Part 12 (2/2)
”How did Noot know that?” I asked
”I cannot say,” she answered with irritation ”Perchance he did not know it Perchance it is all an idle tale, but at least it is true that Rezu believed and believes it, and what a man believes is true for him and will certainly befall If it were otherwise, what is the use of faith which in a thousand forms supports our race and holds it fro inherit what they believe-nothing, Allan”
”It may be so,” I replied prosaically, ”but what happened about the axe?”
”In the end it was lost, or as some say stolen by a woman whom Rezu had deserted, and therefore he walks the world in fear from day to day Nay, ask no more empty questions” (I had opened my mouth to speak) ”but hear the end of the tale In end of the axe and since, when lost in a forest every path that may lead to safety should be explored, I sent reat, have the power to do, of certain who are in tune with st others, I inquired of that old wizard whoave me an answer that there lived in his land a certain warrior who ruled a tribe called the People of the Axe by right of the Axe, of which axe none, not even he, knew the beginning or the legend On the chance, though it was a small one, I bade the wizard send that warrior here with his axe Last night he stood before me and I looked upon him and the axe, which at least is ancient and has a story Whether it be the same that Rezu bore I do not knoho never saw it, yet perchance he who bears it now is prepared to hold it aloft in battle even against Rezu, though he be terrible to see, and then we shall learn”
”Oh! yes,” I answered, ”he is quite prepared, for that is his nature Also aht to be unconquerable”
”Yet soly ”Well, you shall telland you are weary and astonished Go, eat and rest yourself To-night when the moon rises I will come to where you are, not before, for I have much that ainst Rezu, and ht,” I answered, ”who have fought enough and came here to seek wisdom, not bloodshed”
”First the sacrifice, then the reward,” she answered, ”that is if any are left to be rewarded Farewell”
CHAPTER XV
ROBERTSON IS LOST
So I went and was conducted by Billali, the old chamberlain, for such see patiently without all this while, back to our rest-house Onoutside the arch, and found that as usual that worthy had been keeping his eyes and ears open
”Baas,” he said, ”did the White Witch tell you that there is a big impi encareat dry ditch, and on the edge of the plain beyond?”
”No, Hans, but she said that this evening she would show us those in whose coht”
”Well, Baas, they are there, soh the broken walls like a snake and saw them And, Baas, I do not think they are ht only”
”Why, Hans?”
”Because when the sun is high, Baas, as it is now, they are all sleeping Yes, there they lie abed, fast asleep, as other people do at night, with only a few sentries out on guard, and these are yawning and rubbing their eyes”
”I have heard that there are folk like that in the middle of Africa where the sun is very hot, Hans,” I answered, ”which perhaps is why She-who-coht Also these people, it seems, are worshi+ppers of the moon”
”No, Baas, they are worshi+ppers of the devil and that White Witch is his wife”
”You had better keep your thoughts to yourself, Hans, for whatever she is I think that she can read thoughts froht Therefore I would not have any if I were you”
”No, Baas, or if I in which in this place is also far away,” he replied, grinning
Then we came to the rest-house where I found that Robertson had already eaten his one to sleep, while apparently U of hilad, since that wondrous Ayesha see talk with her I felt very tired So I too ate and then went to lie down under an old wall in the shade at a little distance, and to reflect upon the s that I had heard
Here be it said at once that I believed nothing of them, or at least very little indeed All the involved tale of Ayesha's long life I dismissed at once as incredible Clearly she was some beautiful woalomania; probably an Arab, who had wandered to this place for reasons of her own, and becoe tribe whose traditions she had absorbed and reproduced as personal experiences, again for reasons of her own
For the rest, she was now threatened by another tribe and knowing that we had guns and could fight froh for our assistance in the co battle As for the marvellous chief Rezu, or rather for his supernatural attributes and all the cock-and-bull story about an axe-well, it was hu like the rest, and if she believed in it she must be ed on certain points For the rest, her inforaas doubtless had reached her from Zikali in soed
But heavens! how beautiful she was! That flash of loveliness when out of pique or coquetry she lifted her veil, blinded like the lightning But thank goodness, also like the lightning it frightened; instinctively one felt that it was very dangerous, even to death, and with it I for one wished no closer acquaintance Fireat a proper distance, but he who sits on the top of it is cre well enough all the while that if this particular human-or inhuman-fire desired to h, and that in reality I owed lorious Ayesha saw nothing to attract her in an insignificant and withered hunter, or at any rate in his exterior, though with his ht find some small affinity Moreover to make a fool of him just for the fun of it would not serve her purpose, since she needed his assistance in a business that necessitated clear wits and unprejudiced judgment
Lastly she had declared herself to be absorbed in some tiresome complication with another man, of which it was rather difficult to follow the details It is true that she described him as a handsome but somewhat empty-headed person whoo, but probably this only ht poorly of him because he had preferred some other woman to herself, while the two thousand years were added to the tale to give it atmosphere
The worst of scandals becomes romantic and even respectable in two thousand years; witness that of Cleopatra with Caesar, Mark Antony and other gentlemen The most virtuous read of Cleopatra with sy-schools, and it is felt that were she by some miracle to be blotted out of the book of history, the loss would be enormous The same applied to Helen, Phryne, and other bad lots In fact now that one coes in history, male or female, especially the latter, were bad lots When we find soood” we skip No doubt Ayesha, being very clever, appreciated this regrettable truth, and therefore lements of the past decade or so back for a couple of thousand years, as many of us would like to do
There remained the very curious circumstance of her apparent correspondence with old Zikali who lived far away This, however, after all was not inexplicable In the course of a great deal of experience I have observed that all the witch-doctor fae means of communication
In most instances these are no doubt physical, carried on by help of es passed from one to the other But sometimes it is reasonable to assume what is known as telepathy, as their link of intercourse Between two such highly developed experts as Ayesha and Zikali, it ument safely be supposed that it was thus they learned each other's h perhaps this end was effected by commoner methods
Whatever its interpretations, the issue of the business see Well, in any case this could not be avoided, since Robertson's daughter, Inez, had to be saved at all costs, if it could possibly be done, even if we lost our lives in the atte more to be said Also without doubt this adventure was particularly interesting and I could only hope that good luck, or Zikali's Great Medicine, or rather Providence, would see h it safely
For the rest the fact that our help was necessary to her in this war-like venture showed h that all this wonderful woman's pretensions to supernatural poere the sheerest nonsense Had they been otherwise she would not have needed our help in her tribal fights, notwithstanding the rubbish she talked about the chief, Rezu, who according to her account of him, must resehostly evil creatures, of whoas, who could only be slain by some particular hero ar thus I went to sleep and did not wake until the sun was setting Finding that Hans was also sleeping at , I woke hiether to the rest-house, which we reached as the darkness fell with extraordinary swiftness, as it does in those latitudes, especially in a place surrounded by cliffs
Not finding Robertson in the house, I concluded that he was so a reconnaissance on his own account, and told Hans to get supper ready for both of us While he was doing so, by aid of the Aaas suddenly appeared in the circle of light, and looking about him, said, ”Where is Red-Beard, Macumazahn?”
I answered that I did not know and waited, for I felt sure that he had so to say
”I think that you had better keep Red-Beard close to you, Macumazahn,” he went on ”This afternoon, when you had returned froone to sleep under the wall yonder, I saw Red-Beard coes His eyes rolled wildly and he turned first this way and then that, sniffing at the air, like a buck that scents danger Then he began to talk aloud in his own tongue and as I saw that he was speaking with his Spirit, as those do who are mad, I went away and left him”
”Why?” I asked
”Because, as you know, Macu us Zulus never to disturb one who iswith his Spirit Moreover, had I done so, probably he would have shot me, nor should I have coht to be”
”Then why did you not coht have shot you, for, as I have seen for some time he is inspired of heaven and knows not what he does upon the earth, thinking only of the Lady Sad-Eyes who has been stolen away fro up and down, and when I returned later to look, saw that he was gone, as I thought into this walled hut Nohen Hansi tells me that he is not here, I have come to speak to you about him”
”No, certainly he is not here,” I said, and I went to look at the bed where Robertson slept to see if it had been used that evening
Then for the first ti on it a piece of paper torn from a pocketbook and addressed to myself I seized and read it It ran thus: ”The merciful Lord has sent me a vision of Inez and shown e away to the west, also the road to her Into oing to marry her to some brute-and called to me to co anything to anyone So I ahtened or trouble about me All will be well, all will be quite well I will tell you the rest e meet”
Horrorstruck I translated this insane screed to Uravely
”Did I not tell you that he was talking with his Spirit, Macumazahn?” (I had rendered ”the one and doubtless his Spirit will take care of him It is finished”
”At any rate we cannot, Baas,” broke in Hans, who I think feared that I ht send him out to look for Robertson ”I can follow ht as this when one could cut the blackness into lumps and build a wall of it”