CHAPTER I
THE TALISMAN
I believe it was the old Egyptians, a very wise people, probably indeedmuch wiser than we know, for in the leisure of their ample centuriesthey had time to think out things, who declared that each individualpersonality is made up of six or seven different elements, although theBible only allows us three, namely, body, soul, and spirit. The bodythat the man or woman wore, if I understand their theory aright whichperhaps I, an ignorant person, do not, was but a kind of sack or fleshlycovering containing these different principles. Or mayhap it did notcontain them all, but was simply a house as it were, in which they livedfrom time to time and seldom all together, although one or more of themwas present continually, as though to keep the place warmed and aired.
This is but a casual illustrative suggestion, for what right haveI, Allan Quatermain, out of my little reading and probably erroneousdeductions, to form any judgment as to the theories of the oldEgyptians? Still these, as I understand them, suffice to furnish me withthe text that man is not one, but many, in which connection it may beremembered that often in Scripture he is spoken of as being the home ofmany demons, seven, I think. Also, to come to another far-off example,the Zulus talk of their witch-doctors as being inhabited by "a multitudeof spirits."
Anyhow of one thing I am quite sure, we are not always the same.Different personalities actuate us at different times. In one hourpassion of this sort or the other is our lord; in another we are reasonitself. In one hour we follow the basest appetites; in another we hatethem and the spirit arising through our mortal murk shines within orabove us like a star. In one hour our desire is to kill and spare not;in another we are filled with the holiest compassion even towards aninsect or a snake, and are ready to forgive like a god. Everythingrules us in turn, to such an extent indeed, that sometimes one begins towonder whether we really rule anything.
Now the reason of all this homily is that I, Allan, the most practicaland unimaginative of persons, just a homely, half-educated hunter andtrader who chances to have seen a good deal of the particular littleworld in which his lot was cast, at one period of my life became thevictim of spiritual longings.
I am a man who has suffered great bereavements in my time such as haveseared my soul, since, perhaps because of my rather primitive and simplenature, my affections are very strong. By day or night I can neverforget those whom I have loved and whom I believe to have loved me.
For you know, in our vanity some of us are apt to hold that certainpeople with whom we have been intimate upon the earth, really didcare for us and, in our still greater vanity--or should it be calledmadness?--to imagine that they still care for us after they have leftthe earth and entered on some new state of society and surroundingswhich, if they exist, inferentially are much more congenial than anythey can have experienced here. At times, however, cold doubts strike usas to this matter, of which we long to know the truth. Also behind loomsa still blacker doubt, namely whether they live at all.
For some years of my lonely existence these problems haunted me day byday, till at length I desired above everything on earth to lay themat rest in one way or another. Once, at Durban, I met a man who was aspiritualist to whom I confided a little of my perplexities. He laughedat me and said that they could be settled with the greatest ease. AllI had to do was to visit a certain local medium who for a fee of oneguinea would tell me everything I wanted to know. Although I rathergrudged the guinea, being more than usually hard up at the time, Icalled upon this person, but over the results of that visit, or ratherthe lack of them, I draw a veil.
My queer and perhaps unwholesome longing, however, remained with me andwould not be abated. I consulted a clergyman of my acquaintance, a goodand spiritually-minded man, but he could only shrug his shoulders andrefer me to the Bible, saying, quite rightly I doubt not, that with whatit reveals I ought to be contented. Then I read certain mysticalbooks which were recommended to me. These were full of fine words,undiscoverable in a pocket dictionary, but really took me no forwarder,since in them I found nothing that I could not have invented myself,although while I was actually studying them, they seemed to convinceme. I even tackled Swedenborg, or rather samples of him, for he is verycopious, but without satisfactory results. [Ha!--JB]
Then I gave up the business.