The Adventures of Dick Maitland: A Tale of Unknown Africa

by Harry Collingwood

  CHAPTER ELEVEN.

  THE PLACE OF RED STONES.

  The day was well advanced when at length Dick Maitland, weary andhungry, returned to his tent, where he found Grosvenor indulging in abath and a change of clothing after a preliminary exploration of theruins. "You seemed to be engaged busily upon affairs of state, and notlikely to need me, so I trotted off to take a general look round," heexplained.

  "Well," demanded Dick, "and what do you think of them?"

  "Awfully interesting!" answered Grosvenor. "Wonderful people they musthave been who were responsible for the building of the city. People ofrefinement, don't you know; fond of luxury, intensely artistic, and allthat sort of thing. Some of the carvings--floreated capitals and, andwhat-d'ye-call-ems of that sort--are really splendid. And everything'son such a grand scale, too; must have been immensely wealthy--those oldjohnnies. I'm only sorry now that I'm not an archaeologist; for if Iwere I might write a book about the place and become famous. But no,that wouldn't do either, for Professor von Schalckenberg has alreadydone that, so my book would only be a drug on the market. But I'vetaken some rattlin' good photographs of the place, and I ought to beable to do something with them later on--eh, what?"

  "Yes," said Dick, "I dare say you will--if they come out right. Haveyou developed them yet?"

  "No, not yet," answered Grosvenor. "Waiting until it gets dark before Iattempt anything of that sort. But I know that they'll come out allright. Good light, correct exposure, isochromatic screen and films;bound to come out right, y'know. Found the place where the Professorand his pals had been digging. Must have done a lot of work, thosejohnnies; no end of soil turned over where they dug for pavements and--and--things. And, pray, what have you been about all day, old chap?"

  Dick told him, pretty well _in extenso_, how he had passed the day, evengoing so far as to describe his hypnotic experiments--of which he hadsaid nothing to Grosvenor thus far--with the result that the MightyHunter was rendered almost speechless with astonishment.

  "Hypnotised 'em, eh?" he ejaculated. "Well, I'll be shot! Thoughthypnotism was all humbug and tommy rot, y'know. Collusion, and thatsort of thing."

  "Yes," agreed Dick, "there is no doubt that much of it is. But,nevertheless, hypnotism is a perfectly genuine science, and atremendously powerful agent for good, if properly used. There is thewell-known institution at Nancy, for instance, where several almostmiraculous cures have been effected solely by the employment ofhypnotism. Oh yes, hypnotism is genuine enough, make no mistake aboutthat; and the hypnotic practitioner can do many wonderful things by itsemployment. For instance, do you suppose that old villain, Sekosini,would have revealed all the details of his precious plot to-day had Inot hypnotised him?"

  "No, I don't suppose he would," acknowledged Grosvenor. "But--er--Isay, old chap, I'm just wondering whether it was quite playing thegame--doin' the square thing by the wizard and the other johnnies tomake them give themselves away under the influence of hypnotism--eh,what?"

  "Ah, now," said Dick, "you raise a question of an exceedinglycontroversial character. I admit, of course, that at the first blush,and regarding the matter superficially--if I may say so--it certainlywould seem that I had taken an unfair advantage of those fellows bycompelling them to speak the truth, and so `give themselves away', asyou expressively put it. Yet why, I ask you, should they not be made todo so? Are evildoers to be permitted to shelter themselves from theconsequences of their misdeeds behind a protective screen of lies? Isright to be handicapped in its battle with wrong by what, after all,seems to me an overstrained if not altogether false sense of justice?There can be little doubt that skilful criminals have escaped the justpunishment of their crimes simply because they have refused toincriminate themselves. This, of course, is all right from thecriminars point of view; but is it right from the point of view of thecommunity, who look to the law to protect them from him? My own view--which I give for whatever it may be worth--is that the criminal has noright to be protected from himself. It is the interests of thecommunity and not of the criminal that have to be considered. If byspeaking the truth he furthers the ends of justice he ought to beallowed to do so, ay, or even compelled, where compulsion is possible,as in the case of these conspirators. Here we have certain men who, fortheir own selfish ends, deliberately planned to plunge this Makolonation into all the horrors of civil war, and deluge it with the bloodof its own people; also, in pursuance of their plans they foully andtreacherously took the lives of six of the most important chiefs andendangered that of a seventh. Were they `playing the game', or, inother words, were they acting openly and above-board? On the contrary,their acts were wrapped in secrecy, and were characterised by the vilesttreachery; and they would have been successful but for my intervention.For it is certain that the facts could never have been brought to light,had I not compelled Sekosini to speak the truth. That being the case,how could their nefarious scheme have been defeated by our side playingthe game, if by `playing the game' you mean that we were not to compel,or even permit them to incriminate themselves? To me it seems toresolve itself into this--that if one side insists on playing the gamewhile the other side refuses to do so, the first must always sufferdefeat while the other triumphs; and where the side which insists onplaying the game represents right and justice, law and order, and theother side represents evil and criminality, the result must be thetriumph of the lawless over the lawabiding, which, as Euclid observes,is absurd. Q.E.D."

  "Yes," agreed Grosvenor, "I suppose you are right, Dick. Put as you putit, it certainly does seem an absurd and fantastic distortion of oursense of fairness that in the ceaseless struggle between good and evilthe latter should be helped and the former handicapped as much aspossible; and at all events in the present case I think you havesuccessfully demonstrated your right to act as you did. Now, havingsettled that point, I propose that we have dinner, which seems to beready, if one may judge by the looks and actions of Ramoo Samee."

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  The sun had barely risen on the following morning when Dick andGrosvenor received an invitation from the king to present themselvesforthwith in the Great Place, where the conspirators were to be broughtup for judgment to be pronounced upon them; and as such an invitationwas tantamount to a command they hastily finished the breakfast uponwhich they were engaged when the message reached them, ordered theirhorses, and rode away toward the appointed spot.

  Upon their arrival they found the chiefs who had been summoned, likethemselves, to hear sentence pronounced, already assembling, while theking's bodyguard, motionless as statues, were ranged in a semicircleround the throne that had been placed in position for the accommodationof the king. A stool stood on either side of the throne, and upon theirarrival Dick and Grosvenor were at once conducted to these. Almostimmediately afterward the king made his appearance, and approaching thethrone seated himself thereon, while those present accorded him theroyal salute, Dick and Grosvenor standing and saluting in militaryfashion. Then, at a sign from His Majesty, all who were entitled to sitdid so, and the order was given to lead forward the prisoners.

  Conducted by their guards, the eight prisoners, their faces set andexpressionless as masks, ranged themselves in line before the king;then, for a full minute, there ensued a profound and impressive silence,which was at length broken by Lobelalatutu, who commanded, in a calm,stern voice:

  "Sekosini, chief Witch Doctor, and you Mapela, Amakosa, N'Ampata, andSekukuni, chiefs of the Makolo, stand forward and listen to your doom.Out of your own mouths have ye been convicted of conspiracy against meand the peace of the nation. You, Sekosini, Mapela, N'Ampata, andAmakosa, yesterday boldly and defiantly acknowledged your guilt, and hadnothing to plead in extenuation of it; but you, Sekukuni, in addition tobeing a conspirator, have proved yourself liar [and] coward; for at yourpublic trial, in the presence of those now assembled, you declaredyourself to be, like Ingona, Lambati, and Moroosi, the victim of
Sekosini's wiles and serpent tongue; whereas afterward, when you werebrought before me privately, and compelled by the Healer's magic tospeak the truth, you acknowledged that your former statement was false,made only in the hope of mitigation of your punishment, and that in yourfoul, guilty heart you thought as Sekosini, and would have foughtagainst me to your last man in the attempt to overthrow and destroy me.To satisfy your unlawful ambition and greed of gain, you five men, allholding positions of high authority and trust, would have set callouslytribe against tribe, regiment against regiment, and man against man,until the people had fallen and strewed the ground like leaves of autumnand the land was drenched in their blood. It is enough; you are amenace and danger to the nation, and you must die. In the old days ofthe reign of M'Bongwele--those days which you were so anxious torestore--your dying would have been a lingering, long-drawn-out,excruciating torment; but under the teaching of those who put me on thisthrone I have learned to be merciful, and my sentence is that you be ledforth and hanged by the neck from the bough of the tree that endedM'Bongwele's cruel and iniquitous life, and there left as an example anda warning to all who think such evil thoughts as yours. Bind them andtake them away."

  In an instant the guards who had charge of the doomed men seized them,and proceeded to bind their hands behind them with thongs of hide, priorto leading them away to the place of execution. With one exception theysubmitted silently and without protest; Sekosini, however, the WitchDoctor, seemed determined not to go without firing a Parthian shot, for,fixing his eyes on Dick, he shouted in a high, piercing voice:

  "Listen, O _'mlungu_! It is through you and your accursed magic that Igo forth this day to die the death of shame and ignominy; for, but foryou, we should have kept our secret, our plans would have succeeded, andours would have been the triumph. But though your magic triumphs now,it shall not always be so. I too have a potent magic, by means of whichmine eyes can pierce the veil of the future and see many things that areto be. I see you and the other _'mlungu_ going hence through manydangers to a far country, where other dangers await you; and, mark youthis, though both go, only one of you shall return! It is enough; Ihave said, and I am ready."

  So heavily charged with bitter hate and malignity were the tones of thewitch doctors voice and the expression of his burning eyes that, despitehis sober common sense, Dick could scarcely repress a shudder at theveiled threat conveyed by the man's parting words; but his attention wasquickly diverted by the voice of the king commanding Ingona, Lambati,and Moroosi to listen to him while he announced his decision concerningthem.

  "Attend to my words, O chiefs of the Makolo nation!" said Lobelalatutu,raising his voice so that all present might distinctly hear. "Ye werepresent yesterday when I summoned the eight conspirators before me todefend themselves; and ye heard Ingona, Lambati, Moroosi, and Sekukunideclare that there was no treason in their hearts, but that they hadbeen bewitched and led astray by Sekosini. I was inclined to believethem, as doubtless ye all were, and it grieved me that I should beobliged to condemn to death those who had served me well in the past,and might perchance, if they spoke the truth, serve me well again in thefuture. Yet how was I to know that their words were in very deed thetruth? I was perplexed and troubled, and in my perplexity I soughtcounsel from my friend the Healer. And the counsel that he gave me wasgood. He said: `Behold now, O Great One, thou shalt summon those menagain before thee, and by the power of my magic I will cause them tospeak the very truth to thee; thou shalt read the inmost secrets oftheir hearts, and thus shalt thou gauge the exact measure of their guiltin this matter.' And as the Healer spoke, so was it; the three whostand before us had indeed been beguiled and led astray for a time fromtheir fidelity by the wiles of Sekosini, but there was no treachery intheir hearts; and they confessed that, had the conspiracy ripened, theywould have arrayed themselves on my side, while Sekukuni confessed thathe was indeed guilty of all that he had been charged with. Therefore,although they have sinned in conspiring against me, and mustconsequently be punished, yet their punishment shall not be death. Mysentence upon you, O Ingona, Lambati, and Moroosi! is that ye bebanished hence to the farthest confines of my kingdom, and be stationedat those points where the neighbouring nations are most aggressive.There ye shall be placed in command of the troops who guard the land;there ye shall find ample outlet for your warlike propensities; andthere, if ye will, ye may atone for your fault by rendering me as goodservice in the future as ye have rendered in the past. I have said!"

  As the last words passed the king's lips a shout of irrepressibletriumph and rejoicing went up from those present; for the three chiefsmost intimately concerned had many friends, and were regarded by allwith esteem and respect almost amounting to veneration. There is littledoubt, therefore, that the king's clemency in punishing their crime bybanishment to points where their duties would not only be arduous, butalso honourable, did much to strengthen his position and increase hispopularity.

  For several days following the conspiracy trial nothing of momenthappened; the excitement which had been aroused by the somewhatsensational discovery of the plot and its sequel gradually subsided,until at length everybody was once more going about his business ascalmly and quietly as though nothing abnormal had ever happened.Meanwhile Dick and Grosvenor diligently applied themselves to asystematic exploration of the ruins and the taking of many photographs;they were both highly skilled amateur photographers, and were alsoendowed with a considerable amount of artistic taste. Moreover,Grosvenor had devoted a considerable amount of time to the perfecting ofhimself in the science of photography in natural colours, and hadprovided himself with all the requisite apparatus needed. Consequently,by the time that they had completed their labours, they found themselvespossessors not only of a large number of negatives of the highest valuefrom the archaeologist's point of view, but also of several exquisitelybeautiful pictures in natural colours of the ruins as seen under variousatmospheric effects, such as early morning, sunrise, and sunset, thelatter being exceptionally fine because of the gorgeous hues of thesunsets which were characteristic of the place.

  It was about a week after the trial of the conspirators, and theexecution of the sentences passed upon them, that King Lobelalatutu sentfor them both, and tendered his hearty thanks for the important servicewhich Dick had rendered him in unravelling the details of the plot andbringing the plotters to trial, as well as for saving the life of thechief, 'Nkuni, who, under the Healer's sedulous ministrations, wasalready up and about again. The king took some pains to make itperfectly clear that his gratitude was both deep and absolutely sincere,even going to the length of proposing that they should take up theirpermanent residence in the country, and promising that if they would doso he would make them chiefs. The offer was made in perfect good faith,and had of course to be treated with the utmost--apparent--seriousness;but Dick explained that, highly as they both appreciated His Majesty'sgenerosity, it was impossible for them to avail themselves of it for thesimple reason that they had long ago made other arrangements to whichthey must adhere.

  "Then," said the king, "if ye will not remain with me and help me byyour wisdom to govern this great people, say now in what way I mayreward you for the great service that ye have done me."

  "There is a way," answered Dick. "Ye may remember, O Great One, that onthe day when we first came to you I said that I was a seeker of gold andthe stones that glitter and shine, even such stones as those that shinered in the necklace which you wear; and you said that maybe you couldhelp me in my search. If you will cause to be shown us the place wheresuch stones are to be found, and will give us leave to take as many aswe may desire, it will be reward enough."

  "Surely if that will content ye it is easily done," answered the king."I will give orders that men shall go to the place and dig up as many ofthe stones as ye desire, and ye shall take them away with you whither yewill. But that is a small thing, and it pleases me not that ye shalltake so little; therefore, since your journey hence is to be a far one,I will
give you out of mine own herd forty picked oxen, young andstrong, to draw your wagon and to make good such loss as may happenthrough sickness or the attack of savage beasts; and I will also giveorders that so long as your way lies within my borders ye shall besupplied with all that ye may require. Is it enough?"

  "It is enough, O King, and we thank you," answered Dick. "And now,behold, our work here is done; give us therefore a guide to the place ofred stones, and send the diggers after us that we may be gone, for, asyou have said, our journey is long, and we must hasten."

  "It shall be even as ye have said," agreed the king. "When desire ye toleave me?"

  "As soon as ye shall be able to provide us with a guide," answered Dick.

  "Then that is even now," answered Lobelalatutu. "I grieve that ye areleaving me; but since I cannot persuade you to stay, I say: `Go inpeace, and may the Spirits watch over you that your journey beprosperous. The Place of Red Stones is distant one day's ox trek fromhere, therefore send forward your wagon at once with the guide whom Iwill give you, and ye shall follow on your horses. I know not whetherwe shall meet again, O Healer of Sickness and Mighty Hunter! but if yereturn, the whole Makolo nation shall give you welcome. Farewell!'"

  An hour later Dick and Grosvenor, having dispatched the wagon on ahead,and then gone round to bid farewell to the various chiefs, swungthemselves into the saddle and, turning their backs regretfully upon thevillage and the ruins of Ophir, cantered off upon two magnificent horseswhich the king had, at the last moment, added to his gift of oxen. Theanimals were superb specimens of their kind, jet black without a whitehair upon them, standing about fifteen-two in height, perfectly shaped,with fine, clean, sinewy legs not too long, splendid shoulders andhaunches, skins like satin, perfect in temper, courageous as lions,speedy, easy-paced. They jumped like cats, and were tough as whipcord,as they found to their great satisfaction before many days were past;they were, in fact, perfect specimens of the exceptionally fine breed ofhorses peculiar to the Makolo country. Mounted on these magnificentanimals, which seemed to carry them absolutely without effort, althoughneither of them was a light weight, the two riders soon overtook theslow-moving wagon, and then, carefully noting the instructions of theguide who was piloting the vehicle, passed on toward the sea thatgleamed softly in the extreme distance.

  A quiet, steady canter of some three hours' duration, which left theirnew mounts apparently as fresh as they had been at the start, broughtthe horsemen out upon a long stretch of sandy beach upon which the swellof the Indian Ocean broke in long lines of diamond spray, with a never-ceasing roar of deep-toned thunder; and, with a sigh of relief at thegrateful coolness of the sea breeze after the stifling heat of the plainwhich they had just crossed, they gladly swung themselves out of thesaddle and, passing their arms through their bridles, proceeded to lookabout them.

  The beach upon which they found themselves was a very ordinary,unpicturesque-looking stretch of brown sand running practicallystraight, and also practically north and south, as far as the eye couldsee in both directions. It averaged about one hundred and twenty yardsin width, was very flat, and on its landward side was bounded by a bankof red earth ranging from ten to about fifty feet in height, cut intohere and there by "dongas", through one of which they had descended fromthe plain to the level of the sand. The ordinary high-water mark seemednowhere to reach within less than thirty yards of the toe of the bank,but there were indications--in the shape of little patches of dry andcrumbling seaweed and other ocean debris--that in stormy weather thebreakers occasionally reached to the foot of the bank and in some placesactually undermined it. At a distance of about half a mile to seaward along line of white water betrayed the position of a reef.

  "Um!" exclaimed Grosvenor, after he had allowed his gaze to travel overthe prospect for several minutes; "this is a pretty desolate-lookingspot, and no mistake; not at all the sort of place where you wouldexpect to find precious stones, is it?"

  "Why not?" retorted Dick, laughingly. "Gems are sometimes found in themost unlikely looking places. I did not expect the landscape to bedistinguished by any unusual characteristics; did you?"

  "'Pon my word I don't know," replied Grosvenor; "but somehow I expectedit to look very different from this. After all, however, what does thebeauty or otherwise of the landscape matter, so long as the rubies arereally here? And I suppose they are here, somewhere, eh? We haven'tmade a mistake and come out at the wrong spot, do you think?"

  "Well," admitted Dick, "we may not have hit the precise spot perhaps,but I think we cannot be more than half a mile from it. Perhaps thequickest way of finding it will be to search for it. Now, just let methink for a moment. Those _Flying-Fish_ people started by searching thebeach. The Professor, possessing superior knowledge to the others,searched the face of the cliff; and finally, when the precise localityof the mine had been discovered, they went to work with pickaxe andshovel and dug their way down to the level of the `pocket'. I think ourbest plan would be to search for that hole, which must still beconspicuous enough to admit of identification. Let us return, by way ofthe donga, to the top of the cliff, and, starting from there, ride alongclose to the cliff edge, you taking one direction and I the other. Weought to come across it within half a mile, or a mile at most."

  "Right you are, old chappie, come along," answered Grosvenor, preparingto mount. As, however, he placed his left foot in the stirrup, and wasabout to spring into the saddle, Dick checked him.

  "Hold on a moment, Phil," he exclaimed, his eyes intently searching acertain part of the cliff about a quarter of a mile distant. "Do yousee that notch in the line of the cliff, over there? From here it lookssomething like a `breakdown', but it may be the very spot we want tofind. Anyhow it is quite worth examining; and if it should prove not tobe the mine we can at all events reach the top of the cliff by means ofit, and can start our search from there. Come along." The next momentthe pair were up and cantering toward the spot.

  At the point toward which they were riding the cliff was quite low, itscrest being not more than some fifteen feet above the level of thebeach; therefore, although the notch or gap was of but insignificantwidth, it reached from top to bottom of the cliff face, and offered away, of sorts, from the beach to the level of the plain above; but asthe horsemen drew near they saw that although it was a `breakdown' orcollapse of the cliff face, it was undoubtedly caused by an artificialexcavation which had had its origin a few yards inland from the line ofthe crest. They rode right into it, and found themselves in a sort ofbasin-shaped pit, one side of which having broken away had left the gapthrough which they had entered. A single glance around sufficed toassure them that they had reached the place of which they were insearch, and dismounting they flung their bridles over their horses'heads to the ground, leaving them to stand, as they had been trained todo, while they proceeded at once to search the place for its preciouscontents.

  They had not to look far. It was evident that time and weather hadwrought some slight changes in the place since it had last been worked,the changes consisting chiefly of falls of earth from the sides, hereand there; but pebbles, singly and in little groups of half a dozen orso, were plentifully strewed about the surface of the soil, and the veryfirst one examined proved to be exactly similar in character to those ofwhich the king's necklace was composed. Such, however, was notinvariably the case, many of the stones which the searchers picked upturning out to be quite worthless; nevertheless ten minutes sufficed tosatisfy the prospectors that the source of boundless wealth laypractically within reach of their hands, for during that short periodeach of them had secured a dozen rubies of varying size, from that of apea up to pebbles as large as a pigeon's egg, while Grosvenor had beenlucky enough to find a specimen as large as a duck's egg. By the end ofan hour they had more than doubled the amount of their find, and hadfilled their jacket pockets as full as it was prudent to load them; butit was evident that, profitable as this desultory, haphazard method ofsearch had proved to be, much better results mi
ght be hoped for fromsystematic pick-and-shovel work; accordingly they agreed to suspendfurther operations until the arrival of the wagon, and the party oflabourers which had been placed at their disposal by Lobelalatutu; they,therefore, scrambled out of the pit and set about searching for asuitable site for their camp, eventually pitching upon a spot about aquarter of a mile distant from the mine.

  By the time that the wagon arrived and the tent had been pitched the daywas too far advanced to make it worth while for work to be started. Itwas, therefore, decided to give the workers a good long night's restafter their wearisome tramp from the king's village, and an hour aftersunset saw the entire party wrapped in profound sleep.

  But with the appearance of the sun above the sea's rim, on the followingmorning, everybody was once more astir; and after an early breakfast ageneral adjournment was made to the mine, where, under Dick Maitland'ssuperintendence, a dozen parties of the Makolo were soon activelyengaged with their native mattocks and shovels in excavating the soil insearch of the precious stones, one-half of each party being employedupon the work of digging, while the other half turned over the excavatedsoil and extracted from it all the stones which it happened to contain,Dick and Grosvenor employing themselves meanwhile in passing from partyto party and sorting out the rubies from the worthless stones upturned.In this way considerable progress was made, and by midday a veryhandsome pile of rubies had been accumulated, consisting, however, forthe most part of relatively small stones.

  It was not, however, until late in the afternoon that their real goodluck came to them, and then it came all in a moment. A party of thenatives who had for some time been left to themselves had excavatedquite a little cavern in the side of the pit, and, as might have beenexpected, this mode of working ultimately resulted in a "cave-in".Fortunately for them, the workers who were responsible for it detectedthe signs of the approaching fall in time to avoid being buried by it;and when the dust-cloud occasioned by it presently subsided, and the newface thus laid bare came to be examined, it was discovered that averitable "pocket" of rubies had been exposed, the stones--every one ofthem of large size and especially fine fire and colour--being sonumerous that almost every shovelful of earth turned over contained oneor more! They were all, without exception, so very much finer than thefinest that had hitherto been found that the latter were there and thenincontinently discarded, and a fresh collection was at once begun, thewhole body of natives being concentrated upon this one spot. Soenormously rich did this "pocket" prove to be that when at length thedeclining sun gave warning that the moment to cease work had arrived,Dick and Grosvenor were fain to acknowledge to each other that, eager asthe former was to make his fortune, they had now collected sufficientrubies to constitute not one but two exceedingly handsome fortunes, andthat in any case the quantity acquired was as great as it would be atall prudent to cumber themselves with in view of the long and arduousjourney that still lay before them.