That month of rest, or rather the last three weeks of it, since for thefirst few days after the battle I was quite prostrate, I occupied invarious ways, amongst others in a journey with Harut to Simba Town. Thiswe made after our spies had assured us that the Black Kendah werereally gone somewhere to the south-west, in which direction fertile andunoccupied lands were said to exist about three hundred miles away. Itwas with very strange feelings that I retraced our road and looked oncemore upon that wind-bent tree still scored with the marks of Jana'shuge tusk, in the boughs of which Hans and I had taken refuge from themonster's fury. Crossing the river, quite low now, I travelled up theslope down which we raced for our lives and came to the melancholy lakeand the cemetery of dead elephants.
Here all was unchanged. There was the little mount worn by his feet, onwhich Jana was wont to stand. There were the rocks behind which I hadtried to hide, and near to them some crushed human bones which I knew tobe those of the unfortunate Marut. These we buried with due reverence onthe spot where he had fallen, I meanwhile thanking God that my own boneswere not being interred at their side, as but for Hans would have beenthe case--if they were ever interred at all. All about lay the skeletonsof dead elephants, and from among these we collected as much of the bestivory as we could carry, namely about fifty camel loads. Of course therewas much more, but a great deal of the stuff had been exposed for solong to sun and weather that it was almost worthless.
Having sent this ivory back to the Town of the Child, which was beingrebuilt after a fashion, we went on to Simba Town through the forest,dispatching pickets ahead of us to search and make sure that it wasempty. Empty it was indeed; never did I see such a place of desolation.
The Black Kendah had left it just as it stood, except for a pile ofcorpses which lay around and over the altar in the market-place, wherethe three poor camelmen were sacrificed to Jana, doubtless those ofwounded men who had died during or after the retreat. The doors of thehouses stood open, many domestic articles, such as great jars resemblingthat which had been set over the head of the dead man whom we werecommanded to restore life, and other furniture lay about because theycould not be carried away. So did a great quantity of spears and variousweapons of war, whose owners being killed would never want them again.Except a few starved dogs and jackals no living creature remained in thetown. It was in its own way as waste and even more impressive than thegraveyard of elephants by the lonely lake.
"The curse of the Child worked well," said Harut to me grimly. "First,the storm; the hunger; then the battle; and now the misery of flight andruin."
"It seems so," I answered. "Yet that curse, like others, came back toroost, for if Jana is dead and his people fled, where are the Child andmany of its people? What will you do without your god, Harut?"
"Repent us of our sins and wait till the Heavens send us another, asdoubtless they will in their own season," he replied very sadly.
I wonder whether they ever did and, if so, what form that new divinityput on.
I slept, or rather did not sleep, that night in the same guest-house inwhich Marut and I had been imprisoned during our dreadful days of fear,reconstructing in my mind every event connected with them. Once more Isaw the fires of sacrifice flaring upon the altar and heard the roar ofthe dancing hail that proclaimed the ruin of the Black Kendah as loudlyas the trumpet of a destroying angel. Very glad was I when the morningcame at length and, having looked my last upon Simba Town, I crossedthe moats and set out homewards through the forest whereof the strippedboughs also spoke of death, though in the spring these would grow greenagain.
Ten days later we started from the Holy Mount, a caravan of about ahundred camels, of which fifty were laden with the ivory and the restridden by our escort under the command of Harut and our three selves.But there was an evil fate upon this ivory, as on everything else thathad to do with Jana. Some weeks later in the desert a great sandstormovertook us in which we barely escaped with our lives. At the height ofthe storm the ivory-laden camels broke loose, flying before it. Probablythey fell and were buried beneath the sand; at any rate of the fifty weonly recovered ten.
Ragnall wished to pay me the value of the remaining loads, which raninto thousands of pounds, but I would not take the money, saying itwas outside our bargain. Sometimes since then I have thought that Iwas foolish, especially when on glancing at that codicil to his will inafter days, the same which he had given me before the battle, I foundthat he had set me down for a legacy of L10,000. But in such mattersevery man must follow his own instinct.
The White Kendah, an unemotional people especially now when they weremourning for their lost god and their dead, watched us go without anydemonstration of affection, or even of farewell. Only those priestesseswho had attended upon the person of Lady Ragnall while she played adivine part among them wept when they parted from her, and utteredprayers that they might meet her again "in the presence of the Child."
The pass through the great mountains proved hard to climb, as thefoothold for the camels was bad. But we managed it at last, most of theway on foot, pausing a little while on their crest to look our last forever at the land which we had left, where the Mount of the Child wasstill dimly visible. Then we descended their farther slope and enteredthe northern desert.
Day after day and week after week we travelled across that endlessdesert by a way known to Harut on which water could be found, the onlyliving things in all its vastness, meeting with no accidents save thatof the sandstorm in which the ivory was lost. I was much alone duringthat time, since Harut spoke little and Ragnall and his wife werewrapped up in each other.
At length, months later, we struck a little port on the Red Sea, ofwhich I forget the Arab name, a place as hot as the infernal regions.Shortly afterwards, by great good luck, two trading vessels put in forwater, one bound for Aden, in which I embarked en route for Natal, andthe other for the port of Suez, whence Ragnall and his wife could traveloverland to Alexandria.
Our parting was so hurried at the last, as is often the way after longfellowship, that beyond mutual thanks and good wishes we said littleto one another. I can see them now standing with their arms about eachother watching me disappear. Concerning their future there is so muchto tell that of it I shall say nothing; at any rate here and now, exceptthat Lady Ragnall was right. We did not part for the last time.
As I shook old Harut's hand in farewell he told me that he was going onto Egypt, and I asked him why.
"Perchance to look for another god, Lord Macumazana," he answeredgravely, "whom now there is no Jana to destroy. We may speak of thatmatter if we should meet again."
Such are some of the things that I remember about this journey, but totell truth I paid little attention to them and many others.
For oh! my heart was sore because of Hans.
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