CHAPTER II. RAGNALL CASTLE
CHAPTER III. ALLAN GIVES HIS WORD
CHAPTER IV. THROUGH THE GATES
CHAPTER V. THE WAGER
CHAPTER VI. THE DOOM OF THE BOAT
CHAPTER VII. BES STEALS THE SIGNET
CHAPTER VIII. THE LADY AMADA
CHAPTER IX. THE MESSENGERS
CHAPTER X. SHABAKA PLIGHTS HIS TROTH
CHAPTER XI. THE HOLY TANOFIR
CHAPTER XII. THE SLAYING OF IDERNES
CHAPTER XIII. AMADA RETURNS TO ISIS
CHAPTER XIV. SHABAKA FIGHTS THE CROCODILE
CHAPTER XV. THE SUMMONS
CHAPTER XVI. TANOFIR FINDS HIS BROKEN CUP
CHAPTER XVII. THE BATTLE—AND AFTER
CHAPTER I.
AN OLD FRIEND
Now I, Allan Quatermain, come to the weirdest (with one or two
exceptions perhaps) of all the experiences which it has amused me to
employ my idle hours in recording here in a strange land, for after all
England is strange to me. I grow elderly. I have, as I suppose, passed
the period of enterprise and adventure and I should be well satisfied
with the lot that Fate has given to my unworthy self.
To begin with, I am still alive and in health when by all the rules I
should have been dead many times over. I suppose I ought to be thankful
for that but, before expressing an opinion on the point, I should have
to be quite sure whether it is better to be alive or dead. The
religious plump for the latter, though I have never observed that the
religious are more eager to die than the rest of us poor mortals.
For instance, if they are told that their holy hearts are wrong, they
spend time and much money in rushing to a place called Nauheim in
Germany, to put them right by means of water-drinking, thereby
shortening their hours of heavenly bliss and depriving their heirs of a
certain amount of cash. The same thing applies to Buxton in my own
neighbourhood and gout, especially when it threatens the stomach or the
throat. Even archbishops will do these things, to say nothing of such
small fry as deans, or stout and prominent lay figures of the Church.
From common sinners like myself such conduct might be expected, but in
the case of those who are obviously poised on the topmost rungs of the
Jacobean—I mean, the heavenly—ladder, it is legitimate to inquire why
they show such reluctance in jumping off. As a matter of fact the only
persons that, individually, I have seen quite willing to die, except
now and again to save somebody else whom they were so foolish as to
care for more than they did for themselves, have been not those “upon
whom the light has shined” to quote an earnest paper I chanced to read
this morning, but, to quote again, “the sinful heathen wandering in
their native blackness,” by which I understand the writer to refer to
their moral state and not to their sable skins wherein for the most
part they are also condemned to wander, that is if they happen to have
been born south of a certain degree of latitude.
To come to facts, the staff of Faith which each must shape for himself,
is often hewn from unsuitable kinds of wood, yes, even by the very best
among us. Willow, for instance, is pretty and easy to cut, but try to
support yourself with it on the edge of a precipice and see where you
are. Then of a truth you will long for ironbark, or even homely oak. I
might carry my parable further, some allusions to the proper material
of which to fashion the helmet of Salvation suggest themselves to me
for example, but I won’t.
The truth is that we fear to die because all the religions are full of
uncomfortable hints as to what may happen to us afterwards as a reward
for our deviations from their laws and we half believe in something,
whereas often the savage, not being troubled with religion, fears less,
because he half believes in nothing. For very few inhabitants of this
earth can attain either to complete belief or to its absolute opposite.
They can seldom lay their hands upon their hearts, and say they _know_
that they will live for ever, or sleep for ever; there remains in the
case of most honest men an element of doubt in either hypothesis.
That is what makes this story of mine so interesting, at any rate to
me, since it does seem to suggest that whether or no I have a future,
as personally I hold to be the case and not altogether without
evidence, certainly I have had a past, though, so far as I know, in
this world only; a fact, if it be a fact, from which can be deduced all
kinds of arguments according to the taste of the reasoner.
And now for my experience, which it is only fair to add, may after all
have been no more than a long and connected dream. Yet how was I to
dream of lands, events and people whereof I have only the vaguest
knowledge, or none at all, unless indeed, as some say, being a part of
this world, we have hidden away somewhere in ourselves an acquaintance
with everything that has ever happened in the world. However, it does
not much matter and it is useless to discuss that which we cannot
prove.
Here at any rate is the story.
In a book or a record which I have written down and put away with
others under the title of “The Ivory Child,” I have told the tale of a
certain expedition I made in company with Lord Ragnall. Its object was
to search for his wife who was stolen away while travelling in Egypt in
a state of mental incapacity resulting from shock caused by the loss of
her child under tragic and terrible circumstances. The thieves were the
priests of a certain bastard Arab tribe who, on account of a birthmark
shaped like the young moon which was visible above her breast, believed
her to be the priestess or oracle of their worship. This worship
evidently had its origin in Ancient Egypt since, although they did not
seem to know it, the priestess was nothing less than a personification
of the great goddess Isis, and the Ivory Child, their fetish, was a
statue of the infant Horus, the fabled son of Isis and Osiris whom the
Egyptians looked upon as the overcomer of Set or the Devil, the
murderer of Osiris before his resurrection and ascent to Heaven to be
the god of the dead.
I need not set down afresh all that happened to us on this remarkable
adventure. Suffice it to say that in the end we recovered the lady and
that her mind was restored to her. Before she left the Kendah country,
however, the priesthood presented her with two ancient rolls of
papyrus, also with a quantity of a certain herb, not unlike tobacco in
appearance, which by the Kendah was called _Taduki_. Once, before we
took our great homeward journey across the desert, Lady Ragnall and I
had a curious conversation about this herb whereof the property is to
cause the person who inhales its fumes to become clairvoyant, or to
dream dreams, whichever the truth may be. It was used for this purpose
in the mystical ceremonies of the Kendah religion when under its
influence the priestess or oracle of the Ivory Child was wont to
announce divine revelations. During her tenure of this office Lady
Ragnall was frequently subjected to the spell of the _Taduki_ vapour,
and said strange things, some of which I heard with my own ears. Also
myself once I experienced its effects and saw a curious vision, whereof
many of the particulars were afterwards translated into facts.
Now the conversation which I have mentioned was shortly to the effect,
that she, Lady Ragnall, believed a time would come when she or I or
both of us, were destined to imbibe these _Taduki_ fumes and see
wonderful pictures of some past or future existence in which we were
both concerned. This knowledge, she declared, had come to her while she
was officiating in an apparently mindless condition as the priestess of
the Kendah god called the Ivory Child.
At the time I did not think it wise to pursue so exciting a subject
with a woman whose mind had been recently unbalanced, and afterwards in
the stress of new experiences, I forgot all about the matter, or at any
rate only thought of it very rarely.
Once, however, it did recur to me with some force. Shortly after I came
to England to spend my remaining days far from the temptations of
adventure, I was beguiled into becoming a steward of a Charity dinner
and, what was worse, into attending the said dinner. Although its
objects were admirable, it proved one of the most dreadful functions in
which I was ever called upon to share. There was a vast number of
people, some of them highly distinguished, who had come to support the
Charity or to show off their Orders, I don’t know which, and others
like myself, not at all distinguished, just common subscribers, who had
no Orders and stood about the crowded room like waiters looking for a
job.
At the dinner, which was very bad, I sat at a table so remote that I
could hear but little of the interminable speeches, which was perhaps
fortunate for me. In these circumstances I drifted into conversation
with my neighbour, a queer, wizened, black-bearded man who somehow or
other had found out that I was acquainted with the wilder parts of
Africa. He proved to be a wealthy scientist whose passion it was to
study the properties of herbs, especially of such as grow in the
interior of South America where he had been travelling for some years.
Presently he mentioned a root named Yagé, known to the Indians which,
when pounded up into a paste and taken in the form of pills, had the
effect of enabling the patient to see events that were passing at a
distance. Indeed he alleged that a vision thus produced had caused him
to return home, since in it he saw that some relative of his, I think a
twin-sister, was dangerously ill. In fact, however, he might as well
have stayed away, as he only arrived in London on the day after her
funeral.
As I saw that he was really interested in the subject and observed that
he was a very temperate man who did not seem to be romancing, I told
him something of my experiences with _Taduki_, to which he listened
with a kind of rapt but suppressed excitement. When I affected
disbelief in the whole business, he differed from me almost rudely,
asking why I rejected phenomena simply because I was too dense to
understand them. I answered perhaps because such phenomena were
inconvenient and upset one’s ideas. To this he replied that all
progress involved the upsetting of existent ideas. Moreover he implored
me, if the chance should ever come my way, to pursue experiments with
_Taduki_ fumes and let him know the results.
Here our conversation came to an end for suddenly a band that was
braying near by, struck up “God save the Queen,” and we hastily
exchanged cards and parted. I only mention it because, had it not
occurred, I think it probable that I should never have been in a
position to write this history.
The remarks of my acquaintance remained in my mind and influenced it so
much that when the occasion came, I did as a kind of duty what, however
much I was pressed, I am almost sure I should never have done for any
other reason, just because I thought that I ought to take an
opportunity of trying to discover what was the truth of the matter. As
it chanced it was quick in coming.
Here I should explain that I attended the dinner of which I have spoken
not very long after a very lengthy absence from England, whither I had
come to live when King Solomon’s Mines had made me rich. Therefore it
happened that between the conclusion of my Kendah adventure some years
before and this time I saw nothing and heard little of Lord and Lady
Ragnall. Once a rumour did reach me, however, I think through Sir Henry
Curtis or Captain Good, that the former had died as a result of an
accident. What the accident was my informant did not know and as I was
just starting on a far journey at the time, I had no opportunity of
making inquiries. My talk with the botanical scientist determined me to
do so; indeed a few days later I discovered from a book of reference
that Lord Ragnall was dead, leaving no heir; also that his wife
survived him.
I was working myself up to write to her when one morning the postman
brought me here at the Grange a letter which had “Ragnall Castle”
printed on the flap of the envelope. I did not know the writing which
was very clear and firm, for as it chanced, to the best of my
recollection, I had never seen that of Lady Ragnall. Here is a copy of
the letter it contained:
“MY DEAR MR. QUATERMAIN,—Very strangely I have just seen at a meeting
of the Horticultural Society, a gentleman who declares that a few days
ago he sat next to you at some public dinner. Indeed I do not think
there can be any doubt for he showed me your card which he had in his
purse with a Yorkshire address upon it.
“A dispute had arisen as to whether a certain variety of Crinum lily
was first found in Africa, or Southern America. This gentleman, an
authority upon South American flora, made a speech saying that he had
never met with it there, but that an acquaintance of his, Mr.
Quatermain, to whom he had spoken on the subject, said that he had seen
something of the sort in the interior of Africa.” (This was quite true
for I remembered the incident.) “At the tea which followed the meeting
I spoke to this gentleman whose name I never caught, and to my
astonishment learnt that he must have been referring to you whom I
believed to be dead, for so we were told a long time ago. This seemed
certain, for in addition to the evidence of the name, he described your
personal appearance and told me that you had come to live in England.
“My dear friend, I can assure you it is long since I heard anything
which rejoiced me so much. Oh! as I write all the past comes back,
flowing in upon me like a pent-up flood of water, but I trust that of
this I shall soon have an opportunity of talking to you. So let it be
for a while.
“Alas! my friend, since we parted on the shores of the Red Sea, tragedy
has pursued me. As you will know, for both my husband and I wrote to
you, although you did not answer the letters” (I never received them),
“we reached England safely and took up our old life again, though to
tell you the truth, after my African experiences things could never be
quite the same to me, or for the matter of that to George either. To a
great extent he changed his pursuits and certain political ambitions
which he once cherished, seemed no longer to appeal to him. He became a
student of past history and especially of Egyptology, which under all
the circumstances you may think strange, as I did. However it suited me
well enough, since I also have tastes that way. So we worked together
and I can now read hieroglyphics as well as most people. One year he
said that he would like to go to Egypt again, if I were not afraid. I
answered that it had not been a very lucky place for us, but that
personally I was not in the least afraid and longed to return there.
For as you know, I have, or think I have, ties with Egypt and indeed
with all Africa. Well, we went and had a very happy time, although I
was always expecting to see old Harût come round the corner.
“After this it became a custom with us who, since George practically
gave up shooting and attending the House of Lords, had nothing to keep
us in England, to winter in Egypt. We did this for five years in
succession, living in a bungalow which we built at a place in the
desert, not far from the banks of the Nile, about half way between
Luxor which was the ancient Thebes, and Assouan. George took a great
fancy to this spot when first he saw it, and so in truth did I, for,
like Memphis, it attracted me so much that I used to laugh and say I
believed that once I had something to do with it.
“Now near to our villa that we called ‘Ragnall’ after this house, are
the remains of a temple which were almost buried in the sand. This
temple George obtained permission to excavate. It proved to be a long
and costly business, but as he did not mind spending the money, that
was no obstacle. For four winters we worked at it, employing several
hundred men. As we went on we discovered that although not one of the
largest, the temple, owing to its having been buried by the sand
during, or shortly after the Roman epoch, remained much more perfect
than we had expected, because the early Christians had never got at it
with their chisels and hammers. Before long I hope to show you pictures
and photographs of the various courts, etc., so I will not attempt to
describe them now.
“It is a temple to Isis—built, or rather rebuilt over the remains of an
older temple on a site that seems to have been called Amada, at any
rate in the later days, and so named after a city in Nubia, apparently
by one of the Amen-hetep Pharaohs who had conquered it. Its style is
beautiful, being of the best period of the Egyptian Renaissance under
the last native dynasties.
“At the beginning of the fifth winter, at length we approached the
sanctuary, a difficult business because of the retaining walls that had
to be built to keep the sand from flowing down as fast as it was
removed, and the great quantities of stuff that must be carried off by
the tramway. In so doing we came upon a shallow grave which appeared to
have been hastily filled in and roughly covered over with paving stones
like the rest of the court, as though to conceal its existence. In this
grave lay the skeleton of a large man, together with the rusted blade
of an iron sword and some fragments of armour. Evidently he had never
been mummified, for there were no wrappings, canopic jars, _ushapti_
figures or funeral offerings. The state of the bones showed us why, for
the right forearm was cut through and the skull smashed in; also an
iron arrow-head lay among the ribs. The man had been buried hurriedly
after a battle in which he had met his death. Searching in the dust
beneath the bones we found a gold ring still on one of the fingers. On
its bezel was engraved the cartouche of ‘Peroa, beloved of Ra.’ Now
Peroa probably means Pharaoh and perhaps he was Khabasha who revolted
against the Persians and ruled for a year or two, after which he is
supposed to have been defeated and killed, though of his end and place
of burial there is no record. Whether these were the remnants of
Khabasha himself, or of one of his high ministers or generals who wore
the King’s cartouche upon his ring in token of his office, of course I
cannot say.
“When George had read the cartouche he handed me the ring which I
slipped upon the first finger of my left hand, where I still wear it.
Then leaving the grave open for further examination, we went on with
the work, for we were greatly excited. At length, this was towards
evening, we had cleared enough of the sanctuary, which was small, to
uncover the shrine that, if not a monolith, was made of four pieces of
granite so wonderfully put together that one could not see the joints.
On the curved architrave as I think it is called, was carved the symbol
of a winged disc, and beneath in hieroglyphics as fresh as though they
had only been cut yesterday, an inscription to the effect that Peroa,
Royal Son of the Sun, gave this shrine as an ‘excellent eternal work,’
together with the statues of the Holy Mother and the Holy Child to the
‘emanations of the great Goddess Isis and the god Horus,’ Amada, Royal
Lady, being votaress or high-priestess.
“We only read the hieroglyphics very hurriedly, being anxious to see
what was within the shrine that, the cedar door having rotted away, was
filled with fine, drifted sand. Basketful by basketful we got it out
and then, my friend, there appeared the most beautiful life-sized
statue of Isis carved in alabaster that ever I have seen. She was
seated on a throne-like chair and wore the vulture cap on which traces
of colour remained. Her arms were held forward as though to support a
child, which perhaps she was suckling as one of the breasts was bare.
But if so, the child had gone. The execution of the statue was
exquisite and its tender and mystic face extraordinarily beautiful, so
life-like also that I think it must have been copied from a living
model. Oh! my friend, when I looked upon it, which we did by the light
of the candles, for the sun was sinking and shadows gathered in that
excavated hole, I felt—never mind what I felt—perhaps _you_ can guess
who know my history.
“While we stared and stared, I longing to go upon my knees, I knew not
why, suddenly I felt a faint trembling of the ground. At the same
moment, the head overseer of the works, a man called Achmet, rushed up
to us, shouting out—‘Back! Back! The wall has burst. The sand runs!’
“He seized me by the arm and dragged me away beside of and behind the
grave, George turning to follow. Next instant I saw a kind of wave of
sand, on the crest of which appeared the stones of the wall, curl over
and break. It struck the shrine, overturned and shattered it, which
makes me think it was made of four pieces, and shattered also the
alabaster statue within, for I saw its head strike George upon the back
and throw him forward. He reeled and fell into the open grave which in
another moment was filled and covered with the débris that seemed to
grip me to my middle in its flow. After this I remembered nothing more
until hours later I found myself lying in our house.
“Achmet and his Egyptians had done nothing; indeed none of them could
be persuaded to approach the place till the sun rose because, as they
said, the old gods of the land whom they looked upon as devils, were
angry at being disturbed and would kill them as they had killed the
Bey, meaning George. Then, distracted as I was, I went myself for there
was no other European there, to find that the whole site of the
sanctuary was buried beneath hundreds of tons of sand, that, beginning
at the gap in the broken wall, had flowed from every side. Indeed it
would have taken weeks to dig it out, since to sink a shaft was
impracticable and so dangerous that the local officials refused to
allow it to be attempted. The end of it was that an English bishop came
up from Cairo and consecrated the ground by special arrangement with
the Government, which of course makes it impossible that this part of
the temple should be further disturbed. After this he read the Burial
Service over my dear husband.
“So there is the end of a very terrible story which I have written down
because I do not wish to have to talk about it more than is necessary
when we meet. For, dear Mr. Quatermain, we shall meet, as I always knew
that we should—yes, even after I heard that you were dead. You will
remember that I told you so years ago in Kendah Land and that it would
happen after a great change in my life, though what that change might
be I could not say....”
This is the end of the letter except for certain suggested dates for
the visit which she took for granted I should make to Ragnall.