THE SLUICE GATE
All that night it poured, not merely in the usual tropical torrent, but
positively in waterspouts. Seldom in my life have I heard such rain as
that which fell upon the roof of the house where we were, which must
have been wonderfully well built, for otherwise it would have given
way. When we rose in the morning and went to the door to look out, all
the place was swimming and a solid wall of water seemed to stretch from
earth to heaven.
“I think there will be a flood after this, Baas,” remarked Hans.
“I think so, too,” I answered, “and if we were not here I
wish that it might be deep enough to drown every human brute upon this
island.”
“It cannot do that, Baas, because at the worst they would climb up the
mountain, though it might get into the cave and give Heu-Heu a
washing—which he needs.”
“If it got into the cave, it would probably get into the mountain as
well,” I began—then stopped, for an idea occurred to me.
I had noticed that this cave sloped downwards somewhat steeply, I mean
into the base of the mountain and towards its centre. Probably, in its
origin it was a vent blown through the rock at some time in the past
when the volcano was very active, which, for aught I knew, remained
unblocked, or only slightly blocked. Suppose now that a great volume of
water ran down that cave and vanished into the interior of the
mountain, was it not probable that something unusual would happen? The
volcano was still alive—this I knew from the smoke which hung above it,
also by the stream of red-hot lava that we had seen trickling down its
southern face—and fire and water do not agree well together. They make
steam, and steam expands. This thought took such a persistent hold on
me that I began to wonder whether it did not partake of the nature of
an inspiration. However, I said nothing of it to Hans, who, being a
savage, did not understand such matters.
A little later food was brought to us by one of the serving priests.
With it came a message from Dacha to the effect that he grieved he
could not wait on us that day as he had many matters to which he must
attend, but that the Lady Dramana would do so shortly and show us all
there was to be seen, if the rain permitted.
In due course she arrived—alone, as I had hoped she would—and at
once began to talk of the rainfall of the previous night, which she
said was such as had never been known in their country. She added that
all the priests had been out that morning, dragging the great stone
sluice gate into its place so as to keep out the water of the lake,
lest the arable land should be flooded and the crops destroyed.
I told her that I was much interested in such matters, and asked
questions about this sluice which she could not answer as she knew
little of its working. She said, however, that she would show it to me
so that I might study the system.
I thanked her and inquired whether the lake had risen much. She
answered, Not yet, but that probably it would do so during the day and
the following night when it became filled with the water brought down
by the flooded river which ran into it from the country to the north.
At any rate, this was feared, and it had been thought best to set the
sluice in place, a difficult task because of its weight. Indeed, a
woman who had gone to help out of curiosity had been caught by a
lever—I understood that was what she meant—and killed. She still
lay by the sluice, since it was not lawful for the priests of Heu-Heu
or their servants to touch a dead body between the Feast of Illusions,
which had been held on the previous night, and the Feast of Marriage,
which would be held on the night of the morrow, when, she added
significantly, they often touched plenty.
“It is a Feast of Blood, then?” I said.
“Yes, Lord, a Feast of Blood, and I pray that it may not be of your
blood also.”
“Have no fear of that,” I answered airily, though in truth I felt
much depressed. Then I asked her to tell me exactly what was going to
happen as to the delivery of the “Holy Bride.”
“This, Lord,” she said. “Before midnight, when the moon
should be at its fullest, a canoe comes, bringing the bride from the
City of the Walloos. Priests receive her and tie her to the pillar that
stands on the Rock of Offerings between the Everlasting Fires. Then the
canoe goes and waits at a distance. The priests go also and leave the
bride alone. I know it all, Lord, for I have been that bride. So she
stands until the first ray of the rising sun strikes upon her. Then
from the mouth of the cave comes out the high priest dressed in skins
to resemble the image of the god, and followed by women and some of the
Hairy savage folk shouting in triumph. He looses the bride, and they
bear her into the cave, and there, Lord, she vanishes.”
“Do you think that she will be brought at all, Dramana?”
“Certainly she will be brought, since if my father, the Walloo, or
Issicore, or any refused to send her, they would be killed by their own
people, who believe that then disaster would overtake them. Unless you
can save her by your arts, Lord, my sister Sabeela must become the wife
of Heu-Heu, which means the wife of Dacha.”
“I will think the matter over,” I said. “But if I make up my
mind to help, am I right in understanding that you also desire to
escape from this island?”
“Lord, I have told you so already, and I will only add this. Dacha
hates me and when I have served his purpose and he has in his hands
Sabeela, the true heiress to the chieftainship over our people unless
first I tread her road, certainly it will be my lot to stand where that
poor woman stood last night, who slew herself to escape worse things.
Oh, Lord, save me if you can!”
“I will save you—if I can,” I replied, and I meant
it—almost as much as I meant to save myself.
Then I impressed upon her that she must obey me in all things without
question, and this she swore to do. Also I asked her if she could
provide us with a canoe.
“It is impossible,” she replied. “Dacha is clever; he has
bethought him that you might depart in a canoe. Therefore, every one of
them has been moved round to the other side of the island where they
are kept under watch of the Savage Folk. That is why he gives you leave
to roam about the place, because he knows that you cannot leave it,
unless you have wings, for the lake is too wide for any man to swim,
and if it were not, the Walloo shore is haunted by crocodiles.”
Now, my friends, as you may guess, this was a blow indeed. However, I
kept my countenance and said that as this was the case something else
must be arranged, only asking casually if there were any crocodiles
about this part of the island coast. She answered that there were none,
because, as she supposed, the flames of the Everlasting Fires, or some
smell from the smoke of the mountain, frightened them away.
Next, as the torrents of rain had ceased, at any rate for a while, I
suggested that we should go out, and we did so. Also I did not mind
much about the weather, as to protect us from it she had brought with
her for our use and her own three of the strangest waterproofs that
ever I saw. These consisted of two giant leaves from some kind of
waterlily that grew on the borders of the lake, sewn together, with a
hole at the top of the leaves, where the stalk comes, for the wearer’s
head to go through, and two openings left for his arms. For the rest no
mackintosh ever turned wet so well as did these leaves, the only
drawback about them, as I was informed, being that they must be renewed
once in every three days.
Arrayed in these queer garments we went out in rain that here we should
call fairly heavy, though it was but the merest drizzle compared to
what had gone before. This rain I may explain, had great advantages so
far as we were concerned, seeing that in it not even the most curious
woman put her nose outside her own door. So it came about that we were
able to examine the village of the priests of Heu-Heu quite unobserved
and at our leisure.
This settlement was small since there were never more than fifty
priests in the college, if so it may be called, to whom, of course,
must be added their wives and women, on an average, perhaps, of three
or four per man.
The odd thing was that there seemed to be no children and no old
people. Either offspring did not arrive and folk died young upon the
island, or in both cases they were made away with, perhaps as
sacrifices to Heu-Heu. I am sorry to say that in the pressure of great
dangers I do not remember making any inquiry upon the point, or if I
did I cannot recall the answer given. It was only afterwards that I
reflected upon this strange circumstance. The fact remains that on the
island there were no young and no aged. Another possible explanation,
by the way, is that both may have been exported to the mainland.
Here I will add that with the exception of Dramana and a few discarded
wives who may have been doomed to sacrifice, the women were fiercer
bigots and more cruel votaries of Heu-Heu than were the men themselves.
So, indeed, I had observed when I sat among them at the Feast of
Illusions in the cave.
For the rest they all lived in dwellings such as that which was given
to us, and were waited upon by servants or slaves from the savage race
that was called Heuheua. Low as these Heuheua were and disgusting as
might be their appearance, like our South African Bushmen, they were
clever in their way, and, when trained, could do many things. Also they
were faithful to the commands of their god Heu-Heu, or rather to those
of his priests, though they hated the Walloos, from whom these priests
sprang, and waged continual war against them.
Soon we had left the houses and were among the cultivated lands, all of
which Dramana informed us were worked by the Heuheua slaves. These
laboured here in gangs for a year at a time, and then were returned to
their women in the forests on the mainland, for, except as servants,
none of them were allowed upon the island. Those lands were
extraordinarily fertile, as was shewn by the crops on them, which,
although much beaten down by the torrential rain, were now ready for
harvest. They were enclosed by a kind of sea wall built of blocks of
lava and must at some time have been reclaimed from the muddy shallows
of the lake, which accounted for their richness. Everywhere about them
ran irrigation channels that were used in the dry sowing season and
controlled by the sluice gate that has been mentioned. That is all I
have to say about the gardens, except that the existence of this
irrigation system is to my mind another proof that these Walloos sprang
originally from some highly civilized race. Their fields extended to
that extremity of the island which was nearest to the Walloo coast, and
I know not how far in the other direction, for I did not go there.
Standing upon this point we saw in the distance a number of moving
specks upon the water. I asked Dramana if they were hippopotami, and
she answered:
“No, Lord, they are the Hairy Folk who, in obedience to the summons of
the god, cross the lake upon bundles of reeds that they may be ready to
fight in the coming war against the Walloo. Already there are hundreds
of them gathered upon the farther side of the mountain, and by to-night
all their able-bodied men will have come, leaving only the females, the
aged, and the children hidden away in the depths of the forests. On the
third day from now they will paddle back across the lake, led by the
priests under the command of Dacha, and attack Walloo.”
“A great deal may happen in three days,” I said, and dropped the
subject.
We walked back towards the village and the cave mouth by the sea wall,
upon the top of which ran a path, and thus at last came to the Rock of
Offering, upon each side of which burned the two curious columns of
flame that, I took it, were fed with natural gas generated in the womb
of the volcano. They were not very large fires—at any rate, when I saw
them—the flame may have been about eight or ten feet high, no more. But
there they burned, and had done so, Dramana said, from the beginning of
things. Between them, at a little distance, stood a post of stone with
rings also of stone, to which the bride was bound. I noted that from
these rings hung new ropes placed there to serve as the bonds of
Sabeela during the coming night.
Having seen all there was to see on this Rock of Offering, including
the steps by which the victim was landed, we went on to a long shed
with a steep reed roof, which contained the machinery, if so I can call
it, that regulated the irrigation sluice. It had a heavy wooden door
which Dramana unlocked with an odd-shaped stone key that she produced
from a bag she was wearing. This key, she told us, had been given to
her by Dacha with strict orders that she was to return it after we had
examined the place, should we wish so to do.
As it happened there was a good deal to examine. Near one end of the
shed the main irrigation canal, which may have been twelve feet wide,
passed beneath it. Here, under the centre of the roof, was a pit of
which the water that stood in it prevented us from seeing the depth. On
either side of this pit were perpendicular grooves cut in the solid
rock, very deep grooves that were exactly filled by a huge slab of
dressed stone six or seven inches thick. When this stone, or the upper
part of it, was lifted out of the rock floor of the channel, where
normally it stood in its niche, forming part of the bed of the channel,
it entirely cut off the inflow of water from the lake, and was,
moreover, tall enough to stop any possible additional inflow at a time
of flood.
Perhaps I can make the thing clear in this way. When Good and I were
last in London together we went to Madame Tussaud’s and saw the famous
guillotine that was used in the French Revolution. The knife of that
guillotine, you will remember, was raised between uprights, and when
brought into action, let fall again to the bottom of the apparatus,
severing the neck of the victim in its course. Now imagine that those
uprights were the rock walls of the pit, and that the knife, instead of
being but a narrow thing, were a great sheet of steel, or rather stone.
Then, when it was drawn to the top of the uprights from the niche at
the bottom, it would entirely fill the space to the head of the
grooves, and none of the water that normally passed over it could flow
between the uprights, or rather walls, because the sheet of stone
barred its passage. Now do you understand?
As Good, who was stupid about such matters, looked doubtful, Allan went
on:
“Perhaps a better illustration would be that of a portcullis; even you,
Good, have seen a portcullis, which, by the way, must mean a door in a
groove. Imagine a subterranean or rather subaqueous, portcullis that,
when it was desired to shut it, rose in its grooves from below instead
of falling from above, and you will have an exact idea of the water
door of the priests of Heu-Heu. I’d draw it for you if it wasn’t so
late.”
“I see now,” said Good, “and I suppose they wound the thing
up with a windlass.”
“Why not say with a donkey engine at once, Good? Windlasses had not
occurred to the Walloos. No, they acted on a simpler and more ancient
plan. They lifted it with a lever. Near the top of this slab of rock,
or water door, was drilled a hole. Through this hole passed a bolt of
stone, of which the ends went into the cut-out base of the lever, thus
forming a kind of hinge. The lever itself was a bar of stone—evidently
they would not trust to wood which rots—massive and about twenty feet
long, so as to obtain the best possible purchase. When the door was
quite down in its niche at the bottom of the bed of the channel, the
end of the lever naturally rose high into the air, almost to the top of
the pitched roof of the shed, indeed.”
When it was desired to raise the door so as to regulate the amount of
water passing into the irrigation channel beyond, or to cut it off
altogether in case of flood, the lever was pulled down by ropes that
were tied to its end by the strength of a number of men and that end
was passed into, or rather under, one or other of half a dozen hooks of
stone hollowed in a face of solid rock. Here, of course, it remained
immovable until it was released, again by the united strength of a
number of men, and flew back to the roof, letting the portcullis slab
drop into its bed or groove at the bottom of the channel, thus
admitting the lake water.
On the present occasion, as a great flood was anticipated, this slab
was raised to its full extent, and when I saw it, the top of it stood
five or six feet above the level of the water, while the end of the
handle of the lever was made fast beneath the lowest hook of rock
within a foot of the floor.
Hans and I examined this primitive but effective apparatus for
preventing inundations very carefully. Supposing, thought I, that any
one wanted to release that lever so that the door fell and water rushed
in over it, how could it be done? Answer: It could only be done by the
application of the united force of a great number of men pressing on
the end of the lever till it was pushed clear of the point of the hook,
when naturally it would fly upwards and the door would fall. Or,
secondly, by breaking the lever in two, when, of course, the same thing
would happen Now two men, that is Hans and myself, could not possibly
release this beam of stone from its hook; indeed, I doubt whether ten
men could have done it. Nor could two men possibly break that beam of
stone. Perhaps, if they had suitable marble saws, such as workers in
stone use, and plenty of time, they might cut it in two, although it
seemed to be made of a kind of rock that was as hard as iron. But we
had no saw. Therefore, so far as we were concerned the task was
impossible; that idea must be dismissed.
Still, there is a way out of most difficulties if only it can be hit
upon. My own mental resources were exhausted, it is true, but Hans
remained, and possibly he might have some suggestion of value to make.
He was a curious creature, Hans, and often his concentrated primitive
instincts led him more directly to the mark than did all my civilized
reasonings.
So speaking without emphasis in Dutch, for I did not wish Dramana to
guess my internal excitement, I put the problem to Hans in these words:
“Supposing that you and I, Hans, with none to help, except perhaps this
woman, found it necessary to break that bar of stone and cause the
water gate to fall, so as to let in the lake flood over it, how could
we do it with such means as we have in this place?” Hans stared about
him, twiddling his hat in his usual vacuous fashion, and remarked,
“I don’t know, Baas.”
“Then find out, for I want to learn if your conclusions agree with my
own,” I answered.
“I think that if they agree with the Baas’s, they will agree with
nothing at all,” said Hans, delivering this shrewd and perfectly
accurate shot with such a wooden expression of utter stupidity that I
could have kicked him.
Next, without more words, he removed himself from my neighbourhood and
began to examine the lever in a casual fashion, especially the hook of
rock which held it in its place. Presently he remarked in Arabic, so
that Dramana might understand, that he wanted to see how deep the pit
was, which we could not do from the floor of the shed, and instantly
climbed up the slope of the beam-like lever with all the agility of a
monkey, and sat himself, cross-legged, on the top of it, just below the
stone hinge that I have described. Here he remained for a while,
apparently staring into the darkness of the hole or pit on the farther
side of the stone slab, where, of course, it was almost empty, as the
door cut off the water from the irrigation channel on the island side.
“That hole is too dark to see into,” he said, presently, and
swarmed down the shaft again. Then he called my attention to the body
of the dead woman who Dramana had told us was struck by the lever and
killed while it was being dragged into place, which lay almost out of
sight in the shadow by the wall of the shed. We went to look at her.
She was a tall woman, handsome, like all these people, and young.
Outwardly she showed no signs of injury, for her long white robe was
unstained. I suppose that she had been crushed between the lever and
the hook, or perhaps struck on the side of the head as it was being
swung into place. Whilst we were examining the corpse of this
unfortunate, Hans said to me, still speaking in Dutch,
“Does the Baas remember that we have two pound tins of the best rifle
powder in our bag and that he scolded me because I did not take them
out when we left the house of the Walloo, saying that it was foolish to
bring them with us as they would be quite useless to us on the island?”
I replied that I had some recollection of the incident, and that, as a
matter of fact, they had been heavy to carry. Then Hans proceeded to
set a riddle in his irritating and sententious way, asking,
“Who does the Baas think knows most about things that are to
happen—the Baas or the Baas’s Reverend Father in Heaven?”
“My father, I presume, Hans,” I replied airily.
“The Baas is right. The Baas’s father in the sky knows much more
than the Baas, but sometimes I think that Hans knows better than
either, at any rate, here on the earth.”
I stared at the little wretch, rendered speechless by his irreverent
impudence, but he went on unabashed:
“I did not forget to leave that powder behind, Baas; I brought it with
me thinking that it might be useful, because with powder you can blow
up men and other things. Also, I did not wish it to stay where we might
never see it again.”
“Well, what about the powder?” I asked.
“Nothing much, Baas. At least, only this. These Walloo do not bore
stones very well; they make the holes too big for what has to go
through them. That in the water gate is so large that there would be
room to put two pound flasks of powder beneath the pin, now that the
strain lifts it up to the top of the hole.”
“And what would be the use of putting two flasks of powder in such a
place?” I inquired carelessly, for at the moment I was thinking about
the dead woman.
“None at all, Baas; none at all. Only I thought the Baas asked me how
we could loose that stone arm. If two pounds of powder were put into
the hole, covered with a little mud, and fired, I think that they would
blow out the bit of rock at the top of the hole, or break the pin, or
both. Then, as there would be nothing to hold it, the stone door would
fall down and the lake would come in and water the fields of the
priests of Heu-Heu, if in his wisdom and kindness the Baas thinks they
want it at harvest time, and after so much rain.”
“You little wretch,” I said; “you infernal, clever little
wretch! Hang me if I don’t think you have got hold of the right end of
the stick this time. Only the business will take a lot of thinking out
and arrangement.”
“Yes, Baas, and we had better do that in the house, which, as the Baas
knows, is quite close, only about a hundred paces away. Let us get out
of this place, Baas, before the lady begins to smell rats; only, as you
go, take a good squint at that hole in the top of the stone door and
the rock pin which goes through it.”
Then Hans, who all this while had been staring at the body of the woman
and apparently talking about her, bowed towards it, remarking in
Arabic, “Allah, I mean Heu-Heu, receive her into his bosom,” and
retreated reverentially.
So we went away, but I, lingering behind, examined the hole and the pin
very carefully.
Hans was quite right: there was just room left in the former to
accommodate two tin flasks of powder, also, there were not more than
three inches of rock on the topside of the hole. Surely two pounds of
powder would suffice to blow out this ring of stone and perhaps to
shatter the pin as well.