CHAPTER XV
GOOD FALLS SICK
After the fight was ended, Sir Henry and Good were carried into
Twala's hut, where I joined them. They were both utterly exhausted by
exertion and loss of blood, and, indeed, my own condition was little
better. I am very wiry, and can stand more fatigue than most men,
probably on account of my light weight and long training; but that
night I was quite done up, and, as is always the case with me when
exhausted, that old wound which the lion gave me began to pain. Also
my head was aching violently from the blow I had received in the
morning, when I was knocked senseless. Altogether, a more miserable
trio than we were that evening it would have been difficult to
discover; and our only comfort lay in the reflection that we were
exceedingly fortunate to be there to feel miserable, instead of being
stretched dead upon the plain, as so many thousands of brave men were
that night, who had risen well and strong in the morning.
Somehow, with the assistance of the beautiful Foulata, who, since we
had been the means of saving her life, had constituted herself our
handmaiden, and especially Good's, we managed to get off the chain
shirts, which had certainly saved the lives of two of us that day. As
I expected, we found that the flesh underneath was terribly contused,
for though the steel links had kept the weapons from entering, they
had not prevented them from bruising. Both Sir Henry and Good were a
mass of contusions, and I was by no means free. As a remedy Foulata
brought us some pounded green leaves, with an aromatic odour, which,
when applied as a plaster, gave us considerable relief.
But though the bruises were painful, they did not give us such anxiety
as Sir Henry's and Good's wounds. Good had a hole right through the
fleshy part of his "beautiful white leg," from which he had lost a
great deal of blood; and Sir Henry, with other hurts, had a deep cut
over the jaw, inflicted by Twala's battle-axe. Luckily Good is a very
decent surgeon, and so soon as his small box of medicines was
forthcoming, having thoroughly cleansed the wounds, he managed to
stitch up first Sir Henry's and then his own pretty satisfactorily,
considering the imperfect light given by the primitive Kukuana lamp in
the hut. Afterwards he plentifully smeared the injured places with
some antiseptic ointment, of which there was a pot in the little box,
and we covered them with the remains of a pocket-handkerchief which we
possessed.
Meanwhile Foulata had prepared us some strong broth, for we were too
weary to eat. This we swallowed, and then threw ourselves down on the
piles of magnificent karrosses, or fur rugs, which were scattered
about the dead king's great hut. By a very strange instance of the
irony of fate, it was on Twala's own couch, and wrapped in Twala's own
particular karross, that Sir Henry, the man who had slain him, slept
that night.
I say slept; but after that day's work, sleep was indeed difficult. To
begin with, in very truth the air was full
"Of farewells to the dying
And mournings for the dead."
From every direction came the sound of the wailing of women whose
husbands, sons, and brothers had perished in the battle. No wonder
that they wailed, for over twelve thousand men, or nearly a fifth of
the Kukuana army, had been destroyed in that awful struggle. It was
heart-rending to lie and listen to their cries for those who never
would return; and it made me understand the full horror of the work
done that day to further man's ambition. Towards midnight, however,
the ceaseless crying of the women grew less frequent, till at length
the silence was only broken at intervals of a few minutes by a long
piercing howl that came from a hut in our immediate rear, which, as I
afterwards discovered, proceeded from Gagool "keening" over the dead
king Twala.
After that I got a little fitful sleep, only to wake from time to time
with a start, thinking that I was once more an actor in the terrible
events of the last twenty-four hours. Now I seemed to see that warrior
whom my hand had sent to his last account charging at me on the
mountain-top; now I was once more in that glorious ring of Greys,
which made its immortal stand against all Twala's regiments upon the
little mound; and now again I saw Twala's plumed and gory head roll
past my feet with gnashing teeth and glaring eye.
At last, somehow or other, the night passed away; but when dawn broke
I found that my companions had slept no better than myself. Good,
indeed, was in a high fever, and very soon afterwards began to grow
light-headed, and also, to my alarm, to spit blood, the result, no
doubt, of some internal injury, inflicted during the desperate efforts
made by the Kukuana warrior on the previous day to force his big spear
through the chain armour. Sir Henry, however, seemed pretty fresh,
notwithstanding his wound on the face, which made eating difficult and
laughter an impossibility, though he was so sore and stiff that he
could scarcely stir.
About eight o'clock we had a visit from Infadoos, who appeared but
little the worse--tough old warrior that he was--for his exertions in
the battle, although he informed us that he had been up all night. He
was delighted to see us, but much grieved at Good's condition, and
shook our hands cordially. I noticed, however, that he addressed Sir
Henry with a kind of reverence, as though he were something more than
man; and, indeed, as we afterwards found out, the great Englishman was
looked on throughout Kukuanaland as a supernatural being. No man, the
soldiers said, could have fought as he fought or, at the end of a day
of such toil and bloodshed, could have slain Twala, who, in addition
to being the king, was supposed to be the strongest warrior in the
country, in single combat, shearing through his bull-neck at a stroke.
Indeed, that stroke became proverbial in Kukuanaland, and any
extraordinary blow or feat of strength was henceforth known as
"Incubu's blow."
Infadoos told us also that all Twala's regiments had submitted to
Ignosi, and that like submissions were beginning to arrive from chiefs
in the outlying country. Twala's death at the hands of Sir Henry had
put an end to all further chance of disturbance; for Scragga had been
his only legitimate son, so there was no rival claimant to the throne
left alive.
I remarked that Ignosi had swum to power through blood. The old chief
shrugged his shoulders. "Yes," he answered; "but the Kukuana people
can only be kept cool by letting their blood flow sometimes. Many are
killed, indeed, but the women are left, and others must soon grow up
to take the places of the fallen. After this the land would be quiet
for a while."
Afterwards, in the course of the morning, we had a short visit from
Ignosi, on whose brows the royal diadem was now bound. As I
contemplated him advancing with kingly dignity, an obsequious guard
following his steps, I could not help recalling to my mind the tall
Zulu who had presented himself to us at Durban some few months back,
asking to be taken into our service, and reflecting on the strange
revolutions of the wheel of fortune.
"Hail, O king!" I said, rising.
"Yes, Macumazahn. King at last, by the might of your three right
hands," was the ready answer.
All was, he said, going well; and he hoped to arrange a great feast in
two weeks' time in order to show himself to the people.
I asked him what he had settled to do with Gagool.
"She is the evil genius of the land," he answered, "and I shall kill
her, and all the witch doctors with her! She has lived so long that
none can remember when she was not very old, and she it is who has
always trained the witch-hunters, and made the land wicked in the
sight of the heavens above."
"Yet she knows much," I replied; "it is easier to destroy knowledge,
Ignosi, than to gather it."
"That is so," he said thoughtfully. "She, and she only, knows the
secret of the 'Three Witches,' yonder, whither the great road runs,
where the kings are buried, and the Silent Ones sit."
"Yes, and the diamonds are. Forget not thy promise, Ignosi; thou must
lead us to the mines, even if thou hast to spare Gagool alive to show
the way."
"I will not forget, Macumazahn, and I will think on what thou sayest."
After Ignosi's visit I went to see Good, and found him quite
delirious. The fever set up by his wound seemed to have taken a firm
hold of his system, and to be complicated with an internal injury. For
four or five days his condition was most critical; indeed, I believe
firmly that had it not been for Foulata's indefatigable nursing he
must have died.
Women are women, all the world over, whatever their colour. Yet
somehow it seemed curious to watch this dusky beauty bending night and
day over the fevered man's couch, and performing all the merciful
errands of a sick-room swiftly, gently, and with as fine an instinct
as that of a trained hospital nurse. For the first night or two I
tried to help her, and so did Sir Henry as soon as his stiffness
allowed him to move, but Foulata bore our interference with
impatience, and finally insisted upon our leaving him to her, saying
that our movements made him restless, which I think was true. Day and
night she watched him and tended him, giving him his only medicine, a
native cooling drink made of milk, in which was infused juice from the
bulb of a species of tulip, and keeping the flies from settling on
him. I can see the whole picture now as it appeared night after night
by the light of our primitive lamp; Good tossing to and fro, his
features emaciated, his eyes shining large and luminous, and jabbering
nonsense by the yard; and seated on the ground by his side, her back
resting against the wall of the hut, the soft-eyed, shapely Kukuana
beauty, her face, weary as it was with her long vigil, animated by a
look of infinite compassion--or was it something more than compassion?
For two days we thought that he must die, and crept about with heavy
hearts.
Only Foulata would not believe it.
"He will live," she said.
For three hundred yards or more around Twala's chief hut, where the
sufferer lay, there was silence; for by the king's order all who lived
in the habitations behind it, except Sir Henry and myself, had been
removed, lest any noise should come to the sick man's ears. One night,
it was the fifth of Good's illness, as was my habit, I went across to
see how he was doing before turning in for a few hours.
I entered the hut carefully. The lamp placed upon the floor showed the
figure of Good tossing no more, but lying quite still.
So it had come at last! In the bitterness of my heart I gave something
like a sob.
"Hush--h--h!" came from the patch of dark shadow behind Good's head.
Then, creeping closer, I saw that he was not dead, but sleeping
soundly, with Foulata's taper fingers clasped tightly in his poor
white hand. The crisis had passed, and he would live. He slept like
that for eighteen hors; and I scarcely like to say it, for fear I
should not be believed, but during the entire period did this devoted
girl sit by him, fearing that if she moved and drew away her hand it
would wake him. What she must have suffered from cramp and weariness,
to say nothing of want of food, nobody will ever know; but it is the
fact that, when at last he woke, she had to be carried away--her limbs
were so stiff that she could not move them.
After the turn had once been taken, Good's recovery was rapid and
complete. It was not till he was nearly well that Sir Henry told him
of all he owed to Foulata; and when he came to the story of how she
sat by his side for eighteen hours, fearing lest by moving she should
wake him, the honest sailor's eyes filled with tears. He turned and
went straight to the hut where Foulata was preparing the mid-day meal,
for we were back in our old quarters now, taking me with him to
interpret in case he could not make his meaning clear to her, though I
am bound to say that she understood him marvellously as a rule,
considering how extremely limited was his foreign vocabulary.
"Tell her," said Good, "that I owe her my life, and that I will never
forget her kindness to my dying day."
I interpreted, and under her dark skin she actually seemed to blush.
Turning to him with one of those swift and graceful motions that in
her always reminded me of the flight of a wild bird, Foulata answered
softly, glancing at him with her large brown eyes--
"Nay, my lord; my lord forgets! Did he not save /my/ life, and am I
not my lord's handmaiden?"
It will be observed that the young lady appeared entirely to have
forgotten the share which Sir Henry and myself had taken in her
preservation from Twala's clutches. But that is the way of women! I
remember my dear wife was just the same. Well, I retired from that
little interview sad at heart. I did not like Miss Foulata's soft
glances, for I knew the fatal amorous propensities of sailors in
general, and of Good in particular.
There are two things in the world, as I have found out, which cannot
be prevented: you cannot keep a Zulu from fighting, or a sailor from
falling in love upon the slightest provocation!
It was a few days after this last occurrence that Ignosi held his
great "indaba," or council, and was formally recognised as king by the
"indunas," or head men, of Kukuanaland. The spectacle was a most
imposing one, including as it did a grand review of troops. On this
day the remaining fragments of the Greys were formally paraded, and in
the face of the army thanked for their splendid conduct in the battle.
To each man the king made a large present of cattle, promoting them
one and all to the rank of officers in the new corps of Greys which
was in process of formation. An order was also promulgated throughout
the length and breadth of Kukuanaland that, whilst we honoured the
country by our presence, we three were to be greeted with the royal
salute, and to be treated with the same ceremony and respect that was
by custom accorded to the king. Also the power of life and death was
publicly conferred upon us. Ignosi, too, in the presence of his
people, reaffirmed the promises which he had made, to the effect that
no man's blood should be shed without trial, and that witch-hunting
should cease in the land.
When the ceremony was over we waited upon Ignosi, and informed him
that we were now anxious to investigate the mystery of the mines to
which Solomon's Road ran, asking him if he had discovered anything
about them.
"My friends," he answered, "I have discovered this. It is there that
the three great figures sit, who here are called the 'Silent Ones,'
and to whom Twala would have offered the girl Foulata as a sacrifice.
It is there, too, in a great cave deep in the mountain, that the kings
of the land are buried; there ye shall find Twala's body, sitting with
those who went before him. There, also, is a deep pit, which, at some
time, long-dead men dug out, mayhap for the stones ye speak of, such
as I have heard men in Natal tell of at Kimberley. There, too, in the
Place of Death is a secret chamber, known to none but the king and
Gagool. But Twala, who knew it, is dead, and I know it not, nor know I
what is in it. Yet there is a legend in the land that once, many
generations gone, a white man crossed the mountains, and was led by a
woman to the secret chamber and shown the wealth hidden in it. But
before he could take it she betrayed him, and he was driven by the
king of that day back to the mountains, and since then no man has
entered the place."
"The story is surely true, Ignosi, for on the mountains we found the
white man," I said.
"Yes, we found him. And now I have promised you that if ye can come to
that chamber, and the stones are there--"
"The gem upon thy forehead proves that they are there," I put in,
pointing to the great diamond I had taken from Twala's dead brows.
"Mayhap; if they are there," he said, "ye shall have as many as ye can
take hence--if indeed ye would leave me, my brothers."
"First we must find the chamber," said I.
"There is but one who can show it to thee--Gagool."
"And if she will not?"
"Then she must die," said Ignosi sternly. "I have saved her alive but
for this. Stay, she shall choose," and calling to a messenger he
ordered Gagool to be brought before him.
In a few minutes she came, hurried along by two guards, whom she was
cursing as she walked.
"Leave her," said the king to the guards.
So soon as their support was withdrawn, the withered old bundle--for
she looked more like a bundle than anything else, out of which her two
bright and wicked eyes gleamed like those of a snake--sank in a heap
on to the floor.
"What will ye with me, Ignosi?" she piped. "Ye dare not touch me. If
ye touch me I will slay you as ye sit. Beware of my magic."
"Thy magic could not save Twala, old she-wolf, and it cannot hurt me,"
was the answer. "Listen; I will this of thee, that thou reveal to us
the chamber where are the shining stones."
"Ha! ha!" she piped, "none know its secret but I, and I will never
tell thee. The white devils shall go hence empty-handed."
"Thou shalt tell me. I will make thee tell me."
"How, O king? Thou art great, but can thy power wring the truth from a
woman?"
"It is difficult, yet will I do so."
"How, O king?"
"Nay, thus; if thou tellest not thou shalt slowly die."
"Die!" she shrieked in terror and fury; "ye dare not touch me--man, ye
know not who I am. How old think ye am I? I knew your fathers, and
your fathers' fathers' fathers. When the country was young I was here;
when the country grows old I shall still be here. I cannot die unless
I be killed by chance, for none dare slay me."
"Yet will I slay thee. See, Gagool, mother of evil, thou art so old
that thou canst no longer love thy life. What can life be to such a
hag as thou, who hast no shape, nor form, nor hair, nor teeth--hast
naught, save wickedness and evil eyes? It will be mercy to make an end
of thee, Gagool."
"Thou fool," shrieked the old fiend, "thou accursed fool, deemest thou
that life is sweet only to the young? It is not so, and naught thou
knowest of the heart of man to think it. To the young, indeed, death
is sometimes welcome, for the young can feel. They love and suffer,
and it wrings them to see their beloved pass to the land of shadows.
But the old feel not, they love not, and, /ha! ha!/ they laugh to see
another go out into the dark; /ha! ha!/ they laugh to see the evil
that is done under the stars. All they love is life, the warm, warm
sun, and the sweet, sweet air. They are afraid of the cold, afraid of
the cold and the dark, /ha! ha! ha!/" and the old hag writhed in
ghastly merriment on the ground.
"Cease thine evil talk and answer me," said Ignosi angrily. "Wilt thou
show the place where the stones are, or wilt thou not? If thou wilt
not thou diest, even now," and he seized a spear and held it over her.
"I will not show it; thou darest not kill me, darest not! He who slays
me will be accursed for ever."
Slowly Ignosi brought down the spear till it pricked the prostrate
heap of rags.
With a wild yell Gagool sprang to her feet, then fell again and rolled
upon the floor.
"Nay, I will show thee. Only let me live, let me sit in the sun and
have a bit of meat to suck, and I will show thee."
"It is well. I thought that I should find a way to reason with thee.
To-morrow shalt thou go with Infadoos and my white brothers to the
place, and beware how thou failest, for if thou showest it not, then
thou shalt slowly die. I have spoken."
"I will not fail, Ignosi. I always keep my word--/ha! ha! ha!/ Once
before a woman showed the chamber to a white man, and behold! evil
befell him," and here her wicked eyes glinted. "Her name was Gagool
also. Perchance I was that woman."
"Thou liest," I said, "that was ten generations gone."
"Mayhap, mayhap; when one lives long one forgets. Perhaps it was my
mother's mother who told me; surely her name was Gagool also. But
mark, ye will find in the place where the bright things are a bag of
hide full of stones. The man filled that bag, but he never took it
away. Evil befell him, I say, evil befell him! Perhaps it was my
mother's mother who told me. It will be a merry journey--we can see
the bodies of those who died in the battle as we go. Their eyes will
be gone by now, and their ribs will be hollow. /Ha! ha! ha!/"
