Part 20 (1/2)

THE TRUE HOLY FLOWER

When I caain it was to find that I had slept fifteen or sixteen hours, for the sun of a new day was high in the heavens I was lying in a little shelter of boughs at the foot of that uided us back over the waters of the Lake Kirua Near by was Hans consuhbouring fire With hih otherwise but little the worse The stone, which probably would have killed a thin-skulled white man, had done no more than knock him stupid and break the skin of his scalp, perhaps because the force of it was lessened by the gunity, he oven in his hair

The two tents we had brought with us to the lake were pitched not far away and looked quite pretty and peaceful there in the sunlight

Hans, atching e pannikin of hot coffee which Sa; for they knew that my sleep was, or had become of a natural order I drank it to the last drop, and in all an upon some pieces of the toasted meat, I asked him what had happened

”Not much, Baas,” he answered, ”except that we are alive, who should be dead The Maam and the Missie are still asleep in that tent, or at least the Maaeetah, her father, to nurse Baas Stephen, who has an ugly wound The Pongos have gone and I think will not return, for they have had enough of the white uns The Mazitu have buried those of their dead whom they could recover, and have sent their wounded, of whom there were only six, back to Beza Town on litters That is all, Baas”

Then while I washed, and never did I need a bath more, and put on ht of the killing of the Moto out and dried in the sun, I asked that worthy hoas after his adventures

”Oh! well enough, Baas,” he answered, ”now that my stomach is full, except that round like a babyan (baboon), and that I cannot get the stink of that God's skin out of my nose Oh! you don't knohat it was: if I had been a white man it would have killed me But, Baas, perhaps you did well to take drunken old Hans with you on this journey after all, for I was clever about the little gun, wasn't I? Also about your swin of the spider and the ht ot back safe, except for the Mazitu, Jerry, who doesn't matter, for there are plenty more like him, and the wound in Baas Stephen's shoulder, and that heavy flohich he thought better than brandy”

”Yes, Hans,” I said, ”I did well to take you and you are clever, for had it not been for you, we should now be cooked and eaten in Pongo-land I thank you for your help, old friend But, Hans, another time please sew up the holes in your waistcoat pocket Four caps wasn't h; as they were all good ones If there had been forty you could not have done much more Oh! your reverend father knew all that” (my departed parent had become a kind of patron saint to Hans) ”and did not wish this poor old Hottentot to have more to carry than was needed He knew you wouldn't miss, Baas, and that there were only one God, one devil, and one hed, for Hans's way of putting things was certainly original, and having got on my coat, went to see Stephen At the door of the tent I met Brother John, whose shoulder was dreadfully sore fro of the orchid stretcher, as were his hands with paddling, but who otherell enough and of course supremely happy

He told me that he had cleansed and sewn up Stephen's wound, which appeared to be doing well, although the spear had pierced right through the shoulder, luckily without cutting any artery So I went in to see the patient and found hih weak fro him with broth fro, especially after he got on to the subject of the lost orchid, about which he began to show signs of excite him that I had preserved a pod of the seed, news at which he was delighted

”There!” he said ”To think that you, Allan, should have reot all about it!”

”Ah! h to learn never to leave anything behind that I can possibly carry away Also, although not an orchidist, it occurred toa plant than froo into one's pocket”

Then he began to give me elaborate instructions as to the preservation of the seed-pod in a perfectly dry and air-tight tin box, etc, at which point Miss Hope unceremoniously bundled me out of the tent

That afternoon we held a conference at which it was agreed that we should begin our return journey to Beza Town at once, as the place where ere camped was veryus another visit

So a litter was made with a mat stretched over it in which Stephen could be carried, since fortunately there were plenty of bearers, and our other simple preparations were quickly completed Mrs Eversley and Hope wereshowed signs of reneeakness, rode his white ox, which was now quite fat again; the wounded hero, Stephen, as I have said, was carried; and I walked, coo, their ood, and their custooes, were ”sihted that ancient warrior was to hear again about the sacred cave, the Crocodile Water, the Mountain Forest and its terrible God, of the death of which and of the Motombo he made me tell him the story three times over At the conclusion of the third recital he said quietly: ”My lord Maculad to have lived if only to know you No one else could have done these deeds”

Of course I was complimented, but felt bound to point out Hans's share in our joint achievement

”Yes, yes,” he answered, ”the Spotted Snake, Inhlatu, has the cunning to scheme, but you have the power to do, and what is the use of a brain to plot without the arether because the plotter is not a striker His th and brain of the elephant, and the fierce courage of the buffalo, soon there would be but one creature left in the world But the Maker of all things knew this and kept theht, and still think, that there was a great deal of wisdom in this rees hite men despise, are no fools

After about an hour's march we camped till the ain till near dawn, as it was thought better that Stephen should travel in the cool of the night I remember that our cavalcade, escorted before, behind and on either flank by the Mazitu troops with their tall spears, looked picturesque and even i as it wound over those wide downs in the lovely and peaceful light of the moon

There is no need for me to set out the details of the rest of our journey, which was not marked by any incident of importance

Stephen bore it very well, and Brother John, as one of the best doctors I ever ood reports of hier, although he ate plenty of food Also, Miss Hope, who nursed him, for her mother seemed to have no taste that way, informed me that he slept but little, as indeed I found out for myself

”O Allan,” she said, just before we reached Beza Town, ”Stephen, your son” (she used to call him my son, I don't knohy) ”is sick The father says it is only the spear-hurt, but I tell you it is more than the spear-hurt He is sick in hirey eyes showed me that she spoke what she believed As a ht after we reached the town, Stephen was seized with an attack of some bad form of African fever, which in his weak state nearly cost him his life, contracted, no doubt, at that unhealthy Crocodile Water

Our reception at Beza was , for the whole population, headed by old Bausi himself, came out to meet us with loud shouts of welcome, from which we had to ask theot back to our huts with gratitude of heart Indeed, we should have been very happy there for a while, had it not been for our anxiety about Stephen But it is always thus in the world; as ever allowed to eat his pot of honey without finding a fly or perhaps a cockroach in his mouth?

In all, Stephen was really ill for about atolittle else to do, I entered up fully at this tiht that he would surely die Even Brother John, who attended him with the s at his coht with us froht the poor fellow raved and always about that confounded orchid, the loss of which seeh it were a whole sackful of unrepented crie, or rather to a bold invention of Hope's One evening, when he was at his very worst and going on like a mad creature about the lost plant-I was present in the hut at the ti to a perfectly open space on the floor, said: ”Look, O Stephen, the flower has been brought back”

He stared and stared, and then to ars have broken off all the blooms except one”

”Yes,” she echoed, ”but one remains and it is the finest of them all”

After this he went quietly to sleep and slept for twelve hours, then took soain and, what is more, his temperature went down to, or a little below, norain present in the hut with Hope, as standing on the spot which she had persuaded him was occupied by the orchid He stared at this spot and he stared at her-me he could not see, for I was behind him-then said in a weak voice: ”Didn't you tell me, Miss Hope, that the plant here you are and that the most beautiful of the floas left?”

I wondered what on earth her ansould be However, she rose to the occasion

”O Stephen,” she replied, in her soft voice and speaking in a way so natural that it freed her words from any boldness, ”it is here, for am I not its child”-her native appellation, it will be remembered, was ”Child of the Flower” ”And the fairest of the flowers is here, too, for I am that Flohich you found in the island of the lake O Stephen, I pray you to trouble no more about a lost plant of which you have seed in plenty, but h you my mother and I still live, who, if you had died, would weep our eyes away”

”Through h Allan and Hans Also it was you who saved my life there in the water Oh! I reh I didn't know it, you are the true Holy Flower that I saw”

She ran to hiave him her hand, which he pressed to his pale lips

Then I sneaked out of that hut and left theain It was a pretty scene, and one that toto the whole of an otherwise rather insane quest He sought an ideal flower, he found-the love of his life

After this, Stephen recovered rapidly, for such love is the best of medicines-if it be returned

I don't knohat passed between the pair and Brother John and his wife, for I never asked But I noted that froan to treat him as a son The new relationshi+p between Stephen and Hope seemed to be tacitly accepted without discussion Even the natives accepted it, for old Mavovo askedto be married and how many cows Stephen had proht to be a large herd,” he said, ”and of a big breed of cattle”

Sa lady in conversation withSuch a trivial e did not interest hione conclusion and therefore unworthy of coer whilst Stephen recovered his strength I grew thoroughly bored with the place and so did Mavovo and the Zulus, but Brother John and his wife did not seem to mind Mrs Eversley was a passive creature, quite content to take things as they ca an absence froes Also she had her beloved John, at whoaze by the hour like a cat sometimes does at a person to whom it is attached Indeed, when she spoke to him, her voice seemed to me to resemble a kind of blissful purr I think it ety soo to hunt for butterflies

To tell the truth, the situation got a little on my nerves at last, for wherever I looked I see love to each other, or Brother John and his wife ad each other, which didn't leave ht that Mavovo, Hans, Sah for me-that is, if they reflected on the matter at all So they were, in a sense, for the Zulu hunters began to get out of hand in thetoodakka, atoo much love to the Mazitu women, which of course resulted in the usual rows that I had to settle

At last I struck and said that we must move on as Stephen was now fit to travel

”Quite so,” said Brother John, ed, Allan?”

With some irritation, for I hated that sentence of Brother John's, I replied that I had arranged nothing, but that as none of theo out and talk the matter over with Hans and Mavovo, which I did

I need not chronicle the results of our conference since other arrangeuessed

It all cas in the lives of h the Mazitu were of the Zulu fahness For instance, when I re up a proper systehed at me and answered that they never had been attacked and now that the Pongo had learnt a lesson, were never likely to be

By the way, I see that I have not yet os who had been taken prisoners at the Battle of the Reeds were conducted to the shores of the lake, given one of the captured canoes and told that they ht return to their own happy land To our astonishment about three weeks later they reappeared at Beza Toith this story