CHAPTER XI
THROUGH THE MOUNTAIN WALL
"These do not seem to be friends of yours," I said, pointing to thefallen. "And yet," I added, nodding towards the spearmen who were nowemerging from the gully, "they are very like your friends."
"Puppies from the same litter are often alike, yet when they grow upsometimes they fight each other," replied Father Christmas blandly."At least these come to save and not to kill you. Look! they kill theothers!" and he pointed to them making an end of some of the woundedmen. "But who are these?" and he glanced with evident astonishment,first at the fearsome-looking Umslopogaas and then at the grotesqueHans. "Nay, answer not, you must be weary and need rest. Afterwards wecan talk."
"Well, as a matter of fact we have not yet breakfasted," I replied."Also I have business to attend to here," and I glanced at our wounded.
The old fellow nodded and went to speak to the captains of his force,doubtless as to the pursuit of the enemy, for presently I saw a companyspring forward on their tracks. Then, assisted by Hans and the remainingZulus, of whom one was Goroko, I turned to attend to our own people.The task proved lighter than I expected, since the badly injured manwas dead or dying and the hurts of the two others were in their legsand comparatively slight, such as Goroko could doctor in his own nativefashion.
After this, taking Hans to guard my back, I went down to the stream andwashed myself. Then I returned and ate, wondering the while that I coulddo so with appetite after the terrible dangers which we had passed.Still, we had passed them, and Robertson, Umslopogaas with three of hismen, I and Hans were quite unharmed, a fact for which I returned thanksin silence but sincerely enough to Providence.
Hans also returned thanks in his own fashion, after he had filledhimself, not before, and lit his corn-cob pipe. But Robertson made noremark; indeed, when he had satisfied his natural cravings, he rose andwalking a few paces forward, stood staring at the cleft in the mountaincliff into which he had seen the litter vanish that bore his daughter tosome fate unknown.
Even the great fight that we had fought and the victory we had wonagainst overpowering odds did not appear to impress him. He only glaredat the mountain into the heart of which Inez had been raped away, andshook his fist. Since she was gone all else went for nothing, so much sothat he did not offer to assist with the wounded Zulus or show curiosityabout the strange old man by whom we had been rescued.
"The Great Medicine, Baas," said Hans in a bewildered way, "is even morepowerful than I thought. Not only has it brought us safely through thefighting and without a scratch, for those Zulus there do not matter andthere will be less cooking for me to do now that they are gone; it hasalso brought down your reverend father the Predikant from the Place ofFires in Heaven, somewhat changed from what I remember him, it istrue, but still without doubt the same. When I make my report to himpresently, if he can understand my talk, I shall----"
"Stop your infernal nonsense, you son of a donkey," I broke in, for atthis moment old Father Christmas, smiling more benignly than before,re-appeared from the kloof into which he had vanished and advancedtowards us bowing with much politeness.
Having seated himself upon the little wall that we had built up,he contemplated us, stroking his beautiful white beard, then said,addressing me,
"Of a certainty you should be proud who with a few have defeated somany. Still, had I not been ordered to come at speed, I think that bynow you would have been as those are," and he looked towards the deadZulus who were laid out at a distance like men asleep, while theircompanions sought for a place to bury them.
"Ordered by whom?" I asked.
"There is only one who can order," he answered with mild astonishment."'She-who-commands, She-who-is-everlasting'!"
It occurred to me that this must be some Arabic idiom for the EternalFeminine, but I only looked vague and said,
"It would appear that there are some whom this exalted everlasting Shecannot command; those who attacked us; also those who have fled awayyonder," and I waved my hand towards the mountain.
"No command is absolute; in every country there are rebels, even, as Ihave heard, in Heaven above us. But, Wanderer, what is your name?"
"Watcher-by-Night," I answered.
"Ah! a good name for one who must have watched well by night, and by daytoo, to reach this country living where She-who-commands says that noman of your colour has set foot for many generations. Indeed, I thinkshe told me once that two thousand years had gone by since she spoke toa white man in the City of Kor."
"Did she indeed?" I exclaimed, stifling a cough.
"You do not believe me," he went on, smiling. "Well, She-who-commandscan explain matters for herself better than I who was not alive twothousand years ago, so far as I remember. But what must I call him withthe Axe?"
"Warrior is his name."
"Again a good name, as to judge by the wounds on them, certain of thoserebels I think are now telling each other in Hell. And this man, ifindeed he be a man----" he added, looking doubtfully at Hans.
"Light-in-Darkness is his name."
"I see, doubtless because his colour is that of the winter sun in thickfog, or a bad egg broken into milk. And the other white man who muttersand whose brow is like a storm?"
"He is called Avenger; you will learn why later on," I answeredimpatiently, for I grew tired of this catechism, adding, "And what areyou called and, if you are pleased to tell it to us, upon what errand doyou visit us in so fortunate an hour?"
"I am named Billali," he answered, "the servant and messenger ofShe-who-commands, and I was sent to save you and to bring you safely toher."
"How can this be, Billali, seeing that none knew of our coming?"
"Yet She-who-commands knew," he said with his benignant smile. "Indeed,I think that she learned of it some moons ago through a message that wassent to her and so arranged all things that you should be guided safelyto her secret home; since otherwise how would you have passed a greatpathless swamp with the loss, I think she said, of but one man whom asnake bit?"
Now I stared at the old fellow, for how could he know of the death ofthis man, but thought it useless to pursue the conversation further.
"When you are rested and ready," he went on, "we will start. Meanwhile Ileave you that I may prepare litters to carry those wounded men, andyou also, Watcher-by-Night, if you wish." Then with a dignified bow,for everything about this old fellow was stately, he turned and vanishedinto the kloof.
The next hour or so was occupied in the burial of the dead Zulus, aceremony in which I took no part beyond standing up and raising my hatas they were borne away, for as I have said somewhere, it is best toleave natives alone on these occasions. Indeed, I lay down, reflectingthat strangely enough there seemed to be something in old Zikali's taleof a wonderful white Queen who lived in a mountain fastness, since therewas the mountain as he had drawn it on the ashes, and the servants ofthat Queen who, apparently, had knowledge of our coming, appeared in thenick of time to rescue us from one of the tightest fixes in which ever Ifound myself.
Moreover, the antique and courteous individual called Billali, spoke ofher as "She-who-is-everlasting." What the deuce could he mean by that,I wondered? Probably that she was very old and therefore disagreeable tolook on, which I confessed to myself would be a disappointment.
And how did she know that we were coming? I could not guess and when Iasked Robertson, he merely shrugged his shoulders and intimated that hetook no interest in the matter. The truth is that nothing moved the man,whose whole soul was wrapped in one desire, namely to rescue, or avenge,the daughter against whom he knew he had so sorely sinned.
In fact, this loose-living but reformed seaman was becoming amonomaniac, and what is more, one of the religious type. He had a Biblewith him that had been given to him by his mother when he was a boy, andin this he read constantly; also he was always on his knees and at nightI could hear him groaning and praying aloud. Doubtless now that thechains of drink had fallen off him, the instincts and the bloo
d ofthe dour old Covenanters from whom he was descended, were assertingthemselves. In a way this was a good thing though for some time pastI had feared lest it should end in his going mad, and certainly as acompanion he was more cheerful in his unregenerate days.
Abandoning speculation as useless and taking my chance of being murderedwhere I lay, for after all Billali's followers were singularly likethe men with whom we had been fighting and for aught I knew might beanimated by identical objects--I just went to sleep, as I can do atany time, to wake up an hour or so later feeling wonderfully refreshed.Hans, who when I closed my eyes was already asleep slumbering at my feetcurled up like a dog on a spot where the sun struck hotly, roused me bysaying:
"Awake, Baas, they are here!"
I sprang up, snatching at my rifle, for I thought that he meant thatwe were being attacked again, to see Billali advancing at the head ofa train of four litters made of bamboo with grass mats for curtainsand coverings, each of which was carried by stalwart Amahagger, as Isupposed that they must be. Two of these, the finest, Billali indicatedwere for Robertson and myself, and the two others for the wounded.Umslopogaas and the remaining Zulus evidently were expected to walk, aswas Hans.
"How did you make these so quickly," I asked, surveying their elegantand indeed artistic workmanship.
"We did not make them, Watcher-by-Night, we brought them with us foldedup. She-who-commands looked in her glass and said that four would beneeded, besides my own which is yonder, two for white lords and two forwounded black men, which you see is the number required."
"Yes," I answered vaguely, marvelling what kind of a glass it was thatgave the lady this information.
Before I could inquire upon the point Billali added,
"You will be glad to learn that my men caught some of those rebels whodared to attack you, eight or ten of them who had been hurt by yourmissiles or axe-cuts, and put them to death in the proper fashion--yes,quite the proper fashion," and he smiled a little. "The rest had gonetoo far where it would have been dangerous to follow them among therocks. Enter now, my lord Watcher-by-Night, for the road is steep and wemust travel fast if we would reach the place where She-who-commands iscamped in the ancient holy city, before the moon sinks behind the cliffsto-night."
So having explained matters to Robertson and Umslopogaas, who announcedthat nothing would induce _him_ to be carried like an old woman, ora corpse upon a shield, and seen that the hurt Zulus were comfortablyaccommodated, Robertson and I got into our litters, which proved to bedelightfully easy and restful.
Then when our gear was collected by the hook-nosed bearers to whom wewere obliged to trust, though we kept with us our rifles and a certainamount of ammunition, we started. First went a number of Billali'sspearmen, then came the litters with the wounded alongside of whichUmslopogaas and his three uninjured Zulus talked or trotted, thenanother litter containing Billali, then my own by which ran Hans,and Robertson's, and lastly the rest of the Amahagger and the reliefbearers.
"I see now, Baas," said Hans, thrusting his head between my curtains,"that yonder Whitebeard cannot be your reverend father, the Predikant,after all."
"Why not?" I asked, though the fact was fairly obvious.
"Because, Baas, if he were, he would not have left Hans, of whom healways thought so well, to run in the sun like a dog, while he andothers travel in carriages like great white ladies."
"You had better save your breath instead of talking nonsense, Hans," Isaid, "since I believe that you have a long way to go."
In fact, it proved to be a very long way indeed, especially as after webegan to breast the mountain, we must travel slowly. We started aboutten o'clock in the morning, for the fight which after all did not takelong--had, it will be remembered, begun shortly after dawn, and it wasthree in the afternoon before we reached the base of the towering cliffwhich I have mentioned.
Here, at the foot of a remarkable, isolated column of rock, on which Iwas destined to see a strange sight in the after days, we halted and ateof the remaining food which we had brought with us, while the Amahaggerconsumed their own, that seemed to consist largely of curdled milk, suchas the Zulus call _maas_, and lumps of a kind of bread.
I noted that they were a very curious people who fed in silence and onwhose handsome, solemn faces one never saw a smile. Somehow it gave methe creeps to look at them. Robertson was affected in the same way, forin one of the rare intervals of his abstraction he remarked that theywere "no canny." Then he added,
"Ask yon old wizard who might be one of the Bible prophets come tolife--what those man-eating devils have done with my daughter."
I did so, and Billali answered,
"Say that they have taken her away to make a queen of her, since havingrebelled against their own queen, they must have another who is white.Say too that She-who-commands will wage war on them and perhaps win herback, unless they kill her first."
"Ah!" Robertson repeated when I had translated, "unless they kill herfirst--or worse." Then he relapsed into his usual silence.
Presently we started on again, heading straight for what looked like asheer wall of black rock a thousand feet or more in height, up a path sosteep that Robertson and I got out and walked, or rather scrambled, inorder to ease the bearers. Billali, I noticed, remained in his litter.The convenience of the bearers did not trouble him; he only ordered anextra gang to the poles. I could not imagine how we were to negotiatethis precipice. Nor could Umslopogaas, who looked at it and said,
"If we are to climb that, Macumazahn, I think that the only one who willlive to get to the top will be that little yellow monkey of yours," andhe pointed with his axe at Hans.
"If I do," replied that worthy, much nettled, for he hated to be calleda "yellow monkey" by the Zulus, "be sure that I will roll down stonesupon any black butcher whom I see sprawling upon the cliff below."
Umslopogaas smiled grimly, for he had a sense of humour and couldappreciate a repartee even when it hit him hard. Then we stopped talkingfor the climb took all our breath.
At length we came to the cliff face where, to all appearance, ourjourney must end. Suddenly, however, out of the blind black wall infront of us started the apparition of a tall man armed with a greatspear and wearing a white robe, who challenged us hoarsely.
Suddenly he stood before us, as a ghost might do, though whence he camewe could not see. Presently the mystery was explained. Here in the cliffface there was a cleft, though one invisible even from a few paces away,since its outer edge projected over the inner wall of rock. Moreover,this opening was not above four feet in width, a mere split in the hugemountain mass caused by some titanic convulsion in past ages. For it wasa definite split since, once entered, far, far above could be traceda faint line of light coming from the sky, although the gloom of thepassage was such that torches, which were stored at hand, must be usedby those who threaded it. One man could have held the place against ahundred--until he was killed. Still, it was guarded, not only at themouth where the warrior had appeared, but further along at every turn inthe jagged chasm, and these were many.
Into this grim place we went. The Zulus did not like it at all, forthey are a light-loving people and I noted that even Umslopogaasseemed scared and hung back a little. Nor did Hans, who with his usualsuspicion, feared some trap; nor, for the matter of that, did I, thoughI thought it well to appear much interested. Only Robertson seemed quiteindifferent and trudged along stolidly after a man carrying a torch.
Old Billali put his head out of the litter and shouted back to meto fear nothing, since there were no pitfalls in the path, his voiceechoing strangely between those narrow walls of measureless height.
For half an hour or more we pursued this dreary, winding path round thecorners of which the draught tore in gusts so fierce that more than oncethe litters with the wounded men and those who bore them were nearlyblown over. It was safe enough, however, since on either side of us,smooth and without break, rose the sheer walls of rock over which laythe tiny ribbon of blue sky. At length th
e cleft widened somewhat andthe light grew stronger, making the torches unnecessary.
Then of a sudden we came to its end and found ourselves upon a littleplateau in the mountainside. Behind us for a thousand feet or so rosethe sheer rock wall as it did upon the outer face, while in front andbeneath, far beneath, was a beautiful plain circular in shape and ofgreat extent, which plain was everywhere surrounded, so far as I couldsee, by the same wall of rock. In short, notwithstanding its enormoussize, without doubt it was neither more nor less than the crater of avast extinct volcano. Lastly, not far from the centre of this plain waswhat appeared to be a city, since through my glasses I could see greatwalls built of stone, and what I thought were houses, all of them of acharacter more substantial than any that I had discovered in the wildsof Africa.
I went to Billali's litter and asked him who lived in the city.
"No one," he answered, "it has been dead for thousands of years, butShe-who-commands is camped there at present with an army, and thither wego at once. Forward, bearers."
So, Robertson and I having re-entered our litters, we started on downhill at a rapid pace, for the road, though steep, was safe and kept ingood order. All the rest of that afternoon we travelled and by sunsetreached the edge of the plain, where we halted a while to rest and eat,till the light of the growing moon grew strong enough to enable us toproceed. Umslopogaas came up and spoke to me.
"Here is a fortress indeed, Macumazahn," he said, "since none can climbthat fence of rock in which the holes seem to be few and small."
"Yes," I answered, "but it is one out of which those who are in, wouldfind it difficult to get out. We are buffaloes in a pit, Umslopogaas."
"That is so," he answered, "I have thought it already. But if any wouldmeddle with us we still have our horns and can toss for a while."
Then he went back to his men.
The sunset in that great solemn place was a wonderful thing to see.First of all the measureless crater was filled with light like a bowlwith fire. Then as the great orb sank behind the western cliff, half ofthe plain became quite dark while shadows seemed to rush forward overthe eastern part of its surface, till that too was swallowed up in gloomand for a little while there remained only a glow reflected from thecliff face and from the sky above, while on the crest of the parapet ofrock played strange and glorious fires. Presently these too vanished andthe world was dark.
Then the half moon broke from behind a bank of clouds and by its silver,uncertain light we struggled forward across the flat plain, ratherslowly now, for even the iron muscles of those bearers grew tired. Icould not see much of it, but I gathered that we were passing throughcrops, very fine crops to judge by their height, as doubtless they wouldbe upon this lava soil; also once or twice we splashed through streams.
At length, being tired and lulled by the swaying of the litter and bythe sound of a weird, low chant that the bearers had set up now thatthey neared home and were afraid of no attack, I sank into a doze. WhenI awoke again it was to find that the litter had halted and to hear thevoice of Billali say,
"Descend, White Lords, and come with your companions, the black Warriorand the yellow man who is named Light-in-Darkness. She-who-commandsdesires to see you at once before you eat and sleep, and must not bekept waiting. Fear not for the others, they will be cared for till youreturn."