King Solomon's Mines
sleep in the reeds? Would ye make war? My Impis wait your word. If
there is anything more which I can give, that will I give you.”
“Nay, Ignosi, we want none of these things,” I answered; “we would seek
our own place.”
“Now do I learn,” said Ignosi bitterly, and with flashing eyes, “that
ye love the bright stones more than me, your friend. Ye have the
stones; now ye would go to Natal and across the moving black water and
sell them, and be rich, as it is the desire of a white man’s heart to
be. Cursed for your sake be the white stones, and cursed he who seeks
them. Death shall it be to him who sets foot in the place of Death to
find them. I have spoken. White men, ye can go.”
I laid my hand upon his arm. “Ignosi,” I said, “tell us, when thou
didst wander in Zululand, and among the white people of Natal, did not
thine heart turn to the land thy mother told thee of, thy native place,
where thou didst see the light, and play when thou wast little, the
land where thy place was?”
“It was even so, Macumazahn.”
“In like manner, Ignosi, do our hearts turn to our land and to our own
place.”
Then came a silence. When Ignosi broke it, it was in a different voice.
“I do perceive that now as ever thy words are wise and full of reason,
Macumazahn; that which flies in the air loves not to run along the
ground; the white man loves not to live on the level of the black or to
house among his kraals. Well, ye must go, and leave my heart sore,
because ye will be as dead to me, since from where ye are no tidings
can come to me.
“But listen, and let all your brothers know my words. No other white
man shall cross the mountains, even if any man live to come so far. I
will see no traders with their guns and gin. My people shall fight with
the spear, and drink water, like their forefathers before them. I will
have no praying-men to put a fear of death into men’s hearts, to stir
them up against the law of the king, and make a path for the white folk
who follow to run on. If a white man comes to my gates I will send him
back; if a hundred come I will push them back; if armies come, I will
make war on them with all my strength, and they shall not prevail
against me. None shall ever seek for the shining stones: no, not an
army, for if they come I will send a regiment and fill up the pit, and
break down the white columns in the caves and choke them with rocks, so
that none can reach even to that door of which ye speak, and whereof
the way to move it is lost. But for you three, Incubu, Macumazahn, and
Bougwan, the path is always open; for, behold, ye are dearer to me than
aught that breathes.
“And ye would go. Infadoos, my uncle, and my Induna, shall take you by
the hand and guide you with a regiment. There is, as I have learned,
another way across the mountains that he shall show you. Farewell, my
brothers, brave white men. See me no more, for I have no heart to bear
it. Behold! I make a decree, and it shall be published from the
mountains to the mountains; your names, Incubu, Macumazahn, and
Bougwan, shall be “_hlonipa_” even as the names of dead kings, and he
who speaks them shall die.[12] So shall your memory be preserved in the
land for ever.
[12] This extraordinary and negative way of showing intense respect is
by no means unknown among African people, and the result is that if,
as is usual, the name in question has a significance, the meaning must
be expressed by an idiom or other word. In this way a memory is
preserved for generations, or until the new word utterly supplants the
old one.—A.Q.
“Go now, ere my eyes rain tears like a woman’s. At times as ye look
back down the path of life, or when ye are old and gather yourselves
together to crouch before the fire, because for you the sun has no more
heat, ye will think of how we stood shoulder to shoulder, in that great
battle which thy wise words planned, Macumazahn; of how thou wast the
point of the horn that galled Twala’s flank, Bougwan; whilst thou stood
in the ring of the Greys, Incubu, and men went down before thine axe
like corn before a sickle; ay, and of how thou didst break that wild
bull Twala’s strength, and bring his pride to dust. Fare ye well for
ever, Incubu, Macumazahn, and Bougwan, my lords and my friends.”
Ignosi rose and looked earnestly at us for a few seconds. Then he threw
the corner of his karross over his head, so as to cover his face from
us.
We went in silence.
Next day at dawn we left Loo, escorted by our old friend Infadoos, who
was heart-broken at our departure, and by the regiment of Buffaloes.
Early as was the hour, all the main street of the town was lined with
multitudes of people, who gave us the royal salute as we passed at the
head of the regiment, while the women blessed us for having rid the
land of Twala, throwing flowers before us as we went. It was really
very affecting, and not the sort of thing one is accustomed to meet
with from natives.
One ludicrous incident occurred, however, which I rather welcomed, as
it gave us something to laugh at.
Just before we reached the confines of the town, a pretty young girl,
with some lovely lilies in her hand, ran forward and presented them to
Good—somehow they all seemed to like Good; I think his eye-glass and
solitary whisker gave him a fictitious value—and then said that she had
a boon to ask.
“Speak on,” he answered.
“Let my lord show his servant his beautiful white legs, that his
servant may look upon them, and remember them all her days, and tell of
them to her children; his servant has travelled four days’ journey to
see them, for the fame of them has gone throughout the land.”
“I’ll be hanged if I do!” exclaimed Good excitedly.
“Come, come, my dear fellow,” said Sir Henry, “you can’t refuse to
oblige a lady.”
“I won’t,” replied Good obstinately; “it is positively indecent.”
However, in the end he consented to draw up his trousers to the knee,
amidst notes of rapturous admiration from all the women present,
especially the gratified young lady, and in this guise he had to walk
till we got clear of the town.
Good’s legs, I fear, will never be so greatly admired again. Of his
melting teeth, and even of his “transparent eye,” the Kukuanas wearied
more or less, but of his legs never.
As we travelled, Infadoos told us that there was another pass over the
mountains to the north of the one followed by Solomon’s Great Road, or
rather that there was a place where it was possible to climb down the
wall of cliff which separates Kukuanaland from the desert, and is
broken by the towering shapes of Sheba’s Breasts. It appeared, also,
that rather more than two years previously a party of Kukuana hunters
had descended this path into the desert in search of ostriches, whose
plumes are much prized among them for war head-dresses, and that in the
course of their hunt they had been led far from the mountains and were
much troubled by thirst. Seeing trees on the horizon, however, they
walked towards them, and discovered a large and fertile oasis some
miles in extent, and plentifully watered. It was by way of this oasis
that Infadoos suggested we should return, and the idea seemed to us a
good one, for it appeared that we should thus escape the rigours of the
mountain pass. Also some of the hunters were in attendance to guide us
to the oasis, from which, they stated, they could perceive other
fertile spots far away in the desert.[13]
[13] It often puzzled all of us to understand how it was possible that
Ignosi’s mother, bearing the child with her, should have survived the
dangers of her journey across the mountains and the desert, dangers
which so nearly proved fatal to ourselves. It has since occurred to
me, and I give the idea to the reader for what it is worth, that she
must have taken this second route, and wandered out like Hagar into
the wilderness. If she did so, there is no longer anything
inexplicable about the story, since, as Ignosi himself related, she
may well have been picked up by some ostrich hunters before she or the
child was exhausted, was led by them to the oasis, and thence by
stages to the fertile country, and so on by slow degrees southwards to
Zululand.—A.Q.
Travelling easily, on the night of the fourth day’s journey we found
ourselves once more on the crest of the mountains that separate
Kukuanaland from the desert, which rolled away in sandy billows at our
feet, and about twenty-five miles to the north of Sheba’s Breasts.
At dawn on the following day, we were led to the edge of a very
precipitous chasm, by which we were to descend the precipice, and gain
the plain two thousand and more feet below.
Here we bade farewell to that true friend and sturdy old warrior,
Infadoos, who solemnly wished all good upon us, and nearly wept with
grief. “Never, my lords,” he said, “shall mine old eyes see the like of
you again. Ah! the way that Incubu cut his men down in the battle! Ah!
for the sight of that stroke with which he swept off my brother Twala’s
head! It was beautiful—beautiful! I may never hope to see such another,
except perchance in happy dreams.”
We were very sorry to part from him; indeed, Good was so moved that he
gave him as a souvenir—what do you think?—an _eye-glass_; afterwards we
discovered that it was a spare one. Infadoos was delighted, foreseeing
that the possession of such an article would increase his prestige
enormously, and after several vain attempts he actually succeeded in
screwing it into his own eye. Anything more incongruous than the old
warrior looked with an eye-glass I never saw. Eye-glasses do not go
well with leopard-skin cloaks and black ostrich plumes.
Then, after seeing that our guides were well laden with water and
provisions, and having received a thundering farewell salute from the
Buffaloes, we wrung Infadoos by the hand, and began our downward climb.
A very arduous business it proved to be, but somehow that evening we
found ourselves at the bottom without accident.
“Do you know,” said Sir Henry that night, as we sat by our fire and
gazed up at the beetling cliffs above us, “I think that there are worse
places than Kukuanaland in the world, and that I have known unhappier
times than the last month or two, though I have never spent such queer
ones. Eh! you fellows?”
“I almost wish I were back,” said Good, with a sigh.
As for myself, I reflected that all’s well that ends well; but in the
course of a long life of shaves, I never had such shaves as those which
I had recently experienced. The thought of that battle makes me feel
cold all over, and as for our experience in the treasure chamber—!
Next morning we started on a toilsome trudge across the desert, having
with us a good supply of water carried by our five guides, and camped
that night in the open, marching again at dawn on the morrow.
By noon of the third day’s journey we could see the trees of the oasis
of which the guides spoke, and within an hour of sundown we were
walking once more upon grass and listening to the sound of running
water.
CHAPTER XX.
FOUND
And now I come to perhaps the strangest adventure that happened to us
in all this strange business, and one which shows how wonderfully
things are brought about.
I was walking along quietly, some way in front of the other two, down
the banks of the stream which runs from the oasis till it is swallowed
up in the hungry desert sands, when suddenly I stopped and rubbed my
eyes, as well I might. There, not twenty yards in front of me, placed
in a charming situation, under the shade of a species of fig-tree, and
facing to the stream, was a cosy hut, built more or less on the Kafir
principle with grass and withes, but having a full-length door instead
of a bee-hole.
“What the dickens,” said I to myself, “can a hut be doing here?” Even