Part 8 (1/2)
I hesitated till Scroope said:
”Come, Allan, don't shi+rk this Central African adventure I'll try if you like”
”No,” said Hart brusquely, ”_you_ no good”
Then curiosity and perhaps the fear of being laughed at overcame me I took the bowl and held it under my nose, while Hart threw over o trick, to keep in the fumes I suppose
At first these fumes were unpleasant, but just as I was about to drop the bowl they seereeable and to penetrate to the ineneral affect of theive, with this difference, that whereas the gas produces insensibility, these fumes seemed to set the mind on fire and to burn away all lis shi+fted before er in that roo with inconceivable rapidity
Suddenly I appeared to stop before a curtain of mist The mist rolled up in front of me and I saild and wonderful scene There lay a lake surrounded by dense African forest The sky above was still red with the last lights of sunset and in it floated the full reat open space where nothing seerow and all about this space were the skeletons of hundreds of dead elephants
There they lay, so to their bones, through which their yellow tusks projected as though they had been dead for centuries; others with the rotting hide still on the on a cereat beasts went to die, as I have since been told the extinct moas did in New Zealand All my life as a hunter had I heard rumours of these cemeteries, but never before did I see such a spot even in a dreaaunt bull that looked as though it were several hundred years old It stood there swaying to and fro Then it lifted its trunk, I suppose to tru, and slowly sank upon its knees and so remained in the last relaxation of death
Almost in the centre of this cemetery was a little mound of water-washed rock that had endured when the rest of the stony plain was denuded in past epochs Suddenly upon that rock appeared the shape of theexperience It had one enormous tusk, but the other was deforh with fighting and its eyes shone red and wickedly Held in its trunk was the body of a wo down upon the other Clasped in her arue, as a brute of this sort is called, for evidently such it was, dropped the corpse to the ground and stood a while, flapping its ears
Then it felt for and picked up the child with its trunk, swung it to and fro and finally tossed it high into the air, hurling it far away After this it walked to the elephant that I had just seen die, and charged the carcass, knocking it over Then having lifted its trunk as though to trumpet in triumph, it shambled off towards the forest and vanished
The curtain of ht I saell, never mind who or what I saw Then I awoke
”Well, did you see anything?” asked a chorus of voices
I told the out the last part
”I say, old fellow,” said Scroope, ”you et all that in, for your eyes weren't shut for more than ten seconds”
”Then I wonder what you would say if I repeated everything,” I answered, for I still felt dreamy and not quite myself
”You see elephant Jana?” asked Hart ”He kill woht Well, that why people of White Kendah want you to kill _him_ and take all that ivory which they no dare touch because it in holy place and Black Kendah not let them So he live still That ish know Thank you h-distance man Just what I think Kendah 'bacco smoke work very well in you Now, beautiful lady,” he added turning to Miss Holmes, ”you like look too? Better look Who knohat you see?”
Miss Hol eye But Iin truth very curious to hear _her_ experience
”Yes,” she said
”I would prefer, Luna, that you left this business alone,” renall uneasily ”I think it is time that you ladies went to bed”
”Here is amore tobacco into the bowl, the suspicion of a srave and statuesque countenance Hart received the match with a lo and fired the stuff as before Then he handed the bowl, froain the blue sracefully let the antimacassar fall over it and her head, which it draped as a wedding veil ht do A few seconds later she threw off the antimacassar and cast the bowl, in which the fire was now out, on to the floor Then she stood up ide eyes, looking wondrous lovely and, notwithstanding her lack of height, majestic
”I have been in another world,” she said in a low voice as though she spoke to the air, ”I have travelled a great way I found myself in a small place made of stone It was dark in the place, the fire in that bowl lit it up There was nothing there except a beautiful statue of a naked baby which seemed to be carved in yellow ivory, and a chairI stood in front of the statue of the Ivory Child It seemed to co of red stones It took them from its neck and set them upon mine Then it pointed to the chair, and I sat down in the chair That was all”
Hart followed her words with an interest that I could see was intense, although he attempted to hide it Then he asked me to translate them, which I did
As their full sense cah his face reht of triumph Moreover I heard him whisper to Mart words that seemed to mean,