THE END OF HEU-HEU
Opposite to the Rock of Offering the canoe came to a standstill quite
close to the edge of the rock. I inquired why, and the old Walloo, who
sat in the middle of the boat draped in wondrous and imperial garments
and a headdress, that, having worked itself to one side in the course
of our struggles, made him look as though he were drunk, answered
feebly:
“Because it is our law, Lord. Our law bids us wait till the sun appears
and the glory of Heu-Heu comes forth to take the Holy Bride.”
“Well,” I answered, “as the Holy Bride is sitting in this
boat with her head upon my knee” (this was true, because Sabeela had
insisted upon sticking to me as the only person upon whom she could
rely, and so, for the matter of that, had Dramana, for _her_ head was
on my other knee), “I should recommend the glory of Heu-Heu, whatever
that may be, not to come here to look for her. Unless, indeed, it wants
a hole as big as my fist blown through it,” I added with emphasis,
tapping my double-barrelled Express which was by my side, safe in its
waterproof case.
“Yet we must wait, Lord,” answered the Walloo humbly, “for I
see that there is still a Holy Bride tied to the post, and until she is
loosed our law says that we may not go away.”
“Yes,” I exclaimed, “the holiest of all brides, for she is
stone dead and all the dead are holy. Well, wait if you like, for I
want to see what happens, and I think they can’t get at us here.”
So we hung upon our oars, or rather paddles, and waited, till presently
the rim of the red sun appeared and revealed the strangest of scenes.
The water of the lake, swollen by weeks of continuous rain and the
recent tempest, flowing in with a steady rush that somehow reminded me
of the ordered advance of an infinite army, through the great gap in
the lake wall that was broadening minute by minute beneath its
devouring bite—is there anything so mighty as water in the world, I
wonder—had now flooded most of the cultivated land to a depth of
several feet.
As yet, however, it had not reached the houses built against the
mountain, in one of which we had been lodged. Nor had it overflowed the
great Rock of Offering, which, you will remember, stood about the
height of a man above the level of the plain, being in fact a large
slab of consolidated lava that once had flowed from the crater into the
lake in a glacier-like stream of limited breadth. It is true that the
circumstance that the rock sloped downwards to the cave mouth seemed to
contradict that theory, but this I attribute to some subsequent
subsidence at its base, such as often happens in volcanic areas where
hidden forces are at work beneath the surface of the earth.
Well, I repeat, the rock was not yet flooded, and so it came about that
at the proper moment, as had happened on this day, perhaps for hundreds
of years, Heu-Heu emerged from the cave “to claim his Holy Bride.”
“How could he do that?” asked Good triumphantly, thinking, I
suppose, that he had caught Allan tripping. “You said that Heu-Heu was
a statue, so how could he come out of the cave?”
“Does not it occur to you, Good,” asked Allan, “that a statue
is sometimes carried? However, in this case it was not so, for Heu-Heu
himself walked out of that cave, followed by a number of women, with
some of the Hairy Folk behind them, and looking at him as he stalked
along, hideous and gigantic, I understood two things. The first of
these was, how it came about that Sabeela had vowed to me that many had
seen Heu-Heu with their eyes, as Issicore also declared he had done
himself, ‘walking stiffly.’ The second, why it was a law that the
canoe which brought the Holy Bride should wait until she was removed at
dawn; namely in order that those in it might behold Heu-Heu and go back
to their land to testify to his bodily existence, even if they were not
allowed to give details as to his appearance, because to speak of this
would, they believed, bring a ‘curse’ upon them.”
“But there wasn’t a Heu-Heu,” objected Good again.
“Good,” said Allan, “really you are what Hans called
me—quite clever. With extraordinary acumen you have arrived at the
truth. There wasn’t a Heu-Heu. But, Good, if you live long enough,”
he went on with a gentle sarcasm which showed that he was annoyed,
“yes, if you live long enough, you will learn that this world is full
of deceptions, and that the Tree of Illusions does not, or rather did
not, grow only in Heu-Heu’s Garden. As you say, no Heu-Heu existed, but
there did exist an excellent copy of him made up with a skill worthy of
a high-class pantomime artist; so excellent indeed that from fifty
yards or so away, it was impossible to tell the difference between it
and the great original as depicted in the cave.”
There in all his hairy, grinning horror, “walking stiffly,” marched
Heu-Heu, eleven or twelve feet high.
Or to come to the facts, there marched Dacha on stilts, artistically
draped in dyed skins and wearing on the top of or over his head a
wickerwork and canvas or cloth mask beautifully painted to resemble the
features of his amiable god.
The pious crew of our boat saw him and bowed their classic heads in
reverence to the divinity. Even Issicore bowed, a performance that I
observed caused Dramana, yes, and the loving Sabeela herself, to favour
him with glances of indignation, not unmixed with contempt. At least
this was certainly the case with Dramana, who had lived behind the
scenes, but Sabeela may have been moved by other reflections. Perhaps
_she_ still believed that there was a Heu-Heu, and that Issicore would
have done better to show himself less devoted to these religious
observances and less willing to surrender her to the god’s divine
attentions. You may all have noticed that however piously disposed,
there is a point at which the majority of women become very practical
indeed.
Meanwhile Heu-Heu stalked forward with a gait that might very literally
be called stilted, and the bevy of white-robed ladies followed after
him apparently singing a bridal song, while behind these, “moping and
mowing,” came their hairy attendants. By the aid of my glasses,
however, I could see that these ladies, at any rate, were not enjoying
the entertainment, whatever may have been the case with Dacha inside
his paste boards. They stared at the rising water and one of them
turned to run but was dragged back into place by her companions, for
probably on this solemn occasion flight was a capital offence. So on
they came till they reached the post to which we had tied the dead
woman, whereon according to custom, the bridesmaids skipped up to
release her, while the Hairy Folk ranged themselves behind.
Next moment I saw the first of these bridesmaids suddenly stand still
and stare; then she emitted a yell so terrific that it echoed all over
the lake like the blast of a siren. The others stared also and in their
turn began to yell. Then Heu-Heu himself ambled round and apparently
had a look, a good look, for by now someone had torn away the veil
which I had thrown over the corpse’s head. He did not look long, for
next moment he was legging, or rather stilting, back to the cave as
fast as he could go.
This was too much for me. By my side was my double-barrelled Express
rifle loaded with expanding bullets. I drew it from its case, lifted
it, and got a bead on to Heu-Heu just above where I guessed the head of
the man within would be, for I did not want to kill the brute but only
to frighten him. By now the light was good and so was my aim, for a
moment later the expanding bullet hit in the appointed spot and cleared
away all that top hamper of wicker and baboon skins, or whatever it may
have been. Never before was there such a sudden disrobement of an
ecclesiastical dignitary draped in all his trappings.
Everything seemed to come off at once, as did Dacha from the stilts,
for he went a most imperial crowner that must have flattened his hooked
nose upon that lava rock. There he lay a moment, then, leaving his
stilts behind him, he rose and fled after the screaming women and their
ape-like attendants back into the cave.
“Now,” I remarked oracularly to the old Walloo and the others who
were terrified at the report of the rifle, “now, my friends, you see
what your god is made of.”
The Walloo attempted no reply, apparently he was too
astonished—disillusionment is often painful, you know—but one of
his company who seemed to be a kind of official timekeeper, said that
the sun being up and the Holy Bridal being accomplished, though
strangely, it was lawful for them to return home.
“No, you don’t,” I answered. “I have waited here a long
time for you and now you shall wait a little while for me, as I want to
see what happens.”
The timekeeper, however, a man of routine, if one devoid of curiosity,
dipped his paddle into the water as a signal to the other rowers to do
likewise, whereon Hans hit him hard over the fingers with the butt of
his revolver, and then held its barrel to his head.
This argument convinced him that obedience was best, and he drew in his
paddle, as did the others, making polite apologies to Hans.
So we remained where we were and watched.
There was lots to see, for by now the water was beginning to run over
the rock. It reached the eternal fires with the result that they ceased
to be eternal, for they went out in clouds of smoke and steam. Three
minutes later it was pouring in a cataract down the slope into the
mouth of the cave. Before I could count a hundred, people began to come
out of that cave in the greatest of hurries, as wasps do if you stir up
their nest with a stick. Among them I recognized Dacha, who had a very
good idea of looking after himself.
He and the first of those who followed, wading through the water, got
clear and began to scramble up the mountainside behind. But the rest
were not so fortunate, for by now the stream was several feet deep and
they could not fight it. For a moment they appeared struggling amid the
foam and bubbles. Then they were swept back into the mouth of the cave
and gathered to the breast of Heu-Heu for the last time. Next, as
though at a signal, all the houses, including that in which we had been
lodged, crumbled away together. They just collapsed and vanished.
Everything seemed finished and I wondered whether I would put a bullet
into Dacha, who now was standing on a ridge of rock and wringing his
hands as he watched the destruction of his temple, his god, his town,
his women, and his servants. Concluding that I would not, for something
seemed to tell me to leave this wicked rascal to destiny, I was about
to give the order to paddle away when Hans called to me to look at the
mountain top.
I did so, and observed that from it was rushing a great cloud of steam,
such as comes from a railway engine when it is standing still with too
much heat in its boiler, but multiplied a millionfold. Moreover, as the
engine screams in such circumstances, so did the mountain scream, or
rather roar, emitting a volume of sound that was awful to hear.
“What’s up now, Hans?” I shouted.
“Don’t know, Baas. Think that water and fire are having a talk
together inside that mountain, Baas, and saying they hate each other,
just like badly married man and woman who quarrel in a small hut, Baas,
and can’t get out. Hiss, spit, go woman; pop, bang, go
man——” Here he paused from his nonsense, staring at the
mountain top with all his eyes, then repeated in a slow voice, “Yes,
pop, bang, go man! Just _look_ at him, Baas!”
At this moment, with an amazing noise like to that of a magnified
thunderclap, the volcano seemed to split in two and the crest of it to
fly off into space.
“Baas,” said Hans, “I am called Lord-of-the-Fire, am I not?
Well, I am not Lord of that fire and I think that the farther off we
get from it, the safer we shall be. _Allemagter!_ Look there,” and
he pointed to a huge mass of flaming lava which appeared to descend
from the clouds and plunge into the lake about a couple of hundred
yards away, sending up a fountain of steam and foam, like a torpedo
when it bursts.
“Paddle for your lives!” I shouted to the Walloos, who began to get
the canoe about in a very great hurry.
As she came round—it seemed to take an age—I saw a strange and in a
way a terrible sight. Dacha had left his ledge and was running down
into the lake, followed by a stream of molten lava, dancing while he
ran, as though with pain, probably because the steam had scorched him.
He plunged into the water, and just then a great wave formed, driven
outwards doubtless by some subterranean explosion. It rushed towards
us, and on its very crest was Dacha.
“I think that priest wants us to give him a row, Baas,” said Hans.
“He has had enough of his happy island home, and wishes to live on the
mainland.”
“Does he?” I replied. “Well, there is no room in the
canoe,” and I drew my pistol.
The wave bore Dacha quite close to us. He reared himself in the water,
or more probably was lifted up by the pressure underneath, so that
almost he appeared to be standing on the crest of the wave. He saw us,
he shouted curses upon us and shook his fists, apparently at Sabeela
and Issicore. It was a horrible sight.
Hans, however, was not affected, for by way of reply he pointed first
to me, then to Sabeela and lastly to himself, after which, such was his
unconquerable vulgarity, he put his thumb to his nose and as schoolboys
say “cocked a snook” at the struggling high priest.
The wave became a hollow and Dacha disappeared “to look for
Heu-Heu,” as Hans remarked. That was the end of this cruel but able
man.
“I am glad,” said Hans after reflection, “that the Predikant
Dacha should have learned who sent him down to Heu-Heu before he went
there, which he knew well enough or he would not have been so cross,
Baas. Has it occurred to the Baas what clever people we are, all of
whose plans have succeeded so nicely? At one time I thought that things
were going wrong. It was after I scrambled into this canoe and those
fools would not move to fetch you and the women, because they said it
was against their law. While I was putting on my clothes, which got
here quite dry because I was so careful, Baas, for I had asked them to
paddle to fetch you while I was still naked and been told that they
would not, I wondered whether I should try to make them do so by
shooting one of them. Only I thought that I had better wait a while,
Baas, and see what happened, because if I had shot one, the others
might have become more stupid and obstinate than before, and perhaps
have paddled away after they had killed me. So I waited, which the Baas
will admit was the best thing to do, and everything came right in the
end, having doubtless been arranged by your Reverend Father, watching
us in the sky.”
“Yes, Hans, but if you had made up your mind otherwise, whom would you
have shot?” I asked. “The Walloo?”
“No, Baas, because he is old and stupid as a dead owl. I should have
shot Issicore because he tires me so much and I should like to save the
Lady Sabeela from being made weary for many years. What is the good of
a man, Baas, who, when he thinks his girl is being given over to a
devil, sits in a boat and groans and says that ancient laws must not be
broken lest a curse should follow? He did that, Baas, when I asked him
to order the men to row to the steps.”
“I don’t know, Hans. It is a matter for them to settle between
them, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Baas, and when the lady has got her mind again and at last that
hour comes, as it always does when there is something to pay, Baas, I
shall be sorry for Issicore, for I don’t think he will look so pretty
when she has done with him. No, I think that when he says ‘Kiss!
Kiss!’ she will answer, ‘Smack! Smack!’ on both sides of his
head, Baas. Look, she has turned her back on him already. Well, Baas,
it doesn’t matter to me, or to you either, who have the Lady Dramana
there to deal with. She isn’t turning her back, Baas, she is eating you
up with her eyes and saying in her heart that at last she has found a
Heu-Heu worth something, even though he be small and withered and ugly,
with hair that sticks up. It is what is in a man that matters, Baas,
not what he looks like outside, as women often used to say to me when I
was young, Baas.”
Here with an exclamation that I need not repeat, for none of us really
like to have our personal appearance reflected upon by a candid friend,
however faithful, I lifted the butt of my rifle, purposing to drop it
gently on Hans’s toes. At that point, however, my attention was
diverted from this rubbish, which was Hans’s way of showing his joy at
our escape, by another blazing boulder which fell quite near to the
canoe, and immediately afterwards by the terrific spectacle of the
final dissolution of the volcano.
I don’t know exactly what happened, but sheets of wavering flame and
clouds of steam ascended high into the heavens. These were accompanied
by earth-shaking rumblings and awful explosions that resounded like the
loudest thunder, each of them followed by the ejection of showers of
blazing stones and the rushing out of torrents of molten lava which ran
into the lake, making it hiss and boil. After this came tidal waves
that caused our canoe to rock perilously, dense clouds of ashes and a
kind of hot rain which darkened the air so much that for a while we
could see nothing, no, not for a yard before our noses. Altogether, it
was a most terrifying exhibition of the forces of nature which, by some
connection of ideas, made me think of the Day of Judgment.
“Heu-Heu avenges himself upon us!” wailed the old Walloo,
“because we have robbed him of his Holy Bride.”
Here his speech came to an end, for a good reason, since a large hot
stone fell upon his head, and, as Hans who was next to him explained
through the fog, “squashed him like a beetle.”
When from the outcry of his followers Sabeela realized that her father
was dead, for he never moved or spoke again, she seemed to wake up in
good earnest, just as though she felt that the mantle of authority had
fallen upon her.
“Throw that hot coal out of the boat,” she said, “lest it
burn through the bottom and we sink.”
With the help of a paddle Issicore obeyed her, and, the body of the
Walloo having been covered up with a cloak, we rowed on desperately. By
good fortune about this time a strong wind began to blow from the shore
towards the island which kept back or drove away the hot rain and
pumice dust, so that we could once more see about us. Now our only
danger was from the rocks, such as that which had killed the Walloo,
that fell into the water all around, sending up spouts of foam. It was
just as though we were under heavy bombardment, but happily no more of
them hit the canoe, and as we got farther off the island the risk
became less. As we found afterwards, however, some of them were thrown
as far as the mainland.
Still, there was one more peril to be passed, for suddenly we ran into
a whole fleet of rude canoes, or rather bundles of reeds and brushwood,
or sometimes logs sharpened at both ends by fire, on each of which one
of the Hairy savages sat astride directing it with a double-bladed
paddle.
I presume that these people must have been a contingent of the
aboriginal Wood-folk who had started for the island in obedience to the
summons of Heu-Heu, where, as I have told, a great number of them were
already gathered preparatory to attacking the town of Walloo. Or they
may have been escaping from the island; really I do not know. One thing
was clear; however low they may have been in the scale of humanity,
they were sharp enough to connect us with the awful, natural
catastrophe that was happening, for squeaking and jabbering like so
many great apes, they pointed to that vision of hell, the flaming
volcano now sinking to dissolution, and to us.
Then with their horrible yells of _Heu-Heu! Heu-Heu!_ they set to work
to attack us.
There was only one thing to be done—open fire on them, which Hans and I
did with effect, and meanwhile try to escape by our superior speed. I
am bound to say that those hideous and miserable creatures showed the
greatest courage, for undeterred by the sight of the death of their
companions whom our bullets struck, they tried to close upon us with
the object, no doubt, of oversetting the canoe and drowning us all.
Hans and I fired as rapidly as possible, but we could deal with only a
tithe of them, so that speed and manœuvring were our principal
hope. Sabeela stood up in the boat and cried directions to the
paddlers, while Hans and I shot, first with rifles and then with our
revolvers.
Still, one huge gorilla-like fellow, whose hair grew down to his
beetling eyebrows, got hold of the gunwale and began to pull the canoe
over. We could not shoot him because both rifles and revolvers were
empty; nor did our blows make him loose his grip. The canoe rocked from
side to side increasingly, and began to take in water.
Just as I feared that the end had come, for more hairy men were almost
on to us, Sabeela saved the situation in a bold and desperate fashion.
By her side lay the broad spear of that priest whom Hans had killed in
the sluice shed, knocking him backwards into the water pit. She seized
it and with amazing strength stabbed the great beast-like creature who
had hold of the canoe and was putting all his weight on it to force the
gunwale under water. He let go and sank. By skilful steering we avoided
the others, and in three minutes were clear of them, since they could
not keep pace with us on their rude craft.
“Plenty to do to-night, Baas!” soliloquized Hans, wiping his brow.
“Perhaps if a crocodile does not swallow us between here and the shore,
or these fools do not sacrifice us to the ghost of Heu-Heu, or we are
not killed by lightning, the Baas will let me drink some of that native
beer when we get back to the town. All this fire about has made me very
thirsty.”
Well, we arrived there at last—a generation seemed to have passed since
I left that quay, which we found crowded with the entire
terror-stricken population of the place. They received the body of the
Walloo in respectful silence, but it seemed to me without any
particular grief. Indeed, these people appeared to have outworn the
acuter human emotions. All such extremes, I suppose, had been smoothed
away from their characters by time, and by the degrading action of the
vile fetishism under which they lived. In short, they had become mere
handsome, human automata who walked about with their ears cocked
listening for the voice of the god and catching it in every natural
sound. To tell the truth, however interesting may have been their
origin, in their decadence they filled me with contempt.
The reappearance of Sabeela astonished them very much but seemed to
cause no delight.
“She is the god’s wife,” I heard one of them say. “It
is because she has run away from the god that all these misfortunes
have happened.” She heard it also and rounded on them with spirit,
having by now quite recovered her nerve, or so it seemed, which is more
than could be said of Issicore, who, although he should have been wild
with joy, remained depressed and almost silent.
“What misfortunes?” she asked. “My father is dead, it is
true, killed by a hot stone that fell upon him and I weep for him.
Still, he was a very old man who must soon have passed away. For the
rest, is it a misfortune that through the courage and power of these
strangers I, his daughter and heiress, have been freed from the
clutches of Dacha? I tell you that Dacha was the god; Heu-Heu whom you
worship was but a painted idol. If you do not believe it, ask the White
Lord here, and ask my sister Dramana whom you seem to have forgotten,
who in past years was given to him as a Holy Bride. Is it a misfortune
that Dacha and his priests have been destroyed, and with him the most
of the savage hairy Wood-folk, our enemies? Is it a misfortune that the
hateful smoking mountain should have melted away in fire, as it is
doing now, and with it the cave of mysteries, out of which came so many
oracles of terror, thus fulfilling the prophecy that we should be
delivered from our burdens by a white lord from the south?”
At these vigorous words the frightened crowd grew silent and hung their
heads. Sabeela looked about her for a little while, then went on:
“Issicore, my betrothed, come forward and tell the people you rejoice
that these things have happened. To save me from Heu-Heu, at my prayer
you travelled far to ask succour of the great Magician of the South. He
has sent the succour and I have been saved. Yet you helped to row the
boat which took me to the sacrifice. For that I do not blame you,
because you must do so, being of the rank you are, or be cursed under
the ancient law. Now I have been saved, though not by you, who,
thinking the White Lord dead upon the Holy Isle, consented to my
surrender to the god, and the law is at an end with the destruction of
Heu-Heu and his priests, slain by the wisdom and might of that White
Lord and his companion. Tell them, therefore, how greatly you rejoice
that you have not journeyed in vain, and they did not listen in vain to
your petition for help; that I stand before them here also free and
undefiled, and that henceforth the land is rid of the curse of Heu-Heu.
Yes, tell the people these things and give thanks to the noble-hearted
strangers who brought them to pass and saved me with Dramana my
sister.”
Now, tired out as I was, I watched Issicore not without excitement, for
I was curious to hear what he had to say. Well, after a pause, he came
forward and answered in a hesitating voice,
“I do rejoice, Beloved, that you have returned safe, though I hoped
when I led the White Lord from the South, that he would have saved you
in some fashion other than by working sacrilege and killing the priests
of the god with fire and water, men who from the beginning have been
known to be divine. You, the Lady Sabeela, declare that Heu-Heu is
dead, but how know we that he is dead? He is a spirit, and can a spirit
die? Was it a dead god who threw the stone that killed the Walloo, and
will he not perhaps throw other stones that will kill us, and
especially you, Lady, who have stood upon the Rock of Offerings,
wearing the robe of the Holy Bride?”
“Baas,” inquired Hans reflectively, in the silence which followed
these timorous queries, “do you think that Issicore is really a man, or
is he in truth but made of wood and painted to look like one, as Dacha
was painted to look like Heu-Heu?”
“I thought that he was a man yonder in the Black Kloof, Hans,” I
answered, “but then he was a long way off Heu-Heu. Now I am not so
sure. But perhaps he is only very frightened and will come to himself
by and by.”
Meanwhile Sabeela was looking her extremely handsome lover up and down;
up and down she looked him, and never a word did she say—at least, to
him. Presently, however, she spoke to the crowd in a commanding voice,
thus:
“Take notice that my father being dead, I am now the Walloo, and one to
be obeyed. Go about your tasks fearing nothing, since Heu-Heu is no
more and the most of the Hairy Folk are slain. I depart to rest, taking
with me these, my guests and deliverers,” and she pointed to me and
Hans. “Afterwards I will talk with you, and with you also, my lord
Issicore. Bear the late Walloo, my father, to the burial place of the
Walloos.”
Then she turned and, followed by us and the members of her household,
went to her home.
Here she bade us farewell for a while, since we were all half dead with
fatigue and sorely needed rest. As we parted, she took my hand and
kissed it, thanking me with tears welling from her beautiful eyes for
all that I had done, and Dramana did likewise.
“How comes it, Baas,” said Hans as we ate food and drank of the
native beer before we lay down to sleep, “that those ladies did not
kiss my hand, seeing that I too have done something to help them?”
“Because they were too tired, Hans,” I answered, “and made
one kiss serve for both of us.”
“I see, Baas, but I expect that to-morrow they will still be too tired
to kiss poor old Hans.”
Then he filled the cup out of which he had been drinking with the last
of the liquor from the jar and emptied it at a swallow. “There,
Baas,” he said; “that’s only right; you may take all the
kisses, so long as I get the beer.”
Exhausted as I was I could not help laughing, although to tell the
truth, I should have liked another glass myself. Then I tumbled on to
the couch and instantly went to sleep.
It is a fact that we slept all the rest of that day and all the
following night, waking only when the first rays of the sun shone into
our room through the window place. At least, I did, for when I opened
my eyes, feeling a different creature and blessing Heaven for its gift
of sleep to man, Hans was already up and engaged in cleaning the rifles
and revolvers.
I looked at the ugly little Hottentot, reflecting how wonderful it was
that so much courage, cunning, and fidelity should be packed away
within his yellow skin and projecting skull. Had it not been for Hans,
without a doubt I should now be dead, and the women also. It was he who
had conceived the idea of letting down the sluice gate by exploding
gunpowder beneath the pin of the lever. I had racked my brain for
expedients, but this, the only one possible, escaped me. How tremendous
had been the results of that inspiration—all of them due to Hans.
Although certain ideas had occurred to me, the most that I had hoped to
do was to flood the low-lying lands, and perhaps the cave, in order to
divert the attention of the priests while we were attempting escape. As
it was we had loosed the forces of nature with the most fearful
results. The water had run down the vent-holes of the eternal fires and
into the bowels of the volcano, there to generate steam in enormous
volumes, of which the imprisoned strength had been so great that it had
rent the mountain like a rotten rag and destroyed the home of Heu-Heu
for ever, and with it all his votaries.
It was a fearful event in which I thought I saw the mind of Providence
acting through Hans. Yes, the cunning of the Hottentot had been used by
the Powers above to sweep from the earth a vile tyranny and to destroy
a blood-soaked idol and its worshippers.
Without a doubt—or so I believe in my simple faith—this had been
designed from the beginning. When some escaped follower of Heu-Heu
painted the picture in the Bushmen’s cave, probably hundreds of years
ago, it was already designed. So was Zikali’s desire for a certain
medicine, or his insatiable thirst for knowledge, or whatever it was
that caused him to persuade me to undertake this mission, and so was
all the rest of the story.
Again, with what wonderful judgment Hans had acted after his brave swim
to the canoe!
Had he tried to force those fetish-ridden cravens to come to our rescue
at once, as I directed him to do, the probability was that, fearing to
break their silly law, they would have resisted, or perhaps have rowed
right away, leaving us to our fate, after knocking him on the head with
a paddle. But he had the patience to wait, although, as he told me
afterwards, his heart was torn in two with anxiety for my sake.
Balancing everything in his artful and experienced mind he had found
patience to wait until the conditions of their “law” were
fulfilled, when they came willingly enough.
From Hans my thoughts turned to Issicore. How was it that this man’s
character had changed so completely since he arrived in his native
country? His journey to seek aid made alone over hundreds of miles, was
a really remarkable performance, showing great courage and
determination. Also as a guide, although silent and abstracted, he had
never lacked for resource or energy. But from the day that he arrived
home, morally he had gone to pieces. It was with the greatest
difficulty that he could be persuaded to row us to the island, where at
the first sign of danger he had left us to our fate and fled away.
Again, he had meekly helped to conduct Sabeela, whom, when he was at
the Black Kloof evidently he loved to desperation, to her doom without
lifting a finger to save her from a hideous destiny. Lastly, only a few
hours ago, he had made a pusillanimous and contemptible speech, which I
could see shocked and disgusted his betrothed, who, for her part, after
her rescue and the death of her father, seemed to have gained the
courage that he had lost, and more.
It was inexplicable, at any rate to me, and in my bewilderment I
referred the problem to Hans.
He listened while I set out the case as it appeared to me, then
answered,
“The Baas does not keep his eyes open—at any rate, in the daytime,
when he thinks everything is safe. If he did, he would understand why
Issicore has become soft as a heated bar of iron. What makes men soft,
Baas?”
“Love,” I suggested.
“Yes. At times love makes some men soft—I mean men like the Baas.
And what else, Baas?”
“Drink,” I answered savagely, getting it back on Hans.
“Yes, at times drink makes some men soft. Men like me, Baas, who know
that now and again it is wise to cease from being wise, lest Heaven
should grow jealous of our wisdom and want to share it. But what makes
all men soft?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then once more I must teach the Baas, as his Reverend Father, the
Predikant, told me to do when I saw that the Baas had used up all his
wits, saying to me before he died, ‘Hans, whenever you perceive that my
son Allan, who does not always look where he is going, walks into water
and gets out of his depth, swim in and pull him out, Hans.’”
“You little liar!” I ejaculated, but taking no notice, Hans went
on,
“Baas, it is _fear_ that makes all men soft. Issicore is bending
about like a heated ramrod because within him burns the fire of fear.”
“Fear of what, Hans?”
“As I have said, if the Baas had kept his eyes open, he would know. Did
not the Baas notice a tall, dark-faced priest before whom the crowd
parted, who came up to Issicore when first we landed on the quay here?”
“Yes, I saw such a man. He bowed politely and I thought was greeting
Issicore and making him some present.”
“And did the Baas see what kind of a present he made him and hear his
words of welcome? The Baas shakes his head. Well, I did. The present he
gave to Issicore was a little skull carved out of black ivory or shell,
or it may have been of polished lava rock. And the words of welcome
were, ‘The gift of Heu-Heu to the lord Issicore, that gift which
Heu-Heu sends to all who break the law and dare to leave the Land of
the Walloos.’ Those were the words, for standing near by, I heard them,
though I kept them from the Baas, waiting to see what would happen
afterwards.
“Then the priest went away, and what Issicore did with the little black
skull I do not know. Perhaps he wears it round his neck, as he hasn’t
got a watch chain, just as the Baas used to wear things that ladies had
given him, or their pictures in a little silver brandy flask.”
“Well, and what about this skull, Hans? What does it mean?”
“Baas, I made inquiries of an old man in that canoe, to pass the time
away, Baas, as Issicore was at the other end and could not hear me. It
means _death,_ Baas. Does not the Baas remember how we were told at the
Black Kloof that those who dared to leave the Land of Heu-Heu were
always smitten with some sickness and died? Well, Baas, Issicore got
out all right and left the sickness behind him, I expect because the
priests did not know that he was going. But he made a mistake, Baas,
that of coming back again, being drawn by his love of Sabeela, just as
a fish is drawn by the bait on the hook, Baas. And now the hook is fast
in his mouth, for the priests knew of his return well enough, Baas, and
of course were waiting for him.”
“What do you mean, Hans? How can the priests hurt Issicore, especially
when they are all dead?”
“Yes, Baas, they are all dead and can harm no one, but Issicore is
right when he says that Heu-Heu is not dead, because the devil never
dies, Baas. His priests are dead, but still Heu-Heu could kill the old
Walloo, and so he can kill Issicore. There is a great deal in this
fetish business, Baas, that good Christians like you and I do not
understand. It won’t work on Christians, Baas, which is why Heu-Heu
can’t kill us, but those who worship the Black One, at last the Black
One takes by the throat.”
I thought to myself that here Hans, although he did not know it, was
enunciating one of the profoundest and most fundamental of truths,
since those who bow the knee to Baal are Baal’s servants and live under
his law, even to the death, and what is Baal but Heu-Heu, or Satan? The
fruit is always the same, by whatever name the tree may be called.
However, I did not enter upon this argument with Hans, whom it would
have bewildered, but only asked him what he meant and what he imagined
was going to happen to Issicore. He answered,
“I mean just what I have said, Baas; I mean that Issicore is going to
die. That old man told me that those who ‘receive the Black Skull,’
always die within the month, and often more quickly. From the look of
him, I should think that Issicore will not last more than a week.
Although so handsome, he is really very dull, Baas, so it does not much
matter, especially as the Lady Sabeela will get over it quite soon.
That is why Issicore has changed, Baas. It is because the fear of death
is on him. In the same way Sabeela has changed because the fear of
death and what to her, perhaps, is worse, has passed away.”
“Bosh!” I exclaimed, but internally I had my doubts. I knew
something of this fetish business, although I believed it to be the
greatest of rubbish, I was sure that it is extremely dangerous rubbish.
The secret soul of man, especially of savage, or primitive and untaught
man, or the sub-conscious self, or whatever you choose to call it, is a
terrible entity when brought into action by the hereditary
superstitions that are born in his blood. In nine cases out of ten, if
the victim of those superstitions is told with the accustomed
ceremonies by the oracle of the god or devil from which they flow, that
he will die, he does die. Nothing kills him, but he commits a kind of
moral suicide. As Hans had said—Fear makes him soft. Then some kind of
nervous disease penetrates his system and at the appointed hour withers
up his physical life and causes him to pass away.
Such, as it proved, was to be the fate of that Apollo-like person, the
unhappy Issicore.