The Ivory Child

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


I heard and, to tell the honest truth, almost I wept, since the thought
of the sacrifice which this poor old Hottentot had made for my sake on
the instigation of a rogue utterly overwhelmed me.

"Hans," I asked recovering myself, "tell me what was that new name which
the Zulu captain Mavovo gave you before he died, I mean after you had
fired Beza-Town and caught Hassan and his slavers in their own trap?"

Hans, who had suddenly found something that interested him extremely
out at sea, perhaps because he did not wish to witness my grief, turned
round slowly and answered:

"Mavovo named me Light-in-Darkness, and by that name the Kafirs know me
now, Baas, though some of them call me Lord-of-the-Fire."

"Then Mavovo named you well, for indeed, Hans, you shine like a light in
the darkness of my heart. I whom you think wise am but a fool, Hans, who
has been tricked by a _vernuker_, a common cheat, and he has tricked you
and Sammy as well. But as he has shown me that man can be very vile, you
have shown me that he can be very noble; and, setting the one against
the other, my spirit that was in the dust rises up once more like a
withered flower after rain. Light-in-Darkness, although if I had ten
thousand pounds I could never pay you back--since what you have given
me is more than all the gold in the world and all the land and all the
cattle--yet with honour and with love I will try to pay you," and I held
out my hand to him.

He took it and pressed it against his wrinkled old forehead, then
answered:

"Talk no more of that, Baas, for it makes me sad, who am so happy. How
often have you forgiven me when I have done wrong? How often have you
not flogged me when I should have been flogged for being drunk and other
things--yes, even when once I stole some of your powder and sold it to
buy square-face gin, though it is true I knew it was bad powder, not fit
for you to use? Did I thank you then overmuch? Why therefore should you
thank me who have done but a little thing, not really to help you but
because, as you know, I love gambling, and was told that this bit of
paper would soon be worth much more than I gave for it. If it had proved
so, should I have given you that money? No, I should have kept it myself
and bought a bigger farm and more cattle."

"Hans," I said sternly, "if you lie so hard, you will certainly go to
hell, as the Predikant, my father, often told you."

"Not if I lie for you, Baas, or if I do it doesn't matter, except that
then we should be separated by the big kloof written of in the Book,
especially as there I should meet the Baas Jacob, as I very much want to
do for a reason of my own."

Not wishing to pursue this somewhat unchristian line of thought, I
inquired of him why he felt happy.

"Oh! Baas," he answered with a twinkle in his little black eyes, "can't
you guess why? Now you have very little money left and I have none at
all. Therefore it is plain that we must go somewhere to earn money,
and I am glad of that, Baas, for I am tired of sitting on that farm out
there and growing mealies and milking cows, especially as I am too old
to marry, Baas, as you are tired of looking for gold where there isn't
any and singing sad songs in that house of meeting yonder like you did
this afternoon. Oh! the Great Father in the skies knew what He was about
when He sent the Baas Jacob our way. He beat us for our good, Baas, as
He does always if we could only understand."

I reflected to myself that I had not often heard the doctrine of the
Church better or more concisely put, but I only said:

"That is true, Hans, and I thank you for the lesson, the second you have
taught me to-day. But where are we to go to, Hans? Remember, it must be
elephants."

He suggested some places; indeed he seemed to have come provided with a
list of them, and I sat silent making no comment. At length he finished
and squatted there before me, chewing a bit of tobacco I had given him,
and looking up at me interrogatively with his head on one side, for all
the world like a dilapidated and inquisitive bird.

"Hans," I said, "do you remember a story I told you when you came to see
me a year or more ago, about a tribe called the Kendah in whose country
there is said to be a great cemetery of elephants which travel there
to die from all the land about? A country that lies somewhere to the
north-east of the lake island on which the Pongo used to dwell?"

"Yes, Baas."

"And you said, I think, that you had never heard of such a people."

"No, Baas, I never said anything at all. I have heard a good deal about
them."

"Then why did you not tell me so before, you little idiot?" I asked
indignantly.

"What was the good, Baas? You were hunting gold then, not ivory. Why
should I make you unhappy, and waste my own breath by talking about
beautiful things which were far beyond the reach of either of us, far as
that sky?"

"Don't ask fool's questions but tell me what you know, Hans. Tell me at
once."

"This, Baas: When we were up at Beza-Town after we came back from
killing the gorilla-god, and the Baas Stephen your friend lay sick, and
there was nothing else to do, I talked with everyone I could find worth
talking to, and they were not many, Baas. But there was one very old
woman who was not of the Mazitu race and whose husband and children
were all dead, but whom the people in the town looked up to and feared
because she was wise and made medicines out of herbs, and told fortunes.
I used to go to see her. She was quite blind, Baas, and fond of talking
with me--which shows how wise she was. I told her all about the Pongo
gorilla-god, of which already she knew something. When I had done she
said that he was as nothing compared with a certain god that she
had seen in her youth, seven tens of years ago, when she became
marriageable. I asked her for that story, and she spoke it thus:

"Far away to the north and east live a people called the Kendah, who are
ruled over by a sultan. They are a very great people and inhabit a most
fertile country. But all round their country the land is desolate and
manless, peopled only by game, for the reason that they will suffer none
to dwell there. That is why nobody knows anything about them: he that
comes across the wilderness into that land is killed and never returns
to tell of it.

"She told me also that she was born of this people, but fled because
their sultan wished to place her in his house of women, which she did
not desire. For a long while she wandered southwards, living on roots
and berries, till she came to desert land and at last, worn out, lay
down to die. Then she was found by some of the Mazitu who were on an
expedition seeking ostrich feathers for war-plumes. They gave her food
and, seeing that she was fair, brought her back to their country, where
one of them married her. But of her own land she uttered only lying
words to them because she feared that if she told the truth the gods who
guard its secrets would be avenged on her, though now when she was near
to death she dreaded them no more, since even the Kendah gods cannot
swim through the waters of death. That is all she said about her journey
because she had forgotten the rest."

"Bother her journey, Hans. What did she say about her god and the Kendah
people?"

"This, Baas: that the Kendah have not one god but two, and not one ruler
but two. They have a good god who is a child-fetish" (here I started)
"that speaks through the mouth of an oracle who is always a woman. If
that woman dies the god does not speak until they find another woman
bearing certain marks which show that she holds the spirit of the god.
Before the woman dies she always tells the priests in what land they are
to look for her who is to come after her; but sometimes they cannot find
her and then trouble falls because 'the Child has lost its tongue,' and
the people become the prey of the other god that never dies."

"And what is that god, Hans?"

"That god, Baas, is an elephant" (here I started again), "a very bad
elephant to which human sacrifice is offered. I think, Baas, that it is
the devil wearing the shape of an elephant, at least that is what she
said. Now the sultan is a worshipper of the god that dwells in the
elephant Jana" (here I positively whistled) "and so are most of the
people, indeed all those among them who are black. For once far away
in the beginning the Kendah were two peoples, but the lighter-coloured
people who worshipped the Child came down from the north and conquered
the black people, bringing the Child with them, or so I understood her,
Baas, thousands and thousands of years ago when the world was young.
Since then they have flowed on side by side like two streams in the same
channel, never mixing, for each keeps its own colour. Only, she said,
that stream which comes from the north grows weaker and that from the
south more strong."

"Then why does not the strong swallow up the weak?"

"Because the weak are still the pure and the wise, Baas, or so the old
vrouw declared. Because they worship the good while the others worship
the devil, and as your father the Predikant used to say, Good is the
cock which always wins the fight at the last, Baas. Yes, when he seems
to be dead he gets up again and kicks the devil in the stomach and
stands on him and crows, Baas. Also these northern folk are mighty
magicians. Through their Child-fetish they give rain and fat seasons and
keep away sickness, whereas Jana gives only evil gifts that have to do
with cruelty and war and so forth. Lastly, the priests who rule through
the Child have the secrets of wealth and ancient knowledge, whereas the
sultan and his followers have only the might of the spear. This was the
song which the old woman sang to me, Baas."

"Why did you not tell me of these matters when we were at Beza-Town and
I could have talked with her myself, Hans?"

"For two reasons, Baas. The first was that I feared, if I told you,
you would wish to go on to find these people, whereas I was tired of
travelling and wanted to come to Natal to rest. The second was that
on the night when the old woman finished telling me her story, she was
taken sick and died, and therefore it would have been no use to bring
you to see her. So I saved it up in my head until it was wanted.
Moreover, Baas, all the Mazitu declared that old woman to be the
greatest of liars."

"She was not altogether a liar, Hans. Hear what I have learned," and I
told him of the magic of Harut and Marut and of the picture that I had
seemed to see of the elephant Jana and of the prayer that Harut and
Marut had made to me, to all of which he listened quite stolidly. It is
not easy to astonish a Hottentot's brain, which often draws no accurate
dividing-line between the possible and what the modern world holds to be
impossible.

"Yes, Baas," he said when I had finished, "then it seems that the old
woman was not such a liar after all. Baas, when shall we start after
that hoard of dead ivory, and which way will you go? By Kilwa or through
Zululand? It should be settled soon because of the seasons."

After this we talked together for a long while, for with pockets as
empty as mine were then, the problem seemed difficult, if not insoluble.



CHAPTER VII

LORD RAGNALL'S STORY

That night Hans slept at my house, or rather outside of it in the
garden, or upon the stoep, saying that he feared arrest if he went to
the town, because of his quarrel with the white man. As it happened,
however, the other party concerned never stirred further in the
business, probably because he was too drunk to remember who had knocked
him into the sluit or whether he had gravitated thither by accident.

On the following morning we renewed our discussion, debating in detail
every possible method of reaching the Kendah people by help of such
means as we could command. Like that of the previous night it proved
somewhat abortive. Obviously such a long and hazardous expedition ought
to be properly financed and--where was the money? At length I came
to the conclusion that if we went at all it would be best, in the
circumstances, for Hans and myself to start alone with a Scotch cart
drawn by oxen and driven by a couple of Zulu hunters, which we could
lade with ammunition and a few necessaries.

Thus lightly equipped we might work through Zululand and thence
northward to Beza-Town, the capital of the Mazitu, where we were sure of
a welcome. After that we must take our chance. It was probable that
we should never reach the district where these Kendah were supposed to
dwell, but at least I might be able to kill some elephants in the wild
country beyond Zululand.

While we were talking I heard the gun fired which announced the arrival
of the English mail, and stepping to the end of the garden, saw the
steamer lying at anchor outside the bar. Then I went indoors to write a
few business letters which, since I had become immersed in the affairs
of that unlucky gold mine, had grown to be almost a daily task with me.
I had got through several with many groanings, for none were agreeable
in their tenor, when Hans poked his head through the window in a silent
kind of a way as a big snake might do, and said: "Baas, I think there
are two baases out on the road there who are looking for you. Very fine
baases whom I don't know."

"Shareholders in the Bona Fide Gold Mine," thought I to myself, then
added as I prepared to leave through the back door: "If they come here
tell them I am not at home. Tell them I left early this morning for the
Congo River to look for the sources of the Nile."

"Yes, Baas," said Hans, collapsing on to the stoep.

I went out through the back door, sorrowing that I, Allan Quatermain,
should have reached a rung in the ladder of life whence I shrank from
looking any stranger in the face, for fear of what he might have to say
to me. Then suddenly my pride asserted itself. After all what was there
of which I should be ashamed? I would face these irate shareholders as I
had faced the others yesterday.

I walked round the little house to the front garden which was planted
with orange trees, and up to a big moonflower bush, I believe _datura_
is its right name, that grew near the pomegranate hedge which separated
my domain from the road. There a conversation was in progress, if so it
may be called.

"_Ikona_" (that is: "I don't know"), "_Inkoosi_" (i.e. "Chief"), said
some Kafir in a stupid drawl.

Thereon a voice that instantly struck me as familiar, answered:

"We want to know where the great hunter lives."

"_Ikona_," said the Kafir.

"Can't you remember his native name?" asked another voice which was also
familiar to me, for I never forget voices though I am unable to place
them at once.

"The great hunter, Here-come-a-zany," said the first voice triumphantly,
and instantly there flashed back upon my mind a vision of the splendid
drawing-room at Ragnall Castle and of an imposing majordomo introducing
into it two white-robed, Arab-looking men.

"Mr. Savage, by the Heavens!" I muttered. "What in the name of goodness
is he doing here?"

"There," said the second voice, "your black friend has bolted, and no
wonder, for who can be called by such a name? If you had done what I
told you, Savage, and hired a white guide, it would have saved us a lot
of trouble. Why will you always think that you know better than anyone
else?"

"Seemed an unnecessary expense, my lord, considering we are travelling
incog., my lord."

"How long shall we travel 'incog.' if you persist in calling me my lord
at the top of your voice, Savage? There is a house beyond those trees;
go in and ask where----"

By this time I had reached the gate which I opened, remarking quietly,

"How do you do, Lord Ragnall? How do you do, Mr. Savage? I thought that
I recognized your voices on the road and came to see if I was right.
Please walk in; that is, if it is I whom you wish to visit."

As I spoke I studied them both, and observed that while Savage
looked much the same, although slightly out of place in these strange
surroundings, the time that had passed since we met had changed Lord
Ragnall a good deal. He was still a magnificent-looking man, one of
those whom no one that had seen him would ever forget, but now his
handsome face was stamped with some new seal of suffering. I felt at
once that he had become acquainted with grief. The shadow in his dark
eyes and a certain worn expression about the mouth told me that this was
so.

"Yes, Quatermain," he said as he took my hand, "it is you whom I have
travelled seven thousand miles to visit, and I thank God that I have
been so fortunate as to find you. I feared lest you might be dead, or
perhaps far away in the centre of Africa where I should never be able to
track you down."

"A week later perhaps you would not have found me, Lord Ragnall," I
answered, "but as it happens misfortune has kept me here."

"And misfortune has brought me here, Quatermain."

Then before I had time to answer Savage came up and we went into the
house.

"You are just in time for lunch," I said, "and as luck will have it
there is a good rock cod and a leg of oribe buck for you to eat. Boy,
set two more places."

"One more place, if you please, sir," said Savage. "I should prefer to
take my food afterwards."

"You will have to get over that in Africa," I muttered. Still I let him
have his way, with the result that presently the strange sight was seen
of the magnificent English majordomo standing behind my chair in
the little room and handing round the square-face as though it were
champagne. It was a spectacle that excited the greatest interest in my
primitive establishment and caused Hans with some native hangers-on
to gather at the window. However, Lord Ragnall took it as a matter of
course and I thought it better not to interfere.

When we had finished we went on to the stoep to smoke, leaving Savage
to eat his dinner, and I asked Lord Ragnall where his luggage was. He
replied that he had left it at the Customs. "Then," I said, "I will send
a native with Savage to arrange about getting it up here. If you do not
mind my rough accommodation there is a room for you, and your man can
pitch a tent in the garden."

After some demur he accepted with gratitude, and a little later Savage
and the native were sent off with a note to a man who hired out a
mule-cart.

"Now," I said when the gate had shut behind them, "will you tell me why
you have come to Africa?"

"Disaster," he replied. "Disaster of the worst sort."

"Is your wife dead, Lord Ragnall?"

"I do not know. I almost hope that she is. At any rate she is lost to
me."

An idea leapt to my mind to the effect that she might have run away with
somebody else, a thing which often happens in the world. But fortunately
I kept it to myself and only said,

"She was nearly lost once before, was she not?"

"Yes, when you saved her. Oh! if only you had been with us, Quatermain,
this would never have happened. Listen: About eighteen months ago she
had a son, a very beautiful child. She recovered well from the business
and we were as happy as two mortals could be, for we loved each other,
Quatermain, and God has blessed us in every way; we were so happy that
I remember her telling me that our great good fortune made her feel
afraid. One day last September when I was out shooting, she drove in a
little pony cart we had, with the nurse, and the child but no man, to
call on Mrs. Scroope who also had been recently confined. She often went
out thus, for the pony was an old animal and quiet as a sheep.

"By some cursed trick of fate it chanced that when they were passing
through the little town which you may remember near Ragnall, they met a
travelling menagerie that was going to some new encampment. At the head
of the procession marched a large bull elephant, which I discovered
afterwards was an ill-tempered brute that had already killed a man and
should never have been allowed upon the roads. The sight of the pony
cart, or perhaps a red cloak which my wife was wearing, as she always
liked bright colours, for some unknown reason seems to have infuriated
this beast, which trumpeted. The pony becoming frightened wheeled round
and overturned the cart right in front of the animal, but apparently
without hurting anybody. Then"--here he paused a moment and with
an effort continued--"that devil in beast's shape cocked its ears,
stretched out its long trunk, dragged the baby from the nurse's arms,
whirled it round and threw it high into the air, to fall crushed upon
the kerb. It sniffed at the body of the child, feeling it over with the
tip of its trunk, as though to make sure that it was dead. Next, once
more it trumpeted triumphantly, and without attempting to harm my wife
or anybody else, walked quietly past the broken cart and continued its
journey, until outside the town it was made fast and shot."

"What an awful story!" I said with a gasp.

"Yes, but there is worse to follow. My poor wife went off her head, with
the shock I suppose, for no physical injury could be found upon her. She
did not suffer in health or become violent, quite the reverse indeed
for her gentleness increased. She just went off her head. For hours at
a time she would sit silent and smiling, playing with the stones of that
red necklace which those conjurers gave her, or rather counting them,
as a nun might do with the beads of her rosary. At times, however, she
would talk, but always to the baby, as though it lay before her or she
were nursing it. Oh! Quatermain, it was pitiful, pitiful!

"I did everything I could. She was seen by three of the greatest
brain-doctors in England, but none of them was able to help. The only
hope they gave was that the fit might pass off as suddenly as it had
come. They said too that a thorough change of scene would perhaps be
beneficial, and suggested Egypt; that was in October. I did not take
much to the idea, I don't know why, and personally should not have
acceded to it had it not been for a curious circumstance. The last
consultation took place in the big drawing-room at Ragnall. When it was
over my wife remained with her mother at one end of the room while I and
the doctors talked together at the other, as I thought quite out of her
earshot. Presently, however, she called to me, saying in a perfectly
clear and natural voice:

"'Yes, George, I will go to Egypt. I should like to go to Egypt.' Then
she went on playing with the necklace and talking to the imaginary
child.

"Again on the following morning as I came into her room to kiss her, she
exclaimed,

"'When do we start for Egypt? Let it be soon.'

"With these sayings the doctors were very pleased, declaring that they
showed signs of a returning interest in life and begging me not to
thwart her wish.

"So I gave way and in the end we went to Egypt together with Lady
Longden, who insisted upon accompanying us although she is a wretched
sailor. At Cairo a large dahabeeyah that I had hired in advance, manned
by an excellent crew and a guard of four soldiers, was awaiting us. In
it we started up the Nile. For a month or more all went well; also to
my delight my wife seemed now and again to show signs of returning
intelligence. Thus she took some interest in the sculptures on the walls
of the temples, about which she had been very fond of reading when in
health. I remember that only a few days before the--the catastrophe,
she pointed out one of them to me, it was of Isis and the infant Horus,
saying, 'Look, George, the holy Mother and the holy Child,' and then
bowed to it reverently as she might have done to an altar. At length
after passing the First Cataract and the Island of Philae we came to
the temple of Abu Simbel, opposite to which our boat was moored. On the
following morning we explored the temple at daybreak and saw the sun
strike upon the four statues which sit at its farther end, spending
the rest of that day studying the colossal figures of Rameses that are
carved upon its face and watching some cavalcades of Arabs mounted upon
camels travelling along the banks of the Nile.

"My wife was unusually quiet that afternoon. For hour after hour she sat
still upon the deck, gazing first at the mouth of the rock-hewn temple
and the mighty figures which guard it and then at the surrounding
desert. Only once did I hear her speak and then she said, 'Beautiful,
beautiful! Now I am at home.' We dined and as there was no moon, went
to bed rather early after listening to the Sudanese singers as they sang
one of their weird chanties.

"My wife and her mother slept together in the state cabin of the
dahabeeyah, which was at the stern of the boat. My cabin, a small one,
was on one side of this, and that of the trained nurse on the other. The
crew and the guard were forward of the saloon. A gangway was fixed from
the side to the shore and over it a sentry stood, or was supposed to
stand. During the night a Khamsin wind began to blow, though lightly as
was to be expected at this season of the year. I did not hear it for, as
a matter of fact, I slept very soundly, as it appears did everyone else
upon the dahabeeyah, including the sentry as I suspect.