CHAPTER XVII
SOLOMON'S TREASURE CHAMBER
While we were engaged in recovering from our fright, and in examiningthe grisly wonders of the Place of Death, Gagool had been differentlyoccupied. Somehow or other--for she was marvellously active when shechose--she had scrambled on to the great table, and made her way towhere our departed friend Twala was placed, under the drip, to see,suggested Good, how he was "pickling," or for some dark purpose of herown. Then, after bending down to kiss his icy lips as though inaffectionate greeting, she hobbled back, stopping now and again toaddress the remark, the tenor of which I could not catch, to one orother of the shrouded forms, just as you or I might welcome an oldacquaintance. Having gone through this mysterious and horribleceremony, she squatted herself down on the table immediately under theWhite Death, and began, so far as I could make out, to offer upprayers. The spectacle of this wicked creature pouring outsupplications, evil ones no doubt, to the arch enemy of mankind, was souncanny that it caused us to hasten our inspection.
"Now, Gagool," said I, in a low voice--somehow one did not dare tospeak above a whisper in that place--"lead us to the chamber."
The old witch promptly scrambled down from the table.
"My lords are not afraid?" she said, leering up into my face.
"Lead on."
"Good, my lords;" and she hobbled round to the back of the great Death."Here is the chamber; let my lords light the lamp, and enter," and sheplaced the gourd full of oil upon the floor, and leaned herself againstthe side of the cave. I took out a match, of which we had still a fewin a box, and lit a rush wick, and then looked for the doorway, butthere was nothing before us except the solid rock. Gagool grinned. "Theway is there, my lords. _Ha! ha! ha!_"
"Do not jest with us," I said sternly.
"I jest not, my lords. See!" and she pointed at the rock.
As she did so, on holding up the lamp we perceived that a mass of stonewas rising slowly from the floor and vanishing into the rock above,where doubtless there is a cavity prepared to receive it. The mass wasof the width of a good-sized door, about ten feet high and not lessthan five feet thick. It must have weighed at least twenty or thirtytons, and was clearly moved upon some simple balance principle ofcounter-weights, probably the same as that by which the opening andshutting of an ordinary modern window is arranged. How the principlewas set in motion, of course none of us saw; Gagool was careful toavoid this; but I have little doubt that there was some very simplelever, which was moved ever so little by pressure at a secret spot,thereby throwing additional weight on to the hidden counter-balances,and causing the monolith to be lifted from the ground.
Very slowly and gently the great stone raised itself, till at last ithad vanished altogether, and a dark hole presented itself to us in theplace which the door had filled.
Our excitement was so intense, as we saw the way to Solomon's treasurechamber thrown open at last, that I for one began to tremble and shake.Would it prove a hoax after all, I wondered, or was old Da Silvestraright? Were there vast hoards of wealth hidden in that dark place,hoards which would make us the richest men in the whole world? Weshould know in a minute or two.
"Enter, white men from the Stars," said Gagool, advancing into thedoorway; "but first hear your servant, Gagool the old. The brightstones that ye will see were dug out of the pit over which the SilentOnes are set, and stored here, I know not by whom, for that was donelonger ago than even I remember. But once has this place been enteredsince the time that those who hid the stones departed in haste, leavingthem behind. The report of the treasure went down indeed among thepeople who lived in the country from age to age, but none knew wherethe chamber was, nor the secret of the door. But it happened that awhite man reached this country from over the mountains--perchance hetoo came 'from the Stars'--and was well received by the king of thatday. He it is who sits yonder," and she pointed to the fifth king atthe table of the Dead. "And it came to pass that he and a woman of thecountry who was with him journeyed to this place, and that by chancethe woman learnt the secret of the door--a thousand years might yesearch, but ye should never find that secret. Then the white manentered with the woman, and found the stones, and filled with stonesthe skin of a small goat, which the woman had with her to hold food.And as he was going from the chamber he took up one more stone, a largeone, and held it in his hand."
Here she paused.
"Well," I asked, breathless with interest as we all were, "whathappened to Da Silvestra?"
The old hag started at the mention of the name.
"How knowest thou the dead man's name?" she asked sharply; and then,without waiting for an answer, went on--
"None can tell what happened; but it came about that the white man wasfrightened, for he flung down the goat-skin, with the stones, and fledout with only the one stone in his hand, and that the king took, and itis the stone which thou, Macumazahn, didst take from Twala's brow."
"Have none entered here since?" I asked, peering again down the darkpassage.
"None, my lords. Only the secret of the door has been kept, and everyking has opened it, though he has not entered. There is a saying, thatthose who enter there will die within a moon, even as the white mandied in the cave upon the mountain, where ye found him, Macumazahn, andtherefore the kings do not enter. _Ha! ha!_ mine are true words."
Our eyes met as she said it, and I turned sick and cold. How did theold hag know all these things?
"Enter, my lords. If I speak truth, the goat-skin with the stones willlie upon the floor; and if there is truth as to whether it is death toenter here, that ye will learn afterwards. _Ha! ha! ha!_" and shehobbled through the doorway, bearing the light with her; but I confessthat once more I hesitated about following.
"Oh, confound it all!" said Good; "here goes. I am not going to befrightened by that old devil;" and followed by Foulata, who, however,evidently did not at all like the business, for she was shivering withfear, he plunged into the passage after Gagool--an example which wequickly followed.
A few yards down the passage, in the narrow way hewn out of the livingrock, Gagool had paused, and was waiting for us.
"See, my lords," she said, holding the light before her, "those whostored the treasure here fled in haste, and bethought them to guardagainst any who should find the secret of the door, but had not thetime," and she pointed to large square blocks of stone, which, to theheight of two courses (about two feet three), had been placed acrossthe passage with a view to walling it up. Along the side of the passagewere similar blocks ready for use, and, most curious of all, a heap ofmortar and a couple of trowels, which tools, so far as we had time toexamine them, appeared to be of a similar shape and make to those usedby workmen to this day.
Here Foulata, who had been in a state of great fear and agitationthroughout, said that she felt faint and could go no farther, but wouldwait there. Accordingly we set her down on the unfinished wall, placingthe basket of provisions by her side, and left her to recover.
Following the passage for about fifteen paces farther, we came suddenlyto an elaborately painted wooden door. It was standing wide open.Whoever was last there had either not found the time to shut it, or hadforgotten to do so.
_Across the threshold of this door lay a skin bag, formed of agoat-skin, that appeared to be full of pebbles._
"_Hee! hee!_ white men," sniggered Gagool, as the light from the lampfell upon it. "What did I tell you, that the white man who came herefled in haste, and dropped the woman's bag--behold it! Look within alsoand ye will find a water-gourd amongst the stones."
Good stooped down and lifted it. It was heavy and jingled.
"By Jove! I believe it's full of diamonds," he said, in an awedwhisper; and, indeed, the idea of a small goat-skin full of diamonds isenough to awe anybody.
"Go on," said Sir Henry impatiently. "Here, old lady, give me thelamp," and taking it from Gagool's hand, he stepped through the doorwayand held it high above his head.
We pressed in after him, forgetful for
the moment of the bag ofdiamonds, and found ourselves in King Solomon's treasure chamber.
At first, all that the somewhat faint light given by the lamp revealedwas a room hewn out of the living rock, and apparently not more thanten feet square. Next there came into sight, stored one on the other tothe arch of the roof, a splendid collection of elephant-tusks. How manyof them there were we did not know, for of course we could not see towhat depth they went back, but there could not have been less than theends of four or five hundred tusks of the first quality visible to oureyes. There, alone, was enough ivory to make a man wealthy for life.Perhaps, I thought, it was from this very store that Solomon drew theraw material for his "great throne of ivory," of which "there was notthe like made in any kingdom."
On the opposite side of the chamber were about a score of wooden boxes,something like Martini-Henry ammunition boxes, only rather larger, andpainted red.
"There are the diamonds," cried I; "bring the light."
Sir Henry did so, holding it close to the top box, of which the lid,rendered rotten by time even in that dry place, appeared to have beensmashed in, probably by Da Silvestra himself. Pushing my hand throughthe hole in the lid I drew it out full, not of diamonds, but of goldpieces, of a shape that none of us had seen before, and with whatlooked like Hebrew characters stamped upon them.
"Ah!" I said, replacing the coin, "we shan't go back empty-handed,anyhow. There must be a couple of thousand pieces in each box, andthere are eighteen boxes. I suppose this was the money to pay theworkmen and merchants."
"Well," put in Good, "I think that is the lot; I don't see anydiamonds, unless the old Portuguese put them all into his bag."
"Let my lords look yonder where it is darkest, if they would find thestones," said Gagool, interpreting our looks. "There my lords will finda nook, and three stone chests in the nook, two sealed and one open."
Before translating this to Sir Henry, who carried the light, I couldnot resist asking how she knew these things, if no one had entered theplace since the white man, generations ago.
"Ah, Macumazahn, the watcher by night," was the mocking answer, "ye whodwell in the stars, do ye not know that some live long, and that somehave eyes which can see through rock? _Ha! ha! ha!_"
"Look in that corner, Curtis," I said, indicating the spot Gagool hadpointed out.
"Hullo, you fellows," he cried, "here's a recess. Great heavens! seehere."
We hurried up to where he was standing in a nook, shaped something likea small bow window. Against the wall of this recess were placed threestone chests, each about two feet square. Two were fitted with stonelids, the lid of the third rested against the side of the chest, whichwas open.
"_See!_" he repeated hoarsely, holding the lamp over the open chest. Welooked, and for a moment could make nothing out, on account of asilvery sheen which dazzled us. When our eyes grew used to it we sawthat the chest was three-parts full of uncut diamonds, most of them ofconsiderable size. Stooping, I picked some up. Yes, there was no doubtof it, there was the unmistakable soapy feel about them.
I fairly gasped as I dropped them.
"We are the richest men in the whole world," I said. "Monte Christo wasa fool to us."
"We shall flood the market with diamonds," said Good.
"Got to get them there first," suggested Sir Henry.
We stood still with pale faces and stared at each other, the lantern inthe middle and the glimmering gems below, as though we wereconspirators about to commit a crime, instead of being, as we thought,the most fortunate men on earth.
"_Hee! hee! hee!_" cackled old Gagool behind us, as she flitted aboutlike a vampire bat. "There are the bright stones ye love, white men, asmany as ye will; take them, run them through your fingers, _eat_ ofthem, _hee! hee! drink_ of them, _ha! ha!_"
At that moment there was something so ridiculous to my mind at the ideaof eating and drinking diamonds, that I began to laugh outrageously, anexample which the others followed, without knowing why. There we stoodand shrieked with laughter over the gems that were ours, which had beenfound for _us_ thousands of years ago by the patient delvers in thegreat hole yonder, and stored for _us_ by Solomon's long-dead overseer,whose name, perchance, was written in the characters stamped on thefaded wax that yet adhered to the lids of the chest. Solomon never gotthem, nor David, or Da Silvestra, nor anybody else. _We_ had got them:there before us were millions of pounds' worth of diamonds, andthousands of pounds' worth of gold and ivory only waiting to be takenaway.
Suddenly the fit passed off, and we stopped laughing.
"Open the other chests, white men," croaked Gagool, "there are surelymore therein. Take your fill, white lords! _Ha! ha!_ take your fill."
Thus adjured, we set to work to pull up the stone lids on the othertwo, first--not without a feeling of sacrilege--breaking the seals thatfastened them.
Hoorah! they were full too, full to the brim; at least, the second onewas; no wretched burglarious Da Silvestra had been filling goat-skinsout of that. As for the third chest, it was only about a fourth full,but the stones were all picked ones; none less than twenty carats, andsome of them as large as pigeon-eggs. A good many of these bigger ones,however, we could see by holding them up to the light, were a littleyellow, "off coloured," as they call it at Kimberley.
What we did _not_ see, however, was the look of fearful malevolencethat old Gagool favoured us with as she crept, crept like a snake, outof the treasure chamber and down the passage towards the door of solidrock.
* * * * *
Hark! Cry upon cry comes ringing up the vaulted path. It is Foulata'svoice!
"_Oh, Bougwan! help! help! the stone falls!_"
"Leave go, girl! Then--"
"_Help! help! she has stabbed me!_"
By now we are running down the passage, and this is what the light fromthe lamp shows us. The door of the rock is closing down slowly; it isnot three feet from the floor. Near it struggle Foulata and Gagool. Thered blood of the former runs to her knee, but still the brave girlholds the old witch, who fights like a wild cat. Ah! she is free!Foulata falls, and Gagool throws herself on the ground, to twist like asnake through the crack of the closing stone. She is under--ah! god!too late! too late! The stone nips her, and she yells in agony. Down,down it comes, all the thirty tons of it, slowly pressing her old bodyagainst the rock below. Shriek upon shriek, such as we have neverheard, then a long sickening _crunch_, and the door was shut just as,rushing down the passage, we hurled ourselves against it.
It was all done in four seconds.
Then we turned to Foulata. The poor girl was stabbed in the body, and Isaw that she could not live long.
"Ah! Bougwan, I die!" gasped the beautiful creature. "She creptout--Gagool; I did not see her, I was faint--and the door began tofall; then she came back, and was looking up the path--I saw her comein through the slowly falling door, and caught her and held her, andshe stabbed me, and _I die_, Bougwan!"
"Poor girl! poor girl!" Good cried in his distress; and then, as hecould do nothing else, he fell to kissing her.
"Bougwan," she said, after a pause, "is Macumazahn there? It grows sodark, I cannot see."
"Here I am, Foulata."
"Macumazahn, be my tongue for a moment, I pray thee, for Bougwan cannotunderstand me, and before I go into the darkness I would speak to him aword."
"Say on, Foulata, I will render it."
"Say to my lord, Bougwan, that--I love him, and that I am glad to diebecause I know that he cannot cumber his life with such as I am, forthe sun may not mate with the darkness, nor the white with the black.
"Say that, since I saw him, at times I have felt as though there were abird in my bosom, which would one day fly hence and sing elsewhere.Even now, though I cannot lift my hand, and my brain grows cold, I donot feel as though my heart were dying; it is so full of love that itcould live ten thousand years, and yet be young. Say that if I liveagain, mayhap I shall see him in the Stars, and that--I will searchthem all, though perch
ance there I should still be black and hewould--still be white. Say--nay, Macumazahn, say no more, save that Ilove--Oh, hold me closer, Bougwan, I cannot feel thine arms--_oh! oh!_"
"She is dead--she is dead!" muttered Good, rising in grief, the tearsrunning down his honest face.
"You need not let that trouble you, old fellow," said Sir Henry.
"Eh!" exclaimed Good; "what do you mean?"
"I mean that you will soon be in a position to join her. _Man, don'tyou see that we are buried alive?_"
Until Sir Henry uttered these words I do not think that the full horrorof what had happened had come home to us, preoccupied as we were withthe sight of poor Foulata's end. But now we understood. The ponderousmass of rock had closed, probably for ever, for the only brain whichknew its secret was crushed to powder beneath its weight. This was adoor that none could hope to force with anything short of dynamite inlarge quantities. And we were on the wrong side!
For a few minutes we stood horrified, there over the corpse of Foulata.All the manhood seemed to have gone out of us. The first shock of thisidea of the slow and miserable end that awaited us was overpowering. Wesaw it all now; that fiend Gagool had planned this snare for us fromthe first.
It would have been just the jest that her evil mind would have rejoicedin, the idea of the three white men, whom, for some reason of her own,she had always hated, slowly perishing of thirst and hunger in thecompany of the treasure they had coveted. Now I saw the point of thatsneer of hers about eating and drinking the diamonds. Probably somebodyhad tried to serve the poor old Dom in the same way, when he abandonedthe skin full of jewels.
"This will never do," said Sir Henry hoarsely; "the lamp will soon goout. Let us see if we can't find the spring that works the rock."
We sprang forward with desperate energy, and, standing in a bloodyooze, began to feel up and down the door and the sides of the passage.But no knob or spring could we discover.
"Depend on it," I said, "it does not work from the inside; if it didGagool would not have risked trying to crawl underneath the stone. Itwas the knowledge of this that made her try to escape at all hazards,curse her."
"At all events," said Sir Henry, with a hard little laugh, "retributionwas swift; hers was almost as awful an end as ours is likely to be. Wecan do nothing with the door; let us go back to the treasure room."
We turned and went, and as we passed it I perceived by the unfinishedwall across the passage the basket of food which poor Foulata hadcarried. I took it up, and brought it with me to the accursed treasurechamber that was to be our grave. Then we returned and reverently borein Foulata's corpse, laying it on the floor by the boxes of coin.
Next we seated ourselves, leaning our backs against the three stonechests which contained the priceless treasure.
"Let us divide the food," said Sir Henry, "so as to make it last aslong as possible." Accordingly we did so. It would, we reckoned, makefour infinitesimally small meals for each of us, enough, say, tosupport life for a couple of days. Besides the "biltong," or driedgame-flesh, there were two gourds of water, each of which held not morethan a quart.
"Now," said Sir Henry grimly, "let us eat and drink, for to-morrow wedie."
We each ate a small portion of the "biltong," and drank a sip of water.Needless to say, we had but little appetite, though we were sadly inneed of food, and felt better after swallowing it. Then we got up andmade a systematic examination of the walls of our prison-house, in thefaint hope of finding some means of exit, sounding them and the floorcarefully.
There was none. It was not probable that there would be any to atreasure chamber.
The lamp began to burn dim. The fat was nearly exhausted.
"Quatermain," said Sir Henry, "what is the time--your watch goes?"
I drew it out, and looked at it. It was six o'clock; we had entered thecave at eleven.
"Infadoos will miss us," I suggested. "If we do not return to-night hewill search for us in the morning, Curtis."
"He may search in vain. He does not know the secret of the door, noreven where it is. No living person knew it yesterday, except Gagool.To-day no one knows it. Even if he found the door he could not break itdown. All the Kukuana army could not break through five feet of livingrock. My friends, I see nothing for it but to bow ourselves to the willof the Almighty. The search for treasure has brought many to a bad end;we shall go to swell their number."
The lamp grew dimmer yet.
Presently it flared up and showed the whole scene in strong relief, thegreat mass of white tusks, the boxes of gold, the corpse of the poorFoulata stretched before them, the goat-skin full of treasure, the dimglimmer of the diamonds, and the wild, wan faces of us three white menseated there awaiting death by starvation.
Then the flame sank and expired.
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