The Ivory Child

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"Hailstorm!" remarked Marut with his accustomed smile.

"Hell storm!" I replied, "for whoever saw hail like that before?"

Then the match burnt out and conversation came to an end for the reason
that we could no longer hear each other speak. The hail came down with
a perpetual, rattling roar, that in its sum was one of the most terrible
sounds to which I ever listened. And yet above it I thought that I could
catch another, still more terrible, the wail of hundreds of people in
agony. After the first few minutes I began to be afraid that the roof
would be battered in, or that the walls would crumble beneath this
perpetual fire of the musketry of heaven. But the cement was good and
the place well built.

So it came about that the house stood the tempest, which had it been
roofed with tiles or galvanized iron I am sure it would never have done,
since the lumps of ice must have shattered one and pierced the other
like paper. Indeed I have seen this happen in a bad hailstorm in
Natal which killed my best horse. But even that hail was as snowflakes
compared to this.

I suppose that this natural phenomenon continued for about twenty
minutes, not more, during ten of which it was at its worst. Then by
degrees it ceased, the sky cleared and the moon shone out beautifully.
We climbed to the roof again and looked. It was several inches deep in
jagged ice, while the market-place and all the country round appeared in
the bright moonlight to be buried beneath a veil of snow.

Very rapidly, as the normal temperature of that warm land reasserted
itself, this snow or rather hail melted, causing a flood of water which,
where there was any fall, began to rush away with a gurgling sound. Also
we heard other sounds, such as that from the galloping hoofs of many
of the horses which had broken loose from their wrecked stables at
the north end of the market-place, where in great number they had been
killed by the falling roofs or had kicked each other to death, and a
wild universal wail that rose from every quarter of the big town, in
which quantities of the worst-built houses had collapsed. Further, lying
here and there about the market-place we could see scores of dark shapes
that we knew to be those of men, women and children, whom those sharp
missiles hurled from heaven had caught before they could escape and
slain or wounded almost to death. For it will be remembered that perhaps
not fewer than two thousand people were gathered on this market-place,
attending the horrid midnight sacrifice and discussing the unnatural
weather when the storm burst upon them suddenly as an avalanche.

"The Child is small, yet its strength is great. Behold the first curse!"
said Marut solemnly.

I stared at him, but as he chose to believe that a very unusual
hailstorm was a visitation from heaven I did not think it worth while
arguing the point. Only I wondered if he really did believe this. Then
I remembered that such an event was said to have afflicted the old
Egyptians in the hour of their pride because they would not "let the
people go." Well, these blackguardedly Black Kendah were certainly worse
than the Egyptians can ever have been; also they would not let _us_
go. It was not wonderful therefore that Marut should be the victim of
phantasies on the matter.

Not until the following morning did we come to understand the full
extent of the calamity which had overtaken the Black Kendah. I think I
have said that their crops this year were magnificent and just ripening
to harvest. From our roof on previous days we could see a great area
of them stretching to the edge of the forest. When the sun rose that
morning this area had vanished, and the ground was covered with a
carpet of green pulp. Also the forest itself appeared suddenly to have
experienced the full effects of a northern winter. Not a leaf was left
upon the trees, which stood their pointing their naked boughs to heaven.

No one who had not seen it could imagine the devastating fury of that
storm. For example, the head of the diviner who was buried in the
court-yard awaiting resurrection through our magic was, it may be
recalled, covered with a stout earthenware pot. Now that pot had
shattered into sherds and the head beneath was nothing but bits of
broken bone which it would have been impossible for the very best magic
to reconstruct to the likeness of a human being.

Calamity indeed stalked naked through the land.



CHAPTER XIII

JANA

No breakfast was brought to us that morning, probably for the reason
that there was none to bring. This did not matter, however, seeing that
plenty of food accumulated from supper and other meals stood in a corner
of the house practically untouched. So we ate what we could and then
paid our usual visit to the hut in which the camelmen had been confined.
I say had been, for now it was quite empty, the last poor fellow having
vanished away like his companions.

The sight of this vacuum filled me with a kind of fury.

"They have all been murdered!" I said to Marut.

"No," he replied with gentle accuracy. "They have been sacrificed to
Jana. What we have seen on the market-place at night was the rite of
their sacrifice. Now it will be our turn, Lord Macumazana."

"Well," I exclaimed, "I hope these devils are satisfied with Jana's
answer to their accursed offerings, and if they try their fiendish
pranks on us----"

"Doubtless there will be another answer. But, Lord, the question is,
will that help us?"

Dumb with impotent rage I returned to the house, where presently the
remains of the reed gate opened. Through it appeared Simba the King, the
diviner with the injured foot walking upon crutches, and others of whom
the most were more or less wounded, presumably by the hailstones. Then
it was that in my wrath I put off the pretence of not understanding
their language and went for them before they could utter a single word.

"Where are our servants, you murderers?" I asked, shaking my fist at
them. "Have you sacrificed them to your devil-god? If so, behold the
fruits of sacrifice!" and I swept my arm towards the country beyond.
"Where are your crops?" I went on. "Tell me on what you will live this
winter?" (At these words they quailed. In their imagination already they
saw famine stalking towards them.) "Why do you keep us here? Is it that
you wait for a worse thing to befall you? Why do you visit us here now?"
and I paused, gasping with indignation.

"We came to look whether you had brought back to life that doctor whom
you killed with your magic, white man," answered the king heavily.

I stepped to the corner of the court-yard and, drawing aside a mat that
I had thrown there, showed them what lay beneath.

"Look then," I said, "and be sure that if you do not let us go, as
yonder thing is, so shall all of you be before another moon has been
born and died. Such is the life we shall give to evil men like you."

Now they grew positively terrified.

"Lord," said Simba, for the first time addressing me by a title of
respect, "your magic is too strong for us. Great misfortune has fallen
upon our land. Hundreds of people are dead, killed by the ice-stones
that you have called down. Our harvest is ruined, and there is but
little corn left in the storepits now when we looked to gather the new
grain. Messengers come in from the outlying land telling us that nearly
all the sheep and goats and very many of the cattle are slain. Soon we
shall starve."

"As you deserve to starve," I answered. "Now--will you let us go?"

Simba stared at me doubtfully, then began to whisper into the ear of
the lamed diviner. I could not catch what they said, so I watched their
faces. That of the diviner whose head I was glad to see had been cut by
a hailstone so that both ends of him were now injured, told me a good
deal. His mask had been ugly, but now that it was off the countenance
beneath was far uglier. Of a negroid type, pendulous-lipped, sensuous
and loose-eyed, he was indeed a hideous fellow, yet very cunning and
cruel-looking, as men of his class are apt to be. Humbled as he was
for the moment, I felt sure that he was still plotting evil against us,
somewhat against the will of his master. The issue showed that I was
right. At length Simba spoke, saying:

"We had intended, Lord, to keep you and the priest of the Child here as
hostages against mischief that might be worked on us by the followers
of the Child, who have always been our bitter enemies and done us much
undeserved wrong, although on our part we have faithfully kept the pact
concluded in the days of our grandfathers. It seems, however, that fate,
or your magic, is too strong for us, and therefore I have determined to
let you go. To-night at sundown we will set you on the road which leads
to the ford of the River Tava, which divides our territory from that of
the White Kendah, and you may depart where you will, since our wish is
that never again may we see your ill-omened faces."

At this intelligence my heart leapt in joy that was altogether
premature. But, preserving my indignant air, I exclaimed:

"To-night! Why to-night? Why not at once? It is hard for us to cross
unknown rivers in the dark."

"The water is low, Lord, and the ford easy. Moreover, if you started
now you would reach it in the dark; whereas if you start at sundown, you
will reach it in the morning. Lastly, we cannot conduct you hence until
we have buried our dead."

Then, without giving me time to answer, he turned and left the place,
followed by the others. Only at the gateway the diviner wheeled round on
his crutches and glared at us both, muttering something with his thick
lips; probably it was curses.

"At any rate they are going to set us free," I said to Marut, not
without exultation, when they had all vanished.

"Yes, Lord," he replied, "but _where_ are they going to set us free? The
demon Jana lives in the forests and the swamps by the banks of the Tava
River, and it is said that he ravages at night."

I did not pursue the subject, but reflected to myself cheerfully that
this mystic rogue-elephant was a long way off and might be circumvented,
whereas that altar of sacrifice was extremely near and very difficult to
avoid.

Never did a thief with a rich booty in view, or a wooer having an
assignation with his lady, wait for sundown more eagerly than I did that
day. Hour after hour I sat upon the house-top, watching the Black Kendah
carrying off the dead killed by the hailstones and generally trying to
repair the damage done by the terrific tempest. Watching the sun also
as it climbed down the cloudless sky, and literally counting the minutes
till it should reach the horizon, although I knew well that it would
have been wiser after such a night to prepare for our journey by lying
down to sleep.

At length the great orb began to sink in majesty behind the tattered
western forest, and, punctual to the minute, Simba, with a mounted
escort of some twenty men and two led horses, appeared at our gate. As
our preparations, which consisted only of Marut stuffing such food as
was available into the breast of his robe, were already made, we walked
out of that accursed guest-house and, at a sign from the king, mounted
the horses. Riding across the empty market-place and past the spot where
the rough stone altar still stood with charred bones protruding from
the ashes of its extinguished fire--were they those of our friends the
camel-drivers? I wondered--we entered the north street of the town.

Here, standing at the doors of their houses, were many of the
inhabitants who had gathered to watch us pass. Never did I see hate more
savage than was written on those faces as they shook their fists at us
and muttered curses not loud but deep.

No wonder! for they were all ruined, poor folk, with nothing to look
forward to but starvation until long months hence the harvest came again
for those who would live to gather it. Also they were convinced that we,
the white magician and the prophet of their enemy the Child, had brought
this disaster on them. Had it not been for the escort I believe they
would have fallen on us and torn us to pieces. Considering them I
understood for the first time how disagreeable real unpopularity _can
be_. But when I saw the actual condition of the fruitful gardens without
in the waning daylight, I confess that I was moved to some sympathy with
their owners. It was appalling. Not a handful of grain was there left
to gather, for the corn had been not only "laid" but literally cut to
ribbons by the hail.

After running for some miles through the cultivated land the road
entered the forest. Here it was dark as pitch, so dark that I wondered
how our guides found their way. In that blackness dreadful apprehensions
seized me, for I became convinced that we had been brought here to be
murdered. Every minute I expected to feel a knife-thrust in my back. I
thought of digging my heels into the horse's sides and trying to gallop
off anywhere, but abandoned the idea, first because I could not desert
Marut, of whom I had lost touch in the gloom, and secondly because I was
hemmed in by the escort. For the same reason I did not try to slip from
the horse and glide away into the forest. There was nothing to be done
save to go on and await the end.

It came at last some hours later. We were out of the forest now, and
there was the moon rising, past her full but still very bright. Her
light showed me that we were on a wild moorland, swampy, with scattered
trees growing here and there, across which what seemed to be a game
track ran down hill. That was all I could make out. Here the escort
halted, and Simba the King said in a sullen voice:

"Dismount and go your ways, evil spirits, for we travel no farther
across this place which is haunted. Follow the track and it will lead
you to a lake. Pass the lake and by morning you will come to the river
beyond which lies the country of your friends. May its waters swallow
you if you reach them. For learn, there is one who watches on this road
whom few care to meet."

As he finished speaking men sprang at us and, pulling us from the
horses, thrust us out of their company. Then they turned and in another
minute were lost in the darkness, leaving us alone.

"What now, friend Marut?" I asked.

"Now, Lord, all we can do is to go forward, for if we stay here Simba
and his people will return and kill us at the daylight. One of them said
so to me."

"Then, 'come on, Macduff,'" I exclaimed, stepping out briskly, and
though he had never read Shakespeare, Marut understood and followed.

"What did Simba mean about 'one on the road whom few care to meet'?" I
asked over my shoulder when we had done half a mile or so.

"I think he meant the elephant Jana," replied Marut with a groan.

"Then I hope Jana isn't at home. Cheer up, Marut. The chances are that
we shall never meet a single elephant in this big place."

"Yet many elephants have been here, Lord," and he pointed to the ground.
"It is said that they come to die by the waters of the lake and this
is one of the roads they follow on their death journey, a road that no
other living thing dare travel."

"Oh!" I exclaimed. "Then after all that was a true dream I had in the
house in England."

"Yes, Lord, because my brother Harut once lost his way out hunting when
he was young and saw what his mind showed you in the dream, and what we
shall see presently, if we live to come so far."

I made no reply, both because what he said was either true or false,
which I should ascertain presently, and because I was engaged in
searching the ground with my eyes. He was right; many elephants had
travelled this path--one quite recently. I, a hunter of those brutes,
could not be deceived on this point. Once or twice also I thought that
I caught sight of the outline of some tall creature moving silently
through the scattered thorns a couple of hundred yards or so to our
right. It might have been an elephant or a giraffe, or perhaps nothing
but a shadow, so I said nothing. As I heard no noise I was inclined
to believe the latter explanation. In any case, what was the good of
speaking? Unarmed and solitary amidst unknown dangers, our position was
desperate, and as Marut's nerve was already giving out, to emphasize its
horrors to him would be mere foolishness.

On we trudged for another two hours, during which time the only living
thing that I saw was a large owl which sailed round our heads as though
to look at us, and then flew away ahead.

This owl, Marut informed me, was one of "Jana's spies" that kept him
advised of all that was passing in his territory. I muttered "Bosh"
and tramped on. Still I was glad that we saw no more of the owl, for in
certain circumstances such dark fears are catching.

We reached the top of a rise, and there beneath us lay the most desolate
scene that ever I have seen. At least it would have been the most
desolate if I did not chance to have looked on it before, in the
drawing-room of Ragnall Castle! There was no doubt about it. Below was
the black, melancholy lake, a large sheet of water surrounded by reeds.
Around, but at a considerable distance, appeared the tropical forest. To
the east of the lake stretched a stony plain. At the time I could make
out no more because of the uncertain light and the distance, for we had
still over a mile to go before we reached the edge of the lake.

The aspect of the place filled me with tremblings, both because of its
utter uncanniness and because of the inexplicable truth that I had seen
it before. Most people will have experienced this kind of moral shock
when on going to some new land they recognize a locality as being quite
familiar to them in all its details. Or it may be the rooms of a house
hitherto unvisited by them. Or it may be a conversation of which, when
it begins, they already foreknow the sequence and the end, because in
some dim state, when or how who can say, they have taken part in
that talk with those same speakers. If this be so even in cheerful
surroundings and among our friends or acquaintances, it is easy to
imagine how much greater was the shock to me, a traveller on such a
journey and in such a night.

I shrank from approaching the shores of this lake, remembering that as
yet all the vision was not unrolled. I looked about me. If we went to
the left we should either strike the water, or if we followed its edge,
still bearing to the left, must ultimately reach the forest, where
probably we should be lost. I looked to the right. The ground was strewn
with boulders, among which grew thorns and rank grass, impracticable for
men on foot at night. I looked behind me, meditating retreat, and there,
some hundreds of yards away behind low, scrubby mimosas mixed with
aloe-like plants, I saw something brown toss up and disappear again that
might very well have been the trunk of an elephant. Then, animated
by the courage of despair and a desire to know the worst, I began to
descend the elephant track towards the lake almost at a run.

Ten minutes or so more brought us to the eastern head of the lake, where
the reeds whispered in the breath of the night wind like things alive.
As I expected, it proved to be a bare, open space where nothing seemed
to grow. Yes, and all about me were the decaying remains of elephants,
hundreds of them, some with their bones covered in moss, that may have
lain here for generations, and others more newly dead. They were all
old beasts as I could tell by the tusks, whether male or female. Indeed
about me within a radius of a quarter of a mile lay enough ivory to make
a man very rich for life, since although discoloured, much of it seemed
to have kept quite sound, like human teeth in a mummy case. The sight
gave me a new zest for life. If only I could manage to survive and carry
off that ivory! I would. In this way or in that I swore that I would!
Who could possibly die with so much ivory to be had for the taking? Not
that old hunter, Allan Quatermain.

Then I forgot about the ivory, for there in front of me, just where
it should be, just as I had seen it in the dream-picture, was the bull
elephant dying, a thin and ancient brute that had lived its long life
to the last hour. It searched about as though to find a convenient
resting-place, and when this was discovered, stood over it, swaying
to and fro for a full minute. Then it lifted its trunk and trumpeted
shrilly thrice, singing its swan-song, after which it sank slowly to its
knees, its trunk outstretched and the points of its worn tusks resting
on the ground. Evidently it was dead.

I let my eyes travel on, and behold! about fifty yards beyond the dead
bull was a mound of hard rock. I watched it with gasping expectation
and--yes, on the top of the mound something slowly materialized.
Although I knew what it must be well enough, for a while I could not see
quite clearly because there were certain little clouds about and one of
them had floated over the face of the moon. It passed, and before me,
perhaps a hundred and forty paces away, outlined clearly against the
sky, I perceived the devilish elephant of my vision.

Oh! what a brute was that! In bulk and height it appeared to be half
as big again as any of its tribe which I had known in all my life's
experience. It was enormous, unearthly; a survivor perhaps of some
ancient species that lived before the Flood, or at least a very giant of
its kind. Its grey-black sides were scarred as though with fighting. One
of its huge tusks, much worn at the end, for evidently it was very old,
gleamed white in the moonlight. The other was broken off about halfway
down its length. When perfect it had been malformed, for it curved
downwards and not upwards, also rather out to the right.

There stood this mammoth, this leviathan, this _monstrum horrendum,
informe, ingens_, as I remember my old father used to call a certain
gigantic and misshapen bull that we had on the Station, flapping a pair
of ears that looked like the sides of a Kafir hut, and waving a trunk
as big as a weaver's beam--whatever a weaver's beam may be--an appalling
and a petrifying sight.

I squatted behind the skeleton of an elephant which happened to be handy
and well covered with moss and ferns and watched the beast, fascinated,
wishing that I had a large-bore rifle in my hand. What became of Marut I
do not exactly know, but I think that he lay down on the ground.

During the minute or so that followed I reflected a good deal, as we
do in times of emergency, often after a useless sort of a fashion. For
instance, I wondered why the brute appeared thus upon yonder mound, and
the thought suggested itself to me that it was summoned thither from
some neighbouring lair by the trumpet call of the dying elephant. It
occurred to me even that it was a kind of king of the elephants, to
which they felt bound to report themselves, as it were, in the hour
of their decease. Certainly what followed gave some credence to my
fantastical notion which, if there were anything in it, might account
for this great graveyard at that particular spot.

After standing for a while in the attitude that I have described,
testing the air with its trunk, Jana, for I will call him so, lumbered
down the mound and advanced straight to where the elephant that I had
thought to be dead was kneeling. As a matter of fact it was not quite
dead, for when Jana arrived it lifted its trunk and curled it round
that of Jana as though in affectionate greeting, then let it fall to
the ground again. Thereon Jana did what I had seen it do in my dream or
vision at Ragnall, namely, attacked it, knocking it over on to its side,
where it lay motionless; quite dead this time.

Now I remembered that the vision was not accurate after all, since in it
I had seen Jana destroy a woman and a child, who on the present occasion
were wanting. Since then I have thought that this was because Harut,
clairvoyantly or telepathically, had conveyed to me, as indeed Marut
declared, a scene which he had witnessed similar to that which I was
witnessing, but not identical in its incidents. Thus it happened,
perhaps, that while the act of the woman and the child was omitted,
in our case there was another act of the play to follow of which I had
received no inkling in my Ragnall experience. Indeed, if I had received
it, I should not have been there that night, for no inducement on earth
would have brought me to Kendahland.

This was the act. Jana, having prodded his dead brother to his
satisfaction, whether from viciousness or to put it out of pain, I
cannot say, stood over the carcass in an attitude of grief or pious
meditation. At this time, I should mention, the wind, which had been
rustling the hail-stripped reeds at the lake border, had died away
almost, but not completely; that is to say, only a very faint gust
blew now and again, which, with a hunter's instinct, I observed with
satisfaction drew _from_ the direction of Jana towards ourselves. This I
knew, because it struck on my forehead, which was wet with perspiration,
and cooled the skin.