She
beasts and birds, and it is to this day a mystery to me how our
bearers found their way across the marshes. Ahead of the
cavalcade marched two men with long poles, which they now and
again plunged into the ground before them, the reason of this
being that the nature of the soil frequently changed from causes
with which I am not acquainted, so that places which might be
safe enough to cross one month would certainly swallow the
wayfarer the next. Never did I see a more dreary and depressing
scene. Miles on miles of quagmire, varied only by bright green
strips of comparatively solid ground, and by deep and sullen
pools fringed with tall rushes, in which the bitterns boomed and
the frogs croaked incessantly: miles on miles of it without a
break, unless the fever fog can be called a break. The only life
in this great morass was that of the aquatic birds, and the
animals that fed on them, of both of which there were vast
numbers. Geese, cranes, ducks, teal, coot, snipe, and plover
swarmed all around us, many being of varieties that were quite
new to me, and all so tame that one could almost have knocked
them over with a stick. Among these birds I especially noticed a
very beautiful variety of painted snipe, almost the size of a
woodcock, and with a flight more resembling that bird’s than an
English snipe’s. In the pools, too, was a species of small
alligator or enormous iguana, I do not know which, that fed,
Billali told me, upon the waterfowl, also large quantities of a
hideous black water-snake, of which the bite is very dangerous,
though not, I gathered, so deadly as a cobra’s or a puff adder’s.
The bull-frogs were also very large, and with voices
proportionate to their size; and as for the mosquitoes—the
“musqueteers,” as Job called them—they were, if possible, even
worse than they had been on the river, and tormented us greatly.
Undoubtedly, however, the worst feature of the swamp was the
awful smell of rotting vegetation that hung about it, which was
at times positively overpowering, and the malarious exhalations
that accompanied it, which we were of course obliged to breathe.
On we went through it all, till at last the sun sank in sullen
splendour just as we reached a spot of rising ground about two
acres in extent—a little oasis of dry in the midst of the miry
wilderness—where Billali announced that we were to camp. The
camping, however, turned out to be a very simple process, and
consisted, in fact, in sitting down on the ground round a scanty
fire made of dry reeds and some wood that had been brought with
us. However, we made the best we could of it, and smoked and ate
with such appetite as the smell of damp, stifling heat would
allow, for it was very hot on this low land, and yet, oddly
enough, chilly at times. But, however hot it was, we were glad
enough to keep near the fire, because we found that the
mosquitoes did not like the smoke. Presently we rolled ourselves
up in our blankets and tried to go to sleep, but so far as I was
concerned the bull-frogs, and the extraordinary roaring and
alarming sound produced by hundreds of snipe hovering high in the
air, made sleep an impossibility, to say nothing of our other
discomforts. I turned and looked at Leo, who was next me; he was
dozing, but his face had a flushed appearance that I did not
like, and by the flickering fire-light I saw Ustane, who was
lying on the other side of him, raise herself from time to time
upon her elbow, and look at him anxiously enough.
However, I could do nothing for him, for we had all already taken
a good dose of quinine, which was the only preventive we had; so
I lay and watched the stars come out by thousands, till all the
immense arch of heaven was strewn with glittering points, and
every point a world! Here was a glorious sight by which man might
well measure his own insignificance! Soon I gave up thinking
about it, for the mind wearies easily when it strives to grapple
with the Infinite, and to trace the footsteps of the Almighty as
he strides from sphere to sphere, or deduce His purpose from His
works. Such things are not for us to know. Knowledge is to the
strong, and we are weak. Too much wisdom would perchance blind
our imperfect sight, and too much strength would make us drunk,
and over-weight our feeble reason till it fell and we were
drowned in the depths of our own vanity. For what is the first
result of man’s increased knowledge interpreted from Nature’s
book by the persistent effort of his purblind observation? Is it
not but too often to make him question the existence of his
Maker, or indeed of any intelligent purpose beyond his own? The
truth is veiled, because we could no more look upon her glory
than we can upon the sun. It would destroy us. Full knowledge is
not for man as man is here, for his capacities, which he is apt
to think so great, are indeed but small. The vessel is soon
filled, and, were one-thousandth part of the unutterable and
silent wisdom that directs the rolling of those shining spheres,
and the Force which makes them roll, pressed into it, it would be
shattered into fragments. Perhaps in some other place and time it
may be otherwise, who can tell? Here the lot of man born of the
flesh is but to endure midst toil and tribulation, to catch at
the bubbles blown by Fate, which he calls pleasure, thankful if
before they burst they rest a moment in his hand, and when the
tragedy is played out, and his hour comes to perish, to pass
humbly whither he knows not.
Above me, as I lay, shone the eternal stars, and there at my feet
the impish marsh-born balls of fire rolled this way and that,
vapour-tossed and earth-desiring, and methought that in the two I
saw a type and image of what man is, and what perchance man may
one day be, if the living Force who ordained him and them should
so ordain this also. Oh, that it might be ours to rest year by
year upon that high level of the heart to which at times we
momentarily attain! Oh, that we could shake loose the prisoned
pinions of the soul and soar to that superior point, whence, like
to some traveller looking out through space from Darien’s
giddiest peak, we might gaze with spiritual eyes deep into
Infinity!
What would it be to cast off this earthy robe, to have done for
ever with these earthy thoughts and miserable desires; no longer,
like those corpse candles, to be tossed this way and that, by
forces beyond our control; or which, if we can theoretically
control them, we are at times driven by the exigencies of our
nature to obey! Yes, to cast them off, to have done with the foul
and thorny places of the world; and, like to those glittering
points above me, to rest on high wrapped for ever in the
brightness of our better selves, that even now shines in us as
fire faintly shines within those lurid balls, and lay down our
littleness in that wide glory of our dreams, that invisible but
surrounding Good, from which all truth and beauty comes!
These and many such thoughts passed through my mind that night.
They come to torment us all at times. I say to torment, for,
alas! thinking can only serve to measure out the helplessness of
thought. What is the purpose of our feeble crying in the awful
silences of space? Can our dim intelligence read the secrets of
that star-strewn sky? Does any answer come out of it? Never any
at all, nothing but echoes and fantastic visions! And yet we
believe that there is an answer, and that upon a time a new Dawn
will come blushing down the ways of our enduring night. We
believe it, for its reflected beauty even now shines up
continually in our hearts from beneath the horizon of the grave,
and we call it Hope. Without Hope we should suffer moral death,
and by the help of Hope we yet may climb to Heaven, or at the
worst, if she also prove but a kindly mockery given to hold us
from despair, be gently lowered into the abysses of eternal
sleep.
Then I fell to reflecting upon the undertaking on which we were
bent, and what a wild one it was, and yet how strangely the story
seemed to fit in with what had been written centuries ago upon
the sherd. Who was this extraordinary woman, Queen over a people
apparently as extraordinary as herself, and reigning amidst the
vestiges of a lost civilisation? And what was the meaning of this
story of the Fire that gave unending life? Could it be possible
that any fluid or essence should exist which might so fortify
these fleshy walls that they should from age to age resist the
mines and batterings of decay? It was possible, though not
probable. The infinite continuation of life would not, as poor
Vincey said, be so marvellous a thing as the production of life
and its temporary endurance. And if it were true, what then? The
person who found it could no doubt rule the world. He could
accumulate all the wealth in the world, and all the power, and
all the wisdom that is power. He might give a lifetime to the
study of each art or science. Well, if that were so, and this
_She_ were practically immortal, which I did not for one moment
believe, how was it that, with all these things at her feet, she
preferred to remain in a cave amongst a society of cannibals?
This surely settled the question. The whole story was monstrous,
and only worthy of the superstitious days in which it was
written. At any rate I was very sure that _I_ would not attempt
to attain unending life. I had had far too many worries and
disappointments and secret bitternesses during my forty odd years
of existence to wish that this state of affairs should be
continued indefinitely. And yet I suppose that my life has been,
comparatively speaking, a happy one.
And then, reflecting that at the present moment there was far
more likelihood of our earthly careers being cut exceedingly
short than of their being unduly prolonged, I at last managed to
get to sleep, a fact for which anybody who reads this narrative,
if anybody ever does, may very probably be thankful.
When I woke again it was just dawning, and the guard and bearers
were moving about like ghosts through the dense morning mists,
getting ready for our start. The fire had died quite down, and I
rose and stretched myself, shivering in every limb from the damp
cold of the dawn. Then I looked at Leo. He was sitting up,
holding his hands to his head, and I saw that his face was
flushed and his eye bright, and yet yellow round the pupil.
“Well, Leo,” I said, “how do you feel?”
“I feel as though I were going to die,” he answered hoarsely. “My
head is splitting, my body is trembling, and I am as sick as a
cat.”
I whistled, or if I did not whistle I felt inclined to—Leo had
got a sharp attack of fever. I went to Job, and asked him for the
quinine, of which fortunately we had still a good supply, only to