THE TRUE HOLY FLOWER
When I came to myself again it was to find that I had slept fifteen or
sixteen hours, for the sun of a new day was high in the heavens. I was
lying in a little shelter of boughs at the foot of that mound on which
we flew the flag that guided us back over the waters of the Lake Kirua.
Near by was Hans consuming a gigantic meal of meat which he had cooked
over a neighbouring fire. With him, to my delight, I saw Mavovo, his
head bound up, though otherwise but little the worse. The stone, which
probably would have killed a thin-skulled white man, had done no more
than knock him stupid and break the skin of his scalp, perhaps because
the force of it was lessened by the gum man’s-ring which, like most
Zulus of a certain age or dignity, he wore woven in his hair.
The two tents we had brought with us to the lake were pitched not far
away and looked quite pretty and peaceful there in the sunlight.
Hans, who was watching me out of the corner of his eye, ran to me with
a large pannikin of hot coffee which Sammy had made ready against my
awakening; for they knew that my sleep was, or had become of a natural
order. I drank it to the last drop, and in all my life never did I enjoy
anything more. Then while I began upon some pieces of the toasted meat,
I asked him what had happened.
“Not much, Baas,” he answered, “except that we are alive, who should be
dead. The Maam and the Missie are still asleep in that tent, or at least
the Maam is, for the Missie is helping Dogeetah, her father, to nurse
Baas Stephen, who has an ugly wound. The Pongos have gone and I think
will not return, for they have had enough of the white man’s guns. The
Mazitu have buried those of their dead whom they could recover, and have
sent their wounded, of whom there were only six, back to Beza Town on
litters. That is all, Baas.”
Then while I washed, and never did I need a bath more, and put on my
underclothes, in which I had swum on the night of the killing of the
Motombo, that Hans had wrung out and dried in the sun, I asked that
worthy how he was after his adventures.
“Oh! well enough, Baas,” he answered, “now that my stomach is full,
except that my hands and wrists are sore with crawling along the ground
like a babyan (baboon), and that I cannot get the stink of that god’s
skin out of my nose. Oh! you don’t know what it was: if I had been a
white man it would have killed me. But, Baas, perhaps you did well to
take drunken old Hans with you on this journey after all, for I was
clever about the little gun, wasn’t I? Also about your swimming of the
Crocodile Water, though it is true that the sign of the spider and the
moth which your reverend father sent, taught me that. And now we have
got back safe, except for the Mazitu, Jerry, who doesn’t matter,
for there are plenty more like him, and the wound in Baas Stephen’s
shoulder, and that heavy flower which he thought better than brandy.”
“Yes, Hans,” I said, “I did well to take you and you are clever, for had
it not been for you, we should now be cooked and eaten in Pongo-land. I
thank you for your help, old friend. But, Hans, another time please sew
up the holes in your waistcoat pocket. Four caps wasn’t much, Hans.”
“No, Baas, but it was enough; as they were all good ones. If there had
been forty you could not have done much more. Oh! your reverend father
knew all that” (my departed parent had become a kind of patron saint to
Hans) “and did not wish this poor old Hottentot to have more to carry
than was needed. He knew you wouldn’t miss, Baas, and that there were
only one god, one devil, and one man waiting to be killed.”
I laughed, for Hans’s way of putting things was certainly original, and
having got on my coat, went to see Stephen. At the door of the tent I
met Brother John, whose shoulder was dreadfully sore from the rubbing of
the orchid stretcher, as were his hands with paddling, but who otherwise
was well enough and of course supremely happy.
He told me that he had cleansed and sewn up Stephen’s wound, which
appeared to be doing well, although the spear had pierced right through
the shoulder, luckily without cutting any artery. So I went in to see
the patient and found him cheerful enough, though weak from weariness
and loss of blood, with Miss Hope feeding him with broth from a wooden
native spoon. I didn’t stop very long, especially after he got on to
the subject of the lost orchid, about which he began to show signs of
excitement. This I allayed as well as I could by telling him that I had
preserved a pod of the seed, news at which he was delighted.
“There!” he said. “To think that you, Allan, should have remembered to
take that precaution when I, an orchidist, forgot all about it!”
“Ah! my boy,” I answered, “I have lived long enough to learn never to
leave anything behind that I can possibly carry away. Also, although not
an orchidist, it occurred to me that there are more ways of propagating
a plant than from the original root, which generally won’t go into one’s
pocket.”
Then he began to give me elaborate instructions as to the preservation
of the seed-pod in a perfectly dry and air-tight tin box, etc., at which
point Miss Hope unceremoniously bundled me out of the tent.
That afternoon we held a conference at which it was agreed that we
should begin our return journey to Beza Town at once, as the place where
we were camped was very malarious and there was always a risk of the
Pongo paying us another visit.
So a litter was made with a mat stretched over it in which Stephen could
be carried, since fortunately there were plenty of bearers, and our
other simple preparations were quickly completed. Mrs. Eversley and Hope
were mounted on the two donkeys; Brother John, whose hurt leg showed
signs of renewed weakness, rode his white ox, which was now quite fat
again; the wounded hero, Stephen, as I have said, was carried; and I
walked, comparing notes with old Babemba on the Pongo, their manners,
which I am bound to say were good, and their customs, that, as the
saying goes, were “simply beastly.”
How delighted that ancient warrior was to hear again about the sacred
cave, the Crocodile Water, the Mountain Forest and its terrible god,
of the death of which and of the Motombo he made me tell him the
story three times over. At the conclusion of the third recital he said
quietly:
“My lord Macumazana, you are a great man, and I am glad to have lived if
only to know you. No one else could have done these deeds.”
Of course I was complimented, but felt bound to point out Hans’s share
in our joint achievement.
“Yes, yes,” he answered, “the Spotted Snake, Inhlatu, has the cunning to
scheme, but you have the power to do, and what is the use of a brain to
plot without the arm to strike? The two do not go together because the
plotter is not a striker. His mind is different. If the snake had
the strength and brain of the elephant, and the fierce courage of the
buffalo, soon there would be but one creature left in the world. But
the Maker of all things knew this and kept them separate, my lord
Macumazana.”
I thought, and still think, that there was a great deal of wisdom in
this remark, simple as it seems. Oh! surely many of these savages whom
we white men despise, are no fools.
After about an hour’s march we camped till the moon rose which it did
at ten o’clock, when we went on again till near dawn, as it was thought
better that Stephen should travel in the cool of the night. I remember
that our cavalcade, escorted before, behind and on either flank by
the Mazitu troops with their tall spears, looked picturesque and even
imposing as it wound over those wide downs in the lovely and peaceful
light of the moon.
There is no need for me to set out the details of the rest of our
journey, which was not marked by any incident of importance.
Stephen bore it very well, and Brother John, who was one of the best
doctors I ever met, gave good reports of him, but I noted that he did
not seem to get any stronger, although he ate plenty of food. Also, Miss
Hope, who nursed him, for her mother seemed to have no taste that way,
informed me that he slept but little, as indeed I found out for myself.
“O Allan,” she said, just before we reached Beza Town, “Stephen, your
son” (she used to call him my son, I don’t know why) “is sick. The
father says it is only the spear-hurt, but I tell you it is more than
the spear-hurt. He is sick in himself,” and the tears that filled her
grey eyes showed me that she spoke what she believed. As a matter of
fact she was right, for on the night after we reached the town, Stephen
was seized with an attack of some bad form of African fever, which in
his weak state nearly cost him his life, contracted, no doubt, at that
unhealthy Crocodile Water.
Our reception at Beza was most imposing, for the whole population,
headed by old Bausi himself, came out to meet us with loud shouts of
welcome, from which we had to ask them to desist for Stephen’s sake.
So in the end we got back to our huts with gratitude of heart. Indeed,
we should have been very happy there for a while, had it not been for
our anxiety about Stephen. But it is always thus in the world; who was
ever allowed to eat his pot of honey without finding a fly or perhaps a
cockroach in his mouth?
In all, Stephen was really ill for about a month. On the tenth day after
our arrival at Beza, according to my diary, which, having little else
to do, I entered up fully at this time, we thought that he would surely
die. Even Brother John, who attended him with the most constant skill,
and who had ample quinine and other drugs at his command, for these we
had brought with us from Durban in plenty, gave up the case. Day and
night the poor fellow raved and always about that confounded orchid, the
loss of which seemed to weigh upon his mind as though it were a whole
sackful of unrepented crimes.
I really think that he owed his life to a subterfuge, or rather to a
bold invention of Hope’s. One evening, when he was at his very worst and
going on like a mad creature about the lost plant--I was present in the
hut at the time alone with him and her--she took his hand and pointing
to a perfectly open space on the floor, said:
“Look, O Stephen, the flower has been brought back.”
He stared and stared, and then to my amazement answered:
“By Jove, so it has! But those beggars have broken off all the blooms
except one.”
“Yes,” she echoed, “but one remains and it is the finest of them all.”
After this he went quietly to sleep and slept for twelve hours, then
took some food and slept again and, what is more, his temperature went
down to, or a little below, normal. When he finally woke up, as it
chanced, I was again present in the hut with Hope, who was standing
on the spot which she had persuaded him was occupied by the orchid. He
stared at this spot and he stared at her--me he could not see, for I was
behind him--then said in a weak voice:
“Didn’t you tell me, Miss Hope, that the plant was where you are and
that the most beautiful of the flowers was left?”
I wondered what on earth her answer would be. However, she rose to the
occasion.
“O Stephen,” she replied, in her soft voice and speaking in a way so
natural that it freed her words from any boldness, “it is here, for am
I not its child”--her native appellation, it will be remembered, was
“Child of the Flower.” “And the fairest of the flowers is here, too, for
I am that Flower which you found in the island of the lake. O Stephen, I
pray you to trouble no more about a lost plant of which you have seed
in plenty, but make thanks that you still live and that through you
my mother and I still live, who, if you had died, would weep our eyes
away.”
“Through me,” he answered. “You mean through Allan and Hans. Also it was
you who saved my life there in the water. Oh! I remember it all now. You
are right, Hope; although I didn’t know it, you are the true Holy Flower
that I saw.”
She ran to him and kneeling by his side, gave him her hand, which he
pressed to his pale lips.
Then I sneaked out of that hut and left them to discuss the lost flower
that was found again. It was a pretty scene, and one that to my mind
gave a sort of spiritual meaning to the whole of an otherwise rather
insane quest. He sought an ideal flower, he found--the love of his life.
After this, Stephen recovered rapidly, for such love is the best of
medicines--if it be returned.
I don’t know what passed between the pair and Brother John and his wife,
for I never asked. But I noted that from this day forward they began to
treat him as a son. The new relationship between Stephen and Hope seemed
to be tacitly accepted without discussion. Even the natives accepted it,
for old Mavovo asked me when they were going to be married and how many
cows Stephen had promised to pay Brother John for such a beautiful wife.
“It ought to be a large herd,” he said, “and of a big breed of cattle.”
Sammy, too, alluded to the young lady in conversation with me, as “Mr.
Somers’s affianced spouse.” Only Hans said nothing. Such a trivial
matter as marrying and giving in marriage did not interest him.
Or, perhaps, he looked upon the affair as a foregone conclusion and
therefore unworthy of comment.
We stayed at Bausi’s kraal for a full month longer whilst Stephen
recovered his strength. I grew thoroughly bored with the place and so
did Mavovo and the Zulus, but Brother John and his wife did not seem to
mind. Mrs. Eversley was a passive creature, quite content to take things
as they came and after so long an absence from civilization, to bide a
little longer among savages. Also she had her beloved John, at whom she
would sit and gaze by the hour like a cat sometimes does at a person to
whom it is attached. Indeed, when she spoke to him, her voice seemed
to me to resemble a kind of blissful purr. I think it made the old boy
rather fidgety sometimes, for after an hour or two of it he would rise
and go to hunt for butterflies.
To tell the truth, the situation got a little on my nerves at last, for
wherever I looked I seemed to see there Stephen and Hope making love
to each other, or Brother John and his wife admiring each other, which
didn’t leave me much spare conversation. Evidently they thought that
Mavovo, Hans, Sammy, Bausi, Babemba and Co. were enough for me--that is,
if they reflected on the matter at all. So they were, in a sense, for
the Zulu hunters began to get out of hand in the midst of this idleness
and plenty, eating too much, drinking too much native beer, smoking too
much of the intoxicating _dakka_, a mischievous kind of hemp, and making
too much love to the Mazitu women, which of course resulted in the usual
rows that I had to settle.
At last I struck and said that we must move on as Stephen was now fit to
travel.
“Quite so,” said Brother John, mildly. “What have you arranged, Allan?”
With some irritation, for I hated that sentence of Brother John’s, I
replied that I had arranged nothing, but that as none of them seemed to
have any suggestions to make, I would go out and talk the matter over
with Hans and Mavovo, which I did.
I need not chronicle the results of our conference since other
arrangements were being made for us at which I little guessed.
It all came very suddenly, as great things in the lives of men and
nations sometimes do. Although the Mazitu were of the Zulu family, their
military organization had none of the Zulu thoroughness. For instance,
when I remonstrated with Bausi and old Babemba as to their not keeping
up a proper system of outposts and intelligence, they laughed at me and
answered that they never had been attacked and now that the Pongo had
learnt a lesson, were never likely to be.
By the way, I see that I have not yet mentioned that at Brother John’s
request those Pongos who had been taken prisoners at the Battle of
the Reeds were conducted to the shores of the lake, given one of the
captured canoes and told that they might return to their own happy land.
To our astonishment about three weeks later they reappeared at Beza Town
with this story.
They said that they had crossed the lake and found Rica still standing,
but utterly deserted. They then wandered through the country and even
explored the Motombo’s cave. There they discovered the remains of the
Motombo, still crouched upon his platform, but nothing more. In one hut
of a distant village, however, they came across an old and dying woman
who informed them with her last breath that the Pongos, frightened by
the iron tubes that vomited death and in obedience to some prophecy,
“had all gone back whence they came in the beginning,” taking with them
the recaptured “Holy Flower.” She had been left with a supply of food
because she was too weak to travel. So, perhaps, that flower grows
again in some unknown place in Africa, but its worshippers will have to
provide themselves with another god of the forest, another Mother of the
Flower, and another high-priest to fill the office of the late Motombo.
These Pongo prisoners, having now no home, and not knowing where their
people had gone except that it was “towards the north,” asked for
leave to settle among the Mazitu, which was granted them. Their story
confirmed me in my opinion that Pongo-land is not really an island, but
is connected on the further side with the continent by some ridge or
swamp. If we had been obliged to stop much longer among the Mazitu, I
would have satisfied myself as to this matter by going to look. But
that chance never came to me until some years later when, under curious
circumstances, I was again destined to visit this part of Africa.
To return to my story. On the day following this discussion as to our
departure we all breakfasted very early as there was a great deal to
be done. There was a dense mist that morning such as in these Mazitu
uplands often precedes high, hot wind from the north at this season of
the year, so dense indeed that it was impossible to see for more than
a few yards. I suppose that this mist comes up from the great lake in
certain conditions of the weather. We had just finished our breakfast
and rather languidly, for the thick, sultry air left me unenergetic, I
told one of the Zulus to see that the two donkeys and the white ox which
I had caused to be brought into the town in view of our near departure
and tied up by our huts, were properly fed. Then I went to inspect all
the rifles and ammunition, which Hans had got out to be checked
and overhauled. It was at this moment that I heard a far-away and
unaccustomed sound, and asked Hans what he thought it was.
“A gun, Baas,” he answered anxiously.
Well might he be anxious, for as we both knew, no one in the
neighbourhood had guns except ourselves, and all ours were accounted
for. It is true that we had promised to give the majority of those we
had taken from the slavers to Bausi when we went away, and that I had
been instructing some of his best soldiers in the use of them, but not
one of these had as yet been left in their possession.
I stepped to a gate in the fence and ordered the sentry there to run to
Bausi and Babemba and make report and inquiries, also to pray them to
summon all the soldiers, of whom, as it happened, there were at the time
not more than three hundred in the town. As perfect peace prevailed,
the rest, according to their custom, had been allowed to go to their
villages and attend to their crops. Then, possessed by a rather
undefined nervousness, at which the others were inclined to laugh, I
caused the Zulus to arm and generally make a few arrangements to meet
any unforeseen crisis. This done I sat down to reflect what would be the
best course to take if we should happen to be attacked by a large force
in that straggling native town, of which I had often studied all the
strategic possibilities. When I had come to my own conclusion I asked
Hans and Mavovo what they thought, and found that they agreed with me
that the only defensible place was outside the town where the road to
the south gate ran down to a rocky wooded ridge with somewhat steep
flanks. It may be remembered that it was by this road and over this
ridge that Brother John had appeared on his white ox when we were about
to be shot to death with arrows at the posts in the market-place.
Whilst we were still talking two of the Mazitu captains appeared,
running hard and dragging between them a wounded herdsman, who had
evidently been hit in the arm by a bullet.
This was his story. That he and two other boys were out herding the
king’s cattle about half a mile to the north of the town, when suddenly
there appeared a great number of men dressed in white robes, all of whom
were armed with guns. These men, of whom he thought there must be three
or four hundred, began to take the cattle and seeing the three herds,
fired on them, wounding him and killing his two companions. He then
ran for his life and brought the news. He added that one of the men had
called after him to tell the white people that they had come to kill
them and the Mazitu who were their friends and to take away the white
women.
“Hassan-ben-Mohammed and his slavers!” I said, as Babemba appeared at
the head of a number of soldiers, crying out:
“The slave-dealing Arabs are here, lord Macumazana. They have crept
on us through the mist. A herald of theirs has come to the north gate
demanding that we should give up you white people and your servants,
and with you a hundred young men and a hundred young women to be sold as
slaves. If we do not do this they say that they will kill all of us save
the unmarried boys and girls, and that you white people they will take
and put to death by burning, keeping only the two women alive. One
Hassan sends this message.”
“Indeed,” I answered quietly, for in this fix I grew quite cool as was
usual with me. “And does Bausi mean to give us up?”
“How can Bausi give up Dogeetah who is his blood brother, and you, his
friend?” exclaimed the old general, indignantly. “Bausi sends me to
his brother Dogeetah that he may receive the orders of the white man’s
wisdom, spoken through your mouth, lord Macumazana.”
“Then there’s a good spirit in Bausi,” I replied, “and these are
Dogeetah’s orders spoken through my mouth. Go to Hassan’s messengers and
ask him whether he remembers a certain letter which two white men left
for him outside their camp in a cleft stick. Tell him that the time has
now come for those white men to fulfil the promise they made in that
letter and that before to-morrow he will be hanging on a tree. Then,
Babemba, gather your soldiers and hold the north gate of the town for as
long as you can, defending it with bows and arrows. Afterwards retreat
through the town, joining us among the trees on the rocky slope that is
opposite the south gate. Bid some of your men clear the town of all the
aged and women and children and let them pass though the south gate and
take refuge in the wooded country beyond the slope. Let them not tarry.
Let them go at once. Do you understand?”
“I understand everything, lord Macumazana. The words of Dogeetah shall
be obeyed. Oh! would that we had listened to you and kept a better
watch!”
He rushed off, running like a young man and shouting orders as he went.
“Now,” I said, “we must be moving.”
We collected all the rifles and ammunition, with some other things, I
am sure I forget what they were, and with the help of a few guards whom
Babemba had left outside our gate started through the town, leading
with us the two donkeys and the white ox. I remember by an afterthought,
telling Sammy, who was looking very uncomfortable, to return to the huts
and fetch some blankets and a couple of iron cooking-pots which might
become necessities to us.
“Oh! Mr. Quatermain,” he answered, “I will obey you, though with fear
and trembling.”
He went and when a few hours afterwards I noted that he had never
reappeared, I came to the conclusion, with a sigh, for I was very fond
of Sammy in a way, that he had fallen into trouble and been killed.
Probably, I thought, “his fear and trembling” had overcome his reason
and caused him to run in the wrong direction with the cooking-pots.
The first part of our march through the town was easy enough, but after
we had crossed the market-place and emerged into the narrow way that ran
between many lines of huts to the south gate it became more difficult,
since this path was already crowded with hundreds of terrified
fugitives, old people, sick being carried, little boys, girls, and women
with infants at the breast. It was impossible to control these poor
folk; all we could do was to fight our way through them. However, we got
out at last and climbing the slope, took up the best position we could
on and just beneath its crest where the trees and scattered boulders
gave us very fair cover, which we improved upon in every way feasible in
the time at our disposal, by building little breastworks of stone and so
forth. The fugitives who had accompanied us, and those who followed, a
multitude in all, did not stop here, but flowed on along the road and
vanished into the wooded country behind.
I suggested to Brother John that he should take his wife and daughter
and the three beasts and go with them. He seemed inclined to accept the
idea, needless to say for their sakes, not for his own, for he was a
very fearless old fellow. But the two ladies utterly refused to budge.
Hope said that she would stop with Stephen, and her mother declared that
she had every confidence in me and preferred to remain where she was.
Then I suggested that Stephen should go too, but at this he grew so
angry that I dropped the subject.
So in the end we established them in a pleasant little hollow by a
spring just over the crest of the rise, where unless our flank were
turned or we were rushed, they would be out of the reach of bullets.
Moreover, without saying anything more we gave to each of them a
double-barrelled and loaded pistol.