The Ivory Child

  For a whole week things went on thus. During this time I recoveredmy strength completely, except in one particular which reduced me tohelplessness. The place on my thigh where Jana had pinched out a bit ofthe skin healed up well enough, but the inflammation struck inwards tothe nerve of my left leg, where once I had been injured by a lion, withthe result that whenever I tried to move I was tortured by pains of asciatic nature. So I was obliged to lie still and to content myselfwith being carried on the bed into a little garden which surroundedthe mud-built and white-washed house that had been allotted to us as adwelling-place.

  There I lay hour after hour, staring at the Holy Mount which beganto spring from the plain within a few hundred yards of the scatteredtownship. For a mile or so its slopes were bare except for grass onwhich sheep and goats were grazed, and a few scattered trees. Studyingthe place through glasses I observed that these slopes were crowned bya vertical precipice of what looked like lava rock, which seemed tosurround the whole mountain and must have been quite a hundredfeet high. Beyond this precipice, which to all appearance was of anunclimbable nature, began a dense forest of large trees, cedars Ithought, clothing it to the very top, that is so far as I could see.

  One day when I was considering the place, Harut entered the gardensuddenly and caught me in the act.

  "The House of the god is beautiful," he said, "is it not?"

  "Very," I answered, "and of a strange formation. But how do those whodwell on it climb that precipice?"

  "It cannot be climbed," he answered, "but there is a road which Iam about to travel who go to worship the Child. Yet I have told you,Macumazana, that any strangers who seek to walk that road find death. Ifthey do not believe me, let them try," he added meaningly.

  Then, after many inquiries about my health, he informed me that news hadreached him to the effect that the Black Kendah were mad at the lossof their crops which the hail had destroyed and because of the nearprospect of starvation.

  "Then soon they will be wishing to reap yours with spears," I said.

  "That is so. Therefore, my Lord Macumazana, get well quickly that youmay be able to scare away these crows with guns, for in fourteen daysthe harvest should begin upon our uplands. Farewell and have no fears,for during my absence my people will feed and watch you and on the thirdnight I shall return again."

  After Harut's departure a deep depression fell upon all of us. EvenHans was depressed, while Savage became like a man under sentence ofexecution at a near but uncertain date. I tried to cheer him up andasked him what was the matter.

  "I don't know, Mr. Quatermain," he answered, "but the fact is this isa 'ateful and un'oly 'ole" (in his agitation he quite lost grip of hish's, which was always weak), "and I am sure that it is the last I shallever see, except one."

  "Well, Savage," I said jokingly, "at any rate there don't seem to be anysnakes here."

  "No, Mr. Quatermain. That is, I haven't met any, but they crawl about meall night, and whenever I see that prophet man he talks of them to me.Yes, he talks of them and nothing else with a sort of cold look in hiseyes that makes my back creep. I wish it was over, I do, who shallnever see old England again," and he went away, I think to hide his verypainful and evident emotion.

  That evening Hans returned from an expedition on which I had sent himwith instructions to try to get round the mountain and report what wason its other side. It had been a complete failure, as after he had gonea few miles men appeared who ordered him back. They were so threateningin their demeanour that had it not been for the little rifle, Intombi,which he carried under pretence of shooting buck, a weapon that theyregarded with great awe, they would, he thought, have killed him. Headded that he had been quite unsuccessful in his efforts to collectany news of value from man, woman or child, all of whom, although verypolite, appeared to have orders to tell him nothing, concluding with theremark that he considered the White Kendah bigger devils than the BlackKendah, inasmuch as they were more clever.