King Solomon's Mines
fly. But the strong hands caught her fast, and brought her, struggling
and weeping, before us.
“What is thy name, girl?” piped Gagool. “What! wilt thou not answer?
Shall the king’s son do his work at once?”
At this hint, Scragga, looking more evil than ever, advanced a step and
lifted his great spear, and at that moment I saw Good’s hand creep to
his revolver. The poor girl caught the faint glint of steel through her
tears, and it sobered her anguish. She ceased struggling, and clasping
her hands convulsively, stood shuddering from head to foot.
“See,” cried Scragga in high glee, “she shrinks from the sight of my
little plaything even before she has tasted it,” and he tapped the
broad blade of his spear.
“If ever I get the chance you shall pay for that, you young hound!” I
heard Good mutter beneath his breath.
“Now that thou art quiet, give us thy name, my dear. Come, speak out,
and fear not,” said Gagool in mockery.
“Oh, mother,” answered the girl, in trembling accents, “my name is
Foulata, of the house of Suko. Oh, mother, why must I die? I have done
no wrong!”
“Be comforted,” went on the old woman in her hateful tone of mockery.
“Thou must die, indeed, as a sacrifice to the Old Ones who sit yonder,”
and she pointed to the peaks; “but it is better to sleep in the night
than to toil in the daytime; it is better to die than to live, and thou
shalt die by the royal hand of the king’s own son.”
The girl Foulata wrung her hands in anguish, and cried out aloud, “Oh,
cruel! and I so young! What have I done that I should never again see
the sun rise out of the night, or the stars come following on his track
in the evening, that I may no more gather the flowers when the dew is
heavy, or listen to the laughing of the waters? Woe is me, that I shall
never see my father’s hut again, nor feel my mother’s kiss, nor tend
the lamb that is sick! Woe is me, that no lover shall put his arm
around me and look into my eyes, nor shall men children be born of me!
Oh, cruel, cruel!”
And again she wrung her hands and turned her tear-stained
flower-crowned face to Heaven, looking so lovely in her despair—for she
was indeed a beautiful woman—that assuredly the sight of her would have
melted the hearts of any less cruel than were the three fiends before
us. Prince Arthur’s appeal to the ruffians who came to blind him was
not more touching than that of this savage girl.
But it did not move Gagool or Gagool’s master, though I saw signs of
pity among the guards behind, and on the faces of the chiefs; and as
for Good, he gave a fierce snort of indignation, and made a motion as
though to go to her assistance. With all a woman’s quickness, the
doomed girl interpreted what was passing in his mind, and by a sudden
movement flung herself before him, and clasped his “beautiful white
legs” with her hands.
“Oh, white father from the Stars!” she cried, “throw over me the mantle
of thy protection; let me creep into the shadow of thy strength, that I
may be saved. Oh, keep me from these cruel men and from the mercies of
Gagool!”
“All right, my hearty, I’ll look after you,” sang out Good in nervous
Saxon. “Come, get up, there’s a good girl,” and he stooped and caught
her hand.
Twala turned and motioned to his son, who advanced with his spear
lifted.
“Now’s your time,” whispered Sir Henry to me; “what are you waiting
for?”
“I am waiting for that eclipse,” I answered; “I have had my eye on the
moon for the last half-hour, and I never saw it look healthier.”
“Well, you must risk it now, or the girl will be killed. Twala is
losing patience.”
Recognising the force of the argument, and having cast one more
despairing look at the bright face of the moon, for never did the most
ardent astronomer with a theory to prove await a celestial event with
such anxiety, I stepped with all the dignity that I could command
between the prostrate girl and the advancing spear of Scragga.
“King,” I said, “it shall not be; we will not endure this thing; let
the girl go in safety.”
Twala rose from his seat in wrath and astonishment, and from the chiefs
and serried ranks of maidens who had closed in slowly upon us in
anticipation of the tragedy came a murmur of amazement.
“_Shall not be!_ thou white dog, that yappest at the lion in his cave;
_shall not be!_ art thou mad? Be careful, lest this chicken’s fate
overtake thee, and those with thee. How canst thou save her or thyself?
Who art thou that thou settest thyself between me and my will? Back, I
say. Scragga, kill her! Ho, guards! seize these men.”
At his cry armed men ran swiftly from behind the hut, where they had
evidently been placed beforehand.
Sir Henry, Good, and Umbopa ranged themselves alongside of me, and
lifted their rifles.
“Stop!” I shouted boldly, though at the moment my heart was in my
boots. “Stop! we, the white men from the Stars, say that it shall not
be. Come but one pace nearer, and we will put out the moon like a
wind-blown lamp, as we who dwell in her House can do, and plunge the
land in darkness. Dare to disobey, and ye shall taste of our magic.”
My threat produced an effect; the men halted, and Scragga stood still
before us, his spear lifted.
“Hear him! hear him!” piped Gagool; “hear the liar who says that he
will put out the moon like a lamp. Let him do it, and the girl shall be
spared. Yes, let him do it, or die by the girl, he and those with him.”
I glanced up at the moon despairingly, and now to my intense joy and
relief saw that we—or rather the almanack—had made no mistake. On the
edge of the great orb lay a faint rim of shadow, while a smoky hue grew
and gathered upon its bright surface. Never shall I forget that
supreme, that superb moment of relief.
Then I lifted my hand solemnly towards the sky, an example which Sir
Henry and Good followed, and quoted a line or two from the “Ingoldsby
Legends” at it in the most impressive tones that I could command. Sir
Henry followed suit with a verse out of the Old Testament, and
something about Balbus building a wall, in Latin, whilst Good addressed
the Queen of Night in a volume of the most classical bad language which
he could think of.
Slowly the penumbra, the shadow of a shadow, crept on over the bright
surface, and as it crept I heard deep gasps of fear rising from the
multitude around.
“Look, O king!” I cried; “look, Gagool! Look, chiefs and people and
women, and see if the white men from the Stars keep their word, or if
they be but empty liars!
“The moon grows black before your eyes; soon there will be darkness—ay,
darkness in the hour of the full moon. Ye have asked for a sign; it is
given to you. Grow dark, O Moon! withdraw thy light, thou pure and holy
One; bring the proud heart of usurping murderers to the dust, and eat
up the world with shadows.”
A groan of terror burst from the onlookers. Some stood petrified with
dread, others threw themselves upon their knees and cried aloud. As for
the king, he sat still and turned pale beneath his dusky skin. Only
Gagool kept her courage.
“It will pass,” she cried; “I have often seen the like before; no man
can put out the moon; lose not heart; sit still—the shadow will pass.”
“Wait, and ye shall see,” I replied, hopping with excitement. “O Moon!
Moon! Moon! wherefore art thou so cold and fickle?” This appropriate
quotation was from the pages of a popular romance that I chanced to
have read recently, though now I come to think of it, it was ungrateful
of me to abuse the Lady of the Heavens, who was showing herself to be
the truest of friends to us, however she may have behaved to the
impassioned lover in the novel. Then I added: “Keep it up, Good, I
can’t remember any more poetry. Curse away, there’s a good fellow.”
Good responded nobly to this tax upon his inventive faculties. Never
before had I the faintest conception of the breadth and depth and
height of a naval officer’s objurgatory powers. For ten minutes he went
on in several languages without stopping, and he scarcely ever repeated
himself.
Meanwhile the dark ring crept on, while all that great assembly fixed
their eyes upon the sky and stared and stared in fascinated silence.
Strange and unholy shadows encroached upon the moonlight, an ominous
quiet filled the place. Everything grew still as death. Slowly and in
the midst of this most solemn silence the minutes sped away, and while
they sped the full moon passed deeper and deeper into the shadow of the
earth, as the inky segment of its circle slid in awful majesty across
the lunar craters. The great pale orb seemed to draw near and to grow
in size. She turned a coppery hue, then that portion of her surface
which was unobscured as yet grew grey and ashen, and at length, as
totality approached, her mountains and her plains were to be seen
glowing luridly through a crimson gloom.
On, yet on, crept the ring of darkness; it was now more than half
across the blood-red orb. The air grew thick, and still more deeply
tinged with dusky crimson. On, yet on, till we could scarcely see the
fierce faces of the group before us. No sound rose now from the
spectators, and at last Good stopped swearing.
“The moon is dying—the white wizards have killed the moon,” yelled the
prince Scragga at last. “We shall all perish in the dark,” and animated
by fear or fury, or by both, he lifted his spear and drove it with all
his force at Sir Henry’s breast. But he forgot the mail shirts that the
king had given us, and which we wore beneath our clothing. The steel
rebounded harmless, and before he could repeat the blow Curtis had
snatched the spear from his hand and sent it straight through him.
Scragga dropped dead.
At the sight, and driven mad with fear of the gathering darkness, and
of the unholy shadow which, as they believed, was swallowing the moon,
the companies of girls broke up in wild confusion, and ran screeching
for the gateways. Nor did the panic stop there. The king himself,
followed by his guards, some of the chiefs, and Gagool, who hobbled
away after them with marvellous alacrity, fled for the huts, so that in
another minute we ourselves, the would-be victim Foulata, Infadoos, and
most of the chiefs who had interviewed us on the previous night, were
left alone upon the scene, together with the dead body of Scragga,
Twala’s son.
“Chiefs,” I said, “we have given you the sign. If ye are satisfied, let
us fly swiftly to the place of which ye spoke. The charm cannot now be
stopped. It will work for an hour and the half of an hour. Let us cover
ourselves in the darkness.”
“Come,” said Infadoos, turning to go, an example which was followed by
the awed captains, ourselves, and the girl Foulata, whom Good took by
the arm.
Before we reached the gate of the kraal the moon went out utterly, and
from every quarter of the firmament the stars rushed forth into the
inky sky.
Holding each other by the hand we stumbled on through the darkness.
CHAPTER XII.
BEFORE THE BATTLE
Luckily for us, Infadoos and the chiefs knew all the paths of the great
town perfectly, so that we passed by side-ways unmolested, and
notwithstanding the gloom we made fair progress.
For an hour or more we journeyed on, till at length the eclipse began
to pass, and that edge of the moon which had disappeared the first
became again visible. Suddenly, as we watched, there burst from it a
silver streak of light, accompanied by a wondrous ruddy glow, which
hung upon the blackness of the sky like a celestial lamp, and a wild
and lovely sight it was. In another five minutes the stars began to
fade, and there was sufficient light to see our whereabouts. We then
discovered that we were clear of the town of Loo, and approaching a
large flat-topped hill, measuring some two miles in circumference. This