And then, reflecting that at the present moment there was far more likelihood of our earthly careers being cut exceedingly short than of their being unduly prolonged, at last I managed to fall asleep, a fact for which anybody who reads this narrative, if anybody ever does, may very probably be thankful.
When I woke again it was just dawning, and the guards and bearers were moving about like ghosts through the dense morning mists, making ready for our start. The fire had died quite down, and I rose and stretched myself, shivering in every limb with the damp cold of the dawn. Then I looked at Leo. He was sitting up, holding his hands to his head, and I saw that his face was flushed and his eyes bright, and yet yellow round the pupils.
“Well, Leo,” I said, “how do you feel?”
“I feel as though I were going to die,” he answered hoarsely. “My head is splitting, my body is trembling, and I am deathly sick.”
I whistled, or if I did not whistle I felt inclined to, for Leo had a sharp attack of fever. I went to Job, and asked him for the quinine, of which, fortunately, we had still a good supply, only to find that Job himself was not much better. He complained of pains across the back, and dizziness, and was almost incapable of helping himself. Then I did the only thing it was possible to do under the circumstances—gave them both about ten grains of quinine, and took a slightly smaller dose myself as a matter of precaution. After that I found Billali, and explained to him how matters stood, asking at the same time what he thought had best be done. He came with me, and looked at Leo and Job, whom, by the way, he had named the Pig on account of his fatness, round face, and small eyes.
“Ah!” he said, when we were out of earshot, “the fever! I thought so. The Lion has it badly, but he is young, and he may live. As for the Pig, his attack is not so bad; it is the ‘little fever’ which he has; that always begins with pains across the back; it will spend itself upon his fat.”
“Can they go on, my father?” I asked.
“Nay, my son, they must go on. If they stop here they will certainly die; also, they will be better in the litters than on the ground. By tonight, if all goes well, we shall be across the marsh and in good air. Come, let us lift them into the litters and start, for it is very bad to stand still in this morning fog. We can eat our meal as we go.”
This we did accordingly, and with a heavy heart I set out once more upon our strange journey. For the first three hours all went as well as could be expected, and then an accident happened that nearly lost us the pleasure of the company of our venerable friend Billali, whose litter was leading the procession. We were wading through a particularly dangerous stretch of quagmire, in which the bearers sometimes sank up to their knees. Indeed it was a mystery to me how they contrived to carry the heavy litters at all over such ground as that which we were traversing, though the two spare men, as well as the four bearers, had of course to put their shoulders to the pole.
Presently, as we blundered and floundered along, there was a sharp cry, then a storm of exclamations, and, last of all, a most tremendous splash, and the whole caravan halted.
I jumped out of my litter and ran forward. About twenty yards ahead was the lip of one of those sullen peaty pools of which I have spoken, the path we were following running along the top of its bank, that, as it happened, was a steep one. Looking towards this pool, to my horror I saw that Billali’s litter was floating on it, while as for Billali himself, he was nowhere to be seen. To make matters clear I may as well explain at once what had happened. One of Billali’s bearers had unfortunately trodden on a basking snake, which bit him in the ankle, whereon not unnaturally he had let go of the pole, and then, finding that he was tumbling down the bank, grasped at the litter to save himself. The result was exactly what might have been expected. The litter was pulled over the edge of the bank, the bearers let go, and together with Billali and the man who had been bitten, rolled into the slimy pool. When I reached the edge of the water neither of them was to be seen; indeed, the unfortunate bearer never was seen again. Either he struck his head against something, or was wedged in the mud, or possibly the snake-bite paralysed him. At any rate he vanished. But though Billali had disappeared, his whereabouts was clear enough from the agitation of the floating litter, in the bearing cloth and curtains of which he lay entangled.
“He is there! Our father is there!” said one of the men, but he did not stir a finger to help him, nor did any of the others. They simply stood and stared at the water.
“Out of the way, you brutes!” I shouted in English, and, throwing off my hat, I took a run and sprang well out into the horrid slimy-looking pool. A couple of strokes took me to where Billali was struggling beneath the cloth.
Somehow, I do not quite know how, I managed to push it free of him, and his venerable head all covered with green slime, like that of a yellowish Bacchus with ivy leaves, emerged upon the surface of the water. The rest was easy, for Billali was an eminently practical individual, and had the common sense not to grasp hold of me as drowning people often do. So I caught him by the arm, and towed him to the bank, through the mud of which we were dragged with difficulty. Such a filthy spectacle as we presented I have never seen before or since, and it will perhaps give some idea of the almost superhuman dignity of Billali’s appearance when I say that, coughing, half drowned, and covered with mud and green slime as he was, with his beautiful beard drawn to a dripping point, like a Chinaman’s freshly oiled pigtail, he still looked venerable and imposing.
“You dogs!” he said, addressing the bearers, so soon as he had recovered sufficiently to speak, “you left me, your father, to drown. Had it not been for this stranger, my son the Baboon, assuredly I should have drowned. Well, I will remember it,” and he fixed them with his gleaming though slightly watery eye, in a way I saw that they did not like, although they tried to appear sulkily indifferent.
“As for thee, my son,” the old man went on, turning towards me and grasping my hand, “rest assured that I am thy friend through good and evil. Thou hast saved my life: perchance a day may come when I shall save thine.”
After that we cleaned ourselves as best we could, rescued the litter, and went on, minus the man who had been drowned. I do not know if it was because he chanced to be unpopular, or from native indifference and selfishness of temperament, but I am bound to say that nobody seemed to grieve much over his sudden and final disappearance, except the men who had to do his share of the work.
XI
THE PLAIN OF KÔR
About an hour before sundown, at last, to my unbounded gratitude, we emerged from the great belt of marsh on to land that swelled upwards in a succession of rolling waves. Just on the hither side of the crest of the first wave we halted for the night. My first care was to examine Leo’s condition. It was, if anything, worse than in the morning, and a new and very distressing feature, vomiting, set in, and continued till dawn. Not one hour of sleep did I get that night, for I passed it in assisting Ustane, who was one of the most gentle and indefatigable nurses I ever saw, to wait upon Leo and Job. However, the air here was warm and genial without being too hot, and there were not many mosquitoes. Also we were above the level of the marsh mist, which lay stretched beneath us like the dim smoke-pall over a city, lit up here and there by the wandering globes of fen fire. Thus it will be seen that we were, speaking comparatively, very well off.
By dawn on the following morning Leo was quite light-headed, and fancied that he was divided into halves. I was dreadfully distressed, and began to wonder with a sort of sick fear what the end of his attack would be. Alas! I had heard but too much of how these fevers generally terminate. As I was wondering Billali came up and said that we must be moving on, more especially as, in his opinion, if Leo did not reach some spot where he could be quiet, and have proper nursing, within the next twelve hours, his death would only be a matter of a day or two. I could not but agree with him, so we placed Leo in the litter, and started, Ustane walking by his side to keep the flies off him, and watch that he did not throw
himself out on to the ground.
Within half an hour of sunrise we had reached the top of the rise of which I have spoken, and a most beautiful view broke upon our gaze. Beneath us was a rich stretch of country, verdant with grass and lovely with foliage and flowers. In the background, at a distance, so far as I could judge, of some eighteen miles from where we then stood, a huge and extraordinary mountain rose abruptly from the plain. The base of the great mountain appeared to consist of a grassy slope, but rising upon this, I should say, from subsequent observation, at an altitude of about five hundred feet above the level of the plain, was a tremendous and absolutely precipitous wall of bare rock, quite twelve or fifteen hundred feet in height. The shape of the mountain, which was undoubtedly of volcanic origin, seemed to be round, but, as only a segment of its circle was visible, it proved difficult to estimate its exact size, which was enormous. Afterwards I discovered that it could not cover less than fifty square miles of ground. Anything more grand and imposing than the sight presented by this great natural castle, starting in solitary grandeur from the level of the plain, I never saw, and I suppose I never shall. Its very solitude added to its majesty, and its towering cliffs seemed to kiss the sky. Indeed for the most part they were clothed in clouds that lay in fleecy masses upon their broad and even battlements.
I sat up in my hammock and gazed across the plain at this thrilling and majestic prospect, and I suppose that Billali noticed me, for he brought his litter alongside.
“Behold the House of ‘She-who-must-be-obeyed’!” he said. “Had ever a queen such a throne before?”
“It is wonderful, my father,” I answered. “But how do we enter? Those cliffs look hard to climb.”
“Thou shalt see, my Baboon. Look now at the path below us. What thinkest thou that it is? Thou art a wise man. Come, tell me.”
I looked, and saw what appeared to be the line of roadway running straight towards the base of the mountain, though it was covered with turf. There were high banks on each side of it, broken here and there, but fairly continuous on the whole, the meaning of which I did not understand. It seemed so very odd that anybody should embank a roadway.
“Well, my father,” I answered, “I suppose that it is a road, otherwise I should have been inclined to say that it was the bed of a river, or rather,” I added, observing the extraordinary directness of the cutting, “of a canal.”
Billali—who, by the way, was none the worse for his immersion of the day before—nodded his head sagely as he replied—
“Thou art right, my son. It is a channel cut out by those who were before us in this place to carry away water. Of this I am sure: within the rocky circle of the mountain whither we journey was once a great lake till those who lived before us, by wonderful arts of which I know nothing, hewed a path for the water through the solid rock of the mountain, piercing even to the bed of the lake. But first they cut the channel that thou seest across the plain. Then, when at last the water burst out, it rushed down the channel that had been made to receive it, and crossed this plain till it reached the low land behind the rise, and there, perchance, it made the swamp through which we have come. Then, when the lake was drained dry, the people of whom I speak built a mighty city on its bed, whereof naught but ruins and the name of Kôr yet remaineth, and from age to age hewed out the caves and passages that thou wilt see.”
“It may be,” I answered; “but if so, how is it that the lake does not fill up again with the rains and the water of the springs?”
“Nay, my son, the people were a wise people, and they left a drain to keep it clear. Seest thou that river to the right?” and he pointed to a fair-sized stream which wound away across the plain, some four miles from us. “That is the drain, and it comes out through the mountain wall where this cutting goes in. At first, perhaps, the water ran down this canal, but afterwards the people turned it, and used the cutting for a road.”
“And is there, then, no other place where one may enter into the great mountain,” I asked, “except through the drain?”
“There is a place,” he answered, “where cattle and men on foot may cross with much labour, but it is secret. A month mightest thou search and never find it. It is only used once a year, when the herds of cattle that have been fatting on the slopes of the mountain, and on this plain, are driven into the space within.”
“And does She live there always?” I asked, “or does she come at times without the mountain?”
“Nay, my son, where she is, there she is.”
By now we were well on to the great plain, and I was examining with delight the varied beauty of its semi-tropical flowers and trees, the latter of which grew singly, or at most in clumps of three or four, much of the timber being of large size, and belonging apparently to a variety of evergreen oak. There were also many palms, some of them more than one hundred feet high, and the largest and most beautiful tree ferns that I ever saw, about which hung clouds of jewelled honey-suckers and great-winged butterflies. Wandering there among the trees or crouching in the long and feathered grass were all varieties of game, from rhinoceroses to hares. I saw a rhinoceros, buffalo in large herds, eland, quagga, and sable antelope, the most beautiful of all the bucks, not to mention many smaller varieties of game, and three ostriches, which scudded away at our approach like white drift before a gale. So plentiful was the game that at last I could refrain no longer. With me in the litter I had a single-barrel sporting Martini, the “Express” being too cumbersome, and espying a beautiful fat eland rubbing himself under one of the oak-like trees, I jumped out, and proceeded to creep as near to him as I could. He allowed me to come within some eighty yards, then turned his head and stared at me, preparatory to running away. I lifted the rifle, and taking him about midway down the shoulder, for he was side on to me, fired. I never made a cleaner shot or a better kill in all my small experience, for the great buck sprang right up into the air and fell dead. The bearers, who had halted to see what happened, gave a murmur of surprise, an unwonted compliment from these sullen people, who never appear to be surprised at anything, and a party of the guard at once ran off to cut up the animal. As for myself, though I was longing to inspect him, I sauntered back to my litter as though I had been in the habit of killing eland all my life, feeling that I had risen several degrees in the estimation of the Amahagger, who looked on the performance as a very high-class manifestation of witchcraft. As a matter of fact, however, I had never seen an eland in a wild state before. Billali received me with enthusiasm.
“It is wonderful, my son the Baboon,” he cried; “wonderful! Thou art a very great man, though so ugly. Had I not seen, surely I would never have believed. And thou sayest that thou wilt teach me to slay in this fashion?”
“Certainly, my father,” I said airily; “it is nothing.”
But all the same I firmly made up my mind that when “my father” Billali began to fire I would without fail lie down or take refuge behind a tree.
After this little incident nothing happened of any note till about an hour and a half before sundown, when we arrived beneath the shadow of the towering volcanic mass whereof I have already written. It is quite impossible for me to describe its grim grandeur as it appeared to me while my patient bearers toiled along the bed of the ancient watercourse towards the spot where the rich brown-hued cliff shot up from precipice to precipice till its crown lost itself in cloud. All I can say is that it almost awed me by the intensity of its lonesome and most solemn greatness. On we went up the bright and sunny slope, till at last the creeping shadows from above swallowed its brightness, and presently we began to pass through a cutting hewn in the living rock. Deeper and deeper grew this marvellous work, which must, I should say, have employed thousands of men for many years. Indeed, how it was ever executed at all without the aid of blasting-powder or dynamite I cannot to this day imagine. That is and must remain one of the mysteries of this wild land. I can only suppose that these cuttings and the vast caves that have been hollowed out of the rocks they pierced
were the State undertakings of the people of Kôr, who lived here in the dim lost ages of the world, and that, as in the case of the Egyptian monuments, they were executed by the labour of tens of thousands of captives, carried on through an indefinite number of centuries. But who were the people?
At last we reached the face of the precipice itself, and found ourselves looking into the mouth of a dark tunnel that reminded me forcibly of those undertaken by our nineteenth-century engineers in the construction of railway lines. Out of this tunnel flowed a considerable stream of water. Indeed, though I do not think that I have mentioned it, from the spot where the cutting in the solid rock commenced we had followed this stream, which ultimately developed into the river I have already described as winding away to the right. Half of this cutting formed a channel for the stream, and half, which was placed on a slightly higher level—eight feet, perhaps—was devoted to the purposes of a roadway. At the termination of the cutting, however, the stream turned off across the plain and followed a bed of its own. At the mouth of the cave the cavalcade was halted, and, while the men employed themselves in lighting some earthenware lamps which they had brought with them, Billali, descending from his litter, informed me politely but firmly that the orders of She were that we must now be blindfolded, so that we should not learn the secret of the paths through the bowels of the mountains. To this of course I assented cheerfully enough, but Job, who was now very much better, notwithstanding the journey, did not like it at all, believing, I think, that it was but a preliminary step to being hot-potted. He was, however, a little consoled when I pointed out to him that there were no hot pots at hand, and, so far as I knew, no fire to heat them in. As for poor Leo, after turning restlessly for hours, to my deep thankfulness, at last he had dropped off into a sleep or stupor, I do not know which, so that there was no need to blindfold him. This blindfolding was performed by binding tightly round the eyes a piece of the yellowish linen whereof those of the Amahagger made their dresses who condescended to wear anything in particular. This linen I discovered afterwards was taken from the tombs, and was not, as I had at first supposed, of native manufacture. The bandage was then fastened at the back of the head, and the ends knotted under the chin to prevent slipping.
She: A History of Adventure Page 14