CHAPTER XIII
JANA
No breakfast was brought to us that morning, probably for the reasonthat there was none to bring. This did not matter, however, seeing thatplenty of food accumulated from supper and other meals stood in a cornerof the house practically untouched. So we ate what we could and thenpaid our usual visit to the hut in which the camelmen had been confined.I say had been, for now it was quite empty, the last poor fellow havingvanished away like his companions.
The sight of this vacuum filled me with a kind of fury.
"They have all been murdered!" I said to Marut.
"No," he replied with gentle accuracy. "They have been sacrificed toJana. What we have seen on the market-place at night was the rite oftheir sacrifice. Now it will be our turn, Lord Macumazana."
"Well," I exclaimed, "I hope these devils are satisfied with Jana'sanswer to their accursed offerings, and if they try their fiendishpranks on us----"
"Doubtless there will be another answer. But, Lord, the question is,will that help us?"
Dumb with impotent rage I returned to the house, where presently theremains of the reed gate opened. Through it appeared Simba the King, thediviner with the injured foot walking upon crutches, and others of whomthe most were more or less wounded, presumably by the hailstones. Thenit was that in my wrath I put off the pretence of not understandingtheir language and went for them before they could utter a single word.
"Where are our servants, you murderers?" I asked, shaking my fist atthem. "Have you sacrificed them to your devil-god? If so, behold thefruits of sacrifice!" and I swept my arm towards the country beyond."Where are your crops?" I went on. "Tell me on what you will live thiswinter?" (At these words they quailed. In their imagination already theysaw famine stalking towards them.) "Why do you keep us here? Is it thatyou wait for a worse thing to befall you? Why do you visit us here now?"and I paused, gasping with indignation.
"We came to look whether you had brought back to life that doctor whomyou killed with your magic, white man," answered the king heavily.
I stepped to the corner of the court-yard and, drawing aside a mat thatI had thrown there, showed them what lay beneath.
"Look then," I said, "and be sure that if you do not let us go, asyonder thing is, so shall all of you be before another moon has beenborn and died. Such is the life we shall give to evil men like you."
Now they grew positively terrified.
"Lord," said Simba, for the first time addressing me by a title ofrespect, "your magic is too strong for us. Great misfortune has fallenupon our land. Hundreds of people are dead, killed by the ice-stonesthat you have called down. Our harvest is ruined, and there is butlittle corn left in the storepits now when we looked to gather the newgrain. Messengers come in from the outlying land telling us that nearlyall the sheep and goats and very many of the cattle are slain. Soon weshall starve."
"As you deserve to starve," I answered. "Now--will you let us go?"
Simba stared at me doubtfully, then began to whisper into the ear ofthe lamed diviner. I could not catch what they said, so I watched theirfaces. That of the diviner whose head I was glad to see had been cut bya hailstone so that both ends of him were now injured, told me a gooddeal. His mask had been ugly, but now that it was off the countenancebeneath was far uglier. Of a negroid type, pendulous-lipped, sensuousand loose-eyed, he was indeed a hideous fellow, yet very cunning andcruel-looking, as men of his class are apt to be. Humbled as he wasfor the moment, I felt sure that he was still plotting evil against us,somewhat against the will of his master. The issue showed that I wasright. At length Simba spoke, saying:
"We had intended, Lord, to keep you and the priest of the Child here ashostages against mischief that might be worked on us by the followersof the Child, who have always been our bitter enemies and done us muchundeserved wrong, although on our part we have faithfully kept the pactconcluded in the days of our grandfathers. It seems, however, that fate,or your magic, is too strong for us, and therefore I have determined tolet you go. To-night at sundown we will set you on the road which leadsto the ford of the River Tava, which divides our territory from that ofthe White Kendah, and you may depart where you will, since our wish isthat never again may we see your ill-omened faces."
At this intelligence my heart leapt in joy that was altogetherpremature. But, preserving my indignant air, I exclaimed:
"To-night! Why to-night? Why not at once? It is hard for us to crossunknown rivers in the dark."
"The water is low, Lord, and the ford easy. Moreover, if you startednow you would reach it in the dark; whereas if you start at sundown, youwill reach it in the morning. Lastly, we cannot conduct you hence untilwe have buried our dead."
Then, without giving me time to answer, he turned and left the place,followed by the others. Only at the gateway the diviner wheeled round onhis crutches and glared at us both, muttering something with his thicklips; probably it was curses.
"At any rate they are going to set us free," I said to Marut, notwithout exultation, when they had all vanished.
"Yes, Lord," he replied, "but _where_ are they going to set us free? Thedemon Jana lives in the forests and the swamps by the banks of the TavaRiver, and it is said that he ravages at night."
I did not pursue the subject, but reflected to myself cheerfully thatthis mystic rogue-elephant was a long way off and might be circumvented,whereas that altar of sacrifice was extremely near and very difficult toavoid.
Never did a thief with a rich booty in view, or a wooer having anassignation with his lady, wait for sundown more eagerly than I did thatday. Hour after hour I sat upon the house-top, watching the Black Kendahcarrying off the dead killed by the hailstones and generally trying torepair the damage done by the terrific tempest. Watching the sun alsoas it climbed down the cloudless sky, and literally counting the minutestill it should reach the horizon, although I knew well that it wouldhave been wiser after such a night to prepare for our journey by lyingdown to sleep.
At length the great orb began to sink in majesty behind the tatteredwestern forest, and, punctual to the minute, Simba, with a mountedescort of some twenty men and two led horses, appeared at our gate. Asour preparations, which consisted only of Marut stuffing such food aswas available into the breast of his robe, were already made, we walkedout of that accursed guest-house and, at a sign from the king, mountedthe horses. Riding across the empty market-place and past the spot wherethe rough stone altar still stood with charred bones protruding fromthe ashes of its extinguished fire--were they those of our friends thecamel-drivers? I wondered--we entered the north street of the town.
Here, standing at the doors of their houses, were many of theinhabitants who had gathered to watch us pass. Never did I see hate moresavage than was written on those faces as they shook their fists at usand muttered curses not loud but deep.
No wonder! for they were all ruined, poor folk, with nothing to lookforward to but starvation until long months hence the harvest came againfor those who would live to gather it. Also they were convinced that we,the white magician and the prophet of their enemy the Child, had broughtthis disaster on them. Had it not been for the escort I believe theywould have fallen on us and torn us to pieces. Considering them Iunderstood for the first time how disagreeable real unpopularity _canbe_. But when I saw the actual condition of the fruitful gardens withoutin the waning daylight, I confess that I was moved to some sympathy withtheir owners. It was appalling. Not a handful of grain was there leftto gather, for the corn had been not only "laid" but literally cut toribbons by the hail.
After running for some miles through the cultivated land the roadentered the forest. Here it was dark as pitch, so dark that I wonderedhow our guides found their way. In that blackness dreadful apprehensionsseized me, for I became convinced that we had been brought here to bemurdered. Every minute I expected to feel a knife-thrust in my back. Ithought of digging my heels into the horse's sides and trying to gallopoff anywhere, but abandoned the idea, first because I co
uld not desertMarut, of whom I had lost touch in the gloom, and secondly because I washemmed in by the escort. For the same reason I did not try to slip fromthe horse and glide away into the forest. There was nothing to be donesave to go on and await the end.
It came at last some hours later. We were out of the forest now, andthere was the moon rising, past her full but still very bright. Herlight showed me that we were on a wild moorland, swampy, with scatteredtrees growing here and there, across which what seemed to be a gametrack ran down hill. That was all I could make out. Here the escorthalted, and Simba the King said in a sullen voice:
"Dismount and go your ways, evil spirits, for we travel no fartheracross this place which is haunted. Follow the track and it will leadyou to a lake. Pass the lake and by morning you will come to the riverbeyond which lies the country of your friends. May its waters swallowyou if you reach them. For learn, there is one who watches on this roadwhom few care to meet."
As he finished speaking men sprang at us and, pulling us from thehorses, thrust us out of their company. Then they turned and in anotherminute were lost in the darkness, leaving us alone.
"What now, friend Marut?" I asked.
"Now, Lord, all we can do is to go forward, for if we stay here Simbaand his people will return and kill us at the daylight. One of them saidso to me."
"Then, 'come on, Macduff,'" I exclaimed, stepping out briskly, andthough he had never read Shakespeare, Marut understood and followed.
"What did Simba mean about 'one on the road whom few care to meet'?" Iasked over my shoulder when we had done half a mile or so.
"I think he meant the elephant Jana," replied Marut with a groan.
"Then I hope Jana isn't at home. Cheer up, Marut. The chances are thatwe shall never meet a single elephant in this big place."
"Yet many elephants have been here, Lord," and he pointed to the ground."It is said that they come to die by the waters of the lake and thisis one of the roads they follow on their death journey, a road that noother living thing dare travel."
"Oh!" I exclaimed. "Then after all that was a true dream I had in thehouse in England."
"Yes, Lord, because my brother Harut once lost his way out hunting whenhe was young and saw what his mind showed you in the dream, and what weshall see presently, if we live to come so far."
I made no reply, both because what he said was either true or false,which I should ascertain presently, and because I was engaged insearching the ground with my eyes. He was right; many elephants hadtravelled this path--one quite recently. I, a hunter of those brutes,could not be deceived on this point. Once or twice also I thought thatI caught sight of the outline of some tall creature moving silentlythrough the scattered thorns a couple of hundred yards or so to ourright. It might have been an elephant or a giraffe, or perhaps nothingbut a shadow, so I said nothing. As I heard no noise I was inclinedto believe the latter explanation. In any case, what was the good ofspeaking? Unarmed and solitary amidst unknown dangers, our position wasdesperate, and as Marut's nerve was already giving out, to emphasize itshorrors to him would be mere foolishness.
On we trudged for another two hours, during which time the only livingthing that I saw was a large owl which sailed round our heads as thoughto look at us, and then flew away ahead.
This owl, Marut informed me, was one of "Jana's spies" that kept himadvised of all that was passing in his territory. I muttered "Bosh"and tramped on. Still I was glad that we saw no more of the owl, for incertain circumstances such dark fears are catching.
We reached the top of a rise, and there beneath us lay the most desolatescene that ever I have seen. At least it would have been the mostdesolate if I did not chance to have looked on it before, in thedrawing-room of Ragnall Castle! There was no doubt about it. Below wasthe black, melancholy lake, a large sheet of water surrounded by reeds.Around, but at a considerable distance, appeared the tropical forest. Tothe east of the lake stretched a stony plain. At the time I could makeout no more because of the uncertain light and the distance, for we hadstill over a mile to go before we reached the edge of the lake.
The aspect of the place filled me with tremblings, both because of itsutter uncanniness and because of the inexplicable truth that I had seenit before. Most people will have experienced this kind of moral shockwhen on going to some new land they recognize a locality as being quitefamiliar to them in all its details. Or it may be the rooms of a househitherto unvisited by them. Or it may be a conversation of which, whenit begins, they already foreknow the sequence and the end, because insome dim state, when or how who can say, they have taken part inthat talk with those same speakers. If this be so even in cheerfulsurroundings and among our friends or acquaintances, it is easy toimagine how much greater was the shock to me, a traveller on such ajourney and in such a night.
I shrank from approaching the shores of this lake, remembering that asyet all the vision was not unrolled. I looked about me. If we went tothe left we should either strike the water, or if we followed its edge,still bearing to the left, must ultimately reach the forest, whereprobably we should be lost. I looked to the right. The ground was strewnwith boulders, among which grew thorns and rank grass, impracticable formen on foot at night. I looked behind me, meditating retreat, and there,some hundreds of yards away behind low, scrubby mimosas mixed withaloe-like plants, I saw something brown toss up and disappear again thatmight very well have been the trunk of an elephant. Then, animatedby the courage of despair and a desire to know the worst, I began todescend the elephant track towards the lake almost at a run.
Ten minutes or so more brought us to the eastern head of the lake, wherethe reeds whispered in the breath of the night wind like things alive.As I expected, it proved to be a bare, open space where nothing seemedto grow. Yes, and all about me were the decaying remains of elephants,hundreds of them, some with their bones covered in moss, that may havelain here for generations, and others more newly dead. They were allold beasts as I could tell by the tusks, whether male or female. Indeedabout me within a radius of a quarter of a mile lay enough ivory to makea man very rich for life, since although discoloured, much of it seemedto have kept quite sound, like human teeth in a mummy case. The sightgave me a new zest for life. If only I could manage to survive and carryoff that ivory! I would. In this way or in that I swore that I would!Who could possibly die with so much ivory to be had for the taking? Notthat old hunter, Allan Quatermain.
Then I forgot about the ivory, for there in front of me, just whereit should be, just as I had seen it in the dream-picture, was the bullelephant dying, a thin and ancient brute that had lived its long lifeto the last hour. It searched about as though to find a convenientresting-place, and when this was discovered, stood over it, swayingto and fro for a full minute. Then it lifted its trunk and trumpetedshrilly thrice, singing its swan-song, after which it sank slowly to itsknees, its trunk outstretched and the points of its worn tusks restingon the ground. Evidently it was dead.
I let my eyes travel on, and behold! about fifty yards beyond the deadbull was a mound of hard rock. I watched it with gasping expectationand--yes, on the top of the mound something slowly materialized.Although I knew what it must be well enough, for a while I could not seequite clearly because there were certain little clouds about and one ofthem had floated over the face of the moon. It passed, and before me,perhaps a hundred and forty paces away, outlined clearly against thesky, I perceived the devilish elephant of my vision.
Oh! what a brute was that! In bulk and height it appeared to be halfas big again as any of its tribe which I had known in all my life'sexperience. It was enormous, unearthly; a survivor perhaps of someancient species that lived before the Flood, or at least a very giant ofits kind. Its grey-black sides were scarred as though with fighting. Oneof its huge tusks, much worn at the end, for evidently it was very old,gleamed white in the moonlight. The other was broken off about halfwaydown its length. When perfect it had been malformed, for it curveddownwards and not upwards, also rather out to the right
.
There stood this mammoth, this leviathan, this _monstrum horrendum,informe, ingens_, as I remember my old father used to call a certaingigantic and misshapen bull that we had on the Station, flapping a pairof ears that looked like the sides of a Kafir hut, and waving a trunkas big as a weaver's beam--whatever a weaver's beam may be--an appallingand a petrifying sight.
I squatted behind the skeleton of an elephant which happened to be handyand well covered with moss and ferns and watched the beast, fascinated,wishing that I had a large-bore rifle in my hand. What became of Marut Ido not exactly know, but I think that he lay down on the ground.
During the minute or so that followed I reflected a good deal, as wedo in times of emergency, often after a useless sort of a fashion. Forinstance, I wondered why the brute appeared thus upon yonder mound, andthe thought suggested itself to me that it was summoned thither fromsome neighbouring lair by the trumpet call of the dying elephant. Itoccurred to me even that it was a kind of king of the elephants, towhich they felt bound to report themselves, as it were, in the hourof their decease. Certainly what followed gave some credence to myfantastical notion which, if there were anything in it, might accountfor this great graveyard at that particular spot.
After standing for a while in the attitude that I have described,testing the air with its trunk, Jana, for I will call him so, lumbereddown the mound and advanced straight to where the elephant that I hadthought to be dead was kneeling. As a matter of fact it was not quitedead, for when Jana arrived it lifted its trunk and curled it roundthat of Jana as though in affectionate greeting, then let it fall tothe ground again. Thereon Jana did what I had seen it do in my dream orvision at Ragnall, namely, attacked it, knocking it over on to its side,where it lay motionless; quite dead this time.
Now I remembered that the vision was not accurate after all, since in itI had seen Jana destroy a woman and a child, who on the present occasionwere wanting. Since then I have thought that this was because Harut,clairvoyantly or telepathically, had conveyed to me, as indeed Marutdeclared, a scene which he had witnessed similar to that which I waswitnessing, but not identical in its incidents. Thus it happened,perhaps, that while the act of the woman and the child was omitted,in our case there was another act of the play to follow of which I hadreceived no inkling in my Ragnall experience. Indeed, if I had receivedit, I should not have been there that night, for no inducement on earthwould have brought me to Kendahland.
This was the act. Jana, having prodded his dead brother to hissatisfaction, whether from viciousness or to put it out of pain, Icannot say, stood over the carcass in an attitude of grief or piousmeditation. At this time, I should mention, the wind, which had beenrustling the hail-stripped reeds at the lake border, had died awayalmost, but not completely; that is to say, only a very faint gustblew now and again, which, with a hunter's instinct, I observed withsatisfaction drew _from_ the direction of Jana towards ourselves. This Iknew, because it struck on my forehead, which was wet with perspiration,and cooled the skin.
Presently, however, by a cursed spite of fate, one of these gusts--avery little one--came from some quarter behind us, for I felt it in myback hair, that was as damp as the rest of me. Just then I was glancingto my right, where it seemed to me that out of the corner of my eye Ihad caught sight of something passing among the stones at a distanceof a hundred yards or so, possibly the shadow of a cloud or anotherelephant. At the time I did not ascertain which it was, since a faintrattle from Jana's trunk reconcentrated all my faculties on him in apainfully vivid fashion.
I looked to see that all the contemplation had departed from hisattitude, now as alert as that of a fox-terrier which imagines he hasseen a rat. His vast ears were cocked, his huge bulk trembled, hisenormous trunk sniffed the air.
"Great Heavens!" thought I to myself, "he has winded us!" Then I tooksuch consolation as I could from the fact that the next gust once morestruck upon my forehead, for I hoped he would conclude that he had madea mistake.
Not a bit of it! Jana as far too old a bird--or beast--to make anymistake. He grunted, got himself going like a luggage train, and withgreat deliberation walked towards us, smelling at the ground, smellingat the air, smelling to the right, to the left, and even towards heavenabove, as though he expected that thence might fall upon him vengeancefor his many sins. A dozen times as he came did I cover him with animaginary rifle, marking the exact spots where I might have hoped tosend a bullet to his vitals, in a kind of automatic fashion, for all myreal brain was contemplating my own approaching end.
I wondered how it would happen. Would he drive that great tusk throughme, would he throw me into the air, or would he kneel upon my poorlittle body, and avenge the deaths of his kin that had fallen at myhands? Marut was speaking in a rattling whisper:
"His priests have told Jana to kill us; we are about to die," he said."Before I die I want to say that the lady, the wife of the lord----"
"Silence!" I hissed. "He will hear you," for at that instant I took notthe slightest interest in any lady on the earth. Fiercely I glared atMarut and noted even then how pitiful was his countenance. There was nosmile there now. All its jovial roundness had vanished. It had sunk in;it was blue and ghastly with large, protruding eyes, like to that of aman who had been three days dead.
I was right--Jana _had_ heard. Low as the whisper was, through thatintense silence it had penetrated to his almost preternatural senses.Forward he came at a run for twenty paces or more with his trunk heldstraight out in front of him. Then he halted again, perhaps the lengthof a cricket pitch away, and smelt as before.
The sight was too much for Marut. He sprang up and ran for his lifetowards the lake, purposing, I suppose, to take refuge in the water.Oh! how he ran. After him went Jana like a railway engine--express thistime--trumpeting as he charged. Marut reached the lake, which was quiteclose, about ten yards ahead, and plunging into it with a bound, beganto swim.
Now, I thought, he may get away if the crocodiles don't have him, forthat devil will scarcely take to the water. But this was just where Imade a mistake, for with a mighty splash in went Jana too. Also he wasthe better swimmer. Marut soon saw this and swung round to the shore, bywhich manoeuvre he gained a little as he could turn quicker than Jana.
Back they came, Jana just behind Marut, striking at him with his greattrunk. They landed, Marut flew a few yards ahead doubling in and outamong the rocks like a hare and, to my horror, making for where I lay,whether by accident or in a mad hope of obtaining protection, I do notknow.
It may be asked why I had not taken the opportunity to run also in theopposite direction. There are several answers. The first was that thereseemed to be nowhere to run; the second, that I felt sure, if I did run,I should trip up over the skeletons of those elephants or the stones;the third, that I did not think of it at once; the fourth, that Janahad not yet seen me, and I had no craving to introduce myself to himpersonally; and the fifth and greatest, that I was so paralysed withfear that I did not feel as though I could lift myself from the ground.Everything about me seemed to be dead, except my powers of observation,which were painfully alive.
Of a sudden Marut gave up. Less than a stone's throw from me he wheeledround and, facing Jana, hurled at him some fearful and concentratedcurse, of which all that I could distinguish were the words: "TheChild!"
Oddly enough it seemed to have an effect upon the furious rogue, whichhalted in its rush and, putting its four feet together, slid a few pacesnearer and stood still. It was just as though the beast had understoodthe words and were considering them. If so, their effect was to rousehim to perfect madness. He screamed terribly; he lashed his sides withhis trunk; his red and wicked eyes rolled; foam flew from the cavernof his open mouth; he danced upon his great feet, a sort of hideousScottish reel. Then he charged!
I shut my eyes for a moment. When I opened them again it was to seepoor Marut higher in the air than ever he flew before. I thought thathe would never come down, but he did at last with an awesome thud. Janawent to him and
very gently, now that he was dead, picked him up in histrunk. I prayed that he might carry him away to some hiding-place andleave me in peace. But not so. With slow and stately strides, rockingthe deceased Marut up and down in his trunk, as a nurse might rocka baby, he marched on to the very stone where I lay, behind which Isuppose he had seen or smelt me all the time.
For quite a long while, it seemed more than a century, he stood over me,studying me as though I interested him very much, the water of the laketrickling in a refreshing stream from his great ears on to my back. Hadit not been for that water I think I should have fainted, but as it wasI did the next best thing--pretended to be dead. Perhaps this monsterwould scorn to touch a dead man. Watching out of the corner of my eye, Isaw him lift one vast paw that was the size of an arm-chair and hold itover me.
Now good-bye to the world, thought I. Then the foot descended as asteam-hammer does, but also as a steam-hammer sometimes does when usedto crack nuts, stopped as it touched my back, and presently came toearth again alongside of me, perhaps because Jana thought the footholddangerous. At any rate, he took another and better way. Depositing theremains of Marut with the most tender care beside me, as though thenurse were putting the child to bed, he unwound his yards of trunk andbegan to feel me all over with its tip, commencing at the back of myneck. Oh! the sensation of that clammy, wriggling tip upon my spinalcolumn!
Down it went till it reached the seat of my trousers. There it pinched,presumably to ascertain whether or no I were malingering, a mostagonizing pinch like to that of a pair of blacksmith's tongs. So sharpwas it that, although I did not stir, who was aware that the slightestmovement meant death, it tore a piece out of the stout cloth of mybreeches, to say nothing of a portion of the skin beneath. This seemedto astonish the beast, for it lifted the tip of its trunk and shiftedits head, as though to examine the fragment by the light of the moon.
Now indeed all was over, for when it saw blood upon that cloth----! Iput up one short, piteous prayer to Heaven to save me from this terribleend, and lo, it was answered!
For just as Jana, the results of the inspection being unsatisfactory,was cocking his ears and making ready to slay me, there rang out theshort, sharp report of a rifle fired within a few yards. Glancing upat the instant, I saw blood spurt from the monster's left eye, whereevidently the bullet had found a home.
He felt at his eye with his trunk; then, uttering a scream of pain,wheeled round and rushed away.
The Ivory Child Page 18