Part 12 (1/2)
”Sammy, Baas, he who was your cook when we went to Pongoland, he who hid in the mealie-pit when the slavers burned Beza-Town and came out half cooked like a fowl from the oven. The Baas Jacob stopped at Sammy's hotel, Baas, and told him that unless he bought bits of paper like this, of which he had plenty, you would be brought before the magistrate and sent to the _trunk_, Baas. So Sammy bought some, Baas, but not many for he had only a little money, and the Baas Jacob paid him for all he ate and drank with other bits of paper. Then Sammy came to me and showed me what it was my duty to do, reminding me that your reverend father, the Predikant, had left you in my charge till one of us dies, whether you were well or ill and whether you got better or got worse--just like a white wife, Baas. So I sold the farm and the cattle to a friend of the Baas Jacob's, at a very low price, Baas, and that is all the story.”
I heard and, to tell the honest truth, almost I wept, since the thought of the sacrifice which this poor old Hottentot had made for my sake on the instigation of a rogue utterly overwhelmed me.
”Hans,” I asked recovering myself, ”tell me what was that new name which the Zulu captain Mavovo gave you before he died, I mean after you had fired Beza-Town and caught Ha.s.san and his slavers in their own trap?”
Hans, who had suddenly found something that interested him extremely out at sea, perhaps because he did not wish to witness my grief, turned round slowly and answered:
”Mavovo named me Light-in-Darkness, and by that name the Kafirs know me now, Baas, though some of them call me Lord-of-the-Fire.”
”Then Mavovo named you well, for indeed, Hans, you s.h.i.+ne like a light in the darkness of my heart. I whom you think wise am but a fool, Hans, who has been tricked by a _vernuker_, a common cheat, and he has tricked you and Sammy as well. But as he has shown me that man can be very vile, you have shown me that he can be very n.o.ble; and, setting the one against the other, my spirit that was in the dust rises up once more like a withered flower after rain. Light-in-Darkness, although if I had ten thousand pounds I could never pay you back--since what you have given me is more than all the gold in the world and all the land and all the cattle--yet with honour and with love I will try to pay you,” and I held out my hand to him.
He took it and pressed it against his wrinkled old forehead, then answered:
”Talk no more of that, Baas, for it makes me sad, who am so happy. How often have you forgiven me when I have done wrong? How often have you not flogged me when I should have been flogged for being drunk and other things--yes, even when once I stole some of your powder and sold it to buy square-face gin, though it is true I knew it was bad powder, not fit for you to use? Did I thank you then overmuch? Why therefore should you thank me who have done but a little thing, not really to help you but because, as you know, I love gambling, and was told that this bit of paper would soon be worth much more than I gave for it. If it had proved so, should I have given you that money? No, I should have kept it myself and bought a bigger farm and more cattle.”
”Hans,” I said sternly, ”if you lie so hard, you will certainly go to h.e.l.l, as the Predikant, my father, often told you.”
”Not if I lie for you, Baas, or if I do it doesn't matter, except that then we should be separated by the big kloof written of in the Book, especially as there I should meet the Baas Jacob, as I very much want to do for a reason of my own.”
Not wis.h.i.+ng to pursue this somewhat unchristian line of thought, I inquired of him why he felt happy.
”Oh! Baas,” he answered with a twinkle in his little black eyes, ”can't you guess why? Now you have very little money left and I have none at all. Therefore it is plain that we must go somewhere to earn money, and I am glad of that, Baas, for I am tired of sitting on that farm out there and growing mealies and milking cows, especially as I am too old to marry, Baas, as you are tired of looking for gold where there isn't any and singing sad songs in that house of meeting yonder like you did this afternoon. Oh! the Great Father in the skies knew what He was about when He sent the Baas Jacob our way. He beat us for our good, Baas, as He does always if we could only understand.”
I reflected to myself that I had not often heard the doctrine of the Church better or more concisely put, but I only said:
”That is true, Hans, and I thank you for the lesson, the second you have taught me to-day. But where are we to go to, Hans? Remember, it must be elephants.”
He suggested some places; indeed he seemed to have come provided with a list of them, and I sat silent making no comment. At length he finished and squatted there before me, chewing a bit of tobacco I had given him, and looking up at me interrogatively with his head on one side, for all the world like a dilapidated and inquisitive bird.
”Hans,” I said, ”do you remember a story I told you when you came to see me a year or more ago, about a tribe called the Kendah in whose country there is said to be a great cemetery of elephants which travel there to die from all the land about? A country that lies somewhere to the north-east of the lake island on which the Pongo used to dwell?”
”Yes, Baas.”
”And you said, I think, that you had never heard of such a people.”
”No, Baas, I never said anything at all. I have heard a good deal about them.”
”Then why did you not tell me so before, you little idiot?” I asked indignantly.
”What was the good, Baas? You were hunting gold then, not ivory. Why should I make you unhappy, and waste my own breath by talking about beautiful things which were far beyond the reach of either of us, far as that sky?”
”Don't ask fool's questions but tell me what you know, Hans. Tell me at once.”
”This, Baas: When we were up at Beza-Town after we came back from killing the gorilla-G.o.d, and the Baas Stephen your friend lay sick, and there was nothing else to do, I talked with everyone I could find worth talking to, and they were not many, Baas. But there was one very old woman who was not of the Mazitu race and whose husband and children were all dead, but whom the people in the town looked up to and feared because she was wise and made medicines out of herbs, and told fortunes.
I used to go to see her. She was quite blind, Baas, and fond of talking with me--which shows how wise she was. I told her all about the Pongo gorilla-G.o.d, of which already she knew something. When I had done she said that he was as nothing compared with a certain G.o.d that she had seen in her youth, seven tens of years ago, when she became marriageable. I asked her for that story, and she spoke it thus:
”Far away to the north and east live a people called the Kendah, who are ruled over by a sultan. They are a very great people and inhabit a most fertile country. But all round their country the land is desolate and manless, peopled only by game, for the reason that they will suffer none to dwell there. That is why n.o.body knows anything about them: he that comes across the wilderness into that land is killed and never returns to tell of it.
”She told me also that she was born of this people, but fled because their sultan wished to place her in his house of women, which she did not desire. For a long while she wandered southwards, living on roots and berries, till she came to desert land and at last, worn out, lay down to die. Then she was found by some of the Mazitu who were on an expedition seeking ostrich feathers for war-plumes. They gave her food and, seeing that she was fair, brought her back to their country, where one of them married her. But of her own land she uttered only lying words to them because she feared that if she told the truth the G.o.ds who guard its secrets would be avenged on her, though now when she was near to death she dreaded them no more, since even the Kendah G.o.ds cannot swim through the waters of death. That is all she said about her journey because she had forgotten the rest.”
”Bother her journey, Hans. What did she say about her G.o.d and the Kendah people?”