QUEEN SHEBA'S RING
by H. Rider Haggard
CHAPTER I
THE COMING OF THE RING
Every one has read the monograph, I believe that is the right word, of
my dear friend, Professor Higgs--Ptolemy Higgs to give him his full
name--descriptive of the tableland of Mur in North Central Africa, of
the ancient underground city in the mountains which surrounded it, and
of the strange tribe of Abyssinian Jews, or rather their mixed
descendants, by whom it is, or was, inhabited. I say every one
advisedly, for although the public which studies such works is usually
select, that which will take an interest in them, if the character of
a learned and pugnacious personage is concerned, is very wide indeed.
Not to mince matters, I may as well explain what I mean at once.
Professor Higgs's rivals and enemies, of whom either the brilliancy of
his achievements or his somewhat abrupt and pointed methods of
controversy seem to have made him a great many, have risen up, or
rather seated themselves, and written him down--well, an individual
who strains the truth. Indeed, only this morning one of these
inquired, in a letter to the press, alluding to some adventurous
traveller who, I am told, lectured to the British Association several
years ago, whether Professor Higgs did not, in fact, ride across the
desert to Mur, not upon a camel, as he alleged, but upon a land
tortoise of extraordinary size.
The innuendo contained in this epistle has made the Professor, who, as
I have already hinted, is not by nature of a meek disposition,
extremely angry. Indeed, notwithstanding all that I could do, he left
his London house under an hour ago with a whip of hippopotamus hide
such as the Egyptians call a /koorbash/, purposing to avenge himself
upon the person of his defamer. In order to prevent a public scandal,
however, I have taken the liberty of telephoning to that gentleman,
who, bold and vicious as he may be in print, is physically small and,
I should say, of a timid character, to get out of the way at once. To
judge from the abrupt fashion in which our conversation came to an
end, I imagine that the hint has been taken. At any rate, I hope for
the best, and, as an extra precaution, have communicated with the
lawyers of my justly indignant friend.
The reader will now probably understand that I am writing this book,
not to bring myself or others before the public, or to make money of
which I have no present need, or for any purpose whatsoever, except to
set down the bare and actual truth. In fact, so many rumours are
flying about as to where we have been and what befell us that this has
become almost necessary. As soon as I laid down that cruel column of
gibes and insinuations to which I have alluded--yes, this very
morning, before breakfast, this conviction took hold of me so strongly
that I cabled to Oliver, Captain Oliver Orme, the hero of my history,
if it has any particular hero, who is at present engaged upon what
must be an extremely agreeable journey round the world--asking his
consent. Ten minutes since the answer arrived from Tokyo. Here it is:
"Do what you like and think necessary, but please alter all names, et
cetera, as propose returning via America, and fear interviewers. Japan
jolly place." Then follows some private matter which I need not
insert. Oliver is always extravagant where cablegrams are concerned.
I suppose that before entering on this narration, for the reader's
benefit I had better give some short description of myself.
My name is Richard Adams, and I am the son of a Cumberland yeoman who
married a Welshwoman. Therefore I have Celtic blood in my veins, which
perhaps accounts for my love of roving and other things. I am now an
old man, near the end of my course, I suppose; at any rate, I was
sixty-five last birthday. This is my appearance as I see it in the
glass before me: tall, spare (I don't weigh more than a hundred and
forty pounds--the desert has any superfluous flesh that I ever owned,
my lot having been, like Falstaff, to lard the lean earth, but in a
hot climate); my eyes are brown, my face is long, and I wear a pointed
white beard, which matches the white hair above.
Truth compels me to add that my general appearance, as seen in that
glass which will not lie, reminds me of that of a rather aged goat;
indeed, to be frank, by the natives among whom I have sojourned, and
especially among the Khalifa's people when I was a prisoner there, I
have often been called the White Goat.
Of my very commonplace outward self let this suffice. As for my
record, I am a doctor of the old school. Think of it! When I was a
student at Bart.'s the antiseptic treatment was quite a new thing, and
administered when at all, by help of a kind of engine on wheels, out
of which disinfectants were dispensed with a pump, much as the
advanced gardener sprays a greenhouse to-day.
I succeeded above the average as a student, and in my early time as a
doctor. But in every man's life there happen things which, whatever
excuses may be found for them, would not look particularly well in
cold print (nobody's record, as understood by convention and the
Pharisee, could really stand cold print); also something in my blood
made me its servant. In short, having no strict ties at home, and
desiring to see the world, I wandered far and wide for many years,
earning my living as I went, never, in my experience, a difficult
thing to do, for I was always a master of my trade.
My fortieth birthday found me practising at Cairo, which I mention
only because it was here that first I met Ptolemy Higgs, who, even
then in his youth, was noted for his extraordinary antiquarian and
linguistic abilities. I remember that in those days the joke about him
was that he could swear in fifteen languages like a native and in
thirty-two with common proficiency, and could read hieroglyphics as
easily as a bishop reads the /Times/.
Well, I doctored him through a bad attack of typhoid, but as he had
spent every farthing he owned on scarabs or something of the sort,
made him no charge. This little kindness I am bound to say he never
forgot, for whatever his failings may be (personally I would not trust
him alone with any object that was more than a thousand years old),
Ptolemy is a good and faithful friend.
In Cairo I married a Copt. She was a lady of high descent, the
tradition in her family being that they were sprung from one of the
Ptolemaic Pharaohs, which is possible and even probable enough. Also,
she was a Christian, and well educated in her way. But, of course, she
remained an Oriental, and for a European to marry an Oriental is, as I
have tried to explain to others, a very dangerous thing, especially if
he continues to live in the East, where it cuts him off from social
recognition and intimacy with his own race. Still, although this step
of mine forced me to leave Cairo and go to Assouan, then a little-
known place, to practise chiefly among the natives, God knows we were
happy enough together till the plague took her, and with it my joy in
life.
I pass over all that business, since there are some things too
dreadful and too sacred to write about. She left me one child, a son,
who, to fill up my cup of sorrow, when he was twelve years of age, was
kidnapped by the Mardi's people.
This brings me to the real story. There is nobody else to write it;
Oliver will not; Higgs cannot (outside of anything learned and
antiquarian, he is hopeless); so I must. At any rate, if it is not
interesting, the fault will be mine, not that of the story, which in
all conscience is strange enough.
We are now in the middle of June, and it was a year ago last December
that, on the evening of the day of my arrival in London after an
absence of half a lifetime, I found myself knocking at the door of
Professor Higgs's rooms in Guildford Street, W.C. It was opened by his
housekeeper, Mrs. Reid, a thin and saturnine old woman, who reminded
and still reminds me of a reanimated mummy. She told me that the
Professor was in, but had a gentleman to dinner, and suggested sourly
that I should call again the next morning. With difficulty I persuaded
her at last to inform her master that an old Egyptian friend had
brought him something which he certainly would like to see.
Five minutes later I groped my way into Higgs's sitting-room, which
Mrs. Reid had contented herself with indicating from a lower floor. It
is a large room, running the whole width of the house, divided into
two by an arch, where once, in the Georgian days, there had been
folding doors. The place was in shadow, except for the firelight,
which shone upon a table laid ready for dinner, and upon an
extraordinary collection of antiquities, including a couple of mummies
with gold faces arranged in their coffins against the wall. At the far
end of the room, however, an electric lamp was alight in the bow-
window hanging over another table covered with books, and by it I saw
my host, whom I had not met for twenty years, although until I
vanished into the desert we frequently corresponded, and with him the
friend who had come to dinner.
First, I will describe Higgs, who, I may state, is admitted, even by
his enemies, to be one of the most learned antiquarians and greatest
masters of dead languages in Europe, though this no one would guess
from his appearance at the age of about forty-five. In build short and
stout, face round and high-coloured, hair and beard of a fiery red,
eyes, when they can be seen--for generally he wears a pair of large
blue spectacles--small and of an indefinite hue, but sharp as needles.
Dress so untidy, peculiar, and worn that it is said the police
invariably request him to move on, should he loiter in the streets at
night. Such was, and is, the outward seeming of my dearest friend,
Professor Ptolemy Higgs, and I only hope that he won't be offended
when he sees it set down in black and white.
That of his companion who was seated at the table, his chin resting on
his hand, listening to some erudite discourse with a rather distracted
air, was extraordinarily different, especially by contrast. A tall
well-made young man, rather thin, but broad-shouldered, and apparently
five or six and twenty years of age. Face clean-cut--so much so,
indeed, that the dark eyes alone relieved it from a suspicion of
hardness; hair short and straight, like the eyes, brown; expression
that of a man of thought and ability, and, when he smiled, singularly
pleasant. Such was, and is, Captain Oliver Orme, who, by the way, I
should explain, is only a captain of some volunteer engineers,
although, in fact, a very able soldier, as was proved in the South
African War, whence he had then but lately returned.
I ought to add also that he gave me the impression of a man not in
love with fortune, or rather of one with whom fortune was not in love;
indeed, his young face seemed distinctly sad. Perhaps it was this that
attracted me to him so much from the first moment that my eyes fell on
him--me with whom fortune had also been out of love for many years.
While I stood contemplating this pair, Higgs, looking up from the
papyrus or whatever it might be that he was reading (I gathered later
that he had spent the afternoon in unrolling a mummy, and was studying
its spoils), caught sight of me standing in the shadow.
"Who the devil are you?" he exclaimed in a shrill and strident voice,
for it acquires that quality when he is angry or alarmed, "and what
are you doing in my room?"
"Steady," said his companion; "your housekeeper told you that some
friend of yours had come to call."
"Oh, yes, so she did, only I can't remember any friend with a face and
beard like a goat. Advance, friend, and all's well."
So I stepped into the shining circle of the electric light and halted
again.
"Who is it? Who is it?" muttered Higgs. "The face is the face of--of--
I have it--of old Adams, only he's been dead these ten years. The
Khalifa got him, they said. Antique shade of the long-lost Adams,
please be so good as to tell me your name, for we waste time over a
useless mystery."
"There is no need, Higgs, since it is in your mouth already. Well, I
should have known you anywhere; but then /your/ hair doesn't go
white."
"Not it; too much colouring matter; direct result of a sanguine
disposition. Well, Adams--for Adams you must be--I am really delighted
to see you, especially as you never answered some questions in my last
letter as to where you got those First Dynasty scarabs, of which the
genuineness, I may tell you, has been disputed by certain envious
beasts. Adams, my dear old fellow, welcome a thousand times"--and he
seized my hands and wrung them, adding, as his eye fell upon a ring I
wore, "Why, what's that? Something quite unusual. But never mind; you
shall tell me after dinner. Let me introduce you to my friend, Captain
Orme, a very decent scholar of Arabic, with a quite elementary
knowledge of Egyptology."
"/Mr./ Orme," interrupted the younger man, bowing to me.
"Oh, well, Mr. or Captain, whichever you like. He means that he is not
in the regular army, although he has been all through the Boer War,
and wounded three times, once straight through the lungs. Here's the
soup. Mrs. Reid, lay another place. I am dreadfully hungry; nothing
gives me such an appetite as unrolling mummies; it involves so much
intellectual wear and tear, in addition to the physical labour. Eat,
man, eat. We will talk afterwards."
So we ate, Higgs largely, for his appetite was always excellent,
perhaps because he was then practically a teetotaller; Mr. Orme very
moderately, and I as becomes a person who has lived for months at a
time on dates--mainly of vegetables, which, with fruits, form my
principal diet--that is, if these are available, for at a pinch I can
exist on anything.
When the meal was finished and our glasses had been filled with port,
Higgs helped himself to water, lit the large meerschaum pipe he always
smokes, and pushed round the tobacco-jar which had once served as a
sepulchural urn for the heart of an old Egyptian.
"Now, Adams," he said when we also had filled our pipes, "tell us what
has brought you back from the Shades. In short, your story, man, your
story."
I drew the ring he had noticed off my hand, a thick band of rather
light-coloured gold of a size such as an ordinary woman might wear
upon her first or second finger, in which was set a splendid slab of
sapphire engraved with curious and archaic characters. Pointing to
these characters, I asked Higgs if he could read them.
"Read them? Of course," he answered, producing a magnifying glass.
"Can't you? No, I remember; you never were good at anything more than
fifty years old. Hullo! this is early Hebrew. Ah! I've got it," and he
read:
"'The gift of Solomon the ruler--no, the Great One--of Israel, Beloved
of Jah, to Maqueda of Sheba-land, Queen, Daughter of Kings, Child of
Wisdom, Beautiful.'
"That's the writing on your ring, Adams--a really magnificent thing.
'Queen of Sheba--Bath-Melachim, Daughter of Kings,' with our old
friend Solomon chucked in. Splendid, quite splendid!"--and he touched
the gold with his tongue, and tested it with his teeth. "Hum--where
did you get this intelligent fraud from, Adams?"
"Oh!" I answered, laughing, "the usual thing, of course. I bought it
from a donkey-boy in Cairo for about thirty shillings."
"Indeed," he replied suspiciously. "I should have thought the stone in
it was worth more than that, although, of course, it may be nothing
but glass. The engraving, too, is first-rate. Adams," he added with
severity, "you are trying to hoax us, but let me tell you what I
thought you knew by this time--that you can't take in Ptolemy Higgs.
This ring is a shameless swindle; but who did the Hebrew on it? He's a
good scholar, anyway."
"Don't know," I answered; "wasn't aware till now that it was Hebrew.
To tell you the truth, I thought it was old Egyptian. All I do know is
that it was given, or rather lent, to me by a lady whose title is
Walda Nagasta, and who is supposed to be a descendant of Solomon and
the Queen of Sheba."
Higgs took up the ring and looked at it again; then, as though in a
fit of abstraction, slipped it into his waistcoat pocket.
"I don't want to be rude, therefore I will not contradict you," he
answered with a kind of groan, "or, indeed, say anything except that
if any one else had spun me that yarn I should have told him he was a
common liar. But, of course, as every schoolboy knows, Walda Nagasta--
that is, Child of Kings in Ethiopic--is much the same as Bath-Melachim
--that is, Daughter of Kings in Hebrew."
Here Captain Orme burst out laughing, and remarked, "It is easy to see
why you are not altogether popular in the antiquarian world, Higgs.
Your methods of controversy are those of a savage with a stone axe."
"If you only open your mouth to show your ignorance, Oliver, you had
better keep it shut. The men who carried stone axes had advanced far
beyond the state of savagery. But I suggest that you had better give
Doctor Adams a chance of telling his story, after which you can
criticize."
"Perhaps Captain Orme does not wish to be bored with it," I said,
whereon he answered at once:
"On the contrary, I should like to hear it very much--that is, if you
are willing to confide in me as well as in Higgs."
I reflected a moment, since, to tell the truth, for sundry reasons, my
intention had been to trust no one except the Professor, whom I knew
to be as faithful as he is rough. Yet some instinct prompted me to
make an exception in favour of this Captain Orme. I liked the man;
there was something about those brown eyes of his that appealed to me.
Also it struck me as odd that he should happen to be present on this
occasion, for I have always held that there is nothing casual or
accidental in the world; that even the most trivial circumstances are
either ordained, or the result of the workings of some inexorable law
whereof the end is known by whatever power may direct our steps,
though it be not yet declared.
"Certainly I am willing," I answered; "your face and your friendship
with the Professor are passport enough for me. Only I must ask you to
give me your word of honour that without my leave you will repeat
nothing of what I am about to tell you."
"Of course," he answered, whereon Higgs broke in:
"There, that will do; you don't want us both to kiss the Book, do you?
Who sold you that ring, and where have you been for the last dozen
years, and whence do you come now?"
"I have been a prisoner of the Khalifa's among other things. I had
five years of that entertainment of which my back would give some
evidence if I were to strip. I think I am about the only man who never
embraced Islam whom they allowed to live, and that was because I am a
doctor, and, therefore, a useful person. The rest of the time I have
spent wandering about the North African deserts looking for my son,
Roderick. You remember the boy, or should, for you are his godfather,
and I used to send you photographs of him as a little chap."
"Of course, of course," said the Professor in a new tone; "I came
across a Christmas letter from him the other day. But, my dear Adams,
what happened? I never heard."
"He went up the river to shoot crocodiles against my orders, when he
was about twelve years old--not very long after his mother's death,
and some wandering Mahdi tribesmen kidnapped him and sold him as a
slave. I have been looking for him ever since, for the poor boy was
passed on from tribe to tribe, among which his skill as a musician
enabled me to follow him. The Arabs call him the Singer of Egypt,
because of his wonderful voice, and it seems that he has learned to
play upon their native instruments."
"And now where is he?" asked Higgs, as one who feared the answer.
"He is, or was, a favourite slave among a barbarous, half-negroid
people called the Fung, who dwell in the far interior of North Central
Africa. After the fall of the Khalifa I followed him there; it took me
several years. Some Bedouin were making an expedition to trade with
these Fung, and I disguised myself as one of them.
"On a certain night we camped at the foot of a valley outside a great
wall which encloses the holy place where their idol is. I rode up to
this wall and, through the open gateway, heard some one with a
beautiful tenor voice singing in English. What he sang was a hymn that
I had taught my son. It begins:
'Abide with me, fast falls the eventide.'
"I knew the voice again. I dismounted and slipped through the gateway,
and presently came to an open space, where a young man sat singing
upon a sort of raised bench with lamps on either side of him, and a
large audience in front. I saw his face and, notwithstanding the
turban which he wore and his Eastern robe--yes, and the passage of all
those years--I knew it for that of my son. Some spirit of madness
entered into me, and I called aloud, 'Roderick, Roderick!' and he
started up, staring about him wildly. The audience started up also,
and one of them caught sight of me lurking in the shadow.
"With a howl of rage, for I had desecrated their sanctuary, they
sprang at me. To save my life, coward that I was, I fled back through
the gates. Yes, after all those years of seeking, still I fled rather
than die, and though I was wounded with a spear and stones, managed to
reach and spring upon my horse. Then, as I was headed off from our
camp, I galloped away anywhere, still to save my miserable life from
those savages, so strongly is the instinct of self-preservation
implanted in us. From a distance I looked back and saw by the light of
the fired tents that the Fung were attacking the Arabs with whom I had
travelled, I suppose because they thought them parties to the
sacrilege. Afterwards I heard that they killed them every one, poor
men, but I escaped, who unwittingly had brought their fate upon them.
"On and on I galloped up a steep road. I remember hearing lions
roaring round me in the darkness. I remember one of them springing
upon my horse and the poor beast's scream. Then I remember no more
till I found myself--I believe it was a week or so later--lying on the
verandah of a nice house, and being attended by some good-looking
women of an Abyssinian cast of countenance."
"Sounds rather like one of the lost tribes of Israel," remarked Higgs
sarcastically, puffing at his big meerschaum.
"Yes, something of that sort. The details I will give you later. The
main facts are that these people who picked me up outside their gates
are called Abati, live in a town called Mur, and allege themselves to
be descended from a tribe of Abyssinian Jews who were driven out and
migrated to this place four or five centuries ago. Briefly, they look
something like Jews, practise a very debased form of the Jewish
religion, are civilized and clever after a fashion, but in the last
stage of decadence from interbreeding--about nine thousand men is
their total fighting force, although three or four generations ago
they had twenty thousand--and live in hourly terror of extermination
by the surrounding Fung, who hold them in hereditary hate as the
possessors of the wonderful mountain fortress that once belonged to
their forefathers."
"Gibraltar and Spain over again," suggested Orme.
"Yes, with this difference--that the position is reversed, the Abati
of this Central African Gibraltar are decaying, and the Fung, who
answer to the Spaniards, are vigorous and increasing."
"Well, what happened?" asked the Professor.
"Nothing particular. I tried to persuade these Abati to organize an
expedition to rescue my son, but they laughed in my face. By degrees I
found out that there was only one person among them who was worth
anything at all, and she happened to be their hereditary ruler who
bore the high-sounding titles of Walda Nagasta, or Child of Kings, and
Takla Warda, or Bud of the Rose, a very handsome and spirited young
woman, whose personal name is Maqueda----"
"One of the names of the first known Queens of Sheba," muttered Higgs;
"the other was Belchis."
"Under pretence of attending her medically," I went on, "for otherwise
their wretched etiquette would scarcely have allowed me access to one
so exalted, I talked things over with her. She told me that the idol
of the Fung is fashioned like a huge sphinx, or so I gathered from her
description of the thing, for I have never seen it."
"What!" exclaimed Higgs, jumping up, "a sphinx in North Central
Africa! Well, after all, why not? Some of the earlier Pharaohs are
said to have had dealings with that part of the world, or even to have
migrated from it. I think that the Makreezi repeats the legend. I
suppose that it is ram-headed."
"She told me also," I continued, "that they have a tradition, or
rather a belief, which amounts to an article of faith, that if this
sphinx or god, which, by the way, is lion, not ram-headed, and is
called Harmac----"
"Harmac!" interrupted Higgs again. "That is one of the names of the
sphinx--Harmachis, god of dawn."
"If this god," I repeated, "should be destroyed, the nation of the
Fung, whose forefathers fashioned it as they say, must move away from
that country across the great river which lies to the south. I have
forgotten its name at the moment, but I think it must be a branch of
the Nile.
"I suggested to her that, in the circumstances, her people had better
try to destroy the idol. Maqueda laughed and said it was impossible,
since the thing was the size of a small mountain, adding that the
Abati had long ago lost all courage and enterprise, and were content
to sit in their fertile and mountain-ringed land, feeding themselves
with tales of departed grandeur and struggling for rank and high-
sounding titles, till the day of doom overtook them.
"I inquired whether she were also content, and she replied, 'Certainly
not'; but what could she do to regenerate her people, she who was
nothing but a woman, and the last of an endless line of rulers?
"'Rid me of the Fung,' she added passionately, 'and I will give you
such a reward as you never dreamed. The old cave-city yonder is full
of treasure that was buried with its ancient kings long before we came
to Mur. To us it is useless, since we have none to trade with, but I
have heard that the peoples of the outside world worship gold.'
"'I do not want gold,' I answered; 'I want to rescue my son who is a
prisoner yonder.'
"'Then,' said the Child of Kings, 'you must begin by helping us to
destroy the idol of the Fung. Are there no means by which this can be
done?'
"'There are means,' I replied, and I tried to explain to her the
properties of dynamite and of other more powerful explosives.
"'Go to your own land,' she exclaimed eagerly, 'and return with that
stuff and two or three who can manage it, and I swear to them all the
wealth of Mur. Thus only can you win my help to save your son.'"
"Well, what was the end?" asked Captain Orme.
"This: They gave me some gold and an escort with camels which were
literally lowered down a secret path in the mountains so as to avoid
the Fung, who ring them in and of whom they are terribly afraid. With
these people I crossed the desert to Assouan in safety, a journey of
many weeks, where I left them encamped about sixteen days ago, bidding
them await my return. I arrived in England this morning, and as soon
as I could ascertain that you still lived, and your address, from a
book of reference called /Who's Who/, which they gave me in the hotel,
I came on here."
"Why did you come to me? What do you want me to do?" asked the
Professor.
"I came to you, Higgs, because I know how deeply you are interested in
anything antiquarian, and because I wished to give you the first
opportunity, not only of winning wealth, but also of becoming famous
as the discoverer of the most wonderful relics of antiquity that are
left in the world."
"With a very good chance of getting my throat cut thrown in," grumbled
Higgs.
"As to what I want you to do," I went on, "I want you to find someone
who understands explosives, and will undertake the business of blowing
up the Fung idol."
"Well, that's easy enough, anyhow," said the Professor, pointing to
Captain Orme with the bowl of his pipe, and adding, "he is an engineer
by education, a soldier and a very fair chemist; also he knows Arabic
and was brought up in Egypt as a boy--just the man for the job if he
will go."
I reflected a moment, then, obeying some sort of instinct, looked up
and asked:
"Will you, Captain Orme, if terms can be arranged?"
"Yesterday," he replied, colouring a little, "I should have answered,
'Certainly not.' To-day I answer that I am prepared to consider the
matter--that is, if Higgs will go too, and you can enlighten me on
certain points. But I warn you that I am only an amateur in the three
trades that the Professor has mentioned, though, it is true, one with
some experience."
"Would it be rude to inquire, Captain Orme, why twenty-four hours have
made such a difference in your views and plans?"
"Not rude, only awkward," he replied, colouring again, this time more
deeply. "Still, as it is best to be frank, I will tell you. Yesterday
I believed myself to be the inheritor of a very large fortune from an
uncle whose fatal illness brought me back from South Africa before I
meant to come, and as whose heir I have been brought up. To-day I have
learned for the first time that he married secretly, last year, a
woman much below him in rank, and has left a child, who, of course,
will take all his property, as he died intestate. But that is not all.
Yesterday I believed myself to be engaged to be married; to-day I am
undeceived upon that point also. The lady," he added with some
bitterness, "who was willing to marry Anthony Orme's heir is no longer
willing to marry Oliver Orme, whose total possessions amount to under
£10,000. Well, small blame to her or to her relations, whichever it
may be, especially as I understand that she has a better alliance in
view. Certainly her decision has simplified matters," and he rose and
walked to the other end of the room.
"Shocking business," whispered Higgs; "been infamously treated," and
he proceeded to express his opinion of the lady concerned, of her
relatives, and of the late Anthony Orme, shipowner, in language that,
if printed, would render this history unfit for family reading. The
outspokenness of Professor Higgs is well known in the antiquarian
world, so there is no need for me to enlarge upon it.
"What I do not exactly understand, Adams," he added in a loud voice,
seeing that Orme had turned again, "and what I think we should both
like to know, is /your/ exact object in making these proposals."
"I am afraid I have explained myself badly. I thought I had made it
clear that I have only one object--to attempt the rescue of my son, if
he still lives, as I believe he does. Higgs, put yourself in my
position. Imagine yourself with nothing and no one left to care for
except a single child, and that child stolen away from you by savages.
Imagine yourself, after years of search, hearing his very voice,
seeing his very face, adult now, but the same, the thing you had
dreamed of and desired for years; that for which you would have given
a thousand lives if you could have had time to think. And then the
rush of the howling, fantastic mob, the breakdown of courage, of love,
of everything that is noble under the pressure of primæval instinct,
which has but one song--Save your life. Lastly, imagine this coward
saved, dwelling within a few miles of the son whom he had deserted,
and yet utterly unable to rescue or even to communicate with him
because of the poltroonery of those among whom he had refuged."
"Well," grunted Higgs, "I have imagined all that high-faluting lot.
What of it? If you mean that you are to blame, I don't agree with you.
You wouldn't have helped your son by getting your own throat cut, and
perhaps his also."
"I don't know," I answered. "I have brooded over the thing so long
that it seems to me that I have disgraced myself. Well, there came a
chance, and I took it. This lady, Walda Nagasta, or Maqueda, who, I
think, had also brooded over things, made me an offer--I fancy without
the knowledge or consent of her Council. 'Help me,' she said, 'and I
will help you. Save my people, and I will try to save your son. I can
pay for your services and those of any whom you may bring with you.'
"I answered that it was hopeless, as no one would believe the tale,
whereon she drew from her finger the throne-ring or State signet which
you have in your pocket, Higgs, saying: 'My mothers have worn this
since the days of Maqueda, Queen of Sheba. If there are learned men
among your people they will read her name upon it and know that I
speak no lie. Take it as a token, and take also enough of our gold to
buy the stuffs whereof you speak, which hide fires that can throw
mountains skyward, and the services of skilled and trusty men who are
masters of the stuff, two or three of them only, for more cannot be
transported across the desert, and come back to save your son and me.'
That's all the story, Higgs. Will you take the business on, or shall I
try elsewhere? You must make up your mind, because I have no time to
lose, if I am to get into Mur again before the rains."
"Got any of that gold you spoke of about you?" asked the Professor.
I drew a skin bag from the pocket of my coat, and poured some out upon
the table, which he examined carefully.
"Ring money," he said presently, "might be Anglo-Saxon, might be
anything; date absolutely uncertain, but from its appearance I should
say slightly alloyed with silver; yes, there is a bit which has
oxydized--undoubtedly old, that."
Then he produced the signet from his pocket, and examined the ring and
the stone very carefully through a powerful glass.
"Seems all right," he said, "and although I have been greened in my
time, I don't make many mistakes nowadays. What do you say, Adams?
Must have it back? A sacred trust! Only lent to you! All right, take
it by all means. /I/ don't want the thing. Well, it is a risky job,
and if any one else had proposed it to me, I'd have told him to go to
--Mur. But, Adams, my boy, you saved my life once, and never sent in a
bill, because I was hard up, and I haven't forgotten that. Also things
are pretty hot for me here just now over a certain controversy of
which I suppose you haven't heard in Central Africa. I think I'll go.
What do you say, Oliver?"
"Oh!" said Captain Orme, waking up from a reverie, "if you are
satisfied, I am. It doesn't matter to me where I go."
