Allan Quatermain

  A week had passed, and we all sat at supper one night in the Missiondining-room, feeling very much depressed in spirits, for the reason thatwe were going to say goodbye to our kind friends, the Mackenzies, anddepart upon our way at dawn on the morrow. Nothing more had been seenor heard of the Masai, and save for a spear or two which had beenoverlooked and was rusting in the grass, and a few empty cartridgeswhere we had stood outside the wall, it would have been difficult totell that the old cattle kraal at the foot of the slope had been thescene of so desperate a struggle. Mackenzie was, thanks chiefly to hisbeing so temperate a man, rapidly recovering from his wound, and couldget about on a pair of crutches; and as for the other wounded men, onehad died of gangrene, and the rest were in a fair way to recovery. MrMackenzie's caravan of men had also returned from the coast, so that thestation was now amply garrisoned.

  Under these circumstances we concluded, warm and pressing as were theinvitations for us to stay, that it was time to move on, first to MountKenia, and thence into the unknown in search of the mysterious whiterace which we had set our hearts on discovering. This time we were goingto progress by means of the humble but useful donkey, of which we hadcollected no less than a dozen, to carry our goods and chattels, and, ifnecessary, ourselves. We had now but two Wakwafis left for servants, andfound it quite impossible to get other natives to venture with us intothe unknown parts we proposed to explore--and small blame to them.After all, as Mr Mackenzie said, it was odd that three men, each ofwhom possessed many of those things that are supposed to make life worthliving--health, sufficient means, and position, etc.--should from theirown pleasure start out upon a wild-goose chase, from which the chanceswere they never would return. But then that is what Englishmen are,adventurers to the backbone; and all our magnificent muster-roll ofcolonies, each of which will in time become a great nation, testify tothe extraordinary value of the spirit of adventure which at first sightlooks like a mild form of lunacy. 'Adventurer'--he that goes out to meetwhatever may come. Well, that is what we all do in the world one way oranother, and, speaking for myself, I am proud of the title, because itimplies a brave heart and a trust in Providence. Besides, when many andmany a noted Croesus, at whose feet the people worship, and many andmany a time-serving and word-coining politician are forgotten, the namesof those grand-hearted old adventurers who have made England what sheis, will be remembered and taught with love and pride to little childrenwhose unshaped spirits yet slumber in the womb of centuries to be. Notthat we three can expect to be numbered with such as these, yet have wedone something--enough, perhaps, to throw a garment over the nakednessof our folly.

  That evening, whilst we were sitting on the veranda, smoking a pipebefore turning in, who should come up to us but Alphonse, and, with amagnificent bow, announce his wish for an interview. Being requested to'fire away', he explained at some length that he was anxious to attachhimself to our party--a statement that astonished me not a little,knowing what a coward the little man was. The reason, however, soonappeared. Mr Mackenzie was going down to the coast, and thence on toEngland. Now, if he went down country, Alphonse was persuaded that hewould be seized, extradited, sent to France, and to penal servitude.This was the idea that haunted him, as King Charles's head haunted MrDick, and he brooded over it till his imagination exaggerated the dangerten times. As a matter of fact, the probability is that his offenceagainst the laws of his country had long ago been forgotten, and thathe would have been allowed to pass unmolested anywhere except in France;but he could not be got to see this. Constitutional coward as the littleman was, he infinitely preferred to face the certain hardships and greatrisks and dangers of such an expedition as ours, than to expose himself,notwithstanding his intense longing for his native land, to thepossible scrutiny of a police officer--which is after all only anotherexemplification of the truth that, to the majority of men, a far-offforeseen danger, however shadowy, is much more terrible than the mostserious present emergency. After listening to what he had to say, weconsulted among ourselves, and finally agreed, with Mr Mackenzie'sknowledge and consent, to accept his offer. To begin with, we were veryshort-handed, and Alphonse was a quick, active fellow, who could turnhis hand to anything, and cook--ah, he _could_ cook! I believe thathe would have made a palatable dish of those gaiters of his heroicgrandfather which he was so fond of talking about. Then he was agood-tempered little man, and merry as a monkey, whilst his pompous,vainglorious talk was a source of infinite amusement to us; and what ismore, he never bore malice. Of course, his being so pronounced a cowardwas a great drawback to him, but now that we knew his weakness we couldmore or less guard against it. So, after warning him of the undoubtedrisks he was exposing himself to, we told him that we would accepthis offer on condition that he would promise implicit obedience to ourorders. We also promised to give him wages at the rate of ten pounds amonth should he ever return to a civilized country to receive them. Toall of this he agreed with alacrity, and retired to write a letterto his Annette, which Mr Mackenzie promised to post when he got downcountry. He read it to us afterwards, Sir Henry translating, and awonderful composition it was. I am sure the depth of his devotion andthe narration of his sufferings in a barbarous country, 'far, far fromthee, Annette, for whose adored sake I endure such sorrow,' ought tohave touched the feelings of the stoniest-hearted chambermaid.

  Well, the morrow came, and by seven o'clock the donkeys were all loaded,and the time of parting was at hand. It was a melancholy business,especially saying goodbye to dear little Flossie. She and I were greatfriends, and often used to have talks together--but her nerves had nevergot over the shock of that awful night when she lay in the power ofthose bloodthirsty Masai. 'Oh, Mr Quatermain,' she cried, throwing herarms round my neck and bursting into tears, 'I can't bear to say goodbyeto you. I wonder when we shall meet again?'

  'I don't know, my dear little girl,' I said, 'I am at one end of lifeand you are at the other. I have but a short time before me at best, andmost things lie in the past, but I hope that for you there are many longand happy years, and everything lies in the future. By-and-by you willgrow into a beautiful woman, Flossie, and all this wild life will belike a far-off dream to you; but I hope, even if we never do meet again,that you will think of your old friend and remember what I say to younow. Always try to be good, my dear, and to do what is right, ratherthan what happens to be pleasant, for in the end, whatever sneeringpeople may say, what is good and what is happy are the same. Beunselfish, and whenever you can, give a helping hand to others--for theworld is full of suffering, my dear, and to alleviate it is the noblestend that we can set before us. If you do that you will become a sweetand God-fearing woman, and make many people's lives a little brighter,and then you will not have lived, as so many of your sex do, in vain.And now I have given you a lot of old-fashioned advice, and so I amgoing to give you something to sweeten it with. You see this littlepiece of paper. It is what is called a cheque. When we are gone give itto your father with this note--not before, mind. You will marry one day,my dear little Flossie, and it is to buy you a wedding present whichyou are to wear, and your daughter after you, if you have one, inremembrance of Hunter Quatermain.'

  Poor little Flossie cried very much, and gave me a lock of her brighthair in return, which I still have. The cheque I gave her was for athousand pounds (which being now well off, and having no calls uponme except those of charity, I could well afford), and in the note Idirected her father to invest it for her in Government security, andwhen she married or came of age to buy her the best diamond necklacehe could get for the money and accumulated interest. I chose diamondsbecause I think that now that King Solomon's Mines are lost to theworld, their price will never be much lower than it is at present, sothat if in after-life she should ever be in pecuniary difficulties, shewill be able to turn them into money.

  Well, at last we got off, after much hand-shaking, hat-waving, and alsofarewell saluting from the natives, Alphonse weeping copiously (for hehas a warm heart) at parting with his master and mistress; and I w
asnot sorry for it at all, for I hate those goodbyes. Perhaps the mostaffecting thing of all was to witness Umslopogaas' distress at partingwith Flossie, for whom the grim old warrior had conceived a strongaffection. He used to say that she was as sweet to see as the only staron a dark night, and was never tired of loudly congratulating himselfon having killed the Lygonani who had threatened to murder her. And thatwas the last we saw of the pleasant Mission-house--a true oasis inthe desert--and of European civilization. But I often think of theMackenzies, and wonder how they got down country, and if they are nowsafe and well in England, and will ever see these words. Dear littleFlossie! I wonder how she fares there where there are no black folk todo her imperious bidding, and no sky-piercing snow-clad Kenia for her tolook at when she gets up in the morning. And so goodbye to Flossie.

  After leaving the Mission-house we made our way, comparativelyunmolested, past the base of Mount Kenia, which the Masai call 'DonyoEgere', or the 'speckled mountain', on account of the black patchesof rock that appear upon its mighty spire, where the sides are tooprecipitous to allow of the snow lying on them; then on past thelonely lake Baringo, where one of our two remaining Askari, havingunfortunately trodden on a puff-adder, died of snake-bite, in spite ofall our efforts to save him. Thence we proceeded a distance of about ahundred and fifty miles to another magnificent snow-clad mountain calledLekakisera, which has never, to the best of my belief, been visitedbefore by a European, but which I cannot now stop to describe. Therewe rested a fortnight, and then started out into the trackless anduninhabited forest of a vast district called Elgumi. In this forestalone there are more elephants than I ever met with or heard of before.The mighty mammals literally swarm there entirely unmolested by man, andonly kept down by the natural law that prevents any animals increasingbeyond the capacity of the country they inhabit to support them.Needless to say, however, we did not shoot many of them, first becausewe could not afford to waste ammunition, of which our stock was gettingperilously low, a donkey loaded with it having been swept away infording a flooded river; and secondly, because we could not carry awaythe ivory, and did not wish to kill for the mere sake of slaughter. Sowe let the great beasts be, only shooting one or two in self-protection.In this district, the elephants, being unacquainted with the hunter andhis tender mercies, would allow one to walk up to within twenty yards ofthem in the open, while they stood, with their great ears cocked for allthe world like puzzled and gigantic puppy-dogs, and stared at that newand extraordinary phenomenon--man. Occasionally, when the inspection didnot prove satisfactory, the staring ended in a trumpet and a charge,but this did not often happen. When it did we had to use our rifles.Nor were elephants the only wild beasts in the great Elgumi forest. Allsorts of large game abounded, including lions--confound them! I havealways hated the sight of a lion since one bit my leg and lamed me forlife. As a consequence, another thing that abounded was the dreadfultsetse fly, whose bite is death to domestic animals. Donkeys have,together with men, hitherto been supposed to enjoy a peculiar immunityfrom its attacks; but all I have to say, whether it was on accountof their poor condition, or because the tsetse in those parts ismore poisonous than usual, I do not know, but ours succumbed to itsonslaught. Fortunately, however, that was not till two months or soafter the bites had been inflicted, when suddenly, after a two days'cold rain, they all died, and on removing the skins of several of them Ifound the long yellow streaks upon the flesh which are characteristic ofdeath from bites from the tsetse, marking the spot where the insect hadinserted his proboscis. On emerging from the great Elgumi forest,we, still steering northwards, in accordance with the information MrMackenzie had collected from the unfortunate wanderer who reached himonly to die so tragically, struck the base in due course of the largelake, called Laga by the natives, which is about fifty miles long bytwenty broad, and of which, it may be remembered, he made mention.Thence we pushed on nearly a month's journey over great rolling uplands,something like those in the Transvaal, but diversified by patches ofbush country.

  All this time we were continually ascending at the rate of about onehundred feet every ten miles. Indeed the country was on a slope whichappeared to terminate at a mass of snow-tipped mountains, for which wewere steering, and where we learnt the second lake of which the wandererhad spoken as the lake without a bottom was situated. At length wearrived there, and, having ascertained that there _was_ a large lake ontop of the mountains, ascended three thousand feet more till we came toa precipitous cliff or edge, to find a great sheet of water sometwenty miles square lying fifteen hundred feet below us, and evidentlyoccupying an extinct volcanic crater or craters of vast extent.Perceiving villages on the border of this lake, we descended withgreat difficulty through forests of pine trees, which now clothed theprecipitous sides of the crater, and were well received by the people, asimple, unwarlike folk, who had never seen or even heard of a white manbefore, and treated us with great reverence and kindness, supplying uswith as much food and milk as we could eat and drink. This wonderfuland beautiful lake lay, according to our aneroid, at a height of no lessthan 11,450 feet above sea-level, and its climate was quite cold, andnot at all unlike that of England. Indeed, for the first three days ofour stay there we saw little or nothing of the scenery on account of anunmistakable Scotch mist which prevailed. It was this rain that set thetsetse poison working in our remaining donkeys, so that they all died.

  This disaster left us in a very awkward position, as we had now nomeans of transport whatever, though on the other hand we had not much tocarry. Ammunition, too, was very short, amounting to but one hundred andfifty rounds of rifle cartridges and some fifty shot-gun cartridges.How to get on we did not know; indeed it seemed to us that we had aboutreached the end of our tether. Even if we had been inclined to abandonthe object of our search, which, shadow as it was, was by no means thecase, it was ridiculous to think of forcing our way back some sevenhundred miles to the coast in our present plight; so we came to theconclusion that the only thing to be done was to stop where we were--thenatives being so well disposed and food plentiful--for the present, andabide events, and try to collect information as to the countries beyond.

  Accordingly, having purchased a capital log canoe, large enough to holdus all and our baggage, from the headman of the village we were stayingin, presenting him with three empty cold-drawn brass cartridges by wayof payment, with which he was perfectly delighted, we set out to makea tour of the lake in order to find the most favourable place to make acamp. As we did not know if we should return to this village, we put allour gear into the canoe, and also a quarter of cooked water-buck, whichwhen young is delicious eating, and off we set, natives having alreadygone before us in light canoes to warn the inhabitants of the othervillages of our approach.

  As we were puddling leisurely along Good remarked upon the extraordinarydeep blue colour of the water, and said that he understood from thenatives, who were great fishermen--fish, indeed, being their principalfood--that the lake was supposed to be wonderfully deep, and to havea hole at the bottom through which the water escaped and put out somegreat fire that was raging below.

  I pointed out to him that what he had heard was probably a legendarising from a tradition among the people which dated back to the timewhen one of the extinct parasitic volcanic cones was in activity. We sawseveral round the borders of the lake which had no doubt been workingat a period long subsequent to the volcanic death of the central craterwhich now formed the bed of the lake itself. When it finally becameextinct the people would imagine that the water from the lake had rundown and put out the big fire below, more especially as, though it wasconstantly fed by streams running from the snow-tipped peaks about,there was no visible exit to it.

  The farther shore of the lake we found, on approaching it, to consistof a vast perpendicular wall of rock, which held the water without anyintermediate sloping bank, as elsewhere. Accordingly we paddled parallelwith this precipice, at a distance of about a hundred paces from it,shaping our course for the end of the lake, where we knew
that there wasa large village.

  As we went we began to pass a considerable accumulation of floatingrushes, weed, boughs of trees, and other rubbish, brought, Goodsupposed, to this spot by some current, which he was much puzzled toaccount for. Whilst we were speculating about this, Sir Henry pointedout a flock of large white swans, which were feeding on the drift somelittle way ahead of us. Now I had already noticed swans flying aboutthis lake, and, having never come across them before in Africa, wasexceedingly anxious to obtain a specimen. I had questioned the nativesabout them, and learnt that they came from over the mountain, alwaysarriving at certain periods of the year in the early morning, when itwas very easy to catch them, on account of their exhausted condition.I also asked them what country they came from, when they shrugged theirshoulders, and said that on the top of the great black precipice wasstony inhospitable land, and beyond that were mountains with snow, andfull of wild beasts, where no people lived, and beyond the mountainswere hundreds of miles of dense thorn forest, so thick that even theelephants could not get through it, much less men. Next I asked them ifthey had ever heard of white people like ourselves living on the fartherside of the mountains and the thorn forest, whereat they laughed. Butafterwards a very old woman came and told me that when she was a littlegirl her grandfather had told her that in his youth _his_ grandfatherhad crossed the desert and the mountains, and pierced the thorn forest,and seen a white people who lived in stone kraals beyond. Of course,as this took the tale back some two hundred and fifty years, theinformation was very indefinite; but still there it was again, and onthinking it over I grew firmly convinced that there was some truth inall these rumours, and equally firmly determined to solve the mystery.Little did I guess in what an almost miraculous way my desire was to begratified.

  Well, we set to work to stalk the swans, which kept drawing, as theyfed, nearer and nearer to the precipice, and at last we pushed the canoeunder shelter of a patch of drift within forty yards of them. Sir Henryhad the shot-gun, loaded with No. 1, and, waiting for a chance, got twoin a line, and, firing at their necks, killed them both. Up rose therest, thirty or more of them, with a mighty splashing; and, as they didso, he gave them the other barrel. Down came one fellow with a brokenwing, and I saw the leg of another drop and a few feathers start out ofhis back; but he went on quite strong. Up went the swans, circling everhigher till at last they were mere specks level with the top of thefrowning precipice, when I saw them form into a triangle and head offfor the unknown north-east. Meanwhile we had picked up our two deadones, and beautiful birds they were, weighing not less than about thirtypounds each, and were chasing the winged one, which had scrambled overa mass of driftweed into a pool of clear water beyond. Finding adifficulty in forcing the canoe through the rubbish, I told our onlyremaining Wakwafi servant, whom I knew to be an excellent swimmer, tojump over, dive under the drift, and catch him, knowing that as therewere no crocodiles in this lake he could come to no harm. Entering intothe fun of the thing, the man obeyed, and soon was dodging about afterthe winged swan in fine style, getting gradually nearer to the rockwall, against which the water washed as he did so.

  Presently he gave up swimming after the swan, and began to cry outthat he was being carried away; and, indeed, we saw that, though he wasswimming with all his strength towards us, he was being drawn slowly tothe precipice. With a few desperate strokes of our paddles we pushed thecanoe through the crust of drift and rowed towards the man as hard as wecould, but, fast as we went, he was drawn faster to the rock. Suddenly Isaw that before us, just rising eighteen inches or so above the surfaceof the lake, was what looked like the top of the arch of a submergedcave or railway tunnel. Evidently, from the watermark on the rockseveral feet above it, it was generally entirely submerged; but therehad been a dry season, and the cold had prevented the snow from meltingas freely as usual; so the lake was low and the arch showed. Towardsthis arch our poor servant was being sucked with frightful rapidity. Hewas not more than ten fathoms from it, and we were about twenty when Isaw it, and with little help from us the canoe flew along after him.He struggled bravely, and I thought that we should have saved him, whensuddenly I perceived an expression of despair come upon his face, andthere before our eyes he was sucked down into the cruel swirling bluedepths, and vanished. At the same moment I felt our canoe seized as witha mighty hand, and propelled with resistless force towards the rock.

  We realized our danger now and rowed, or rather paddled, furiously inour attempt to get out of the vortex. In vain; in another second we wereflying straight for the arch like an arrow, and I thought that we werelost. Luckily I retained sufficient presence of mind to shout out,instantly setting the example by throwing myself into the bottom of thecanoe, 'Down on your faces--down!' and the others had the sense to takethe hint. In another instant there was a grinding noise, and the boatwas pushed down till the water began to trickle over the sides, and Ithought that we were gone. But no, suddenly the grinding ceased, and wecould again feel the canoe flying along. I turned my head a little--Idared not lift it--and looked up. By the feeble light that yet reachedthe canoe, I could make out that a dense arch of rock hung just over ourheads, and that was all. In another minute I could not even see as muchas that, for the faint light had merged into shadow, and the shadows hadbeen swallowed up in darkness, utter and complete.

  For an hour or so we lay there, not daring to lift our heads for fearlest the brains should be dashed out of them, and scarcely able to speakeven, on account of the noise of the rushing water which drowned ourvoices. Not, indeed, that we had much inclination to speak, seeing thatwe were overwhelmed by the awfulness of our position and the imminentfear of instant death, either by being dashed against the sides of thecavern, or on a rock, or being sucked down in the raging waters, orperhaps asphyxiated by want of air. All of these and many other modes ofdeath presented themselves to my imagination as I lay at the bottomof the canoe, listening to the swirl of the hurrying waters which ranwhither we knew not. One only other sound could I hear, and that wasAlphonse's intermittent howl of terror coming from the centre of thecanoe, and even that seemed faint and unnatural. Indeed, the whole thingoverpowered my brain, and I began to believe that I was the victim ofsome ghastly spirit-shaking nightmare.

  CHAPTER X THE ROSE OF FIRE