For an hour or more I sat waiting (Umslopogaas having meanwhile gone tosleep also) till at length the east turned grey, and huge misty shapesmoved over the surface of the water like ghosts of long-forgotten dawns.They were the vapours rising from their watery bed to greet the sun.Then the grey turned to primrose, and the primrose grew to red. Next,glorious bars of light sprang up across the eastern sky, and throughthem the radiant messengers of the dawn came speeding upon their arrowyway, scattering the ghostly vapours and awaking the mountains witha kiss, as they flew from range to range and longitude to longitude.Another moment, and the golden gates were open and the sun himselfcame forth as a bridegroom from his chamber, with pomp and glory and aflashing as of ten million spears, and embraced the night and coveredher with brightness, and it was day.
But as yet I could see nothing save the beautiful blue sky above, forover the water was a thick layer of mist exactly as though the wholesurface had been covered with billows of cotton wool. By degrees,however, the sun sucked up the mists, and then I saw that we were afloatupon a glorious sheet of blue water of which I could not make out theshore. Some eight or ten miles behind us, however, there stretched asfar as the eye could reach a range of precipitous hills that formed aretaining wall of the lake, and I have no doubt but that it was throughsome entrance in these hills that the subterranean river found its wayinto the open water. Indeed, I afterwards ascertained this to be thefact, and it will be some indication of the extraordinary strength anddirectness of the current of the mysterious river that the canoe, evenat this distance, was still answering to it. Presently, too, I,or rather Umslopogaas, who woke up just then, discovered anotherindication, and a very unpleasant one it was. Perceiving some whitishobject upon the water, Umslopogaas called my attention to it, and witha few strokes of the paddle brought the canoe to the spot, whereuponwe discovered that the object was the body of a man floating facedownwards. This was bad enough, but imagine my horror when Umslopogaashaving turned him on to his back with the paddle, we recognized in thesunken features the lineaments of--whom do you suppose? None other thanour poor servant who had been sucked down two days before in the watersof the subterranean river. It quite frightened me. I thought that we hadleft him behind for ever, and behold! borne by the current, he hadmade the awful journey with us, and with us had reached the end. Hisappearance also was dreadful, for he bore traces of having touched thepillar of fire--one arm being completely shrivelled up and all his hairbeing burnt off. The features were, as I have said, sunken, and yet theypreserved upon them that awful look of despair that I had seen uponhis living face as the poor fellow was sucked down. Really the sightunnerved me, weary and shaken as I felt with all that we had gonethrough, and I was heartily glad when suddenly and without any warningthe body began to sink just as though it had had a mission, which havingbeen accomplished, it retired; the real reason no doubt being thatturning it on its back allowed a free passage to the gas. Down it wentto the transparent depths--fathom after fathom we could trace its coursetill at last a long line of bright air-bubbles, swiftly chasing eachother to the surface, alone remained where it had passed. At lengththese, too, were gone, and that was an end of our poor servant.Umslopogaas thoughtfully watched the body vanish.
'What did he follow us for?' he asked. ''Tis an ill omen for thee andme, Macumazahn.' And he laughed.
I turned on him angrily, for I dislike these unpleasant suggestions.If people have such ideas, they ought in common decency to keep themto themselves. I detest individuals who make on the subject of theirdisagreeable presentiments, or who, when they dream that they saw onehanged as a common felon, or some such horror, will insist upon tellingone all about it at breakfast, even if they have to get up early to doit.
Just then, however, the others woke up and began to rejoice exceedinglyat finding that we were out of that dreadful river and once more beneaththe blue sky. Then followed a babel of talk and suggestions as to whatwe were to do next, the upshot of all of which was that, as we wereexcessively hungry, and had nothing whatsoever left to eat except a fewscraps of biltong (dried game-flesh), having abandoned all that remainedof our provisions to those horrible freshwater crabs, we determined tomake for the shore. But a new difficulty arose. We did not know wherethe shore was, and, with the exception of the cliffs through which thesubterranean river made its entry, could see nothing but a wide expanseof sparkling blue water. Observing, however, that the long flights ofaquatic birds kept flying from our left, we concluded that they wereadvancing from their feeding-grounds on shore to pass the day in thelake, and accordingly headed the boat towards the quarter whence theycame, and began to paddle. Before long, however, a stiffish breezesprang up, blowing directly in the direction we wanted, so we improvizeda sail with a blanket and the pole, which took us along merrily. Thisdone, we devoured the remnants of our biltong, washed down with thesweet lake water, and then lit our pipes and awaited whatever might turnup.
When we had been sailing for an hour, Good, who was searching thehorizon with the spy-glass, suddenly announced joyfully that he sawland, and pointed out that, from the change in the colour of the water,he thought we must be approaching the mouth of a river. In anotherminute we perceived a great golden dome, not unlike that of St Paul's,piercing the morning mists, and while we were wondering what in theworld it could be, Good reported another and still more importantdiscovery, namely, that a small sailing-boat was advancing towards us.This bit of news, which we were very shortly able to verify with ourown eyes, threw us into a considerable flutter. That the natives of thisunknown lake should understand the art of sailing seemed to suggest thatthey possessed some degree of civilization. In a few more minutes itbecame evident that the occupant or occupants of the advancing boathad made us out. For a moment or two she hung in the wind as though indoubt, and then came tacking towards us with great swiftness. In tenmore minutes she was within a hundred yards, and we saw that she was aneat little boat--not a canoe 'dug out', but built more or less in theEuropean fashion with planks, and carrying a singularly large sail forher size. But our attention was soon diverted from the boat to her crew,which consisted of a man and a woman, _nearly as white as ourselves_.
We stared at each other in amazement, thinking that we must be mistaken;but no, there was no doubt about it. They were not fair, but the twopeople in the boat were decidedly of a white as distinguished from ablack race, as white, for instance, as Spaniards or Italians. It was apatent fact. So it was true, after all; and, mysteriously led by a Powerbeyond our own, we had discovered this wonderful people. I could haveshouted for joy when I thought of the glory and the wonder of the thing;and as it was, we all shook hands and congratulated each other on theunexpected success of our wild search. All my life had I heard rumoursof a white race that existed in the highlands of this vast continent,and longed to put them to the proof, and now here I saw it with my owneyes, and was dumbfounded. Truly, as Sir Henry said, the old Roman wasright when he wrote 'Ex Africa semper aliquid novi', which he tells memeans that out of Africa there always comes some new thing.
The man in the boat was of a good but not particularly fine physique,and possessed straight black hair, regular aquiline features, and anintelligent face. He was dressed in a brown cloth garment, somethinglike a flannel shirt without the sleeves, and in an unmistakable kilt ofthe same material. The legs and feet were bare. Round the right arm andleft leg he wore thick rings of yellow metal that I judged to be gold.The woman had a sweet face, wild and shy, with large eyes and curlingbrown hair. Her dress was made of the same material as the man's, andconsisted, as we afterwards discovered, first of a linen under-garmentthat hung down to her knee, and then of a single long strip of cloth,about four feet wide by fifteen long, which was wound round the body ingraceful folds and finally flung over the left shoulder so that the end,which was dyed blue or purple or some other colour, according to thesocial standing of the wearer, hung down in front, the right armand breast being, however, left quite bare. A more becoming dress,especially when, as in t
he present case, the wearer was young andpretty, it is quite impossible to conceive. Good (who has an eye forsuch things) was greatly struck with it, and so indeed was I. It was sosimple and yet so effective.
Meanwhile, if we had been astonished at the appearance of the man andwoman, it was clear that they were far more astonished at us. As for theman, he appeared to be overcome with fear and wonder, and for a whilehovered round our canoe, but would not approach. At last, however,he came within hailing distance, and called to us in a language thatsounded soft and pleasing enough, but of which we could not understandone word. So we hailed back in English, French, Latin, Greek, German,Zulu, Dutch, Sisutu, Kukuana, and a few other native dialects that Iam acquainted with, but our visitor did not understand any of thesetongues; indeed, they appeared to bewilder him. As for the lady, shewas busily employed in taking stock of us, and Good was returning thecompliment by staring at her hard through his eyeglass, a proceedingthat she seemed rather to enjoy than otherwise. At length, the man,being unable to make anything of us, suddenly turned his boat round andbegan to head off for the shore, his little boat skimming away beforethe wind like a swallow. As she passed across our bows the man turned toattend to the large sail, and Good promptly took the opportunity to kisshis hand to the young lady. I was horrified at this proceeding, both ongeneral grounds and because I feared that she might take offence, butto my delight she did not, for, first glancing round and seeing that herhusband, or brother, or whoever he was, was engaged, she promptly kissedhers back.
'Ah!' said I. 'It seems that we have at last found a language that thepeople of this country understand.'
'In which case,' said Sir Henry, 'Good will prove an invaluableinterpreter.'
I frowned, for I do not approve of Good's frivolities, and he knowsit, and I turned the conversation to more serious subjects. 'It is veryclear to me,' I said, 'that the man will be back before long with a hostof his fellows, so we had best make up our minds as to how we are goingto receive them.'
'The question is how will they receive us?' said Sir Henry.
As for Good he made no remark, but began to extract a small square tincase that had accompanied us in all our wanderings from under a pile ofbaggage. Now we had often remonstrated with Good about this tin case,inasmuch as it had been an awkward thing to carry, and he had nevergiven any very explicit account as to its contents; but he had insistedon keeping it, saying mysteriously that it might come in very useful oneday.
'What on earth are you going to do, Good?' asked Sir Henry.
'Do--why dress, of course! You don't expect me to appear in a newcountry in these things, do you?' and he pointed to his soiled and worngarments, which were however, like all Good's things, very tidy, andwith every tear neatly mended.
We said no more, but watched his proceedings with breathless interest.His first step was to get Alphonse, who was thoroughly competent insuch matters, to trim his hair and beard in the most approved fashion.I think that if he had had some hot water and a cake of soap at handhe would have shaved off the latter; but he had not. This done, hesuggested that we should lower the sail of the canoe and all take abath, which we did, greatly to the horror and astonishment of Alphonse,who lifted his hands and ejaculated that these English were indeed awonderful people. Umslopogaas, who, though he was, like most high-bredZulus, scrupulously cleanly in his person, did not see the fun ofswimming about in a lake, also regarded the proceeding with mildamusement. We got back into the canoe much refreshed by the cold water,and sat to dry in the sun, whilst Good undid his tin box, and producedfirst a beautiful clean white shirt, just as it had left a London steamlaundry, and then some garments wrapped first in brown, then in white,and finally in silver paper. We watched this undoing with the tenderestinterest and much speculation. One by one Good removed the dull husksthat hid their splendours, carefully folding and replacing each pieceof paper as he did so; and there at last lay, in all the majesty of itsgolden epaulettes, lace, and buttons, a Commander of the Royal Navy'sfull-dress uniform--dress sword, cocked hat, shiny patent leather bootsand all. We literally gasped.
'_What!_' we said, '_what!_ Are you going to put those things on?'
'Certainly,' he answered composedly; 'you see so much depends upon afirst impression, especially,' he added, 'as I observe that there areladies about. One at least of us ought to be decently dressed.'
We said no more; we were simply dumbfounded, especially when weconsidered the artful way in which Good had concealed the contents ofthat box for all these months. Only one suggestion did we make--namely,that he should wear his mail shirt next his skin. He replied that hefeared it would spoil the set of his coat, now carefully spread in thesun to take the creases out, but finally consented to this precautionarymeasure. The most amusing part of the affair, however, was to seeold Umslopogaas's astonishment and Alphonse's delight at Good'stransformation. When at last he stood up in all his glory, even down tothe medals on his breast, and contemplated himself in the still watersof the lake, after the fashion of the young gentleman in ancienthistory, whose name I cannot remember, but who fell in love with his ownshadow, the old Zulu could no longer restrain his feelings.
'Oh, Bougwan!' he said. 'Oh, Bougwan! I always thought thee an uglylittle man, and fat--fat as the cows at calving time; and now thou artlike a blue jay when he spreads his tail out. Surely, Bougwan, it hurtsmy eyes to look at thee.'
Good did not much like this allusion to his fat, which, to tell thetruth, was not very well deserved, for hard exercise had brought himdown three inches; but on the whole he was pleased at Umslopogaas'sadmiration. As for Alphonse, he was quite delighted.
'Ah! but Monsieur has the beautiful air--the air of the warrior. Itis the ladies who will say so when we come to get ashore. Monsieur iscomplete; he puts me in mind of my heroic grand--'
Here we stopped Alphonse.
As we gazed upon the beauties thus revealed by Good, a spirit ofemulation filled our breasts, and we set to work to get ourselves upas well as we could. The most, however, that we were able to do was toarray ourselves in our spare suits of shooting clothes, of which weeach had several, all the fine clothes in the world could never make itotherwise than scrubby and insignificant; but Sir Henry looked what heis, a magnificent man in his nearly new tweed suit, gaiters, and boots.Alphonse also got himself up to kill, giving an extra turn to hisenormous moustaches. Even old Umslopogaas, who was not in a general waygiven to the vain adorning of his body, took some oil out of the lanternand a bit of tow, and polished up his head-ring with it till it shonelike Good's patent leather boots. Then he put on the mail shirt SirHenry had given him and his 'moocha', and, having cleaned up Inkosi-kaasa little, stood forth complete.
All this while, having hoisted the sail again as soon as we had finishedbathing, we had been progressing steadily for the land, or, rather, forthe mouth of a great river. Presently--in all about an hour and a halfafter the little boat had left us--we saw emerging from the riveror harbour a large number of boats, ranging up to ten or twelve tonsburden. One of these was propelled by twenty-four oars, and most ofthe rest sailed. Looking through the glass we soon made out that therow-boat was an official vessel, her crew being all dressed in a sort ofuniform, whilst on the half-deck forward stood an old man of venerableappearance, and with a flowing white beard, and a sword strapped to hisside, who was evidently the commander of the craft. The other boats wereapparently occupied by people brought out by curiosity, and were rowingor sailing towards us as quickly as they could.
'Now for it,' said I. 'What is the betting? Are they going to befriendly or to put an end to us?'
Nobody could answer this question, and, not liking the warlikeappearance of the old gentleman and his sword, we felt a little anxious.
Just then Good spied a school of hippopotami on the water about twohundred yards off us, and suggested that it would not be a bad plan toimpress the natives with a sense of our power by shooting some of themif possible. This, unluckily enough, struck us as a good idea, andaccordingly we
at once got out our eight-bore rifles, for which we stillhad a few cartridges left, and prepared for action. There were fourof the animals, a big bull, a cow, and two young ones, one threeparts grown. We got up to them without difficulty, the great animalscontenting themselves with sinking down into the water and rising againa few yards farther on; indeed, their excessive tameness struck me asbeing peculiar. When the advancing boats were about five hundred yardsaway, Sir Henry opened the ball by firing at the three parts grown youngone. The heavy bullet struck it fair between the eyes, and, crashingthrough the skull, killed it, and it sank, leaving a long train of bloodbehind it. At the same moment I fired at the cow, and Good at theold bull. My shot took effect, but not fatally, and down went thehippopotamus with a prodigious splashing, only to rise again presentlyblowing and grunting furiously, dyeing all the water round her crimson,when I killed her with the left barrel. Good, who is an execrable shot,missed the head of the bull altogether, the bullet merely cutting theside of his face as it passed. On glancing up, after I had fired mysecond shot, I perceived that the people we had fallen among wereevidently ignorant of the nature of firearms, for the consternationcaused by our shots and their effect upon the animals was prodigious.Some of the parties in the boats began to cry out in fear; others turnedand made off as hard as they could; and even the old gentleman with thesword looked greatly puzzled and alarmed, and halted his big row-boat.We had, however, but little time for observation, for just then the oldbull, rendered furious by the wound he had received, rose fair withinforty yards of us, glaring savagely. We all fired, and hit him invarious places, and down he went, badly wounded. Curiosity now began toovercome the fear of the onlookers, and some of them sailed on up closeto us, amongst these being the man and woman whom we had first seen acouple of hours or so before, who drew up almost alongside. Just thenthe great brute rose again within ten yards of their base, and instantlywith a roar of fury made at it open-mouthed. The woman shrieked, and theman tried to give the boat way, but without success. In another secondI saw the huge red jaws and gleaming ivories close with a crunch on thefrail craft, taking an enormous mouthful out of its side and capsizingit. Down went the boat, leaving its occupants struggling in the water.Next moment, before we could do anything towards saving them, the hugeand furious creature was up again and making open-mouthed at the poorgirl, who was struggling in the water. Lifting my rifle just as thegrinding jaws were about to close on her, I fired over her head rightdown the hippopotamus's throat. Over he went, and commenced turninground and round, snorting, and blowing red streams of blood through hisnostrils. Before he could recover himself, however, I let him have theother barrel in the side of the throat, and that finished him. Henever moved or struggled again, but instantly sank. Our next effortwas directed towards saving the girl, the man having swum off towardsanother boat; and in this we were fortunately successful, pullingher into the canoe (amidst the shouts of the spectators) considerablyexhausted and frightened, but otherwise unhurt.
Meanwhile the boats had gathered together at a distance, and we couldsee that the occupants, who were evidently much frightened,were consulting what to do. Without giving them time for furtherconsideration, which we thought might result unfavourably to ourselves,we instantly took our paddles and advanced towards them, Good standingin the bow and taking off his cocked hat politely in every direction,his amiable features suffused by a bland but intelligent smile. Most ofthe craft retreated as we advanced, but a few held their ground, whilethe big row-boat came on to meet us. Presently we were alongside, andI could see that our appearance--and especially Good's andUmslopogaas's--filled the venerable-looking commander with astonishment,not unmixed with awe. He was dressed after the same fashion as the manwe first met, except that his shirt was not made of brown cloth, but ofpure white linen hemmed with purple. The kilt, however, was identical,and so were the thick rings of gold around the arm and beneath theleft knee. The rowers wore only a kilt, their bodies being naked tothe waist. Good took off his hat to the old gentleman with an extraflourish, and inquired after his health in the purest English, towhich he replied by laying the first two fingers of his right handhorizontally across his lips and holding them there for a moment, whichwe took as his method of salutation. Then he also addressed someremarks to us in the same soft accents that had distinguished our firstinterviewer, which we were forced to indicate we did not understand byshaking our heads and shrugging our shoulders. This last Alphonse,being to the manner born, did to perfection, and in so polite a way thatnobody could take any offence. Then we came a standstill, till I, beingexceedingly hungry, thought I might as well call attention to the fact,and did so first by opening my mouth and pointing down it, and thenrubbing my stomach. These signals the old gentleman clearly understood,for he nodded his head vigorously, and pointed towards the harbour; andat the same time one of the men on his boat threw us a line and motionedto us to make it fast, which we did. The row-boat then took us in tow,and went with great rapidity towards the mouth of the river, accompaniedby all the other boats. In about twenty minutes more we reached theentrance to the harbour, which was crowded with boats full of people whohad come out to see us. We observed that all the occupants were more orless of the same type, though some were fairer than others. Indeed, wenoticed certain ladies whose skin was of a most dazzling whiteness;and the darkest shade of colour which we saw was about that of a ratherswarthy Spaniard. Presently the wide river gave a sweep, and when it didso an exclamation of astonishment and delight burst from our lips as wecaught our first view of the place that we afterwards knew as Milosis,or the Frowning City (from mi, which means city, and losis, a frown).
At a distance of some five hundred yards from the river's bank rose asheer precipice of granite, two hundred feet or so in height, which hadno doubt once formed the bank itself--the intermediate space of landnow utilized as docks and roadways having been gained by draining, anddeepening and embanking the stream.
On the brow of this precipice stood a great building of the same granitethat formed the cliff, built on three sides of a square, the fourthside being open, save for a kind of battlement pierced at its base by alittle door. This imposing place we afterwards discovered was the palaceof the queen, or rather of the queens. At the back of the palace thetown sloped gently upwards to a flashing building of white marble,crowned by the golden dome which we had already observed. The city was,with the exception of this one building, entirely built of red granite,and laid out in regular blocks with splendid roadways between. So faras we could see also the houses were all one-storied and detached, withgardens round them, which gave some relief to the eye wearied with thevista of red granite. At the back of the palace a road of extraordinarywidth stretched away up the hill for a distance of a mile and a half orso, and appeared to terminate at an open space surrounding the gleamingbuilding that crowned the hill. But right in front of us was thewonder and glory of Milosis--the great staircase of the palace, themagnificence of which took our breath away. Let the reader imagine,if he can, a splendid stairway, sixty-five feet from balustrade tobalustrade, consisting of two vast flights, each of one hundred andtwenty-five steps of eight inches in height by three feet broad,connected by a flat resting-place sixty feet in length, and running fromthe palace wall on the edge of the precipice down to meet a waterwayor canal cut to its foot from the river. This marvellous staircasewas supported upon a single enormous granite arch, of which theresting-place between the two flights formed the crown; that is, theconnecting open space lay upon it. From this archway sprang a subsidiaryflying arch, or rather something that resembled a flying arch in shape,such as none of us had seen in any other country, and of which thebeauty and wonder surpassed all that we had ever imagined. Three hundredfeet from point to point, and no less than five hundred and fifty roundthe curve, that half-arc soared touching the bridge it supported for aspace of fifty feet only, one end resting on and built into the parentarchway, and the other embedded in the solid granite of the side of theprecipice.
This staircas
e with its supports was, indeed, a work of which any livingman might have been proud, both on account of its magnitude and itssurpassing beauty. Four times, as we afterwards learnt, did the work,which was commenced in remote antiquity, fail, and was then abandonedfor three centuries when half-finished, till at last there rose ayouthful engineer named Rademas, who said that he would complete itsuccessfully, and staked his life upon it. If he failed he was to behurled from the precipice he had undertaken to scale; if he succeeded,he was to be rewarded by the hand of the king's daughter. Five years wasgiven to him to complete the work, and an unlimited supply of labour andmaterial. Three times did his arch fall, till at last, seeing failureto be inevitable, he determined to commit suicide on the morrow of thethird collapse. That night, however, a beautiful woman came to him in adream and touched his forehead, and of a sudden he saw a vision of thecompleted work, and saw too through the masonry and how the difficultiesconnected with the flying arch that had hitherto baffled his genius wereto be overcome. Then he awoke and once more commenced the work, but ona different plan, and behold! he achieved it, and on the last day ofthe five years he led the princess his bride up the stair and intothe palace. And in due course he became king by right of his wife, andfounded the present Zu-Vendi dynasty, which is to this day called the'House of the Stairway', thus proving once more how energy and talentare the natural stepping-stones to grandeur. And to commemorate histriumph he fashioned a statue of himself dreaming, and of the fair womanwho touched him on the forehead, and placed it in the great hall of thepalace, and there it stands to this day.
Such was the great stair of Milosis, and such the city beyond. No wonderthey named it the 'Frowning City', for certainly those mighty works insolid granite did seem to frown down upon our littleness in their sombresplendour. This was so even in the sunshine, but when the storm-cloudsgathered on her imperial brow Milosis looked more like a supernaturaldwelling-place, or some imagining of a poet's brain, than what she is--amortal city, carven by the patient genius of generations out of the redsilence of the mountain side.
CHAPTER XII THE SISTER QUEENS
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