At the Queen’s Mercy
[Illustration]
At the Queen’s Mercy
By MABEL FULLER BLODGETT
AUTHOR OF
_The Aspen Shade_, * _In Poppy Land_, * _Fairy Tales_
_Illustrated by_ HENRY SANDHAM, R.C.A.
[Illustration: VT CRESCIT]
Lamson, Wolffe and Company
Boston, New York and London
MDCCCXCVII
Copyright, 1897,
By Lamson, Wolffe and Company.
_All rights reserved._
_Norwood Press_
_F. S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith_
_Norwood Mass. U.S.A._
=To My Husband=
_This Book is Dedicated_
Contents
Chapter Page
I. A Slave’s Secret 1
II. The Pass of Blood 17
III. What Next Befell 31
IV. At the Queen’s Mercy 45
V. Astolba’s Errand 60
VI. The Cup of the Beast 73
VII. The High Priest’s Council 84
VIII. In the Cage 109
IX. The Mad Man of the Moon 121
X. The Red Witch holds her Revel 133
XI. The Treasure House of Edba and of Hed 144
XII. The Dance of the Maidens 161
XIII. A Strange Story 182
XIV. The Flower of Death 194
XV. The White Dove’s Flight 202
XVI. Zobo the Mighty Wrestles 215
XVII. Check to the Queen 225
XVIII. The Wisdom of Hubla 231
XIX. For life, for Love, for Freedom 240
XX. The Beginning of the End 252
List of Illustrations
Page
At the Queen’s Mercy _Frontispiece_
The Mysterious Map 13
For Life or Death 127
At Bay 179
The Beginning of the End 258
At the Queen’s Mercy
Chapter I
A Slave’s Secret
I am a plain man, and to do a plain man’s work was ever more to my taste
than to set down with a clerk’s skill such happenings as have befallen.
Nevertheless, something within me spurs me onward; for, to tell the
truth, I am loath to die leaving no record of the sights that I have
seen; sights to brand the memory and stir the blood, and doings to turn
one hot and cold, years after the doers thereof have crumbled into dust.
Fate, fickle jade, has willed a peaceful end for me—a man from whom
peace has ever been afar off. Yet by my fireside I am not alone: Zobo,
the Mighty, wrestles in the flames; Astolba, my fair white dove Astolba,
gently smiles upon my waking dreams, and she, the Queen with deadly
wondrous beauty, like some fair poisonous flower, flaunts before my
eyes.
But enough of fancies. I must on to the beginning of the marvellous tale
in which I was to play so large a part. A tale strange beyond common
reckoning; strange beyond belief, were I not known not only as a man
whose inches well may bear him out, but also as one little versed in the
art of embroidering blunt facts with fine imaginings.
It chanced in this wise:—
We sat by the fire, Gaston Lestrade and I, one dark and stormy evening,
for this was the end of the rainy season. We were in the African
interior; fortune had dealt hardly with us. It is not needful to the
purpose of this tale to tell by what and by whom we had come to so
dismal a pass; enough that we found ourselves wet, hungry, surrounded by
hostile savages, and, worse than all, poor to nakedness after four
months’ irksome traffic in ivory and gum. Lestrade sat pulling his fine
black mustache, for all his present wretchedness, with the air of a
dandy on the Parisian boulevard, though there was not a petticoat within
miles, and death, from one cause or another, more like to be our portion
than amorous adventure.
A quick eye for a woman had my comrade, and a heart big enough to hold
all the sex, or, at least, such as were personable. But over and above
all this, Gaston Lestrade was a man to die for a friend, albeit with a
jest on his lips, and I forbore to meddle with his pastimes.
For myself, I cannot deny that women have ever held me in esteem, and
once or twice have urged me to retreat by hot advances. The reason of
this has ever seemed to me that I am big of limb and brawny withal; that
I am slow to speech and anger, yet enduring in that to which I have set
my mind. And this is not commonly the manner of the sex, who look up to
the power or strength such as the Lord has not given them, whose tongues
are nimble, and whose fancies float hither and thither with every
breath, like thistledown before the wind. And so they take to that which
is not of their fashion.
Every man to his taste, say I—the wooing of maids to one, the clash of
arms to another, and for me comfort and plenty, and as little danger as
possible, which is in itself a strange thing, since it has been decreed
that all my life till now be spent for war and women. But I must hark
back to the fireside. We had taken stock of our resources, and with the
less trouble, inasmuch as they were few.
“Four biscuit, _mon ami_,” said Lestrade, “and a few strips of smoked
meat. Truly, Africa is an excellent place to starve in.” And he yawned
as though the subject did not closely concern him.
Which nettled me, and I spoke sharply: “Our powder and shot are nearly
spent. The king, next whose village we lie, loves us not; his fourth
wife can perhaps tell the reason.”
Here Lestrade yawned again.
“A spiritless wench, but not uncomely,” he murmured in his own tongue.
“The palm-oil wine is gone,” I finished.
Here my comrade was pricked to interest. He raised the flask and set it
down with a sigh.
“_Hélas_, thou art ever right, my Dering. What shall it be? Do we fight
our way to shore, or on through the jungle, or does it meet with thy
judgment that we await here the tender mercies of our royal neighbor
yonder?”
I gave the fire an ill-tempered shove with my foot, for I was cold and
hungry, and it has ever been my experience that a man’s sweetness of
temper will suffer from the emptiness of his stomach. “You know it is
equally impossible to go or to stay,” I answered shortly. Lestrade held
up his hand for silence, and through the heavy patter of the rain on the
roof of our hut came a noise that was not of the jungle. Gaston looked
to the priming of his rifle; I held my finger on the trigger of my own.
“Some one running, and for his life,” said Lestrade, under his breath,
and even as he spoke, the door of our cabin was thrust open, and a man
leaped into the fire-lit circle.
He stood a hunted creature, quivering and amazed for an instant, the
next, an arrow sped through the doorway and buried its point in his
shoulder.
A yell of triumph rang through the forest, and two Fan warriors, hideous
in war-paint, followed. They faltered on seeing Lestrade and me, but
quickly plucked forth their spears to do us injury.
It was not the time or place for argument. The report from Gaston’s
rifle rang out sharply, and the first savage pitched headlong and lay
still, a thin, dark stream trickling from the body over the earthen
threshold. The second, I dropped also, but not so neatly, for he
wriggled like a big black snake into the underbrush, and was lost to
sight. Seeing which I turned to look at our visitor, but here again
Lestrade was quicker than I.
The negro was leaning heavily against the side of the hut, and Gaston
held in his hand the slender arrow which he had plucked from the man’s
shoulder.
“A pin prick,” I began, with some contempt, for indeed the stranger’s
pallor, black though he was, and my comrade’s grave face, seemed greater
tribute than was needful for so slight a hurt.
“Poisoned,” Gaston answered briefly, and even as he said it I knew that
it was so.
I took the piece of bamboo in my hand. It was some ten inches long and
sharpened at one end. I stooped and picked up the bag of skin that lay
on the floor beside the body, still warm, of our fallen foe. Arranged in
careful order within were other arrows like to the first, each
red-tipped, each a swift and fatal messenger.
There was no hope, and the wounded man knew it.
He was a tall, muscular savage, a little stooped and grizzled with age,
but powerful, save for the death sickness that had begun already to
loosen his joints.
Many lines crossed and recrossed his face, and as I looked on him more
closely, I saw that his features were not those of the neighboring
tribe, nor indeed did his face resemble the natives that I had seen.
Furthermore, his skin was more bronze than black.
A curious woven strip falling from one shoulder over the right breast
bound his middle. Save for this, the man was naked, and I saw that some
strange torture had twisted and distorted his wrists and hands.
Moreover, his body bore in several places the mark of hot iron, and my
gorge rose at the thought of the infernal cruelties that had been
practised.
Meanwhile Lestrade, with something of a woman’s touch, and in that was I
ever far behind my comrade, well-known as he is for skill and nicety in
sickness,—Gaston, I say, had helped the stranger down, had placed a
packet beneath his head, and now stood waiting, helpless to do more and
pitiful of the drops of agony that stood bead-like upon the forehead of
the dying man.
The end would not be long. Presently the savage spoke, and in the
dialect of the neighboring tribe, but with the words somewhat clipped
and altered as one speaking a strange language to strange ears.
“I am Sagamoso, priest of the Council,” he said, “and the door of Shimra
opens.” He raised himself with pain, upon his elbow, and his eyes
glittered strangely in the firelight. “Nevertheless, promise, O men of
white countenance, that you will bury me, my feet to the rising sun,
ashes upon my breast, in the name of Edba and of Hed; and deep, deep, so
that no beast shall rend me, no enemy loose me from my grave. Inasmuch
shall I escape the last evil.”
“Christian burial, and no heathen mummery shall you have,” said I; for
in truth I was sore that this savage should have fled to us, as if our
case was not evil enough, and so was like to bring the whole tribe of
Fan, like a swarm of angry bees, about our ears.
Lestrade was silent, and the stranger catching at my tone looked from
one to the other of us, for a space, in silence also.
Then, as if some inward power thrust from him words he fain would have
held back, he burst forth:—
“O men of white countenance! My hour is at hand. Swear by Edba and by
Hed to bury me as I have besought, and the place of the woman and of the
treasure shall be known to you, and, moreover, the secret way.”
“The woman!” said Lestrade, drawing in his breath quickly.
“The treasure!” I cried, and neither of us thought of the strangeness of
such words from the lips of a savage.
Then by Edba and by Hed we swore; for the man’s words had somehow taken
hold upon our minds, and afterwards, all-curious, half-believing, for
the very strangeness of its telling lured us on, we heard the story of
Sagamoso, one time priest of the people of the Walled City, now outcast
and slave.
I cannot tell it as he told it there in the African forest, with the
rain falling heavily without, and the fire casting strange shadows on
the face of the dying man, convulsed now and again by the action of the
poison that was eating out his life. But the things that he said are set
down in due order, though, as I told you, I am no scribe and cannot
cunningly interweave and polish my words as the learned do.
“I am not of this people nor of this place,” said Sagamoso; “my home is
many miles hence, and the path is hidden and beset with peril. But two
of the people of white countenance like to yours have ever come so
far,—one a man old, not so much with years as with weariness and the
toil of wanderings; the other, his daughter, straight and slender, and
fair above the common lot of woman.
“Him we slaughtered there at the outer gate, as is the law for
strangers. The maid was at the Queen’s behest brought to the palace, but
whether as the bride of Hed, I know not. Such service rendered to our
god is like to be her portion: nevertheless, three moons must wax and
wane before the feast, wherefore you who are of her people can yet save
her from the death marriage, unless, indeed, Hed be wroth, or Lah, the
Queen, set her will to thwart you.
“Yet even so, surely of maids there are many, but of treasure like to
that in the secret storehouse of Edba, there is not in the whole world.
“I, Sagamoso, priest of the Council, tell it you. O men of white
countenance! torture like to this,”—and he raised his twisted claw-like
hands,—“torture of hot iron and seared flesh could not have wrung it
from me. But if I be not buried with the rites of the dread god whose
servant I yet am, I must walk forever in the outer darkness, weariness
unutterable my portion throughout all ages. Because of the sin that I
have sinned, the door of Shimra indeed is shut before my face, but the
peace of nothingness is still within my grasp, and for that peace will I
betray the secret of the city that has cast me forth, the secret of the
jewels and the fragrant gums, the ivory and precious woods, the gold and
rich garments and the wines of price, that lay hid within the bowels of
the earth, and guarded by the name that may not be spoken.”
Here the stranger’s voice faltered and was still, and Lestrade and I
looked at each other in amazement that was yet half belief, for the
passion in the tones rang through the hut, and that the manner of this
heathen burial was to him that asked it of vital import, none might
doubt.
“This maiden,” said Lestrade, as though the thought of the treasure had
passed him by, “what dreadful fate threatens her, and where is this
walled city?”
[Illustration]
The poison was doing its work all too well. Thickly and with difficulty
the words came from the swollen lips of the dying man. He thrust aside
the woven strip that covered his breast.
“Look!” he gasped; “the secret way.” Lestrade and I bent close and there
sure enough, tattooed in lines of blue and red, on a spot above the
heart as big as a man’s palm, we saw a rude map.
“Straight through the jungle northward,” breathed the priest, “by the
swamp, by the waterfall, through the mountains, where beyond lieth the
Pass of Blood! Behold the sign!”
His wavering forefinger touched the woven garment, and we saw the
fantastic outline of an evil, leering god, about whose squat and crooked
body twined a monstrous serpent.
“Bid the gate open in the name of Hed!” he continued, his voice growing
full and resonant once more. “And look you—speak not of Sagamoso, the
betrayer of the trust, the defiler of the sanctuary. Him, they think
long since dead. Let his name be forgotten lest it be cursed before the
Council.”
“But the maid, the maid!” cried Lestrade.
The eyes of the stranger narrowed. A curious light blazed in their
depths. With a superhuman effort, the dying man raised himself from the
ground.
“I am a priest of the Council,” he cried, in a strange, chanting kind of
voice. “I have been traitor. I have been slave. To Edba and to Hed have
I turned my back. But my gods remember, my gods are strong, my gods
punish. Think not to wrest from the Snake, his bride.”
The strange, triumphant note broke. “By Edba and by Hed have you sworn,”
he muttered, and so passed.
Lestrade and I had learned the slave’s secret, and the leaven for good
or ill was working within us, silently indeed, but with a strange,
persistent, and fateful power.
First, without more words, we buried him, and with the rites he had
demanded, for I am a man of my word, and Lestrade follows my leading
easily in that which affects him not nearly.
Then—for the day was at hand—we considered briefly that which had taken
place and that which was to come.
Our present fortunes could well bear mending. The priest’s words of a
woman to be saved, and a treasure to be gained, had fired our blood.
Life held little of safety for us here, and the end of it was that
Lestrade’s daring spirit weighed down my more prudent advices, and the
die was cast.
Once having resolved upon the enterprise, I put from me, as is my habit,
all thought against the wisdom of the undertaking, though to perish in
the jungle in the pursuit of a phantom city, or to be slain at its gates
in reality, seemed like to be our portion.
Sagamoso’s last words echoed in my mind. That hatred of the white
stranger had lurked in the eyes of the dying man I doubted not, but
needs must when the devil drives. Wherefore, without more speech upon
the matter, our scanty goods were packed, and Lestrade, with a gay tune
upon his lips, and I, the more silent for his light-heartedness, set
forth upon our journeyings.