Allan Quatermain
CHAPTER IX
INTO THE UNKNOWN
A week had passed, and we all sat at supper one night in
the Mission dining-room, feeling very much depressed in spirits, for the
reason that we were going to say goodbye to our kind friends, the
Mackenzies, and depart upon our way at dawn on the morrow. Nothing more
had been seen or heard of the Masai, and save for a spear or two which had
been overlooked and was rusting in the grass, and a few empty cartridges
where we had stood outside the wall, it would have been difficult to tell
that the old cattle kraal at the foot of the slope had been the scene of so
desperate a struggle. Mackenzie was, thanks chiefly to his being so
temperate a man, rapidly recovering from his wound, and could get about on
a pair of crutches; and as for the other wounded men, one had died of
gangrene, and the rest were in a fair way to recovery. Mr Mackenzie's
caravan of men had also returned from the coast, so that the station was
now amply garrisoned.
Under these circumstances we concluded, warm and
pressing as were the invitations for us to stay, that it was time to move
on, first to Mount Kenia, and thence into the unknown in search of the
mysterious white race which we had set our hearts on discovering. This time
we were going to progress by means of the humble but useful donkey, of
which we had collected no less than a dozen, to carry our goods and
chattels, and, if necessary, ourselves. We had now but two Wakwafis left
for servants, and found it quite impossible to get other natives to venture
with us into the unknown parts we proposed to explore -- and small blame to
them. After all, as Mr Mackenzie said, it was odd that three men, each of
whom possessed many of those things that are supposed to make life worth
living -- health, sufficient means, and position, etc. -- should from their
own pleasure start out upon a wild-goose chase, from which the chances were
they never would return. But then that is what Englishmen are, adventurers
to the backbone; and all our magnificent muster-roll of colonies, each of
which will in time become a great nation, testify to the extraordinary
value of the spirit of adventure which at first sight looks like a mild
form of lunacy. 'Adventurer' -- he that goes out to meet whatever may
come. Well, that is what we all do in the world one way or another, and,
speaking for myself, I am proud of the title, because it implies a brave
heart and a trust in Providence. Besides, when many and many a noted
Croesus, at whose feet the people worship, and many and many a time-serving
and word-coining politician are forgotten, the names of those grand-hearted
old adventurers who have made England what she is, will be remembered and
taught with love and pride to little children whose unshaped spirits yet
slumber in the womb of centuries to be. Not that we three can expect to be
numbered with such as these, yet have we done something -- enough, perhaps,
to throw a garment over the nakedness of our folly.
That evening, whilst we were sitting on the veranda,
smoking a pipe before turning in, who should come up to us but Alphonse,
and, with a magnificent bow, announce his wish for an interview. Being
requested to 'fire away', he explained at some length that he was anxious
to attach himself to our party -- a statement that astonished me not a
little, knowing what a coward the little man was. The reason, however,
soon appeared. Mr Mackenzie was going down to the coast, and thence on to
England. Now, if he went down country, Alphonse was persuaded that he
would be seized, extradited, sent to France, and to penal servitude. This
was the idea that haunted him, as King Charles's head haunted Mr Dick, and
he brooded over it till his imagination exaggerated the danger ten times.
As a matter of fact, the probability is that his offence against the laws
of his country had long ago been forgotten, and that he would have been
allowed to pass unmolested anywhere except in France; but he could not be
got to see this. Constitutional coward as the little man was, he infinitely
preferred to face the certain hardships and great risks and dangers of such
an expedition as ours, than to expose himself, notwithstanding his intense
longing for his native land, to the possible scrutiny of a police officer
-- which is after all only another exemplification of the truth that, to
the majority of men, a far-off foreseen danger, however shadowy, is much
more terrible than the most serious present emergency. After listening to
what he had to say, we consulted among ourselves, and finally agreed, with
Mr Mackenzie's knowledge and consent, to accept his offer. To begin with,
we were very short-handed, and Alphonse was a quick, active fellow, who
could turn his hand to anything, and cook -- ah, he could cook! I
believe that he would have made a palatable dish of those gaiters of his
heroic grandfather which he was so fond of talking about. Then he was a
good-tempered little man, and merry as a monkey, whilst his pompous,
vainglorious talk was a source of infinite amusement to us; and what is
more, he never bore malice. Of course, his being so pronounced a coward
was a great drawback to him, but now that we knew his weakness we could
more or less guard against it. So, after warning him of the undoubted
risks he was exposing himself to, we told him that we would accept his
offer on condition that he would promise implicit obedience to our orders.
We also promised to give him wages at the rate of ten pounds a month should
he ever return to a civilized country to receive them. To all of this he
agreed with alacrity, and retired to write a letter to his Annette, which
Mr Mackenzie promised to post when he got down country. He read it to us
afterwards, Sir Henry translating, and a wonderful composition it was. I
am sure the depth of his devotion and the narration of his sufferings in a
barbarous country, 'far, far from thee, Annette, for whose adored sake I
endure such sorrow,' ought to have touched the feelings of the
stoniest-hearted chambermaid.
Well, the morrow came, and by seven o'clock the donkeys
were all loaded, and the time of parting was at hand. It was a melancholy
business, especially saying goodbye to dear little Flossie. She and I were
great friends, and often used to have talks together -- but her nerves had
never got over the shock of that awful night when she lay in the power of
those bloodthirsty Masai. 'Oh, Mr Quatermain,' she cried, throwing her arms
round my neck and bursting into tears, 'I can't bear to say goodbye to you.
I wonder when we shall meet again?'
'I don't know, my dear little girl,' I said, 'I am at
one end of life and you are at the other. I have but a short time before
me at best, and most things lie in the past, but I hope that for you there
are many long and happy years, and everything lies in the future.
By-and-by you will grow into a beautiful woman, Flossie, and all this wild
life will be like a far-off dream to you; but I hope, even if we never do
meet again, that you will think of your old friend and remember what I say
to you now. Always try to be good, my dear, and to do what is right,
rather than what happens to be pleasant, for in the end, whatever sneering
people may say, what is good and what is happy are the same. Be unselfish,
and whenever you can, give a helping hand to others -- for the world is
full of suffering, my dear, and to alleviate it is the noblest end that we
can set before us. If you do that you will become a sweet and God-fearing
woman, and make many people's lives a little brighter, and then you will
not have lived, as so many of your sex do, in vain. And now I have given
you a lot of old-fashioned advice, and so I am going to give you something
to sweeten it with. You see this little piece of paper. It is what is
called a cheque. When we are gone give it to your father with this note --
not before, mind. You will marry one day, my dear little Flossie, and it
is to buy you a wedding present which you are to wear, and your daughter
after you, if you have one, in remembrance of Hunter Quatermain.'
Poor little Flossie cried very much, and gave me a lock
of her bright hair in return, which I still have. The cheque I gave her
was for a thousand pounds (which being now well off, and having no calls
upon me except those of charity, I could well afford), and in the note I
directed her father to invest it for her in Government security, and when
she married or came of age to buy her the best diamond necklace he could
get for the money and accumulated interest. I chose diamonds because I
think that now that King Solomon's Mines are lost to the world, their price
will never be much lower than it is at present, so that if in after-life
she should ever be in pecuniary difficulties, she will be able to turn them
into money.
Well, at last we got off, after much hand-shaking,
hat-waving, and also farewell saluting from the natives, Alphonse weeping
copiously (for he has a warm heart) at parting with his master and
mistress; and I was not sorry for it at all, for I hate those goodbyes.
Perhaps the most affecting thing of all was to witness Umslopogaas'
distress at parting with Flossie, for whom the grim old warrior had
conceived a strong affection. He used to say that she was as sweet to see
as the only star on a dark night, and was never tired of loudly
congratulating himself on having killed the Lygonani who had threatened to
murder her. And that was the last we saw of the pleasant Mission-house --
a true oasis in the desert -- and of European civilization. But I often
think of the Mackenzies, and wonder how they got down country, and if they
are now safe and well in England, and will ever see these words. Dear
little Flossie! I wonder how she fares there where there are no black folk
to do her imperious bidding, and no sky-piercing snow-clad Kenia for her to
look at when she gets up in the morning. And so goodbye to Flossie.
After leaving the Mission-house we made our way,
comparatively unmolested, past the base of Mount Kenia, which the Masai
call 'Donyo Egere', or the 'speckled mountain', on account of the black
patches of rock that appear upon its mighty spire, where the sides are too
precipitous to allow of the snow lying on them; then on past the lonely
lake Baringo, where one of our two remaining Askari, having unfortunately
trodden on a puff-adder, died of snake-bite, in spite of all our efforts to
save him. Thence we proceeded a distance of about a hundred and fifty
miles to another magnificent snow-clad mountain called Lekakisera, which
has never, to the best of my belief, been visited before by a European, but
which I cannot now stop to describe. There we rested a fortnight, and then
started out into the trackless and uninhabited forest of a vast district
called Elgumi. In this forest alone there are more elephants than I ever
met with or heard of before. The mighty mammals literally swarm there
entirely unmolested by man, and only kept down by the natural law that
prevents any animals increasing beyond the capacity of the country they
inhabit to support them. Needless to say, however, we did not shoot many
of them, first because we could not afford to waste ammunition, of which
our stock was getting perilously low, a donkey loaded with it having been
swept away in fording a flooded river; and secondly, because we could not
carry away the ivory, and did not wish to kill for the mere sake of
slaughter. So we let the great beasts be, only shooting one or two in
self-protection. In this district, the elephants, being unacquainted with
the hunter and his tender mercies, would allow one to walk up to within
twenty yards of them in the open, while they stood, with their great ears
cocked for all the world like puzzled and gigantic puppy-dogs, and stared
at that new and extraordinary phenomenon -- man. Occasionally, when the
inspection did not prove satisfactory, the staring ended in a trumpet and a
charge, but this did not often happen. When it did we had to use our
rifles. Nor were elephants the only wild beasts in the great Elgumi
forest. All sorts of large game abounded, including lions -- confound
them! I have always hated the sight of a lion since one bit my leg and
lamed me for life. As a consequence, another thing that abounded was the
dreadful tsetse fly, whose bite is death to domestic animals. Donkeys
have, together with men, hitherto been supposed to enjoy a peculiar
immunity from its attacks; but all I have to say, whether it was on account
of their poor condition, or because the tsetse in those parts is more
poisonous than usual, I do not know, but ours succumbed to its onslaught.
Fortunately, however, that was not till two months or so after the bites
had been inflicted, when suddenly, after a two days' cold rain, they all
died, and on removing the skins of several of them I found the long yellow
streaks upon the flesh which are characteristic of death from bites from
the tsetse, marking the spot where the insect had inserted his proboscis.
On emerging from the great Elgumi forest, we, still steering northwards, in
accordance with the information Mr Mackenzie had collected from the
unfortunate wanderer who reached him only to die so tragically, struck the
base in due course of the large lake, called Laga by the natives, which is
about fifty miles long by twenty broad, and of which, it may be remembered,
he made mention. Thence we pushed on nearly a month's journey over great
rolling uplands, something like those in the Transvaal, but diversified by
patches of bush country.
All this time we were continually ascending at the rate
of about one hundred feet every ten miles. Indeed the country was on a
slope which appeared to terminate at a mass of snow-tipped mountains, for
which we were steering, and where we learnt the second lake of which the
wanderer had spoken as the lake without a bottom was situated. At length
we arrived there, and, having ascertained that there was a large
lake on top of the mountains, ascended three thousand feet more till we
came to a precipitous cliff or edge, to find a great sheet of water some
twenty miles square lying fifteen hundred feet below us, and evidently
occupying an extinct volcanic crater or craters of vast extent. Perceiving
villages on the border of this lake, we descended with great difficulty
through forests of pine trees, which now clothed the precipitous sides of
the crater, and were well received by the people, a simple, unwarlike folk,
who had never seen or even heard of a white man before, and treated us with
great reverence and kindness, supplying us with as much food and milk as we
could eat and drink. This wonderful and beautiful lake lay, according to
our aneroid, at a height of no less than 11,450 feet above sea-level, and
its climate was quite cold, and not at all unlike that of England. Indeed,
for the first three days of our stay there we saw little or nothing of the
scenery on account of an unmistakable Scotch mist which prevailed. It was
this rain that set the tsetse poison working in our remaining donkeys, so
that they all died.
This disaster left us in a very awkward position, as we
had now no means of transport whatever, though on the other hand we had not
much to carry. Ammunition, too, was very short, amounting to but one
hundred and fifty rounds of rifle cartridges and some fifty shot-gun
cartridges. How to get on we did not know; indeed it seemed to us that we
had about reached the end of our tether. Even if we had been inclined to
abandon the object of our search, which, shadow as it was, was by no means
the case, it was ridiculous to think of forcing our way back some seven
hundred miles to the coast in our present plight; so we came to the
conclusion that the only thing to be done was to stop where we were -- the
natives being so well disposed and food plentiful -- for the present, and
abide events, and try to collect information as to the countries
beyond.
Accordingly, having purchased a capital log canoe, large
enough to hold us all and our baggage, from the headman of the village we
were staying in, presenting him with three empty cold-drawn brass
cartridges by way of payment, with which he was perfectly delighted, we set
out to make a tour of the lake in order to find the most favourable place
to make a camp. As we did not know if we should return to this village, we
put all our gear into the canoe, and also a quarter of cooked water-buck,
which when young is delicious eating, and off we set, natives having
already gone before us in light canoes to warn the inhabitants of the other
villages of our approach.
As we were puddling leisurely along Good remarked upon
the extraordinary deep blue colour of the water, and said that he
understood from the natives, who were great fishermen -- fish, indeed,
being their principal food -- that the lake was supposed to be wonderfully
deep, and to have a hole at the bottom through which the water escaped and
put out some great fire that was raging below.
I pointed out to him that what he had heard was probably
a legend arising from a tradition among the people which dated back to the
time when one of the extinct parasitic volcanic cones was in activity. We
saw several round the borders of the lake which had no doubt been working
at a period long subsequent to the volcanic death of the central crater
which now formed the bed of the lake itself. When it finally became
extinct the people would imagine that the water from the lake had run down
and put out the big fire below, more especially as, though it was
constantly fed by streams running from the snow-tipped peaks about, there
was no visible exit to it.
The farther shore of the lake we found, on approaching
it, to consist of a vast perpendicular wall of rock, which held the water
without any intermediate sloping bank, as elsewhere. Accordingly we
paddled parallel with this precipice, at a distance of about a hundred
paces from it, shaping our course for the end of the lake, where we knew
that there was a large village.
As we went we began to pass a considerable accumulation
of floating rushes, weed, boughs of trees, and other rubbish, brought, Good
supposed, to this spot by some current, which he was much puzzled to
account for. Whilst we were speculating about this, Sir Henry pointed out
a flock of large white swans, which were feeding on the drift some little
way ahead of us. Now I had already noticed swans flying about this lake,
and, having never come across them before in Africa, was exceedingly
anxious to obtain a specimen. I had questioned the natives about them, and
learnt that they came from over the mountain, always arriving at certain
periods of the year in the early morning, when it was very easy to catch
them, on account of their exhausted condition. I also asked them what
country they came from, when they shrugged their shoulders, and said that
on the top of the great black precipice was stony inhospitable land, and
beyond that were mountains with snow, and full of wild beasts, where no
people lived, and beyond the mountains were hundreds of miles of dense
thorn forest, so thick that even the elephants could not get through it,
much less men. Next I asked them if they had ever heard of white people
like ourselves living on the farther side of the mountains and the thorn
forest, whereat they laughed. But afterwards a very old woman came and
told me that when she was a little girl her grandfather had told her that
in his youth his grandfather had crossed the desert and the
mountains, and pierced the thorn forest, and seen a white people who lived
in stone kraals beyond. Of course, as this took the tale back some two
hundred and fifty years, the information was very indefinite; but still
there it was again, and on thinking it over I grew firmly convinced that
there was some truth in all these rumours, and equally firmly determined to
solve the mystery. Little did I guess in what an almost miraculous way my
desire was to be gratified.
Well, we set to work to stalk the swans, which kept
drawing, as they fed, nearer and nearer to the precipice, and at last we
pushed the canoe under shelter of a patch of drift within forty yards of
them. Sir Henry had the shot-gun, loaded with No. 1, and, waiting for a
chance, got two in a line, and, firing at their necks, killed them both.
Up rose the rest, thirty or more of them, with a mighty splashing; and, as
they did so, he gave them the other barrel. Down came one fellow with a
broken wing, and I saw the leg of another drop and a few feathers start out
of his back; but he went on quite strong. Up went the swans, circling ever
higher till at last they were mere specks level with the top of the
frowning precipice, when I saw them form into a triangle and head off for
the unknown north-east. Meanwhile we had picked up our two dead ones, and
beautiful birds they were, weighing not less than about thirty pounds each,
and were chasing the winged one, which had scrambled over a mass of
driftweed into a pool of clear water beyond. Finding a difficulty in
forcing the canoe through the rubbish, I told our only remaining Wakwafi
servant, whom I knew to be an excellent swimmer, to jump over, dive under
the drift, and catch him, knowing that as there were no crocodiles in this
lake he could come to no harm. Entering into the fun of the thing, the man
obeyed, and soon was dodging about after the winged swan in fine style,
getting gradually nearer to the rock wall, against which the water washed
as he did so.
Presently he gave up swimming after the swan, and began
to cry out that he was being carried away; and, indeed, we saw that, though
he was swimming with all his strength towards us, he was being drawn slowly
to the precipice. With a few desperate strokes of our paddles we pushed
the canoe through the crust of drift and rowed towards the man as hard as
we could, but, fast as we went, he was drawn faster to the rock. Suddenly
I saw that before us, just rising eighteen inches or so above the surface
of the lake, was what looked like the top of the arch of a submerged cave
or railway tunnel. Evidently, from the watermark on the rock several feet
above it, it was generally entirely submerged; but there had been a dry
season, and the cold had prevented the snow from melting as freely as
usual; so the lake was low and the arch showed. Towards this arch our poor
servant was being sucked with frightful rapidity. He was not more than ten
fathoms from it, and we were about twenty when I saw it, and with little
help from us the canoe flew along after him. He struggled bravely, and I
thought that we should have saved him, when suddenly I perceived an
expression of despair come upon his face, and there before our eyes he was
sucked down into the cruel swirling blue depths, and vanished. At the same
moment I felt our canoe seized as with a mighty hand, and propelled with
resistless force towards the rock.
We realized our danger now and rowed, or rather paddled,
furiously in our attempt to get out of the vortex. In vain; in another
second we were flying straight for the arch like an arrow, and I thought
that we were lost. Luckily I retained sufficient presence of mind to shout
out, instantly setting the example by throwing myself into the bottom of
the canoe, 'Down on your faces -- down!' and the others had the sense to
take the hint. In another instant there was a grinding noise, and the boat
was pushed down till the water began to trickle over the sides, and I
thought that we were gone. But no, suddenly the grinding ceased, and we
could again feel the canoe flying along. I turned my head a little -- I
dared not lift it -- and looked up. By the feeble light that yet reached
the canoe, I could make out that a dense arch of rock hung just over our
heads, and that was all. In another minute I could not even see as much as
that, for the faint light had merged into shadow, and the shadows had been
swallowed up in darkness, utter and complete.
For an hour or so we lay there, not daring to lift our
heads for fear lest the brains should be dashed out of them, and scarcely
able to speak even, on account of the noise of the rushing water which
drowned our voices. Not, indeed, that we had much inclination to speak,
seeing that we were overwhelmed by the awfulness of our position and the
imminent fear of instant death, either by being dashed against the sides of
the cavern, or on a rock, or being sucked down in the raging waters, or
perhaps asphyxiated by want of air. All of these and many other modes of
death presented themselves to my imagination as I lay at the bottom of the
canoe, listening to the swirl of the hurrying waters which ran whither we
knew not. One only other sound could I hear, and that was Alphonse's
intermittent howl of terror coming from the centre of the canoe, and even
that seemed faint and unnatural. Indeed, the whole thing overpowered my
brain, and I began to believe that I was the victim of some ghastly
spirit-shaking nightmare.