AWAY! AWAY!
At the top of the rise we halted for a second to breathe our horses;
and, turning, glanced at the battle beneath us, which, illumined as it
was by the fierce rays of the sinking sun staining the whole scene red,
looked from where we were more like some wild titanic picture than an
actual hand-to-hand combat. The distinguishing scenic effect from that
distance was the countless distinct flashes of light reflected from the
swords and spears, otherwise the panorama was not so grand as might
have been expected. The great green lap of sward in which the struggle
was being fought out, the bold round outline of the hills behind, and
the wide sweep of the plain beyond, seemed to dwarf it; and what was
tremendous enough when one was in it, grew insignificant when viewed
from the distance. But is it not thus with all the affairs and doings
of our race about which we blow the loud trumpet and make such a fuss
and worry? How utterly antlike, and morally and physically
insignificant, must they seem to the calm eyes that watch them from the
arching depths above!
“We win the day, Macumazahn,” said old Umslopogaas, taking in the whole
situation with a glance of his practised eye. “Look, the Lady of the
Night’s forces give on every side, there is no stiffness left in them,
they bend like hot iron, they are fighting with but half a heart. But
alas! the battle will in a manner be drawn, for the darkness gathers,
and the regiments will not be able to follow and slay!”—and he shook
his head sadly. “But,” he added, “I do not think that they will fight
again. We have fed them with too strong a meat. Ah! it is well to have
lived! At last I have seen a fight worth seeing.”
By this time we were on our way again, and as we went side by side I
told him what our mission was, and how that, if it failed, all the
lives that had been lost that day would have been lost in vain.
“Ah!” he said, “nigh on a hundred miles and no horses but these, and to
be there before the dawn! Well—away! away! man can but try, Macumazahn;
and mayhap we shall be there in time to split that old ‘witch-finder’s’
[Agon’s] skull for him. Once he wanted to burn us, the old
‘rain-maker’, did he? And now he would set a snare for my mother
[Nyleptha], would he? Good! So sure as my name is the name of the
Woodpecker, so surely, be my mother alive or dead, will I split him to
the beard. Ay, by T’Chaka’s head I swear it!” and he shook Inkosi-kaas
as he galloped. By now the darkness was closing in, but fortunately
there would be a moon later, and the road was good.
On we sped through the twilight, the two splendid horses we bestrode
had got their wind by this, and were sweeping along with a wide steady
stride that neither failed nor varied for mile upon mile. Down the side
of slopes we galloped, across wide vales that stretched to the foot of
far-off hills. Nearer and nearer grew the blue hills; now we were
travelling up their steeps, and now we were over and passing towards
others that sprang up like visions in the far, faint distance beyond.
On, never pausing or drawing rein, through the perfect quiet of the
night, that was set like a song to the falling music of our horses’
hoofs; on, past deserted villages, where only some forgotten starving
dog howled a melancholy welcome; on, past lonely moated dwellings; on,
through the white patchy moonlight, that lay coldly upon the wide bosom
of the earth, as though there was no warmth in it; on, knee to knee,
for hour after hour!
We spake not, but bent us forward on the necks of those two glorious
horses, and listened to their deep, long-drawn breaths as they filled
their great lungs, and to the regular unfaltering ring of their round
hoofs. Grim and black indeed did old Umslopogaas look beside me,
mounted upon the great white horse, like Death in the Revelation of St
John, as now and again lifting his fierce set face he gazed out along
the road, and pointed with his axe towards some distant rise or house.
And so on, still on, without break or pause for hour after hour.
At last I felt that even the splendid animal that I rode was beginning
to give out. I looked at my watch; it was nearly midnight, and we were
considerably more than half way. On the top of a rise was a little
spring, which I remembered because I had slept by it a few nights
before, and here I motioned to Umslopogaas to pull up, having
determined to give the horses and ourselves ten minutes to breathe in.
He did so, and we dismounted—that is to say, Umslopogaas did, and then
helped me off, for what with fatigue, stiffness, and the pain of my
wound, I could not do so for myself; and then the gallant horses stood
panting there, resting first one leg and then another, while the sweat
fell drip, drip, from them, and the steam rose and hung in pale clouds
in the still night air.
Leaving Umslopogaas to hold the horses, I hobbled to the spring and
drank deep of its sweet waters. I had had nothing but a single mouthful
of wine since midday, when the battle began, and I was parched up,
though my fatigue was too great to allow me to feel hungry. Then,
having laved my fevered head and hands, I returned, and the Zulu went
and drank. Next we allowed the horses to take a couple of mouthfuls
each—no more; and oh, what a struggle we had to get the poor beasts
away from the water! There were yet two minutes, and I employed it in
hobbling up and down to try and relieve my stiffness, and in inspecting
the condition of the horses. My mare, gallant animal though she was,
was evidently much distressed; she hung her head, and her eye looked
sick and dull; but Daylight, Nyleptha’s glorious horse—who, if he is
served aright, should, like the steeds who saved great Rameses in his
need, feed for the rest of his days out of a golden manger—was still
comparatively speaking fresh, notwithstanding the fact that he had had
by far the heavier weight to carry. He was “tucked up”, indeed, and his
legs were weary, but his eye was bright and clear, and he held his
shapely head up and gazed out into the darkness round him in a way that
seemed to say that whoever failed _he_ was good for those
five-and-forty miles that yet lay between us and Milosis. Then
Umslopogaas helped me into the saddle and—vigorous old savage that he
was!—vaulted into his own without touching a stirrup, and we were off
once more, slowly at first, till the horses got into their stride, and
then more swiftly. So we passed over another ten miles, and then came a
long, weary rise of some six or seven miles, and three times did my
poor black mare nearly come to the ground with me. But on the top she
seemed to gather herself together, and rattled down the slope with
long, convulsive strides, breathing in gasps. We did that three or four
miles more swiftly than any since we had started on our wild ride, but
I felt it to be a last effort, and I was right. Suddenly my poor horse
took the bit between her teeth and bolted furiously along a stretch of
level ground for some three or four hundred yards, and then, with two
or three jerky strides, pulled herself up and fell with a crash right
on to her head, I rolling myself free as she did so. As I struggled to
my feet the brave beast raised her head and looked at me with piteous
bloodshot eyes, and then her head dropped with a groan and she was
dead. Her heart was broken.
Umslopogaas pulled up beside the carcase, and I looked at him in
dismay. There were still more than twenty miles to do by dawn, and how
were we to do it with one horse? It seemed hopeless, but I had
forgotten the old Zulu’s extraordinary running powers.
Without a single word he sprang from the saddle and began to hoist me
into it.
“What wilt thou do?” I asked.
“Run,” he answered, seizing my stirrup-leather.
Then off we went again, almost as fast as before; and oh, the relief it
was to me to get that change of horses! Anybody who has ever ridden
against time will know what it meant.
Daylight sped along at a long stretching hand-gallop, giving the gaunt
Zulu a lift at every stride. It was a wonderful thing to see old
Umslopogaas run mile after mile, his lips slightly parted and his
nostrils agape like the horse’s. Every five miles or so we stopped for
a few minutes to let him get his breath, and then flew on again.
“Canst thou go farther,” I said at the third of these stoppages, “or
shall I leave thee to follow me?”
He pointed with his axe to a dim mass before us. It was the Temple of
the Sun, now not more than five miles away.
“I reach it or I die,” he gasped.
Oh, that last five miles! The skin was rubbed from the inside of my
legs, and every movement of my horse gave me anguish. Nor was that all.
I was exhausted with toil, want of food and sleep, and also suffering
very much from the blow I had received on my left side; it seemed as
though a piece of bone or something was slowly piercing into my lung.
Poor Daylight, too, was pretty nearly finished, and no wonder. But
there was a smell of dawn in the air, and we might not stay; better
that all three of us should die upon the road than that we should
linger while there was life in us. The air was thick and heavy, as it
sometimes is before the dawn breaks, and—another infallible sign in
certain parts of Zu-Vendis that sunrise is at hand—hundreds of little
spiders pendant on the end of long tough webs were floating about in
it. These early-rising creatures, or rather their webs, caught upon the
horse’s and our own forms by scores, and, as we had neither the time
nor the energy to brush them off, we rushed along covered with hundreds
of long grey threads that streamed out a yard or more behind us—and a
very strange appearance they must have given us.
And now before us are the huge brazen gates of the outer wall of the
Frowning City, and a new and horrible doubt strikes me: What if they
will not let us in?
“_Open! open!_” I shout imperiously, at the same time giving the royal
password. “_Open! open!_ a messenger, a messenger with tidings of the
war!”
“What news?” cried the guard. “And who art thou that ridest so madly,
and who is that whose tongue lolls out”—and it actually did—“and who
runs by thee like a dog by a chariot?”
“It is the Lord Macumazahn, and with him is his dog, his black dog.
_Open! open!_ I bring tidings.”
The great gates ran back on their rollers, and the drawbridge fell with
a rattling crash, and we dashed on through the one and over the other.
“What news, my lord, what news?” cried the guard.
“Incubu rolls Sorais back, as the wind a cloud,” I answered, and was
gone.
One more effort, gallant horse, and yet more gallant man!
So, fall not now, Daylight, and hold thy life in thee for fifteen short
minutes more, old Zulu war-dog, and ye shall both live for ever in the
annals of the land.
On, clattering through the sleeping streets. We are passing the Flower
Temple now—one mile more, only one little mile—hold on, keep your life
in thee, see the houses run past of themselves. Up, good horse, up,
there—but fifty yards now. Ah! you see your stables and stagger on
gallantly.
“Thank God, the palace at last!” and see, the first arrows of the dawn
are striking on the Temple’s golden dome.[22] But shall I get in here,
or is the deed done and the way barred?
[22] Of course, the roof of the Temple, being so high, caught the
light some time before the breaking of the dawn.—A. Q.
Once more I give the password and shout “_Open! open!_”
No answer, and my heart grows very faint.
Again I call, and this time a single voice replies, and to my joy I
recognize it as belonging to Kara, a fellow-officer of Nyleptha’s
guards, a man I know to be as honest as the light—indeed, the same whom
Nyleptha had sent to arrest Sorais on the day she fled to the temple.
“Is it thou, Kara?” I cry; “I am Macumazahn. Bid the guard let down the
bridge and throw wide the gate. Quick, quick!”
Then followed a space that seemed to me endless, but at length the
bridge fell and one half of the gate opened and we got into the
courtyard, where at last poor Daylight fell down beneath me, as I
thought, dead. Except Kara, there was nobody to be seen, and his look
was wild, and his garments were all torn. He had opened the gate and
let down the bridge alone, and was now getting them up and shut again
(as, owing to a very ingenious arrangement of cranks and levers, one
man could easily do, and indeed generally did do).
“Where are the guard?” I gasped, fearing his answer as I never feared
anything before.
“I know not,” he answered; “two hours ago, as I slept, was I seized and
bound by the watch under me, and but now, this very moment, have I
freed myself with my teeth. I fear, I greatly fear, that we are
betrayed.”
His words gave me fresh energy. Catching him by the arm, I staggered,
followed by Umslopogaas, who reeled after us like a drunken man,
through the courtyards, up the great hall, which was silent as the
grave, towards the Queen’s sleeping-place.
We reached the first ante-room—no guards; the second, still no guards.
Oh, surely the thing was done! we were too late after all, too late!
The silence and solitude of those great chambers was dreadful, and
weighed me down like an evil dream. On, right into Nyleptha’s chamber
we rushed and staggered, sick at heart, fearing the very worst; we saw
there was a light in it, ay, and a figure bearing the light. Oh, thank
God, it is the White Queen herself, the Queen unharmed! There she
stands in her night gear, roused, by the clatter of our coming, from
her bed, the heaviness of sleep yet in her eyes, and a red blush of
fear and shame mantling her lovely breast and cheek.
“Who is it?” she cries. “What means this? Oh, Macumazahn, is it thou?
Why lookest thou so wildly? Thou comest as one bearing evil tidings—and
my lord—oh, tell me not my lord is dead—not dead!” she wailed, wringing
her white hands.
“I left Incubu wounded, but leading the advance against Sorais last
night at sundown; therefore let thy heart have rest. Sorais is beaten
back all along her lines, and thy arms prevail.”
“I knew it,” she cried in triumph. “I knew that he would win; and they
called him Outlander, and shook their wise heads when I gave him the
command! Last night at sundown, sayest thou, and it is not yet dawn?
Surely—”
“Throw a cloak around thee, Nyleptha,” I broke in, “and give us wine to
drink; ay, and call thy maidens quick if thou wouldst save thyself
alive. Nay, stay not.”
Thus adjured she ran and called through the curtains towards some room
beyond, and then hastily put on her sandals and a thick cloak, by which
time a dozen or so of half-dressed women were pouring into the room.
“Follow us and be silent,” I said to them as they gazed with wondering
eyes, clinging one to another. So we went into the first ante-room.
“Now,” I said, “give us wine to drink and food, if ye have it, for we
are near to death.”
The room was used as a mess-room for the officers of the guards, and
from a cupboard some flagons of wine and some cold flesh were brought
forth, and Umslopogaas and I drank, and felt life flow back into our
veins as the good red wine went down.
“Hark to me, Nyleptha,” I said, as I put down the empty tankard. “Hast
thou here among these thy waiting-ladies any two of discretion?”
“Ay,” she said, “surely.”
“Then bid them go out by the side entrance to any citizens whom thou
canst bethink thee of as men loyal to thee, and pray them come armed,
with all honest folk that they can gather, to rescue thee from death.
Nay, question not; do as I say, and quickly. Kara here will let out the
maids.”
She turned, and selecting two of the crowd of damsels, repeated the
words I had uttered, giving them besides a list of the names of the men
to whom each should run.
“Go swiftly and secretly; go for your very lives,” I added.
In another moment they had left with Kara, whom I told to rejoin us at
the door leading from the great courtyard on to the stairway as soon as
he had made fast behind the girls. Thither, too, Umslopogaas and I made
our way, followed by the Queen and her women. As we went we tore off
mouthfuls of food, and between them I told her what I knew of the
danger which encompassed her, and how we found Kara, and how all the
guards and men-servants were gone, and she was alone with her women in
that great place; and she told me, too, that a rumour had spread
through the town that our army had been utterly destroyed, and that
Sorais was marching in triumph on Milosis, and how in consequence
thereof all men had fallen away from her.
Though all this takes some time to tell, we had not been but six or
seven minutes in the palace; and notwithstanding that the golden roof
of the temple being very lofty was ablaze with the rays of the rising
sun, it was not yet dawn, nor would be for another ten minutes. We were
in the courtyard now, and here my wound pained me so that I had to take
Nyleptha’s arm, while Umslopogaas rolled along after us, eating as he
went.
Now we were across it, and had reached the narrow doorway through the
palace wall that opened on to the mighty stair.
I looked through and stood aghast, as well I might. The door was gone,
and so were the outer gates of bronze—entirely gone. They had been
taken from their hinges, and as we afterwards found, hurled from the
stairway to the ground two hundred feet beneath. There in front of us
was the semicircular standing-space, about twice the size of a large
oval dining-table, and the ten curved black marble steps leading on to
the main stair—and that was all.