King Solomon's Mines
you, Quatermain?”
“Well,” said Good, “to adopt the language of hyperbole, in which all
these people seem to indulge, you can tell him that a row is surely
good, and warms the cockles of the heart, and that so far as I am
concerned I’m his boy. My only stipulation is that he allows me to wear
trousers.”
I translated the substance of these answers.
“It is well, my friends,” said Ignosi, late Umbopa; “and what sayest
thou, Macumazahn, art thou also with me, old hunter, cleverer than a
wounded buffalo?”
I thought awhile and scratched my head.
“Umbopa, or Ignosi,” I said, “I don’t like revolutions. I am a man of
peace and a bit of a coward”—here Umbopa smiled—“but, on the other
hand, I stick up for my friends, Ignosi. You have stuck to us and
played the part of a man, and I will stick by you. But mind you, I am a
trader, and have to make my living, so I accept your offer about those
diamonds in case we should ever be in a position to avail ourselves of
it. Another thing: we came, as you know, to look for Incubu’s (Sir
Henry’s) lost brother. You must help us to find him.”
“That I will do,” answered Ignosi. “Stay, Infadoos, by the sign of the
snake about my middle, tell me the truth. Has any white man to thy
knowledge set his foot within the land?”
“None, O Ignosi.”
“If any white man had been seen or heard of, wouldst thou have known?”
“I should certainly have known.”
“Thou hearest, Incubu,” said Ignosi to Sir Henry; “he has not been
here.”
“Well, well,” said Sir Henry, with a sigh; “there it is; I suppose that
he never got so far. Poor fellow, poor fellow! So it has all been for
nothing. God’s will be done.”
“Now for business,” I put in, anxious to escape from a painful subject.
“It is very well to be a king by right divine, Ignosi, but how dost
thou propose to become a king indeed?”
“Nay, I know not. Infadoos, hast thou a plan?”
“Ignosi, Son of the Lightning,” answered his uncle, “to-night is the
great dance and witch-hunt. Many shall be smelt out and perish, and in
the hearts of many others there will be grief and anguish and fury
against the king Twala. When the dance is over, then I will speak to
some of the great chiefs, who in turn, if I can win them over, will
speak to their regiments. I shall speak to the chiefs softly at first,
and bring them to see that thou art indeed the king, and I think that
by to-morrow’s light thou shalt have twenty thousand spears at thy
command. And now I must go and think, and hear, and make ready. After
the dance is done, if I am yet alive, and we are all alive, I will meet
thee here, and we can talk. At the best there must be war.”
At this moment our conference was interrupted by the cry that
messengers had come from the king. Advancing to the door of the hut we
ordered that they should be admitted, and presently three men entered,
each bearing a shining shirt of chain armour, and a magnificent
battle-axe.
“The gifts of my lord the king to the white men from the Stars!” said a
herald who came with them.
“We thank the king,” I answered; “withdraw.”
The men went, and we examined the armour with great interest. It was
the most wonderful chain work that either of us had ever seen. A whole
coat fell together so closely that it formed a mass of links scarcely
too big to be covered with both hands.
“Do you make these things in this country, Infadoos?” I asked; “they
are very beautiful.”
“Nay, my lord, they came down to us from our forefathers. We know not
who made them, and there are but few left.[7] None but those of royal
blood may be clad in them. They are magic coats through which no spear
can pass, and those who wear them are well-nigh safe in the battle. The
king is well pleased or much afraid, or he would not have sent these
garments of steel. Clothe yourselves in them to-night, my lords.”
[7] In the Soudan swords and coats of mail are still worn by Arabs,
whose ancestors must have stripped them from the bodies of
Crusaders.—_Editor_.
The remainder of that day we spent quietly, resting and talking over
the situation, which was sufficiently exciting. At last the sun went
down, the thousand watch fires glowed out, and through the darkness we
heard the tramp of many feet and the clashing of hundreds of spears, as
the regiments passed to their appointed places to be ready for the
great dance. Then the full moon shone out in splendour, and as we stood
watching her rays, Infadoos arrived, clad in his war dress, and
accompanied by a guard of twenty men to escort us to the dance. As he
recommended, we had already donned the shirts of chain armour which the
king had sent us, putting them on under our ordinary clothing, and
finding to our surprise that they were neither very heavy nor
uncomfortable. These steel shirts, which evidently had been made for
men of a very large stature, hung somewhat loosely upon Good and
myself, but Sir Henry’s fitted his magnificent frame like a glove. Then
strapping our revolvers round our waists, and taking in our hands the
battle-axes which the king had sent with the armour, we started.
On arriving at the great kraal, where we had that morning been received
by the king, we found that it was closely packed with some twenty
thousand men arranged round it in regiments. These regiments were in
turn divided into companies, and between each company ran a little path
to allow space for the witch-finders to pass up and down. Anything more
imposing than the sight that was presented by this vast and orderly
concourse of armed men it is impossible to conceive. There they stood
perfectly silent, and the moon poured her light upon the forest of
their raised spears, upon their majestic forms, waving plumes, and the
harmonious shading of their various-coloured shields. Wherever we
looked were line upon line of dim faces surmounted by range upon range
of shimmering spears.
“Surely,” I said to Infadoos, “the whole army is here?”
“Nay, Macumazahn,” he answered, “but a third of it. One third is
present at this dance each year, another third is mustered outside in
case there should be trouble when the killing begins, ten thousand more
garrison the outposts round Loo, and the rest watch at the kraals in
the country. Thou seest it is a great people.”
“They are very silent,” said Good; and indeed the intense stillness
among such a vast concourse of living men was almost overpowering.
“What says Bougwan?” asked Infadoos.
I translated.
“Those over whom the shadow of Death is hovering are silent,” he
answered grimly.
“Will many be killed?”
“Very many.”
“It seems,” I said to the others, “that we are going to assist at a
gladiatorial show arranged regardless of expense.”
Sir Henry shivered, and Good said he wished that we could get out of
it.
“Tell me,” I asked Infadoos, “are we in danger?”
“I know not, my lords, I trust not; but do not seem afraid. If ye live
through the night all may go well with you. The soldiers murmur against
the king.”
All this while we had been advancing steadily towards the centre of the
open space, in the midst of which were placed some stools. As we
proceeded we perceived another small party coming from the direction of
the royal hut.
“It is the king Twala, Scragga his son, and Gagool the old; and see,
with them are those who slay,” said Infadoos, pointing to a little
group of about a dozen gigantic and savage-looking men, armed with
spears in one hand and heavy kerries in the other.
The king seated himself upon the centre stool, Gagool crouched at his
feet, and the others stood behind him.
“Greeting, white lords,” Twala cried, as we came up; “be seated, waste
not precious time—the night is all too short for the deeds that must be
done. Ye come in a good hour, and shall see a glorious show. Look
round, white lords; look round,” and he rolled his one wicked eye from
regiment to regiment. “Can the Stars show you such a sight as this? See
how they shake in their wickedness, all those who have evil in their
hearts and fear the judgment of ‘Heaven above.’”
“_Begin! begin!_” piped Gagool, in her thin piercing voice; “the hyænas
are hungry, they howl for food. _Begin! begin!_”
Then for a moment there was intense stillness, made horrible by a
presage of what was to come.
The king lifted his spear, and suddenly twenty thousand feet were
raised, as though they belonged to one man, and brought down with a
stamp upon the earth. This was repeated three times, causing the solid
ground to shake and tremble. Then from a far point of the circle a
solitary voice began a wailing song, of which the refrain ran something
as follows:—
“_What is the lot of man born of woman?_”
Back came the answer rolling out from every throat in that vast
company—
“_Death!_”
Gradually, however, the song was taken up by company after company,
till the whole armed multitude were singing it, and I could no longer
follow the words, except in so far as they appeared to represent
various phases of human passions, fears, and joys. Now it seemed to be
a love song, now a majestic swelling war chant, and last of all a death
dirge ending suddenly in one heart-breaking wail that went echoing and
rolling away in a volume of blood-curdling sound.
Again silence fell upon the place, and again it was broken by the king
lifting his hand. Instantly we heard a pattering of feet, and from out
of the masses of warriors strange and awful figures appeared running
towards us. As they drew near we saw that these were women, most of
them aged, for their white hair, ornamented with small bladders taken
from fish, streamed out behind them. Their faces were painted in
stripes of white and yellow; down their backs hung snake-skins, and
round their waists rattled circlets of human bones, while each held a
small forked wand in her shrivelled hand. In all there were ten of
them. When they arrived in front of us they halted, and one of them,
pointing with her wand towards the crouching figure of Gagool, cried
out—
“Mother, old mother, we are here.”
“_Good! good! good!_” answered that aged Iniquity. “Are your eyes keen,
_Isanusis_ [witch doctresses], ye seers in dark places?”
“Mother, they are keen.”
“_Good! good! good!_ Are your ears open, _Isanusis_, ye who hear words
that come not from the tongue?”
“Mother, they are open.”
“_Good! good! good!_ Are your senses awake, _Isanusis_—can ye smell
blood, can ye purge the land of the wicked ones who compass evil
against the king and against their neighbours? Are ye ready to do the
justice of ‘Heaven above,’ ye whom I have taught, who have eaten of the
bread of my wisdom, and drunk of the water of my magic?”
“Mother, we can.”
“Then go! Tarry not, ye vultures; see, the slayers”—pointing to the
ominous group of executioners behind—“make sharp their spears; the
white men from afar are hungry to see. _Go!_”
With a wild yell Gagool’s horrid ministers broke away in every
direction, like fragments from a shell, the dry bones round their
waists rattling as they ran, and headed for various points of the dense
human circle. We could not watch them all, so we fixed our eyes upon
the _Isanusi_ nearest to us. When she came to within a few paces of the
warriors she halted and began to dance wildly, turning round and round
with an almost incredible rapidity, and shrieking out sentences such as
“I smell him, the evil-doer!” “He is near, he who poisoned his mother!”
“I hear the thoughts of him who thought evil of the king!”
Quicker and quicker she danced, till she lashed herself into such a
frenzy of excitement that the foam flew in specks from her gnashing
jaws, till her eyes seemed to start from her head, and her flesh to
quiver visibly. Suddenly she stopped dead and stiffened all over, like