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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of Allan’s Wife, 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: Allan’s Wife
+
+Author: H. Rider Haggard
+
+Release Date: July, 2001 [eBook #2727]
+[Most recently updated: April 20, 2021]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: John Bickers, Dagny and David Widger
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALLAN’S WIFE ***
+
+
+
+
+Allan’s Wife
+
+by H. Rider Haggard
+
+
+Contents
+
+ CHAPTER I. EARLY DAYS
+ CHAPTER II. THE FIRE-FIGHT
+ CHAPTER III. NORTHWARDS
+ CHAPTER IV. THE ZULU IMPI
+ CHAPTER V. THE END OF THE LAAGER
+ CHAPTER VI. STELLA
+ CHAPTER VII. THE BABOON-WOMAN
+ CHAPTER VIII. THE MARBLE KRAALS
+ CHAPTER IX. “LET US GO IN, ALLAN!”
+ CHAPTER X. HENDRIKA PLOTS EVIL
+ CHAPTER XI. GONE!
+ CHAPTER XII. THE MAGIC OF INDABA-ZIMBI
+ CHAPTER XIII. WHAT HAPPENED TO STELLA
+ CHAPTER XIV. FIFTEEN YEARS AFTER
+
+
+
+
+DEDICATION
+
+
+    My Dear Macumazahn,
+    It was your native name which I borrowed at the christening of that
+    Allan who has become as well known to me as any other friend I
+    have. It is therefore fitting that I should dedicate to you this,
+    his last tale—the story of his wife, and the history of some
+    further adventures which befell him. They will remind you of many
+    an African yarn—that with the baboons may recall an experience of
+    your own which I did not share. And perhaps they will do more than
+    this. Perhaps they will bring back to you some of the long past
+    romance of days that are lost to us. The country of which Allan
+    Quatermain tells his tale is now, for the most part, as well known
+    and explored as are the fields of Norfolk. Where we shot and
+    trekked and galloped, scarcely seeing the face of civilized man,
+    there the gold-seeker builds his cities. The shadow of the flag of
+    Britain has, for a while, ceased to fall on the Transvaal plains;
+    the game has gone; the misty charm of the morning has become the
+    glare of day. All is changed. The blue gums that we planted in the
+    garden of the “Palatial” must be large trees by now, and the
+    “Palatial” itself has passed from us. Jess sat in it waiting for
+    her love after we were gone. There she nursed him back to life. But
+    Jess is dead, and strangers own it, or perhaps it is a ruin.
+    For us too, Macumazahn, as for the land we loved, the mystery and
+    promise of the morning are outworn; the mid-day sun burns overhead,
+    and at times the way is weary. Few of those we knew are left. Some
+    are victims to battle and murder, their bones strew the veldt;
+    death has taken some in a more gentle fashion; others are hidden
+    from us, we know not where. We might well fear to return to that
+    land lest we also should see ghosts. But though we walk apart
+    to-day, the past yet looks upon us with its unalterable eyes. Still
+    we can remember many a boyish enterprise and adventure, lightly
+    undertaken, which now would strike us as hazardous indeed. Still we
+    can recall the long familiar line of the Pretoria Horse, the face
+    of war and panic, the weariness of midnight patrols; aye, and hear
+    the roar of guns echoed from the Shameful Hill.
+    To you then, Macumazahn, in perpetual memory of those eventful
+    years of youth which we passed together in the African towns and on
+    the African veldt, I dedicate these pages, subscribing myself now
+    as always,
+    Your sincere friend,
+    Indanda.
+    To Arthur H. D. Cochrane, Esq.
+
+
+
+
+ALLAN’S WIFE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+EARLY DAYS
+
+
+It may be remembered that in the last pages of his diary, written just
+before his death, Allan Quatermain makes allusion to his long dead
+wife, stating that he has written of her fully elsewhere.
+
+When his death was known, his papers were handed to myself as his
+literary executor. Among them I found two manuscripts, of which the
+following is one. The other is simply a record of events wherein Mr.
+Quatermain was not personally concerned—a Zulu novel, the story of
+which was told to him by the hero many years after the tragedy had
+occurred. But with this we have nothing to do at present.
+
+I have often thought (Mr. Quatermain’s manuscript begins) that I would
+set down on paper the events connected with my marriage, and the loss
+of my most dear wife. Many years have now passed since that event, and
+to some extent time has softened the old grief, though Heaven knows it
+is still keen enough. On two or three occasions I have even begun the
+record. Once I gave it up because the writing of it depressed me beyond
+bearing, once because I was suddenly called away upon a journey, and
+the third time because a Kaffir boy found my manuscript convenient for
+lighting the kitchen fire.
+
+But now that I am at leisure here in England, I will make a fourth
+attempt. If I succeed, the story may serve to interest some one in
+after years when I am dead and gone; before that I should not wish it
+to be published. It is a wild tale enough, and suggests some curious
+reflections.
+
+I am the son of a missionary. My father was originally curate in charge
+of a small parish in Oxfordshire. He had already been some ten years
+married to my dear mother when he went there, and he had four children,
+of whom I was the youngest. I remember faintly the place where we
+lived. It was an ancient long grey house, facing the road. There was a
+very large tree of some sort in the garden. It was hollow, and we
+children used to play about inside of it, and knock knots of wood from
+the rough bark. We all slept in a kind of attic, and my mother always
+came and kissed us when we were in bed. I used to wake up and see her
+bending over me, a candle in her hand. There was a curious kind of pole
+projecting from the wall over my bed. Once I was dreadfully frightened
+because my eldest brother made me hang to it by my hands. That is all I
+remember about our old home. It has been pulled down long ago, or I
+would journey there to see it.
+
+A little further down the road was a large house with big iron gates to
+it, and on the top of the gate pillars sat two stone lions, which were
+so hideous that I was afraid of them. Perhaps this sentiment was
+prophetic. One could see the house by peeping through the bars of the
+gates. It was a gloomy-looking place, with a tall yew hedge round it;
+but in the summer-time some flowers grew about the sun-dial in the
+grass plat. This house was called the Hall, and Squire Carson lived
+there. One Christmas—it must have been the Christmas before my father
+emigrated, or I should not remember it—we children went to a
+Christmas-tree festivity at the Hall. There was a great party there,
+and footmen wearing red waistcoats stood at the door. In the
+dining-room, which was panelled with black oak, was the Christmas-tree.
+Squire Carson stood in front of it. He was a tall, dark man, very quiet
+in his manners, and he wore a bunch of seals on his waistcoat. We used
+to think him old, but as a matter of fact he was then not more than
+forty. He had been, as I afterwards learned, a great traveller in his
+youth, and some six or seven years before this date he married a lady
+who was half a Spaniard—a papist, my father called her. I can remember
+her well. She was small and very pretty, with a rounded figure, large
+black eyes, and glittering teeth. She spoke English with a curious
+accent. I suppose that I must have been a funny child to look at, and I
+know that my hair stood up on my head then as it does now, for I still
+have a sketch of myself that my mother made of me, in which this
+peculiarity is strongly marked. On this occasion of the Christmas-tree
+I remember that Mrs. Carson turned to a tall, foreign-looking gentleman
+who stood beside her, and, tapping him affectionately on the shoulder
+with her gold eye-glasses, said—
+
+“Look, cousin—look at that droll little boy with the big brown eyes;
+his hair is like a—what you call him?—scrubbing-brush. Oh, what a droll
+little boy!”
+
+The tall gentleman pulled at his moustache, and, taking Mrs. Carson’s
+hand in his, began to smooth my hair down with it till I heard her
+whisper—
+
+“Leave go my hand, cousin. Thomas is looking like—like the
+thunderstorm.”
+
+Thomas was the name of Mr. Carson, her husband.
+
+After that I hid myself as well as I could behind a chair, for I was
+shy, and watched little Stella Carson, who was the squire’s only child,
+giving the children presents off the tree. She was dressed as Father
+Christmas, with some soft white stuff round her lovely little face, and
+she had large dark eyes, which I thought more beautiful than anything I
+had ever seen. At last it came to my turn to receive a present—oddly
+enough, considered in the light of future events, it was a large
+monkey. Stella reached it down from one of the lower boughs of the tree
+and handed it to me, saying—
+
+“Dat is my Christmas present to you, little Allan Quatermain.”
+
+As she did so her sleeve, which was covered with cotton wool, spangled
+over with something that shone, touched one of the tapers and caught
+fire—how I do not know—and the flame ran up her arm towards her throat.
+She stood quite still. I suppose that she was paralysed with fear; and
+the ladies who were near screamed very loud, but did nothing. Then some
+impulse seized me—perhaps instinct would be a better word to use,
+considering my age. I threw myself upon the child, and, beating at the
+fire with my hands, mercifully succeeded in extinguishing it before it
+really got hold. My wrists were so badly scorched that they had to be
+wrapped up in wool for a long time afterwards, but with the exception
+of a single burn upon her throat, little Stella Carson was not much
+hurt.
+
+This is all that I remember about the Christmas-tree at the Hall. What
+happened afterwards is lost to me, but to this day in my sleep I
+sometimes see little Stella’s sweet face and the stare of terror in her
+dark eyes as the fire ran up her arm. This, however, is not wonderful,
+for I had, humanly speaking, saved the life of her who was destined to
+be my wife.
+
+The next event which I can recall clearly is that my mother and three
+brothers all fell ill of fever, owing, as I afterwards learned, to the
+poisoning of our well by some evil-minded person, who threw a dead
+sheep into it.
+
+It must have been while they were ill that Squire Carson came one day
+to the vicarage. The weather was still cold, for there was a fire in
+the study, and I sat before the fire writing letters on a piece of
+paper with a pencil, while my father walked up and down the room
+talking to himself. Afterwards I knew that he was praying for the lives
+of his wife and children. Presently a servant came to the door and said
+that some one wanted to see him.
+
+“It is the squire, sir,” said the maid, “and he says he particularly
+wishes to see you.”
+
+“Very well,” answered my father, wearily, and presently Squire Carson
+came in. His face was white and haggard, and his eyes shone so fiercely
+that I was afraid of him.
+
+“Forgive me for intruding on you at such a time, Quatermain,” he said,
+in a hoarse voice, “but to-morrow I leave this place for ever, and I
+wish to speak to you before I go—indeed, I must speak to you.”
+
+“Shall I send Allan away?” said my father, pointing to me.
+
+“No; let him bide. He will not understand.” Nor, indeed, did I at the
+time, but I remembered every word, and in after years their meaning
+grew on me.
+
+“First tell me,” he went on, “how are they?” and he pointed upwards
+with his thumb.
+
+“My wife and two of the boys are beyond hope,” my father answered, with
+a groan. “I do not know how it will go with the third. The Lord’s will
+be done!”
+
+“The Lord’s will be done,” the squire echoed, solemnly. “And now,
+Quatermain, listen—my wife’s gone.”
+
+“Gone!” my father answered. “Who with?”
+
+“With that foreign cousin of hers. It seems from a letter she left me
+that she always cared for him, not for me. She married me because she
+thought me a rich English milord. Now she has run through my property,
+or most of it, and gone. I don’t know where. Luckily, she did not care
+to encumber her new career with the child; Stella is left to me.”
+
+“That is what comes of marrying a papist, Carson,” said my father. That
+was his fault; he was as good and charitable a man as ever lived, but
+he was bigoted. “What are you going to do—follow her?”
+
+He laughed bitterly in answer.
+
+“Follow her!” he said; “why should I follow her? If I met her I might
+kill her or him, or both of them, because of the disgrace they have
+brought upon my child’s name. No, I never want to look upon her face
+again. I trusted her, I tell you, and she has betrayed me. Let her go
+and find her fate. But I am going too. I am weary of my life.”
+
+“Surely, Carson, surely,” said my father, “you do not mean——”
+
+“No, no; not that. Death comes soon enough. But I will leave this
+civilized world which is a lie. We will go right away into the wilds, I
+and my child, and hide our shame. Where? I don’t know where. Anywhere,
+so long as there are no white faces, no smooth educated tongues——”
+
+“You are mad, Carson,” my father answered. “How will you live? How can
+you educate Stella? Be a man and wear it down.”
+
+“I will be a man, and I will wear it down, but not here, Quatermain.
+Education! Was not she—that woman who was my wife—was not she highly
+educated?—the cleverest woman in the country forsooth. Too clever for
+me, Quatermain—too clever by half! No, no, Stella shall be brought up
+in a different school; if it be possible, she shall forget her very
+name. Good-bye, old friend, good-bye for ever. Do not try to find me
+out, henceforth I shall be like one dead to you, to you and all I
+knew,” and he was gone.
+
+“Mad,” said my father, with a heavy sigh. “His trouble has turned his
+brain. But he will think better of it.”
+
+At that moment the nurse came hurrying in and whispered something in
+his ear. My father’s face turned deadly pale. He clutched at the table
+to support himself, then staggered from the room. My mother was dying!
+
+It was some days afterwards, I do not know exactly how long, that my
+father took me by the hand and led me upstairs into the big room which
+had been my mother’s bedroom. There she lay, dead in her coffin, with
+flowers in her hand. Along the wall of the room were arranged three
+little white beds, and on each of the beds lay one of my brothers. They
+all looked as though they were asleep, and they all had flowers in
+their hands. My father told me to kiss them, because I should not see
+them any more, and I did so, though I was very frightened. I did not
+know why. Then he took me in his arms and kissed me.
+
+“The Lord hath given,” he said, “and the Lord hath taken away; blessed
+be the name of the Lord.”
+
+I cried very much, and he took me downstairs, and after that I have
+only a confused memory of men dressed in black carrying heavy burdens
+towards the grey churchyard!
+
+Next comes a vision of a great ship and wide tossing waters. My father
+could no longer bear to live in England after the loss that had fallen
+on him, and made up his mind to emigrate to South Africa. We must have
+been poor at the time—indeed, I believe that a large portion of our
+income went from my father on my mother’s death. At any rate we
+travelled with the steerage passengers, and the intense discomfort of
+the journey with the rough ways of our fellow emigrants still remain
+upon my mind. At last it came to an end, and we reached Africa, which I
+was not to leave again for many, many years.
+
+In those days civilization had not made any great progress in Southern
+Africa. My father went up the country and became a missionary among the
+Kaffirs, near to where the town of Cradock now stands, and here I grew
+to manhood. There were a few Boer farmers in the neighbourhood, and
+gradually a little settlement of whites gathered round our mission
+station—a drunken Scotch blacksmith and wheelwright was about the most
+interesting character, who, when he was sober, could quote the Scottish
+poet Burns and the Ingoldsby Legends, then recently published,
+literally by the page. It was from that I contracted a fondness for the
+latter amusing writings, which has never left me. Burns I never cared
+for so much, probably because of the Scottish dialect which repelled
+me. What little education I got was from my father, but I never had
+much leaning towards books, nor he much time to teach them to me. On
+the other hand, I was always a keen observer of the ways of men and
+nature. By the time that I was twenty I could speak Dutch and three or
+four Kaffir dialects perfectly, and I doubt if there was anybody in
+South Africa who understood native ways of thought and action more
+completely than I did. Also I was really a very good shot and horseman,
+and I think—as, indeed, my subsequent career proves to have been the
+case—a great deal tougher than the majority of men. Though I was then,
+as now, light and small, nothing seemed to tire me. I could bear any
+amount of exposure and privation, and I never met the native who was my
+master in feats of endurance. Of course, all that is different now, I
+am speaking of my early manhood.
+
+It may be wondered that I did not run absolutely wild in such
+surroundings, but I was held back from this by my father’s society. He
+was one of the gentlest and most refined men that I ever met; even the
+most savage Kaffir loved him, and his influence was a very good one for
+me. He used to call himself one of the world’s failures. Would that
+there were more such failures. Every morning when his work was done he
+would take his prayer-book and, sitting on the little stoep or verandah
+of our station, would read the evening psalms to himself. Sometimes
+there was not light enough for this, but it made no difference, he knew
+them all by heart. When he had finished he would look out across the
+cultivated lands where the mission Kaffirs had their huts.
+
+But I knew it was not these he saw, but rather the grey English church,
+and the graves ranged side by side before the yew near the wicket gate.
+
+It was there on the stoep that he died. He had not been well, and one
+evening I was talking to him, and his mind went back to Oxfordshire and
+my mother. He spoke of her a good deal, saying that she had never been
+out of his mind for a single day during all these years, and that he
+rejoiced to think he was drawing near that land whither she had gone.
+Then he asked me if I remembered the night when Squire Carson came into
+the study at the vicarage, and told him that his wife had run away, and
+that he was going to change his name and bury himself in some remote
+land.
+
+I answered that I remembered it perfectly.
+
+“I wonder where he went to,” said my father, “and if he and his
+daughter Stella are still alive. Well, well! I shall never meet them
+again. But life is a strange thing, Allan, and you may. If you ever do,
+give them my kind love.”
+
+After that I left him. We had been suffering more than usual from the
+depredations of the Kaffir thieves, who stole our sheep at night, and,
+as I had done before, and not without success, I determined to watch
+the kraal and see if I could catch them. Indeed, it was from this habit
+of mine of watching at night that I first got my native name of
+Macumazahn, which may be roughly translated as “he who sleeps with one
+eye open.” So I took my rifle and rose to go. But he called me to him
+and kissed me on the forehead, saying, “God bless you, Allan! I hope
+that you will think of your old father sometimes, and that you will
+lead a good and happy life.”
+
+I remember that I did not much like his tone at the time, but set it
+down to an attack of low spirits, to which he grew very subject as the
+years went on. I went down to the kraal and watched till within an hour
+of sunrise; then, as no thieves appeared, returned to the station. As I
+came near I was astonished to see a figure sitting in my father’s
+chair. At first I thought it must be a drunken Kaffir, then that my
+father had fallen asleep there.
+
+And so he had,—for he was dead!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+THE FIRE-FIGHT
+
+
+When I had buried my father, and seen a successor installed in his
+place—for the station was the property of the Society—I set to work to
+carry out a plan which I had long cherished, but been unable to execute
+because it would have involved separation from my father. Put shortly,
+it was to undertake a trading journey of exploration right through the
+countries now known as the Free State and the Transvaal, and as much
+further North as I could go. It was an adventurous scheme, for though
+the emigrant Boers had begun to occupy positions in these territories,
+they were still to all practical purposes unexplored. But I was now
+alone in the world, and it mattered little what became of me; so,
+driven on by the overmastering love of adventure, which, old as I am,
+will perhaps still be the cause of my death, I determined to undertake
+the journey.
+
+Accordingly I sold such stock and goods as we had upon the station,
+reserving only the two best waggons and two spans of oxen. The proceeds
+I invested in such goods as were then in fashion, for trading purposes,
+and in guns and ammunition. The guns would have moved any modern
+explorer to merriment; but such as they were I managed to do a good
+deal of execution with them. One of them was a single-barrelled, smooth
+bore, fitted for percussion caps—a roer we called it—which threw a
+three-ounce ball, and was charged with a handful of coarse black
+powder. Many is the elephant that I killed with that roer, although it
+generally knocked me backwards when I fired it, which I only did under
+compulsion. The best of the lot, perhaps, was a double-barrelled No. 12
+shot-gun, but it had flint locks. Also there were some old tower
+muskets, which might or might not throw straight at seventy yards. I
+took six Kaffirs with me, and three good horses, which were supposed to
+be salted—that is, proof against the sickness. Among the Kaffirs was an
+old fellow named Indaba-zimbi, which, being translated, means “tongue
+of iron.” I suppose he got this name from his strident voice and
+exhaustless eloquence. This man was a great character in his way. He
+had been a noted witch-doctor among a neighbouring tribe, and came to
+the station under the following circumstances, which, as he plays a
+considerable part in this history, are perhaps worth recording.
+
+Two years before my father’s death I had occasion to search the country
+round for some lost oxen. After a long and useless quest it occurred to
+me that I had better go to the place where the oxen were bred by a
+Kaffir chief, whose name I forget, but whose kraal was about fifty
+miles from our station. There I journeyed, and found the oxen safe at
+home. The chief entertained me handsomely, and on the following morning
+I went to pay my respects to him before leaving, and was somewhat
+surprised to find a collection of some hundreds of men and women
+sitting round him anxiously watching the sky in which the
+thunder-clouds were banking up in a very ominous way.
+
+“You had better wait, white man,” said the chief, “and see the
+rain-doctors fight the lightning.”
+
+I inquired what he meant, and learned that this man, Indaba-zimbi, had
+for some years occupied the position of wizard-in-chief to the tribe,
+although he was not a member of it, having been born in the country now
+known as Zululand. But a son of the chief’s, a man of about thirty, had
+lately set up as a rival in supernatural powers. This irritated
+Indaba-zimbi beyond measure, and a quarrel ensued between the two
+witch-doctors that resulted in a challenge to trial by lightning being
+given and accepted. These were the conditions. The rivals must await
+the coming of a serious thunderstorm, no ordinary tempest would serve
+their turn. Then, carrying assegais in their hands, they must take
+their stand within fifty paces of each other upon a certain patch of
+ground where the big thunderbolts were observed to strike continually,
+and by the exercise of their occult powers and invocations to the
+lightning, must strive to avert death from themselves and bring it on
+their rival. The terms of this singular match had been arranged a month
+previously, but no storm worthy of the occasion had arisen. Now the
+local weather-prophets believed it to be brewing.
+
+I inquired what would happen if neither of the men were struck, and was
+told that they must then wait for another storm. If they escaped the
+second time, however, they would be held to be equal in power, and be
+jointly consulted by the tribe upon occasions of importance.
+
+The prospect of being a spectator of so unusual a sight overcame my
+desire to be gone, and I accepted the chief’s invitation to see it out.
+Before mid-day I regretted it, for though the western heavens grew
+darker and darker, and the still air heralded the coming of the storm,
+yet it did not come. By four o’clock, however, it became obvious that
+it must burst soon—at sunset, the old chief said, and in the company of
+the whole assembly I moved down to the place of combat. The kraal was
+built on the top of a hill, and below it the land sloped gently to the
+banks of a river about half a mile away. On the hither side of the bank
+was the piece of land that was, the natives said, “loved of the
+lightning.” Here the magicians took up their stand, while the
+spectators grouped themselves on the hillside about two hundred yards
+away—which was, I thought, rather too near to be pleasant. When we had
+sat there for a while my curiosity overcame me, and I asked leave of
+the chief to go down and inspect the arena. He said I might do so at my
+own risk. I told him that the fire from above would not hurt white men,
+and went to find that the spot was a bed of iron ore, thinly covered
+with grass, which of course accounted for its attracting the lightning
+from the storms as they travelled along the line of the river. At each
+end of this iron-stone area were placed the combatants, Indaba-zimbi
+facing the east, and his rival the west, and before each there burned a
+little fire made of some scented root. Moreover they were dressed in
+all the paraphernalia of their craft, snakeskins, fish-bladders, and I
+know not what beside, while round their necks hung circlets of baboons’
+teeth and bones from human hands. First I went to the western end where
+the chief’s son stood. He was pointing with his assegai towards the
+advancing storm, and invoking it in a voice of great excitement.
+
+“Come, fire, and lick up Indaba-zimbi!
+
+“Hear me, Storm Devil, and lick Indaba-zimbi with your red tongue!
+
+“Spit on him with your rain!
+
+“Whirl him away in your breath!
+
+“Make him as nothing—melt the marrow in his bones!
+
+“Run into his heart and burn away the lies!
+
+“Show all the people who is the true Witch Finder!
+
+“Let me not be put to shame in the eyes of this white man!”
+
+Thus he spoke, or rather chanted, and all the while rubbed his broad
+chest—for he was a very fine man—with some filthy compound of medicine
+or _mouti_.
+
+After a while, getting tired of his song, I walked across the
+iron-stone, to where Indaba-zimbi sat by his fire. He was not chanting
+at all, but his performance was much more impressive. It consisted in
+staring at the eastern sky, which was perfectly clear of cloud, and
+every now and again beckoning at it with his finger, then turning round
+to point with the assegai towards his rival. For a while I looked at
+him in silence. He was a curious wizened man, apparently over fifty
+years of age, with thin hands that looked as tough as wire. His nose
+was much sharper than is usual among these races, and he had a queer
+habit of holding his head sideways like a bird when he spoke, which, in
+addition to the humour that lurked in his eye, gave him a most comical
+appearance. Another strange thing about him was that he had a single
+white lock of hair among his black wool. At last I spoke to him:
+
+“Indaba-zimbi, my friend,” I said, “you may be a good witch-doctor, but
+you are certainly a fool. It is no good beckoning at the blue sky while
+your enemy is getting a start with the storm.”
+
+“You may be clever, but don’t think you know everything, white man,”
+the old fellow answered, in a high, cracked voice, and with something
+like a grin.
+
+“They call you Iron-tongue,” I went on; “you had better use it, or the
+Storm Devil won’t hear you.”
+
+“The fire from above runs down iron,” he answered, “so I keep my tongue
+quiet. Oh, yes, let him curse away, I’ll put him out presently. Look
+now, white man.”
+
+I looked, and in the eastern sky there grew a cloud. At first it was
+small, though very black, but it gathered with extraordinary rapidity.
+
+This was odd enough, but as I had seen the same thing happen before it
+did not particularly astonish me. It is by no means unusual in Africa
+for two thunderstorms to come up at the same time from different points
+of the compass.
+
+“You had better get on, Indaba-zimbi,” I said, “the big storm is coming
+along fast, and will soon eat up that baby of yours,” and I pointed to
+the west.
+
+“Babies sometimes grow to giants, white man,” said Indaba-zimbi,
+beckoning away vigorously. “Look now at my cloud-child.”
+
+I looked; the eastern storm was spreading itself from earth to sky, and
+in shape resembled an enormous man. There was its head, its shoulders,
+and its legs; yes, it was like a huge giant travelling across the
+heavens. The light of the setting sun escaping from beneath the lower
+edge of the western storm shot across the intervening space in a sheet
+of splendour, and, lighting upon the advancing figure of cloud, wrapped
+its middle in hues of glory too wonderful to be described; but beneath
+and above this glowing belt his feet and head were black as jet.
+Presently, as I watched, an awful flash of light shot from the head of
+the cloud, circled it about as though with a crown of living fire, and
+vanished.
+
+“Aha,” chuckled old Indaba-zimbi, “my little boy is putting on his
+man’s ring,” and he tapped the gum ring on his own head, which natives
+assume when they reach a certain age and dignity. “Now, white man,
+unless you are a bigger wizard than either of us you had better clear
+off, for the fire-fight is about to begin.”
+
+I thought this sound advice.
+
+“Good luck go with you, my black uncle,” I said. “I hope you don’t feel
+the iniquities of a mis-spent life weighing on you at the last.”
+
+“You look after yourself, and think of your own sins, young man,” he
+answered, with a grim smile, and taking a pinch of snuff, while at that
+very moment a flash of lightning, I don’t know from which storm, struck
+the ground within thirty paces of me. That was enough for me, I took to
+my heels, and as I went I heard old Indaba-zimbi’s dry chuckle of
+amusement.
+
+I climbed the hill till I came to where the chief was sitting with his
+indunas, or headmen, and sat down near to him. I looked at the man’s
+face and saw that he was intensely anxious for his son’s safety, and by
+no means confident of the young man’s powers to resist the magic of
+Indaba-zimbi. He was talking in a low voice to the induna next to him.
+I affected to take no notice and to be concentrating my attention on
+the novel scene before me; but in those days I had very quick ears, and
+caught the drift of the conversation.
+
+“Hearken!” the chief was saying, “if the magic of Indaba-zimbi prevails
+against my son I will endure him no more. Of this I am sure, that when
+he has slain my son he will slay me, me also, and make himself chief in
+my place. I fear Indaba-zimbi. _Ou!_”
+
+“Black One,” answered the induna, “wizards die as dogs die, and, once
+dead, dogs bark no more.”
+
+“And once dead,” said the chief, “wizards work no more spells,” and he
+bent and whispered in the induna’s ear, looking at the assegai in his
+hand as he whispered.
+
+“Good, my father, good!” said the induna, presently. “It shall be done
+to-night, if the lightning does not do it first.”
+
+“A bad look-out for old Indaba-zimbi,” I said to myself. “They mean to
+kill him.” Then I thought no more of the matter for a while, the scene
+before me was too tremendous.
+
+The two storms were rapidly rushing together. Between them was a gulf
+of blue sky, and from time to time flashes of blinding light passed
+across this gulf, leaping from cloud to cloud. I remember that they
+reminded me of the story of the heathen god Jove and his thunderbolts.
+The storm that was shaped like a giant and ringed with the glory of the
+sinking sun made an excellent Jove, and I am sure that the bolts which
+leapt from it could not have been surpassed even in mythological times.
+Oddly enough, as yet the flashes were not followed by thunder. A deadly
+stillness lay upon the place, the cattle stood silently on the
+hillside, even the natives were awed to silence. Dark shadows crept
+along the bosom of the hills, the river to the right and left was
+hidden in wreaths of cloud, but before us and beyond the combatants it
+shone like a line of silver beneath the narrowing space of open sky.
+Now the western tempest was scrawled all over with lines of intolerable
+light, while the inky head of the cloud-giant to the east was
+continually suffused with a white and deadly glow that came and went in
+pulses, as though a blood of flame was being pumped into it from the
+heart of the storm.
+
+The silence deepened and deepened, the shadows grew blacker and
+blacker, then suddenly all nature began to moan beneath the breath of
+an icy wind. On sped the wind; the smooth surface of the river was
+ruffled by it into little waves, the tall grass bowed low before it,
+and in its wake came the hissing sound of furious rain.
+
+Ah! the storms had met. From each there burst an awful blaze of
+dazzling flame, and now the hill on which we sat rocked at the noise of
+the following thunder. The light went out of the sky, darkness fell
+suddenly on the land, but not for long. Presently the whole landscape
+grew vivid in the flashes, it appeared and disappeared, now everything
+was visible for miles, now even the men at my side vanished in the
+blackness. The thunder rolled and cracked and pealed like the trump of
+doom, whirlwinds tore round, lifting dust and even stones high into the
+air, and in a low, continuous undertone rose the hiss of the rushing
+rain.
+
+I put my hand before my eyes to shield them from the terrible glare,
+and looked beneath it towards the lists of iron-stone. As flash
+followed flash, from time to time I caught sight of the two wizards.
+They were slowly advancing towards one another, each pointing at his
+foe with the assegai in his hand. I could see their every movement, and
+it seemed to me that the chain lightning was striking the iron-stone
+all round them.
+
+Suddenly the thunder and lightning ceased for a minute, everything grew
+black, and, except for the rain, silent.
+
+“It is over one way or the other, chief,” I called out into the
+darkness.
+
+“Wait, white man, wait!” answered the chief, in a voice thick with
+anxiety and fear.
+
+Hardly were the words out of his mouth when the heavens were lit up
+again till they literally seemed to flame. There were the men, not ten
+paces apart. A great flash fell between them, I saw them stagger
+beneath the shock. Indaba-zimbi recovered himself first—at any rate
+when the next flash came he was standing bolt upright, pointing with
+his assegai towards his enemy. The chief’s son was still on his legs,
+but he was staggering like a drunken man, and the assegai had fallen
+from his hand.
+
+Darkness! then again a flash, more fearful, if possible, than any that
+had gone before. To me it seemed to come from the east, right over the
+head of Indaba-zimbi. At that instant I saw the chief’s son wrapped, as
+it were, in the heart of it. Then the thunder pealed, the rain burst
+over us like a torrent, and I saw no more.
+
+The worst of the storm was done, but for a while the darkness was so
+dense that we could not move, nor, indeed, was I inclined to leave the
+safety of the hillside where the lightning was never known to strike,
+and venture down to the iron-stone. Occasionally there still came
+flashes, but, search as we would, we could see no trace of either of
+the wizards. For my part, I believed that they were both dead. Now the
+clouds slowly rolled away down the course of the river, and with them
+went the rain; and now the stars shone in their wake.
+
+“Let us go and see,” said the old chief, rising and shaking the water
+from his hair. “The fire-fight is ended, let us go and see who has
+conquered.”
+
+I rose and followed him, dripping as though I had swum a hundred yards
+with my clothes on, and after me came all the people of the kraal.
+
+We reached the spot; even in that light I could see where the
+iron-stone had been split and fused by the thunderbolts. While I was
+staring about me, I suddenly heard the chief, who was on my right, give
+a low moan, and saw the people cluster round him. I went up and looked.
+There, on the ground, lay the body of his son. It was a dreadful sight.
+The hair was burnt off his head, the copper rings upon his arms were
+fused, the assegai handle which lay near was literally shivered into
+threads, and, when I took hold of his arm, it seemed to me that every
+bone of it was broken.
+
+The men with the chief stood gazing silently, while the women wailed.
+
+“Great is the magic of Indaba-zimbi!” said a man, at length. The chief
+turned and struck him a heavy blow with the kerrie in his hand.
+
+“Great or not, thou dog, he shall die,” he cried, “and so shalt thou if
+thou singest his praises so loudly.”
+
+I said nothing, but thinking it probable that Indaba-zimbi had shared
+the fate of his enemy, I went to look. But I could see nothing of him,
+and at length, being thoroughly chilled with the wet, started back to
+my waggon to change my clothes. On reaching it, I was rather surprised
+to see a strange Kaffir seated on the driving-box wrapped up in a
+blanket.
+
+“Hullo! come out of that,” I said.
+
+The figure on the box slowly unrolled the blanket, and with great
+deliberation took a pinch of snuff.
+
+“It was a good fire-fight, white man, was it not?” said Indaba-zimbi,
+in his high, cracked voice. “But he never had a chance against me, poor
+boy. He knew nothing about it. See, white man, what becomes of
+presumption in the young. It is sad, very sad, but I made the flashes
+fly, didn’t I?”
+
+“You old humbug,” I said, “unless you are careful you will soon learn
+what comes of presumption in the old, for your chief is after you with
+an assegai, and it will take all your magic to dodge that.”
+
+“Now you don’t say so,” said Indaba-zimbi, clambering off the waggon
+with rapidity; “and all because of this wretched upstart. There’s
+gratitude for you, white man. I expose him, and they want to kill me.
+Well, thank you for the hint. We shall meet again before long,” and he
+was gone like a shot, and not too soon, for just then some of the
+chief’s men came up to the waggon.
+
+On the following morning I started homewards. The first face I saw on
+arriving at the station was that of Indaba-zimbi.
+
+“How do you do, Macumazahn?” he said, holding his head on one side and
+nodding his white lock. “I hear you are Christians here, and I want to
+try a new religion. Mine must be a bad one seeing that my people wanted
+to kill me for exposing an impostor.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+NORTHWARDS
+
+
+I make no apology to myself, or to anybody who may happen to read this
+narrative in future, for having set out the manner of my meeting with
+Indaba-zimbi: first, because it was curious, and secondly, because he
+takes some hand in the subsequent events. If that old man was a humbug,
+he was a very clever one. What amount of truth there was in his
+pretensions to supernatural powers it is not for me to determine,
+though I may have my own opinion on the subject. But there was no
+mistake as to the extraordinary influence he exercised over his
+fellow-natives. Also he quite got round my poor father. At first the
+old gentleman declined to have him at the station, for he had a great
+horror of these Kaffir wizards or witch-finders. But Indaba-zimbi
+persuaded him that he was anxious to investigate the truths of
+Christianity, and challenged him to a discussion. The argument lasted
+two years—to the time of my father’s death, indeed. At the conclusion
+of each stage Indaba-zimbi would remark, in the words of the Roman
+Governor, “Almost, praying white man, thou persuadest me to become a
+Christian,” but he never quite became one—indeed, I do not think he
+ever meant to. It was to him that my father addressed his “Letters to a
+Native Doubter.” This work, which, unfortunately, remains in
+manuscript, is full of wise saws and learned instances. It ought to be
+published together with a _précis_ of the doubter’s answers, which were
+verbal.
+
+So the talk went on. If my father had lived I believe it would be going
+on now, for both the disputants were quite inexhaustible. Meanwhile
+Indaba-zimbi was allowed to live on the station on condition that he
+practised no witchcraft, which my father firmly believed to be a wile
+of the devil. He said that he would not, but for all that there was
+never an ox lost, or a sudden death, but he was consulted by those
+interested.
+
+When he had been with us a year, a deputation came to him from the
+tribe he had left, asking him to return. Things had not gone well with
+them since he went away, they said, and now the chief, his enemy, was
+dead. Old Indaba-zimbi listened to them till they had done, and, as he
+listened, raked sand into a little heap with his toes. Then he spoke,
+pointing to the little heap, “There is your tribe to-day,” he said.
+Then he lifted his heel and stamped the heap flat. “There is your tribe
+before three moons are gone. Nothing is left of it. You drove me away:
+I will have no more to do with you; but when you are being killed think
+of my words.”
+
+The messengers went. Three months afterwards I heard that the whole
+community had been wiped out by an Impi of raiding Pondos.
+
+When I was at length ready to start upon my expedition, I went to old
+Indaba-zimbi to say good-bye to him, and was rather surprised to find
+him engaged in rolling up medicine, assegais, and other sundries in his
+blankets.
+
+“Good-bye, Indaba-zimbi,” I said, “I am going to trek north.”
+
+“Yes, Macumazahn,” he answered, with his head on one side; “and so am
+I—I want to see that country. We will go together.”
+
+“Will we!” I said; “wait till you are asked, you old humbug.”
+
+“You had better ask me, then, Macumazahn, for if you don’t you will
+never come back alive. Now that the old chief (my father) is gone to
+where the storms come from,” and he nodded to the sky, “I feel myself
+getting into bad habits again. So last night I just threw up the bones
+and worked out about your journey, and I can tell you this, that if you
+don’t take me you will die, and, what is more, you will lose one who is
+dearer to you than life in a strange fashion. So just because you gave
+me that hint a couple of years ago, I made up my mind to come with
+you.”
+
+“Don’t talk stuff to me,” I said.
+
+“Ah, very well, Macumazahn, very well; but what happened to my own
+people six months ago, and what did I tell the messengers would happen?
+They drove me away, and they are gone. If you drive me away you will
+soon be gone too,” and he nodded his white lock at me and smiled. Now I
+was not more superstitious than other people, but somehow old
+Indaba-zimbi impressed me. Also I knew his extraordinary influence over
+every class of native, and bethought me that he might be useful in that
+way.
+
+“All right,” I said: “I appoint you witch-finder to the expedition
+without pay.”
+
+“First serve, then ask for wages,” he answered. “I am glad to see that
+you have enough imagination not to be altogether a fool, like most
+white men, Macumazahn. Yes, yes, it is want of imagination that makes
+people fools; they won’t believe what they can’t understand. You can’t
+understand my prophecies any more than the fool at the kraal could
+understand that I was his master with the lightning. Well, it is time
+to trek, but if I were you, Macumazahn, I should take one waggon, not
+two.”
+
+“Why?” I said.
+
+“Because you will lose your waggons, and it is better to lose one than
+two.”
+
+“Oh, nonsense!” I said.
+
+“All right, Macumazahn, live and learn.” And without another word he
+walked to the foremost waggon, put his bundle into it, and climbed on
+to the front seat.
+
+So having bid an affectionate adieu to my white friends, including the
+old Scotchman who got drunk in honour of the event, and quoted Burns
+till the tears ran down his face, at length I started, and travelled
+slowly northwards. For the first three weeks nothing very particular
+befell me. Such Kaffirs as we came in contact with were friendly, and
+game literally swarmed. Nobody living in those parts of South Africa
+nowadays can have the remotest idea of what the veldt was like even
+thirty years ago.
+
+Often and often I have crept shivering on to my waggon-box just as the
+sun rose and looked out. At first one would see nothing but a vast
+field of white mist suffused towards the east by a tremulous golden
+glow, through which the tops of stony koppies stood up like gigantic
+beacons. From the dense mist would come strange sounds—snorts,
+gruntings, bellows, and the thunder of countless hoofs. Presently this
+great curtain would grow thinner, then it would melt, as the smoke from
+a pipe melts into the air, and for miles on miles the wide rolling
+country interspersed with bush opened to the view. But it was not
+tenantless as it is now, for as far as the eye could reach it would be
+literally black with game. Here to the right might be a herd of
+vilderbeeste that could not number less than two thousand. Some were
+grazing, some gambolled, whisking their white tails into the air, while
+all round the old bulls stood upon hillocks sniffing suspiciously at
+the breeze. There, in front, a hundred yards away, though to the
+unpractised eye they looked much closer, because of the dazzling
+clearness of the atmosphere, was a great herd of springbok trekking
+along in single file. Ah, they have come to the waggon-track and do not
+like the look of it. What will they do?—go back? Not a bit of it. It is
+nearly thirty feet wide, but that is nothing to a springbok. See, the
+first of them bounds into the air like a ball. How beautifully the
+sunshine gleams upon his golden hide! He has cleared it, and the others
+come after him in numberless succession, all except the fawns, who
+cannot jump so far, and have to scamper over the doubtful path with a
+terrified _bah_. What is that yonder, moving above the tops of the
+mimosa, in the little dell at the foot of the koppie? Giraffes, by
+George! three of them; there will be marrow-bones for supper to-night.
+Hark! the ground shakes behind us, and over the brow of the rise rush a
+vast herd of blesbock. On they come at full gallop, their long heads
+held low, they look like so many bearded goats. I thought so—behind
+them is a pack of wild dogs, their fur draggled, their tongues lolling.
+They are in full cry; the giraffes hear them and are away, rolling
+round the koppie like a ship in a heavy sea. No marrow-bones after all.
+See! the foremost dogs are close on a buck. He has galloped far and is
+outworn. One springs at his flank and misses him. The buck gives a kind
+of groan, looks wildly round and sees the waggon. He seems to hesitate
+a moment, then in his despair rushes up to it, and falls exhausted
+among the oxen. The dogs pull up some thirty paces away, panting and
+snarling. Now, boy, the gun—no, not the rifle, the shot-gun loaded with
+loopers.
+
+Bang! bang! there, my friends, two of you will never hunt buck again.
+No, don’t touch the buck, for he has come to us for shelter, and he
+shall have it.
+
+Ah, how beautiful is nature before man comes to spoil it!
+
+Such a sight as this have I seen many a hundred times, and I hope to
+see it again before I die.
+
+The first real adventure that befell me on this particular journey was
+with elephants, which I will relate because of its curious termination.
+Just before we crossed the Orange River we came to a stretch of
+forest-land some twenty miles broad. The night we entered this forest
+we camped in a lovely open glade. A few yards ahead tambouki grass was
+growing to the height of a man, or rather it had been; now, with the
+exception of a few stalks here and there, it was crushed quite flat. It
+was already dusk when we camped; but after the moon got up I walked
+from the fire to see how this had happened. One glance was enough for
+me; a great herd of elephants had evidently passed over the tall grass
+not many hours before. The sight of their spoor rejoiced me
+exceedingly, for though I had seen wild elephants, at that time I had
+never shot one. Moreover, the sight of elephant spoor to the African
+hunter is what “colour in the pan” is to the prospector of gold. It is
+by the ivory that he lives, and to shoot it or trade it is his chief
+aim in life. My resolution was soon taken. I would camp the waggons for
+a while in the forest, and start on horseback after the elephants.
+
+I communicated my decision to Indaba-zimbi and the other Kaffirs. The
+latter were not loth, for your Kaffir loves hunting, which means plenty
+of meat and congenial occupation, but Indaba-zimbi would express no
+opinion. I saw him retire to a little fire that he had lit for himself,
+and go through some mysterious performances with bones and clay mixed
+with ashes, which were watched with the greatest interest by the other
+Kaffirs. At length he rose, and, coming forward, informed me that it
+was all right, and that I did well to go and hunt the elephants, as I
+should get plenty of ivory; but he advised me to go on foot. I said I
+should do nothing of the sort, but meant to ride. I am wiser now; this
+was the first and last time that I ever attempted to hunt elephants on
+horseback.
+
+Accordingly we started at dawn, I, Indaba-zimbi, and three men; the
+rest I left with the waggons. I was on horseback, and so was my driver,
+a good rider and a skilful shot for a Kaffir, but Indaba-zimbi and the
+others walked. From dawn till mid-day we followed the trail of the
+herd, which was as plain as a high road. Then we off-saddled to let the
+horses rest and feed, and about three o’clock started on again. Another
+hour or so passed, and still there was no sign of elephants. Evidently
+the herd had travelled fast and far, and I began to think that we
+should have to give it up, when suddenly I caught sight of a brown mass
+moving through the thorn-trees on the side of a slope about a quarter
+of a mile away. My heart seemed to jump into my mouth. Where is the
+hunter who has not felt like this at the sight of his first elephant?
+
+I called a halt, and then the wind being right, we set to work to stalk
+the bull. Very quietly I rode down the hither side of the slope till we
+came to the bottom, which was densely covered with bush. Here I saw the
+elephants had been feeding, for broken branches and upturned trees lay
+all about. I did not take much notice, however, for all my thoughts
+were fixed upon the bull I was stalking, when suddenly my horse gave a
+violent start that nearly threw me from the saddle, and there came a
+mighty rush and upheaval of something in front of me. I looked: there
+was the hinder part of a second bull elephant not four yards off. I
+could just catch sight of its outstretched ears projecting on either
+side. I had disturbed it sleeping, and it was running away.
+
+Obviously the best thing to do would have been to let it run, but I was
+young in those days and foolish, and in the excitement of the moment I
+lifted my “roer” or elephant gun and fired at the great brute over my
+horse’s head. The recoil of the heavy gun nearly knocked me off the
+horse. I recovered myself, however, and, as I did so, saw the bull
+lurch forward, for the impact of a three-ounce bullet in the flank will
+quicken the movement even of an elephant. By this time I had realized
+the folly of the shot, and devoutly hoped that the bull would take no
+further notice of it. But he took a different view of the matter.
+Pulling himself up in a series of plunges, he spun round and came for
+me with outstretched ears and uplifted trunk, screaming terribly. I was
+quite defenceless, for my gun was empty, and my first thought was of
+escape. I dug my heels into the sides of my horse, but he would not
+move an inch. The poor animal was paralyzed with terror, and he simply
+stood still, his fore-legs outstretched, and quivering all over like a
+leaf.
+
+On rushed the elephant, awful to see; I made one more vain effort to
+stir the horse. Now the trunk of the great bull swung aloft above my
+head. A thought flashed through my brain. Quick as light I rolled from
+the saddle. By the side of the horse lay a fallen tree, as thick
+through as a man’s body. The tree was lifted a little off the ground by
+the broken boughs which took its weight, and with a single movement, so
+active is one in such necessities, I flung myself beneath it. As I did
+so, I heard the trunk of the elephant descend with a mighty thud on the
+back of my poor horse, and the next instant I was almost in darkness,
+for the horse, whose back was broken, fell over across the tree under
+which I lay ensconced. But he did not stop there long. In ten seconds
+more the bull had wound his trunk about my dead nag’s neck, and, with a
+mighty effort, hurled him clear of the tree. I wriggled backwards as
+far as I could towards the roots of the tree, for I knew what he was
+after. Presently I saw the red tip of the bull’s trunk stretching
+itself towards me. If he could manage to hook it round any part of me I
+was lost. But in the position I occupied, that was just what he could
+not do, although he knelt down to facilitate his operations. On came
+the snapping tip like a great open-mouthed snake; it closed upon my
+hat, which vanished. Again it was thrust down, and a scream of rage was
+bellowed through it within four inches of my head. Now it seemed to
+elongate itself. Oh, heavens! now it had me by the hair, which, luckily
+for myself, was not very long. Then it was my turn to scream, for next
+instant half a square inch of hair was dragged from my scalp by the
+roots. I was being plucked alive, as I have seen cruel Kaffir kitchen
+boys pluck a fowl.
+
+The elephant, however, disappointed with these moderate results,
+changed his tactics. He wound his trunk round the fallen tree and
+lifted. The tree stirred, but fortunately the broken branches embedded
+in the spongy soil, and some roots, which still held, prevented it from
+being turned over, though he lifted it so much that, had it occurred to
+him, he could now easily have drawn me out with his trunk. Again he
+hoisted with all his mighty strength, and I saw that the tree was
+coming, and roared aloud for help. Some shots were fired close by in
+answer, but if they hit the bull, their only effect was to stir his
+energies to more active life. In another few seconds my shelter would
+be torn away, and I should be done for. A cold perspiration burst out
+over me as I realized that I was lost. Then of a sudden I remembered
+that I had a pistol in my belt, which I often used for despatching
+wounded game. It was loaded and capped. By this time the tree was
+lifted so much that I could easily get my hand down to my middle and
+draw the pistol from its case. I drew and cocked it. Now the tree was
+coming over, and there, within three feet of my head, was the great
+brown trunk of the elephant. I placed the muzzle of the pistol within
+an inch of it and fired. The result was instantaneous. Down sunk the
+tree again, giving one of my legs a considerable squeeze, and next
+instant I heard a crashing sound. The elephant had bolted.
+
+By this time, what between fright and struggling, I was pretty well
+tired. I cannot remember how I got from under the fallen tree, or
+indeed anything, until I found myself sitting on the ground drinking
+some peach brandy from a flask, and old Indaba-zimbi opposite to me
+nodding his white lock sagely, while he fired off moral reflections on
+the narrowness of my escape, and my unwisdom in not having taken his
+advice to go on foot. That reminded me of my horse—I got up and went to
+look at it. It was quite dead, the blow of the elephant’s trunk had
+fallen on the saddle, breaking the framework, and rendering it useless.
+I reflected that in another two seconds it would have fallen on _me_.
+Then I called to Indaba-zimbi and asked which way the elephants had
+gone.
+
+“There!” he said, pointing down the gully, “and we had better go after
+them, Macumazahn. We have had the bad luck, now for the good.”
+
+There was philosophy in this, though, to tell the truth, I did not feel
+particularly sharp set on elephants at the moment. I seemed to have had
+enough of them. However, it would never do to show the white feather
+before the boys, so I assented with much outward readiness, and we
+started, I on the second horse, and the others on foot. When we had
+travelled for the best part of an hour down the valley, all of a sudden
+we came upon the whole herd, which numbered a little more than eighty.
+Just in front of them the bush was so thick that they seemed to
+hesitate about entering it, and the sides of the valley were so rocky
+and steep at this point that they could not climb them.
+
+They saw us at the same moment as we saw them, and inwardly I was
+filled with fears lest they should take it into their heads to charge
+back up the gully. But they did not; trumpeting aloud, they rushed at
+the thick bush which went down before them like corn before a sickle. I
+do not think that in all my experiences I ever heard anything to equal
+the sound they made as they crashed through and over the shrubs and
+trees. Before them was a dense forest belt from a hundred to a hundred
+and fifty feet in width. As they rushed on, it fell, so that behind
+them was nothing but a level roadway strewed with fallen trunks,
+crushed branches, and here and there a tree, too strong even for them,
+left stranded amid the wreck. On they went, and, notwithstanding the
+nature of the ground over which they had to travel, they kept their
+distance ahead of us. This sort of thing continued for a mile or more,
+and then I saw that in front of the elephants the valley opened into a
+space covered with reeds and grass—it might have been five or six acres
+in extent—beyond which the valley ran on again.
+
+The herd reached the edge of this expanse, and for a moment pulled up,
+hesitating—evidently they mistrusted it. My men yelled aloud, as only
+Kaffirs can, and that settled them. Headed by the wounded bull, whose
+martial ardour, like my own, was somewhat cooled, they spread out and
+dashed into the treacherous swamp—for such it was, though just then
+there was no water to be seen. For a few yards all went well with them,
+though they clearly found it heavy going; then suddenly the great bull
+sank up to his belly in the stiff peaty soil, and remained fixed. The
+others, mad with fear, took no heed of his struggles and trumpetings,
+but plunged on to meet the same fate. In five minutes the whole herd of
+them were hopelessly bogged, and the more they struggled to escape, the
+deeper they sunk. There was one exception, indeed, a cow managed to win
+back to firm shore, and, lifting her trunk, prepared to charge us as we
+came up. But at that moment she heard the scream of her calf, and
+rushed back to its assistance, only to be bogged with the others.
+
+Such a scene I never saw before or since. The swamp was spotted all
+over with the large forms of the elephants, and the air rang with their
+screams of rage and terror as they waved their trunks wildly to and
+fro. Now and then a monster would make a great effort and drag his mass
+from its peaty bed, only to stick fast again at the next step. It was a
+most pitiable sight, though one that gladdened the hearts of my men.
+Even the best natives have little compassion for the sufferings of
+animals.
+
+Well, the rest was easy. The marsh that would not bear the elephants
+carried our weight well enough. Before midnight all were dead, for we
+shot them by moonlight. I would gladly have spared the young ones and
+some of the cows, but to do so would only have meant leaving them to
+perish of hunger; it was kinder to kill them at once. The wounded bull
+I slew with my own hand, and I cannot say that I felt much compunction
+in so doing. He knew me again, and made a desperate effort to get at
+me, but I am glad to say that the peat held him fast.
+
+The pan presented a curious sight when the sun rose next morning. Owing
+to the support given by the soil, few of the dead elephants had fallen:
+there they stood as though they were asleep.
+
+I sent back for the waggons, and when they arrived on the morrow,
+formed a camp, about a mile away from the pan. Then began the work of
+cutting out the elephants’ tusks; it took over a week, and for obvious
+reasons was a disgusting task. Indeed, had it not been for the help of
+some wandering bushmen, who took their pay in elephant meat, I do not
+think we could ever have managed it.
+
+At last it was done. The ivory was far too cumbersome for us to carry,
+so we buried it, having first got rid of our bushmen allies. My boys
+wanted me to go back to the Cape with it and sell it, but I was too
+much bent on my journey to do this. The tusks lay buried for five
+years. Then I came and dug them up; they were but little harmed.
+Ultimately I sold the ivory for something over twelve hundred
+pounds—not bad pay for one day’s shooting.
+
+This was how I began my career as an elephant hunter. I have shot many
+hundreds of them since, but have never again attempted to do so on
+horseback.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+THE ZULU IMPI
+
+
+After burying the elephant tusks, and having taken careful notes of the
+bearings and peculiarities of the country so that I might be able to
+find the spot again, we proceeded on our journey. For a month or more I
+trekked along the line which now divides the Orange Free State from
+Griqualand West, and the Transvaal from Bechuanaland. The only
+difficulties met with were such as are still common to African
+travellers—occasional want of water and troubles about crossing sluits
+and rivers. I remember that I outspanned on the spot where Kimberley
+now stands, and had to press on again in a hurry because there was no
+water. I little dreamed then that I should live to see Kimberley a
+great city producing millions of pounds worth of diamonds annually, and
+old Indaba-zimbi’s magic cannot have been worth so much after all, or
+he would have told me.
+
+I found the country almost entirely depopulated. Not very long before
+Mosilikatze the Lion, Chaka’s General had swept across it in his
+progress towards what is now Matabeleland. His footsteps were evident
+enough. Time upon time I trekked up to what had evidently been the
+sites of Kaffir kraals. Now the kraals were ashes and piles of tumbled
+stones, and strewn about among the rank grass were the bones of
+hundreds of men, women, and children, all of whom had kissed the Zulu
+assegai. I remember that in one of these desolate places I found the
+skull of a child in which a ground-lark had built its nest. It was the
+twittering of the young birds inside that first called my attention to
+it. Shortly after this we met with our second great adventure, a much
+more serious and tragic one than the first.
+
+We were trekking parallel with the Kolong river when a herd of blesbock
+crossed the track. I fired at one of them and hit it behind. It
+galloped about a hundred yards with the rest of the herd, then lay
+down. As we were in want of meat, not having met with any game for a
+few days past, I jumped on to my horse, and, telling Indaba-zimbi that
+I would overtake the waggons or meet them on the further side of a rise
+about an hour’s trek away, I started after the wounded buck. As soon as
+I came within a hundred yards of it, however, it jumped up and ran away
+as fast as though it were untouched, only to lie down again at a
+distance. I followed, thinking that strength would soon fail it. This
+happened three times. On the third occasion it vanished behind a ridge,
+and, though by now I was out of both temper and patience, I thought I
+might as well ride to the crest and see if I could get a shot at it on
+the further side.
+
+I reached the ridge, which was strewn with stones, looked over it, and
+saw—a Zulu Impi!
+
+I rubbed my eyes and looked again. Yes, there was no doubt of it. They
+were halted about a thousand yards away, by the water; some were lying
+down, some were cooking at fires, others were stalking about with
+spears and shields in their hands; there might have been two thousand
+or more of them in all. While I was wondering—and that with no little
+uneasiness—what on earth they could be doing there, suddenly I heard a
+wild cry to the right and left of me. I glanced first one way, then the
+other. From either side a great Zulu was bearing down on me, their
+broad stabbing assegais aloft, and black shields in their left hands.
+The man to the right was about fifteen yards away, he to the left was
+not more than ten. On they came, their fierce eyes almost starting out
+of their heads, and I felt, with a cold thrill of fear, that in another
+three seconds those broad “bangwans” might be buried in my vitals. On
+such occasions we act, I suppose, more from instinct than from anything
+else—there is no time for thought. At any rate, I dropped the reins
+and, raising my gun, fired point blank at the left-hand man. The bullet
+struck him in the middle of his shield, pierced it, and passed through
+him, and over he rolled upon the veldt. I swung round in the saddle;
+most happily my horse was accustomed to standing still when I fired
+from his back, also he was so surprised that he did not know which way
+to shy. The other savage was almost on me; his outstretched shield
+reached the muzzle of my gun as I pulled the trigger of the left
+barrel. It exploded, the warrior sprung high into the air, and fell
+against my horse dead, his spear passing just in front of my face.
+
+Without waiting to reload, or even to look if the main body of the
+Zulus had seen the death of their two scouts, I turned my horse and
+drove my heels into his sides. As soon as I was down the slope of the
+rise I pulled a little to the right in order to intercept the waggons
+before the Zulus saw them. I had not gone three hundred yards in this
+new direction when, to my utter astonishment, I struck a trail marked
+with waggon-wheels and the hoofs of oxen. Of waggons there must have
+been at least eight, and several hundred cattle. Moreover, they had
+passed within twelve hours; I could tell that by the spoor. Then I
+understood; the Impi was following the track of the waggons, which, in
+all probability, belonged to a party of emigrant Boers.
+
+The spoor of the waggons ran in the direction I wished to go, so I
+followed it. About a mile further on I came to the crest of a rise, and
+there, about five furlongs away, I saw the waggons drawn up in a rough
+laager upon the banks of the river. There, too, were my own waggons
+trekking down the slope towards them.
+
+In another five minutes I was there. The Boers—for Boers they were—were
+standing about outside the little laager watching the approach of my
+two waggons. I called to them, and they turned and saw me. The very
+first man my eyes fell on was a Boer named Hans Botha, whom I had known
+well years ago in the Cape. He was not a bad specimen of his class, but
+a very restless person, with a great objection to authority, or, as he
+expressed it, “a love of freedom.” He had joined a party of the
+emigrant Boers some years before, but, as I learned presently, had
+quarrelled with its leader, and was now trekking away into the
+wilderness to found a little colony of his own. Poor fellow! It was his
+last trek.
+
+“How do you do, Meinheer Botha?” I said to him in Dutch.
+
+The man looked at me, looked again, then, startled out of his Dutch
+stolidity, cried to his wife, who was seated on the box of the waggon—
+
+“Come here, Frau, come. Here is Allan Quatermain, the Englishman, the
+son of the ‘Predicant.’ How goes it, Heer Quatermain, and what is the
+news down in the Cape yonder?”
+
+“I don’t know what the news is in the Cape, Hans,” I answered,
+solemnly; “but the news here is that there is a Zulu Impi upon your
+spoor and within two miles of the waggons. That I know, for I have just
+shot two of their sentries,” and I showed him my empty gun.
+
+For a moment there was a silence of astonishment, and I saw the bronzed
+faces of the men turn pale beneath their tan, while one or two of the
+women gave a little scream, and the children crept to their sides.
+
+“Almighty!” cried Hans, “that must be the Umtetwa Regiment that Dingaan
+sent against the Basutus, but who could not come at them because of the
+marshes, and so were afraid to return to Zululand, and struck north to
+join Mosilikatze.”
+
+“Laager up, Carles! Laager up for your lives, and one of you jump on a
+horse and drive in the cattle.”
+
+At this moment my own waggons came up. Indaba-zimbi was sitting on the
+box of the first, wrapped in a blanket. I called him and told him the
+news.
+
+“Ill tidings, Macumazahn,” he said; “there will be dead Boers about
+to-morrow morning, but they will not attack till dawn, then they will
+wipe out the laager _so!_” and he passed his hand before his mouth.
+
+“Stop that croaking, you white-headed crow,” I said, though I knew his
+words were true. What chance had a laager of ten waggons all told
+against at least two thousand of the bravest savages in the world?
+
+“Macumazahn, will you take my advice this time?” Indaba-zimbi said,
+presently.
+
+“What is it?” I asked.
+
+“This. Leave your waggons here, jump on that horse, and let us two run
+for it as hard as we can go. The Zulus won’t follow us, they will be
+looking after the Boers.”
+
+“I won’t leave the other white men,” I said; “it would be the act of a
+coward. If I die, I die.”
+
+“Very well, Macumazahn, then stay and be killed,” he answered, taking a
+pinch of snuff. “Come, let us see about the waggons,” and we walked
+towards the laager.
+
+Here everything was in confusion. However, I got hold of Hans Botha and
+put it to him if it would not be best to desert the waggons and make a
+run for it.
+
+“How can we do it?” he answered; “two of the women are too fat to go a
+mile, one is sick in childbed, and we have only six horses among us.
+Besides, if we did we should starve in the desert. No, Heer Allan, we
+must fight it out with the savages, and God help us!”
+
+“God help us, indeed. Think of the children, Hans!”
+
+“I can’t bear to think,” he answered, in a broken voice, looking at his
+own little girl, a sweet, curly-haired, blue-eyed child of six, named
+Tota, whom I had often nursed as a baby. “Oh, Heer Allan, your father,
+the Predicant, always warned me against trekking north, and I never
+would listen to him because I thought him a cursed Englishman; now I
+see my folly. Heer Allan, if you can, try to save my child from those
+black devils; if you live longer than I do, or if you can’t save her,
+kill her,” and he clasped my hand.
+
+“It hasn’t come to that yet, Hans,” I said.
+
+Then we set to work on the laager. The waggons, of which, including my
+two, there were ten, were drawn into the form of a square, and the
+disselboom of each securely lashed with reims to the underworks of that
+in front of it. The wheels also were locked, and the space between the
+ground and the bed-planks of the waggons was stuffed with branches of
+the “wait-a-bit” thorn that fortunately grew near in considerable
+quantities. In this way a barrier was formed of no mean strength as
+against a foe unprovided with firearms, places being left for the men
+to fire from. In a little over an hour everything was done that could
+be done, and a discussion arose as to the disposal of the cattle, which
+had been driven up close to the camp. Some of the Boers were anxious to
+get them into the laager, small as it was, or at least as many of them
+as it would hold. I argued strongly against this, pointing out that the
+brutes would probably be seized with panic as soon as the firing began,
+and trample the defenders of the laager under foot. As an alternative
+plan I suggested that some of the native servants should drive the herd
+along the valley of the river till they reached a friendly tribe or
+some other place of safety. Of course, if the Zulus saw them they would
+be taken, but the nature of the ground was favourable, and it was
+possible that they might escape if they started at once. The
+proposition was promptly agreed to, and, what is more, it was settled
+that one Dutchman and such of the women and children as could travel
+should go with them. In half an hour’s time twelve of them started with
+the natives, the Boer in charge, and the cattle. Three of my own men
+went with the latter, the three others and Indaba-zimbi stopped with me
+in the laager.
+
+The parting was a heart-breaking scene, upon which I do not care to
+dwell. The women wept, the men groaned, and the children looked on with
+scared white faces. At length they were gone, and I for one was
+thankful of it. There remained in the laager seventeen white men, four
+natives, the two Boer fraus who were too stout to travel, the woman in
+childbed and her baby, and Hans Botha’s little daughter Tota, whom he
+could not make up his mind to part with. Happily her mother was already
+dead. And here I may state that ten of the women and children, together
+with about half of the cattle, escaped. The Zulu Impi never saw them,
+and on the third day of travel they came to the fortified place of a
+Griqua chief, who sheltered them on receiving half the cattle in
+payment. Thence by slow degrees they journeyed down to the Cape Colony,
+reaching a civilized region within a little more than a year from the
+date of the attack on the laager.
+
+The afternoon was now drawing towards evening, but still there were no
+signs of the Impi. A wild hope struck us that they might have gone on
+about their business. Ever since Indaba-zimbi had heard that the
+regiment was supposed to belong to the Umtetwa tribe, he had, I
+noticed, been plunged in deep thought. Presently he came to me and
+volunteered to go out and spy upon their movements. At first Hans Botha
+was against this idea, saying that he was a “verdomde swartzel”—an
+accursed black creature—and would betray us. I pointed out that there
+was nothing to betray. The Zulus must know where the waggons were, but
+it was important for us to gain information of their movements. So it
+was agreed that Indaba-zimbi should go. I told him this. He nodded his
+white lock, said “All right, Macumazahn,” and started. I noticed with
+some surprise, however, that before he did so he went to the waggon and
+fetched his “mouti,” or medicine, which, together with his other
+magical apparatus, he always carried in a skin bag. I asked him why he
+did this. He answered that it was to make himself invulnerable against
+the spears of the Zulus. I did not in the least believe his
+explanation, for in my heart I was sure that he meant to take the
+opportunity to make a bolt of it, leaving me to my fate. I did not,
+however, interfere to prevent this, for I had an affection for the old
+fellow, and sincerely hoped that he might escape the doom which
+overshadowed us.
+
+So Indaba-zimbi sauntered off, and as I looked at his retreating form I
+thought I should never see it again. But I was mistaken, and little
+knew that he was risking his life, not for the Boers whom he hated one
+and all, but for me whom in his queer way he loved.
+
+When he had gone we completed our preparations for defence,
+strengthening the waggons and the thorns beneath with earth and stones.
+Then at sunset we ate and drank as heartily as we could under the
+circumstances, and when we had done, Hans Botha, as head of the party,
+offered up prayer to God for our preservation. It was a touching sight
+to see the burly Dutchman, his hat off, his broad face lit up by the
+last rays of the setting sun, praying aloud in homely, simple language
+to Him who alone could save us from the spears of a cruel foe. I
+remember that the last sentence of his prayer was, “Almighty, if we
+must be killed, save the women and children and my little girl Tota
+from the accursed Zulus, and do not let us be tortured.”
+
+I echoed the request very earnestly in my own heart, that I know, for
+in common with the others I was dreadfully afraid, and it must be
+admitted not without reason.
+
+Then the darkness came on, and we took up our appointed places each
+with a rifle in his hands and peered out into the gloom in silence.
+Occasionally one of the Boers would light his pipe with a brand from
+the smouldering fire, and the glow of it would shine for a few moments
+on his pale, anxious face.
+
+Behind me one of the stout “fraus” lay upon the ground. Even the terror
+of our position could not keep her heavy eyes from their accustomed
+sleep, and she snored loudly. On the further side of her, just by the
+fire, lay little Tota, wrapped in a kaross. She was asleep also, her
+thumb in her mouth, and from time to time her father would come to look
+at her.
+
+So the hours wore on while we waited for the Zulus. But from my
+intimate knowledge of the habits of natives I had little fear that they
+would attack us at night, though, had they done so, they could have
+compassed our destruction with but small loss to themselves. It is not
+the habit of this people, they like to fight in the light of day—at
+dawn for preference.
+
+About eleven o’clock, just as I was nodding a little at my post, I
+heard a low whistle outside the laager. Instantly I was wide awake, and
+all along the line I heard the clicking of locks as the Boers cocked
+their guns.
+
+“Macumazahn,” said a voice, the voice of Indaba-zimbi, “are you there?”
+
+“Yes,” I answered.
+
+“Then hold a light so that I can see how to climb into the laager,” he
+said.
+
+“Yah! yah! hold a light,” put in one of the Boers. “I don’t trust that
+black schepsel of yours, Heer Quatermain; he may have some of his
+countrymen with him.” Accordingly a lantern was produced and held
+towards the voice. There was Indaba-zimbi alone. We let him into the
+laager and asked him the news.
+
+“This is the news, white men,” he said. “I waited till dark, and
+creeping up to the place where the Zulus are encamped, hid myself
+behind a stone and listened. They are a great regiment of Umtetwas as
+Baas Botha yonder thought. They struck the spoor of the waggons three
+days ago and followed it. To-night they sleep upon their spears,
+to-morrow at daybreak they will attack the laager and kill everybody.
+They are very bitter against the Boers, because of the battle at Blood
+River and the other fights, and that is why they followed the waggons
+instead of going straight north after Mosilikatze.”
+
+A kind of groan went up from the group of listening Dutchmen.
+
+“I tell you what it is, Heeren,” I said, “instead of waiting to be
+butchered here like buck in a pitfall, let us go out now and fall upon
+the Impi while it sleeps.”
+
+This proposition excited some discussion, but in the end only one man
+could be found to vote for it. Boers as a rule lack that dash which
+makes great soldiers; such forlorn hopes are not in their line, and
+rather than embark upon them they prefer to take their chance in a
+laager, however poor that chance may be. For my own part I firmly
+believe that had my advice been taken we should have routed the Zulus.
+Seventeen desperate white men, armed with guns, would have produced no
+small effect upon a camp of sleeping savages. But it was not taken, so
+it is no use talking about it.
+
+After that we went back to our posts, and slowly the weary night wore
+on towards the dawn. Only those who have watched under similar
+circumstances while they waited the advent of almost certain and cruel
+death, can know the torturing suspense of those heavy hours. But they
+went somehow, and at last in the far east the sky began to lighten,
+while the cold breath of dawn stirred the tilts of the waggons and
+chilled me to the bone. The fat Dutchwoman behind me woke with a yawn,
+then, remembering all, moaned aloud, while her teeth chattered with
+cold and fear. Hans Botha went to his waggon and got a bottle of peach
+brandy, from which he poured into a tin pannikin, giving us each a
+stiff dram, and making attempts to be cheerful as he did so. But his
+affected jocularity only seemed to depress his comrades the more.
+Certainly it depressed me.
+
+Now the light was growing, and we could see some way into the mist
+which still hung densely over the river, and now—ah! there it was. From
+the other side of the hill, a thousand yards or more from the laager,
+came a faint humming sound. It grew and grew till it gathered to a
+chant—the awful war chant of the Zulus. Soon I could catch the words.
+They were simple enough:
+
+“We shall slay, we shall slay! Is it not so, my brothers?
+Our spears shall blush blood-red. Is it not so, my brothers?
+For we are the sucklings of Chaka, blood is our milk, my brothers.
+Awake, children of the Umtetwa, awake!
+The vulture wheels, the jackal sniffs the air;
+Awake, children of the Umtetwa—cry aloud, ye ringed men:
+There is the foe, we shall slay them. Is it not so, my brothers?
+_S’gee! S’gee! S’gee!_”
+
+
+Such is a rough translation of that hateful chant which to this very
+day I often seem to hear. It does not look particularly imposing on
+paper, but if, while he waited to be killed, the reader could have
+heard it as it rolled through the still air from the throats of nearly
+three thousand warriors singing all to time, he would have found it
+impressive enough.
+
+Now the shields began to appear over the brow of the rise. They came by
+companies, each company about ninety strong. Altogether there were
+thirty-one companies. I counted them. When all were over they formed
+themselves into a triple line, then trotted down the slope towards us.
+At a distance of a hundred and fifty yards or just out of the shot of
+such guns as we had in those days, they halted and began singing again—
+
+“Yonder is the kraal of the white man—a little kraal, my brothers;
+We shall eat it up, we shall trample it flat, my brothers.
+But where are the white man’s cattle—where are his oxen, my brothers?”
+
+
+This question seemed to puzzle them a good deal, for they sang the song
+again and again. At last a herald came forward, a great man with ivory
+rings about his arm, and, putting his hands to his mouth, called out to
+us asking where our cattle were.
+
+Hans Botha climbed on to the top of a waggon and roared out that they
+might answer that question themselves.
+
+Then the herald called again, saying that he saw the cattle had been
+sent away.
+
+“We shall go and find the cattle,” he said, “then we shall come and
+kill you, because without cattle you must stop where you are, but if we
+wait to kill you before we get the cattle, they may have trekked too
+far for us to follow. And if you try to run away we shall easily catch
+you white men!”
+
+This struck me as a very odd speech, for the Zulus generally attack an
+enemy first and take his cattle afterwards; still, there was a certain
+amount of plausibility about it. While I was still wondering what it
+all might mean, the Zulus began to run past us in companies towards the
+river. Suddenly a shout announced that they had found the spoor of the
+cattle, and the whole Impi of them started down it at a run till they
+vanished over a rise about a quarter of a mile away.
+
+We waited for half an hour or more, but nothing could we see of them.
+
+“Now I wonder if the devils have really gone,” said Hans Botha to me.
+“It is very strange.”
+
+“I will go and see,” said Indaba-zimbi, “if you will come with me,
+Macumazahn. We can creep to the top of the ridge and look over.”
+
+At first I hesitated, but curiosity overcame me. I was young in those
+days and weary with suspense.
+
+“Very well,” I said, “we will go.”
+
+So we started. I had my elephant gun and ammunition. Indaba-zimbi had
+his medicine bag and an assegai. We crept to the top of the rise like
+sportsmen stalking a buck. The slope on the other side was strewn with
+rocks, among which grew bushes and tall grass.
+
+“They must have gone down the Donga,” I said to Indaba-zimbi, “I can’t
+see one of them.”
+
+As I spoke there came a roar of men all round me. From every rock, from
+every tuft of grass rose a Zulu warrior. Before I could turn, before I
+could lift a gun, I was seized and thrown.
+
+“Hold him! Hold the White Spirit fast!” cried a voice. “Hold him, or he
+will slip away like a snake. Don’t hurt him, but hold him fast. Let
+Indaba-zimbi walk by his side.”
+
+I turned on Indaba-zimbi. “You black devil, you have betrayed me!” I
+cried.
+
+“Wait and see, Macumazahn,” he answered, coolly. “Now the fight is
+going to begin.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+THE END OF THE LAAGER
+
+
+I gasped with wonder and rage. What did that scoundrel Indaba-zimbi
+mean? Why had I been drawn out of the laager and seized, and why, being
+seized, was I not instantly killed? They called me the “White Spirit.”
+Could it be that they were keeping me to make me into medicine? I had
+heard of such things being done by Zulus and kindred tribes, and my
+blood ran cold at the thought. What an end! To be pounded up, made
+medicine of, and eaten!
+
+However, I had little time for further reflection, for now the whole
+Impi was pouring back from the donga and river-banks where it had
+hidden while their ruse was carried out, and once more formed up on the
+side of the slope. I was taken to the crest of the slope and placed in
+the centre of the reserve line in the especial charge of a huge Zulu
+named Bombyane, the same man who had come forward as a herald. This
+brute seemed to regard me with an affectionate curiosity. Now and again
+he poked me in the ribs with the handle of his assegai, as though to
+assure himself that I was solid, and several times he asked me to be so
+good as to prophesy how many Zulus would be killed before the
+“Amaboona,” as they called the Boers, were “eaten up.”
+
+At first I took no notice of him beyond scowling, but presently, goaded
+into anger, I prophesied that he would be dead in an hour!
+
+He only laughed aloud. “Oh! White Spirit,” he said, “is it so? Well,
+I’ve walked a long way from Zululand, and shall be glad of a rest.”
+
+And he got it shortly, as will be seen.
+
+Now the Zulus began to sing again—
+
+“We have caught the White Spirit, my brother! my brother!
+Iron-Tongue whispered of him, he smelt him out, my brother.
+Now the Maboona are ours—they are already dead, my brother.”
+
+
+So that treacherous villain Indaba-zimbi had betrayed me. Suddenly the
+chief of the Impi, a grey-haired man named Sususa, held up his assegai,
+and instantly there was silence. Then he spoke to some indunas who
+stood near him. Instantly they ran to the right and left down the first
+line, saying a word to the captain of each company as they passed him.
+Presently they were at the respective ends of the line, and
+simultaneously held up their spears. As they did so, with an awful roar
+of “Bulala Amaboona”—“Slay the Boers,” the entire line, numbering
+nearly a thousand men, bounded forward like a buck startled from its
+form, and rushed down upon the little laager. It was a splendid sight
+to see them, their assegais glittering in the sunlight as they rose and
+fell above their black shields, their war-plumes bending back upon the
+wind, and their fierce faces set intently on the foe, while the solid
+earth shook beneath the thunder of their rushing feet. I thought of my
+poor friends the Dutchmen, and trembled. What chance had they against
+so many?
+
+Now the Zulus, running in the shape of a bow so as to wrap the laager
+round on three sides, were within seventy yards, and now from every
+waggon broke tongues of fire. Over rolled a number of the Umtetwa, but
+the rest cared little. Forward they sped straight to the laager,
+striving to force a way in. But the Boers plied them with volley after
+volley, and, packed as the Zulus were, the elephant guns loaded with
+slugs and small shot did frightful execution. Only one man even got on
+to a waggon, and as he did so I saw a Boer woman strike him on the head
+with an axe. He fell down, and slowly, amid howls of derision from the
+two lines on the hill-side, the Zulus drew back.
+
+“Let us go, father!” shouted the soldiers on the slope, among whom I
+was, to their chief, who had come up. “You have sent out the little
+girls to fight, and they are frightened. Let us show them the way.”
+
+“No, no!” the chief Sususa answered, laughing. “Wait a minute and the
+little girls will grow to women, and women are good enough to fight
+against Boers!”
+
+The attacking Zulus heard the mockery of their fellows, and rushed
+forward again with a roar. But the Boers in the laager had found time
+to load, and they met with a warm reception. Reserving their fire till
+the Zulus were packed like sheep in a kraal, they loosed into them with
+the roers, and the warriors fell in little heaps. But I saw that the
+blood of the Umtetwas was up; they did not mean to be beaten back this
+time, and the end was near. See! six men had leapt on to a waggon,
+slain the man behind it, and sprung into the laager. They were killed
+there, but others followed, and then I turned my head. But I could not
+shut my ears to the cries of rage and death, and the terrible _S’gee!
+S’gee!_ of the savages as they did their work of murder. Once only I
+looked up and saw poor Hans Botha standing on a waggon smiting down men
+with the butt of his rifle. The assegais shot up towards him like
+tongues of steel, and when I looked again he was gone.
+
+I turned sick with fear and rage. But alas! what could I do? They were
+all dead now, and probably my own turn was coming, only my death would
+not be so swift.
+
+The fight was ended, and the two lines on the slope broke their order,
+and moved down to the laager. Presently we were there, and a dreadful
+sight it was. Many of the attacking Zulus were dead—quite fifty I
+should say, and at least a hundred and fifty were wounded, some of them
+mortally. The chief Sususa gave an order, the dead men were picked up
+and piled in a heap, while those who were slightly hurt walked off to
+find some one to tie up their wounds. But the more serious cases met
+with a different treatment. The chief or one of his indunas considered
+each case, and if it was in any way bad, the man was taken up and
+thrown into the river which ran near. None of them offered any
+objection, though one poor fellow swam to shore again. He did not stop
+there long, however, for they pushed him back and drowned him by force.
+
+The strangest case of all was that of the chief’s own brother. He had
+been captain of the line, and his ankle was smashed by a bullet. Sususa
+came up to him, and, having examined the wound, rated him soundly for
+failing in the first onslaught.
+
+The poor fellow made the excuse that it was not his fault, as the Boers
+had hit him in the first rush. His brother admitted the truth of this,
+and talked to him amicably.
+
+“Well,” he said at length, offering him a pinch of snuff, “you cannot
+walk again.”
+
+“No, chief,” said the wounded man, looking at his ankle.
+
+“And to-morrow we must walk far,” went on Sususa.
+
+“Yes, chief.”
+
+“Say, then, will you sit here on the veldt, or——” and he nodded towards
+the river.
+
+The man dropped his head on his breast for a minute as though in
+thought. Presently he lifted it and looked Sususa straight in the face.
+
+“My ankle pains me, my brother,” he said; “I think I will go back to
+Zululand, for there is the only kraal I wish to see again, even if I
+creep about it like a snake.”[*]
+
+[*] The Zulus believe that after death their spirits enter into the
+bodies of large green snakes, which glide about the kraals. To kill
+these snakes is sacrilege.
+
+
+“It is well, my brother,” said the chief. “Rest softly,” and having
+shaken hands with him, he gave an order to one of the indunas, and
+turned away.
+
+Then men came, and, supporting the wounded man, led him down to the
+banks of the stream. Here, at his request, they tied a heavy stone
+round his neck, and then threw him into a deep pool. I saw the whole
+sad scene, and the victim never even winced. It was impossible not to
+admire the extraordinary courage of the man, or to avoid being struck
+with the cold-blooded cruelty of his brother the chief. And yet the act
+was necessary from his point of view. The man must either die swiftly,
+or be left to perish of starvation, for no Zulu force will encumber
+itself with wounded men. Years of merciless warfare had so hardened
+these people that they looked on death as nothing, and were, to do them
+justice, as willing to meet it themselves as to inflict it on others.
+When this very Impi had been sent out by the Zulu King Dingaan, it
+consisted of some nine thousand men. Now it numbered less than three;
+all the rest were dead. They, too, would probably soon be dead. What
+did it matter? They lived by war to die in blood. It was their natural
+end. “Kill till you are killed.” That is the motto of the Zulu soldier.
+It has the merit of simplicity.
+
+Meanwhile the warriors were looting the waggons, including my own,
+having first thrown all the dead Boers into a heap. I looked at the
+heap; all of them were there, including the two stout fraus, poor
+things. But I missed one body, that of Hans Botha’s daughter, little
+Tota. A wild hope came into my heart that she might have escaped; but
+no, it was not possible. I could only pray that she was already at
+rest.
+
+Just then the great Zulu, Bombyane, who had left my side to indulge in
+the congenial occupation of looting, came out of a waggon crying that
+he had got the “little white one.” I looked; he was carrying the child
+Tota, gripping her frock in one of his huge black hands. He stalked up
+to where we were, and held the child before the chief. “Is it dead,
+father?” he said, with a laugh.
+
+Now, as I could well see, the child was not dead, but had been hidden
+away, and fainted with fear.
+
+The chief glanced at it carelessly, and said—
+
+“Find out with your kerrie.”
+
+Acting on this hint the black devil held up the child, and was about to
+kill it with his knobstick. This was more than I could bear. I sprang
+at him and struck him with all my force in the face, little caring if I
+was speared or not. He dropped Tota on the ground.
+
+“Ou!” he said, putting his hand to his nose, “the White Spirit has a
+hard fist. Come, Spirit, I will fight you for the child.”
+
+The soldiers cheered and laughed. “Yes! yes!” they said, “let Bombyane
+fight the White Spirit for the child. Let them fight with assegais.”
+
+For a moment I hesitated. What chance had I against this black giant?
+But I had promised poor Hans to save the child if I could, and what did
+it matter? As well die now as later. However, I had wit enough left to
+make a favour of it, and intimated to the chief through Indaba-zimbi
+that I was quite willing to condescend to kill Bombyane, on condition
+that if I did so the child’s life should be given to me. Indaba-zimbi
+interpreted my words, but I noticed that he would not look on me as he
+spoke, but covered his face with his hands and spoke of me as “the
+ghost” or the “son of the spirit.” For some reason that I have never
+quite understood, the chief consented to the duel. I fancy it was
+because he believed me to be more than mortal, and was anxious to see
+the last of Bombyane.
+
+“Let them fight,” he said. “Give them assegais and no shields; the
+child shall be to him who conquers.”
+
+“Yes! yes!” cried the soldiers. “Let them fight. Don’t be afraid,
+Bombyane; if he is a spirit, he’s a very small one.”
+
+“I never was frightened of man or beast, and I am not going to run away
+from a White Ghost,” answered the redoubtable Bombyane, as he examined
+the blade of his great bangwan or stabbing assegai.
+
+Then they made a ring round us, gave me a similar assegai, and set us
+some ten paces apart. I kept my face as calm as I could, and tried to
+show no signs of fear, though in my heart I was terribly afraid.
+Humanly speaking, my doom was on me. The giant warrior before me had
+used the assegai from a child—I had no experience of the weapon.
+Moreover, though I was quick and active, he must have been at least
+twice as strong as I am. However, there was no help for it, so, setting
+my teeth, I grasped the great spear, breathed a prayer, and waited.
+
+The giant stood awhile looking at me, and, as he stood, Indaba-zimbi
+walked across the ring behind me, muttering as he passed, “Keep cool,
+Macumazahn, and wait for him. I will make it all right.”
+
+As I had not the slightest intention of commencing the fray, I thought
+this good advice, though how Indaba-zimbi could “make it all right” I
+failed to see.
+
+Heavens! how long that half-minute seemed! It happened many years ago,
+but the whole scene rises up before my eyes as I write. There behind us
+was the blood-stained laager, and near it lay the piles of dead; round
+us was rank upon rank of plumed savages, standing in silence to wait
+the issue of the duel, and in the centre stood the grey-haired chief
+and general, Sususa, in all his war finery, a cloak of leopard skin
+upon his shoulders. At his feet lay the senseless form of little Tota,
+to my left squatted Indaba-zimbi, nodding his white lock and muttering
+something—probably spells; while in front was my giant antagonist, his
+spear aloft and his plumes wavering in the gentle wind. Then over all,
+over grassy slope, river, and koppie, over the waggons of the laager,
+the piles of dead, the dense masses of the living, the swooning child,
+over all shone the bright impartial sun, looking down like the
+indifferent eye of Heaven upon the loveliness of nature and the cruelty
+of man. Down by the river grew thorn-trees, and from them floated the
+sweet scent of the mimosa flower, and came the sound of cooing
+turtle-doves. I never smell the one or hear the other without the scene
+flashing into my mind again, complete in its every detail.
+
+Suddenly, without a sound, Bombyane shook his assegai and rushed
+straight at me. I saw his huge form come; like a man in a dream, I saw
+the broad spear flash on high; now he was on me! Then, prompted to it
+by some providential impulse—or had the spells of Indaba-zimbi anything
+to do with the matter?—I dropped to my knee, and quick as light
+stretched out my spear. He drove at me: the blade passed over my head.
+I felt a weight on my assegai; it was wrenched from my hand; his great
+limbs knocked against me. I glanced round. Bombyane was staggering
+along with head thrown back and outstretched arms from which his spear
+had fallen. His spear had fallen, but the blade of mine stood out
+between his shoulders—I had transfixed him. He stopped, swung slowly
+round as though to look at me: then with a sigh the giant sank
+down—_dead_.
+
+For a moment there was silence; then a great cry rose—a cry of
+“Bombyane is dead. The White Spirit has slain Bombyane. Kill the
+wizard, kill the ghost who has slain Bombyane by witchcraft.”
+
+Instantly I was surrounded by fierce faces, and spears flashed before
+my eyes. I folded my arms and stood calmly waiting the end. In a moment
+it would have come, for the warriors were mad at seeing their champion
+overthrown thus easily. But presently through the tumult I heard the
+high, cracked voice of Indaba-zimbi.
+
+“Stand back, you fools!” it cried; “can a spirit then be killed?”
+
+“Spear him! spear him!” they roared in fury. “Let us see if he is a
+spirit. How did a spirit slay Bombyane with an assegai? Spear him,
+rain-maker, and we shall see.”
+
+“Stand back,” cried Indaba-zimbi again, “and I will show you if he can
+be killed. I will kill him myself, and call him back to life again
+before your eyes.”
+
+“Macumazahn, trust me,” he whispered in my ear in the Sisutu tongue,
+which the Zulus did not understand. “Trust me; kneel on the grass
+before me, and when I strike at you with the spear, roll over like one
+dead; then, when you hear my voice again, get up. Trust me—it is your
+only hope.”
+
+Having no choice I nodded my head in assent, though I had not the
+faintest idea of what he was about to do. The tumult lessened somewhat,
+and once more the warriors drew back.
+
+“Great White Spirit—Spirit of victory,” said Indaba-zimbi, addressing
+me aloud, and covering his eyes with his hand, “hear me and forgive me.
+These children are blind with folly, and think thee mortal because thou
+hast dealt death upon a mortal who dared to stand against thee. Deign
+to kneel down before me and let me pierce thy heart with this spear,
+then when I call upon thee, arise unhurt.”
+
+I knelt down, not because I wished to, but because I must. I had not
+overmuch faith in Indaba-zimbi, and thought it probable that he was in
+truth about to make an end of me. But really I was so worn out with
+fears, and the horrors of the night and day had so shaken my nerves,
+that I did not greatly care what befell me. When I had been kneeling
+thus for about half a minute Indaba-zimbi spoke.
+
+“People of the Umtetwa, children of T’Chaka,” he said, “draw back a
+little way, lest an evil fall on you, for now the air is thick with
+ghosts.”
+
+They drew back a space, leaving us in a circle about twelve yards in
+diameter.
+
+“Look on him who kneels before you,” went on Indaba-zimbi, “and listen
+to my words, to the words of the witch-finder, the words of the
+rain-maker, Indaba-zimbi, whose fame is known to you. He seems to be a
+young man, does he not? I tell you, children of the Umtetwa, he is no
+man. He is the Spirit who gives victory to the white men, he it is who
+gave them assegais that thunder and taught them how to slay. Why were
+the Impis of Dingaan rolled back at the Blood River? Because _he_ was
+there. Why did the Amaboona slay the people of Mosilikatze by the
+thousand? Because _he_ was there. And so I say to you that, had I not
+drawn him from the laager by my magic but three hours ago, you would
+have been conquered—yes, you would have been blown away like the dust
+before the wind; you would have been burnt up like the dry grass in the
+winter when the fire is awake among it. Ay, because he had but been
+there many of your bravest were slain in overcoming a few—a pinch of
+men who could be counted on the fingers. But because I loved you,
+because your chief Sususa is my half-brother—for had we not one
+father?—I came to you, I warned you. Then you prayed me and I drew the
+Spirit forth. But you were not satisfied when the victory was yours,
+when the Spirit, of all you had taken asked but one little thing—a
+white child to take away and sacrifice to himself, to make the medicine
+of his magic of——”
+
+Here I could hardly restrain myself from interrupting, but thought
+better of it.
+
+“You said him nay; you said, ‘Let him fight with our bravest man, let
+him fight with Bombyane the giant for the child.’ And he deigned to
+slay Bombyane as you have seen, and now you say, ‘Slay him; he is no
+spirit.’ Now I will show you if he is a spirit, for I will slay him
+before your eyes, and call him to life again. But you have brought this
+upon yourselves. Had you believed, had you offered no insult to the
+Spirit, he would have stayed with you, and you should have become
+unconquerable. Now he will arise and leave you, and woe be on you if
+you try to stay him.
+
+“Now all men,” he went on, “look for a space upon this assegai that I
+hold up,” and he lifted the bangwan of the deceased Bombyane high above
+his head so that all the multitude could see it. Every eye was fixed
+upon the broad bright spear. For a while he held it still, then he
+moved it round and round in a circle, muttering as he did so, and still
+their gaze followed it. For my part, I watched his movements with the
+greatest anxiety. That assegai had already been nearer my person than I
+found at all pleasant, and I had no desire to make a further
+acquaintance with it. Nor, indeed, was I sure that Indaba-zimbi was not
+really going to kill me. I could not understand his proceedings at all,
+and at the best I did not relish playing the _corpus vile_ to his
+magical experiments.
+
+“_Look! look! look!_” he screamed.
+
+Then suddenly the great spear flashed down towards my breast. I felt
+nothing, but, to my sight, it seemed as though it had passed through
+me.
+
+“See!” roared the Zulus. “Indaba-zimbi has speared him; the red assegai
+stands out behind his back.”
+
+“Roll over, Macumazahn,” Indaba-zimbi hissed in my ear, “roll over and
+pretend to die—quick! quick!”
+
+I lost no time in following these strange instructions, but falling on
+to my side, threw my arms wide, kicked my legs about, and died as
+artistically as I could. Presently I gave a stage shiver and lay still.
+
+“See!” said the Zulus, “he is dead, the Spirit is dead. Look at the
+blood upon the assegai!”
+
+“Stand back! stand back!” cried Indaba-zimbi, “or the ghost will haunt
+you. Yes, he is dead, and now I will call him back to life again.
+Look!” and putting down his hand, he plucked the spear from wherever it
+was fixed, and held it aloft. “The spear is red, is it not? Watch, men,
+watch! _it grows white!_”
+
+“Yes, it grows white,” they said. “Ou! it grows white.”
+
+“It grows white because the blood returns to whence it came,” said
+Indaba-zimbi. “Now, great Spirit, hear me. Thou art dead, the breath
+has gone out of thy mouth. Yet hear me and arise. Awake, White Spirit,
+awake and show thy power. Awake! arise unhurt!”
+
+I began to respond cheerfully to this imposing invocation.
+
+“Not so fast, Macumazahn,” whispered Indaba-zimbi.
+
+I took the hint, and first held up my arm, then lifted my head and let
+it fall again.
+
+“He lives! by the head of T’Chaka he lives!” roared the soldiers,
+stricken with mortal fear.
+
+Then slowly and with the greatest dignity I gradually arose, stretched
+my arms, yawned like one awaking from heavy sleep, turned and looked
+upon them unconcernedly. While I did so, I noticed that old
+Indaba-zimbi was almost fainting from exhaustion. Beads of perspiration
+stood upon his brow, his limbs trembled, and his breast heaved.
+
+As for the Zulus, they waited for no more. With a howl of terror the
+whole regiment turned and fled across the rise, so that presently we
+were left alone with the dead, and the swooning child.
+
+“How on earth did you do that, Indaba-zimbi?” I asked in amaze.
+
+“Do not ask me, Macumazahn,” he gasped. “You white men are very clever,
+but you don’t quite know everything. There are men in the world who can
+make people believe they see things which they do not see. Let us be
+going while we may, for when those Umtetwas have got over their fright,
+they will come back to loot the waggons, and then perhaps _they_ will
+begin asking questions that I can’t answer.”
+
+And here I may as well state that I never got any further information
+on this matter from old Indaba-zimbi. But I have my theory, and here it
+is for whatever it may be worth. I believe that Indaba-zimbi
+_mesmerized_ the whole crowd of onlookers, myself included, making them
+believe that they saw the assegai in my heart, and the blood upon the
+blade. The reader may smile and say, “Impossible;” but I would ask him
+how the Indian jugglers do their tricks unless it is by mesmerism. The
+spectators _seem_ to see the boy go under the basket and there pierced
+with daggers, they _seem_ to see women in a trance supported in mid-air
+upon the point of a single sword. In themselves these things are not
+possible, they violate the laws of nature, as those laws are known to
+us, and therefore must surely be illusion. And so through the glamour
+thrown upon them by Indaba-zimbi’s will, that Zulu Impi seemed to see
+me transfixed with an assegai which never touched me. At least, that is
+my theory; if any one has a better, let him adopt it. The explanation
+lies between illusion and magic of a most imposing character, and I
+prefer to accept the first alternative.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+STELLA
+
+
+I was not slow to take Indaba-zimbi’s hint. About a hundred and fifty
+yards to the left of the laager was a little dell where I had hidden my
+horse, together with one belonging to the Boers, and my saddle and
+bridle. Thither we went, I carrying the swooning Tota in my arms. To
+our joy we found the horses safe, for the Zulus had not seen them. Now,
+of course, they were our only means of locomotion, for the oxen had
+been sent away, and even had they been there we could not have found
+time to inspan them. I laid Tota down, caught my horse, undid his knee
+halter, and saddled up. As I was doing so a thought struck me, and I
+told Indaba-zimbi to run to the laager and see if he could find my
+double-barrelled gun and some powder and shot, for I had only my
+elephant “roer” and a few charges of powder and ball with me.
+
+He went, and while he was away, poor little Tota came to herself and
+began to cry, till she saw my face.
+
+“Ah, I have had such a bad dream,” she said, in Dutch: “I dreamed that
+the black Kaffirs were going to kill me. Where is my papa?”
+
+I winced at the question. “Your papa has gone on a journey, dear,” I
+said, “and left me to look after you. We shall find him one day. You
+don’t mind going with Heer Allan, do you?”
+
+“No,” she said, a little doubtfully, and began to cry again. Presently
+she remembered that she was thirsty, and asked for water. I led her to
+the river and she drank. “Why is my hand red, Heer Allan?” she asked,
+pointing to the smear of Bombyane’s blood-stained fingers.
+
+At this moment I felt very glad that I had killed Bombyane.
+
+“It is only paint, dear,” I said; “see, we will wash it and your face.”
+
+As I was doing this, Indaba-zimbi returned. The guns were all gone; he
+said the Zulus had taken them and the powder. But he had found some
+things and brought them in a sack. There was a thick blanket, about
+twenty pounds weight of biltong or sun-dried meat, a few
+double-handfuls of biscuits, two water-bottles, a tin pannikin, some
+matches and sundries.
+
+“And now, Macumazahn,” he said, “we had best be going, for those
+Umtetwas are coming back. I saw one of them on the brow of the rise.”
+
+That was enough for me. I lifted little Tota on to the bow of my
+saddle, climbed into it, and rode off, holding her in front of me.
+Indaba-zimbi slipped a reim into the mouth of the best of the Boer
+horses, threw the sack of sundries on to its back and mounted also,
+holding the elephant gun in his hand. We went eight or nine hundred
+yards in silence till we were quite out of range of sight from the
+waggons, which were in a hollow. Then I pulled up, with such a feeling
+of thankfulness in my heart as cannot be told in words; for now I knew
+that, mounted as we were, those black demons could never catch us. But
+where were we to steer for? I put the question to Indaba-zimbi, asking
+him if he thought that we had better try and follow the oxen which we
+had sent away with the Kaffirs and women on the preceding night. He
+shook his head.
+
+“The Umtetwas will go after the oxen presently,” he answered, “and we
+have seen enough of them.”
+
+“Quite enough,” I answered, with enthusiasm; “I never want to see
+another; but where are we to go? Here we are alone with one gun and a
+little girl in the vast and lonely veldt. Which way shall we turn?”
+
+“Our faces were towards the north before we met the Zulus,” answered
+Indaba-zimbi; “let us still keep them to the north. Ride on,
+Macumazahn; to-night when we off-saddle I will look into the matter.”
+
+So all that long afternoon we rode on, following the course of the
+river. From the nature of the ground we could only go slowly, but
+before sunset I had the satisfaction of knowing that there must be at
+least twenty-five miles between us and those accursed Zulus. Little
+Tota slept most of the way, the motion of the horse was easy, and she
+was worn out.
+
+At last the sunset came, and we off-saddled in a dell by the river.
+There was not much to eat, but I soaked some biscuit in water for Tota,
+and Indaba-zimbi and I made a scanty meal of biltong. When we had done
+I took off Tota’s frock, wrapped her up in a blanket near the fire we
+had made, and lit a pipe. I sat there by the side of the sleeping
+orphaned child, and from my heart thanked Providence for saving her
+life and mine from the slaughter of that day. What a horrible
+experience it had been! It seemed like a nightmare to look back upon.
+And yet it was sober fact, one among those many tragedies which dotted
+the paths of the emigrant Boers with the bones of men, women, and
+children. These horrors are almost forgotten now; people living in
+Natal now, for instance, can scarcely realize that some forty years ago
+six hundred white people, many of them women and children, were thus
+massacred by the Impis of Dingaan. But it was so, and the name of the
+district, _Weenen_, or the Place of Weeping, will commemorate them for
+ever.
+
+Then I fell to reflecting on the extraordinary adroitness old
+Indaba-zimbi had shown in saving my life. It appeared that he himself
+had lived among the Umtetwa Zulus in his earlier manhood, and was a
+noted rain-doctor and witch-finder. But when T’Chaka, Dingaan’s
+brother, ordered a general massacre of the witch-finders, he alone had
+saved his life by his skill in magic, and ultimately fled south for
+reasons too long to set out here. When he heard, therefore, that the
+regiment was an Umtetwa regiment, which, leaving their wives and
+children, had broken away from Zululand to escape the cruelties of
+Dingaan; under pretence of spying on them, he took the bold course of
+going straight up to the chief, Sususa, and addressing him as his
+brother, which he was. The chief knew him at once, and so did the
+soldiers, for his fame was still great among them. Then he told them
+his cock and bull story about my being a white spirit, whose presence
+in the laager would render it invincible, and with the object of saving
+my life in the slaughter which he knew must ensue, agreed to charm me
+out of the laager and deliver me into their keeping. How the plan
+worked has already been told; it was a risky one; still, but for it my
+troubles would have been done with these many days.
+
+So I lay and thought with a heart full of gratitude, and as I did so
+saw old Indaba-zimbi sitting by the fire and going through some
+mysterious performances with bones which he produced from his bag, and
+ashes mixed with water. I spoke to him and asked what he was about. He
+replied that he was tracing out the route that we should follow. I felt
+inclined to answer “bosh!” but remembering the very remarkable
+instances which he had given of his prowess in occult matters I held my
+tongue, and taking little Tota into my arms, worn out with toil and
+danger and emotion, I went to sleep.
+
+I awoke just as the dawn was beginning to flame across the sky in
+sheets of primrose and of gold, or rather it was little Tota who woke
+me by kissing me as she lay between sleep and waking, and calling me
+“papa.” It wrung my heart to hear her, poor orphaned child. I got up,
+washed and dressed her as best I could, and we breakfasted as we had
+supped, on biltong and biscuit. Tota asked for milk, but I had none to
+give her. Then we caught the horses, and I saddled mine.
+
+“Well, Indaba-zimbi,” I said, “now what path do your bones point to?”
+
+“Straight north,” he said. “The journey will be hard, but in about four
+days we shall come to the kraal of a white man, an Englishman, not a
+Boer. His kraal is in a beautiful place, and there is a great peak
+behind it where there are many baboons.”
+
+I looked at him. “This is all nonsense, Indaba-zimbi,” I said. “Whoever
+heard of an Englishman building a house in these wilds, and how do you
+know anything about it? I think that we had better strike east towards
+Port Natal.”
+
+“As you like, Macumazahn,” he answered, “but it will take us three
+months’ journey to get to Port Natal, if we ever get there, and the
+child will die on the road. Say, Macumazahn, have my words come true
+heretofore, or have they not? Did I not tell you not to hunt the
+elephants on horseback? Did I not tell you to take one waggon with you
+instead of two, as it is better to lose one than two?”
+
+“You told me all these things,” I answered.
+
+“And so I tell you now to ride north, Macumazahn, for there you will
+find great happiness—yes, and great sorrow. But no man should run away
+from happiness because of the sorrow. As you will, as you will!”
+
+Again I looked at him. In his divinations I did not believe, yet I came
+to the conclusion that he was speaking what he knew to be the truth. It
+struck me as possible that he might have heard of some white man living
+like a hermit in the wilds, but preferring to keep up his prophetic
+character would not say so.
+
+“Very well, Indaba-zimbi,” I said, “let us ride north.”
+
+Shortly after we started, the river we had followed hitherto turned off
+in a westerly direction, so we left it. All that day we rode across
+rolling uplands, and about an hour before sunset halted at a little
+stream which ran down from a range of hills in front of us. By this
+time I was heartily tired of the biltong, so taking my elephant
+rifle—for I had nothing else—I left Tota with Indaba-zimbi, and started
+to try if I could shoot something. Oddly enough we had seen no game all
+the day, nor did we see any on the subsequent days. For some mysterious
+reason they had temporarily left the district. I crossed the little
+streamlet in order to enter the belt of thorns which grew upon the
+hill-side beyond, for there I hoped to find buck. As I did so I was
+rather disturbed to see the spoor of two lions in the soft sandy edge
+of a pool. Breathing a hope that they might not still be in the
+neighbourhood, I went on into the belt of scattered thorns. For a long
+while I hunted about without seeing anything, except one duiker buck,
+which bounded off with a crash from the other side of a stone without
+giving me a chance. At length, just as it grew dusk, I spied a Petie
+buck, a graceful little creature, scarcely bigger than a large hare,
+standing on a stone, about forty yards from me. Under ordinary
+circumstances I should never have dreamed of firing at such a thing,
+especially with an elephant gun, but we were hungry. So I sat down with
+my back against a rock, and aimed steadily at its head. I did this
+because if I struck it in the body the three-ounce ball would have
+knocked it to bits. At last I pulled the trigger, the gun went off with
+the report of a small cannon, and the buck disappeared. I ran to the
+spot with more anxiety than I should have felt in an ordinary way over
+a koodoo or an eland. To my delight there the little creature lay—the
+huge bullet had decapitated it. Considering all the circumstances I do
+not think I have often made a better shot than this, but if any one
+doubts, let him try his hand at a rabbit’s head fifty yards away with
+an elephant gun and a three-ounce ball.
+
+I picked up the Petie in triumph, and returned to the camp. There we
+skinned him and toasted his flesh over the fire. He just made a good
+meal for us, though we kept the hind legs for breakfast.
+
+There was no moon this night, and so it chanced that when I suddenly
+remembered about the lion spoor, and suggested that we had better tie
+up the horses quite close to us, we could not find them, though we knew
+they were grazing within fifty yards. This being so we could only make
+up the fire and take our chance. Shortly afterwards I went to sleep
+with little Tota in my arms. Suddenly I was awakened by hearing that
+peculiarly painful sound, the scream of a horse, quite close to the
+fire, which was still burning brightly. Next second there came a noise
+of galloping hoofs, and before I could even rise my poor horse appeared
+in the ring of firelight. As in a flash of lightning I saw his staring
+eyes and wide-stretched nostrils, and the broken reim with which he had
+been knee-haltered, flying in the air. Also I saw something else, for
+on his back was a great dark form with glowing eyes, and from the form
+came a growling sound. It was a lion.
+
+The horse dashed on. He galloped right through the fire, for which he
+had run in his terror, fortunately, however, without treading on us,
+and vanished into the night. We heard his hoofs for a hundred yards or
+more, then there was silence, broken now and again by distant growls.
+As may be imagined, we did not sleep any more that night, but waited
+anxiously till the dawn broke, two hours later.
+
+As soon as there was sufficient light we rose, and, leaving Tota still
+asleep, crept cautiously in the direction in which the horse had
+vanished. When we had gone fifty yards or so, we made out its remains
+lying on the veldt, and caught sight of two great cat-like forms
+slinking away in the grey light.
+
+To go any further was useless; we knew all about it now, so we turned
+to look for the other horse. But our cup of misfortune was not yet
+full; the horse was nowhere to be found. Terrified by the sight and
+smell of the lions, it had with a desperate effort also burst the reim
+with which it had been knee-haltered, and galloped far away. I sat
+down, feeling as though I could cry like a woman. For now we were left
+alone in these vast solitudes without a horse to carry us, and with a
+child who was not old enough to walk for more than a little way at a
+time.
+
+Well, it was no use giving in, so with a few words we went back to our
+camp, where I found Tota crying because she had woke to find herself
+alone. Then we ate a little food and prepared to start. First we
+divided such articles as we must take with us into two equal parts,
+rejecting everything that we could possibly do without. Then, by an
+afterthought, we filled our water-bottles, though at the time I was
+rather against doing so, because of the extra weight. But Indaba-zimbi
+overruled me in the matter, fortunately for all three of us. I settled
+to look after Tota for the first march, and to give the elephant gun to
+Indaba-zimbi. At length all was ready, and we set out on foot. By the
+help of occasional lifts over rough places, Tota managed to walk up the
+slope of the hill-side where I had shot the Petie buck. At length we
+reached it, and, looking at the country beyond, I gave an exclamation
+of dismay. To say that it was desert would be saying too much; it was
+more like the Karroo in the Cape—a vast sandy waste, studded here and
+there with low shrubs and scattered rocks. But it was a great expanse
+of desolate land, stretching further than the eye could reach, and
+bordered far away by a line of purple hills, in the centre of which a
+great solitary peak soared high into the air.
+
+“Indaba-zimbi,” I said, “we can never cross this if we take six days.”
+
+“As you will, Macumazahn,” he answered; “but I tell you that there”—and
+he pointed to the peak—“there the white man lives. Turn which way you
+like, but if you turn you will perish.”
+
+I reflected for a moment, Our case was, humanly speaking, almost
+hopeless. It mattered little which way we went. We were alone, almost
+without food, with no means of transport, and a child to carry. As well
+perish in the sandy waste as on the rolling veldt or among the trees of
+the hill-side. Providence alone could save us, and we must trust to
+Providence.
+
+“Come on,” I said, lifting Tota on to my back, for she was already
+tired. “All roads lead to rest.”
+
+How am I to describe the misery of the next four days? How am I to tell
+how we stumbled on through that awful desert, almost without food, and
+quite without water, for there were no streams, and we saw no springs?
+We soon found how the case was, and saved almost all the water in our
+bottles for the child. To look back on it is like a nightmare. I can
+scarcely bear to dwell on it. Day after day, by turns carrying the
+child through the heavy sand; night after night lying down in the
+scrub, chewing the leaves, and licking such dew as there was from the
+scanty grass! Not a spring, not a pool, not a head of game! It was the
+third night; we were nearly mad with thirst. Tota was in a comatose
+condition. Indaba-zimbi still had a little water in his bottle—perhaps
+a wine-glassful. With it we moistened our lips and blackened tongues.
+Then we gave the rest to the child. It revived her. She awoke from her
+swoon to sink into sleep.
+
+See, the dawn was breaking. The hills were not more than eight miles or
+so away now, and they were green. There must be water there.
+
+“Come,” I said.
+
+Indaba-zimbi lifted Tota into the kind of sling that we had made out of
+the blanket in which to carry her on our backs, and we staggered on for
+an hour through the sand. She awoke crying for water, and alas! we had
+none to give her; our tongues were hanging from our lips, we could
+scarcely speak.
+
+We rested awhile, and Tota mercifully swooned away again. Then
+Indaba-zimbi took her. Though he was so thin the old man’s strength was
+wonderful.
+
+Another hour; the slope of the great peak could not be more than two
+miles away now. A couple of hundred yards off grew a large baobab tree.
+Could we reach its shade? We had done half the distance when
+Indaba-zimbi fell from exhaustion. We were now so weak that neither of
+us could lift the child on to our backs. He rose again, and we each
+took one of her hands and dragged her along the road. Fifty yards—they
+seemed to be fifty miles. Ah, the tree was reached at last; compared
+with the heat outside, the shade of its dense foliage seemed like the
+dusk and cool of a vault. I remember thinking that it was a good place
+to die in. Then I remember no more.
+
+I woke with a feeling as though the blessed rain were falling on my
+face and head. Slowly, and with great difficulty, I opened my eyes,
+then shut them again, having seen a vision. For a space I lay thus,
+while the rain continued to fall; I saw now that I must be asleep, or
+off my head with thirst and fever. If I were not off my head how came I
+to imagine that a lovely dark-eyed girl was bending over me sprinkling
+water on my face? A white girl, too, not a Kaffir woman. However, the
+dream went on.
+
+“Hendrika,” said a voice in English, the sweetest voice that I had ever
+heard; somehow it reminded me of wind whispering in the trees at night.
+“Hendrika, I fear he dies; there is a flask of brandy in my saddle-bag;
+get it.”
+
+“Ah! ah!” grunted a harsh voice in answer; “let him die, Miss Stella.
+He will bring you bad luck—let him die, I say.” I felt a movement of
+air above me as though the woman of my vision turned swiftly, and once
+again I opened my eyes. She had risen, this dream woman. Now I saw that
+she was tall and graceful as a reed. She was angry, too; her dark eyes
+flashed, and she pointed with her hand at a female who stood before
+her, dressed in nondescript kind of clothes such as might be worn by
+either a man or a woman. The woman was young, of white blood, very
+short, with bowed legs and enormous shoulders. In face she was not
+bad-looking, but the brow receded, the chin and ears were prominent—in
+short, she reminded me of nothing so much as a very handsome monkey.
+She might have been the missing link.
+
+The lady was pointing at her with her hand. “How dare you?” she said.
+“Are you going to disobey me again? Have you forgotten what I told you,
+Babyan?”[*]
+
+[*] Baboon.
+
+“Ah! ah!” grunted the woman, who seemed literally to curl and shrivel
+up beneath her anger. “Don’t be angry with me, Miss Stella, because I
+can’t bear it. I only said it because it was true. I will fetch the
+brandy.”
+
+Then, dream or no dream, I determined to speak.
+
+“Not brandy,” I gasped in English as well as my swollen tongue would
+allow; “give me water.”
+
+“Ah, he lives!” cried the beautiful girl, “and he talks English. See,
+sir, here is water in your own bottle; you were quite close to a
+spring, it is on the other side of the tree.”
+
+I struggled to a sitting position, lifted the bottle to my lips, and
+drank from it. Oh! that drink of cool, pure water! never had I tasted
+anything so delicious. With the first gulp I felt life flow back into
+me. But wisely enough she would not let me have much. “No more! no
+more!” she said, and dragged the bottle from me almost by force.
+
+“The child,” I said—“is the child dead?”
+
+“I do not know yet,” she answered. “We have only just found you, and I
+tried to revive you first.”
+
+I turned and crept to where Tota lay by the side of Indaba-zimbi. It
+was impossible to say if they were dead or swooning. The lady sprinkled
+Tota’s face with the water, which I watched greedily, for my thirst was
+still awful, while the woman Hendrika did the same office for
+Indaba-zimbi. Presently, to my vast delight, Tota opened her eyes and
+tried to cry, but could not, poor little thing, because her tongue and
+lips were so swollen. But the lady got some water into her mouth, and,
+as in my case, the effect was magical. We allowed her to drink about a
+quarter of a pint, and no more, though she cried bitterly for it. Just
+then old Indaba-zimbi came to with a groan. He opened his eyes, glanced
+round, and took in the situation.
+
+“What did I tell you, Macumazahn?” he gasped, and seizing the bottle,
+he took a long pull at it.
+
+Meanwhile I sat with my back against the trunk of the great tree and
+tried to realize the situation. Looking to my left I saw too good
+horses—one bare-backed, and one with a rudely made lady’s saddle on it.
+By the side of the horses were two dogs, of a stout greyhound breed,
+that sat watching us, and near the dogs lay a dead Oribé buck, which
+they had evidently been coursing.
+
+“Hendrika,” said the lady presently, “they must not eat meat just yet.
+Go look up the tree and see if there is any ripe fruit on it.”
+
+The woman ran swiftly into the plain and obeyed. Presently she
+returned. “I see some ripe fruit,” she said, “but it is high, quite at
+the top.”
+
+“Fetch it,” said the lady.
+
+“Easier said than done,” I thought to myself; but I was much mistaken.
+Suddenly the woman bounded at least three feet into the air and caught
+one of the spreading boughs in her large flat hands; then came a swing
+that would have filled an acrobat with envy—and she was on it.
+
+“Now there is an end,” I thought again, for the next bough was beyond
+her reach. But again I was mistaken. She stood up on the bough,
+gripping it with her bare feet, and once more sprang at the one above,
+caught it and swung herself into it.
+
+I suppose that the lady saw my expression of astonishment. “Do not
+wonder, sir,” she said, “Hendrika is not like other people. She will
+not fall.”
+
+I made no answer, but watched the progress of this extraordinary person
+with the most breathless interest. On she went, swinging herself from
+bough to bough, and running along them like a monkey. At last she
+reached the top, and began to swarm up a thin branch towards the ripe
+fruit. When she was near enough she shook the branch violently. There
+was a crack—a crash—it broke. I shut my eyes, expecting to see her
+crushed on the ground before me.
+
+“Don’t be afraid,” said the lady again, laughing gently. “Look, she is
+quite safe.”
+
+I looked, and so she was. She had caught a bough as she fell, clung to
+it, and was now calmly dropping to another. Old Indaba-zimbi had also
+watched this performance with interest, but it did not seem to astonish
+him over-much. “Baboon-woman?” he said, as though such people were
+common, and then turned his attention to soothing Tota, who was moaning
+for more water. Meanwhile Hendrika came down the tree with
+extraordinary rapidity, and swinging by one hand from a bough, dropped
+about eight feet to the ground.
+
+In another two minutes we were all three sucking the pulpy fruit. In an
+ordinary way we should have found it tasteless enough: as it was I
+thought it the most delicious thing I had ever tasted. After three days
+spent without food or water, in the desert, one is not particular.
+While we were still eating the fruit, the lady of my vision set her
+companion to work to partially flay the oribé which her dogs had
+killed, and busied herself in making a fire of fallen boughs. As soon
+as it burned brightly she took strips of the oribé flesh, toasted them,
+and gave them to us on leaves. We ate, and now were allowed a little
+more water. After that she took Tota to the spring and washed her,
+which she sadly needed, poor child! Next came our turn to wash, and oh,
+the joy of it!
+
+I came back to the tree, walking painfully, indeed, but a changed man.
+There sat the beautiful girl with Tota on her knees. She was lulling
+her to sleep, and held up her finger to me enjoining silence. At last
+the child went off into a sound natural slumber—an example that I
+should have been glad to follow had it not been for my burning
+curiosity. Then I spoke.
+
+“May I ask what your name is?” I said.
+
+“Stella,” she answered.
+
+“Stella what?” I said.
+
+“Stella nothing,” she answered, in some pique; “Stella is my name; it
+is short and easy to remember at any rate. My father’s name is Thomas,
+and we live up there,” and she pointed round the base of the great
+peak. I looked at her astonished. “Have you lived there long?” I asked.
+
+“Ever since I was seven years old. We came there in a waggon. Before
+that we came from England—from Oxfordshire; I can show you the place on
+a big map. It is called Garsingham.”
+
+Again I thought I must be dreaming. “Do you know, Miss Stella,” I said,
+“it is very strange—so strange that it almost seems as though it could
+not be true—but I also came from Garsingham in Oxfordshire many years
+ago.”
+
+She started up. “Are you an English gentleman?” she said. “Ah, I have
+always longed to see an English gentleman. I have never seen but one
+Englishman since we lived here, and he certainly was not a gentleman—no
+white people at all, indeed, except a few wandering Boers. We live
+among black people and baboons—only I have read about English
+people—lots of books—poetry and novels. But tell me what is your name?
+Macumazahn the black man called you, but you must have a white name,
+too.”
+
+“My name is Allan Quatermain,” I said.
+
+Her face turned quite white, her rosy lips parted, and she looked at me
+wildly with her beautiful dark eyes.
+
+“It is wonderful,” she said, “but I have often heard that name. My
+father has told me how a little boy called Allan Quatermain once saved
+my life by putting out my dress when it was on fire—see!”—and she
+pointed to a faint red mark upon her neck—“here is the scar of the
+burn.”
+
+“I remember it,” I said. “You were dressed up as Father Christmas. It
+was I who put out the fire; my wrists were burnt in doing so.”
+
+Then for a space we sat silent, looking at each other, while Stella
+slowly fanned herself with her wide felt hat, in which some white
+ostrich plumes were fixed.
+
+“This is God’s doing,” she said at last. “You saved my life when I was
+a child; now I have saved yours and the little girl’s. Is she your own
+daughter?” she added, quickly.
+
+“No,” I answered; “I will tell you the tale presently.”
+
+“Yes,” she said, “you shall tell me as we go home. It is time to be
+starting home, it will take us three hours to get there. Hendrika,
+Hendrika, bring the horses here!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+THE BABOON-WOMAN
+
+
+Hendrika obeyed, leading the horses to the side of the tree.
+
+“Now, Mr. Allan,” said Stella, “you must ride on my horse, and the old
+black man must ride on the other. I will walk, and Hendrika will carry
+the child. Oh, do not be afraid, she is very strong, she could carry
+you or me.”
+
+Hendrika grunted assent. I am sorry that I cannot express her method of
+speech by any more polite term. Sometimes she grunted like a monkey,
+sometimes she clicked like a Bushman, and sometimes she did both
+together, when she became quite unintelligible.
+
+I expostulated against this proposed arrangement, saying that we could
+walk, which was a fib, for I do not think that I could have done a
+mile; but Stella would not listen, she would not even let me carry my
+elephant gun, but took it herself. So we mounted with some difficulty,
+and Hendrika took up the sleeping Tota in her long, sinewy arms.
+
+“See that the ‘Baboon-woman’ does not run away into the mountains with
+the little white one,” said Indaba-zimbi to me in Kaffir, as he climbed
+slowly on to the horse.
+
+Unfortunately Hendrika understood his speech. Her face twisted and grew
+livid with fury. She put down Tota and literally sprang at Indaba-zimbi
+as a monkey springs. But weary and worn as he was, the old gentleman
+was too quick for her. With an exclamation of genuine fright he threw
+himself from the horse on the further side, with the somewhat ludicrous
+result that all in a moment Hendrika was occupying the seat which he
+had vacated. Just then Stella realized the position.
+
+“Come down, you savage, come down!” she said, stamping her foot.
+
+The extraordinary creature flung herself from the horse and literally
+grovelled on the ground before her mistress and burst into tears.
+
+“Pardon, Miss Stella,” she clicked and grunted in villainous English,
+“but he called me ‘Babyan-frau’ (Baboon-woman).”
+
+“Tell your servant that he must not use such words to Hendrika, Mr.
+Allan,” Stella said to me. “If he does,” she added, in a whisper,
+“Hendrika will certainly kill him.”
+
+I explained this to Indaba-zimbi, who, being considerably frightened,
+deigned to apologize. But from that hour there was hate and war between
+these two.
+
+Harmony having been thus restored, we started, the dogs following us. A
+small strip of desert intervened between us and the slope of the
+peak—perhaps it was two miles wide. We crossed it and reached rich
+grass lands, for here a considerable stream gathered from the hills;
+but it did not flow across the barren lands, it passed to the east
+along the foot of the hills. This stream we had to cross by a ford.
+Hendrika walked boldly through it, holding Tota in her arms. Stella
+leapt across from stone to stone like a roebuck; I thought to myself
+that she was the most graceful creature that I had ever seen. After
+this the track passed around a pleasantly-wooded shoulder of the peak,
+which was, I found, known as Babyan Kap, or Baboon Head. Of course we
+could only go at a foot pace, so our progress was slow. Stella walked
+for some way in silence, then she spoke.
+
+“Tell me, Mr. Allan,” she said, “how it was that I came to find you
+dying in the desert?”
+
+So I began and told her all. It took an hour or more to do so, and she
+listened intently, now and again asking a question.
+
+“It is all very wonderful,” she said when I had done, “very wonderful
+indeed. Do you know I went out this morning with Hendrika and the dogs
+for a ride, meaning to get back home by mid-day, for my father is ill,
+and I do not like to leave him for long. But just as I was going to
+turn, when we were about where we are now—yes, that was the very
+bush—an oribé got up, and the dogs chased it. I followed them for the
+gallop, and when we came to the river, instead of turning to the left
+as bucks generally do, the oribé swam the stream and took to the Bad
+Lands beyond. I followed it, and within a hundred yards of the big tree
+the dogs killed it. Hendrika wanted to turn back at once, but I said
+that we would rest under the shade of the tree, for I knew that there
+was a spring of water near. Well, we went; and there I saw you all
+lying like dead; but Hendrika, who is very clever in some ways, said
+no—and you know the rest. Yes, it is very wonderful.”
+
+“It is indeed,” I said. “Now tell me, Miss Stella, who is Hendrika?”
+
+She looked round before answering to see that the woman was not near.
+
+“Hers is a strange story, Mr. Allan. I will tell you. You must know
+that all these mountains and the country beyond are full of baboons.
+When I was a girl of about ten I used to wander a great deal alone in
+the hills and valleys, and watch the baboons as they played among the
+rocks. There was one family of baboons that I watched especially—they
+used to live in a kloof about a mile from the house. The old man baboon
+was very large, and one of the females had a grey face. But the reason
+why I watched them so much was because I saw that they had with them a
+creature that looked like a girl, for her skin was quite white, and,
+what was more, that she was protected from the weather when it happened
+to be cold by a fur belt of some sort, which was tied round her throat.
+The old baboons seemed to be especially fond of her, and would sit with
+their arms round her neck. For nearly a whole summer I watched this
+particular white-skinned baboon till at last my curiosity quite
+overmastered me. I noticed that, though she climbed about the cliffs
+with the other monkeys, at a certain hour a little before sundown they
+used to put her with one or two other much smaller ones into a little
+cave, while the family went off somewhere to get food, to the mealie
+fields, I suppose. Then I got an idea that I would catch this white
+baboon and bring it home. But of course I could not do this by myself,
+so I took a Hottentot—a very clever man when he was not drunk—who lived
+on the stead, into my confidence. He was called Hendrik, and was very
+fond of me; but for a long while he would not listen to my plan,
+because he said that the babyans would kill us. At last I bribed him
+with a knife that had four blades, and one afternoon we started,
+Hendrik carrying a stout sack made of hide, with a rope running through
+it so that the mouth could be drawn tight.
+
+“Well, we got to the place, and, hiding ourselves carefully in the
+trees at the foot of the kloof, watched the baboons playing about and
+grunting to each other, till at length, according to custom, they took
+the white one and three other little babies and put them in the cave.
+Then the old man came out, looked carefully round, called to his
+family, and went off with them over the brow of the kloof. Now very
+slowly and cautiously we crept up over the rocks till we came to the
+mouth of the cave and looked in. All the four little baboons were fast
+asleep, with their backs towards us, and their arms round each other’s
+necks, the white one being in the middle. Nothing could have been
+better for our plans. Hendrik, who by this time had quite entered into
+the spirit of the thing, crept along the cave like a snake, and
+suddenly dropped the mouth of the hide bag over the head of the white
+baboon. The poor little thing woke up and gave a violent jump which
+caused it to vanish right into the bag. Then Hendrik pulled the string
+tight, and together we knotted it so that it was impossible for our
+captive to escape. Meanwhile the other baby baboons had rushed from the
+cave screaming, and when we got outside they were nowhere to be seen.
+
+“‘Come on, Missie,’ said Hendrik; ‘the babyans will soon be back.’ He
+had shouldered the sack, inside of which the white baboon was kicking
+violently, and screaming like a child. It was dreadful to hear its
+shrieks.
+
+“We scrambled down the sides of the kloof and ran for home as fast as
+we could manage. When we were near the waterfall, and within about
+three hundred yards of the garden wall, we heard a voice behind us, and
+there, leaping from rock to rock, and running over the grass, was the
+whole family of baboons headed by the old man.
+
+“‘Run, Missie, run!’ gasped Hendrik, and I did, like the wind, leaving
+him far behind. I dashed into the garden, where some Kaffirs were
+working, crying, ‘The babyans! the babyans!’ Luckily the men had their
+sticks and spears by them and ran out just in time to save Hendrik, who
+was almost overtaken. The baboons made a good fight for it, however,
+and it was not till the old man was killed with an assegai that they
+ran away.
+
+“Well, there is a stone hut in the kraal at the stead where my father
+sometimes shuts up natives who have misbehaved. It is very strong, and
+has a barred window. To this hut Hendrik carried the sack, and, having
+untied the mouth, put it down on the floor, and ran from the place,
+shutting the door behind him. In another moment the poor little thing
+was out and dashing round the stone hut as though it were mad. It
+sprung at the bars of the window, clung there, and beat its head
+against them till the blood came. Then it fell to the floor, and sat
+upon it crying like a child, and rocking itself backwards and forwards.
+It was so sad to see it that I began to cry too.
+
+“Just then my father came in and asked what all the fuss was about. I
+told him that we had caught a young white baboon, and he was angry, and
+said that it must be let go. But when he looked at it through the bars
+of the window he nearly fell down with astonishment.
+
+“‘Why!’ he said, ‘this is not a baboon, it is a white child that the
+baboons have stolen and brought up!’
+
+“Now, Mr. Allan, whether my father is right or wrong, you can judge for
+yourself. You see Hendrika—we named her that after Hendrik, who caught
+her—she is a woman, not a monkey, and yet she has many of the ways of
+monkeys, and looks like one too. You saw how she can climb, for
+instance, and you hear how she talks. Also she is very savage, and when
+she is angry or jealous she seems to go mad, though she is as clever as
+anybody. I think that she must have been stolen by the baboons when she
+was quite tiny and nurtured by them, and that is why she is so like
+them.
+
+“But to go on. My father said that it was our duty to keep Hendrika at
+any cost. The worst of it was, that for three days she would eat
+nothing, and I thought that she would die, for all the while she sat
+and wailed. On the third day, however, I went to the bars of the window
+place, and held out a cup of milk and some fruit to her. She looked at
+it for a long while, then crept up moaning, took the milk from my hand,
+drank it greedily, and afterwards ate the fruit. From that time forward
+she took food readily enough, but only if I would feed her.
+
+“But I must tell you of the dreadful end of Hendrik. From the day that
+we captured Hendrika the whole place began to swarm with baboons which
+were evidently employed in watching the kraals. One day Hendrik went
+out towards the hills alone to gather some medicine. He did not come
+back again, so the next day search was made. By a big rock which I can
+show you, they found his scattered and broken bones, the fragments of
+his assegai, and four dead baboons. They had set upon him and torn him
+to pieces.
+
+“My father was very much frightened at this, but still he would not let
+Hendrika go, because he said that she was human, and that it was our
+duty to reclaim her. And so we did—to a certain extent, at least. After
+the murder of Hendrik, the baboons vanished from the neighbourhood, and
+have only returned quite recently, so at length we ventured to let
+Hendrika out. By this time she had grown very fond of me; still, on the
+first opportunity she ran away. But in the evening she returned again.
+She had been seeking the baboons, and could not find them. Shortly
+afterwards she began to speak—I taught her—and from that time she has
+loved me so that she will not leave me. I think it would kill her if I
+went away from her. She watches me all day, and at night sleeps on the
+floor of my hut. Once, too, she saved my life when I was swept down the
+river in flood; but she is jealous, and hates everybody else. Look, how
+she is glaring at you now because I am talking to you!”
+
+I looked. Hendrika was tramping along with the child in her arms and
+staring at me in a most sinister fashion out of the corners of her
+eyes.
+
+While I was reflecting on the Baboon-woman’s strange story, and
+thinking that she was an exceedingly awkward customer, the path took a
+sudden turn.
+
+“Look!” said Stella, “there is our home. Is it not beautiful?”
+
+It was beautiful indeed. Here on the western side of the great peak a
+bay had been formed in the mountain, which might have measured eight
+hundred or a thousand yards across by three-quarters of a mile in
+depth. At the back of this indentation the sheer cliff rose to the
+height of several hundred feet, and behind it and above it the great
+Babyan Peak towered up towards the heavens. The space of ground,
+embraced thus in the arms of the mountain, as it were, was laid out, as
+though by the cunning hand of man, in three terraces that rose one
+above the other. To the right and left of the topmost terrace were
+chasms in the cliff, and down each chasm fell a waterfall, from no
+great height, indeed, but of considerable volume. These two streams
+flowed away on either side of the enclosed space, one towards the
+north, and the other, the course of which we had been following, round
+the base of the mountain. At each terrace they made a cascade, so that
+the traveller approaching had a view of eight waterfalls at once. Along
+the edge of the stream to our left were placed Kaffir kraals, built in
+orderly groups with verandahs, after the Basutu fashion, and a very
+large part of the entire space of land was under cultivation. All of
+this I noted at once, as well as the extraordinary richness and depth
+of the soil, which for many ages past had been washed down from the
+mountain heights. Then following the line of an excellent waggon road,
+on which we now found ourselves, that wound up from terrace to terrace,
+my eye lit upon the crowning wonder of the scene. For in the centre of
+the topmost platform or terrace, which may have enclosed eight or ten
+acres of ground, and almost surrounded by groves of orange trees,
+gleamed buildings of which I had never seen the like. There were three
+groups of them, one in the middle, and one on either side, and a little
+to the rear, but, as I afterwards discovered, the plan of all was the
+same. In the centre was an edifice constructed like an ordinary Zulu
+hut—that is to say, in the shape of a beehive, only it was five times
+the size of any hut I ever saw, and built of blocks of hewn white
+marble, fitted together with extraordinary knowledge of the principles
+and properties of arch building, and with so much accuracy and finish
+that it was often difficult to find the joints of the massive blocks.
+From this centre hut ran three covered passages, leading to other
+buildings of an exactly similar character, only smaller, and each whole
+block was enclosed by a marble wall about four feet in height.
+
+Of course we were as yet too far off to see all these details, but the
+general outline I saw at once, and it astonished me considerably. Even
+old Indaba-zimbi, whom the Baboon-woman had been unable to move,
+deigned to show wonder.
+
+“Ou!” he said; “this is a place of marvels. Who ever saw kraals built
+of white stone?”
+
+Stella watched our faces with an expression of intense amusement, but
+said nothing.
+
+“Did your father build those kraals?” I gasped, at length.
+
+“My father! no, of course not,” she answered. “How would it have been
+possible for one white man to do so, or to have made this road? He
+found them as you see.”
+
+“Who built them, then?” I said again.
+
+“I do not know. My father thinks that they are very ancient, for the
+people who live here now do not know how to lay one stone upon another,
+and these huts are so wonderfully constructed that, though they must
+have stood for ages, not a stone of them had fallen. But I can show you
+the quarry where the marble was cut; it is close by and behind it is
+the entrance to an ancient mine, which my father thinks was a silver
+mine. Perhaps the people who worked the mine built the marble huts. The
+world is old, and no doubt plenty of people have lived in it and been
+forgotten.”[*]
+
+[*] Kraals of a somewhat similar nature to those described by Mr.
+Quatermain have been discovered in the Marico district of the
+Transvaal, and an illustration of them is to be found in Mr. Anderson’s
+“Twenty-five Years in a Waggon,” vol. ii. p. 55. Mr. Anderson says, “In
+this district are the ancient stone kraals mentioned in an early
+chapter; but it requires a fuller description to show that these
+extensive kraals must have been erected by a white race who understood
+building in stone and at right angles, with door-posts, lintels, and
+sills, and it required more than Kaffir skill to erect the stone huts,
+with stone circular roofs, beautifully formed and most substantially
+erected; strong enough, if not disturbed, to last a thousand years.”
+—Editor.
+
+
+Then we rode on in silence. I have seen many beautiful sights in
+Africa, and in such matters, as in others, comparisons are odious and
+worthless, but I do not think that I ever saw a lovelier scene. It was
+no one thing—it was the combination of the mighty peak looking forth on
+to the everlasting plains, the great cliffs, the waterfalls that
+sparkled in rainbow hues, the rivers girdling the rich cultivated
+lands, the gold-specked green of the orange trees, the flashing domes
+of the marble huts, and a thousand other things. Then over all brooded
+the peace of evening, and the infinite glory of the sunset that filled
+heaven with changing hues of splendour, that wrapped the mountain and
+cliffs in cloaks of purple and of gold, and lay upon the quiet face of
+the water like the smile of a god.
+
+Perhaps also the contrast, and the memory of those three awful days and
+nights in the hopeless desert, enhanced the charm, and perhaps the
+beauty of the girl who walked beside me completed it. For of this I am
+sure, that of all sweet and lovely things that I looked on then, she
+was the sweetest and the loveliest.
+
+Ah, it did not take me long to find my fate. How long will it be before
+I find her once again?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+THE MARBLE KRAALS
+
+
+At length the last platform, or terrace, was reached, and we pulled up
+outside the wall surrounding the central group of marble huts—for so I
+must call them, for want of a better name. Our approach had been
+observed by a crowd of natives, whose race I have never been able to
+determine accurately; they belonged to the Basutu and peaceful section
+of the Bantu peoples rather than to the Zulu and warlike. Several of
+these ran up to take the horses, gazing on us with astonishment, not
+unmixed with awe. We dismounted—speaking for myself, not without
+difficulty—indeed, had it not been for Stella’s support I should have
+fallen.
+
+“Now you must come and see my father,” she said. “I wonder what he will
+think of it, it is all so strange. Hendrika, take the child to my hut
+and give her milk, then put her into my bed; I will come presently.”
+
+Hendrika went off with a somewhat ugly grin to do her mistress’s
+bidding, and Stella led the way through the narrow gateway in the
+marble wall, which may have enclosed nearly half an “erf,” or
+three-quarters of an acre of ground in all. It was beautifully planted
+as a garden, many European vegetables and flowers were growing in it,
+besides others with which I was not acquainted. Presently we came to
+the centre hut, and it was then that I noticed the extraordinary beauty
+and finish of the marble masonry. In the hut, and facing the gateway,
+was a modern door, rather rudely fashioned of Buckenhout, a beautiful
+reddish wood that has the appearance of having been sedulously pricked
+with a pin. Stella opened it, and we entered. The interior of the hut
+was the size of a large and lofty room, the walls being formed of plain
+polished marble. It was lighted somewhat dimly, but quite effectively,
+by peculiar openings in the roof, from which the rain was excluded by
+overhanging eaves. The marble floor was strewn with native mats and
+skins of animals. Bookcases filled with books were placed against the
+walls, there was a table in the centre, chairs seated with rimpi or
+strips of hide stood about, and beyond the table was a couch on which a
+man was lying reading.
+
+“Is that you, Stella?” said a voice, that even after so many years
+seemed familiar to me. “Where have you been, my dear? I began to think
+that you had lost yourself again.”
+
+“No, father, dear, I have not lost myself, but I have found somebody
+else.”
+
+At that moment I stepped forward so that the light fell on me. The old
+gentleman on the couch rose with some difficulty and bowed with much
+courtesy. He was a fine-looking old man, with deep-set dark eyes, a
+pale face that bore many traces of physical and mental suffering, and a
+long white beard.
+
+“Be welcome, sir,” he said. “It is long since we have seen a white face
+in these wilds, and yours, if I am not mistaken, is that of an
+Englishman. There has been but one Englishman here for twelve years,
+and he, I grieve to say, was an outcast flying from justice,” and he
+bowed again and stretched out his hand.
+
+I looked at him, and then of a sudden his name flashed back into my
+mind. I took his hand.
+
+“How do you do, Mr. Carson?” I said.
+
+He started as though he had been stung.
+
+“Who told you that name?” he cried. “It is a dead name. Stella, is it
+you? I forbade you to let it pass your lips.”
+
+“I did not speak it, father. I have never spoken it,” she answered.
+
+“Sir,” I broke in, “if you will allow me I will show you how I came to
+know your name. Do you remember many years ago coming into the study of
+a clergyman in Oxfordshire and telling him that you were going to leave
+England for ever?”
+
+He bowed his head.
+
+“And do you remember a little boy who sat upon the hearthrug writing
+with a pencil?”
+
+“I do,” he said.
+
+“Sir, I was that boy, and my name is Allan Quatermain. Those children
+who lay sick are all dead, their mother is dead, and my father, your
+old friend, is dead also. Like you he emigrated, and last year he died
+in the Cape. But that is not all the story. After many adventures, I,
+one Kaffir, and a little girl, lay senseless and dying in the Bad
+Lands, where we had wandered for days without water, and there we
+should have perished, but your daughter, Miss——”
+
+“Call her Stella,” he broke in, hastily. “I cannot bear to hear that
+name. I have forsworn it.”
+
+“Miss Stella found us by chance and saved our lives.”
+
+“By chance, did you say, Allan Quatermain?” he answered. “There is
+little chance in all this; such chances spring from another will than
+ours. Welcome, Allan, son of my old friend. Here we live as it were in
+a hermitage, with Nature as our only friend, but such as we have is
+yours, and for as long as you will take it. But you must be starving;
+talk no more now. Stella, it is time to eat. To-morrow we will talk.”
+
+To tell the truth I can recall very little of the events of that
+evening. A kind of dizzy weariness overmastered me. I remember sitting
+at a table next to Stella, and eating heartily, and then I remember
+nothing more.
+
+I awoke to find myself lying on a comfortable bed in a hut built and
+fashioned on the same model as the centre one. While I was wondering
+what time it was, a native came bringing some clean clothes on his arm,
+and, luxury of luxuries, produced a bath hollowed from wood. I rose,
+feeling a very different man, my strength had come back again to me; I
+dressed, and following a covered passage found myself in the centre
+hut. Here the table was set for breakfast with all manner of good
+things, such as I had not seen for many a month, which I contemplated
+with healthy satisfaction. Presently I looked up, and there before me
+was a more delightful sight, for standing in one of the doorways which
+led to the sleeping huts was Stella, leading little Tota by the hand.
+
+She was very simply dressed in a loose blue gown, with a wide collar,
+and girdled in at the waist by a little leather belt. In the bosom of
+her robe was a bunch of orange blooms, and her rippling hair was tied
+in a single knot behind her shapely head. She greeted me with a smile,
+asking how I had slept, and then held Tota up for me to kiss. Under her
+loving care the child had been quite transformed. She was neatly
+dressed in a garment of the same blue stuff that Stella wore, her fair
+hair was brushed; indeed, had it not been for the sun blisters on her
+face and hands, one would scarcely have believed that this was the same
+child whom Indaba-zimbi and I had dragged for hour after hour through
+the burning, waterless desert.
+
+“We must breakfast alone, Mr. Allan,” she said; “my father is so upset
+by your arrival that he will not get up yet. Oh, you cannot tell how
+thankful I am that you have come. I have been so anxious about him of
+late. He grows weaker and weaker; it seems to me as though the strength
+were ebbing away from him. Now he scarcely leaves the kraal, I have to
+manage everything about the farm; he does nothing but read and think.”
+
+Just then Hendrika entered, bearing a jug of coffee in one hand and of
+milk in the other, which she set down upon the table, casting a look of
+little love at me as she did so.
+
+“Be careful, Hendrika; you are spilling the coffee,” said Stella.
+“Don’t you wonder how we come to have coffee here, Mr. Allan? I will
+tell you—we grow it. That was my idea. Oh, I have lots of things to
+show you. You don’t know what we have managed to do in the time that we
+have been here. You see we have plenty of labour, for the people about
+look upon my father as their chief.”
+
+“Yes,” I said, “but how do you get all these luxuries of civilization?”
+and I pointed to the books, the crockery, and the knives and forks.
+
+“Very simply. Most of the books my father brought with him when we
+first trekked into the wilds; there was nearly a waggon load of them.
+But every few years we have sent an expedition of three waggons right
+down to Port Natal. The waggons are loaded with ivory and other goods,
+and come back with all kinds of things that have been sent out from
+England for us. So you see, although we live in this wild place, we are
+not altogether cut off. We can send runners to Natal and back in three
+months, and the waggons get there and back in a year. The last lot
+arrived quite safe about three months ago. Our servants are very
+faithful, and some of them speak Dutch well.”
+
+“Have you ever been with the waggons?” I asked.
+
+“Since I was a child I have never been more than thirty miles from
+Babyan’s Peak,” she answered. “Do you know, Mr. Allan, that you are,
+with one exception, the first Englishman that I have known out of a
+book. I suppose that I must seem very wild and savage to you, but I
+have had one advantage—a good education. My father has taught me
+everything, and perhaps I know some things that you don’t. I can read
+French and German, for instance. I think that my father’s first idea
+was to let me run wild altogether, but he gave it up.”
+
+“And don’t you wish to go into the world?” I asked.
+
+“Sometimes,” she said, “when I get lonely. But perhaps my father is
+right—perhaps it would frighten and bewilder me. At any rate he would
+never return to civilization; it is his idea, you know, although I am
+sure I do not know where he got it from, nor why he cannot bear that
+our name should be spoken. In short, Mr. Quatermain, we do not make our
+lives, we must take them as we find them. Have you done your breakfast?
+Let us go out, and I will show you our home.”
+
+I rose and went to my sleeping-place to fetch my hat. When I returned,
+Mr. Carson—for after all that was his name, though he would never allow
+it to be spoken—had come into the hut. He felt better now, he said, and
+would accompany us on our walk if Stella would give him an arm.
+
+So we started, and after us came Hendrika with Tota and old
+Indaba-zimbi whom I found sitting outside as fresh as paint. Nothing
+could tire that old man.
+
+The view from the platform was almost as beautiful as that from the
+lower ground looking up to the peak. The marble kraals, as I have said,
+faced west, consequently all the upper terrace lay in the shadow of the
+great peak till nearly eleven o’clock in the morning—a great advantage
+in that warm latitude. First we walked through the garden, which was
+beautifully cultivated, and one of the most productive that I ever saw.
+There were three or four natives working in it, and they all saluted my
+host as “Baba,” or father. Then we visited the other two groups of
+marble huts. One of these was used for stables and outbuildings, the
+other as storehouses, the centre hut having been, however, turned into
+a chapel. Mr. Carson was not ordained, but he earnestly tried to
+convert the natives, most of whom were refugees who had come to him for
+shelter, and he had practised the more elementary rites of the church
+for so long that I think he began to believe that he really was a
+clergyman. For instance, he always married those of his people who
+would consent to a monogamous existence, and baptized their children.
+
+When we had examined those wonderful remains of antiquity, the marble
+huts, and admired the orange trees, the vines and fruits which thrive
+like weeds in this marvellous soil and climate, we descended to the
+next platform, and saw the farming operations in full swing. I think
+that it was the best farm I have ever seen in Africa. There was ample
+water for purposes of irrigation, the grass lands below gave pasturage
+for hundreds of head of cattle and horses, and, for natives, the people
+were most industrious. Moreover, the whole place was managed by Mr.
+Carson on the co-operative system; he only took a tithe of the
+produce—indeed, in this land of teeming plenty, what was he to do with
+more? Consequently the tribesmen, who, by the way, called themselves
+the “Children of Thomas,” were able to accumulate considerable wealth.
+All their disputes were referred to their “father,” and he also was
+judge of offences and crimes. Some were punished by imprisonment,
+whipping, and loss of goods, other and graver transgressions by
+expulsion from the community, a fiat which to one of these favoured
+natives must have seemed as heavy as the decree that drove Adam from
+the Garden of Eden.
+
+Old Mr. Carson leaned upon his daughter’s arm and contemplated the
+scene with pride.
+
+“I have done all this, Allan Quatermain,” he said. “When renouncing
+civilization, I wandered here by chance; seeking a home in the remotest
+places of the world, I found this lonely spot a wilderness. Nothing was
+to be seen except the site, the domes of the marble huts, and the
+waterfalls. I took possession of the huts. I cleared the path of garden
+land and planted the orange grove. I had only six natives then, but by
+degrees others joined me, now my tribe is a thousand strong. Here we
+live in profound peace and plenty. I have all I need, and I seek no
+more. Heaven has prospered me so far—may it do so to the end, which for
+me draws nigh. And now I am tired and will go back. If you wish to see
+the old quarry and the mouth of the ancient mines, Stella will show
+them to you. No, my love, you need not trouble to come, I can manage.
+Look! some of the headmen are waiting to see me.”
+
+So he went; but still followed by Hendrika and Indaba-zimbi, we turned,
+and, walking along the bank of one of the rivers, passed up behind the
+marble kraals, and came to the quarry, whence the material of which
+they were built had been cut in some remote age. The pit opened up a
+very thick seam of the whitest and most beautiful marble. I know
+another like it in Natal. But by whom it had been worked I cannot say;
+not by natives, that is certain, though the builders of these kraals
+had condescended to borrow the shape of native huts for their model. By
+the way, the only relic of those builders that I ever saw was a highly
+finished bronze pick-axe which Stella had found one day in the quarry.
+
+After we had examined this quarry we climbed the slope of the hill till
+we came to the mouth of the ancient mines which were situated in a
+gorge. I believe them to have been silver mines. The gorge was long and
+narrow, and the moment we entered it there rose from every side a sound
+of groaning and barking that was almost enough to deafen us. I knew
+what it was at once: the whole place was filled with baboons, which
+clambered down the rocks towards us from every direction, and in a
+manner that struck me as being unnaturally fearless. Stella turned a
+little pale and clung to my arm.
+
+“It is very silly of me,” she whispered. “I am not at all nervous, but
+ever since they killed Hendrik I cannot bear the sight of those
+animals. I always think that there is something human about them.”
+
+Meanwhile the baboons drew nearer, talking to each other as they came.
+Tota began to cry, and clung to Stella. Stella clung to me, while I and
+Indaba-zimbi put as bold a front on the matter as we could. Only
+Hendrika stood looking at the brutes with an unconcerned smile on her
+monkey face. When the great apes were quite near, she suddenly called
+aloud. Instantly they stopped their hideous clamour as though at a word
+of command. Then Hendrika addressed them: I can only describe it so.
+That is to say, she began to make a noise such as baboons do when they
+converse with each other. I have known Hottentots and Bushmen who said
+that they could talk with the baboons and understand their language,
+but I confess I never heard it done before or since.
+
+From the mouth of Hendrika came a succession of grunts, groans,
+squeals, clicks, and every other abominable noise that can be
+conceived, conveying to my mind a general idea of expostulation. At any
+rate the baboons listened. One of them grunted back some answer, and
+then the whole mob drew off to the rocks.
+
+I stood astonished, and without a word we turned back to the kraal, for
+Hendrika was too close to allow me to speak. When we reached the dining
+hut Stella went in, followed by Hendrika. But Indaba-zimbi plucked me
+by the sleeve, and I stopped outside.
+
+“Macumazahn,” he said. “Baboon-woman—devil-woman. Be careful,
+Macumazahn. She loves that Star (the natives aptly enough called Stella
+the Star), and is jealous. Be careful, Macumazahn, or the Star will
+set!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+“LET US GO IN, ALLAN!”
+
+
+It is very difficult for me to describe the period of time which
+elapsed between my arrival at Babyan’s Peak and my marriage with
+Stella. When I look back on it, it seems sweet as with the odour of
+flowers, and dim as with the happy dusk of summer eves, while through
+the sweetness comes the sound of Stella’s voice, and through the gloom
+shines the starlight of her eyes. I think that we loved each other from
+the first, though for a while we said no word of love. Day by day I
+went about the place with her, accompanied by little Tota and Hendrika
+only, while she attended to the thousand and one matters which her
+father’s ever-growing weakness had laid upon her; or rather, as time
+drew on, I attended to the business, and she accompanied me. All day
+through we were together. Then after supper, when the night had fallen,
+we would walk together in the garden and come at length to hear her
+father read aloud sometimes from the works of a poet, sometimes from
+history. Or, if he did not feel well, Stella would read, and when this
+was done, Mr. Carson would celebrate a short form of prayer, and we
+would separate till the morning once more brought our happy hour of
+meeting.
+
+So the weeks went by, and with every week I grew to know my darling
+better. Often, I wonder now, if my fond fancy deceives me, or if indeed
+there are women as sweet and dear as she. Was it solitude that had
+given such depth and gentleness to her? Was it the long years of
+communing with Nature that had endowed her with such peculiar grace,
+the grace we find in opening flowers and budding trees? Had she caught
+that murmuring voice from the sound of the streams which fall
+continually about her rocky home? Was it the tenderness of the evening
+sky beneath which she loved to walk, that lay like a shadow on her
+face, and the light of the evening stars that shone in her quiet eyes?
+At the least to me she was the realization of that dream which haunts
+the sleep of sin-stained men; so my memory paints her, so I hope to
+find her when at last the sleep has rolled away and the fevered dreams
+are done.
+
+At last there came a day—the most blessed of my life, when we told our
+love. We had been together all the morning, but after dinner Mr. Carson
+was so unwell that Stella stopped in with him. At supper we met again,
+and after supper, when she had put little Tota, to whom she had grown
+much attached, to bed, we went out, leaving Mr. Carson dozing on the
+couch.
+
+The night was warm and lovely, and without speaking we walked up the
+garden to the orange grove and sat down upon a rock. There was a little
+breeze which shook the petals of the orange blooms over us in showers,
+and bore their delicate fragrance far and wide. Silence reigned around,
+broken only by the sound of the falling waterfalls that now died to a
+faint murmur, and now, as the wavering breeze turned, boomed loudly in
+our ears. The moon was not yet visible, but already the dark clouds
+which floated through the sky above us—for there had been rain—showed a
+glow of silver, telling us that she shone brightly behind the peak.
+Stella began to talk in her low, gentle voice, speaking to me of her
+life in the wilderness, how she had grown to love it, how her mind had
+gone on from idea to idea, and how she pictured the great rushing world
+that she had never seen as it was reflected to her from the books which
+she had read. It was a curious vision of life that she had: things were
+out of proportion to it; it was more like a dream than a reality—a
+mirage than the actual face of things. The idea of great cities, and
+especially of London, had a kind of fascination for her: she could
+scarcely realize the rush, the roar and hurry, the hard crowds of men
+and women, strangers to each other, feverishly seeking for wealth and
+pleasure beneath a murky sky, and treading one another down in the fury
+of their competition.
+
+“What is it all for?” she asked earnestly. “What do they seek? Having
+so few years to live, why do they waste them thus?”
+
+I told her that in the majority of instances it was actual hard
+necessity that drove them on, but she could barely understand me.
+Living as she had done, in the midst of the teeming plenty of a
+fruitful earth, she did not seem to be able to grasp the fact that
+there were millions who from day to day know not how to stay their
+hunger.
+
+“I never want to go there,” she went on; “I should be bewildered and
+frightened to death. It is not natural to live like that. God put Adam
+and Eve in a garden, and that is how he meant their children to live—in
+peace, and looking always on beautiful things. This is my idea of
+perfect life. I want no other.”
+
+“I thought you once told me that you found it lonely,” I said.
+
+“So I did,” she answered, innocently, “but that was before you came.
+Now I am not lonely any more, and it is perfect—perfect as the night.”
+
+Just then the full moon rose above the elbow of the peak, and her rays
+stole far and wide down the misty valley, gleaming on the water,
+brooding on the plain, searching out the hidden places of the rocks,
+wrapping the fair form of nature as in a silver bridal veil through
+which her beauty shone mysteriously.
+
+Stella looked down the terraced valley; she turned and looked up at the
+scarred face of the golden moon, and then she looked at me. The beauty
+of the night was about her face, the scent of the night was on her
+hair, the mystery of the night shone in her shadowed eyes. She looked
+at me, I looked on her, and all our hearts’ love blossomed within us.
+We spoke no word—we had no words to speak, but slowly we drew near,
+till lips were pressed to lips as we kissed our eternal troth.
+
+It was she who broke that holy silence, speaking in a changed voice, in
+soft deep notes that thrilled me like the lowest chords of a smitten
+harp.
+
+“Ah, now I understand,” she said, “now I know why we are lonely, and
+how we can lose our loneliness. Now I know what it is that stirs us in
+the beauty of the sky, in the sound of water and in the scent of
+flowers. It is Love who speaks in everything, though till we hear his
+voice we understand nothing. But when we hear, then the riddle is
+answered and the gates of our heart are opened, and, Allan, we see the
+way that wends through death to heaven, and is lost in the glory of
+which our love is but a shadow.
+
+“Let us go in, Allan. Let us go before the spell breaks, so that
+whatever overtakes us, sorrow, death, or separation, we may always have
+this perfect memory to save us. Come, dearest, let us go!”
+
+I rose like a man in a dream, still holding her by the hand. But as I
+rose my eye fell upon something that gleamed white among the foliage of
+the orange bush at my side. I said nothing, but looked. The breeze
+stirred the orange leaves, the moonlight struck for a moment full upon
+the white object.
+
+It was the face of Hendrika, the Babyan-woman, as Indaba-zimbi had
+called her, and on it was a glare of hate that made me shudder.
+
+I said nothing; the face vanished, and just then I heard a baboon bark
+in the rocks behind.
+
+Then we went down the garden, and Stella passed into the centre hut. I
+saw Hendrika standing in the shadow near the door, and went up to her.
+
+“Hendrika,” I said, “why were you watching Miss Stella and myself in
+the garden?”
+
+She drew her lips up till her teeth gleamed in the moonlight.
+
+“Have I not watched her these many years, Macumazahn? Shall I cease to
+watch because a wandering white man comes to steal her? Why were you
+kissing her in the garden, Macumazahn? How dare you kiss her who is a
+star?”
+
+“I kissed her because I love her, and because she loves me,” I
+answered. “What has that to do with you, Hendrika?”
+
+“Because you love her,” she hissed in answer; “and do I not love her
+also, who saved me from the babyans? I am a woman as she is, and you
+are a man, and they say in the kraals that men love women better than
+women love women. But it is a lie, though this is true, that if a woman
+loves a man she forgets all other love. Have I not seen it? I gather
+her flowers—beautiful flowers; I climb the rocks where you would never
+dare to go to find them; you pluck a piece of orange bloom in the
+garden and give it to her. What does she do?—she takes the orange
+bloom, she puts it in her breast, and lets my flowers die. I call to
+her—she does not hear me—she is thinking. You whisper to some one far
+away, and she hears and smiles. She used to kiss me sometimes; now she
+kisses that white brat you brought, because you brought it. Oh, I see
+it all—all; I have seen it from the first; you are stealing her from
+us, stealing her to yourself, and those who loved her before you came
+are forgotten. Be careful, Macumazahn, be careful, lest I am revenged
+upon you. You, you hate me; you think me half a monkey; that servant of
+yours calls me Baboon-woman. Well, I have lived with baboons, and they
+are clever—yes, they can play tricks and know things that you don’t,
+and I am cleverer than they, for I have learnt the wisdom of white
+people also, and I say to you, Walk softly, Macumazahn, or you will
+fall into a pit,” and with one more look of malice she was gone.
+
+I stood for a moment reflecting. I was afraid of this strange creature
+who seemed to combine the cunning of the great apes that had reared her
+with the passions and skill of human kind. I foreboded evil at her
+hands. And yet there was something almost touching in the fierceness of
+her jealousy. It is generally supposed that this passion only exists in
+strength when the object loved is of another sex from the lover, but I
+confess that, both in this instance and in some others which I have met
+with, this has not been my experience. I have known men, and especially
+uncivilized men, who were as jealous of the affection of their friend
+or master as any lover could be of that of his mistress; and who has
+not seen cases of the same thing where parents and their children are
+concerned? But the lower one gets in the scale of humanity, the more
+readily this passion thrives; indeed, it may be said to come to its
+intensest perfection in brutes. Women are more jealous than men,
+small-hearted men are more jealous than those of larger mind and wider
+sympathy, and animals are the most jealous of all. Now Hendrika was in
+some ways not far removed from animal, which may perhaps account for
+the ferocity of her jealousy of her mistress’s affection.
+
+Shaking off my presentiments of evil, I entered the centre hut. Mr.
+Carson was resting on the sofa, and by him knelt Stella holding his
+hand, and her head resting on his breast. I saw at once that she had
+been telling him of what had come about between us; nor was I sorry,
+for it is a task that a would-be son-in-law is generally glad to do by
+deputy.
+
+“Come here, Allan Quatermain,” he said, almost sternly, and my heart
+gave a jump, for I feared lest he might be about to require me to go
+about my business. But I came.
+
+“Stella tells me,” he went on, “that you two have entered into a
+marriage engagement. She tells me also that she loves you, and that you
+say that you love her.”
+
+“I do indeed, sir,” I broke in; “I love her truly; if ever a woman was
+loved in this world, I love her.”
+
+“I thank Heaven for it,” said the old man. “Listen, my children. Many
+years ago a great shame and sorrow fell upon me, so great a sorrow
+that, as I sometimes think, it affected my brain. At any rate, I
+determined to do what most men would have considered the act of a
+madman, to go far away into the wilderness with my only child, there to
+live remote from civilization and its evils. I did so; I found this
+place, and here we have lived for many years, happily enough, and
+perhaps not without doing good in our generation, but still in a way
+unnatural to our race and status. At first I thought I would let my
+daughter grow up in a state of complete ignorance, that she should be
+Nature’s child. But as time went on, I saw the folly and the wickedness
+of my plan. I had no right to degrade her to the level of the savages
+around me, for if the fruit of the tree of knowledge is a bitter fruit,
+still it teaches good from evil. So I educated her as well as I was
+able, till in the end I knew that in mind, as in body, she was in no
+way inferior to her sisters, the children of the civilized world. She
+grew up and entered into womanhood, and then it came into my mind that
+I was doing her a bitter wrong, that I was separating her from her kind
+and keeping her in a wilderness where she could find neither mate nor
+companion. But though I knew this, I could not yet make up my mind to
+return to active life; I had grown to love this place. I dreaded to
+return into the world I had abjured. Again and again I put my
+resolutions aside. Then at the commencement of this year I fell ill.
+For a while I waited, hoping that I might get better, but at last I
+realized that I should never get better, that the hand of Death was
+upon me.”
+
+“Ah, no, father, not that!” Stella said, with a cry.
+
+“Yes, love, that, and it is true. Now you will be able to forget our
+separation in the happiness of a new meeting,” and he glanced at me and
+smiled. “Well, when this knowledge came home to me, I determined to
+abandon this place and trek for the coast, though I well knew that the
+journey would kill me. I should never live to reach it. But Stella
+would, and it would be better than leaving her here alone with savages
+in the wilderness. On the very day that I had made up my mind to take
+this step Stella found you dying in the Bad Lands, Allan Quatermain,
+and brought you here. She brought you, of all men in the world, you,
+whose father had been my dear friend, and who once with your baby hands
+had saved her life from fire, that she might live to save yours from
+thirst. At the time I said little, but I saw the hand of Providence in
+this, and I determined to wait and see what came about between you. At
+the worst, if nothing came about, I soon learned that I could trust you
+to see her safely to the coast after I was gone. But many days ago I
+knew how it stood between you, and now things are determined as I
+prayed they might be. God bless you both, my children; may you be happy
+in your love; may it endure till death and beyond it. God bless you
+both!” and he stretched out his hand towards me.
+
+I took it, and Stella kissed him.
+
+Presently he spoke again—
+
+“It is my intention,” he said, “if you two consent, to marry you next
+Sunday. I wish to do so soon, for I do not know how much longer will be
+allowed to me. I believe that such a ceremony, solemnly celebrated and
+entered into before witnesses, will, under the circumstances, be
+perfectly legal; but of course you will repeat it with every formality
+the first moment it lies in your power so to do. And now, there is one
+more thing: when I left England my fortunes were in a shattered
+condition; in the course of years they have recovered themselves, the
+accumulated rents, as I heard but recently, when the waggons last
+returned from Port Natal, have sufficed to pay off all charges, and
+there is a considerable balance over. Consequently you will not marry
+on nothing, for of course you, Stella, are my heiress, and I wish to
+make a stipulation. It is this. That so soon as my death occurs you
+should leave this place and take the first opportunity of returning to
+England. I do not ask you to live there always; it might prove too much
+for people reared in the wilds, as both of you have been; but I do ask
+you to make it your permanent home. Do you consent and promise this?”
+
+“I do,” I answered.
+
+“And so do I,” said Stella.
+
+“Very well,” he answered; “and now I am tired out. Again God bless you
+both, and good-night.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+HENDRIKA PLOTS EVIL
+
+
+On the following morning I had a conversation with Indaba-zimbi. First
+of all I told him that I was going to marry Stella.
+
+“Oh!” he said, “I thought so, Macumazahn. Did I not tell you that you
+would find happiness on this journey? Most men must be content to watch
+the Star from a long way off, to you it is given to wear her on your
+heart. But remember, Macumazahn, remember that stars set.”
+
+“Can you not stop your croaking even for a day?” I answered, angrily,
+for his words sent a thrill of fear through me.
+
+“A true prophet must tell the ill as well as the good, Macumazahn. I
+only speak what is on my mind. But what of it? What is life but loss,
+loss upon loss, till life itself be lost? But in death we may find all
+the things that we have lost. So your father taught, Macumazahn, and
+there was wisdom in his gentleness. Ou! I do not believe in death; it
+is change, that is all, Macumazahn. Look now, the rain falls, the drops
+of rain that were one water in the clouds fall side by side. They sink
+into the ground; presently the sun will come out, the earth will be
+dry, the drops will be gone. A fool looks and says the drops are dead,
+they will never be one again, they will never again fall side by side.
+But I am a rain-maker, and I know the ways of rain. It is not true. The
+drops will drain by many paths into the river, and will be one water
+there. They will go up to the clouds again in the mists of morning, and
+there will again be as they have been. We are the drops of rain,
+Macumazahn. When we fall that is our life. When we sink into the ground
+that is death, and when we are drawn up again to the sky, what is that,
+Macumazahn? No! no! when we find we lose, and when we seem to lose,
+then we shall really find. I am not a Christian, Macumazahn, but I am
+old, and have watched and seen things that perhaps Christians do not
+see. There, I have spoken. Be happy with your star, and if it sets,
+wait, Macumazahn, wait till it rises again. It will not be long; one
+day you will go to sleep, then your eyes will open on another sky, and
+there your star will be shining, Macumazahn.”
+
+I made no answer at the time. I could not bear to talk of such a thing.
+But often and often in the after years I have thought of Indaba-zimbi
+and his beautiful simile and gathered comfort from it. He was a strange
+man, this old rain-making savage, and there was more wisdom in him than
+in many learned atheists—those spiritual destroyers who, in the name of
+progress and humanity, would divorce hope from life, and leave us
+wandering in a lonesome, self-consecrated hell.
+
+“Indaba-zimbi,” I said, changing the subject, “I have something to
+say,” and I told him of the threats of Hendrika.
+
+He listened with an unmoved face, nodding his white lock at intervals
+as the narrative went on. But I saw that he was disturbed by it.
+
+“Macumazahn,” he said at length, “I have told you that this is an evil
+woman. She was nourished on baboon milk, and the baboon nature is in
+her veins. Such creatures should be killed, not kept. She will make you
+mischief if she can. But I will watch her, Macumazahn. Look, the Star
+is waiting for you; go, or she will hate me as Hendrika hates you.”
+
+So I went, nothing loth, for attractive as was the wisdom of
+Indaba-zimbi, I found a deeper meaning in Stella’s simplest word. All
+the rest of that day I passed in her company, and the greater part of
+the two following days. At last came Saturday night, the eve of our
+marriage. It rained that night, so we did not go out, but spent the
+evening in the hut. We sat hand in hand, saying little, but Mr. Carson
+talked a good deal, telling us tales of his youth, and of countries
+that he had visited. Then he read aloud from the Bible, and bade us
+goodnight. I also kissed Stella and went to bed. I reached my hut by
+the covered way, and before I undressed opened the door to see what the
+night was like. It was very dark, and rain was still falling, but as
+the light streamed out into the gloom I fancied that I caught sight of
+a dusky form gliding away. The thought of Hendrika flashed into my
+mind; could she be skulking about outside there? Now I had said nothing
+of Hendrika and her threats either to Mr. Carson or Stella, because I
+did not wish to alarm them. Also I knew that Stella was attached to
+this strange person, and I did not wish to shake her confidence in her
+unless it was absolutely necessary. For a minute or two I stood
+hesitating, then, reflecting that if it was Hendrika, there she should
+stop, I went in and put up the stout wooden bar that was used to secure
+the door. For the last few nights old Indaba-zimbi had made a habit of
+sleeping in the covered passage, which was the only other possible way
+of access. As I came to bed I had stepped over him rolled up in his
+blanket, and to all appearances fast asleep. So it being evident that I
+had nothing to fear, I promptly dismissed the matter from my mind,
+which, as may be imagined, was indeed fully occupied with other
+thoughts.
+
+I got into bed, and for awhile lay awake thinking of the great
+happiness in store for me, and of the providential course of events
+that had brought it within my reach. A few weeks since and I was
+wandering in the desert a dying man, bearing a dying child, and with
+scarcely a possession left in the world except a store of buried ivory
+that I never expected to see again. And now I was about to wed one of
+the sweetest and loveliest women on the whole earth—a woman whom I
+loved more than I could have thought possible, and who loved me back
+again. Also, as though that were not good fortune enough, I was to
+acquire with her very considerable possessions, quite sufficiently
+large to enable us to follow any plan of life we found agreeable. As I
+lay and reflected on all this I grew afraid of my good fortune. Old
+Indaba-zimbi’s melancholy prophecies came into my mind. Hitherto he had
+always prophesied truly. What if these should be true also? I turned
+cold as I thought of it, and prayed to the Power above to preserve us
+both to live and love together. Never was prayer more needed. While its
+words were still upon my lips I dropped asleep and dreamed a most
+dreadful dream.
+
+I dreamed that Stella and I were standing together to be married. She
+was dressed in white, and radiant with beauty, but it was a wild,
+spiritual beauty which frightened me. Her eyes shone like stars, a pale
+flame played about her features, and the wind that blew did not stir
+her hair. Nor was this all, for her white robes were death wrappings,
+and the altar at which we stood was formed of the piled-up earth from
+an open grave that yawned between us. So we stood waiting for one to
+wed us, but no one came. Presently from the open grave sprang the form
+of Hendrika. In her hand was a knife, with which she stabbed at me, but
+pierced the heart of Stella, who, without a cry, fell backwards into
+the grave, still looking at me as she fell. Then Hendrika leaped after
+her into the grave. I heard her feet strike heavily.
+
+“_Awake, Macumazahn! awake!_” cried the voice of Indaba-zimbi.
+
+I awoke and bounded from the bed, a cold perspiration pouring from me.
+In the darkness on the other side of the hut I heard sounds of furious
+struggling. Luckily I kept my head. Just by me was a chair on which
+were matches and a rush taper. I struck a match and held it to the
+taper. Now in the growing light I could see two forms rolling one over
+the other on the floor, and from between them came the flash of steel.
+The fat melted and the light burnt up. It was Indaba-zimbi and the
+woman Hendrika who were struggling, and, what is more, the woman was
+getting the better of the man, strong as he was. I rushed towards them.
+Now she was uppermost, now she had wrenched herself from his fierce
+grip, and now the great knife she had in her hand flashed up.
+
+But I was behind her, and, placing my hands beneath her arms, jerked
+with all my strength. She fell backwards, and, in her effort to save
+herself, most fortunately dropped the knife. Then we flung ourselves
+upon her. Heavens! the strength of that she-devil! Nobody who has not
+experienced it could believe it. She fought and scratched and bit, and
+at one time nearly mastered the two of us. As it was she did break
+loose. She rushed at the bed, sprung on it, and bounded thence straight
+up at the roof of the hut. I never saw such a jump, and could not
+conceive what she meant to do. In the roof were the peculiar holes
+which I have described. They were designed to admit light, and covered
+with overhanging eaves. She sprung straight and true like a monkey,
+and, catching the edge of the hole with her hands, strove to draw
+herself through it. But here her strength, exhausted with the long
+struggle, failed her. For a moment she swung, then dropped to the
+ground and fell senseless.
+
+“Ou!” gasped Indaba-zimbi. “Let us tie the devil up before she comes to
+life again.”
+
+I thought this a good counsel, so we took a reim that lay in the corner
+of the room, and lashed her hands and feet in such a fashion that even
+she could scarcely escape. Then we carried her into the passage, and
+Indaba-zimbi sat over her, the knife in his hand, for I did not wish to
+raise an alarm at that hour of the night.
+
+“Do you know how I caught her, Macumazahn?” he said. “For several
+nights I have slept here with one eye open, for I thought she had made
+a plan. To-night I kept wide awake, though I pretended to be asleep. An
+hour after you got into the blankets the moon rose, and I saw a beam of
+light come into the hut through the hole in the roof. Presently I saw
+the beam of light vanish. At first I thought that a cloud was passing
+over the moon, but I listened and heard a noise as though some one was
+squeezing himself through a narrow space. Presently he was through, and
+hanging by his hands. Then the light came in again, and in the middle
+of it I saw the Babyan-frau swinging from the roof, and about to drop
+into the hut. She clung by both hands, and in her mouth was a great
+knife. She dropped, and I ran forward to seize her as she dropped, and
+gripped her round the middle. But she heard me come, and, seizing the
+knife, struck at me in the dark and missed me. Then we struggled, and
+you know the rest. You were very nearly dead to-night, Macumazahn.”
+
+“Very nearly indeed,” I answered, still panting, and arranging the rags
+of my night-dress round me as best I might. Then the memory of my
+horrid dream flashed into my mind. Doubtless it had been conjured up by
+the sound of Hendrika dropping to the floor—in my dream it had been a
+grave that she dropped into. All of it, then, had been experienced in
+that second of time. Well, dreams are swift; perhaps Time itself is
+nothing but a dream, and events that seem far apart really occur
+simultaneously.
+
+We passed the rest of the night watching Hendrika. Presently she came
+to herself and struggled furiously to break the reim. But the untanned
+buffalo hide was too strong even for her, and, moreover, Indaba-zimbi
+unceremoniously sat upon her to keep her quiet. At last she gave it up.
+
+In due course the day broke—my marriage day. Leaving Indaba-zimbi to
+watch my would-be murderess, I went and fetched some natives from the
+stables, and with their aid bore Hendrika to the prison hut—that same
+hut in which she had been confined when she had been brought a
+baboon-child from the rocks. Here we shut her up, and, leaving
+Indaba-zimbi to watch outside, I returned to my sleeping-place and
+dressed in the best garments that the Babyan Kraals could furnish. But
+when I looked at the reflection of my face, I was horrified. It was
+covered with scratches inflicted by the nails of Hendrika. I doctored
+them up as best I could, then went out for a walk to calm my nerves,
+which, what between the events of the past night, and of those pending
+that day, were not a little disturbed.
+
+When I returned it was breakfast time. I went into the dining hut, and
+there Stella was waiting to greet me, dressed in simple white and with
+orange flowers on her breast. She came forward to me shyly enough;
+then, seeing the condition of my face, started back.
+
+“Why, Allan! what have you been doing to yourself?” she asked.
+
+As I was about to answer, her father came in leaning on his stick, and,
+catching sight of me, instantly asked the same question.
+
+Then I told them everything, both of Hendrika’s threats and of her
+fierce attempt to carry them into execution. But I did not tell my
+horrid dream.
+
+Stella’s face grew white as the flowers on her breast, but that of her
+father became very stern.
+
+“You should have spoken of this before, Allan,” he said. “I now see
+that I did wrong to attempt to civilize this wicked and revengeful
+creature, who, if she is human, has all the evil passions of the brutes
+that reared her. Well, I will make an end of it this very day.”
+
+“Oh, father,” said Stella, “don’t have her killed. It is all dreadful
+enough, but that would be more dreadful still. I have been very fond of
+her, and, bad as she is, she has loved me. Do not have her killed on my
+marriage day.”
+
+“No,” her father answered, “she shall not be killed, for though she
+deserves to die, I will not have her blood upon our hands. She is a
+brute, and has followed the nature of brutes. She shall go back whence
+she came.”
+
+No more was said on the matter at the time, but when breakfast—which
+was rather a farce—was done, Mr. Carson sent for his headman and gave
+him certain orders.
+
+We were to be married after the service which Mr. Carson held every
+Sunday morning in the large marble hut set apart for that purpose. The
+service began at ten o’clock, but long before that hour all the natives
+on the place came up in troops, singing as they came, to be present at
+the wedding of the “Star.” It was a pretty sight to see them, the men
+dressed in all their finery, and carrying shields and sticks in their
+hands, and the women and children bearing green branches of trees,
+ferns, and flowers. At length, about half-past nine, Stella rose,
+pressed my hand, and left me to my reflections. A few minutes to ten
+she reappeared again with her father, dressed in a white veil, a wreath
+of orange flowers on her dark curling hair, a bouquet of orange flowers
+in her hand. To me she seemed like a dream of loveliness. With her came
+little Tota in a high state of glee and excitement. She was Stella’s
+only bridesmaid. Then we all passed out towards the church hut. The
+bare space in front of it was filled with hundreds of natives, who set
+up a song as we came. But we went on into the hut, which was crowded
+with such of the natives as usually worshipped there. Here Mr. Carson,
+as usual, read the service, though he was obliged to sit down in order
+to do so. When it was done—and to me it seemed interminable—Mr. Carson
+whispered that he meant to marry us outside the hut in sight of all the
+people. So we went out and took our stand under the shade of a large
+tree that grew near the hut facing the bare space where the natives
+were gathered.
+
+Mr. Carson held up his hand to enjoin silence. Then, speaking in the
+native dialect, he told them that he was about to make us man and wife
+after the Christian fashion and in the sight of all men. This done, he
+proceeded to read the marriage service over us, and very solemnly and
+beautifully he did it. We said the words, I placed the ring—it was her
+father’s signet ring, for we had no other—upon Stella’s finger, and it
+was done.
+
+Then Mr. Carson spoke. “Allan and Stella,” he said, “I believe that the
+ceremony which has been performed makes you man and wife in the sight
+of God and man, for all that is necessary to make a marriage binding
+is, that it should be celebrated according to the custom of the country
+where the parties to it reside. It is according to the custom that has
+been in force here for fifteen years or more that you have been married
+in the face of all the people, and in token of it you will both sign
+the register that I have kept of such marriages, among those of my
+people who have adopted the Christian Faith. Still, in case there
+should be any legal flaw I again demand the solemn promise of you both
+that on the first opportunity you will cause this marriage to be
+re-celebrated in some civilized land. Do you promise?”
+
+“We do,” we answered.
+
+Then the book was brought out and we signed our names. At first my wife
+signed hers “Stella” only, but her father bade her write it Stella
+Carson for the first and last time in her life. Then several of the
+indunas, or headmen, including old Indaba-zimbi, put their marks in
+witness. Indaba-zimbi drew his mark in the shape of a little star, in
+humorous allusion to Stella’s native name. That register is before me
+now as I write. That, with a lock of my darling’s hair which lies
+between its leaves, is my dearest possession. There are all the names
+and marks as they were written many years ago beneath the shadow of the
+tree at Babyan Kraals in the wilderness, but alas! and alas! where are
+those who wrote them?
+
+“My people,” said Mr. Carson, when the signing was done, and we had
+kissed each other before them all—“My people, Macumazahn and the Star,
+my daughter, are now man and wife, to live in one kraal, to eat of one
+bowl, to share one fortune till they reach the grave. Hear now, my
+people, you know this woman,” and turning he pointed to Hendrika, who,
+unseen by us, had been led out of the prison hut.
+
+“Yes, yes, we know her,” said a little ring of headmen, who formed the
+primitive court of justice, and after the fashion of natives had
+squatted themselves in a circle on the ground in front of us. “We know
+her, she is the white Babyan-woman, she is Hendrika, the body servant
+of the Star.”
+
+“You know her,” said Mr. Carson, “but you do not know her altogether.
+Stand forward, Indaba-zimbi, and tell the people what came about last
+night in the hut of Macumazahn.”
+
+Accordingly old Indaba-zimbi came forward, and, squatting down, told
+his moving tale with much descriptive force and many gestures,
+finishing up by producing the great knife from which his watchfulness
+had saved me.
+
+Then I was called upon, and in a few brief words substantiated his
+story: indeed my face did that in the sight of all men.
+
+Then Mr. Carson turned to Hendrika, who stood in sullen silence, her
+eyes fixed upon the ground, and asked her if she had anything to say.
+
+She looked up boldly and answered—
+
+“Macumazahn has robbed me of the love of my mistress. I would have
+robbed him of his life, which is a little thing compared to that which
+I have lost at his hands. I have failed, and I am sorry for it, for had
+I killed him and left no trace the Star would have forgotten him and
+shone on me again.”
+
+“Never,” murmured Stella in my ear; but Mr. Carson turned white with
+wrath.
+
+“My people,” he said, “you hear the words of this woman. You hear how
+she pays me back, me and my daughter whom she swears she loves. She
+says that she would have murdered a man who has done her no evil, the
+man who is the husband of her mistress. We saved her from the babyans,
+we tamed her, we fed her, we taught her, and this is how she pays us
+back. Say, my people, what reward should be given to her?”
+
+“Death,” said the circle of indunas, pointing their thumbs downwards,
+and all the multitude beyond echoed the word “Death.”
+
+“Death,” repeated the head induna, adding, “If you save her, my father,
+we will slay her with our own hands. She is a Babyan-woman, a
+devil-woman; ah, yes, we have heard of such before; let her be slain
+before she works more evil.”
+
+Then it was that Stella stepped forward and begged for Hendrika’s life
+in moving terms. She pleaded the savagery of the woman’s nature, her
+long service, and the affection that she had always shown towards
+herself. She said that I, whose life had been attempted, forgave her,
+and she, my wife, who had nearly been left a widow before she was made
+a bride, forgave her; let them forgive her also, let her be sent away,
+not slain, let not her marriage day be stained with blood.
+
+Now her father listened readily enough, for he had no intention of
+killing Hendrika—indeed, he had already promised not to do so. But the
+people were in a different humour, they looked upon Hendrika as a
+devil, and would have torn her to pieces there and then, could they
+have had their way. Nor were matters mended by Indaba-zimbi, who had
+already gained a great reputation for wisdom and magic in the place.
+Suddenly the old man rose and made quite an impassioned speech, urging
+them to kill Hendrika at once or mischief would come of it.
+
+At last matters got very bad, for two of the Indunas came forward to
+drag her off to execution, and it was not until Stella burst into tears
+that the sight of her grief, backed by Mr. Carson’s orders and my own
+remonstrances, carried the day.
+
+All this while Hendrika had been standing quite unmoved. At last the
+tumult ceased, and the leading induna called to her to go, promising
+that if ever she showed her face near the kraals again she should be
+stabbed like a jackal. Then Hendrika spoke to Stella in a low voice and
+in English—
+
+“Better let them kill me, mistress, better for all. Without you to love
+I shall go mad and become a babyan again.”
+
+Stella did not answer, and they loosed her. She stepped forward and
+looked at the natives with a stare of hate. Then she turned and walked
+past me, and as she passed whispered a native phrase in my ear, that,
+being literally translated, means, “Till another moon,” but which has
+the same significance as the French “au revoir.”
+
+It frightened me, for I knew she meant that she had not done with me,
+and saw that our mercy was misplaced. Seeing my face change she ran
+swiftly from me, and as she passed Indaba-zimbi, with a sudden movement
+snatched her great knife from his hand. When she had gone about twenty
+paces she halted, looked long and earnestly on Stella, gave one loud
+cry of anguish, and fled. A few minutes later we saw her far away,
+bounding up the face of an almost perpendicular cliff—a cliff that
+nobody except herself and the baboons could possibly climb.
+
+“Look,” said Indaba-zimbi in my ear—“Look, Macumazahn, there goes the
+Babyan-frau. But, Macumazahn, _she will come back again_. Ah, why will
+you not listen to my words. Have they not always been true words,
+Macumazahn?” and he shrugged his shoulders and turned away.
+
+For a while I was much disturbed, but at any rate Hendrika was gone for
+the present, and Stella, my dear and lovely wife, was there at my side,
+and in her smiles I forgot my fears.
+
+For the rest of that day, why should I write of it?—there are things
+too happy and too sacred to be written of.
+
+At last I had, if only for a little while, found that rest, that
+perfect joy which we seek so continually and so rarely clasp.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+GONE!
+
+
+I wonder if many married couples are quite as happy as we found
+ourselves. Cynics, a growing class, declare that few illusions can
+survive a honeymoon. Well, I do not know about it, for I only married
+once, and can but speak from my limited experience. But certainly our
+illusion, or rather the great truth of which it is the shadow, did
+survive, as to this day it survives in my heart across all the years of
+utter separation, and across the unanswering gulf of gloom.
+
+But complete happiness is not allowed in this world even for an hour.
+As our marriage day had been shadowed by the scene which has been
+described, so our married life was shadowed by its own sorrow.
+
+Three days after our wedding Mr. Carson had a stroke. It had been long
+impending, now it fell. We came into the centre hut to dinner and found
+him lying speechless on the couch. At first I thought that he was
+dying, but this was not so. On the contrary, within four days he
+recovered his speech and some power of movement. But he never recovered
+his memory, though he still knew Stella, and sometimes myself.
+Curiously enough he remembered little Tota best of all three, though
+occasionally he thought that she was his own daughter in her childhood,
+and would ask her where her mother was. This state of affairs lasted
+for some seven months. The old man gradually grew weaker, but he did
+not die. Of course his condition quite precluded the idea of our
+leaving Babyan Kraals till all was over. This was the more distressing
+to me because I had a nervous presentiment that Stella was incurring
+danger by staying there, and also because the state of her health
+rendered it desirable that we should reach a civilized region as soon
+as possible. However, it could not be helped.
+
+At length the end came very suddenly. We were sitting one evening by
+Mr. Carson’s bedside in his hut, when to our astonishment he sat up and
+spoke in a strong, full voice.
+
+“I hear you,” he said. “Yes, yes, I forgive you. Poor woman! you too
+have suffered,” and he fell back dead.
+
+I have little doubt that he was addressing his lost wife, some vision
+of whom had flashed across his dying sense. Stella, of course, was
+overwhelmed with grief at her loss. Till I came her father had been her
+sole companion, and therefore, as may be imagined, the tie between them
+was much closer than is usual even in the case of father and daughter.
+So deeply did she mourn that I began to fear for the effect upon her
+health. Nor were we the only ones to grieve; all the natives on the
+settlement called Mr. Carson “father,” and as a father they lamented
+him. The air resounded with the wailing of women, and the men went
+about with bowed heads, saying that “the sun had set in the heavens,
+now only the Star (Stella) remained.” Indaba-zimbi alone did not mourn.
+He said that it was best that the Inkoos should die, for what was life
+worth when one lay like a log?—moreover, that it would have been well
+for all if he had died sooner.
+
+On the following day we buried him in the little graveyard near the
+waterfall. It was a sad business, and Stella cried very much, in spite
+of all I could do to comfort her.
+
+That night as I sat outside the hut smoking—for the weather was hot,
+and Stella was lying down inside—old Indaba-zimbi came up, saluted, and
+squatted at my feet.
+
+“What is it, Indaba-zimbi?” I said.
+
+“This, Macumazahn. When are you going to trek towards the coast?”
+
+“I don’t know,” I answered. “The Star is not fit to travel now, we must
+wait awhile.”
+
+“No, Macumazahn, you must not wait, you must go, and the Star must take
+her chance. She is strong. It is nothing. All will be well.”
+
+“Why do you say so? why must we go?”
+
+“For this reason, Macumazahn,” and he looked cautiously round and spoke
+low. “The baboons have come back in thousands. All the mountain is full
+of them.”
+
+“I did not know that they had gone,” I said.
+
+“Yes,” he answered, “they went after the marriage, all but one or two;
+now they are back, all the baboons in the world, I think. I saw a whole
+cliff black with them.”
+
+“Is that all?” I said, for I saw that he had something behind. “I am
+not afraid of a pack of baboons.”
+
+“No, Macumazahn, it is not all. The Babyan-frau, Hendrika, is with
+them.”
+
+Now nothing had been heard or seen of Hendrika since her expulsion, and
+though at first she and her threats had haunted me somewhat, by degrees
+she to a great extent had passed out of my mind, which was fully
+preoccupied with Stella and my father-in-law’s illness. I started
+violently. “How do you know this?” I asked.
+
+“I know it because I saw her, Macumazahn. She is disguised, she is
+dressed up in baboon skins, and her face is stained dark. But though
+she was a long way off, I knew her by her size, and I saw the white
+flesh of her arm when the skins slipped aside. She has come back,
+Macumazahn, with all the baboons in the world, and she has come back to
+do evil. Now do you understand why you should trek?”
+
+“Yes,” I said, “though I don’t see how she and the baboons can harm us,
+I think that it will be better to go. If necessary we can camp the
+waggons somewhere for a while on the journey. Hearken, Indaba-zimbi:
+say nothing of this to the Star; I will not have her frightened. And
+hearken again. Speak to the headmen, and see that watchers are set all
+round the huts and gardens, and kept there night and day. To-morrow we
+will get the waggons ready, and next day we will trek.”
+
+He nodded his white lock and went to do my bidding, leaving me not a
+little disturbed—unreasonably so, indeed. It was a strange story. That
+this woman had the power of conversing with baboons I knew.[*] That was
+not so very wonderful, seeing that the Bushmen claim to be able to do
+the same thing, and she had been nurtured by them. But that she had
+been able to muster them, and by the strength of her human will and
+intelligence muster them in order to forward her ends of revenge,
+seemed to me so incredible that after reflection my fears grew light.
+Still I determined to trek. After all, a journey in an ox waggon would
+not be such a very terrible thing to a strong woman accustomed to
+roughing it, whatever her state of health. And when all was said and
+done I did not like this tale of the presence of Hendrika with
+countless hosts of baboons.
+
+[*] For an instance of this, see Anderson’s “Twenty-five Years in a
+Waggon,” vol. i. p. 262.—Editor.
+
+
+So I went in to Stella, and without saying a word to her of the baboon
+story, told her I had been thinking matters over, and had come to the
+conclusion that it was our duty to follow her father’s instructions to
+the letter, and leave Babyan Kraals at once. Into all our talk I need
+not enter, but the end of it was that she agreed with me, and declared
+that she could quite well manage the journey, saying, moreover, that
+now that her dear father was dead she would be glad to get away.
+
+Nothing happened to disturb us that night, and on the following morning
+I was up early making preparations. The despair of the people when they
+learned that we were going to leave them was something quite pitiable.
+I could only console them by declaring that we were but on a journey,
+and would return the following year.
+
+“They had lived in the shadow of their father, who was dead,” they
+declared; “ever since they were little they had lived in his shadow. He
+had received them when they were outcasts and wanderers without a mat
+to lie on, or a blanket to cover them, and they had grown fat in his
+shadow. Then he had died, and the Star, their father’s daughter, had
+married me, Macumazahn, and they had believed that I should take their
+father’s place, and let them live in my shadow. What should they do
+when there was no one to protect them? The tribes were kept from
+attacking them by fear of the white man. If we went they would be eaten
+up,” and so on. Alas! there was but too much foundation for their
+fears.
+
+I returned to the huts at mid-day to get some dinner. Stella said that
+she was going to pack during the afternoon, so I did not think it
+necessary to caution her about going out alone, as I did not wish to
+allude to the subject of Hendrika and the baboons unless I was obliged
+to. I told her, however, that I would come back to help her as soon as
+I could get away. Then I went down to the native kraals to sort out
+such cattle as had belonged to Mr. Carson from those which belonged to
+the Kaffirs, for I proposed to take them with us. It was a large herd,
+and the business took an incalculable time. At length, a little before
+sundown, I gave it up, and leaving Indaba-zimbi to finish the job, got
+on my horse and rode homewards.
+
+Arriving, I gave the horse to one of the stable boys, and went into the
+central hut. There was no sign of Stella, though the things she had
+been packing lay about the floor. I passed first into our sleeping hut,
+thence one by one into all the others, but still saw no sign of her.
+Then I went out, and calling to a Kaffir in the garden asked him if he
+had seen his mistress.
+
+He answered “yes.” He had seen her carrying flowers and walking towards
+the graveyard, holding the little white girl—my daughter—as he called
+her, by the hand, when the sun stood “there,” and he pointed to a spot
+on the horizon where it would have been about an hour and a half
+before. “The two dogs were with them,” he added. I turned and ran
+towards the graveyard, which was about a quarter of a mile from the
+huts. Of course there was no reason to be anxious—evidently she had
+gone to lay the flowers on her father’s grave. And yet I was anxious.
+
+When I got near the graveyard I met one of the natives, who, by my
+orders, had been set round the kraals to watch the place, and noticed
+that he was rubbing his eyes and yawning. Clearly he had been asleep. I
+asked him if he had seen his mistress, and he answered that he had not,
+which under the circumstances was not wonderful. Without stopping to
+reproach him, I ordered the man to follow me, and went on to the
+graveyard. There, on Mr. Carson’s grave, lay the drooping flowers which
+Stella had been carrying, and there in the fresh mould was the spoor of
+Tota’s veldschoon, or hide slipper. But where were they?
+
+I ran from the graveyard and called aloud at the top of my voice, but
+no answer came. Meanwhile the native was more profitably engaged in
+tracing their spoor. He followed it for about a hundred yards till he
+came to a clump of mimosa bush that was situated between the stream and
+the ancient marble quarries just over the waterfall, and at the mouth
+of the ravine. Here he stopped, and I heard him give a startled cry. I
+rushed to the spot, passed through the trees, and saw this. The little
+open space in the centre of the glade had been the scene of a struggle.
+There, in the soft earth, were the marks of three pairs of human
+feet—two shod, one naked—Stella’s, Tota’s, and _Hendrika’s_. Nor was
+this all. There, close by, lay the fragments of the two dogs—they were
+nothing more—and one baboon, not yet quite dead, which had been bitten
+in the throat by the dogs. All round was the spoor of numberless
+baboons. The full horror of what had happened flashed into my mind.
+
+My wife and Tota had been carried off by the baboons. As yet they had
+not been killed, for if so their remains would have been found with
+those of the dogs. They had been carried off. The brutes, acting under
+the direction of that woman-monkey, Hendrika, had dragged them away to
+some secret den, there to keep them till they died—or kill them!
+
+For a moment I literally staggered beneath the terror of the shock.
+Then I roused myself from my despair. I bade the native run and alarm
+the people at the kraals, telling them to come armed, and bring me guns
+and ammunition. He went like the wind, and I turned to follow the
+spoor. For a few yards it was plain enough—Stella had been dragged
+along. I could see where her heels had struck the ground; the child
+had, I presumed, been carried—at least there were no marks of her feet.
+At the water’s edge the spoor vanished. The water was shallow, and they
+had gone along in it, or at least Hendrika and her victim had, in order
+to obliterate the trail. I could see where a moss-grown stone had been
+freshly turned over in the water-bed. I ran along the bank some way up
+the ravine, in the vain hope of catching a sight of them. Presently I
+heard a bark in the cliffs above me; it was answered by another, and
+then I saw that scores of baboons were hidden about among the rocks on
+either side, and were softly swinging themselves down to bar the path.
+To go on unarmed as I was would be useless. I should only be torn to
+pieces as the dogs had been. So I turned and fled back towards the
+huts. As I drew near I could see that my messenger had roused the
+settlement, for natives with spears and kerries in their hands were
+running up towards the kraals. When I reached the hut I met old
+Indaba-zimbi, who wore a very serious face.
+
+“So the evil has fallen, Macumazahn,” he said.
+
+“It has fallen,” I answered.
+
+“Keep a good heart, Macumazahn,” he said again. “She is not dead, nor
+is the little maid, and before they die we shall find them. Remember
+this, Hendrika loves her. She will not harm her, or allow the babyans
+to harm her. She will try to hide her away from you, that is all.”
+
+“Pray God that we may find her,” I groaned. “The light is going fast.”
+
+“The moon rises in three hours,” he answered; “we will search by
+moonlight. It is useless to start now; see, the sun sinks. Let us get
+the men together, eat, and make things ready. _Hamba gachla_. Hasten
+slowly, Macumazahn.”
+
+As there was no help, I took his advice. I could eat no food, but I
+packed some up to take with us, and made ready ropes, and a rough kind
+of litter. If we found them they would scarcely be able to walk. Ah! if
+we found them! How slowly the time passed! It seemed hours before the
+moon rose. But at last it did rise.
+
+Then we started. In all we were about a hundred men, but we only
+mustered five guns between us, my elephant roer and four that had
+belonged to Mr. Carson.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+THE MAGIC OF INDABA-ZIMBI
+
+
+We gained the spot by the stream where Stella had been taken. The
+natives looked at the torn fragments of the dogs, and at the marks of
+violence, and I heard them swearing to each other, that whether the
+Star lived or died they would not rest till they had exterminated every
+baboon on Babyan’s Peak. I echoed the oath, and, as shall be seen, we
+kept it.
+
+We started on along the stream, following the spoor of the baboons as
+we best could. But the stream left no spoor, and the hard, rocky banks
+very little. Still we wandered on. All night we wandered through the
+lonely moonlit valleys, startling the silence into a thousand echoes
+with our cries. But no answer came to them. In vain our eyes searched
+the sides of precipices formed of water-riven rocks fantastically piled
+one upon another; in vain we searched through endless dells and
+fern-clad crannies. There was nothing to be found. How could we expect
+to find two human beings hidden away in the recesses of this vast
+stretch of mountain ground, which no man yet had ever fully explored.
+They were lost, and in all human probability lost for ever.
+
+To and fro we wandered hopelessly, till at last dawn found us footsore
+and weary nearly at the spot whence we had started. We sat down waiting
+for the sun to rise, and the men ate of such food as they had brought
+with them, and sent to the kraals for more.
+
+I sat upon a stone with a breaking heart. I cannot describe my
+feelings. Let the reader put himself in my position and perhaps he may
+get some idea of them. Near me was old Indaba-zimbi, who sat staring
+straight before him as though he were looking into space, and taking
+note of what went on there. An idea struck me. This man had some occult
+power. Several times during our adventures he had prophesied, and in
+every case his prophecies had proved true. He it was who, when we
+escaped from the Zulu Impi, had told me to steer north, because there
+we should find the place of a white man who lived under the shadow of a
+great peak that was full of baboons. Perhaps he could help in this
+extremity—at any rate it was worth trying.
+
+“Indaba-zimbi,” I said, “you say that you can send your spirit through
+the doors of space and see what we cannot see. At the least I know that
+you can do strange things. Can you not help me now? If you can, and
+will save her, I will give you half the cattle that we have here.”
+
+“I never said anything of the sort, Macumazahn,” he answered. “I do
+things, I do not talk about them. Neither do I seek reward for what I
+do like a common witch-doctor. It is well that you have asked me to use
+my wisdom, Macumazahn, for I should not have used it again without
+being asked—no, not even for the sake of the Star and yourself, whom I
+love, for if so my Spirit would have been angry. In the other matters I
+had a part, for my life was concerned as well as yours; but in this
+matter I have no part, and therefore I might not use my wisdom unless
+you thought well to call upon my Spirit. However, it would have been no
+good to ask me before, for I have only just found the herb I want,” and
+he produced a handful of the leaves of a plant that was unfamiliar to
+me. It had prickly leaves, shaped very much like those of the common
+English nettle.
+
+“Now, Macumazahn,” he went on, “bid the men leave us alone, and then
+follow me presently to the little glade down there by the water.”
+
+I did so. When I reached the glade I found Indaba-zimbi kindling a
+small fire under the shadow of a tree by the edge of the water.
+
+“Sit there, Macumazahn,” he said, pointing to a stone near the fire,
+“and do not be surprised or frightened at anything you see. If you move
+or call out we shall learn nothing.”
+
+I sat down and watched. When the fire was alight and burning brightly,
+the old fellow stripped himself stark naked, and, going to the foot of
+the pool, dipped himself in the water. Then he came back shivering with
+the cold, and, leaning over the little fire, thrust leaves of the plant
+I have mentioned into his mouth and began to chew them, muttering as he
+chewed. Most of the remaining leaves he threw on to the fire. A dense
+smoke rose from them, but he held his head in this smoke and drew it
+down his lungs till I saw that he was exhibiting every sign of
+suffocation. The veins in his throat and chest swelled, he gasped
+loudly, and his eyes, from which tears were streaming, seemed as though
+they were going to start from his head. Presently he fell over on his
+side, and lay senseless. I was terribly alarmed, and my first impulse
+was to run to his assistance, but fortunately I remembered his caution,
+and sat quiet.
+
+Indaba-zimbi lay on the ground like a person quite dead. His limbs had
+all the utter relaxation of death. But as I watched I saw them begin to
+stiffen, exactly as though _rigor mortis_ had set in. Then, to my
+astonishment, I perceived them once more relax, and this time there
+appeared upon his chest the stain of decomposition. It spread and
+spread; in three minutes the man, to all appearance, was a livid
+corpse.
+
+I sat amazed watching this uncanny sight, and wondering if any further
+natural process was about to be enacted. Perhaps Indaba-zimbi was going
+to fall to dust before my eyes. As I watched I observed that the
+discoloration was beginning to fade. First it vanished from the
+extremities, then from the larger limbs, and lastly from the trunk.
+Then in turn came the third stage of relaxation, the second stage of
+stiffness or _rigor_, and the first stage of after-death collapse. When
+all these had rapidly succeeded each other, Indaba-zimbi quietly woke
+up.
+
+I was too astonished to speak; I simply looked at him with my mouth
+open.
+
+“Well, Macumazahn,” he said, putting his head on one side like a bird,
+and nodding his white lock in a comical fashion, “it is all right; I
+have seen her.”
+
+“Seen who?” I said.
+
+“The Star, your wife, and the little maid. They are much frightened,
+but unharmed. The Babyan-frau watches them. She is mad, but the baboons
+obey her, and do not hurt them. The Star was sleeping from weariness,
+so I whispered in her ear and told her not to be frightened, for you
+would soon rescue her, and that meanwhile she must seem to be pleased
+to have Hendrika near her.”
+
+“You whispered in her ear?” I said. “How could you whisper in her ear?”
+
+“Bah! Macumazahn. How could I seem to die and go rotten before your
+eyes? You don’t know, do you? Well, I will tell you one thing. I had to
+die to pass the doors of space, as you call them. I had to draw all the
+healthy strength and life from my body in order to gather power to
+speak with the Star. It was a dangerous business, Macumazahn, for if I
+had let things go a little further they must have stopped so, and there
+would have been an end of Indaba-zimbi. Ah, you white men, you know so
+much that you think you know everything. But you don’t! You are always
+staring at the clouds and can’t see the things that lie at your feet.
+You hardly believe me now, do you, Macumazahn? Well, I will show you.
+Have you anything on you that the Star has touched or worn?”
+
+I thought for a moment, and said that I had a lock of her hair in my
+pocket-book. He told me to give it him. I did so. Going to the fire, he
+lit the lock of hair in the flame, and let it burn to ashes, which he
+caught in his left hand. These ashes he mixed up in a paste with the
+juice of one of the leaves of the plant I have spoken of.
+
+“Now, Macumazahn, shut your eyes,” he said.
+
+I did so, and he rubbed his paste on to my eyelids. At first it burnt
+me, then my head swam strangely. Presently this effect passed off, and
+my brain was perfectly clear again, but I could not feel the ground
+with my feet. Indaba-zimbi led me to the side of the stream. Beneath us
+was a pool of beautifully clear water.
+
+“Look into the pool, Macumazahn,” said Indaba-zimbi, and his voice
+sounded hollow and far away in my ears.
+
+I looked. The water grew dark; it cleared, and in it was a picture. I
+saw a cave with a fire burning in it. Against the wall of the cave
+rested Stella. Her dress was torn almost off her, she looked dreadfully
+pale and weary, and her eyelids were red as though with weeping. But
+she slept, and I could almost think that I saw her lips shape my name
+in her sleep. Close to her, her head upon Stella’s breast, was little
+Tota; she had a skin thrown over her to keep out the night cold. The
+child was awake, and appeared to be moaning with fear. By the fire, and
+in such a position that the light fell full upon her face, and engaged
+in cooking something in a rough pot shaped from wood, sat the
+Baboon-woman, Hendrika. She was clothed in baboon skins, and her face
+had been rubbed with some dark stain, which was, however, wearing off
+it. In the intervals of her cooking she would turn on Stella her wild
+eyes, in which glared visible madness, with an expression of tenderness
+that amounted to worship. Then she would stare at the child and gnash
+her teeth as though with hate. Clearly she was jealous of it. Round the
+entrance arch of the cave peeped and peered the heads of many baboons.
+Presently Hendrika made a sign to one of them; apparently she did not
+speak, or rather grunt, in order not to wake Stella. The brute hopped
+forward, and she gave it a second rude wooden pot which was lying by
+her. It took it and went. The last thing that I saw, as the vision
+slowly vanished from the pool, was the dim shadow of the baboon
+returning with the pot full of water.
+
+Presently everything had gone. I ceased to feel strange. There beneath
+me was the pool, and at my side stood Indaba-zimbi, smiling.
+
+“You have seen things,” he said.
+
+“I have,” I answered, and made no further remark on the matter. What
+was there to say?[*] “Do you know the path to the cave?” I added.
+
+[*] For some almost equally remarkable instances of Kaffir magic the
+reader is referred to a work named “Among the Zulus,” by David
+Leslie.—Editor.
+
+
+He nodded his head. “I did not follow it all just now, because it
+winds,” he said. “But I know it. We shall want the ropes.”
+
+“Then let us be starting; the men have eaten.”
+
+He nodded his head again, and going to the men I told them to make
+ready, adding that Indaba-zimbi knew the way. They said that was all
+right, if Indaba-zimbi had “smelt her out,” they should soon find the
+Star. So we started cheerfully enough, and my spirits were so much
+improved that I was able to eat a boiled mealie cob or two as we
+walked.
+
+We went up the valley, following the course of the stream for about a
+mile; then Indaba-zimbi made a sudden turn to the right, along another
+kloof, of which there were countless numbers in the base of the great
+hill.
+
+On we went through kloof after kloof. Indaba-zimbi, who led us, was
+never at a loss, he turned up gulleys and struck across necks of hills
+with the certainty of a hound on a hot scent. At length, after about
+three hours’ march, we came to a big silent valley on the northern
+slope of the great peak. On one side of this valley was a series of
+stony koppies, on the other rose a sheer wall of rock. We marched along
+the wall for a distance of some two miles. Then suddenly Indaba-zimbi
+halted.
+
+“There is the place,” he said, pointing to an opening in the cliff.
+This opening was about forty feet from the ground, and ellipse-shaped.
+It cannot have been more than twenty feet high by ten wide, and was
+partially hidden by ferns and bushes that grew about it in the surface
+of the cliff. Keen as my eyes were, I doubt if I should ever have
+noticed it, for there were many such cracks and crannies in the rocky
+face of the great mountain.
+
+We drew near and looked carefully at the place. The first thing I
+noticed was that the rock, which was not quite perpendicular, had been
+worn by the continual passage of baboons; the second, that something
+white was hanging on a bush near the top of the ascent.
+
+It was a pocket-handkerchief.
+
+Now there was no more doubt about the matter. With a beating heart I
+began the ascent. For the first twenty feet it was comparatively easy,
+for the rock shelved; the next ten feet was very difficult, but still
+possible to an active man, and I achieved it, followed by Indaba-zimbi.
+But the last twelve or fifteen feet could only be scaled by throwing a
+rope over the trunk of a stunted tree, which grew at the bottom of the
+opening. This we accomplished with some trouble, and the rest was easy.
+A foot or two above my head the handkerchief fluttered in the wind.
+Hanging to the rope, I grasped it. It was my wife’s. As I did so I
+noticed the face of a baboon peering at me over the edge of the cleft,
+the first baboon we had seen that morning. The brute gave a bark and
+vanished. Thrusting the handkerchief into my breast, I set my feet
+against the cliff and scrambled up as hard as I could go. I knew that
+we had no time to lose, for the baboon would quickly alarm the others.
+I gained the cleft. It was a mere arched passage cut by water, ending
+in a gulley, which led to a wide open space of some sort. I looked
+through the passage and saw that the gulley was black with baboons. On
+they came by the hundred. I unslung my elephant gun from my shoulders
+and waited, calling to the men below to come up with all possible
+speed. The brutes streamed on down the gloomy gulf towards me, barking,
+grunting, and showing their huge teeth. I waited till they were within
+fifteen yards. Then I fired the elephant gun, which was loaded with
+slugs, right into the thick of them. In that narrow place the report
+echoed like a cannon shot, but its sound was quickly swallowed in the
+volley of piercing human-sounding groans and screams that followed. The
+charge of heavy slugs had ploughed through the host of baboons, of
+which at least a dozen lay dead or dying in the passage. For a moment
+they hesitated, then they came on again with a hideous clamour.
+Fortunately by this time Indaba-zimbi, who also had a gun, was standing
+by my side, otherwise I should have been torn to pieces before I could
+re-load. He fired both barrels into them, and again checked the rush.
+But they came on again, and notwithstanding the appearance of two other
+natives with guns, which they let off with more or less success, we
+should have been overwhelmed by the great and ferocious apes had I not
+by this time succeeded in re-loading the elephant gun. When they were
+right on us, I fired, with even more deadly effect than before, for at
+that distance every slug told on their long line. The howls and screams
+of pain and rage were now something inconceivable. One might have
+thought that we were doing battle with a host of demons; indeed in that
+light—for the overhanging arch of rock made it very dark—the gnashing
+snouts and sombre glowing eyes of the apes looked like those of devils
+as they are represented by monkish fancy. But the last shot was too
+much for them; they withdrew, dragging some of their wounded with them,
+and thus gave us time to get our men up the cliff. In a few minutes all
+were there, and we advanced down the passage, which presently opened
+into a rocky gulley with shelving sides. This gulley had a water-way at
+the bottom of it; it was about a hundred yards long, and the slopes on
+either side were topped by precipitous cliffs. I looked at these
+slopes; they literally swarmed with baboons, grunting, barking,
+screaming, and beating their breasts with their long arms, in fury. I
+looked up the water-way; along it, accompanied by a mob, or, as it
+were, a guard of baboons, ran Hendrika, her long hair flying, madness
+written on her face, and in her arms was the senseless form of little
+Tota.
+
+She saw us, and a foam of rage burst from her lips. She screamed aloud.
+To me the sound was a mere inarticulate cry, but the baboons clearly
+understood it, for they began to roll rocks down on to us. One boulder
+leaped past me and struck down a Kaffir behind; another fell from the
+roof of the arch on to a man’s head and killed him. Indaba-zimbi lifted
+his gun to shoot Hendrika; I knocked it up, so that the shot went over
+her, crying that he would kill the child. Then I shouted to the men to
+open out and form a line from side to side of the shelving gulley.
+Furious at the loss of their two comrades, they obeyed me, and keeping
+in the water-way myself, together with Indaba-zimbi and the other guns,
+I gave the word to charge.
+
+Then the real battle began. It is difficult to say who fought the most
+fiercely, the natives or the baboons. The Kaffirs charged along the
+slopes, and as they came, encouraged by the screams of Hendrika, who
+rushed to and fro holding the wretched Tota before her as a shield, the
+apes bounded at them in fury. Scores were killed by the assegais, and
+many more fell beneath our gun-shots; but still they came on. Nor did
+we go scathless. Occasionally a man would slip, or be pulled over in
+the grip of a baboon. Then the others would fling themselves upon him
+like dogs on a rat, and worry him to death. We lost five men in this
+way, and I myself received a bite through the fleshy part of the left
+arm, but fortunately a native near me assegaied the animal before I was
+pulled down.
+
+At length, and all of a sudden, the baboons gave up. A panic seemed to
+seize them. Notwithstanding the cries of Hendrika they thought no more
+of fight, but only of escape; some even did not attempt to get away
+from the assegais of the Kaffirs, they simply hid their horrible faces
+in their paws, and, moaning piteously, waited to be slain.
+
+Hendrika saw that the battle was lost. Dropping the child from her
+arms, she rushed straight at us, a very picture of horrible insanity. I
+lifted my gun, but could not bear to shoot. After all she was but a mad
+thing, half ape, half woman. So I sprang to one side, and she landed
+full on Indaba-zimbi, knocking him down. But she did not stay to do any
+more. Wailing terribly, she rushed down the gulley and through the
+arch, followed by a few of the surviving baboons, and vanished from our
+sight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+WHAT HAPPENED TO STELLA
+
+
+The fight was over. In all we had lost seven men killed, and several
+more severely bitten, while but few had escaped without some tokens
+whereby he might remember what a baboon’s teeth and claws are like. How
+many of the brutes we killed I never knew, because we did not count,
+but it was a vast number. I should think that the stock must have been
+low about Babyan’s Peak for many years afterwards. From that day to
+this, however, I have always avoided baboons, feeling more afraid of
+them than any beast that lives.
+
+The path was clear, and we rushed forward along the water-course. But
+first we picked up little Tota. The child was not in a swoon, as I had
+thought, but paralyzed by terror, so that she could scarcely speak.
+Otherwise she was unhurt, though it took her many a week to recover her
+nerve. Had she been older, and had she not remembered Hendrika, I doubt
+if she would have recovered it. She knew me again, and flung her little
+arms about my neck, clinging to me so closely that I did not dare to
+give her to any one else to carry lest I should add to her terrors. So
+I went on with her in my arms. The fears that pierced my heart may well
+be imagined. Should I find Stella living or dead? Should I find her at
+all? Well, we should soon know now. We stumbled on up the stony
+watercourse; notwithstanding the weight of Tota I led the way, for
+suspense lent me wings. Now we were through, and an extraordinary scene
+lay before us. We were in a great natural amphitheatre, only it was
+three times the size of any amphitheatre ever shaped by man, and the
+walls were formed of precipitous cliffs, ranging from one to two
+hundred feet in height. For the rest, the space thus enclosed was
+level, studded with park-like trees, brilliant with flowers, and having
+a stream running through the centre of it, that, as I afterwards
+discovered, welled up from the ground at the head of the open space.
+
+We spread ourselves out in a line, searching everywhere, for Tota was
+too overcome to be able to tell us where Stella was hidden away. For
+nearly half an hour we searched and searched, scanning the walls of
+rock for any possible openings to a cave. In vain, we could find none.
+I applied to old Indaba-zimbi, but his foresight was at fault here. All
+he could say was that this was the place, and that the “Star” was
+hidden somewhere in a cave, but where the cave was he could not tell.
+At last we came to the top of the amphitheatre. There before us was a
+wall of rock, of which the lower parts were here and there clothed in
+grasses, lichens, and creepers. I walked along it, calling at the top
+of my voice.
+
+Presently my heart stood still, for I thought I heard a faint answer. I
+drew nearer to the place from which the sound seemed to come, and again
+called. Yes, there was an answer in my wife’s voice. It seemed to come
+from the rock. I went up to it and searched among the creepers, but
+still could find no opening.
+
+“Move the stone,” cried Stella’s voice, “the cave is shut with a
+stone.”
+
+I took a spear and prodded at the cliff whence the sound came. Suddenly
+the spear sunk in through a mass of lichen. I swept the lichen aside,
+revealing a boulder that had been rolled into the mouth of an opening
+in the rock, which it fitted so accurately that, covered as it was by
+the overhanging lichen, it might well have escaped the keenest eye. We
+dragged the boulder out; it was two men’s work to do it. Beyond was a
+narrow, water-worn passage, which I followed with a beating heart.
+Presently the passage opened into a small cave, shaped like a pickle
+bottle, and coming to a neck at the top end. We passed through and
+found ourselves in a second, much larger cave, that I at once
+recognized as the one of which Indaba-zimbi had shown me a vision in
+the water. Light reached it from above—how I know not—and by it I could
+see a form half-sitting, half lying on some skins at the top end of the
+cave. I rushed to it. It was Stella! Stella bound with strips of hide,
+bruised, torn, but still Stella, and alive.
+
+She saw me, she gave one cry, then, as I caught her in my arms, she
+fainted. It was happy indeed that she did not faint before, for had it
+not been for the sound of her voice I do not believe we should ever
+have found that cunningly hidden cave, unless, indeed, Indaba-zimbi’s
+magic (on which be blessings) had come to our assistance.
+
+We bore her to the open air, laid her beneath the shade of a tree, and
+cut the bonds loose from her ankles. As we went I glanced at the cave.
+It was exactly as I had seen it in the vision. There burnt the fire,
+there were the rude wooden vessels, one of them still half full of the
+water which I had seen the baboon bring. I felt awed as I looked, and
+marvelled at the power wielded by a savage who could not even read and
+write.
+
+Now I could see Stella clearly. Her face was scratched, and haggard
+with fear and weeping, her clothes were almost torn off her, and her
+beautiful hair was loose and tangled. I sent for water, and we
+sprinkled her face. Then I forced a little of the brandy which we
+distilled from peaches at the kraals between her lips, and she opened
+her eyes, and throwing her arms about me clung to me as little Tota had
+done, sobbing, “Thank God! thank God!”
+
+After a while she grew quieter, and I made her and Tota eat some food
+from the store that we had brought with us. I too ate and was thankful,
+for with the exception of the mealie cobs I had tasted nothing for
+nearly four-and-twenty hours. Then she washed her face and hands, and
+tidied her rags of dress as well as she was able. As she did so by
+degrees I drew her story from her.
+
+It seemed that on the previous afternoon, being wearied with packing,
+she went out to visit her father’s grave, taking Tota with her, and was
+followed there by the two dogs. She wished to lay some flowers on the
+grave and take farewell of the dust it covered, for as we had expected
+to trek early on the morrow she did not know if she would find a later
+opportunity. They passed up the garden, and gathering some flowers from
+the orange trees and elsewhere, went on to the little graveyard. Here
+she laid them on the grave as we had found them, and then sitting down,
+fell into a deep and sad reverie, such as the occasion would naturally
+induce. While she sat thus, Tota, who was a lively child and active as
+a kitten, strayed away without Stella observing it. With her went the
+dogs, who also had grown tired of inaction; a while passed, and
+suddenly she heard the dogs barking furiously about a hundred and fifty
+yards away. Then she heard Tota scream, and the dogs also yelling with
+fear and pain. She rose and ran as swiftly as she could towards the
+spot whence the sound came. Presently she was there. Before her in the
+glade, holding the screaming Tota in her arms, was a figure in which,
+notwithstanding the rough disguise of baboon skins and colouring
+matter, she had no difficulty in recognizing Hendrika, and all about
+her were numbers of baboons, rolling over and over in two hideous
+heaps, of which the centres were the unfortunate dogs now in process of
+being rent to fragments.
+
+“Hendrika,” Stella cried, “what does this mean? What are you doing with
+Tota and those brutes?”
+
+The woman heard her and looked up. Then Stella saw that she was mad;
+madness stared from her eyes. She dropped the child, which instantly
+flew to Stella for protection. Stella clasped it, only to be herself
+clasped by Hendrika. She struggled fiercely, but it was of no use—the
+Babyan-frau had the strength of ten. She lifted her and Tota as though
+they were nothing, and ran off with them, following the bed of the
+stream in order to avoid leaving a spoor. Only the baboons who came
+with her, minus the one the dogs had killed, would not take to the
+water, but kept pace with them on the bank.
+
+Stella said that the night which followed was more like a hideous
+nightmare than a reality. She was never able to tell me all that
+occurred in it. She had a vague recollection of being borne over rocks
+and along kloofs, while around her echoed the horrible grunts and
+clicks of the baboons. She spoke to Hendrika in English and Kaffir,
+imploring her to let them go; but the woman, if I may call her so,
+seemed in her madness to have entirely forgotten these tongues. When
+Stella spoke she would kiss her and stroke her hair, but she did not
+seem to understand what it was she said. On the other hand, she could,
+and did, talk to the baboons, that seemed to obey her implicitly.
+Moreover, she would not allow them to touch either Stella or the child
+in her arms. Once one of them tried to do so, and she seized a dead
+stick and struck it so heavily on the head that it fell senseless.
+Thrice Stella made an attempt to escape, for sometimes even Hendrika’s
+giant strength waned and she had to set them down. But on each occasion
+she caught them, and it was in these struggles that Stella’s clothes
+were so torn. At length before daylight they reached the cliff, and
+with the first break of light the ascent began. Hendrika dragged them
+up the first stages, but when they came to the precipitous place she
+tied the strips of hide, of which she had a supply wound round her
+waist, beneath Stella’s arms. Steep as the place was the baboons
+ascended it easily enough, springing from a knob of rock to the trunk
+of the tree that grew on the edge of the crevasse. Hendrika followed
+them, holding the end of the hide reim in her teeth, one of the baboons
+hanging down from the tree to assist her ascent. It was while she was
+ascending that Stella bethought of letting fall her handkerchief in the
+faint hope that some searcher might see it.
+
+By this time Hendrika was on the tree, and grunting out orders to the
+baboons which clustered about Stella below. Suddenly these seized her
+and little Tota who was in her arms, and lifted her from the ground.
+Then Hendrika above, aided by other baboons, put out all her great
+strength and pulled the two of them up the rock. Twice Stella swung
+heavily against the cliff. After the second blow she felt her senses
+going, and was consumed with terror lest she should drop Tota. But she
+managed to cling to her, and together they reached the cleft.
+
+“From that time,” Stella went on, “I remember no more till I woke to
+find myself in a gloomy cave resting on a bed of skins. My legs were
+bound, and Hendrika sat near me watching me, while round the edge of
+the cave peered the heads of those horrible baboons. Tota was still in
+my arms, and half dead from terror; her moans were pitiful to hear. I
+spoke to Hendrika, imploring her to release us; but either she has lost
+all understanding of human speech, or she pretends to have done so. All
+she would do was to caress me, and even kiss my hands and dress with
+extravagant signs of affection. As she did so, Tota shrunk closer to
+me. This Hendrika saw and glared so savagely at the child that I feared
+lest she was going to kill her. I diverted her attention by making
+signs that I wanted water, and this she gave me in a wooden bowl. As
+you saw, the cave was evidently Hendrika’s dwelling-place. There are
+stores of fruit in it and some strips of dried flesh. She gave me some
+of the fruit and Tota a little, and I made Tota eat some. You can never
+know what I went through, Allan. I saw now that Hendrika was quite mad,
+and but little removed from the brutes to which she is akin, and over
+which she has such unholy power. The only trace of humanity left about
+her was her affection for me. Evidently her idea was to keep me here
+with her, to keep me away from you, and to carry out this idea she was
+capable of the exercise of every artifice and cunning. In this way she
+was sane enough, but in every other way she was mad. Moreover, she had
+not forgotten her horrible jealousy. Already I saw her glaring at Tota,
+and knew that the child’s murder was only a matter of time. Probably
+within a few hours she would be killed before my eyes. Of escape, even
+if I had the strength, there was absolutely no chance, and little
+enough of our ever being found. No, we should be kept here guarded by a
+mad thing, half ape, half woman, till we perished miserably. Then I
+thought of you, dear, and of all that you must be suffering, and my
+heart nearly broke. I could only pray to God that I might either be
+rescued or die swiftly.
+
+“As I prayed I dropped into a kind of doze from utter weariness, and
+then I had the strangest dream. I dreamed that Indaba-zimbi stood over
+me nodding his white lock, and spoke to me in Kaffir, telling me not to
+be frightened, for you would soon be with me, and that meanwhile I must
+humour Hendrika, pretending to be pleased to have her near me. The
+dream was so vivid that I actually seemed to see and hear him, as I see
+and hear him now.”
+
+Here I looked up and glanced at old Indaba-zimbi, who was sitting near.
+But it was not till afterwards that I told Stella of how her vision was
+brought about.
+
+“At any rate,” she went on, “when I awoke I determined to act on my
+dream. I took Hendrika’s hand, and pressed it. She actually laughed in
+a wild kind of way with happiness, and laid her head upon my knee. Then
+I made signs that I wanted food, and she threw wood on the fire, which
+I forgot to tell you was burning in the cave, and began to make some of
+the broth that she used to cook very well, and she did not seem to have
+forgotten all about it. At any rate the broth was not bad, though
+neither Tota nor I could drink much of it. Fright and weariness had
+taken away our appetites.
+
+“After the meal was done—and I prolonged it as much as possible—I saw
+Hendrika was beginning to get jealous of Tota again. She glared at her
+and then at the big knife which was tied round her own body. I knew the
+knife again, it was the one with which she had tried to murder you,
+dear. At last she went so far as to draw the knife. I was paralyzed
+with fear, then suddenly I remembered that when she was our servant,
+and used to get out of temper and sulk, I could always calm her by
+singing to her. So I began to sing hymns. Instantly she forgot her
+jealousy and put the knife back into its sheath. She knew the sound of
+the singing, and sat listening to it with a rapt face; the baboons,
+too, crowded in at the entrance of the cave to listen. I must have sung
+for an hour or more, all the hymns that I could remember. It was so
+very strange and dreadful sitting there singing to mad Hendrika and
+those hideous man-like apes that shut their eyes and nodded their great
+heads as I sang. It was a horrible nightmare; but I believe that the
+baboons are almost as human as the Bushmen.
+
+“Well, this went on for a long time till my voice was getting
+exhausted. Then suddenly I heard the baboons outside raise a loud
+noise, as they do when they are angry. Then, dear, I heard the boom of
+your elephant gun, and I think it was the sweetest sound that ever came
+to my ears. Hendrika heard it too. She sprang up, stood for a moment,
+then, to my horror, swept Tota into her arms and rushed down the cave.
+Of course I could not stir to follow her, for my feet were tied. Next
+instant I heard the sound of a rock being moved, and presently the
+lessening of the light in the cave told me that I was shut in. Now the
+sound even of the elephant gun only reached me very faintly, and
+presently I could hear nothing more, straining my ears as I would.
+
+“At last I heard a faint shouting that reached me through the wall of
+rock. I answered as loud as I could. You know the rest; and oh, my dear
+husband, thank God! thank God!” and she fell weeping into my arms.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+FIFTEEN YEARS AFTER
+
+
+Both Stella and Tota were too weary to be moved, so we camped that
+night in the baboons’ home, but were troubled by no baboons. Stella
+would not sleep in the cave; she said the place terrified her, so I
+made her up a kind of bed under a thorn-tree. As this rock-bound valley
+was one of the hottest places I ever was in, I thought that this would
+not matter; but when at sunrise on the following morning I saw a veil
+of miasmatic mist hanging over the surface of the ground, I changed my
+opinion. However, neither Stella nor Tota seemed the worse, so as soon
+as was practical we started homewards. I had already on the previous
+day sent some of the men back to the kraals to fetch a ladder, and when
+we reached the cliff we found them waiting for us beneath. With the
+help of the ladder the descent was easy. Stella simply got out of her
+rough litter at the top of the cliff, for we found it necessary to
+carry her, climbed down the ladder, and got into it again at the
+bottom.
+
+Well, we reached the kraals safely enough, seeing nothing more of
+Hendrika, and, were this a story, doubtless I should end it here
+with—“and lived happily ever after.” But alas! it is not so. How am I
+to write it?
+
+My dearest wife’s vital energy seemed completely to fail her now that
+the danger was past, and within twelve hours of our return I saw that
+her state was such as to necessitate the abandonment of any idea of
+leaving Babyan Kraals at present. The bodily exertion, the anguish of
+mind, and the terror which she had endured during that dreadful night,
+combined with her delicate state of health, had completely broken her
+down. To make matters worse, also, she was taken with an attack of
+fever, contracted no doubt in the unhealthy atmosphere of that accursed
+valley. In time she shook the fever off, but it left her dreadfully
+weak, and quite unfit to face the trial before her.
+
+I think she knew that she was going to die; she always spoke of my
+future, never of _our_ future. It is impossible for me to tell how
+sweet she was; how gentle, how patient and resigned. Nor, indeed, do I
+wish to tell it, it is too sad. But this I will say, I believe that if
+ever a woman drew near to perfection while yet living on the earth,
+Stella Quatermain did so.
+
+The fatal hour drew on. My boy Harry was born, and his mother lived to
+kiss and bless him. Then she sank. We did what we could, but we had
+little skill, and might not hold her back from death. All through one
+weary night I watched her with a breaking heart.
+
+The dawn came, the sun rose in the east. His rays falling on the peak
+behind were reflected in glory upon the bosom of the western sky.
+Stella awoke from her swoon and saw the light. She whispered to me to
+open the door of the hut. I did so, and she fixed her dying eyes on the
+splendour of the morning sky. She looked on me and smiled as an angel
+might smile. Then with a last effort she lifted her hand, and, pointing
+to the radiant heavens, whispered:
+
+“_There, Allan, there!_”
+
+It was done, and I was broken-hearted, and broken-hearted I must wander
+to the end. Those who have endured my loss will know my sorrow; it
+cannot be written. In such peace and at such an hour may I also die!
+
+Yes, it is a sad story, but wander where we will about the world we can
+never go beyond the sound of the passing bell. For me, as for my father
+before me, and for the millions who have been and who shall be, there
+is but one word of comfort. “The Lord hath given, and the Lord hath
+taken away.” Let us, then, bow our heads in hope, and add with a humble
+heart, “Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
+
+I buried her by her father’s side, and the weeping of the people who
+had loved her went up to heaven. Even Indaba-zimbi wept, but I could
+weep no more.
+
+On the second night from her burial I could not sleep. I rose, dressed
+myself, and went out into the night. The moon was shining brightly, and
+by its rays I shaped my course towards the graveyard. I drew near
+silently, and as I came I thought that I heard a sound of moaning on
+the further side of the wall. I looked over it. Crouched by Stella’s
+grave, and tearing at its sods with her hands, as though she would
+unearth that which lay within, was _Hendrika_. Her face was wild and
+haggard, her form was so emaciated that when the pelts she wore slipped
+aside, the shoulder-blades seemed to project almost through her skin.
+Suddenly she looked up and saw me. Laughing a dreadful maniac laugh,
+she put her hand to her girdle and drew her great knife from it. I
+thought that she was about to attack me, and prepared to defend myself
+as I best could, for I was unarmed. But she made no effort to do so.
+Lifting the knife on high, for a moment she held it glittering in the
+moonlight, then plunged it into her own breast, and fell headlong to
+the ground.
+
+I sprang over the wall and ran to her. She was not yet dead. Presently
+she opened her eyes, and I saw that the madness had gone out of them.
+
+“Macumazahn,” she said, speaking in English and in a thick difficult
+voice like one who half forgot and half remembered—“Macumazahn, I
+remember now. I have been mad. Is she really dead, Macumazahn?”
+
+“Yes,” I said, “she is dead, and you killed her.”
+
+“I killed her!” the dying woman faltered, “and I loved her. Yes, yes, I
+know now. I became a brute again and dragged her to the brutes, and now
+once more I am a woman, and she is dead, and I killed her—because I
+loved her so. I killed her who saved me from the brutes. I am not dead
+yet, Macumazahn. Take me and torture me to death, slowly, very slowly.
+It was jealousy of you that drove me mad, and I have killed her, and
+now she never can forgive me.”
+
+“Ask forgiveness from above,” I said, for Hendrika had been a
+Christian, and the torment of her remorse touched me.
+
+“I ask no forgiveness,” she said. “May God torture me for ever, because
+I killed her; may I become a brute for ever till she comes to find me
+and forgives me! I only want her forgiveness.” And wailing in an
+anguish of the heart so strong that her bodily suffering seemed to be
+forgotten, Hendrika, the Baboon-woman, died.
+
+I went back to the kraals, and, waking Indaba-zimbi, told him what had
+happened, asking him to send some one to watch the body, as I proposed
+to give it burial. But next morning it was gone, and I found that the
+natives, hearing of the event, had taken the corpse and thrown it to
+the vultures with every mark of hate. Such, then, was the end of
+Hendrika.
+
+A week after Hendrika’s death I left Babyan Kraals. The place was
+hateful to me now; it was a haunted place. I sent for old Indaba-zimbi
+and told him that I was going. He answered that it was well. “The place
+has served your turn,” he said; “here you have won that joy which it
+was fated you should win, and have suffered those things that it was
+fated you should suffer. Yes, and though you know it not now, the joy
+and the suffering, like the sunshine and the storm, are the same thing,
+and will rest at last in the same heaven, the heaven from which they
+came. Now go, Macumazahn.”
+
+I asked him if he was coming with me.
+
+“No,” he answered, “our paths lie apart henceforth, Macumazahn. We met
+together for certain ends. Those ends are fulfilled. Now each one goes
+his own way. You have still many years before you, Macumazahn; my years
+are few. When we shake hands here it will be for the last time. Perhaps
+we may meet again, but it will not be in this world. Henceforth we have
+each of us a friend the less.”
+
+“Heavy words,” I said.
+
+“True words,” he answered.
+
+Well, I have little heart to write the rest of it. I went, leaving
+Indaba-zimbi in charge of the place, and making him a present of such
+cattle and goods as I did not want.
+
+Tota, I of course took with me. Fortunately by this time she had almost
+recovered the shock to her nerves. The baby Harry, as he was afterwards
+named, was a fine healthy child, and I was lucky in getting a
+respectable native woman, whose husband had been killed in the fight
+with the baboons, to accompany me as his nurse.
+
+Slowly, and followed for a distance by all the people, I trekked away
+from Babyan Kraals. My route towards Natal was along the edge of the
+Bad Lands, and my first night’s outspan was beneath that very tree
+where Stella, my lost wife, had found us as we lay dying of thirst.
+
+I did not sleep much that night. And yet I was glad that I had not died
+in the desert about eleven months before. I felt then, as from year to
+year I have continued to feel while I wander through the lonely
+wilderness of life, that I had been preserved to an end. I had won my
+darling’s love, and for a little while we had been happy together. Our
+happiness was too perfect to endure. She is lost to me now, but she is
+lost to be found again.
+
+Here on the following morning I bade farewell to Indaba-zimbi.
+
+“Good-bye, Macumazahn,” he said, nodding his white lock at me.
+“Good-bye for a while. I am not a Christian; your father could not make
+me that. But he was a wise man, and when he said that those who loved
+each other shall meet again, he did not lie. And I too am a wise man in
+my way, Macumazahn, and I say it is true that we shall meet again. All
+my prophecies to you have come true, Macumazahn, and this one shall
+come true also. I tell you that you shall return to Babyan Kraals and
+shall not find me. I tell you that you shall journey to a further land
+than Babyan Kraals and shall find me. Farewell!” and he took a pinch of
+snuff, turned, and went.
+
+Of my journey down to Natal there is little to tell. I met with many
+adventures, but they were of an every-day kind, and in the end arrived
+safely at Port Durban, which I now visited for the first time. Both
+Tota and my baby boy bore the journey well. And here I may as well
+chronicle the destiny of Tota. For a year she remained under my charge.
+Then she was adopted by a lady, the wife of an English colonel, who was
+stationed at the Cape. She was taken by her adopted parents to England,
+where she grew up a very charming and pretty girl, and ultimately
+married a clergyman in Norfolk. But I never saw her again, though we
+often wrote to each other.
+
+Before I returned to the country of my birth, she too had been gathered
+to the land of shadows, leaving three children behind her. Ah me! all
+this took place so long ago, when I was young who now am old.
+
+Perhaps it may interest the reader to know the fate of Mr. Carson’s
+property, which should of course have gone to his grandson Harry. I
+wrote to England to claim the estate on his behalf, but the lawyer to
+whom the matter was submitted said that my marriage to Stella, not
+having been celebrated by an ordained priest, was not legal according
+to English law, and therefore Harry could not inherit. Foolishly enough
+I acquiesced in this, and the property passed to a cousin of my
+father-in-law’s; but since I have come to live in England I have been
+informed that this opinion is open to great suspicion, and that there
+is every probability that the courts would have declared the marriage
+perfectly binding as having been solemnly entered into in accordance
+with the custom of the place where it was contracted. But I am now so
+rich that it is not worth while to move in the matter. The cousin is
+dead, his son is in possession, so let him keep it.
+
+Once, and once only, did I revisit Babyan Kraals. Some fifteen years
+after my darling’s death, when I was a man in middle life, I undertook
+an expedition to the Zambesi, and one night outspanned at the mouth of
+the well-known valley beneath the shadow of the great peak. I mounted
+my horse, and, quite alone, rode up the valley, noticing with a strange
+prescience of evil that the road was overgrown, and, save for the music
+of the waterfalls, the place silent as death. The kraals that used to
+be to the left of the road by the river had vanished. I rode towards
+their site; the mealie fields were choked with weeds, the paths were
+dumb with grass. Presently I reached the place. There, overgrown with
+grass, were the burnt ashes of the kraals, and there among the ashes,
+gleaming in the moonlight, lay the white bones of men. Now it was clear
+to me. The settlement had been fallen on by some powerful foe, and its
+inhabitants put to the assegai. The forebodings of the natives had come
+true; Babyan Kraals were peopled by memories alone.
+
+I passed on up the terraces. There shone the roofs of the marble huts.
+They would not burn, and were too strong to be easily pulled down. I
+entered one of them—it had been our sleeping hut—and lit a candle which
+I had with me. The huts had been sacked; leaves of books and broken
+mouldering fragments of the familiar furniture lay about. Then I
+remembered that there was a secret place hollowed in the floor and
+concealed by a stone, where Stella used to hide her little treasures. I
+went to the stone and dragged it up. There was something within wrapped
+in rotting native cloth. I undid it. It was the dress my wife had been
+married in. In the centre of the dress were the withered wreath and
+flowers she had worn, and with them a little paper packet. I opened it;
+it contained a lock of my own hair!
+
+I remembered then that I had searched for this dress when I came away
+and could not find it, for I had forgotten the secret recess in the
+floor.
+
+Taking the dress with me, I left the hut for the last time. Leaving my
+horse tied to a tree, I walked to the graveyard, through the ruined
+garden. There it was a mass of weeds, but over my darling’s grave grew
+a self-sown orange bush, of which the scented petals fell in showers on
+to the mound beneath. As I drew near, there was a crash and a rush. A
+great baboon leapt from the centre of the graveyard and vanished into
+the trees. I could almost believe that it was the wraith of Hendrika
+doomed to keep an eternal watch over the bones of the woman her jealous
+rage had done to death.
+
+I tarried there a while, filled with such thoughts as may not be
+written. Then, leaving my dead wife to her long sleep where the waters
+fall in melancholy music beneath the shadow of the everlasting
+mountain, I turned and sought that spot where first we had told our
+love. Now the orange grove was nothing but a tangled thicket; many of
+the trees were dead, choked with creepers, but some still flourished.
+There stood the one beneath which we had lingered, there was the rock
+that had been our seat, and there on the rock sat the wraith of
+_Stella_, the Stella whom I had wed! Ay! there she sat, and on her
+upturned face was that same spiritual look which I saw upon it in the
+hour when we first had kissed. The moonlight shone in her dark eyes,
+the breeze wavered in her curling hair, her breast rose and fell, a
+gentle smile played about her parted lips. I stood transfixed with awe
+and joy, gazing on that lost loveliness which once was mine. I could
+not speak, and she spoke no word; she did not even seem to see me. Now
+her eyes fell. For a moment they met mine, and their message entered
+into me.
+
+Then she was gone. She was gone; nothing was left but the tremulous
+moonlight falling where she had been, the melancholy music of the
+waters, the shadow of the everlasting mountain, and, in my heart, the
+sorrow and the hope.
+
+
+
+
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