“Oh Lord, sir!” answered Job, who now perceived the object for the first time, “I think that the Old Gentleman must have been sitting for his portrait on them rocks.”
I laughed, and the laugh woke up Leo.
“Hullo!” he said, “what’s the matter with me? I am all stiff. Where is the dhow? Give me some brandy, please.”
“You may be thankful that you are not stiffer, my boy,” I answered. “The dhow is sunk, everybody on board of her is drowned with the exception of us four, and your own life was only saved by a miracle.” Then whilst Job, now that it was light enough, searched about in a locker for the brandy for which Leo asked, I told him the history of our night’s adventure.
“Great Heavens!” he said faintly; “and to think that we should have been chosen to live through it!”
By this time the brandy was forthcoming, and we all took a good pull, and thankful enough we were for it. Also the sun was beginning to gain strength, and warm our chilled bones, for we had been wet through for five hours or more.
“Why,” said Leo, with a gasp, as he put down the brandy bottle, “there is the head the writing talks of, the ‘rock carven like the head of an Ethiopian.’ ”
“Yes,” I said, “there it is.”
“Well, then,” he answered, “the whole thing is true.”
“I don’t at all see that it follows,” I answered. “We knew this head was here: your father saw it. Very likely it is not the same head of which the writing tells; or if it is, it proves nothing.”
Leo smiled at me in a superior way. “You are an unbelieving Jew, Uncle Horace,” he said. “Those who live will see.”
“Exactly so,” I answered; “and now perhaps you will observe that we are drifting across a sandbank into the mouth of the river. Get hold of your oar, Job, and we will row in and see if we can find a place to land.”
The river mouth which we were entering did not appear to be a very wide one, though as yet the long banks of steaming mist that clung about its shores had not lifted sufficiently to enable us to see its exact measure. As is the case with nearly every East African river, there was a considerable bar at the mouth, which, when the wind was on shore and the tide running out, no doubt was absolutely impassable even for a boat drawing only a few inches. But as things were it proved manageable enough, and we did not ship a cupful of water. In twenty minutes we were well across, with but slight assistance from ourselves, and being carried by a strong though somewhat variable breeze straight up the harbour. By this time the mist had vanished beneath the sun, which was growing uncomfortably hot, and we saw that the mouth of the little estuary was here about half a mile across, and that the banks were very marshy, and crowded with crocodiles lying on the mud like logs. A mile or so ahead of us, however, lay what appeared to be a strip of firm land, and for this we steered. In another quarter of an hour we were there, and making the boat fast to a beautiful tree with broad shining leaves, and flowers of the magnolia species, only they were rose-coloured and not white,* which hung over the water, we disembarked. This done we undressed, washed ourselves, and spread our clothes in the sun to dry, together with the contents of the boat, which they did very quickly. Then, taking shelter from the heat under some trees, we made a hearty breakfast off an excellent potted tongue, of which we had brought a quantity with us, congratulating ourselves the while on our good fortune in having loaded and provisioned the boat on the previous day before the hurricane destroyed the dhow. By the time that we had finished our meal our clothes were quite dry, and we hastened to put them on, feeling not a little refreshed. Indeed, with the exception of weariness and a few bruises, none of us was the worse for the terrifying adventure which had been fatal to all our companions. Leo, it is true, had been half drowned, but that is no great matter to a vigorous young athlete of five-and-twenty.
After breakfast we started to look round us. We were on a strip of dry land about two hundred yards broad by five hundred long, bordered on one side by the river, and on the other three by endless desolate swamps, that stretched far as the eye could reach. This strip of land was raised about twenty-five feet above the plain of the surrounding morasses and the river level: indeed it had every appearance of having been made by the hand of man.
“This place has been a wharf,” said Leo, dogmatically.
“Nonsense,” I answered. “Who would be stupid enough to build a wharf in the middle of these dreadful marshes in a country inhabited by savages—that is, if it is inhabited at all?”
“Perhaps it was not always marsh, and perhaps the people were not always savage,” he said drily, looking down the steep bank, for we were standing by the river. “See there,” he went on, pointing to a spot where the hurricane of the previous night had torn up by its roots one of the magnolia trees which had grown on the extreme edge of the bank just where it sloped down to the water, and lifted a large cake of earth with them. “Is not that stonework? If not, it is very like it.”
“Nonsense,” I said again; but we clambered down to the spot, and stood between the upturned roots and the bank.
“Well?” he said.
But this time I did not answer. I only whistled. For there, bared by the removal of the earth, was an undoubted facing of solid stone laid in large blocks, bound together with brown cement so hard that I could make no impression on it with the file in my shooting-knife. Nor was this all; seeing something projecting through the soil at the bottom of the bared patch of walling, I removed the loose earth with my hands, and revealed a huge stone ring, a foot or more in diameter, and about three inches thick. This discovery absolutely silenced me.
“Looks rather like a wharf where good-sized vessels have been moored, does it not, Uncle Horace?” said Leo, with an excited grin.
I tried to say “Nonsense” again, but the word stuck in my throat—the worn ring spoke for itself. In some past age vessels had been moored there, and this stone wall was undoubtedly the remnant of a solidly constructed wharf. Probably the city to which it had belonged lay buried beneath the swamp behind it.
“Begins to look as though there were something in the story after all, Uncle Horace,” said the exultant Leo: and reflecting on the mysterious negro’s head and the equally mysterious stonework, I made no direct reply.
“A country like Africa,” I said, “is sure to be full of the relics of long dead and forgotten civilisations. Nobody knows the age of the Egyptian civilisation, and very likely it had offshoots. Then there were the Babylonians and the Phoenicians, and the Persians, and other peoples, all of them more or less civilised, to say nothing of the Jews whom everybody ‘wants’ nowadays. It is possible that they, or any one of them, may have had colonies or trading stations about here. Remember those buried Persian cities that the Consul showed us at Kilwa.”*
“Quite so,” said Leo, “but that is not what you said before.”
“Well, what is to be done now?” I asked, turning the conversation.
As no answer was forthcoming we walked to the edge of the swamp, and looked over it. Apparently it was boundless, and vast flocks of every sort of waterfowl flew from its recesses, till it was sometimes difficult to see the sky. Also, now that the sun was heightening it drew sickly looking clouds of poisonous vapour from the surface of the marsh and from the scummy pools of stagnant water.
“Two things are clear to me,” I said, addressing my three companions, who stared at this spectacle in dismay: “first, that we can’t go across there” (I pointed to the swamp), “and, secondly, that if we stop here we shall certainly die of fever.”
“That’s as plain as a haystack, sir,” said Job.
“Very well, then; there are two alternatives before us. One is to ’bout ship, and try to run for some port in the whale-boat, which would be a sufficiently risky proceeding, and the other to sail or row on up the river, and see where we come to.”
“I don’t know what you are going to do,” said Leo, setting his mouth, “but I am going up that river.”
Jo
b turned up the whites of his eyes and groaned, and the Arab murmured “Allah,” and groaned also. For my part, I remarked sweetly that as we seemed to be between the devil and the deep sea, it did not much matter where we went. But in reality I was as anxious to proceed as Leo. The colossal negro’s head and the stone wharf had excited my curiosity to an extent of which I was secretly ashamed, and I was prepared to gratify it at any cost. Accordingly, having carefully fitted the mast, restowed the boat, and got out our rifles, we embarked. Fortunately the wind was blowing on shore from the ocean, so we were able to hoist the sail. Indeed, we afterwards discovered that as a general rule the wind set on shore from daybreak for some hours, and off shore again at sunset. The explanation that I offer of this fact is, that when the earth is cooled by the dew and the night the hot air rises, and the draught rushes in from the sea till the sun has once more heated it through. At least that appears to be the rule in this latitude.
Taking advantage of this favouring wind, we sailed merrily up the river for three or four hours. Once we came across a school of hippopotami, which rose, and bellowed dreadfully at us within ten or a dozen fathoms of the boat, much to Job’s alarm, and, I will confess, to my own. These were the first hippopotami that we had ever seen, and, to judge by their insatiable curiosity, I should say that we were the first white men whom they had ever seen. Upon my word, I thought once or twice that they were coming into the boat to gratify it. Leo wanted to fire at them, but I dissuaded him, fearing the consequences. Also, we saw hundreds of crocodiles basking on the muddy banks, and thousands upon thousands of waterfowl. Some of these birds we shot, among them a wild goose, which, in addition to the sharp-curved spurs on its wings, had a third spur, three-quarters of an inch long, growing from its skull just between the eyes. We never shot another like it, so I do not know if it was a “sport” or a distinct species. In the latter case this incident may interest naturalists. Job named it the Unicorn Goose.
About midday the sun grew intensely hot, and the stench drawn up by it from the marshes which the river drains was something too awful, and caused us instantly to swallow precautionary doses of quinine. Shortly afterwards the breeze died away altogether, and as rowing our heavy boat against stream in the heat was out of the question, we were thankful to clamber under the shade of a group of trees—a species of willow—that grew by the edge of the river, and lie there and gasp till at length the approach of sunset put a period to our miseries. Seeing what appeared to be an open space of water straight ahead of us, we determined to row thither before settling what to do for the night. Just as we were about to loosen the boat, however, a beautiful waterbuck, with great horns curving forward, and a white stripe across the rump, came down to the river to drink, without perceiving us hidden away within fifty yards under the willows. Leo was the first to catch sight of it, and, being an ardent sportsman, thirsting for the blood of big game, about which he had been dreaming for months, instantly he stiffened all over, and pointed like a setter dog. Seeing what was the matter, I handed him his Express rifle, at the same time taking my own.
“Now then,” I said, “mind you don’t miss.”
“Miss!” he whispered contemptuously; “I could not miss it if I tried.”
He lifted the rifle, and the roan-coloured buck, having drunk his fill, raised his head and looked across the river. He was standing out against the sunset sky on a little eminence, or ridge of ground, which ran through the swamp, evidently a favourite path for game, and there was something very beautiful about him. Indeed, I do not think if I live to a hundred that I shall ever forget this desolate and yet most fascinating scene; it is stamped upon my memory. To the right and left were wide stretches of lonely death-breeding swamp, unbroken and unrelieved so far as the eye could reach except here and there by ponds of black and peaty water that, mirror-like, flashed up the red rays of the setting sun. Behind and before us stretched a vista of the sluggish river, ending in glimpses of a reed-fringed lagoon, on whose surface the long lights of the evening played as the faint breeze stirred the shadows. To the west loomed the huge red ball of the sinking sun, now vanishing into the vapoury horizon, and filling the great heaven, high across whose arch the cranes and wildfowl streamed in line, square, and triangle, with flashes of flying gold and the lurid stain of blood. And then ourselves—three modern Englishmen in a modern English boat—seeming to jar upon and be out of tone with that measureless desolation; and in front of us the noble buck limned upon a background of ruddy sky.
Bang! Away he goes with a mighty bound. Leo has missed him. Bang! right under him again. Now for a shot. I must have one, though he is flying like an arrow, and a hundred yards away and more. By Jove! over and over and over! “Well, I think I’ve wiped your eye there, Master Leo,” I say, struggling against the ungenerous exultation that in such a supreme moment of existence will rise in the best-mannered sportsman’s breast.
“Confound you! yes,” growled Leo; and added, with the quick smile that is one of his charms lighting up his handsome face like a ray of light, “I beg your pardon, old fellow. I congratulate you; it was a lovely shot, and mine were vile.”
We leapt from the boat and ran to the buck, which was shot through the spine and stone-dead. It took us a quarter of an hour or more to clean it and cut off as much of the best meat as we could carry, so that, having packed this away, we had barely enough light to row to the lagoon-like space, into which, there being a hollow in the swamp, the river here expanded. Just as the darkness fell we cast anchor about thirty fathoms from the edge of this lake. We did not dare to go ashore, not knowing if we should find dry ground to camp on, and greatly fearing the poisonous exhalations from the marsh, of which we thought we should be freer on the water. So we lighted a lantern, and made our evening meal off another potted tongue in the best fashion that we could, and then prepared to go to sleep, only, however, to find that sleep was impossible. For, whether they were attracted by the lantern, or by the unaccustomed smell of a white man that they had awaited for the last thousand years or so, I know not; but certainly we were attacked presently by tens of thousands of the most bloodthirsty, pertinacious, and huge mosquitoes that I ever read of or saw. In clouds they came, and pinged and buzzed and bit till we were nearly mad. Tobacco-smoke only seemed to stir them into a merrier and more active life, till at length we were driven to covering ourselves with blankets, heads and all, and sitting to stew slowly and scratch and swear continually beneath them. And as we sat, suddenly rolling out like thunder through the silence rose the deep roar of a lion, and then of a second lion, moving among the reeds within sixty yards of us.
“I say,” said Leo, poking out his head from under the blanket, “lucky we ain’t on the bank, eh, Avuncular?” (Leo sometimes addressed me in this disrespectful way.) “Curse it! a mosquito has bitten me on the nose,” and the head vanished again.
Shortly after this the moon came up, and notwithstanding every variety of roar that echoed over the water to us from the lions on the banks, thinking ourselves perfectly secure, we began to doze.
I do not quite know what it was that caused me to lift my head from the friendly shelter of the blanket, perhaps because I found that the mosquitoes were biting through it. Anyhow, as I did so I heard Job whisper, in a frightened voice—
“Oh, my stars, look there!”
Instantly we all of us looked, and this was what we saw in the moonlight. Near the shore were two wide and ever-widening circles of concentric rings rippling away across the surface of the water, and in the heart and centre of these circles appeared two dark and moving objects.
“What is it?” asked I.
“It is those damned lions, sir,” answered Job, in a tone which suggested an odd mixture of a sense of personal injury, habitual respect, and acknowledged fear, “and they are swimming here to heat us,” he added nervously, picking up an “h” in his agitation.
I looked again: there was no doubt about it; I could catch the glare of their ferocious eyes. Attracted either by the
smell of the newly killed waterbuck meat or of ourselves, the hungry beasts were storming our position.
Leo already had a rifle in his hand. I called to him to wait till they were nearer, and meanwhile found my own. Some fifteen feet from us the water shallowed on a bank to the depth of about fifteen inches, and presently the first of them—it was the lioness—waded to it, shook herself, and roared. At that moment Leo fired; the bullet travelled down her open mouth and out at the back of her neck, and down she dropped, with a splash, dead. The other lion—a full-grown male—was some two paces behind her. At this second he set his forepaws on the bank, when something happened. There was a rush and disturbance of the water, such as one sees in a pond in England when a pike takes a little fish, only a thousand times fiercer and larger, then suddenly the lion uttered a terrific snarling roar and sprang forward on to the bank, dragging something black with him.
“Allah!” shouted Mahomed, “a crocodile has got him by the leg!” and sure enough he had. We could see the long snout with its gleaming lines of teeth and the reptile body behind it.
Then followed a most extraordinary scene. The lion managed to struggle on to the bank, the crocodile half standing and half swimming, still nipping his hind leg. He roared till the air quivered with the sound; then, with a savage, shrieking snarl, he turned and clawed hold of the crocodile’s head. The reptile shifted his grip, having, as we discovered afterwards, had one of his eyes torn out, and advanced slightly; whereon the lion took him by the throat and held it, and over and over they rolled upon the bank, struggling hideously. It was impossible to follow their movements, but when next we had a clear view the tables were turned, for the crocodile, whose head seemed to be a mass of gore, held the lion’s body in his iron jaws just above the hips, and was squeezing him, shaking him to and fro. For his part, the tortured brute, roaring in agony, clawed and bit madly at his enemy’s scaly head, and fixing his great hind claws in the softer skin of the crocodile’s throat, ripped it open as one would rip a glove.