CHAPTER XIV
THE CHASE
I suppose that I swooned for a minute or two. At any rate I remembera long and very curious dream, such a dream as is evolved by a patientunder laughing gas, that is very clear and vivid at the time butimmediately afterwards slips from the mind's grasp as water doesfrom the clenched hand. It was something to the effect that all thosehundreds of skeleton elephants rose and marshalled themselves before me,making obeisance to me by bending their bony knees, because, as I quiteunderstood, I was the only human being that had ever escaped from Jana.Moreover, on the foremost elephant's skull Hans was perched like amahout, giving words of command, to their serried ranks and explainingto them that it would be very convenient if they would carry theirtusks, for which they had no further use, and pile them in a certainplace--I forget where--that must be near a good road to facilitate theirsubsequent transport to a land where they would be made into billiardballs and the backs of ladies' hair-brushes. Next, through the figmentsof that retreating dream, I heard the undoubted voice of Hans himself,which of course I knew to be absurd as Hans was lost and doubtless dead,saying:
"If you are alive, Baas, please wake up soon, as I have finishedreloading Intombi, and it is time to be going. I think I hit Jana in theeye, but so big a beast will soon get over so little a thing as that andlook for us, and the bullet from Intombi is too small to kill him, Baas,especially as it is not likely that either of us could hit him in theother eye."
Now I sat up and stared. Yes, there was Hans himself looking just thesame as usual, only perhaps rather dirtier, engaged in setting a cap onto the nipple of the little rifle Intombi.
"Hans," I said in a hollow voice, "why the devil are you here?"
"To save you from the devil, of course, Baas," he replied aptly. Then,resting the gun against the stone, the old fellow knelt down by my sideand, throwing his arms around me, began to blubber over me, exclaiming:
"Just in time, Baas! Only just in time, for as usual Hans made a mess ofthings and judged badly--I'll tell you afterwards. Still, just in time,thanks be to your reverend father, the Predikant. Oh! if he had delayedme for one more minute you would have been as flat as my nose, Baas. Nowcome quickly. I've got the camel tied up there, and he can carry two,being fat and strong after four days' rest with plenty to eat. Thisplace is haunted, Baas, and that king of the devils, Jana, will be backafter us presently, as soon as he has wiped the blood out of his eye."
I didn't make any remark, having no taste for conversation just then,but only looked at poor Marut, who lay by me as though he was sleeping.
"Oh, Baas," said Hans, "there is no need to trouble about him, forhis neck is broken and he's quite dead. Also it is as well," he addedcheerfully. "For, as your reverend father doubtless remembered, thecamel could never carry three. Moreover, if he stops here, perhaps Janawill come back to play with him instead of following us."
Poor Marut! This was his requiem as sung by Hans.
With a last glance at the unhappy man to whom I had grown attached in away during our time of joint captivity and trial, I took the arm of theold Hottentot, or rather leant upon his shoulder, for at first I felttoo weak to walk by myself, and picked my path with him through thestones and skeletons of elephants across the plateau eastwards, thatis, away from the lake. About two hundred yards from the scene of ourtragedy was a mound of rock similar to that on which Jana had appeared,but much smaller, behind which we found the camel, kneeling as awell-trained beast of the sort should do and tethered to a stone.
As we went, in brief but sufficient language Hans told me his story.It seemed that after he had shot the Kendah general it came into hiscunning, foreseeing mind that he might be of more use to me free than asa companion in captivity, or that if I were killed he might in that caselive to bring vengeance on my slayers. So he broke away, as has beendescribed, and hid till nightfall on the hill-side. Then by the lightof the moon he tracked us, avoiding the villages, and ultimately founda place of shelter in a kind of cave in the forest near to Simba Town,where no people lived. Here he fed the camel at night, concealing itat dawn in the cave. The days he spent up a tall tree, whence he couldwatch all that went on in the town beneath, living meanwhile on somefood which he carried in a bag tied to the saddle, helped out by greenmealies which he stole from a neighbouring field.
Thus he saw most of what passed in the town, including the desolationwrought by the fearful tempest of hail, which, being in their cave, bothhe and the camel escaped without harm. On the next evening from hispost of outlook up the tree, where he had now some difficulty in hidinghimself because the hail had stripped off all its leaves, he saw Marutand myself brought from the guest-house and taken away by the escort.Descending and running to the cave, he saddled the camel and startedin pursuit, plunging into the forest and hiding there when he perceivedthat the escort were leaving us.
Here he waited until they had gone by on their return journey. So closedid they pass to him that he could overhear their talk, which told himthey expected, or rather were sure, that we should be destroyed by theelephant Jana, their devil god, to whom the camelmen had been alreadysacrificed. After they had departed he remounted and followed us. Here Iasked him why he had not overtaken us before we came to the cemetery ofelephants, as I presumed he might have done, since he stated that he wasclose in our rear. This indeed was the case, for it was the head of thecamel I saw behind the thorn trees when I looked back, and not the trunkof an elephant as I had supposed.
At the time he would give me no direct answer, except that he grewmuddled as he had already suggested, and thought it best to keep in thebackground and see what happened. Long afterwards, however, he admittedto me that he acted on a presentiment.
"It seemed to me, Baas," he said, "that your reverend father was tellingme that I should do best to let you two go on and not show myself, sinceif I did so we should all three be killed, as one of us must walk whomthe other two could not desert. Whereas if I left you as you were, oneof you would be killed and the other escape, and that the one to bekilled would not be _you_, Baas. All of which came about as the Spiritspoke in my head, for Marut was killed, who did not matter, and--youknow the rest, Baas."
To return to Hans' story. He saw us march down to the borders of thelake, and, keeping to our right, took cover behind the knoll of rock,whence he watched also all that followed. When Jana advanced to attackus Hans crept forward in the hope, a very wild one, of crippling himwith the little Purdey rifle. Indeed, he was about to fire at the hindleg when Marut made his run for life and plunged into the lake. Then hecrawled on to lead me away to the camel, but when he was within a fewyards the chase returned our way and Marut was killed.
From that moment he waited for an opportunity to shoot Jana in the onlyspot where so soft a bullet would, as he knew, have the faintest chanceof injuring him vitally--namely, in the eye--for he was sure that itspenetration would not be sufficient to reach the vitals through thatthick hide and the mass of flesh behind. With an infinite and wonderfulpatience he waited, knowing that my life or death hung in the balance.While Jana held his foot over me, while he felt me with his trunk, stillHans waited, balancing the arguments for and against firing upon thescales of experience in his clever old mind, and in the end coming to aright and wise conclusion.
At length his chance came, the brute exposed his eye, and by the lightof the clear moon Hans, always a very good shot at a distance when itwas not necessary to allow for trajectory and wind, let drive and _hit_.The bullet did not get to the brain as he had hoped; it had not strengthfor that, but it destroyed this left eye and gave Jana such pain thatfor a while he forgot all about me and everything else except escape.
Such was the Hottentot's tale as I picked it up from his laconic,colourless, Dutch _patois_ sentences, then and afterwards; a verywonderful tale I thought. But for him, his fidelity and his bushman'scunning, where should I have found myself before that moon set?