The Ivory Child

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


"Stop, Baas, we are on the edge of a cliff. When I thrust my stick
forward it stands on nothing."

Needless to say we pulled up dead and so remained without stirring
an inch, for who could say what might be beyond us? Ragnall wished to
examine the ground with the lantern. I was about to consent, though
doubtfully, when suddenly I heard voices murmuring and through the
screen of bushes saw lights moving at a little distance, forty feet or
more below us. Then we gave up all idea of making further use of the
lantern and crouched still as mice in our bushes, waiting for the dawn.

It came at last. In the east appeared a faint pearly flush that by
degrees spread itself over the whole arch of the sky and was welcomed
by the barking of monkeys and the call of birds in the depths of the
dew-steeped forest. Next a ray from the unrisen sun, a single spear
of light shot suddenly across the sky, and as it appeared, from the
darkness below us arose a sound of chanting, very low and sweet to hear.
It died away and for a little while there was silence broken only by
a rustling sound like to that of people taking their seats in a dark
theatre. Then a woman began to sing in a beautiful, contralto voice,
but in what language I do not know, for I could not catch the words, if
these were words and not only musical notes.

I felt Ragnall trembling beside me and in a whisper asked him what was
the matter. He answered, also in a whisper:

"I believe that is my wife's voice."

"If so, I beg you to control yourself," I replied.

Now the skies began to flame and the light to pour itself into a misty
hollow beneath us like streams of many-coloured gems into a bowl,
driving away the shadows. By degrees these vanished; by degrees we saw
everything. Beneath us was an amphitheatre, on the southern wall of
which we were seated, though it was not a wall but a lava cliff between
forty and fifty feet high which served as a wall. The amphitheatre
itself, however, almost exactly resembled those of the ancients which
I had seen in pictures and Ragnall had visited in Italy, Greece, and
Southern France. It was oval in shape and not very large, perhaps the
flat space at the bottom may have covered something over an acre, but
all round this oval ran tiers of seats cut in the lava of the crater.
For without doubt this was the crater of an extinct volcano.

Moreover, in what I will call the arena, stood a temple that in its main
outlines, although small, exactly resembled those still to be seen in
Egypt. There was the gateway or pylon; there the open outer court with
columns round it supporting roofed cloisters, which, as we ascertained
afterwards, were used as dwelling-places by the priests. There beyond
and connected with the first by a short passage was a second rather
smaller court, also open to the sky, and beyond this again, built like
all the rest of the temple of lava blocks, a roofed erection measuring
about twelve feet square, which I guessed at once must be the sanctuary.

This temple was, as I have said, small, but extremely well proportioned,
every detail of it being in the most excellent taste though unornamented
by sculpture or painting. I have to add that in front of the sanctuary
door stood a large block of lava, which I concluded was an altar, and in
front of this a stone seat and a basin, also of stone, supported upon a
very low tripod. Further, behind the sanctuary was a square house with
window-places.

At the moment of our first sight of this place the courts were empty,
but on the benches of the amphitheatre were seated about three hundred
persons, male and female, the men to the north and the women to the
south. They were all clad in pure white robes, the heads of the men
being shaved and those of the women veiled, but leaving the face
exposed. Lastly, there were two roadways into the amphitheatre, one
running east and one west through tunnels hollowed in the encircling
rock of the crater, both of which roads were closed at the mouths of the
tunnels by massive wooden double doors, seventeen or eighteen feet
in height. From these roadways and their doors we learned two things.
First, that the cave where had lived the Father of Serpents was, as I
had suspected, not the real approach to the shrine of the Child, but
only a blind; and, secondly, that the ceremony we were about to witness
was secret and might only be attended by the priestly class or families
of this strange tribe.

Scarcely was it full daylight when from the cells of the cloisters
round the outer court issued twelve priests headed by Harut himself, who
looked very dignified in his white garment, each of whom carried on a
wooden platter ears of different kinds of corn. Then from the cells of
the southern cloister issued twelve women, or rather girls, for all were
young and very comely, who ranged themselves alongside of the men. These
also carried wooden platters, and on them blooming flowers.

At a sign they struck up a religious chant and began to walk forward
through the passage that led from the first court to the second.
Arriving in front of the altar they halted and one by one, first a
priest and then a priestess, set down the platters of offerings, piling
them above each other into a cone. Next the priests and the priestesses
ranged themselves in lines on either side of the altar, and Harut took
a platter of corn and a platter of flowers in his hands. These he held
first towards that quarter of the sky in which swam the invisible new
moon, secondly towards the rising sun, and thirdly towards the doors of
the sanctuary, making genuflexions and uttering some chanted prayer, the
words of which we could not hear.

A pause followed, that was succeeded by a sudden outburst of song
wherein all the audience took part. It was a very sonorous and beautiful
song or hymn in some language which I did not understand, divided into
four verses, the end of each verse being marked by the bowing of every
one of those many singers towards the east, towards the west, and
finally towards the altar.

Another pause till suddenly the doors of the sanctuary were thrown wide
and from between them issued--the goddess Isis of the Egyptians as I
have seen her in pictures! She was wrapped in closely clinging draperies
of material so thin that the whiteness of her body could be seen
beneath. Her hair was outspread before her, and she wore a head-dress
or bonnet of glittering feathers from the front of which rose a little
golden snake. In her arms she bore what at that distance seemed to be
a naked child. With her came two women, walking a little behind her
and supporting her arms, who also wore feather bonnets but without the
golden snake, and were clad in tight-fitting, transparent garments.

"My God!" whispered Ragnall, "it is my wife!"

"Then be silent and thank Him that she is alive and well," I answered.

The goddess Isis, or the English lady--in that excitement I did not
reck which--stood still while the priests and priestesses and all the
audience, who, gathered on the upper benches of the amphitheatre, could
see her above the wall of the inner court, raised a thrice-repeated and
triumphant cry of welcome. Then Harut and the first priestess lifted
respectively an ear of corn and a flower from the two topmost platters
and held these first to the lips of the child in her arms and secondly
to her lips.

This ceremony concluded, the two attendant women led her round the altar
to the stone chair, upon which she seated herself. Next fire was kindled
in the bowl on the tripod in front of the chair, how I could not see;
but perhaps it was already smouldering there. At any rate it burnt up
in a thin blue flame, on to which Harut and the head priestess threw
something that caused the flame to turn to smoke. Then Isis, for I
prefer to call her so while describing this ceremony, was caused to bend
her head forward, so that it was enveloped in the smoke exactly as she
and I had done some years before in the drawing-room at Ragnall Castle.
Presently the smoke died away and the two attendants with the feathered
head-dresses straightened her in the chair where she sat still holding
the babe against her breast as she might have done to nurse it, but with
her head bent forward like that of a person in a swoon.

Now Harut stepped forward and appeared to speak to the goddess at some
length, then fell back again and waited, till in the midst of an intense
silence she rose from her seat and, fixing her wide eyes on the heavens,
spoke in her turn, for although we heard nothing of what she said, in
that clear, morning light we could see her lips moving. For some minutes
she spoke, then sat down again upon the chair and remained motionless,
staring straight in front of her. Harut advanced again, this time to
the front of the altar, and, taking his stand upon a kind of stone step,
addressed the priests and priestesses and all the encircling audience in
a voice so loud and clear that I could distinguish and understand every
word he said.

"The Guardian of the heavenly Child, the Nurse decreed, the appointed
Nurturer, She who is the shadow of her that bore the Child, She who in
her day bears the symbol of the Child and is consecrated to its service
from of old, She whose heart is filled with the wisdom of the Child and
who utters the decrees of Heaven, has spoken. Hearken now to the voice
of the Oracle uttered in answer to the questions of me, Harut, the head
priest of the Eternal Child during my life-days. Thus says the Oracle,
the Guardian, the Nurturer, marked like all who went before her with
the holy mark of the new moon. She on whom the spirit, flitting from
generation to generation, has alighted for a while. 'O people of the
White Kendah, worshippers of the Child in this land and descendants of
those who for thousands of years worshipped the Child in a more
ancient land until the barbarians drove it thence with the remnant that
remained. War is upon you, O people of the White Kendah. Jana the evil
one; he whose other name is Set, he whose other name is Satan, he who
for this while lives in the shape of an elephant, he who is worshipped
by the thousands whom once you conquered, and whom still you bridle by
my might, comes up against you. The Darkness wars against the Daylight,
the Evil wars against the Good. My curse has fallen upon the people of
Jana, my hail has smitten them, their corn and their cattle; they have
no food to eat. But they are still strong for war and there is food in
your land. They come to take your corn; Jana comes to trample your god.
The Evil comes to destroy the Good, the Night to Devour the Day. It is
the last of many battles. How shall you conquer, O People of the Child?
Not by your own strength, for you are few in number and Jana is very
strong. Not by the strength of the Child, for the Child grows weak and
old, the days of its dominion are almost done, and its worship is almost
outworn. Here alone that worship lingers, but new gods, who are still
the old gods, press on to take its place and to lead it to its rest.'

"How then shall you conquer that, when the Child has departed to its own
place, a remnant of you may still remain? In one way only--so says
the Guardian, the Nurturer of the Child speaking with the voice of the
Child; by the help of those whom you have summoned to your aid from far.
There were four of them, but one you have suffered to be slain in
the maw of the Watcher in the cave. It was an evil deed, O sons and
daughters of the Child, for as the Watcher is now dead, so ere long
many of you who planned this deed must die who, had it not been for that
man's blood, would have lived on a while. Why did you do this thing?
That you might keep a secret, the secret of the theft of a woman, that
you might continue to act a lie which falls upon your head like a stone
from heaven.

"Thus saith the Child: 'Lift no hand against the three who remain, and
what they shall ask, that give, for thus alone shall some of you be
saved from Jana and those who serve him, even though the Guardian and
the Child be taken away and the Child itself returned to its own
place.' These are the words of the Oracle uttered at the Feast of the
First-fruits, the words that cannot be changed and mayhap its last."


Harut ceased, and there was silence while this portentous message sank
into the minds of his audience. At length they seemed to understand its
ominous nature and from them all there arose a universal, simultaneous
groan. As it died away the two attendants dressed as goddesses assisted
the personification of the Lady Isis to rise from her seat and, opening
the robes upon her breast, pointed to something beneath her throat,
doubtless that birthmark shaped like the new moon which made her so
sacred in their eyes since she who bore it and she alone could fill her
holy office.

All the audience and with them the priests and priestesses bowed before
her. She lifted the symbol of the Child, holding it high above her head,
whereon once more they bowed with the deepest veneration. Then still
holding the effigy aloft, she turned and with her two attendants passed
into the sanctuary and doubtless thence by a covered way into the house
beyond. At any rate we saw her no more.



As soon as she was gone the congregation, if I may call it so, leaving
their seats, swarmed down into the outer court of the temple through
its eastern gate, which was now opened. Here the priests proceeded to
distribute among them the offerings taken from the altar, giving a grain
of corn to each of the men to eat and a flower to each of the women,
which flower she kissed and hid in the bosom of her robe. Evidently it
was a kind of sacrament.

Ragnall lifted himself a little upon his hands and knees, and I saw that
his eyes glowed and his face was very pale.

"What are you going to do?" I asked.

"Demand that those people give me back my wife, whom they have stolen.
Don't try to stop me, Quatermain, I mean what I say."

"But, but," I stammered, "they never will and we are but three unarmed
men."

Hans lifted up his little yellow face between us.

"Baas," he hissed, "I have a thought. The Lord Baas wishes to get the
lady dressed like a bird as to her head and like one for burial as to
her body, who is, he says, his wife. But for us to take her from among
so many is impossible. Now what did that old witch-doctor Harut declare
just now? He declared, speaking for his fetish, that by our help alone
the White Kendah can resist the hosts of the Black Kendah and that no
harm must be done to us if the White Kendah would continue to live. So
it seems, Baas, that we have something to sell which the White Kendah
must buy, namely our help against the Black Kendah, for if we will not
fight for them, they believe that they cannot conquer their enemies and
kill the devil Jana. Well now, supposing that the Baas says that our
price is the white woman dressed like a bird, to be delivered over to us
when we have defeated the Black Kendah and killed Jana--after which they
will have no more use for her. And supposing that the Baas says that if
they refuse to pay that price we will burn all our powder and cartridges
so that the rifles are no use? Is there not a path to walk on here?"

"Perhaps," I answered. "Something of the sort was working in my mind but
I had no time to think it out."

Turning, I explained the idea to Ragnall, adding:

"I pray you not to be rash. If you are, not only may we be killed, which
does not so much matter, but it is very probable that even if they spare
us they will put an end to your wife rather than suffer one whom they
look upon as holy and who is necessary to their faith in its last
struggle to be separated from her charge of the Child."

This was a fortunate argument of mine and one which went home.

"To lose her now would be more than I could bear," he muttered.

"Then will you promise to let me try to manage this affair and not to
interfere with me and show violence?"

He hesitated a moment and answered:

"Yes, I promise, for you two are cleverer than I am and--I cannot trust
my judgment."

"Good," I said, assuming an air of confidence which I did not feel. "Now
we will go down to call upon Harut and his friends. I want to have a
closer look at that temple."

So behind our screen of bushes we wriggled back a little distance till
we knew that the slope of the ground would hide us when we stood up.
Then as quickly as we could we made our way eastwards for something over
a quarter of a mile and after this turned to the north. As I expected,
beyond the ring of the crater we found ourselves on the rising,
tree-clad bosom of the mountain and, threading our path through the
cedars, came presently to that track or roadway which led to the eastern
gate of the amphitheatre. This road we followed unseen until presently
the gateway appeared before us. We walked through it without attracting
any attention, perhaps because all the people were either talking
together, or praying, or perhaps because like themselves we were wrapped
in white robes. At the mouth of the tunnel we stopped and I called out
in a loud voice:

"The white lords and their servant have come to visit Harut, as he
invited them to do. Bring us, we pray you, into the presence of Harut."

Everyone wheeled round and stared at us standing there in the shadow of
the gateway tunnel, for the sun behind us was still low. My word, how
they did stare! A voice cried:

"Kill them! Kill these strangers who desecrate our temple."

"What!" I answered. "Would you kill those to whom your high-priest has
given safe-conduct; those moreover by whose help alone, as your Oracle
has just declared, you can hope to slay Jana and destroy his hosts?"

"How do they know that?" shouted another voice. "They are magicians!"

"Yes," I remarked, "all magic does not dwell in the hearts of the White
Kendah. If you doubt it, go to look at the Watcher in the Cave whom your
Oracle told you is dead. You will find that it did not lie."

As I spoke a man rushed through the gates, his white rob streaming on
the wind, shouting as he emerged from the tunnel:

"O Priests and Priestesses of the Child, the ancient serpent is dead. I
whose office it is to feed the serpent on the day of the new moon have
found him dead in his house."

"You hear," I interpolated calmly. "The Father of Snakes is dead. If you
want to know how, I will tell you. We looked on it and it died."

They might have answered that poor Savage also looked on it with the
result that _he_ died, but luckily it did not occur to them to do so.
On the contrary, they just stood still and stared at us like a flock of
startled sheep.

Presently the sheep parted and the shepherd in the shape of Harut
appeared looking, I reflected, the very picture of Abraham softened by
a touch of the melancholia of Job, that is, as I have always imagined
those patriarchs. He bowed to us with his usual Oriental courtesy, and
we bowed back to him. Hans' bow, I may explain, was of the most peculiar
nature, more like a _skulpat_, as the Boers call a land-tortoise,
drawing its wrinkled head into its shell and putting it out again than
anything else. Then Harut remarked in his peculiar English, which I
suppose the White Kendah took for some tongue known only to magicians:

"So you get here, eh? Why you get here, how the devil you get here, eh?"

"We got here because you asked us to do so if we could," I answered,
"and we thought it rude not to accept your invitation. For the rest, we
came through a cave where you kept a tame snake, an ugly-looking reptile
but very harmless to those who know how to deal with snakes and are not
afraid of them as poor Bena was. If you can spare the skin I should like
to have it to make myself a robe."

Harut looked at me with evident respect, muttering:

"Oh, Macumazana, you what you English call cool, quite cool! Is that
all?"

"No," I answered. "Although you did not happen to notice us, we have
been present at your church service, and heard and seen everything. For
instance, we saw the wife of the lord here whom you stole away in Egypt,
her that, being a liar, Harut, you swore you never stole. Also we heard
her words after you had made her drunk with your tobacco smoke."

Now for once in his life Harut was, in sporting parlance, knocked out.
He looked at us, then turning quite pale, lifted his eyes to heaven and
rocked upon his feet as though he were about to fall.

"How you do it? How you do it, eh?" he queried in a weak voice.

"Never you mind how we did it, my friend," I answered loftily. "What
we want to know is when you are going to hand over that lady to her
husband."

"Not possible," he answered, recovering some of his tone. "First we kill
you, first we kill her, she Nurse of the Child. While Child there, she
stop there till she die."

"See here," broke in Ragnall. "Either you give me my wife or someone
else will die. You will die, Harut. I am a stronger man than you are
and unless you promise to give me my wife I will kill you now with this
stick and my hands. Do not move or call out if you want to live."

"Lord," answered the old man with some dignity, "I know you can kill me,
and if you kill me, I think I say thank you who no wish to live in so
much trouble. But what good that, since in one minute then you die too,
all of you, and lady she stop here till Black Kendah king take her to
wife or she too die?"

"Let us talk," I broke in, treading warningly upon Ragnall's foot. "We
have heard your Oracle and we know that you believe its words. It is
said that we alone can help you to conquer the Black Kendah. If you will
not promise what we ask, we will not help you. We will burn our powder
and melt our lead, so that the guns we have cannot speak with Jana and
with Simba, and after that we will do other things that I need not tell
you. But if you promise what we ask, then we will fight for you against
Jana and Simba and teach your men to use the fifty rifles which we have
here with us, and by our help you shall conquer. Do you understand?"

He nodded and stroking his long beard, asked:

"What you want us promise, eh?"

"We want you to promise that after Jana is dead and the Black Kendah
are driven away, you will give up to us unharmed that lady whom you have
stolen. Also that you will bring her and us safely out of your country
by the roads you know, and meanwhile that you will let this lord see his
wife."

"Not last, no," replied Harut, "that not possible. That bring us all to
grave. Also no good, 'cause her mind empty. For rest, you come to other
place, sit down and eat while I talk with priests. Be afraid nothing;
you quite safe."

"Why should we be afraid? It is you who should be afraid, you who stole
the lady and brought Bena to his death. Do you not remember the words of
your own Oracle, Harut?"

"Yes, I know words, but how _you_ know them _that_ I not know," he
replied.

Then he issued some orders, as a result of which a guard formed itself
about us and conducted us through the crowd and along the passage to the
second court of the temple, which was now empty. Here the guard left us
but remained at the mouth of the passage, keeping watch. Presently women
brought us food and drink, of which Hans and I partook heartily though
Ragnall, who was so near to his lost wife and yet so far away, could eat
but little. Mingled joy because after these months of arduous search he
found her yet alive, and fear lest she should again be taken from him
for ever, deprived him of all appetite.

While we ate, priests to the number of about a dozen, who I suppose had
been summoned by Harut, were admitted by the guard and, gathering out of
earshot of us between the altar and the sanctuary, entered on an earnest
discussion with him. Watching their faces I could see that there was a
strong difference of opinion between them, about half taking one view
on the matter of which they disputed, and half another. At length Harut
made some proposition to which they all agreed. Then the door of the
sanctuary was opened with a strange sort of key which one of the priests
produced, showing a dark interior in which gleamed a white object, I
suppose the statue of the Child. Harut and two others entered, the door
being closed behind them. About five minutes later they appeared again
and others, who listened earnestly and after renewed consultation
signified assent by holding up the right hand. Now one of the priests
walked to where we were and, bowing, begged us to advance to the altar.
This we did, and were stood in a line in front of it, Hans being set in
the middle place, while the priests ranged themselves on either side.
Next Harut, having once more opened the door of the sanctuary, took his
stand a little to the right of it and addressed us, not in English but
in his own language, pausing at the end of each sentence that I might
translate to Ragnall.

"Lords Macumazana and Igeza, and yellow man who is named
Light-in-Darkness," he said, "we, the head priests of the Child,
speaking on behalf of the White Kendah people with full authority so to
do, have taken counsel together and of the wisdom of the Child as to the
demands which you make of us. Those demands are: First, that after you
have killed Jana and defeated the Black Kendah we should give over to
you the white lady who was born in a far land to fill the office of
Guardian of the Child, as is shown by the mark of the new moon upon
her breast, but who, because for the second time we could not take her,
became the wife of you, the Lord Igeza. Secondly, that we should conduct
you and her safely out of our land to some place whence you can return
to your own country. Both of these things we will do, because we know
from of old that if once Jana is dead we shall have no cause to fear the
Black Kendah any more, since we believe that then they will leave their
home and go elsewhere, and therefore that we shall no longer need an
Oracle to declare to us in what way Heaven will protect us from Jana and
from them. Or if another Oracle should become necessary to us, doubtless
in due season she will be found. Also we admit that we stole away this
lady because we must, although she was the wife of one of you. But if we
swear this, you on your part must also swear that you will stay with us
till the end of the war, making our cause your cause and, if need be,
giving your lives for us in battle. You must swear further that none of
you will attempt to see or to take hence that lady who is named Guardian
of the Child until we hand her over to you unharmed. If you will not
swear these things, then since no blood may be shed in this holy place,
here we will ring you round until you die of hunger and of thirst, or if
you escape from this temple, then we will fall upon you and put you to
death and fight our own battle with Jana as best we may."