XIX
"GIVE ME A BLACK GOAT!"
The conversation after this was of such a desultory order that I do notquite recollect it. For some reason, perhaps from a desire to keep heridentity and character in reserve, Ayesha did not talk freely, as sheusually did. Presently, however, she informed Leo that she had arrangeda dance that night for our amusement. I was astonished to hear this, asI fancied that the Amahagger were much too gloomy a folk to indulgein any such frivolity; but, as will presently more clearly appear,it turned out that an Amahagger dance has little in common with suchfantastic festivities in other countries, savage or civilised. Then, aswe were about to withdraw, she suggested that Leo might like to seesome of the wonders of the caves, and as he gladly assented thither wedeparted, accompanied by Job and Billali. To describe our visit wouldonly be to repeat a great deal of what I have already said. The tombswe entered were indeed different, for the whole rock was a honeycomb ofsepulchres,[*] but the contents were nearly always similar. Afterwardswe visited the pyramid of bones that had haunted my dreams on theprevious night, and from thence went down a long passage to one of thegreat vaults occupied by the bodies of the poorer citizens of ImperialKôr. These bodies were not nearly so well preserved as were those ofthe wealthier classes. Many of them had no linen covering on them, alsothey were buried from five hundred to one thousand in a single largevault, the corpses in some instances being thickly piled one uponanother, like a heap of slain.
[*] For a long while it puzzled me to know what could have been done with the enormous quantities of rock that must have been dug out of these vast caves; but I afterwards discovered that it was for the most part built into the walls and palaces of Kôr, and also used to line the reservoirs and sewers.--L. H. H.
Leo was of course intensely interested in this stupendous and unequalledsight, which was, indeed, enough to awake all the imagination a manhad in him into the most active life. But to poor Job it did notprove attractive. His nerves--already seriously shaken by what he hadundergone since we had arrived in this terrible country--were, as maybe imagined, still further disturbed by the spectacle of these masses ofdeparted humanity, whereof the forms still remained perfect before hiseyes, though their voices were for ever lost in the eternal silence ofthe tomb. Nor was he comforted when old Billali, by way of soothinghis evident agitation, informed him that he should not be frightened ofthese dead things, as he would soon be like them himself.
"There's a nice thing to say of a man, sir," he ejaculated, when Itranslated this little remark; "but there, what can one expect of an oldman-eating savage? Not but what I dare say he's right," and Job sighed.
When we had finished inspecting the caves, we returned and had ourmeal, for it was now past four in the afternoon, and we all--especiallyLeo--needed some food and rest. At six o'clock we, together with Job,waited on Ayesha, who set to work to terrify our poor servant stillfurther by showing him pictures on the pool of water in the font-likevessel. She learnt from me that he was one of seventeen children, andthen bid him think of all his brothers and sisters, or as many of themas he could, gathered together in his father's cottage. Then she toldhim to look in the water, and there, reflected from its stilly surface,was that dead scene of many years gone by, as it was recalled to ourretainer's brain. Some of the faces were clear enough, but some weremere blurs and splotches, or with one feature grossly exaggerated; thefact being that, in these instances, Job had been unable to recallthe exact appearances of the individuals, or remembered them only by apeculiarity of his tribe, and the water could only reflect what he sawwith his mind's eye. For it must be remembered that _She's_ power inthis matter was strictly limited; she could apparently, except in veryrare instances, only photograph upon the water what was actually in themind of some one present, and then only by his will. But, if she waspersonally acquainted with a locality, she could, as in the case ofourselves and the whale-boat, throw its reflection upon the water, andalso, it seems, the reflection of anything extraneous that was passingthere at the time. This power, however, did not extend to the mindsof others. For instance, she could show me the interior of my collegechapel, as I remembered it, but not as it was at the moment ofreflection; for, where other people were concerned, her art was strictlylimited to the facts or memories present to _their_ consciousness at themoment. So much was this so that when we tried, for her amusement, toshow her pictures of noted buildings, such as St. Paul's or the Housesof Parliament, the result was most imperfect; for, of course, though wehad a good general idea of their appearance, we could not recall all thearchitectural details, and therefore the minutiæ necessary to a perfectreflection were wanting. But Job could not be got to understand this,and, so far from accepting a natural explanation of the matter, whichwas after all, though strange enough in all conscience, nothing morethan an instance of glorified and perfected telepathy, he set the wholething down as a manifestation of the blackest magic. I shall neverforget the howl of terror which he uttered when he saw the more or lessperfect portraits of his long-scattered brethren staring at him from thequiet water, or the merry peal of laughter with which Ayesha greeted hisconsternation. As for Leo, he did not altogether like it either, but ranhis fingers through his yellow curls, and remarked that it gave him thecreeps.
After about an hour of this amusement, in the latter part of which Jobdid _not_ participate, the mutes by signs indicated that Billali waswaiting for an audience. Accordingly he was told to "crawl up," whichhe did as awkwardly as usual, and announced that the dance was readyto begin if _She_ and the white strangers would be pleased to attend.Shortly afterwards we all rose, and, Ayesha having thrown a dark cloak(the same, by the way, that she had worn when I saw her cursing by thefire) over her white wrappings, we started. The dance was to be held inthe open air, on the smooth rocky plateau in front of the great cave,and thither we made our way. About fifteen paces from the mouth of thecave we found three chairs placed, and here we sat and waited, for asyet no dancers were to be seen. The night was almost, but not quite,dark, the moon not having risen as yet, which made us wonder how weshould be able to see the dancing.
"Thou wilt presently understand," said Ayesha, with a little laugh, whenLeo asked her; and we certainly did. Scarcely were the words out of hermouth when from every point we saw dark forms rushing up, each bearingwith him what we at first took to be an enormous flaming torch. Whateverthey were, they were burning furiously, for the flames stood out ayard or more behind each bearer. On they came, fifty or more of them,carrying their flaming burdens and looking like so many devils fromhell. Leo was the first to discover what these burdens were.
"Great heaven!" he said, "they are corpses on fire!"
I stared and stared again--he was perfectly right--the torches that wereto light our entertainment were human mummies from the caves!
On rushed the bearers of the flaming corpses, and, meeting at a spotabout twenty paces in front of us, built their ghastly burdens crosswaysinto a huge bonfire. Heavens! how they roared and flared! No tar barrelcould have burnt as those mummies did. Nor was this all. Suddenly Isaw one great fellow seize a flaming human arm that had fallen from itsparent frame, and rush off into the darkness. Presently he stopped, anda tall streak of fire shot up into the air, illumining the gloom, andalso the lamp from which it sprang. That lamp was the mummy of a womantied to a stout stake let into the rock, and he had fired her hair. Onhe went a few paces and touched a second, then a third, and a fourth,till at last we were surrounded on all three sides by a great ring ofbodies flaring furiously, the material with which they were preservedhaving rendered them so inflammable that the flames would literallyspout out of the ears and mouth in tongues of fire a foot or more inlength.
Nero illuminated his gardens with live Christians soaked in tar, andwe were now treated to a similar spectacle, probably for the first timesince his day, only happily our lamps were not living ones.
But, although this element of horror was fortunately wanting, todescribe the awful and hid
eous grandeur of the spectacle thus presentedto us is, I feel, so absolutely beyond my poor powers that I scarcelydare attempt it. To begin with, it appealed to the moral as well as thephysical susceptibilities. There was something very terrible, and yetvery fascinating, about the employment of the remote dead to illuminethe orgies of the living; in itself the thing was a satire, both on theliving and the dead. Cæsar's dust--or is it Alexander's?--may stop abunghole, but the functions of these dead Cæsars of the past was tolight up a savage fetish dance. To such base uses may we come, of solittle account may we be in the minds of the eager multitudes that weshall breed, many of whom, so far from revering our memory, will live tocurse us for begetting them into such a world of woe.
Then there was the physical side of the spectacle, and a weird andsplendid one it was. Those old citizens of Kôr burnt as, to judge fromtheir sculptures and inscriptions, they had lived, very fast, and withthe utmost liberality. What is more, there were plenty of them. As soonas ever a mummy had burnt down to the ankles, which it did in abouttwenty minutes, the feet were kicked away, and another one put in itsplace. The bonfire was kept going on the same generous scale, and itsflames shot up, with a hiss and a crackle, twenty or thirty feet intothe air, throwing great flashes of light far out into the gloom, throughwhich the dark forms of the Amahagger flitted to and fro likedevils replenishing the infernal fires. We all stood and staredaghast--shocked, and yet fascinated at so strange a spectacle, and halfexpecting to see the spirits those flaming forms had once enclosed comecreeping from the shadows to work vengeance on their desecrators.
"I promised thee a strange sight, my Holly," laughed Ayesha, whosenerves alone did not seem to be affected; "and, behold, I have notfailed thee. Also, it hath its lesson. Trust not to the future, forwho knows what the future may bring! Therefore, live for the day, andendeavour not to escape the dust which seems to be man's end. Whatthinkest thou those long-forgotten nobles and ladies would have felt hadthey known that they should one day flare to light the dance or boil thepot of savages? But see, here come the dancers; a merry crew--are theynot? The stage is lit--now for the play."
As she spoke, we perceived two lines of figures, one male and the otherfemale, to the number of about a hundred, each advancing round the humanbonfire, arrayed only in the usual leopard and buck skins. They formedup, in perfect silence, in two lines, facing each other between usand the fire, and then the dance--a sort of infernal and fiendishcancan--began. To describe it is quite impossible, but, though there wasa good deal of tossing of legs and double-shuffling, it seemed to ouruntutored minds to be more of a play than a dance, and, as usual withthis dreadful people, whose minds seem to have taken their colour fromthe caves in which they live, and whose jokes and amusements are drawnfrom the inexhaustible stores of preserved mortality with which theyshare their homes, the subject appeared to be a most ghastly one. Iknow that it represented an attempted murder first of all, and then theburial alive of the victim and his struggling from the grave; each actof the abominable drama, which was carried on in perfect silence, beingrounded off and finished with a furious and most revolting dance roundthe supposed victim, who writhed upon the ground in the red light of thebonfire.
Presently, however, this pleasing piece was interrupted. Suddenly therewas a slight commotion, and a large powerful woman, whom I had noted asone of the most vigorous of the dancers, came, made mad and drunken withunholy excitement, bounding and staggering towards us, shrieking out asshe came:--
"I want a Black Goat, I must have a Black Goat, bring me a BlackGoat!" and down she fell upon the rocky floor foaming and writhing, andshrieking for a Black Goat, about as hideous a spectacle as can well beconceived.
Instantly most of the dancers came up and got round her, though somestill continued their capers in the background.
"She has got a Devil," called out one of them. "Run and get a blackgoat. There, Devil, keep quiet! keep quiet! You shall have the goatpresently. They have gone to fetch it, Devil."
"I want a Black Goat, I must have a Black Goat!" shrieked the foamingrolling creature again.
"All right, Devil, the goat will be here presently; keep quiet, there'sa good Devil!"
And so on till the goat, taken from a neighbouring kraal, did at lastarrive, being dragged bleating on to the scene by its horns.
"Is it a Black One, is it a Black One?" shrieked the possessed.
"Yes, yes, Devil, as black as night;" then aside, "keep it behind thee,don't let the Devil see that it has got a white spot on its rump andanother on its belly. In one minute, Devil. There, cut his throat quick.Where is the saucer?"
"The Goat! the Goat! the Goat! Give me the blood of my black goat! Imust have it, don't you see I must have it? Oh! oh! oh! give me theblood of the goat."
At this moment a terrified _bah!_ announced that the poor goat had beensacrificed, and the next minute a woman ran up with a saucer full ofblood. This the possessed creature, who was then raving and foaming herwildest, seized and _drank_, and was instantly recovered, and withouta trace of hysteria, or fits, or being possessed, or whatever dreadfulthing it was she was suffering from. She stretched her arms, smiledfaintly, and walked quietly back to the dancers, who presently withdrewin a double line as they had come, leaving the space between us and thebonfire deserted.
I thought that the entertainment was now over, and, feeling ratherqueer, was about to ask _She_ if we could rise, when suddenly whatat first I took to be a baboon came hopping round the fire, and wasinstantly met upon the other side by a lion, or rather a human beingdressed in a lion's skin. Then came a goat, then a man wrapped in anox's hide, with the horns wobbling about in a ludicrous way. After himfollowed a blesbok, then an impala, then a koodoo, then more goats, andmany other animals, including a girl sewn up in the shining scaly hideof a boa-constrictor, several yards of which trailed along the groundbehind her. When all the beasts had collected they began to dance aboutin a lumbering, unnatural fashion, and to imitate the sounds producedby the respective animals they represented, till the whole air was alivewith roars and bleating and the hissing of snakes. This went on for along time, till, getting tired of the pantomime, I asked Ayesha if therewould be any objection to Leo and myself walking round to inspect thehuman torches, and, as she had nothing to say against it, we started,striking round to the left. After looking at one or two of the flamingbodies, we were about to return, thoroughly disgusted with the grotesqueweirdness of the spectacle, when our attention was attracted by one ofthe dancers, a particularly active leopard, that had separated itselffrom its fellow-beasts, and was whisking about in our immediateneighbourhood, but gradually drawing into a spot where the shadowwas darkest, equidistant between two of the flaming mummies. Drawn bycuriosity, we followed it, when suddenly it darted past us into theshadows beyond, and as it did so erected itself and whispered, "Come,"in a voice that we both recognised as that of Ustane. Without waiting toconsult me Leo turned and followed her into the outer darkness, and I,feeling sick enough at heart, went after them. The leopard crawled onfor about fifty paces--a sufficient distance to be quite beyond thelight of the fire and torches--and then Leo came up with it, or, rather,with Ustane.
"Oh, my lord," I heard her whisper, "so I have found thee! Listen. I amin peril of my life from '_She-who-must-be-obeyed_.' Surely the Baboonhas told thee how she drove me from thee? I love thee, my lord, and thouart mine according to the custom of the country. I saved thy life! MyLion, wilt thou cast me off now?"
"Of course not," ejaculated Leo; "I have been wondering whither thouhadst gone. Let us go and explain matters to the Queen."
"Nay, nay, she would slay us. Thou knowest not her power--the Baboonthere, he knoweth, for he saw. Nay, there is but one way: if thou wiltcleave to me, thou must flee with me across the marshes even now, andthen perchance we may escape."
"For Heaven's sake, Leo," I began, but she broke in--
"Nay, listen not to him. Swift--be swift--death is in the air webreathe. Even now, mayhap, _She_ heareth us," and without m
ore ado sheproceeded to back her arguments by throwing herself into his arms. Asshe did so the leopard's head slipped from her hair, and I saw the threewhite finger-marks upon it, gleaming faintly in the starlight. Oncemore realising the desperate nature of the position, I was about tointerpose, for I knew that Leo was not too strong-minded where womenwere concerned, when--oh! horror!--I heard a little silvery laugh behindme. I turned round, and there was _She_ herself, and with her Billaliand two male mutes. I gasped and nearly sank to the ground, for I knewthat such a situation must result in some dreadful tragedy, of which itseemed exceedingly probable to me that I should be the first victim. Asfor Ustane, she untwined her arms and covered her eyes with her hands,while Leo, not knowing the full terror of the position, merely coveredup, and looked as foolish as a man caught in such a trap would naturallydo.