THE RESCUE FAILS
Our breakfast on the following morning was a somewhat gloomy meal. By
common consent no allusion was made to the events of the previous day,
or to our conversation at bedtime.
Indeed, there was no talk at all to speak of, since, not knowing what
else to do, I thought I could best show my attitude of mind by
preserving a severe silence, while Quick seemed to be absorbed in
philosophical reflections, and Orme looked rather excited and
dishevelled, as though he had been writing poetry, as I daresay was the
case. In the midst of this dreary meal a messenger arrived, who
announced that the Walda Nagasta would be pleased to see us all within
half-an-hour.
Fearing lest Orme should say something foolish, I answered briefly that
we would wait upon her, and the man went, leaving us wondering what had
happened to cause her to desire our presence.
At the appointed time we were shown into the small audience room, and,
as we passed its door, I ventured to whisper to Oliver:
“For your own sake and hers, as well as that of the rest of us, I
implore you to be careful. Your face is watched as well as your
words.”
“All right, old fellow,” he answered, colouring a little.
“You may trust me.”
“I wish I could,” I muttered.
Then we were shown in ceremoniously, and made our bows to Maqueda, who
was seated, surrounded by some of the judges and officers, among them,
Prince Joshua, and talking to two rough-looking men clad in ordinary
brown robes. She greeted us, and after the exchange of the usual
compliments, said:
“Friends, I have summoned you for this reason. This morning when the
traitor Shadrach was being led out to execution at the hands of these
men, the officers of the law, he begged for a delay. When asked why, as
his petition for reprieve had been refused, he said that if his life
was spared he could show how your companion, he whom they call Black
Windows, may be rescued from the Fung.”
“How?” asked Orme and I in one breath.
“I do not know,” she answered, “but wisely they spared the
man. Let him be brought in.”
A door opened, and Shadrach entered, his hands bound behind his back and
shackles on his feet. He was a very fearful and much chastened Shadrach,
for his eyes rolled and his teeth chattered with terror, as, having
prostrated himself to the Walda Nagasta, he wriggled round and tried to
kiss Orme’s boot. The guards pulled him to his feet again, and
Maqueda said:
“What have you to tell us, traitor, before you die?”
“The thing is secret, O Bud of the Rose. Must I speak before so
many?”
“Nay,” she answered, and ordered most of those present to leave the
room, including the executioners and soldiers.
“The man is desperate, and there will be none left to guard him,”
said Joshua nervously.
“I’ll do that, your Highness,” answered Quick in his bad
Arabic, and stepping up behind Shadrach he added in English, “Now
then, Pussy, you behave, or it will be the worse for you.”
When all had gone again Shadrach was commanded to speak and say how he
could save the Englishman whom he had betrayed into the hands of the
Fung.
“Thus, Child of Kings,” he answered, “Black Windows, as we
know, is imprisoned in the body of the great idol.”
“How do you know it, man?”
“O Lady, I do know it, and also the Sultan said so, did he not? Well,
I can show a secret road to that idol whence he may be reached and
rescued. In my boyhood I, who am called Cat, because I can climb so
well, found that road, and when the Fung took me afterward and threw me
to the lions, where I got these scars upon my face, by it I escaped.
Spare me, and I will show it to you.”
“It is not enough to show the road,” said Maqueda. “Dog, you
must save the foreign lord whom you betrayed. If you do not save him you
die. Do you understand?”
“That is a hard saying, Lady,” answered the man. “Am I God
that I should promise to save this stranger who perchance is already
dead? Yet I will do my best, knowing that if I fail you will kill me,
and that if I succeed I shall be spared. At any rate, I will show you
the road to where he is or was imprisoned, although I warn you that it
is a rough one.”
“Where you can travel we can follow,” said Maqueda. “Tell us
now what we must do.”
So he told her, and when he had done the Prince Joshua intervened,
saying that it was not fitting that the Child of Kings in her own
sacred person should undertake such a dangerous journey. She listened
to his remonstrances and thanked him for his care of her.
“Still I am going,” she said, “not for the sake of the
stranger who is called Black Windows, but because, if there is a secret
way out of Mur I think it well that I should know that way. Yet I agree
with you, my uncle, that on such a journey I ought not to be
unprotected, and therefore I pray that you will be ready to start with
us at noon, since I am sure that then we shall all be safe.”
Now Joshua began to make excuses, but she would not listen to them.
“No, no,” she said, “you are too honest. The honour of the
Abati is involved in this manner, since, alas! it was an Abati that
betrayed Black Windows, and an Abati—namely, yourself—must save
him. You have often told me, my uncle, how clever you are at climbing
rocks, and now you shall make proof of your skill and courage before
these foreigners. It is a command, speak no more,” and she rose, to
show that the audience was finished.
That same afternoon Shadrach, by mountain paths that were known to him,
led a little company of people to the crest of the western precipice of
Mur. Fifteen hundred feet or more beneath us lay the great plains upon
which, some miles away, could be seen the city of Harmac. But the idol
in the valley we could not see, because here the precipice bent over
and hid it from our sight.
“What now, fellow,” said Maqueda, who was clad in the rough
sheepskin of a peasant woman, which somehow looked charming upon her.
“Here is the cliff, there lies the plain; I see no road between the
two, and my wise uncle, the prince, tells me that he never heard of
one.”
“Lady,” answered the man, “now I take command, and you must
follow me. But first let us see that nobody and nothing are lacking.”
Then he went round the company and numbered them. In all we were
sixteen; Maqueda and Joshua, we three Englishmen, armed with repeating
rifles and revolvers, our guide Shadrach, and some picked Mountaineers
chosen for their skill and courage. For even in Mur there were brave
men left, especially among the shepherds and huntsmen, whose homes were
on the cliffs. These sturdy guides were laden with ropes, lamps, and
long, slender ladders that could be strapped together.
When everything had been checked and all the ladders and straps tested,
Shadrach went to a clump of bushes which grew feebly on the wind-swept
crest of the precipice. In the midst of these he found and removed a
large flat stone, revealing what evidently had been the head of a
stair, although now its steps were much worn and crumbled by the water
that in the wet season followed this natural drain to the depths below.
“This is that road the ancients made for purposes of their own,”
explained Shadrach, “which, as I have said, I chanced to discover when
I was a boy. But let none follow it who are afraid, for it is steep and
rough.”
Now Joshua, who was already weary with his long ride and walk up to the
crest of the precipice, implored Maqueda almost passionately to abandon
the idea of entering this horrid hole, while Oliver backed up his
entreaties with few words but many appealing glances, for on this
point, though for different reasons, the prince and he were at one.
But she would not listen.
“My uncle,” she said, “with you, the experienced mountaineer,
why should I be afraid? If the Doctor here, who is old enough to be the
father of either of us” (so far as Joshua was concerned this remark
lacked truth), “is willing to go, surely I can go also? Moreover, if
I remained behind, you would wish to stay to guard me, and never should
I forgive myself if I deprived you of such a great adventure. Also,
like you, I love climbing. Come, let us waste no more time.”
So we were roped up. First went Shadrach, with Quick next to him, a
position which the Sergeant insisted upon occupying as his custodian,
and several of the Mountaineers, carrying ladders, lamps, oil, food and
other things. Then in a second gang came two more of these men, Oliver,
Maqueda, myself, and next to me, Joshua. The remaining mountaineers
brought up the rear, carrying spare stores, ladders, and so forth. When
all was ready the lamps were lit, and we started upon a very strange
journey.
For the first two hundred feet or so the stairs, though worn and almost
perpendicular, for the place was like the shaft of a mine, were not
difficult to descend, to any of us except Joshua, whom I heard puffing
and groaning behind me. Then came a gallery running eastward at a steep
slope for perhaps fifty paces, and at the end of it a second shaft of
about the same depth as the first, but with the stairs much more worn,
apparently by the washing of water, of which a good deal trickled out
of the sides of the shaft. Another difficulty was that the air rushing
up from below made it hard to keep the lamps alight.
Toward the bottom of this section there was scarcely any stair left, and
the climbing became very dangerous. Here, indeed, Joshua slipped, and
with a wail of terror slid down the shaft and landed with his legs
across my back in such a fashion that had I not happened to have good
hand and foot hold at the time, he would have propelled me on to
Maqueda, and we must have all rolled down headlong, probably to our
deaths.
As it was, this fat and terrified fellow cast his arms about my neck, to
which he clung, nearly choking me, until, just when I was about to
faint beneath his weight and pressure, the Mountaineers in the third
party arrived and dragged him off. When they had got him in charge, for
I refused to move another step while he was immediately behind me, we
descended by a ladder which the first party had set up, to the second
level, where began another long, eastward sloping passage that ended at
the mouth of a third pit.
Here arose the great question as to what was to be done with the Prince
Joshua, who vowed that he could go no farther, and demanded loudly to
be taken back to the top of the cliff, although Shadrach assured him
that thenceforward the road was much easier. At length we were obliged
to refer the matter to Maqueda, who settled it in very few words.
“My uncle,” she said, “you tell us that you cannot come on,
and it is certain that we cannot spare the time and men to send you
back. Therefore, it seems that you must stop where you are until we
return, and if we should not return, make the best of your own way up
the shaft. Farewell, my uncle, this place is safe and comfortable, and
if you are wise you will rest awhile.”
“Heartless woman!” gobbled Joshua, who was shaking like a jelly
with fear and rage. “Would you leave your affianced lord and lover
alone in this haunted hole while you scramble down rocks like a wild
cat with strangers? If I must stay, do you stay with me?”
“Certainly not,” replied Maqueda with decision. “Shall it be
said that the Child of Kings is afraid to go where her guests can
travel?”
Well, the end of it was that Joshua came on in the centre of the third
body of Mountaineers, who were practically obliged to carry him.
Shadrach was right, since for some reason or other the stairs
thenceforward remained more perfect. Only they seemed almost endless,
and before we reached our goal I calculated that we must have descended
quite twelve hundred feet into the bowels of the rock. At length, when
I was almost tired out and Maqueda was so breathless that she was
obliged to lean on Oliver, dragging me behind her like a dog on a
string, of a sudden we saw a glimmer of daylight that crept into the
tunnel through a small hole. By the mouth of yet another pit or shaft,
we found Shadrach and the others waiting for us. Saluting, he said that
we must unrope, leave our lamps behind, and follow him. Oliver asked
him whither this last shaft led.
“To a still lower level, lord,” he answered, “but one which
you will scarcely care to explore, since it ends in the great pit where
the Fung keep their sacred lions.”
“Indeed,” said Oliver, much interested for reasons of his own, and
he glanced at Quick, who nodded his head and whistled.
Then we all followed Shadrach to find ourselves presently upon a plateau
about the size of a racquet court which, either by nature or by the
hand of man, had been recessed into the face of that gigantic cliff.
Going to the edge of this plateau, whereon grew many tree-ferns and
some thick green bushes that would have made us invisible from below
even had there been any one to see us, we saw that the sheer precipice
ran down beneath for several hundred feet. Of these yawning depths,
however, we did not at the moment make out much, partly because they
were plunged in shadow and partly for another reason.
Rising out of the gulf below was what we took at first to be a rounded
hill of black rock, oblong in shape, from which projected a gigantic
shaft of stone ending in a kind of fretted bush that alone was of the
size of a cottage. The point of this bush-like rock was exactly
opposite the little plateau on to which we had emerged and distant from
it not more than thirty, or at most, forty feet.
“What is that?” asked Maqueda, of Shadrach, pointing in front of
her, as she handed back to one of the Mountaineers a cup from which she
had been drinking water.
“That, O Walda Nagasta,” he answered, “is nothing else than
the back of the mighty idol of the Fung, which is shaped like a lion.
The great shaft of rock with the bush at the end of it is the tail of
the lion. Doubtless this platform on which we stand is a place whence
the old priests, when they owned Mur as well as the land of the Fung,
used to hide themselves to watch whatever it was they wanted to see.
Look,” and he pointed to certain grooves in the face of the rock,
“I think that here there was once a bridge which could be let down at
will on to the tail of the lion-god, though long ago it has rotted
away. Yet ere now I have travelled this road without it.”
We stared at him astonished, and in the silence that followed I heard
Maqueda whisper to Oliver:
“Perhaps that is how he whom we call Cat escaped from the Fung; or
perhaps that is how he communicates with them as a spy.”
“Or perhaps he is a liar, my Lady,” interrupted Quick, who had also
overheard their talk, a solution which, I confess, commended itself to
me.
“Why have you brought us here?” asked Maqueda presently.
“Did I not tell you in Mur, Lady—to rescue Black Windows? Listen,
now, it is the custom of the Fung to allow those who are imprisoned
within the idol to walk unguarded upon its back at dawn and sunset. At
least, this is their custom with Black Windows—ask me not how I know
it; this is truth, I swear it on my life, which is at stake. Now this
is my plan. We have with us a ladder which will reach from where we
stand to the tail of the idol. Should the foreign lord appear upon the
back of the god, which, if he still lives, as I believe he does, he is
almost sure to do at sundown, as a man who dwells in the dark all day
will love the light and air when he can get them, then some of us must
cross and bring him back with us. Perhaps it had best be you, my lord
Orme, since if I went alone, or even with these men, after what is past
Black Windows might not altogether trust me.”
“Fool,” broke in Maqueda, “how can a man do such a
thing?”
“O Lady, it is not so difficult as it looks. A few steps across the
gulf, and then a hundred feet or so along the tail of the lion which is
flat on the top and so broad that one may run down it if careful to
follow the curves, that is on a still day—nothing more. But, of
course, if the Lord Orme is afraid, which I did not think who have
heard so much of his courage——” and the rogue shrugged his
shoulders and paused.
“Afraid, fellow,” said Oliver, “well, I am not ashamed to be
afraid of such a journey. Yet if there is need I will make it, though
not before I see my brother alone yonder on the rock, since all this
may be but a trick of yours to deliver me to the Fung, among whom I
know that you have friends.”
“It is madness; you shall not go,” said Maqueda. “You will
fall and be dashed to pieces. I say that you shall not go.”
“Why should he not go, my niece?” interrupted Joshua.
“Shadrach is right; we have heard much of the courage of this Gentile.
Now let us see him do something.”
She turned on the Prince like a tiger.
“Very good, my uncle, then you shall go with him. Surely one of the
ancient blood of the Abati will not shirk from what a ‘Gentile’
dares.”
On hearing this Joshua relapsed into silence, and I have no clear memory
of what he did or said in connection with the rest of that thrilling
scene.
Now followed a pause in the midst of which Oliver sat down and began to
take off his boots.
“Why do you undress yourself, friend?” asked Maqueda nervously.
“Because, Lady,” he answered, “if I have to walk yonder road
it is safer to do so in my stockings. Have no fear,” he added gently,
“from boyhood I have been accustomed to such feats, and when I served
in my country’s army it was my pleasure to give instruction in them,
although it is true that this one surpasses all that ever I
attempted.”
“Still I do fear,” she said.
Meanwhile Quick had sat down and begun to take off _his_ boots.
“What are you doing, Sergeant?” I asked.
“Getting ready to accompany the Captain upon forlorn hope, Doctor.”
“Nonsense,” I said, “you are too old for the game, Sergeant.
If any one goes, I should, seeing that I believe my son is over there,
but I can’t try it, as I know my head would give out, and I should
fall in a second, which would only upset everybody.”
“Of course,” broke in Oliver, who had overheard us,
“I’m in command here, and my orders are that neither of you shall
come. Remember, Sergeant, that if anything happens to me it is your
business to take over the stores and use them if necessary, which you
alone can do. Now go and see to the preparations, and find out the plan
of campaign, for I want to rest and keep quiet. I daresay the whole
thing is humbug, and we shall see nothing of the Professor; still, one
may as well be prepared.”
So Quick and I went to superintend the lashing of two of the light
ladders together and the securing of some planks which we had brought
with us upon the top of the rungs, so as to make these ladders easy to
walk on. I asked who would be of the party besides Shadrach and Orme,
and was told no one, as all were afraid. Ultimately, however, a man
named Japhet, one of the Mountaineers, volunteered upon being promised
a grant of land from the Child of Kings herself, which grant she
proclaimed before them all was to be given to his relatives in the
event of his death.
At length everything was ready, and there came another spell of silence,
for the nerves of all of us were so strained that we did not seem able
to talk. It was broken by a sound of sudden and terrible roaring that
arose from the gulf beneath.
“It is the hour of the feeding of the sacred lions which the Fung keep
in the pit about the base of the idol,” explained Shadrach. Then he
added, “Unless he should be rescued, I believe that Black Windows
will be given to the lions to-night, which is that of full moon and a
festival of Harmac, though maybe he will be kept till the next full
moon when all the Fung come up to worship.”
This information did not tend to raise anyone’s spirits, although
Quick, who always tried to be cheerful, remarked that it was probably
false.
The shadows began to gather in the Valley of Harmac, whereby we knew
that the sun was setting behind the mountains. Indeed, had it not been
for a clear and curious glow reflected from the eastern sky, the gulf
would have plunged us in gloom. Presently, far away upon a rise of rock
which we knew must be the sphinx head of the huge idol, a little figure
appeared outlined against the sky, and there began to sing. The moment
that I heard the distant voice I went near to fainting, and indeed
should have fallen had not Quick caught me.
“What is it, Adams?” asked Oliver, looking up from where he and
Maqueda sat whispering to each other while the fat Joshua glowered at
them in the background. “Has Higgs appeared?”
“No,” I answered, “but, thank God, my son still lives. That
is his voice. Oh! if you can, save him, too.”
Now there was much suppressed excitement, and some one thrust a pair of
field-glasses into my hand, but either they were wrongly set or the
state of my nerves would not allow me to see through them. So Quick
took them and reported.
“Tall, slim figure wearing a white robe, but at the distance in this
light can’t make out the face. One might hail him, perhaps, only it
would give us away. Ah! the hymn is done and he’s gone; seemed to
jump into a hole in the rock, which shows that he’s all right,
anyway, or he couldn’t jump. So cheer up, Doctor, for you have much
to be thankful for.”
“Yes,” I repeated after him, “much to be thankful for, but
still I would that I had more after all these years to search. To think
that I should be so close to him and he know nothing of it.”
After the ceasing of the song and the departure of my son, there
appeared upon the back of the idol three Fung warriors, fine fellows
clad in long robes and armed with spears, and behind them a trumpeter
who carried a horn or hollowed elephant’s tusk. These men marched up
and down the length of the platform from the rise of the neck to the
root of the tail, apparently to make an inspection. Having found
nothing, for, of course, they could not see us hidden behind the bushes
on our little plateau, of which no doubt they did not even know the
existence, and much less that it was connected with the mountain plain
of Mur, the trumpeter blew a shrill blast upon his horn, and before the
echoes of it had died away, vanished with his companions.
“Sunset tour of inspection. Seen the same kind of thing as at
Gib.,” said the Sergeant. “Oh! by Jingo! Pussy isn’t lying
after all—there he is,” and he pointed to a figure that rose
suddenly out of the black stone of the idol’s back just as the guards
had done.
It was Higgs, Higgs without a doubt; Higgs wearing his battered
sun-helmet and his dark spectacles; Higgs smoking his big meerschaum
pipe, and engaged in making notes in a pocket-book as calmly as though
he sat before a new object in the British Museum.
I gasped with astonishment, for somehow I had never expected that we
should really see him, but Orme, rising very quietly from his seat
beside Maqueda, only said:
“Yes, that’s the old fellow right enough. Well, now for it. You,
Shadrach, run out your ladder and cross first that I may be sure you
play no trick.”
“Nay,” broke in Maqueda, “this dog shall not go, for never
would he return from his friends the Fung. Man,” she said, addressing
Japhet, the Mountaineer to whom she had promised land, “go you over
first and hold the end of the ladder while this lord crosses. If he
returns safe your reward is doubled.”
Japhet saluted, the ladder was run out and its end set upon the
roughnesses in the rock that represented the hair of the sphinx’s
tail. The Mountaineer paused a moment with hands and face uplifted;
evidently he was praying. Then bidding his companions hold the hither
end of the ladder, and having first tested it with his foot and found
that it hung firm, calmly he walked across, being a brave fellow, and
presently was seen seated on the opposing mass of rock.
Now came Oliver’s turn. He nodded to Maqueda, who went white as a
sheet, muttering some words to her that did not reach me. Then he
turned and shook my hand.
“If you can, save my son also,” I whispered.
“I’ll do my best if I can get hold of him,” he answered.
“Sergeant, if anything happens to me you know your duty.”
“I’ll try and follow your example, Captain, under all
circumstances, though that will be hard,” replied Quick in a rather
shaky voice.
Oliver stepped out on the ladder. I reckoned that twelve or fourteen
short paces would take him across, and the first half of these he
accomplished with quiet certainty. When he was in the exact middle of
the passage, however, the end of one of the uprights of the ladder at
the farther side slipped a little, notwithstanding the efforts of
Japhet to keep it straight, with the result that the plank bound on the
rungs lost its level, sinking an inch or so to the right, and nearly
causing Oliver to fall from it into the gulf. He wavered like a
wind-shaken reed, attempted to step forward, hesitated, stopped, and
slowly sank on to his hands and knees.
“_Ah_!” panted Maqueda.
“The Gentile has lost his head,” began Joshua in a voice full of
the triumph that he could not hide. “He—will——”
Joshua got no further, for Quick, turning, threatened him savagely with
his fist, saying in English:
“Stow your jaw if you don’t want to follow him, you swine,”
whereon Joshua, who understood the gesture, if not the words, relapsed
into silence.
Now the Mountaineer on the farther side spoke, saying:
“Have no fear, the ladder is safe.”
For a moment Oliver remained in his crouching posture on the board,
which was all that separated him from an awful death in the gulf
beneath. Next, while we watched, agonized, he rose to his feet again,
and with perfect calmness walked across to its other end.
“Well done our side!” said Quick, addressing Joshua, “why
don’t your Royal Highness cheer? No, you leave that knife alone, or
presently there’ll be a hog the less in this world,” and stooping
down he relieved the Prince of the weapon which he was fingering with
his round eyes fixed upon the Sergeant.
Maqueda, who had noted all, now interfered.
“My uncle,” she said, “brave men are risking their lives
yonder while we sit in safety. Be silent and cease from quarrelling, I
pray you.”
Next moment we had forgotten all about Joshua, being utterly absorbed in
watching the drama in progress upon the farther side of the gulf. After
a slight pause to recover his nerve or breath, Orme rose, and preceded
by Japhet, climbed up the bush-like rock till he reached the shaft of
the sphinx’s tail. Here he turned and waved his hand to us, then
following the Mountaineer, walked, apparently with the utmost
confidence, along the curves of the tail to where it sprang from the
body of the idol. At this spot there was a little difficulty in
climbing over the smooth slope of rock on to the broad terrace-like
back. Soon, however, they surmounted it, and vanishing for a few
seconds into the hollow of the loins, which, of course, was a good many
feet deep, re-appeared moving toward the shoulders. Between these we
could see Higgs standing with his back toward us, utterly unconscious
of all that was passing behind him.
Passing Japhet, Oliver walked up to the Professor and touched him on the
arm. Higgs turned, stared at the pair for a moment, and then, in his
astonishment, or so we guessed, sat down plump upon the rock. They
pulled him to his feet, Orme pointing to the cliff behind, and
evidently explaining the situation and what must be done. Then followed
a short and animated talk. Through the glasses we could even see Higgs
shaking his head. He told them something, they came to a determination,
for now he turned, stepped forward a pace or two, and vanished, as I
learnt afterwards, to fetch my son, without whom he would not try to
escape.
A while went by; it seemed an age, but really was under a minute. We
heard the sound of shouts. Higgs’s white helmet reappeared, and then
his body, with two Fung guards clinging on to him. He yelled out in
English and the words reached us faintly:
“Save yourself! I’ll hold these devils. Run, you infernal fool,
run!”
Oliver hesitated, although the Mountaineer was pulling at him, till the
heads of more Fung appeared. Then, with a gesture of despair, he turned
and fled. First ran Oliver, then Japhet, whom he had outpaced, and
after them came a number of priests or guards, waving knives, while in
the background Higgs rolled on the rock with his captors.
The rest was very short. Orme slid down the rump of the idol on to the
tail, followed by the Mountaineer, and after them in single file came
three Fung, who apparently thought no more of the perilous nature of
their foothold than do the sheiks of the Egyptian pyramids when they
swarm about those monuments like lizards. Nor, for the matter of that,
did Oliver or Japhet, who doubled down the tail as though it were a
race track. Oliver swung himself on to the ladder, and in a second was
half across it, we holding its other end, when suddenly he heard his
companion cry out. A Fung had got hold of Japhet by the leg and he lay
face downward on the board.
Oliver halted and slowly turned round, drawing his revolver as he did
so. Then he aimed and fired, and the Fung, leaving go of Japhet’s
leg, threw up his arms and plunged headlong into the gulf beneath. The
next thing I remember is that they were both among us, and somebody
shouted, “Pull in the ladder.”
“No,” said Quick, “wait a bit.”
Vaguely I wondered why, till I perceived that three of those courageous
Fung were following across it, resting their hands upon each other’s
shoulders, while their companions cheered them.
“Now, pull, brothers, pull!” shouted the Sergeant, and pull we did.
Poor Fung! they deserved a better fate.
“Always inflict loss upon the enemy when you get a chance,”
remarked the Sergeant, as he opened fire with his repeating rifle upon
other Fung who by now were clustering upon the back of the idol. This
position, however, they soon abandoned as untenable, except one or two
of them who remained there, dead or wounded.
A silence followed, in the midst of which I heard Quick saying to Joshua
in his very worst Arabic:
“Now does your Royal Highness think that we Gentiles are cowards,
although it is true those Fung are as good men as we any day?”
Joshua declined argument, and I turned to watch Oliver, who had covered
his face with his hands, and seemed to be weeping.
“What is it, O friend, what is it?” I heard Maqueda say in her
gentle voice—a voice full of tears, tears of gratitude I think.
“You have done a great deed; you have returned safe; all is well.”
“Nay,” he answered, forgetting her titles in his distress,
“all is ill. I have failed, and to-night they throw my brother to the
lions. He told me so.”
Maqueda, finding no answer, stretched out her hand to the Mountaineer,
his companion in adventure, who kissed it.
“Japhet,” she said, “I am proud of you; your reward is
fourfold, and henceforth you are a captain of my Mountaineers.”
“Tell us what happened,” I said to Oliver.
“This,” he answered: “I remembered about your son, and so did
Higgs. In fact, he spoke of him first—they seem to have become
friends. He said he would not escape without him, and could fetch him
in a moment, as he was only just below. Well, he went to do so, and
must have found the guard instead, who, I suppose, had heard us
talking. You know as much about the rest as I do. To-night, when the
full moon is two hours high, there is to be a ceremony of sacrifice,
and poor Higgs will be let down into the den of lions. He was writing
his will in a note-book when we saw him, as Barung had promised to send
it to us.”
“Doctor,” said the Sergeant, in a confidential voice, when he had
digested this information, “would you translate for me a bit, as I
want to have a talk with Cat there, and my Arabic don’t run to it?”
I nodded, and we went to that corner of the plateau where Shadrach stood
apart, watching and listening.
“Now, Cat,” said the Sergeant (I give his remarks in his own
language, leaving out my rendering) “just listen to me, and understand
that if you tell lies or play games either you or I don’t reach the
top of this cliff again alive. Do you catch on?”
Shadrach replied that he caught on.
“Very well. You’ve told us that once you were a prisoner among the
Fung and thrown to these holy lions, but got out. Now just explain what
happened.”
“This, O Quick. After ceremonies that do not matter, I was let down in
the food-basket into the feeding-den, and thrown out of the basket like
any other meat. Then the gates were lifted up by the chains, and the
lions came in to devour me according to their custom.”
“And what happened next, Shadrach?”
“What happened? Why, of course I hid myself in the shadow as much as
possible, right against the walls of the precipice, until a satan of a
she-lion snuffled me out and gave a stroke at me. Look, here are the
marks of her claws,” and he pointed to the scars upon his face.
“Those claws stung like scorpions; they made me mad. The terror which
I had lost when I saw their yellow eyes came back to me. I rushed at
the precipice as a cat that is hunted by a dog rushes at a wall. I
clung to its smooth side with my nails, with my toes, with my teeth. A
lion leaped up and tore the flesh of my leg, here, here,” and he
showed the marks, which we could scarcely see in that dim light. “He
ran back for another spring. Above me I saw a tiny ledge, big enough
for a hawk to sit on—no more. I jumped, I caught it, drawing up my
legs so that the lion missed me. I made the effort a man makes once in
his life. Somehow I dragged myself to that ledge; I rested one thigh
upon it and pressed against the rock to steady myself. Then the rock
gave, and I tumbled backward into the bottom of a tunnel. Afterwards I
escaped to the top of the cliff in the dark, O God of Israel! in the
dark, smelling my way, climbing like a baboon, risking death a thousand
times. It took me two whole days and nights, and the last of those
nights I knew not what I did. Yet I found my way, and that is why my
people name me Cat.”
“I understand,” said Quick in a new and more respectful voice,
“and however big a rascal you may be, you’ve got pluck. Now, say,
remembering what I told you,” and he tapped the handle of his
revolver, “is that feeding-den where it used to be?”
“I believe so, O Quick; why should it be changed? The victims are let
down from the belly of the god, just there between his thighs where are
doors. The feeding-place lies in a hollow of the cliff; this platform
on which we stand is over it. None saw my escape, therefore none
searched for the means of it, since they thought that the lions had
devoured me, as they have devoured thousands. No one enters there, only
when the beasts have fed full they draw back to their sleeping-dens,
and those who watch above let down the bars. Listen,” and as he spoke
we heard a crash and a rattle far below. “They fall now, the lions
having eaten. When Black Windows and perhaps others are thrown to them,
by and by, they will be drawn up again.”
“Is that hole in the rock still there, Shadrach?”
“Without doubt, though I have not been down to look.”
“Then, my boy, you are going now,” remarked Quick grimly.