INTRODUCTION
December 23
'I have just buried my boy, my poor handsome boy of whom I was
so proud, and my heart is broken. It is very hard having only
one son to lose him thus, but God's will be done. Who am I that
I should complain? The great wheel of Fate rolls on like a Juggernaut,
and crushes us all in turn, some soon, some late -- it does not
matter when, in the end, it crushes us all. We do not prostrate
ourselves before it like the poor Indians; we fly hither and
thither -- we cry for mercy; but it is of no use, the black Fate
thunders on and in its season reduces us to powder.
'Poor Harry to go so soon! just when his life was opening to
him. He was doing so well at the hospital, he had passed his
last examination with honours, and I was proud of them, much
prouder than he was, I think. And then he must needs go to that
smallpox hospital. He wrote to me that he was not afraid of
smallpox and wanted to gain the experience; and now the disease
has killed him, and I, old and grey and withered, am left to
mourn over him, without a chick or child to comfort me. I might
have saved him, too -- I have money enough for both of us, and
much more than enough -- King Solomon's Mines provided me with
that; but I said, "No, let the boy earn his living, let him labour
that he may enjoy rest." But the rest has come to him before
the labour. Oh, my boy, my boy!
'I am like the man in the Bible who laid up much goods and builded
barns -- goods for my boy and barns for him to store them in;
and now his soul has been required of him, and I am left desolate.
I would that it had been my soul and not my boy's!
'We buried him this afternoon under the shadow of the grey and
ancient tower of the church of this village where my house is.
It was a dreary December afternoon, and the sky was heavy with
snow, but not much was falling. The coffin was put down by the
grave, and a few big flakes lit upon it. They looked very white
upon the black cloth! There was a little hitch about getting
the coffin down into the grave -- the necessary ropes had been
forgotten: so we drew back from it, and waited in silence watching
the big flakes fall gently one by one like heavenly benedictions,
and melt in tears on Harry's pall. But that was not all. A
robin redbreast came as bold as could be and lit upon the coffin
and began to sing. And then I am afraid that I broke down, and
so did Sir Henry Curtis, strong man though he is; and as for
Captain Good, I saw him turn away too; even in my own distress
I could not help noticing it.'
The above, signed 'Allan Quatermain', is an extract from my diary
written two years and more ago. I copy it down here because
it seems to me that it is the fittest beginning to the history
that I am about to write, if it please God to spare me to finish
it. If not, well it does not matter. That extract was penned
seven thousand miles or so from the spot where I now lie painfully
and slowly writing this, with a pretty girl standing by my side
fanning the flies from my august countenance. Harry is there
and I am here, and yet somehow I cannot help feeling that I am
not far off Harry.
When I was in England I used to live in a very fine house --
at least I call it a fine house, speaking comparatively, and
judging from the standard of the houses I have been accustomed
to all my life in Africa -- not five hundred yards from the old
church where Harry is asleep, and thither I went after the funeral
and ate some food; for it is no good starving even if one has
just buried all one's earthly hopes. But I could not eat much,
and soon I took to walking, or rather limping -- being permanently
lame from the bite of a lion -- up and down, up and down the
oak-panelled vestibule; for there is a vestibule in my house
in England. On all the four walls of this vestibule were placed
pairs of horns -- about a hundred pairs altogether, all of which
I had shot myself. They are beautiful specimens, as I never
keep any horns which are not in every way perfect, unless it
may be now and again on account of the associations connected
with them. In the centre of the room, however, over the wide
fireplace, there was a clear space left on which I had fixed
up all my rifles. Some of them I have had for forty years, old
muzzle-loaders that nobody would look at nowadays. One was an
elephant gun with strips of rimpi, or green hide, lashed round
the stock and locks, such as used to be owned by the Dutchmen
-- a 'roer' they call it. That gun, the Boer I bought it from
many years ago told me, had been used by his father at the battle
of the Blood River, just after Dingaan swept into Natal and slaughtered
six hundred men, women, and children, so that the Boers named
the place where they died 'Weenen', or the 'Place of Weeping';
and so it is called to this day, and always will be called.
And many an elephant have I shot with that old gun. She always
took a handful of black powder and a three-ounce ball, and kicked
like the very deuce.
Well, up and down I walked, staring at the guns and the horns
which the guns had brought low; and as I did so there rose up
in me a great craving: -- I would go away from this place where
I lived idly and at ease, back again to the wild land where I
had spent my life, where I met my dear wife and poor Harry was
born, and so many things, good, bad, and indifferent, had happened
to me. The thirst for the wilderness was on me; I could tolerate
this place no more; I would go and die as I had lived, among
the wild game and the savages. Yes, as I walked, I began to
long to see the moonlight gleaming silvery white over the wide
veldt and mysterious sea of bush, and watch the lines of game
travelling down the ridges to the water. The ruling passion
is strong in death, they say, and my heart was dead that night.
But, independently of my trouble, no man who has for forty years
lived the life I have, can with impunity go coop himself in this
prim English country, with its trim hedgerows and cultivated
fields, its stiff formal manners, and its well-dressed crowds.
He begins to long -- ah, how he longs! -- for the keen breath
of the desert air; he dreams of the sight of Zulu impis breaking
on their foes like surf upon the rocks, and his heart rises up
in rebellion against the strict limits of the civilized life.
Ah! this civilization, what does it all come to? For forty years
and more I lived among savages, and studied them and their ways;
and now for several years I have lived here in England, and have
in my own stupid manner done my best to learn the ways of the
children of light; and what have I found? A great gulf fixed?
No, only a very little one, that a plain man's thought may spring
across. I say that as the savage is, so is the white man, only
the latter is more inventive, and possesses the faculty of combination;
save and except also that the savage, as I have known him, is
to a large extent free from the greed of money, which eats like
a cancer into the heart of the white man. It is a depressing
conclusion, but in all essentials the savage and the child of
civilization are identical. I dare say that the highly civilized
lady reading this will smile at an old fool of a hunter's simplicity
when she thinks of her black bead-bedecked sister; and so will
the superfine cultured idler scientifically eating a dinner at
his club, the cost of which would keep a starving family for
a week. And yet, my dear young lady, what are those pretty things
round your own neck? -- they have a strong family resemblance,
especially when you wear that very low dress, to the savage woman's
beads. Your habit of turning round and round to the sound of
horns and tom-toms, your fondness for pigments and powders, the
way in which you love to subjugate yourself to the rich warrior
who has captured you in marriage, and the quickness with which
your taste in feathered head-dresses varies -- all these things
suggest touches of kinship; and you remember that in the fundamental
principles of your nature you are quite identical. As for you,
sir, who also laugh, let some man come and strike you in the
face whilst you are enjoying that marvellous-looking dish, and
we shall soon see how much of the savage there is in you.
There, I might go on for ever, but what is the good? Civilization
is only savagery silver-gilt. A vainglory is it, and like a
northern light, comes but to fade and leave the sky more dark.
Out of the soil of barbarism it has grown like a tree, and,
as I believe, into the soil like a tree it will once more, sooner
or later, fall again, as the Egyptian civilization fell, as the
Hellenic civilization fell, and as the Roman civilization and
many others of which the world has now lost count, fell also.
Do not let me, however, be understood as decrying our modern
institutions, representing as they do the gathered experience
of humanity applied for the good of all. Of course they have
great advantages -- hospitals for instance; but then, remember,
we breed the sickly people who fill them. In a savage land they
do not exist. Besides, the question will arise: How many of
these blessings are due to Christianity as distinct from civilization?
And so the balance sways and the story runs -- here a gain,
there a loss, and Nature's great average struck across the two,
whereof the sum total forms one of the factors in that mighty
equation in which the result will equal the unknown quantity
of her purpose.
I make no apology for this digression, especially as this is
an introduction which all young people and those who never like
to think (and it is a bad habit) will naturally skip. It seems
to me very desirable that we should sometimes try to understand
the limitations of our nature, so that we may not be carried
away by the pride of knowledge. Man's cleverness is almost indefinite,
and stretches like an elastic band, but human nature is like
an iron ring. You can go round and round it, you can polish
it highly, you can even flatten it a little on one side, whereby
you will make it bulge out the other, but you will never, while
the world endures and man is man, increase its total circumference.
It is the one fixed unchangeable thing -- fixed as the stars,
more enduring than the mountains, as unalterable as the way of
the Eternal. Human nature is God's kaleidoscope, and the little
bits of coloured glass which represent our passions, hopes, fears,
joys, aspirations towards good and evil and what not, are turned
in His mighty hand as surely and as certainly as it turns the
stars, and continually fall into new patterns and combinations.
But the composing elements remain the same, nor will there be
one more bit of coloured glass nor one less for ever and ever.
This being so, supposing for the sake of argument we divide ourselves
into twenty parts, nineteen savage and one civilized, we must
look to the nineteen savage portions of our nature, if we would
really understand ourselves, and not to the twentieth, which,
though so insignificant in reality, is spread all over the other
nineteen, making them appear quite different from what they really
are, as the blacking does a boot, or the veneer a table. It
is on the nineteen rough serviceable savage portions that we
fall back on emergencies, not on the polished but unsubstantial
twentieth. Civilization should wipe away our tears, and yet
we weep and cannot be comforted. Warfare is abhorrent to her,
and yet we strike out for hearth and home, for honour and fair
fame, and can glory in the blow. And so on, through everything.
So, when the heart is stricken, and the head is humbled in the
dust, civilization fails us utterly. Back, back, we creep, and
lay us like little children on the great breast of Nature, she
that perchance may soothe us and make us forget, or at least
rid remembrance of its sting. Who has not in his great grief
felt a longing to look upon the outward features of the universal
Mother; to lie on the mountains and watch the clouds drive across
the sky and hear the rollers break in thunder on the shore, to
let his poor struggling life mingle for a while in her life;
to feel the slow beat of her eternal heart, and to forget his
woes, and let his identity be swallowed in the vast imperceptibly
moving energy of her of whom we are, from whom we came, and with
whom we shall again be mingled, who gave us birth, and will in
a day to come give us our burial also.
And so in my trouble, as I walked up and down the oak-panelled
vestibule of my house there in Yorkshire, I longed once more
to throw myself into the arms of Nature. Not the Nature which
you know, the Nature that waves in well-kept woods and smiles
out in corn-fields, but Nature as she was in the age when creation
was complete, undefiled as yet by any human sinks of sweltering
humanity. I would go again where the wild game was, back to
the land whereof none know the history, back to the savages,
whom I love, although some of them are almost as merciless as
Political Economy. There, perhaps, I should be able to learn
to think of poor Harry lying in the churchyard, without feeling
as though my heart would break in two.
And now there is an end of this egotistical talk, and there shall
be no more of it. But if you whose eyes may perchance one day
fall upon my written thoughts have got so far as this, I ask
you to persevere, since what I have to tell you is not without
its interest, and it has never been told before, nor will again.
CHAPTER I
THE CONSUL'S YARN
A week had passed since the funeral of my poor boy Harry, and
one evening I was in my room walking up and down and thinking,
when there was a ring at the outer door. Going down the steps
I opened it myself, and in came my old friends Sir Henry Curtis
and Captain John Good, RN. They entered the vestibule and sat
themselves down before the wide hearth, where, I remember, a
particularly good fire of logs was burning.
'It is very kind of you to come round,' I said by way of making
a remark; 'it must have been heavy walking in the snow.'
They said nothing, but Sir Henry slowly filled his pipe and lit
it with a burning ember. As he leant forward to do so the fire
got hold of a gassy bit of pine and flared up brightly, throwing
the whole scene into strong relief, and I thought, What a splendid-looking
man he is! Calm, powerful face, clear-cut features, large grey
eyes, yellow beard and hair -- altogether a magnificent specimen
of the higher type of humanity. Nor did his form belie his face.
I have never seen wider shoulders or a deeper chest. Indeed,
Sir Henry's girth is so great that, though he is six feet two
high, he does not strike one as a tall man. As I looked at him
I could not help thinking what a curious contrast my little dried-up
self presented to his grand face and form. Imagine to yourself
a small, withered, yellow-faced man of sixty-three, with thin
hands, large brown eyes, a head of grizzled hair cut short and
standing up like a half-worn scrubbing-brush -- total weight
in my clothes, nine stone six -- and you will get a very fair
idea of Allan Quatermain, commonly called Hunter Quatermain,
or by the natives 'Macumazahn' -- Anglic/CHAR: e grave/, he who
keeps a bright look-out at night, or, in vulgar English, a sharp
fellow who is not to be taken in.
Then there was Good, who is not like either of us, being short,
dark, stout -- very stout -- with twinkling black eyes, in one
of which an eyeglass is everlastingly fixed. I say stout, but
it is a mild term; I regret to state that of late years Good
has been running to fat in a most disgraceful way. Sir Henry
tells him that it comes from idleness and over-feeding, and
Good does not like it at all, though he cannot deny it.
We sat for a while, and then I got a match and lit the lamp that
stood ready on the table, for the half-light began to grow dreary,
as it is apt to do when one has a short week ago buried the hope
of one's life. Next, I opened a cupboard in the wainscoting
and got a bottle of whisky and some tumblers and water. I always
like to do these things for myself: it is irritating to me to
have somebody continually at my elbow, as though I were an
eighteen-month-old baby. All this while Curtis and Good had
been silent, feeling, I suppose, that they had nothing to say
that could do me any good, and content to give me the comfort
of their presence and unspoken sympathy; for it was only their
second visit since the funeral. And it is, by the way, from
the presence of others that we really derive support in our dark
hours of grief, and not from their talk, which often only serves
to irritate us. Before a bad storm the game always herd together,
but they cease their calling.
They sat and smoked and drank whisky and water, and I stood by
the fire also smoking and looking at them.
At last I spoke. 'Old friends,' I said, 'how long is it since
we got back from Kukuanaland?'
'Three years,' said Good. 'Why do you ask?'
'I ask because I think that I have had a long enough spell of
civilization. I am going back to the veldt.'
Sir Henry laid his head back in his arm-chair and laughed one
of his deep laughs. 'How very odd,' he said, 'eh, Good?'
Good beamed at me mysteriously through his eyeglass and murmured,
'Yes, odd -- very odd.'
'I don't quite understand,' said I, looking from one to the other,
for I dislike mysteries.
'Don't you, old fellow?' said Sir Henry; 'then I will explain.
As Good and I were walking up here we had a talk.'
'If Good was there you probably did,' I put in sarcastically,
for Good is a great hand at talking. 'And what may it have been about?'
'What do you think?' asked Sir Henry.
I shook my head. It was not likely that I should know what Good
might be talking about. He talks about so many things.
'Well, it was about a little plan that I have formed -- namely,
that if you were willing we should pack up our traps and go off
to Africa on another expedition.'
I fairly jumped at his words. 'You don't say so!' I said.
'Yes I do, though, and so does Good; don't you, Good?'
'Rather,' said that gentleman.
'Listen, old fellow,' went on Sir Henry, with considerable animation
of manner. 'I'm tired of it too, dead-tired of doing nothing
more except play the squire in a country that is sick of squires.
For a year or more I have been getting as restless as an old
elephant who scents danger. I am always dreaming of Kukuanaland
and Gagool and King Solomon's Mines. I can assure you I have
become the victim of an almost unaccountable craving. I am sick
of shooting pheasants and partridges, and want to have a go at
some large game again. There, you know the feeling -- when one
has once tasted brandy and water, milk becomes insipid to the
palate. That year we spent together up in Kukuanaland seems
to me worth all the other years of my life put together. I dare
say that I am a fool for my pains, but I can't help it; I long
to go, and, what is more, I mean to go.' He paused, and then
went on again. 'And, after all, why should I not go? I have
no wife or parent, no chick or child to keep me. If anything
happens to me the baronetcy will go to my brother George and
his boy, as it would ultimately do in any case. I am of no importance
to any one.'
'Ah!' I said, 'I thought you would come to that sooner or later.
And now, Good, what is your reason for wanting to trek; have
you got one?'
'I have,' said Good, solemnly. 'I never do anything without
a reason; and it isn't a lady -- at least, if it is, it's several.'
I looked at him again. Good is so overpoweringly frivolous.
'What is it?' I said.
'Well, if you really want to know, though I'd rather not speak
of a delicate and strictly personal matter, I'll tell you: I'm
getting too fat.'
'Shut up, Good!' said Sir Henry. 'And now, Quatermain, tell
us, where do you propose going to?'
I lit my pipe, which had gone out, before answering.
'Have you people ever heard of Mt Kenia?' I asked.
'Don't know the place,' said Good.
'Did you ever hear of the Island of Lamu?' I asked again.
'No. Stop, though -- isn't it a place about 300 miles north of Zanzibar?'
'Yes. Now listen. What I have to propose is this. That we
go to Lamu and thence make our way about 250 miles inland to
Mt Kenia; from Mt Kenia on inland to Mt Lekakisera, another 200
miles, or thereabouts, beyond which no white man has to the best
of my belief ever been; and then, if we get so far, right on
into the unknown interior. What do you say to that, my hearties?'
'It's a big order,' said Sir Henry, reflectively.
'You are right,' I answered, 'it is; but I take it that we are
all three of us in search of a big order. We want a change of
scene, and we are likely to get one -- a thorough change. All
my life I have longed to visit those parts, and I mean to do
it before I die. My poor boy's death has broken the last link
between me and civilization, and I'm off to my native wilds.
And now I'll tell you another thing, and that is, that for years
and years I have heard rumours of a great white race which is
supposed to have its home somewhere up in this direction, and
I have a mind to see if there is any truth in them. If you fellows
like to come, well and good; if not, I'll go alone.'
'I'm your man, though I don't believe in your white race,' said
Sir Henry Curtis, rising and placing his arm upon my shoulder.
'Ditto,' remarked Good. 'I'll go into training at once. By
all means let's go to Mt Kenia and the other place with an
unpronounceable name, and look for a white race that does not exist.
It's all one to me.'
'When do you propose to start?' asked Sir Henry.
'This day month,' I answered, 'by the British India steamboat;
and don't you be so certain that things have no existence because
you do not happen to have heard of them. Remember King Solomon's mines!'
Some fourteen weeks or so had passed since the date of this conversation,
and this history goes on its way in very different surroundings.
After much deliberation and inquiry we came to the conclusion
that our best starting-point for Mt Kenia would be from the neighbourhood
of the mouth of the Tana River, and not from Mombassa, a place
over 100 miles nearer Zanzibar. This conclusion we arrived at
from information given to us by a German trader whom we met upon
the steamer at Aden. I think that he was the dirtiest German
I ever knew; but he was a good fellow, and gave us a great deal
of valuable information. 'Lamu,' said he, 'you goes to Lamu
-- oh ze beautiful place!' and he turned up his fat face and
beamed with mild rapture. 'One year and a half I live there
and never change my shirt -- never at all.'
And so it came to pass that on arriving at the island we disembarked
with all our goods and chattels, and, not knowing where to go,
marched boldly up to the house of Her Majesty's Consul, where
we were most hospitably received.
Lamu is a very curious place, but the things which stand out
most clearly in my memory in connection with it are its exceeding
dirtiness and its smells. These last are simply awful. Just
below the Consulate is the beach, or rather a mud bank that is
called a beach. It is left quite bare at low tide, and serves
as a repository for all the filth, offal, and refuse of the town.
Here it is, too, that the women come to bury coconuts in the
mud, leaving them there till the outer husk is quite rotten,
when they dig them up again and use the fibres to make mats with,
and for various other purposes. As this process has been going
on for generations, the condition of the shore can be better
imagined than described. I have smelt many evil odours in the
course of my life, but the concentrated essence of stench which
arose from that beach at Lamu as we sat in the moonlit night
-- not under, but on our friend the Consul's hospitable roof
-- and sniffed it, makes the remembrance of them very poor and
faint. No wonder people get fever at Lamu. And yet the place
was not without a certain quaintness and charm of its own, though
possibly -- indeed probably -- it was one which would quickly
pall.
'Well, where are you gentlemen steering for?' asked our friend
the hospitable Consul, as we smoked our pipes after dinner.
'We propose to go to Mt Kenia and then on to Mt Lekakisera,'
answered Sir Henry. 'Quatermain has got hold of some yarn about
there being a white race up in the unknown territories beyond.'
The Consul looked interested, and answered that he had heard
something of that, too.
'What have you heard?' I asked.
'Oh, not much. All I know about it is that a year or so ago
I got a letter from Mackenzie, the Scotch missionary, whose station,
"The Highlands", is placed at the highest navigable point of
the Tana River, in which he said something about it.'
'Have you the letter?' I asked.
'No, I destroyed it; but I remember that he said that a man had
arrived at his station who declared that two months' journey
beyond Mt Lekakisera, which no white man has yet visited -- at
least, so far as I know -- he found a lake called Laga, and that
then he went off to the north-east, a month's journey, over desert
and thorn veldt and great mountains, till he came to a country
where the people are white and live in stone houses. Here he
was hospitably entertained for a while, till at last the priests
of the country set it about that he was a devil, and the people
drove him away, and he journeyed for eight months and reached
Mackenzie's place, as I heard, dying. That's all I know; and
if you ask me, I believe that it is a lie; but if you want to
find out more about it, you had better go up the Tana to Mackenzie's
place and ask him for information.'
Sir Henry and I looked at each other. Here was something tangible.
'I think that we will go to Mr Mackenzie's,' I said.
'Well,' answered the Consul, 'that is your best way, but I warn
you that you are likely to have a rough journey, for I hear that
the Masai are about, and, as you know, they are not pleasant
customers. Your best plan will be to choose a few picked men
for personal servants and hunters, and to hire bearers from village
to village. It will give you an infinity of trouble, but perhaps
on the whole it will prove a cheaper and more advantageous course
than engaging a caravan, and you will be less liable to desertion.'
Fortunately there were at Lamu at this time a part of Wakwafi
Askari (soldiers). The Wakwafi, who are a cross between the
Masai and the Wataveta, are a fine manly race, possessing many
of the good qualities of the Zulu, and a great capacity for civilization.
They are also great hunters. As it happened, these particular
men had recently been on a long trip with an Englishman named
Jutson, who had started from Mombasa, a port about 150 miles
below Lamu, and journeyed right rough Kilimanjaro, one of the
highest known mountains in Africa. Poor fellow, he had died
of fever when on his return journey, and within a day's march
of Mombasa. It does seem hard that he should have gone off thus
when within a few hours of safety, and after having survived
so many perils, but so it was. His hunters buried him, and then
came on to Lamu in a dhow. Our friend the Consul suggested to
us that we had better try and hire these men, and accordingly
on the following morning we started to interview the party,
accompanied by an interpreter.
In due course we found them in a mud hut on the outskirts of
the town. Three of the men were sitting outside the hut, and
fine frank-looking fellows they were, having a more or less civilized
appearance. To them we cautiously opened the object of our visit,
at first with very scant success. They declared that they could
not entertain any such idea, that they were worn and weary with
long travelling, and that their hearts were sore at the loss
of their master. They meant to go back to their homes and rest
awhile. This did not sound very promising, so by way of effecting
a diversion I asked where the remainder of them were. I was
told there were six, and I saw but three. One of the men said
they slept in the hut, and were yet resting after their labours
-- 'sleep weighed down their eyelids, and sorrow made their hearts
as lead: it was best to sleep, for with sleep came forgetfulness.
But the men should be awakened.'
Presently they came out of the hut, yawning -- the first two
men being evidently of the same race and style as those already
before us; but the appearance of the third and last nearly made
me jump out of my skin. He was a very tall, broad man, quite
six foot three, I should say, but gaunt, with lean, wiry-looking
limbs. My first glance at him told me that he was no Wakwafi:
he was a pure bred Zulu. He came out with his thin aristocratic-looking
hand placed before his face to hide a yawn, so I could only see
that he was a 'Keshla' or ringed man {Endnote 1}, and that he
had a great three-cornered hole in his forehead. In another
second he removed his hand, revealing a powerful-looking Zulu
face, with a humorous mouth, a short woolly beard, tinged with
grey, and a pair of brown eyes keen as a hawk's. I knew my man
at once, although I had not seen him for twelve years. 'How
do you do, Umslopogaas?' I said quietly in Zulu.
The tall man (who among his own people was commonly known as
the 'Woodpecker', and also as the 'Slaughterer') started, and
almost let the long-handled battleaxe he held in his hand fall
in his astonishment. Next second he had recognized me, and was
saluting me in an outburst of sonorous language which made his
companions the Wakwafi stare.
'Koos' (chief), he began, 'Koos-y-Pagete! Koos-y-umcool! (Chief
from of old -- mighty chief) Koos! Baba! (father) Macumazahn,
old hunter, slayer of elephants, eater up of lions, clever one!
watchful one! brave one! quick one! whose shot never misses,
who strikes straight home, who grasps a hand and holds it to
the death (i.e. is a true friend) Koos! Baba! Wise is the voice
of our people that says, "Mountain never meets with mountain,
but at daybreak or at even man shall meet again with man." Behold!
a messenger came up from Natal, "Macumazahn is dead!" cried he.
"The land knows Macumazahn no more." That is years ago. And
now, behold, now in this strange place of stinks I find Macumazahn,
my friend. There is no room for doubt. The brush of the old
jackal has gone a little grey; but is not his eye as keen, and
are not his teeth as sharp? Ha! ha! Macumazahn, mindest thou
how thou didst plant the ball in the eye of the charging buffalo
-- mindest thou --'
I had let him run on thus because I saw that his enthusiasm was
producing a marked effect upon the minds of the five Wakwafi,
who appeared to understand something of his talk; but now I thought
it time to put a stop to it, for there is nothing that I hate
so much as this Zulu system of extravagant praising -- 'bongering'
as they call it. 'Silence!' I said. 'Has all thy noisy talk
been stopped up since last I saw thee that it breaks out thus,
and sweeps us away? What doest thou here with these men -- thou
whom I left a chief in Zululand? How is it that thou art far
from thine own place, and gathered together with strangers?'
Umslopogaas leant himself upon the head of his long battleaxe
(which was nothing else but a pole-axe, with a beautiful handle
of rhinoceros horn), and his grim face grew sad.
'My Father,' he answered, 'I have a word to tell thee, but I
cannot speak it before these low people (umfagozana),' and he
glanced at the Wakwafi Askari; 'it is for thine own ear. My
Father, this will I say,' and here his face grew stern again,
'a woman betrayed me to the death, and covered my name with shame
-- ay, my own wife, a round-faced girl, betrayed me; but I escaped
from death; ay, I broke from the very hands of those who came
to slay me. I struck but three blows with this mine axe Inkosikaas
-- surely my Father will remember it -- one to the right, one
to the left, and one in front, and yet I left three men dead.
And then I fled, and, as my Father knows, even now that I am
old my feet are as the feet of the Sassaby {Endnote 2}, and there
breathes not the man who, by running, can touch me again when
once I have bounded from his side. On I sped, and after me came
the messengers of death, and their voice was as the voice of
dogs that hunt. From my own kraal I flew, and, as I passed,
she who had betrayed me was drawing water from the spring. I
fleeted by her like the shadow of Death, and as I went I smote
with mine axe, and lo! her head fell: it fell into the water
pan. Then I fled north. Day after day I journeyed on; for three
moons I journeyed, resting not, stopping not, but running on
towards forgetfulness, till I met the party of the white hunter
who is now dead, and am come hither with his servants. And nought
have I brought with me. I who was high-born, ay, of the blood
of Chaka, the great king -- a chief, and a captain of the regiment
of the Nkomabakosi -- am a wanderer in strange places, a man
without a kraal. Nought have I brought save this mine axe; of
all my belongings this remains alone. They have divided my cattle;
they have taken my wives; and my children know my face no more.
Yet with this axe' -- and he swung the formidable weapon round
his head, making the air hiss as he clove it -- 'will I cut another
path to fortune. I have spoken.'
I shook my head at him. 'Umslopogaas,' I said, 'I know thee
from of old. Ever ambitious, ever plotting to be great, I fear
me that thou hast overreached thyself at last. Years ago, when
thou wouldst have plotted against Cetywayo, son of Panda, I warned
thee, and thou didst listen. But now, when I was not by thee
to stay thy hand, thou hast dug a pit for thine own feet to fall
in. Is it not so? But what is done is done. Who can make the
dead tree green, or gaze again upon last year's light? Who can
recall the spoken word, or bring back the spirit of the fallen?
That which Time swallows comes not up again. Let it be forgotten!
'And now, behold, Umslopogaas, I know thee for a great warrior
and a brave man, faithful to the death. Even in Zululand, where
all the men are brave, they called thee the "Slaughterer", and
at night told stories round the fire of thy strength and deeds.
Hear me now. Thou seest this great man, my friend' -- and I
pointed to Sir Henry; 'he also is a warrior as great as thou,
and, strong as thou art, he could throw thee over his shoulder.
Incubu is his name. And thou seest this one also; him with
the round stomach, the shining eye, and the pleasant face. Bougwan
(glass eye) is his name, and a good man is he and a true, being
of a curious tribe who pass their life upon the water, and live
in floating kraals.
'Now, we three whom thou seest would travel inland, past Dongo
Egere, the great white mountain (Mt Kenia), and far into the
unknown beyond. We know not what we shall find there; we go
to hunt and seek adventures, and new places, being tired of sitting
still, with the same old things around us. Wilt thou come with
us? To thee shall be given command of all our servants; but
what shall befall thee, that I know not. Once before we three
journeyed thus, in search of adventure, and we took with us a
man such as thou -- one Umbopa; and, behold, we left him the
king of a great country, with twenty Impis (regiments), each
of 3,000 plumed warriors, waiting on his word. How it shall
go with thee, I know not; mayhap death awaits thee and us.
Wilt thou throw thyself to Fortune and come, or fearest thou,
Umslopogaas?'
The great man smiled. 'Thou art not altogether right, Macumazahn,'
he said; 'I have plotted in my time, but it was not ambition
that led me to my fall; but, shame on me that I should have to
say it, a fair woman's face. Let it pass. So we are going to
see something like the old times again, Macumazahn, when we fought
and hunted in Zululand? Ay, I will come. Come life, come death,
what care I, so that the blows fall fast and the blood runs red?
I grow old, I grow old, and I have not fought enough! And yet
am I a warrior among warriors; see my scars' -- and he pointed
to countless cicatrices, stabs and cuts, that marked the skin
of his chest and legs and arms. 'See the hole in my head; the
brains gushed out therefrom, yet did I slay him who smote, and
live. Knowest thou how many men I have slain, in fair hand-to-hand
combat, Macumazahn? See, here is the tale of them' -- and he
pointed to long rows of notches cut in the rhinoceros-horn handle
of his axe. 'Number them, Macumazahn -- one hundred and three
-- and I have never counted but those whom I have ripped open
{Endnote 3}, nor have I reckoned those whom another man had struck.'
'Be silent,' I said, for I saw that he was getting the blood-fever
on him; 'be silent; well art thou called the "Slaughterer".
We would not hear of thy deeds of blood. Remember, if thou comest
with us, we fight not save in self-defence. Listen, we need
servants. These men,' and I pointed to the Wakwafi, who had
retired a little way during our 'indaba' (talk), 'say they will not come.'
'Will not come!' shouted Umslopogaas; 'where is the dog who says
he will not come when my Father orders? Here, thou' -- and with
a single bound he sprang upon the Wakwafi with whom I had first
spoken, and, seizing him by the arm, dragged him towards us.
'Thou dog!' he said, giving the terrified man a shake, 'didst
thou say that thou wouldst not go with my Father? Say it once
more and I will choke thee' -- and his long fingers closed round
his throat as he said it -- 'thee, and those with thee. Hast
thou forgotten how I served thy brother?'
'Nay, we will come with the white man,' gasped the man.
'White man!' went on Umslopogaas, in simulated fury, which a
very little provocation would have made real enough; 'of whom
speakest thou, insolent dog?'
'Nay, we will go with the great chief.'
'So!' said Umslopogaas, in a quiet voice, as he suddenly released
his hold, so that the man fell backward. 'I thought you would.'
'That man Umslopogaas seems to have a curious moral ascendency
over his companions,' Good afterwards remarked thoughtfully.
