The Ivory Child

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"What a ridiculous dream," I heard Lord Ragnall say in a vexed voice.
"An ivory child that seemed to come to life and to give you a necklace.
Whoever heard such nonsense?"

"Whoever heard such nonsense?" repeated Miss Holmes after him, as though
in polite acquiescence, but speaking as an automaton might speak.

"I say," interrupted Scroope, addressing Miss Manners, "this is a
drawing-room entertainment and a half, isn't it, dear?"

"I don't know," answered Miss Manners, doubtfully, "it is rather too
queer for my taste. Tricks are all very well, but when it comes to magic
and visions I get frightened."

"Well, I suppose the show is over," said Lord Ragnall. "Quatermain,
would you mind asking your conjurer friends what I owe them?"

Here Harut, who had understood, paused from packing up his properties
and answered,

"Nothing, O great Lord, nothing. It is we owe you much. Here we learn
what we want know long time. I mean if elephant Jana still kill people
of Kendah. Kendah 'bacco no speak to us. Only speak to new spirit. You
got great gift, lady, and you too, Macumazana. You not like smoke more
Kendah 'bacco and look into past, eh? Better look! Very full, past,
learn much there about all us; learn how things begin. Make you
understand lot what seem odd to-day. No! Well, one day you look p'raps,
'cause past pull hard and call loud, only no one hear what it say.
Good night, O great Lord. Good night, O beautiful lady. Good night,
O Macumazana, till we meet again when you come kill elephant Jana.
Blessing of the Heaven-Child, who give rain, who protect all danger, who
give food, who give health, on you all."

Then making many obeisances they walked backwards to the door where they
put on their long cloaks.

At a sign from Lord Ragnall I accompanied them, an office which, fearing
more snakes, Mr. Savage was very glad to resign to me. Presently we
stood outside the house amidst the moaning trees, and very cold it was
there.

"What does all this mean, O men of Africa?" I asked.

"Answer the question yourself when you stand face to face with the great
elephant Jana that has in it an evil spirit, O Macumazana," replied
Harut. "Nay, listen. We are far from our home and we sought tidings
through those who could give it to us, and we have won those tidings,
that is all. We are worshippers of the Heavenly Child that is eternal
youth and all good things, but of late the Child has lacked a tongue.
Yet to-night it spoke again. Seek to know no more, you who in due season
will know all things."

"Seek to know no more," echoed Marut, "who already, perhaps, know too
much, lest harm should come to you, Macumazana."

"Where are you going to sleep to-night?" I asked.

"We do not sleep here," answered Harut, "we walk to the great city and
thence find our way to Africa, where we shall meet you again. You know
that we are no liars, common readers of thought and makers of tricks,
for did not Dogeetah, the wandering white man, speak to you of the
people of whom he had heard who worshipped the Child of Heaven? Go in,
Macumazana, ere you take harm in this horrible cold, and take with you
this as a marriage gift from the Child of Heaven whom she met to-night,
to the beautiful lady stamped with the sign of the young moon who is
about to marry the great lord she loves."

Then he thrust a little linen-wrapped parcel into my hand and with his
companion vanished into the darkness.

I returned to the drawing-room where the others were still discussing
the remarkable performance of the two native conjurers.

"They have gone," I said in answer to Lord Ragnall, "to walk to London
as they said. But they have sent a wedding-present to Miss Holmes," and
I showed the parcel.

"Open it, Quatermain," he said again.

"No, George," interrupted Miss Holmes, laughing, for by now she seemed
to have quite recovered herself, "I like to open my own presents."



He shrugged his shoulders and I handed her the parcel, which was neatly
sewn up. Somebody produced scissors and the stitches were cut. Within
the linen was a necklace of beautiful red stones, oval-shaped like amber
beads and of the size of a robin's egg. They were roughly polished and
threaded on what I recognized at once to be hair from an elephant's
tail. From certain indications I judged these stones, which might have
been spinels or carbuncles, or even rubies, to be very ancient. Possibly
they had once hung round the neck of some lady in old Egypt. Indeed a
beautiful little statuette, also of red stone, which was suspended from
the centre of the necklace, suggested that this was so, for it may well
have been a likeness of one of the great gods of the Egyptians, the
infant Horus, the son of Isis.

"That is the necklace I saw which the Ivory Child gave me in my dream,"
said Miss Holmes quietly.

Then with much deliberation she clasped it round her throat.



CHAPTER V

THE PLOT

The sequel to the events of this evening may be told very briefly and of
it the reader can form his own judgment. I narrate it as it happened.

That night I did not sleep at all well. It may have been because of the
excitement of the great shoot in which I found myself in competition
with another man whom I disliked and who had defrauded me in the past,
to say nothing of its physical strain in cold and heavy weather. Or it
may have been that my imagination was stirred by the arrival of that
strange pair, Harut and Marut, apparently in search of myself, seven
thousand miles away from any place where they can have known aught of an
insignificant individual with a purely local repute. Or it may have been
that the pictures which they showed me when under the influence of
the fumes of their "tobacco"--or of their hypnotism--took an undue
possession of my brain.

Or lastly, the strange coincidence that the beautiful betrothed of my
host should have related to me a tale of her childhood of which she
declared she had never spoken before, and that within an hour the two
principal actors in that tale should have appeared before my eyes and
hers (for I may state that from the beginning I had no doubt that
they were the same men), moved me and filled me with quite natural
foreboding. Or all these things together may have tended to a
concomitant effect. At any rate the issue was that I could not sleep.

For hour after hour I lay thinking and in an irritated way listening for
the chimes of the Ragnall stable-clock which once had adorned the tower
of the church and struck the quarters with a damnable reiteration. I
concluded that Messrs. Harut and Marut were a couple of common Arab
rogues such as I had seen performing at the African ports. Then a
quarter struck and I concluded that the elephants' cemetery which I
beheld in the smoke undoubtedly existed and that I meant to collar those
thousands of pounds' worth of ivory before I died. Then after another
quarter I concluded that there was no elephants' cemetery--although by
the way my old friend, Dogeetah or Brother John, had mentioned such
a thing to me--but that probably there was a tribe, as he had also
mentioned, called the Kendah, who worshipped a baby, or rather its
effigy.

Well now, as had already occurred to me, the old Egyptians, of whom I
was always fond of reading when I got a chance, also worshipped a child,
Horus the Saviour. And that child had a mother called Isis symbolized in
the crescent moon, the great Nature goddess, the mistress of mysteries
to whose cult ten thousand priests were sworn--do not Herodotus and
others, especially Apuleius, tell us all about her? And by a queer
coincidence Miss Holmes had the mark of a crescent moon upon her breast.
And when she was a child those two men, or others very like them, had
pointed out that mark to each other. And I had seen them staring hard
at it that night. And in her vapour-invoked dream the "Heavenly Child,"
_alias_ Horus, or the double of Horus, the _Ka_, I think the Egyptians
called it, had awakened at the sight of her and kissed her and given her
the necklace of the goddess, and--all the rest. What did it mean?

I went to sleep at last wondering what on earth it _could_ mean, till
presently that confounded clock woke me up again and I must go through
the whole business once more.

By degrees, this was towards dawn, I became aware that all hope of rest
had vanished from me utterly; that I was most painfully awake, and what
is more, oppressed by a curious fear to the effect that something was
going to happen to Miss Holmes. So vivid did this fear become that at
length I arose, lit a candle and dressed myself. As it happened I knew
where Miss Holmes slept. Her room, which I had seen her enter, was on
the same corridor as mine though at the other end of it near the head
of a stair that ran I knew not whither. In my portmanteau that had been
sent over from Miss Manners's house, amongst other things was a small
double-barrelled pistol which from long habit I always carried with me
loaded, except for the caps that were in a little leather case with some
spare ammunition attached to the pistol belt. I took it out, capped it
and thrust it into my pocket. Then I slipped from the room and stood
behind a tall clock in the corridor, watching Miss Holmes's door and
reflecting what a fool I should look if anyone chanced to find me.

Half an hour or so later by the light of the setting moon which
struggled through a window, I saw the door open and Miss Holmes emerge
in a kind of dressing-gown and still wearing the necklace which Harut
and Marut had given her. Of this I was sure for the light gleamed upon
the red stones.

Also it shone upon her face and showed me without doubt that she was
walking in her sleep.

Gliding as silently as a ghost she crossed the corridor and vanished.
I followed and saw that she had descended an ancient, twisting stairway
which I had noted in the castle wall. I went after her, my stockinged
feet making no noise, feeling my way carefully in the darkness of the
stair, for I did not dare to strike a match. Beneath me I heard a noise
as of someone fumbling with bolts. Then a door creaked on its hinges and
there was some light. When I reached the doorway I caught sight of the
figure of Miss Holmes flitting across a hollow garden that was laid out
in the bottom of the castle moat which had been drained. The garden, as
I had observed when we walked through it on the previous day on our way
to the first covert that we shot, was bordered by a shrubbery through
which ran paths that led to the back drive of the castle.

Across the garden glided the figure of Miss Holmes and after it went I,
crouching and taking cover behind every bush as though I were stalking
big game, which indeed I was. She entered the shrubbery, moving much
more swiftly now, for as she went she seemed to gather speed, like a
stone which is rolled down a hill. It was as though whatever might be
attracting her, for I felt sure that she was being drawn by something,
acted more strongly upon her sleeping will as she drew nearer to it.
For a while I lost sight of her in the shadow of the tall trees. Then
suddenly I saw her again, standing quite still in an opening caused by
the blowing down in the gale of one of the avenue of elms that bordered
the back drive. But now she was no longer alone, for advancing towards
her were two cloaked figures in whom I recognized Harut and Marut.

There she stood with outstretched arms, and towards her, stealthily as
lions stalking a buck, came Harut and Marut. Moreover, between the naked
boughs of the fallen elm I caught sight of what looked like the outline
of a closed carriage standing upon the drive. Also I heard a horse
stamp upon the frosty ground. Round the edge of the little glade I ran,
keeping in the dark shadow, as I went cocking the pistol that was in my
pocket. Then suddenly I darted out and stood between Harut and Marut and
Miss Holmes.

Not a word passed between us. I think that all three of us
subconsciously were anxious not to awake the sleeping woman, knowing
that if we did so there would be a terrible scene. Only after motioning
to me to stand aside, of course in vain, Harut and Marut drew from their
robes curved and cruel-looking knives and bowed, for even now their
politeness did not forsake them. I bowed back and when I straightened
myself those enterprising Easterns found that I was covering the heart
of Harut with my pistol. Then with that perception which is part of the
mental outfit of the great, they saw that the game was up since I could
have shot them both before a knife touched me.

"You have won this time, O Watcher-by-Night," whispered Harut softly,
"but another time you will lose. That beautiful lady belongs to us and
the People of the White Kendah, for she is marked with the holy mark of
the young moon. The call of the Child of Heaven is heard in her heart,
and will bring her home to the Child as it has brought her to us
to-night. Now lead her hence still sleeping, O brave and clever one, so
well named Watcher-by-Night."

Then they were gone and presently I heard the sound of horses being
driven rapidly along the drive.

For a moment I hesitated as to whether I would or would not run in and
shoot those horses. Two considerations stayed me. The first was that
if I did so my pistol would be empty, or even if I shot one horse
and retained a barrel loaded, with it I could only kill a single man,
leaving myself defenceless against the knife of the other. The second
consideration was that now as before I did not wish to wake up Miss
Holmes.

I crept to her and not knowing what else to do, took hold of one of her
outstretched hands. She turned and came with me at once as though she
knew me, remaining all the while fast asleep. Thus we went back to the
house, through the still open door, up the stairway straight to her own
room, on the threshold of which I loosed her hand. The room was dark and
I could see nothing, but I listened until I heard a sound as of a person
throwing herself upon the bed and drawing up the blankets. Then knowing
that she was safe for a while, I shut the door, which opened outwards
as doors of ancient make sometimes do, and set against it a little table
that stood in the passage.

Next, after reflecting for a minute, the circumstances being awkward in
many ways, I went to my room and lit a candle. Obviously it was my
duty to inform Lord Ragnall of what had happened and that as soon as
possible. But I had no idea in what part of that huge building his
sleeping place might be, nor, for patent reasons, was it desirable
that I should disturb the house and so create talk. In this dilemma I
remembered that Lord Ragnall's confidential servant, Mr. Savage, when he
conducted me to my room on the previous night, which he made a point of
doing perhaps because he wished to talk over the matter of the snakes
that had found their way into his pockets, had shown me a bell in it
which he said rang outside his door. He called it an "emergency bell." I
remarked idly that it was improbable that I should have any occasion for
its use.

"Who knows, sir?" said Mr. Savage prophetically. "There are folk who say
that this old castle is haunted, which after what I have seen to-night
I can well believe. If you should chance to meet a ghost looking, let us
say, like those black villains, Harum and Scarum, or whatever they call
themselves--well, sir, two's better company than one."

I considered that bell but was loath to ring it for the reasons I have
given. Then I went outside the room and looked. As I had hoped might be
the case, there ran the wire on the face of the wall connected along its
length by other wires with the various rooms it passed.

I set to work and followed that wire. It was not an easy job; indeed
once or twice it reminded me of that story of the old Greek hero who
found his way through a labyrinth by means of a silken thread. I forget
whether it were a bull or a lady he was looking for, but with care and
perseverance he found one or the other, or it may have been both.

Down staircases and various passages I went with my eye glued upon the
wire, which occasionally got mixed up with other wires, till at length
it led me through a swing door covered with red baize into what appeared
to be a modern annexe to the castle. Here at last it terminated on
the spring of an alarming-looking and deep-throated bell that hung
immediately over a certain door.

On this door I knocked, hoping that it might be that of Mr. Savage and
praying earnestly that it did not enclose the chaste resting-place of
the cook or any other female. Too late, I mean after I had knocked,
it occurred to me that if so my position would be painful to a degree.
However in this particular Fortune stood my friend, which does not
always happen to the virtuous. For presently I heard a voice which I
recognized as that of Mr. Savage, asking, not without a certain quaver
in its tone,

"Who the devil is that?"

"Me," I replied, being flustered.

"'Me' won't do," said the voice. "'Me' might be Harum or it might be
Scarum, or it might be someone worse. Who's 'Me'?"

"Allan Quatermain, you idiot," I whispered through the keyhole.

"Anna who? Well, never mind. Go away, Hanna. I'll talk to you in the
morning."

Then I kicked the door, and at length, very cautiously, Mr. Savage
opened it.

"Good heavens, sir," he said, "what are you doing here, sir? Dressed
too, at this hour, and with the handle of a pistol sticking out of your
pocket--or is it--the head of a snake?" and he jumped back, a strange
and stately figure in a long white nightshirt which apparently he wore
over his underclothing.

I entered the room and shut the door, whereon he politely handed me a
chair, remarking,

"Is it ghosts, sir, or are you ill, or is it Harum and Scarum, of whom
I have been thinking all night? Very cold too, sir, being afraid to pull
up the bedclothes for fear lest there might be more reptiles in them."
He pointed to his dress-coat hanging on the back of another chair with
both the pockets turned inside out, adding tragically, "To think, sir,
that this new coat has been a nest of snakes, which I have hated like
poison from a child, and me almost a teetotaller!"

"Yes," I said impatiently, "it's Harum and Scarum as you call them. Take
me to Lord Ragnall's bedroom at once."

"Ah! sir, burgling, I suppose, or mayhap worse," he exclaimed as he
threw on some miscellaneous garments and seized a life-preserver which
hung upon a hook. "Now I'm ready, only I hope they have left their
snakes behind. I never could bear the sight of a snake, and they seem to
know it--the brutes."

In due course we reached Lord Ragnall's room, which Mr. Savage entered,
and in answer to a stifled inquiry exclaimed,

"Mr. Allan Quatermain to see you, my lord."

"What is it, Quatermain?" he asked, sitting up in bed and yawning. "Have
you had a nightmare?"

"Yes," I answered, and Savage having left us and shut the door, I told
him everything as it is written down.

"Great heavens!" he exclaimed when I had finished. "If it had not been
for you and your intuition and courage----"

"Never mind me," I interrupted. "The question is--what should be done
now? Are you going to try to arrest these men, or will you--hold your
tongue and merely cause them to be watched?"

"Really I don't know. Even if we can catch them the whole story would
sound so strange in a law-court, and all sorts of things might be
suggested."

"Yes, Lord Ragnall, it would sound so strange that I beg you will come
at once to see the evidences of what I tell you, before rain or snow
obliterates them, bringing another witness with you. Lady Longden,
perhaps."

"Lady Longden! Why one might as well write to _The Times_. I have it!
There's Savage. He is faithful and can be silent."

So Savage was called in and, while Lord Ragnall dressed himself
hurriedly, told the outline of his story under pain of instant dismissal
if he breathed a word. Really to watch his face was as good as a play.
So astonished was he that all he could ejaculate was--

"The black-hearted villains! Well, they ain't friendly with snakes for
nothing."

Then having made sure that Miss Holmes was still in her room, we went
down the twisting stair and through the side doorway, locking the door
after us. By now the dawn was breaking and there was enough light to
enable me in certain places where the snow that fell after the gale
remained, to show Lord Ragnall and Savage the impress of the little
bedroom slippers which Miss Holmes wore, and of my stockinged feet
following after.

In the plantation things were still easier, for every detail of the
movements of the four of us could be traced. Moreover, on the back drive
was the spoor of the horses and the marks of the wheels of the carriage
that had been brought for the purposes of the abduction. Also my great
good fortune, for this seemed to prove my theory, we found a parcel
wrapped in native linen that appeared to have fallen out of the carriage
when Harut and Marut made their hurried escape, as one of the wheels had
gone over it. It contained an Eastern woman's dress and veil, intended,
I suppose, to be used in disguising Miss Holmes, who thence-forward
would have appeared to be the wife or daughter of one of the abductors.

Savage discovered this parcel, which he lifted only to drop it with a
yell, for underneath it lay a torpid snake, doubtless one of those that
had been used in the performance.

Of these discoveries and many other details, on our return to the house,
Lord Ragnall made full notes in a pocket-book, that when completed were
signed by all three of us.

There is not much more to tell, that is of this part of the story. The
matter was put into the hands of detectives who discovered that the
Easterns had driven to London, where all traces of the carriage which
conveyed them was lost. They, however, embarked upon a steamer called
the _Antelope_, together with two native women, who probably had been
provided to look after Miss Holmes, and sailed that very afternoon for
Egypt. Thither, of course, it was useless to follow them in those days,
even if it had been advisable to do so.



To return to Miss Holmes. She came down to breakfast looking very
charming but rather pale. Again I sat next to her and took some
opportunity to ask her how she had rested that night.

She replied, Very well and yet very ill, since, although she never
remembered sleeping more soundly in her life, she had experienced all
sorts of queer dreams of which she could remember nothing at all, a
circumstance that annoyed her much, as she was sure that they were most
interesting. Then she added,

"Do you know, Mr. Quatermain, I found a lot of mud on my dressing-gown
this morning, and my bedroom slippers were also a mass of mud and wet
through. How do you account for that? It is just as though I had been
walking about outside in my sleep, which is absurd, as I never did such
a thing in my life."

Not feeling equal to the invention of any convincing explanation of
these phenomena, I upset the marmalade pot on to the table in such a way
that some of it fell upon her dress, and then covered my retreat with
profuse apologies. Understanding my dilemma, for he had heard something
of this talk, Lord Ragnall came to my aid with a startling statement of
which I forget the purport, and thus that crisis passed.

Shortly after breakfast Scroope announced to Miss Manners that her
carriage was waiting, and we departed. Before I went, as it chanced,
I had a few private words with my host, with Miss Holmes, and with the
magnificent Mr. Savage. To the last, by the way, I offered a tip which
he refused, saying that after all we had gone through together he could
not allow "money to come between us," by which he meant, to pass from my
pocket to his. Lord Ragnall asked me for both my English and my African
addresses, which he noted in his pocket-book. Then he said,

"Really, Quatermain, I feel as though I had known you for years instead
of three days; if you will allow me I will add that I should like to
know a great deal more of you." (He was destined to do so, poor fellow,
though neither of us knew it at the time.) "If ever you come to England
again I hope you will make this house your headquarters."

"And if ever you come to South Africa, Lord Ragnall, I hope you will
make my four-roomed shanty on the Berea at Durban your headquarters. You
will get a hearty welcome there and something to eat, but little more."

"There is nothing I should like better, Quatermain. Circumstances have
put me in a certain position in this country, still to tell you the
truth there is a great deal about the life of which I grow very tired.
But you see I am going to be married, and that I fear means an end
of travelling, since naturally my wife will wish to take her place in
society and the rest."

"Of course," I replied, "for it is not every young lady who has the luck
to become an English peeress with all the etceteras, is it? Still I
am not so sure but that Miss Holmes will take to travelling some day,
although I _am_ sure that she would do better to stay at home."