Presently, to my intense relief, I saw old Billali hurrying towards us, and even then I could scarcely help smiling at the expression of consternation on his dignified countenance.
“Oh, my Baboon! my Baboon!” he cried, “my dear son, is it indeed thou and the Lion? Why, his mane that was as ripe corn is white like the snow. Whence come ye? and where is the Pig, and where, too, is She-who-must-be-obeyed?”
“Dead, both dead!” I answered; “but ask no questions; help us, and give us food and water, or we too shall die before thine eyes. Seest thou not that our tongues are black for want of water? How, then, can we talk?”
“Dead!” he gasped. “Impossible! She who never dies—dead, how can it be?” Then, perceiving, I think, that his face was being watched by the mutes who had hastened to us, he checked himself, and motioned to them to carry us to the camp, which they did.
Fortunately when we arrived some broth was boiling on the fire, and with this Billali fed us—for we were too weak to feed ourselves—thereby, I firmly believe, saving us from death by exhaustion. Then he bade the mutes wash the blood and grime from us with wet cloths, and after that we were laid down upon piles of aromatic grass, and instantly fell into the dead sleep which follows absolute prostration of mind and body.
XXVIII
OVER THE MOUNTAIN
The next thing I recollect is a feeling of the most dreadful stiffness, and a curious, vague idea passing through my half-awakened brain that I was a carpet that had just been beaten. I opened my eyes, and the first object they fell on was the venerable countenance of our old friend Billali, who was seated by the side of the improvised bed upon which I was sleeping, and stroking his long beard thoughtfully. His presence at once brought back to my mind a memory of all that we had recently endured, which was accentuated by the vision of poor Leo lying opposite to me, his face black with bruises and his beautiful curling hair turned from yellow to white.* At that sight I shut my eyes again and groaned.
“Thou hast slept long, my Baboon,” said old Billali.
“How long, my father?” I asked.
“A round of the sun and a round of the moon, a day and a night hast thou slept, and the Lion also. See, he sleepeth yet.”
“Blessed is sleep,” I answered, “for it swallows up recollection.”
“Tell me,” he said, “what has befallen you, and what is this strange story of the death of Her who dieth not. Bethink thee, my son: if this be true, then is thy danger and the danger of the Lion very great—nay, almost is the pot red wherewith ye shall be potted, and the stomachs of those who shall eat you are already hungry for the feast. Knowest thou not that these Amahagger, my children, these dwellers in the caves, hate you? They hate you as strangers, and they hate you more because of their brethren whom She put to the torment for your sake. Assuredly, if once they learn that there is naught to fear from Hiya, from the terrible One-who-must-be-obeyed, they will slay you by the pot. But let me hear thy tale, my poor Baboon.”
Thus adjured I began, and told him—not everything, indeed, as I did not think it desirable to do so, but sufficient for my purpose, which was to make him understand that She was in fact no more, having fallen into a volcanic fire, and—as I put it—been consumed therein; for the truth would have been incomprehensible to him. I also told him some of the horrors we had undergone in effecting our escape, which impressed him deeply. But I saw clearly that he did not believe in the report of Ayesha’s death. He believed, indeed, that we thought that she was dead, but his explanation was that it had suited her to disappear for a while. Once, he said, in his father’s time, she had vanished for twelve years, and there was a tradition in the country that many centuries back no one had seen her during a whole generation, when she reappeared suddenly, and destroyed a woman who had assumed the position of Queen. I said nothing to this, but only shook my head sadly. Alas! I knew too well that Ayesha would return no more, or at any rate that Billali would never see her again. Elsewhere we may find her, and, as I believe, shall find her, but not here.
“And now,” concluded Billali, “what wouldst thou do, my Baboon?”
“Nay,” I said, “I know not, my father. Can we not escape from this country?”
He shook his head.
“It is very difficult. By Kôr you cannot pass, for you would be seen, and so soon as those fierce ones found that you were alone—well,” and he smiled significantly, lifting his hand as though he were placing a hat upon his head. “But there is that way over the cliff whereof once I spoke to thee, by which they drive the cattle out to pasture. Beyond these pastures are marshes, in width three days’ journey, and after that I know not, but I have heard that seven days’ march thence runs a mighty river, which flows down to the black water. If you could reach its banks, perchance you might escape, but how can you come thither?”
“Billali,” I said, “once, thou knowest, I saved thy life. Now pay back the debt, my father, and save me mine and that of my son, the Lion. It shall be a pleasant thing for thee to think of when thine hour comes, and something to set in the scale against the evil doing of thy days, if perchance thou hast done any evil. Also, if thou art right, and if She does but hide herself, surely when she comes again she will reward thee.”
“My son the Baboon,” answered the old man, “think not that I have an ungrateful heart. Well do I remember how thou didst rescue me when those dogs stood by to see me drown. Measure for measure I will repay, and if thou canst be saved, surely I will save thee. Listen: by dawn to-morrow be prepared, for litters shall be here to bear you away across the mountains, and through the marshes beyond. This I will do, saying it is the word of She that it be done; and he who obeyeth not the word of She, food is he for the hyænas. Then, when you have crossed the marshes, must you strike with your own hands, so that perchance, if good fortune go with you, you may live to come to that black water whereof you told me. And now, see, the Lion wakes, and you must eat the food I have made ready for you.”
Leo’s condition when once he was thoroughly aroused proved not to be so bad as might have been expected from his appearance, and we both of us made a good meal, which, indeed, we needed sadly. After this we limped down to the spring and bathed, and then came back and slept again till evening, when once more we ate heartily. Billali was absent all that day, no doubt making arrangements about litters and bearers, for we were awakened in the middle of the night by the arrival of a considerable number of men in the little camp.
At dawn the old man himself appeared, and told us that by using She’s dreaded name, though with some difficulty, he had succeeded in impressing the necessary men, and with them two guides to conduct us across the swamps. Also he urged us to start at once, at the same time announcing his intention of accompanying us, to protect us against treachery. I was much touched by this act of kindness on the part of that wily old barbarian towards two utterly defenceless strangers. A journey through those deadly swamps which, allowing for his return, would occupy six days was no light undertaking for a man of his age, but he consented to it cheerfully in order to promote our safety. This proves that even among those dreadful Amahagger—who with their gloom and their devilish and ferocious rites are certainly by far the most terrible savages that I ever heard of—there are people with kindly hearts. Of course self-interest may have had something to do with it. Billali may have thought that She would reappear suddenly and demand an account of us at his hands. Still, with all deductions, it was a great deal more than we could expect under the circumstances, and I can only say that for so long as I live I shall cherish a most affectionate remembrance of my nominal parent, Billali.
Accordingly, having breakfasted, we started in the litters, feeling, physically, almost recovered after our long rest and sleep. The condition of our minds I must leave to the imagination.
Then followed a terrible pull up the cliff. Sometimes the ascent was natural, more often it was a zigzag roadway, cut in the first instance, no doubt, by the old inhabitants of Kôr. The Amahagger say
they drive their spare cattle over it once a year to pasture beyond; but if this is so, those cattle must be unusually active on their feet. Of course the litters were useless here, so we were obliged to walk.
By midday, however, we reached the great flat top of that mighty wall of rock, and grand indeed was the view from it, with the plain of Kôr, in the centre of which we could clearly discern the pillared ruins of the Temple of Truth, to the one side, and on the other the boundless and melancholy marsh. This wall of rock, which no doubt had once formed the lip of the crater, proved to be about a mile and a half thick, and was still covered with clinker. Nothing grew upon it; but here and there, wherever there was a little hollow, the eye was relieved by the sight of occasional pools of water, for rain had lately fallen. We clambered over the flat crest of this mighty rampart, and then came our downward march, which, if not so difficult a matter as the ascent, was still sufficiently break-neck, and took us till sunset to accomplish. That night, however, we camped in safety upon the wide slopes that rolled away to the marsh beneath.
On the following morning, about eleven o’clock, began our dreary journey across those awful seas of swamp which I have already described.
For three whole days, through stench and mire, and the all-prevailing flavour of fever, did our bearers struggle along, till at length, beyond that most desolate, and without guides utterly impracticable, district we came to open rolling ground, covered with game of all sorts, but quite uncultivated, and mostly treeless. And here on the following morning, not without some regret, we bade farewell to old Billali, who stroked his white beard and blessed us solemnly.
“Farewell, my son the Baboon,” he said, “and farewell to thee too, O Lion. I can do no more to help you. But if ever you come to your country, be advised, and venture not again into lands that you know not, lest you never should return, but leave your white bones to mark the limit of your journeyings. Farewell once more; often shall I think of you; nor wilt thou forget me, my Baboon, for though thy face is ugly thy heart is true.” Then he turned and went, and with him went the tall and sullen-looking bearers, and this was the last that we saw of the Amahagger. We watched them winding away with their empty litters like a procession bearing dead men from a battle, till the mists of the marsh gathered round them and hid them, and then, left utterly desolate in the vast wilderness, we turned and gazed around us and at each other.
Three weeks ago four men had entered the swamps of Kôr, and now two of us were dead, and we who lived had suffered adventures and experiences so strange and terrible that Death himself hath not a more fearful countenance. Three weeks—and only three weeks! Truly time should be measured by events, and not by the lapse of hours. It seemed like thirty years since we were captured in our whale-boat.
“We must strike out for the Zambesi, Leo,” I said, “but God knows if we shall ever get there.”
Leo nodded; he had become very silent of late. So we started with nothing but the clothes we stood in, a compass, our revolvers and Express rifles, and about two hundred rounds of ammunition, and thus ended the history of our visit to the ancient ruins of mighty and imperial Kôr.
As for the accidents and dangers that subsequently befell us, strange and varied though they were, after deliberation I have determined not to record them here. In these pages I give only a short and clear account of an occurrence which I believe to be unprecedented, and this I do, not with a view to immediate publication, but merely to put on paper, while they are yet fresh in my memory, the details of our journey and its result, which will, I believe, prove interesting to the world if ever we decide to make them public. It is not, however, our present intention that this should be done during our joint lives.
For the rest, it is of no public interest, resembling as it does the experience of more than one Central African traveller. Suffice it to say that, after incredible hardships and privations, we did reach the Zambesi, which proved to be about a hundred and seventy miles south of the spot where Billali left us. There for six months we were imprisoned by a savage tribe, who believed us to be supernatural beings, chiefly on account of Leo’s youthful face and snow-white hair. From these people we escaped, and, crossing the Zambesi, wandered southwards, where, when on the point of starvation, we were sufficiently fortunate to fall in with a half-caste Portuguese hunter who had followed a troop of elephants farther inland than he had ever been before. This man treated us most hospitably, and, after innumerable sufferings and adventures, ultimately, through his assistance, we reached Delagoa Bay, more than eighteen months from the time when we emerged from the marshes of Kôr, and on the next day were so fortunate as to catch one of the steamboats that trade round the Cape to England. Our journey home was prosperous, and we set foot on the quay at Southampton exactly two years from the date of our departure upon our wild and seemingly ridiculous quest. Now I write these last words with Leo leaning over my shoulder in the old room in my college, the same into which some two-and-twenty years ago my poor friend Vincey stumbled on the memorable night of his death, bearing with him the iron chest.
Here ends this history so far as it concerns science and the outside world. What its end will be as regards Leo and myself is more than I can guess. But we feel that is not reached yet. A story that began more than two thousand years ago may stretch a long way into the dim and distant future.
Is Leo really a reincarnation of that ancient Kallikrates of whom the inscription tells? Or was Ayesha deceived by some strange hereditary resemblance? And, another question: In this play of reincarnations, had Ustane aught to do with the Amenartas of long ago? The reader must form his own opinion on these as on many other matters. I have mine, which is that, as regards Leo, She made no mistake.
Often I sit alone at night, staring with the eyes of my mind into the blackness of unborn time, and wondering in what shape and form the great drama will be finally developed, and where the scene of its next act will be laid. And when, ultimately, that final development occurs, as I have no doubt it must and will occur, in obedience to a fate that never swerves and a purpose which cannot be altered, what will be the part played therein by that beautiful Egyptian Amenartas, the Princess of the royal race of the Pharaohs, for the love of whom the Priest Kallikrates broke his vows to Isis, and, pursued by the inexorable vengeance of the outraged Goddess, fled down the coast of Libya to meet his doom at Kôr?
*Curiously enough, lately Leo’s hair has to some extent regained its colour—that is to say, it is now a yellowish grey, and I am not without hopes that in time it will quite recover itself.—L. H. H.
SHE
To H. R. H.
Not in the waste beyond the swamps and sand,
The fever-haunted forest and lagoon,
Mysterious Kôr thy walls forsaken stand,
Thy lonely towers beneath the lonely moon—
Not there doth Ayesha linger, rune by rune
Spelling strange scriptures of a people banned.
The world is disenchanted; over soon
Shall Europe send her spies through all the land.
Nay, not in Kôr, but in whatever spot,
In town or field, or by the insatiate sea,
Men brood on buried loves, and unforgot,
Or break themselves on some Divine decree,
Or would o’erleap the limits of their lot—
There, in the tombs and deathless, dwelleth SHE!
NOTES
DEDICATION
Andrew Lang: Andrew Lang (1844–1912) was a classics scholar and critic who was among Haggard’s earliest admirers and promoters. Lang and Haggard became close friends; they sought each other’s advice and assistance, collaborated on various projects, and each dedicated works to the other. In 1887, Lang published He, a parody of Haggard’s novel. He is also, incidentally, the author of the postscripted poem “She: to H. R. H.” (see this page).
INTRODUCTION
1 “vir doctissimus et amicus meus”: Latin for “a most educated man and my friend.”
&
nbsp; 2 a statue of Apollo: Apollo was the Greek god of prophecy, poetry, and the sun. The physical image of Apollo handed down from antiquity is that of a tall, blond young man of great beauty and utter implacability.
3 They call him “Charon”: In Greek mythology, Charon is the boatman who ferries the shades of the dead across the river Styx and into Hades. He was depicted as a grim and ugly old man who was not so much malevolent as distant and uncaring.