The Ivory Child

by H. Rider Haggard

  CHAPTER XI

  ALLAN IS CAPTURED

  The ride that followed was really quite exhilarating. The camels,notwithstanding their long journey, seemed to have caught some of theenthusiasm of the war-horse as described in the Book of Job; indeed Ihad no idea that they could travel at such a rate. On we swung down theslope, keeping excellent order, the forest of tall spears shiningand the little lancer-like pennons fluttering on the breeze in a verygallant way. In silence we went save for the thudding of the hoofs ofthe camels and an occasional squeal of anger as some rider drove hislance handle into their ribs. Not until we actually joined battle dida single man open his lips. Then, it is true, there went up onesimultaneous and mighty roar of:

  "The Child! Death to Jana! The Child! The Child!"

  But this happened a few minutes later.

  As we drew near the enemy I saw that they had massed their footmen ina dense body, six or eight lines thick. There they stood to receive theimpact of our charge, or rather they did not all stand, for the firsttwo ranks were kneeling with long spears stretched out in front of them.I imagine that their appearance must have greatly resembled that of theGreek phalanx, or that of the Swiss prepared to receive cavalry in theMiddle Ages. On either side of this formidable body, which by now musthave numbered four or five hundred men, and at a distance perhaps ofa quarter of a mile from them, were gathered the horsemen of the BlackKendah, divided into two bodies of nearly equal strength, say about ahundred horse in each body.

  As we approached, our triangle curved a little, no doubt under thedirection of Harut. A minute or so later I saw the reason. It was thatwe might strike the foot-soldiers not full in front but at an angle. Itwas an admirable manoeuvre, for when presently we did strike, we caughtthem swiftly on the flank and crumpled them up. My word! we went throughthose fellows like a knife through butter; they had as much chanceagainst the rush of our camels as a brown-paper screen has against atyphoon. Over they rolled in heaps while the White Kendah spitted themwith their lances.

  "The Child is top dog! My money on the Child," reflected I in irreverentecstasy. But that exultation was premature, for those Black Kendah wereby no means all dead. Presently I saw that scores of them had appearedamong the camels, which they were engaged in stabbing, or tryingto stab, in the stomach with their spears. Also I had forgotten thehorsemen. As our charge slackened owing to the complication in front,these arrived on our flanks like two thunderbolts. We faced about anddid our best to meet the onslaught, of which the net result was thatboth our left and right lines were pierced through about fifty yardsbehind the baggage camels. Luckily for us the very impetuosity of theBlack Kendah rush deprived it of most of the fruits of victory, sincethe two squadrons, being unable to check their horses, ended by charginginto each other and becoming mixed in inextricable confusion. Then, Ido not know who gave the order, we wheeled our camels in and fell uponthem, a struggling, stationary mass, with the result that many of themwere speared, or overthrown and trampled.

  "I have said we, but that is not quite correct, at any rate so faras Marut, Hans, I and about fifteen camelmen were concerned. How ithappened I could not tell in that dust and confusion, but we werecut off from the main body and presently found ourselves fightingdesperately in a group at which Black Kendah horsemen were chargingagain and again. We made the best stand we could. By degrees thebewildered camels sank under the repeated spear-thrusts of the enemy,all except one, oddly enough that ridden by Hans, which by some strangechance was never touched. The rest of us were thrown or tumbled off thecamels and continued the fight from behind their struggling bodies."

  That is where I came in. Up to this time I had not fired a single shot,partly because I do not like missing, which it is so easy to do from theback of a swaying camel, and still more for the reason that I hadnot the slightest desire to kill any of these savage men unless I wasobliged to do so in self-defence. Now, however, the thing was different,as I was fighting for my life. Leaning against my camel, which was dyingand beating its head upon the ground, groaning horribly the while, Iemptied the five cartridges of the repeater into those Black Kendah,pausing between each shot to take aim, with the result that presentlyfive riderless horses were galloping loose about the veld.

  The effect was electrical, since our attackers had never seen anythingof the kind before. For a while they all drew off, which gave me time toreload. Then they came on again and I repeated the process. For a secondtime they retreated and after consultation which lasted for a minute ormore, made a third attack. Once more I saluted them to the best of myability, though on this occasion only three men and a horse fell. Thefifth shot was a clean miss because they came on in such a scatteredformation that I had to turn from side to side to fire.

  Now at last the game was up, for the simple reason that I had no morecartridges save two in my double-barrelled pistol. It may be asked why.The answer is, want of foresight. Too many cartridges in one's pocketare apt to chafe on camel-back and so is a belt full of them. In thosedays also the engagements were few in which a man fired over fifteen.I had forty or fifty more in a bag, which bag Savage with his usualpoliteness had taken and hung upon his saddle without saying a word tome. At the beginning of the action I found this out, but could not thenget them from him as he was separated from me. Hans, always careless insmall matters, was really to blame as he ought to have seen that I hadthe cartridges, or at any rate to have carried them himself. In short,it was one of those accidents that will happen. There is nothing more tobe said.

  After a still longer consultation our enemies advanced on us for thefourth time, but very slowly. Meanwhile I had been taking stock of theposition. The camel corps, or what was left of it, oblivious of ourplight which the dust of conflict had hidden from them, was travellingon to the north, more or less victorious. That is to say, it had cut itsway through the Black Kendah and was escaping unpursued, huddled up ina mob with the baggage animals safe in its centre. The Black Kendahthemselves were engaged in killing our wounded and succouring theirown; also in collecting the bodies of the dead. In short, quiteunintentionally, we were deserted. Probably, if anybody thought about usat all in the turmoil of desperate battle, they concluded that we wereamong the slain.

  Marut came up to me, unhurt, still smiling and waving a bloody spear.

  "Lord Macumazana," he said, "the end is at hand. The Child has saved theothers, or most of them, but us it has abandoned. Now what will you do?Kill yourself, or if that does not please you, suffer me to kill you? Orshoot on until you must surrender?"

  "I have nothing to shoot with any more," I answered. "But if wesurrender, what will happen to us?"

  "We shall be taken to Simba's town and there sacrificed to the devilJana--I have not time to tell you how. Therefore I propose to killmyself."

  "Then I think you are foolish, Marut, since once we are dead, we aredead; but while we are alive it is always possible that we may escapefrom Jana. If the worst comes to the worst I have a pistol with twobullets in it, one for you and one for me."

  "The wisdom of the Child is in you," he replied. "I shall surrender withyou, Macumazana, and take my chance."

  Then he turned and explained things to his followers, who spoke togetherfor a moment. In the end these took a strange and, to my mind, a veryheroic decision. Waiting till the attacking Kendah were quite closeto us, with the exception of three men, who either because they lackedcourage or for some other reason, stayed with us, they advanced humblyas though to make submission. A number of the Black Kendah dismountedand ran up, I suppose to take them prisoners. The men waited tillthese were all round them. Then with a yell of "The Child!" they sprangforward, taking the enemy unawares and fighting like demons, inflictedgreat loss upon them before they fell themselves covered with wounds.

  "Brave men indeed!" said Marut approvingly. "Well, now they are all atpeace with the Child, where doubtless we shall find them ere long."

  I nodded but answered nothing. To tell the truth, I was too much engagedin nursing the remains
of my own courage to enter into conversationabout that of other people.

  This fierce and cunning stratagem of desperate men which had cost theirenemies so dear, seemed to infuriate the Black Kendah.

  At us came the whole mob of them--we were but six now--roaring "Jana!Jana!" and led by a grey-beard who, to judge from the number of silverchains upon his breast and his other trappings, seemed to be a great manamong them. When they were about fifty yards away and I was preparingfor the worst, a shot rang out from above and behind me. At the sameinstant Greybeard threw his arms wide and letting fall the spear heheld, pitched from his horse, evidently stone dead. I glanced back andsaw Hans, the corn-cob pipe still in his mouth and the little rifle,"Intombi," still at his shoulder. He had fired from the back of thecamel, I think for the first time that day, and whether by chance orthrough good marksmanship, I do not know, had killed this man.

  His sudden and unexpected end seemed to fill the Black Kendah with griefand dismay. Halting in their charge they gathered round him, while afierce-looking middle-aged man, also adorned with much barbaric finery,dismounted to examine him.

  "That is Simba the King," said Marut, "and the slain one is his uncle,Goru, the great general who brought him up from a babe."

  "Then I wish I had another cartridge left for the nephew," I began andstopped, for Hans was speaking to me.

  "Good-bye, Baas," he said, "I must go, for I cannot load 'Intombi' onthe back of this beast. If you meet your reverend father the Predikantbefore I do, tell him to make a nice place ready for me among thefires."

  Then before I could get out an answer, Hans dragged his camel round;as I have said, it was quite uninjured. Urging it to a shambling gallopwith blows of the rifle stock, he departed at a great rate, not towardsthe home of the Child but up the hill into a brake of giant grassmingled with thorn trees that grew quite close at hand. Here withstartling suddenness both he and the camel vanished away.

  If the Black Kendah saw him go, of which I am doubtful, for they allseemed to be lost in consultation round their king and the dead general,Goru, they made no attempt to follow him. Another possibility is thatthey thought he was trying to lead them into some snare or ambush.

  I do not know what they thought because I never heard them mention Hansor the matter of his disappearance, if indeed they ever realized thatthere was such a person. Curiously enough in the case of men who hadjust shown themselves so brave, this last accident of the decease ofGoru coming on the top of all their other casualties, seemed to take thecourage out of them. It was as though they had come to the conclusionthat we with our guns were something more than mortal.

  For several minutes they debated in evident hesitation. At last from outof their array rode a single man, in whom I recognized one of the envoyswho had met us in the morning, carrying in his hand a white flag as hehad done before. Thereon I laid down my rifle in token that I would notfire at him, which indeed I could not do having nothing to fire. Seeingthis he came to within a few yards and halting, addressed Marut.

  "O second Prophet of the Child," he said, "these are the words of Simbathe King: Your god has been too strong for us to-day, though in a dayto come it may be otherwise. I thought I had you in a pit; that you werethe bucks and I the hunter. But, though with loss, you have escaped outof the pit," and the speaker glanced towards our retreating force whichwas now but a cloud of dust in the far distance, "while I the hunterhave been gored by your horns," and again he glanced at the dead thatwere scattered about the plain. "The noblest of the buck, the white bullof the herd," and he looked at me, who in any other circumstanceswould have felt complimented, "and you, O Prophet Marut, and one or twoothers, besides those that I have slain, are however still in the pitand your horn is a magic horn," here he pointed to my rifle, "whichpierces from afar and kills dead all by whom it is touched."

  "So I caught those gentry well in the middle," thought I to myself, "andwith soft-nosed bullets!"

  "Therefore I, Simba the King, make you an offer. Yield yourselves andI swear that no spear shall be driven through your hearts and no knifecome near your throats. You shall only be taken to my town and therebe fed on the best and kept as prisoners, till once more there is peacebetween the Black Kendah and the White. If you refuse, then I willring you round and perhaps in the dark rush on you and kill you all. Orperhaps I will watch you from day to day till you, who have no water,die of thirst in the heat of the sun. These are my words to whichnothing may be added and from which nothing shall be taken away."

  Having finished this speech he rode back a few yards out of earshot, andwaited.

  "What will you answer, Lord Macumazana?" asked Marut.

  I replied by another question. "Is there any chance of our being rescuedby your people?"

  He shook his head. "None. What we have seen to-day is but a small partof the army of the Black Kendah, one regiment of foot and one of horse,that are always ready. By to-morrow thousands will be gathered, manymore than we can hope to deal with in the open and still less in theirstrongholds, also Harut will believe that we are dead. Unless the Childsaves us we shall be left to our fate."

  "Then it seems that we are indeed in a pit, as that black brute ofa king puts it, Marut, and if he does what he says and rushes us atsundown, everyone of us will be killed. Also I am thirsty already andthere is nothing to drink. But will this king keep his word? There areother ways of dying besides by steel."

  "I think that he will keep his word, but as that messenger said, he willnot add to his word. Choose now, for see, they are beginning to hedge usround."

  "What do you say, men?" I asked of the three who had remained with us.

  "We say, Lord, that we are in the hands of the Child, though we wishnow that we had died with our brothers," answered their spokesmanfatalistically.

  So after Marut and I had consulted together for a little as to the formof his reply, he beckoned to the messenger and said:

  "We accept the offer of Simba, although it would be easy for this lordto kill him now where he stands, namely, to yield ourselves as prisonerson his oath that no harm shall come to us. For know that if harm doescome, the vengeance will be terrible. Now in proof of his good faith,let Simba draw near and drink the cup of peace with us, for we thirst."

  "Not so," said the messenger, "for then that white lord might kill himwith his tube. Give me the tube and Simba shall come."

  "Take it," I said magnanimously, handing him the rifle, which hereceived in a very gingerly fashion. After all, I reflected, there isnothing much more useless than a rifle without ammunition.

  Off he went holding the weapon at arm's length, and presently Simbahimself, accompanied by some of his men, one of whom carried a skin ofwater and another a large cup hollowed from an elephant's tusk, rode upto us. This Simba was a fine and rather terrifying person with a largemoustache and a chin shaved except for a little tuft of hair whichhe wore at its point like an Italian. His eyes were big and dark,frank-looking, yet now and again with sinister expression in the cornersof them. He was not nearly so black as most of his followers; probablyin bygone generations his blood had been crossed with that of the WhiteKendah. He wore his hair long without any head-dress, held in place by aband of gold which I suppose represented a crown. On his forehead wasa large white scar, probably received in some battle. Such was hisappearance.

  He looked at me with great curiosity, and I have often wondered sincewhat kind of an impression I produced upon him. My hat had fallen off,or I had knocked it off when I fired my last cartridge into his people,and forgotten to replace it, and my intractable hair, which was longerthan usual, had not been recently brushed. My worn Norfolk jacket wasdyed with blood from a wounded or dying man who had tumbled against mein the scrimmage when the cavalry charged us, and my right leg and bootwere stained in a similar fashion from having rubbed against my camelwhere a spear had entered it. Altogether I must have appeared a mostdisreputable object.

  Some indication of his opinion was given, however, in a remark, which ofcourse I
pretended not to understand, that I overheard him make to oneof his officers:

  "Truly," he said, "we must not always look to the strong for strength.And yet this little white porcupine is strength itself, for see how muchdamage he has wrought us. Also consider his eyes that appear to pierceeverything. Jana himself might fear those eyes. Well, time that grindsthe rocks will tell us all."

  All of this I caught perfectly, my ears being very sharp, although hethought that he spoke out of my hearing, for after spending a month intheir company I understood the Kendah dialect of Bantu very well.

  Having delivered himself thus he rode nearer and said:

  "You, Prophet Marut, my enemy, have heard the terms of me, Simba theKing, and have accepted them. Therefore discuss them no more. What Ihave promised I will keep. What I have given I give, neither greater norless by the weight of a hair."

  "So be it, O King," answered Marut with his usual smile, which nothingever seemed to disturb. "Only remember that if those terms are brokeneither in the letter or in the spirit, especially the spirit" (that isthe best rendering I can give of his word), "the manifold curses ofthe Child will fall upon you and yours. Yes, though you kill us all bytreachery, still those curses will fall."

  "May Jana take the Child and all who worship it," exclaimed the kingwith evident irritation.

  "In the end, O King, Jana will take the Child and its followers--orthe Child will take Jana and his followers. Which of these things musthappen is known to the Child alone, and perchance to its prophets.Meanwhile, for every one of those of the Child I think that three of thefollowers of Jana, or more, lie dead upon this field. Also the caravanis now out of your reach with two of the white lords and many of suchtubes which deal death, like that which we have surrendered to you.Therefore because we are helpless, do not think that the Child ishelpless. Jana must have been asleep, O King, or you would have set yourtrap better."

  I thought that this coolly insolent speech would have produced someoutburst, but in fact it seemed to have an opposite effect. Making noreply to it, Simba said almost humbly:

  "I come to drink the cup of peace with you and the white lord, OProphet. Afterwards we can talk. Give me water, slave."

  Then a man filled the great ivory cup with water from the skin hecarried. Simba took it and having sprinkled a little upon the ground,I suppose as an offering, drank from the cup, doubtless to show that itwas not poisoned. Watching carefully, I made sure that he swallowed whathe drank by studying the motions of his throat. Then he handed the cupwith a bow to Marut, who with a still deeper bow passed it to me. Beingabsolutely parched I absorbed about a pint of it, and feeling a new man,passed the horn to Marut, who swallowed the rest. Then it was filledagain for our three White Kendah, the King first tasting the water asbefore, after which Marut and I had a second pull.

  When at length our thirst was satisfied, horses were brought to us,serviceable and docile little beasts with sheepskins for saddles andloops of hide for stirrups. On these we mounted and for the next threehours rode across the plain, surrounded by a strong escort and with anarmed Black Kendah running on each side of our horses and holding in hishand a thong attached to the ring of the bridle, no doubt to prevent anyattempt to escape.

  Our road ran past but not through some villages whence we saw many womenand children staring at us, and through beautiful crops of mealies andother sorts of grain that in this country were now just ripening. Theluxuriant appearance of these crops suggested that the rains must havebeen plentiful and the season all that could be desired. From some ofthe villages by the track arose a miserable sound of wailing. Evidentlytheir inhabitants had already heard that certain of their menkind hadfallen in that morning's fight.

  At the end of the third hour we began to enter the great forest whichI had seen when first we looked down on Kendahland. It was filled withsplendid trees, most of them quite strange to me, but perhaps because ofthe denseness of their overshadowing crowns there was comparativelyno undergrowth. The general effect of the place was very gloomy, sincelittle light could pass through the interlacing foliage of the tops ofthose mighty trees.

  Towards evening we came to a clearing in this forest, it may have beenfour or five miles in diameter, but whether it was natural or artificialI am not sure. I think, however, that it was probably the former fortwo reasons: the hollow nature of the ground, which lay a good many feetlower than the surrounding forest, and the wonderful fertility of thesoil, which suggested that it had once been deposited upon an oldlake bottom. Never did I see such crops as those that grew upon thatclearing; they were magnificent.

  Wending our way along the road that ran through the tall corn, for hereevery inch was cultivated, we came suddenly upon the capital of theBlack Kendah, which was known as Simba Town. It was a large place,somewhat different from any other African settlement with which Iam acquainted, inasmuch as it was not only stockaded but completelysurrounded by a broad artificial moat filled with water from a streamthat ran through the centre of the town, over which moat there werefour timber bridges placed at the cardinal points of the compass. Thesebridges were strong enough to bear horses or stock, but so made that inthe event of attack they could be destroyed in a few minutes.

  Riding through the eastern gate, a stout timber structure on the fartherside of the corresponding bridge, where the king was received withsalutes by an armed guard, we entered one of the main streets of thetown which ran from north to south and from east to west. It was broadand on either side of it were the dwellings of the inhabitants set closetogether because the space within the stockade was limited. These werenot huts but square buildings of mud with flat roofs of some kind ofcement. Evidently they were built upon the model of Oriental and NorthAfrican houses of which some debased tradition remained with thesepeople. Thus a stairway or ladder ran from the interior to the roof ofeach house, whereon its inhabitants were accustomed, as I discoveredafterwards, to sleep during a good part of the year, also to eat in thecool of the day. Many of them were gathered there now to watch us pass,men, women, and children, all except the little ones decently clothed inlong garments of various colours, the women for the most part in whiteand the men in a kind of bluish linen.

  I saw at once that they had already heard of the fight and of theconsiderable losses which their people had sustained, for theirreception of us prisoners was most unfriendly. Indeed the men shooktheir fists at us, the women screamed out curses, while the childrenstuck out their tongues in token of derision or defiance. Most of thesedemonstrations, however, were directed at Marut and his followers, whoonly smiled indifferently. At me they stared in wonder not unmixed withfear.

  A quarter of a mile or so from the gate we came to an inner enclosure,that answered to the South African cattle kraal, surrounded by a dryditch and a timber palisade outside of which was planted a green fenceof some shrub with long white thorns. Here we passed through moregates, to find ourselves in an oval space, perhaps five acres in extent.Evidently this served as a market ground, but all around it were opensheds where hundreds of horses were stabled. No cattle seemed to be keptthere, except a few that with sheep and goats were driven in every dayfor slaughter purposes at a shambles at the north end, from the greatstock kraals built beyond the forest to the south, where they were safefrom possible raiding by the White Kendah.

  A tall reed fence cut off the southern end of this marketplace, outsideof which we were ordered to dismount. Passing through yet another gatewe found within the fence a large hut or house built on the same modelas the others in the town, which Marut whispered to me was that of theking. Behind it were smaller houses in which lived his queen and women,good-looking females, who advanced to meet him with obsequious bows. Tothe right and left were two more buildings of about equal size, one ofwhich was occupied by the royal guard and the other was the guest-housewhither we were conducted.

  It proved to be a comfortable dwelling about thirty feet square butcontaining only one room, with various huts behind it that served forcooking and other purpos
es. In one of these the three camelmen wereplaced. Immediately on our arrival food was brought to us, a lamb or kidroasted whole upon a wooden platter, and some green mealie-cobs boiledupon another platter; also water to drink and wash with in earthenwarejars of sun-dried clay.

  I ate heartily, for I was starving. Then, as it was useless to attemptprecautions against murder, without any talk to my fellow prisoner, forwhich we were both too tired, I threw myself down on a mattress stuffedwith corn husks in a corner of the hut, drew a skin rug over me and,having commended myself to the protection of the Power above, fell fastasleep.