The Ivory Child

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


Yet that very thing happened, and through Hans himself. Thus: Old Harut
had come to me just one hour before the dawn to inform me that all
our people were awake and at their stations, and to make some last
arrangements as to the course of the defence, also about our final
concentration behind the last line of walls and in the first court of
the temple, if we should be driven from the outer entrenchments. He
was telling me that the Oracle of the Child had uttered words at the
ceremony that night which he and all the priests considered were of the
most favourable import, news to which I listened with some impatience,
feeling as I did that this business had passed out of the range of the
Child and its Oracle. As he spoke, suddenly through the silence that
precedes the dawn, there floated to our ears the unmistakable sound of
a rifle. Yes, a rifle shot, half a mile or so away, followed by the
roaring murmur of a great camp unexpectedly alarmed at night.

"Who can have fired that?" I asked. "The Black Kendah have no guns."

He replied that he did not know, unless some of my fifty men had left
their posts.

While we were investigating the matter, scouts rushed in with the
intelligence that the Black Kendah, thinking apparently that they were
being attacked, had broken camp and were advancing towards us. We passed
a warning all down the lines and stood to arms. Five minutes later, as I
stood listening to that approaching roar, filled with every kind of fear
and melancholy foreboding such as the hour and the occasion might well
have evoked, through the gloom, which was dense, the moon being hidden
behind the hill, I thought I caught sight of something running towards
me like a crouching man. I lifted my rifle to fire but, reflecting that
it might be no more than a hyena and fearing to provoke a fusilade from
my half-trained company, did not do so.

Next instant I was glad indeed, for immediately on the other side of the
wall behind which I was standing I heard a well-known voice gasp out:

"Don't shoot, Baas, it is I."

"What have you been doing, Hans?" I said as he scrambled over the wall
to my side, limping a little as I fancied.

"Baas," he puffed, "I have been paying the Black Kendah a visit. I crept
down between their stupid outposts, who are as blind in the dark as a
bat in daytime, hoping to find Jana and put a bullet into his leg or
trunk. I didn't find him, Baas, although I heard him. But one of their
captains stood up in front of a watchfire, giving a good shot. My bullet
found _him_, Baas, for he tumbled back into the fire making the sparks
fly this way and that. Then I ran and, as you see, got here quite
safely."

"Why did you play that fool's trick?" I asked, "seeing that it ought to
have cost you your life?"

"I shall die just when I have to die, not before, Baas," he replied in
the intervals of reloading the little rifle. "Also it was the trick of a
wise man, not of a fool, seeing that it has made the Black Kendah think
that we were attacking them and caused them to hurry on to attack _us_
in the dark over ground that they do not know. Listen to them coming!"

As he spoke a roar of sound told us that the great charge had swept
round a turn there was in the pass and was heading towards us up
the straight. Ivory horns brayed, captains shouted orders, the very
mountains shook beneath the beating of thousands of feet of men and
horses, while in one great yell that echoed from the cliffs and forests
went up the battle-cry of "_Jana! Jana!_"--a mixed tumult of noise which
contrasted very strangely with the utter silence in our ranks.

"They will be among the pitfalls presently," sniggered Hans, shifting
his weight nervously from one leg on to the other. "Hark! they are going
into them."

It was true. Screams of fear and pain told me that the front ranks
had begun to fall, horse and foot together, into the cunningly devised
snares of which with so much labour we had dug many, concealing them
with earth spread over thin wickerwork, or rather interlaced
boughs. Into them went the forerunners, to be pierced by the sharp,
fire-hardened stakes set at the bottom of each pit. Vainly did those who
were near enough to understand their danger call to the ranks behind to
stop. They could not or would not comprehend, and had no room to extend
their front. Forward surged the human torrent, thrusting all in front of
it to death by wounds or suffocation in those deadly holes, till one by
one they were filled level with the ground by struggling men and horses,
over whom the army still rushed on.

How many perished there I do not know, but after the battle was over we
found scarcely a pit that was not crowded to the brim with dead. Truly
this device of Ragnall's, for if I had conceived the idea, which
was unfamiliar to the Kendah, it was he who had carried it out in so
masterly a fashion, had served us well.

Still the enemy surged on, since the pits were only large enough to hold
a tithe of them, till at length, horsemen and footmen mixed up together
in inextricable confusion, their mighty mass became faintly visible
quite close to us, a blacker blot upon the gloom.

Then my turn came. When they were not more than fifty yards away from
the first wall, I shouted an order to my riflemen to fire, aiming low,
and set the example by loosing both barrels of an elephant gun at the
thickest of the mob. At that distance even the most inexperienced shots
could not miss such a mark, especially as those bullets that went high
struck among the oncoming troops behind, or caught the horsemen lifted
above their fellows. Indeed, of the first few rounds I do not think that
one was wasted, while often single balls killed or injured several men.

The result was instantaneous. The Black Kendah who, be it remembered,
were totally unaccustomed to the effects of rifle fire and imagined that
we only possessed two or three guns in all, stopped their advance as
though paralyzed. For a few seconds there was silence, except for the
intermittent crackle of the rifles as my men loaded and fired. Next came
the cries of the smitten men and horses that were falling everywhere,
and then--the unmistakable sound of a stampede.

"They have gone. That was too warm for them, Baas," chuckled Hans
exultingly.

"Yes," I answered, when I had at length succeeded in stopping the
firing, "but I expect they will come back with the light. Still, that
trick of yours has cost them dear, Hans."

By degrees the dawn began to break. It was, I remember, a particularly
beautiful dawn, resembling a gigantic and vivid rose opening in the
east, or a cup of brightness from which many coloured wines were poured
all athwart the firmament. Very peaceful also, for not a breath of wind
was stirring. But what a scene the first rays of the sun revealed upon
that narrow stretch of pass in front of us. Everywhere the pitfalls and
trenches were filled with still surging heaps of men and horses, while
all about lay dead and wounded men, the red harvest of our rifle fire.
It was dreadful to contrast the heavenly peace above and the hellish
horror beneath.

We took count and found that up to this moment we had not lost a single
man, one only having been slightly wounded by a thrown spear. As is
common among semi-savages, this fact filled the White Kendah with an
undue exultation. Thinking that as the beginning was so the end must
be, they cheered and shouted, shaking each other's hands, then fell to
eating the food which the women brought them with appetite, chattering
incessantly, although as a general rule they were a very silent people.
Even the grave Harut, who arrived full of congratulations, seemed as
high-spirited as a boy, till I reminded him that the real battle had not
yet commenced.

The Black Kendah had fallen into a trap and lost some of their number,
that was all, which was fortunate for us but could scarcely affect the
issue of the struggle, since they had many thousands left. Ragnall, who
had come up from his lines, agreed with me. As he said, these people
were fighting for life as well as honour, seeing that most of the corn
which they needed for their sustenance was stored in great heaps either
in or to the rear of the temple behind us. Therefore they must come on
until they won or were destroyed. How with our small force could we hope
to destroy this multitude? That was the problem which weighed upon our
hearts.

About a quarter of an hour later two spies that we had set upon the
top of the precipitous cliffs, whence they had a good view of the pass
beyond the bend, came scrambling down the rocks like monkeys by a route
that was known to them. These boys, for they were no more, reported that
the Black Kendah were reforming their army beyond the bend of the pass,
and that the cavalry were dismounting and sending their horses to the
rear, evidently because they found them useless in such a place. A
little later solitary men appeared from behind the bend, carrying
bundles of long sticks to each of which was attached a piece of white
cloth, a proceeding that excited my curiosity.

Soon its object became apparent. Swiftly these men, of whom in the end
there may have been thirty or forty, ran to and fro, testing the ground
with spears in search for pitfalls. I think they only found a very few
that had not been broken into, but in front of these and also of those
that were already full of men and horses they set up the flags as a
warning that they should be avoided in the advance. Also they removed a
number of their wounded.

We had great difficulty in restraining the White Kendah from rushing out
to attack them, which of course would only have led us into a trap in
our turn, since they would have fled and conducted their pursuers into
the arms of the enemy. Nor would I allow my riflemen to fire, as the
result must have been many misses and a great waste of ammunition which
ere long would be badly wanted. I, however, did shoot two or three, then
gave it up as the remainder took no notice whatever.

When they had thoroughly explored the ground they retired until, a
little later, the Black Kendah army began to appear, marching in serried
regiments and excellent order round the bend, till perhaps eight or ten
thousand of them were visible, a very fierce and awe-inspiring _impi_.
Their front ranks halted between three and four hundred yards away,
which I thought farther off than it was advisable to open fire on them
with Snider rifles held by unskilled troops. Then came a pause, which
at length was broken by the blowing of horns and a sound of exultant
shouting beyond the turn of the pass.

Now from round this turn appeared the strangest sight that I think my
eyes had ever seen. Yes, there came the huge elephant, Jana, at a slow,
shambling trot. On his back and head were two men in whom, with my
glasses, I recognized the lame priest whom I already knew too well and
Simba, the king of the Black Kendah, himself, gorgeously apparelled and
waving a long spear, seated in a kind of wooden chair. Round the brute's
neck were a number of bright metal chains, twelve in all, and each of
these chains was held by a spearman who ran alongside, six on one side
and six on the other. Lastly, ingeniously fastened to the end of his
trunk were three other chains to which were attached spiked knobs of
metal.

On he came as docilely as any Indian elephant used for carrying teak
logs, passing through the centre of the host up a wide lane which had
been left, I suppose for his convenience, and intelligently avoiding the
pitfalls filled with dead. I thought that he would stop among the first
ranks. But not so. Slackening his pace to a walk he marched forwards
towards our fortifications. Now, of course, I saw my chance and made
sure that my double-barrelled elephant rifle was ready and that Hans
held a second rifle, also double-barrelled and of similar calibre,
full-cocked in such a position that I could snatch it from him in a
moment.

"I am going to kill that elephant," I said. "Let no one else fire. Stand
still and you shall see the god Jana die."

Still the enormous beast floundered forward; up to that moment I had
never realized how truly huge it was, not even when it stood over me in
the moonlight about to crush me with its foot. Of this I am sure, that
none to equal it ever lived in Africa, at least in any times of which I
have knowledge.

"Fire, Baas," whispered Hans, "it is near enough."

But like the Frenchman and the cock pheasant, I determined to wait until
it stopped, wishing to finish it with a single ball, if only for the
prestige of the thing.

At length it did stop and, opening its cavern of a mouth, lifted its
great trunk and trumpeted, while Simba, standing up in his chair, began
to shout out some command to us to surrender to the god Jana, "the
Invincible, the Invulnerable."

"I will show you if you are invulnerable, my boy," said I to myself,
glancing round to make sure that Hans had the second rifle ready and
catching sight of Ragnall and Harut and all the White Kendah standing
up in their trenches, breathlessly awaiting the end, as were the Black
Kendah a few hundred yards away. Never could there have been a fairer
shot and one more certain to result in a fatal wound. The brute's head
was up and its mouth was open. All I had to do was to send a hard-tipped
bullet crashing through the palate to the brain behind. It was so easy
that I would have made a bet that I could have finished him with one
hand tied behind me.

I lifted the heavy rifle. I got the sights dead on to a certain spot at
the back of that red cave. I pressed the trigger; the charge boomed--and
nothing happened! I heard no bullet strike and Jana did not even take
the trouble to close his mouth.

An exclamation of "O-oh!" went up from the watchers. Before it had
died away the second bullet followed the first, with the same result
or rather lack of result, and another louder "O-oh!" arose. Then Jana
tranquilly shut his mouth, having finished trumpeting, and as though
to give me a still better target, turned broadside on and stood quite
still.

With an inward curse I snatched the second rifle and aiming behind the
ear at a spot which long experience told me covered the heart let drive
again, first one barrel and then the other.

Jana never stirred. No bullet thudded. No mark of blood appeared upon
his hide. The horrible thought overcame me that I, Allan Quatermain,
I the famous shot, the renowned elephant-hunter, had four times missed
this haystack of a brute from a distance of forty yards. So great was
my shame that I think I almost fainted. Through a kind of mist I heard
various ejaculations:

"Great Heavens!" said Ragnall.

"_Allemagte!_" remarked Hans.

"The Child help us!" muttered Harut.

All the rest of them stared at me as though I were a freak or a lunatic.
Then somebody laughed nervously, and immediately everybody began to
laugh. Even the distant army of the Black Kendah became convulsed with
roars of unholy merriment and I, Allan Quatermain, was the centre of
all this mockery, till I felt as though I were going mad. Suddenly the
laughter ceased and once more Simba the King began to roar out something
about "Jana the Invincible and Invulnerable," to which the White Kendah
replied with cries of "Magic" and "Bewitched! Bewitched!"

"Yes," yelled Simba, "no bullet can touch Jana the god, not even those
of the white lord who was brought from far to kill him."

Hans leaped on to the top of the wall, where he danced up and down like
an intoxicated monkey, and screamed:

"Then where is Jana's left eye? Did not my bullet put it out like a
lamp? If Jana is invulnerable, why did my bullet put out his left eye?"

Hans ceased from dancing on the wall and steadying himself, lifted the
little rifle Intombi, shouting:

"Let us see whether after all this beast is a god or an elephant."

Then he touched the trigger, and simultaneously with the report, I heard
the bullet clap and saw blood appear on Jana's hide just by the very
spot over the heart at which I had aimed without result. Of course, the
soft ball driven from a small-bore rifle with a light charge of powder
was far too weak to penetrate to the vitals. Probably it did not do much
more than pierce through the skin and an inch or two of flesh behind it.

Still, its effects upon this "invulnerable" god were of a marked order.
He whipped round; he lifted his trunk and screamed with rage and pain.
Then off he lumbered back towards his own people, at such a pace that
the attendants who held the chains on either side of him were thrown
over and forced to leave go of him, while the king and the priest upon
his back could only retain their seats by clinging to the chair and the
rope about his neck.

The result was satisfactory so far as the dispelling of magical
illusions went, but it left me in a worse position than before, since
it now became evident that what had protected Jana from my bullets was
nothing more supernatural than my own lack of skill. Oh! never in my
life did I drink of such a cup of humiliation as it was my lot to drain
to the dregs in this most unhappy hour. Almost did I hope that I might
be killed at once.

And yet, and yet, how was it possible that with all my skill I should
have missed this towering mountain of flesh four times in succession.
The question is one to which I have never discovered any answer,
especially as Hans hit it easily enough, which at the time I wished
heartily he had not done, since his success only served to emphasize
my miserable failure. Fortunately, just then a diversion occurred which
freed my unhappy self from further public attention. With a shout and a
roar the great army of the Black Kendah woke into life.

The advance had begun.



CHAPTER XX

ALLAN WEEPS

On they came, slowly and steadily, preceded by a cloud of skirmishers--a
thousand or more of these--who kept as open an order as the narrow
ground would allow and carried, each of them, a bundle of throwing
spears arranged in loops or sockets at the back of the shield. When
these men were about a hundred yards away we opened fire and killed a
great number of them, also some of the marshalled troops behind. But
this did not stop them in the least, for what could fifty rifles do
against a horde of brave barbarians who, it seemed, had no fear of
death? Presently their spears were falling among us and a few casualties
began to occur, not many, because of the protecting wall, but still
some. Again and again we loaded and fired, sweeping away those in front
of us, but always others came to take their places. Finally at some word
of command these light skirmishers vanished, except whose who were dead
or wounded, taking shelter behind the advancing regiments which now were
within fifty yards of us.

Then, after a momentary pause another command was shouted out and the
first regiment charged in three solid ranks. We fired a volley point
blank into them and, as it was hopeless for fifty men to withstand such
an onslaught, bolted during the temporary confusion that ensued, taking
refuge, as it had been arranged that we should do, at a point of vantage
farther down the line of fortifications, whence we maintained our
galling fire.

Now it was that the main body of the White Kendah came into action under
the leadership of Ragnall and Harut. The enemy scrambled over the first
wall, which we had just vacated, to find themselves in a network of
other walls held by our spearmen in a narrow place where numbers gave no
great advantage.

Here the fighting was terrible and the loss of the attackers great, for
always as they carried one entrenchment they found another a few yards
in front of them, out of which the defenders could only be driven at
much cost of life.

Two hours or more the battle went on thus. In spite of the desperate
resistance which we offered, the multitude of the Black Kendah, who I
must say fought magnificently, stormed wall after wall, leaving hundreds
of dead and wounded to mark their difficult progress. Meanwhile I and
my riflemen rained bullets on them from certain positions which we had
selected beforehand, until at length our ammunition began to run low.

At half-past eight in the morning we were driven back over the open
ground to our last entrenchment, a very strong one just outside of the
eastern gate of the temple which, it will be remembered, was set in
a tunnel pierced through the natural lava rock. Thrice did the Black
Kendah come on and thrice we beat them off, till the ditch in front of
the wall was almost full of fallen. As fast as they climbed to the top
of it the White Kendah thrust them through with their long spears, or we
shot them with our rifles, the nature of the ground being such that only
a direct frontal attack was possible.

In the end they drew back sullenly, having, as we hoped, given up the
assault. As it turned out, this was not so. They were only resting
and waiting for the arrival of their reserve. It came up shouting and
singing a war-song, two thousand strong or more, and presently once more
they charged like a flood of water. We beat them back. They reformed and
charged a second time and we beat them back.

Then they took another counsel. Standing among the dead and dying at the
base of the wall, which was built of loose stones and earth, where we
could not easily get at them because of the showers of spears which
were rained at anyone who showed himself, they began to undermine it,
levering out the bottom stones with stakes and battering them with
poles.

In five minutes a breach appeared, through which they poured
tumultuously. It was hopeless to withstand that onslaught of so vast a
number. Fighting desperately, we were driven down the tunnel and through
the doors that were opened to us, into the first court of the temple.
By furious efforts we managed to close these doors and block them
with stones and earth. But this did not avail us long, for, bringing
brushwood and dry grass, they built a fire against them that soon caught
the thick cedar wood of which they were made.

While they burned we consulted together. Further retreat seemed
impossible, since the second court of the temple, save for a narrow
passage, was filled with corn which allowed no room for fighting,
while behind it were gathered all the women and children, more than two
thousand of them. Here, or nowhere, we must make our stand and conquer
or die. Up to this time, compared with what which we had inflicted upon
the Black Kendah, of whom a couple of thousand or more had fallen, our
loss was comparatively slight, say two hundred killed and as many more
wounded. Most of such of the latter as could not walk we had managed to
carry into the first court of the temple, laying them close against the
cloister walls, whence they watched us in a grisly ring.

This left us about sixteen hundred able-bodied men or many more than we
could employ with effect in that narrow place. Therefore we determined
to act upon a plan which we had already designed in case such an
emergency as ours should arise. About three hundred and fifty of the
best men were to remain to defend the temple till all were slain. The
rest, to the number of over a thousand, were to withdraw through the
second court and the gates beyond to the camp of the women and children.
These they were to conduct by secret paths that were known to them to
where the camels were kraaled, and mounting as many as possible of
them on the camels to fly whither they could. Our hope was that the
victorious Black Kendah would be too exhausted to follow them across the
plain to the distant mountains. It was a dreadful determination, but we
had no choice.

"What of my wife?" Ragnall asked hoarsely.

"While the temple stands she must remain in the temple," replied Harut.
"But when all is lost, if I have fallen, do you, White Lord, go to the
sanctuary with those who remain and take her and the Ivory Child and
flee after the others. Only I lay this charge on you under pain of the
curse of Heaven, that you do not suffer the Ivory Child to fall into the
hands of the Black Kendah. First must you burn it with fire or grind it
to dust with stones. Moreover, I give this command to all in case of
the priests in charge of it should fail me, that they set flame to the
brushwood that is built up with the stacks of corn, so that, after all,
those of our enemies who escape may die of famine."

Instantly and without murmuring, for never did I see more perfect
discipline than that which prevailed among these poor people, the orders
given by Harut, who in addition to his office as head priest was a kind
of president of what was in fact a republic, were put in the way of
execution. Company by company the men appointed to escort the women and
children departed through the gateway of the second court, each company
turning in the gateway to salute us who remained, by raising their
spears, till all were gone. Then we, the three hundred and fifty who
were left, marshalled ourselves as the Greeks may have done in the Pass
of Thermopylae.