She
find that Job himself was not much better. He complained of pains
across the back, and dizziness, and was almost incapable of
helping himself. Then I did the only thing it was possible to do
under the circumstances—gave them both about ten grains of
quinine, and took a slightly smaller dose myself as a matter of
precaution. After that I found Billali, and explained to him how
matters stood, asking at the same time what he thought had best
be done. He came with me, and looked at Leo and Job (whom, by the
way, he had named the Pig on account of his fatness, round face,
and small eyes).
“Ah,” he said, when we were out of earshot, “the fever! I thought
so. The Lion has it badly, but he is young, and he may live. As
for the Pig, his attack is not so bad; it is the ‘little fever’
which he has; that always begins with pains across the back, it
will spend itself upon his fat.”
“Can they go on, my father?” I asked.
“Nay, my son, they must go on. If they stop here they will
certainly die; also, they will be better in the litters than on
the ground. By to-night, if all goes well, we shall be across the
marsh and in good air. Come, let us lift them into the litters
and start, for it is very bad to stand still in this morning fog.
We can eat our meal as we go.”
This we accordingly did, and with a heavy heart I once more set
out upon our strange journey. For the first three hours all went
as well as could be expected, and then an accident happened that
nearly lost us the pleasure of the company of our venerable
friend Billali, whose litter was leading the cavalcade. We were
going through a particularly dangerous stretch of quagmire, in
which the bearers sometimes sank up to their knees. Indeed, it
was a mystery to me how they contrived to carry the heavy litters
at all over such ground as that which we were traversing, though
the two spare hands, as well as the four regular ones, had of
course to put their shoulders to the pole.
Presently, as we blundered and floundered along, there was a
sharp cry, then a storm of exclamations, and, last of all, a most
tremendous splash, and the whole caravan halted.
I jumped out of my litter and ran forward. About twenty yards
ahead was the edge of one of those sullen peaty pools of which I
have spoken, the path we were following running along the top of
its bank, that, as it happened, was a steep one. Looking towards
this pool, to my horror I saw that Billali’s litter was floating
on it, and as for Billali himself, he was nowhere to be seen. To
make matters clear I may as well explain at once what had
happened. One of Billali’s bearers had unfortunately trodden on a
basking snake, which had bitten him in the leg, whereon he had,
not unnaturally, let go of the pole, and then, finding that he
was tumbling down the bank, grasped at the litter to save
himself. The result of this was what might have been expected.
The litter was pulled over the edge of the bank, the bearers let
go, and the whole thing, including Billali and the man who had
been bitten, rolled into the slimy pool. When I got to the edge
of the water neither of them were to be seen; indeed, the
unfortunate bearer never was seen again. Either he struck his
head against something, or got wedged in the mud, or possibly the
snake-bite paralyzed him. At any rate he vanished. But though
Billali was not to be seen, his whereabouts was clear enough from
the agitation of the floating litter, in the bearing cloth and
curtains of which he was entangled.
“He is there! Our father is there!” said one of the men, but he
did not stir a finger to help him, nor did any of the others.
They simply stood and stared at the water.
“Out of the way, you brutes!” I shouted in English, and throwing
off my hat I took a run and sprang well out into the horrid
slimy-looking pool. A couple of strokes took me to where Billali
was struggling beneath the cloth.
Somehow, I do not quite know how, I managed to push it free of
him, and his venerable head all covered with green slime, like
that of a yellowish Bacchus with ivy leaves, emerged upon the
surface of the water. The rest was easy, for Billali was an
eminently practical individual, and had the common sense not to
grasp hold of me as drowning people often do, so I got him by the
arm, and towed him to the bank, through the mud of which we were
with difficulty dragged. Such a filthy spectacle as we presented
I have never seen before or since, and it will perhaps give some
idea of the almost superhuman dignity of Billali’s appearance
when I say that, coughing, half-drowned, and covered with mud and
green slime as he was, with his beautiful beard coming to a
dripping point, like a Chinaman’s freshly-oiled pig-tail, he
still looked venerable and imposing.
“Ye dogs,” he said, addressing the bearers, as soon as he had
sufficiently recovered to speak, “ye left me, your father, to
drown. Had it not been for this stranger, my son the Baboon,
assuredly I should have drowned. Well, I will remember it,” and
he fixed them with his gleaming though slightly watery eye, in a
way I saw that they did not like, though they tried to appear
sulkily indifferent.
“As for thee, my son,” the old man went on, turning towards me
and grasping my hand, “rest assured that I am thy friend through
good and evil. Thou hast saved my life: perchance a day may come
when I shall save thine.”
After that we cleaned ourselves as best we could, fished out the
litter, and went on, _minus_ the man who had been drowned. I do
not know if it was owing to his being an unpopular character, or
from native indifference and selfishness of temperament, but I am
bound to say that nobody seemed to grieve much over his sudden
and final disappearance, unless, perhaps, it was the men who had
to do his share of the work.
XI.
THE PLAIN OF KÔR
About an hour before sundown we at last, to my unbounded
gratitude, emerged from the great belt of marsh on to land that
swelled upwards in a succession of rolling waves. Just on the
hither side of the crest of the first wave we halted for the
night. My first act was to examine Leo’s condition. It was, if
anything, worse than in the morning, and a new and very
distressing feature, vomiting, set in, and continued till dawn.
Not one wink of sleep did I get that night, for I passed it in
assisting Ustane, who was one of the most gentle and
indefatigable nurses I ever saw, to wait upon Leo and Job.
However, the air here was warm and genial without being too hot,
and there were no mosquitoes to speak of. Also we were above the
level of the marsh mist, which lay stretched beneath us like the
dim smoke-pall over a city, lit up here and there by the
wandering globes of fen fire. Thus it will be seen that we were,
speaking comparatively, in clover.
By dawn on the following morning Leo was quite light-headed, and
fancied that he was divided into halves. I was dreadfully
distressed, and began to wonder with a sort of sick fear what the
end of the attack would be. Alas! I had heard but too much of how
these attacks generally terminate. As I was wondering Billali
came up and said that we must be getting on, more especially as,
in his opinion, if Leo did not reach some spot where he could be
quiet, and have proper nursing, within the next twelve hours, his
life would only be a matter of a day or two. I could not but
agree with him, so we got Leo into the litter, and started on,
Ustane walking by his side to keep the flies off him, and see
that he did not throw himself out on to the ground.
Within half an hour of sunrise we had reached the top of the rise
of which I have spoken, and a most beautiful view broke upon our
gaze. Beneath us was a rich stretch of country, verdant with
grass and lovely with foliage and flowers. In the background, at
a distance, so far as I could judge, of some eighteen miles from
where we then stood, a huge and extraordinary mountain rose
abruptly from the plain. The base of this great mountain appeared
to consist of a grassy slope, but rising from this, I should say,
from subsequent observation, at a height of about five hundred
feet above the level of the plain, was a most tremendous and
absolutely precipitous wall of bare rock, quite twelve or fifteen
hundred feet in height. The shape of the mountain, which was
undoubtedly of volcanic origin, was round, and of course, as only
a segment of its circle was visible, it was difficult to estimate
its exact size, which was enormous. I afterwards discovered that
it could not cover less than fifty square miles of ground.
Anything more grand and imposing than the sight presented by this
great natural castle, starting in solitary grandeur from the
level of the plain, I never saw, and I suppose I never shall. Its
very solitude added to its majesty, and its towering cliffs
seemed to kiss the sky. Indeed, generally speaking, they were
clothed in clouds that lay in fleecy masses upon their broad and
level battlements.
I sat up in my hammock and gazed out across the plain at this
thrilling and majestic sight, and I suppose that Billali noticed
it, for he brought his litter alongside.
“Behold the house of ‘_She-who-must-be-obeyed_!’” he said. “Had
ever a queen such a throne before?”
“It is wonderful, my father,” I answered. “But how do we enter?
Those cliffs look hard to climb.”
“Thou shalt see, my Baboon. Look now at the path below us. What
thinkest thou that it is? Thou art a wise man. Come, tell me.”
I looked, and saw what appeared to be the line of roadway running
straight towards the base of the mountain, though it was covered
with turf. There were high banks on each side of it, broken here
and there, but fairly continuous on the whole, the meaning of
which I did not understand. It seemed so very odd that anybody
should embank a roadway.
“Well, my father,” I answered, “I suppose that it is a road,
otherwise I should have been inclined to say that it was the bed
of a river, or rather,” I added, observing the extraordinary
directness of the cutting, “of a canal.”
Billali—who, by the way, was none the worse for his immersion of
the day before—nodded his head sagely as he replied—
“Thou art right, my son. It is a channel cut out by those who
were before us in this place to carry away water. Of this I am
sure: within the rocky circle of the mountain whither we journey
was once a great lake. But those who were before us, by wonderful
arts of which I know naught, hewed a path for the water through
the solid rock of the mountain, piercing even to the bed of the
lake. But first they cut the channel that thou seest across the
plain. Then, when at last the water burst out, it rushed down the
channel that had been made to receive it, and crossed this plain