walked, as was often his custom, steadily westward. He made his way by
the Embankment and Pall Mall, then up Saint James's Street, and so to
Mount Street, where his dwelling was situated. Arrived at Mount Street,
he let himself into his flat. It was a pleasant set of rooms on the
first floor, furnished in very excellent taste with most luxuries that
the cultivated male mind can suggest. In one corner, leaning against
the wall, stood the ivory tusk, which, now cleaned and polished, formed,
if an unwonted, a very noble ornament to the chamber. Kensley's eye
rested on it with pleasure; he went to the corner and carefully examined
his new possession. It was now six o'clock; the cold spring evening was
closing in and the light fading. At eight o'clock three friends were
dining with Kensley, preliminary to a night of cards. Having drunk some
tea, which his man brought in for him, and lighted a cigarette, Kensley
drew his comfortable armchair towards the pleasant firelight and smoked
contentedly. He had been late for several nights past--he was never a
very early man--and now, having cast away the end of his cigarette, he
lay back in his chair and blinked drowsily at the red glow of the
firelight. In ten minutes he was fast asleep and dreaming. Now,
although Cecil Kensley sometimes dozed for half an hour or an hour
before dinner in this way, it was seldom that he dreamed. His dreams
this evening were fantastic and most strange--so strange that they are
worth recording. Here is what he saw:--
In an open clearing among pleasant African hills, covered for the most
part with bush and low forest, lies a collection of huts, circular and
thatched, as are all native huts. Just above them, on rising ground,
and surrounded by a strong stockade, stands a larger and more important
dwelling, oblong in shape, its interior screened from the fierce sun by
a low veranda, and thatched, as to its roof, with grass in the native
fashion. It is a hot morning in the glowing tropical summer--the season
of rains--vegetation and flowers are everywhere in their freshest
verdure and beauty. Fleecy clouds lie at this early hour of morning
upon the face of the eastern sky, and hang in a long line midway upon
the sides of a high mountain some miles distant. Seated just outside
the stockaded inclosure is a European, clad in the broad-brimmed hat,
doublet, loose breeches, and buff riding boots of a bygone time.
Somehow the face of this European, with its sallow cast, peaked beard,
and fierce moustaches, is strangely familiar to the eye and brain of the
dreamer, though he cannot in his sleep exactly recall how. Round about
the Portuguese, for he is of that race, are half a dozen soldiers of his
country, in buff coats and steel caps, bearing in their hands antique
pieces--snaphaunces. Squatting in front are thirteen or fourteen naked
Africans, waiting the white man's will.
"Well," speaks the commander, for such he is, "is the gold all here?
Stand forward, Kanyata."
A native steps out from his fellows, and hands the commander a quill of
gold--gold dust and tiny nuggets--the fruit of a week's hard toil and
labour of himself and his family. Each native in turn stands forward
with his precious store, and tremblingly hands it to the fierce,
sour-looking white man. In his turn a young man sullenly comes out of
the rank, and hands in his quill. There is a very dangerous look in the
commander's eye as he takes the quill, holds it out and surveys it.
"So," he interrogates, "that is your week's work, Zingesi?"
The young man answers in a hopeless, yet half defiant way: "My lord, I
have toiled for seven days in the river sands, and all that I have
gained I bring to you. You took from me my wife; if it had been
otherwise, the quill might have been full. I have no one to help me. I
can do no more."
"Thou dog!" snaps out the commander, with a look of black passion, "I
told thee seven days agone that thou mightest take the wall-eyed maid to
wife, to help thee. Why hast thou neglected my warning?"
"Oh! my lord," replies the native, "I like not Mokela, the wall-eyed
maid, and I will not take her to wife,"--then, passionately, "Where is
my own wife? There, in thy vile hut, thou thief and robber! Do thy
worst: I will find no more gold for thee."
"Away with him!" roars the commander, now in a fury of passion, to his
soldiers; "tie him up and give him two hundred lashes."
The soldiers seize the unfortunate, take him to a tree hard by, and tie
him up. But now, before a stroke is given, an old native, somewhat
fantastically adorned, who has been standing among the villagers at a
little distance, comes forward and salutes the officer.
"Great chief of the Bazunga (Portuguese)," he says, "spare, I pray thee,
Zingesi. He is my only son, and the punishment is great. Let him work
for thee for another week. Perchance he has been bewitched. I will
brew him strong medicine, and he shall bring thee more gold."
"Out with thee, Mosusa, thou evil-minded witch-doctor!" cries the
commander. "'Tis too late. Thou shouldst have used thine arts with
Zingesi before. Begone, or they shall serve thee as they serve
Zingesi!"
With a hopeless yet terrible gesture, Mosusa quits the crowd, and
retires to his hut on the village outskirts. Meanwhile, Zingesi being
tied up, two Portuguese soldiers, casting off their buff coats, and
tucking up their sleeves, take each in hand a cruel whip of hippopotamus
hide, and begin their task. They flog by strokes of fifty; each, in
presence of that grim taskmaster, laying on the blows with all his
strength. With the first ten cuts the blood spouts freely from the
unfortunate native, whose cries and groans might surely touch the
hardest heart. But there is no mercy. Zingesi's back at the hundredth
stroke is a mass of raw and bleeding flesh; his face has assumed an ashy
pallor. At a hundred and fifty his head falls over upon his shoulder,
he swoons, and can feel no more. The man wielding the whip halts for an
instant, looks at the commander, and says, "Shall I go on, Captain?"
"Go on, of course, and be damned to you, till he has had the full two
hundred," answers the captain venomously, as he rises from his chair and
goes into his hut again.
The horrible task proceeds, and the soldiers, not daring to slacken
their blows, complete the two hundred strokes. By that time Zingesi,
his frame already weakened by recent fever, is beyond the reach of
further ills. His body, unloosed from the tree, falls limply upon the
hands of the soldiers, and is laid upon the shamed earth. Life has
clean fled from that poor mangled piece of flesh and blood.
It is night. The short African twilight has vanished; the moon has not
yet arisen. Far away in the depths of the forest there crouches over a
fire of wood Mosusa, the old witch-doctor, father of the dead Zingesi.
His face, lit up by the red flames, has lost the sullen misery of the
morning. His eyes glare with the intensity of a fierce passion, the
sweat drips from his brow, every muscle of his body quivers. He rises,
paces slowly round the fire, keeping always within the limit of a circle
which he has traced in the sand, uttering as he passes a low monotonous
chant. Now and again he casts into the fire the skins of snakes and
lizards, bones, the dried livers and hearts of certain animals,
poisonous bulbs and herbs, and other paraphernalia of the native wizard.
Anon he pauses in his chant, listens, and gazes intently into the gloom
of the forest. On one side of the fire lies coiled up a huge serpent, a
python, whose cold glittering eye watches intently Mosusa's every
movement. Mosusa approaches the great snake, and says, "Will he come,
think you, O my friend? The forest is wide, and the great one wandered
far this morning." The serpent lifts its flat head, darts out its long
forked tongue, and rubs its nose caressingly against Mosusa's leg; then,
swiftly uncoiling, it glides to the other side of the fire and lies with
its head pointing to the forest. Mosusa goes and stands by its side.
Presently a rumbling noise is heard; nearer and louder it comes, and
then from the pall of the forest there looms within reach of the
firelight a huge dark form--the form of an immense bull elephant. The
great creature, bulking there dark and mysterious within the ring of
firelight, bears but one tusk, long, thick and even; its head moves very
slowly up and down; its outstretched trunk gently quivers as it tests
every air of the night; and its small sunken eye, fixed keenly upon
Mosusa, indicates expectation.
"O great one," says Mosusa, saluting with upstretched right hand, "lord
of the forest, wisest of the creatures, thou hast come at my summons.
Hear me! Thou and I were born long ago upon the same night, in the same
country. Long have we known one another, long have been friends--since
the day when thy mother was slain by the spears of Monomotapa, and thou
and I grew up together as children within the kraal of the king. But
now I wax old, and near my end, while thou art in thy prime, still young
and lusty, and like to live an old man's lifetime and more. And before
I leave this earth for the land of shadows one thing I have to ask of
thee. Thou rememberest, long, long years ago, how I whispered to thee,
when thy tusk was budding and thy captivity grew dangerous to thyself,
that now was the time to seek the forest and escape. And thou wilt
remember how in thy first youth, when Monomotapa, king of the tribes,
had his first hunt for ivory, and slew fifty of thy kindred within the
ring of fire, I warned thee the night before by the great serpent,
grandfather of Tari here, and thou fleddest away and saved thyself!
To-morrow, O great one, I want thine aid. The captain of the Bazunga
goes forth to hunt in the forest. This day he has slain my son.
To-morrow be thou within the forest, and when he comes slay me this evil
man, the cruel persecutor of thy race and mine. No harm shall come to
thee. So shall we be quits, and in the land of shadows I shall remember
thee and joyfully await thy coming!"
The elephant moves silently a pace or two forward, just touches Mosusa
delicately upon the shoulder with its trunk-tip, then turns and
disappears again into the darkness.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Again the scene shifts before the mind's eye of the dreamer; the
witch-doctor and his firelight fade out, and broad daylight once more
streams upon the African forest. The Portuguese captain is marching
through the wilderness in search of elephants. In front of him are two
trackers, who walk swiftly upon the spoor of a troop of the great tusk
bearers. Not far in the rear, mingling with other hunters, is Mosusa,
whose dark countenance wears this morning a very singular expression.
Presently, after passing some low hills, the white man posts himself in
some thick cover in a shallow gorge commanding a broad, worn path. The
bulk of the native hunters are sent far in front in a wide semicircle,
to drive in elephants towards the ambush. There is a long interval, and
then, crashing through the bush, appear at a slow trot the forms of five
cow elephants. At the nearest of these the commander discharges his
piece. The great creature, sore stricken, charges this way and that; at
length, bristling with fifty spears, spouting the red blood from her
trunk, and struck by other bullets from the white man's snaphaunce, she
falls heavily to earth. But while the party are gathered round the
fallen beast, and the natives busy themselves in extricating their
spears from the carcase, a sudden noise is heard behind. There,
trumpeting hideously, comes a mighty single-tusked elephant--Mosusa's
elephant of the last night. The black men, naked and disencumbered,
fly, all of them save one, far down the gorge, and scatter into the
forest beyond. The white man, truth to tell, is bold and brave enough.
Trusting to his heavy piece and his own pluck, he stands his ground. It
is late indeed to fly, encumbered as he is with weapon and European
clothing. As the grim monster charges down upon him, he steadily raises
his snaphaunce and fires. But, just as he pulls trigger, Mosusa,
standing behind his shoulder, jerks his right arm, the bullet flies wide
of its intended mark, and strikes the elephant at the base of the great
solitary tusk, just where the ivory is sheathed in the flesh. Mosusa
leaps aside, there is a wild curse in Portuguese; in the same instant
the savage scream of the enraged elephant thrills upon the hot morning
air, the white man is flung to earth, and the great gleaming tusk drives
deep through his body. Zingesi is avenged. The elephant withdraws his
tusk, kneels upon the yet living man, and crushes the last remnants of
humanity into a hideous, shapeless mass.
All this Mosusa has witnessed with bright eyes and the fiercest
satisfaction. And now, raising his right hand, again he salutes the
monstrous beast and speaks. "O thou great one, mighty chief, lord of
the forest, I thank thee for what thou hast done. My time grows short:
I die quickly. But thou, O my friend, live thou, live to slay the
accursed white men, who pursue thy kindred and bring death and worse
than death into this land of thine and mine." As he runs on, Mosusa's
voice seems as the voice of one possessed; his eyes are fixed and open,
as though gazing far into futurity. "And when thine appointed time
comes," he goes on, still addressing the mighty beast before him, "let
thy tusk carry with it yet more of death and evil to the white man.
There is blood now upon it: let blood be with it in its passage through
the years to come, until it shall once more mingle with the earth again.
And now, great one, one thing more has to be done. Let my blood mingle
here with the white man's: slay me, O my friend, and all shall be
finished."
But the elephant stands there in front of the frenzied African, its
little eyes fixed upon his eyes, its body swaying ever so slightly from
side to side, its trunk held out as if inquiring.
"I see what thou requirest, O great one," cries Mosusa. "Thy blood too
must flow, and at my hands!"
Suddenly he raises his spear, plunges it into the creature's trunk, and
as suddenly withdraws it. The beast screams with pain, the blood gushes
forth from the spear-thrust, and in a moment, with a blow of the wounded
member, the elephant has beaten the old native to the ground. In the
next moment the re-infuriated beast kneels quickly upon Mosusa and
crushes the life from his frame, as it had crushed the white man's. The
two bodies lie there together, misshapen, mangled, yet still warm. And
now the elephant, having completed his work, turns slowly away and
plunges into the jungle.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The scene had again faded from the dreamer's eyes; yet its memory
lingered clear, as Cecil Kensley awoke cold and shivering from his
sleep. The fire burned low, the room was in darkness.
"Gad! what a curious dream!" he said to himself, as he rose stiffly from
his lounge chair. "I never felt so cold in my life." By the dim low
firelight he made his way to a corner of the room, touched a button and
switched on the electric light. The room in an instant assumed its
normally bright and cheerful aspect. First putting some coals upon the
fire, Kensley went to the sideboard, poured himself out a liqueur glass
of brandy, and drank it down. "That's better," he said to himself. "I
must have slept a deuce of a time. Can't think why I got so cold." He
turned and looked at the clock. "Half-past seven, by Jove! I must
dress sharp: these fellows will be here directly."
First opening a door into an adjoining room, where he saw the
dinner-table already prepared, he went to his bedroom and quickly
dressed. He returned just in time to welcome his friends, who arrived
almost simultaneously.
Of the three guests, two were Englishmen--average types of their race;
the other a dark, good-looking foreigner, of engaging manners. Barreto,
as they called him, spoke excellent English, and seemed to have a
perfect knowledge of all topics--mainly pertaining to racing, matters
theatrical, and cards--which came uppermost in the course of the
evening. During the five minutes before dinner was announced one of the
visitors caught sight of the tusk standing in the corner of the room.
"Hallo, Kensley!" he said, "what's this? Something new, isn't it?"
"Yes," returned his host; "it's a big tooth I came across in the
warehouse lately. On the whole, it's about the finest bit of ivory I
ever saw; and so, as such specimens grow scarcer every year, I collared
it. Makes a nice ornament, doesn't it?"
"Magnificent!" rejoined Barreto, who had meanwhile approached, and was
intently examining the tusk. "I've seen a good many tusks in my time,
but I have never seen the fellow of this."
"Why, where did you pick up your knowledge of ivory, Barreto?" asked
Kensley. "I knew you were up to most things, but I didn't know that you
were a judge of elephants' teeth."
"Well, you see," returned Barreto, "my family have had to do with Africa
for between two and three hundred years. Several of them have left
their bones there. I served as a lieutenant with the Portuguese troops
in Mozambique when I was a youngster. After that I came home what you
call invalidish--no, invalided--with fever; and, as I didn't intend
Africa to have my bones, I left the army and went into diplomacy."
"I see!" replied Kensley. "Well, that tusk," patting the great tooth
affectionately, "must have been once something of a neighbour of yours.
It came from behind Mozambique or Sofala. The elephant that carried it
has, I take it, been dead many a long year. From the look of the ivory,
and the way it's been preserved, I should imagine that tooth has lain in
some chief's hut for best part of a century. Possibly it has been some
cherished fetish. It could tell some tall stories, I'll bet, if it
could speak. But come along, you fellows: here's dinner at last."
The four men strolled into the pleasant ruby-lighted dining-room, sat
themselves at the sparkling table, and for an hour devoted themselves
heartily to excellent viands and wine, and to the exchange of much merry
conversation.
At a quarter to ten, after some lingering over cigars and coffee, the
party returned to the drawing-room, where card tables were laid. Two
other men came in, and "poker" was started. The fortunes of the game
waxed and waned, as they will do; but somehow, half-hour after
half-hour, the luck ran dead against Barreto. It was easy to see that
the Portuguese was a skilful and a smart player, yet, do what he would,
bluff boldly or lie low, he steadily lost.
"Hullo, Barreto!" said one of the men to him, in a short pause for
whiskies-and-soda, "what's up with you? You couldn't go wrong last
week. To-night your luck's dead out."
"Yes," replied the Portuguese, who throughout the play had retained his
equanimity, and lost with a good grace, "there's something mysterious in
the air to-night. I have felt a great depression ever since I came into
this room. I can't tell you why. I felt better at dinner, but back
here again I'm wrapped in a wet blanket. A change of weather coming, I
suppose. A man who's had African fever can generally foretell it."
The play went on for another half-hour, by which time, as the clock
chimed the quarter-past one, Barreto had lost between 30 and 40 pounds.
Kensley's English guests now rose to go, laughingly promising Barreto
and their host, who also had lost some 20 pounds, their revenge on a
future occasion. After a parting libation, the two men lighted cigar
and cigarette, and left the flat, Kensley turned to Barreto. "Feel like
an hour's ecarte?" he interrogated.
"By all means," answered the Portuguese, with a pleasant smile.
Kensley brought out fresh cards, and the two sat down facing one
another, the table between. It seemed at ecarte that Barreto could not
lose. The stakes were heavy, and Kensley's deficit began to mount up
ominously. He was a practised player, and well used to the ups and
downs of card luck; yet, easy as was his manner, a looker-on might have
noticed a grimmer and graver look deepening about the lines of his
mouth.
Suddenly Kensley sprang to his feet, his eyes flashing, his face flushed
with anger.
"You damned cheat!" he gasped, throwing down his cards. "For a long
time I couldn't believe my eyes, but there's no other word for it--
you're a common swindler. I saw you pass that card,"--pointing to a
king--"I've seen you doing the same thing before. Not one cent will you
get out of me. Leave my rooms, and take care neither I nor my friends
ever see the face of you again. If we do there'll be trouble."
At first, as the Englishman blurted out his indignation--which, it may
be said at once, was perfectly honest and deserved--Barreto attempted,
with a gesture of courteous deprecation, to offer explanations. At last
he obtained speech. "You are mistaken, utterly mistaken," he said
calmly. "I think you must be mad. Anyhow I have won this money fairly,
and I demand it. If you don't pay, I shall make the fact public."
"You damned villain!" gasped Kensley; "get out of my rooms at once,
before I put you out."
The expression upon Barreto's face changed now instantly from a
plausible calm to one of wild and deadly hate. He saw that Kensley was
firm, and not to be played upon. He glanced round the room. As ill
luck would have it, there hung, among other trophies upon the wall near
him, an Indian knife in its sheath. In an instant Barreto grasped the
handle, drew the knife flashing from its cover, and turned upon Kensley.
"Now, Mr Kensley," he said, with a very unpleasant look upon his face,
"you will pay me that 55 pounds, and withdraw what you just now said, or
take the alternative."
Few Englishmen care for knife play; unlike the men of Southern Europe,
they seem to have an instinctive horror of the weapon. Kensley little
liked the job; the adversary before him looked very evil--far more evil
than he could ever have imagined him; yet, being a man of courage and of
action, he took the only course that seemed at the moment open to him.
He flung himself in a flash upon Barreto, trying to seize the man's arm
before he should strike. He was not quick enough to avoid the blow; the
keen knife ripped through his smooth shirt-front, and penetrated the
upper part of his chest, just under the collar-bone. Kensley's fighting
blood was now up; the wound, though a nasty one, was not disabling; he
grappled with Barreto, forced his right arm and dagger behind his back,
and then, twining his right leg round his opponent's, put forth all his
strength and threw him, falling upon him as he did so. The room was
thickly carpeted, and the fall, though a heavy one, made no great noise.
The Portuguese gave a choking cry, and shuddered, as Kensley thought,
very strangely. Barreto had ceased struggling from the instant he fell,
and, in a strangely altered voice, gasped once in Portuguese, "I am a
dead man." Kensley cautiously released his grip; he feared treachery--
some trick. But Barreto moved no more. One glance he gave as Kensley
rose; his eyes rolled, then he lay quite still. A horrible fear dawned
upon the Englishman. He gently lifted the man, and looked at his back.
The right arm lay listless now, and had released its grip of the knife.
Alas! that long knife, fashioned by some cunning artificer for wild hill
men, so keen and deadly for the taking of life, had done its work. By
some ghastly misfortune, it had penetrated the ribs and pierced
Barreto's heart. The man lay there, flabby and inert--as Kensley soon
convinced himself, dead beyond all hope of recovery.
As Kensley rose, and with a sickening feeling at his heart surveyed the
dead man's face, something in its appearance touched a chord of memory.
"Great God!" he said to himself, "is it reality, or am I still dreaming?
This is the face of the Portuguese soldier I saw as I sat asleep before
the fire this evening!" His eye wandered from the dead man's face to
the great yellow tusk gleaming there still and silent in the corner of
the chamber. As he looked, a new light seemed to leap into his mind.
Again he saw, as in a flash, before the eye of memory, those strange
scenes in the African forest.