Part 24 (1/2)
No wonder! for they were all ruined, poor folk, with nothing to look forward to but starvation until long ain for those ould live to gather it Also they were convinced that we, the white ht this disaster on them Had it not been for the escort I believe they would have fallen on us and torn us to pieces Considering thereeable real unpopularity _can be_ But when I saw the actual condition of the fruitful gardens without in the waning daylight, I confess that I wasNot a handful of grain was there left to gather, for the corn had been not only ”laid” but literally cut to ribbons by the hail
After running for soh the cultivated land the road entered the forest Here it was dark as pitch, so dark that I wondered how our guides found their way In that blackness dreadful apprehensions seized ht here to be murdered Every ht of digging allop off anywhere, but abandoned the idea, first because I could not desert Mart, of wholoom, and secondly because I was hemmed in by the escort For the salide away into the forest There was nothing to be done save to go on and await the end
It came at last some hours later We were out of the forest now, and there was the ht showed me that ere on a wildhere and there, across which what seeame track ran down hill That was all I couldsaid in a sullen voice:
”Diso your ways, evil spirits, for we travel no farther across this place which is haunted Follow the track and it will lead you to a lake Pass the lake and byyou will come to the river beyond which lies the country of your friends May its waters s you if you reach them For learn, there is one atches on this road who at us and, pulling us from the horses, thrust us out of their company Then they turned and in anotherus alone
”What now, friend Mart?” I asked
”Now, Lord, all we can do is to go forward, for if we stay here Siht One of them said so toout briskly, and though he had never read Shakespeare, Mart understood and followed
”What did Simba mean about 'one on the road whom few care to meet'?” I asked over my shoulder e had done half a mile or so
”I think he roan
”Then I hope Jana isn't at home Cheer up, Mart The chances are that we shall neverplace”
”Yet round
”It is said that they come to die by the waters of the lake and this is one of the roads they follow on their death journey, a road that no other living thing dare travel”
”Oh!” I exclaimed ”Then after all that was a true drealand”
”Yes, Lord, becausewhen he was young and sahat his mind showed you in the dream, and e shall see presently, if we live to come so far”
I made no reply, both because what he said was either true or false, which I should ascertain presently, and because I was engaged in searching the ground with ht; many elephants had travelled this path--one quite recently I, a hunter of those brutes, could not be deceived on this point Once or twice also I thought that I caught sight of the outline of soh the scattered thorns a couple of hundred yards or so to our right Itbut a shadow, so I said nothing As I heard no noise I was inclined to believe the latter explanation In any case, as the good of speaking? Unarers, our position was desperate, and as Mart's nerve was already giving out, to emphasize its horrors to hied for another two hours, during which tie ohich sailed round our heads as though to look at us, and then fleay ahead
This owl, Mart informed me, was one of ”Jana's spies” that kept hi in his territory I lad thatno more of the owl, for in certain circu
We reached the top of a rise, and there beneath us lay the most desolate scene that ever I have seen At least it would have been the most desolate if I did not chance to have looked on it before, in the drawing-roonall Castle! There was no doubt about it Beloas the black, e sheet of water surrounded by reeds
Around, but at a considerable distance, appeared the tropical forest To the east of the lake stretched a stony plain At the tiht and the distance, for we had still over a e of the lake
The aspect of the place filled s, both because of its utter uncanniness and because of the inexplicable truth that I had seen it before Most people will have experienced this kind of nize a locality as being quite familiar to them in all its details Or it may be the rooms of a house hitherto unvisited by theins, they already foreknow the sequence and the end, because in some dim state, when or hoho can say, they have taken part in that talk with those sas and aine how reater was the shock to ht
I shrank fro that as yet all the vision was not unrolled I looked about me If ent to the left we should either strike the water, or if we followed its edge, still bearing to the left, must ultimately reach the forest, where probably we should be lost I looked to the right The ground was streith boulders, arass, iht I looked behindretreat, and there, some hundreds of yards away behind low, scrubbybrown toss up and disappear again that ht very well have been the trunk of an elephant Then, anie of despair and a desire to know the worst, I began to descend the elephant track towards the lake alht us to the eastern head of the lake, where the reeds whispered in the breath of the night wind like things alive
As I expected, it proved to be a bare, open space where nothing see remains of elephants, hundreds of them, some with their bones covered in enerations, and others more newly dead They were all old beasts as I could tell by the tusks, whether male or female Indeed about h ivory to h discoloured, much of it seemed to have kept quite sound, like huave e to survive and carry off that ivory! I would In this way or in that I swore that I would!
Who could possibly die with so ? Not that old hunter, Allan Quaterot about the ivory, for there in front of me, just where it should be, just as I had seen it in the drea, a thin and ancient brute that had lived its long life to the last hour It searched about as though to find a convenient resting-place, and when this was discovered, stood over it, swaying to and fro for a full minute Then it lifted its trunk and tru, after which it sank slowly to its knees, its trunk outstretched and the points of its worn tusks resting on the ground Evidently it was dead