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She and Allan 5745.txt
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She and Allan 5745.txt
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Produced by John Bickers; Dagny; David Widger
SHE AND ALLAN
By H. Rider Haggard
First Published 1921.
NOTE BY THE LATE MR. ALLAN QUATERMAIN
My friend, into whose hands I hope that all these manuscripts of mine
will pass one day, of this one I have something to say to you.
A long while ago I jotted down in it the history of the events that
it details with more or less completeness. This I did for my own
satisfaction. You will have noted how memory fails us as we advance
in years; we recollect, with an almost painful exactitude, what we
experienced and saw in our youth, but the happenings of our middle
life slip away from us or become blurred, like a stretch of low-lying
landscape overflowed by grey and nebulous mist. Far off the sun still
seems to shine upon the plains and hills of adolescence and early
manhood, as yet it shines about us in the fleeting hours of our age,
that ground on which we stand to-day, but the valley between is filled
with fog. Yes, even its prominences, which symbolise the more startling
events of that past, often are lost in this confusing fog.
It was an appreciation of these truths which led me to set down the
following details (though of course much is omitted) of my brief
intercourse with the strange and splendid creature whom I knew under the
names of Ayesha, or Híya, or She-who-commands; not indeed with any
view to their publication, but before I forgot them that, if I wished to
do so, I might re-peruse them in the evening of old age to which I hope
to attain.
Indeed, at the time the last thing I intended was that they should be
given to the world even after my own death, because they, or many of
them, are so unusual that I feared lest they should cause smiles and
in a way cast a slur upon my memory and truthfulness. Also, as you will
read, as to this matter I made a promise and I have always tried to
keep my promises and to guard the secrets of others. For these reasons I
proposed, in case I neglected or forgot to destroy them myself, to leave
a direction that this should be done by my executors. Further, I have
been careful to make no allusion whatever to them either in casual
conversation or in anything else that I may have written, my desire
being that this page of my life should be kept quite private, something
known only to myself. Therefore, too, I never so much as hinted of them
to anyone, not even to yourself to whom I have told so much.
Well, I recorded the main facts concerning this expedition and its
issues, simply and with as much exactness as I could, and laid them
aside. I do not say that I never thought of them again, since amongst
them were some which, together with the problems they suggested, proved
to be of an unforgettable nature.
Also, whenever any of Ayesha's sayings or stories which are not
preserved in these pages came back to me, as has happened from time to
time, I jotted them down and put them away with this manuscript. Thus
among these notes you will find a history of the city of Kôr as she told
it to me, which I have omitted here. Still, many of these remarkable
events did more or less fade from my mind, as the image does from
an unfixed photograph, till only their outlines remained, faint if
distinguishable.
To tell the truth, I was rather ashamed of the whole story in which
I cut so poor a figure. On reflection it was obvious to me, although
honesty had compelled me to set out all that is essential exactly as it
occurred, adding nothing and taking nothing away, that I had been the
victim of very gross deceit. This strange woman, whom I had met in the
ruins of a place called Kôr, without any doubt had thrown a glamour over
my senses and at the moment almost caused me to believe much that is
quite unbelievable.
For instance, she had told me ridiculous stories as to interviews
between herself and certain heathen goddesses, though it is true that,
almost with her next breath, these she qualified or contradicted. Also,
she had suggested that her life had been prolonged far beyond our mortal
span, for hundreds and hundreds of years, indeed; which, as Euclid says,
is absurd, and had pretended to supernatural powers, which is still more
absurd. Moreover, by a clever use of some hypnotic or mesmeric power,
she had feigned to transport me to some place beyond the earth and in
the Halls of Hades to show me what is veiled from the eyes of man,
and not only me, but the savage warrior Umhlopekazi, commonly called
Umslopogaas of the Axe, who, with Hans, a Hottentot, was my companion
upon that adventure. There were like things equally incredible, such as
her appearance, when all seemed lost, in the battle with the troll-like
Rezu. To omit these, the sum of it was that I had been shamefully duped,
and if anyone finds himself in that position, as most people have at one
time or another in their lives, Wisdom suggests that he had better keep
the circumstances to himself.
Well, so the matter stood, or rather lay in the recesses of my mind--and
in the cupboard where I hide my papers--when one evening someone, as a
matter of fact it was Captain Good, an individual of romantic tendencies
who is fond, sometimes I think too fond, of fiction, brought a book to
this house which he insisted over and over again really I must peruse.
Ascertaining that it was a novel I declined, for to tell the truth I am
not fond of romance in any shape, being a person who has found the hard
facts of life of sufficient interest as they stand.
Reading I admit I like, but in this matter, as in everything else, my
range is limited. I study the Bible, especially the Old Testament, both
because of its sacred lessons and of the majesty of the language of its
inspired translators; whereof that of Ayesha, which I render so poorly
from her flowing and melodious Arabic, reminded me. For poetry I turn
to Shakespeare, and, at the other end of the scale, to the Ingoldsby
Legends, many of which I know almost by heart, while for current affairs
I content myself with the newspapers.
For the rest I peruse anything to do with ancient Egypt that I happen to
come across, because this land and its history have a queer fascination
for me, that perhaps has its roots in occurrences or dreams of which
this is not the place to speak. Lastly now and again I read one of the
Latin or Greek authors in a translation, since I regret to say that my
lack of education does not enable me to do so in the original. But for
modern fiction I have no taste, although from time to time I sample it
in a railway train and occasionally am amused by such excursions into
the poetic and unreal.
So it came about that the more Good bothered me to read this particular
romance, the more I determined that I would do nothing of the sort.
Being a persistent person, however, when he went away about ten o'clock
at night, he deposited it by my side, under my nose indeed, so that it
might not be overlooked. Thus it came about that I could not help seeing
some Egyptian hieroglyphics in an oval on the cover, also the title,
and underneath it your own name, my friend, all of which excited
my curiosity, especially the title, which was brief and enigmatic,
consisting indeed of one word, "She."
I took up the work and on opening it the first thing my eye fell upon
was a picture of a veiled woman, the sight of which made my heart stand
still, so painfully did it remind me of a certain veiled woman whom once
it had been my fortune to meet. Glancing from it to the printed page one
word seemed to leap at me. It was Kôr! Now of veiled women there are
plenty in the world, but were there also two Kôrs?
Then I turned to the beginning and began to read. This happened in
the autumn when the sun does not rise till about six, but it was broad
daylight before I ceased from reading, or rather rushing through that
book.
Oh! what was I to make of it? For here in its pages (to say nothing of
old Billali, who, by the way lied, probably to order, when he told Mr.
Holly that no white man had visited his country for many generations,
and those gloomy, man-eating Amahagger scoundrels) once again I
found myself face to face with She-who-commands, now rendered as
She-who-must-be-obeyed, which means much the same thing--in her case
at least; yes, with Ayesha the lovely, the mystic, the changeful and the
imperious.
Moreover the history filled up many gaps in my own limited experiences
of that enigmatical being who was half divine (though, I think, rather
wicked or at any rate unmoral in her way) and yet all woman. It is true
that it showed her in lights very different from and higher than those
in which she had presented herself to me. Yet the substratum of her
character was the same, or rather of her characters, for of these she
seemed to have several in a single body, being, as she said of herself
to me, "not One but Many and not Here but Everywhere."
Further, I found the story of Kallikrates, which I had set down as a
mere falsehood invented for my bewilderment, expanded and explained. Or
rather not explained, since, perhaps that she might deceive, to me
she had spoken of this murdered Kallikrates without enthusiasm, as a
handsome person to whom, because of an indiscretion of her youth, she
was bound by destiny and whose return--somewhat to her sorrow--she must
wait. At least she did so at first, though in the end when she bared her
heart at the moment of our farewell, she vowed she loved him only and
was "appointed" to him "by a divine decree."
Also I found other things of which I knew nothing, such as the Fire of
Life with its fatal gift of indefinite existence, although I remember
that like the giant Rezu whom Umslopogaas defeated, she did talk of a
"Cup of Life" of which she had drunk, that might have been offered to my
lips, had I been politic, bowed the knee and shown more faith in her and
her supernatural pretensions.
Lastly I saw the story of her end, and as I read it I wept, yes, I
confess I wept, although I feel sure that she will return again. Now I
understood why she had quailed and even seemed to shrivel when, in my
last interview with her, stung beyond endurance by her witcheries and
sarcasms, I had suggested that even for her with all her powers, Fate
might reserve one of its shrewdest blows. Some prescience had told her
that if the words seemed random, Truth spoke through my lips, although,
and this was the worst of it, she did not know what weapon would deal
the stroke or when and where it was doomed to fall.
I was amazed, I was overcome, but as I closed that book I made up my
mind, first that I would continue to preserve absolute silence as to
Ayesha and my dealings with her, as, during my life, I was bound by
oath to do, and secondly that I would not cause my manuscript to be
destroyed. I did not feel that I had any right to do so in view of what
already had been published to the world. There let it lie to appear one
day, or not to appear, as might be fated. Meanwhile my lips were sealed.
I would give Good back his book without comment and--buy another copy!
One more word. It is clear that I did not touch more than the fringe
of the real Ayesha. In a thousand ways she bewitched and deceived me so
that I never plumbed her nature's depths. Perhaps this was my own fault
because from the first I shewed a lack of faith in her and she wished to
pay me back in her own fashion, or perhaps she had other private reasons
for her secrecy. Certainly the character she discovered to me differed
in many ways from that which she revealed to Mr. Holly and to Leo
Vincey, or Kallikrates, whom, it seems, once she slew in her jealousy
and rage.
She told me as much as she thought it fit that I should know, and no
more!
Allan Quatermain.
The Grange, Yorkshire.
SHE AND ALLAN
CHAPTER I
THE TALISMAN
I believe it was the old Egyptians, a very wise people, probably indeed
much wiser than we know, for in the leisure of their ample centuries
they had time to think out things, who declared that each individual
personality is made up of six or seven different elements, although the
Bible only allows us three, namely, body, soul, and spirit. The body
that the man or woman wore, if I understand their theory aright which
perhaps I, an ignorant person, do not, was but a kind of sack or fleshly
covering containing these different principles. Or mayhap it did not
contain them all, but was simply a house as it were, in which they lived
from time to time and seldom all together, although one or more of them
was present continually, as though to keep the place warmed and aired.
This is but a casual illustrative suggestion, for what right have
I, Allan Quatermain, out of my little reading and probably erroneous
deductions, to form any judgment as to the theories of the old
Egyptians? Still these, as I understand them, suffice to furnish me with
the text that man is not one, but many, in which connection it may be
remembered that often in Scripture he is spoken of as being the home of
many demons, seven, I think. Also, to come to another far-off example,
the Zulus talk of their witch-doctors as being inhabited by "a multitude
of spirits."
Anyhow of one thing I am quite sure, we are not always the same.
Different personalities actuate us at different times. In one hour
passion of this sort or the other is our lord; in another we are reason
itself. In one hour we follow the basest appetites; in another we hate
them and the spirit arising through our mortal murk shines within or
above us like a star. In one hour our desire is to kill and spare not;
in another we are filled with the holiest compassion even towards an
insect or a snake, and are ready to forgive like a god. Everything
rules us in turn, to such an extent indeed, that sometimes one begins to
wonder whether we really rule anything.
Now the reason of all this homily is that I, Allan, the most practical
and unimaginative of persons, just a homely, half-educated hunter and
trader who chances to have seen a good deal of the particular little
world in which his lot was cast, at one period of my life became the
victim of spiritual longings.
I am a man who has suffered great bereavements in my time such as have
seared my soul, since, perhaps because of my rather primitive and simple
nature, my affections are very strong. By day or night I can never
forget those whom I have loved and whom I believe to have loved me.
For you know, in our vanity some of us are apt to hold that certain
people with whom we have been intimate upon the earth, really did
care for us and, in our still greater vanity--or should it be called
madness?--to imagine that they still care for us after they have left
the earth and entered on some new state of society and surroundings
which, if they exist, inferentially are much more congenial than any
they can have experienced here. At times, however, cold doubts strike us
as to this matter, of which we long to know the truth. Also behind looms
a still blacker doubt, namely whether they live at all.
For some years of my lonely existence these problems haunted me day by
day, till at length I desired above everything on earth to lay them
at rest in one way or another. Once, at Durban, I met a man who was a
spiritualist to whom I confided a little of my perplexities. He laughed
at me and said that they could be settled with the greatest ease. All
I had to do was to visit a certain local medium who for a fee of one
guinea would tell me everything I wanted to know. Although I rather
grudged the guinea, being more than usually hard up at the time, I
called upon this person, but over the results of that visit, or rather
the lack of them, I draw a veil.
My queer and perhaps unwholesome longing, however, remained with me and
would not be abated. I consulted a clergyman of my acquaintance, a good
and spiritually-minded man, but he could only shrug his shoulders and
refer me to the Bible, saying, quite rightly I doubt not, that with what
it reveals I ought to be contented. Then I read certain mystical
books which were recommended to me. These were full of fine words,
undiscoverable in a pocket dictionary, but really took me no forwarder,
since in them I found nothing that I could not have invented myself,
although while I was actually studying them, they seemed to convince
me. I even tackled Swedenborg, or rather samples of him, for he is very
copious, but without satisfactory results. [Ha!--JB]
Then I gave up the business.
Some months later I was in Zululand and being near the Black Kloof
where he dwelt, I paid a visit to my acquaintance of whom I have
written elsewhere, the wonderful and ancient dwarf, Zikali, known as
"The-Thing-that-should-never-have-been-born," also more universally
among the Zulus as "Opener-of-Roads." When we had talked of many things
connected with the state of Zululand and its politics, I rose to leave
for my waggon, since I never cared for sleeping in the Black Kloof if it
could be avoided.
"Is there nothing else that you want to ask me, Macumazahn?" asked
the old dwarf, tossing back his long hair and looking at--I had almost
written through--me.
I shook my head.
"That is strange, Macumazahn, for I seem to see something written on
your mind--something to do with spirits."
Then I remembered all the problems that had been troubling me, although
in truth I had never thought of propounding them to Zikali.
"Ah! it comes back, does it?" he exclaimed, reading my thought. "Out
with it, then, Macumazahn, while I am in a mood to answer, and before
I grow tired, for you are an old friend of mine and will so remain till
the end, many years hence, and if I can serve you, I will."
I filled my pipe and sat down again upon the stool of carved red-wood
which had been brought for me.
"You are named 'Opener-of-Roads,' are you not, Zikali?" I said.
"Yes, the Zulus have always called me that, since before the days of
Chaka. But what of names, which often enough mean nothing at all?"
"Only that I want to open a road, Zikali, that which runs across the
River of Death."
"Oho!" he laughed, "it is very easy," and snatching up a little assegai
that lay beside him, he proffered it to me, adding, "Be brave now and
fall on that. Then before I have counted sixty the road will be wide
open, but whether you will see anything on it I cannot tell you."
Again I shook my head and answered,
"It is against our law. Also while I still live I desire to know whether
I shall meet certain others on that road after my time has come to cross
the River. Perhaps you who deal with spirits, can prove the matter to
me, which no one else seems able to do."
"Oho!" laughed Zikali again. "What do my ears hear? Am I, the poor Zulu
cheat, as you will remember once you called me, Macumazahn, asked
to show that which is hidden from all the wisdom of the great White
People?"
"The question is," I answered with irritation, "not what you are asked
to do, but what you can do."
"That I do not know yet, Macumazahn. Whose spirits do you desire to see?
If that of a woman called Mameena is one of them, I think that perhaps I
whom she loved----"[*]
[*] For the history of Mameena see the book called "Child of
Storm."--Editor.
"She is not one of them, Zikali. Moreover, if she loved you, you paid
back her love with death."
"Which perhaps was the kindest thing I could do, Macumazahn, for reasons
that you may be able to guess, and others with which I will not trouble
you. But if not hers, whose? Let me look, let me look! Why, there seems
to be two of them, head-wives, I mean, and I thought that white men only
took one wife. Also a multitude of others; their faces float up in the
water of your mind. An old man with grey hair, little children, perhaps
they were brothers and sisters, and some who may be friends. Also very
clear indeed that Mameena whom you do not wish to see. Well, Macumazahn,
this is unfortunate, since she is the only one whom I can show you,
or rather put you in the way of finding. Unless indeed there are other
Kaffir women----"
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"I mean, Macumazahn, that only black feet travel on the road which I can
open; over those in which ran white blood I have no power."
"Then it is finished," I said, rising again and taking a step or two
towards the gate.
"Come back and sit down, Macumazahn. I did not say so. Am I the only
ruler of magic in Africa, which I am told is a big country?"
I came back and sat down, for my curiosity, a great failing with me, was
excited.
"Thank you, Zikali," I said, "but I will have no dealings with more of
your witch-doctors."
"No, no, because you are afraid of them; quite without reason,
Macumazahn, seeing that they are all cheats except myself. I am the last
child of wisdom, the rest are stuffed with lies, as Chaka found out when
he killed every one of them whom he could catch. But perhaps there might
be a white doctor who would have rule over white spirits."
"If you mean missionaries----" I began hastily.
"No, Macumazahn, I do not mean your praying men who are cast in one
mould and measured with one rule, and say what they are taught to say,
not thinking for themselves."
"Some of them think, Zikali."
"Yes, and then the others fall on them with big sticks. The real priest
is he to whom the Spirit comes, not he who feeds upon its wrappings, and
speaks through a mask carved by his father's fathers. I am a priest like
that, which is why all my fellowship have hated me."
"If so, you have paid back their hate, Zikali, but cease to cast round
the lion, like a timid hound, and tell me what you mean. Of whom do you
speak?"
"That is the trouble, Macumazahn. I do not know. This lion, or rather
lioness, lies hid in the caves of a very distant mountain and I have
never seen her--in the flesh."
"Then how can you talk of what you have never seen?"
"In the same way, Macumazahn, that your priests talk of what they have
never seen, because they, or a few of them, have knowledge of it. I
will tell you a secret. All seers who live at the same time, if they are
great, commune with each other because they are akin and their spirits
meet in sleep or dreams. Therefore I know of a mistress of our craft, a
very lioness among jackals, who for thousands of years has lain sleeping
in the northern caves and, humble though I am, she knows of me."
"Quite so," I said, yawning, "but perhaps, Zikali, you will come to the
point of the spear. What of her? How is she named, and if she exists
will she help me?"
"I will answer your question backwards, Macumazahn. I think that she
will help you if you help her, in what way I do not know, because
although witch-doctors sometimes work without pay, as I am doing now,
Macumazahn, witch-doctoresses never do. As for her name, the only one
that she has among our company is 'Queen,' because she is the first of
all of them and the most beauteous among women. For the rest I can tell
you nothing, except that she has always been and I suppose, in this
shape or in that, will always be while the world lasts, because she has
found the secret of life unending."
"You mean that she is immortal, Zikali," I answered with a smile.
"I do not say that, Macumazahn, because my little mind cannot shape the
thought of immortality. But when I was a babe, which is far ago, she had
lived so long that scarce would she knew the difference between then
and now, and already in her breast was all wisdom gathered. I know it,
because although, as I have said, we have never seen each other, at
times we walk together in our sleep, for thus she shares her loneliness,
and I think, though this may be but a dream, that last night she told me
to send you on to her to seek an answer to certain questions which you
would put to me to-day. Also to me she seemed to desire that you should
do her a service; I know not what service."
Now I grew angry and asked,
"Why does it please you to fool me, Zikali, with such talk as this? If
there is any truth in it, show me where the woman called Queen lives
and how I am to come to her."
The old wizard took up the little assegai which he had offered to me and
with its blade raked our ashes from the fire that always burnt in front
of him. While he did so, he talked to me, as I thought in a random
fashion, perhaps to distract my attention, of a certain white man whom
he said I should meet upon my journey and of his affairs, also of other
matters, none of which interested me much at the time. These ashes
he patted down flat and then on them drew a map with the point of his
spear, making grooves for streams, certain marks for bush and forest,
wavy lines for water and swamps and little heaps for hills.
When he had finished it all he bade me come round the fire and study the
picture across which by an after-thought he drew a wandering furrow with
the edge of the assegai to represent a river, and gathered the ashes in
a lump at the northern end to signify a large mountain.
"Look at it well, Macumazahn," he said, "and forget nothing, since if
you make this journey and forget, you die. Nay, no need to copy it in
that book of yours, for see, I will stamp it on your mind."
Then suddenly he gathered up the warm ashes in a double handful and
threw them into my face, muttering something as he did so and adding
aloud,
"There, now you will remember."
"Certainly I shall," I answered, coughing, "and I beg that you will not
play such a joke upon me again."
As a matter of fact, whatever may have been the reason, I never forgot
any detail of that extremely intricate map.
"That big river must be the Zambesi," I stuttered, "and even then the
mountain of your Queen, if it be her mountain, is far away, and how can
I come there alone?"
"I don't know, Macumazahn, though perhaps you might do so in company. At
least I believe that in the old days people used to travel to the place,
since I have heard a great city stood there once which was the heart of
a mighty empire."
Now I pricked up my ears, for though I believed nothing of Zikali's
story of a wonderful Queen, I was always intensely interested in past
civilisations and their relics. Also I knew that the old wizard's
knowledge was extensive and peculiar, however he came by it, and I did
not think that he would lie to me in this matter. Indeed to tell the
truth, then and there I made up my mind that if it were in any way
possible, I would attempt this journey.
"How did people travel to the city, Zikali?"
"By sea, I suppose, Macumazahn, but I think that you will be wise not to
try that road, since I believe that on the sea side the marshes are now
impassable and you will be safer on your feet."
"You want me to go on this adventure, Zikali. Why? I know you never do
anything without motive."
"Oho! Macumazahn, you are clever and see deeper into the trunk of a tree
than most. Yes, I want you to go for three reasons. First, that you
may satisfy your soul on certain matters and I would help you to do so.
Secondly, because I want to satisfy mine, and thirdly, because I know
that you will come back safe to be a prop to me in things that will
happen in days unborn. Otherwise I would have told you nothing of this
story, since it is necessary to me that you should remain living beneath
the sun."
"Have done, Zikali. What is it that you desire?"
"Oh! a great deal that I shall get, but chiefly two things, so with
the rest I will not trouble you. First I desire to know to know whether
these dreams of mine of a wonderful white witch-doctoress, or witch, and
of my converse with her are indeed more than dreams. Next I would learn
whether certain plots of mine at which I have worked for years, will
succeed."
"What plots, Zikali, and how can my taking a distant journey tell you
anything about them?"
"You know them well enough, Macumazahn; they have to do with the
overthrow of a Royal House that has worked me bitter wrong. As to how
your journey can help me, why, thus. You shall promise to me to ask
of this Queen whether Zikali, Opener-of-Roads, shall triumph or be
overthrown in that on which he has set his heart."
"As you seem to know this witch so well, why do you not ask her
yourself, Zikali?"
"To ask is one thing, Macumazahn. To get an answer is another. I have
asked in the watches of the night, and the reply was, 'Come hither and
perchance I will tell you.' 'Queen,' I said, 'how can I come save in the
spirit, who am an ancient and a crippled dwarf scarcely able to stand
upon my feet?'
"'Then send a messenger, Wizard, and be sure that he is white, for of
black savages I have seen more than enough. Let him bear a token also
that he comes from you and tell me of it in your sleep. Moreover let
that token be something of power which will protect him on the journey.'
"Such is the answer that comes to me in my dreams, Macumazahn."
"Well, what token will you give me, Zikali?"
He groped about in his robe and produced a piece of ivory of the size
of a large chessman, that had a hole in it, through which ran a plaited
cord of the stiff hairs from an elephant's tail. On this article, which
was of a rusty brown colour, he breathed, then having whispered to it
for a while, handed it to me.
I took the talisman, for such I guessed it to be, idly enough, held it
to the light to examine it, and started back so violently that almost
I let it fall. I do not quite know why I started, but I think it was
because some influence seemed to leap from it to me. Zikali started also
and cried out,
"Have a care, Macumazahn. Am I young that I can bear bring dashed to the
ground?"
"What do you mean?" I asked, still staring at the thing which I
perceived to be a most wonderfully fashioned likeness of the old dwarf
himself as he appeared before me crouched upon the ground. There were
the deepset eyes, the great head, the toad-like shape, the long hair,
all.
"It is a clever carving, is it not, Macumazahn? I am skilled in that
art, you know, and therefore can judge of carving."
"Yes, I know," I answered, bethinking me of another statuette of his
which he had given to me on the morrow of the death of her from whom it
was modelled. "But what of the thing?"
"Macumazahn, it has come down to me through the ages. As you may
have heard, all great doctors when they die pass on their wisdom and
something of their knowledge to another doctor of spirits who is still
living on the earth, that nothing may be lost, or as little as possible.
Also I have learned that to such likenesses as these may be given the
strength of him or her from whom they were shaped."
Now I bethought me of the old Egyptians and their Ka statues of which
I had read, and that these statues, magically charmed and set in the
tombs of the departed, were supposed to be inhabited everlastingly by
the Doubles of the dead endued with more power even than ever these
possessed in life. But of this I said nothing to Zikali, thinking that
it would take too much explanation, though I wondered very much how he
had come by the same idea.
"When that ivory is hung over your heart, Macumazahn, where you must
always wear it, learn that with it goes the strength of Zikali; the
thought that would have been his thought and the wisdom that is his
wisdom, will be your companions, as much as though he walked at your
side and could instruct you in every peril. Moreover north and south and
east and west this image is known to men who, when they see it, will
bow down and obey, opening a road to him who wears the medicine of the
Opener-of-Roads."
"Indeed," I said, smiling, "and what is this colour on the ivory?"
"I forget, Macumazahn, who have had it a great number of years, ever
since it descended to me from a forefather of mine, who was fashioned in
the same mould as I am. It looks like blood, does it not? It is a pity
that Mameena is not still alive, since she whose memory was so excellent
might have been able to tell you," and as he spoke, with a motion that
was at once sure and swift, he threw the loop of elephant hair over my
head.
Hastily I changed the subject, feeling that after his wont this old
wizard, the most terrible man whom ever I knew, who had been so much
concerned with the tragic death of Mameena, was stabbing at me in some
hidden fashion.
"You tell me to go on this journey," I said, "and not alone. Yet for
companion you give me only an ugly piece of ivory shaped as no man ever
was," here I got one back at Zikali, "and from the look of it, steeped
in blood, which ivory, if I had my way, I would throw into the camp
fire. Who, then, am I to take with me?"
"Don't do that, Macumazahn--I mean throw the ivory into the fire--since
I have no wish to burn before my time, and if you do, you who have worn
it might burn with me. At least certainly you would die with the magic
thing and go to acquire knowledge more quickly than you desire. No, no,
and do not try to take it off your neck, or rather try if you will."
I did try, but something seemed to prevent me from accomplishing my
purpose of giving the carving back to Zikali as I wished to do. First
my pipe got in the way of my hand, then the elephant hairs caught in the
collar of my coat; then a pang of rheumatism to which I was accustomed
from an old lion-bite, developed of a sudden in my arm, and lastly I
grew tired of bothering about the thing.
Zikali, who had been watching my movements, burst out into one of his
terrible laughs that seemed to fill the whole kloof and to re-echo from
its rocky walls. It died away and he went on, without further reference
to the talisman or image.
"You asked whom you were to take with you, Macumazahn. Well, as to this
I must make inquiry of those who know. Man, my medicines!"
From the shadows in the hut behind darted out a tall figure carrying
a great spear in one hand and in the other a catskin bag which with a
salute he laid down at the feet of his master. This salute, by the way,
was that of a Zulu word which means "Lord" or "Home" of Ghosts.
Zikali groped in the bag and produced from it certain knuckle-bones.
"A common method," he muttered, "such as every vulgar wizard uses, but
one that is quick and, as the matter concerned is small, will serve my
turn. Let us see now, whom you shall take with you, Macumazahn."
Then he breathed upon the bones, shook them up in his thin hands and
with a quick turn of the wrist, threw them into the air. After this
he studied them carefully, where they lay among the ashes which he had
raked out of the fire, those that he had used for the making of his map.
"Do you know a man named Umslopogaas, Macumazahn, the chief of a tribe
that is called The People of the Axe, whose titles of praise are Bulalio
or the Slaughterer, and Woodpecker, the latter from the way he handles
his ancient axe? He is a savage fellow, but one of high blood and
higher courage, a great captain in his way, though he will never come to
anything, save a glorious death--in your company, I think, Macumazahn."
(Here he studied the bones again for a while.) "Yes, I am sure, in your
company, though not upon this journey."
"I have heard of him," I answered cautiously. "It is said in the land
that he is a son of Chaka, the great king of the Zulus."
"Is it, Macumazahn? And is it said also that he was the slayer of
Chaka's brother, Dingaan, also the lover of the fairest woman that the
Zulus have ever seen, who was called Nada the Lily? Unless indeed a
certain Mameena, who, I seem to remember, was a friend of yours, may
have been even more beautiful?"
"I know nothing of Nada the Lily," I answered.
"No, no, Mameena, 'the Waiting Wind,' has blown over her fame, so
why should you know of one who has been dead a long while? Why also,
Macumazahn, do you always bring women into every business? I begin to
believe that although you are so strict in a white man's fashion, you
must be too fond of them, a weakness which makes for ruin to any man.
Well, now, I think that this wolf-man, this axe-man, this warrior,
Umslopogaas should be a good fellow to you on your journey to visit the
white witch, Queen--another woman by the way, Macumazahn, and
therefore one of whom you should be careful. Oh! yes, he will come with
you--because of a man called Lousta and a woman named Monazi, a wife of
his who hates him and does--not hate Lousta. I am almost sure that he
will come with you, so do not stop to ask questions about him."
"Is there anyone else?" I inquired.
Zikali glanced at the bones again, poking them about in the ashes with
his toe, then replied with a yawn,
"You seem to have a little yellow man in your service, a clever snake
who knows how to creep through grass, and when to strike and when to lie
hidden. I should take him too, if I were you."
"You know well that I have such a man, Zikali, a Hottentot named Hans,
clever in his way but drunken, very faithful too, since he loved my
father before me. He is cooking my supper in the waggon now. Are there
to be any others?"
"No, I think you three will be enough, with a guard of soldiers from the
People of the Axe, for you will meet with fighting and a ghost or two.
Umslopogaas has always one at his elbow named Nada, and perhaps you have
several. For instance, there was a certain Mameena whom I always seem to
feel about me when you are near, Macumazahn.
"Why, the wind is rising again, which is odd on so still an evening.
Listen to how it wails, yes, and stirs your hair, though mine hangs
straight enough. But why do I talk of ghosts, seeing that you travel to
seek other ghosts, white ghosts, beyond my ken, who can only deal with
those who were black?
"Good-night, Macumazahn, good-night. When you return from visiting the
white Queen, that Great One beneath those feet I, Zikali, who am also
great in my way, am but a grain of dust, come and tell me her answer to
my question.
"Meanwhile, be careful always to wear that pretty little image which I
have given you, as a young lover sometimes wears a lock of hair cut from
the head of some fool-girl that he thinks is fond of him. It will bring
you safety and luck, Macumazahn, which, for the most part, is more than
the lock of hair does to the lover. Oh! it is a strange world, full of
jest to those who can see the strings that work it. I am one of them,
and perhaps, Macumazahn, you are another, or will be before all is
done--or begun.
"Good-night, and good fortune to you on your journeyings, and,
Macumazahn, although you are so fond of women, be careful not to fall in
love with that white Queen, because it would make others jealous; I mean
some who you have lost sight of for a while, also I think that being
under a curse of her own, she is not one whom you can put into your
sack. Oho! Oho-ho! Slave, bring me my blanket, it grows cold, and my
medicine also, that which protects me from the ghosts, who are thick
to-night. Macumazahn brings them, I think. Oho-ho!"
I turned to depart but when I had gone a little way Zikali called me
back again and said, speaking very low,
"When you meet this Umslopogaas, as you will meet him, he who is called
the Woodpecker and the Slaughterer, say these words to him,
"'A bat has been twittering round the hut of the Opener-of-Roads, and
to his ears it squeaked the name of a certain Lousta and the name of a
woman called Monazi. Also it twittered another greater name that may not
be uttered, that of an elephant who shakes the earth, and said that this
elephant sniffs the air with his trunk and grows angry, and sharpens his
tusks to dig a certain Woodpecker out of his hole in a tree that grows
near the Witch Mountain. Say, too, that the Opener-of-Roads thinks that
this Woodpecker would be wise to fly north for a while in the company of
one who watches by night, lest harm should come to a bird that pecks at
the feet of the great and chatters of it in his nest.'"
Then Zikali waved his hand and I went, wondering into what plot I had
stumbled.
CHAPTER II
THE MESSENGERS
I did not rest as I should that night who somehow was never able to
sleep well in the neighbourhood of the Black Kloof. I suppose that
Zikali's constant talk about ghosts, with his hints and innuendoes
concerning those who were dead, always affected my nerves till, in a
subconscious way, I began to believe that such things existed and were
hanging about me. Many people are open to the power of suggestion, and I
am afraid that I am one of them.
However, the sun which has such strength to kill noxious things, puts an
end to ghosts more quickly even than it does to other evil vapours and
emanations, and when I woke up to find it shining brilliantly in a pure
heaven, I laughed with much heartiness over the whole affair.
Going to the spring near which we were outspanned, I took off my
shirt to have a good wash, still chuckling at the memory of all the
hocus-pocus of my old friend, the Opener-of-Roads.
While engaged in this matutinal operation I struck my hand against
something and looking, observed that it was the hideous little ivory
image of Zikali, which he had set about my neck. The sight of the
thing and the memory of his ridiculous talk about it, especially of its
assertion that it had come down to him through the ages, which it could
not have done, seeing that it was a likeness of himself, irritated me so
much that I proceeded to take it off with the full intention of throwing
it into the spring.
As I was in the act of doing this, from a clump of reeds mixed with
bushes, quite close to me, there came a sound of hissing, and suddenly
above them appeared the head of a great black immamba, perhaps the
deadliest of all our African snakes, and the only one I know which will
attack man without provocation.
Leaving go of the image, I sprang back in a great hurry towards where my
gun lay. Then the snake vanished and making sure that it had departed to
its hole, which was probably at a distance, I returned to the pool, and
once more began to take off the talisman in order to consign it to the
bottom of the pool.
After all, I reflected, it was a hideous and probably a blood-stained
thing which I did not in the least wish to wear about my neck like a
lady's love-token.
Just as it was coming over my head, suddenly from the other side of
the bush that infernal snake popped up again, this time, it was
clear, really intent on business. It began to move towards me in the
lightning-like way immambas have, hissing and flicking its tongue.
I was too quick for my friend, however, for snatching up the gun that I
had lain down beside me, I let it have a charge of buckshot in the
neck which nearly cut it in two, so that it fell down and expired with
hideous convulsive writhings.
Hearing the shot Hans came running from the waggon to see what was the
matter. Hans, I should say, was that same Hottentot who had been the
companion of most of my journeyings since my father's day. He was with
me when as a young fellow I accompanied Retief to Dingaan's kraal,
and like myself, escaped the massacre.[*] Also we shared many other
adventures, including the great one in the Land of the Ivory Child where
he slew the huge elephant-god, Jana, and himself was slain. But of this
journey we did not dream in those days.
[*] See the book called "Marie."--Editor.
For the rest Hans was a most entirely unprincipled person, but as the
Boers say, "as clever as a waggonload of monkeys." Also he drank when he
got the chance. One good quality he had, however; no man was ever more
faithful, and perhaps it would be true to say that neither man nor woman
ever loved me, unworthy, quite so well.
In appearance he rather resembled an antique and dilapidated baboon;
his face was wrinkled like a dried nut and his quick little eyes were
bloodshot. I never knew what his age was, any more than he did himself,
but the years had left him tough as whipcord and absolutely untiring.
Lastly he was perhaps the best hand at following a spoor that ever I
knew and up to a hundred and fifty yards or so, a very deadly shot
with a rifle especially when he used a little single-barrelled,
muzzle-loading gun of mine made by Purdey which he named Intombi or
Maiden. Of that gun, however, I have written in "The Holy Flower" and
elsewhere.
"What is it, Baas?" he asked. "Here there are no lions, nor any game."
"Look the other side of the bush, Hans."
He slipped round it, making a wide circle with his usual caution, then,
seeing the snake which was, by the way, I think, the biggest immamba
I ever killed, suddenly froze, as it were, in a stiff attitude that
reminded me of a pointer when it scents game. Having made sure that it
was dead, he nodded and said,
"Black 'mamba, or so you would call it, though I know it for something
else."
"What else, Hans?"
"One of the old witch-doctor Zikali's spirits which he sets at the mouth
of this kloof to warn him of who comes or goes. I know it well, and so
do others. I saw it listening behind a stone when you were up the kloof
last evening talking with the Opener-of-Roads."
"Then Zikali will lack a spirit," I answered, laughing, "which perhaps
he will not miss amongst so many. It serves him right for setting the
brute on me."
"Quite so, Baas. He will be angry. I wonder why he did it?" he added
suspiciously, "seeing that he is such a friend of yours."
"He didn't do it, Hans. These snakes are very fierce and give battle,
that is all."
Hans paid no attention to my remark, which probably he thought only
worthy of a white man who does not understand, but rolled his yellow,
bloodshot eyes about, as though in search of explanations. Presently
they fell upon the ivory that hung about my neck, and he started.
"Why do you wear that pretty likeness of the Great One yonder over your
heart, as I have known you do with things that belonged to women in
past days, Baas? Do you know that it is Zikali's Great Medicine, nothing
less, as everyone does throughout the land? When Zikali sends an order
far away, he always sends that image with it, for then he who receives
the order knows that he must obey or die. Also the messenger knows that
he will come to no harm if he does not take it off, because, Baas, the
image is Zikali himself, and Zikali is the image. They are one and the
same. Also it is the image of his father's father's father--or so he
says."
"That is an odd story," I said.
Then I told Hans as much as I thought advisable of how this horrid
little talisman came into my possession.
Hans nodded without showing any surprise.
"So we are going on a long journey," he said. "Well, I thought it was
time that we did something more than wander about these tame countries
selling blankets to stinking old women and so forth, Baas. Moreover,
Zikali does not wish that you should come to harm, doubtless because he
does wish to make use of you afterwards--oh! it's safe to talk now when
that spirit is away looking for another snake. What were you doing with
the Great Medicine, Baas, when the 'mamba attacked you?"
"Taking it off to throw it into the pool, Hans, as I do not like the
thing. I tried twice and each time the immamba appeared."
"Of course it appeared, Baas, and what is more, if you had taken that
Medicine off and thrown it away you would have disappeared, since the
'mamba would have killed you. Zikali wanted to show you that, Baas,
and that is why he set the snake at you."
"You are a superstitious old fool, Hans."
"Yes, Baas, but my father knew all about that Great Medicine before me,
for he was a bit of a doctor, and so does every wizard and witch for a
thousand miles or more. I tell you, Baas, it is known by all though no
one ever talks about it, no, not even the king himself. Baas, speaking
to you, not with the voice of Hans the old drunkard, but with that of
the Predikant, your reverend father, who made so good a Christian of
me and who tells me to do so from up in Heaven where the hot fires are
which the wood feeds of itself, I beg you not to try to throw away the
Medicine again, or if you wish to do so, to leave me behind on this
journey. For you see, Baas, although I am now so good, almost like one
of those angels with the pretty goose's wings in the pictures, I feel
that I should like to grow a little better before I go to the Place of
Fires to make report to your reverend father, the Predikant."
Thinking of how horrified my dear father would be if he could hear all
this string of ridiculous nonsense and learn the result of his moral and
religious lessons on raw Hottentot material, I burst out laughing. But
Hans went on as gravely as a judge,
"Wear the Great Medicine, Baas, wear it; part with the liver inside you
before you part with that, Baas. It may not be as pretty or smell as
sweet as a woman's hair in a little gold bottle, but it is much more
useful. The sight of the woman's hair will only make you sick in your
stomach and cause you to remember a lot of things which you had much
better forget, but the Great Medicine, or rather Zikali who is in it,
will keep the assegais and sickness out of you and turn back bad magic
on to the heads of those who sent it, and always bring us plenty to eat
and perhaps, if we are lucky, a little to drink too sometimes."
"Go away," I said, "I want to wash."
"Yes, Baas, but with the Baas's leave I will sit on the other side of
that bush with the gun--not to look at the Baas without his clothes,
because white people are always so ugly that it makes me feel ill to see
them undressed, also because--the Baas will forgive me--but because they
smell. No, not for that, but just to see that no other snake comes."
"Get out of the road, you dirty little scoundrel, and stop your
impudence," I said, lifting my foot suggestively.
Thereon he scooted with a subdued grin round the other side of the bush,
whence as I knew well he kept his eye fixed on me to be sure that I made
no further attempt to take off the Great Medicine.