Part 9 (1/2)
”Baas,” he answered, ”the Great Medicine is here with us upon the earth and your reverend father, the Predikant, is with us in the sky, so I think we had better stop here and do what we can, especially as I do not want to see those reeds any more at present.”
”So do I,” I said briefly, giving no reasons.
So we made ready for the next attack which we knew would be the last, strengthening our little wall and dragging the dead Amahagger up against it as an added protection. As we were thus engaged the sun rose and in its first beams, some miles away on the opposing slopes of the mountain looking tiny against the black background of the precipice, we saw a party of men creeping forward. Lifting my gla.s.ses I studied it and perceived that in its midst was a litter.
”There goes your daughter,” I said, and handed the gla.s.ses to Robertson.
”Oh! my G.o.d,” he answered, ”those villains have outwitted us after all.”
Another minute and the litter, or rather the chair with its escort, had vanished into the shadow of the great cliffs, probably up some pa.s.s which we could not see.
Next moment our thoughts were otherwise engaged, since from various symptoms we gathered that the attack was about to be renewed. Spears upon which shone the light of the rising sun, appeared above the edge of the ground-fold that I have mentioned, which to the east increased to a deep, bush-clad ravine. Also there were voices as of leaders encouraging their men to a desperate effort.
”They are coming,” I said to Robertson.
”Yes,” he answered, ”they are coming and we are going. It's a queer end to the thing we call life, isn't it, Quatermain, and hang it all! I wonder what's beyond? Not much for me, I expect, but whatever it is could scarcely be worse than what I've gone through here below in one way and another.”
”There's hope for all of us,” I replied as cheerfully as I could, for the man's deep depression disturbed me.
”Mayhap, Quatermain, for who knows the infinite mercy of whatever made us as we are? My old mother used to preach of it and I remember her words now. But in my case I expect it will stop at hope, or sleep, and if it wasn't for Inez, I'd not mind so much, for I tell you I've had enough of the world and life. Look, there's one of them. Take that, you black devil!” and lifting his rifle he aimed and fired at an Amahagger who appeared upon the edge of the fold of ground. What is more he hit him, for I saw the man double up and fall backwards.
Then the game began afresh, for the cannibals (I suppose they were cannibals like their brethren) crept out of shelter, advancing on their stomachs or their hands and knees, so as to offer a smaller mark, and dragging between them a long and slender tree-trunk with which clearly they intended to batter down our wall.
Of course I blazed away at them, pretty carefully too, for I was determined that what I believed to be the last exercise of the gift of shooting that has been given to me, should prove a record. Therefore I selected my men and even where I would hit them, and as subsequent examination showed, I made no mistakes in the seven or eight shots that I fired. But all the while, like poor Captain Robertson, I was thinking of other things; namely, where I was bound for presently and if I should meet certain folk there and what was the meaning of this show called Life, which unless it leads somewhere, according to my judgment has none at all. Until these questions were solved, however, my duty was to kill as many of those ruffians as I could, and this I did with finish and despatch.
Robertson and Hans were firing also, with more or less success, but there were too many to be stopped by our three rifles. Still they came on till at length their fierce faces were within a few yards of our little parapet and Umslopogaas had lifted his great axe to give them greeting. They paused a moment before making their final rush, and so did we to slip in fresh cartridges.
”Die well, Hans,” I said, ”and if you get there first, wait for me on the other side.”
”Yes, Baas, I always meant to do that, though not yet. We are not going to die this time, Baas. Those who have the Great Medicine don't die; it is the others who die, like that fellow,” and he pointed to an Amahagger who went reeling round and round with a bullet from his Winchester through the middle, for he had fired in the midst of his remarks.
”Curse-I mean bless-the Great Medicine,” I said as I lifted my rifle to my shoulder.
At that moment all those Amahagger-there were about sixty of them left-became seized with a certain perturbation. They stood still, they stared towards the fold of ground out of which they had emerged; they called to each other words which I did not catch, and then-they turned to run.
Umslopogaas saw, and with a leader's instinct, acted. Springing over the parapet, followed by his remaining Zulus of the Axe, he leapt upon them with a roar. Down they went before Inkosikaas, like corn before a sickle. The thing was marvellous to see, it was like the charge of a leopard, so swift was the rush and so lightning-like were the strokes or rather the pecks of that flas.h.i.+ng axe, for now he was tapping at their heads or spines with the gouge-like point upon its back. Nor were these the only victims, for those brave followers of his also did their part. In a minute all who remained upon their feet of the Amahagger were in full flight, vanis.h.i.+ng this way and that among the trees. Hans fired a parting shot after the last of them, then sat down upon a stone and finding his corn-cob pipe, proceeded to fill it.
”The Great Medicine, Baas,” he began sententiously, ”or perhaps your reverend father, the Predikant--” Here he paused and pointed doubtfully with the bowl of the pipe towards the fold in the ground, adding, ”Here it is, but I think it must be your reverend father, not the Great Medicine, yes, the Predikant himself, returned from Heaven, the Place of Fires!”
Looking vaguely in the direction indicated, for I could not conceive what he meant and thought that the excitement must have made him mad, I perceived a venerable old man with a long white beard and clothed in a flowing garment, also white, who reminded me of Father Christmas at a child's party, walking towards us and radiating benignancy. Also behind him I perceived a whole forest of spear points emerging from the gully. He seemed to take it for granted that we should not shoot at him, for he came on quite unconcerned, carefully picking his way among the corpses. When he was near enough he stopped and said in a kind of Arabic which I could understand, ”I greet you, Strangers, in the name of her I serve. I see that I am just in time, but this does not surprise me, since she said that it would be so. You seem to have done very well with these dogs,” and he prodded a dead Amahagger with his sandalled foot. ”Yes, very well indeed. You must be great warriors.”
Then he paused and we stared at each other.
CHAPTER XI
THROUGH THE MOUNTAIN WALL
”These do not seem to be friends of yours,” I said, pointing to the fallen. ”And yet,” I added, nodding towards the spearmen who were now emerging from the gully, ”they are very like your friends.”
”Puppies from the same litter are often alike, yet when they grow up sometimes they fight each other,” replied Father Christmas blandly. ”At least these come to save and not to kill you. Look! they kill the others!” and he pointed to them making an end of some of the wounded men. ”But who are these?” and he glanced with evident astonishment, first at the fearsome-looking Umslopogaas and then at the grotesque Hans. ”Nay, answer not, you must be weary and need rest. Afterwards we can talk.”
”Well, as a matter of fact we have not yet breakfasted,” I replied. ”Also I have business to attend to here,” and I glanced at our wounded.
The old fellow nodded and went to speak to the captains of his force, doubtless as to the pursuit of the enemy, for presently I saw a company spring forward on their tracks. Then, a.s.sisted by Hans and the remaining Zulus, of whom one was Goroko, I turned to attend to our own people. The task proved lighter than I expected, since the badly injured man was dead or dying and the hurts of the two others were in their legs and comparatively slight, such as Goroko could doctor in his own native fas.h.i.+on.
After this, taking Hans to guard my back, I went down to the stream and washed myself. Then I returned and ate, wondering the while that I could do so with appet.i.te after the terrible dangers which we had pa.s.sed. Still, we had pa.s.sed them, and Robertson, Umslopogaas with three of his men, I and Hans were quite unharmed, a fact for which I returned thanks in silence but sincerely enough to Providence.
Hans also returned thanks in his own fas.h.i.+on, after he had filled himself, not before, and lit his corn-cob pipe. But Robertson made no remark; indeed, when he had satisfied his natural cravings, he rose and walking a few paces forward, stood staring at the cleft in the mountain cliff into which he had seen the litter vanish that bore his daughter to some fate unknown.
Even the great fight that we had fought and the victory we had won against overpowering odds did not appear to impress him. He only glared at the mountain into the heart of which Inez had been raped away, and shook his fist. Since she was gone all else went for nothing, so much so that he did not offer to a.s.sist with the wounded Zulus or show curiosity about the strange old man by whom we had been rescued.
”The Great Medicine, Baas,” said Hans in a bewildered way, ”is even more powerful than I thought. Not only has it brought us safely through the fighting and without a scratch, for those Zulus there do not matter and there will be less cooking for me to do now that they are gone; it has also brought down your reverend father the Predikant from the Place of Fires in Heaven, somewhat changed from what I remember him, it is true, but still without doubt the same. When I make my report to him presently, if he can understand my talk, I shall--”
”Stop your infernal nonsense, you son of a donkey,” I broke in, for at this moment old Father Christmas, smiling more benignly than before, re-appeared from the kloof into which he had vanished and advanced towards us bowing with much politeness.
Having seated himself upon the little wall that we had built up, he contemplated us, stroking his beautiful white beard, then said, addressing me, ”Of a certainty you should be proud who with a few have defeated so many. Still, had I not been ordered to come at speed, I think that by now you would have been as those are,” and he looked towards the dead Zulus who were laid out at a distance like men asleep, while their companions sought for a place to bury them.
”Ordered by whom?” I asked.
”There is only one who can order,” he answered with mild astonishment. ”'She-who-commands, She-who-is-everlasting'!”
It occurred to me that this must be some Arabic idiom for the Eternal Feminine, but I only looked vague and said, ”It would appear that there are some whom this exalted everlasting She cannot command; those who attacked us; also those who have fled away yonder,” and I waved my hand towards the mountain.
”No command is absolute; in every country there are rebels, even, as I have heard, in Heaven above us. But, Wanderer, what is your name?”
”Watcher-by-Night,” I answered.
”Ah! a good name for one who must have watched well by night, and by day too, to reach this country living where She-who-commands says that no man of your colour has set foot for many generations. Indeed, I think she told me once that two thousand years had gone by since she spoke to a white man in the City of Kor.”
”Did she indeed?” I exclaimed, stifling a cough.
”You do not believe me,” he went on, smiling. ”Well, She-who-commands can explain matters for herself better than I who was not alive two thousand years ago, so far as I remember. But what must I call him with the Axe?”
”Warrior is his name.”
”Again a good name, as to judge by the wounds on them, certain of those rebels I think are now telling each other in h.e.l.l. And this man, if indeed he be a man--” he added, looking doubtfully at Hans.
”Light-in-Darkness is his name.”
”I see, doubtless because his colour is that of the winter sun in thick fog, or a bad egg broken into milk. And the other white man who mutters and whose brow is like a storm?”
”He is called Avenger; you will learn why later on,” I answered impatiently, for I grew tired of this catechism, adding, ”And what are you called and, if you are pleased to tell it to us, upon what errand do you visit us in so fortunate an hour?”