axle. But, "_sutjes, sutjes_," as the
+Boers say--I am sure I don't know how they spell it--softly does it. A
+strong team will come through at last, that is, if they are not too
+poor. You can never do anything with poor oxen. Now to make a start.
+
+I, Allan Quatermain, of Durban, Natal, Gentleman, make oath and
+say--That's how I headed my deposition before the magistrate about poor
+Khiva's and Ventvoegel's sad deaths; but somehow it doesn't seem quite
+the right way to begin a book. And, besides, am I a gentleman? What is
+a gentleman? I don't quite know, and yet I have had to do with
+niggers--no, I will scratch out that word "niggers," for I do not like
+it. I've known natives who _are_, and so you will say, Harry, my boy,
+before you have done with this tale, and I have known mean whites with
+lots of money and fresh out from home, too, who _are not_.
+
+At any rate, I was born a gentleman, though I have been nothing but a
+poor travelling trader and hunter all my life. Whether I have remained
+so I known not, you must judge of that. Heaven knows I've tried. I have
+killed many men in my time, yet I have never slain wantonly or stained
+my hand in innocent blood, but only in self-defence. The Almighty gave
+us our lives, and I suppose He meant us to defend them, at least I have
+always acted on that, and I hope it will not be brought up against me
+when my clock strikes. There, there, it is a cruel and a wicked world,
+and for a timid man I have been mixed up in a great deal of fighting. I
+cannot tell the rights of it, but at any rate I have never stolen,
+though once I cheated a Kafir out of a herd of cattle. But then he had
+done me a dirty turn, and it has troubled me ever since into the
+bargain.
+
+
+Well, it is eighteen months or so ago since first I met Sir Henry
+Curtis and Captain Good. It was in this way. I had been up elephant
+hunting beyond Bamangwato, and had met with bad luck. Everything went
+wrong that trip, and to top up with I got the fever badly. So soon as I
+was well enough I trekked down to the Diamond Fields, sold such ivory
+as I had, together with my wagon and oxen, discharged my hunters, and
+took the post-cart to the Cape. After spending a week in Cape Town,
+finding that they overcharged me at the hotel, and having seen
+everything there was to see, including the botanical gardens, which
+seem to me likely to confer a great benefit on the country, and the new
+Houses of Parliament, which I expect will do nothing of the sort, I
+determined to go back to Natal by the _Dunkeld_, then lying at the
+docks waiting for the _Edinburgh Castle_ due in from England. I took my
+berth and went aboard, and that afternoon the Natal passengers from the
+_Edinburgh Castle_ transhipped, and we weighed and put to sea.
+
+Among these passengers who came on board were two who excited my
+curiosity. One, a gentleman of about thirty, was perhaps the
+biggest-chested and longest-armed man I ever saw. He had yellow hair, a
+thick yellow beard, clear-cut features, and large grey eyes set deep in
+his head. I never saw a finer-looking man, and somehow he reminded me
+of an ancient Dane. Not that I know much of ancient Danes, though I
+knew a modern Dane who did me out of ten pounds; but I remember once
+seeing a picture of some of those gentry, who, I take it, were a kind
+of white Zulus. They were drinking out of big horns, and their long
+hair hung down their backs. As I looked at my friend standing there by
+the companion-ladder, I thought that if he only let his grow a little,
+put one of those chain shirts on to his great shoulders, and took hold
+of a battle-axe and a horn mug, he might have sat as a model for that
+picture. And by the way it is a curious thing, and just shows how the
+blood will out, I discovered afterwards that Sir Henry Curtis, for that
+was the big man's name, is of Danish blood.[1] He also reminded me
+strongly of somebody else, but at the time I could not remember who it
+was.
+
+The other man, who stood talking to Sir Henry, was stout and dark, and
+of quite a different cut. I suspected at once that he was a naval
+officer; I don't know why, but it is difficult to mistake a navy man. I
+have gone shooting trips with several of them in the course of my life,
+and they have always proved themselves the best and bravest and nicest
+fellows I ever met, though sadly given, some of them, to the use of
+profane language. I asked a page or two back, what is a gentleman? I'll
+answer the question now: A Royal Naval officer is, in a general sort of
+way, though of course there may be a black sheep among them here and
+there. I fancy it is just the wide seas and the breath of God's winds
+that wash their hearts and blow the bitterness out of their minds and
+make them what men ought to be.
+
+Well, to return, I proved right again; I ascertained that the dark man
+_was_ a naval officer, a lieutenant of thirty-one, who, after seventeen
+years' service, had been turned out of her Majesty's employ with the
+barren honour of a commander's rank, because it was impossible that he
+should be promoted. This is what people who serve the Queen have to
+expect: to be shot out into the cold world to find a living just when
+they are beginning really to understand their work, and to reach the
+prime of life. I suppose they don't mind it, but for my own part I had
+rather earn my bread as a hunter. One's halfpence are as scarce
+perhaps, but you do not get so many kicks.
+
+The officer's name I found out--by referring to the passengers'
+lists--was Good--Captain John Good. He was broad, of medium height,
+dark, stout, and rather a curious man to look at. He was so very neat
+and so very clean-shaved, and he always wore an eye-glass in his right
+eye. It seemed to grow there, for it had no string, and he never took
+it out except to wipe it. At first I thought he used to sleep in it,
+but afterwards I found that this was a mistake. He put it in his
+trousers pocket when he went to bed, together with his false teeth, of
+which he had two beautiful sets that, my own being none of the best,
+have often caused me to break the tenth commandment. But I am
+anticipating.
+
+Soon after we had got under way evening closed in, and brought with it
+very dirty weather. A keen breeze sprung up off land, and a kind of
+aggravated Scotch mist soon drove everybody from the deck. As for the
+_Dunkeld_, she is a flat-bottomed punt, and going up light as she was,
+she rolled very heavily. It almost seemed as though she would go right
+over, but she never did. It was quite impossible to walk about, so I
+stood near the engines where it was warm, and amused myself with
+watching the pendulum, which was fixed opposite to me, swinging slowly
+backwards and forwards as the vessel rolled, and marking the angle she
+touched at each lurch.
+
+"That pendulum's wrong; it is not properly weighted," suddenly said a
+somewhat testy voice at my shoulder. Looking round I saw the naval
+officer whom I had noticed when the passengers came aboard.
+
+"Indeed, now what makes you think so?" I asked.
+
+"Think so. I don't think at all. Why there"--as she righted herself
+after a roll--"if the ship had really rolled to the degree that thing
+pointed to, then she would never have rolled again, that's all. But it
+is just like these merchant skippers, they are always so confoundedly
+careless."
+
+Just then the dinner-bell rang, and I was not sorry, for it is a
+dreadful thing to have to listen to an officer of the Royal Navy when
+he gets on to that subject. I only know one worse thing, and that is to
+hear a merchant skipper express his candid opinion of officers of the
+Royal Navy.
+
+Captain Good and I went down to dinner together, and there we found Sir
+Henry Curtis already seated. He and Captain Good were placed together,
+and I sat opposite to them. The captain and I soon fell into talk about
+shooting and what not; he asking me many questions, for he is very
+inquisitive about all sorts of things, and I answering them as well as
+I could. Presently he got on to elephants.
+
+"Ah, sir," called out somebody who was sitting near me, "you've reached
+the right man for that; Hunter Quatermain should be able to tell you
+about elephants if anybody can."
+
+Sir Henry, who had been sitting quite quiet listening to our talk,
+started visibly.
+
+"Excuse me, sir," he said, leaning forward across the table, and
+speaking in a low deep voice, a very suitable voice, it seemed to me,
+to come out of those great lungs. "Excuse me, sir, but is your name
+Allan Quatermain?"
+
+I said that it was.
+
+The big man made no further remark, but I heard him mutter "fortunate"
+into his beard.
+
+Presently dinner came to an end, and as we were leaving the saloon Sir
+Henry strolled up and asked me if I would come into his cabin to smoke
+a pipe. I accepted, and he led the way to the _Dunkeld_ deck cabin, and
+a very good cabin it is. It had been two cabins, but when Sir Garnet
+Wolseley or one of those big swells went down the coast in the
+_Dunkeld_, they knocked away the partition and have never put it up
+again. There was a sofa in the cabin, and a little table in front of
+it. Sir Henry sent the steward for a bottle of whisky, and the three of
+us sat down and lit our pipes.
+
+"Mr. Quatermain," said Sir Henry Curtis, when the man had brought the
+whisky and lit the lamp, "the year before last about this time, you
+were, I believe, at a place called Bamangwato, to the north of the
+Transvaal."
+
+"I was," I answered, rather surprised that this gentleman should be so
+well acquainted with my movements, which were not, so far as I was
+aware, considered of general interest.
+
+"You were trading there, were you not?" put in Captain Good, in his
+quick way.
+
+"I was. I took up a wagon-load of goods, made a camp outside the
+settlement, and stopped till I had sold them."
+
+Sir Henry was sitting opposite to me in a Madeira chair, his arms
+leaning on the table. He now looked up, fixing his large grey eyes full
+upon my face. There was a curious anxiety in them, I thought.
+
+"Did you happen to meet a man called Neville there?"
+
+"Oh, yes; he outspanned alongside of me for a fortnight to rest his
+oxen before going on to the interior. I had a letter from a lawyer a
+few months back, asking me if I knew what had become of him, which I
+answered to the best of my ability at the time."
+
+"Yes," said Sir Henry, "your letter was forwarded to me. You said in it
+that the gentleman called Neville left Bamangwato at the beginning of
+May in a wagon with a driver, a voorlooper, and a Kafir hunter called
+Jim, announcing his intention of trekking if possible as far as Inyati,
+the extreme trading post in the Matabele country, where he would sell
+his wagon and proceed on foot. You also said that he did sell his
+wagon, for six months afterwards you saw the wagon in the possession of
+a Portuguese trader, who told you that he had bought it at Inyati from
+a white man whose name he had forgotten, and that he believed the white
+man with the native servant had started off for the interior on a
+shooting trip."
+
+"Yes."
+
+Then came a pause.
+
+"Mr. Quatermain," said Sir Henry suddenly, "I suppose you know or can
+guess nothing more of the reasons of my--of Mr. Neville's journey to
+the northward, or as to what point that journey was directed?"
+
+"I heard something," I answered, and stopped. The subject was one which
+I did not care to discuss.
+
+Sir Henry and Captain Good looked at each other, and Captain Good
+nodded.
+
+"Mr. Quatermain," went on the former, "I am going to tell you a story,
+and ask your advice, and perhaps your assistance. The agent who
+forwarded me your letter told me that I might rely on it implicitly, as
+you were," he said, "well known and universally respected in Natal, and
+especially noted for your discretion."
+
+I bowed and drank some whisky and water to hide my confusion, for I am
+a modest man--and Sir Henry went on.
+
+"Mr. Neville was my brother."
+
+"Oh," I said, starting, for now I knew of whom Sir Henry had reminded
+me when first I saw him. His brother was a much smaller man and had a
+dark beard, but now that I thought of it, he possessed eyes of the same
+shade of grey and with the same keen look in them: the features too
+were not unlike.
+
+"He was," went on Sir Henry, "my only and younger brother, and till
+five years ago I do not suppose that we were ever a month away from
+each other. But just about five years ago a misfortune befell us, as
+sometimes does happen in families. We quarrelled bitterly, and I
+behaved unjustly to my brother in my anger."
+
+Here Captain Good nodded his head vigorously to himself. The ship gave
+a big roll just then, so that the looking-glass, which was fixed
+opposite us to starboard, was for a moment nearly over our heads, and
+as I was sitting with my hands in my pockets and staring upwards, I
+could see him nodding like anything.
+
+"As I daresay you know," went on Sir Henry, "if a man dies intestate,
+and has no property but land, real property it is called in England, it
+all descends to his eldest son. It so happened that just at the time
+when we quarrelled our father died intestate. He had put off making his
+will until it was too late. The result was that my brother, who had not
+been brought up to any profession, was left without a penny. Of course
+it would have been my duty to provide for him, but at the time the
+quarrel between us was so bitter that I did not--to my shame I say it
+(and he sighed deeply)--offer to do anything. It was not that I grudged
+him justice, but I waited for him to make advances, and he made none. I
+am sorry to trouble you with all this, Mr. Quatermain, but I must to
+make things clear, eh, Good?"
+
+"Quite so, quite so," said the captain. "Mr. Quatermain will, I am
+sure, keep this history to himself."
+
+"Of course," said I, for I rather pride myself on my discretion, for
+which, as Sir Henry had heard, I have some repute.
+
+"Well," went on Sir Henry, "my brother had a few hundred pounds to his
+account at the time. Without saying anything to me he drew out this
+paltry sum, and, having adopted the name of Neville, started off for
+South Africa in the wild hope of making a fortune. This I learned
+afterwards. Some three years passed, and I heard nothing of my brother,
+though I wrote several times. Doubtless the letters never reached him.
+But as time went on I grew more and more troubled about him. I found
+out, Mr. Quatermain, that blood is thicker than water."
+
+"That's true," said I, thinking of my boy Harry.
+
+"I found out, Mr. Quatermain, that I would have given half my fortune
+to know that my brother George, the only relation I possess, was safe
+and well, and that I should see him again."
+
+"But you never did, Curtis," jerked out Captain Good, glancing at the
+big man's face.
+
+"Well, Mr. Quatermain, as time went on I became more and more anxious
+to find out if my brother was alive or dead, and if alive to get him
+home again. I set enquiries on foot, and your letter was one of the
+results. So far as it went it was satisfactory, for it showed that till
+lately George was alive, but it did not go far enough. So, to cut a
+long story short, I made up my mind to come out and look for him
+myself, and Captain Good was so kind as to come with me."
+
+"Yes," said the captain; "nothing else to do, you see. Turned out by my
+Lords of the Admiralty to starve on half pay. And now perhaps, sir, you
+will tell us what you know or have heard of the gentleman called
+Neville."
+
+
+[1] Mr. Quatermain's ideas about ancient Danes seem to be rather
+confused; we have always understood that they were dark-haired people.
+Probably he was thinking of Saxons.--Editor.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE LEGEND OF SOLOMON'S MINES
+
+"What was it that you heard about my brother's journey at Bamangwato?"
+asked Sir Henry, as I paused to fill my pipe before replying to Captain
+Good.
+
+"I heard this," I answered, "and I have never mentioned it to a soul
+till to-day. I heard that he was starting for Solomon's Mines."
+
+"Solomon's Mines?" ejaculated both my hearers at once. "Where are they?"
+
+"I don't know," I said; "I know where they are said to be. Once I saw
+the peaks of the mountains that border them, but there were a hundred
+and thirty miles of desert between me and them, and I am not aware that
+any white man ever got across it save one. But perhaps the best thing I
+can do is to tell you the legend of Solomon's Mines as I know it, you
+passing your word not to reveal anything I tell you without my
+permission. Do you agree to that? I have my reasons for asking."
+
+Sir Henry nodded, and Captain Good replied, "Certainly, certainly."
+
+"Well," I began, "as you may guess, generally speaking, elephant
+hunters are a rough set of men, who do not trouble themselves with much
+beyond the facts of life and the ways of Kafirs. But here and there you
+meet a man who takes the trouble to collect traditions from the
+natives, and tries to make out a little piece of the history of this
+dark land. It was such a man as this who first told me the legend of
+Solomon's Mines, now a matter of nearly thirty years ago. That was when
+I was on my first elephant hunt in the Matabele country. His name was
+Evans, and he was killed the following year, poor fellow, by a wounded
+buffalo, and lies buried near the Zambesi Falls. I was telling Evans
+one night, I remember, of some wonderful workings I had found whilst
+hunting koodoo and eland in what is now the Lydenburg district of the
+Transvaal. I see they have come across these workings again lately in
+prospecting for gold, but I knew of them years ago. There is a great
+wide wagon road cut out of the solid rock, and leading to the mouth of
+the working or gallery. Inside the mouth of this gallery are stacks of
+gold quartz piled up ready for roasting, which shows that the workers,
+whoever they were, must have left in a hurry. Also, about twenty paces
+in, the gallery is built across, and a beautiful bit of masonry it is."
+
+"'Ay,' said Evans, 'but I will spin you a queerer yarn than that'; and
+he went on to tell me how he had found in the far interior a ruined
+city, which he believed to be the Ophir of the Bible, and, by the way,
+other more learned men have said the same long since poor Evans's time.
+I was, I remember, listening open-eared to all these wonders, for I was
+young at the time, and this story of an ancient civilisation and of the
+treasures which those old Jewish or Phoenician adventurers used to
+extract from a country long since lapsed into the darkest barbarism
+took a great hold upon my imagination, when suddenly he said to me,
+'Lad, did you ever hear of the Suliman Mountains up to the north-west
+of the Mushakulumbwe country?' I told him I never had. 'Ah, well,' he
+said, 'that is where Solomon really had his mines, his diamond mines, I
+mean.'
+
+"'How do you know that?' I asked.
+
+"'Know it! why, what is "Suliman" but a corruption of Solomon?[1]
+Besides, an old Isanusi or witch doctoress up in the Manica country
+told me all about it. She said that the people who lived across those
+mountains were a "branch" of the Zulus, speaking a dialect of Zulu, but
+finer and bigger men even; that there lived among them great wizards,
+who had learnt their art from white men when "all the world was dark,"
+and who had the secret of a wonderful mine of "bright stones."'
+
+"Well, I laughed at this story at the time, though it interested me,
+for the Diamond Fields were not discovered then, but poor Evans went
+off and was killed, and for twenty years I never thought any more of
+the matter. However, just twenty years afterwards--and that is a long
+time, gentlemen; an elephant hunter does not often live for twenty
+years at his business--I heard something more definite about Suliman's
+Mountains and the country which lies beyond them. I was up beyond the
+Manica country, at a place called Sitanda's Kraal, and a miserable
+place it was, for a man could get nothing to eat, and there was but
+little game about. I had an attack of fever, and was in a bad way
+generally, when one day a Portugee arrived with a single companion--a
+half-breed. Now I know your low-class Delagoa Portugee well. There is
+no greater devil unhung in a general way, battening as he does upon
+human agony and flesh in the shape of slaves. But this was quite a
+different type of man to the mean fellows whom I had been accustomed to
+meet; indeed, in appearance he reminded me more of the polite doms I
+have read about, for he was tall and thin, with large dark eyes and
+curling grey mustachios. We talked together for a while, for he could
+speak broken English, and I understood a little Portugee, and he told
+me that his name was Jose Silvestre, and that he had a place near
+Delagoa Bay. When he went on next day with his half-breed companion, he
+said 'Good-bye,' taking off his hat quite in the old style.
+
+"'Good-bye, senor,' he said; 'if ever we meet again I shall be the
+richest man in the world, and I will remember you.' I laughed a
+little--I was too weak to laugh much--and watched him strike out for
+the great desert to the west, wondering if he was mad, or what he
+thought he was going to find there.
+
+"A week passed, and I got the better of my fever. One evening I was
+sitting on the ground in front of the little tent I had with me,
+chewing the last leg of a miserable fowl I had bought from a native for
+a bit of cloth worth twenty fowls, and staring at the hot red sun
+sinking down over the desert, when suddenly I saw a figure, apparently
+that of a European, for it wore a coat, on the slope of the rising
+ground opposite to me, about three hundred yards away. The figure crept
+along on its hands and knees, then it got up and staggered forward a
+few yards on its legs, only to fall and crawl again. Seeing that it
+must be somebody in distress, I sent one of my hunters to help him, and
+presently he arrived, and who do you suppose it turned out to be?"
+
+"Jose Silvestre, of course," said Captain Good.
+
+"Yes, Jose Silvestre, or rather his skeleton and a little skin. His
+face was a bright yellow with bilious fever, and his large dark eyes
+stood nearly out of his head, for all the flesh had gone. There was
+nothing but yellow parchment-like skin, white hair, and the gaunt bones
+sticking up beneath.
+
+"'Water! for the sake of Christ, water!' he moaned and I saw that his
+lips were cracked, and his tongue, which protruded between them, was
+swollen and blackish.
+
+"I gave him water with a little milk in it, and he drank it in great
+gulps, two quarts or so, without stopping. I would not let him have any
+more. Then the fever took him again, and he fell down and began to rave
+about Suliman's Mountains, and the diamonds, and the desert. I carried
+him into the tent and did what I could for him, which was little
+enough; but I saw how it must end. About eleven o'clock he grew
+quieter, and I lay down for a little rest and went to sleep. At dawn I
+woke again, and in the half light saw Silvestre sitting up, a strange,
+gaunt form, and gazing out towards the desert. Presently the first ray
+of the sun shot right across the wide plain before us till it reached
+the faraway crest of one of the tallest of the Suliman Mountains more
+than a hundred miles away.
+
+"'There it is!' cried the dying man in Portuguese, and pointing with
+his long, thin arm, 'but I shall never reach it, never. No one will
+ever reach it!'
+
+"Suddenly, he paused, and seemed to take a resolution. 'Friend,' he
+said, turning towards me, 'are you there? My eyes grow dark.'
+
+"'Yes,' I said; 'yes, lie down now, and rest.'
+
+"'Ay,' he answered, 'I shall rest soon, I have time to rest--all
+eternity. Listen, I am dying! You have been good to me. I will give you
+the writing. Perhaps you will get there if you can live to pass the
+desert, which has killed my poor servant and me.'
+
+"Then he groped in his shirt and brought out what I thought was a Boer
+tobacco pouch made of the skin of the Swart-vet-pens or sable antelope.
+It was fastened with a little strip of hide, what we call a rimpi, and
+this he tried to loose, but could not. He handed it to me. 'Untie it,'
+he said. I did so, and extracted a bit of torn yellow linen on which
+something was written in rusty letters. Inside this rag was a paper.
+
+"Then he went on feebly, for he was growing weak: 'The paper has all
+that is on the linen. It took me years to read. Listen: my ancestor, a
+political refugee from Lisbon, and one of the first Portuguese who
+landed on these shores, wrote that when he was dying on those mountains
+which no white foot ever pressed before or since. His name was Jose da
+Silvestra, and he lived three hundred years ago. His slave, who waited
+for him on this side of the mountains, found him dead, and brought the
+writing home to Delagoa. It has been in the family ever since, but none
+have cared to read it, till at last I did. And I have lost my life over
+it, but another may succeed, and become the richest man in the
+world--the richest man in the world. Only give it to no one, senor; go
+yourself!'
+
+"Then he began to wander again, and in an hour it was all over.
+
+"God rest him! he died very quietly, and I buried him deep, with big
+boulders on his breast; so I do not think that the jackals can have dug
+him up. And then I came away."
+
+"Ay, but the document?" said Sir Henry, in a tone of deep interest.
+
+"Yes, the document; what was in it?" added the captain.
+
+"Well, gentlemen, if you like I will tell you. I have never showed it
+to anybody yet except to a drunken old Portuguese trader who translated
+it for me, and had forgotten all about it by the next morning. The
+original rag is at my home in Durban, together with poor Dom Jose's
+translation, but I have the English rendering in my pocket-book, and a
+facsimile of the map, if it can be called a map. Here it is."
+
+[Illustration: MAP]
+
+  "I, Jose da Silvestra, who am now dying of hunger in the little
+  cave where no snow is on the north side of the nipple of the
+  southernmost of the two mountains I have named Sheba's Breasts,
+  write this in the year 1590 with a cleft bone upon a remnant of my
+  raiment, my blood being the ink. If my slave should find it when
+  he comes, and should bring it to Delagoa, let my friend (name
+  illegible) bring the matter to the knowledge of the king, that he
+  may send an army which, if they live through the desert and the
+  mountains, and can overcome the brave Kukuanes and their devilish
+  arts, to which end many priests should be brought, will make him
+  the richest king since Solomon. With my own eyes I have seen the
+  countless diamonds stored in Solomon's treasure chamber behind the
+  white Death; but through the treachery of Gagool the witch-finder
+  I might bring nought away, scarcely my life. Let him who comes
+  follow the map, and climb the snow of Sheba's left breast till he
+  reaches the nipple, on the north side of which is the great road
+  Solomon made, from whence three days' journey to the King's
+  Palace. Let him kill Gagool. Pray for my soul. Farewell.
+
+Jose da Silvestra."[2]
+
+
+When I had finished reading the above, and shown the copy of the map,
+drawn by the dying hand of the old Dom with his blood for ink, there
+followed a silence of astonishment.
+
+"Well," said Captain Good, "I have been round the world twice, and put
+in at most ports, but may I be hung for a mutineer if ever I heard a
+yarn like this out of a story book, or in it either, for the matter of
+that."
+
+"It's a queer tale, Mr. Quatermain," said Sir Henry. "I suppose you are
+not hoaxing us? It is, I know, sometimes thought allowable to take in a
+greenhorn."
+
+"If you think that, Sir Henry," I said, much put out, and pocketing my
+paper--for I do not like to be thought one of those silly fellows who
+consider it witty to tell lies, and who are for ever boasting to
+newcomers of extraordinary hunting adventures which never happened--"if
+you think that, why, there is an end to the matter," and I rose to go.
+
+Sir Henry laid his large hand upon my shoulder. "Sit down, Mr.
+Quatermain," he said, "I beg your pardon; I see very well you do not
+wish to deceive us, but the story sounded so strange that I could
+hardly believe it."
+
+"You shall see the original map and writing when we reach Durban," I
+answered, somewhat mollified, for really when I came to consider the
+question it was scarcely wonderful that he should doubt my good faith.
+
+"But," I went on, "I have not told you about your brother. I knew the
+man Jim who was with him. He was a Bechuana by birth, a good hunter,
+and for a native a very clever man. That morning on which Mr. Neville
+was starting I saw Jim standing by my wagon and cutting up tobacco on
+the disselboom.
+
+"'Jim,' said I, 'where are you off to this trip? It is elephants?'
+
+"'No, Baas,' he answered, 'we are after something worth much more than
+ivory.'
+
+"'And what might that be?' I said, for I was curious. 'Is it gold?'
+
+"'No, Baas, something worth more than gold,' and he grinned.
+
+"I asked no more questions, for I did not like to lower my dignity by
+seeming inquisitive, but I was puzzled. Presently Jim finished cutting
+his tobacco.
+
+"'Baas,' said he.
+
+"I took no notice.
+
+"'Baas,' said he again.
+
+"'Eh, boy, what is it?' I asked.
+
+"'Baas, we are going after diamonds.'
+
+"'Diamonds! why, then, you are steering in the wrong direction; you
+should head for the Fields.'
+
+"'Baas, have you ever heard of Suliman's Berg?'--that is, Solomon's
+Mountains, Sir Henry.
+
+"'Ay!'
+
+"'Have you ever heard of the diamonds there?'
+
+"'I have heard a foolish story, Jim.'
+
+"'It is no story, Baas. Once I knew a woman who came from there, and
+reached Natal with her child, she told me:--she is dead now.'
+
+"'Your master will feed the assvoegels'--that is, vultures--'Jim, if he
+tries to reach Suliman's country, and so will you if they can get any
+pickings off your worthless old carcass,' said I.
+
+"He grinned. 'Mayhap, Baas. Man must die; I'd rather like to try a new
+country myself; the elephants are getting worked out about here.'
+
+"'Ah! my boy,' I said, 'you wait till the "pale old man" gets a grip of
+your yellow throat, and then we shall hear what sort of a tune you
+sing.'
+
+"Half an hour after that I saw Neville's wagon move off. Presently Jim
+came back running. 'Good-bye, Baas,' he said. 'I didn't like to start
+without bidding you good-bye, for I daresay you are right, and that we
+shall never trek south again.'
+
+"'Is your master really going to Suliman's Berg, Jim, or are you lying?'
+
+"'No,' he answered, 'he is going. He told me he was bound to make his
+fortune somehow, or try to; so he might as well have a fling for the
+diamonds.'
+
+"'Oh!' I said; 'wait a bit, Jim; will you take a note to your master,
+Jim, and promise not to give it to him till you reach Inyati?' which
+was some hundred miles off.
+
+"'Yes, Baas.'
+
+"So I took a scrap of paper, and wrote on it, 'Let him who comes . . .
+climb the snow of Sheba's left breast, till he reaches the nipple, on
+the north side of which is Solomon's great road.'
+
+"'Now, Jim,' I said, 'when you give this to your master, tell him he
+had better follow the advice on it implicitly. You are not to give it
+to him now, because I don't want him back asking me questions which I
+won't answer. Now be off, you idle fellow, the wagon is nearly out of
+sight.'
+
+"Jim took the note and went, and that is all I know about your brother,
+Sir Henry; but I am much afraid--"
+
+"Mr. Quatermain," said Sir Henry, "I am going to look for my brother; I
+am going to trace him to Suliman's Mountains, and over them if
+necessary, till I find him, or until I know that he is dead. Will you
+come with me?"
+
+I am, as I think I have said, a cautious man, indeed a timid one, and
+this suggestion frightened me. It seemed to me that to undertake such a
+journey would be to go to certain death, and putting other
+considerations aside, as I had a son to support, I could not afford to
+die just then.
+
+"No, thank you, Sir Henry, I think I had rather not," I answered. "I am
+too old for wild-goose chases of that sort, and we should only end up
+like my poor friend Silvestre. I have a son dependent on me, so I
+cannot afford to risk my life foolishly."
+
+Both Sir Henry and Captain Good looked very disappointed.
+
+"Mr. Quatermain," said the former, "I am well off, and I am bent upon
+this business. You may put the remuneration for your services at
+whatever figure you like in reason, and it shall be paid over to you
+before we start. Moreover, I will arrange in the event of anything
+untoward happening to us or to you, that your son shall be suitably
+provided for. You will see from this offer how necessary I think your
+presence. Also if by chance we should reach this place, and find
+diamonds, they shall belong to you and Good equally. I do not want
+them. But of course that promise is worth nothing at all, though the
+same thing would apply to any ivory we might get. You may pretty well
+make your own terms with me, Mr. Quatermain; and of course I shall pay
+all expenses."
+
+"Sir Henry," said I, "this is the most liberal proposal I ever had, and
+one not to be sneezed at by a poor hunter and trader. But the job is
+the biggest I have come across, and I must take time to think it over.
+I will give you my answer before we get to Durban."
+
+"Very good," answered Sir Henry.
+
+Then I said good-night and turned in, and dreamt about poor long-dead
+Silvestre and the diamonds.
+
+
+[1] Suliman is the Arabic form of Solomon.--Editor.
+
+[2] Eu Jose da Silvestra que estou morrendo de fome na pequena cova
+    onde nao ha neve ao lado norte do bico mais ao sul das duas
+    montanhas que chamei scio de Sheba; escrevo isto no anno 1590;
+    escrevo isto com um pedaco d'osso n' um farrapo de minha roupa e
+    com sangue meu por tinta; se o meu escravo der com isto quando
+    venha ao levar para Lourenzo Marquez, que o meu amigo ---------
+    leve a cousa ao conhecimento d' El Rei, para que possa mandar um
+    exercito que, se desfiler pelo deserto e pelas montonhas e mesmo
+    sobrepujar os bravos Kukuanes e suas artes diabolicas, pelo que se
+    deviam trazer muitos padres Far o Rei mais rico depois de Salomao
+    Com meus proprios olhos ve os di amantes sem conto guardados nas
+    camaras do thesouro de Salomao a traz da morte branca, mas pela
+    traicao de Gagoal a feiticeira achadora, nada poderia levar, e
+    apenas a minha vida. Quem vier siga o mappa e trepe pela neve de
+    Sheba peito a esquerda ate chegar ao bica, do lado norte do qual
+    esta a grande estrada do Solomao por elle feita, donde ha tres
+    dias de jornada ate ao Palacio do Rei. Mate Gagoal. Reze por minha
+    alma. Adeos.                                Jose da Silvestra.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+UMBOPA ENTERS OUR SERVICE
+
+It takes from four to five days, according to the speed of the vessel
+and the state of the weather, to run up from the Cape to Durban.
+Sometimes, if the landing is bad at East London, where they have not
+yet made that wonderful harbour they talk so much of, and sink such a
+mint of money in, a ship is delayed for twenty-four hours before the
+cargo boats can get out to take off the goods. But on this occasion we
+had not to wait at all, for there were no breakers on the Bar to speak
+of, and the tugs came out at once with the long strings of ugly
+flat-bottomed boats behind them, into which the packages were bundled
+with a crash. It did not matter what they might be, over they went
+slap-bang; whether they contained china or woollen goods they met with
+the same treatment. I saw one case holding four dozen of champagne
+smashed all to bits, and there was the champagne fizzing and boiling
+about in the bottom of the dirty cargo boat. It was a wicked waste, and
+evidently so the Kafirs in the boat thought, for they found a couple of
+unbroken bottles, and knocking off the necks drank the contents. But
+they had not allowed for the expansion caused by the fizz in the wine,
+and, feeling themselves swelling, rolled about in the bottom of the
+boat, calling out that the good liquor was "tagati"--that is,
+bewitched. I spoke to them from the vessel, and told them it was the
+white man's strongest medicine, and that they were as good as dead men.
+Those Kafirs went to the shore in a very great fright, and I do not
+think that they will touch champagne again.
+
+Well, all the time that we were steaming up to Natal I was thinking
+over Sir Henry Curtis's offer. We did not speak any more on the subject
+for a day or two, though I told them many hunting yarns, all true ones.
+There is no need to tell lies about hunting, for so many curious things
+happen within the knowledge of a man whose business it is to hunt; but
+this is by the way.
+
+At last, one beautiful evening in January, which is our hottest month,
+we steamed past the coast of Natal, expecting to make Durban Point by
+sunset. It is a lovely coast all along from East London, with its red
+sandhills and wide sweeps of vivid green, dotted here and there with
+Kafir kraals, and bordered by a ribbon of white surf, which spouts up
+in pillars of foam where it hits the rocks. But just before you come to
+Durban there is a peculiar richness about the landscape. There are the
+sheer kloofs cut in the hills by the rushing rains of centuries, down
+which the rivers sparkle; there is the deepest green of the bush,
+growing as God planted it, and the other greens of the mealie gardens
+and the sugar patches, while now and again a white house, smiling out
+at the placid sea, puts a finish and gives an air of homeliness to the
+scene. For to my mind, however beautiful a view may be, it requires the
+presence of man to make it complete, but perhaps that is because I have
+lived so much in the wilderness, and therefore know the value of
+civilisation, though to be sure it drives away the game. The Garden of
+Eden, no doubt, looked fair before man was, but I always think that it
+must have been fairer when Eve adorned it.
+
+To return, we had miscalculated a little, and the sun was well down
+before we dropped anchor off the Point, and heard the gun which told
+the good folks of Durban that the English Mail was in. It was too late
+to think of getting over the Bar that night, so we went comfortably to
+dinner, after seeing the Mails carried off in the life-boat.
+
+When we came up again the moon was out, and shining so brightly over
+sea and shore that she almost paled the quick, large flashes from the
+lighthouse. From the shore floated sweet spicy odours that always
+remind me of hymns and missionaries, and in the windows of the houses
+on the Berea sparkled a hundred lights. From a large brig lying near
+also came the music of the sailors as they worked at getting the anchor
+up in order to be ready for the wind. Altogether it was a perfect
+night, such a night as you sometimes get in Southern Africa, and it
+threw a garment of peace over everybody as the moon threw a garment of
+silver over everything. Even the great bulldog, belonging to a sporting
+passenger, seemed to yield to its gentle influences, and forgetting his
+yearning to come to close quarters with the baboon in a cage on the
+foc'sle, snored happily at the door of the cabin, dreaming no doubt
+that he had finished him, and happy in his dream.
+
+We three--that is, Sir Henry Curtis, Captain Good, and myself--went and
+sat by the wheel, and were quiet for a while.
+
+"Well, Mr. Quatermain," said Sir Henry presently, "have you been
+thinking about my proposals?"
+
+"Ay," echoed Captain Good, "what do you think of them, Mr. Quatermain?
+I hope that you are going to give us the pleasure of your company so
+far as Solomon's Mines, or wherever the gentleman you knew as Neville
+may have got to."
+
+I rose and knocked out my pipe before I answered. I had not made up my
+mind, and wanted an additional moment to decide. Before the burning
+tobacco had fallen into the sea I had decided; just that little extra
+second did the trick. It is often the way when you have been bothering
+a long time over a thing.
+
+"Yes, gentlemen," I said, sitting down again, "I will go, and by your
+leave I will tell you why, and on what conditions. First for the terms
+which I ask.
+
+"1. You are to pay all expenses, and any ivory or other valuables we
+may get is to be divided between Captain Good and myself.
+
+"2. That you give me L500 for my services on the trip before we start,
+I undertaking to serve you faithfully till you choose to abandon the
+enterprise, or till we succeed, or disaster overtakes us.
+
+"3. That before we trek you execute a deed agreeing, in the event of my
+death or disablement, to pay my boy Harry, who is studying medicine
+over there in London, at Guy's Hospital, a sum of L200 a year for five
+years, by which time he ought to be able to earn a living for himself
+if he is worth his salt. That is all, I think, and I daresay you will
+say quite enough too."
+
+"No," answered Sir Henry, "I accept them gladly. I am bent upon this
+project, and would pay more than that for your help, considering the
+peculiar and exclusive knowledge which you possess."
+
+"Pity I did not ask it, then, but I won't go back on my word. And now
+that I have got my terms I will tell you my reasons for making up my
+mind to go. First of all, gentlemen, I have been observing you both for
+the last few days, and if you will not think me impertinent I may say
+that I like you, and believe that we shall come up well to the yoke
+together. That is something, let me tell you, when one has a long
+journey like this before one.
+
+"And now as to the journey itself, I tell you flatly, Sir Henry and
+Captain Good, that I do not think it probable we can come out of it
+alive, that is, if we attempt to cross the Suliman Mountains. What was
+the fate of the old Dom da Silvestra three hundred years ago? What was
+the fate of his descendant twenty years ago? What has been your
+brother's fate? I tell you frankly, gentlemen, that as their fates were
+so I believe ours will be."
+
+I paused to watch the effect of my words. Captain Good looked a little
+uncomfortable, but Sir Henry's face did not change. "We must take our
+chance," he said.
+
+"You may perhaps wonder," I went on, "why, if I think this, I, who am,
+as I told you, a timid man, should undertake such a journey. It is for
+two reasons. First I am a fatalist, and believe that my time is
+appointed to come quite without reference to my own movements and will,
+and that if I am to go to Suliman's Mountains to be killed, I shall go
+there and shall be killed. God Almighty, no doubt, knows His mind about
+me, so I need not trouble on that point. Secondly, I am a poor man. For
+nearly forty years I have hunted and traded, but I have never made more
+than a living. Well, gentlemen, I don't know if you are aware that the
+average life of an elephant hunter from the time he takes to the trade
+is between four and five years. So you see I have lived through about
+seven generations of my class, and I should think that my time cannot
+be far off, anyway. Now, if anything were to happen to me in the
+ordinary course of business, by the time my debts are paid there would
+be nothing left to support my son Harry whilst he was getting in the
+way of earning a living, whereas now he will be set up for five years.
+There is the whole affair in a nutshell."
+
+"Mr. Quatermain," said Sir Henry, who had been giving me his most
+serious attention, "your motives for undertaking an enterprise which
+you believe can only end in disaster reflect a great deal of credit on
+you. Whether or not you are right, of course time and the event alone
+can show. But whether you are right or wrong, I may as well tell you at
+once that I am going through with it to the end, sweet or bitter. If we
+are to be knocked on the head, all I have to say is, that I hope we get
+a little shooting first, eh, Good?"
+
+"Yes, yes," put in the captain. "We have all three of us been
+accustomed to face danger, and to hold our lives in our hands in
+various ways, so it is no good turning back now. And now I vote we go
+down to the saloon and take an observation just for luck, you know."
+And we did--through the bottom of a tumbler.
+
+Next day we went ashore, and I put up Sir Henry and Captain Good at the
+little shanty I have built on the Berea, and which I call my home.
+There are only three rooms and a kitchen in it, and it is constructed
+of green brick with a galvanised iron roof, but there is a good garden
+with the best loquot trees in it that I know, and some nice young
+mangoes, of which I hope great things. The curator of the botanical
+gardens gave them to me. It is looked after by an old hunter of mine
+named Jack, whose thigh was so badly broken by a buffalo cow in
+Sikukunis country that he will never hunt again. But he can potter
+about and garden, being a Griqua by birth. You will never persuade a
+Zulu to take much interest in gardening. It is a peaceful art, and
+peaceful arts are not in his line.
+
+Sir Henry and Good slept in a tent pitched in my little grove of orange
+trees at the end of the garden, for there was no room for them in the
+house, and what with the smell of the bloom, and the sight of the green
+and golden fruit--in Durban you will see all three on the tree
+together--I daresay it is a pleasant place enough, for we have few
+mosquitos here on the Berea, unless there happens to come an unusually
+heavy rain.
+
+Well, to get on--for if I do not, Harry, you will be tired of my story
+before ever we fetch up at Suliman's Mountains--having once made up my
+mind to go I set about making the necessary preparations. First I
+secured the deed from Sir Henry, providing for you, my boy, in case of
+accidents. There was some difficulty about its legal execution, as Sir
+Henry was a stranger here, and the property to be charged is over the
+water; but it was ultimately got over with the help of a lawyer, who
+charged L20 for the job--a price that I thought outrageous. Then I
+pocketed my cheque for L500.
+
+Having paid this tribute to my bump of caution, I purchased a wagon and
+a span of oxen on Sir Henry's behalf, and beauties they were. It was a
+twenty-two-foot wagon with iron axles, very strong, very light, and
+built throughout of stink wood; not quite a new one, having been to the
+Diamond Fields and back, but, in my opinion, all the better for that,
+for I could see that the wood was well seasoned. If anything is going
+to give in a wagon, or if there is green wood in it, it will show out
+on the first trip. This particular vehicle was what we call a
+"half-tented" wagon, that is to say, only covered in over the after
+twelve feet, leaving all the front part free for the necessaries we had
+to carry with us. In this after part were a hide "cartle," or bed, on
+which two people could sleep, also racks for rifles, and many other
+little conveniences. I gave L125 for it, and think that it was cheap at
+the price.
+
+Then I bought a beautiful team of twenty Zulu oxen, which I had kept my
+eye on for a year or two. Sixteen oxen is the usual number for a team,
+but I took four extra to allow for casualties. These Zulu cattle are
+small and light, not more than half the size of the Africander oxen,
+which are generally used for transport purposes; but they will live
+where the Africanders would starve, and with a moderate load can make
+five miles a day better going, being quicker and not so liable to
+become footsore. What is more, this lot were thoroughly "salted," that
+is, they had worked all over South Africa, and so had become proof,
+comparatively speaking, against red water, which so frequently destroys
+whole teams of oxen when they get on to strange "veldt" or grass
+country. As for "lung sick," which is a dreadful form of pneumonia,
+very prevalent in this country, they had all been inoculated against
+it. This is done by cutting a slit in the tail of an ox, and binding in
+a piece of the diseased lung of an animal which has died of the
+sickness. The result is that the ox sickens, takes the disease in a
+mild form, which causes its tail to drop off, as a rule about a foot
+from the root, and becomes proof against future attacks. It seems cruel
+to rob the animal of his tail, especially in a country where there are
+so many flies, but it is better to sacrifice the tail and keep the ox
+than to lose both tail and ox, for a tail without an ox is not much
+good, except to dust with. Still it does look odd to trek along behind
+twenty stumps, where there ought to be tails. It seems as though Nature
+made a trifling mistake, and stuck the stern ornaments of a lot of
+prize bull-dogs on to the rumps of the oxen.
+
+Next came the question of provisioning and medicines, one which
+required the most careful consideration, for what we had to do was to
+avoid lumbering the wagon, and yet to take everything absolutely
+necessary. Fortunately, it turned out that Good is a bit of a doctor,
+having at some point in his previous career managed to pass through a
+course of medical and surgical instruction, which he has more or less
+kept up. He is not, of course, qualified, but he knows more about it
+than many a man who can write M.D. after his name, as we found out
+afterwards, and he had a splendid travelling medicine chest and a set
+of instruments. Whilst we were at Durban he cut off a Kafir's big toe
+in a way which it was a pleasure to see. But he was quite nonplussed
+when the Kafir, who had sat stolidly watching the operation, asked him
+to put on another, saying that a "white one" would do at a pinch.
+
+There remained, when these questions were satisfactorily settled, two
+further important points for consideration, namely, that of arms and
+that of servants. As to the arms I cannot do better than put down a
+list of those which we finally decided on from among the ample store
+that Sir Henry had brought with him from England, and those which I
+owned. I copy it from my pocket-book, where I made the entry at the
+time.
+
+"Three heavy breech-loading double-eight elephant guns, weighing about
+fifteen pounds each, to carry a charge of eleven drachms of black
+powder." Two of these were by a well-known London firm, most excellent
+makers, but I do not know by whom mine, which is not so highly
+finished, was made. I have used it on several trips, and shot a good
+many elephants with it, and it has always proved a most superior
+weapon, thoroughly to be relied on.
+
+"Three double-500 Expresses, constructed to stand a charge of six
+drachms," sweet weapons, and admirable for medium-sized game, such as
+eland or sable antelope, or for men, especially in an open country and
+with the semi-hollow bullet.
+
+"One double No. 12 central-fire Keeper's shot-gun, full choke both
+barrels." This gun proved of the greatest service to us afterwards in
+shooting game for the pot.
+
+"Three Winchester repeating rifles (not carbines), spare guns.
+
+"Three single-action Colt's revolvers, with the heavier, or American
+pattern of cartridge."
+
+This was our total armament, and doubtless the reader will observe that
+the weapons of each class were of the same make and calibre, so that
+the cartridges were interchangeable, a very important point. I make no
+apology for detailing it at length, as every experienced hunter will
+know how vital a proper supply of guns and ammunition is to the success
+of an expedition.
+
+Now as to the men who were to go with us. After much consultation we
+decided that their number should be limited to five, namely, a driver,
+a leader, and three servants.
+
+The driver and leader I found without much difficulty, two Zulus, named
+respectively Goza and Tom; but to get the servants proved a more
+difficult matter. It was necessary that they should be thoroughly
+trustworthy and brave men, as in a business of this sort our lives
+might depend upon their conduct. At last I secured two, one a Hottentot
+named Ventvoegel, or "windbird," and one a little Zulu named Khiva, who
+had the merit of speaking English perfectly. Ventvoegel I had known
+before; he was one of the most perfect "spoorers," that is, game
+trackers, I ever had to do with, and tough as whipcord. He never seemed
+to tire. But he had one failing, so common with his race, drink. Put
+him within reach of a bottle of gin and you could not trust him.
+However, as we were going beyond the region of grog-shops this little
+weakness of his did not so much matter.
+
+Having secured these two men I looked in vain for a third to suit my
+purpose, so we determined to start without one, trusting to luck to
+find a suitable man on our way up country. But, as it happened, on the
+evening before the day we had fixed for our departure the Zulu Khiva
+informed me that a Kafir was waiting to see me. Accordingly, when we
+had done dinner, for we were at table at the time, I told Khiva to
+bring him in. Presently a tall, handsome-looking man, somewhere about
+thirty years of age, and very light-coloured for a Zulu, entered, and
+lifting his knob-stick by way of salute, squatted himself down in the
+corner on his haunches, and sat silent. I did not take any notice of
+him for a while, for it is a great mistake to do so. If you rush into
+conversation at once, a Zulu is apt to think you a person of little
+dignity or consequence. I observed, however, that he was a "Keshla" or
+ringed man; that is, he wore on his head the black ring, made of a
+species of gum polished with fat and worked up in the hair, which is
+usually assumed by Zulus on attaining a certain age or dignity. Also it
+struck me that his face was familiar to me.
+
+"Well," I said at last, "What is your name?"
+
+"Umbopa," answered the man in a slow, deep voice.
+
+"I have seen your face before."
+
+"Yes; the Inkoosi, the chief, my father, saw my face at the place of
+the Little Hand"--that is, Isandhlwana--"on the day before the battle."
+
+Then I remembered. I was one of Lord Chelmsford's guides in that
+unlucky Zulu War, and had the good fortune to leave the camp in charge
+of some wagons on the day before the battle. While I was waiting for
+the cattle to be inspanned I fell into conversation with this man, who
+held some small command among the native auxiliaries, and he had
+expressed to me his doubts as to the safety of the camp. At the time I
+told him to hold his tongue, and leave such matters to wiser heads; but
+afterwards I thought of his words.
+
+"I remember," I said; "what is it you want?"
+
+"It is this, 'Macumazahn.'" That is my Kafir name, and means the man
+who gets up in the middle of the night, or, in vulgar English, he who
+keeps his eyes open. "I hear that you go on a great expedition far into
+the North with the white chiefs from over the water. Is it a true word?"
+
+"It is."
+
+"I hear that you go even to the Lukanga River, a moon's journey beyond
+the Manica country. Is this so also, 'Macumazahn?'"
+
+"Why do you ask whither we go? What is it to you?" I answered
+suspiciously, for the objects of our journey had been kept a dead
+secret.
+
+"It is this, O white men, that if indeed you travel so far I would
+travel with you."
+
+There was a certain assumption of dignity in the man's mode of speech,
+and especially in his use of the words "O white men," instead of "O
+Inkosis," or chiefs, which struck me.
+
+"You forget yourself a little," I said. "Your words run out unawares.
+That is not the way to speak. What is your name, and where is your
+kraal? Tell us, that we may know with whom we have to deal."
+
+"My name is Umbopa. I am of the Zulu people, yet not of them. The house
+of my tribe is in the far North; it was left behind when the Zulus came
+down here a 'thousand years ago,' long before Chaka reigned in
+Zululand. I have no kraal. I have wandered for many years. I came from
+the North as a child to Zululand. I was Cetewayo's man in the
+Nkomabakosi Regiment, serving there under the great Captain,
+Umslopogaasi of the Axe,[1] who taught my hands to fight. Afterwards I
+ran away from Zululand and came to Natal because I wanted to see the
+white man's ways. Next I fought against Cetewayo in the war. Since then
+I have been working in Natal. Now I am tired, and would go North again.
+Here is not my place. I want no money, but I am a brave man, and am
+worth my place and meat. I have spoken."
+
+I was rather puzzled by this man and his way of speech. It was evident
+to me from his manner that in the main he was telling the truth, but
+somehow he seemed different from the ordinary run of Zulus, and I
+rather mistrusted his offer to come without pay. Being in a difficulty,
+I translated his words to Sir Henry and Good, and asked them their
+opinion.
+
+Sir Henry told me to ask him to stand up. Umbopa did so, at the same
+time slipping off the long military great coat which he wore, and
+revealing himself naked except for the moocha round his centre and a
+necklace of lions' claws. Certainly he was a magnificent-looking man; I
+never saw a finer native. Standing about six foot three high he was
+broad in proportion, and very shapely. In that light, too, his skin
+looked scarcely more than dark, except here and there where deep black
+scars marked old assegai wounds. Sir Henry walked up to him and looked
+into his proud, handsome face.
+
+"They make a good pair, don't they?" said Good; "one as big as the
+other."
+
+"I like your looks, Mr. Umbopa, and I will take you as my servant,"
+said Sir Henry in English.
+
+Umbopa evidently understood him, for he answered in Zulu, "It is well";
+and then added, with a glance at the white man's great stature and
+breadth, "We are men, thou and I."
+
+
+[1] For the history of Umslopogaasi and his Axe, the reader is referred
+to the books called "Allan Quatermain" and "Nada the Lily."--Editor.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+AN ELEPHANT HUNT
+
+Now I do not propose to narrate at full length all the incidents of our
+long travel up to Sitanda's Kraal, near the junction of the Lukanga and
+Kalukwe Rivers. It was a journey of more than a thousand miles from
+Durban, the last three hundred or so of which we had to make on foot,
+owing to the frequent presence of the dreadful "tsetse" fly, whose bite
+is fatal to all animals except donkeys and men.
+
+We left Durban at the end of January, and it was in the second week of
+May that we camped near Sitanda's Kraal. Our adventures on the way were
+many and various, but as they are of the sort which befall every
+African hunter--with one exception to be presently detailed--I shall
+not set them down here, lest I should render this history too wearisome.
+
+At Inyati, the outlying trading station in the Matabele country, of
+which Lobengula (a great and cruel scoundrel) is king, with many
+regrets we parted from our comfortable wagon. Only twelve oxen remained
+to us out of the beautiful span of twenty which I had bought at Durban.
+One we lost from the bite of a cobra, three had perished from "poverty"
+and the want of water, one strayed, and the other three died from
+eating the poisonous herb called "tulip." Five more sickened from this
+cause, but we managed to cure them with doses of an infusion made by
+boiling down the tulip leaves. If administered in time this is a very
+effective antidote.
+
+The wagon and the oxen we left in the immediate charge of Goza and Tom,
+our driver and leader, both trustworthy boys, requesting a worthy
+Scotch missionary who lived in this distant place to keep an eye on
+them. Then, accompanied by Umbopa, Khiva, Ventvoegel, and half a dozen
+bearers whom we hired on the spot, we started off on foot upon our wild
+quest. I remember we were all a little silent on the occasion of this
+departure, and I think that each of us was wondering if we should ever
+see our wagon again; for my part I never expected to do so. For a while
+we tramped on in silence, till Umbopa, who was marching in front, broke
+into a Zulu chant about how some brave men, tired of life and the
+tameness of things, started off into a vast wilderness to find new
+things or die, and how, lo and behold! when they had travelled far into
+the wilderness they found that it was not a wilderness at all, but a
+beautiful place full of young wives and fat cattle, of game to hunt and
+enemies to kill.
+
+Then we all laughed and took it for a good omen. Umbopa was a cheerful
+savage, in a dignified sort of way, when he was not suffering from one
+of his fits of brooding, and he had a wonderful knack of keeping up our
+spirits. We all grew very fond of him.
+
+And now for the one adventure to which I am going to treat myself, for
+I do dearly love a hunting yarn.
+
+About a fortnight's march from Inyati we came across a peculiarly
+beautiful bit of well-watered woodland country. The kloofs in the hills
+were covered with dense bush, "idoro" bush as the natives call it, and
+in some places, with the "wacht-een-beche," or "wait-a-little thorn,"
+and there were great quantities of the lovely "machabell" tree, laden
+with refreshing yellow fruit having enormous stones. This tree is the
+elephant's favourite food, and there were not wanting signs that the
+great brutes had been about, for not only was their spoor frequent, but
+in many places the trees were broken down and even uprooted. The
+elephant is a destructive feeder.
+
+One evening, after a long day's march, we came to a spot of great
+loveliness. At the foot of a bush-clad hill lay a dry river-bed, in
+which, however, were to be found pools of crystal water all trodden
+round with the hoof-prints of game. Facing this hill was a park-like
+plain, where grew clumps of flat-topped mimosa, varied with occasional
+glossy-leaved machabells, and all round stretched the sea of pathless,
+silent bush.
+
+As we emerged into this river-bed path suddenly we started a troop of
+tall giraffes, who galloped, or rather sailed off, in their strange
+gait, their tails screwed up over their backs, and their hoofs rattling
+like castanets. They were about three hundred yards from us, and
+therefore practically out of shot, but Good, who was walking ahead, and
+who had an express loaded with solid ball in his hand, could not resist
+temptation. Lifting his gun, he let drive at the last, a young cow. By
+some extraordinary chance the ball struck it full on the back of the
+neck, shattering the spinal column, and that giraffe went rolling head
+over heels just like a rabbit. I never saw a more curious thing.
+
+"Curse it!" said Good--for I am sorry to say he had a habit of using
+strong language when excited--contracted, no doubt, in the course of
+his nautical career; "curse it! I've killed him."
+
+"_Ou_, Bougwan," ejaculated the Kafirs; "_ou! ou!_"
+
+They called Good "Bougwan," or Glass Eye, because of his eye-glass.
+
+"Oh, 'Bougwan!'" re-echoed Sir Henry and I, and from that day Good's
+reputation as a marvellous shot was established, at any rate among the
+Kafirs. Really he was a bad one, but whenever he missed we overlooked
+it for the sake of that giraffe.
+
+Having set some of the "boys" to cut off the best of the giraffe's
+meat, we went to work to build a "scherm" near one of the pools and
+about a hundred yards to its right. This is done by cutting a quantity
+of thorn bushes and piling them in the shape of a circular hedge. Then
+the space enclosed is smoothed, and dry tambouki grass, if obtainable,
+is made into a bed in the centre, and a fire or fires lighted.
+
+By the time the "scherm" was finished the moon peeped up, and our
+dinners of giraffe steaks and roasted marrow-bones were ready. How we
+enjoyed those marrow-bones, though it was rather a job to crack them! I
+know of no greater luxury than giraffe marrow, unless it is elephant's
+heart, and we had that on the morrow. We ate our simple meal by the
+light of the moon, pausing at times to thank Good for his wonderful
+shot; then we began to smoke and yarn, and a curious picture we must
+have made squatting there round the fire. I, with my short grizzled
+hair sticking up straight, and Sir Henry with his yellow locks, which
+were getting rather long, were rather a contrast, especially as I am
+thin, and short, and dark, weighing only nine stone and a half, and Sir
+Henry is tall, and broad, and fair, and weighs fifteen. But perhaps the
+most curious-looking of the three, taking all the circumstances of the
+case into consideration, was Captain John Good, R.N. There he sat upon
+a leather bag, looking just as though he had come in from a comfortable
+day's shooting in a civilised country, absolutely clean, tidy, and well
+dressed. He wore a shooting suit of brown tweed, with a hat to match,
+and neat gaiters. As usual, he was beautifully shaved, his eye-glass
+and his false teeth appeared to be in perfect order, and altogether he
+looked the neatest man I ever had to do with in the wilderness. He even
+sported a collar, of which he had a supply, made of white gutta-percha.
+
+"You see, they weigh so little," he said to me innocently, when I
+expressed my astonishment at the fact; "and I always like to turn out
+like a gentleman." Ah! if he could have foreseen the future and the
+raiment prepared for him.
+
+Well, there we three sat yarning away in the beautiful moonlight, and
+watching the Kafirs a few yards off sucking their intoxicating "daccha"
+from a pipe of which the mouthpiece was made of the horn of an eland,
+till one by one they rolled themselves up in their blankets and went to
+sleep by the fire, that is, all except Umbopa, who was a little apart,
+his chin resting on his hand, and thinking deeply. I noticed that he
+never mixed much with the other Kafirs.
+
+Presently, from the depths of the bush behind us, came a loud "_woof_,
+_woof_!" "That's a lion," said I, and we all started up to listen.
+Hardly had we done so, when from the pool, about a hundred yards off,
+we heard the strident trumpeting of an elephant. "_Unkungunklovo_!
+_Indlovu_!" "Elephant! Elephant!" whispered the Kafirs, and a few
+minutes afterwards we saw a succession of vast shadowy forms moving
+slowly from the direction of the water towards the bush.
+
+Up jumped Good, burning for slaughter, and thinking, perhaps, that it
+was as easy to kill elephant as he had found it to shoot giraffe, but I
+caught him by the arm and pulled him down.
+
+"It's no good," I whispered, "let them go."
+
+"It seems that we are in a paradise of game. I vote we stop here a day
+or two, and have a go at them," said Sir Henry, presently.
+
+I was rather surprised, for hitherto Sir Henry had always been for
+pushing forward as fast as possible, more especially since we
+ascertained at Inyati that about two years ago an Englishman of the
+name of Neville _had_ sold his wagon there, and gone on up country. But
+I suppose his hunter instincts got the better of him for a while.
+
+Good jumped at the idea, for he was longing to have a shot at those
+elephants; and so, to speak the truth, did I, for it went against my
+conscience to let such a herd as that escape without a pull at them.
+
+"All right, my hearties," said I. "I think we want a little recreation.
+And now let's turn in, for we ought to be off by dawn, and then perhaps
+we may catch them feeding before they move on."
+
+The others agreed, and we proceeded to make our preparations. Good took
+off his clothes, shook them, put his eye-glass and his false teeth into
+his trousers pocket, and folding each article neatly, placed it out of
+the dew under a corner of his mackintosh sheet. Sir Henry and I
+contented ourselves with rougher arrangements, and soon were curled up
+in our blankets, and dropping off into the dreamless sleep that rewards
+the traveller.
+
+Going, going, go--What was that?
+
+Suddenly, from the direction of the water came sounds of violent
+scuffling, and next instant there broke upon our ears a succession of
+the most awful roars. There was no mistaking their origin; only a lion
+could make such a noise as that. We all jumped up and looked towards
+the water, in the direction of which we saw a confused mass, yellow and
+black in colour, staggering and struggling towards us. We seized our
+rifles, and slipping on our veldtschoons, that is shoes made of
+untanned hide, ran out of the scherm. By this time the mass had fallen,
+and was rolling over and over on the ground, and when we reached the
+spot it struggled no longer, but lay quite still.
+
+Now we saw what it was. On the grass there lay a sable antelope
+bull--the most beautiful of all the African antelopes--quite dead, and
+transfixed by its great curved horns was a magnificent black-maned
+lion, also dead. Evidently what had happened was this: The sable
+antelope had come down to drink at the pool where the lion--no doubt
+the same which we had heard--was lying in wait. While the antelope
+drank, the lion had sprung upon him, only to be received upon the sharp
+curved horns and transfixed. Once before I saw a similar thing happen.
+Then the lion, unable to free himself, had torn and bitten at the back
+and neck of the bull, which, maddened with fear and pain, had rushed on
+until it dropped dead.
+
+As soon as we had examined the beasts sufficiently we called the
+Kafirs, and between us managed to drag their carcases up to the scherm.
+After that we went in and lay down, to wake no more till dawn.
+
+With the first light we were up and making ready for the fray. We took
+with us the three eight-bore rifles, a good supply of ammunition, and
+our large water-bottles, filled with weak cold tea, which I have always
+found the best stuff to shoot on. After swallowing a little breakfast
+we started, Umbopa, Khiva, and Ventvoegel accompanying us. The other
+Kafirs we left with instructions to skin the lion and the sable
+antelope, and to cut up the latter.
+
+We had no difficulty in finding the broad elephant trail, which
+Ventvoegel, after examination, pronounced to have been made by between
+twenty and thirty elephants, most of them full-grown bulls. But the
+herd had moved on some way during the night, and it was nine o'clock,
+and already very hot, before, by the broken trees, bruised leaves and
+bark, and smoking droppings, we knew that we could not be far from them.
+
+Presently we caught sight of the herd, which numbered, as Ventvoegel had
+said, between twenty and thirty, standing in a hollow, having finished
+their morning meal, and flapping their great ears. It was a splendid
+sight, for they were only about two hundred yards from us. Taking a
+handful of dry grass, I threw it into the air to see how the wind was;
+for if once they winded us I knew they would be off before we could get
+a shot. Finding that, if anything, it blew from the elephants to us, we
+crept on stealthily, and thanks to the cover managed to get within
+forty yards or so of the great brutes. Just in front of us, and
+broadside on, stood three splendid bulls, one of them with enormous
+tusks. I whispered to the others that I would take the middle one; Sir
+Henry covering the elephant to the left, and Good the bull with the big
+tusks.
+
+"Now," I whispered.
+
+Boom! boom! boom! went the three heavy rifles, and down came Sir
+Henry's elephant dead as a hammer, shot right through the heart. Mine
+fell on to its knees and I thought that he was going to die, but in
+another moment he was up and off, tearing along straight past me. As he
+went I gave him the second barrel in the ribs, and this brought him
+down in good earnest. Hastily slipping in two fresh cartridges I ran
+close up to him, and a ball through the brain put an end to the poor
+brute's struggles. Then I turned to see how Good had fared with the big
+bull, which I had heard screaming with rage and pain as I gave mine its
+quietus. On reaching the captain I found him in a great state of
+excitement. It appeared that on receiving the bullet the bull had
+turned and come straight for his assailant, who had barely time to get
+out of his way, and then charged on blindly past him, in the direction
+of our encampment. Meanwhile the herd had crashed off in wild alarm in
+the other direction.
+
+For awhile we debated whether to go after the wounded bull or to follow
+the herd, and finally deciding for the latter alternative, departed,
+thinking that we had seen the last of those big tusks. I have often
+wished since that we had. It was easy work to follow the elephants, for
+they had left a trail like a carriage road behind them, crushing down
+the thick bush in their furious flight as though it were tambouki grass.
+
+But to come up with them was another matter, and we had struggled on
+under the broiling sun for over two hours before we found them. With
+the exception of one bull, they were standing together, and I could
+see, from their unquiet way and the manner in which they kept lifting
+their trunks to test the air, that they were on the look-out for
+mischief. The solitary bull stood fifty yards or so to this side of the
+herd, over which he was evidently keeping sentry, and about sixty yards
+from us. Thinking that he would see or wind us, and that it would
+probably start them off again if we tried to get nearer, especially as
+the ground was rather open, we all aimed at this bull, and at my
+whispered word, we fired. The three shots took effect, and down he went
+dead. Again the herd started, but unfortunately for them about a
+hundred yards further on was a nullah, or dried-out water track, with
+steep banks, a place very much resembling the one where the Prince
+Imperial was killed in Zululand. Into this the elephants plunged, and
+when we reached the edge we found them struggling in wild confusion to
+get up the other bank, filling the air with their screams, and
+trumpeting as they pushed one another aside in their selfish panic,
+just like so many human beings. Now was our opportunity, and firing
+away as quickly as we could load, we killed five of the poor beasts,
+and no doubt should have bagged the whole herd, had they not suddenly
+given up their attempts to climb the bank and rushed headlong down the
+nullah. We were too tired to follow them, and perhaps also a little
+sick of slaughter, eight elephants being a pretty good bag for one day.
+
+So after we were rested a little, and the Kafirs had cut out the hearts
+of two of the dead elephants for supper, we started homewards, very
+well pleased with our day's work, having made up our minds to send the
+bearers on the morrow to chop away the tusks.
+
+Shortly after we re-passed the spot where Good had wounded the
+patriarchal bull we came across a herd of eland, but did not shoot at
+them, as we had plenty of meat. They trotted past us, and then stopped
+behind a little patch of bush about a hundred yards away, wheeling
+round to look at us. As Good was anxious to get a near view of them,
+never having seen an eland close, he handed his rifle to Umbopa, and,
+followed by Khiva, strolled up to the patch of bush. We sat down and
+waited for him, not sorry of the excuse for a little rest.
+
+The sun was just going down in its reddest glory, and Sir Henry and I
+were admiring the lovely scene, when suddenly we heard an elephant
+scream, and saw its huge and rushing form with uplifted trunk and tail
+silhouetted against the great fiery globe of the sun. Next second we
+saw something else, and that was Good and Khiva tearing back towards us
+with the wounded bull--for it was he--charging after them. For a moment
+we did not dare to fire--though at that distance it would have been of
+little use if we had done so--for fear of hitting one of them, and the
+next a dreadful thing happened--Good fell a victim to his passion for
+civilised dress. Had he consented to discard his trousers and gaiters
+like the rest of us, and to hunt in a flannel shirt and a pair of
+veldt-schoons, it would have been all right. But as it was, his
+trousers cumbered him in that desperate race, and presently, when he
+was about sixty yards from us, his boot, polished by the dry grass,
+slipped, and down he went on his face right in front of the elephant.
+
+We gave a gasp, for we knew that he must die, and ran as hard as we
+could towards him. In three seconds it had ended, but not as we
+thought. Khiva, the Zulu boy, saw his master fall, and brave lad as he
+was, turned and flung his assegai straight into the elephant's face. It
+stuck in his trunk.
+
+With a scream of pain, the brute seized the poor Zulu, hurled him to
+the earth, and placing one huge foot on to his body about the middle,
+twined its trunk round his upper part and _tore him in two_.
+
+We rushed up mad with horror, and fired again and again, till presently
+the elephant fell upon the fragments of the Zulu.
+
+As for Good, he rose and wrung his hands over the brave man who had
+given his life to save him, and, though I am an old hand, I felt a lump
+grow in my throat. Umbopa stood contemplating the huge dead elephant
+and the mangled remains of poor Khiva.
+
+"Ah, well," he said presently, "he is dead, but he died like a man!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+OUR MARCH INTO THE DESERT
+
+We had killed nine elephants, and it took us two days to cut out the
+tusks, and having brought them into camp, to bury them carefully in the
+sand under a large tree, which made a conspicuous mark for miles round.
+It was a wonderfully fine lot of ivory. I never saw a better, averaging
+as it did between forty and fifty pounds a tusk. The tusks of the great
+bull that killed poor Khiva scaled one hundred and seventy pounds the
+pair, so nearly as we could judge.
+
+As for Khiva himself, we buried what remained of him in an ant-bear
+hole, together with an assegai to protect himself with on his journey
+to a better world. On the third day we marched again, hoping that we
+might live to return to dig up our buried ivory, and in due course,
+after a long and wearisome tramp, and many adventures which I have not
+space to detail, we reached Sitanda's Kraal, near the Lukanga River,
+the real starting-point of our expedition. Very well do I recollect our
+arrival at that place. To the right was a scattered native settlement
+with a few stone cattle kraals and some cultivated lands down by the
+water, where these savages grew their scanty supply of grain, and
+beyond it stretched great tracts of waving "veld" covered with tall
+grass, over which herds of the smaller game were wandering. To the left
+lay the vast desert. This spot appears to be the outpost of the fertile
+country, and it would be difficult to say to what natural causes such
+an abrupt change in the character of the soil is due. But so it is.
+
+Just below our encampment flowed a little stream, on the farther side
+of which is a stony slope, the same down which, twenty years before, I
+had seen poor Silvestre creeping back after his attempt to reach
+Solomon's Mines, and beyond that slope begins the waterless desert,
+covered with a species of karoo shrub.
+
+It was evening when we pitched our camp, and the great ball of the sun
+was sinking into the desert, sending glorious rays of many-coloured
+light flying all over its vast expanse. Leaving Good to superintend the
+arrangement of our little camp, I took Sir Henry with me, and walking
+to the top of the slope opposite, we gazed across the desert. The air
+was very clear, and far, far away I could distinguish the faint blue
+outlines, here and there capped with white, of the Suliman Berg.
+
+"There," I said, "there is the wall round Solomon's Mines, but God
+knows if we shall ever climb it."
+
+"My brother should be there, and if he is, I shall reach him somehow,"
+said Sir Henry, in that tone of quiet confidence which marked the man.
+
+"I hope so," I answered, and turned to go back to the camp, when I saw
+that we were not alone. Behind us, also gazing earnestly towards the
+far-off mountains, stood the great Kafir Umbopa.
+
+The Zulu spoke when he saw that I had observed him, addressing Sir
+Henry, to whom he had attached himself.
+
+"Is it to that land that thou wouldst journey, Incubu?" (a native word
+meaning, I believe, an elephant, and the name given to Sir Henry by the
+Kafirs), he said, pointing towards the mountain with his broad assegai.
+
+I asked him sharply what he meant by addressing his master in that
+familiar way. It is very well for natives to have a name for one among
+themselves, but it is not decent that they should call a white man by
+their heathenish appellations to his face. The Zulu laughed a quiet
+little laugh which angered me.
+
+"How dost thou know that I am not the equal of the Inkosi whom I
+serve?" he said. "He is of a royal house, no doubt; one can see it in
+his size and by his mien; so, mayhap, am I. At least, I am as great a
+man. Be my mouth, O Macumazahn, and say my words to the Inkoos Incubu,
+my master, for I would speak to him and to thee."
+
+I was angry with the man, for I am not accustomed to be talked to in
+that way by Kafirs, but somehow he impressed me, and besides I was
+curious to know what he had to say. So I translated, expressing my
+opinion at the same time that he was an impudent fellow, and that his
+swagger was outrageous.
+
+"Yes, Umbopa," answered Sir Henry, "I would journey there."
+
+"The desert is wide and there is no water in it, the mountains are high
+and covered with snow, and man cannot say what lies beyond them behind
+the place where the sun sets; how shalt thou come thither, Incubu, and
+wherefore dost thou go?"
+
+I translated again.
+
+"Tell him," answered Sir Henry, "that I go because I believe that a man
+of my blood, my brother, has gone there before me, and I journey to
+seek him."
+
+"That is so, Incubu; a Hottentot I met on the road told me that a white
+man went out into the desert two years ago towards those mountains with
+one servant, a hunter. They never came back."
+
+"How do you know it was my brother?" asked Sir Henry.
+
+"Nay, I know not. But the Hottentot, when I asked what the white man
+was like, said that he had thine eyes and a black beard. He said, too,
+that the name of the hunter with him was Jim; that he was a Bechuana
+hunter and wore clothes."
+
+"There is no doubt about it," said I; "I knew Jim well."
+
+Sir Henry nodded. "I was sure of it," he said. "If George set his mind
+upon a thing he generally did it. It was always so from his boyhood. If
+he meant to cross the Suliman Berg he has crossed it, unless some
+accident overtook him, and we must look for him on the other side."
+
+Umbopa understood English, though he rarely spoke it.
+
+"It is a far journey, Incubu," he put in, and I translated his remark.
+
+"Yes," answered Sir Henry, "it is far. But there is no journey upon
+this earth that a man may not make if he sets his heart to it. There is
+nothing, Umbopa, that he cannot do, there are no mountains he may not
+climb, there are no deserts he cannot cross, save a mountain and a
+desert of which you are spared the knowledge, if love leads him and he
+holds his life in his hands counting it as nothing, ready to keep it or
+lose it as Heaven above may order."
+
+I translated.
+
+"Great words, my father," answered the Zulu--I always called him a
+Zulu, though he was not really one--"great swelling words fit to fill
+the mouth of a man. Thou art right, my father Incubu. Listen! what is
+life? It is a feather, it is the seed of the grass, blown hither and
+thither, sometimes multiplying itself and dying in the act, sometimes
+carried away into the heavens. But if that seed be good and heavy it
+may perchance travel a little way on the road it wills. It is well to
+try and journey one's road and to fight with the air. Man must die. At
+the worst he can but die a little sooner. I will go with thee across
+the desert and over the mountains, unless perchance I fall to the
+ground on the way, my father."
+
+He paused awhile, and then went on with one of those strange bursts of
+rhetorical eloquence that Zulus sometimes indulge in, which to my mind,
+full though they are of vain repetitions, show that the race is by no
+means devoid of poetic instinct and of intellectual power.
+
+"What is life? Tell me, O white men, who are wise, who know the secrets
+of the world, and of the world of stars, and the world that lies above
+and around the stars; who flash your words from afar without a voice;
+tell me, white men, the secret of our life--whither it goes and whence
+it comes!
+
+"You cannot answer me; you know not. Listen, I will answer. Out of the
+dark we came, into the dark we go. Like a storm-driven bird at night we
+fly out of the Nowhere; for a moment our wings are seen in the light of
+the fire, and, lo! we are gone again into the Nowhere. Life is nothing.
+Life is all. It is the Hand with which we hold off Death. It is the
+glow-worm that shines in the night-time and is black in the morning; it
+is the white breath of the oxen in winter; it is the little shadow that
+runs across the grass and loses itself at sunset."
+
+"You are a strange man," said Sir Henry, when he had ceased.
+
+Umbopa laughed. "It seems to me that we are much alike, Incubu. Perhaps
+_I_ seek a brother over the mountains."
+
+I looked at him suspiciously. "What dost thou mean?" I asked; "what
+dost thou know of those mountains?"
+
+"A little; a very little. There is a strange land yonder, a land of
+witchcraft and beautiful things; a land of brave people, and of trees,
+and streams, and snowy peaks, and of a great white road. I have heard
+of it. But what is the good of talking? It grows dark. Those who live
+to see will see."
+
+Again I looked at him doubtfully. The man knew too much.
+
+"You need not fear me, Macumazahn," he said, interpreting my look. "I
+dig no holes for you to fall in. I make no plots. If ever we cross
+those mountains behind the sun I will tell what I know. But Death sits
+upon them. Be wise and turn back. Go and hunt elephants, my masters. I
+have spoken."
+
+And without another word he lifted his spear in salutation, and
+returned towards the camp, where shortly afterwards we found him
+cleaning a gun like any other Kafir.
+
+"That is an odd man," said Sir Henry.
+
+"Yes," answered I, "too odd by half. I don't like his little ways. He
+knows something, and will not speak out. But I suppose it is no use
+quarrelling with him. We are in for a curious trip, and a mysterious
+Zulu won't make much difference one way or another."
+
+Next day we made our arrangements for starting. Of course it was
+impossible to drag our heavy elephant rifles and other kit with us
+across the desert, so, dismissing our bearers, we made an arrangement
+with an old native who had a kraal close by to take care of them till
+we returned. It went to my heart to leave such things as those sweet
+tools to the tender mercies of an old thief of a savage whose greedy
+eyes I could see gloating over them. But I took some precautions.
+
+First of all I loaded all the rifles, placing them at full cock, and
+informed him that if he touched them they would go off. He tried the
+experiment instantly with my eight-bore, and it did go off, and blew a
+hole right through one of his oxen, which were just then being driven
+up to the kraal, to say nothing of knocking him head over heels with
+the recoil. He got up considerably startled, and not at all pleased at
+the loss of the ox, which he had the impudence to ask me to pay for,
+and nothing would induce him to touch the guns again.
+
+"Put the live devils out of the way up there in the thatch," he said,
+"or they will murder us all."
+
+Then I told him that, when we came back, if one of those things was
+missing I would kill him and his people by witchcraft; and if we died
+and he tried to steal the rifles I would come and haunt him and turn
+his cattle mad and his milk sour till life was a weariness, and would
+make the devils in the guns come out and talk to him in a way he did
+not like, and generally gave him a good idea of judgment to come. After
+that he promised to look after them as though they were his father's
+spirit. He was a very superstitious old Kafir and a great villain.
+
+Having thus disposed of our superfluous gear we arranged the kit we
+five--Sir Henry, Good, myself, Umbopa, and the Hottentot
+Ventvoegel--were to take with us on our journey. It was small enough,
+but do what we would we could not get its weight down under about forty
+pounds a man. This is what it consisted of:--
+
+The three express rifles and two hundred rounds of ammunition.
+
+The two Winchester repeating rifles (for Umbopa and Ventvoegel), with
+two hundred rounds of cartridge.
+
+Five Cochrane's water-bottles, each holding four pints.
+
+Five blankets.
+
+Twenty-five pounds' weight of biltong--i.e. sun-dried game flesh.
+
+Ten pounds' weight of best mixed beads for gifts.
+
+A selection of medicine, including an ounce of quinine, and one or two
+small surgical instruments.
+
+Our knives, a few sundries, such as a compass, matches, a pocket
+filter, tobacco, a trowel, a bottle of brandy, and the clothes we stood
+in.
+
+This was our total equipment, a small one indeed for such a venture,
+but we dared not attempt to carry more. Indeed, that load was a heavy
+one per man with which to travel across the burning desert, for in such
+places every additional ounce tells. But we could not see our way to
+reducing the weight. There was nothing taken but what was absolutely
+necessary.
+
+With great difficulty, and by the promise of a present of a good
+hunting-knife each, I succeeded in persuading three wretched natives
+from the village to come with us for the first stage, twenty miles, and
+to carry a large gourd holding a gallon of water apiece. My object was
+to enable us to refill our water-bottles after the first night's march,
+for we determined to start in the cool of the evening. I gave out to
+these natives that we were going to shoot ostriches, with which the
+desert abounded. They jabbered and shrugged their shoulders, saying
+that we were mad and should perish of thirst, which I must say seemed
+probable; but being desirous of obtaining the knives, which were almost
+unknown treasures up there, they consented to come, having probably
+reflected that, after all, our subsequent extinction would be no affair
+of theirs.
+
+All next day we rested and slept, and at sunset ate a hearty meal of
+fresh beef washed down with tea, the last, as Good remarked sadly, we
+were likely to drink for many a long day. Then, having made our final
+preparations, we lay down and waited for the moon to rise. At last,
+about nine o'clock, up she came in all her glory, flooding the wild
+country with light, and throwing a silver sheen on the expanse of
+rolling desert before us, which looked as solemn and quiet and as alien
+to man as the star-studded firmament above. We rose up, and in a few
+minutes were ready, and yet we hesitated a little, as human nature is
+prone to hesitate on the threshold of an irrevocable step. We three
+white men stood by ourselves. Umbopa, assegai in hand and a rifle
+across his shoulders, looked out fixedly across the desert a few paces
+ahead of us; while the hired natives, with the gourds of water, and
+Ventvoegel, were gathered in a little knot behind.
+
+"Gentlemen," said Sir Henry presently, in his deep voice, "we are going
+on about as strange a journey as men can make in this world. It is very
+doubtful if we can succeed in it. But we are three men who will stand
+together for good or for evil to the last. Now before we start let us
+for a moment pray to the Power who shapes the destinies of men, and who
+ages since has marked out our paths, that it may please Him to direct
+our steps in accordance with His will."
+
+Taking off his hat, for the space of a minute or so, he covered his
+face with his hands, and Good and I did likewise.
+
+I do not say that I am a first-rate praying man, few hunters are, and
+as for Sir Henry, I never heard him speak like that before, and only
+once since, though deep down in his heart I believe that he is very
+religious. Good too is pious, though apt to swear. Anyhow I do not
+remember, excepting on one single occasion, ever putting up a better
+prayer in my life than I did during that minute, and somehow I felt the
+happier for it. Our future was so completely unknown, and I think that
+the unknown and the awful always bring a man nearer to his Maker.
+
+"And now," said Sir Henry, "_trek_!"
+
+So we started.
+
+We had nothing to guide ourselves by except the distant mountains and
+old Jose da Silvestre's chart, which, considering that it was drawn by
+a dying and half-distraught man on a fragment of linen three centuries
+ago, was not a very satisfactory sort of thing to work with. Still,
+our sole hope of success depended upon it, such as it was. If we failed
+in finding that pool of bad water which the old Dom marked as being
+situated in the middle of the desert, about sixty miles from our
+starting-point, and as far from the mountains, in all probability we
+must perish miserably of thirst. But to my mind the chances of our
+finding it in that great sea of sand and karoo scrub seemed almost
+infinitesimal. Even supposing that da Silvestra had marked the pool
+correctly, what was there to prevent its having been dried up by the
+sun generations ago, or trampled in by game, or filled with the
+drifting sand?
+
+On we tramped silently as shades through the night and in the heavy
+sand. The karoo bushes caught our feet and retarded us, and the sand
+worked into our veldtschoons and Good's shooting-boots, so that every
+few miles we had to stop and empty them; but still the night kept
+fairly cool, though the atmosphere was thick and heavy, giving a sort
+of creamy feel to the air, and we made fair progress. It was very
+silent and lonely there in the desert, oppressively so indeed. Good
+felt this, and once began to whistle "The Girl I left behind me," but
+the notes sounded lugubrious in that vast place, and he gave it up.
+
+Shortly afterwards a little incident occurred which, though it startled
+us at the time, gave rise to a laugh. Good was leading, as the holder
+of the compass, which, being a sailor, of course he understood
+thoroughly, and we were toiling along in single file behind him, when
+suddenly we heard the sound of an exclamation, and he vanished. Next
+second there arose all around us a most extraordinary hubbub, snorts,
+groans, and wild sounds of rushing feet. In the faint light, too, we
+could descry dim galloping forms half hidden by wreaths of sand. The
+natives threw down their loads and prepared to bolt, but remembering
+that there was nowhere to run to, they cast themselves upon the ground
+and howled out that it was ghosts. As for Sir Henry and myself, we
+stood amazed; nor was our amazement lessened when we perceived the form
+of Good careering off in the direction of the mountains, apparently
+mounted on the back of a horse and halloaing wildly. In another second
+he threw up his arms, and we heard him come to the earth with a thud.
+
+Then I saw what had happened; we had stumbled upon a herd of sleeping
+quagga, on to the back of one of which Good actually had fallen, and
+the brute naturally enough got up and made off with him. Calling out to
+the others that it was all right, I ran towards Good, much afraid lest
+he should be hurt, but to my great relief I found him sitting in the
+sand, his eye-glass still fixed firmly in his eye, rather shaken and
+very much frightened, but not in any way injured.
+
+After this we travelled on without any further misadventure till about
+one o'clock, when we called a halt, and having drunk a little water,
+not much, for water was precious, and rested for half an hour, we
+started again.
+
+On, on we went, till at last the east began to blush like the cheek of
+a girl. Then there came faint rays of primrose light, that changed
+presently to golden bars, through which the dawn glided out across the
+desert. The stars grew pale and paler still, till at last they
+vanished; the golden moon waxed wan, and her mountain ridges stood out
+against her sickly face like the bones on the cheek of a dying man.
+Then came spear upon spear of light flashing far away across the
+boundless wilderness, piercing and firing the veils of mist, till the
+desert was draped in a tremulous golden glow, and it was day.
+
+Still we did not halt, though by this time we should have been glad
+enough to do so, for we knew that when once the sun was fully up it
+would be almost impossible for us to travel. At length, about an hour
+later, we spied a little pile of boulders rising out of the plain, and
+to this we dragged ourselves. As luck would have it, here we found an
+overhanging slab of rock carpeted beneath with smooth sand, which
+afforded a most grateful shelter from the heat. Underneath this we
+crept, and each of us having drunk some water and eaten a bit of
+biltong, we lay down and soon were sound asleep.
+
+It was three o'clock in the afternoon before we woke, to find our
+bearers preparing to return. They had seen enough of the desert
+already, and no number of knives would have tempted them to come a step
+farther. So we took a hearty drink, and having emptied our
+water-bottles, filled them up again from the gourds that they had
+brought with them, and then watched them depart on their twenty miles'
+tramp home.
+
+At half-past four we also started. It was lonely and desolate work, for
+with the exception of a few ostriches there was not a single living
+creature to be seen on all the vast expanse of sandy plain. Evidently
+it was too dry for game, and with the exception of a deadly-looking
+cobra or two we saw no reptiles. One insect, however, we found
+abundant, and that was the common or house fly. There they came, "not
+as single spies, but in battalions," as I think the Old Testament[1]
+says somewhere. He is an extraordinary insect is the house fly. Go
+where you will you find him, and so it must have been always. I have
+seen him enclosed in amber, which is, I was told, quite half a million
+years old, looking exactly like his descendant of to-day, and I have
+little doubt but that when the last man lies dying on the earth he will
+be buzzing round--if this event happens to occur in summer--watching
+for an opportunity to settle on his nose.
+
+At sunset we halted, waiting for the moon to rise. At last she came up,
+beautiful and serene as ever, and, with one halt about two o'clock in
+the morning, we trudged on wearily through the night, till at last the
+welcome sun put a period to our labours. We drank a little and flung
+ourselves down on the sand, thoroughly tired out, and soon were all
+asleep. There was no need to set a watch, for we had nothing to fear
+from anybody or anything in that vast untenanted plain. Our only
+enemies were heat, thirst, and flies, but far rather would I have faced
+any danger from man or beast than that awful trinity. This time we were
+not so lucky as to find a sheltering rock to guard us from the glare of
+the sun, with the result that about seven o'clock we woke up
+experiencing the exact sensations one would attribute to a beefsteak on
+a gridiron. We were literally being baked through and through. The
+burning sun seemed to be sucking our very blood out of us. We sat up
+and gasped.
+
+"Phew," said I, grabbing at the halo of flies which buzzed cheerfully
+round my head. The heat did not affect _them_.
+
+"My word!" said Sir Henry.
+
+"It is hot!" echoed Good.
+
+It was hot, indeed, and there was not a bit of shelter to be found.
+Look where we would there was no rock or tree, nothing but an unending
+glare, rendered dazzling by the heated air that danced over the surface
+of the desert as it dances over a red-hot stove.
+
+"What is to be done?" asked Sir Henry; "we can't stand this for long."
+
+We looked at each other blankly.
+
+"I have it," said Good, "we must dig a hole, get in it, and cover
+ourselves with the karoo bushes."
+
+It did not seem a very promising suggestion, but at least it was better
+than nothing, so we set to work, and, with the trowel we had brought
+with us and the help of our hands, in about an hour we succeeded in
+delving out a patch of ground some ten feet long by twelve wide to the
+depth of two feet. Then we cut a quantity of low scrub with our
+hunting-knives, and creeping into the hole, pulled it over us all, with
+the exception of Ventvoegel, on whom, being a Hottentot, the heat had no
+particular effect. This gave us some slight shelter from the burning
+rays of the sun, but the atmosphere in that amateur grave can be better
+imagined than described. The Black Hole of Calcutta must have been a
+fool to it; indeed, to this moment I do not know how we lived through
+the day. There we lay panting, and every now and again moistening our
+lips from our scanty supply of water. Had we followed our inclinations
+we should have finished all we possessed in the first two hours, but we
+were forced to exercise the most rigid care, for if our water failed us
+we knew that very soon we must perish miserably.
+
+But everything has an end, if only you live long enough to see it, and
+somehow that miserable day wore on towards evening. About three o'clock
+in the afternoon we determined that we could bear it no longer. It
+would be better to die walking that to be killed slowly by heat and
+thirst in this dreadful hole. So taking each of us a little drink from
+our fast diminishing supply of water, now warmed to about the same
+temperature as a man's blood, we staggered forward.
+
+We had then covered some fifty miles of wilderness. If the reader will
+refer to the rough copy and translation of old da Silvestra's map, he
+will see that the desert is marked as measuring forty leagues across,
+and the "pan bad water" is set down as being about in the middle of it.
+Now forty leagues is one hundred and twenty miles, consequently we
+ought at the most to be within twelve or fifteen miles of the water if
+any should really exist.
+
+Through the afternoon we crept slowly and painfully along, scarcely
+doing more than a mile and a half in an hour. At sunset we rested
+again, waiting for the moon, and after drinking a little managed to get
+some sleep.
+
+Before we lay down, Umbopa pointed out to us a slight and indistinct
+hillock on the flat surface of the plain about eight miles away. At the
+distance it looked like an ant-hill, and as I was dropping off to sleep
+I fell to wondering what it could be.
+
+With the moon we marched again, feeling dreadfully exhausted, and
+suffering tortures from thirst and prickly heat. Nobody who has not
+felt it can know what we went through. We walked no longer, we
+staggered, now and again falling from exhaustion, and being obliged to
+call a halt every hour or so. We had scarcely energy left in us to
+speak. Up to this Good had chatted and joked, for he is a merry fellow;
+but now he had not a joke in him.
+
+At last, about two o'clock, utterly worn out in body and mind, we came
+to the foot of the queer hill, or sand koppie, which at first sight
+resembled a gigantic ant-heap about a hundred feet high, and covering
+at the base nearly two acres of ground.
+
+Here we halted, and driven to it by our desperate thirst, sucked down
+our last drops of water. We had but half a pint a head, and each of us
+could have drunk a gallon.
+
+Then we lay down. Just as I was dropping off to sleep I heard Umbopa
+remark to himself in Zulu--
+
+"If we cannot find water we shall all be dead before the moon rises
+to-morrow."
+
+I shuddered, hot as it was. The near prospect of such an awful death is
+not pleasant, but even the thought of it could not keep me from
+sleeping.
+
+
+[1] Readers must beware of accepting Mr. Quatermain's references as
+accurate, as, it has been found, some are prone to do. Although his
+reading evidently was limited, the impression produced by it upon his
+mind was mixed. Thus to him the Old Testament and Shakespeare were
+interchangeable authorities.--Editor.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+WATER! WATER!
+
+Two hours later, that is, about four o'clock, I woke up, for so soon as
+the first heavy demand of bodily fatigue had been satisfied, the
+torturing thirst from which I was suffering asserted itself. I could
+sleep no more. I had been dreaming that I was bathing in a running
+stream, with green banks and trees upon them, and I awoke to find
+myself in this arid wilderness, and to remember, as Umbopa had said,
+that if we did not find water this day we must perish miserably. No
+human creature could live long without water in that heat. I sat up and
+rubbed my grimy face with my dry and horny hands, as my lips and
+eyelids were stuck together, and it was only after some friction and
+with an effort that I was able to open them. It was not far from dawn,
+but there was none of the bright feel of dawn in the air, which was
+thick with a hot murkiness that I cannot describe. The others were
+still sleeping.
+
+Presently it began to grow light enough to read, so I drew out a little
+pocket copy of the "Ingoldsby Legends" which I had brought with me, and
+read "The Jackdaw of Rheims." When I got to where
+
+  "A nice little boy held a golden ewer,
+  Embossed, and filled with water as pure
+  As any that flows between Rheims and Namur,"
+
+literally I smacked my cracking lips, or rather tried to smack them.
+The mere thought of that pure water made me mad. If the Cardinal had
+been there with his bell, book, and candle, I would have whipped in and
+drunk his water up; yes, even if he had filled it already with the suds
+of soap "worthy of washing the hands of the Pope," and I knew that the
+whole consecrated curse of the Catholic Church should fall upon me for
+so doing. I almost think that I must have been a little light-headed
+with thirst, weariness and the want of food; for I fell to thinking how
+astonished the Cardinal and his nice little boy and the jackdaw would
+have looked to see a burnt up, brown-eyed, grizzly-haired little
+elephant hunter suddenly bound between them, put his dirty face into
+the basin, and swallow every drop of the precious water. The idea
+amused me so much that I laughed or rather cackled aloud, which woke
+the others, and they began to rub _their_ dirty faces and drag _their_
+gummed-up lips and eyelids apart.
+
+As soon as we were all well awake we began to discuss the situation,
+which was serious enough. Not a drop of water was left. We turned the
+bottles upside down, and licked their tops, but it was a failure; they
+were dry as a bone. Good, who had charge of the flask of brandy, got it
+out and looked at it longingly; but Sir Henry promptly took it away
+from him, for to drink raw spirit would only have been to precipitate
+the end.
+
+"If we do not find water we shall die," he said.
+
+"If we can trust to the old Dom's map there should be some about," I
+said; but nobody seemed to derive much satisfaction from this remark.
+It was so evident that no great faith could be put in the map. Now it
+was gradually growing light, and as we sat staring blankly at each
+other, I observed the Hottentot Ventvoegel rise and begin to walk about
+with his eyes on the ground. Presently he stopped short, and uttering a
+guttural exclamation, pointed to the earth.
+
+"What is it?" we exclaimed; and rising simultaneously we went to where
+he was standing staring at the sand.
+
+"Well," I said, "it is fresh Springbok spoor; what of it?"
+
+"Springbucks do not go far from water," he answered in Dutch.
+
+"No," I answered, "I forgot; and thank God for it."
+
+This little discovery put new life into us; for it is wonderful, when a
+man is in a desperate position, how he catches at the slightest hope,
+and feels almost happy. On a dark night a single star is better than
+nothing.
+
+Meanwhile Ventvoegel was lifting his snub nose, and sniffing the hot air
+for all the world like an old Impala ram who scents danger. Presently
+he spoke again.
+
+"I _smell_ water," he said.
+
+Then we felt quite jubilant, for we knew what a wonderful instinct
+these wild-bred men possess.
+
+Just at that moment the sun came up gloriously, and revealed so grand a
+sight to our astonished eyes that for a moment or two we even forgot
+our thirst.
+
+There, not more than forty or fifty miles from us, glittering like
+silver in the early rays of the morning sun, soared Sheba's Breasts;
+and stretching away for hundreds of miles on either side of them ran
+the great Suliman Berg. Now that, sitting here, I attempt to describe
+the extraordinary grandeur and beauty of that sight, language seems to
+fail me. I am impotent even before its memory. Straight before us, rose
+two enormous mountains, the like of which are not, I believe, to be
+seen in Africa, if indeed there are any other such in the world,
+measuring each of them at least fifteen thousand feet in height,
+standing not more than a dozen miles apart, linked together by a
+precipitous cliff of rock, and towering in awful white solemnity
+straight into the sky. These mountains placed thus, like the pillars of
+a gigantic gateway, are shaped after the fashion of a woman's breasts,
+and at times the mists and shadows beneath them take the form of a
+recumbent woman, veiled mysteriously in sleep. Their bases swell gently
+from the plain, looking at that distance perfectly round and smooth;
+and upon the top of each is a vast hillock covered with snow, exactly
+corresponding to the nipple on the female breast. The stretch of cliff
+that connects them appears to be some thousands of feet in height, and
+perfectly precipitous, and on each flank of them, so far as the eye can
+reach, extent similar lines of cliff, broken only here and there by
+flat table-topped mountains, something like the world-famed one at Cape
+Town; a formation, by the way, that is very common in Africa.
+
+To describe the comprehensive grandeur of that view is beyond my
+powers. There was something so inexpressibly solemn and overpowering
+about those huge volcanoes--for doubtless they are extinct
+volcanoes--that it quite awed us. For a while the morning lights played
+upon the snow and the brown and swelling masses beneath, and then, as
+though to veil the majestic sight from our curious eyes, strange
+vapours and clouds gathered and increased around the mountains, till
+presently we could only trace their pure and gigantic outlines, showing
+ghostlike through the fleecy envelope. Indeed, as we afterwards
+discovered, usually they were wrapped in this gauze-like mist, which
+doubtless accounted for our not having seen them more clearly before.
+
+Sheba's Breasts had scarcely vanished into cloud-clad privacy, before
+our thirst--literally a burning question--reasserted itself.
+
+It was all very well for Ventvoegel to say that he smelt water, but we
+could see no signs of it, look which way we would. So far as the eye
+might reach there was nothing but arid sweltering sand and karoo scrub.
+We walked round the hillock and gazed about anxiously on the other
+side, but it was the same story, not a drop of water could be found;
+there was no indication of a pan, a pool, or a spring.
+
+"You are a fool," I said angrily to Ventvoegel; "there is no water."
+
+But still he lifted his ugly snub nose and sniffed.
+
+"I smell it, Baas," he answered; "it is somewhere in the air."
+
+"Yes," I said, "no doubt it is in the clouds, and about two months
+hence it will fall and wash our bones."
+
+Sir Henry stroked his yellow beard thoughtfully. "Perhaps it is on the
+top of the hill," he suggested.
+
+"Rot," said Good; "whoever heard of water being found at the top of a
+hill!"
+
+"Let us go and look," I put in, and hopelessly enough we scrambled up
+the sandy sides of the hillock, Umbopa leading. Presently he stopped as
+though he was petrified.
+
+"_Nanzia manzie_!" that is, "Here is water!" he cried with a loud voice.
+
+We rushed up to him, and there, sure enough, in a deep cut or
+indentation on the very top of the sand koppie, was an undoubted pool
+of water. How it came to be in such a strange place we did not stop to
+inquire, nor did we hesitate at its black and unpleasant appearance. It
+was water, or a good imitation of it, and that was enough for us. We
+gave a bound and a rush, and in another second we were all down on our
+stomachs sucking up the uninviting fluid as though it were nectar fit
+for the gods. Heavens, how we did drink! Then when we had done drinking
+we tore off our clothes and sat down in the pool, absorbing the
+moisture through our parched skins. You, Harry, my boy, who have only
+to turn on a couple of taps to summon "hot" and "cold" from an unseen,
+vasty cistern, can have little idea of the luxury of that muddy wallow
+in brackish tepid water.
+
+After a while we rose from it, refreshed indeed, and fell to on our
+"biltong," of which we had scarcely been able to touch a mouthful for
+twenty-four hours, and ate our fill. Then we smoked a pipe, and lay
+down by the side of that blessed pool, under the overhanging shadow of
+its bank, and slept till noon.
+
+All that day we rested there by the water, thanking our stars that we
+had been lucky enough to find it, bad as it was, and not forgetting to
+render a due share of gratitude to the shade of the long-departed da
+Silvestra, who had set its position down so accurately on the tail of
+his shirt. The wonderful thing to us was that the pan should have
+lasted so long, and the only way in which I can account for this is on
+the supposition that it is fed by some spring deep down in the sand.
+
+Having filled both ourselves and our water-bottles as full as possible,
+in far better spirits we started off again with the moon. That night we
+covered nearly five-and-twenty miles; but, needless to say, found no
+more water, though we were lucky enough the following day to get a
+little shade behind some ant-heaps. When the sun rose, and, for awhile,
+cleared away the mysterious mists, Suliman's Berg with the two majestic
+Breasts, now only about twenty miles off, seemed to be towering right
+above us, and looked grander than ever. At the approach of evening we
+marched again, and, to cut a long story short, by daylight next morning
+found ourselves upon the lowest slopes of Sheba's left breast, for
+which we had been steadily steering. By this time our water was
+exhausted once more, and we were suffering severely from thirst, nor
+indeed could we see any chance of relieving it till we reached the snow
+line far, far above us. After resting an hour or two, driven to it by
+our torturing thirst, we went on, toiling painfully in the burning heat
+up the lava slopes, for we found that the huge base of the mountain was
+composed entirely of lava beds belched from the bowels of the earth in
+some far past age.
+
+By eleven o'clock we were utterly exhausted, and, generally speaking,
+in a very bad state indeed. The lava clinker, over which we must drag
+ourselves, though smooth compared with some clinker I have heard of,
+such as that on the Island of Ascension, for instance, was yet rough
+enough to make our feet very sore, and this, together with our other
+miseries, had pretty well finished us. A few hundred yards above us
+were some large lumps of lava, and towards these we steered with the
+intention of lying down beneath their shade. We reached them, and to
+our surprise, so far as we had a capacity for surprise left in us, on a
+little plateau or ridge close by we saw that the clinker was covered
+with a dense green growth. Evidently soil formed of decomposed lava had
+rested there, and in due course had become the receptacle of seeds
+deposited by birds. But we did not take much further interest in the
+green growth, for one cannot live on grass like Nebuchadnezzar. That
+requires a special dispensation of Providence and peculiar digestive
+organs.
+
+So we sat down under the rocks and groaned, and for one I wished
+heartily that we had never started on this fool's errand. As we were
+sitting there I saw Umbopa get up and hobble towards the patch of
+green, and a few minutes afterwards, to my great astonishment, I
+perceived that usually very dignified individual dancing and shouting
+like a maniac, and waving something green. Off we all scrambled towards
+him as fast as our wearied limbs would carry us, hoping that he had
+found water.
+
+"What is it, Umbopa, son of a fool?" I shouted in Zulu.
+
+"It is food and water, Macumazahn," and again he waved the green thing.
+
+Then I saw what he had found. It was a melon. We had hit upon a patch
+of wild melons, thousands of them, and dead ripe.
+
+"Melons!" I yelled to Good, who was next me; and in another minute his
+false teeth were fixed in one of them.
+
+I think we ate about six each before we had done, and poor fruit as
+they were, I doubt if I ever thought anything nicer.
+
+But melons are not very nutritious, and when we had satisfied our
+thirst with their pulpy substance, and put a stock to cool by the
+simple process of cutting them in two and setting them end on in the
+hot sun to grow cold by evaporation, we began to feel exceedingly
+hungry. We had still some biltong left, but our stomachs turned from
+biltong, and besides, we were obliged to be very sparing of it, for we
+could not say when we should find more food. Just at this moment a
+lucky thing chanced. Looking across the desert I saw a flock of about
+ten large birds flying straight towards us.
+
+"_Skit, Baas, skit!_" "Shoot, master, shoot!" whispered the Hottentot,
+throwing himself on his face, an example which we all followed.
+
+Then I saw that the birds were a flock of _pauw_ or bustards, and that
+they would pass within fifty yards of my head. Taking one of the
+repeating Winchesters, I waited till they were nearly over us, and then
+jumped to my feet. On seeing me the _pauw_ bunched up together, as I
+expected that they would, and I fired two shots straight into the thick
+of them, and, as luck would have it, brought one down, a fine fellow,
+that weighed about twenty pounds. In half an hour we had a fire made of
+dry melon stalks, and he was toasting over it, and we made such a feed
+as we had not tasted for a week. We ate that _pauw_; nothing was left
+of him but his leg-bones and his beak, and we felt not a little the
+better afterwards.
+
+That night we went on again with the moon, carrying as many melons as
+we could with us. As we ascended we found the air grew cooler and
+cooler, which was a great relief to us, and at dawn, so far as we could
+judge, we were not more than about a dozen miles from the snow line.
+Here we discovered more melons, and so had no longer any anxiety about
+water, for we knew that we should soon get plenty of snow. But the
+ascent had now become very precipitous, and we made but slow progress,
+not more than a mile an hour. Also that night we ate our last morsel of
+biltong. As yet, with the exception of the _pauw_, we had seen no
+living thing on the mountain, nor had we come across a single spring or
+stream of water, which struck us as very odd, considering the expanse
+of snow above us, which must, we thought, melt sometimes. But as we
+afterwards discovered, owing to a cause which it is quite beyond my
+power to explain, all the streams flowed down upon the north side of
+the mountains.
+
+Now we began to grow very anxious about food. We had escaped death by
+thirst, but it seemed probable that it was only to die of hunger. The
+events of the next three miserable days are best described by copying
+the entries made at the time in my note-book.
+
+"21st May.--Started 11 a.m., finding the atmosphere quite cold enough
+to travel by day, and carrying some water-melons with us. Struggled on
+all day, but found no more melons, having evidently passed out of their
+district. Saw no game of any sort. Halted for the night at sundown,
+having had no food for many hours. Suffered much during the night from
+cold.
+
+"22nd.--Started at sunrise again, feeling very faint and weak. Only
+made about five miles all day; found some patches of snow, of which we
+ate, but nothing else. Camped at night under the edge of a great
+plateau. Cold bitter. Drank a little brandy each, and huddled ourselves
+together, each wrapped up in his blanket, to keep ourselves alive. Are
+now suffering frightfully from starvation and weariness. Thought that
+Ventvoegel would have died during the night.
+
+"23rd.--Struggled forward once more as soon as the sun was well up, and
+had thawed our limbs a little. We are now in a dreadful plight, and I
+fear that unless we get food this will be our last day's journey. But
+little brandy left. Good, Sir Henry, and Umbopa bear up wonderfully,
+but Ventvoegel is in a very bad way. Like most Hottentots, he cannot
+stand cold. Pangs of hunger not so bad, but have a sort of numb feeling
+about the stomach. Others say the same. We are now on a level with the
+precipitous chain, or wall of lava, linking the two Breasts, and the
+view is glorious. Behind us the glowing desert rolls away to the
+horizon, and before us lie mile upon mile of smooth hard snow almost
+level, but swelling gently upwards, out of the centre of which the
+nipple of the mountain, that appears to be some miles in circumference,
+rises about four thousand feet into the sky. Not a living thing is to
+be seen. God help us; I fear that our time has come."
+
+And now I will drop the journal, partly because it is not very
+interesting reading; also what follows requires telling rather more
+fully.
+
+All that day--the 23rd May--we struggled slowly up the incline of snow,
+lying down from time to time to rest. A strange gaunt crew we must have
+looked, while, laden as we were, we dragged our weary feet over the
+dazzling plain, glaring round us with hungry eyes. Not that there was
+much use in glaring, for we could see nothing to eat. We did not
+accomplish more than seven miles that day. Just before sunset we found
+ourselves exactly under the nipple of Sheba's left Breast, which
+towered thousands of feet into the air, a vast smooth hillock of frozen
+snow. Weak as we were, we could not but appreciate the wonderful scene,
+made even more splendid by the flying rays of light from the setting
+sun, which here and there stained the snow blood-red, and crowned the
+great dome above us with a diadem of glory.
+
+"I say," gasped Good, presently, "we ought to be somewhere near that
+cave the old gentleman wrote about."
+
+"Yes," said I, "if there is a cave."
+
+"Come, Quatermain," groaned Sir Henry, "don't talk like that; I have
+every faith in the Dom; remember the water! We shall find the place
+soon."
+
+"If we don't find it before dark we are dead men, that is all about
+it," was my consolatory reply.
+
+For the next ten minutes we trudged in silence, when suddenly Umbopa,
+who was marching along beside me, wrapped in his blanket, and with a
+leather belt strapped so tightly round his stomach, to "make his hunger
+small," as he said, that his waist looked like a girl's, caught me by
+the arm.
+
+"Look!" he said, pointing towards the springing slope of the nipple.
+
+I followed his glance, and some two hundred yards from us perceived
+what appeared to be a hole in the snow.
+
+"It is the cave," said Umbopa.
+
+We made the best of our way to the spot, and found sure enough that the
+hole was the mouth of a cavern, no doubt the same as that of which da
+Silvestra wrote. We were not too soon, for just as we reached shelter
+the sun went down with startling rapidity, leaving the world nearly
+dark, for in these latitudes there is but little twilight. So we crept
+into the cave, which did not appear to be very big, and huddling
+ourselves together for warmth, swallowed what remained of our
+brandy--barely a mouthful each--and tried to forget our miseries in
+sleep. But the cold was too intense to allow us to do so, for I am
+convinced that at this great altitude the thermometer cannot have
+marked less than fourteen or fifteen degrees below freezing point. What
+such a temperature meant to us, enervated as we were by hardship, want
+of food, and the great heat of the desert, the reader may imagine
+better than I can describe. Suffice it to say that it was something as
+near death from exposure as I have ever felt. There we sat hour after
+hour through the still and bitter night, feeling the frost wander round
+and nip us now in the finger, now in the foot, now in the face. In vain
+did we huddle up closer and closer; there was no warmth in our
+miserable starved carcases. Sometimes one of us would drop into an
+uneasy slumber for a few minutes, but we could not sleep much, and
+perhaps this was fortunate, for if we had I doubt if we should have
+ever woke again. Indeed, I believe that it was only by force of will
+that we kept ourselves alive at all.
+
+Not very long before dawn I heard the Hottentot Ventvoegel, whose teeth
+had been chattering all night like castanets, give a deep sigh. Then
+his teeth stopped chattering. I did not think anything of it at the
+time, concluding that he had gone to sleep. His back was resting
+against mine, and it seemed to grow colder and colder, till at last it
+felt like ice.
+
+At length the air began to grow grey with light, then golden arrows
+sped across the snow, and at last the glorious sun peeped above the
+lava wall and looked in upon our half-frozen forms. Also it looked upon
+Ventvoegel, sitting there amongst us, _stone dead_. No wonder his back
+felt cold, poor fellow. He had died when I heard him sigh, and was now
+frozen almost stiff. Shocked beyond measure, we dragged ourselves from
+the corpse--how strange is that horror we mortals have of the
+companionship of a dead body--and left it sitting there, its arms
+clasped about its knees.
+
+By this time the sunlight was pouring its cold rays, for here they were
+cold, straight into the mouth of the cave. Suddenly I heard an
+exclamation of fear from someone, and turned my head.
+
+And this is what I saw: Sitting at the end of the cavern--it was not
+more than twenty feet long--was another form, of which the head rested
+on its chest and the long arms hung down. I stared at it, and saw that
+this too was a _dead man_, and, what was more, a white man.
+
+The others saw also, and the sight proved too much for our shattered
+nerves. One and all we scrambled out of the cave as fast as our
+half-frozen limbs would carry us.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+SOLOMON'S ROAD
+
+Outside the cavern we halted, feeling rather foolish.
+
+"I am going back," said Sir Henry.
+
+"Why?" asked Good.
+
+"Because it has struck me that--what we saw--may be my brother."
+
+This was a new idea, and we re-entered the place to put it to the
+proof. After the bright light outside, our eyes, weak as they were with
+staring at the snow, could not pierce the gloom of the cave for a
+while. Presently, however, they grew accustomed to the semi-darkness,
+and we advanced towards the dead man.
+
+Sir Henry knelt down and peered into his face.
+
+"Thank God," he said, with a sigh of relief, "it is _not_ my brother."
+
+Then I drew near and looked. The body was that of a tall man in middle
+life with aquiline features, grizzled hair, and a long black moustache.
+The skin was perfectly yellow, and stretched tightly over the bones.
+Its clothing, with the exception of what seemed to be the remains of a
+woollen pair of hose, had been removed, leaving the skeleton-like frame
+naked. Round the neck of the corpse, which was frozen perfectly stiff,
+hung a yellow ivory crucifix.
+
+"Who on earth can it be?" said I.
+
+"Can't you guess?" asked Good.
+
+I shook my head.
+
+"Why, the old Dom, Jose da Silvestra, of course--who else?"
+
+"Impossible," I gasped; "he died three hundred years ago."
+
+"And what is there to prevent him from lasting for three thousand years
+in this atmosphere, I should like to know?" asked Good. "If only the
+temperature is sufficiently low, flesh and blood will keep fresh as New
+Zealand mutton for ever, and Heaven knows it is cold enough here. The
+sun never gets in here; no animal comes here to tear or destroy. No
+doubt his slave, of whom he speaks on the writing, took off his clothes
+and left him. He could not have buried him alone. Look!" he went on,
+stooping down to pick up a queerly-shaped bone scraped at the end into
+a sharp point, "here is the 'cleft bone' that Silvestra used to draw
+the map with."
+
+We gazed for a moment astonished, forgetting our own miseries in this
+extraordinary and, as it seemed to us, semi-miraculous sight.
+
+"Ay," said Sir Henry, "and this is where he got his ink from," and he
+pointed to a small wound on the Dom's left arm. "Did ever man see such
+a thing before?"
+
+There was no longer any doubt about the matter, which for my own part I
+confess perfectly appalled me. There he sat, the dead man, whose
+directions, written some ten generations ago, had led us to this spot.
+Here in my own hand was the rude pen with which he had written them,
+and about his neck hung the crucifix that his dying lips had kissed.
+Gazing at him, my imagination could reconstruct the last scene of the
+drama, the traveller dying of cold and starvation, yet striving to
+convey to the world the great secret which he had discovered:--the
+awful loneliness of his death, of which the evidence sat before us. It
+even seemed to me that I could trace in his strongly-marked features a
+likeness to those of my poor friend Silvestre his descendant, who had
+died twenty years before in my arms, but perhaps that was fancy. At any
+rate, there he sat, a sad memento of the fate that so often overtakes
+those who would penetrate into the unknown; and there doubtless he will
+still sit, crowned with the dread majesty of death, for centuries yet
+unborn, to startle the eyes of wanderers like ourselves, if ever any
+such should come again to invade his loneliness. The thing overpowered
+us, already almost perished as we were with cold and hunger.
+
+"Let us go," said Sir Henry in a low voice; "stay, we will give him a
+companion," and lifting up the dead body of the Hottentot Ventvoegel, he
+placed it near to that of the old Dom. Then he stooped, and with a jerk
+broke the rotten string of the crucifix which hung round da Silvestra's
+neck, for his fingers were too cold to attempt to unfasten it. I
+believe that he has it still. I took the bone pen, and it is before me
+as I write--sometimes I use it to sign my name.
+
+Then leaving these two, the proud white man of a past age, and the poor
+Hottentot, to keep their eternal vigil in the midst of the eternal
+snows, we crept out of the cave into the welcome sunshine and resumed
+our path, wondering in our hearts how many hours it would be before we
+were even as they are.
+
+When we had walked about half a mile we came to the edge of the
+plateau, for the nipple of the mountain does not rise out of its exact
+centre, though from the desert side it had seemed to do so. What lay
+below us we could not see, for the landscape was wreathed in billows of
+morning fog. Presently, however, the higher layers of mist cleared a
+little, and revealed, at the end of a long slope of snow, a patch of
+green grass, some five hundred yards beneath us, through which a stream
+was running. Nor was this all. By the stream, basking in the bright
+sun, stood and lay a group of from ten to fifteen _large antelopes_--at
+that distance we could not see of what species.
+
+The sight filled us with an unreasoning joy. If only we could get it,
+there was food in plenty. But the question was how to do so. The beasts
+were fully six hundred yards off, a very long shot, and one not to be
+depended on when our lives hung on the results.
+
+Rapidly we discussed the advisability of trying to stalk the game, but
+in the end dismissed it reluctantly. To begin with, the wind was not
+favourable, and further, we must certainly be perceived, however
+careful we were, against the blinding background of snow, which we
+should be obliged to traverse.
+
+"Well, we must have a try from where we are," said Sir Henry. "Which
+shall it be, Quatermain, the repeating rifles or the expresses?"
+
+Here again was a question. The Winchester repeaters--of which we had
+two, Umbopa carrying poor Ventvoegel's as well as his own--were sighted
+up to a thousand yards, whereas the expresses were only sighted to
+three hundred and fifty, beyond which distance shooting with them was
+more or less guess-work. On the other hand, if they did hit, the
+express bullets, being "expanding," were much more likely to bring the
+game down. It was a knotty point, but I made up my mind that we must
+risk it and use the expresses.
+
+"Let each of us take the buck opposite to him. Aim well at the point of
+the shoulder and high up," said I; "and Umbopa, do you give the word,
+so that we may all fire together."
+
+Then came a pause, each of us aiming his level best, as indeed a man is
+likely to do when he knows that life itself depends upon the shot.
+
+"Fire," said Umbopa in Zulu, and at almost the same instant the three
+rifles rang out loudly; three clouds of smoke hung for a moment before
+us, and a hundred echoes went flying over the silent snow. Presently
+the smoke cleared, and revealed--oh, joy!--a great buck lying on its
+back and kicking furiously in its death agony. We gave a yell of
+triumph--we were saved--we should not starve. Weak as we were, we
+rushed down the intervening slope of snow, and in ten minutes from the
+time of shooting, that animal's heart and liver were lying before us.
+But now a new difficulty arose, we had no fuel, and therefore could
+make no fire to cook them. We gazed at each other in dismay.
+
+"Starving men should not be fanciful," said Good; "we must eat raw
+meat."
+
+There was no other way out of the dilemma, and our gnawing hunger made
+the proposition less distasteful than it would otherwise have been. So
+we took the heart and liver and buried them for a few minutes in a
+patch of snow to cool them. Then we washed them in the ice-cold water
+of the stream, and lastly ate them greedily. It sounds horrible enough,
+but honestly, I never tasted anything so good as that raw meat. In a
+quarter of an hour we were changed men. Our life and vigour came back
+to us, our feeble pulses grew strong again, and the blood went coursing
+through our veins. But mindful of the results of over-feeding on
+starved stomachs, we were careful not to eat too much, stopping whilst
+we were still hungry.
+
+"Thank Heaven!" said Sir Henry; "that brute has saved our lives. What
+is it, Quatermain?"
+
+I rose and went to look at the antelope, for I was not certain. It was
+about the size of a donkey, with large curved horns. I had never seen
+one like it before; the species was new to me. It was brown in colour,
+with faint red stripes, and grew a thick coat. I afterwards discovered
+that the natives of that wonderful country call these bucks "_inco_."
+They are very rare, and only found at a great altitude where no other
+game will live. This animal was fairly hit high up in the shoulder,
+though whose bullet brought it down we could not, of course, discover.
+I believe that Good, mindful of his marvellous shot at the giraffe,
+secretly set it down to his own prowess, and we did not contradict him.
+
+We had been so busy satisfying our hunger that hitherto we had not
+found time to look about us. But now, having set Umbopa to cut off as
+much of the best meat as we were likely to be able to carry, we began
+to inspect our surroundings. The mist had cleared away, for it was
+eight o'clock, and the sun had sucked it up, so we were able to take in
+all the country before us at a glance. I know not how to describe the
+glorious panorama which unfolded itself to our gaze. I have never seen
+anything like it before, nor shall, I suppose, again.
+
+Behind and over us towered Sheba's snowy Breasts, and below, some five
+thousand feet beneath where we stood, lay league on league of the most
+lovely champaign country. Here were dense patches of lofty forest,
+there a great river wound its silvery way. To the left stretched a vast
+expanse of rich, undulating veld or grass land, whereon we could just
+make out countless herds of game or cattle, at that distance we could
+not tell which. This expanse appeared to be ringed in by a wall of
+distant mountains. To the right the country was more or less
+mountainous; that is, solitary hills stood up from its level, with
+stretches of cultivated land between, amongst which we could see groups
+of dome-shaped huts. The landscape lay before us as a map, wherein
+rivers flashed like silver snakes, and Alp-like peaks crowned with
+wildly twisted snow wreaths rose in grandeur, whilst over all was the
+glad sunlight and the breath of Nature's happy life.
+
+Two curious things struck us as we gazed. First, that the country
+before us must lie at least three thousand feet higher than the desert
+we had crossed, and secondly, that all the rivers flowed from south to
+north. As we had painful reason to know, there was no water upon the
+southern side of the vast range on which we stood, but on the northern
+face were many streams, most of which appeared to unite with the great
+river we could see winding away farther than our eyes could follow.
+
+We sat down for a while and gazed in silence at this wonderful view.
+Presently Sir Henry spoke.
+
+"Isn't there something on the map about Solomon's Great Road?" he said.
+
+I nodded, for I was still gazing out over the far country.
+
+"Well, look; there it is!" and he pointed a little to our right.
+
+Good and I looked accordingly, and there, winding away towards the
+plain, was what appeared to be a wide turnpike road. We had not seen it
+at first because, on reaching the plain, it turned behind some broken
+country. We did not say anything, at least, not much; we were beginning
+to lose the sense of wonder. Somehow it did not seem particularly
+unnatural that we should find a sort of Roman road in this strange
+land. We accepted the fact, that was all.
+
+"Well," said Good, "it must be quite near us if we cut off to the
+right. Hadn't we better be making a start?"
+
+This was sound advice, and so soon as we had washed our faces and hands
+in the stream we acted on it. For a mile or more we made our way over
+boulders and across patches of snow, till suddenly, on reaching the top
+of the little rise, we found the road at our feet. It was a splendid
+road cut out of the solid rock, at least fifty feet wide, and
+apparently well kept; though the odd thing was that it seemed to begin
+there. We walked down and stood on it, but one single hundred paces
+behind us, in the direction of Sheba's Breasts, it vanished, the entire
+surface of the mountain being strewn with boulders interspersed with
+patches of snow.
+
+"What do you make of this, Quatermain?" asked Sir Henry.
+
+I shook my head, I could make nothing of the thing.
+
+"I have it!" said Good; "the road no doubt ran right over the range and
+across the desert on the other side, but the sand there has covered it
+up, and above us it has been obliterated by some volcanic eruption of
+molten lava."
+
+This seemed a good suggestion; at any rate, we accepted it, and
+proceeded down the mountain. It proved a very different business
+travelling along down hill on that magnificent pathway with full
+stomachs from what it was travelling uphill over the snow quite starved
+and almost frozen. Indeed, had it not been for melancholy recollections
+of poor Ventvoegel's sad fate, and of that grim cave where he kept
+company with the old Dom, we should have felt positively cheerful,
+notwithstanding the sense of unknown dangers before us. Every mile we
+walked the atmosphere grew softer and balmier, and the country before
+us shone with a yet more luminous beauty. As for the road itself, I
+never saw such an engineering work, though Sir Henry said that the
+great road over the St. Gothard in Switzerland is very similar. No
+difficulty had been too great for the Old World engineer who laid it
+out. At one place we came to a ravine three hundred feet broad and at
+least a hundred feet deep. This vast gulf was actually filled in with
+huge blocks of dressed stone, having arches pierced through them at the
+bottom for a waterway, over which the road went on sublimely. At
+another place it was cut in zigzags out of the side of a precipice five
+hundred feet deep, and in a third it tunnelled through the base of an
+intervening ridge, a space of thirty yards or more.
+
+Here we noticed that the sides of the tunnel were covered with quaint
+sculptures, mostly of mailed figures driving in chariots. One, which
+was exceedingly beautiful, represented a whole battle scene with a
+convoy of captives being marched off in the distance.
+
+"Well," said Sir Henry, after inspecting this ancient work of art, "it
+is very well to call this Solomon's Road, but my humble opinion is that
+the Egyptians had been here before Solomon's people ever set a foot on
+it. If this isn't Egyptian or Phoenician handiwork, I must say that it
+is very like it."
+
+By midday we had advanced sufficiently down the mountain to search the
+region where wood was to be met with. First we came to scattered bushes
+which grew more and more frequent, till at last we found the road
+winding through a vast grove of silver trees similar to those which are
+to be seen on the slopes of Table Mountain at Cape Town. I had never
+before met with them in all my wanderings, except at the Cape, and
+their appearance here astonished me greatly.
+
+"Ah!" said Good, surveying these shining-leaved trees with evident
+enthusiasm, "here is lots of wood, let us stop and cook some dinner; I
+have about digested that raw heart."
+
+Nobody objected to this, so leaving the road we made our way to a
+stream which was babbling away not far off, and soon had a goodly fire
+of dry boughs blazing. Cutting off some substantial hunks from the
+flesh of the _inco_ which we had brought with us, we proceeded to toast
+them on the end of sharp sticks, as one sees the Kafirs do, and ate
+them with relish. After filling ourselves, we lit our pipes and gave
+ourselves up to enjoyment that, compared with the hardships we had
+recently undergone, seemed almost heavenly.
+
+The brook, of which the banks were clothed with dense masses of a
+gigantic species of maidenhair fern interspersed with feathery tufts of
+wild asparagus, sung merrily at our side, the soft air murmured through
+the leaves of the silver trees, doves cooed around, and bright-winged
+birds flashed like living gems from bough to bough. It was a Paradise.
+
+The magic of the place combined with an overwhelming sense of dangers
+left behind, and of the promised land reached at last, seemed to charm
+us into silence. Sir Henry and Umbopa sat conversing in a mixture of
+broken English and Kitchen Zulu in a low voice, but earnestly enough,
+and I lay, with my eyes half shut, upon that fragrant bed of fern and
+watched them.
+
+Presently I missed Good, and I looked to see what had become of him.
+Soon I observed him sitting by the bank of the stream, in which he had
+been bathing. He had nothing on but his flannel shirt, and his natural
+habits of extreme neatness having reasserted themselves, he was
+actively employed in making a most elaborate toilet. He had washed his
+gutta-percha collar, had thoroughly shaken out his trousers, coat and
+waistcoat, and was now folding them up neatly till he was ready to put
+them on, shaking his head sadly as he scanned the numerous rents and
+tears in them, which naturally had resulted from our frightful journey.
+Then he took his boots, scrubbed them with a handful of fern, and
+finally rubbed them over with a piece of fat, which he had carefully
+saved from the _inco_ meat, till they looked, comparatively speaking,
+respectable. Having inspected them judiciously through his eye-glass,
+he put the boots on and began a fresh operation. From a little bag that
+he carried he produced a pocket-comb in which was fixed a tiny
+looking-glass, and in this he surveyed himself. Apparently he was not
+satisfied, for he proceeded to do his hair with great care. Then came a
+pause whilst he again contemplated the effect; still it was not
+satisfactory. He felt his chin, on which the accumulated scrub of a ten
+days' beard was flourishing.
+
+"Surely," thought I, "he is not going to try to shave." But so it was.
+Taking the piece of fat with which he had greased his boots, Good
+washed it thoroughly in the stream. Then diving again into the bag he
+brought out a little pocket razor with a guard to it, such as are
+bought by people who are afraid of cutting themselves, or by those
+about to undertake a sea voyage. Then he rubbed his face and chin
+vigorously with the fat and began. Evidently it proved a painful
+process, for he groaned very much over it, and I was convulsed with
+inward laughter as I watched him struggling with that stubbly beard. It
+seemed so very odd that a man should take the trouble to shave himself
+with a piece of fat in such a place and in our circumstances. At last
+he succeeded in getting the hair off the right side of his face and
+chin, when suddenly I, who was watching, became conscious of a flash of
+light that passed just by his head.
+
+Good sprang up with a profane exclamation (if it had not been a safety
+razor he would certainly have cut his throat), and so did I, without
+the exclamation, and this was what I saw. Standing not more than twenty
+paces from where I was, and ten from Good, were a group of men. They
+were very tall and copper-coloured, and some of them wore great plumes
+of black feathers and short cloaks of leopard skins; this was all I
+noticed at the moment. In front of them stood a youth of about
+seventeen, his hand still raised and his body bent forward in the
+attitude of a Grecian statue of a spear-thrower. Evidently the flash of
+light had been caused by a weapon which he had hurled.
+
+As I looked an old soldier-like man stepped forward out of the group,
+and catching the youth by the arm said something to him. Then they
+advanced upon us.
+
+Sir Henry, Good, and Umbopa by this time had seized their rifles and
+lifted them threateningly. The party of natives still came on. It
+struck me that they could not know what rifles were, or they would not
+have treated them with such contempt.
+
+"Put down your guns!" I halloed to the others, seeing that our only
+chance of safety lay in conciliation. They obeyed, and walking to the
+front I addressed the elderly man who had checked the youth.
+
+"Greeting," I said in Zulu, not knowing what language to use. To my
+surprise I was understood.
+
+"Greeting," answered the old man, not, indeed, in the same tongue, but
+in a dialect so closely allied to it that neither Umbopa nor myself had
+any difficulty in understanding him. Indeed, as we afterwards found
+out, the language spoken by this people is an old-fashioned form of the
+Zulu tongue, bearing about the same relationship to it that the English
+of Chaucer does to the English of the nineteenth century.
+
+"Whence come you?" he went on, "who are you? and why are the faces of
+three of you white, and the face of the fourth as the face of our
+mother's sons?" and he pointed to Umbopa. I looked at Umbopa as he said
+it, and it flashed across me that he was right. The face of Umbopa was
+like the faces of the men before me, and so was his great form like
+their forms. But I had not time to reflect on this coincidence.
+
+"We are strangers, and come in peace," I answered, speaking very
+slowly, so that he might understand me, "and this man is our servant."
+
+"You lie," he answered; "no strangers can cross the mountains where all
+things perish. But what do your lies matter?--if ye are strangers then
+ye must die, for no strangers may live in the land of the Kukuanas. It
+is the king's law. Prepare then to die, O strangers!"
+
+I was slightly staggered at this, more especially as I saw the hands of
+some of the men steal down to their sides, where hung on each what
+looked to me like a large and heavy knife.
+
+"What does that beggar say?" asked Good.
+
+"He says we are going to be killed," I answered grimly.
+
+"Oh, Lord!" groaned Good; and, as was his way when perplexed, he put
+his hand to his false teeth, dragging the top set down and allowing
+them to fly back to his jaw with a snap. It was a most fortunate move,
+for next second the dignified crowd of Kukuanas uttered a simultaneous
+yell of horror, and bolted back some yards.
+
+"What's up?" said I.
+
+"It's his teeth," whispered Sir Henry excitedly. "He moved them. Take
+them out, Good, take them out!"
+
+He obeyed, slipping the set into the sleeve of his flannel shirt.
+
+In another second curiosity had overcome fear, and the men advanced
+slowly. Apparently they had now forgotten their amiable intention of
+killing us.
+
+"How is it, O strangers," asked the old man solemnly, "that this fat
+man (pointing to Good, who was clad in nothing but boots and a flannel
+shirt, and had only half finished his shaving), whose body is clothed,
+and whose legs are bare, who grows hair on one side of his sickly face
+and not on the other, and who wears one shining and transparent
+eye--how is it, I ask, that he has teeth which move of themselves,
+coming away from the jaws and returning of their own will?"
+
+"Open your mouth," I said to Good, who promptly curled up his lips and
+grinned at the old gentleman like an angry dog, revealing to his
+astonished gaze two thin red lines of gum as utterly innocent of
+ivories as a new-born elephant. The audience gasped.
+
+"Where are his teeth?" they shouted; "with our eyes we saw them."
+
+Turning his head slowly and with a gesture of ineffable contempt, Good
+swept his hand across his mouth. Then he grinned again, and lo, there
+were two rows of lovely teeth.
+
+Now the young man who had flung the knife threw himself down on the
+grass and gave vent to a prolonged howl of terror; and as for the old
+gentleman, his knees knocked together with fear.
+
+"I see that ye are spirits," he said falteringly; "did ever man born of
+woman have hair on one side of his face and not on the other, or a
+round and transparent eye, or teeth which moved and melted away and
+grew again? Pardon us, O my lords."
+
+Here was luck indeed, and, needless to say, I jumped at the chance.
+
+"It is granted," I said with an imperial smile. "Nay, ye shall know the
+truth. We come from another world, though we are men such as ye; we
+come," I went on, "from the biggest star that shines at night."
+
+"Oh! oh!" groaned the chorus of astonished aborigines.
+
+"Yes," I went on, "we do, indeed"; and again I smiled benignly, as I
+uttered that amazing lie. "We come to stay with you a little while, and
+to bless you by our sojourn. Ye will see, O friends, that I have
+prepared myself for this visit by the learning of your language."
+
+"It is so, it is so," said the chorus.
+
+"Only, my lord," put in the old gentleman, "thou hast learnt it very
+badly."
+
+I cast an indignant glance at him, and he quailed.
+
+"Now friends," I continued, "ye might think that after so long a
+journey we should find it in our hearts to avenge such a reception,
+mayhap to strike cold in death the imperious hand that--that, in
+short--threw a knife at the head of him whose teeth come and go."
+
+"Spare him, my lords," said the old man in supplication; "he is the
+king's son, and I am his uncle. If anything befalls him his blood will
+be required at my hands."
+
+"Yes, that is certainly so," put in the young man with great emphasis.
+
+"Ye may perhaps doubt our power to avenge," I went on, heedless of this
+by-play. "Stay, I will show you. Here, thou dog and slave (addressing
+Umbopa in a savage tone), give me the magic tube that speaks"; and I
+tipped a wink towards my express rifle.
+
+Umbopa rose to the occasion, and with something as nearly resembling a
+grin as I have ever seen on his dignified face he handed me the gun.
+
+"It is here, O Lord of Lords," he said with a deep obeisance.
+
+Now just before I had asked for the rifle I had perceived a little
+_klipspringer_ antelope standing on a mass of rock about seventy yards
+away, and determined to risk the shot.
+
+"Ye see that buck," I said, pointing the animal out to the party before
+me. "Tell me, is it possible for man born of woman to kill it from here
+with a noise?"
+
+"It is not possible, my lord," answered the old man.
+
+"Yet shall I kill it," I said quietly.
+
+The old man smiled. "That my lord cannot do," he answered.
+
+I raised the rifle and covered the buck. It was a small animal, and one
+which a man might well be excused for missing, but I knew that it would
+not do to miss.
+
+I drew a deep breath, and slowly pressed on the trigger. The buck stood
+still as a stone.
+
+"Bang! thud!" The antelope sprang into the air and fell on the rock
+dead as a door nail.
+
+A groan of simultaneous terror burst from the group before us.
+
+"If you want meat," I remarked coolly, "go fetch that buck."
+
+The old man made a sign, and one of his followers departed, and
+presently returned bearing the _klipspringer_. I noticed with
+satisfaction that I had hit it fairly behind the shoulder. They
+gathered round the poor creature's body, gazing at the bullet-hole in
+consternation.
+
+"Ye see," I said, "I do not speak empty words."
+
+There was no answer.
+
+"If ye yet doubt our power," I went on, "let one of you go stand upon
+that rock that I may make him as this buck."
+
+None of them seemed at all inclined to take the hint, till at last the
+king's son spoke.
+
+"It is well said. Do thou, my uncle, go stand upon the rock. It is but
+a buck that the magic has killed. Surely it cannot kill a man."
+
+The old gentleman did not take the suggestion in good part. Indeed, he
+seemed hurt.
+
+"No! no!" he ejaculated hastily, "my old eyes have seen enough. These
+are wizards, indeed. Let us bring them to the king. Yet if any should
+wish a further proof, let _him_ stand upon the rock, that the magic
+tube may speak with him."
+
+There was a most general and hasty expression of dissent.
+
+"Let not good magic be wasted on our poor bodies," said one; "we are
+satisfied. All the witchcraft of our people cannot show the like of
+this."
+
+"It is so," remarked the old gentleman, in a tone of intense relief;
+"without any doubt it is so. Listen, children of the Stars, children of
+the shining Eye and the movable Teeth, who roar out in thunder, and
+slay from afar. I am Infadoos, son of Kafa, once king of the Kukuana
+people. This youth is Scragga."
+
+"He nearly scragged me," murmured Good.
+
+"Scragga, son of Twala, the great king--Twala, husband of a thousand
+wives, chief and lord paramount of the Kukuanas, keeper of the great
+Road, terror of his enemies, student of the Black Arts, leader of a
+hundred thousand warriors, Twala the One-eyed, the Black, the Terrible."
+
+"So," said I superciliously, "lead us then to Twala. We do not talk
+with low people and underlings."
+
+"It is well, my lords, we will lead you; but the way is long. We are
+hunting three days' journey from the place of the king. But let my
+lords have patience, and we will lead them."
+
+"So be it," I said carelessly; "all time is before us, for we do not
+die. We are ready, lead on. But Infadoos, and thou Scragga, beware!
+Play us no monkey tricks, set for us no foxes' snares, for before your
+brains of mud have thought of them we shall know and avenge. The light
+of the transparent eye of him with the bare legs and the half-haired
+face shall destroy you, and go through your land; his vanishing teeth
+shall affix themselves fast in you and eat you up, you and your wives
+and children; the magic tubes shall argue with you loudly, and make you
+as sieves. Beware!"
+
+This magnificent address did not fail of its effect; indeed, it might
+almost have been spared, so deeply were our friends already impressed
+with our powers.
+
+The old man made a deep obeisance, and murmured the words, "_Koom
+Koom_," which I afterwards discovered was their royal salute,
+corresponding to the _Bayete_ of the Zulus, and turning, addressed his
+followers. These at once proceeded to lay hold of all our goods and
+chattels, in order to bear them for us, excepting only the guns, which
+they would on no account touch. They even seized Good's clothes, that,
+as the reader may remember, were neatly folded up beside him.
+
+He saw and made a dive for them, and a loud altercation ensued.
+
+"Let not my lord of the transparent Eye and the melting Teeth touch
+them," said the old man. "Surely his slave shall carry the things."
+
+"But I want to put 'em on!" roared Good, in nervous English.
+
+Umbopa translated.
+
+"Nay, my lord," answered Infadoos, "would my lord cover up his
+beautiful white legs (although he is so dark Good has a singularly
+white skin) from the eyes of his servants? Have we offended my lord
+that he should do such a thing?"
+
+Here I nearly exploded with laughing; and meanwhile one of the men
+started on with the garments.
+
+"Damn it!" roared Good, "that black villain has got my trousers."
+
+"Look here, Good," said Sir Henry; "you have appeared in this country
+in a certain character, and you must live up to it. It will never do
+for you to put on trousers again. Henceforth you must exist in a
+flannel shirt, a pair of boots, and an eye-glass."
+
+"Yes," I said, "and with whiskers on one side of your face and not on
+the other. If you change any of these things the people will think that
+we are impostors. I am very sorry for you, but, seriously, you must. If
+once they begin to suspect us our lives will not be worth a brass
+farthing."
+
+"Do you really think so?" said Good gloomily.
+
+"I do, indeed. Your 'beautiful white legs' and your eye-glass are now
+_the_ features of our party, and as Sir Henry says, you must live up to
+them. Be thankful that you have got your boots on, and that the air is
+warm."
+
+Good sighed, and said no more, but it took him a fortnight to become
+accustomed to his new and scant attire.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+WE ENTER KUKUANALAND
+
+All that afternoon we travelled along the magnificent roadway, which
+trended steadily in a north-westerly direction. Infadoos and Scragga
+walked with us, but their followers marched about one hundred paces
+ahead.
+
+"Infadoos," I said at length, "who made this road?"
+
+"It was made, my lord, of old time, none know how or when, not even the
+wise woman Gagool, who has lived for generations. We are not old enough
+to remember its making. None can fashion such roads now, but the king
+suffers no grass to grow upon it."
+
+"And whose are the writings on the wall of the caves through which we
+have passed on the road?" I asked, referring to the Egyptian-like
+sculptures that we had seen.
+
+"My lord, the hands that made the road wrote the wonderful writings. We
+know not who wrote them."
+
+"When did the Kukuana people come into this country?"
+
+"My lord, the race came down here like the breath of a storm ten
+thousand thousand moons ago, from the great lands which lie there
+beyond," and he pointed to the north. "They could travel no further
+because of the high mountains which ring in the land, so say the old
+voices of our fathers that have descended to us the children, and so
+says Gagool, the wise woman, the smeller out of witches," and again he
+pointed to the snow-clad peaks. "The country, too, was good, so they
+settled here and grew strong and powerful, and now our numbers are like
+the sea sand, and when Twala the king calls up his regiments their
+plumes cover the plain so far as the eye of man can reach."
+
+"And if the land is walled in with mountains, who is there for the
+regiments to fight with?"
+
+"Nay, my lord, the country is open there towards the north, and now and
+again warriors sweep down upon us in clouds from a land we know not,
+and we slay them. It is the third part of the life of a man since there
+was a war. Many thousands died in it, but we destroyed those who came
+to eat us up. So since then there has been no war."
+
+"Your warriors must grow weary of resting on their spears, Infadoos."
+
+"My lord, there was one war, just after we destroyed the people that
+came down upon us, but it was a civil war; dog ate dog."
+
+"How was that?"
+
+"My lord the king, my half-brother, had a brother born at the same
+birth, and of the same woman. It is not our custom, my lord, to suffer
+twins to live; the weaker must always die. But the mother of the king
+hid away the feebler child, which was born the last, for her heart
+yearned over it, and that child is Twala the king. I am his younger
+brother, born of another wife."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"My lord, Kafa, our father, died when we came to manhood, and my
+brother Imotu was made king in his place, and for a space reigned and
+had a son by his favourite wife. When the babe was three years old,
+just after the great war, during which no man could sow or reap, a
+famine came upon the land, and the people murmured because of the
+famine, and looked round like a starved lion for something to rend.
+Then it was that Gagool, the wise and terrible woman, who does not die,
+made a proclamation to the people, saying, 'The king Imotu is no king.'
+And at the time Imotu was sick with a wound, and lay in his kraal not
+able to move.
+
+"Then Gagool went into a hut and led out Twala, my half-brother, and
+twin brother to the king, whom she had hidden among the caves and rocks
+since he was born, and stripping the '_moocha_' (waist-cloth) off his
+loins, showed the people of the Kukuanas the mark of the sacred snake
+coiled round his middle, wherewith the eldest son of the king is marked
+at birth, and cried out loud, 'Behold your king whom I have saved for
+you even to this day!'
+
+"Now the people being mad with hunger, and altogether bereft of reason
+and the knowledge of truth, cried out--'_The king! The king!_' but I
+knew that it was not so, for Imotu my brother was the elder of the
+twins, and our lawful king. Then just as the tumult was at its height
+Imotu the king, though he was very sick, crawled from his hut holding
+his wife by the hand, and followed by his little son Ignosi--that is,
+by interpretation, the Lightning.
+
+"'What is this noise?' he asked. 'Why cry ye _The king! The king!_'
+
+"Then Twala, his twin brother, born of the same woman, and in the same
+hour, ran to him, and taking him by the hair, stabbed him through the
+heart with his knife. And the people being fickle, and ever ready to
+worship the rising sun, clapped their hands and cried, '_Twala is
+king!_ Now we know that Twala is king!'"
+
+"And what became of Imotu's wife and her son Ignosi? Did Twala kill
+them too?"
+
+"Nay, my lord. When she saw that her lord was dead the queen seized the
+child with a cry and ran away. Two days afterward she came to a kraal
+very hungry, and none would give her milk or food, now that her lord
+the king was dead, for all men hate the unfortunate. But at nightfall a
+little child, a girl, crept out and brought her corn to eat, and she
+blessed the child, and went on towards the mountains with her boy
+before the sun rose again, and there she must have perished, for none
+have seen her since, nor the child Ignosi."
+
+"Then if this child Ignosi had lived he would be the true king of the
+Kukuana people?"
+
+"That is so, my lord; the sacred snake is round his middle. If he lives
+he is king; but, alas! he is long dead."
+
+"See, my lord," and Infadoos pointed to a vast collection of huts
+surrounded by a fence, which was in its turn encircled by a great
+ditch, that lay on the plain beneath us. "That is the kraal where the
+wife of Imotu was last seen with the child Ignosi. It is there that we
+shall sleep to-night, if, indeed," he added doubtfully, "my lords sleep
+at all upon this earth."
+
+"When we are among the Kukuanas, my good friend Infadoos, we do as the
+Kukuanas do," I said majestically, and turned round quickly to address
+Good, who was tramping along sullenly behind, his mind fully occupied
+with unsatisfactory attempts to prevent his flannel shirt from flapping
+in the evening breeze. To my astonishment I butted into Umbopa, who was
+walking along immediately behind me, and very evidently had been
+listening with the greatest interest to my conversation with Infadoos.
+The expression on his face was most curious, and gave me the idea of a
+man who was struggling with partial success to bring something long ago
+forgotten back into his mind.
+
+All this while we had been pressing on at a good rate towards the
+undulating plain beneath us. The mountains we had crossed now loomed
+high above our heads, and Sheba's Breasts were veiled modestly in
+diaphanous wreaths of mist. As we went the country grew more and more
+lovely. The vegetation was luxuriant, without being tropical; the sun
+was bright and warm, but not burning; and a gracious breeze blew softly
+along the odorous slopes of the mountains. Indeed, this new land was
+little less than an earthly paradise; in beauty, in natural wealth, and
+in climate I have never seen its like. The Transvaal is a fine country,
+but it is nothing to Kukuanaland.
+
+So soon as we started Infadoos had despatched a runner to warn the
+people of the kraal, which, by the way, was in his military command, of
+our arrival. This man had departed at an extraordinary speed, which
+Infadoos informed me he would keep up all the way, as running was an
+exercise much practised among his people.
+
+The result of this message now became apparent. When we arrived within
+two miles of the kraal we could see that company after company of men
+were issuing from its gates and marching towards us.
+
+Sir Henry laid his hand upon my arm, and remarked that it looked as
+though we were going to meet with a warm reception. Something in his
+tone attracted Infadoos' attention.
+
+"Let not my lords be afraid," he said hastily, "for in my breast there
+dwells no guile. This regiment is one under my command, and comes out
+by my orders to greet you."
+
+I nodded easily, though I was not quite easy in my mind.
+
+About half a mile from the gates of this kraal is a long stretch of
+rising ground sloping gently upwards from the road, and here the
+companies formed. It was a splendid sight to see them, each company
+about three hundred strong, charging swiftly up the rise, with flashing
+spears and waving plumes, to take their appointed place. By the time we
+reached the slope twelve such companies, or in all three thousand six
+hundred men, had passed out and taken up their positions along the road.
+
+Presently we came to the first company, and were able to gaze in
+astonishment on the most magnificent set of warriors that I have ever
+seen. They were all men of mature age, mostly veterans of about forty,
+and not one of them was under six feet in height, whilst many stood six
+feet three or four. They wore upon their heads heavy black plumes of
+Sakaboola feathers, like those which adorned our guides. About their
+waists and beneath the right knees were bound circlets of white ox
+tails, while in their left hands they carried round shields measuring
+about twenty inches across. These shields are very curious. The
+framework is made of an iron plate beaten out thin, over which is
+stretched milk-white ox-hide.
+
+The weapons that each man bore were simple, but most effective,
+consisting of a short and very heavy two-edged spear with a wooden
+shaft, the blade being about six inches across at the widest part.
+These spears are not used for throwing but like the Zulu "_bangwan_,"
+or stabbing assegai, are for close quarters only, when the wound
+inflicted by them is terrible. In addition to his _bangwan_ every man
+carried three large and heavy knives, each knife weighing about two
+pounds. One knife was fixed in the ox-tail girdle, and the other two at
+the back of the round shield. These knives, which are called "_tollas_"
+by the Kukuanas, take the place of the throwing assegai of the Zulus.
+The Kukuana warriors can cast them with great accuracy to a distance of
+fifty yards, and it is their custom on charging to hurl a volley of
+them at the enemy as they come to close quarters.
+
+Each company remained still as a collection of bronze statues till we
+were opposite to it, when at a signal given by its commanding officer,
+who, distinguished by a leopard skin cloak, stood some paces in front,
+every spear was raised into the air, and from three hundred throats
+sprang forth with a sudden roar the royal salute of "_Koom_." Then, so
+soon as we had passed, the company formed up behind us and followed us
+towards the kraal, till at last the whole regiment of the "Greys"--so
+called from their white shields--the crack corps of the Kukuana people,
+was marching in our rear with a tread that shook the ground.
+
+At length, branching off from Solomon's Great Road, we came to the wide
+fosse surrounding the kraal, which is at least a mile round, and fenced
+with a strong palisade of piles formed of the trunks of trees. At the
+gateway this fosse is spanned by a primitive drawbridge, which was let
+down by the guard to allow us to pass in. The kraal is exceedingly well
+laid out. Through the centre runs a wide pathway intersected at right
+angles by other pathways so arranged as to cut the huts into square
+blocks, each block being the quarters of a company. The huts are
+dome-shaped, and built, like those of the Zulus, of a framework of
+wattle, beautifully thatched with grass; but, unlike the Zulu huts,
+they have doorways through which men could walk. Also they are much
+larger, and surrounded by a verandah about six feet wide, beautifully
+paved with powdered lime trodden hard.
+
+All along each side of this wide pathway that pierces the kraal were
+ranged hundreds of women, brought out by curiosity to look at us. These
+women, for a native race, are exceedingly handsome. They are tall and
+graceful, and their figures are wonderfully fine. The hair, though
+short, is rather curly than woolly, the features are frequently
+aquiline, and the lips are not unpleasantly thick, as is the case among
+most African races. But what struck us most was their exceedingly quiet
+and dignified air. They were as well-bred in their way as the
+_habituees_ of a fashionable drawing-room, and in this respect they
+differ from Zulu women and their cousins the Masai who inhabit the
+district beyond Zanzibar. Their curiosity had brought them out to see
+us, but they allowed no rude expressions of astonishment or savage
+criticism to pass their lips as we trudged wearily in front of them.
+Not even when old Infadoos with a surreptitious motion of the hand
+pointed out the crowning wonder of poor Good's "beautiful white legs,"
+did they suffer the feeling of intense admiration which evidently
+mastered their minds to find expression. They fixed their dark eyes
+upon this new and snowy loveliness, for, as I think I have said, Good's
+skin is exceedingly white, and that was all. But it was quite enough
+for Good, who is modest by nature.
+
+When we reached the centre of the kraal, Infadoos halted at the door of
+a large hut, which was surrounded at a distance by a circle of smaller
+ones.
+
+"Enter, Sons of the Stars," he said, in a magniloquent voice, "and
+deign to rest awhile in our humble habitations. A little food shall be
+brought to you, so that ye may have no need to draw your belts tight
+from hunger; some honey and some milk, and an ox or two, and a few
+sheep; not much, my lords, but still a little food."
+
+"It is good," said I. "Infadoos; we are weary with travelling through
+realms of air; now let us rest."
+
+Accordingly we entered the hut, which we found amply prepared for our
+comfort. Couches of tanned skins were spread for us to lie on, and
+water was placed for us to wash in.
+
+Presently we heard a shouting outside, and stepping to the door, saw a
+line of damsels bearing milk and roasted mealies, and honey in a pot.
+Behind these were some youths driving a fat young ox. We received the
+gifts, and then one of the young men drew the knife from his girdle and
+dexterously cut the ox's throat. In ten minutes it was dead, skinned,
+and jointed. The best of the meat was then cut off for us, and the
+rest, in the name of our party, I presented to the warriors round us,
+who took it and distributed the "white lords' gift."
+
+Umbopa set to work, with the assistance of an extremely prepossessing
+young woman, to boil our portion in a large earthenware pot over a fire
+which was built outside the hut, and when it was nearly ready we sent a
+message to Infadoos, and asked him and Scragga, the king's son, to join
+us.
+
+Presently they came, and sitting down upon little stools, of which
+there were several about the hut, for the Kukuanas do not in general
+squat upon their haunches like the Zulus, they helped us to get through
+our dinner. The old gentleman was most affable and polite, but it
+struck me that the young one regarded us with doubt. Together with the
+rest of the party, he had been overawed by our white appearance and by
+our magic properties; but it seemed to me that, on discovering that we
+ate, drank, and slept like other mortals, his awe was beginning to wear
+off, and to be replaced by a sullen suspicion--which made me feel
+rather uncomfortable.
+
+In the course of our meal Sir Henry suggested to me that it might be
+well to try to discover if our hosts knew anything of his brother's
+fate, or if they had ever seen or heard of him; but, on the whole, I
+thought that it would be wiser to say nothing of the matter at this
+time. It was difficult to explain a relative lost from "the Stars."
+
+After supper we produced our pipes and lit them; a proceeding which
+filled Infadoos and Scragga with astonishment. The Kukuanas were
+evidently unacquainted with the divine delights of tobacco-smoke. The
+herb is grown among them extensively; but, like the Zulus, they use it
+for snuff only, and quite failed to identify it in its new form.
+
+Presently I asked Infadoos when we were to proceed on our journey, and
+was delighted to learn that preparations had been made for us to leave
+on the following morning, messengers having already departed to inform
+Twala the king of our coming.
+
+It appeared that Twala was at his principal place, known as Loo, making
+ready for the great annual feast which was to be held in the first week
+of June. At this gathering all the regiments, with the exception of
+certain detachments left behind for garrison purposes, are brought up
+and paraded before the king; and the great annual witch-hunt, of which
+more by-and-by, is held.
+
+We were to start at dawn; and Infadoos, who was to accompany us,
+expected that we should reach Loo on the night of the second day,
+unless we were detained by accident or by swollen rivers.
+
+When they had given us this information our visitors bade us
+good-night; and, having arranged to watch turn and turn about, three of
+us flung ourselves down and slept the sweet sleep of the weary, whilst
+the fourth sat up on the look-out for possible treachery.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+TWALA THE KING
+
+It will not be necessary for me to detail at length the incidents of
+our journey to Loo. It took two full days' travelling along Solomon's
+Great Road, which pursued its even course right into the heart of
+Kukuanaland. Suffice it to say that as we went the country seemed to
+grow richer and richer, and the kraals, with their wide surrounding
+belts of cultivation, more and more numerous. They were all built upon
+the same principles as the first camp which we had reached, and were
+guarded by ample garrisons of troops. Indeed, in Kukuanaland, as among
+the Germans, the Zulus, and the Masai, every able-bodied man is a
+soldier, so that the whole force of the nation is available for its
+wars, offensive or defensive. As we travelled we were overtaken by
+thousands of warriors hurrying up to Loo to be present at the great
+annual review and festival, and more splendid troops I never saw.
+
+At sunset on the second day, we stopped to rest awhile upon the summit
+of some heights over which the road ran, and there on a beautiful and
+fertile plain before us lay Loo itself. For a native town it is an
+enormous place, quite five miles round, I should say, with outlying
+kraals projecting from it, that serve on grand occasions as cantonments
+for the regiments, and a curious horseshoe-shaped hill, with which we
+were destined to become better acquainted, about two miles to the
+north. It is beautifully situated, and through the centre of the kraal,
+dividing it into two portions, runs a river, which appeared to be
+bridged in several places, the same indeed that we had seen from the
+slopes of Sheba's Breasts. Sixty or seventy miles away three great
+snow-capped mountains, placed at the points of a triangle, started out
+of the level plain. The conformation of these mountains is unlike that
+of Sheba's Breasts, being sheer and precipitous, instead of smooth and
+rounded.
+
+Infadoos saw us looking at them, and volunteered a remark.
+
+"The road ends there," he said, pointing to the mountains known among
+the Kukuanas as the "Three Witches."
+
+"Why does it end?" I asked.
+
+"Who knows?" he answered with a shrug; "the mountains are full of
+caves, and there is a great pit between them. It is there that the wise
+men of old time used to go to get whatever it was they came for to this
+country, and it is there now that our kings are buried in the Place of
+Death."
+
+"What was it they came for?" I asked eagerly.
+
+"Nay, I know not. My lords who have dropped from the Stars should
+know," he answered with a quick look. Evidently he knew more than he
+chose to say.
+
+"Yes," I went on, "you are right, in the Stars we learn many things. I
+have heard, for instance, that the wise men of old came to these
+mountains to find bright stones, pretty playthings, and yellow iron."
+
+"My lord is wise," he answered coldly; "I am but a child and cannot
+talk with my lord on such matters. My lord must speak with Gagool the
+old, at the king's place, who is wise even as my lord," and he went
+away.
+
+So soon as he was gone I turned to the others, and pointed out the
+mountains. "There are Solomon's diamond mines," I said.
+
+Umbopa was standing with them, apparently plunged in one of the fits of
+abstraction which were common to him, and caught my words.
+
+"Yes, Macumazahn," he put in, in Zulu, "the diamonds are surely there,
+and you shall have them, since you white men are so fond of toys and
+money."
+
+"How dost thou know that, Umbopa?" I asked sharply, for I did not like
+his mysterious ways.
+
+He laughed. "I dreamed it in the night, white men;" then he too turned
+on his heel and went.
+
+"Now what," said Sir Henry, "is our black friend driving at? He knows
+more than he chooses to say, that is clear. By the way, Quatermain, has
+he heard anything of--of my brother?"
+
+"Nothing; he has asked everyone he has become friendly with, but they
+all declare that no white man has ever been seen in the country before."
+
+"Do you suppose that he got here at all?" suggested Good; "we have only
+reached the place by a miracle; is it likely he could have reached it
+without the map?"
+
+"I don't know," said Sir Henry gloomily, "but somehow I think that I
+shall find him."
+
+Slowly the sun sank, then suddenly darkness rushed down on the land
+like a tangible thing. There was no breathing-space between the day and
+night, no soft transformation scene, for in these latitudes twilight
+does not exist. The change from day to night is as quick and as
+absolute as the change from life to death. The sun sank and the world
+was wreathed in shadows. But not for long, for see in the west there is
+a glow, then come rays of silver light, and at last the full and
+glorious moon lights up the plain and shoots its gleaming arrows far
+and wide, filling the earth with a faint refulgence.
+
+We stood and watched the lovely sight, whilst the stars grew pale
+before this chastened majesty, and felt our hearts lifted up in the
+presence of a beauty that I cannot describe. Mine has been a rough
+life, but there are a few things I am thankful to have lived for, and
+one of them is to have seen that moon shine over Kukuanaland.
+
+Presently our meditations were broken in upon by our polite friend
+Infadoos.
+
+"If my lords are rested we will journey on to Loo, where a hut is made
+ready for my lords to-night. The moon is now bright, so that we shall
+not fall by the way."
+
+We assented, and in an hour's time were at the outskirts of the town,
+of which the extent, mapped out as it was by thousands of camp fires,
+appeared absolutely endless. Indeed, Good, who is always fond of a bad
+joke, christened it "Unlimited Loo." Soon we came to a moat with a
+drawbridge, where we were met by the rattling of arms and the hoarse
+challenge of a sentry. Infadoos gave some password that I could not
+catch, which was met with a salute, and we passed on through the
+central street of the great grass city. After nearly half an hour's
+tramp, past endless lines of huts, Infadoos halted at last by the gate
+of a little group of huts which surrounded a small courtyard of
+powdered limestone, and informed us that these were to be our "poor"
+quarters.
+
+We entered, and found that a hut had been assigned to each of us. These
+huts were superior to any that we had yet seen, and in each was a most
+comfortable bed made of tanned skins, spread upon mattresses of
+aromatic grass. Food too was ready for us, and so soon as we had washed
+ourselves with water, which stood ready in earthenware jars, some young
+women of handsome appearance brought us roasted meats, and mealie cobs
+daintily served on wooden platters, and presented them to us with deep
+obeisances.
+
+We ate and drank, and then, the beds having been all moved into one hut
+by our request, a precaution at which the amiable young ladies smiled,
+we flung ourselves down to sleep, thoroughly wearied with our long
+journey.
+
+When we woke it was to find the sun high in the heavens, and the female
+attendants, who did not seem to be troubled by any false shame, already
+standing inside the hut, having been ordered to attend and help us to
+"make ready."
+
+"Make ready, indeed," growled Good; "when one has only a flannel shirt
+and a pair of boots, that does not take long. I wish you would ask them
+for my trousers, Quatermain."
+
+I asked accordingly, but was informed that these sacred relics had
+already been taken to the king, who would see us in the forenoon.
+
+Somewhat to their astonishment and disappointment, having requested the
+young ladies to step outside, we proceeded to make the best toilet of
+which the circumstances admitted. Good even went the length of again
+shaving the right side of his face; the left, on which now appeared a
+very fair crop of whiskers, we impressed upon him he must on no account
+touch. As for ourselves, we were contented with a good wash and combing
+our hair. Sir Henry's yellow locks were now almost upon his shoulders,
+and he looked more like an ancient Dane than ever, while my grizzled
+scrub was fully an inch long, instead of half an inch, which in a
+general way I considered my maximum length.
+
+By the time that we had eaten our breakfast, and smoked a pipe, a
+message was brought to us by no less a personage than Infadoos himself
+that Twala the king was ready to see us, if we would be pleased to come.
+
+We remarked in reply that we should prefer to wait till the sun was a
+little higher, we were yet weary with our journey, &c., &c. It is
+always well, when dealing with uncivilised people, not to be in too
+great a hurry. They are apt to mistake politeness for awe or servility.
+So, although we were quite as anxious to see Twala as Twala could be to
+see us, we sat down and waited for an hour, employing the interval in
+preparing such presents as our slender stock of goods
+permitted--namely, the Winchester rifle which had been used by poor
+Ventvoegel, and some beads. The rifle and ammunition we determined to
+present to his royal highness, and the beads were for his wives and
+courtiers. We had already given a few to Infadoos and Scragga, and
+found that they were delighted with them, never having seen such things
+before. At length we declared that we were ready, and guided by
+Infadoos, started off to the audience, Umbopa carrying the rifle and
+beads.
+
+After walking a few hundred yards we came to an enclosure, something
+like that surrounding the huts which had been allotted to us, only
+fifty times as big, for it could not have covered less than six or
+seven acres of ground. All round the outside fence stood a row of huts,
+which were the habitations of the king's wives. Exactly opposite the
+gateway, on the further side of the open space, was a very large hut,
+built by itself, in which his majesty resided. All the rest was open
+ground; that is to say, it would have been open had it not been filled
+by company after company of warriors, who were mustered there to the
+number of seven or eight thousand. These men stood still as statues as
+we advanced through them, and it would be impossible to give an
+adequate idea of the grandeur of the spectacle which they presented,
+with their waving plumes, their glancing spears, and iron-backed
+ox-hide shields.
+
+The space in front of the large hut was empty, but before it were
+placed several stools. On three of these, at a sign from Infadoos, we
+seated ourselves, Umbopa standing behind us. As for Infadoos, he took
+up a position by the door of the hut. So we waited for ten minutes or
+more in the midst of a dead silence, but conscious that we were the
+object of the concentrated gaze of some eight thousand pairs of eyes.
+It was a somewhat trying ordeal, but we carried it off as best we
+could. At length the door of the hut opened, and a gigantic figure,
+with a splendid tiger-skin karross flung over its shoulders, stepped
+out, followed by the boy Scragga, and what appeared to us to be a
+withered-up monkey, wrapped in a fur cloak. The figure seated itself
+upon a stool, Scragga took his stand behind it, and the withered-up
+monkey crept on all fours into the shade of the hut and squatted down.
+
+Still there was silence.
+
+Then the gigantic figure slipped off the karross and stood up before
+us, a truly alarming spectacle. It was that of an enormous man with the
+most entirely repulsive countenance we had ever beheld. This man's lips
+were as thick as a Negro's, the nose was flat, he had but one gleaming
+black eye, for the other was represented by a hollow in the face, and
+his whole expression was cruel and sensual to a degree. From the large
+head rose a magnificent plume of white ostrich feathers, his body was
+clad in a shirt of shining chain armour, whilst round the waist and
+right knee were the usual garnishes of white ox-tail. In his right hand
+was a huge spear, about the neck a thick torque of gold, and bound on
+the forehead shone dully a single and enormous uncut diamond.
+
+Still there was silence; but not for long. Presently the man, whom we
+rightly guessed to be the king, raised the great javelin in his hand.
+Instantly eight thousand spears were lifted in answer, and from eight
+thousand throats rang out the royal salute of "_Koom_." Three times
+this was repeated, and each time the earth shook with the noise, that
+can only be compared to the deepest notes of thunder.
+
+"Be humble, O people," piped out a thin voice which seemed to come from
+the monkey in the shade, "it is the king."
+
+"_It is the king_," boomed out the eight thousand throats in answer.
+"_Be humble, O people, it is the king._"
+
+Then there was silence again--dead silence. Presently, however, it was
+broken. A soldier on our left dropped his shield, which fell with a
+clatter on to the limestone flooring.
+
+Twala turned his one cold eye in the direction of the noise.
+
+"Come hither, thou," he said, in a cold voice.
+
+A fine young man stepped out of the ranks, and stood before him.
+
+"It was thy shield that fell, thou awkward dog. Wilt thou make me a
+reproach in the eyes of these strangers from the Stars? What hast thou
+to say for thyself?"
+
+We saw the poor fellow turn pale under his dusky skin.
+
+"It was by chance, O Calf of the Black Cow," he murmured.
+
+"Then it is a chance for which thou must pay. Thou hast made me
+foolish; prepare for death."
+
+"I am the king's ox," was the low answer.
+
+"Scragga," roared the king, "let me see how thou canst use thy spear.
+Kill me this blundering fool."
+
+Scragga stepped forward with an ill-favoured grin, and lifted his
+spear. The poor victim covered his eyes with his hand and stood still.
+As for us, we were petrified with horror.
+
+"Once, twice," he waved the spear, and then struck, ah! right home--the
+spear stood out a foot behind the soldier's back. He flung up his hands
+and dropped dead. From the multitude about us rose something like a
+murmur, it rolled round and round, and died away. The tragedy was
+finished; there lay the corpse, and we had not yet realised that it had
+been enacted. Sir Henry sprang up and swore a great oath, then,
+overpowered by the sense of silence, sat down again.
+
+"The thrust was a good one," said the king; "take him away."
+
+Four men stepped out of the ranks, and lifting the body of the murdered
+man, carried it thence.
+
+"Cover up the blood-stains, cover them up," piped out the thin voice
+that proceeded from the monkey-like figure; "the king's word is spoken,
+the king's doom is done!"
+
+Thereupon a girl came forward from behind the hut, bearing a jar filled
+with powdered lime, which she scattered over the red mark, blotting it
+from sight.
+
+Sir Henry meanwhile was boiling with rage at what had happened; indeed,
+it was with difficulty that we could keep him still.
+
+"Sit down, for heaven's sake," I whispered; "our lives depend on it."
+
+He yielded and remained quiet.
+
+Twala sat silent until the traces of the tragedy had been removed, then
+he addressed us.
+
+"White people," he said, "who come hither, whence I know not, and why I
+know not, greeting."
+
+"Greeting, Twala, King of the Kukuanas," I answered.
+
+"White people, whence come ye, and what seek ye?"
+
+"We come from the Stars, ask us not how. We come to see this land."
+
+"Ye journey from far to see a little thing. And that man with you,"
+pointing to Umbopa, "does he also come from the Stars?"
+
+"Even so; there are people of thy colour in the heavens above; but ask
+not of matters too high for thee, Twala the king."
+
+"Ye speak with a loud voice, people of the Stars," Twala answered in a
+tone which I scarcely liked. "Remember that the Stars are far off, and
+ye are here. How if I make you as him whom they bore away?"
+
+I laughed out loud, though there was little laughter in my heart.
+
+"O king," I said, "be careful, walk warily over hot stones, lest thou
+shouldst burn thy feet; hold the spear by the handle, lest thou should
+cut thy hands. Touch but one hair of our heads, and destruction shall
+come upon thee. What, have not these"--pointing to Infadoos and
+Scragga, who, young villain that he was, was employed in cleaning the
+blood of the soldier off his spear--"told thee what manner of men we
+are? Hast thou seen the like of us?" and I pointed to Good, feeling
+quite sure that he had never seen anybody before who looked in the
+least like _him_ as he then appeared.
+
+"It is true, I have not," said the king, surveying Good with interest.
+
+"Have they not told thee how we strike with death from afar?" I went on.
+
+"They have told me, but I believe them not. Let me see you kill. Kill
+me a man among those who stand yonder"--and he pointed to the opposite
+side of the kraal--"and I will believe."
+
+"Nay," I answered; "we shed no blood of men except in just punishment;
+but if thou wilt see, bid thy servants drive in an ox through the kraal
+gates, and before he has run twenty paces I will strike him dead."
+
+"Nay," laughed the king, "kill me a man and I will believe."
+
+"Good, O king, so be it," I answered coolly; "do thou walk across the
+open space, and before thy feet reach the gate thou shalt be dead; or
+if thou wilt not, send thy son Scragga" (whom at that moment it would
+have given me much pleasure to shoot).
+
+On hearing this suggestion Scragga uttered a sort of howl, and bolted
+into the hut.
+
+Twala frowned majestically; the suggestion did not please him.
+
+"Let a young ox be driven in," he said.
+
+Two men at once departed, running swiftly.
+
+"Now, Sir Henry," said I, "do you shoot. I want to show this ruffian
+that I am not the only magician of the party."
+
+Sir Henry accordingly took his "express," and made ready.
+
+"I hope I shall make a good shot," he groaned.
+
+"You must," I answered. "If you miss with the first barrel, let him
+have the second. Sight for 150 yards, and wait till the beast turns
+broadside on."
+
+Then came a pause, until presently we caught sight of an ox running
+straight for the kraal gate. It came on through the gate, then,
+catching sight of the vast concourse of people, stopped stupidly,
+turned round, and bellowed.
+
+"Now's your time," I whispered.
+
+Up went the rifle.
+
+Bang! _thud_! and the ox was kicking on his back, shot in the ribs. The
+semi-hollow bullet had done its work well, and a sigh of astonishment
+went up from the assembled thousands.
+
+I turned round coolly--
+
+"Have I lied, O king?"
+
+"Nay, white man, it is the truth," was the somewhat awed answer.
+
+"Listen, Twala," I went on. "Thou hast seen. Now know we come in peace,
+not in war. See," and I held up the Winchester repeater; "here is a
+hollow staff that shall enable thee to kill even as we kill, only I lay
+this charm upon it, thou shalt kill no man with it. If thou liftest it
+against a man, it shall kill thee. Stay, I will show thee. Bid a
+soldier step forty paces and place the shaft of a spear in the ground
+so that the flat blade looks towards us."
+
+In a few seconds it was done.
+
+"Now, see, I will break yonder spear."
+
+Taking a careful sight I fired. The bullet struck the flat of the
+spear, and shattered the blade into fragments.
+
+Again the sigh of astonishment went up.
+
+"Now, Twala, we give this magic tube to thee, and by-and-by I will show
+thee how to use it; but beware how thou turnest the magic of the Stars
+against a man of earth," and I handed him the rifle.
+
+The king took it very gingerly, and laid it down at his feet. As he did
+so I observed the wizened monkey-like figure creeping from the shadow
+of the hut. It crept on all fours, but when it reached the place where
+the king sat it rose upon its feet, and throwing the furry covering
+from its face, revealed a most extraordinary and weird countenance.
+Apparently it was that of a woman of great age so shrunken that in size
+it seemed no larger than the face of a year-old child, although made up
+of a number of deep and yellow wrinkles. Set in these wrinkles was a
+sunken slit, that represented the mouth, beneath which the chin curved
+outwards to a point. There was no nose to speak of; indeed, the visage
+might have been taken for that of a sun-dried corpse had it not been
+for a pair of large black eyes, still full of fire and intelligence,
+which gleamed and played under the snow-white eyebrows, and the
+projecting parchment-coloured skull, like jewels in a charnel-house. As
+for the head itself, it was perfectly bare, and yellow in hue, while
+its wrinkled scalp moved and contracted like the hood of a cobra.
+
+The figure to which this fearful countenance belonged, a countenance so
+fearful indeed that it caused a shiver of fear to pass through us as we
+gazed on it, stood still for a moment. Then suddenly it projected a
+skinny claw armed with nails nearly an inch long, and laying it on the
+shoulder of Twala the king, began to speak in a thin and piercing
+voice--
+
+"Listen, O king! Listen, O warriors! Listen, O mountains and plains and
+rivers, home of the Kukuana race! Listen, O skies and sun, O rain and
+storm and mist! Listen, O men and women, O youths and maidens, and O ye
+babes unborn! Listen, all things that live and must die! Listen, all
+dead things that shall live again--again to die! Listen, the spirit of
+life is in me and I prophesy. I prophesy! I prophesy!"
+
+The words died away in a faint wail, and dread seemed to seize upon the
+hearts of all who heard them, including our own. This old woman was
+very terrible.
+
+"_Blood! blood! blood!_ rivers of blood; blood everywhere. I see it, I
+smell it, I taste it--it is salt! it runs red upon the ground, it rains
+down from the skies.
+
+"_Footsteps! footsteps! footsteps!_ the tread of the white man coming
+from afar. It shakes the earth; the earth trembles before her master.
+
+"Blood is good, the red blood is bright; there is no smell like the
+smell of new-shed blood. The lions shall lap it and roar, the vultures
+shall wash their wings in it and shriek with joy.
+
+"I am old! I am old! I have seen much blood; _ha, ha!_ but I shall see
+more ere I die, and be merry. How old am I, think ye? Your fathers knew
+me, and _their_ fathers knew me, and _their_ fathers' fathers' fathers.
+I have seen the white man and know his desires. I am old, but the
+mountains are older than I. Who made the great road, tell me? Who wrote
+the pictures on the rocks, tell me? Who reared up the three Silent Ones
+yonder, that gaze across the pit, tell me?" and she pointed towards the
+three precipitous mountains which we had noticed on the previous night.
+
+"Ye know not, but I know. It was a white people who were before ye are,
+who shall be when ye are not, who shall eat you up and destroy you.
+_Yea! yea! yea!_
+
+"And what came they for, the White Ones, the Terrible Ones, the skilled
+in magic and all learning, the strong, the unswerving? What is that
+bright stone upon thy forehead, O king? Whose hands made the iron
+garments upon thy breast, O king? Ye know not, but I know. I the Old
+One, I the Wise One, I the _Isanusi_, the witch doctress!"
+
+Then she turned her bald vulture-head towards us.
+
+"What seek ye, white men of the Stars--ah, yes, of the Stars? Do ye
+seek a lost one? Ye shall not find him here. He is not here. Never for
+ages upon ages has a white foot pressed this land; never except once,
+and I remember that he left it but to die. Ye come for bright stones; I
+know it--I know it; ye shall find them when the blood is dry; but shall
+ye return whence ye came, or shall ye stop with me? _Ha! ha! ha!_
+
+"And thou, thou with the dark skin and the proud bearing," and she
+pointed her skinny finger at Umbopa, "who art _thou_, and what seekest
+_thou_? Not stones that shine, not yellow metal that gleams, these thou
+leavest to 'white men from the Stars.' Methinks I know thee; methinks I
+can smell the smell of the blood in thy heart. Strip off the girdle--"
+
+Here the features of this extraordinary creature became convulsed, and
+she fell to the ground foaming in an epileptic fit, and was carried
+into the hut.
+
+The king rose up trembling, and waved his hand. Instantly the regiments
+began to file off, and in ten minutes, save for ourselves, the king,
+and a few attendants, the great space was left empty.
+
+"White people," he said, "it passes in my mind to kill you. Gagool has
+spoken strange words. What say ye?"
+
+I laughed. "Be careful, O king, we are not easy to slay. Thou hast seen
+the fate of the ox; wouldst thou be as the ox is?"
+
+The king frowned. "It is not well to threaten a king."
+
+"We threaten not, we speak what is true. Try to kill us, O king, and
+learn."
+
+The great savage put his hand to his forehead and thought.
+
+"Go in peace," he said at length. "To-night is the great dance. Ye
+shall see it. Fear not that I shall set a snare for you. To-morrow I
+will think."
+
+"It is well, O king," I answered unconcernedly, and then, accompanied
+by Infadoos, we rose and went back to our kraal.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE WITCH-HUNT
+
+On reaching our hut I motioned to Infadoos to enter with us.
+
+"Now, Infadoos," I said, "we would speak with thee."
+
+"Let my lords say on."
+
+"It seems to us, Infadoos, that Twala the king is a cruel man."
+
+"It is so, my lords. Alas! the land cries out because of his cruelties.
+To-night ye shall see. It is the great witch-hunt, and many will be
+smelt out as wizards and slain. No man's life is safe. If the king
+covets a man's cattle, or a man's wife, or if he fears a man that he
+should excite a rebellion against him, then Gagool, whom ye saw, or
+some of the witch-finding women whom she has taught, will smell that
+man out as a wizard, and he will be killed. Many must die before the
+moon grows pale to-night. It is ever so. Perhaps I too shall be killed.
+As yet I have been spared because I am skilled in war, and am beloved
+by the soldiers; but I know not how long I have to live. The land
+groans at the cruelties of Twala the king; it is wearied of him and his
+red ways."
+
+"Then why is it, Infadoos, that the people do not cast him down?"
+
+"Nay, my lords, he is the king, and if he were killed Scragga would
+reign in his place, and the heart of Scragga is blacker than the heart
+of Twala his father. If Scragga were king his yoke upon our neck would
+be heavier than the yoke of Twala. If Imotu had never been slain, or if
+Ignosi his son had lived, it might have been otherwise; but they are
+both dead."
+
+"How knowest thou that Ignosi is dead?" said a voice behind us. We
+looked round astonished to see who spoke. It was Umbopa.
+
+"What meanest thou, boy?" asked Infadoos; "who told thee to speak?"
+
+"Listen, Infadoos," was the answer, "and I will tell thee a story.
+Years ago the king Imotu was killed in this country and his wife fled
+with the boy Ignosi. Is it not so?"
+
+"It is so."
+
+"It was said that the woman and her son died upon the mountains. Is it
+not so?"
+
+"It is even so."
+
+"Well, it came to pass that the mother and the boy Ignosi did not die.
+They crossed the mountains and were led by a tribe of wandering desert
+men across the sands beyond, till at last they came to water and grass
+and trees again."
+
+"How knowest thou this?"
+
+"Listen. They travelled on and on, many months' journey, till they
+reached a land where a people called the Amazulu, who also are of the
+Kukuana stock, live by war, and with them they tarried many years, till
+at length the mother died. Then the son Ignosi became a wanderer again,
+and journeyed into a land of wonders, where white people live, and for
+many more years he learned the wisdom of the white people."
+
+"It is a pretty story," said Infadoos incredulously.
+
+"For years he lived there working as a servant and a soldier, but
+holding in his heart all that his mother had told him of his own place,
+and casting about in his mind to find how he might journey thither to
+see his people and his father's house before he died. For long years he
+lived and waited, and at last the time came, as it ever comes to him
+who can wait for it, and he met some white men who would seek this
+unknown land, and joined himself to them. The white men started and
+travelled on and on, seeking for one who is lost. They crossed the
+burning desert, they crossed the snow-clad mountains, and at last
+reached the land of the Kukuanas, and there they found _thee_, O
+Infadoos."
+
+"Surely thou art mad to talk thus," said the astonished old soldier.
+
+"Thou thinkest so; see, I will show thee, O my uncle.
+
+"_I am Ignosi, rightful king of the Kukuanas!_"
+
+Then with a single movement Umbopa slipped off his "moocha" or girdle,
+and stood naked before us.
+
+"Look," he said; "what is this?" and he pointed to the picture of a
+great snake tattooed in blue round his middle, its tail disappearing
+into its open mouth just above where the thighs are set into the body.
+
+Infadoos looked, his eyes starting nearly out of his head. Then he fell
+upon his knees.
+
+"_Koom! Koom!_" he ejaculated; "it is my brother's son; it is the king."
+
+"Did I not tell thee so, my uncle? Rise; I am not yet the king, but
+with thy help, and with the help of these brave white men, who are my
+friends, I shall be. Yet the old witch Gagool was right, the land shall
+run with blood first, and hers shall run with it, if she has any and
+can die, for she killed my father with her words, and drove my mother
+forth. And now, Infadoos, choose thou. Wilt thou put thy hands between
+my hands and be my man? Wilt thou share the dangers that lie before me,
+and help me to overthrow this tyrant and murderer, or wilt thou not?
+Choose thou."
+
+The old man put his hand to his head and thought. Then he rose, and
+advancing to where Umbopa, or rather Ignosi, stood, he knelt before
+him, and took his hand.
+
+"Ignosi, rightful king of the Kukuanas, I put my hand between thy
+hands, and am thy man till death. When thou wast a babe I dandled thee
+upon my knees, now shall my old arm strike for thee and freedom."
+
+"It is well, Infadoos; if I conquer, thou shalt be the greatest man in
+the kingdom after its king. If I fail, thou canst only die, and death
+is not far off from thee. Rise, my uncle."
+
+"And ye, white men, will ye help me? What have I to offer you! The
+white stones! If I conquer and can find them, ye shall have as many as
+ye can carry hence. Will that suffice you?"
+
+I translated this remark.
+
+"Tell him," answered Sir Henry, "that he mistakes an Englishman. Wealth
+is good, and if it comes in our way we will take it; but a gentleman
+does not sell himself for wealth. Still, speaking for myself, I say
+this. I have always liked Umbopa, and so far as lies in me I will stand
+by him in this business. It will be very pleasant to me to try to
+square matters with that cruel devil Twala. What do you say, Good, and
+you, Quatermain?"
+
+"Well," said Good, "to adopt the language of hyperbole, in which all
+these people seem to indulge, you can tell him that a row is surely
+good, and warms the cockles of the heart, and that so far as I am
+concerned I'm his boy. My only stipulation is that he allows me to wear
+trousers."
+
+I translated the substance of these answers.
+
+"It is well, my friends," said Ignosi, late Umbopa; "and what sayest
+thou, Macumazahn, art thou also with me, old hunter, cleverer than a
+wounded buffalo?"
+
+I thought awhile and scratched my head.
+
+"Umbopa, or Ignosi," I said, "I don't like revolutions. I am a man of
+peace and a bit of a coward"--here Umbopa smiled--"but, on the other
+hand, I stick up for my friends, Ignosi. You have stuck to us and
+played the part of a man, and I will stick by you. But mind you, I am a
+trader, and have to make my living, so I accept your offer about those
+diamonds in case we should ever be in a position to avail ourselves of
+it. Another thing: we came, as you know, to look for Incubu's (Sir
+Henry's) lost brother. You must help us to find him."
+
+"That I will do," answered Ignosi. "Stay, Infadoos, by the sign of the
+snake about my middle, tell me the truth. Has any white man to thy
+knowledge set his foot within the land?"
+
+"None, O Ignosi."
+
+"If any white man had been seen or heard of, wouldst thou have known?"
+
+"I should certainly have known."
+
+"Thou hearest, Incubu," said Ignosi to Sir Henry; "he has not been
+here."
+
+"Well, well," said Sir Henry, with a sigh; "there it is; I suppose that
+he never got so far. Poor fellow, poor fellow! So it has all been for
+nothing. God's will be done."
+
+"Now for business," I put in, anxious to escape from a painful subject.
+"It is very well to be a king by right divine, Ignosi, but how dost
+thou propose to become a king indeed?"
+
+"Nay, I know not. Infadoos, hast thou a plan?"
+
+"Ignosi, Son of the Lightning," answered his uncle, "to-night is the
+great dance and witch-hunt. Many shall be smelt out and perish, and in
+the hearts of many others there will be grief and anguish and fury
+against the king Twala. When the dance is over, then I will speak to
+some of the great chiefs, who in turn, if I can win them over, will
+speak to their regiments. I shall speak to the chiefs softly at first,
+and bring them to see that thou art indeed the king, and I think that
+by to-morrow's light thou shalt have twenty thousand spears at thy
+command. And now I must go and think, and hear, and make ready. After
+the dance is done, if I am yet alive, and we are all alive, I will meet
+thee here, and we can talk. At the best there must be war."
+
+At this moment our conference was interrupted by the cry that
+messengers had come from the king. Advancing to the door of the hut we
+ordered that they should be admitted, and presently three men entered,
+each bearing a shining shirt of chain armour, and a magnificent
+battle-axe.
+
+"The gifts of my lord the king to the white men from the Stars!" said a
+herald who came with them.
+
+"We thank the king," I answered; "withdraw."
+
+The men went, and we examined the armour with great interest. It was
+the most wonderful chain work that either of us had ever seen. A whole
+coat fell together so closely that it formed a mass of links scarcely
+too big to be covered with both hands.
+
+"Do you make these things in this country, Infadoos?" I asked; "they
+are very beautiful."
+
+"Nay, my lord, they came down to us from our forefathers. We know not
+who made them, and there are but few left.[1] None but those of royal
+blood may be clad in them. They are magic coats through which no spear
+can pass, and those who wear them are well-nigh safe in the battle. The
+king is well pleased or much afraid, or he would not have sent these
+garments of steel. Clothe yourselves in them to-night, my lords."
+
+The remainder of that day we spent quietly, resting and talking over
+the situation, which was sufficiently exciting. At last the sun went
+down, the thousand watch fires glowed out, and through the darkness we
+heard the tramp of many feet and the clashing of hundreds of spears, as
+the regiments passed to their appointed places to be ready for the
+great dance. Then the full moon shone out in splendour, and as we stood
+watching her rays, Infadoos arrived, clad in his war dress, and
+accompanied by a guard of twenty men to escort us to the dance. As he
+recommended, we had already donned the shirts of chain armour which the
+king had sent us, putting them on under our ordinary clothing, and
+finding to our surprise that they were neither very heavy nor
+uncomfortable. These steel shirts, which evidently had been made for
+men of a very large stature, hung somewhat loosely upon Good and
+myself, but Sir Henry's fitted his magnificent frame like a glove. Then
+strapping our revolvers round our waists, and taking in our hands the
+battle-axes which the king had sent with the armour, we started.
+
+On arriving at the great kraal, where we had that morning been received
+by the king, we found that it was closely packed with some twenty
+thousand men arranged round it in regiments. These regiments were in
+turn divided into companies, and between each company ran a little path
+to allow space for the witch-finders to pass up and down. Anything more
+imposing than the sight that was presented by this vast and orderly
+concourse of armed men it is impossible to conceive. There they stood
+perfectly silent, and the moon poured her light upon the forest of
+their raised spears, upon their majestic forms, waving plumes, and the
+harmonious shading of their various-coloured shields. Wherever we
+looked were line upon line of dim faces surmounted by range upon range
+of shimmering spears.
+
+"Surely," I said to Infadoos, "the whole army is here?"
+
+"Nay, Macumazahn," he answered, "but a third of it. One third is
+present at this dance each year, another third is mustered outside in
+case there should be trouble when the killing begins, ten thousand more
+garrison the outposts round Loo, and the rest watch at the kraals in
+the country. Thou seest it is a great people."
+
+"They are very silent," said Good; and indeed the intense stillness
+among such a vast concourse of living men was almost overpowering.
+
+"What says Bougwan?" asked Infadoos.
+
+I translated.
+
+"Those over whom the shadow of Death is hovering are silent," he
+answered grimly.
+
+"Will many be killed?"
+
+"Very many."
+
+"It seems," I said to the others, "that we are going to assist at a
+gladiatorial show arranged regardless of expense."
+
+Sir Henry shivered, and Good said he wished that we could get out of it.
+
+"Tell me," I asked Infadoos, "are we in danger?"
+
+"I know not, my lords, I trust not; but do not seem afraid. If ye live
+through the night all may go well with you. The soldiers murmur against
+the king."
+
+All this while we had been advancing steadily towards the centre of the
+open space, in the midst of which were placed some stools. As we
+proceeded we perceived another small party coming from the direction of
+the royal hut.
+
+"It is the king Twala, Scragga his son, and Gagool the old; and see,
+with them are those who slay," said Infadoos, pointing to a little
+group of about a dozen gigantic and savage-looking men, armed with
+spears in one hand and heavy kerries in the other.
+
+The king seated himself upon the centre stool, Gagool crouched at his
+feet, and the others stood behind him.
+
+"Greeting, white lords," Twala cried, as we came up; "be seated, waste
+not precious time--the night is all too short for the deeds that must
+be done. Ye come in a good hour, and shall see a glorious show. Look
+round, white lords; look round," and he rolled his one wicked eye from
+regiment to regiment. "Can the Stars show you such a sight as this? See
+how they shake in their wickedness, all those who have evil in their
+hearts and fear the judgment of 'Heaven above.'"
+
+"_Begin! begin!_" piped Gagool, in her thin piercing voice; "the hyaenas
+are hungry, they howl for food. _Begin! begin!_"
+
+Then for a moment there was intense stillness, made horrible by a
+presage of what was to come.
+
+The king lifted his spear, and suddenly twenty thousand feet were
+raised, as though they belonged to one man, and brought down with a
+stamp upon the earth. This was repeated three times, causing the solid
+ground to shake and tremble. Then from a far point of the circle a
+solitary voice began a wailing song, of which the refrain ran something
+as follows:--
+
+"_What is the lot of man born of woman?_"
+
+Back came the answer rolling out from every throat in that vast
+company--
+
+"_Death!_"
+
+Gradually, however, the song was taken up by company after company,
+till the whole armed multitude were singing it, and I could no longer
+follow the words, except in so far as they appeared to represent
+various phases of human passions, fears, and joys. Now it seemed to be
+a love song, now a majestic swelling war chant, and last of all a death
+dirge ending suddenly in one heart-breaking wail that went echoing and
+rolling away in a volume of blood-curdling sound.
+
+Again silence fell upon the place, and again it was broken by the king
+lifting his hand. Instantly we heard a pattering of feet, and from out
+of the masses of warriors strange and awful figures appeared running
+towards us. As they drew near we saw that these were women, most of
+them aged, for their white hair, ornamented with small bladders taken
+from fish, streamed out behind them. Their faces were painted in
+stripes of white and yellow; down their backs hung snake-skins, and
+round their waists rattled circlets of human bones, while each held a
+small forked wand in her shrivelled hand. In all there were ten of
+them. When they arrived in front of us they halted, and one of them,
+pointing with her wand towards the crouching figure of Gagool, cried
+out--
+
+"Mother, old mother, we are here."
+
+"_Good! good! good!_" answered that aged Iniquity. "Are your eyes keen,
+_Isanusis_ [witch doctresses], ye seers in dark places?"
+
+"Mother, they are keen."
+
+"_Good! good! good!_ Are your ears open, _Isanusis_, ye who hear words
+that come not from the tongue?"
+
+"Mother, they are open."
+
+"_Good! good! good!_ Are your senses awake, _Isanusis_--can ye smell
+blood, can ye purge the land of the wicked ones who compass evil
+against the king and against their neighbours? Are ye ready to do the
+justice of 'Heaven above,' ye whom I have taught, who have eaten of the
+bread of my wisdom, and drunk of the water of my magic?"
+
+"Mother, we can."
+
+"Then go! Tarry not, ye vultures; see, the slayers"--pointing to the
+ominous group of executioners behind--"make sharp their spears; the
+white men from afar are hungry to see. _Go!_"
+
+With a wild yell Gagool's horrid ministers broke away in every
+direction, like fragments from a shell, the dry bones round their
+waists rattling as they ran, and headed for various points of the dense
+human circle. We could not watch them all, so we fixed our eyes upon
+the _Isanusi_ nearest to us. When she came to within a few paces of the
+warriors she halted and began to dance wildly, turning round and round
+with an almost incredible rapidity, and shrieking out sentences such as
+"I smell him, the evil-doer!" "He is near, he who poisoned his mother!"
+"I hear the thoughts of him who thought evil of the king!"
+
+Quicker and quicker she danced, till she lashed herself into such a
+frenzy of excitement that the foam flew in specks from her gnashing
+jaws, till her eyes seemed to start from her head, and her flesh to
+quiver visibly. Suddenly she stopped dead and stiffened all over, like
+a pointer dog when he scents game, and then with outstretched wand she
+began to creep stealthily towards the soldiers before her. It seemed to
+us that as she came their stoicism gave way, and that they shrank from
+her. As for ourselves, we followed her movements with a horrible
+fascination. Presently, still creeping and crouching like a dog, the
+_Isanusi_ was before them. Then she halted and pointed, and again crept
+on a pace or two.
+
+Suddenly the end came. With a shriek she sprang in and touched a tall
+warrior with her forked wand. Instantly two of his comrades, those
+standing immediately next to him, seized the doomed man, each by one
+arm, and advanced with him towards the king.
+
+He did not resist, but we saw that he dragged his limbs as though they
+were paralysed, and that his fingers, from which the spear had fallen,
+were limp like those of a man newly dead.
+
+As he came, two of the villainous executioners stepped forward to meet
+him. Presently they met, and the executioners turned round, looking
+towards the king as though for orders.
+
+"_Kill!_" said the king.
+
+"_Kill!_" squeaked Gagool.
+
+"_Kill!_" re-echoed Scragga, with a hollow chuckle.
+
+Almost before the words were uttered the horrible dead was done. One
+man had driven his spear into the victim's heart, and to make assurance
+double sure, the other had dashed out his brains with a great club.
+
+"_One_," counted Twala the king, just like a black Madame Defarge, as
+Good said, and the body was dragged a few paces away and stretched out.
+
+Hardly was the thing done before another poor wretch was brought up,
+like an ox to the slaughter. This time we could see, from the
+leopard-skin cloak which he wore, that the man was a person of rank.
+Again the awful syllables were spoken, and the victim fell dead.
+
+"_Two_," counted the king.
+
+And so the deadly game went on, till about a hundred bodies were
+stretched in rows behind us. I have heard of the gladiatorial shows of
+the Caesars, and of the Spanish bull-fights, but I take the liberty of
+doubting if either of them could be half so horrible as this Kukuana
+witch-hunt. Gladiatorial shows and Spanish bull-fights at any rate
+contributed to the public amusement, which certainly was not the case
+here. The most confirmed sensation-monger would fight shy of sensation
+if he knew that it was well on the cards that he would, in his own
+proper person, be the subject of the next "event."
+
+Once we rose and tried to remonstrate, but were sternly repressed by
+Twala.
+
+"Let the law take its course, white men. These dogs are magicians and
+evil-doers; it is well that they should die," was the only answer
+vouchsafed to us.
+
+About half-past ten there was a pause. The witch-finders gathered
+themselves together, apparently exhausted with their bloody work, and
+we thought that the performance was done with. But it was not so, for
+presently, to our surprise, the ancient woman, Gagool, rose from her
+crouching position, and supporting herself with a stick, staggered off
+into the open space. It was an extraordinary sight to see this
+frightful vulture-headed old creature, bent nearly double with extreme
+age, gather strength by degrees, until at last she rushed about almost
+as actively as her ill-omened pupils. To and fro she ran, chanting to
+herself, till suddenly she made a dash at a tall man standing in front
+of one of the regiments, and touched him. As she did this a sort of
+groan went up from the regiment which evidently he commanded. But two
+of its officers seized him all the same, and brought him up for
+execution. We learned afterwards that he was a man of great wealth and
+importance, being indeed a cousin of the king.
+
+He was slain, and Twala counted one hundred and three. Then Gagool
+again sprang to and fro, gradually drawing nearer and nearer to
+ourselves.
+
+"Hang me if I don't believe she is going to try her games on us,"
+ejaculated Good in horror.
+
+"Nonsense!" said Sir Henry.
+
+As for myself, when I saw that old fiend dancing nearer and nearer, my
+heart positively sank into my boots. I glanced behind us at the long
+rows of corpses, and shivered.
+
+Nearer and nearer waltzed Gagool, looking for all the world like an
+animated crooked stick or comma, her horrid eyes gleaming and glowing
+with a most unholy lustre.
+
+Nearer she came, and yet nearer, every creature in that vast assemblage
+watching her movements with intense anxiety. At last she stood still
+and pointed.
+
+"Which is it to be?" asked Sir Henry to himself.
+
+In a moment all doubts were at rest, for the old hag had rushed in and
+touched Umbopa, alias Ignosi, on the shoulder.
+
+"I smell him out," she shrieked. "Kill him, kill him, he is full of
+evil; kill him, the stranger, before blood flows from him. Slay him, O
+king."
+
+There was a pause, of which I instantly took advantage.
+
+"O king," I called out, rising from my seat, "this man is the servant
+of thy guests, he is their dog; whosoever sheds the blood of our dog
+sheds our blood. By the sacred law of hospitality I claim protection
+for him."
+
+"Gagool, mother of the witch-finders, has smelt him out; he must die,
+white men," was the sullen answer.
+
+"Nay, he shall not die," I replied; "he who tries to touch him shall
+die indeed."
+
+"Seize him!" roared Twala to the executioners; who stood round red to
+the eyes with the blood of their victims.
+
+They advanced towards us, and then hesitated. As for Ignosi, he
+clutched his spear, and raised it as though determined to sell his life
+dearly.
+
+"Stand back, ye dogs!" I shouted, "if ye would see to-morrow's light.
+Touch one hair of his head and your king dies," and I covered Twala
+with my revolver. Sir Henry and Good also drew their pistols, Sir Henry
+pointing his at the leading executioner, who was advancing to carry out
+the sentence, and Good taking a deliberate aim at Gagool.
+
+Twala winced perceptibly as my barrel came in a line with his broad
+chest.
+
+"Well," I said, "what is it to be, Twala?"
+
+Then he spoke.
+
+"Put away your magic tubes," he said; "ye have adjured me in the name
+of hospitality, and for that reason, but not from fear of what ye can
+do, I spare him. Go in peace."
+
+"It is well," I answered unconcernedly; "we are weary of slaughter, and
+would sleep. Is the dance ended?"
+
+"It is ended," Twala answered sulkily. "Let these dead dogs," pointing
+to the long rows of corpses, "be flung out to the hyaenas and the
+vultures," and he lifted his spear.
+
+Instantly the regiments began to defile through the kraal gateway in
+perfect silence, a fatigue party only remaining behind to drag away the
+corpses of those who had been sacrificed.
+
+Then we rose also, and making our salaam to his majesty, which he
+hardly deigned to acknowledge, we departed to our huts.
+
+"Well," said Sir Henry, as we sat down, having first lit a lamp of the
+sort used by the Kukuanas, of which the wick is made from the fibre of
+a species of palm leaf, and the oil from clarified hippopotamus fat,
+"well, I feel uncommonly inclined to be sick."
+
+"If I had any doubts about helping Umbopa to rebel against that
+infernal blackguard," put in Good, "they are gone now. It was as much
+as I could do to sit still while that slaughter was going on. I tried
+to keep my eyes shut, but they would open just at the wrong time. I
+wonder where Infadoos is. Umbopa, my friend, you ought to be grateful
+to us; your skin came near to having an air-hole made in it."
+
+"I am grateful, Bougwan," was Umbopa's answer, when I had translated,
+"and I shall not forget. As for Infadoos, he will be here by-and-by. We
+must wait."
+
+So we lit our pipes and waited.
+
+
+[1] In the Soudan swords and coats of mail are still worn by Arabs,
+whose ancestors must have stripped them from the bodies of
+Crusaders.--Editor.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+WE GIVE A SIGN
+
+For a long while--two hours, I should think--we sat there in silence,
+being too much overwhelmed by the recollection of the horrors we had
+seen to talk. At last, just as we were thinking of turning in--for the
+night drew nigh to dawn--we heard a sound of steps. Then came the
+challenge of a sentry posted at the kraal gate, which apparently was
+answered, though not in an audible tone, for the steps still advanced;
+and in another second Infadoos had entered the hut, followed by some
+half-dozen stately-looking chiefs.
+
+"My lords," he said, "I have come according to my word. My lords and
+Ignosi, rightful king of the Kukuanas, I have brought with me these
+men," pointing to the row of chiefs, "who are great men among us,
+having each one of them the command of three thousand soldiers, that
+live but to do their bidding, under the king's. I have told them of
+what I have seen, and what my ears have heard. Now let them also behold
+the sacred snake around thee, and hear thy story, Ignosi, that they may
+say whether or no they will make cause with thee against Twala the
+king."
+
+By way of answer Ignosi again stripped off his girdle, and exhibited
+the snake tattooed about him. Each chief in turn drew near and examined
+the sign by the dim light of the lamp, and without saying a word passed
+on to the other side.
+
+Then Ignosi resumed his moocha, and addressing them, repeated the
+history he had detailed in the morning.
+
+"Now ye have heard, chiefs," said Infadoos, when he had done, "what say
+ye: will ye stand by this man and help him to his father's throne, or
+will ye not? The land cries out against Twala, and the blood of the
+people flows like the waters in spring. Ye have seen to-night. Two
+other chiefs there were with whom I had it in my mind to speak, and
+where are they now? The hyaenas howl over their corpses. Soon shall ye
+be as they are if ye strike not. Choose then, my brothers."
+
+The eldest of the six men, a short, thick-set warrior, with white hair,
+stepped forward a pace and answered--
+
+"Thy words are true, Infadoos; the land cries out. My own brother is
+among those who died to-night; but this is a great matter, and the
+thing is hard to believe. How know we that if we lift our spears it may
+not be for a thief and a liar? It is a great matter, I say, of which
+none can see the end. For of this be sure, blood will flow in rivers
+before the deed is done; many will still cleave to the king, for men
+worship the sun that still shines bright in the heavens, rather than
+that which has not risen. These white men from the Stars, their magic
+is great, and Ignosi is under the cover of their wing. If he be indeed
+the rightful king, let them give us a sign, and let the people have a
+sign, that all may see. So shall men cleave to us, knowing of a truth
+that the white man's magic is with them."
+
+"Ye have the sign of the snake," I answered.
+
+"My lord, it is not enough. The snake may have been placed there since
+the man's childhood. Show us a sign, and it will suffice. But we will
+not move without a sign."
+
+The others gave a decided assent, and I turned in perplexity to Sir
+Henry and Good, and explained the situation.
+
+"I think that I have it," said Good exultingly; "ask them to give us a
+moment to think."
+
+I did so, and the chiefs withdrew. So soon as they had gone Good went
+to the little box where he kept his medicines, unlocked it, and took
+out a note-book, in the fly-leaves of which was an almanack. "Now look
+here, you fellows, isn't to-morrow the 4th of June?" he said.
+
+We had kept a careful note of the days, so were able to answer that it
+was.
+
+"Very good; then here we have it--'4 June, total eclipse of the moon
+commences at 8.15 Greenwich time, visible in Teneriffe--_South Africa_,
+&c.' There's a sign for you. Tell them we will darken the moon
+to-morrow night."
+
+The idea was a splendid one; indeed, the only weak spot about it was a
+fear lest Good's almanack might be incorrect. If we made a false
+prophecy on such a subject, our prestige would be gone for ever, and so
+would Ignosi's chance of the throne of the Kukuanas.
+
+"Suppose that the almanack is wrong," suggested Sir Henry to Good, who
+was busily employed in working out something on a blank page of the
+book.
+
+"I see no reason to suppose anything of the sort," was his answer.
+"Eclipses always come up to time; at least that is my experience of
+them, and it especially states that this one will be visible in South
+Africa. I have worked out the reckonings as well as I can, without
+knowing our exact position; and I make out that the eclipse should
+begin here about ten o'clock tomorrow night, and last till half-past
+twelve. For an hour and a half or so there should be almost total
+darkness."
+
+"Well," said Sir Henry, "I suppose we had better risk it."
+
+I acquiesced, though doubtfully, for eclipses are queer cattle to deal
+with--it might be a cloudy night, for instance, or our dates might be
+wrong--and sent Umbopa to summon the chiefs back. Presently they came,
+and I addressed them thus--
+
+"Great men of the Kukuanas, and thou, Infadoos, listen. We love not to
+show our powers, for to do so is to interfere with the course of
+nature, and to plunge the world into fear and confusion. But since this
+matter is a great one, and as we are angered against the king because
+of the slaughter we have seen, and because of the act of the _Isanusi_
+Gagool, who would have put our friend Ignosi to death, we have
+determined to break a rule, and to give such a sign as all men may see.
+Come hither"; and I led them to the door of the hut and pointed to the
+red ball of the moon. "What see ye there?"
+
+"We see the sinking moon," answered the spokesman of the party.
+
+"It is so. Now tell me, can any mortal man put out that moon before her
+hour of setting, and bring the curtain of black night down upon the
+land?"
+
+The chief laughed a little at the question. "No, my lord, that no man
+can do. The moon is stronger than man who looks on her, nor can she
+vary in her courses."
+
+"Ye say so. Yet I tell you that to-morrow night, about two hours before
+midnight, we will cause the moon to be eaten up for a space of an hour
+and half an hour. Yes, deep darkness shall cover the earth, and it
+shall be for a sign that Ignosi is indeed king of the Kukuanas. If we
+do this thing, will ye be satisfied?"
+
+"Yea, my lords," answered the old chief with a smile, which was
+reflected on the faces of his companions; "_if_ ye do this thing, we
+will be satisfied indeed."
+
+"It shall be done; we three, Incubu, Bougwan, and Macumazahn, have said
+it, and it shall be done. Dost thou hear, Infadoos?"
+
+"I hear, my lord, but it is a wonderful thing that ye promise, to put
+out the moon, the mother of the world, when she is at her full."
+
+"Yet shall we do it, Infadoos."
+
+"It is well, my lords. To-day, two hours after sunset, Twala will send
+for my lords to witness the girls dance, and one hour after the dance
+begins the girl whom Twala thinks the fairest shall be killed by
+Scragga, the king's son, as a sacrifice to the Silent Ones, who sit and
+keep watch by the mountains yonder," and he pointed towards the three
+strange-looking peaks where Solomon's road was supposed to end. "Then
+let my lords darken the moon, and save the maiden's life, and the
+people will believe indeed."
+
+"Ay," said the old chief, still smiling a little, "the people will
+believe indeed."
+
+"Two miles from Loo," went on Infadoos, "there is a hill curved like a
+new moon, a stronghold, where my regiment, and three other regiments
+which these chiefs command, are stationed. This morning we will make a
+plan whereby two or three other regiments may be moved there also.
+Then, if in truth my lords can darken the moon, in the darkness I will
+take my lords by the hand and lead them out of Loo to this place, where
+they shall be safe, and thence we can make war upon Twala the king."
+
+"It is good," said I. "Let leave us to sleep awhile and to make ready
+our magic."
+
+Infadoos rose, and, having saluted us, departed with the chiefs.
+
+"My friends," said Ignosi, so soon as they were gone, "can ye do this
+wonderful thing, or were ye speaking empty words to the captains?"
+
+"We believe that we can do it, Umbopa--Ignosi, I mean."
+
+"It is strange," he answered, "and had ye not been Englishmen I would
+not have believed it; but I have learned that English 'gentlemen' tell
+no lies. If we live through the matter, be sure that I will repay you."
+
+"Ignosi," said Sir Henry, "promise me one thing."
+
+"I will promise, Incubu, my friend, even before I hear it," answered
+the big man with a smile. "What is it?"
+
+"This: that if ever you come to be king of this people you will do away
+with the smelling out of wizards such as we saw last night; and that
+the killing of men without trial shall no longer take place in the
+land."
+
+Ignosi thought for a moment after I had translated this request, and
+then answered--
+
+"The ways of black people are not as the ways of white men, Incubu, nor
+do we value life so highly. Yet I will promise. If it be in my power to
+hold them back, the witch-finders shall hunt no more, nor shall any man
+die the death without trial or judgment."
+
+"That's a bargain, then," said Sir Henry; "and now let us get a little
+rest."
+
+Thoroughly wearied out, we were soon sound asleep, and slept till
+Ignosi woke us about eleven o'clock. Then we rose, washed, and ate a
+hearty breakfast. After that we went outside the hut and walked about,
+amusing ourselves with examining the structure of the Kukuana huts and
+observing the customs of the women.
+
+"I hope that eclipse will come off," said Sir Henry presently.
+
+"If it does not it will soon be all up with us," I answered mournfully;
+"for so sure as we are living men some of those chiefs will tell the
+whole story to the king, and then there will be another sort of
+eclipse, and one that we shall certainly not like."
+
+Returning to the hut we ate some dinner, and passed the rest of the day
+in receiving visits of ceremony and curiosity. At length the sun set,
+and we enjoyed a couple of hours of such quiet as our melancholy
+forebodings would allow to us. Finally, about half-past eight, a
+messenger came from Twala to bid us to the great annual "dance of
+girls" which was about to be celebrated.
+
+Hastily we put on the chain shirts that the king had sent us, and
+taking our rifles and ammunition with us, so as to have them handy in
+case we had to fly, as suggested by Infadoos, we started boldly enough,
+though with inward fear and trembling. The great space in front of the
+king's kraal bore a very different appearance from that which it had
+presented on the previous evening. In place of the grim ranks of
+serried warriors were company after company of Kukuana girls, not
+over-dressed, so far as clothing went, but each crowned with a wreath
+of flowers, and holding a palm leaf in one hand and a white arum lily
+in the other. In the centre of the open moonlit space sat Twala the
+king, with old Gagool at his feet, attended by Infadoos, the boy
+Scragga, and twelve guards. There were also present about a score of
+chiefs, amongst whom I recognised most of our friends of the night
+before.
+
+Twala greeted us with much apparent cordiality, though I saw him fix
+his one eye viciously on Umbopa.
+
+"Welcome, white men from the Stars," he said; "this is another sight
+from that which your eyes gazed on by the light of last night's moon,
+but it is not so good a sight. Girls are pleasant, and were it not for
+such as these," and he pointed round him, "we should none of us be here
+this day; but men are better. Kisses and the tender words of women are
+sweet, but the sound of the clashing of the spears of warriors, and the
+smell of men's blood, are sweeter far! Would ye have wives from among
+our people, white men? If so, choose the fairest here, and ye shall
+have them, as many as ye will," and he paused for an answer.
+
+As the prospect did not seem to be without attractions for Good, who,
+like most sailors, is of a susceptible nature,--being elderly and wise,
+foreseeing the endless complications that anything of the sort would
+involve, for women bring trouble so surely as the night follows the
+day, I put in a hasty answer--
+
+"Thanks to thee, O king, but we white men wed only with white women
+like ourselves. Your maidens are fair, but they are not for us!"
+
+The king laughed. "It is well. In our land there is a proverb which
+runs, 'Women's eyes are always bright, whatever the colour,' and
+another that says, 'Love her who is present, for be sure she who is
+absent is false to thee;' but perhaps these things are not so in the
+Stars. In a land where men are white all things are possible. So be it,
+white men; the girls will not go begging! Welcome again; and welcome,
+too, thou black one; if Gagool here had won her way, thou wouldst have
+been stiff and cold by now. It is lucky for thee that thou too camest
+from the Stars; ha! ha!"
+
+"I can kill thee before thou killest me, O king," was Ignosi's calm
+answer, "and thou shalt be stiff before my limbs cease to bend."
+
+Twala started. "Thou speakest boldly, boy," he replied angrily;
+"presume not too far."
+
+"He may well be bold in whose lips are truth. The truth is a sharp
+spear which flies home and misses not. It is a message from 'the
+Stars,' O king."
+
+Twala scowled, and his one eye gleamed fiercely, but he said nothing
+more.
+
+"Let the dance begin," he cried, and then the flower-crowned girls
+sprang forward in companies, singing a sweet song and waving the
+delicate palms and white lilies. On they danced, looking faint and
+spiritual in the soft, sad light of the risen moon; now whirling round
+and round, now meeting in mimic warfare, swaying, eddying here and
+there, coming forward, falling back in an ordered confusion delightful
+to witness. At last they paused, and a beautiful young woman sprang out
+of the ranks and began to pirouette in front of us with a grace and
+vigour which would have put most ballet girls to shame. At length she
+retired exhausted, and another took her place, then another and
+another, but none of them, either in grace, skill, or personal
+attractions, came up to the first.
+
+When the chosen girls had all danced, the king lifted his hand.
+
+"Which deem ye the fairest, white men?" he asked.
+
+"The first," said I unthinkingly. Next second I regretted it, for I
+remembered that Infadoos had told us that the fairest woman must be
+offered up as a sacrifice.
+
+"Then is my mind as your minds, and my eyes as your eyes. She is the
+fairest! and a sorry thing it is for her, for she must die!"
+
+"_Ay, must die!_" piped out Gagool, casting a glance of her quick eyes
+in the direction of the poor girl, who, as yet ignorant of the awful
+fate in store for her, was standing some ten yards off in front of a
+company of maidens, engaged in nervously picking a flower from her
+wreath to pieces, petal by petal.
+
+"Why, O king?" said I, restraining my indignation with difficulty; "the
+girl has danced well, and pleased us; she is fair too; it would be hard
+to reward her with death."
+
+Twala laughed as he answered--
+
+"It is our custom, and the figures who sit in stone yonder," and he
+pointed towards the three distant peaks, "must have their due. Did I
+fail to put the fairest girl to death to-day, misfortune would fall
+upon me and my house. Thus runs the prophecy of my people: 'If the king
+offer not a sacrifice of a fair girl, on the day of the dance of
+maidens, to the Old Ones who sit and watch on the mountains, then shall
+he fall, and his house.' Look ye, white men, my brother who reigned
+before me offered not the sacrifice, because of the tears of the woman,
+and he fell, and his house, and I reign in his stead. It is finished;
+she must die!" Then turning to the guards--"Bring her hither; Scragga,
+make sharp thy spear."
+
+Two of the men stepped forward, and as they advanced, the girl, for the
+first time realising her impending fate, screamed aloud and turned to
+fly. But the strong hands caught her fast, and brought her, struggling
+and weeping, before us.
+
+"What is thy name, girl?" piped Gagool. "What! wilt thou not answer?
+Shall the king's son do his work at once?"
+
+At this hint, Scragga, looking more evil than ever, advanced a step and
+lifted his great spear, and at that moment I saw Good's hand creep to
+his revolver. The poor girl caught the faint glint of steel through her
+tears, and it sobered her anguish. She ceased struggling, and clasping
+her hands convulsively, stood shuddering from head to foot.
+
+"See," cried Scragga in high glee, "she shrinks from the sight of my
+little plaything even before she has tasted it," and he tapped the
+broad blade of his spear.
+
+"If ever I get the chance you shall pay for that, you young hound!" I
+heard Good mutter beneath his breath.
+
+"Now that thou art quiet, give us thy name, my dear. Come, speak out,
+and fear not," said Gagool in mockery.
+
+"Oh, mother," answered the girl, in trembling accents, "my name is
+Foulata, of the house of Suko. Oh, mother, why must I die? I have done
+no wrong!"
+
+"Be comforted," went on the old woman in her hateful tone of mockery.
+"Thou must die, indeed, as a sacrifice to the Old Ones who sit yonder,"
+and she pointed to the peaks; "but it is better to sleep in the night
+than to toil in the daytime; it is better to die than to live, and thou
+shalt die by the royal hand of the king's own son."
+
+The girl Foulata wrung her hands in anguish, and cried out aloud, "Oh,
+cruel! and I so young! What have I done that I should never again see
+the sun rise out of the night, or the stars come following on his track
+in the evening, that I may no more gather the flowers when the dew is
+heavy, or listen to the laughing of the waters? Woe is me, that I shall
+never see my father's hut again, nor feel my mother's kiss, nor tend
+the lamb that is sick! Woe is me, that no lover shall put his arm
+around me and look into my eyes, nor shall men children be born of me!
+Oh, cruel, cruel!"
+
+And again she wrung her hands and turned her tear-stained
+flower-crowned face to Heaven, looking so lovely in her despair--for
+she was indeed a beautiful woman--that assuredly the sight of her would
+have melted the hearts of any less cruel than were the three fiends
+before us. Prince Arthur's appeal to the ruffians who came to blind him
+was not more touching than that of this savage girl.
+
+But it did not move Gagool or Gagool's master, though I saw signs of
+pity among the guards behind, and on the faces of the chiefs; and as
+for Good, he gave a fierce snort of indignation, and made a motion as
+though to go to her assistance. With all a woman's quickness, the
+doomed girl interpreted what was passing in his mind, and by a sudden
+movement flung herself before him, and clasped his "beautiful white
+legs" with her hands.
+
+"Oh, white father from the Stars!" she cried, "throw over me the mantle
+of thy protection; let me creep into the shadow of thy strength, that I
+may be saved. Oh, keep me from these cruel men and from the mercies of
+Gagool!"
+
+"All right, my hearty, I'll look after you," sang out Good in nervous
+Saxon. "Come, get up, there's a good girl," and he stooped and caught
+her hand.
+
+Twala turned and motioned to his son, who advanced with his spear
+lifted.
+
+"Now's your time," whispered Sir Henry to me; "what are you waiting
+for?"
+
+"I am waiting for that eclipse," I answered; "I have had my eye on the
+moon for the last half-hour, and I never saw it look healthier."
+
+"Well, you must risk it now, or the girl will be killed. Twala is
+losing patience."
+
+Recognising the force of the argument, and having cast one more
+despairing look at the bright face of the moon, for never did the most
+ardent astronomer with a theory to prove await a celestial event with
+such anxiety, I stepped with all the dignity that I could command
+between the prostrate girl and the advancing spear of Scragga.
+
+"King," I said, "it shall not be; we will not endure this thing; let
+the girl go in safety."
+
+Twala rose from his seat in wrath and astonishment, and from the chiefs
+and serried ranks of maidens who had closed in slowly upon us in
+anticipation of the tragedy came a murmur of amazement.
+
+"_Shall not be!_ thou white dog, that yappest at the lion in his cave;
+_shall not be!_ art thou mad? Be careful, lest this chicken's fate
+overtake thee, and those with thee. How canst thou save her or thyself?
+Who art thou that thou settest thyself between me and my will? Back, I
+say. Scragga, kill her! Ho, guards! seize these men."
+
+At his cry armed men ran swiftly from behind the hut, where they had
+evidently been placed beforehand.
+
+Sir Henry, Good, and Umbopa ranged themselves alongside of me, and
+lifted their rifles.
+
+"Stop!" I shouted boldly, though at the moment my heart was in my
+boots. "Stop! we, the white men from the Stars, say that it shall not
+be. Come but one pace nearer, and we will put out the moon like a
+wind-blown lamp, as we who dwell in her House can do, and plunge the
+land in darkness. Dare to disobey, and ye shall taste of our magic."
+
+My threat produced an effect; the men halted, and Scragga stood still
+before us, his spear lifted.
+
+"Hear him! hear him!" piped Gagool; "hear the liar who says that he
+will put out the moon like a lamp. Let him do it, and the girl shall be
+speared. Yes, let him do it, or die by the girl, he and those with him."
+
+I glanced up at the moon despairingly, and now to my intense joy and
+relief saw that we--or rather the almanack--had made no mistake. On the
+edge of the great orb lay a faint rim of shadow, while a smoky hue grew
+and gathered upon its bright surface. Never shall I forget that
+supreme, that superb moment of relief.
+
+Then I lifted my hand solemnly towards the sky, an example which Sir
+Henry and Good followed, and quoted a line or two from the "Ingoldsby
+Legends" at it in the most impressive tones that I could command. Sir
+Henry followed suit with a verse out of the Old Testament, and
+something about Balbus building a wall, in Latin, whilst Good addressed
+the Queen of Night in a volume of the most classical bad language which
+he could think of.
+
+Slowly the penumbra, the shadow of a shadow, crept on over the bright
+surface, and as it crept I heard deep gasps of fear rising from the
+multitude around.
+
+"Look, O king!" I cried; "look, Gagool! Look, chiefs and people and
+women, and see if the white men from the Stars keep their word, or if
+they be but empty liars!
+
+"The moon grows black before your eyes; soon there will be
+darkness--ay, darkness in the hour of the full moon. Ye have asked for
+a sign; it is given to you. Grow dark, O Moon! withdraw thy light, thou
+pure and holy One; bring the proud heart of usurping murderers to the
+dust, and eat up the world with shadows."
+
+A groan of terror burst from the onlookers. Some stood petrified with
+dread, others threw themselves upon their knees and cried aloud. As for
+the king, he sat still and turned pale beneath his dusky skin. Only
+Gagool kept her courage.
+
+"It will pass," she cried; "I have often seen the like before; no man
+can put out the moon; lose not heart; sit still--the shadow will pass."
+
+"Wait, and ye shall see," I replied, hopping with excitement. "O Moon!
+Moon! Moon! wherefore art thou so cold and fickle?" This appropriate
+quotation was from the pages of a popular romance that I chanced to
+have read recently, though now I come to think of it, it was ungrateful
+of me to abuse the Lady of the Heavens, who was showing herself to be
+the truest of friends to us, however she may have behaved to the
+impassioned lover in the novel. Then I added: "Keep it up, Good, I
+can't remember any more poetry. Curse away, there's a good fellow."
+
+Good responded nobly to this tax upon his inventive faculties. Never
+before had I the faintest conception of the breadth and depth and
+height of a naval officer's objurgatory powers. For ten minutes he went
+on in several languages without stopping, and he scarcely ever repeated
+himself.
+
+Meanwhile the dark ring crept on, while all that great assembly fixed
+their eyes upon the sky and stared and stared in fascinated silence.
+Strange and unholy shadows encroached upon the moonlight, an ominous
+quiet filled the place. Everything grew still as death. Slowly and in
+the midst of this most solemn silence the minutes sped away, and while
+they sped the full moon passed deeper and deeper into the shadow of the
+earth, as the inky segment of its circle slid in awful majesty across
+the lunar craters. The great pale orb seemed to draw near and to grow
+in size. She turned a coppery hue, then that portion of her surface
+which was unobscured as yet grew grey and ashen, and at length, as
+totality approached, her mountains and her plains were to be seen
+glowing luridly through a crimson gloom.
+
+On, yet on, crept the ring of darkness; it was now more than half
+across the blood-red orb. The air grew thick, and still more deeply
+tinged with dusky crimson. On, yet on, till we could scarcely see the
+fierce faces of the group before us. No sound rose now from the
+spectators, and at last Good stopped swearing.
+
+"The moon is dying--the white wizards have killed the moon," yelled the
+prince Scragga at last. "We shall all perish in the dark," and animated
+by fear or fury, or by both, he lifted his spear and drove it with all
+his force at Sir Henry's breast. But he forgot the mail shirts that the
+king had given us, and which we wore beneath our clothing. The steel
+rebounded harmless, and before he could repeat the blow Curtis had
+snatched the spear from his hand and sent it straight through him.
+
+Scragga dropped dead.
+
+At the sight, and driven mad with fear of the gathering darkness, and
+of the unholy shadow which, as they believed, was swallowing the moon,
+the companies of girls broke up in wild confusion, and ran screeching
+for the gateways. Nor did the panic stop there. The king himself,
+followed by his guards, some of the chiefs, and Gagool, who hobbled
+away after them with marvellous alacrity, fled for the huts, so that in
+another minute we ourselves, the would-be victim Foulata, Infadoos, and
+most of the chiefs who had interviewed us on the previous night, were
+left alone upon the scene, together with the dead body of Scragga,
+Twala's son.
+
+"Chiefs," I said, "we have given you the sign. If ye are satisfied, let
+us fly swiftly to the place of which ye spoke. The charm cannot now be
+stopped. It will work for an hour and the half of an hour. Let us cover
+ourselves in the darkness."
+
+"Come," said Infadoos, turning to go, an example which was followed by
+the awed captains, ourselves, and the girl Foulata, whom Good took by
+the arm.
+
+Before we reached the gate of the kraal the moon went out utterly, and
+from every quarter of the firmament the stars rushed forth into the
+inky sky.
+
+Holding each other by the hand we stumbled on through the darkness.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+BEFORE THE BATTLE
+
+Luckily for us, Infadoos and the chiefs knew all the paths of the great
+town perfectly, so that we passed by side-ways unmolested, and
+notwithstanding the gloom we made fair progress.
+
+For an hour or more we journeyed on, till at length the eclipse began
+to pass, and that edge of the moon which had disappeared the first
+became again visible. Suddenly, as we watched, there burst from it a
+silver streak of light, accompanied by a wondrous ruddy glow, which
+hung upon the blackness of the sky like a celestial lamp, and a wild
+and lovely sight it was. In another five minutes the stars began to
+fade, and there was sufficient light to see our whereabouts. We then
+discovered that we were clear of the town of Loo, and approaching a
+large flat-topped hill, measuring some two miles in circumference. This
+hill, which is of a formation common in South Africa, is not very high;
+indeed, its greatest elevation is scarcely more than 200 feet, but it
+is shaped like a horseshoe, and its sides are rather precipitous and
+strewn with boulders. On the grass table-land at its summit is ample
+camping-ground, which had been utilised as a military cantonment of no
+mean strength. Its ordinary garrison was one regiment of three thousand
+men, but as we toiled up the steep side of the mountain in the
+returning moonlight we perceived that there were several of such
+regiments encamped there.
+
+Reaching the table-land at last, we found crowds of men roused from
+their sleep, shivering with fear and huddled up together in the utmost
+consternation at the natural phenomenon which they were witnessing.
+Passing through these without a word, we gained a hut in the centre of
+the ground, where we were astonished to find two men waiting, laden
+with our few goods and chattels, which of course we had been obliged to
+leave behind in our hasty flight.
+
+"I sent for them," explained Infadoos; "and also for these," and he
+lifted up Good's long-lost trousers.
+
+With an exclamation of rapturous delight Good sprang at them, and
+instantly proceeded to put them on.
+
+"Surely my lord will not hide his beautiful white legs!" exclaimed
+Infadoos regretfully.
+
+But Good persisted, and once only did the Kukuana people get the chance
+of seeing his beautiful legs again. Good is a very modest man.
+Henceforward they had to satisfy their aesthetic longings with his one
+whisker, his transparent eye, and his movable teeth.
+
+Still gazing with fond remembrance at Good's trousers, Infadoos next
+informed us that he had commanded the regiments to muster so soon as
+the day broke, in order to explain to them fully the origin and
+circumstances of the rebellion which was decided on by the chiefs, and
+to introduce to them the rightful heir to the throne, Ignosi.
+
+Accordingly, when the sun was up, the troops--in all some twenty
+thousand men, and the flower of the Kukuana army--were mustered on a
+large open space, to which we went. The men were drawn up in three
+sides of a dense square, and presented a magnificent spectacle. We took
+our station on the open side of the square, and were speedily
+surrounded by all the principal chiefs and officers.
+
+These, after silence had been proclaimed, Infadoos proceeded to
+address. He narrated to them in vigorous and graceful language--for,
+like most Kukuanas of high rank, he was a born orator--the history of
+Ignosi's father, and of how he had been basely murdered by Twala the
+king, and his wife and child driven out to starve. Then he pointed out
+that the people suffered and groaned under Twala's cruel rule,
+instancing the proceedings of the previous night, when, under pretence
+of their being evil-doers, many of the noblest in the land had been
+dragged forth and wickedly done to death. Next he went on to say that
+the white lords from the Stars, looking down upon their country, had
+perceived its trouble, and determined, at great personal inconvenience,
+to alleviate its lot: That they had accordingly taken the real king of
+the Kukuanas, Ignosi, who was languishing in exile, by the hand, and
+led him over the mountains: That they had seen the wickedness of
+Twala's doings, and for a sign to the wavering, and to save the life of
+the girl Foulata, actually, by the exercise of their high magic, had
+put out the moon and slain the young fiend Scragga; and that they were
+prepared to stand by them, and assist them to overthrow Twala, and set
+up the rightful king, Ignosi, in his place.
+
+He finished his discourse amidst a murmur of approbation. Then Ignosi
+stepped forward and began to speak. Having reiterated all that Infadoos
+his uncle had said, he concluded a powerful speech in these words:--
+
+"O chiefs, captains, soldiers, and people, ye have heard my words. Now
+must ye make choice between me and him who sits upon my throne, the
+uncle who killed his brother, and hunted his brother's child forth to
+die in the cold and the night. That I am indeed the king
+these"--pointing to the chiefs--"can tell you, for they have seen the
+snake about my middle. If I were not the king, would these white men be
+on my side with all their magic? Tremble, chiefs, captains, soldiers,
+and people! Is not the darkness they have brought upon the land to
+confound Twala and cover our flight, darkness even in the hour of the
+full moon, yet before your eyes?"
+
+"It is," answered the soldiers.
+
+"I am the king; I say to you, I am the king," went on Ignosi, drawing
+up his great stature to its full, and lifting his broad-bladed
+battle-axe above his head. "If there be any man among you who says that
+it is not so, let him stand forth and I will fight him now, and his
+blood shall be a red token that I tell you true. Let him stand forth, I
+say;" and he shook the great axe till it flashed in the sunlight.
+
+As nobody seemed inclined to respond to this heroic version of "Dilly,
+Dilly, come and be killed," our late henchman proceeded with his
+address.
+
+"I am indeed the king, and should ye stand by my side in the battle, if
+I win the day ye shall go with me to victory and honour. I will give
+you oxen and wives, and ye shall take place of all the regiments; and
+if ye fall, I will fall with you.
+
+"And behold, I give you this promise, that when I sit upon the seat of
+my fathers, bloodshed shall cease in the land. No longer shall ye cry
+for justice to find slaughter, no longer shall the witch-finder hunt
+you out so that ye may be slain without a cause. No man shall die save
+he who offends against the laws. The 'eating up' of your kraals shall
+cease; each one of you shall sleep secure in his own hut and fear
+naught, and justice shall walk blindfold throughout the land. Have ye
+chosen, chiefs, captains, soldiers, and people?"
+
+"We have chosen, O king," came back the answer.
+
+"It is well. Turn your heads and see how Twala's messengers go forth
+from the great town, east and west, and north and south, to gather a
+mighty army to slay me and you, and these my friends and protectors.
+To-morrow, or perchance the next day, he will come against us with all
+who are faithful to him. Then I shall see the man who is indeed my man,
+the man who fears not to die for his cause; and I tell you that he
+shall not be forgotten in the time of spoil. I have spoken, O chiefs,
+captains, soldiers, and people. Now go to your huts and make you ready
+for war."
+
+There was a pause, till presently one of the chiefs lifted his hand,
+and out rolled the royal salute, "_Koom._" It was a sign that the
+soldiers accepted Ignosi as their king. Then they marched off in
+battalions.
+
+Half an hour afterwards we held a council of war, at which all the
+commanders of regiments were present. It was evident to us that before
+very long we should be attacked in overwhelming force. Indeed, from our
+point of vantage on the hill we could see troops mustering, and runners
+going forth from Loo in every direction, doubtless to summon soldiers
+to the king's assistance. We had on our side about twenty thousand men,
+composed of seven of the best regiments in the country. Twala, so
+Infadoos and the chiefs calculated, had at least thirty to thirty-five
+thousand on whom he could rely at present assembled in Loo, and they
+thought that by midday on the morrow he would be able to gather another
+five thousand or more to his aid. It was, of course, possible that some
+of his troops would desert and come over to us, but it was not a
+contingency which could be reckoned on. Meanwhile, it was clear that
+active preparations were being made by Twala to subdue us. Already
+strong bodies of armed men were patrolling round and round the foot of
+the hill, and there were other signs also of coming assault.
+
+Infadoos and the chiefs, however, were of opinion that no attack would
+take place that day, which would be devoted to preparation and to the
+removal of every available means of the moral effect produced upon the
+minds of the soldiery by the supposed magical darkening of the moon.
+The onslaught would be on the morrow, they said, and they proved to be
+right.
+
+Meanwhile, we set to work to strengthen the position in all ways
+possible. Almost every man was turned out, and in the course of the
+day, which seemed far too short, much was done. The paths up the
+hill--that was rather a sanatorium than a fortress, being used
+generally as the camping place of regiments suffering from recent
+service in unhealthy portions of the country--were carefully blocked
+with masses of stones, and every other approach was made as impregnable
+as time would allow. Piles of boulders were collected at various spots
+to be rolled down upon an advancing enemy, stations were appointed to
+the different regiments, and all preparation was made which our joint
+ingenuity could suggest.
+
+Just before sundown, as we rested after our toil, we perceived a small
+company of men advancing towards us from the direction of Loo, one of
+whom bore a palm leaf in his hand for a sign that he came as a herald.
+
+As he drew near, Ignosi, Infadoos, one or two chiefs and ourselves,
+went down to the foot of the mountain to meet him. He was a
+gallant-looking fellow, wearing the regulation leopard-skin cloak.
+
+"Greeting!" he cried, as he came; "the king's greeting to those who
+make unholy war against the king; the lion's greeting to the jackals
+that snarl around his heels."
+
+"Speak," I said.
+
+"These are the king's words. Surrender to the king's mercy ere a worse
+thing befall you. Already the shoulder has been torn from the black
+bull, and the king drives him bleeding about the camp."[1]
+
+"What are Twala's terms?" I asked from curiosity.
+
+"His terms are merciful, worthy of a great king. These are the words of
+Twala, the one-eyed, the mighty, the husband of a thousand wives, lord
+of the Kukuanas, keeper of the Great Road (Solomon's Road), beloved of
+the Strange Ones who sit in silence at the mountains yonder (the Three
+Witches), Calf of the Black Cow, Elephant whose tread shakes the earth,
+Terror of the evil-doer, Ostrich whose feet devour the desert, huge
+One, black One, wise One, king from generation to generation! these are
+the words of Twala: 'I will have mercy and be satisfied with a little
+blood. One in every ten shall die, the rest shall go free; but the
+white man Incubu, who slew Scragga my son, and the black man his
+servant, who pretends to my throne, and Infadoos my brother, who brews
+rebellion against me, these shall die by torture as an offering to the
+Silent Ones.' Such are the merciful words of Twala."
+
+After consulting with the others a little, I answered him in a loud
+voice, so that the soldiers might hear, thus--
+
+"Go back, thou dog, to Twala, who sent thee, and say that we, Ignosi,
+veritable king of the Kukuanas, Incubu, Bougwan, and Macumazahn, the
+wise ones from the Stars, who make dark the moon, Infadoos, of the
+royal house, and the chiefs, captains, and people here gathered, make
+answer and say, 'That we will not surrender; that before the sun has
+gone down twice, Twala's corpse shall stiffen at Twala's gate, and
+Ignosi, whose father Twala slew, shall reign in his stead.' Now go, ere
+we whip thee away, and beware how thou dost lift a hand against such as
+we are."
+
+The herald laughed loudly. "Ye frighten not men with such swelling
+words," he cried out. "Show yourselves as bold to-morrow, O ye who
+darken the moon. Be bold, fight, and be merry, before the crows pick
+your bones till they are whiter than your faces. Farewell; perhaps we
+may meet in the fight; fly not to the Stars, but wait for me, I pray,
+white men." With this shaft of sarcasm he retired, and almost
+immediately the sun sank.
+
+That night was a busy one, for weary as we were, so far as was possible
+by the moonlight all preparations for the morrow's fight were
+continued, and messengers were constantly coming and going from the
+place where we sat in council. At last, about an hour after midnight,
+everything that could be done was done, and the camp, save for the
+occasional challenge of a sentry, sank into silence. Sir Henry and I,
+accompanied by Ignosi and one of the chiefs, descended the hill and
+made a round of the pickets. As we went, suddenly, from all sorts of
+unexpected places, spears gleamed out in the moonlight, only to vanish
+again when we uttered the password. It was clear to us that none were
+sleeping at their posts. Then we returned, picking our way warily
+through thousands of sleeping warriors, many of whom were taking their
+last earthly rest.
+
+The moonlight flickering along their spears, played upon their features
+and made them ghastly; the chilly night wind tossed their tall and
+hearse-like plumes. There they lay in wild confusion, with arms
+outstretched and twisted limbs; their stern, stalwart forms looking
+weird and unhuman in the moonlight.
+
+"How many of these do you suppose will be alive at this time
+to-morrow?" asked Sir Henry.
+
+I shook my head and looked again at the sleeping men, and to my tired
+and yet excited imagination it seemed as though Death had already
+touched them. My mind's eye singled out those who were sealed to
+slaughter, and there rushed in upon my heart a great sense of the
+mystery of human life, and an overwhelming sorrow at its futility and
+sadness. To-night these thousands slept their healthy sleep, to-morrow
+they, and many others with them, ourselves perhaps among them, would be
+stiffening in the cold; their wives would be widows, their children
+fatherless, and their place know them no more for ever. Only the old
+moon would shine on serenely, the night wind would stir the grasses,
+and the wide earth would take its rest, even as it did aeons before we
+were, and will do aeons after we have been forgotten.
+
+Yet man dies not whilst the world, at once his mother and his monument,
+remains. His name is lost, indeed, but the breath he breathed still
+stirs the pine-tops on the mountains, the sound of the words he spoke
+yet echoes on through space; the thoughts his brain gave birth to we
+have inherited to-day; his passions are our cause of life; the joys and
+sorrows that he knew are our familiar friends--the end from which he
+fled aghast will surely overtake us also!
+
+Truly the universe is full of ghosts, not sheeted churchyard spectres,
+but the inextinguishable elements of individual life, which having once
+been, can never _die_, though they blend and change, and change again
+for ever.
+
+
+All sorts of reflections of this nature passed through my mind--for as
+I grow older I regret to say that a detestable habit of thinking seems
+to be getting a hold of me--while I stood and stared at those grim yet
+fantastic lines of warriors, sleeping, as their saying goes, "upon
+their spears."
+
+"Curtis," I said, "I am in a condition of pitiable fear."
+
+Sir Henry stroked his yellow beard and laughed, as he answered--
+
+"I have heard you make that sort of remark before, Quatermain."
+
+"Well, I mean it now. Do you know, I very much doubt if one of us will
+be alive to-morrow night. We shall be attacked in overwhelming force,
+and it is quite a chance if we can hold this place."
+
+"We'll give a good account of some of them, at any rate. Look here,
+Quatermain, this business is nasty, and one with which, properly
+speaking, we ought not to be mixed up, but we are in for it, so we must
+make the best of our job. Speaking personally, I had rather be killed
+fighting than any other way, and now that there seems little chance of
+our finding my poor brother, it makes the idea easier to me. But
+fortune favours the brave, and we may succeed. Anyway, the battle will
+be awful, and having a reputation to keep up, we shall need to be in
+the thick of the thing."
+
+He made this last remark in a mournful voice, but there was a gleam in
+his eye which belied its melancholy. I have an idea Sir Henry Curtis
+actually likes fighting.
+
+After this we went to sleep for a couple of hours or so.
+
+Just about dawn we were awakened by Infadoos, who came to say that
+great activity was to be observed in Loo, and that parties of the
+king's skirmishers were driving in our outposts.
+
+We rose and dressed ourselves for the fray, each putting on his chain
+armour shirt, for which garments at the present juncture we felt
+exceedingly thankful. Sir Henry went the whole length about the matter,
+and dressed himself like a native warrior. "When you are in
+Kukuanaland, do as the Kukuanas do," he remarked, as he drew the
+shining steel over his broad breast, which it fitted like a glove. Nor
+did he stop there. At his request Infadoos had provided him with a
+complete set of native war uniform. Round his throat he fastened the
+leopard-skin cloak of a commanding officer, on his brows he bound the
+plume of black ostrich feathers worn only by generals of high rank, and
+about his middle a magnificent moocha of white ox-tails. A pair of
+sandals, a leglet of goat's hair, a heavy battle-axe with a
+rhinoceros-horn handle, a round iron shield covered with white ox-hide,
+and the regulation number of _tollas_, or throwing-knives, made up his
+equipment, to which, however, he added his revolver. The dress was, no
+doubt, a savage one, but I am bound to say that I seldom saw a finer
+sight than Sir Henry Curtis presented in this guise. It showed off his
+magnificent physique to the greatest advantage, and when Ignosi arrived
+presently, arrayed in a similar costume, I thought to myself that I had
+never before seen two such splendid men.
+
+As for Good and myself, the armour did not suit us nearly so well. To
+begin with, Good insisted upon keeping on his new-found trousers, and a
+stout, short gentleman with an eye-glass, and one half of his face
+shaved, arrayed in a mail shirt, carefully tucked into a very seedy
+pair of corduroys, looks more remarkable than imposing. In my case, the
+chain shirt being too big for me, I put it on over all my clothes,
+which caused it to bulge in a somewhat ungainly fashion. I discarded my
+trousers, however, retaining only my veldtschoons, having determined to
+go into battle with bare legs, in order to be the lighter for running,
+in case it became necessary to retire quickly. The mail coat, a spear,
+a shield, that I did not know how to use, a couple of _tollas_, a
+revolver, and a huge plume, which I pinned into the top of my shooting
+hat, in order to give a bloodthirsty finish to my appearance, completed
+my modest equipment. In addition to all these articles, of course we
+had our rifles, but as ammunition was scarce, and as they would be
+useless in case of a charge, we arranged that they should be carried
+behind us by bearers.
+
+When at length we had equipped ourselves, we swallowed some food
+hastily, and then started out to see how things were going on. At one
+point in the table-land of the mountain, there was a little koppie of
+brown stone, which served the double purpose of head-quarters and of a
+conning tower. Here we found Infadoos surrounded by his own regiment,
+the Greys, which was undoubtedly the finest in the Kukuana army, and
+the same that we had first seen at the outlying kraal. This regiment,
+now three thousand five hundred strong, was being held in reserve, and
+the men were lying down on the grass in companies, and watching the
+king's forces creep out of Loo in long ant-like columns. There seemed
+to be no end to the length of these columns--three in all, and each of
+them numbering, as we judged, at least eleven or twelve thousand men.
+
+As soon as they were clear of the town the regiments formed up. Then
+one body marched off to the right, one to the left, and the third came
+on slowly towards us.
+
+"Ah," said Infadoos, "they are going to attack us on three sides at
+once."
+
+This seemed rather serious news, for our position on the top of the
+mountain, which measured a mile and a half in circumference, being an
+extended one, it was important to us to concentrate our comparatively
+small defending force as much as possible. But since it was impossible
+for us to dictate in what way we should be assailed, we had to make the
+best of it, and accordingly sent orders to the various regiments to
+prepare to receive the separate onslaughts.
+
+
+[1] This cruel custom is not confined to the Kukuanas, but is by no
+means uncommon amongst African tribes on the occasion of the outbreak
+of war or any other important public event.--A.Q.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE ATTACK
+
+Slowly, and without the slightest appearance of haste or excitement,
+the three columns crept on. When within about five hundred yards of us,
+the main or centre column halted at the root of a tongue of open plain
+which ran up into the hill, to give time to the other divisions to
+circumvent our position, which was shaped more or less in the form of a
+horse-shoe, with its two points facing towards the town of Loo. The
+object of this manoeuvre was that the threefold assault should be
+delivered simultaneously.
+
+"Oh, for a gatling!" groaned Good, as he contemplated the serried
+phalanxes beneath us. "I would clear that plain in twenty minutes."
+
+"We have not got one, so it is no use yearning for it; but suppose you
+try a shot, Quatermain," said Sir Henry. "See how near you can go to
+that tall fellow who appears to be in command. Two to one you miss him,
+and an even sovereign, to be honestly paid if ever we get out of this,
+that you don't drop the bullet within five yards."
+
+
+This piqued me, so, loading the express with solid ball, I waited till
+my friend walked some ten yards out from his force, in order to get a
+better view of our position, accompanied only by an orderly; then,
+lying down and resting the express on a rock, I covered him. The rifle,
+like all expresses, was only sighted to three hundred and fifty yards,
+so to allow for the drop in trajectory I took him half-way down the
+neck, which ought, I calculated, to find him in the chest. He stood
+quite still and gave me every opportunity, but whether it was the
+excitement or the wind, or the fact of the man being a long shot, I
+don't know, but this was what happened. Getting dead on, as I thought,
+a fine sight, I pressed, and when the puff of smoke had cleared away,
+to my disgust, I saw my man standing there unharmed, whilst his
+orderly, who was at least three paces to the left, was stretched upon
+the ground apparently dead. Turning swiftly, the officer I had aimed at
+began to run towards his men in evident alarm.
+
+"Bravo, Quatermain!" sang out Good; "you've frightened him."
+
+This made me very angry, for, if possible to avoid it, I hate to miss
+in public. When a man is master of only one art he likes to keep up his
+reputation in that art. Moved quite out of myself at my failure, I did
+a rash thing. Rapidly covering the general as he ran, I let drive with
+the second barrel. Instantly the poor man threw up his arms, and fell
+forward on to his face. This time I had made no mistake; and--I say it
+as a proof of how little we think of others when our own safety, pride,
+or reputation is in question--I was brute enough to feel delighted at
+the sight.
+
+The regiments who had seen the feat cheered wildly at this exhibition
+of the white man's magic, which they took as an omen of success, while
+the force the general had belonged to--which, indeed, as we ascertained
+afterwards, he had commanded--fell back in confusion. Sir Henry and
+Good now took up their rifles and began to fire, the latter
+industriously "browning" the dense mass before him with another
+Winchester repeater, and I also had another shot or two, with the
+result, so far as we could judge, that we put some six or eight men
+_hors de combat_ before they were out of range.
+
+Just as we stopped firing there came an ominous roar from our far
+right, then a similar roar rose on our left. The two other divisions
+were engaging us.
+
+At the sound, the mass of men before us opened out a little, and
+advanced towards the hill and up the spit of bare grass land at a slow
+trot, singing a deep-throated song as they ran. We kept up a steady
+fire from our rifles as they came, Ignosi joining in occasionally, and
+accounted for several men, but of course we produced no more effect
+upon that mighty rush of armed humanity than he who throws pebbles does
+on the breaking wave.
+
+On they came, with a shout and the clashing of spears; now they were
+driving in the pickets we had placed among the rocks at the foot of the
+hill. After that the advance was a little slower, for though as yet we
+had offered no serious opposition, the attacking forces must climb up
+hill, and they came slowly to save their breath. Our first line of
+defence was about half-way down the side of the slope, our second fifty
+yards further back, while our third occupied the edge of the plateau.
+
+On they stormed, shouting their war-cry, "_Twala! Twala! Chiele!
+Chiele!_" (Twala! Twala! Smite! Smite!) "_Ignosi! Ignosi! Chiele!
+Chiele!_" answered our people. They were quite close now, and the
+_tollas_, or throwing-knives, began to flash backwards and forwards,
+and now with an awful yell the battle closed in.
+
+To and fro swayed the mass of struggling warriors, men falling fast as
+leaves in an autumn wind; but before long the superior weight of the
+attacking force began to tell, and our first line of defence was slowly
+pressed back till it merged into the second. Here the struggle was very
+fierce, but again our people were driven back and up, till at length,
+within twenty minutes of the commencement of the fight, our third line
+came into action.
+
+But by this time the assailants were much exhausted, and besides had
+lost many men killed and wounded, and to break through that third
+impenetrable hedge of spears proved beyond their powers. For a while
+the seething lines of savages swung backwards and forwards, in the
+fierce ebb and flow of battle, and the issue was doubtful. Sir Henry
+watched the desperate struggle with a kindling eye, and then without a
+word he rushed off, followed by Good, and flung himself into the
+hottest of the fray. As for myself, I stopped where I was.
+
+The soldiers caught sight of his tall form as he plunged into battle,
+and there rose a cry of--
+
+"_Nanzia Incubu! Nanzia Unkungunklovo!_" (Here is the Elephant!)
+"_Chiele! Chiele!_"
+
+From that moment the end was no longer in doubt. Inch by inch, fighting
+with splendid gallantry, the attacking force was pressed back down the
+hillside, till at last it retreated upon its reserves in something like
+confusion. At that instant, too, a messenger arrived to say that the
+left attack had been repulsed; and I was just beginning to congratulate
+myself, believing that the affair was over for the present, when, to
+our horror, we perceived our men who had been engaged in the right
+defence being driven towards us across the plain, followed by swarms of
+the enemy, who had evidently succeeded at this point.
+
+Ignosi, who was standing by me, took in the situation at a glance, and
+issued a rapid order. Instantly the reserve regiment around us, the
+Greys, extended itself.
+
+Again Ignosi gave a word of command, which was taken up and repeated by
+the captains, and in another second, to my intense disgust, I found
+myself involved in a furious onslaught upon the advancing foe. Getting
+as much as I could behind Ignosi's huge frame, I made the best of a bad
+job, and toddled along to be killed as though I liked it. In a minute
+or two--we were plunging through the flying groups of our men, who at
+once began to re-form behind us, and then I am sure I do not know what
+happened. All I can remember is a dreadful rolling noise of the meeting
+of shields, and the sudden apparition of a huge ruffian, whose eyes
+seemed literally to be starting out of his head, making straight at me
+with a bloody spear. But--I say it with pride--I rose--or rather
+sank--to the occasion. It was one before which most people would have
+collapsed once and for all. Seeing that if I stood where I was I must
+be killed, as the horrid apparition came I flung myself down in front
+of him so cleverly that, being unable to stop himself, he took a header
+right over my prostrate form. Before he could rise again, _I_ had risen
+and settled the matter from behind with my revolver.
+
+Shortly after this somebody knocked me down, and I remember no more of
+that charge.
+
+When I came to I found myself back at the koppie, with Good bending
+over me holding some water in a gourd.
+
+"How do you feel, old fellow?" he asked anxiously.
+
+I got up and shook myself before replying.
+
+"Pretty well, thank you," I answered.
+
+"Thank Heaven! When I saw them carry you in, I felt quite sick; I
+thought you were done for."
+
+"Not this time, my boy. I fancy I only got a rap on the head, which
+knocked me stupid. How has it ended?"
+
+"They are repulsed at every point for a while. The loss is dreadfully
+heavy; we have quite two thousand killed and wounded, and they must
+have lost three. Look, there's a sight!" and he pointed to long lines
+of men advancing by fours.
+
+In the centre of every group of four, and being borne by it, was a kind
+of hide tray, of which a Kukuana force always carries a quantity, with
+a loop for a handle at each corner. On these trays--and their number
+seemed endless--lay wounded men, who as they arrived were hastily
+examined by the medicine men, of whom ten were attached to a regiment.
+If the wound was not of a fatal character the sufferer was taken away
+and attended to as carefully as circumstances would allow. But if, on
+the other hand, the injured man's condition proved hopeless, what
+followed was very dreadful, though doubtless it may have been the
+truest mercy. One of the doctors, under pretence of carrying out an
+examination, swiftly opened an artery with a sharp knife, and in a
+minute or two the sufferer expired painlessly. There were many cases
+that day in which this was done. In fact, it was done in the majority
+of cases when the wound was in the body, for the gash made by the entry
+of the enormously broad spears used by the Kukuanas generally rendered
+recovery impossible. In most instances the poor sufferers were already
+unconscious, and in others the fatal "nick" of the artery was inflicted
+so swiftly and painlessly that they did not seem to notice it. Still it
+was a ghastly sight, and one from which we were glad to escape; indeed,
+I never remember anything of the kind that affected me more than seeing
+those gallant soldiers thus put out of pain by the red-handed medicine
+men, except, indeed, on one occasion when, after an attack, I saw a
+force of Swazis burying their hopelessly wounded _alive_.
+
+Hurrying from this dreadful scene to the further side of the koppie, we
+found Sir Henry, who still held a battle-axe in his hand, Ignosi,
+Infadoos, and one or two of the chiefs in deep consultation.
+
+"Thank Heaven, here you are, Quatermain! I can't quite make out what
+Ignosi wants to do. It seems that though we have beaten off the attack,
+Twala is now receiving large reinforcements, and is showing a
+disposition to invest us, with the view of starving us out."
+
+"That's awkward."
+
+"Yes; especially as Infadoos says that the water supply has given out."
+
+"My lord, that is so," said Infadoos; "the spring cannot supply the
+wants of so great a multitude, and it is failing rapidly. Before night
+we shall all be thirsty. Listen, Macumazahn. Thou art wise, and hast
+doubtless seen many wars in the lands from whence thou camest--that is
+if indeed they make wars in the Stars. Now tell us, what shall we do?
+Twala has brought up many fresh men to take the place of those who have
+fallen. Yet Twala has learnt his lesson; the hawk did not think to find
+the heron ready; but our beak has pierced his breast; he fears to
+strike at us again. We too are wounded, and he will wait for us to die;
+he will wind himself round us like a snake round a buck, and fight the
+fight of 'sit down.'"
+
+"I hear thee," I said.
+
+"So, Macumazahn, thou seest we have no water here, and but a little
+food, and we must choose between these three things--to languish like a
+starving lion in his den, or to strive to break away towards the north,
+or"--and here he rose and pointed towards the dense mass of our
+foes--"to launch ourselves straight at Twala's throat. Incubu, the
+great warrior--for to-day he fought like a buffalo in a net, and
+Twala's soldiers went down before his axe like young corn before the
+hail; with these eyes I saw it--Incubu says 'Charge'; but the Elephant
+is ever prone to charge. Now what says Macumazahn, the wily old fox,
+who has seen much, and loves to bite his enemy from behind? The last
+word is in Ignosi the king, for it is a king's right to speak of war;
+but let us hear thy voice, O Macumazahn, who watchest by night, and the
+voice too of him of the transparent eye."
+
+"What sayest thou, Ignosi," I asked.
+
+"Nay, my father," answered our quondam servant, who now, clad as he was
+in the full panoply of savage war, looked every inch a warrior king,
+"do thou speak, and let me, who am but a child in wisdom beside thee,
+hearken to thy words."
+
+Thus adjured, after taking hasty counsel with Good and Sir Henry, I
+delivered my opinion briefly to the effect that, being trapped, our
+best chance, especially in view of the failure of our water supply, was
+to initiate an attack upon Twala's forces. Then I recommended that the
+attack should be delivered at once, "before our wounds grew stiff," and
+also before the sight of Twala's overpowering force caused the hearts
+of our soldiers "to wax small like fat before a fire." Otherwise, I
+pointed out, some of the captains might change their minds, and, making
+peace with Twala, desert to him, or even betray us into his hands.
+
+This expression of opinion seemed, on the whole, to be favourably
+received; indeed, among the Kukuanas my utterances met with a respect
+which has never been accorded to them before or since. But the real
+decision as to our plans lay with Ignosi, who, since he had been
+recognised as rightful king, could exercise the almost unbounded rights
+of sovereignty, including, of course, the final decision on matters of
+generalship, and it was to him that all eyes were now turned.
+
+At length, after a pause, during which he appeared to be thinking
+deeply, he spoke.
+
+"Incubu, Macumazahn, and Bougwan, brave white men, and my friends;
+Infadoos, my uncle, and chiefs; my heart is fixed. I will strike at
+Twala this day, and set my fortunes on the blow, ay, and my life--my
+life and your lives also. Listen; thus will I strike. Ye see how the
+hill curves round like the half-moon, and how the plain runs like a
+green tongue towards us within the curve?"
+
+"We see," I answered.
+
+"Good; it is now mid-day, and the men eat and rest after the toil of
+battle. When the sun has turned and travelled a little way towards the
+darkness, let thy regiment, my uncle, advance with one other down to
+the green tongue, and it shall be that when Twala sees it he will hurl
+his force at it to crush it. But the spot is narrow, and the regiments
+can come against thee one at a time only; so may they be destroyed one
+by one, and the eyes of all Twala's army shall be fixed upon a struggle
+the like of which has not been seen by living man. And with thee, my
+uncle, shall go Incubu my friend, that when Twala sees his battle-axe
+flashing in the first rank of the Greys his heart may grow faint. And I
+will come with the second regiment, that which follows thee, so that if
+ye are destroyed, as it might happen, there may yet be a king left to
+fight for; and with me shall come Macumazahn the wise."
+
+"It is well, O king," said Infadoos, apparently contemplating the
+certainty of the complete annihilation of his regiment with perfect
+calmness. Truly, these Kukuanas are a wonderful people. Death has no
+terrors for them when it is incurred in the course of duty.
+
+"And whilst the eyes of the multitude of Twala's soldiers are thus
+fixed upon the fight," went on Ignosi, "behold, one-third of the men
+who are left alive to us (i.e. about 6,000) shall creep along the right
+horn of the hill and fall upon the left flank of Twala's force, and
+one-third shall creep along the left horn and fall upon Twala's right
+flank. And when I see that the horns are ready to toss Twala, then will
+I, with the men who remain to me, charge home in Twala's face, and if
+fortune goes with us the day will be ours, and before Night drives her
+black oxen from the mountains to the mountains we shall sit in peace at
+Loo. And now let us eat and make ready; and, Infadoos, do thou prepare,
+that the plan be carried out without fail; and stay, let my white
+father Bougwan go with the right horn, that his shining eye may give
+courage to the captains."
+
+The arrangements for attack thus briefly indicated were set in motion
+with a rapidity that spoke well for the perfection of the Kukuana
+military system. Within little more than an hour rations had been
+served out and devoured, the divisions were formed, the scheme of
+onslaught was explained to the leaders, and the whole force, numbering
+about 18,000 men, was ready to move, with the exception of a guard left
+in charge of the wounded.
+
+Presently Good came up to Sir Henry and myself.
+
+"Good-bye, you fellows," he said; "I am off with the right wing
+according to orders; and so I have come to shake hands, in case we
+should not meet again, you know," he added significantly.
+
+We shook hands in silence, and not without the exhibition of as much
+emotion as Anglo-Saxons are wont to show.
+
+"It is a queer business," said Sir Henry, his deep voice shaking a
+little, "and I confess I never expect to see to-morrow's sun. So far as
+I can make out, the Greys, with whom I am to go, are to fight until
+they are wiped out in order to enable the wings to slip round unawares
+and outflank Twala. Well, so be it; at any rate, it will be a man's
+death. Good-bye, old fellow. God bless you! I hope you will pull
+through and live to collar the diamonds; but if you do, take my advice
+and don't have anything more to do with Pretenders!"
+
+In another second Good had wrung us both by the hand and gone; and then
+Infadoos came up and led off Sir Henry to his place in the forefront of
+the Greys, whilst, with many misgivings, I departed with Ignosi to my
+station in the second attacking regiment.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE LAST STAND OF THE GREYS
+
+In a few more minutes the regiments destined to carry out the flanking
+movements had tramped off in silence, keeping carefully to the lee of
+the rising ground in order to conceal their advance from the keen eyes
+of Twala's scouts.
+
+Half an hour or more was allowed to elapse between the setting out of
+the horns or wings of the army before any stir was made by the Greys
+and their supporting regiment, known as the Buffaloes, which formed its
+chest, and were destined to bear the brunt of the battle.
+
+Both of these regiments were almost perfectly fresh, and of full
+strength, the Greys having been in reserve in the morning, and having
+lost but a small number of men in sweeping back that part of the attack
+which had proved successful in breaking the line of defence, on the
+occasion when I charged with them and was stunned for my pains. As for
+the Buffaloes, they had formed the third line of defence on the left,
+and since the attacking force at that point had not succeeded in
+breaking through the second, they had scarcely come into action at all.
+
+Infadoos, who was a wary old general, and knew the absolute importance
+of keeping up the spirits of his men on the eve of such a desperate
+encounter, employed the pause in addressing his own regiment, the
+Greys, in poetical language: explaining to them the honour that they
+were receiving in being put thus in the forefront of the battle, and in
+having the great white warrior from the Stars to fight with them in
+their ranks; and promising large rewards of cattle and promotion to all
+who survived in the event of Ignosi's arms being successful.
+
+I looked down the long lines of waving black plumes and stern faces
+beneath them, and sighed to think that within one short hour most, if
+not all, of those magnificent veteran warriors, not a man of whom was
+under forty years of age, would be laid dead or dying in the dust. It
+could not be otherwise; they were being condemned, with that wise
+recklessness of human life which marks the great general, and often
+saves his forces and attains his ends, to certain slaughter, in order
+to give their cause and the remainder of the army a chance of success.
+They were foredoomed to die, and they knew the truth. It was to be
+their task to engage regiment after regiment of Twala's army on the
+narrow strip of green beneath us, till they were exterminated or till
+the wings found a favourable opportunity for their onslaught. And yet
+they never hesitated, nor could I detect a sign of fear upon the face
+of a single warrior. There they were--going to certain death, about to
+quit the blessed light of day for ever, and yet able to contemplate
+their doom without a tremor. Even at that moment I could not help
+contrasting their state of mind with my own, which was far from
+comfortable, and breathing a sigh of envy and admiration. Never before
+had I seen such an absolute devotion to the idea of duty, and such a
+complete indifference to its bitter fruits.
+
+"Behold your king!" ended old Infadoos, pointing to Ignosi; "go fight
+and fall for him, as is the duty of brave men, and cursed and shameful
+for ever be the name of him who shrinks from death for his king, or who
+turns his back to the foe. Behold your king, chiefs, captains, and
+soldiers! Now do your homage to the sacred Snake, and then follow on,
+that Incubu and I may show you a road to the heart of Twala's host."
+
+There was a moment's pause, then suddenly a murmur arose from the
+serried phalanxes before us, a sound like the distant whisper of the
+sea, caused by the gentle tapping of the handles of six thousand spears
+against their holders' shields. Slowly it swelled, till its growing
+volume deepened and widened into a roar of rolling noise, that echoed
+like thunder against the mountains, and filled the air with heavy waves
+of sound. Then it decreased, and by faint degrees died away into
+nothing, and suddenly out crashed the royal salute.
+
+Ignosi, I thought to myself, might well be a proud man that day, for no
+Roman emperor ever had such a salutation from gladiators "about to die."
+
+Ignosi acknowledged this magnificent act of homage by lifting his
+battle-axe, and then the Greys filed off in a triple-line formation,
+each line containing about one thousand fighting men, exclusive of
+officers. When the last companies had advanced some five hundred yards,
+Ignosi put himself at the head of the Buffaloes, which regiment was
+drawn up in a similar three-fold formation, and gave the word to march,
+and off we went, I, needless to say, uttering the most heartfelt
+prayers that I might emerge from that entertainment with a whole skin.
+Many a queer position have I found myself in, but never before in one
+quite so unpleasant as the present, or one in which my chance of coming
+off safe was smaller.
+
+By the time that we reached the edge of the plateau the Greys were
+already half-way down the slope ending in the tongue of grass land that
+ran up into the bend of the mountain, something as the frog of a
+horse's foot runs up into the shoe. The excitement in Twala's camp on
+the plain beyond was very great, and regiment after regiment was
+starting forward at a long swinging trot in order to reach the root of
+the tongue of land before the attacking force could emerge into the
+plain of Loo.
+
+This tongue, which was some four hundred yards in depth, even at its
+root or widest part was not more than six hundred and fifty paces
+across, while at its tip it scarcely measured ninety. The Greys, who,
+in passing down the side of the hill and on to the tip of the tongue,
+had formed into a column, on reaching the spot where it broadened out
+again, reassumed their triple-line formation, and halted dead.
+
+Then we--that is, the Buffaloes--moved down the tip of the tongue and
+took our stand in reserve, about one hundred yards behind the last line
+of the Greys, and on slightly higher ground. Meanwhile we had leisure
+to observe Twala's entire force, which evidently had been reinforced
+since the morning attack, and could not now, notwithstanding their
+losses, number less than forty thousand, moving swiftly up towards us.
+But as they drew near the root of the tongue they hesitated, having
+discovered that only one regiment could advance into the gorge at a
+time, and that there, some seventy yards from the mouth of it,
+unassailable except in front, on account of the high walls of
+boulder-strewn ground on each side, stood the famous regiment of Greys,
+the pride and glory of the Kukuana army, ready to hold the way against
+their power as the three Romans once held the bridge against thousands.
+
+They hesitated, and finally stopped their advance; there was no
+eagerness to cross spears with these three grim ranks of warriors who
+stood so firm and ready. Presently, however, a tall general, wearing
+the customary head-dress of nodding ostrich plumes, appeared, attended
+by a group of chiefs and orderlies, being, I thought, none other than
+Twala himself. He gave an order, and the first regiment, raising a
+shout, charged up towards the Greys, who remained perfectly still and
+silent till the attacking troops were within forty yards, and a volley
+of _tollas_, or throwing-knives, came rattling among their ranks.
+
+Then suddenly with a bound and a roar, they sprang forward with
+uplifted spears, and the regiment met in deadly strife. Next second the
+roll of the meeting shields came to our ears like the sound of thunder,
+and the plain seemed to be alive with flashes of light reflected from
+the shimmering spears. To and fro swung the surging mass of struggling,
+stabbing humanity, but not for long. Suddenly the attacking lines began
+to grow thinner, and then with a slow, long heave the Greys passed over
+them, just as a great wave heaves up its bulk and passes over a sunken
+ridge. It was done; that regiment was completely destroyed, but the
+Greys had but two lines left now; a third of their number were dead.
+
+Closing up shoulder to shoulder, once more they halted in silence and
+awaited attack; and I was rejoiced to catch sight of Sir Henry's yellow
+beard as he moved to and fro arranging the ranks. So he was yet alive!
+
+Meanwhile we moved on to the ground of the encounter, which was
+cumbered by about four thousand prostrate human beings, dead, dying,
+and wounded, and literally stained red with blood. Ignosi issued an
+order, which was rapidly passed down the ranks, to the effect that none
+of the enemy's wounded were to be killed, and so far as we could see
+this command was scrupulously carried out. It would have been a
+shocking sight, if we had found time to think of such things.
+
+But now a second regiment, distinguished by white plumes, kilts, and
+shields, was moving to the attack of the two thousand remaining Greys,
+who stood waiting in the same ominous silence as before, till the foe
+was within forty yards or so, when they hurled themselves with
+irresistible force upon them. Again there came the awful roll of the
+meeting shields, and as we watched the tragedy repeated itself.
+
+But this time the issue was left longer in doubt; indeed, it seemed for
+awhile almost impossible that the Greys should again prevail. The
+attacking regiment, which was formed of young men, fought with the
+utmost fury, and at first seemed by sheer weight to be driving the
+veterans back. The slaughter was truly awful, hundreds falling every
+minute; and from among the shouts of the warriors and the groans of the
+dying, set to the music of clashing spears, came a continuous hissing
+undertone of "_S'gee, s'gee_," the note of triumph of each victor as he
+passed his assegai through and through the body of his fallen foe.
+
+But perfect discipline and steady and unchanging valour can do wonders,
+and one veteran soldier is worth two young ones, as soon became
+apparent in the present case. For just when we thought that it was all
+over with the Greys, and were preparing to take their place so soon as
+they made room by being destroyed, I heard Sir Henry's deep voice
+ringing out through the din, and caught a glimpse of his circling
+battle-axe as he waved it high above his plumes. Then came a change;
+the Greys ceased to give; they stood still as a rock, against which the
+furious waves of spearmen broke again and again, only to recoil.
+Presently they began to move once more--forward this time; as they had
+no firearms there was no smoke, so we could see it all. Another minute
+and the onslaught grew fainter.
+
+"Ah, these are _men_, indeed; they will conquer again," called out
+Ignosi, who was grinding his teeth with excitement at my side. "See, it
+is done!"
+
+Suddenly, like puffs of smoke from the mouth of a cannon, the attacking
+regiment broke away in flying groups, their white head-dresses
+streaming behind them in the wind, and left their opponents victors,
+indeed, but, alas! no more a regiment. Of the gallant triple line,
+which forty minutes before had gone into action three thousand strong,
+there remained at most some six hundred blood-spattered men; the rest
+were under foot. And yet they cheered and waved their spears in
+triumph, and then, instead of falling back upon us as we expected, they
+ran forward, for a hundred yards or so, after the flying groups of
+foemen, took possession of a rising knoll of ground, and, resuming
+their triple formation, formed a threefold ring around its base. And
+there, thanks be to Heaven, standing on the top of the mound for a
+minute, I saw Sir Henry, apparently unharmed, and with him our old
+friend Infadoos. Then Twala's regiments rolled down upon the doomed
+band, and once more the battle closed in.
+
+As those who read this history will probably long ago have gathered, I
+am, to be honest, a bit of a coward, and certainly in no way given to
+fighting, though somehow it has often been my lot to get into
+unpleasant positions, and to be obliged to shed man's blood. But I have
+always hated it, and kept my own blood as undiminished in quantity as
+possible, sometimes by a judicious use of my heels. At this moment,
+however, for the first time in my life, I felt my bosom burn with
+martial ardour. Warlike fragments from the "Ingoldsby Legends,"
+together with numbers of sanguinary verses in the Old Testament, sprang
+up in my brain like mushrooms in the dark; my blood, which hitherto had
+been half-frozen with horror, went beating through my veins, and there
+came upon me a savage desire to kill and spare not. I glanced round at
+the serried ranks of warriors behind us, and somehow, all in an
+instant, I began to wonder if my face looked like theirs. There they
+stood, the hands twitching, the lips apart, the fierce features
+instinct with the hungry lust of battle, and in the eyes a look like
+the glare of a bloodhound when after long pursuit he sights his quarry.
+
+Only Ignosi's heart, to judge from his comparative self-possession,
+seemed, to all appearances, to beat as calmly as ever beneath his
+leopard-skin cloak, though even _he_ still ground his teeth. I could
+bear it no longer.
+
+"Are we to stand here till we put out roots, Umbopa--Ignosi, I
+mean--while Twala swallows our brothers yonder?" I asked.
+
+"Nay, Macumazahn," was the answer; "see, now is the ripe moment: let us
+pluck it."
+
+As he spoke a fresh regiment rushed past the ring upon the little
+mound, and wheeling round, attacked it from the hither side.
+
+Then, lifting his battle-axe, Ignosi gave the signal to advance, and,
+screaming the wild Kukuana war-cry, the Buffaloes charged home with a
+rush like the rush of the sea.
+
+What followed immediately on this it is out of my power to tell. All I
+can remember is an irregular yet ordered advance, that seemed to shake
+the ground; a sudden change of front and forming up on the part of the
+regiment against which the charge was directed; then an awful shock, a
+dull roar of voices, and a continuous flashing of spears, seen through
+a red mist of blood.
+
+When my mind cleared I found myself standing inside the remnant of the
+Greys near the top of the mound, and just behind no less a person than
+Sir Henry himself. How I got there I had at the moment no idea, but Sir
+Henry afterwards told me that I was borne up by the first furious
+charge of the Buffaloes almost to his feet, and then left, as they in
+turn were pressed back. Thereon he dashed out of the circle and dragged
+me into shelter.
+
+As for the fight that followed, who can describe it? Again and again
+the multitudes surged against our momentarily lessening circle, and
+again and again we beat them back.
+
+ "The stubborn spearmen still made good
+  The dark impenetrable wood,
+  Each stepping where his comrade stood
+    The instant that he fell,"
+
+as someone or other beautifully says.
+
+It was a splendid thing to see those brave battalions come on time
+after time over the barriers of their dead, sometimes lifting corpses
+before them to receive our spear-thrusts, only to leave their own
+corpses to swell the rising piles. It was a gallant sight to see that
+old warrior, Infadoos, as cool as though he were on parade, shouting
+out orders, taunts, and even jests, to keep up the spirit of his few
+remaining men, and then, as each charge rolled on, stepping forward to
+wherever the fighting was thickest, to bear his share in its repulse.
+And yet more gallant was the vision of Sir Henry, whose ostrich plumes
+had been shorn off by a spear thrust, so that his long yellow hair
+streamed out in the breeze behind him. There he stood, the great Dane,
+for he was nothing else, his hands, his axe, and his armour all red
+with blood, and none could live before his stroke. Time after time I
+saw it sweeping down, as some great warrior ventured to give him
+battle, and as he struck he shouted "_O-hoy! O-hoy!_" like his
+Berserkir forefathers, and the blow went crashing through shield and
+spear, through head-dress, hair, and skull, till at last none would of
+their own will come near the great white "_umtagati_," the wizard, who
+killed and failed not.
+
+But suddenly there rose a cry of "_Twala, y' Twala_," and out of the
+press sprang forward none other than the gigantic one-eyed king
+himself, also armed with battle-axe and shield, and clad in chain
+armour.
+
+"Where art thou, Incubu, thou white man, who slewest Scragga my
+son--see if thou canst slay me!" he shouted, and at the same time
+hurled a _tolla_ straight at Sir Henry, who fortunately saw it coming,
+and caught it on his shield, which it transfixed, remaining wedged in
+the iron plate behind the hide.
+
+Then, with a cry, Twala sprang forward straight at him, and with his
+battle-axe struck him such a blow upon the shield that the mere force
+and shock of it brought Sir Henry, strong man as he is, down upon his
+knees.
+
+But at this time the matter went no further, for that instant there
+rose from the regiments pressing round us something like a shout of
+dismay, and on looking up I saw the cause.
+
+To the right and to the left the plain was alive with the plumes of
+charging warriors. The outflanking squadrons had come to our relief.
+The time could not have been better chosen. All Twala's army, as Ignosi
+predicted would be the case, had fixed their attention on the bloody
+struggle which was raging round the remnant of the Greys and that of
+the Buffaloes, who were now carrying on a battle of their own at a
+little distance, which two regiments had formed the chest of our army.
+It was not until our horns were about to close upon them that they had
+dreamed of their approach, for they believed these forces to be hidden
+in reserve upon the crest of the moon-shaped hill. And now, before they
+could even assume a proper formation for defence, the outflanking
+_Impis_ had leapt, like greyhounds, on their flanks.
+
+In five minutes the fate of the battle was decided. Taken on both
+flanks, and dismayed at the awful slaughter inflicted upon them by the
+Greys and Buffaloes, Twala's regiments broke into flight, and soon the
+whole plain between us and Loo was scattered with groups of running
+soldiers making good their retreat. As for the hosts that had so
+recently surrounded us and the Buffaloes, they melted away as though by
+magic, and presently we were left standing there like a rock from which
+the sea has retreated. But what a sight it was! Around us the dead and
+dying lay in heaped-up masses, and of the gallant Greys there remained
+but ninety-five men upon their feet. More than three thousand four
+hundred had fallen in this one regiment, most of them never to rise
+again.
+
+"Men," said Infadoos calmly, as between the intervals of binding a
+wound on his arm he surveyed what remained to him of his corps, "ye
+have kept up the reputation of your regiment, and this day's fighting
+will be well spoken of by your children's children." Then he turned
+round and shook Sir Henry Curtis by the hand. "Thou art a great
+captain, Incubu," he said simply; "I have lived a long life among
+warriors, and have known many a brave one, yet have I never seen a man
+like unto thee."
+
+At this moment the Buffaloes began to march past our position on the
+road to Loo, and as they went a message was brought to us from Ignosi
+requesting Infadoos, Sir Henry, and myself to join them. Accordingly,
+orders having been issued to the remaining ninety men of the Greys to
+employ themselves in collecting the wounded, we joined Ignosi, who
+informed us that he was pressing on to Loo to complete the victory by
+capturing Twala, if that should be possible. Before we had gone far,
+suddenly we discovered the figure of Good sitting on an ant-heap about
+one hundred paces from us. Close beside him was the body of a Kukuana.
+
+"He must be wounded," said Sir Henry anxiously. As he made the remark,
+an untoward thing happened. The dead body of the Kukuana soldier, or
+rather what had appeared to be his dead body, suddenly sprang up,
+knocked Good head over heels off the ant-heap, and began to spear him.
+We rushed forward in terror, and as we drew near we saw the brawny
+warrior making dig after dig at the prostrate Good, who at each prod
+jerked all his limbs into the air. Seeing us coming, the Kukuana gave
+one final and most vicious dig, and with a shout of "Take that,
+wizard!" bolted away. Good did not move, and we concluded that our poor
+comrade was done for. Sadly we came towards him, and were astonished to
+find him pale and faint indeed, but with a serene smile upon his face,
+and his eyeglass still fixed in his eye.
+
+"Capital armour this," he murmured, on catching sight of our faces
+bending over him. "How sold that beggar must have been," and then he
+fainted. On examination we discovered that he had been seriously
+wounded in the leg by a _tolla_ in the course of the pursuit, but that
+the chain armour had prevented his last assailant's spear from doing
+anything more than bruise him badly. It was a merciful escape. As
+nothing could be done for him at the moment, he was placed on one of
+the wicker shields used for the wounded, and carried along with us.
+
+On arriving before the nearest gate of Loo we found one of our
+regiments watching it in obedience to orders received from Ignosi. The
+other regiments were in the same way guarding the different exits to
+the town. The officer in command of this regiment saluted Ignosi as
+king, and informed him that Twala's army had taken refuge in the town,
+whither Twala himself had also escaped, but he thought that they were
+thoroughly demoralised, and would surrender. Thereupon Ignosi, after
+taking counsel with us, sent forward heralds to each gate ordering the
+defenders to open, and promising on his royal word life and forgiveness
+to every soldier who laid down his arms, but saying that if they did
+not do so before nightfall he would certainly burn the town and all
+within its gates. This message was not without its effect. Half an hour
+later, amid the shouts and cheers of the Buffaloes, the bridge was
+dropped across the fosse, and the gates upon the further side were
+flung open.
+
+Taking due precautions against treachery, we marched on into the town.
+All along the roadways stood thousands of dejected warriors, their
+heads drooping, and their shields and spears at their feet, who, headed
+by their officers, saluted Ignosi as king as he passed. On we marched,
+straight to Twala's kraal. When we reached the great space, where a day
+or two previously we had seen the review and the witch hunt, we found
+it deserted. No, not quite deserted, for there, on the further side, in
+front of his hut, sat Twala himself, with but one attendant--Gagool.
+
+It was a melancholy sight to see him seated, his battle-axe and shield
+by his side, his chin upon his mailed breast, with but one old crone
+for companion, and notwithstanding his crimes and misdeeds, a pang of
+compassion shot through me as I looked upon Twala thus "fallen from his
+high estate." Not a soldier of all his armies, not a courtier out of
+the hundreds who had cringed round him, not even a solitary wife,
+remained to share his fate or halve the bitterness of his fall. Poor
+savage! he was learning the lesson which Fate teaches to most of us who
+live long enough, that the eyes of mankind are blind to the
+discredited, and that he who is defenceless and fallen finds few
+friends and little mercy. Nor, indeed, in this case did he deserve any.
+
+Filing through the kraal gate, we marched across the open space to
+where the ex-king sat. When within about fifty yards of him the
+regiment was halted, and accompanied only by a small guard we advanced
+towards him, Gagool reviling us bitterly as we came. As we drew near,
+Twala, for the first time, lifted his plumed head, and fixed his one
+eye, which seemed to flash with suppressed fury almost as brightly as
+the great diamond bound round his forehead, upon his successful
+rival--Ignosi.
+
+"Hail, O king!" he said, with bitter mockery; "thou who hast eaten of
+my bread, and now by the aid of the white man's magic hast seduced my
+regiments and defeated mine army, hail! What fate hast thou in store
+for me, O king?"
+
+"The fate thou gavest to my father, whose throne thou hast sat on these
+many years!" was the stern answer.
+
+"It is good. I will show thee how to die, that thou mayest remember it
+against thine own time. See, the sun sinks in blood," and he pointed
+with his battle-axe towards the setting orb; "it is well that my sun
+should go down in its company. And now, O king! I am ready to die, but
+I crave the boon of the Kukuana royal House[1] to die fighting. Thou
+canst not refuse it, or even those cowards who fled to-day will hold thee
+shamed."
+
+"It is granted. Choose--with whom wilt thou fight? Myself I cannot
+fight with thee, for the king fights not except in war."
+
+Twala's sombre eye ran up and down our ranks, and I felt, as for a
+moment it rested on myself, that the position had developed a new
+horror. What if he chose to begin by fighting _me_? What chance should
+I have against a desperate savage six feet five high, and broad in
+proportion? I might as well commit suicide at once. Hastily I made up
+my mind to decline the combat, even if I were hooted out of Kukuanaland
+as a consequence. It is, I think, better to be hooted than to be
+quartered with a battle-axe.
+
+Presently Twala spoke.
+
+"Incubu, what sayest thou, shall we end what we began to-day, or shall
+I call thee coward, white--even to the liver?"
+
+"Nay," interposed Ignosi hastily; "thou shalt not fight with Incubu."
+
+"Not if he is afraid," said Twala.
+
+Unfortunately Sir Henry understood this remark, and the blood flamed up
+into his cheeks.
+
+"I will fight him," he said; "he shall see if I am afraid."
+
+"For Heaven's sake," I entreated, "don't risk your life against that of
+a desperate man. Anybody who saw you to-day will know that you are
+brave enough."
+
+"I will fight him," was the sullen answer. "No living man shall call me
+a coward. I am ready now!" and he stepped forward and lifted his axe.
+
+I wrung my hands over this absurd piece of Quixotism; but if he was
+determined on this deed, of course I could not stop him.
+
+"Fight not, my white brother," said Ignosi, laying his hand
+affectionately on Sir Henry's arm; "thou hast fought enough, and if
+aught befell thee at his hands it would cut my heart in twain."
+
+"I will fight, Ignosi," was Sir Henry's answer.
+
+"It is well, Incubu; thou art a brave man. It will be a good fray.
+Behold, Twala, the Elephant is ready for thee."
+
+The ex-king laughed savagely, and stepping forward faced Curtis. For a
+moment they stood thus, and the light of the sinking sun caught their
+stalwart frames and clothed them both in fire. They were a well-matched
+pair.
+
+Then they began to circle round each other, their battle-axes raised.
+
+Suddenly Sir Henry sprang forward and struck a fearful blow at Twala,
+who stepped to one side. So heavy was the stroke that the striker half
+overbalanced himself, a circumstance of which his antagonist took a
+prompt advantage. Circling his massive battle-axe round his head, he
+brought it down with tremendous force. My heart jumped into my mouth; I
+thought that the affair was already finished. But no; with a quick
+upward movement of the left arm Sir Henry interposed his shield between
+himself and the axe, with the result that its outer edge was shorn
+away, the axe falling on his left shoulder, but not heavily enough to
+do any serious damage. In another moment Sir Henry got in a second
+blow, which was also received by Twala upon his shield.
+
+Then followed blow upon blow, that were, in turn, either received upon
+the shields or avoided. The excitement grew intense; the regiment which
+was watching the encounter forgot its discipline, and, drawing near,
+shouted and groaned at every stroke. Just at this time, too, Good, who
+had been laid upon the ground by me, recovered from his faint, and,
+sitting up, perceived what was going on. In an instant he was up, and
+catching hold of my arm, hopped about from place to place on one leg,
+dragging me after him, and yelling encouragements to Sir Henry--
+
+"Go it, old fellow!" he hallooed. "That was a good one! Give it him
+amidships," and so on.
+
+Presently Sir Henry, having caught a fresh stroke upon his shield, hit
+out with all his force. The blow cut through Twala's shield and through
+the tough chain armour behind it, gashing him in the shoulder. With a
+yell of pain and fury Twala returned the blow with interest, and, such
+was his strength, shore right through the rhinoceros' horn handle of
+his antagonists battle-axe, strengthened as it was with bands of steel,
+wounding Curtis in the face.
+
+A cry of dismay rose from the Buffaloes as our hero's broad axe-head
+fell to the ground; and Twala, again raising his weapon, flew at him
+with a shout. I shut my eyes. When I opened them again it was to see
+Sir Henry's shield lying on the ground, and Sir Henry himself with his
+great arms twined round Twala's middle. To and fro they swung, hugging
+each other like bears, straining with all their mighty muscles for dear
+life, and dearer honour. With a supreme effort Twala swung the
+Englishman clean off his feet, and down they came together, rolling
+over and over on the lime paving, Twala striking out at Curtis' head
+with the battle-axe, and Sir Henry trying to drive the _tolla_ he had
+drawn from his belt through Twala's armour.
+
+It was a mighty struggle, and an awful thing to see.
+
+"Get his axe!" yelled Good; and perhaps our champion heard him.
+
+At any rate, dropping the _tolla_, he snatched at the axe, which was
+fastened to Twala's wrist by a strip of buffalo hide, and still rolling
+over and over, they fought for it like wild cats, drawing their breath
+in heavy gasps. Suddenly the hide string burst, and then, with a great
+effort, Sir Henry freed himself, the weapon remaining in his hand.
+Another second and he was upon his feet, the red blood streaming from
+the wound in his face, and so was Twala. Drawing the heavy _tolla_ from
+his belt, he reeled straight at Curtis and struck him in the breast.
+The stab came home true and strong, but whoever it was who made that
+chain armour, he understood his art, for it withstood the steel. Again
+Twala struck out with a savage yell, and again the sharp knife
+rebounded, and Sir Henry went staggering back. Once more Twala came on,
+and as he came our great Englishman gathered himself together, and
+swinging the big axe round his head with both hands, hit at him with
+all his force.
+
+There was a shriek of excitement from a thousand throats, and, behold!
+Twala's head seemed to spring from his shoulders: then it fell and came
+rolling and bounding along the ground towards Ignosi, stopping just at
+his feet. For a second the corpse stood upright; then with a dull crash
+it came to the earth, and the gold torque from its neck rolled away
+across the pavement. As it did so Sir Henry, overpowered by faintness
+and loss of blood, fell heavily across the body of the dead king.
+
+In a second he was lifted up, and eager hands were pouring water on his
+face. Another minute, and the grey eyes opened wide.
+
+He was not dead.
+
+Then I, just as the sun sank, stepping to where Twala's head lay in the
+dust, unloosed the diamond from the dead brows, and handed it to Ignosi.
+
+"Take it," I said, "lawful king of the Kukuanas--king by birth and
+victory."
+
+Ignosi bound the diadem upon his brows. Then advancing, he placed his
+foot upon the broad chest of his headless foe and broke out into a
+chant, or rather a paean of triumph, so beautiful, and yet so utterly
+savage, that I despair of being able to give an adequate version of his
+words. Once I heard a scholar with a fine voice read aloud from the
+Greek poet Homer, and I remember that the sound of the rolling lines
+seemed to make my blood stand still. Ignosi's chant, uttered as it was
+in a language as beautiful and sonorous as the old Greek, produced
+exactly the same effect on me, although I was exhausted with toil and
+many emotions.
+
+"Now," he began, "now our rebellion is swallowed up in victory, and our
+evil-doing is justified by strength.
+
+"In the morning the oppressors arose and stretched themselves; they
+bound on their harness and made them ready to war.
+
+"They rose up and tossed their spears: the soldiers called to the
+captains, 'Come, lead us'--and the captains cried to the king, 'Direct
+thou the battle.'
+
+"They laughed in their pride, twenty thousand men, and yet a twenty
+thousand.
+
+"Their plumes covered the valleys as the plumes of a bird cover her
+nest; they shook their shields and shouted, yea, they shook their
+shields in the sunlight; they lusted for battle and were glad.
+
+"They came up against me; their strong ones ran swiftly to slay me;
+they cried, 'Ha! ha! he is as one already dead.'
+
+
+
+"Then breathed I on them, and my breath was as the breath of a wind,
+and lo! they were not.
+
+"My lightnings pierced them; I licked up their strength with the
+lightning of my spears; I shook them to the ground with the thunder of
+my shoutings.
+
+"They broke--they scattered--they were gone as the mists of the morning.
+
+"They are food for the kites and the foxes, and the place of battle is
+fat with their blood.
+
+
+"Where are the mighty ones who rose up in the morning?
+
+"Where are the proud ones who tossed their spears and cried, 'He is as
+a man already dead'?
+
+"They bow their heads, but not in sleep; they are stretched out, but
+not in sleep.
+
+"They are forgotten; they have gone into the blackness; they dwell in
+the dead moons; yea, others shall lead away their wives, and their
+children shall remember them no more.
+
+
+"And I--! the king--like an eagle I have found my eyrie.
+
+"Behold! far have I flown in the night season, yet have I returned to
+my young at the daybreak.
+
+"Shelter ye under the shadow of my wings, O people, and I will comfort
+you, and ye shall not be dismayed.
+
+"Now is the good time, the time of spoil.
+
+"Mine are the cattle on the mountains, mine are the virgins in the
+kraals.
+
+"The winter is overpast with storms, the summer is come with flowers.
+
+"Now Evil shall cover up her face, now Mercy and Gladness shall dwell
+in the land.
+
+"Rejoice, rejoice, my people!
+
+"Let all the stars rejoice in that this tyranny is trodden down, in
+that I am the king."
+
+
+Ignosi ceased his song, and out of the gathering gloom came back the
+deep reply--
+
+"_Thou art the king!_"
+
+
+Thus was my prophecy to the herald fulfilled, and within the
+forty-eight hours Twala's headless corpse was stiffening at Twala's
+gate.
+
+
+[1] It is a law amongst the Kukuanas that no man of the direct royal
+blood can be put to death, unless by his own consent, which is,
+however, never refused. He is allowed to choose a succession of
+antagonists, to be approved by the king, with whom he fights, till one
+of them kills him.--A.Q.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+GOOD FALLS SICK
+
+After the fight was ended, Sir Henry and Good were carried into Twala's
+hut, where I joined them. They were both utterly exhausted by exertion
+and loss of blood, and, indeed, my own condition was little better. I
+am very wiry, and can stand more fatigue than most men, probably on
+account of my light weight and long training; but that night I was
+quite done up, and, as is always the case with me when exhausted, that
+old wound which the lion gave me began to pain. Also my head was aching
+violently from the blow I had received in the morning, when I was
+knocked senseless. Altogether, a more miserable trio than we were that
+evening it would have been difficult to discover; and our only comfort
+lay in the reflection that we were exceedingly fortunate to be there to
+feel miserable, instead of being stretched dead upon the plain, as so
+many thousands of brave men were that night, who had risen well and
+strong in the morning.
+
+Somehow, with the assistance of the beautiful Foulata, who, since we
+had been the means of saving her life, had constituted herself our
+handmaiden, and especially Good's, we managed to get off the chain
+shirts, which had certainly saved the lives of two of us that day. As I
+expected, we found that the flesh underneath was terribly contused, for
+though the steel links had kept the weapons from entering, they had not
+prevented them from bruising. Both Sir Henry and Good were a mass of
+contusions, and I was by no means free. As a remedy Foulata brought us
+some pounded green leaves, with an aromatic odour, which, when applied
+as a plaster, gave us considerable relief.
+
+But though the bruises were painful, they did not give us such anxiety
+as Sir Henry's and Good's wounds. Good had a hole right through the
+fleshy part of his "beautiful white leg," from which he had lost a
+great deal of blood; and Sir Henry, with other hurts, had a deep cut
+over the jaw, inflicted by Twala's battle-axe. Luckily Good is a very
+decent surgeon, and so soon as his small box of medicines was
+forthcoming, having thoroughly cleansed the wounds, he managed to
+stitch up first Sir Henry's and then his own pretty satisfactorily,
+considering the imperfect light given by the primitive Kukuana lamp in
+the hut. Afterwards he plentifully smeared the injured places with some
+antiseptic ointment, of which there was a pot in the little box, and we
+covered them with the remains of a pocket-handkerchief which we
+possessed.
+
+Meanwhile Foulata had prepared us some strong broth, for we were too
+weary to eat. This we swallowed, and then threw ourselves down on the
+piles of magnificent karrosses, or fur rugs, which were scattered about
+the dead king's great hut. By a very strange instance of the irony of
+fate, it was on Twala's own couch, and wrapped in Twala's own
+particular karross, that Sir Henry, the man who had slain him, slept
+that night.
+
+I say slept; but after that day's work, sleep was indeed difficult. To
+begin with, in very truth the air was full
+
+ "Of farewells to the dying
+  And mournings for the dead."
+
+From every direction came the sound of the wailing of women whose
+husbands, sons, and brothers had perished in the battle. No wonder that
+they wailed, for over twelve thousand men, or nearly a fifth of the
+Kukuana army, had been destroyed in that awful struggle. It was
+heart-rending to lie and listen to their cries for those who never
+would return; and it made me understand the full horror of the work
+done that day to further man's ambition. Towards midnight, however, the
+ceaseless crying of the women grew less frequent, till at length the
+silence was only broken at intervals of a few minutes by a long
+piercing howl that came from a hut in our immediate rear, which, as I
+afterwards discovered, proceeded from Gagool "keening" over the dead
+king Twala.
+
+After that I got a little fitful sleep, only to wake from time to time
+with a start, thinking that I was once more an actor in the terrible
+events of the last twenty-four hours. Now I seemed to see that warrior
+whom my hand had sent to his last account charging at me on the
+mountain-top; now I was once more in that glorious ring of Greys, which
+made its immortal stand against all Twala's regiments upon the little
+mound; and now again I saw Twala's plumed and gory head roll past my
+feet with gnashing teeth and glaring eye.
+
+At last, somehow or other, the night passed away; but when dawn broke I
+found that my companions had slept no better than myself. Good, indeed,
+was in a high fever, and very soon afterwards began to grow
+light-headed, and also, to my alarm, to spit blood, the result, no
+doubt, of some internal injury, inflicted during the desperate efforts
+made by the Kukuana warrior on the previous day to force his big spear
+through the chain armour. Sir Henry, however, seemed pretty fresh,
+notwithstanding his wound on the face, which made eating difficult and
+laughter an impossibility, though he was so sore and stiff that he
+could scarcely stir.
+
+About eight o'clock we had a visit from Infadoos, who appeared but
+little the worse--tough old warrior that he was--for his exertions in
+the battle, although he informed us that he had been up all night. He
+was delighted to see us, but much grieved at Good's condition, and
+shook our hands cordially. I noticed, however, that he addressed Sir
+Henry with a kind of reverence, as though he were something more than
+man; and, indeed, as we afterwards found out, the great Englishman was
+looked on throughout Kukuanaland as a supernatural being. No man, the
+soldiers said, could have fought as he fought or, at the end of a day
+of such toil and bloodshed, could have slain Twala, who, in addition to
+being the king, was supposed to be the strongest warrior in the
+country, in single combat, shearing through his bull-neck at a stroke.
+Indeed, that stroke became proverbial in Kukuanaland, and any
+extraordinary blow or feat of strength was henceforth known as
+"Incubu's blow."
+
+Infadoos told us also that all Twala's regiments had submitted to
+Ignosi, and that like submissions were beginning to arrive from chiefs
+in the outlying country. Twala's death at the hands of Sir Henry had
+put an end to all further chance of disturbance; for Scragga had been
+his only legitimate son, so there was no rival claimant to the throne
+left alive.
+
+I remarked that Ignosi had swum to power through blood. The old chief
+shrugged his shoulders. "Yes," he answered; "but the Kukuana people can
+only be kept cool by letting their blood flow sometimes. Many are
+killed, indeed, but the women are left, and others must soon grow up to
+take the places of the fallen. After this the land would be quiet for a
+while."
+
+Afterwards, in the course of the morning, we had a short visit from
+Ignosi, on whose brows the royal diadem was now bound. As I
+contemplated him advancing with kingly dignity, an obsequious guard
+following his steps, I could not help recalling to my mind the tall
+Zulu who had presented himself to us at Durban some few months back,
+asking to be taken into our service, and reflecting on the strange
+revolutions of the wheel of fortune.
+
+"Hail, O king!" I said, rising.
+
+"Yes, Macumazahn. King at last, by the might of your three right
+hands," was the ready answer.
+
+All was, he said, going well; and he hoped to arrange a great feast in
+two weeks' time in order to show himself to the people.
+
+I asked him what he had settled to do with Gagool.
+
+"She is the evil genius of the land," he answered, "and I shall kill
+her, and all the witch doctors with her! She has lived so long that
+none can remember when she was not very old, and she it is who has
+always trained the witch-hunters, and made the land wicked in the sight
+of the heavens above."
+
+"Yet she knows much," I replied; "it is easier to destroy knowledge,
+Ignosi, than to gather it."
+
+"That is so," he said thoughtfully. "She, and she only, knows the
+secret of the 'Three Witches,' yonder, whither the great road runs,
+where the kings are buried, and the Silent Ones sit."
+
+"Yes, and the diamonds are. Forget not thy promise, Ignosi; thou must
+lead us to the mines, even if thou hast to spare Gagool alive to show
+the way."
+
+"I will not forget, Macumazahn, and I will think on what thou sayest."
+
+After Ignosi's visit I went to see Good, and found him quite delirious.
+The fever set up by his wound seemed to have taken a firm hold of his
+system, and to be complicated with an internal injury. For four or five
+days his condition was most critical; indeed, I believe firmly that had
+it not been for Foulata's indefatigable nursing he must have died.
+
+Women are women, all the world over, whatever their colour. Yet somehow
+it seemed curious to watch this dusky beauty bending night and day over
+the fevered man's couch, and performing all the merciful errands of a
+sick-room swiftly, gently, and with as fine an instinct as that of a
+trained hospital nurse. For the first night or two I tried to help her,
+and so did Sir Henry as soon as his stiffness allowed him to move, but
+Foulata bore our interference with impatience, and finally insisted
+upon our leaving him to her, saying that our movements made him
+restless, which I think was true. Day and night she watched him and
+tended him, giving him his only medicine, a native cooling drink made
+of milk, in which was infused juice from the bulb of a species of
+tulip, and keeping the flies from settling on him. I can see the whole
+picture now as it appeared night after night by the light of our
+primitive lamp; Good tossing to and fro, his features emaciated, his
+eyes shining large and luminous, and jabbering nonsense by the yard;
+and seated on the ground by his side, her back resting against the wall
+of the hut, the soft-eyed, shapely Kukuana beauty, her face, weary as
+it was with her long vigil, animated by a look of infinite
+compassion--or was it something more than compassion?
+
+For two days we thought that he must die, and crept about with heavy
+hearts.
+
+Only Foulata would not believe it.
+
+"He will live," she said.
+
+For three hundred yards or more around Twala's chief hut, where the
+sufferer lay, there was silence; for by the king's order all who lived
+in the habitations behind it, except Sir Henry and myself, had been
+removed, lest any noise should come to the sick man's ears. One night,
+it was the fifth of Good's illness, as was my habit, I went across to
+see how he was doing before turning in for a few hours.
+
+I entered the hut carefully. The lamp placed upon the floor showed the
+figure of Good tossing no more, but lying quite still.
+
+So it had come at last! In the bitterness of my heart I gave something
+like a sob.
+
+"Hush--h--h!" came from the patch of dark shadow behind Good's head.
+
+Then, creeping closer, I saw that he was not dead, but sleeping
+soundly, with Foulata's taper fingers clasped tightly in his poor white
+hand. The crisis had passed, and he would live. He slept like that for
+eighteen hours; and I scarcely like to say it, for fear I should not be
+believed, but during the entire period did this devoted girl sit by
+him, fearing that if she moved and drew away her hand it would wake
+him. What she must have suffered from cramp and weariness, to say
+nothing of want of food, nobody will ever know; but it is the fact
+that, when at last he woke, she had to be carried away--her limbs were
+so stiff that she could not move them.
+
+
+After the turn had once been taken, Good's recovery was rapid and
+complete. It was not till he was nearly well that Sir Henry told him of
+all he owed to Foulata; and when he came to the story of how she sat by
+his side for eighteen hours, fearing lest by moving she should wake
+him, the honest sailor's eyes filled with tears. He turned and went
+straight to the hut where Foulata was preparing the mid-day meal, for
+we were back in our old quarters now, taking me with him to interpret
+in case he could not make his meaning clear to her, though I am bound
+to say that she understood him marvellously as a rule, considering how
+extremely limited was his foreign vocabulary.
+
+"Tell her," said Good, "that I owe her my life, and that I will never
+forget her kindness to my dying day."
+
+I interpreted, and under her dark skin she actually seemed to blush.
+
+Turning to him with one of those swift and graceful motions that in her
+always reminded me of the flight of a wild bird, Foulata answered
+softly, glancing at him with her large brown eyes--
+
+"Nay, my lord; my lord forgets! Did he not save _my_ life, and am I not
+my lord's handmaiden?"
+
+It will be observed that the young lady appeared entirely to have
+forgotten the share which Sir Henry and myself had taken in her
+preservation from Twala's clutches. But that is the way of women! I
+remember my dear wife was just the same. Well, I retired from that
+little interview sad at heart. I did not like Miss Foulata's soft
+glances, for I knew the fatal amorous propensities of sailors in
+general, and of Good in particular.
+
+There are two things in the world, as I have found out, which cannot be
+prevented: you cannot keep a Zulu from fighting, or a sailor from
+falling in love upon the slightest provocation!
+
+It was a few days after this last occurrence that Ignosi held his great
+"indaba," or council, and was formally recognised as king by the
+"indunas," or head men, of Kukuanaland. The spectacle was a most
+imposing one, including as it did a grand review of troops. On this day
+the remaining fragments of the Greys were formally paraded, and in the
+face of the army thanked for their splendid conduct in the battle. To
+each man the king made a large present of cattle, promoting them one
+and all to the rank of officers in the new corps of Greys which was in
+process of formation. An order was also promulgated throughout the
+length and breadth of Kukuanaland that, whilst we honoured the country
+by our presence, we three were to be greeted with the royal salute, and
+to be treated with the same ceremony and respect that was by custom
+accorded to the king. Also the power of life and death was publicly
+conferred upon us. Ignosi, too, in the presence of his people,
+reaffirmed the promises which he had made, to the effect that no man's
+blood should be shed without trial, and that witch-hunting should cease
+in the land.
+
+When the ceremony was over we waited upon Ignosi, and informed him that
+we were now anxious to investigate the mystery of the mines to which
+Solomon's Road ran, asking him if he had discovered anything about them.
+
+"My friends," he answered, "I have discovered this. It is there that
+the three great figures sit, who here are called the 'Silent Ones,' and
+to whom Twala would have offered the girl Foulata as a sacrifice. It is
+there, too, in a great cave deep in the mountain, that the kings of the
+land are buried; there ye shall find Twala's body, sitting with those
+who went before him. There, also, is a deep pit, which, at some time,
+long-dead men dug out, mayhap for the stones ye speak of, such as I
+have heard men in Natal tell of at Kimberley. There, too, in the Place
+of Death is a secret chamber, known to none but the king and Gagool.
+But Twala, who knew it, is dead, and I know it not, nor know I what is
+in it. Yet there is a legend in the land that once, many generations
+gone, a white man crossed the mountains, and was led by a woman to the
+secret chamber and shown the wealth hidden in it. But before he could
+take it she betrayed him, and he was driven by the king of that day
+back to the mountains, and since then no man has entered the place."
+
+"The story is surely true, Ignosi, for on the mountains we found the
+white man," I said.
+
+"Yes, we found him. And now I have promised you that if ye can come to
+that chamber, and the stones are there--"
+
+"The gem upon thy forehead proves that they are there," I put in,
+pointing to the great diamond I had taken from Twala's dead brows.
+
+"Mayhap; if they are there," he said, "ye shall have as many as ye can
+take hence--if indeed ye would leave me, my brothers."
+
+"First we must find the chamber," said I.
+
+"There is but one who can show it to thee--Gagool."
+
+"And if she will not?"
+
+"Then she must die," said Ignosi sternly. "I have saved her alive but
+for this. Stay, she shall choose," and calling to a messenger he
+ordered Gagool to be brought before him.
+
+In a few minutes she came, hurried along by two guards, whom she was
+cursing as she walked.
+
+"Leave her," said the king to the guards.
+
+So soon as their support was withdrawn, the withered old bundle--for
+she looked more like a bundle than anything else, out of which her two
+bright and wicked eyes gleamed like those of a snake--sank in a heap on
+to the floor.
+
+"What will ye with me, Ignosi?" she piped. "Ye dare not touch me. If ye
+touch me I will slay you as ye sit. Beware of my magic."
+
+"Thy magic could not save Twala, old she-wolf, and it cannot hurt me,"
+was the answer. "Listen; I will this of thee, that thou reveal to us
+the chamber where are the shining stones."
+
+"Ha! ha!" she piped, "none know its secret but I, and I will never tell
+thee. The white devils shall go hence empty-handed."
+
+"Thou shalt tell me. I will make thee tell me."
+
+"How, O king? Thou art great, but can thy power wring the truth from a
+woman?"
+
+"It is difficult, yet will I do so."
+
+"How, O king?"
+
+"Nay, thus; if thou tellest not thou shalt slowly die."
+
+"Die!" she shrieked in terror and fury; "ye dare not touch me--man, ye
+know not who I am. How old think ye am I? I knew your fathers, and your
+fathers' fathers' fathers. When the country was young I was here; when
+the country grows old I shall still be here. I cannot die unless I be
+killed by chance, for none dare slay me."
+
+"Yet will I slay thee. See, Gagool, mother of evil, thou art so old
+that thou canst no longer love thy life. What can life be to such a hag
+as thou, who hast no shape, nor form, nor hair, nor teeth--hast naught,
+save wickedness and evil eyes? It will be mercy to make an end of thee,
+Gagool."
+
+"Thou fool," shrieked the old fiend, "thou accursed fool, deemest thou
+that life is sweet only to the young? It is not so, and naught thou
+knowest of the heart of man to think it. To the young, indeed, death is
+sometimes welcome, for the young can feel. They love and suffer, and it
+wrings them to see their beloved pass to the land of shadows. But the
+old feel not, they love not, and, _ha! ha!_ they laugh to see another
+go out into the dark; _ha! ha!_ they laugh to see the evil that is done
+under the stars. All they love is life, the warm, warm sun, and the
+sweet, sweet air. They are afraid of the cold, afraid of the cold and
+the dark, _ha! ha! ha!_" and the old hag writhed in ghastly merriment
+on the ground.
+
+"Cease thine evil talk and answer me," said Ignosi angrily. "Wilt thou
+show the place where the stones are, or wilt thou not? If thou wilt not
+thou diest, even now," and he seized a spear and held it over her.
+
+"I will not show it; thou darest not kill me, darest not! He who slays
+me will be accursed for ever."
+
+Slowly Ignosi brought down the spear till it pricked the prostrate heap
+of rags.
+
+With a wild yell Gagool sprang to her feet, then fell again and rolled
+upon the floor.
+
+"Nay, I will show thee. Only let me live, let me sit in the sun and
+have a bit of meat to suck, and I will show thee."
+
+"It is well. I thought that I should find a way to reason with thee.
+To-morrow shalt thou go with Infadoos and my white brothers to the
+place, and beware how thou failest, for if thou showest it not, then
+thou shalt slowly die. I have spoken."
+
+"I will not fail, Ignosi. I always keep my word--_ha! ha! ha!_ Once
+before a woman showed the chamber to a white man, and behold! evil
+befell him," and here her wicked eyes glinted. "Her name was Gagool
+also. Perchance I was that woman."
+
+"Thou liest," I said, "that was ten generations gone."
+
+"Mayhap, mayhap; when one lives long one forgets. Perhaps it was my
+mother's mother who told me; surely her name was Gagool also. But mark,
+ye will find in the place where the bright things are a bag of hide
+full of stones. The man filled that bag, but he never took it away.
+Evil befell him, I say, evil befell him! Perhaps it was my mother's
+mother who told me. It will be a merry journey--we can see the bodies
+of those who died in the battle as we go. Their eyes will be gone by
+now, and their ribs will be hollow. _Ha! ha! ha!_"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE PLACE OF DEATH
+
+It was already dark on the third day after the scene described in the
+previous chapter when we camped in some huts at the foot of the "Three
+Witches," as the triangle of mountains is called to which Solomon's
+Great Road runs. Our party consisted of our three selves and Foulata,
+who waited on us--especially on Good--Infadoos, Gagool, who was borne
+along in a litter, inside which she could be heard muttering and
+cursing all day long, and a party of guards and attendants. The
+mountains, or rather the three peaks of the mountain, for the mass was
+evidently the result of a solitary upheaval, were, as I have said, in
+the form of a triangle, of which the base was towards us, one peak
+being on our right, one on our left, and one straight in front of us.
+Never shall I forget the sight afforded by those three towering peaks
+in the early sunlight of the following morning. High, high above us, up
+into the blue air, soared their twisted snow-wreaths. Beneath the
+snow-line the peaks were purple with heaths, and so were the wild moors
+that ran up the slopes towards them. Straight before us the white
+ribbon of Solomon's Great Road stretched away uphill to the foot of the
+centre peak, about five miles from us, and there stopped. It was its
+terminus.
+
+I had better leave the feelings of intense excitement with which we set
+out on our march that morning to the imagination of those who read this
+history. At last we were drawing near to the wonderful mines that had
+been the cause of the miserable death of the old Portuguese Dom three
+centuries ago, of my poor friend, his ill-starred descendant, and also,
+as we feared, of George Curtis, Sir Henry's brother. Were we destined,
+after all that we had gone through, to fare any better? Evil befell
+them, as that old fiend Gagool said; would it also befall us? Somehow,
+as we were marching up that last stretch of beautiful road, I could not
+help feeling a little superstitious about the matter, and so I think
+did Good and Sir Henry.
+
+For an hour and a half or more we tramped on up the heather-fringed
+way, going so fast in our excitement that the bearers of Gagool's
+hammock could scarcely keep pace with us, and its occupant piped out to
+us to stop.
+
+"Walk more slowly, white men," she said, projecting her hideous
+shrivelled countenance between the grass curtains, and fixing her
+gleaming eyes upon us; "why will ye run to meet the evil that shall
+befall you, ye seekers after treasure?" and she laughed that horrible
+laugh which always sent a cold shiver down my back, and for a while
+quite took the enthusiasm out of us.
+
+However, on we went, till we saw before us, and between ourselves and
+the peak, a vast circular hole with sloping sides, three hundred feet
+or more in depth, and quite half a mile round.
+
+"Can't you guess what this is?" I said to Sir Henry and Good, who were
+staring in astonishment at the awful pit before us.
+
+They shook their heads.
+
+"Then it is clear that you have never seen the diamond diggings at
+Kimberley. You may depend on it that this is Solomon's Diamond Mine.
+Look there," I said, pointing to the strata of stiff blue clay which
+were yet to be seen among the grass and bushes that clothed the sides
+of the pit, "the formation is the same. I'll be bound that if we went
+down there we should find 'pipes' of soapy brecciated rock. Look, too,"
+and I pointed to a series of worn flat slabs of stone that were placed
+on a gentle slope below the level of a watercourse which in some past
+age had been cut out of the solid rock; "if those are not tables once
+used to wash the 'stuff,' I'm a Dutchman."
+
+At the edge of this vast hole, which was none other than the pit marked
+on the old Dom's map, the Great Road branched into two and circumvented
+it. In many places, by the way, this surrounding road was built
+entirely out of blocks of stone, apparently with the object of
+supporting the edges of the pit and preventing falls of reef. Along
+this path we pressed, driven by curiosity to see what were the three
+towering objects which we could discern from the hither side of the
+great gulf. As we drew near we perceived that they were Colossi of some
+sort or another, and rightly conjectured that before us sat the three
+"Silent Ones" that are held in such awe by the Kukuana people. But it
+was not until we were quite close to them that we recognised the full
+majesty of these "Silent Ones."
+
+There, upon huge pedestals of dark rock, sculptured with rude emblems
+of the Phallic worship, separated from each other by a distance of
+forty paces, and looking down the road which crossed some sixty miles
+of plain to Loo, were three colossal seated forms--two male and one
+female--each measuring about thirty feet from the crown of its head to
+the pedestal.
+
+The female form, which was nude, was of great though severe beauty, but
+unfortunately the features had been injured by centuries of exposure to
+the weather. Rising from either side of her head were the points of a
+crescent. The two male Colossi, on the contrary, were draped, and
+presented a terrifying cast of features, especially the one to our
+right, which had the face of a devil. That to our left was serene in
+countenance, but the calm upon it seemed dreadful. It was the calm of
+that inhuman cruelty, Sir Henry remarked, which the ancients attributed
+to beings potent for good, who could yet watch the sufferings of
+humanity, if not without rejoicing, at least without sorrow. These
+three statues form a most awe-inspiring trinity, as they sit there in
+their solitude, and gaze out across the plain for ever.
+
+Contemplating these "Silent Ones," as the Kukuanas call them, an
+intense curiosity again seized us to know whose were the hands which
+had shaped them, who it was that had dug the pit and made the road.
+Whilst I was gazing and wondering, suddenly it occurred to me--being
+familiar with the Old Testament--that Solomon went astray after strange
+gods, the names of three of whom I remembered--"Ashtoreth, the goddess
+of the Zidonians, Chemosh, the god of the Moabites, and Milcom, the god
+of the children of Ammon"--and I suggested to my companions that the
+figures before us might represent these false and exploded divinities.
+
+"Hum," said Sir Henry, who is a scholar, having taken a high degree in
+classics at college, "there may be something in that; Ashtoreth of the
+Hebrews was the Astarte of the Phoenicians, who were the great traders
+of Solomon's time. Astarte, who afterwards became the Aphrodite of the
+Greeks, was represented with horns like the half-moon, and there on the
+brow of the female figure are distinct horns. Perhaps these Colossi
+were designed by some Phoenician official who managed the mines. Who
+can say?"[1]
+
+Before we had finished examining these extraordinary relics of remote
+antiquity, Infadoos came up, and having saluted the "Silent Ones" by
+lifting his spear, asked us if we intended entering the "Place of
+Death" at once, or if we would wait till after we had taken food at
+mid-day. If we were ready to go at once, Gagool had announced her
+willingness to guide us. As it was not later than eleven
+o'clock--driven to it by a burning curiosity--we announced our
+intention of proceeding instantly, and I suggested that, in case we
+should be detained in the cave, we should take some food with us.
+Accordingly Gagool's litter was brought up, and that lady herself
+assisted out of it. Meanwhile Foulata, at my request, stored some
+"biltong," or dried game-flesh, together with a couple of gourds of
+water, in a reed basket with a hinged cover. Straight in front of us,
+at a distance of some fifty paces from the backs of the Colossi, rose a
+sheer wall of rock, eighty feet or more in height, that gradually
+sloped upwards till it formed the base of the lofty snow-wreathed peak,
+which soared into the air three thousand feet above us. As soon as she
+was clear of her hammock, Gagool cast one evil grin upon us, and then,
+leaning on a stick, hobbled off towards the face of this wall. We
+followed her till we came to a narrow portal solidly arched that looked
+like the opening of a gallery of a mine.
+
+Here Gagool was waiting for us, still with that evil grin upon her
+horrid face.
+
+"Now, white men from the Stars," she piped; "great warriors, Incubu,
+Bougwan, and Macumazahn the wise, are ye ready? Behold, I am here to do
+the bidding of my lord the king, and to show you the store of bright
+stones. _Ha! ha! ha!_"
+
+"We are ready," I said.
+
+"Good, good! Make strong your hearts to bear what ye shall see. Comest
+thou too, Infadoos, thou who didst betray thy master?"
+
+Infadoos frowned as he answered--
+
+"Nay, I come not; it is not for me to enter there. But thou, Gagool,
+curb thy tongue, and beware how thou dealest with my lords. At thy
+hands will I require them, and if a hair of them be hurt, Gagool, be'st
+thou fifty times a witch, thou shalt die. Hearest thou?"
+
+"I hear Infadoos; I know thee, thou didst ever love big words; when
+thou wast a babe I remember thou didst threaten thine own mother. That
+was but the other day. But, fear not, fear not, I live only to do the
+bidding of the king. I have done the bidding of many kings, Infadoos,
+till in the end they did mine. _Ha! ha!_ I go to look upon their faces
+once more, and Twala's also! Come on, come on, here is the lamp," and
+she drew a large gourd full of oil, and fitted with a rush wick, from
+under her fur cloak.
+
+"Art thou coming, Foulata?" asked Good in his villainous Kitchen
+Kukuana, in which he had been improving himself under that young lady's
+tuition.
+
+"I fear, my lord," the girl answered timidly.
+
+"Then give me the basket."
+
+"Nay, my lord, whither thou goest there I go also."
+
+"The deuce you will!" thought I to myself; "that may be rather awkward
+if we ever get out of this."
+
+Without further ado Gagool plunged into the passage, which was wide
+enough to admit of two walking abreast, and quite dark. We followed the
+sound of her voice as she piped to us to come on, in some fear and
+trembling, which was not allayed by the flutter of a sudden rush of
+wings.
+
+"Hullo! what's that?" halloed Good; "somebody hit me in the face."
+
+"Bats," said I; "on you go."
+
+When, so far as we could judge, we had gone some fifty paces, we
+perceived that the passage was growing faintly light. Another minute,
+and we were in perhaps the most wonderful place that the eyes of living
+man have beheld.
+
+Let the reader picture to himself the hall of the vastest cathedral he
+ever stood in, windowless indeed, but dimly lighted from above,
+presumably by shafts connected with the outer air and driven in the
+roof, which arched away a hundred feet above our heads, and he will get
+some idea of the size of the enormous cave in which we found ourselves,
+with the difference that this cathedral designed by nature was loftier
+and wider than any built by man. But its stupendous size was the least
+of the wonders of the place, for running in rows adown its length were
+gigantic pillars of what looked like ice, but were, in reality, huge
+stalactites. It is impossible for me to convey any idea of the
+overpowering beauty and grandeur of these pillars of white spar, some
+of which were not less than twenty feet in diameter at the base, and
+sprang up in lofty and yet delicate beauty sheer to the distant roof.
+Others again were in process of formation. On the rock floor there was
+in these cases what looked, Sir Henry said, exactly like a broken
+column in an old Grecian temple, whilst high above, depending from the
+roof, the point of a huge icicle could be dimly seen.
+
+Even as we gazed we could hear the process going on, for presently with
+a tiny splash a drop of water would fall from the far-off icicle on to
+the column below. On some columns the drops only fell once in two or
+three minutes, and in these cases it would be an interesting
+calculation to discover how long, at that rate of dripping, it would
+take to form a pillar, say eighty feet by ten in diameter. That the
+process, in at least one instance, was incalculably slow, the following
+example will suffice to show. Cut on one of these pillars we discovered
+the crude likeness of a mummy, by the head of which sat what appeared
+to be the figure of an Egyptian god, doubtless the handiwork of some
+old-world labourer in the mine. This work of art was executed at the
+natural height at which an idle fellow, be he Phoenician workman or
+British cad, is in the habit of trying to immortalise himself at the
+expense of nature's masterpieces, namely, about five feet from the
+ground. Yet at the time that we saw it, which _must_ have been nearly
+three thousand years after the date of the execution of the carving,
+the column was only eight feet high, and was still in process of
+formation, which gives a rate of growth of a foot to a thousand years,
+or an inch and a fraction to a century. This we knew because, as we
+were standing by it, we heard a drop of water fall.
+
+Sometimes the stalagmites took strange forms, presumably where the
+dropping of the water had not always been on the same spot. Thus, one
+huge mass, which must have weighed a hundred tons or so, was in the
+shape of a pulpit, beautifully fretted over outside with a design that
+looked like lace. Others resembled strange beasts, and on the sides of
+the cave were fanlike ivory tracings, such as the frost leaves upon a
+pane.
+
+Out of the vast main aisle there opened here and there smaller caves,
+exactly, Sir Henry said, as chapels open out of great cathedrals. Some
+were large, but one or two--and this is a wonderful instance of how
+nature carries out her handiwork by the same unvarying laws, utterly
+irrespective of size--were tiny. One little nook, for instance, was no
+larger than an unusually big doll's house, and yet it might have been a
+model for the whole place, for the water dropped, tiny icicles hung,
+and spar columns were forming in just the same way.
+
+We had not, however, enough time to examine this beautiful cavern so
+thoroughly as we should have liked to do, since unfortunately, Gagool
+seemed to be indifferent as to stalactites, and only anxious to get her
+business over. This annoyed me the more, as I was particularly anxious
+to discover, if possible, by what system the light was admitted into
+the cave, and whether it was by the hand of man or by that of nature
+that this was done; also if the place had been used in any way in
+ancient times, as seemed probable. However, we consoled ourselves with
+the idea that we would investigate it thoroughly on our way back, and
+followed on at the heels of our uncanny guide.
+
+On she led us, straight to the top of the vast and silent cave, where
+we found another doorway, not arched as the first was, but square at
+the top, something like the doorways of Egyptian temples.
+
+"Are ye prepared to enter the Place of Death, white men?" asked Gagool,
+evidently with a view to making us feel uncomfortable.
+
+"Lead on, Macduff," said Good solemnly, trying to look as though he was
+not at all alarmed, as indeed we all did except Foulata, who caught
+Good by the arm for protection.
+
+"This is getting rather ghastly," said Sir Henry, peeping into the dark
+passageway. "Come on, Quatermain--_seniores priores_. We mustn't keep
+the old lady waiting!" and he politely made way for me to lead the van,
+for which inwardly I did not bless him.
+
+_Tap, tap,_ went old Gagool's stick down the passage, as she trotted
+along, chuckling hideously; and still overcome by some unaccountable
+presentiment of evil, I hung back.
+
+"Come, get on, old fellow," said Good, "or we shall lose our fair
+guide."
+
+Thus adjured, I started down the passage, and after about twenty paces
+found myself in a gloomy apartment some forty feet long, by thirty
+broad, and thirty high, which in some past age evidently had been
+hollowed, by hand-labour, out of the mountain. This apartment was not
+nearly so well lighted as the vast stalactite ante-cave, and at the
+first glance all I could discern was a massive stone table running down
+its length, with a colossal white figure at its head, and life-sized
+white figures all round it. Next I discovered a brown thing, seated on
+the table in the centre, and in another moment my eyes grew accustomed
+to the light, and I saw what all these things were, and was tailing out
+of the place as hard as my legs could carry me.
+
+I am not a nervous man in a general way, and very little troubled with
+superstitions, of which I have lived to see the folly; but I am free to
+own that this sight quite upset me, and had it not been that Sir Henry
+caught me by the collar and held me, I do honestly believe that in
+another five minutes I should have been outside the stalactite cave,
+and that a promise of all the diamonds in Kimberley would not have
+induced me to enter it again. But he held me tight, so I stopped
+because I could not help myself. Next second, however, _his_ eyes
+became accustomed to the light, and he let go of me, and began to mop
+the perspiration off his forehead. As for Good, he swore feebly, while
+Foulata threw her arms round his neck and shrieked.
+
+Only Gagool chuckled loud and long.
+
+It _was_ a ghastly sight. There at the end of the long stone table,
+holding in his skeleton fingers a great white spear, sat _Death_
+himself, shaped in the form of a colossal human skeleton, fifteen feet
+or more in height. High above his head he held the spear, as though in
+the act to strike; one bony hand rested on the stone table before him,
+in the position a man assumes on rising from his seat, whilst his frame
+was bent forward so that the vertebrae of the neck and the grinning,
+gleaming skull projected towards us, and fixed its hollow eye-places
+upon us, the jaws a little open, as though it were about to speak.
+
+"Great heavens!" said I faintly, at last, "what can it be?"
+
+"And what are _those things_?" asked Good, pointing to the white
+company round the table.
+
+"And what on earth is _that thing_?" said Sir Henry, pointing to the
+brown creature seated on the table.
+
+"_Hee! hee! hee!_" laughed Gagool. "To those who enter the Hall of the
+Dead, evil comes. _Hee! hee! hee! ha! ha!_"
+
+"Come, Incubu, brave in battle, come and see him thou slewest;" and the
+old creature caught Curtis' coat in her skinny fingers, and led him
+away towards the table. We followed.
+
+Presently she stopped and pointed at the brown object seated on the
+table. Sir Henry looked, and started back with an exclamation; and no
+wonder, for there, quite naked, the head which Curtis' battle-axe had
+shorn from the body resting on its knees, was the gaunt corpse of
+Twala, the last king of the Kukuanas. Yes, there, the head perched upon
+the knees, it sat in all its ugliness, the vertebrae projecting a full
+inch above the level of the shrunken flesh of the neck, for all the
+world like a black double of Hamilton Tighe.[2] Over the surface of the
+corpse there was gathered a thin glassy film, that made its appearance
+yet more appalling, for which we were, at the moment, quite unable to
+account, till presently we observed that from the roof of the chamber
+the water fell steadily, _drip! drop! drip!_ on to the neck of the
+corpse, whence it ran down over the entire surface, and finally escaped
+into the rock through a tiny hole in the table. Then I guessed what the
+film was--_Twala's body was being transformed into a stalactite._
+
+A look at the white forms seated on the stone bench which ran round
+that ghastly board confirmed this view. They were human bodies indeed,
+or rather they had been human; now they were _stalactites_. This was
+the way in which the Kukuana people had from time immemorial preserved
+their royal dead. They petrified them. What the exact system might be,
+if there was any, beyond the placing of them for a long period of years
+under the drip, I never discovered, but there they sat, iced over and
+preserved for ever by the siliceous fluid.
+
+Anything more awe-inspiring than the spectacle of this long line of
+departed royalties (there were twenty-seven of them, the last being
+Ignosi's father), wrapped, each of them, in a shroud of ice-like spar,
+through which the features could be dimly discovered, and seated round
+that inhospitable board, with Death himself for a host, it is
+impossible to imagine. That the practice of thus preserving their kings
+must have been an ancient one is evident from the number, which,
+allowing for an average reign of fifteen years, supposing that every
+king who reigned was placed here--an improbable thing, as some are sure
+to have perished in battle far from home--would fix the date of its
+commencement at four and a quarter centuries back.
+
+But the colossal Death, who sits at the head of the board, is far older
+than that, and, unless I am much mistaken, owes his origin to the same
+artist who designed the three Colossi. He is hewn out of a single
+stalactite, and, looked at as a work of art, is most admirably
+conceived and executed. Good, who understands such things, declared
+that, so far as he could see, the anatomical design of the skeleton is
+perfect down to the smallest bones.
+
+My own idea is, that this terrific object was a freak of fancy on the
+part of some old-world sculptor, and that its presence had suggested to
+the Kukuanas the idea of placing their royal dead under its awful
+presidency. Or perhaps it was set there to frighten away any marauders
+who might have designs upon the treasure chamber beyond. I cannot say.
+All I can do is to describe it as it is, and the reader must form his
+own conclusion.
+
+Such, at any rate, was the White Death and such were the White Dead!
+
+
+[1] Compare Milton, "Paradise Lost," Book i.:--
+
+                      "With these in troop
+    Came Ashtoreth, whom the Phoenicians called
+    Astarte, Queen of Heaven, with crescent horns;
+    To whose bright image nightly by the moon
+    Sidonian virgins paid their vows and songs."
+
+[2] "Now haste ye, my handmaidens, haste and see
+    How he sits there and glowers with his head on his knee."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+SOLOMON'S TREASURE CHAMBER
+
+While we were engaged in recovering from our fright, and in examining
+the grisly wonders of the Place of Death, Gagool had been differently
+occupied. Somehow or other--for she was marvellously active when she
+chose--she had scrambled on to the great table, and made her way to
+where our departed friend Twala was placed, under the drip, to see,
+suggested Good, how he was "pickling," or for some dark purpose of her
+own. Then, after bending down to kiss his icy lips as though in
+affectionate greeting, she hobbled back, stopping now and again to
+address the remark, the tenor of which I could not catch, to one or
+other of the shrouded forms, just as you or I might welcome an old
+acquaintance. Having gone through this mysterious and horrible
+ceremony, she squatted herself down on the table immediately under the
+White Death, and began, so far as I could make out, to offer up
+prayers. The spectacle of this wicked creature pouring out
+supplications, evil ones no doubt, to the arch enemy of mankind, was so
+uncanny that it caused us to hasten our inspection.
+
+"Now, Gagool," said I, in a low voice--somehow one did not dare to
+speak above a whisper in that place--"lead us to the chamber."
+
+The old witch promptly scrambled down from the table.
+
+"My lords are not afraid?" she said, leering up into my face.
+
+"Lead on."
+
+"Good, my lords;" and she hobbled round to the back of the great Death.
+"Here is the chamber; let my lords light the lamp, and enter," and she
+placed the gourd full of oil upon the floor, and leaned herself against
+the side of the cave. I took out a match, of which we had still a few
+in a box, and lit a rush wick, and then looked for the doorway, but
+there was nothing before us except the solid rock. Gagool grinned. "The
+way is there, my lords. _Ha! ha! ha!_"
+
+"Do not jest with us," I said sternly.
+
+"I jest not, my lords. See!" and she pointed at the rock.
+
+As she did so, on holding up the lamp we perceived that a mass of stone
+was rising slowly from the floor and vanishing into the rock above,
+where doubtless there is a cavity prepared to receive it. The mass was
+of the width of a good-sized door, about ten feet high and not less
+than five feet thick. It must have weighed at least twenty or thirty
+tons, and was clearly moved upon some simple balance principle of
+counter-weights, probably the same as that by which the opening and
+shutting of an ordinary modern window is arranged. How the principle
+was set in motion, of course none of us saw; Gagool was careful to
+avoid this; but I have little doubt that there was some very simple
+lever, which was moved ever so little by pressure at a secret spot,
+thereby throwing additional weight on to the hidden counter-balances,
+and causing the monolith to be lifted from the ground.
+
+Very slowly and gently the great stone raised itself, till at last it
+had vanished altogether, and a dark hole presented itself to us in the
+place which the door had filled.
+
+Our excitement was so intense, as we saw the way to Solomon's treasure
+chamber thrown open at last, that I for one began to tremble and shake.
+Would it prove a hoax after all, I wondered, or was old Da Silvestra
+right? Were there vast hoards of wealth hidden in that dark place,
+hoards which would make us the richest men in the whole world? We
+should know in a minute or two.
+
+"Enter, white men from the Stars," said Gagool, advancing into the
+doorway; "but first hear your servant, Gagool the old. The bright
+stones that ye will see were dug out of the pit over which the Silent
+Ones are set, and stored here, I know not by whom, for that was done
+longer ago than even I remember. But once has this place been entered
+since the time that those who hid the stones departed in haste, leaving
+them behind. The report of the treasure went down indeed among the
+people who lived in the country from age to age, but none knew where
+the chamber was, nor the secret of the door. But it happened that a
+white man reached this country from over the mountains--perchance he
+too came 'from the Stars'--and was well received by the king of that
+day. He it is who sits yonder," and she pointed to the fifth king at
+the table of the Dead. "And it came to pass that he and a woman of the
+country who was with him journeyed to this place, and that by chance
+the woman learnt the secret of the door--a thousand years might ye
+search, but ye should never find that secret. Then the white man
+entered with the woman, and found the stones, and filled with stones
+the skin of a small goat, which the woman had with her to hold food.
+And as he was going from the chamber he took up one more stone, a large
+one, and held it in his hand."
+
+Here she paused.
+
+"Well," I asked, breathless with interest as we all were, "what
+happened to Da Silvestra?"
+
+The old hag started at the mention of the name.
+
+"How knowest thou the dead man's name?" she asked sharply; and then,
+without waiting for an answer, went on--
+
+"None can tell what happened; but it came about that the white man was
+frightened, for he flung down the goat-skin, with the stones, and fled
+out with only the one stone in his hand, and that the king took, and it
+is the stone which thou, Macumazahn, didst take from Twala's brow."
+
+"Have none entered here since?" I asked, peering again down the dark
+passage.
+
+"None, my lords. Only the secret of the door has been kept, and every
+king has opened it, though he has not entered. There is a saying, that
+those who enter there will die within a moon, even as the white man
+died in the cave upon the mountain, where ye found him, Macumazahn, and
+therefore the kings do not enter. _Ha! ha!_ mine are true words."
+
+Our eyes met as she said it, and I turned sick and cold. How did the
+old hag know all these things?
+
+"Enter, my lords. If I speak truth, the goat-skin with the stones will
+lie upon the floor; and if there is truth as to whether it is death to
+enter here, that ye will learn afterwards. _Ha! ha! ha!_" and she
+hobbled through the doorway, bearing the light with her; but I confess
+that once more I hesitated about following.
+
+"Oh, confound it all!" said Good; "here goes. I am not going to be
+frightened by that old devil;" and followed by Foulata, who, however,
+evidently did not at all like the business, for she was shivering with
+fear, he plunged into the passage after Gagool--an example which we
+quickly followed.
+
+A few yards down the passage, in the narrow way hewn out of the living
+rock, Gagool had paused, and was waiting for us.
+
+"See, my lords," she said, holding the light before her, "those who
+stored the treasure here fled in haste, and bethought them to guard
+against any who should find the secret of the door, but had not the
+time," and she pointed to large square blocks of stone, which, to the
+height of two courses (about two feet three), had been placed across
+the passage with a view to walling it up. Along the side of the passage
+were similar blocks ready for use, and, most curious of all, a heap of
+mortar and a couple of trowels, which tools, so far as we had time to
+examine them, appeared to be of a similar shape and make to those used
+by workmen to this day.
+
+Here Foulata, who had been in a state of great fear and agitation
+throughout, said that she felt faint and could go no farther, but would
+wait there. Accordingly we set her down on the unfinished wall, placing
+the basket of provisions by her side, and left her to recover.
+
+Following the passage for about fifteen paces farther, we came suddenly
+to an elaborately painted wooden door. It was standing wide open.
+Whoever was last there had either not found the time to shut it, or had
+forgotten to do so.
+
+_Across the threshold of this door lay a skin bag, formed of a
+goat-skin, that appeared to be full of pebbles._
+
+"_Hee! hee!_ white men," sniggered Gagool, as the light from the lamp
+fell upon it. "What did I tell you, that the white man who came here
+fled in haste, and dropped the woman's bag--behold it! Look within also
+and ye will find a water-gourd amongst the stones."
+
+Good stooped down and lifted it. It was heavy and jingled.
+
+"By Jove! I believe it's full of diamonds," he said, in an awed
+whisper; and, indeed, the idea of a small goat-skin full of diamonds is
+enough to awe anybody.
+
+"Go on," said Sir Henry impatiently. "Here, old lady, give me the
+lamp," and taking it from Gagool's hand, he stepped through the doorway
+and held it high above his head.
+
+We pressed in after him, forgetful for the moment of the bag of
+diamonds, and found ourselves in King Solomon's treasure chamber.
+
+At first, all that the somewhat faint light given by the lamp revealed
+was a room hewn out of the living rock, and apparently not more than
+ten feet square. Next there came into sight, stored one on the other to
+the arch of the roof, a splendid collection of elephant-tusks. How many
+of them there were we did not know, for of course we could not see to
+what depth they went back, but there could not have been less than the
+ends of four or five hundred tusks of the first quality visible to our
+eyes. There, alone, was enough ivory to make a man wealthy for life.
+Perhaps, I thought, it was from this very store that Solomon drew the
+raw material for his "great throne of ivory," of which "there was not
+the like made in any kingdom."
+
+On the opposite side of the chamber were about a score of wooden boxes,
+something like Martini-Henry ammunition boxes, only rather larger, and
+painted red.
+
+"There are the diamonds," cried I; "bring the light."
+
+Sir Henry did so, holding it close to the top box, of which the lid,
+rendered rotten by time even in that dry place, appeared to have been
+smashed in, probably by Da Silvestra himself. Pushing my hand through
+the hole in the lid I drew it out full, not of diamonds, but of gold
+pieces, of a shape that none of us had seen before, and with what
+looked like Hebrew characters stamped upon them.
+
+"Ah!" I said, replacing the coin, "we shan't go back empty-handed,
+anyhow. There must be a couple of thousand pieces in each box, and
+there are eighteen boxes. I suppose this was the money to pay the
+workmen and merchants."
+
+"Well," put in Good, "I think that is the lot; I don't see any
+diamonds, unless the old Portuguese put them all into his bag."
+
+"Let my lords look yonder where it is darkest, if they would find the
+stones," said Gagool, interpreting our looks. "There my lords will find
+a nook, and three stone chests in the nook, two sealed and one open."
+
+Before translating this to Sir Henry, who carried the light, I could
+not resist asking how she knew these things, if no one had entered the
+place since the white man, generations ago.
+
+"Ah, Macumazahn, the watcher by night," was the mocking answer, "ye who
+dwell in the stars, do ye not know that some live long, and that some
+have eyes which can see through rock? _Ha! ha! ha!_"
+
+"Look in that corner, Curtis," I said, indicating the spot Gagool had
+pointed out.
+
+"Hullo, you fellows," he cried, "here's a recess. Great heavens! see
+here."
+
+We hurried up to where he was standing in a nook, shaped something like
+a small bow window. Against the wall of this recess were placed three
+stone chests, each about two feet square. Two were fitted with stone
+lids, the lid of the third rested against the side of the chest, which
+was open.
+
+"_See!_" he repeated hoarsely, holding the lamp over the open chest. We
+looked, and for a moment could make nothing out, on account of a
+silvery sheen which dazzled us. When our eyes grew used to it we saw
+that the chest was three-parts full of uncut diamonds, most of them of
+considerable size. Stooping, I picked some up. Yes, there was no doubt
+of it, there was the unmistakable soapy feel about them.
+
+I fairly gasped as I dropped them.
+
+"We are the richest men in the whole world," I said. "Monte Christo was
+a fool to us."
+
+"We shall flood the market with diamonds," said Good.
+
+"Got to get them there first," suggested Sir Henry.
+
+We stood still with pale faces and stared at each other, the lantern in
+the middle and the glimmering gems below, as though we were
+conspirators about to commit a crime, instead of being, as we thought,
+the most fortunate men on earth.
+
+"_Hee! hee! hee!_" cackled old Gagool behind us, as she flitted about
+like a vampire bat. "There are the bright stones ye love, white men, as
+many as ye will; take them, run them through your fingers, _eat_ of
+them, _hee! hee! drink_ of them, _ha! ha!_"
+
+At that moment there was something so ridiculous to my mind at the idea
+of eating and drinking diamonds, that I began to laugh outrageously, an
+example which the others followed, without knowing why. There we stood
+and shrieked with laughter over the gems that were ours, which had been
+found for _us_ thousands of years ago by the patient delvers in the
+great hole yonder, and stored for _us_ by Solomon's long-dead overseer,
+whose name, perchance, was written in the characters stamped on the
+faded wax that yet adhered to the lids of the chest. Solomon never got
+them, nor David, or Da Silvestra, nor anybody else. _We_ had got them:
+there before us were millions of pounds' worth of diamonds, and
+thousands of pounds' worth of gold and ivory only waiting to be taken
+away.
+
+Suddenly the fit passed off, and we stopped laughing.
+
+"Open the other chests, white men," croaked Gagool, "there are surely
+more therein. Take your fill, white lords! _Ha! ha!_ take your fill."
+
+Thus adjured, we set to work to pull up the stone lids on the other
+two, first--not without a feeling of sacrilege--breaking the seals that
+fastened them.
+
+Hoorah! they were full too, full to the brim; at least, the second one
+was; no wretched burglarious Da Silvestra had been filling goat-skins
+out of that. As for the third chest, it was only about a fourth full,
+but the stones were all picked ones; none less than twenty carats, and
+some of them as large as pigeon-eggs. A good many of these bigger ones,
+however, we could see by holding them up to the light, were a little
+yellow, "off coloured," as they call it at Kimberley.
+
+What we did _not_ see, however, was the look of fearful malevolence
+that old Gagool favoured us with as she crept, crept like a snake, out
+of the treasure chamber and down the passage towards the door of solid
+rock.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Hark! Cry upon cry comes ringing up the vaulted path. It is Foulata's
+voice!
+
+"_Oh, Bougwan! help! help! the stone falls!_"
+
+"Leave go, girl! Then--"
+
+"_Help! help! she has stabbed me!_"
+
+By now we are running down the passage, and this is what the light from
+the lamp shows us. The door of the rock is closing down slowly; it is
+not three feet from the floor. Near it struggle Foulata and Gagool. The
+red blood of the former runs to her knee, but still the brave girl
+holds the old witch, who fights like a wild cat. Ah! she is free!
+Foulata falls, and Gagool throws herself on the ground, to twist like a
+snake through the crack of the closing stone. She is under--ah! god!
+too late! too late! The stone nips her, and she yells in agony. Down,
+down it comes, all the thirty tons of it, slowly pressing her old body
+against the rock below. Shriek upon shriek, such as we have never
+heard, then a long sickening _crunch_, and the door was shut just as,
+rushing down the passage, we hurled ourselves against it.
+
+It was all done in four seconds.
+
+Then we turned to Foulata. The poor girl was stabbed in the body, and I
+saw that she could not live long.
+
+"Ah! Bougwan, I die!" gasped the beautiful creature. "She crept
+out--Gagool; I did not see her, I was faint--and the door began to
+fall; then she came back, and was looking up the path--I saw her come
+in through the slowly falling door, and caught her and held her, and
+she stabbed me, and _I die_, Bougwan!"
+
+"Poor girl! poor girl!" Good cried in his distress; and then, as he
+could do nothing else, he fell to kissing her.
+
+"Bougwan," she said, after a pause, "is Macumazahn there? It grows so
+dark, I cannot see."
+
+"Here I am, Foulata."
+
+"Macumazahn, be my tongue for a moment, I pray thee, for Bougwan cannot
+understand me, and before I go into the darkness I would speak to him a
+word."
+
+"Say on, Foulata, I will render it."
+
+"Say to my lord, Bougwan, that--I love him, and that I am glad to die
+because I know that he cannot cumber his life with such as I am, for
+the sun may not mate with the darkness, nor the white with the black.
+
+"Say that, since I saw him, at times I have felt as though there were a
+bird in my bosom, which would one day fly hence and sing elsewhere.
+Even now, though I cannot lift my hand, and my brain grows cold, I do
+not feel as though my heart were dying; it is so full of love that it
+could live ten thousand years, and yet be young. Say that if I live
+again, mayhap I shall see him in the Stars, and that--I will search
+them all, though perchance there I should still be black and he
+would--still be white. Say--nay, Macumazahn, say no more, save that I
+love--Oh, hold me closer, Bougwan, I cannot feel thine arms--_oh! oh!_"
+
+"She is dead--she is dead!" muttered Good, rising in grief, the tears
+running down his honest face.
+
+"You need not let that trouble you, old fellow," said Sir Henry.
+
+"Eh!" exclaimed Good; "what do you mean?"
+
+"I mean that you will soon be in a position to join her. _Man, don't
+you see that we are buried alive?_"
+
+Until Sir Henry uttered these words I do not think that the full horror
+of what had happened had come home to us, preoccupied as we were with
+the sight of poor Foulata's end. But now we understood. The ponderous
+mass of rock had closed, probably for ever, for the only brain which
+knew its secret was crushed to powder beneath its weight. This was a
+door that none could hope to force with anything short of dynamite in
+large quantities. And we were on the wrong side!
+
+For a few minutes we stood horrified, there over the corpse of Foulata.
+All the manhood seemed to have gone out of us. The first shock of this
+idea of the slow and miserable end that awaited us was overpowering. We
+saw it all now; that fiend Gagool had planned this snare for us from
+the first.
+
+It would have been just the jest that her evil mind would have rejoiced
+in, the idea of the three white men, whom, for some reason of her own,
+she had always hated, slowly perishing of thirst and hunger in the
+company of the treasure they had coveted. Now I saw the point of that
+sneer of hers about eating and drinking the diamonds. Probably somebody
+had tried to serve the poor old Dom in the same way, when he abandoned
+the skin full of jewels.
+
+"This will never do," said Sir Henry hoarsely; "the lamp will soon go
+out. Let us see if we can't find the spring that works the rock."
+
+We sprang forward with desperate energy, and, standing in a bloody
+ooze, began to feel up and down the door and the sides of the passage.
+But no knob or spring could we discover.
+
+"Depend on it," I said, "it does not work from the inside; if it did
+Gagool would not have risked trying to crawl underneath the stone. It
+was the knowledge of this that made her try to escape at all hazards,
+curse her."
+
+"At all events," said Sir Henry, with a hard little laugh, "retribution
+was swift; hers was almost as awful an end as ours is likely to be. We
+can do nothing with the door; let us go back to the treasure room."
+
+We turned and went, and as we passed it I perceived by the unfinished
+wall across the passage the basket of food which poor Foulata had
+carried. I took it up, and brought it with me to the accursed treasure
+chamber that was to be our grave. Then we returned and reverently bore
+in Foulata's corpse, laying it on the floor by the boxes of coin.
+
+Next we seated ourselves, leaning our backs against the three stone
+chests which contained the priceless treasure.
+
+"Let us divide the food," said Sir Henry, "so as to make it last as
+long as possible." Accordingly we did so. It would, we reckoned, make
+four infinitesimally small meals for each of us, enough, say, to
+support life for a couple of days. Besides the "biltong," or dried
+game-flesh, there were two gourds of water, each of which held not more
+than a quart.
+
+"Now," said Sir Henry grimly, "let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we
+die."
+
+We each ate a small portion of the "biltong," and drank a sip of water.
+Needless to say, we had but little appetite, though we were sadly in
+need of food, and felt better after swallowing it. Then we got up and
+made a systematic examination of the walls of our prison-house, in the
+faint hope of finding some means of exit, sounding them and the floor
+carefully.
+
+There was none. It was not probable that there would be any to a
+treasure chamber.
+
+The lamp began to burn dim. The fat was nearly exhausted.
+
+"Quatermain," said Sir Henry, "what is the time--your watch goes?"
+
+I drew it out, and looked at it. It was six o'clock; we had entered the
+cave at eleven.
+
+"Infadoos will miss us," I suggested. "If we do not return to-night he
+will search for us in the morning, Curtis."
+
+"He may search in vain. He does not know the secret of the door, nor
+even where it is. No living person knew it yesterday, except Gagool.
+To-day no one knows it. Even if he found the door he could not break it
+down. All the Kukuana army could not break through five feet of living
+rock. My friends, I see nothing for it but to bow ourselves to the will
+of the Almighty. The search for treasure has brought many to a bad end;
+we shall go to swell their number."
+
+The lamp grew dimmer yet.
+
+Presently it flared up and showed the whole scene in strong relief, the
+great mass of white tusks, the boxes of gold, the corpse of the poor
+Foulata stretched before them, the goat-skin full of treasure, the dim
+glimmer of the diamonds, and the wild, wan faces of us three white men
+seated there awaiting death by starvation.
+
+
+Then the flame sank and expired.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+WE ABANDON HOPE
+
+I can give no adequate description of the horrors of the night which
+followed. Mercifully they were to some extent mitigated by sleep, for
+even in such a position as ours wearied nature will sometimes assert
+itself. But I, at any rate, found it impossible to sleep much. Putting
+aside the terrifying thought of our impending doom--for the bravest man
+on earth might well quail from such a fate as awaited us, and I never
+made any pretensions to be brave--the _silence_ itself was too great to
+allow of it. Reader, you may have lain awake at night and thought the
+quiet oppressive, but I say with confidence that you can have no idea
+what a vivid, tangible thing is perfect stillness. On the surface of
+the earth there is always some sound or motion, and though it may in
+itself be imperceptible, yet it deadens the sharp edge of absolute
+silence. But here there was none. We were buried in the bowels of a
+huge snow-clad peak. Thousands of feet above us the fresh air rushed
+over the white snow, but no sound of it reached us. We were separated
+by a long tunnel and five feet of rock even from the awful chamber of
+the Dead; and the dead make no noise. Did we not know it who lay by
+poor Foulata's side? The crashing of all the artillery of earth and
+heaven could not have come to our ears in our living tomb. We were cut
+off from every echo of the world--we were as men already in the grave.
+
+Then the irony of the situation forced itself upon me. There around us
+lay treasures enough to pay off a moderate national debt, or to build a
+fleet of ironclads, and yet we would have bartered them all gladly for
+the faintest chance of escape. Soon, doubtless, we should be rejoiced
+to exchange them for a bit of food or a cup of water, and, after that,
+even for the privilege of a speedy close to our sufferings. Truly
+wealth, which men spend their lives in acquiring, is a valueless thing
+at the last.
+
+And so the night wore on.
+
+"Good," said Sir Henry's voice at last, and it sounded awful in the
+intense stillness, "how many matches have you in the box?"
+
+"Eight, Curtis."
+
+"Strike one and let us see the time."
+
+He did so, and in contrast to the dense darkness the flame nearly
+blinded us. It was five o'clock by my watch. The beautiful dawn was now
+blushing on the snow-wreaths far over our heads, and the breeze would
+be stirring the night mists in the hollows.
+
+"We had better eat something and keep up our strength," I suggested.
+
+"What is the good of eating?" answered Good; "the sooner we die and get
+it over the better."
+
+"While there is life there is hope," said Sir Henry.
+
+Accordingly we ate and sipped some water, and another period of time
+elapsed. Then Sir Henry suggested that it might be well to get as near
+the door as possible and halloa, on the faint chance of somebody
+catching a sound outside. Accordingly Good, who, from long practice at
+sea, has a fine piercing note, groped his way down the passage and set
+to work. I must say that he made a most diabolical noise. I never heard
+such yells; but it might have been a mosquito buzzing for all the
+effect they produced.
+
+After a while he gave it up and came back very thirsty, and had to
+drink. Then we stopped yelling, as it encroached on the supply of water.
+
+So we sat down once more against the chests of useless diamonds in that
+dreadful inaction which was one of the hardest circumstances of our
+fate; and I am bound to say that, for my part, I gave way in despair.
+Laying my head against Sir Henry's broad shoulder I burst into tears;
+and I think that I heard Good gulping away on the other side, and
+swearing hoarsely at himself for doing so.
+
+Ah, how good and brave that great man was! Had we been two frightened
+children, and he our nurse, he could not have treated us more tenderly.
+Forgetting his own share of miseries, he did all he could to soothe our
+broken nerves, telling stories of men who had been in somewhat similar
+circumstances, and miraculously escaped; and when these failed to cheer
+us, pointing out how, after all, it was only anticipating an end which
+must come to us all, that it would soon be over, and that death from
+exhaustion was a merciful one (which is not true). Then, in a diffident
+sort of way, as once before I had heard him do, he suggested that we
+should throw ourselves on the mercy of a higher Power, which for my
+part I did with great vigour.
+
+His is a beautiful character, very quiet, but very strong.
+
+And so somehow the day went as the night had gone, if, indeed, one can
+use these terms where all was densest night, and when I lit a match to
+see the time it was seven o'clock.
+
+Once more we ate and drank, and as we did so an idea occurred to me.
+
+"How is it," said I, "that the air in this place keeps fresh? It is
+thick and heavy, but it is perfectly fresh."
+
+"Great heavens!" said Good, starting up, "I never thought of that. It
+can't come through the stone door, for it's air-tight, if ever a door
+was. It must come from somewhere. If there were no current of air in
+the place we should have been stifled or poisoned when we first came
+in. Let us have a look."
+
+It was wonderful what a change this mere spark of hope wrought in us.
+In a moment we were all three groping about on our hands and knees,
+feeling for the slightest indication of a draught. Presently my ardour
+received a check. I put my hand on something cold. It was dead
+Foulata's face.
+
+For an hour or more we went on feeling about, till at last Sir Henry
+and I gave it up in despair, having been considerably hurt by
+constantly knocking our heads against tusks, chests, and the sides of
+the chamber. But Good still persevered, saying, with an approach to
+cheerfulness, that it was better than doing nothing.
+
+"I say, you fellows," he said presently, in a constrained sort of
+voice, "come here."
+
+Needless to say we scrambled towards him quickly enough.
+
+"Quatermain, put your hand here where mine is. Now, do you feel
+anything?"
+
+"I _think_ I feel air coming up."
+
+"Now listen." He rose and stamped upon the place, and a flame of hope
+shot up in our hearts. _It rang hollow._
+
+With trembling hands I lit a match. I had only three left, and we saw
+that we were in the angle of the far corner of the chamber, a fact that
+accounted for our not having noticed the hollow sound of the place
+during our former exhaustive examination. As the match burnt we
+scrutinised the spot. There was a join in the solid rock floor, and,
+great heavens! there, let in level with the rock, was a stone ring. We
+said no word, we were too excited, and our hearts beat too wildly with
+hope to allow us to speak. Good had a knife, at the back of which was
+one of those hooks that are made to extract stones from horses' hoofs.
+He opened it, and scratched round the ring with it. Finally he worked
+it under, and levered away gently for fear of breaking the hook. The
+ring began to move. Being of stone it had not rusted fast in all the
+centuries it had lain there, as would have been the case had it been of
+iron. Presently it was upright. Then he thrust his hands into it and
+tugged with all his force, but nothing budged.
+
+"Let me try," I said impatiently, for the situation of the stone, right
+in the angle of the corner, was such that it was impossible for two to
+pull at once. I took hold and strained away, but no results.
+
+Then Sir Henry tried and failed.
+
+Taking the hook again, Good scratched all round the crack where we felt
+the air coming up.
+
+"Now, Curtis," he said, "tackle on, and put your back into it; you are
+as strong as two. Stop," and he took off a stout black silk
+handkerchief, which, true to his habits of neatness, he still wore, and
+ran it through the ring. "Quatermain, get Curtis round the middle and
+pull for dear life when I give the word. _Now._"
+
+Sir Henry put out all his enormous strength, and Good and I did the
+same, with such power as nature had given us.
+
+"Heave! heave! it's giving," gasped Sir Henry; and I heard the muscles
+of his great back cracking. Suddenly there was a grating sound, then a
+rush of air, and we were all on our backs on the floor with a heavy
+flag-stone upon the top of us. Sir Henry's strength had done it, and
+never did muscular power stand a man in better stead.
+
+"Light a match, Quatermain," he said, so soon as we had picked
+ourselves up and got our breath; "carefully, now."
+
+I did so, and there before us, Heaven be praised! was the _first step
+of a stone stair._
+
+"Now what is to be done?" asked Good.
+
+"Follow the stair, of course, and trust to Providence."
+
+"Stop!" said Sir Henry; "Quatermain, get the bit of biltong and the
+water that are left; we may want them."
+
+I went, creeping back to our place by the chests for that purpose, and
+as I was coming away an idea struck me. We had not thought much of the
+diamonds for the last twenty-four hours or so; indeed, the very idea of
+diamonds was nauseous, seeing what they had entailed upon us; but,
+reflected I, I may as well pocket some in case we ever should get out
+of this ghastly hole. So I just put my fist into the first chest and
+filled all the available pockets of my old shooting-coat and trousers,
+topping up--this was a happy thought--with a few handfuls of big ones
+from the third chest. Also, by an afterthought, I stuffed Foulata's
+basket, which, except for one water-gourd and a little biltong, was
+empty now, with great quantities of the stones.
+
+"I say, you fellows," I sang out, "won't you take some diamonds with
+you? I've filled my pockets and the basket."
+
+"Oh, come on, Quatermain! and hang the diamonds!" said Sir Henry. "I
+hope that I may never see another."
+
+As for Good, he made no answer. He was, I think, taking his last
+farewell of all that was left of the poor girl who had loved him so
+well. And curious as it may seem to you, my reader, sitting at home at
+ease and reflecting on the vast, indeed the immeasurable, wealth which
+we were thus abandoning, I can assure you that if you had passed some
+twenty-eight hours with next to nothing to eat and drink in that place,
+you would not have cared to cumber yourself with diamonds whilst
+plunging down into the unknown bowels of the earth, in the wild hope of
+escape from an agonising death. If from the habits of a lifetime, it
+had not become a sort of second nature with me never to leave anything
+worth having behind if there was the slightest chance of my being able
+to carry it away, I am sure that I should not have bothered to fill my
+pockets and that basket.
+
+"Come on, Quatermain," repeated Sir Henry, who was already standing on
+the first step of the stone stair. "Steady, I will go first."
+
+"Mind where you put your feet, there may be some awful hole
+underneath," I answered.
+
+"Much more likely to be another room," said Sir Henry, while he
+descended slowly, counting the steps as he went.
+
+When he got to "fifteen" he stopped. "Here's the bottom," he said.
+"Thank goodness! I think it's a passage. Follow me down."
+
+Good went next, and I came last, carrying the basket, and on reaching
+the bottom lit one of the two remaining matches. By its light we could
+just see that we were standing in a narrow tunnel, which ran right and
+left at right angles to the staircase we had descended. Before we could
+make out any more, the match burnt my fingers and went out. Then arose
+the delicate question of which way to go. Of course, it was impossible
+to know what the tunnel was, or where it led to, and yet to turn one
+way might lead us to safety, and the other to destruction. We were
+utterly perplexed, till suddenly it struck Good that when I had lit the
+match the draught of the passage blew the flame to the left.
+
+"Let us go against the draught," he said; "air draws inwards, not
+outwards."
+
+We took this suggestion, and feeling along the wall with our hands,
+whilst trying the ground before us at every step, we departed from that
+accursed treasure chamber on our terrible quest for life. If ever it
+should be entered again by living man, which I do not think probable,
+he will find tokens of our visit in the open chests of jewels, the
+empty lamp, and the white bones of poor Foulata.
+
+When we had groped our way for about a quarter of an hour along the
+passage, suddenly it took a sharp turn, or else was bisected by
+another, which we followed, only in course of time to be led into a
+third. And so it went on for some hours. We seemed to be in a stone
+labyrinth that led nowhere. What all these passages are, of course I
+cannot say, but we thought that they must be the ancient workings of a
+mine, of which the various shafts and adits travelled hither and
+thither as the ore led them. This is the only way in which we could
+account for such a multitude of galleries.
+
+At length we halted, thoroughly worn out with fatigue and with that
+hope deferred which maketh the heart sick, and ate up our poor
+remaining piece of biltong and drank our last sup of water, for our
+throats were like lime-kilns. It seemed to us that we had escaped Death
+in the darkness of the treasure chamber only to meet him in the
+darkness of the tunnels.
+
+As we stood, once more utterly depressed, I thought that I caught a
+sound, to which I called the attention of the others. It was very faint
+and very far off, but it _was_ a sound, a faint, murmuring sound, for
+the others heard it too, and no words can describe the blessedness of
+it after all those hours of utter, awful stillness.
+
+"By heaven! it's running water," said Good. "Come on."
+
+Off we started again in the direction from which the faint murmur
+seemed to come, groping our way as before along the rocky walls. I
+remember that I laid down the basket full of diamonds, wishing to be
+rid of its weight, but on second thoughts took it up again. One might
+as well die rich as poor, I reflected. As we went the sound became more
+and more audible, till at last it seemed quite loud in the quiet. On,
+yet on; now we could distinctly make out the unmistakable swirl of
+rushing water. And yet how could there be running water in the bowels
+of the earth? Now we were quite near it, and Good, who was leading,
+swore that he could smell it.
+
+"Go gently, Good," said Sir Henry, "we must be close." _Splash!_ and a
+cry from Good.
+
+He had fallen in.
+
+"Good! Good! where are you?" we shouted, in terrified distress. To our
+intense relief an answer came back in a choky voice.
+
+"All right; I've got hold of a rock. Strike a light to show me where
+you are."
+
+Hastily I lit the last remaining match. Its faint gleam discovered to
+us a dark mass of water running at our feet. How wide it was we could
+not see, but there, some way out, was the dark form of our companion
+hanging on to a projecting rock.
+
+"Stand clear to catch me," sung out Good. "I must swim for it."
+
+Then we heard a splash, and a great struggle. Another minute and he had
+grabbed at and caught Sir Henry's outstretched hand, and we had pulled
+him up high and dry into the tunnel.
+
+"My word!" he said, between his gasps, "that was touch and go. If I
+hadn't managed to catch that rock, and known how to swim, I should have
+been done. It runs like a mill-race, and I could feel no bottom."
+
+We dared not follow the banks of the subterranean river for fear lest
+we should fall into it again in the darkness. So after Good had rested
+a while, and we had drunk our fill of the water, which was sweet and
+fresh, and washed our faces, that needed it sadly, as well as we could,
+we started from the banks of this African Styx, and began to retrace
+our steps along the tunnel, Good dripping unpleasantly in front of us.
+At length we came to another gallery leading to our right.
+
+"We may as well take it," said Sir Henry wearily; "all roads are alike
+here; we can only go on till we drop."
+
+Slowly, for a long, long while, we stumbled, utterly exhausted, along
+this new tunnel, Sir Henry now leading the way. Again I thought of
+abandoning that basket, but did not.
+
+Suddenly he stopped, and we bumped up against him.
+
+"Look!" he whispered, "is my brain going, or is that light?"
+
+We stared with all our eyes, and there, yes, there, far ahead of us,
+was a faint, glimmering spot, no larger than a cottage window pane. It
+was so faint that I doubt if any eyes, except those which, like ours,
+had for days seen nothing but blackness, could have perceived it at all.
+
+With a gasp of hope we pushed on. In five minutes there was no longer
+any doubt; it _was_ a patch of faint light. A minute more and a breath
+of real live air was fanning us. On we struggled. All at once the
+tunnel narrowed. Sir Henry went on his knees. Smaller yet it grew, till
+it was only the size of a large fox's earth--it was _earth_ now, mind
+you; the rock had ceased.
+
+A squeeze, a struggle, and Sir Henry was out, and so was Good, and so
+was I, dragging Foulata's basket after me; and there above us were the
+blessed stars, and in our nostrils was the sweet air. Then suddenly
+something gave, and we were all rolling over and over and over through
+grass and bushes and soft, wet soil.
+
+The basket caught in something and I stopped. Sitting up I halloed
+lustily. An answering shout came from below, where Sir Henry's wild
+career had been checked by some level ground. I scrambled to him, and
+found him unhurt, though breathless. Then we looked for Good. A little
+way off we discovered him also, hammed in a forked root. He was a good
+deal knocked about, but soon came to himself.
+
+We sat down together, there on the grass, and the revulsion of feeling
+was so great that really I think we cried with joy. We had escaped from
+that awful dungeon, which was so near to becoming our grave. Surely
+some merciful Power guided our footsteps to the jackal hole, for that
+is what it must have been, at the termination of the tunnel. And see,
+yonder on the mountains the dawn we had never thought to look upon
+again was blushing rosy red.
+
+Presently the grey light stole down the slopes, and we saw that we were
+at the bottom, or rather, nearly at the bottom, of the vast pit in
+front of the entrance to the cave. Now we could make out the dim forms
+of the three Colossi who sat upon its verge. Doubtless those awful
+passages, along which we had wandered the livelong night, had been
+originally in some way connected with the great diamond mine. As for
+the subterranean river in the bowels of the mountain, Heaven only knows
+what it is, or whence it flows, or whither it goes. I, for one, have no
+anxiety to trace its course.
+
+Lighter it grew, and lighter yet. We could see each other now, and such
+a spectacle as we presented I have never set eyes on before or since.
+Gaunt-cheeked, hollow-eyed wretches, smeared all over with dust and
+mud, bruised, bleeding, the long fear of imminent death yet written on
+our countenances, we were, indeed, a sight to frighten the daylight.
+And yet it is a solemn fact that Good's eye-glass was still fixed in
+Good's eye. I doubt whether he had ever taken it out at all. Neither
+the darkness, nor the plunge in the subterranean river, nor the roll
+down the slope, had been able to separate Good and his eye-glass.
+
+Presently we rose, fearing that our limbs would stiffen if we stopped
+there longer, and commenced with slow and painful steps to struggle up
+the sloping sides of the great pit. For an hour or more we toiled
+steadfastly up the blue clay, dragging ourselves on by the help of the
+roots and grasses with which it was clothed. But now I had no more
+thought of leaving the basket; indeed, nothing but death should have
+parted us.
+
+At last it was done, and we stood by the great road, on that side of
+the pit which is opposite to the Colossi.
+
+At the side of the road, a hundred yards off, a fire was burning in
+front of some huts, and round the fire were figures. We staggered
+towards them, supporting one another, and halting every few paces.
+Presently one of the figures rose, saw us and fell on to the ground,
+crying out for fear.
+
+"Infadoos, Infadoos! it is we, thy friends."
+
+He rose; he ran to us, staring wildly, and still shaking with fear.
+
+"Oh, my lords, my lords, it is indeed you come back from the
+dead!--come back from the dead!"
+
+And the old warrior flung himself down before us, and clasping Sir
+Henry's knees, he wept aloud for joy.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+IGNOSI'S FAREWELL
+
+Ten days from that eventful morning found us once more in our old
+quarters at Loo; and, strange to say, but little the worse for our
+terrible experience, except that my stubbly hair came out of the
+treasure cave about three shades greyer than it went in, and that Good
+never was quite the same after Foulata's death, which seemed to move
+him very greatly. I am bound to say, looking at the thing from the
+point of view of an oldish man of the world, that I consider her
+removal was a fortunate occurrence, since, otherwise, complications
+would have been sure to ensue. The poor creature was no ordinary native
+girl, but a person of great, I had almost said stately, beauty, and of
+considerable refinement of mind. But no amount of beauty or refinement
+could have made an entanglement between Good and herself a desirable
+occurrence; for, as she herself put it, "Can the sun mate with the
+darkness, or the white with the black?"
+
+I need hardly state that we never again penetrated into Solomon's
+treasure chamber. After we had recovered from our fatigues, a process
+which took us forty-eight hours, we descended into the great pit in the
+hope of finding the hole by which we had crept out of the mountain, but
+with no success. To begin with, rain had fallen, and obliterated our
+spoor; and what is more, the sides of the vast pit were full of
+ant-bear and other holes. It was impossible to say to which of these we
+owed our salvation. Also, on the day before we started back to Loo, we
+made a further examination of the wonders of the stalactite cave, and,
+drawn by a kind of restless feeling, even penetrated once more into the
+Chamber of the Dead. Passing beneath the spear of the White Death we
+gazed, with sensations which it would be quite impossible for me to
+describe, at the mass of rock that had shut us off from escape,
+thinking the while of priceless treasures beyond, of the mysterious old
+hag whose flattened fragments lay crushed beneath it, and of the fair
+girl of whose tomb it was the portal. I say gazed at the "rock," for,
+examine as we could, we could find no traces of the join of the sliding
+door; nor, indeed, could we hit upon the secret, now utterly lost, that
+worked it, though we tried for an hour or more. It is certainly a
+marvellous bit of mechanism, characteristic, in its massive and yet
+inscrutable simplicity, of the age which produced it; and I doubt if
+the world has such another to show.
+
+At last we gave it up in disgust; though, if the mass had suddenly
+risen before our eyes, I doubt if we should have screwed up courage to
+step over Gagool's mangled remains, and once more enter the treasure
+chamber, even in the sure and certain hope of unlimited diamonds. And
+yet I could have cried at the idea of leaving all that treasure, the
+biggest treasure probably that in the world's history has ever been
+accumulated in one spot. But there was no help for it. Only dynamite
+could force its way through five feet of solid rock.
+
+So we left it. Perhaps, in some remote unborn century, a more fortunate
+explorer may hit upon the "Open Sesame," and flood the world with gems.
+But, myself, I doubt it. Somehow, I seem to feel that the tens of
+millions of pounds' worth of jewels which lie in the three stone
+coffers will never shine round the neck of an earthly beauty. They and
+Foulata's bones will keep cold company till the end of all things.
+
+With a sigh of disappointment we made our way back, and next day
+started for Loo. And yet it was really very ungrateful of us to be
+disappointed; for, as the reader will remember, by a lucky thought, I
+had taken the precaution to fill the wide pockets of my old shooting
+coat and trousers with gems before we left our prison-house, also
+Foulata's basket, which held twice as many more, notwithstanding that
+the water bottle had occupied some of its space. A good many of these
+fell out in the course of our roll down the side of the pit, including
+several of the big ones, which I had crammed in on the top in my coat
+pockets. But, comparatively speaking, an enormous quantity still
+remained, including ninety-three large stones ranging from over two
+hundred to seventy carats in weight. My old shooting coat and the
+basket still held sufficient treasure to make us all, if not
+millionaires as the term is understood in America, at least exceedingly
+wealthy men, and yet to keep enough stones each to make the three
+finest sets of gems in Europe. So we had not done so badly.
+
+On arriving at Loo we were most cordially received by Ignosi, whom we
+found well, and busily engaged in consolidating his power, and
+reorganising the regiments which had suffered most in the great
+struggle with Twala.
+
+He listened with intense interest to our wonderful story; but when we
+told him of old Gagool's frightful end he grew thoughtful.
+
+"Come hither," he called, to a very old Induna or councillor, who was
+sitting with others in a circle round the king, but out of ear-shot.
+The ancient man rose, approached, saluted, and seated himself.
+
+"Thou art aged," said Ignosi.
+
+"Ay, my lord the king! Thy father's father and I were born on the same
+day."
+
+"Tell me, when thou wast little, didst thou know Gagaoola the witch
+doctress?"
+
+"Ay, my lord the king!"
+
+"How was she then--young, like thee?"
+
+"Not so, my lord the king! She was even as she is now and as she was in
+the days of my great grandfather before me; old and dried, very ugly,
+and full of wickedness."
+
+"She is no more; she is dead."
+
+"So, O king! then is an ancient curse taken from the land."
+
+"Go!"
+
+"_Koom!_ I go, Black Puppy, who tore out the old dog's throat. _Koom!_"
+
+"Ye see, my brothers," said Ignosi, "this was a strange woman, and I
+rejoice that she is dead. She would have let you die in the dark place,
+and mayhap afterwards she had found a way to slay me, as she found a
+way to slay my father, and set up Twala, whom her black heart loved, in
+his place. Now go on with the tale; surely there never was its like!"
+
+After I had narrated all the story of our escape, as we had agreed
+between ourselves that I should, I took the opportunity to address
+Ignosi as to our departure from Kukuanaland.
+
+"And now, Ignosi," I said, "the time has come for us to bid thee
+farewell, and start to see our own land once more. Behold, Ignosi, thou
+camest with us a servant, and now we leave thee a mighty king. If thou
+art grateful to us, remember to do even as thou didst promise: to rule
+justly, to respect the law, and to put none to death without a cause.
+So shalt thou prosper. To-morrow, at break of day, Ignosi, thou wilt
+give us an escort who shall lead us across the mountains. Is it not so,
+O king?"
+
+Ignosi covered his face with his hands for a while before answering.
+
+"My heart is sore," he said at last; "your words split my heart in
+twain. What have I done to you, Incubu, Macumazahn, and Bougwan, that
+ye should leave me desolate? Ye who stood by me in rebellion and in
+battle, will ye leave me in the day of peace and victory? What will
+ye--wives? Choose from among the maidens! A place to live in? Behold,
+the land is yours as far as ye can see. The white man's houses? Ye
+shall teach my people how to build them. Cattle for beef and milk?
+Every married man shall bring you an ox or a cow. Wild game to hunt?
+Does not the elephant walk through my forests, and the river-horse
+sleep in the reeds? Would ye make war? My Impis wait your word. If
+there is anything more which I can give, that will I give you."
+
+"Nay, Ignosi, we want none of these things," I answered; "we would seek
+our own place."
+
+"Now do I learn," said Ignosi bitterly, and with flashing eyes, "that
+ye love the bright stones more than me, your friend. Ye have the
+stones; now ye would go to Natal and across the moving black water and
+sell them, and be rich, as it is the desire of a white man's heart to
+be. Cursed for your sake be the white stones, and cursed he who seeks
+them. Death shall it be to him who sets foot in the place of Death to
+find them. I have spoken. White men, ye can go."
+
+I laid my hand upon his arm. "Ignosi," I said, "tell us, when thou
+didst wander in Zululand, and among the white people of Natal, did not
+thine heart turn to the land thy mother told thee of, thy native place,
+where thou didst see the light, and play when thou wast little, the
+land where thy place was?"
+
+"It was even so, Macumazahn."
+
+"In like manner, Ignosi, do our hearts turn to our land and to our own
+place."
+
+Then came a silence. When Ignosi broke it, it was in a different voice.
+
+"I do perceive that now as ever thy words are wise and full of reason,
+Macumazahn; that which flies in the air loves not to run along the
+ground; the white man loves not to live on the level of the black or to
+house among his kraals. Well, ye must go, and leave my heart sore,
+because ye will be as dead to me, since from where ye are no tidings
+can come to me.
+
+"But listen, and let all your brothers know my words. No other white
+man shall cross the mountains, even if any man live to come so far. I
+will see no traders with their guns and gin. My people shall fight with
+the spear, and drink water, like their forefathers before them. I will
+have no praying-men to put a fear of death into men's hearts, to stir
+them up against the law of the king, and make a path for the white folk
+who follow to run on. If a white man comes to my gates I will send him
+back; if a hundred come I will push them back; if armies come, I will
+make war on them with all my strength, and they shall not prevail
+against me. None shall ever seek for the shining stones: no, not an
+army, for if they come I will send a regiment and fill up the pit, and
+break down the white columns in the caves and choke them with rocks, so
+that none can reach even to that door of which ye speak, and whereof
+the way to move it is lost. But for you three, Incubu, Macumazahn, and
+Bougwan, the path is always open; for, behold, ye are dearer to me than
+aught that breathes.
+
+"And ye would go. Infadoos, my uncle, and my Induna, shall take you by
+the hand and guide you with a regiment. There is, as I have learned,
+another way across the mountains that he shall show you. Farewell, my
+brothers, brave white men. See me no more, for I have no heart to bear
+it. Behold! I make a decree, and it shall be published from the
+mountains to the mountains; your names, Incubu, Macumazahn, and
+Bougwan, shall be "_hlonipa_" even as the names of dead kings, and he
+who speaks them shall die.[1] So shall your memory be preserved in the
+land for ever.
+
+"Go now, ere my eyes rain tears like a woman's. At times as ye look
+back down the path of life, or when ye are old and gather yourselves
+together to crouch before the fire, because for you the sun has no more
+heat, ye will think of how we stood shoulder to shoulder, in that great
+battle which thy wise words planned, Macumazahn; of how thou wast the
+point of the horn that galled Twala's flank, Bougwan; whilst thou stood
+in the ring of the Greys, Incubu, and men went down before thine axe
+like corn before a sickle; ay, and of how thou didst break that wild
+bull Twala's strength, and bring his pride to dust. Fare ye well for
+ever, Incubu, Macumazahn, and Bougwan, my lords and my friends."
+
+Ignosi rose and looked earnestly at us for a few seconds. Then he threw
+the corner of his karross over his head, so as to cover his face from
+us.
+
+We went in silence.
+
+
+Next day at dawn we left Loo, escorted by our old friend Infadoos, who
+was heart-broken at our departure, and by the regiment of Buffaloes.
+Early as was the hour, all the main street of the town was lined with
+multitudes of people, who gave us the royal salute as we passed at the
+head of the regiment, while the women blessed us for having rid the
+land of Twala, throwing flowers before us as we went. It was really
+very affecting, and not the sort of thing one is accustomed to meet
+with from natives.
+
+One ludicrous incident occurred, however, which I rather welcomed, as
+it gave us something to laugh at.
+
+Just before we reached the confines of the town, a pretty young girl,
+with some lovely lilies in her hand, ran forward and presented them to
+Good--somehow they all seemed to like Good; I think his eye-glass and
+solitary whisker gave him a fictitious value--and then said that she
+had a boon to ask.
+
+"Speak on," he answered.
+
+"Let my lord show his servant his beautiful white legs, that his
+servant may look upon them, and remember them all her days, and tell of
+them to her children; his servant has travelled four days' journey to
+see them, for the fame of them has gone throughout the land."
+
+"I'll be hanged if I do!" exclaimed Good excitedly.
+
+"Come, come, my dear fellow," said Sir Henry, "you can't refuse to
+oblige a lady."
+
+"I won't," replied Good obstinately; "it is positively indecent."
+
+However, in the end he consented to draw up his trousers to the knee,
+amidst notes of rapturous admiration from all the women present,
+especially the gratified young lady, and in this guise he had to walk
+till we got clear of the town.
+
+Good's legs, I fear, will never be so greatly admired again. Of his
+melting teeth, and even of his "transparent eye," the Kukuanas wearied
+more or less, but of his legs never.
+
+As we travelled, Infadoos told us that there was another pass over the
+mountains to the north of the one followed by Solomon's Great Road, or
+rather that there was a place where it was possible to climb down the
+wall of cliff which separates Kukuanaland from the desert, and is
+broken by the towering shapes of Sheba's Breasts. It appeared, also,
+that rather more than two years previously a party of Kukuana hunters
+had descended this path into the desert in search of ostriches, whose
+plumes are much prized among them for war head-dresses, and that in the
+course of their hunt they had been led far from the mountains and were
+much troubled by thirst. Seeing trees on the horizon, however, they
+walked towards them, and discovered a large and fertile oasis some
+miles in extent, and plentifully watered. It was by way of this oasis
+that Infadoos suggested we should return, and the idea seemed to us a
+good one, for it appeared that we should thus escape the rigours of the
+mountain pass. Also some of the hunters were in attendance to guide us
+to the oasis, from which, they stated, they could perceive other
+fertile spots far away in the desert.[2]
+
+Travelling easily, on the night of the fourth day's journey we found
+ourselves once more on the crest of the mountains that separate
+Kukuanaland from the desert, which rolled away in sandy billows at our
+feet, and about twenty-five miles to the north of Sheba's Breasts.
+
+At dawn on the following day, we were led to the edge of a very
+precipitous chasm, by which we were to descend the precipice, and gain
+the plain two thousand and more feet below.
+
+Here we bade farewell to that true friend and sturdy old warrior,
+Infadoos, who solemnly wished all good upon us, and nearly wept with
+grief. "Never, my lords," he said, "shall mine old eyes see the like of
+you again. Ah! the way that Incubu cut his men down in the battle! Ah!
+for the sight of that stroke with which he swept off my brother Twala's
+head! It was beautiful--beautiful! I may never hope to see such
+another, except perchance in happy dreams."
+
+We were very sorry to part from him; indeed, Good was so moved that he
+gave him as a souvenir--what do you think?--an _eye-glass_; afterwards
+we discovered that it was a spare one. Infadoos was delighted,
+foreseeing that the possession of such an article would increase his
+prestige enormously, and after several vain attempts he actually
+succeeded in screwing it into his own eye. Anything more incongruous
+than the old warrior looked with an eye-glass I never saw. Eye-glasses
+do not go well with leopard-skin cloaks and black ostrich plumes.
+
+Then, after seeing that our guides were well laden with water and
+provisions, and having received a thundering farewell salute from the
+Buffaloes, we wrung Infadoos by the hand, and began our downward climb.
+A very arduous business it proved to be, but somehow that evening we
+found ourselves at the bottom without accident.
+
+"Do you know," said Sir Henry that night, as we sat by our fire and
+gazed up at the beetling cliffs above us, "I think that there are worse
+places than Kukuanaland in the world, and that I have known unhappier
+times than the last month or two, though I have never spent such queer
+ones. Eh! you fellows?"
+
+"I almost wish I were back," said Good, with a sigh.
+
+As for myself, I reflected that all's well that ends well; but in the
+course of a long life of shaves, I never had such shaves as those which
+I had recently experienced. The thought of that battle makes me feel
+cold all over, and as for our experience in the treasure chamber--!
+
+
+Next morning we started on a toilsome trudge across the desert, having
+with us a good supply of water carried by our five guides, and camped
+that night in the open, marching again at dawn on the morrow.
+
+By noon of the third day's journey we could see the trees of the oasis
+of which the guides spoke, and within an hour of sundown we were
+walking once more upon grass and listening to the sound of running
+water.
+
+
+[1] This extraordinary and negative way of showing intense respect is
+by no means unknown among African people, and the result is that if, as
+is usual, the name in question has a significance, the meaning must be
+expressed by an idiom or other word. In this way a memory is preserved
+for generations, or until the new word utterly supplants the old.
+
+[2] It often puzzled all of us to understand how it was possible that
+Ignosi's mother, bearing the child with her, should have survived the
+dangers of her journey across the mountains and the desert, dangers
+which so nearly proved fatal to ourselves. It has since occurred to me,
+and I give the idea to the reader for what it is worth, that she must
+have taken this second route, and wandered out like Hagar into the
+wilderness. If she did so, there is no longer anything inexplicable
+about the story, since, as Ignosi himself related, she may well have
+been picked up by some ostrich hunters before she or the child was
+exhausted, was led by them to the oasis, and thence by stages to the
+fertile country, and so on by slow degrees southwards to Zululand.--A.Q.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+FOUND
+
+And now I come to perhaps the strangest adventure that happened to us
+in all this strange business, and one which shows how wonderfully
+things are brought about.
+
+I was walking along quietly, some way in front of the other two, down
+the banks of the stream which runs from the oasis till it is swallowed
+up in the hungry desert sands, when suddenly I stopped and rubbed my
+eyes, as well I might. There, not twenty yards in front of me, placed
+in a charming situation, under the shade of a species of fig-tree, and
+facing to the stream, was a cosy hut, built more or less on the Kafir
+principle with grass and withes, but having a full-length door instead
+of a bee-hole.
+
+"What the dickens," said I to myself, "can a hut be doing here?" Even
+as I said it the door of the hut opened, and there limped out of it a
+_white man_ clothed in skins, and with an enormous black beard. I
+thought that I must have got a touch of the sun. It was impossible. No
+hunter ever came to such a place as this. Certainly no hunter would
+ever settle in it. I stared and stared, and so did the other man, and
+just at that juncture Sir Henry and Good walked up.
+
+"Look here, you fellows," I said, "is that a white man, or am I mad?"
+
+Sir Henry looked, and Good looked, and then all of a sudden the lame
+white man with a black beard uttered a great cry, and began hobbling
+towards us. When he was close he fell down in a sort of faint.
+
+With a spring Sir Henry was by his side.
+
+"Great Powers!" he cried, "_it is my brother George!_"
+
+At the sound of this disturbance, another figure, also clad in skins,
+emerged from the hut, a gun in his hand, and ran towards us. On seeing
+me he too gave a cry.
+
+"Macumazahn," he halloed, "don't you know me, Baas? I'm Jim the hunter.
+I lost the note you gave me to give to the Baas, and we have been here
+nearly two years." And the fellow fell at my feet, and rolled over and
+over, weeping for joy.
+
+"You careless scoundrel!" I said; "you ought to be well
+_sjambocked_"--that is, hided.
+
+Meanwhile the man with the black beard had recovered and risen, and he
+and Sir Henry were pump-handling away at each other, apparently without
+a word to say. But whatever they had quarrelled about in the past--I
+suspect it was a lady, though I never asked--it was evidently forgotten
+now.
+
+"My dear old fellow," burst out Sir Henry at last, "I thought you were
+dead. I have been over Solomon's Mountains to find you. I had given up
+all hope of ever seeing you again, and now I come across you perched in
+the desert, like an old _assvoegel_."[1]
+
+"I tried to cross Solomon's Mountains nearly two years ago," was the
+answer, spoken in the hesitating voice of a man who has had little
+recent opportunity of using his tongue, "but when I reached here a
+boulder fell on my leg and crushed it, and I have been able to go
+neither forward nor back."
+
+Then I came up. "How do you do, Mr. Neville?" I said; "do you remember
+me?"
+
+"Why," he said, "isn't it Hunter Quatermain, eh, and Good too? Hold on
+a minute, you fellows, I am getting dizzy again. It is all so very
+strange, and, when a man has ceased to hope, so very happy!"
+
+That evening, over the camp fire, George Curtis told us his story,
+which, in its way, was almost as eventful as our own, and, put shortly,
+amounted to this. A little less than two years before, he had started
+from Sitanda's Kraal, to try to reach Suliman's Berg. As for the note I
+had sent him by Jim, that worthy lost it, and he had never heard of it
+till to-day. But, acting upon information he had received from the
+natives, he headed not for Sheba's Breasts, but for the ladder-like
+descent of the mountains down which we had just come, which is clearly
+a better route than that marked out in old Dom Silvestra's plan. In the
+desert he and Jim had suffered great hardships, but finally they
+reached this oasis, where a terrible accident befell George Curtis. On
+the day of their arrival he was sitting by the stream, and Jim was
+extracting the honey from the nest of a stingless bee which is to be
+found in the desert, on the top of a bank immediately above him. In so
+doing he loosened a great boulder of rock, which fell upon George
+Curtis's right leg, crushing it frightfully. From that day he had been
+so lame that he found it impossible to go either forward or back, and
+had preferred to take the chances of dying in the oasis to the
+certainty of perishing in the desert.
+
+As for food, however, they got on pretty well, for they had a good
+supply of ammunition, and the oasis was frequented, especially at
+night, by large quantities of game, which came thither for water. These
+they shot, or trapped in pitfalls, using the flesh for food, and, after
+their clothes wore out, the hides for clothing.
+
+"And so," George Curtis ended, "we have lived for nearly two years,
+like a second Robinson Crusoe and his man Friday, hoping against hope
+that some natives might come here to help us away, but none have come.
+Only last night we settled that Jim should leave me, and try to reach
+Sitanda's Kraal to get assistance. He was to go to-morrow, but I had
+little hope of ever seeing him back again. And now _you_, of all people
+in the world, _you_, who, as I fancied, had long ago forgotten all
+about me, and were living comfortably in old England, turn up in a
+promiscuous way and find me where you least expected. It is the most
+wonderful thing that I have ever heard of, and the most merciful too."
+
+Then Sir Henry set to work, and told him the main facts of our
+adventures, sitting till late into the night to do it.
+
+"By Jove!" said George Curtis, when I showed him some of the diamonds:
+"well, at least you have got something for your pains, besides my
+worthless self."
+
+Sir Henry laughed. "They belong to Quatermain and Good. It was a part
+of the bargain that they should divide any spoils there might be."
+
+This remark set me thinking, and having spoken to Good, I told Sir
+Henry that it was our joint wish that he should take a third portion of
+the diamonds, or, if he would not, that his share should be handed to
+his brother, who had suffered even more than ourselves on the chance of
+getting them. Finally, we prevailed upon him to consent to this
+arrangement, but George Curtis did not know of it until some time
+afterwards.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Here, at this point, I think that I shall end my history. Our journey
+across the desert back to Sitanda's Kraal was most arduous, especially
+as we had to support George Curtis, whose right leg was very weak
+indeed, and continually threw out splinters of bone. But we did
+accomplish it somehow, and to give its details would only be to
+reproduce much of what happened to us on the former occasion.
+
+Six months from the date of our re-arrival at Sitanda's, where we found
+our guns and other goods quite safe, though the old rascal in charge
+was much disgusted at our surviving to claim them, saw us all once more
+safe and sound at my little place on the Berea, near Durban, where I am
+now writing. Thence I bid farewell to all who have accompanied me
+through the strangest trip I ever made in the course of a long and
+varied experience.
+
+P.S.--Just as I had written the last word, a Kafir came up my avenue of
+orange trees, carrying a letter in a cleft stick, which he had brought
+from the post. It turned out to be from Sir Henry, and as it speaks for
+itself I give it in full.
+
+  October 1, 1884.
+  Brayley Hall, Yorkshire.
+
+  My Dear Quatermain,
+
+  I send you a line a few mails back to say that the three of us,
+  George, Good, and myself, fetched up all right in England. We got
+  off the boat at Southampton, and went up to town. You should have
+  seen what a swell Good turned out the very next day, beautifully
+  shaved, frock coat fitting like a glove, brand new eye-glass,
+  etc., etc. I went and walked in the park with him, where I met
+  some people I know, and at once told them the story of his
+  "beautiful white legs."
+
+  He is furious, especially as some ill-natured person has printed
+  it in a Society paper.
+
+  To come to business, Good and I took the diamonds to Streeter's to
+  be valued, as we arranged, and really I am afraid to tell you what
+  they put them at, it seems so enormous. They say that of course it
+  is more or less guess-work, as such stones have never to their
+  knowledge been put on the market in anything like such quantities.
+  It appears that (with the exception of one or two of the largest)
+  they are of the finest water, and equal in every way to the best
+  Brazilian stones. I asked them if they would buy them, but they
+  said that it was beyond their power to do so, and recommended us
+  to sell by degrees, over a period of years indeed, for fear lest
+  we should flood the market. They offer, however, a hundred and
+  eighty thousand for a very small portion of them.
+
+  You must come home, Quatermain, and see about these things,
+  especially if you insist upon making the magnificent present of
+  the third share, which does _not_ belong to me, to my brother
+  George. As for Good, he is _no good_. His time is too much
+  occupied in shaving, and other matters connected with the vain
+  adorning of the body. But I think he is still down on his luck
+  about Foulata. He told me that since he had been home he hadn't
+  seen a woman to touch her, either as regards her figure or the
+  sweetness of her expression.
+
+  I want you to come home, my dear old comrade, and to buy a house
+  near here. You have done your day's work, and have lots of money
+  now, and there is a place for sale quite close which would suit
+  you admirably. Do come; the sooner the better; you can finish
+  writing the story of our adventures on board ship. We have refused
+  to tell the tale till it is written by you, for fear lest we shall
+  not be believed. If you start on receipt of this you will reach
+  here by Christmas, and I book you to stay with me for that. Good
+  is coming, and George; and so, by the way, is your boy Harry
+  (there's a bribe for you). I have had him down for a week's
+  shooting, and like him. He is a cool young hand; he shot me in the
+  leg, cut out the pellets, and then remarked upon the advantages of
+  having a medical student with every shooting party!
+
+  Good-bye, old boy; I can't say any more, but I know that you will
+  come, if it is only to oblige
+
+  Your sincere friend,
+  Henry Curtis.
+
+  P.S.--The tusks of the great bull that killed poor Khiva have now
+  been put up in the hall here, over the pair of buffalo horns you
+  gave me, and look magnificent; and the axe with which I chopped
+  off Twala's head is fixed above my writing-table. I wish that we
+  could have managed to bring away the coats of chain armour. Don't
+  lose poor Foulata's basket in which you brought away the diamonds.
+
+  H.C.
+
+To-day is Tuesday. There is a steamer going on Friday, and I really
+think that I must take Curtis at his word, and sail by her for England,
+if it is only to see you, Harry, my boy, and to look after the printing
+of this history, which is a task that I do not like to trust to anybody
+else.
+
+
+ALLAN QUATERMAIN.
+
+
+[1] Vulture.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's King Solomon's Mines, by H. Rider Haggard
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+*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*
+
+
+
+
+
+Etext prepared by John Bickers, jbickers@ihug.co.nz
+and Dagny, dagnyj@hotmail.com
+
+
+
+KING SOLOMON'S MINES
+
+by H. RIDER HAGGARD
+
+
+
+DEDICATION
+
+This faithful but unpretending record
+of a remarkable adventure
+is hereby respectfully dedicated
+by the narrator,
+
+ALLAN QUATERMAIN,
+
+to all the big and little boys
+who read it.
+
+
+
+PREPARER'S NOTE
+
+  This was typed from a 1907 edition published by Cassell and
+  Company, Limited.
+
+
+
+AUTHOR'S NOTE
+
+  The author ventures to take this opportunity to thank his readers
+  for the kind reception they have accorded to the successive
+  editions of this tale during the last twelve years. He hopes that
+  in its present form it will fall into the hands of an even wider
+  public, and that in years to come it may continue to afford
+  amusement to those who are still young enough at heart to love a
+  story of treasure, war, and wild adventure.
+
+  Ditchingham,
+  11 March, 1898.
+
+
+
+POST SCRIPTUM
+
+  Now, in 1907, on the occasion of the issue of this edition, I can
+  only add how glad I am that my romance should continue to please
+  so many readers. Imagination has been verified by fact; the King
+  Solomon's Mines I dreamed of have been discovered, and are putting
+  out their gold once more, and, according to the latest reports,
+  their diamonds also; the Kukuanas or, rather, the Matabele, have
+  been tamed by the white man's bullets, but still there seem to be
+  many who find pleasure in these simple pages. That they may
+  continue so to do, even to the third and fourth generation, or
+  perhaps longer still, would, I am sure, be the hope of our old and
+  departed friend, Allan Quatermain.
+
+H. Rider Haggard.
+Ditchingham, 1907.
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+Now that this book is printed, and about to be given to the world, a
+sense of its shortcomings both in style and contents, weighs very
+heavily upon me. As regards the latter, I can only say that it does
+not pretend to be a full account of everything we did and saw. There
+are many things connected with our journey into Kukuanaland that I
+should have liked to dwell upon at length, which, as it is, have been
+scarcely alluded to. Amongst these are the curious legends which I
+collected about the chain armour that saved us from destruction in the
+great battle of Loo, and also about the "Silent Ones" or Colossi at
+the mouth of the stalactite cave. Again, if I had given way to my own
+impulses, I should have wished to go into the differences, some of
+which are to my mind very suggestive, between the Zulu and Kukuana
+dialects. Also a few pages might have been given up profitably to the
+consideration of the indigenous flora and fauna of Kukuanaland.[*]
+Then there remains the most interesting subject--that, as it is, has
+only been touched on incidentally--of the magnificent system of
+military organisation in force in that country, which, in my opinion,
+is much superior to that inaugurated by Chaka in Zululand, inasmuch as
+it permits of even more rapid mobilisation, and does not necessitate
+the employment of the pernicious system of enforced celibacy. Lastly,
+I have scarcely spoken of the domestic and family customs of the
+Kukuanas, many of which are exceedingly quaint, or of their
+proficiency in the art of smelting and welding metals. This science
+they carry to considerable perfection, of which a good example is to
+be seen in their "tollas," or heavy throwing knives, the backs of
+these weapons being made of hammered iron, and the edges of beautiful
+steel welded with great skill on to the iron frames. The fact of the
+matter is, I thought, with Sir Henry Curtis and Captain Good, that the
+best plan would be to tell my story in a plain, straightforward
+manner, and to leave these matters to be dealt with subsequently in
+whatever way ultimately may appear to be desirable. In the meanwhile I
+shall, of course, be delighted to give all information in my power to
+anybody interested in such things.
+
+[*] I discovered eight varieties of antelope, with which I was
+    previously totally unacquainted, and many new species of plants,
+    for the most part of the bulbous tribe.--A.Q.
+
+And now it only remains for me to offer apologies for my blunt way of
+writing. I can but say in excuse of it that I am more accustomed to
+handle a rifle than a pen, and cannot make any pretence to the grand
+literary flights and flourishes which I see in novels--for sometimes I
+like to read a novel. I suppose they--the flights and flourishes--are
+desirable, and I regret not being able to supply them; but at the same
+time I cannot help thinking that simple things are always the most
+impressive, and that books are easier to understand when they are
+written in plain language, though perhaps I have no right to set up an
+opinion on such a matter. "A sharp spear," runs the Kukuana saying,
+"needs no polish"; and on the same principle I venture to hope that a
+true story, however strange it may be, does not require to be decked
+out in fine words.
+
+Allan Quatermain.
+
+
+
+
+
+KING SOLOMON'S MINES
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+I MEET SIR HENRY CURTIS
+
+It is a curious thing that at my age--fifty-five last birthday--I
+should find myself taking up a pen to try to write a history. I wonder
+what sort of a history it will be when I have finished it, if ever I
+come to the end of the trip! I have done a good many things in my
+life, which seems a long one to me, owing to my having begun work so
+young, perhaps. At an age when other boys are at school I was earning
+my living as a trader in the old Colony. I have been trading, hunting,
+fighting, or mining ever since. And yet it is only eight months ago
+that I made my pile. It is a big pile now that I have got it--I don't
+yet know how big--but I do not think I would go through the last
+fifteen or sixteen months again for it; no, not if I knew that I
+should come out safe at the end, pile and all. But then I am a timid
+man, and dislike violence; moreover, I am almost sick of adventure. I
+wonder why I am going to write this book: it is not in my line. I am
+not a literary man, though very devoted to the Old Testament and also
+to the "Ingoldsby Legends." Let me try to set down my reasons, just to
+see if I have any.
+
+First reason: Because Sir Henry Curtis and Captain John Good asked me.
+
+Second reason: Because I am laid up here at Durban with the pain in my
+left leg. Ever since that confounded lion got hold of me I have been
+liable to this trouble, and being rather bad just now, it makes me
+limp more than ever. There must be some poison in a lion's teeth,
+otherwise how is it that when your wounds are healed they break out
+again, generally, mark you, at the same time of year that you got your
+mauling? It is a hard thing when one has shot sixty-five lions or
+more, as I have in the course of my life, that the sixty-sixth should
+chew your leg like a quid of tobacco. It breaks the routine of the
+thing, and putting other considerations aside, I am an orderly man and
+don't like that. This is by the way.
+
+Third reason: Because I want my boy Harry, who is over there at the
+hospital in London studying to become a doctor, to have something to
+amuse him and keep him out of mischief for a week or so. Hospital work
+must sometimes pall and grow rather dull, for even of cutting up dead
+bodies there may come satiety, and as this history will not be dull,
+whatever else it may be, it will put a little life into things for a
+day or two while Harry is reading of our adventures.
+
+Fourth reason and last: Because I am going to tell the strangest story
+that I remember. It may seem a queer thing to say, especially
+considering that there is no woman in it--except Foulata. Stop,
+though! there is Gagaoola, if she was a woman, and not a fiend. But
+she was a hundred at least, and therefore not marriageable, so I don't
+count her. At any rate, I can safely say that there is not a
+/petticoat/ in the whole history.
+
+Well, I had better come to the yoke. It is a stiff place, and I feel
+as though I were bogged up to the axle. But, "/sutjes, sutjes/," as
+the Boers say--I am sure I don't know how they spell it--softly does
+it. A strong team will come through at last, that is, if they are not
+too poor. You can never do anything with poor oxen. Now to make a
+start.
+
+I, Allan Quatermain, of Durban, Natal, Gentleman, make oath and say--
+That's how I headed my deposition before the magistrate about poor
+Khiva's and Ventvoegel's sad deaths; but somehow it doesn't seem quite
+the right way to begin a book. And, besides, am I a gentleman? What is
+a gentleman? I don't quite know, and yet I have had to do with niggers
+--no, I will scratch out that word "niggers," for I do not like it.
+I've known natives who /are/, and so you will say, Harry, my boy,
+before you have done with this tale, and I have known mean whites with
+lots of money and fresh out from home, too, who /are not/.
+
+At any rate, I was born a gentleman, though I have been nothing but a
+poor travelling trader and hunter all my life. Whether I have remained
+so I known not, you must judge of that. Heaven knows I've tried. I
+have killed many men in my time, yet I have never slain wantonly or
+stained my hand in innocent blood, but only in self-defence. The
+Almighty gave us our lives, and I suppose He meant us to defend them,
+at least I have always acted on that, and I hope it will not be
+brought up against me when my clock strikes. There, there, it is a
+cruel and a wicked world, and for a timid man I have been mixed up in
+a great deal of fighting. I cannot tell the rights of it, but at any
+rate I have never stolen, though once I cheated a Kafir out of a herd
+of cattle. But then he had done me a dirty turn, and it has troubled
+me ever since into the bargain.
+
+
+
+Well, it is eighteen months or so ago since first I met Sir Henry
+Curtis and Captain Good. It was in this way. I had been up elephant
+hunting beyond Bamangwato, and had met with bad luck. Everything went
+wrong that trip, and to top up with I got the fever badly. So soon as
+I was well enough I trekked down to the Diamond Fields, sold such
+ivory as I had, together with my wagon and oxen, discharged my
+hunters, and took the post-cart to the Cape. After spending a week in
+Cape Town, finding that they overcharged me at the hotel, and having
+seen everything there was to see, including the botanical gardens,
+which seem to me likely to confer a great benefit on the country, and
+the new Houses of Parliament, which I expect will do nothing of the
+sort, I determined to go back to Natal by the /Dunkeld/, then lying at
+the docks waiting for the /Edinburgh Castle/ due in from England. I
+took my berth and went aboard, and that afternoon the Natal passengers
+from the /Edinburgh Castle/ transhipped, and we weighed and put to
+sea.
+
+Among these passengers who came on board were two who excited my
+curiosity. One, a gentleman of about thirty, was perhaps the biggest-
+chested and longest-armed man I ever saw. He had yellow hair, a thick
+yellow beard, clear-cut features, and large grey eyes set deep in his
+head. I never saw a finer-looking man, and somehow he reminded me of
+an ancient Dane. Not that I know much of ancient Danes, though I knew
+a modern Dane who did me out of ten pounds; but I remember once seeing
+a picture of some of those gentry, who, I take it, were a kind of
+white Zulus. They were drinking out of big horns, and their long hair
+hung down their backs. As I looked at my friend standing there by the
+companion-ladder, I thought that if he only let his grow a little, put
+one of those chain shirts on to his great shoulders, and took hold of
+a battle-axe and a horn mug, he might have sat as a model for that
+picture. And by the way it is a curious thing, and just shows how the
+blood will out, I discovered afterwards that Sir Henry Curtis, for
+that was the big man's name, is of Danish blood.[*] He also reminded
+me strongly of somebody else, but at the time I could not remember who
+it was.
+
+[*] Mr. Quatermain's ideas about ancient Danes seem to be rather
+    confused; we have always understood that they were dark-haired
+    people. Probably he was thinking of Saxons.--Editor.
+
+The other man, who stood talking to Sir Henry, was stout and dark, and
+of quite a different cut. I suspected at once that he was a naval
+officer; I don't know why, but it is difficult to mistake a navy man.
+I have gone shooting trips with several of them in the course of my
+life, and they have always proved themselves the best and bravest and
+nicest fellows I ever met, though sadly given, some of them, to the
+use of profane language. I asked a page or two back, what is a
+gentleman? I'll answer the question now: A Royal Naval officer is, in
+a general sort of way, though of course there may be a black sheep
+among them here and there. I fancy it is just the wide seas and the
+breath of God's winds that wash their hearts and blow the bitterness
+out of their minds and make them what men ought to be.
+
+Well, to return, I proved right again; I ascertained that the dark man
+/was/ a naval officer, a lieutenant of thirty-one, who, after
+seventeen years' service, had been turned out of her Majesty's employ
+with the barren honour of a commander's rank, because it was
+impossible that he should be promoted. This is what people who serve
+the Queen have to expect: to be shot out into the cold world to find a
+living just when they are beginning really to understand their work,
+and to reach the prime of life. I suppose they don't mind it, but for
+my own part I had rather earn my bread as a hunter. One's halfpence
+are as scarce perhaps, but you do not get so many kicks.
+
+The officer's name I found out--by referring to the passengers' lists
+--was Good--Captain John Good. He was broad, of medium height, dark,
+stout, and rather a curious man to look at. He was so very neat and so
+very clean-shaved, and he always wore an eye-glass in his right eye.
+It seemed to grow there, for it had no string, and he never took it
+out except to wipe it. At first I thought he used to sleep in it, but
+afterwards I found that this was a mistake. He put it in his trousers
+pocket when he went to bed, together with his false teeth, of which he
+had two beautiful sets that, my own being none of the best, have often
+caused me to break the tenth commandment. But I am anticipating.
+
+Soon after we had got under way evening closed in, and brought with it
+very dirty weather. A keen breeze sprung up off land, and a kind of
+aggravated Scotch mist soon drove everybody from the deck. As for the
+/Dunkeld/, she is a flat-bottomed punt, and going up light as she was,
+she rolled very heavily. It almost seemed as though she would go right
+over, but she never did. It was quite impossible to walk about, so I
+stood near the engines where it was warm, and amused myself with
+watching the pendulum, which was fixed opposite to me, swinging slowly
+backwards and forwards as the vessel rolled, and marking the angle she
+touched at each lurch.
+
+"That pendulum's wrong; it is not properly weighted," suddenly said a
+somewhat testy voice at my shoulder. Looking round I saw the naval
+officer whom I had noticed when the passengers came aboard.
+
+"Indeed, now what makes you think so?" I asked.
+
+"Think so. I don't think at all. Why there"--as she righted herself
+after a roll--"if the ship had really rolled to the degree that thing
+pointed to, then she would never have rolled again, that's all. But it
+is just like these merchant skippers, they are always so confoundedly
+careless."
+
+Just then the dinner-bell rang, and I was not sorry, for it is a
+dreadful thing to have to listen to an officer of the Royal Navy when
+he gets on to that subject. I only know one worse thing, and that is
+to hear a merchant skipper express his candid opinion of officers of
+the Royal Navy.
+
+Captain Good and I went down to dinner together, and there we found
+Sir Henry Curtis already seated. He and Captain Good were placed
+together, and I sat opposite to them. The captain and I soon fell into
+talk about shooting and what not; he asking me many questions, for he
+is very inquisitive about all sorts of things, and I answering them as
+well as I could. Presently he got on to elephants.
+
+"Ah, sir," called out somebody who was sitting near me, "you've
+reached the right man for that; Hunter Quatermain should be able to
+tell you about elephants if anybody can."
+
+Sir Henry, who had been sitting quite quiet listening to our talk,
+started visibly.
+
+"Excuse me, sir," he said, leaning forward across the table, and
+speaking in a low deep voice, a very suitable voice, it seemed to me,
+to come out of those great lungs. "Excuse me, sir, but is your name
+Allan Quatermain?"
+
+I said that it was.
+
+The big man made no further remark, but I heard him mutter "fortunate"
+into his beard.
+
+Presently dinner came to an end, and as we were leaving the saloon Sir
+Henry strolled up and asked me if I would come into his cabin to smoke
+a pipe. I accepted, and he led the way to the /Dunkeld/ deck cabin,
+and a very good cabin it is. It had been two cabins, but when Sir
+Garnet Wolseley or one of those big swells went down the coast in the
+/Dunkeld/, they knocked away the partition and have never put it up
+again. There was a sofa in the cabin, and a little table in front of
+it. Sir Henry sent the steward for a bottle of whisky, and the three
+of us sat down and lit our pipes.
+
+"Mr. Quatermain," said Sir Henry Curtis, when the man had brought the
+whisky and lit the lamp, "the year before last about this time, you
+were, I believe, at a place called Bamangwato, to the north of the
+Transvaal."
+
+"I was," I answered, rather surprised that this gentleman should be so
+well acquainted with my movements, which were not, so far as I was
+aware, considered of general interest.
+
+"You were trading there, were you not?" put in Captain Good, in his
+quick way.
+
+"I was. I took up a wagon-load of goods, made a camp outside the
+settlement, and stopped till I had sold them."
+
+Sir Henry was sitting opposite to me in a Madeira chair, his arms
+leaning on the table. He now looked up, fixing his large grey eyes
+full upon my face. There was a curious anxiety in them, I thought.
+
+"Did you happen to meet a man called Neville there?"
+
+"Oh, yes; he outspanned alongside of me for a fortnight to rest his
+oxen before going on to the interior. I had a letter from a lawyer a
+few months back, asking me if I knew what had become of him, which I
+answered to the best of my ability at the time."
+
+"Yes," said Sir Henry, "your letter was forwarded to me. You said in
+it that the gentleman called Neville left Bamangwato at the beginning
+of May in a wagon with a driver, a voorlooper, and a Kafir hunter
+called Jim, announcing his intention of trekking if possible as far as
+Inyati, the extreme trading post in the Matabele country, where he
+would sell his wagon and proceed on foot. You also said that he did
+sell his wagon, for six months afterwards you saw the wagon in the
+possession of a Portuguese trader, who told you that he had bought it
+at Inyati from a white man whose name he had forgotten, and that he
+believed the white man with the native servant had started off for the
+interior on a shooting trip."
+
+"Yes."
+
+Then came a pause.
+
+"Mr. Quatermain," said Sir Henry suddenly, "I suppose you know or can
+guess nothing more of the reasons of my--of Mr. Neville's journey to
+the northward, or as to what point that journey was directed?"
+
+"I heard something," I answered, and stopped. The subject was one
+which I did not care to discuss.
+
+Sir Henry and Captain Good looked at each other, and Captain Good
+nodded.
+
+"Mr. Quatermain," went on the former, "I am going to tell you a story,
+and ask your advice, and perhaps your assistance. The agent who
+forwarded me your letter told me that I might rely on it implicitly,
+as you were," he said, "well known and universally respected in Natal,
+and especially noted for your discretion."
+
+I bowed and drank some whisky and water to hide my confusion, for I am
+a modest man--and Sir Henry went on.
+
+"Mr. Neville was my brother."
+
+"Oh," I said, starting, for now I knew of whom Sir Henry had reminded
+me when first I saw him. His brother was a much smaller man and had a
+dark beard, but now that I thought of it, he possessed eyes of the
+same shade of grey and with the same keen look in them: the features
+too were not unlike.
+
+"He was," went on Sir Henry, "my only and younger brother, and till
+five years ago I do not suppose that we were ever a month away from
+each other. But just about five years ago a misfortune befell us, as
+sometimes does happen in families. We quarrelled bitterly, and I
+behaved unjustly to my brother in my anger."
+
+Here Captain Good nodded his head vigorously to himself. The ship gave
+a big roll just then, so that the looking-glass, which was fixed
+opposite us to starboard, was for a moment nearly over our heads, and
+as I was sitting with my hands in my pockets and staring upwards, I
+could see him nodding like anything.
+
+"As I daresay you know," went on Sir Henry, "if a man dies intestate,
+and has no property but land, real property it is called in England,
+it all descends to his eldest son. It so happened that just at the
+time when we quarrelled our father died intestate. He had put off
+making his will until it was too late. The result was that my brother,
+who had not been brought up to any profession, was left without a
+penny. Of course it would have been my duty to provide for him, but at
+the time the quarrel between us was so bitter that I did not--to my
+shame I say it (and he sighed deeply)--offer to do anything. It was
+not that I grudged him justice, but I waited for him to make advances,
+and he made none. I am sorry to trouble you with all this, Mr.
+Quatermain, but I must to make things clear, eh, Good?"
+
+"Quite so, quite so," said the captain. "Mr. Quatermain will, I am
+sure, keep this history to himself."
+
+"Of course," said I, for I rather pride myself on my discretion, for
+which, as Sir Henry had heard, I have some repute.
+
+"Well," went on Sir Henry, "my brother had a few hundred pounds to his
+account at the time. Without saying anything to me he drew out this
+paltry sum, and, having adopted the name of Neville, started off for
+South Africa in the wild hope of making a fortune. This I learned
+afterwards. Some three years passed, and I heard nothing of my
+brother, though I wrote several times. Doubtless the letters never
+reached him. But as time went on I grew more and more troubled about
+him. I found out, Mr. Quatermain, that blood is thicker than water."
+
+"That's true," said I, thinking of my boy Harry.
+
+"I found out, Mr. Quatermain, that I would have given half my fortune
+to know that my brother George, the only relation I possess, was safe
+and well, and that I should see him again."
+
+"But you never did, Curtis," jerked out Captain Good, glancing at the
+big man's face.
+
+"Well, Mr. Quatermain, as time went on I became more and more anxious
+to find out if my brother was alive or dead, and if alive to get him
+home again. I set enquiries on foot, and your letter was one of the
+results. So far as it went it was satisfactory, for it showed that
+till lately George was alive, but it did not go far enough. So, to cut
+a long story short, I made up my mind to come out and look for him
+myself, and Captain Good was so kind as to come with me."
+
+"Yes," said the captain; "nothing else to do, you see. Turned out by
+my Lords of the Admiralty to starve on half pay. And now perhaps, sir,
+you will tell us what you know or have heard of the gentleman called
+Neville."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE LEGEND OF SOLOMON'S MINES
+
+"What was it that you heard about my brother's journey at Bamangwato?"
+asked Sir Henry, as I paused to fill my pipe before replying to
+Captain Good.
+
+"I heard this," I answered, "and I have never mentioned it to a soul
+till to-day. I heard that he was starting for Solomon's Mines."
+
+"Solomon's Mines?" ejaculated both my hearers at once. "Where are
+they?"
+
+"I don't know," I said; "I know where they are said to be. Once I saw
+the peaks of the mountains that border them, but there were a hundred
+and thirty miles of desert between me and them, and I am not aware
+that any white man ever got across it save one. But perhaps the best
+thing I can do is to tell you the legend of Solomon's Mines as I know
+it, you passing your word not to reveal anything I tell you without my
+permission. Do you agree to that? I have my reasons for asking."
+
+Sir Henry nodded, and Captain Good replied, "Certainly, certainly."
+
+"Well," I began, "as you may guess, generally speaking, elephant
+hunters are a rough set of men, who do not trouble themselves with
+much beyond the facts of life and the ways of Kafirs. But here and
+there you meet a man who takes the trouble to collect traditions from
+the natives, and tries to make out a little piece of the history of
+this dark land. It was such a man as this who first told me the legend
+of Solomon's Mines, now a matter of nearly thirty years ago. That was
+when I was on my first elephant hunt in the Matalebe country. His name
+was Evans, and he was killed the following year, poor fellow, by a
+wounded buffalo, and lies buried near the Zambesi Falls. I was telling
+Evans one night, I remember, of some wonderful workings I had found
+whilst hunting koodoo and eland in what is now the Lydenburg district
+of the Transvaal. I see they have come across these workings again
+lately in prospecting for gold, but I knew of them years ago. There is
+a great wide wagon road cut out of the solid rock, and leading to the
+mouth of the working or gallery. Inside the mouth of this gallery are
+stacks of gold quartz piled up ready for roasting, which shows that
+the workers, whoever they were, must have left in a hurry. Also, about
+twenty paces in, the gallery is built across, and a beautiful bit of
+masonry it is."
+
+"'Ay,' said Evans, 'but I will spin you a queerer yarn than that'; and
+he went on to tell me how he had found in the far interior a ruined
+city, which he believed to be the Ophir of the Bible, and, by the way,
+other more learned men have said the same long since poor Evans's
+time. I was, I remember, listening open-eared to all these wonders,
+for I was young at the time, and this story of an ancient civilisation
+and of the treasures which those old Jewish or Phoenician adventurers
+used to extract from a country long since lapsed into the darkest
+barbarism took a great hold upon my imagination, when suddenly he said
+to me, 'Lad, did you ever hear of the Suliman Mountains up to the
+north-west of the Mushakulumbwe country?' I told him I never had. 'Ah,
+well,' he said, 'that is where Solomon really had his mines, his
+diamond mines, I mean.'
+
+"'How do you know that?' I asked.
+
+"'Know it! why, what is "Suliman" but a corruption of Solomon?[*]
+Besides, an old Isanusi or witch doctoress up in the Manica country
+told me all about it. She said that the people who lived across those
+mountains were a "branch" of the Zulus, speaking a dialect of Zulu,
+but finer and bigger men even; that there lived among them great
+wizards, who had learnt their art from white men when "all the world
+was dark," and who had the secret of a wonderful mine of "bright
+stones."'
+
+[*] Suliman is the Arabic form of Solomon.--Editor.
+
+"Well, I laughed at this story at the time, though it interested me,
+for the Diamond Fields were not discovered then, but poor Evans went
+off and was killed, and for twenty years I never thought any more of
+the matter. However, just twenty years afterwards--and that is a long
+time, gentlemen; an elephant hunter does not often live for twenty
+years at his business--I heard something more definite about Suliman's
+Mountains and the country which lies beyond them. I was up beyond the
+Manica country, at a place called Sitanda's Kraal, and a miserable
+place it was, for a man could get nothing to eat, and there was but
+little game about. I had an attack of fever, and was in a bad way
+generally, when one day a Portugee arrived with a single companion--a
+half-breed. Now I know your low-class Delagoa Portugee well. There is
+no greater devil unhung in a general way, battening as he does upon
+human agony and flesh in the shape of slaves. But this was quite a
+different type of man to the mean fellows whom I had been accustomed
+to meet; indeed, in appearance he reminded me more of the polite doms
+I have read about, for he was tall and thin, with large dark eyes and
+curling grey mustachios. We talked together for a while, for he could
+speak broken English, and I understood a little Portugee, and he told
+me that his name was Jose Silvestre, and that he had a place near
+Delagoa Bay. When he went on next day with his half-breed companion,
+he said 'Good-bye,' taking off his hat quite in the old style.
+
+"'Good-bye, senoer,' he said; 'if ever we meet again I shall be the
+richest man in the world, and I will remember you.' I laughed a little
+--I was too weak to laugh much--and watched him strike out for the
+great desert to the west, wondering if he was mad, or what he thought
+he was going to find there.
+
+"A week passed, and I got the better of my fever. One evening I was
+sitting on the ground in front of the little tent I had with me,
+chewing the last leg of a miserable fowl I had bought from a native
+for a bit of cloth worth twenty fowls, and staring at the hot red sun
+sinking down over the desert, when suddenly I saw a figure, apparently
+that of a European, for it wore a coat, on the slope of the rising
+ground opposite to me, about three hundred yards away. The figure
+crept along on its hands and knees, then it got up and staggered
+forward a few yards on its legs, only to fall and crawl again. Seeing
+that it must be somebody in distress, I sent one of my hunters to help
+him, and presently he arrived, and who do you suppose it turned out to
+be?"
+
+"Jose Silvestre, of course," said Captain Good.
+
+"Yes, Jose Silvestre, or rather his skeleton and a little skin. His
+face was a bright yellow with bilious fever, and his large dark eyes
+stood nearly out of his head, for all the flesh had gone. There was
+nothing but yellow parchment-like skin, white hair, and the gaunt
+bones sticking up beneath.
+
+"'Water! for the sake of Christ, water!' he moaned and I saw that his
+lips were cracked, and his tongue, which protruded between them, was
+swollen and blackish.
+
+"I gave him water with a little milk in it, and he drank it in great
+gulps, two quarts or so, without stopping. I would not let him have
+any more. Then the fever took him again, and he fell down and began to
+rave about Suliman's Mountains, and the diamonds, and the desert. I
+carried him into the tent and did what I could for him, which was
+little enough; but I saw how it must end. About eleven o'clock he grew
+quieter, and I lay down for a little rest and went to sleep. At dawn I
+woke again, and in the half light saw Silvestre sitting up, a strange,
+gaunt form, and gazing out towards the desert. Presently the first ray
+of the sun shot right across the wide plain before us till it reached
+the faraway crest of one of the tallest of the Suliman Mountains more
+than a hundred miles away.
+
+"'There it is!' cried the dying man in Portuguese, and pointing with
+his long, thin arm, 'but I shall never reach it, never. No one will
+ever reach it!'
+
+"Suddenly, he paused, and seemed to take a resolution. 'Friend,' he
+said, turning towards me, 'are you there? My eyes grow dark.'
+
+"'Yes,' I said; 'yes, lie down now, and rest.'
+
+"'Ay,' he answered, 'I shall rest soon, I have time to rest--all
+eternity. Listen, I am dying! You have been good to me. I will give
+you the writing. Perhaps you will get there if you can live to pass
+the desert, which has killed my poor servant and me.'
+
+"Then he groped in his shirt and brought out what I thought was a Boer
+tobacco pouch made of the skin of the Swart-vet-pens or sable
+antelope. It was fastened with a little strip of hide, what we call a
+rimpi, and this he tried to loose, but could not. He handed it to me.
+'Untie it,' he said. I did so, and extracted a bit of torn yellow
+linen on which something was written in rusty letters. Inside this rag
+was a paper.
+
+"Then he went on feebly, for he was growing weak: 'The paper has all
+that is on the linen. It took me years to read. Listen: my ancestor, a
+political refugee from Lisbon, and one of the first Portuguese who
+landed on these shores, wrote that when he was dying on those
+mountains which no white foot ever pressed before or since. His name
+was Jose da Silvestra, and he lived three hundred years ago. His
+slave, who waited for him on this side of the mountains, found him
+dead, and brought the writing home to Delagoa. It has been in the
+family ever since, but none have cared to read it, till at last I did.
+And I have lost my life over it, but another may succeed, and become
+the richest man in the world--the richest man in the world. Only give
+it to no one, senoer; go yourself!'
+
+"Then he began to wander again, and in an hour it was all over.
+
+"God rest him! he died very quietly, and I buried him deep, with big
+boulders on his breast; so I do not think that the jackals can have
+dug him up. And then I came away."
+
+"Ay, but the document?" said Sir Henry, in a tone of deep interest.
+
+"Yes, the document; what was in it?" added the captain.
+
+"Well, gentlemen, if you like I will tell you. I have never showed it
+to anybody yet except to a drunken old Portuguese trader who
+translated it for me, and had forgotten all about it by the next
+morning. The original rag is at my home in Durban, together with poor
+Dom Jose's translation, but I have the English rendering in my pocket-
+book, and a facsimile of the map, if it can be called a map. Here it
+is."
+
+[MAP OMITTED]
+
+  "I, Jose da Silvestra, who am now dying of hunger in the little
+  cave here no snow is on the north side of the nipple of the
+  southernmost of the two mountains I have named Sheba's Breasts,
+  write this in the year 1590 with a cleft bone upon a remnant of my
+  raiment, my blood being the ink. If my slave should find it when
+  he comes, and should bring it to Delagoa, let my friend (name
+  illegible) bring the matter to the knowledge of the king, that he
+  may send an army which, if they live through the desert and the
+  mountains, and can overcome the brave Kukuanes and their devilish
+  arts, to which end many priests should be brought, will make him
+  the richest king since Solomon. With my own eyes I have seen the
+  countless diamonds stored in Solomon's treasure chamber behind the
+  white Death; but through the treachery of Gagool the witch-finder
+  I might bring nought away, scarcely my life. Let him who comes
+  follow the map, and climb the snow of Sheba's left breast till he
+  reaches the nipple, on the north side of which is the great road
+  Solomon made, from whence three days' journey to the King's
+  Palace. Let him kill Gagool. Pray for my soul. Farewell.
+
+Jose da Silvestra."[*]
+
+[*] Eu Jose da Silvestra que estou morrendo de fome na pequena cova
+    onde nao ha neve ao lado norte do bico mais ao sul das duas
+    montanhas que chamei scio de Sheba; escrevo isto no anno 1590;
+    escrevo isto com um pedaco d'osso n' um farrapo de minha roupa e
+    com sangue meu por tinta; se o meu escravo der com isto quando
+    venha ao levar para Lourenzo Marquez, que o meu amigo ---------
+    leve a cousa ao conhecimento d' El Rei, para que possa mandar um
+    exercito que, se desfiler pelo deserto e pelas montonhas e mesmo
+    sobrepujar os bravos Kukuanes e suas artes diabolicas, pelo que se
+    deviam trazer muitos padres Far o Rei mais rico depois de Salomao
+    Com meus proprios olhos ve os di amantes sem conto guardados nas
+    camaras do thesouro de Salomao a traz da morte branca, mas pela
+    traicao de Gagoal a feiticeira achadora, nada poderia levar, e
+    apenas a minha vida. Quem vier siga o mappa e trepe pela neve de
+    Sheba peito a esquerda ate chegar ao bica, do lado norte do qual
+    esta a grande estrada do Solomao por elle feita, donde ha tres
+    dias de jornada ate ao Palacio do Rei. Mate Gagoal. Reze por minha
+    alma. Adeos.                                Jose da Silvestra.
+
+When I had finished reading the above, and shown the copy of the map,
+drawn by the dying hand of the old Dom with his blood for ink, there
+followed a silence of astonishment.
+
+"Well," said Captain Good, "I have been round the world twice, and put
+in at most ports, but may I be hung for a mutineer if ever I heard a
+yarn like this out of a story book, or in it either, for the matter of
+that."
+
+"It's a queer tale, Mr. Quatermain," said Sir Henry. "I suppose you
+are not hoaxing us? It is, I know, sometimes thought allowable to take
+in a greenhorn."
+
+"If you think that, Sir Henry," I said, much put out, and pocketing my
+paper--for I do not like to be thought one of those silly fellows who
+consider it witty to tell lies, and who are for ever boasting to
+newcomers of extraordinary hunting adventures which never happened--
+"if you think that, why, there is an end to the matter," and I rose to
+go.
+
+Sir Henry laid his large hand upon my shoulder. "Sit down, Mr.
+Quatermain," he said, "I beg your pardon; I see very well you do not
+wish to deceive us, but the story sounded so strange that I could
+hardly believe it."
+
+"You shall see the original map and writing when we reach Durban," I
+answered, somewhat mollified, for really when I came to consider the
+question it was scarcely wonderful that he should doubt my good faith.
+
+"But," I went on, "I have not told you about your brother. I knew the
+man Jim who was with him. He was a Bechuana by birth, a good hunter,
+and for a native a very clever man. That morning on which Mr. Neville
+was starting I saw Jim standing by my wagon and cutting up tobacco on
+the disselboom.
+
+"'Jim,' said I, 'where are you off to this trip? It is elephants?'
+
+"'No, Baas,' he answered, 'we are after something worth much more than
+ivory.'
+
+"'And what might that be?' I said, for I was curious. 'Is it gold?'
+
+"'No, Baas, something worth more than gold,' and he grinned.
+
+"I asked no more questions, for I did not like to lower my dignity by
+seeming inquisitive, but I was puzzled. Presently Jim finished cutting
+his tobacco.
+
+"'Baas,' said he.
+
+"I took no notice.
+
+"'Baas,' said he again.
+
+"'Eh, boy, what is it?' I asked.
+
+"'Baas, we are going after diamonds.'
+
+"'Diamonds! why, then, you are steering in the wrong direction; you
+should head for the Fields.'
+
+"'Baas, have you ever heard of Suliman's Berg?'--that is, Solomon's
+Mountains, Sir Henry.
+
+"'Ay!'
+
+"'Have you ever heard of the diamonds there?'
+
+"'I have heard a foolish story, Jim.'
+
+"'It is no story, Baas. Once I knew a woman who came from there, and
+reached Natal with her child, she told me:--she is dead now.'
+
+"'Your master will feed the assvoegels'--that is, vultures--'Jim, if he
+tries to reach Suliman's country, and so will you if they can get any
+pickings off your worthless old carcass,' said I.
+
+"He grinned. 'Mayhap, Baas. Man must die; I'd rather like to try a new
+country myself; the elephants are getting worked out about here.'
+
+"'Ah! my boy,' I said, 'you wait till the "pale old man" gets a grip
+of your yellow throat, and then we shall hear what sort of a tune you
+sing.'
+
+"Half an hour after that I saw Neville's wagon move off. Presently Jim
+came back running. 'Good-bye, Baas,' he said. 'I didn't like to start
+without bidding you good-bye, for I daresay you are right, and that we
+shall never trek south again.'
+
+"'Is your master really going to Suliman's Berg, Jim, or are you
+lying?'
+
+"'No,' he answered, 'he is going. He told me he was bound to make his
+fortune somehow, or try to; so he might as well have a fling for the
+diamonds.'
+
+"'Oh!' I said; 'wait a bit, Jim; will you take a note to your master,
+Jim, and promise not to give it to him till you reach Inyati?' which
+was some hundred miles off.
+
+"'Yes, Baas.'
+
+"So I took a scrap of paper, and wrote on it, 'Let him who comes . . .
+climb the snow of Sheba's left breast, till he reaches the nipple, on
+the north side of which is Solomon's great road.'
+
+"'Now, Jim,' I said, 'when you give this to your master, tell him he
+had better follow the advice on it implicitly. You are not to give it
+to him now, because I don't want him back asking me questions which I
+won't answer. Now be off, you idle fellow, the wagon is nearly out of
+sight.'
+
+"Jim took the note and went, and that is all I know about your
+brother, Sir Henry; but I am much afraid--"
+
+"Mr. Quatermain," said Sir Henry, "I am going to look for my brother;
+I am going to trace him to Suliman's Mountains, and over them if
+necessary, till I find him, or until I know that he is dead. Will you
+come with me?"
+
+I am, as I think I have said, a cautious man, indeed a timid one, and
+this suggestion frightened me. It seemed to me that to undertake such
+a journey would be to go to certain death, and putting other
+considerations aside, as I had a son to support, I could not afford to
+die just then.
+
+"No, thank you, Sir Henry, I think I had rather not," I answered. "I
+am too old for wild-goose chases of that sort, and we should only end
+up like my poor friend Silvestre. I have a son dependent on me, so I
+cannot afford to risk my life foolishly."
+
+Both Sir Henry and Captain Good looked very disappointed.
+
+"Mr. Quatermain," said the former, "I am well off, and I am bent upon
+this business. You may put the remuneration for your services at
+whatever figure you like in reason, and it shall be paid over to you
+before we start. Moreover, I will arrange in the event of anything
+untoward happening to us or to you, that your son shall be suitably
+provided for. You will see from this offer how necessary I think your
+presence. Also if by chance we should reach this place, and find
+diamonds, they shall belong to you and Good equally. I do not want
+them. But of course that promise is worth nothing at all, though the
+same thing would apply to any ivory we might get. You may pretty well
+make your own terms with me, Mr. Quatermain; and of course I shall pay
+all expenses."
+
+"Sir Henry," said I, "this is the most liberal proposal I ever had,
+and one not to be sneezed at by a poor hunter and trader. But the job
+is the biggest I have come across, and I must take time to think it
+over. I will give you my answer before we get to Durban."
+
+"Very good," answered Sir Henry.
+
+Then I said good-night and turned in, and dreamt about poor long-dead
+Silvestre and the diamonds.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+UMBOPA ENTERS OUR SERVICE
+
+It takes from four to five days, according to the speed of the vessel
+and the state of the weather, to run up from the Cape to Durban.
+Sometimes, if the landing is bad at East London, where they have not
+yet made that wonderful harbour they talk so much of, and sink such a
+mint of money in, a ship is delayed for twenty-four hours before the
+cargo boats can get out to take off the goods. But on this occasion we
+had not to wait at all, for there were no breakers on the Bar to speak
+of, and the tugs came out at once with the long strings of ugly flat-
+bottomed boats behind them, into which the packages were bundled with
+a crash. It did not matter what they might be, over they went slap-
+bang; whether they contained china or woollen goods they met with the
+same treatment. I saw one case holding four dozen of champagne smashed
+all to bits, and there was the champagne fizzing and boiling about in
+the bottom of the dirty cargo boat. It was a wicked waste, and
+evidently so the Kafirs in the boat thought, for they found a couple
+of unbroken bottles, and knocking off the necks drank the contents.
+But they had not allowed for the expansion caused by the fizz in the
+wine, and, feeling themselves swelling, rolled about in the bottom of
+the boat, calling out that the good liquor was "tagati"--that is,
+bewitched. I spoke to them from the vessel, and told them it was the
+white man's strongest medicine, and that they were as good as dead
+men. Those Kafirs went to the shore in a very great fright, and I do
+not think that they will touch champagne again.
+
+Well, all the time that we were steaming up to Natal I was thinking
+over Sir Henry Curtis's offer. We did not speak any more on the
+subject for a day or two, though I told them many hunting yarns, all
+true ones. There is no need to tell lies about hunting, for so many
+curious things happen within the knowledge of a man whose business it
+is to hunt; but this is by the way.
+
+At last, one beautiful evening in January, which is our hottest month,
+we steamed past the coast of Natal, expecting to make Durban Point by
+sunset. It is a lovely coast all along from East London, with its red
+sandhills and wide sweeps of vivid green, dotted here and there with
+Kafir kraals, and bordered by a ribbon of white surf, which spouts up
+in pillars of foam where it hits the rocks. But just before you come
+to Durban there is a peculiar richness about the landscape. There are
+the sheer kloofs cut in the hills by the rushing rains of centuries,
+down which the rivers sparkle; there is the deepest green of the bush,
+growing as God planted it, and the other greens of the mealie gardens
+and the sugar patches, while now and again a white house, smiling out
+at the placid sea, puts a finish and gives an air of homeliness to the
+scene. For to my mind, however beautiful a view may be, it requires
+the presence of man to make it complete, but perhaps that is because I
+have lived so much in the wilderness, and therefore know the value of
+civilisation, though to be sure it drives away the game. The Garden of
+Eden, no doubt, looked fair before man was, but I always think that it
+must have been fairer when Eve adorned it.
+
+To return, we had miscalculated a little, and the sun was well down
+before we dropped anchor off the Point, and heard the gun which told
+the good folks of Durban that the English Mail was in. It was too late
+to think of getting over the Bar that night, so we went comfortably to
+dinner, after seeing the Mails carried off in the life-boat.
+
+When we came up again the moon was out, and shining so brightly over
+sea and shore that she almost paled the quick, large flashes from the
+lighthouse. From the shore floated sweet spicy odours that always
+remind me of hymns and missionaries, and in the windows of the houses
+on the Berea sparkled a hundred lights. From a large brig lying near
+also came the music of the sailors as they worked at getting the
+anchor up in order to be ready for the wind. Altogether it was a
+perfect night, such a night as you sometimes get in Southern Africa,
+and it threw a garment of peace over everybody as the moon threw a
+garment of silver over everything. Even the great bulldog, belonging
+to a sporting passenger, seemed to yield to its gentle influences, and
+forgetting his yearning to come to close quarters with the baboon in a
+cage on the foc'sle, snored happily at the door of the cabin, dreaming
+no doubt that he had finished him, and happy in his dream.
+
+We three--that is, Sir Henry Curtis, Captain Good, and myself--went
+and sat by the wheel, and were quiet for a while.
+
+"Well, Mr. Quatermain," said Sir Henry presently, "have you been
+thinking about my proposals?"
+
+"Ay," echoed Captain Good, "what do you think of them, Mr. Quatermain?
+I hope that you are going to give us the pleasure of your company so
+far as Solomon's Mines, or wherever the gentleman you knew as Neville
+may have got to."
+
+I rose and knocked out my pipe before I answered. I had not made up my
+mind, and wanted an additional moment to decide. Before the burning
+tobacco had fallen into the sea I had decided; just that little extra
+second did the trick. It is often the way when you have been bothering
+a long time over a thing.
+
+"Yes, gentlemen," I said, sitting down again, "I will go, and by your
+leave I will tell you why, and on what conditions. First for the terms
+which I ask.
+
+"1. You are to pay all expenses, and any ivory or other valuables we
+may get is to be divided between Captain Good and myself.
+
+"2. That you give me L500 for my services on the trip before we start,
+I undertaking to serve you faithfully till you choose to abandon the
+enterprise, or till we succeed, or disaster overtakes us.
+
+"3. That before we trek you execute a deed agreeing, in the event of
+my death or disablement, to pay my boy Harry, who is studying medicine
+over there in London, at Guy's Hospital, a sum of L200 a year for five
+years, by which time he ought to be able to earn a living for himself
+if he is worth his salt. That is all, I think, and I daresay you will
+say quite enough too."
+
+"No," answered Sir Henry, "I accept them gladly. I am bent upon this
+project, and would pay more than that for your help, considering the
+peculiar and exclusive knowledge which you possess."
+
+"Pity I did not ask it, then, but I won't go back on my word. And now
+that I have got my terms I will tell you my reasons for making up my
+mind to go. First of all, gentlemen, I have been observing you both
+for the last few days, and if you will not think me impertinent I may
+say that I like you, and believe that we shall come up well to the
+yoke together. That is something, let me tell you, when one has a long
+journey like this before one.
+
+"And now as to the journey itself, I tell you flatly, Sir Henry and
+Captain Good, that I do not think it probable we can come out of it
+alive, that is, if we attempt to cross the Suliman Mountains. What was
+the fate of the old Dom da Silvestra three hundred years ago? What was
+the fate of his descendant twenty years ago? What has been your
+brother's fate? I tell you frankly, gentlemen, that as their fates
+were so I believe ours will be."
+
+I paused to watch the effect of my words. Captain Good looked a little
+uncomfortable, but Sir Henry's face did not change. "We must take our
+chance," he said.
+
+"You may perhaps wonder," I went on, "why, if I think this, I, who am,
+as I told you, a timid man, should undertake such a journey. It is for
+two reasons. First I am a fatalist, and believe that my time is
+appointed to come quite without reference to my own movements and
+will, and that if I am to go to Suliman's Mountains to be killed, I
+shall go there and shall be killed. God Almighty, no doubt, knows His
+mind about me, so I need not trouble on that point. Secondly, I am a
+poor man. For nearly forty years I have hunted and traded, but I have
+never made more than a living. Well, gentlemen, I don't know if you
+are aware that the average life of an elephant hunter from the time he
+takes to the trade is between four and five years. So you see I have
+lived through about seven generations of my class, and I should think
+that my time cannot be far off, anyway. Now, if anything were to
+happen to me in the ordinary course of business, by the time my debts
+are paid there would be nothing left to support my son Harry whilst he
+was getting in the way of earning a living, whereas now he will be set
+up for five years. There is the whole affair in a nutshell."
+
+"Mr. Quatermain," said Sir Henry, who had been giving me his most
+serious attention, "your motives for undertaking an enterprise which
+you believe can only end in disaster reflect a great deal of credit on
+you. Whether or not you are right, of course time and the event alone
+can show. But whether you are right or wrong, I may as well tell you
+at once that I am going through with it to the end, sweet or bitter.
+If we are to be knocked on the head, all I have to say is, that I hope
+we get a little shooting first, eh, Good?"
+
+"Yes, yes," put in the captain. "We have all three of us been
+accustomed to face danger, and to hold our lives in our hands in
+various ways, so it is no good turning back now. And now I vote we go
+down to the saloon and take an observation just for luck, you know."
+And we did--through the bottom of a tumbler.
+
+Next day we went ashore, and I put up Sir Henry and Captain Good at
+the little shanty I have built on the Berea, and which I call my home.
+There are only three rooms and a kitchen in it, and it is constructed
+of green brick with a galvanised iron roof, but there is a good garden
+with the best loquot trees in it that I know, and some nice young
+mangoes, of which I hope great things. The curator of the botanical
+gardens gave them to me. It is looked after by an old hunter of mine
+named Jack, whose thigh was so badly broken by a buffalo cow in
+Sikukunis country that he will never hunt again. But he can potter
+about and garden, being a Griqua by birth. You will never persuade a
+Zulu to take much interest in gardening. It is a peaceful art, and
+peaceful arts are not in his line.
+
+Sir Henry and Good slept in a tent pitched in my little grove of
+orange trees at the end of the garden, for there was no room for them
+in the house, and what with the smell of the bloom, and the sight of
+the green and golden fruit--in Durban you will see all three on the
+tree together--I daresay it is a pleasant place enough, for we have
+few mosquitos here on the Berea, unless there happens to come an
+unusually heavy rain.
+
+Well, to get on--for if I do not, Harry, you will be tired of my story
+before ever we fetch up at Suliman's Mountains--having once made up my
+mind to go I set about making the necessary preparations. First I
+secured the deed from Sir Henry, providing for you, my boy, in case of
+accidents. There was some difficulty about its legal execution, as Sir
+Henry was a stranger here, and the property to be charged is over the
+water; but it was ultimately got over with the help of a lawyer, who
+charged L20 for the job--a price that I thought outrageous. Then I
+pocketed my cheque for L500.
+
+Having paid this tribute to my bump of caution, I purchased a wagon
+and a span of oxen on Sir Henry's behalf, and beauties they were. It
+was a twenty-two-foot wagon with iron axles, very strong, very light,
+and built throughout of stink wood; not quite a new one, having been
+to the Diamond Fields and back, but, in my opinion, all the better for
+that, for I could see that the wood was well seasoned. If anything is
+going to give in a wagon, or if there is green wood in it, it will
+show out on the first trip. This particular vehicle was what we call a
+"half-tented" wagon, that is to say, only covered in over the after
+twelve feet, leaving all the front part free for the necessaries we
+had to carry with us. In this after part were a hide "cartle," or bed,
+on which two people could sleep, also racks for rifles, and many other
+little conveniences. I gave L125 for it, and think that it was cheap
+at the price.
+
+Then I bought a beautiful team of twenty Zulu oxen, which I had kept
+my eye on for a year or two. Sixteen oxen is the usual number for a
+team, but I took four extra to allow for casualties. These Zulu cattle
+are small and light, not more than half the size of the Africander
+oxen, which are generally used for transport purposes; but they will
+live where the Africanders would starve, and with a moderate load can
+make five miles a day better going, being quicker and not so liable to
+become footsore. What is more, this lot were thoroughly "salted," that
+is, they had worked all over South Africa, and so had become proof,
+comparatively speaking, against red water, which so frequently
+destroys whole teams of oxen when they get on to strange "veldt" or
+grass country. As for "lung sick," which is a dreadful form of
+pneumonia, very prevalent in this country, they had all been
+inoculated against it. This is done by cutting a slit in the tail of
+an ox, and binding in a piece of the diseased lung of an animal which
+has died of the sickness. The result is that the ox sickens, takes the
+disease in a mild form, which causes its tail to drop off, as a rule
+about a foot from the root, and becomes proof against future attacks.
+It seems cruel to rob the animal of his tail, especially in a country
+where there are so many flies, but it is better to sacrifice the tail
+and keep the ox than to lose both tail and ox, for a tail without an
+ox is not much good, except to dust with. Still it does look odd to
+trek along behind twenty stumps, where there ought to be tails. It
+seems as though Nature made a trifling mistake, and stuck the stern
+ornaments of a lot of prize bull-dogs on to the rumps of the oxen.
+
+Next came the question of provisioning and medicines, one which
+required the most careful consideration, for what we had to do was to
+avoid lumbering the wagon, and yet to take everything absolutely
+necessary. Fortunately, it turned out that Good is a bit of a doctor,
+having at some point in his previous career managed to pass through a
+course of medical and surgical instruction, which he has more or less
+kept up. He is not, of course, qualified, but he knows more about it
+than many a man who can write M.D. after his name, as we found out
+afterwards, and he had a splendid travelling medicine chest and a set
+of instruments. Whilst we were at Durban he cut off a Kafir's big toe
+in a way which it was a pleasure to see. But he was quite nonplussed
+when the Kafir, who had sat stolidly watching the operation, asked him
+to put on another, saying that a "white one" would do at a pinch.
+
+There remained, when these questions were satisfactorily settled, two
+further important points for consideration, namely, that of arms and
+that of servants. As to the arms I cannot do better than put down a
+list of those which we finally decided on from among the ample store
+that Sir Henry had brought with him from England, and those which I
+owned. I copy it from my pocket-book, where I made the entry at the
+time.
+
+"Three heavy breech-loading double-eight elephant guns, weighing about
+fifteen pounds each, to carry a charge of eleven drachms of black
+powder." Two of these were by a well-known London firm, most excellent
+makers, but I do not know by whom mine, which is not so highly
+finished, was made. I have used it on several trips, and shot a good
+many elephants with it, and it has always proved a most superior
+weapon, thoroughly to be relied on.
+
+"Three double-500 Expresses, constructed to stand a charge of six
+drachms," sweet weapons, and admirable for medium-sized game, such as
+eland or sable antelope, or for men, especially in an open country and
+with the semi-hollow bullet.
+
+"One double No. 12 central-fire Keeper's shot-gun, full choke both
+barrels." This gun proved of the greatest service to us afterwards in
+shooting game for the pot.
+
+"Three Winchester repeating rifles (not carbines), spare guns.
+
+"Three single-action Colt's revolvers, with the heavier, or American
+pattern of cartridge."
+
+This was our total armament, and doubtless the reader will observe
+that the weapons of each class were of the same make and calibre, so
+that the cartridges were interchangeable, a very important point. I
+make no apology for detailing it at length, as every experienced
+hunter will know how vital a proper supply of guns and ammunition is
+to the success of an expedition.
+
+Now as to the men who were to go with us. After much consultation we
+decided that their number should be limited to five, namely, a driver,
+a leader, and three servants.
+
+The driver and leader I found without much difficulty, two Zulus,
+named respectively Goza and Tom; but to get the servants proved a more
+difficult matter. It was necessary that they should be thoroughly
+trustworthy and brave men, as in a business of this sort our lives
+might depend upon their conduct. At last I secured two, one a
+Hottentot named Ventvoegel, or "windbird," and one a little Zulu named
+Khiva, who had the merit of speaking English perfectly. Ventvoegel I
+had known before; he was one of the most perfect "spoorers," that is,
+game trackers, I ever had to do with, and tough as whipcord. He never
+seemed to tire. But he had one failing, so common with his race,
+drink. Put him within reach of a bottle of gin and you could not trust
+him. However, as we were going beyond the region of grog-shops this
+little weakness of his did not so much matter.
+
+Having secured these two men I looked in vain for a third to suit my
+purpose, so we determined to start without one, trusting to luck to
+find a suitable man on our way up country. But, as it happened, on the
+evening before the day we had fixed for our departure the Zulu Khiva
+informed me that a Kafir was waiting to see me. Accordingly, when we
+had done dinner, for we were at table at the time, I told Khiva to
+bring him in. Presently a tall, handsome-looking man, somewhere about
+thirty years of age, and very light-coloured for a Zulu, entered, and
+lifting his knob-stick by way of salute, squatted himself down in the
+corner on his haunches, and sat silent. I did not take any notice of
+him for a while, for it is a great mistake to do so. If you rush into
+conversation at once, a Zulu is apt to think you a person of little
+dignity or consequence. I observed, however, that he was a "Keshla" or
+ringed man; that is, he wore on his head the black ring, made of a
+species of gum polished with fat and worked up in the hair, which is
+usually assumed by Zulus on attaining a certain age or dignity. Also
+it struck me that his face was familiar to me.
+
+"Well," I said at last, "What is your name?"
+
+"Umbopa," answered the man in a slow, deep voice.
+
+"I have seen your face before."
+
+"Yes; the Inkoosi, the chief, my father, saw my face at the place of
+the Little Hand"--that is, Isandhlwana--"on the day before the
+battle."
+
+Then I remembered. I was one of Lord Chelmsford's guides in that
+unlucky Zulu War, and had the good fortune to leave the camp in charge
+of some wagons on the day before the battle. While I was waiting for
+the cattle to be inspanned I fell into conversation with this man, who
+held some small command among the native auxiliaries, and he had
+expressed to me his doubts as to the safety of the camp. At the time I
+told him to hold his tongue, and leave such matters to wiser heads;
+but afterwards I thought of his words.
+
+"I remember," I said; "what is it you want?"
+
+"It is this, 'Macumazahn.'" That is my Kafir name, and means the man
+who gets up in the middle of the night, or, in vulgar English, he who
+keeps his eyes open. "I hear that you go on a great expedition far
+into the North with the white chiefs from over the water. Is it a true
+word?"
+
+"It is."
+
+"I hear that you go even to the Lukanga River, a moon's journey beyond
+the Manica country. Is this so also, 'Macumazahn?'"
+
+"Why do you ask whither we go? What is it to you?" I answered
+suspiciously, for the objects of our journey had been kept a dead
+secret.
+
+"It is this, O white men, that if indeed you travel so far I would
+travel with you."
+
+There was a certain assumption of dignity in the man's mode of speech,
+and especially in his use of the words "O white men," instead of "O
+Inkosis," or chiefs, which struck me.
+
+"You forget yourself a little," I said. "Your words run out unawares.
+That is not the way to speak. What is your name, and where is your
+kraal? Tell us, that we may know with whom we have to deal."
+
+"My name is Umbopa. I am of the Zulu people, yet not of them. The
+house of my tribe is in the far North; it was left behind when the
+Zulus came down here a 'thousand years ago,' long before Chaka reigned
+in Zululand. I have no kraal. I have wandered for many years. I came
+from the North as a child to Zululand. I was Cetewayo's man in the
+Nkomabakosi Regiment, serving there under the great Captain,
+Umslopogaasi of the Axe,[*] who taught my hands to fight. Afterwards I
+ran away from Zululand and came to Natal because I wanted to see the
+white man's ways. Next I fought against Cetewayo in the war. Since
+then I have been working in Natal. Now I am tired, and would go North
+again. Here is not my place. I want no money, but I am a brave man,
+and am worth my place and meat. I have spoken."
+
+[*] For the history of Umslopogaasi and his Axe, the reader is
+    referred to the books called "Allan Quatermain" and "Nada the
+    Lily."--Editor.
+
+I was rather puzzled by this man and his way of speech. It was evident
+to me from his manner that in the main he was telling the truth, but
+somehow he seemed different from the ordinary run of Zulus, and I
+rather mistrusted his offer to come without pay. Being in a
+difficulty, I translated his words to Sir Henry and Good, and asked
+them their opinion.
+
+Sir Henry told me to ask him to stand up. Umbopa did so, at the same
+time slipping off the long military great coat which he wore, and
+revealing himself naked except for the moocha round his centre and a
+necklace of lions' claws. Certainly he was a magnificent-looking man;
+I never saw a finer native. Standing about six foot three high he was
+broad in proportion, and very shapely. In that light, too, his skin
+looked scarcely more than dark, except here and there where deep black
+scars marked old assegai wounds. Sir Henry walked up to him and looked
+into his proud, handsome face.
+
+"They make a good pair, don't they?" said Good; "one as big as the
+other."
+
+"I like your looks, Mr. Umbopa, and I will take you as my servant,"
+said Sir Henry in English.
+
+Umbopa evidently understood him, for he answered in Zulu, "It is
+well"; and then added, with a glance at the white man's great stature
+and breadth, "We are men, thou and I."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+AN ELEPHANT HUNT
+
+Now I do not propose to narrate at full length all the incidents of
+our long travel up to Sitanda's Kraal, near the junction of the
+Lukanga and Kalukwe Rivers. It was a journey of more than a thousand
+miles from Durban, the last three hundred or so of which we had to
+make on foot, owing to the frequent presence of the dreadful "tsetse"
+fly, whose bite is fatal to all animals except donkeys and men.
+
+We left Durban at the end of January, and it was in the second week of
+May that we camped near Sitanda's Kraal. Our adventures on the way
+were many and various, but as they are of the sort which befall every
+African hunter--with one exception to be presently detailed--I shall
+not set them down here, lest I should render this history too
+wearisome.
+
+At Inyati, the outlying trading station in the Matabele country, of
+which Lobengula (a great and cruel scoundrel) is king, with many
+regrets we parted from our comfortable wagon. Only twelve oxen
+remained to us out of the beautiful span of twenty which I had bought
+at Durban. One we lost from the bite of a cobra, three had perished
+from "poverty" and the want of water, one strayed, and the other three
+died from eating the poisonous herb called "tulip." Five more sickened
+from this cause, but we managed to cure them with doses of an infusion
+made by boiling down the tulip leaves. If administered in time this is
+a very effective antidote.
+
+The wagon and the oxen we left in the immediate charge of Goza and
+Tom, our driver and leader, both trustworthy boys, requesting a worthy
+Scotch missionary who lived in this distant place to keep an eye on
+them. Then, accompanied by Umbopa, Khiva, Ventvoegel, and half a dozen
+bearers whom we hired on the spot, we started off on foot upon our
+wild quest. I remember we were all a little silent on the occasion of
+this departure, and I think that each of us was wondering if we should
+ever see our wagon again; for my part I never expected to do so. For a
+while we tramped on in silence, till Umbopa, who was marching in
+front, broke into a Zulu chant about how some brave men, tired of life
+and the tameness of things, started off into a vast wilderness to find
+new things or die, and how, lo and behold! when they had travelled far
+into the wilderness they found that it was not a wilderness at all,
+but a beautiful place full of young wives and fat cattle, of game to
+hunt and enemies to kill.
+
+Then we all laughed and took it for a good omen. Umbopa was a cheerful
+savage, in a dignified sort of way, when he was not suffering from one
+of his fits of brooding, and he had a wonderful knack of keeping up
+our spirits. We all grew very fond of him.
+
+And now for the one adventure to which I am going to treat myself, for
+I do dearly love a hunting yarn.
+
+About a fortnight's march from Inyati we came across a peculiarly
+beautiful bit of well-watered woodland country. The kloofs in the
+hills were covered with dense bush, "idoro" bush as the natives call
+it, and in some places, with the "wacht-een-beche," or "wait-a-little
+thorn," and there were great quantities of the lovely "machabell"
+tree, laden with refreshing yellow fruit having enormous stones. This
+tree is the elephant's favourite food, and there were not wanting
+signs that the great brutes had been about, for not only was their
+spoor frequent, but in many places the trees were broken down and even
+uprooted. The elephant is a destructive feeder.
+
+One evening, after a long day's march, we came to a spot of great
+loveliness. At the foot of a bush-clad hill lay a dry river-bed, in
+which, however, were to be found pools of crystal water all trodden
+round with the hoof-prints of game. Facing this hill was a park-like
+plain, where grew clumps of flat-topped mimosa, varied with occasional
+glossy-leaved machabells, and all round stretched the sea of pathless,
+silent bush.
+
+As we emerged into this river-bed path suddenly we started a troop of
+tall giraffes, who galloped, or rather sailed off, in their strange
+gait, their tails screwed up over their backs, and their hoofs
+rattling like castanets. They were about three hundred yards from us,
+and therefore practically out of shot, but Good, who was walking
+ahead, and who had an express loaded with solid ball in his hand,
+could not resist temptation. Lifting his gun, he let drive at the
+last, a young cow. By some extraordinary chance the ball struck it
+full on the back of the neck, shattering the spinal column, and that
+giraffe went rolling head over heels just like a rabbit. I never saw a
+more curious thing.
+
+"Curse it!" said Good--for I am sorry to say he had a habit of using
+strong language when excited--contracted, no doubt, in the course of
+his nautical career; "curse it! I've killed him."
+
+"/Ou/, Bougwan," ejaculated the Kafirs; "/ou! ou!/"
+
+They called Good "Bougwan," or Glass Eye, because of his eye-glass.
+
+"Oh, 'Bougwan!'" re-echoed Sir Henry and I, and from that day Good's
+reputation as a marvellous shot was established, at any rate among the
+Kafirs. Really he was a bad one, but whenever he missed we overlooked
+it for the sake of that giraffe.
+
+Having set some of the "boys" to cut off the best of the giraffe's
+meat, we went to work to build a "scherm" near one of the pools and
+about a hundred yards to its right. This is done by cutting a quantity
+of thorn bushes and piling them in the shape of a circular hedge. Then
+the space enclosed is smoothed, and dry tambouki grass, if obtainable,
+is made into a bed in the centre, and a fire or fires lighted.
+
+By the time the "scherm" was finished the moon peeped up, and our
+dinners of giraffe steaks and roasted marrow-bones were ready. How we
+enjoyed those marrow-bones, though it was rather a job to crack them!
+I know of no greater luxury than giraffe marrow, unless it is
+elephant's heart, and we had that on the morrow. We ate our simple
+meal by the light of the moon, pausing at times to thank Good for his
+wonderful shot; then we began to smoke and yarn, and a curious picture
+we must have made squatting there round the fire. I, with my short
+grizzled hair sticking up straight, and Sir Henry with his yellow
+locks, which were getting rather long, were rather a contrast,
+especially as I am thin, and short, and dark, weighing only nine stone
+and a half, and Sir Henry is tall, and broad, and fair, and weighs
+fifteen. But perhaps the most curious-looking of the three, taking all
+the circumstances of the case into consideration, was Captain John
+Good, R.N. There he sat upon a leather bag, looking just as though he
+had come in from a comfortable day's shooting in a civilised country,
+absolutely clean, tidy, and well dressed. He wore a shooting suit of
+brown tweed, with a hat to match, and neat gaiters. As usual, he was
+beautifully shaved, his eye-glass and his false teeth appeared to be
+in perfect order, and altogether he looked the neatest man I ever had
+to do with in the wilderness. He even sported a collar, of which he
+had a supply, made of white gutta-percha.
+
+"You see, they weigh so little," he said to me innocently, when I
+expressed my astonishment at the fact; "and I always like to turn out
+like a gentleman." Ah! if he could have foreseen the future and the
+raiment prepared for him.
+
+Well, there we three sat yarning away in the beautiful moonlight, and
+watching the Kafirs a few yards off sucking their intoxicating
+"daccha" from a pipe of which the mouthpiece was made of the horn of
+an eland, till one by one they rolled themselves up in their blankets
+and went to sleep by the fire, that is, all except Umbopa, who was a
+little apart, his chin resting on his hand, and thinking deeply. I
+noticed that he never mixed much with the other Kafirs.
+
+Presently, from the depths of the bush behind us, came a loud "/woof/,
+/woof/!" "That's a lion," said I, and we all started up to listen.
+Hardly had we done so, when from the pool, about a hundred yards off,
+we heard the strident trumpeting of an elephant. "/Unkungunklovo/!
+/Indlovu/!" "Elephant! Elephant!" whispered the Kafirs, and a few
+minutes afterwards we saw a succession of vast shadowy forms moving
+slowly from the direction of the water towards the bush.
+
+Up jumped Good, burning for slaughter, and thinking, perhaps, that it
+was as easy to kill elephant as he had found it to shoot giraffe, but
+I caught him by the arm and pulled him down.
+
+"It's no good," I whispered, "let them go."
+
+"It seems that we are in a paradise of game. I vote we stop here a day
+or two, and have a go at them," said Sir Henry, presently.
+
+I was rather surprised, for hitherto Sir Henry had always been for
+pushing forward as fast as possible, more especially since we
+ascertained at Inyati that about two years ago an Englishman of the
+name of Neville /had/ sold his wagon there, and gone on up country.
+But I suppose his hunter instincts got the better of him for a while.
+
+Good jumped at the idea, for he was longing to have a shot at those
+elephants; and so, to speak the truth, did I, for it went against my
+conscience to let such a herd as that escape without a pull at them.
+
+"All right, my hearties," said I. "I think we want a little
+recreation. And now let's turn in, for we ought to be off by dawn, and
+then perhaps we may catch them feeding before they move on."
+
+The others agreed, and we proceeded to make our preparations. Good
+took off his clothes, shook them, put his eye-glass and his false
+teeth into his trousers pocket, and folding each article neatly,
+placed it out of the dew under a corner of his mackintosh sheet. Sir
+Henry and I contented ourselves with rougher arrangements, and soon
+were curled up in our blankets, and dropping off into the dreamless
+sleep that rewards the traveller.
+
+Going, going, go--What was that?
+
+Suddenly, from the direction of the water came sounds of violent
+scuffling, and next instant there broke upon our ears a succession of
+the most awful roars. There was no mistaking their origin; only a lion
+could make such a noise as that. We all jumped up and looked towards
+the water, in the direction of which we saw a confused mass, yellow
+and black in colour, staggering and struggling towards us. We seized
+our rifles, and slipping on our veldtschoons, that is shoes made of
+untanned hide, ran out of the scherm. By this time the mass had
+fallen, and was rolling over and over on the ground, and when we
+reached the spot it struggled no longer, but lay quite still.
+
+Now we saw what it was. On the grass there lay a sable antelope bull--
+the most beautiful of all the African antelopes--quite dead, and
+transfixed by its great curved horns was a magnificent black-maned
+lion, also dead. Evidently what had happened was this: The sable
+antelope had come down to drink at the pool where the lion--no doubt
+the same which we had heard--was lying in wait. While the antelope
+drank, the lion had sprung upon him, only to be received upon the
+sharp curved horns and transfixed. Once before I saw a similar thing
+happen. Then the lion, unable to free himself, had torn and bitten at
+the back and neck of the bull, which, maddened with fear and pain, had
+rushed on until it dropped dead.
+
+As soon as we had examined the beasts sufficiently we called the
+Kafirs, and between us managed to drag their carcases up to the
+scherm. After that we went in and lay down, to wake no more till dawn.
+
+With the first light we were up and making ready for the fray. We took
+with us the three eight-bore rifles, a good supply of ammunition, and
+our large water-bottles, filled with weak cold tea, which I have
+always found the best stuff to shoot on. After swallowing a little
+breakfast we started, Umbopa, Khiva, and Ventvoegel accompanying us.
+The other Kafirs we left with instructions to skin the lion and the
+sable antelope, and to cut up the latter.
+
+We had no difficulty in finding the broad elephant trail, which
+Ventvoegel, after examination, pronounced to have been made by between
+twenty and thirty elephants, most of them full-grown bulls. But the
+herd had moved on some way during the night, and it was nine o'clock,
+and already very hot, before, by the broken trees, bruised leaves and
+bark, and smoking droppings, we knew that we could not be far from
+them.
+
+Presently we caught sight of the herd, which numbered, as Ventvoegel
+had said, between twenty and thirty, standing in a hollow, having
+finished their morning meal, and flapping their great ears. It was a
+splendid sight, for they were only about two hundred yards from us.
+Taking a handful of dry grass, I threw it into the air to see how the
+wind was; for if once they winded us I knew they would be off before
+we could get a shot. Finding that, if anything, it blew from the
+elephants to us, we crept on stealthily, and thanks to the cover
+managed to get within forty yards or so of the great brutes. Just in
+front of us, and broadside on, stood three splendid bulls, one of them
+with enormous tusks. I whispered to the others that I would take the
+middle one; Sir Henry covering the elephant to the left, and Good the
+bull with the big tusks.
+
+"Now," I whispered.
+
+Boom! boom! boom! went the three heavy rifles, and down came Sir
+Henry's elephant dead as a hammer, shot right through the heart. Mine
+fell on to its knees and I thought that he was going to die, but in
+another moment he was up and off, tearing along straight past me. As
+he went I gave him the second barrel in the ribs, and this brought him
+down in good earnest. Hastily slipping in two fresh cartridges I ran
+close up to him, and a ball through the brain put an end to the poor
+brute's struggles. Then I turned to see how Good had fared with the
+big bull, which I had heard screaming with rage and pain as I gave
+mine its quietus. On reaching the captain I found him in a great state
+of excitement. It appeared that on receiving the bullet the bull had
+turned and come straight for his assailant, who had barely time to get
+out of his way, and then charged on blindly past him, in the direction
+of our encampment. Meanwhile the herd had crashed off in wild alarm in
+the other direction.
+
+For awhile we debated whether to go after the wounded bull or to
+follow the herd, and finally deciding for the latter alternative,
+departed, thinking that we had seen the last of those big tusks. I
+have often wished since that we had. It was easy work to follow the
+elephants, for they had left a trail like a carriage road behind them,
+crushing down the thick bush in their furious flight as though it were
+tambouki grass.
+
+But to come up with them was another matter, and we had struggled on
+under the broiling sun for over two hours before we found them. With
+the exception of one bull, they were standing together, and I could
+see, from their unquiet way and the manner in which they kept lifting
+their trunks to test the air, that they were on the look-out for
+mischief. The solitary bull stood fifty yards or so to this side of
+the herd, over which he was evidently keeping sentry, and about sixty
+yards from us. Thinking that he would see or wind us, and that it
+would probably start them off again if we tried to get nearer,
+especially as the ground was rather open, we all aimed at this bull,
+and at my whispered word, we fired. The three shots took effect, and
+down he went dead. Again the herd started, but unfortunately for them
+about a hundred yards further on was a nullah, or dried-out water
+track, with steep banks, a place very much resembling the one where
+the Prince Imperial was killed in Zululand. Into this the elephants
+plunged, and when we reached the edge we found them struggling in wild
+confusion to get up the other bank, filling the air with their
+screams, and trumpeting as they pushed one another aside in their
+selfish panic, just like so many human beings. Now was our
+opportunity, and firing away as quickly as we could load, we killed
+five of the poor beasts, and no doubt should have bagged the whole
+herd, had they not suddenly given up their attempts to climb the bank
+and rushed headlong down the nullah. We were too tired to follow them,
+and perhaps also a little sick of slaughter, eight elephants being a
+pretty good bag for one day.
+
+So after we were rested a little, and the Kafirs had cut out the
+hearts of two of the dead elephants for supper, we started homewards,
+very well pleased with our day's work, having made up our minds to
+send the bearers on the morrow to chop away the tusks.
+
+Shortly after we re-passed the spot where Good had wounded the
+patriarchal bull we came across a herd of eland, but did not shoot at
+them, as we had plenty of meat. They trotted past us, and then stopped
+behind a little patch of bush about a hundred yards away, wheeling
+round to look at us. As Good was anxious to get a near view of them,
+never having seen an eland close, he handed his rifle to Umbopa, and,
+followed by Khiva, strolled up to the patch of bush. We sat down and
+waited for him, not sorry of the excuse for a little rest.
+
+The sun was just going down in its reddest glory, and Sir Henry and I
+were admiring the lovely scene, when suddenly we heard an elephant
+scream, and saw its huge and rushing form with uplifted trunk and tail
+silhouetted against the great fiery globe of the sun. Next second we
+saw something else, and that was Good and Khiva tearing back towards
+us with the wounded bull--for it was he--charging after them. For a
+moment we did not dare to fire--though at that distance it would have
+been of little use if we had done so--for fear of hitting one of them,
+and the next a dreadful thing happened--Good fell a victim to his
+passion for civilised dress. Had he consented to discard his trousers
+and gaiters like the rest of us, and to hunt in a flannel shirt and a
+pair of veldt-schoons, it would have been all right. But as it was,
+his trousers cumbered him in that desperate race, and presently, when
+he was about sixty yards from us, his boot, polished by the dry grass,
+slipped, and down he went on his face right in front of the elephant.
+
+We gave a gasp, for we knew that he must die, and ran as hard as we
+could towards him. In three seconds it had ended, but not as we
+thought. Khiva, the Zulu boy, saw his master fall, and brave lad as he
+was, turned and flung his assegai straight into the elephant's face.
+It stuck in his trunk.
+
+With a scream of pain, the brute seized the poor Zulu, hurled him to
+the earth, and placing one huge foot on to his body about the middle,
+twined its trunk round his upper part and /tore him in two/.
+
+We rushed up mad with horror, and fired again and again, till
+presently the elephant fell upon the fragments of the Zulu.
+
+As for Good, he rose and wrung his hands over the brave man who had
+given his life to save him, and, though I am an old hand, I felt a
+lump grow in my throat. Umbopa stood contemplating the huge dead
+elephant and the mangled remains of poor Khiva.
+
+"Ah, well," he said presently, "he is dead, but he died like a man!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+OUR MARCH INTO THE DESERT
+
+We had killed nine elephants, and it took us two days to cut out the
+tusks, and having brought them into camp, to bury them carefully in
+the sand under a large tree, which made a conspicuous mark for miles
+round. It was a wonderfully fine lot of ivory. I never saw a better,
+averaging as it did between forty and fifty pounds a tusk. The tusks
+of the great bull that killed poor Khiva scaled one hundred and
+seventy pounds the pair, so nearly as we could judge.
+
+As for Khiva himself, we buried what remained of him in an ant-bear
+hole, together with an assegai to protect himself with on his journey
+to a better world. On the third day we marched again, hoping that we
+might live to return to dig up our buried ivory, and in due course,
+after a long and wearisome tramp, and many adventures which I have not
+space to detail, we reached Sitanda's Kraal, near the Lukanga River,
+the real starting-point of our expedition. Very well do I recollect
+our arrival at that place. To the right was a scattered native
+settlement with a few stone cattle kraals and some cultivated lands
+down by the water, where these savages grew their scanty supply of
+grain, and beyond it stretched great tracts of waving "veld" covered
+with tall grass, over which herds of the smaller game were wandering.
+To the left lay the vast desert. This spot appears to be the outpost
+of the fertile country, and it would be difficult to say to what
+natural causes such an abrupt change in the character of the soil is
+due. But so it is.
+
+Just below our encampment flowed a little stream, on the farther side
+of which is a stony slope, the same down which, twenty years before, I
+had seen poor Silvestre creeping back after his attempt to reach
+Solomon's Mines, and beyond that slope begins the waterless desert,
+covered with a species of karoo shrub.
+
+It was evening when we pitched our camp, and the great ball of the sun
+was sinking into the desert, sending glorious rays of many-coloured
+light flying all over its vast expanse. Leaving Good to superintend
+the arrangement of our little camp, I took Sir Henry with me, and
+walking to the top of the slope opposite, we gazed across the desert.
+The air was very clear, and far, far away I could distinguish the
+faint blue outlines, here and there capped with white, of the Suliman
+Berg.
+
+"There," I said, "there is the wall round Solomon's Mines, but God
+knows if we shall ever climb it."
+
+"My brother should be there, and if he is, I shall reach him somehow,"
+said Sir Henry, in that tone of quiet confidence which marked the man.
+
+"I hope so," I answered, and turned to go back to the camp, when I saw
+that we were not alone. Behind us, also gazing earnestly towards the
+far-off mountains, stood the great Kafir Umbopa.
+
+The Zulu spoke when he saw that I had observed him, addressing Sir
+Henry, to whom he had attached himself.
+
+"Is it to that land that thou wouldst journey, Incubu?" (a native word
+meaning, I believe, an elephant, and the name given to Sir Henry by
+the Kafirs), he said, pointing towards the mountain with his broad
+assegai.
+
+I asked him sharply what he meant by addressing his master in that
+familiar way. It is very well for natives to have a name for one among
+themselves, but it is not decent that they should call a white man by
+their heathenish appellations to his face. The Zulu laughed a quiet
+little laugh which angered me.
+
+"How dost thou know that I am not the equal of the Inkosi whom I
+serve?" he said. "He is of a royal house, no doubt; one can see it in
+his size and by his mien; so, mayhap, am I. At least, I am as great a
+man. Be my mouth, O Macumazahn, and say my words to the Inkoos Incubu,
+my master, for I would speak to him and to thee."
+
+I was angry with the man, for I am not accustomed to be talked to in
+that way by Kafirs, but somehow he impressed me, and besides I was
+curious to know what he had to say. So I translated, expressing my
+opinion at the same time that he was an impudent fellow, and that his
+swagger was outrageous.
+
+"Yes, Umbopa," answered Sir Henry, "I would journey there."
+
+"The desert is wide and there is no water in it, the mountains are
+high and covered with snow, and man cannot say what lies beyond them
+behind the place where the sun sets; how shalt thou come thither,
+Incubu, and wherefore dost thou go?"
+
+I translated again.
+
+"Tell him," answered Sir Henry, "that I go because I believe that a
+man of my blood, my brother, has gone there before me, and I journey
+to seek him."
+
+"That is so, Incubu; a Hottentot I met on the road told me that a
+white man went out into the desert two years ago towards those
+mountains with one servant, a hunter. They never came back."
+
+"How do you know it was my brother?" asked Sir Henry.
+
+"Nay, I know not. But the Hottentot, when I asked what the white man
+was like, said that he had thine eyes and a black beard. He said, too,
+that the name of the hunter with him was Jim; that he was a Bechuana
+hunter and wore clothes."
+
+"There is no doubt about it," said I; "I knew Jim well."
+
+Sir Henry nodded. "I was sure of it," he said. "If George set his mind
+upon a thing he generally did it. It was always so from his boyhood.
+If he meant to cross the Suliman Berg he has crossed it, unless some
+accident overtook him, and we must look for him on the other side."
+
+Umbopa understood English, though he rarely spoke it.
+
+"It is a far journey, Incubu," he put in, and I translated his remark.
+
+"Yes," answered Sir Henry, "it is far. But there is no journey upon
+this earth that a man may not make if he sets his heart to it. There
+is nothing, Umbopa, that he cannot do, there are no mountains he may
+not climb, there are no deserts he cannot cross, save a mountain and a
+desert of which you are spared the knowledge, if love leads him and he
+holds his life in his hands counting it as nothing, ready to keep it
+or lose it as Heaven above may order."
+
+I translated.
+
+"Great words, my father," answered the Zulu--I always called him a
+Zulu, though he was not really one--"great swelling words fit to fill
+the mouth of a man. Thou art right, my father Incubu. Listen! what is
+life? It is a feather, it is the seed of the grass, blown hither and
+thither, sometimes multiplying itself and dying in the act, sometimes
+carried away into the heavens. But if that seed be good and heavy it
+may perchance travel a little way on the road it wills. It is well to
+try and journey one's road and to fight with the air. Man must die. At
+the worst he can but die a little sooner. I will go with thee across
+the desert and over the mountains, unless perchance I fall to the
+ground on the way, my father."
+
+He paused awhile, and then went on with one of those strange bursts of
+rhetorical eloquence that Zulus sometimes indulge in, which to my
+mind, full though they are of vain repetitions, show that the race is
+by no means devoid of poetic instinct and of intellectual power.
+
+"What is life? Tell me, O white men, who are wise, who know the
+secrets of the world, and of the world of stars, and the world that
+lies above and around the stars; who flash your words from afar
+without a voice; tell me, white men, the secret of our life--whither
+it goes and whence it comes!
+
+"You cannot answer me; you know not. Listen, I will answer. Out of the
+dark we came, into the dark we go. Like a storm-driven bird at night
+we fly out of the Nowhere; for a moment our wings are seen in the
+light of the fire, and, lo! we are gone again into the Nowhere. Life
+is nothing. Life is all. It is the Hand with which we hold off Death.
+It is the glow-worm that shines in the night-time and is black in the
+morning; it is the white breath of the oxen in winter; it is the
+little shadow that runs across the grass and loses itself at sunset."
+
+"You are a strange man," said Sir Henry, when he had ceased.
+
+Umbopa laughed. "It seems to me that we are much alike, Incubu.
+Perhaps /I/ seek a brother over the mountains."
+
+I looked at him suspiciously. "What dost thou mean?" I asked; "what
+dost thou know of those mountains?"
+
+"A little; a very little. There is a strange land yonder, a land of
+witchcraft and beautiful things; a land of brave people, and of trees,
+and streams, and snowy peaks, and of a great white road. I have heard
+of it. But what is the good of talking? It grows dark. Those who live
+to see will see."
+
+Again I looked at him doubtfully. The man knew too much.
+
+"You need not fear me, Macumazahn," he said, interpreting my look. "I
+dig no holes for you to fall in. I make no plots. If ever we cross
+those mountains behind the sun I will tell what I know. But Death sits
+upon them. Be wise and turn back. Go and hunt elephants, my masters. I
+have spoken."
+
+And without another word he lifted his spear in salutation, and
+returned towards the camp, where shortly afterwards we found him
+cleaning a gun like any other Kafir.
+
+"That is an odd man," said Sir Henry.
+
+"Yes," answered I, "too odd by half. I don't like his little ways. He
+knows something, and will not speak out. But I suppose it is no use
+quarrelling with him. We are in for a curious trip, and a mysterious
+Zulu won't make much difference one way or another."
+
+Next day we made our arrangements for starting. Of course it was
+impossible to drag our heavy elephant rifles and other kit with us
+across the desert, so, dismissing our bearers, we made an arrangement
+with an old native who had a kraal close by to take care of them till
+we returned. It went to my heart to leave such things as those sweet
+tools to the tender mercies of an old thief of a savage whose greedy
+eyes I could see gloating over them. But I took some precautions.
+
+First of all I loaded all the rifles, placing them at full cock, and
+informed him that if he touched them they would go off. He tried the
+experiment instantly with my eight-bore, and it did go off, and blew a
+hole right through one of his oxen, which were just then being driven
+up to the kraal, to say nothing of knocking him head over heels with
+the recoil. He got up considerably startled, and not at all pleased at
+the loss of the ox, which he had the impudence to ask me to pay for,
+and nothing would induce him to touch the guns again.
+
+"Put the live devils out of the way up there in the thatch," he said,
+"or they will murder us all."
+
+Then I told him that, when we came back, if one of those things was
+missing I would kill him and his people by witchcraft; and if we died
+and he tried to steal the rifles I would come and haunt him and turn
+his cattle mad and his milk sour till life was a weariness, and would
+make the devils in the guns come out and talk to him in a way he did
+not like, and generally gave him a good idea of judgment to come.
+After that he promised to look after them as though they were his
+father's spirit. He was a very superstitious old Kafir and a great
+villain.
+
+Having thus disposed of our superfluous gear we arranged the kit we
+five--Sir Henry, Good, myself, Umbopa, and the Hottentot Ventvoegel--
+were to take with us on our journey. It was small enough, but do what
+we would we could not get its weight down under about forty pounds a
+man. This is what it consisted of:--
+
+The three express rifles and two hundred rounds of ammunition.
+
+The two Winchester repeating rifles (for Umbopa and Ventvoegel), with
+two hundred rounds of cartridge.
+
+Five Cochrane's water-bottles, each holding four pints.
+
+Five blankets.
+
+Twenty-five pounds' weight of biltong--i.e. sun-dried game flesh.
+
+Ten pounds' weight of best mixed beads for gifts.
+
+A selection of medicine, including an ounce of quinine, and one or two
+small surgical instruments.
+
+Our knives, a few sundries, such as a compass, matches, a pocket
+filter, tobacco, a trowel, a bottle of brandy, and the clothes we
+stood in.
+
+This was our total equipment, a small one indeed for such a venture,
+but we dared not attempt to carry more. Indeed, that load was a heavy
+one per man with which to travel across the burning desert, for in
+such places every additional ounce tells. But we could not see our way
+to reducing the weight. There was nothing taken but what was
+absolutely necessary.
+
+With great difficulty, and by the promise of a present of a good
+hunting-knife each, I succeeded in persuading three wretched natives
+from the village to come with us for the first stage, twenty miles,
+and to carry a large gourd holding a gallon of water apiece. My object
+was to enable us to refill our water-bottles after the first night's
+march, for we determined to start in the cool of the evening. I gave
+out to these natives that we were going to shoot ostriches, with which
+the desert abounded. They jabbered and shrugged their shoulders,
+saying that we were mad and should perish of thirst, which I must say
+seemed probable; but being desirous of obtaining the knives, which
+were almost unknown treasures up there, they consented to come, having
+probably reflected that, after all, our subsequent extinction would be
+no affair of theirs.
+
+All next day we rested and slept, and at sunset ate a hearty meal of
+fresh beef washed down with tea, the last, as Good remarked sadly, we
+were likely to drink for many a long day. Then, having made our final
+preparations, we lay down and waited for the moon to rise. At last,
+about nine o'clock, up she came in all her glory, flooding the wild
+country with light, and throwing a silver sheen on the expanse of
+rolling desert before us, which looked as solemn and quiet and as
+alien to man as the star-studded firmament above. We rose up, and in a
+few minutes were ready, and yet we hesitated a little, as human nature
+is prone to hesitate on the threshold of an irrevocable step. We three
+white men stood by ourselves. Umbopa, assegai in hand and a rifle
+across his shoulders, looked out fixedly across the desert a few paces
+ahead of us; while the hired natives, with the gourds of water, and
+Ventvoegel, were gathered in a little knot behind.
+
+"Gentlemen," said Sir Henry presently, in his deep voice, "we are
+going on about as strange a journey as men can make in this world. It
+is very doubtful if we can succeed in it. But we are three men who
+will stand together for good or for evil to the last. Now before we
+start let us for a moment pray to the Power who shapes the destinies
+of men, and who ages since has marked out our paths, that it may
+please Him to direct our steps in accordance with His will."
+
+Taking off his hat, for the space of a minute or so, he covered his
+face with his hands, and Good and I did likewise.
+
+I do not say that I am a first-rate praying man, few hunters are, and
+as for Sir Henry, I never heard him speak like that before, and only
+once since, though deep down in his heart I believe that he is very
+religious. Good too is pious, though apt to swear. Anyhow I do not
+remember, excepting on one single occasion, ever putting up a better
+prayer in my life than I did during that minute, and somehow I felt
+the happier for it. Our future was so completely unknown, and I think
+that the unknown and the awful always bring a man nearer to his Maker.
+
+"And now," said Sir Henry, "/trek/!"
+
+So we started.
+
+We had nothing to guide ourselves by except the distant mountains and
+old Jose da Silvestre's chart, which, considering that it was drawn by
+a dying and half-distraught man on a fragment of linen three centuries
+ago, was not a very satisfactory sort of thing with work with. Still,
+our sole hope of success depended upon it, such as it was. If we
+failed in finding that pool of bad water which the old Dom marked as
+being situated in the middle of the desert, about sixty miles from our
+starting-point, and as far from the mountains, in all probability we
+must perish miserably of thirst. But to my mind the chances of our
+finding it in that great sea of sand and karoo scrub seemed almost
+infinitesimal. Even supposing that da Silvestra had marked the pool
+correctly, what was there to prevent its having been dried up by the
+sun generations ago, or trampled in by game, or filled with the
+drifting sand?
+
+On we tramped silently as shades through the night and in the heavy
+sand. The karoo bushes caught our feet and retarded us, and the sand
+worked into our veldtschoons and Good's shooting-boots, so that every
+few miles we had to stop and empty them; but still the night kept
+fairly cool, though the atmosphere was thick and heavy, giving a sort
+of creamy feel to the air, and we made fair progress. It was very
+silent and lonely there in the desert, oppressively so indeed. Good
+felt this, and once began to whistle "The Girl I left behind me," but
+the notes sounded lugubrious in that vast place, and he gave it up.
+
+Shortly afterwards a little incident occurred which, though it
+startled us at the time, gave rise to a laugh. Good was leading, as
+the holder of the compass, which, being a sailor, of course he
+understood thoroughly, and we were toiling along in single file behind
+him, when suddenly we heard the sound of an exclamation, and he
+vanished. Next second there arose all around us a most extraordinary
+hubbub, snorts, groans, and wild sounds of rushing feet. In the faint
+light, too, we could descry dim galloping forms half hidden by wreaths
+of sand. The natives threw down their loads and prepared to bolt, but
+remembering that there was nowhere to run to, they cast themselves
+upon the ground and howled out that it was ghosts. As for Sir Henry
+and myself, we stood amazed; nor was our amazement lessened when we
+perceived the form of Good careering off in the direction of the
+mountains, apparently mounted on the back of a horse and halloaing
+wildly. In another second he threw up his arms, and we heard him come
+to the earth with a thud.
+
+Then I saw what had happened; we had stumbled upon a herd of sleeping
+quagga, on to the back of one of which Good actually had fallen, and
+the brute naturally enough got up and made off with him. Calling out
+to the others that it was all right, I ran towards Good, much afraid
+lest he should be hurt, but to my great relief I found him sitting in
+the sand, his eye-glass still fixed firmly in his eye, rather shaken
+and very much frightened, but not in any way injured.
+
+After this we travelled on without any further misadventure till about
+one o'clock, when we called a halt, and having drunk a little water,
+not much, for water was precious, and rested for half an hour, we
+started again.
+
+On, on we went, till at last the east began to blush like the cheek of
+a girl. Then there came faint rays of primrose light, that changed
+presently to golden bars, through which the dawn glided out across the
+desert. The stars grew pale and paler still, till at last they
+vanished; the golden moon waxed wan, and her mountain ridges stood out
+against her sickly face like the bones on the cheek of a dying man.
+Then came spear upon spear of light flashing far away across the
+boundless wilderness, piercing and firing the veils of mist, till the
+desert was draped in a tremulous golden glow, and it was day.
+
+Still we did not halt, though by this time we should have been glad
+enough to do so, for we knew that when once the sun was fully up it
+would be almost impossible for us to travel. At length, about an hour
+later, we spied a little pile of boulders rising out of the plain, and
+to this we dragged ourselves. As luck would have it, here we found an
+overhanging slab of rock carpeted beneath with smooth sand, which
+afforded a most grateful shelter from the heat. Underneath this we
+crept, and each of us having drunk some water and eaten a bit of
+biltong, we lay down and soon were sound asleep.
+
+It was three o'clock in the afternoon before we woke, to find our
+bearers preparing to return. They had seen enough of the desert
+already, and no number of knives would have tempted them to come a
+step farther. So we took a hearty drink, and having emptied our water-
+bottles, filled them up again from the gourds that they had brought
+with them, and then watched them depart on their twenty miles' tramp
+home.
+
+At half-past four we also started. It was lonely and desolate work,
+for with the exception of a few ostriches there was not a single
+living creature to be seen on all the vast expanse of sandy plain.
+Evidently it was too dry for game, and with the exception of a deadly-
+looking cobra or two we saw no reptiles. One insect, however, we found
+abundant, and that was the common or house fly. There they came, "not
+as single spies, but in battalions," as I think the Old Testament[*]
+says somewhere. He is an extraordinary insect is the house fly. Go
+where you will you find him, and so it must have been always. I have
+seen him enclosed in amber, which is, I was told, quite half a million
+years old, looking exactly like his descendant of to-day, and I have
+little doubt but that when the last man lies dying on the earth he
+will be buzzing round--if this event happens to occur in summer--
+watching for an opportunity to settle on his nose.
+
+[*] Readers must beware of accepting Mr. Quatermain's references as
+    accurate, as, it has been found, some are prone to do. Although
+    his reading evidently was limited, the impression produced by it
+    upon his mind was mixed. Thus to him the Old Testament and
+    Shakespeare were interchangeable authorities.--Editor.
+
+At sunset we halted, waiting for the moon to rise. At last she came
+up, beautiful and serene as ever, and, with one halt about two o'clock
+in the morning, we trudged on wearily through the night, till at last
+the welcome sun put a period to our labours. We drank a little and
+flung ourselves down on the sand, thoroughly tired out, and soon were
+all asleep. There was no need to set a watch, for we had nothing to
+fear from anybody or anything in that vast untenanted plain. Our only
+enemies were heat, thirst, and flies, but far rather would I have
+faced any danger from man or beast than that awful trinity. This time
+we were not so lucky as to find a sheltering rock to guard us from the
+glare of the sun, with the result that about seven o'clock we woke up
+experiencing the exact sensations one would attribute to a beefsteak
+on a gridiron. We were literally being baked through and through. The
+burning sun seemed to be sucking our very blood out of us. We sat up
+and gasped.
+
+"Phew," said I, grabbing at the halo of flies which buzzed cheerfully
+round my head. The heat did not affect /them/.
+
+"My word!" said Sir Henry.
+
+"It is hot!" echoed Good.
+
+It was hot, indeed, and there was not a bit of shelter to be found.
+Look where we would there was no rock or tree, nothing but an unending
+glare, rendered dazzling by the heated air that danced over the
+surface of the desert as it dances over a red-hot stove.
+
+"What is to be done?" asked Sir Henry; "we can't stand this for long."
+
+We looked at each other blankly.
+
+"I have it," said Good, "we must dig a hole, get in it, and cover
+ourselves with the karoo bushes."
+
+It did not seem a very promising suggestion, but at least it was
+better than nothing, so we set to work, and, with the trowel we had
+brought with us and the help of our hands, in about an hour we
+succeeded in delving out a patch of ground some ten feet long by
+twelve wide to the depth of two feet. Then we cut a quantity of low
+scrub with our hunting-knives, and creeping into the hole, pulled it
+over us all, with the exception of Ventvoegel, on whom, being a
+Hottentot, the heat had no particular effect. This gave us some slight
+shelter from the burning rays of the sun, but the atmosphere in that
+amateur grave can be better imagined than described. The Black Hole of
+Calcutta must have been a fool to it; indeed, to this moment I do not
+know how we lived through the day. There we lay panting, and every now
+and again moistening our lips from our scanty supply of water. Had we
+followed our inclinations we should have finished all we possessed in
+the first two hours, but we were forced to exercise the most rigid
+care, for if our water failed us we knew that very soon we must perish
+miserably.
+
+But everything has an end, if only you live long enough to see it, and
+somehow that miserable day wore on towards evening. About three
+o'clock in the afternoon we determined that we could bear it no
+longer. It would be better to die walking that to be killed slowly by
+heat and thirst in this dreadful hole. So taking each of us a little
+drink from our fast diminishing supply of water, now warmed to about
+the same temperature as a man's blood, we staggered forward.
+
+We had then covered some fifty miles of wilderness. If the reader will
+refer to the rough copy and translation of old da Silvestra's map, he
+will see that the desert is marked as measuring forty leagues across,
+and the "pan bad water" is set down as being about in the middle of
+it. Now forty leagues is one hundred and twenty miles, consequently we
+ought at the most to be within twelve or fifteen miles of the water if
+any should really exist.
+
+Through the afternoon we crept slowly and painfully along, scarcely
+doing more than a mile and a half in an hour. At sunset we rested
+again, waiting for the moon, and after drinking a little managed to
+get some sleep.
+
+Before we lay down, Umbopa pointed out to us a slight and indistinct
+hillock on the flat surface of the plain about eight miles away. At
+the distance it looked like an ant-hill, and as I was dropping off to
+sleep I fell to wondering what it could be.
+
+With the moon we marched again, feeling dreadfully exhausted, and
+suffering tortures from thirst and prickly heat. Nobody who has not
+felt it can know what we went through. We walked no longer, we
+staggered, now and again falling from exhaustion, and being obliged to
+call a halt every hour or so. We had scarcely energy left in us to
+speak. Up to this Good had chatted and joked, for he is a merry
+fellow; but now he had not a joke in him.
+
+At last, about two o'clock, utterly worn out in body and mind, we came
+to the foot of the queer hill, or sand koppie, which at first sight
+resembled a gigantic ant-heap about a hundred feet high, and covering
+at the base nearly two acres of ground.
+
+Here we halted, and driven to it by our desperate thirst, sucked down
+our last drops of water. We had but half a pint a head, and each of us
+could have drunk a gallon.
+
+Then we lay down. Just as I was dropping off to sleep I heard Umbopa
+remark to himself in Zulu--
+
+"If we cannot find water we shall all be dead before the moon rises
+to-morrow."
+
+I shuddered, hot as it was. The near prospect of such an awful death
+is not pleasant, but even the thought of it could not keep me from
+sleeping.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+WATER! WATER!
+
+Two hours later, that is, about four o'clock, I woke up, for so soon
+as the first heavy demand of bodily fatigue had been satisfied, the
+torturing thirst from which I was suffering asserted itself. I could
+sleep no more. I had been dreaming that I was bathing in a running
+stream, with green banks and trees upon them, and I awoke to find
+myself in this arid wilderness, and to remember, as Umbopa had said,
+that if we did not find water this day we must perish miserably. No
+human creature could live long without water in that heat. I sat up
+and rubbed my grimy face with my dry and horny hands, as my lips and
+eyelids were stuck together, and it was only after some friction and
+with an effort that I was able to open them. It was not far from dawn,
+but there was none of the bright feel of dawn in the air, which was
+thick with a hot murkiness that I cannot describe. The others were
+still sleeping.
+
+Presently it began to grow light enough to read, so I drew out a
+little pocket copy of the "Ingoldsby Legends" which I had brought with
+me, and read "The Jackdaw of Rheims." When I got to where
+
+ "A nice little boy held a golden ewer,
+  Embossed, and filled with water as pure
+  As any that flows between Rheims and Namur,"
+
+literally I smacked my cracking lips, or rather tried to smack them.
+The mere thought of that pure water made me mad. If the Cardinal had
+been there with his bell, book, and candle, I would have whipped in
+and drunk his water up; yes, even if he had filled it already with the
+suds of soap "worthy of washing the hands of the Pope," and I knew
+that the whole consecrated curse of the Catholic Church should fall
+upon me for so doing. I almost think that I must have been a little
+light-headed with thirst, weariness and the want of food; for I fell
+to thinking how astonished the Cardinal and his nice little boy and
+the jackdaw would have looked to see a burnt up, brown-eyed, grizzly-
+haired little elephant hunter suddenly bound between them, put his
+dirty face into the basin, and swallow every drop of the precious
+water. The idea amused me so much that I laughed or rather cackled
+aloud, which woke the others, and they began to rub /their/ dirty
+faces and drag /their/ gummed-up lips and eyelids apart.
+
+As soon as we were all well awake we began to discuss the situation,
+which was serious enough. Not a drop of water was left. We turned the
+bottles upside down, and licked their tops, but it was a failure; they
+were dry as a bone. Good, who had charge of the flask of brandy, got
+it out and looked at it longingly; but Sir Henry promptly took it away
+from him, for to drink raw spirit would only have been to precipitate
+the end.
+
+"If we do not find water we shall die," he said.
+
+"If we can trust to the old Dom's map there should be some about," I
+said; but nobody seemed to derive much satisfaction from this remark.
+It was so evident that no great faith could be put in the map. Now it
+was gradually growing light, and as we sat staring blankly at each
+other, I observed the Hottentot Ventvoegel rise and begin to walk about
+with his eyes on the ground. Presently he stopped short, and uttering
+a guttural exclamation, pointed to the earth.
+
+"What is it?" we exclaimed; and rising simultaneously we went to where
+he was standing staring at the sand.
+
+"Well," I said, "it is fresh Springbok spoor; what of it?"
+
+"Springbucks do not go far from water," he answered in Dutch.
+
+"No," I answered, "I forgot; and thank God for it."
+
+This little discovery put new life into us; for it is wonderful, when
+a man is in a desperate position, how he catches at the slightest
+hope, and feels almost happy. On a dark night a single star is better
+than nothing.
+
+Meanwhile Ventvoegel was lifting his snub nose, and sniffing the hot
+air for all the world like an old Impala ram who scents danger.
+Presently he spoke again.
+
+"I /smell/ water," he said.
+
+Then we felt quite jubilant, for we knew what a wonderful instinct
+these wild-bred men possess.
+
+Just at that moment the sun came up gloriously, and revealed so grand
+a sight to our astonished eyes that for a moment or two we even forgot
+our thirst.
+
+There, not more than forty or fifty miles from us, glittering like
+silver in the early rays of the morning sun, soared Sheba's Breasts;
+and stretching away for hundreds of miles on either side of them ran
+the great Suliman Berg. Now that, sitting here, I attempt to describe
+the extraordinary grandeur and beauty of that sight, language seems to
+fail me. I am impotent even before its memory. Straight before us,
+rose two enormous mountains, the like of which are not, I believe, to
+be seen in Africa, if indeed there are any other such in the world,
+measuring each of them at least fifteen thousand feet in height,
+standing not more than a dozen miles apart, linked together by a
+precipitous cliff of rock, and towering in awful white solemnity
+straight into the sky. These mountains placed thus, like the pillars
+of a gigantic gateway, are shaped after the fashion of a woman's
+breasts, and at times the mists and shadows beneath them take the form
+of a recumbent woman, veiled mysteriously in sleep. Their bases swell
+gently from the plain, looking at that distance perfectly round and
+smooth; and upon the top of each is a vast hillock covered with snow,
+exactly corresponding to the nipple on the female breast. The stretch
+of cliff that connects them appears to be some thousands of feet in
+height, and perfectly precipitous, and on each flank of them, so far
+as the eye can reach, extent similar lines of cliff, broken only here
+and there by flat table-topped mountains, something like the world-
+famed one at Cape Town; a formation, by the way, that is very common
+in Africa.
+
+To describe the comprehensive grandeur of that view is beyond my
+powers. There was something so inexpressibly solemn and overpowering
+about those huge volcanoes--for doubtless they are extinct volcanoes--
+that it quite awed us. For a while the morning lights played upon the
+snow and the brown and swelling masses beneath, and then, as though to
+veil the majestic sight from our curious eyes, strange vapours and
+clouds gathered and increased around the mountains, till presently we
+could only trace their pure and gigantic outlines, showing ghostlike
+through the fleecy envelope. Indeed, as we afterwards discovered,
+usually they were wrapped in this gauze-like mist, which doubtless
+accounted for our not having seen them more clearly before.
+
+Sheba's Breasts had scarcely vanished into cloud-clad privacy, before
+our thirst--literally a burning question--reasserted itself.
+
+It was all very well for Ventvoegel to say that he smelt water, but we
+could see no signs of it, look which way we would. So far as the eye
+might reach there was nothing but arid sweltering sand and karoo
+scrub. We walked round the hillock and gazed about anxiously on the
+other side, but it was the same story, not a drop of water could be
+found; there was no indication of a pan, a pool, or a spring.
+
+"You are a fool," I said angrily to Ventvoegel; "there is no water."
+
+But still he lifted his ugly snub nose sniffed.
+
+"I smell it, Baas," he answered; "it is somewhere in the air."
+
+"Yes," I said, "no doubt it is in the clouds, and about two months
+hence it will fall and wash our bones."
+
+Sir Henry stroked his yellow beard thoughtfully. "Perhaps it is on the
+top of the hill," he suggested.
+
+"Rot," said Good; "whoever heard of water being found at the top of a
+hill!"
+
+"Let us go and look," I put in, and hopelessly enough we scrambled up
+the sandy sides of the hillock, Umbopa leading. Presently he stopped
+as though he was petrified.
+
+"/Nanzia manzie/!" that is, "Here is water!" he cried with a loud
+voice.
+
+We rushed up to him, and there, sure enough, in a deep cut or
+indentation on the very top of the sand koppie, was an undoubted pool
+of water. How it came to be in such a strange place we did not stop to
+inquire, nor did we hesitate at its black and unpleasant appearance.
+It was water, or a good imitation of it, and that was enough for us.
+We gave a bound and a rush, and in another second we were all down on
+our stomachs sucking up the uninviting fluid as though it were nectar
+fit for the gods. Heavens, how we did drink! Then when we had done
+drinking we tore off our clothes and sat down in the pool, absorbing
+the moisture through our parched skins. You, Harry, my boy, who have
+only to turn on a couple of taps to summon "hot" and "cold" from an
+unseen, vasty cistern, can have little idea of the luxury of that
+muddy wallow in brackish tepid water.
+
+After a while we rose from it, refreshed indeed, and fell to on our
+"biltong," of which we had scarcely been able to touch a mouthful for
+twenty-four hours, and ate our fill. Then we smoked a pipe, and lay
+down by the side of that blessed pool, under the overhanging shadow of
+its bank, and slept till noon.
+
+All that day we rested there by the water, thanking our stars that we
+had been lucky enough to find it, bad as it was, and not forgetting to
+render a due share of gratitude to the shade of the long-departed da
+Silvestra, who had set its position down so accurately on the tail of
+his shirt. The wonderful thing to us was that the pan should have
+lasted so long, and the only way in which I can account for this is on
+the supposition that it is fed by some spring deep down in the sand.
+
+Having filled both ourselves and our water-bottles as full as
+possible, in far better spirits we started off again with the moon.
+That night we covered nearly five-and-twenty miles; but, needless to
+say, found no more water, though we were lucky enough the following
+day to get a little shade behind some ant-heaps. When the sun rose,
+and, for awhile, cleared away the mysterious mists, Suliman's Berg
+with the two majestic Breasts, now only about twenty miles off, seemed
+to be towering right above us, and looked grander than ever. At the
+approach of evening we marched again, and, to cut a long story short,
+by daylight next morning found ourselves upon the lowest slopes of
+Sheba's left breast, for which we had been steadily steering. By this
+time our water was exhausted once more, and we were suffering severely
+from thirst, nor indeed could we see any chance of relieving it till
+we reached the snow line far, far above us. After resting an hour or
+two, driven to it by our torturing thirst, we went on, toiling
+painfully in the burning heat up the lava slopes, for we found that
+the huge base of the mountain was composed entirely of lava beds
+belched from the bowels of the earth in some far past age.
+
+By eleven o'clock we were utterly exhausted, and, generally speaking,
+in a very bad state indeed. The lava clinker, over which we must drag
+ourselves, though smooth compared with some clinker I have heard of,
+such as that on the Island of Ascension, for instance, was yet rough
+enough to make our feet very sore, and this, together with our other
+miseries, had pretty well finished us. A few hundred yards above us
+were some large lumps of lava, and towards these we steered with the
+intention of lying down beneath their shade. We reached them, and to
+our surprise, so far as we had a capacity for surprise left in us, on
+a little plateau or ridge close by we saw that the clinker was covered
+with a dense green growth. Evidently soil formed of decomposed lava
+had rested there, and in due course had become the receptacle of seeds
+deposited by birds. But we did not take much further interest in the
+green growth, for one cannot live on grass like Nebuchadnezzar. That
+requires a special dispensation of Providence and peculiar digestive
+organs.
+
+So we sat down under the rocks and groaned, and for one I wished
+heartily that we had never started on this fool's errand. As we were
+sitting there I saw Umbopa get up and hobble towards the patch of
+green, and a few minutes afterwards, to my great astonishment, I
+perceived that usually very dignified individual dancing and shouting
+like a maniac, and waving something green. Off we all scrambled
+towards him as fast as our wearied limbs would carry us, hoping that
+he had found water.
+
+"What is it, Umbopa, son of a fool?" I shouted in Zulu.
+
+"It is food and water, Macumazahn," and again he waved the green
+thing.
+
+Then I saw what he had found. It was a melon. We had hit upon a patch
+of wild melons, thousands of them, and dead ripe.
+
+"Melons!" I yelled to Good, who was next me; and in another minute his
+false teeth were fixed in one of them.
+
+I think we ate about six each before we had done, and poor fruit as
+they were, I doubt if I ever thought anything nicer.
+
+But melons are not very nutritious, and when we had satisfied our
+thirst with their pulpy substance, and put a stock to cool by the
+simple process of cutting them in two and setting them end on in the
+hot sun to grow cold by evaporation, we began to feel exceedingly
+hungry. We had still some biltong left, but our stomachs turned from
+biltong, and besides, we were obliged to be very sparing of it, for we
+could not say when we should find more food. Just at this moment a
+lucky thing chanced. Looking across the desert I saw a flock of about
+ten large birds flying straight towards us.
+
+"/Skit, Baas, skit!/" "Shoot, master, shoot!" whispered the Hottentot,
+throwing himself on his face, an example which we all followed.
+
+Then I saw that the birds were a flock of /pauw/ or bustards, and that
+they would pass within fifty yards of my head. Taking one of the
+repeating Winchesters, I waited till they were nearly over us, and
+then jumped to my feet. On seeing me the /pauw/ bunched up together,
+as I expected that they would, and I fired two shots straight into the
+thick of them, and, as luck would have it, brought one down, a fine
+fellow, that weighed about twenty pounds. In half an hour we had a
+fire made of dry melon stalks, and he was toasting over it, and we
+made such a feed as we had not tasted for a week. We ate that /pauw/;
+nothing was left of him but his leg-bones and his beak, and we felt
+not a little the better afterwards.
+
+That night we went on again with the moon, carrying as many melons as
+we could with us. As we ascended we found the air grew cooler and
+cooler, which was a great relief to us, and at dawn, so far as we
+could judge, we were not more than about a dozen miles from the snow
+line. Here we discovered more melons, and so had no longer any anxiety
+about water, for we knew that we should soon get plenty of snow. But
+the ascent had now become very precipitous, and we made but slow
+progress, not more than a mile an hour. Also that night we ate our
+last morsel of biltong. As yet, with the exception of the /pauw/, we
+had seen no living thing on the mountain, nor had we come across a
+single spring or stream of water, which struck us as very odd,
+considering the expanse of snow above us, which must, we thought, melt
+sometimes. But as we afterwards discovered, owing to a cause which it
+is quite beyond my power to explain, all the streams flowed down upon
+the north side of the mountains.
+
+Now we began to grow very anxious about food. We had escaped death by
+thirst, but it seemed probable that it was only to die of hunger. The
+events of the next three miserable days are best described by copying
+the entries made at the time in my note-book.
+
+"21st May.--Started 11 a.m., finding the atmosphere quite cold enough
+to travel by day, and carrying some water-melons with us. Struggled on
+all day, but found no more melons, having evidently passed out of
+their district. Saw no game of any sort. Halted for the night at
+sundown, having had no food for many hours. Suffered much during the
+night from cold.
+
+"22nd.--Started at sunrise again, feeling very faint and weak. Only
+made about five miles all day; found some patches of snow, of which we
+ate, but nothing else. Camped at night under the edge of a great
+plateau. Cold bitter. Drank a little brandy each, and huddled
+ourselves together, each wrapped up in his blanket, to keep ourselves
+alive. Are now suffering frightfully from starvation and weariness.
+Thought that Ventvoegel would have died during the night.
+
+"23rd.--Struggled forward once more as soon as the sun was well up,
+and had thawed our limbs a little. We are now in a dreadful plight,
+and I fear that unless we get food this will be our last day's
+journey. But little brandy left. Good, Sir Henry, and Umbopa bear up
+wonderfully, but Ventvoegel is in a very bad way. Like most Hottentots,
+he cannot stand cold. Pangs of hunger not so bad, but have a sort of
+numb feeling about the stomach. Others say the same. We are now on a
+level with the precipitous chain, or wall of lava, linking the two
+Breasts, and the view is glorious. Behind us the glowing desert rolls
+away to the horizon, and before us lie mile upon mile of smooth hard
+snow almost level, but swelling gently upwards, out of the centre of
+which the nipple of the mountain, that appears to be some miles in
+circumference, rises about four thousand feet into the sky. Not a
+living thing is to be seen. God help us; I fear that our time has
+come."
+
+And now I will drop the journal, partly because it is not very
+interesting reading; also what follows requires telling rather more
+fully.
+
+All that day--the 23rd May--we struggled slowly up the incline of
+snow, lying down from time to time to rest. A strange gaunt crew we
+must have looked, while, laden as we were, we dragged our weary feet
+over the dazzling plain, glaring round us with hungry eyes. Not that
+there was much use in glaring, for we could see nothing to eat. We did
+not accomplish more than seven miles that day. Just before sunset we
+found ourselves exactly under the nipple of Sheba's left Breast, which
+towered thousands of feet into the air, a vast smooth hillock of
+frozen snow. Weak as we were, we could not but appreciate the
+wonderful scene, made even more splendid by the flying rays of light
+from the setting sun, which here and there stained the snow blood-red,
+and crowned the great dome above us with a diadem of glory.
+
+"I say," gasped Good, presently, "we ought to be somewhere near that
+cave the old gentleman wrote about."
+
+"Yes," said I, "if there is a cave."
+
+"Come, Quatermain," groaned Sir Henry, "don't talk like that; I have
+every faith in the Dom; remember the water! We shall find the place
+soon."
+
+"If we don't find it before dark we are dead men, that is all about
+it," was my consolatory reply.
+
+For the next ten minutes we trudged in silence, when suddenly Umbopa,
+who was marching along beside me, wrapped in his blanket, and with a
+leather belt strapped so tightly round his stomach, to "make his
+hunger small," as he said, that his waist looked like a girl's, caught
+me by the arm.
+
+"Look!" he said, pointing towards the springing slope of the nipple.
+
+I followed his glance, and some two hundred yards from us perceived
+what appeared to be a hole in the snow.
+
+"It is the cave," said Umbopa.
+
+We made the best of our way to the spot, and found sure enough that
+the hole was the mouth of a cavern, no doubt the same as that of which
+da Silvestra wrote. We were not too soon, for just as we reached
+shelter the sun went down with startling rapidity, leaving the world
+nearly dark, for in these latitudes there is but little twilight. So
+we crept into the cave, which did not appear to be very big, and
+huddling ourselves together for warmth, swallowed what remained of our
+brandy--barely a mouthful each--and tried to forget our miseries in
+sleep. But the cold was too intense to allow us to do so, for I am
+convinced that at this great altitude the thermometer cannot have
+marked less than fourteen or fifteen degrees below freezing point.
+What such a temperature meant to us, enervated as we were by hardship,
+want of food, and the great heat of the desert, the reader may imagine
+better than I can describe. Suffice it to say that it was something as
+near death from exposure as I have ever felt. There we sat hour after
+hour through the still and bitter night, feeling the frost wander
+round and nip us now in the finger, now in the foot, now in the face.
+In vain did we huddle up closer and closer; there was no warmth in our
+miserable starved carcases. Sometimes one of us would drop into an
+uneasy slumber for a few minutes, but we could not sleep much, and
+perhaps this was fortunate, for if we had I doubt if we should have
+ever woke again. Indeed, I believe that it was only by force of will
+that we kept ourselves alive at all.
+
+Not very long before dawn I heard the Hottentot Ventvoegel, whose teeth
+had been chattering all night like castanets, give a deep sigh. Then
+his teeth stopped chattering. I did not think anything of it at the
+time, concluding that he had gone to sleep. His back was resting
+against mine, and it seemed to grow colder and colder, till at last it
+felt like ice.
+
+At length the air began to grow grey with light, then golden arrows
+sped across the snow, and at last the glorious sun peeped above the
+lava wall and looked in upon our half-frozen forms. Also it looked
+upon Ventvoegel, sitting there amongst us, /stone dead/. No wonder his
+back felt cold, poor fellow. He had died when I heard him sigh, and
+was now frozen almost stiff. Shocked beyond measure, we dragged
+ourselves from the corpse--how strange is that horror we mortals have
+of the companionship of a dead body--and left it sitting there, its
+arms clasped about its knees.
+
+By this time the sunlight was pouring its cold rays, for here they
+were cold, straight into the mouth of the cave. Suddenly I heard an
+exclamation of fear from someone, and turned my head.
+
+And this is what I saw: Sitting at the end of the cavern--it was not
+more than twenty feet long--was another form, of which the head rested
+on its chest and the long arms hung down. I stared at it, and saw that
+this too was a /dead man/, and, what was more, a white man.
+
+The others saw also, and the sight proved too much for our shattered
+nerves. One and all we scrambled out of the cave as fast as our half-
+frozen limbs would carry us.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+SOLOMON'S ROAD
+
+Outside the cavern we halted, feeling rather foolish.
+
+"I am going back," said Sir Henry.
+
+"Why?" asked Good.
+
+"Because it has struck me that--what we saw--may be my brother."
+
+This was a new idea, and we re-entered the place to put it to the
+proof. After the bright light outside, our eyes, weak as they were
+with staring at the snow, could not pierce the gloom of the cave for a
+while. Presently, however, they grew accustomed to the semi-darkness,
+and we advanced towards the dead man.
+
+Sir Henry knelt down and peered into his face.
+
+"Thank God," he said, with a sigh of relief, "it is /not/ my brother."
+
+Then I drew near and looked. The body was that of a tall man in middle
+life with aquiline features, grizzled hair, and a long black
+moustache. The skin was perfectly yellow, and stretched tightly over
+the bones. Its clothing, with the exception of what seemed to be the
+remains of a woollen pair of hose, had been removed, leaving the
+skeleton-like frame naked. Round the neck of the corpse, which was
+frozen perfectly stiff, hung a yellow ivory crucifix.
+
+"Who on earth can it be?" said I.
+
+"Can't you guess?" asked Good.
+
+I shook my head.
+
+"Why, the old Dom, Jose da Silvestra, of course--who else?"
+
+"Impossible," I gasped; "he died three hundred years ago."
+
+"And what is there to prevent him from lasting for three thousand
+years in this atmosphere, I should like to know?" asked Good. "If only
+the temperature is sufficiently low, flesh and blood will keep fresh
+as New Zealand mutton for ever, and Heaven knows it is cold enough
+here. The sun never gets in here; no animal comes here to tear or
+destroy. No doubt his slave, of whom he speaks on the writing, took
+off his clothes and left him. He could not have buried him alone.
+Look!" he went on, stooping down to pick up a queerly-shaped bone
+scraped at the end into a sharp point, "here is the 'cleft bone' that
+Silvestra used to draw the map with."
+
+We gazed for a moment astonished, forgetting our own miseries in this
+extraordinary and, as it seemed to us, semi-miraculous sight.
+
+"Ay," said Sir Henry, "and this is where he got his ink from," and he
+pointed to a small wound on the Dom's left arm. "Did ever man see such
+a thing before?"
+
+There was no longer any doubt about the matter, which for my own part
+I confess perfectly appalled me. There he sat, the dead man, whose
+directions, written some ten generations ago, had led us to this spot.
+Here in my own hand was the rude pen with which he had written them,
+and about his neck hung the crucifix that his dying lips had kissed.
+Gazing at him, my imagination could reconstruct the last scene of the
+drama, the traveller dying of cold and starvation, yet striving to
+convey to the world the great secret which he had discovered:--the
+awful loneliness of his death, of which the evidence sat before us. It
+even seemed to me that I could trace in his strongly-marked features a
+likeness to those of my poor friend Silvestre his descendant, who had
+died twenty years before in my arms, but perhaps that was fancy. At
+any rate, there he sat, a sad memento of the fate that so often
+overtakes those who would penetrate into the unknown; and there
+doubtless he will still sit, crowned with the dread majesty of death,
+for centuries yet unborn, to startle the eyes of wanderers like
+ourselves, if ever any such should come again to invade his
+loneliness. The thing overpowered us, already almost perished as we
+were with cold and hunger.
+
+"Let us go," said Sir Henry in a low voice; "stay, we will give him a
+companion," and lifting up the dead body of the Hottentot Ventvoegel,
+he placed it near to that of the old Dom. Then he stooped, and with a
+jerk broke the rotten string of the crucifix which hung round da
+Silvestra's neck, for his fingers were too cold to attempt to unfasten
+it. I believe that he has it still. I took the bone pen, and it is
+before me as I write--sometimes I use it to sign my name.
+
+Then leaving these two, the proud white man of a past age, and the
+poor Hottentot, to keep their eternal vigil in the midst of the
+eternal snows, we crept out of the cave into the welcome sunshine and
+resumed our path, wondering in our hearts how many hours it would be
+before we were even as they are.
+
+When we had walked about half a mile we came to the edge of the
+plateau, for the nipple of the mountain does not rise out of its exact
+centre, though from the desert side it had seemed to do so. What lay
+below us we could not see, for the landscape was wreathed in billows
+of morning fog. Presently, however, the higher layers of mist cleared
+a little, and revealed, at the end of a long slope of snow, a patch of
+green grass, some five hundred yards beneath us, through which a
+stream was running. Nor was this all. By the stream, basking in the
+bright sun, stood and lay a group of from ten to fifteen /large
+antelopes/--at that distance we could not see of what species.
+
+The sight filled us with an unreasoning joy. If only we could get it,
+there was food in plenty. But the question was how to do so. The
+beasts were fully six hundred yards off, a very long shot, and one not
+to be depended on when our lives hung on the results.
+
+Rapidly we discussed the advisability of trying to stalk the game, but
+in the end dismissed it reluctantly. To begin with, the wind was not
+favourable, and further, we must certainly be perceived, however
+careful we were, against the blinding background of snow, which we
+should be obliged to traverse.
+
+"Well, we must have a try from where we are," said Sir Henry. "Which
+shall it be, Quatermain, the repeating rifles or the expresses?"
+
+Here again was a question. The Winchester repeaters--of which we had
+two, Umbopa carrying poor Ventvoegel's as well as his own--were sighted
+up to a thousand yards, whereas the expresses were only sighted to
+three hundred and fifty, beyond which distance shooting with them was
+more or less guess-work. On the other hand, if they did hit, the
+express bullets, being "expanding," were much more likely to bring the
+game down. It was a knotty point, but I made up my mind that we must
+risk it and use the expresses.
+
+"Let each of us take the buck opposite to him. Aim well at the point
+of the shoulder and high up," said I; "and Umbopa, do you give the
+word, so that we may all fire together."
+
+Then came a pause, each of us aiming his level best, as indeed a man
+is likely to do when he knows that life itself depends upon the shot.
+
+"Fire," said Umbopa in Zulu, and at almost the same instant the three
+rifles rang out loudly; three clouds of smoke hung for a moment before
+us, and a hundred echoes went flying over the silent snow. Presently
+the smoke cleared, and revealed--oh, joy!--a great buck lying on its
+back and kicking furiously in its death agony. We gave a yell of
+triumph--we were saved--we should not starve. Weak as we were, we
+rushed down the intervening slope of snow, and in ten minutes from the
+time of shooting, that animal's heart and liver were lying before us.
+But now a new difficulty arose, we had no fuel, and therefore could
+make no fire to cook them. We gazed at each other in dismay.
+
+"Starving men should not be fanciful," said Good; "we must eat raw
+meat."
+
+There was no other way out of the dilemma, and our gnawing hunger made
+the proposition less distasteful than it would otherwise have been. So
+we took the heart and liver and buried them for a few minutes in a
+patch of snow to cool them. Then we washed them in the ice-cold water
+of the stream, and lastly ate them greedily. It sounds horrible
+enough, but honestly, I never tasted anything so good as that raw
+meat. In a quarter of an hour we were changed men. Our life and vigour
+came back to us, our feeble pulses grew strong again, and the blood
+went coursing through our veins. But mindful of the results of over-
+feeding on starved stomachs, we were careful not to eat too much,
+stopping whilst we were still hungry.
+
+"Thank Heaven!" said Sir Henry; "that brute has saved our lives. What
+is it, Quatermain?"
+
+I rose and went to look at the antelope, for I was not certain. It was
+about the size of a donkey, with large curved horns. I had never seen
+one like it before; the species was new to me. It was brown in colour,
+with faint red stripes, and grew a thick coat. I afterwards discovered
+that the natives of that wonderful country call these bucks "/inco/."
+They are very rare, and only found at a great altitude where no other
+game will live. This animal was fairly hit high up in the shoulder,
+though whose bullet brought it down we could not, of course, discover.
+I believe that Good, mindful of his marvellous shot at the giraffe,
+secretly set it down to his own prowess, and we did not contradict
+him.
+
+We had been so busy satisfying our hunger that hitherto we had not
+found time to look about us. But now, having set Umbopa to cut off as
+much of the best meat as we were likely to be able to carry, we began
+to inspect our surroundings. The mist had cleared away, for it was
+eight o'clock, and the sun had sucked it up, so we were able to take
+in all the country before us at a glance. I know not how to describe
+the glorious panorama which unfolded itself to our gaze. I have never
+seen anything like it before, nor shall, I suppose, again.
+
+Behind and over us towered Sheba's snowy Breasts, and below, some five
+thousand feet beneath where we stood, lay league on league of the most
+lovely champaign country. Here were dense patches of lofty forest,
+there a great river wound its silvery way. To the left stretched a
+vast expanse of rich, undulating veld or grass land, whereon we could
+just make out countless herds of game or cattle, at that distance we
+could not tell which. This expanse appeared to be ringed in by a wall
+of distant mountains. To the right the country was more or less
+mountainous; that is, solitary hills stood up from its level, with
+stretches of cultivated land between, amongst which we could see
+groups of dome-shaped huts. The landscape lay before us as a map,
+wherein rivers flashed like silver snakes, and Alp-like peaks crowned
+with wildly twisted snow wreaths rose in grandeur, whilst over all was
+the glad sunlight and the breath of Nature's happy life.
+
+Two curious things struck us as we gazed. First, that the country
+before us must lie at least three thousand feet higher than the desert
+we had crossed, and secondly, that all the rivers flowed from south to
+north. As we had painful reason to know, there was no water upon the
+southern side of the vast range on which we stood, but on the northern
+face were many streams, most of which appeared to unite with the great
+river we could see winding away farther than our eyes could follow.
+
+We sat down for a while and gazed in silence at this wonderful view.
+Presently Sir Henry spoke.
+
+"Isn't there something on the map about Solomon's Great Road?" he
+said.
+
+I nodded, for I was still gazing out over the far country.
+
+"Well, look; there it is!" and he pointed a little to our right.
+
+Good and I looked accordingly, and there, winding away towards the
+plain, was what appeared to be a wide turnpike road. We had not seen
+it at first because, on reaching the plain, it turned behind some
+broken country. We did not say anything, at least, not much; we were
+beginning to lose the sense of wonder. Somehow it did not seem
+particularly unnatural that we should find a sort of Roman road in
+this strange land. We accepted the fact, that was all.
+
+"Well," said Good, "it must be quite near us if we cut off to the
+right. Hadn't we better be making a start?"
+
+This was sound advice, and so soon as we had washed our faces and
+hands in the stream we acted on it. For a mile or more we made our way
+over boulders and across patches of snow, till suddenly, on reaching
+the top of the little rise, we found the road at our feet. It was a
+splendid road cut out of the solid rock, at least fifty feet wide, and
+apparently well kept; though the odd thing was that it seemed to begin
+there. We walked down and stood on it, but one single hundred paces
+behind us, in the direction of Sheba's Breasts, it vanished, the
+entire surface of the mountain being strewn with boulders interspersed
+with patches of snow.
+
+"What do you make of this, Quatermain?" asked Sir Henry.
+
+I shook my head, I could make nothing of the thing.
+
+"I have it!" said Good; "the road no doubt ran right over the range
+and across the desert on the other side, but the sand there has
+covered it up, and above us it has been obliterated by some volcanic
+eruption of molten lava."
+
+This seemed a good suggestion; at any rate, we accepted it, and
+proceeded down the mountain. It proved a very different business
+travelling along down hill on that magnificent pathway with full
+stomachs from what it was travelling uphill over the snow quite
+starved and almost frozen. Indeed, had it not been for melancholy
+recollections of poor Ventvoegel's sad fate, and of that grim cave
+where he kept company with the old Dom, we should have felt positively
+cheerful, notwithstanding the sense of unknown dangers before us.
+Every mile we walked the atmosphere grew softer and balmier, and the
+country before us shone with a yet more luminous beauty. As for the
+road itself, I never saw such an engineering work, though Sir Henry
+said that the great road over the St. Gothard in Switzerland is very
+similar. No difficulty had been too great for the Old World engineer
+who laid it out. At one place we came to a ravine three hundred feet
+broad and at least a hundred feet deep. This vast gulf was actually
+filled in with huge blocks of dressed stone, having arches pierced
+through them at the bottom for a waterway, over which the road went on
+sublimely. At another place it was cut in zigzags out of the side of a
+precipice five hundred feet deep, and in a third it tunnelled through
+the base of an intervening ridge, a space of thirty yards or more.
+
+Here we noticed that the sides of the tunnel were covered with quaint
+sculptures, mostly of mailed figures driving in chariots. One, which
+was exceedingly beautiful, represented a whole battle scene with a
+convoy of captives being marched off in the distance.
+
+"Well," said Sir Henry, after inspecting this ancient work of art, "it
+is very well to call this Solomon's Road, but my humble opinion is
+that the Egyptians had been here before Solomon's people ever set a
+foot on it. If this isn't Egyptian or Phoenician handiwork, I must say
+that it is very like it."
+
+By midday we had advanced sufficiently down the mountain to search the
+region where wood was to be met with. First we came to scattered
+bushes which grew more and more frequent, till at last we found the
+road winding through a vast grove of silver trees similar to those
+which are to be seen on the slopes of Table Mountain at Cape Town. I
+had never before met with them in all my wanderings, except at the
+Cape, and their appearance here astonished me greatly.
+
+"Ah!" said Good, surveying these shining-leaved trees with evident
+enthusiasm, "here is lots of wood, let us stop and cook some dinner; I
+have about digested that raw heart."
+
+Nobody objected to this, so leaving the road we made our way to a
+stream which was babbling away not far off, and soon had a goodly fire
+of dry boughs blazing. Cutting off some substantial hunks from the
+flesh of the /inco/ which we had brought with us, we proceeded to
+toast them on the end of sharp sticks, as one sees the Kafirs do, and
+ate them with relish. After filling ourselves, we lit our pipes and
+gave ourselves up to enjoyment that, compared with the hardships we
+had recently undergone, seemed almost heavenly.
+
+The brook, of which the banks were clothed with dense masses of a
+gigantic species of maidenhair fern interspersed with feathery tufts
+of wild asparagus, sung merrily at our side, the soft air murmured
+through the leaves of the silver trees, doves cooed around, and
+bright-winged birds flashed like living gems from bough to bough. It
+was a Paradise.
+
+The magic of the place combined with an overwhelming sense of dangers
+left behind, and of the promised land reached at last, seemed to charm
+us into silence. Sir Henry and Umbopa sat conversing in a mixture of
+broken English and Kitchen Zulu in a low voice, but earnestly enough,
+and I lay, with my eyes half shut, upon that fragrant bed of fern and
+watched them.
+
+Presently I missed Good, and I looked to see what had become of him.
+Soon I observed him sitting by the bank of the stream, in which he had
+been bathing. He had nothing on but his flannel shirt, and his natural
+habits of extreme neatness having reasserted themselves, he was
+actively employed in making a most elaborate toilet. He had washed his
+gutta-percha collar, had thoroughly shaken out his trousers, coat and
+waistcoat, and was now folding them up neatly till he was ready to put
+them on, shaking his head sadly as he scanned the numerous rents and
+tears in them, which naturally had resulted from our frightful
+journey. Then he took his boots, scrubbed them with a handful of fern,
+and finally rubbed them over with a piece of fat, which he had
+carefully saved from the /inco/ meat, till they looked, comparatively
+speaking, respectable. Having inspected them judiciously through his
+eye-glass, he put the boots on and began a fresh operation. From a
+little bag that he carried he produced a pocket-comb in which was
+fixed a tiny looking-glass, and in this he surveyed himself.
+Apparently he was not satisfied, for he proceeded to do his hair with
+great care. Then came a pause whilst he again contemplated the effect;
+still it was not satisfactory. He felt his chin, on which the
+accumulated scrub of a ten days' beard was flourishing.
+
+"Surely," thought I, "he is not going to try to shave." But so it was.
+Taking the piece of fat with which he had greased his boots, Good
+washed it thoroughly in the stream. Then diving again into the bag he
+brought out a little pocket razor with a guard to it, such as are
+bought by people who are afraid of cutting themselves, or by those
+about to undertake a sea voyage. Then he rubbed his face and chin
+vigorously with the fat and began. Evidently it proved a painful
+process, for he groaned very much over it, and I was convulsed with
+inward laughter as I watched him struggling with that stubbly beard.
+It seemed so very odd that a man should take the trouble to shave
+himself with a piece of fat in such a place and in our circumstances.
+At last he succeeded in getting the hair off the right side of his
+face and chin, when suddenly I, who was watching, became conscious of
+a flash of light that passed just by his head.
+
+Good sprang up with a profane exclamation (if it had not been a safety
+razor he would certainly have cut his throat), and so did I, without
+the exclamation, and this was what I saw. Standing not more than
+twenty paces from where I was, and ten from Good, were a group of men.
+They were very tall and copper-coloured, and some of them wore great
+plumes of black feathers and short cloaks of leopard skins; this was
+all I noticed at the moment. In front of them stood a youth of about
+seventeen, his hand still raised and his body bent forward in the
+attitude of a Grecian statue of a spear-thrower. Evidently the flash
+of light had been caused by a weapon which he had hurled.
+
+As I looked an old soldier-like man stepped forward out of the group,
+and catching the youth by the arm said something to him. Then they
+advanced upon us.
+
+Sir Henry, Good, and Umbopa by this time had seized their rifles and
+lifted them threateningly. The party of natives still came on. It
+struck me that they could not know what rifles were, or they would not
+have treated them with such contempt.
+
+"Put down your guns!" I halloed to the others, seeing that our only
+chance of safety lay in conciliation. They obeyed, and walking to the
+front I addressed the elderly man who had checked the youth.
+
+"Greeting," I said in Zulu, not knowing what language to use. To my
+surprise I was understood.
+
+"Greeting," answered the old man, not, indeed, in the same tongue, but
+in a dialect so closely allied to it that neither Umbopa nor myself
+had any difficulty in understanding him. Indeed, as we afterwards
+found out, the language spoken by this people is an old-fashioned form
+of the Zulu tongue, bearing about the same relationship to it that the
+English of Chaucer does to the English of the nineteenth century.
+
+"Whence come you?" he went on, "who are you? and why are the faces of
+three of you white, and the face of the fourth as the face of our
+mother's sons?" and he pointed to Umbopa. I looked at Umbopa as he
+said it, and it flashed across me that he was right. The face of
+Umbopa was like the faces of the men before me, and so was his great
+form like their forms. But I had not time to reflect on this
+coincidence.
+
+"We are strangers, and come in peace," I answered, speaking very
+slowly, so that he might understand me, "and this man is our servant."
+
+"You lie," he answered; "no strangers can cross the mountains where
+all things perish. But what do your lies matter?--if ye are strangers
+then ye must die, for no strangers may live in the land of the
+Kukuanas. It is the king's law. Prepare then to die, O strangers!"
+
+I was slightly staggered at this, more especially as I saw the hands
+of some of the men steal down to their sides, where hung on each what
+looked to me like a large and heavy knife.
+
+"What does that beggar say?" asked Good.
+
+"He says we are going to be killed," I answered grimly.
+
+"Oh, Lord!" groaned Good; and, as was his way when perplexed, he put
+his hand to his false teeth, dragging the top set down and allowing
+them to fly back to his jaw with a snap. It was a most fortunate move,
+for next second the dignified crowd of Kukuanas uttered a simultaneous
+yell of horror, and bolted back some yards.
+
+"What's up?" said I.
+
+"It's his teeth," whispered Sir Henry excitedly. "He moved them. Take
+them out, Good, take them out!"
+
+He obeyed, slipping the set into the sleeve of his flannel shirt.
+
+In another second curiosity had overcome fear, and the men advanced
+slowly. Apparently they had now forgotten their amiable intention of
+killing us.
+
+"How is it, O strangers," asked the old man solemnly, "that this fat
+man (pointing to Good, who was clad in nothing but boots and a flannel
+shirt, and had only half finished his shaving), whose body is clothed,
+and whose legs are bare, who grows hair on one side of his sickly face
+and not on the other, and who wears one shining and transparent eye--
+how is it, I ask, that he has teeth which move of themselves, coming
+away from the jaws and returning of their own will?"
+
+"Open your mouth," I said to Good, who promptly curled up his lips and
+grinned at the old gentleman like an angry dog, revealing to his
+astonished gaze two thin red lines of gum as utterly innocent of
+ivories as a new-born elephant. The audience gasped.
+
+"Where are his teeth?" they shouted; "with our eyes we saw them."
+
+Turning his head slowly and with a gesture of ineffable contempt, Good
+swept his hand across his mouth. Then he grinned again, and lo, there
+were two rows of lovely teeth.
+
+Now the young man who had flung the knife threw himself down on the
+grass and gave vent to a prolonged howl of terror; and as for the old
+gentleman, his knees knocked together with fear.
+
+"I see that ye are spirits," he said falteringly; "did ever man born
+of woman have hair on one side of his face and not on the other, or a
+round and transparent eye, or teeth which moved and melted away and
+grew again? Pardon us, O my lords."
+
+Here was luck indeed, and, needless to say, I jumped at the chance.
+
+"It is granted," I said with an imperial smile. "Nay, ye shall know
+the truth. We come from another world, though we are men such as ye;
+we come," I went on, "from the biggest star that shines at night."
+
+"Oh! oh!" groaned the chorus of astonished aborigines.
+
+"Yes," I went on, "we do, indeed"; and again I smiled benignly, as I
+uttered that amazing lie. "We come to stay with you a little while,
+and to bless you by our sojourn. Ye will see, O friends, that I have
+prepared myself for this visit by the learning of your language."
+
+"It is so, it is so," said the chorus.
+
+"Only, my lord," put in the old gentleman, "thou hast learnt it very
+badly."
+
+I cast an indignant glance at him, and he quailed.
+
+"Now friends," I continued, "ye might think that after so long a
+journey we should find it in our hearts to avenge such a reception,
+mayhap to strike cold in death the imperious hand that--that, in short
+--threw a knife at the head of him whose teeth come and go."
+
+"Spare him, my lords," said the old man in supplication; "he is the
+king's son, and I am his uncle. If anything befalls him his blood will
+be required at my hands."
+
+"Yes, that is certainly so," put in the young man with great emphasis.
+
+"Ye may perhaps doubt our power to avenge," I went on, heedless of
+this by-play. "Stay, I will show you. Here, thou dog and slave
+(addressing Umbopa in a savage tone), give me the magic tube that
+speaks"; and I tipped a wink towards my express rifle.
+
+Umbopa rose to the occasion, and with something as nearly resembling a
+grin as I have ever seen on his dignified face he handed me the gun.
+
+"It is here, O Lord of Lords," he said with a deep obeisance.
+
+Now just before I had asked for the rifle I had perceived a little
+/klipspringer/ antelope standing on a mass of rock about seventy yards
+away, and determined to risk the shot.
+
+"Ye see that buck," I said, pointing the animal out to the party
+before me. "Tell me, is it possible for man born of woman to kill it
+from here with a noise?"
+
+"It is not possible, my lord," answered the old man.
+
+"Yet shall I kill it," I said quietly.
+
+The old man smiled. "That my lord cannot do," he answered.
+
+I raised the rifle and covered the buck. It was a small animal, and
+one which a man might well be excused for missing, but I knew that it
+would not do to miss.
+
+I drew a deep breath, and slowly pressed on the trigger. The buck
+stood still as a stone.
+
+"Bang! thud!" The antelope sprang into the air and fell on the rock
+dead as a door nail.
+
+A groan of simultaneous terror burst from the group before us.
+
+"If you want meat," I remarked coolly, "go fetch that buck."
+
+The old man made a sign, and one of his followers departed, and
+presently returned bearing the /klipspringer/. I noticed with
+satisfaction that I had hit it fairly behind the shoulder. They
+gathered round the poor creature's body, gazing at the bullet-hole in
+consternation.
+
+"Ye see," I said, "I do not speak empty words."
+
+There was no answer.
+
+"If ye yet doubt our power," I went on, "let one of you go stand upon
+that rock that I may make him as this buck."
+
+None of them seemed at all inclined to take the hint, till at last the
+king's son spoke.
+
+"It is well said. Do thou, my uncle, go stand upon the rock. It is but
+a buck that the magic has killed. Surely it cannot kill a man."
+
+The old gentleman did not take the suggestion in good part. Indeed, he
+seemed hurt.
+
+"No! no!" he ejaculated hastily, "my old eyes have seen enough. These
+are wizards, indeed. Let us bring them to the king. Yet if any should
+wish a further proof, let /him/ stand upon the rock, that the magic
+tube may speak with him."
+
+There was a most general and hasty expression of dissent.
+
+"Let not good magic be wasted on our poor bodies," said one; "we are
+satisfied. All the witchcraft of our people cannot show the like of
+this."
+
+"It is so," remarked the old gentleman, in a tone of intense relief;
+"without any doubt it is so. Listen, children of the Stars, children
+of the shining Eye and the movable Teeth, who roar out in thunder, and
+slay from afar. I am Infadoos, son of Kafa, once king of the Kukuana
+people. This youth is Scragga."
+
+"He nearly scragged me," murmured Good.
+
+"Scragga, son of Twala, the great king--Twala, husband of a thousand
+wives, chief and lord paramount of the Kukuanas, keeper of the great
+Road, terror of his enemies, student of the Black Arts, leader of a
+hundred thousand warriors, Twala the One-eyed, the Black, the
+Terrible."
+
+"So," said I superciliously, "lead us then to Twala. We do not talk
+with low people and underlings."
+
+"It is well, my lords, we will lead you; but the way is long. We are
+hunting three days' journey from the place of the king. But let my
+lords have patience, and we will lead them."
+
+"So be it," I said carelessly; "all time is before us, for we do not
+die. We are ready, lead on. But Infadoos, and thou Scragga, beware!
+Play us no monkey tricks, set for us no foxes' snares, for before your
+brains of mud have thought of them we shall know and avenge. The light
+of the transparent eye of him with the bare legs and the half-haired
+face shall destroy you, and go through your land; his vanishing teeth
+shall affix themselves fast in you and eat you up, you and your wives
+and children; the magic tubes shall argue with you loudly, and make
+you as sieves. Beware!"
+
+This magnificent address did not fail of its effect; indeed, it might
+almost have been spared, so deeply were our friends already impressed
+with our powers.
+
+The old man made a deep obeisance, and murmured the words, "/Koom
+Koom/," which I afterwards discovered was their royal salute,
+corresponding to the /Bayete/ of the Zulus, and turning, addressed his
+followers. These at once proceeded to lay hold of all our goods and
+chattels, in order to bear them for us, excepting only the guns, which
+they would on no account touch. They even seized Good's clothes, that,
+as the reader may remember, were neatly folded up beside him.
+
+He saw and made a dive for them, and a loud altercation ensued.
+
+"Let not my lord of the transparent Eye and the melting Teeth touch
+them," said the old man. "Surely his slave shall carry the things."
+
+"But I want to put 'em on!" roared Good, in nervous English.
+
+Umbopa translated.
+
+"Nay, my lord," answered Infadoos, "would my lord cover up his
+beautiful white legs (although he is so dark Good has a singularly
+white skin) from the eyes of his servants? Have we offended my lord
+that he should do such a thing?"
+
+Here I nearly exploded with laughing; and meanwhile one of the men
+started on with the garments.
+
+"Damn it!" roared Good, "that black villain has got my trousers."
+
+"Look here, Good," said Sir Henry; "you have appeared in this country
+in a certain character, and you must live up to it. It will never do
+for you to put on trousers again. Henceforth you must exist in a
+flannel shirt, a pair of boots, and an eye-glass."
+
+"Yes," I said, "and with whiskers on one side of your face and not on
+the other. If you change any of these things the people will think
+that we are impostors. I am very sorry for you, but, seriously, you
+must. If once they begin to suspect us our lives will not be worth a
+brass farthing."
+
+"Do you really think so?" said Good gloomily.
+
+"I do, indeed. Your 'beautiful white legs' and your eye-glass are now
+/the/ features of our party, and as Sir Henry says, you must live up
+to them. Be thankful that you have got your boots on, and that the air
+is warm."
+
+Good sighed, and said no more, but it took him a fortnight to become
+accustomed to his new and scant attire.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+WE ENTER KUKUANALAND
+
+All that afternoon we travelled along the magnificent roadway, which
+trended steadily in a north-westerly direction. Infadoos and Scragga
+walked with us, but their followers marched about one hundred paces
+ahead.
+
+"Infadoos," I said at length, "who made this road?"
+
+"It was made, my lord, of old time, none know how or when, not even
+the wise woman Gagool, who has lived for generations. We are not old
+enough to remember its making. None can fashion such roads now, but
+the king suffers no grass to grow upon it."
+
+"And whose are the writings on the wall of the caves through which we
+have passed on the road?" I asked, referring to the Egyptian-like
+sculptures that we had seen.
+
+"My lord, the hands that made the road wrote the wonderful writings.
+We know not who wrote them."
+
+"When did the Kukuana people come into this country?"
+
+"My lord, the race came down here like the breath of a storm ten
+thousand thousand moons ago, from the great lands which lie there
+beyond," and he pointed to the north. "They could travel no further
+because of the high mountains which ring in the land, so say the old
+voices of our fathers that have descended to us the children, and so
+says Gagool, the wise woman, the smeller out of witches," and again he
+pointed to the snow-clad peaks. "The country, too, was good, so they
+settled here and grew strong and powerful, and now our numbers are
+like the sea sand, and when Twala the king calls up his regiments
+their plumes cover the plain so far as the eye of man can reach."
+
+"And if the land is walled in with mountains, who is there for the
+regiments to fight with?"
+
+"Nay, my lord, the country is open there towards the north, and now
+and again warriors sweep down upon us in clouds from a land we know
+not, and we slay them. It is the third part of the life of a man since
+there was a war. Many thousands died in it, but we destroyed those who
+came to eat us up. So since then there has been no war."
+
+"Your warriors must grow weary of resting on their spears, Infadoos."
+
+"My lord, there was one war, just after we destroyed the people that
+came down upon us, but it was a civil war; dog ate dog."
+
+"How was that?"
+
+"My lord the king, my half-brother, had a brother born at the same
+birth, and of the same woman. It is not our custom, my lord, to suffer
+twins to live; the weaker must always die. But the mother of the king
+hid away the feebler child, which was born the last, for her heart
+yearned over it, and that child is Twala the king. I am his younger
+brother, born of another wife."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"My lord, Kafa, our father, died when we came to manhood, and my
+brother Imotu was made king in his place, and for a space reigned and
+had a son by his favourite wife. When the babe was three years old,
+just after the great war, during which no man could sow or reap, a
+famine came upon the land, and the people murmured because of the
+famine, and looked round like a starved lion for something to rend.
+Then it was that Gagool, the wise and terrible woman, who does not
+die, made a proclamation to the people, saying, 'The king Imotu is no
+king.' And at the time Imotu was sick with a wound, and lay in his
+kraal not able to move.
+
+"Then Gagool went into a hut and led out Twala, my half-brother, and
+twin brother to the king, whom she had hidden among the caves and
+rocks since he was born, and stripping the '/moocha/' (waist-cloth)
+off his loins, showed the people of the Kukuanas the mark of the
+sacred snake coiled round his middle, wherewith the eldest son of the
+king is marked at birth, and cried out loud, 'Behold your king whom I
+have saved for you even to this day!'
+
+"Now the people being mad with hunger, and altogether bereft of reason
+and the knowledge of truth, cried out--'/The king! The king!/' but I
+knew that it was not so, for Imotu my brother was the elder of the
+twins, and our lawful king. Then just as the tumult was at its height
+Imotu the king, though he was very sick, crawled from his hut holding
+his wife by the hand, and followed by his little son Ignosi--that is,
+by interpretation, the Lightning.
+
+"'What is this noise?' he asked. 'Why cry ye /The king! The king!/'
+
+"Then Twala, his twin brother, born of the same woman, and in the same
+hour, ran to him, and taking him by the hair, stabbed him through the
+heart with his knife. And the people being fickle, and ever ready to
+worship the rising sun, clapped their hands and cried, '/Twala is
+king!/ Now we know that Twala is king!'"
+
+"And what became of Imotu's wife and her son Ignosi? Did Twala kill
+them too?"
+
+"Nay, my lord. When she saw that her lord was dead the queen seized
+the child with a cry and ran away. Two days afterward she came to a
+kraal very hungry, and none would give her milk or food, now that her
+lord the king was dead, for all men hate the unfortunate. But at
+nightfall a little child, a girl, crept out and brought her corn to
+eat, and she blessed the child, and went on towards the mountains with
+her boy before the sun rose again, and there she must have perished,
+for none have seen her since, nor the child Ignosi."
+
+"Then if this child Ignosi had lived he would be the true king of the
+Kukuana people?"
+
+"That is so, my lord; the sacred snake is round his middle. If he
+lives he is king; but, alas! he is long dead."
+
+"See, my lord," and Infadoos pointed to a vast collection of huts
+surrounded by a fence, which was in its turn encircled by a great
+ditch, that lay on the plain beneath us. "That is the kraal where the
+wife of Imotu was last seen with the child Ignosi. It is there that we
+shall sleep to-night, if, indeed," he added doubtfully, "my lords
+sleep at all upon this earth."
+
+"When we are among the Kukuanas, my good friend Infadoos, we do as the
+Kukuanas do," I said majestically, and turned round quickly to address
+Good, who was tramping along sullenly behind, his mind fully occupied
+with unsatisfactory attempts to prevent his flannel shirt from
+flapping in the evening breeze. To my astonishment I butted into
+Umbopa, who was walking along immediately behind me, and very
+evidently had been listening with the greatest interest to my
+conversation with Infadoos. The expression on his face was most
+curious, and gave me the idea of a man who was struggling with partial
+success to bring something long ago forgotten back into his mind.
+
+All this while we had been pressing on at a good rate towards the
+undulating plain beneath us. The mountains we had crossed now loomed
+high above our heads, and Sheba's Breasts were veiled modestly in
+diaphanous wreaths of mist. As we went the country grew more and more
+lovely. The vegetation was luxuriant, without being tropical; the sun
+was bright and warm, but not burning; and a gracious breeze blew
+softly along the odorous slopes of the mountains. Indeed, this new
+land was little less than an earthly paradise; in beauty, in natural
+wealth, and in climate I have never seen its like. The Transvaal is a
+fine country, but it is nothing to Kukuanaland.
+
+So soon as we started Infadoos had despatched a runner to warn the
+people of the kraal, which, by the way, was in his military command,
+of our arrival. This man had departed at an extraordinary speed, which
+Infadoos informed me he would keep up all the way, as running was an
+exercise much practised among his people.
+
+The result of this message now became apparent. When we arrived within
+two miles of the kraal we could see that company after company of men
+were issuing from its gates and marching towards us.
+
+Sir Henry laid his hand upon my arm, and remarked that it looked as
+though we were going to meet with a warm reception. Something in his
+tone attracted Infadoos' attention.
+
+"Let not my lords be afraid," he said hastily, "for in my breast there
+dwells no guile. This regiment is one under my command, and comes out
+by my orders to greet you."
+
+I nodded easily, though I was not quite easy in my mind.
+
+About half a mile from the gates of this kraal is a long stretch of
+rising ground sloping gently upwards from the road, and here the
+companies formed. It was a splendid sight to see them, each company
+about three hundred strong, charging swiftly up the rise, with
+flashing spears and waving plumes, to take their appointed place. By
+the time we reached the slope twelve such companies, or in all three
+thousand six hundred men, had passed out and taken up their positions
+along the road.
+
+Presently we came to the first company, and were able to gaze in
+astonishment on the most magnificent set of warriors that I have ever
+seen. They were all men of mature age, mostly veterans of about forty,
+and not one of them was under six feet in height, whilst many stood
+six feet three or four. They wore upon their heads heavy black plumes
+of Sakaboola feathers, like those which adorned our guides. About
+their waists and beneath the right knees were bound circlets of white
+ox tails, while in their left hands they carried round shields
+measuring about twenty inches across. These shields are very curious.
+The framework is made of an iron plate beaten out thin, over which is
+stretched milk-white ox-hide.
+
+The weapons that each man bore were simple, but most effective,
+consisting of a short and very heavy two-edged spear with a wooden
+shaft, the blade being about six inches across at the widest part.
+These spears are not used for throwing but like the Zulu "/bangwan/,"
+or stabbing assegai, are for close quarters only, when the wound
+inflicted by them is terrible. In addition to his /bangwan/ every man
+carried three large and heavy knives, each knife weighing about two
+pounds. One knife was fixed in the ox-tail girdle, and the other two
+at the back of the round shield. These knives, which are called
+"/tollas/" by the Kukuanas, take the place of the throwing assegai of
+the Zulus. The Kukuana warriors can cast them with great accuracy to a
+distance of fifty yards, and it is their custom on charging to hurl a
+volley of them at the enemy as they come to close quarters.
+
+Each company remained still as a collection of bronze statues till we
+were opposite to it, when at a signal given by its commanding officer,
+who, distinguished by a leopard skin cloak, stood some paces in front,
+every spear was raised into the air, and from three hundred throats
+sprang forth with a sudden roar the royal salute of "/Koom/." Then, so
+soon as we had passed, the company formed up behind us and followed us
+towards the kraal, till at last the whole regiment of the "Greys"--so
+called from their white shields--the crack corps of the Kukuana
+people, was marching in our rear with a tread that shook the ground.
+
+At length, branching off from Solomon's Great Road, we came to the
+wide fosse surrounding the kraal, which is at least a mile round, and
+fenced with a strong palisade of piles formed of the trunks of trees.
+At the gateway this fosse is spanned by a primitive drawbridge, which
+was let down by the guard to allow us to pass in. The kraal is
+exceedingly well laid out. Through the centre runs a wide pathway
+intersected at right angles by other pathways so arranged as to cut
+the huts into square blocks, each block being the quarters of a
+company. The huts are dome-shaped, and built, like those of the Zulus,
+of a framework of wattle, beautifully thatched with grass; but, unlike
+the Zulu huts, they have doorways through which men could walk. Also
+they are much larger, and surrounded by a verandah about six feet
+wide, beautifully paved with powdered lime trodden hard.
+
+All along each side of this wide pathway that pierces the kraal were
+ranged hundreds of women, brought out by curiosity to look at us.
+These women, for a native race, are exceedingly handsome. They are
+tall and graceful, and their figures are wonderfully fine. The hair,
+though short, is rather curly than woolly, the features are frequently
+aquiline, and the lips are not unpleasantly thick, as is the case
+among most African races. But what struck us most was their
+exceedingly quiet and dignified air. They were as well-bred in their
+way as the /habituees/ of a fashionable drawing-room, and in this
+respect they differ from Zulu women and their cousins the Masai who
+inhabit the district beyond Zanzibar. Their curiosity had brought them
+out to see us, but they allowed no rude expressions of astonishment or
+savage criticism to pass their lips as we trudged wearily in front of
+them. Not even when old Infadoos with a surreptitious motion of the
+hand pointed out the crowning wonder of poor Good's "beautiful white
+legs," did they suffer the feeling of intense admiration which
+evidently mastered their minds to find expression. They fixed their
+dark eyes upon this new and snowy loveliness, for, as I think I have
+said, Good's skin is exceedingly white, and that was all. But it was
+quite enough for Good, who is modest by nature.
+
+When we reached the centre of the kraal, Infadoos halted at the door
+of a large hut, which was surrounded at a distance by a circle of
+smaller ones.
+
+"Enter, Sons of the Stars," he said, in a magniloquent voice, "and
+deign to rest awhile in our humble habitations. A little food shall be
+brought to you, so that ye may have no need to draw your belts tight
+from hunger; some honey and some milk, and an ox or two, and a few
+sheep; not much, my lords, but still a little food."
+
+"It is good," said I. "Infadoos; we are weary with travelling through
+realms of air; now let us rest."
+
+Accordingly we entered the hut, which we found amply prepared for our
+comfort. Couches of tanned skins were spread for us to lie on, and
+water was placed for us to wash in.
+
+Presently we heard a shouting outside, and stepping to the door, saw a
+line of damsels bearing milk and roasted mealies, and honey in a pot.
+Behind these were some youths driving a fat young ox. We received the
+gifts, and then one of the young men drew the knife from his girdle
+and dexterously cut the ox's throat. In ten minutes it was dead,
+skinned, and jointed. The best of the meat was then cut off for us,
+and the rest, in the name of our party, I presented to the warriors
+round us, who took it and distributed the "white lords' gift."
+
+Umbopa set to work, with the assistance of an extremely prepossessing
+young woman, to boil our portion in a large earthenware pot over a
+fire which was built outside the hut, and when it was nearly ready we
+sent a message to Infadoos, and asked him and Scragga, the king's son,
+to join us.
+
+Presently they came, and sitting down upon little stools, of which
+there were several about the hut, for the Kukuanas do not in general
+squat upon their haunches like the Zulus, they helped us to get
+through our dinner. The old gentleman was most affable and polite, but
+it struck me that the young one regarded us with doubt. Together with
+the rest of the party, he had been overawed by our white appearance
+and by our magic properties; but it seemed to me that, on discovering
+that we ate, drank, and slept like other mortals, his awe was
+beginning to wear off, and to be replaced by a sullen suspicion--which
+made me feel rather uncomfortable.
+
+In the course of our meal Sir Henry suggested to me that it might be
+well to try to discover if our hosts knew anything of his brother's
+fate, or if they had ever seen or heard of him; but, on the whole, I
+thought that it would be wiser to say nothing of the matter at this
+time. It was difficult to explain a relative lost from "the Stars."
+
+After supper we produced our pipes and lit them; a proceeding which
+filled Infadoos and Scragga with astonishment. The Kukuanas were
+evidently unacquainted with the divine delights of tobacco-smoke. The
+herb is grown among them extensively; but, like the Zulus, they use it
+for snuff only, and quite failed to identify it in its new form.
+
+Presently I asked Infadoos when we were to proceed on our journey, and
+was delighted to learn that preparations had been made for us to leave
+on the following morning, messengers having already departed to inform
+Twala the king of our coming.
+
+It appeared that Twala was at his principal place, known as Loo,
+making ready for the great annual feast which was to be held in the
+first week of June. At this gathering all the regiments, with the
+exception of certain detachments left behind for garrison purposes,
+are brought up and paraded before the king; and the great annual
+witch-hunt, of which more by-and-by, is held.
+
+We were to start at dawn; and Infadoos, who was to accompany us,
+expected that we should reach Loo on the night of the second day,
+unless we were detained by accident or by swollen rivers.
+
+When they had given us this information our visitors bade us good-
+night; and, having arranged to watch turn and turn about, three of us
+flung ourselves down and slept the sweet sleep of the weary, whilst
+the fourth sat up on the look-out for possible treachery.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+TWALA THE KING
+
+It will not be necessary for me to detail at length the incidents of
+our journey to Loo. It took two full days' travelling along Solomon's
+Great Road, which pursued its even course right into the heart of
+Kukuanaland. Suffice it to say that as we went the country seemed to
+grow richer and richer, and the kraals, with their wide surrounding
+belts of cultivation, more and more numerous. They were all built upon
+the same principles as the first camp which we had reached, and were
+guarded by ample garrisons of troops. Indeed, in Kukuanaland, as among
+the Germans, the Zulus, and the Masai, every able-bodied man is a
+soldier, so that the whole force of the nation is available for its
+wars, offensive or defensive. As we travelled we were overtaken by
+thousands of warriors hurrying up to Loo to be present at the great
+annual review and festival, and more splendid troops I never saw.
+
+At sunset on the second day, we stopped to rest awhile upon the summit
+of some heights over which the road ran, and there on a beautiful and
+fertile plain before us lay Loo itself. For a native town it is an
+enormous place, quite five miles round, I should say, with outlying
+kraals projecting from it, that serve on grand occasions as
+cantonments for the regiments, and a curious horseshoe-shaped hill,
+with which we were destined to become better acquainted, about two
+miles to the north. It is beautifully situated, and through the centre
+of the kraal, dividing it into two portions, runs a river, which
+appeared to be bridged in several places, the same indeed that we had
+seen from the slopes of Sheba's Breasts. Sixty or seventy miles away
+three great snow-capped mountains, placed at the points of a triangle,
+started out of the level plain. The conformation of these mountains is
+unlike that of Sheba's Breasts, being sheer and precipitous, instead
+of smooth and rounded.
+
+Infadoos saw us looking at them, and volunteered a remark.
+
+"The road ends there," he said, pointing to the mountains known among
+the Kukuanas as the "Three Witches."
+
+"Why does it end?" I asked.
+
+"Who knows?" he answered with a shrug; "the mountains are full of
+caves, and there is a great pit between them. It is there that the
+wise men of old time used to go to get whatever it was they came for
+to this country, and it is there now that our kings are buried in the
+Place of Death."
+
+"What was it they came for?" I asked eagerly.
+
+"Nay, I know not. My lords who have dropped from the Stars should
+know," he answered with a quick look. Evidently he knew more than he
+chose to say.
+
+"Yes," I went on, "you are right, in the Stars we learn many things. I
+have heard, for instance, that the wise men of old came to these
+mountains to find bright stones, pretty playthings, and yellow iron."
+
+"My lord is wise," he answered coldly; "I am but a child and cannot
+talk with my lord on such matters. My lord must speak with Gagool the
+old, at the king's place, who is wise even as my lord," and he went
+away.
+
+So soon as he was gone I turned to the others, and pointed out the
+mountains. "There are Solomon's diamond mines," I said.
+
+Umbopa was standing with them, apparently plunged in one of the fits
+of abstraction which were common to him, and caught my words.
+
+"Yes, Macumazahn," he put in, in Zulu, "the diamonds are surely there,
+and you shall have them, since you white men are so fond of toys and
+money."
+
+"How dost thou know that, Umbopa?" I asked sharply, for I did not like
+his mysterious ways.
+
+He laughed. "I dreamed it in the night, white men;" then he too turned
+on his heel and went.
+
+"Now what," said Sir Henry, "is our black friend driving at? He knows
+more than he chooses to say, that is clear. By the way, Quatermain,
+has he heard anything of--of my brother?"
+
+"Nothing; he has asked everyone he has become friendly with, but they
+all declare that no white man has ever been seen in the country
+before."
+
+"Do you suppose that he got here at all?" suggested Good; "we have
+only reached the place by a miracle; is it likely he could have
+reached it without the map?"
+
+"I don't know," said Sir Henry gloomily, "but somehow I think that I
+shall find him."
+
+Slowly the sun sank, then suddenly darkness rushed down on the land
+like a tangible thing. There was no breathing-space between the day
+and night, no soft transformation scene, for in these latitudes
+twilight does not exist. The change from day to night is as quick and
+as absolute as the change from life to death. The sun sank and the
+world was wreathed in shadows. But not for long, for see in the west
+there is a glow, then come rays of silver light, and at last the full
+and glorious moon lights up the plain and shoots its gleaming arrows
+far and wide, filling the earth with a faint refulgence.
+
+We stood and watched the lovely sight, whilst the stars grew pale
+before this chastened majesty, and felt our hearts lifted up in the
+presence of a beauty that I cannot describe. Mine has been a rough
+life, but there are a few things I am thankful to have lived for, and
+one of them is to have seen that moon shine over Kukuanaland.
+
+Presently our meditations were broken in upon by our polite friend
+Infadoos.
+
+"If my lords are rested we will journey on to Loo, where a hut is made
+ready for my lords to-night. The moon is now bright, so that we shall
+not fall by the way."
+
+We assented, and in an hour's time were at the outskirts of the town,
+of which the extent, mapped out as it was by thousands of camp fires,
+appeared absolutely endless. Indeed, Good, who is always fond of a bad
+joke, christened it "Unlimited Loo." Soon we came to a moat with a
+drawbridge, where we were met by the rattling of arms and the hoarse
+challenge of a sentry. Infadoos gave some password that I could not
+catch, which was met with a salute, and we passed on through the
+central street of the great grass city. After nearly half an hour's
+tramp, past endless lines of huts, Infadoos halted at last by the gate
+of a little group of huts which surrounded a small courtyard of
+powdered limestone, and informed us that these were to be our "poor"
+quarters.
+
+We entered, and found that a hut had been assigned to each of us.
+These huts were superior to any that we had yet seen, and in each was
+a most comfortable bed made of tanned skins, spread upon mattresses of
+aromatic grass. Food too was ready for us, and so soon as we had
+washed ourselves with water, which stood ready in earthenware jars,
+some young women of handsome appearance brought us roasted meats, and
+mealie cobs daintily served on wooden platters, and presented them to
+us with deep obeisances.
+
+We ate and drank, and then, the beds having been all moved into one
+hut by our request, a precaution at which the amiable young ladies
+smiled, we flung ourselves down to sleep, thoroughly wearied with our
+long journey.
+
+When we woke it was to find the sun high in the heavens, and the
+female attendants, who did not seem to be troubled by any false shame,
+already standing inside the hut, having been ordered to attend and
+help us to "make ready."
+
+"Make ready, indeed," growled Good; "when one has only a flannel shirt
+and a pair of boots, that does not take long. I wish you would ask
+them for my trousers, Quatermain."
+
+I asked accordingly, but was informed that these sacred relics had
+already been taken to the king, who would see us in the forenoon.
+
+Somewhat to their astonishment and disappointment, having requested
+the young ladies to step outside, we proceeded to make the best toilet
+of which the circumstances admitted. Good even went the length of
+again shaving the right side of his face; the left, on which now
+appeared a very fair crop of whiskers, we impressed upon him he must
+on no account touch. As for ourselves, we were contented with a good
+wash and combing our hair. Sir Henry's yellow locks were now almost
+upon his shoulders, and he looked more like an ancient Dane than ever,
+while my grizzled scrub was fully an inch long, instead of half an
+inch, which in a general way I considered my maximum length.
+
+By the time that we had eaten our breakfast, and smoked a pipe, a
+message was brought to us by no less a personage than Infadoos himself
+that Twala the king was ready to see us, if we would be pleased to
+come.
+
+We remarked in reply that we should prefer to wait till the sun was a
+little higher, we were yet weary with our journey, &c., &c. It is
+always well, when dealing with uncivilised people, not to be in too
+great a hurry. They are apt to mistake politeness for awe or
+servility. So, although we were quite as anxious to see Twala as Twala
+could be to see us, we sat down and waited for an hour, employing the
+interval in preparing such presents as our slender stock of goods
+permitted--namely, the Winchester rifle which had been used by poor
+Ventvoegel, and some beads. The rifle and ammunition we determined to
+present to his royal highness, and the beads were for his wives and
+courtiers. We had already given a few to Infadoos and Scragga, and
+found that they were delighted with them, never having seen such
+things before. At length we declared that we were ready, and guided by
+Infadoos, started off to the audience, Umbopa carrying the rifle and
+beads.
+
+After walking a few hundred yards we came to an enclosure, something
+like that surrounding the huts which had been allotted to us, only
+fifty times as big, for it could not have covered less than six or
+seven acres of ground. All round the outside fence stood a row of
+huts, which were the habitations of the king's wives. Exactly opposite
+the gateway, on the further side of the open space, was a very large
+hut, built by itself, in which his majesty resided. All the rest was
+open ground; that is to say, it would have been open had it not been
+filled by company after company of warriors, who were mustered there
+to the number of seven or eight thousand. These men stood still as
+statues as we advanced through them, and it would be impossible to
+give an adequate idea of the grandeur of the spectacle which they
+presented, with their waving plumes, their glancing spears, and iron-
+backed ox-hide shields.
+
+The space in front of the large hut was empty, but before it were
+placed several stools. On three of these, at a sign from Infadoos, we
+seated ourselves, Umbopa standing behind us. As for Infadoos, he took
+up a position by the door of the hut. So we waited for ten minutes or
+more in the midst of a dead silence, but conscious that we were the
+object of the concentrated gaze of some eight thousand pairs of eyes.
+It was a somewhat trying ordeal, but we carried it off as best we
+could. At length the door of the hut opened, and a gigantic figure,
+with a splendid tiger-skin karross flung over its shoulders, stepped
+out, followed by the boy Scragga, and what appeared to us to be a
+withered-up monkey, wrapped in a fur cloak. The figure seated itself
+upon a stool, Scragga took his stand behind it, and the withered-up
+monkey crept on all fours into the shade of the hut and squatted down.
+
+Still there was silence.
+
+Then the gigantic figure slipped off the karross and stood up before
+us, a truly alarming spectacle. It was that of an enormous man with
+the most entirely repulsive countenance we had ever beheld. This man's
+lips were as thick as a Negro's, the nose was flat, he had but one
+gleaming black eye, for the other was represented by a hollow in the
+face, and his whole expression was cruel and sensual to a degree. From
+the large head rose a magnificent plume of white ostrich feathers, his
+body was clad in a shirt of shining chain armour, whilst round the
+waist and right knee were the usual garnishes of white ox-tail. In his
+right hand was a huge spear, about the neck a thick torque of gold,
+and bound on the forehead shone dully a single and enormous uncut
+diamond.
+
+Still there was silence; but not for long. Presently the man, whom we
+rightly guessed to be the king, raised the great javelin in his hand.
+Instantly eight thousand spears were lifted in answer, and from eight
+thousand throats rang out the royal salute of "/Koom/." Three times
+this was repeated, and each time the earth shook with the noise, that
+can only be compared to the deepest notes of thunder.
+
+"Be humble, O people," piped out a thin voice which seemed to come
+from the monkey in the shade, "it is the king."
+
+"/It is the king/," boomed out the eight thousand throats in answer.
+"/Be humble, O people, it is the king./"
+
+Then there was silence again--dead silence. Presently, however, it was
+broken. A soldier on our left dropped his shield, which fell with a
+clatter on to the limestone flooring.
+
+Twala turned his one cold eye in the direction of the noise.
+
+"Come hither, thou," he said, in a cold voice.
+
+A fine young man stepped out of the ranks, and stood before him.
+
+"It was thy shield that fell, thou awkward dog. Wilt thou make me a
+reproach in the eyes of these strangers from the Stars? What hast thou
+to say for thyself?"
+
+We saw the poor fellow turn pale under his dusky skin.
+
+"It was by chance, O Calf of the Black Cow," he murmured.
+
+"Then it is a chance for which thou must pay. Thou hast made me
+foolish; prepare for death."
+
+"I am the king's ox," was the low answer.
+
+"Scragga," roared the king, "let me see how thou canst use thy spear.
+Kill me this blundering fool."
+
+Scragga stepped forward with an ill-favoured grin, and lifted his
+spear. The poor victim covered his eyes with his hand and stood still.
+As for us, we were petrified with horror.
+
+"Once, twice," he waved the spear, and then struck, ah! right home--
+the spear stood out a foot behind the soldier's back. He flung up his
+hands and dropped dead. From the multitude about us rose something
+like a murmur, it rolled round and round, and died away. The tragedy
+was finished; there lay the corpse, and we had not yet realised that
+it had been enacted. Sir Henry sprang up and swore a great oath, then,
+overpowered by the sense of silence, sat down again.
+
+"The thrust was a good one," said the king; "take him away."
+
+Four men stepped out of the ranks, and lifting the body of the
+murdered man, carried it thence.
+
+"Cover up the blood-stains, cover them up," piped out the thin voice
+that proceeded from the monkey-like figure; "the king's word is
+spoken, the king's doom is done!"
+
+Thereupon a girl came forward from behind the hut, bearing a jar
+filled with powdered lime, which she scattered over the red mark,
+blotting it from sight.
+
+Sir Henry meanwhile was boiling with rage at what had happened;
+indeed, it was with difficulty that we could keep him still.
+
+"Sit down, for heaven's sake," I whispered; "our lives depend on it."
+
+He yielded and remained quiet.
+
+Twala sat silent until the traces of the tragedy had been removed,
+then he addressed us.
+
+"White people," he said, "who come hither, whence I know not, and why
+I know not, greeting."
+
+"Greeting, Twala, King of the Kukuanas," I answered.
+
+"White people, whence come ye, and what seek ye?"
+
+"We come from the Stars, ask us not how. We come to see this land."
+
+"Ye journey from far to see a little thing. And that man with you,"
+pointing to Umbopa, "does he also come from the Stars?"
+
+"Even so; there are people of thy colour in the heavens above; but ask
+not of matters too high for thee, Twala the king."
+
+"Ye speak with a loud voice, people of the Stars," Twala answered in a
+tone which I scarcely liked. "Remember that the Stars are far off, and
+ye are here. How if I make you as him whom they bore away?"
+
+I laughed out loud, though there was little laughter in my heart.
+
+"O king," I said, "be careful, walk warily over hot stones, lest thou
+shouldst burn thy feet; hold the spear by the handle, lest thou should
+cut thy hands. Touch but one hair of our heads, and destruction shall
+come upon thee. What, have not these"--pointing to Infadoos and
+Scragga, who, young villain that he was, was employed in cleaning the
+blood of the soldier off his spear--"told thee what manner of men we
+are? Hast thou seen the like of us?" and I pointed to Good, feeling
+quite sure that he had never seen anybody before who looked in the
+least like /him/ as he then appeared.
+
+"It is true, I have not," said the king, surveying Good with interest.
+
+"Have they not told thee how we strike with death from afar?" I went
+on.
+
+"They have told me, but I believe them not. Let me see you kill. Kill
+me a man among those who stand yonder"--and he pointed to the opposite
+side of the kraal--"and I will believe."
+
+"Nay," I answered; "we shed no blood of men except in just punishment;
+but if thou wilt see, bid thy servants drive in an ox through the
+kraal gates, and before he has run twenty paces I will strike him
+dead."
+
+"Nay," laughed the king, "kill me a man and I will believe."
+
+"Good, O king, so be it," I answered coolly; "do thou walk across the
+open space, and before thy feet reach the gate thou shalt be dead; or
+if thou wilt not, send thy son Scragga" (whom at that moment it would
+have given me much pleasure to shoot).
+
+On hearing this suggestion Scragga uttered a sort of howl, and bolted
+into the hut.
+
+Twala frowned majestically; the suggestion did not please him.
+
+"Let a young ox be driven in," he said.
+
+Two men at once departed, running swiftly.
+
+"Now, Sir Henry," said I, "do you shoot. I want to show this ruffian
+that I am not the only magician of the party."
+
+Sir Henry accordingly took his "express," and made ready.
+
+"I hope I shall make a good shot," he groaned.
+
+"You must," I answered. "If you miss with the first barrel, let him
+have the second. Sight for 150 yards, and wait till the beast turns
+broadside on."
+
+Then came a pause, until presently we caught sight of an ox running
+straight for the kraal gate. It came on through the gate, then,
+catching sight of the vast concourse of people, stopped stupidly,
+turned round, and bellowed.
+
+"Now's your time," I whispered.
+
+Up went the rifle.
+
+Bang! /thud/! and the ox was kicking on his back, shot in the ribs.
+The semi-hollow bullet had done its work well, and a sigh of
+astonishment went up from the assembled thousands.
+
+I turned round coolly--
+
+"Have I lied, O king?"
+
+"Nay, white man, it is the truth," was the somewhat awed answer.
+
+"Listen, Twala," I went on. "Thou hast seen. Now know we come in
+peace, not in war. See," and I held up the Winchester repeater; "here
+is a hollow staff that shall enable thee to kill even as we kill, only
+I lay this charm upon it, thou shalt kill no man with it. If thou
+liftest it against a man, it shall kill thee. Stay, I will show thee.
+Bid a soldier step forty paces and place the shaft of a spear in the
+ground so that the flat blade looks towards us."
+
+In a few seconds it was done.
+
+"Now, see, I will break yonder spear."
+
+Taking a careful sight I fired. The bullet struck the flat of the
+spear, and shattered the blade into fragments.
+
+Again the sigh of astonishment went up.
+
+"Now, Twala, we give this magic tube to thee, and by-and-by I will
+show thee how to use it; but beware how thou turnest the magic of the
+Stars against a man of earth," and I handed him the rifle.
+
+The king took it very gingerly, and laid it down at his feet. As he
+did so I observed the wizened monkey-like figure creeping from the
+shadow of the hut. It crept on all fours, but when it reached the
+place where the king sat it rose upon its feet, and throwing the furry
+covering from its face, revealed a most extraordinary and weird
+countenance. Apparently it was that of a woman of great age so
+shrunken that in size it seemed no larger than the face of a year-old
+child, although made up of a number of deep and yellow wrinkles. Set
+in these wrinkles was a sunken slit, that represented the mouth,
+beneath which the chin curved outwards to a point. There was no nose
+to speak of; indeed, the visage might have been taken for that of a
+sun-dried corpse had it not been for a pair of large black eyes, still
+full of fire and intelligence, which gleamed and played under the
+snow-white eyebrows, and the projecting parchment-coloured skull, like
+jewels in a charnel-house. As for the head itself, it was perfectly
+bare, and yellow in hue, while its wrinkled scalp moved and contracted
+like the hood of a cobra.
+
+The figure to which this fearful countenance belonged, a countenance
+so fearful indeed that it caused a shiver of fear to pass through us
+as we gazed on it, stood still for a moment. Then suddenly it
+projected a skinny claw armed with nails nearly an inch long, and
+laying it on the shoulder of Twala the king, began to speak in a thin
+and piercing voice--
+
+"Listen, O king! Listen, O warriors! Listen, O mountains and plains
+and rivers, home of the Kukuana race! Listen, O skies and sun, O rain
+and storm and mist! Listen, O men and women, O youths and maidens, and
+O ye babes unborn! Listen, all things that live and must die! Listen,
+all dead things that shall live again--again to die! Listen, the
+spirit of life is in me and I prophesy. I prophesy! I prophesy!"
+
+The words died away in a faint wail, and dread seemed to seize upon
+the hearts of all who heard them, including our own. This old woman
+was very terrible.
+
+"/Blood! blood! blood!/ rivers of blood; blood everywhere. I see it, I
+smell it, I taste it--it is salt! it runs red upon the ground, it
+rains down from the skies.
+
+"/Footsteps! footsteps! footsteps!/ the tread of the white man coming
+from afar. It shakes the earth; the earth trembles before her master.
+
+"Blood is good, the red blood is bright; there is no smell like the
+smell of new-shed blood. The lions shall lap it and roar, the vultures
+shall wash their wings in it and shriek with joy.
+
+"I am old! I am old! I have seen much blood; /ha, ha!/ but I shall see
+more ere I die, and be merry. How old am I, think ye? Your fathers
+knew me, and /their/ fathers knew me, and /their/ fathers' fathers'
+fathers. I have seen the white man and know his desires. I am old, but
+the mountains are older than I. Who made the great road, tell me? Who
+wrote the pictures on the rocks, tell me? Who reared up the three
+Silent Ones yonder, that gaze across the pit, tell me?" and she
+pointed towards the three precipitous mountains which we had noticed
+on the previous night.
+
+"Ye know not, but I know. It was a white people who were before ye
+are, who shall be when ye are not, who shall eat you up and destroy
+you. /Yea! yea! yea!
+
+"And what came they for, the White Ones, the Terrible Ones, the
+skilled in magic and all learning, the strong, the unswerving? What is
+that bright stone upon thy forehead, O king? Whose hands made the iron
+garments upon thy breast, O king? Ye know not, but I know. I the Old
+One, I the Wise One, I the /Isanusi/, the witch doctress!"
+
+Then she turned her bald vulture-head towards us.
+
+"What seek ye, white men of the Stars--ah, yes, of the Stars? Do ye
+seek a lost one? Ye shall not find him here. He is not here. Never for
+ages upon ages has a white foot pressed this land; never except once,
+and I remember that he left it but to die. Ye come for bright stones;
+I know it--I know it; ye shall find them when the blood is dry; but
+shall ye return whence ye came, or shall ye stop with me? /Ha! ha!
+ha!/
+
+"And thou, thou with the dark skin and the proud bearing," and she
+pointed her skinny finger at Umbopa, "who art /thou/, and what seekest
+/thou/? Not stones that shine, not yellow metal that gleams, these
+thou leavest to 'white men from the Stars.' Methinks I know thee;
+methinks I can smell the smell of the blood in thy heart. Strip off
+the girdle--"
+
+Here the features of this extraordinary creature became convulsed, and
+she fell to the ground foaming in an epileptic fit, and was carried
+into the hut.
+
+The king rose up trembling, and waved his hand. Instantly the
+regiments began to file off, and in ten minutes, save for ourselves,
+the king, and a few attendants, the great space was left empty.
+
+"White people," he said, "it passes in my mind to kill you. Gagool has
+spoken strange words. What say ye?"
+
+I laughed. "Be careful, O king, we are not easy to slay. Thou hast
+seen the fate of the ox; wouldst thou be as the ox is?"
+
+The king frowned. "It is not well to threaten a king."
+
+"We threaten not, we speak what is true. Try to kill us, O king, and
+learn."
+
+The great savage put his hand to his forehead and thought.
+
+"Go in peace," he said at length. "To-night is the great dance. Ye
+shall see it. Fear not that I shall set a snare for you. To-morrow I
+will think."
+
+"It is well, O king," I answered unconcernedly, and then, accompanied
+by Infadoos, we rose and went back to our kraal.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE WITCH-HUNT
+
+On reaching our hut I motioned to Infadoos to enter with us.
+
+"Now, Infadoos," I said, "we would speak with thee."
+
+"Let my lords say on."
+
+"It seems to us, Infadoos, that Twala the king is a cruel man."
+
+"It is so, my lords. Alas! the land cries out because of his
+cruelties. To-night ye shall see. It is the great witch-hunt, and many
+will be smelt out as wizards and slain. No man's life is safe. If the
+king covets a man's cattle, or a man's wife, or if he fears a man that
+he should excite a rebellion against him, then Gagool, whom ye saw, or
+some of the witch-finding women whom she has taught, will smell that
+man out as a wizard, and he will be killed. Many must die before the
+moon grows pale to-night. It is ever so. Perhaps I too shall be
+killed. As yet I have been spared because I am skilled in war, and am
+beloved by the soldiers; but I know not how long I have to live. The
+land groans at the cruelties of Twala the king; it is wearied of him
+and his red ways."
+
+"Then why is it, Infadoos, that the people do not cast him down?"
+
+"Nay, my lords, he is the king, and if he were killed Scragga would
+reign in his place, and the heart of Scragga is blacker than the heart
+of Twala his father. If Scragga were king his yoke upon our neck would
+be heavier than the yoke of Twala. If Imotu had never been slain, or
+if Ignosi his son had lived, it might have been otherwise; but they
+are both dead."
+
+"How knowest thou that Ignosi is dead?" said a voice behind us. We
+looked round astonished to see who spoke. It was Umbopa.
+
+"What meanest thou, boy?" asked Infadoos; "who told thee to speak?"
+
+"Listen, Infadoos," was the answer, "and I will tell thee a story.
+Years ago the king Imotu was killed in this country and his wife fled
+with the boy Ignosi. Is it not so?"
+
+"It is so."
+
+"It was said that the woman and her son died upon the mountains. Is it
+not so?"
+
+"It is even so."
+
+"Well, it came to pass that the mother and the boy Ignosi did not die.
+They crossed the mountains and were led by a tribe of wandering desert
+men across the sands beyond, till at last they came to water and grass
+and trees again."
+
+"How knowest thou this?"
+
+"Listen. They travelled on and on, many months' journey, till they
+reached a land where a people called the Amazulu, who also are of the
+Kukuana stock, live by war, and with them they tarried many years,
+till at length the mother died. Then the son Ignosi became a wanderer
+again, and journeyed into a land of wonders, where white people live,
+and for many more years he learned the wisdom of the white people."
+
+"It is a pretty story," said Infadoos incredulously.
+
+"For years he lived there working as a servant and a soldier, but
+holding in his heart all that his mother had told him of his own
+place, and casting about in his mind to find how he might journey
+thither to see his people and his father's house before he died. For
+long years he lived and waited, and at last the time came, as it ever
+comes to him who can wait for it, and he met some white men who would
+seek this unknown land, and joined himself to them. The white men
+started and travelled on and on, seeking for one who is lost. They
+crossed the burning desert, they crossed the snow-clad mountains, and
+at last reached the land of the Kukuanas, and there they found /thee/,
+O Infadoos."
+
+"Surely thou art mad to talk thus," said the astonished old soldier.
+
+"Thou thinkest so; see, I will show thee, O my uncle.
+
+"/I am Ignosi, rightful king of the Kukuanas!/"
+
+Then with a single movement Umbopa slipped off his "moocha" or girdle,
+and stood naked before us.
+
+"Look," he said; "what is this?" and he pointed to the picture of a
+great snake tattooed in blue round his middle, its tail disappearing
+into its open mouth just above where the thighs are set into the body.
+
+Infadoos looked, his eyes starting nearly out of his head. Then he
+fell upon his knees.
+
+"/Koom! Koom!/" he ejaculated; "it is my brother's son; it is the
+king."
+
+"Did I not tell thee so, my uncle? Rise; I am not yet the king, but
+with thy help, and with the help of these brave white men, who are my
+friends, I shall be. Yet the old witch Gagool was right, the land
+shall run with blood first, and hers shall run with it, if she has any
+and can die, for she killed my father with her words, and drove my
+mother forth. And now, Infadoos, choose thou. Wilt thou put thy hands
+between my hands and be my man? Wilt thou share the dangers that lie
+before me, and help me to overthrow this tyrant and murderer, or wilt
+thou not? Choose thou."
+
+The old man put his hand to his head and thought. Then he rose, and
+advancing to where Umbopa, or rather Ignosi, stood, he knelt before
+him, and took his hand.
+
+"Ignosi, rightful king of the Kukuanas, I put my hand between thy
+hands, and am thy man till death. When thou wast a babe I dandled thee
+upon my knees, now shall my old arm strike for thee and freedom."
+
+"It is well, Infadoos; if I conquer, thou shalt be the greatest man in
+the kingdom after its king. If I fail, thou canst only die, and death
+is not far off from thee. Rise, my uncle."
+
+"And ye, white men, will ye help me? What have I to offer you! The
+white stones! If I conquer and can find them, ye shall have as many as
+ye can carry hence. Will that suffice you?"
+
+I translated this remark.
+
+"Tell him," answered Sir Henry, "that he mistakes an Englishman.
+Wealth is good, and if it comes in our way we will take it; but a
+gentleman does not sell himself for wealth. Still, speaking for
+myself, I say this. I have always liked Umbopa, and so far as lies in
+me I will stand by him in this business. It will be very pleasant to
+me to try to square matters with that cruel devil Twala. What do you
+say, Good, and you, Quatermain?"
+
+"Well," said Good, "to adopt the language of hyperbole, in which all
+these people seem to indulge, you can tell him that a row is surely
+good, and warms the cockles of the heart, and that so far as I am
+concerned I'm his boy. My only stipulation is that he allows me to
+wear trousers."
+
+I translated the substance of these answers.
+
+"It is well, my friends," said Ignosi, late Umbopa; "and what sayest
+thou, Macumazahn, art thou also with me, old hunter, cleverer than a
+wounded buffalo?"
+
+I thought awhile and scratched my head.
+
+"Umbopa, or Ignosi," I said, "I don't like revolutions. I am a man of
+peace and a bit of a coward"--here Umbopa smiled--"but, on the other
+hand, I stick up for my friends, Ignosi. You have stuck to us and
+played the part of a man, and I will stick by you. But mind you, I am
+a trader, and have to make my living, so I accept your offer about
+those diamonds in case we should ever be in a position to avail
+ourselves of it. Another thing: we came, as you know, to look for
+Incubu's (Sir Henry's) lost brother. You must help us to find him."
+
+"That I will do," answered Ignosi. "Stay, Infadoos, by the sign of the
+snake about my middle, tell me the truth. Has any white man to thy
+knowledge set his foot within the land?"
+
+"None, O Ignosi."
+
+"If any white man had been seen or heard of, wouldst thou have known?"
+
+"I should certainly have known."
+
+"Thou hearest, Incubu," said Ignosi to Sir Henry; "he has not been
+here."
+
+"Well, well," said Sir Henry, with a sigh; "there it is; I suppose
+that he never got so far. Poor fellow, poor fellow! So it has all been
+for nothing. God's will be done."
+
+"Now for business," I put in, anxious to escape from a painful
+subject. "It is very well to be a king by right divine, Ignosi, but
+how dost thou propose to become a king indeed?"
+
+"Nay, I know not. Infadoos, hast thou a plan?"
+
+"Ignosi, Son of the Lightning," answered his uncle, "to-night is the
+great dance and witch-hunt. Many shall be smelt out and perish, and in
+the hearts of many others there will be grief and anguish and fury
+against the king Twala. When the dance is over, then I will speak to
+some of the great chiefs, who in turn, if I can win them over, will
+speak to their regiments. I shall speak to the chiefs softly at first,
+and bring them to see that thou art indeed the king, and I think that
+by to-morrow's light thou shalt have twenty thousand spears at thy
+command. And now I must go and think, and hear, and make ready. After
+the dance is done, if I am yet alive, and we are all alive, I will
+meet thee here, and we can talk. At the best there must be war."
+
+At this moment our conference was interrupted by the cry that
+messengers had come from the king. Advancing to the door of the hut we
+ordered that they should be admitted, and presently three men entered,
+each bearing a shining shirt of chain armour, and a magnificent
+battle-axe.
+
+"The gifts of my lord the king to the white men from the Stars!" said
+a herald who came with them.
+
+"We thank the king," I answered; "withdraw."
+
+The men went, and we examined the armour with great interest. It was
+the most wonderful chain work that either of us had ever seen. A whole
+coat fell together so closely that it formed a mass of links scarcely
+too big to be covered with both hands.
+
+"Do you make these things in this country, Infadoos?" I asked; "they
+are very beautiful."
+
+"Nay, my lord, they came down to us from our forefathers. We know not
+who made them, and there are but few left.[*] None but those of royal
+blood may be clad in them. They are magic coats through which no spear
+can pass, and those who wear them are well-nigh safe in the battle.
+The king is well pleased or much afraid, or he would not have sent
+these garments of steel. Clothe yourselves in them to-night, my
+lords."
+
+[*] In the Soudan swords and coats of mail are still worn by Arabs,
+    whose ancestors must have stripped them from the bodies of
+    Crusaders.--Editor.
+
+The remainder of that day we spent quietly, resting and talking over
+the situation, which was sufficiently exciting. At last the sun went
+down, the thousand watch fires glowed out, and through the darkness we
+heard the tramp of many feet and the clashing of hundreds of spears,
+as the regiments passed to their appointed places to be ready for the
+great dance. Then the full moon shone out in splendour, and as we
+stood watching her rays, Infadoos arrived, clad in his war dress, and
+accompanied by a guard of twenty men to escort us to the dance. As he
+recommended, we had already donned the shirts of chain armour which
+the king had sent us, putting them on under our ordinary clothing, and
+finding to our surprise that they were neither very heavy nor
+uncomfortable. These steel shirts, which evidently had been made for
+men of a very large stature, hung somewhat loosely upon Good and
+myself, but Sir Henry's fitted his magnificent frame like a glove.
+Then strapping our revolvers round our waists, and taking in our hands
+the battle-axes which the king had sent with the armour, we started.
+
+On arriving at the great kraal, where we had that morning been
+received by the king, we found that it was closely packed with some
+twenty thousand men arranged round it in regiments. These regiments
+were in turn divided into companies, and between each company ran a
+little path to allow space for the witch-finders to pass up and down.
+Anything more imposing than the sight that was presented by this vast
+and orderly concourse of armed men it is impossible to conceive. There
+they stood perfectly silent, and the moon poured her light upon the
+forest of their raised spears, upon their majestic forms, waving
+plumes, and the harmonious shading of their various-coloured shields.
+Wherever we looked were line upon line of dim faces surmounted by
+range upon range of shimmering spears.
+
+"Surely," I said to Infadoos, "the whole army is here?"
+
+"Nay, Macumazahn," he answered, "but a third of it. One third is
+present at this dance each year, another third is mustered outside in
+case there should be trouble when the killing begins, ten thousand
+more garrison the outposts round Loo, and the rest watch at the kraals
+in the country. Thou seest it is a great people."
+
+"They are very silent," said Good; and indeed the intense stillness
+among such a vast concourse of living men was almost overpowering.
+
+"What says Bougwan?" asked Infadoos.
+
+I translated.
+
+"Those over whom the shadow of Death is hovering are silent," he
+answered grimly.
+
+"Will many be killed?"
+
+"Very many."
+
+"It seems," I said to the others, "that we are going to assist at a
+gladiatorial show arranged regardless of expense."
+
+Sir Henry shivered, and Good said he wished that we could get out of
+it.
+
+"Tell me," I asked Infadoos, "are we in danger?"
+
+"I know not, my lords, I trust not; but do not seem afraid. If ye live
+through the night all may go well with you. The soldiers murmur
+against the king."
+
+All this while we had been advancing steadily towards the centre of
+the open space, in the midst of which were placed some stools. As we
+proceeded we perceived another small party coming from the direction
+of the royal hut.
+
+"It is the king Twala, Scragga his son, and Gagool the old; and see,
+with them are those who slay," said Infadoos, pointing to a little
+group of about a dozen gigantic and savage-looking men, armed with
+spears in one hand and heavy kerries in the other.
+
+The king seated himself upon the centre stool, Gagool crouched at his
+feet, and the others stood behind him.
+
+"Greeting, white lords," Twala cried, as we came up; "be seated, waste
+not precious time--the night is all too short for the deeds that must
+be done. Ye come in a good hour, and shall see a glorious show. Look
+round, white lords; look round," and he rolled his one wicked eye from
+regiment to regiment. "Can the Stars show you such a sight as this?
+See how they shake in their wickedness, all those who have evil in
+their hearts and fear the judgment of 'Heaven above.'"
+
+"/Begin! begin!/" piped Gagool, in her thin piercing voice; "the
+hyaenas are hungry, they howl for food. /Begin! begin!/"
+
+Then for a moment there was intense stillness, made horrible by a
+presage of what was to come.
+
+The king lifted his spear, and suddenly twenty thousand feet were
+raised, as though they belonged to one man, and brought down with a
+stamp upon the earth. This was repeated three times, causing the solid
+ground to shake and tremble. Then from a far point of the circle a
+solitary voice began a wailing song, of which the refrain ran
+something as follows:--
+
+"/What is the lot of man born of woman?/"
+
+Back came the answer rolling out from every throat in that vast
+company--
+
+"/Death!/"
+
+Gradually, however, the song was taken up by company after company,
+till the whole armed multitude were singing it, and I could no longer
+follow the words, except in so far as they appeared to represent
+various phases of human passions, fears, and joys. Now it seemed to be
+a love song, now a majestic swelling war chant, and last of all a
+death dirge ending suddenly in one heart-breaking wail that went
+echoing and rolling away in a volume of blood-curdling sound.
+
+Again silence fell upon the place, and again it was broken by the king
+lifting his hand. Instantly we heard a pattering of feet, and from out
+of the masses of warriors strange and awful figures appeared running
+towards us. As they drew near we saw that these were women, most of
+them aged, for their white hair, ornamented with small bladders taken
+from fish, streamed out behind them. Their faces were painted in
+stripes of white and yellow; down their backs hung snake-skins, and
+round their waists rattled circlets of human bones, while each held a
+small forked wand in her shrivelled hand. In all there were ten of
+them. When they arrived in front of us they halted, and one of them,
+pointing with her wand towards the crouching figure of Gagool, cried
+out--
+
+"Mother, old mother, we are here."
+
+"/Good! good! good!/" answered that aged Iniquity. "Are your eyes
+keen, /Isanusis/ [witch doctresses], ye seers in dark places?"
+
+"Mother, they are keen."
+
+"/Good! good! good!/ Are your ears open, /Isanusis/, ye who hear words
+that come not from the tongue?"
+
+"Mother, they are open."
+
+"/Good! good! good!/ Are your senses awake, /Isanusis/--can ye smell
+blood, can ye purge the land of the wicked ones who compass evil
+against the king and against their neighbours? Are ye ready to do the
+justice of 'Heaven above,' ye whom I have taught, who have eaten of
+the bread of my wisdom, and drunk of the water of my magic?"
+
+"Mother, we can."
+
+"Then go! Tarry not, ye vultures; see, the slayers"--pointing to the
+ominous group of executioners behind--"make sharp their spears; the
+white men from afar are hungry to see. /Go!/"
+
+With a wild yell Gagool's horrid ministers broke away in every
+direction, like fragments from a shell, the dry bones round their
+waists rattling as they ran, and headed for various points of the
+dense human circle. We could not watch them all, so we fixed our eyes
+upon the /Isanusi/ nearest to us. When she came to within a few paces
+of the warriors she halted and began to dance wildly, turning round
+and round with an almost incredible rapidity, and shrieking out
+sentences such as "I smell him, the evil-doer!" "He is near, he who
+poisoned his mother!" "I hear the thoughts of him who thought evil of
+the king!"
+
+Quicker and quicker she danced, till she lashed herself into such a
+frenzy of excitement that the foam flew in specks from her gnashing
+jaws, till her eyes seemed to start from her head, and her flesh to
+quiver visibly. Suddenly she stopped dead and stiffened all over, like
+a pointer dog when he scents game, and then with outstretched wand she
+began to creep stealthily towards the soldiers before her. It seemed
+to us that as she came their stoicism gave way, and that they shrank
+from her. As for ourselves, we followed her movements with a horrible
+fascination. Presently, still creeping and crouching like a dog, the
+/Isanusi/ was before them. Then she halted and pointed, and again
+crept on a pace or two.
+
+Suddenly the end came. With a shriek she sprang in and touched a tall
+warrior with her forked wand. Instantly two of his comrades, those
+standing immediately next to him, seized the doomed man, each by one
+arm, and advanced with him towards the king.
+
+He did not resist, but we saw that he dragged his limbs as though they
+were paralysed, and that his fingers, from which the spear had fallen,
+were limp like those of a man newly dead.
+
+As he came, two of the villainous executioners stepped forward to meet
+him. Presently they met, and the executioners turned round, looking
+towards the king as though for orders.
+
+"/Kill!/" said the king.
+
+"/Kill!/" squeaked Gagool.
+
+"/Kill!/" re-echoed Scragga, with a hollow chuckle.
+
+Almost before the words were uttered the horrible dead was done. One
+man had driven his spear into the victim's heart, and to make
+assurance double sure, the other had dashed out his brains with a
+great club.
+
+"/One/," counted Twala the king, just like a black Madame Defarge, as
+Good said, and the body was dragged a few paces away and stretched
+out.
+
+Hardly was the thing done before another poor wretch was brought up,
+like an ox to the slaughter. This time we could see, from the leopard-
+skin cloak which he wore, that the man was a person of rank. Again the
+awful syllables were spoken, and the victim fell dead.
+
+"/Two/," counted the king.
+
+And so the deadly game went on, till about a hundred bodies were
+stretched in rows behind us. I have heard of the gladiatorial shows of
+the Caesars, and of the Spanish bull-fights, but I take the liberty of
+doubting if either of them could be half so horrible as this Kukuana
+witch-hunt. Gladiatorial shows and Spanish bull-fights at any rate
+contributed to the public amusement, which certainly was not the case
+here. The most confirmed sensation-monger would fight shy of sensation
+if he knew that it was well on the cards that he would, in his own
+proper person, be the subject of the next "event."
+
+Once we rose and tried to remonstrate, but were sternly repressed by
+Twala.
+
+"Let the law take its course, white men. These dogs are magicians and
+evil-doers; it is well that they should die," was the only answer
+vouchsafed to us.
+
+About half-past ten there was a pause. The witch-finders gathered
+themselves together, apparently exhausted with their bloody work, and
+we thought that the performance was done with. But it was not so, for
+presently, to our surprise, the ancient woman, Gagool, rose from her
+crouching position, and supporting herself with a stick, staggered off
+into the open space. It was an extraordinary sight to see this
+frightful vulture-headed old creature, bent nearly double with extreme
+age, gather strength by degrees, until at last she rushed about almost
+as actively as her ill-omened pupils. To and fro she ran, chanting to
+herself, till suddenly she made a dash at a tall man standing in front
+of one of the regiments, and touched him. As she did this a sort of
+groan went up from the regiment which evidently he commanded. But two
+of its officers seized him all the same, and brought him up for
+execution. We learned afterwards that he was a man of great wealth and
+importance, being indeed a cousin of the king.
+
+He was slain, and Twala counted one hundred and three. Then Gagool
+again sprang to and fro, gradually drawing nearer and nearer to
+ourselves.
+
+"Hang me if I don't believe she is going to try her games on us,"
+ejaculated Good in horror.
+
+"Nonsense!" said Sir Henry.
+
+As for myself, when I saw that old fiend dancing nearer and nearer, my
+heart positively sank into my boots. I glanced behind us at the long
+rows of corpses, and shivered.
+
+Nearer and nearer waltzed Gagool, looking for all the world like an
+animated crooked stick or comma, her horrid eyes gleaming and glowing
+with a most unholy lustre.
+
+Nearer she came, and yet nearer, every creature in that vast
+assemblage watching her movements with intense anxiety. At last she
+stood still and pointed.
+
+"Which is it to be?" asked Sir Henry to himself.
+
+In a moment all doubts were at rest, for the old hag had rushed in and
+touched Umbopa, alias Ignosi, on the shoulder.
+
+"I smell him out," she shrieked. "Kill him, kill him, he is full of
+evil; kill him, the stranger, before blood flows from him. Slay him, O
+king."
+
+There was a pause, of which I instantly took advantage.
+
+"O king," I called out, rising from my seat, "this man is the servant
+of thy guests, he is their dog; whosoever sheds the blood of our dog
+sheds our blood. By the sacred law of hospitality I claim protection
+for him."
+
+"Gagool, mother of the witch-finders, has smelt him out; he must die,
+white men," was the sullen answer.
+
+"Nay, he shall not die," I replied; "he who tries to touch him shall
+die indeed."
+
+"Seize him!" roared Twala to the executioners; who stood round red to
+the eyes with the blood of their victims.
+
+They advanced towards us, and then hesitated. As for Ignosi, he
+clutched his spear, and raised it as though determined to sell his
+life dearly.
+
+"Stand back, ye dogs!" I shouted, "if ye would see to-morrow's light.
+Touch one hair of his head and your king dies," and I covered Twala
+with my revolver. Sir Henry and Good also drew their pistols, Sir
+Henry pointing his at the leading executioner, who was advancing to
+carry out the sentence, and Good taking a deliberate aim at Gagool.
+
+Twala winced perceptibly as my barrel came in a line with his broad
+chest.
+
+"Well," I said, "what is it to be, Twala?"
+
+Then he spoke.
+
+"Put away your magic tubes," he said; "ye have adjured me in the name
+of hospitality, and for that reason, but not from fear of what ye can
+do, I spare him. Go in peace."
+
+"It is well," I answered unconcernedly; "we are weary of slaughter,
+and would sleep. Is the dance ended?"
+
+"It is ended," Twala answered sulkily. "Let these dead dogs," pointing
+to the long rows of corpses, "be flung out to the hyaenas and the
+vultures," and he lifted his spear.
+
+Instantly the regiments began to defile through the kraal gateway in
+perfect silence, a fatigue party only remaining behind to drag away
+the corpses of those who had been sacrificed.
+
+Then we rose also, and making our salaam to his majesty, which he
+hardly deigned to acknowledge, we departed to our huts.
+
+"Well," said Sir Henry, as we sat down, having first lit a lamp of the
+sort used by the Kukuanas, of which the wick is made from the fibre of
+a species of palm leaf, and the oil from clarified hippopotamus fat,
+"well, I feel uncommonly inclined to be sick."
+
+"If I had any doubts about helping Umbopa to rebel against that
+infernal blackguard," put in Good, "they are gone now. It was as much
+as I could do to sit still while that slaughter was going on. I tried
+to keep my eyes shut, but they would open just at the wrong time. I
+wonder where Infadoos is. Umbopa, my friend, you ought to be grateful
+to us; your skin came near to having an air-hole made in it."
+
+"I am grateful, Bougwan," was Umbopa's answer, when I had translated,
+"and I shall not forget. As for Infadoos, he will be here by-and-by.
+We must wait."
+
+So we lit out pipes and waited.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+WE GIVE A SIGN
+
+For a long while--two hours, I should think--we sat there in silence,
+being too much overwhelmed by the recollection of the horrors we had
+seen to talk. At last, just as we were thinking of turning in--for the
+night drew nigh to dawn--we heard a sound of steps. Then came the
+challenge of a sentry posted at the kraal gate, which apparently was
+answered, though not in an audible tone, for the steps still advanced;
+and in another second Infadoos had entered the hut, followed by some
+half-dozen stately-looking chiefs.
+
+"My lords," he said, "I have come according to my word. My lords and
+Ignosi, rightful king of the Kukuanas, I have brought with me these
+men," pointing to the row of chiefs, "who are great men among us,
+having each one of them the command of three thousand soldiers, that
+live but to do their bidding, under the king's. I have told them of
+what I have seen, and what my ears have heard. Now let them also
+behold the sacred snake around thee, and hear thy story, Ignosi, that
+they may say whether or no they will make cause with thee against
+Twala the king."
+
+By way of answer Ignosi again stripped off his girdle, and exhibited
+the snake tattooed about him. Each chief in turn drew near and
+examined the sign by the dim light of the lamp, and without saying a
+word passed on to the other side.
+
+Then Ignosi resumed his moocha, and addressing them, repeated the
+history he had detailed in the morning.
+
+"Now ye have heard, chiefs," said Infadoos, when he had done, "what
+say ye: will ye stand by this man and help him to his father's throne,
+or will ye not? The land cries out against Twala, and the blood of the
+people flows like the waters in spring. Ye have seen to-night. Two
+other chiefs there were with whom I had it in my mind to speak, and
+where are they now? The hyaenas howl over their corpses. Soon shall ye
+be as they are if ye strike not. Choose then, my brothers."
+
+The eldest of the six men, a short, thick-set warrior, with white
+hair, stepped forward a pace and answered--
+
+"Thy words are true, Infadoos; the land cries out. My own brother is
+among those who died to-night; but this is a great matter, and the
+thing is hard to believe. How know we that if we lift our spears it
+may not be for a thief and a liar? It is a great matter, I say, of
+which none can see the end. For of this be sure, blood will flow in
+rivers before the deed is done; many will still cleave to the king,
+for men worship the sun that still shines bright in the heavens,
+rather than that which has not risen. These white men from the Stars,
+their magic is great, and Ignosi is under the cover of their wing. If
+he be indeed the rightful king, let them give us a sign, and let the
+people have a sign, that all may see. So shall men cleave to us,
+knowing of a truth that the white man's magic is with them."
+
+"Ye have the sign of the snake," I answered.
+
+"My lord, it is not enough. The snake may have been placed there since
+the man's childhood. Show us a sign, and it will suffice. But we will
+not move without a sign."
+
+The others gave a decided assent, and I turned in perplexity to Sir
+Henry and Good, and explained the situation.
+
+"I think that I have it," said Good exultingly; "ask them to give us a
+moment to think."
+
+I did so, and the chiefs withdrew. So soon as they had gone Good went
+to the little box where he kept his medicines, unlocked it, and took
+out a note-book, in the fly-leaves of which was an almanack. "Now look
+here, you fellows, isn't to-morrow the 4th of June?" he said.
+
+We had kept a careful note of the days, so were able to answer that it
+was.
+
+"Very good; then here we have it--'4 June, total eclipse of the moon
+commences at 8.15 Greenwich time, visible in Teneriffe--/South
+Africa/, &c.' There's a sign for you. Tell them we will darken the
+moon to-morrow night."
+
+The idea was a splendid one; indeed, the only weak spot about it was a
+fear lest Good's almanack might be incorrect. If we made a false
+prophecy on such a subject, our prestige would be gone for ever, and
+so would Ignosi's chance of the throne of the Kukuanas.
+
+"Suppose that the almanack is wrong," suggested Sir Henry to Good, who
+was busily employed in working out something on a blank page of the
+book.
+
+"I see no reason to suppose anything of the sort," was his answer.
+"Eclipses always come up to time; at least that is my experience of
+them, and it especially states that this one will be visible in South
+Africa. I have worked out the reckonings as well as I can, without
+knowing our exact position; and I make out that the eclipse should
+begin here about ten o'clock tomorrow night, and last till half-past
+twelve. For an hour and a half or so there should be almost total
+darkness."
+
+"Well," said Sir Henry, "I suppose we had better risk it."
+
+I acquiesced, though doubtfully, for eclipses are queer cattle to deal
+with--it might be a cloudy night, for instance, or our dates might be
+wrong--and sent Umbopa to summon the chiefs back. Presently they came,
+and I addressed them thus--
+
+"Great men of the Kukuanas, and thou, Infadoos, listen. We love not to
+show our powers, for to do so is to interfere with the course of
+nature, and to plunge the world into fear and confusion. But since
+this matter is a great one, and as we are angered against the king
+because of the slaughter we have seen, and because of the act of the
+/Isanusi/ Gagool, who would have put our friend Ignosi to death, we
+have determined to break a rule, and to give such a sign as all men
+may see. Come hither"; and I led them to the door of the hut and
+pointed to the red ball of the moon. "What see ye there?"
+
+"We see the sinking moon," answered the spokesman of the party.
+
+"It is so. Now tell me, can any mortal man put out that moon before
+her hour of setting, and bring the curtain of black night down upon
+the land?"
+
+The chief laughed a little at the question. "No, my lord, that no man
+can do. The moon is stronger than man who looks on her, nor can she
+vary in her courses."
+
+"Ye say so. Yet I tell you that to-morrow night, about two hours
+before midnight, we will cause the moon to be eaten up for a space of
+an hour and half an hour. Yes, deep darkness shall cover the earth,
+and it shall be for a sign that Ignosi is indeed king of the Kukuanas.
+If we do this thing, will ye be satisfied?"
+
+"Yea, my lords," answered the old chief with a smile, which was
+reflected on the faces of his companions; "/if/ ye do this thing, we
+will be satisfied indeed."
+
+"It shall be done; we three, Incubu, Bougwan, and Macumazahn, have
+said it, and it shall be done. Dost thou hear, Infadoos?"
+
+"I hear, my lord, but it is a wonderful thing that ye promise, to put
+out the moon, the mother of the world, when she is at her full."
+
+"Yet shall we do it, Infadoos."
+
+"It is well, my lords. To-day, two hours after sunset, Twala will send
+for my lords to witness the girls dance, and one hour after the dance
+begins the girl whom Twala thinks the fairest shall be killed by
+Scragga, the king's son, as a sacrifice to the Silent Ones, who sit
+and keep watch by the mountains yonder," and he pointed towards the
+three strange-looking peaks where Solomon's road was supposed to end.
+"Then let my lords darken the moon, and save the maiden's life, and
+the people will believe indeed."
+
+"Ay," said the old chief, still smiling a little, "the people will
+believe indeed."
+
+"Two miles from Loo," went on Infadoos, "there is a hill curved like a
+new moon, a stronghold, where my regiment, and three other regiments
+which these chiefs command, are stationed. This morning we will make a
+plan whereby two or three other regiments may be moved there also.
+Then, if in truth my lords can darken the moon, in the darkness I will
+take my lords by the hand and lead them out of Loo to this place,
+where they shall be safe, and thence we can make war upon Twala the
+king."
+
+"It is good," said I. "Let leave us to sleep awhile and to make ready
+our magic."
+
+Infadoos rose, and, having saluted us, departed with the chiefs.
+
+"My friends," said Ignosi, so soon as they were gone, "can ye do this
+wonderful thing, or were ye speaking empty words to the captains?"
+
+"We believe that we can do it, Umbopa--Ignosi, I mean."
+
+"It is strange," he answered, "and had ye not been Englishmen I would
+not have believed it; but I have learned that English 'gentlemen' tell
+no lies. If we live through the matter, be sure that I will repay
+you."
+
+"Ignosi," said Sir Henry, "promise me one thing."
+
+"I will promise, Incubu, my friend, even before I hear it," answered
+the big man with a smile. "What is it?"
+
+"This: that if ever you come to be king of this people you will do
+away with the smelling out of wizards such as we saw last night; and
+that the killing of men without trial shall no longer take place in
+the land."
+
+Ignosi thought for a moment after I had translated this request, and
+then answered--
+
+"The ways of black people are not as the ways of white men, Incubu,
+nor do we value life so highly. Yet I will promise. If it be in my
+power to hold them back, the witch-finders shall hunt no more, nor
+shall any man die the death without trial or judgment."
+
+"That's a bargain, then," said Sir Henry; "and now let us get a little
+rest."
+
+Thoroughly wearied out, we were soon sound asleep, and slept till
+Ignosi woke us about eleven o'clock. Then we rose, washed, and ate a
+hearty breakfast. After that we went outside the hut and walked about,
+amusing ourselves with examining the structure of the Kukuana huts and
+observing the customs of the women.
+
+"I hope that eclipse will come off," said Sir Henry presently.
+
+"If it does not it will soon be all up with us," I answered
+mournfully; "for so sure as we are living men some of those chiefs
+will tell the whole story to the king, and then there will be another
+sort of eclipse, and one that we shall certainly not like."
+
+Returning to the hut we ate some dinner, and passed the rest of the
+day in receiving visits of ceremony and curiosity. At length the sun
+set, and we enjoyed a couple of hours of such quiet as our melancholy
+forebodings would allow to us. Finally, about half-past eight, a
+messenger came from Twala to bid us to the great annual "dance of
+girls" which was about to be celebrated.
+
+Hastily we put on the chain shirts that the king had sent us, and
+taking our rifles and ammunition with us, so as to have them handy in
+case we had to fly, as suggested by Infadoos, we started boldly
+enough, though with inward fear and trembling. The great space in
+front of the king's kraal bore a very different appearance from that
+which it had presented on the previous evening. In place of the grim
+ranks of serried warriors were company after company of Kukuana girls,
+not over-dressed, so far as clothing went, but each crowned with a
+wreath of flowers, and holding a palm leaf in one hand and a white
+arum lily in the other. In the centre of the open moonlit space sat
+Twala the king, with old Gagool at his feet, attended by Infadoos, the
+boy Scragga, and twelve guards. There were also present about a score
+of chiefs, amongst whom I recognised most of our friends of the night
+before.
+
+Twala greeted us with much apparent cordiality, though I saw him fix
+his one eye viciously on Umbopa.
+
+"Welcome, white men from the Stars," he said; "this is another sight
+from that which your eyes gazed on by the light of last night's moon,
+but it is not so good a sight. Girls are pleasant, and were it not for
+such as these," and he pointed round him, "we should none of us be
+here this day; but men are better. Kisses and the tender words of
+women are sweet, but the sound of the clashing of the spears of
+warriors, and the smell of men's blood, are sweeter far! Would ye have
+wives from among our people, white men? If so, choose the fairest
+here, and ye shall have them, as many as ye will," and he paused for
+an answer.
+
+As the prospect did not seem to be without attractions for Good, who,
+like most sailors, is of a susceptible nature,--being elderly and
+wise, foreseeing the endless complications that anything of the sort
+would involve, for women bring trouble so surely as the night follows
+the day, I put in a hasty answer--
+
+"Thanks to thee, O king, but we white men wed only with white women
+like ourselves. Your maidens are fair, but they are not for us!"
+
+The king laughed. "It is well. In our land there is a proverb which
+runs, 'Women's eyes are always bright, whatever the colour,' and
+another that says, 'Love her who is present, for be sure she who is
+absent is false to thee;' but perhaps these things are not so in the
+Stars. In a land where men are white all things are possible. So be
+it, white men; the girls will not go begging! Welcome again; and
+welcome, too, thou black one; if Gagool here had won her way, thou
+wouldst have been stiff and cold by now. It is lucky for thee that
+thou too camest from the Stars; ha! ha!"
+
+"I can kill thee before thou killest me, O king," was Ignosi's calm
+answer, "and thou shalt be stiff before my limbs cease to bend."
+
+Twala started. "Thou speakest boldly, boy," he replied angrily;
+"presume not too far."
+
+"He may well be bold in whose lips are truth. The truth is a sharp
+spear which flies home and misses not. It is a message from 'the
+Stars,' O king."
+
+Twala scowled, and his one eye gleamed fiercely, but he said nothing
+more.
+
+"Let the dance begin," he cried, and then the flower-crowned girls
+sprang forward in companies, singing a sweet song and waving the
+delicate palms and white lilies. On they danced, looking faint and
+spiritual in the soft, sad light of the risen moon; now whirling round
+and round, now meeting in mimic warfare, swaying, eddying here and
+there, coming forward, falling back in an ordered confusion delightful
+to witness. At last they paused, and a beautiful young woman sprang
+out of the ranks and began to pirouette in front of us with a grace
+and vigour which would have put most ballet girls to shame. At length
+she retired exhausted, and another took her place, then another and
+another, but none of them, either in grace, skill, or personal
+attractions, came up to the first.
+
+When the chosen girls had all danced, the king lifted his hand.
+
+"Which deem ye the fairest, white men?" he asked.
+
+"The first," said I unthinkingly. Next second I regretted it, for I
+remembered that Infadoos had told us that the fairest woman must be
+offered up as a sacrifice.
+
+"Then is my mind as your minds, and my eyes as your eyes. She is the
+fairest! and a sorry thing it is for her, for she must die!"
+
+"/Ay, must die!/" piped out Gagool, casting a glance of her quick eyes
+in the direction of the poor girl, who, as yet ignorant of the awful
+fate in store for her, was standing some ten yards off in front of a
+company of maidens, engaged in nervously picking a flower from her
+wreath to pieces, petal by petal.
+
+"Why, O king?" said I, restraining my indignation with difficulty;
+"the girl has danced well, and pleased us; she is fair too; it would
+be hard to reward her with death."
+
+Twala laughed as he answered--
+
+"It is our custom, and the figures who sit in stone yonder," and he
+pointed towards the three distant peaks, "must have their due. Did I
+fail to put the fairest girl to death to-day, misfortune would fall
+upon me and my house. Thus runs the prophecy of my people: 'If the
+king offer not a sacrifice of a fair girl, on the day of the dance of
+maidens, to the Old Ones who sit and watch on the mountains, then
+shall he fall, and his house.' Look ye, white men, my brother who
+reigned before me offered not the sacrifice, because of the tears of
+the woman, and he fell, and his house, and I reign in his stead. It is
+finished; she must die!" Then turning to the guards--"Bring her
+hither; Scragga, make sharp thy spear."
+
+Two of the men stepped forward, and as they advanced, the girl, for
+the first time realising her impending fate, screamed aloud and turned
+to fly. But the strong hands caught her fast, and brought her,
+struggling and weeping, before us.
+
+"What is thy name, girl?" piped Gagool. "What! wilt thou not answer?
+Shall the king's son do his work at once?"
+
+At this hint, Scragga, looking more evil than ever, advanced a step
+and lifted his great spear, and at that moment I saw Good's hand creep
+to his revolver. The poor girl caught the faint glint of steel through
+her tears, and it sobered her anguish. She ceased struggling, and
+clasping her hands convulsively, stood shuddering from head to foot.
+
+"See," cried Scragga in high glee, "she shrinks from the sight of my
+little plaything even before she has tasted it," and he tapped the
+broad blade of his spear.
+
+"If ever I get the chance you shall pay for that, you young hound!" I
+heard Good mutter beneath his breath.
+
+"Now that thou art quiet, give us thy name, my dear. Come, speak out,
+and fear not," said Gagool in mockery.
+
+"Oh, mother," answered the girl, in trembling accents, "my name is
+Foulata, of the house of Suko. Oh, mother, why must I die? I have done
+no wrong!"
+
+"Be comforted," went on the old woman in her hateful tone of mockery.
+"Thou must die, indeed, as a sacrifice to the Old Ones who sit
+yonder," and she pointed to the peaks; "but it is better to sleep in
+the night than to toil in the daytime; it is better to die than to
+live, and thou shalt die by the royal hand of the king's own son."
+
+The girl Foulata wrung her hands in anguish, and cried out aloud, "Oh,
+cruel! and I so young! What have I done that I should never again see
+the sun rise out of the night, or the stars come following on his
+track in the evening, that I may no more gather the flowers when the
+dew is heavy, or listen to the laughing of the waters? Woe is me, that
+I shall never see my father's hut again, nor feel my mother's kiss,
+nor tend the lamb that is sick! Woe is me, that no lover shall put his
+arm around me and look into my eyes, nor shall men children be born of
+me! Oh, cruel, cruel!"
+
+And again she wrung her hands and turned her tear-stained flower-
+crowned face to Heaven, looking so lovely in her despair--for she was
+indeed a beautiful woman--that assuredly the sight of her would have
+melted the hearts of any less cruel than were the three fiends before
+us. Prince Arthur's appeal to the ruffians who came to blind him was
+not more touching than that of this savage girl.
+
+But it did not move Gagool or Gagool's master, though I saw signs of
+pity among the guards behind, and on the faces of the chiefs; and as
+for Good, he gave a fierce snort of indignation, and made a motion as
+though to go to her assistance. With all a woman's quickness, the
+doomed girl interpreted what was passing in his mind, and by a sudden
+movement flung herself before him, and clasped his "beautiful white
+legs" with her hands.
+
+"Oh, white father from the Stars!" she cried, "throw over me the
+mantle of thy protection; let me creep into the shadow of thy
+strength, that I may be saved. Oh, keep me from these cruel men and
+from the mercies of Gagool!"
+
+"All right, my hearty, I'll look after you," sang out Good in nervous
+Saxon. "Come, get up, there's a good girl," and he stooped and caught
+her hand.
+
+Twala turned and motioned to his son, who advanced with his spear
+lifted.
+
+"Now's your time," whispered Sir Henry to me; "what are you waiting
+for?"
+
+"I am waiting for that eclipse," I answered; "I have had my eye on the
+moon for the last half-hour, and I never saw it look healthier."
+
+"Well, you must risk it now, or the girl will be killed. Twala is
+losing patience."
+
+Recognising the force of the argument, and having cast one more
+despairing look at the bright face of the moon, for never did the most
+ardent astronomer with a theory to prove await a celestial event with
+such anxiety, I stepped with all the dignity that I could command
+between the prostrate girl and the advancing spear of Scragga.
+
+"King," I said, "it shall not be; we will not endure this thing; let
+the girl go in safety."
+
+Twala rose from his seat in wrath and astonishment, and from the
+chiefs and serried ranks of maidens who had closed in slowly upon us
+in anticipation of the tragedy came a murmur of amazement.
+
+"/Shall not be!/ thou white dog, that yappest at the lion in his cave;
+/shall not be!/ art thou mad? Be careful, lest this chicken's fate
+overtake thee, and those with thee. How canst thou save her or
+thyself? Who art thou that thou settest thyself between me and my
+will? Back, I say. Scragga, kill her! Ho, guards! seize these men."
+
+At his cry armed men ran swiftly from behind the hut, where they had
+evidently been placed beforehand.
+
+Sir Henry, Good, and Umbopa ranged themselves alongside of me, and
+lifted their rifles.
+
+"Stop!" I shouted boldly, though at the moment my heart was in my
+boots. "Stop! we, the white men from the Stars, say that it shall not
+be. Come but one pace nearer, and we will put out the moon like a
+wind-blown lamp, as we who dwell in her House can do, and plunge the
+land in darkness. Dare to disobey, and ye shall taste of our magic."
+
+My threat produced an effect; the men halted, and Scragga stood still
+before us, his spear lifted.
+
+"Hear him! hear him!" piped Gagool; "hear the liar who says that he
+will put out the moon like a lamp. Let him do it, and the girl shall
+be speared. Yes, let him do it, or die by the girl, he and those with
+him."
+
+I glanced up at the moon despairingly, and now to my intense joy and
+relief saw that we--or rather the almanack--had made no mistake. On
+the edge of the great orb lay a faint rim of shadow, while a smoky hue
+grew and gathered upon its bright surface. Never shall I forget that
+supreme, that superb moment of relief.
+
+Then I lifted my hand solemnly towards the sky, an example which Sir
+Henry and Good followed, and quoted a line or two from the "Ingoldsby
+Legends" at it in the most impressive tones that I could command. Sir
+Henry followed suit with a verse out of the Old Testament, and
+something about Balbus building a wall, in Latin, whilst Good
+addressed the Queen of Night in a volume of the most classical bad
+language which he could think of.
+
+Slowly the penumbra, the shadow of a shadow, crept on over the bright
+surface, and as it crept I heard deep gasps of fear rising from the
+multitude around.
+
+"Look, O king!" I cried; "look, Gagool! Look, chiefs and people and
+women, and see if the white men from the Stars keep their word, or if
+they be but empty liars!
+
+"The moon grows black before your eyes; soon there will be darkness--
+ay, darkness in the hour of the full moon. Ye have asked for a sign;
+it is given to you. Grow dark, O Moon! withdraw thy light, thou pure
+and holy One; bring the proud heart of usurping murderers to the dust,
+and eat up the world with shadows."
+
+A groan of terror burst from the onlookers. Some stood petrified with
+dread, others threw themselves upon their knees and cried aloud. As
+for the king, he sat still and turned pale beneath his dusky skin.
+Only Gagool kept her courage.
+
+"It will pass," she cried; "I have often seen the like before; no man
+can put out the moon; lose not heart; sit still--the shadow will
+pass."
+
+"Wait, and ye shall see," I replied, hopping with excitement. "O Moon!
+Moon! Moon! wherefore art thou so cold and fickle?" This appropriate
+quotation was from the pages of a popular romance that I chanced to
+have read recently, though now I come to think of it, it was
+ungrateful of me to abuse the Lady of the Heavens, who was showing
+herself to be the truest of friends to us, however she may have
+behaved to the impassioned lover in the novel. Then I added: "Keep it
+up, Good, I can't remember any more poetry. Curse away, there's a good
+fellow."
+
+Good responded nobly to this tax upon his inventive faculties. Never
+before had I the faintest conception of the breadth and depth and
+height of a naval officer's objurgatory powers. For ten minutes he
+went on in several languages without stopping, and he scarcely ever
+repeated himself.
+
+Meanwhile the dark ring crept on, while all that great assembly fixed
+their eyes upon the sky and stared and stared in fascinated silence.
+Strange and unholy shadows encroached upon the moonlight, an ominous
+quiet filled the place. Everything grew still as death. Slowly and in
+the midst of this most solemn silence the minutes sped away, and while
+they sped the full moon passed deeper and deeper into the shadow of
+the earth, as the inky segment of its circle slid in awful majesty
+across the lunar craters. The great pale orb seemed to draw near and
+to grow in size. She turned a coppery hue, then that portion of her
+surface which was unobscured as yet grew grey and ashen, and at
+length, as totality approached, her mountains and her plains were to
+be seen glowing luridly through a crimson gloom.
+
+On, yet on, crept the ring of darkness; it was now more than half
+across the blood-red orb. The air grew thick, and still more deeply
+tinged with dusky crimson. On, yet on, till we could scarcely see the
+fierce faces of the group before us. No sound rose now from the
+spectators, and at last Good stopped swearing.
+
+"The moon is dying--the white wizards have killed the moon," yelled
+the prince Scragga at last. "We shall all perish in the dark," and
+animated by fear or fury, or by both, he lifted his spear and drove it
+with all his force at Sir Henry's breast. But he forgot the mail
+shirts that the king had given us, and which we wore beneath our
+clothing. The steel rebounded harmless, and before he could repeat the
+blow Curtis had snatched the spear from his hand and sent it straight
+through him.
+
+Scragga dropped dead.
+
+At the sight, and driven mad with fear of the gathering darkness, and
+of the unholy shadow which, as they believed, was swallowing the moon,
+the companies of girls broke up in wild confusion, and ran screeching
+for the gateways. Nor did the panic stop there. The king himself,
+followed by his guards, some of the chiefs, and Gagool, who hobbled
+away after them with marvellous alacrity, fled for the huts, so that
+in another minute we ourselves, the would-be victim Foulata, Infadoos,
+and most of the chiefs who had interviewed us on the previous night,
+were left alone upon the scene, together with the dead body of
+Scragga, Twala's son.
+
+"Chiefs," I said, "we have given you the sign. If ye are satisfied,
+let us fly swiftly to the place of which ye spoke. The charm cannot
+now be stopped. It will work for an hour and the half of an hour. Let
+us cover ourselves in the darkness."
+
+"Come," said Infadoos, turning to go, an example which was followed by
+the awed captains, ourselves, and the girl Foulata, whom Good took by
+the arm.
+
+Before we reached the gate of the kraal the moon went out utterly, and
+from every quarter of the firmament the stars rushed forth into the
+inky sky.
+
+Holding each other by the hand we stumbled on through the darkness.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+BEFORE THE BATTLE
+
+Luckily for us, Infadoos and the chiefs knew all the paths of the
+great town perfectly, so that we passed by side-ways unmolested, and
+notwithstanding the gloom we made fair progress.
+
+For an hour or more we journeyed on, till at length the eclipse began
+to pass, and that edge of the moon which had disappeared the first
+became again visible. Suddenly, as we watched, there burst from it a
+silver streak of light, accompanied by a wondrous ruddy glow, which
+hung upon the blackness of the sky like a celestial lamp, and a wild
+and lovely sight it was. In another five minutes the stars began to
+fade, and there was sufficient light to see our whereabouts. We then
+discovered that we were clear of the town of Loo, and approaching a
+large flat-topped hill, measuring some two miles in circumference.
+This hill, which is of a formation common in South Africa, is not very
+high; indeed, its greatest elevation is scarcely more than 200 feet,
+but it is shaped like a horseshoe, and its sides are rather
+precipitous and strewn with boulders. On the grass table-land at its
+summit is ample camping-ground, which had been utilised as a military
+cantonment of no mean strength. Its ordinary garrison was one regiment
+of three thousand men, but as we toiled up the steep side of the
+mountain in the returning moonlight we perceived that there were
+several of such regiments encamped there.
+
+Reaching the table-land at last, we found crowds of men roused from
+their sleep, shivering with fear and huddled up together in the utmost
+consternation at the natural phenomenon which they were witnessing.
+Passing through these without a word, we gained a hut in the centre of
+the ground, where we were astonished to find two men waiting, laden
+with our few goods and chattels, which of course we had been obliged
+to leave behind in our hasty flight.
+
+"I sent for them," explained Infadoos; "and also for these," and he
+lifted up Good's long-lost trousers.
+
+With an exclamation of rapturous delight Good sprang at them, and
+instantly proceeded to put them on.
+
+"Surely my lord will not hide his beautiful white legs!" exclaimed
+Infadoos regretfully.
+
+But Good persisted, and once only did the Kukuana people get the
+chance of seeing his beautiful legs again. Good is a very modest man.
+Henceforward they had to satisfy their aesthetic longings with his one
+whisker, his transparent eye, and his movable teeth.
+
+Still gazing with fond remembrance at Good's trousers, Infadoos next
+informed us that he had commanded the regiments to muster so soon as
+the day broke, in order to explain to them fully the origin and
+circumstances of the rebellion which was decided on by the chiefs, and
+to introduce to them the rightful heir to the throne, Ignosi.
+
+Accordingly, when the sun was up, the troops--in all some twenty
+thousand men, and the flower of the Kukuana army--were mustered on a
+large open space, to which we went. The men were drawn up in three
+sides of a dense square, and presented a magnificent spectacle. We
+took our station on the open side of the square, and were speedily
+surrounded by all the principal chiefs and officers.
+
+These, after silence had been proclaimed, Infadoos proceeded to
+address. He narrated to them in vigorous and graceful language--for,
+like most Kukuanas of high rank, he was a born orator--the history of
+Ignosi's father, and of how he had been basely murdered by Twala the
+king, and his wife and child driven out to starve. Then he pointed out
+that the people suffered and groaned under Twala's cruel rule,
+instancing the proceedings of the previous night, when, under pretence
+of their being evil-doers, many of the noblest in the land had been
+dragged forth and wickedly done to death. Next he went on to say that
+the white lords from the Stars, looking down upon their country, had
+perceived its trouble, and determined, at great personal
+inconvenience, to alleviate its lot: That they had accordingly taken
+the real king of the Kukuanas, Ignosi, who was languishing in exile,
+by the hand, and led him over the mountains: That they had seen the
+wickedness of Twala's doings, and for a sign to the wavering, and to
+save the life of the girl Foulata, actually, by the exercise of their
+high magic, had put out the moon and slain the young fiend Scragga;
+and that they were prepared to stand by them, and assist them to
+overthrow Twala, and set up the rightful king, Ignosi, in his place.
+
+He finished his discourse amidst a murmur of approbation. Then Ignosi
+stepped forward and began to speak. Having reiterated all that
+Infadoos his uncle had said, he concluded a powerful speech in these
+words:--
+
+"O chiefs, captains, soldiers, and people, ye have heard my words. Now
+must ye make choice between me and him who sits upon my throne, the
+uncle who killed his brother, and hunted his brother's child forth to
+die in the cold and the night. That I am indeed the king these"--
+pointing to the chiefs--"can tell you, for they have seen the snake
+about my middle. If I were not the king, would these white men be on
+my side with all their magic? Tremble, chiefs, captains, soldiers, and
+people! Is not the darkness they have brought upon the land to
+confound Twala and cover our flight, darkness even in the hour of the
+full moon, yet before your eyes?"
+
+"It is," answered the soldiers.
+
+"I am the king; I say to you, I am the king," went on Ignosi, drawing
+up his great stature to its full, and lifting his broad-bladed battle-
+axe above his head. "If there be any man among you who says that it is
+not so, let him stand forth and I will fight him now, and his blood
+shall be a red token that I tell you true. Let him stand forth, I
+say;" and he shook the great axe till it flashed in the sunlight.
+
+As nobody seemed inclined to respond to this heroic version of "Dilly,
+Dilly, come and be killed," our late henchman proceeded with his
+address.
+
+"I am indeed the king, and should ye stand by my side in the battle,
+if I win the day ye shall go with me to victory and honour. I will
+give you oxen and wives, and ye shall take place of all the regiments;
+and if ye fall, I will fall with you.
+
+"And behold, I give you this promise, that when I sit upon the seat of
+my fathers, bloodshed shall cease in the land. No longer shall ye cry
+for justice to find slaughter, no longer shall the witch-finder hunt
+you out so that ye may be slain without a cause. No man shall die save
+he who offends against the laws. The 'eating up' of your kraals shall
+cease; each one of you shall sleep secure in his own hut and fear
+naught, and justice shall walk blindfold throughout the land. Have ye
+chosen, chiefs, captains, soldiers, and people?"
+
+"We have chosen, O king," came back the answer.
+
+"It is well. Turn your heads and see how Twala's messengers go forth
+from the great town, east and west, and north and south, to gather a
+mighty army to slay me and you, and these my friends and protectors.
+To-morrow, or perchance the next day, he will come against us with all
+who are faithful to him. Then I shall see the man who is indeed my
+man, the man who fears not to die for his cause; and I tell you that
+he shall not be forgotten in the time of spoil. I have spoken, O
+chiefs, captains, soldiers, and people. Now go to your huts and make
+you ready for war."
+
+There was a pause, till presently one of the chiefs lifted his hand,
+and out rolled the royal salute, "/Koom./" It was a sign that the
+soldiers accepted Ignosi as their king. Then they marched off in
+battalions.
+
+Half an hour afterwards we held a council of war, at which all the
+commanders of regiments were present. It was evident to us that before
+very long we should be attacked in overwhelming force. Indeed, from
+our point of vantage on the hill we could see troops mustering, and
+runners going forth from Loo in every direction, doubtless to summon
+soldiers to the king's assistance. We had on our side about twenty
+thousand men, composed of seven of the best regiments in the country.
+Twala, so Infadoos and the chiefs calculated, had at least thirty to
+thirty-five thousand on whom he could rely at present assembled in
+Loo, and they thought that by midday on the morrow he would be able to
+gather another five thousand or more to his aid. It was, of course,
+possible that some of his troops would desert and come over to us, but
+it was not a contingency which could be reckoned on. Meanwhile, it was
+clear that active preparations were being made by Twala to subdue us.
+Already strong bodies of armed men were patrolling round and round the
+foot of the hill, and there were other signs also of coming assault.
+
+Infadoos and the chiefs, however, were of opinion that no attack would
+take place that day, which would be devoted to preparation and to the
+removal of every available means of the moral effect produced upon the
+minds of the soldiery by the supposed magical darkening of the moon.
+The onslaught would be on the morrow, they said, and they proved to be
+right.
+
+Meanwhile, we set to work to strengthen the position in all ways
+possible. Almost every man was turned out, and in the course of the
+day, which seemed far too short, much was done. The paths up the hill
+--that was rather a sanatorium than a fortress, being used generally
+as the camping place of regiments suffering from recent service in
+unhealthy portions of the country--were carefully blocked with masses
+of stones, and every other approach was made as impregnable as time
+would allow. Piles of boulders were collected at various spots to be
+rolled down upon an advancing enemy, stations were appointed to the
+different regiments, and all preparation was made which our joint
+ingenuity could suggest.
+
+Just before sundown, as we rested after our toil, we perceived a small
+company of men advancing towards us from the direction of Loo, one of
+whom bore a palm leaf in his hand for a sign that he came as a herald.
+
+As he drew near, Ignosi, Infadoos, one or two chiefs and ourselves,
+went down to the foot of the mountain to meet him. He was a gallant-
+looking fellow, wearing the regulation leopard-skin cloak.
+
+"Greeting!" he cried, as he came; "the king's greeting to those who
+make unholy war against the king; the lion's greeting to the jackals
+that snarl around his heels."
+
+"Speak," I said.
+
+"These are the king's words. Surrender to the king's mercy ere a worse
+thing befall you. Already the shoulder has been torn from the black
+bull, and the king drives him bleeding about the camp."[*]
+
+[*] This cruel custom is not confined to the Kukuanas, but is by no
+    means uncommon amongst African tribes on the occasion of the
+    outbreak of war or any other important public event.--A.Q.
+
+"What are Twala's terms?" I asked from curiosity.
+
+"His terms are merciful, worthy of a great king. These are the words
+of Twala, the one-eyed, the mighty, the husband of a thousand wives,
+lord of the Kukuanas, keeper of the Great Road (Solomon's Road),
+beloved of the Strange Ones who sit in silence at the mountains yonder
+(the Three Witches), Calf of the Black Cow, Elephant whose tread
+shakes the earth, Terror of the evil-doer, Ostrich whose feet devour
+the desert, huge One, black One, wise One, king from generation to
+generation! these are the words of Twala: 'I will have mercy and be
+satisfied with a little blood. One in every ten shall die, the rest
+shall go free; but the white man Incubu, who slew Scragga my son, and
+the black man his servant, who pretends to my throne, and Infadoos my
+brother, who brews rebellion against me, these shall die by torture as
+an offering to the Silent Ones.' Such are the merciful words of
+Twala."
+
+After consulting with the others a little, I answered him in a loud
+voice, so that the soldiers might hear, thus--
+
+"Go back, thou dog, to Twala, who sent thee, and say that we, Ignosi,
+veritable king of the Kukuanas, Incubu, Bougwan, and Macumazahn, the
+wise ones from the Stars, who make dark the moon, Infadoos, of the
+royal house, and the chiefs, captains, and people here gathered, make
+answer and say, 'That we will not surrender; that before the sun has
+gone down twice, Twala's corpse shall stiffen at Twala's gate, and
+Ignosi, whose father Twala slew, shall reign in his stead.' Now go,
+ere we whip thee away, and beware how thou dost lift a hand against
+such as we are."
+
+The herald laughed loudly. "Ye frighten not men with such swelling
+words," he cried out. "Show yourselves as bold to-morrow, O ye who
+darken the moon. Be bold, fight, and be merry, before the crows pick
+your bones till they are whiter than your faces. Farewell; perhaps we
+may meet in the fight; fly not to the Stars, but wait for me, I pray,
+white men." With this shaft of sarcasm he retired, and almost
+immediately the sun sank.
+
+That night was a busy one, for weary as we were, so far as was
+possible by the moonlight all preparations for the morrow's fight were
+continued, and messengers were constantly coming and going from the
+place where we sat in council. At last, about an hour after midnight,
+everything that could be done was done, and the camp, save for the
+occasional challenge of a sentry, sank into silence. Sir Henry and I,
+accompanied by Ignosi and one of the chiefs, descended the hill and
+made a round of the pickets. As we went, suddenly, from all sorts of
+unexpected places, spears gleamed out in the moonlight, only to vanish
+again when we uttered the password. It was clear to us that none were
+sleeping at their posts. Then we returned, picking our way warily
+through thousands of sleeping warriors, many of whom were taking their
+last earthly rest.
+
+The moonlight flickering along their spears, played upon their
+features and made them ghastly; the chilly night wind tossed their
+tall and hearse-like plumes. There they lay in wild confusion, with
+arms outstretched and twisted limbs; their stern, stalwart forms
+looking weird and unhuman in the moonlight.
+
+"How many of these do you suppose will be alive at this time
+to-morrow?" asked Sir Henry.
+
+I shook my head and looked again at the sleeping men, and to my tired
+and yet excited imagination it seemed as though Death had already
+touched them. My mind's eye singled out those who were sealed to
+slaughter, and there rushed in upon my heart a great sense of the
+mystery of human life, and an overwhelming sorrow at its futility and
+sadness. To-night these thousand slept their healthy sleep, to-morrow
+they, and many others with them, ourselves perhaps among them, would
+be stiffening in the cold; their wives would be widows, their children
+fatherless, and their place know them no more for ever. Only the old
+moon would shine on serenely, the night wind would stir the grasses,
+and the wide earth would take its rest, even as it did aeons before we
+were, and will do aeons after we have been forgotten.
+
+Yet man dies not whilst the world, at once his mother and his
+monument, remains. His name is lost, indeed, but the breath he
+breathed still stirs the pine-tops on the mountains, the sound of the
+words he spoke yet echoes on through space; the thoughts his brain
+gave birth to we have inherited to-day; his passions are our cause of
+life; the joys and sorrows that he knew are our familiar friends--the
+end from which he fled aghast will surely overtake us also!
+
+Truly the universe is full of ghosts, not sheeted churchyard spectres,
+but the inextinguishable elements of individual life, which having
+once been, can never /die/, though they blend and change, and change
+again for ever.
+
+
+
+All sorts of reflections of this nature passed through my mind--for as
+I grow older I regret to say that a detestable habit of thinking seems
+to be getting a hold of me--while I stood and stared at those grim yet
+fantastic lines of warriors, sleeping, as their saying goes, "upon
+their spears."
+
+"Curtis," I said, "I am in a condition of pitiable fear."
+
+Sir Henry stroked his yellow beard and laughed, as he answered--
+
+"I have heard you make that sort of remark before, Quatermain."
+
+"Well, I mean it now. Do you know, I very much doubt if one of us will
+be alive to-morrow night. We shall be attacked in overwhelming force,
+and it is quite a chance if we can hold this place."
+
+"We'll give a good account of some of them, at any rate. Look here,
+Quatermain, this business is nasty, and one with which, properly
+speaking, we ought not to be mixed up, but we are in for it, so we
+must make the best of our job. Speaking personally, I had rather be
+killed fighting than any other way, and now that there seems little
+chance of our finding my poor brother, it makes the idea easier to me.
+But fortune favours the brave, and we may succeed. Anyway, the battle
+will be awful, and having a reputation to keep up, we shall need to be
+in the thick of the thing."
+
+He made this last remark in a mournful voice, but there was a gleam in
+his eye which belied its melancholy. I have an idea Sir Henry Curtis
+actually likes fighting.
+
+After this we went to sleep for a couple of hours or so.
+
+Just about dawn we were awakened by Infadoos, who came to say that
+great activity was to be observed in Loo, and that parties of the
+king's skirmishers were driving in our outposts.
+
+We rose and dressed ourselves for the fray, each putting on his chain
+armour shirt, for which garments at the present juncture we felt
+exceedingly thankful. Sir Henry went the whole length about the
+matter, and dressed himself like a native warrior. "When you are in
+Kukuanaland, do as the Kukuanas do," he remarked, as he drew the
+shining steel over his broad breast, which it fitted like a glove. Nor
+did he stop there. At his request Infadoos had provided him with a
+complete set of native war uniform. Round his throat he fastened the
+leopard-skin cloak of a commanding officer, on his brows he bound the
+plume of black ostrich feathers worn only by generals of high rank,
+and about his middle a magnificent moocha of white ox-tails. A pair of
+sandals, a leglet of goat's hair, a heavy battle-axe with a
+rhinoceros-horn handle, a round iron shield covered with white ox-
+hide, and the regulation number of /tollas/, or throwing-knives, made
+up his equipment, to which, however, he added his revolver. The dress
+was, no doubt, a savage one, but I am bound to say that I seldom saw a
+finer sight than Sir Henry Curtis presented in this guise. It showed
+off his magnificent physique to the greatest advantage, and when
+Ignosi arrived presently, arrayed in a similar costume, I thought to
+myself that I had never before seen two such splendid men.
+
+As for Good and myself, the armour did not suit us nearly so well. To
+begin with, Good insisted upon keeping on his new-found trousers, and
+a stout, short gentleman with an eye-glass, and one half of his face
+shaved, arrayed in a mail shirt, carefully tucked into a very seedy
+pair of corduroys, looks more remarkable than imposing. In my case,
+the chain shirt being too big for me, I put it on over all my clothes,
+which caused it to bulge in a somewhat ungainly fashion. I discarded
+my trousers, however, retaining only my veldtschoons, having
+determined to go into battle with bare legs, in order to be the
+lighter for running, in case it became necessary to retire quickly.
+The mail coat, a spear, a shield, that I did not know how to use, a
+couple of /tollas/, a revolver, and a huge plume, which I pinned into
+the top of my shooting hat, in order to give a bloodthirsty finish to
+my appearance, completed my modest equipment. In addition to all these
+articles, of course we had our rifles, but as ammunition was scarce,
+and as they would be useless in case of a charge, we arranged that
+they should be carried behind us by bearers.
+
+When at length we had equipped ourselves, we swallowed some food
+hastily, and then started out to see how things were going on. At one
+point in the table-land of the mountain, there was a little koppie of
+brown stone, which served the double purpose of head-quarters and of a
+conning tower. Here we found Infadoos surrounded by his own regiment,
+the Greys, which was undoubtedly the finest in the Kukuana army, and
+the same that we had first seen at the outlying kraal. This regiment,
+now three thousand five hundred strong, was being held in reserve, and
+the men were lying down on the grass in companies, and watching the
+king's forces creep out of Loo in long ant-like columns. There seemed
+to be no end to the length of these columns--three in all, and each of
+them numbering, as we judged, at least eleven or twelve thousand men.
+
+As soon as they were clear of the town the regiments formed up. Then
+one body marched off to the right, one to the left, and the third came
+on slowly towards us.
+
+"Ah," said Infadoos, "they are going to attack us on three sides at
+once."
+
+This seemed rather serious news, for our position on the top of the
+mountain, which measured a mile and a half in circumference, being an
+extended one, it was important to us to concentrate our comparatively
+small defending force as much as possible. But since it was impossible
+for us to dictate in what way we should be assailed, we had to make
+the best of it, and accordingly sent orders to the various regiments
+to prepare to receive the separate onslaughts.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE ATTACK
+
+Slowly, and without the slightest appearance of haste or excitement,
+the three columns crept on. When within about five hundred yards of
+us, the main or centre column halted at the root of a tongue of open
+plain which ran up into the hill, to give time to the other divisions
+to circumvent our position, which was shaped more or less in the form
+of a horse-shoe, with its two points facing towards the town of Loo.
+The object of this manoeuvre was that the threefold assault should be
+delivered simultaneously.
+
+"Oh, for a gatling!" groaned Good, as he contemplated the serried
+phalanxes beneath us. "I would clear that plain in twenty minutes."
+
+"We have not got one, so it is no use yearning for it; but suppose you
+try a shot, Quatermain," said Sir Henry. "See how near you can go to
+that tall fellow who appears to be in command. Two to one you miss
+him, and an even sovereign, to be honestly paid if ever we get out of
+this, that you don't drop the bullet within five yards."
+
+
+This piqued me, so, loading the express with solid ball, I waited till
+my friend walked some ten yards out from his force, in order to get a
+better view of our position, accompanied only by an orderly; then,
+lying down and resting the express on a rock, I covered him. The
+rifle, like all expresses, was only sighted to three hundred and fifty
+yards, so to allow for the drop in trajectory I took him half-way down
+the neck, which ought, I calculated, to find him in the chest. He
+stood quite still and gave me every opportunity, but whether it was
+the excitement or the wind, or the fact of the man being a long shot,
+I don't know, but this was what happened. Getting dead on, as I
+thought, a fine sight, I pressed, and when the puff of smoke had
+cleared away, to my disgust, I saw my man standing there unharmed,
+whilst his orderly, who was at least three paces to the left, was
+stretched upon the ground apparently dead. Turning swiftly, the
+officer I had aimed at began to run towards his men in evident alarm.
+
+"Bravo, Quatermain!" sang out Good; "you've frightened him."
+
+This made me very angry, for, if possible to avoid it, I hate to miss
+in public. When a man is master of only one art he likes to keep up
+his reputation in that art. Moved quite out of myself at my failure, I
+did a rash thing. Rapidly covering the general as he ran, I let drive
+with the second barrel. Instantly the poor man threw up his arms, and
+fell forward on to his face. This time I had made no mistake; and--I
+say it as a proof of how little we think of others when our own
+safety, pride, or reputation is in question--I was brute enough to
+feel delighted at the sight.
+
+The regiments who had seen the feat cheered wildly at this exhibition
+of the white man's magic, which they took as an omen of success, while
+the force the general had belonged to--which, indeed, as we
+ascertained afterwards, he had commanded--fell back in confusion. Sir
+Henry and Good now took up their rifles and began to fire, the latter
+industriously "browning" the dense mass before him with another
+Winchester repeater, and I also had another shot or two, with the
+result, so far as we could judge, that we put some six or eight men
+/hors de combat/ before they were out of range.
+
+Just as we stopped firing there came an ominous roar from our far
+right, then a similar roar rose on our left. The two other divisions
+were engaging us.
+
+At the sound, the mass of men before us opened out a little, and
+advanced towards the hill and up the spit of bare grass land at a slow
+trot, singing a deep-throated song as they ran. We kept up a steady
+fire from our rifles as they came, Ignosi joining in occasionally, and
+accounted for several men, but of course we produced no more effect
+upon that mighty rush of armed humanity than he who throws pebbles
+does on the breaking wave.
+
+On they came, with a shout and the clashing of spears; now they were
+driving in the pickets we had placed among the rocks at the foot of
+the hill. After that the advance was a little slower, for though as
+yet we had offered no serious opposition, the attacking forces must
+climb up hill, and they came slowly to save their breath. Our first
+line of defence was about half-way down the side of the slope, our
+second fifty yards further back, while our third occupied the edge of
+the plateau.
+
+On they stormed, shouting their war-cry, "/Twala! Twala! Chiele!
+Chiele!/" (Twala! Twala! Smite! Smite!) "/Ignosi! Ignosi! Chiele!
+Chiele!/" answered our people. They were quite close now, and the
+/tollas/, or throwing-knives, began to flash backwards and forwards,
+and now with an awful yell the battle closed in.
+
+To and fro swayed the mass of struggling warriors, men falling fast as
+leaves in an autumn wind; but before long the superior weight of the
+attacking force began to tell, and our first line of defence was
+slowly pressed back till it merged into the second. Here the struggle
+was very fierce, but again our people were driven back and up, till at
+length, within twenty minutes of the commencement of the fight, our
+third line came into action.
+
+But by this time the assailants were much exhausted, and besides had
+lost many men killed and wounded, and to break through that third
+impenetrable hedge of spears proved beyond their powers. For a while
+the seething lines of savages swung backwards and forwards, in the
+fierce ebb and flow of battle, and the issue was doubtful. Sir Henry
+watched the desperate struggle with a kindling eye, and then without a
+word he rushed off, followed by Good, and flung himself into the
+hottest of the fray. As for myself, I stopped where I was.
+
+The soldiers caught sight of his tall form as he plunged into battle,
+and there rose a cry of--
+
+"/Nanzia Incubu! Nanzia Unkungunklovo!/" (Here is the Elephant!)
+"/Chiele! Chiele!/"
+
+From that moment the end was no longer in doubt. Inch by inch,
+fighting with splendid gallantry, the attacking force was pressed back
+down the hillside, till at last it retreated upon its reserves in
+something like confusion. At that instant, too, a messenger arrived to
+say that the left attack had been repulsed; and I was just beginning
+to congratulate myself, believing that the affair was over for the
+present, when, to our horror, we perceived our men who had been
+engaged in the right defence being driven towards us across the plain,
+followed by swarms of the enemy, who had evidently succeeded at this
+point.
+
+Ignosi, who was standing by me, took in the situation at a glance, and
+issued a rapid order. Instantly the reserve regiment around us, the
+Greys, extended itself.
+
+Again Ignosi gave a word of command, which was taken up and repeated
+by the captains, and in another second, to my intense disgust, I found
+myself involved in a furious onslaught upon the advancing foe. Getting
+as much as I could behind Ignosi's huge frame, I made the best of a
+bad job, and toddled along to be killed as though I liked it. In a
+minute or two--we were plunging through the flying groups of our men,
+who at once began to re-form behind us, and then I am sure I do not
+know what happened. All I can remember is a dreadful rolling noise of
+the meeting of shields, and the sudden apparition of a huge ruffian,
+whose eyes seemed literally to be starting out of his head, making
+straight at me with a bloody spear. But--I say it with pride--I rose--
+or rather sank--to the occasion. It was one before which most people
+would have collapsed once and for all. Seeing that if I stood where I
+was I must be killed, as the horrid apparition came I flung myself
+down in front of him so cleverly that, being unable to stop himself,
+he took a header right over my prostrate form. Before he could rise
+again, /I/ had risen and settled the matter from behind with my
+revolver.
+
+Shortly after this somebody knocked me down, and I remember no more of
+that charge.
+
+When I came to I found myself back at the koppie, with Good bending
+over me holding some water in a gourd.
+
+"How do you feel, old fellow?" he asked anxiously.
+
+I got up and shook myself before replying.
+
+"Pretty well, thank you," I answered.
+
+"Thank Heaven! When I saw them carry you in, I felt quite sick; I
+thought you were done for."
+
+"Not this time, my boy. I fancy I only got a rap on the head, which
+knocked me stupid. How has it ended?"
+
+"They are repulsed at every point for a while. The loss is dreadfully
+heavy; we have quite two thousand killed and wounded, and they must
+have lost three. Looks, there's a sight!" and he pointed to long lines
+of men advancing by fours.
+
+In the centre of every group of four, and being borne by it, was a
+kind of hide tray, of which a Kukuana force always carries a quantity,
+with a loop for a handle at each corner. On these trays--and their
+number seemed endless--lay wounded men, who as they arrived were
+hastily examined by the medicine men, of whom ten were attached to a
+regiment. If the wound was not of a fatal character the sufferer was
+taken away and attended to as carefully as circumstances would allow.
+But if, on the other hand, the injured man's condition proved
+hopeless, what followed was very dreadful, though doubtless it may
+have been the truest mercy. One of the doctors, under pretence of
+carrying out an examination, swiftly opened an artery with a sharp
+knife, and in a minute or two the sufferer expired painlessly. There
+were many cases that day in which this was done. In fact, it was done
+in the majority of cases when the wound was in the body, for the gash
+made by the entry of the enormously broad spears used by the Kukuanas
+generally rendered recovery impossible. In most instances the poor
+sufferers were already unconscious, and in others the fatal "nick" of
+the artery was inflicted so swiftly and painlessly that they did not
+seem to notice it. Still it was a ghastly sight, and one from which we
+were glad to escape; indeed, I never remember anything of the kind
+that affected me more than seeing those gallant soldiers thus put out
+of pain by the red-handed medicine men, except, indeed, on one
+occasion when, after an attack, I saw a force of Swazis burying their
+hopelessly wounded /alive/.
+
+Hurrying from this dreadful scene to the further side of the koppie,
+we found Sir Henry, who still held a battle-axe in his hand, Ignosi,
+Infadoos, and one or two of the chiefs in deep consultation.
+
+"Thank Heaven, here you are, Quatermain! I can't quite make out what
+Ignosi wants to do. It seems that though we have beaten off the
+attack, Twala is now receiving large reinforcements, and is showing a
+disposition to invest us, with the view of starving us out."
+
+"That's awkward."
+
+"Yes; especially as Infadoos says that the water supply has given
+out."
+
+"My lord, that is so," said Infadoos; "the spring cannot supply the
+wants of so great a multitude, and it is failing rapidly. Before night
+we shall all be thirsty. Listen, Macumazahn. Thou art wise, and hast
+doubtless seen many wars in the lands from whence thou camest--that is
+if indeed they make wars in the Stars. Now tell us, what shall we do?
+Twala has brought up many fresh men to take the place of those who
+have fallen. Yet Twala has learnt his lesson; the hawk did not think
+to find the heron ready; but our beak has pierced his breast; he fears
+to strike at us again. We too are wounded, and he will wait for us to
+die; he will wind himself round us like a snake round a buck, and
+fight the fight of 'sit down.'"
+
+"I hear thee," I said.
+
+"So, Macumazahn, thou seest we have no water here, and but a little
+food, and we must choose between these three things--to languish like
+a starving lion in his den, or to strive to break away towards the
+north, or"--and here he rose and pointed towards the dense mass of our
+foes--"to launch ourselves straight at Twala's throat. Incubu, the
+great warrior--for to-day he fought like a buffalo in a net, and
+Twala's soldiers went down before his axe like young corn before the
+hail; with these eyes I saw it--Incubu says 'Charge'; but the Elephant
+is ever prone to charge. Now what says Macumazahn, the wily old fox,
+who has seen much, and loves to bite his enemy from behind? The last
+word is in Ignosi the king, for it is a king's right to speak of war;
+but let us hear thy voice, O Macumazahn, who watchest by night, and
+the voice too of him of the transparent eye."
+
+"What sayest thou, Ignosi," I asked.
+
+"Nay, my father," answered our quondam servant, who now, clad as he
+was in the full panoply of savage war, looked every inch a warrior
+king, "do thou speak, and let me, who am but a child in wisdom beside
+thee, hearken to thy words."
+
+Thus adjured, after taking hasty counsel with Good and Sir Henry, I
+delivered my opinion briefly to the effect that, being trapped, our
+best chance, especially in view of the failure of our water supply,
+was to initiate an attack upon Twala's forces. Then I recommended that
+the attack should be delivered at once, "before our wounds grew
+stiff," and also before the sight of Twala's overpowering force caused
+the hearts of our soldiers "to wax small like fat before a fire."
+Otherwise, I pointed out, some of the captains might change their
+minds, and, making peace with Twala, desert to him, or even betray us
+into his hands.
+
+This expression of opinion seemed, on the whole, to be favourably
+received; indeed, among the Kukuanas my utterances met with a respect
+which has never been accorded to them before or since. But the real
+decision as to our plans lay with Ignosi, who, since he had been
+recognised as rightful king, could exercise the almost unbounded
+rights of sovereignty, including, of course, the final decision on
+matters of generalship, and it was to him that all eyes were now
+turned.
+
+At length, after a pause, during which he appeared to be thinking
+deeply, he spoke.
+
+"Incubu, Macumazahn, and Bougwan, brave white men, and my friends;
+Infadoos, my uncle, and chiefs; my heart is fixed. I will strike at
+Twala this day, and set my fortunes on the blow, ay, and my life--my
+life and your lives also. Listen; thus will I strike. Ye see how the
+hill curves round like the half-moon, and how the plain runs like a
+green tongue towards us within the curve?"
+
+"We see," I answered.
+
+"Good; it is now mid-day, and the men eat and rest after the toil of
+battle. When the sun has turned and travelled a little way towards the
+darkness, let thy regiment, my uncle, advance with one other down to
+the green tongue, and it shall be that when Twala sees it he will hurl
+his force at it to crush it. But the spot is narrow, and the regiments
+can come against thee one at a time only; so may they be destroyed one
+by one, and the eyes of all Twala's army shall be fixed upon a
+struggle the like of which has not been seen by living man. And with
+thee, my uncle, shall go Incubu my friend, that when Twala sees his
+battle-axe flashing in the first rank of the Greys his heart may grow
+faint. And I will come with the second regiment, that which follows
+thee, so that if ye are destroyed, as it might happen, there may yet
+be a king left to fight for; and with me shall come Macumazahn the
+wise."
+
+"It is well, O king," said Infadoos, apparently contemplating the
+certainty of the complete annihilation of his regiment with perfect
+calmness. Truly, these Kukuanas are a wonderful people. Death has no
+terrors for them when it is incurred in the course of duty.
+
+"And whilst the eyes of the multitude of Twala's soldiers are thus
+fixed upon the fight," went on Ignosi, "behold, one-third of the men
+who are left alive to us (i.e. about 6,000) shall creep along the
+right horn of the hill and fall upon the left flank of Twala's force,
+and one-third shall creep along the left horn and fall upon Twala's
+right flank. And when I see that the horns are ready to toss Twala,
+then will I, with the men who remain to me, charge home in Twala's
+face, and if fortune goes with us the day will be ours, and before
+Night drives her black oxen from the mountains to the mountains we
+shall sit in peace at Loo. And now let us eat and make ready; and,
+Infadoos, do thou prepare, that the plan be carried out without fail;
+and stay, let my white father Bougwan go with the right horn, that his
+shining eye may give courage to the captains."
+
+The arrangements for attack thus briefly indicated were set in motion
+with a rapidity that spoke well for the perfection of the Kukuana
+military system. Within little more than an hour rations had been
+served out and devoured, the divisions were formed, the scheme of
+onslaught was explained to the leaders, and the whole force, numbering
+about 18,000 men, was ready to move, with the exception of a guard
+left in charge of the wounded.
+
+Presently Good came up to Sir Henry and myself.
+
+"Good-bye, you fellows," he said; "I am off with the right wing
+according to orders; and so I have come to shake hands, in case we
+should not meet again, you know," he added significantly.
+
+We shook hands in silence, and not without the exhibition of as much
+emotion as Anglo-Saxons are wont to show.
+
+"It is a queer business," said Sir Henry, his deep voice shaking a
+little, "and I confess I never expect to see to-morrow's sun. So far
+as I can make out, the Greys, with whom I am to go, are to fight until
+they are wiped out in order to enable the wings to slip round unawares
+and outflank Twala. Well, so be it; at any rate, it will be a man's
+death. Good-bye, old fellow. God bless you! I hope you will pull
+through and live to collar the diamonds; but if you do, take my advice
+and don't have anything more to do with Pretenders!"
+
+In another second Good had wrung us both by the hand and gone; and
+then Infadoos came up and led off Sir Henry to his place in the
+forefront of the Greys, whilst, with many misgivings, I departed with
+Ignosi to my station in the second attacking regiment.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE LAST STAND OF THE GREYS
+
+In a few more minutes the regiments destined to carry out the flanking
+movements had tramped off in silence, keeping carefully to the lee of
+the rising ground in order to conceal their advance from the keen eyes
+of Twala's scouts.
+
+Half an hour or more was allowed to elapse between the setting out of
+the horns or wings of the army before any stir was made by the Greys
+and their supporting regiment, known as the Buffaloes, which formed
+its chest, and were destined to bear the brunt of the battle.
+
+Both of these regiments were almost perfectly fresh, and of full
+strength, the Greys having been in reserve in the morning, and having
+lost but a small number of men in sweeping back that part of the
+attack which had proved successful in breaking the line of defence, on
+the occasion when I charged with them and was stunned for my pains. As
+for the Buffaloes, they had formed the third line of defence on the
+left, and since the attacking force at that point had not succeeded in
+breaking through the second, they had scarcely come into action at
+all.
+
+Infadoos, who was a wary old general, and knew the absolute importance
+of keeping up the spirits of his men on the eve of such a desperate
+encounter, employed the pause in addressing his own regiment, the
+Greys, in poetical language: explaining to them the honour that they
+were receiving in being put thus in the forefront of the battle, and
+in having the great white warrior from the Stars to fight with them in
+their ranks; and promising large rewards of cattle and promotion to
+all who survived in the event of Ignosi's arms being successful.
+
+I looked down the long lines of waving black plumes and stern faces
+beneath them, and sighed to think that within one short hour most, if
+not all, of those magnificent veteran warriors, not a man of whom was
+under forty years of age, would be laid dead or dying in the dust. It
+could not be otherwise; they were being condemned, with that wise
+recklessness of human life which marks the great general, and often
+saves his forces and attains his ends, to certain slaughter, in order
+to give their cause and the remainder of the army a chance of success.
+They were foredoomed to die, and they knew the truth. It was to be
+their task to engage regiment after regiment of Twala's army on the
+narrow strip of green beneath us, till they were exterminated or till
+the wings found a favourable opportunity for their onslaught. And yet
+they never hesitated, nor could I detect a sign of fear upon the face
+of a single warrior. There they were--going to certain death, about to
+quit the blessed light of day for ever, and yet able to contemplate
+their doom without a tremor. Even at that moment I could not help
+contrasting their state of mind with my own, which was far from
+comfortable, and breathing a sigh of envy and admiration. Never before
+had I seen such an absolute devotion to the idea of duty, and such a
+complete indifference to its bitter fruits.
+
+"Behold your king!" ended old Infadoos, pointing to Ignosi; "go fight
+and fall for him, as is the duty of brave men, and cursed and shameful
+for ever be the name of him who shrinks from death for his king, or
+who turns his back to the foe. Behold your king, chiefs, captains, and
+soldiers! Now do your homage to the sacred Snake, and then follow on,
+that Incubu and I may show you a road to the heart of Twala's host."
+
+There was a moment's pause, then suddenly a murmur arose from the
+serried phalanxes before us, a sound like the distant whisper of the
+sea, caused by the gentle tapping of the handles of six thousand
+spears against their holders' shields. Slowly it swelled, till its
+growing volume deepened and widened into a roar of rolling noise, that
+echoed like thunder against the mountains, and filled the air with
+heavy waves of sound. Then it decreased, and by faint degrees died
+away into nothing, and suddenly out crashed the royal salute.
+
+Ignosi, I thought to myself, might well be a proud man that day, for
+no Roman emperor ever had such a salutation from gladiators "about to
+die."
+
+Ignosi acknowledged this magnificent act of homage by lifting his
+battle-axe, and then the Greys filed off in a triple-line formation,
+each line containing about one thousand fighting men, exclusive of
+officers. When the last companies had advanced some five hundred
+yards, Ignosi put himself at the head of the Buffaloes, which regiment
+was drawn up in a similar three-fold formation, and gave the word to
+march, and off we went, I, needless to say, uttering the most
+heartfelt prayers that I might emerge from that entertainment with a
+whole skin. Many a queer position have I found myself in, but never
+before in one quite so unpleasant as the present, or one in which my
+chance of coming off safe was smaller.
+
+By the time that we reached the edge of the plateau the Greys were
+already half-way down the slope ending in the tongue of grass land
+that ran up into the bend of the mountain, something as the frog of a
+horse's foot runs up into the shoe. The excitement in Twala's camp on
+the plain beyond was very great, and regiment after regiment was
+starting forward at a long swinging trot in order to reach the root of
+the tongue of land before the attacking force could emerge into the
+plain of Loo.
+
+This tongue, which was some four hundred yards in depth, even at its
+root or widest part was not more than six hundred and fifty paces
+across, while at its tip it scarcely measured ninety. The Greys, who,
+in passing down the side of the hill and on to the tip of the tongue,
+had formed into a column, on reaching the spot where it broadened out
+again, reassumed their triple-line formation, and halted dead.
+
+Then we--that is, the Buffaloes--moved down the tip of the tongue and
+took our stand in reserve, about one hundred yards behind the last
+line of the Greys, and on slightly higher ground. Meanwhile we had
+leisure to observe Twala's entire force, which evidently had been
+reinforced since the morning attack, and could not now,
+notwithstanding their losses, number less than forty thousand, moving
+swiftly up towards us. But as they drew near the root of the tongue
+they hesitated, having discovered that only one regiment could advance
+into the gorge at a time, and that there, some seventy yards from the
+mouth of it, unassailable except in front, on account of the high
+walls of boulder-strewn ground on each side, stood the famous regiment
+of Greys, the pride and glory of the Kukuana army, ready to hold the
+way against their power as the three Romans once held the bridge
+against thousands.
+
+They hesitated, and finally stopped their advance; there was no
+eagerness to cross spears with these three grim ranks of warriors who
+stood so firm and ready. Presently, however, a tall general, wearing
+the customary head-dress of nodding ostrich plumes, appeared, attended
+by a group of chiefs and orderlies, being, I thought, none other than
+Twala himself. He gave an order, and the first regiment, raising a
+shout, charged up towards the Greys, who remained perfectly still and
+silent till the attacking troops were within forty yards, and a volley
+of /tollas/, or throwing-knives, came rattling among their ranks.
+
+Then suddenly with a bound and a roar, they sprang forward with
+uplifted spears, and the regiment met in deadly strife. Next second
+the roll of the meeting shields came to our ears like the sound of
+thunder, and the plain seemed to be alive with flashes of light
+reflected from the shimmering spears. To and fro swung the surging
+mass of struggling, stabbing humanity, but not for long. Suddenly the
+attacking lines began to grow thinner, and then with a slow, long
+heave the Greys passed over them, just as a great wave heaves up its
+bulk and passes over a sunken ridge. It was done; that regiment was
+completely destroyed, but the Greys had but two lines left now; a
+third of their number were dead.
+
+Closing up shoulder to shoulder, once more they halted in silence and
+awaited attack; and I was rejoiced to catch sight of Sir Henry's
+yellow beard as he moved to and fro arranging the ranks. So he was yet
+alive!
+
+Meanwhile we moved on to the ground of the encounter, which was
+cumbered by about four thousand prostrate human beings, dead, dying,
+and wounded, and literally stained red with blood. Ignosi issued an
+order, which was rapidly passed down the ranks, to the effect that
+none of the enemy's wounded were to be killed, and so far as we could
+see this command was scrupulously carried out. It would have been a
+shocking sight, if we had found time to think of such things.
+
+But now a second regiment, distinguished by white plumes, kilts, and
+shields, was moving to the attack of the two thousand remaining Greys,
+who stood waiting in the same ominous silence as before, till the foe
+was within forty yards or so, when they hurled themselves with
+irresistible force upon them. Again there came the awful roll of the
+meeting shields, and as we watched the tragedy repeated itself.
+
+But this time the issue was left longer in doubt; indeed, it seemed
+for awhile almost impossible that the Greys should again prevail. The
+attacking regiment, which was formed of young men, fought with the
+utmost fury, and at first seemed by sheer weight to be driving the
+veterans back. The slaughter was truly awful, hundreds falling every
+minute; and from among the shouts of the warriors and the groans of
+the dying, set to the music of clashing spears, came a continuous
+hissing undertone of "/S'gee, s'gee/," the note of triumph of each
+victor as he passed his assegai through and through the body of his
+fallen foe.
+
+But perfect discipline and steady and unchanging valour can do
+wonders, and one veteran soldier is worth two young ones, as soon
+became apparent in the present case. For just when we thought that it
+was all over with the Greys, and were preparing to take their place so
+soon as they made room by being destroyed, I heard Sir Henry's deep
+voice ringing out through the din, and caught a glimpse of his
+circling battle-axe as he waved it high above his plumes. Then came a
+change; the Greys ceased to give; they stood still as a rock, against
+which the furious waves of spearmen broke again and again, only to
+recoil. Presently they began to move once more--forward this time; as
+they had no firearms there was no smoke, so we could see it all.
+Another minute and the onslaught grew fainter.
+
+"Ah, these are /men/, indeed; they will conquer again," called out
+Ignosi, who was grinding his teeth with excitement at my side. "See,
+it is done!"
+
+Suddenly, like puffs of smoke from the mouth of a cannon, the
+attacking regiment broke away in flying groups, their white head-
+dresses streaming behind them in the wind, and left their opponents
+victors, indeed, but, alas! no more a regiment. Of the gallant triple
+line, which forty minutes before had gone into action three thousand
+strong, there remained at most some six hundred blood-spattered men;
+the rest were under foot. And yet they cheered and waved their spears
+in triumph, and then, instead of falling back upon us as we expected,
+they ran forward, for a hundred yards or so, after the flying groups
+of foemen, took possession of a rising knoll of ground, and, resuming
+their triple formation, formed a threefold ring around its base. And
+there, thanks be to Heaven, standing on the top of the mound for a
+minute, I saw Sir Henry, apparently unharmed, and with him our old
+friend Infadoos. Then Twala's regiments rolled down upon the doomed
+band, and once more the battle closed in.
+
+As those who read this history will probably long ago have gathered, I
+am, to be honest, a bit of a coward, and certainly in no way given to
+fighting, though somehow it has often been my lot to get into
+unpleasant positions, and to be obliged to shed man's blood. But I
+have always hated it, and kept my own blood as undiminished in
+quantity as possible, sometimes by a judicious use of my heels. At
+this moment, however, for the first time in my life, I felt my bosom
+burn with martial ardour. Warlike fragments from the "Ingoldsby
+Legends," together with numbers of sanguinary verses in the Old
+Testament, sprang up in my brain like mushrooms in the dark; my blood,
+which hitherto had been half-frozen with horror, went beating through
+my veins, and there came upon me a savage desire to kill and spare
+not. I glanced round at the serried ranks of warriors behind us, and
+somehow, all in an instant, I began to wonder if my face looked like
+theirs. There they stood, the hands twitching, the lips apart, the
+fierce features instinct with the hungry lust of battle, and in the
+eyes a look like the glare of a bloodhound when after long pursuit he
+sights his quarry.
+
+Only Ignosi's heart, to judge from his comparative self-possession,
+seemed, to all appearances, to beat as calmly as ever beneath his
+leopard-skin cloak, though even /he/ still ground his teeth. I could
+bear it no longer.
+
+"Are we to stand here till we put out roots, Umbopa--Ignosi, I mean--
+while Twala swallows our brothers yonder?" I asked.
+
+"Nay, Macumazahn," was the answer; "see, now is the ripe moment: let
+us pluck it."
+
+As he spoke a fresh regiment rushed past the ring upon the little
+mound, and wheeling round, attacked it from the hither side.
+
+Then, lifting his battle-axe, Ignosi gave the signal to advance, and,
+screaming the wild Kukuana war-cry, the Buffaloes charged home with a
+rush like the rush of the sea.
+
+What followed immediately on this it is out of my power to tell. All I
+can remember is an irregular yet ordered advance, that seemed to shake
+the ground; a sudden change of front and forming up on the part of the
+regiment against which the charge was directed; then an awful shock, a
+dull roar of voices, and a continuous flashing of spears, seen through
+a red mist of blood.
+
+When my mind cleared I found myself standing inside the remnant of the
+Greys near the top of the mound, and just behind no less a person than
+Sir Henry himself. How I got there I had at the moment no idea, but
+Sir Henry afterwards told me that I was borne up by the first furious
+charge of the Buffaloes almost to his feet, and then left, as they in
+turn were pressed back. Thereon he dashed out of the circle and
+dragged me into shelter.
+
+As for the fight that followed, who can describe it? Again and again
+the multitudes surged against our momentarily lessening circle, and
+again and again we beat them back.
+
+ "The stubborn spearmen still made good
+  The dark impenetrable wood,
+  Each stepping where his comrade stood
+    The instant that he fell,"
+
+as someone or other beautifully says.
+
+It was a splendid thing to see those brave battalions come on time
+after time over the barriers of their dead, sometimes lifting corpses
+before them to receive our spear-thrusts, only to leave their own
+corpses to swell the rising piles. It was a gallant sight to see that
+old warrior, Infadoos, as cool as though he were on parade, shouting
+out orders, taunts, and even jests, to keep up the spirit of his few
+remaining men, and then, as each charge rolled on, stepping forward to
+wherever the fighting was thickest, to bear his share in its repulse.
+And yet more gallant was the vision of Sir Henry, whose ostrich plumes
+had been shorn off by a spear thrust, so that his long yellow hair
+streamed out in the breeze behind him. There he stood, the great Dane,
+for he was nothing else, his hands, his axe, and his armour all red
+with blood, and none could live before his stroke. Time after time I
+saw it sweeping down, as some great warrior ventured to give him
+battle, and as he struck he shouted "/O-hoy! O-hoy!/" like his
+Berserkir forefathers, and the blow went crashing through shield and
+spear, through head-dress, hair, and skull, till at last none would of
+their own will come near the great white "/umtagati/," the wizard, who
+killed and failed not.
+
+But suddenly there rose a cry of "/Twala, y' Twala/," and out of the
+press sprang forward none other than the gigantic one-eyed king
+himself, also armed with battle-axe and shield, and clad in chain
+armour.
+
+"Where art thou, Incubu, thou white man, who slewest Scragga my son--
+see if thou canst slay me!" he shouted, and at the same time hurled a
+/tolla/ straight at Sir Henry, who fortunately saw it coming, and
+caught it on his shield, which it transfixed, remaining wedged in the
+iron plate behind the hide.
+
+Then, with a cry, Twala sprang forward straight at him, and with his
+battle-axe struck him such a blow upon the shield that the mere force
+and shock of it brought Sir Henry, strong man as he is, down upon his
+knees.
+
+But at this time the matter went no further, for that instant there
+rose from the regiments pressing round us something like a shout of
+dismay, and on looking up I saw the cause.
+
+To the right and to the left the plain was alive with the plumes of
+charging warriors. The outflanking squadrons had come to our relief.
+The time could not have been better chosen. All Twala's army, as
+Ignosi predicted would be the case, had fixed their attention on the
+bloody struggle which was raging round the remnant of the Greys and
+that of the Buffaloes, who were now carrying on a battle of their own
+at a little distance, which two regiments had formed the chest of our
+army. It was not until our horns were about to close upon them that
+they had dreamed of their approach, for they believed these forces to
+be hidden in reserve upon the crest of the moon-shaped hill. And now,
+before they could even assume a proper formation for defence, the
+outflanking /Impis/ had leapt, like greyhounds, on their flanks.
+
+In five minutes the fate of the battle was decided. Taken on both
+flanks, and dismayed at the awful slaughter inflicted upon them by the
+Greys and Buffaloes, Twala's regiments broke into flight, and soon the
+whole plain between us and Loo was scattered with groups of running
+soldiers making good their retreat. As for the hosts that had so
+recently surrounded us and the Buffaloes, they melted away as though
+by magic, and presently we were left standing there like a rock from
+which the sea has retreated. But what a sight it was! Around us the
+dead and dying lay in heaped-up masses, and of the gallant Greys there
+remained but ninety-five men upon their feet. More than three thousand
+four hundred had fallen in this one regiment, most of them never to
+rise again.
+
+"Men," said Infadoos calmly, as between the intervals of binding a
+wound on his arm he surveyed what remained to him of his corps, "ye
+have kept up the reputation of your regiment, and this day's fighting
+will be well spoken of by your children's children." Then he turned
+round and shook Sir Henry Curtis by the hand. "Thou art a great
+captain, Incubu," he said simply; "I have lived a long life among
+warriors, and have known many a brave one, yet have I never seen a man
+like unto thee."
+
+At this moment the Buffaloes began to march past our position on the
+road to Loo, and as they went a message was brought to us from Ignosi
+requesting Infadoos, Sir Henry, and myself to join them. Accordingly,
+orders having been issued to the remaining ninety men of the Greys to
+employ themselves in collecting the wounded, we joined Ignosi, who
+informed us that he was pressing on to Loo to complete the victory by
+capturing Twala, if that should be possible. Before we had gone far,
+suddenly we discovered the figure of Good sitting on an ant-heap about
+one hundred paces from us. Close beside him was the body of a Kukuana.
+
+"He must be wounded," said Sir Henry anxiously. As he made the remark,
+an untoward thing happened. The dead body of the Kukuana soldier, or
+rather what had appeared to be his dead body, suddenly sprang up,
+knocked Good head over heels off the ant-heap, and began to spear him.
+We rushed forward in terror, and as we drew near we saw the brawny
+warrior making dig after dig at the prostrate Good, who at each prod
+jerked all his limbs into the air. Seeing us coming, the Kukuana gave
+one final and most vicious dig, and with a shout of "Take that,
+wizard!" bolted away. Good did not move, and we concluded that our
+poor comrade was done for. Sadly we came towards him, and were
+astonished to find him pale and faint indeed, but with a serene smile
+upon his face, and his eyeglass still fixed in his eye.
+
+"Capital armour this," he murmured, on catching sight of our faces
+bending over him. "How sold that beggar must have been," and then he
+fainted. On examination we discovered that he had been seriously
+wounded in the leg by a /tolla/ in the course of the pursuit, but that
+the chain armour had prevented his last assailant's spear from doing
+anything more than bruise him badly. It was a merciful escape. As
+nothing could be done for him at the moment, he was placed on one of
+the wicker shields used for the wounded, and carried along with us.
+
+On arriving before the nearest gate of Loo we found one of our
+regiments watching it in obedience to orders received from Ignosi. The
+other regiments were in the same way guarding the different exits to
+the town. The officer in command of this regiment saluted Ignosi as
+king, and informed him that Twala's army had taken refuge in the town,
+whither Twala himself had also escaped, but he thought that they were
+thoroughly demoralised, and would surrender. Thereupon Ignosi, after
+taking counsel with us, sent forward heralds to each gate ordering the
+defenders to open, and promising on his royal word life and
+forgiveness to every soldier who laid down his arms, but saying that
+if they did not do so before nightfall he would certainly burn the
+town and all within its gates. This message was not without its
+effect. Half an hour later, amid the shouts and cheers of the
+Buffaloes, the bridge was dropped across the fosse, and the gates upon
+the further side were flung open.
+
+Taking due precautions against treachery, we marched on into the town.
+All along the roadways stood thousands of dejected warriors, their
+heads drooping, and their shields and spears at their feet, who,
+headed by their officers, saluted Ignosi as king as he passed. On we
+marched, straight to Twala's kraal. When we reached the great space,
+where a day or two previously we had seen the review and the witch
+hunt, we found it deserted. No, not quite deserted, for there, on the
+further side, in front of his hut, sat Twala himself, with but one
+attendant--Gagool.
+
+It was a melancholy sight to see him seated, his battle-axe and shield
+by his side, his chin upon his mailed breast, with but one old crone
+for companion, and notwithstanding his crimes and misdeeds, a pang of
+compassion shot through me as I looked upon Twala thus "fallen from
+his high estate." Not a soldier of all his armies, not a courtier out
+of the hundreds who had cringed round him, not even a solitary wife,
+remained to share his fate or halve the bitterness of his fall. Poor
+savage! he was learning the lesson which Fate teaches to most of us
+who live long enough, that the eyes of mankind are blind to the
+discredited, and that he who is defenceless and fallen finds few
+friends and little mercy. Nor, indeed, in this case did he deserve
+any.
+
+Filing through the kraal gate, we marched across the open space to
+where the ex-king sat. When within about fifty yards of him the
+regiment was halted, and accompanied only by a small guard we advanced
+towards him, Gagool reviling us bitterly as we came. As we drew near,
+Twala, for the first time, lifted his plumed head, and fixed his one
+eye, which seemed to flash with suppressed fury almost as brightly as
+the great diamond bound round his forehead, upon his successful
+rival--Ignosi.
+
+"Hail, O king!" he said, with bitter mockery; "thou who hast eaten of
+my bread, and now by the aid of the white man's magic hast seduced my
+regiments and defeated mine army, hail! What fate hast thou in store
+for me, O king?"
+
+"The fate thou gavest to my father, whose throne thou hast sat on
+these many years!" was the stern answer.
+
+"It is good. I will show thee how to die, that thou mayest remember it
+against thine own time. See, the sun sinks in blood," and he pointed
+with his battle-axe towards the setting orb; "it is well that my sun
+should go down in its company. And now, O king! I am ready to die, but
+I crave the boon of the Kukuana royal House[*] to die fighting. Thou
+canst refuse it, or even those cowards who fled to-day will hold thee
+shamed."
+
+[*] It is a law amongst the Kukuanas that no man of the direct royal
+    blood can be put to death, unless by his own consent, which is,
+    however, never refused. He is allowed to choose a succession of
+    antagonists, to be approved by the king, with whom he fights, till
+    one of them kills him.--A.Q.
+
+"It is granted. Choose--with whom wilt thou fight? Myself I cannot
+fight with thee, for the king fights not except in war."
+
+Twala's sombre eye ran up and down our ranks, and I felt, as for a
+moment it rested on myself, that the position had developed a new
+horror. What if he chose to begin by fighting /me/? What chance should
+I have against a desperate savage six feet five high, and broad in
+proportion? I might as well commit suicide at once. Hastily I made up
+my mind to decline the combat, even if I were hooted out of
+Kukuanaland as a consequence. It is, I think, better to be hooted than
+to be quartered with a battle-axe.
+
+Presently Twala spoke.
+
+"Incubu, what sayest thou, shall we end what we began to-day, or shall
+I call thee coward, white--even to the liver?"
+
+"Nay," interposed Ignosi hastily; "thou shalt not fight with Incubu."
+
+"Not if he is afraid," said Twala.
+
+Unfortunately Sir Henry understood this remark, and the blood flamed
+up into his cheeks.
+
+"I will fight him," he said; "he shall see if I am afraid."
+
+"For Heaven's sake," I entreated, "don't risk your life against that
+of a desperate man. Anybody who saw you to-day will know that you are
+brave enough."
+
+"I will fight him," was the sullen answer. "No living man shall call
+me a coward. I am ready now!" and he stepped forward and lifted his
+axe.
+
+I wrung my hands over this absurd piece of Quixotism; but if he was
+determined on this deed, of course I could not stop him.
+
+"Fight not, my white brother," said Ignosi, laying his hand
+affectionately on Sir Henry's arm; "thou hast fought enough, and if
+aught befell thee at his hands it would cut my heart in twain."
+
+"I will fight, Ignosi," was Sir Henry's answer.
+
+"It is well, Incubu; thou art a brave man. It will be a good fray.
+Behold, Twala, the Elephant is ready for thee."
+
+The ex-king laughed savagely, and stepping forward faced Curtis. For a
+moment they stood thus, and the light of the sinking sun caught their
+stalwart frames and clothed them both in fire. They were a well-
+matched pair.
+
+Then they began to circle round each other, their battle-axes raised.
+
+Suddenly Sir Henry sprang forward and struck a fearful blow at Twala,
+who stepped to one side. So heavy was the stroke that the striker half
+overbalanced himself, a circumstance of which his antagonist took a
+prompt advantage. Circling his massive battle-axe round his head, he
+brought it down with tremendous force. My heart jumped into my mouth;
+I thought that the affair was already finished. But no; with a quick
+upward movement of the left arm Sir Henry interposed his shield
+between himself and the axe, with the result that its outer edge was
+shorn away, the axe falling on his left shoulder, but not heavily
+enough to do any serious damage. In another moment Sir Henry got in a
+second blow, which was also received by Twala upon his shield.
+
+Then followed blow upon blow, that were, in turn, either received upon
+the shields or avoided. The excitement grew intense; the regiment
+which was watching the encounter forgot its discipline, and, drawing
+near, shouted and groaned at every stroke. Just at this time, too,
+Good, who had been laid upon the ground by me, recovered from his
+faint, and, sitting up, perceived what was going on. In an instant he
+was up, and catching hold of my arm, hopped about from place to place
+on one leg, dragging me after him, and yelling encouragements to Sir
+Henry--
+
+"Go it, old fellow!" he hallooed. "That was a good one! Give it him
+amidships," and so on.
+
+Presently Sir Henry, having caught a fresh stroke upon his shield, hit
+out with all his force. The blow cut through Twala's shield and
+through the tough chain armour behind it, gashing him in the shoulder.
+With a yell of pain and fury Twala returned the blow with interest,
+and, such was his strength, shore right through the rhinoceros' horn
+handle of his antagonists battle-axe, strengthened as it was with
+bands of steel, wounding Curtis in the face.
+
+A cry of dismay rose from the Buffaloes as our hero's broad axe-head
+fell to the ground; and Twala, again raising his weapon, flew at him
+with a shout. I shut my eyes. When I opened them again it was to see
+Sir Henry's shield lying on the ground, and Sir Henry himself with his
+great arms twined round Twala's middle. To and fro they swung, hugging
+each other like bears, straining with all their mighty muscles for
+dear life, and dearer honour. With a supreme effort Twala swung the
+Englishman clean off his feet, and down they came together, rolling
+over and over on the lime paving, Twala striking out at Curtis' head
+with the battle-axe, and Sir Henry trying to drive the /tolla/ he had
+drawn from his belt through Twala's armour.
+
+It was a mighty struggle, and an awful thing to see.
+
+"Get his axe!" yelled Good; and perhaps our champion heard him.
+
+At any rate, dropping the /tolla/, he snatched at the axe, which was
+fastened to Twala's wrist by a strip of buffalo hide, and still
+rolling over and over, they fought for it like wild cats, drawing
+their breath in heavy gasps. Suddenly the hide string burst, and then,
+with a great effort, Sir Henry freed himself, the weapon remaining in
+his hand. Another second and he was upon his feet, the red blood
+streaming from the wound in his face, and so was Twala. Drawing the
+heavy /tolla/ from his belt, he reeled straight at Curtis and struck
+him in the breast. The stab came home true and strong, but whoever it
+was who made that chain armour, he understood his art, for it
+withstood the steel. Again Twala struck out with a savage yell, and
+again the sharp knife rebounded, and Sir Henry went staggering back.
+Once more Twala came on, and as he came our great Englishman gathered
+himself together, and swinging the big axe round his head with both
+hands, hit at him with all his force.
+
+There was a shriek of excitement from a thousand throats, and, behold!
+Twala's head seemed to spring from his shoulders: then it fell and
+came rolling and bounding along the ground towards Ignosi, stopping
+just as his feet. For a second the corpse stood upright; then with a
+dull crash it came to the earth, and the gold torque from its neck
+rolled away across the pavement. As it did so Sir Henry, overpowered
+by faintness and loss of blood, fell heavily across the body of the
+dead king.
+
+In a second he was lifted up, and eager hands were pouring water on
+his face. Another minute, and the grey eyes opened wide.
+
+He was not dead.
+
+Then I, just as the sun sank, stepping to where Twala's head lay in
+the dust, unloosed the diamond from the dead brows, and handed it to
+Ignosi.
+
+"Take it," I said, "lawful king of the Kukuanas--king by birth and
+victory."
+
+Ignosi bound the diadem upon his brows. Then advancing, he placed his
+foot upon the broad chest of his headless foe and broke out into a
+chant, or rather a paean of triumph, so beautiful, and yet so utterly
+savage, that I despair of being able to give an adequate version of
+his words. Once I heard a scholar with a fine voice read aloud from
+the Greek poet Homer, and I remember that the sound of the rolling
+lines seemed to make my blood stand still. Ignosi's chant, uttered as
+it was in a language as beautiful and sonorous as the old Greek,
+produced exactly the same effect on me, although I was exhausted with
+toil and many emotions.
+
+"Now," he began, "now our rebellion is swallowed up in victory, and
+our evil-doing is justified by strength.
+
+"In the morning the oppressors arose and stretched themselves; they
+bound on their harness and made them ready to war.
+
+"They rose up and tossed their spears: the soldiers called to the
+captains, 'Come, lead us'--and the captains cried to the king, 'Direct
+thou the battle.'
+
+"They laughed in their pride, twenty thousand men, and yet a twenty
+thousand.
+
+"Their plumes covered the valleys as the plumes of a bird cover her
+nest; they shook their shields and shouted, yea, they shook their
+shields in the sunlight; they lusted for battle and were glad.
+
+"They came up against me; their strong ones ran swiftly to slay me;
+they cried, 'Ha! ha! he is as one already dead.'
+
+
+
+"Then breathed I on them, and my breath was as the breath of a wind,
+and lo! they were not.
+
+"My lightnings pierced them; I licked up their strength with the
+lightning of my spears; I shook them to the ground with the thunder of
+my shoutings.
+
+"They broke--they scattered--they were gone as the mists of the
+morning.
+
+"They are food for the kites and the foxes, and the place of battle is
+fat with their blood.
+
+
+
+"Where are the mighty ones who rose up in the morning?
+
+"Where are the proud ones who tossed their spears and cried, 'He is as
+a man already dead'?
+
+"They bow their heads, but not in sleep; they are stretched out, but
+not in sleep.
+
+"They are forgotten; they have gone into the blackness; they dwell in
+the dead moons; yea, others shall lead away their wives, and their
+children shall remember them no more.
+
+
+
+"And I--! the king--like an eagle I have found my eyrie.
+
+"Behold! far have I flown in the night season, yet have I returned to
+my young at the daybreak.
+
+"Shelter ye under the shadow of my wings, O people, and I will comfort
+you, and ye shall not be dismayed.
+
+"Now is the good time, the time of spoil.
+
+"Mine are the cattle on the mountains, mine are the virgins in the
+kraals.
+
+"The winter is overpast with storms, the summer is come with flowers.
+
+"Now Evil shall cover up her face, now Mercy and Gladness shall dwell
+in the land.
+
+"Rejoice, rejoice, my people!
+
+"Let all the stars rejoice in that this tyranny is trodden down, in
+that I am the king."
+
+
+
+Ignosi ceased his song, and out of the gathering gloom came back the
+deep reply--
+
+"/Thou art the king!/"
+
+
+
+Thus was my prophecy to the herald fulfilled, and within the forty-
+eight hours Twala's headless corpse was stiffening at Twala's gate.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+GOOD FALLS SICK
+
+After the fight was ended, Sir Henry and Good were carried into
+Twala's hut, where I joined them. They were both utterly exhausted by
+exertion and loss of blood, and, indeed, my own condition was little
+better. I am very wiry, and can stand more fatigue than most men,
+probably on account of my light weight and long training; but that
+night I was quite done up, and, as is always the case with me when
+exhausted, that old wound which the lion gave me began to pain. Also
+my head was aching violently from the blow I had received in the
+morning, when I was knocked senseless. Altogether, a more miserable
+trio than we were that evening it would have been difficult to
+discover; and our only comfort lay in the reflection that we were
+exceedingly fortunate to be there to feel miserable, instead of being
+stretched dead upon the plain, as so many thousands of brave men were
+that night, who had risen well and strong in the morning.
+
+Somehow, with the assistance of the beautiful Foulata, who, since we
+had been the means of saving her life, had constituted herself our
+handmaiden, and especially Good's, we managed to get off the chain
+shirts, which had certainly saved the lives of two of us that day. As
+I expected, we found that the flesh underneath was terribly contused,
+for though the steel links had kept the weapons from entering, they
+had not prevented them from bruising. Both Sir Henry and Good were a
+mass of contusions, and I was by no means free. As a remedy Foulata
+brought us some pounded green leaves, with an aromatic odour, which,
+when applied as a plaster, gave us considerable relief.
+
+But though the bruises were painful, they did not give us such anxiety
+as Sir Henry's and Good's wounds. Good had a hole right through the
+fleshy part of his "beautiful white leg," from which he had lost a
+great deal of blood; and Sir Henry, with other hurts, had a deep cut
+over the jaw, inflicted by Twala's battle-axe. Luckily Good is a very
+decent surgeon, and so soon as his small box of medicines was
+forthcoming, having thoroughly cleansed the wounds, he managed to
+stitch up first Sir Henry's and then his own pretty satisfactorily,
+considering the imperfect light given by the primitive Kukuana lamp in
+the hut. Afterwards he plentifully smeared the injured places with
+some antiseptic ointment, of which there was a pot in the little box,
+and we covered them with the remains of a pocket-handkerchief which we
+possessed.
+
+Meanwhile Foulata had prepared us some strong broth, for we were too
+weary to eat. This we swallowed, and then threw ourselves down on the
+piles of magnificent karrosses, or fur rugs, which were scattered
+about the dead king's great hut. By a very strange instance of the
+irony of fate, it was on Twala's own couch, and wrapped in Twala's own
+particular karross, that Sir Henry, the man who had slain him, slept
+that night.
+
+I say slept; but after that day's work, sleep was indeed difficult. To
+begin with, in very truth the air was full
+
+ "Of farewells to the dying
+  And mournings for the dead."
+
+From every direction came the sound of the wailing of women whose
+husbands, sons, and brothers had perished in the battle. No wonder
+that they wailed, for over twelve thousand men, or nearly a fifth of
+the Kukuana army, had been destroyed in that awful struggle. It was
+heart-rending to lie and listen to their cries for those who never
+would return; and it made me understand the full horror of the work
+done that day to further man's ambition. Towards midnight, however,
+the ceaseless crying of the women grew less frequent, till at length
+the silence was only broken at intervals of a few minutes by a long
+piercing howl that came from a hut in our immediate rear, which, as I
+afterwards discovered, proceeded from Gagool "keening" over the dead
+king Twala.
+
+After that I got a little fitful sleep, only to wake from time to time
+with a start, thinking that I was once more an actor in the terrible
+events of the last twenty-four hours. Now I seemed to see that warrior
+whom my hand had sent to his last account charging at me on the
+mountain-top; now I was once more in that glorious ring of Greys,
+which made its immortal stand against all Twala's regiments upon the
+little mound; and now again I saw Twala's plumed and gory head roll
+past my feet with gnashing teeth and glaring eye.
+
+At last, somehow or other, the night passed away; but when dawn broke
+I found that my companions had slept no better than myself. Good,
+indeed, was in a high fever, and very soon afterwards began to grow
+light-headed, and also, to my alarm, to spit blood, the result, no
+doubt, of some internal injury, inflicted during the desperate efforts
+made by the Kukuana warrior on the previous day to force his big spear
+through the chain armour. Sir Henry, however, seemed pretty fresh,
+notwithstanding his wound on the face, which made eating difficult and
+laughter an impossibility, though he was so sore and stiff that he
+could scarcely stir.
+
+About eight o'clock we had a visit from Infadoos, who appeared but
+little the worse--tough old warrior that he was--for his exertions in
+the battle, although he informed us that he had been up all night. He
+was delighted to see us, but much grieved at Good's condition, and
+shook our hands cordially. I noticed, however, that he addressed Sir
+Henry with a kind of reverence, as though he were something more than
+man; and, indeed, as we afterwards found out, the great Englishman was
+looked on throughout Kukuanaland as a supernatural being. No man, the
+soldiers said, could have fought as he fought or, at the end of a day
+of such toil and bloodshed, could have slain Twala, who, in addition
+to being the king, was supposed to be the strongest warrior in the
+country, in single combat, shearing through his bull-neck at a stroke.
+Indeed, that stroke became proverbial in Kukuanaland, and any
+extraordinary blow or feat of strength was henceforth known as
+"Incubu's blow."
+
+Infadoos told us also that all Twala's regiments had submitted to
+Ignosi, and that like submissions were beginning to arrive from chiefs
+in the outlying country. Twala's death at the hands of Sir Henry had
+put an end to all further chance of disturbance; for Scragga had been
+his only legitimate son, so there was no rival claimant to the throne
+left alive.
+
+I remarked that Ignosi had swum to power through blood. The old chief
+shrugged his shoulders. "Yes," he answered; "but the Kukuana people
+can only be kept cool by letting their blood flow sometimes. Many are
+killed, indeed, but the women are left, and others must soon grow up
+to take the places of the fallen. After this the land would be quiet
+for a while."
+
+Afterwards, in the course of the morning, we had a short visit from
+Ignosi, on whose brows the royal diadem was now bound. As I
+contemplated him advancing with kingly dignity, an obsequious guard
+following his steps, I could not help recalling to my mind the tall
+Zulu who had presented himself to us at Durban some few months back,
+asking to be taken into our service, and reflecting on the strange
+revolutions of the wheel of fortune.
+
+"Hail, O king!" I said, rising.
+
+"Yes, Macumazahn. King at last, by the might of your three right
+hands," was the ready answer.
+
+All was, he said, going well; and he hoped to arrange a great feast in
+two weeks' time in order to show himself to the people.
+
+I asked him what he had settled to do with Gagool.
+
+"She is the evil genius of the land," he answered, "and I shall kill
+her, and all the witch doctors with her! She has lived so long that
+none can remember when she was not very old, and she it is who has
+always trained the witch-hunters, and made the land wicked in the
+sight of the heavens above."
+
+"Yet she knows much," I replied; "it is easier to destroy knowledge,
+Ignosi, than to gather it."
+
+"That is so," he said thoughtfully. "She, and she only, knows the
+secret of the 'Three Witches,' yonder, whither the great road runs,
+where the kings are buried, and the Silent Ones sit."
+
+"Yes, and the diamonds are. Forget not thy promise, Ignosi; thou must
+lead us to the mines, even if thou hast to spare Gagool alive to show
+the way."
+
+"I will not forget, Macumazahn, and I will think on what thou sayest."
+
+After Ignosi's visit I went to see Good, and found him quite
+delirious. The fever set up by his wound seemed to have taken a firm
+hold of his system, and to be complicated with an internal injury. For
+four or five days his condition was most critical; indeed, I believe
+firmly that had it not been for Foulata's indefatigable nursing he
+must have died.
+
+Women are women, all the world over, whatever their colour. Yet
+somehow it seemed curious to watch this dusky beauty bending night and
+day over the fevered man's couch, and performing all the merciful
+errands of a sick-room swiftly, gently, and with as fine an instinct
+as that of a trained hospital nurse. For the first night or two I
+tried to help her, and so did Sir Henry as soon as his stiffness
+allowed him to move, but Foulata bore our interference with
+impatience, and finally insisted upon our leaving him to her, saying
+that our movements made him restless, which I think was true. Day and
+night she watched him and tended him, giving him his only medicine, a
+native cooling drink made of milk, in which was infused juice from the
+bulb of a species of tulip, and keeping the flies from settling on
+him. I can see the whole picture now as it appeared night after night
+by the light of our primitive lamp; Good tossing to and fro, his
+features emaciated, his eyes shining large and luminous, and jabbering
+nonsense by the yard; and seated on the ground by his side, her back
+resting against the wall of the hut, the soft-eyed, shapely Kukuana
+beauty, her face, weary as it was with her long vigil, animated by a
+look of infinite compassion--or was it something more than compassion?
+
+For two days we thought that he must die, and crept about with heavy
+hearts.
+
+Only Foulata would not believe it.
+
+"He will live," she said.
+
+For three hundred yards or more around Twala's chief hut, where the
+sufferer lay, there was silence; for by the king's order all who lived
+in the habitations behind it, except Sir Henry and myself, had been
+removed, lest any noise should come to the sick man's ears. One night,
+it was the fifth of Good's illness, as was my habit, I went across to
+see how he was doing before turning in for a few hours.
+
+I entered the hut carefully. The lamp placed upon the floor showed the
+figure of Good tossing no more, but lying quite still.
+
+So it had come at last! In the bitterness of my heart I gave something
+like a sob.
+
+"Hush--h--h!" came from the patch of dark shadow behind Good's head.
+
+Then, creeping closer, I saw that he was not dead, but sleeping
+soundly, with Foulata's taper fingers clasped tightly in his poor
+white hand. The crisis had passed, and he would live. He slept like
+that for eighteen hors; and I scarcely like to say it, for fear I
+should not be believed, but during the entire period did this devoted
+girl sit by him, fearing that if she moved and drew away her hand it
+would wake him. What she must have suffered from cramp and weariness,
+to say nothing of want of food, nobody will ever know; but it is the
+fact that, when at last he woke, she had to be carried away--her limbs
+were so stiff that she could not move them.
+
+
+After the turn had once been taken, Good's recovery was rapid and
+complete. It was not till he was nearly well that Sir Henry told him
+of all he owed to Foulata; and when he came to the story of how she
+sat by his side for eighteen hours, fearing lest by moving she should
+wake him, the honest sailor's eyes filled with tears. He turned and
+went straight to the hut where Foulata was preparing the mid-day meal,
+for we were back in our old quarters now, taking me with him to
+interpret in case he could not make his meaning clear to her, though I
+am bound to say that she understood him marvellously as a rule,
+considering how extremely limited was his foreign vocabulary.
+
+"Tell her," said Good, "that I owe her my life, and that I will never
+forget her kindness to my dying day."
+
+I interpreted, and under her dark skin she actually seemed to blush.
+
+Turning to him with one of those swift and graceful motions that in
+her always reminded me of the flight of a wild bird, Foulata answered
+softly, glancing at him with her large brown eyes--
+
+"Nay, my lord; my lord forgets! Did he not save /my/ life, and am I
+not my lord's handmaiden?"
+
+It will be observed that the young lady appeared entirely to have
+forgotten the share which Sir Henry and myself had taken in her
+preservation from Twala's clutches. But that is the way of women! I
+remember my dear wife was just the same. Well, I retired from that
+little interview sad at heart. I did not like Miss Foulata's soft
+glances, for I knew the fatal amorous propensities of sailors in
+general, and of Good in particular.
+
+There are two things in the world, as I have found out, which cannot
+be prevented: you cannot keep a Zulu from fighting, or a sailor from
+falling in love upon the slightest provocation!
+
+It was a few days after this last occurrence that Ignosi held his
+great "indaba," or council, and was formally recognised as king by the
+"indunas," or head men, of Kukuanaland. The spectacle was a most
+imposing one, including as it did a grand review of troops. On this
+day the remaining fragments of the Greys were formally paraded, and in
+the face of the army thanked for their splendid conduct in the battle.
+To each man the king made a large present of cattle, promoting them
+one and all to the rank of officers in the new corps of Greys which
+was in process of formation. An order was also promulgated throughout
+the length and breadth of Kukuanaland that, whilst we honoured the
+country by our presence, we three were to be greeted with the royal
+salute, and to be treated with the same ceremony and respect that was
+by custom accorded to the king. Also the power of life and death was
+publicly conferred upon us. Ignosi, too, in the presence of his
+people, reaffirmed the promises which he had made, to the effect that
+no man's blood should be shed without trial, and that witch-hunting
+should cease in the land.
+
+When the ceremony was over we waited upon Ignosi, and informed him
+that we were now anxious to investigate the mystery of the mines to
+which Solomon's Road ran, asking him if he had discovered anything
+about them.
+
+"My friends," he answered, "I have discovered this. It is there that
+the three great figures sit, who here are called the 'Silent Ones,'
+and to whom Twala would have offered the girl Foulata as a sacrifice.
+It is there, too, in a great cave deep in the mountain, that the kings
+of the land are buried; there ye shall find Twala's body, sitting with
+those who went before him. There, also, is a deep pit, which, at some
+time, long-dead men dug out, mayhap for the stones ye speak of, such
+as I have heard men in Natal tell of at Kimberley. There, too, in the
+Place of Death is a secret chamber, known to none but the king and
+Gagool. But Twala, who knew it, is dead, and I know it not, nor know I
+what is in it. Yet there is a legend in the land that once, many
+generations gone, a white man crossed the mountains, and was led by a
+woman to the secret chamber and shown the wealth hidden in it. But
+before he could take it she betrayed him, and he was driven by the
+king of that day back to the mountains, and since then no man has
+entered the place."
+
+"The story is surely true, Ignosi, for on the mountains we found the
+white man," I said.
+
+"Yes, we found him. And now I have promised you that if ye can come to
+that chamber, and the stones are there--"
+
+"The gem upon thy forehead proves that they are there," I put in,
+pointing to the great diamond I had taken from Twala's dead brows.
+
+"Mayhap; if they are there," he said, "ye shall have as many as ye can
+take hence--if indeed ye would leave me, my brothers."
+
+"First we must find the chamber," said I.
+
+"There is but one who can show it to thee--Gagool."
+
+"And if she will not?"
+
+"Then she must die," said Ignosi sternly. "I have saved her alive but
+for this. Stay, she shall choose," and calling to a messenger he
+ordered Gagool to be brought before him.
+
+In a few minutes she came, hurried along by two guards, whom she was
+cursing as she walked.
+
+"Leave her," said the king to the guards.
+
+So soon as their support was withdrawn, the withered old bundle--for
+she looked more like a bundle than anything else, out of which her two
+bright and wicked eyes gleamed like those of a snake--sank in a heap
+on to the floor.
+
+"What will ye with me, Ignosi?" she piped. "Ye dare not touch me. If
+ye touch me I will slay you as ye sit. Beware of my magic."
+
+"Thy magic could not save Twala, old she-wolf, and it cannot hurt me,"
+was the answer. "Listen; I will this of thee, that thou reveal to us
+the chamber where are the shining stones."
+
+"Ha! ha!" she piped, "none know its secret but I, and I will never
+tell thee. The white devils shall go hence empty-handed."
+
+"Thou shalt tell me. I will make thee tell me."
+
+"How, O king? Thou art great, but can thy power wring the truth from a
+woman?"
+
+"It is difficult, yet will I do so."
+
+"How, O king?"
+
+"Nay, thus; if thou tellest not thou shalt slowly die."
+
+"Die!" she shrieked in terror and fury; "ye dare not touch me--man, ye
+know not who I am. How old think ye am I? I knew your fathers, and
+your fathers' fathers' fathers. When the country was young I was here;
+when the country grows old I shall still be here. I cannot die unless
+I be killed by chance, for none dare slay me."
+
+"Yet will I slay thee. See, Gagool, mother of evil, thou art so old
+that thou canst no longer love thy life. What can life be to such a
+hag as thou, who hast no shape, nor form, nor hair, nor teeth--hast
+naught, save wickedness and evil eyes? It will be mercy to make an end
+of thee, Gagool."
+
+"Thou fool," shrieked the old fiend, "thou accursed fool, deemest thou
+that life is sweet only to the young? It is not so, and naught thou
+knowest of the heart of man to think it. To the young, indeed, death
+is sometimes welcome, for the young can feel. They love and suffer,
+and it wrings them to see their beloved pass to the land of shadows.
+But the old feel not, they love not, and, /ha! ha!/ they laugh to see
+another go out into the dark; /ha! ha!/ they laugh to see the evil
+that is done under the stars. All they love is life, the warm, warm
+sun, and the sweet, sweet air. They are afraid of the cold, afraid of
+the cold and the dark, /ha! ha! ha!/" and the old hag writhed in
+ghastly merriment on the ground.
+
+"Cease thine evil talk and answer me," said Ignosi angrily. "Wilt thou
+show the place where the stones are, or wilt thou not? If thou wilt
+not thou diest, even now," and he seized a spear and held it over her.
+
+"I will not show it; thou darest not kill me, darest not! He who slays
+me will be accursed for ever."
+
+Slowly Ignosi brought down the spear till it pricked the prostrate
+heap of rags.
+
+With a wild yell Gagool sprang to her feet, then fell again and rolled
+upon the floor.
+
+"Nay, I will show thee. Only let me live, let me sit in the sun and
+have a bit of meat to suck, and I will show thee."
+
+"It is well. I thought that I should find a way to reason with thee.
+To-morrow shalt thou go with Infadoos and my white brothers to the
+place, and beware how thou failest, for if thou showest it not, then
+thou shalt slowly die. I have spoken."
+
+"I will not fail, Ignosi. I always keep my word--/ha! ha! ha!/ Once
+before a woman showed the chamber to a white man, and behold! evil
+befell him," and here her wicked eyes glinted. "Her name was Gagool
+also. Perchance I was that woman."
+
+"Thou liest," I said, "that was ten generations gone."
+
+"Mayhap, mayhap; when one lives long one forgets. Perhaps it was my
+mother's mother who told me; surely her name was Gagool also. But
+mark, ye will find in the place where the bright things are a bag of
+hide full of stones. The man filled that bag, but he never took it
+away. Evil befell him, I say, evil befell him! Perhaps it was my
+mother's mother who told me. It will be a merry journey--we can see
+the bodies of those who died in the battle as we go. Their eyes will
+be gone by now, and their ribs will be hollow. /Ha! ha! ha!/"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE PLACE OF DEATH
+
+It was already dark on the third day after the scene described in the
+previous chapter when we camped in some huts at the foot of the "Three
+Witches," as the triangle of mountains is called to which Solomon's
+Great Road runs. Our party consisted of our three selves and Foulata,
+who waited on us--especially on Good--Infadoos, Gagool, who was borne
+along in a litter, inside which she could be heard muttering and
+cursing all day long, and a party of guards and attendants. The
+mountains, or rather the three peaks of the mountain, for the mass was
+evidently the result of a solitary upheaval, were, as I have said, in
+the form of a triangle, of which the base was towards us, one peak
+being on our right, one on our left, and one straight in front of us.
+Never shall I forget the sight afforded by those three towering peaks
+in the early sunlight of the following morning. High, high above us,
+up into the blue air, soared their twisted snow-wreaths. Beneath the
+snow-line the peaks were purple with heaths, and so were the wild
+moors that ran up the slopes towards them. Straight before us the
+white ribbon of Solomon's Great Road stretched away uphill to the foot
+of the centre peak, about five miles from us, and there stopped. It
+was its terminus.
+
+I had better leave the feelings of intense excitement with which we
+set out on our march that morning to the imagination of those who read
+this history. At last we were drawing near to the wonderful mines that
+had been the cause of the miserable death of the old Portuguese Dom
+three centuries ago, of my poor friend, his ill-starred descendant,
+and also, as we feared, of George Curtis, Sir Henry's brother. Were we
+destined, after all that we had gone through, to fare any better? Evil
+befell them, as that old fiend Gagool said; would it also befall us?
+Somehow, as we were marching up that last stretch of beautiful road, I
+could not help feeling a little superstitious about the matter, and so
+I think did Good and Sir Henry.
+
+For an hour and a half or more we tramped on up the heather-fringed
+way, going so fast in our excitement that the bearers of Gagool's
+hammock could scarcely keep pace with us, and its occupant piped out
+to us to stop.
+
+"Walk more slowly, white men," she said, projecting her hideous
+shrivelled countenance between the grass curtains, and fixing her
+gleaming eyes upon us; "why will ye run to meet the evil that shall
+befall you, ye seekers after treasure?" and she laughed that horrible
+laugh which always sent a cold shiver down my back, and for a while
+quite took the enthusiasm out of us.
+
+However, on we went, till we saw before us, and between ourselves and
+the peak, a vast circular hole with sloping sides, three hundred feet
+or more in depth, and quite half a mile round.
+
+"Can't you guess what this is?" I said to Sir Henry and Good, who were
+staring in astonishment at the awful pit before us.
+
+They shook their heads.
+
+"Then it is clear that you have never seen the diamond diggings at
+Kimberley. You may depend on it that this is Solomon's Diamond Mine.
+Look there," I said, pointing to the strata of stiff blue clay which
+were yet to be seen among the grass and bushes that clothed the sides
+of the pit, "the formation is the same. I'll be bound that if we went
+down there we should find 'pipes' of soapy brecciated rock. Look,
+too," and I pointed to a series of worn flat slabs of stone that were
+placed on a gentle slope below the level of a watercourse which in
+some past age had been cut out of the solid rock; "if those are not
+tables once used to wash the 'stuff,' I'm a Dutchman."
+
+At the edge of this vast hole, which was none other than the pit
+marked on the old Dom's map, the Great Road branched into two and
+circumvented it. In many places, by the way, this surrounding road was
+built entirely out of blocks of stone, apparently with the object of
+supporting the edges of the pit and preventing falls of reef. Along
+this path we pressed, driven by curiosity to see what were the three
+towering objects which we could discern from the hither side of the
+great gulf. As we drew near we perceived that they were Colossi of
+some sort or another, and rightly conjectured that before us sat the
+three "Silent Ones" that are held in such awe by the Kukuana people.
+But it was not until we were quite close to them that we recognised
+the full majesty of these "Silent Ones."
+
+There, upon huge pedestals of dark rock, sculptured with rude emblems
+of the Phallic worship, separated from each other by a distance of
+forty paces, and looking down the road which crossed some sixty miles
+of plain to Loo, were three colossal seated forms--two male and one
+female--each measuring about thirty feet from the crown of its head to
+the pedestal.
+
+The female form, which was nude, was of great though severe beauty,
+but unfortunately the features had been injured by centuries of
+exposure to the weather. Rising from either side of her head were the
+points of a crescent. The two male Colossi, on the contrary, were
+draped, and presented a terrifying cast of features, especially the
+one to our right, which had the face of a devil. That to our left was
+serene in countenance, but the calm upon it seemed dreadful. It was
+the calm of that inhuman cruelty, Sir Henry remarked, which the
+ancients attributed to beings potent for good, who could yet watch the
+sufferings of humanity, if not without rejoicing, at least without
+sorrow. These three statues form a most awe-inspiring trinity, as they
+sit there in their solitude, and gaze out across the plain for ever.
+
+Contemplating these "Silent Ones," as the Kukuanas call them, an
+intense curiosity again seized us to know whose were the hands which
+had shaped them, who it was that had dug the pit and made the road.
+Whilst I was gazing and wondering, suddenly it occurred to me--being
+familiar with the Old Testament--that Solomon went astray after
+strange gods, the names of three of whom I remembered--"Ashtoreth, the
+goddess of the Zidonians, Chemosh, the god of the Moabites, and
+Milcom, the god of the children of Ammon"--and I suggested to my
+companions that the figures before us might represent these false and
+exploded divinities.
+
+"Hum," said Sir Henry, who is a scholar, having taken a high degree in
+classics at college, "there may be something in that; Ashtoreth of the
+Hebrews was the Astarte of the Phoenicians, who were the great traders
+of Solomon's time. Astarte, who afterwards became the Aphrodite of the
+Greeks, was represented with horns like the half-moon, and there on
+the brow of the female figure are distinct horns. Perhaps these
+Colossi were designed by some Phoenician official who managed the
+mines. Who can say?"[*]
+
+[*] Compare Milton, "Paradise Lost," Book i.:--
+
+                      "With these in troop
+    Came Ashtoreth, whom the Phoenicians called
+    Astarte, Queen of Heaven, with crescent horns;
+    To whose bright image nightly by the moon
+    Sidonian virgins paid their vows and songs."
+
+Before we had finished examining these extraordinary relics of remote
+antiquity, Infadoos came up, and having saluted the "Silent Ones" by
+lifting his spear, asked us if we intended entering the "Place of
+Death" at once, or if we would wait till after we had taken food at
+mid-day. If we were ready to go at once, Gagool had announced her
+willingness to guide us. As it was not later than eleven o'clock--
+driven to it by a burning curiosity--we announced our intention of
+proceeding instantly, and I suggested that, in case we should be
+detained in the cave, we should take some food with us. Accordingly
+Gagool's litter was brought up, and that lady herself assisted out of
+it. Meanwhile Foulata, at my request, stored some "biltong," or dried
+game-flesh, together with a couple of gourds of water, in a reed
+basket with a hinged cover. Straight in front of us, at a distance of
+some fifty paces from the backs of the Colossi, rose a sheer wall of
+rock, eighty feet or more in height, that gradually sloped upwards
+till it formed the base of the lofty snow-wreathed peak, which soared
+into the air three thousand feet above us. As soon as she was clear of
+her hammock, Gagool cast one evil grin upon us, and then, leaning on a
+stick, hobbled off towards the face of this wall. We followed her till
+we came to a narrow portal solidly arched that looked like the opening
+of a gallery of a mine.
+
+Here Gagool was waiting for us, still with that evil grin upon her
+horrid face.
+
+"Now, white men from the Stars," she piped; "great warriors, Incubu,
+Bougwan, and Macumazahn the wise, are ye ready? Behold, I am here to
+do the bidding of my lord the king, and to show you the store of
+bright stones. /Ha! ha! ha!/"
+
+"We are ready," I said.
+
+"Good, good! Make strong your hearts to bear what ye shall see. Comest
+thou too, Infadoos, thou who didst betray thy master?"
+
+Infadoos frowned as he answered--
+
+"Nay, I come not; it is not for me to enter there. But thou, Gagool,
+curb thy tongue, and beware how thou dealest with my lords. At thy
+hands will I require them, and if a hair of them be hurt, Gagool,
+be'st thou fifty times a witch, thou shalt die. Hearest thou?"
+
+"I hear Infadoos; I know thee, thou didst ever love big words; when
+thou wast a babe I remember thou didst threaten thine own mother. That
+was but the other day. But, fear not, fear not, I live only to do the
+bidding of the king. I have done the bidding of many kings, Infadoos,
+till in the end they did mine. /Ha! ha!/ I go to look upon their faces
+once more, and Twala's also! Come on, come on, here is the lamp," and
+she drew a large gourd full of oil, and fitted with a rush wick, from
+under her fur cloak.
+
+"Art thou coming, Foulata?" asked Good in his villainous Kitchen
+Kukuana, in which he had been improving himself under that young
+lady's tuition.
+
+"I fear, my lord," the girl answered timidly.
+
+"Then give me the basket."
+
+"Nay, my lord, whither thou goest there I go also."
+
+"The deuce you will!" thought I to myself; "that may be rather awkward
+if we ever get out of this."
+
+Without further ado Gagool plunged into the passage, which was wide
+enough to admit of two walking abreast, and quite dark. We followed
+the sound of her voice as she piped to us to come on, in some fear and
+trembling, which was not allayed by the flutter of a sudden rush of
+wings.
+
+"Hullo! what's that?" halloed Good; "somebody hit me in the face."
+
+"Bats," said I; "on you go."
+
+When, so far as we could judge, we had gone some fifty paces, we
+perceived that the passage was growing faintly light. Another minute,
+and we were in perhaps the most wonderful place that the eyes of
+living man have beheld.
+
+Let the reader picture to himself the hall of the vastest cathedral he
+ever stood in, windowless indeed, but dimly lighted from above,
+presumably by shafts connected with the outer air and driven in the
+roof, which arched away a hundred feet above our heads, and he will
+get some idea of the size of the enormous cave in which we found
+ourselves, with the difference that this cathedral designed by nature
+was loftier and wider than any built by man. But its stupendous size
+was the least of the wonders of the place, for running in rows adown
+its length were gigantic pillars of what looked like ice, but were, in
+reality, huge stalactites. It is impossible for me to convey any idea
+of the overpowering beauty and grandeur of these pillars of white
+spar, some of which were not less than twenty feet in diameter at the
+base, and sprang up in lofty and yet delicate beauty sheer to the
+distant roof. Others again were in process of formation. On the rock
+floor there was in these cases what looked, Sir Henry said, exactly
+like a broken column in an old Grecian temple, whilst high above,
+depending from the roof, the point of a huge icicle could be dimly
+seen.
+
+Even as we gazed we could hear the process going on, for presently
+with a tiny splash a drop of water would fall from the far-off icicle
+on to the column below. On some columns the drops only fell once in
+two or three minutes, and in these cases it would be an interesting
+calculation to discover how long, at that rate of dripping, it would
+take to form a pillar, say eighty feet by ten in diameter. That the
+process, in at least one instance, was incalculably slow, the
+following example will suffice to show. Cut on one of these pillars we
+discovered the crude likeness of a mummy, by the head of which sat
+what appeared to be the figure of an Egyptian god, doubtless the
+handiwork of some old-world labourer in the mine. This work of art was
+executed at the natural height at which an idle fellow, be he
+Phoenician workman or British cad, is in the habit of trying to
+immortalise himself at the expense of nature's masterpieces, namely,
+about five feet from the ground. Yet at the time that we saw it, which
+/must/ have been nearly three thousand years after the date of the
+execution of the carving, the column was only eight feet high, and was
+still in process of formation, which gives a rate of growth of a foot
+to a thousand years, or an inch and a fraction to a century. This we
+knew because, as we were standing by it, we heard a drop of water
+fall.
+
+Sometimes the stalagmites took strange forms, presumably where the
+dropping of the water had not always been on the same spot. Thus, one
+huge mass, which must have weighed a hundred tons or so, was in the
+shape of a pulpit, beautifully fretted over outside with a design that
+looked like lace. Others resembled strange beasts, and on the sides of
+the cave were fanlike ivory tracings, such as the frost leaves upon a
+pane.
+
+Out of the vast main aisle there opened here and there smaller caves,
+exactly, Sir Henry said, as chapels open out of great cathedrals. Some
+were large, but one or two--and this is a wonderful instance of how
+nature carries out her handiwork by the same unvarying laws, utterly
+irrespective of size--were tiny. One little nook, for instance, was no
+larger than an unusually big doll's house, and yet it might have been
+a model for the whole place, for the water dropped, tiny icicles hung,
+and spar columns were forming in just the same way.
+
+We had not, however, enough time to examine this beautiful cavern so
+thoroughly as we should have liked to do, since unfortunately, Gagool
+seemed to be indifferent as to stalactites, and only anxious to get
+her business over. This annoyed me the more, as I was particularly
+anxious to discover, if possible, by what system the light was
+admitted into the cave, and whether it was by the hand of man or by
+that of nature that this was done; also if the place had been used in
+any way in ancient times, as seemed probable. However, we consoled
+ourselves with the idea that we would investigate it thoroughly on our
+way back, and followed on at the heels of our uncanny guide.
+
+On she led us, straight to the top of the vast and silent cave, where
+we found another doorway, not arched as the first was, but square at
+the top, something like the doorways of Egyptian temples.
+
+"Are ye prepared to enter the Place of Death, white men?" asked
+Gagool, evidently with a view to making us feel uncomfortable.
+
+"Lead on, Macduff," said Good solemnly, trying to look as though he
+was not at all alarmed, as indeed we all did except Foulata, who
+caught Good by the arm for protection.
+
+"This is getting rather ghastly," said Sir Henry, peeping into the
+dark passageway. "Come on, Quatermain--/seniores priores/. We mustn't
+keep the old lady waiting!" and he politely made way for me to lead
+the van, for which inwardly I did not bless him.
+
+/Tap, tap,/ went old Gagool's stick down the passage, as she trotted
+along, chuckling hideously; and still overcome by some unaccountable
+presentiment of evil, I hung back.
+
+"Come, get on, old fellow," said Good, "or we shall lose our fair
+guide."
+
+Thus adjured, I started down the passage, and after about twenty paces
+found myself in a gloomy apartment some forty feet long, by thirty
+broad, and thirty high, which in some past age evidently had been
+hollowed, by hand-labour, out of the mountain. This apartment was not
+nearly so well lighted as the vast stalactite ante-cave, and at the
+first glance all I could discern was a massive stone table running
+down its length, with a colossal white figure at its head, and life-
+sized white figures all round it. Next I discovered a brown thing,
+seated on the table in the centre, and in another moment my eyes grew
+accustomed to the light, and I saw what all these things were, and was
+tailing out of the place as hard as my legs could carry me.
+
+I am not a nervous man in a general way, and very little troubled with
+superstitions, of which I have lived to see the folly; but I am free
+to own that this sight quite upset me, and had it not been that Sir
+Henry caught me by the collar and held me, I do honestly believe that
+in another five minutes I should have been outside the stalactite
+cave, and that a promise of all the diamonds in Kimberley would not
+have induced me to enter it again. But he held me tight, so I stopped
+because I could not help myself. Next second, however, /his/ eyes
+became accustomed to the light, and he let go of me, and began to mop
+the perspiration off his forehead. As for Good, he swore feebly, while
+Foulata threw her arms round his neck and shrieked.
+
+Only Gagool chuckled loud and long.
+
+It /was/ a ghastly sight. There at the end of the long stone table,
+holding in his skeleton fingers a great white spear, sat /Death/
+himself, shaped in the form of a colossal human skeleton, fifteen feet
+or more in height. High above his head he held the spear, as though in
+the act to strike; one bony hand rested on the stone table before him,
+in the position a man assumes on rising from his seat, whilst his
+frame was bent forward so that the vertebrae of the neck and the
+grinning, gleaming skull projected towards us, and fixed its hollow
+eye-places upon us, the jaws a little open, as though it were about to
+speak.
+
+"Great heavens!" said I faintly, at last, "what can it be?"
+
+"And what are /those things/?" asked Good, pointing to the white
+company round the table.
+
+"And what on earth is /that thing/?" said Sir Henry, pointing to the
+brown creature seated on the table.
+
+"/Hee! hee! hee!/" laughed Gagool. "To those who enter the Hall of the
+Dead, evil comes. /Hee! hee! hee! ha! ha!/"
+
+"Come, Incubu, brave in battle, come and see him thou slewest;" and
+the old creature caught Curtis' coat in her skinny fingers, and led
+him away towards the table. We followed.
+
+Presently she stopped and pointed at the brown object seated on the
+table. Sir Henry looked, and started back with an exclamation; and no
+wonder, for there, quite naked, the head which Curtis' battle-axe had
+shorn from the body resting on its knees, was the gaunt corpse of
+Twala, the last king of the Kukuanas. Yes, there, the head perched
+upon the knees, it sat in all its ugliness, the vertebrae projecting a
+full inch above the level of the shrunken flesh of the neck, for all
+the world like a black double of Hamilton Tighe.[*] Over the surface
+of the corpse there was gathered a thin glassy film, that made its
+appearance yet more appalling, for which we were, at the moment, quite
+unable to account, till presently we observed that from the roof of
+the chamber the water fell steadily, /drip! drop! drip!/ on to the
+neck of the corpse, whence it ran down over the entire surface, and
+finally escaped into the rock through a tiny hole in the table. Then I
+guessed what the film was--/Twala's body was being transformed into a
+stalactite./
+
+[*] "Now haste ye, my handmaidens, haste and see
+    How he sits there and glowers with his head on his knee."
+
+A look at the white forms seated on the stone bench which ran round
+that ghastly board confirmed this view. They were human bodies indeed,
+or rather they had been human; now they were /stalactites/. This was
+the way in which the Kukuana people had from time immemorial preserved
+their royal dead. They petrified them. What the exact system might be,
+if there was any, beyond the placing of them for a long period of
+years under the drip, I never discovered, but there they sat, iced
+over and preserved for ever by the siliceous fluid.
+
+Anything more awe-inspiring than the spectacle of this long line of
+departed royalties (there were twenty-seven of them, the last being
+Ignosi's father), wrapped, each of them, in a shroud of ice-like spar,
+through which the features could be dimly discovered, and seated round
+that inhospitable board, with Death himself for a host, it is
+impossible to imagine. That the practice of thus preserving their
+kings must have been an ancient one is evident from the number, which,
+allowing for an average reign of fifteen years, supposing that every
+king who reigned was placed here--an improbable thing, as some are
+sure to have perished in battle far from home--would fix the date of
+its commencement at four and a quarter centuries back.
+
+But the colossal Death, who sits at the head of the board, is far
+older than that, and, unless I am much mistaken, owes his origin to
+the same artist who designed the three Colossi. He is hewn out of a
+single stalactite, and, looked at as a work of art, is most admirably
+conceived and executed. Good, who understands such things, declared
+that, so far as he could see, the anatomical design of the skeleton is
+perfect down to the smallest bones.
+
+My own idea is, that this terrific object was a freak of fancy on the
+part of some old-world sculptor, and that its presence had suggested
+to the Kukuanas the idea of placing their royal dead under its awful
+presidency. Or perhaps it was set there to frighten away any marauders
+who might have designs upon the treasure chamber beyond. I cannot say.
+All I can do is to describe it as it is, and the reader must form his
+own conclusion.
+
+Such, at any rate, was the White Death and such were the White Dead!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+SOLOMON'S TREASURE CHAMBER
+
+While we were engaged in recovering from our fright, and in examining
+the grisly wonders of the Place of Death, Gagool had been differently
+occupied. Somehow or other--for she was marvellously active when she
+chose--she had scrambled on to the great table, and made her way to
+where our departed friend Twala was placed, under the drip, to see,
+suggested Good, how he was "pickling," or for some dark purpose of her
+own. Then, after bending down to kiss his icy lips as though in
+affectionate greeting, she hobbled back, stopping now and again to
+address the remark, the tenor of which I could not catch, to one or
+other of the shrouded forms, just as you or I might welcome an old
+acquaintance. Having gone through this mysterious and horrible
+ceremony, she squatted herself down on the table immediately under the
+White Death, and began, so far as I could make out, to offer up
+prayers. The spectacle of this wicked creature pouring out
+supplications, evil ones no doubt, to the arch enemy of mankind, was
+so uncanny that it caused us to hasten our inspection.
+
+"Now, Gagool," said I, in a low voice--somehow one did not dare to
+speak above a whisper in that place--"lead us to the chamber."
+
+The old witch promptly scrambled down from the table.
+
+"My lords are not afraid?" she said, leering up into my face.
+
+"Lead on."
+
+"Good, my lords;" and she hobbled round to the back of the great
+Death. "Here is the chamber; let my lords light the lamp, and enter,"
+and she placed the gourd full of oil upon the floor, and leaned
+herself against the side of the cave. I took out a match, of which we
+had still a few in a box, and lit a rush wick, and then looked for the
+doorway, but there was nothing before us except the solid rock. Gagool
+grinned. "The way is there, my lords. /Ha! ha! ha!/"
+
+"Do not jest with us," I said sternly.
+
+"I jest not, my lords. See!" and she pointed at the rock.
+
+As she did so, on holding up the lamp we perceived that a mass of
+stone was rising slowly from the floor and vanishing into the rock
+above, where doubtless there is a cavity prepared to receive it. The
+mass was of the width of a good-sized door, about ten feet high and
+not less than five feet thick. It must have weighed at least twenty or
+thirty tons, and was clearly moved upon some simple balance principle
+of counter-weights, probably the same as that by which the opening and
+shutting of an ordinary modern window is arranged. How the principle
+was set in motion, of course none of us saw; Gagool was careful to
+avoid this; but I have little doubt that there was some very simple
+lever, which was moved ever so little by pressure at a secret spot,
+thereby throwing additional weight on to the hidden counter-balances,
+and causing the monolith to be lifted from the ground.
+
+Very slowly and gently the great stone raised itself, till at last it
+had vanished altogether, and a dark hole presented itself to us in the
+place which the door had filled. 
+
+Our excitement was so intense, as we saw the way to Solomon's treasure
+chamber thrown open at last, that I for one began to tremble and
+shake. Would it prove a hoax after all, I wondered, or was old Da
+Silvestra right? Were there vast hoards of wealth hidden in that dark
+place, hoards which would make us the richest men in the whole world?
+We should know in a minute or two.
+
+"Enter, white men from the Stars," said Gagool, advancing into the
+doorway; "but first hear your servant, Gagool the old. The bright
+stones that ye will see were dug out of the pit over which the Silent
+Ones are set, and stored here, I know not by whom, for that was done
+longer ago than even I remember. But once has this place been entered
+since the time that those who hid the stones departed in haste,
+leaving them behind. The report of the treasure went down indeed among
+the people who lived in the country from age to age, but none knew
+where the chamber was, nor the secret of the door. But it happened
+that a white man reached this country from over the mountains--
+perchance he too came 'from the Stars'--and was well received by the
+king of that day. He it is who sits yonder," and she pointed to the
+fifth king at the table of the Dead. "And it came to pass that he and
+a woman of the country who was with him journeyed to this place, and
+that by chance the woman learnt the secret of the door--a thousand
+years might ye search, but ye should never find that secret. Then the
+white man entered with the woman, and found the stones, and filled
+with stones the skin of a small goat, which the woman had with her to
+hold food. And as he was going from the chamber he took up one more
+stone, a large one, and held it in his hand."
+
+Here she paused.
+
+"Well," I asked, breathless with interest as we all were, "what
+happened to Da Silvestra?"
+
+The old hag started at the mention of the name.
+
+"How knowest thou the dead man's name?" she asked sharply; and then,
+without waiting for an answer, went on--
+
+"None can tell what happened; but it came about that the white man was
+frightened, for he flung down the goat-skin, with the stones, and fled
+out with only the one stone in his hand, and that the king took, and
+it is the stone which thou, Macumazahn, didst take from Twala's brow."
+
+"Have none entered here since?" I asked, peering again down the dark
+passage.
+
+"None, my lords. Only the secret of the door has been kept, and every
+king has opened it, though he has not entered. There is a saying, that
+those who enter there will die within a moon, even as the white man
+died in the cave upon the mountain, where ye found him, Macumazahn,
+and therefore the kings do not enter. /Ha! ha!/ mine are true words."
+
+Our eyes met as she said it, and I turned sick and cold. How did the
+old hag know all these things?
+
+"Enter, my lords. If I speak truth, the goat-skin with the stones will
+lie upon the floor; and if there is truth as to whether it is death to
+enter here, that ye will learn afterwards. /Ha! ha! ha!/" and she
+hobbled through the doorway, bearing the light with her; but I confess 
+that once more I hesitated about following.
+
+"Oh, confound it all!" said Good; "here goes. I am not going to be
+frightened by that old devil;" and followed by Foulata, who, however,
+evidently did not at all like the business, for she was shivering with
+fear, he plunged into the passage after Gagool--an example which we
+quickly followed.
+
+A few yards down the passage, in the narrow way hewn out of the living
+rock, Gagool had paused, and was waiting for us.
+
+"See, my lords," she said, holding the light before her, "those who
+stored the treasure here fled in haste, and bethought them to guard
+against any who should find the secret of the door, but had not the
+time," and she pointed to large square blocks of stone, which, to the
+height of two courses (about two feet three), had been placed across
+the passage with a view to walling it up. Along the side of the
+passage were similar blocks ready for use, and, most curious of all, a
+heap of mortar and a couple of trowels, which tools, so far as we had
+time to examine them, appeared to be of a similar shape and make to
+those used by workmen to this day.
+
+Here Foulata, who had been in a state of great fear and agitation
+throughout, said that she felt faint and could go no farther, but
+would wait there. Accordingly we set her down on the unfinished wall,
+placing the basket of provisions by her side, and left her to recover.
+
+Following the passage for about fifteen paces farther, we came
+suddenly to an elaborately painted wooden door. It was standing wide
+open. Whoever was last there had either not found the time to shut it,
+or had forgotten to do so.
+
+/Across the threshold of this door lay a skin bag, formed of a goat-
+skin, that appeared to be full of pebbles./
+
+"/Hee! hee!/ white men," sniggered Gagool, as the light from the lamp
+fell upon it. "What did I tell you, that the white man who came here
+fled in haste, and dropped the woman's bag--behold it! Look within
+also and ye will find a water-gourd amongst the stones."
+
+Good stooped down and lifted it. It was heavy and jingled.
+
+"By Jove! I believe it's full of diamonds," he said, in an awed
+whisper; and, indeed, the idea of a small goat-skin full of diamonds
+is enough to awe anybody.
+
+"Go on," said Sir Henry impatiently. "Here, old lady, give me the
+lamp," and taking it from Gagool's hand, he stepped through the
+doorway and held it high above his head.
+
+We pressed in after him, forgetful for the moment of the bag of
+diamonds, and found ourselves in King Solomon's treasure chamber.
+
+At first, all that the somewhat faint light given by the lamp revealed
+was a room hewn out of the living rock, and apparently not more than
+ten feet square. Next there came into sight, stored one on the other
+to the arch of the roof, a splendid collection of elephant-tusks. How
+many of them there were we did not know, for of course we could not
+see to what depth they went back, but there could not have been less
+than the ends of four or five hundred tusks of the first quality
+visible to our eyes. There, alone, was enough ivory to make a man
+wealthy for life. Perhaps, I thought, it was from this very store that
+Solomon drew the raw material for his "great throne of ivory," of
+which "there was not the like made in any kingdom."
+
+On the opposite side of the chamber were about a score of wooden
+boxes, something like Martini-Henry ammunition boxes, only rather
+larger, and painted red.
+
+"There are the diamonds," cried I; "bring the light."
+
+Sir Henry did so, holding it close to the top box, of which the lid,
+rendered rotten by time even in that dry place, appeared to have been
+smashed in, probably by Da Silvestra himself. Pushing my hand through
+the hole in the lid I drew it out full, not of diamonds, but of gold
+pieces, of a shape that none of us had seen before, and with what
+looked like Hebrew characters stamped upon them.
+
+"Ah!" I said, replacing the coin, "we shan't go back empty-handed,
+anyhow. There must be a couple of thousand pieces in each box, and
+there are eighteen boxes. I suppose this was the money to pay the
+workmen and merchants."
+
+"Well," put in Good, "I think that is the lot; I don't see any
+diamonds, unless the old Portuguese put them all into his bag."
+
+"Let my lords look yonder where it is darkest, if they would find the
+stones," said Gagool, interpreting our looks. "There my lords will
+find a nook, and three stone chests in the nook, two sealed and one
+open."
+
+Before translating this to Sir Henry, who carried the light, I could
+not resist asking how she knew these things, if no one had entered the
+place since the white man, generations ago.
+
+"Ah, Macumazahn, the watcher by night," was the mocking answer, "ye
+who dwell in the stars, do ye not know that some live long, and that
+some have eyes which can see through rock? /Ha! ha! ha!/"
+
+"Look in that corner, Curtis," I said, indicating the spot Gagool had
+pointed out.
+
+"Hullo, you fellows," he cried, "here's a recess. Great heavens! see
+here."
+
+We hurried up to where he was standing in a nook, shaped something
+like a small bow window. Against the wall of this recess were placed
+three stone chests, each about two feet square. Two were fitted with
+stone lids, the lid of the third rested against the side of the chest,
+which was open.
+
+"/See!/" he repeated hoarsely, holding the lamp over the open chest.
+We looked, and for a moment could make nothing out, on account of a
+silvery sheen which dazzled us. When our eyes grew used to it we saw
+that the chest was three-parts full of uncut diamonds, most of them of
+considerable size. Stooping, I picked some up. Yes, there was no doubt
+of it, there was the unmistakable soapy feel about them.
+
+I fairly gasped as I dropped them.
+
+"We are the richest men in the whole world," I said. "Monte Christo
+was a fool to us."
+
+"We shall flood the market with diamonds," said Good.
+
+"Got to get them there first," suggested Sir Henry.
+
+We stood still with pale faces and stared at each other, the lantern
+in the middle and the glimmering gems below, as though we were
+conspirators about to commit a crime, instead of being, as we thought,
+the most fortunate men on earth.
+
+"/Hee! hee! hee!/" cackled old Gagool behind us, as she flitted about
+like a vampire bat. "There are the bright stones ye love, white men,
+as many as ye will; take them, run them through your fingers, /eat/ of
+them, /hee! hee! drink/ of them, /ha! ha!/"
+
+At that moment there was something so ridiculous to my mind at the
+idea of eating and drinking diamonds, that I began to laugh
+outrageously, an example which the others followed, without knowing
+why. There we stood and shrieked with laughter over the gems that were
+ours, which had been found for /us/ thousands of years ago by the
+patient delvers in the great hole yonder, and stored for /us/ by
+Solomon's long-dead overseer, whose name, perchance, was written in
+the characters stamped on the faded wax that yet adhered to the lids
+of the chest. Solomon never got them, nor David, or Da Silvestra, nor
+anybody else. /We/ had got them: there before us were millions of
+pounds' worth of diamonds, and thousands of pounds' worth of gold and
+ivory only waiting to be taken away.
+
+Suddenly the fit passed off, and we stopped laughing.
+
+"Open the other chests, white men," croaked Gagool, "there are surely
+more therein. Take your fill, white lords! /Ha! ha!/ take your fill."
+
+Thus adjured, we set to work to pull up the stone lids on the other
+two, first--not without a feeling of sacrilege--breaking the seals
+that fastened them.
+
+Hoorah! they were full too, full to the brim; at least, the second one
+was; no wretched burglarious Da Silvestra had been filling goat-skins
+out of that. As for the third chest, it was only about a fourth full,
+but the stones were all picked ones; none less than twenty carats, and
+some of them as large as pigeon-eggs. A good many of these bigger
+ones, however, we could see by holding them up to the light, were a
+little yellow, "off coloured," as they call it at Kimberley.
+
+What we did /not/ see, however, was the look of fearful malevolence
+that old Gagool favoured us with as she crept, crept like a snake, out
+of the treasure chamber and down the passage towards the door of solid
+rock.
+
+*****
+
+Hark! Cry upon cry comes ringing up the vaulted path. It is Foulata's
+voice!
+
+"/Oh, Bougwan! help! help! the stone falls!/"
+
+"Leave go, girl! Then--"
+
+"/Help! help! she has stabbed me!/"
+
+By now we are running down the passage, and this is what the light
+from the lamp shows us. The door of the rock is closing down slowly;
+it is not three feet from the floor. Near it struggle Foulata and
+Gagool. The red blood of the former runs to her knee, but still the
+brave girl holds the old witch, who fights like a wild cat. Ah! she is
+free! Foulata falls, and Gagool throws herself on the ground, to twist
+like a snake through the crack of the closing stone. She is under--ah!
+god! too late! too late! The stone nips her, and she yells in agony.
+Down, down it comes, all the thirty tons of it, slowly pressing her
+old body against the rock below. Shriek upon shriek, such as we have
+never heard, then a long sickening /crunch/, and the door was shut
+just as, rushing down the passage, we hurled ourselves against it.
+
+It was all done in four seconds.
+
+Then we turned to Foulata. The poor girl was stabbed in the body, and
+I saw that she could not live long.
+
+"Ah! Bougwan, I die!" gasped the beautiful creature. "She crept out--
+Gagool; I did not see her, I was faint--and the door began to fall;
+then she came back, and was looking up the path--I saw her come in
+through the slowly falling door, and caught her and held her, and she
+stabbed me, and /I die/, Bougwan!"
+
+"Poor girl! poor girl!" Good cried in his distress; and then, as he
+could do nothing else, he fell to kissing her.
+
+"Bougwan," she said, after a pause, "is Macumazahn there? It grows so
+dark, I cannot see."
+
+"Here I am, Foulata."
+
+"Macumazahn, be my tongue for a moment, I pray thee, for Bougwan
+cannot understand me, and before I go into the darkness I would speak
+to him a word."
+
+"Say on, Foulata, I will render it."
+
+"Say to my lord, Bougwan, that--I love him, and that I am glad to die
+because I know that he cannot cumber his life with such as I am, for
+the sun may not mate with the darkness, nor the white with the black.
+
+"Say that, since I saw him, at times I have felt as though there were
+a bird in my bosom, which would one day fly hence and sing elsewhere.
+Even now, though I cannot lift my hand, and my brain grows cold, I do
+not feel as though my heart were dying; it is so full of love that it
+could live ten thousand years, and yet be young. Say that if I live
+again, mayhap I shall see him in the Stars, and that--I will search
+them all, though perchance there I should still be black and he would
+--still be white. Say--nay, Macumazahn, say no more, save that I love
+--Oh, hold me closer, Bougwan, I cannot feel thine arms--/oh! oh!/"
+
+"She is dead--she is dead!" muttered Good, rising in grief, the tears
+running down his honest face.
+
+"You need not let that trouble you, old fellow," said Sir Henry.
+
+"Eh!" exclaimed Good; "what do you mean?"
+
+"I mean that you will soon be in a position to join her. /Man, don't
+you see that we are buried alive?/"
+
+Until Sir Henry uttered these words I do not think that the full
+horror of what had happened had come home to us, preoccupied as we
+were with the sight of poor Foulata's end. But now we understood. The
+ponderous mass of rock had closed, probably for ever, for the only
+brain which knew its secret was crushed to powder beneath its weight.
+This was a door that none could hope to force with anything short of
+dynamite in large quantities. And we were on the wrong side!
+
+For a few minutes we stood horrified, there over the corpse of
+Foulata. All the manhood seemed to have gone out of us. The first
+shock of this idea of the slow and miserable end that awaited us was
+overpowering. We saw it all now; that fiend Gagool had planned this
+snare for us from the first.
+
+It would have been just the jest that her evil mind would have
+rejoiced in, the idea of the three white men, whom, for some reason of
+her own, she had always hated, slowly perishing of thirst and hunger
+in the company of the treasure they had coveted. Now I saw the point
+of that sneer of hers about eating and drinking the diamonds. Probably
+somebody had tried to serve the poor old Dom in the same way, when he
+abandoned the skin full of jewels.
+
+"This will never do," said Sir Henry hoarsely; "the lamp will soon go
+out. Let us see if we can't find the spring that works the rock."
+
+We sprang forward with desperate energy, and, standing in a bloody
+ooze, began to feel up and down the door and the sides of the passage.
+But no knob or spring could we discover.
+
+"Depend on it," I said, "it does not work from the inside; if it did
+Gagool would not have risked trying to crawl underneath the stone. It
+was the knowledge of this that made her try to escape at all hazards,
+curse her."
+
+"At all events," said Sir Henry, with a hard little laugh,
+"retribution was swift; hers was almost as awful an end as ours is
+likely to be. We can do nothing with the door; let us go back to the
+treasure room."
+
+We turned and went, and as we passed it I perceived by the unfinished
+wall across the passage the basket of food which poor Foulata had
+carried. I took it up, and brought it with me to the accursed treasure
+chamber that was to be our grave. Then we returned and reverently bore
+in Foulata's corpse, laying it on the floor by the boxes of coin.
+
+Next we seated ourselves, leaning our backs against the three stone
+chests which contained the priceless treasure.
+
+"Let us divide the food," said Sir Henry, "so as to make it last as
+long as possible." Accordingly we did so. It would, we reckoned, make
+four infinitesimally small meals for each of us, enough, say, to
+support life for a couple of days. Besides the "biltong," or dried
+game-flesh, there were two gourds of water, each of which held not
+more than a quart.
+
+"Now," said Sir Henry grimly, "let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we
+die."
+
+We each ate a small portion of the "biltong," and drank a sip of
+water. Needless to say, we had but little appetite, though we were
+sadly in need of food, and felt better after swallowing it. Then we
+got up and made a systematic examination of the walls of our prison-
+house, in the faint hope of finding some means of exit, sounding them
+and the floor carefully.
+
+There was none. It was not probable that there would be any to a
+treasure chamber.
+
+The lamp began to burn dim. The fat was nearly exhausted.
+
+"Quatermain," said Sir Henry, "what is the time--your watch goes?"
+
+I drew it out, and looked at it. It was six o'clock; we had entered
+the cave at eleven.
+
+"Infadoos will miss us," I suggested. "If we do not return to-night he
+will search for us in the morning, Curtis."
+
+"He may search in vain. He does not know the secret of the door, nor
+even where it is. No living person knew it yesterday, except Gagool.
+To-day no one knows it. Even if he found the door he could not break
+it down. All the Kukuana army could not break through five feet of
+living rock. My friends, I see nothing for it but to bow ourselves to
+the will of the Almighty. The search for treasure has brought many to
+a bad end; we shall go to swell their number."
+
+The lamp grew dimmer yet.
+
+Presently it flared up and showed the whole scene in strong relief,
+the great mass of white tusks, the boxes of gold, the corpse of the
+poor Foulata stretched before them, the goat-skin full of treasure,
+the dim glimmer of the diamonds, and the wild, wan faces of us three
+white men seated there awaiting death by starvation.
+
+
+
+Then the flame sank and expired.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+WE ABANDON HOPE
+
+I can give no adequate description of the horrors of the night which
+followed. Mercifully they were to some extent mitigated by sleep, for
+even in such a position as ours wearied nature will sometimes assert
+itself. But I, at any rate, found it impossible to sleep much. Putting
+aside the terrifying thought of our impending doom--for the bravest
+man on earth might well quail from such a fate as awaited us, and I
+never made any pretensions to be brave--the /silence/ itself was too
+great to allow of it. Reader, you may have lain awake at night and
+thought the quiet oppressive, but I say with confidence that you can
+have no idea what a vivid, tangible thing is perfect stillness. On the
+surface of the earth there is always some sound or motion, and though
+it may in itself be imperceptible, yet it deadens the sharp edge of
+absolute silence. But here there was none. We were buried in the
+bowels of a huge snow-clad peak. Thousands of feet above us the fresh
+air rushed over the white snow, but no sound of it reached us. We were
+separated by a long tunnel and five feet of rock even from the awful
+chamber of the Dead; and the dead make no noise. Did we not know it
+who lay by poor Foulata's side? The crashing of all the artillery of
+earth and heaven could not have come to our ears in our living tomb.
+We were cut off from every echo of the world--we were as men already
+in the grave.
+
+Then the irony of the situation forced itself upon me. There around us
+lay treasures enough to pay off a moderate national debt, or to build
+a fleet of ironclads, and yet we would have bartered them all gladly
+for the faintest chance of escape. Soon, doubtless, we should be
+rejoiced to exchange them for a bit of food or a cup of water, and,
+after that, even for the privilege of a speedy close to our
+sufferings. Truly wealth, which men spend their lives in acquiring, is
+a valueless thing at the last.
+
+And so the night wore on.
+
+"Good," said Sir Henry's voice at last, and it sounded awful in the
+intense stillness, "how many matches have you in the box?"
+
+"Eight, Curtis."
+
+"Strike one and let us see the time."
+
+He did so, and in contrast to the dense darkness the flame nearly
+blinded us. It was five o'clock by my watch. The beautiful dawn was
+now blushing on the snow-wreaths far over our heads, and the breeze
+would be stirring the night mists in the hollows.
+
+"We had better eat something and keep up our strength," I suggested.
+
+"What is the good of eating?" answered Good; "the sooner we die and
+get it over the better."
+
+"While there is life there is hope," said Sir Henry.
+
+Accordingly we ate and sipped some water, and another period of time
+elapsed. Then Sir Henry suggested that it might be well to get as near
+the door as possible and halloa, on the faint chance of somebody
+catching a sound outside. Accordingly Good, who, from long practice at
+sea, has a fine piercing note, groped his way down the passage and set
+to work. I must say that he made a most diabolical noise. I never
+heard such yells; but it might have been a mosquito buzzing for all
+the effect they produced.
+
+After a while he gave it up and came back very thirsty, and had to
+drink. Then we stopped yelling, as it encroached on the supply of
+water.
+
+So we sat down once more against the chests of useless diamonds in
+that dreadful inaction which was one of the hardest circumstances of
+our fate; and I am bound to say that, for my part, I gave way in
+despair. Laying my head against Sir Henry's broad shoulder I burst
+into tears; and I think that I heard Good gulping away on the other
+side, and swearing hoarsely at himself for doing so.
+
+Ah, how good and brave that great man was! Had we been two frightened
+children, and he our nurse, he could not have treated us more
+tenderly. Forgetting his own share of miseries, he did all he could to
+soothe our broken nerves, telling stories of men who had been in
+somewhat similar circumstances, and miraculously escaped; and when
+these failed to cheer us, pointing out how, after all, it was only
+anticipating an end which must come to us all, that it would soon be
+over, and that death from exhaustion was a merciful one (which is not
+true). Then, in a diffident sort of way, as once before I had heard
+him do, he suggested that we should throw ourselves on the mercy of a
+higher Power, which for my part I did with great vigour.
+
+His is a beautiful character, very quiet, but very strong.
+
+And so somehow the day went as the night had gone, if, indeed, one can
+use these terms where all was densest night, and when I lit a match to
+see the time it was seven o'clock.
+
+Once more we ate and drank, and as we did so an idea occurred to me.
+
+"How is it," said I, "that the air in this place keeps fresh? It is
+thick and heavy, but it is perfectly fresh."
+
+"Great heavens!" said Good, starting up, "I never thought of that. It
+can't come through the stone door, for it's air-tight, if ever a door
+was. It must come from somewhere. It there were no current of air in
+the place we should have been stifled or poisoned when we first came
+in. Let us have a look."
+
+It was wonderful what a change this mere spark of hope wrought in us.
+In a moment we were all three groping about on our hands and knees,
+feeling for the slightest indication of a draught. Presently my ardour
+received a check. I put my hand on something cold. It was dead
+Foulata's face.
+
+For an hour or more we went on feeling about, till at last Sir Henry
+and I gave it up in despair, having been considerably hurt by
+constantly knocking our heads against tusks, chests, and the sides of
+the chamber. But Good still persevered, saying, with an approach to
+cheerfulness, that it was better than doing nothing.
+
+"I say, you fellows," he said presently, in a constrained sort of
+voice, "come here."
+
+Needless to say we scrambled towards him quickly enough.
+
+"Quatermain, put your hand here where mine is. Now, do you feel
+anything?"
+
+"I /think/ I feel air coming up."
+
+"Now listen." He rose and stamped upon the place, and a flame of hope
+shot up in our hearts. /It rang hollow./
+
+With trembling hands I lit a match. I had only three left, and we saw
+that we were in the angle of the far corner of the chamber, a fact
+that accounted for our not having noticed the hollow sound of the
+place during our former exhaustive examination. As the match burnt we
+scrutinised the spot. There was a join in the solid rock floor, and,
+great heavens! there, let in level with the rock, was a stone ring. We
+said no word, we were too excited, and our hearts beat too wildly with
+hope to allow us to speak. Good had a knife, at the back of which was
+one of those hooks that are made to extract stones from horses' hoofs.
+He opened it, and scratched round the ring with it. Finally he worked
+it under, and levered away gently for fear of breaking the hook. The
+ring began to move. Being of stone it had not rusted fast in all the
+centuries it had lain there, as would have been the case had it been
+of iron. Presently it was upright. Then he thrust his hands into it
+and tugged with all his force, but nothing budged.
+
+"Let me try," I said impatiently, for the situation of the stone,
+right in the angle of the corner, was such that it was impossible for
+two to pull at once. I took hold and strained away, but no results.
+
+Then Sir Henry tried and failed.
+
+Taking the hook again, Good scratched all round the crack where we
+felt the air coming up.
+
+"Now, Curtis," he said, "tackle on, and put your back into it; you are
+as strong as two. Stop," and he took off a stout black silk
+handkerchief, which, true to his habits of neatness, he still wore,
+and ran it through the ring. "Quatermain, get Curtis round the middle
+and pull for dear life when I give the word. /Now./"
+
+Sir Henry put out all his enormous strength, and Good and I did the
+same, with such power as nature had given us.
+
+"Heave! heave! it's giving," gasped Sir Henry; and I heard the muscles
+of his great back cracking. Suddenly there was a grating sound, then a
+rush of air, and we were all on our backs on the floor with a heavy
+flag-stone upon the top of us. Sir Henry's strength had done it, and
+never did muscular power stand a man in better stead.
+
+"Light a match, Quatermain," he said, so soon as we had picked
+ourselves up and got our breath; "carefully, now."
+
+I did so, and there before us, Heaven be praised! was the /first step
+of a stone stair./
+
+"Now what is to be done?" asked Good.
+
+"Follow the stair, of course, and trust to Providence."
+
+"Stop!" said Sir Henry; "Quatermain, get the bit of biltong and the
+water that are left; we may want them."
+
+I went, creeping back to our place by the chests for that purpose, and
+as I was coming away an idea struck me. We had not thought much of the
+diamonds for the last twenty-four hours or so; indeed, the very idea
+of diamonds was nauseous, seeing what they had entailed upon us; but,
+reflected I, I may as well pocket some in case we ever should get out
+of this ghastly hole. So I just put my fist into the first chest and
+filled all the available pockets of my old shooting-coat and trousers,
+topping up--this was a happy thought--with a few handfuls of big ones
+from the third chest. Also, by an afterthought, I stuffed Foulata's
+basket, which, except for one water-gourd and a little biltong, was
+empty now, with great quantities of the stones.
+
+"I say, you fellows," I sang out, "won't you take some diamonds with
+you? I've filled my pockets and the basket."
+
+"Oh, come on, Quatermain! and hang the diamonds!" said Sir Henry. "I
+hope that I may never see another."
+
+As for Good, he made no answer. He was, I think, taking his last
+farewell of all that was left of the poor girl who had loved him so
+well. And curious as it may seem to you, my reader, sitting at home at
+ease and reflecting on the vast, indeed the immeasurable, wealth which
+we were thus abandoning, I can assure you that if you had passed some
+twenty-eight hours with next to nothing to eat and drink in that
+place, you would not have cared to cumber yourself with diamonds
+whilst plunging down into the unknown bowels of the earth, in the wild
+hope of escape from an agonising death. If from the habits of a
+lifetime, it had not become a sort of second nature with me never to
+leave anything worth having behind if there was the slightest chance
+of my being able to carry it away, I am sure that I should not have
+bothered to fill my pockets and that basket.
+
+"Come on, Quatermain," repeated Sir Henry, who was already standing on
+the first step of the stone stair. "Steady, I will go first."
+
+"Mind where you put your feet, there may be some awful hole
+underneath," I answered.
+
+"Much more likely to be another room," said Sir Henry, while he
+descended slowly, counting the steps as he went.
+
+When he got to "fifteen" he stopped. "Here's the bottom," he said.
+"Thank goodness! I think it's a passage. Follow me down."
+
+Good went next, and I came last, carrying the basket, and on reaching
+the bottom lit one of the two remaining matches. By its light we could
+just see that we were standing in a narrow tunnel, which ran right and
+left at right angles to the staircase we had descended. Before we
+could make out any more, the match burnt my fingers and went out. Then
+arose the delicate question of which way to go. Of course, it was
+impossible to know what the tunnel was, or where it led to, and yet to
+turn one way might lead us to safety, and the other to destruction. We
+were utterly perplexed, till suddenly it struck Good that when I had
+lit the match the draught of the passage blew the flame to the left.
+
+"Let us go against the draught," he said; "air draws inwards, not
+outwards."
+
+We took this suggestion, and feeling along the wall with our hands,
+whilst trying the ground before us at every step, we departed from
+that accursed treasure chamber on our terrible quest for life. If ever
+it should be entered again by living man, which I do not think
+probable, he will find tokens of our visit in the open chests of
+jewels, the empty lamp, and the white bones of poor Foulata.
+
+When we had groped our way for about a quarter of an hour along the
+passage, suddenly it took a sharp turn, or else was bisected by
+another, which we followed, only in course of time to be led into a
+third. And so it went on for some hours. We seemed to be in a stone
+labyrinth that led nowhere. What all these passages are, of course I
+cannot say, but we thought that they must be the ancient workings of a
+mine, of which the various shafts and adits travelled hither and
+thither as the ore led them. This is the only way in which we could
+account for such a multitude of galleries.
+
+At length we halted, thoroughly worn out with fatigue and with that
+hope deferred which maketh the heart sick, and ate up our poor
+remaining piece of biltong and drank our last sup of water, for our
+throats were like lime-kilns. It seemed to us that we had escaped
+Death in the darkness of the treasure chamber only to meet him in the
+darkness of the tunnels.
+
+As we stood, once more utterly depressed, I thought that I caught a
+sound, to which I called the attention of the others. It was very
+faint and very far off, but it /was/ a sound, a faint, murmuring
+sound, for the others heard it too, and no words can describe the
+blessedness of it after all those hours of utter, awful stillness.
+
+"By heaven! it's running water," said Good. "Come on."
+
+Off we started again in the direction from which the faint murmur
+seemed to come, groping our way as before along the rocky walls. I
+remember that I laid down the basket full of diamonds, wishing to be
+rid of its weight, but on second thoughts took it up again. One might
+as well die rich as poor, I reflected. As we went the sound became
+more and more audible, till at last it seemed quite loud in the quiet.
+On, yet on; now we could distinctly make out the unmistakable swirl of
+rushing water. And yet how could there be running water in the bowels
+of the earth? Now we were quite near it, and Good, who was leading,
+swore that he could smell it.
+
+"Go gently, Good," said Sir Henry, "we must be close." /Splash!/ and a
+cry from Good.
+
+He had fallen in.
+
+"Good! Good! where are you?" we shouted, in terrified distress. To our
+intense relief an answer came back in a choky voice.
+
+"All right; I've got hold of a rock. Strike a light to show me where
+you are."
+
+Hastily I lit the last remaining match. Its faint gleam discovered to
+us a dark mass of water running at our feet. How wide it was we could
+not see, but there, some way out, was the dark form of our companion
+hanging on to a projecting rock.
+
+"Stand clear to catch me," sung out Good. "I must swim for it."
+
+Then we heard a splash, and a great struggle. Another minute and he
+had grabbed at and caught Sir Henry's outstretched hand, and we had
+pulled him up high and dry into the tunnel.
+
+"My word!" he said, between his gasps, "that was touch and go. If I
+hadn't managed to catch that rock, and known how to swim, I should
+have been done. It runs like a mill-race, and I could feel no bottom."
+
+We dared not follow the banks of the subterranean river for fear lest
+we should fall into it again in the darkness. So after Good had rested
+a while, and we had drunk our fill of the water, which was sweet and
+fresh, and washed our faces, that needed it sadly, as well as we
+could, we started from the banks of this African Styx, and began to
+retrace our steps along the tunnel, Good dripping unpleasantly in
+front of us. At length we came to another gallery leading to our
+right.
+
+"We may as well take it," said Sir Henry wearily; "all roads are alike
+here; we can only go on till we drop."
+
+Slowly, for a long, long while, we stumbled, utterly exhausted, along
+this new tunnel, Sir Henry now leading the way. Again I thought of
+abandoning that basket, but did not.
+
+Suddenly he stopped, and we bumped up against him.
+
+"Look!" he whispered, "is my brain going, or is that light?"
+
+We stared with all our eyes, and there, yes, there, far ahead of us,
+was a faint, glimmering spot, no larger than a cottage window pane. It
+was so faint that I doubt if any eyes, except those which, like ours,
+had for days seen nothing but blackness, could have perceived it at
+all. 
+
+With a gasp of hope we pushed on. In five minutes there was no longer
+any doubt; it /was/ a patch of faint light. A minute more and a breath
+of real live air was fanning us. On we struggled. All at once the
+tunnel narrowed. Sir Henry went on his knees. Smaller yet it grew,
+till it was only the size of a large fox's earth--it was /earth/ now,
+mind you; the rock had ceased.
+
+A squeeze, a struggle, and Sir Henry was out, and so was Good, and so
+was I, dragging Foulata's basket after me; and there above us were the
+blessed stars, and in our nostrils was the sweet air. Then suddenly
+something gave, and we were all rolling over and over and over through
+grass and bushes and soft, wet soil.
+
+The basket caught in something and I stopped. Sitting up I halloed
+lustily. An answering shout came from below, where Sir Henry's wild
+career had been checked by some level ground. I scrambled to him, and
+found him unhurt, though breathless. Then we looked for Good. A little
+way off we discovered him also, hammed in a forked root. He was a good
+deal knocked about, but soon came to himself.
+
+We sat down together, there on the grass, and the revulsion of feeling
+was so great that really I think we cried with joy. We had escaped
+from that awful dungeon, which was so near to becoming our grave.
+Surely some merciful Power guided our footsteps to the jackal hole,
+for that is what it must have been, at the termination of the tunnel.
+And see, yonder on the mountains the dawn we had never thought to look
+upon again was blushing rosy red.
+
+Presently the grey light stole down the slopes, and we saw that we
+were at the bottom, or rather, nearly at the bottom, of the vast pit
+in front of the entrance to the cave. Now we could make out the dim
+forms of the three Colossi who sat upon its verge. Doubtless those
+awful passages, along which we had wandered the livelong night, had
+been originally in some way connected with the great diamond mine. As
+for the subterranean river in the bowels of the mountain, Heaven only
+knows what it is, or whence it flows, or whither it goes. I, for one,
+have no anxiety to trace its course.
+
+Lighter it grew, and lighter yet. We could see each other now, and
+such a spectacle as we presented I have never set eyes on before or
+since. Gaunt-cheeked, hollow-eyed wretches, smeared all over with dust
+and mud, bruised, bleeding, the long fear of imminent death yet
+written on our countenances, we were, indeed, a sight to frighten the
+daylight. And yet it is a solemn fact that Good's eye-glass was still
+fixed in Good's eye. I doubt whether he had ever taken it out at all.
+Neither the darkness, nor the plunge in the subterranean river, nor
+the roll down the slope, had been able to separate Good and his eye-
+glass.
+
+Presently we rose, fearing that our limbs would stiffen if we stopped
+there longer, and commenced with slow and painful steps to struggle up
+the sloping sides of the great pit. For an hour or more we toiled
+steadfastly up the blue clay, dragging ourselves on by the help of the
+roots and grasses with which it was clothed. But now I had no more
+thought of leaving the basket; indeed, nothing but death should have
+parted us.
+
+At last it was done, and we stood by the great road, on that side of
+the pit which is opposite to the Colossi.
+
+At the side of the road, a hundred yards off, a fire was burning in
+front of some huts, and round the fire were figures. We staggered
+towards them, supporting one another, and halting every few paces.
+Presently one of the figures rose, saw us and fell on to the ground,
+crying out for fear.
+
+"Infadoos, Infadoos! it is we, thy friends."
+
+He rose; he ran to us, staring wildly, and still shaking with fear.
+
+"Oh, my lords, my lords, it is indeed you come back from the dead!--
+come back from the dead!"
+
+And the old warrior flung himself down before us, and clasping Sir
+Henry's knees, he wept aloud for joy.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+IGNOSI'S FAREWELL
+
+Ten days from that eventful morning found us once more in our old
+quarters at Loo; and, strange to say, but little the worse for our
+terrible experience, except that my stubbly hair came out of the
+treasure cave about three shades greyer than it went in, and that Good
+never was quite the same after Foulata's death, which seemed to move
+him very greatly. I am bound to say, looking at the thing from the
+point of view of an oldish man of the world, that I consider her
+removal was a fortunate occurrence, since, otherwise, complications
+would have been sure to ensue. The poor creature was no ordinary
+native girl, but a person of great, I had almost said stately, beauty,
+and of considerable refinement of mind. But no amount of beauty or
+refinement could have made an entanglement between Good and herself a
+desirable occurrence; for, as she herself put it, "Can the sun mate
+with the darkness, or the white with the black?"
+
+I need hardly state that we never again penetrated into Solomon's
+treasure chamber. After we had recovered from our fatigues, a process
+which took us forty-eight hours, we descended into the great pit in
+the hope of finding the hole by which we had crept out of the
+mountain, but with no success. To begin with, rain had fallen, and
+obliterated our spoor; and what is more, the sides of the vast pit
+were full of ant-bear and other holes. It was impossible to say to
+which of these we owed our salvation. Also, on the day before we
+started back to Loo, we made a further examination of the wonders of
+the stalactite cave, and, drawn by a kind of restless feeling, even
+penetrated once more into the Chamber of the Dead. Passing beneath the
+spear of the White Death we gazed, with sensations which it would be
+quite impossible for me to describe, at the mass of rock that had shut
+us off from escape, thinking the while of priceless treasures beyond,
+of the mysterious old hag whose flattened fragments lay crushed
+beneath it, and of the fair girl of whose tomb it was the portal. I
+say gazed at the "rock," for, examine as we could, we could find no
+traces of the join of the sliding door; nor, indeed, could we hit upon
+the secret, now utterly lost, that worked it, though we tried for an
+hour or more. It is certainly a marvellous bit of mechanism,
+characteristic, in its massive and yet inscrutable simplicity, of the
+age which produced it; and I doubt if the world has such another to
+show.
+
+At last we gave it up in disgust; though, if the mass had suddenly
+risen before our eyes, I doubt if we should have screwed up courage to
+step over Gagool's mangled remains, and once more enter the treasure
+chamber, even in the sure and certain hope of unlimited diamonds. And
+yet I could have cried at the idea of leaving all that treasure, the
+biggest treasure probably that in the world's history has ever been
+accumulated in one spot. But there was no help for it. Only dynamite
+could force its way through five feet of solid rock.
+
+So we left it. Perhaps, in some remote unborn century, a more
+fortunate explorer may hit upon the "Open Sesame," and flood the world
+with gems. But, myself, I doubt it. Somehow, I seem to feel that the
+tens of millions of pounds' worth of jewels which lie in the three
+stone coffers will never shine round the neck of an earthly beauty.
+They and Foulata's bones will keep cold company till the end of all
+things.
+
+With a sigh of disappointment we made our way back, and next day
+started for Loo. And yet it was really very ungrateful of us to be
+disappointed; for, as the reader will remember, by a lucky thought, I
+had taken the precaution to fill the wide pockets of my old shooting
+coat and trousers with gems before we left our prison-house, also
+Foulata's basket, which held twice as many more, notwithstanding that
+the water bottle had occupied some of its space. A good many of these
+fell out in the course of our roll down the side of the pit, including
+several of the big ones, which I had crammed in on the top in my coat
+pockets. But, comparatively speaking, an enormous quantity still
+remained, including ninety-three large stones ranging from over two
+hundred to seventy carats in weight. My old shooting coat and the
+basket still held sufficient treasure to make us all, if not
+millionaires as the term is understood in America, at least
+exceedingly wealthy men, and yet to keep enough stones each to make
+the three finest sets of gems in Europe. So we had not done so badly.
+
+On arriving at Loo we were most cordially received by Ignosi, whom we
+found well, and busily engaged in consolidating his power, and
+reorganising the regiments which had suffered most in the great
+struggle with Twala.
+
+He listened with intense interest to our wonderful story; but when we
+told him of old Gagool's frightful end he grew thoughtful.
+
+"Come hither," he called, to a very old Induna or councillor, who was
+sitting with others in a circle round the king, but out of ear-shot.
+The ancient man rose, approached, saluted, and seated himself.
+
+"Thou art aged," said Ignosi.
+
+"Ay, my lord the king! Thy father's father and I were born on the same
+day."
+
+"Tell me, when thou wast little, didst thou know Gagaoola the witch
+doctress?"
+
+"Ay, my lord the king!"
+
+"How was she then--young, like thee?"
+
+"Not so, my lord the king! She was even as she is now and as she was
+in the days of my great grandfather before me; old and dried, very
+ugly, and full of wickedness."
+
+"She is no more; she is dead."
+
+"So, O king! then is an ancient curse taken from the land."
+
+"Go!"
+
+"/Koom!/ I go, Black Puppy, who tore out the old dog's throat.
+/Koom!/"
+
+"Ye see, my brothers," said Ignosi, "this was a strange woman, and I
+rejoice that she is dead. She would have let you die in the dark
+place, and mayhap afterwards she had found a way to slay me, as she
+found a way to slay my father, and set up Twala, whom her black heart
+loved, in his place. Now go on with the tale; surely there never was
+its like!"
+
+After I had narrated all the story of our escape, as we had agreed
+between ourselves that I should, I took the opportunity to address
+Ignosi as to our departure from Kukuanaland.
+
+"And now, Ignosi," I said, "the time has come for us to bid thee
+farewell, and start to see our own land once more. Behold, Ignosi,
+thou camest with us a servant, and now we leave thee a mighty king. If
+thou art grateful to us, remember to do even as thou didst promise: to
+rule justly, to respect the law, and to put none to death without a
+cause. So shalt thou prosper. To-morrow, at break of day, Ignosi, thou
+wilt give us an escort who shall lead us across the mountains. Is it
+not so, O king?"
+
+Ignosi covered his face with his hands for a while before answering.
+
+"My heart is sore," he said at last; "your words split my heart in
+twain. What have I done to you, Incubu, Macumazahn, and Bougwan, that
+ye should leave me desolate? Ye who stood by me in rebellion and in
+battle, will ye leave me in the day of peace and victory? What will ye
+--wives? Choose from among the maidens! A place to live in? Behold,
+the land is yours as far as ye can see. The white man's houses? Ye
+shall teach my people how to build them. Cattle for beef and milk?
+Every married man shall bring you an ox or a cow. Wild game to hunt?
+Does not the elephant walk through my forests, and the river-horse
+sleep in the reeds? Would ye make war? My Impis wait your word. If
+there is anything more which I can give, that will I give you."
+
+"Nay, Ignosi, we want none of these things," I answered; "we would
+seek our own place."
+
+"Now do I learn," said Ignosi bitterly, and with flashing eyes, "that
+ye love the bright stones more than me, your friend. Ye have the
+stones; now ye would go to Natal and across the moving black water and
+sell them, and be rich, as it is the desire of a white man's heart to
+be. Cursed for your sake be the white stones, and cursed he who seeks
+them. Death shall it be to him who sets foot in the place of Death to
+find them. I have spoken. White men, ye can go."
+
+I laid my hand upon his arm. "Ignosi," I said, "tell us, when thou
+didst wander in Zululand, and among the white people of Natal, did not
+thine heart turn to the land thy mother told thee of, thy native
+place, where thou didst see the light, and play when thou wast little,
+the land where thy place was?"
+
+"It was even so, Macumazahn."
+
+"In like manner, Ignosi, do our hearts turn to our land and to our own
+place."
+
+Then came a silence. When Ignosi broke it, it was in a different
+voice.
+
+"I do perceive that now as ever thy words are wise and full of
+reason, Macumazahn; that which flies in the air loves not to run along
+the ground; the white man loves not to live on the level of the black
+or to house among his kraals. Well, ye must go, and leave my heart
+sore, because ye will be as dead to me, since from where ye are no
+tidings can come to me.
+
+"But listen, and let all your brothers know my words. No other white
+man shall cross the mountains, even if any man live to come so far. I
+will see no traders with their guns and gin. My people shall fight
+with the spear, and drink water, like their forefathers before them. I
+will have no praying-men to put a fear of death into men's hearts, to
+stir them up against the law of the king, and make a path for the
+white folk who follow to run on. If a white man comes to my gates I
+will send him back; if a hundred come I will push them back; if armies
+come, I will make war on them with all my strength, and they shall not
+prevail against me. None shall ever seek for the shining stones: no,
+not an army, for if they come I will send a regiment and fill up the
+pit, and break down the white columns in the caves and choke them with
+rocks, so that none can reach even to that door of which ye speak, and
+whereof the way to move it is lost. But for you three, Incubu,
+Macumazahn, and Bougwan, the path is always open; for, behold, ye are
+dearer to me than aught that breathes.
+
+"And ye would go. Infadoos, my uncle, and my Induna, shall take you by
+the hand and guide you with a regiment. There is, as I have learned,
+another way across the mountains that he shall show you. Farewell, my
+brothers, brave white men. See me no more, for I have no heart to bear
+it. Behold! I make a decree, and it shall be published from the
+mountains to the mountains; your names, Incubu, Macumazahn, and
+Bougwan, shall be "/hlonipa/" even as the names of dead kings, and he
+who speaks them shall die.[*] So shall your memory be preserved in the
+land for ever.
+
+[*] This extraordinary and negative way of showing intense respect is
+    by no means unknown among African people, and the result is that
+    if, as is usual, the name in question has a significance, the
+    meaning must be expressed by an idiom or other word. In this way a
+    memory is preserved for generations, or until the new word utterly
+    supplants the old.
+
+"Go now, ere my eyes rain tears like a woman's. At times as ye look
+back down the path of life, or when ye are old and gather yourselves
+together to crouch before the fire, because for you the sun has no
+more heat, ye will think of how we stood shoulder to shoulder, in that
+great battle which thy wise words planned, Macumazahn; of how thou
+wast the point of the horn that galled Twala's flank, Bougwan; whilst
+thou stood in the ring of the Greys, Incubu, and men went down before
+thine axe like corn before a sickle; ay, and of how thou didst break
+that wild bull Twala's strength, and bring his pride to dust. Fare ye
+well for ever, Incubu, Macumazahn, and Bougwan, my lords and my
+friends."
+
+Ignosi rose and looked earnestly at us for a few seconds. Then he
+threw the corner of his karross over his head, so as to cover his face
+from us.
+
+We went in silence.
+
+
+
+Next day at dawn we left Loo, escorted by our old friend Infadoos, who
+was heart-broken at our departure, and by the regiment of Buffaloes.
+Early as was the hour, all the main street of the town was lined with
+multitudes of people, who gave us the royal salute as we passed at the
+head of the regiment, while the women blessed us for having rid the
+land of Twala, throwing flowers before us as we went. It was really
+very affecting, and not the sort of thing one is accustomed to meet
+with from natives.
+
+One ludicrous incident occurred, however, which I rather welcomed, as
+it gave us something to laugh at.
+
+Just before we reached the confines of the town, a pretty young girl,
+with some lovely lilies in her hand, ran forward and presented them to
+Good--somehow they all seemed to like Good; I think his eye-glass and
+solitary whisker gave him a fictitious value--and then said that she
+had a boon to ask.
+
+"Speak on," he answered.
+
+"Let my lord show his servant his beautiful white legs, that his
+servant may look upon them, and remember them all her days, and tell
+of them to her children; his servant has travelled four days' journey
+to see them, for the fame of them has gone throughout the land."
+
+"I'll be hanged if I do!" exclaimed Good excitedly.
+
+"Come, come, my dear fellow," said Sir Henry, "you can't refuse to
+oblige a lady."
+
+"I won't," replied Good obstinately; "it is positively indecent."
+
+However, in the end he consented to draw up his trousers to the knee,
+amidst notes of rapturous admiration from all the women present,
+especially the gratified young lady, and in this guise he had to walk
+till we got clear of the town.
+
+Good's legs, I fear, will never be so greatly admired again. Of his
+melting teeth, and even of his "transparent eye," the Kukuanas wearied
+more or less, but of his legs never.
+
+As we travelled, Infadoos told us that there was another pass over the
+mountains to the north of the one followed by Solomon's Great Road, or
+rather that there was a place where it was possible to climb down the
+wall of cliff which separates Kukuanaland from the desert, and is
+broken by the towering shapes of Sheba's Breasts. It appeared, also,
+that rather more than two years previously a party of Kukuana hunters
+had descended this path into the desert in search of ostriches, whose
+plumes are much prized among them for war head-dresses, and that in
+the course of their hunt they had been led far from the mountains and
+were much troubled by thirst. Seeing trees on the horizon, however,
+they walked towards them, and discovered a large and fertile oasis
+some miles in extent, and plentifully watered. It was by way of this
+oasis that Infadoos suggested we should return, and the idea seemed to
+us a good one, for it appeared that we should thus escape the rigours
+of the mountain pass. Also some of the hunters were in attendance to
+guide us to the oasis, from which, they stated, they could perceive
+other fertile spots far away in the desert.[*]
+
+[*] It often puzzled all of us to understand how it was possible that
+    Ignosi's mother, bearing the child with her, should have survived
+    the dangers of her journey across the mountains and the desert,
+    dangers which so nearly proved fatal to ourselves. It has since
+    occurred to me, and I give the idea to the reader for what it is
+    worth, that she must have taken this second route, and wandered
+    out like Hagar into the wilderness. If she did so, there is no
+    longer anything inexplicable about the story, since, as Ignosi
+    himself related, she may well have been picked up by some ostrich
+    hunters before she or the child was exhausted, was led by them to
+    the oasis, and thence by stages to the fertile country, and so on
+    by slow degrees southwards to Zululand.--A.Q.
+
+Travelling easily, on the night of the fourth day's journey we found
+ourselves once more on the crest of the mountains that separate
+Kukuanaland from the desert, which rolled away in sandy billows at our
+feet, and about twenty-five miles to the north of Sheba's Breasts.
+
+At dawn on the following day, we were led to the edge of a very
+precipitous chasm, by which we were to descend the precipice, and gain
+the plain two thousand and more feet below.
+
+Here we bade farewell to that true friend and sturdy old warrior,
+Infadoos, who solemnly wished all good upon us, and nearly wept with
+grief. "Never, my lords," he said, "shall mine old eyes see the like
+of you again. Ah! the way that Incubu cut his men down in the battle!
+Ah! for the sight of that stroke with which he swept off my brother
+Twala's head! It was beautiful--beautiful! I may never hope to see
+such another, except perchance in happy dreams."
+
+We were very sorry to part from him; indeed, Good was so moved that he
+gave him as a souvenir--what do you think?--an /eye-glass/; afterwards
+we discovered that it was a spare one. Infadoos was delighted,
+foreseeing that the possession of such an article would increase his
+prestige enormously, and after several vain attempts he actually
+succeeded in screwing it into his own eye. Anything more incongruous
+than the old warrior looked with an eye-glass I never saw. Eye-glasses
+do not go well with leopard-skin cloaks and black ostrich plumes.
+
+Then, after seeing that our guides were well laden with water and
+provisions, and having received a thundering farewell salute from the
+Buffaloes, we wrung Infadoos by the hand, and began our downward
+climb. A very arduous business it proved to be, but somehow that
+evening we found ourselves at the bottom without accident.
+
+"Do you know," said Sir Henry that night, as we sat by our fire and
+gazed up at the beetling cliffs above us, "I think that there are
+worse places than Kukuanaland in the world, and that I have known
+unhappier times than the last month or two, though I have never spent
+such queer ones. Eh! you fellows?"
+
+"I almost wish I were back," said Good, with a sigh.
+
+As for myself, I reflected that all's well that ends well; but in the
+course of a long life of shaves, I never had such shaves as those
+which I had recently experienced. The thought of that battle makes me
+feel cold all over, and as for our experience in the treasure
+chamber--!
+
+
+
+Next morning we started on a toilsome trudge across the desert, having
+with us a good supply of water carried by our five guides, and camped
+that night in the open, marching again at dawn on the morrow.
+
+By noon of the third day's journey we could see the trees of the oasis
+of which the guides spoke, and within an hour of sundown we were
+walking once more upon grass and listening to the sound of running
+water.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+FOUND
+
+And now I come to perhaps the strangest adventure that happened to us
+in all this strange business, and one which shows how wonderfully
+things are brought about.
+
+I was walking along quietly, some way in front of the other two, down
+the banks of the stream which runs from the oasis till it is swallowed
+up in the hungry desert sands, when suddenly I stopped and rubbed my
+eyes, as well I might. There, not twenty yards in front of me, placed
+in a charming situation, under the shade of a species of fig-tree, and
+facing to the stream, was a cosy hut, built more or less on the Kafir
+principle with grass and withes, but having a full-length door instead
+of a bee-hole.
+
+"What the dickens," said I to myself, "can a hut be doing here?" Even
+as I said it the door of the hut opened, and there limped out of it a
+/white man/ clothed in skins, and with an enormous black beard. I
+thought that I must have got a touch of the sun. It was impossible. No
+hunter ever came to such a place as this. Certainly no hunter would
+ever settle in it. I stared and stared, and so did the other man, and
+just at that juncture Sir Henry and Good walked up.
+
+"Look here, you fellows," I said, "is that a white man, or am I mad?"
+
+Sir Henry looked, and Good looked, and then all of a sudden the lame
+white man with a black beard uttered a great cry, and began hobbling
+towards us. When he was close he fell down in a sort of faint.
+
+With a spring Sir Henry was by his side.
+
+"Great Powers!" he cried, "/it is my brother George!/"
+
+At the sound of this disturbance, another figure, also clad in skins,
+emerged from the hut, a gun in his hand, and ran towards us. On seeing
+me he too gave a cry.
+
+"Macumazahn," he halloed, "don't you know me, Baas? I'm Jim the
+hunter. I lost the note you gave me to give to the Baas, and we have
+been here nearly two years." And the fellow fell at my feet, and
+rolled over and over, weeping for joy.
+
+"You careless scoundrel!" I said; "you ought to be well /sjambocked/"
+--that is, hided.
+
+Meanwhile the man with the black beard had recovered and risen, and he
+and Sir Henry were pump-handling away at each other, apparently
+without a word to say. But whatever they had quarrelled about in the
+past--I suspect it was a lady, though I never asked--it was evidently
+forgotten now.
+
+"My dear old fellow," burst out Sir Henry at last, "I thought you were
+dead. I have been over Solomon's Mountains to find you. I had given up
+all hope of ever seeing you again, and now I come across you perched
+in the desert, like an old /assvoegel/."[*]
+
+[*] Vulture.
+
+"I tried to cross Solomon's Mountains nearly two years ago," was the
+answer, spoken in the hesitating voice of a man who has had little
+recent opportunity of using his tongue, "but when I reached here a
+boulder fell on my leg and crushed it, and I have been able to go
+neither forward nor back."
+
+Then I came up. "How do you do, Mr. Neville?" I said; "do you remember
+me?"
+
+"Why," he said, "isn't it Hunter Quatermain, eh, and Good too? Hold on
+a minute, you fellows, I am getting dizzy again. It is all so very
+strange, and, when a man has ceased to hope, so very happy!"
+
+That evening, over the camp fire, George Curtis told us his story,
+which, in its way, was almost as eventful as our own, and, put
+shortly, amounted to this. A little less than two years before, he had
+started from Sitanda's Kraal, to try to reach Suliman's Berg. As for
+the note I had sent him by Jim, that worthy lost it, and he had never
+heard of it till to-day. But, acting upon information he had received
+from the natives, he headed not for Sheba's Breasts, but for the
+ladder-like descent of the mountains down which we had just come,
+which is clearly a better route than that marked out in old Dom
+Silvestra's plan. In the desert he and Jim had suffered great
+hardships, but finally they reached this oasis, where a terrible
+accident befell George Curtis. On the day of their arrival he was
+sitting by the stream, and Jim was extracting the honey from the nest
+of a stingless bee which is to be found in the desert, on the top of a
+bank immediately above him. In so doing he loosened a great boulder of
+rock, which fell upon George Curtis's right leg, crushing it
+frightfully. From that day he had been so lame that he found it
+impossible to go either forward or back, and had preferred to take the
+chances of dying in the oasis to the certainty of perishing in the
+desert.
+
+As for food, however, they got on pretty well, for they had a good
+supply of ammunition, and the oasis was frequented, especially at
+night, by large quantities of game, which came thither for water.
+These they shot, or trapped in pitfalls, using the flesh for food,
+and, after their clothes wore out, the hides for clothing.
+
+"And so," George Curtis ended, "we have lived for nearly two years,
+like a second Robinson Crusoe and his man Friday, hoping against hope
+that some natives might come here to help us away, but none have come.
+Only last night we settled that Jim should leave me, and try to reach
+Sitanda's Kraal to get assistance. He was to go to-morrow, but I had
+little hope of ever seeing him back again. And now /you/, of all
+people in the world, /you/, who, as I fancied, had long ago forgotten
+all about me, and were living comfortably in old England, turn up in a
+promiscuous way and find me where you least expected. It is the most
+wonderful thing that I have ever heard of, and the most merciful too."
+
+Then Sir Henry set to work, and told him the main facts of our
+adventures, sitting till late into the night to do it.
+
+"By Jove!" said George Curtis, when I showed him some of the diamonds:
+"well, at least you have got something for your pains, besides my
+worthless self."
+
+Sir Henry laughed. "They belong to Quatermain and Good. It was a part
+of the bargain that they should divide any spoils there might be."
+
+This remark set me thinking, and having spoken to Good, I told Sir
+Henry that it was our joint wish that he should take a third portion
+of the diamonds, or, if he would not, that his share should be handed
+to his brother, who had suffered even more than ourselves on the
+chance of getting them. Finally, we prevailed upon him to consent to
+this arrangement, but George Curtis did not know of it until some time
+afterwards.
+
+*****
+
+Here, at this point, I think that I shall end my history. Our journey
+across the desert back to Sitanda's Kraal was most arduous, especially
+as we had to support George Curtis, whose right leg was very weak
+indeed, and continually threw out splinters of bone. But we did
+accomplish it somehow, and to give its details would only be to
+reproduce much of what happened to us on the former occasion.
+
+Six months from the date of our re-arrival at Sitanda's, where we
+found our guns and other goods quite safe, though the old rascal in
+charge was much disgusted at our surviving to claim them, saw us all
+once more safe and sound at my little place on the Berea, near Durban,
+where I am now writing. Thence I bid farewell to all who have
+accompanied me through the strangest trip I ever made in the course of
+a long and varied experience.
+
+P.S.--Just as I had written the last word, a Kafir came up my avenue
+of orange trees, carrying a letter in a cleft stick, which he had
+brought from the post. It turned out to be from Sir Henry, and as it
+speaks for itself I give it in full.
+
+October 1, 1884.
+Brayley Hall, Yorkshire.
+
+  My Dear Quatermain,
+
+  I send you a line a few mails back to say that the three of us,
+  George, Good, and myself, fetched up all right in England. We got
+  off the boat at Southampton, and went up to town. You should have
+  seen what a swell Good turned out the very next day, beautifully
+  shaved, frock coat fitting like a glove, brand new eye-glass,
+  etc., etc. I went and walked in the park with him, where I met
+  some people I know, and at once told them the story of his
+  "beautiful white legs."
+
+  He is furious, especially as some ill-natured person has printed
+  it in a Society paper.
+
+  To come to business, Good and I took the diamonds to Streeter's to
+  be valued, as we arranged, and really I am afraid to tell you what
+  they put them at, it seems so enormous. They say that of course it
+  is more or less guess-work, as such stones have never to their
+  knowledge been put on the market in anything like such quantities.
+  It appears that (with the exception of one or two of the largest)
+  they are of the finest water, and equal in every way to the best
+  Brazilian stones. I asked them if they would buy them, but they
+  said that it was beyond their power to do so, and recommended us
+  to sell by degrees, over a period of years indeed, for fear lest
+  we should flood the market. They offer, however, a hundred and
+  eighty thousand for a very small portion of them.
+
+  You must come home, Quatermain, and see about these things,
+  especially if you insist upon making the magnificent present of
+  the third share, which does /not/ belong to me, to my brother
+  George. As for Good, he is /no good/. His time is too much
+  occupied in shaving, and other matters connected with the vain
+  adorning of the body. But I think he is still down on his luck
+  about Foulata. He told me that since he had been home he hadn't
+  seen a woman to touch her, either as regards her figure or the
+  sweetness of her expression.
+
+  I want you to come home, my dear old comrade, and to buy a house
+  near here. You have done your day's work, and have lots of money
+  now, and there is a place for sale quite close which would suit
+  you admirably. Do come; the sooner the better; you can finish
+  writing the story of our adventures on board ship. We have refused
+  to tell the tale till it is written by you, for fear lest we shall
+  not be believed. If you start on receipt of this you will reach
+  here by Christmas, and I book you to stay with me for that. Good
+  is coming, and George; and so, by the way, is your boy Harry
+  (there's a bribe for you). I have had him down for a week's
+  shooting, and like him. He is a cool young hand; he shot me in the
+  leg, cut out the pellets, and then remarked upon the advantages of
+  having a medical student with every shooting party!
+
+  Good-bye, old boy; I can't say any more, but I know that you will
+  come, if it is only to oblige
+
+Your sincere friend,
+Henry Curtis.
+
+  P.S.--The tusks of the great bull that killed poor Khiva have now
+  been put up in the hall here, over the pair of buffalo horns you
+  gave me, and look magnificent; and the axe with which I chopped
+  off Twala's head is fixed above my writing-table. I wish that we
+  could have managed to bring away the coats of chain armour. Don't
+  lose poor Foulata's basket in which you brought away the diamonds.
+H.C.
+
+To-day is Tuesday. There is a steamer going on Friday, and I really
+think that I must take Curtis at his word, and sail by her for
+England, if it is only to see you, Harry, my boy, and to look after
+the printing of this history, which is a task that I do not like to
+trust to anybody else.
+
+ALLAN QUATERMAIN.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of King Solomon's Mines, by Haggard
+
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of King Solomon's Mines, by Haggard
+#9 in our series by H. Rider Haggard
+
+We did two versions of Long Odds, one as an unnumbered story.
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+King Solomon's Mines
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+by H. Rider Haggard
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+May, 2000  [Etext #2166]
+[Date last updated: October 11, 2005]
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of King Solomon's Mines, by Haggard
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+Etext prepared by John Bickers, jbickers@ihug.co.nz
+and Dagny, dagnyj@hotmail.com
+
+
+
+KING SOLOMON'S MINES
+
+by H. RIDER HAGGARD
+
+
+
+DEDICATION
+
+This faithful but unpretending record
+of a remarkable adventure
+is hereby respectfully dedicated
+by the narrator,
+
+ALLAN QUATERMAIN,
+
+to all the big and little boys
+who read it.
+
+
+
+PREPARER'S NOTE
+
+  This was typed from a 1907 edition published by Cassell and
+  Company, Limited.
+
+
+
+AUTHOR'S NOTE
+
+  The author ventures to take this opportunity to thank his readers
+  for the kind reception they have accorded to the successive
+  editions of this tale during the last twelve years. He hopes that
+  in its present form it will fall into the hands of an even wider
+  public, and that in years to come it may continue to afford
+  amusement to those who are still young enough at heart to love a
+  story of treasure, war, and wild adventure.
+
+  Ditchingham,
+  11 March, 1898.
+
+
+
+POST SCRIPTUM
+
+  Now, in 1907, on the occasion of the issue of this edition, I can
+  only add how glad I am that my romance should continue to please
+  so many readers. Imagination has been verified by fact; the King
+  Solomon's Mines I dreamed of have been discovered, and are putting
+  out their gold once more, and, according to the latest reports,
+  their diamonds also; the Kukuanas or, rather, the Matabele, have
+  been tamed by the white man's bullets, but still there seem to be
+  many who find pleasure in these simple pages. That they may
+  continue so to do, even to the third and fourth generation, or
+  perhaps longer still, would, I am sure, be the hope of our old and
+  departed friend, Allan Quatermain.
+
+H. Rider Haggard.
+Ditchingham, 1907.
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+Now that this book is printed, and about to be given to the world, a
+sense of its shortcomings both in style and contents, weighs very
+heavily upon me. As regards the latter, I can only say that it does
+not pretend to be a full account of everything we did and saw. There
+are many things connected with our journey into Kukuanaland that I
+should have liked to dwell upon at length, which, as it is, have been
+scarcely alluded to. Amongst these are the curious legends which I
+collected about the chain armour that saved us from destruction in the
+great battle of Loo, and also about the "Silent Ones" or Colossi at
+the mouth of the stalactite cave. Again, if I had given way to my own
+impulses, I should have wished to go into the differences, some of
+which are to my mind very suggestive, between the Zulu and Kukuana
+dialects. Also a few pages might have been given up profitably to the
+consideration of the indigenous flora and fauna of Kukuanaland.[*]
+Then there remains the most interesting subject--that, as it is, has
+only been touched on incidentally--of the magnificent system of
+military organisation in force in that country, which, in my opinion,
+is much superior to that inaugurated by Chaka in Zululand, inasmuch as
+it permits of even more rapid mobilisation, and does not necessitate
+the employment of the pernicious system of enforced celibacy. Lastly,
+I have scarcely spoken of the domestic and family customs of the
+Kukuanas, many of which are exceedingly quaint, or of their
+proficiency in the art of smelting and welding metals. This science
+they carry to considerable perfection, of which a good example is to
+be seen in their "tollas," or heavy throwing knives, the backs of
+these weapons being made of hammered iron, and the edges of beautiful
+steel welded with great skill on to the iron frames. The fact of the
+matter is, I thought, with Sir Henry Curtis and Captain Good, that the
+best plan would be to tell my story in a plain, straightforward
+manner, and to leave these matters to be dealt with subsequently in
+whatever way ultimately may appear to be desirable. In the meanwhile I
+shall, of course, be delighted to give all information in my power to
+anybody interested in such things.
+
+[*] I discovered eight varieties of antelope, with which I was
+    previously totally unacquainted, and many new species of plants,
+    for the most part of the bulbous tribe.--A.Q.
+
+And now it only remains for me to offer apologies for my blunt way of
+writing. I can but say in excuse of it that I am more accustomed to
+handle a rifle than a pen, and cannot make any pretence to the grand
+literary flights and flourishes which I see in novels--for sometimes I
+like to read a novel. I suppose they--the flights and flourishes--are
+desirable, and I regret not being able to supply them; but at the same
+time I cannot help thinking that simple things are always the most
+impressive, and that books are easier to understand when they are
+written in plain language, though perhaps I have no right to set up an
+opinion on such a matter. "A sharp spear," runs the Kukuana saying,
+"needs no polish"; and on the same principle I venture to hope that a
+true story, however strange it may be, does not require to be decked
+out in fine words.
+
+Allan Quatermain.
+
+
+
+
+
+KING SOLOMON'S MINES
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+I MEET SIR HENRY CURTIS
+
+It is a curious thing that at my age--fifty-five last birthday--I
+should find myself taking up a pen to try to write a history. I wonder
+what sort of a history it will be when I have finished it, if ever I
+come to the end of the trip! I have done a good many things in my
+life, which seems a long one to me, owing to my having begun work so
+young, perhaps. At an age when other boys are at school I was earning
+my living as a trader in the old Colony. I have been trading, hunting,
+fighting, or mining ever since. And yet it is only eight months ago
+that I made my pile. It is a big pile now that I have got it--I don't
+yet know how big--but I do not think I would go through the last
+fifteen or sixteen months again for it; no, not if I knew that I
+should come out safe at the end, pile and all. But then I am a timid
+man, and dislike violence; moreover, I am almost sick of adventure. I
+wonder why I am going to write this book: it is not in my line. I am
+not a literary man, though very devoted to the Old Testament and also
+to the "Ingoldsby Legends." Let me try to set down my reasons, just to
+see if I have any.
+
+First reason: Because Sir Henry Curtis and Captain John Good asked me.
+
+Second reason: Because I am laid up here at Durban with the pain in my
+left leg. Ever since that confounded lion got hold of me I have been
+liable to this trouble, and being rather bad just now, it makes me
+limp more than ever. There must be some poison in a lion's teeth,
+otherwise how is it that when your wounds are healed they break out
+again, generally, mark you, at the same time of year that you got your
+mauling? It is a hard thing when one has shot sixty-five lions or
+more, as I have in the course of my life, that the sixty-sixth should
+chew your leg like a quid of tobacco. It breaks the routine of the
+thing, and putting other considerations aside, I am an orderly man and
+don't like that. This is by the way.
+
+Third reason: Because I want my boy Harry, who is over there at the
+hospital in London studying to become a doctor, to have something to
+amuse him and keep him out of mischief for a week or so. Hospital work
+must sometimes pall and grow rather dull, for even of cutting up dead
+bodies there may come satiety, and as this history will not be dull,
+whatever else it may be, it will put a little life into things for a
+day or two while Harry is reading of our adventures.
+
+Fourth reason and last: Because I am going to tell the strangest story
+that I remember. It may seem a queer thing to say, especially
+considering that there is no woman in it--except Foulata. Stop,
+though! there is Gagaoola, if she was a woman, and not a fiend. But
+she was a hundred at least, and therefore not marriageable, so I don't
+count her. At any rate, I can safely say that there is not a
+/petticoat/ in the whole history.
+
+Well, I had better come to the yoke. It is a stiff place, and I feel
+as though I were bogged up to the axle. But, "/sutjes, sutjes/," as
+the Boers say--I am sure I don't know how they spell it--softly does
+it. A strong team will come through at last, that is, if they are not
+too poor. You can never do anything with poor oxen. Now to make a
+start.
+
+I, Allan Quatermain, of Durban, Natal, Gentleman, make oath and say--
+That's how I headed my deposition before the magistrate about poor
+Khiva's and Ventv�gel's sad deaths; but somehow it doesn't seem quite
+the right way to begin a book. And, besides, am I a gentleman? What is
+a gentleman? I don't quite know, and yet I have had to do with niggers
+--no, I will scratch out that word "niggers," for I do not like it.
+I've known natives who /are/, and so you will say, Harry, my boy,
+before you have done with this tale, and I have known mean whites with
+lots of money and fresh out from home, too, who /are not/.
+
+At any rate, I was born a gentleman, though I have been nothing but a
+poor travelling trader and hunter all my life. Whether I have remained
+so I known not, you must judge of that. Heaven knows I've tried. I
+have killed many men in my time, yet I have never slain wantonly or
+stained my hand in innocent blood, but only in self-defence. The
+Almighty gave us our lives, and I suppose He meant us to defend them,
+at least I have always acted on that, and I hope it will not be
+brought up against me when my clock strikes. There, there, it is a
+cruel and a wicked world, and for a timid man I have been mixed up in
+a great deal of fighting. I cannot tell the rights of it, but at any
+rate I have never stolen, though once I cheated a Kafir out of a herd
+of cattle. But then he had done me a dirty turn, and it has troubled
+me ever since into the bargain.
+
+
+
+Well, it is eighteen months or so ago since first I met Sir Henry
+Curtis and Captain Good. It was in this way. I had been up elephant
+hunting beyond Bamangwato, and had met with bad luck. Everything went
+wrong that trip, and to top up with I got the fever badly. So soon as
+I was well enough I trekked down to the Diamond Fields, sold such
+ivory as I had, together with my wagon and oxen, discharged my
+hunters, and took the post-cart to the Cape. After spending a week in
+Cape Town, finding that they overcharged me at the hotel, and having
+seen everything there was to see, including the botanical gardens,
+which seem to me likely to confer a great benefit on the country, and
+the new Houses of Parliament, which I expect will do nothing of the
+sort, I determined to go back to Natal by the /Dunkeld/, then lying at
+the docks waiting for the /Edinburgh Castle/ due in from England. I
+took my berth and went aboard, and that afternoon the Natal passengers
+from the /Edinburgh Castle/ transhipped, and we weighed and put to
+sea.
+
+Among these passengers who came on board were two who excited my
+curiosity. One, a gentleman of about thirty, was perhaps the biggest-
+chested and longest-armed man I ever saw. He had yellow hair, a thick
+yellow beard, clear-cut features, and large grey eyes set deep in his
+head. I never saw a finer-looking man, and somehow he reminded me of
+an ancient Dane. Not that I know much of ancient Danes, though I knew
+a modern Dane who did me out of ten pounds; but I remember once seeing
+a picture of some of those gentry, who, I take it, were a kind of
+white Zulus. They were drinking out of big horns, and their long hair
+hung down their backs. As I looked at my friend standing there by the
+companion-ladder, I thought that if he only let his grow a little, put
+one of those chain shirts on to his great shoulders, and took hold of
+a battle-axe and a horn mug, he might have sat as a model for that
+picture. And by the way it is a curious thing, and just shows how the
+blood will out, I discovered afterwards that Sir Henry Curtis, for
+that was the big man's name, is of Danish blood.[*] He also reminded
+me strongly of somebody else, but at the time I could not remember who
+it was.
+
+[*] Mr. Quatermain's ideas about ancient Danes seem to be rather
+    confused; we have always understood that they were dark-haired
+    people. Probably he was thinking of Saxons.--Editor.
+
+The other man, who stood talking to Sir Henry, was stout and dark, and
+of quite a different cut. I suspected at once that he was a naval
+officer; I don't know why, but it is difficult to mistake a navy man.
+I have gone shooting trips with several of them in the course of my
+life, and they have always proved themselves the best and bravest and
+nicest fellows I ever met, though sadly given, some of them, to the
+use of profane language. I asked a page or two back, what is a
+gentleman? I'll answer the question now: A Royal Naval officer is, in
+a general sort of way, though of course there may be a black sheep
+among them here and there. I fancy it is just the wide seas and the
+breath of God's winds that wash their hearts and blow the bitterness
+out of their minds and make them what men ought to be.
+
+Well, to return, I proved right again; I ascertained that the dark man
+/was/ a naval officer, a lieutenant of thirty-one, who, after
+seventeen years' service, had been turned out of her Majesty's employ
+with the barren honour of a commander's rank, because it was
+impossible that he should be promoted. This is what people who serve
+the Queen have to expect: to be shot out into the cold world to find a
+living just when they are beginning really to understand their work,
+and to reach the prime of life. I suppose they don't mind it, but for
+my own part I had rather earn my bread as a hunter. One's halfpence
+are as scarce perhaps, but you do not get so many kicks.
+
+The officer's name I found out--by referring to the passengers' lists
+--was Good--Captain John Good. He was broad, of medium height, dark,
+stout, and rather a curious man to look at. He was so very neat and so
+very clean-shaved, and he always wore an eye-glass in his right eye.
+It seemed to grow there, for it had no string, and he never took it
+out except to wipe it. At first I thought he used to sleep in it, but
+afterwards I found that this was a mistake. He put it in his trousers
+pocket when he went to bed, together with his false teeth, of which he
+had two beautiful sets that, my own being none of the best, have often
+caused me to break the tenth commandment. But I am anticipating.
+
+Soon after we had got under way evening closed in, and brought with it
+very dirty weather. A keen breeze sprung up off land, and a kind of
+aggravated Scotch mist soon drove everybody from the deck. As for the
+/Dunkeld/, she is a flat-bottomed punt, and going up light as she was,
+she rolled very heavily. It almost seemed as though she would go right
+over, but she never did. It was quite impossible to walk about, so I
+stood near the engines where it was warm, and amused myself with
+watching the pendulum, which was fixed opposite to me, swinging slowly
+backwards and forwards as the vessel rolled, and marking the angle she
+touched at each lurch.
+
+"That pendulum's wrong; it is not properly weighted," suddenly said a
+somewhat testy voice at my shoulder. Looking round I saw the naval
+officer whom I had noticed when the passengers came aboard.
+
+"Indeed, now what makes you think so?" I asked.
+
+"Think so. I don't think at all. Why there"--as she righted herself
+after a roll--"if the ship had really rolled to the degree that thing
+pointed to, then she would never have rolled again, that's all. But it
+is just like these merchant skippers, they are always so confoundedly
+careless."
+
+Just then the dinner-bell rang, and I was not sorry, for it is a
+dreadful thing to have to listen to an officer of the Royal Navy when
+he gets on to that subject. I only know one worse thing, and that is
+to hear a merchant skipper express his candid opinion of officers of
+the Royal Navy.
+
+Captain Good and I went down to dinner together, and there we found
+Sir Henry Curtis already seated. He and Captain Good were placed
+together, and I sat opposite to them. The captain and I soon fell into
+talk about shooting and what not; he asking me many questions, for he
+is very inquisitive about all sorts of things, and I answering them as
+well as I could. Presently he got on to elephants.
+
+"Ah, sir," called out somebody who was sitting near me, "you've
+reached the right man for that; Hunter Quatermain should be able to
+tell you about elephants if anybody can."
+
+Sir Henry, who had been sitting quite quiet listening to our talk,
+started visibly.
+
+"Excuse me, sir," he said, leaning forward across the table, and
+speaking in a low deep voice, a very suitable voice, it seemed to me,
+to come out of those great lungs. "Excuse me, sir, but is your name
+Allan Quatermain?"
+
+I said that it was.
+
+The big man made no further remark, but I heard him mutter "fortunate"
+into his beard.
+
+Presently dinner came to an end, and as we were leaving the saloon Sir
+Henry strolled up and asked me if I would come into his cabin to smoke
+a pipe. I accepted, and he led the way to the /Dunkeld/ deck cabin,
+and a very good cabin it is. It had been two cabins, but when Sir
+Garnet Wolseley or one of those big swells went down the coast in the
+/Dunkeld/, they knocked away the partition and have never put it up
+again. There was a sofa in the cabin, and a little table in front of
+it. Sir Henry sent the steward for a bottle of whisky, and the three
+of us sat down and lit our pipes.
+
+"Mr. Quatermain," said Sir Henry Curtis, when the man had brought the
+whisky and lit the lamp, "the year before last about this time, you
+were, I believe, at a place called Bamangwato, to the north of the
+Transvaal."
+
+"I was," I answered, rather surprised that this gentleman should be so
+well acquainted with my movements, which were not, so far as I was
+aware, considered of general interest.
+
+"You were trading there, were you not?" put in Captain Good, in his
+quick way.
+
+"I was. I took up a wagon-load of goods, made a camp outside the
+settlement, and stopped till I had sold them."
+
+Sir Henry was sitting opposite to me in a Madeira chair, his arms
+leaning on the table. He now looked up, fixing his large grey eyes
+full upon my face. There was a curious anxiety in them, I thought.
+
+"Did you happen to meet a man called Neville there?"
+
+"Oh, yes; he outspanned alongside of me for a fortnight to rest his
+oxen before going on to the interior. I had a letter from a lawyer a
+few months back, asking me if I knew what had become of him, which I
+answered to the best of my ability at the time."
+
+"Yes," said Sir Henry, "your letter was forwarded to me. You said in
+it that the gentleman called Neville left Bamangwato at the beginning
+of May in a wagon with a driver, a voorlooper, and a Kafir hunter
+called Jim, announcing his intention of trekking if possible as far as
+Inyati, the extreme trading post in the Matabele country, where he
+would sell his wagon and proceed on foot. You also said that he did
+sell his wagon, for six months afterwards you saw the wagon in the
+possession of a Portuguese trader, who told you that he had bought it
+at Inyati from a white man whose name he had forgotten, and that he
+believed the white man with the native servant had started off for the
+interior on a shooting trip."
+
+"Yes."
+
+Then came a pause.
+
+"Mr. Quatermain," said Sir Henry suddenly, "I suppose you know or can
+guess nothing more of the reasons of my--of Mr. Neville's journey to
+the northward, or as to what point that journey was directed?"
+
+"I heard something," I answered, and stopped. The subject was one
+which I did not care to discuss.
+
+Sir Henry and Captain Good looked at each other, and Captain Good
+nodded.
+
+"Mr. Quatermain," went on the former, "I am going to tell you a story,
+and ask your advice, and perhaps your assistance. The agent who
+forwarded me your letter told me that I might rely on it implicitly,
+as you were," he said, "well known and universally respected in Natal,
+and especially noted for your discretion."
+
+I bowed and drank some whisky and water to hide my confusion, for I am
+a modest man--and Sir Henry went on.
+
+"Mr. Neville was my brother."
+
+"Oh," I said, starting, for now I knew of whom Sir Henry had reminded
+me when first I saw him. His brother was a much smaller man and had a
+dark beard, but now that I thought of it, he possessed eyes of the
+same shade of grey and with the same keen look in them: the features
+too were not unlike.
+
+"He was," went on Sir Henry, "my only and younger brother, and till
+five years ago I do not suppose that we were ever a month away from
+each other. But just about five years ago a misfortune befell us, as
+sometimes does happen in families. We quarrelled bitterly, and I
+behaved unjustly to my brother in my anger."
+
+Here Captain Good nodded his head vigorously to himself. The ship gave
+a big roll just then, so that the looking-glass, which was fixed
+opposite us to starboard, was for a moment nearly over our heads, and
+as I was sitting with my hands in my pockets and staring upwards, I
+could see him nodding like anything.
+
+"As I daresay you know," went on Sir Henry, "if a man dies intestate,
+and has no property but land, real property it is called in England,
+it all descends to his eldest son. It so happened that just at the
+time when we quarrelled our father died intestate. He had put off
+making his will until it was too late. The result was that my brother,
+who had not been brought up to any profession, was left without a
+penny. Of course it would have been my duty to provide for him, but at
+the time the quarrel between us was so bitter that I did not--to my
+shame I say it (and he sighed deeply)--offer to do anything. It was
+not that I grudged him justice, but I waited for him to make advances,
+and he made none. I am sorry to trouble you with all this, Mr.
+Quatermain, but I must to make things clear, eh, Good?"
+
+"Quite so, quite so," said the captain. "Mr. Quatermain will, I am
+sure, keep this history to himself."
+
+"Of course," said I, for I rather pride myself on my discretion, for
+which, as Sir Henry had heard, I have some repute.
+
+"Well," went on Sir Henry, "my brother had a few hundred pounds to his
+account at the time. Without saying anything to me he drew out this
+paltry sum, and, having adopted the name of Neville, started off for
+South Africa in the wild hope of making a fortune. This I learned
+afterwards. Some three years passed, and I heard nothing of my
+brother, though I wrote several times. Doubtless the letters never
+reached him. But as time went on I grew more and more troubled about
+him. I found out, Mr. Quatermain, that blood is thicker than water."
+
+"That's true," said I, thinking of my boy Harry.
+
+"I found out, Mr. Quatermain, that I would have given half my fortune
+to know that my brother George, the only relation I possess, was safe
+and well, and that I should see him again."
+
+"But you never did, Curtis," jerked out Captain Good, glancing at the
+big man's face.
+
+"Well, Mr. Quatermain, as time went on I became more and more anxious
+to find out if my brother was alive or dead, and if alive to get him
+home again. I set enquiries on foot, and your letter was one of the
+results. So far as it went it was satisfactory, for it showed that
+till lately George was alive, but it did not go far enough. So, to cut
+a long story short, I made up my mind to come out and look for him
+myself, and Captain Good was so kind as to come with me."
+
+"Yes," said the captain; "nothing else to do, you see. Turned out by
+my Lords of the Admiralty to starve on half pay. And now perhaps, sir,
+you will tell us what you know or have heard of the gentleman called
+Neville."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE LEGEND OF SOLOMON'S MINES
+
+"What was it that you heard about my brother's journey at Bamangwato?"
+asked Sir Henry, as I paused to fill my pipe before replying to
+Captain Good.
+
+"I heard this," I answered, "and I have never mentioned it to a soul
+till to-day. I heard that he was starting for Solomon's Mines."
+
+"Solomon's Mines?" ejaculated both my hearers at once. "Where are
+they?"
+
+"I don't know," I said; "I know where they are said to be. Once I saw
+the peaks of the mountains that border them, but there were a hundred
+and thirty miles of desert between me and them, and I am not aware
+that any white man ever got across it save one. But perhaps the best
+thing I can do is to tell you the legend of Solomon's Mines as I know
+it, you passing your word not to reveal anything I tell you without my
+permission. Do you agree to that? I have my reasons for asking."
+
+Sir Henry nodded, and Captain Good replied, "Certainly, certainly."
+
+"Well," I began, "as you may guess, generally speaking, elephant
+hunters are a rough set of men, who do not trouble themselves with
+much beyond the facts of life and the ways of Kafirs. But here and
+there you meet a man who takes the trouble to collect traditions from
+the natives, and tries to make out a little piece of the history of
+this dark land. It was such a man as this who first told me the legend
+of Solomon's Mines, now a matter of nearly thirty years ago. That was
+when I was on my first elephant hunt in the Matalebe country. His name
+was Evans, and he was killed the following year, poor fellow, by a
+wounded buffalo, and lies buried near the Zambesi Falls. I was telling
+Evans one night, I remember, of some wonderful workings I had found
+whilst hunting koodoo and eland in what is now the Lydenburg district
+of the Transvaal. I see they have come across these workings again
+lately in prospecting for gold, but I knew of them years ago. There is
+a great wide wagon road cut out of the solid rock, and leading to the
+mouth of the working or gallery. Inside the mouth of this gallery are
+stacks of gold quartz piled up ready for roasting, which shows that
+the workers, whoever they were, must have left in a hurry. Also, about
+twenty paces in, the gallery is built across, and a beautiful bit of
+masonry it is."
+
+"'Ay,' said Evans, 'but I will spin you a queerer yarn than that'; and
+he went on to tell me how he had found in the far interior a ruined
+city, which he believed to be the Ophir of the Bible, and, by the way,
+other more learned men have said the same long since poor Evans's
+time. I was, I remember, listening open-eared to all these wonders,
+for I was young at the time, and this story of an ancient civilisation
+and of the treasures which those old Jewish or Ph�nician adventurers
+used to extract from a country long since lapsed into the darkest
+barbarism took a great hold upon my imagination, when suddenly he said
+to me, 'Lad, did you ever hear of the Suliman Mountains up to the
+north-west of the Mushakulumbwe country?' I told him I never had. 'Ah,
+well,' he said, 'that is where Solomon really had his mines, his
+diamond mines, I mean.'
+
+"'How do you know that?' I asked.
+
+"'Know it! why, what is "Suliman" but a corruption of Solomon?[*]
+Besides, an old Isanusi or witch doctoress up in the Manica country
+told me all about it. She said that the people who lived across those
+mountains were a "branch" of the Zulus, speaking a dialect of Zulu,
+but finer and bigger men even; that there lived among them great
+wizards, who had learnt their art from white men when "all the world
+was dark," and who had the secret of a wonderful mine of "bright
+stones."'
+
+[*] Suliman is the Arabic form of Solomon.--Editor.
+
+"Well, I laughed at this story at the time, though it interested me,
+for the Diamond Fields were not discovered then, but poor Evans went
+off and was killed, and for twenty years I never thought any more of
+the matter. However, just twenty years afterwards--and that is a long
+time, gentlemen; an elephant hunter does not often live for twenty
+years at his business--I heard something more definite about Suliman's
+Mountains and the country which lies beyond them. I was up beyond the
+Manica country, at a place called Sitanda's Kraal, and a miserable
+place it was, for a man could get nothing to eat, and there was but
+little game about. I had an attack of fever, and was in a bad way
+generally, when one day a Portugee arrived with a single companion--a
+half-breed. Now I know your low-class Delagoa Portugee well. There is
+no greater devil unhung in a general way, battening as he does upon
+human agony and flesh in the shape of slaves. But this was quite a
+different type of man to the mean fellows whom I had been accustomed
+to meet; indeed, in appearance he reminded me more of the polite doms
+I have read about, for he was tall and thin, with large dark eyes and
+curling grey mustachios. We talked together for a while, for he could
+speak broken English, and I understood a little Portugee, and he told
+me that his name was Jos� Silvestre, and that he had a place near
+Delagoa Bay. When he went on next day with his half-breed companion,
+he said 'Good-bye,' taking off his hat quite in the old style.
+
+"'Good-bye, sen�r,' he said; 'if ever we meet again I shall be the
+richest man in the world, and I will remember you.' I laughed a little
+--I was too weak to laugh much--and watched him strike out for the
+great desert to the west, wondering if he was mad, or what he thought
+he was going to find there.
+
+"A week passed, and I got the better of my fever. One evening I was
+sitting on the ground in front of the little tent I had with me,
+chewing the last leg of a miserable fowl I had bought from a native
+for a bit of cloth worth twenty fowls, and staring at the hot red sun
+sinking down over the desert, when suddenly I saw a figure, apparently
+that of a European, for it wore a coat, on the slope of the rising
+ground opposite to me, about three hundred yards away. The figure
+crept along on its hands and knees, then it got up and staggered
+forward a few yards on its legs, only to fall and crawl again. Seeing
+that it must be somebody in distress, I sent one of my hunters to help
+him, and presently he arrived, and who do you suppose it turned out to
+be?"
+
+"Jos� Silvestre, of course," said Captain Good.
+
+"Yes, Jos� Silvestre, or rather his skeleton and a little skin. His
+face was a bright yellow with bilious fever, and his large dark eyes
+stood nearly out of his head, for all the flesh had gone. There was
+nothing but yellow parchment-like skin, white hair, and the gaunt
+bones sticking up beneath.
+
+"'Water! for the sake of Christ, water!' he moaned and I saw that his
+lips were cracked, and his tongue, which protruded between them, was
+swollen and blackish.
+
+"I gave him water with a little milk in it, and he drank it in great
+gulps, two quarts or so, without stopping. I would not let him have
+any more. Then the fever took him again, and he fell down and began to
+rave about Suliman's Mountains, and the diamonds, and the desert. I
+carried him into the tent and did what I could for him, which was
+little enough; but I saw how it must end. About eleven o'clock he grew
+quieter, and I lay down for a little rest and went to sleep. At dawn I
+woke again, and in the half light saw Silvestre sitting up, a strange,
+gaunt form, and gazing out towards the desert. Presently the first ray
+of the sun shot right across the wide plain before us till it reached
+the faraway crest of one of the tallest of the Suliman Mountains more
+than a hundred miles away.
+
+"'There it is!' cried the dying man in Portuguese, and pointing with
+his long, thin arm, 'but I shall never reach it, never. No one will
+ever reach it!'
+
+"Suddenly, he paused, and seemed to take a resolution. 'Friend,' he
+said, turning towards me, 'are you there? My eyes grow dark.'
+
+"'Yes,' I said; 'yes, lie down now, and rest.'
+
+"'Ay,' he answered, 'I shall rest soon, I have time to rest--all
+eternity. Listen, I am dying! You have been good to me. I will give
+you the writing. Perhaps you will get there if you can live to pass
+the desert, which has killed my poor servant and me.'
+
+"Then he groped in his shirt and brought out what I thought was a Boer
+tobacco pouch made of the skin of the Swart-vet-pens or sable
+antelope. It was fastened with a little strip of hide, what we call a
+rimpi, and this he tried to loose, but could not. He handed it to me.
+'Untie it,' he said. I did so, and extracted a bit of torn yellow
+linen on which something was written in rusty letters. Inside this rag
+was a paper.
+
+"Then he went on feebly, for he was growing weak: 'The paper has all
+that is on the linen. It took me years to read. Listen: my ancestor, a
+political refugee from Lisbon, and one of the first Portuguese who
+landed on these shores, wrote that when he was dying on those
+mountains which no white foot ever pressed before or since. His name
+was Jos� da Silvestra, and he lived three hundred years ago. His
+slave, who waited for him on this side of the mountains, found him
+dead, and brought the writing home to Delagoa. It has been in the
+family ever since, but none have cared to read it, till at last I did.
+And I have lost my life over it, but another may succeed, and become
+the richest man in the world--the richest man in the world. Only give
+it to no one, sen�r; go yourself!'
+
+"Then he began to wander again, and in an hour it was all over.
+
+"God rest him! he died very quietly, and I buried him deep, with big
+boulders on his breast; so I do not think that the jackals can have
+dug him up. And then I came away."
+
+"Ay, but the document?" said Sir Henry, in a tone of deep interest.
+
+"Yes, the document; what was in it?" added the captain.
+
+"Well, gentlemen, if you like I will tell you. I have never showed it
+to anybody yet except to a drunken old Portuguese trader who
+translated it for me, and had forgotten all about it by the next
+morning. The original rag is at my home in Durban, together with poor
+Dom Jos�'s translation, but I have the English rendering in my pocket-
+book, and a facsimile of the map, if it can be called a map. Here it
+is."
+
+[MAP OMITTED]
+
+  "I, Jos� da Silvestra, who am now dying of hunger in the little
+  cave here no snow is on the north side of the nipple of the
+  southernmost of the two mountains I have named Sheba's Breasts,
+  write this in the year 1590 with a cleft bone upon a remnant of my
+  raiment, my blood being the ink. If my slave should find it when
+  he comes, and should bring it to Delagoa, let my friend (name
+  illegible) bring the matter to the knowledge of the king, that he
+  may send an army which, if they live through the desert and the
+  mountains, and can overcome the brave Kukuanes and their devilish
+  arts, to which end many priests should be brought, will make him
+  the richest king since Solomon. With my own eyes I have seen the
+  countless diamonds stored in Solomon's treasure chamber behind the
+  white Death; but through the treachery of Gagool the witch-finder
+  I might bring nought away, scarcely my life. Let him who comes
+  follow the map, and climb the snow of Sheba's left breast till he
+  reaches the nipple, on the north side of which is the great road
+  Solomon made, from whence three days' journey to the King's
+  Palace. Let him kill Gagool. Pray for my soul. Farewell.
+
+Jos� da Silvestra."[*]
+
+[*] Eu Jos� da Silvestra que estou morrendo de fome n� pequena cova
+    onde n�o ha neve ao lado norte do bico mais ao sul das duas
+    montanhas que chamei scio de Sheba; escrevo isto no anno 1590;
+    escrevo isto com um peda�o d'�sso n' um farrapo de minha roupa e
+    com sangue meu por tinta; se o meu escravo d�r com isto quando
+    venha ao levar para Lourenzo Marquez, que o meu amigo ---------
+    leve a cousa ao conhecimento d' El Rei, para que possa mandar um
+    exercito que, se desfiler pelo deserto e pelas montonhas e mesmo
+    sobrepujar os bravos Kukuanes e suas artes diabolicas, pelo que se
+    deviam trazer muitos padres Far o Rei mais rico depois de Salom�o
+    Com meus proprios olhos v� os di amantes sem conto guardados nas
+    camaras do thesouro de Salom�o a traz da morte branca, mas pela
+    trai��o de Gagoal a feiticeira achadora, nada poderia levar, e
+    apenas a minha vida. Quem vier siga o mappa e trepe pela neve de
+    Sheba peito � esquerda at� chegar ao bica, do lado norte do qual
+    est� a grande estrada do Solom�o por elle feita, donde ha tres
+    dias de jornada at� ao Palacio do Rei. Mate Gagoal. Reze por minha
+    alma. Adeos.                                Jos� da Silvestra.
+
+When I had finished reading the above, and shown the copy of the map,
+drawn by the dying hand of the old Dom with his blood for ink, there
+followed a silence of astonishment.
+
+"Well," said Captain Good, "I have been round the world twice, and put
+in at most ports, but may I be hung for a mutineer if ever I heard a
+yarn like this out of a story book, or in it either, for the matter of
+that."
+
+"It's a queer tale, Mr. Quatermain," said Sir Henry. "I suppose you
+are not hoaxing us? It is, I know, sometimes thought allowable to take
+in a greenhorn."
+
+"If you think that, Sir Henry," I said, much put out, and pocketing my
+paper--for I do not like to be thought one of those silly fellows who
+consider it witty to tell lies, and who are for ever boasting to
+newcomers of extraordinary hunting adventures which never happened--
+"if you think that, why, there is an end to the matter," and I rose to
+go.
+
+Sir Henry laid his large hand upon my shoulder. "Sit down, Mr.
+Quatermain," he said, "I beg your pardon; I see very well you do not
+wish to deceive us, but the story sounded so strange that I could
+hardly believe it."
+
+"You shall see the original map and writing when we reach Durban," I
+answered, somewhat mollified, for really when I came to consider the
+question it was scarcely wonderful that he should doubt my good faith.
+
+"But," I went on, "I have not told you about your brother. I knew the
+man Jim who was with him. He was a Bechuana by birth, a good hunter,
+and for a native a very clever man. That morning on which Mr. Neville
+was starting I saw Jim standing by my wagon and cutting up tobacco on
+the disselboom.
+
+"'Jim,' said I, 'where are you off to this trip? It is elephants?'
+
+"'No, Baas,' he answered, 'we are after something worth much more than
+ivory.'
+
+"'And what might that be?' I said, for I was curious. 'Is it gold?'
+
+"'No, Baas, something worth more than gold,' and he grinned.
+
+"I asked no more questions, for I did not like to lower my dignity by
+seeming inquisitive, but I was puzzled. Presently Jim finished cutting
+his tobacco.
+
+"'Baas,' said he.
+
+"I took no notice.
+
+"'Baas,' said he again.
+
+"'Eh, boy, what is it?' I asked.
+
+"'Baas, we are going after diamonds.'
+
+"'Diamonds! why, then, you are steering in the wrong direction; you
+should head for the Fields.'
+
+"'Baas, have you ever heard of Suliman's Berg?'--that is, Solomon's
+Mountains, Sir Henry.
+
+"'Ay!'
+
+"'Have you ever heard of the diamonds there?'
+
+"'I have heard a foolish story, Jim.'
+
+"'It is no story, Baas. Once I knew a woman who came from there, and
+reached Natal with her child, she told me:--she is dead now.'
+
+"'Your master will feed the assv�gels'--that is, vultures--'Jim, if he
+tries to reach Suliman's country, and so will you if they can get any
+pickings off your worthless old carcass,' said I.
+
+"He grinned. 'Mayhap, Baas. Man must die; I'd rather like to try a new
+country myself; the elephants are getting worked out about here.'
+
+"'Ah! my boy,' I said, 'you wait till the "pale old man" gets a grip
+of your yellow throat, and then we shall hear what sort of a tune you
+sing.'
+
+"Half an hour after that I saw Neville's wagon move off. Presently Jim
+came back running. 'Good-bye, Baas,' he said. 'I didn't like to start
+without bidding you good-bye, for I daresay you are right, and that we
+shall never trek south again.'
+
+"'Is your master really going to Suliman's Berg, Jim, or are you
+lying?'
+
+"'No,' he answered, 'he is going. He told me he was bound to make his
+fortune somehow, or try to; so he might as well have a fling for the
+diamonds.'
+
+"'Oh!' I said; 'wait a bit, Jim; will you take a note to your master,
+Jim, and promise not to give it to him till you reach Inyati?' which
+was some hundred miles off.
+
+"'Yes, Baas.'
+
+"So I took a scrap of paper, and wrote on it, 'Let him who comes . . .
+climb the snow of Sheba's left breast, till he reaches the nipple, on
+the north side of which is Solomon's great road.'
+
+"'Now, Jim,' I said, 'when you give this to your master, tell him he
+had better follow the advice on it implicitly. You are not to give it
+to him now, because I don't want him back asking me questions which I
+won't answer. Now be off, you idle fellow, the wagon is nearly out of
+sight.'
+
+"Jim took the note and went, and that is all I know about your
+brother, Sir Henry; but I am much afraid--"
+
+"Mr. Quatermain," said Sir Henry, "I am going to look for my brother;
+I am going to trace him to Suliman's Mountains, and over them if
+necessary, till I find him, or until I know that he is dead. Will you
+come with me?"
+
+I am, as I think I have said, a cautious man, indeed a timid one, and
+this suggestion frightened me. It seemed to me that to undertake such
+a journey would be to go to certain death, and putting other
+considerations aside, as I had a son to support, I could not afford to
+die just then.
+
+"No, thank you, Sir Henry, I think I had rather not," I answered. "I
+am too old for wild-goose chases of that sort, and we should only end
+up like my poor friend Silvestre. I have a son dependent on me, so I
+cannot afford to risk my life foolishly."
+
+Both Sir Henry and Captain Good looked very disappointed.
+
+"Mr. Quatermain," said the former, "I am well off, and I am bent upon
+this business. You may put the remuneration for your services at
+whatever figure you like in reason, and it shall be paid over to you
+before we start. Moreover, I will arrange in the event of anything
+untoward happening to us or to you, that your son shall be suitably
+provided for. You will see from this offer how necessary I think your
+presence. Also if by chance we should reach this place, and find
+diamonds, they shall belong to you and Good equally. I do not want
+them. But of course that promise is worth nothing at all, though the
+same thing would apply to any ivory we might get. You may pretty well
+make your own terms with me, Mr. Quatermain; and of course I shall pay
+all expenses."
+
+"Sir Henry," said I, "this is the most liberal proposal I ever had,
+and one not to be sneezed at by a poor hunter and trader. But the job
+is the biggest I have come across, and I must take time to think it
+over. I will give you my answer before we get to Durban."
+
+"Very good," answered Sir Henry.
+
+Then I said good-night and turned in, and dreamt about poor long-dead
+Silvestre and the diamonds.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+UMBOPA ENTERS OUR SERVICE
+
+It takes from four to five days, according to the speed of the vessel
+and the state of the weather, to run up from the Cape to Durban.
+Sometimes, if the landing is bad at East London, where they have not
+yet made that wonderful harbour they talk so much of, and sink such a
+mint of money in, a ship is delayed for twenty-four hours before the
+cargo boats can get out to take off the goods. But on this occasion we
+had not to wait at all, for there were no breakers on the Bar to speak
+of, and the tugs came out at once with the long strings of ugly flat-
+bottomed boats behind them, into which the packages were bundled with
+a crash. It did not matter what they might be, over they went slap-
+bang; whether they contained china or woollen goods they met with the
+same treatment. I saw one case holding four dozen of champagne smashed
+all to bits, and there was the champagne fizzing and boiling about in
+the bottom of the dirty cargo boat. It was a wicked waste, and
+evidently so the Kafirs in the boat thought, for they found a couple
+of unbroken bottles, and knocking off the necks drank the contents.
+But they had not allowed for the expansion caused by the fizz in the
+wine, and, feeling themselves swelling, rolled about in the bottom of
+the boat, calling out that the good liquor was "tagati"--that is,
+bewitched. I spoke to them from the vessel, and told them it was the
+white man's strongest medicine, and that they were as good as dead
+men. Those Kafirs went to the shore in a very great fright, and I do
+not think that they will touch champagne again.
+
+Well, all the time that we were steaming up to Natal I was thinking
+over Sir Henry Curtis's offer. We did not speak any more on the
+subject for a day or two, though I told them many hunting yarns, all
+true ones. There is no need to tell lies about hunting, for so many
+curious things happen within the knowledge of a man whose business it
+is to hunt; but this is by the way.
+
+At last, one beautiful evening in January, which is our hottest month,
+we steamed past the coast of Natal, expecting to make Durban Point by
+sunset. It is a lovely coast all along from East London, with its red
+sandhills and wide sweeps of vivid green, dotted here and there with
+Kafir kraals, and bordered by a ribbon of white surf, which spouts up
+in pillars of foam where it hits the rocks. But just before you come
+to Durban there is a peculiar richness about the landscape. There are
+the sheer kloofs cut in the hills by the rushing rains of centuries,
+down which the rivers sparkle; there is the deepest green of the bush,
+growing as God planted it, and the other greens of the mealie gardens
+and the sugar patches, while now and again a white house, smiling out
+at the placid sea, puts a finish and gives an air of homeliness to the
+scene. For to my mind, however beautiful a view may be, it requires
+the presence of man to make it complete, but perhaps that is because I
+have lived so much in the wilderness, and therefore know the value of
+civilisation, though to be sure it drives away the game. The Garden of
+Eden, no doubt, looked fair before man was, but I always think that it
+must have been fairer when Eve adorned it.
+
+To return, we had miscalculated a little, and the sun was well down
+before we dropped anchor off the Point, and heard the gun which told
+the good folks of Durban that the English Mail was in. It was too late
+to think of getting over the Bar that night, so we went comfortably to
+dinner, after seeing the Mails carried off in the life-boat.
+
+When we came up again the moon was out, and shining so brightly over
+sea and shore that she almost paled the quick, large flashes from the
+lighthouse. From the shore floated sweet spicy odours that always
+remind me of hymns and missionaries, and in the windows of the houses
+on the Berea sparkled a hundred lights. From a large brig lying near
+also came the music of the sailors as they worked at getting the
+anchor up in order to be ready for the wind. Altogether it was a
+perfect night, such a night as you sometimes get in Southern Africa,
+and it threw a garment of peace over everybody as the moon threw a
+garment of silver over everything. Even the great bulldog, belonging
+to a sporting passenger, seemed to yield to its gentle influences, and
+forgetting his yearning to come to close quarters with the baboon in a
+cage on the foc'sle, snored happily at the door of the cabin, dreaming
+no doubt that he had finished him, and happy in his dream.
+
+We three--that is, Sir Henry Curtis, Captain Good, and myself--went
+and sat by the wheel, and were quiet for a while.
+
+"Well, Mr. Quatermain," said Sir Henry presently, "have you been
+thinking about my proposals?"
+
+"Ay," echoed Captain Good, "what do you think of them, Mr. Quatermain?
+I hope that you are going to give us the pleasure of your company so
+far as Solomon's Mines, or wherever the gentleman you knew as Neville
+may have got to."
+
+I rose and knocked out my pipe before I answered. I had not made up my
+mind, and wanted an additional moment to decide. Before the burning
+tobacco had fallen into the sea I had decided; just that little extra
+second did the trick. It is often the way when you have been bothering
+a long time over a thing.
+
+"Yes, gentlemen," I said, sitting down again, "I will go, and by your
+leave I will tell you why, and on what conditions. First for the terms
+which I ask.
+
+"1. You are to pay all expenses, and any ivory or other valuables we
+may get is to be divided between Captain Good and myself.
+
+"2. That you give me �500 for my services on the trip before we start,
+I undertaking to serve you faithfully till you choose to abandon the
+enterprise, or till we succeed, or disaster overtakes us.
+
+"3. That before we trek you execute a deed agreeing, in the event of
+my death or disablement, to pay my boy Harry, who is studying medicine
+over there in London, at Guy's Hospital, a sum of �200 a year for five
+years, by which time he ought to be able to earn a living for himself
+if he is worth his salt. That is all, I think, and I daresay you will
+say quite enough too."
+
+"No," answered Sir Henry, "I accept them gladly. I am bent upon this
+project, and would pay more than that for your help, considering the
+peculiar and exclusive knowledge which you possess."
+
+"Pity I did not ask it, then, but I won't go back on my word. And now
+that I have got my terms I will tell you my reasons for making up my
+mind to go. First of all, gentlemen, I have been observing you both
+for the last few days, and if you will not think me impertinent I may
+say that I like you, and believe that we shall come up well to the
+yoke together. That is something, let me tell you, when one has a long
+journey like this before one.
+
+"And now as to the journey itself, I tell you flatly, Sir Henry and
+Captain Good, that I do not think it probable we can come out of it
+alive, that is, if we attempt to cross the Suliman Mountains. What was
+the fate of the old Dom da Silvestra three hundred years ago? What was
+the fate of his descendant twenty years ago? What has been your
+brother's fate? I tell you frankly, gentlemen, that as their fates
+were so I believe ours will be."
+
+I paused to watch the effect of my words. Captain Good looked a little
+uncomfortable, but Sir Henry's face did not change. "We must take our
+chance," he said.
+
+"You may perhaps wonder," I went on, "why, if I think this, I, who am,
+as I told you, a timid man, should undertake such a journey. It is for
+two reasons. First I am a fatalist, and believe that my time is
+appointed to come quite without reference to my own movements and
+will, and that if I am to go to Suliman's Mountains to be killed, I
+shall go there and shall be killed. God Almighty, no doubt, knows His
+mind about me, so I need not trouble on that point. Secondly, I am a
+poor man. For nearly forty years I have hunted and traded, but I have
+never made more than a living. Well, gentlemen, I don't know if you
+are aware that the average life of an elephant hunter from the time he
+takes to the trade is between four and five years. So you see I have
+lived through about seven generations of my class, and I should think
+that my time cannot be far off, anyway. Now, if anything were to
+happen to me in the ordinary course of business, by the time my debts
+are paid there would be nothing left to support my son Harry whilst he
+was getting in the way of earning a living, whereas now he will be set
+up for five years. There is the whole affair in a nutshell."
+
+"Mr. Quatermain," said Sir Henry, who had been giving me his most
+serious attention, "your motives for undertaking an enterprise which
+you believe can only end in disaster reflect a great deal of credit on
+you. Whether or not you are right, of course time and the event alone
+can show. But whether you are right or wrong, I may as well tell you
+at once that I am going through with it to the end, sweet or bitter.
+If we are to be knocked on the head, all I have to say is, that I hope
+we get a little shooting first, eh, Good?"
+
+"Yes, yes," put in the captain. "We have all three of us been
+accustomed to face danger, and to hold our lives in our hands in
+various ways, so it is no good turning back now. And now I vote we go
+down to the saloon and take an observation just for luck, you know."
+And we did--through the bottom of a tumbler.
+
+Next day we went ashore, and I put up Sir Henry and Captain Good at
+the little shanty I have built on the Berea, and which I call my home.
+There are only three rooms and a kitchen in it, and it is constructed
+of green brick with a galvanised iron roof, but there is a good garden
+with the best loquot trees in it that I know, and some nice young
+mangoes, of which I hope great things. The curator of the botanical
+gardens gave them to me. It is looked after by an old hunter of mine
+named Jack, whose thigh was so badly broken by a buffalo cow in
+Sikukunis country that he will never hunt again. But he can potter
+about and garden, being a Griqua by birth. You will never persuade a
+Zulu to take much interest in gardening. It is a peaceful art, and
+peaceful arts are not in his line.
+
+Sir Henry and Good slept in a tent pitched in my little grove of
+orange trees at the end of the garden, for there was no room for them
+in the house, and what with the smell of the bloom, and the sight of
+the green and golden fruit--in Durban you will see all three on the
+tree together--I daresay it is a pleasant place enough, for we have
+few mosquitos here on the Berea, unless there happens to come an
+unusually heavy rain.
+
+Well, to get on--for if I do not, Harry, you will be tired of my story
+before ever we fetch up at Suliman's Mountains--having once made up my
+mind to go I set about making the necessary preparations. First I
+secured the deed from Sir Henry, providing for you, my boy, in case of
+accidents. There was some difficulty about its legal execution, as Sir
+Henry was a stranger here, and the property to be charged is over the
+water; but it was ultimately got over with the help of a lawyer, who
+charged �20 for the job--a price that I thought outrageous. Then I
+pocketed my cheque for �500.
+
+Having paid this tribute to my bump of caution, I purchased a wagon
+and a span of oxen on Sir Henry's behalf, and beauties they were. It
+was a twenty-two-foot wagon with iron axles, very strong, very light,
+and built throughout of stink wood; not quite a new one, having been
+to the Diamond Fields and back, but, in my opinion, all the better for
+that, for I could see that the wood was well seasoned. If anything is
+going to give in a wagon, or if there is green wood in it, it will
+show out on the first trip. This particular vehicle was what we call a
+"half-tented" wagon, that is to say, only covered in over the after
+twelve feet, leaving all the front part free for the necessaries we
+had to carry with us. In this after part were a hide "cartle," or bed,
+on which two people could sleep, also racks for rifles, and many other
+little conveniences. I gave �125 for it, and think that it was cheap
+at the price.
+
+Then I bought a beautiful team of twenty Zulu oxen, which I had kept
+my eye on for a year or two. Sixteen oxen is the usual number for a
+team, but I took four extra to allow for casualties. These Zulu cattle
+are small and light, not more than half the size of the Africander
+oxen, which are generally used for transport purposes; but they will
+live where the Africanders would starve, and with a moderate load can
+make five miles a day better going, being quicker and not so liable to
+become footsore. What is more, this lot were thoroughly "salted," that
+is, they had worked all over South Africa, and so had become proof,
+comparatively speaking, against red water, which so frequently
+destroys whole teams of oxen when they get on to strange "veldt" or
+grass country. As for "lung sick," which is a dreadful form of
+pneumonia, very prevalent in this country, they had all been
+inoculated against it. This is done by cutting a slit in the tail of
+an ox, and binding in a piece of the diseased lung of an animal which
+has died of the sickness. The result is that the ox sickens, takes the
+disease in a mild form, which causes its tail to drop off, as a rule
+about a foot from the root, and becomes proof against future attacks.
+It seems cruel to rob the animal of his tail, especially in a country
+where there are so many flies, but it is better to sacrifice the tail
+and keep the ox than to lose both tail and ox, for a tail without an
+ox is not much good, except to dust with. Still it does look odd to
+trek along behind twenty stumps, where there ought to be tails. It
+seems as though Nature made a trifling mistake, and stuck the stern
+ornaments of a lot of prize bull-dogs on to the rumps of the oxen.
+
+Next came the question of provisioning and medicines, one which
+required the most careful consideration, for what we had to do was to
+avoid lumbering the wagon, and yet to take everything absolutely
+necessary. Fortunately, it turned out that Good is a bit of a doctor,
+having at some point in his previous career managed to pass through a
+course of medical and surgical instruction, which he has more or less
+kept up. He is not, of course, qualified, but he knows more about it
+than many a man who can write M.D. after his name, as we found out
+afterwards, and he had a splendid travelling medicine chest and a set
+of instruments. Whilst we were at Durban he cut off a Kafir's big toe
+in a way which it was a pleasure to see. But he was quite nonplussed
+when the Kafir, who had sat stolidly watching the operation, asked him
+to put on another, saying that a "white one" would do at a pinch.
+
+There remained, when these questions were satisfactorily settled, two
+further important points for consideration, namely, that of arms and
+that of servants. As to the arms I cannot do better than put down a
+list of those which we finally decided on from among the ample store
+that Sir Henry had brought with him from England, and those which I
+owned. I copy it from my pocket-book, where I made the entry at the
+time.
+
+"Three heavy breech-loading double-eight elephant guns, weighing about
+fifteen pounds each, to carry a charge of eleven drachms of black
+powder." Two of these were by a well-known London firm, most excellent
+makers, but I do not know by whom mine, which is not so highly
+finished, was made. I have used it on several trips, and shot a good
+many elephants with it, and it has always proved a most superior
+weapon, thoroughly to be relied on.
+
+"Three double-500 Expresses, constructed to stand a charge of six
+drachms," sweet weapons, and admirable for medium-sized game, such as
+eland or sable antelope, or for men, especially in an open country and
+with the semi-hollow bullet.
+
+"One double No. 12 central-fire Keeper's shot-gun, full choke both
+barrels." This gun proved of the greatest service to us afterwards in
+shooting game for the pot.
+
+"Three Winchester repeating rifles (not carbines), spare guns.
+
+"Three single-action Colt's revolvers, with the heavier, or American
+pattern of cartridge."
+
+This was our total armament, and doubtless the reader will observe
+that the weapons of each class were of the same make and calibre, so
+that the cartridges were interchangeable, a very important point. I
+make no apology for detailing it at length, as every experienced
+hunter will know how vital a proper supply of guns and ammunition is
+to the success of an expedition.
+
+Now as to the men who were to go with us. After much consultation we
+decided that their number should be limited to five, namely, a driver,
+a leader, and three servants.
+
+The driver and leader I found without much difficulty, two Zulus,
+named respectively Goza and Tom; but to get the servants proved a more
+difficult matter. It was necessary that they should be thoroughly
+trustworthy and brave men, as in a business of this sort our lives
+might depend upon their conduct. At last I secured two, one a
+Hottentot named Ventv�gel, or "windbird," and one a little Zulu named
+Khiva, who had the merit of speaking English perfectly. Ventv�gel I
+had known before; he was one of the most perfect "spoorers," that is,
+game trackers, I ever had to do with, and tough as whipcord. He never
+seemed to tire. But he had one failing, so common with his race,
+drink. Put him within reach of a bottle of gin and you could not trust
+him. However, as we were going beyond the region of grog-shops this
+little weakness of his did not so much matter.
+
+Having secured these two men I looked in vain for a third to suit my
+purpose, so we determined to start without one, trusting to luck to
+find a suitable man on our way up country. But, as it happened, on the
+evening before the day we had fixed for our departure the Zulu Khiva
+informed me that a Kafir was waiting to see me. Accordingly, when we
+had done dinner, for we were at table at the time, I told Khiva to
+bring him in. Presently a tall, handsome-looking man, somewhere about
+thirty years of age, and very light-coloured for a Zulu, entered, and
+lifting his knob-stick by way of salute, squatted himself down in the
+corner on his haunches, and sat silent. I did not take any notice of
+him for a while, for it is a great mistake to do so. If you rush into
+conversation at once, a Zulu is apt to think you a person of little
+dignity or consequence. I observed, however, that he was a "Keshla" or
+ringed man; that is, he wore on his head the black ring, made of a
+species of gum polished with fat and worked up in the hair, which is
+usually assumed by Zulus on attaining a certain age or dignity. Also
+it struck me that his face was familiar to me.
+
+"Well," I said at last, "What is your name?"
+
+"Umbopa," answered the man in a slow, deep voice.
+
+"I have seen your face before."
+
+"Yes; the Inkoosi, the chief, my father, saw my face at the place of
+the Little Hand"--that is, Isandhlwana--"on the day before the
+battle."
+
+Then I remembered. I was one of Lord Chelmsford's guides in that
+unlucky Zulu War, and had the good fortune to leave the camp in charge
+of some wagons on the day before the battle. While I was waiting for
+the cattle to be inspanned I fell into conversation with this man, who
+held some small command among the native auxiliaries, and he had
+expressed to me his doubts as to the safety of the camp. At the time I
+told him to hold his tongue, and leave such matters to wiser heads;
+but afterwards I thought of his words.
+
+"I remember," I said; "what is it you want?"
+
+"It is this, 'Macumazahn.'" That is my Kafir name, and means the man
+who gets up in the middle of the night, or, in vulgar English, he who
+keeps his eyes open. "I hear that you go on a great expedition far
+into the North with the white chiefs from over the water. Is it a true
+word?"
+
+"It is."
+
+"I hear that you go even to the Lukanga River, a moon's journey beyond
+the Manica country. Is this so also, 'Macumazahn?'"
+
+"Why do you ask whither we go? What is it to you?" I answered
+suspiciously, for the objects of our journey had been kept a dead
+secret.
+
+"It is this, O white men, that if indeed you travel so far I would
+travel with you."
+
+There was a certain assumption of dignity in the man's mode of speech,
+and especially in his use of the words "O white men," instead of "O
+Inkosis," or chiefs, which struck me.
+
+"You forget yourself a little," I said. "Your words run out unawares.
+That is not the way to speak. What is your name, and where is your
+kraal? Tell us, that we may know with whom we have to deal."
+
+"My name is Umbopa. I am of the Zulu people, yet not of them. The
+house of my tribe is in the far North; it was left behind when the
+Zulus came down here a 'thousand years ago,' long before Chaka reigned
+in Zululand. I have no kraal. I have wandered for many years. I came
+from the North as a child to Zululand. I was Cetewayo's man in the
+Nkomabakosi Regiment, serving there under the great Captain,
+Umslopogaasi of the Axe,[*] who taught my hands to fight. Afterwards I
+ran away from Zululand and came to Natal because I wanted to see the
+white man's ways. Next I fought against Cetewayo in the war. Since
+then I have been working in Natal. Now I am tired, and would go North
+again. Here is not my place. I want no money, but I am a brave man,
+and am worth my place and meat. I have spoken."
+
+[*] For the history of Umslopogaasi and his Axe, the reader is
+    referred to the books called "Allan Quatermain" and "Nada the
+    Lily."--Editor.
+
+I was rather puzzled by this man and his way of speech. It was evident
+to me from his manner that in the main he was telling the truth, but
+somehow he seemed different from the ordinary run of Zulus, and I
+rather mistrusted his offer to come without pay. Being in a
+difficulty, I translated his words to Sir Henry and Good, and asked
+them their opinion.
+
+Sir Henry told me to ask him to stand up. Umbopa did so, at the same
+time slipping off the long military great coat which he wore, and
+revealing himself naked except for the moocha round his centre and a
+necklace of lions' claws. Certainly he was a magnificent-looking man;
+I never saw a finer native. Standing about six foot three high he was
+broad in proportion, and very shapely. In that light, too, his skin
+looked scarcely more than dark, except here and there where deep black
+scars marked old assegai wounds. Sir Henry walked up to him and looked
+into his proud, handsome face.
+
+"They make a good pair, don't they?" said Good; "one as big as the
+other."
+
+"I like your looks, Mr. Umbopa, and I will take you as my servant,"
+said Sir Henry in English.
+
+Umbopa evidently understood him, for he answered in Zulu, "It is
+well"; and then added, with a glance at the white man's great stature
+and breadth, "We are men, thou and I."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+AN ELEPHANT HUNT
+
+Now I do not propose to narrate at full length all the incidents of
+our long travel up to Sitanda's Kraal, near the junction of the
+Lukanga and Kalukwe Rivers. It was a journey of more than a thousand
+miles from Durban, the last three hundred or so of which we had to
+make on foot, owing to the frequent presence of the dreadful "tsetse"
+fly, whose bite is fatal to all animals except donkeys and men.
+
+We left Durban at the end of January, and it was in the second week of
+May that we camped near Sitanda's Kraal. Our adventures on the way
+were many and various, but as they are of the sort which befall every
+African hunter--with one exception to be presently detailed--I shall
+not set them down here, lest I should render this history too
+wearisome.
+
+At Inyati, the outlying trading station in the Matabele country, of
+which Lobengula (a great and cruel scoundrel) is king, with many
+regrets we parted from our comfortable wagon. Only twelve oxen
+remained to us out of the beautiful span of twenty which I had bought
+at Durban. One we lost from the bite of a cobra, three had perished
+from "poverty" and the want of water, one strayed, and the other three
+died from eating the poisonous herb called "tulip." Five more sickened
+from this cause, but we managed to cure them with doses of an infusion
+made by boiling down the tulip leaves. If administered in time this is
+a very effective antidote.
+
+The wagon and the oxen we left in the immediate charge of Goza and
+Tom, our driver and leader, both trustworthy boys, requesting a worthy
+Scotch missionary who lived in this distant place to keep an eye on
+them. Then, accompanied by Umbopa, Khiva, Ventv�gel, and half a dozen
+bearers whom we hired on the spot, we started off on foot upon our
+wild quest. I remember we were all a little silent on the occasion of
+this departure, and I think that each of us was wondering if we should
+ever see our wagon again; for my part I never expected to do so. For a
+while we tramped on in silence, till Umbopa, who was marching in
+front, broke into a Zulu chant about how some brave men, tired of life
+and the tameness of things, started off into a vast wilderness to find
+new things or die, and how, lo and behold! when they had travelled far
+into the wilderness they found that it was not a wilderness at all,
+but a beautiful place full of young wives and fat cattle, of game to
+hunt and enemies to kill.
+
+Then we all laughed and took it for a good omen. Umbopa was a cheerful
+savage, in a dignified sort of way, when he was not suffering from one
+of his fits of brooding, and he had a wonderful knack of keeping up
+our spirits. We all grew very fond of him.
+
+And now for the one adventure to which I am going to treat myself, for
+I do dearly love a hunting yarn.
+
+About a fortnight's march from Inyati we came across a peculiarly
+beautiful bit of well-watered woodland country. The kloofs in the
+hills were covered with dense bush, "idoro" bush as the natives call
+it, and in some places, with the "wacht-een-beche," or "wait-a-little
+thorn," and there were great quantities of the lovely "machabell"
+tree, laden with refreshing yellow fruit having enormous stones. This
+tree is the elephant's favourite food, and there were not wanting
+signs that the great brutes had been about, for not only was their
+spoor frequent, but in many places the trees were broken down and even
+uprooted. The elephant is a destructive feeder.
+
+One evening, after a long day's march, we came to a spot of great
+loveliness. At the foot of a bush-clad hill lay a dry river-bed, in
+which, however, were to be found pools of crystal water all trodden
+round with the hoof-prints of game. Facing this hill was a park-like
+plain, where grew clumps of flat-topped mimosa, varied with occasional
+glossy-leaved machabells, and all round stretched the sea of pathless,
+silent bush.
+
+As we emerged into this river-bed path suddenly we started a troop of
+tall giraffes, who galloped, or rather sailed off, in their strange
+gait, their tails screwed up over their backs, and their hoofs
+rattling like castanets. They were about three hundred yards from us,
+and therefore practically out of shot, but Good, who was walking
+ahead, and who had an express loaded with solid ball in his hand,
+could not resist temptation. Lifting his gun, he let drive at the
+last, a young cow. By some extraordinary chance the ball struck it
+full on the back of the neck, shattering the spinal column, and that
+giraffe went rolling head over heels just like a rabbit. I never saw a
+more curious thing.
+
+"Curse it!" said Good--for I am sorry to say he had a habit of using
+strong language when excited--contracted, no doubt, in the course of
+his nautical career; "curse it! I've killed him."
+
+"/Ou/, Bougwan," ejaculated the Kafirs; "/ou! ou!/"
+
+They called Good "Bougwan," or Glass Eye, because of his eye-glass.
+
+"Oh, 'Bougwan!'" re-echoed Sir Henry and I, and from that day Good's
+reputation as a marvellous shot was established, at any rate among the
+Kafirs. Really he was a bad one, but whenever he missed we overlooked
+it for the sake of that giraffe.
+
+Having set some of the "boys" to cut off the best of the giraffe's
+meat, we went to work to build a "scherm" near one of the pools and
+about a hundred yards to its right. This is done by cutting a quantity
+of thorn bushes and piling them in the shape of a circular hedge. Then
+the space enclosed is smoothed, and dry tambouki grass, if obtainable,
+is made into a bed in the centre, and a fire or fires lighted.
+
+By the time the "scherm" was finished the moon peeped up, and our
+dinners of giraffe steaks and roasted marrow-bones were ready. How we
+enjoyed those marrow-bones, though it was rather a job to crack them!
+I know of no greater luxury than giraffe marrow, unless it is
+elephant's heart, and we had that on the morrow. We ate our simple
+meal by the light of the moon, pausing at times to thank Good for his
+wonderful shot; then we began to smoke and yarn, and a curious picture
+we must have made squatting there round the fire. I, with my short
+grizzled hair sticking up straight, and Sir Henry with his yellow
+locks, which were getting rather long, were rather a contrast,
+especially as I am thin, and short, and dark, weighing only nine stone
+and a half, and Sir Henry is tall, and broad, and fair, and weighs
+fifteen. But perhaps the most curious-looking of the three, taking all
+the circumstances of the case into consideration, was Captain John
+Good, R.N. There he sat upon a leather bag, looking just as though he
+had come in from a comfortable day's shooting in a civilised country,
+absolutely clean, tidy, and well dressed. He wore a shooting suit of
+brown tweed, with a hat to match, and neat gaiters. As usual, he was
+beautifully shaved, his eye-glass and his false teeth appeared to be
+in perfect order, and altogether he looked the neatest man I ever had
+to do with in the wilderness. He even sported a collar, of which he
+had a supply, made of white gutta-percha.
+
+"You see, they weigh so little," he said to me innocently, when I
+expressed my astonishment at the fact; "and I always like to turn out
+like a gentleman." Ah! if he could have foreseen the future and the
+raiment prepared for him.
+
+Well, there we three sat yarning away in the beautiful moonlight, and
+watching the Kafirs a few yards off sucking their intoxicating
+"daccha" from a pipe of which the mouthpiece was made of the horn of
+an eland, till one by one they rolled themselves up in their blankets
+and went to sleep by the fire, that is, all except Umbopa, who was a
+little apart, his chin resting on his hand, and thinking deeply. I
+noticed that he never mixed much with the other Kafirs.
+
+Presently, from the depths of the bush behind us, came a loud "/woof/,
+/woof/!" "That's a lion," said I, and we all started up to listen.
+Hardly had we done so, when from the pool, about a hundred yards off,
+we heard the strident trumpeting of an elephant. "/Unkungunklovo/!
+/Indlovu/!" "Elephant! Elephant!" whispered the Kafirs, and a few
+minutes afterwards we saw a succession of vast shadowy forms moving
+slowly from the direction of the water towards the bush.
+
+Up jumped Good, burning for slaughter, and thinking, perhaps, that it
+was as easy to kill elephant as he had found it to shoot giraffe, but
+I caught him by the arm and pulled him down.
+
+"It's no good," I whispered, "let them go."
+
+"It seems that we are in a paradise of game. I vote we stop here a day
+or two, and have a go at them," said Sir Henry, presently.
+
+I was rather surprised, for hitherto Sir Henry had always been for
+pushing forward as fast as possible, more especially since we
+ascertained at Inyati that about two years ago an Englishman of the
+name of Neville /had/ sold his wagon there, and gone on up country.
+But I suppose his hunter instincts got the better of him for a while.
+
+Good jumped at the idea, for he was longing to have a shot at those
+elephants; and so, to speak the truth, did I, for it went against my
+conscience to let such a herd as that escape without a pull at them.
+
+"All right, my hearties," said I. "I think we want a little
+recreation. And now let's turn in, for we ought to be off by dawn, and
+then perhaps we may catch them feeding before they move on."
+
+The others agreed, and we proceeded to make our preparations. Good
+took off his clothes, shook them, put his eye-glass and his false
+teeth into his trousers pocket, and folding each article neatly,
+placed it out of the dew under a corner of his mackintosh sheet. Sir
+Henry and I contented ourselves with rougher arrangements, and soon
+were curled up in our blankets, and dropping off into the dreamless
+sleep that rewards the traveller.
+
+Going, going, go--What was that?
+
+Suddenly, from the direction of the water came sounds of violent
+scuffling, and next instant there broke upon our ears a succession of
+the most awful roars. There was no mistaking their origin; only a lion
+could make such a noise as that. We all jumped up and looked towards
+the water, in the direction of which we saw a confused mass, yellow
+and black in colour, staggering and struggling towards us. We seized
+our rifles, and slipping on our veldtschoons, that is shoes made of
+untanned hide, ran out of the scherm. By this time the mass had
+fallen, and was rolling over and over on the ground, and when we
+reached the spot it struggled no longer, but lay quite still.
+
+Now we saw what it was. On the grass there lay a sable antelope bull--
+the most beautiful of all the African antelopes--quite dead, and
+transfixed by its great curved horns was a magnificent black-maned
+lion, also dead. Evidently what had happened was this: The sable
+antelope had come down to drink at the pool where the lion--no doubt
+the same which we had heard--was lying in wait. While the antelope
+drank, the lion had sprung upon him, only to be received upon the
+sharp curved horns and transfixed. Once before I saw a similar thing
+happen. Then the lion, unable to free himself, had torn and bitten at
+the back and neck of the bull, which, maddened with fear and pain, had
+rushed on until it dropped dead.
+
+As soon as we had examined the beasts sufficiently we called the
+Kafirs, and between us managed to drag their carcases up to the
+scherm. After that we went in and lay down, to wake no more till dawn.
+
+With the first light we were up and making ready for the fray. We took
+with us the three eight-bore rifles, a good supply of ammunition, and
+our large water-bottles, filled with weak cold tea, which I have
+always found the best stuff to shoot on. After swallowing a little
+breakfast we started, Umbopa, Khiva, and Ventv�gel accompanying us.
+The other Kafirs we left with instructions to skin the lion and the
+sable antelope, and to cut up the latter.
+
+We had no difficulty in finding the broad elephant trail, which
+Ventv�gel, after examination, pronounced to have been made by between
+twenty and thirty elephants, most of them full-grown bulls. But the
+herd had moved on some way during the night, and it was nine o'clock,
+and already very hot, before, by the broken trees, bruised leaves and
+bark, and smoking droppings, we knew that we could not be far from
+them.
+
+Presently we caught sight of the herd, which numbered, as Ventv�gel
+had said, between twenty and thirty, standing in a hollow, having
+finished their morning meal, and flapping their great ears. It was a
+splendid sight, for they were only about two hundred yards from us.
+Taking a handful of dry grass, I threw it into the air to see how the
+wind was; for if once they winded us I knew they would be off before
+we could get a shot. Finding that, if anything, it blew from the
+elephants to us, we crept on stealthily, and thanks to the cover
+managed to get within forty yards or so of the great brutes. Just in
+front of us, and broadside on, stood three splendid bulls, one of them
+with enormous tusks. I whispered to the others that I would take the
+middle one; Sir Henry covering the elephant to the left, and Good the
+bull with the big tusks.
+
+"Now," I whispered.
+
+Boom! boom! boom! went the three heavy rifles, and down came Sir
+Henry's elephant dead as a hammer, shot right through the heart. Mine
+fell on to its knees and I thought that he was going to die, but in
+another moment he was up and off, tearing along straight past me. As
+he went I gave him the second barrel in the ribs, and this brought him
+down in good earnest. Hastily slipping in two fresh cartridges I ran
+close up to him, and a ball through the brain put an end to the poor
+brute's struggles. Then I turned to see how Good had fared with the
+big bull, which I had heard screaming with rage and pain as I gave
+mine its quietus. On reaching the captain I found him in a great state
+of excitement. It appeared that on receiving the bullet the bull had
+turned and come straight for his assailant, who had barely time to get
+out of his way, and then charged on blindly past him, in the direction
+of our encampment. Meanwhile the herd had crashed off in wild alarm in
+the other direction.
+
+For awhile we debated whether to go after the wounded bull or to
+follow the herd, and finally deciding for the latter alternative,
+departed, thinking that we had seen the last of those big tusks. I
+have often wished since that we had. It was easy work to follow the
+elephants, for they had left a trail like a carriage road behind them,
+crushing down the thick bush in their furious flight as though it were
+tambouki grass.
+
+But to come up with them was another matter, and we had struggled on
+under the broiling sun for over two hours before we found them. With
+the exception of one bull, they were standing together, and I could
+see, from their unquiet way and the manner in which they kept lifting
+their trunks to test the air, that they were on the look-out for
+mischief. The solitary bull stood fifty yards or so to this side of
+the herd, over which he was evidently keeping sentry, and about sixty
+yards from us. Thinking that he would see or wind us, and that it
+would probably start them off again if we tried to get nearer,
+especially as the ground was rather open, we all aimed at this bull,
+and at my whispered word, we fired. The three shots took effect, and
+down he went dead. Again the herd started, but unfortunately for them
+about a hundred yards further on was a nullah, or dried-out water
+track, with steep banks, a place very much resembling the one where
+the Prince Imperial was killed in Zululand. Into this the elephants
+plunged, and when we reached the edge we found them struggling in wild
+confusion to get up the other bank, filling the air with their
+screams, and trumpeting as they pushed one another aside in their
+selfish panic, just like so many human beings. Now was our
+opportunity, and firing away as quickly as we could load, we killed
+five of the poor beasts, and no doubt should have bagged the whole
+herd, had they not suddenly given up their attempts to climb the bank
+and rushed headlong down the nullah. We were too tired to follow them,
+and perhaps also a little sick of slaughter, eight elephants being a
+pretty good bag for one day.
+
+So after we were rested a little, and the Kafirs had cut out the
+hearts of two of the dead elephants for supper, we started homewards,
+very well pleased with our day's work, having made up our minds to
+send the bearers on the morrow to chop away the tusks.
+
+Shortly after we re-passed the spot where Good had wounded the
+patriarchal bull we came across a herd of eland, but did not shoot at
+them, as we had plenty of meat. They trotted past us, and then stopped
+behind a little patch of bush about a hundred yards away, wheeling
+round to look at us. As Good was anxious to get a near view of them,
+never having seen an eland close, he handed his rifle to Umbopa, and,
+followed by Khiva, strolled up to the patch of bush. We sat down and
+waited for him, not sorry of the excuse for a little rest.
+
+The sun was just going down in its reddest glory, and Sir Henry and I
+were admiring the lovely scene, when suddenly we heard an elephant
+scream, and saw its huge and rushing form with uplifted trunk and tail
+silhouetted against the great fiery globe of the sun. Next second we
+saw something else, and that was Good and Khiva tearing back towards
+us with the wounded bull--for it was he--charging after them. For a
+moment we did not dare to fire--though at that distance it would have
+been of little use if we had done so--for fear of hitting one of them,
+and the next a dreadful thing happened--Good fell a victim to his
+passion for civilised dress. Had he consented to discard his trousers
+and gaiters like the rest of us, and to hunt in a flannel shirt and a
+pair of veldt-schoons, it would have been all right. But as it was,
+his trousers cumbered him in that desperate race, and presently, when
+he was about sixty yards from us, his boot, polished by the dry grass,
+slipped, and down he went on his face right in front of the elephant.
+
+We gave a gasp, for we knew that he must die, and ran as hard as we
+could towards him. In three seconds it had ended, but not as we
+thought. Khiva, the Zulu boy, saw his master fall, and brave lad as he
+was, turned and flung his assegai straight into the elephant's face.
+It stuck in his trunk.
+
+With a scream of pain, the brute seized the poor Zulu, hurled him to
+the earth, and placing one huge foot on to his body about the middle,
+twined its trunk round his upper part and /tore him in two/.
+
+We rushed up mad with horror, and fired again and again, till
+presently the elephant fell upon the fragments of the Zulu.
+
+As for Good, he rose and wrung his hands over the brave man who had
+given his life to save him, and, though I am an old hand, I felt a
+lump grow in my throat. Umbopa stood contemplating the huge dead
+elephant and the mangled remains of poor Khiva.
+
+"Ah, well," he said presently, "he is dead, but he died like a man!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+OUR MARCH INTO THE DESERT
+
+We had killed nine elephants, and it took us two days to cut out the
+tusks, and having brought them into camp, to bury them carefully in
+the sand under a large tree, which made a conspicuous mark for miles
+round. It was a wonderfully fine lot of ivory. I never saw a better,
+averaging as it did between forty and fifty pounds a tusk. The tusks
+of the great bull that killed poor Khiva scaled one hundred and
+seventy pounds the pair, so nearly as we could judge.
+
+As for Khiva himself, we buried what remained of him in an ant-bear
+hole, together with an assegai to protect himself with on his journey
+to a better world. On the third day we marched again, hoping that we
+might live to return to dig up our buried ivory, and in due course,
+after a long and wearisome tramp, and many adventures which I have not
+space to detail, we reached Sitanda's Kraal, near the Lukanga River,
+the real starting-point of our expedition. Very well do I recollect
+our arrival at that place. To the right was a scattered native
+settlement with a few stone cattle kraals and some cultivated lands
+down by the water, where these savages grew their scanty supply of
+grain, and beyond it stretched great tracts of waving "veld" covered
+with tall grass, over which herds of the smaller game were wandering.
+To the left lay the vast desert. This spot appears to be the outpost
+of the fertile country, and it would be difficult to say to what
+natural causes such an abrupt change in the character of the soil is
+due. But so it is.
+
+Just below our encampment flowed a little stream, on the farther side
+of which is a stony slope, the same down which, twenty years before, I
+had seen poor Silvestre creeping back after his attempt to reach
+Solomon's Mines, and beyond that slope begins the waterless desert,
+covered with a species of karoo shrub.
+
+It was evening when we pitched our camp, and the great ball of the sun
+was sinking into the desert, sending glorious rays of many-coloured
+light flying all over its vast expanse. Leaving Good to superintend
+the arrangement of our little camp, I took Sir Henry with me, and
+walking to the top of the slope opposite, we gazed across the desert.
+The air was very clear, and far, far away I could distinguish the
+faint blue outlines, here and there capped with white, of the Suliman
+Berg.
+
+"There," I said, "there is the wall round Solomon's Mines, but God
+knows if we shall ever climb it."
+
+"My brother should be there, and if he is, I shall reach him somehow,"
+said Sir Henry, in that tone of quiet confidence which marked the man.
+
+"I hope so," I answered, and turned to go back to the camp, when I saw
+that we were not alone. Behind us, also gazing earnestly towards the
+far-off mountains, stood the great Kafir Umbopa.
+
+The Zulu spoke when he saw that I had observed him, addressing Sir
+Henry, to whom he had attached himself.
+
+"Is it to that land that thou wouldst journey, Incubu?" (a native word
+meaning, I believe, an elephant, and the name given to Sir Henry by
+the Kafirs), he said, pointing towards the mountain with his broad
+assegai.
+
+I asked him sharply what he meant by addressing his master in that
+familiar way. It is very well for natives to have a name for one among
+themselves, but it is not decent that they should call a white man by
+their heathenish appellations to his face. The Zulu laughed a quiet
+little laugh which angered me.
+
+"How dost thou know that I am not the equal of the Inkosi whom I
+serve?" he said. "He is of a royal house, no doubt; one can see it in
+his size and by his mien; so, mayhap, am I. At least, I am as great a
+man. Be my mouth, O Macumazahn, and say my words to the Inkoos Incubu,
+my master, for I would speak to him and to thee."
+
+I was angry with the man, for I am not accustomed to be talked to in
+that way by Kafirs, but somehow he impressed me, and besides I was
+curious to know what he had to say. So I translated, expressing my
+opinion at the same time that he was an impudent fellow, and that his
+swagger was outrageous.
+
+"Yes, Umbopa," answered Sir Henry, "I would journey there."
+
+"The desert is wide and there is no water in it, the mountains are
+high and covered with snow, and man cannot say what lies beyond them
+behind the place where the sun sets; how shalt thou come thither,
+Incubu, and wherefore dost thou go?"
+
+I translated again.
+
+"Tell him," answered Sir Henry, "that I go because I believe that a
+man of my blood, my brother, has gone there before me, and I journey
+to seek him."
+
+"That is so, Incubu; a Hottentot I met on the road told me that a
+white man went out into the desert two years ago towards those
+mountains with one servant, a hunter. They never came back."
+
+"How do you know it was my brother?" asked Sir Henry.
+
+"Nay, I know not. But the Hottentot, when I asked what the white man
+was like, said that he had thine eyes and a black beard. He said, too,
+that the name of the hunter with him was Jim; that he was a Bechuana
+hunter and wore clothes."
+
+"There is no doubt about it," said I; "I knew Jim well."
+
+Sir Henry nodded. "I was sure of it," he said. "If George set his mind
+upon a thing he generally did it. It was always so from his boyhood.
+If he meant to cross the Suliman Berg he has crossed it, unless some
+accident overtook him, and we must look for him on the other side."
+
+Umbopa understood English, though he rarely spoke it.
+
+"It is a far journey, Incubu," he put in, and I translated his remark.
+
+"Yes," answered Sir Henry, "it is far. But there is no journey upon
+this earth that a man may not make if he sets his heart to it. There
+is nothing, Umbopa, that he cannot do, there are no mountains he may
+not climb, there are no deserts he cannot cross, save a mountain and a
+desert of which you are spared the knowledge, if love leads him and he
+holds his life in his hands counting it as nothing, ready to keep it
+or lose it as Heaven above may order."
+
+I translated.
+
+"Great words, my father," answered the Zulu--I always called him a
+Zulu, though he was not really one--"great swelling words fit to fill
+the mouth of a man. Thou art right, my father Incubu. Listen! what is
+life? It is a feather, it is the seed of the grass, blown hither and
+thither, sometimes multiplying itself and dying in the act, sometimes
+carried away into the heavens. But if that seed be good and heavy it
+may perchance travel a little way on the road it wills. It is well to
+try and journey one's road and to fight with the air. Man must die. At
+the worst he can but die a little sooner. I will go with thee across
+the desert and over the mountains, unless perchance I fall to the
+ground on the way, my father."
+
+He paused awhile, and then went on with one of those strange bursts of
+rhetorical eloquence that Zulus sometimes indulge in, which to my
+mind, full though they are of vain repetitions, show that the race is
+by no means devoid of poetic instinct and of intellectual power.
+
+"What is life? Tell me, O white men, who are wise, who know the
+secrets of the world, and of the world of stars, and the world that
+lies above and around the stars; who flash your words from afar
+without a voice; tell me, white men, the secret of our life--whither
+it goes and whence it comes!
+
+"You cannot answer me; you know not. Listen, I will answer. Out of the
+dark we came, into the dark we go. Like a storm-driven bird at night
+we fly out of the Nowhere; for a moment our wings are seen in the
+light of the fire, and, lo! we are gone again into the Nowhere. Life
+is nothing. Life is all. It is the Hand with which we hold off Death.
+It is the glow-worm that shines in the night-time and is black in the
+morning; it is the white breath of the oxen in winter; it is the
+little shadow that runs across the grass and loses itself at sunset."
+
+"You are a strange man," said Sir Henry, when he had ceased.
+
+Umbopa laughed. "It seems to me that we are much alike, Incubu.
+Perhaps /I/ seek a brother over the mountains."
+
+I looked at him suspiciously. "What dost thou mean?" I asked; "what
+dost thou know of those mountains?"
+
+"A little; a very little. There is a strange land yonder, a land of
+witchcraft and beautiful things; a land of brave people, and of trees,
+and streams, and snowy peaks, and of a great white road. I have heard
+of it. But what is the good of talking? It grows dark. Those who live
+to see will see."
+
+Again I looked at him doubtfully. The man knew too much.
+
+"You need not fear me, Macumazahn," he said, interpreting my look. "I
+dig no holes for you to fall in. I make no plots. If ever we cross
+those mountains behind the sun I will tell what I know. But Death sits
+upon them. Be wise and turn back. Go and hunt elephants, my masters. I
+have spoken."
+
+And without another word he lifted his spear in salutation, and
+returned towards the camp, where shortly afterwards we found him
+cleaning a gun like any other Kafir.
+
+"That is an odd man," said Sir Henry.
+
+"Yes," answered I, "too odd by half. I don't like his little ways. He
+knows something, and will not speak out. But I suppose it is no use
+quarrelling with him. We are in for a curious trip, and a mysterious
+Zulu won't make much difference one way or another."
+
+Next day we made our arrangements for starting. Of course it was
+impossible to drag our heavy elephant rifles and other kit with us
+across the desert, so, dismissing our bearers, we made an arrangement
+with an old native who had a kraal close by to take care of them till
+we returned. It went to my heart to leave such things as those sweet
+tools to the tender mercies of an old thief of a savage whose greedy
+eyes I could see gloating over them. But I took some precautions.
+
+First of all I loaded all the rifles, placing them at full cock, and
+informed him that if he touched them they would go off. He tried the
+experiment instantly with my eight-bore, and it did go off, and blew a
+hole right through one of his oxen, which were just then being driven
+up to the kraal, to say nothing of knocking him head over heels with
+the recoil. He got up considerably startled, and not at all pleased at
+the loss of the ox, which he had the impudence to ask me to pay for,
+and nothing would induce him to touch the guns again.
+
+"Put the live devils out of the way up there in the thatch," he said,
+"or they will murder us all."
+
+Then I told him that, when we came back, if one of those things was
+missing I would kill him and his people by witchcraft; and if we died
+and he tried to steal the rifles I would come and haunt him and turn
+his cattle mad and his milk sour till life was a weariness, and would
+make the devils in the guns come out and talk to him in a way he did
+not like, and generally gave him a good idea of judgment to come.
+After that he promised to look after them as though they were his
+father's spirit. He was a very superstitious old Kafir and a great
+villain.
+
+Having thus disposed of our superfluous gear we arranged the kit we
+five--Sir Henry, Good, myself, Umbopa, and the Hottentot Ventv�gel--
+were to take with us on our journey. It was small enough, but do what
+we would we could not get its weight down under about forty pounds a
+man. This is what it consisted of:--
+
+The three express rifles and two hundred rounds of ammunition.
+
+The two Winchester repeating rifles (for Umbopa and Ventv�gel), with
+two hundred rounds of cartridge.
+
+Five Cochrane's water-bottles, each holding four pints.
+
+Five blankets.
+
+Twenty-five pounds' weight of biltong--i.e. sun-dried game flesh.
+
+Ten pounds' weight of best mixed beads for gifts.
+
+A selection of medicine, including an ounce of quinine, and one or two
+small surgical instruments.
+
+Our knives, a few sundries, such as a compass, matches, a pocket
+filter, tobacco, a trowel, a bottle of brandy, and the clothes we
+stood in.
+
+This was our total equipment, a small one indeed for such a venture,
+but we dared not attempt to carry more. Indeed, that load was a heavy
+one per man with which to travel across the burning desert, for in
+such places every additional ounce tells. But we could not see our way
+to reducing the weight. There was nothing taken but what was
+absolutely necessary.
+
+With great difficulty, and by the promise of a present of a good
+hunting-knife each, I succeeded in persuading three wretched natives
+from the village to come with us for the first stage, twenty miles,
+and to carry a large gourd holding a gallon of water apiece. My object
+was to enable us to refill our water-bottles after the first night's
+march, for we determined to start in the cool of the evening. I gave
+out to these natives that we were going to shoot ostriches, with which
+the desert abounded. They jabbered and shrugged their shoulders,
+saying that we were mad and should perish of thirst, which I must say
+seemed probable; but being desirous of obtaining the knives, which
+were almost unknown treasures up there, they consented to come, having
+probably reflected that, after all, our subsequent extinction would be
+no affair of theirs.
+
+All next day we rested and slept, and at sunset ate a hearty meal of
+fresh beef washed down with tea, the last, as Good remarked sadly, we
+were likely to drink for many a long day. Then, having made our final
+preparations, we lay down and waited for the moon to rise. At last,
+about nine o'clock, up she came in all her glory, flooding the wild
+country with light, and throwing a silver sheen on the expanse of
+rolling desert before us, which looked as solemn and quiet and as
+alien to man as the star-studded firmament above. We rose up, and in a
+few minutes were ready, and yet we hesitated a little, as human nature
+is prone to hesitate on the threshold of an irrevocable step. We three
+white men stood by ourselves. Umbopa, assegai in hand and a rifle
+across his shoulders, looked out fixedly across the desert a few paces
+ahead of us; while the hired natives, with the gourds of water, and
+Ventv�gel, were gathered in a little knot behind.
+
+"Gentlemen," said Sir Henry presently, in his deep voice, "we are
+going on about as strange a journey as men can make in this world. It
+is very doubtful if we can succeed in it. But we are three men who
+will stand together for good or for evil to the last. Now before we
+start let us for a moment pray to the Power who shapes the destinies
+of men, and who ages since has marked out our paths, that it may
+please Him to direct our steps in accordance with His will."
+
+Taking off his hat, for the space of a minute or so, he covered his
+face with his hands, and Good and I did likewise.
+
+I do not say that I am a first-rate praying man, few hunters are, and
+as for Sir Henry, I never heard him speak like that before, and only
+once since, though deep down in his heart I believe that he is very
+religious. Good too is pious, though apt to swear. Anyhow I do not
+remember, excepting on one single occasion, ever putting up a better
+prayer in my life than I did during that minute, and somehow I felt
+the happier for it. Our future was so completely unknown, and I think
+that the unknown and the awful always bring a man nearer to his Maker.
+
+"And now," said Sir Henry, "/trek/!"
+
+So we started.
+
+We had nothing to guide ourselves by except the distant mountains and
+old Jos� da Silvestre's chart, which, considering that it was drawn by
+a dying and half-distraught man on a fragment of linen three centuries
+ago, was not a very satisfactory sort of thing with work with. Still,
+our sole hope of success depended upon it, such as it was. If we
+failed in finding that pool of bad water which the old Dom marked as
+being situated in the middle of the desert, about sixty miles from our
+starting-point, and as far from the mountains, in all probability we
+must perish miserably of thirst. But to my mind the chances of our
+finding it in that great sea of sand and karoo scrub seemed almost
+infinitesimal. Even supposing that da Silvestra had marked the pool
+correctly, what was there to prevent its having been dried up by the
+sun generations ago, or trampled in by game, or filled with the
+drifting sand?
+
+On we tramped silently as shades through the night and in the heavy
+sand. The karoo bushes caught our feet and retarded us, and the sand
+worked into our veldtschoons and Good's shooting-boots, so that every
+few miles we had to stop and empty them; but still the night kept
+fairly cool, though the atmosphere was thick and heavy, giving a sort
+of creamy feel to the air, and we made fair progress. It was very
+silent and lonely there in the desert, oppressively so indeed. Good
+felt this, and once began to whistle "The Girl I left behind me," but
+the notes sounded lugubrious in that vast place, and he gave it up.
+
+Shortly afterwards a little incident occurred which, though it
+startled us at the time, gave rise to a laugh. Good was leading, as
+the holder of the compass, which, being a sailor, of course he
+understood thoroughly, and we were toiling along in single file behind
+him, when suddenly we heard the sound of an exclamation, and he
+vanished. Next second there arose all around us a most extraordinary
+hubbub, snorts, groans, and wild sounds of rushing feet. In the faint
+light, too, we could descry dim galloping forms half hidden by wreaths
+of sand. The natives threw down their loads and prepared to bolt, but
+remembering that there was nowhere to run to, they cast themselves
+upon the ground and howled out that it was ghosts. As for Sir Henry
+and myself, we stood amazed; nor was our amazement lessened when we
+perceived the form of Good careering off in the direction of the
+mountains, apparently mounted on the back of a horse and halloaing
+wildly. In another second he threw up his arms, and we heard him come
+to the earth with a thud.
+
+Then I saw what had happened; we had stumbled upon a herd of sleeping
+quagga, on to the back of one of which Good actually had fallen, and
+the brute naturally enough got up and made off with him. Calling out
+to the others that it was all right, I ran towards Good, much afraid
+lest he should be hurt, but to my great relief I found him sitting in
+the sand, his eye-glass still fixed firmly in his eye, rather shaken
+and very much frightened, but not in any way injured.
+
+After this we travelled on without any further misadventure till about
+one o'clock, when we called a halt, and having drunk a little water,
+not much, for water was precious, and rested for half an hour, we
+started again.
+
+On, on we went, till at last the east began to blush like the cheek of
+a girl. Then there came faint rays of primrose light, that changed
+presently to golden bars, through which the dawn glided out across the
+desert. The stars grew pale and paler still, till at last they
+vanished; the golden moon waxed wan, and her mountain ridges stood out
+against her sickly face like the bones on the cheek of a dying man.
+Then came spear upon spear of light flashing far away across the
+boundless wilderness, piercing and firing the veils of mist, till the
+desert was draped in a tremulous golden glow, and it was day.
+
+Still we did not halt, though by this time we should have been glad
+enough to do so, for we knew that when once the sun was fully up it
+would be almost impossible for us to travel. At length, about an hour
+later, we spied a little pile of boulders rising out of the plain, and
+to this we dragged ourselves. As luck would have it, here we found an
+overhanging slab of rock carpeted beneath with smooth sand, which
+afforded a most grateful shelter from the heat. Underneath this we
+crept, and each of us having drunk some water and eaten a bit of
+biltong, we lay down and soon were sound asleep.
+
+It was three o'clock in the afternoon before we woke, to find our
+bearers preparing to return. They had seen enough of the desert
+already, and no number of knives would have tempted them to come a
+step farther. So we took a hearty drink, and having emptied our water-
+bottles, filled them up again from the gourds that they had brought
+with them, and then watched them depart on their twenty miles' tramp
+home.
+
+At half-past four we also started. It was lonely and desolate work,
+for with the exception of a few ostriches there was not a single
+living creature to be seen on all the vast expanse of sandy plain.
+Evidently it was too dry for game, and with the exception of a deadly-
+looking cobra or two we saw no reptiles. One insect, however, we found
+abundant, and that was the common or house fly. There they came, "not
+as single spies, but in battalions," as I think the Old Testament[*]
+says somewhere. He is an extraordinary insect is the house fly. Go
+where you will you find him, and so it must have been always. I have
+seen him enclosed in amber, which is, I was told, quite half a million
+years old, looking exactly like his descendant of to-day, and I have
+little doubt but that when the last man lies dying on the earth he
+will be buzzing round--if this event happens to occur in summer--
+watching for an opportunity to settle on his nose.
+
+[*] Readers must beware of accepting Mr. Quatermain's references as
+    accurate, as, it has been found, some are prone to do. Although
+    his reading evidently was limited, the impression produced by it
+    upon his mind was mixed. Thus to him the Old Testament and
+    Shakespeare were interchangeable authorities.--Editor.
+
+At sunset we halted, waiting for the moon to rise. At last she came
+up, beautiful and serene as ever, and, with one halt about two o'clock
+in the morning, we trudged on wearily through the night, till at last
+the welcome sun put a period to our labours. We drank a little and
+flung ourselves down on the sand, thoroughly tired out, and soon were
+all asleep. There was no need to set a watch, for we had nothing to
+fear from anybody or anything in that vast untenanted plain. Our only
+enemies were heat, thirst, and flies, but far rather would I have
+faced any danger from man or beast than that awful trinity. This time
+we were not so lucky as to find a sheltering rock to guard us from the
+glare of the sun, with the result that about seven o'clock we woke up
+experiencing the exact sensations one would attribute to a beefsteak
+on a gridiron. We were literally being baked through and through. The
+burning sun seemed to be sucking our very blood out of us. We sat up
+and gasped.
+
+"Phew," said I, grabbing at the halo of flies which buzzed cheerfully
+round my head. The heat did not affect /them/.
+
+"My word!" said Sir Henry.
+
+"It is hot!" echoed Good.
+
+It was hot, indeed, and there was not a bit of shelter to be found.
+Look where we would there was no rock or tree, nothing but an unending
+glare, rendered dazzling by the heated air that danced over the
+surface of the desert as it dances over a red-hot stove.
+
+"What is to be done?" asked Sir Henry; "we can't stand this for long."
+
+We looked at each other blankly.
+
+"I have it," said Good, "we must dig a hole, get in it, and cover
+ourselves with the karoo bushes."
+
+It did not seem a very promising suggestion, but at least it was
+better than nothing, so we set to work, and, with the trowel we had
+brought with us and the help of our hands, in about an hour we
+succeeded in delving out a patch of ground some ten feet long by
+twelve wide to the depth of two feet. Then we cut a quantity of low
+scrub with our hunting-knives, and creeping into the hole, pulled it
+over us all, with the exception of Ventv�gel, on whom, being a
+Hottentot, the heat had no particular effect. This gave us some slight
+shelter from the burning rays of the sun, but the atmosphere in that
+amateur grave can be better imagined than described. The Black Hole of
+Calcutta must have been a fool to it; indeed, to this moment I do not
+know how we lived through the day. There we lay panting, and every now
+and again moistening our lips from our scanty supply of water. Had we
+followed our inclinations we should have finished all we possessed in
+the first two hours, but we were forced to exercise the most rigid
+care, for if our water failed us we knew that very soon we must perish
+miserably.
+
+But everything has an end, if only you live long enough to see it, and
+somehow that miserable day wore on towards evening. About three
+o'clock in the afternoon we determined that we could bear it no
+longer. It would be better to die walking that to be killed slowly by
+heat and thirst in this dreadful hole. So taking each of us a little
+drink from our fast diminishing supply of water, now warmed to about
+the same temperature as a man's blood, we staggered forward.
+
+We had then covered some fifty miles of wilderness. If the reader will
+refer to the rough copy and translation of old da Silvestra's map, he
+will see that the desert is marked as measuring forty leagues across,
+and the "pan bad water" is set down as being about in the middle of
+it. Now forty leagues is one hundred and twenty miles, consequently we
+ought at the most to be within twelve or fifteen miles of the water if
+any should really exist.
+
+Through the afternoon we crept slowly and painfully along, scarcely
+doing more than a mile and a half in an hour. At sunset we rested
+again, waiting for the moon, and after drinking a little managed to
+get some sleep.
+
+Before we lay down, Umbopa pointed out to us a slight and indistinct
+hillock on the flat surface of the plain about eight miles away. At
+the distance it looked like an ant-hill, and as I was dropping off to
+sleep I fell to wondering what it could be.
+
+With the moon we marched again, feeling dreadfully exhausted, and
+suffering tortures from thirst and prickly heat. Nobody who has not
+felt it can know what we went through. We walked no longer, we
+staggered, now and again falling from exhaustion, and being obliged to
+call a halt every hour or so. We had scarcely energy left in us to
+speak. Up to this Good had chatted and joked, for he is a merry
+fellow; but now he had not a joke in him.
+
+At last, about two o'clock, utterly worn out in body and mind, we came
+to the foot of the queer hill, or sand koppie, which at first sight
+resembled a gigantic ant-heap about a hundred feet high, and covering
+at the base nearly two acres of ground.
+
+Here we halted, and driven to it by our desperate thirst, sucked down
+our last drops of water. We had but half a pint a head, and each of us
+could have drunk a gallon.
+
+Then we lay down. Just as I was dropping off to sleep I heard Umbopa
+remark to himself in Zulu--
+
+"If we cannot find water we shall all be dead before the moon rises
+to-morrow."
+
+I shuddered, hot as it was. The near prospect of such an awful death
+is not pleasant, but even the thought of it could not keep me from
+sleeping.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+WATER! WATER!
+
+Two hours later, that is, about four o'clock, I woke up, for so soon
+as the first heavy demand of bodily fatigue had been satisfied, the
+torturing thirst from which I was suffering asserted itself. I could
+sleep no more. I had been dreaming that I was bathing in a running
+stream, with green banks and trees upon them, and I awoke to find
+myself in this arid wilderness, and to remember, as Umbopa had said,
+that if we did not find water this day we must perish miserably. No
+human creature could live long without water in that heat. I sat up
+and rubbed my grimy face with my dry and horny hands, as my lips and
+eyelids were stuck together, and it was only after some friction and
+with an effort that I was able to open them. It was not far from dawn,
+but there was none of the bright feel of dawn in the air, which was
+thick with a hot murkiness that I cannot describe. The others were
+still sleeping.
+
+Presently it began to grow light enough to read, so I drew out a
+little pocket copy of the "Ingoldsby Legends" which I had brought with
+me, and read "The Jackdaw of Rheims." When I got to where
+
+ "A nice little boy held a golden ewer,
+  Embossed, and filled with water as pure
+  As any that flows between Rheims and Namur,"
+
+literally I smacked my cracking lips, or rather tried to smack them.
+The mere thought of that pure water made me mad. If the Cardinal had
+been there with his bell, book, and candle, I would have whipped in
+and drunk his water up; yes, even if he had filled it already with the
+suds of soap "worthy of washing the hands of the Pope," and I knew
+that the whole consecrated curse of the Catholic Church should fall
+upon me for so doing. I almost think that I must have been a little
+light-headed with thirst, weariness and the want of food; for I fell
+to thinking how astonished the Cardinal and his nice little boy and
+the jackdaw would have looked to see a burnt up, brown-eyed, grizzly-
+haired little elephant hunter suddenly bound between them, put his
+dirty face into the basin, and swallow every drop of the precious
+water. The idea amused me so much that I laughed or rather cackled
+aloud, which woke the others, and they began to rub /their/ dirty
+faces and drag /their/ gummed-up lips and eyelids apart.
+
+As soon as we were all well awake we began to discuss the situation,
+which was serious enough. Not a drop of water was left. We turned the
+bottles upside down, and licked their tops, but it was a failure; they
+were dry as a bone. Good, who had charge of the flask of brandy, got
+it out and looked at it longingly; but Sir Henry promptly took it away
+from him, for to drink raw spirit would only have been to precipitate
+the end.
+
+"If we do not find water we shall die," he said.
+
+"If we can trust to the old Dom's map there should be some about," I
+said; but nobody seemed to derive much satisfaction from this remark.
+It was so evident that no great faith could be put in the map. Now it
+was gradually growing light, and as we sat staring blankly at each
+other, I observed the Hottentot Ventv�gel rise and begin to walk about
+with his eyes on the ground. Presently he stopped short, and uttering
+a guttural exclamation, pointed to the earth.
+
+"What is it?" we exclaimed; and rising simultaneously we went to where
+he was standing staring at the sand.
+
+"Well," I said, "it is fresh Springbok spoor; what of it?"
+
+"Springbucks do not go far from water," he answered in Dutch.
+
+"No," I answered, "I forgot; and thank God for it."
+
+This little discovery put new life into us; for it is wonderful, when
+a man is in a desperate position, how he catches at the slightest
+hope, and feels almost happy. On a dark night a single star is better
+than nothing.
+
+Meanwhile Ventv�gel was lifting his snub nose, and sniffing the hot
+air for all the world like an old Impala ram who scents danger.
+Presently he spoke again.
+
+"I /smell/ water," he said.
+
+Then we felt quite jubilant, for we knew what a wonderful instinct
+these wild-bred men possess.
+
+Just at that moment the sun came up gloriously, and revealed so grand
+a sight to our astonished eyes that for a moment or two we even forgot
+our thirst.
+
+There, not more than forty or fifty miles from us, glittering like
+silver in the early rays of the morning sun, soared Sheba's Breasts;
+and stretching away for hundreds of miles on either side of them ran
+the great Suliman Berg. Now that, sitting here, I attempt to describe
+the extraordinary grandeur and beauty of that sight, language seems to
+fail me. I am impotent even before its memory. Straight before us,
+rose two enormous mountains, the like of which are not, I believe, to
+be seen in Africa, if indeed there are any other such in the world,
+measuring each of them at least fifteen thousand feet in height,
+standing not more than a dozen miles apart, linked together by a
+precipitous cliff of rock, and towering in awful white solemnity
+straight into the sky. These mountains placed thus, like the pillars
+of a gigantic gateway, are shaped after the fashion of a woman's
+breasts, and at times the mists and shadows beneath them take the form
+of a recumbent woman, veiled mysteriously in sleep. Their bases swell
+gently from the plain, looking at that distance perfectly round and
+smooth; and upon the top of each is a vast hillock covered with snow,
+exactly corresponding to the nipple on the female breast. The stretch
+of cliff that connects them appears to be some thousands of feet in
+height, and perfectly precipitous, and on each flank of them, so far
+as the eye can reach, extent similar lines of cliff, broken only here
+and there by flat table-topped mountains, something like the world-
+famed one at Cape Town; a formation, by the way, that is very common
+in Africa.
+
+To describe the comprehensive grandeur of that view is beyond my
+powers. There was something so inexpressibly solemn and overpowering
+about those huge volcanoes--for doubtless they are extinct volcanoes--
+that it quite awed us. For a while the morning lights played upon the
+snow and the brown and swelling masses beneath, and then, as though to
+veil the majestic sight from our curious eyes, strange vapours and
+clouds gathered and increased around the mountains, till presently we
+could only trace their pure and gigantic outlines, showing ghostlike
+through the fleecy envelope. Indeed, as we afterwards discovered,
+usually they were wrapped in this gauze-like mist, which doubtless
+accounted for our not having seen them more clearly before.
+
+Sheba's Breasts had scarcely vanished into cloud-clad privacy, before
+our thirst--literally a burning question--reasserted itself.
+
+It was all very well for Ventv�gel to say that he smelt water, but we
+could see no signs of it, look which way we would. So far as the eye
+might reach there was nothing but arid sweltering sand and karoo
+scrub. We walked round the hillock and gazed about anxiously on the
+other side, but it was the same story, not a drop of water could be
+found; there was no indication of a pan, a pool, or a spring.
+
+"You are a fool," I said angrily to Ventv�gel; "there is no water."
+
+But still he lifted his ugly snub nose sniffed.
+
+"I smell it, Baas," he answered; "it is somewhere in the air."
+
+"Yes," I said, "no doubt it is in the clouds, and about two months
+hence it will fall and wash our bones."
+
+Sir Henry stroked his yellow beard thoughtfully. "Perhaps it is on the
+top of the hill," he suggested.
+
+"Rot," said Good; "whoever heard of water being found at the top of a
+hill!"
+
+"Let us go and look," I put in, and hopelessly enough we scrambled up
+the sandy sides of the hillock, Umbopa leading. Presently he stopped
+as though he was petrified.
+
+"/Nanzia manzie/!" that is, "Here is water!" he cried with a loud
+voice.
+
+We rushed up to him, and there, sure enough, in a deep cut or
+indentation on the very top of the sand koppie, was an undoubted pool
+of water. How it came to be in such a strange place we did not stop to
+inquire, nor did we hesitate at its black and unpleasant appearance.
+It was water, or a good imitation of it, and that was enough for us.
+We gave a bound and a rush, and in another second we were all down on
+our stomachs sucking up the uninviting fluid as though it were nectar
+fit for the gods. Heavens, how we did drink! Then when we had done
+drinking we tore off our clothes and sat down in the pool, absorbing
+the moisture through our parched skins. You, Harry, my boy, who have
+only to turn on a couple of taps to summon "hot" and "cold" from an
+unseen, vasty cistern, can have little idea of the luxury of that
+muddy wallow in brackish tepid water.
+
+After a while we rose from it, refreshed indeed, and fell to on our
+"biltong," of which we had scarcely been able to touch a mouthful for
+twenty-four hours, and ate our fill. Then we smoked a pipe, and lay
+down by the side of that blessed pool, under the overhanging shadow of
+its bank, and slept till noon.
+
+All that day we rested there by the water, thanking our stars that we
+had been lucky enough to find it, bad as it was, and not forgetting to
+render a due share of gratitude to the shade of the long-departed da
+Silvestra, who had set its position down so accurately on the tail of
+his shirt. The wonderful thing to us was that the pan should have
+lasted so long, and the only way in which I can account for this is on
+the supposition that it is fed by some spring deep down in the sand.
+
+Having filled both ourselves and our water-bottles as full as
+possible, in far better spirits we started off again with the moon.
+That night we covered nearly five-and-twenty miles; but, needless to
+say, found no more water, though we were lucky enough the following
+day to get a little shade behind some ant-heaps. When the sun rose,
+and, for awhile, cleared away the mysterious mists, Suliman's Berg
+with the two majestic Breasts, now only about twenty miles off, seemed
+to be towering right above us, and looked grander than ever. At the
+approach of evening we marched again, and, to cut a long story short,
+by daylight next morning found ourselves upon the lowest slopes of
+Sheba's left breast, for which we had been steadily steering. By this
+time our water was exhausted once more, and we were suffering severely
+from thirst, nor indeed could we see any chance of relieving it till
+we reached the snow line far, far above us. After resting an hour or
+two, driven to it by our torturing thirst, we went on, toiling
+painfully in the burning heat up the lava slopes, for we found that
+the huge base of the mountain was composed entirely of lava beds
+belched from the bowels of the earth in some far past age.
+
+By eleven o'clock we were utterly exhausted, and, generally speaking,
+in a very bad state indeed. The lava clinker, over which we must drag
+ourselves, though smooth compared with some clinker I have heard of,
+such as that on the Island of Ascension, for instance, was yet rough
+enough to make our feet very sore, and this, together with our other
+miseries, had pretty well finished us. A few hundred yards above us
+were some large lumps of lava, and towards these we steered with the
+intention of lying down beneath their shade. We reached them, and to
+our surprise, so far as we had a capacity for surprise left in us, on
+a little plateau or ridge close by we saw that the clinker was covered
+with a dense green growth. Evidently soil formed of decomposed lava
+had rested there, and in due course had become the receptacle of seeds
+deposited by birds. But we did not take much further interest in the
+green growth, for one cannot live on grass like Nebuchadnezzar. That
+requires a special dispensation of Providence and peculiar digestive
+organs.
+
+So we sat down under the rocks and groaned, and for one I wished
+heartily that we had never started on this fool's errand. As we were
+sitting there I saw Umbopa get up and hobble towards the patch of
+green, and a few minutes afterwards, to my great astonishment, I
+perceived that usually very dignified individual dancing and shouting
+like a maniac, and waving something green. Off we all scrambled
+towards him as fast as our wearied limbs would carry us, hoping that
+he had found water.
+
+"What is it, Umbopa, son of a fool?" I shouted in Zulu.
+
+"It is food and water, Macumazahn," and again he waved the green
+thing.
+
+Then I saw what he had found. It was a melon. We had hit upon a patch
+of wild melons, thousands of them, and dead ripe.
+
+"Melons!" I yelled to Good, who was next me; and in another minute his
+false teeth were fixed in one of them.
+
+I think we ate about six each before we had done, and poor fruit as
+they were, I doubt if I ever thought anything nicer.
+
+But melons are not very nutritious, and when we had satisfied our
+thirst with their pulpy substance, and put a stock to cool by the
+simple process of cutting them in two and setting them end on in the
+hot sun to grow cold by evaporation, we began to feel exceedingly
+hungry. We had still some biltong left, but our stomachs turned from
+biltong, and besides, we were obliged to be very sparing of it, for we
+could not say when we should find more food. Just at this moment a
+lucky thing chanced. Looking across the desert I saw a flock of about
+ten large birds flying straight towards us.
+
+"/Skit, Baas, skit!/" "Shoot, master, shoot!" whispered the Hottentot,
+throwing himself on his face, an example which we all followed.
+
+Then I saw that the birds were a flock of /pauw/ or bustards, and that
+they would pass within fifty yards of my head. Taking one of the
+repeating Winchesters, I waited till they were nearly over us, and
+then jumped to my feet. On seeing me the /pauw/ bunched up together,
+as I expected that they would, and I fired two shots straight into the
+thick of them, and, as luck would have it, brought one down, a fine
+fellow, that weighed about twenty pounds. In half an hour we had a
+fire made of dry melon stalks, and he was toasting over it, and we
+made such a feed as we had not tasted for a week. We ate that /pauw/;
+nothing was left of him but his leg-bones and his beak, and we felt
+not a little the better afterwards.
+
+That night we went on again with the moon, carrying as many melons as
+we could with us. As we ascended we found the air grew cooler and
+cooler, which was a great relief to us, and at dawn, so far as we
+could judge, we were not more than about a dozen miles from the snow
+line. Here we discovered more melons, and so had no longer any anxiety
+about water, for we knew that we should soon get plenty of snow. But
+the ascent had now become very precipitous, and we made but slow
+progress, not more than a mile an hour. Also that night we ate our
+last morsel of biltong. As yet, with the exception of the /pauw/, we
+had seen no living thing on the mountain, nor had we come across a
+single spring or stream of water, which struck us as very odd,
+considering the expanse of snow above us, which must, we thought, melt
+sometimes. But as we afterwards discovered, owing to a cause which it
+is quite beyond my power to explain, all the streams flowed down upon
+the north side of the mountains.
+
+Now we began to grow very anxious about food. We had escaped death by
+thirst, but it seemed probable that it was only to die of hunger. The
+events of the next three miserable days are best described by copying
+the entries made at the time in my note-book.
+
+"21st May.--Started 11 a.m., finding the atmosphere quite cold enough
+to travel by day, and carrying some water-melons with us. Struggled on
+all day, but found no more melons, having evidently passed out of
+their district. Saw no game of any sort. Halted for the night at
+sundown, having had no food for many hours. Suffered much during the
+night from cold.
+
+"22nd.--Started at sunrise again, feeling very faint and weak. Only
+made about five miles all day; found some patches of snow, of which we
+ate, but nothing else. Camped at night under the edge of a great
+plateau. Cold bitter. Drank a little brandy each, and huddled
+ourselves together, each wrapped up in his blanket, to keep ourselves
+alive. Are now suffering frightfully from starvation and weariness.
+Thought that Ventv�gel would have died during the night.
+
+"23rd.--Struggled forward once more as soon as the sun was well up,
+and had thawed our limbs a little. We are now in a dreadful plight,
+and I fear that unless we get food this will be our last day's
+journey. But little brandy left. Good, Sir Henry, and Umbopa bear up
+wonderfully, but Ventv�gel is in a very bad way. Like most Hottentots,
+he cannot stand cold. Pangs of hunger not so bad, but have a sort of
+numb feeling about the stomach. Others say the same. We are now on a
+level with the precipitous chain, or wall of lava, linking the two
+Breasts, and the view is glorious. Behind us the glowing desert rolls
+away to the horizon, and before us lie mile upon mile of smooth hard
+snow almost level, but swelling gently upwards, out of the centre of
+which the nipple of the mountain, that appears to be some miles in
+circumference, rises about four thousand feet into the sky. Not a
+living thing is to be seen. God help us; I fear that our time has
+come."
+
+And now I will drop the journal, partly because it is not very
+interesting reading; also what follows requires telling rather more
+fully.
+
+All that day--the 23rd May--we struggled slowly up the incline of
+snow, lying down from time to time to rest. A strange gaunt crew we
+must have looked, while, laden as we were, we dragged our weary feet
+over the dazzling plain, glaring round us with hungry eyes. Not that
+there was much use in glaring, for we could see nothing to eat. We did
+not accomplish more than seven miles that day. Just before sunset we
+found ourselves exactly under the nipple of Sheba's left Breast, which
+towered thousands of feet into the air, a vast smooth hillock of
+frozen snow. Weak as we were, we could not but appreciate the
+wonderful scene, made even more splendid by the flying rays of light
+from the setting sun, which here and there stained the snow blood-red,
+and crowned the great dome above us with a diadem of glory.
+
+"I say," gasped Good, presently, "we ought to be somewhere near that
+cave the old gentleman wrote about."
+
+"Yes," said I, "if there is a cave."
+
+"Come, Quatermain," groaned Sir Henry, "don't talk like that; I have
+every faith in the Dom; remember the water! We shall find the place
+soon."
+
+"If we don't find it before dark we are dead men, that is all about
+it," was my consolatory reply.
+
+For the next ten minutes we trudged in silence, when suddenly Umbopa,
+who was marching along beside me, wrapped in his blanket, and with a
+leather belt strapped so tightly round his stomach, to "make his
+hunger small," as he said, that his waist looked like a girl's, caught
+me by the arm.
+
+"Look!" he said, pointing towards the springing slope of the nipple.
+
+I followed his glance, and some two hundred yards from us perceived
+what appeared to be a hole in the snow.
+
+"It is the cave," said Umbopa.
+
+We made the best of our way to the spot, and found sure enough that
+the hole was the mouth of a cavern, no doubt the same as that of which
+da Silvestra wrote. We were not too soon, for just as we reached
+shelter the sun went down with startling rapidity, leaving the world
+nearly dark, for in these latitudes there is but little twilight. So
+we crept into the cave, which did not appear to be very big, and
+huddling ourselves together for warmth, swallowed what remained of our
+brandy--barely a mouthful each--and tried to forget our miseries in
+sleep. But the cold was too intense to allow us to do so, for I am
+convinced that at this great altitude the thermometer cannot have
+marked less than fourteen or fifteen degrees below freezing point.
+What such a temperature meant to us, enervated as we were by hardship,
+want of food, and the great heat of the desert, the reader may imagine
+better than I can describe. Suffice it to say that it was something as
+near death from exposure as I have ever felt. There we sat hour after
+hour through the still and bitter night, feeling the frost wander
+round and nip us now in the finger, now in the foot, now in the face.
+In vain did we huddle up closer and closer; there was no warmth in our
+miserable starved carcases. Sometimes one of us would drop into an
+uneasy slumber for a few minutes, but we could not sleep much, and
+perhaps this was fortunate, for if we had I doubt if we should have
+ever woke again. Indeed, I believe that it was only by force of will
+that we kept ourselves alive at all.
+
+Not very long before dawn I heard the Hottentot Ventv�gel, whose teeth
+had been chattering all night like castanets, give a deep sigh. Then
+his teeth stopped chattering. I did not think anything of it at the
+time, concluding that he had gone to sleep. His back was resting
+against mine, and it seemed to grow colder and colder, till at last it
+felt like ice.
+
+At length the air began to grow grey with light, then golden arrows
+sped across the snow, and at last the glorious sun peeped above the
+lava wall and looked in upon our half-frozen forms. Also it looked
+upon Ventv�gel, sitting there amongst us, /stone dead/. No wonder his
+back felt cold, poor fellow. He had died when I heard him sigh, and
+was now frozen almost stiff. Shocked beyond measure, we dragged
+ourselves from the corpse--how strange is that horror we mortals have
+of the companionship of a dead body--and left it sitting there, its
+arms clasped about its knees.
+
+By this time the sunlight was pouring its cold rays, for here they
+were cold, straight into the mouth of the cave. Suddenly I heard an
+exclamation of fear from someone, and turned my head.
+
+And this is what I saw: Sitting at the end of the cavern--it was not
+more than twenty feet long--was another form, of which the head rested
+on its chest and the long arms hung down. I stared at it, and saw that
+this too was a /dead man/, and, what was more, a white man.
+
+The others saw also, and the sight proved too much for our shattered
+nerves. One and all we scrambled out of the cave as fast as our half-
+frozen limbs would carry us.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+SOLOMON'S ROAD
+
+Outside the cavern we halted, feeling rather foolish.
+
+"I am going back," said Sir Henry.
+
+"Why?" asked Good.
+
+"Because it has struck me that--what we saw--may be my brother."
+
+This was a new idea, and we re-entered the place to put it to the
+proof. After the bright light outside, our eyes, weak as they were
+with staring at the snow, could not pierce the gloom of the cave for a
+while. Presently, however, they grew accustomed to the semi-darkness,
+and we advanced towards the dead man.
+
+Sir Henry knelt down and peered into his face.
+
+"Thank God," he said, with a sigh of relief, "it is /not/ my brother."
+
+Then I drew near and looked. The body was that of a tall man in middle
+life with aquiline features, grizzled hair, and a long black
+moustache. The skin was perfectly yellow, and stretched tightly over
+the bones. Its clothing, with the exception of what seemed to be the
+remains of a woollen pair of hose, had been removed, leaving the
+skeleton-like frame naked. Round the neck of the corpse, which was
+frozen perfectly stiff, hung a yellow ivory crucifix.
+
+"Who on earth can it be?" said I.
+
+"Can't you guess?" asked Good.
+
+I shook my head.
+
+"Why, the old Dom, Jos� da Silvestra, of course--who else?"
+
+"Impossible," I gasped; "he died three hundred years ago."
+
+"And what is there to prevent him from lasting for three thousand
+years in this atmosphere, I should like to know?" asked Good. "If only
+the temperature is sufficiently low, flesh and blood will keep fresh
+as New Zealand mutton for ever, and Heaven knows it is cold enough
+here. The sun never gets in here; no animal comes here to tear or
+destroy. No doubt his slave, of whom he speaks on the writing, took
+off his clothes and left him. He could not have buried him alone.
+Look!" he went on, stooping down to pick up a queerly-shaped bone
+scraped at the end into a sharp point, "here is the 'cleft bone' that
+Silvestra used to draw the map with."
+
+We gazed for a moment astonished, forgetting our own miseries in this
+extraordinary and, as it seemed to us, semi-miraculous sight.
+
+"Ay," said Sir Henry, "and this is where he got his ink from," and he
+pointed to a small wound on the Dom's left arm. "Did ever man see such
+a thing before?"
+
+There was no longer any doubt about the matter, which for my own part
+I confess perfectly appalled me. There he sat, the dead man, whose
+directions, written some ten generations ago, had led us to this spot.
+Here in my own hand was the rude pen with which he had written them,
+and about his neck hung the crucifix that his dying lips had kissed.
+Gazing at him, my imagination could reconstruct the last scene of the
+drama, the traveller dying of cold and starvation, yet striving to
+convey to the world the great secret which he had discovered:--the
+awful loneliness of his death, of which the evidence sat before us. It
+even seemed to me that I could trace in his strongly-marked features a
+likeness to those of my poor friend Silvestre his descendant, who had
+died twenty years before in my arms, but perhaps that was fancy. At
+any rate, there he sat, a sad memento of the fate that so often
+overtakes those who would penetrate into the unknown; and there
+doubtless he will still sit, crowned with the dread majesty of death,
+for centuries yet unborn, to startle the eyes of wanderers like
+ourselves, if ever any such should come again to invade his
+loneliness. The thing overpowered us, already almost perished as we
+were with cold and hunger.
+
+"Let us go," said Sir Henry in a low voice; "stay, we will give him a
+companion," and lifting up the dead body of the Hottentot Ventv�gel,
+he placed it near to that of the old Dom. Then he stooped, and with a
+jerk broke the rotten string of the crucifix which hung round da
+Silvestra's neck, for his fingers were too cold to attempt to unfasten
+it. I believe that he has it still. I took the bone pen, and it is
+before me as I write--sometimes I use it to sign my name.
+
+Then leaving these two, the proud white man of a past age, and the
+poor Hottentot, to keep their eternal vigil in the midst of the
+eternal snows, we crept out of the cave into the welcome sunshine and
+resumed our path, wondering in our hearts how many hours it would be
+before we were even as they are.
+
+When we had walked about half a mile we came to the edge of the
+plateau, for the nipple of the mountain does not rise out of its exact
+centre, though from the desert side it had seemed to do so. What lay
+below us we could not see, for the landscape was wreathed in billows
+of morning fog. Presently, however, the higher layers of mist cleared
+a little, and revealed, at the end of a long slope of snow, a patch of
+green grass, some five hundred yards beneath us, through which a
+stream was running. Nor was this all. By the stream, basking in the
+bright sun, stood and lay a group of from ten to fifteen /large
+antelopes/--at that distance we could not see of what species.
+
+The sight filled us with an unreasoning joy. If only we could get it,
+there was food in plenty. But the question was how to do so. The
+beasts were fully six hundred yards off, a very long shot, and one not
+to be depended on when our lives hung on the results.
+
+Rapidly we discussed the advisability of trying to stalk the game, but
+in the end dismissed it reluctantly. To begin with, the wind was not
+favourable, and further, we must certainly be perceived, however
+careful we were, against the blinding background of snow, which we
+should be obliged to traverse.
+
+"Well, we must have a try from where we are," said Sir Henry. "Which
+shall it be, Quatermain, the repeating rifles or the expresses?"
+
+Here again was a question. The Winchester repeaters--of which we had
+two, Umbopa carrying poor Ventv�gel's as well as his own--were sighted
+up to a thousand yards, whereas the expresses were only sighted to
+three hundred and fifty, beyond which distance shooting with them was
+more or less guess-work. On the other hand, if they did hit, the
+express bullets, being "expanding," were much more likely to bring the
+game down. It was a knotty point, but I made up my mind that we must
+risk it and use the expresses.
+
+"Let each of us take the buck opposite to him. Aim well at the point
+of the shoulder and high up," said I; "and Umbopa, do you give the
+word, so that we may all fire together."
+
+Then came a pause, each of us aiming his level best, as indeed a man
+is likely to do when he knows that life itself depends upon the shot.
+
+"Fire," said Umbopa in Zulu, and at almost the same instant the three
+rifles rang out loudly; three clouds of smoke hung for a moment before
+us, and a hundred echoes went flying over the silent snow. Presently
+the smoke cleared, and revealed--oh, joy!--a great buck lying on its
+back and kicking furiously in its death agony. We gave a yell of
+triumph--we were saved--we should not starve. Weak as we were, we
+rushed down the intervening slope of snow, and in ten minutes from the
+time of shooting, that animal's heart and liver were lying before us.
+But now a new difficulty arose, we had no fuel, and therefore could
+make no fire to cook them. We gazed at each other in dismay.
+
+"Starving men should not be fanciful," said Good; "we must eat raw
+meat."
+
+There was no other way out of the dilemma, and our gnawing hunger made
+the proposition less distasteful than it would otherwise have been. So
+we took the heart and liver and buried them for a few minutes in a
+patch of snow to cool them. Then we washed them in the ice-cold water
+of the stream, and lastly ate them greedily. It sounds horrible
+enough, but honestly, I never tasted anything so good as that raw
+meat. In a quarter of an hour we were changed men. Our life and vigour
+came back to us, our feeble pulses grew strong again, and the blood
+went coursing through our veins. But mindful of the results of over-
+feeding on starved stomachs, we were careful not to eat too much,
+stopping whilst we were still hungry.
+
+"Thank Heaven!" said Sir Henry; "that brute has saved our lives. What
+is it, Quatermain?"
+
+I rose and went to look at the antelope, for I was not certain. It was
+about the size of a donkey, with large curved horns. I had never seen
+one like it before; the species was new to me. It was brown in colour,
+with faint red stripes, and grew a thick coat. I afterwards discovered
+that the natives of that wonderful country call these bucks "/inco/."
+They are very rare, and only found at a great altitude where no other
+game will live. This animal was fairly hit high up in the shoulder,
+though whose bullet brought it down we could not, of course, discover.
+I believe that Good, mindful of his marvellous shot at the giraffe,
+secretly set it down to his own prowess, and we did not contradict
+him.
+
+We had been so busy satisfying our hunger that hitherto we had not
+found time to look about us. But now, having set Umbopa to cut off as
+much of the best meat as we were likely to be able to carry, we began
+to inspect our surroundings. The mist had cleared away, for it was
+eight o'clock, and the sun had sucked it up, so we were able to take
+in all the country before us at a glance. I know not how to describe
+the glorious panorama which unfolded itself to our gaze. I have never
+seen anything like it before, nor shall, I suppose, again.
+
+Behind and over us towered Sheba's snowy Breasts, and below, some five
+thousand feet beneath where we stood, lay league on league of the most
+lovely champaign country. Here were dense patches of lofty forest,
+there a great river wound its silvery way. To the left stretched a
+vast expanse of rich, undulating veld or grass land, whereon we could
+just make out countless herds of game or cattle, at that distance we
+could not tell which. This expanse appeared to be ringed in by a wall
+of distant mountains. To the right the country was more or less
+mountainous; that is, solitary hills stood up from its level, with
+stretches of cultivated land between, amongst which we could see
+groups of dome-shaped huts. The landscape lay before us as a map,
+wherein rivers flashed like silver snakes, and Alp-like peaks crowned
+with wildly twisted snow wreaths rose in grandeur, whilst over all was
+the glad sunlight and the breath of Nature's happy life.
+
+Two curious things struck us as we gazed. First, that the country
+before us must lie at least three thousand feet higher than the desert
+we had crossed, and secondly, that all the rivers flowed from south to
+north. As we had painful reason to know, there was no water upon the
+southern side of the vast range on which we stood, but on the northern
+face were many streams, most of which appeared to unite with the great
+river we could see winding away farther than our eyes could follow.
+
+We sat down for a while and gazed in silence at this wonderful view.
+Presently Sir Henry spoke.
+
+"Isn't there something on the map about Solomon's Great Road?" he
+said.
+
+I nodded, for I was still gazing out over the far country.
+
+"Well, look; there it is!" and he pointed a little to our right.
+
+Good and I looked accordingly, and there, winding away towards the
+plain, was what appeared to be a wide turnpike road. We had not seen
+it at first because, on reaching the plain, it turned behind some
+broken country. We did not say anything, at least, not much; we were
+beginning to lose the sense of wonder. Somehow it did not seem
+particularly unnatural that we should find a sort of Roman road in
+this strange land. We accepted the fact, that was all.
+
+"Well," said Good, "it must be quite near us if we cut off to the
+right. Hadn't we better be making a start?"
+
+This was sound advice, and so soon as we had washed our faces and
+hands in the stream we acted on it. For a mile or more we made our way
+over boulders and across patches of snow, till suddenly, on reaching
+the top of the little rise, we found the road at our feet. It was a
+splendid road cut out of the solid rock, at least fifty feet wide, and
+apparently well kept; though the odd thing was that it seemed to begin
+there. We walked down and stood on it, but one single hundred paces
+behind us, in the direction of Sheba's Breasts, it vanished, the
+entire surface of the mountain being strewn with boulders interspersed
+with patches of snow.
+
+"What do you make of this, Quatermain?" asked Sir Henry.
+
+I shook my head, I could make nothing of the thing.
+
+"I have it!" said Good; "the road no doubt ran right over the range
+and across the desert on the other side, but the sand there has
+covered it up, and above us it has been obliterated by some volcanic
+eruption of molten lava."
+
+This seemed a good suggestion; at any rate, we accepted it, and
+proceeded down the mountain. It proved a very different business
+travelling along down hill on that magnificent pathway with full
+stomachs from what it was travelling uphill over the snow quite
+starved and almost frozen. Indeed, had it not been for melancholy
+recollections of poor Ventv�gel's sad fate, and of that grim cave
+where he kept company with the old Dom, we should have felt positively
+cheerful, notwithstanding the sense of unknown dangers before us.
+Every mile we walked the atmosphere grew softer and balmier, and the
+country before us shone with a yet more luminous beauty. As for the
+road itself, I never saw such an engineering work, though Sir Henry
+said that the great road over the St. Gothard in Switzerland is very
+similar. No difficulty had been too great for the Old World engineer
+who laid it out. At one place we came to a ravine three hundred feet
+broad and at least a hundred feet deep. This vast gulf was actually
+filled in with huge blocks of dressed stone, having arches pierced
+through them at the bottom for a waterway, over which the road went on
+sublimely. At another place it was cut in zigzags out of the side of a
+precipice five hundred feet deep, and in a third it tunnelled through
+the base of an intervening ridge, a space of thirty yards or more.
+
+Here we noticed that the sides of the tunnel were covered with quaint
+sculptures, mostly of mailed figures driving in chariots. One, which
+was exceedingly beautiful, represented a whole battle scene with a
+convoy of captives being marched off in the distance.
+
+"Well," said Sir Henry, after inspecting this ancient work of art, "it
+is very well to call this Solomon's Road, but my humble opinion is
+that the Egyptians had been here before Solomon's people ever set a
+foot on it. If this isn't Egyptian or Ph�nician handiwork, I must say
+that it is very like it."
+
+By midday we had advanced sufficiently down the mountain to search the
+region where wood was to be met with. First we came to scattered
+bushes which grew more and more frequent, till at last we found the
+road winding through a vast grove of silver trees similar to those
+which are to be seen on the slopes of Table Mountain at Cape Town. I
+had never before met with them in all my wanderings, except at the
+Cape, and their appearance here astonished me greatly.
+
+"Ah!" said Good, surveying these shining-leaved trees with evident
+enthusiasm, "here is lots of wood, let us stop and cook some dinner; I
+have about digested that raw heart."
+
+Nobody objected to this, so leaving the road we made our way to a
+stream which was babbling away not far off, and soon had a goodly fire
+of dry boughs blazing. Cutting off some substantial hunks from the
+flesh of the /inco/ which we had brought with us, we proceeded to
+toast them on the end of sharp sticks, as one sees the Kafirs do, and
+ate them with relish. After filling ourselves, we lit our pipes and
+gave ourselves up to enjoyment that, compared with the hardships we
+had recently undergone, seemed almost heavenly.
+
+The brook, of which the banks were clothed with dense masses of a
+gigantic species of maidenhair fern interspersed with feathery tufts
+of wild asparagus, sung merrily at our side, the soft air murmured
+through the leaves of the silver trees, doves cooed around, and
+bright-winged birds flashed like living gems from bough to bough. It
+was a Paradise.
+
+The magic of the place combined with an overwhelming sense of dangers
+left behind, and of the promised land reached at last, seemed to charm
+us into silence. Sir Henry and Umbopa sat conversing in a mixture of
+broken English and Kitchen Zulu in a low voice, but earnestly enough,
+and I lay, with my eyes half shut, upon that fragrant bed of fern and
+watched them.
+
+Presently I missed Good, and I looked to see what had become of him.
+Soon I observed him sitting by the bank of the stream, in which he had
+been bathing. He had nothing on but his flannel shirt, and his natural
+habits of extreme neatness having reasserted themselves, he was
+actively employed in making a most elaborate toilet. He had washed his
+gutta-percha collar, had thoroughly shaken out his trousers, coat and
+waistcoat, and was now folding them up neatly till he was ready to put
+them on, shaking his head sadly as he scanned the numerous rents and
+tears in them, which naturally had resulted from our frightful
+journey. Then he took his boots, scrubbed them with a handful of fern,
+and finally rubbed them over with a piece of fat, which he had
+carefully saved from the /inco/ meat, till they looked, comparatively
+speaking, respectable. Having inspected them judiciously through his
+eye-glass, he put the boots on and began a fresh operation. From a
+little bag that he carried he produced a pocket-comb in which was
+fixed a tiny looking-glass, and in this he surveyed himself.
+Apparently he was not satisfied, for he proceeded to do his hair with
+great care. Then came a pause whilst he again contemplated the effect;
+still it was not satisfactory. He felt his chin, on which the
+accumulated scrub of a ten days' beard was flourishing.
+
+"Surely," thought I, "he is not going to try to shave." But so it was.
+Taking the piece of fat with which he had greased his boots, Good
+washed it thoroughly in the stream. Then diving again into the bag he
+brought out a little pocket razor with a guard to it, such as are
+bought by people who are afraid of cutting themselves, or by those
+about to undertake a sea voyage. Then he rubbed his face and chin
+vigorously with the fat and began. Evidently it proved a painful
+process, for he groaned very much over it, and I was convulsed with
+inward laughter as I watched him struggling with that stubbly beard.
+It seemed so very odd that a man should take the trouble to shave
+himself with a piece of fat in such a place and in our circumstances.
+At last he succeeded in getting the hair off the right side of his
+face and chin, when suddenly I, who was watching, became conscious of
+a flash of light that passed just by his head.
+
+Good sprang up with a profane exclamation (if it had not been a safety
+razor he would certainly have cut his throat), and so did I, without
+the exclamation, and this was what I saw. Standing not more than
+twenty paces from where I was, and ten from Good, were a group of men.
+They were very tall and copper-coloured, and some of them wore great
+plumes of black feathers and short cloaks of leopard skins; this was
+all I noticed at the moment. In front of them stood a youth of about
+seventeen, his hand still raised and his body bent forward in the
+attitude of a Grecian statue of a spear-thrower. Evidently the flash
+of light had been caused by a weapon which he had hurled.
+
+As I looked an old soldier-like man stepped forward out of the group,
+and catching the youth by the arm said something to him. Then they
+advanced upon us.
+
+Sir Henry, Good, and Umbopa by this time had seized their rifles and
+lifted them threateningly. The party of natives still came on. It
+struck me that they could not know what rifles were, or they would not
+have treated them with such contempt.
+
+"Put down your guns!" I halloed to the others, seeing that our only
+chance of safety lay in conciliation. They obeyed, and walking to the
+front I addressed the elderly man who had checked the youth.
+
+"Greeting," I said in Zulu, not knowing what language to use. To my
+surprise I was understood.
+
+"Greeting," answered the old man, not, indeed, in the same tongue, but
+in a dialect so closely allied to it that neither Umbopa nor myself
+had any difficulty in understanding him. Indeed, as we afterwards
+found out, the language spoken by this people is an old-fashioned form
+of the Zulu tongue, bearing about the same relationship to it that the
+English of Chaucer does to the English of the nineteenth century.
+
+"Whence come you?" he went on, "who are you? and why are the faces of
+three of you white, and the face of the fourth as the face of our
+mother's sons?" and he pointed to Umbopa. I looked at Umbopa as he
+said it, and it flashed across me that he was right. The face of
+Umbopa was like the faces of the men before me, and so was his great
+form like their forms. But I had not time to reflect on this
+coincidence.
+
+"We are strangers, and come in peace," I answered, speaking very
+slowly, so that he might understand me, "and this man is our servant."
+
+"You lie," he answered; "no strangers can cross the mountains where
+all things perish. But what do your lies matter?--if ye are strangers
+then ye must die, for no strangers may live in the land of the
+Kukuanas. It is the king's law. Prepare then to die, O strangers!"
+
+I was slightly staggered at this, more especially as I saw the hands
+of some of the men steal down to their sides, where hung on each what
+looked to me like a large and heavy knife.
+
+"What does that beggar say?" asked Good.
+
+"He says we are going to be killed," I answered grimly.
+
+"Oh, Lord!" groaned Good; and, as was his way when perplexed, he put
+his hand to his false teeth, dragging the top set down and allowing
+them to fly back to his jaw with a snap. It was a most fortunate move,
+for next second the dignified crowd of Kukuanas uttered a simultaneous
+yell of horror, and bolted back some yards.
+
+"What's up?" said I.
+
+"It's his teeth," whispered Sir Henry excitedly. "He moved them. Take
+them out, Good, take them out!"
+
+He obeyed, slipping the set into the sleeve of his flannel shirt.
+
+In another second curiosity had overcome fear, and the men advanced
+slowly. Apparently they had now forgotten their amiable intention of
+killing us.
+
+"How is it, O strangers," asked the old man solemnly, "that this fat
+man (pointing to Good, who was clad in nothing but boots and a flannel
+shirt, and had only half finished his shaving), whose body is clothed,
+and whose legs are bare, who grows hair on one side of his sickly face
+and not on the other, and who wears one shining and transparent eye--
+how is it, I ask, that he has teeth which move of themselves, coming
+away from the jaws and returning of their own will?"
+
+"Open your mouth," I said to Good, who promptly curled up his lips and
+grinned at the old gentleman like an angry dog, revealing to his
+astonished gaze two thin red lines of gum as utterly innocent of
+ivories as a new-born elephant. The audience gasped.
+
+"Where are his teeth?" they shouted; "with our eyes we saw them."
+
+Turning his head slowly and with a gesture of ineffable contempt, Good
+swept his hand across his mouth. Then he grinned again, and lo, there
+were two rows of lovely teeth.
+
+Now the young man who had flung the knife threw himself down on the
+grass and gave vent to a prolonged howl of terror; and as for the old
+gentleman, his knees knocked together with fear.
+
+"I see that ye are spirits," he said falteringly; "did ever man born
+of woman have hair on one side of his face and not on the other, or a
+round and transparent eye, or teeth which moved and melted away and
+grew again? Pardon us, O my lords."
+
+Here was luck indeed, and, needless to say, I jumped at the chance.
+
+"It is granted," I said with an imperial smile. "Nay, ye shall know
+the truth. We come from another world, though we are men such as ye;
+we come," I went on, "from the biggest star that shines at night."
+
+"Oh! oh!" groaned the chorus of astonished aborigines.
+
+"Yes," I went on, "we do, indeed"; and again I smiled benignly, as I
+uttered that amazing lie. "We come to stay with you a little while,
+and to bless you by our sojourn. Ye will see, O friends, that I have
+prepared myself for this visit by the learning of your language."
+
+"It is so, it is so," said the chorus.
+
+"Only, my lord," put in the old gentleman, "thou hast learnt it very
+badly."
+
+I cast an indignant glance at him, and he quailed.
+
+"Now friends," I continued, "ye might think that after so long a
+journey we should find it in our hearts to avenge such a reception,
+mayhap to strike cold in death the imperious hand that--that, in short
+--threw a knife at the head of him whose teeth come and go."
+
+"Spare him, my lords," said the old man in supplication; "he is the
+king's son, and I am his uncle. If anything befalls him his blood will
+be required at my hands."
+
+"Yes, that is certainly so," put in the young man with great emphasis.
+
+"Ye may perhaps doubt our power to avenge," I went on, heedless of
+this by-play. "Stay, I will show you. Here, thou dog and slave
+(addressing Umbopa in a savage tone), give me the magic tube that
+speaks"; and I tipped a wink towards my express rifle.
+
+Umbopa rose to the occasion, and with something as nearly resembling a
+grin as I have ever seen on his dignified face he handed me the gun.
+
+"It is here, O Lord of Lords," he said with a deep obeisance.
+
+Now just before I had asked for the rifle I had perceived a little
+/klipspringer/ antelope standing on a mass of rock about seventy yards
+away, and determined to risk the shot.
+
+"Ye see that buck," I said, pointing the animal out to the party
+before me. "Tell me, is it possible for man born of woman to kill it
+from here with a noise?"
+
+"It is not possible, my lord," answered the old man.
+
+"Yet shall I kill it," I said quietly.
+
+The old man smiled. "That my lord cannot do," he answered.
+
+I raised the rifle and covered the buck. It was a small animal, and
+one which a man might well be excused for missing, but I knew that it
+would not do to miss.
+
+I drew a deep breath, and slowly pressed on the trigger. The buck
+stood still as a stone.
+
+"Bang! thud!" The antelope sprang into the air and fell on the rock
+dead as a door nail.
+
+A groan of simultaneous terror burst from the group before us.
+
+"If you want meat," I remarked coolly, "go fetch that buck."
+
+The old man made a sign, and one of his followers departed, and
+presently returned bearing the /klipspringer/. I noticed with
+satisfaction that I had hit it fairly behind the shoulder. They
+gathered round the poor creature's body, gazing at the bullet-hole in
+consternation.
+
+"Ye see," I said, "I do not speak empty words."
+
+There was no answer.
+
+"If ye yet doubt our power," I went on, "let one of you go stand upon
+that rock that I may make him as this buck."
+
+None of them seemed at all inclined to take the hint, till at last the
+king's son spoke.
+
+"It is well said. Do thou, my uncle, go stand upon the rock. It is but
+a buck that the magic has killed. Surely it cannot kill a man."
+
+The old gentleman did not take the suggestion in good part. Indeed, he
+seemed hurt.
+
+"No! no!" he ejaculated hastily, "my old eyes have seen enough. These
+are wizards, indeed. Let us bring them to the king. Yet if any should
+wish a further proof, let /him/ stand upon the rock, that the magic
+tube may speak with him."
+
+There was a most general and hasty expression of dissent.
+
+"Let not good magic be wasted on our poor bodies," said one; "we are
+satisfied. All the witchcraft of our people cannot show the like of
+this."
+
+"It is so," remarked the old gentleman, in a tone of intense relief;
+"without any doubt it is so. Listen, children of the Stars, children
+of the shining Eye and the movable Teeth, who roar out in thunder, and
+slay from afar. I am Infadoos, son of Kafa, once king of the Kukuana
+people. This youth is Scragga."
+
+"He nearly scragged me," murmured Good.
+
+"Scragga, son of Twala, the great king--Twala, husband of a thousand
+wives, chief and lord paramount of the Kukuanas, keeper of the great
+Road, terror of his enemies, student of the Black Arts, leader of a
+hundred thousand warriors, Twala the One-eyed, the Black, the
+Terrible."
+
+"So," said I superciliously, "lead us then to Twala. We do not talk
+with low people and underlings."
+
+"It is well, my lords, we will lead you; but the way is long. We are
+hunting three days' journey from the place of the king. But let my
+lords have patience, and we will lead them."
+
+"So be it," I said carelessly; "all time is before us, for we do not
+die. We are ready, lead on. But Infadoos, and thou Scragga, beware!
+Play us no monkey tricks, set for us no foxes' snares, for before your
+brains of mud have thought of them we shall know and avenge. The light
+of the transparent eye of him with the bare legs and the half-haired
+face shall destroy you, and go through your land; his vanishing teeth
+shall affix themselves fast in you and eat you up, you and your wives
+and children; the magic tubes shall argue with you loudly, and make
+you as sieves. Beware!"
+
+This magnificent address did not fail of its effect; indeed, it might
+almost have been spared, so deeply were our friends already impressed
+with our powers.
+
+The old man made a deep obeisance, and murmured the words, "/Koom
+Koom/," which I afterwards discovered was their royal salute,
+corresponding to the /Bay�te/ of the Zulus, and turning, addressed his
+followers. These at once proceeded to lay hold of all our goods and
+chattels, in order to bear them for us, excepting only the guns, which
+they would on no account touch. They even seized Good's clothes, that,
+as the reader may remember, were neatly folded up beside him.
+
+He saw and made a dive for them, and a loud altercation ensued.
+
+"Let not my lord of the transparent Eye and the melting Teeth touch
+them," said the old man. "Surely his slave shall carry the things."
+
+"But I want to put 'em on!" roared Good, in nervous English.
+
+Umbopa translated.
+
+"Nay, my lord," answered Infadoos, "would my lord cover up his
+beautiful white legs (although he is so dark Good has a singularly
+white skin) from the eyes of his servants? Have we offended my lord
+that he should do such a thing?"
+
+Here I nearly exploded with laughing; and meanwhile one of the men
+started on with the garments.
+
+"Damn it!" roared Good, "that black villain has got my trousers."
+
+"Look here, Good," said Sir Henry; "you have appeared in this country
+in a certain character, and you must live up to it. It will never do
+for you to put on trousers again. Henceforth you must exist in a
+flannel shirt, a pair of boots, and an eye-glass."
+
+"Yes," I said, "and with whiskers on one side of your face and not on
+the other. If you change any of these things the people will think
+that we are impostors. I am very sorry for you, but, seriously, you
+must. If once they begin to suspect us our lives will not be worth a
+brass farthing."
+
+"Do you really think so?" said Good gloomily.
+
+"I do, indeed. Your 'beautiful white legs' and your eye-glass are now
+/the/ features of our party, and as Sir Henry says, you must live up
+to them. Be thankful that you have got your boots on, and that the air
+is warm."
+
+Good sighed, and said no more, but it took him a fortnight to become
+accustomed to his new and scant attire.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+WE ENTER KUKUANALAND
+
+All that afternoon we travelled along the magnificent roadway, which
+trended steadily in a north-westerly direction. Infadoos and Scragga
+walked with us, but their followers marched about one hundred paces
+ahead.
+
+"Infadoos," I said at length, "who made this road?"
+
+"It was made, my lord, of old time, none know how or when, not even
+the wise woman Gagool, who has lived for generations. We are not old
+enough to remember its making. None can fashion such roads now, but
+the king suffers no grass to grow upon it."
+
+"And whose are the writings on the wall of the caves through which we
+have passed on the road?" I asked, referring to the Egyptian-like
+sculptures that we had seen.
+
+"My lord, the hands that made the road wrote the wonderful writings.
+We know not who wrote them."
+
+"When did the Kukuana people come into this country?"
+
+"My lord, the race came down here like the breath of a storm ten
+thousand thousand moons ago, from the great lands which lie there
+beyond," and he pointed to the north. "They could travel no further
+because of the high mountains which ring in the land, so say the old
+voices of our fathers that have descended to us the children, and so
+says Gagool, the wise woman, the smeller out of witches," and again he
+pointed to the snow-clad peaks. "The country, too, was good, so they
+settled here and grew strong and powerful, and now our numbers are
+like the sea sand, and when Twala the king calls up his regiments
+their plumes cover the plain so far as the eye of man can reach."
+
+"And if the land is walled in with mountains, who is there for the
+regiments to fight with?"
+
+"Nay, my lord, the country is open there towards the north, and now
+and again warriors sweep down upon us in clouds from a land we know
+not, and we slay them. It is the third part of the life of a man since
+there was a war. Many thousands died in it, but we destroyed those who
+came to eat us up. So since then there has been no war."
+
+"Your warriors must grow weary of resting on their spears, Infadoos."
+
+"My lord, there was one war, just after we destroyed the people that
+came down upon us, but it was a civil war; dog ate dog."
+
+"How was that?"
+
+"My lord the king, my half-brother, had a brother born at the same
+birth, and of the same woman. It is not our custom, my lord, to suffer
+twins to live; the weaker must always die. But the mother of the king
+hid away the feebler child, which was born the last, for her heart
+yearned over it, and that child is Twala the king. I am his younger
+brother, born of another wife."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"My lord, Kafa, our father, died when we came to manhood, and my
+brother Imotu was made king in his place, and for a space reigned and
+had a son by his favourite wife. When the babe was three years old,
+just after the great war, during which no man could sow or reap, a
+famine came upon the land, and the people murmured because of the
+famine, and looked round like a starved lion for something to rend.
+Then it was that Gagool, the wise and terrible woman, who does not
+die, made a proclamation to the people, saying, 'The king Imotu is no
+king.' And at the time Imotu was sick with a wound, and lay in his
+kraal not able to move.
+
+"Then Gagool went into a hut and led out Twala, my half-brother, and
+twin brother to the king, whom she had hidden among the caves and
+rocks since he was born, and stripping the '/moocha/' (waist-cloth)
+off his loins, showed the people of the Kukuanas the mark of the
+sacred snake coiled round his middle, wherewith the eldest son of the
+king is marked at birth, and cried out loud, 'Behold your king whom I
+have saved for you even to this day!'
+
+"Now the people being mad with hunger, and altogether bereft of reason
+and the knowledge of truth, cried out--'/The king! The king!/' but I
+knew that it was not so, for Imotu my brother was the elder of the
+twins, and our lawful king. Then just as the tumult was at its height
+Imotu the king, though he was very sick, crawled from his hut holding
+his wife by the hand, and followed by his little son Ignosi--that is,
+by interpretation, the Lightning.
+
+"'What is this noise?' he asked. 'Why cry ye /The king! The king!/'
+
+"Then Twala, his twin brother, born of the same woman, and in the same
+hour, ran to him, and taking him by the hair, stabbed him through the
+heart with his knife. And the people being fickle, and ever ready to
+worship the rising sun, clapped their hands and cried, '/Twala is
+king!/ Now we know that Twala is king!'"
+
+"And what became of Imotu's wife and her son Ignosi? Did Twala kill
+them too?"
+
+"Nay, my lord. When she saw that her lord was dead the queen seized
+the child with a cry and ran away. Two days afterward she came to a
+kraal very hungry, and none would give her milk or food, now that her
+lord the king was dead, for all men hate the unfortunate. But at
+nightfall a little child, a girl, crept out and brought her corn to
+eat, and she blessed the child, and went on towards the mountains with
+her boy before the sun rose again, and there she must have perished,
+for none have seen her since, nor the child Ignosi."
+
+"Then if this child Ignosi had lived he would be the true king of the
+Kukuana people?"
+
+"That is so, my lord; the sacred snake is round his middle. If he
+lives he is king; but, alas! he is long dead."
+
+"See, my lord," and Infadoos pointed to a vast collection of huts
+surrounded by a fence, which was in its turn encircled by a great
+ditch, that lay on the plain beneath us. "That is the kraal where the
+wife of Imotu was last seen with the child Ignosi. It is there that we
+shall sleep to-night, if, indeed," he added doubtfully, "my lords
+sleep at all upon this earth."
+
+"When we are among the Kukuanas, my good friend Infadoos, we do as the
+Kukuanas do," I said majestically, and turned round quickly to address
+Good, who was tramping along sullenly behind, his mind fully occupied
+with unsatisfactory attempts to prevent his flannel shirt from
+flapping in the evening breeze. To my astonishment I butted into
+Umbopa, who was walking along immediately behind me, and very
+evidently had been listening with the greatest interest to my
+conversation with Infadoos. The expression on his face was most
+curious, and gave me the idea of a man who was struggling with partial
+success to bring something long ago forgotten back into his mind.
+
+All this while we had been pressing on at a good rate towards the
+undulating plain beneath us. The mountains we had crossed now loomed
+high above our heads, and Sheba's Breasts were veiled modestly in
+diaphanous wreaths of mist. As we went the country grew more and more
+lovely. The vegetation was luxuriant, without being tropical; the sun
+was bright and warm, but not burning; and a gracious breeze blew
+softly along the odorous slopes of the mountains. Indeed, this new
+land was little less than an earthly paradise; in beauty, in natural
+wealth, and in climate I have never seen its like. The Transvaal is a
+fine country, but it is nothing to Kukuanaland.
+
+So soon as we started Infadoos had despatched a runner to warn the
+people of the kraal, which, by the way, was in his military command,
+of our arrival. This man had departed at an extraordinary speed, which
+Infadoos informed me he would keep up all the way, as running was an
+exercise much practised among his people.
+
+The result of this message now became apparent. When we arrived within
+two miles of the kraal we could see that company after company of men
+were issuing from its gates and marching towards us.
+
+Sir Henry laid his hand upon my arm, and remarked that it looked as
+though we were going to meet with a warm reception. Something in his
+tone attracted Infadoos' attention.
+
+"Let not my lords be afraid," he said hastily, "for in my breast there
+dwells no guile. This regiment is one under my command, and comes out
+by my orders to greet you."
+
+I nodded easily, though I was not quite easy in my mind.
+
+About half a mile from the gates of this kraal is a long stretch of
+rising ground sloping gently upwards from the road, and here the
+companies formed. It was a splendid sight to see them, each company
+about three hundred strong, charging swiftly up the rise, with
+flashing spears and waving plumes, to take their appointed place. By
+the time we reached the slope twelve such companies, or in all three
+thousand six hundred men, had passed out and taken up their positions
+along the road.
+
+Presently we came to the first company, and were able to gaze in
+astonishment on the most magnificent set of warriors that I have ever
+seen. They were all men of mature age, mostly veterans of about forty,
+and not one of them was under six feet in height, whilst many stood
+six feet three or four. They wore upon their heads heavy black plumes
+of Sakaboola feathers, like those which adorned our guides. About
+their waists and beneath the right knees were bound circlets of white
+ox tails, while in their left hands they carried round shields
+measuring about twenty inches across. These shields are very curious.
+The framework is made of an iron plate beaten out thin, over which is
+stretched milk-white ox-hide.
+
+The weapons that each man bore were simple, but most effective,
+consisting of a short and very heavy two-edged spear with a wooden
+shaft, the blade being about six inches across at the widest part.
+These spears are not used for throwing but like the Zulu "/bangwan/,"
+or stabbing assegai, are for close quarters only, when the wound
+inflicted by them is terrible. In addition to his /bangwan/ every man
+carried three large and heavy knives, each knife weighing about two
+pounds. One knife was fixed in the ox-tail girdle, and the other two
+at the back of the round shield. These knives, which are called
+"/tollas/" by the Kukuanas, take the place of the throwing assegai of
+the Zulus. The Kukuana warriors can cast them with great accuracy to a
+distance of fifty yards, and it is their custom on charging to hurl a
+volley of them at the enemy as they come to close quarters.
+
+Each company remained still as a collection of bronze statues till we
+were opposite to it, when at a signal given by its commanding officer,
+who, distinguished by a leopard skin cloak, stood some paces in front,
+every spear was raised into the air, and from three hundred throats
+sprang forth with a sudden roar the royal salute of "/Koom/." Then, so
+soon as we had passed, the company formed up behind us and followed us
+towards the kraal, till at last the whole regiment of the "Greys"--so
+called from their white shields--the crack corps of the Kukuana
+people, was marching in our rear with a tread that shook the ground.
+
+At length, branching off from Solomon's Great Road, we came to the
+wide fosse surrounding the kraal, which is at least a mile round, and
+fenced with a strong palisade of piles formed of the trunks of trees.
+At the gateway this fosse is spanned by a primitive drawbridge, which
+was let down by the guard to allow us to pass in. The kraal is
+exceedingly well laid out. Through the centre runs a wide pathway
+intersected at right angles by other pathways so arranged as to cut
+the huts into square blocks, each block being the quarters of a
+company. The huts are dome-shaped, and built, like those of the Zulus,
+of a framework of wattle, beautifully thatched with grass; but, unlike
+the Zulu huts, they have doorways through which men could walk. Also
+they are much larger, and surrounded by a verandah about six feet
+wide, beautifully paved with powdered lime trodden hard.
+
+All along each side of this wide pathway that pierces the kraal were
+ranged hundreds of women, brought out by curiosity to look at us.
+These women, for a native race, are exceedingly handsome. They are
+tall and graceful, and their figures are wonderfully fine. The hair,
+though short, is rather curly than woolly, the features are frequently
+aquiline, and the lips are not unpleasantly thick, as is the case
+among most African races. But what struck us most was their
+exceedingly quiet and dignified air. They were as well-bred in their
+way as the /habitu�es/ of a fashionable drawing-room, and in this
+respect they differ from Zulu women and their cousins the Masai who
+inhabit the district beyond Zanzibar. Their curiosity had brought them
+out to see us, but they allowed no rude expressions of astonishment or
+savage criticism to pass their lips as we trudged wearily in front of
+them. Not even when old Infadoos with a surreptitious motion of the
+hand pointed out the crowning wonder of poor Good's "beautiful white
+legs," did they suffer the feeling of intense admiration which
+evidently mastered their minds to find expression. They fixed their
+dark eyes upon this new and snowy loveliness, for, as I think I have
+said, Good's skin is exceedingly white, and that was all. But it was
+quite enough for Good, who is modest by nature.
+
+When we reached the centre of the kraal, Infadoos halted at the door
+of a large hut, which was surrounded at a distance by a circle of
+smaller ones.
+
+"Enter, Sons of the Stars," he said, in a magniloquent voice, "and
+deign to rest awhile in our humble habitations. A little food shall be
+brought to you, so that ye may have no need to draw your belts tight
+from hunger; some honey and some milk, and an ox or two, and a few
+sheep; not much, my lords, but still a little food."
+
+"It is good," said I. "Infadoos; we are weary with travelling through
+realms of air; now let us rest."
+
+Accordingly we entered the hut, which we found amply prepared for our
+comfort. Couches of tanned skins were spread for us to lie on, and
+water was placed for us to wash in.
+
+Presently we heard a shouting outside, and stepping to the door, saw a
+line of damsels bearing milk and roasted mealies, and honey in a pot.
+Behind these were some youths driving a fat young ox. We received the
+gifts, and then one of the young men drew the knife from his girdle
+and dexterously cut the ox's throat. In ten minutes it was dead,
+skinned, and jointed. The best of the meat was then cut off for us,
+and the rest, in the name of our party, I presented to the warriors
+round us, who took it and distributed the "white lords' gift."
+
+Umbopa set to work, with the assistance of an extremely prepossessing
+young woman, to boil our portion in a large earthenware pot over a
+fire which was built outside the hut, and when it was nearly ready we
+sent a message to Infadoos, and asked him and Scragga, the king's son,
+to join us.
+
+Presently they came, and sitting down upon little stools, of which
+there were several about the hut, for the Kukuanas do not in general
+squat upon their haunches like the Zulus, they helped us to get
+through our dinner. The old gentleman was most affable and polite, but
+it struck me that the young one regarded us with doubt. Together with
+the rest of the party, he had been overawed by our white appearance
+and by our magic properties; but it seemed to me that, on discovering
+that we ate, drank, and slept like other mortals, his awe was
+beginning to wear off, and to be replaced by a sullen suspicion--which
+made me feel rather uncomfortable.
+
+In the course of our meal Sir Henry suggested to me that it might be
+well to try to discover if our hosts knew anything of his brother's
+fate, or if they had ever seen or heard of him; but, on the whole, I
+thought that it would be wiser to say nothing of the matter at this
+time. It was difficult to explain a relative lost from "the Stars."
+
+After supper we produced our pipes and lit them; a proceeding which
+filled Infadoos and Scragga with astonishment. The Kukuanas were
+evidently unacquainted with the divine delights of tobacco-smoke. The
+herb is grown among them extensively; but, like the Zulus, they use it
+for snuff only, and quite failed to identify it in its new form.
+
+Presently I asked Infadoos when we were to proceed on our journey, and
+was delighted to learn that preparations had been made for us to leave
+on the following morning, messengers having already departed to inform
+Twala the king of our coming.
+
+It appeared that Twala was at his principal place, known as Loo,
+making ready for the great annual feast which was to be held in the
+first week of June. At this gathering all the regiments, with the
+exception of certain detachments left behind for garrison purposes,
+are brought up and paraded before the king; and the great annual
+witch-hunt, of which more by-and-by, is held.
+
+We were to start at dawn; and Infadoos, who was to accompany us,
+expected that we should reach Loo on the night of the second day,
+unless we were detained by accident or by swollen rivers.
+
+When they had given us this information our visitors bade us good-
+night; and, having arranged to watch turn and turn about, three of us
+flung ourselves down and slept the sweet sleep of the weary, whilst
+the fourth sat up on the look-out for possible treachery.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+TWALA THE KING
+
+It will not be necessary for me to detail at length the incidents of
+our journey to Loo. It took two full days' travelling along Solomon's
+Great Road, which pursued its even course right into the heart of
+Kukuanaland. Suffice it to say that as we went the country seemed to
+grow richer and richer, and the kraals, with their wide surrounding
+belts of cultivation, more and more numerous. They were all built upon
+the same principles as the first camp which we had reached, and were
+guarded by ample garrisons of troops. Indeed, in Kukuanaland, as among
+the Germans, the Zulus, and the Masai, every able-bodied man is a
+soldier, so that the whole force of the nation is available for its
+wars, offensive or defensive. As we travelled we were overtaken by
+thousands of warriors hurrying up to Loo to be present at the great
+annual review and festival, and more splendid troops I never saw.
+
+At sunset on the second day, we stopped to rest awhile upon the summit
+of some heights over which the road ran, and there on a beautiful and
+fertile plain before us lay Loo itself. For a native town it is an
+enormous place, quite five miles round, I should say, with outlying
+kraals projecting from it, that serve on grand occasions as
+cantonments for the regiments, and a curious horseshoe-shaped hill,
+with which we were destined to become better acquainted, about two
+miles to the north. It is beautifully situated, and through the centre
+of the kraal, dividing it into two portions, runs a river, which
+appeared to be bridged in several places, the same indeed that we had
+seen from the slopes of Sheba's Breasts. Sixty or seventy miles away
+three great snow-capped mountains, placed at the points of a triangle,
+started out of the level plain. The conformation of these mountains is
+unlike that of Sheba's Breasts, being sheer and precipitous, instead
+of smooth and rounded.
+
+Infadoos saw us looking at them, and volunteered a remark.
+
+"The road ends there," he said, pointing to the mountains known among
+the Kukuanas as the "Three Witches."
+
+"Why does it end?" I asked.
+
+"Who knows?" he answered with a shrug; "the mountains are full of
+caves, and there is a great pit between them. It is there that the
+wise men of old time used to go to get whatever it was they came for
+to this country, and it is there now that our kings are buried in the
+Place of Death."
+
+"What was it they came for?" I asked eagerly.
+
+"Nay, I know not. My lords who have dropped from the Stars should
+know," he answered with a quick look. Evidently he knew more than he
+chose to say.
+
+"Yes," I went on, "you are right, in the Stars we learn many things. I
+have heard, for instance, that the wise men of old came to these
+mountains to find bright stones, pretty playthings, and yellow iron."
+
+"My lord is wise," he answered coldly; "I am but a child and cannot
+talk with my lord on such matters. My lord must speak with Gagool the
+old, at the king's place, who is wise even as my lord," and he went
+away.
+
+So soon as he was gone I turned to the others, and pointed out the
+mountains. "There are Solomon's diamond mines," I said.
+
+Umbopa was standing with them, apparently plunged in one of the fits
+of abstraction which were common to him, and caught my words.
+
+"Yes, Macumazahn," he put in, in Zulu, "the diamonds are surely there,
+and you shall have them, since you white men are so fond of toys and
+money."
+
+"How dost thou know that, Umbopa?" I asked sharply, for I did not like
+his mysterious ways.
+
+He laughed. "I dreamed it in the night, white men;" then he too turned
+on his heel and went.
+
+"Now what," said Sir Henry, "is our black friend driving at? He knows
+more than he chooses to say, that is clear. By the way, Quatermain,
+has he heard anything of--of my brother?"
+
+"Nothing; he has asked everyone he has become friendly with, but they
+all declare that no white man has ever been seen in the country
+before."
+
+"Do you suppose that he got here at all?" suggested Good; "we have
+only reached the place by a miracle; is it likely he could have
+reached it without the map?"
+
+"I don't know," said Sir Henry gloomily, "but somehow I think that I
+shall find him."
+
+Slowly the sun sank, then suddenly darkness rushed down on the land
+like a tangible thing. There was no breathing-space between the day
+and night, no soft transformation scene, for in these latitudes
+twilight does not exist. The change from day to night is as quick and
+as absolute as the change from life to death. The sun sank and the
+world was wreathed in shadows. But not for long, for see in the west
+there is a glow, then come rays of silver light, and at last the full
+and glorious moon lights up the plain and shoots its gleaming arrows
+far and wide, filling the earth with a faint refulgence.
+
+We stood and watched the lovely sight, whilst the stars grew pale
+before this chastened majesty, and felt our hearts lifted up in the
+presence of a beauty that I cannot describe. Mine has been a rough
+life, but there are a few things I am thankful to have lived for, and
+one of them is to have seen that moon shine over Kukuanaland.
+
+Presently our meditations were broken in upon by our polite friend
+Infadoos.
+
+"If my lords are rested we will journey on to Loo, where a hut is made
+ready for my lords to-night. The moon is now bright, so that we shall
+not fall by the way."
+
+We assented, and in an hour's time were at the outskirts of the town,
+of which the extent, mapped out as it was by thousands of camp fires,
+appeared absolutely endless. Indeed, Good, who is always fond of a bad
+joke, christened it "Unlimited Loo." Soon we came to a moat with a
+drawbridge, where we were met by the rattling of arms and the hoarse
+challenge of a sentry. Infadoos gave some password that I could not
+catch, which was met with a salute, and we passed on through the
+central street of the great grass city. After nearly half an hour's
+tramp, past endless lines of huts, Infadoos halted at last by the gate
+of a little group of huts which surrounded a small courtyard of
+powdered limestone, and informed us that these were to be our "poor"
+quarters.
+
+We entered, and found that a hut had been assigned to each of us.
+These huts were superior to any that we had yet seen, and in each was
+a most comfortable bed made of tanned skins, spread upon mattresses of
+aromatic grass. Food too was ready for us, and so soon as we had
+washed ourselves with water, which stood ready in earthenware jars,
+some young women of handsome appearance brought us roasted meats, and
+mealie cobs daintily served on wooden platters, and presented them to
+us with deep obeisances.
+
+We ate and drank, and then, the beds having been all moved into one
+hut by our request, a precaution at which the amiable young ladies
+smiled, we flung ourselves down to sleep, thoroughly wearied with our
+long journey.
+
+When we woke it was to find the sun high in the heavens, and the
+female attendants, who did not seem to be troubled by any false shame,
+already standing inside the hut, having been ordered to attend and
+help us to "make ready."
+
+"Make ready, indeed," growled Good; "when one has only a flannel shirt
+and a pair of boots, that does not take long. I wish you would ask
+them for my trousers, Quatermain."
+
+I asked accordingly, but was informed that these sacred relics had
+already been taken to the king, who would see us in the forenoon.
+
+Somewhat to their astonishment and disappointment, having requested
+the young ladies to step outside, we proceeded to make the best toilet
+of which the circumstances admitted. Good even went the length of
+again shaving the right side of his face; the left, on which now
+appeared a very fair crop of whiskers, we impressed upon him he must
+on no account touch. As for ourselves, we were contented with a good
+wash and combing our hair. Sir Henry's yellow locks were now almost
+upon his shoulders, and he looked more like an ancient Dane than ever,
+while my grizzled scrub was fully an inch long, instead of half an
+inch, which in a general way I considered my maximum length.
+
+By the time that we had eaten our breakfast, and smoked a pipe, a
+message was brought to us by no less a personage than Infadoos himself
+that Twala the king was ready to see us, if we would be pleased to
+come.
+
+We remarked in reply that we should prefer to wait till the sun was a
+little higher, we were yet weary with our journey, &c., &c. It is
+always well, when dealing with uncivilised people, not to be in too
+great a hurry. They are apt to mistake politeness for awe or
+servility. So, although we were quite as anxious to see Twala as Twala
+could be to see us, we sat down and waited for an hour, employing the
+interval in preparing such presents as our slender stock of goods
+permitted--namely, the Winchester rifle which had been used by poor
+Ventv�gel, and some beads. The rifle and ammunition we determined to
+present to his royal highness, and the beads were for his wives and
+courtiers. We had already given a few to Infadoos and Scragga, and
+found that they were delighted with them, never having seen such
+things before. At length we declared that we were ready, and guided by
+Infadoos, started off to the audience, Umbopa carrying the rifle and
+beads.
+
+After walking a few hundred yards we came to an enclosure, something
+like that surrounding the huts which had been allotted to us, only
+fifty times as big, for it could not have covered less than six or
+seven acres of ground. All round the outside fence stood a row of
+huts, which were the habitations of the king's wives. Exactly opposite
+the gateway, on the further side of the open space, was a very large
+hut, built by itself, in which his majesty resided. All the rest was
+open ground; that is to say, it would have been open had it not been
+filled by company after company of warriors, who were mustered there
+to the number of seven or eight thousand. These men stood still as
+statues as we advanced through them, and it would be impossible to
+give an adequate idea of the grandeur of the spectacle which they
+presented, with their waving plumes, their glancing spears, and iron-
+backed ox-hide shields.
+
+The space in front of the large hut was empty, but before it were
+placed several stools. On three of these, at a sign from Infadoos, we
+seated ourselves, Umbopa standing behind us. As for Infadoos, he took
+up a position by the door of the hut. So we waited for ten minutes or
+more in the midst of a dead silence, but conscious that we were the
+object of the concentrated gaze of some eight thousand pairs of eyes.
+It was a somewhat trying ordeal, but we carried it off as best we
+could. At length the door of the hut opened, and a gigantic figure,
+with a splendid tiger-skin karross flung over its shoulders, stepped
+out, followed by the boy Scragga, and what appeared to us to be a
+withered-up monkey, wrapped in a fur cloak. The figure seated itself
+upon a stool, Scragga took his stand behind it, and the withered-up
+monkey crept on all fours into the shade of the hut and squatted down.
+
+Still there was silence.
+
+Then the gigantic figure slipped off the karross and stood up before
+us, a truly alarming spectacle. It was that of an enormous man with
+the most entirely repulsive countenance we had ever beheld. This man's
+lips were as thick as a Negro's, the nose was flat, he had but one
+gleaming black eye, for the other was represented by a hollow in the
+face, and his whole expression was cruel and sensual to a degree. From
+the large head rose a magnificent plume of white ostrich feathers, his
+body was clad in a shirt of shining chain armour, whilst round the
+waist and right knee were the usual garnishes of white ox-tail. In his
+right hand was a huge spear, about the neck a thick torque of gold,
+and bound on the forehead shone dully a single and enormous uncut
+diamond.
+
+Still there was silence; but not for long. Presently the man, whom we
+rightly guessed to be the king, raised the great javelin in his hand.
+Instantly eight thousand spears were lifted in answer, and from eight
+thousand throats rang out the royal salute of "/Koom/." Three times
+this was repeated, and each time the earth shook with the noise, that
+can only be compared to the deepest notes of thunder.
+
+"Be humble, O people," piped out a thin voice which seemed to come
+from the monkey in the shade, "it is the king."
+
+"/It is the king/," boomed out the eight thousand throats in answer.
+"/Be humble, O people, it is the king./"
+
+Then there was silence again--dead silence. Presently, however, it was
+broken. A soldier on our left dropped his shield, which fell with a
+clatter on to the limestone flooring.
+
+Twala turned his one cold eye in the direction of the noise.
+
+"Come hither, thou," he said, in a cold voice.
+
+A fine young man stepped out of the ranks, and stood before him.
+
+"It was thy shield that fell, thou awkward dog. Wilt thou make me a
+reproach in the eyes of these strangers from the Stars? What hast thou
+to say for thyself?"
+
+We saw the poor fellow turn pale under his dusky skin.
+
+"It was by chance, O Calf of the Black Cow," he murmured.
+
+"Then it is a chance for which thou must pay. Thou hast made me
+foolish; prepare for death."
+
+"I am the king's ox," was the low answer.
+
+"Scragga," roared the king, "let me see how thou canst use thy spear.
+Kill me this blundering fool."
+
+Scragga stepped forward with an ill-favoured grin, and lifted his
+spear. The poor victim covered his eyes with his hand and stood still.
+As for us, we were petrified with horror.
+
+"Once, twice," he waved the spear, and then struck, ah! right home--
+the spear stood out a foot behind the soldier's back. He flung up his
+hands and dropped dead. From the multitude about us rose something
+like a murmur, it rolled round and round, and died away. The tragedy
+was finished; there lay the corpse, and we had not yet realised that
+it had been enacted. Sir Henry sprang up and swore a great oath, then,
+overpowered by the sense of silence, sat down again.
+
+"The thrust was a good one," said the king; "take him away."
+
+Four men stepped out of the ranks, and lifting the body of the
+murdered man, carried it thence.
+
+"Cover up the blood-stains, cover them up," piped out the thin voice
+that proceeded from the monkey-like figure; "the king's word is
+spoken, the king's doom is done!"
+
+Thereupon a girl came forward from behind the hut, bearing a jar
+filled with powdered lime, which she scattered over the red mark,
+blotting it from sight.
+
+Sir Henry meanwhile was boiling with rage at what had happened;
+indeed, it was with difficulty that we could keep him still.
+
+"Sit down, for heaven's sake," I whispered; "our lives depend on it."
+
+He yielded and remained quiet.
+
+Twala sat silent until the traces of the tragedy had been removed,
+then he addressed us.
+
+"White people," he said, "who come hither, whence I know not, and why
+I know not, greeting."
+
+"Greeting, Twala, King of the Kukuanas," I answered.
+
+"White people, whence come ye, and what seek ye?"
+
+"We come from the Stars, ask us not how. We come to see this land."
+
+"Ye journey from far to see a little thing. And that man with you,"
+pointing to Umbopa, "does he also come from the Stars?"
+
+"Even so; there are people of thy colour in the heavens above; but ask
+not of matters too high for thee, Twala the king."
+
+"Ye speak with a loud voice, people of the Stars," Twala answered in a
+tone which I scarcely liked. "Remember that the Stars are far off, and
+ye are here. How if I make you as him whom they bore away?"
+
+I laughed out loud, though there was little laughter in my heart.
+
+"O king," I said, "be careful, walk warily over hot stones, lest thou
+shouldst burn thy feet; hold the spear by the handle, lest thou should
+cut thy hands. Touch but one hair of our heads, and destruction shall
+come upon thee. What, have not these"--pointing to Infadoos and
+Scragga, who, young villain that he was, was employed in cleaning the
+blood of the soldier off his spear--"told thee what manner of men we
+are? Hast thou seen the like of us?" and I pointed to Good, feeling
+quite sure that he had never seen anybody before who looked in the
+least like /him/ as he then appeared.
+
+"It is true, I have not," said the king, surveying Good with interest.
+
+"Have they not told thee how we strike with death from afar?" I went
+on.
+
+"They have told me, but I believe them not. Let me see you kill. Kill
+me a man among those who stand yonder"--and he pointed to the opposite
+side of the kraal--"and I will believe."
+
+"Nay," I answered; "we shed no blood of men except in just punishment;
+but if thou wilt see, bid thy servants drive in an ox through the
+kraal gates, and before he has run twenty paces I will strike him
+dead."
+
+"Nay," laughed the king, "kill me a man and I will believe."
+
+"Good, O king, so be it," I answered coolly; "do thou walk across the
+open space, and before thy feet reach the gate thou shalt be dead; or
+if thou wilt not, send thy son Scragga" (whom at that moment it would
+have given me much pleasure to shoot).
+
+On hearing this suggestion Scragga uttered a sort of howl, and bolted
+into the hut.
+
+Twala frowned majestically; the suggestion did not please him.
+
+"Let a young ox be driven in," he said.
+
+Two men at once departed, running swiftly.
+
+"Now, Sir Henry," said I, "do you shoot. I want to show this ruffian
+that I am not the only magician of the party."
+
+Sir Henry accordingly took his "express," and made ready.
+
+"I hope I shall make a good shot," he groaned.
+
+"You must," I answered. "If you miss with the first barrel, let him
+have the second. Sight for 150 yards, and wait till the beast turns
+broadside on."
+
+Then came a pause, until presently we caught sight of an ox running
+straight for the kraal gate. It came on through the gate, then,
+catching sight of the vast concourse of people, stopped stupidly,
+turned round, and bellowed.
+
+"Now's your time," I whispered.
+
+Up went the rifle.
+
+Bang! /thud/! and the ox was kicking on his back, shot in the ribs.
+The semi-hollow bullet had done its work well, and a sigh of
+astonishment went up from the assembled thousands.
+
+I turned round coolly--
+
+"Have I lied, O king?"
+
+"Nay, white man, it is the truth," was the somewhat awed answer.
+
+"Listen, Twala," I went on. "Thou hast seen. Now know we come in
+peace, not in war. See," and I held up the Winchester repeater; "here
+is a hollow staff that shall enable thee to kill even as we kill, only
+I lay this charm upon it, thou shalt kill no man with it. If thou
+liftest it against a man, it shall kill thee. Stay, I will show thee.
+Bid a soldier step forty paces and place the shaft of a spear in the
+ground so that the flat blade looks towards us."
+
+In a few seconds it was done.
+
+"Now, see, I will break yonder spear."
+
+Taking a careful sight I fired. The bullet struck the flat of the
+spear, and shattered the blade into fragments.
+
+Again the sigh of astonishment went up.
+
+"Now, Twala, we give this magic tube to thee, and by-and-by I will
+show thee how to use it; but beware how thou turnest the magic of the
+Stars against a man of earth," and I handed him the rifle.
+
+The king took it very gingerly, and laid it down at his feet. As he
+did so I observed the wizened monkey-like figure creeping from the
+shadow of the hut. It crept on all fours, but when it reached the
+place where the king sat it rose upon its feet, and throwing the furry
+covering from its face, revealed a most extraordinary and weird
+countenance. Apparently it was that of a woman of great age so
+shrunken that in size it seemed no larger than the face of a year-old
+child, although made up of a number of deep and yellow wrinkles. Set
+in these wrinkles was a sunken slit, that represented the mouth,
+beneath which the chin curved outwards to a point. There was no nose
+to speak of; indeed, the visage might have been taken for that of a
+sun-dried corpse had it not been for a pair of large black eyes, still
+full of fire and intelligence, which gleamed and played under the
+snow-white eyebrows, and the projecting parchment-coloured skull, like
+jewels in a charnel-house. As for the head itself, it was perfectly
+bare, and yellow in hue, while its wrinkled scalp moved and contracted
+like the hood of a cobra.
+
+The figure to which this fearful countenance belonged, a countenance
+so fearful indeed that it caused a shiver of fear to pass through us
+as we gazed on it, stood still for a moment. Then suddenly it
+projected a skinny claw armed with nails nearly an inch long, and
+laying it on the shoulder of Twala the king, began to speak in a thin
+and piercing voice--
+
+"Listen, O king! Listen, O warriors! Listen, O mountains and plains
+and rivers, home of the Kukuana race! Listen, O skies and sun, O rain
+and storm and mist! Listen, O men and women, O youths and maidens, and
+O ye babes unborn! Listen, all things that live and must die! Listen,
+all dead things that shall live again--again to die! Listen, the
+spirit of life is in me and I prophesy. I prophesy! I prophesy!"
+
+The words died away in a faint wail, and dread seemed to seize upon
+the hearts of all who heard them, including our own. This old woman
+was very terrible.
+
+"/Blood! blood! blood!/ rivers of blood; blood everywhere. I see it, I
+smell it, I taste it--it is salt! it runs red upon the ground, it
+rains down from the skies.
+
+"/Footsteps! footsteps! footsteps!/ the tread of the white man coming
+from afar. It shakes the earth; the earth trembles before her master.
+
+"Blood is good, the red blood is bright; there is no smell like the
+smell of new-shed blood. The lions shall lap it and roar, the vultures
+shall wash their wings in it and shriek with joy.
+
+"I am old! I am old! I have seen much blood; /ha, ha!/ but I shall see
+more ere I die, and be merry. How old am I, think ye? Your fathers
+knew me, and /their/ fathers knew me, and /their/ fathers' fathers'
+fathers. I have seen the white man and know his desires. I am old, but
+the mountains are older than I. Who made the great road, tell me? Who
+wrote the pictures on the rocks, tell me? Who reared up the three
+Silent Ones yonder, that gaze across the pit, tell me?" and she
+pointed towards the three precipitous mountains which we had noticed
+on the previous night.
+
+"Ye know not, but I know. It was a white people who were before ye
+are, who shall be when ye are not, who shall eat you up and destroy
+you. /Yea! yea! yea!
+
+"And what came they for, the White Ones, the Terrible Ones, the
+skilled in magic and all learning, the strong, the unswerving? What is
+that bright stone upon thy forehead, O king? Whose hands made the iron
+garments upon thy breast, O king? Ye know not, but I know. I the Old
+One, I the Wise One, I the /Isanusi/, the witch doctress!"
+
+Then she turned her bald vulture-head towards us.
+
+"What seek ye, white men of the Stars--ah, yes, of the Stars? Do ye
+seek a lost one? Ye shall not find him here. He is not here. Never for
+ages upon ages has a white foot pressed this land; never except once,
+and I remember that he left it but to die. Ye come for bright stones;
+I know it--I know it; ye shall find them when the blood is dry; but
+shall ye return whence ye came, or shall ye stop with me? /Ha! ha!
+ha!/
+
+"And thou, thou with the dark skin and the proud bearing," and she
+pointed her skinny finger at Umbopa, "who art /thou/, and what seekest
+/thou/? Not stones that shine, not yellow metal that gleams, these
+thou leavest to 'white men from the Stars.' Methinks I know thee;
+methinks I can smell the smell of the blood in thy heart. Strip off
+the girdle--"
+
+Here the features of this extraordinary creature became convulsed, and
+she fell to the ground foaming in an epileptic fit, and was carried
+into the hut.
+
+The king rose up trembling, and waved his hand. Instantly the
+regiments began to file off, and in ten minutes, save for ourselves,
+the king, and a few attendants, the great space was left empty.
+
+"White people," he said, "it passes in my mind to kill you. Gagool has
+spoken strange words. What say ye?"
+
+I laughed. "Be careful, O king, we are not easy to slay. Thou hast
+seen the fate of the ox; wouldst thou be as the ox is?"
+
+The king frowned. "It is not well to threaten a king."
+
+"We threaten not, we speak what is true. Try to kill us, O king, and
+learn."
+
+The great savage put his hand to his forehead and thought.
+
+"Go in peace," he said at length. "To-night is the great dance. Ye
+shall see it. Fear not that I shall set a snare for you. To-morrow I
+will think."
+
+"It is well, O king," I answered unconcernedly, and then, accompanied
+by Infadoos, we rose and went back to our kraal.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE WITCH-HUNT
+
+On reaching our hut I motioned to Infadoos to enter with us.
+
+"Now, Infadoos," I said, "we would speak with thee."
+
+"Let my lords say on."
+
+"It seems to us, Infadoos, that Twala the king is a cruel man."
+
+"It is so, my lords. Alas! the land cries out because of his
+cruelties. To-night ye shall see. It is the great witch-hunt, and many
+will be smelt out as wizards and slain. No man's life is safe. If the
+king covets a man's cattle, or a man's wife, or if he fears a man that
+he should excite a rebellion against him, then Gagool, whom ye saw, or
+some of the witch-finding women whom she has taught, will smell that
+man out as a wizard, and he will be killed. Many must die before the
+moon grows pale to-night. It is ever so. Perhaps I too shall be
+killed. As yet I have been spared because I am skilled in war, and am
+beloved by the soldiers; but I know not how long I have to live. The
+land groans at the cruelties of Twala the king; it is wearied of him
+and his red ways."
+
+"Then why is it, Infadoos, that the people do not cast him down?"
+
+"Nay, my lords, he is the king, and if he were killed Scragga would
+reign in his place, and the heart of Scragga is blacker than the heart
+of Twala his father. If Scragga were king his yoke upon our neck would
+be heavier than the yoke of Twala. If Imotu had never been slain, or
+if Ignosi his son had lived, it might have been otherwise; but they
+are both dead."
+
+"How knowest thou that Ignosi is dead?" said a voice behind us. We
+looked round astonished to see who spoke. It was Umbopa.
+
+"What meanest thou, boy?" asked Infadoos; "who told thee to speak?"
+
+"Listen, Infadoos," was the answer, "and I will tell thee a story.
+Years ago the king Imotu was killed in this country and his wife fled
+with the boy Ignosi. Is it not so?"
+
+"It is so."
+
+"It was said that the woman and her son died upon the mountains. Is it
+not so?"
+
+"It is even so."
+
+"Well, it came to pass that the mother and the boy Ignosi did not die.
+They crossed the mountains and were led by a tribe of wandering desert
+men across the sands beyond, till at last they came to water and grass
+and trees again."
+
+"How knowest thou this?"
+
+"Listen. They travelled on and on, many months' journey, till they
+reached a land where a people called the Amazulu, who also are of the
+Kukuana stock, live by war, and with them they tarried many years,
+till at length the mother died. Then the son Ignosi became a wanderer
+again, and journeyed into a land of wonders, where white people live,
+and for many more years he learned the wisdom of the white people."
+
+"It is a pretty story," said Infadoos incredulously.
+
+"For years he lived there working as a servant and a soldier, but
+holding in his heart all that his mother had told him of his own
+place, and casting about in his mind to find how he might journey
+thither to see his people and his father's house before he died. For
+long years he lived and waited, and at last the time came, as it ever
+comes to him who can wait for it, and he met some white men who would
+seek this unknown land, and joined himself to them. The white men
+started and travelled on and on, seeking for one who is lost. They
+crossed the burning desert, they crossed the snow-clad mountains, and
+at last reached the land of the Kukuanas, and there they found /thee/,
+O Infadoos."
+
+"Surely thou art mad to talk thus," said the astonished old soldier.
+
+"Thou thinkest so; see, I will show thee, O my uncle.
+
+"/I am Ignosi, rightful king of the Kukuanas!/"
+
+Then with a single movement Umbopa slipped off his "moocha" or girdle,
+and stood naked before us.
+
+"Look," he said; "what is this?" and he pointed to the picture of a
+great snake tattooed in blue round his middle, its tail disappearing
+into its open mouth just above where the thighs are set into the body.
+
+Infadoos looked, his eyes starting nearly out of his head. Then he
+fell upon his knees.
+
+"/Koom! Koom!/" he ejaculated; "it is my brother's son; it is the
+king."
+
+"Did I not tell thee so, my uncle? Rise; I am not yet the king, but
+with thy help, and with the help of these brave white men, who are my
+friends, I shall be. Yet the old witch Gagool was right, the land
+shall run with blood first, and hers shall run with it, if she has any
+and can die, for she killed my father with her words, and drove my
+mother forth. And now, Infadoos, choose thou. Wilt thou put thy hands
+between my hands and be my man? Wilt thou share the dangers that lie
+before me, and help me to overthrow this tyrant and murderer, or wilt
+thou not? Choose thou."
+
+The old man put his hand to his head and thought. Then he rose, and
+advancing to where Umbopa, or rather Ignosi, stood, he knelt before
+him, and took his hand.
+
+"Ignosi, rightful king of the Kukuanas, I put my hand between thy
+hands, and am thy man till death. When thou wast a babe I dandled thee
+upon my knees, now shall my old arm strike for thee and freedom."
+
+"It is well, Infadoos; if I conquer, thou shalt be the greatest man in
+the kingdom after its king. If I fail, thou canst only die, and death
+is not far off from thee. Rise, my uncle."
+
+"And ye, white men, will ye help me? What have I to offer you! The
+white stones! If I conquer and can find them, ye shall have as many as
+ye can carry hence. Will that suffice you?"
+
+I translated this remark.
+
+"Tell him," answered Sir Henry, "that he mistakes an Englishman.
+Wealth is good, and if it comes in our way we will take it; but a
+gentleman does not sell himself for wealth. Still, speaking for
+myself, I say this. I have always liked Umbopa, and so far as lies in
+me I will stand by him in this business. It will be very pleasant to
+me to try to square matters with that cruel devil Twala. What do you
+say, Good, and you, Quatermain?"
+
+"Well," said Good, "to adopt the language of hyperbole, in which all
+these people seem to indulge, you can tell him that a row is surely
+good, and warms the cockles of the heart, and that so far as I am
+concerned I'm his boy. My only stipulation is that he allows me to
+wear trousers."
+
+I translated the substance of these answers.
+
+"It is well, my friends," said Ignosi, late Umbopa; "and what sayest
+thou, Macumazahn, art thou also with me, old hunter, cleverer than a
+wounded buffalo?"
+
+I thought awhile and scratched my head.
+
+"Umbopa, or Ignosi," I said, "I don't like revolutions. I am a man of
+peace and a bit of a coward"--here Umbopa smiled--"but, on the other
+hand, I stick up for my friends, Ignosi. You have stuck to us and
+played the part of a man, and I will stick by you. But mind you, I am
+a trader, and have to make my living, so I accept your offer about
+those diamonds in case we should ever be in a position to avail
+ourselves of it. Another thing: we came, as you know, to look for
+Incubu's (Sir Henry's) lost brother. You must help us to find him."
+
+"That I will do," answered Ignosi. "Stay, Infadoos, by the sign of the
+snake about my middle, tell me the truth. Has any white man to thy
+knowledge set his foot within the land?"
+
+"None, O Ignosi."
+
+"If any white man had been seen or heard of, wouldst thou have known?"
+
+"I should certainly have known."
+
+"Thou hearest, Incubu," said Ignosi to Sir Henry; "he has not been
+here."
+
+"Well, well," said Sir Henry, with a sigh; "there it is; I suppose
+that he never got so far. Poor fellow, poor fellow! So it has all been
+for nothing. God's will be done."
+
+"Now for business," I put in, anxious to escape from a painful
+subject. "It is very well to be a king by right divine, Ignosi, but
+how dost thou propose to become a king indeed?"
+
+"Nay, I know not. Infadoos, hast thou a plan?"
+
+"Ignosi, Son of the Lightning," answered his uncle, "to-night is the
+great dance and witch-hunt. Many shall be smelt out and perish, and in
+the hearts of many others there will be grief and anguish and fury
+against the king Twala. When the dance is over, then I will speak to
+some of the great chiefs, who in turn, if I can win them over, will
+speak to their regiments. I shall speak to the chiefs softly at first,
+and bring them to see that thou art indeed the king, and I think that
+by to-morrow's light thou shalt have twenty thousand spears at thy
+command. And now I must go and think, and hear, and make ready. After
+the dance is done, if I am yet alive, and we are all alive, I will
+meet thee here, and we can talk. At the best there must be war."
+
+At this moment our conference was interrupted by the cry that
+messengers had come from the king. Advancing to the door of the hut we
+ordered that they should be admitted, and presently three men entered,
+each bearing a shining shirt of chain armour, and a magnificent
+battle-axe.
+
+"The gifts of my lord the king to the white men from the Stars!" said
+a herald who came with them.
+
+"We thank the king," I answered; "withdraw."
+
+The men went, and we examined the armour with great interest. It was
+the most wonderful chain work that either of us had ever seen. A whole
+coat fell together so closely that it formed a mass of links scarcely
+too big to be covered with both hands.
+
+"Do you make these things in this country, Infadoos?" I asked; "they
+are very beautiful."
+
+"Nay, my lord, they came down to us from our forefathers. We know not
+who made them, and there are but few left.[*] None but those of royal
+blood may be clad in them. They are magic coats through which no spear
+can pass, and those who wear them are well-nigh safe in the battle.
+The king is well pleased or much afraid, or he would not have sent
+these garments of steel. Clothe yourselves in them to-night, my
+lords."
+
+[*] In the Soudan swords and coats of mail are still worn by Arabs,
+    whose ancestors must have stripped them from the bodies of
+    Crusaders.--Editor.
+
+The remainder of that day we spent quietly, resting and talking over
+the situation, which was sufficiently exciting. At last the sun went
+down, the thousand watch fires glowed out, and through the darkness we
+heard the tramp of many feet and the clashing of hundreds of spears,
+as the regiments passed to their appointed places to be ready for the
+great dance. Then the full moon shone out in splendour, and as we
+stood watching her rays, Infadoos arrived, clad in his war dress, and
+accompanied by a guard of twenty men to escort us to the dance. As he
+recommended, we had already donned the shirts of chain armour which
+the king had sent us, putting them on under our ordinary clothing, and
+finding to our surprise that they were neither very heavy nor
+uncomfortable. These steel shirts, which evidently had been made for
+men of a very large stature, hung somewhat loosely upon Good and
+myself, but Sir Henry's fitted his magnificent frame like a glove.
+Then strapping our revolvers round our waists, and taking in our hands
+the battle-axes which the king had sent with the armour, we started.
+
+On arriving at the great kraal, where we had that morning been
+received by the king, we found that it was closely packed with some
+twenty thousand men arranged round it in regiments. These regiments
+were in turn divided into companies, and between each company ran a
+little path to allow space for the witch-finders to pass up and down.
+Anything more imposing than the sight that was presented by this vast
+and orderly concourse of armed men it is impossible to conceive. There
+they stood perfectly silent, and the moon poured her light upon the
+forest of their raised spears, upon their majestic forms, waving
+plumes, and the harmonious shading of their various-coloured shields.
+Wherever we looked were line upon line of dim faces surmounted by
+range upon range of shimmering spears.
+
+"Surely," I said to Infadoos, "the whole army is here?"
+
+"Nay, Macumazahn," he answered, "but a third of it. One third is
+present at this dance each year, another third is mustered outside in
+case there should be trouble when the killing begins, ten thousand
+more garrison the outposts round Loo, and the rest watch at the kraals
+in the country. Thou seest it is a great people."
+
+"They are very silent," said Good; and indeed the intense stillness
+among such a vast concourse of living men was almost overpowering.
+
+"What says Bougwan?" asked Infadoos.
+
+I translated.
+
+"Those over whom the shadow of Death is hovering are silent," he
+answered grimly.
+
+"Will many be killed?"
+
+"Very many."
+
+"It seems," I said to the others, "that we are going to assist at a
+gladiatorial show arranged regardless of expense."
+
+Sir Henry shivered, and Good said he wished that we could get out of
+it.
+
+"Tell me," I asked Infadoos, "are we in danger?"
+
+"I know not, my lords, I trust not; but do not seem afraid. If ye live
+through the night all may go well with you. The soldiers murmur
+against the king."
+
+All this while we had been advancing steadily towards the centre of
+the open space, in the midst of which were placed some stools. As we
+proceeded we perceived another small party coming from the direction
+of the royal hut.
+
+"It is the king Twala, Scragga his son, and Gagool the old; and see,
+with them are those who slay," said Infadoos, pointing to a little
+group of about a dozen gigantic and savage-looking men, armed with
+spears in one hand and heavy kerries in the other.
+
+The king seated himself upon the centre stool, Gagool crouched at his
+feet, and the others stood behind him.
+
+"Greeting, white lords," Twala cried, as we came up; "be seated, waste
+not precious time--the night is all too short for the deeds that must
+be done. Ye come in a good hour, and shall see a glorious show. Look
+round, white lords; look round," and he rolled his one wicked eye from
+regiment to regiment. "Can the Stars show you such a sight as this?
+See how they shake in their wickedness, all those who have evil in
+their hearts and fear the judgment of 'Heaven above.'"
+
+"/Begin! begin!/" piped Gagool, in her thin piercing voice; "the
+hy�nas are hungry, they howl for food. /Begin! begin!/"
+
+Then for a moment there was intense stillness, made horrible by a
+presage of what was to come.
+
+The king lifted his spear, and suddenly twenty thousand feet were
+raised, as though they belonged to one man, and brought down with a
+stamp upon the earth. This was repeated three times, causing the solid
+ground to shake and tremble. Then from a far point of the circle a
+solitary voice began a wailing song, of which the refrain ran
+something as follows:--
+
+"/What is the lot of man born of woman?/"
+
+Back came the answer rolling out from every throat in that vast
+company--
+
+"/Death!/"
+
+Gradually, however, the song was taken up by company after company,
+till the whole armed multitude were singing it, and I could no longer
+follow the words, except in so far as they appeared to represent
+various phases of human passions, fears, and joys. Now it seemed to be
+a love song, now a majestic swelling war chant, and last of all a
+death dirge ending suddenly in one heart-breaking wail that went
+echoing and rolling away in a volume of blood-curdling sound.
+
+Again silence fell upon the place, and again it was broken by the king
+lifting his hand. Instantly we heard a pattering of feet, and from out
+of the masses of warriors strange and awful figures appeared running
+towards us. As they drew near we saw that these were women, most of
+them aged, for their white hair, ornamented with small bladders taken
+from fish, streamed out behind them. Their faces were painted in
+stripes of white and yellow; down their backs hung snake-skins, and
+round their waists rattled circlets of human bones, while each held a
+small forked wand in her shrivelled hand. In all there were ten of
+them. When they arrived in front of us they halted, and one of them,
+pointing with her wand towards the crouching figure of Gagool, cried
+out--
+
+"Mother, old mother, we are here."
+
+"/Good! good! good!/" answered that aged Iniquity. "Are your eyes
+keen, /Isanusis/ [witch doctresses], ye seers in dark places?"
+
+"Mother, they are keen."
+
+"/Good! good! good!/ Are your ears open, /Isanusis/, ye who hear words
+that come not from the tongue?"
+
+"Mother, they are open."
+
+"/Good! good! good!/ Are your senses awake, /Isanusis/--can ye smell
+blood, can ye purge the land of the wicked ones who compass evil
+against the king and against their neighbours? Are ye ready to do the
+justice of 'Heaven above,' ye whom I have taught, who have eaten of
+the bread of my wisdom, and drunk of the water of my magic?"
+
+"Mother, we can."
+
+"Then go! Tarry not, ye vultures; see, the slayers"--pointing to the
+ominous group of executioners behind--"make sharp their spears; the
+white men from afar are hungry to see. /Go!/"
+
+With a wild yell Gagool's horrid ministers broke away in every
+direction, like fragments from a shell, the dry bones round their
+waists rattling as they ran, and headed for various points of the
+dense human circle. We could not watch them all, so we fixed our eyes
+upon the /Isanusi/ nearest to us. When she came to within a few paces
+of the warriors she halted and began to dance wildly, turning round
+and round with an almost incredible rapidity, and shrieking out
+sentences such as "I smell him, the evil-doer!" "He is near, he who
+poisoned his mother!" "I hear the thoughts of him who thought evil of
+the king!"
+
+Quicker and quicker she danced, till she lashed herself into such a
+frenzy of excitement that the foam flew in specks from her gnashing
+jaws, till her eyes seemed to start from her head, and her flesh to
+quiver visibly. Suddenly she stopped dead and stiffened all over, like
+a pointer dog when he scents game, and then with outstretched wand she
+began to creep stealthily towards the soldiers before her. It seemed
+to us that as she came their stoicism gave way, and that they shrank
+from her. As for ourselves, we followed her movements with a horrible
+fascination. Presently, still creeping and crouching like a dog, the
+/Isanusi/ was before them. Then she halted and pointed, and again
+crept on a pace or two.
+
+Suddenly the end came. With a shriek she sprang in and touched a tall
+warrior with her forked wand. Instantly two of his comrades, those
+standing immediately next to him, seized the doomed man, each by one
+arm, and advanced with him towards the king.
+
+He did not resist, but we saw that he dragged his limbs as though they
+were paralysed, and that his fingers, from which the spear had fallen,
+were limp like those of a man newly dead.
+
+As he came, two of the villainous executioners stepped forward to meet
+him. Presently they met, and the executioners turned round, looking
+towards the king as though for orders.
+
+"/Kill!/" said the king.
+
+"/Kill!/" squeaked Gagool.
+
+"/Kill!/" re-echoed Scragga, with a hollow chuckle.
+
+Almost before the words were uttered the horrible dead was done. One
+man had driven his spear into the victim's heart, and to make
+assurance double sure, the other had dashed out his brains with a
+great club.
+
+"/One/," counted Twala the king, just like a black Madame Defarge, as
+Good said, and the body was dragged a few paces away and stretched
+out.
+
+Hardly was the thing done before another poor wretch was brought up,
+like an ox to the slaughter. This time we could see, from the leopard-
+skin cloak which he wore, that the man was a person of rank. Again the
+awful syllables were spoken, and the victim fell dead.
+
+"/Two/," counted the king.
+
+And so the deadly game went on, till about a hundred bodies were
+stretched in rows behind us. I have heard of the gladiatorial shows of
+the C�sars, and of the Spanish bull-fights, but I take the liberty of
+doubting if either of them could be half so horrible as this Kukuana
+witch-hunt. Gladiatorial shows and Spanish bull-fights at any rate
+contributed to the public amusement, which certainly was not the case
+here. The most confirmed sensation-monger would fight shy of sensation
+if he knew that it was well on the cards that he would, in his own
+proper person, be the subject of the next "event."
+
+Once we rose and tried to remonstrate, but were sternly repressed by
+Twala.
+
+"Let the law take its course, white men. These dogs are magicians and
+evil-doers; it is well that they should die," was the only answer
+vouchsafed to us.
+
+About half-past ten there was a pause. The witch-finders gathered
+themselves together, apparently exhausted with their bloody work, and
+we thought that the performance was done with. But it was not so, for
+presently, to our surprise, the ancient woman, Gagool, rose from her
+crouching position, and supporting herself with a stick, staggered off
+into the open space. It was an extraordinary sight to see this
+frightful vulture-headed old creature, bent nearly double with extreme
+age, gather strength by degrees, until at last she rushed about almost
+as actively as her ill-omened pupils. To and fro she ran, chanting to
+herself, till suddenly she made a dash at a tall man standing in front
+of one of the regiments, and touched him. As she did this a sort of
+groan went up from the regiment which evidently he commanded. But two
+of its officers seized him all the same, and brought him up for
+execution. We learned afterwards that he was a man of great wealth and
+importance, being indeed a cousin of the king.
+
+He was slain, and Twala counted one hundred and three. Then Gagool
+again sprang to and fro, gradually drawing nearer and nearer to
+ourselves.
+
+"Hang me if I don't believe she is going to try her games on us,"
+ejaculated Good in horror.
+
+"Nonsense!" said Sir Henry.
+
+As for myself, when I saw that old fiend dancing nearer and nearer, my
+heart positively sank into my boots. I glanced behind us at the long
+rows of corpses, and shivered.
+
+Nearer and nearer waltzed Gagool, looking for all the world like an
+animated crooked stick or comma, her horrid eyes gleaming and glowing
+with a most unholy lustre.
+
+Nearer she came, and yet nearer, every creature in that vast
+assemblage watching her movements with intense anxiety. At last she
+stood still and pointed.
+
+"Which is it to be?" asked Sir Henry to himself.
+
+In a moment all doubts were at rest, for the old hag had rushed in and
+touched Umbopa, alias Ignosi, on the shoulder.
+
+"I smell him out," she shrieked. "Kill him, kill him, he is full of
+evil; kill him, the stranger, before blood flows from him. Slay him, O
+king."
+
+There was a pause, of which I instantly took advantage.
+
+"O king," I called out, rising from my seat, "this man is the servant
+of thy guests, he is their dog; whosoever sheds the blood of our dog
+sheds our blood. By the sacred law of hospitality I claim protection
+for him."
+
+"Gagool, mother of the witch-finders, has smelt him out; he must die,
+white men," was the sullen answer.
+
+"Nay, he shall not die," I replied; "he who tries to touch him shall
+die indeed."
+
+"Seize him!" roared Twala to the executioners; who stood round red to
+the eyes with the blood of their victims.
+
+They advanced towards us, and then hesitated. As for Ignosi, he
+clutched his spear, and raised it as though determined to sell his
+life dearly.
+
+"Stand back, ye dogs!" I shouted, "if ye would see to-morrow's light.
+Touch one hair of his head and your king dies," and I covered Twala
+with my revolver. Sir Henry and Good also drew their pistols, Sir
+Henry pointing his at the leading executioner, who was advancing to
+carry out the sentence, and Good taking a deliberate aim at Gagool.
+
+Twala winced perceptibly as my barrel came in a line with his broad
+chest.
+
+"Well," I said, "what is it to be, Twala?"
+
+Then he spoke.
+
+"Put away your magic tubes," he said; "ye have adjured me in the name
+of hospitality, and for that reason, but not from fear of what ye can
+do, I spare him. Go in peace."
+
+"It is well," I answered unconcernedly; "we are weary of slaughter,
+and would sleep. Is the dance ended?"
+
+"It is ended," Twala answered sulkily. "Let these dead dogs," pointing
+to the long rows of corpses, "be flung out to the hy�nas and the
+vultures," and he lifted his spear.
+
+Instantly the regiments began to defile through the kraal gateway in
+perfect silence, a fatigue party only remaining behind to drag away
+the corpses of those who had been sacrificed.
+
+Then we rose also, and making our salaam to his majesty, which he
+hardly deigned to acknowledge, we departed to our huts.
+
+"Well," said Sir Henry, as we sat down, having first lit a lamp of the
+sort used by the Kukuanas, of which the wick is made from the fibre of
+a species of palm leaf, and the oil from clarified hippopotamus fat,
+"well, I feel uncommonly inclined to be sick."
+
+"If I had any doubts about helping Umbopa to rebel against that
+infernal blackguard," put in Good, "they are gone now. It was as much
+as I could do to sit still while that slaughter was going on. I tried
+to keep my eyes shut, but they would open just at the wrong time. I
+wonder where Infadoos is. Umbopa, my friend, you ought to be grateful
+to us; your skin came near to having an air-hole made in it."
+
+"I am grateful, Bougwan," was Umbopa's answer, when I had translated,
+"and I shall not forget. As for Infadoos, he will be here by-and-by.
+We must wait."
+
+So we lit out pipes and waited.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+WE GIVE A SIGN
+
+For a long while--two hours, I should think--we sat there in silence,
+being too much overwhelmed by the recollection of the horrors we had
+seen to talk. At last, just as we were thinking of turning in--for the
+night drew nigh to dawn--we heard a sound of steps. Then came the
+challenge of a sentry posted at the kraal gate, which apparently was
+answered, though not in an audible tone, for the steps still advanced;
+and in another second Infadoos had entered the hut, followed by some
+half-dozen stately-looking chiefs.
+
+"My lords," he said, "I have come according to my word. My lords and
+Ignosi, rightful king of the Kukuanas, I have brought with me these
+men," pointing to the row of chiefs, "who are great men among us,
+having each one of them the command of three thousand soldiers, that
+live but to do their bidding, under the king's. I have told them of
+what I have seen, and what my ears have heard. Now let them also
+behold the sacred snake around thee, and hear thy story, Ignosi, that
+they may say whether or no they will make cause with thee against
+Twala the king."
+
+By way of answer Ignosi again stripped off his girdle, and exhibited
+the snake tattooed about him. Each chief in turn drew near and
+examined the sign by the dim light of the lamp, and without saying a
+word passed on to the other side.
+
+Then Ignosi resumed his moocha, and addressing them, repeated the
+history he had detailed in the morning.
+
+"Now ye have heard, chiefs," said Infadoos, when he had done, "what
+say ye: will ye stand by this man and help him to his father's throne,
+or will ye not? The land cries out against Twala, and the blood of the
+people flows like the waters in spring. Ye have seen to-night. Two
+other chiefs there were with whom I had it in my mind to speak, and
+where are they now? The hy�nas howl over their corpses. Soon shall ye
+be as they are if ye strike not. Choose then, my brothers."
+
+The eldest of the six men, a short, thick-set warrior, with white
+hair, stepped forward a pace and answered--
+
+"Thy words are true, Infadoos; the land cries out. My own brother is
+among those who died to-night; but this is a great matter, and the
+thing is hard to believe. How know we that if we lift our spears it
+may not be for a thief and a liar? It is a great matter, I say, of
+which none can see the end. For of this be sure, blood will flow in
+rivers before the deed is done; many will still cleave to the king,
+for men worship the sun that still shines bright in the heavens,
+rather than that which has not risen. These white men from the Stars,
+their magic is great, and Ignosi is under the cover of their wing. If
+he be indeed the rightful king, let them give us a sign, and let the
+people have a sign, that all may see. So shall men cleave to us,
+knowing of a truth that the white man's magic is with them."
+
+"Ye have the sign of the snake," I answered.
+
+"My lord, it is not enough. The snake may have been placed there since
+the man's childhood. Show us a sign, and it will suffice. But we will
+not move without a sign."
+
+The others gave a decided assent, and I turned in perplexity to Sir
+Henry and Good, and explained the situation.
+
+"I think that I have it," said Good exultingly; "ask them to give us a
+moment to think."
+
+I did so, and the chiefs withdrew. So soon as they had gone Good went
+to the little box where he kept his medicines, unlocked it, and took
+out a note-book, in the fly-leaves of which was an almanack. "Now look
+here, you fellows, isn't to-morrow the 4th of June?" he said.
+
+We had kept a careful note of the days, so were able to answer that it
+was.
+
+"Very good; then here we have it--'4 June, total eclipse of the moon
+commences at 8.15 Greenwich time, visible in Teneriffe--/South
+Africa/, &c.' There's a sign for you. Tell them we will darken the
+moon to-morrow night."
+
+The idea was a splendid one; indeed, the only weak spot about it was a
+fear lest Good's almanack might be incorrect. If we made a false
+prophecy on such a subject, our prestige would be gone for ever, and
+so would Ignosi's chance of the throne of the Kukuanas.
+
+"Suppose that the almanack is wrong," suggested Sir Henry to Good, who
+was busily employed in working out something on a blank page of the
+book.
+
+"I see no reason to suppose anything of the sort," was his answer.
+"Eclipses always come up to time; at least that is my experience of
+them, and it especially states that this one will be visible in South
+Africa. I have worked out the reckonings as well as I can, without
+knowing our exact position; and I make out that the eclipse should
+begin here about ten o'clock tomorrow night, and last till half-past
+twelve. For an hour and a half or so there should be almost total
+darkness."
+
+"Well," said Sir Henry, "I suppose we had better risk it."
+
+I acquiesced, though doubtfully, for eclipses are queer cattle to deal
+with--it might be a cloudy night, for instance, or our dates might be
+wrong--and sent Umbopa to summon the chiefs back. Presently they came,
+and I addressed them thus--
+
+"Great men of the Kukuanas, and thou, Infadoos, listen. We love not to
+show our powers, for to do so is to interfere with the course of
+nature, and to plunge the world into fear and confusion. But since
+this matter is a great one, and as we are angered against the king
+because of the slaughter we have seen, and because of the act of the
+/Isanusi/ Gagool, who would have put our friend Ignosi to death, we
+have determined to break a rule, and to give such a sign as all men
+may see. Come hither"; and I led them to the door of the hut and
+pointed to the red ball of the moon. "What see ye there?"
+
+"We see the sinking moon," answered the spokesman of the party.
+
+"It is so. Now tell me, can any mortal man put out that moon before
+her hour of setting, and bring the curtain of black night down upon
+the land?"
+
+The chief laughed a little at the question. "No, my lord, that no man
+can do. The moon is stronger than man who looks on her, nor can she
+vary in her courses."
+
+"Ye say so. Yet I tell you that to-morrow night, about two hours
+before midnight, we will cause the moon to be eaten up for a space of
+an hour and half an hour. Yes, deep darkness shall cover the earth,
+and it shall be for a sign that Ignosi is indeed king of the Kukuanas.
+If we do this thing, will ye be satisfied?"
+
+"Yea, my lords," answered the old chief with a smile, which was
+reflected on the faces of his companions; "/if/ ye do this thing, we
+will be satisfied indeed."
+
+"It shall be done; we three, Incubu, Bougwan, and Macumazahn, have
+said it, and it shall be done. Dost thou hear, Infadoos?"
+
+"I hear, my lord, but it is a wonderful thing that ye promise, to put
+out the moon, the mother of the world, when she is at her full."
+
+"Yet shall we do it, Infadoos."
+
+"It is well, my lords. To-day, two hours after sunset, Twala will send
+for my lords to witness the girls dance, and one hour after the dance
+begins the girl whom Twala thinks the fairest shall be killed by
+Scragga, the king's son, as a sacrifice to the Silent Ones, who sit
+and keep watch by the mountains yonder," and he pointed towards the
+three strange-looking peaks where Solomon's road was supposed to end.
+"Then let my lords darken the moon, and save the maiden's life, and
+the people will believe indeed."
+
+"Ay," said the old chief, still smiling a little, "the people will
+believe indeed."
+
+"Two miles from Loo," went on Infadoos, "there is a hill curved like a
+new moon, a stronghold, where my regiment, and three other regiments
+which these chiefs command, are stationed. This morning we will make a
+plan whereby two or three other regiments may be moved there also.
+Then, if in truth my lords can darken the moon, in the darkness I will
+take my lords by the hand and lead them out of Loo to this place,
+where they shall be safe, and thence we can make war upon Twala the
+king."
+
+"It is good," said I. "Let leave us to sleep awhile and to make ready
+our magic."
+
+Infadoos rose, and, having saluted us, departed with the chiefs.
+
+"My friends," said Ignosi, so soon as they were gone, "can ye do this
+wonderful thing, or were ye speaking empty words to the captains?"
+
+"We believe that we can do it, Umbopa--Ignosi, I mean."
+
+"It is strange," he answered, "and had ye not been Englishmen I would
+not have believed it; but I have learned that English 'gentlemen' tell
+no lies. If we live through the matter, be sure that I will repay
+you."
+
+"Ignosi," said Sir Henry, "promise me one thing."
+
+"I will promise, Incubu, my friend, even before I hear it," answered
+the big man with a smile. "What is it?"
+
+"This: that if ever you come to be king of this people you will do
+away with the smelling out of wizards such as we saw last night; and
+that the killing of men without trial shall no longer take place in
+the land."
+
+Ignosi thought for a moment after I had translated this request, and
+then answered--
+
+"The ways of black people are not as the ways of white men, Incubu,
+nor do we value life so highly. Yet I will promise. If it be in my
+power to hold them back, the witch-finders shall hunt no more, nor
+shall any man die the death without trial or judgment."
+
+"That's a bargain, then," said Sir Henry; "and now let us get a little
+rest."
+
+Thoroughly wearied out, we were soon sound asleep, and slept till
+Ignosi woke us about eleven o'clock. Then we rose, washed, and ate a
+hearty breakfast. After that we went outside the hut and walked about,
+amusing ourselves with examining the structure of the Kukuana huts and
+observing the customs of the women.
+
+"I hope that eclipse will come off," said Sir Henry presently.
+
+"If it does not it will soon be all up with us," I answered
+mournfully; "for so sure as we are living men some of those chiefs
+will tell the whole story to the king, and then there will be another
+sort of eclipse, and one that we shall certainly not like."
+
+Returning to the hut we ate some dinner, and passed the rest of the
+day in receiving visits of ceremony and curiosity. At length the sun
+set, and we enjoyed a couple of hours of such quiet as our melancholy
+forebodings would allow to us. Finally, about half-past eight, a
+messenger came from Twala to bid us to the great annual "dance of
+girls" which was about to be celebrated.
+
+Hastily we put on the chain shirts that the king had sent us, and
+taking our rifles and ammunition with us, so as to have them handy in
+case we had to fly, as suggested by Infadoos, we started boldly
+enough, though with inward fear and trembling. The great space in
+front of the king's kraal bore a very different appearance from that
+which it had presented on the previous evening. In place of the grim
+ranks of serried warriors were company after company of Kukuana girls,
+not over-dressed, so far as clothing went, but each crowned with a
+wreath of flowers, and holding a palm leaf in one hand and a white
+arum lily in the other. In the centre of the open moonlit space sat
+Twala the king, with old Gagool at his feet, attended by Infadoos, the
+boy Scragga, and twelve guards. There were also present about a score
+of chiefs, amongst whom I recognised most of our friends of the night
+before.
+
+Twala greeted us with much apparent cordiality, though I saw him fix
+his one eye viciously on Umbopa.
+
+"Welcome, white men from the Stars," he said; "this is another sight
+from that which your eyes gazed on by the light of last night's moon,
+but it is not so good a sight. Girls are pleasant, and were it not for
+such as these," and he pointed round him, "we should none of us be
+here this day; but men are better. Kisses and the tender words of
+women are sweet, but the sound of the clashing of the spears of
+warriors, and the smell of men's blood, are sweeter far! Would ye have
+wives from among our people, white men? If so, choose the fairest
+here, and ye shall have them, as many as ye will," and he paused for
+an answer.
+
+As the prospect did not seem to be without attractions for Good, who,
+like most sailors, is of a susceptible nature,--being elderly and
+wise, foreseeing the endless complications that anything of the sort
+would involve, for women bring trouble so surely as the night follows
+the day, I put in a hasty answer--
+
+"Thanks to thee, O king, but we white men wed only with white women
+like ourselves. Your maidens are fair, but they are not for us!"
+
+The king laughed. "It is well. In our land there is a proverb which
+runs, 'Women's eyes are always bright, whatever the colour,' and
+another that says, 'Love her who is present, for be sure she who is
+absent is false to thee;' but perhaps these things are not so in the
+Stars. In a land where men are white all things are possible. So be
+it, white men; the girls will not go begging! Welcome again; and
+welcome, too, thou black one; if Gagool here had won her way, thou
+wouldst have been stiff and cold by now. It is lucky for thee that
+thou too camest from the Stars; ha! ha!"
+
+"I can kill thee before thou killest me, O king," was Ignosi's calm
+answer, "and thou shalt be stiff before my limbs cease to bend."
+
+Twala started. "Thou speakest boldly, boy," he replied angrily;
+"presume not too far."
+
+"He may well be bold in whose lips are truth. The truth is a sharp
+spear which flies home and misses not. It is a message from 'the
+Stars,' O king."
+
+Twala scowled, and his one eye gleamed fiercely, but he said nothing
+more.
+
+"Let the dance begin," he cried, and then the flower-crowned girls
+sprang forward in companies, singing a sweet song and waving the
+delicate palms and white lilies. On they danced, looking faint and
+spiritual in the soft, sad light of the risen moon; now whirling round
+and round, now meeting in mimic warfare, swaying, eddying here and
+there, coming forward, falling back in an ordered confusion delightful
+to witness. At last they paused, and a beautiful young woman sprang
+out of the ranks and began to pirouette in front of us with a grace
+and vigour which would have put most ballet girls to shame. At length
+she retired exhausted, and another took her place, then another and
+another, but none of them, either in grace, skill, or personal
+attractions, came up to the first.
+
+When the chosen girls had all danced, the king lifted his hand.
+
+"Which deem ye the fairest, white men?" he asked.
+
+"The first," said I unthinkingly. Next second I regretted it, for I
+remembered that Infadoos had told us that the fairest woman must be
+offered up as a sacrifice.
+
+"Then is my mind as your minds, and my eyes as your eyes. She is the
+fairest! and a sorry thing it is for her, for she must die!"
+
+"/Ay, must die!/" piped out Gagool, casting a glance of her quick eyes
+in the direction of the poor girl, who, as yet ignorant of the awful
+fate in store for her, was standing some ten yards off in front of a
+company of maidens, engaged in nervously picking a flower from her
+wreath to pieces, petal by petal.
+
+"Why, O king?" said I, restraining my indignation with difficulty;
+"the girl has danced well, and pleased us; she is fair too; it would
+be hard to reward her with death."
+
+Twala laughed as he answered--
+
+"It is our custom, and the figures who sit in stone yonder," and he
+pointed towards the three distant peaks, "must have their due. Did I
+fail to put the fairest girl to death to-day, misfortune would fall
+upon me and my house. Thus runs the prophecy of my people: 'If the
+king offer not a sacrifice of a fair girl, on the day of the dance of
+maidens, to the Old Ones who sit and watch on the mountains, then
+shall he fall, and his house.' Look ye, white men, my brother who
+reigned before me offered not the sacrifice, because of the tears of
+the woman, and he fell, and his house, and I reign in his stead. It is
+finished; she must die!" Then turning to the guards--"Bring her
+hither; Scragga, make sharp thy spear."
+
+Two of the men stepped forward, and as they advanced, the girl, for
+the first time realising her impending fate, screamed aloud and turned
+to fly. But the strong hands caught her fast, and brought her,
+struggling and weeping, before us.
+
+"What is thy name, girl?" piped Gagool. "What! wilt thou not answer?
+Shall the king's son do his work at once?"
+
+At this hint, Scragga, looking more evil than ever, advanced a step
+and lifted his great spear, and at that moment I saw Good's hand creep
+to his revolver. The poor girl caught the faint glint of steel through
+her tears, and it sobered her anguish. She ceased struggling, and
+clasping her hands convulsively, stood shuddering from head to foot.
+
+"See," cried Scragga in high glee, "she shrinks from the sight of my
+little plaything even before she has tasted it," and he tapped the
+broad blade of his spear.
+
+"If ever I get the chance you shall pay for that, you young hound!" I
+heard Good mutter beneath his breath.
+
+"Now that thou art quiet, give us thy name, my dear. Come, speak out,
+and fear not," said Gagool in mockery.
+
+"Oh, mother," answered the girl, in trembling accents, "my name is
+Foulata, of the house of Suko. Oh, mother, why must I die? I have done
+no wrong!"
+
+"Be comforted," went on the old woman in her hateful tone of mockery.
+"Thou must die, indeed, as a sacrifice to the Old Ones who sit
+yonder," and she pointed to the peaks; "but it is better to sleep in
+the night than to toil in the daytime; it is better to die than to
+live, and thou shalt die by the royal hand of the king's own son."
+
+The girl Foulata wrung her hands in anguish, and cried out aloud, "Oh,
+cruel! and I so young! What have I done that I should never again see
+the sun rise out of the night, or the stars come following on his
+track in the evening, that I may no more gather the flowers when the
+dew is heavy, or listen to the laughing of the waters? Woe is me, that
+I shall never see my father's hut again, nor feel my mother's kiss,
+nor tend the lamb that is sick! Woe is me, that no lover shall put his
+arm around me and look into my eyes, nor shall men children be born of
+me! Oh, cruel, cruel!"
+
+And again she wrung her hands and turned her tear-stained flower-
+crowned face to Heaven, looking so lovely in her despair--for she was
+indeed a beautiful woman--that assuredly the sight of her would have
+melted the hearts of any less cruel than were the three fiends before
+us. Prince Arthur's appeal to the ruffians who came to blind him was
+not more touching than that of this savage girl.
+
+But it did not move Gagool or Gagool's master, though I saw signs of
+pity among the guards behind, and on the faces of the chiefs; and as
+for Good, he gave a fierce snort of indignation, and made a motion as
+though to go to her assistance. With all a woman's quickness, the
+doomed girl interpreted what was passing in his mind, and by a sudden
+movement flung herself before him, and clasped his "beautiful white
+legs" with her hands.
+
+"Oh, white father from the Stars!" she cried, "throw over me the
+mantle of thy protection; let me creep into the shadow of thy
+strength, that I may be saved. Oh, keep me from these cruel men and
+from the mercies of Gagool!"
+
+"All right, my hearty, I'll look after you," sang out Good in nervous
+Saxon. "Come, get up, there's a good girl," and he stooped and caught
+her hand.
+
+Twala turned and motioned to his son, who advanced with his spear
+lifted.
+
+"Now's your time," whispered Sir Henry to me; "what are you waiting
+for?"
+
+"I am waiting for that eclipse," I answered; "I have had my eye on the
+moon for the last half-hour, and I never saw it look healthier."
+
+"Well, you must risk it now, or the girl will be killed. Twala is
+losing patience."
+
+Recognising the force of the argument, and having cast one more
+despairing look at the bright face of the moon, for never did the most
+ardent astronomer with a theory to prove await a celestial event with
+such anxiety, I stepped with all the dignity that I could command
+between the prostrate girl and the advancing spear of Scragga.
+
+"King," I said, "it shall not be; we will not endure this thing; let
+the girl go in safety."
+
+Twala rose from his seat in wrath and astonishment, and from the
+chiefs and serried ranks of maidens who had closed in slowly upon us
+in anticipation of the tragedy came a murmur of amazement.
+
+"/Shall not be!/ thou white dog, that yappest at the lion in his cave;
+/shall not be!/ art thou mad? Be careful, lest this chicken's fate
+overtake thee, and those with thee. How canst thou save her or
+thyself? Who art thou that thou settest thyself between me and my
+will? Back, I say. Scragga, kill her! Ho, guards! seize these men."
+
+At his cry armed men ran swiftly from behind the hut, where they had
+evidently been placed beforehand.
+
+Sir Henry, Good, and Umbopa ranged themselves alongside of me, and
+lifted their rifles.
+
+"Stop!" I shouted boldly, though at the moment my heart was in my
+boots. "Stop! we, the white men from the Stars, say that it shall not
+be. Come but one pace nearer, and we will put out the moon like a
+wind-blown lamp, as we who dwell in her House can do, and plunge the
+land in darkness. Dare to disobey, and ye shall taste of our magic."
+
+My threat produced an effect; the men halted, and Scragga stood still
+before us, his spear lifted.
+
+"Hear him! hear him!" piped Gagool; "hear the liar who says that he
+will put out the moon like a lamp. Let him do it, and the girl shall
+be speared. Yes, let him do it, or die by the girl, he and those with
+him."
+
+I glanced up at the moon despairingly, and now to my intense joy and
+relief saw that we--or rather the almanack--had made no mistake. On
+the edge of the great orb lay a faint rim of shadow, while a smoky hue
+grew and gathered upon its bright surface. Never shall I forget that
+supreme, that superb moment of relief.
+
+Then I lifted my hand solemnly towards the sky, an example which Sir
+Henry and Good followed, and quoted a line or two from the "Ingoldsby
+Legends" at it in the most impressive tones that I could command. Sir
+Henry followed suit with a verse out of the Old Testament, and
+something about Balbus building a wall, in Latin, whilst Good
+addressed the Queen of Night in a volume of the most classical bad
+language which he could think of.
+
+Slowly the penumbra, the shadow of a shadow, crept on over the bright
+surface, and as it crept I heard deep gasps of fear rising from the
+multitude around.
+
+"Look, O king!" I cried; "look, Gagool! Look, chiefs and people and
+women, and see if the white men from the Stars keep their word, or if
+they be but empty liars!
+
+"The moon grows black before your eyes; soon there will be darkness--
+ay, darkness in the hour of the full moon. Ye have asked for a sign;
+it is given to you. Grow dark, O Moon! withdraw thy light, thou pure
+and holy One; bring the proud heart of usurping murderers to the dust,
+and eat up the world with shadows."
+
+A groan of terror burst from the onlookers. Some stood petrified with
+dread, others threw themselves upon their knees and cried aloud. As
+for the king, he sat still and turned pale beneath his dusky skin.
+Only Gagool kept her courage.
+
+"It will pass," she cried; "I have often seen the like before; no man
+can put out the moon; lose not heart; sit still--the shadow will
+pass."
+
+"Wait, and ye shall see," I replied, hopping with excitement. "O Moon!
+Moon! Moon! wherefore art thou so cold and fickle?" This appropriate
+quotation was from the pages of a popular romance that I chanced to
+have read recently, though now I come to think of it, it was
+ungrateful of me to abuse the Lady of the Heavens, who was showing
+herself to be the truest of friends to us, however she may have
+behaved to the impassioned lover in the novel. Then I added: "Keep it
+up, Good, I can't remember any more poetry. Curse away, there's a good
+fellow."
+
+Good responded nobly to this tax upon his inventive faculties. Never
+before had I the faintest conception of the breadth and depth and
+height of a naval officer's objurgatory powers. For ten minutes he
+went on in several languages without stopping, and he scarcely ever
+repeated himself.
+
+Meanwhile the dark ring crept on, while all that great assembly fixed
+their eyes upon the sky and stared and stared in fascinated silence.
+Strange and unholy shadows encroached upon the moonlight, an ominous
+quiet filled the place. Everything grew still as death. Slowly and in
+the midst of this most solemn silence the minutes sped away, and while
+they sped the full moon passed deeper and deeper into the shadow of
+the earth, as the inky segment of its circle slid in awful majesty
+across the lunar craters. The great pale orb seemed to draw near and
+to grow in size. She turned a coppery hue, then that portion of her
+surface which was unobscured as yet grew grey and ashen, and at
+length, as totality approached, her mountains and her plains were to
+be seen glowing luridly through a crimson gloom.
+
+On, yet on, crept the ring of darkness; it was now more than half
+across the blood-red orb. The air grew thick, and still more deeply
+tinged with dusky crimson. On, yet on, till we could scarcely see the
+fierce faces of the group before us. No sound rose now from the
+spectators, and at last Good stopped swearing.
+
+"The moon is dying--the white wizards have killed the moon," yelled
+the prince Scragga at last. "We shall all perish in the dark," and
+animated by fear or fury, or by both, he lifted his spear and drove it
+with all his force at Sir Henry's breast. But he forgot the mail
+shirts that the king had given us, and which we wore beneath our
+clothing. The steel rebounded harmless, and before he could repeat the
+blow Curtis had snatched the spear from his hand and sent it straight
+through him.
+
+Scragga dropped dead.
+
+At the sight, and driven mad with fear of the gathering darkness, and
+of the unholy shadow which, as they believed, was swallowing the moon,
+the companies of girls broke up in wild confusion, and ran screeching
+for the gateways. Nor did the panic stop there. The king himself,
+followed by his guards, some of the chiefs, and Gagool, who hobbled
+away after them with marvellous alacrity, fled for the huts, so that
+in another minute we ourselves, the would-be victim Foulata, Infadoos,
+and most of the chiefs who had interviewed us on the previous night,
+were left alone upon the scene, together with the dead body of
+Scragga, Twala's son.
+
+"Chiefs," I said, "we have given you the sign. If ye are satisfied,
+let us fly swiftly to the place of which ye spoke. The charm cannot
+now be stopped. It will work for an hour and the half of an hour. Let
+us cover ourselves in the darkness."
+
+"Come," said Infadoos, turning to go, an example which was followed by
+the awed captains, ourselves, and the girl Foulata, whom Good took by
+the arm.
+
+Before we reached the gate of the kraal the moon went out utterly, and
+from every quarter of the firmament the stars rushed forth into the
+inky sky.
+
+Holding each other by the hand we stumbled on through the darkness.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+BEFORE THE BATTLE
+
+Luckily for us, Infadoos and the chiefs knew all the paths of the
+great town perfectly, so that we passed by side-ways unmolested, and
+notwithstanding the gloom we made fair progress.
+
+For an hour or more we journeyed on, till at length the eclipse began
+to pass, and that edge of the moon which had disappeared the first
+became again visible. Suddenly, as we watched, there burst from it a
+silver streak of light, accompanied by a wondrous ruddy glow, which
+hung upon the blackness of the sky like a celestial lamp, and a wild
+and lovely sight it was. In another five minutes the stars began to
+fade, and there was sufficient light to see our whereabouts. We then
+discovered that we were clear of the town of Loo, and approaching a
+large flat-topped hill, measuring some two miles in circumference.
+This hill, which is of a formation common in South Africa, is not very
+high; indeed, its greatest elevation is scarcely more than 200 feet,
+but it is shaped like a horseshoe, and its sides are rather
+precipitous and strewn with boulders. On the grass table-land at its
+summit is ample camping-ground, which had been utilised as a military
+cantonment of no mean strength. Its ordinary garrison was one regiment
+of three thousand men, but as we toiled up the steep side of the
+mountain in the returning moonlight we perceived that there were
+several of such regiments encamped there.
+
+Reaching the table-land at last, we found crowds of men roused from
+their sleep, shivering with fear and huddled up together in the utmost
+consternation at the natural phenomenon which they were witnessing.
+Passing through these without a word, we gained a hut in the centre of
+the ground, where we were astonished to find two men waiting, laden
+with our few goods and chattels, which of course we had been obliged
+to leave behind in our hasty flight.
+
+"I sent for them," explained Infadoos; "and also for these," and he
+lifted up Good's long-lost trousers.
+
+With an exclamation of rapturous delight Good sprang at them, and
+instantly proceeded to put them on.
+
+"Surely my lord will not hide his beautiful white legs!" exclaimed
+Infadoos regretfully.
+
+But Good persisted, and once only did the Kukuana people get the
+chance of seeing his beautiful legs again. Good is a very modest man.
+Henceforward they had to satisfy their �sthetic longings with his one
+whisker, his transparent eye, and his movable teeth.
+
+Still gazing with fond remembrance at Good's trousers, Infadoos next
+informed us that he had commanded the regiments to muster so soon as
+the day broke, in order to explain to them fully the origin and
+circumstances of the rebellion which was decided on by the chiefs, and
+to introduce to them the rightful heir to the throne, Ignosi.
+
+Accordingly, when the sun was up, the troops--in all some twenty
+thousand men, and the flower of the Kukuana army--were mustered on a
+large open space, to which we went. The men were drawn up in three
+sides of a dense square, and presented a magnificent spectacle. We
+took our station on the open side of the square, and were speedily
+surrounded by all the principal chiefs and officers.
+
+These, after silence had been proclaimed, Infadoos proceeded to
+address. He narrated to them in vigorous and graceful language--for,
+like most Kukuanas of high rank, he was a born orator--the history of
+Ignosi's father, and of how he had been basely murdered by Twala the
+king, and his wife and child driven out to starve. Then he pointed out
+that the people suffered and groaned under Twala's cruel rule,
+instancing the proceedings of the previous night, when, under pretence
+of their being evil-doers, many of the noblest in the land had been
+dragged forth and wickedly done to death. Next he went on to say that
+the white lords from the Stars, looking down upon their country, had
+perceived its trouble, and determined, at great personal
+inconvenience, to alleviate its lot: That they had accordingly taken
+the real king of the Kukuanas, Ignosi, who was languishing in exile,
+by the hand, and led him over the mountains: That they had seen the
+wickedness of Twala's doings, and for a sign to the wavering, and to
+save the life of the girl Foulata, actually, by the exercise of their
+high magic, had put out the moon and slain the young fiend Scragga;
+and that they were prepared to stand by them, and assist them to
+overthrow Twala, and set up the rightful king, Ignosi, in his place.
+
+He finished his discourse amidst a murmur of approbation. Then Ignosi
+stepped forward and began to speak. Having reiterated all that
+Infadoos his uncle had said, he concluded a powerful speech in these
+words:--
+
+"O chiefs, captains, soldiers, and people, ye have heard my words. Now
+must ye make choice between me and him who sits upon my throne, the
+uncle who killed his brother, and hunted his brother's child forth to
+die in the cold and the night. That I am indeed the king these"--
+pointing to the chiefs--"can tell you, for they have seen the snake
+about my middle. If I were not the king, would these white men be on
+my side with all their magic? Tremble, chiefs, captains, soldiers, and
+people! Is not the darkness they have brought upon the land to
+confound Twala and cover our flight, darkness even in the hour of the
+full moon, yet before your eyes?"
+
+"It is," answered the soldiers.
+
+"I am the king; I say to you, I am the king," went on Ignosi, drawing
+up his great stature to its full, and lifting his broad-bladed battle-
+axe above his head. "If there be any man among you who says that it is
+not so, let him stand forth and I will fight him now, and his blood
+shall be a red token that I tell you true. Let him stand forth, I
+say;" and he shook the great axe till it flashed in the sunlight.
+
+As nobody seemed inclined to respond to this heroic version of "Dilly,
+Dilly, come and be killed," our late henchman proceeded with his
+address.
+
+"I am indeed the king, and should ye stand by my side in the battle,
+if I win the day ye shall go with me to victory and honour. I will
+give you oxen and wives, and ye shall take place of all the regiments;
+and if ye fall, I will fall with you.
+
+"And behold, I give you this promise, that when I sit upon the seat of
+my fathers, bloodshed shall cease in the land. No longer shall ye cry
+for justice to find slaughter, no longer shall the witch-finder hunt
+you out so that ye may be slain without a cause. No man shall die save
+he who offends against the laws. The 'eating up' of your kraals shall
+cease; each one of you shall sleep secure in his own hut and fear
+naught, and justice shall walk blindfold throughout the land. Have ye
+chosen, chiefs, captains, soldiers, and people?"
+
+"We have chosen, O king," came back the answer.
+
+"It is well. Turn your heads and see how Twala's messengers go forth
+from the great town, east and west, and north and south, to gather a
+mighty army to slay me and you, and these my friends and protectors.
+To-morrow, or perchance the next day, he will come against us with all
+who are faithful to him. Then I shall see the man who is indeed my
+man, the man who fears not to die for his cause; and I tell you that
+he shall not be forgotten in the time of spoil. I have spoken, O
+chiefs, captains, soldiers, and people. Now go to your huts and make
+you ready for war."
+
+There was a pause, till presently one of the chiefs lifted his hand,
+and out rolled the royal salute, "/Koom./" It was a sign that the
+soldiers accepted Ignosi as their king. Then they marched off in
+battalions.
+
+Half an hour afterwards we held a council of war, at which all the
+commanders of regiments were present. It was evident to us that before
+very long we should be attacked in overwhelming force. Indeed, from
+our point of vantage on the hill we could see troops mustering, and
+runners going forth from Loo in every direction, doubtless to summon
+soldiers to the king's assistance. We had on our side about twenty
+thousand men, composed of seven of the best regiments in the country.
+Twala, so Infadoos and the chiefs calculated, had at least thirty to
+thirty-five thousand on whom he could rely at present assembled in
+Loo, and they thought that by midday on the morrow he would be able to
+gather another five thousand or more to his aid. It was, of course,
+possible that some of his troops would desert and come over to us, but
+it was not a contingency which could be reckoned on. Meanwhile, it was
+clear that active preparations were being made by Twala to subdue us.
+Already strong bodies of armed men were patrolling round and round the
+foot of the hill, and there were other signs also of coming assault.
+
+Infadoos and the chiefs, however, were of opinion that no attack would
+take place that day, which would be devoted to preparation and to the
+removal of every available means of the moral effect produced upon the
+minds of the soldiery by the supposed magical darkening of the moon.
+The onslaught would be on the morrow, they said, and they proved to be
+right.
+
+Meanwhile, we set to work to strengthen the position in all ways
+possible. Almost every man was turned out, and in the course of the
+day, which seemed far too short, much was done. The paths up the hill
+--that was rather a sanatorium than a fortress, being used generally
+as the camping place of regiments suffering from recent service in
+unhealthy portions of the country--were carefully blocked with masses
+of stones, and every other approach was made as impregnable as time
+would allow. Piles of boulders were collected at various spots to be
+rolled down upon an advancing enemy, stations were appointed to the
+different regiments, and all preparation was made which our joint
+ingenuity could suggest.
+
+Just before sundown, as we rested after our toil, we perceived a small
+company of men advancing towards us from the direction of Loo, one of
+whom bore a palm leaf in his hand for a sign that he came as a herald.
+
+As he drew near, Ignosi, Infadoos, one or two chiefs and ourselves,
+went down to the foot of the mountain to meet him. He was a gallant-
+looking fellow, wearing the regulation leopard-skin cloak.
+
+"Greeting!" he cried, as he came; "the king's greeting to those who
+make unholy war against the king; the lion's greeting to the jackals
+that snarl around his heels."
+
+"Speak," I said.
+
+"These are the king's words. Surrender to the king's mercy ere a worse
+thing befall you. Already the shoulder has been torn from the black
+bull, and the king drives him bleeding about the camp."[*]
+
+[*] This cruel custom is not confined to the Kukuanas, but is by no
+    means uncommon amongst African tribes on the occasion of the
+    outbreak of war or any other important public event.--A.Q.
+
+"What are Twala's terms?" I asked from curiosity.
+
+"His terms are merciful, worthy of a great king. These are the words
+of Twala, the one-eyed, the mighty, the husband of a thousand wives,
+lord of the Kukuanas, keeper of the Great Road (Solomon's Road),
+beloved of the Strange Ones who sit in silence at the mountains yonder
+(the Three Witches), Calf of the Black Cow, Elephant whose tread
+shakes the earth, Terror of the evil-doer, Ostrich whose feet devour
+the desert, huge One, black One, wise One, king from generation to
+generation! these are the words of Twala: 'I will have mercy and be
+satisfied with a little blood. One in every ten shall die, the rest
+shall go free; but the white man Incubu, who slew Scragga my son, and
+the black man his servant, who pretends to my throne, and Infadoos my
+brother, who brews rebellion against me, these shall die by torture as
+an offering to the Silent Ones.' Such are the merciful words of
+Twala."
+
+After consulting with the others a little, I answered him in a loud
+voice, so that the soldiers might hear, thus--
+
+"Go back, thou dog, to Twala, who sent thee, and say that we, Ignosi,
+veritable king of the Kukuanas, Incubu, Bougwan, and Macumazahn, the
+wise ones from the Stars, who make dark the moon, Infadoos, of the
+royal house, and the chiefs, captains, and people here gathered, make
+answer and say, 'That we will not surrender; that before the sun has
+gone down twice, Twala's corpse shall stiffen at Twala's gate, and
+Ignosi, whose father Twala slew, shall reign in his stead.' Now go,
+ere we whip thee away, and beware how thou dost lift a hand against
+such as we are."
+
+The herald laughed loudly. "Ye frighten not men with such swelling
+words," he cried out. "Show yourselves as bold to-morrow, O ye who
+darken the moon. Be bold, fight, and be merry, before the crows pick
+your bones till they are whiter than your faces. Farewell; perhaps we
+may meet in the fight; fly not to the Stars, but wait for me, I pray,
+white men." With this shaft of sarcasm he retired, and almost
+immediately the sun sank.
+
+That night was a busy one, for weary as we were, so far as was
+possible by the moonlight all preparations for the morrow's fight were
+continued, and messengers were constantly coming and going from the
+place where we sat in council. At last, about an hour after midnight,
+everything that could be done was done, and the camp, save for the
+occasional challenge of a sentry, sank into silence. Sir Henry and I,
+accompanied by Ignosi and one of the chiefs, descended the hill and
+made a round of the pickets. As we went, suddenly, from all sorts of
+unexpected places, spears gleamed out in the moonlight, only to vanish
+again when we uttered the password. It was clear to us that none were
+sleeping at their posts. Then we returned, picking our way warily
+through thousands of sleeping warriors, many of whom were taking their
+last earthly rest.
+
+The moonlight flickering along their spears, played upon their
+features and made them ghastly; the chilly night wind tossed their
+tall and hearse-like plumes. There they lay in wild confusion, with
+arms outstretched and twisted limbs; their stern, stalwart forms
+looking weird and unhuman in the moonlight.
+
+"How many of these do you suppose will be alive at this time
+to-morrow?" asked Sir Henry.
+
+I shook my head and looked again at the sleeping men, and to my tired
+and yet excited imagination it seemed as though Death had already
+touched them. My mind's eye singled out those who were sealed to
+slaughter, and there rushed in upon my heart a great sense of the
+mystery of human life, and an overwhelming sorrow at its futility and
+sadness. To-night these thousand slept their healthy sleep, to-morrow
+they, and many others with them, ourselves perhaps among them, would
+be stiffening in the cold; their wives would be widows, their children
+fatherless, and their place know them no more for ever. Only the old
+moon would shine on serenely, the night wind would stir the grasses,
+and the wide earth would take its rest, even as it did �ons before we
+were, and will do �ons after we have been forgotten.
+
+Yet man dies not whilst the world, at once his mother and his
+monument, remains. His name is lost, indeed, but the breath he
+breathed still stirs the pine-tops on the mountains, the sound of the
+words he spoke yet echoes on through space; the thoughts his brain
+gave birth to we have inherited to-day; his passions are our cause of
+life; the joys and sorrows that he knew are our familiar friends--the
+end from which he fled aghast will surely overtake us also!
+
+Truly the universe is full of ghosts, not sheeted churchyard spectres,
+but the inextinguishable elements of individual life, which having
+once been, can never /die/, though they blend and change, and change
+again for ever.
+
+
+
+All sorts of reflections of this nature passed through my mind--for as
+I grow older I regret to say that a detestable habit of thinking seems
+to be getting a hold of me--while I stood and stared at those grim yet
+fantastic lines of warriors, sleeping, as their saying goes, "upon
+their spears."
+
+"Curtis," I said, "I am in a condition of pitiable fear."
+
+Sir Henry stroked his yellow beard and laughed, as he answered--
+
+"I have heard you make that sort of remark before, Quatermain."
+
+"Well, I mean it now. Do you know, I very much doubt if one of us will
+be alive to-morrow night. We shall be attacked in overwhelming force,
+and it is quite a chance if we can hold this place."
+
+"We'll give a good account of some of them, at any rate. Look here,
+Quatermain, this business is nasty, and one with which, properly
+speaking, we ought not to be mixed up, but we are in for it, so we
+must make the best of our job. Speaking personally, I had rather be
+killed fighting than any other way, and now that there seems little
+chance of our finding my poor brother, it makes the idea easier to me.
+But fortune favours the brave, and we may succeed. Anyway, the battle
+will be awful, and having a reputation to keep up, we shall need to be
+in the thick of the thing."
+
+He made this last remark in a mournful voice, but there was a gleam in
+his eye which belied its melancholy. I have an idea Sir Henry Curtis
+actually likes fighting.
+
+After this we went to sleep for a couple of hours or so.
+
+Just about dawn we were awakened by Infadoos, who came to say that
+great activity was to be observed in Loo, and that parties of the
+king's skirmishers were driving in our outposts.
+
+We rose and dressed ourselves for the fray, each putting on his chain
+armour shirt, for which garments at the present juncture we felt
+exceedingly thankful. Sir Henry went the whole length about the
+matter, and dressed himself like a native warrior. "When you are in
+Kukuanaland, do as the Kukuanas do," he remarked, as he drew the
+shining steel over his broad breast, which it fitted like a glove. Nor
+did he stop there. At his request Infadoos had provided him with a
+complete set of native war uniform. Round his throat he fastened the
+leopard-skin cloak of a commanding officer, on his brows he bound the
+plume of black ostrich feathers worn only by generals of high rank,
+and about his middle a magnificent moocha of white ox-tails. A pair of
+sandals, a leglet of goat's hair, a heavy battle-axe with a
+rhinoceros-horn handle, a round iron shield covered with white ox-
+hide, and the regulation number of /tollas/, or throwing-knives, made
+up his equipment, to which, however, he added his revolver. The dress
+was, no doubt, a savage one, but I am bound to say that I seldom saw a
+finer sight than Sir Henry Curtis presented in this guise. It showed
+off his magnificent physique to the greatest advantage, and when
+Ignosi arrived presently, arrayed in a similar costume, I thought to
+myself that I had never before seen two such splendid men.
+
+As for Good and myself, the armour did not suit us nearly so well. To
+begin with, Good insisted upon keeping on his new-found trousers, and
+a stout, short gentleman with an eye-glass, and one half of his face
+shaved, arrayed in a mail shirt, carefully tucked into a very seedy
+pair of corduroys, looks more remarkable than imposing. In my case,
+the chain shirt being too big for me, I put it on over all my clothes,
+which caused it to bulge in a somewhat ungainly fashion. I discarded
+my trousers, however, retaining only my veldtschoons, having
+determined to go into battle with bare legs, in order to be the
+lighter for running, in case it became necessary to retire quickly.
+The mail coat, a spear, a shield, that I did not know how to use, a
+couple of /tollas/, a revolver, and a huge plume, which I pinned into
+the top of my shooting hat, in order to give a bloodthirsty finish to
+my appearance, completed my modest equipment. In addition to all these
+articles, of course we had our rifles, but as ammunition was scarce,
+and as they would be useless in case of a charge, we arranged that
+they should be carried behind us by bearers.
+
+When at length we had equipped ourselves, we swallowed some food
+hastily, and then started out to see how things were going on. At one
+point in the table-land of the mountain, there was a little koppie of
+brown stone, which served the double purpose of head-quarters and of a
+conning tower. Here we found Infadoos surrounded by his own regiment,
+the Greys, which was undoubtedly the finest in the Kukuana army, and
+the same that we had first seen at the outlying kraal. This regiment,
+now three thousand five hundred strong, was being held in reserve, and
+the men were lying down on the grass in companies, and watching the
+king's forces creep out of Loo in long ant-like columns. There seemed
+to be no end to the length of these columns--three in all, and each of
+them numbering, as we judged, at least eleven or twelve thousand men.
+
+As soon as they were clear of the town the regiments formed up. Then
+one body marched off to the right, one to the left, and the third came
+on slowly towards us.
+
+"Ah," said Infadoos, "they are going to attack us on three sides at
+once."
+
+This seemed rather serious news, for our position on the top of the
+mountain, which measured a mile and a half in circumference, being an
+extended one, it was important to us to concentrate our comparatively
+small defending force as much as possible. But since it was impossible
+for us to dictate in what way we should be assailed, we had to make
+the best of it, and accordingly sent orders to the various regiments
+to prepare to receive the separate onslaughts.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE ATTACK
+
+Slowly, and without the slightest appearance of haste or excitement,
+the three columns crept on. When within about five hundred yards of
+us, the main or centre column halted at the root of a tongue of open
+plain which ran up into the hill, to give time to the other divisions
+to circumvent our position, which was shaped more or less in the form
+of a horse-shoe, with its two points facing towards the town of Loo.
+The object of this man�uvre was that the threefold assault should be
+delivered simultaneously.
+
+"Oh, for a gatling!" groaned Good, as he contemplated the serried
+phalanxes beneath us. "I would clear that plain in twenty minutes."
+
+"We have not got one, so it is no use yearning for it; but suppose you
+try a shot, Quatermain," said Sir Henry. "See how near you can go to
+that tall fellow who appears to be in command. Two to one you miss
+him, and an even sovereign, to be honestly paid if ever we get out of
+this, that you don't drop the bullet within five yards."
+
+
+This piqued me, so, loading the express with solid ball, I waited till
+my friend walked some ten yards out from his force, in order to get a
+better view of our position, accompanied only by an orderly; then,
+lying down and resting the express on a rock, I covered him. The
+rifle, like all expresses, was only sighted to three hundred and fifty
+yards, so to allow for the drop in trajectory I took him half-way down
+the neck, which ought, I calculated, to find him in the chest. He
+stood quite still and gave me every opportunity, but whether it was
+the excitement or the wind, or the fact of the man being a long shot,
+I don't know, but this was what happened. Getting dead on, as I
+thought, a fine sight, I pressed, and when the puff of smoke had
+cleared away, to my disgust, I saw my man standing there unharmed,
+whilst his orderly, who was at least three paces to the left, was
+stretched upon the ground apparently dead. Turning swiftly, the
+officer I had aimed at began to run towards his men in evident alarm.
+
+"Bravo, Quatermain!" sang out Good; "you've frightened him."
+
+This made me very angry, for, if possible to avoid it, I hate to miss
+in public. When a man is master of only one art he likes to keep up
+his reputation in that art. Moved quite out of myself at my failure, I
+did a rash thing. Rapidly covering the general as he ran, I let drive
+with the second barrel. Instantly the poor man threw up his arms, and
+fell forward on to his face. This time I had made no mistake; and--I
+say it as a proof of how little we think of others when our own
+safety, pride, or reputation is in question--I was brute enough to
+feel delighted at the sight.
+
+The regiments who had seen the feat cheered wildly at this exhibition
+of the white man's magic, which they took as an omen of success, while
+the force the general had belonged to--which, indeed, as we
+ascertained afterwards, he had commanded--fell back in confusion. Sir
+Henry and Good now took up their rifles and began to fire, the latter
+industriously "browning" the dense mass before him with another
+Winchester repeater, and I also had another shot or two, with the
+result, so far as we could judge, that we put some six or eight men
+/hors de combat/ before they were out of range.
+
+Just as we stopped firing there came an ominous roar from our far
+right, then a similar roar rose on our left. The two other divisions
+were engaging us.
+
+At the sound, the mass of men before us opened out a little, and
+advanced towards the hill and up the spit of bare grass land at a slow
+trot, singing a deep-throated song as they ran. We kept up a steady
+fire from our rifles as they came, Ignosi joining in occasionally, and
+accounted for several men, but of course we produced no more effect
+upon that mighty rush of armed humanity than he who throws pebbles
+does on the breaking wave.
+
+On they came, with a shout and the clashing of spears; now they were
+driving in the pickets we had placed among the rocks at the foot of
+the hill. After that the advance was a little slower, for though as
+yet we had offered no serious opposition, the attacking forces must
+climb up hill, and they came slowly to save their breath. Our first
+line of defence was about half-way down the side of the slope, our
+second fifty yards further back, while our third occupied the edge of
+the plateau.
+
+On they stormed, shouting their war-cry, "/Twala! Twala! Chiele!
+Chiele!/" (Twala! Twala! Smite! Smite!) "/Ignosi! Ignosi! Chiele!
+Chiele!/" answered our people. They were quite close now, and the
+/tollas/, or throwing-knives, began to flash backwards and forwards,
+and now with an awful yell the battle closed in.
+
+To and fro swayed the mass of struggling warriors, men falling fast as
+leaves in an autumn wind; but before long the superior weight of the
+attacking force began to tell, and our first line of defence was
+slowly pressed back till it merged into the second. Here the struggle
+was very fierce, but again our people were driven back and up, till at
+length, within twenty minutes of the commencement of the fight, our
+third line came into action.
+
+But by this time the assailants were much exhausted, and besides had
+lost many men killed and wounded, and to break through that third
+impenetrable hedge of spears proved beyond their powers. For a while
+the seething lines of savages swung backwards and forwards, in the
+fierce ebb and flow of battle, and the issue was doubtful. Sir Henry
+watched the desperate struggle with a kindling eye, and then without a
+word he rushed off, followed by Good, and flung himself into the
+hottest of the fray. As for myself, I stopped where I was.
+
+The soldiers caught sight of his tall form as he plunged into battle,
+and there rose a cry of--
+
+"/Nanzia Incubu! Nanzia Unkungunklovo!/" (Here is the Elephant!)
+"/Chiele! Chiele!/"
+
+From that moment the end was no longer in doubt. Inch by inch,
+fighting with splendid gallantry, the attacking force was pressed back
+down the hillside, till at last it retreated upon its reserves in
+something like confusion. At that instant, too, a messenger arrived to
+say that the left attack had been repulsed; and I was just beginning
+to congratulate myself, believing that the affair was over for the
+present, when, to our horror, we perceived our men who had been
+engaged in the right defence being driven towards us across the plain,
+followed by swarms of the enemy, who had evidently succeeded at this
+point.
+
+Ignosi, who was standing by me, took in the situation at a glance, and
+issued a rapid order. Instantly the reserve regiment around us, the
+Greys, extended itself.
+
+Again Ignosi gave a word of command, which was taken up and repeated
+by the captains, and in another second, to my intense disgust, I found
+myself involved in a furious onslaught upon the advancing foe. Getting
+as much as I could behind Ignosi's huge frame, I made the best of a
+bad job, and toddled along to be killed as though I liked it. In a
+minute or two--we were plunging through the flying groups of our men,
+who at once began to re-form behind us, and then I am sure I do not
+know what happened. All I can remember is a dreadful rolling noise of
+the meeting of shields, and the sudden apparition of a huge ruffian,
+whose eyes seemed literally to be starting out of his head, making
+straight at me with a bloody spear. But--I say it with pride--I rose--
+or rather sank--to the occasion. It was one before which most people
+would have collapsed once and for all. Seeing that if I stood where I
+was I must be killed, as the horrid apparition came I flung myself
+down in front of him so cleverly that, being unable to stop himself,
+he took a header right over my prostrate form. Before he could rise
+again, /I/ had risen and settled the matter from behind with my
+revolver.
+
+Shortly after this somebody knocked me down, and I remember no more of
+that charge.
+
+When I came to I found myself back at the koppie, with Good bending
+over me holding some water in a gourd.
+
+"How do you feel, old fellow?" he asked anxiously.
+
+I got up and shook myself before replying.
+
+"Pretty well, thank you," I answered.
+
+"Thank Heaven! When I saw them carry you in, I felt quite sick; I
+thought you were done for."
+
+"Not this time, my boy. I fancy I only got a rap on the head, which
+knocked me stupid. How has it ended?"
+
+"They are repulsed at every point for a while. The loss is dreadfully
+heavy; we have quite two thousand killed and wounded, and they must
+have lost three. Looks, there's a sight!" and he pointed to long lines
+of men advancing by fours.
+
+In the centre of every group of four, and being borne by it, was a
+kind of hide tray, of which a Kukuana force always carries a quantity,
+with a loop for a handle at each corner. On these trays--and their
+number seemed endless--lay wounded men, who as they arrived were
+hastily examined by the medicine men, of whom ten were attached to a
+regiment. If the wound was not of a fatal character the sufferer was
+taken away and attended to as carefully as circumstances would allow.
+But if, on the other hand, the injured man's condition proved
+hopeless, what followed was very dreadful, though doubtless it may
+have been the truest mercy. One of the doctors, under pretence of
+carrying out an examination, swiftly opened an artery with a sharp
+knife, and in a minute or two the sufferer expired painlessly. There
+were many cases that day in which this was done. In fact, it was done
+in the majority of cases when the wound was in the body, for the gash
+made by the entry of the enormously broad spears used by the Kukuanas
+generally rendered recovery impossible. In most instances the poor
+sufferers were already unconscious, and in others the fatal "nick" of
+the artery was inflicted so swiftly and painlessly that they did not
+seem to notice it. Still it was a ghastly sight, and one from which we
+were glad to escape; indeed, I never remember anything of the kind
+that affected me more than seeing those gallant soldiers thus put out
+of pain by the red-handed medicine men, except, indeed, on one
+occasion when, after an attack, I saw a force of Swazis burying their
+hopelessly wounded /alive/.
+
+Hurrying from this dreadful scene to the further side of the koppie,
+we found Sir Henry, who still held a battle-axe in his hand, Ignosi,
+Infadoos, and one or two of the chiefs in deep consultation.
+
+"Thank Heaven, here you are, Quatermain! I can't quite make out what
+Ignosi wants to do. It seems that though we have beaten off the
+attack, Twala is now receiving large reinforcements, and is showing a
+disposition to invest us, with the view of starving us out."
+
+"That's awkward."
+
+"Yes; especially as Infadoos says that the water supply has given
+out."
+
+"My lord, that is so," said Infadoos; "the spring cannot supply the
+wants of so great a multitude, and it is failing rapidly. Before night
+we shall all be thirsty. Listen, Macumazahn. Thou art wise, and hast
+doubtless seen many wars in the lands from whence thou camest--that is
+if indeed they make wars in the Stars. Now tell us, what shall we do?
+Twala has brought up many fresh men to take the place of those who
+have fallen. Yet Twala has learnt his lesson; the hawk did not think
+to find the heron ready; but our beak has pierced his breast; he fears
+to strike at us again. We too are wounded, and he will wait for us to
+die; he will wind himself round us like a snake round a buck, and
+fight the fight of 'sit down.'"
+
+"I hear thee," I said.
+
+"So, Macumazahn, thou seest we have no water here, and but a little
+food, and we must choose between these three things--to languish like
+a starving lion in his den, or to strive to break away towards the
+north, or"--and here he rose and pointed towards the dense mass of our
+foes--"to launch ourselves straight at Twala's throat. Incubu, the
+great warrior--for to-day he fought like a buffalo in a net, and
+Twala's soldiers went down before his axe like young corn before the
+hail; with these eyes I saw it--Incubu says 'Charge'; but the Elephant
+is ever prone to charge. Now what says Macumazahn, the wily old fox,
+who has seen much, and loves to bite his enemy from behind? The last
+word is in Ignosi the king, for it is a king's right to speak of war;
+but let us hear thy voice, O Macumazahn, who watchest by night, and
+the voice too of him of the transparent eye."
+
+"What sayest thou, Ignosi," I asked.
+
+"Nay, my father," answered our quondam servant, who now, clad as he
+was in the full panoply of savage war, looked every inch a warrior
+king, "do thou speak, and let me, who am but a child in wisdom beside
+thee, hearken to thy words."
+
+Thus adjured, after taking hasty counsel with Good and Sir Henry, I
+delivered my opinion briefly to the effect that, being trapped, our
+best chance, especially in view of the failure of our water supply,
+was to initiate an attack upon Twala's forces. Then I recommended that
+the attack should be delivered at once, "before our wounds grew
+stiff," and also before the sight of Twala's overpowering force caused
+the hearts of our soldiers "to wax small like fat before a fire."
+Otherwise, I pointed out, some of the captains might change their
+minds, and, making peace with Twala, desert to him, or even betray us
+into his hands.
+
+This expression of opinion seemed, on the whole, to be favourably
+received; indeed, among the Kukuanas my utterances met with a respect
+which has never been accorded to them before or since. But the real
+decision as to our plans lay with Ignosi, who, since he had been
+recognised as rightful king, could exercise the almost unbounded
+rights of sovereignty, including, of course, the final decision on
+matters of generalship, and it was to him that all eyes were now
+turned.
+
+At length, after a pause, during which he appeared to be thinking
+deeply, he spoke.
+
+"Incubu, Macumazahn, and Bougwan, brave white men, and my friends;
+Infadoos, my uncle, and chiefs; my heart is fixed. I will strike at
+Twala this day, and set my fortunes on the blow, ay, and my life--my
+life and your lives also. Listen; thus will I strike. Ye see how the
+hill curves round like the half-moon, and how the plain runs like a
+green tongue towards us within the curve?"
+
+"We see," I answered.
+
+"Good; it is now mid-day, and the men eat and rest after the toil of
+battle. When the sun has turned and travelled a little way towards the
+darkness, let thy regiment, my uncle, advance with one other down to
+the green tongue, and it shall be that when Twala sees it he will hurl
+his force at it to crush it. But the spot is narrow, and the regiments
+can come against thee one at a time only; so may they be destroyed one
+by one, and the eyes of all Twala's army shall be fixed upon a
+struggle the like of which has not been seen by living man. And with
+thee, my uncle, shall go Incubu my friend, that when Twala sees his
+battle-axe flashing in the first rank of the Greys his heart may grow
+faint. And I will come with the second regiment, that which follows
+thee, so that if ye are destroyed, as it might happen, there may yet
+be a king left to fight for; and with me shall come Macumazahn the
+wise."
+
+"It is well, O king," said Infadoos, apparently contemplating the
+certainty of the complete annihilation of his regiment with perfect
+calmness. Truly, these Kukuanas are a wonderful people. Death has no
+terrors for them when it is incurred in the course of duty.
+
+"And whilst the eyes of the multitude of Twala's soldiers are thus
+fixed upon the fight," went on Ignosi, "behold, one-third of the men
+who are left alive to us (i.e. about 6,000) shall creep along the
+right horn of the hill and fall upon the left flank of Twala's force,
+and one-third shall creep along the left horn and fall upon Twala's
+right flank. And when I see that the horns are ready to toss Twala,
+then will I, with the men who remain to me, charge home in Twala's
+face, and if fortune goes with us the day will be ours, and before
+Night drives her black oxen from the mountains to the mountains we
+shall sit in peace at Loo. And now let us eat and make ready; and,
+Infadoos, do thou prepare, that the plan be carried out without fail;
+and stay, let my white father Bougwan go with the right horn, that his
+shining eye may give courage to the captains."
+
+The arrangements for attack thus briefly indicated were set in motion
+with a rapidity that spoke well for the perfection of the Kukuana
+military system. Within little more than an hour rations had been
+served out and devoured, the divisions were formed, the scheme of
+onslaught was explained to the leaders, and the whole force, numbering
+about 18,000 men, was ready to move, with the exception of a guard
+left in charge of the wounded.
+
+Presently Good came up to Sir Henry and myself.
+
+"Good-bye, you fellows," he said; "I am off with the right wing
+according to orders; and so I have come to shake hands, in case we
+should not meet again, you know," he added significantly.
+
+We shook hands in silence, and not without the exhibition of as much
+emotion as Anglo-Saxons are wont to show.
+
+"It is a queer business," said Sir Henry, his deep voice shaking a
+little, "and I confess I never expect to see to-morrow's sun. So far
+as I can make out, the Greys, with whom I am to go, are to fight until
+they are wiped out in order to enable the wings to slip round unawares
+and outflank Twala. Well, so be it; at any rate, it will be a man's
+death. Good-bye, old fellow. God bless you! I hope you will pull
+through and live to collar the diamonds; but if you do, take my advice
+and don't have anything more to do with Pretenders!"
+
+In another second Good had wrung us both by the hand and gone; and
+then Infadoos came up and led off Sir Henry to his place in the
+forefront of the Greys, whilst, with many misgivings, I departed with
+Ignosi to my station in the second attacking regiment.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE LAST STAND OF THE GREYS
+
+In a few more minutes the regiments destined to carry out the flanking
+movements had tramped off in silence, keeping carefully to the lee of
+the rising ground in order to conceal their advance from the keen eyes
+of Twala's scouts.
+
+Half an hour or more was allowed to elapse between the setting out of
+the horns or wings of the army before any stir was made by the Greys
+and their supporting regiment, known as the Buffaloes, which formed
+its chest, and were destined to bear the brunt of the battle.
+
+Both of these regiments were almost perfectly fresh, and of full
+strength, the Greys having been in reserve in the morning, and having
+lost but a small number of men in sweeping back that part of the
+attack which had proved successful in breaking the line of defence, on
+the occasion when I charged with them and was stunned for my pains. As
+for the Buffaloes, they had formed the third line of defence on the
+left, and since the attacking force at that point had not succeeded in
+breaking through the second, they had scarcely come into action at
+all.
+
+Infadoos, who was a wary old general, and knew the absolute importance
+of keeping up the spirits of his men on the eve of such a desperate
+encounter, employed the pause in addressing his own regiment, the
+Greys, in poetical language: explaining to them the honour that they
+were receiving in being put thus in the forefront of the battle, and
+in having the great white warrior from the Stars to fight with them in
+their ranks; and promising large rewards of cattle and promotion to
+all who survived in the event of Ignosi's arms being successful.
+
+I looked down the long lines of waving black plumes and stern faces
+beneath them, and sighed to think that within one short hour most, if
+not all, of those magnificent veteran warriors, not a man of whom was
+under forty years of age, would be laid dead or dying in the dust. It
+could not be otherwise; they were being condemned, with that wise
+recklessness of human life which marks the great general, and often
+saves his forces and attains his ends, to certain slaughter, in order
+to give their cause and the remainder of the army a chance of success.
+They were foredoomed to die, and they knew the truth. It was to be
+their task to engage regiment after regiment of Twala's army on the
+narrow strip of green beneath us, till they were exterminated or till
+the wings found a favourable opportunity for their onslaught. And yet
+they never hesitated, nor could I detect a sign of fear upon the face
+of a single warrior. There they were--going to certain death, about to
+quit the blessed light of day for ever, and yet able to contemplate
+their doom without a tremor. Even at that moment I could not help
+contrasting their state of mind with my own, which was far from
+comfortable, and breathing a sigh of envy and admiration. Never before
+had I seen such an absolute devotion to the idea of duty, and such a
+complete indifference to its bitter fruits.
+
+"Behold your king!" ended old Infadoos, pointing to Ignosi; "go fight
+and fall for him, as is the duty of brave men, and cursed and shameful
+for ever be the name of him who shrinks from death for his king, or
+who turns his back to the foe. Behold your king, chiefs, captains, and
+soldiers! Now do your homage to the sacred Snake, and then follow on,
+that Incubu and I may show you a road to the heart of Twala's host."
+
+There was a moment's pause, then suddenly a murmur arose from the
+serried phalanxes before us, a sound like the distant whisper of the
+sea, caused by the gentle tapping of the handles of six thousand
+spears against their holders' shields. Slowly it swelled, till its
+growing volume deepened and widened into a roar of rolling noise, that
+echoed like thunder against the mountains, and filled the air with
+heavy waves of sound. Then it decreased, and by faint degrees died
+away into nothing, and suddenly out crashed the royal salute.
+
+Ignosi, I thought to myself, might well be a proud man that day, for
+no Roman emperor ever had such a salutation from gladiators "about to
+die."
+
+Ignosi acknowledged this magnificent act of homage by lifting his
+battle-axe, and then the Greys filed off in a triple-line formation,
+each line containing about one thousand fighting men, exclusive of
+officers. When the last companies had advanced some five hundred
+yards, Ignosi put himself at the head of the Buffaloes, which regiment
+was drawn up in a similar three-fold formation, and gave the word to
+march, and off we went, I, needless to say, uttering the most
+heartfelt prayers that I might emerge from that entertainment with a
+whole skin. Many a queer position have I found myself in, but never
+before in one quite so unpleasant as the present, or one in which my
+chance of coming off safe was smaller.
+
+By the time that we reached the edge of the plateau the Greys were
+already half-way down the slope ending in the tongue of grass land
+that ran up into the bend of the mountain, something as the frog of a
+horse's foot runs up into the shoe. The excitement in Twala's camp on
+the plain beyond was very great, and regiment after regiment was
+starting forward at a long swinging trot in order to reach the root of
+the tongue of land before the attacking force could emerge into the
+plain of Loo.
+
+This tongue, which was some four hundred yards in depth, even at its
+root or widest part was not more than six hundred and fifty paces
+across, while at its tip it scarcely measured ninety. The Greys, who,
+in passing down the side of the hill and on to the tip of the tongue,
+had formed into a column, on reaching the spot where it broadened out
+again, reassumed their triple-line formation, and halted dead.
+
+Then we--that is, the Buffaloes--moved down the tip of the tongue and
+took our stand in reserve, about one hundred yards behind the last
+line of the Greys, and on slightly higher ground. Meanwhile we had
+leisure to observe Twala's entire force, which evidently had been
+reinforced since the morning attack, and could not now,
+notwithstanding their losses, number less than forty thousand, moving
+swiftly up towards us. But as they drew near the root of the tongue
+they hesitated, having discovered that only one regiment could advance
+into the gorge at a time, and that there, some seventy yards from the
+mouth of it, unassailable except in front, on account of the high
+walls of boulder-strewn ground on each side, stood the famous regiment
+of Greys, the pride and glory of the Kukuana army, ready to hold the
+way against their power as the three Romans once held the bridge
+against thousands.
+
+They hesitated, and finally stopped their advance; there was no
+eagerness to cross spears with these three grim ranks of warriors who
+stood so firm and ready. Presently, however, a tall general, wearing
+the customary head-dress of nodding ostrich plumes, appeared, attended
+by a group of chiefs and orderlies, being, I thought, none other than
+Twala himself. He gave an order, and the first regiment, raising a
+shout, charged up towards the Greys, who remained perfectly still and
+silent till the attacking troops were within forty yards, and a volley
+of /tollas/, or throwing-knives, came rattling among their ranks.
+
+Then suddenly with a bound and a roar, they sprang forward with
+uplifted spears, and the regiment met in deadly strife. Next second
+the roll of the meeting shields came to our ears like the sound of
+thunder, and the plain seemed to be alive with flashes of light
+reflected from the shimmering spears. To and fro swung the surging
+mass of struggling, stabbing humanity, but not for long. Suddenly the
+attacking lines began to grow thinner, and then with a slow, long
+heave the Greys passed over them, just as a great wave heaves up its
+bulk and passes over a sunken ridge. It was done; that regiment was
+completely destroyed, but the Greys had but two lines left now; a
+third of their number were dead.
+
+Closing up shoulder to shoulder, once more they halted in silence and
+awaited attack; and I was rejoiced to catch sight of Sir Henry's
+yellow beard as he moved to and fro arranging the ranks. So he was yet
+alive!
+
+Meanwhile we moved on to the ground of the encounter, which was
+cumbered by about four thousand prostrate human beings, dead, dying,
+and wounded, and literally stained red with blood. Ignosi issued an
+order, which was rapidly passed down the ranks, to the effect that
+none of the enemy's wounded were to be killed, and so far as we could
+see this command was scrupulously carried out. It would have been a
+shocking sight, if we had found time to think of such things.
+
+But now a second regiment, distinguished by white plumes, kilts, and
+shields, was moving to the attack of the two thousand remaining Greys,
+who stood waiting in the same ominous silence as before, till the foe
+was within forty yards or so, when they hurled themselves with
+irresistible force upon them. Again there came the awful roll of the
+meeting shields, and as we watched the tragedy repeated itself.
+
+But this time the issue was left longer in doubt; indeed, it seemed
+for awhile almost impossible that the Greys should again prevail. The
+attacking regiment, which was formed of young men, fought with the
+utmost fury, and at first seemed by sheer weight to be driving the
+veterans back. The slaughter was truly awful, hundreds falling every
+minute; and from among the shouts of the warriors and the groans of
+the dying, set to the music of clashing spears, came a continuous
+hissing undertone of "/S'gee, s'gee/," the note of triumph of each
+victor as he passed his assegai through and through the body of his
+fallen foe.
+
+But perfect discipline and steady and unchanging valour can do
+wonders, and one veteran soldier is worth two young ones, as soon
+became apparent in the present case. For just when we thought that it
+was all over with the Greys, and were preparing to take their place so
+soon as they made room by being destroyed, I heard Sir Henry's deep
+voice ringing out through the din, and caught a glimpse of his
+circling battle-axe as he waved it high above his plumes. Then came a
+change; the Greys ceased to give; they stood still as a rock, against
+which the furious waves of spearmen broke again and again, only to
+recoil. Presently they began to move once more--forward this time; as
+they had no firearms there was no smoke, so we could see it all.
+Another minute and the onslaught grew fainter.
+
+"Ah, these are /men/, indeed; they will conquer again," called out
+Ignosi, who was grinding his teeth with excitement at my side. "See,
+it is done!"
+
+Suddenly, like puffs of smoke from the mouth of a cannon, the
+attacking regiment broke away in flying groups, their white head-
+dresses streaming behind them in the wind, and left their opponents
+victors, indeed, but, alas! no more a regiment. Of the gallant triple
+line, which forty minutes before had gone into action three thousand
+strong, there remained at most some six hundred blood-spattered men;
+the rest were under foot. And yet they cheered and waved their spears
+in triumph, and then, instead of falling back upon us as we expected,
+they ran forward, for a hundred yards or so, after the flying groups
+of foemen, took possession of a rising knoll of ground, and, resuming
+their triple formation, formed a threefold ring around its base. And
+there, thanks be to Heaven, standing on the top of the mound for a
+minute, I saw Sir Henry, apparently unharmed, and with him our old
+friend Infadoos. Then Twala's regiments rolled down upon the doomed
+band, and once more the battle closed in.
+
+As those who read this history will probably long ago have gathered, I
+am, to be honest, a bit of a coward, and certainly in no way given to
+fighting, though somehow it has often been my lot to get into
+unpleasant positions, and to be obliged to shed man's blood. But I
+have always hated it, and kept my own blood as undiminished in
+quantity as possible, sometimes by a judicious use of my heels. At
+this moment, however, for the first time in my life, I felt my bosom
+burn with martial ardour. Warlike fragments from the "Ingoldsby
+Legends," together with numbers of sanguinary verses in the Old
+Testament, sprang up in my brain like mushrooms in the dark; my blood,
+which hitherto had been half-frozen with horror, went beating through
+my veins, and there came upon me a savage desire to kill and spare
+not. I glanced round at the serried ranks of warriors behind us, and
+somehow, all in an instant, I began to wonder if my face looked like
+theirs. There they stood, the hands twitching, the lips apart, the
+fierce features instinct with the hungry lust of battle, and in the
+eyes a look like the glare of a bloodhound when after long pursuit he
+sights his quarry.
+
+Only Ignosi's heart, to judge from his comparative self-possession,
+seemed, to all appearances, to beat as calmly as ever beneath his
+leopard-skin cloak, though even /he/ still ground his teeth. I could
+bear it no longer.
+
+"Are we to stand here till we put out roots, Umbopa--Ignosi, I mean--
+while Twala swallows our brothers yonder?" I asked.
+
+"Nay, Macumazahn," was the answer; "see, now is the ripe moment: let
+us pluck it."
+
+As he spoke a fresh regiment rushed past the ring upon the little
+mound, and wheeling round, attacked it from the hither side.
+
+Then, lifting his battle-axe, Ignosi gave the signal to advance, and,
+screaming the wild Kukuana war-cry, the Buffaloes charged home with a
+rush like the rush of the sea.
+
+What followed immediately on this it is out of my power to tell. All I
+can remember is an irregular yet ordered advance, that seemed to shake
+the ground; a sudden change of front and forming up on the part of the
+regiment against which the charge was directed; then an awful shock, a
+dull roar of voices, and a continuous flashing of spears, seen through
+a red mist of blood.
+
+When my mind cleared I found myself standing inside the remnant of the
+Greys near the top of the mound, and just behind no less a person than
+Sir Henry himself. How I got there I had at the moment no idea, but
+Sir Henry afterwards told me that I was borne up by the first furious
+charge of the Buffaloes almost to his feet, and then left, as they in
+turn were pressed back. Thereon he dashed out of the circle and
+dragged me into shelter.
+
+As for the fight that followed, who can describe it? Again and again
+the multitudes surged against our momentarily lessening circle, and
+again and again we beat them back.
+
+ "The stubborn spearmen still made good
+  The dark impenetrable wood,
+  Each stepping where his comrade stood
+    The instant that he fell,"
+
+as someone or other beautifully says.
+
+It was a splendid thing to see those brave battalions come on time
+after time over the barriers of their dead, sometimes lifting corpses
+before them to receive our spear-thrusts, only to leave their own
+corpses to swell the rising piles. It was a gallant sight to see that
+old warrior, Infadoos, as cool as though he were on parade, shouting
+out orders, taunts, and even jests, to keep up the spirit of his few
+remaining men, and then, as each charge rolled on, stepping forward to
+wherever the fighting was thickest, to bear his share in its repulse.
+And yet more gallant was the vision of Sir Henry, whose ostrich plumes
+had been shorn off by a spear thrust, so that his long yellow hair
+streamed out in the breeze behind him. There he stood, the great Dane,
+for he was nothing else, his hands, his axe, and his armour all red
+with blood, and none could live before his stroke. Time after time I
+saw it sweeping down, as some great warrior ventured to give him
+battle, and as he struck he shouted "/O-hoy! O-hoy!/" like his
+Berserkir forefathers, and the blow went crashing through shield and
+spear, through head-dress, hair, and skull, till at last none would of
+their own will come near the great white "/umtagati/," the wizard, who
+killed and failed not.
+
+But suddenly there rose a cry of "/Twala, y' Twala/," and out of the
+press sprang forward none other than the gigantic one-eyed king
+himself, also armed with battle-axe and shield, and clad in chain
+armour.
+
+"Where art thou, Incubu, thou white man, who slewest Scragga my son--
+see if thou canst slay me!" he shouted, and at the same time hurled a
+/tolla/ straight at Sir Henry, who fortunately saw it coming, and
+caught it on his shield, which it transfixed, remaining wedged in the
+iron plate behind the hide.
+
+Then, with a cry, Twala sprang forward straight at him, and with his
+battle-axe struck him such a blow upon the shield that the mere force
+and shock of it brought Sir Henry, strong man as he is, down upon his
+knees.
+
+But at this time the matter went no further, for that instant there
+rose from the regiments pressing round us something like a shout of
+dismay, and on looking up I saw the cause.
+
+To the right and to the left the plain was alive with the plumes of
+charging warriors. The outflanking squadrons had come to our relief.
+The time could not have been better chosen. All Twala's army, as
+Ignosi predicted would be the case, had fixed their attention on the
+bloody struggle which was raging round the remnant of the Greys and
+that of the Buffaloes, who were now carrying on a battle of their own
+at a little distance, which two regiments had formed the chest of our
+army. It was not until our horns were about to close upon them that
+they had dreamed of their approach, for they believed these forces to
+be hidden in reserve upon the crest of the moon-shaped hill. And now,
+before they could even assume a proper formation for defence, the
+outflanking /Impis/ had leapt, like greyhounds, on their flanks.
+
+In five minutes the fate of the battle was decided. Taken on both
+flanks, and dismayed at the awful slaughter inflicted upon them by the
+Greys and Buffaloes, Twala's regiments broke into flight, and soon the
+whole plain between us and Loo was scattered with groups of running
+soldiers making good their retreat. As for the hosts that had so
+recently surrounded us and the Buffaloes, they melted away as though
+by magic, and presently we were left standing there like a rock from
+which the sea has retreated. But what a sight it was! Around us the
+dead and dying lay in heaped-up masses, and of the gallant Greys there
+remained but ninety-five men upon their feet. More than three thousand
+four hundred had fallen in this one regiment, most of them never to
+rise again.
+
+"Men," said Infadoos calmly, as between the intervals of binding a
+wound on his arm he surveyed what remained to him of his corps, "ye
+have kept up the reputation of your regiment, and this day's fighting
+will be well spoken of by your children's children." Then he turned
+round and shook Sir Henry Curtis by the hand. "Thou art a great
+captain, Incubu," he said simply; "I have lived a long life among
+warriors, and have known many a brave one, yet have I never seen a man
+like unto thee."
+
+At this moment the Buffaloes began to march past our position on the
+road to Loo, and as they went a message was brought to us from Ignosi
+requesting Infadoos, Sir Henry, and myself to join them. Accordingly,
+orders having been issued to the remaining ninety men of the Greys to
+employ themselves in collecting the wounded, we joined Ignosi, who
+informed us that he was pressing on to Loo to complete the victory by
+capturing Twala, if that should be possible. Before we had gone far,
+suddenly we discovered the figure of Good sitting on an ant-heap about
+one hundred paces from us. Close beside him was the body of a Kukuana.
+
+"He must be wounded," said Sir Henry anxiously. As he made the remark,
+an untoward thing happened. The dead body of the Kukuana soldier, or
+rather what had appeared to be his dead body, suddenly sprang up,
+knocked Good head over heels off the ant-heap, and began to spear him.
+We rushed forward in terror, and as we drew near we saw the brawny
+warrior making dig after dig at the prostrate Good, who at each prod
+jerked all his limbs into the air. Seeing us coming, the Kukuana gave
+one final and most vicious dig, and with a shout of "Take that,
+wizard!" bolted away. Good did not move, and we concluded that our
+poor comrade was done for. Sadly we came towards him, and were
+astonished to find him pale and faint indeed, but with a serene smile
+upon his face, and his eyeglass still fixed in his eye.
+
+"Capital armour this," he murmured, on catching sight of our faces
+bending over him. "How sold that beggar must have been," and then he
+fainted. On examination we discovered that he had been seriously
+wounded in the leg by a /tolla/ in the course of the pursuit, but that
+the chain armour had prevented his last assailant's spear from doing
+anything more than bruise him badly. It was a merciful escape. As
+nothing could be done for him at the moment, he was placed on one of
+the wicker shields used for the wounded, and carried along with us.
+
+On arriving before the nearest gate of Loo we found one of our
+regiments watching it in obedience to orders received from Ignosi. The
+other regiments were in the same way guarding the different exits to
+the town. The officer in command of this regiment saluted Ignosi as
+king, and informed him that Twala's army had taken refuge in the town,
+whither Twala himself had also escaped, but he thought that they were
+thoroughly demoralised, and would surrender. Thereupon Ignosi, after
+taking counsel with us, sent forward heralds to each gate ordering the
+defenders to open, and promising on his royal word life and
+forgiveness to every soldier who laid down his arms, but saying that
+if they did not do so before nightfall he would certainly burn the
+town and all within its gates. This message was not without its
+effect. Half an hour later, amid the shouts and cheers of the
+Buffaloes, the bridge was dropped across the fosse, and the gates upon
+the further side were flung open.
+
+Taking due precautions against treachery, we marched on into the town.
+All along the roadways stood thousands of dejected warriors, their
+heads drooping, and their shields and spears at their feet, who,
+headed by their officers, saluted Ignosi as king as he passed. On we
+marched, straight to Twala's kraal. When we reached the great space,
+where a day or two previously we had seen the review and the witch
+hunt, we found it deserted. No, not quite deserted, for there, on the
+further side, in front of his hut, sat Twala himself, with but one
+attendant--Gagool.
+
+It was a melancholy sight to see him seated, his battle-axe and shield
+by his side, his chin upon his mailed breast, with but one old crone
+for companion, and notwithstanding his crimes and misdeeds, a pang of
+compassion shot through me as I looked upon Twala thus "fallen from
+his high estate." Not a soldier of all his armies, not a courtier out
+of the hundreds who had cringed round him, not even a solitary wife,
+remained to share his fate or halve the bitterness of his fall. Poor
+savage! he was learning the lesson which Fate teaches to most of us
+who live long enough, that the eyes of mankind are blind to the
+discredited, and that he who is defenceless and fallen finds few
+friends and little mercy. Nor, indeed, in this case did he deserve
+any.
+
+Filing through the kraal gate, we marched across the open space to
+where the ex-king sat. When within about fifty yards of him the
+regiment was halted, and accompanied only by a small guard we advanced
+towards him, Gagool reviling us bitterly as we came. As we drew near,
+Twala, for the first time, lifted his plumed head, and fixed his one
+eye, which seemed to flash with suppressed fury almost as brightly as
+the great diamond bound round his forehead, upon his successful
+rival--Ignosi.
+
+"Hail, O king!" he said, with bitter mockery; "thou who hast eaten of
+my bread, and now by the aid of the white man's magic hast seduced my
+regiments and defeated mine army, hail! What fate hast thou in store
+for me, O king?"
+
+"The fate thou gavest to my father, whose throne thou hast sat on
+these many years!" was the stern answer.
+
+"It is good. I will show thee how to die, that thou mayest remember it
+against thine own time. See, the sun sinks in blood," and he pointed
+with his battle-axe towards the setting orb; "it is well that my sun
+should go down in its company. And now, O king! I am ready to die, but
+I crave the boon of the Kukuana royal House[*] to die fighting. Thou
+canst refuse it, or even those cowards who fled to-day will hold thee
+shamed."
+
+[*] It is a law amongst the Kukuanas that no man of the direct royal
+    blood can be put to death, unless by his own consent, which is,
+    however, never refused. He is allowed to choose a succession of
+    antagonists, to be approved by the king, with whom he fights, till
+    one of them kills him.--A.Q.
+
+"It is granted. Choose--with whom wilt thou fight? Myself I cannot
+fight with thee, for the king fights not except in war."
+
+Twala's sombre eye ran up and down our ranks, and I felt, as for a
+moment it rested on myself, that the position had developed a new
+horror. What if he chose to begin by fighting /me/? What chance should
+I have against a desperate savage six feet five high, and broad in
+proportion? I might as well commit suicide at once. Hastily I made up
+my mind to decline the combat, even if I were hooted out of
+Kukuanaland as a consequence. It is, I think, better to be hooted than
+to be quartered with a battle-axe.
+
+Presently Twala spoke.
+
+"Incubu, what sayest thou, shall we end what we began to-day, or shall
+I call thee coward, white--even to the liver?"
+
+"Nay," interposed Ignosi hastily; "thou shalt not fight with Incubu."
+
+"Not if he is afraid," said Twala.
+
+Unfortunately Sir Henry understood this remark, and the blood flamed
+up into his cheeks.
+
+"I will fight him," he said; "he shall see if I am afraid."
+
+"For Heaven's sake," I entreated, "don't risk your life against that
+of a desperate man. Anybody who saw you to-day will know that you are
+brave enough."
+
+"I will fight him," was the sullen answer. "No living man shall call
+me a coward. I am ready now!" and he stepped forward and lifted his
+axe.
+
+I wrung my hands over this absurd piece of Quixotism; but if he was
+determined on this deed, of course I could not stop him.
+
+"Fight not, my white brother," said Ignosi, laying his hand
+affectionately on Sir Henry's arm; "thou hast fought enough, and if
+aught befell thee at his hands it would cut my heart in twain."
+
+"I will fight, Ignosi," was Sir Henry's answer.
+
+"It is well, Incubu; thou art a brave man. It will be a good fray.
+Behold, Twala, the Elephant is ready for thee."
+
+The ex-king laughed savagely, and stepping forward faced Curtis. For a
+moment they stood thus, and the light of the sinking sun caught their
+stalwart frames and clothed them both in fire. They were a well-
+matched pair.
+
+Then they began to circle round each other, their battle-axes raised.
+
+Suddenly Sir Henry sprang forward and struck a fearful blow at Twala,
+who stepped to one side. So heavy was the stroke that the striker half
+overbalanced himself, a circumstance of which his antagonist took a
+prompt advantage. Circling his massive battle-axe round his head, he
+brought it down with tremendous force. My heart jumped into my mouth;
+I thought that the affair was already finished. But no; with a quick
+upward movement of the left arm Sir Henry interposed his shield
+between himself and the axe, with the result that its outer edge was
+shorn away, the axe falling on his left shoulder, but not heavily
+enough to do any serious damage. In another moment Sir Henry got in a
+second blow, which was also received by Twala upon his shield.
+
+Then followed blow upon blow, that were, in turn, either received upon
+the shields or avoided. The excitement grew intense; the regiment
+which was watching the encounter forgot its discipline, and, drawing
+near, shouted and groaned at every stroke. Just at this time, too,
+Good, who had been laid upon the ground by me, recovered from his
+faint, and, sitting up, perceived what was going on. In an instant he
+was up, and catching hold of my arm, hopped about from place to place
+on one leg, dragging me after him, and yelling encouragements to Sir
+Henry--
+
+"Go it, old fellow!" he hallooed. "That was a good one! Give it him
+amidships," and so on.
+
+Presently Sir Henry, having caught a fresh stroke upon his shield, hit
+out with all his force. The blow cut through Twala's shield and
+through the tough chain armour behind it, gashing him in the shoulder.
+With a yell of pain and fury Twala returned the blow with interest,
+and, such was his strength, shore right through the rhinoceros' horn
+handle of his antagonists battle-axe, strengthened as it was with
+bands of steel, wounding Curtis in the face.
+
+A cry of dismay rose from the Buffaloes as our hero's broad axe-head
+fell to the ground; and Twala, again raising his weapon, flew at him
+with a shout. I shut my eyes. When I opened them again it was to see
+Sir Henry's shield lying on the ground, and Sir Henry himself with his
+great arms twined round Twala's middle. To and fro they swung, hugging
+each other like bears, straining with all their mighty muscles for
+dear life, and dearer honour. With a supreme effort Twala swung the
+Englishman clean off his feet, and down they came together, rolling
+over and over on the lime paving, Twala striking out at Curtis' head
+with the battle-axe, and Sir Henry trying to drive the /tolla/ he had
+drawn from his belt through Twala's armour.
+
+It was a mighty struggle, and an awful thing to see.
+
+"Get his axe!" yelled Good; and perhaps our champion heard him.
+
+At any rate, dropping the /tolla/, he snatched at the axe, which was
+fastened to Twala's wrist by a strip of buffalo hide, and still
+rolling over and over, they fought for it like wild cats, drawing
+their breath in heavy gasps. Suddenly the hide string burst, and then,
+with a great effort, Sir Henry freed himself, the weapon remaining in
+his hand. Another second and he was upon his feet, the red blood
+streaming from the wound in his face, and so was Twala. Drawing the
+heavy /tolla/ from his belt, he reeled straight at Curtis and struck
+him in the breast. The stab came home true and strong, but whoever it
+was who made that chain armour, he understood his art, for it
+withstood the steel. Again Twala struck out with a savage yell, and
+again the sharp knife rebounded, and Sir Henry went staggering back.
+Once more Twala came on, and as he came our great Englishman gathered
+himself together, and swinging the big axe round his head with both
+hands, hit at him with all his force.
+
+There was a shriek of excitement from a thousand throats, and, behold!
+Twala's head seemed to spring from his shoulders: then it fell and
+came rolling and bounding along the ground towards Ignosi, stopping
+just as his feet. For a second the corpse stood upright; then with a
+dull crash it came to the earth, and the gold torque from its neck
+rolled away across the pavement. As it did so Sir Henry, overpowered
+by faintness and loss of blood, fell heavily across the body of the
+dead king.
+
+In a second he was lifted up, and eager hands were pouring water on
+his face. Another minute, and the grey eyes opened wide.
+
+He was not dead.
+
+Then I, just as the sun sank, stepping to where Twala's head lay in
+the dust, unloosed the diamond from the dead brows, and handed it to
+Ignosi.
+
+"Take it," I said, "lawful king of the Kukuanas--king by birth and
+victory."
+
+Ignosi bound the diadem upon his brows. Then advancing, he placed his
+foot upon the broad chest of his headless foe and broke out into a
+chant, or rather a p�an of triumph, so beautiful, and yet so utterly
+savage, that I despair of being able to give an adequate version of
+his words. Once I heard a scholar with a fine voice read aloud from
+the Greek poet Homer, and I remember that the sound of the rolling
+lines seemed to make my blood stand still. Ignosi's chant, uttered as
+it was in a language as beautiful and sonorous as the old Greek,
+produced exactly the same effect on me, although I was exhausted with
+toil and many emotions.
+
+"Now," he began, "now our rebellion is swallowed up in victory, and
+our evil-doing is justified by strength.
+
+"In the morning the oppressors arose and stretched themselves; they
+bound on their harness and made them ready to war.
+
+"They rose up and tossed their spears: the soldiers called to the
+captains, 'Come, lead us'--and the captains cried to the king, 'Direct
+thou the battle.'
+
+"They laughed in their pride, twenty thousand men, and yet a twenty
+thousand.
+
+"Their plumes covered the valleys as the plumes of a bird cover her
+nest; they shook their shields and shouted, yea, they shook their
+shields in the sunlight; they lusted for battle and were glad.
+
+"They came up against me; their strong ones ran swiftly to slay me;
+they cried, 'Ha! ha! he is as one already dead.'
+
+
+
+"Then breathed I on them, and my breath was as the breath of a wind,
+and lo! they were not.
+
+"My lightnings pierced them; I licked up their strength with the
+lightning of my spears; I shook them to the ground with the thunder of
+my shoutings.
+
+"They broke--they scattered--they were gone as the mists of the
+morning.
+
+"They are food for the kites and the foxes, and the place of battle is
+fat with their blood.
+
+
+
+"Where are the mighty ones who rose up in the morning?
+
+"Where are the proud ones who tossed their spears and cried, 'He is as
+a man already dead'?
+
+"They bow their heads, but not in sleep; they are stretched out, but
+not in sleep.
+
+"They are forgotten; they have gone into the blackness; they dwell in
+the dead moons; yea, others shall lead away their wives, and their
+children shall remember them no more.
+
+
+
+"And I--! the king--like an eagle I have found my eyrie.
+
+"Behold! far have I flown in the night season, yet have I returned to
+my young at the daybreak.
+
+"Shelter ye under the shadow of my wings, O people, and I will comfort
+you, and ye shall not be dismayed.
+
+"Now is the good time, the time of spoil.
+
+"Mine are the cattle on the mountains, mine are the virgins in the
+kraals.
+
+"The winter is overpast with storms, the summer is come with flowers.
+
+"Now Evil shall cover up her face, now Mercy and Gladness shall dwell
+in the land.
+
+"Rejoice, rejoice, my people!
+
+"Let all the stars rejoice in that this tyranny is trodden down, in
+that I am the king."
+
+
+
+Ignosi ceased his song, and out of the gathering gloom came back the
+deep reply--
+
+"/Thou art the king!/"
+
+
+
+Thus was my prophecy to the herald fulfilled, and within the forty-
+eight hours Twala's headless corpse was stiffening at Twala's gate.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+GOOD FALLS SICK
+
+After the fight was ended, Sir Henry and Good were carried into
+Twala's hut, where I joined them. They were both utterly exhausted by
+exertion and loss of blood, and, indeed, my own condition was little
+better. I am very wiry, and can stand more fatigue than most men,
+probably on account of my light weight and long training; but that
+night I was quite done up, and, as is always the case with me when
+exhausted, that old wound which the lion gave me began to pain. Also
+my head was aching violently from the blow I had received in the
+morning, when I was knocked senseless. Altogether, a more miserable
+trio than we were that evening it would have been difficult to
+discover; and our only comfort lay in the reflection that we were
+exceedingly fortunate to be there to feel miserable, instead of being
+stretched dead upon the plain, as so many thousands of brave men were
+that night, who had risen well and strong in the morning.
+
+Somehow, with the assistance of the beautiful Foulata, who, since we
+had been the means of saving her life, had constituted herself our
+handmaiden, and especially Good's, we managed to get off the chain
+shirts, which had certainly saved the lives of two of us that day. As
+I expected, we found that the flesh underneath was terribly contused,
+for though the steel links had kept the weapons from entering, they
+had not prevented them from bruising. Both Sir Henry and Good were a
+mass of contusions, and I was by no means free. As a remedy Foulata
+brought us some pounded green leaves, with an aromatic odour, which,
+when applied as a plaster, gave us considerable relief.
+
+But though the bruises were painful, they did not give us such anxiety
+as Sir Henry's and Good's wounds. Good had a hole right through the
+fleshy part of his "beautiful white leg," from which he had lost a
+great deal of blood; and Sir Henry, with other hurts, had a deep cut
+over the jaw, inflicted by Twala's battle-axe. Luckily Good is a very
+decent surgeon, and so soon as his small box of medicines was
+forthcoming, having thoroughly cleansed the wounds, he managed to
+stitch up first Sir Henry's and then his own pretty satisfactorily,
+considering the imperfect light given by the primitive Kukuana lamp in
+the hut. Afterwards he plentifully smeared the injured places with
+some antiseptic ointment, of which there was a pot in the little box,
+and we covered them with the remains of a pocket-handkerchief which we
+possessed.
+
+Meanwhile Foulata had prepared us some strong broth, for we were too
+weary to eat. This we swallowed, and then threw ourselves down on the
+piles of magnificent karrosses, or fur rugs, which were scattered
+about the dead king's great hut. By a very strange instance of the
+irony of fate, it was on Twala's own couch, and wrapped in Twala's own
+particular karross, that Sir Henry, the man who had slain him, slept
+that night.
+
+I say slept; but after that day's work, sleep was indeed difficult. To
+begin with, in very truth the air was full
+
+ "Of farewells to the dying
+  And mournings for the dead."
+
+From every direction came the sound of the wailing of women whose
+husbands, sons, and brothers had perished in the battle. No wonder
+that they wailed, for over twelve thousand men, or nearly a fifth of
+the Kukuana army, had been destroyed in that awful struggle. It was
+heart-rending to lie and listen to their cries for those who never
+would return; and it made me understand the full horror of the work
+done that day to further man's ambition. Towards midnight, however,
+the ceaseless crying of the women grew less frequent, till at length
+the silence was only broken at intervals of a few minutes by a long
+piercing howl that came from a hut in our immediate rear, which, as I
+afterwards discovered, proceeded from Gagool "keening" over the dead
+king Twala.
+
+After that I got a little fitful sleep, only to wake from time to time
+with a start, thinking that I was once more an actor in the terrible
+events of the last twenty-four hours. Now I seemed to see that warrior
+whom my hand had sent to his last account charging at me on the
+mountain-top; now I was once more in that glorious ring of Greys,
+which made its immortal stand against all Twala's regiments upon the
+little mound; and now again I saw Twala's plumed and gory head roll
+past my feet with gnashing teeth and glaring eye.
+
+At last, somehow or other, the night passed away; but when dawn broke
+I found that my companions had slept no better than myself. Good,
+indeed, was in a high fever, and very soon afterwards began to grow
+light-headed, and also, to my alarm, to spit blood, the result, no
+doubt, of some internal injury, inflicted during the desperate efforts
+made by the Kukuana warrior on the previous day to force his big spear
+through the chain armour. Sir Henry, however, seemed pretty fresh,
+notwithstanding his wound on the face, which made eating difficult and
+laughter an impossibility, though he was so sore and stiff that he
+could scarcely stir.
+
+About eight o'clock we had a visit from Infadoos, who appeared but
+little the worse--tough old warrior that he was--for his exertions in
+the battle, although he informed us that he had been up all night. He
+was delighted to see us, but much grieved at Good's condition, and
+shook our hands cordially. I noticed, however, that he addressed Sir
+Henry with a kind of reverence, as though he were something more than
+man; and, indeed, as we afterwards found out, the great Englishman was
+looked on throughout Kukuanaland as a supernatural being. No man, the
+soldiers said, could have fought as he fought or, at the end of a day
+of such toil and bloodshed, could have slain Twala, who, in addition
+to being the king, was supposed to be the strongest warrior in the
+country, in single combat, shearing through his bull-neck at a stroke.
+Indeed, that stroke became proverbial in Kukuanaland, and any
+extraordinary blow or feat of strength was henceforth known as
+"Incubu's blow."
+
+Infadoos told us also that all Twala's regiments had submitted to
+Ignosi, and that like submissions were beginning to arrive from chiefs
+in the outlying country. Twala's death at the hands of Sir Henry had
+put an end to all further chance of disturbance; for Scragga had been
+his only legitimate son, so there was no rival claimant to the throne
+left alive.
+
+I remarked that Ignosi had swum to power through blood. The old chief
+shrugged his shoulders. "Yes," he answered; "but the Kukuana people
+can only be kept cool by letting their blood flow sometimes. Many are
+killed, indeed, but the women are left, and others must soon grow up
+to take the places of the fallen. After this the land would be quiet
+for a while."
+
+Afterwards, in the course of the morning, we had a short visit from
+Ignosi, on whose brows the royal diadem was now bound. As I
+contemplated him advancing with kingly dignity, an obsequious guard
+following his steps, I could not help recalling to my mind the tall
+Zulu who had presented himself to us at Durban some few months back,
+asking to be taken into our service, and reflecting on the strange
+revolutions of the wheel of fortune.
+
+"Hail, O king!" I said, rising.
+
+"Yes, Macumazahn. King at last, by the might of your three right
+hands," was the ready answer.
+
+All was, he said, going well; and he hoped to arrange a great feast in
+two weeks' time in order to show himself to the people.
+
+I asked him what he had settled to do with Gagool.
+
+"She is the evil genius of the land," he answered, "and I shall kill
+her, and all the witch doctors with her! She has lived so long that
+none can remember when she was not very old, and she it is who has
+always trained the witch-hunters, and made the land wicked in the
+sight of the heavens above."
+
+"Yet she knows much," I replied; "it is easier to destroy knowledge,
+Ignosi, than to gather it."
+
+"That is so," he said thoughtfully. "She, and she only, knows the
+secret of the 'Three Witches,' yonder, whither the great road runs,
+where the kings are buried, and the Silent Ones sit."
+
+"Yes, and the diamonds are. Forget not thy promise, Ignosi; thou must
+lead us to the mines, even if thou hast to spare Gagool alive to show
+the way."
+
+"I will not forget, Macumazahn, and I will think on what thou sayest."
+
+After Ignosi's visit I went to see Good, and found him quite
+delirious. The fever set up by his wound seemed to have taken a firm
+hold of his system, and to be complicated with an internal injury. For
+four or five days his condition was most critical; indeed, I believe
+firmly that had it not been for Foulata's indefatigable nursing he
+must have died.
+
+Women are women, all the world over, whatever their colour. Yet
+somehow it seemed curious to watch this dusky beauty bending night and
+day over the fevered man's couch, and performing all the merciful
+errands of a sick-room swiftly, gently, and with as fine an instinct
+as that of a trained hospital nurse. For the first night or two I
+tried to help her, and so did Sir Henry as soon as his stiffness
+allowed him to move, but Foulata bore our interference with
+impatience, and finally insisted upon our leaving him to her, saying
+that our movements made him restless, which I think was true. Day and
+night she watched him and tended him, giving him his only medicine, a
+native cooling drink made of milk, in which was infused juice from the
+bulb of a species of tulip, and keeping the flies from settling on
+him. I can see the whole picture now as it appeared night after night
+by the light of our primitive lamp; Good tossing to and fro, his
+features emaciated, his eyes shining large and luminous, and jabbering
+nonsense by the yard; and seated on the ground by his side, her back
+resting against the wall of the hut, the soft-eyed, shapely Kukuana
+beauty, her face, weary as it was with her long vigil, animated by a
+look of infinite compassion--or was it something more than compassion?
+
+For two days we thought that he must die, and crept about with heavy
+hearts.
+
+Only Foulata would not believe it.
+
+"He will live," she said.
+
+For three hundred yards or more around Twala's chief hut, where the
+sufferer lay, there was silence; for by the king's order all who lived
+in the habitations behind it, except Sir Henry and myself, had been
+removed, lest any noise should come to the sick man's ears. One night,
+it was the fifth of Good's illness, as was my habit, I went across to
+see how he was doing before turning in for a few hours.
+
+I entered the hut carefully. The lamp placed upon the floor showed the
+figure of Good tossing no more, but lying quite still.
+
+So it had come at last! In the bitterness of my heart I gave something
+like a sob.
+
+"Hush--h--h!" came from the patch of dark shadow behind Good's head.
+
+Then, creeping closer, I saw that he was not dead, but sleeping
+soundly, with Foulata's taper fingers clasped tightly in his poor
+white hand. The crisis had passed, and he would live. He slept like
+that for eighteen hors; and I scarcely like to say it, for fear I
+should not be believed, but during the entire period did this devoted
+girl sit by him, fearing that if she moved and drew away her hand it
+would wake him. What she must have suffered from cramp and weariness,
+to say nothing of want of food, nobody will ever know; but it is the
+fact that, when at last he woke, she had to be carried away--her limbs
+were so stiff that she could not move them.
+
+
+After the turn had once been taken, Good's recovery was rapid and
+complete. It was not till he was nearly well that Sir Henry told him
+of all he owed to Foulata; and when he came to the story of how she
+sat by his side for eighteen hours, fearing lest by moving she should
+wake him, the honest sailor's eyes filled with tears. He turned and
+went straight to the hut where Foulata was preparing the mid-day meal,
+for we were back in our old quarters now, taking me with him to
+interpret in case he could not make his meaning clear to her, though I
+am bound to say that she understood him marvellously as a rule,
+considering how extremely limited was his foreign vocabulary.
+
+"Tell her," said Good, "that I owe her my life, and that I will never
+forget her kindness to my dying day."
+
+I interpreted, and under her dark skin she actually seemed to blush.
+
+Turning to him with one of those swift and graceful motions that in
+her always reminded me of the flight of a wild bird, Foulata answered
+softly, glancing at him with her large brown eyes--
+
+"Nay, my lord; my lord forgets! Did he not save /my/ life, and am I
+not my lord's handmaiden?"
+
+It will be observed that the young lady appeared entirely to have
+forgotten the share which Sir Henry and myself had taken in her
+preservation from Twala's clutches. But that is the way of women! I
+remember my dear wife was just the same. Well, I retired from that
+little interview sad at heart. I did not like Miss Foulata's soft
+glances, for I knew the fatal amorous propensities of sailors in
+general, and of Good in particular.
+
+There are two things in the world, as I have found out, which cannot
+be prevented: you cannot keep a Zulu from fighting, or a sailor from
+falling in love upon the slightest provocation!
+
+It was a few days after this last occurrence that Ignosi held his
+great "indaba," or council, and was formally recognised as king by the
+"indunas," or head men, of Kukuanaland. The spectacle was a most
+imposing one, including as it did a grand review of troops. On this
+day the remaining fragments of the Greys were formally paraded, and in
+the face of the army thanked for their splendid conduct in the battle.
+To each man the king made a large present of cattle, promoting them
+one and all to the rank of officers in the new corps of Greys which
+was in process of formation. An order was also promulgated throughout
+the length and breadth of Kukuanaland that, whilst we honoured the
+country by our presence, we three were to be greeted with the royal
+salute, and to be treated with the same ceremony and respect that was
+by custom accorded to the king. Also the power of life and death was
+publicly conferred upon us. Ignosi, too, in the presence of his
+people, reaffirmed the promises which he had made, to the effect that
+no man's blood should be shed without trial, and that witch-hunting
+should cease in the land.
+
+When the ceremony was over we waited upon Ignosi, and informed him
+that we were now anxious to investigate the mystery of the mines to
+which Solomon's Road ran, asking him if he had discovered anything
+about them.
+
+"My friends," he answered, "I have discovered this. It is there that
+the three great figures sit, who here are called the 'Silent Ones,'
+and to whom Twala would have offered the girl Foulata as a sacrifice.
+It is there, too, in a great cave deep in the mountain, that the kings
+of the land are buried; there ye shall find Twala's body, sitting with
+those who went before him. There, also, is a deep pit, which, at some
+time, long-dead men dug out, mayhap for the stones ye speak of, such
+as I have heard men in Natal tell of at Kimberley. There, too, in the
+Place of Death is a secret chamber, known to none but the king and
+Gagool. But Twala, who knew it, is dead, and I know it not, nor know I
+what is in it. Yet there is a legend in the land that once, many
+generations gone, a white man crossed the mountains, and was led by a
+woman to the secret chamber and shown the wealth hidden in it. But
+before he could take it she betrayed him, and he was driven by the
+king of that day back to the mountains, and since then no man has
+entered the place."
+
+"The story is surely true, Ignosi, for on the mountains we found the
+white man," I said.
+
+"Yes, we found him. And now I have promised you that if ye can come to
+that chamber, and the stones are there--"
+
+"The gem upon thy forehead proves that they are there," I put in,
+pointing to the great diamond I had taken from Twala's dead brows.
+
+"Mayhap; if they are there," he said, "ye shall have as many as ye can
+take hence--if indeed ye would leave me, my brothers."
+
+"First we must find the chamber," said I.
+
+"There is but one who can show it to thee--Gagool."
+
+"And if she will not?"
+
+"Then she must die," said Ignosi sternly. "I have saved her alive but
+for this. Stay, she shall choose," and calling to a messenger he
+ordered Gagool to be brought before him.
+
+In a few minutes she came, hurried along by two guards, whom she was
+cursing as she walked.
+
+"Leave her," said the king to the guards.
+
+So soon as their support was withdrawn, the withered old bundle--for
+she looked more like a bundle than anything else, out of which her two
+bright and wicked eyes gleamed like those of a snake--sank in a heap
+on to the floor.
+
+"What will ye with me, Ignosi?" she piped. "Ye dare not touch me. If
+ye touch me I will slay you as ye sit. Beware of my magic."
+
+"Thy magic could not save Twala, old she-wolf, and it cannot hurt me,"
+was the answer. "Listen; I will this of thee, that thou reveal to us
+the chamber where are the shining stones."
+
+"Ha! ha!" she piped, "none know its secret but I, and I will never
+tell thee. The white devils shall go hence empty-handed."
+
+"Thou shalt tell me. I will make thee tell me."
+
+"How, O king? Thou art great, but can thy power wring the truth from a
+woman?"
+
+"It is difficult, yet will I do so."
+
+"How, O king?"
+
+"Nay, thus; if thou tellest not thou shalt slowly die."
+
+"Die!" she shrieked in terror and fury; "ye dare not touch me--man, ye
+know not who I am. How old think ye am I? I knew your fathers, and
+your fathers' fathers' fathers. When the country was young I was here;
+when the country grows old I shall still be here. I cannot die unless
+I be killed by chance, for none dare slay me."
+
+"Yet will I slay thee. See, Gagool, mother of evil, thou art so old
+that thou canst no longer love thy life. What can life be to such a
+hag as thou, who hast no shape, nor form, nor hair, nor teeth--hast
+naught, save wickedness and evil eyes? It will be mercy to make an end
+of thee, Gagool."
+
+"Thou fool," shrieked the old fiend, "thou accursed fool, deemest thou
+that life is sweet only to the young? It is not so, and naught thou
+knowest of the heart of man to think it. To the young, indeed, death
+is sometimes welcome, for the young can feel. They love and suffer,
+and it wrings them to see their beloved pass to the land of shadows.
+But the old feel not, they love not, and, /ha! ha!/ they laugh to see
+another go out into the dark; /ha! ha!/ they laugh to see the evil
+that is done under the stars. All they love is life, the warm, warm
+sun, and the sweet, sweet air. They are afraid of the cold, afraid of
+the cold and the dark, /ha! ha! ha!/" and the old hag writhed in
+ghastly merriment on the ground.
+
+"Cease thine evil talk and answer me," said Ignosi angrily. "Wilt thou
+show the place where the stones are, or wilt thou not? If thou wilt
+not thou diest, even now," and he seized a spear and held it over her.
+
+"I will not show it; thou darest not kill me, darest not! He who slays
+me will be accursed for ever."
+
+Slowly Ignosi brought down the spear till it pricked the prostrate
+heap of rags.
+
+With a wild yell Gagool sprang to her feet, then fell again and rolled
+upon the floor.
+
+"Nay, I will show thee. Only let me live, let me sit in the sun and
+have a bit of meat to suck, and I will show thee."
+
+"It is well. I thought that I should find a way to reason with thee.
+To-morrow shalt thou go with Infadoos and my white brothers to the
+place, and beware how thou failest, for if thou showest it not, then
+thou shalt slowly die. I have spoken."
+
+"I will not fail, Ignosi. I always keep my word--/ha! ha! ha!/ Once
+before a woman showed the chamber to a white man, and behold! evil
+befell him," and here her wicked eyes glinted. "Her name was Gagool
+also. Perchance I was that woman."
+
+"Thou liest," I said, "that was ten generations gone."
+
+"Mayhap, mayhap; when one lives long one forgets. Perhaps it was my
+mother's mother who told me; surely her name was Gagool also. But
+mark, ye will find in the place where the bright things are a bag of
+hide full of stones. The man filled that bag, but he never took it
+away. Evil befell him, I say, evil befell him! Perhaps it was my
+mother's mother who told me. It will be a merry journey--we can see
+the bodies of those who died in the battle as we go. Their eyes will
+be gone by now, and their ribs will be hollow. /Ha! ha! ha!/"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE PLACE OF DEATH
+
+It was already dark on the third day after the scene described in the
+previous chapter when we camped in some huts at the foot of the "Three
+Witches," as the triangle of mountains is called to which Solomon's
+Great Road runs. Our party consisted of our three selves and Foulata,
+who waited on us--especially on Good--Infadoos, Gagool, who was borne
+along in a litter, inside which she could be heard muttering and
+cursing all day long, and a party of guards and attendants. The
+mountains, or rather the three peaks of the mountain, for the mass was
+evidently the result of a solitary upheaval, were, as I have said, in
+the form of a triangle, of which the base was towards us, one peak
+being on our right, one on our left, and one straight in front of us.
+Never shall I forget the sight afforded by those three towering peaks
+in the early sunlight of the following morning. High, high above us,
+up into the blue air, soared their twisted snow-wreaths. Beneath the
+snow-line the peaks were purple with heaths, and so were the wild
+moors that ran up the slopes towards them. Straight before us the
+white ribbon of Solomon's Great Road stretched away uphill to the foot
+of the centre peak, about five miles from us, and there stopped. It
+was its terminus.
+
+I had better leave the feelings of intense excitement with which we
+set out on our march that morning to the imagination of those who read
+this history. At last we were drawing near to the wonderful mines that
+had been the cause of the miserable death of the old Portuguese Dom
+three centuries ago, of my poor friend, his ill-starred descendant,
+and also, as we feared, of George Curtis, Sir Henry's brother. Were we
+destined, after all that we had gone through, to fare any better? Evil
+befell them, as that old fiend Gagool said; would it also befall us?
+Somehow, as we were marching up that last stretch of beautiful road, I
+could not help feeling a little superstitious about the matter, and so
+I think did Good and Sir Henry.
+
+For an hour and a half or more we tramped on up the heather-fringed
+way, going so fast in our excitement that the bearers of Gagool's
+hammock could scarcely keep pace with us, and its occupant piped out
+to us to stop.
+
+"Walk more slowly, white men," she said, projecting her hideous
+shrivelled countenance between the grass curtains, and fixing her
+gleaming eyes upon us; "why will ye run to meet the evil that shall
+befall you, ye seekers after treasure?" and she laughed that horrible
+laugh which always sent a cold shiver down my back, and for a while
+quite took the enthusiasm out of us.
+
+However, on we went, till we saw before us, and between ourselves and
+the peak, a vast circular hole with sloping sides, three hundred feet
+or more in depth, and quite half a mile round.
+
+"Can't you guess what this is?" I said to Sir Henry and Good, who were
+staring in astonishment at the awful pit before us.
+
+They shook their heads.
+
+"Then it is clear that you have never seen the diamond diggings at
+Kimberley. You may depend on it that this is Solomon's Diamond Mine.
+Look there," I said, pointing to the strata of stiff blue clay which
+were yet to be seen among the grass and bushes that clothed the sides
+of the pit, "the formation is the same. I'll be bound that if we went
+down there we should find 'pipes' of soapy brecciated rock. Look,
+too," and I pointed to a series of worn flat slabs of stone that were
+placed on a gentle slope below the level of a watercourse which in
+some past age had been cut out of the solid rock; "if those are not
+tables once used to wash the 'stuff,' I'm a Dutchman."
+
+At the edge of this vast hole, which was none other than the pit
+marked on the old Dom's map, the Great Road branched into two and
+circumvented it. In many places, by the way, this surrounding road was
+built entirely out of blocks of stone, apparently with the object of
+supporting the edges of the pit and preventing falls of reef. Along
+this path we pressed, driven by curiosity to see what were the three
+towering objects which we could discern from the hither side of the
+great gulf. As we drew near we perceived that they were Colossi of
+some sort or another, and rightly conjectured that before us sat the
+three "Silent Ones" that are held in such awe by the Kukuana people.
+But it was not until we were quite close to them that we recognised
+the full majesty of these "Silent Ones."
+
+There, upon huge pedestals of dark rock, sculptured with rude emblems
+of the Phallic worship, separated from each other by a distance of
+forty paces, and looking down the road which crossed some sixty miles
+of plain to Loo, were three colossal seated forms--two male and one
+female--each measuring about thirty feet from the crown of its head to
+the pedestal.
+
+The female form, which was nude, was of great though severe beauty,
+but unfortunately the features had been injured by centuries of
+exposure to the weather. Rising from either side of her head were the
+points of a crescent. The two male Colossi, on the contrary, were
+draped, and presented a terrifying cast of features, especially the
+one to our right, which had the face of a devil. That to our left was
+serene in countenance, but the calm upon it seemed dreadful. It was
+the calm of that inhuman cruelty, Sir Henry remarked, which the
+ancients attributed to beings potent for good, who could yet watch the
+sufferings of humanity, if not without rejoicing, at least without
+sorrow. These three statues form a most awe-inspiring trinity, as they
+sit there in their solitude, and gaze out across the plain for ever.
+
+Contemplating these "Silent Ones," as the Kukuanas call them, an
+intense curiosity again seized us to know whose were the hands which
+had shaped them, who it was that had dug the pit and made the road.
+Whilst I was gazing and wondering, suddenly it occurred to me--being
+familiar with the Old Testament--that Solomon went astray after
+strange gods, the names of three of whom I remembered--"Ashtoreth, the
+goddess of the Zidonians, Chemosh, the god of the Moabites, and
+Milcom, the god of the children of Ammon"--and I suggested to my
+companions that the figures before us might represent these false and
+exploded divinities.
+
+"Hum," said Sir Henry, who is a scholar, having taken a high degree in
+classics at college, "there may be something in that; Ashtoreth of the
+Hebrews was the Astarte of the Ph�nicians, who were the great traders
+of Solomon's time. Astarte, who afterwards became the Aphrodite of the
+Greeks, was represented with horns like the half-moon, and there on
+the brow of the female figure are distinct horns. Perhaps these
+Colossi were designed by some Ph�nician official who managed the
+mines. Who can say?"[*]
+
+[*] Compare Milton, "Paradise Lost," Book i.:--
+
+                      "With these in troop
+    Came Ashtoreth, whom the Ph�nicians called
+    Astart�, Queen of Heaven, with crescent horns;
+    To whose bright image nightly by the moon
+    Sidonian virgins paid their vows and songs."
+
+Before we had finished examining these extraordinary relics of remote
+antiquity, Infadoos came up, and having saluted the "Silent Ones" by
+lifting his spear, asked us if we intended entering the "Place of
+Death" at once, or if we would wait till after we had taken food at
+mid-day. If we were ready to go at once, Gagool had announced her
+willingness to guide us. As it was not later than eleven o'clock--
+driven to it by a burning curiosity--we announced our intention of
+proceeding instantly, and I suggested that, in case we should be
+detained in the cave, we should take some food with us. Accordingly
+Gagool's litter was brought up, and that lady herself assisted out of
+it. Meanwhile Foulata, at my request, stored some "biltong," or dried
+game-flesh, together with a couple of gourds of water, in a reed
+basket with a hinged cover. Straight in front of us, at a distance of
+some fifty paces from the backs of the Colossi, rose a sheer wall of
+rock, eighty feet or more in height, that gradually sloped upwards
+till it formed the base of the lofty snow-wreathed peak, which soared
+into the air three thousand feet above us. As soon as she was clear of
+her hammock, Gagool cast one evil grin upon us, and then, leaning on a
+stick, hobbled off towards the face of this wall. We followed her till
+we came to a narrow portal solidly arched that looked like the opening
+of a gallery of a mine.
+
+Here Gagool was waiting for us, still with that evil grin upon her
+horrid face.
+
+"Now, white men from the Stars," she piped; "great warriors, Incubu,
+Bougwan, and Macumazahn the wise, are ye ready? Behold, I am here to
+do the bidding of my lord the king, and to show you the store of
+bright stones. /Ha! ha! ha!/"
+
+"We are ready," I said.
+
+"Good, good! Make strong your hearts to bear what ye shall see. Comest
+thou too, Infadoos, thou who didst betray thy master?"
+
+Infadoos frowned as he answered--
+
+"Nay, I come not; it is not for me to enter there. But thou, Gagool,
+curb thy tongue, and beware how thou dealest with my lords. At thy
+hands will I require them, and if a hair of them be hurt, Gagool,
+be'st thou fifty times a witch, thou shalt die. Hearest thou?"
+
+"I hear Infadoos; I know thee, thou didst ever love big words; when
+thou wast a babe I remember thou didst threaten thine own mother. That
+was but the other day. But, fear not, fear not, I live only to do the
+bidding of the king. I have done the bidding of many kings, Infadoos,
+till in the end they did mine. /Ha! ha!/ I go to look upon their faces
+once more, and Twala's also! Come on, come on, here is the lamp," and
+she drew a large gourd full of oil, and fitted with a rush wick, from
+under her fur cloak.
+
+"Art thou coming, Foulata?" asked Good in his villainous Kitchen
+Kukuana, in which he had been improving himself under that young
+lady's tuition.
+
+"I fear, my lord," the girl answered timidly.
+
+"Then give me the basket."
+
+"Nay, my lord, whither thou goest there I go also."
+
+"The deuce you will!" thought I to myself; "that may be rather awkward
+if we ever get out of this."
+
+Without further ado Gagool plunged into the passage, which was wide
+enough to admit of two walking abreast, and quite dark. We followed
+the sound of her voice as she piped to us to come on, in some fear and
+trembling, which was not allayed by the flutter of a sudden rush of
+wings.
+
+"Hullo! what's that?" halloed Good; "somebody hit me in the face."
+
+"Bats," said I; "on you go."
+
+When, so far as we could judge, we had gone some fifty paces, we
+perceived that the passage was growing faintly light. Another minute,
+and we were in perhaps the most wonderful place that the eyes of
+living man have beheld.
+
+Let the reader picture to himself the hall of the vastest cathedral he
+ever stood in, windowless indeed, but dimly lighted from above,
+presumably by shafts connected with the outer air and driven in the
+roof, which arched away a hundred feet above our heads, and he will
+get some idea of the size of the enormous cave in which we found
+ourselves, with the difference that this cathedral designed by nature
+was loftier and wider than any built by man. But its stupendous size
+was the least of the wonders of the place, for running in rows adown
+its length were gigantic pillars of what looked like ice, but were, in
+reality, huge stalactites. It is impossible for me to convey any idea
+of the overpowering beauty and grandeur of these pillars of white
+spar, some of which were not less than twenty feet in diameter at the
+base, and sprang up in lofty and yet delicate beauty sheer to the
+distant roof. Others again were in process of formation. On the rock
+floor there was in these cases what looked, Sir Henry said, exactly
+like a broken column in an old Grecian temple, whilst high above,
+depending from the roof, the point of a huge icicle could be dimly
+seen.
+
+Even as we gazed we could hear the process going on, for presently
+with a tiny splash a drop of water would fall from the far-off icicle
+on to the column below. On some columns the drops only fell once in
+two or three minutes, and in these cases it would be an interesting
+calculation to discover how long, at that rate of dripping, it would
+take to form a pillar, say eighty feet by ten in diameter. That the
+process, in at least one instance, was incalculably slow, the
+following example will suffice to show. Cut on one of these pillars we
+discovered the crude likeness of a mummy, by the head of which sat
+what appeared to be the figure of an Egyptian god, doubtless the
+handiwork of some old-world labourer in the mine. This work of art was
+executed at the natural height at which an idle fellow, be he
+Ph�nician workman or British cad, is in the habit of trying to
+immortalise himself at the expense of nature's masterpieces, namely,
+about five feet from the ground. Yet at the time that we saw it, which
+/must/ have been nearly three thousand years after the date of the
+execution of the carving, the column was only eight feet high, and was
+still in process of formation, which gives a rate of growth of a foot
+to a thousand years, or an inch and a fraction to a century. This we
+knew because, as we were standing by it, we heard a drop of water
+fall.
+
+Sometimes the stalagmites took strange forms, presumably where the
+dropping of the water had not always been on the same spot. Thus, one
+huge mass, which must have weighed a hundred tons or so, was in the
+shape of a pulpit, beautifully fretted over outside with a design that
+looked like lace. Others resembled strange beasts, and on the sides of
+the cave were fanlike ivory tracings, such as the frost leaves upon a
+pane.
+
+Out of the vast main aisle there opened here and there smaller caves,
+exactly, Sir Henry said, as chapels open out of great cathedrals. Some
+were large, but one or two--and this is a wonderful instance of how
+nature carries out her handiwork by the same unvarying laws, utterly
+irrespective of size--were tiny. One little nook, for instance, was no
+larger than an unusually big doll's house, and yet it might have been
+a model for the whole place, for the water dropped, tiny icicles hung,
+and spar columns were forming in just the same way.
+
+We had not, however, enough time to examine this beautiful cavern so
+thoroughly as we should have liked to do, since unfortunately, Gagool
+seemed to be indifferent as to stalactites, and only anxious to get
+her business over. This annoyed me the more, as I was particularly
+anxious to discover, if possible, by what system the light was
+admitted into the cave, and whether it was by the hand of man or by
+that of nature that this was done; also if the place had been used in
+any way in ancient times, as seemed probable. However, we consoled
+ourselves with the idea that we would investigate it thoroughly on our
+way back, and followed on at the heels of our uncanny guide.
+
+On she led us, straight to the top of the vast and silent cave, where
+we found another doorway, not arched as the first was, but square at
+the top, something like the doorways of Egyptian temples.
+
+"Are ye prepared to enter the Place of Death, white men?" asked
+Gagool, evidently with a view to making us feel uncomfortable.
+
+"Lead on, Macduff," said Good solemnly, trying to look as though he
+was not at all alarmed, as indeed we all did except Foulata, who
+caught Good by the arm for protection.
+
+"This is getting rather ghastly," said Sir Henry, peeping into the
+dark passageway. "Come on, Quatermain--/seniores priores/. We mustn't
+keep the old lady waiting!" and he politely made way for me to lead
+the van, for which inwardly I did not bless him.
+
+/Tap, tap,/ went old Gagool's stick down the passage, as she trotted
+along, chuckling hideously; and still overcome by some unaccountable
+presentiment of evil, I hung back.
+
+"Come, get on, old fellow," said Good, "or we shall lose our fair
+guide."
+
+Thus adjured, I started down the passage, and after about twenty paces
+found myself in a gloomy apartment some forty feet long, by thirty
+broad, and thirty high, which in some past age evidently had been
+hollowed, by hand-labour, out of the mountain. This apartment was not
+nearly so well lighted as the vast stalactite ante-cave, and at the
+first glance all I could discern was a massive stone table running
+down its length, with a colossal white figure at its head, and life-
+sized white figures all round it. Next I discovered a brown thing,
+seated on the table in the centre, and in another moment my eyes grew
+accustomed to the light, and I saw what all these things were, and was
+tailing out of the place as hard as my legs could carry me.
+
+I am not a nervous man in a general way, and very little troubled with
+superstitions, of which I have lived to see the folly; but I am free
+to own that this sight quite upset me, and had it not been that Sir
+Henry caught me by the collar and held me, I do honestly believe that
+in another five minutes I should have been outside the stalactite
+cave, and that a promise of all the diamonds in Kimberley would not
+have induced me to enter it again. But he held me tight, so I stopped
+because I could not help myself. Next second, however, /his/ eyes
+became accustomed to the light, and he let go of me, and began to mop
+the perspiration off his forehead. As for Good, he swore feebly, while
+Foulata threw her arms round his neck and shrieked.
+
+Only Gagool chuckled loud and long.
+
+It /was/ a ghastly sight. There at the end of the long stone table,
+holding in his skeleton fingers a great white spear, sat /Death/
+himself, shaped in the form of a colossal human skeleton, fifteen feet
+or more in height. High above his head he held the spear, as though in
+the act to strike; one bony hand rested on the stone table before him,
+in the position a man assumes on rising from his seat, whilst his
+frame was bent forward so that the vertebr� of the neck and the
+grinning, gleaming skull projected towards us, and fixed its hollow
+eye-places upon us, the jaws a little open, as though it were about to
+speak.
+
+"Great heavens!" said I faintly, at last, "what can it be?"
+
+"And what are /those things/?" asked Good, pointing to the white
+company round the table.
+
+"And what on earth is /that thing/?" said Sir Henry, pointing to the
+brown creature seated on the table.
+
+"/Hee! hee! hee!/" laughed Gagool. "To those who enter the Hall of the
+Dead, evil comes. /Hee! hee! hee! ha! ha!/"
+
+"Come, Incubu, brave in battle, come and see him thou slewest;" and
+the old creature caught Curtis' coat in her skinny fingers, and led
+him away towards the table. We followed.
+
+Presently she stopped and pointed at the brown object seated on the
+table. Sir Henry looked, and started back with an exclamation; and no
+wonder, for there, quite naked, the head which Curtis' battle-axe had
+shorn from the body resting on its knees, was the gaunt corpse of
+Twala, the last king of the Kukuanas. Yes, there, the head perched
+upon the knees, it sat in all its ugliness, the vertebr� projecting a
+full inch above the level of the shrunken flesh of the neck, for all
+the world like a black double of Hamilton Tighe.[*] Over the surface
+of the corpse there was gathered a thin glassy film, that made its
+appearance yet more appalling, for which we were, at the moment, quite
+unable to account, till presently we observed that from the roof of
+the chamber the water fell steadily, /drip! drop! drip!/ on to the
+neck of the corpse, whence it ran down over the entire surface, and
+finally escaped into the rock through a tiny hole in the table. Then I
+guessed what the film was--/Twala's body was being transformed into a
+stalactite./
+
+[*] "Now haste ye, my handmaidens, haste and see
+    How he sits there and glowers with his head on his knee."
+
+A look at the white forms seated on the stone bench which ran round
+that ghastly board confirmed this view. They were human bodies indeed,
+or rather they had been human; now they were /stalactites/. This was
+the way in which the Kukuana people had from time immemorial preserved
+their royal dead. They petrified them. What the exact system might be,
+if there was any, beyond the placing of them for a long period of
+years under the drip, I never discovered, but there they sat, iced
+over and preserved for ever by the siliceous fluid.
+
+Anything more awe-inspiring than the spectacle of this long line of
+departed royalties (there were twenty-seven of them, the last being
+Ignosi's father), wrapped, each of them, in a shroud of ice-like spar,
+through which the features could be dimly discovered, and seated round
+that inhospitable board, with Death himself for a host, it is
+impossible to imagine. That the practice of thus preserving their
+kings must have been an ancient one is evident from the number, which,
+allowing for an average reign of fifteen years, supposing that every
+king who reigned was placed here--an improbable thing, as some are
+sure to have perished in battle far from home--would fix the date of
+its commencement at four and a quarter centuries back.
+
+But the colossal Death, who sits at the head of the board, is far
+older than that, and, unless I am much mistaken, owes his origin to
+the same artist who designed the three Colossi. He is hewn out of a
+single stalactite, and, looked at as a work of art, is most admirably
+conceived and executed. Good, who understands such things, declared
+that, so far as he could see, the anatomical design of the skeleton is
+perfect down to the smallest bones.
+
+My own idea is, that this terrific object was a freak of fancy on the
+part of some old-world sculptor, and that its presence had suggested
+to the Kukuanas the idea of placing their royal dead under its awful
+presidency. Or perhaps it was set there to frighten away any marauders
+who might have designs upon the treasure chamber beyond. I cannot say.
+All I can do is to describe it as it is, and the reader must form his
+own conclusion.
+
+Such, at any rate, was the White Death and such were the White Dead!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+SOLOMON'S TREASURE CHAMBER
+
+While we were engaged in recovering from our fright, and in examining
+the grisly wonders of the Place of Death, Gagool had been differently
+occupied. Somehow or other--for she was marvellously active when she
+chose--she had scrambled on to the great table, and made her way to
+where our departed friend Twala was placed, under the drip, to see,
+suggested Good, how he was "pickling," or for some dark purpose of her
+own. Then, after bending down to kiss his icy lips as though in
+affectionate greeting, she hobbled back, stopping now and again to
+address the remark, the tenor of which I could not catch, to one or
+other of the shrouded forms, just as you or I might welcome an old
+acquaintance. Having gone through this mysterious and horrible
+ceremony, she squatted herself down on the table immediately under the
+White Death, and began, so far as I could make out, to offer up
+prayers. The spectacle of this wicked creature pouring out
+supplications, evil ones no doubt, to the arch enemy of mankind, was
+so uncanny that it caused us to hasten our inspection.
+
+"Now, Gagool," said I, in a low voice--somehow one did not dare to
+speak above a whisper in that place--"lead us to the chamber."
+
+The old witch promptly scrambled down from the table.
+
+"My lords are not afraid?" she said, leering up into my face.
+
+"Lead on."
+
+"Good, my lords;" and she hobbled round to the back of the great
+Death. "Here is the chamber; let my lords light the lamp, and enter,"
+and she placed the gourd full of oil upon the floor, and leaned
+herself against the side of the cave. I took out a match, of which we
+had still a few in a box, and lit a rush wick, and then looked for the
+doorway, but there was nothing before us except the solid rock. Gagool
+grinned. "The way is there, my lords. /Ha! ha! ha!/"
+
+"Do not jest with us," I said sternly.
+
+"I jest not, my lords. See!" and she pointed at the rock.
+
+As she did so, on holding up the lamp we perceived that a mass of
+stone was rising slowly from the floor and vanishing into the rock
+above, where doubtless there is a cavity prepared to receive it. The
+mass was of the width of a good-sized door, about ten feet high and
+not less than five feet thick. It must have weighed at least twenty or
+thirty tons, and was clearly moved upon some simple balance principle
+of counter-weights, probably the same as that by which the opening and
+shutting of an ordinary modern window is arranged. How the principle
+was set in motion, of course none of us saw; Gagool was careful to
+avoid this; but I have little doubt that there was some very simple
+lever, which was moved ever so little by pressure at a secret spot,
+thereby throwing additional weight on to the hidden counter-balances,
+and causing the monolith to be lifted from the ground.
+
+Very slowly and gently the great stone raised itself, till at last it
+had vanished altogether, and a dark hole presented itself to us in the
+place which the door had filled. 
+
+Our excitement was so intense, as we saw the way to Solomon's treasure
+chamber thrown open at last, that I for one began to tremble and
+shake. Would it prove a hoax after all, I wondered, or was old Da
+Silvestra right? Were there vast hoards of wealth hidden in that dark
+place, hoards which would make us the richest men in the whole world?
+We should know in a minute or two.
+
+"Enter, white men from the Stars," said Gagool, advancing into the
+doorway; "but first hear your servant, Gagool the old. The bright
+stones that ye will see were dug out of the pit over which the Silent
+Ones are set, and stored here, I know not by whom, for that was done
+longer ago than even I remember. But once has this place been entered
+since the time that those who hid the stones departed in haste,
+leaving them behind. The report of the treasure went down indeed among
+the people who lived in the country from age to age, but none knew
+where the chamber was, nor the secret of the door. But it happened
+that a white man reached this country from over the mountains--
+perchance he too came 'from the Stars'--and was well received by the
+king of that day. He it is who sits yonder," and she pointed to the
+fifth king at the table of the Dead. "And it came to pass that he and
+a woman of the country who was with him journeyed to this place, and
+that by chance the woman learnt the secret of the door--a thousand
+years might ye search, but ye should never find that secret. Then the
+white man entered with the woman, and found the stones, and filled
+with stones the skin of a small goat, which the woman had with her to
+hold food. And as he was going from the chamber he took up one more
+stone, a large one, and held it in his hand."
+
+Here she paused.
+
+"Well," I asked, breathless with interest as we all were, "what
+happened to Da Silvestra?"
+
+The old hag started at the mention of the name.
+
+"How knowest thou the dead man's name?" she asked sharply; and then,
+without waiting for an answer, went on--
+
+"None can tell what happened; but it came about that the white man was
+frightened, for he flung down the goat-skin, with the stones, and fled
+out with only the one stone in his hand, and that the king took, and
+it is the stone which thou, Macumazahn, didst take from Twala's brow."
+
+"Have none entered here since?" I asked, peering again down the dark
+passage.
+
+"None, my lords. Only the secret of the door has been kept, and every
+king has opened it, though he has not entered. There is a saying, that
+those who enter there will die within a moon, even as the white man
+died in the cave upon the mountain, where ye found him, Macumazahn,
+and therefore the kings do not enter. /Ha! ha!/ mine are true words."
+
+Our eyes met as she said it, and I turned sick and cold. How did the
+old hag know all these things?
+
+"Enter, my lords. If I speak truth, the goat-skin with the stones will
+lie upon the floor; and if there is truth as to whether it is death to
+enter here, that ye will learn afterwards. /Ha! ha! ha!/" and she
+hobbled through the doorway, bearing the light with her; but I confess 
+that once more I hesitated about following.
+
+"Oh, confound it all!" said Good; "here goes. I am not going to be
+frightened by that old devil;" and followed by Foulata, who, however,
+evidently did not at all like the business, for she was shivering with
+fear, he plunged into the passage after Gagool--an example which we
+quickly followed.
+
+A few yards down the passage, in the narrow way hewn out of the living
+rock, Gagool had paused, and was waiting for us.
+
+"See, my lords," she said, holding the light before her, "those who
+stored the treasure here fled in haste, and bethought them to guard
+against any who should find the secret of the door, but had not the
+time," and she pointed to large square blocks of stone, which, to the
+height of two courses (about two feet three), had been placed across
+the passage with a view to walling it up. Along the side of the
+passage were similar blocks ready for use, and, most curious of all, a
+heap of mortar and a couple of trowels, which tools, so far as we had
+time to examine them, appeared to be of a similar shape and make to
+those used by workmen to this day.
+
+Here Foulata, who had been in a state of great fear and agitation
+throughout, said that she felt faint and could go no farther, but
+would wait there. Accordingly we set her down on the unfinished wall,
+placing the basket of provisions by her side, and left her to recover.
+
+Following the passage for about fifteen paces farther, we came
+suddenly to an elaborately painted wooden door. It was standing wide
+open. Whoever was last there had either not found the time to shut it,
+or had forgotten to do so.
+
+/Across the threshold of this door lay a skin bag, formed of a goat-
+skin, that appeared to be full of pebbles./
+
+"/Hee! hee!/ white men," sniggered Gagool, as the light from the lamp
+fell upon it. "What did I tell you, that the white man who came here
+fled in haste, and dropped the woman's bag--behold it! Look within
+also and ye will find a water-gourd amongst the stones."
+
+Good stooped down and lifted it. It was heavy and jingled.
+
+"By Jove! I believe it's full of diamonds," he said, in an awed
+whisper; and, indeed, the idea of a small goat-skin full of diamonds
+is enough to awe anybody.
+
+"Go on," said Sir Henry impatiently. "Here, old lady, give me the
+lamp," and taking it from Gagool's hand, he stepped through the
+doorway and held it high above his head.
+
+We pressed in after him, forgetful for the moment of the bag of
+diamonds, and found ourselves in King Solomon's treasure chamber.
+
+At first, all that the somewhat faint light given by the lamp revealed
+was a room hewn out of the living rock, and apparently not more than
+ten feet square. Next there came into sight, stored one on the other
+to the arch of the roof, a splendid collection of elephant-tusks. How
+many of them there were we did not know, for of course we could not
+see to what depth they went back, but there could not have been less
+than the ends of four or five hundred tusks of the first quality
+visible to our eyes. There, alone, was enough ivory to make a man
+wealthy for life. Perhaps, I thought, it was from this very store that
+Solomon drew the raw material for his "great throne of ivory," of
+which "there was not the like made in any kingdom."
+
+On the opposite side of the chamber were about a score of wooden
+boxes, something like Martini-Henry ammunition boxes, only rather
+larger, and painted red.
+
+"There are the diamonds," cried I; "bring the light."
+
+Sir Henry did so, holding it close to the top box, of which the lid,
+rendered rotten by time even in that dry place, appeared to have been
+smashed in, probably by Da Silvestra himself. Pushing my hand through
+the hole in the lid I drew it out full, not of diamonds, but of gold
+pieces, of a shape that none of us had seen before, and with what
+looked like Hebrew characters stamped upon them.
+
+"Ah!" I said, replacing the coin, "we shan't go back empty-handed,
+anyhow. There must be a couple of thousand pieces in each box, and
+there are eighteen boxes. I suppose this was the money to pay the
+workmen and merchants."
+
+"Well," put in Good, "I think that is the lot; I don't see any
+diamonds, unless the old Portuguese put them all into his bag."
+
+"Let my lords look yonder where it is darkest, if they would find the
+stones," said Gagool, interpreting our looks. "There my lords will
+find a nook, and three stone chests in the nook, two sealed and one
+open."
+
+Before translating this to Sir Henry, who carried the light, I could
+not resist asking how she knew these things, if no one had entered the
+place since the white man, generations ago.
+
+"Ah, Macumazahn, the watcher by night," was the mocking answer, "ye
+who dwell in the stars, do ye not know that some live long, and that
+some have eyes which can see through rock? /Ha! ha! ha!/"
+
+"Look in that corner, Curtis," I said, indicating the spot Gagool had
+pointed out.
+
+"Hullo, you fellows," he cried, "here's a recess. Great heavens! see
+here."
+
+We hurried up to where he was standing in a nook, shaped something
+like a small bow window. Against the wall of this recess were placed
+three stone chests, each about two feet square. Two were fitted with
+stone lids, the lid of the third rested against the side of the chest,
+which was open.
+
+"/See!/" he repeated hoarsely, holding the lamp over the open chest.
+We looked, and for a moment could make nothing out, on account of a
+silvery sheen which dazzled us. When our eyes grew used to it we saw
+that the chest was three-parts full of uncut diamonds, most of them of
+considerable size. Stooping, I picked some up. Yes, there was no doubt
+of it, there was the unmistakable soapy feel about them.
+
+I fairly gasped as I dropped them.
+
+"We are the richest men in the whole world," I said. "Monte Christo
+was a fool to us."
+
+"We shall flood the market with diamonds," said Good.
+
+"Got to get them there first," suggested Sir Henry.
+
+We stood still with pale faces and stared at each other, the lantern
+in the middle and the glimmering gems below, as though we were
+conspirators about to commit a crime, instead of being, as we thought,
+the most fortunate men on earth.
+
+"/Hee! hee! hee!/" cackled old Gagool behind us, as she flitted about
+like a vampire bat. "There are the bright stones ye love, white men,
+as many as ye will; take them, run them through your fingers, /eat/ of
+them, /hee! hee! drink/ of them, /ha! ha!/"
+
+At that moment there was something so ridiculous to my mind at the
+idea of eating and drinking diamonds, that I began to laugh
+outrageously, an example which the others followed, without knowing
+why. There we stood and shrieked with laughter over the gems that were
+ours, which had been found for /us/ thousands of years ago by the
+patient delvers in the great hole yonder, and stored for /us/ by
+Solomon's long-dead overseer, whose name, perchance, was written in
+the characters stamped on the faded wax that yet adhered to the lids
+of the chest. Solomon never got them, nor David, or Da Silvestra, nor
+anybody else. /We/ had got them: there before us were millions of
+pounds' worth of diamonds, and thousands of pounds' worth of gold and
+ivory only waiting to be taken away.
+
+Suddenly the fit passed off, and we stopped laughing.
+
+"Open the other chests, white men," croaked Gagool, "there are surely
+more therein. Take your fill, white lords! /Ha! ha!/ take your fill."
+
+Thus adjured, we set to work to pull up the stone lids on the other
+two, first--not without a feeling of sacrilege--breaking the seals
+that fastened them.
+
+Hoorah! they were full too, full to the brim; at least, the second one
+was; no wretched burglarious Da Silvestra had been filling goat-skins
+out of that. As for the third chest, it was only about a fourth full,
+but the stones were all picked ones; none less than twenty carats, and
+some of them as large as pigeon-eggs. A good many of these bigger
+ones, however, we could see by holding them up to the light, were a
+little yellow, "off coloured," as they call it at Kimberley.
+
+What we did /not/ see, however, was the look of fearful malevolence
+that old Gagool favoured us with as she crept, crept like a snake, out
+of the treasure chamber and down the passage towards the door of solid
+rock.
+
+*****
+
+Hark! Cry upon cry comes ringing up the vaulted path. It is Foulata's
+voice!
+
+"/Oh, Bougwan! help! help! the stone falls!/"
+
+"Leave go, girl! Then--"
+
+"/Help! help! she has stabbed me!/"
+
+By now we are running down the passage, and this is what the light
+from the lamp shows us. The door of the rock is closing down slowly;
+it is not three feet from the floor. Near it struggle Foulata and
+Gagool. The red blood of the former runs to her knee, but still the
+brave girl holds the old witch, who fights like a wild cat. Ah! she is
+free! Foulata falls, and Gagool throws herself on the ground, to twist
+like a snake through the crack of the closing stone. She is under--ah!
+god! too late! too late! The stone nips her, and she yells in agony.
+Down, down it comes, all the thirty tons of it, slowly pressing her
+old body against the rock below. Shriek upon shriek, such as we have
+never heard, then a long sickening /crunch/, and the door was shut
+just as, rushing down the passage, we hurled ourselves against it.
+
+It was all done in four seconds.
+
+Then we turned to Foulata. The poor girl was stabbed in the body, and
+I saw that she could not live long.
+
+"Ah! Bougwan, I die!" gasped the beautiful creature. "She crept out--
+Gagool; I did not see her, I was faint--and the door began to fall;
+then she came back, and was looking up the path--I saw her come in
+through the slowly falling door, and caught her and held her, and she
+stabbed me, and /I die/, Bougwan!"
+
+"Poor girl! poor girl!" Good cried in his distress; and then, as he
+could do nothing else, he fell to kissing her.
+
+"Bougwan," she said, after a pause, "is Macumazahn there? It grows so
+dark, I cannot see."
+
+"Here I am, Foulata."
+
+"Macumazahn, be my tongue for a moment, I pray thee, for Bougwan
+cannot understand me, and before I go into the darkness I would speak
+to him a word."
+
+"Say on, Foulata, I will render it."
+
+"Say to my lord, Bougwan, that--I love him, and that I am glad to die
+because I know that he cannot cumber his life with such as I am, for
+the sun may not mate with the darkness, nor the white with the black.
+
+"Say that, since I saw him, at times I have felt as though there were
+a bird in my bosom, which would one day fly hence and sing elsewhere.
+Even now, though I cannot lift my hand, and my brain grows cold, I do
+not feel as though my heart were dying; it is so full of love that it
+could live ten thousand years, and yet be young. Say that if I live
+again, mayhap I shall see him in the Stars, and that--I will search
+them all, though perchance there I should still be black and he would
+--still be white. Say--nay, Macumazahn, say no more, save that I love
+--Oh, hold me closer, Bougwan, I cannot feel thine arms--/oh! oh!/"
+
+"She is dead--she is dead!" muttered Good, rising in grief, the tears
+running down his honest face.
+
+"You need not let that trouble you, old fellow," said Sir Henry.
+
+"Eh!" exclaimed Good; "what do you mean?"
+
+"I mean that you will soon be in a position to join her. /Man, don't
+you see that we are buried alive?/"
+
+Until Sir Henry uttered these words I do not think that the full
+horror of what had happened had come home to us, preoccupied as we
+were with the sight of poor Foulata's end. But now we understood. The
+ponderous mass of rock had closed, probably for ever, for the only
+brain which knew its secret was crushed to powder beneath its weight.
+This was a door that none could hope to force with anything short of
+dynamite in large quantities. And we were on the wrong side!
+
+For a few minutes we stood horrified, there over the corpse of
+Foulata. All the manhood seemed to have gone out of us. The first
+shock of this idea of the slow and miserable end that awaited us was
+overpowering. We saw it all now; that fiend Gagool had planned this
+snare for us from the first.
+
+It would have been just the jest that her evil mind would have
+rejoiced in, the idea of the three white men, whom, for some reason of
+her own, she had always hated, slowly perishing of thirst and hunger
+in the company of the treasure they had coveted. Now I saw the point
+of that sneer of hers about eating and drinking the diamonds. Probably
+somebody had tried to serve the poor old Dom in the same way, when he
+abandoned the skin full of jewels.
+
+"This will never do," said Sir Henry hoarsely; "the lamp will soon go
+out. Let us see if we can't find the spring that works the rock."
+
+We sprang forward with desperate energy, and, standing in a bloody
+ooze, began to feel up and down the door and the sides of the passage.
+But no knob or spring could we discover.
+
+"Depend on it," I said, "it does not work from the inside; if it did
+Gagool would not have risked trying to crawl underneath the stone. It
+was the knowledge of this that made her try to escape at all hazards,
+curse her."
+
+"At all events," said Sir Henry, with a hard little laugh,
+"retribution was swift; hers was almost as awful an end as ours is
+likely to be. We can do nothing with the door; let us go back to the
+treasure room."
+
+We turned and went, and as we passed it I perceived by the unfinished
+wall across the passage the basket of food which poor Foulata had
+carried. I took it up, and brought it with me to the accursed treasure
+chamber that was to be our grave. Then we returned and reverently bore
+in Foulata's corpse, laying it on the floor by the boxes of coin.
+
+Next we seated ourselves, leaning our backs against the three stone
+chests which contained the priceless treasure.
+
+"Let us divide the food," said Sir Henry, "so as to make it last as
+long as possible." Accordingly we did so. It would, we reckoned, make
+four infinitesimally small meals for each of us, enough, say, to
+support life for a couple of days. Besides the "biltong," or dried
+game-flesh, there were two gourds of water, each of which held not
+more than a quart.
+
+"Now," said Sir Henry grimly, "let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we
+die."
+
+We each ate a small portion of the "biltong," and drank a sip of
+water. Needless to say, we had but little appetite, though we were
+sadly in need of food, and felt better after swallowing it. Then we
+got up and made a systematic examination of the walls of our prison-
+house, in the faint hope of finding some means of exit, sounding them
+and the floor carefully.
+
+There was none. It was not probable that there would be any to a
+treasure chamber.
+
+The lamp began to burn dim. The fat was nearly exhausted.
+
+"Quatermain," said Sir Henry, "what is the time--your watch goes?"
+
+I drew it out, and looked at it. It was six o'clock; we had entered
+the cave at eleven.
+
+"Infadoos will miss us," I suggested. "If we do not return to-night he
+will search for us in the morning, Curtis."
+
+"He may search in vain. He does not know the secret of the door, nor
+even where it is. No living person knew it yesterday, except Gagool.
+To-day no one knows it. Even if he found the door he could not break
+it down. All the Kukuana army could not break through five feet of
+living rock. My friends, I see nothing for it but to bow ourselves to
+the will of the Almighty. The search for treasure has brought many to
+a bad end; we shall go to swell their number."
+
+The lamp grew dimmer yet.
+
+Presently it flared up and showed the whole scene in strong relief,
+the great mass of white tusks, the boxes of gold, the corpse of the
+poor Foulata stretched before them, the goat-skin full of treasure,
+the dim glimmer of the diamonds, and the wild, wan faces of us three
+white men seated there awaiting death by starvation.
+
+
+
+Then the flame sank and expired.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+WE ABANDON HOPE
+
+I can give no adequate description of the horrors of the night which
+followed. Mercifully they were to some extent mitigated by sleep, for
+even in such a position as ours wearied nature will sometimes assert
+itself. But I, at any rate, found it impossible to sleep much. Putting
+aside the terrifying thought of our impending doom--for the bravest
+man on earth might well quail from such a fate as awaited us, and I
+never made any pretensions to be brave--the /silence/ itself was too
+great to allow of it. Reader, you may have lain awake at night and
+thought the quiet oppressive, but I say with confidence that you can
+have no idea what a vivid, tangible thing is perfect stillness. On the
+surface of the earth there is always some sound or motion, and though
+it may in itself be imperceptible, yet it deadens the sharp edge of
+absolute silence. But here there was none. We were buried in the
+bowels of a huge snow-clad peak. Thousands of feet above us the fresh
+air rushed over the white snow, but no sound of it reached us. We were
+separated by a long tunnel and five feet of rock even from the awful
+chamber of the Dead; and the dead make no noise. Did we not know it
+who lay by poor Foulata's side? The crashing of all the artillery of
+earth and heaven could not have come to our ears in our living tomb.
+We were cut off from every echo of the world--we were as men already
+in the grave.
+
+Then the irony of the situation forced itself upon me. There around us
+lay treasures enough to pay off a moderate national debt, or to build
+a fleet of ironclads, and yet we would have bartered them all gladly
+for the faintest chance of escape. Soon, doubtless, we should be
+rejoiced to exchange them for a bit of food or a cup of water, and,
+after that, even for the privilege of a speedy close to our
+sufferings. Truly wealth, which men spend their lives in acquiring, is
+a valueless thing at the last.
+
+And so the night wore on.
+
+"Good," said Sir Henry's voice at last, and it sounded awful in the
+intense stillness, "how many matches have you in the box?"
+
+"Eight, Curtis."
+
+"Strike one and let us see the time."
+
+He did so, and in contrast to the dense darkness the flame nearly
+blinded us. It was five o'clock by my watch. The beautiful dawn was
+now blushing on the snow-wreaths far over our heads, and the breeze
+would be stirring the night mists in the hollows.
+
+"We had better eat something and keep up our strength," I suggested.
+
+"What is the good of eating?" answered Good; "the sooner we die and
+get it over the better."
+
+"While there is life there is hope," said Sir Henry.
+
+Accordingly we ate and sipped some water, and another period of time
+elapsed. Then Sir Henry suggested that it might be well to get as near
+the door as possible and halloa, on the faint chance of somebody
+catching a sound outside. Accordingly Good, who, from long practice at
+sea, has a fine piercing note, groped his way down the passage and set
+to work. I must say that he made a most diabolical noise. I never
+heard such yells; but it might have been a mosquito buzzing for all
+the effect they produced.
+
+After a while he gave it up and came back very thirsty, and had to
+drink. Then we stopped yelling, as it encroached on the supply of
+water.
+
+So we sat down once more against the chests of useless diamonds in
+that dreadful inaction which was one of the hardest circumstances of
+our fate; and I am bound to say that, for my part, I gave way in
+despair. Laying my head against Sir Henry's broad shoulder I burst
+into tears; and I think that I heard Good gulping away on the other
+side, and swearing hoarsely at himself for doing so.
+
+Ah, how good and brave that great man was! Had we been two frightened
+children, and he our nurse, he could not have treated us more
+tenderly. Forgetting his own share of miseries, he did all he could to
+soothe our broken nerves, telling stories of men who had been in
+somewhat similar circumstances, and miraculously escaped; and when
+these failed to cheer us, pointing out how, after all, it was only
+anticipating an end which must come to us all, that it would soon be
+over, and that death from exhaustion was a merciful one (which is not
+true). Then, in a diffident sort of way, as once before I had heard
+him do, he suggested that we should throw ourselves on the mercy of a
+higher Power, which for my part I did with great vigour.
+
+His is a beautiful character, very quiet, but very strong.
+
+And so somehow the day went as the night had gone, if, indeed, one can
+use these terms where all was densest night, and when I lit a match to
+see the time it was seven o'clock.
+
+Once more we ate and drank, and as we did so an idea occurred to me.
+
+"How is it," said I, "that the air in this place keeps fresh? It is
+thick and heavy, but it is perfectly fresh."
+
+"Great heavens!" said Good, starting up, "I never thought of that. It
+can't come through the stone door, for it's air-tight, if ever a door
+was. It must come from somewhere. It there were no current of air in
+the place we should have been stifled or poisoned when we first came
+in. Let us have a look."
+
+It was wonderful what a change this mere spark of hope wrought in us.
+In a moment we were all three groping about on our hands and knees,
+feeling for the slightest indication of a draught. Presently my ardour
+received a check. I put my hand on something cold. It was dead
+Foulata's face.
+
+For an hour or more we went on feeling about, till at last Sir Henry
+and I gave it up in despair, having been considerably hurt by
+constantly knocking our heads against tusks, chests, and the sides of
+the chamber. But Good still persevered, saying, with an approach to
+cheerfulness, that it was better than doing nothing.
+
+"I say, you fellows," he said presently, in a constrained sort of
+voice, "come here."
+
+Needless to say we scrambled towards him quickly enough.
+
+"Quatermain, put your hand here where mine is. Now, do you feel
+anything?"
+
+"I /think/ I feel air coming up."
+
+"Now listen." He rose and stamped upon the place, and a flame of hope
+shot up in our hearts. /It rang hollow./
+
+With trembling hands I lit a match. I had only three left, and we saw
+that we were in the angle of the far corner of the chamber, a fact
+that accounted for our not having noticed the hollow sound of the
+place during our former exhaustive examination. As the match burnt we
+scrutinised the spot. There was a join in the solid rock floor, and,
+great heavens! there, let in level with the rock, was a stone ring. We
+said no word, we were too excited, and our hearts beat too wildly with
+hope to allow us to speak. Good had a knife, at the back of which was
+one of those hooks that are made to extract stones from horses' hoofs.
+He opened it, and scratched round the ring with it. Finally he worked
+it under, and levered away gently for fear of breaking the hook. The
+ring began to move. Being of stone it had not rusted fast in all the
+centuries it had lain there, as would have been the case had it been
+of iron. Presently it was upright. Then he thrust his hands into it
+and tugged with all his force, but nothing budged.
+
+"Let me try," I said impatiently, for the situation of the stone,
+right in the angle of the corner, was such that it was impossible for
+two to pull at once. I took hold and strained away, but no results.
+
+Then Sir Henry tried and failed.
+
+Taking the hook again, Good scratched all round the crack where we
+felt the air coming up.
+
+"Now, Curtis," he said, "tackle on, and put your back into it; you are
+as strong as two. Stop," and he took off a stout black silk
+handkerchief, which, true to his habits of neatness, he still wore,
+and ran it through the ring. "Quatermain, get Curtis round the middle
+and pull for dear life when I give the word. /Now./"
+
+Sir Henry put out all his enormous strength, and Good and I did the
+same, with such power as nature had given us.
+
+"Heave! heave! it's giving," gasped Sir Henry; and I heard the muscles
+of his great back cracking. Suddenly there was a grating sound, then a
+rush of air, and we were all on our backs on the floor with a heavy
+flag-stone upon the top of us. Sir Henry's strength had done it, and
+never did muscular power stand a man in better stead.
+
+"Light a match, Quatermain," he said, so soon as we had picked
+ourselves up and got our breath; "carefully, now."
+
+I did so, and there before us, Heaven be praised! was the /first step
+of a stone stair./
+
+"Now what is to be done?" asked Good.
+
+"Follow the stair, of course, and trust to Providence."
+
+"Stop!" said Sir Henry; "Quatermain, get the bit of biltong and the
+water that are left; we may want them."
+
+I went, creeping back to our place by the chests for that purpose, and
+as I was coming away an idea struck me. We had not thought much of the
+diamonds for the last twenty-four hours or so; indeed, the very idea
+of diamonds was nauseous, seeing what they had entailed upon us; but,
+reflected I, I may as well pocket some in case we ever should get out
+of this ghastly hole. So I just put my fist into the first chest and
+filled all the available pockets of my old shooting-coat and trousers,
+topping up--this was a happy thought--with a few handfuls of big ones
+from the third chest. Also, by an afterthought, I stuffed Foulata's
+basket, which, except for one water-gourd and a little biltong, was
+empty now, with great quantities of the stones.
+
+"I say, you fellows," I sang out, "won't you take some diamonds with
+you? I've filled my pockets and the basket."
+
+"Oh, come on, Quatermain! and hang the diamonds!" said Sir Henry. "I
+hope that I may never see another."
+
+As for Good, he made no answer. He was, I think, taking his last
+farewell of all that was left of the poor girl who had loved him so
+well. And curious as it may seem to you, my reader, sitting at home at
+ease and reflecting on the vast, indeed the immeasurable, wealth which
+we were thus abandoning, I can assure you that if you had passed some
+twenty-eight hours with next to nothing to eat and drink in that
+place, you would not have cared to cumber yourself with diamonds
+whilst plunging down into the unknown bowels of the earth, in the wild
+hope of escape from an agonising death. If from the habits of a
+lifetime, it had not become a sort of second nature with me never to
+leave anything worth having behind if there was the slightest chance
+of my being able to carry it away, I am sure that I should not have
+bothered to fill my pockets and that basket.
+
+"Come on, Quatermain," repeated Sir Henry, who was already standing on
+the first step of the stone stair. "Steady, I will go first."
+
+"Mind where you put your feet, there may be some awful hole
+underneath," I answered.
+
+"Much more likely to be another room," said Sir Henry, while he
+descended slowly, counting the steps as he went.
+
+When he got to "fifteen" he stopped. "Here's the bottom," he said.
+"Thank goodness! I think it's a passage. Follow me down."
+
+Good went next, and I came last, carrying the basket, and on reaching
+the bottom lit one of the two remaining matches. By its light we could
+just see that we were standing in a narrow tunnel, which ran right and
+left at right angles to the staircase we had descended. Before we
+could make out any more, the match burnt my fingers and went out. Then
+arose the delicate question of which way to go. Of course, it was
+impossible to know what the tunnel was, or where it led to, and yet to
+turn one way might lead us to safety, and the other to destruction. We
+were utterly perplexed, till suddenly it struck Good that when I had
+lit the match the draught of the passage blew the flame to the left.
+
+"Let us go against the draught," he said; "air draws inwards, not
+outwards."
+
+We took this suggestion, and feeling along the wall with our hands,
+whilst trying the ground before us at every step, we departed from
+that accursed treasure chamber on our terrible quest for life. If ever
+it should be entered again by living man, which I do not think
+probable, he will find tokens of our visit in the open chests of
+jewels, the empty lamp, and the white bones of poor Foulata.
+
+When we had groped our way for about a quarter of an hour along the
+passage, suddenly it took a sharp turn, or else was bisected by
+another, which we followed, only in course of time to be led into a
+third. And so it went on for some hours. We seemed to be in a stone
+labyrinth that led nowhere. What all these passages are, of course I
+cannot say, but we thought that they must be the ancient workings of a
+mine, of which the various shafts and adits travelled hither and
+thither as the ore led them. This is the only way in which we could
+account for such a multitude of galleries.
+
+At length we halted, thoroughly worn out with fatigue and with that
+hope deferred which maketh the heart sick, and ate up our poor
+remaining piece of biltong and drank our last sup of water, for our
+throats were like lime-kilns. It seemed to us that we had escaped
+Death in the darkness of the treasure chamber only to meet him in the
+darkness of the tunnels.
+
+As we stood, once more utterly depressed, I thought that I caught a
+sound, to which I called the attention of the others. It was very
+faint and very far off, but it /was/ a sound, a faint, murmuring
+sound, for the others heard it too, and no words can describe the
+blessedness of it after all those hours of utter, awful stillness.
+
+"By heaven! it's running water," said Good. "Come on."
+
+Off we started again in the direction from which the faint murmur
+seemed to come, groping our way as before along the rocky walls. I
+remember that I laid down the basket full of diamonds, wishing to be
+rid of its weight, but on second thoughts took it up again. One might
+as well die rich as poor, I reflected. As we went the sound became
+more and more audible, till at last it seemed quite loud in the quiet.
+On, yet on; now we could distinctly make out the unmistakable swirl of
+rushing water. And yet how could there be running water in the bowels
+of the earth? Now we were quite near it, and Good, who was leading,
+swore that he could smell it.
+
+"Go gently, Good," said Sir Henry, "we must be close." /Splash!/ and a
+cry from Good.
+
+He had fallen in.
+
+"Good! Good! where are you?" we shouted, in terrified distress. To our
+intense relief an answer came back in a choky voice.
+
+"All right; I've got hold of a rock. Strike a light to show me where
+you are."
+
+Hastily I lit the last remaining match. Its faint gleam discovered to
+us a dark mass of water running at our feet. How wide it was we could
+not see, but there, some way out, was the dark form of our companion
+hanging on to a projecting rock.
+
+"Stand clear to catch me," sung out Good. "I must swim for it."
+
+Then we heard a splash, and a great struggle. Another minute and he
+had grabbed at and caught Sir Henry's outstretched hand, and we had
+pulled him up high and dry into the tunnel.
+
+"My word!" he said, between his gasps, "that was touch and go. If I
+hadn't managed to catch that rock, and known how to swim, I should
+have been done. It runs like a mill-race, and I could feel no bottom."
+
+We dared not follow the banks of the subterranean river for fear lest
+we should fall into it again in the darkness. So after Good had rested
+a while, and we had drunk our fill of the water, which was sweet and
+fresh, and washed our faces, that needed it sadly, as well as we
+could, we started from the banks of this African Styx, and began to
+retrace our steps along the tunnel, Good dripping unpleasantly in
+front of us. At length we came to another gallery leading to our
+right.
+
+"We may as well take it," said Sir Henry wearily; "all roads are alike
+here; we can only go on till we drop."
+
+Slowly, for a long, long while, we stumbled, utterly exhausted, along
+this new tunnel, Sir Henry now leading the way. Again I thought of
+abandoning that basket, but did not.
+
+Suddenly he stopped, and we bumped up against him.
+
+"Look!" he whispered, "is my brain going, or is that light?"
+
+We stared with all our eyes, and there, yes, there, far ahead of us,
+was a faint, glimmering spot, no larger than a cottage window pane. It
+was so faint that I doubt if any eyes, except those which, like ours,
+had for days seen nothing but blackness, could have perceived it at
+all. 
+
+With a gasp of hope we pushed on. In five minutes there was no longer
+any doubt; it /was/ a patch of faint light. A minute more and a breath
+of real live air was fanning us. On we struggled. All at once the
+tunnel narrowed. Sir Henry went on his knees. Smaller yet it grew,
+till it was only the size of a large fox's earth--it was /earth/ now,
+mind you; the rock had ceased.
+
+A squeeze, a struggle, and Sir Henry was out, and so was Good, and so
+was I, dragging Foulata's basket after me; and there above us were the
+blessed stars, and in our nostrils was the sweet air. Then suddenly
+something gave, and we were all rolling over and over and over through
+grass and bushes and soft, wet soil.
+
+The basket caught in something and I stopped. Sitting up I halloed
+lustily. An answering shout came from below, where Sir Henry's wild
+career had been checked by some level ground. I scrambled to him, and
+found him unhurt, though breathless. Then we looked for Good. A little
+way off we discovered him also, hammed in a forked root. He was a good
+deal knocked about, but soon came to himself.
+
+We sat down together, there on the grass, and the revulsion of feeling
+was so great that really I think we cried with joy. We had escaped
+from that awful dungeon, which was so near to becoming our grave.
+Surely some merciful Power guided our footsteps to the jackal hole,
+for that is what it must have been, at the termination of the tunnel.
+And see, yonder on the mountains the dawn we had never thought to look
+upon again was blushing rosy red.
+
+Presently the grey light stole down the slopes, and we saw that we
+were at the bottom, or rather, nearly at the bottom, of the vast pit
+in front of the entrance to the cave. Now we could make out the dim
+forms of the three Colossi who sat upon its verge. Doubtless those
+awful passages, along which we had wandered the livelong night, had
+been originally in some way connected with the great diamond mine. As
+for the subterranean river in the bowels of the mountain, Heaven only
+knows what it is, or whence it flows, or whither it goes. I, for one,
+have no anxiety to trace its course.
+
+Lighter it grew, and lighter yet. We could see each other now, and
+such a spectacle as we presented I have never set eyes on before or
+since. Gaunt-cheeked, hollow-eyed wretches, smeared all over with dust
+and mud, bruised, bleeding, the long fear of imminent death yet
+written on our countenances, we were, indeed, a sight to frighten the
+daylight. And yet it is a solemn fact that Good's eye-glass was still
+fixed in Good's eye. I doubt whether he had ever taken it out at all.
+Neither the darkness, nor the plunge in the subterranean river, nor
+the roll down the slope, had been able to separate Good and his eye-
+glass.
+
+Presently we rose, fearing that our limbs would stiffen if we stopped
+there longer, and commenced with slow and painful steps to struggle up
+the sloping sides of the great pit. For an hour or more we toiled
+steadfastly up the blue clay, dragging ourselves on by the help of the
+roots and grasses with which it was clothed. But now I had no more
+thought of leaving the basket; indeed, nothing but death should have
+parted us.
+
+At last it was done, and we stood by the great road, on that side of
+the pit which is opposite to the Colossi.
+
+At the side of the road, a hundred yards off, a fire was burning in
+front of some huts, and round the fire were figures. We staggered
+towards them, supporting one another, and halting every few paces.
+Presently one of the figures rose, saw us and fell on to the ground,
+crying out for fear.
+
+"Infadoos, Infadoos! it is we, thy friends."
+
+He rose; he ran to us, staring wildly, and still shaking with fear.
+
+"Oh, my lords, my lords, it is indeed you come back from the dead!--
+come back from the dead!"
+
+And the old warrior flung himself down before us, and clasping Sir
+Henry's knees, he wept aloud for joy.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+IGNOSI'S FAREWELL
+
+Ten days from that eventful morning found us once more in our old
+quarters at Loo; and, strange to say, but little the worse for our
+terrible experience, except that my stubbly hair came out of the
+treasure cave about three shades greyer than it went in, and that Good
+never was quite the same after Foulata's death, which seemed to move
+him very greatly. I am bound to say, looking at the thing from the
+point of view of an oldish man of the world, that I consider her
+removal was a fortunate occurrence, since, otherwise, complications
+would have been sure to ensue. The poor creature was no ordinary
+native girl, but a person of great, I had almost said stately, beauty,
+and of considerable refinement of mind. But no amount of beauty or
+refinement could have made an entanglement between Good and herself a
+desirable occurrence; for, as she herself put it, "Can the sun mate
+with the darkness, or the white with the black?"
+
+I need hardly state that we never again penetrated into Solomon's
+treasure chamber. After we had recovered from our fatigues, a process
+which took us forty-eight hours, we descended into the great pit in
+the hope of finding the hole by which we had crept out of the
+mountain, but with no success. To begin with, rain had fallen, and
+obliterated our spoor; and what is more, the sides of the vast pit
+were full of ant-bear and other holes. It was impossible to say to
+which of these we owed our salvation. Also, on the day before we
+started back to Loo, we made a further examination of the wonders of
+the stalactite cave, and, drawn by a kind of restless feeling, even
+penetrated once more into the Chamber of the Dead. Passing beneath the
+spear of the White Death we gazed, with sensations which it would be
+quite impossible for me to describe, at the mass of rock that had shut
+us off from escape, thinking the while of priceless treasures beyond,
+of the mysterious old hag whose flattened fragments lay crushed
+beneath it, and of the fair girl of whose tomb it was the portal. I
+say gazed at the "rock," for, examine as we could, we could find no
+traces of the join of the sliding door; nor, indeed, could we hit upon
+the secret, now utterly lost, that worked it, though we tried for an
+hour or more. It is certainly a marvellous bit of mechanism,
+characteristic, in its massive and yet inscrutable simplicity, of the
+age which produced it; and I doubt if the world has such another to
+show.
+
+At last we gave it up in disgust; though, if the mass had suddenly
+risen before our eyes, I doubt if we should have screwed up courage to
+step over Gagool's mangled remains, and once more enter the treasure
+chamber, even in the sure and certain hope of unlimited diamonds. And
+yet I could have cried at the idea of leaving all that treasure, the
+biggest treasure probably that in the world's history has ever been
+accumulated in one spot. But there was no help for it. Only dynamite
+could force its way through five feet of solid rock.
+
+So we left it. Perhaps, in some remote unborn century, a more
+fortunate explorer may hit upon the "Open Sesame," and flood the world
+with gems. But, myself, I doubt it. Somehow, I seem to feel that the
+tens of millions of pounds' worth of jewels which lie in the three
+stone coffers will never shine round the neck of an earthly beauty.
+They and Foulata's bones will keep cold company till the end of all
+things.
+
+With a sigh of disappointment we made our way back, and next day
+started for Loo. And yet it was really very ungrateful of us to be
+disappointed; for, as the reader will remember, by a lucky thought, I
+had taken the precaution to fill the wide pockets of my old shooting
+coat and trousers with gems before we left our prison-house, also
+Foulata's basket, which held twice as many more, notwithstanding that
+the water bottle had occupied some of its space. A good many of these
+fell out in the course of our roll down the side of the pit, including
+several of the big ones, which I had crammed in on the top in my coat
+pockets. But, comparatively speaking, an enormous quantity still
+remained, including ninety-three large stones ranging from over two
+hundred to seventy carats in weight. My old shooting coat and the
+basket still held sufficient treasure to make us all, if not
+millionaires as the term is understood in America, at least
+exceedingly wealthy men, and yet to keep enough stones each to make
+the three finest sets of gems in Europe. So we had not done so badly.
+
+On arriving at Loo we were most cordially received by Ignosi, whom we
+found well, and busily engaged in consolidating his power, and
+reorganising the regiments which had suffered most in the great
+struggle with Twala.
+
+He listened with intense interest to our wonderful story; but when we
+told him of old Gagool's frightful end he grew thoughtful.
+
+"Come hither," he called, to a very old Induna or councillor, who was
+sitting with others in a circle round the king, but out of ear-shot.
+The ancient man rose, approached, saluted, and seated himself.
+
+"Thou art aged," said Ignosi.
+
+"Ay, my lord the king! Thy father's father and I were born on the same
+day."
+
+"Tell me, when thou wast little, didst thou know Gagaoola the witch
+doctress?"
+
+"Ay, my lord the king!"
+
+"How was she then--young, like thee?"
+
+"Not so, my lord the king! She was even as she is now and as she was
+in the days of my great grandfather before me; old and dried, very
+ugly, and full of wickedness."
+
+"She is no more; she is dead."
+
+"So, O king! then is an ancient curse taken from the land."
+
+"Go!"
+
+"/Koom!/ I go, Black Puppy, who tore out the old dog's throat.
+/Koom!/"
+
+"Ye see, my brothers," said Ignosi, "this was a strange woman, and I
+rejoice that she is dead. She would have let you die in the dark
+place, and mayhap afterwards she had found a way to slay me, as she
+found a way to slay my father, and set up Twala, whom her black heart
+loved, in his place. Now go on with the tale; surely there never was
+its like!"
+
+After I had narrated all the story of our escape, as we had agreed
+between ourselves that I should, I took the opportunity to address
+Ignosi as to our departure from Kukuanaland.
+
+"And now, Ignosi," I said, "the time has come for us to bid thee
+farewell, and start to see our own land once more. Behold, Ignosi,
+thou camest with us a servant, and now we leave thee a mighty king. If
+thou art grateful to us, remember to do even as thou didst promise: to
+rule justly, to respect the law, and to put none to death without a
+cause. So shalt thou prosper. To-morrow, at break of day, Ignosi, thou
+wilt give us an escort who shall lead us across the mountains. Is it
+not so, O king?"
+
+Ignosi covered his face with his hands for a while before answering.
+
+"My heart is sore," he said at last; "your words split my heart in
+twain. What have I done to you, Incubu, Macumazahn, and Bougwan, that
+ye should leave me desolate? Ye who stood by me in rebellion and in
+battle, will ye leave me in the day of peace and victory? What will ye
+--wives? Choose from among the maidens! A place to live in? Behold,
+the land is yours as far as ye can see. The white man's houses? Ye
+shall teach my people how to build them. Cattle for beef and milk?
+Every married man shall bring you an ox or a cow. Wild game to hunt?
+Does not the elephant walk through my forests, and the river-horse
+sleep in the reeds? Would ye make war? My Impis wait your word. If
+there is anything more which I can give, that will I give you."
+
+"Nay, Ignosi, we want none of these things," I answered; "we would
+seek our own place."
+
+"Now do I learn," said Ignosi bitterly, and with flashing eyes, "that
+ye love the bright stones more than me, your friend. Ye have the
+stones; now ye would go to Natal and across the moving black water and
+sell them, and be rich, as it is the desire of a white man's heart to
+be. Cursed for your sake be the white stones, and cursed he who seeks
+them. Death shall it be to him who sets foot in the place of Death to
+find them. I have spoken. White men, ye can go."
+
+I laid my hand upon his arm. "Ignosi," I said, "tell us, when thou
+didst wander in Zululand, and among the white people of Natal, did not
+thine heart turn to the land thy mother told thee of, thy native
+place, where thou didst see the light, and play when thou wast little,
+the land where thy place was?"
+
+"It was even so, Macumazahn."
+
+"In like manner, Ignosi, do our hearts turn to our land and to our own
+place."
+
+Then came a silence. When Ignosi broke it, it was in a different
+voice.
+
+"I do perceive that now as ever thy words are wise and full of
+reason, Macumazahn; that which flies in the air loves not to run along
+the ground; the white man loves not to live on the level of the black
+or to house among his kraals. Well, ye must go, and leave my heart
+sore, because ye will be as dead to me, since from where ye are no
+tidings can come to me.
+
+"But listen, and let all your brothers know my words. No other white
+man shall cross the mountains, even if any man live to come so far. I
+will see no traders with their guns and gin. My people shall fight
+with the spear, and drink water, like their forefathers before them. I
+will have no praying-men to put a fear of death into men's hearts, to
+stir them up against the law of the king, and make a path for the
+white folk who follow to run on. If a white man comes to my gates I
+will send him back; if a hundred come I will push them back; if armies
+come, I will make war on them with all my strength, and they shall not
+prevail against me. None shall ever seek for the shining stones: no,
+not an army, for if they come I will send a regiment and fill up the
+pit, and break down the white columns in the caves and choke them with
+rocks, so that none can reach even to that door of which ye speak, and
+whereof the way to move it is lost. But for you three, Incubu,
+Macumazahn, and Bougwan, the path is always open; for, behold, ye are
+dearer to me than aught that breathes.
+
+"And ye would go. Infadoos, my uncle, and my Induna, shall take you by
+the hand and guide you with a regiment. There is, as I have learned,
+another way across the mountains that he shall show you. Farewell, my
+brothers, brave white men. See me no more, for I have no heart to bear
+it. Behold! I make a decree, and it shall be published from the
+mountains to the mountains; your names, Incubu, Macumazahn, and
+Bougwan, shall be "/hlonipa/" even as the names of dead kings, and he
+who speaks them shall die.[*] So shall your memory be preserved in the
+land for ever.
+
+[*] This extraordinary and negative way of showing intense respect is
+    by no means unknown among African people, and the result is that
+    if, as is usual, the name in question has a significance, the
+    meaning must be expressed by an idiom or other word. In this way a
+    memory is preserved for generations, or until the new word utterly
+    supplants the old.
+
+"Go now, ere my eyes rain tears like a woman's. At times as ye look
+back down the path of life, or when ye are old and gather yourselves
+together to crouch before the fire, because for you the sun has no
+more heat, ye will think of how we stood shoulder to shoulder, in that
+great battle which thy wise words planned, Macumazahn; of how thou
+wast the point of the horn that galled Twala's flank, Bougwan; whilst
+thou stood in the ring of the Greys, Incubu, and men went down before
+thine axe like corn before a sickle; ay, and of how thou didst break
+that wild bull Twala's strength, and bring his pride to dust. Fare ye
+well for ever, Incubu, Macumazahn, and Bougwan, my lords and my
+friends."
+
+Ignosi rose and looked earnestly at us for a few seconds. Then he
+threw the corner of his karross over his head, so as to cover his face
+from us.
+
+We went in silence.
+
+
+
+Next day at dawn we left Loo, escorted by our old friend Infadoos, who
+was heart-broken at our departure, and by the regiment of Buffaloes.
+Early as was the hour, all the main street of the town was lined with
+multitudes of people, who gave us the royal salute as we passed at the
+head of the regiment, while the women blessed us for having rid the
+land of Twala, throwing flowers before us as we went. It was really
+very affecting, and not the sort of thing one is accustomed to meet
+with from natives.
+
+One ludicrous incident occurred, however, which I rather welcomed, as
+it gave us something to laugh at.
+
+Just before we reached the confines of the town, a pretty young girl,
+with some lovely lilies in her hand, ran forward and presented them to
+Good--somehow they all seemed to like Good; I think his eye-glass and
+solitary whisker gave him a fictitious value--and then said that she
+had a boon to ask.
+
+"Speak on," he answered.
+
+"Let my lord show his servant his beautiful white legs, that his
+servant may look upon them, and remember them all her days, and tell
+of them to her children; his servant has travelled four days' journey
+to see them, for the fame of them has gone throughout the land."
+
+"I'll be hanged if I do!" exclaimed Good excitedly.
+
+"Come, come, my dear fellow," said Sir Henry, "you can't refuse to
+oblige a lady."
+
+"I won't," replied Good obstinately; "it is positively indecent."
+
+However, in the end he consented to draw up his trousers to the knee,
+amidst notes of rapturous admiration from all the women present,
+especially the gratified young lady, and in this guise he had to walk
+till we got clear of the town.
+
+Good's legs, I fear, will never be so greatly admired again. Of his
+melting teeth, and even of his "transparent eye," the Kukuanas wearied
+more or less, but of his legs never.
+
+As we travelled, Infadoos told us that there was another pass over the
+mountains to the north of the one followed by Solomon's Great Road, or
+rather that there was a place where it was possible to climb down the
+wall of cliff which separates Kukuanaland from the desert, and is
+broken by the towering shapes of Sheba's Breasts. It appeared, also,
+that rather more than two years previously a party of Kukuana hunters
+had descended this path into the desert in search of ostriches, whose
+plumes are much prized among them for war head-dresses, and that in
+the course of their hunt they had been led far from the mountains and
+were much troubled by thirst. Seeing trees on the horizon, however,
+they walked towards them, and discovered a large and fertile oasis
+some miles in extent, and plentifully watered. It was by way of this
+oasis that Infadoos suggested we should return, and the idea seemed to
+us a good one, for it appeared that we should thus escape the rigours
+of the mountain pass. Also some of the hunters were in attendance to
+guide us to the oasis, from which, they stated, they could perceive
+other fertile spots far away in the desert.[*]
+
+[*] It often puzzled all of us to understand how it was possible that
+    Ignosi's mother, bearing the child with her, should have survived
+    the dangers of her journey across the mountains and the desert,
+    dangers which so nearly proved fatal to ourselves. It has since
+    occurred to me, and I give the idea to the reader for what it is
+    worth, that she must have taken this second route, and wandered
+    out like Hagar into the wilderness. If she did so, there is no
+    longer anything inexplicable about the story, since, as Ignosi
+    himself related, she may well have been picked up by some ostrich
+    hunters before she or the child was exhausted, was led by them to
+    the oasis, and thence by stages to the fertile country, and so on
+    by slow degrees southwards to Zululand.--A.Q.
+
+Travelling easily, on the night of the fourth day's journey we found
+ourselves once more on the crest of the mountains that separate
+Kukuanaland from the desert, which rolled away in sandy billows at our
+feet, and about twenty-five miles to the north of Sheba's Breasts.
+
+At dawn on the following day, we were led to the edge of a very
+precipitous chasm, by which we were to descend the precipice, and gain
+the plain two thousand and more feet below.
+
+Here we bade farewell to that true friend and sturdy old warrior,
+Infadoos, who solemnly wished all good upon us, and nearly wept with
+grief. "Never, my lords," he said, "shall mine old eyes see the like
+of you again. Ah! the way that Incubu cut his men down in the battle!
+Ah! for the sight of that stroke with which he swept off my brother
+Twala's head! It was beautiful--beautiful! I may never hope to see
+such another, except perchance in happy dreams."
+
+We were very sorry to part from him; indeed, Good was so moved that he
+gave him as a souvenir--what do you think?--an /eye-glass/; afterwards
+we discovered that it was a spare one. Infadoos was delighted,
+foreseeing that the possession of such an article would increase his
+prestige enormously, and after several vain attempts he actually
+succeeded in screwing it into his own eye. Anything more incongruous
+than the old warrior looked with an eye-glass I never saw. Eye-glasses
+do not go well with leopard-skin cloaks and black ostrich plumes.
+
+Then, after seeing that our guides were well laden with water and
+provisions, and having received a thundering farewell salute from the
+Buffaloes, we wrung Infadoos by the hand, and began our downward
+climb. A very arduous business it proved to be, but somehow that
+evening we found ourselves at the bottom without accident.
+
+"Do you know," said Sir Henry that night, as we sat by our fire and
+gazed up at the beetling cliffs above us, "I think that there are
+worse places than Kukuanaland in the world, and that I have known
+unhappier times than the last month or two, though I have never spent
+such queer ones. Eh! you fellows?"
+
+"I almost wish I were back," said Good, with a sigh.
+
+As for myself, I reflected that all's well that ends well; but in the
+course of a long life of shaves, I never had such shaves as those
+which I had recently experienced. The thought of that battle makes me
+feel cold all over, and as for our experience in the treasure
+chamber--!
+
+
+
+Next morning we started on a toilsome trudge across the desert, having
+with us a good supply of water carried by our five guides, and camped
+that night in the open, marching again at dawn on the morrow.
+
+By noon of the third day's journey we could see the trees of the oasis
+of which the guides spoke, and within an hour of sundown we were
+walking once more upon grass and listening to the sound of running
+water.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+FOUND
+
+And now I come to perhaps the strangest adventure that happened to us
+in all this strange business, and one which shows how wonderfully
+things are brought about.
+
+I was walking along quietly, some way in front of the other two, down
+the banks of the stream which runs from the oasis till it is swallowed
+up in the hungry desert sands, when suddenly I stopped and rubbed my
+eyes, as well I might. There, not twenty yards in front of me, placed
+in a charming situation, under the shade of a species of fig-tree, and
+facing to the stream, was a cosy hut, built more or less on the Kafir
+principle with grass and withes, but having a full-length door instead
+of a bee-hole.
+
+"What the dickens," said I to myself, "can a hut be doing here?" Even
+as I said it the door of the hut opened, and there limped out of it a
+/white man/ clothed in skins, and with an enormous black beard. I
+thought that I must have got a touch of the sun. It was impossible. No
+hunter ever came to such a place as this. Certainly no hunter would
+ever settle in it. I stared and stared, and so did the other man, and
+just at that juncture Sir Henry and Good walked up.
+
+"Look here, you fellows," I said, "is that a white man, or am I mad?"
+
+Sir Henry looked, and Good looked, and then all of a sudden the lame
+white man with a black beard uttered a great cry, and began hobbling
+towards us. When he was close he fell down in a sort of faint.
+
+With a spring Sir Henry was by his side.
+
+"Great Powers!" he cried, "/it is my brother George!/"
+
+At the sound of this disturbance, another figure, also clad in skins,
+emerged from the hut, a gun in his hand, and ran towards us. On seeing
+me he too gave a cry.
+
+"Macumazahn," he halloed, "don't you know me, Baas? I'm Jim the
+hunter. I lost the note you gave me to give to the Baas, and we have
+been here nearly two years." And the fellow fell at my feet, and
+rolled over and over, weeping for joy.
+
+"You careless scoundrel!" I said; "you ought to be well /sjambocked/"
+--that is, hided.
+
+Meanwhile the man with the black beard had recovered and risen, and he
+and Sir Henry were pump-handling away at each other, apparently
+without a word to say. But whatever they had quarrelled about in the
+past--I suspect it was a lady, though I never asked--it was evidently
+forgotten now.
+
+"My dear old fellow," burst out Sir Henry at last, "I thought you were
+dead. I have been over Solomon's Mountains to find you. I had given up
+all hope of ever seeing you again, and now I come across you perched
+in the desert, like an old /assv�gel/."[*]
+
+[*] Vulture.
+
+"I tried to cross Solomon's Mountains nearly two years ago," was the
+answer, spoken in the hesitating voice of a man who has had little
+recent opportunity of using his tongue, "but when I reached here a
+boulder fell on my leg and crushed it, and I have been able to go
+neither forward nor back."
+
+Then I came up. "How do you do, Mr. Neville?" I said; "do you remember
+me?"
+
+"Why," he said, "isn't it Hunter Quatermain, eh, and Good too? Hold on
+a minute, you fellows, I am getting dizzy again. It is all so very
+strange, and, when a man has ceased to hope, so very happy!"
+
+That evening, over the camp fire, George Curtis told us his story,
+which, in its way, was almost as eventful as our own, and, put
+shortly, amounted to this. A little less than two years before, he had
+started from Sitanda's Kraal, to try to reach Suliman's Berg. As for
+the note I had sent him by Jim, that worthy lost it, and he had never
+heard of it till to-day. But, acting upon information he had received
+from the natives, he headed not for Sheba's Breasts, but for the
+ladder-like descent of the mountains down which we had just come,
+which is clearly a better route than that marked out in old Dom
+Silvestra's plan. In the desert he and Jim had suffered great
+hardships, but finally they reached this oasis, where a terrible
+accident befell George Curtis. On the day of their arrival he was
+sitting by the stream, and Jim was extracting the honey from the nest
+of a stingless bee which is to be found in the desert, on the top of a
+bank immediately above him. In so doing he loosened a great boulder of
+rock, which fell upon George Curtis's right leg, crushing it
+frightfully. From that day he had been so lame that he found it
+impossible to go either forward or back, and had preferred to take the
+chances of dying in the oasis to the certainty of perishing in the
+desert.
+
+As for food, however, they got on pretty well, for they had a good
+supply of ammunition, and the oasis was frequented, especially at
+night, by large quantities of game, which came thither for water.
+These they shot, or trapped in pitfalls, using the flesh for food,
+and, after their clothes wore out, the hides for clothing.
+
+"And so," George Curtis ended, "we have lived for nearly two years,
+like a second Robinson Crusoe and his man Friday, hoping against hope
+that some natives might come here to help us away, but none have come.
+Only last night we settled that Jim should leave me, and try to reach
+Sitanda's Kraal to get assistance. He was to go to-morrow, but I had
+little hope of ever seeing him back again. And now /you/, of all
+people in the world, /you/, who, as I fancied, had long ago forgotten
+all about me, and were living comfortably in old England, turn up in a
+promiscuous way and find me where you least expected. It is the most
+wonderful thing that I have ever heard of, and the most merciful too."
+
+Then Sir Henry set to work, and told him the main facts of our
+adventures, sitting till late into the night to do it.
+
+"By Jove!" said George Curtis, when I showed him some of the diamonds:
+"well, at least you have got something for your pains, besides my
+worthless self."
+
+Sir Henry laughed. "They belong to Quatermain and Good. It was a part
+of the bargain that they should divide any spoils there might be."
+
+This remark set me thinking, and having spoken to Good, I told Sir
+Henry that it was our joint wish that he should take a third portion
+of the diamonds, or, if he would not, that his share should be handed
+to his brother, who had suffered even more than ourselves on the
+chance of getting them. Finally, we prevailed upon him to consent to
+this arrangement, but George Curtis did not know of it until some time
+afterwards.
+
+*****
+
+Here, at this point, I think that I shall end my history. Our journey
+across the desert back to Sitanda's Kraal was most arduous, especially
+as we had to support George Curtis, whose right leg was very weak
+indeed, and continually threw out splinters of bone. But we did
+accomplish it somehow, and to give its details would only be to
+reproduce much of what happened to us on the former occasion.
+
+Six months from the date of our re-arrival at Sitanda's, where we
+found our guns and other goods quite safe, though the old rascal in
+charge was much disgusted at our surviving to claim them, saw us all
+once more safe and sound at my little place on the Berea, near Durban,
+where I am now writing. Thence I bid farewell to all who have
+accompanied me through the strangest trip I ever made in the course of
+a long and varied experience.
+
+P.S.--Just as I had written the last word, a Kafir came up my avenue
+of orange trees, carrying a letter in a cleft stick, which he had
+brought from the post. It turned out to be from Sir Henry, and as it
+speaks for itself I give it in full.
+
+October 1, 1884.
+Brayley Hall, Yorkshire.
+
+  My Dear Quatermain,
+
+  I send you a line a few mails back to say that the three of us,
+  George, Good, and myself, fetched up all right in England. We got
+  off the boat at Southampton, and went up to town. You should have
+  seen what a swell Good turned out the very next day, beautifully
+  shaved, frock coat fitting like a glove, brand new eye-glass,
+  etc., etc. I went and walked in the park with him, where I met
+  some people I know, and at once told them the story of his
+  "beautiful white legs."
+
+  He is furious, especially as some ill-natured person has printed
+  it in a Society paper.
+
+  To come to business, Good and I took the diamonds to Streeter's to
+  be valued, as we arranged, and really I am afraid to tell you what
+  they put them at, it seems so enormous. They say that of course it
+  is more or less guess-work, as such stones have never to their
+  knowledge been put on the market in anything like such quantities.
+  It appears that (with the exception of one or two of the largest)
+  they are of the finest water, and equal in every way to the best
+  Brazilian stones. I asked them if they would buy them, but they
+  said that it was beyond their power to do so, and recommended us
+  to sell by degrees, over a period of years indeed, for fear lest
+  we should flood the market. They offer, however, a hundred and
+  eighty thousand for a very small portion of them.
+
+  You must come home, Quatermain, and see about these things,
+  especially if you insist upon making the magnificent present of
+  the third share, which does /not/ belong to me, to my brother
+  George. As for Good, he is /no good/. His time is too much
+  occupied in shaving, and other matters connected with the vain
+  adorning of the body. But I think he is still down on his luck
+  about Foulata. He told me that since he had been home he hadn't
+  seen a woman to touch her, either as regards her figure or the
+  sweetness of her expression.
+
+  I want you to come home, my dear old comrade, and to buy a house
+  near here. You have done your day's work, and have lots of money
+  now, and there is a place for sale quite close which would suit
+  you admirably. Do come; the sooner the better; you can finish
+  writing the story of our adventures on board ship. We have refused
+  to tell the tale till it is written by you, for fear lest we shall
+  not be believed. If you start on receipt of this you will reach
+  here by Christmas, and I book you to stay with me for that. Good
+  is coming, and George; and so, by the way, is your boy Harry
+  (there's a bribe for you). I have had him down for a week's
+  shooting, and like him. He is a cool young hand; he shot me in the
+  leg, cut out the pellets, and then remarked upon the advantages of
+  having a medical student with every shooting party!
+
+  Good-bye, old boy; I can't say any more, but I know that you will
+  come, if it is only to oblige
+
+Your sincere friend,
+Henry Curtis.
+
+  P.S.--The tusks of the great bull that killed poor Khiva have now
+  been put up in the hall here, over the pair of buffalo horns you
+  gave me, and look magnificent; and the axe with which I chopped
+  off Twala's head is fixed above my writing-table. I wish that we
+  could have managed to bring away the coats of chain armour. Don't
+  lose poor Foulata's basket in which you brought away the diamonds.
+H.C.
+
+To-day is Tuesday. There is a steamer going on Friday, and I really
+think that I must take Curtis at his word, and sail by her for
+England, if it is only to see you, Harry, my boy, and to look after
+the printing of this history, which is a task that I do not like to
+trust to anybody else.
+
+ALLAN QUATERMAIN.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of King Solomon's Mines, by Haggard
+
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