CHAPTER XVI
ALLAN'S VISION
The old chamberlain, Billali, conducted us back to our camp. As we wenthe discoursed to me of these Amahagger, of whom it seemed he was himselfa developed specimen, one who threw back, perhaps tens of generations,to some superior ancestor who lived before they became debased. Insubstance he told me that they were a wild and lawless lot who livedamongst ruins or in caves, or some of them in swamp dwellings, insmall separate communities, each governed by its petty headman who wasgenerally a priest of their goddess Lulala.
Originally they and the people of Rezu were the same, in times when theyworshipped the sun and the moon jointly, but "thousands of years" ago,as he expressed it, they had separated, the Rezuites having gone todwell to the north of the Great Mountain, whence they continuallythreatened the Lulalaites whom, had it not been for She-who-commands,they would have destroyed long before. The Rezuites, it seemed, werehabitual cannibals, whereas the Lulalaite branch of the Amahagger onlypractised cannibalism occasionally when by a lucky chance they got holdof strangers. "Such as yourself, Watcher-by-Night, and your companions,"he added with meaning. If their crime were discovered, however, Hiya,She-who-commands, punished it by death.
I asked if she exercised an active rule over these people. He answeredthat she did not, as she lacked sufficient interest in them; only whenshe was angry with individuals she would destroy some of them by "herarts," as she had power to do if she chose. Most of them indeed hadnever seen her and only knew of her existence by rumour. To them she wasa spirit or a goddess who inhabited the ancient tombs that lay to thesouth of the old city whither she had come because of the threatened warwith Rezu, whom alone she feared, he did not know why. He told me again,moreover, that she was the greatest magician who had ever been, andthat it was certain she did not die, since their forefathers knew hergenerations ago. Still she seemed to be under some curse, like theAmahagger themselves, who were the descendants of those who had onceinhabited Kor and the country round it, as far as the sea-coast andfor hundreds of miles inland, having been a mighty people in their daybefore a great plague destroyed them.
For the rest he thought that she was a very unhappy woman who "livedwith her own soul mourning the dead" and consorting with none upon theearth.
I asked him why she stayed here, whereat he shook his head and replied,he supposed because of the "curse," since he could conceive of no otherreason. He informed me also that her moods varied very much. Sometimesshe was fierce and active and at others by comparison mild andlow-spirited. Just now she was passing through one of the latter stages,perhaps because of the Rezu trouble, for she did not wish her people tobe destroyed by this terrible person; or perhaps for some other reasonwith which he was not acquainted.
When she chose, she knew all things, except the distant future. Thusshe knew that we were coming, also the details of our march and thatwe should be attacked by the Rezuites who were going out to meettheir returning company that had been sent afar to find a white queen.Therefore she had ordered him to go with soldiers to our assistance. Iasked why she went veiled, and he replied, because of her beauty whichdrove even savage men mad, so that in old days she had been obliged tokill a number of them.
That was all he seemed to know about her, except that she was kind tothose who served her well, like himself, and protected them from evil ofevery sort.
Then I asked him about Rezu. He answered that he was a dreadful person,undying, it was said, like She-who-commands, though he had never seenthe man himself and never wanted to do so. His followers being cannibalsand having literally eaten up all those that they could reach, were nowdesirous of conquering the people of Lulala that they might eat themalso at their leisure. Each other they did not eat, because dog does noteat dog, and therefore they were beginning to grow hungry, although theyhad plenty of grain and cattle of which they used the milk and hides.
As for the coming battle, he knew nothing about it or what would happen,save that She-who-commands said that it would go well for the Lulalaitesunder my direction. She was so sure that it would go well, that she didnot think it worth while to accompany the army, for she hated noise andbloodshed.
It occurred to me that perhaps she was afraid that she too would betaken captive and eaten, but I kept my reflection to myself.
Just then we arrived at our camp-house, where Billali bade me farewell,saying that he wished to rest as he must be back at dawn with litters,when he hoped to find us ready to start. Then he departed. Umslopogaasand Hans also went away to sleep, leaving me alone who, having taken myrepose in the afternoon, did not feel drowsy at the moment. So lovelywas the night indeed that I made up my mind to take a little walk duringthe midnight hours, after the manner of the Amahagger themselves, forhaving now been recognised as Generalissimo of their forces, I hadlittle fear of being attacked, especially as I carried a pistol in mypocket. So off I set strolling slowly down what seemed to have beena main street of the ancient city, which in its general appearanceresembled excavated Pompeii, only on an infinitely larger scale.
As I went I meditated on the strange circumstances in which I foundmyself. Really they tempted me to believe that I was suffering fromdelusions and perhaps all the while in fact lay stretched upon a bedin the delirium of fever. That marvellous woman, for instance--evenrejecting her tale of miraculously extended life, which I did--what wasI to make of her? I did not know, except that wondrous as she was,it remained clear that she claimed a great deal more power than shepossessed. This was evident from her tone in the interview with thecaptains, and from the fact that she had shuffled off the command of hertribe on to my shoulders. If she were so mighty, why did she not commandit herself and bring her celestial, or infernal, powers to bear upon theenemy? Again, I could not say, but one fact emerged, namely that shewas as interesting as she was beautiful, and uncommonly clever into thebargain.
But what a task was this that she had laid upon me, to lead into battle,with a foe of unascertained strength, a mob of savages probably quiteundisciplined, of whose fighting qualities I knew nothing and whom I hadno opportunity of organising. The affair seemed madness and I could onlyhope that luck or destiny would take me through somehow.
To tell the truth, I believed it would, for I had grown almost assuperstitious about Zikali and his Great Medicine as was Hans himself.Certainly the effect of it upon those captains was very odd, or wouldhave been had not the explanation come to me in a flash. On the firstnight of our meeting, as I have described, I showed this talisman toAyesha, as a kind of letter of credentials, and now I could see thatit was she who had arranged all the scene with the captains, or theirtribal magician, in order to get her way about my appointment to thecommand.
Everything about her conduct bore this out, even her feigning ignoranceof the existence of the charm and the leaving of it to Hans tosuggest its production, which perhaps she did by influencing his mindsubconsciously. No doubt more or less it fitted in with one of thosenebulous traditions which are so common amongst ancient savage races,and therefore once shown to her confederate, or confederates, would beaccepted by the common people as a holy sign, after which the rest waseasy.
Such an obvious explanation involved the death of any illusions I mightstill cherish about this Arab lady, Ayesha, and it is true that I partedwith them with regret, as we all do when we think we have discoveredsomething wonderful in the female line. But there it was, and to botherany more about her, her history and aims, seemed useless.
So dismissing her and all present anxieties from my mind, I began tolook about me and to wonder at the marvellous scene which unfoldeditself before me in the moonlight. That I might see it better, althoughI was rather afraid of snakes which might hide among the stones, byan easy ascent I climbed a mount of ruins and up the broad slope of atumbled massive wall, which from its thickness I judged must have beenthat of some fort or temple. On the crest of this wall, some seventy oreighty feet above the level of the streets, I sat down and looked aboutme.
Everywh
ere around me stretched the ruins of the great city, now asfallen and as deserted as Babylon herself. The majestic lonelinessof the place was something awful. Even the vision of companies andbattalions of men crossing the plain towards the north with themoonlight glistening on their spear-points, did little to lessen thissense of loneliness. I knew that these were the regiments which I wasdestined to command, travelling to the camp where I must meet them. Butin such silence did they move that no sound came from them even in thedeathly stillness of the perfect night, so that almost I was tempted tobelieve them to be the shadow-ghosts of some army of old Kor.
They vanished, and musing thus I think I must have dozed. At any rate itseemed to me that of a sudden the city was as it had been in the daysof its glory. I saw it brilliant with a hundred colours; everywhere wascolour, on the painted walls and roofs, the flowering trees that linedthe streets and the bright dresses of the men and women who by thousandscrowded them and the marts and squares. Even the chariots that moved toand fro were coloured as were the countless banners which floated frompalace walls and temple tops.
The enormous place teemed with every activity of life; brides beingborne to marriage and dead men to burial; squadrons marching, cladin glittering armour; merchants chaffering; white-robed priests andpriestesses passing in procession (who or what did they worship? Iwondered); children breaking out of school; grave philosophers debatingin the shadow of a cool arcade; a royal person making a progresspreceded by runners and surrounded by slaves, and lastly the multitudesof citizens going about the daily business of life.
Even details were visible, such as those of officers of the law chasingan escaped prisoner who had a broken rope tied to his arm, and acollision between two chariots in a narrow street, about the wrecks ofwhich an idle mob gathered as it does to-day if two vehicles collide,while the owners argued, gesticulating angrily, and the police andgrooms tried to lift a fallen horse on to its feet. Only no sound of theargument or of anything else reached me. I saw, and that was all. Thesilence remained intense, as well it might do, since those chariots musthave come to grief thousands upon thousands of years ago.
A cloud seemed to pass before my eyes, a thin, gauzy cloud which somehowreminded me of the veil that Ayesha wore. Indeed at the moment, althoughI could not see her, I would have sworn that she was present at my side,and what is more, that she was mocking me who had set her down as soimpotent a trickstress, which doubtless was part of the dream.
At any rate I returned to my normal state, and there about me were themiles of desolate streets and the thousands of broken walls, and theblack blots of roofless houses and the wide, untenanted plain bounded bythe battlemented line of encircling mountain crests, and above all, thegreat moon shining softly in a tender sky.
I looked and thrilled, though oppressed by the drear and desolate beautyof the scene around me, descended the wall and the ruined slope and mademy way homewards, afraid even of my own shadow. For I seemed to be theonly living thing among the dead habitations of immemorial Kor.
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