The Ivory Child

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


"The first thing I remember was the appearance of Lady Longden just
at daybreak at the doorway of my cabin and the frightened sound of her
voice asking if Luna, that is my wife, was with me. Then it transpired
that she had left her cabin clad in a fur cloak, evidently some
time before, as the bed in which she had been lying was quite cold.
Quatermain, we searched everywhere; we searched for four days, but from
that hour to this no trace whatever of her has been found."

"Have you any theory?" I asked.

"Yes, or at least all the experts whom we consulted have a theory. It is
that she slipped down the saloon in the dark, gained the deck and thence
fell or threw herself into the Nile, which of course would have carried
her body away. As you may have heard, the Nile is full of bodies. I
myself saw two of them during that journey. The Egyptian police
and others were so convinced that this was what had happened that,
notwithstanding the reward of a thousand pounds which I offered for any
valuable information, they could scarcely be persuaded to continue the
search."

"You said that a wind was blowing and I understand that the shores are
sandy, so I suppose that all footprints would have been filled in?"

He nodded and I went on. "What is your own belief? Do you think she was
drowned?"

He countered my query with another of:

"What do _you_ think?"

"I? Oh! although I have no right to say so, I don't think at all. I
am quite sure that she was _not_ drowned; that she is living at this
moment."

"Where?"

"As to that you had better inquire of our friends, Harut and Marut," I
answered dryly.

"What have you to go on, Quatermain? There is no clue."

"On the contrary I hold that there are a good many clues. The whole
English part of the story in which we were concerned, and the threats
those mysterious persons uttered are the first and greatest of these
clues. The second is the fact that your hiring of the dahabeeyah
regardless of expense was known a long time before your arrival in
Egypt, for I suppose you did so in your own name, which is not
exactly that of Smith or Brown. The third is your wife's sleep-walking
propensities, which would have made it quite easy for her to be drawn
ashore under some kind of mesmeric influence. The fourth is that you had
seen Arabs mounted on camels upon the banks of the Nile. The fifth is
the heavy sleep you say held everybody on board that particular night,
which suggests to me that your food may have been drugged. The sixth is
the apathy displayed by those employed in the search, which suggests to
me that some person or persons in authority may have been bribed, as is
common in the East, or perhaps frightened with threats of bewitchment.
The seventh is that a night was chosen when a wind blew which would
obliterate all spoor whether of men or of swiftly travelling camels.
These are enough to begin with, though doubtless if I had time to think
I could find others. You must remember too that although the journey
would be long, this country of the Kendah can doubtless be reached
from the Sudan by those who know the road, as well as from southern or
eastern Africa."

"Then you think that my wife has been kidnapped by those villains, Harut
and Marut?"

"Of course, though villains is a strong term to apply to them. They
might be quite honest men according to their peculiar lights, as indeed
I expect they are. Remember that they serve a god or a fetish, or
rather, as they believe, a god _in_ a fetish, who to them doubtless is
a very terrible master, especially when, as I understand, that god is
threatened by a rival god."

"Why do you say that, Quatermain?"

By way of answer I repeated to him the story which Hans said he had
heard from the old woman at Beza, the town of the Mazitu. Lord Ragnall
listened with the deepest interest, then said in an agitated voice:

"That is a very strange tale, but has it struck you, Quatermain, that
if your suppositions are correct, one of the most terrible circumstances
connected with my case is that our child should have chanced to come to
its dreadful death through the wickedness of an elephant?"

"That curious coincidence has struck me most forcibly, Lord Ragnall.
At the same time I do not see how it can be set down as more than
a coincidence, since the elephant which slaughtered your child was
certainly not that called Jana. To suppose because there is a war
between an elephant-god and a child-god somewhere in the heart of
Africa, that therefore another elephant can be so influenced that it
kills a child in England, is to my mind out of all reason."

That is what I said to him, as I did not wish to introduce a new horror
into an affair that was already horrible enough. But, recollecting that
these priests, Harut and Marut, believed the mother of this murdered
infant to be none other than the oracle of their worship (though how
this chanced passed my comprehension), and therefore the great enemy
of the evil elephant-god, I confess that at heart I felt afraid. If any
powers of magic, black or white or both, were mixed up with the matter
as my experiences in England seemed to suggest, who could say what might
be their exact limits? As, however, it has been demonstrated again and
again by the learned that no such thing as African magic exists, this
line of thought appeared to be too foolish to follow. So passing it by I
asked Lord Ragnall to continue.

"For over a month," he went on, "I stopped in Egypt waiting till
emissaries who had been sent to the chiefs of various tribes in the
Sudan and elsewhere, returned with the news that nothing whatsoever had
been seen of a white woman travelling in the company of natives, nor
had they heard of any such woman being sold as a slave. Also through the
Khedive, on whom I was able to bring influence to bear by help of
the British Government, I caused many harems in Egypt to be visited,
entirely without result. After this, leaving the inquiry in the hands of
the British Consul and a firm of French lawyers, although in truth all
hope had gone, I returned to England whither I had already sent Lady
Longden, broken-hearted, for it occurred to me as possible that my wife
might have drifted or been taken thither. But here, too, there was no
trace of her or of anybody who could possibly answer to her description.
So at last I came to the conclusion that her bones must lie somewhere at
the bottom of the Nile, and gave way to despair."

"Always a foolish thing to do," I remarked.

"You will say so indeed when you hear the end, Quatermain. My
bereavement and the sleeplessness which it caused prayed upon me so
much, for now that the child was dead my wife was everything to me,
that, I will tell you the truth, my brain became affected and like Job I
cursed God in my heart and determined to die. Indeed I should have died
by my own hand, had it not been for Savage. I had procured the laudanum
and loaded the pistol with which I proposed to shoot myself immediately
after it was swallowed so that there might be no mistake. One night only
a couple of months or so ago, Quatermain, I sat in my study at Ragnall,
with the doors locked as I thought, writing a few final letters before
I did the deed. The last of them was just finished about twelve when
hearing a noise, I looked up and saw Savage standing before me. I asked
him angrily how he came there (I suppose he must have had another key to
one of the other doors) and what he wanted. Ignoring the first part of
the question he replied:

"'My lord, I have been thinking over our trouble'--he was with us in
Egypt--'I have been thinking so much that it has got a hold of my sleep.
To-night as you said you did not want me any more and I was tired, I
went to bed early and had a dream. I dreamed that we were once more in
the shrubbery, as happened some years ago, and that the little African
gent who shot like a book, was showing us the traces of those two black
men, just as he did when they tried to steal her ladyship. Then in my
dream I seemed to go back to bed and that beastly snake which we found
lying under the parcel in the road seemed to follow me. When I had got
to sleep again, all in the dream, there it was standing on its tail
at the end of the bed, hissing till it woke me. Then it spoke in good
English and not in African as might have been expected.

"'"Savage," it said, "get up and dress yourself and go at once and tell
his lordship to travel to Natal and find Mr. Allan Quatermain" (you may
remember that was the African gentleman's name, my lord, which, with so
many coming and going in this great house, I had quite forgotten, until
I had the dream). "Find Mr. Allan Quatermain," that slimy reptile went
on, opening and shutting its mouth for all the world like a Christian
making a speech, "for he will have something to tell him as to that
which has made a hole in his heart that is now filled with the seven
devils. Be quick, Savage, and don't stop to put on your shirt or your
tie"--I have not, my lord, as you may see. "He is shut up in the study,
but you know how to get into it. If he will not listen to you let him
look round the study and he will see something which will tell him that
this is a true dream."

"'Then the snake vanished, seeming to wriggle down the left bottom
bed-post, and I woke up in a cold sweat, my lord, and did what it had
told me.'

"Those were his very words, Quatermain, for I wrote them down afterwards
while they were fresh in my memory, and you see here they are in my
pocket-book.

"Well, I answered him, rather brusquely I am afraid, for a crazed man
who is about to leave the world under such circumstances does not show
at his best when disturbed almost in the very act, to the edge of which
long agony has brought him. I told him that all his dream of snakes
seemed ridiculous, which obviously it was, and was about to send him
away, when it occurred to me that the suggestion it conveyed that I
should put myself in communication with you was not ridiculous in view
of the part you had already played in the story."

"Very far from ridiculous," I interpolated.

"To tell the truth," went on Lord Ragnall, "I had already thought of
doing the same thing, but somehow beneath the pressure of my imminent
grief the idea was squeezed out of my mind, perhaps because you were so
far away and I did not know if I could find you even if I tried. Pausing
for a moment before I dismissed Savage, I rose from the desk at which I
was writing and began to walk up and down the room thinking what I would
do. I am not certain if you saw it when you were at Ragnall, but it is
a large room, fifty feet long or so though not very broad. It has two
fireplaces, in both of which fires were burning on this night, and it
was lit by four standing lamps besides that upon my desk. Now between
these fireplaces, in a kind of niche in the wall, and a little in the
shadow because none of the lamps was exactly opposite to it, hung a
portrait of my wife which I had caused to be painted by a fashionable
artist when first we became engaged."

"I remember it," I said. "Or rather, I remember its existence. I did not
see it because a curtain hung over the picture, which Savage told me
you did not wish to be looked at by anybody but yourself. At the time
I remarked to him, or rather to myself, that to veil the likeness of a
living woman in such a way seemed to me rather an ill-omened thing to
do, though why I should have thought it so I do not quite know."

"You are quite right, Quatermain. I had that foolish fancy, a lover's
freak, I suppose. When we married the curtain was removed although the
brass rod on which it hung was left by some oversight. On my return to
England after my loss, however, I found that I could not bear to
look upon this lifeless likeness of one who had been taken from me so
cruelly, and I caused it to be replaced. I did more. In order that it
might not be disturbed by some dusting housemaid, I myself made it fast
with three or four tin-tacks which I remember I drove through the velvet
stuff into the panelling, using a fireiron as a hammer. At the time
I thought it a good job although by accident I struck the nail of the
third finger of my left hand so hard that it came off. Look, it has not
quite finished growing again," and he showed the finger on which the new
nail was still in process of formation.

"Well, as I walked up and down the room some impulse caused me to look
towards the picture. To my astonishment I saw that it was no longer
veiled, although to the best of my belief the curtain had been drawn
over it as lately as that afternoon; indeed I could have sworn that this
was so. I called to Savage to bring the lamp that stood upon my table,
and by its light made an examination. The curtain was drawn back, very
tidily, being fastened in its place clear of the little alcove by means
of a thin brass chain. Also along one edge of it, that which I had
nailed to the panelling, the tin-tacks were still in their places; that
is, three of them were, the fourth I found afterwards upon the floor.

"'She looks beautiful, doesn't she, my lord,' said Savage, 'and please
God so we shall still find her somewhere in the world.'

"I did not answer him, or even remark upon the withdrawal of the
curtain, as to which indeed I never made an inquiry. I suppose that
it was done by some zealous servant while I was pretending to eat my
dinner--there were one or two new ones in the house whose names and
appearance I did not know. What impressed itself upon my mind was that
the face which I had never expected to see again on the earth, even in
a picture, was once more given to my eyes, it mattered not how. This, in
my excited state, for laudanum waiting to be swallowed and a pistol at
full cock for firing do not induce calmness in a man already almost mad,
at any rate until they have fulfilled their offices, did in truth appear
to me to be something of the nature of a sign such as that spoken of
in Savage's idiotic dream, which I was to find if 'I looked round the
study.'

"'Savage,' I said, 'I don't think much of your dreams about snakes that
talk to you, but I do think that it might be well to see Mr. Quatermain.
To-day is Sunday and I believe that the African mail sails on Friday. Go
to town early to-morrow and book passages.'

"Also I told him to see various gunsmiths and bid them send down a
selection of rifles and other weapons for me to choose from, as I
did not know whither we might wander in Africa, and to make further
necessary arrangements. All of these things he did, and--here we are."

"Yes," I answered reflectively, "here you are. What is more, here is
your luggage of which there seems to be enough for a regiment," and I
pointed to a Scotch cart piled up with baggage and followed by a
long line of Kafirs carrying sundry packages upon their heads that,
marshalled by Savage, had halted at my gate.



CHAPTER VIII

THE START

That evening when the baggage had been disposed of and locked up in my
little stable and arrangements were made for the delivery of some cases
containing tinned foods, etc., which had proved too heavy for the Scotch
cart, Lord Ragnall and I continued our conversation. First, however, we
unpacked the guns and checked the ammunition, of which there was a large
supply, with more to follow.

A beautiful battery they were of all sorts from elephant guns down, the
most costly and best finished that money could buy at the time. It made
me shiver to think what the bill for them must have been, while their
appearance when they were put together and stood in a long line against
the wall of my sitting-room, moved old Hans to a kind of ecstasy. For a
long while he contemplated them, patting the stocks one after the other
and giving to each a name as though they were all alive, then exclaimed:

"With such weapons as these the Baas could kill the devil himself.
Still, let the Baas bring Intombi with him"--a favourite old rifle of
mine and a mere toy in size, that had however done me good service in
the past, as those who have read what I have written in "Marie" and
"The Holy Flower" may remember. "For, Baas, after all, the wife of one's
youth often proves more to be trusted than the fine young ones a man
buys in his age. Also one knows all her faults, but who can say how
many there may be hidden up in new women however beautifully they are
tattooed?" and he pointed to the elaborate engraving upon the guns.

I translated this speech to Lord Ragnall. It made him laugh, at which
I was glad for up till then I had not seen him even smile. I should
add that in addition to these sporting weapons there were no fewer than
fifty military rifles of the best make, they were large-bore Sniders
that had just then been put upon the market, and with them, packed in
tin cases, a great quantity of ammunition. Although the regulations
were not so strict then as they are now, I met with a great deal of
difficulty in getting all this armament through the Customs. Lord
Ragnall however had letters from the Colonial Office to such authorities
as ruled in Natal, and on our giving a joint undertaking that they were
for defensive purposes only in unexplored territory and not for sale,
they were allowed through. Fortunate did it prove for us in after days
that this matter was arranged.

That night before we went to bed I narrated to Lord Ragnall all the
history of our search for the Holy Flower, which he seemed to find very
entertaining. Also I told him of my adventures, to me far more terrible,
as chairman of the Bona Fide Gold Mine and of their melancholy end.

"The lesson of which is," he remarked when I had finished, "that because
a man is master of one trade, it does not follow that he is master of
another. You are, I should judge, one of the finest shots in the
world, you are also a great hunter and explorer. But when it comes to
companies, Quatermain----! Still," he went on, "I ought to be grateful
to that Bona Fide Gold Mine, since I gather that had it not been for
it and for your rascally friend, Mr. Jacob, I should not have found you
here."

"No," I answered, "it is probable that you would not, as by this time
I might have been far in the interior where a man cannot be traced and
letters do not reach him."

Then he made a few pointed inquiries about the affairs of the mine,
noting my answers down in his pocket-book. I thought this odd but
concluded that he wished to verify my statements before entering into
a close companionship with me, since for aught he knew I might be the
largest liar in the world and a swindler to boot. So I said nothing,
even when I heard through a roundabout channel on the morrow that he had
sought an interview with the late secretary of the defunct company.

A few days later, for I may as well finish with this matter at once, the
astonishing object of these inquiries was made clear to me. One morning
I found upon my table a whole pile of correspondence, at the sight
of which I groaned, feeling sure that it must come from duns and be
connected with that infernal mine. Curiosity and a desire to face the
worst, however, led me to open the first letter which as it happened
proved to be from that very shareholder who had proposed a vote of
confidence in me at the winding-up meeting. By the time that it was
finished my eyes were swimming and really I felt quite faint. It ran:

"Honoured Sir,--I knew that I was putting my money on the right horse
when I said the other day that you were one of the straightest that ever
ran. Well, I have got the cheque sent me by the lawyer on your account,
being payment in full for every farthing I invested in the Bona Fide
Gold Mine, and I can only say that it is uncommonly useful, for that
business had pretty well cleaned me out. God bless you, Mr. Quatermain."

I opened another letter, and another, and another. They were all to the
same effect. Bewildered I went on to the stoep, where I found Hans with
an epistle in his hand which he requested me to be good enough to read.
I read it. It was from a well-known firm of local lawyers and said:

"On behalf of Allan Quatermain, Esq., we beg to enclose a draft for
the sum of L650, being the value of the interest in the Bona Fide Gold
Company, Limited (in liquidation), which stands in your name on the
books of the company. Please sign enclosed receipt and return same to
us."

Yes, and there was the draft for L650 sterling!

I explained the matter to Hans, or rather I translated the document,
adding:

"You see you have got your money back again. But Hans, I never sent it;
I don't know where it comes from."

"Is it money, Baas?" asked Hans, surveying the draft with suspicion. "It
looks very much like the other bit of paper for which I paid money."

Again I explained, reiterating that I knew nothing of the transaction.

"Well, Baas," he said, "if you did not send it someone did--perhaps
your father the reverend Predikant, who sees that you are in trouble and
wishes to wash your name white again. Meanwhile, Baas, please put that
bit of paper in your pocket-book and keep it for me, for otherwise I
might be tempted to buy square-face with it."

"No," I answered, "you can now buy your land back, or some other land,
and there will be no need for you to come with me to the country of the
Kendah."

Hans thought a moment and then very deliberately began to tear up the
draft; indeed I was only just in time to save it from destruction.

"If the Baas is going to turn me off because of this paper," he said, "I
will make it small and eat it."

"You silly old fool," I said as I possessed myself of the cheque.

Then the conversation was interrupted, for who should appear but Sammy,
my old cook, who began in his pompous language:

"The perfect rectitude of your conduct, Mr. Quatermain, moves me to the
deepest gratitude, though indeed I wish that I had put something into
the food of the knave Jacob who beguiled us all, that would have caused
him internal pangs of a severe if not of a dangerous order. My holding
in the gold mine was not extensive, but the unpaid bill of the said
Jacob and his friends----"

Here I cut him short and fled, since I saw yet another shareholder
galloping to the gate, and behind him two more in a spider. First I took
refuge in my room, my idea being to put away that pile of letters. In so
doing I observed that there was one still unopened. Half mechanically
I took it from the envelope and glanced at its contents. They were
word for word identical with those of that addressed to "Mr. Hans,
Hottentot," only my name was at the bottom of it instead of that of Hans
and the cheque was for L1,500, the amount I had paid for the shares I
held in the venture.

Feeling as though my brain were in a melting-pot, I departed from the
house into a patch of native bush that in those days still grew upon the
slope of the hill behind. Here I sat myself down, as I had often
done before when there was a knotty point to be considered, aimlessly
watching a lovely emerald cuckoo flashing, a jewel of light, from tree
to tree, while I turned all this fairy-godmother business over in my
mind.

Of course it soon became clear to me. Lord Ragnall in this case was
the little old lady with the wand, the touch of which could convert
worthless share certificates into bank-notes of their face value. I
remembered now that his wealth was said to be phenomenal and after
all the cash capital of the company was quite small. But the question
was--could I accept his bounty?

I returned to the house where the first person whom I met was Lord
Ragnall himself, just arrived from some interview about the fifty Snider
rifles, which were still in bond. I told him solemnly that I wished to
speak to him, whereon he remarked in a cheerful voice,

"Advance, friend, and all's well!"

I don't know that I need set out the details of the interview. He
waited till I had got through my halting speech of mingled gratitude and
expostulation, then remarked:

"My friend, if you will allow me to call you so, it is quite true that I
have done this because I wished to do it. But it is equally true that to
me it is a small thing--to be frank, scarcely a month's income; what I
have saved travelling on that ship to Natal would pay for it all. Also
I have weighed my own interest in the matter, for I am anxious that you
should start upon this hazardous journey of ours up country with a mind
absolutely free from self-reproach or any money care, for thus you will
be able to do me better service. Therefore I beg that you will say no
more of the episode. I have only one thing to add, namely that I have
myself bought up at par value a few of the debentures. The price of them
will pay the lawyers and the liquidation fees; moreover they give me a
status as a shareholder which will enable me to sue Mr. Jacob for his
fraud, to which business I have already issued instructions. For please
understand that I have not paid off any shares still standing in his
name or in those of his friends."

Here I may add that nothing ever came of this action, for the lawyers
found themselves unable to serve any writ upon that elusive person,
Mr. Jacob, who by then had probably adopted the name of some other
patriarch.