The Ivory Child

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She nodded. "There was something very strange in it. It was a night
or two after I had tasted it that I had what just now I called my
awakening, and began to think about Africa."

"Have you ever seen these men again, Miss Holmes?"

"No, never."

At this moment I heard Lady Longden say, in a severe voice:

"My dear Luna, I am sorry to interrupt your absorbing conversation, but
we are all waiting for you."

So they were, for to my horror I saw that everyone was standing up
except ourselves.

Miss Holmes departed in a hurry, while Scroope whispered in my ear with
a snigger:

"I say, Allan, if you carry on like that with his young lady, his
lordship will be growing jealous of you."

"Don't be a fool," I said sharply. But there was something in his
remark, for as Lord Ragnall passed on his way to the other end of the
table, he said in a low voice and with rather a forced smile:

"Well, Quatermain, I hope your dinner has not been as dull as mine,
although your appetite seemed so poor."

Then I reflected that I could not remember having eaten a thing since
the first entree. So overcome was I that, rejecting all Scroope's
attempts at conversation, I sat silent, drinking port and filling up
with dates, until not long afterwards we went into the drawing-room,
where I sat down as far from Miss Holmes as possible, and looked at a
book of views of Jerusalem.

While I was thus engaged, Lord Ragnall, pitying my lonely condition, or
being instigated thereto by Miss Holmes, I know not which, came up and
began to chat with me about African big-game shooting. Also he asked me
what was my permanent address in that country. I told him Durban, and in
my turn asked why he wanted to know.

"Because Miss Holmes seems quite crazy about the place, and I expect I
shall be dragged out there one day," he replied, quite gloomily. It was
a prophetic remark.

At this moment our conversation was interrupted by Lady Longden, who
came to bid her future son-in-law good night. She said that she must go
to bed, and put her feet in mustard and water as her cold was so bad,
which left me wondering whether she meant to carry out this operation
in bed. I recommended her to take quinine, a suggestion she acknowledged
rather inconsequently by remarking in somewhat icy tones that she
supposed I sat up to all hours of the night in Africa. I replied that
frequently I did, waiting for the sun to rise next day, for that member
of the British aristocracy irritated me.

Thus we parted, and I never saw her again. She died many years ago,
poor soul, and I suppose is now freezing her former acquaintances in
the Shades, for I cannot imagine that she ever had a friend. They talk
a great deal about the influences of heredity nowadays, but I don't
believe very much in them myself. Who, for instance, could conceive
that persons so utterly different in every way as Lady Longden and her
daughter, Miss Holmes, could be mother and child? Our bodies, no doubt,
we do inherit from our ancestors, but not our individualities. These
come from far away.

A good many of the guests went at the same time, having long distances
to drive on that cold frosty night, although it was only just ten
o'clock. For as was usual at that period even in fashionable houses, we
had dined at seven.



CHAPTER IV

HARUT AND MARUT

After Lord Ragnall had seen his guests to the door in the old-fashioned
manner, he returned and asked me if I played cards, or whether I
preferred music. I was assuring him that I hated the sight of a card
when Mr. Savage appeared in his silent way and respectfully inquired
of his lordship whether any gentleman was staying in the house whose
Christian name was _Here-come-a-zany_. Lord Ragnall looked at him with a
searching eye as though he suspected him of being drunk, and then asked
what he meant by such a ridiculous question.

"I mean, my lord," replied Mr. Savage with a touch of offence in his
tone, "that two foreign individuals in white clothes have arrived at
the castle, stating that they wish to speak at once with a _Mr.
Here-come-a-zany_ who is staying here. I told them to go away as the
butler said he could make nothing of their talk, but they only sat down
in the snow and said they would wait for _Here-come-a-zany_."

"Then you had better put them in the old guardroom, lock them up with
something to eat, and send the stable-boy for the policeman, who is a
zany if ever anybody was. I expect they are after the pheasants."

"Stop a bit," I said, for an idea had occurred to me. "The message may
be meant for me, though I can't conceive who sent it. My native name is
Macumazana, which possibly Mr. Savage has not caught quite correctly.
Shall I go to see these men?"

"I wouldn't do that in this cold, Quatermain," Lord Ragnall answered.
"Did they say what they are, Savage?"

"I made out that they were conjurers, my lord. At least when I told them
to go away one of them said, 'You will go first, gentleman.' Then, my
lord, I heard a hissing sound in my coat-tail pocket and, putting my
hand into it, I found a large snake which dropped on the ground and
vanished. It quite paralysed me, my lord, and while I stood there
wondering whether I was bitten, a mouse jumped out of the kitchenmaid's
hair. She had been laughing at their dress, my lord, but _now_ she's
screaming in hysterics."

The solemn aspect of Mr. Savage as he narrated these unholy marvels was
such that, like the kitchenmaid, we both burst into ill-timed merriment.
Attracted by our laughter, Miss Holmes, Miss Manners, with whom she was
talking, and some of the other guests, approached and asked what was the
matter.

"Savage here declares that there are two conjurers in the kitchen
premises, who have been producing snakes out of his pocket and mice from
the hair of one of the maids, and who want to see Mr. Quatermain," Lord
Ragnall answered.

"Conjurers! Oh, do have them in, George," exclaimed Miss Holmes;
while Miss Manners and the others, who were getting a little tired of
promiscuous conversation, echoed her request.

"By all means," he answered, "though we have enough mice here without
their bringing any more. Savage, go and tell your two friends that _Mr.
Here-come-a-zany_ is waiting for them in the drawing-room, and that the
company would like to see some of their tricks."

Savage bowed and departed, like a hero to execution, for by his pallor I
could see that he was in a great fright. When he had gone we set to
work and cleared a space in the middle of the room, in front of which we
arranged chairs for the company to sit on.

"No doubt they are Indian jugglers," said Lord Ragnall, "and will want
a place to grow their mango-tree, as I remember seeing them do in
Kashmir."

As he spoke the door opened and Mr. Savage appeared through it, walking
much faster than was his wont. I noted also that he gripped the pockets
of his swallow-tail coat firmly in his hand.

"Mr. Hare-root and Mr. Mare-root," he announced.

"Hare-root and Mare-root!" repeated Lord Ragnall.

"Harut and Marut, I expect," I said. "I think I have read somewhere
that they were great magicians, whose names these conjurers have taken."
(Since then I have discovered that they are mentioned in the Koran as
masters of the Black Art.)

A moment later two men followed him through the doorway. The first was
a tall, Eastern-looking person with a grave countenance, a long, white
beard, a hooked nose, and flashing, hawk-like eyes. The second was
shorter and rather stout, also much younger. He had a genial, smiling
face, small, beady-black eyes, and was clean-shaven. They were very
light in colour; indeed I have seen Italians who are much darker; and
there was about their whole aspect a certain air of power.

Instantly I remembered the story that Miss Holmes had told me at dinner
and looked at her covertly, to see that she had turned quite pale and
was trembling a little. I do not think that anyone else noticed this,
however, as all were staring at the strangers. Moreover she recovered
herself in a moment, and, catching my eye, laid her finger on her lips
in token of silence.

The men were clothed in thick, fur-lined cloaks, which they took off
and, folding them neatly, laid upon the floor, standing revealed in
robes of a beautiful whiteness and in large plain turbans, also white.

"High-class Somali Arabs," thought I to myself, noting the while that as
they arranged the robes they were taking in every one of us with their
quick eyes. One of them shut the door, leaving Savage on this side of
it as though they meant him to be present. Then they walked towards
us, each of them carrying an ornamental basket made apparently of split
reeds, that contained doubtless their conjuring outfit and probably the
snake which Savage had found in his pocket. To my surprise they came
straight to me, and, having set down the baskets, lifted their hands
above their heads, as a person about to dive might do, and bowed till
the points of their fingers touched the floor. Next they spoke, not in
Arabic as I had expected that they would, but in Bantu, which of course
I understood perfectly well.

"I, Harut, head priest and doctor of the White Kendah People, greet you,
O Macumazana," said the elder man.

"I, Marut, a priest and doctor of the People of the White Kendah, greet
you, O Watcher-by-night, whom we have travelled far to find," said the
younger man. Then together,

"We both greet you, O Lord, who seem small but are great, O Chief with
a troubled past and with a mighty future, O Beloved of Mameena who has
'gone down' but still speaks from beneath, Mameena who was and is of our
company."

At this point it was my turn to shiver and become pale, as any may guess
who may have chanced to read the history of Mameena, and the turn of
Miss Holmes to watch _me_ with animated interest.

"O Slayer of evil men and beasts!" they went on, in their rich-voiced,
monotonous chant, "who, as our magic tells us, are destined to deliver
our land from the terrible scourge, we greet you, we bow before you, we
acknowledge you as our lord and brother, to whom we vow safety among us
and in the desert, to whom we promise a great reward."

Again they bowed, once, twice, thrice; then stood silent before me with
folded arms.

"What on earth are they saying?" asked Scroope. "I could catch a few
words"--he knew a little kitchen Zulu--"but not much."

I told him briefly while the others listened.

"What does Mameena mean?" asked Miss Holmes, with a horrible acuteness.
"Is it a woman's name?"

Hearing her, Harut and Marut bowed as though doing reverence to that
name. I am sorry to say that at this point I grew confused, though
really there was no reason why I should, and muttered something about a
native girl who had made trouble in her day.

Miss Holmes and the other ladies looked at me with amused disbelief,
and to my dismay the venerable Harut turned to Miss Holmes, and with his
inevitable bow, said in broken English:

"Mameena very beautiful woman, perhaps more beautiful than you, lady.
Mameena love the white lord Macumazana. She love him while she live, she
love him now she dead. She tell me so again just now. You ask white lord
tell you pretty story of how he kiss her before she kill herself."

Needless to say all this very misleading information was received by the
audience with an attention that I can but call rapt, and in a kind of
holy silence which was broken only by a sudden burst of sniggering on
the part of Scroope. I favoured him with my fiercest frown. Then I fell
upon that venerable villain Harut, and belaboured him in Bantu, while
the audience listened as intently as though they understood.

I asked him what he meant by coming here to asperse my character. I
asked him who the deuce he was. I asked him how he came to know anything
about Mameena, and finally I told him that soon or late I would be even
with him, and paused exhausted.

He stood there looking for all the world like a statue of the patriarch
Job as I imagine him, and when I had done, replied without moving a
muscle and in English:

"O Lord, Zikali, Zulu wizard, friend of mine! All great wizard friend
just like all elephant and all snake. Zikali make me know Mameena,
and she tell me story and send you much love, and say she wait for
you always." (More sniggers from Scroope, and still intenser interest
evinced by Miss Holmes and others.) "If you like, I show you Mameena
'fore I go." (Murmurs from Miss Holmes and Miss Manners of "Oh, _please_
do!") "But that very little business, for what one long-ago lady out of
so many?"

Then suddenly he broke into Bantu, and added: "A jest is a jest,
Macumazana, though often there is meaning in a jest, and you shall see
Mameena if you will. I come here to ask you to do my people a service
for which you shall not lack reward. We, the White Kendah, the People of
the Child, are at war with the Black Kendah, our subjects who outnumber
us. The Black Kendah have an evil spirit for a god, which spirit from
the beginning has dwelt in the largest elephant in all the world, a
beast that none can kill, but which kills many and bewitches more. While
that elephant, which is named Jana, lives we, the People of the Child,
go in terror, for day by day it destroys us. We have learned--how it
does not matter--that you alone can kill that elephant. If you will come
and kill it, we will show you the place where all the elephants go to
die, and you shall take their ivory, many wagon-loads, and grow rich.
Soon you are going on a journey that has to do with a flower, and you
will visit peoples named the Mazitu and the Pongo who live on an island
in a lake. Far beyond the Pongo and across the desert dwell my people,
the Kendah, in a secret land. When you wish to visit us, as you will do,
journey to the north of that lake where the Pongo dwell, and stay there
on the edge of the desert shooting till we come. Now mock me if you
will, but do not forget, for these things shall befall in their season,
though that time be far. If we meet no more for a while, still do not
forget. When you have need of gold or of the ivory that is gold, then
journey to the north of the lake where the Pongo dwell, and call on the
names of Harut and Marut."

"And call on the names of Harut and Marut," repeated the younger man,
who hitherto appeared to take no interest in our talk.

Next, before I could answer, before I could think the thing out indeed,
for all this breath from savage and mystical Africa blowing on me
suddenly here in an Essex drawing-room, seemed to overwhelm me, the
ineffable Harut proceeded in his English conjurer's patter:

"Rich ladies and gentlemen want see trick by poor old wizard from centre
Africa. Well, we show them, but please 'member no magic, all quite
simple trick. Teach it you if you pay. Please not look too hard, no want
you learn how it done. What you like see? Tree grow out of nothing, eh?
Good! Please lend me that plate--what you call him--china."

Then the performance began. The tree grew admirably upon the china plate
under the cover of an antimacassar. A number of bits of stick danced
together on the said plate, apparently without being touched. At a
whistle from Marut a second snake crawled out of the pocket of the
horrified Mr. Savage, who stood observing these proceedings at a
respectful distance, erected itself on its tail upon the plate and took
fire till it was consumed to ashes, and so forth.

The show was very good, but to tell the truth I did not take much notice
of it, for I had seen similar things before and was engaged in thoughts
much excited by what Harut had said to me. At length the pair paused
amidst the clapping of the audience, and Marut began to pack up the
properties as though all were done. Then Harut observed casually:

"The Lord Macumazana think this poor business and he right. Very poor
business, any conjurer do better. All common trick"--here his eye fell
upon Mr. Savage who was wriggling uneasily in the background. "What
matter with that gentleman? Brother Marut, go see."

Brother Marut went and freed Mr. Savage from two more snakes which
seemed to have taken possession of various parts of his garments. Also,
amidst shouts of laughter, from a large dead rat which he appeared to
draw from his well-oiled hair.

"Ah!" said Harut, as his confederate returned with these prizes, leaving
Savage collapsed in a chair, "snake love that gentleman much. He earn
great money in Africa. Well, he keep rat in hair; hungry snake always
want rat. But as I say, this poor business. Now you like to see some
better, eh? Mameena, eh?"

"No," I replied firmly, whereat everyone laughed.

"Elephant Jana we want you kill, eh? Just as he look this minute."

"Yes," I said, "very much indeed, only how will you show it me?"

"That quite easy, Macumazana. You just smoke little Kendah 'bacco and
see many things, if you have gift, as I _think_ you got, and as I almost
_sure_ that lady got," and he pointed to Miss Holmes. "Sometimes they
things people want see, and sometimes they things people not want see."

"Dakka," I said contemptuously, alluding to the Indian hemp on which
natives make themselves drunk throughout great districts of Africa.

"Oh! no, not dakka, that common stuff; this 'bacco much better than
dakka, only grow in Kendah-land. You think all nonsense? Well, you see.
Give me match please."

Then while we watched he placed some tobacco, at least it looked like
tobacco, in a little wooden bowl that he also produced from his basket.
Next he said something to his companion, Marut, who drew a flute from
his robe made out of a thick reed, and began to play on it a wild and
melancholy music, the sound of which seemed to affect my backbone as
standing on a great height often does. Presently too Harut broke into a
low song whereof I could not understand a word, that rose and fell with
the music of the flute. Now he struck a match, which seemed incongruous
in the midst of this semi-magical ceremony, and taking a pinch of the
tobacco, lit it and dropped it among the rest. A pale, blue smoke arose
from the bowl and with it a very sweet odour not unlike that of the
tuberoses gardeners grow in hot-houses, but more searching.

"Now you breath smoke, Macumazana," he said, "and tell us what you
see. Oh! no fear, that not hurt you. Just like cigarette. Look," and he
inhaled some of the vapour and blew it out through his nostrils, after
which his face seemed to change to me, though what the change was I
could not define.

I hesitated till Scroope said:

"Come, Allan, don't shirk this Central African adventure. I'll try if
you like."

"No," said Harut brusquely, "_you_ no good."

Then curiosity and perhaps the fear of being laughed at overcame me. I
took the bowl and held it under my nose, while Harut threw over my head
the antimacassar which he had used in the mango trick, to keep in the
fumes I suppose.

At first these fumes were unpleasant, but just as I was about to drop
the bowl they seemed to become agreeable and to penetrate to the inmost
recesses of my being. The general affect of them was not unlike that of
the laughing gas which dentists give, with this difference, that whereas
the gas produces insensibility, these fumes seemed to set the mind
on fire and to burn away all limitations of time and distance. Things
shifted before me. It was as though I were no longer in that room but
travelling with inconceivable rapidity.

Suddenly I appeared to stop before a curtain of mist. The mist rolled
up in front of me and I saw a wild and wonderful scene. There lay a lake
surrounded by dense African forest. The sky above was still red with the
last lights of sunset and in it floated the full moon. On the eastern
side of the lake was a great open space where nothing seemed to grow and
all about this space were the skeletons of hundreds of dead elephants.
There they lay, some of them almost covered with grey mosses hanging to
their bones, through which their yellow tusks projected as though they
had been dead for centuries; others with the rotting hide still on them.
I knew that I was looking on a cemetery of elephants, the place where
these great beasts went to die, as I have since been told the extinct
moas did in New Zealand. All my life as a hunter had I heard rumours
of these cemeteries, but never before did I see such a spot even in a
dream.

See! There was one dying now, a huge gaunt bull that looked as though it
were several hundred years old. It stood there swaying to and fro. Then
it lifted its trunk, I suppose to trumpet, though of course I could
hear nothing, and slowly sank upon its knees and so remained in the last
relaxation of death.

Almost in the centre of this cemetery was a little mound of water-washed
rock that had endured when the rest of the stony plain was denuded in
past epochs. Suddenly upon that rock appeared the shape of the most
gigantic elephant that ever I beheld in all my long experience. It had
one enormous tusk, but the other was deformed and broken off short. Its
sides were scarred as though with fighting and its eyes shone red and
wickedly. Held in its trunk was the body of a woman whose hair hung down
upon one side and whose feet hung down upon the other. Clasped in her
arms was a child that seemed to be still living.

The rogue, as a brute of this sort is called, for evidently such it was,
dropped the corpse to the ground and stood a while, flapping its ears.
Then it felt for and picked up the child with its trunk, swung it to and
fro and finally tossed it high into the air, hurling it far away. After
this it walked to the elephant that I had just seen die, and charged
the carcass, knocking it over. Then having lifted its trunk as though to
trumpet in triumph, it shambled off towards the forest and vanished.

The curtain of mist fell again and in it, dimly, I thought I saw--well,
never mind who or what I saw. Then I awoke.

"Well, did you see anything?" asked a chorus of voices.

I told them what I had seen, leaving out the last part.

"I say, old fellow," said Scroope, "you must have been pretty clever to
get all that in, for your eyes weren't shut for more than ten seconds."

"Then I wonder what you would say if I repeated everything," I answered,
for I still felt dreamy and not quite myself.

"You see elephant Jana?" asked Harut. "He kill woman and child, eh?
Well, he do that every night. Well, that why people of White Kendah
want you to kill _him_ and take all that ivory which they no dare touch
because it in holy place and Black Kendah not let them. So he live
still. That what we wish know. Thank you much, Macumazana. You very good
look through-distance man. Just what I think. Kendah 'bacco smoke work
very well in you. Now, beautiful lady," he added turning to Miss Holmes,
"you like look too? Better look. Who knows what you see?"

Miss Holmes hesitated a moment, studying me with an inquiring eye. But I
made no sign, being in truth very curious to hear _her_ experience.

"Yes," she said.

"I would prefer, Luna, that you left this business alone," remarked Lord
Ragnall uneasily. "I think it is time that you ladies went to bed."

"Here is a match," said Miss Holmes to Harut who was engaged in putting
more tobacco into the bowl, the suspicion of a smile upon his grave
and statuesque countenance. Harut received the match with a low bow
and fired the stuff as before. Then he handed the bowl, from which once
again the blue smoke curled upwards, to Miss Holmes, and gently and
gracefully let the antimacassar fall over it and her head, which it
draped as a wedding veil might do. A few seconds later she threw off the
antimacassar and cast the bowl, in which the fire was now out, on to the
floor. Then she stood up with wide eyes, looking wondrous lovely and,
notwithstanding her lack of height, majestic.

"I have been in another world," she said in a low voice as though she
spoke to the air, "I have travelled a great way. I found myself in a
small place made of stone. It was dark in the place, the fire in that
bowl lit it up. There was nothing there except a beautiful statue of a
naked baby which seemed to be carved in yellow ivory, and a chair made
of ebony inlaid with ivory and seated with string. I stood in front of
the statue of the Ivory Child. It seemed to come to life and smile at
me. Round its neck was a string of red stones. It took them from its
neck and set them upon mine. Then it pointed to the chair, and I sat
down in the chair. That was all."

Harut followed her words with an interest that I could see was intense,
although he attempted to hide it. Then he asked me to translate them,
which I did.

As their full sense came home to him, although his face remained
impassive, I saw his dark eyes shine with the light of triumph. Moreover
I heard him whisper to Marut words that seemed to mean,

"The Sacred Child accepts the Guardian. The Spirit of the White Kendah
finds a voice again."

Then as though involuntarily, but with the utmost reverence, both of
them bowed deeply towards Miss Holmes.

A babel of conversation broke out.