HOW PHARAOH MET SHADRACH
When the ambassadors had gone, at first there was silence, a very heavy
silence, since even the frivolous Abati felt that the hour was big with
fate. Of a sudden, however, the members of the Council began to chatter
like so many monkeys, each talking without listening to what his
neighbour said, till at length a gorgeously dressed person, I
understood that he was a priest, stepped forward, and shouted down the
others.
Then he spoke in an excited and venomous fashion. He pointed out that we
Gentiles had brought all this trouble upon Mur, since before we came the
Abati, although threatened, had lived in peace and glory—he actually
used the word glory!—for generations. But now we had stung the Fung,
as a hornet stings a bull, and made them mad, so that they wished to
toss the Abati. He proposed, therefore, that we should at once be
ejected from Mur.
At this point I saw Joshua whisper into the ear of a man, who called
out:—
“No, no, for then they would go to their friend, Barung, a savage like
themselves, and having learned our secrets, would doubtless use them
against us. I say that they must be killed instantly,” and he drew a
sword, and waved it.
Quick walked up to the fellow and clapped a pistol to his head.
“Drop that sword,” he said, “or _you_’ll never
hear the end of the story,” and he obeyed, whereupon Quick came back.
Now Maqueda began to speak, quietly enough, although I could see that
she was quaking with passion.
“These men are our guests,” she said, “come hither to serve
us. Do you desire to murder our guests? Moreover, of what use would that
be? One thing alone can save us, the destruction of the god of the
Fung, since, according to the ancient saying of that people, when the
idol is destroyed the Fung will leave their city of Harmac. Moreover,
as to this new prophecy of the priests of the idol, that before the
gathering in of the harvest his head shall sleep above the plain of
Mur, how can that happen if it is destroyed, unless indeed it means
that Harmac shall sleep in the heavens. Therefore what have you to fear
from threats built upon that which cannot happen?
“But can _you_ destroy this false god Harmac, or dare _you_
fight the Fung? You know that it is not so, for had it been so what need
was there for me to send for these Westerns? And if you murder them,
will Barung thereby be appeased? Nay, I tell you that being a brave and
honourable man, although our enemy, he will become ten times more wroth
with you than he was before, and exact a vengeance even more terrible.
I tell you also, that then you must find another Walda Nagasta to rule
over you, since I, Maqueda, will do so no more.”
“That is impossible,” said some one, “you are the last woman
of the true blood.”
“Then you can choose one of blood that is not true, or elect a king,
as the Jews elected Saul, for if my guests are butchered I shall die of
very shame.”
These words of hers seemed to cow the Council, one of whom asked what
would she have them do?
“Do?” she replied, throwing back her veil, “why, be men,
raise an army of every male who can carry a sword; help the foreigners,
and they will lead you to victory. People of the Abati, would you be
slaughtered, would you see your women slaves, and your ancient name
blotted out from the list of peoples?”
Now some of them cried, “No.”
“Then save yourselves. You are still many, the strangers here have
skill in war, they can lead if you will follow. Be brave a while, and I
swear to you that by harvest the Abati shall sit in the city of Harmac
and not the Fung in Mur. I have spoken, now do what you will,” and
rising from her chair of state Maqueda left the chamber, motioning to
us to do likewise.
The end of all this business was that a peace was made between us and
the Council of the Abati. After their pompous, pedantic fashion they
swore solemnly on the roll of the Law that they would aid us in every
way to overcome the Fung, and even obey such military orders as we
might give them, subject to the confirmation of these orders by a small
council of their generals. In short, being very frightened, for a time
they forgot their hatred of us foreigners.
So a scheme of operations was agreed upon, and some law passed by the
Council, the only governing body among the Abati, for they possessed no
representative institutions, under which law a kind of conscription was
established for a while. Let me say at once that it met with the most
intense opposition. The Abati were agriculturalists who loathed
military service. From their childhood they had heard of the imminence
of invasion, but no actual invasion had ever yet taken place. The Fung
were always without, and they were always within, an inland isle, the
wall of rock that they thought impassable being their sea which
protected them from danger.
They had no experience of slaughter and rapine, their imaginations were
not sufficiently strong to enable them to understand what these things
meant; they were lost in the pettiness of daily life and its pressing
local interests. Their homes in flames, they themselves massacred,
their women and children dragged off to be the slaves of the victors, a
poor remnant left to die of starvation among the wasted fields or to
become wild men of the rocks! All these things they looked upon as a
mere tale, a romance such as their local poets repeated in the evenings
of a wet season, dim and far-off events which might have happened to
the Canaanites and Jebusites and Amalekites in the ancient days whereof
the book of their Law told them, but which could never happen to
_them_, the comfortable Abati. In that book the Israelites always
conquered in the end, although the Philistines, alias Fung, sat at their
gates. For it will be remembered that it includes no account of the
final fall of Jerusalem and awful destruction of its citizens, of which
they had little if any knowledge.
So it came about that our recruiting parties, perhaps press gangs would
be a better term, were not well received. I know it, for this branch of
the business was handed over to me, of course as adviser to the Abati
captains, and on several occasions, when riding round the villages on
the shores of their beautiful lake, we were met by showers of stones,
and were even the object of active attacks which had to be put down
with bloodshed. Still, an army of five or six thousand men was got
together somehow, and formed into camps, whence desertions were
incessant, once or twice accompanied by the murder of officers.
“It’s ’opeless, downright ’opeless, Doctor,” said
Quick to me, dropping his h’s, as he sometimes did in the excitement
of the moment. “What can one do with a crowd of pigs, everyone of
them bent on bolting to his own sty, or anywhere except toward the
enemy? The sooner the Fung get them the better for all concerned, say
I, and if it wasn’t for our Lady yonder” (Quick always called
Maqueda after “our Lady,” after it had been impressed upon him that
“her Majesty” was an incorrect title), “my advice to the Captain
and you gentlemen would be: Get out of this infernal hole as quick as
your legs can carry you, and let’s do a bit of hunting on the way
home, leaving the Abati to settle their own affairs.”
“You forget, Sergeant, that I have a reason for staying in this part
of the world, and so perhaps have the others. For instance, the
Professor is very fond of those old skeletons down in the cave,” and
I paused.
“Yes, Doctor, and the Captain is very fond of something much better
than a skeleton, and so are we all. Well, we’ve got to see it
through, but somehow I don’t think that every one of us will have
that luck, though it’s true that when a man has lived fairly straight
according to his lights a few years more or less don’t matter much
one way or the other. After all, except you gentlemen, who is there
that will miss Samuel Quick?”
Then without waiting for an answer, drawing himself up straight as a
ramrod he marched off to assist some popinjays of Abati officers, whom
he hated and who hated him, to instil the elements of drill into a
newly raised company, leaving me to wonder what fears or premonitions
filled his honest soul.
But this was not Quick’s principal work, since for at least six hours
of every day he was engaged in helping Oliver in our great enterprise
of driving a tunnel from the end of the Tomb of Kings deep into the
solid rock that formed the base of the mighty idol of the Fung. The
task was stupendous, and would indeed have been impossible had not
Orme’s conjecture that some passage had once run from the extremity
of the cave toward the idol proved to be perfectly accurate. Such a
passage indeed was found walled up at the back of the chair containing
the bones of the hunchbacked king. It descended very sharply for a
distance of several hundred yards, after which for another hundred
yards or more its walls and roof were so riven and shaky that, for fear
of accidents, we found it necessary to timber them as we went.
At last we came to a place where they had fallen in altogether, shaken
down, I presume, by the great earthquake which had destroyed so much of
the ancient cave-city. At this spot, if Oliver’s instruments and
calculations could be trusted, we were within about two hundred feet of
the floor of the den of lions, to which it seemed probable that the
passage once led, and of course the question arose as to what should be
done.
A Council was held to discuss this problem, at which Maqueda and a few
of the Abati notables were present. To these Oliver explained that even
if that were possible it would be useless to clear out the old passage
and at the end find ourselves once more in the den of lions.
“What, then, is your plan?” asked Maqueda.
“Lady,” he answered, “I, your servant, am instructed to
attempt to destroy the idol Harmac, by means of the explosives which we
have brought with us from England. First, I would ask you if you still
cling to that design?”
“Why should it be abandoned?” inquired Maqueda. “What have
you against it?”
“Two things, Lady. As an act of war the deed seems useless, since
supposing that the sphinx is shattered and a certain number of priests
and guards are destroyed, how will that advance your cause? Secondly,
such destruction will be very difficult, if it can be done at all. The
stuff we have with us, it is true, is of fearful strength, yet who can
be sure that there is enough of it to move this mountain of hard rock,
of which I cannot calculate the weight, not having the measurements or
any knowledge of the size of the cavities within its bulk. Lastly, if
the attempt is to be made, a tunnel must be hollowed of not less than
three hundred feet in length, first downward and then upward into the
very base of the idol, and if this is to be done within six weeks, that
is, by the night of the marriage of the daughter of Barung, the work
will be very hard, if indeed it can be completed at all, although
hundreds of men labour day and night.”
Now Maqueda thought a while, then looked up and said:
“Friend, you are brave and skilful, tell us all your mind. If you sat
in my place, what would you do?”
“Lady, I would lead out every able-bodied man and attack the city of
the Fung, say, on the night of the great festival when they are off
their guard. I would blow in the gates of the city of Harmac, and storm
it and drive away the Fung, and afterwards take possession of the idol,
and if it is thought necessary, destroy it piecemeal from within.”
Now Maqueda consulted with her councillors, who appeared to be much
disturbed at this suggestion, and finally called us back and gave us
her decision.
“These lords of the Council,” she said, speaking with a ring of
contempt in her voice, “declare that your plan is mad, and that they
will never sanction it because the Abati could not be persuaded to
undertake so dangerous an enterprise as an attack upon the city of
Harmac, which would end, they think, in all of them being killed. They
point out, O Orme, that the prophecy is that the Fung will leave the
plain of Harmac when their god is destroyed and not before, and that
therefore it must be destroyed. They say, further, O Orme, that for a
year you and your companions are the sworn servants of the Abati, and
that it is your business to receive orders, not to give them, also that
the condition upon which you earn your pay is that you destroy the idol
of the Fung. This is the decision of the Council, spoken by the mouth of
the prince Joshua, who command further that you shall at once set about
the business to execute which you and your companions are present here
in Mur.”
“Is that _your_ command also, O Child of Kings?” answered
Oliver, colouring.
“Since I also think that the Abati can never be forced to attack the
city of the Fung, it is, O Orme, though the words in which it is
couched are not my words.”
“Very well, O Child of Kings, I will do my best. Only blame us not if
the end of this matter is other than these advisers of yours expect.
Prophecies are two-edged swords to play with, and I do not believe that
a race of fighting men like the Fung will fly and leave you triumphant
just because a stone image is shattered, if that can be done in the
time and with the means which we possess. Meanwhile, I ask that you
should give me two hundred and fifty picked men of the Mountaineers,
not of the townspeople, under the captaincy of Japhet, who must choose
them, to assist us in our work.”
“It shall be done,” she answered, and we made our bows and went. As
we passed through the Council we heard Joshua say in a loud voice meant
for us to hear:
“Thanks be to God, these hired Gentiles have been taught their place
at last.”
Oliver turned on him so fiercely that he recoiled, thinking that he was
about to strike him.
“Be careful, Prince Joshua,” he said, “that before this
business is finished you are not taught yours, which I think may be
lowly,” and he looked meaningly at the ground.
So the labour began, and it was heavy indeed as well as dangerous.
Fortunately, in addition to the picrate compounds that Quick called
“azure stinging bees,” we had brought with us a few cases of
dynamite, of which we now made use for blasting purposes. A hole was
drilled in the face of the tunnel, and the charge inserted. Then all
retreated back into the Tomb of Kings till the cartridge had exploded,
and the smoke cleared off, which took a long while, when our people
advanced with iron bars and baskets, and cleared away the débris,
after which the process must be repeated.
Oh! the heat of that narrow hole deep in the bowels of the rock, and the
reek of the stagnant air which sometimes was so bad that the lights
would scarcely burn. Indeed, after a hundred feet had been completed,
we thought that it would be impossible to proceed, since two men died
of asphyxiation and the others, although they were good fellows enough,
refused to return into the tunnel. At length, however, Orme and Japhet
persuaded some of the best of them to do so, and shortly after this the
atmosphere improved very much, I suppose because we cut some cranny or
shaft which communicated with the open air.
There were other dangers also, notably of the collapse of the whole roof
where the rock was rotten, as we found it to be in places. Then it
proved very hard to deal with the water, for once or twice we struck
small springs impregnated with copper or some other mineral that
blistered the feet and skin, since every drop of this acid water had to
be carried out in wooden pails. That difficulty we overcame at last by
sinking a narrow well down to the level of the ancient tunnel of which
I have spoken as having been shaken in by the earthquake.
Thus we, or rather Oliver and Quick with the Mountaineers, toiled on.
Higgs did his best, but after a while proved quite unable to bear the
heat, which became too much for so stout a man. The end of it was that
he devoted himself to the superintendence of the removal of the rubbish
into the Tomb of Kings, the care of the stores and so forth. At least
that was supposed to be his business, but really he employed most of
his time in drawing and cataloguing the objects of antiquity and the
groups of bones that were buried there, and in exploring the remains of
the underground city. In truth, this task of destruction was most
repellent to the poor Professor.
“To think,” he said to us, “to think that I, who all my life
have preached the iniquity of not conserving every relic of the past,
should now be employed in attempting to obliterate the most wonderful
object ever fashioned by the ancients! It is enough to make a Vandal
weep, and I pray heaven that you may not succeed in your infamous
design. What does it matter if the Abati are wiped out, as lots of
better people have been before them? What does it matter if we
accompany them to oblivion so long as that noble sphinx is preserved to
be the wonder of future generations? Well, thank goodness, at any rate
I have seen it, which is more, probably, than any of you will ever do.
There, another brute is dumping his rubbish over the skull of No. 14!”
Thus we laboured continually, each at his different task, for the work
in the mine never stopped, Oliver being in charge during the day and
Quick at night for a whole week, since on each Sunday they changed with
their gangs, Quick taking the day shift and Oliver the night, or _vice
versa_. Sometimes Maqueda came down the cave to inspect progress,
always, I noticed, at those hours when Oliver happened to be off duty.
Then on this pretext or on that they would wander away together to
visit I know not what in the recesses of the underground city, or
elsewhere. In vain did I warn them that their every step was dogged,
and that their every word and action were noted by spies who crept
after them continually, since twice I caught one of these gentry in the
act. They were infatuated, and would not listen.
At this time Oliver only left the underground city twice or thrice a
week to breathe the fresh air for an hour or two. In truth, he had no
leisure. For this same reason he fitted himself up a bed in what had
been a priest’s chamber, or a sanctuary in the old temple, and slept
there, generally with no other guard but the great dog, Pharaoh, his
constant companion even in the recesses of the mine.
It was curious to see how this faithful beast accustomed itself to the
darkness, and made its other senses, especially that of smell, serve the
purpose of eyes as do the blind. By degrees, too, it learned all the
details of the operations; thus, when the cartridge was in place for
firing, it would rise and begin to walk out of the tunnel even before
the men in charge.
One night the tragedy that I feared very nearly happened, and indeed
must have happened had it not been for this same hound, Pharaoh. About
six o’clock in the evening Oliver came off duty after an eight-hour
shift in the tunnel, leaving Higgs in command for a little while until
it was time for Quick to take charge. I had been at work outside all
day in connection with the new conscript army, a regiment of which was
in revolt, because the men, most of whom were what we should call
small-holders, declared that they wanted to go home to weed their
crops. Indeed, it had proved necessary for the Child of Kings herself to
be summoned to plead with them and condemn some of the ringleaders to
punishment.
When at length this business was over we left together, and the poor
lady, exasperated almost to madness, sharply refusing the escort of any
of her people, requested me to accompany her to the mine.
At the mouth of the tunnel she met Oliver, as probably she had arranged
to do, and after he had reported progress to her, wandered away with
him as usual, each of them carrying a lamp, into some recess of the
buried city. I followed them at a distance, not from curiosity, or
because I wished to see more of the wonders of that city whereof I was
heartily sick, but because I suspected that they were being spied upon.
The pair vanished round a corner that I knew ended in a _cul-de-sac_, so
extinguishing my lamp, I sat down on a fallen column and waited till I
should see their light reappear, when I proposed to effect my retreat.
Whilst I sat thus, thinking on many things and, to tell the truth, very
depressed in mind, I heard a sound as of some one moving and instantly
struck a match. The light of it fell full upon the face of a man whom I
recognized at once as a body-servant of the prince Joshua, though
whether he was passing me toward the pair or returning from their
direction I could not be sure.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“What is that to you, Physician?” he answered.
Then the match burnt out, and before I could light another he had
vanished, like a snake into a stone wall.
My first impulse was to warn Maqueda and Oliver that they were being
watched, but reflecting that the business was awkward, and that the spy
would doubtless have given over his task for this day, I left it alone,
and went down to the Tomb of the Kings to help Higgs. Just afterwards
Quick came on duty, long before his time, the fact being that he had no
confidence in the Professor as a director of mining operations. When he
appeared Higgs and I retreated from that close and filthy tunnel, and,
by way of recreation, put in an hour or so at the cataloguing and
archæological research in which his soul delighted.
“If only we could get all this lot out of Mur,” he said, with a
sweep of his hand, “we should be the most famous men in Europe for at
least three days, and rich into the bargain.”
“Ptolemy,” I answered, “we shall be fortunate if we get
ourselves alive out of Mur, let alone these bones and ancient
treasures,” and I told him what I had seen that evening.
His fat and kindly face grew anxious.
“Ah!” he said. “Well, I don’t blame him; should
probably do the same myself if I got the chance, and so would you—if
you were twenty years younger. No, I don’t blame him, or her either,
for the fact is that although their race, education, and circumstances
are so different, they are one of Nature’s pairs, and while they are
alive nothing will keep them apart. You might as well expect a magnet
and a bit of iron to remain separate on a sheet of notepaper. Moreover,
they give themselves away, as people in that state always do. The
pursuit of archæology has its dangers, but it is a jolly sight safer
than that of woman, though it did land me in a den of lions. What’s
going to happen, old fellow?”
“Can’t say, but I think it very probable that Oliver will be
murdered, and that we shall follow the same road, or, if we are lucky,
be only bundled out of Mur. Well, it’s time for dinner; if I get a
chance I will give them a hint.”
So we made our way to the old temple in the great cave, where we kept
our stores and Oliver had his headquarters. Here we found him waiting
for us and our meal ready, for food was always brought to us by the
palace servants. When we had eaten and these men had cleared away, we
lit our pipes and fed the dog Pharaoh upon the scraps that had been
reserved for him. Then I told Oliver about the spy whom I had caught
tracking him and Maqueda.
“Well, what of it?” he said, colouring in his tell-tale fashion;
“she only took me to see what she believed to be an ancient
inscription on a column in that northern aisle.”
“Then she’d have done better to take me, my boy,” said Higgs.
“What was the character like?”
“Don’t know,” he answered guiltily. “She could not find
it again.”
An awkward silence followed, which I broke.
“Oliver,” I said, “I don’t think you ought to go on
sleeping here alone. You have too many enemies in this place.”
“Rubbish,” he answered, “though it’s true Pharaoh
seemed uneasy last night, and that once I woke up and thought I heard
footsteps in the court outside. I set them down to ghosts, in which I
have almost come to believe in this haunted place, and went to sleep
again.”
“Ghosts be blowed!” said Higgs vulgarly, “if there were such
things I have slept with too many mummies not to see them. That
confounded Joshua is the wizard who raises your ghosts. Look here, old
boy,” he added, “let me camp with you to-night, since Quick must be
in the tunnel, and Adams has to sleep outside in case he is wanted on
the army business.”
“Not a bit of it,” he answered; “you know you are too
asthmatical to get a wink in this atmosphere. I won’t hear of such a
thing.”
“Then come and sleep with us in the guest-house.”
“Can’t be done; the Sergeant has got a very nasty job down there
about one o’clock, and I promised to be handy in case he calls me
up,” and he pointed to the portable field telephone that fortunately
we had brought with us from England, which was fixed closed by, adding,
“if only that silly thing had another few hundred yards of wire,
I’d come; but, you see, it hasn’t and I must be in touch with the
work.”
At this moment the bell tinkled, and Orme made a jump for the receiver
through which for the next five minutes he was engaged in giving rapid
and to us quite unintelligible directions.
“There you are,” he said, when he had replaced the mouthpiece on
its hook, “if I hadn’t been here they would probably have had the
roof of the tunnel down and killed some people. No, no; I can’t leave
that receiver unless I go back to the mine, which I am too tired to do.
However, don’t you fret. With a pistol, a telephone, and Pharaoh
I’m safe enough. And now, good night; you fellows had better be
getting home as I must be up early to-morrow and want to sleep while I
can.”
On the following morning about five o’clock Higgs and I were awakened
by some one knocking at our door. I rose and opened it, whereon in
walked Quick, a grim and grimy figure, for, as his soaked clothes and
soiled face told us, he had but just left his work in the mine.
“Captain wants to see you as soon as possible, gentlemen,” he said.
“What’s the matter, Sergeant?” asked Higgs, as we got into
our garments.
“You’ll see for yourself presently, Professor,” was the
laconic reply, nor could we get anything more out of him.
Five minutes later we were advancing at a run through the dense darkness
of the underground city, each of us carrying a lamp. I reached the
ruins of the old temple first, for Quick seemed very tired and lagged
behind, and in that atmosphere Higgs was scant of breath and could not
travel fast. At the doorway of the place where he slept stood the tall
form of Oliver holding a lamp aloft. Evidently he was waiting for us.
By his side sat the big yellow dog, Pharaoh, that, when he smelt us,
gambolled forward, wagging his tail in greeting.
“Come here,” said Orme, in a low and solemn voice, “I have
something to show you,” and he led the way into the priest’s
chamber, or sanctuary, whatever it may have been, where he slept upon a
rough, native-made bedstead. At the doorway he halted, lowered the lamp
he held, and pointed to something dark on the floor to the right of his
bedstead, saying, “Look!”
There lay a dead man, and by his side a great knife that evidently had
fallen from his hand. At the first glance we recognised the face which,
by the way, was singularly peaceful, as though it were that of one
plunged in deep sleep. This seemed odd, since the throat below was
literally torn out.
“Shadrach!” we said, with one voice.
Shadrach it was; Shadrach, our former guide, who had betrayed us;
Shadrach who, to save his own life, had shown us how to rescue Higgs,
and for that service been pardoned, as I think I mentioned. Shadrach
and no other!
“Pussy seems to have been on the prowl and to have met a dog,”
remarked Quick.
“Do you understand what has happened?” asked Oliver, in a dry, hard
voice. “Perhaps I had better explain before anything is moved.
Shadrach must have crept in here last night—I don’t know at what
time, for I slept through it all—for purposes of his own. But he
forgot his old enemy Pharaoh, and Pharaoh killed him. See his throat?
When Pharaoh bites he doesn’t growl, and, of course, Shadrach could
say nothing, or, as he had dropped his knife, for the matter of that,
do anything either. When I was woke up about an hour ago by the
telephone bell the dog was fast asleep, for he is accustomed to that
bell, with his head resting upon the body of Shadrach. Now why did
Shadrach come into my room at night with a drawn knife in his hand?”
“Doesn’t seem a difficult question to answer,” replied Higgs,
in the high voice which was common to him when excited. “He came here
to murder you, and Pharaoh was too quick for him, that’s all. That
dog was the cheapest purchase you ever made, friend Oliver.”
“Yes,” answered Orme, “he came here to murder me—you
were right about the risk, after all—but what I wonder is, who sent
him?”
“And so you may go on wondering for the rest of your life,
Captain,” exclaimed Quick. “Still, I think we might guess if we
tried.”
Then news of what had happened was sent to the palace, and within little
over an hour Maqueda arrived, accompanied by Joshua and several other
members of her Council. When she saw and understood everything she was
horrified, and sternly asked Joshua what he knew of this business. Of
course, he proved to be completely innocent, and had not the slightest
idea of who had set the murderer on to work this deed of darkness. Nor
had anybody else, the general suggestion being that Shadrach had
attempted it out of revenge, and met with the due reward of his crime.
Only that day poor Pharaoh was poisoned. Well, he had done his work, and
his memory is blessed.