CHAPTER IX
INTO THE UNKNOWN
A week had passed, and we all sat at supper one night in the
Mission dining-room, feeling very much depressed in spirits,
for the reason that we were going to say goodbye to our kind
friends, the Mackenzies, and depart upon our way at dawn on the
morrow. Nothing more had been seen or heard of the Masai, and
save for a spear or two which had been overlooked and was rusting
in the grass, and a few empty cartridges where we had stood outside
the wall, it would have been difficult to tell that the old cattle
kraal at the foot of the slope had been the scene of so desperate
a struggle. Mackenzie was, thanks chiefly to his being so temperate
a man, rapidly recovering from his wound, and could get about
on a pair of crutches; and as for the other wounded men, one
had died of gangrene, and the rest were in a fair way to recovery.
Mr Mackenzie's caravan of men had also returned from the coast,
so that the station was now amply garrisoned.
Under these circumstances we concluded, warm and pressing as
were the invitations for us to stay, that it was time to move
on, first to Mount Kenia, and thence into the unknown in search
of the mysterious white race which we had set our hearts on discovering.
This time we were going to progress by means of the humble but
useful donkey, of which we had collected no less than a dozen,
to carry our goods and chattels, and, if necessary, ourselves.
We had now but two Wakwafis left for servants, and found it
quite impossible to get other natives to venture with us into
the unknown parts we proposed to explore -- and small blame to
them. After all, as Mr Mackenzie said, it was odd that three
men, each of whom possessed many of those things that are supposed
to make life worth living -- health, sufficient means, and position,
etc. -- should from their own pleasure start out upon a wild-goose
chase, from which the chances were they never would return.
But then that is what Englishmen are, adventurers to the backbone;
and all our magnificent muster-roll of colonies, each of which
will in time become a great nation, testify to the extraordinary
value of the spirit of adventure which at first sight looks like
a mild form of lunacy. 'Adventurer' -- he that goes out to meet
whatever may come. Well, that is what we all do in the world
one way or another, and, speaking for myself, I am proud of the
title, because it implies a brave heart and a trust in Providence.
Besides, when many and many a noted Croesus, at whose feet the
people worship, and many and many a time-serving and word-coining
politician are forgotten, the names of those grand-hearted old
adventurers who have made England what she is, will be remembered
and taught with love and pride to little children whose unshaped
spirits yet slumber in the womb of centuries to be. Not that
we three can expect to be numbered with such as these, yet have
we done something -- enough, perhaps, to throw a garment over
the nakedness of our folly.
That evening, whilst we were sitting on the veranda, smoking
a pipe before turning in, who should come up to us but Alphonse,
and, with a magnificent bow, announce his wish for an interview.
Being requested to 'fire away', he explained at some length
that he was anxious to attach himself to our party -- a statement
that astonished me not a little, knowing what a coward the little
man was. The reason, however, soon appeared. Mr Mackenzie was
going down to the coast, and thence on to England. Now, if he
went down country, Alphonse was persuaded that he would be seized,
extradited, sent to France, and to penal servitude. This was
the idea that haunted him, as King Charles's head haunted Mr
Dick, and he brooded over it till his imagination exaggerated
the danger ten times. As a matter of fact, the probability is
that his offence against the laws of his country had long ago
been forgotten, and that he would have been allowed to pass unmolested
anywhere except in France; but he could not be got to see this.
Constitutional coward as the little man was, he infinitely preferred
to face the certain hardships and great risks and dangers of
such an expedition as ours, than to expose himself, notwithstanding
his intense longing for his native land, to the possible scrutiny
of a police officer -- which is after all only another exemplification
of the truth that, to the majority of men, a far-off foreseen
danger, however shadowy, is much more terrible than the most
serious present emergency. After listening to what he had to
say, we consulted among ourselves, and finally agreed, with Mr
Mackenzie's knowledge and consent, to accept his offer. To begin
with, we were very short-handed, and Alphonse was a quick, active
fellow, who could turn his hand to anything, and cook -- ah,
he could cook! I believe that he would have made a palatable
dish of those gaiters of his heroic grandfather which he was
so fond of talking about. Then he was a good-tempered little
man, and merry as a monkey, whilst his pompous, vainglorious
talk was a source of infinite amusement to us; and what is more,
he never bore malice. Of course, his being so pronounced a coward
was a great drawback to him, but now that we knew his weakness
we could more or less guard against it. So, after warning him
of the undoubted risks he was exposing himself to, we told him
that we would accept his offer on condition that he would promise
implicit obedience to our orders. We also promised to give him
wages at the rate of ten pounds a month should he ever return
to a civilized country to receive them. To all of this he agreed
with alacrity, and retired to write a letter to his Annette,
which Mr Mackenzie promised to post when he got down country.
He read it to us afterwards, Sir Henry translating, and a wonderful
composition it was. I am sure the depth of his devotion and
the narration of his sufferings in a barbarous country, 'far,
far from thee, Annette, for whose adored sake I endure such sorrow,'
ought to have touched the feelings of the stoniest-hearted chambermaid.
Well, the morrow came, and by seven o'clock the donkeys were
all loaded, and the time of parting was at hand. It was a melancholy
business, especially saying goodbye to dear little Flossie.
She and I were great friends, and often used to have talks together
-- but her nerves had never got over the shock of that awful
night when she lay in the power of those bloodthirsty Masai.
'Oh, Mr Quatermain,' she cried, throwing her arms round my neck
and bursting into tears, 'I can't bear to say goodbye to you.
I wonder when we shall meet again?'
'I don't know, my dear little girl,' I said, 'I am at one end
of life and you are at the other. I have but a short time before
me at best, and most things lie in the past, but I hope that
for you there are many long and happy years, and everything lies
in the future. By-and-by you will grow into a beautiful woman,
Flossie, and all this wild life will be like a far-off dream
to you; but I hope, even if we never do meet again, that you
will think of your old friend and remember what I say to you
now. Always try to be good, my dear, and to do what is right,
rather than what happens to be pleasant, for in the end, whatever
sneering people may say, what is good and what is happy are the
same. Be unselfish, and whenever you can, give a helping hand
to others -- for the world is full of suffering, my dear, and
to alleviate it is the noblest end that we can set before us.
If you do that you will become a sweet and God-fearing woman,
and make many people's lives a little brighter, and then you
will not have lived, as so many of your sex do, in vain. And
now I have given you a lot of old-fashioned advice, and so I
am going to give you something to sweeten it with. You see this
little piece of paper. It is what is called a cheque. When
we are gone give it to your father with this note -- not before,
mind. You will marry one day, my dear little Flossie, and it
is to buy you a wedding present which you are to wear, and your
daughter after you, if you have one, in remembrance of Hunter
Quatermain.
Poor little Flossie cried very much, and gave me a lock of her
bright hair in return, which I still have. The cheque I gave
her was for a thousand pounds (which being now well off, and
having no calls upon me except those of charity, I could well
afford), and in the note I directed her father to invest it for
her in Government security, and when she married or came of age
to buy her the best diamond necklace he could get for the money
and accumulated interest. I chose diamonds because I think that
now that King Solomon's Mines are lost to the world, their price
will never be much lower than it is at present, so that if in
after-life she should ever be in pecuniary difficulties, she
will be able to turn them into money.
Well, at last we got off, after much hand-shaking, hat-waving,
and also farewell saluting from the natives, Alphonse weeping
copiously (for he has a warm heart) at parting with his master
and mistress; and I was not sorry for it at all, for I hate those
goodbyes. Perhaps the most affecting thing of all was to witness
Umslopogaas' distress at parting with Flossie, for whom the grim
old warrior had conceived a strong affection. He used to say
that she was as sweet to see as the only star on a dark night,
and was never tired of loudly congratulating himself on having
killed the Lygonani who had threatened to murder her. And that
was the last we saw of the pleasant Mission-house -- a true oasis
in the desert -- and of European civilization. But I often think
of the Mackenzies, and wonder how they got down country, and
if they are now safe and well in England, and will ever see these
words. Dear little Flossie! I wonder how she fares there where
there are no black folk to do her imperious bidding, and no sky-piercing
snow-clad Kenia for her to look at when she gets up in the morning.
And so goodbye to Flossie.
After leaving the Mission-house we made our way, comparatively
unmolested, past the base of Mount Kenia, which the Masai call
'Donyo Egere', or the 'speckled mountain', on account of the
black patches of rock that appear upon its mighty spire, where
the sides are too precipitous to allow of the snow lying on them;
then on past the lonely lake Baringo, where one of our two remaining
Askari, having unfortunately trodden on a puff-adder, died of
snake-bite, in spite of all our efforts to save him. Thence
we proceeded a distance of about a hundred and fifty miles to
another magnificent snow-clad mountain called Lekakisera, which
has never, to the best of my belief, been visited before by a
European, but which I cannot now stop to describe. There we
rested a fortnight, and then started out into the trackless and
uninhabited forest of a vast district called Elgumi. In this
forest alone there are more elephants than I ever met with or
heard with before. The mighty mammals literally swarm there
entirely unmolested by man, and only kept down by the natural
law that prevents any animals increasing beyond the capacity
of the country they inhabit to support them. Needless to say,
however, we did not shoot many of them, first because we could
not afford to waste ammunition, of which our stock was getting
perilously low, a donkey loaded with it having been swept away
in fording a flooded river; and secondly, because we could not
carry away the ivory, and did not wish to kill for the mere sake
of slaughter. So we let the great beasts be, only shooting one
or two in self-protection. In this district, the elephants,
being unacquainted with the hunter and his tender mercies, would
allow one to walk up to within twenty yards of them in the open,
while they stood, with their great ears cocked for all the world
like puzzled and gigantic puppy-dogs, and stared at that new
and extraordinary phenomenon -- man. Occasionally, when the
inspection did not prove satisfactory, the staring ended in a
trumpet and a charge, but this did not often happen. When it
did we had to use our rifles. Nor were elephants the only wild
beasts in the great Elgumi forest. All sorts of large game abounded,
including lions -- confound them! I have always hated the sight
of a lion since one bit my leg and lamed me for life. As a consequence,
another thing that abounded was the dreadful tsetse fly, whose
bite is death to domestic animals. Donkeys have, together with
men, hitherto been supposed to enjoy a peculiar immunity from
its attacks; but all I have to say, whether it was on account
of their poor condition, or because the tsetse in those parts
is more poisonous than usual, I do not know, but ours succumbed
to its onslaught. Fortunately, however, that was not till two
months or so after the bites had been inflicted, when suddenly,
after a two days' cold rain, they all died, and on removing the
skins of several of them I found the long yellow streaks upon
the flesh which are characteristic of death from bites from the
tsetse, marking the spot where the insect had inserted his proboscis.
On emerging from the great Elgumi forest, we, still steering
northwards, in accordance with the information Mr Mackenzie had
collected from the unfortunate wanderer who reached him only
to die so tragically, struck the base in due course of the large
lake, called Laga by the natives, which is about fifty miles
long by twenty broad, and of which, it may be remembered, he
made mention. Thence we pushed on nearly a month's journey over
great rolling uplands, something like those in the Transvaal,
but diversified by patches of bush country.
All this time we were continually ascending at the rate of about
one hundred feet every ten miles. Indeed the country was on
a slope which appeared to terminate at a mass of snow-tipped
mountains, for which we were steering, and where we learnt the
second lake of which the wanderer had spoken as the lake without
a bottom was situated. At length we arrived there, and, having
ascertained that there was a large lake on top of the mountains,
ascended three thousand feet more till we came to a precipitous
cliff or edge, to find a great sheet of water some twenty miles
square lying fifteen hundred feet below us, and evidently occupying
an extinct volcanic crater or craters of vast extent. Perceiving
villages on the border of this lake, we descended with great
difficulty through forests of pine trees, which now clothed the
precipitous sides of the crater, and were well received by the
people, a simple, unwarlike folk, who had never seen or even
heard of a white man before, and treated us with great reverence
and kindness, supplying us with as much food and milk as we could
eat and drink. This wonderful and beautiful lake lay, according
to our aneroid, at a height of no less than 11,450 feet above
sea-level, and its climate was quite cold, and not at all unlike
that of England. Indeed, for the first three days of our stay
there we saw little or nothing of the scenery on account of an
unmistakable Scotch mist which prevailed. It was this rain that
set the tsetse poison working in our remaining donkeys, so that
they all died.
This disaster left us in a very awkward position, as we had now
no means of transport whatever, though on the other hand we had
not much to carry. Ammunition, too, was very short, amounting
to but one hundred and fifty rounds of rifle cartridges and some
fifty shot-gun cartridges. How to get on we did not know; indeed
it seemed to us that we had about reached the end of our tether.
Even if we had been inclined to abandon the object of our search,
which, shadow as it was, was by no means the case, it was ridiculous
to think of forcing our way back some seven hundred miles to
the coast in our present plight; so we came to the conclusion
that the only thing to be done was to stop where we were -- the
natives being so well disposed and food plentiful -- for the
present, and abide events, and try to collect information as
to the countries beyond.
Accordingly, having purchased a capital log canoe, large enough
to hold us all and our baggage, from the headman of the village
we were staying in, presenting him with three empty cold-drawn
brass cartridges by way of payment, with which he was perfectly
delighted, we set out to make a tour of the lake in order to
find the most favourable place to make a camp. As we did not
know if we should return to this village, we put all our gear
into the canoe, and also a quarter of cooked water-buck, which
when young is delicious eating, and off we set, natives having
already gone before us in light canoes to warn the inhabitants
of the other villages of our approach.
As we were puddling leisurely along Good remarked upon the extraordinary
deep blue colour of the water, and said that he understood from
the natives, who were great fishermen -- fish, indeed, being
their principal food -- that the lake was supposed to be wonderfully
deep, and to have a hole at the bottom through which the water
escaped and put out some great fire that was raging below.
I pointed out to him that what he had heard was probably a legend
arising from a tradition among the people which dated back to
the time when one of the extinct parasitic volcanic cones was
in activity. We saw several round the borders of the lake which
had no doubt been working at a period long subsequent to the
volcanic death of the central crater which now formed the bed
of the lake itself. When it finally became extinct the people
would imagine that the water from the lake had run down and put
out the big fire below, more especially as, though it was constantly
fed by streams running from the snow-tipped peaks about, there
was no visible exit to it.
The farther shore of the lake we found, on approaching it, to
consist of a vast perpendicular wall of rock, which held the
water without any intermediate sloping bank, as elsewhere. Accordingly
we paddled parallel with this precipice, at a distance of about
a hundred paces from it, shaping our course for the end of the
lake, where we knew that there was a large village.
As we went we began to pass a considerable accumulation of floating
rushes, weed, boughs of trees, and other rubbish, brought, Good
supposed, to this spot by some current, which he was much puzzled
to account for. Whilst we were speculating about this, Sir Henry
pointed out a flock of large white swans, which were feeding
on the drift some little way ahead of us. Now I had already
noticed swans flying about this lake, and, having never come
across them before in Africa, was exceedingly anxious to obtain
a specimen. I had questioned the natives about them, and learnt
that they came from over the mountain, always arriving at certain
periods of the year in the early morning, when it was very easy
to catch them, on account of their exhausted condition. I also
asked them what country they came from, when they shrugged their
shoulders, and said that on the top of the great black precipice
was stony inhospitable land, and beyond that were mountains with
snow, and full of wild beasts, where no people lived, and beyond
the mountains were hundreds of miles of dense thorn forest, so
thick that even the elephants could not get through it, much
less men. Next I asked them if they had ever heard of white
people like ourselves living on the farther side of the mountains
and the thorn forest, whereat they laughed. But afterwards a
very old woman came and told me that when she was a little girl
her grandfather had told her that in his youth his grandfather
had crossed the desert and the mountains, and pierced the thorn
forest, and seen a white people who lived in stone kraals beyond.
Of course, as this took the tale back some two hundred and fifty
years, the information was very indefinite; but still there it
was again, and on thinking it over I grew firmly convinced that
there was some truth in all these rumours, and equally firmly
determined to solve the mystery. Little did I guess in what
an almost miraculous way my desire was to be gratified.
Well, we set to work to stalk the swans, which kept drawing,
as they fed, nearer and nearer to the precipice, and at last
we pushed the canoe under shelter of a patch of drift within
forty yards of them. Sir Henry had the shot-gun, loaded with
No. 1, and, waiting for a chance, got two in a line, and, firing
at their necks, killed them both. Up rose the rest, thirty or
more of them, with a mighty splashing; and, as they did so, he
gave them the other barrel. Down came one fellow with a broken
wing, and I saw the leg of another drop and a few feathers start
out of his back; but he went on quite strong. Up went the swans,
circling ever higher till at last they were mere specks level
with the top of the frowning precipice, when I saw them form
into a triangle and head off for the unknown north-east. Meanwhile
we had picked up our two dead ones, and beautiful birds they
were, weighing not less than about thirty pounds each, and were
chasing the winged one, which had scrambled over a mass of driftweed
into a pool of clear water beyond. Finding a difficulty in forcing
the canoe through the rubbish, I told our only remaining Wakwafi
servant, whom I knew to be an excellent swimmer, to jump over,
dive under the drift, and catch him, knowing that as there were
no crocodiles in this lake he could come to no harm. Entering
into the fun of the thing, the man obeyed, and soon was dodging
about after the winged swan in fine style, getting gradually
nearer to the rock wall, against which the water washed as he
did so.
Presently he gave up swimming after the swan, and began to cry
out that he was being carried away; and, indeed, we saw that,
though he was swimming with all his strength towards us, he was
being drawn slowly to the precipice. With a few desperate strokes
of our paddles we pushed the canoe through the crust of drift
and rowed towards the man as hard as we could, but, fast as we
went, he was drawn faster to the rock. Suddenly I saw that before
us, just rising eighteen inches or so above the surface of the
lake, was what looked like the top of the arch of a submerged
cave or railway tunnel. Evidently, from the watermark on the
rock several feet above it, it was generally entirely submerged;
but there had been a dry season, and the cold had prevented the
snow from melting as freely as usual; so the lake was low and
the arch showed. Towards this arch our poor servant was being
sucked with frightful rapidity. He was not more than ten fathoms
from it, and we were about twenty when I saw it, and with little
help from us the canoe flew along after him. He struggled bravely,
and I thought that we should have saved him, when suddenly I
perceived an expression of despair come upon his face, and there
before our eyes he was sucked down into the cruel swirling blue
depths, and vanished. At the same moment I felt our canoe seized
as with a mighty hand, and propelled with resistless force towards
the rock.
We realized our danger now and rowed, or rather paddled, furiously
in our attempt to get out of the vortex. In vain; in another
second we were flying straight for the arch like an arrow, and
I thought that we were lost. Luckily I retained sufficient presence
of mind to shout out, instantly setting the example by throwing
myself into the bottom of the canoe, 'Down on your faces -- down!'
and the others had the sense to take the hint. In another instant
there was a grinding noise, and the boat was pushed down till
the water began to trickle over the sides, and I thought that
we were gone. But no, suddenly the grinding ceased, and we could
again feel the canoe flying along. I turned my head a little
-- I dared not lift it -- and looked up. By the feeble light
that yet reached the canoe, I could make out that a dense arch
of rock hung just over our heads, and that was all. In another
minute I could not even see as much as that, for the faint light
had merged into shadow, and the shadows had been swallowed up
in darkness, utter and complete.
For an hour or so we lay there, not daring to lift our heads
for fear lest the brains should be dashed out of them, and scarcely
able to speak even, on account of the noise of the rushing water
which drowned our voices. Not, indeed, that we had much inclination
to speak, seeing that we were overwhelmed by the awfulness of
our position and the imminent fear of instant death, either by
being dashed against the sides of the cavern, or on a rock, or
being sucked down in the raging waters, or perhaps asphyxiated
by want of air. All of these and many other modes of death presented
themselves to my imagination as I lay at the bottom of the canoe,
listening to the swirl of the hurrying waters which ran whither
we knew not. One only other sound could I hear, and that was
Alphonse's intermittent howl of terror coming from the centre
of the canoe, and even that seemed faint and unnatural. Indeed,
the whole thing overpowered my brain, and I began to believe
that I was the victim of some ghastly spirit-shaking nightmare.
