The Ivory Child

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


First stood I and my riflemen, to whom all the remaining ammunition was
served out; it amounted to eight rounds per man. Then, ranged across
the court in four lines, came the spearmen armed with lances and swords
under the immediate command of Harut. Behind these, near the gate of the
second court so that at the last they might attempt the rescue of the
priestess, were fifty picked men, captained by Ragnall, who, I forgot
to say, was wounded in two places, though not badly, having received
a spear thrust in the left shoulder and a sword cut to the left thigh
during his desperate defence of the entrenchment.

By the time that all was ready and every man had been given to drink
from the great jars of water which stood along the walls, the massive
wooden doors began to burn through, though this did not happen for quite
half an hour after the enemy had begun to attempt to fire them. They
fell at length beneath the battering of poles, leaving only the mound of
earth and stones which we had piled up in the gateway after the closing
of the doors. This the Black Kendah, who had raked out the burning
embers, set themselves to dig away with hands and sticks and spears, a
task that was made very difficult to them by about a score of our people
who stabbed at them with their long lances or dashed them down with
stones, killing and disabling many. But always the dead and wounded were
dragged off while others took their places, so that at last the gateway
was practically cleared. Then I called back the spearmen who passed into
the ranks behind us, and made ready to play my part.

I had not long to wait. With a rush and a roar a great company of the
Black Kendah charged the gateway. Just as they began to emerge into the
court I gave the word to fire, sending fifty Snider bullets tearing into
them from a distance of a few yards. They fell in a heap; they fell like
corn before the scythe, not a man won through. Quickly we reloaded and
waited for the next rush. In due course it came and the dreadful scene
repeated itself. Now the gateway and the tunnel beyond were so choked
with fallen men that the enemy must drag these out before they could
charge any more. It was done under the fire of myself, Hans and a few
picked shots--somehow it was done.

Once more they charged, and once more were mown down. So it went on
till our last cartridge was spent, for never did I see more magnificent
courage than was shown by those Black Kendah in the face of terrific
loss. Then my people threw aside their useless rifles and arming
themselves with spears and swords fell back to rest, leaving Harut and
his company to take their place. For half an hour or more raged that
awful struggle, since the spot being so narrow, charge as they would,
the Black Kendah could not win through the spears of despairing
warriors defending their lives and the sanctuary of their god. Nor, the
encircling cliffs being so sheer, could they get round any other way.

At length the enemy drew back as though defeated, giving us time to drag
aside our dead and wounded and drink more water, for the heat in the
place was now overwhelming. We hoped against hope that they had given up
the attack. But this was far from the case; they were but making a new
plan.

Suddenly in the gateway there appeared the huge bulk of the elephant
Jana, rushing forward at speed and being urged on by men who pricked it
with spears behind. It swept through the defenders as though they were
but dry grass, battering those in front of it with its great trunk
from which swung the iron balls that crushed all on whom they fell, and
paying no more heed to the lance thrusts than it might have done to the
bites of gnats. On it came, trumpeting and trampling, and after it in a
flood flowed the Black Kendah, upon whom our spearmen flung themselves
from either side.

At the time I, followed by Hans, was just returning from speaking with
Ragnall at the gate of the second court. A little before I had retired
exhausted from the fierce and fearful fighting, whereon he took my place
and repelled several of the Black Kendah charges, including the last. In
this fray he received a further injury, a knock on the head from a stick
or stone which stunned him for a few minutes, whereon some of our people
had carried him off and set him on the ground with his back against one
of the pillars of the second gate. Being told that he was hurt I ran
to see what was the matter. Finding to my joy that it was nothing very
serious, I was hurrying to the front again when I looked up and saw that
devil Jana charging straight towards me, the throng of armed men parting
on each side of him, as rough water does before the leaping prow of a
storm-driven ship.

To tell the truth, although I was never fond of unnecessary risks, I
rejoiced at the sight. Not even all the excitement of that hideous and
prolonged battle had obliterated from my mind the burning sense of shame
at the exhibition which I had made of myself by missing this beast with
four barrels at forty yards.

Now, thought I to myself with a kind of exultant thrill, now, Jana,
I will wipe out both my disgrace and you. This time there shall be no
mistake, or if there is, let it be my last.

On thundered Jana, whirling the iron balls among the soldiers, who fled
to right and left leaving a clear path between me and him. To make quite
sure of things, for I was trembling a little with fatigue and somewhat
sick from the continuous sight of bloodshed, I knelt down upon my right
knee, using the other as a prop for my left elbow, and since I could
not make certain of a head shot because of the continual whirling of
the huge trunk, got the sight of my big-game rifle dead on to the beast
where the throat joins the chest. I hoped that the heavy conical
bullet would either pierce through to the spine or cut one of the large
arteries in the neck, or at least that the tremendous shock of its
impact would bring him down.

At about twenty paces I fired and hit--not Jana but the lame priest who
was fulfilling the office of mahout, perched upon his shoulders many
feet above the point at which I had aimed. Yes! I hit him in the head,
which was shattered like an eggshell, so that he fell lifeless to the
ground.

In perfect desperation again I aimed, and fired when Jana was not more
than thirty feet away. This time the bullet must have gone wide to
the left, for I saw a chip fly from the end of the animal's broken and
deformed tusk, which stuck out in that direction several feet clear of
its side.

Then I gave up all hope. There was no time to gain my feet and escape;
indeed I did not wish to do so, who felt that there are some failures
which can only be absolved by death. I just knelt there, waiting for the
end.

In an instant the giant creature was almost over me. I remember looking
up at it and thinking in a queer sort of a way--perhaps it was some
ancestral memory--that I was a little ape-like child about to be slain
by a primordial elephant, thrice as big as any that now inhabit the
earth. Then something appeared to happen which I only repeat to show how
at such moments absurd and impossible things seem real to us.

The reader may remember the strange dream which Hans had related to me
that morning.

One incident of this phantasy was that he had met the spirit of the Zulu
lady Mameena, whom I knew in bygone years, and that she bade him tell me
she would be with me in the battle and that I was to look for her when
death drew near to me and "Jana thundered on," for then perchance I
should see her.

Well, no doubt in some lightning flash of thought the memory of these
words occurred to me at this juncture, with the ridiculous result that
my subjective intelligence, if that is the right term, actually created
the scene which they described. As clearly, or perhaps more clearly than
ever I saw anything else in my life, I appeared to behold the beautiful
Mameena in her fur cloak and her blue beads, standing between Jana and
myself with her arms folded upon her breast and looking exactly as she
did in the tremendous moment of her death before King Panda. I even
noted how the faint breeze stirred a loose end of her outspread hair
and how the sunlight caught a particular point of a copper bangle on her
upper arm.

So she stood, or rather seemed to stand, quite still; and as it
happened, at that moment the giant Jana, either because something had
frightened him, or perhaps owing to the shock of my bullet striking on
his tusk having jarred the brain, suddenly pulled up, sliding along a
little with all his four feet together, till I thought he was going to
sit down like a performing elephant. Then it appeared to me as though
Mameena turned round very slowly, bent towards me, whispering something
which I could not hear although her lips moved, looked at me sweetly
with those wonderful eyes of hers and vanished away.

A fraction of a second later all this vision had gone and something that
was no vision took its place. Jana had recovered himself and was at me
again with open mouth and lifted trunk. I heard a Dutch curse and saw
a little yellow form; saw Hans, for it was he, thrust the barrels of
my second elephant rifle almost into that red cave of a mouth, which
however they could not reach, and fire, first one barrel, then the
other.

Another moment, and the mighty trunk had wrapped itself about Hans and
hurled him through the air to fall on to his head and arms thirty or
forty feet away.

Jana staggered as though he too were about to fall; recovered himself,
swerved to the right, perhaps to follow Hans, stumbled on a few paces,
missing me altogether, then again came to a standstill. I wriggled
myself round and, seated on the pavement of the court, watched what
followed, and glad am I that I was able to do so, for never shall I
behold such another scene.

First I saw Ragnall run up with a rifle and fire two barrels at the
brute's head, of which he took no notice whatsoever. Then I saw his
wife, who in this land was known as the Guardian of the Child, issuing
from the portals of the second court, dressed in her goddess robes,
wearing the cap of bird's feathers, attended by the two priestesses also
dressed as goddesses, as we had seen her on the morning of sacrifice,
and holding in front of her the statue of the Ivory Child.

On she came quite quietly, her wide, empty eyes fixed upon Jana. As she
advanced the monster seemed to grow uneasy. Turning his head, he lifted
his trunk and thrust it along his back until it gripped the ankle of the
King Simba, who all this while was seated there in his chair making no
movement.

With a slow, steady pull he dragged Simba from the chair so that he fell
upon the ground near his left foreleg. Next very composedly he wound his
trunk about the body of the helpless man, whose horrified eyes I can see
to this day, and began to whirl him round and round in the air, gently
at first but with a motion that grew ever more rapid, until the bright
chains on the victim's breast flashed in the sunlight like a silver
wheel. Then he hurled him to the ground, where the poor king lay a mere
shattered pulp that had been human.

Now the priestess was standing in front of the beast-god, apparently
quite without fear, though her two attendants had fallen back. Ragnall
sprang forward as though to drag her away, but a dozen men leapt on to
him and held him fast, either to save his life or for some secret reason
of their own which I never learned.

Jana looked down at her and she looked up at Jana. Then he screamed
furiously and, shooting out his trunk, snatched the Ivory Child from her
hands, whirled it round as he had whirled Simba, and at last dashed it
to the stone pavement as he had dashed Simba, so that its substance,
grown brittle on the passage of the ages, shattered into ten thousand
fragments.

At this sight a great groan went up from the men of the White Kendah,
the women dressed as goddesses shrieked and tore their robes, and Harut,
who stood near, fell down in a fit or faint.

Once more Jana screamed. Then slowly he knelt down, beat his trunk and
the clattering metal balls upon the ground thrice, as though he were
making obeisance to the beautiful priestess who stood before him,
shivered throughout his mighty bulk, and rolled over--dead!



The fighting ceased. The Black Kendah, who all this while had been
pressing into the court of the temple, saw and stood stupefied. It was
as though in the presence of events to them so pregnant and terrible men
could no longer lift their swords in war.

A voice called: "The god is dead! The king is dead! Jana has slain Simba
and has himself been slain! Shattered is the Child; spilt is the blood
of Jana! Fly, People of the Black Kendah; fly, for the gods are dead and
your land is a land of ghosts!"

From every side was this wail echoed: "Fly, People of the Black Kendah,
for the gods are dead!"

They turned; they sped away like shadows, carrying their wounded with
them, nor did any attempt to stay them. Thirty minutes later, save for
some desperately hurt or dying men, not one of them was left in the
temple or the pass beyond. They had all gone, leaving none but the dead
behind them.

The fight was finished! The fight that had seemed lost was won!



I dragged myself from the ground. As I gained my tottering feet, for now
that all was over I felt as if I were made of running water, I saw the
men who held Ragnall loose their grip of him. He sprang to where his
wife was and stood before her as though confused, much as Jana had
stood, Jana against whose head he rested, his left hand holding to the
brute's gigantic tusk, for I think that he also was weak with toil,
terror, loss of blood and emotion.

"Luna," he gasped, "Luna!"

Leaning on the shoulder of a Kendah man, I drew nearer to see what
passed between them, for my curiosity overcame my faintness. For quite a
long while she stared at him, till suddenly her eyes began to change. It
was as though a soul were arising in their emptiness as the moon arises
in the quiet evening sky, giving them light and life. At length she
spoke in a slow, hesitating voice, the tones of which I remembered well
enough, saying:

"Oh! George, that dreadful brute," and she pointed to the dead elephant,
"has killed our baby. Look at it! Look at it! We must be everything to
each other now, dear, as we were before it came--unless God sends us
another."

Then she burst into a flood of weeping and fell into his arms, after
which I turned away. So, to their honour be it said, did the Kendah,
leaving the pair alone behind the bulk of dead Jana.

Here I may state two things: first, that Lady Ragnall, whose bodily
health had remained perfect throughout, entirely recovered her reason
from that moment. It was as though on the shattering of the Ivory Child
some spell had been lifted off her. What this spell may have been I am
quite unable to explain, but I presume that in a dim and unknown way she
connected this effigy with her own lost infant and that while she held
and tended it her intellect remained in abeyance. If so, she must also
have connected its destruction with the death of her own child which,
strangely enough, it will be remembered, was likewise killed by an
elephant. The first death that occurred in her presence took away her
reason, the second seeming death, which also occurred in her presence,
brought it back again!

Secondly, from the moment of the destruction of her boy in the streets
of the English country town to that of the shattering of the Ivory Child
in Central Africa her memory was an utter blank, with one exception.
This exception was a dream which a few days later she narrated to
Ragnall in my presence. That dream was that she had seen him and Savage
sleeping together in a native house one night. In view of a certain
incident recorded in this history I leave the reader to draw his own
conclusions as to this curious incident. I have none to offer, or if I
have I prefer to keep them to myself.

Leaving Ragnall and his wife, I staggered off to look for Hans and found
him lying senseless near the north wall of the temple. Evidently he was
beyond human help, for Jana seemed to have crushed most of his ribs in
his iron trunk. We carried him to one of the priest's cells and there I
watched him till the end, which came at sundown.

Before he died he became quite conscious and talked with me a good deal.

"Don't grieve about missing Jana, Baas," he said, "for it wasn't you who
missed him but some devil that turned your bullets. You see, Baas, he
was bewitched against you white men. When you look at him closely you
will find that the Lord Igeza missed him also" (strange as it may seem,
this proved to be the case), "and when you managed to hit the tip of his
tusk with the last ball the magic was wearing off him, that's all.
But, Baas, those Black Kendah wizards forgot to bewitch him against
the little yellow man, of whom they took no account. So I hit him sure
enough every time I fired at him, and I hope he liked the taste of my
bullets in that great mouth of his. He knew who had sent them there very
well. That's why he left you alone and made for me, as I had hoped he
would. Oh! Baas, I die happy, quite happy since I have killed Jana and
he caught me and not you, me who was nearly finished anyhow. For, Baas,
though I didn't say anything about it, a thrown spear struck my groin
when I went down among the Black Kendah this morning. It was only a
small cut, which bled little, but as the fighting went on something gave
way and my inside began to come through it, though I tied it up with a
bit of cloth, which of course means death in a day or two." (Subsequent
examination showed me that Hans's story of this wound was perfectly
true. He could not have lived for very long.)

"Baas," he went on after a pause, "no doubt I shall meet that Zulu lady
Mameena to-night. Tell me, is she really entitled to the royal salute?
Because if not, when I am as much a spook as she is I will not give it
to her again. She never gave me my titles, which are good ones in their
way, so why should I give her the _Bayete_, unless it is hers by right
of blood, although I am only a little 'yellow dog' as she chose to call
me?"

As this ridiculous point seemed to weigh upon his mind I told him that
Mameena was not even of royal blood and in nowise entitled to the salute
of kings.

"Ah!" he said with a feeble grin, "then now I shall know how to deal
with her, especially as she cannot pretend that I did not play my part
in the battle, as she bade me do. Did you see anything of her when Jana
charged, Baas, because I thought I did?"

"I seemed to see something, but no doubt it was only a fancy."

"A fancy? Explain to me, Baas, where truths end and fancies begin and
whether what we think are fancies are not sometimes the real truths.
Once or twice I have thought so of late, Baas."

I could not answer this riddle, so instead I gave him some water which
he asked for, and he continued:

"Baas, have you any messages for the two Shining ones, for her whose
name is holy and her sister, and for the child of her whose name is
holy, the Missie Marie, and for your reverend father, the Predikant? If
so, tell it quickly before my head grows too empty to hold the words."

I will confess, however foolish it may seem, that I gave him certain
messages, but what they were I shall not write down. Let them remain
secret between me and him. Yes, between me and him and perhaps those to
whom they were to be delivered. For after all, in his own words, who
can know exactly where fancies end and truth begin, and whether at times
fancies are not the veritable truths in this universal mystery of which
the individual life of each of us is so small a part?

Hans repeated what I had spoken to him word for word, as a native does,
repeated it twice over, after which he said he knew it by heart and
remained silent for a long while. Then he asked me to lift him up in
the doorway of the cell so that he might look at the sun setting for
the last time, "for, Baas," he added, "I think I am going far beyond the
sun."

He stared at it for a while, remarking that from the look of the sky
there should be fine weather coming, "which will be good for your
journey towards the Black Water, Baas, with all that ivory to carry."

I answered that perhaps I should never get the ivory from the graveyard
of the elephants, as the Black Kendah might prevent this.

"No, no, Baas," he replied, "now that Jana is dead the Black Kendah will
go away. I know it, I know it!"

Then he wandered for a space, speaking of sundry adventures we had
shared together, till quite before the last indeed, when his mind
returned to him.

"Baas," he said, "did not the captain Mavovo name me Light-in-Darkness,
and is not that my name? When you too enter the Darkness, look for that
Light; it will be shining very close to you."

He only spoke once more. His words were:

"Baas, I understand now what your reverend father, the Predikant, meant
when he spoke to me about Love last night. It had nothing to do with
women, Baas, at least not much. It was something a great deal bigger,
Baas, something as big as what I feel for you!"

Then Hans died with a smile on his wrinkled face.

I wept!



CHAPTER XXI

HOMEWARDS

There is not much more to write of this expedition, or if that statement
be not strictly true, not much more that I wish to write, though I have
no doubt that Ragnall, if he had a mind that way, could make a good and
valuable book concerning many matters on which, confining myself to the
history of our adventure, I have scarcely touched. All the affinities
between this Central African Worship of the Heavenly Child and
its Guardian and that of Horus and Isis in Egypt from which it was
undoubtedly descended, for instance. Also the part which the great
serpent played therein, as it may be seen playing a part in every tomb
upon the Nile, and indeed plays a part in our own and other religions.
Further, our journey across the desert to the Red Sea was very
interesting, but I am tired of describing journeys--and of making them.

The truth is that after the death of Hans, like to Queen Sheba when she
had surveyed the wonders of Solomon's court, there was no more spirit in
me. For quite a long while I did not seem to care at all what happened
to me or to anybody else. We buried him in a place of honour, exactly
where he shot Jana before the gateway of the second court, and when the
earth was thrown over his little yellow face I felt as though half my
past had departed with him into that hole. Poor drunken old Hans, where
in the world shall I find such another man as you were? Where in the
world shall I find so much love as filled the cup of that strange heart
of yours?

I dare say it is a form of selfishness, but what every man desires is
something that cares for him _alone_, which is just why we are so fond
of dogs. Now Hans was a dog with a human brain and he cared for me
alone. Often our vanity makes us think that this has happened to some of
us in the instance of one or more women. But honest and quiet reflection
may well cause us to doubt the truth of such supposings. The woman who
as we believed adored us solely has probably in the course of her career
adored others, or at any rate other things.

To take but one instance, that of Mameena, the Zulu lady whom Hans
thought he saw in the Shades. She, I believe, did me the honour to be
very fond of me, but I am convinced that she was fonder still of her
ambition. Now Hans never cared for any living creature, or for any human
hope or object, as he cared for me. There was no man or woman whom
he would not have cheated, or even murdered for my sake. There was no
earthly advantage, down to that of life itself, that he would not, and
in the end did not forgo for my sake; witness the case of his little
fortune which he invested in my rotten gold mine and thought nothing of
losing--for my sake.

That is love _in excelsis_, and the man who has succeeded in inspiring
it in any creature, even in a low, bibulous, old Hottentot, may feel
proud indeed. At least I am proud and as the years go by the pride
increases, as the hope grows that somewhere in the quiet of that great
plain which he saw in his dream, I may find the light of Hans's love
burning like a beacon in the darkness, as he promised I should do, and
that it may guide and warm my shivering, new-born soul before I dare the
adventure of the Infinite.

Meanwhile, since the sublime and the ridiculous are so very near akin,
I often wonder how he and Mameena settled that question of her right to
the royal salute. Perhaps I shall learn one day--indeed already I have
had a hint of it. If so, even in the blaze of a new and universal Truth,
I am certain that their stories will differ wildly.



Hans was quite right about the Black Kendah. They cleared out, probably
in search of food, where I do not know and I do not care, though whether
this were a temporary or permanent move on their part remains, and so
far as I am concerned is likely to remain, veiled in obscurity. They
were great blackguards, though extraordinarily fine soldiers, and what
became of them is a matter of complete indifference to me. One thing is
certain, however, a very large percentage of them never migrated at all,
for something over three thousand of their bodies did our people have to
bury in the pass and about the temple, a purpose for which all the pits
and trenches we had dug came in very useful. Our loss, by the way, was
five hundred and three, including those who died of wounds. It was a
great fight and, except for those who perished in the pitfalls during
the first rush, all practically hand to hand.