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Title: The Yellow God
An Idol of Africa
Author: H. Rider Haggard
Release Date: October, 2001 [eBook #2857]
Most recently updated: November 8, 2021]
Language: English
Produced by: John Bickers, Dagny, Emma Dudding and David Widger
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YELLOW GOD ***
Illustration]
THE YELLOW GOD
AN IDOL OF AFRICA
By H. Rider Haggard
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. SAHARA, LIMITED.
CHAPTER II. THE YELLOW GOD.
CHAPTER III. JEEKIE TELLS A TALE.
CHAPTER IV. ALAN AND BARBARA.
CHAPTER V. BARBARA MAKES A SPEECH.
CHAPTER VI. MR. HASWELL LOSES HIS TEMPER.
CHAPTER VII. THE DIARY.
CHAPTER VIII. THE DWARF FOLK.
CHAPTER IX. THE DAWN.
CHAPTER X. BONSA TOWN.
CHAPTER XI. THE HALL OF THE DEAD.
CHAPTER XII. THE GOLD HOUSE.
CHAPTER XIII. THE FEAST OF LITTLE BONSA.
CHAPTER XIV. THE MOTHER OF JEEKIE.
CHAPTER XV. ALAN FALLS ILL.
CHAPTER XVI. WHAT THE ASIKA SHOWED ALAN.
CHAPTER XVII. THE END OF THE MUNGANA.
CHAPTER XVIII. A MEETING IN THE FOREST.
CHAPTER XIX. THE LAST OF THE ASIKI.
CHAPTER XX. THE ASIKA’S MESSAGE.
CHAPTER I.
SAHARA, LIMITED.
Sir Robert Aylward, Bart., M.P., sat in his office in the City of
London. It was a very magnificent office, quite one of the finest that
could be found within half a mile of the Mansion House. Its exterior
was built of Aberdeen granite, a material calculated to impress the
prospective investor with a comfortable sense of security. Other
stucco, or even brick-built, offices might crumble and fall in an
actual or a financial sense, but this rock-like edifice of granite,
surmounted by a life-sized statue of Justice with her scales, admired
from either corner by pleasing effigies of Commerce and of Industry,
would surely endure any shock. Earthquake could scarcely shake its
strong foundations; panic and disaster would as soon affect the Bank of
England. That at least was the impression which it had been designed to
convey, and not without success.
“There is so much in externals,” Mr. Champers-Haswell, Sir
Robert’s partner, would say in his cheerful voice. “We are all of
us influenced by them, however unconsciously. Impress the public, my
dear Aylward. Let solemnity without suggest opulence within, and the
bread, or rather the granite, which you throw upon the waters will come
back to you after many days.”
Mr. Aylward, for this conversation occurred before his merits or the
depth of his purse had been rewarded by a baronetcy, looked at his
partner in the impassive fashion for which he was famous, and answered:
“You mix your metaphors, Haswell, but if you mean that the public are
fools who must be caught by advertisement, I agree with you. Only this
particular advertisement is expensive and I do not want to wait many
days for my reward. However, £20,000 one way or the other is a small
matter, so tell that architect to do the thing in granite.”
Sir Robert Aylward sat in his own quiet room at the back of this
enduring building, a very splendid room that any Secretary of State
might have envied, but arranged in excellent taste. Its walls were
panelled with figured teak, a rich carpet made the footfall noiseless,
an antique Venus stood upon a marble pedestal in the corner, and over
the mantelpiece hung a fine portrait by Gainsborough, that of a certain
Miss Aylward, a famous beauty in her day, with whom, be it added, its
present owner could boast no connection whatsoever.
Sir Robert was seated at his ebony desk playing with a pencil, and the
light from a cheerful fire fell upon his face.
In its own way it was a remarkable face, as he appeared then in his four
and fortieth year; very pale but with a natural pallor, very well cut
and on the whole impressive. His eyes were dark, matching his black
hair and pointed beard, and his nose was straight and rather prominent.
Perhaps the mouth was his weakest feature, for there was a certain
shiftiness about it, also the lips were thick and slightly sensuous.
Sir Robert knew this, and therefore he grew a moustache to veil them
somewhat. To a careful observer the general impression given by this
face was such as is left by the sudden sight of a waxen mask. “How
strong! How lifelike!” he would have said, “but of course it isn’t
real. There may be a man behind, or there may be wood, but that’s only
a mask.” Many people of perception had felt like this about Sir Robert
Aylward, namely, that under the mask of his pale countenance dwelt a
different being whom they did not know or appreciate.
If these had seen him at this moment of the opening of our story, they
might have held that Wisdom was justified of her children. For now in
the solitude of his splendid office, of a sudden Sir Robert’s mask
seemed to fall from him. His face broke up like ice beneath a thaw. He
rose from his table and began to walk up and down the room. He talked
to himself aloud.
“Great Heavens!” he muttered, “what a game to have played,
and it will go through. I believe that it will go through.”
He stopped at the table, switched on an electric light and made a rapid
calculation on the back of a letter with a blue pencil.
“Yes,” he said, “that’s my share, a million and
seventeen thousand pounds in cash, and two million in ordinary shares
which can be worked off at a discount—let us say another seven hundred
and fifty thousand, plus what I have got already—put that at only two
hundred and fifty thousand net. Two millions in all, which of course
may or may not be added to, probably not, unless the ordinaries boom,
for I don’t mean to speculate any more. That’s the end of twenty years’
work, Robert Aylward. And to think of it, eighteen months ago, although
I seemed so rich, I was on the verge of bankruptcy—the very verge, not
worth five thousand pounds. Now what did the trick? I wonder what did
the trick?”
He walked down the room and stopped opposite the ancient marble, staring
at it—
“Not Venus, I think,” he said, with a laugh, “Venus never
made any man rich.” He turned and retraced his steps to the other end of
the room, which was veiled in shadow. Here upon a second marble pedestal
stood an object that gleamed dimly through the gloom. It was about ten
inches or a foot high, but in that place nothing more could be seen of
it, except that it was yellow and had the general appearance of a toad.
For some reason it seemed to attract Sir Robert Aylward, for he halted
to stare at it, then stretched out his hand and switched on another
lamp, in the hard brilliance of which the thing upon the pedestal
suddenly declared itself, leaping out of the darkness into light. It
was a terrible object, a monstrosity of indeterminate sex and nature,
but surmounted by a woman’s head and face of extraordinary, if devilish
loveliness, sunk back between high but grotesquely small shoulders,
like to those of a lizard, so that it glared upwards. The workmanship of
the thing was rude yet strangely powerful. Whatever there is cruel,
whatever there is devilish, whatever there is inhuman in the dark
places of the world, shone out of the jewelled eyes which were set in
that yellow female face, yellow because its substance was of gold, a
face which seemed not to belong to the embryonic legs beneath, for body
there was none, but to float above them. A hollow, life-sized mask with
two tiny frog-like legs, that was the fashion of it.
“You are an ugly brute,” muttered Sir Robert, contemplating this
effigy, “but although I believe in nothing in heaven above or earth
below, except the abysmal folly of the British public, I am bothered if
I don’t believe in you. At any rate from the day when Vernon brought
you into my office, my luck turned, and to judge from the smile on your
sweet countenance, I don’t think it is done with yet. I wonder what
those stones are in your eyes. Opals, I suppose, from the way they
change colour. They shine uncommonly to-day, I never remember them so
bright. I——”
At this moment a knock came on the door. Sir Robert turned off the lamp
and walked back to the fireplace.
“Come in,” he said, and as he spoke once more his pale face grew
impassive and expressionless.
The door opened and a clerk entered, an imposing-looking clerk with
iron-grey hair, who wore an irreproachable frock coat and patent
leather boots. Advancing to his master, he stood respectfully silent,
waiting to be addressed. For quite a long while Sir Robert looked over
his head as though he did not see him; it was a way of his. Then his
eyes rested on the man dreamily and he remarked in his cold, clear
voice:
“I don’t think I rang, Jeffreys.”
“No, Sir Robert,” answered the clerk, bowing as though he spoke to
Royalty, “but there is a little matter about that article in _The
Cynic_.”
“Press business,” said Sir Robert, lifting his eyebrows; “you
should know by this time that I do not attend to such details. See Mr.
Champers-Haswell, or Major Vernon.”
“They are both out at the moment, Sir Robert.”
“Go on, then, Jeffreys,” replied the head of the firm with a
resigned sigh, “only be brief. I am thinking.”
The clerk bowed again.
“The _Cynic_ people have just telephoned through about that article
we sent them. I think you saw it, sir, and you may remember it
begins——” and he read from a typewritten copy in his hand
which was headed “Sahara, Limited”:
“‘We are now privileged to announce that this mighty scheme which
will turn a desert into a rolling sea bearing the commerce of nations
and cause the waste places of the earth to teem with population and to
blossom like the rose, has been completed in its necessary if dull
financial details and will within a few days be submitted to investors
among whom it has already caused so much excitement. These details we
will deal with fully in succeeding articles, and therefore now need
only pause to say that the basis of capitalization strikes us as
wonderfully advantageous to the fortunate public who are asked to
participate in its vast prospective prosperity. Our present object is to
speak of its national and imperial aspects——’”
Sir Robert lifted his eyes in remonstrance:
“How much more of that exceedingly dull and commonplace puff do you
propose to read, Jeffreys?” he asked.
“No more, Sir Robert. We are paying _The Cynic_ thirty guineas to
insert this article, and the point is that they say that if they have to
put in the ‘national and imperial’ business they must have twenty
more.”
“Indeed, Jeffreys? Why?”
“Because, Sir Robert—I will tell you, as you always like to hear
the truth—their advertisement-editor is of opinion that Sahara Limited
is a national and imperial swindle. He says that he won’t drag the
nation and the empire into it in an editorial under fifty guineas.”
A faint smile flickered on Sir Robert’s face.
“Does he, indeed?” he asked. “I wonder at his moderation. Had
I been in his place I should have asked more, for really the style is a
little flamboyant. Well, we don’t want to quarrel with them just
now—feed the sharks. But surely, Jeffreys, you didn’t come to disturb
me about such a trifle?”
“Not altogether, Sir Robert. There is something more important. _The
Daily Judge_ not only declines to put any article whatsoever, but
refuses our advertisement, and states that it means to criticize the
prospectus trenchantly.”
“Ah!” said his master after a moment’s thought, “that
_is_ rather serious, since people believe in the _Judge_ even when it
is wrong. Offer them the advertisement at treble rates.”
“It has been done, sir, and they still refuse.”
Sir Robert walked to the corner of the room where the yellow object
squatted on its pedestal, and contemplated it a while, as a man often
studies one thing when he is thinking of another. It seemed to give him
an idea, for he looked over his shoulder and said:
“That will do, Jeffreys. When Major Vernon comes in, give him my
compliments and say that I should be obliged by a word or two with him.”
The clerk bowed and went as noiselessly as he had entered.
“Let’s see,” added Sir Robert to himself. “Old Jackson,
the editor of _The Judge_, was a great friend of Vernon’s father,
the late Sir William Vernon, G.C.B. I believe that he was engaged to be
married to his sister years ago, only she died or something. So the
Major ought to be able to get round him if anybody can. Only the worst
of it is I don’t altogether trust that young gentleman. It suited us to
give him a share in the business because he is an engineer who knows
the country, and this Sahara scheme was his notion, a very good one in
a way, and for other reasons. Now he shows signs of kicking over the
traces, wants to know too much, is developing a conscience, and so
forth. As though the promoters of speculative companies had any
business with consciences. Ah! here he comes.”
Sir Robert seated himself at his desk and resumed his calculations upon
a half-sheet of note-paper, and that moment a clear, hearty voice was
heard speaking to the clerks in the outer office. Then came the sound
of a strong, firm footstep, the door opened and Major Alan Vernon
appeared.
He was still quite a young man, not more than thirty-two or three years
of age, though he lacked the ultra robust and rubicund appearance which
is typical of so many Englishmen of his class at this period of life. A
heavy bout of blackwater fever acquired on service in West Africa,
which would have killed anyone of weaker constitution, had robbed his
face of its bloom and left it much sallower, if more interesting than
once it had been. For in a way there was interest about the face; also
a certain charm. It was a good and honest face with a rather eager,
rather puzzled look, that of a man who has imagination and ideas and
who searches for the truth but fails to find it. As for the charm, it
lay for the most part in the pleasant, open smile and in the frank but
rather round brown eyes overhung by a somewhat massive forehead which
projected a little, or perhaps the severe illness already alluded to had
caused the rest of the face to sink. Though thin, the man was bigly
built, with broad shoulders and well-developed limbs, measuring a
trifle under six feet in height.
Such was the outward appearance of Alan Vernon. As for his mind, it was
able enough in certain fashions, for instance those of engineering, and
the soldier-like faculties to which it had been trained; frank and
kindly also, but in other respects not quick, perhaps from its
unsuspiciousness. Alan Vernon was a man slow to discover ill and slower
still to believe in it even when it seemed to be discovered, a weakness
that may have gone far to account for his presence in the office of
those eminent and brilliant financiers, Messrs. Aylward &
Champers-Haswell. Just now he looked a little worried, like a fish out
of water, or rather a fish which has begun to suspect the quality of
the water, something in its smell or taste.
“Jeffreys tells me that you want to see me, Sir Robert,” he said in
his low and pleasant voice, looking at the baronet rather anxiously.
“Yes, my dear Vernon, I wish to ask you to do something, if you kindly
will, although it is not quite in your line. Old Jackson, the editor of
_The Judge_, is a friend of yours, isn’t he?”
“He was a friend of my father’s, and I used to know him
slightly.”
“Well, that’s near enough. As I daresay you have heard, he is an
unreasonable old beggar, and has taken a dislike to our Sahara scheme.
Someone has set him against it and he refuses to receive
advertisements, threatens criticisms, etc. Now the opposition of _The
Judge_ or any other paper won’t kill us, and if necessary we can fight,
but at the same time it is always wise to agree with your enemy while
he is in the way, and in short—would you mind going down and explaining
his mistake to him?”
Before answering Major Vernon walked to the window leisurely and looked
out.
“I don’t like asking favours from family friends,” he replied
at length, “and, as you said, I think it isn’t quite my line.
Though of course if it has anything to do with the engineering
possibilities, I shall be most happy to see him,” he added,
brightening.
“I don’t know what it has to do with; that is what I shall be
obliged if you will find out,” answered Sir Robert with some asperity.
“One can’t divide a matter of this sort into watertight
compartments. It is true that in so important a concern each of us has
charge of his own division, but the fact remains that we are jointly
and severally responsible for the whole. I am not sure that you bear
this sufficiently in mind, my dear Vernon,” he added with slow
emphasis.
His partner moved quickly; it might almost have been said that he
shivered, though whether the movement, or the shiver, was produced by
the argument of joint and several liability or by the familiarity of
the “my dear Vernon,” remains uncertain. Perhaps it was the latter,
since although the elder man was a baronet and the younger only a
retired Major of Engineers, the gulf between them, as any one of
discernment could see, was wide. They were born, lived, and moved in
different spheres unbridged by any common element or impulse.
“I think that I do bear it in mind, especially of late, Sir
Robert,” answered Alan Vernon slowly.
His partner threw a searching glance on him, for he felt that there was
meaning in the words, but only said:
“That’s all right. My motor is outside and will take you to Fleet
Street in no time. Meanwhile you might tell them to telephone that you
are coming, and perhaps you will just look in when you get back. I
haven’t got to go to the House to-night, so shall be here till dinner
time, and so, I think, will your cousin Haswell. Muzzle that old
bulldog, Jackson, somehow. No doubt he has his price like the rest of
them, in meal or malt, and you needn’t stick at the figure. We don’t
want him hanging on our throat for the next week or two.”
Ten minutes later the splendid, two-thousand guinea motor brougham drew
up at the offices of the _Judge_ and the obsequious motor-footman bowed
Major Vernon through its rather grimy doorway. Within, a small boy in a
kind of box asked his business, and when he heard his name, said that
the “Guvnor” had sent down word that he was go up at once—third
floor, first to the right and second to the left. So up he went, and
when he reached the indicated locality was taken possession of by a
worried-looking clerk who had evidently been waiting for him, and
almost thrust through a door to find himself in a big, worn, untidy
room. At a huge desk in this room sat an elderly man, also big, worn,
and untidy-looking, who waved a long slip of galley-proof in his hand,
and was engaged in scolding a sub-editor.
“Who is that?” he said, wheeling round. “I’m busy,
can’t see anyone.”
“I beg your pardon,” answered the Major with humility, “your
people told me to come up. My name is Alan Vernon.”
“Oh! I remember. Sit down for a moment, will you, and—Mr. Thomas,
oblige me by taking away this rot and rewriting it entirely in the sense
I have outlined.”
Mr. Thomas snatched his rejected copy and vanished through another door,
whereon his chief remarked in an audible voice:
“That man is a perfect fool. Lucky I thought to look at his stuff. Well,
he is no worse than the rest, in this weary world,” and he burst into a
hearty laugh and swung his chair round, adding, “Now then, Alan, what is
it? I have a quarter of an hour at your service. Why, bless me! I was
forgetting that it’s more than a dozen years since we met; you were
still a boy then, and now you have left the army with a D.S.O. and
gratuity, and turned financier, which I think wouldn’t have pleased
your old father. Come, sit down here and let us talk.”
“I didn’t leave the army, Mr. Jackson,” answered his visitor;
“it left me; I was invalided out. They said I should never get my health
back after that last go of fever, but I did.”
“Ah! bad luck, very bad luck, just at the beginning of what should have
been a big career, for I know they thought highly of you at the War
Office, that is, if they can think. Well, you have grown into a
fine-looking fellow, like your father, very, and someone else too,” and
he sighed, running his fingers through his grizzled hair. “But you
don’t remember her; she was before your time. Now let us get to
business; there’s no time for reminiscences in this office. What is it,
Alan, for like other people I suppose that you want something?”
“It is about that Sahara flotation, Mr. Jackson,” he began rather
doubtfully.
The old editor’s face darkened. “The Sahara flotation! That
accursed——” and he ceased abruptly. “What have you, of
all people in the world, got to do with it? Oh! I remember. Someone told
me that you had gone into partnership with Aylward the company
promoter, and that little beast, Champers-Haswell, who really is the
clever one. Well, set it out, set it out.”
“It seems, Mr. Jackson, that _The Judge_ has refused not only our
article, but also the advertisement of the company. I don’t know much
about this side of the affair myself, but Sir Robert asked me if I would
come round and see if things couldn’t be arranged.”
“You mean that the man sent you to try and work on me because he knew
that I used to be intimate with your family. Well, it is a poor errand
and will have a poor end. You can’t—no one on earth can, while I sit in
this chair, not even my proprietors.”
There was silence broken at last by Alan, who remarked awkwardly:
“If that is so, I must not take up your time any longer.”
“I said that I would give you a quarter of an hour, and you have only
been here four minutes. Now, Alan Vernon, tell me as your father’s old
friend, why you have gone to herd with these gilded swine?”
There was something so earnest about the man’s question that it did not
even occur to his visitor to resent its roughness.
“Of course it is not original,” he answered, “but I had this
idea about flooding the Desert; I spent a furlough up there a few years
ago and employed my time in making some rough surveys. Then I was
obliged to leave the Service and went down to Yarleys after my father’s
death—it’s mine now, you know, but worth nothing except a shooting
rent, which just pays for the repairs. There I met Champers-Haswell,
who lives near and is a kind of distant cousin of mine—my mother was a
Champers—and happened to mention the thing to him. He took it up at
once and introduced me to Aylward, and the end of it was, that they
offered me a partnership with a small share in the business, because
they said I was just the man they wanted.”
“Just the man they wanted,” repeated the editor after him.
“Yes, the last of the Vernons, an engineer with an old name in his
county, a clean record and plenty of ability. Yes, you would be just the
man they wanted. And you accepted?”
“Yes. I was on my beam ends with nothing to do; I wanted to make some
money. You see Yarleys has been in the family for over five hundred
years, and it seemed hard to have to sell it. Also—also——” and he
paused.
“Ever meet Barbara Champers?” asked Mr. Jackson inconsequently.
“I did once. Wonderfully nice girl, and very good-looking too. But of
course you know her, and she is her uncle’s ward, and their place
isn’t far off Yarleys, you say. Must be a connection of yours also.”
Major Vernon started a little at the name and his face seemed to redden.
“Yes,” he said, “I have met her and she is a
connection.”
“Will be a big heiress one day, I think,” went on Mr. Jackson,
“unless old Haswell makes off with her money. I think Aylward knows
that; at any rate he was hanging about when I saw her.”
Vernon started again, this time very perceptibly.
“Very natural—your going into the business, I mean, under all the
circumstances,” went on Mr. Jackson. “But now, if you will take my
advice, you’ll go out of it as soon as you can.”
“Why?”
“Because, Alan Vernon, I am sure you don’t want to see your name
dragged in the dirt, any more than I do.” He fumbled in a drawer and
produced a typewritten document. “Take that,” he said, “and
study it at your leisure. It’s a sketch of the financial career of
Messrs. Aylward and Champers-Haswell, also of the companies which they
have promoted and been connected with, and what has happened to them
and to those who invested in them. A man got it out for me yesterday
and I’m going to use it. As regards this Sahara business, you think it
all right, and so it may be from an engineering point of view, but you
will never live to sail upon that sea which the British public is going
to be asked to find so many millions to make. Look here. We have only
three minutes more, so I will come to the point at once. It’s Turkish
territory, isn’t it, and putting aside everything else, the security
for the whole thing is a Firman from the Sultan?”
“Yes, Sir Robert Aylward and Haswell procured it in Constantinople. I
have seen the document.”
“Indeed, and are you well acquainted with the Sultan’s signature? I
know when they were there last autumn that potentate was very
ill——”
“You mean——” said Major Vernon, looking up.
“I mean, Alan, that I like not the security. I won’t say any more,
as there is a law of libel in this land. But _The Judge_ has certain
sources of information. It may be that no protest will be made at once,
for baksheesh can stop it for a while, but sooner or later the protest
or repudiation will come, and perhaps some international bother; also
much scandal. As to the scheme itself, it is shamelessly
over-capitalized for the benefit of the promoters—of whom, remember,
Alan, you will appear as one. Now time’s up. Perhaps you will take my
advice, and perhaps you won’t, but there it is for what it’s worth as
that of a man of the world and an old friend of your family. As for
your puff article and your prospectus, I wouldn’t put them in _The
Judge_ if you paid me a thousand pounds, which I daresay your friend,
Aylward, would be quite ready to do. Good-bye. Come and see me again
sometime, and tell me what has happened—and, I say”—this last was
shouted through the closing door,—“give my kind regards to Miss
Barbara, for wherever she happens to live, she is an honest woman.”
CHAPTER II.
THE YELLOW GOD.
Alan Vernon walked thoughtfully down the lead-covered stairs, hustled by
eager gentlemen hurrying up to see the great editor, whose bell was
already ringing furiously, and was duly ushered by the obsequious
assistant-chauffeur back into the luxurious motor. There was an
electric lamp in this motor, and by the light of it, his mind being
perplexed, he began to read the typewritten document given to him by
Mr. Jackson, which he still held in his hand.
As it chanced they were blocked for a quarter of an hour near the
Mansion House, so that he found time, if not to master it, at least to
gather enough of its contents to make him open his brown eyes very wide
before the motor pulled up at the granite doorway of his office. Alan
descended from the machine, which departed silently, and stood for a
moment wondering what he should do. His impulse was to jump into a bus
and go straight to his rooms or his club, to which Sir Robert did not
belong, but being no coward, he dismissed it from his mind.
His fate hung in the balance, of that he was well aware. Either he must
disregard Mr. Jackson’s warning, confirmed as it was by many secret
fears and instincts of his own, and say nothing except that he had
failed in his mission, or he must take the bull by the horns and break
with the firm. To do the latter meant not only a good deal of moral
courage, but practical ruin, whereas if he chose the former course,
probably within a fortnight he would find himself a rich man. Whatever
Jackson and a few others might say in its depreciation, he was certain
that the Sahara flotation would go through, for it was underwritten, of
course upon terms, by responsible people, moreover the unissued
preferred shares had already been dealt in at a heavy premium. Now to
say nothing of the allotment to which he was entitled upon his holding
in the parent Syndicate, the proportion of cash due to him as a
partner, would amount to quite a hundred thousand pounds. In other
words, he, who had so many reasons for desiring money, would be
wealthy. After working so hard and undergoing so much that he felt to
be humiliating and even degrading, why should he not take his reward
and clear out afterwards?
This he remembered he could do, since probably by some oversight of
Aylward’s, who left such matters to his lawyers, his deed of partnership
did not bind him to a fixed term. It could be broken at any moment. To
this argument there was only one possible answer, that of his
conscience. If once he were convinced that things were not right, it
would be dishonest to participate in their profits. And he was
convinced. Mr. Jackson’s arguments and his damning document had thrown
a flood of light upon many matters which he had suspected but never
quite understood. He was the partner of, well, adventurers, and the
money which he received would, in fact, be filched from the pockets of
unsuspecting persons. He would vouch for that of which he was doubtful
and receive the price of sharp practice. In other words he, Alan
Vernon, who had never uttered a wilful untruth or taken a halfpenny
that was not his own, would before the tribunal of his own mind, stand
convicted as a liar and a thief. The thing was not to be borne. At
whatever cost it must be ended. If he were fated to be a beggar, at
least he would be an honest beggar.
With a firm step and a high head he walked straight into Sir Robert’s
room, without even going through the formality of knocking, to find Mr.
Champers-Haswell seated at the ebony desk by his partner’s side
examining some document through a reading-glass, which on his
appearance, was folded over and presently thrust away into a drawer. It
seemed, Alan noticed, to be of an unusual shape and written in some
strange character.
Mr. Haswell, a stout, jovial-looking little man with a florid complexion
and white hair, rose at once to greet him.
“How do you do, Alan,” he said in a cheerful voice, for as a cousin
by marriage he called him by his Christian name. “I am just this minute
back from Paris, and you will be glad to learn that they are going to
support us very well there; in fact I may say that the Government has
taken up the scheme, of course under the rose. You know the French have
possessions all along that coast and they won’t be sorry to find an
opportunity of stretching out their hand a little further. Our
difficulties as to capital are at an end, for a full third of it is
guaranteed in Paris, and I expect that small investors and speculators
for the rise will gobble a lot more. We shall plant £10,000,000 worth
of Sahara scrip in sunny France, my boy, and foggy England has
underwritten the rest. It will be a case of ‘letters of allotment and
regret,’ _and_ regret, Alan, financially the most successful issue of
the last dozen years. What do you say to that?” and in his elation the
little man puffed out his chest and pursing up his lips, blew through
them, making a sound like that of wind among wires.
“I don’t know, Mr. Haswell. If we are all alive I would prefer to
answer the question twelve months hence, or later, when we see whether
the company is going to be a practical success as well, or not.”
Again Mr. Haswell made the sound of wind among wires, only this time
there was a shriller note in it; its mellowness was gone, it was as
though the air had suddenly been filled with frost.
“A practical success!” he repeated after him. “That is
scarcely our affair, is it? Promoters should not bother themselves with
long views, Alan. These may be left to the investing public, the
speculative parson and the maiden lady who likes a flutter—those props
of modern enterprise. But what do you mean? You originated this idea
and always said that the profits should be great.”
“Yes, Mr. Haswell, on a moderate capitalization and provided that we are
sure of the co-operation of the Porte.”
Mr. Haswell looked at him very searchingly and Sir Robert, who had been
listening, said in his cold voice:
“I think that we thrashed out these points long ago, and to tell you the
truth I am rather tired of them, especially as it is too late to change
anything. How did you get on with Jackson, Vernon?”
“I did not get on at all, Sir Robert. He will not touch the thing on any
terms, and indeed means to oppose it tooth and nail.”
“Then he will find himself in a minority when the articles come out
to-morrow. Of course it is a bore, but we are strong enough to snap our
fingers at him. You see they don’t read _The Judge_ in France, and no
one has ever heard of it in Constantinople. Therefore we have nothing
to fear—so long as we stick together,” he added meaningly.
Alan felt that the crisis had come. He must speak now or for ever hold
his peace; indeed Aylward was already looking round for his hat.
“Sir Robert and Mr. Haswell,” he broke in rather nervously,
“I have something to say to you, something unpleasant,” and he
paused.
“Then please say it at once, Vernon. I want to dress for dinner, I am
going to the theatre to-night and must dine early,” replied Aylward in a
voice of the utmost unconcern.
“It is, Sir Robert,” went on Alan with a rush, “that I do not
like the lines upon which this business is being worked, and I wish to
give up my interest in it and retire from the firm, as I have a right
to do under our deed of partnership.”
“Have you?” said Aylward. “Really, I forget. But, my dear
fellow, do not think that we should wish to keep you for one moment
against your will. Only, might I ask, has that old puritan, Jackson,
hypnotized you, or is it a case of sudden madness after influenza?”
“Neither,” answered Alan sternly, for although he might be
diffident on matters that he did not thoroughly understand, he was not a
man to brook trifling or impertinence. “It is what I have said, no more
nor less. I am not satisfied either as to the capitalization or as to
the guarantee that the enterprise can be really carried out.
Further”—and he paused,—“Further, I should like what I have never yet
been able to obtain, more information as to that Firman under which the
concession is granted.”
For one moment a sort of tremor passed over Sir Robert’s impassive
countenance, while Mr. Haswell uttered his windy whistle, this time in a
tone of plaintive remonstrance.
“As you have formally resigned your membership of the firm, I do not see
that any useful purpose can be served by discussing such matters. The
fullest explanations, of course, we should have been willing to
give——”
“My dear Alan,” broke in Mr. Champers-Haswell, who was quite upset,
“I do implore you to reflect for one moment, for your own sake. In a
single week you would have been a wealthy man; do you really mean to
throw away everything for a whim?”
“Perhaps Vernon remembers that he holds over 1700 of the Syndicate
shares which we have worked up to £18, and thinks it wiser to capture
the profit in sight, generally speaking a very sound principle,”
interrupted Aylward sarcastically.
“You are mistaken, Sir Robert,” replied Alan, flushing. “The
way that those shares have been artificially put up is one of the things
to which I most object. I shall only ask for mine the face value which
I paid for them.”
Now notwithstanding their experience, both of the senior partners did
for a moment look rather scared. Such folly, or such honesty, was
absolutely incredible to them. They felt that there must be much
behind. Sir Robert, however, recovered instantly.
“Very well,” he said; “it is not for us to dictate to you;
you must make your own bed and lie on it. To argue or remonstrate would
only be rude.” He put out his hand and pushed the button of an electric
bell, adding as he did so, “Of course we understand one thing, Vernon,
namely, that as a gentleman and a man of honour you will make no public
use of the information which you have acquired during your stay in this
office, either to our detriment, personal or financial, or to your own
advantage.”
“Certainly you may understand that,” replied Vernon. “Unless
my character is attacked and it becomes necessary for me to defend
myself, my lips are sealed.”
“That will never happen—why should it?” said Sir Robert with
a polite bow.
The door opened and the head clerk, Jeffreys, appeared.
“Mr. Jeffreys,” said Sir Robert, “please find us the deed of
partnership between Major Vernon and ourselves, and bring it here. One
moment. Please make out also a transfer of Major Vernon’s parcel of
Sahara Syndicate shares to Mr. Champers-Haswell and myself at par
value, and fill in a cheque for the amount. Please remove also Major
Vernon’s name wherever it appears in the proof prospectus, and—yes—one
thing more. Telephone to Specton—the Right Honourable the Earl of
Specton, I mean, and say that after all I have been able to arrange
that he shall have a seat on the Board and a block of shares at a very
moderate figure, and that if he will wire his assent, his name shall be
put into the prospectus. You approve, don’t you, Haswell?—yes—then that
is all, I think, Jeffreys, only please be as quick as you can, for I
want to get away.”
Jeffreys, the immaculate and the impassive, bowed, and casting one swift
glance at Vernon out of the corner of his eye, departed.
What is called an awkward pause ensued; in fact it was a very awkward
pause. The die was cast, the matter ended, and what were the principals
to do until the ratifications had been exchanged or, a better simile
perhaps, the _decree nisi_ pronounced absolute. Mr. Champers-Haswell
remarked that the weather was very cold for April, and Alan agreed with
him, while Sir Robert found his hat and brushed it with his sleeve.
Then Mr. Haswell, in desperation, for in minor matters he was a kindly
sort of man who disliked scenes and unpleasantness, muttered something
as to seeing him—Alan—at his house, “The Court,” in Hertfordshire, from
Saturday to Monday.
“That was the arrangement,” answered Alan bluntly, “but
possibly after what has happened you will not wish that it should be
kept.”
“Oh! why not, why not?” said Mr. Haswell. “Sunday is a day of
rest when we make it a rule not to talk business, and if we did, perhaps
we might all change our minds about these matters. Sir Robert is
coming, and I am sure that your cousin Barbara will be very
disappointed if you do not turn up, for she understands nothing about
these city things which are Greek to her.”
At the mention of the name of Barbara Sir Robert Aylward looked up from
the papers which he affected to be tidying, and Alan thought that there
was a kind of challenge in his eyes. A moment before he had made up his
mind that no power on earth would induce him to spend a Sunday with his
late partners at The Court. Now, acting upon some instinct or impulse,
he reversed his opinion.
“Thanks,” he said, “if that is understood, I shall be happy
to come. I will drive over from Yarleys in time for dinner to-morrow.
Perhaps you will say so to Barbara.”
“She will be glad, I am sure,” answered Mr. Haswell, “for she
told me the other day that she wants to consult you about some outdoor
theatricals that she means to get up in July.”
“In July!” answered Alan with a little laugh. “I wonder where
I shall be in July.”
Then came another pause, which seemed to affect even Sir Robert’s
nerves, for, abandoning the papers, he walked down the room till he
came to the golden object that has been described, and for the second
time that day stood there contemplating it.
“This thing is yours, Vernon,” he said, “and now that our
relations are at an end, I suppose that you will want to take it away.
What is its history? You never told me.”
“Oh! that’s a long story,” answered Alan in an absent voice.
“My uncle, who was a missionary, brought it from West Africa. I rather
forget the facts, but Jeekie, my negro servant, knows them all, for as a
lad my uncle saved him from sacrifice, or something, in a place where
they worship these things, and he has been with us ever since. It is a
fetish with magical powers and all the rest of it. I believe they call
it the Swimming Head and other names. If you look at it, you will see
that it seems to swim between the shoulders, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Sir Robert, “and I admire the beautiful beast.
She is cruel and artistic, like—like finance. Look here, Vernon, we have
quarrelled, and of course henceforth are enemies, for it is no use
mincing matters, only fools do that. But in a way you are being hardly
treated. You could get £10 apiece to-day for those shares of yours in a
block on the market, and I am paying you £1. I understand your
scruples, but there is no reason why we should not square things. This
fetish of yours has brought me luck, so let’s do a deal. Leave it here,
and instead of a check for £1700, I will make you one out for £17,000.”
“That’s a very liberal offer,” said Vernon. “Give me a
moment to think it over.”
Then he also walked into the corner of the room and contemplated the
golden mask that seemed to float between the frog-like shoulders. The
shimmering eyes drew his eyes, though what he saw in them does not
matter. Indeed he could never remember. Only when he straightened
himself again there was left on his mind a determination that not for
seventeen or for seventy thousand pounds would he part with his
ownership in this very unique fetish.
“No, thank you,” he said presently. “I don’t think I
will sell the Yellow God, as Jeekie calls it. Perhaps you will kindly
keep her here for a week or so, until I make up my mind where to stow
her.”
Again Mr. Champers-Haswell uttered his windy whistle. That a man should
refuse £17,000 for a bit of African gold worth £100 or so, struck him
as miraculous. But Sir Robert did not seem in the least surprised, only
very disappointed.
“I quite understand your dislike to selling,” he said. “Thank
you for leaving it here for the present to see us through the
flotation,” and he laughed.
At that moment Jeffreys entered the room with the documents. Sir Robert
handed the deed of partnership to Alan, and when he had identified it,
took it from him again and threw it on the fire, saying that of course
the formal letter of release would be posted and the dissolution
notified in the _Gazette_. Then the transfer was signed and the cheque
delivered.
“Well, good-bye till Saturday,” said Alan when he had received the
latter, and nodding, to them both, he turned and left the room.
The passage ran past the little room in which Mr. Jeffreys, the head
clerk, sat alone. Catching sight of him through the open door, Alan
entered, shutting it behind him. Finding his key ring he removed from
it the keys of his desk and of the office strongroom, and handed them
to the clerk who, methodical in everything, proceeded to write a formal
receipt.
“You are leaving us, Major Vernon?” he said interrogatively as he
signed the paper.
“Yes, Jeffreys,” answered Alan, then prompted by some impulse,
added, “Are you sorry?”
Mr. Jeffreys looked up and there were traces of unwonted emotion upon
his hard, regulated face.
“For myself, yes, Major—for you, on the whole, no.”
“What do you mean, Jeffreys? I do not quite understand.”
“I mean, Major, that I am sorry because you have never tried to shuffle
off any shady business on to my back and leave me to bear the brunt of
it; also because you have always treated me as a gentleman should, not
as a machine to be used until a better can be found, and kicked aside
when it goes out of order.”
“It is very kind of you to say so, Jeffreys, but I can’t remember
having done anything particular.”
“No, Major, you can’t remember what comes natural to you. But I and
the others remember, and that’s why I am sorry. But for yourself I am
glad, since although Aylward and Haswell have put a big thing through
and are going to make a pot of money, this is no place for the likes of
you, and now that you are going I will make bold to tell you that I
always wondered what you were doing here. By and by, Major, the row
will come, as it has come more than once in the past, before your
time.”
“And then?” said Alan, for he was anxious to get to the bottom of
this man’s mind, which hitherto he had always found so secret.
“And then, Major, it won’t matter much to Messrs. Aylward and
Champers-Haswell, who are used to that kind of thing and will probably
dissolve partnership and lie quiet for a bit, and still less to folk
like myself, who are only servants. But if you were still here it would
have mattered a great deal to you, for it would blacken your name and
break your heart, and then what’s the good of the money? I tell you,
Major,” the clerk went on with quiet intensity, “though I am nobody and
nothing, if I could afford it I would follow your example. But I can’t,
for I have a sick wife and a family of delicate children who have to
live half the year on the south coast, to say nothing of my old mother,
and—I was fool enough to be taken in and back Sir Robert’s last little
venture, which cost me all I had saved. So you see I must make a bit
before the machine is scrapped, Major. But I tell you this, that if I
can get £5000 together, as I hope to do out of Saharas before I am a
month older, for they had to give me a look-in, as I knew too much, I am
off to the country, where I was born, to take a farm there. No more of
Messrs. Aylward & Haswell for Thomas Jeffreys. That’s my bell.
Good-bye, Major, I’ll take the liberty to write you a line sometimes,
for I know you won’t give me away. Good-bye and God bless you, as I am
sure He will in the long run,” and stretching out his hand, he took
that of the astonished Alan and wrung it warmly.
When he was gone Alan went also, noticing that the clerks, whom some
rumour of these events seemed to have reached, eyed him curiously
through the glass screens behind which they sat at their desks, as he
thought not without regret and a kind of admiration. Even the
magnificent be-medalled porter at the door emerged from the carved teak
box where he dwelt and touching his cap asked if he should call a cab.
“No, thank you, Sergeant,” answered Alan, “I will take a bus,
and, Sergeant, I think I forgot to give you a present last Xmas. Will
you accept this?—I wish I could make it more,” and he presented him
with ten shillings.
The Sergeant drew himself up and saluted.
“Thank you kindly, Major,” he said. “I’d rather take
that from you than £10 from the other gentlemen. But, Major, I wish we
were out on the West Coast again together. It’s a stinking, barbarous
hole, but not so bad as this ’ere city.”
For once these two had served as comrades, and it was through Alan that
the sergeant obtained his present lucrative but somewhat uncongenial
post.
He was outside at last. The massive granite portal vanished behind him
in the evening mists, much as a nightmare vanishes. He, Alan Vernon,
who for a year or more had been in bondage, was a free man again. All
his dreams of wealth had departed; indeed if anything, save in
experience, he was poorer than when first the shadow of yonder doorway
fell upon him. But at least he was safe, safe. The deed of partnership
which had been as a chain about his neck, was now white ashes; his name
was erased from that fearful prospectus of Sahara Limited, wherein
millions which someone would provide were spoken of like silver in the
days of Solomon, as things of no account. The bitterest critic could not
say that he had made a halfpenny out of the venture, in fact, if
trouble came, his voluntary abandonment of the profits due to him must
go to his credit. He had plunged into the icy waters of renunciation
and come up clean if naked. Never since he was a boy could Alan
remember feeling so utterly light-hearted and free from anxiety. Not
for a million pounds would he have returned to gather gold in that
mausoleum of reputations. As for the future, he did not in the least
care what happened. There was no one dependent on him, and in this way
or in that he could always earn a crust, a nice, honest crust.
He ran down the street and danced for joy like a child, yes, and
presented a crossing-sweeper against whom he butted with a whole
sixpence in compensation. Thus he reached the Mansion House, not
unsuspected of inebriety by the police, and clambered to the top of a
bus crowded with weary and anxious-looking City clerks returning home
after a long day’s labour at starvation wage. In that cold company and
a chilling atmosphere some of his enthusiasm evaporated. He remembered
that this step of his meant that sooner or later, within a year or two
at most, Yarleys, where his family had dwelt for centuries, must go to
the hammer. Why had he not accepted Aylward’s offer and sold that old
fetish to him for £17,000? There was no question of share-dealing there,
and if a very wealthy man chose to give a fancy price for a curiosity,
he could take it without doubt or shame. At least it would have
sufficed to save Yarleys, which after all was only mortgaged for
£20,000. For the life of him he could not tell. He had acted on
impulse, a very curious impulse, and there was an end of it perhaps; it
might be because his uncle had told him as a boy that the thing was
unique, or perhaps because old Jeekie, his negro servant, venerated it
so much and swore that it was “lucky.” At any rate he had declined and
there was an end.
But another and a graver matter remained. He had desired wealth to save
Yarleys, but he desired it still more for a different purpose. Above
everything on earth he loved Barbara, his distant cousin and the niece
of Mr. Champers-Haswell, who until an hour ago had been his partner.
Now she was a great heiress, and without fortune he could not marry
her, even if she would marry him, which remained in doubt. For one
thing her uncle and guardian Haswell, under her father’s will, had
absolute discretion in this matter until she reached the age of
twenty-five, and for another he was too proud. Therefore it would seem
that, in abandoning his business, he had abandoned his chance of
Barbara also, which was a truly dreadful thought.
Well, it was in order that he might see her, that he had agreed to visit
The Court on the morrow, even though it meant a meeting with his late
partners, who were the last people with whom he desired to foregather
again so soon. Then and there he made up his mind that before he bade
Barbara farewell, he would tell her the whole story, so that she might
not misjudge him. After that he would go off somewhere—to Africa
perhaps. Meanwhile he was quite tired out, as tired as though he had
lain a week in the grip of fever. He must eat some food and get to bed.
Sufficient unto the day was the evil thereof, yet on the whole he
blessed the name of Jackson, editor of _The Judge_ and his father’s old
friend.
When Alan had left the office Sir Robert turned to Mr. Champers-Haswell
and asked him abruptly, “What the devil does this mean?”
Mr. Haswell looked up at the ceiling and whistled in his own peculiar
fashion, then answered:
“I cannot say for certain, but our young friend’s strange conduct
seems to suggest that he has smelt a rat, possibly even that Jackson,
the old beast, has shown him a rat—of a large Turkish breed.”
Sir Robert nodded.
“Vernon is a fellow who doesn’t like rats; they seem to haunt his
sleep,” he said; “but do you think that having seen it, he will
keep it in the bag?”
“Oh! certainly, certainly,” answered Mr. Haswell with cheerfulness;
“the man is the soul of honour; he will never give us away. Look how he
behaved about those shares. Still, I think that perhaps we are well rid
of him. Too much honour, like too much zeal, is a very dangerous
quality in any business.”
“I don’t know that I agree with you,” answered Sir Robert.
“I am not sure that in the long run we should not do better for a little
more of the article. For my part, although it will not hurt us publicly,
for the thing will never be noticed, I am sorry that we have lost
Vernon, very sorry indeed. I don’t think him a fool, and awkward as
they may be, I respect his qualities.”
“So do I, so do I,” answered Mr. Haswell, “and of course we
have acted against his advice throughout, which must have been annoying
to him. The scheme as he suggested it was a fair business proposition
that might have paid ten per cent. on a small capital, but what is the
good of ten per cent. to you and me? We want millions and we are going
to get them. Well, he is coming to The Court to-morrow, and perhaps
after all we shall be able to arrange matters. I’ll give Barbara a
hint; she has great influence with him, and you might do the same,
Aylward.”
“Miss Champers has great influence with everyone who is fortunate enough
to know her,” answered Sir Robert courteously. “But even if she
chooses to use it, I doubt if it will avail in this case. Vernon has
been making up his mind for a long while. I have watched him and am
sure of that. To-night he determined to take the plunge and I do not
think that we shall see any more of him in this office. Haswell,” he
added with sudden energy, “I tell you that of late our luck has been
too good to last. The boom, the real boom, came in with Vernon, and
with Vernon I think that it will go.”
“At any rate it must leave something pretty substantial behind it this
time, Aylward, my friend. Whatever happens, within a week we shall be
rich, really rich for life.”
“For life, Haswell, yes, for life. But what is life? A bubble that any
pin may prick. Oh! I know that you do not like the subject, but it is as
well to look it in the face sometimes. I’m no church-goer, but if I
remember right we were taught to pray the good Lord to deliver us
especially ‘in all times of our wealth,’ which is followed by something
about tribulation and sudden death, for when they wrote that prayer the
wheel of human fortune went round just as it does to-day. There, let’s
get out of this before I grow superstitious, as men who believe in
nothing sometimes do, because after all they must believe in something,
I suppose. Got your hat and coat? So have I, come on,” and he switched
off the light, so that the room was left in darkness except for the
faint glimmering of the fire.
His partner grumbled audibly, for in turning he had knocked his hand
against the desk.
“Leave me my only economy, Haswell,” he answered with a hard little
laugh. “Electricity is strength and I hate to see strength burning to
waste. Why do you mind?” he went on as he stepped towards the door.
“Is it the contrast? In all times of our wealth, in all times of our
tribulation, from sickness and from sudden death——”
“Good Lord deliver us,” chimed in Mr. Haswell in a shaking voice
behind him. “What the devil’s that?”
Sir Robert looked round and saw, or thought that he saw, something very
strange. From the pillar on which it stood the golden fetish with a
woman’s face, appeared to have floated. The firelight showed it gliding
towards them across, but a few inches above the floor of the great room.
It came very slowly, but it came. Now it reached them and paused, and
now it rose into the air until it attained the height of Mr.
Champers-Haswell and stayed there, staring into his face and not a
hand’s breadth away, just as though it were a real woman glaring at
him.
He uttered a sound, half whistle and half groan, and fell back, as it
chanced on to a morocco-covered seat behind him. For a moment or two
the gleaming, golden mask floated in the air. Then it turned very
deliberately, rose a little way, and moving sidelong to where Sir
Robert stood, hung in front of _his_ face.
Presently Aylward staggered to the mantelpiece and began to fumble for
the switch; in the silence his nails scratching at the panelling made a
sound like to that of a gnawing mouse. He found it at last, and next
instant the office broke into a blaze of light, showing Mr. Haswell,
his rubicund face quite pale, his hat and umbrella on the floor,
gasping like a dying man upon the couch, and Sir Robert himself
clinging to the mantel-shelf as a person might do who had received a
mortal wound, while the golden fetish reposed calmly on its pillar, to
all appearance as immovable and undisturbed as the antique Venus which
matched it at the other end of the room. For a while there was silence.
Then Sir Robert, recovering himself, asked:
“Did you notice anything unusual just now, Haswell?”
“Yes,” whispered his partner. “I thought that hideous African
thing which Vernon brought here, came sliding across the floor and
stared into my face with its glittering eyes, and in the eyes——”
“Well, what was in the eyes?”
“I can’t remember. It was a kind of picture and the meaning of it
was Sudden Death—oh Lord! Sudden Death. Tell me it was a fancy bred of
that ill-omened talk of yours?”
“I can’t tell you anything of the sort,” answered Aylward in
a hollow voice, “for I saw something also.”
“What?” asked his partner.
“Death that wasn’t sudden, and other things.”
Again the silence fell till it was broken by Aylward.
“Come,” he said, “we have been over-working—too much
strain, and now the reaction. Keep this rubbish to yourself, or they
will lock you up in an asylum.”
“Certainly, Aylward, certainly. But can’t you get rid of that
beastly image?”
“Not on any account, Haswell, even if it haunts us all day. Here it
shall stop until the Saharas are floated on Monday, if I have to lock
it in the strongroom and throw the keys into the Thames. Afterwards
Vernon can take it, as he has a right to do, and I am sure that with it
will go our luck.”
“Then the sooner our luck goes, the better,” replied Haswell, with
a mere ghost of his former whistle. “Life is better than luck,
and—Aylward, that Yellow God you are so fond of means to murder us. We
are being fatted for the sacrifice, that is all. I remember now, that
was one of the things I saw written in its eyes!”
CHAPTER III.
JEEKIE TELLS A TALE.
The Court, Mr. Champers-Haswell’s place, was a very fine house indeed,
of a sort. That is, it contained twenty-nine bedrooms, each of them
with a bathroom attached, a large number of sitting-rooms, ample
garages, stables, and offices, the whole surrounded by several acres of
newly-planted gardens. Incidentally it may be mentioned that it was
built in the most atrocious taste and looked like a suburban villa seen
through a magnifying glass.
It was in this matter of taste that it differed from Sir Robert
Aylward’s home, Old Hall, a few miles away. Not that this was old
either, for the original house had fallen down or been burnt a hundred
years before. But Sir Robert, being gifted with artistic perception,
had reared up in place of it a smaller but really beautiful dwelling of
soft grey stone, long and low, and built in the Tudor style with many
gables.
This house, charming as it was, could not of course compare with
Yarleys, the ancient seat of the Vernons in the same neighbourhood.
Yarleys was pure Elizabethan, although it contained an oak-roofed hall
which was said to date back to the time of King John, a remnant of a
former house. There was no electric light or other modern convenience
at Yarleys, yet it was a place that everyone went to see because of its
exceeding beauty and its historical associations. The moat by which it
was surrounded, the grass court within, for it was built on three sides
of a square, the mullioned windows, the towered gateway of red brick,
the low-panelled rooms hung with the portraits of departed Vernons, the
sloping park and the splendid oaks that stood about, singly or in
groups, were all of them perfect in their way. It was one of the most
lovely of English homes, and oddly enough its neglected gardens and the
air of decay that pervaded it, added to rather than decreased its charm.
But it is with The Court that we have to do at present, not with
Yarleys. Mr. Champers-Haswell had a week-end party. There were ten
guests, all men, and with the exception of Alan, who it will be
remembered was one of them, all rich and in business. They included two
French bankers and three Jews, everyone a prop of the original Sahara
Syndicate and deeply interested in the forthcoming flotation. To
describe them is unnecessary, for they have no part in our story, being
only financiers of a certain class, remarkable for the riches they had
acquired by means that for the most part would not bear examination. The
riches were evident enough. Ever since the morning the owners of this
wealth had arrived by ones or twos in their costly motorcars, attended
by smart chauffeurs and valets. Their fur coats, their jewelled studs
and rings, something in their very faces suggested money, which indeed
was the bond that brought and held them together.
Alan did not come until it was time to dress for dinner, for he knew
that Barbara would not appear before that meal, and it was her society
he sought, not that of his host or fellow guests. Accompanied by his
negro servant, Jeekie, for in a house like this it was necessary to
have someone to wait upon him, he drove over from Yarleys, a distance
of ten miles, arriving about eight o’clock.
“Mr. Haswell has gone up to dress, Major, and so have the other
gentlemen,” said the head butler, Mr. Smith, “but Miss Champers
told me to give you this note and to say that dinner is at half-past
eight.”
Alan took the note and asked to be shown to his room. Once there,
although he had only five-and-twenty minutes, he opened it eagerly,
while Jeekie unpacked his bag.
“Dear Alan,” it ran: “Don’t be late for dinner, or I
may not be able to keep a place next to me. Of course Sir Robert takes
me in. They are a worse lot than usual this time, odious—odious!—and I
can’t stand one on the left hand as well as on the right. Yours,
“B.
“P.S. What _have_ you been doing? Our distinguished guests, to say
nothing of my uncle, seem to be in a great fuss about you. I overheard
them talking when I was pretending to arrange some flowers. One of them
called you a sanctimonious prig and an obstinate donkey, and another
answered—I think it was Sir Robert —‘No doubt, but obstinate donkeys
can kick and have been known to upset other people’s applecarts ere
now.’ Is the Sahara Syndicate the applecart? If so, I’ll forgive you.
“P.P.S. Remember that we will walk to church together to-morrow, but
come down to breakfast in knickerbockers or something to put them off,
and I’ll do the same—I mean I’ll dress as if I were going to
golf. We can turn into Christians later. If we don’t—dress like
that, I mean—they’ll guess and all want to come to church, except
the Jews, which would bring the judgment of Heaven on us.
“P.P.P.S. Don’t be careless and leave this note lying about, for
the under-footman who waits upon you reads all the letters. He steams
them over a kettle. Smith the butler is the only respectable man in
this house.”
Alan laughed outright as he finished this peculiar and outspoken
epistle, which somehow revived his spirits, that since the previous day
had been low enough. It refreshed him. It was like a breath of frosty
air from an open window blowing clean and cold into a scented,
overheated room. He would have liked to keep it, but remembering
Barbara’s injunctions and the under-footman, threw it onto the fire and
watched it burn. Jeekie coughed to intimate that it was time for his
master to dress, and Alan turned and looked at him in an absent-minded
fashion.
He was worth looking at, was Jeekie. Let the reader imagine a very tall
and powerfully-built negro with a skin as black as a well-polished
boot, woolly hair as white as snow, a little tufted beard also white, a
hand like a leg of mutton, but with long delicate fingers and pink,
filbert-shaped nails, an immovable countenance, but set in it beneath a
massive brow, two extraordinary humorous and eloquent black eyes which
expressed every emotion passing through the brain behind them, that is
when their owner chose to allow them to do so. Such was Jeekie.
“Shall I unlace your boots, Major?” he said in his full, melodious
voice and speaking the most perfect English. “I expect that the gong
will sound in nine and a half minutes.”
“Then let it sound and be hanged to it,” answered Alan; “no,
I forgot—I must hurry. Jeekie, put that fire out and open all the
windows as soon as I go down. This room is like a hot-house.”
“Yes, Major, the fire shall be extinguished and the sleeping-chamber
ventilated. The other boot, if you please, Major.”
“Jeekie,” said Alan, “who is stopping in this place? Have you
heard?”
“I collected some names on my way upstairs, Major. Three of the
gentlemen you have never met before, but,” he added suddenly breaking
away from his high-flown book-learned English, as was his custom when
in earnest, “Jeekie think they just black niggers like the rest, thief
people. There ain’t a white man in this house, except you and Miss
Barbara and me, Major. Jeekie learnt all that in servant’s hall
palaver. No, not now, other time. Everyone tell everything to Jeekie,
poor old African fool, and he look up an answer, ‘O law! you don’t say
so?’ but keep his eyes and ears open all the same.”
“I’ll be bound you do, Jeekie,” replied Alan, laughing again.
“Well, go on keeping them open, and give me those trousers.”
“Yes, Major,” answered Jeekie, reassuming his grand manner,
“I shall continue to collect information which may prove to your
advantage, but personally I wish that you were clear of the whole
caboodle, except Miss Barbara.”
“Hear, hear,” ejaculated Alan, “there goes the gong. Mind you
come in and help to wait,” and hurrying into his coat he departed
downstairs.
The guests were gathered in the hall drinking sherry and bitters, a
proceeding that to Alan’s mind set a stamp upon the house. His host,
Mr. Champers-Haswell, came forward and greeted him with much
affectionate enthusiasm, and Alan noticed that he looked very pale,
also that his thoughts seemed to be wandering, for he introduced a
French banker to him as a noted Jew, and the noted Jew as the French
banker, although the distinction between them was obvious and the
gentlemen concerned evidently resented the mistake. Sir Robert Aylward,
catching sight of him, came across the hall in his usual, direct
fashion, and shook him by the hand.
“Glad to see you, Vernon,” he said, fixing his piercing eyes upon
Alan as though he were trying to read his thoughts. “Pleasant change
this from the City and all that eternal business, isn’t it? Ah! you are
thinking that one is not quite clear of business after all,” and he
glanced round at the company. “That’s one of your cousin
Haswell’s faults; he can never shake himself free of the thing, never
get any real recreation. I’d bet you a sovereign that he has a
stenographer waiting by a telephone in the next room, just in case any
opportunity should arise in the course of conversation. That is
magnificent, but it is not wise. His heart can’t stand it; it will wear
him out before his time. Listen, they are all talking about the Sahara.
I wish I were there; it must be quiet at any rate. The sands beneath,
the eternal stars above. Yes, I wish I were there,” he repeated with a
sigh, and Alan noted that although his face could not be more pallid
than its natural colour, it looked quite worn and old.
“So do I,” he answered with enthusiasm.
Then a French gentleman on his left, having discovered that he was the
engineer who had formulated the great flooding scheme, began to address
him as “Cher maitre,” speaking so rapidly in his own language that
Alan, whose French was none of the best, struggled after him in vain.
Whilst he was trying to answer a question which he did not understand,
the door at the end of the hall opened, and through it appeared Barbara
Champers.
It was a large hall and she was a long way off, which caused her to look
small, who indeed was only of middle height. Yet even at that distance
it was impossible to mistake the dignity of her appearance. A slim
woman with brown hair, cheerful brown eyes, a well-modelled face, a
rounded figure and an excellent complexion, such was Barbara. Ten
thousand young ladies could be found as good, or even better looking,
yet something about her differentiated her from the majority of her
sex. There was determination in her step, and overflowing health and
vigour in her every movement. Her eyes had a trick of looking straight
into any other eyes they met, not boldly, but with a kind of virginal
fearlessness and enterprise that people often found embarrassing.
Indeed she was extremely virginal and devoid of the usual fringe of
feminine airs and graces, a nymph of the woods and waters, who although
she was three and twenty, as yet recked little of men save as
companions whom she liked or disliked according to her instincts. For
the rest she was sweetly dressed in a white robe with silver on it, and
wore no ornaments save a row of small pearls about her throat and some
lilies of the valley at her breast.
Barbara came straight onwards, looking neither to the right nor to the
left, till she reached her uncle, to whom she nodded. Then she walked
to Alan and, offering him her hand, said:
“How do you do! Why did you not come over at lunch time? I wanted to
play a round of golf with you this afternoon.”
Alan answered something about being busy at Yarleys.
“Yarleys!” she replied. “I thought that you lived in the City
now, making money out of speculations, like everyone else that I know.”
“Why, Miss Champers,” broke in Sir Robert reproachfully, “I
asked you to play a round of golf before tea and you would not.”
“No,” she answered, “because I was waiting for my cousin. We
are better matched, Sir Robert.”
There was something in her voice, usually so soft and pleasant, as she
spoke these words, something of steeliness and defiance that caused
Alan to feel at once happy and uncomfortable. Apparently also it caused
Aylward to feel angry, for he flashed a glance at Alan over her head of
which the purport could not be mistaken, though his pale face remained
as immovable as ever. “We are enemies. I hate you,” said that glance.
Probably Barbara saw it; at any rate before either of them could speak
again, she said:
“Thank goodness, there is dinner at last. Sir Robert, will you take me
in, and, Alan, will you sit on the other side of me? My uncle will show
the rest their places.”
The meal was long and magnificent; the price of each dish of it would
have kept a poor family for a month, and on the cost of the exquisite
wines they might have lived for a year or two. Also the last were well
patronized by everyone except Barbara, who drank water, and Alan, who
since his severe fever took nothing but weak whiskey and soda and a
little claret. Even Aylward, a temperate person, absorbed a good deal
of champagne. As a consequence the conversation grew animated, and
under cover of it, while Sir Robert was arguing with his neighbour on
the left, Barbara asked in a low voice:
“What is the row, Alan? Tell me, I can’t wait any longer.”
“I have quarrelled with them,” he answered, staring at his mutton
as though he were criticizing it. “I mean, I have left the firm and have
nothing more to do with the business.”
Barbara’s eyes lit up as she whispered back:
“Glad of it. Best news I have heard for many a day. But then, may I ask
why you are here?”
“I came to see you,” he replied humbly—“thought perhaps
you wouldn’t mind,” and in his confusion he let his knife fall into
the mutton, whence it rebounded, staining his shirt front.
Barbara laughed, that happy, delightful little laugh of hers, presumably
at the accident with the knife. Whether or no she “minded” did not
appear, only she handed her handkerchief, a costly, lace-fringed
trifle, to Alan to wipe the gravy off his shirt, which he took thinking
it was a napkin, and as she did so, touched his hand with a little
caressing movement of her fingers. Whether this was done by chance or
on purpose did not appear either. At least it made Alan feel extremely
happy. Also when he discovered what it was, he kept that gravy-stained
handkerchief, nor did she ever ask for it back again. Only once in
after days when she happened to come across it stuffed away in the
corner of a despatch-box, she blushed all over, and said that she had no
idea that any man could be so foolish out of a book.
“Now that _you_ are really clear of it, I am going for them,”
she said presently when the wiping process was finished. “I have only
restrained myself for your sake,” and, leaning back in her chair she
stared at the ceiling, lost in meditation.
Presently there came one of those silences which will fall upon
dinner-parties at times, however excellent and plentiful the champagne.
“Sir Robert Aylward,” said Barbara in that clear, carrying voice of
hers, “will you, as an expert, instruct a very ignorant person? I want a
little information.”
“Miss Champers,” he answered, “am I not always at your
service?” and all listened to hear upon what point their hostess desired
to be enlightened.
“Sir Robert,” she went on calmly, “everyone here is, I
believe, what is called a financier, that is except myself and Major
Vernon, who only tries to be and will, I am sure, fail, since Nature
made him something else, a soldier and—what else did Nature make you,
Alan?”
As he vouchsafed no answer to this question, although Sir Robert
muttered an uncomplimentary one between his lips which Barbara heard,
or read, she continued:
“And you are all very rich and successful, are you not, and are going to
be much richer and much more successful—next week. Now what I want to
ask you is—how is it done?”
“Accepting the premises for the sake of argument, Miss Champers,”
replied Sir Robert, who felt that he could not refuse the challenge,
“the answer is that it is done by finance.”
“I am still in the dark,” she said. “Finance, as I have heard
of it, means floating companies, and companies are floated to earn money
for those who invest in them. Now this afternoon as I was dull, I got
hold of a book called the Directory of Directors, and looked up all
your names in it, except those of the gentlemen from Paris, and the
companies that you direct—I found out about those in another book.
Well, I could not make out that any of these companies have ever earned
any money, a dividend, don’t you call it? Therefore how do you all grow
so rich, and why do people invest in them?”
Now Sir Robert frowned, Alan coloured, two or three of the company
laughed outright, and one of the French gentlemen who understood
English and had already drunk as much as was good for him, remarked
loudly to his neighbour, “Ah! she is charming. She do touch the spot,
like that ointment you give me to-day. How do we grow rich and why do
the people invest? _Mon Dieu!_ why do they invest? That is the great
mystery. I say that _cette belle demoiselle, votre nièce, est
ravissante. Elle a d’esprit, mon ami Haswell._”
Apparently her uncle did not share these sentiments, for he turned as
red as any turkey-cock, and said across the great round table:
“My dear Barbara, I wish that you would leave matters which you do not
understand alone. We are here to dine, not to talk about finance.”
“Certainly, Uncle,” she answered sweetly. “I stand, or rather
sit, reproved. I suppose that I have put my foot into it as usual, and
the worst of it is,” she added, turning to Sir Robert, “that I am just
as ignorant as I was before.”
“If you want to master these matters, Miss Champers,” said Aylward
with a rather forced laugh, “you must go into training and worship at
the shrine of”—he meant to say Mammon, then thinking that the word
sounded unpleasant, substituted—“the Yellow God as we do.”
At these words Alan, who had been studying his plate, looked up quickly,
and her uncle’s face turned from red to white. But the irrepressible
Barbara seized upon them.
“The Yellow God,” she repeated. “Do you mean money or that
fetish thing of Major Vernon’s with the terrible woman’s face that
I saw at the office in the City. Well, to change the subject, tell us,
Alan, what is that yellow god of yours and where did it come from?”
“My uncle Austin, who was my mother’s brother and a missionary,
brought it from West Africa a great many years ago. He was the first to
visit the tribe who worship it; in fact I do not think that anyone has
ever visited them since. But really I do not know all the story. Jeekie
can tell you about it if you want to know, for he is one of that people
and escaped with my uncle.”
Now Jeekie having left the room, some of the guests wished to send for
him, but Mr. Champers-Haswell objected. The end of it was that a
compromise was effected, Alan undertaking to produce his retainer
afterwards when they went to play billiards or cards.
Dinner was over at length and the diners, who had dined well, were
gathered in the billiard room to smoke and amuse themselves as they
wished. It was a very large room, sixty feet long indeed, with a wide
space in the centre between the two tables, which was furnished as a
lounge. When the gentlemen entered it they found Barbara standing by
the great fireplace in this central space, a little shape of white and
silver in its emptiness.
“Forgive me for intruding on you,” she said, “and please do
not stop smoking, for I like the smell. I have sat up expressly to hear
Jeekie’s story of the Yellow God. Alan, produce Jeekie, or I shall go to
bed at once.”
Her uncle made a movement as though to interfere, but Sir Robert said
something to him which appeared to cause him to change his mind, while
the rest in some way or another signified an enthusiastic assent. All
of them were anxious to see this Jeekie and hear his tale, if he had
one to tell. So Jeekie was sent for and presently arrived clad in the
dress clothes which are common to all classes in England and America.
There he stood before them white-headed, ebony-faced, gigantic,
imperturbable. There is no doubt that his appearance produced an
effect, for it was unusual and indeed striking.
“You sent for me, Major?” he said, addressing his master, to whom
he gave a military salute, for he had been Alan’s servant when he was in
the Army.
“Yes, Jeekie. Miss Barbara here and these gentlemen, wish you to tell
them all that you know about the Yellow God.”
The negro started and rolled his round eyes upwards till the whites of
them showed, then began in his school-book English:
“That is a private subject, Major, upon which I should prefer not to
discourse before this very public company.”
A chorus of remonstrance arose and one of the Jewish gentlemen
approaching Jeekie, slipped a couple of sovereigns into his great hand,
which he promptly transferred to his pocket without seeming to notice
them.
“Jeekie,” said Barbara, “don’t disappoint me.”
“Very well, miss, I fall in with your wishes. The Yellow God that all
these gentlemen worship, quite another god to that of which you desire
that I should tell you. You know all about him. My god is of female
sex.”
At this statement his audience burst into laughter while Jeekie rolled
his eyes again and waited till they had finished. “My god,” he went on
presently, “I mean, gentlemen, the god I used to pray to, for I am a
good Christian now, has so much gold that she does not care for any
more,” and he paused.
“Then what does she care for?” asked someone.
“Blood,” answered Jeekie. “She is god of Death. Her name is
Little Bonsa or Small Swimming Head; she is wife of Big Bonsa or Great
Swimming Head.”
Again there was laughter, though less general—for instance, neither Sir
Robert nor Mr. Champers-Haswell laughed. This merriment seemed to excite
Jeekie. At any rate it caused him to cease his stilted talk and relapse
into the strange vernacular that is common to all negroes, tinctured
with a racy slang that was all his own.
“You want to hear Yellow God palaver?” he said rapidly. “Very
well, I tell you, you cocksure white men who think you know everything,
but know nothing at all. My people, people of the Asiki, that mean
people of Spirits, what you call ghosts and say you no believe in, but
always look for behind door, they worship Yellow God, Bonsa Big and
Bonsa Little, worship both and call them one; only Little Bonsa on trip
to this country just now and sit and think in City office. Yellow God
live long way up a great river, then turn to the left and walk six days
through big forest where dwarf people shoot you with poisoned arrow.
Then turn to the right, walk up stream where many wild beasts. Then
turn to the left again and go in canoe through swamp where you die of
fever, and across lake. Then walk over grassland and mountains. Then in
kloof of the mountains where big black trees make a roof and river fall
like thunder, find Asiki and gold house of the Yellow God. All that
mountain gold, full of gold and beneath gold house Yellow God afloat in
water. She what you call Queen, priestess, live there also, always
there, very beautiful woman called Asika with face like Yellow God,
cruel, cruel. She take a husband every year, and every year he die
because she always hunt for right man but never find him.”
“How does she kill him then?” asked Barbara.
“Oh! no, she no kill him, Miss, he kill himself at end of year, glad to
get away from Asika and go to spirits. While he live he have a very good
time, plenty to eat, plenty wives, fine house, much gold as he like,
only nothing to spend it on, pretty necklace, nice paint for face. But
Asika, little bit by little bit she eat up his spirit. He see too many
ghosts. The house where he sleep with dead men who once have his
billet, full of ghosts and every night there come more and sit with
him, sit all round him, look at him with great eyes, just like you look
at me, till at last when Asika finish eating up his spirit, he go
crazy, he howl like man in hell, he throw away all the gold they give
him, and then, sometimes after one week, sometimes after one month,
sometimes after one year if he be strong but never more, he run out at
night and jump into canal where Yellow God float and god get him, while
Asika sit on the bank and laugh, ’cause she hungry for new man to eat
up his spirit too.”
Jeekie’s big voice died away to a whisper and ceased. There was a
silence in the room, for even in the shine of the electric light and
through the fumes of champagne, in more than one imagination there rose
a vision of that haunted water in which floated the great Yellow God,
and of some mad being casting himself to his death beneath the moon,
while his beautiful witch wife who was “hungry for more spirits” sat
upon its edge and laughed. Although his language was now commonplace
enough, even ludicrous at times, the negro had undoubtedly the art of
narration. His auditors felt that he spoke of what he knew, or had
seen, that the very recollection of it frightened him, therefore he
frightened them.
Again Barbara broke the silence which she felt to be awkward.
“Why do more ghosts come very night to sit with the queen’s
husband, Jeekie?” she asked. “Where do they come from?”
“Out of the dead, miss, dead husbands of Asika from beginning of the
world; what they call Munganas. Also always they make sacrifice to
Yellow God. From far, far away them poor niggers send people to be
sacrifice that their house or tribe get luck. Sometimes they send
kings, sometimes great men, sometimes doctors, sometimes women what
have twin babies. Also the Asiki bring people what is witches, or have
drunk poison stuff which blacks call _muavi_ and have not been sick, or
perhaps son they love best to take curse off their roof. All these come
to Yellow God. Then Asiki doctor, they have Death-palaver. On night of
full moon they beat drum, and drum go Wow! Wow! Wow! and doctors pick
out those to die that month. Once they pick out Jeekie, oh! good Lord,
they pick out _me_,” and as he said the words he gasped and with his
great hand wiped off the sweat that started from his brow. “But Yellow
God no take Jeekie that time, no want him and I escape.”
“How?” asked Sir Robert.
“With my master, Major’s uncle, Reverend Austin, he who come try to
make Asiki Christian. He snap his fingers, put on small mask of Yellow
God which he prig, Little Bonsa herself, that same face which sit in
your office now,” and he pointed to Sir Robert, “like one toad upon a
stone. Priests think that god make herself into man, want holiday, take
me out into forest to kill me and eat my life. So they let us go by and
we go just as though devil kick us—fast, fast, and never see the Asiki
any more. But Little Bonsa I bring with me for luck, tell truth I no
dare leave her behind, she not stand that; and now she sit in your
office and think and think and make magic there. That why you grow
rich, because she know you worship her.”
“That’s a nice way for a baptized Christian to talk,” said
Barbara, adding, “But Jeekie, what do you mean when you say that the god
did not take you?”
“I mean this, miss; when victim offered to Big Yellow God, priest-men
bring him to edge of canal where the great god float. Then if Yellow God
want him, it turn and swim across water.”
“Swim across water! I thought you said it was only a mask of gold?”
“I don’t know, miss, perhaps man inside the mask, perhaps spirit. I
say it swim across water in the night, always in the night, and lift
itself up and look in victim’s face. Then priest take him and kill him,
sometimes one way—sometimes another. Or if he escape and they not kill
him, all same for that Johnnie, he die in about one year, always die,
no one ever live long if Yellow God swim to him in dark and rise up and
smile in his face. No matter if it Big Bonsa or Little Bonsa, for they
man and wife joined in holy matrimony and either do trick.”
As these words left Jeekie’s lips Alan became aware of some unusual
movement on his left and looking round, saw that Mr. Champers-Haswell,
who stood by him, had dropped the cigar which he held and, white as a
sheet, was swaying to and fro. Indeed in another instant he would have
fallen had not Alan caught him in his arms and supported him till
others came to his assistance, when between them they carried him to a
sofa. On their way they passed a table where spirits and soda water
were set out, and to his astonishment Alan noticed that Sir Robert
Aylward, looking little if at all better than his partner, had helped
himself to half a tumbler of cognac, which he was swallowing in great
gulps. Then there was confusion and someone went to telephone the
doctor, while the deep voice of Jeekie was heard exclaiming:
“That Yellow God at work—oh yes, Little Bonsa on the job. Jeekie
Christian man but no doubt she very powerful fetish and can do anything
she like to them that worship her, and you see, she sit in office of
these gentlemen. ’Spect she make Reverend Austin and me bring her to
England because she got eye on firm of Messrs. Aylward & Haswell,
London, E.C. Oh, shouldn’t wonder at all, for Bonsa know everything.”
“Oh, confound you and your fetish! Be off, you old donkey,” almost
shouted Alan.
“Major,” replied the offended Jeekie, assuming his grand manner and
language, “it was not I who wished to narrate this history of
blood-stained superstitions of poor African. Mustn’t blame old Jeekie if
they make Christian gents sick as Channel steamer.”
“Be off!” repeated Alan, stamping his foot.
So Jeekie went, but outside the door, as it chanced, he encountered one
of the Jew gentlemen who also appeared to be a little “sick.” An idea
striking him, he touched his white hair with his finger and said:
“You like Jeekie’s pretty story, sir? Well, Jeekie think that if
you make little present to him, like your brother in there, it please
Yellow God very much, and bring you plenty luck.”
Then acting upon some unaccustomed impulse, that Jew became exceedingly
generous. In his pocket was a handful of sovereigns which he had been
prepared to stake at bridge. He grasped them all and thrust them into
Jeekie’s outstretched palm, where they seemed to melt.
“Thank you, sir,” said Jeekie. “Now I sure you have plenty
luck, just like your grandpa Jacob in Book when he do his brudder in
eye.”
CHAPTER IV.
ALAN AND BARBARA.
There was no bridge or billiards at the Court that night, where
ordinarily the play ran high enough. After Mr. Haswell had been carried
to his room, some of the guests, among them Sir Robert Aylward, went to
bed, remarking that they could do no good by sitting up, while others,
more concerned, waited to hear the verdict of the doctor, who must
drive from six miles away. He came, and half an hour later Barbara
entered the billiard room and told Alan, who was sitting there smoking,
that her uncle had recovered from his faint, and that the doctor, who
was to stay all night, said that he was in no danger, only suffering
from a heart attack brought on apparently by over-work or excitement.
When Alan woke next morning the first thing that he heard through his
open window was the sound of the doctor’s departing dogcart. Then
Jeekie appeared and told him that Mr. Haswell was all right again, but
that all night he had shaken “like one jelly.” Alan asked what had been
the matter with him, but Jeekie only shrugged his shoulders and said
that he did not know—“perhaps Yellow God touch him up.”
At breakfast, as in her note she had said she would, Barbara appeared
wearing a short skirt. Sir Robert, who was there, looking extremely
pale even for him and with black rims round his eyes, asked her if she
were going to golf, to which she answered that she would think it over.
It was a somewhat melancholy meal, and as though by common consent no
mention was made of Jeekie’s tale of the Yellow God, and beyond the
usual polite inquiries, very little of their host’s seizure.
As Barbara went out she whispered to Alan, who opened the door for her,
“Meet me at half-past ten in the kitchen garden.”
Accordingly, having changed his clothes surreptitiously, Alan, avoiding
the others, made his way by a circuitous route to this kitchen garden,
which after the fashion of modern places was hidden behind a belt of
trees nearly a quarter of a mile from the house. Here he wandered about
till presently he heard Barbara’s pleasant voice behind him saying:
“Don’t dawdle so, we shall be late for church.”
So they started, somewhat furtively like runaway children. As they went
Alan asked how her uncle was.
“All right now,” she answered, “but he has had a bad shake.
It was that Yellow God story which did it. I know, for I was there when
he was coming to, with Sir Robert. He kept talking about it in a
confused manner, saying that it was swimming to him across the floor,
till at last Sir Robert bent over him and told him to be quiet quite
sternly. Do you know, Alan, I believe that your pet fetish has been
manifesting itself in some unpleasant fashion up there in the office?”
“Indeed. If so, it must be since I left, for I never heard of anything
of the sort, nor are Aylward and your uncle likely people to see
ghosts. In fact Sir Robert wished to give me about £17,000 for the
thing only the day before yesterday, which doesn’t look as though it
had been frightening him.”
“Well, he won’t repeat the offer, Alan, for I heard him promise my
uncle only this morning that it should be sent back to Yarleys at once.
But why did he want to buy it for such a lot of money? Tell me quickly,
Alan, I am dying to hear the whole story.”
So he began and told her, omitting nothing, while she listened eagerly
to every word, hardly interrupting him at all. As he finished his tale
they reached the door of the quaint old village church just as the
clock was striking eleven.
“Come in, Alan,” she said gently, “and thank Heaven for all
its mercies, for you should be a grateful man to-day.”
Then without giving him time to answer she entered the church and they
took their places in the great square pew that for generations had been
occupied by the owners of the ancient house which Mr. Haswell pulled
down when he built The Court. There were their monuments upon the wall
and their gravestones in the chancel floor. But now no one except
Barbara ever sat in their pew; even the benches set aside for the
servants were empty, for those who frequented The Court were not
church-goers and “like master, like man.” Indeed the gentle-faced old
clergyman looked quite pleased and surprised when he saw two
inhabitants of that palatial residence amongst his congregation,
although it is true that Barbara was his friend and helper.
The simple service went on; the first lesson was read. It cried woe upon
them that joined house to house and field to field, that draw iniquity
with cords of vanity and sin as it were with a cart-rope; that call
evil good and good evil, that put darkness for light and light for
darkness, that justify the wicked for reward; that feast full but
regard not the work of the Lord, neither consider the operation of His
hand, for of such it prophesied that their houses great and fair should
be without inhabitant and desolate.
It was very well read, and Alan, listening, thought that the
denunciations of the old seer of thousands of years ago were not
inappropriate to the dwellers in some houses great and fair of his own
day, who, whatever they did or left undone, regarded not the work of
the Lord, neither considered the operation of His hand. Perhaps Barbara
thought so too; at any rate a rather sad little smile appeared once or
twice upon her sweet, firm face as the immortal poem echoed down the
aisle.
The peace that passeth understanding was invoked upon their heads, and
rising with the rest of the scanty congregation they went away.
“Shall we walk home by the woods, Alan?” asked Barbara. “It
is three miles round, but we don’t lunch till two.”
He nodded, and presently they were alone in those woods, the beautiful
woods through which the breath of spring was breathing, treading upon
carpets of bluebell, violet, and primrose; quite alone, unaccompanied
save by the wild things that stole across their path, undisturbed save
by the sound of the singing birds and of the wind among the trees.
“What did you mean, Barbara, when you said that I should be a grateful
man to-day?” asked Alan presently.
Barbara looked him in the eyes in that open, virginal fashion of hers
and answered in the words of the lesson, “‘Woe unto them that draw
iniquity with the cords of vanity and sin as it were with a cart-rope,
that lay house to house,’” and through an opening in the woods she
pointed to the roof of The Court standing on one hill, and to the roof
of Old Hall standing upon another—“‘and field to field,’” and
with a sweep of her hand she indicated all the country round, “‘for
many houses great and fair that have music in their feasts shall be left
desolate.’” Then turning she said:
“Do you understand now, Alan?”
“I think so,” he answered. “You mean that I have been in bad
company.”
“Very bad, Alan. One of them is my own uncle, but the truth remains the
truth. Alan, they are no better than thieves; all this wealth is stolen,
and I thank God that you have found it out in time before you became
one of them in heart as well as in name.”
“If you refer to the Sahara Syndicate,” he said, “the idea is
sound enough; indeed, I am responsible for it. The thing can be done,
great benefits would result, too long to go into.”
“Yes, yes, Alan, but you know that they never mean to do it, they only
mean to get the millions from the public. I have lived with my uncle for
ten years, ever since my poor father died, and I know the backstairs of
the business. There have been half a dozen schemes like this, and
although they have had their bad times, very bad times, he and Sir
Robert have grown richer and richer. But what has happened to those who
have invested in them? Oh! let us drop the subject, it is unpleasant.
For myself it doesn’t matter, because although it isn’t under my
control, I have money of my own. You know we are a plebeian lot on the
male side, my grandfather was a draper in a large way of business, my
father was a coal-merchant who made a great fortune. His brother, my
uncle, in whom my father always believed implicitly, took to what is
called Finance, and when my father died he left me, his only child, in
his guardianship. Until I am five-and-twenty I cannot even marry or
touch a halfpenny without his consent; in fact if I should marry
against his will the most of my money goes to him.”
“I expect that he has got it already,” said Alan.
“No, I think not. I found out that, although it is not mine, it is not
his. He can’t draw it without my signature, and I steadily refuse to
sign anything. Again and again they have brought me documents, and I
have always said that I would consider them at five-and-twenty, when I
came of age under my father’s will. I went on the sly to a lawyer in
Kingswell and paid him a guinea for his advice, and he put me up to
that. ‘Sign nothing,’ he said, and I have signed nothing, so, except by
forgery nothing can have gone. Still for all that it may have gone. For
anything I know I am not worth more than the clothes I stand in,
although my father was a very rich man.”
“If so, we are about in the same boat, Barbara,” Alan answered with
a laugh, “for my present possessions are Yarleys, which brings in about
£100 a year less than the interest on its mortgages and cost of upkeep,
and the £1700 that Aylward paid me back on Friday for my shares. If I
had stuck to them I understand that in a week or two I should have been
worth £100,000, and now you see, here I am, over thirty years of age
without a profession, invalided out of the army and having failed in
finance, a mere bit of driftwood without hope and without a trade.”
Barbara’s brown eyes grew soft with sympathy, or was it tears?
“You are a curious creature, Alan,” she said. “Why
didn’t you take the £17,000 for that fetish of yours? It would have been
a fair deal and have set you on your legs.”
“I don’t know,” he answered dejectedly. “It went
against the grain, so what is the use of talking about it? I think my
old uncle Austin told me it wasn’t to be parted with—no, perhaps it was
Jeekie. Bother the Yellow God! it is always cropping up.”
“Yes,” replied Barbara, “the Yellow God is always cropping
up, especially in this neighbourhood.”
They walked on a while in silence, till suddenly Barbara sat down upon a
bole of felled oak and began to cry.
“What is the matter with you?” asked Alan.
“I don’t know,” she answered. “Everything goes wrong. I
live in a kind of gilded hell. I don’t like my uncle and I loathe the
men he brings about the place. I have no friends, I scarcely know a
woman intimately, I have troubles I can’t tell you and—I am wretched.
You are the only creature I have left to talk to, and I suppose that
after this row you must go away too to make your living.”
Alan looked at her there weeping on the log and his heart swelled within
him, for he had loved this girl for years.
“Barbara,” he gasped, “please don’t cry, it upsets me.
You know you are a great heiress——”
“That remains to be proved,” she answered. “But anyway, what
has it to do with the case?”
“It has everything to do with it, at least so far as I am concerned. If
it hadn’t been for that I should have asked you to marry me a long while
ago, because I love you, as I would now, but of course it is
impossible.”
Barbara ceased her weeping, wiped her eyes with the back of her hand,
and looked up at him.
“Alan,” she said, “I think that you are the biggest fool I
ever knew—not but that a fool is rather refreshing when one lives among
knaves.”
“I know I am a fool,” he answered. “If I wasn’t I
should not have mentioned my misfortune to you, but sometimes things are
too much for one. Forget it and forgive me.”
“Oh! yes,” she said; “I forgive you; a woman can generally
forgive a man for being fond of her. Whatever she may be, she is ready
to take a lenient view of his human weakness. But as to forgetting,
that is a different matter. I don’t exactly see why I should be so
anxious to forget, who haven’t many people to care about me,” and she
looked at him in quite a new fashion, one indeed which gave him
something of a shock, for he had not thought the nymph-like Barbara
capable of such a look as that. She and any sort of passion had always
seemed so far apart.
Now after all Alan was very much a man, if a modest one, with all a
man’s instincts, and therefore there are appearances of the female face
which even such as he could not entirely misinterpret.
“You—don’t—mean,” he said doubtfully, “you
don’t really mean——” and he stood hesitating before her.
“If you would put your question a little more clearly, Alan, I might be
able to give you an answer,” she replied, that quaint little smile of
hers creeping to the corners of her mouth like sunshine through a mist
of rain.
“You don’t really mean,” he went on, “that you care
anything about me, like, like I have cared for you for years?”
“Oh! Alan,” she said, laughing outright, “why in the name of
goodness shouldn’t I care about you? I don’t say that I do, mind,
but why shouldn’t I? What is the gulf between us?”
“The old one,” he answered, “that between Dives and
Lazarus—that between the rich and the poor.”
“Alan,” said Barbara, looking down, “I don’t know what
has come over me, but for some unexplained and inexplicable reason I am
inclined to give Lazarus a lead—across that gulf, the first one, I mean,
not the second!”
Like the glance which preceded it, this was a saying that even Alan
could not misunderstand. He sat himself on the log beside her, while
she, still looking down, watched him out of the corners of her eyes. He
went red, he went white, his heart beat very violently. Then he
stretched out his big brown hand and took her small white one, and as
this familiarity produced no remonstrance, let it fall, and passing his
arm about her, drew her to him and embraced her, not once, but often,
with such vigour that a squirrel which had been watching these
proceedings from a neighbouring tree, bolted round it scandalized and
was seen no more.
“I love you, I love you,” he said huskily.
“So I gather,” she answered in a feeble voice.
“Do you care for me?” he asked.
“It would seem that I must, Alan, otherwise I should scarcely—oh!
you foolish Alan,” and heedless of her Sunday hat, which never recovered
from this encounter, but was kept as a holy relic, she let her head fall
upon his shoulder and began to cry again, this time for very happiness.
He kissed her tears away; then, as he could think of nothing else to
say, asked her if she would marry him.
“It is the general sequel to this kind of thing, I believe,” she
answered; “or at any rate it ought to be. But if you want a direct
answer—yes, I will, if my uncle will let me, which he won’t, as you
have quarrelled with him, or at any rate two years hence, when I am
five-and-twenty and my own mistress; that is if we have anything to
marry on, for one must eat. At present our worldly possessions seem to
consist chiefly of a large store of mutual affection, a good stock of
clothes and one Yellow God, which after what happened last night, I do
not think you will get another chance of turning into cash.”
“I must make money somehow,” he said.
“Yes, Alan, but I am afraid it is not easy to do—honestly. Nobody
wants people without capital whose only stock in trade is a brief but
distinguished military career, and a large experience of African fever.”
Alan groaned at this veracious but discouraging remark, and she went on
quickly:
“I mean to spend another guinea upon my friend the lawyer at Kingswell.
Perhaps he can raise the wind, by a post-obit, or something,” she added
vaguely, “I mean a post-uncle-obit.”
“If he does, Barbara, I can’t live on your money alone, it
isn’t right.”
“Oh! don’t you trouble about that, Alan. If once I can get hold of
those dim thousands you will soon be able to make more, for unto him
that hath shall be given. But at present they are very dim, and for all
I know may be represented by stock in deceased companies. In short, the
financial position is extraordinarily depressed, as they say in the
Market Intelligence in _The Times_. But that’s no reason why we should
be depressed also.”
“No, Barbara, for at any rate we have got each other.”
“Yes,” she answered, springing up, “we have got each other,
dear, until Death do us part, and somehow I don’t think he’ll do
that yet awhile; it comes into my heart that he won’t do that, Alan,
that you and I are going to live out our days. So what does the rest
matter? In two years I shall be a free woman. In fact, if the worst
comes to the worst, I’ll defy them all,” and she set her little mouth
like a rock, “and marry you straight away, as being over age, I can do,
even if it costs me every halfpenny that I’ve got.”
“No, no,” he said, “it would be wrong, wrong to yourself and
wrong to your descendants.”
“Very well, Alan, then, we will wait, or perhaps luck will come our
way—why shouldn’t it? At any rate for my part I never felt so happy
in my life; for, dear Alan, we have found what we were born to find,
found it once and for always, and the rest is mere etceteras. What
would be the use of all the gold of the Asiki people that Jeekie was
talking about last night, to either of us, if we had not each other? We
can get on without the wealth, but we couldn’t get on apart, or at
least I couldn’t and I don’t mind saying so.”
“No, my darling, no,” he answered, turning white at the very
thought, “we couldn’t get on apart—now. In fact I don’t
know how I have done it so long already, except that I was always hoping
that a time would come when we shouldn’t be apart. That is why I went
into that infernal business, to make enough money to be able to ask you
to marry me. And now I have gone out of the business and asked you just
when I shouldn’t.”
“Yes, so you see you might as well have done it a year or two ago when
perhaps things would have been simpler. Well, it is a fine example of
the vanity of human plans, and, Alan, we must be going home to lunch.
If we don’t, Sir Robert will be organizing a search party to look for
us; in fact, I shouldn’t wonder if he is doing that already, in the
wrong direction.”
The mention of Sir Robert Aylward’s name fell on them both like a blast
of cold wind in summer, and for a while they walked in silence.
“You are afraid of that man, Barbara,” said Alan presently,
guessing her thoughts.
“A little,” she answered, “so far as I can be afraid of
anything any more. And you?”
“A little also. I think that he will give us trouble. He can be very
malevolent and resourceful.”
“Resourceful, Alan; well, so can I. I’ll back my wits against his
any day. He shan’t separate us by anything short of murder, which he
won’t go in for. Men like that don’t like to break the law; they
have too much to lose. But no doubt he will make things uncomfortable
for you, if he can, for several reasons.”
Again they walked on lost in reflections, when Barbara suddenly saw her
lover’s face brighten.
“What is it, Alan?” she asked.
“Something that is rare enough with me, Barbara—an idea. You
remember speaking about that Asiki gold just now. Well, why shouldn’t I
go and get it?”
She stared at him.
“It sounds a little speculative,” she said; “something like
one of my uncle’s companies.”
“Not half so speculative as you think. I have no doubt it is there and
Jeekie knows the way. Also I seem to remember that there is a map and an
account of the whole thing in Uncle Austin’s diaries, though to tell you
the truth the old fellow wrote such a fearful hand, that I have never
taken the trouble to read it. You see,” he went on with enthusiasm, “it
is the kind of business that I can do. I am thoroughly salted to fever,
I know the West Coast, where I spent three years on that Boundary
Commission, I have studied the natives and can talk several of their
dialects. Of course there would be a risk, but there are risks in
everything, and like you I am not afraid about that, for I believe that
we have got our lives before us.”
“Read up those diaries, Alan, and we will talk the thing over again.
I’ll pump Jeekie, who will tell me anything by coaxing, and try to get
at the truth. Meanwhile what are you going to do about my uncle?”
“Speak to him, of course, and have the row over.”
“Yes,” she answered, “that is the best and the most honest.
Of course he can turn you out, but he can’t prevent my seeing you. If he
does, go home to Yarleys and I’ll come over and call. Here we are, let
us go in by the back door,” and she pointed to her crushed hat, and
laughed.
CHAPTER V.
BARBARA MAKES A SPEECH.
While Alan and Barbara, on the most momentous occasion of their lives,
were seated upon the fallen oak in the woods that thrilled with the
breath of spring, another interview was taking place in Mr.
Champers-Haswell’s private suite at The Court, the decorations of
which, as he was wont to inform his visitors, had cost nearly £2000.
Sir Robert, whose taste at any rate was good, thought them so appalling
that while waiting for his host and partner, whom he had come to see,
he took a seat in the bow window of the sitting-room and studied the
view that nobody had been able to spoil. Presently Mr. Haswell emerged
from his bedroom, wrapped in a dressing gown and looking very pale and
shaky.
“Delighted to see you all right again,” said Sir Robert as he
wheeled up a chair into which Mr. Haswell sank.
“I am not all right, Aylward,” he answered; “I am not all
right at all. Never had such an upset in my life; thought I was going to
die when that accursed savage told his beastly tale. Aylward, you are a
man of the world, tell me, what is the meaning of the thing? You
remember what we thought we saw in the office, and then—that story.”
“I don’t know,” he answered; “frankly I don’t
know. I am a man who has never believed in anything I cannot see and
test, one who utterly lacks faith. In my leisure I have examined into
the various religious systems and found them to be rubbish. I am
convinced that we are but highly-developed mammals born by chance, and
when our day is done, departing into the black nothingness out of which
we came. Everything else, that is, what is called the higher and
spiritual part, I attribute to the superstitions incident to the terror
of the hideous position in which we find ourselves, that of gods of a
sort hemmed in by a few years of fearful and tormented life. But you
know the old arguments, so why should I enter on them? And now I am
confronted with an experience which I cannot explain. I certainly
thought that in the office on Friday evening I saw that gold mask to
which I had taken so strange a fancy that I offered to give Vernon
£17,000 for it because I thought that it brought us luck, swim across
the floor of our room and look first into your face and then into mine.
Well, the next night that negro tells his story. What am I to make of
it?”
“Can’t tell you,” answered Mr. Champers-Haswell with a groan.
“All I know is that it nearly made a corpse of me. I am not like you,
Aylward, I was brought up as an Evangelical, and although I haven’t
given much thought to these matters of late years—well, we don’t shake
them off in a hurry. I daresay there is something somewhere, and when
the black man was speaking, that something seemed uncommonly near. It
got up and gripped me by the throat, shaking the mortal breath out of
me, and upon my word, Aylward, I have been wishing all the morning that
I had led a different kind of life, as my old parents and my brother
John, Barbara’s father, who was a very religious kind of man, did
before me.”
“It is rather late to think of all that now, Haswell,” said Sir
Robert, shrugging his shoulders. “One takes one’s line and
there’s an end. Personally I believe that we are overstrained with the
fearful and anxious work of this flotation, and have been the victims of
an hallucination and a coincidence. Although I confess that I came to
look upon the thing as a kind of mascot, I put no trust in any fetish.
How can a bit of gold move, and how can it know the future? Well, I
have written to them to clear it out of the office to-morrow, so it
won’t trouble us any more. And now I have come to speak to you on
another matter.”
“Not business,” said Mr. Haswell with a sigh. “We have that
all the week and there will be enough of it on Monday.”
“No,” he answered, “something more important. About your
niece Barbara.”
Mr. Haswell glanced at him with those little eyes of his which were so
sharp that they seemed to bore like gimlets.
“Barbara?” he said. “What of Barbara?”
“Can’t you guess, Haswell? You are pretty good at it, generally.
Well, it is no use beating about the bush; I want to marry her.”
At this sudden announcement his partner became exceedingly interested.
Leaning back in the chair he stared at the decorated ceiling, and
uttered his favourite wind-in-the-wires whistle.
“Indeed,” he said. “I never knew that matrimony was in your
line, Aylward, any more than it has been in mine, especially as you are
always preaching against it. Well, has the young lady given her
consent?”
“No, I have not spoken to her. I meant to do so this morning, but she
has slipped off somewhere, with Vernon, I suppose.”
Mr. Haswell whistled again, but on a new note.
“Pray do stop that noise,” said Sir Robert; “it gets upon my
nerves, which are shaky this morning. Listen: It is a curious thing, one
less to be understood even than the coincidence of the Yellow God, but
at my present age of forty-four, for the first time in my life I have
committed the folly of what is called falling in love. It is not the
case of a successful, middle-aged man wishing to _ranger_ himself and
settle down with a desirable _partie_, but of sheer, stark infatuation.
I adore Barbara; the worse she treats me the more I adore her. I had
rather that the Sahara flotation should fail than that she should
refuse me. I would rather lose three-quarters of my fortune than lose
her. Do you understand?”
His partner looked at him, pursed up his lips to whistle, then
remembered and shook his head instead.
“No,” he answered. “Barbara is a nice girl, but I should not
have imagined her capable of inspiring such sentiments in a man almost
old enough to be her father. I think that you are the victim of a kind
of mania, which I have heard of but never experienced. Venus—or is it
Cupid?—has netted you, my dear Aylward.”
“Oh! pray leave gods and goddesses out of it, we have had enough of them
already,” he answered, exasperated. “That is my case at any rate,
and what I want to know now is if I have your support in my suit.
Remember, I have something to offer, Haswell, for instance, a large
fortune of which I will settle half—it is a good thing to do in our
business,—and a baronetcy that will be a peerage before long.”
“A peerage! Have you squared that?”
“I think so. There will be a General Election within the next three
months, and on such occasions a couple of hundred thousand in cool cash
come in useful to a Party that is short of ready money. I think I may
say that it is settled. She will be the Lady Aylward, or any other name
she may fancy, and one of the richest women in England. Now have I your
support?”
“Yes, my dear friend, why not, though Barbara does not want money, for
she has plenty of her own, in first-class securities that I could never
persuade her to vary, for she is shrewd in that way and steadily refuses
to sign anything. Also she will probably be my heiress—and, Aylward,”
here a sickly look of alarm spread itself over his face, “I don’t
know how long I have to live. That infernal doctor examined my heart
this morning and told me that it was weak. Weak was his word, but from
the tone in which he said it, I believe that he meant more. Aylward, I
gather that I may die any day.”
“Nonsense, Haswell, so may we all,” he replied, with an affectation
of cheerfulness which failed to carry conviction.
Presently Mr. Haswell, who had hidden his face in his hand, looked up
with a sigh and said:
“Oh! yes, of course you have my support, for after all she is my only
relation and I should be glad to see her safely married. Also, as it
happens, she can’t marry anyone without my consent, at any rate until
she is five-and-twenty, for if she does, under her father’s will all
her property goes away, most of it to charities, except a beggarly £200
a year. You see my brother John had a great horror of imprudent
marriages and a still greater belief in me, which as it chances, is a
good thing for you.”
“Had he?” said Sir Robert. “And pray why is it a good thing
for me?”
“Because, my dear Aylward, unless my observation is at fault, there is
another Richard in the field, our late partner, Vernon, of whom, by the
way, Barbara is extremely fond, though it may only be in a friendly
fashion. At any rate she pays more attention to his wishes and opinions
than to mine and yours put together.”
At the mention of Alan’s name Aylward started violently.
“I feared it,” he said, “and he is more than ten years my
junior and a soldier, not a man of business. Also there is no use
disguising the truth, although I am a baronet and shall be a peer and
he is nothing but a beggarly country gentleman with a D.S.O. tacked on
to his name, he belongs to a different class to us, as she does too on
her mother’s side. Well, I can smash him up, for you remember I took
over that mortgage on Yarleys, and I’ll do it if necessary. Practically
our friend has not a shilling that he can call his own. Therefore,
Haswell, unless you play me false, which I don’t think you will, for I
can be a nasty enemy,” he added with a threat in his voice, “Alan
Vernon hasn’t much chance in that direction.”
“I don’t know, Aylward, I don’t know,” replied Haswell,
shaking his white head. “Barbara is a strong-willed woman and she might
choose to take the man and let the money go, and then—who can stop her?
Also I don’t like your idea of smashing Vernon. It isn’t right, and
it may come back on our own heads, especially yours. I am sorry that he
has left us, as you were on Friday night, for somehow he was a good,
honest stick to lean on, and we want such a stick. But I am tired now,
I really can’t talk any more. The doctor warned me against excitement.
Get the girl’s consent, Aylward, and we’ll see. Ah! here comes my soup.
Good-bye for the present.”
When Sir Robert came down to luncheon he found Barbara looking
particularly radiant and charming, already presiding at that meal and
conversing in her best French to the foreign gentlemen, who were paying
her compliments.
“Forgive me for being late,” he said; “first of all I have
been talking to your uncle, and afterwards skimming through the articles
in yesterday’s papers on our little venture which comes out to-morrow.
A cheerful occupation on the whole, for with one or two exceptions they
are all favourable.”
“Mon Dieu,” said the French gentlemen on the right, “seeing
what they did cost, that is not strange. Your English papers they are so
expensive; in Paris we have done it for half the money.”
Barbara and some of the guests laughed outright, finding this frankness
charming.
“But where have you been, Miss Champers? I thought that we were going to
have a round of golf together. The caddies were there, I was there, the
greens had been specially rolled this morning, but there was no You.”
“No,” she answered, “because Major Vernon and I walked to
church and heard a very good sermon upon the observance of the Sabbath.”
“You are severe,” he said. “Do you think it wrong for men who
work hard all the week to play a harmless game on Sunday?”
“Not at all, Sir Robert.” Then she looked at him and, coming to a
sudden decision, added, “If you like I will play you nine holes this
afternoon and give you a stroke a hole, or would you prefer a foursome?”
“No, let us fight alone and let the best player win.”
“Very well, Sir Robert; but you mustn’t forget that I am
handicapped.”
“Don’t look angry,” she whispered to Alan as they strolled
out into the garden after lunch, “I must clear things up and know what
we have to face. I’ll be back by tea-time, and we will have it out with
my uncle.”
The nine holes had been played, and by a single stroke Barbara had won
the match, which pleased her very much, for she had done her best, and
with such heavy odds in his favour Sir Robert, who had also done his
best, was no mean opponent, even for a player of her skill. Indeed the
fight had been quite earnest, for each party knew that it was but a
prelude to another and more serious fight, and looked upon the result
as in some sense an omen.
“I am conquered,” he said in a voice in which vexation struggled
with a laugh, “and by a woman over whom I had an advantage. It is
humiliating, for I confess I do not like being beaten.”
“Don’t you think that women generally win if they mean to?”
asked Barbara. “I believe that when they fail, which is often enough, it
is because they don’t care, or can’t make up their minds. A woman
in earnest is a dangerous antagonist.”
“Yes,” he answered, “or the best of allies.” Then he
gave the clubs and half-a-crown to the caddies, and when they were out
of hearing, added, “Miss Champers, I have been wondering for some time
whether it is possible that you would become such an ally to me.”
“I know nothing of business, Sir Robert; my tastes do not lie that
way.”
“You know well that I was not speaking of business, Miss Champers. I was
speaking of another kind of partnership, that which Nature has ordained
between men and women—marriage. Will you accept me as a husband?”
She opened her lips to speak, but he lifted his hand and went on.
“Listen before you give that ready answer which it is so hard to
recall, or smooth away. I know all my disadvantages, my years, which to
you may seem many; my modest origin; my trade, which, not altogether
without reason, you despise and dislike. Well, the first two cannot be
changed except for the worse; the second can be, and already is, buried
beneath the gold and ermine of wealth and titles. What does it matter
if I am the son of a City clerk who never earned more than £2 a week
and was born in a tenement at Battersea, when I am one of the rich men
of this rich land and shall die a peer in a palace, leaving millions
and honours to my children? As for the third, my occupation, I am
prepared to give it up. It has served my turn, and after next week I
shall have earned the amount that years ago I determined to earn.
Thenceforth, set above the accidents of fortune, I propose to devote
myself to higher aims, those of legitimate ambition. So far as my time
would allow I have already taken some share in politics as a worker; I
intend to continue in them as a ruler which I still have the health and
ability to do. I mean to be one of the first men in this Empire, to
ride to power over the heads of all the nonentities whose only claim
upon the confidence of their countrymen is that they were born in a
certain class, with money in their pockets and without the need to spend
the best of their manhood in work. With you at my side I can do all
these things and more, and such is the future that I have to offer
you.”
Again she would have broken in upon his speech and again he stopped her,
reading the unspoken answer on her lips.
“Listen: I have not told you all. Perhaps I have put first what should
have come last. I have not told you that I love you earnestly and
sincerely, with the settled, unalterable love that sometimes comes to
men in middle-age who have never turned their thought that way before.
I will not attempt the rhapsodies of passion which at my time of life
might sound foolish or out of place; yet it is true that I am filled
with this passion which has descended on me and taken possession of me.
I who often have laughed at such things in other men, adore you. You
are a joy to my eyes. If you are not in the room, for me it is empty. I
admire the uprightness of your character, and even your prejudices, and
to your standard I desire to approximate my own. I think that no man can
ever love you quite so well as I do, Barbara Champers. Now speak. I am
ready to meet the best or the worst.”
After her fashion Barbara looked him straight in the face with her
steady eyes, and answered gently enough, for the man’s method of
presenting his case, elaborate and prepared though it evidently was,
had touched her.
“I fear it is the worst, Sir Robert. There are hundreds of women
superior to myself in every way who would be glad to give you the help
and companionship you ask, with their hearts thrown in. Choose one of
them, for I cannot do so.”
He heard and for the first time his face broke, as it were. All this
while it had remained masklike and immovable, even when he spoke of his
love, but now it broke as ice breaks at the pressure of a sudden flood
beneath, and she saw the depths and eddies of his nature and understood
their strength. Not that he revealed them in speech, angry or pleading,
for that remained calm and measured enough. She did not hear, she saw,
and even then it was marvellous to her that a mere change in a man’s
expression could explain so much.
“Those are very cruel words,” he said. “Are they
unalterable?”
“Quite. I do not play in such matters, it would be wicked.”
“May I ask you one question, for if the answer is in the negative, I
shall still continue to hope? Do you care for any other man?”
Again she looked at him with her fearless eyes and answered:
“Yes, I am engaged to another man.”
“To Alan Vernon?”
She nodded.
“When did that happen? Some years ago?”
“No, this morning.”
“Great Heavens!” he muttered in a hoarse voice turning his head
away, “this morning. Then last night it might not have been too late,
and last night I should have spoken to you, I had arranged it all. Yes,
if it had not been for the story of that accursed fetish and your
uncle’s illness, I should have spoken to you, and perhaps succeeded.”
“I think not,” she said.
He turned upon her and notwithstanding the tears in his eyes they burned
like fire.
“You think—you think,” he gasped, “but I know. Of
course after this morning it was impossible. But, Barbara, I say that I
will win you yet. I have never failed in any object that I set before
myself, and do not suppose that I shall fail in this. Although in a way
I liked and respected him, I have always felt that Vernon was my enemy,
one destined to bring grief and loss upon me, even if he did not intend
to do so. Now I understand why, and he shall learn that I am stronger
than he. God help him! I say.”
“I think He will,” Barbara answered, calmly. “You are
speaking wildly, and I understand the reason and hope that you will
forget your words, but whether you forget or remember, do not suppose
that you frighten me. You men who have made money,” she went on with
swelling indignation, “who have made money somehow, and have bought
honours with the moneys somehow, think yourselves great, and in your
little day, your little, little day that will end with three lines in
small type in _The Times_, you are great in this vulgar land. You can
buy what you want and people creep round you and ask you for doles and
favours, and railway porters call you ‘my Lord’ at every other step.
But you forget your limitations in this world, and that which lies
above you. You say you will do this and that. You should study a book
which few of you ever read, where it tells you that you do not know
what you will be on the morrow; that your life is even as a vapour
appearing for a little time and then vanishing away. You think that you
can crush the man to whom I have given my heart because he is honest
and you are dishonest, because you are rich and he is poor, and because
he chances to have succeeded where you have not. Well, for myself and
for him I defy you. Do your worst and fail, and when you have failed,
in the hour of your extremity remember my words to-day. If I have given
you pain by refusing you it is not my fault and I am sorry, but when
you threaten the man who has honoured me with his love and whom I
honour above every creature upon the earth, then I threaten back, and
may the Power that made us all judge between you and me, as judge it
will,” and bursting into tears she turned and left him.
Sir Robert watched her go.
“What a woman!” he said meditatively, “what a woman—to
have lost. Well she has set the stakes and we will play out the game.
The cards all seem to be in my hands, but it would not in the least
surprise me if she won the rubber, for the element that I call Chance
and she would call something else, may come in. Still, I never refused
a challenge yet and we will play the game out without pity to the
loser.”
That night the first trick was played. When he got back to The Court Sir
Robert ordered his motorcar and departed on urgent business, either to
his own place, Old Hall, or to London, saying only that he had been
summoned away by telegram. As the 70-horse-power Mercedes glided out of
the gates a pencilled note was put into Mr. Haswell’s hand.
It ran: “I have tried and failed—for the present. By ill-luck A.V.
had been before me, only this morning. If I had not missed my chance
last night owing to your illness, it would have been different. I do
not, however, in the least abandon my plan, in which of course I rely
on and expect your support. Keep V. in the office or let him go as you
like. Perhaps it would be better if you could prevail upon him to stop
there until after the flotation. But whatever you say at the moment, I
trust to you to absolutely veto any engagement between him and your
niece, and to that end to use all your powers and authority as her
guardian. Burn this note.
CHAPTER VI.
MR. HASWELL LOSES HIS TEMPER.
Alan and Barbara sat in Mr. Champers-Haswell’s private sitting-room with
the awful decorations, and before them by the fire Mr. Champers-Haswell
reclined upon his couch. Alan in a few, brief, soldier-like words had
just informed him of his engagement to Barbara. During the recital of
this interesting fact Barbara said nothing, but Mr. Haswell had
whistled several times. Now at length he spoke, in that tone of forced
geniality which he generally adopted towards his cousin.
“You are asking for the hand of a considerable heiress, Alan my
boy,” he said, “but you have neglected to inform me of your own
position.”
“Where is the use of telling you what you know already, Mr. Haswell? I
have left the firm, therefore I have practically nothing.”
“You have practically nothing, and yet——Well, in my young
days men were more delicate, they did not like being called
fortune-hunters, but of course times have changed.”
Alan bit his lip and Barbara sat up quite straight in her chair,
observing which indications, Mr. Haswell went on hurriedly:
“Now if you had stopped in the firm and earned the very handsome
competence in a small way which would have become due to you this week,
instead of throwing us over at the last moment for some quixotic
reasons of your own, it might have been a different matter. I do not
say it would have been, I say it might have been, and you may remember
a proverb about winks and nods and blind horses. So I ask you whether
you are inclined to withdraw that resignation of yours and bring up
this question again let us say, next Sunday?”
Alan thought a while before he answered. As he understood Mr. Haswell
practically was promising to assent to the engagement upon these terms.
The temptation was enormously great, the fiercest that he had ever been
called upon to face. He looked at Barbara. She had closed her eyes and
made absolutely no sign. For some reason of her own she had elected
that he should determine this vital point without the slightest
assistance from her. And it must be determined at once; procrastination
was impossible. For a moment he hesitated. On the one side was Barbara,
on the other his conscience. After long doubts he had come to a certain
conclusion which he quite understood to be inconvenient to his
partners. Should he throw it over now? Should he even try to make a sure
and certain bargain as the price of his surrender? Probably he would
not suffer if he did. The flotation was underwritten and bound to go
through; the scandal would come afterwards, months or years hence, long
before which he might get out, as most of the others meant to do. No,
he could not. His conscience was too much for him.
“I do not see any use in reconsidering that question, Mr. Haswell,”
he said quietly; “we settled it on Friday night.”
Barbara reopened her brown eyes and stared amiably at the painted
ceiling, and Mr. Haswell whistled.
“Then I am afraid,” he said, “that I do not see any use in
discussing your kind proposal for my niece’s hand. Listen—I will be
quite open with you. I have other views for Barbara, and as it happens I
have the power to enforce them, or at any rate to prevent their
frustration by you. If Barbara marries against my will before she is
five-and-twenty, that is within the next two years, her entire fortune,
with the exception of a pittance, goes elsewhere. This I am sure is a
fact that will influence you, who have nothing and even if it did not,
I presume that you are scarcely so selfish as to wish to beggar her.”
“No,” answered Alan, “you need not fear that, for it would be
wrong. I understand that you absolutely refuse to sanction my suit on
the ground of my poverty, which under the circumstances is perhaps not
wonderful. Well, the only thing to do is to wait for two years, a long
time, but not endless, and meanwhile I can try to better my position.”
“Do what you will, Alan,” said Mr. Haswell harshly, for now all his
_faux bonhomme_ manner had gone, leaving him revealed in his true
character of an unscrupulous tradesman with dark ends of his own to
serve. “Do what you will, but understand that I forbid all
communication between you and my niece, and that the sooner you cease
to trespass upon a hospitality which you have abused, the better I
shall be pleased.”
“I will go at once,” said Alan, rising, “before my temper
gets the better of me and I tell you some truths that I might regret,
for after all you are Barbara’s uncle. But on your part I ask you to
understand that I refuse to cut off from my cousin, who is of full age
and has promised to be my wife,” and he turned to go.
“Stop a minute, Alan,” said Barbara, who all this while had sat
silent. “I have something to say which I wish you to hear. You told us
just now, uncle, that you have other views for me, by which you meant
that you wish me to marry Sir Robert Aylward, whom, as you are probably
aware, I refused definitely this afternoon. Now I wish to make it clear
at once that no earthly power will induce me to take as a husband a man
whom I dislike, and whose wealth, of which you think so much, has in my
opinion been dishonestly acquired.”
“What are you saying?” broke in her uncle furiously. “He has
been my partner for years, you are reflecting upon me.”
“I am sorry, uncle, but I withdraw nothing. Even if Alan here were dead,
I would not marry that man, and perhaps you will make him understand
this,” she added with emphasis. “Indeed I had sooner die myself.
You told us also that if I marry against your will, you can take away
all the property that my father left to me. Uncle, I shall not give you
that satisfaction. I shall wait until I am twenty-five and do what I
please with myself and my fortune. Lastly, you said that you forbade us
to see each other or to correspond. I answer that I shall both write to
and see Alan as often as I like. If you attempt to prevent me from
doing so, I shall go to the Court of Chancery, lay all the facts before
it, as I have been advised that I can do—not by Alan—please remember,
_all_ the facts, and ask for its protection and for a separate
maintenance out of my estate until I am twenty-five. I am sure that the
Court would grant me this and would declare that considering his
distinguished family and record Alan is a perfectly proper person to be
my affianced husband. I think that is all I have to say.”
“All you have to say!” gasped Mr. Haswell, “all you have to
say, you impertinent and ungrateful minx!” Then he fell into a furious
fit of rage and in language that need not be repeated, poured a stream
of threats and abuse upon Alan and herself. Barbara waited until he
ceased from exhaustion.
“Uncle,” she said, “you should remember that your heart is
weak and you must not overexcite yourself, also when you are calmer,
that if you speak to me like that again, I shall go to the Court at
once, for I will not be sworn at by you or by any other man. I
apologize to you, Alan; I am afraid I have brought you into strange
company. Come, my dear, we will go and order your dogcart,” and putting
her arm affectionately through his, she went with him from the room.
“I wonder who put her up to all this?” gasped Haswell, as the door
closed behind them. “Some infernal lawyer, I’ll be bound. Well, she
has got the whip hand of me, and I can’t face an investigation in
Chancery, especially as the only thing against Vernon is that the value
of his land has fallen. But I swear that she shall never marry him
while I live,” he ended in a kind of shout and the domed and painted
ceiling echoed back his words—“_while I live_” after which the
room was silent, save for the heavy thumping of his heart.
When Alan reached home that night after his ten-mile drive he sent
Jeekie to tell the housekeeper to find him some food. In his mysterious
African fashion the negro had already collected much intelligence as to
the events of the day, mostly in the servants’ hall, and more
particularly from the two golf-caddies, sons of one of the gardeners,
who it seemed instead of retiring with the clubs, had taken shelter in
some tall whins and thence followed the interview between Barbara and
Sir Robert with the intensest interest. Reflecting that this was not
the time to satisfy his burning curiosity, Jeekie went and in due
course returned with some cold mutton and a bottle of claret. Then came
his chance, for Alan could scarcely touch the mutton and demanded toast
and butter.
“Very inferior chop”—that was his West African word for
food—“for a gentleman, Major,” he said, shaking his white
head sympathetically and pointing to the mutton,—“specially when he
has unexpectedly departed from magnificent eating of The Court. Why did
you not wait till after dinner, Major, before retiring?”
Alan laughed at the man’s inflated English, and answered in a more
nervous and colloquial style:
“Because I was kicked out, Jeekie.”
“Ah! I gathered that kicking was in the wind, Major. Sir Robert Aylward,
Bart., he also was kicked out, but by smaller toe.”
Again Alan laughed and, as it was a relief to talk even to Jeekie, asked
him:
“How do you know that?”
“I gathered it out of atmosphere, Major; from Sir Robert’s
gentleman, from two youths who watch Sir Robert and Miss Barbara talking
upon golf green No. 9, from the machine driver of Sir Robert whose eyes
he damn in public, and last but not least from his own noble
countenance.”
“I see that you are observant, Jeekie.”
“Observation, Major, it is art of life. I see Miss Barbara’s eyes
red like morning sky and I deduct. I see you shot out and gloomy like
evening cloud, and I deduct. I listen at door of Mr. Haswell’s room, I
hear him curse and swear like holy saint in Book, and you and Miss
Barbara answer him not like saint, though what you speak I cannot hear,
and I deduct. Jeekie deduct this—that you make love to Miss Barbara in
proper gentlemanlike, ’nogamous, Christian fashion such as your late
Reverend Uncle approve, and Miss Barbara, she make love to you with ten
per cent. compound interest, but old gent with whistle, he _not_
approve; he say, ‘Where corresponding cash!’ He say ‘Noble Sir Robert
have much cash and interested in identical business. I prefer Sir
Robert. Get out, you Cashless.’ Often I see this same thing when boy in
West Africa, very common wherever sun shine. I note all these matters
and I deduct—that Jeekie’s way and Jeekie seldom wrong.”
Alan laughed for the third time, until the tears ran down his face
indeed.
“Jeekie,” he said, “you are a great
rascal——”
“Yes, yes,” interrupted Jeekie, “great rascal. Best thing to
be in this world, Major. Honourable Sir Robert, Bart., M.P., and Mr.
Champers-Haswell, D.L., J.P., they find that out long ago and sit on top
of tree of opulent renown. Jeekie great rascal and therefore have
Savings Bank account—go on, Major.”
“Well, Jeekie, because if you are a rascal you are kind-hearted and
because I believe that you care for me——”
“Oh! Major,” broke in Jeekie again, “that most
’utterably true. Honour bright I love you, Major, better than anyone on
earth, except my late old woman, now happily dead, gone and forgotten in
best oak coffin, £4 10 without fittings but polished, and perhaps your
holy uncle, Reverend Mr. Austin, also coffined and departed, who saved
me from early extinction in a dark place. Major, I no like graves, I
see too much of them, and can’t tell what lie on other side. Though
everyone say they know, Jeekie not quite sure. May be all light and
crowns of glory, may be damp black hole and no way out. But this at
least true, that I love you better, yes, better than Miss Barbara, for
love of woman very poor, uncertain thing, quick come, quick go. Jeekie
find that out—often. Yes, if need be, though death most nasty, if need
be I say I die for you, which great unpleasant sacrifice,” and Jeekie
in the genuine enthusiasm of his warm heart, throwing himself upon his
knees after the African fashion, seized his master’s hand and kissed
it.
“Thanks, Jeekie,” said Alan, “very kind of you, I am sure.
But we haven’t come to that yet, though no one knows what may happen
later on. Now sit upon that chair and take a little whisky—not too
much—for I am going to ask your advice.”
“Major,” said Jeekie, “I obey,” and seizing the whisky
bottle in a casual manner, he poured out half a tumbler full, for Jeekie
was fond of whisky. Indeed before now this taste had brought him into
conflict with the local magistrates.
“Put back three parts of that,” said Alan, and Jeekie did so.
“Now,” he went on, “listen: this is the case, Miss Barbara
and I are——” and he hesitated.
“Oh! I know; like me and Mrs. Jeekie once,” said Jeekie, gulping
down some of the neat whisky. “Go on, Major.”
“And Sir Robert Aylward is——”
“Same thing, Major. Continue.”
“And Mr. Haswell has——”
“Those facts all ascertained, Major,” said Jeekie, contemplating
his glass with a mournful eye. “Now come to the point, Major.”
“Well, the point is, Jeekie, that I am what you called just now
cashless, and therefore——”
“Therefore,” interrupted Jeekie again, “stick fast in
honourable intention towards Miss Barbara owing to obstinate opposition
of Mr. Haswell, legal uncle with control of property fomented by noble
Sir Robert who desire same girl.”
“Quite right, Jeekie, but if you would talk a little less and let me
talk a little more, we might get on better.”
“I henceforth silent, Major,” and lifting his empty tumbler Jeekie
looked through it as if it were a telescope, a hint that Alan ignored.
“Jeekie, you infernal old fool, I want money.”
“Yes, Major, I understand, Major. Forgive me for breaking conspiracy of
silence, but if £500 in Savings Bank any use, very much at your service,
Major; also £20 more extracted last night from terror of wealthy Jew
who fear fetish.”
“Jeekie, you old donkey, I don’t want your £500; I want a great
deal more, £50,000 or £500,000. Tell me how to get it.”
“City best place, Major. But you chuck City, too much honest man, great
mistake to be honest in this terrestrial sphere. Often notice that in
West Africa.”
“Perhaps, Jeekie, but I have done with the City. As you would say, for
me it is ‘wipe out, finish.’”
“Yes, Major, too much pickpocket, too much dirt. Bottom always drop out
of bucket shop at last. I understand, end in police court and severe
magistrate, or perhaps even ‘Gentlemen of Jury’; etcetera.”
“Well, Jeekie, then what remains? Now last night when you told us that
amazing yarn of yours, you said something about a mountain full of gold,
and houses full of gold, among your people. Jeekie, do you
think——” and he paused, looking at him.
Jeekie rolled his black eyes round the room and in a fit of
absentmindedness helped himself to some more whisky.
“Do I think, Major, that this useless lucre could be converted into coin
of gracious King Edward? Not at all, Major, by no one, Major, by no one
whatsoever, except possibly by Major Alan Vernon, D.S.O., and by one,
Jeekie, Christian surname Smith.”
“Proceed, Jeekie,” said Alan, removing the whisky bottle,
“proceed and explain.”
“Major, thus: The Asiki tribe care nothing about all that gold, it no
good to them. Dead people who live long, long ago, no one know when, dig
it up and store it there and make the great fetish which they call
Bonsa to keep away enemy who want to steal. Also old custom when any
one in country round find big nugget, or pretty stone, like ladies wear
on bosom, to bring it as offering to Bonsa, so that there now great
plenty of all this stuff. But no one use it for anything except to set
on walls of house of Asiki, or to make basin, stool, table and pot to
cook with. Once Arab come there and I see the priests give him weight
in gold for iron hoe, though afterwards they murder him, not for the
gold, but lest he go away and tell their secret.”
“One might trade with them then, Jeekie?”
He shook his white head doubtfully.
“Yes, perhaps, if you find anything they want buy and can carry it
Asiki-Land. But I think there only one thing they want, and you got
that, Major.”
“I, Jeekie! What have I got?”
The negro leant forward and tapped his master on the knee, saying in a
portentous whisper:
“You got Little Bonsa, which much more holy than anything, even than Big
Bonsa her husband, I mean greater, more powerful devil. That Little
Bonsa sit in front room Asika’s house, and when she want see things,
she put it in big basin of gold, but I no tell you what it float in.
Also once or twice every year they take out Little Bonsa; Asika wear it
on head as mask, and whoever they meet they kill as offering to Little
Bonsa, so that spirit come back to world to be priest of Bonsa. I tell
you, Major, that Yellow God see many thousand of people die.”
“Indeed,” said Alan. “A pleasing fetish truly. I should think
that the Asiki must be glad it is gone.”
“No, not glad, very sorry. No luck for them when Little Bonsa go away,
but plenty luck for those who got her. That why firm Aylward & Haswell
make so much money when you join them and bring her to office. She drop
green in eye of public so they no smell rat. That why you so lucky, not
die of blackwater fever when you should; get safe out of den of thieves
in City with good name; win love of sweet maiden, Miss Barbara. Little
Bonsa do all those things for you, and by and by do plenty more, as
Little Bonsa bring my old master, your holy uncle, safe out of that
country because all the Asiki run away when they see him wear her on
head, for they think she come sacrifice them after she eat up my life.”
“I don’t wonder that they ran,” said Alan, laughing, for the
vision of a missionary with Little Bonsa on his head caught his fancy.
“But come to the point, you old heathen. What do you mean that I should
do?”
“Jeekie not heathen now, Major, but plenty other things true in this
world, besides Christian religion. I no want you do anything, but I say
this—you go back to Asiki wearing Little Bonsa on head and dressed like
Reverend uncle whom you very like, for he just your age then thirty
years ago, and they give you all the gold you want, if you give them
back Little Bonsa whom they love and worship for ever and ever, for
Little Bonsa very, very old.”
Alan sat up in his chair and stared at Jeekie, while Jeekie nodded his
head at him.
“There is something in it,” he said slowly, speaking more to
himself than to the negro, “and perhaps that is why I would not sell the
fetish, for as you say, there are plenty of true things in the world
besides those which we believe. But, Jeekie, how should I find the
way?”
“No trouble, Major, Little Bonsa find way, want to get back home, very
hungry by now, much need sacrifice. Think it good thing kill pig to
Little Bonsa—or even lamb. She know you do your best, since human being
not to be come at in Christian land, and say ‘thank you for life of
pig.’”
“Stop that rubbish,” said Alan. “I want a guide; if I go,
will you come with me?”
At this suggestion the negro looked exceedingly uncomfortable.
“Not like to, not like to at all,” he said, rolling his eyes.
“Asiki-land very funny place for native-born. But,” he added sadly,
“if you go Jeekie must, for I servant of Little Bonsa and if I stay
behind, she angry and kill me because I not attend her where she walk.
But perhaps if I go and take her to Gold House again, she pleased and
let me off. Also I able help you there. Yes, if you and Little Bonsa
go, think I go too.”
After this announcement Jeekie rose and walked down the room, carrying
the cold mutton in his hand. Then he returned, replaced it on the table
and standing in front of Alan, said earnestly:
“Major, I tell you all truth, just this once. Jeekie believe he
_got_ go with you to Asiki-land. Jeekie have plenty bad dream lately,
Little Bonsa come in middle of the night and sit on his stomach and
scratch his face with her gold leg, and say, ‘Jeekie, Jeekie, you son
of Bonsa, you get up quick and take me back Bonsa Town, for I darned
tired of City fog and finished all I come here to do. Now I want jolly
good sacrifice and got plenty business attend to there at home, things
you not understand just yet. You take me back sharp, or I make you sit
up, Jeekie, my boy;’” and he paused.
“Indeed,” said Alan; “and did she tell you anything else in
her midnight visitations?”
“Yes, Major. She say, ‘You take that white master of yours along
also, for I want come back Asiki-land on his head, and someone wish see
him there, old pal what he forgot but what not forget him. You tell him
Little Bonsa got score she wants settle with that party and wish use
him to square account. You tell him too that she pay him well for trip;
he lose nothing if he play her game ’cause she got no score against
him. But if he not go, that another matter, then he look out, for
Little Bonsa very nasty customer if she riled, as his late partners
find out one day.’”
“Oh! shut up, Jeekie. What’s the use of wasting time telling me
your nightmares?”
“Very well, Major, just as you like, Major. But I got other reasons why
I willing go. Jeekie want see his ma.”
“Your ma? I never heard you had a ma. Besides she must be dead long
ago.”
“No, Major, ’cause she turn up in dream too, very much alive, swear
at me ’cause I bag her blanket. Also she tough old woman, take lot kill
her.”
“Perhaps you have a pa too,” suggested Alan.
“Think not, Major, my ma always say she forget him. What she mean, she
not like talk about him, he such a swell. Why Jeekie so strong, so
clever and with such beautiful face? No doubt because he is son of very
great man. All this true reason why he want to go with you, Major.
Still, p’raps poor old Jeekie make mistake, p’raps he dream ’cause he
eat too much supper, p’raps his ma dead, after all. If so, p’raps
better stay at home—not know.”
“No,” answered Alan, “not know. What between Little Bonsa and
one thing and another my head is swimming—like Little Bonsa in the
water.”
“Big Bonsa swim in water,” interrupted Jeekie. “Little Bonsa
swim in gold tub.”
“Well, Big Bonsa, or Little Bonsa, I don’t care which. I’m
going to bed and you had better clear away these things and do the same.
But, Jeekie, if you say a word of our talk to anyone, I shall be very
angry. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Major, I understand. I understand that if I tell secrets of Little
Bonsa to anyone except you with whom she live in strange land far away
from home, Little Bonsa come at me like one lion, and cut my throat. No
fear Jeekie split on Little Bonsa, oh! no fear at all,” and still
shaking his head solemnly, for the second time he seized the cold
mutton and vanished from the room.
“A farrago of superstitious nonsense,” thought Alan to himself when
he had gone. “But still there may be something to be made out of it.
Evidently there is lots of gold in this Asiki country, if only one can
persuade the people to deal.”
Then weary of Jeekie and his tribal gods, Alan lit his pipe and sat a
while thinking of Barbara and all the events of that tumultuous day.
Notwithstanding his rebuff at the hands of Mr. Haswell and the
difficulties and dangers which threatened, he felt even then that it
had been a happy and a fortunate day. For had he not discovered that
Barbara loved him with all her heart and soul as he loved Barbara? And
as this was so, he did not care a—Little Bonsa about anything else. The
future must look to itself, sufficient to the day was the abiding joy
thereof.
So he went to bed and for a while to sleep, but he did not sleep very
long, for presently he fell to dreaming, something about Big Bonsa and
Little Bonsa which sat, or rather floated on either side of his couch
and held an interminable conversation over him, while Jeekie and Sir
Robert Aylward, perched respectively at its head and its foot, like the
symbols of the good and evil genii on a Mohammedan tomb, acted as a
kind of insane chorus. He struck his repeater, it was only one o’clock,
so he tried to go to sleep again, but failed utterly. Never had he been
more painfully awake.
For an hour or more Alan persevered, then at last in despair he jumped
out of bed wondering what he could do to occupy his mind. Suddenly he
remembered the diary of his uncle, the Rev. Mr. Austin, which he had
inherited with the Yellow God and a few other possessions, but never
examined. They had been put away in a box in the library about fifteen
years before, just at the time he entered the army, and there doubtless
they remained. Well, as he could not sleep, why should he not examine
them now, and thus get through some of this weary night?
He lit a candle and went down to the library, an ancient and beautiful
apartment with black oak panelling between the bookcases, set there in
the time of Elizabeth. In this panelling there were cupboards, and in
one of the cupboards was the box he sought, made of teak wood. On its
lid was painted, “The Reverend Henry Austin. Passenger to Acra,”
showing that it had once been his uncle’s cabin box. The key hung from
the handle, and having lit more candles, Alan drew it out and unlocked
it, to be greeted by a smell of musty documents done up in great
bundles. One by one he placed them on the floor. It was a dreary
occupation alone there in that great, silent room at the dead of night,
one indeed with which he was soon satisfied, for somehow it reminded
him of rifling coffins in a vault. Before him so carefully put away lay
the records of a good if not a distinguished life, and until this moment
he had never found the energy even to look through them.
At length he came to the end of the bundles and saw that beneath lay a
number of manuscript books packed closely with their backs upwards,
marked—“Journal”—and with the year and sometimes the
place of the author’s residence. As he glanced at them in dismay, for
they were many, his eye caught the title of one inscribed—as were
several others—“West Africa,” and written in brackets
beneath—“This vol. contains all that is left of the notes of my
escape with Jeekie from the Asiki Devil-worshippers.”
Alan drew it out, and having refilled and closed the box, bore it off to
his room, where he proceeded to read it in bed. As a matter of fact he
found that there was not very much to read, for the reason that most of
the closely-written volume had been so damaged by water, that the
pencilled writing had run and become utterly illegible. The centre
pages, however, not having been soaked, could still be deciphered, at
any rate in part, also there was a large manuscript map, executed in
ink, apparently at a later date, on the back of which was written: “I
purpose, D.V., to re-write at some convenient time all the history of
my visit to the unknown Asiki people, as my original notes were
practically destroyed when the canoe overset in the rapids and most of
our few possessions were lost, except this book and the gold fetish mask
which is called Little Bonsa or Small Swimming Head. This I think I can
do with the aid of Jeekie from memory, but as the matter has only a
personal and no religious interest, seeing that I was not able even to
preach the Word among those benighted and bloodthirsty savages in whose
country, as I verily believe, the Devil has one of his principal
habitations, it must stand over till a convenient season, such as the
time of old age or sickness. H.A.”
“P.S. I ought to add with gratitude that even out of this hell fire I
was enabled to snatch one brand from the burning, namely, the negro
lad, Jeekie, to whose extraordinary resource and faithfulness I owe my
escape. After a long hesitation I have been able to baptize him,
although I fear that the taint of heathenism still clings to him. Thus
not six months ago I caught him sacrificing a white cock to the image,
Little Bonsa, in gratitude, as to my horror he explained, for my having
been appointed an Honorary Canon of the Cathedral. I have told him to
take that ugly mask which has been so often soaked in human blood, and
melt it down over the kitchen stove, after picking out the gems in the
eyes, that the proceeds may be given to the poor. _Note._ I had better
see to this myself, as where Little Bonsa is concerned, Jeekie is not
to be trusted. He says (with some excuse) that it has magic, and that
if he melts it down, he will melt down too, and so shall I. How dark
and ridiculous are the superstitions of the heathen! Perhaps, however,
instead of destroying the thing, which is certainly unique, I might sell
it to a museum, and thus spare the feelings of that weak vessel,
Jeekie, who otherwise would very likely take it into his head to waste
away and die, as these Africans do when their nerves are affected by
terror of their fetish.”
CHAPTER VII.
THE DIARY.
Reflecting that time evidently had made little change in Jeekie, Alan
studied this route map with care, and found that it started from Old
Calabar, in the Bight of Biafra, on the west coast of Africa, whence it
ran up to the Great Qua River, which it followed for a long way. Then
it struck across country marked “dense forest,” northwards, and came to
a river called Katsena, along the banks of which the route went
eastwards. Thence it turned northward again through swamps, and ended
in mountains called Shaku. In the middle of these mountains was written
“Asiki People live here on Raaba River.”
The map was roughly drawn to scale, and Alan, who was an engineer
accustomed to such things, easily calculated that the distance of this
Raaba River from Old Calabar was about 350 miles as the crow flies,
though probably the actual route to be travelled was nearer five
hundred miles.
Having mastered the map, he opened the water-soaked diary. Turning page
after page, only here and there could he make out a sentence, such as
“so I defied that beautiful but terrific woman. I, a Christian
minister, the husband of a heathen priestess! Perish the thought.
Sooner would I be sacrificed to Bonsa.”
Then came more illegible pages and again a paragraph that could be
read—“They gave me ‘The Bean’ in a gold cup, and
knowing its deadly nature I prepared myself for death. But happily for
me my stomach, always delicate, rejected it at once, though I felt
queer for days afterwards. Whereon they clapped their hands and said I
was evidently innocent and a great medicine man.”
And again, further on—“never did I see so much gold whether in
dust, nuggets, or worked articles. I imagine it must be worth millions,
but at that time gold was the last thing with which I wished to trouble
myself.”
After this entry many pages were utterly effaced.
The last legible passage ran as follows—“So guided by the lad
Jeekie, and wearing the gold mask, Little Bonsa, on my head, I ran
through them all, holding him by the hand as though I were dragging him
away. A strange spectacle I must have been with my old black
clergyman’s coat buttoned about me, my naked legs and the gold mask, as
pretending to be a devil such as they worship, I rushed through them in
the moonlight, blowing the whistle in the mask and bellowing like a
bull. . . . Such was the beginning of my dreadful six months’ journey
to the coast. Setting aside the mercy of Providence that preserved me
for its own purposes, I could never have lived to reach it had it not
been for Little Bonsa, since curiously enough I found this fetish known
and dreaded for hundreds of miles, and that by people who had never seen
it, yes, even by the wild cannibals. Whenever it was produced food,
bearers, canoes, or whatever else I might want were forthcoming as
though by magic. Great is the fame of Big and Little Bonsa in all that
part of West Africa, although, strange as it may seem, the outlying
tribes seldom mention them by name. If they must speak of either of
these images which are supposed to be man and wife, they call it the
‘Yellow-God-who-lives-yonder.’”
Not another word of all this strange history could Alan decipher, so
with aching eyes he shut up the stained and tattered volume, and at
last, just as the day was breaking, fell asleep.
At eleven o’clock on that same morning, for he had slept late, Alan rose
from his breakfast and went to smoke his pipe at the open door of the
beautiful old hall in Yarleys that was clad with brown Elizabethan oak
for which any dealer would have given hundreds of pounds. It was a
charming morning, one of those that comes to us sometimes in an English
April when the air is soft like that of Italy and the smell of the
earth rises like that of incense, and little clouds float idly across a
sky of tender blue. Standing thus he looked out upon the park where the
elms already showed a tinge of green and the ash-buds were coal black.
Only the walnuts and the great oaks, some of them pollards of a
thousand years of age, remained stark and stern in their winter dress.
Alan was in a reflective mood and involuntarily began to wonder how many
of his forefathers had stood in that same spot upon such April mornings
and looked out upon those identical trees wakening in the breath of
spring. Only the trees and the landscape knew, those trees which had
seen every one of them borne to baptism, to bridal and to burial. The
men and women themselves were forgotten. Their portraits, each in the
garb of his or her generation, hung here and there upon the walls of
the ancient house which once they had owned or inhabited, but who
remembered anything of them to-day? In many cases their names even were
lost, for believing that they, so important in their time, could never
sink into oblivion, they had not thought it necessary to record them
upon their pictures.
And now the thing was coming to an end. Unless in this way or in that he
could save it, what remained of the old place, for the outlying lands
had long since been sold, must go to the hammer and become the property
of some pushing and successful person who desired to found a family,
and perhaps in days to be would claim these very pictures that hung
upon the walls as those of his own ancestors, declaring that he had
brought in the estate because he was a relative of the ancient and
ruined race.
Well, it was the way of the world, and perhaps it must be so, but the
thought of it made Alan Vernon sad. If he could have continued that
business, it might have been otherwise. By this hour his late partners,
Sir Robert Aylward and Mr. Champers-Haswell, were doubtless sitting in
their granite office in the City, probably in consultation with Lord
Specton, who had taken his place upon the Board of the great Company
which was being subscribed that day. No doubt applications for shares
were pouring in by the early posts and by telegram, and from time to
time Mr. Jeffreys respectfully reported their number and amount, while
Sir Robert looked unconcerned and Mr. Haswell rubbed his hands and
whistled cheerfully. Almost he could envy them, these men who were
realizing great fortunes amidst the bustle and excitement of that
fierce financial life, whilst he stood penniless and stared at the
trees and the ewes which wandered among them with their lambs, he who,
after all his work, was but a failure. With a sigh he turned away to
fetch his cap and go out walking—there was a tenant whom he must see, a
shifty, new-fangled kind of man who was always clamouring for fresh
buildings and reductions in his rent. How was he to pay for more
buildings? He must put him off, or let him go.
Just then a sharp sound caught his ear, that of an electric bell. It
came from the telephone which, since he had been a member of a City
firm, he had caused to be put into Yarleys at considerable expense in
order that he might be able to communicate with the office in London.
“Were they calling him up from force of habit?” he wondered. He went to
the instrument which was fixed in a little room he used as a study, and
took down the receiver.
“Who is it?” he asked. “I am Yarleys. Alan Vernon.”
“And I am Barbara,” came the answer. “How are you, dear? Did
you sleep well?”
“No, very badly.”
“Nerves—Alan, you have got nerves. Now although I had a worse day
than you did, I went to bed at nine, and protected by a perfect
conscience, slumbered till nine this morning, exactly twelve hours.
Isn’t it clever of me to think of this telephone, which is more than
you would ever have done? My uncle has departed to London vowing that
no letter from you shall enter this house, but he forgot that there is
a telephone in every room, and in fact at this moment I am speaking
round by his office within a yard or two of his head. However, he can’t
hear, so that doesn’t matter. My blessing be on the man who invented
telephones, which hitherto I have always thought an awful nuisance. Are
you feeling cheerful, Alan?”
“Very much the reverse,” he answered; “never was more gloomy
in my life, not even when I thought I had to die within six hours of
blackwater fever. Also I have lots that I want to talk to you about and
I can’t do it at the end of this confounded wire that your uncle may be
tapping.”
“I thought it might be so,” answered Barbara, “so I just rang
you up to wish you good-morning and to say that I am coming over in the
motor to lunch with my maid Snell as chaperone. All right, don’t
remonstrate, I _am coming_ over to lunch—I can’t hear you—never mind
what people will say. I am coming over to lunch at one o’clock, mind you
are in. Good-bye, I don’t want much to eat, but have something for Snell
and the chauffeur. Good-bye.”
Then the wire went dead, nor could all Alan’s “Hello’s”
and “Are you there’s?” extract another syllable.
Having ordered the best luncheon that his old housekeeper could provide
Alan went off for his walk in much better spirits, which were further
improved by his success in persuading the tenant to do without the new
buildings for another year. In a year, he reflected, anything might
happen. Then he returned by the wood where a number of new-felled oaks
lay ready for barking. This was not a cheerful sight; it seemed so
cruel to kill the great trees just as they were pushing their buds for
another summer of life. But he consoled himself by recalling that they
had been too crowded and that the timber was really needed on the
estate. As he reached the house again carrying a bunch of white violets
which he had plucked in a sheltered place for Barbara, he perceived a
motor travelling at much more than the legal speed up the walnut avenue
which was the pride of the place. In it sat that young lady herself,
and her maid, Snell, a middle-aged woman with whom, as it chanced, he
was on very good terms, as once, at some trouble to himself, he had
been able to do her a kindness.
The motor pulled up at the front door and out of it sprang Barbara,
laughing pleasantly and looking fresh and charming as the spring
itself.
“There will be a row over this, dear,” said Alan, shaking his head
doubtfully when at last they were alone together in the hall.
“Of course, there’ll be a row,” she answered. “I mean
that there shall be a row. I mean to have a row every day if necessary,
until they leave me alone to follow my own road, and if they won’t, as
I said, to go to the Court of Chancery for protection. Oh! by the way,
I have brought you a copy of _The Judge_. There’s a most awful article
in it about that Sahara flotation, and among other things it announces
that you have left the firm and congratulates you upon having done so.”
“They’ll think I have put it in,” groaned Alan as he glanced
at the head lines, which were almost libellous in their vigour, and the
summaries of the financial careers of Sir Robert Aylward and Mr.
Champers-Haswell. “It will make them hate me more than ever, and I say,
Barbara, we can’t live in an atmosphere of perpetual warfare for the
next two years.”
“I can, if need be,” answered that determined young woman.
“But I admit that it would be trying for you, if you stay here.”
“That’s just the point, Barbara. I must not stay here, I must go
away, the further the better, until you are your own mistress.”
“Where to, Alan?”
“To West Africa, I think.”
“To West Africa?” repeated Barbara, her voice trembling a little.
“After that treasure, Alan?”
“Yes, Barbara. But first come and have your lunch, then we will talk. I
have got lots to tell and show you.”
So they lunched, speaking of indifferent things, for the servant was
there waiting on them. Just as they were finishing their meal Jeekie
entered the room carrying a box and a large envelope addressed to his
master, which he said had been sent by special messenger from the
office in London.
“What’s in the box?” asked Alan, looking somewhat nervously
at the envelope, which was addressed in a writing that he knew.
“Don’t know for certain, Major,” answered Jeekie, “but
think Little Bonsa; think I smell her through wood.”
“Well, look and see,” replied Alan, while he broke the seal of the
envelope and drew out its contents. They proved to be sundry documents
sent by the firm’s lawyers, among which were a notice of the formal
dissolution of partnership to be approved by him before it appeared in
the _Gazette_, a second notice calling in a mortgage for fifteen
thousand and odd pounds on Yarleys, which as a matter of business had
been taken over by the firm while he was a partner; a cash account
showing a small balance against him, and finally a receipt for him to
sign acknowledging the return of the gold image that was his property.
“You see,” said Alan with a sigh, pushing over the papers to
Barbara, who read them carefully one by one.
“I see,” she answered presently. “It is war to the knife.
Alan, I hate the idea of it, but perhaps you had better go away. While
you are here they will harass the life out of you.”
Meanwhile with the aid of a big jack-knife and the dining-room poker,
Jeekie had prised off the lid of the box. Chancing to look round
Barbara saw him on his knees muttering something in a strange tongue,
and bowing his white head until it touched an object that lay within
the box.
“What are you doing, Jeekie?” she asked.
“Make bow to Little Bonsa, Miss Barbara, tell her how glad I am see her
come back from town. She like feel welcome. Now you come bow too, Little
Bonsa take that as compliment.”
“I won’t bow, but I will look, Jeekie, for although I have heard so
much about it I have never really examined this Yellow God.”
“Very good, you come look, miss,” and Jeekie propped up the case
upon the end of the dining-room table. As from its height and position
she could not see its contents very well whilst standing above it,
Barbara knelt down to get a better view of it.
“My goodness!” she exclaimed, “what a terrible face,
beautiful too in its way.”
Hardly had the words left her lips when for some reason unexplained that
probably had to do with the shifting of the centre of gravity, Little
Bonsa appeared to glide or fall out of her box with a startling
suddenness, and project herself straight at Barbara, who, with a faint
scream, fearing lest the precious thing should be injured, caught it in
her arms and for a moment hugged it to her breast.
“Saved!” she exclaimed, recovering herself and placing it on the
table, whereon Jeekie, to their astonishment, began to execute a kind of
war dance.
“Oh! yes,” he said, “saved, very much saved. All saved, most
magnificent omen. Lady kneel to Little Bonsa and Little Bonsa nip out of
box, make bow and jump in lady’s arms. That splendid, first-class luck,
for miss and everybody. When Little Bonsa do that need fear nothing no
more. All come right as rain.”
“Nonsense,” said Barbara, laughing. Then from a cautious distance
she continued her examination of the fetish.
“See,” said Jeekie, pointing to the misshapen little gold legs
which were yet so designed that it could be stood up upon them, “when
anyone wear Little Bonsa, tie her on head behind by these legs; look,
here same old leather string. Now I put her on, for she like to be worn
again,” and with a quick movement he clapped the mask on to his face,
manipulated the greasy black leather thongs and made them fast. Thus
adorned the great negro looked no less than terrific.
“I see you, miss,” he said, turning the fixed eyes of opal-like
stone, bloodshot with little rubies, upon Barbara, “I see you, though
you no see me, for these eyes made very cunning. But listen, you hear
me,” and suddenly from the mask, produced by some contrivance set within
it, there proceeded an awful, howling sound that made her shiver.
“Take that thing off, Jeekie,” said Alan, “we don’t
want any banshees here.”
“Banshees? Not know him, he poor English fetish p’raps,” said
Jeekie, as he removed the mask. “This real African god, howl banshee and
all that sort into middle of next week. This Little Bonsa and no
mistake, ten thousand years old and more, eat up lives, so many that no
one can count them, and go on eating for ever, yes unto the third and
fourth generation, as Ten Commandments lay it down for benefit of
Christian man, like me. Look at her again, Miss Barbara.”
Miss Barbara took the hateful, ancient thing in her hands and studied
it. No one could doubt its antiquity, for the gold plate of which it
was made was literally worn away wherever it had touched the foreheads
of the high priests or priestesses who donned it upon festive occasions
or days of sacrifice, showing that hundreds and hundreds of them must
have used it thus in succession. So was the vocal apparatus within the
mouth, and so were the little toad-like feet upon which it was stood
up. Also the substance of the gold itself was here and there pitted as
though with acid or salts, though what those salts were she did not
inquire. And yet, so consummate was the art with which it had
originally been fashioned, that the battered beautiful face of Little
Bonsa still peered at them with the same devilish smile that it had worn
when it left the hands of its maker, perhaps before Mohammed preached
his holy war, or even earlier.
“What is all that writing on the back of it?” asked Barbara,
pointing to the long lines of rune-like characters which were inscribed
within it.
“Not know, miss, think they dead tongue cut in the beginning when black
men could write. But Asiki priests swear they remember every one of
them, and that why no one can copy Little Bonsa, for they look inside
and see if marks all right. They say they names of those who died for
Little Bonsa, and when they all done, Little Bonsa begin again, for
Little Bonsa never die. But p’raps priests lie.”
“I daresay,” said Barbara, “but take Little Bonsa away, for
however lucky she may be, she makes me feel sick.”
“Where I put her, Major?” asked Jeekie of Alan. “In box in
library where she used to live, or in plate-safe with spoons? Or under
your bed where she always keep eye on you?”
“Oh! put her with the spoons,” said Alan angrily, and Jeekie
departed with his treasure.
“I think, dear,” remarked Barbara as the door closed behind him,
“that if I come to lunch here any more, I shall bring my own christening
present with me, for I can’t eat off silver that has been shut up with
that thing. Now let us get to business—show me the diary and the
map.”
“Dearest Alan,” wrote Barbara from The Court two days later,
“I have been thinking everything over, and since you are so set upon it,
I suppose that you had better go. To me the whole adventure seems
perfectly mad, but at the same time I believe in our luck, or rather in
the Providence which watches over us, and I don’t believe that you, or
I either, will come to any harm. If you stop here, you will only eat
your heart out and communication between us must become increasingly
difficult. My uncle is furious with you, and since he discovered that
we were talking over the telephone, to his own great inconvenience he
has had the wires cut outside the house. That horrid letter of his to
you saying that you had ‘compromised’ me in pursuance of a ‘mercenary
scheme’ is all part and parcel of the same thing. How are you to stop
here and submit to such insults? I went to see my friend the lawyer,
and he tells me that of course we can marry if we like, but in that
case my father’s will, which he has consulted at Somerset House, is
absolutely definite, and if I do so in opposition to my uncle’s wishes,
I must lose everything except £200 a year. Now I am no money-grubber,
but I will not give my uncle the satisfaction of robbing me of my
fortune, which may be useful to both of us by and by. The lawyer says
also that he does not think that the Court of Chancery would interfere,
having no power to do so as far as the will is concerned, and not being
able to make a ward of a person like myself who is over age and has the
protection of the common law of the country. So it seems to me that the
only thing to do is to be patient, and wait until time unties the knot.
“Meanwhile, if you can make some money in Africa, so much the better. So
go, Alan, go as soon as you like, for I do not wish to prolong this
agony, or to see you exposed daily to all you have to bear. Whenever
you return you will find me waiting for you, and if you do not return,
still I shall wait, as you in like circumstances will wait for me. But
I think you will return.”
Then followed much that need not be written, and at the end a postscript
which ran:
“I am glad to hear that you have succeeded in shifting the mortgage on
Yarleys, although the interest is so high. Write to me whenever you get
a chance, to the care of the lawyer, for then the letters will reach
me, but never to this house, or they may be stopped. I will do the same
to you to the address you give. Good-bye, dearest Alan, my true and
only lover. I wonder where and when we shall meet again. God be with us
both and enable us to bear our trial.
“P.P.S. I hear that the Sahara flotation was _really_ a success,
notwithstanding the _Judge_ attacks. Sir Robert and my uncle have made
millions. I wonder how long they will keep them.”
A week after he received this letter Alan was on the seas heading for
the shores of Western Africa.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE DWARF FOLK.
It was dawn at last. All night it had rained as it can rain in West
Africa, falling on the wide river with a hissing splash, sullen and
continuous. Now, towards morning, the rain had ceased and everywhere
rose a soft and pearly mist that clung to the face of the waters and
seemed to entangle itself like strands of wool among the branches of
the bordering trees. On the bank of the river at a spot that had been
cleared of bush, stood a tent, and out of this tent emerged a white man
wearing a sun helmet and grey flannel shirt and trousers. It was Alan
Vernon, who in these surroundings looked larger and more commanding
than he had done at the London office, or even in his own house of
Yarleys. Perhaps the moustache and short brown beard which he had
grown, or his skin, already altered and tanned by the tropics, had
changed his appearance for the better. At any rate it was changed. So
were his manner and bearing, whereof all the diffidence had gone. Now
they were those of a man accustomed to command who found himself in his
right place.
“Jeekie,” he called, “wake up those fellows and come and
light the oil-stove. I want my coffee.”
Thereon a deep voice was heard speaking in some native tongue and
saying:
“Cease your snoring, you black hogs, and arouse yourselves, for your
lord calls you,” an invocation that was followed by the sound of kicks,
thumps, and muttered curses.
A minute or two later Jeekie himself appeared, and he also was much
changed in appearance, for now instead of his smart, European clothes,
he wore a white robe and sandals that gave him an air at once dignified
and patriarchal.
“Good-morning, Major,” he said cheerfully. “I hope you sleep
well, Major, in this low-lying and accursed situation, which is more
than we do in boat that half full of water, to say nothing of smell of
black man and prevalent mosquito. But the rain it over and gone, and
presently the sun shine out, so might be much worse, no cause at all
complain.”
“I don’t know,” answered Alan, with a shiver. “I
believe that I am fever proof, but otherwise I should have caught it
last night, and—just give me the quinine, I will take five grains for
luck.”
“Yes, yes, for luck,” answered Jeekie as he opened the medicine
chest and found the quinine, at the same time glancing anxiously out of
the corner of his eye at his master’s face, for he knew that the spot
where they had slept was deadly to white men at this season of the
year. “You not catch fever, Little Bonsa,” here he dropped his voice
and looked down at the box which had served Alan for a pillow, “see to
that. But quinine give you appetite for breakfast. Very good chop this
morning. Which you like best? Cold ven’son, or fish, or one of them
ducks you shoot yesterday?”
“Oh! some of the cold meat, I think. Give the ducks to the boatmen, I
don’t fancy them in this hot place. By the way, Jeekie, we leave the Qua
River here, don’t we?”
“Yes, yes, Major, just here. I ’member spot well, for your uncle he
pray on it one whole hour; I pretend pray too, but in heart give thanks
to Little Bonsa, for heathen in those days, quite different now. This
morning we begin walk through forest where it rather dark and cool and
comfortable, that is if we no see dwarf people from whom good Lord
deliver us,” and he bowed towards the box containing Little Bonsa.
“Will those four porters come with us through the forest, Jeekie, as
they promised?”
“Yes, yes, they come. Last night they say they not come, too much afraid
of dwarf. But I settle their hash. I tell them I save up bits of their
hair and toe nails when they no thinking, and I mix it with medicine,
and if they not come, they die every one before they get home. They
think me great doctor and they believe. Perhaps they die if they go on.
If so, I tell them that because they want show white feather, and they
think me greater doctor still. Oh! they come, they come, no fear, or
else Jeekie know reason why. Now, here coffee, Major. Drink him hot
before you go take tub, but keep in shallow water, because crocodile he
very early riser.”
Alan laughed, and departed to “take tub.” Notwithstanding the
mosquitoes that buzzed round him in clouds, the water was cool and
pleasant by comparison with the hot, sticky air, and the feel of it
seemed to rid him of the languor resulting from his disturbed night.
A month had passed since he had left Old Calabar, and owing to the
incessant rains the journeying had been hard. Indeed the white men
there thought that he was mad to attempt to go up the river at this
season. Of course he had said nothing to them of the objects of his
expedition, hinting only that he wished to explore and shoot, and
perhaps prospect for mines. But knowing as they did, that he was an
Engineer officer with a good record and much African experience, they
soon made up their minds that he had been sent by Government upon some
secret mission that for reasons of his own he preferred to keep to
himself. This conclusion, which Jeekie zealously fostered behind his
back, in fact did Alan a good turn, since owing to it he obtained
boatmen and servants at a season when, had he been supposed to be but a
private person, these would scarcely have been forthcoming at any
price. Hitherto his journey had been one long record of mud,
mosquitoes, and misery, but otherwise devoid of incident, except the
eating of one of his boatmen by a crocodile which was a particularly
“early riser,” for it had pulled the poor fellow out of the canoe in
which he lay asleep at night. Now, however, the real dangers were about
to begin, since at this spot he left the great river and started
forward through the forest on foot with Jeekie and the four bearers
whom he had paid highly to accompany him.
He could not conceal from himself that the undertaking seemed somewhat
desperate. But of this he said nothing in the long letter he had written
to Barbara on the previous night, sighing as he sealed it, at the
thought that it might well be the last which would ever reach her from
him, even if the boatmen got safely back to Calabar and remembered to
put it in the post. The enterprise had been begun and must be carried
through, until it ended in success—or death.
An hour later they started. First walked Alan as leader of the
expedition, carrying a double-barrelled gun that could be used either
for ball or shot, about fifty cartridges with brass cases to protect
them from the damp, a revolver, a hunting-knife, a cloth mackintosh,
and lastly, strapped upon his back like a knapsack, a tin box
containing the fetish, Little Bonsa, which was too precious to be
trusted to anyone else. It was quite a sufficient load for any white
man in that climate, but being very wiry, Alan did not feel its weight,
at any rate at first.
After him in single file came the four porters, laden with a small tent,
some tinned provisions and brandy, ammunition, a box containing beads,
watches, etc. for presents, blankets, spare clothing and so forth.
These were stalwart fellows enough, who knew the forest, but their
dejected air showed that now they had come face to face with its
dangers, they heartily wished themselves anywhere else. Indeed,
notwithstanding their terror of Jeekie’s medicine, at the last moment
they threw down their loads intending to make a wild rush for the
departing boat, only to be met by Jeekie himself who, anticipating some
such move, was waiting for them on the bank with a shotgun. Here he
remained until the canoe was too far out in the stream for them to
reach it by swimming. Then he asked them if they wished to sit and
starve there with the devils he would leave them for company, of if
they would carry out their bargain like honest men?
The end of it was they took up their loads again and marched, while
behind them walked the terrible and gigantic Jeekie, the barrels of the
shotgun which he carried at full cock and occasionally used to prod
them, pointing directly at their backs. A strange object he looked
truly, for in addition to the weapons with which he bristled, several
cooking-pots were slung about him, to say nothing of a cork mattress
and a mackintosh sheet tied in a flat bundle to his shoulders, a box
containing medicines and food which he carried on his head, and
fastened to the top of it with string like a helmet on a coffin, an
enormous solar-tope stuffed full of mosquito netting, of which the ends
fell about him like a green veil. When Alan remonstrated with him as to
the cork mattress, suggesting that it should be thrown away as too hot
to wear, Jeekie replied that he had been cold for thirty years, and
wished to get warm again. Guessing that his real reason for declining
to part with the article, was that his master should have something to
lie on, other than the damp ground, Alan said no more at the time,
which, as will be seen, was fortunate enough for Jeekie.
For a mile or more their road ran through fantastic-looking mangrove
trees rooted in the mud, that in the mist resembled, Alan thought,
many-legged arboreal octopi feeling for their food, and tall reeds on
the tops of which sat crowds of chattering finches. Then just as the
sun broke out, strongly, cheering them with its warmth and sucking up
the vapours, they entered sparse bush with palms and great cotton trees
growing here and there, and so at length came to the borders of the
mighty forest.
Oh! dark, dark was that forest; he who entered it from the cheerful
sunshine felt as though suddenly and without preparation he had
wandered out of the light we know into some dim Hades such as the old
Greek fancy painted, where strengthless ghosts flit aimlessly, mourning
the lost light. Everywhere the giant boles of trees shooting the height
of a church tower into the air without a branch; great rib-rooted
trees, and beneath them a fierce and hungry growth of creepers. Where a
tree had fallen within the last century or so, these creepers ramped
upwards in luxuriance, their stems thick as the body of a man, drinking
the shaft of light that pierced downwards, drinking it with eagerness
ere the boughs above met again and starved them. Where no tree had
fallen the creepers were thin and weak; from year to year they lived on
feebly, biding their time, but still they lived, knowing that some day
it would come. And always it was coming to those expectant parasites,
since from minute to minute, somewhere in the vast depths, miles and
miles away perhaps, a great crash echoed in the stillness, the crash of
a tree that, sown when the Saxons ruled in England, or perhaps before
Cleopatra bewitched Anthony, came to its end at last.
On the second day of their march in the forest Alan chanced to see such
a tree fall, and the sight was one that he never could forget. As it
happened, owing to the vast spread of its branches which had killed out
all rivals beneath, for in its day it had been a very successful tree
embued with an excellent constitution by its parent, it stood somewhat
alone, so that from several hundred yards away as these six human
beings crept towards it like ants towards a sapling in a cornfield, its
mighty girth and bulk set upon a little mound and the luxuriant
greenness of its far-reaching boughs made a kind of landmark. Then in
the hot noon when no breath of wind stirred, suddenly the end came.
Suddenly that mighty bole seemed to crumble; suddenly those far-reaching
arms were thrown together as their support failed, gripping at each
other like living things, flogging the air, screaming in their last
agony, and with an awful wailing groan sinking, a tumbled ruin, to the
earth.
Silence again, and in the midst of the silence Jeekie’s cheerful voice.
“Old tree go flop! Glad he no flop on us, thanks be to Little Bonsa. Get
on, you lazy nigger dog. Who pay you stand there and snivel? Get on or I
blow out your stupid skull,” and he brought the muzzle of the
full-cocked, double-barrelled gun into sharp contact with that part of
the terrified porter’s anatomy.
Such was the forest. Of their march through it for the first four days,
there is nothing to tell. Its depths seemed to be devoid of life,
although occasionally they heard the screaming of parrots in the
treetops a couple of hundred feet above, or caught sight of the dim
shapes of monkeys swinging themselves from bough to bough. That was in
the daytime, when, although they could not see it, they knew that the
sun was shining somewhere. But at night they heard nothing, since
beasts of prey do not come where there is no food. What puzzled Alan
was that all through these impenetrable recesses there ran a distinct
road which they followed. To the right and left rose a wall of
creepers, but between them ran this road, an ancient road, for nothing
grew on it, and it only turned aside to avoid the biggest of the trees
which must have stood there from time immemorial, such a tree as that
which he had seen fall; indeed it was one of those round which the road
ran.
He asked Jeekie who made the road.
“People who come out Noah’s Ark,” answered Jeekie, “I
think they run up here to get out of way of water, and sent them two
elephants ahead to make path. Or perhaps dwarf people make it. Or
perhaps those who go up to Asiki-land to do sacrifice like old Jews.”
“You mean you don’t know,” said Alan.
“No, of course don’t know. Who know about forest path made before
beginning of world. You ask question, Major, I answer. More lively
answer than to shake head and roll eyes like them silly fool porters.”
It was on the fourth night that the trouble began. As usual they had lit
a huge fire made of the fallen boughs and rotting tree trunks that lay
about in plenty. There was no reason why the fire should be so large,
since they had little to cook and the air was hot, but they made it so
for the same reason that Jeekie answered questions, for the sake of
cheerfulness. At least it gave light in the darkness, leaping up in red
tongues of flame twenty or thirty feet high, and its roar and crackle
were welcome in the primeval silence.
Alan lay upon the cork mattress in the open, for here there was no need
to pitch the tent; if any rain fell above, the canopy of leaves
absorbed it. He was amusing himself while he smoked his pipe with
watching the reflection of the fire-light against a patch of darkness
caused probably by some bush about twenty yards away, and by picturing
in his own mind the face of Barbara, that strong, pleasant English
face, as it might appear on such a background. Suddenly there, on the
identical spot he did see a face, though one of a very different
character. It was round and small and hideous, resembling in its
general outline that of a bloated child. At this distance he could not
distinguish the features, except the lips, which were large and
pendulous, and between them the flash of white teeth.
“Look here,” he whispered to Jeekie in English, and Jeekie looked,
then without saying a word, lifted the shotgun that lay at his side and
fired straight at the bush. Instantly there arose a squeaking noise,
such as might be made by a wounded animal, and the four porters sprang
up in alarm.
“Sit down,” said Jeekie to them in their own tongue, “a
leopard was stalking us and I fired to frighten it away. Don’t go near
the place, as it may be wounded and angry, but drag up some boughs and
make a fence round the fire, for fear of others.”
The men who dreaded leopards, looking on these animals, indeed, with
superstitious reverence, obeyed readily enough, and as there was plenty
of wood lying within a few yards, soon constructed a _boma_ fence that,
rough as it was, would serve for protection.
“Jeekie,” said Alan presently as they laboured at the fence,
“that was not a leopard, it was a man.”
“No, no, Major, not man, little dwarf devil, him that have poisoned
arrow. I shoot at once to make him sit up. Think he no come back
to-night, too much afraid of shot fetish. But to-morrow, can’t say. Not
tell those fellows anything,” and he nodded towards the porters, “or
perhaps they bolt.”
“I think you would have done better to leave the dwarf alone,” said
Alan, “and they might have left us alone. Now they will have a blood
feud against us.”
“Not agree, Major, only chance for us put him in blue funk. If I not
shoot, presently he shoot,” and he made a sound that resembled the
whistling of an arrow, then added, “Now you go sleep. I not tired, I
watch, my eyes see in dark better than yours. Only two more days of this
damn forest, then open land with tree here and there, where dwarf no
come because he afraid of lion and cannibal man, who like eat him.”
As there was nothing else to be done Alan took Jeekie’s advice and in
time fell fast asleep, nor did he wake again till the faint light which,
for the want of a better name, they called dawn, was filtering down to
them through the canopy of boughs.
“Been to look,” said Jeekie as he handed him his coffee. “Hit
that dwarf man, see his blood, but think others carry him away. Jeekie
very good shot, stone, spear, arrow, or gun, all same to him. Now get
off as quick as we can before porters smell a rat. You eat chop, Major,
I pack.”
Presently they started on their trudge through those endless trees, with
Fear for a companion. Even the porters, who had been told nothing,
seemed more afraid than usual, though whether this was because they
“smell rat,” as Jeekie called it, or owing to the progressive breakdown
of their nervous systems, Alan did not know. About midday they stopped
to eat because the men were too tired to walk further without rest. For
an hour or more they had been looking for a comparatively open place,
but as it chanced could find none, so were obliged to halt in dense
forest. Just as they had finished their meal and were preparing to
proceed, that which they had feared, happened, since from somewhere
behind the tree boles came a volley of reed arrows. One struck a porter
in the neck, one fixed itself in Alan’s helmet without touching him,
and no less than three hit Jeekie on the back and stuck there,
providentially enough in the substance of the cork mattress that he
still carried on his shoulders, which the feeble shafts had not the
strength to pierce.
Everybody sprang up and with a curious fascination instead of attempting
to do anything, watched the porter who had been hit in the neck
somewhere in the region of the jugular vein. The poor man rose to his
feet with great deliberation, reminding Alan in some grotesque way of a
speaker who has suddenly been called on to address a meeting and seeks
to gain time for the gathering of his thoughts. Then he turned towards
that vast audience of the trees, stretched out his hand with a
declamatory gesture, said something in a composed voice, and fell upon
his face stone dead! The swift poison had reached his heart and done
its work.
His three companions looked at him for a moment and the next with a yell
of terror, rushed off into the forest, hurling down their loads as they
ran. What became of them Alan never learned, for he saw them no more,
and the dwarf people keep their secrets. At the time indeed he scarcely
noticed their departure, for he was otherwise engaged.
One of their hideous little assailants, made bold by success, ventured
to run across an open space between two trees, showing himself for a
moment. Alan had a gun in his hand, and mad with rage at what had
happened, he raised it and swung on him as he would upon a rabbit. He
was a quick and practised shot and his skill did not fail him now, for
just as the dwarf was vanishing behind a tree, the bullet caught him
and next instant he was seen rolling over and over upon its further
side.
“That very nice,” said Jeekie reflectively, “very nice
indeed, but I think we best move out of this.”
“Aren’t you hurt?” gasped Alan. “Your back is full of
arrows.”
“Don’t feel nothing, Major,” he answered, “best cork
mattress, 25/3 at Stores, very good for poisoned arrow, but leave him
behind now, because perhaps points work through as I run, one scratch
do trick,” and as he spoke Jeekie untied a string or several strings,
letting the little mattress fall to the ground.
“Great pity leave all those goods,” said Jeekie, surveying the
loads that the porters had cast away, “but what says Book? Life more
than raiment. Also take no thought for morrow. Dwarf people do that for
us. Come, Major, make tracks,” and dashing at a bag of cartridges which
he cast about his neck, a trifling addition to his other impedimenta,
and a small case of potted meats that he hitched under his arm, he
poked his master in the back with the muzzle of his full-cocked gun as
a signal that it was time to start.
“Keep that cursed thing off me,” said Alan furiously. “How
often have I told you never to carry firearms at full cock?”
“About one thousand times, Major,” answered Jeekie imperturbably,
“but on such occasion forget discreetness. My ma just same, it run in
family, but story too long tell you now. Cut, Major, cut like hell. Them
dwarfs be back soon, but,” he puffed, “I think, I think Little Bonsa
come square with them one day.”
So Alan “cut” and the huge Jeekie blundered along after him, the
paraphernalia with which he was hung about rattling like the hoofs of a
galloping giraffe. Nor for all his load did he ever turn a hair. Whether
it were fear within or a desire to save his master, or a belief in the
virtues of Little Bonsa, or that his foot was, as it were, once more
upon his native heath, the fact remained that notwithstanding the fifty
years, almost, that had whitened his wool, Jeekie was absolutely
inexhaustible. At least at the end of that fearful chase, which lasted
all the day, and through the night also, for they dared not camp, he
appeared to be nearly as fresh as when he started from Old Calabar, nor
did his spirits fail him for one moment.
When the light came on the following morning, however, they perceived by
many signs and tokens that the dwarf people were all about them. Some
arrows were shot even, but these fell short.
“Pooh!” said Jeekie, “all right now, they much afraid. Still,
no time for coffee, we best get on.”
So they got on as they could, till towards midday the forest began to
thin out. Now as the light grew stronger they could see the dwarfs, of
whom there appeared to be several hundred, keeping a parallel course to
their own on either side of them at what they thought to be a safe
distance.
“Try one shot, I think,” said Jeekie, kneeling down and letting fly
at a clump of the little men, which scattered like a covey of
partridges, leaving one of its number kicking on the ground. “Ah! my
boy,” shouted Jeekie in derision, “how you like bullet in tummy? You
not know Paradox guaranteed flat trajectory 250 yard. You remember that
next time, sonny.” Then off they went again up a long rise.
“River other side of that rise,” said Jeekie. “Think those
tree-monkeys no follow us there.”
But the “monkeys” appeared to be angry and determined. They would
not come any more within the range of the Paradox, but they still
marched on either side of the two fugitives, knowing well that at last
their strength must fail and they would be able to creep up and murder
them. So the chase went on till Alan began to wonder whether it would
not be better to face the end at once.
“No, no, if say die, can’t change mind to-morrow morning,”
gasped Jeekie in a hoarse voice. “Here top rise, much nearer than I
thought. Oh, my aunt! who those?” and he pointed to a large number of
big men armed with spears who were marching up the further side of the
hill from the river that ran below.
At the same moment these savages, who were not more than two hundred
yards away, caught sight of them and of their pursuers, who just then
appeared on the ridge to the right and left. The dwarfs, on perceiving
these strangers, uttered a shrill yell of terror, and wheeled about to
fly to their fastnesses in the forest, which evidently they regretted
ever having left. It was too late. With an answering shout the
spearsmen, who were extended in a long line, apparently hunting for
game, charged after them at full speed. They were fresh and their legs
were long. Therefore very soon they overtook the dwarfs and even got in
front of them, heading them off from the forest. The end may be
guessed,—save a few whom they reserved alive, they killed them
mercilessly, and almost without loss to themselves, since the little
forest folk were too terrified and exhausted to shoot at them with
their poisoned arrows, and they had no other weapons.
In fact, as Alan discovered afterwards, for generations there had been
war between them, since all the other tribes hate the dwarfs, whom they
look upon as dangerous human monkeys, and never before had the big men
found such a chance of squaring their account.
When Jeekie saw this fearful-looking company, for the first time his
spirits seemed to fail him.
“Ogula!” he exclaimed with a groan and sat himself upon a flat
rock, pulling Alan down beside him. “Ogula! Know them by hair and
spears,” he repeated. “Up gum tree now, say good-night.”
“Why? Who are they?” gasped Alan.
“Great cannibal, Major, eat man, eat us to-night, or perhaps to-morrow
morning when we nice and cool. Say prayers, Major, quick no time waste.”
“I think I will shoot an Ogula or two first,” said Alan grimly, as
he stood up and lifted his gun.
“No, not shoot, no good. Pretend not be afraid, best chance. Let Jeekie
think, let Jeekie think,” and he slapped his forehead with his large
hand.
Apparently the action brought inspiration, for next instant he grabbed
his master by the arm and dragged him back behind the shelter of a big
boulder which they had just passed. Then with really marvellous
swiftness he cut the straps of the tin box that Alan wore upon his
back, and since there was no time to find the key and unlock it, seized
the little padlock with which it was fastened between his finger and
thumb, and putting out his great strength, with a single wrench twisted
it off.
“What are you——” began Alan.
“Hold tongue,” he answered savagely, “make you god, I priest.
Ogula know Little Bonsa. Quick, quick!”
In a minute it was done, the golden mask was clapped on to Alan’s head,
and the leather thongs were fastened. Moreover, Jeekie himself was
arrayed in the solar-tope to which all this while he had clung,
allowing streams of green mosquito netting to hang down over his white
robe.
“Come out now, Major,” he said, “and play god. You whistle, I
do palaver.”
Then hand in hand they walked from behind the rock. By this time the
particular company of the cannibals that was opposite to them, which
happened to include their chief, had climbed the steep slope of the
hill and arrived within a distance of twenty yards. Having seen the two
men and guessed that they had taken refuge behind the rock, their
spears were lifted to kill them, since when he beholds anything
strange, the first impulse of a savage is to bring it to its death.
They looked; they saw. Of a sudden down went the raised spears.
Some of those who held them fell upon their faces, while others turned
to fly, appalled by the vision of this strangely clad man with the head
of gold. Only their chief, a great yellow-toothed fellow who wore a
necklace of baboon claws, remained erect, staring at them with open
mouth.
Alan blew the whistle that was set between the lips of the mask, and
they shivered. Then Jeekie spoke to them in some tongue which they
understood, saying:
“Do you, O Ogula, dare to offer violence to Little Bonsa and her
priests? Say now, why should we not strike you dead with the magic of
the god which she has borrowed from the white man?” and he tapped the
gun he held.
“This is witchcraft,” answered the chief. “We saw two men
running, hunted by the dwarfs, not three minutes ago, and now we
see—what we see,” and he put his hand before his eyes, then after a
pause went on—“As for Little Bonsa, she left this country in my
father’s day. He gave her passage upon the head of a white man and the
Asiki wizards have mourned her ever since, or so I hear.”
“Fool,” answered Jeekie, “as she went, so she returns, on the
head of a white man. Yonder I see an elder with grey hair who doubtless
knew of Little Bonsa in his youth. Let him come up and look and say
whether or no this is the god.”
“Yes, yes,” exclaimed the chief, “go up, old man, go
up,” and he jabbed at him with his spear until, unwillingly enough, he
went.
The elder arrived, making obeisance, and when he was near, Alan blew the
whistle in his face, whereon he fell to his knees.
“It is Little Bonsa,” he said in a trembling voice, “Little
Bonsa without a doubt. I should know, as my father and my elder brother
were sacrificed to her, and I only escaped because she rejected me.
Down on your face, Chief, and do honour to the Yellow God before she
slay you.”
Instantly every man within hearing prostrated himself and lay still.
Then Jeekie strode up and down among them shouting out:
“Little Bonsa has come back and brought to you, Man-eaters, a fat
offering, an offering of the dwarf-people whom you hate, of the
treacherous dwarf-people who when you walk the ancient forest path,
murder you with their poisoned arrows. Praise Little Bonsa who delivers
you from your foes, and hearken to her bidding. Send on messengers to
the Asiki saying that Little Bonsa comes home again from across the
Black Water bringing the White Preacher, whom she led away in the day
of their fathers. Say to them that the Asiki must send out a company
that Little Bonsa and the Magician with whom she ran away, may be
escorted back to her house with the state which has been hers from the
beginning of time. Say to them also that they must prepare a great
offering of pure gold out of their store, as much gold as fifty strong
men can carry, not one handful less, to be given to the White Magician
who brings back Small Swimming Head, for if they withhold such an
offering, he and Little Bonsa will vanish never to be seen again, and
curses and desolation will fall upon their land. Rise and obey, Chief
of the Ogula.”
Then the man scrambled to his feet and answered:
“It shall be done, O Priest of the Yellow God. To-morrow at the dawn
swift messengers will start for the Gold House of the Asiki. To-night
they cannot leave, as we are all very hungry and must eat.”
“What must you eat?” asked Jeekie suspiciously.
“O Priest,” answered the chief with a deprecatory gesture,
“when first we saw you we hoped that it would be the white man and
yourself, for we have never tasted white man. But now we fear that you
will not consent to this, and as you are holy and the guardian of the
god, we cannot eat you without your own consent. Therefore fat dwarf
must be our food, of which, however, there will be plenty for you as
well as us.”
“You dog!” exclaimed Jeekie in a voice of furious indignation.
“Do you think that white men and their high-born companions, such as
myself, were made to fill your vile stomachs? I tell you that a meal of
the deadly Bean would agree better with you, for if you dare so much as
to look on us, or on any of the white race with hunger, agony shall
seize your vitals and you and all your tribe shall die as though by
poison. Moreover, we do not touch the flesh of men, nor will we see it
eaten. It is our ‘_orunda_,’ it is consecrate to us, it must not pass
our lips, nor may our eyes behold it. Therefore we will camp apart from
you further up the stream and find our own food. But to-morrow at the
dawn the messengers must leave as we have commanded. Also you shall
provide strong men and a large canoe to bear Little Bonsa forward
towards her own home until she finds her people coming out to greet
her.
“It shall be done,” answered the chief humbly, “Everything
shall be done according to the will of Little Bonsa spoken by her
priest, that she may leave a blessing and not a curse upon the heads of
the tribe of the Ogula. Say where you wish to camp and men shall run to
build a house of reeds for the god to dwell in.”
CHAPTER IX.
THE DAWN.
Jeekie looked up and down the river, and saw that in the centre of it
about half a mile away, there was an island on which grew some trees.
“Little Bonsa will camp yonder,” he said. “Go, make her house
ready, light fire and bring canoe to paddle us across. Now leave us, all
of you, for if you look too long upon the face of the Yellow God she
will ask a sacrifice, and it is not lawful that you should see where
she hides herself away.”
At this saying the cannibals departed as one man, and at top speed, some
to the canoes and others to warn their fellows who were engaged in the
congenial work of hunting and killing the dwarfs, not to dare to
approach the white man and his companion. A third party ran to the bank
of the river that was opposite to the island to make ready as they had
been bidden, so that presently Alan and Jeekie were left quite alone.
“Ah!” said Jeekie, with a gasp of satisfaction, “_that_
all right, everything arranged quite comfortable. Thought Little Bonsa
come out top somehow and score off dirty dwarf monkeys. _They_ never
get home to tea anyway—stay and dine with Ogula.”
“Stop chattering, Jeekie, and untie this infernal mask, I am almost
choked,” broke in Alan in a hollow voice.
“Not say ‘infernal mask,’ Major, say ‘face of
angel.’ Little Bonsa woman and like it better, also true, if on this
occasion only, for she save our skins,” said Jeekie as he unknotted the
thongs and reverently replaced the fetish in its tin box. “My!” he
added, contemplating his master’s perspiring countenance, “you
blush like garden carrot; well, gold hot wear in afternoon sun beneath
Tropic of Cancer. Now we walk on quietly and I tell you all I arrange
for night’s lodging and future progress of joint expedition.”
So gathering together what remained of their few possessions, they
started leisurely down the slope towards the island, and as they went
Jeekie explained all that had happened, since Ogula was not one of the
African languages with which Alan was acquainted and he had only been
able to understand a word here and there.
“Look,” said Jeekie when he had finished, and turning, he pointed
to the cannibals who were driving the few survivors of the dwarfs before
them to the spot where their canoes were beached. “Those dwarfs done
for; capital business, forest road quite safe to travel home by; Ogula
best friends in world; very remarkable escape from delicate situation.”
“Very remarkable indeed,” said Alan; “I shall soon begin to
believe in the luck of Little Bonsa.”
“Yes, Major, you see she anxious to get home and make path clear.
But,” he added gloomily, “how she behave when she reach there,
can’t say.”
“Nor can I, Jeekie, but meanwhile I hope she will provide us with some
dinner, for I am faint for want of food and all the tinned meat is
lost.”
“Food,” repeated Jeekie. “Yes, necessity for human stomach,
which unhappily built that way, so Ogula find out, and so dwarfs find
out presently.” Then he looked about him and in a kind of aimless
manner lifted his gun and fired. “There we are,” he said, “Little
Bonsa understand bodily needs,” and he pointed to a fat buck of the sort
that in South Africa is called Duiker, which his keen eyes had
discovered in its form against a stone where it now lay shot through
the head and dying. “No further trouble on score of grub for next three
day,” he added. “Come on to camp, Major. I send one savage skin and
bring that buck.”
So on they went to the river bank, Alan so tired now that the excitement
was over, that he was not sorry to lean upon Jeekie’s arm. Reaching the
stream they drank deep of its water, and finding that it was shallow at
this spot, waded through it to the island without waiting for a canoe
to ferry them over. Here they found a party of the cannibals already at
work clearing reeds with their large, curved knives, in order to make a
site for the hut. Another party under the command of their chief
himself had gone to the top end of the island, to cut the stems of a
willow-like shrub to serve as uprights. These people stared at Alan,
which was not strange, as they had never before seen the face of a
white man, and were wondering, doubtless, what had become of the
ancient and terrible fetish that he had worn. Without entering into
explanations Jeekie in a great voice ordered two of them to fetch the
buck, which the white man, whom he described as “husband of the
goddess,” had “slain by thunder.” When these had departed upon their
errand, leaving Jeekie to superintend the building operations, Alan sat
down upon a fallen tree, watching one of the savages making fire with a
pointed stick and some tinder.
Just then from the head of the island where the willows were being cut,
rose the sound of loud roarings and of men crying out in affright.
Seizing his gun Alan ran towards the spot whence the noise came.
Forcing his way through a brake of reeds, he saw a curious sight. The
Ogula in cutting the willows which grew about some tumbled rocks, had
disturbed a lioness that had her lair there, and being fearless
savages, had tried to kill her with their spears. The brute, rendered
desperate by wounds, and the impossibility of escape, for here the
surrounding water was deep, had charged them boldly, and as it chanced,
felled to the ground their chief, that yellow-toothed man to whom
Jeekie gave his orders. Now she was standing over him looking round her
royally, her great paw upon his breast, which it seemed almost to
cover, while the Ogula ran round and round shouting, for they feared
that if they tried to attack her, she would kill the chief. This indeed
she seemed about to do, for just as Alan arrived she dropped her head
as though to tear out the man’s throat. Instantly he fired. It was a
snap shot, but as it chanced a good one, for the bullet struck the
lioness in the back of the neck just forward of and between the
shoulders, severing the spine so that without a sound or any further
movement she sank stone dead upon the prostrate cannibal. For a while
his followers stood astonished. They might have heard of guns from the
coast people, but living as they did in the interior where white folk
did not dare to travel, they had never seen their terrible effects.
“Magic!” they cried. “Magic!”
“Of course,” exclaimed Jeekie, who by now had arrived upon the
scene. “What else did you expect from the husband of Little Bonsa?
Magic, the greatest of magic. Go, roll that beast away before your
chief is crushed to death.”
They obeyed, and the man sat up, a fearful spectacle, for he was
smothered with the blood of the lion and somewhat cut by her claws,
though otherwise unhurt. Then feeling that the life was still whole in
him, he crept on his hands and knees to where Alan stood, and kissed
his feet.
“Aha!” said Jeekie, “Little Bonsa score again. Cannibal tribe
our slave henceforth for evermore. Yes, till kingdom come. Come on,
Major, and cook supper in perfect peace.”
The supper was cooked and eaten with gratitude, for seldom had two men
needed a square meal more, and never did venison taste better. By the
time that it was finished darkness had fallen, and before they turned
in to sleep in the neat reed hut that the Ogula had built, Alan and
Jeekie walked up the island to see if the lioness had been skinned, as
they directed. This they found was done; even the carcase itself had
been removed to serve as meat for these foul-feeding people. They
climbed on to the pile of rocks in which the beast had made her lair,
and looked down the river to where, two hundred yards away, the Ogula
were encamped. From this camp there rose a sound of revelry, and by the
light of the great fires that burned there, they perceived that the
hungry savages were busy feasting, for some of them sat in circles,
whilst others, their naked forms looking at that distance like those of
imps in the infernal regions, flitted to and fro against the glowing
background of the fires, bearing strange-looking joints on prongs of
wood.
“I suppose they are eating the lioness,” said Alan doubtfully.
“No, no, Major, not lioness; eat dwarf by dozen—just like oysters
at seaside. But for Little Bonsa _we_ sit on those forks now and look
uncommon small.”
“Beasts!” said Alan in disgust; “they make me feel uncommon
sick. Let us go to bed. I suppose they won’t murder us in our sleep,
will they?”
“Not they, Major, too much afraid. Also we their blood-brothers now,
because we bring them first-class dinner and save chief from lion’s
fury. No blame them too much, Major, good fellows really with gentle
heart, but grub like that from generation to generation. Every mother’s
son of them have many men inside, that why they so big and strong.
Ogula people cover great multitude like Charity in Book. No doubt sent
by Prov’dence to keep down extra pop’lation. Not right to think too
hard of poor fellows who, as I say, very kind and gentle at heart and
most loving in family relation, except to old women whom they eat also,
so that they no get bored with too long life.”
Weary and disgusted by this abominable sight though he was, Alan burst
out laughing at his retainer’s apology for the sweet-natured Ogula, who
struck him as the most repulsive blackguards that he had ever met or
heard of in all his experience of African savages. Then wishing to see
and hear no more of them that night, he retreated rapidly to the hut
and was soon fast asleep with his head pillowed on the box that hid the
charms of Little Bonsa. When he awoke it was broad daylight. Rising he
went down to the river to wash, and never had a bath been more welcome,
for during all their journey through the forest no such thing was
obtainable. On his return he found his garments well brushed with dry
reeds and set upon a rock in the hot sun to air, while Jeekie in a
cheerful mood, was engaged cooking breakfast in the frying-pan, to which
he had clung through all the vicissitudes of their flight.
“No coffee, Major,” he said regretfully, “that stop in
forest. But never mind, hot water better for nerve. Ogula messengers
gone in little canoe to Asiki at break of day. Travel slow till they
work off dwarf, but afterwards go quick. I send lion skin with them as
present from you to great high-priestess Asika, also claws for
necklace. No lions there and she think much of that. Also it make her
love mighty man who can kill fierce lion like Samson in Book. Love of
head woman very valuable ally among beastly savage peoples.”
“I am sure I hope it won’t,” said Alan with earnestness,
“but no doubt it is as well to keep on the soft side of the good lady if
we can. What time do we start?”
“In one hour, Major. I been to camp already, chosen best canoe and
finest men for rowers. Chief—he called Fanny—so grateful that he come
with them himself.”
“Indeed. That is very kind of him, but I say, Jeekie, what are these
fellows going to live on? I can’t stand what you call their
‘favourite chop.’”
“No, no, Major, that all right. I tell them that when they travel with
Little Bonsa, they must keep Lent like pious Roman Cath’lic family that
live near Yarleys. They catch plenty fish in river, and perhaps we shoot
game, or rich ’potamus, which they like ’cause he fat.”
Evidently the Ogula chief, Fahni by name, not Fanny, as Jeekie called
him, was a man of his word, for before the hour was up he appeared at
the island in command of a large canoe manned by twelve
splendid-looking savages. Springing to land, he prostrated himself
before Alan, kissing his feet as he had done on the previous night, and
making a long speech.
“That very good spirit,” exclaimed Jeekie. “Like to see
heathen in his darkness lick white gentleman’s boot. He say you his lord
and great magician who save his life, and know all Little Bonsa’s
secrets, which many and unrepeatable. He say he die for you twice a day
if need be, and go on dying to-morrow and all next year. He say he take
you safe till you meet Asiki and for your sake, though he hungry, eat
no man for one whole month, or perhaps longer. Now we start at once.”
So they started up the river that was called Katsena, Alan and Jeekie
seated in a lordly fashion near the stern of the canoe beneath an
awning made out of some sticks and a grass mat. In truth after their
severe toil and adventures in the forest, this method of journeying
proved quite luxurious. Except for a rapid here and there over or round
which the canoe must be dragged, the river was broad and the scenery on
its banks park-like and beautiful. Moreover the country, perhaps owing
to the appetites of the Ogula, appeared to be practically uninhabited
except by vast herds of every sort of game.
All day they sat in the canoe which the stalwart rowers propelled, in
silence for the most part, since they were terribly afraid of the white
man, and still more so of the renowned fetish which they knew he
carried with him. Then when evening came they moored their craft to the
bank and camped till the following morning. Nor did they lack for food,
since game being so plentiful, it was only necessary for Alan to walk a
few hundred yards and shoot a fat eland, or hartebeest, or other buck
which in its ignorance of guns would allow him to approach quite close.
Elephants, rhinoceros, and buffalo were also common, while great herds
of giraffe might be seen wandering between the scattered trees, but as
they were not upon a hunting trip and their ammunition was very
limited, with these they did not interfere.
Having their daily fill of meat which their souls loved, the Ogula
oarsmen remained in an excellent mood, indeed the chief, Fahni,
informed Alan that if only they had such magic tubes wherewith to
slaughter game, he and his tribe would gladly give up
cannibalism—except on feast days. He added sadly that soon they would
be obliged to do so, or die, since in those parts there were now few
people left to eat, and they hated vegetables. Moreover, they kept no
cattle, it was not the custom of that tribe, except a very few for milk.
Alan advised them to increase their herds, since, as he pointed out to
them, “dog should not eat dog” or the human being his own kind.
The chief answered that there was a great deal in what he said, which on
his return he would lay before his head men. Indeed Alan, to his
astonishment, discovered that Jeekie had been quite right when he
alleged that these people, so terrible in their mode of life, were yet
“kind and gentle at heart.” They preyed upon mankind because for
centuries it had been their custom so to do, but if anyone had been
there to show them a better way, he grew sure that they would follow it
gladly. At least they were brave and loyal and even after their first
fear of the white man had worn off, fulfilled their promises without a
murmur. Once, indeed, when he chanced to have gone for a walk unarmed
and to be charged by a bull elephant, these Ogula ran at the brute with
their spears and drove it away, a rescue in which one of them lost his
life, for the “rogue” caught and killed him.
So the days went on while they paddled leisurely up the river, Alan
employing the time by taking lessons in the Asiki tongue from Jeekie, a
language which he had been studying ever since he left England. The
task was not easy, as he had no books and Jeekie himself after some
thirty years of absence, was doubtful as to many of its details. Still
being a linguist by nature and education and finding in the tongue
similarities to other African dialects which he knew, he was now able
to speak it a little, in a halting fashion.
On the fifth day of their ascent of the river, they came to a tributary
that flowed into it from the north, up which the Ogula said they must
proceed to reach Asiki-land. The stream was narrow and sluggish,
widening out here and there into great swamps through which it was not
easy to find a channel. Also the district was so unhealthy that even
several of the Ogula contracted fever, of which Alan cured them by
heavy doses of quinine, for fortunately his travelling medicine chest
remained to him. These cures were effected after their chief suggested
that they should be thrown overboard, or left to die in the swamp as
useless, with the result that the white man’s magical powers were
thenceforth established beyond doubt or cavil. Indeed the poor Ogula now
looked on him as a god superior even to Little Bonsa, whose familiar he
was supposed to be.
The journey through that swamp was very trying, since in this wet season
often they could find no place on which to sleep at night, but must
stay in the canoe tormented by mosquitoes, and in constant danger of
being upset by the hippopotami that lived there. Moreover, as no game
was now available, they were obliged to live on these beasts, fish when
they could catch them, and wildfowl, which sometimes they were unable
to cook for lack of fuel. This did not trouble the Ogula, who ate them
raw, as did Jeekie when he was hungry. But Alan was obliged to starve
until they could make a fire. This it was only possible to do when they
found drift or other wood, since at that season the rank vegetation was
in full growth. Also the fearful thunderstorms which broke continually
and in a few minutes half filled their canoe with water, made the reeds
and the soil on which they grew, sodden with wet. As Jeekie said:
“This time of year only fit for duck and crocodile. Human should
remember uncontrollable forces of nature and wait till winter come in
due course, when quagmire bear sole of his foot.”
This elaborate remark he made to Alan during the progress of a
particularly fearful tempest. The lightning blazed in the black sky and
seemed to strike all about them like stabbing swords of fire, the
thunder crashed and bellowed as it may be supposed that it will do on
that day when the great earth, worn out at last, shall reel and stagger
to its doom. The rain fell in a straight and solid sheet; the tall
reeds waved confusedly like millions of dim arms and while they waved,
uttered a vast and groaning noise; the scared wildfowl in their terror,
with screams and the sough of wings, rushed past them in flocks a
thousand strong, now seen and now lost in the vapours. To keep their
canoe afloat the poor, naked Ogula oarsmen, shivering with cold and
fear, baled furiously with their hands, or bowls of hollowed wood, and
called back to Alan to save them as though he were the master of the
elements. Even Jeekie was depressed and appeared to be offering up
petitions, though whether these were directed to Little Bonsa or
elsewhere it was impossible to know.
As for Alan, the heart was out of him. It is true that so far he had
escaped fever or other sickness, which in itself was wonderful, but he
was chilled through and through and practically had eaten nothing for
two days, and very little for a week, since his stomach turned from
half-cooked hippopotamus fat and wildfowl. Moreover, they had lost the
channel and seemed to be wandering aimlessly through a wilderness of
reeds broken here and there by lines of deeper water.
According to the Ogula they should have reached the confines of the
great lake several days before and landed on healthful rising ground
that was part of the Asiki territory. But this had not happened, and
now he doubted whether it ever would happen. It was more likely that
they would come to their deaths, there in the marsh, especially as the
few ball and shot cartridges which they had saved in their flight were
now exhausted. Not one was left; nothing was left except their
revolvers with some charges, which of course were quite useless for the
killing of game. Therefore they were in a fair way to die of hunger, for
here if fish existed, they refused to be caught and nought remained for
them to fill themselves with except water slugs, and snails which the
boatmen were already gathering and crunching up in their great teeth.
Or, perhaps the Ogula, forgetting friendship under the pressure of
necessity, would murder them as they slept and—revert to their usual
diet.
Jeekie was right, he should have remembered the “uncontrollable forces
of Nature.” Only a madman would have undertaken such an expedition in
the rains. No wonder that the Asiki remained a secret and hidden people
when their frontier was protected by such a marsh as this upon the one
side and, as he understood, by impassable mountains upon the other.
There came a lull in the tempest and the boatmen began to get the better
of the water, which now was up to their knees. Alan asked Jeekie if he
thought it was over, but that worthy shook his white head mournfully,
causing the spray to fly as from a twirling mop, and replied:
“Can’t say, cats and dogs not tumble so many for present, only pups
and kitties left, so to speak, but think there plenty more up there,”
and he nodded at the portentous fire-laced cloud which seemed to be
spreading over them, its black edges visible even through the gloom.
“Bad business, I am afraid, Jeekie. Shouldn’t have brought you
here, or those poor beggars either,” and he looked at the scared, frozen
Ogula. “I begin to wonder——”
“Never wonder, Major,” broke in Jeekie in alarm. “If wonder,
not live, if wonder, not be born, too much wonder about everywhere.
Can’t understand nothing, so give it up. Say, ‘Right-O and devil
hindermost!’ Very good motto for biped in tight place. Better drown here
than in City bucket shop. But no drown. Should be dead long ago, but
Little Bonsa play the game, she not want to sink in stinking swamp when
so near her happy home. Come out all right somehow, as from dwarf.
Every cloud have silver lining, Major, even that black chap up there.
Oh! my golly!”
This last exclamation was wrung from Jeekie’s lips by a sudden
development of “forces of Nature” which astonished even him.
Instead of a silver lining the “black chap” exhibited one of gold.
In an instant it seemed to turn to acres of flame; it was as though the
heavens had taken fire. A flash or a thunderbolt struck the water
within ten yards of their canoe, causing the boatmen to throw
themselves upon their faces through shock or terror. Then came the
hurricane, which fortunately was so strong that it permitted no more
rain to fall. The tall reeds were beaten flat beneath its breath; the
canoe was seized in its grip and whirled round and round, then driven
forward like an arrow. Only the weight of the men and the water in it
prevented it from oversetting. Dense darkness fell upon them and
although they could see no star, they knew that it must be night. On
they rushed, driven by that shrieking gale, and all about and around
them this wall of darkness. No one spoke, for hope was abandoned, and
if they had, their voices could not have been heard. The last thing
that Alan remembered was feeling Jeekie dragging a grass mat over him
to protect him a little if he could. Then his senses wavered, as does a
dying lamp. He thought that he was back in what Jeekie had rudely
called “City bucket shop,” bargaining across the telephone wire, upon
which came all the sounds of the infernal regions, with a financial
paper for an article on a Little Bonsa Syndicate that he proposed to
float. He thought he was in The Court woods with Barbara, only the
birds in the trees sang so unnaturally loud that he could not hear her
voice, and she wore Little Bonsa on her head as a bonnet. Then she
departed in flame, leaving him and Death alone.
Alan awoke. Above the sun shone hotly, warming him back to life, but in
front was a thick wall of mist and rising beyond it in the distance he
saw the rugged swelling forms of mountains. Doubtless these had been
visible before, but the tall reeds through which they travelled had hid
the sight of them. He looked behind him and there in a heap lay the
Ogula around their chief, insensible or sleeping. He counted them and
found that two were gone, lost in the tempest, how or where no man ever
learned. He looked forward and saw a peculiar sight, for in the prow of
the drifting canoe stood Jeekie clad in the remains of his white robe
and wearing on his head the battered helmet and about his shoulders the
torn fragments of green mosquito net. While Alan was wondering strangely
why he had adopted this ceremonial garb, from out of the mist there
came a sound of singing, of wild and solemn singing. Jeekie seemed to
listen to it; then he lifted up his great musical voice and sang as
though in answer. What he sang Alan could not understand, but he
recognized that the language which he used was that of the Asiki
people.
A pause and a confused murmuring, and now again the wild song rose and
again Jeekie answered.
“What the deuce are you doing? Where are we?” asked Alan faintly.
Jeekie turned and beamed upon him; although his teeth were chattering
and his face was hollow, still he beamed.
“You awake, Major?” he said. “Thought good old sun do trick.
Feel your heart now and find it beat. Pulse, too, strong, though
temp’rature not normal. Well, good news this morning. Little Bonsa come
out top as usual. Asiki priests on bank there. Can’t see them, but know
their song and answer. Same old game as thirty years ago. Asiki never
change, which good business when you been away long while.”
“Hang the Asiki,” said Alan feebly, “I think all these poor
beggars are dead,” and he pointed to the rowers.
“Look like it, Major, but what that matter now since you and I alive?
Plenty more where they come from. Not dead though, think only sleep, no
like cold, like dormouse. But never mind cannibal pig. They serve our
turn, if they live, live; if they die, die and God have mercy on souls,
if cannibal have soul. Ah! here we are,” and from beneath six inches of
water he dragged up the tin box containing Little Bonsa, from which he
extracted the fetish, wet but uninjured.
“Put her on now, Major. Put her on at once and come sit in prow of
canoe. Must reach Asiki-land in proper style. Priests think it your
reverend uncle come back again, just as he leave. Make very good
impression.”
“I can’t,” said Alan feebly. “I am played out,
Jeekie.”
“Oh! buck up, Major, buck up!” he replied imploringly. “One
kick more and you win race, mustn’t spoil ship for ha’porth of tar.
You just wear fetish, whistle once on land, and then go to sleep for
whole week if you like. I do rest, say it all magic, and so forth—that
you been dead and just come out of grave, or anything you like. No
matter if you turn up as announced on bill and God bless hurricane that
blow us here when we expect die. Come, Major, quick, quick! mist melt
and soon they see you.” Then without waiting for an answer Jeekie
clapped the wet mask on his master’s head, tied the thongs and led Alan
to the prow of the canoe, where he set him down on a little cross
bench, stood behind supporting him and again began to sing in a great
triumphant voice.
The mist cleared away, rolling up like a curtain and revealing on the
shore a number of men and women clad in white robes, who were
martialled in ranks there, chanting and staring out at the dim waters
of the lagoon. Yonder upon the waters, driven forward by the gentle
breeze, floated a canoe and lo! in the prow of that canoe sat a white
man and on his head the god which they had lost a whole generation
gone. On the head of a white man it had departed; on the head of a
white man it returned. They saw and fell upon their knees.
“Blow, Major, blow!” whispered Jeekie, and Alan blew a feeble note
through the whistle in the mouth of the mask. It was enough, they knew
it. They sprang into the water and dragged the canoe to land. They set
Alan on the shore and worshipped him. They haled up a lad as though for
sacrifice, for a priest flourished a great knife above his head, but
Jeekie said something that caused them to let him go. Alan thought it
was to the effect that Little Bonsa had changed her habits across the
Black Water, and wanted no blood, only food. Then he remembered no
more; again the darkness fell upon him.
CHAPTER X.
BONSA TOWN.
When consciousness returned to Alan, the first thing of which he became
dimly aware was the slow, swaying motion of a litter. He raised
himself, for he was lying at full length, and in so doing felt that
there was something over his face.
“That confounded Little Bonsa,” he thought. “Am I expected to
spend the rest of my life with it on my head like the man in the iron
mask?”
Then he put up his hand and felt the thing, to find that it was not
Little Bonsa, but something made apparently of thin, fine linen, fitted
to the shape of his face, for there was a nose on it, and eyeholes
through which he could see, yes, and a mouth whereof the lips by some
ingenious contrivance could be moved up and down.
“Little Bonsa’s undress uniform, I expect,” he muttered, and
tried to drag it off. This, however, proved to be impossible, for it was
fitted tightly to his head and laced or fastened at the back of his
neck so securely that he could not undo it. Being still weak, soon he
gave up the attempt and began to look about him.
He was in a litter, a very fine litter hung round with beautifully woven
and coloured grass mats, inside of which were a kind of couch and
cushions of soft wool or hair, so arranged that he could either sit up
or lie down. He peeped between two of these mats and saw that they were
travelling in a mountainous country over a well-beaten road or trail,
and that his litter was borne upon the shoulders of a double line of
white-robed men, while all around him marched numbers of other men.
They seemed to be soldiers, for they were arranged in companies and
carried large spears and shields. Also some of them wore torques and
bracelets of yellow metal that might be either brass or gold. Turning
himself about he found an eyehole in the back of the litter so contrived
that its occupant could see without being seen, and perceived that his
escort amounted to a veritable army of splendid-looking, but
sombre-faced savages of a somewhat Semitic cast of countenance. Indeed
many of them had aquiline features and hair that, although crisped, was
long and carefully arranged in something like the old Egyptian fashion.
Also he saw that about thirty yards behind and separated from him by a
bodyguard, was borne a second litter. By means of a similar aperture in
front he discovered yet more soldiers, and beyond them, at the head of
the procession, was what appeared to be a body of white-robed men and
women bearing strange emblems and banners. These he took to be priests
and priestesses.
Having examined everything that was within reach of his eye, Alan sank
back upon his cushions and began to realize that he was very faint and
hungry. It was just then that the sound of a familiar voice reached his
ears. It was the voice of Jeekie, and he did not speak; he chanted in
English to a melody which Alan at once recognized as a Gregorian tone,
apparently from the second litter.
“Oh, Major,” he sang, “have you yet awoke from refre-e-eshing
sleep? If so, please answer me in same tone of voice, for remember that
you de-e-evil of a swell, Lord of the Little Bonsa, and must not speak
like co-o-ommon cad.”
Feeble as he was Alan nearly burst out laughing, then remembering that
probably he was expected not to laugh, chanted his answer as directed,
which having a good tenor voice, he did with some effect, to the
evident awe and delight of all the escort within hearing.
“I am awake, most excellent Jee-e-ekie, and feel the need of food, if
you have such a thing abou-ou-out you and it is lawful for the Lord of
Little Bonsa to take nu-tri-ment.”
Instantly Jeekie’s deep voice rose in reply.
“That good tidings upon the mountain tops, Ma-ajor. Can’t come out
to bring you chop because too i-i-infra dig, for now I also biggish bug,
the little bird what sit upon the rose, as poet sa-a-ays. I tell these
Johnnies bring you grub, which you eat without qualm, for Asiki A1
coo-o-ook.”
Then followed loud orders issued by Jeekie to his immediate _entourage_,
and some confusion.
As a result presently Alan’s litter was halted, the curtains were opened
and kneeling women thrust through them platters of wood upon which,
wrapped up in leaves, were the dismembered limbs of a bird which he
took to be chicken or guinea-fowl, and a gold cup containing water
pleasantly flavoured with some essence. This cup interested him very
much both on account of its shape and workmanship, which if rude, was
striking in design, resembling those drinking vessels that have been
found in Mycenian graves. Also it proved to him that Jeekie’s stories
of the abundance of the precious metal among the Asiki had not been
exaggerated. If it were not very plentiful, they would scarcely, he
thought, make their travelling cups of gold. Evidently there was wealth
in the land.
After the food had been handed to him the litter went on again, and
seated upon his cushions, he ate and drank heartily enough, for now
that the worst of his fatigue had passed away, his hunger was great. In
some absurd fashion this meal reminded him of that which a traveller
makes out of a luncheon basket upon a railway line in Europe or
America. Only there the cups are not of gold and among the Asiki were
no paper napkins, no salt and mustard, and no three and sixpence or
dollar to pay. Further, until he got used to it, luncheon in a linen
mask with a moveable mouth was not easy. This difficulty he overcame at
last by propping the imitation lips apart with a piece of bone, after
which things were easier.
When he had finished he threw the platter and the remains out of the
litter, retaining the cup for further examination, and recommenced his
intoned and poetical converse with Jeekie.
To set it out at length would be wearisome, but in the course of an hour
or so he collected a good deal of information. Thus he learned that
they were due to arrive at the Asiki city, which was called Bonsa Town,
by nightfall, or a little after. Also he was informed that the mask he
wore was, as he had guessed, a kind of undress uniform without which he
must never appear, since for anyone except the Asika herself to look
upon the naked countenance of an individual so mysteriously mixed up
with Little Bonsa, was sacrilege of the worst sort. Indeed Jeekie
assured him that the priests who had put on the head-dress when he was
insensible were first blindfolded.
This news depressed Alan very much, since the prospect of living in a
linen mask for an indefinite period was not cheerful. Recovering, he
chanted a query as to the fate of the Ogula crew and their chief Fahni.
“Not de-ad,” intoned Jeekie in reply, “and not gone back.
A-all alive-O, somewhere behind there. Fanny very sick about it, for he
think Asiki bring them along for sacrifice, poo-or beg-gars.”
Finally he inquired where Little Bonsa was and was answered that he
himself as its lawful guardian, was sitting on the fetish in its tin
box, tidings that he was able to verify by groping beneath the
cushions.
After this his voice gave out, though Jeekie continued to sing items of
interesting news from time to time. Indeed there were other things that
absorbed Alan’s attention. Looking through the peepholes and cracks in
the curtains, he saw that at last they had reached the crest of a ridge
up which they had been climbing for hours. Before them lay a vast and
fertile valley, much of which seemed to be under cultivation, and down
it flowed a broad and placid river. Opposite to him and facing west a
great tongue of land ran up to a wall of mountains with stark
precipices of black rock that seemed to be hundreds, or even thousands,
of feet high, and at the tip of this tongue a mighty waterfall rushed
over the precipice, looking at that distance like a cascade of smoke.
This torrent, which he remembered was called Raaba, fell into a great
pool and there divided itself into two rushing branches that enclosed
an ellipse of ground, surrounded on all sides by water, for on its
westernmost extremity the branches met again and after flowing a while
as one river, divided once more and wound away quietly to north and
south further than the eye could reach. On the island thus formed,
which may have been three miles long by two in breadth, stood thousands
of straw-roofed, square-built huts with verandas, neatly arranged in
blocks and lines and having between them streets that were edged with
palms.
On the hither side of the pool was what looked like a park, for here
grew great, black trees, which from their flat shape Alan took to be
some variety of cedar, and standing alone in the midst of this park
where no other habitations could be discovered, was a large, low
building with dark-coloured walls and gabled roofs that flashed like
fire.
“The Gold House!” said Alan to himself with a gasp. “So it is
not a dream or a lie.”
The details at that distance he could not discover, nor did he try to do
so, for the general glory of the scene held him in its grip. At this
evening hour, for a little while, the level rays of the setting sun
poured straight up the huge, water-hollowed kloof. They struck upon the
face of the fall, staining it and the clouds of mist that hung above,
to a hundred glorious hues; indeed the substance of the foaming water
seemed to be interlaced with rainbows whereof the arch reached their
crest and the feet were lost in the sullen blackness of the pool
beneath. Beautiful too was the valley, glowing in the quiet light of
evening, and even the native town thus gilded and glorified, looked like
some happy home of peace.
The sun was sinking rapidly, and before the litter reached the foot of
the hill and began to cross the rich valley, all the glory had departed
and only the cataract showed white and ghost-like through the gloom.
But still the light, which seemed to gather to itself, gleamed upon
that golden roof amid the cedar trees; then the moon rose and the gold
was turned to silver. Alan lay back upon his cushions full of wonder,
almost of awe. It was a marvellous thing that he should have lived to
reach this secret place hidden in the heart of Africa and defended by
swamps, mountains and savages to which, so far as he knew, only one
white man had ever penetrated. And to think of it! That white man, his
own uncle, had never even held it worth while to make public any
account of its wonders, which apparently had seemed to him of no
importance. Or perhaps he thought that if he did he would not be
believed. Well, there they were before and about him, and now the
question was, what would be his fate in this Gold House where the great
fetish dwelt with its priestess?
Ah! that priestess! Somehow he shivered a little when he thought of her;
it was as though her influence were over him already. Next moment he
forgot her for a while, for they had come to the river brink and the
litter was being carried on to a barge or ferry, about which were
gathered many armed men. Evidently the Gold House was well defended
both by Nature and otherwise. The ferry was pulled or rowed across the
river, he could not see which, and they passed through a gateway into
the town and up a broad street where hundreds of people watched his
advent. They did not seem to speak, or if they spoke their voices were
lost in the sound of the thunder of the great cataract which dominated
the place with its sullen, continuous roar. It took Alan days to become
accustomed to that roar, but by the inhabitants of Asiki-land
apparently it was not noticed; their ears and voices were attuned to
overcome its volume which their fathers had known from the beginning.
Presently they were through the town and a wooden gate in an inner wall
which surrounded the park where the cedars grew. At this spot Alan
noted that everybody left them except the bearers and a few men whom he
took to be priests. On they stole like ghosts beneath the mighty trees,
from whose limbs hung long festoons of moss. It was very dark there,
only in places where a bough was broken the moonlight lay in white
gules upon the ground. Another wall and another gate, and suddenly the
litter was set down. Its curtains opened, torches flashed, women
appeared clad in white robes, veiled and mysterious, who bowed before
him, then half led and half lifted him from his litter. He could feel
their eyes on him through their veils, but he could not see their faces.
He could see nothing except their naked, copper-coloured arms and long
thin hands stretched out to assist him.
Alan descended from the litter as slowly as he could, for somehow he
shrank from the quaint, carved portal which he saw before him. He did
not wish to pass it; its aspect filled him with reluctance. The women
drew him on, their hands pulled at his arms, their shoulders pressed
him from behind. Still he hung back, looking about him, till to his
delight he saw the other litter arrive and out of it emerge Jeekie,
still wearing his sun-helmet with its fringe of tattered mosquito
curtain.
“Here we are, Major,” he said in his cheerful voice, “turned
up all right like a bad ha’penny, but in odd situation.”
“Very odd,” echoed Alan. “Could you persuade these ladies to
let go of me?”
“Don’t know,” answered Jeekie. “’Spect they
doubtfully your wives; ’spect you have lots of wives here; don’t
get white man every day, so make most of him. Best thing you do, kick
out and teach them place. Rub nose in dirt at once and make them good,
that first-class plan with female. I no like interfere in such delicate
matter.”
Terrified by this information, Alan put out his strength and shook the
women off him, whereon without seeming to take any offence, they drew
back to a little distance and began to bow, like automata. Then Jeekie
addressed them in their own language, asking them what they meant by
defiling this mighty lord, born of the Heavens, with the touch of their
hands, whereat they went on bowing more humbly than before. Next he
threw aside the cushions of the litter and finding the tin box
containing Little Bonsa, held it before him in both hands and bade the
women lead on.
The march began, a bewildering march. It was like a nightmare. Veiled
women with torches before and behind, Jeekie stalking ahead carrying
the battered tin box, long passages lined with gold, a vision of black
water edged with a wide promenade, and finally a large lamp-lit room
whereof the roof was supported by gilded columns, and in the room
couches of cushions, wooden stools inlaid with ivory, vessels of water,
great basins made of some black, hard wood, and in the centre a block
of stone that looked like an altar.
Jeekie set down the tin box upon the altar-like stone, then he turned to
the crowd of women and said, “Bring food.” Instantly they departed,
closing the door of the room behind them.
“Now for a wash,” said Alan, “unlace this confounded mask,
Jeekie.”
“Mustn’t, Major, mustn’t. Priests tell me that. If those
girls see you without mask, perhaps they kill them. Wait till they gone
after supper, then take it off. No one allowed see you without mask
except Asika herself.”
Alan stepped to one of the wooden bowls full of water which stood under
a lamp, and gazed at his own reflection. The mask was gilded; the sham
lips were painted red and round the eye-holes were black lines.
“Why, it is horrible,” he exclaimed, starting back. “I look
like a devil crossed with Guy Fawkes. Do you mean to tell me that I have
got to live in this thing?”
“Afraid so, Major, upon all public occasion. At least they say that. You
holy, not lawful see your sacred face.”
“Who do the Asiki think I am, then, Jeekie?”
“They think you your reverend uncle come back after many, many year. You
see, Major, they not believe uncle run away with Little Bonsa; they
believe Little Bonsa run away with uncle just for change of air and so
on, and that now, when she tired of strange land, she bring him back
again. That why you so holy, favourite of Little Bonsa who live with
you all this time and keep you just same age, bloom of youth.”
“In Heaven’s name,” asked Alan, exasperated, “what is
Little Bonsa, beyond an ancient and ugly gold fetish?”
“Hush,” said Jeekie, “mustn’t call her names here in
her own house. Little Bonsa much more than fetish, Little Bonsa alive,
or so,” he added doubtfully, “these silly niggers say. She wife of Big
Bonsa, who you see, to-morrow p’raps. But their story this, that she get
dead sick of Big Bonsa and bolt with white Medicine man, who dare preach
she nothing but heathen idol. She want show him whether or no she only
idol. That the yarn, priests tell it me to-day. They always watch for
her there by the edge of the lake. They always sure Little Bonsa come
back. Not at all surprised, but as she love you once, you stop holy;
and I holy also, thank goodness, because she take me too as servant.
Therefore we sleep in peace, for they not cut our throats, at any rate
at present, though I think,” he added mournfully, “they not let us go
either.”
Alan sat down on a stool and groaned at the appalling prospect suggested
by this information.
“Cheer up, Major,” said Jeekie sympathetically. “Perhaps
manage hook it somehow, and meanwhile make best of bad business and have
high old time. You see you want to come Asiki-land, though I tell you
it rum place, and,” he added with certitude and a circular sweep of his
hand, “by Jingo! you here now and I daresay they give you all the gold
you want.”
“What’s the good of gold unless one can get away with it?
What’s the good of anything if we are prisoners among these devils?”
“Perhaps time show, Major. Hush! here come dinner. You sit still on
stool and look holy.”
The door opened and through it appeared four of the women bearing dishes
and cups full of drink, fashioned of gold like that which had been
given to Alan in the litter. He noticed at once that they had removed
their veils and outer garments, if indeed they were the same women, and
now, like many other Africans, were but lightly clad in linen capes
open in front that hung over their shoulders, short petticoats or
skirts about their middles, and sandals. Such was their attire which,
scanty as it might be, was yet becoming enough and extremely rich. Thus
the cape was fastened with a brooch of worked gold, so were the sandal
straps, while the petticoat was adorned with beads of gold that jingled
as they walked, and amongst them strings of other beads of various and
beautiful colours, that might be glass or might be precious stones.
Moreover, these women were young and handsome, having splendid figures
and well-cut features, soft, dark eyes and rather long hair worn in the
formal and attractive fashion that has been described.
Advancing to Alan two of them knelt before him, holding out the trays
upon which was the food. So they remained while he ate, like bronze
statues, nor would they consent to change their posture even when he
told them in their language to be pleased to go away. On hearing
themselves addressed in the Asiki language, they seemed surprised, for
their faces changed a little, but go they would not. The result was
that Alan grew extremely nervous and ate and drank so rapidly that he
scarcely noted what he was putting into his mouth. Then before Jeekie,
to whom the women did not kneel, had half finished his dinner, Alan
rose and walked away, whereon two of the women gathered up everything,
including the dishes that had been given to Jeekie, and in spite of his
remonstrances carried them out of the room.
“I say, Major,” said Jeekie, “if you gobble chop so fast you
go ill inside. Poor nigger like me can’t keep up with you and sleep
hungry to-night.”
“I am sorry, Jeekie,” said Alan with a little laugh, “but I
can’t eat off living tables, especially when they stare at one like
that. You tell them that to-morrow we will breakfast alone.”
“Oh, yes, I tell them, Major, but I don’t know if they listen. They
mean it great compliment and only think you not like those girls and
send others.”
“Look here, Jeekie,” exclaimed Alan, turning his masked face
towards the two who remained, “let us come to an understanding at once.
Clear them out. Tell them I am so holy that Little Bonsa is enough for
me. Say I can’t bear the sight of females, and that if they stop here I
will sacrifice them. Say anything you like, only get rid of them and
lock the door.”
Thus adjured, Jeekie began to reason with the women, and as they treated
his remarks with lofty disdain, at last seized first one and then the
other by the elbows and literally ran them out of the room.
“There,” he said, “baggage gone since you make such fuss
about it, though I ’spect they try to give me Bean for this job”
(here he spoke not in figurative English slang, but of the Calabar bean,
which is a favourite native poison). “Well, dinner gone and girls gone,
and we tired, so best go to bed. Think we all private here now, though
in Gold House never can be sure,” and he looked round him suspiciously,
adding, “rummy place, Gold House, full of all sort of holes made by old
fellows thousand year ago, which no one know but Bonsa priests. Still,
best risk it and take off your face so that you have decent wash,” and
he began to unlace the mask on his master’s head.
Never has a City clerk dressed up for a fancy ball in the armour of a
Norman knight, been more glad to get rid of his costume than was Alan
of that hateful head-dress. At length it was gone with his other
garments and the much-needed wash accomplished, after which he clothed
himself in a kind of linen gown which apparently had been provided for
him, and lay down on one of the couches, placing his revolver by his
side.
“Will those lamps burn all night, Jeekie?” he asked.
“Hope so, Major, as we haven’t got no match. Not fond of dark in
Gold House,” answered Jeekie sleepily. Then he began to snore.
Alan fell asleep, but was too excited and tired to rest very soundly.
All sorts of dreams came to him, one of which he remembered on
awakening, perhaps because it was the last. He dreamed that he heard
some noise and opened his eyes, to see that they were no longer alone
in the room. The oil lamps had burned quite low, indeed some of them
were out, but by the light of those that remained he saw a tall figure
which seemed to appear at the edge of the surrounding blackness, a
woman’s figure. It walked forward to the altar-like stone upon which
lay the tin box containing Little Bonsa, and after several rather
awkward attempts, succeeded in opening it, thereby making a noise which,
in his dream, finally awoke Alan. For a while the figure gazed at the
fetish. Then it shut the box, glided to his bed and bent down as though
to study him. Out of the corners of his eyes he peered up at it,
pretending all the while to be fast asleep.
It was that of a woman wonderfully clad in gold-spangled, veil-like
garments with round bosses shaped to the breast, covered with thin
plates of gold fashioned like the scales of a fish which showed off the
extraordinary elegance of her lithe form. The low lamp-light shone upon
her face and the coronet of gold set upon her dark hair. What a face it
was! Never in all his days had he seen its like for evil loveliness.
The great, languid, oblong eyes, the rich red lips bent like a bow, the
cruel smile of the mouth, the broad forehead on which the hair grew
low, the delicately arched eyebrows and the long curving lashes of the
heavy lids beneath them, the rounded cheeks, smooth as a ripe fruit,
the firm, shapely chin, the snake-like poise of the head, the long
bending neck, and the feline smile; all of these combined made such a
dream-vision as he had never seen before, and to tell the truth,
notwithstanding its beauty, for that could not be doubted, never wished
to see again. Somehow he felt that if Satan should happen to have a
copper-coloured wife, the exact picture of that lady had projected
itself upon his sleeping senses.
She seemed to study him very earnestly, with a kind of passionate
eagerness, indeed, moving a little now and again to let the light fall
upon some part that was in shadow. Once even she stretched out her
rounded arm and just lifted the edge of the blanket so as to expose his
hand, the left. As it chanced on the little finger of this hand Alan
wore a plain gold ring which Barbara had given him; once it had been
her grandfather’s signet. This ring, which had a coat of arms cut upon
its bezel seemed to interest her very much as she examined it for a
long while. Then she drew off from her own finger another ring of gold
fashioned of two snakes curiously intertwined, and gently, so gently
that in his sleep he scarcely felt it, slipped it on to his finger above
Barbara’s ring.
After this she seemed to vanish away, and Alan slept soundly until the
morning, when he awoke to find the light of the sun pouring into the
room through the high-set latticed window places.
CHAPTER XI.
THE HALL OF THE DEAD.
Alan rose and stretched himself, and hearing him, Jeekie, who had a
dog’s faculty of instantly awaking from what seemed to be the deepest
sleep, sat up also.
“You rest well, Major? No dream, eh?” he asked curiously.
“Not very,” answered Alan, “and I had a dream, of a woman who
stood over me and vanished away, as dreams do.”
“Ah!” said Jeekie. “But where you find that new ring on
finger, Major?”
Alan stared at his hand and started, for there set on it above that of
Barbara, was the little circlet formed of twisted snakes which he had
seen in his sleep.
“Then it must have been true,” he said in a low and rather
frightened voice. “But how did she come and go?”
“Funny place, Gold House. I tell you that yesterday, Major. People come
up through hole, like rat. Never quite sure you alone in Gold House. But
what this lady like?”
Alan described his visitor to the best of his ability.
“Ah!” said Jeekie, “pretty girl. Big eyes, gold crown, gold
stays which fit tight in front, very nice and decent; sort of
night-shirt with little gold stars all over—by Jingo! I think that
Asika herself. If so—great compliment.”
“Confound the compliment, I think it great cheek,” answered Alan
angrily. “What does she mean by poking about here at night and putting
rings on my finger?”
“Don’t know, Major, but p’raps she wish make you understand
that she like cut of your jib. Find out by and by. Meanwhile you wear
ring, for while that on finger no one do you any harm.”
“You told me that this Asika is a married woman, did you not?”
remarked Alan gloomily.
“Oh, yes, Major, always married; one down, other come on, you see. But
she not always like her husband, and then she make him sit up, poor
devil, and he die double quick. Great honour to be Asika’s husband, but
soon all finished. P’raps——”
Then he checked himself and suggested that Alan should have a bath while
he cleaned his clothes, an attention that they needed.
Scarcely had Alan finished his toilet, donned the Arab-looking linen
robe over his own fragmentary flannels, and above it the hateful mask
which Jeekie insisted he must wear, when there came a knocking on the
door. Motioning to Alan to take his seat upon a stool, Jeekie undid the
bars, and as before women appeared with food and waited while they ate,
which this time, having overcome his nervousness, Alan did more
leisurely. Their meal done, one of the women asked Jeekie, for to his
master they did not seem to dare to speak, whether the white lord did
not wish to walk in the garden. Without waiting for an answer she led
him to the end of the large room and, unbarring another door that they
had not noticed, revealed a passage, beyond which appeared trees and
flowers. Then she and her companions went away with the fragments of
the meal.
“Come on,” said Alan, taking up the box containing Little Bonsa,
which he did not dare to leave behind, “and let us get into the
air.”
So they went down the passage and at the end of it through gates of
copper or gold, they knew not which, that had evidently been left open
for them, into the garden. It was a large place, a good many acres in
extent indeed, and kept with some care, for there were paths in it and
flowers that seemed to have been planted. Also here grew certain of the
mighty cedar trees that they had seen from far off, beneath whose
spreading boughs twilight reigned, while beyond, not more than half a
mile away, the splendid river-fall thundered down the precipice. For
the rest they could find no exit to that garden which on one side was
enclosed by a sheer cliff of living rock, and on the others with steep
stone walls beyond which ran a torrent, and by the buildings of the Gold
House itself.
For a while they walked up and down the rough paths, till at last
Jeekie, wearying of this occupation, remarked:
“Melancholy hole this, Major. Remind me of Westminster Abbey in London
fog, where your uncle of blessed mem’ry often take me pray and look at
fusty tomb of king. S’pose we go back Gold House and see what happen.
Anything better than stand about under cursed old cedar tree.”
“All right,” said Alan, who through the eyeholes of his mask had
been studying the walls to seek a spot in them that could be climbed if
necessary, and found none.
So they returned to the room, which had been swept and garnished in
their absence. No sooner had they entered it than the door opened and
through it came long lines of Asiki priests, each of whom staggered
beneath the weight of a hide bag that he bore upon his shoulder, which
bags they piled up about the stone altar. Then, as though at some
signal, each priest opened the mouth of his bag and Alan saw that they
wee filled with gold, gold in dust, gold in nuggets, gold in vessels
perfect or broken; more gold than Alan had ever seen before.
“Why do they bring all this stuff here?” he asked, and Jeekie
translated his question.
“It is an offering to the lord of Little Bonsa,” answered the head
priest, bowing, “a gift from the Asika. The heaven-born white man sent
word by his Ogula messengers that he desired gold. Here is the gold that
he desired.”
Alan stared at the treasure, which after all was what he had come to
seek. If only he had it safe in England, he would be a rich man and his
troubles ended. But how could he get it to England? Here it was
worthless as mud.
“I thank the Asika,” he said. “I ask for porters to bear her
gift back to my own country, since it is too heavy for me and my servant
to carry alone.”
At these words the priest smiled a little, then said that the Asika
desired to see the white lord and to receive from him Little Bonsa in
return for the gold, and that he could proffer his request to her.
“Good,” replied Alan, “lead me to the Asika.”
Then they started, Alan bearing the box containing Little Bonsa, and
Jeekie following after him. They went down passages and through sundry
doors till at length they came to a long and narrow hall that seemed to
be lined with plates of gold. At the end of this hall was a large chair
of black wood and ivory placed upon a daïs, and sitting in this chair
with the light pouring on her from some opening above, was the woman of
Alan’s dream, beautiful to look on in her crown and glittering
garments. Upon a stool at the foot of the daïs sat a man, a handsome
and melancholy man. His hair was tied behind his head in a pigtail and
gilded, his face was painted red, white and yellow; he wore ropes of
bright-coloured stones about his neck, middle, arms and ankles, and held
a kind of sceptre in his hand.
“Who is that creature?” asked Alan over his shoulder to Jeekie.
“The Court fool?”
“That husband of Asika, Major. He not fool, very big gun, but look a
little low now because his time soon up. Come on, Major, Asika beckon
us. Get on stomach and crawl; that custom here,” he added, going down
on to his hands and knees, as did all the priests who followed them.
“I’ll see her hanged first,” answered Alan in English.
Then, accompanied by the creeping Jeekie and the train of prostrate
priests, he marched up the long hall to the edge of the daïs and there
stood still and bowed to the woman in the chair.
“Greeting, white man,” she said in a low voice when she had studied
him for a while. “Do you understand my tongue?”
“A little,” he answered in Asiki, “moreover, my servant here
knows it well and can translate.”
“I am glad,” she said. “Tell me then, in your country do not
people go on to their knees before their queen, and if not, how do they
greet her?”
“No,” answered Alan with the help of Jeekie. “They greet her
by raising their head-dress or kissing her hand.”
“Ah!” she said. “Well, you have no head-dress, so kiss
_my_ hand,” and she stretched it out towards him, at the same time
prodding the man whom Jackie had said was her husband, in the back with
her foot, apparently to make him get out of the way.
Not knowing what else to do, Alan stepped on to the daïs, the painted
man scowling at him as he passed. Then he halted and said:
“How can I kiss your hand through this mask, Asika?”
“True,” she answered, then considered a little and added,
“White man, you have brought back Little Bonsa, have you not, Little
Bonsa who ran away with you a great many years ago?”
“I have,” he said, ignoring the rest of the question.
“Your messengers said that you required a present of gold in return for
Little Bonsa. I have sent you one, is it sufficient? If not, you can
have more.”
“I cannot say, O Asika, I have not examined it. But I thank you for the
present and desire porters to enable me to carry it away.”
“You desire porters,” she repeated meditatively. “We will
talk of that when you have rested here a moon or two. Meanwhile, give me
Little Bonsa that she may be restored to her own place.”
Alan opened the tin box and lifting out the fetish, gave it to the
priestess, who took it and with a serpentine movement of extraordinary
grace glided from her chair on to her knees, holding the mask above her
head in both hands, then thrice covered her face with it. This done,
she called to the priests, bidding them take Little Bonsa to her own
place and give notice throughout the land that she was back again. She
added that the ancient Feast of Little Bonsa would be held on the night
of the full moon within three days, and that all preparations must be
made for it as she had commanded.
Then the head medicine-man, raising himself upon his knees, crept on to
the daïs, took the fetish from her hands, and breaking into a wild song
of triumph, he and his companions crawled down the hall and vanished
through the door, leaving them alone save for the Asika’s husband.
When they had gone the Asika looked at this man in a reflective way, and
Alan looked at him also through the eyeholes of his mask, finding him
well worth studying. As has been said, notwithstanding his paint and
grotesque decorations, he was very good-looking for a native, with
well-cut features of an Arab type. Also he was tall and muscular and
not more than thirty years of age. What struck Alan most, however, was
none of these things, nor his jewelled chains, nor even his gilded
pigtail, but his eyes, which were full of terrors. Seeing them, Alan
remembered Jeekie’s story, which he had told to Mr. Haswell’s guests at
The Court, of how the husband of the Asika was driven mad by ghosts.
Just then she spoke to the man, addressing him by name and saying:
“Leave us alone, Mungana, I wish to speak with this white lord.”
He did not seem to hear her words, but continued to stare at Alan.
“Hearken!” she exclaimed in a voice of ice. “Do my bidding
and begone, or you shall sleep alone to-night in a certain chamber that
you know of.”
Then Mungana rose, looked at her as a dog sometimes does at a cruel
master who is about to beat it, yes, with just that same expression,
put his hands before his eyes for a little while, and turning, left the
hall by a side door which closed behind him. The Asika watched him go,
laughed musically and said:
“It is a very dull thing to be married,—but how are you named,
white man?”
“Vernon,” he answered.
“Vernoon, Vernoon,” she repeated, for she could not pronounce the O
as we do. “Are _you_ married, Vernoon?”
He shook his head.
“Have you been married?”
“No,” he answered, “never, but I am going to be.”
“Yes,” she repeated, “you are going to be. You remember that
you were near to it many years ago, when Little Bonsa got jealous and
ran away with you. Well, she won’t do that again, for doubtless she is
tired of you now, and besides,” she added with a flash of ferocity,
“I’d melt her with fire first and set her spirit free.”
While Jeekie was trying to explain this mysterious speech to Alan, the
Asika broke in, asking:
“Do you always want to wear that mask?”
He answered, “Certainly not,” whereon she bade Jeekie take it off,
which he did.
“Understand me,” she said, fixing her great languid eyes upon his
in a fashion that made him exceedingly uncomfortable, “understand,
Vernoon, that if you go out anywhere, it must be in your mask, which you
can only put off when you are alone with _me._”
“Why?”
“Because, Vernoon, I do not choose that any other woman should see your
face. If a woman looks upon your uncovered face, remember that she
dies—not nicely.”
Alan stared at her blankly, being unable to find appropriate Asiki words
in which to reply to this threat. But the Asika only leaned back in her
chair and laughed at his evident confusion and dismay, till a new
thought struck her.
“Your lips are free now,” she said; “kiss my hand after the
fashion of your own country,” and she stretched it out to Alan, leaving
him no choice but to obey her.
“Why,” she went on mischievously, taking his hand and in turn
touching it with her red lips, “why, are you a thief, Vernoon? That ring
was mine and you have stolen it. How did you steal that ring?”
“I don’t know,” he answered, through Jeekie, “I found
it on my finger. I cannot understand how it came there. I understand
nothing of all this talk.”
“Well, well, keep it, Vernoon, only give me that other ring of yours in
exchange.”
“I cannot,” he replied, colouring. “I promised to wear it
always.”
“Whom did you promise?” she asked with a flash of rage. “Was
it a woman? Nay, I see, it is a man’s ring, and that is well, for
otherwise I would bring a curse on her, however far off she may be
dwelling. Say no more and forgive my anger. A vow is a vow—keep your
ring. But where is that one you used to wear in bygone days? I recall
that it had a cross upon it, not this star and figure of an eagle.”
Now Alan remembered that his uncle owned such a ring with a cross upon
it, and was frightened, for how did this woman know these things?
“Jeekie,” he said, “ask the Asika if I am mad, or if she is.
How can she know what I used to wear, seeing that I was never in this
place till yesterday, and certainly I have not met her anywhere else.”
“She mean when you your reverend uncle,” said Jeekie, wagging his
great head, “she think you identical man.”
“What troubles you, Vernoon,” the Asika asked softly, then added
anything but softly to Jeekie, “Translate, you dog, and be swift.”
So Jeekie translated in a great hurry, telling her what Alan had said,
and adding on his own account that he, silly white man that he was,
could not understand how, as she was quite a young woman, she could
have seen him before she was born. If that were so, she would be old
and ugly now, not beautiful as she was.
“I never saw you before, and you never saw me, Lady, yet you talk as
though we had been friends,” broke in Alan in his halting Asiki.
“So we were in the spirit, Vernoon. It was she who went before me who
loved that white man whose face was as your face is, but her ghost lives
on in me and tells me the tale. There have been many Asikas, for
thousands of years they have ruled in this land, yet but one spirit
belongs to them all; it is the string upon which the beads of their
lives are threaded. White man, I, whom you think young, know everything
back to the beginning of the world, back to the time when I was a
monkey woman sitting in those cedar trees, and if you wish, I can tell
it you.”
“I should like to hear it very much indeed,” answered Alan, when he
had mastered her meaning, “though it is strange that none of the rest of
us remember such things. Meanwhile, O Asika, I will tell you that I
desire to return to my own land, taking with me that gift of gold that
you have given me. When will it please you to allow me to return?”
“Not yet a while, I think,” she said, smiling at him weirdly, for
no other word will describe that smile. “My spirit remembers that it was
always thus. Those wanderers who came hither always wished to return
again to their own country, like the birds in spring. Once there was a
white man among them, that was more than twenty hundred years ago; he
was a native of a country called Roma, and wore a helmet. He wished to
return, but my mother of that day, she kept him and by and by I will
show him to you if you like. Before that there was a brown man who came
from a land where a great river overflows its banks every year. He was
a prince of his own country, who had fled from his king and the desert
folk made a slave of him, and so he drifted hither. He wished to return
also, for my mother of that day, or my spirit that dwelt in her, showed
to him that if he could but be there they would make him king in his
own land. But my mother of that day, she would not let him go, and by
and by I will show him to you, if you wish.”
Bewildered, amazed, Alan listened to her. Evidently the woman was mad,
or else she played some mystical part for reasons of her own.
“When will you let me go, O Asika?” he repeated.
“Not yet a while, I think,” she said again. “You are too
comely and I like you,” and she smiled at him. There was nothing coarse
in the smile, indeed it had a certain spiritual quality which thrilled
him. “I like you,” she went on in her dreamy voice, “I would keep
you with me until your spirit is drawn up into my spirit, making it
strong and rich as all the spirits that went before have done, those
spirits that my mothers loved from the beginning, which dwell in me
to-day.”
Now Alan grew alarmed, desperate even.
“Queen,” he said, “but just now your husband sat here, is it
right then that you should talk to me thus?”
“My husband,” she answered, laughing. “Why, that man is but a
slave who plays the part of husband to satisfy an ancient law. Never has
he so much as kissed my finger tips; my women—those who waited on you
last night—are his wives, not I,—or may be, if he will. Soon he will
die of love for me, and then when he is dead, though not before, I may
take another husband, any husband that I choose, and I think that no
black man shall be my lord, who have other, purer blood in me. Vernoon,
five centuries have gone by since an Asika was really wed to a foreign
man who wore a green turban and called himself a son of the Prophet, a
man with a hooked nose and flashing eyes, who reviled our gods until
they slew him, even though he was the beloved of their priestess. She
who went before me also would have married that white man whose face
was like your face, but he fled with Little Bonsa, or rather Little
Bonsa fled with him. So she passed away unwed, and in her place I
came.”
“How did you come, if she whom you call your mother was not your
mother?” asked Alan.
“What is that to you, white man?” she replied haughtily. “I
am here, as my spirit has been here from the first. Oh! I see you think
I lie to you, come then, come, and I will show you those who from the
beginning have been the husbands of the Asika,” and rising from her
chair she took him by the hand.
They went through doors and by long, half-lit passages till they came to
great gates guarded by old priests armed with spears. As they drew near
to these priests the Asika loosed a scarf that she wore over her
breast-plate of gold fish scales, and threw the star-spangled thing
over Alan’s head, that even these priests should not see his face. Then
she spoke a word to them and they opened the gates. Here Jeekie evinced
a disposition to remain, remarking to his master that he thought that
place, into which he had never entered, “much too holy for poor nigger
like him.”
The Asika asked him what he had said and he explained his sense of
unworthiness in her own tongue.
“Come, fellow,” she exclaimed, “to translate my words and to
bear witness that no trick is played upon your lord.”
Still Jeekie lingered bashfully, whereon at a sign from her, one of the
priests pricked him behind with his great spear, and uttering a low
howl he sprang forward.
The Asika led the way down a passage, which they saw ended in a big hall
lit with lamps. Now they were in it and Alan became aware that they had
entered the treasure house of the Asiki, since here were piled up great
heaps of gold, gold in ingots, gold in nuggets, in stone jars filled
with dust, in vessels plain or embossed with monstrous shapes in
fetishes and in little squares and discs that looked as though they had
served as coins. Never had he seen so much gold before.
“You are rich here, Lady,” he said, gazing at the piles astonished.
She shrugged her shoulders. “Yes, as I have heard that some people count
wealth. These are the offerings brought to our gods from the beginning;
also all the gold found in the mountains belongs to the gods, and there
is much of it there. The gift I sent to you was taken from this heap,
but in truth it is but a poor gift, seeing that although this stuff is
bright and serves for cups and other things, it has no use at all and
is only offered to the gods because it is harder to come by than other
metals. Look, these are prettier than the gold,” and from a stone table
she picked up at hazard a long necklace of large, uncut stones, red and
white in colour and set alternatively, that Alan judged to be crystals
and spinels.
“Take it,” she said, “and examine it at your leisure. It is
very old. For hundreds of years no more of these necklaces have been
made,” and with a careless movement she threw the chain over his head so
that it hung upon his shoulders.
Alan thanked her, then remembered that the man called Mungana, who was
the husband, real or official, of this priestess, had been somewhat
similarly adorned, and shivered a little as though at a presage of
advancing fate. Still he did not return the thing, fearing lest he
should give offence.
At this moment his attention was taken from the treasure by the sound of
a groan behind him. Turning round he perceived Jeekie, his great eyes
rolling as though in an extremity of fear.
“Oh my golly! Major,” he ejaculated, pointing to the wall,
“look there.”
Alan looked, but at first in that dim light could only discover long
rows of gleaming objects which reached from the floor to the roof.
“Come and see,” said the Asika, and taking a lamp from that table
on which lay the gems, she led him past the piles of gold to one side of
the vault or hall. Then he saw, and although he did not show it, like
Jeekie he was afraid.
For there, each in his own niche and standing one above the other, were
what looked like hundreds of golden men with gleaming eyes. At first
until the utter stillness undeceived him, he thought that they _must_
be men. Then he understood that this was what they had been; now they
were corpses wrapped in sheets of thin gold and wearing golden masks
with eyes of crystal, each mask being beaten out to a hideous
representation of the man in life.
“All these are the husbands of my spirit,” said the priestess,
waving the lamp in front of the lowest row of them, “Munganas who were
married to the Asikas in the past. Look, here is he who said that he
ought to be king of that rich land where year after year the river
overflows its banks,” and going to one of the first of the figures in
the bottom row, she drew out a fastening and suffered the gold mask to
fall forward on a hinge, exposing the face within.
Although it had evidently been treated with some preservative, this head
now was little more than a skull still covered with dark hair, but set
upon its brow appeared an object that Alan recognized at once, a simple
band of plain gold, and rising from it the head of an asp. Without
doubt it was the _uraeus_, that symbol which only the royalties of Old
Egypt dared to wear. Without doubt also either this man had brought it
with him from the Nile, or in memory of his rank and home he had
fashioned it of the gold that was so plentiful in the place of his
captivity. So this woman’s story was true, an ancient Egyptian had once
been husband to the Asika of his day.
Meanwhile his guide had passed a long way down the line and halting in
front of another gold-wrapped figure, opened its mask.
“This is that man,” she said, “who told us he came from a
land called Roma. Look, the helmet still rests upon his head, though
time has eaten into it, and that ring upon your hand was taken from his
finger. I have a head-dress made upon the model of that helmet which I
wear sometimes in memory of this man who, my soul remembers, was brave
and pleasant and a gallant lover.”
“Indeed,” answered Alan, looking at the sunken face above which a
rim of curls appeared beneath the rusting helmet. “Well, he doesn’t
look very gallant now, does he?” Then he peered down between the body
and its gold casing and saw that in his bony hand the man still held a
short Roman sword, lifted as though in salute. So she had not lied in
this matter either.
Meanwhile the Asika had glided on to the end of the hall behind the
heaps of treasure.
“There is one more white man,” she said, “though we know
little of him, for he was fierce and barbarous and died without learning
our tongue, after killing a great number of the priests of that day
because they would not let him go; yes, died cutting them down with a
battle-axe and singing some wild song of his own country. Come hither,
slave, and bend yourself so, resting your hands upon the ground.”
Jeekie obeyed, and actively as a cat the priestess leaped on to his
back, and reaching up opened the mask of a corpse in the second row and
held her lamp before its face.
It was better preserved than the others, so that its features remained
comparatively perfect, and about them hung a tangle of golden hair.
Moreover, a broad battle-axe appeared resting on the shoulder.
“A viking,” thought Alan. “I wonder how _he_ came
here.”
When he had looked the Asika leaped from Jeekie’s back to the ground
and, waving her arm around her, began to talk so rapidly that Alan
could understand nothing of her words, and asked Jeekie to translate
them.
“She say,” explained Jeekie between his chattering teeth,
“that all rest these Johnnies very poor crew, natives and that lot
except one who worship false Prophet and cut throat of Asika of that
time, because she infidel and he teach her better; also eat his dinner
out of Little Bonsa and chuck her into water. Very wild man, that Arab,
but priests catch him at last and fill him with hot gold before Little
Bonsa because he no care a damn for ghosts. So he die saying Hip, hip,
hurrah! for houri and green field of Prophet and to hell with Asika and
Bonsa, Big and Little! Now he sit up there and at night time worst
ghost of all the crowd, always come to finish off Mungana. That all she
say, and quite enough too. Come on quick, she want you and no like
wait.”
By now the Asika had passed almost round the hall, and was standing
opposite to an empty niche beyond and above which there were perhaps a
score of bodies gold-plated in the usual fashion.
“That is your place, Vernoon,” she said gently, contemplating him
with her soft and heavy eyes, “for it was prepared for the white man
with whom Little Bonsa fled away, and since then, as you see, there
have been many Munganas, some of whom belong to me; indeed, that one,”
and she touched a corpse on which the gold looked very fresh, “only
left me last year. But we always knew that Little Bonsa would bring you
back again, and so you see, we have kept your place empty.”
“Indeed,” remarked Alan, “that is very kind of you,”
and feeling that he would faint if he stayed longer in this horrible and
haunted vault, he pushed past her with little ceremony and walked out
through the gates into the passage beyond.
CHAPTER XII.
THE GOLD HOUSE.
“How you like Asiki-land, Major?” asked Jeekie, who had followed
him and was now leaning against a wall fanning himself feebly with his
great hand. “Funny place, isn’t it, Major? I tell you so before you
come, but you no believe me.”
“Very funny,” answered Alan, “so funny that I want to get
out.”
“Ah! Major, that what eel say in trap where he go after lob-worm, but he
only get out into frying pan after cook skin him alive-o. Ah! here come
cook—I mean Asika. She only stop shut up those stiff ’uns, who all
love lob-worm one day. Very pretty woman, Asika, but thank God she not
set cap at me, who like to be buried in open like Christian man.”
“If you don’t stop it, Jeekie,” replied Alan in a
concentrated rage, “I’ll see that you are buried just where you
are.”
“No offence, Major, no offence, my heart full and bubble up. I wonder
what Miss Barbara say if she see you mooing and cooing with dark-eyed
girl in gold snake skin?”
Just then the Asika arrived and by way of excuse for his flight, Alan
remarked to her that the treasure-hall was hot.
“I did not notice it,” she answered, “but he who is called my
husband, the Mungana, says the same. The Mungana is guardian of the
dead,” she explained, “and when he is required so to do, he sleeps in
the Place of the Treasure and gathers wisdom from the spirits of those
Munganas who were before him.”
“Indeed. And does he like that bed-chamber?”
“The Mungana likes what I like, not what he likes,” she replied
haughtily. “Where I send him to sleep, there he sleeps. But come,
Vernoon, and I will show you the Holy Water where Big Bonsa dwells; also
the house in which I have my home, where you shall visit me when you
please.”
“Who built this place?” asked Alan as she led him through more dark
and tortuous passages. “It is very great.”
“My spirit does not remember when it was built, Vernoon, so old is it,
but I think that the Asiki were once a big and famous people who traded
to the water upon the west, and even to the water on the east, and that
was how those white men became their slaves and the Munganas of their
queens. Now they are small and live only by the might and fame of Big
and Little Bonsa, not half filling the rich land which is theirs. But,”
she added reflectively and looking at him, “I think also that this is
because in the past fools have been thrust upon my spirit as Munganas.
What it needs is the wisdom of the white man, such wisdom as yours,
Vernoon. If that were added to my magic, then the Asiki would grow
great again, seeing that they have in such plenty the gold which you
have shown me the white man loves. Yes, they would grow great, and from
coast to coast the people should bow at the name of Bonsa and send him
their sons for sacrifice. Perhaps you will live to see that day,
Vernoon. Slave,” she added, addressing Jeekie, “set the mask upon your
lord’s head, for we come where women are.”
Alan objected, but she stamped her foot and said it must be so, having
once worn Little Bonsa, as her people told her he had done, his naked
face might not be seen. So Alan submitted to the hideous head-dress and
they entered the Asika’s house by some back entrance.
It was a place with many rooms in it, but they were all remarkable for
extreme simplicity. With a single exception no gilding or gold was to
be seen, although the food vessels were made of this material here as
everywhere. The chambers, including those in which the Asika lived and
slept, were panelled, or rather boarded with cedar wood that was almost
black with age, and their scanty furniture was mostly made of ebony.
They were very insufficiently lighted, like his own room, by means of
barred openings set high in the wall. Indeed gloom and mystery were the
keynotes of this place, amongst the shadows of which handsome,
half-naked servants or priestesses flitted to and fro at their tasks,
or peered at them out of dark corners. The atmosphere seemed heavy with
secret sin; Alan felt that in those rooms unnameable crimes and
cruelties had been committed for hundreds or perhaps thousands of
years, and that the place was yet haunted by the ghosts of them. At any
rate it struck a chill to his healthy blood, more even than had that
Hall of the Dead and of heaped-up golden treasure.
“Does my house please you?” the Asika asked of him.
“Not altogether,” he answered, “I think it is dark.”
“From the beginning my spirit has ever loved the dark, Vernoon. I think
that it was shaped in some black midnight.”
They passed through the chief entrance of the house which had pillars of
woodwork grotesquely carved, down some steps into a walled and roofed-in
yard where the shadows were even more dense than in the house they had
left. Only at one spot was there light flowing down through a hole in
the roof, as it did apparently in that hall where Alan had found the
Asika sitting in state. The light fell on to a pedestal or column made
of gold which was placed behind an object like a large Saxon font, also
made of gold. The shape of this column reminded Alan of something,
namely of a very similar column, although fashioned of a different
material which stood in the granite-built office of Messrs. Aylward &
Haswell in the City of London. Nor did this seem wonderful to him,
since on top of it, squatting on its dwarf legs, stood a horrid but
familiar thing, namely Little Bonsa herself come home at last. There she
sat smiling cruelly, as she had smiled from the beginning, forgetful
doubtless of her wanderings in strange lands, while round her stood a
band of priests armed with spears.
Followed by the Asika and Jeekie, Alan walked up and looked her in the
face, and to his excited imagination she appeared to grin at him in
answer. Then while the priests prostrated themselves, he examined the
golden basin or laver, and saw that at the further side of it was a
little platform approached by steps. On the top of these golden steps
were two depressions such as might have been worn out in the course of
ages by persons kneeling there. Also the flat edge of the basin which
stood about thirty inches above the level of the topmost step, was
scored as though by hundreds of sword cuts which had made deep lines in
the pure metal. The basin itself was empty.
Seeing that these things interested him, the Asika volunteered the
information through Jeekie, that this was a divining-bowl, and that if
those who went before her had wished to learn the future, they caused
Little Bonsa to float in it and found out all they wanted to know by
her movements. She, however, she added, had other and better methods of
learning things that were predestined.
“Where does the water come from?” asked Alan thoughtlessly
searching the bowl for some tap or inlet.
“Out of the hearts of men,” she answered with a low and dreadful
laugh. “These marks are those of swords and every one of them means a
life.” Then seeing that he looked incredulous she added, “Stay, I
will show you. Little Bonsa must be thirsty who has fasted so long, also
there are matters that I desire to know. Come hither—you, and you,” and
she pointed at hazard to the two priests who knelt nearest to her, “and
do you bid the executioner bring his axe,” she went on to a third.
The dark faces of the men turned ashen, but they made no effort to
escape their doom. One of them crept up the steps and laid his neck
upon the edge of gold, while the other, uttering no word, threw himself
on his face at the foot of them, waiting his turn. Then a door opened
and there appeared a great and brutal-looking fellow, naked except for
a loin cloth, who bore in his hand a huge weapon, half knife and half
axe.
First he looked at the Asika, who nodded almost imperceptibly, then
sprang on to a prolongation of the golden steps, bowed to Little Bonsa
on her column behind and heaved up his knife.
Now for the first time Alan really understood what was about to happen,
and that what he had imagined a stage rehearsal, was to become a
hideous murder.
“Stop!” he shouted in English, being unable to remember the native
word.
The executioner paused with his axe poised in mid-air; the victim turned
his head and looked, as though surprised; the second victim and the
priests their companions looked also. Jeekie fell on to his knees and
burst into fervent prayer addressed apparently to Little Bonsa. The
Asika smiled and did nothing.
Again the weapon was lifted and as he felt that words were no longer of
any use, even if he could find them, Alan took refuge in action.
Springing on to the other side of the little platform, he hit out with
all his strength across the kneeling man. Catching the executioner on
the point of the chin, he knocked him straight backwards in such
fashion that his head struck upon the floor before any other portion of
his body, so that he lay there either dead or stunned. Alan never
learned which, since the matter was not thought of sufficient
importance to be mentioned.
At this sight the Asika burst into a low laugh, then asked Alan why he
had felled the executioner. He answered because he would not stand by
and see two innocent men butchered.
“Why not,” she said in an astonished voice; “if Little Bonsa,
whose priests they are, needs them, and I, who am the Mouth of the gods
declare that they should die? Still, she has been in your keeping for a
long while and you may know her will, so if you wish it, let them live.
Or perhaps you require other victims,” and she fixed her eyes upon
Jeekie with a glance of suggestive hope.
“Oh my golly!” gasped Jeekie in English, “tell her not for
Joe, Major, tell her most improper. Say Yellow God my dearest friend and
go mad as hatter if my throat cut——”
Alan stopped his protestations with a secret kick.
“I choose no victims,” he broke in, “nor will I see
man’s blood shed—to me it is _orunda_—unholy; I may not
look on human blood, and if you cause me to do so, Asika, I shall hate
you because you make me break my oath.”
The Asika reflected for a moment, while Jeekie behind muttered between
his chattering teeth:
“Good missionary talk that, Major. Keep up word in season, Major. If she
make Christian martyr of Jeekie, who get you out of this confounded
hole?”
Then the Asika spoke.
“Be it as you will, for I desire neither that you should hate me, nor
that you should look on that which is unlawful for your eyes to see. The
feasts and ceremonies you must attend, but if I can help it, no victim
shall be slain in your presence, not even that whimpering hound, your
servant,” she added with a contemptuous glance at Jeekie, “who it
seems, fears to give his life for the glory of the god, but who because
he is yours, is safe now and always.”
“That _very_ satisfactory,” said Jeekie, rising from his
knees, his face wreathed in smiles, for he knew well that a decree of
the Asika could not be broken. Then he began to explain to the
priestess that it was not fear of losing his own life that had moved
him, but the certainty that this occurrence would disagree morally with
Little Bonsa, whose entire confidence he possessed.
Taking no notice of his words, with a slight reverence to the fetish,
she passed on, beckoning to Alan. As he went by the two prostrate
priests whose lives he had saved, lifted their heads a little and
looked at him with heartfelt gratitude in their eyes; indeed one of
them kissed the place where his foot had trodden. Jeekie, following,
gave him a kick to intimate that he was taking a liberty, but at the
same time stooped down and asked the man his name. It occurred to him
that these rescued priests might some day be useful.
Alan followed her through a kind of swing door which opened into another
of the endless halls, but when he looked for her there she was nowhere
to be seen. A priest who was waiting beyond the door bowed and informed
him that the Asika had gone to her own place, and would see him that
evening. Then bowing again he led them back by various passages to the
room where they had slept.
“Jeekie,” said Alan after their food had been brought to them, this
time, he observed, by men, for it was now past midday, “you were born in
Asiki-land; tell me the truth of this business. What does that woman
mean when she talks about her spirit having been here from the
beginning.”
“She mean, Major, that every time she die her soul go into someone else,
whom priests find out by marks. Also Asika always die young, they never
let her become old woman, but how she die and where they bury her, no
one know ’cept priests. Sometimes she have girl child who become Asika
after her, but if they have boy child, they kill him. I think this
Asika daughter of her who make love to your reverend uncle. All that
story ’bout her mother not being married, lies, and all her story lies
too, she often marry.”
“But how about the spirit coming back, Jeekie?”
“’Spect that lie too, Major, though she think it solemn fact.
Priests teach her all those old things. Still,” he added doubtfully,
“Asika great medicine-woman, and know a lot we don’t know,
can’t say how. Very awkward customer, Major.”
“Quite so, Jeekie, I agree with you. But to come to the point, what is
her game with me?”
“Oh! Major,” he answered with a grin, “_that_ simple
enough. She tired of black man, want change, mean to marry you according
to law, that is when Mungana dies, and he die jolly quick now. She
mustn’t kill him, but polish him off all the same, stick him to sleep
with those dead ’uns, till he go like drunk man and see things and
drown himself. Then she marry you. But till he dead, you all right, she
only talk and make eyes, ’cause of Asiki law, not ’cause she want to
stop there.”
“Indeed, Jeekie, and how long do you think that Mungana will last?”
“Perhaps three months, Major, and perhaps two. Think not more than two.
Strong man, but he look devilish dicky this morning. Think he begin see
snakes.”
“Very well, Jeekie. Now listen to me—you’ve got to get us out
of Asiki-land by this day two months. If you don’t, that lady will do
anything to oblige me and no doubt there are more executioners left.”
“Oh! Major, don’t talk like silly fool. Jeekie always hate fools
and suffer them badly—like holy first missionary bishop. You know very
well this no place for ultra-Christian man like Jeekie, who only come
here to please you. Both in same bag, Major, if I die, you die and
leave Miss Barbara up gum tree. I get you out if I can. But this stuff
the trouble,” and he pointed to the bags of gold. “Not want to leave
all that behind after such arduous walk. No, no, I try get you out,
meanwhile you play game.”
“The game! What game, Jeekie?”
“What game? Why, Asika-game of course. If she sigh, you sigh; if she
look at you, you look at her; if she squeeze hand, you squeeze hand; if
she kiss, you kiss.”
“I am hanged if I do, Jeekie.”
“Must, Major; must or never get out of Asiki-land. What all that
matter?” he added confidentially. “Miss Barbara never know. Jeekie
doesn’t split, also quite necessary in situation, and you can’t be
married till that Mungana dead. All matter business, Major; make time
pass pleasant as well. Asika jolly enough if you stroke her fur right
way, but if you put her back up—oh Lor’! No trouble, sit and smile and
say, ‘Oh, ducky, how beautiful you are!’ _that_ not hurt
anybody.”
In spite of himself Alan burst out laughing.
“But how about the Mungana?” he asked.
“Mungana, he got take that with rest. Also I try make friends with that
poor devil. Tell him it all my eye. Perhaps he believe me—not sure. If
he me, I no believe _him_. Mungana,” he added oracularly,
“Mungana take his chance. What matter? In two months’ time he
nothing but gold figure, No. 2403; just like one mummy in museum. Now I
try catch my ma. I hear she alive somewhere. They tell me she used keep
lodging house for Bonsa pilgrim, but steal grub, say it cat, all that
sort of thing, and get run in as thief. Afraid my ma come down very
much in world, not society lady now, shut up long way off in suburb.
Still p’raps she useful so best send her message by p’liceman, say how
much I love her; say her dear little Jeekie turn up again just to see
her sweet face. Only don’t know if she swallow that or if they let her
out prison unless I pay for all she prig.”
CHAPTER XIII.
THE FEAST OF LITTLE BONSA.
It was the night of full moon and of the great feast of the return of
Little Bonsa. Alan sat in his chamber waiting to be summoned to take
part in this ceremony and listening the while to that _Wow! Wow! Wow!_
of the death drums, whereof Jeekie had once spoken in England, which
could be clearly heard even above the perpetual boom of the cataract
tumbling down its cliff behind the town. By now he had recovered from
the fatigue of his journey and his health was good, but the same could
not be said of his spirits, for never in his life had he felt more
downhearted, not even when he was sickening for blackwater fever, or
lay in bondage in the City, expecting every morning to wake up and find
his reputation blasted. He was a prisoner in this dreadful, gloomy
place where he must live like a second Man in the Iron Mask, without
recreation or exercise other than he could find in the walled garden
where grew the black cedar trees, and, so far as he could see, a
prisoner without hope of escape.
Moreover, he could no longer disguise from himself the truth; Jeekie was
right. The Asika had fallen in love with him, or at any rate made up
her mind that he should be her next husband. He hated the sight of the
woman and her sinuous, evil beauty, but to be free of her was
impossible, and to offend her, death. All day long she kept him about
her, and from his sleep he would wake up and as on the night of his
arrival, distinguish her leaning over him studying his face by the
light of the faintly-burning lamps, as a snake studies the bird it is
about to strike. He dared not stir or give the slightest sign that he
saw her. Nor indeed did he always see her, for he kept his eyes closely
shut. But even in his heaviest slumber some warning sense told him of
her presence, and then above Jeekie’s snores (for on these occasions
Jeekie always snored his loudest) he would hear a soft footfall, as
cat-like, she crept towards him, or the sweep of her spangled robe, or
the tinkling of the scales of her golden breastplate. For a long while
she would stand there, examining him greedily and even the few little
belongings that remained to him, and then with a hungry sigh glide away
and vanish in the shadows. How she came or how she vanished Alan could
not discover. Clearly she did not use the door, and he could find no
other entrance to the room. Indeed at times he thought he must be
suffering from delusion, but Jeekie shook his great head and did not
agree with him.
“She there right enough,” he said. “She walk over me as
though I log and I smell stuff she put on hair, but I think she come and
go by magic. Asika do that if she please.”
“Then I wish she would teach me the secret, Jeekie. I should soon be out
of Asiki-land, I can tell you.”
All that day Alan had been in her company, answering her endless
questions about his past, the lands that he had visited, and especially
the women that he had known. He had the tact to tell her that none of
these were half so beautiful as she was, which was true in a sense and
pleased her very much, for in whatever respects she differed from them,
in common with the rest of her sex she loved a compliment. Emboldened
by her good humour, he had ventured to suggest that being rested and
having restored Little Bonsa, he would be glad to return with her gifts
to his own country. Next instant he was sorry, for as soon as she
understood his meaning she grew almost white with rage.
“What!” she said; “you desire to leave me? Know, Vernoon,
that I will see you dead first and myself also, for then we shall be
born again together and can never more be separated.”
Nor was this all, for she burst into weeping, threw her arms about him,
drew him to her, kissed him on the forehead, and then thrust him away,
saying:
“Curses on the priests’ law that makes us wait so long, and curses
on that Mungana who will not die and may not be killed. Well, he shall
pay for it and within two months, Vernoon, oh! within two months——”
and she stretched out her arms with a gesture of infinite passion, then
turned and left him.
“My!” said Jeekie afterwards, for he had watched all this scene
open-mouthed, “my! but she mean business. Mrs. Jeekie never kiss me like
that, nor any other female either. She dead nuts on you, Major. Very
great compliment! ’Spect when you Mungana, she keep you alive a long
time, four or five years perhaps, if no other white man come this way.
Pity you can’t take it on a bit, Major,” he added insidiously,
“because then she grow careless and make you chief and we get chance
scoop out that gold house and bolt with bally lot. Miss Barbara sensible
woman, when she see all that cash she not mind, she say ‘Bravo, old
boy, quite right spoil Lady Potiphar in land of bondage, but Jeekie
must have ten per cent. because he show you how do it.’”
Alan was so depressed, and indeed terrified by this demonstration on the
part of his fearful hostess, that he could neither laugh at Jeekie, nor
swear at him. He only sat still and groaned, feeling that bad as things
were they were bound to become worse.
Above the perpetual booming of the death drums rose a sound of wild
music. The door burst open, and through it came a number of priests,
their nearly naked bodies hideously painted and on their heads the most
devilish-looking masks. Some of them clashed cymbals, some blew horns
and some beat little drums all to time which was given to them by a
bandmaster with a golden rod. In front of them with painted face and
decked in his gorgeous apparel, walked the Mungana himself.
“They come to take us to Bonsa worship,” explained Jeekie.
“Cheer up, Major, very exciting business, no go to sleep there, as in
English church. See the god all time and no sermon.”
Alan, who wore a linen robe over the remains of his European garments,
and whose mask was already on his head, rose listlessly and bowed to
the gorgeous Mungana who, poor man, answered him with a stare of hate,
knowing that this wanderer was destined to fill his place. Then they
started, Jeekie accompanying them, and walked a long way through
various halls and passages, bearing first to the left and then to the
right again, till suddenly through some side door they emerged upon a
marvellous scene. The first impressions that reached Alan’s mind were
those of a long stretch of water, very black and still and not more
than eighty feet in width. On the hither edge of this canal, seated
upon a raised daïs in the midst of a great open space of polished rock,
was the Asika, or so he gathered from her gold breastplate and sparkling
garments, for her fierce and beautiful features were hid beneath an
object familiar enough to him, the yellow, crystal-eyed mask of Little
Bonsa. Arranged in companies about and behind her were hundreds of
people, male and female, clad in hideous costumes to resemble demons,
with masks to match. Some of these masks were semi-human and some of
them bore a likeness to the heads of animals and had horns on them,
while their wearers were adorned with skins and tails. To describe them
in their infinite variety would be impossible; indeed the recollection
that Alan carried away was one of a mediæval hell as it is occasionally
to be found portrayed upon “Doom pictures” in old churches.
On the further side of the water the entire Asiki people seemed to be
gathered; at least there were thousands of them seated upon a rising
rocky slope as in an amphitheatre, clad only in the ordinary costume of
the Western African native, and in some instances in linen cloaks. This
great amphitheatre was surrounded by a high wall with gates, but in the
moonlight he found it difficult to discern its exact limits.
Jeekie nudged Alan and pointed to the centre of the canal or pool. He
looked and saw floating there a huge and hideous golden head, twenty
times as large as life perhaps, with great prominent eyes that glared
up to the sky. Its appearance was quite unlike anything else in the
world, more loathsome, more horrible, man, fish and animal, all seemed
to have their part in it, human mouth and teeth, fish-like eyes and
snout, bestial expression.
“Big Bonsa,” whispered Jeekie. “Just the same as when I sweet
little boy.—He live here for thousand of years.”
Preceded by the Mungana and followed by Jeekie and the priests, the band
bringing up the rear, Alan was marched down a lane left open for him
till he came to some steps leading to the daïs, upon which in addition
to that occupied by the Asika, stood two empty chairs. These steps the
Mungana motioned him to mount, but when Jeekie tried to follow him he
turned and struck him contemptuously in the face. At once the Asika,
who was watching Vernon’s approach through the eye-holes in the Little
Bonsa mask, said fiercely:
“Who bade you strike the servant of my guest, O Mungana? Let him come
also, that he may stand behind us and interpret.”
Her wretched husband, who knew that this public slight was put upon him
purposely, but did not dare to protest against it, bowed his head. Then
all three of them climbed to the daïs, the priests and the musicians
remaining below.
“Welcome, Vernoon,” said the Asika through the lips of the mask,
which to Alan, notwithstanding the dreadful cruelty of its expression,
looked less hateful than the lovely, tigerish face it hid. “Welcome and
be seated here on my left hand, since on my right you may not sit—as
yet.”
He bowed and took the chair to which she pointed, while her husband
placed himself in the other chair upon her right, and Jeekie stood
behind, his great shape towering above them all.
“This is a festival of my people, Vernoon,” she went on,
“such a festival as has not been seen for years, celebrated because
Little Bonsa has come back to them.”
“What is to happen?” he asked uneasily. “I have told you,
Lady, that blood is _orunda_ to me. I must not witness it.”
“I know, be not afraid,” she answered. “Sacrifice there must
be, since it is the custom and we may not defraud the gods, but you
shall not see the deed. Judge from this, Vernoon, how greatly I desire
to please you.”
Now Alan, looking about him, saw that immediately beneath the daïs and
between them and the edge of the water, were gathered his cannibal
friends, the Ogula and Fahni their chief who had rowed him to
Asiki-land, and with them the messengers whom they had sent on ahead.
Also he saw that their arms were tied behind them and that they were
guarded by men dressed like devils and armed with spears.
“Ask Fahni why he and his people are bound, Jeekie,” said Alan,
“and why have they not returned to their own country.”
Jeekie obeyed, putting the question in the Ogula language, whereon the
poor men turned and began to implore Alan to save their lives, Fahni
adding that he had been told they were to be killed that night.
“Why are these men to be slain?” asked Alan of the Asika.
“Because I have learned that they attacked you in their own country,
Vernoon,” she answered, “and would have killed you had it not been
for Little Bonsa. It is therefore right that they should die as an
offering to you.”
“I refuse the offering since afterwards they dealt well with me. Set
them free and let them return to their own land, Asika.”
“That cannot be,” she replied coldly. “Here they are and here
they remain. Still, their lives are yours to take or to spare, so keep
them as your servants if you will,” and bending down she issued a
command which was instantly obeyed, for the men dressed like devils cut
the bonds of the Ogula and brought them round to the back of the daïs,
where they stood blessing Alan loudly in their own tongue.
Then the ceremonies began with a kind of infernal ballet. On the smooth
space between them and the water’s edge appeared male and female bands
of dancers who emerged from the shadows. For the most part they were
dressed up like animals and imitated the cries of the beasts that they
represented, although some of them wore little or no clothing. To the
sound of wild music of horns and drums these creatures danced a kind of
insane quadrille which seemed to suggest everything that is cruel and
vile upon the earth. They danced and danced in the moonlight till the
madness spread from them to the thousands who were gathered upon the
farther side of the water, for presently all of these began to dance
also. Nor did it stop there, since at length the Asika rose from her
chair upon the daïs and joined in the performance with the Mungana her
husband. Even Jeekie began to prance and shout behind, so that at last
Alan and the Ogula alone remained still and silent in the midst of a
scene and a noise which might have been that of hell let loose.
Leaving go of her husband, the Asika bounded up to Alan and tried to
drag him from his chair, thrusting her gold mask against his mask. He
refused to move and after a while she left him and returned to Mungana.
Louder and louder brayed the music and beat the drums, wilder and
wilder grew the shrieks. Individuals fell exhausted and were thrown
into the water where they sank or floated away on the slow moving
stream, as part of some inexplicable play that was being enacted.
Then suddenly the Asika stood still and threw up her arms, whereon all
the thousands present stood still also. Again she threw up her arms and
they fell upon their faces and lay as though they were dead. A third
time she threw up her arms and they rose and remained so silent that
the only sound to be heard was that of their thick breathing. Then she
spoke, or rather screamed, saying:
“Little Bonsa has come back again, bringing with her the white man whom
she led away,” and all the audience answered, “Little Bonsa has
come back again. Once more we see her on the head of the Asika as our
fathers did. Give her a sacrifice. Give her the white man.”
“Nay,” she screamed back, “the white man is mine. I name him
as the next Mungana.”
“Oho!” roared the audience, “Oho! she names him as the next
Mungana. Good-bye, old Mungana! Greeting, new Mungana! When will be the
marriage feast?”
“Tell us, Mungana, tell us,” cried the Asika, patting her wretched
husband on the cheek. “Tell us when you mean to die, as you are bound to
do.”
“On the night of the second full moon from now,” he answered with a
terrible groan that seemed to be wrung out of his heavy heart; “on that
night my soul will be eaten up and my day done. But till then I am lord
of the Asika, and if she forgets it, death shall be her portion,
according to the ancient law.”
“Yes, yes,” shouted the multitude, “death shall be her
portion, and her lover we will sacrifice. Die in honour, Mungana, as all
those died that went before you.”
“Thank Heaven!” muttered Alan to himself, “I am safe from
that witch for the next two months,” and through the eye-holes of his
mask he contemplated her with loathing and alarm.
At the moment, indeed, she was not a pleasing spectacle, for in the heat
and excitement of her mad dance she had cast off her gold breast-plate
or stomacher, leaving herself naked except for her kirtle and the thin,
gold-spangled robe upon her shoulders over which streamed her black,
disordered hair. Contrasting strangely in the silver moonlight with her
glistening, copper-coloured body, the mask of Little Bonsa on her head
glared round with its fixed crystal eyes and fiendish smile as she
turned her long neck from side to side. Seen thus she scarcely looked
human, and Alan’s heart was filled with pity for the poor bedizened
wretch she named her husband, who had just been forced to announce the
date of his own suicide.
Soon, however, he forgot it, for a new act in the drama had begun. Two
priests clad in horns and tails leapt on to the daïs and at a signal
unlaced the mask of Little Bonsa. Now the Asika lifted it from her
streaming face and held it on high, then she lowered it to the level of
her breast, and holding it in both hands, walked to the edge of the
daïs, whereon priests, disguised as fiends, began to leap at it,
striving to reach it with their fingers and snatch it from her grasp.
One by one they leapt with the most desperate energy, each man being
allowed to make three attempts, and Alan noted that this novel jumping
competition was watched with the deepest interest by all the audience,
at the time he knew not why.
The first two, who were evidently elderly men, who failed to come
anywhere near the mark. Their failure was received with shouts of
derision. They sank exhausted to the ground and from the motion of his
body Alan could see that one of them was weeping, while the other
remained sullenly silent. Then a younger man advanced and at the third
try almost grasped the fetish. Indeed he would have grasped it had he
not met with foul play, for the Asika, seeing that he was about to
succeed, lifted it an inch or two, so that he also missed and with a
groan joined the band of the defeated. Next appeared a fourth priest,
even more horribly arrayed than those before him, but Alan noticed that
his mask was of the lightest, and that his garments consisted chiefly
of paint, the main idea of his make-up being that of a skeleton. He was
a thin active fellow, and all the watching thousands greeted him with a
shout. For a few seconds he stood back gazing at the mask as a wolf
might at an unapproachable bone. Then suddenly he ran forward and
sprang into the air. Such an amazing jump Alan had never seen before.
So high was it indeed that his head came level with that of the fetish,
which he snatched with both hands tearing it from Asika’s grasp. Coming
to the ground again with a thud, he began to caper to and fro, kissing
the mask, while the audience shouted:
“Little Bonsa has chosen. What fate for the fallen? Ask her,
priest?”
The man stopped his capering and held the mouth of Little Bonsa to his
ear, nodding from time to time as though she were speaking to him and
he heard what she said. Then he passed round the daïs where Alan could
not see him, and presently reappeared holding Little Bonsa in his right
hand and in his left a great gold cup. A silence fell upon the place.
He advanced to the first man who had jumped and offered him the cup. He
turned his head away, but a thousand voices thundered “Drink!” Then he
took it and drank, passing it to a companion in misfortune, who in turn
drank also and gave it to the third priest, he who would have snatched
the mask had not the Asika lifted it out of his reach.
This man drained it to the dregs, and with an exclamation of rage dashed
the empty vessel into the face of the chosen priest with such fury that
the man rolled upon the ground and for a while lay there stunned. Now
he who had drunk first began to spring about in a ludicrous fashion,
and presently was joined in his dance by the other two. So absurd were
their motions and tumblings and clownlike grimaces, for they had
dragged off their masks, that roars of brutal laughter rose from the
audience, in which the Asika joined.
At first Alan thought that the thing was a joke, and that the men had
merely been made mad drunk, till catching sight of their eyes in the
moonlight, he perceived that they were in great pain and turned
indignantly to remonstrate with the Asika.
“Be silent, Vernoon,” she said savagely, “blood is your
_orunda_ and I respect it. Therefore by decree of the god these die of
poison,” and again she fell to laughing at the contortions of the
victims.
Alan shut his eyes, and when at length, drawn by some fearful
fascination, he opened them once more, it was to see that the three
poor creatures had thrown themselves into the water, where they rolled
over and over like wounded porpoises, till presently they sank and
vanished there.
This farce, for so they considered it, being ended and the stage, so to
speak, cleared, the audience having laughed itself hoarse, set itself
to watch the proceedings of the newly chosen high-priest of Little
Bonsa, who by now had recovered from the blow dealt to him by one of
the murdered men. With the help of some other priests he was engaged in
binding the fetish on to a little raft of reeds. This done he laid
himself flat upon a broad plank which had been made ready for him at
the edge of the water, placing the mask in front of him and with a few
strokes of his feet that hung over the sides of the plank, paddled
himself out to the centre of the canal where the god called Big Bonsa
floated, or was anchored. Having reached it he pushed the little raft
off the plank into the water, and in some way that Alan could not see,
made it fast to Big Bonsa, so that now the two of them floated one
behind the other. Then while the people cheered, shouting out that
husband and wife had come together again at last, he paddled his plank
back to the water’s edge, sat down and waited.
Meanwhile, at a sign from the Asika, all the scores of priests and
priestesses who were dressed as devils had filed off to right and left,
and vanished, presumably to cross the water by bridges or boats that
were out of sight. At any rate now they began to appear upon its
further side and to wind their way singly among the thousands of the
Asiki people who were gathered upon the rocky slope beyond in order to
witness this fearsome entertainment. Alan observed that the spectators
did not appear to appreciate the arrival amongst them of these priests,
from whom they seemed to edge away. Indeed many of them rose and tried
to depart altogether, only to be driven back to their places by a double
line of soldiers armed with spears, who now for the first time became
visible, ringing in the audience. Also other soldiers and with them
bodies of men who looked like executioners, showed themselves upon the
further brink of the water and then marched off, disappearing to left
and right.
“What’s the matter now?” Alan asked of Jeekie over his
shoulder.
“All in blue funk,” whispered Jeekie back, “joke done. Get to
business now. Silly fools forget that when they laugh so much. Both
Bonsas very hungry and Asika want wipe out old scores. Presently you
see.”
Presently Alan did see, for at some preconcerted signal the devil
priests, each of them, jumped with a yell at a person near to them,
gripping him or her by the hair, whereon assistants rushed in and
dragged them down to the bank of the canal. Here to the number of a
hundred or more, a wailing, struggling mass, they were confined in a
pen like sheep. Then a bar was lifted and one of them allowed to
escape, only to find himself in a kind of gangway which ran down into
shallow water. Being forced along this he came to an open space of water
exactly opposite to the floating fetishes, and there was kept a while
by men armed with spears. As nothing happened they lifted their spears
and the man bolted up an incline and was lost among the thousands of
spectators.
The next one, evidently a person of rank, was not so fortunate. Jumping
into the pool off the gangway, he stood there like a sheep about to be
washed, the water reaching up to his middle. Then Alan saw a terrifying
thing, for suddenly the horrid, golden head of Big Bonsa, towing Little
Bonsa behind it, began to swim with a deliberate motion across the
stream until, reaching the man, it seemed to rear itself up and poke
him with its snout in the chest as a turtle might do. Then it sank
again into the water and slowly floated back to its station, directed
by some agency or power that Alan could not discover.
At the touch of the fetish the man screamed like a horse in pain or
terror, and soldiers leaping on him with a savage shout, dragged him up
another gangway opposite to that by which he had descended, whereon, to
all appearances more dead than alive, he departed into the shadows. The
horns and drums set up a bray of triumph, the Asika clapped her hands
approvingly, the spectators cheered, and another victim was bundled
down the gangway and submitted to the judgment of the Bonsas, which
came at him like hungry pikes at a frog. Then followed more and more,
some being chosen and some let go, till at last, growing weary, the
priests directed the soldiers to drive the prisoners down in batches
until the pen in the water was full as though with huddled sheep. If
the horrible golden masks swam at them and touched one of their number,
they were all dragged away; if these remained quiescent they were let
go.
So the thing went on until at length Alan could bear no more of it.
“Lady,” he said to the Asika when she paused for a moment from her
hand-clapping, “I am weary, I would sleep.”
“What!” she exclaimed, “do you wish to sleep on such a
glorious night when so many evil doers are coming to their just doom?
Well, well, go if you will, for then my promise is off me and I can
hasten this business and deal with the wicked before the people
according to our custom. Good-night to you, Vernoon, to-morrow we will
meet,” and she called to some priests to lead him away, and with him
the Ogula cannibals whom she had given to him as servants.
Alan went thankfully enough. As he plunged into one of the passages the
sound of frightful yelling reached his ears, followed by loud,
triumphant shouts.
“Now you gone they kill those who Bonsa smell out,” said Jeekie.
“Why you no wait and see? Very interesting sight.”
“Hold your tongue,” answered Alan savagely. “Did you think so
years ago when you were put into that pen to be butchered?”
“No, Major,” replied the unabashed Jeekie, “not think at all
then, too far gone. But see other people in there and know it not _you_,
quite different matter.”
They reached their room. At the door of it Fahni and his followers were
led off to some quarters near by, blessing Alan as they went because he
had saved their lives.
“Jeekie,” he said when they were alone, “tell me, what makes
that hellish idol swim about in the water picking out some people and
leaving others alone?”
“Major, I not know, no one know except top priest and Asika. Perhaps
there man underneath, perhaps they pull string, or perhaps fetish alive
and he do what he like. Please don’t call him names, Major, or he
remember and come after us one time, and that bad job,” and Jeekie
shivered visibly.
“Bosh!” answered Alan, but all the same he shivered also.
“Jeekie,” he asked again, “what happens to those people whom
the Bonsas smell out?”
“Case of good-bye, Major. Sometimes they chop off nut, sometimes they
spiflicate in gold tub, sometimes priest-man make hole in what white
doctor call _diagram_—and shake hands with heart.—All matter of
taste, Major, just as Asika please. If she like victim or they old
friends, chop off head; if she not like him—do worse things.”
More than satisfied with his information Alan went to bed. For hour
after hour that night he lay tossing and turning, haunted by the
recollections of the dreadful sights that he had seen and of the
horrible Asika, beautiful and half-naked, glaring at him amorously
through the crystal eyes of Little Bonsa. When at last he fell asleep
it was to dream that he was alone in the water with the god which
pursued him as a shark pursues a shipwrecked sailor. Never did he
experience a nightmare that was half so awful. Only one thing could be
more awful, the reality itself.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE MOTHER OF JEEKIE.
“Jeekie,” said Alan next morning, “I tell you again that I
have had enough of this place, I want to get out.”
“Yes, Major, that just what mouse say when he finish cheese in trap, but
missus come along, call him ‘Pretty, pretty,’ and drown him all the
same,” and he nodded in the direction of the Asika’s house.
“Jeekie, it has got to be done—do you hear me? I had rather die
trying to get away than stop here till the next two months are up. If I
am here on the night of the next full moon but one, I shall shoot that
Asika and then shoot myself, and you must take your chance. Do you
understand?”
“Understand that foolish game and poor lookout for Jeekie, Major, but
can’t think of any plan.” Then he rubbed his big nose reflectively
and added, “Fahni and his people your slaves now, ’spose we have
talk with him. I tell priests to bring him along when they come with
breakfast. Leave it to me, Major.”
Alan did leave it to him, with the result that after long argument the
priests consented or obtained permission to produce Fahni and his
followers, and a little while after the great men arrived looking very
dejected, and saluted Alan humbly. Bidding the rest of them be seated,
he called Fahni to the end of the room and asked him through Jeekie if
he and his men did not wish to return home.
“Indeed we do, white lord,” answered the old chief, “but how
can we? The Asika has a grudge against our tribe and but for you would
have killed every one of us last night. We are snared and must stop
here till we die.”
“Would not your people help you if they knew, Fahni?”
“Yes, lord, I think so. But how can I tell them who doubtless believe us
dead? Nor can I send a messenger, for this place is guarded and he would
be killed at once. We came here for your sake because you had Little
Bonsa, a god that is known in the east and the west, in the north and
the south, and because you saved me from the lion, and here, alas! we
must perish.”
“Jeekie,” said Alan, “can you not find a messenger? Have you,
who were born of this people, no friend among them at all?”
Jeekie shook his white head and rolled his eyes. Then suddenly an idea
struck him.
“Yes,” he said, “I think one, p’raps. I mean my
ma.”
“Your ma!” said Alan. “Oh! I remember. Have you heard
anything more about her?”
“Yes, Major. Very old girl now, but strong on leg, so they say. Believe
she glad go anywhere, because she public nuisance; they tired of her in
prison and there no workhouse here, so they want turn her out starve,
which of course break my heart. Perhaps she take message. Some use that
way. Only think she afraid go Ogula-land because they nasty cannibal
and eat old woman.”
When all this was translated to Fahni he assured Jeekie with earnestness
that nothing would induce the Ogula people to eat his mother; moreover,
that for her sake they would never look carnivorously on another old
woman, fat or thin.
“Well,” said Jeekie, “I try again to get hold of old lady and
we see. I pray priests, whom you save other day, let her out of chokey
as I sick to fall upon bosom, which quite true, only so much to think
of that no time to attend to domestic relation till now.”
That very afternoon, on returning to his room from walking in the dismal
cedar garden, Alan’s ears were greeted by a sound of shrill
quarrelling. Looking up he saw an extraordinary sight. A tall, gaunt,
withered female who might have been of any age between sixty and a
hundred, had got Jeekie’s ear in one hand, and with the other was
slapping him in the face while she exclaimed:
“O thief, whom by the curse of Bonsa I brought into the world, what have
you done with my blanket? Was it not enough that you, my only son,
should leave me to earn my own living? Must you also take my best
blanket with you, for which reason I have been cold ever since. Where
is it, thief, where is it?”
“Worn out, my mother, worn out,” he answered, trying to free
himself. “You forget, honourable mother, that I grow old and you should
have been dead years ago. How can you expect a blanket to last so long?
Leave go of my ear, beloved mother, and I will give you another. I have
travelled across the world to find you and I want to hear news of your
husband.”
“My husband, thief, which husband? Do you mean your father, the one with
the broken nose, who was sacrificed because you ran away with the white
man whom Bonsa loved? Well, you look out for him when you get into the
world of ghosts, for he said that he was going to wait for you there
with the biggest stick that he could find. Why I haven’t thought of him
for years, but then I have had three other husbands since his time, bad
enough, but better than he was, so who would? And now Bonsa has got the
lot, and I have no children alive, and they say I am to be driven out
of the prison to starve next week as they won’t feed me any longer, I
who can still work against any one of them, and—you’ve got my blanket,
you ugly old rascal,” and collapsing beneath the weight of her recited
woes, the hag burst into a melancholy howl.
“Peace, my mother,” said Jeekie, patting her on the head. “Do
what I tell you and you shall have more blankets than you can wear and,
as you are still so handsome, another husband too if you like, and a
garden and slaves to work for you and plenty to eat.”
“How shall I get all these things, my son?” asked the old woman,
looking up. “Will you take me to your home and support me, or will that
white lord marry me? They told me that the Asika had named him as the
Mungana, and she is very jealous, the most jealous Asika that I have
ever known.”
“No, mother, he would like to, but he dare not, and I cannot support you
as I should wish, as here I have no house or property. You will get all
this by taking a walk and holding your tongue. You see this man here,
he is Fahni, king of a great tribe, the Ogula. He wants you to carry a
message for him, and by and by he will marry you, won’t you, Fahni?”
“Oh! yes, yes,” said Fahni; “I will do anything she likes. No
one shall be so rich and honoured in my country, and for her sake we
will never eat another old woman, whereas if she stays here she will be
driven to the mountains to starve in a week.”
“Set out the matter,” said the mother of Jeekie, who was by no
means so foolish as she seemed.
So they told her what she must do, namely, travel down to the Ogula and
tell them of the plight of their chief, bidding them muster all their
fighting men and when the swamps were dry enough, advance as near as
they dared to the Asiki country and, if they could not attack it, wait
till they had further news.
The end of it was that the mother of Jeekie, who knew her case to be
desperate at home, where she was in no good repute, promised to attempt
the journey in consideration of advantages to be received. Since she
was to be turned adrift to meet her fate with as much food as she could
carry, this she could do without exciting any suspicion, for who would
trouble about the movements of a useless old thief? Meanwhile Jeekie
gave her one of the robes which the Asika had provided for Alan, also
various articles which she desired and, having learned Fahni’s message
by heart and announced that she considered herself his affianced bride,
the gaunt old creature departed happy enough after exchanging embraces
with her long lost son.
“She will tell somebody all about it and we shall only get our throats
cut,” said Alan wearily, for the whole thing seemed to him a foolish
farce.
“No, no, Major. I make her swear not split on ghosts of all her husbands
and by Big Bonsa hisself. She sit tight as wax, because she think they
haunt her if she don’t and I too by and by when I dead. P’raps she get
to Ogula country and p’raps not. If she don’t, can’t help it and
no harm done. Break my heart, but only one old woman less. Anyhow she
hold tongue, that main point, and I really very glad find my ma, who
never hoped to see again. Heaven very kind to Jeekie, give him back to
family bosom,” he added, unctuously.
That day there were no excitements, and to Alan’s intense relief he saw
nothing of the Asika. After its orgy of witchcraft and bloodshed on the
previous night, weariness and silence seemed to have fallen upon the
town. At any rate no sound came from it that could be heard above the
low, constant thunder of the great waterfall rushing down its
precipice, and in the cedar-shadowed garden where Alan walked till he
was weary, attended by Jeekie and the Ogula savages, not a soul was to
be seen.
On the following morning, when he was sitting moodily in his room, two
priests came to conduct him to the Asika. Having no choice, followed by
Jeekie, he accompanied them to her house, masked as usual, for without
this hateful disguise he was not allowed to stir. He found her lying
upon a pile of cushions in a small room that he had never seen before,
which was better lighted than most in that melancholy abode, and seemed
to serve as her private chamber. In front of her lay the skin of the
lion that he had sent as a present, and about her throat hung a
necklace made of its claws, heavily set in gold, with which she was
playing idly.
At the opening of the door she looked up with a swift smile that turned
to a frown when she saw that he was followed by Jeekie.
“Say, Vernoon,” she asked in her languorous voice, “can you
not stir a yard without that ugly black dog at your heels? Do you bring
him to protect your back? If so, what is the need? Have I not sworn
that you are safe in my land?”
Alan made Jeekie interpret this speech, then answered that the reason
was that he knew but little of her tongue.
“Can I not teach it to you alone, then, without this low fellow hearing
all my words? Well, it will not be for long,” and she looked at Jeekie
in a way that made him feel very uncomfortable. “Get behind us, dog,
and you, Vernoon, come sit on these cushions at my side. Nay, not
there, I said upon the cushions—so. Now I will take off that ugly mask
of yours, for I would look into your eyes. I find them pleasant,
Vernoon,” and, without waiting for his permission, she sat up and did
so. “Ah!” she went on, “we shall be happy when we are married, shall we
not? Do not be afraid, Vernoon, I will not eat out your heart as I have
those of the men that went before you. We will live together until we
are old, and die together at last, and together be born again, and so
on and on till the end which even I cannot foresee. Why do you not
smile, Vernoon, and say that you are pleased, and that you will be
happy with me who loved you from the moment that my eyes fell upon you
in sleep? Speak, Vernoon, lest I should grow angry with you.”
“I don’t know what to say,” answered Alan despairingly
through Jeekie, “the honour is too great for me, who am but a wandering
trader who came here to barter Little Bonsa against the gold I
need”—to support my wife and family, he was about to add, then
remembering that this statement might not be well received, substituted,
“to support my old parents and eight brothers and sisters who are
dependent upon me, and remain hungry until I return to them.”
“Then I think they will remain hungry a long time, Vernoon, for while I
live you shall never return. Much as I love you I would kill you first,”
and her eyes glittered as she said the words. “Still,” she added,
noting the fall in his face, “if it is gold that they need, you shall
send it them. Yes, my people shall take all that I gave you down to the
coast, and there it can be put in a big canoe and carried across the
water. See to the packing of the stuff, you black dog,” she said to
Jeekie over her shoulder, “and when it is ready I will send it hence.”
Alan began to thank her, though he thought it more than probable that
even if she kept her word, this bullion would never get to Old Calabar,
and much less to England. But she waived the matter aside as one in
which she was not interested.
“Tell me,” she asked; “would you have me other than I am?
First, do you think me beautiful?”
“Yes,” answered Alan honestly, “very beautiful when you are
quiet as now, not when you are dancing as you did the other night
without your robes.”
When she understood what he meant the Asika actually blushed a little.
“I am sorry,” she answered in a voice that for her was quite
humble. “I forget that it might seem strange in your eyes. It has always
been the custom for the Asika to do as I did at feasts and sacrifices,
but perhaps that is not the fashion among your women; perhaps they
always remain veiled, as I have heard the worshippers of the Prophet
do, and therefore you thought me immodest. I am very, very sorry,
Vernoon. I pray you to forgive me who am ignorant and only do what I
have been taught.”
“Yes, they always remain veiled,” stammered Alan, though he was not
referring to their faces, and as the words passed his lips he wondered
what the Asika would think if she could see a ballet at a London
music-hall.
“Is there anything else wrong?” she went on gently. “If so,
tell me that I may set it right.”
“I do not like cruelty or sacrifices, O Asika. I have told you that
bloodshed is _orunda_ to me, and at the feast those men were poisoned
and you mocked them in their pain; also many others were taken away to
be killed for no crime.”
She opened her beautiful eyes and stared at him, answering:
“But, Vernoon, all this is not my fault; they were sacrifices to the
gods, and if I did not sacrifice, I should be sacrificed by the priests
and wizards who live to sacrifice. Yes, myself I should be made to
drink the poison and be mocked at while I died like a snake with a
broken back. Or even if I escaped the vengeance of the people, the gods
themselves would kill me and raise up another in my place. Do they not
sacrifice in your country, Vernoon?”
“No, Asika, they fight if necessary and kill those who commit murder.
But they have no fetish that asks for blood, and the law they have from
heaven is a law of mercy.”
She stared at him again.
“All this is strange to me,” she said. “I was taught
otherwise. Gods are devils and must be appeased, lest they bring
misfortune on us; men must be ruled by terror, or they would rebel and
pull down the great House; doctors must learn magic, or how could they
avert spells? wizards must be killed, or the people would perish in
their net. May not we who live in a hell, strive to beat back its flame
with the wisdom our forefathers have handed on to us? Tell me, Vernoon,
for I would know.”
“You make your own hell,” answered Alan when with the help of
Jeekie he understood her talk.
She pondered over his words for a while, then said:
“I must think. The thing is big. I wander in blackness; I will speak
with you again. Say now, what else is wrong with me?”
Now Alan thought that he saw opportunity for a word in season and made a
great mistake.
“I think that you treat your husband, that man whom you call Mungana,
very badly. Why should you drive him to his death?”
At these words the Asika leapt up in a rage, and seeking something to
vent her temper on, violently boxed Jeekie’s ears and kicked him with
her sandalled foot.
“The Mungana!” she exclaimed, “that beast! What have I to do
with him? I hate him, as I hated the others. The priests thrust him on
me. He has had his day, let him go. In your country do they make women
live with men whom they loathe? I love _you_, Bonsa himself knows why.
Perhaps because you have a white skin and white thoughts. But I hate
that man. What is the use of being Asika if I cannot take what I love
and reject what I hate? Go away, Vernoon, go away, you have angered me,
and if it were not for what you have said about that new law of mercy,
I think that I would cut your throat,” and again she boxed Jeekie’s
ears and kicked him in the shins.
Alan rose and bowed himself towards the door while she stood with her
back towards him, sobbing. As he was about to pass it she wheeled
round, wiping the tears from her eyes with her hand, and said:
“I forgot, I sent for you to thank you for your presents; that,”
and she pointed to the lion skin, “which they tell me you killed with
some kind of thunder to save the life of that old cannibal, and this,”
and she pulled off the necklace of claws, then added, “as I am too bad
to wear it, you had better take it back again,” and she threw it with
all her strength straight into Jeekie’s face.
Fearing worse things, the much maltreated Jeekie uttered a howl and
bolted through the door, while Alan, picking up the necklace, returned
it to her with a bow. She took it.
“Stop,” she said. “You are leaving the room without your mask
and my women are outside. Come here,” and she tied the thing upon his
head, setting it all awry, then pushed him from the place.
“Very poor joke, Major, very poor indeed,” said Jeekie when they
had reached their own apartment. “Lady make love to _you_;
_you_ play prig and lecture lady about holy customs of her country and
she box _my_ ear till head sing, also kick me all over and throw sharp
claws in face. Please you do it no more. The next time, who knows? she
stick knife in _my_ gizzard, then kiss _you_ afterward and say she so
sorry and hope she no hurt _you_. But how that help poor departed
Jeekie who get all kicks, while you have ha’pence?”
“Oh! be quiet,” said Alan; “you are welcome to the halfpence
if you would only leave me the kicks. The question is, how am I to get
out of this mess? While she was a beautiful savage devil one could deal
with the thing, but if she is going to become human it is another
matter.”
Jeekie looked at him with pity in his eyes.
“Always thought white man mad at bottom,” he said, shaking his big
head. “To benighted black nigger thing so very simple. All you got to
do, make love and cut when you get chance. Then she pleased as Punch,
everything go smooth and Jeekie get no more kicks. Christian religion
business very good, but won’t wash in Asiki-land. Your reverend uncle
find out that.”
Not wishing to pursue the argument, Alan changed the subject by asking
his indignant retainer if he thought that the Asika had meant what she
said when she offered to send the gold down to the coast.
“Why not, Major? That good lady always mean what she say, and what she
do too,” and he dabbed wrathfully at the scratches made by the lion’s
claws on his face, then added, “She know her own mind, not like
shilly-shally, see-saw white woman, who get up one thing and go to bed
another. If she love she love, if she hate she hate. If she say she
send gold, she send it, though pity to part with all that cash, because
’spect someone bag it.”
Alan reflected a while.
“Don’t you see, Jeekie, that here is a chance, if a very small one,
of getting a message to the coast. Also it is quite clear that if we are
ever able to escape, it will be impossible for us to carry this heavy
stuff, whereas if we send it on ahead, perhaps some of it might get
through. We will pack it up, Jeekie, at any rate it will be something
to do. Go now and send a message to the Asika, and ask her to let us
have some carpenters, and a lot of well-seasoned wood.”
The message was sent and an hour later a dozen of the native craftsmen
arrived with their rude tools and a supply of planks cut from a kind of
iron-wood or ebony tree. They prostrated themselves to Alan, then the
master of them rising, instantly began to measure Jeekie with a marked
reed. That worthy sprang back and asked what in the name of Bonsa, Big
and Little, they were doing, whereon the man explained with humility
that the Asika had said that she thought the white lord wanted the wood
to make a box to bury his servant in, as he, the said servant, had
offended her that morning, and doubtless the white lord wished to kill
him on that account, or perhaps to put him away under ground alive.
“Oh, my golly!” said Jeekie, shaking till his great knees knocked
together, “oh! my golly! here pretty go. She think you want bury me all
alive. That mean she want to be rid of Jeekie, because he got sit there
and play gooseberry when she wish talk alone with you. Oh, yes! I see
her little game.”
“Well, Jeekie,” said Alan, bursting into such a roar of laughter
that he nearly shook off his mask, “you had better be careful, for you
just told me that the Asika is not like a see-saw white woman and never
changes her mind. Say to this man that he must tell the Asika there is
a mistake, and that however much I should like to oblige her, I can’t
bury you because it has been prophesied to me that on the day you are
buried, I shall be buried also, and that therefore you must be kept
alive.”
“Capital notion that, Major,” said Jeekie, much relieved.
“She not want bury you just at present; next year perhaps, but not now.
I tell him.” And he did with much vigour.
This slight misconception having been disposed of, they explained to the
carpenters what was wanted. First, all the gold was emptied out of the
sacks in which it remained as the priests had brought it, and divided
into heaps, each of which weighed about forty pounds, a weight that
with its box Alan considered would be a good load for a porter. Of
these heaps there proved to be fifty-three, their total value, Alan
reckoned, amounting to about £100,000 sterling. Then the carpenters
were set to work to make a model box, which they did quickly enough and
with great ingenuity, cutting the wood with their native saws,
dovetailing it as a civilized craftsman would do, and finally securing
it everywhere with ebony pegs, driven into holes which they bored with
a hot iron. The result was a box that would stand any amount of rough
usage and when finally pegged down, one that could only be opened with
a hammer and a cold chisel.
This box-making went on for two whole days. As each of them was filled
and pegged down, the gold within being packed in sawdust to keep it
from rattling, Alan amused himself in adding an address with a feather
brush and a supply of red paint such as the Asiki priests used to
decorate their bodies. At first he was puzzled to know what address to
put, but finally decided upon the following:
_Major A. Vernon, care of Miss Champers, The Court, near Kingswell,
England._ Adding in the corner, _From A. V., Asiki Land, Africa._
It was all childish enough, he knew, yet when it was done he regarded
his handiwork with a sort of satisfaction. For, reflected Alan, if but
one of those boxes should chance to get through to England, it would
tell Barbara a great deal, and if it were addressed to himself, her
uncle could scarcely dare to take possession of it.
Then he bethought him of sending a letter, but was obliged to abandon
the idea, as he had neither pen, pencil, ink, nor paper left to him.
Whatever arts remained to them, that of any form of writing was now
totally unknown to the Asiki, although marks that might be writing, it
will be remembered, did appear on the inner side of the Little Bonsa
mask, an evidence of its great antiquity. Even in the days when they
had wrapped up the Egyptian, the Roman, and other early Munganas in
sheets of gold and set them in their treasure-house, apparently they
had no knowledge of it, for not even an hieroglyph or a rune appeared
upon the imperishable metal shrouds. Since that time they had evidently
decreased, not advanced, in learning till at the present day, except
for these relics and some dim and meaningless survival of rites that
once had been religious and were still offered to the same ancient
idols, there was little to distinguish them from other tribes of
Central African savages. Still Alan did something, for obtaining a
piece of white wood, which he smoothed as well as he was able with a
knife, he painted on it this message:
“Messrs. Aston, Old Calabar. Please forward accompanying fifty-three
packages, or as many as arrive, and cable as follows (all costs will be
remitted): Miss Champers, Kingswell, England. Prisoner among Asiki. No
present prospect of escape, but hope for best. Jeekie and I well.
Allowed send this, but perhaps no future message possible. Good-bye.
Alan.”
As it happened just as Alan was finishing this scrawl with a sad heart,
he heard a movement and glancing up, perceived standing at his side the
Asika, of whom he had seen nothing since the interview when she had
beaten Jeekie:
“What are those marks that you make upon the board, Vernoon?” she
asked suspiciously.
With the assistance of Jeekie, who kept at a respectful distance, he
informed her that they were a message in writing to tell the white men
at the coast to forward the gold to his starving family.
“Oh!” she said, “I never heard of writing. You shall teach it
me. It will serve to pass the time till we are married, though it will
not be of much use afterwards, as we shall never be separated any more
and words are better than marks upon a board. But,” she added
cheerfully, “I can send away this black dog of yours,” and she looked
at Jeekie, “and he can write to us. No, I cannot, for an accident might
happen to him, and they tell me you say that if he dies, you die also,
so he must stop here always. What have you in those little boxes?”
“The gold you gave me, Asika, packed in loads.”
“A small gift enough,” she answered contemptuously; “would
you not like more, since you value that stuff? Well, another time you
shall send all you want. Meanwhile the porters are waiting, fifty men
and three, as you sent me word, and ten spare ones to take the place of
any who die. But how they will find their way, I know not, since none
of them have ever been to the coast.”
An idea occurred to Alan, who had small faith in Jeekie’s
“ma” as a messenger.
“The Ogula prisoners could show them,” he said; “at any rate
as far as the forest, and after that they could find out. May they not
go, Asika?”
“If you will,” she answered carelessly. “Let them be ready to
start to-morrow at the dawn, all except their chief, Fahni, who must
stop here as a hostage. I do not trust those Ogula, who more than once
have threatened to make war upon us,” she added, then turned and bade
the priests bring in the bearers to receive their instructions.
Presently they came, picked men all of them, under the command of an
Asiki captain, and with them the Ogula, whom she summoned also.
“Go where the white lord sends you,” she said in an indifferent
voice, “carrying with you these packages. I do not know where it is, but
these man-eaters will show you some of the way, and if you fail in the
business but live to come back again, you shall be sacrificed to Bonsa
at the next feast; if you run away then your wives and children will be
sacrificed. Food shall be given you for your journey, and gold to buy
more when it is gone. Now, Vernoon, tell them what they have to do.”
So Alan, or rather Jeekie, told them, and these directions were so long
and minute, that before they were finished the Asika grew tired of
listening and went away, saying as she passed the captain of the
company:
“Remember my words, man, succeed or die, but of your land and its
secrets say nothing.”
“I hear,” answered the captain, prostrating himself.
That night Alan summoned the Ogula and spoke to them through Jeekie in
their own language. At first they declared that they would not leave
their chief, preferring to stay and die with him.
“Not so,” said Fahni; “go, my children, that I may live. Go
and gather the tribe, all the thousands of them who are men and can
fight, and bring them up to attack Asiki-land, to rescue me if I still
live, or to avenge me if I am dead. As for these bearers, do them no
harm, but send them on to the coast with the white man’s goods.”
So in the end the Ogula said that they would go, and when Alan woke up
on the following morning, he was informed that they and the Asiki
porters had already departed upon their journey. Then he dismissed the
matter from his mind, for to tell the truth he never expected to hear
of them any more.
CHAPTER XV.
ALAN FALLS ILL.
After the departure of the messengers a deep melancholy fell upon Alan,
who was sure that he had now no further hope of communicating with the
outside world. Bitterly did he reproach himself for his folly in having
ever journeyed to this hateful place in order to secure—what? About
£100,000 worth of gold which of course he never could secure, as it
would certainly vanish or be stolen on its way to the coast. For this
gold he had become involved in a dreadful complication which must cost
him much misery, and sooner or later life itself, since he could not
marry that beautiful savage Asika, and if he refused her she would
certainly kill him in her outraged pride and fury.
Day by day she sent for him, and when he came, assumed a new character,
that of a woman humbled by a sense of her own ignorance, which she was
anxious to amend. So he must play the role of tutor to her, telling her
of civilized peoples, their laws, customs and religions, and
instructing her how to write and read. She listened and learned
submissively enough, but all the while Alan felt as one might who is
called upon to teach tricks to a drugged panther. The drug in this case
was her passion for him, which appeared to be very genuine. But when it
passed off, or when he was obliged to refuse her, what, he wondered,
would happen then?
Anxiety and confinement told on him far more than all the hardships of
his journey. His health ran down, he began to fall ill. Then as bad
luck would have it, walking in that damp, unwholesome cedar garden, out
of which he might not stray, he contracted the germ of some kind of
fever which in autumn was very common in this poisonous climate. Three
days later he became delirious, and for a week after that hung between
life and death. Well was it for him that his medicine-chest still
remained intact, and that recognizing his own symptoms before his head
gave way, he was able to instruct Jeekie what drugs to give him at the
different stages of the disease.
For the rest his memories of that dreadful illness always remained very
vague. He had visions of Jeekie and of a robed woman whom he knew to be
the Asika, bending over him continually. Also it seemed to him that
from time to time he was talking with Barbara, which even then he knew
must be absurd, for how could they talk across thousands of miles of
land and sea.
At length his mind cleared suddenly, and he awoke as from a nightmare to
find himself lying in the hall or room where he had always been,
feeling quite cool and without pain, but so weak that it was an effort
to him to lift his hand. He stared about him and was astonished to see
the white head of Jeekie rolling uneasily to and fro upon the cushions
of another bed near by.
“Jeekie,” he said, “are you ill too, Jeekie?”
At the sound of that voice his retainer started up violently.
“What, Major, you awake?” he said. “Thanks be to all gods,
white and black, yes, and yellow too, for I thought your goose cooked.
No, no, Major, I not ill, only Asika say so. You go to bed, so she make
me go to bed. You get worse, she treat me cruel; you seem better, she
stuff me with food till I burst. All because you tell her that you and
I die same day. Oh, Lord! poor Jeekie think his end very near just now,
for he know quite well that she not let him breathe ten minutes after
you peg out. Jeekie never pray so hard for anyone before as he pray
this week for you, and by Jingo! I think he do the trick, he and that
medicine stuff which make him feel very bad in stomach,” and he groaned
under the weight of his many miseries.
Weak as he was Alan began to laugh, and that laugh seemed to do him more
good than anything that he could remember, for after it he was sure
that he would recover.
Just then an agonized whisper reached him from Jeekie.
“Look out!” it said, “here come Asika. Go sleep and seem
better, Major, please, or I catch it hot.”
So Alan almost shut his eyes and lay still. In another moment she was
standing over him and he noticed that her hair was dishevelled and her
eyes were red as though with weeping. She scanned him intently for a
little while, then passed round to where Jeekie lay, and appeared to
pinch his ear so hard that he wriggled and uttered a stifled groan.
“How is your lord, dog?” she whispered.
“Better, O Asika, I think that last medicine do us good, though it make
me very sick inside. Just now he spoke to me and said that he hoped that
your heart was not sad because of him and that all this time in his
dreams he had seen and thought of nobody but you, O Asika.”
“Did he?” asked that lady, becoming intensely interested.
“Then tell me, dog, why is he ever calling upon one Bar-bar-a? Surely
that is a woman’s name?”
“Yes, O Asika, that is the name of his mother, also of one of his
sisters, whom, after you, he loves best of anyone in the whole world.
When you are here he talks of them, but when you are not here he talks
of no one but you. Although he is so sick he remembers white man’s
custom, which tells him that it is very wrong to say sweet things to
lady’s face till he is quite married to her. After _that_ they say them
always.”
She looked at him suspiciously and muttering, “Here it is otherwise. For
your own sake, man, I trust that you do not lie,” left him, and drawing
a stool up beside Alan’s bed, sat herself down and examined him
carefully, touching his face and hands with her long thin fingers. Then
noting how white and wasted he was, of a sudden she began to weep,
saying between her sobs:
“Oh! if you should die, Vernoon, I will die also and be born again not
as Asika, as I have been for so many generations, but as a white woman
that I may be with you. Only first,” she added, setting her teeth, “I
will sacrifice every wizard in this land, for they have brought the
sickness on you by their magic, and I will burn Bonsa Town and cast its
gods to melt in the flames, and the Mungana with them. And then amid
their ashes I will let out my life,” and again she began to weep very
piteously and to call him by endearing names and pray him that he would
not die.
Now Alan thought it time to wake up. He opened his eyes, stared at her
vacantly, and asked if it were raining, which indeed it might have been,
for her big tears were falling on his face. She uttered a gasp of joy.
“No, no,” she answered, “the weather is very fine. It is
I—I who have rained because I thought you die.” She wiped his
forehead with the soft linen of her robe, then went on, “But you will
not die; say that you will live, say that you will live for me,
Vernoon.”
He looked at her, and feeble though he was, the awfulness of the
situation sank into his soul.
“I hope that I shall live,” he answered. “I am hungry, please
give me some food.”
Next instant there was a tumult near by, and when Alan looked up again
it was to see Jeekie, very lightly clad, risen from his bed of
sympathetic sickness and flying through the door.
“It will be here presently,” she said. “Oh! if you knew what
I have suffered, if you only knew. Now you will recover whom I thought
dead, for this fever passes quickly, and there shall be such a
sacrifice—no, I forgot, you hate sacrifices—there shall be no
sacrifice, there shall be a thanksgiving, and every woman in the land
shall break her bonds to husband or to lover and take him whom she
desires without reproach or loss. I will do as I would be done by, that
is the law you taught me, is it not?”
This novel interpretation of a sacred doctrine, worthy of Jeekie
himself, so paralyzed Alan’s enfeebled brain that he could make no
answer, nor do anything except wonder what would happen in Asiki-land
when the decree of its priestess took effect. Then Jeekie arrived with
something to drink which he swallowed with the eagerness of the
convalescent and almost immediately went to sleep in good earnest.
Alan’s recovery was rapid, since as the Asika had told him, if a patient
lives through it, the kind of fever that he had taken did not last long
enough to exhaust his vital forces. When she asked him if he needed
anything to make him well, he answered:
“Yes, air and exercise.”
She replied that he should have both, and next morning his hated mask
was put upon his face and he was supported by priests to a door where a
litter, or rather litters were waiting, one for himself and another for
Jeekie who, although in robust health, was still supposed to be
officially ill and not allowed to walk upon his own legs. They entered
these litters and were borne off till presently they met a third litter
of particularly gorgeous design carried by masked bearers, wherein was
the Asika herself, wearing her coronet and a splendid robe.
Into this litter, which was fitted with a second seat, Alan was
transferred, the Mungana, for whom it was designed, being placed in
that vacated by Alan, which either by accident or otherwise, was no
more seen that day. They went up the mountain side and to the edge of
the great fall and watched the waters thunder down, though the crest of
them they could not reach. Next they wandered off into the huge forests
that clothed the slopes of the hills and there halted and ate. Then as
the sun sank they returned to the gloomy Bonsa Town beneath them.
For Alan, notwithstanding his weakness and anxieties, it was a heavenly
day. The Asika was passive, some new mood being on her, and scarcely
troubled him at all except to call his attention to a tree, a flower,
or a prospect of the scenery. Here on the mountain side, too, the air
was sweet, and for the rest—well, he who had been so near to death, was
escaped for an hour from that gloomy home of bloodshed and
superstition, and saw God’s sky again.
This journey was the first of many. Every day the litters were waiting
and they visited some new place, although into the town itself they
never went. Moreover, if they passed through outlying villages, though
Alan was forced to wear his mask, their inhabitants had been warned to
absent themselves, so that they saw no one. The crops were left
untended and the cattle and sheep lowed hungrily in their kraals. On
certain days, at Alan’s request, they were taken to the spots where the
gold was found in the gravel bed of an almost dry stream that during
the rains was a torrent.
He descended from the litter and with the help of the Asika and Jeekie,
dug a little in this gravel, not without reward, for in it they found
several nuggets. Above, too, where they went afterwards, was a huge
quartz reef denuded by water, which evidently had been worked in past
ages and was still so rich that in it they saw plenty of visible gold.
Looking at it Alan bethought him of his City days and of the hundreds
of thousands of pounds capital with which this unique proposition might
have been floated. Afterwards they were carried to the places where the
gems were found, stuck about in the clay, like plums in a pudding,
though none ever sought them now. But all these things interested the
Asika not at all.
“What is the good of gold,” she asked of Alan, “except to
make things of, or the bright stones except to play with? What is the
good of anything except food to eat and power and wisdom that can open
the secret doors of knowledge, of things seen and things unseen, and
love that brings the lover joy and forgetfulness of self and takes away
the awful loneliness of the soul, if only for a little while?”
Not wishing to drift into discussion on the matter of love, Alan asked
the priestess to define her “soul,” whence it came and whither she
believed it to be going.
“My soul is I, Vernoon,” she answered, “and already very,
very old. Thus it has ruled amongst this people for thousands of years.”
“How is that?” he asked, “seeing that the Asika dies?”
“Oh! no, Vernoon, she does not die; she only changes. The old body dies,
the spirit enters into another body which is waiting. Thus until I was
fourteen I was but a common girl, the daughter of a headman of that
village yonder, at least so they tell me, for of this time I have no
memory. Then the Asika died and as I had the secret marks and the
beauty that is hers the priests burnt her body before Big Bonsa and
suffocated me, the child, in the smoke of the burning. But I awoke
again and when I awoke the past was gone and the soul of the Asika
filled me, bringing with it its awful memories, its gathered wisdom,
its passion of love and hate, and its power to look backward and
before.”
“Do you ever do these things?” asked Alan.
“Backward, yes, before very little; since you came, not at all, because
my heart is a coward and I fear what I might see. Oh! Vernoon, Vernoon,
I know you and your thoughts. You think me a beautiful beast who loves
like a beast, who loves you because you are white and different from
our men. Well, what there is of the beast in me the gods of my people
gave, for they are devils and I am their servant. But there is more
than that, there is good also which I have won for myself. I knew you
would come even before I had seen your face, I knew you would come,”
she went on passionately, “and that is why I was yours already. But
what would befall after you came, that I neither knew, nor know,
because I will not seek, who could learn it all.”
He looked at her and she saw the doubt in his eyes.
“You do not believe me, Vernoon. Very well, this night you shall see,
you and that black dog of yours, that you may know I do not trick you,
and he shall tell me what you see, for he being but a low-born pig will
speak the truth, not minding if it hurts me, whereas you are gentle and
might spare, and myself I have sworn not to search the future by an
oath that I may not break.”
“What of the past?” asked Alan.
“We will not waste time on it, for I know it all. Vernoon, have you no
memories of Asiki-land? Do you think you never visited it before?”
“Never,” said Alan; “it was my uncle who came and ran away
with Little Bonsa on his head.”
“That is news indeed,” she replied mockingly. “Did you then
think that I believed it to be you, though it is true that she who went
before, or my spirit that was in her, fell into error for an hour, and
thought that fool-uncle of yours was _the Man_. When she found her
mistake she let him go, and bade the god go with him that it might
bring back the appointed Man, as it has done; yes, that Little Bonsa,
who knew him of old, might search him out from among all the millions
of men, born or unborn, and bring him back to me. Therefore also she
chose a young black dog who would live for many years, and bade the god
to take him with her, and told him of the wealth of our people that it
might be a bait upon the hook. Do you see, Vernoon, that yellow dirt
was the bait, that I—I am the hook? Well, you have felt it before, so it
should not gall you overmuch.”
Now Alan was more frightened than he had been since he set foot in
Asiki-land, for of a sudden this woman became terrible to him. He felt
that she knew things which were hidden from him. For the first time he
believed in her, believed, that she was more than a mere passionate
savage set by chance to rule over a bloodthirsty tribe; that she was
one who had a part in his destiny.
“Felt the hook?” he muttered. “I do not understand.”
“You are very forgetful,” she answered. “Vernoon, we have
lived and loved before, who were twin souls from the first. That man
now, whom I told you lived once on the great river called the Nile,
have you no memory of him? Well, well, let it be, I will tell you
afterwards. Here we are at the Gold House again, to-night when I am
ready I will send for you, and this I promise, you shall leave me wiser
than you were.”
When they were alone in their room Alan told Jeekie of the expected
entertainment of crystal gazing, or whatever it might be, and the part
that he was to play in it.
“You say that again, Major,” said Jeekie.
Alan repeated the information, giving every detail that he could
remember.
“Oh!” said Jeekie, “I see Asika show us things, ’cause
she afraid to look at them herself, or take oath, or can’t, or
something. She no ask you tell her what she see, because you too kind
hurt her feeling, if happen to be something beastly. But Jeekie just
tell her because he so truthful and not care curse about her feeling.
Well, that all right, Jeekie tell her sure enough. Only, Major, don’t
you interrupt. Quite possible these magic things, I see one show, you
see another. So don’t you go say, ‘Jeekie, that a lie,’ and give me
away to Asika just because you think you see different, ‘cause if so
you put me into dirty hole, and of course I catch it afterwards. You
promise, Major?”
“Oh! yes, I promise. But, Jeekie, do you really think we are going to
see anything?”
“Can’t say, Major,” and he shook his head gloomily.
“P’raps all put up job. But lots of rum things in world, Major,
specially among beastly African savage who very curious and always ready
pay blood to bad Spirit. Hope Asika not get this into her head, because
no one know what happen. P’raps we see too much and scared all our
lives; but p’raps all tommy rot.”
“That’s it—tommy rot,” answered Alan, who was not
superstitious. “Well, I suppose that we must go through with it. But oh!
Jeekie, I wish you would tell me how to get out of this.”
“Don’t know, Major, p’raps never get out; p’raps learn
how to-night. Have to do something soon if want to go. Mungana’s time
nearly up, and then—oh my eye!”
It was night, about ten o’clock indeed, the hour at which Alan generally
went to bed. No message had come and he began to hope that the Asika had
forgotten, or changed her mind, and was just going to say so to Jeekie
when a light coming from behind him attracted his attention and he
turned to see her standing in a corner of the great room, holding a
lamp in her hand and looking towards him. Her gold breastplate and
crown were gone, with every other ornament, and she was clad, or rather
muffled in robes of pure white fitted with a kind of nun’s hood which
lay back upon her shoulders. Also on her arm she carried a shawl or
veil. Standing thus, all undecked, with her long hair fastened in a
simple knot, she still looked very beautiful, more so than she had ever
been, thought Alan, for the cruelty of her face had faded and was
replaced by a mystery very strange to see. She did not seem quite like a
natural woman, and that was the reason, perhaps, that Alan for the
first time felt attracted by her. Hitherto she had always repelled him,
but this night it was otherwise.
“How did you come here?” he asked in a more gentle voice than he
generally used towards her.
Noting the change in his tone, she smiled shyly and even coloured a
little, then answered:
“This house has many secrets, Vernoon. When you are lord of it you shall
learn them all, till then I may not tell them to you. But, come, there
are other secrets which I hope you shall see to-night, and, Jeekie,
come you also, for you shall be the mouth of your lord, so that you may
tell me what perhaps he would hide.”
“I will tell you everything, everything, O Asika,” answered Jeekie,
stretching out his hands and bowing almost to the ground.
Then they started and following many long passages as before, although
whether they were the same or others Alan could not tell, came at last
to a door which he recognized, that of the Treasure House. As they
approached this door it opened and through it, like a hunted thing, ran
the bedizened Mungana, husband of the Asika, terror, or madness,
shining in his eyes. Catching sight of his wife, who bore the lamp, he
threw himself upon his knees and snatching at her robe, addressed some
petition to her, speaking so rapidly that Alan could not follow his
words.
For a moment she listened, then dragged her dress from his hand and
spurned him with her foot. There was something so cruel in the gesture
and the action, so full of deadly hate and loathing, that Alan, who
witnessed it, experienced a new revulsion of feeling towards the Asika.
What kind of a woman must she be, he wondered, who could treat a
discarded lover thus in the presence of his successor?
With a groan or a sob, it was difficult to say which, the poor man rose
and perceived Alan, whose face he now beheld for the first time, since
the Asika had told him not to mask himself as they would meet no one.
The sight of it seemed to fill him with jealous fury; at any rate he
leapt at his rival, intending, apparently, to catch him by the throat.
Alan, who was watching him, stepped aside, so that he came into violent
contact with the wall of the passage and, half-stunned by the shock,
reeled onwards into the darkness.
“The hog!” said the Asika, or rather she hissed it, “the hog,
who dared to touch me and to strike at you. Well, his time is
short—would that I could make it shorter! Did you hear what he sought
of me?”
Alan, who wished for no confidences, replied by asking what the Mungana
was doing in the Treasure House, to which she answered that the spirits
who dwelt there were eating up his soul, and when they had devoured it
all he would go quite mad and kill himself.
“Does this happen to all Munganas?” inquired Alan.
“Yes, Vernoon, if the Asika hates them, but if she loves them it is
otherwise. Come, let us forget the wretch, who would kill you if he
could,” and she led the way into the hall and up it, passing between the
heaps of gold.
On the table where lay the necklaces of gems she set down her lamp,
whereof the light, all there was in that great place, flickered feebly
upon the mask of Little Bonsa, which had been moved here apparently for
some ceremonial purpose, and still more feebly upon the hideous, golden
countenances and winding sheets of the ancient, yellow dead who stood
around in scores placed one above the other, each in his appointed
niche. It was an awesome scene and one that oppressed Jeekie very much,
for he murmured to Alan:
“Oh my! Major, family vault child’s play to this hole, just
like——” here his comparison came to an end, for the Asika cut
it short with a single glance.
“Sit here in front of me,” she said to Alan, “and you,
Jeekie, sit at your lord’s side, and be silent till I bid you
speak.”
Then she crouched down in a heap behind them, threw the cloth or veil
she carried over her head, and in some way that they did not see,
suddenly extinguished the lamp.
Now they were in deep darkness, the darkness of death, and in utter
silence, the silence of the dead. No glimmer of light, and yet to Alan
it seemed as though he could feel the flash of the crystal eyes of
Little Bonsa, and of all the other eyes set in the masks of those
departed men who once had been the husbands of the blood-stained
priestess of the Asiki, till one by one, as she wearied of them, they
were bewitched to madness and to doom. In that utter quiet he thought
even that he could hear them stir within their winding sheets, or it
may have been that the Asika had risen and moved among them on some
errand of her own. Far away something fell to the floor, a very light
object, such as a flake of rock or a scale of gold. Yet the noise of it
struck his nerves loud as a clap of thunder, and those of Jeekie also,
for he felt him start at his side and heard the sudden hammerlike beat
of his heart.
What was the woman doing in this dreadful place, he wondered. Well, it
was easy to guess. Doubtless she had brought them here to scare and
impress them. Presently a voice, that of some hidden priest, would
speak to them, and they would be asked to believe it a message from the
spirit world, or a spirit itself might be arranged—what could be easier
in their mood and these surroundings?
Now the Asika was speaking behind them in a muffled voice. From the tone
of it she appeared to be engaged in argument or supplication in some
strange tongue. At any rate Alan could not understand a word of what
she said. The argument, or prayer, went on for a long while, with
pauses as though for answers. Then suddenly it ceased and once more
they were plunged into that unfathomable silence.
CHAPTER XVI.
WHAT THE ASIKA SHOWED ALAN.
It seemed to Alan that he went to sleep and dreamed.
He dreamed that it was late autumn in England. Leaves drifted down from
the trees beneath the breath of a strong, damp wind, and ran or floated
along the road till they vanished into a ditch, or caught against a
pile of stones that had been laid ready for its repair. He knew the
road well enough; he even knew the elm tree beneath which he seemed to
stand on the crest of a hill. It was that which ran from Mr.
Champers-Haswell’s splendid house, The Court, to the church; he could
see them both, the house to the right, the church to the left, and his
eyesight seemed to have improved, since he was able to observe that at
either place there was bustle and preparation as though for some big
ceremony.
Now the big gates of The Court opened and through them came a funeral.
It advanced toward him with unnatural swiftness, as though it floated
upon air, the whole melancholy procession of it. In a few seconds it
had come and gone and yet during those seconds he suffered agony, for
there arose in his mind a horrible terror that this was Barbara’s
burying. He could not have endured it for another moment; he would have
cried out or died, only now the mourners passed him, following the
coffin, and in the first carriage he saw Barbara seated, looking sad
and somewhat troubled, but well. A little further down the line came
another carriage, and in it was Sir Robert Aylward, staring before him
with cold, impassive face.
In his dream Alan thought to himself that he must have borrowed this
carriage, which would not be strange, as he generally used motors, for
there was a peer’s coronet upon the panels and the silver-mounted
harness.
The funeral passed and suddenly vanished into the churchyard gates,
leaving Alan wondering why his cousin Haswell was not seated at
Barbara’s side. Then it occurred to him that it might be because he was
in the coffin, and at that moment in his dream he heard the Asika
asking Jeekie what he saw; heard Jeekie answering also, “A burying in
the country called England.”
“Of whom, Jeekie?” Then after some hesitation, the answer:
“Of a lady whom my lord loves very much. They bury her.”
“What was her name, Jeekie?”
“Her name was Barbara.”
“Bar-bara, why that you told me was the name of his mother and his
sister. Which of them is buried?”
“Neither, O Asika. It was another lady who loved him very much and
wanted to marry him, and that was why he ran away to Africa. But now
she is dead and buried.”
“Are all women in England called Bar-bara, Jeekie?”
“Yes, O Asika, Barbara means woman.”
“If your lord loved this Barbara, why then did he run away from her?
Well, it matters not since she is dead and buried, for whatever their
spirits may feel, no man cares for a woman that is dead until she
clothes herself in flesh again. That was a good vision and I will
reward you for it.”
“I have earned nothing, O Asika,” answered Jeekie modestly,
“who only tell you what I see as I must. Yet, O Asika,” he added
with a note of anxiety in his voice, “why do you not read these magic
writings for yourself?”
“Because I dare not, or rather because I can not,” she answered
fiercely. “Be silent, slave, for now the power of the good broods upon
my soul.”
The dream went on. A great forest appeared, such a forest as they had
passed before they met the cannibals, and set beneath one of the trees,
a tent and in that tent Barbara, Barbara weeping. Someone began to lift
the flap of the tent. She sprang up, snatching at a pistol that lay
beside her, turning its muzzle towards her breast. A man entered the
tent. Alan saw his face, it was his own. Barbara let fall the pistol
and fell backwards as though a bullet from it had pierced her heart. He
leapt towards her, but before he came to where she lay everything had
vanished and he heard Jeekie droning out his lies to the Asika, telling
her that the vision he had seen was one of her and his master seated
with their arms about each other in a chamber of the Golden House.
A third time the dream descended on Alan like a cloud. It seemed to him
that he was borne beyond the flaming borders of the world. Everything
around was new and unfamiliar, vast, changing, lovely, terrible. He
stood alone upon a pearly plain and the sky above him was lit with red
moons, many and many of them that hung there like lamps. Spirits began
to pass him. He could catch something of their splendour as they sped
by with incredible swiftness; he could hear the music of their
laughter. One rose up at his side. It was the Asika, only a thousand
times more splendid; clothed in all the glory of hell. Majestically she
bent towards him, her glowing eyes held his, the deadly perfume of her
breath beat upon his brow and made him drunken.
She spoke to him and her voice sounded like distant bells.
“Through many a life, through many a life,” she said, “bought
with much blood, paid for with a million tears, but mine at last, the
soul that I have won to comfort my soul in the eternal day. Come to the
place I have made ready for you, the hell that shall turn to heaven at
your step, come, you by whom I am redeemed, and drive away those gods
that torture me because I was their servant that I might win you.”
So she spoke, and though all his soul revolted, yet the fearful strength
that was in her seemed to draw him onward whither she would go. Then a
light shone, and that light was the face of Barbara, and with a
suddenness which was almost awful, the wild dream came to an end.
Alan was in his own room again, though how he got there he did not
recollect.
“Jeekie,” he said, “what has happened? I seem to have had a
very curious dream, there in the Treasure-place, and to have heard you
telling the Asika a string of incredible falsehoods.”
“Oh! no, Major, Jeekie can’t lie, too good Christian; he tell her
what _he_ see, or what he think she see if she look, ’cause though
p’raps he see nothing, she never believe that. And,” he added with
a burst of confidence, “what the dickens it matter what he tell her, so
long as she swallow same and keep quiet? Nasty things always make women
like Asika quite outrageous. Give them sweet to suck, say Jeekie, and
if they ill afterwards, that no fault of his. They had sweet.”
“Quite so, Jeekie, quite so, only I should advise you not to play too
many tricks upon the Asika, lest she should happen to find you out. How
did I get back here?”
“Like man that walk in his sleep, Major. She go first, you follow, just
as little lamb after Mary in hymn.”
“Jeekie, did you really see anything at all?”
“No, Major, nothing partic’lar, except ghost of Mrs. Jeekie and of
your reverend uncle, both of them very angry. That magic all stuff,
Major. Asika put something in your grub make you drunk, so that you
think her very wise. Don’t think of it no more, Major, or you go off
your chump. If Jeekie see nothing, depend on it there nothing to see.”
“Perhaps so, Jeekie, but I wish I could be sure you had seen nothing.
Listen to me; we must get out of this place somehow, or as you say, I
shall go off my chump. It’s haunted, Jeekie, it’s haunted, and I think
that Asika is a devil, not a woman.”
“That what priests say, Major, very old devil—part of Bonsa,”
he answered, looking at his master anxiously. “Well, don’t you
fret, Jeekie not afraid of devils, Jeekie get you out in good time. Go
to bed and leave it all to Jeekie.”
Fifteen more days had gone by, and it was the eve of the night of the
second full moon when Alan was destined to become the husband of the
Asika. She had sent for him that morning and he found her radiant with
happiness. Whether or no she believed Jeekie’s interpretation of the
visions she had called up, it seemed quite certain that her mind was
void of fears and doubts. She was sure that Alan was about to become
her husband, and had summoned all the people of the Asiki to be present
at the ceremony of their marriage, and incidentally of the death of the
Mungana who, poor wretch, was to be forced to kill himself upon that
occasion.
Before they parted she had spoken to Alan sweetly enough.
“Vernoon,” she said, “I know that you do not love me as I
love you, but the love will come, since for your sake I will change
myself. I will grow gentle; I will shed no more blood; that of the
Mungana shall be the last, and even him I would spare if I could, only
while he lives I may not marry you; it is the one law that is stronger
than I am, and if I broke it I and you would die at once. You shall
even teach me your faith, if you will, for what is good to you is
henceforth good to me. Ask what you wish of me, and as an earnest I
will do it if I can.”
Now Alan looked at her. There was one thing that he wished above all
others—that she would let him go. But this he did not dare to ask;
moreover, it would have been utterly useless. After all, if the Asika’s
love was terrible, what would be the appearance of her outraged hate?
What could he ask? More gold? He hated the very name of the stuff, for
it had brought him here. He remembered the old cannibal chief, Fahni,
who, like himself, languished a prisoner, daily expecting death. Only
that morning he had implored him to obtain his liberty.
“I thank you, Asika,” he said. “Now, if your words are true,
set Fahni free and let him return to his own country, for if he stays
here he will die.”
“Surely, Vernoon, that is a small thing,” she answered, smiling,
“though it is true that when he gets there he will probably make war
upon us. Well, let him, let him.” Then she clapped her hands and
summoned priests, whom she bade go at once and conduct Fahni out of
Bonsa Town. Also she bade them loose certain slaves who were of the
Ogula tribe, that they might accompany him laden with provisions, and
send on orders to the outposts that Fahni and his party should be
furnished with a canoe and pass unmolested from the land.
This done, she began to talk to Alan about many matters, however little
he might answer her. Indeed it seemed almost as though she feared to
let him leave her side; as though some presentiment of loss oppressed
her.
At length, to Alan’s great relief, the time came when they must part,
since it was necessary for her to attend a secret ceremony of
preparation or purification that was called “Putting-off-the-Past.”
Although she had been thrice summoned, still she would not let him go.
“They call you, Asika,” said Alan.
“Yes, yes, they call me,” she replied, springing up. “Leave
me, Vernoon, till we meet to-morrow to part no more. Oh! why is my heart
so heavy in me? That black dog of yours read the visions that I
summoned but might not look on, and they were good visions. They showed
that the woman who loved you is dead; they showed us wedded, and other
deeper things. Surely he would not dare to lie to me, knowing that if
he did I would flay him living and throw him to the vultures. Why,
then, is my heart so heavy in me? Would you escape me, Vernoon? Nay,
you are not so cruel, nor could you do it except by death. Moreover,
man, know that even in death you cannot escape me, for there be sure I
shall follow you and claim you, to whose side my spirit has toiled for
ages, and what is there so strong that it can snatch you from my hand?”
She looked at him a moment, then of a sudden burst into a flood of
tears, and, seizing his hand threw herself upon her knees and kissed it
again and again.
“Go now,” she said, “go, and let my love go with you, through
lives and deaths, and all the dreams beyond, oh! let my love go with
you, as it shall, Vernoon.”
So he went, leaving her weeping on her knees.
During the dark hours that followed Alan and madness were not far apart.
What could he do? Escape was utterly impossible. For weeks he and
Jeekie had considered it in vain. Even if they could win out of the
Gold House fortress, what hope had they of making their way through the
crowded, tortuous town where, after the African fashion, peopled walked
about all night, every one of whom would recognize the white man,
whether he were masked or no? Besides, beyond the town were the river
and the guarded walls and gates and beyond them open country where they
would be cut off or run down. No, to attempt escape was suicide.
Suicide! That gave him an idea, why should he not kill himself? It
would be easy enough, for he still had his revolver and a few
cartridges, and surely it was better than to enter on such a life as
awaited him as the plaything of a priestess of a tribe of
fetish-worshipping savages.
But if he killed himself, how about Barbara and how about poor old
Jeekie, who would certainly be killed also? Besides, it was not the
right thing to do, and while there is life there is always hope.
Alan paused in his walk up and down the room and looked at Jeekie, who
sat upon the floor with his back resting against the stone altar,
reflectively pulling down his thick under-lip and letting it fly back,
negro-fashion.
“Jeekie,” he said, “time’s up. What am I to do?”
“Do, Major?” he replied with affected cheerfulness. “Oh! that
quite simple. Jeekie arrange everything. You marry Asika and by and by,
when you master here and tired of her, you give her slip. Very
interesting experience; no white man ever have such luck before. Asika
not half bad, _if_ she fond of you; she like little girl in song, when
she good, she very, very good. At any rate, nothing else to do. Marry
Asika or spiflicate, which mean, Major, that Jeekie spiflicate too,
and,” he added, shaking his white head sadly, “he no like _that_. One
or two little things on his mind that no get time to square up yet.
Daren’t pray like Christian here, ’cause afraid of Bonsas, and Bonsas
come even with him by and by, ’cause he been Christian, so poor Jeekie
fall down bump between two stools. ’Postles kick him out of heaven and
Bonsas kick him out of hell, and where Jeekie go to then?”
“Don’t know, I am sure,” answered Alan, smiling a little in
spite of his sorrow, “but I think the Bonsas might find a corner for you
somewhere. Look here, Jeekie, you old scamp, I am sorry for you, for you
have been a good friend to me and we are fond of each other. But just
understand this, I am not going to marry that woman if I can help it.
It’s against my principles. So I shall wait till to-morrow and then I
shall walk out of this place. If the guards try to stop me I shall
shoot them while I have any cartridges. Then I shall go on until they
kill me.”
“Oh! But Major, they not kill you—never; they chuck blanket over
your head and take you back to Asika. It Jeekie they kill, skin him
alive-o, and all the rest of it.”
“Hope not, Jeekie, because they think we shall die the same day. But if
so, I can’t help it. To-morrow morning I shall walk out, and now
that’s settled. I am tired and going to sleep,” and he threw
himself down upon the bed and, being worn out with weariness and
anxiety, soon fell fast asleep.
But Jeekie did not sleep, although he too lay down upon his bed. On the
contrary, he remained wide awake and reflected, more deeply perhaps than
he had ever done before, being sure the superstition as to the
dependence of Alan’s life upon his own was now worn very thin, and that
his hour was at hand. He thought of making Alan’s wild attempt to
depart impossible by the simple method of warning the Asika, but,
notwithstanding his native selfishness, was too loyal to let that idea
take root in his mind. No, there was nothing to be done; if the Major
wished to start, the Major must start, and he, Jeekie, must pay the
price. Well, he deserved it, who had been fool enough to listen to the
secret promptings of Little Bonsa and conduct him to Asiki-land.
Thus he passed several hours, for the most part in melancholy
speculations as to the exact fashion of his end, until at length
weariness overcame him also and, shutting his eyes, Jeekie began to
doze. Suddenly he grew aware of the presence of some other person in
the room, but thinking that it was only the Asika prowling about in her
uncanny fashion, or perhaps her spirit, for how her body entered the
place he could not guess, he did not stir, but lay breathing heavily
and watching out of the corner of his eye.
Presently a figure emerged from the shadows into the faint light thrown
by the single lamp that burned above, and though it was wrapped in a
dark cloak, Jeekie knew at once that it was not the Asika. Very
stealthily the figure crept towards him, as a leopard might creep, and
bent down to examine him. The movement caused the cloak to slip a
little, and for an instant Jeekie caught sight of the wasted,
half-crazed face of the Mungana, and of a long, curved knife that
glittered in his hand. Paralyzed with fear, he lay quite still, knowing
that should he show the slightest sign of consciousness that knife
would pierce his heart.
The Mungana watched him a while, then satisfied that he slept, turned
round and, bending himself almost double, glided with infinite
precautions towards Alan’s bed, which stood some twelve or fourteen
feet away. Silently as a snake that uncoils itself, Jeekie slipped from
between his blankets and crept after him, his naked feet making no
noise upon the mat-strewn floor. So intent was the Mungana upon the
deed which he had come to do that he never looked back, and thus it
happened that the two of them reached the bed one immediately behind
the other.
Alan was lying on his back with his throat exposed, a very easy victim.
For a moment the Mungana stared. Then he erected himself like a snake
about to strike, and lifted the great curved knife, taking aim at
Alan’s naked breast. Jeekie erected himself also, and even as the knife
began to fall, with one hand he caught the arm that drove it and with
the other the murderer’s throat. The Mungana fought like a wild-cat,
but Jeekie was too strong for him. His fingers held the man’s windpipe
like a vise. He choked and weakened; the knife fell from his hand. He
sank to the ground and lay there helpless, whereon Jeekie knelt upon
his chest and, possessing himself of the knife, held it within an inch
of his heart.
It was at this juncture that Alan woke up and asked sleepily what was
the matter.
“Nothing, Major,” answered Jeekie in low and cheerful tones.
“Snake just going to bite you and I catch him, that all,” and he
gave an extra squeeze to the Mungana’s throat, who turned black in the
face and rolled his eyes.
“Be careful, Jeekie, or you will kill the man,” exclaimed Alan,
recognizing the Mungana and taking in the situation.
“Why not, Major? He want kill you, and me too afterwards. Good riddance
of bad rubbish, as Book say.”
“I am not so sure, Jeekie. Give him air and let me think. Tell him that
if he makes any noise, he dies.”
Jeekie obeyed, and the Mungana’s darkening eyes grew bright again as he
drew his breath in great sobs.
“Now, friend,” said Alan in Asiki, “why did you wish to stab
me?”
“Because I hate you,” answered the man, “who to-morrow will
take my place and the wife I love.”
“As a year or two ago you took someone else’s place, eh? Well,
suppose now that I don’t want either your place or your wife.”
“What would that matter even it if were true, white man, since she wants
you?”
“I am thinking, friend, that there is someone else she will want when
she hears of this. How do you suppose that you will die to-morrow? Not
so easily as you hope, perhaps.”
The Mungana’s eyes seemed to sink into his head, and his face to sicken
with terror. That shaft had gone home.
“Suppose I make a bargain with you,” went on Alan slowly.
“Supposing I say: ‘Mungana, show me the way out of this place, as
you can, now at once. Or if you prefer it, refuse and be given up to the
Asika?’ Come, you are not too mad to understand. Answer—and
quickly.”
“Would you kill me afterwards?” he asked.
“Not I. Why should I wish to kill you? You can come with us and go where
you will. Or you can stay here and die as the Asika directs.”
“I cannot believe you, white man. It is not possible that you should
wish to run away from so much love and glory, or to spare one who would
have slain you. Also it would be difficult to get you out of Bonsa
Town.”
“Jeekie,” said Alan, “this fellow is mad after all, I think
you had better go to the door and shout for the priests.”
“No, no, lord,” begged the wretched creature, “I will trust
you; I will try, though it is you who must be mad.”
“Very good. Stand over him, Jeekie, while I put on my things and, yes,
give me that mask. If he stirs, kill him at once.”
So Alan made himself ready. Then he mounted guard over the Mungana, as
did Jeekie, although he shook his head over their prospect of escape.
“No go,” he muttered, “no go! If we get past priests, Asika
catch us with her magic. When I bolt with your reverend uncle last time,
Little Bonsa arrange business because she go abroad fetch you. Now
likely as not she bowl you out, and then good-bye Jeekie.”
Alan sternly bade him be quiet and stop behind if he did not wish to
come.
“No, no, Major,” he answered, “I come all right. Asika very
prejudiced beggar, and if she find me here alone—oh my! Better die
double after all, Two’s company, Major. Now, all ready, _March!_” and
he gave the unfortunate Mungana a fearful kick as a hint to proceed,
adding reflectively “Everything come square in end, Major. You ’member
once this chap bump Jeekie’s head at feast of Little Bonsa. Well, now I
bump his tail,” and he kicked him again.
So utterly crushed was the poor wretch that even this insult did not
stir him to resentment.
“Follow me, white man,” he said, “and if you desire to live,
be silent. Throw your cloaks about your heads.”
They did so, and holding their revolvers in their right hands, glided
after the Mungana. In the corner of the big room they came to a little
stair. How it opened in that place where no stair had been, they could
not see or even guess, for it was too dark, only now they knew the
means by which the Asika had been able to visit them at night.
The Mungana went first down the stair. Jeekie followed, grasping him by
the arm with one hand, while in the other he kept his own knife ready
to stab him at the first sign of treachery. Alan brought up the rear,
keeping hold of Jeekie’s cloak. They passed down twelve steps of stair,
then turned to the right along a tunnel, then to the left, then to the
right again. In the pitch darkness it was an awful journey, since they
knew not whither they were being led, and expected that every moment
would be their last. At length, quite of a sudden, they emerged into
moonlight.
Alan looked about him and knew the place. It was where the feast had
been held two months before, when the priests were poisoned and the
Bonsas chose the victims for sacrifice. Already it was prepared for the
great festival of to-morrow, when the Mungana should drown himself and
Alan be married to the Asika. There on the daïs were the gold chairs in
which they were to sit, and green branches of trees mixed with curious
flags decked the vast amphitheatre beyond. Moreover, there was the
broad canal, and floating in the midst of it the hideous gold fetish,
Big Bonsa. The moon shone on its glaring, deathly eyes, its fish-like
snout and its huge, pale teeth. Alan looked at it and shivered, for the
thing was horrid and uncanny, and the utter loneliness in which it lay
staring up at the moon, seemed to accentuate the horror.
The Mungana noticed his fear and whispered:
“We must swim the water. If you have a god, white man, pray him to
protect you from Bonsa.”
“Lead on,” answered Alan, “I do not dread a foul fetish, only
the look of it. But is there no way round?”
The Mungana shook his head and began to enter the canal. Jeekie, whose
teeth were chattering, hung back, but Alan pushed him from behind, so
sharply that he stumbled and made a splash. Then Alan followed, and as
the cold, black water rose to his chest, looked again at Big Bonsa.
It seemed to him that the thing had turned round and was staring at
them. Surely a few seconds ago its snout pointed the other way. No,
that must be fancy. He was swimming now, they were all swimming, Alan
and Jeekie holding their pistols and little stock of cartridges above
their heads to keep them dry. The gold head of Big Bonsa appeared to be
lifting itself up in the water, as a reptile might, in order to get a
better view of these proceedings, but doubtless it was the ripples that
they caused which gave it this appearance. Only why did the ripples
make it come towards them, quite gently, like an investigating fish?
It was about ten yards off and they were in the middle of the canal. The
Mungana had passed it. It was in a line with Alan’s head. Oh Heavens! a
sudden smother of foam, a rush like that of a torpedo, and set low down
between two curving waves, a flash of gold. Then a gurgling, inhuman
laugh and a weight upon his back. Down went Alan, down and down!
CHAPTER XVII.
THE END OF THE MUNGANA.
The moonlight above vanished. Alan was alone in the depths with this
devil, or whatever it might be. He could feel hands and feet gripping
and treading on him, but they did not seem to be human, for there were
too many of them. Also they were very cold. He gave himself up for dead
and thought of Barbara.
Then something flashed into his mind. In his hand he still held the
revolver. He pressed it upwards against the thing that was smothering
him, and pulled the trigger. Again he pulled it, and again, for it was
a self-cocking weapon, and even there deep down in the water he heard
the thud of the explosion of the damp-proof copper cartridges. His
lungs were bursting, his senses reeled, only enough of them remained to
tell him that he was free of that strangling grip and floating upwards.
His head rose above the surface, and through the mouth of his mask he
drew in the sweet air with quick gasps. Down below him in the clear
water he saw the yellow head of Big Bonsa rocking and quivering like a
great reflected moon, saw too that it was beginning to rise. Yet he
could not swim away from it, the fetish seemed to have hypnotized him.
He heard Jeekie calling to him from the shallow water near the further
bank, but still he floated there like a log and stared down at Big
Bonsa wallowing beneath.
Jeekie plunged back into the canal and with a few strong strokes reached
him, gripped him by the arm and began to tow him to the shore. Before
they came there Big Bonsa rose like a huge fish and tried to follow
them, but could not, or so it seemed. At any rate it only whirled round
and round upon the surface, while from it poured a white fluid that
turned the black water to the hue of milk. Then it began to scream,
making a thin and dreadful sound more like that of an infant in pain
than anything they had ever heard, a very sickening sound that Alan
never could forget. He staggered to the bank and stood staring at it
where it bled, rolled and shrieked, but because of the milky foam could
make nothing out in that light.
“What is it, Jeekie?” he said with an idiotic laugh. “What is
it?”
“Oh! don’t know. Devil and all, perhaps. Come on, Major, before it
catch us.”
“I don’t think it will catch anyone just at present. Devil or not
hollow-nosed bullets don’t agree with it. Shall I give it another,
Jeekie?” and he lifted the pistol.
“No, no, Major, don’t play tomfool,” and Jeekie grabbed him
by the arm and dragged him away.
A few paces further on stood the Mungana like a man transfixed, and even
then Alan noticed that he regarded him with something akin to awe.
“Stronger than the god,” he muttered, “stronger than the
god,” and bounded forward.
Following the path that ran beside the canal, they plunged into a
tunnel, holding each other as before. In a few minutes they were
through it and in a place full of cedar trees outside the wall of the
Gold House, under which evidently the tunnel passed, for there it rose
behind them. Beneath these cedar trees they flitted like ghosts, now in
the moonlight and now in the shadow.
The great fall to the back of the town was on their left, and in front
of them lay one of the arms of the river, at this spot a raging torrent
not much more than a hundred feet in width, spanned by a narrow
suspension bridge which seemed to be supported by two fibre ropes. On
the hither side of this bridge stood a guard hut, and to their dismay
out of this hut ran three men armed with spears, evidently to cut them
off. One of these men sped across the bridge and took his stand at the
further end, while the other two posted themselves in their path at the
entrance to it.
The Mungana slacked his speed and said one word—“Finished!”
and Jeekie also hesitated, then turned and pointed behind them.
Alan looked back and flitting in and out between the cedar trees, saw
the white robes of the priests of Bonsa. Then despair seized them all,
and they rushed at the bridge. Jeekie reached it first and dodging
beneath the spears of the two guards, plunged his knife into the breast
of one of them, and butted the other with his great head, so that he
fell over the side of the bridge on to the rocks below.
“Cut, Major, cut!” he said to Alan, who pushed past him. “All
right now.”
They were on the narrow swaying bridge—it was but a single
plank—Alan first, then the Mungana, then Jeekie. When they were half way
across Alan looked before him and saw a sight he could never forget.
The third guard at the further side was sawing through one of the fibre
ropes with his spear. There they were on the middle of the bridge with
the torrent raving fifty feet beneath them, and the man had nearly
severed the rope! To get over before it parted was impossible; behind
were the priests; beneath the roaring river. All three of them stopped
as though paralyzed, for all three had seen. Something struck against
Alan’s leg, it was his pistol that still remained fastened to his wrist
by its leather thong. He cocked and lifted it, took aim and fired. The
shot missed, which was not wonderful considering the light and the
platform on which the shooter stood. It missed, but the man,
astonished, for he had never seen or heard such a thing before, stopped
his sawing for a moment, and stared at them. Then as he began again
Alan fired once more, and this time by good fortune the bullet struck
the man somewhere in the body. He fell, and as he fell grasped the
nearly separated rope and hung to it.
“Get hold of the other rope and come on,” yelled Alan, and once
more they bounded forward.
“My God! it’s going!” he yelled again. “Hold fast,
Jeekie, hold fast!”
Next instant the rope parted and the man vanished. The bridge tipped
over, and supported by the remaining rope, hung edgeways up. To this
rope the three of them clung desperately, resting their feet upon the
edge of the swaying plank. For a few seconds they remained thus, afraid
to stir, then Jeekie called out:
“Climb on, Major, climb on like one monkey. Look bad, but quite safe
really.”
As there was nothing else to be done Alan began to climb, shifting his
feet along the plank edge and his hands along the rope, which creaked
and stretched beneath their threefold weight.
It was a horrible journey, and in his imagination took at least an hour.
Yet they accomplished it, for at last they found themselves huddled
together but safe upon the further bank. The sweat pouring down from
his head almost blinded Alan; a deadly nausea worked within him, sickly
tremors shot up and down his spine; his brain swam. Yet he could hear
Jeekie, in whom excitement always took the form of speech, saying
loudly:
“Think that man no liar what say our great papas was monkeys. Never look
down on monkey no more. Wake up, Major, those priests monkey-men too,
for we all brothers, you know. Wait a bit, I stop their little game,”
and springing up with three or four cuts of the big curved knife, he
severed the remaining rope just as their pursuers reached the further
side of the chasm.
They shouted with rage as the long bridge swung back against the rock,
the cut end of it falling into the torrent, and waved their spears
threateningly. To this demonstration Jeekie replied with gestures of
contempt such as are known to street Arabs. Then he looked at the
Mungana, who lay upon the ground a melancholy and dilapidated
spectacle, for the perspiration had washed lines of paint off his face
and patches of dye from his hair, also his gorgeous robes were
water-stained and his gem necklaces broken. Having studied him a while
Jeekie kicked him meditatively till he got up, then asked him to set out
the exact situation. The Mungana answered that they were safe for a
while, since that torrent could only be crossed by the broken bridge
and was too rapid to swim. The Asiki, he added, must go a long journey
round through the city in order to come at them, though doubtless they
would hunt them down in time.
Here Jeekie cut him short, since he knew all that country well and only
wished to learn whether any more bridges had been built across the
torrent since he was a boy.
“Now, Major,” he said, “you get up and follow me, for I know
every inch of ground, also by and by good short cut over mountains. You
see Jeekie very clever boy, and when he herd sheep and goat he made
note of everything and never forget nothing. He pull you out of this
hole, never fear.”
“Glad to hear it, I am sure,” answered Alan as he rose. “But
what’s to become of the Mungana?”
“Don’t know and don’t care,” said Jeekie; “no
more good to us. Can go and see how Big Bonsa feel, if he like,” and
stretching out his big hand as though in a moment of abstraction, he
removed the costly necklaces from their guide’s neck and thrust them
into the pouch he wore. Also he picked up the gilded linen mask which
Alan had removed from his head and placed it in the same receptacle,
remarking, that he “always taught that it wicked to waste anything when
so many poor in the world.”
Then they started, the Mungana following them. Jeekie paused and waved
him off, but the poor wretch still came on, whereon Jeekie produced the
big, crooked knife, Mungana’s own knife.
“What are you going to do?” said Alan, awaking to the situation.
“Cut off head of that cocktail man, Major, and so save him lot of
trouble. Also we got no grub, and if we find any he want eat a lot. Chop
what do for two p’raps, make very short commons for three. Also he
might play dirty trick, so much best dead.”
“Nonsense,” said Alan sternly; “let the poor devil come along
if he likes. One good turn deserves another.”
“Just so, Major; that hello-swello want cut our throats, so I want cut
his—one good turn deserve another, as wise king say in Book, when he
give half baby to woman what wouldn’t have it. Well, so be, Major,
specially as it no matter, for he not stop with us long.”
“You mean that he will run away, Jeekie?”
“Oh! no, he not run away, he in too blue funk for that. But something
run away with him, because he ought die to-morrow night. Oh! yes, you
see, you see, and Jeekie hope that something not run away with you too,
Major, because you ought be married at same time.”
“Hope not, I am sure,” answered Alan, and bethinking him of Big
Bonsa wallowing and screaming on the water and bleeding out white blood,
he shivered a little.
By this time, advancing at a trot, the Mungana running after them like a
dog, they had entered the bush pierced with a few wandering paths.
Along these paths they sped for hour after hour, Jeekie leading them
without a moment’s hesitation. They met no man and heard nothing,
except occasional weird sounds which Alan put down to wild beasts, but
Jeekie and the Mungana said were produced by ghosts. Indeed it appeared
that all this jungle was supposed to be haunted, and no Asiki would
enter it at night, or unless he were very bold and protected by many
charms, by day either. Therefore it was an excellent place for
fugitives who sorely needed a good start.
At length the day began to dawn just as they reached the main road where
it crossed the hills, whence on his journey thither Alan had his first
view of Bonsa Town. Peering from the edge of the bush, they perceived a
fire burning near the road and round it five or six men, who seemed to
be asleep. Their first thought was to avoid them, but the Mungana,
creeping up to Alan, for Jeekie he would not approach, whispered:
“Not Asiki, Ogula chief and slaves who left Bonsa Town yesterday.”
They crept nearer the fire and saw that this was so. Then rejoicing
exceedingly, they awoke the old chief, Fahni, who at first thought they
must be spirits. But when he recognized Alan, he flung himself on his
knees and kissed his hand, because to him he owed his liberty.
“No time for all that, Fahni,” said Alan. “Give us
food.”
Now of this as it chanced there was plenty, since by the Asika’s orders
the slaves had been laden with as much as they could carry. They ate of
it ravenously, and while they ate, told Fahni something of the story of
their escape. The old chief listened amazed, but like Jeekie asked Alan
why he had not killed the Mungana, who would have killed him.
Alan, who was in no mood for long explanations, answered that he had
kept him with them because he might be useful.
“Yes, yes, friend, I see,” exclaimed the old cannibal,
“although he is so thin he will always make a meal or two at a pinch.
Truly white men are wise and provident. Like the ants, you take thought
for the morrow.”
As soon as they had swallowed their food they started all together, for
although Alan pointed out to Fahni that he might be safer apart, the old
chief who had a real affection for him, would not be persuaded to leave
him.
“Let us live or die together,” he said.
Now Jeekie, abandoning the main road, led them up a stream, walking in
the water so that their footsteps might leave no trace, and thus away
into the barren mountains which rose between them and the great swamp.
On the crest of these mountains Alan turned and looked back towards
Bonsa Town. There far across the fertile valley was the hateful,
river-encircled place. There fell the great cataract in the roar of
which he had lived for so many weeks. There were the black cedars and
there gleamed the roofs of the Gold House, his prison where dwelt the
Asika and the dreadful fetishes of which she was the priestess. To him
it was like the vision of a nightmare, he could scarcely think it real.
And yet by this time doubtless they sought him far and wide. What mood,
he wondered, would the Asika be in when she learned of his escape and
the fashion of it, and how would she greet him if he were recaptured
and taken back to her? Well, he would not be recaptured. He had still
some cartridges and he would fight till they killed him, or failing
that, save the last of them for himself. Never, never could he endure
to be dragged back to Bonsa Town there to live and die.
They went on across the mountains, till in the afternoon once more they
saw the road running beneath them like a ribbon, and at the end of it
the lagoon. Now they rested a while and held a consultation while they
ate. Across that lagoon they could not escape without a canoe.
“Lord,” said the Mungana presently, “yesterday when these
cannibals were let go a swift runner was sent forward, commanding that a
good boat should be provisioned and made ready for them, and by now
doubtless this has been done. Let them descend to the road, walk on to
the bay and ask for the boat. Look, yonder, far away a tongue of land
covered with trees juts out into the lake. We will make our way thither
and after nightfall this chief can row back to it and take us into the
canoe.”
Alan said that the plan was good, but Jeekie shook his head, asking what
would happen if Fahni, finding himself safe upon the water, thought it
wisest not to come to fetch them.
Alan translated his words to the old chief, whereon Fahni wanted to
fight Jeekie because of the slur that he had cast upon his honour. This
challenge Jeekie resolutely declined, saying that already there were
plenty of ways to die in Asiki-land without adding another to them.
Then Fahni swore by his tribal god and by the spirit of every man he
had ever eaten, that he would come to that promontory after dark, if he
were still alive.
So they separated, Fahni and his men slipping down to the road, which
they did without being seen by anyone, while Alan, Jeekie and the
Mungana bore away to the right towards the promontory. The road was
long and rough and, though by good fortune they met no one, since the
few who dwelt in these wild parts had gone up to Bonsa Town to be
present at the great feast, the sun was sinking before ever they
reached the place. Moreover, this promontory proved to be covered with
dense thorn scrub, through which they must force a way in the gathering
darkness, not without hurt and difficulty. Still they accomplished it
and at length, quite exhausted, crept to the very point, where they hid
themselves between some stones at the water’s edge.
Here they waited for three long hours, but no boat came.
“All up a gum-tree now, Major,” said Jeekie. “Old blackguard,
Fanny, bolt and leave us here. _He_ play hookey-walker, and to-morrow
morning Asika nobble _us._ Better have gone down to bay, steal his boat
and leave him behind, because Asika no want _him_. That only common
sense.”
Alan made no answer. He was too tired, and although he trusted Fahni, it
seemed likely enough that Jeekie was right, or perhaps the cannibals
had not been able to get the boat. Well, he had done his best, and if
Fate overtook them it was no fault of his. He began to doze, for even
their imminent peril could not keep his eyes open, then presently awoke
with a start, for in his sleep he thought he heard the sounds of
paddles beating the quiet water. Yes, there dimly seen through the
mist, was a canoe, and seated in the stern of it Fahni. So that danger
had gone by also.
He woke his companions, who slept at his side, and very silently they
rose, stepping from rock to rock till they reached the canoe and
entered it. It was not a large craft, barely big enough to hold them
all indeed, but they found room, and then at a sign from Fahni the
oarsmen gave way so heartily that within half an hour they had lost
sight of the accursed shores of Asiki-land, although presently its
mountains showed up clearly beneath the moon.
Meanwhile Fahni had told his tale. It appeared that when he reached the
bay he found the Asiki headman who dwelt there, and those under him, in
a state of considerable excitement.
Rumours had reached them that someone had escaped from Bonsa Town; they
thought it was the Mungana. Fahni asked who had brought the rumour,
whereon the headman answered that it came “in a dream,” and would say
no more. Then he demanded the canoe which had been promised to him and
his people, and the headman admitted that it was ready in accordance
with orders received from the Asika, but demurred to letting him have
it. A long argument followed, in the midst of which Fahni and his men
got into the canoe, the headman apparently not daring to use force to
prevent him. Just as they were pushing off a messenger arrived from
Bonsa Town, reeling with exhaustion and his tongue hanging from his
jaws, who called out that it was the white man who had escaped with his
servant and the Mungana, and that although they were believed to be
still hidden in the holy woods near Bonsa Town, none were to be allowed
to leave the bay. So the headman shouted to Fahni to return, but he
pretended not to hear and rowed away, nor did anyone attempt to follow
him. Still it was only after nightfall that he dared to put the boat
about and return to the headland to pick up Alan and the others as he
had promised. That was all he had to say.
Alan thanked him heartily for his faithfulness and they paddled on
steadily, putting mile after mile of water between them and Asiki-land.
He wondered whether he had seen the last of that country and its
inhabitants. Something within him answered No. He was sure that the
Asika would not allow him to depart in peace without making some
desperate effort to recapture him. Far as he was away, it seemed to him
that he could feel her fury hanging over him like a cloud, a cloud that
would burst in a rain of blood. Doubtless it would have burst already
had it not been for the accident that he and his companions were still
supposed to be hiding in the woods. But that error must be discovered,
and then would come the pursuit.
He looked at the full moon shining upon him and reflected that at this
very hour he should have been seated upon the chair of state, wedding,
or rather being wedded by the Asika in the presence of Big and Little
Bonsa and all the people. His eye fell upon the Mungana, who had also
been destined to play a prominent part in that ceremony. At once he saw
that there was something wrong with the man. A curious change had come
over his emaciated face. It was working like that of a maniac. Foam
appeared upon his dyed lips, his haunted eyes rolled, his thin hands
gripped the side of the canoe and he began to sing, or rather howl like
a dog baying at the stars. Jeekie hit him on the head and bade him be
silent, but he took no notice, even when he hit him again more heavily.
Presently came the climax. The man sprang up in the canoe, causing it to
rock from side to side. He pointed to the full moon above and howled
more loudly than before; he pointed to something that he seemed to see
in the air near by and gibbered as though in terror. Then his eyes
fixed themselves upon the water at which he stared.
Harder and harder he stared, his head sinking lower every moment, till
at length without another sound, very quietly and unexpectedly he went
over the side of the boat. For a few seconds they saw his
bright-coloured garments sinking to the depths, then he vanished.
They waited a while, expecting that he would rise again. But he never
rose. A shot-weighted corpse could not have disappeared more finally
and completely. The thing was very awful, and for a while there was
silence, which as usual was broken by Jeekie.
“That gay dog gone,” he said in a reflective voice. “All
those old ghosts come to fetch him at proper time. No good run away from
ghosts; they travel too quick; one jump, and pop up where you no expect.
Well, more place for Jeekie now,” and he spread himself out comfortably
in the empty seat, adding, “like hello-swello’s room much better than
company, he go in scent-bath every day and stink too much, all that
water never wash _him_ clean.”
Thus died the Mungana, and such was the poor wretch’s requiem. With a
shiver Alan reflected that had it not been for him and his insane
jealousy, he too might have been expected to go into that same
scent-bath and have his face painted like a chorus girl. Only would he
escape the spell that had destroyed his predecessor in the affections
of the priestess of the Bonsas? Or would some dim power such as had
drawn Mungana to the death drag him back to the arms of the Asika or to
the torture pit of “Great Swimming Head.” He remembered his dream in
the Treasure Hall and shuddered at the very thought of it, for all he
had undergone and seen made him superstitious; then bade the men paddle
faster, ever faster.
All that night they rowed on, taking turns to rest, except Alan and
Jeekie, who slept a good deal and as a consequence awoke at dawn much
refreshed. When the sun rose they found themselves across the lagoon,
over thirty miles from the borders of Asiki-land, almost at the spot
where the river up which they had travelled some months before, flowed
out of the lake. Whether by chance or skill Fahni had steered a
wonderfully straight course. Now, however, they were face to face with
a new trouble, for scarcely had they begun to descend the river when
they discovered that at this dry season of the year it was in many
places too shallow to allow the canoe to pass over the sand and mud
banks. Evidently there was but one thing to be done—abandon it and
walk.
So they landed, ate from their store of food and began a terrible and
toilsome journey. On either side of the river lay desiccated swamp
covered with dead reeds ten or twelve feet high. Doubtless beyond the
swamp there was high land, but in order to reach this, if it existed,
they would be obliged to force a path through miles of reeds. Therefore
they thought it safer to follow the river bank. Their progress was very
slow, since continually they must make detours to avoid a quicksand or
a creek, also the stones and scrubby growth delayed them so that
fifteen or at most twenty miles was a good day’s march.
Still they went on steadily, seeing no man, and when their food was
exhausted, living on the fish which they caught in plenty in the
shallows, and on young flapper ducks that haunted the reeds. So at
length they came to the main river into which this tributary flowed,
and camped there thankfully, believing that if any pursuit of them had
been undertaken, it was abandoned. At least Alan and the rest believed
this, but Jeekie did not.
On the following morning, shortly after dawn, Jeekie awoke his master.
“Come here, Major,” he said in a solemn voice, “I got
something pretty show you,” and he led him to the foot of an old willow
tree, adding, “now up you go, Major, and look.”
So Alan went up and from the topmost fork of that tree saw a sight at
which his blood turned cold. For there, not five miles behind them, on
either side of the river bank, the light gleaming on their spears,
marched two endless columns of men, who from their head-dresses he took
to be Asiki. For a minute he looked, then descended the tree and
approaching the others, asked what was to be done.
“Hook, scoot, bolt, leg it!” exclaimed Jeekie emphatically; then he
licked his finger, held it up to the wind, and added, “but first fire
reeds and make it hot for Bonsa crowd.”
This was a good suggestion and one on which they acted without delay.
Taking red embers, they blew them into a flame and lit torches, which
they applied to the reeds over a width of several hundred yards. The
strong northward wind soon did the rest; indeed with a quarter of an
hour a vast sheet of flame twenty or thirty feet in height was rushing
towards the Asiki columns. Then they began their advance along the
river bank, running at a steady trot, for here the ground was open.
All that day they ran, pausing at intervals to get their breath, and at
night rested because they must. When the light came upon the following
morning they looked back from a little hill and saw the outposts of the
Asiki advancing not a mile behind. Doubtless some of the army had been
burned, but the rest, guessing their route, had forced a way through
the reeds and cut across country. So they began to run again harder
than before, and kept their lead during the morning. But when afternoon
came the Asika gained on them. Now they were breasting a long rise, the
river running in the cleft beneath, and Jeekie, who seemed to be
absolutely untiring, held Alan by the hand, Fahni following close
behind. Two of their men had fallen down and been abandoned, and the
rest straggled.
“No go, Jeekie,” gasped Alan, “they will catch us at the top
of the hill.”
“Never say die, Major, never say die,” puffed Jeekie; “they
get blown too, and who know what other side of hill?”
Somehow they struggled to the crest and behold! there beneath them was a
great army of men.
“Ogula!” yelled Jeekie, “Ogula! Just what I tell you, Major,
who know what other side of _any_ hill.”
CHAPTER XVIII.
A MEETING IN THE FOREST.
In five minutes more Alan and Jeekie were among the Ogula, who, having
recognized their chief while he was yet some way off, greeted him with
rapturous cheers and the clapping of hands. Then as there was no time
for explanation, they retreated across a little stream which ran down
the valley, four thousand or more of them, and prepared for battle.
That evening, however, there was no fighting, for when the first of the
Asiki reached the top of the rise and saw that the fugitives had
escaped to the enemy, who were in strength, they halted and finally
retired.
Now Alan, and Fahni also, hoped that the pursuit was abandoned, but
again Jeekie shook his big head, saying:
“Not at all, Major, I know Asiki and their little ways. While one of
them alive, not dare go back to Asika without _you_, Major.”
“Perhaps she is with them herself,” suggested Alan, “and we
might treat with her.”
“No, Major, Asika never leave Bonsa Town, that against law, and if she
do so, priests make another Asika and kill her when they catch her.”
After this a council of war was held, and it was decided to camp there
that night, since the position was good to meet an attack if one should
be made, and the Ogula were afraid of being caught on the march with
their backs towards the enemy. Alan was glad enough to hear this
decision, for he was quite worn out and ready to take any risk for a
few hours’ rest. At this council he learned also that the Asiki bearers
carrying his gold with their Ogula guides had arrived safely among the
Ogula, who had mustered in answer to their chief’s call and were
advancing towards Asiki-land, though the business was one that did not
please them. As for these Asiki bearers, it seemed that they had gone
on into the forest with the gold, and nothing more had been heard of
them.
As they were leaving the council Alan asked Jeekie if he had any tidings
of his mother, who had been their first messenger.
“No, Major,” he answered gloomily, “can’t learn nothing
of my ma, don’t know where she is. Ogula camp no place for old girl if
they short of chop and hungry. But p’raps she never get there; I nose
round and find out.”
Apparently Jeekie did “nose round” to some purpose, for just as
Alan was dropping off to sleep in his bough shelter a most fearful din
arose without, through which he recognized the vociferations of Jeekie.
Running out of the shelter he discovered his retainer and a great Ogula
whom he knew again as the headman who had been imprisoned with him and
freed by the Asika to guide the bearers, rolling over and over on the
ground, watched by a curious crowd. Just as he arrived Jeekie, who,
notwithstanding his years, was a man of enormous strength, got the
better of the Ogula and kneeling on his stomach, was proceeding to
throttle him. Rushing at him, Alan dragged him off and asked what was
the matter.
“Matter, Major!” yelled the indignant Jeekie. “My ma inside
this black villain, _that_ the matter. Dirty cannibal got digestion of
one ostrich and eat her up with all his mates, all except one who not
like her taste and tell me. They catch poor old lady asleep by road so
stop and lunch at once when Asiki bearers not looking. Let me get at
him, Major, let me get at him. If I can’t bury my ma, as all good son
ought to do, I bury him, which next best thing.”
“Jeekie, Jeekie,” said Alan, “exercise a Christian spirit and
let bygones be bygones. If you don’t, you will make a quarrel between us
and the Ogula, and they will give us up to the Asiki. Perhaps the man
did not eat your mother; I understand that he denies it, and when you
remember what she was like, it seems incredible. At any rate he has a
right to a trial, and I will speak to Fahni about it to-morrow.”
So they were separated, but as it chanced that case never came on, for
next morning this Ogula was killed in the fighting together with two of
his companions, while the others involved in the charge kept themselves
out of sight. Whether Jeekie’s “ma” was or was not eaten by the
Ogula no one ever learned for certain. At least she was never heard of
any more.
Alan was sleeping heavily when a sound of rushing feet and of strange,
thrilling battle-cries awoke him. He sprang up, snatching at a spear and
shield which Jeekie had provided for him, and ran out to find from the
position of the moon that dawn was near.
“Come on, Major,” said Jeekie, “Asiki make night attack; they
always like do everything at night who love darkness, because their eye
evil. Come on quick, Major,” and he began to drag him off toward the
rear.
“But that’s the wrong way,” said Alan presently. “They
are attacking over there.”
“Do you think Jeekie fool, Major, that he don’t know that? He take
you where they _not_ attacking. Plenty Ogula to be killed, but not
_many_ white men like you, and in all world only _one_ Jeekie!”
“You cold-blooded old scoundrel!” ejaculated Alan as he turned and
bolted back towards the noise of fighting, followed by his reluctant
servant.
By the time that he reached the first ranks, which were some way off,
the worst of the attack was over. It had been short and sharp, for the
Asiki had hoped to find the Ogula unprepared and to take their camp
with a rush. But the Ogula, who knew their habits, were waiting for
them, so that presently they withdrew, carrying off their wounded and
leaving about fifty dead upon the ground. As soon as he was quite sure
that the enemy were all gone, Jeekie, armed with a large battle-axe,
went off to inspect these fallen soldiers. Alan, who was helping the
Ogula wounded, wondered why he took so much interest in them. Half an
hour later his curiosity was satisfied, for Jeekie returned with over
twenty heavy gold rings, torques, and bracelets slung over his
shoulder.
“Where did you get those, Jeekie?” he asked.
“Off poor chaps that peg out just now, Major. Remember Asiki soldiers
nearly always wear these things, and that filthy lucre no more use where
they gone to, ’cause they melt there. But if ever he get out of this
Jeekie want spend his old age in respectable peace. So he fetch them.
Hard work, though, for rings all in one bit and Asiki very tough to
chop. Don’t look cross, Major; you remember what ’postle say, that he
who no provide for his own self worse than cannibal.”
Just then Fahni came up and announced that the Asiki general had sent a
messenger into the camp proposing terms of peace.
“What terms?” asked Alan.
“These, white man: that we should surrender you and your servant and go
our way unharmed.”
“Indeed, Fahni, and what did you answer?”
“White man, I refused; but I tell you,” he added warningly,
“that my captains wished to accept. They said that I had come back to
them safe and that they fear the Asiki, who are devils, not men, and who
will bring the curse of Bonsa on us if we go on fighting with them.
Still I refused, saying that if they gave you up I would go with you,
who saved my life from the lion and afterwards from the priests of
Bonsa. So the messenger went back and, white man, we march at once, and
I pray you always to keep close to me that I may watch over you.”
Then began that long tramp down the river, which Alan always thought
afterwards tried him more than any of the terrible events of his
escape. For although there was but little fighting, only rearguard
actions indeed, every day the Asiki sent messengers renewing their
offers of peace on the sole condition of the surrender of himself and
Jeekie. At last one evening they came to that place where Alan first
met the Ogula, and once more he camped upon the island on which he had
shot the lion. At nightfall, after he had eaten, Fahni visited him here
and Alan boded evil from his face.
“White man,” he said, “I can protect you no longer. The Asiki
messengers have been with us again and they say that unless we give you
up to-morrow at the dawn, their army will push on ahead of us and
destroy my town, which is two days’ march down the river, and all the
women and children in it, and that afterwards they will fight a great
battle with us. Therefore my people say that I must give you up, or
that if I do not they will elect another chief and do so themselves.”
“Then you will give up a dead man, Fahni.”
“Friend,” said the old chief in a low voice, “the night is
dark and the forest not so far away. Moreover, I have set no guards on
that side of the river, and Jeekie here does not forget a road that he
has travelled. Lastly, I have heard it said that there are some other
white people with soldiers camped in the edge of the forest. Now, if
you were not here in the morning, how could I give you up?”
“I understand, Fahni. You have done your best for me, and now,
good-night. Jeekie and I are going to take a walk. Sometimes you will
think of the months we spent together in Bonsa Town, will you not?”
“Yes, and of you also, white man, for so long as I shall live. Walk fast
and far, for the Asiki are clever at following a spoor. Good-night,
Friend, and to you, Jeekie the cunning, good-night also. I go to tell
my captains that I will surrender you at dawn,” and without more words
he vanished out of their sight and out of their lives.
Meanwhile Jeekie, foreseeing the issue of this talk, was already engaged
in doing up their few belongings, including the gold rings, some food,
and a native cooking pot, in a bundle surrounded by a couple of bark
blankets.
“Come on, Major,” he said, handing Alan one spear and taking
another himself. “Old cannibal quite right, very nice night for a walk.
Come on, Major, river shallow just here. I think this happen and try it
before dark. You just follow Jeekie, that all you got to do.”
So leaving the fire burning in front of their bough shelter, they waded
the stream and started up the opposing slope, meeting no man. Dark as
it was, Jeekie seemed to have no difficulty in finding the way, for as
Fahni said, a native does not forget the path he has once travelled.
All night long they walked rapidly, and when dawn broke found
themselves at the edge of the forest.
“Jeekie,” said Alan, “what did Fahni mean by that tale about
white people?”
“Don’t know, Major, think perhaps he lie to let you down easy. My
golly! what that?”
As he spoke a distant echo reached their ears, the echo of a rifle shot.
“Think Fanny not lie after all,” went on Jeekie; “that white
man’s gun, sharp crack, smokeless powder, but wonder how he come in this
place. Well, we soon find out. Come on, Major.”
Tired as they were they broke into a run; the prospect of seeing a white
face again was too much for them. Half a mile or so further on they
caught sight of a figure evidently engaged in stalking game among the
trees, or so they judged from his cautious movements.
“White man!” said Jeekie, and Alan nodded.
They crept forward silently and with care, for who knew what this white
man might be after, keeping a great tree between them and the man, till
at length, passing round its bole, they found themselves face to face
with him and not five yards away. Notwithstanding his unaccustomed
tropical dress and his face burnt copper colour by the sun, Alan knew
the man at once.
“Aylward!” he gasped; “Aylward! You here?”
He started. He stared at Alan. Then his countenance changed. Its
habitual calm broke up as it was wont to do in moments of deep emotion.
It became very evil, as though some demon of hate and jealousy were at
work behind it. The thin lips quivered, the eyes glared, and without
spoken word or warning, he lifted the rifle and fired straight at Alan.
The bullet missed him, for the aim was high. Passing over Alan’s head,
it cut a neat groove through the hair of the taller Jeekie who was
immediately behind him.
Next instant, with a spring like that of a tiger Jeekie was on Aylward.
The weight of his charge knocked him backwards to the ground, and there
he lay, pinned fast.
“What for you do that?” exclaimed the indignant Jeekie. “What
for you shoot through wool of respectable nigger, Sir Robert Aylward,
Bart.? Now I throttle you, you dirty hog-swine. No Magistrates’ Court
here in Dwarf Forest,” and he began to suit the action to the word.
“Let him go, Jeekie. Take his rifle and let him go,” exclaimed
Alan, who all this while had stood amazed. “There must be some mistake,
he cannot have meant to murder me.”
“Don’t know what he mean, but know his bullet go through my hair,
Major, and give me new parting,” grumbled Jeekie as he obeyed.
“Of course it was a mistake, Vernon, for I suppose it is Vernon,”
said Aylward, as he rose. “I do not wonder that your servant is angry,
but the truth is that your sudden appearance frightened me out of my
wits and I fired automatically. We have been living in some danger
here, and my nerves are not as strong as they used to be.”
“Indeed,” answered Alan. “No, Jeekie will carry the rifle for
you; yes, and I think that pistol also, every ounce makes a difference
walking in a hot climate, and I remember that you always were dangerous
with firearms. There, you will be more comfortable so. And now, who do
you mean by ‘we’?”
“I mean Barbara and myself,” he answered slowly.
Alan’s jaw dropped, he shook upon his feet.
“Barbara and yourself!” he said. “Do I
understand——”
“Don’t you understand nothing, Major,” broke in Jeekie.
“Don’t you believe one word what this pig dog say. If Miss Barbara
marry him he no want shoot you; he ask you to tea to see the Missus and
how much she love him, ducky! We just go on and call on Miss Barbara
and hear the news. Walk up, Sir Robert Aylward, Bart., and show us
which way.”
“I do not choose to receive you and your impertinent servant at my
camp,” said Aylward, grinding his teeth.
“We quite understand that, Sir Robert Aylward——”
“Lord Aylward, if you please, Major Vernon.”
“I beg your pardon—Lord Aylward. I was aware of the contemplated
purchase of that title, I did not know that it had been completed. I was
about to add that all the same we mean to go to that camp, and that if
any violence towards us is attempted as we approach it, you will
remember that you are in our hands.”
“Yes, my Lord,” added Jeekie, bowing, “and that monkeys
don’t tell no tales, my Lord, and that here there ain’t no twelve
Good-Trues to sit on noble corpse unhappily deceased, my Lord, and to
bring in Crowner’s verdict of done to death lawful or unlawful,
according as evidence may show when got, my Lord. So march on, for we
no breakfast yet. No, not that way, round here to left, where I think I
hear kettle sing.”
So having no choice, Aylward came, marching between the other two and
saying nothing. When they had gone a couple of hundred yards Alan also
heard something, and to him it sounded like a man crying out in pain.
Then suddenly they passed round some great trees and reached a glade in
the forest where there was a spring of water which Alan remembered. In
this glade the camp had been built, surrounded by a “boma” or palisade
of rough wood, within which stood two tents and some native shelters
made of tall grass and boughs. Outside of this camp a curious and
unpleasant scene was in progress.
To a small tree that grew there was tied a man, whom from the fashion of
his hair Alan knew to belong to the Coast negroes, while two great
fellows, evidently of another tribe, flogged him unmercifully with hide
whips.
“Ah!” exclaimed Jeekie, “that the kettle I hear sing. Think
you better taken him off the fire, my Lord, or he boil over. Also his
brothers no seem like that music,” and he pointed to a number of other
men who were standing round watching the scene with sullen
dissatisfaction.
“A matter of camp discipline,” muttered Aylward. “This man
has disobeyed orders.”
By now Jeekie was shouting something to the natives in an unknown
tongue, which they seemed to understand well enough. At any rate the
flogging ceased, the two fellows who were inflicting it slunk away, and
the other men ran towards them, shouting back as they came.
“All right, Major. You please stop here one minute with my Lord, late
Bart. of Bloody Hand. Some of these chaps friends of mine, I meet them
Old Calabar while we get ready to march last rains. Now I have little
talk with them and find out thing or two.”
Aylward began to bluster about interference with his servants and so
forth. Jeekie turned on him with a very ugly grin, and showing his
white teeth, as was his fashion when he grew fierce.
“Beg pardon, Right Honourable Lord,” he said, or rather snarled,
“you do what I tell you just to please Jeekie. Jeekie no one in England,
but Jeekie damn big Lord too out here, great medicine man, pal of Little
Bonsa. You remember Little Bonsa, eh! These chaps think it great honour
to meet Jeekie, so, Major, if he stir, please shoot him through head;
Jeekie ’sponsible, not you. Or if you not like do it, I come back and
see to job myself and don’t think those fellows cry very much.”
There was something about Jeekie’s manner that frightened Aylward, who
understood for the first time that beneath all the negro’s grotesque
talk lay some dreadful, iron purpose, as courage lay under his affected
cowardice and under his veneer of selfishness, fidelity. At any rate he
halted with Alan, who stood beside him, the revolver of which Aylward
had been relieved by Jeekie, in his hand. Meanwhile Jeekie, who held
the rifle which he had reloaded, went on and met the natives about
twenty yards away.
“We always disliked each other, Vernon, but I must say that I never
thought a day would come when you proposed to murder me in my own camp,”
said Aylward.
“Odd thing,” answered Alan, “but a very similar idea was in
my mind. I never thought, Lord Aylward, that however unscrupulous you
might be—financially—a day would come when you would attempt to shoot
down an unarmed man in an African forest. Oh! don’t waste breath in
lying; I saw you recognize me, aim, and fire, after which Jeekie would
have had the other barrel, and who then would have remained to tell the
story, Lord Aylward?”
Aylward made no answer, but Alan felt that if wishes could kill him he
would not live long. His eye fell upon a long, unmistakable mound of
fresh earth, beneath a tree. He calculated its length, and with a
thrill of terror noticed that it was too small for a negro.
“Who is buried there?” he asked.
“Find out for yourself,” was the sneering answer.
“Don’t be afraid, Lord Aylward; I shall find out everything in
time.”
The conversation between Jeekie and the natives proceeded, their heads
were close together; it grew animated. They seemed to be coming to some
decision. Presently one of them ran and cut the lashings of the man who
had been bound to the tree, and he staggered towards them and joined in
the talk, pointing to his wounds. Then the two fellows who had been
engaged in flogging him, accompanied by eight companions of the same
type—they appeared to be soldiers, for they carried guns—swaggered
towards the group who were being addressed by Jeekie, of whom Alan
counted twenty-three. As they approached Jeekie made some suggestion
which, after one hesitating moment, the others seemed to accept, for
they nodded their heads and separated out a little.
Jeekie stepped forward and asked a question of the guards, to which they
replied with a derisive shout. Then without a word of warning he lifted
Aylward’s express rifle which he carried, and fired first one barrel and
then the other, shooting the two leading soldiers dead. Their companions
halted amazed, but before they could lift their guns, Jeekie and those
with him rushed at them and began stabbing them with spears and
striking them with sticks. In three minutes it was over without another
shot being fired. Most of them were despatched, and the others,
throwing down their guns, had fled wounded into the forest.
Now, shouting in jubilation, some of the men began to drag away the dead
bodies, while others collected the rifles and the remainder, headed by
Jeekie, advanced towards Alan and Aylward, waving their red spears.
Alan stood staring, for he did not in the least understand the meaning
of what had happened, but Aylward, who had turned very pale, addressed
Jeekie, saying:
“I suppose that you have come to murder me also, you black villain.”
“No, no, my Lord,” answered Jeekie politely, “not at present.
Also that wrong word, execute, not murder, just what you do to some of
these poor devils,” and he pointed to the mob of porters. “Besides,
mustn’t kill holy white man, poor black chap don’t matter, plenty
more where he come from. Think we all go see Miss Barbara now. You come
too, my Lord Bart., but p’raps best tie your hands behind you first; if
you want scratch head, I do it for you. That only fair, you scratch
mine this morning.”
Then at a word from Jeekie some of the natives sprang on Aylward and
tied his hands behind his back.
“Is Miss Barbara alive?” said Alan to Jeekie in an agonized
whisper, at the same time nodding towards the grave that was so
ominously short.
“Hope so, think so, these cards say so, but God He know alone,”
answered Jeekie. “Go and look, that best way to find out.”
So they advanced into the camp through a narrow gateway made of a
V-shaped piece of wood, to where the two tents were placed in its inner
division. Of these tents, the first was open, whereas the second was
closed. As the open tent was obviously empty, they went to the second,
whereof Jeekie began to loosen the lashings of the flap. It was a long
business, for they seemed to have been carefully knotted inside; indeed
at last, growing impatient, Jeekie cut the cord, using the curved knife
with which the Mungana had tried to kill Alan.
Meanwhile Alan was suffering torments, being convinced that Barbara was
dead and buried in that new-made grave beneath the trees. He could not
speak, he could scarcely stand, and yet a picture began to form in his
numb mind. He saw himself seated in the dark in the Treasure House at
Bonsa Town; he saw a vision in the air before him.
Lo! the tent door opened and that vision reappeared.
There was the pale Barbara seated, weeping. There again, as he entered
she sprang up and snatching the pistol that lay beside her, turned it
to her breast. Then she perceived him and the pistol sank downwards
till from her relaxed hand it dropped to the ground. She threw up her
arms and without a sound fell backwards, or would have fallen, had he
not caught her.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE LAST OF THE ASIKI.
Barbara had recovered. She sat upon her bed in the tent and by her sat
Alan, holding her hand, while before them stood Aylward like a prisoner
in the dock, and behind him the armed Jeekie.
“Tell me the story, Barbara,” said Alan, “and tell it
briefly, for I cannot bear much more of this.”
She looked at him and began in a slow, even voice:
“After you had gone, dear, things went on as usual for a month or two.
Then came the great Sahara Company trouble. First there were rumours and
the shares began to go down. My uncle bought them in by tens and
hundreds of thousands, to hold up the market, because he was being
threatened, but of course he did not know then that Lord Aylward—for I
forgot to tell you, he had become a lord somehow—was secretly one of
the principal sellers, let him deny it if he can. At last the Ottoman
Government, through the English ambassador, published its repudiation
of the concession, which it seems was a forgery, actually executed or
obtained in Constantinople by my uncle. Well, there was a fearful
smash. Writs were taken out against my uncle, but before they could be
served, he died suddenly of heart disease. I was with him at the time,
and he kept saying he saw that gold mask which Jeekie calls Bonsa, the
thing you took back to Africa. He had a fine funeral, for what he had
done was not publicly known, and when his will was opened I found that
he had left me his fortune, but made Lord Aylward there my trustee
until I came to the full age of twenty-five under my father’s will.
Alan, don’t force me to tell you what sort of a guardian he was to me;
also there was no fortune, it had all gone; also I had very, very
little left, for almost all my own money had gone too. In his despair
he had forged papers to get it in order to support those Sahara
Syndicate shares. Still I managed to borrow about £2000 from that
little lawyer out of the £5000 that remain to me, an independent sum
which he was unable to touch, and, Alan, with it I came to find you.
“Alan, Lord Aylward followed me; although everybody else was ruined, he
remained rich, very, very rich, they say, and his fancy was to marry me,
also I think it was not comfortable for him in England. It is a long
tale, but I got up here with about five-and-twenty servants, and Snell,
my maid, whom you remember. Then we were both taken ill with some
dreadful fever and had it not been for those good black people, I
should have died, for I have been very sick, Alan. But they nursed me
and I recovered; it was poor Snell who died, they buried her a few days
ago. I thought that she would live, but she had a relapse. Next Lord
Aylward appeared with twelve soldiers and some porters who, I believe,
have run away now,—oh! you can guess, you can guess. He wanted my
people to carry me off somewhere, to the coast, I suppose, but they were
faithful to me and would not. Then he set his soldiers on to maltreat
them. They shot several of them and flogged them on every opportunity;
they were flogging one of them just now, I heard them. Well, the poor
men made me understand that they could bear it no longer and must do
what he told them.
“And so, Alan, as I was quite hopeless and helpless, I made up my mind
to kill myself, hoping that God would forgive me and that I should find
you somewhere, perhaps after sleeping a while, for it was better to die
than to be given into the power—of that man. I thought that he was
coming for me just now and I was about to do it, but it was you
instead, Alan, _you_, and only just in time. That is all the story, and
I hope you will not think that I have acted very foolishly, but I did
it for the best. If you only knew what I have suffered, Alan, what I
have gone through in one way and another, I am sure that you would not
judge me harshly; also I kept dreaming that you were in trouble and
wanted me to come to you, and of course I knew where you were gone and
had that map. Send him away, Alan, for I am still so weak and I cannot
bear the sight of his face. If you knew everything, you would
understand.”
Alan turned on Aylward and in a cold, quiet voice asked him what he had
to say to this story.
“I have to say, Major Vernon, that it is a clever mixture of truth and
falsehood. It is true that your cousin, Champers-Haswell, had been
proved guilty of some very shameful conduct. For instance, it appears
that he did forge, or rather cause to be forged that Firman from the
Sultan, although I knew nothing of this until it was publicly
repudiated. It is also true that fearing exposure he entirely lost his
head and spent not only his own great fortune but that of Miss Champers
also, in trying to support Sahara shares. I admit also that I sold many
hundreds of thousands of those shares in the ordinary way, having made
up my mind to retire from business when I was raised to the peerage. I
admit further, what you knew before, that I was attached to Miss
Champers and wished to marry her. Why should I not, especially as I had
a good deal to offer to a lady who has been proved to be almost without
fortune?
“For the rest she set out secretly on this mad journey to Africa,
whither both my duty as her trustee and my affection prompted me to
follow her. I found her here recovering from an illness, and since she
has dwelt upon the point, in self-defence I must tell you that whatever
has taken place between us, has been with her full consent and
encouragement. Of course I allude only to those affectionate amenities
which are common between people who purpose to marry as soon as
opportunity may offer.”
At this declaration poor Barbara gasped and leaned back against her
pillow. Alan stood silent, though his lips turned white, while Jeekie
thrust his big head through the tent opening and stared upwards.
“What are you looking at, Jeekie?” asked Alan irritably.
“Seem to want air, Major, also look to see if clouds tumble. Believe
partickler big lie do that sometimes. Please go on, O good Lord, for
Jeekie want his breakfast.”
“As regards the execution of two of Miss Champers’ bearers and the
flogging of some others, these punishments were inflicted for mutiny,”
went on Aylward. “It was obviously necessary that she should be moved
back to the coast, but I found out that they were trying to desert her
in a body and to tamper with my own servants, and so was obliged to
take strong measures.”
“Sure those clouds come down now,” soliloquized Jeekie, “or
least something rummy happen.”
“I have only to add, Major Vernon, that unless you make away with me
first, as I daresay you will, as soon as we reach civilization again I
shall proceed against you and this fellow for the cold-blooded murder
of my men, in punishment of which I hope yet to live to see you hanged.
Meanwhile, I have much pleasure in releasing Miss Champers from her
engagement to me which, whatever she may have said to you in England,
she was glad enough to enter on here in Africa, a country of which I
have been told the climate frequently deteriorates the moral
character.”
“Hear, hear!” ejaculated Jeekie, “he say something true at
last; by accident, I think, like pig what find pearl in muck-heap.”
“Hold your tongue, Jeekie,” said Alan. “I do not intend to
kill you, Lord Aylward, or to do you any harm——”
“Nor I neither,” broke in Jeekie, “all I do to my Lord just
for my Lord’s good; who Jeekie that he wish to hurt noble British
’ristocrat?”
“But I do intend that it shall be impossible that Miss Champers should
be forced to listen to more of your insults,” went on Alan, “and to
make sure that your gun does not go off again as it did this morning.
So, Lord Aylward, until we have settled what we are going to do, I must
keep you under arrest. Take him to his tent, Jeekie, and put a guard
over him.”
“Yes, Major, certainly, Major. Right turn, march! my Lord, and quick,
please, since poor, common Jeekie not want dirty his black finger
touching you.”
Aylward obeyed, but at the door of the tent swung round and favoured
Alan with a very evil look.
“Luck is with you for the moment, Major Vernon,” he said,
“but if you are wise you will remember that you never have been and
never will be my match. It will turn again, I have no doubt, and then
you may look to yourself, for I warn you I am a bad enemy.”
Alan did not answer, but for the first time Barbara sprang to her feet
and spoke.
“You mean that you are a bad man, Lord Aylward, and a coward too, or
otherwise you would not have tortured me as you have done. Well, when it
seemed impossible that I should escape from you except in one way, I
was saved by another way of which I never dreamed. Now I tell you that
I do not fear you any more. But I think,” she added slowly, “that you
would do well to fear for yourself. I don’t know why, but it comes into
my mind that though neither Alan nor I shall lift a finger against you,
you have a great deal of which to be afraid. Remember what I said to
you months ago when you were angry because I would not marry you. I
believe it is all coming true, Lord Aylward.”
Then Barbara turned her back upon him, and that was the last time that
either she or Alan ever saw his face.
He was gone, and Barbara, her head upon her lover’s shoulder and her
sweet eyes filled with tears of joy and gratitude, was beginning to tell
him everything that had befallen her when suddenly they heard a loud
cough outside the tent.
“It’s that confounded Jeekie,” said Alan, and he called to
him to come in.
“What’s the matter now?” he asked crossly.
“Breakfast, Major. His lordship got plenty good stores, borrow some from
him and give him chit. Coming in one minute—hot coffee, kipper herring,
rasher bacon, also butter (best Danish), and Bath Oliver biscuit.”
“Very well,” said Alan, but Jeekie did not move.
“Very well,” repeated Alan.
“No, Major, not very well, very ill. Thought those lies bring down
clouds.”
“What do you mean, Jeekie?”
“Mean, Major, that Asiki smelling about this camp. Porter-man what go to
fetch water see them. Also believe they catch rest of those soldier
chaps and polish them, for porter-man hear the row.”
Alan sprang up with an exclamation; in his new-found joy he had
forgotten all about the Asiki.
“Keep hair on, Major,” said Jeekie cheerfully; “don’t
think they attack yet, plenty of time for breakfast first. When they
come we make it very hot for them, lots of rifle and cartridge now.”
“Can’t we run away?” asked Barbara.
“No, Missy, can’t run; must stop here and do best. Camp well built,
open all round, don’t think they take it. You leave everything to
Jeekie, he see you through, but p’raps you like come breakfast outside,
where you know all that go on.”
Barbara did like, but as it happened they were allowed to consume their
meal in peace, since no Asiki appeared. As soon as it was swallowed she
returned to her tent, while Alan and Jeekie set to work to strengthen
the defences of the little camp as well as they were able, and to make
ready and serve out the arms and ammunition.
About midday a man whom they had posted in a tree that grew inside the
camp announced that he saw the enemy, and next moment a company of them
rushed towards them across the open and were greeted by a volley which
killed and wounded several men. At this exhibition of miraculous power,
for none of these soldiers had ever heard the report of firearms or
seen their effect, they retreated rapidly, uttering shouts of dismay
and carrying their dead and wounded with them.
“Do you suppose they have gone, Jeekie?” asked Alan anxiously.
He shook his head.
“Think not, Major, think they frightened, by big bullet magic, and go
consult priest. Also only a few of them here, rest of army come later
and try rush us to-morrow morning before dawn. That Asiki custom.”
“Then what shall we do, Jeekie? Run for it or stop here?”
“Think must stop here, Major. If we bolt, carrying Miss Barbara, who
can’t walk much, they follow on spoor and catch us. Best stick inside
this fence and see what happen. Also once outside p’raps porters desert
and leave us.”
So as there was nothing else to do they stayed, labouring all day at the
strengthening of their fortifications till at length the boma or fence
of boughs, supported by earth, was so high and thick that while any
were left to fire through the loopholes, it would be very difficult to
storm by men armed with spears.
It was a dreadful and arduous day for Alan, who now had Barbara’s safety
to think of, Barbara with whom as yet he had scarcely found time to
exchange a word. By sunset indeed he was so worn out with toil and
anxiety that he could scarcely stand upon his feet. Jeekie, who all
that afternoon had been strangely quiet and reflective, surveyed him
critically, then said:
“You have good drink and go sleep a bit, Major. Very good little shelter
there by Miss Barbara’s tent, and you hold her hand if you like
underneath the canvas, which comforting and all correct. Jeekie never
get tired, he keep good lookout and let you know if anything happen,
and then you jump up quite fresh and fight like tom-cat in corner.”
At first Alan refused to listen, but when Barbara added her entreaties
to those of Jeekie he gave way, and ten minutes later was as soundly
asleep as he had ever been in his life.
“Keep eye on him, Miss Barbara, and call me if he wake. Now I go give
noble lord his supper and see that he quite comfortable. Jeekie seem
very busy to-night, just like when Major have dinner-party at Yarleys
and old cook get drunk in kitchen.”
If Barbara could have followed Jeekie’s movements for the next few
hours, she would probably have agreed that he was busy. First he went
to Aylward’s tent, and as he had said he would, gave him his supper,
and with it half a bottle of whisky from the stores which he had been
carrying about with him for some time, as he said, to prevent the
porters from getting at it. Aylward would drink little, though as his
arms were tied to the tent-pole, Jeekie sat beside him and fed him like
a baby, conversing pleasantly with him all the while, informing him
amongst other things that he had better say “big prayer,” because the
Asiki would probably cut his throat before morning.
Aylward, who was in a state of sullen fury, scarcely replied to this
talk, except to say that if so, there was one comfort, they would cut
his and his master’s also.
“Yes, Lord,” answered Jeekie, “that quite true, so drink
to next meeting, though I think you go different place to me, and when
you got tail and I wing, you horn and I crown of glory, of course we
not talk much together,” and he held a mug of whisky and water—a great
deal of whisky and a very little water—to his prisoner’s mouth.
Aylward drained it, feeling a need for stimulant.
“There,” said Jeekie, holding it upside down, “you drink
every drop and not offer one to poor old Jeekie. Well, he turned
teetotaller, so no matter. Good-night, my Lord, I call you if Asiki
come.”
“Who are the Asiki?” asked Aylward drowsily.
“Oh! you want to know? I tell you,” and he began a long, rambling
story.
Before he ever came to the end of it Aylward had fallen on his side and
was fast asleep.
“Dear me!” said Jeekie, contemplating him, “that whisky very
strong, though bottle say same as they drink in House of Common. That
whisky so strong I think I pour away rest of it,” and he did to the
last drop, even taking the trouble to wash out the bottle with water.
“Now you no tempt anyone,” he said, addressing the said bottle with a
very peculiar smile, “or if you tempt, at least do no harm—like kiss
down telephone!” Then he laid down the bottle on its side and left the
tent.
Outside of it three of the head porters, who appeared to be friends of
his, were waiting for him, and with these men he engaged in low and
earnest conversation. Next, after they had arrived at some agreement,
which they seemed to ratify by a curious oath that involved their
crossing and clasping hands in an odd fashion, and other symbols known
to West African secret societies, Jeekie went the round of the camp to
see that everyone was at his post. Then he did what most people would
have thought a very curious and strange thing, namely climbed the fence
and vanished into the forest, where presently a sound was heard as of
an owl hooting.
A little while later and another owl began to hoot in the distance,
whereat the three head porters nudged each other. Perhaps they had
heard such owls hoot before at night, and perhaps they knew that
Jeekie, who had “passed Bonsa,” could only be harmed by the direct
command of Bonsa speaking through the mouth of the Asika herself. Still
they might have been interested in the nocturnal conversation of those
two owls, which, as is common with such magical fowl in West Africa,
had transformed themselves into human shapes, the shape of Jeekie and
the shape of an Asiki priest, who was, as it happened, a blood relation
of Jeekie.
“Very good, Brother,” said Owl No. 1; “all you want is this
white man whom the Asika desires for a husband. Well, I have done my
best for him, but I must think of myself and others, and he goes to
great happiness. I have given him something to make him sleep; do you
come presently with eight men, no more, or we shall kill you, to the
fence of the camp, and we will hand over the white man, Vernoon, to you
to take back to the Asika, who will give you a wonderful reward, such a
reward as you have never imagined. Now let me hear your word.”
Then Owl No. 2 answered:
“Brother, I make the bargain on behalf of the army, and swear to it by
the double Swimming Head of Bonsa. We will come and take the white man,
Vernoon, who is to be Mungana, and carry him away. In return we promise
not to follow or molest you, or any others in your camp. Indeed, why
should we, who do not desire to be killed by the dreadful magic that
you have, a magic that makes a noise and pierces through our bodies
from afar? What were the words of the Asika? ’Bring back Vernoon, or
perish. I care for nothing else, bring back Vernoon to be my husband.’”
“Good,” said Owl No. 1, “within the half of an hour Vernoon
shall be ready for you.”
“Good,” answered Owl No. 2, “within half an hour eight of us
will be without the east face of your camp to receive him.”
“Silently?”
“Silently, my brother in Bonsa. If he cries out we will gag him. Fear
not, none shall know your part in this matter.”
“Good, my brother in Bonsa. By the way, how is Big Bonsa? I fear that
the white man, Vernoon, hurt him very much, and that is why I give him
up—because of his sacrilege.”
“When I left the god was very sick and all the people mourned, but
doubtless he is immortal.”
“Doubtless he is immortal, my brother, a little hard magic in his
stomach—if he has one—cannot hurt _him_. Farewell, dear
brother in Bonsa, I wish that I were you to get the great reward that
the Asika will give to you. Farewell, farewell.”
Then the two owls flitted apart again, hooting as they went, till they
came to their respective camps.
Jeekie was in the tent performing a strange toilet upon the sleeping
Aylward by the light of a single candle. From his pouch he produced the
mask of linen painted with gold that Alan used to be forced to wear,
and tied it securely over Aylward’s face, murmuring:
“You always love gold, my Lord Aylward, and Jeekie promise you see
plenty of it now.”
Then he proceeded to remove his coat, his waistcoat, his socks, and his
boots and to replace these articles of European attire by his own worn
Asiki sandals and his own dirty Asiki robe.
“There,” he said, “think that do,” and he studied him
by the light of the candle. “Same height, same colour hair, same dirty
clothes, and as Asiki never see Major’s face because he always wear mask
in public, like as two peas on shovel. Oh my! Jeekie clever chap, Jeekie
devilish clever chap. But when Asika pull off that mask to give him true
lover kiss, OH MY! wonder that happen then? Think whole of Bonsa Town
bust up; think big waterfall run backwards; think she not quite
pleased; think my good Lord find himself in false position; think
Jeekie glad to be on coast; think he not go back to Bonsa Town no more.
Oh my aunt! no, he stop in England and go church twice on Sunday,” and,
pressing his big hands on the pit of his stomach he rocked and rolled
in fierce, silent laughter.
Then an owl hooted again immediately beneath the fence and Jeekie,
blowing out the candle, opened the flap of the tent and tapped the head
porter, who stood outside, on the shoulder. He crept in and between
them they lifted the senseless Aylward and bore him to the V-shaped
entrance of the boma which was immediately opposite to the tent and,
oddly enough, half open. Here the two other porters with whom Jeekie
had performed some ceremony, chanced to be on guard, the rest of their
company being stationed at a distance. Jeekie and the head porter went
through the gap like men carrying a corpse to midnight burial, and
presently in the darkness without two owls began to hoot.
Now Aylward was laid upon a litter that had been prepared, and eight
white-robed Asiki bearers stared at his gold mask in the faint
starlight.
“I suppose he is not dead, brother,” said Owl No. 2 doubtfully.
“Nay, brother,” said Owl No. 1, “feel his heart and his
pulse. Not dead, only drunk. He will wake up by daylight, by which time
you should be far upon your way. Be good and gentle to the white man
Vernoon, who has been my master. Be careful, too, that he does not
escape you, brother, for as you know he is very strong and cunning. Say
to the Asika that Jeekie her servant makes his reverence to her, and
hopes that she will have many, many happy years with the husband that
he sends her; also that she will remember him whom she called ‘black
dog,’ and whose face she often smacked, in her prayers to the gods and
spirits of our people.”
“It shall be done, brother, but why do you not return with us?”
“Because, brother, I have ties across the Black Water—dear
children, almost white—whom I love so much that I cannot leave them.
Farewell, brethren, the blessings of the Bonsas be on you, and may you
grow fat and prosper in the love and favour of our lady the Asika.”
“Farewell,” they murmured in answer. “Good fortune be your
bedfellow.”
Another minute and they had lifted up the litter and vanished at a
swinging trot into the shadow of the trees. Jeekie returned to the camp
and ordered the three men to re-stop the gateway with thorns, muttering
in their ears:
“Remember, brethren, one word of this and you die, all of you, as those
die who break the oath.”
“Have we not sworn?” they whispered, as they went back to their
posts.
Jeekie stood a while in front of the empty tent and if any had been
there to note him, they might have seen a shadow as of compunction
creep over his powerful black face.
“When he wake up he won’t know where he are,” he reflected,
“and when he get to Bonsa Town he’ll wonder where he is, and when
he meet Asika! Well, he very big blackguard; try to murder Major, whom
Jeekie nurse as baby, the only thing that Jeekie care
for—except—Jeekie; try to make love to Miss Barbara against will when
he catch her alone in forest, which not playing game. Jeekie self not
such big blackguard as that dirt-born noble Lord; Jeekie never murder
no one—not quite; Jeekie never make love to girl what not want him—no
need, so many what do that he have to shove them off, like good
Christian man. Mrs. Jeekie see to that while she live. Also better that
mean white man go call on Bonsas than Major and Missy Barbara and all
porters, and Jeekie—specially Jeekie—get throat cut. No, no, Jeekie
nothing to be ashamed of, Jeekie do good day’s work, though Jeekie keep
it tight as wax since white folk such silly people, and when Major in a
rage, he very nasty customer and see everything upside down. Now,
Jeekie quite tired, so say his prayers and have nap. No, think not in
tent, though very comfortable. Major might wake up, poke his nose in
there, and if he see black face instead of white one, ask ugly
question, which if Jeekie half asleep he no able to answer nice and
neat. Still he just arrange things a little so they look all right.”
CHAPTER XX.
THE ASIKA’S MESSAGE.
Dawn began to break in the forest, and Alan woke in his shelter and
stretched himself. He had slept soundly all the night, so soundly that
the innocent Jeekie wondered much whether by any chance he also had
taken a tot out of that particular whisky bottle, as indeed he had
recommended him to do. People who drink whisky after long abstinence
from spirits are apt to sleep long, he reflected.
Alan crept out of the shelter and gazed affectionately at the tent in
which Barbara slumbered. Thank Heaven she was safe so far, as for some
unknown reason, evidently the Asiki had postponed their attack. Just
then a clamour arose in the air, and he perceived Jeekie striding
towards him waving one arm in an excited fashion, while with the other
he dragged along the captain of the porters, who appeared to be praying
for mercy.
“Here pretty go, Major,” he shouted, “devil and all to pay!
That my Lord, he gone and bolted. This silly fool say that three hours
ago he hear something break through fence and think it only hyæna what
come to steal, so take no notice. Well, that hyæna, you guess who he
is. You come look, Major, you come look, and then we tie this fellow up
and flog him.”
Alan ran to Aylward’s tent, to find it empty.
“Look,” said Jeekie, who had followed, “see how he do
business, that jolly clever hyæna,” and he pointed to a broken whisky
bottle and some severed cords. “You see he manage break bottle and rub
rope against cut glass till it come in two. Then he do hyæna dodge and
hook it.”
Alan inspected the articles, nor did any shadow of doubt enter his mind.
“Certainly he managed very well,” he said, “especially for a
London-bred man, but, Jeekie, what can have been his object?”
“Oh! who know, Major? Mind of man very strange and various thing;
p’raps he no bear to see you and Miss Barbara together; p’raps he
bolt coast, get ear of local magistrate before you; p’raps he sit up
tree to shoot you; p’raps nasty temper make him mad. But he gone
anyway, and I hope he no meet Asiki, poor fellow, ’cause if so, who
know? P’raps they knock him on head, or if they think him you, they
make him prisoner and keep him quite long while before they let him go
again.”
“Well,” said Alan, “he has gone of his own free will, so we
have no responsibility in the matter, and I can’t pretend that I am
sorry to see the last of him, at any rate for the present. Let that
poor beggar loose, there seems to have been enough flogging in this
place, and after all he isn’t much to blame.”
Jeekie obeyed, apparently with much reluctance, and just then they saw
one of their own people running towards the camp.
“’Fraid he going to tell us Asiki come attack,” said Jeekie,
shaking his head. “Hope they give us time breakfast first.”
“No doubt,” answered Alan nervously, for he feared the result of
that attack.
Then the man arrived breathless and began to gasp out his news, which
filled Alan with delight and caused a look of utter amazement to appear
upon the broad face of Jeekie. It was to the effect that he had climbed
a high tree as he had been bidden to do, and from the top of that tree
by the light of the first rays of the rising sun, miles away on the
plain beyond the forest, he had seen the Asiki army in full retreat.
“Thank God!” exclaimed Alan.
“Yes, Major, but that very rum story. Jeekie can’t swallow it all
at once. Must send out see none of them left behind. P’raps they play
trick, but if they really gone, ’spose it ’cause guns frightens
them so much. Always think powder very great ’vention, especially when
enemy hain’t got none, and quite sure of it now. Jeekie very, very
seldom wrong. Soon believe,” he added with a burst of confidence, “that
Jeekie never wrong at all. He look for truth so long that at last he
find it _always_.”
Something more than a month had gone by and Major and Mrs. Vernon, the
latter fully restored to health and the most sweet and beautiful of
brides, stood upon the steamship _Benin_, and as the sun sank, looked
their last upon the coast of Western Africa.
“Yes, dear,” Alan was saying to his wife, “from first to last
it has been a very queer story, but I really think that our getting that
Asiki gold after all was one of the queerest parts of it; also
uncommonly convenient, as things have turned out.”
“Namely that you have got a little pauper for a wife instead of a great
heiress, Alan. But tell me again about the gold. I have had so much to
think of during the last few days,” and she blushed, “that I never
quite took it all in.”
“Well, love, there isn’t much to tell. When that forwarding agent,
Mr. Aston, knew that we were in the town, he came to me and said that he
had about fifty cases full of something heavy, as he supposed samples
of ore, addressed to me to your care in England which he was proposing
to ship on by the _Benin_. I answered ‘Yes, that was all right,’ and
did not undeceive him about their contents. Then I asked how they had
arrived, and if he had not received a letter with them. He replied that
one morning before the warehouse was open, some natives had brought
them down in a canoe, and dumped them at the door, telling the watchman
that they had been paid to deliver them there by some other natives
whom they met a long way up the river. Then they went away without
leaving any letter or message. Well, I thanked Aston and paid his
charges and there’s an end of the matter. Those fifty-three cases are
now in the hold invoiced as ore samples and, as I inspected them myself
and am sure that they have not been tampered with, besides the value of
the necklace the Asika gave me we’ve got £100,000 to begin our married
life upon with something over for old Jeekie, and I daresay we shall do
very well on that.”
“Yes, Alan, very well indeed.” Then she reflected a while, for the
mention of Jeekie’s name seemed to have made her thoughtful, and added,
“Alan, what _do_ you think became of Lord Aylward?”
“I am sure I don’t know. Jeekie and I and some of the porters went
to see the Old Calabar officials and made affidavits as to the
circumstances of his disappearance. We couldn’t do any more, could we?”
“No, Alan. But do you think that Jeekie quite understands the meaning of
an oath? I mean it seems so strange that we should never have found the
slightest trace of him, and, Alan, I don’t know if you noticed it, but
why did Jeekie appear that morning wearing Lord Aylward’s socks and
boots?”
“He ought to know all about oaths, he has heard enough of them in
Magistrates’ Courts, but as regards the boots, I am sure I can’t
say, dear,” answered Alan uneasily. “Here he comes, we will ask
him,” and he did.
“Sock and boot,” replied Jeekie, with a surprised air, “why,
Mrs. Major, if that good lord go mad and cut off into forest leaving
them behind, of course I put them on, as they no more use to him, and I
just burn my dirty old Asiki dress and sandal and got nothing to keep
jigger out of toe. Don’t you sit up here in this damp, cold, Mrs.
Major, else you get more fever. You go down and dress dinner, which at
half-past six to-night. I just come tell you that.”
So Barbara went, leaving the other two talking about various matters,
for they were alone together on the deck, all the passengers, of whom
there were but few, having gone below.
The short African twilight had come, a kind of soft blue haze that made
the ship look mysterious and unnatural. By degrees their conversation
died away. They lapsed into a silence, which Alan was the first to
break.
“What are you thinking of, Jeekie?” he asked nervously.
“Thinking of Asika, Major,” he answered in a scared whisper.
“Seem to me that she about somewhere, just as she use pop up in room in
Gold House; seem to me I feel her all down my back, likewise in head
wool, which stand up.”
“It’s very odd, Jeekie,” replied Alan, “but so do
I.”
“Well, Major, ’spect she thinking of us, specially of you, and just
throw what she think at us, like boy throw stones at bird what fly away
out of cage. Asika do all that, you know, she not quite human, full of
plenty Bonsa devil, from gen’ration to gen’rations, amen! P’raps she
just find out something what make her mad.”
“What could she find out after all this time, Jeekie?”
“Oh, don’t know. How I know? Jeekie can’t guess. Find out you
marry Miss Barbara, p’raps. Very sick that she lose you for this time,
p’raps. Kill herself that she keep near you, p’raps, while she wait
till you come round again, p’raps. Asika can do all these things if she
like, Major.”
“Stuff and rubbish,” answered Alan uneasily, for Jeekie’s
suggestions were most uncomfortable, “I believe in none of your West
Coast superstitions.”
“Quite right, Major, nor don’t I. Only you ’member, Major,
what she show us there in Treasure-place—Mr. Haswell being buried, eh?
Miss Barbara in tent, eh? t’other job what hasn’t come off yet, eh?
Oh! my golly! Major, just you look behind you and say you see nothing,
please,” and the eyes of Jeekie grew large as Maltese oranges, while
with chattering teeth he pointed over the bulwark of the vessel.
Alan turned and saw.
This was what he saw or seemed to see: The figure of the Asika in her
robes and breastplate of gold, standing upon the air, just beyond the
ship, as though on it she might set no foot. Her waving black hair hung
about her shoulders, but the sharp wind did not seem to stir it nor did
her white dress flutter, and on her beautiful face was stamped a look
of awful rage and agony, the rage of betrayal, the agony of loss. In
her right hand she held a knife, and from a wound in her breast the red
blood ran down her golden corselet. She pointed to Jeekie with the
knife, she opened her arms to Alan as though in unutterable longing,
then slowly raised them upwards towards the fading glory of the sky
above—and was gone.
Jeekie sat down upon the deck, mopping his brow with a red handkerchief,
while Alan, who felt faint, clung to the bulwarks.
“Tell you, Major, that Asika can do all that kind of thing. Never know
where you find her next. ’Spect she come to live with us in England and
just call in now and again when it dark. Tell you, she very awkward
customer, think p’raps you done better stop there and marry her. Well,
she gone now, thank Heaven! seem to drop in sea and hope she stay
there.”
“Jeekie,” said Alan, recovering himself, “listen to me; this
is all infernal nonsense; we have gone through a great deal and the
nerves of both of us are overstrained. We think we saw what we did not
see, and if you dare to say a single word of it to your mistress, I’ll
break your neck. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Major, think so. All ’fernal nonsense, nerves strained,
didn’t see what we see, and say nothing of what did see to Mrs. Major,
if either do say anything, t’other one break his neck. That all right,
quite understand. Anything else, Major?”
“Yes, Jeekie. We have had some wonderful adventures, but they are past
and done with and the less we talk or even think about them the better,
for there is a lot that would be rather difficult to explain, and that
if explained would scarcely be believed.”
“Yes, Major, for instance, very difficult explain Mrs. Barbara how Asika
so fond of you if you only tell her, ‘Go away, go away!’ all the
time, like old saint-gentleman to pretty girl in picture. P’raps she
smell rat.”
“Stop your ribald talk,” said Alan in a stern voice. “It
would be better if instead of making jokes you gave thanks to Providence
for bringing both of us alive and well out of very dreadful dangers.
Now I am going to dress for dinner,” and with an anxious glance seaward
into the gathering darkness, he turned and went.
Jeekie stood alone upon the empty deck, wagging his great white head to
and fro and soliloquizing thus:
“Wonder if Major see what under lady Asika’s feet when she stand
out there over nasty deep. Think not or he say something. That noble
lord not look nice. No, private view for Jeekie only, free ticket and
nothing to pay and me hope it no come back when I go to bed. Major know
nothing about it, so he not see, but Jeekie know a lot. Hope that
Aylward not write any letters home, or if he write, hope no one post
them. Ghost bad enough, but murder, oh my!”
He paused a while, then went on:
“Jeekie do big sacrifice to Bonsa when he reach Yarleys, get lamb in
back kitchen at night, or if ghost come any more, calf in wood outside.
Not steal it, pay for it himself. Then think Jeekie turn Cath’lic;
confess his sins, they say them priest chaps not split, and after they
got his sins, they tackle Asika and Bonsas too,” and he uttered a
series of penitent groans, turning slowly round and round to be sure
that nothing was behind him.
Just then the full moon appeared out of a bank of clouds, and as it rose
higher, flooding the world with light, Jeekie’s spirits rose also.
“Asika never come in moonshine,” he said, “that not the game,
against rule, and after all, what Jeekie done bad? He very good fellow
really. Aylward great villain, serve him jolly well right if Asika
spiflicate him, that not Jeekie’s fault. What Jeekie do, he do to save
master and missus who he love. Care nothing for his self, ready to die
any day. Keep it dark to save them too, ’cause they no like the story.
If once they know, it always leave taste in mouth, same as bad oyster.
Also Jeekie manage very well, take Major safe Asiki-land (’cause Little
Bonsa make him), give him very interesting time there, get him plenty
gold, nurse him when he sick, nobble Mungana, bring him out again, find
Miss Barbara, catch hated rival and bamboozle all Asiki army, bring
happy pair to coast and marry them, arrange first-class honeymoon on
ship—Jeekie do all these things, and lots more he could tell, if he
vain and not poor humble nigger.”
Once more he paused a while, lost in the contemplation of his own
modesty and virtues, then continued:
“This very ungrateful world. Major there, he not say, ‘Thank you,
Jeekie, Jeekie, you great, wonderful man. Brave Jeekie, artful Jeekie.
Jeekie smart as paint who make all world believe just what he like, and
one too many for Asika herself.’ No, no, he say nothing like that. He
say ‘thank Prov’dence,’ not ‘Jeekie,’ as though Prov’dence
do all them things. White folk think they clever, but great fools,
really, don’t know nothing. Prov’dence all very well in his
way—p’raps, but Prov’dence not a patch on Jeekie.
“Hullo! moon get behind cloud and there second bell; think Jeekie go
down and wait dinner; lonely up here and sure Asika never stand
’lectric light.”
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