The Ivory Child

H >> H. Rider Haggard >> The Ivory Child


Presently, however, by a cursed spite of fate, one of these gusts--a
very little one--came from some quarter behind us, for I felt it in my
back hair, that was as damp as the rest of me. Just then I was glancing
to my right, where it seemed to me that out of the corner of my eye I
had caught sight of something passing among the stones at a distance
of a hundred yards or so, possibly the shadow of a cloud or another
elephant. At the time I did not ascertain which it was, since a faint
rattle from Jana's trunk reconcentrated all my faculties on him in a
painfully vivid fashion.

I looked to see that all the contemplation had departed from his
attitude, now as alert as that of a fox-terrier which imagines he has
seen a rat. His vast ears were cocked, his huge bulk trembled, his
enormous trunk sniffed the air.

"Great Heavens!" thought I to myself, "he has winded us!" Then I took
such consolation as I could from the fact that the next gust once more
struck upon my forehead, for I hoped he would conclude that he had made
a mistake.

Not a bit of it! Jana as far too old a bird--or beast--to make any
mistake. He grunted, got himself going like a luggage train, and with
great deliberation walked towards us, smelling at the ground, smelling
at the air, smelling to the right, to the left, and even towards heaven
above, as though he expected that thence might fall upon him vengeance
for his many sins. A dozen times as he came did I cover him with an
imaginary rifle, marking the exact spots where I might have hoped to
send a bullet to his vitals, in a kind of automatic fashion, for all my
real brain was contemplating my own approaching end.

I wondered how it would happen. Would he drive that great tusk through
me, would he throw me into the air, or would he kneel upon my poor
little body, and avenge the deaths of his kin that had fallen at my
hands? Marut was speaking in a rattling whisper:

"His priests have told Jana to kill us; we are about to die," he said.
"Before I die I want to say that the lady, the wife of the lord----"

"Silence!" I hissed. "He will hear you," for at that instant I took not
the slightest interest in any lady on the earth. Fiercely I glared at
Marut and noted even then how pitiful was his countenance. There was no
smile there now. All its jovial roundness had vanished. It had sunk in;
it was blue and ghastly with large, protruding eyes, like to that of a
man who had been three days dead.

I was right--Jana _had_ heard. Low as the whisper was, through that
intense silence it had penetrated to his almost preternatural senses.
Forward he came at a run for twenty paces or more with his trunk held
straight out in front of him. Then he halted again, perhaps the length
of a cricket pitch away, and smelt as before.

The sight was too much for Marut. He sprang up and ran for his life
towards the lake, purposing, I suppose, to take refuge in the water.
Oh! how he ran. After him went Jana like a railway engine--express this
time--trumpeting as he charged. Marut reached the lake, which was quite
close, about ten yards ahead, and plunging into it with a bound, began
to swim.

Now, I thought, he may get away if the crocodiles don't have him, for
that devil will scarcely take to the water. But this was just where I
made a mistake, for with a mighty splash in went Jana too. Also he was
the better swimmer. Marut soon saw this and swung round to the shore, by
which manoeuvre he gained a little as he could turn quicker than Jana.

Back they came, Jana just behind Marut, striking at him with his great
trunk. They landed, Marut flew a few yards ahead doubling in and out
among the rocks like a hare and, to my horror, making for where I lay,
whether by accident or in a mad hope of obtaining protection, I do not
know.

It may be asked why I had not taken the opportunity to run also in the
opposite direction. There are several answers. The first was that there
seemed to be nowhere to run; the second, that I felt sure, if I did run,
I should trip up over the skeletons of those elephants or the stones;
the third, that I did not think of it at once; the fourth, that Jana
had not yet seen me, and I had no craving to introduce myself to him
personally; and the fifth and greatest, that I was so paralysed with
fear that I did not feel as though I could lift myself from the ground.
Everything about me seemed to be dead, except my powers of observation,
which were painfully alive.

Of a sudden Marut gave up. Less than a stone's throw from me he wheeled
round and, facing Jana, hurled at him some fearful and concentrated
curse, of which all that I could distinguish were the words: "The
Child!"

Oddly enough it seemed to have an effect upon the furious rogue, which
halted in its rush and, putting its four feet together, slid a few paces
nearer and stood still. It was just as though the beast had understood
the words and were considering them. If so, their effect was to rouse
him to perfect madness. He screamed terribly; he lashed his sides with
his trunk; his red and wicked eyes rolled; foam flew from the cavern
of his open mouth; he danced upon his great feet, a sort of hideous
Scottish reel. Then he charged!

I shut my eyes for a moment. When I opened them again it was to see
poor Marut higher in the air than ever he flew before. I thought that
he would never come down, but he did at last with an awesome thud. Jana
went to him and very gently, now that he was dead, picked him up in his
trunk. I prayed that he might carry him away to some hiding-place and
leave me in peace. But not so. With slow and stately strides, rocking
the deceased Marut up and down in his trunk, as a nurse might rock
a baby, he marched on to the very stone where I lay, behind which I
suppose he had seen or smelt me all the time.

For quite a long while, it seemed more than a century, he stood over me,
studying me as though I interested him very much, the water of the lake
trickling in a refreshing stream from his great ears on to my back. Had
it not been for that water I think I should have fainted, but as it was
I did the next best thing--pretended to be dead. Perhaps this monster
would scorn to touch a dead man. Watching out of the corner of my eye, I
saw him lift one vast paw that was the size of an arm-chair and hold it
over me.

Now good-bye to the world, thought I. Then the foot descended as a
steam-hammer does, but also as a steam-hammer sometimes does when used
to crack nuts, stopped as it touched my back, and presently came to
earth again alongside of me, perhaps because Jana thought the foothold
dangerous. At any rate, he took another and better way. Depositing the
remains of Marut with the most tender care beside me, as though the
nurse were putting the child to bed, he unwound his yards of trunk and
began to feel me all over with its tip, commencing at the back of my
neck. Oh! the sensation of that clammy, wriggling tip upon my spinal
column!

Down it went till it reached the seat of my trousers. There it pinched,
presumably to ascertain whether or no I were malingering, a most
agonizing pinch like to that of a pair of blacksmith's tongs. So sharp
was it that, although I did not stir, who was aware that the slightest
movement meant death, it tore a piece out of the stout cloth of my
breeches, to say nothing of a portion of the skin beneath. This seemed
to astonish the beast, for it lifted the tip of its trunk and shifted
its head, as though to examine the fragment by the light of the moon.

Now indeed all was over, for when it saw blood upon that cloth----! I
put up one short, piteous prayer to Heaven to save me from this terrible
end, and lo, it was answered!

For just as Jana, the results of the inspection being unsatisfactory,
was cocking his ears and making ready to slay me, there rang out the
short, sharp report of a rifle fired within a few yards. Glancing up
at the instant, I saw blood spurt from the monster's left eye, where
evidently the bullet had found a home.

He felt at his eye with his trunk; then, uttering a scream of pain,
wheeled round and rushed away.



CHAPTER XIV

THE CHASE

I suppose that I swooned for a minute or two. At any rate I remember
a long and very curious dream, such a dream as is evolved by a patient
under laughing gas, that is very clear and vivid at the time but
immediately afterwards slips from the mind's grasp as water does
from the clenched hand. It was something to the effect that all those
hundreds of skeleton elephants rose and marshalled themselves before me,
making obeisance to me by bending their bony knees, because, as I quite
understood, I was the only human being that had ever escaped from Jana.
Moreover, on the foremost elephant's skull Hans was perched like a
mahout, giving words of command, to their serried ranks and explaining
to them that it would be very convenient if they would carry their
tusks, for which they had no further use, and pile them in a certain
place--I forget where--that must be near a good road to facilitate their
subsequent transport to a land where they would be made into billiard
balls and the backs of ladies' hair-brushes. Next, through the figments
of that retreating dream, I heard the undoubted voice of Hans himself,
which of course I knew to be absurd as Hans was lost and doubtless dead,
saying:

"If you are alive, Baas, please wake up soon, as I have finished
reloading Intombi, and it is time to be going. I think I hit Jana in the
eye, but so big a beast will soon get over so little a thing as that and
look for us, and the bullet from Intombi is too small to kill him, Baas,
especially as it is not likely that either of us could hit him in the
other eye."

Now I sat up and stared. Yes, there was Hans himself looking just the
same as usual, only perhaps rather dirtier, engaged in setting a cap on
to the nipple of the little rifle Intombi.

"Hans," I said in a hollow voice, "why the devil are you here?"

"To save you from the devil, of course, Baas," he replied aptly. Then,
resting the gun against the stone, the old fellow knelt down by my side
and, throwing his arms around me, began to blubber over me, exclaiming:

"Just in time, Baas! Only just in time, for as usual Hans made a mess of
things and judged badly--I'll tell you afterwards. Still, just in time,
thanks be to your reverend father, the Predikant. Oh! if he had delayed
me for one more minute you would have been as flat as my nose, Baas. Now
come quickly. I've got the camel tied up there, and he can carry two,
being fat and strong after four days' rest with plenty to eat. This
place is haunted, Baas, and that king of the devils, Jana, will be back
after us presently, as soon as he has wiped the blood out of his eye."

I didn't make any remark, having no taste for conversation just then,
but only looked at poor Marut, who lay by me as though he was sleeping.

"Oh, Baas," said Hans, "there is no need to trouble about him, for
his neck is broken and he's quite dead. Also it is as well," he added
cheerfully. "For, as your reverend father doubtless remembered, the
camel could never carry three. Moreover, if he stops here, perhaps Jana
will come back to play with him instead of following us."

Poor Marut! This was his requiem as sung by Hans.

With a last glance at the unhappy man to whom I had grown attached in a
way during our time of joint captivity and trial, I took the arm of the
old Hottentot, or rather leant upon his shoulder, for at first I felt
too weak to walk by myself, and picked my path with him through the
stones and skeletons of elephants across the plateau eastwards, that
is, away from the lake. About two hundred yards from the scene of our
tragedy was a mound of rock similar to that on which Jana had appeared,
but much smaller, behind which we found the camel, kneeling as a
well-trained beast of the sort should do and tethered to a stone.

As we went, in brief but sufficient language Hans told me his story.
It seemed that after he had shot the Kendah general it came into his
cunning, foreseeing mind that he might be of more use to me free than as
a companion in captivity, or that if I were killed he might in that case
live to bring vengeance on my slayers. So he broke away, as has been
described, and hid till nightfall on the hill-side. Then by the light
of the moon he tracked us, avoiding the villages, and ultimately found
a place of shelter in a kind of cave in the forest near to Simba Town,
where no people lived. Here he fed the camel at night, concealing it
at dawn in the cave. The days he spent up a tall tree, whence he could
watch all that went on in the town beneath, living meanwhile on some
food which he carried in a bag tied to the saddle, helped out by green
mealies which he stole from a neighbouring field.

Thus he saw most of what passed in the town, including the desolation
wrought by the fearful tempest of hail, which, being in their cave, both
he and the camel escaped without harm. On the next evening from his
post of outlook up the tree, where he had now some difficulty in hiding
himself because the hail had stripped off all its leaves, he saw Marut
and myself brought from the guest-house and taken away by the escort.
Descending and running to the cave, he saddled the camel and started
in pursuit, plunging into the forest and hiding there when he perceived
that the escort were leaving us.

Here he waited until they had gone by on their return journey. So close
did they pass to him that he could overhear their talk, which told him
they expected, or rather were sure, that we should be destroyed by the
elephant Jana, their devil god, to whom the camelmen had been already
sacrificed. After they had departed he remounted and followed us. Here I
asked him why he had not overtaken us before we came to the cemetery of
elephants, as I presumed he might have done, since he stated that he was
close in our rear. This indeed was the case, for it was the head of the
camel I saw behind the thorn trees when I looked back, and not the trunk
of an elephant as I had supposed.

At the time he would give me no direct answer, except that he grew
muddled as he had already suggested, and thought it best to keep in the
background and see what happened. Long afterwards, however, he admitted
to me that he acted on a presentiment.

"It seemed to me, Baas," he said, "that your reverend father was telling
me that I should do best to let you two go on and not show myself, since
if I did so we should all three be killed, as one of us must walk whom
the other two could not desert. Whereas if I left you as you were, one
of you would be killed and the other escape, and that the one to be
killed would not be _you_, Baas. All of which came about as the Spirit
spoke in my head, for Marut was killed, who did not matter, and--you
know the rest, Baas."

To return to Hans' story. He saw us march down to the borders of the
lake, and, keeping to our right, took cover behind the knoll of rock,
whence he watched also all that followed. When Jana advanced to attack
us Hans crept forward in the hope, a very wild one, of crippling him
with the little Purdey rifle. Indeed, he was about to fire at the hind
leg when Marut made his run for life and plunged into the lake. Then he
crawled on to lead me away to the camel, but when he was within a few
yards the chase returned our way and Marut was killed.

From that moment he waited for an opportunity to shoot Jana in the only
spot where so soft a bullet would, as he knew, have the faintest chance
of injuring him vitally--namely, in the eye--for he was sure that its
penetration would not be sufficient to reach the vitals through that
thick hide and the mass of flesh behind. With an infinite and wonderful
patience he waited, knowing that my life or death hung in the balance.
While Jana held his foot over me, while he felt me with his trunk, still
Hans waited, balancing the arguments for and against firing upon the
scales of experience in his clever old mind, and in the end coming to a
right and wise conclusion.

At length his chance came, the brute exposed his eye, and by the light
of the clear moon Hans, always a very good shot at a distance when it
was not necessary to allow for trajectory and wind, let drive and _hit_.
The bullet did not get to the brain as he had hoped; it had not strength
for that, but it destroyed this left eye and gave Jana such pain that
for a while he forgot all about me and everything else except escape.

Such was the Hottentot's tale as I picked it up from his laconic,
colourless, Dutch _patois_ sentences, then and afterwards; a very
wonderful tale I thought. But for him, his fidelity and his bushman's
cunning, where should I have found myself before that moon set?



We mounted the camel after I had paused a minute to take a pull from
a flask of brandy which remained in the saddlebags. Although he loved
strong drink so well Hans had saved it untouched on the mere chance
that it might some time be of service to me, his master. The monkey-like
Hottentot sat in front and directed the camel, while I accommodated
myself as best I could on the sheepskins behind. Luckily they were thick
and soft, for Jana's pinch was not exactly that of a lover.

Off we went, picking our way carefully till we reached the elephant
track beyond the mound where Jana had appeared, which, in the light of
faith, we hoped would lead us to the River Tava. Here we made better
progress, but still could not go very fast because of the holes made by
the feet of Jana and his company. Soon we had left the cemetery behind
us, and lost sight of the lake which I devoutly trusted I might never
see again.

Now the track ran upwards from the hollow to a ridge two or three miles
away. We reached the crest of this ridge without accident, except that
on our road we met another aged elephant, a cow with very poor tusks,
travelling to its last resting place, or so I suppose. I don't know
which was the more frightened, the sick cow or the camel, for camels
hate elephants as horses hate camels until they get used to them. The
cow bolted to the right as quickly as it could, which was not very fast,
and the camel bolted to the left with such convulsive bounds that we
were nearly thrown off its back. However, being an equable brute, it
soon recovered its balance, and we got back to the track beyond the cow.

From the top of the rise we saw that before us lay a sandy plain lightly
clothed in grass, and, to our joy, about ten miles away at the foot of
a very gentle slope, the moonlight gleamed upon the waters of a broad
river. It was not easy to make out, but it was there, we were both sure
it was there; we could not mistake the wavering, silver flash. On we
went for another quarter of a mile, when something caused me to turn
round on the sheepskin and look back.

Oh Heavens! At the very top of the rise, clearly outlined against
the sky, stood Jana himself with his trunk lifted. Next instant he
trumpeted, a furious, rattling challenge of rage and defiance.

"Allemagte! Baas," said Hans, "the old devil is coming to look for
his lost eye, and has seen us with that which remains. He has been
travelling on our spoor."

"Forward!" I answered, bringing my heels into the camel's ribs.

Then the race began. The camel was a very good camel, one of the real
running breed; also, as Hans said, it was comparatively fresh, and may,
moreover, have been aware that it was near to the plains where it had
been bred. Lastly, the going was now excellent, soft to its spongy feet
but not too deep in sand, nor were there any rocks over which it could
fall. It went off like the wind, making nothing of our united weights
which did not come to more than two hundred pounds, or a half of what
it could carry with ease, being perhaps urged to its top speed by the
knowledge that the elephant was behind. For mile after mile we rushed
down the plain. But we did not go alone, for Jana came after us like a
cruiser after a gunboat. Moreover, swiftly as we travelled, he travelled
just a little swifter, gaining say a few yards in every hundred. For the
last mile before we came to the river bank, half an hour later perhaps,
though it seemed to be a week, he was not more than fifty paces to our
rear. I glanced back at him, and in the light of the moon, which was
growing low, he bore a strange resemblance to a mud cottage with broken
chimneys (which were his ears flapping on each side of him), and the
yard pump projecting from the upper window.

"We shall beat him now, Hans," I said looking at the broad river which
was now close at hand.

"Yes, Baas," answered Hans doubtfully and in jerks. "This is very good
camel, Baas. He runs so fast that I have no inside left, I suppose
because he smells his wife over that river, to say nothing of death
behind him. But, Baas, I am not sure; that devil Jana is still faster
than the camel, and he wants to settle for his lost eye, which makes him
lively. Also I see stones ahead, which are bad for camels. Then there
is the river, and I don't know if camels can swim, but Jana can as Marut
learned. Do you think, Baas, that you could manage to sting him up
with a bullet in his knee or that great trunk of his, just to give him
something to think about besides ourselves?"

Thus he prattled on, I believe to occupy my mind and his own, till at
length, growing impatient, I replied:

"Be silent, donkey. Can I shoot an elephant backwards over my shoulder
with a rifle meant for springbuck? Hit the camel! Hit it hard!"

Alas! Hans was right! There _were_ stones at the verge of the river,
which doubtless it had washed out in periods of past flood, and
presently we were among them. Now a camel, so good on sand that is its
native heath, is a worthless brute among stones, over which it slips and
flounders. But to Jana these appeared to offer little or no obstacle. At
any rate he came over them almost if not quite as fast as before. By
the time that we reached the brink of the water he was not more than ten
yards behind. I could even see the blood running down from the socket of
his ruined eye.

Moreover, at the sight of the foaming but shallow torrent, the camel,
a creature unaccustomed to water, pulled up in a mulish kind of way and
for a moment refused to stir. Luckily at this instant Jana let off one
of his archangel kind of trumpetings which started our beast again,
since it was more afraid of elephants than it was of water.

In we went and were presently floundering among the loose stones at the
bottom of the river, which was nowhere over four feet deep, with Jana
splashing after us not more than five yards behind. I twisted myself
round and fired at him with the rifle. Whether I hit him or no I could
not say, but he stopped for a few seconds, perhaps because he remembered
the effect of a similar explosion upon his eye, which gave us a trifling
start. Then he came on again in his steam-engine fashion.

When we were about in the middle of the river the inevitable happened.
The camel fell, pitching us over its head into the stream. Still
clinging to the rifle I picked myself up and began half to swim half to
wade towards the farther shore, catching hold of Hans with my free hand.
In a moment Jana was on to that camel. He gored it with his tusks, he
trampled it with his feet, he got it round the neck with his trunk,
dragging nearly the whole bulk of it out of the water. Then he set to
work to pound it down into the mud and stones at the bottom of the river
with such a persistent thoroughness, that he gave us time to reach
the other bank and climb up a stout tree which grew there, a sloping,
flat-topped kind of tree that was fortunately easy to ascend, at least
for a man. Here we sat gasping, perhaps about thirty feet above the
ground level, and waited.

Presently Jana, having finished with the camel, followed us, and
without any difficulty located us in that tree. He walked all round it
considering the situation. Then he wound his huge trunk about the bole
of the tree and, putting out his strength, tried to pull it over. It was
an anxious moment, but this particular child of the forest had not grown
there for some hundreds of years, withstanding all the shocks of wind,
weather and water, in order to be laid low by an elephant, however
enormous. It shook a little--no more. Abandoning this attempt as futile,
Jana next began to try to dig it up by driving his tusk under its roots.
Here, too, he failed because they grew among stones which evidently
jarred him.

Ceasing from these agricultural efforts with a deep rumble of rage, he
adopted yet a third expedient. Rearing his huge bulk into the air he
brought down his forefeet with all the tremendous weight of his great
body behind them on to the sloping trunk of the tree just below where
the branches sprang, perhaps twelve or thirteen feet above the ground.
The shock was so heavy that for a moment I thought the tree would be
uprooted or snapped in two. Thank Heaven! it held, but the vibration was
such that Hans and I were nearly shaken out of the upper branches, like
autumn apples from a bough. Indeed, I think I should have gone had not
the monkey-like Hans, who had toes to cling with as well as fingers,
gripped me by the collar.