intense darkness, made for the verandah. Here he paused for a moment,
glancing upward to the sky, which he found to be obscured by a dense
canopy of heavy black cloud, portending rain, which sufficiently
accounted for the pitchy darkness. His eyes at length becoming
accustomed to the obscurity, he looked round for the guard; and he
eventually discovered the various members faithfully occupying their
posts, but, one and all, squatted upon the ground evidently fast asleep.
He stalked out toward the centre of the compound and took two or three
turns up and down its length, his footsteps falling noiselessly upon the
light sandy soil, and not one of the savages manifested the slightest
consciousness of his presence. Then he gradually extended his walk
until he reached the gate in the palisade, and here too the guard was
fast asleep. An idea presented itself to him; and he was about to make
an attempt to noiselessly remove the bars and open the gate, when
prudence suggested another and a better plan. He tiptoed lightly back
to the hut, and, gently awakening each of his companions in turn,
whispered in their ears:
"Up at once! There is an opportunity for us to effect our escape!"
The aroused sleepers instinctively comprehended the situation and sprang
to their feet. Another minute, and four shadowy shapes stole
noiselessly across the compound, to vanish almost instantly in the
deeper shadows of the palisading. The closed gate was reached and
passed, and presently the fugitives found themselves in the angle of the
compound most distant from the slumbering guard. Here Mildmay offered a
"back" to the baronet, whispering:
"You go first."
Without a word Sir Reginald complied, clambering first upon his
companion's back and thence noiselessly to the top of the palisading.
In another second a faint thud on the outside told that the first
adventurer had successfully scaled the barrier. "You go next,"
whispered Mildmay to the colonel, "and remain on the top of the palisade
to give the professor a hand."
Up went the colonel, and up after him went the professor. The latter,
with the baronet's assistance from below on the outside, accomplished
his descent in safety; and then the colonel, reaching as far down as he
could, assisted Mildmay to the top. The rest was easy; and a minute
later they were cautiously making their way up the road to the top end
of the village, or that which was most thinly inhabited. At this moment
down came the rain, a regular tropical deluge, which was undoubtedly a
most fortunate circumstance for the fugitives, as they could otherwise
have scarcely hoped to escape the vigilance of the numerous prowling
curs belonging to the village, who, as it was, were driven by the rain
to take refuge in their masters' huts.
Five minutes sufficed the travellers to reach the stout lofty palisade
which inclosed the village; and this, the framework all being on the
inner side, they were easily enabled to surmount. Once outside this
obstacle, Mildmay assumed the leadership, confidently declaring his
ability to find the ship, though he had only once before, consciously,
passed over the ground between the village and the ruins.
The party made their way in the first place along the outer side of the
palisading until they reached the main entrance gate to the village; and
from this point Mildmay "took his departure." A well-defined pathway
led for some distance down into the plain, and this they traversed until
the lieutenant believed he had reached the point at which to turn off.
Here he paused for a full minute, looking about him and peering into the
darkness. The rain was still pelting down, though not so heavily as at
first; and away to the eastward the clouds were already beginning to
break, allowing a star to peep through here and there. At length
Mildmay thought he had got his bearings right; and, selecting a star to
steer by, away he plunged into the long thick wet grass, his companions
following closely behind. A few minutes later the rain ceased, the
clouds vanished from the sky, and the stars shone calmly out in all
their beauty, affording an ample sufficiency of light to distinctly
reveal to the wayfarers the nearer clumps of bush, trees, and other
large objects. Mildmay now paused again, and, shading his eyes with his
hand, once more keenly surveyed the horizon.
"All right," he murmured. "We are going just right, I believe. I can
indistinctly make out something away there on the horizon, just ahead,
which I feel certain must be the ruins. Come along, my hearties; heave
ahead!"
Again they pushed forward, dripping wet, drenched to the skin with the
recent shower, and stumbling every now and then as their feet became
entangled in the long matted grass; now swerving to the right to avoid a
clump of bush, then to the left for the same purpose; but ever keeping
one particular star, low down on the horizon, as nearly straight ahead
as possible. Though the rest of the party felt themselves utterly lost,
without the faintest notion of where they were going, and though neither
of them could distinguish anything even remotely resembling the ruins,
Mildmay still persisted that he was right; and he continued to press
rapidly forward, the rest following him, since they could do no better.
At length they struck a narrow path through the grass, and Mildmay at
once announced his intention of following it.
"It is a little off our course," he said, "but the walking is so much
easier here that we shall gain more than we shall lose by following it;
and I should not be surprised to find that it leads to the ruins."
Half an hour later a brilliant star suddenly appeared in the dense
darkness ahead. It shone steadily for nearly a minute, disappeared, and
almost instantly appeared again.
"Hurrah!" ejaculated the lieutenant joyously, "there is the ship's
light. Now we _know_ that we are right. Another hour's tramp will, if
all be well, take us alongside. How I wish I had a pipe of tobacco!"
"Don't mention it!" fervently ejaculated the professor, who was an
ardent lover of the weed. "However, in another hour, as you say--ah!"
The professor's "ah!" was so very expressive of anticipated pleasure
that his companions with one accord burst into a hearty laugh, which,
however, was abruptly cut short by a low savage growl and a sudden
rustling in the grass close by.
"What was that?" was the simultaneous inquiry as the party came abruptly
to a dead halt.
"Push on, push on!" urged the professor. "It is some nocturnal animal
prowling in search of prey. At this moment he is more frightened than
we are; but if we wait here until he has regained his courage he will
perhaps spring on one of us."
The march was accordingly resumed, with perhaps some little
precipitation; and at length Mildmay's companions began to be conscious
of the presence of certain shapeless blotches of blackness rising up
against the sky ahead of them and occasionally obscuring for a few
seconds the now brilliant light which gleamed from the top of the
_Flying Fish's_ pilot-house. These shapeless blotches of blackness
increased in size with almost startling rapidity; and in a few minutes
the travellers, still following the footpath, found themselves in the
midst of them, winding in and out between great blocks of masonry which
suddenly rose up in front of them in the darkness, and stumbling over
loose boulders and fragments of stone. At length they found themselves
in the clear open space occupied by the _Flying Fish_; and in another
quarter of an hour the party passed into the black tunnel formed by the
bilge-keel and the side of the ship, and began to feel with their feet
for the open trap-door. This was soon reached; the party entered the
opening, closed the flap, and, with a murmured "Thank God, we are safe
at last!" began to feel for the button which was to open the door giving
access to the interior proper of the ship. Another second and this door
swung open, and the party found themselves at the foot of the
cylindrical staircase, in the full blaze of the electric lamps.
"Now," said the baronet, "ten minutes in which to strip, rub down, and
don dry garments, and then we will be off to the rescue of those poor
women, after which I think we must give our friend M'Bongwele a salutary
lesson on the evil and impolicy of treachery."
The allotted ten minutes had not quite expired when the professor, the
last of the party, made his appearance in the pilot-house, by which time
the _Flying Fish_ was some five hundred feet in the air, with her nose
pointing in the direction of M'Bongwele's village, and her propeller
driving her ahead at full speed. The electric lights of the ship were
all called into requisition for the illumination of the landscape,
producing a weird and ghostlike effect as the trees and clumps of bush
first caught the light and then brightened into full radiance as they
flashed past, to instantly fade again into obscurity. A startled howl
or two smote upon the ears of the travellers, and the forms of hastily
retreating animals were momentarily caught sight of; but all eyes were
intently directed ahead in anxious expectancy of catching sight of the
village, and presently it came into view. The speed was at once reduced
and the vessel's flight directed earthward, and in another moment she
dashed through the palisade, shivering the principal entrance gate to
splinters, and (as was intended) frightening the guard clean out of
their senses. With one shrill, piercing scream of terror, as they
caught sight of the dazzling bow lights of the ship, the sable warriors
took to their heels and vanished in the darkness, whilst the _Flying
Fish_ was dexterously brought to earth close alongside the hut tenanted
by Mrs Scott and her nieces. That appalling yell effectually awakened
the entire occupants of the hut; and whilst they were sitting up on
their pallets, rubbing their eyes and wondering what the terrible sound
might portend, the portiere was pushed aside and the professor, bearing
a hand-lamp, unceremoniously made his appearance before them with an
earnest request that they would dress with all speed and join him on the
outside of the hut, where he would await them, the hour of their
deliverance having arrived.
A quarter of an hour later the bewildered ladies were conducted by von
Schalckenberg in through the trapdoor in the bottom of the _Flying Fish_
and up the cylindrical staircase to the saloon, where they were warmly
welcomed by the other three gentlemen, who, after a few congratulatory
remarks on their fortunate escape, retired to secure and convey on board
the boxes containing the remainder of their guests' wardrobes. This
done, Mrs Scott and her nieces were conducted to the cabins assigned
for their use, and the gentlemen then retreated to the pilot-house,
where, over a keenly enjoyed pipe, a hasty council was held as to what
should be done with M'Bongwele.
This question was settled just as the first faint streaks of approaching
dawn began to brighten the eastern horizon, when the ship was moved up
into the great square before the king's house, where the whole of the
king's body-guard were drawn up under arms, and, beyond them, the
remaining inhabitants of the village, a dense, surging, excited,
squabbling crowd.
On the approach of the _Flying Fish_ the latter flung themselves face
downwards, in abject terror, to the ground, and the armed and mounted
warriors betrayed a disposition to stampede which was only with the
utmost difficulty checked and restrained by Seketulo. Even this chief
found himself unable to wholly conceal the feeling of nervousness which
agitated him; but he in this trying moment enjoyed a consciousness,
unshared by any other man there present, of having done his best to make
the erstwhile prisoners comfortable.
As the huge ship settled quietly down in the centre of the great square
a profound and deathlike silence suddenly succeeded the confused
babbling sound which had hitherto prevailed, and when the four
travellers stepped out from the pilot-house to the deck and appeared at
the gangway a visible shudder ran through the entire concourse of people
there assembled. They dreaded they knew not what, and their fears were
only in a very trifling degree allayed by the promise of intercession on
their behalf which Seketulo had made to them.
The professor was of course to be spokesman for the occasion; it was he,
therefore, who broke the terrible silence by exclaiming, in a loud,
commanding tone of voice:
"Seketulo, we are your friends. Advance, therefore, and listen to the
commands which we are about to lay upon you!"
The reassured and now happy chief struck with his spurred heels the
sides of his charger, and the animal, bounding and caracoling, advanced
to within a few yards of the ship's side, where his rider dismounted
and, with bowed head and bended knee, waited for such communication as
might be vouchsafed him.
"Listen, O Seketulo!" continued the professor. "We entered this country
animated by feelings of the most amicable nature to its king and to
every one of its inhabitants. We showed this by distributing presents
of beads, cloth, and other matters when Lualamba and his warriors first
visited us. And we asked for nothing in return save permission to
examine and explore the ruins on yonder plain; offering to pay promptly
and liberally for whatever assistance we might need. Is not this the
truth?"
"It is, O most mighty wizard," answered Seketulo humbly; some of the
braver warriors also venturing to murmur:
"It is! It is!"
"And how have we been treated?" asked the professor. "Your king, not
satisfied with our friendship and the presents we gave him, wickedly and
treacherously devised a scheme to get us into his power--a scheme which,
in order to try him, we permitted to succeed. And, having done that, he
further attempted to gain possession of this ship,"--this fact having
leaked out in Seketulo's previous conversations--"profanely and
audaciously thinking he could subdue her to his will and control her as
we do. Now, therefore, be it understood by all present that, for his
base treachery, _M'Bongwele is dethroned_, and Seketulo will, from this
moment, reign in his stead. Let a detachment of the guard enter the
palace and bring M'Bongwele forth to hear his sentence!"
In an instant Lualamba--anxious above all things to please the powers
that be, and having, moreover, in revengeful remembrance many little
gratuitous slights and insults which he had suffered at the king's
hands--dismounted a squadron of the guard, and, surrounding the palace,
himself entered the building at the head of half a dozen men. Two or
three minutes later the party reappeared with the dethroned monarch in
their midst. They advanced until almost level with the spot occupied by
Seketulo, when, at a sign from the professor, they halted; the guards
disposing themselves round M'Bongwele in such a manner that, whilst to
escape was an utter impossibility, he could still see and hear the
individual who, perched far aloft in the gangway of the ship, was about
to address him.
M'Bongwele never, perhaps, looked more kingly than whilst he thus stood
to receive his sentence of dethronement. He was fully conscious of his
treacherous behaviour to his guests, but he felt no shame thereat, for
he had been schooled in the belief that treachery, falsehood, ay, even
deliberate, cold-blooded murder, was perfectly justifiable in the
pursuit of power. His only feeling was that he had played a bold game
for a high stake and had lost it. The moment of reckoning had now
arrived, the penalty of failure had to be paid, and though he knew not
what that penalty might be--though his brain was teeming with all sorts
of possible and impossible horrors--he never for a moment forgot that he
was a monarch, that the eyes of his people were on him, noting his every
look and gesture, and he summoned all his fortitude to his aid, in order
that, since fall he must, he should fall as becomes a king.
So there he stood in the bright sunlight of the early morning--an
unarmed man, surrounded by those who, whilst they would yesterday have
poured out their heart's blood at his command, were now prepared to hew
him in pieces at the bidding of a white-skinned stranger--with arms
folded across the muscular naked chest which throbbed visibly with the
intensity of his hardly repressed emotions, his head thrown back, his
brows knitted, his lips firmly closed over his rigidly set teeth, and
his eyes unquailingly fixed upon the group of white men whom he
recognised and tacitly acknowledged as his conquerors and judges. And
when the sentence of dethronement, separation from his family, and
instant banishment for life from his country, was pronounced upon him,
he offered no plea for pardon or mitigation of his punishment; he urged
nothing in extenuation or justification of his conduct, but simply bowed
his head in token of his submission to the inevitable, and begged a
respite of a few minutes in which to bid farewell to his family before
setting out upon his journey to the frontier, whither he was to be
escorted by a small well-armed party, in whom Seketulo knew he could
place implicit trust.
This somewhat painful scene over, the troops and people there present
were required to swear allegiance and fidelity to their new king, which
they readily did with all the formalities customary among them on such
occasions; after which the crown of gold and feathers worn by M'Bongwele
was brought forward and placed upon Seketulo's head; and the new king
was then invited on board the ship to confer with--and in reality to
receive instructions respecting his future policy and conduct from--the
men who had raised him to the supreme dignity. The advice--given with
sufficient firmness and emphasis to constitute a command--comprised many
valuable hints for the wise and humane government of the nation, and was
concluded with a powerful exhortation to treat with fairness, justice,
humanity, and hospitality all strangers who might be brought by accident
or otherwise into the country; to succour, nourish, and carefully
protect them from molestation or spoliation of any and every kind whilst
within its borders; and to afford them every help and facility to leave
whensoever they might desire. And, finally, a satisfactory arrangement
was made whereby the baronet and his companions were enabled to continue
and complete their exploration and examination of the ruins.
The _Flying Fish_ and her inmates remained in the country for rather
more than three months from that date; quite long enough to satisfy the
party that they had really acted wisely, and for the benefit of the
nation, in deposing M'Bongwele; and long enough to enable them to make
several most surprising and interesting discoveries among the ruins--
discoveries which it is not necessary to describe or particularise here,
since the professor has prepared, and is now revising for the press, an
elaborate and exhaustive treatise upon the subject.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.
AN ADVENTURE ON THE TOP OF MOUNT EVEREST.
Leaving the country at last--to the very great regret of the
inhabitants, who found that every little service rendered to the white
strangers was munificently rewarded by a present of beads, buttons,
party-coloured cloth, or perhaps a small hand mirror--the travellers
made the best of their way to Bombay, at which place Mrs Scott and her
nieces were anxious to be landed, and there they bade their fair guests
a reluctant adieu. Thence, starting under cover of night and rising to
a height of about ten thousand feet above the ground surface, the
travellers made their way across the Indian peninsula in a north-
easterly direction, travelling at a speed of about one hundred miles per
hour, and arriving about eight o'clock the next morning at the foot of
Mount Everest, the summit of which--towering into the sky to the
enormous altitude of twenty-nine thousand feet above the sea-level, and
believed to be the most lofty spot of earth on the surface of our
globe--they intended attempting to reach.
Here, on a magnificent grassy plateau surrounded by trees, and with not
a single sign of human life at hand, the _Flying Fish_ was brought to
earth and temporarily secured whilst the party took breakfast.
"Now," said the professor as they rose from the breakfast-table, "in
seeking to plant our feet upon the topmost peak of Mount Everest we are
about to enter upon a task of no ordinary difficulty and danger, and it
is desirable that no avoidable risks should be run. The danger arises
from two causes--the excessive cold, and the highly rarefied state of
the atmosphere at so enormous an elevation. The first can be guarded
against by suitable clothing; the second can only be overcome by the
assumption of our diving dresses. The latter, no doubt, seems to you a
strange precaution; but it is a fact, that on the top of Mount Everest
the air is too thin to support life, at all events in comfort, and for
any but the briefest possible time; so we must take up our air with us.
Let us therefore go and make these necessary changes of costume before
we attempt moving the ship from her present position."
Half an hour later, the party, accoutred in their diving armour--between
which and their ordinary clothing they had interposed stout warm flannel
overalls--and armed with small ice-hatchets, mustered in the pilot-
house; the ship was released from the ground, a vacuum created in her
air-chambers, and upward she at once shot into the clear blue cloudless
sky. A few minutes only sufficed her to soar to the height of ten
thousand feet, after which her progress upward, as indicated by the
steadily falling column of mercury in the tube of the barometer,
gradually decreased in velocity. At the height of twenty-nine thousand
feet the mercury ceased to fall, or the ship ceased to rise, which
amounted to the same thing, and Mount Everest lay before them, its snowy
peak glistening in the sun ten miles away, and its topmost pinnacle
still towering somewhere about five hundred feet above the line of their
horizon.
"Well," said the professor, remarking upon their failure to attain a
greater altitude, "I anticipated this; I was quite prepared to find that
here, where the sun is so much more nearly vertical than it is with us
in England, we should meet with a more rarefied atmosphere. However, we
cannot help it. We must do what we can; and if we fail to reach the
summit we shall simply be obliged to descend again, rid ourselves
temporarily of a few of our more weighty matters, and then renew the
attempt. Perhaps we may be enabled to _force_ her up that remaining
five hundred feet by the power of her engines. Let us try."
The engines were sent ahead at full speed, and the _Flying Fish_ rushed
toward the glittering peak, the professor so adjusting the helm as to
give the ship's bows a slight upward inclination. The experiment
resulted in partial success, an additional elevation of some two hundred
feet being attained, but beyond that it was found impossible to go; even
then it was necessary to keep the ship moving at full speed, and to
maintain the upward inclination of her bows, in order to preserve the
slight additional height gained, her tendency being to sink immediately
upon any relaxation of speed. It was resolved to be satisfied with
this, to effect a landing somewhere, and to attempt surmounting the
remaining three hundred feet by climbing. A landing-place was next
sought for, and this was at length found on the northern side of the
mountain, on a sidelong slanting snow-bank, which seemed to have
accumulated between two projecting crags. It was by no means a
desirable spot on which to effect a landing, the area of the bank being
very small, and the surface sloping most awkwardly; however, it was the
best place the travellers could find, and they were therefore obliged to
rest content with it; so the ship was headed toward it, and in another
second or two a harsh grating sound, accompanied by an upward surge,
showed that she had taken the ground, or rather the snow-bank. The
engines were then stopped, and the grip-anchors brought into requisition
to secure her in her somewhat precarious berth.
"Well, here we are," exclaimed the baronet; "and the next thing, I
suppose, is to land and commence our climb without loss of time. What a
wild-looking spot it is, to be sure; if I were to stand looking at it
long I believe I should lose my nerve and shirk the task."
"Better not look at it any longer, then, until we can contemplate the
prospect from the peak away up aloft there," remarked the practical
Mildmay. "But," he continued, "I don't half like the idea of going out
upon that sloping slippery surface of frozen snow that the ship has
grounded upon; a single slip or false step and away one would go over
the edge, to bring up, perhaps, on a rock a thousand feet below. I
shall hook on the rope-ladder, and endeavour to make a start from yonder
naked spur of rock."