King Solomon's Mines
this new tunnel, Sir Henry now leading the way. Again I thought of
abandoning that basket, but did not.
Suddenly he stopped, and we bumped up against him.
“Look!” he whispered, “is my brain going, or is that light?”
We stared with all our eyes, and there, yes, there, far ahead of us,
was a faint, glimmering spot, no larger than a cottage window pane. It
was so faint that I doubt if any eyes, except those which, like ours,
had for days seen nothing but blackness, could have perceived it at
all.
With a gasp of hope we pushed on. In five minutes there was no longer
any doubt; it _was_ a patch of faint light. A minute more and a breath
of real live air was fanning us. On we struggled. All at once the
tunnel narrowed. Sir Henry went on his knees. Smaller yet it grew, till
it was only the size of a large fox’s earth—it was _earth_ now, mind
you; the rock had ceased.
A squeeze, a struggle, and Sir Henry was out, and so was Good, and so
was I, dragging Foulata’s basket after me; and there above us were the
blessed stars, and in our nostrils was the sweet air. Then suddenly
something gave, and we were all rolling over and over and over through
grass and bushes and soft, wet soil.
The basket caught in something and I stopped. Sitting up I halloed
lustily. An answering shout came from below, where Sir Henry’s wild
career had been checked by some level ground. I scrambled to him, and
found him unhurt, though breathless. Then we looked for Good. A little
way off we discovered him also, hammed in a forked root. He was a good
deal knocked about, but soon came to himself.
We sat down together, there on the grass, and the revulsion of feeling
was so great that really I think we cried with joy. We had escaped from
that awful dungeon, which was so near to becoming our grave. Surely
some merciful Power guided our footsteps to the jackal hole, for that
is what it must have been, at the termination of the tunnel. And see,
yonder on the mountains the dawn we had never thought to look upon
again was blushing rosy red.
Presently the grey light stole down the slopes, and we saw that we were
at the bottom, or rather, nearly at the bottom, of the vast pit in
front of the entrance to the cave. Now we could make out the dim forms
of the three Colossi who sat upon its verge. Doubtless those awful
passages, along which we had wandered the livelong night, had been
originally in some way connected with the great diamond mine. As for
the subterranean river in the bowels of the mountain, Heaven only knows
what it is, or whence it flows, or whither it goes. I, for one, have no
anxiety to trace its course.
Lighter it grew, and lighter yet. We could see each other now, and such
a spectacle as we presented I have never set eyes on before or since.
Gaunt-cheeked, hollow-eyed wretches, smeared all over with dust and
mud, bruised, bleeding, the long fear of imminent death yet written on
our countenances, we were, indeed, a sight to frighten the daylight.
And yet it is a solemn fact that Good’s eye-glass was still fixed in
Good’s eye. I doubt whether he had ever taken it out at all. Neither
the darkness, nor the plunge in the subterranean river, nor the roll
down the slope, had been able to separate Good and his eye-glass.
Presently we rose, fearing that our limbs would stiffen if we stopped
there longer, and commenced with slow and painful steps to struggle up
the sloping sides of the great pit. For an hour or more we toiled
steadfastly up the blue clay, dragging ourselves on by the help of the
roots and grasses with which it was clothed. But now I had no more
thought of leaving the basket; indeed, nothing but death should have
parted us.
At last it was done, and we stood by the great road, on that side of
the pit which is opposite to the Colossi.
At the side of the road, a hundred yards off, a fire was burning in
front of some huts, and round the fire were figures. We staggered
towards them, supporting one another, and halting every few paces.
Presently one of the figures rose, saw us and fell on to the ground,
crying out for fear.
“Infadoos, Infadoos! it is we, thy friends.”
He rose; he ran to us, staring wildly, and still shaking with fear.
“Oh, my lords, my lords, it is indeed you come back from the dead!—come
back from the dead!”
And the old warrior flung himself down before us, and clasping Sir
Henry’s knees, he wept aloud for joy.
CHAPTER XIX.
IGNOSI’S FAREWELL
Ten days from that eventful morning found us once more in our old
quarters at Loo; and, strange to say, but little the worse for our
terrible experience, except that my stubbly hair came out of the
treasure cave about three shades greyer than it went in, and that Good
never was quite the same after Foulata’s death, which seemed to move
him very greatly. I am bound to say, looking at the thing from the
point of view of an oldish man of the world, that I consider her
removal was a fortunate occurrence, since, otherwise, complications
would have been sure to ensue. The poor creature was no ordinary native
girl, but a person of great, I had almost said stately, beauty, and of
considerable refinement of mind. But no amount of beauty or refinement
could have made an entanglement between Good and herself a desirable
occurrence; for, as she herself put it, “Can the sun mate with the
darkness, or the white with the black?”
I need hardly state that we never again penetrated into Solomon’s
treasure chamber. After we had recovered from our fatigues, a process
which took us forty-eight hours, we descended into the great pit in the
hope of finding the hole by which we had crept out of the mountain, but
with no success. To begin with, rain had fallen, and obliterated our
spoor; and what is more, the sides of the vast pit were full of
ant-bear and other holes. It was impossible to say to which of these we
owed our salvation. Also, on the day before we started back to Loo, we
made a further examination of the wonders of the stalactite cave, and,
drawn by a kind of restless feeling, even penetrated once more into the
Chamber of the Dead. Passing beneath the spear of the White Death we
gazed, with sensations which it would be quite impossible for me to
describe, at the mass of rock that had shut us off from escape,
thinking the while of priceless treasures beyond, of the mysterious old
hag whose flattened fragments lay crushed beneath it, and of the fair
girl of whose tomb it was the portal. I say gazed at the “rock,” for,
examine as we could, we could find no traces of the join of the sliding
door; nor, indeed, could we hit upon the secret, now utterly lost, that
worked it, though we tried for an hour or more. It is certainly a
marvellous bit of mechanism, characteristic, in its massive and yet
inscrutable simplicity, of the age which produced it; and I doubt if
the world has such another to show.
At last we gave it up in disgust; though, if the mass had suddenly
risen before our eyes, I doubt if we should have screwed up courage to
step over Gagool’s mangled remains, and once more enter the treasure
chamber, even in the sure and certain hope of unlimited diamonds. And
yet I could have cried at the idea of leaving all that treasure, the
biggest treasure probably that in the world’s history has ever been
accumulated in one spot. But there was no help for it. Only dynamite
could force its way through five feet of solid rock.
So we left it. Perhaps, in some remote unborn century, a more fortunate
explorer may hit upon the “Open Sesame,” and flood the world with gems.
But, myself, I doubt it. Somehow, I seem to feel that the tens of
millions of pounds’ worth of jewels which lie in the three stone
coffers will never shine round the neck of an earthly beauty. They and
Foulata’s bones will keep cold company till the end of all things.
With a sigh of disappointment we made our way back, and next day
started for Loo. And yet it was really very ungrateful of us to be
disappointed; for, as the reader will remember, by a lucky thought, I
had taken the precaution to fill the wide pockets of my old shooting
coat and trousers with gems before we left our prison-house, also
Foulata’s basket, which held twice as many more, notwithstanding that
the water bottle had occupied some of its space. A good many of these
fell out in the course of our roll down the side of the pit, including
several of the big ones, which I had crammed in on the top in my coat
pockets. But, comparatively speaking, an enormous quantity still
remained, including ninety-three large stones ranging from over two
hundred to seventy carats in weight. My old shooting coat and the
basket still held sufficient treasure to make us all, if not
millionaires as the term is understood in America, at least exceedingly
wealthy men, and yet to keep enough stones each to make the three
finest sets of gems in Europe. So we had not done so badly.
On arriving at Loo we were most cordially received by Ignosi, whom we
found well, and busily engaged in consolidating his power, and
reorganising the regiments which had suffered most in the great
struggle with Twala.
He listened with intense interest to our wonderful story; but when we
told him of old Gagool’s frightful end he grew thoughtful.
“Come hither,” he called, to a very old Induna or councillor, who was
sitting with others in a circle round the king, but out of ear-shot.
The ancient man rose, approached, saluted, and seated himself.
“Thou art aged,” said Ignosi.
“Ay, my lord the king! Thy father’s father and I were born on the same
day.”
“Tell me, when thou wast little, didst thou know Gagaoola the witch
doctress?”
“Ay, my lord the king!”
“How was she then—young, like thee?”
“Not so, my lord the king! She was even as she is now and as she was in
the days of my great grandfather before me; old and dried, very ugly,
and full of wickedness.”
“She is no more; she is dead.”
“So, O king! then is an ancient curse taken from the land.”
“Go!”
“_Koom!_ I go, Black Puppy, who tore out the old dog’s throat. _Koom!_”
“Ye see, my brothers,” said Ignosi, “this was a strange woman, and I
rejoice that she is dead. She would have let you die in the dark place,
and mayhap afterwards she had found a way to slay me, as she found a
way to slay my father, and set up Twala, whom her black heart loved, in
his place. Now go on with the tale; surely there never was its like!”
After I had narrated all the story of our escape, as we had agreed
between ourselves that I should, I took the opportunity to address
Ignosi as to our departure from Kukuanaland.
“And now, Ignosi,” I said, “the time has come for us to bid thee
farewell, and start to see our own land once more. Behold, Ignosi, thou
camest with us a servant, and now we leave thee a mighty king. If thou
art grateful to us, remember to do even as thou didst promise: to rule
justly, to respect the law, and to put none to death without a cause.
So shalt thou prosper. To-morrow, at break of day, Ignosi, thou wilt
give us an escort who shall lead us across the mountains. Is it not so,
O king?”
Ignosi covered his face with his hands for a while before answering.
“My heart is sore,” he said at last; “your words split my heart in
twain. What have I done to you, Incubu, Macumazahn, and Bougwan, that
ye should leave me desolate? Ye who stood by me in rebellion and in
battle, will ye leave me in the day of peace and victory? What will
ye—wives? Choose from among the maidens! A place to live in? Behold,
the land is yours as far as ye can see. The white man’s houses? Ye
shall teach my people how to build them. Cattle for beef and milk?
Every married man shall bring you an ox or a cow. Wild game to hunt?
Does not the elephant walk through my forests, and the river-horse