THE COMING OF DOGEETAH
The sunset that day was like the sunrise, particularly fine, although
as in the case of the tea, I remembered little of it till afterwards.
In fact, thunder was about, which always produces grand cloud effects in
Africa.
The sun went down like a great red eye, over which there dropped
suddenly a black eyelid of cloud with a fringe of purple lashes.
There’s the last I shall see of you, my old friend, thought I to myself,
unless I catch you up presently.
The gloom began to gather. The king looked about him, also at the sky
overhead, as though he feared rain, then whispered something to Babemba,
who nodded and strolled up to my post.
“White lord,” he said, “the Elephant wishes to know if you are ready, as
presently the light will be very bad for shooting?”
“No,” I answered with decision, “not till half an hour after sundown as
was agreed.”
Babemba went to the king and returned to me.
“White lord, the king says that a bargain is a bargain, and he will keep
to his word. Only you must not then blame him if the shooting is bad,
since of course he did not know that the night would be so cloudy, which
is not usual at this time of year.”
It grew darker and darker, till at length we might have been lost in a
London fog. The dense masses of the people looked like banks, and the
archers, flitting to and fro as they made ready, might have been shadows
in Hades. Once or twice lightning flashed and was followed after a pause
by the distant growling of thunder. The air, too, grew very oppressive.
Dense silence reigned. In all those multitudes no one spoke or stirred;
even Sammy ceased his howling, I suppose because he had become exhausted
and fainted away, as people often do just before they are hanged. It was
a most solemn time. Nature seemed to be adapting herself to the mood of
sacrifice and making ready for us a mighty pall.
At length I heard the sound of arrows being drawn from their quivers,
and then the squeaky voice of Imbozwi, saying:
“Wait a little, the cloud will lift. There is light behind it, and it
will be nicer if they can see the arrows coming.”
The cloud did begin to lift, very slowly, and from beneath it flowed a
green light like that in a cat’s eye.
“Shall we shoot, Imbozwi?” asked the voice of the captain of the
archers.
“Not yet, not yet. Not till the people can watch them die.”
The edge of cloud lifted a little more; the green light turned to a
fiery red thrown by the sunk sun and reflected back upon the earth from
the dense black cloud above. It was as though all the landscape had
burst into flames, while the heaven over us remained of the hue of ink.
Again the lightning flashed, showing the faces and staring eyes of the
thousands who watched, and even the white teeth of a great bat that
flittered past. That flash seemed to burn off an edge of the lowering
cloud and the light grew stronger and stronger, and redder and redder.
Imbozwi uttered a hiss like a snake. I heard a bow-string twang, and
almost at the same moment the thud of an arrow striking my post just
above my head. Indeed, by lifting myself I could touch it. I shut my
eyes and began to see all sorts of queer things that I had forgotten
for years and years. My brain swam and seemed to melt into a kind of
confusion. Through the intense silence I thought I heard the sound of
some animal running heavily, much as a fat bull eland does when it is
suddenly disturbed. Someone uttered a startled exclamation, which caused
me to open my eyes again. The first thing I saw was the squad of savage
archers lifting their bows--evidently that first arrow had been a kind
of trial shot. The next, looking absolutely unearthly in that terrible
and ominous light, was a tall figure seated on a white ox shambling
rapidly towards us along the open roadway that ran from the southern
gate of the market-place.
Of course, I knew that I dreamed, for this figure exactly resembled
Brother John. There was his long, snowy beard. There in his hand was his
butterfly net, with the handle of which he seemed to be prodding the ox.
Only he was wound about with wreaths of flowers as were the great horns
of the ox, and on either side of him and before and behind him ran
girls, also wreathed with flowers. It was a vision, nothing else, and I
shut my eyes again awaiting the fatal arrow.
“Shoot!” screamed Imbozwi.
“Nay, shoot not!” shouted Babemba. “_Dogeetah is come!_”
A moment’s pause, during which I heard arrows falling to the ground;
then from all those thousands of throats a roar that shaped itself to
the words:
“Dogeetah! Dogeetah is come to save the white lords.”
I must confess that after this my nerve, which is generally pretty good,
gave out to such an extent that I think I fainted for a few minutes.
During that faint I seemed to be carrying on a conversation with Mavovo,
though whether it ever took place or I only imagined it I am not sure,
since I always forgot to ask him.
He said, or I thought he said, to me:
“And now, Macumazana, my father, what have you to say? Does my Snake
stand upon its tail or does it not? Answer, I am listening.”
To which I replied, or seemed to reply:
“Mavovo, my child, certainly it appears as though your Snake _does_
stand upon its tail. Still, I hold that all this is a phantasy; that
we live in a land of dream in which nothing is real except those things
which we cannot see or touch or hear. That there is no me and no you
and no Snake at all, nothing but a Power in which we move, that shows us
pictures and laughs when we think them real.”
Whereon Mavovo said, or seemed to say:
“Ah! at last you touch the truth, O Macumazana, my father. All things
are a shadow and we are shadows in a shadow. But what throws the shadow,
O Macumazana, my father? Why does Dogeetah appear to come hither riding
on a white ox and why do all these thousands think that my Snake stands
so very stiff upon its tail?”
“I’m hanged if I know,” I replied and woke up.
There, without doubt, _was_ old Brother John with a wreath of flowers--I
noted in disgust that they were orchids--hanging in a bacchanalian
fashion from his dinted sun-helmet over his left eye. He was in a
furious rage and reviling Bausi, who literally crouched before him, and
I was in a furious rage and reviling him. What I said I do not remember,
but he said, his white beard bristling with indignation while he
threatened Bausi with the handle of the butterfly net:
“You dog! You savage, whom I saved from death and called Brother. What
were you doing to these white men who are in truth my brothers, and to
their followers? Were you about to kill them? Oh! if so, I will forget
my vow, I will forget the bond that binds us and----”
“Don’t, pray don’t,” said Bausi. “It is all a horrible mistake; I am
not to be blamed at all. It is that witch-doctor, Imbozwi, whom by the
ancient law of the land I must obey in such matters. He consulted his
Spirit and declared that you were dead; also that these white lords
were the most wicked of men, slave-traders with spotted hearts, who came
hither to spy out the Mazitu people and to destroy them with magic and
bullets.”
“Then he lied,” thundered Brother John, “and he knew that he lied.”
“Yes, yes, it is evident that he lied,” answered Bausi. “Bring him here,
and with him those who serve him.”
Now by the light of the moon which was shining brightly in the heavens,
for the thunder-clouds had departed with the last glow of sunset,
soldiers began an active search for Imbozwi and his confederates. Of
these they caught eight or ten, all wicked-looking fellows hideously
painted and adorned like their master, but Imbozwi himself they could
not find.
I began to think that in the confusion he had given us the slip, when
presently from the far end of the line, for we were still all tied to
our stakes, I heard the voice of Sammy, hoarse, it is true, but quite
cheerful now, saying:
“Mr. Quatermain, in the interests of justice, will you inform his
Majesty that the treacherous wizard for whom he is seeking, is now
peeping and muttering at the bottom of the grave which was dug to
receive my mortal remains.”
I did inform his Majesty, and in double-quick time our friend Imbozwi
was once more fished out of a grave by the strong arms of Babemba and
his soldiers, and dragged into the presence of the irate Bausi.
“Loose the white lords and their followers,” said Bausi, “and let them
come here.”
So our bonds were undone and we walked to where the king and Brother
John stood, the miserable Imbozwi and his attendant doctors huddled in a
heap before them.
“Who is this?” said Bausi to him, pointing at Brother John. “Is it not
he whom you vowed was dead?”
Imbozwi did not seem to think that the question required an answer, so
Bausi continued:
“What was the song that you sang in our ears just now--that if Dogeetah
came you would be ready to be shot to death with arrows in the place of
these white lords whose lives you swore away, was it not?”
Again Imbozwi made no answer, although Babemba called his attention to
the king’s query with a vigorous kick. Then Bausi shouted:
“By your own mouth are you condemned, O liar, and that shall be done
to you which you have yourself decreed,” adding almost in the words of
Elijah after he had triumphed over the priests of Baal, “Take away these
false prophets. Let none of them escape. Say you not so, O people?”
“Aye,” roared the multitude fiercely, “take them away.”
“Not a popular character, Imbozwi,” Stephen remarked to me in a
reflective voice. “Well, he is going to be served hot on his own toast
now, and serve the brute right.”
“Who is the false doctor now?” mocked Mavovo in the silence
that followed. “Who is about to sup on arrow-heads, O
Painter-of-white-spots?” and he pointed to the mark that Imbozwi had
so gleefully chalked over his heart as a guide to the arrows of the
archers.
Now, seeing that all was lost, the little humpbacked villain with a
sudden twist caught me by the legs and began to plead for mercy. So
piteously did he plead, that being already softened by the fact of our
wonderful escape from those black graves, my heart was melted in me. I
turned to ask the king to spare his life, though with little hope that
the prayer would be granted, for I saw that Bausi feared and hated the
man and was only too glad of the opportunity to be rid of him. Imbozwi,
however, interpreted my movement differently, since among savages the
turning of the back always means that a petition is refused. Then, in
his rage and despair, the venom of his wicked heart boiled over. He
leapt to his feet, and drawing a big, carved knife from among his
witch-doctor’s trappings, sprang at me like a wild cat, shouting:
“At least you shall come too, white dog!”
Most mercifully Mavovo was watching him, for that is a good Zulu saying
which declares that “Wizard is Wizard’s fate.” With one bound he was on
him. Just as the knife touched me--it actually pricked my skin
though without drawing blood, which was fortunate as probably it was
poisoned--he gripped Imbozwi’s arm in his grasp of iron and hurled him
to the ground as though he were but a child.
After this of course all was over.
“Come away,” I said to Stephen and Brother John; “this is no place for
us.”
So we went and gained our huts without molestation and indeed quite
unobserved, for the attention of everyone in Beza Town was fully
occupied elsewhere. From the market-place behind us rose so hideous a
clamour that we rushed into my hut and shut the door to escape or lessen
the sound. It was dark in the hut, for which I was really thankful, for
the darkness seemed to soothe my nerves. Especially was this so when
Brother John said:
“Friend, Allan Quatermain, and you, young gentleman, whose name I don’t
know, I will tell you what I think I never mentioned to you before,
that, in addition to being a doctor, I am a clergyman of the American
Episcopalian Church. Well, as a clergyman, I will ask your leave to
return thanks for your very remarkable deliverance from a cruel death.”
“By all means,” I muttered for both of us, and he did so in a most
earnest and beautiful prayer. Brother John may or may not have been
a little touched in the head at this time of his life, but he was
certainly an able and a good man.
Afterwards, as the shrieks and shouting had now died down to a confused
murmur of many voices, we went and sat outside under the projecting
eaves of the hut, where I introduced Stephen Somers to Brother John.
“And now,” I said, “in the name of goodness, where do you come from tied
up in flowers like a Roman priest at sacrifice, and riding on a bull
like the lady called Europa? And what on earth do you mean by playing
us such a scurvy trick down there in Durban, leaving us without a word
after you had agreed to guide us to this hellish hole?”
Brother John stroked his long beard and looked at me reproachfully.
“I guess, Allan,” he said in his American fashion, “there is a mistake
somewhere. To answer the last part of your question first, I did not
leave you without a word; I gave a letter to that lame old Griqua
gardener of yours, Jack, to be handed to you when you arrived.”
“Then the idiot either lost it and lied to me, as Griquas will, or he
forgot all about it.”
“That is likely. I ought to have thought of that, Allan, but I didn’t.
Well, in that letter I said that I would meet you here, where I should
have been six weeks ago awaiting you. Also I sent a message to Bausi to
warn him of your coming in case I should be delayed, but I suppose that
something happened to it on the road.”
“Why did you not wait and come with us like a sensible man?”
“Allan, as you ask me straight out, I will tell you, although the
subject is one of which I do not care to speak. I knew that you were
going to journey by Kilwa; indeed it was your only route with a lot
of people and so much baggage, and I did not wish to visit Kilwa.” He
paused, then went on: “A long while ago, nearly twenty-three years to be
accurate, I went to live at Kilwa as a missionary with my young wife. I
built a mission station and a church there, and we were happy and fairly
successful in our work. Then on one evil day the Swahili and other Arabs
came in dhows to establish a slave-dealing station. I resisted them, and
the end of it was that they attacked us, killed most of my people and
enslaved the rest. In that attack I received a cut from a sword on the
head--look, here is the mark of it,” and drawing his white hair apart he
showed us a long scar that was plainly visible in the moonlight.
“The blow knocked me senseless just about sunset one evening. When
I came to myself again it was broad daylight and everybody was gone,
except one old woman who was tending me. She was half-crazed with grief
because her husband and two sons had been killed, and another son, a
boy, and a daughter had been taken away. I asked her where my young wife
was. She answered that she, too, had been taken away eight or ten hours
before, because the Arabs had seen the lights of a ship out at sea, and
thought they might be those of a British man-of-war that was known to be
cruising on the coast. On seeing these they had fled inland in a hurry,
leaving me for dead, but killing the wounded before they went. The old
woman herself had escaped by hiding among some rocks on the seashore,
and after the Arabs had gone had crept back to the house and found me
still alive.
“I asked her where my wife had been taken. She said she did not know,
but some others of our people told her that they had heard the Arabs
say they were going to some place a hundred miles inland, to join their
leader, a half-bred villain named Hassan-ben-Mohammed, to whom they were
carrying my wife as a present.
“Now we knew this wretch, for after the Arabs landed at Kilwa, but
before actual hostilities broke out between us, he had fallen sick of
smallpox and my wife had helped to nurse him. Had it not been for her,
indeed, he would have died. However, although the leader of the band,
he was not present at the attack, being engaged in some slave-raiding
business in the interior.
“When I learned this terrible news, the shock of it, or the loss of
blood, brought on a return of insensibility, from which I only awoke
two days later to find myself on board a Dutch trading vessel that was
sailing for Zanzibar. It was the lights of this ship that the Arabs had
seen and mistaken for those of an English man-of-war. She had put into
Kilwa for water, and the sailors, finding me on the verandah of the
house and still living, in the goodness of their hearts carried me on
board. Of the old woman they had seen nothing; I suppose that at their
approach she ran away.
“At Zanzibar, in an almost dying condition, I was handed over to a
clergyman of our mission, in whose house I lay desperately ill for a
long while. Indeed six months went by before I fully recovered my right
mind. Some people say that I have never recovered it; perhaps you are
one of them, Allan.
“At last the wound in my skull healed, after a clever English naval
surgeon had removed some bits of splintered bone, and my strength came
back to me. I was and still am an American subject, and in those days we
had no consul at Zanzibar, if there is one there now, of which I am not
sure, and of course no warship. The English made what inquiries they
could for me, but could find out little or nothing, since all the
country about Kilwa was in possession of Arab slave-traders who were
supported by a ruffian who called himself the Sultan of Zanzibar.”
Again he paused, as though overcome by the sadness of his recollections.
“Did you never hear any more of your wife?” asked Stephen.
“Yes, Mr. Somers; I heard at Zanzibar from a slave whom our mission
bought and freed, that he had seen a white woman who answered to her
description alive and apparently well, at some place I was unable to
identify. He could only tell me that it was fifteen days’ journey from
the coast. She was then in charge of some black people, he did not know
of what tribe, who, he believed, had found her wandering in the bush.
He noted that the black people seemed to treat her with the greatest
reverence, although they could not understand what she said. On the
following day, whilst searching for six lost goats, he was captured by
Arabs who, he heard afterwards, were out looking for this white woman.
The day after the man had told me this, he was seized with inflammation
of the lungs, of which, being in a weak state from his sufferings in
the slave gang, he quickly died. Now you will understand why I was not
particularly anxious to revisit Kilwa.”
“Yes,” I said, “we understand that, and a good deal more of which we
will talk later. But, to change the subject, where do you come from now,
and how did you happen to turn up just in the nick of time?”
“I was journeying here across country by a route I will show you on my
map,” he answered, “when I met with an accident to my leg” (here Stephen
and I looked at each other) “which kept me laid up in a Kaffir hut for
six weeks. When I got better, as I could not walk very well I rode upon
oxen that I had trained. That white beast you saw is the last of them;
the others died of the bite of the tsetse fly. A fear which I could
not define caused me to press forward as fast as possible; for the last
twenty-four hours I have scarcely stopped to eat or sleep. When I got
into the Mazitu country this morning I found the kraals empty, except
for some women and girls, who knew me again, and threw these flowers
over me. They told me that all the men had gone to Beza Town for a great
feast, but what the feast was they either did not know or would not
reveal. So I hurried on and arrived in time--thank God in time! It is a
long story; I will tell you the details afterwards. Now we are all too
tired. What’s that noise?”
I listened and recognised the triumphant song of the Zulu hunters, who
were returning from the savage scene in the market-place. Presently
they arrived, headed by Sammy, a very different Sammy from the wailing
creature who had gone out to execution an hour or two before. Now he
was the gayest of the gay, and about his neck were strung certain weird
ornaments which I identified as the personal property of Imbozwi.
“Virtue is victorious and justice has been done, Mr. Quatermain. These
are the spoils of war,” he said, pointing to the trappings of the late
witch-doctor.
“Oh! get out, you little cur! We want to know nothing more,” I said.
“Go, cook us some supper,” and he went, not in the least abashed.
The hunters were carrying between them what appeared to be the body
of Hans. At first I was frightened, thinking that he must be dead, but
examination showed that he was only in a state of insensibility such as
might be induced by laudanum. Brother John ordered him to be wrapped up
in a blanket and laid by the fire, and this was done.
Presently Mavovo approached and squatted down in front of us.
“Macumazana, my father,” he said quietly, “what words have you for me?”
“Words of thanks, Mavovo. If you had not been so quick, Imbozwi would
have finished me. As it is, the knife only touched my skin without
breaking it, for Dogeetah has looked to see.”
Mavovo waved his hand as though to sweep this little matter aside, and
asked, looking me straight in the eyes:
“And what other words, Macumazana? As to my Snake I mean.”
“Only that you were right and I was wrong,” I answered shamefacedly.
“Things have happened as you foretold, how or why I do not understand.”
“No, my father, because you white men are so vain” (“blown out” was his
word), “that you think you have all wisdom. Now you have learned that
this is not so. I am content. The false doctors are all dead, my father,
and I think that Imbozwi----”
I held up my hand, not wishing to hear details. Mavovo rose, and with a
little smile, went about his business.
“What does he mean about his Snake?” inquired Brother John curiously.
I told him as briefly as I could, and asked him if he could explain the
matter. He shook his head.
“The strangest example of native vision that I have ever heard of,” he
answered, “and the most useful. Explain! There is no explanation, except
the old one that there are more things in heaven and earth, etc., and
that God gives different gifts to different men.”
Then we ate our supper; I think one of the most joyful meals of which I
have ever partaken. It is wonderful how good food tastes when one never
expected to swallow another mouthful. After it was finished the others
went to bed but, with the still unconscious Hans for my only companion,
I sat for a while smoking by the fire, for on this high tableland the
air was chilly. I felt that as yet I could not sleep; if for no other
reason because of the noise that the Mazitu were making in the town, I
suppose in celebration of the execution of the terrible witch-doctors
and the return of Dogeetah.
Suddenly Hans awoke, and sitting up, stared at me through the bright
flame which I had recently fed with dry wood.
“Baas,” he said in a hollow voice, “there you are, here I am, and there
is the fire which never goes out, a very good fire. But, Baas, why are
we not inside of it as your father the Predikant promised, instead of
outside here in the cold?”
“Because you are still in the world, you old fool, and not where you
deserve to be,” I answered. “Because Mavovo’s Snake was a snake with a
true tongue after all, and Dogeetah came as it foretold. Because we are
all alive and well, and it is Imbozwi with his spawn who are dead upon
the posts. That is why, Hans, as you would have seen for yourself if you
had kept awake, instead of swallowing filthy medicine like a frightened
woman, just because you were afraid of death, which at your age you
ought to have welcomed.”
“Oh! Baas,” broke in Hans, “don’t tell me that things are so and that
we are really alive in what your honoured father used to call this gourd
full of tears. Don’t tell me, Baas, that I made a coward of myself and
swallowed that beastliness--if you knew what it was made of you would
understand, Baas--for nothing but a bad headache. Don’t tell me that
Dogeetah came when my eyes were not open to see him, and worst of all,
that Imbozwi and his children were tied to those poles when I was not
able to help them out of the bottle of tears into the fire that burns
for ever and ever. Oh! it is too much, and I swear, Baas, that however
often I have to die, henceforward it shall always be with my eyes open,”
and holding his aching head between his hands he rocked himself to and
fro in bitter grief.
Well might Hans be sad, seeing that he never heard the last of the
incident. The hunters invented a new and gigantic name for him, which
meant “The little-yellow-mouse-who-feeds-on-sleep-while-the-black-rats
eat-up-their-enemies.” Even Sammy made a mock of him, showing him the
spoils which he declared he had wrenched unaided from the mighty master
of magic, Imbozwi. As indeed he had--after the said Imbozwi was stone
dead at the stake.
It was very amusing until things grew so bad that I feared Hans would
kill Sammy, and had to put a stop to the joke.