THE FIRST CURSE
The next thing I remember was feeling upon my face the sunlight that
poured through a window-place which was protected by immovable wooden
bars. For a while I lay still, reflecting as memory returned to me upon
all the events of the previous day and upon my present unhappy
position. Here I was a prisoner in the hands of a horde of fierce
savages who had every reason to hate me, for though this was done in
self-defence, had I not killed a number of their people against whom
personally I had no quarrel? It was true that their king had promised
me safety, but what reliance could be put upon the word of such a man?
Unless something occurred to save me, without doubt my days were
numbered. In this way or in that I should be murdered, which served me
right for ever entering upon such a business.
The only satisfactory point in the story was that, for the present at
any rate, Ragnall and Savage had escaped, though doubtless sooner or
later fate would overtake them also. I was sure that they had escaped,
since two of the camelmen with us had informed Marût that they saw them
swept away surrounded by our people and quite unharmed. Now they would
be grieving over my death, since none survived who could tell them of
our capture, unless the Black Kendah chose to do so, which was not
likely. I wondered what course they would take when Ragnall found that
his quest was vain, as of course must happen. Try to get out of the
country, I suppose, as I prayed they might succeed in doing, though
this was most improbable.
Then there was Hans. He of course would attempt to retrace our road
across the desert, if he had got clear away. Having a good camel, a
rifle and some ammunition, it was just possible that he might win
through, as he never forgot a path which he had once travelled, though
probably in a week’s time a few bones upon the desert would be all that
remained of him. Well, as he had suggested, perhaps we should soon be
talking the event over in some far sphere with my father—and others.
Poor old Hans!
I opened my eyes and looked about me. The first thing I noticed was
that my double-barrelled pistol, which I had placed at full cock beside
me before I went to sleep, was gone, also my large clasp-knife. This
discovery did not tend to raise my spirits, since I was now quite
weaponless. Then I observed Marût seated on the floor of the hut
staring straight in front of him, and noted that at length even he had
ceased to smile, but that his lips were moving as though he were
engaged in prayer or meditation.
“Marût,” I said, “someone has been in this place while we were asleep
and stolen my pistol and knife.”
“Yes, Lord,” he answered, “and my knife also. I saw them come in the
middle of the night, two men who walked softly as cats, and searched
everything.”
“Then why did you not wake me?”
“What would have been the use, Lord? If we had caught hold of the men,
they would have called out and we should have been murdered at once. It
was best to let them take the things, which after all are of no good to
us here.”
“The pistol might have been of some good,” I replied significantly.
“Yes,” he said, nodding, “but at the worst death is easy to find.”
“Do you think, Marût, that we could manage to let Harût and the others
know our plight? That smoke which I breathed in England, for instance,
seemed to show me far-off things—if we could get any of it.”
“The smoke was nothing, Lord, but some harmless burning powder which
clouded your mind for a minute, and enabled you to see the thoughts
that were in _our_ minds. _We_ drew the pictures at which you looked.
Also here there is none.”
“Oh!” I said, “the old trick of suggestion; just what I imagined. Then
there’s an end of that, and as the others will think that we are dead
and we cannot communicate with them, we have no hope except in
ourselves.”
“Or the Child,” suggested Marût gently.
“Look here!” I said with irritation. “After you have just told me that
your smoke vision was a mere conjurer’s trick, how do you expect me to
believe in your blessed Child? Who is the Child? What is the Child,
and—this is more important—what can it do? As your throat is going to
be cut shortly you may as well tell me the truth.”
“Lord Macumazana, I will. Who and what the Child is I cannot say
because I do not know. But it has been our god for thousands of years,
and we believe that our remote forefathers brought it with them when
they were driven out of Egypt at some time unknown. We have writings
concerning it done up in little rolls, but as we cannot read them they
are of no use to us. It has an hereditary priesthood, of which Harût my
uncle, for he is my uncle, is the head. We believe that the Child is
God, or rather a symbol in which God dwells, and that it can save us in
this world and the next, for we hold that man is an immortal spirit. We
believe also that through its Oracle—a priestess who is called Guardian
of the Child—it can declare the future and bring blessings or curses
upon men, especially upon our enemies. When the Oracle dies we are
helpless since the Child has no ‘mouth’ and our enemies prevail against
us. This happened a long while ago, and the last Oracle having declared
before her death that her successor was to be found in England, my
uncle and I travelled thither disguised as conjurers and made search
for many years. We thought that we had found the new Oracle in the lady
who married the Lord Igeza, because of that mark of the new moon upon
her neck. After our return to Africa, however, for as I have spoken of
this matter I may as well tell you all,” here he stared me full in the
eyes and spoke in a clear metallic voice which somehow no longer
convinced me, “we found that we had made a mistake, for the real
Oracle, a mere girl, was discovered among our own people, and has now
been for two years installed in her office. Without doubt the last
Guardian of the Child was wandering in her mind when she told us that
story before her death as to a woman in England, a country of which she
had heard through Arabs. That is all.”
“Thank you,” I replied, feeling that it would be useless to show any
suspicion of his story. “Now will you be so good as to tell me who and
what is the god, or the elephant Jana, whom you have brought me here to
kill? Is the elephant a god, or is the god an elephant? In either case
what has it to do with the Child?”
“Lord, Jana among us Kendah represents the evil in the world, as the
Child represents the good. Jana is he whom the Mohammedans call Shaitan
and the Christians call Satan, and our forefathers, the old Egyptians,
called Set.”
“Ah!” thought I to myself, “now we have got it. Horus the Divine Child,
and Set the evil monster, with whom it strives everlastingly.”
“Always,” went on Marût, “there has been war between the Child and
Jana, that is, between Good and Evil, and we know that in the end one
of them must conquer the other.”
“The whole world has known that from the beginning,” I interrupted.
“But who and what is this Jana?”
“Among the Black Kendah, Lord, Jana is an elephant, or at any rate his
symbol is an elephant, a very terrible beast to which sacrifices are
made, that kills all who do not worship him if he chances to meet them.
He lives farther on in the forest yonder, and the Black Kendah make use
of him in war, for the devil in him obeys their priests.”
“Indeed, and is this elephant always the same?”
“I cannot tell you, but for many generations it has been the same, for
it is known by its size and by the fact that one of its tusks is
twisted downwards.”
“Well,” I remarked, “all this proves nothing, since elephants certainly
live for at least two hundred years, and perhaps much longer. Also,
after they become ‘rogues’ they acquire every kind of wicked and
unnatural habit, as to which I could tell you lots of stories. Have you
seen this elephant?”
“No, Macumazana,” he answered with a shiver. “If I had seen it should I
have been alive to-day? Yet I fear I am fated to see it ere long, not
alone,” and again he shivered, looking at me in a very suggestive
manner.
At this moment our conversation was interrupted by the arrival of two
Black Kendahs who brought us our breakfast of porridge and a boiled
fowl, and stood there while we ate it. For my part I was not sorry, as
I had learned all I wanted to know of the theological opinions and
practice of the land, and had come to the conclusion that the terrible
devil-god of the Black Kendah was merely a rogue elephant of unusual
size and ferocity, which under other circumstances it would have given
me the greatest pleasure to try to shoot.
When we had finished eating, that is soon, for neither of our appetites
was good that morning, we walked out of the house into the surrounding
compound and visited the camelmen in their hut. Here we found them
squatted on the ground looking very depressed indeed. When I asked them
what was the matter they replied, “Nothing,” except that they were men
about to die and life was pleasant. Also they had wives and children
whom they would never see again.
Having tried to cheer them up to the best of my ability, which I fear I
did without conviction, for in my heart I agreed with their view of the
case, we returned to the guest-house and mounted the stair which led to
the flat roof. Hence we saw that some curious ceremony was in progress
in the centre of the market-place. At that distance we could not make
out the details, for I forgot to say that my glasses had been stolen
with the pistol and knife, probably because they were supposed to be
lethal weapons or instruments of magic.
A rough altar had been erected, on which a fire burned. Behind it the
king, Simba, was seated on a stool with various councillors about him.
In front of the altar was a stout wooden table, on which lay what
looked like the body of a goat or a sheep. A fantastically dressed man,
assisted by other men, appeared to be engaged in inspecting the inside
of this animal with, we gathered, unsatisfactory results, for presently
he raised his arms and uttered a loud wail. Then the creature’s viscera
were removed from it and thrown upon the fire, while the rest of the
carcass was carried off.
I asked Marût what he thought they were doing. He replied dejectedly:
“Consulting their Oracle; perhaps as to whether we should live or die,
Macumazana.”
Just then the priest in the strange, feathered attire approached the
king, carrying some small object in his hand. I wondered what it could
be, till the sound of a report reached my ears and I saw the man begin
to jump round upon one leg, holding the other with both his hands at
the knee and howling loudly.
“Ah!” I said, “that pistol was full cocked, and the bullet got him in
the foot.”
Simba shouted out something, whereon a man picked up the pistol and
threw it into the fire, round which the others gathered to watch it
burn.
“You wait,” I said to Marût, and as I spoke the words the inevitable
happened.
Off went the other barrel of the pistol, which hopped out of the fire
with the recoil like a living thing. But as it happened one of the
assistant priests was standing in front of the mouth of that barrel,
and he also hopped once, but never again, for the heavy bullet struck
him somewhere in the body and killed him. Now there was consternation.
Everyone ran away, leaving the dead man lying on the ground. Simba led
the rout and the head-priest brought up the rear, skipping along upon
one leg.
Having observed these events, which filled me with an unholy joy, we
descended into the house again as there was nothing more to see, also
because it occurred to me that our presence on the roof, watching their
discomfiture, might irritate these savages. About ten minutes later the
gate of the fence round the guest-house was thrown open, and through it
came four men carrying on a stretcher the body of the priest whom the
bullet had killed, which they laid down in front of our door. Then
followed the king with an armed guard, and after him the befeathered
diviner with his foot bound up, who supported himself upon the
shoulders of two of his colleagues. This man, I now perceived, wore a
hideous mask, from which projected two tusks in imitation of those of
an elephant. Also there were others, as many as the space would hold.
The king called to us to come out of the house, which, having no
choice, we did. One glance at him showed me that the man was frantic
with fear, or rage, or both.
“Look upon your work, magicians!” he said in a terrible voice, pointing
first to the dead priest, then to the diviner’s wounded foot.
“It is no work of ours, King Simba,” answered Marût. “It is your own
work. You stole the magic weapon of the white lord and made it angry,
so that it has revenged itself upon you.”
“It is true,” said Simba, “that the tube has killed one of those who
took it away from you and wounded the other” (here was luck indeed).
“But it was you who ordered it to do so, magicians. Now, hark!
Yesterday I promised you safety, that no spear should pierce your
hearts and no knife come near your throats, and drank the cup of peace
with you. But you have broken the pact, working us more harm, and
therefore it no longer holds, since there are many other ways in which
men can die. Listen again! This is my decree. By your magic you have
taken away the life of one of my servants and hurt another of my
servants, destroying the middle toe of his left foot. If within three
days you do not give back the life to him who seems to be dead, and
give back the toe to him who seems to be hurt, as you well can do, then
you shall join those whom you have slain in the land of death, how I
will not tell you.”
Now when I heard this amazing sentence I gasped within myself, but
thinking it better to keep up my rôle of understanding nothing of their
talk, I preserved an immovable countenance and left Marût to answer.
This, to his credit be it recorded, he did with his customary pleasant
smile.
“O King,” he said, “who can bring the dead back to life? Not even the
Child itself, at any rate in this world, for there is no way.”
“Then, Prophet of the Child, you had better find a way, or, I repeat, I
send you to join them,” he shouted, rolling his eyes.
“What did my brother, the great Prophet, promise to you but yesterday,
O King, if you harmed us?” asked Marût. “Was it not that the three
great curses should fall upon your people? Learn now that if so much as
one of us is murdered by you, these things shall swiftly come to pass.
I, Marût, who am also a Prophet of the Child, have said it.”
Now Simba seemed to go quite mad, so mad that I thought all was over.
He waved his spear and danced about in front of us, till the silver
chains clanked upon his breast. He vituperated the Child and its
worshippers, who, he declared, had worked evil on the Black Kendah for
generations. He appealed to his god Jana to avenge these evils, “to
pierce the Child with his tusks, to tear it with his trunk, and to
trample it with his feet,” all of which the wounded diviner ably
seconded through his horrid mask.
There we stood before him, I leaning against the wall of the house with
an air of studied nonchalance mingled with mild interest, at least that
is what I meant to do, and Marût smiling sweetly and staring at the
heavens. Whilst I was wondering what exact portion of my frame was
destined to become acquainted with that spear, of a sudden Simba gave
it up. Turning to his followers, he bade them dig a hole in the corner
of our little enclosure and set the dead man in it, “with his head out
so that he may breathe,” an order which they promptly executed.
Then he issued a command that we should be well fed and tended, and
remarking that if the departed was not alive and healthy on the third
morning from that day, we should hear from him again, he and his
company stalked off, except those men who were occupied with the
interment.
Soon this was finished also. There sat the deceased buried to the neck
with his face looking towards the house, a most disagreeable sight.
Presently, however, matters were improved in this respect by one of the
sextons fetching a large earthenware pot and several smaller pots full
of food and water. The latter they set round the head, I suppose for
the sustenance of the body beneath, and then placed the big vessel
inverted over all, “to keep the sun off our sleeping brother,” as I
heard one say to the other.
This pot looked innocent enough when all was done, like one of those
that gardeners in England put over forced rhubarb, no more. And yet,
such is the strength of the imagination, I think that on the whole I
should have preferred the object underneath naked and unadorned. For
instance, I have forgotten to say that the heads of those of the White
Kendah who had fallen in the fight had been set up on poles in front of
Simba’s house. They were unpleasant to contemplate, but to my mind not
so unpleasant as that pot.
As a matter of fact, this precaution against injury from the sun to the
late diviner proved unnecessary, since by some strange chance from that
moment the sun ceased to shine. Quite suddenly clouds arose which
gradually covered the whole sky and the weather began to turn very
cold, unprecedentedly so, Marût informed me, for the time of year,
which, it will be remembered, in this country was the season just
before harvest. Obviously the Black Kendah thought so also, since from
our seats on the roof, whither we had retreated to be as far as
possible from the pot, we saw them gathered in the market-place,
staring at the sky and talking to each other.
The day passed without any further event, except the arrival of our
meals, for which we had no great appetite. The night came, earlier than
usual because of the clouds, and we fell asleep, or rather into a
series of dozes. Once I thought that I heard someone stirring in the
huts behind us, but as it was followed by silence I took no more
notice. At length the light broke very slowly, for now the clouds were
denser than ever. Shivering with the cold, Marût and I made a visit to
the camel-drivers, who were not allowed to enter our house. On going
into their hut we saw to our horror that only two of them remained,
seated stonily upon the floor. We asked where the third was. They
replied they did not know. In the middle of the night, they said, men
had crept in, who seized, bound and gagged him, then dragged him away.
As there was nothing to be said or done, we returned to breakfast
filled with horrid fears.
Nothing happened that day except that some priests arrived, lifted the
earthenware pot, examined their departed colleague, who by now had
become an unencouraging spectacle, removed old dishes of food, arranged
more about him, and went off. Also the clouds grew thicker and thicker,
and the air more and more chilly, till, had we been in any northern
latitude, I should have said that snow was pending. From our perch on
the roof-top I observed the population of Simba Town discussing the
weather with ever-increasing eagerness; also that the people who were
going out to work in the fields wore mats over their shoulders.
Once more darkness came, and this night, notwithstanding the cold, we
spent wrapped in rugs, on the roof of the house. It had occurred to us
that kidnapping would be less easy there, as we could make some sort of
a fight at the head of the stairway, or, if the worst came to the
worst, dive from the parapet and break our necks. We kept watch turn
and turn about. During my watch about midnight I heard a noise going on
in the hut behind us; scuffling and a stifled cry which turned my blood
cold. About an hour later a fire was lighted in the centre of the
market-place where the sheep had been sacrificed, and by the flare of
it I could see people moving. But what they did I could not see, which
was perhaps as well.
Next morning only one of the camelmen was left. This remaining man was
now almost crazy with fear, and could give no clear account of what had
happened to his companion.
The poor fellow implored us to take him away to our house, as he feared
to be left alone with “the black devils.” We tried to do so, but armed
guards appeared mysteriously and thrust him back into his own hut.
This day was an exact repetition of the others. The same inspection of
the deceased and renewal of his food; the same cold, clouded sky, the
same agitated conferences in the market-place.
For the third time darkness fell upon us in that horrible place. Once
more we took refuge on the roof, but this night neither of us slept. We
were too cold, too physically miserable, and too filled with mental
apprehensions. All nature seemed to be big with impending disaster. The
sky appeared to be sinking down upon the earth. The moon was hidden,
yet a faint and lurid light shone now in one quarter of the horizon,
now in another. There was no wind, but the air moaned audibly. It was
as though the end of the world were near as, I reflected, probably
might be the case so far as we were concerned. Never, perhaps, have I
felt so spiritually terrified as I was during the dreadful inaction of
that night. Even if I had known that I was going to be executed at
dawn, I think that by comparison I should have been light-hearted. But
the worst part of the business was that I knew nothing. I was like a
man forced to walk through dense darkness among precipices, quite
unable to guess when my journey would end in space, but enduring all
the agonies of death at every step.
About midnight again we heard that scuffle and stifled cry in the hut
behind us.
“He’s gone,” I whispered to Marût, wiping the cold sweat from my brow.
“Yes,” answered Marût, “and very soon we shall follow him, Macumazana.”
I wished that his face were visible so that I could see if he still
smiled when he uttered those words.
An hour or so later the usual fire appeared in the marketplace, round
which the usual figures flitted dimly. The sight of them fascinated me,
although I did not want to look, fearing what I might see. Luckily,
however, we were too far off to discern anything at night.
While these unholy ceremonies were in progress the climax came, that is
so far as the weather was concerned. Of a sudden a great gale sprang
up, a gale of icy wind such as in Southern Africa sometimes precedes a
thunderstorm. It blew for half an hour or more, then lulled. Now
lightning flashed across the heavens, and by the glare of it we
perceived that all the population of Simba Town seemed to be gathered
in the market-place. At least there were some thousands of them,
talking, gesticulating, pointing at the sky.
A few minutes later there came a great crash of thunder, of which it
was impossible to locate the sound, for it rolled from everywhere. Then
suddenly something hard struck the roof by my side and rebounded, to be
followed next moment by a blow upon my shoulder which nearly knocked me
flat, although I was well protected by the skin rugs.
“Down the stair!” I called. “They are stoning us,” and suited the
action to the word.
Ten seconds later we were both in the room, crouched in its farther
corner, for the stones or whatever they were seemed to be following us.
I struck a match, of which fortunately I had some, together with my
pipe and a good pocketful of tobacco—my only solace in those days—and,
as it burned up, saw first that blood was running down Marût’s face,
and secondly, that these stones were great lumps of ice, some of them
weighing several ounces, which hopped about the floor like live things.
“Hailstorm!” remarked Marût with his accustomed smile.
“Hell storm!” I replied, “for whoever saw hail like that before?”
Then the match burnt out and conversation came to an end for the reason
that we could no longer hear each other speak. The hail came down with
a perpetual, rattling roar, that in its sum was one of the most
terrible sounds to which I ever listened. And yet above it I thought
that I could catch another, still more terrible, the wail of hundreds
of people in agony. After the first few minutes I began to be afraid
that the roof would be battered in, or that the walls would crumble
beneath this perpetual fire of the musketry of heaven. But the cement
was good and the place well built.
So it came about that the house stood the tempest, which had it been
roofed with tiles or galvanized iron I am sure it would never have
done, since the lumps of ice must have shattered one and pierced the
other like paper. Indeed I have seen this happen in a bad hailstorm in
Natal which killed my best horse. But even that hail was as snowflakes
compared to this.
I suppose that this natural phenomenon continued for about twenty
minutes, not more, during ten of which it was at its worst. Then by
degrees it ceased, the sky cleared and the moon shone out beautifully.
We climbed to the roof again and looked. It was several inches deep in
jagged ice, while the market-place and all the country round appeared
in the bright moonlight to be buried beneath a veil of snow.
Very rapidly, as the normal temperature of that warm land reasserted
itself, this snow or rather hail melted, causing a flood of water
which, where there was any fall, began to rush away with a gurgling
sound. Also we heard other sounds, such as that from the galloping
hoofs of many of the horses which had broken loose from their wrecked
stables at the north end of the market-place, where in great number
they had been killed by the falling roofs or had kicked each other to
death, and a wild universal wail that rose from every quarter of the
big town, in which quantities of the worst-built houses had collapsed.
Further, lying here and there about the market-place we could see
scores of dark shapes that we knew to be those of men, women and
children, whom those sharp missiles hurled from heaven had caught
before they could escape and slain or wounded almost to death. For it
will be remembered that perhaps not fewer than two thousand people were
gathered on this market-place, attending the horrid midnight sacrifice
and discussing the unnatural weather when the storm burst upon them
suddenly as an avalanche.
“The Child is small, yet its strength is great. Behold the first
curse!” said Marût solemnly.
I stared at him, but as he chose to believe that a very unusual
hailstorm was a visitation from heaven I did not think it worth while
arguing the point. Only I wondered if he really did believe this. Then
I remembered that such an event was said to have afflicted the old
Egyptians in the hour of their pride because they would not “let the
people go.” Well, these blackguardedly Black Kendah were certainly
worse than the Egyptians can ever have been; also they would not let
_us_ go. It was not wonderful therefore that Marût should be the victim
of phantasies on the matter.
Not until the following morning did we come to understand the full
extent of the calamity which had overtaken the Black Kendah. I think I
have said that their crops this year were magnificent and just ripening
to harvest. From our roof on previous days we could see a great area of
them stretching to the edge of the forest. When the sun rose that
morning this area had vanished, and the ground was covered with a
carpet of green pulp. Also the forest itself appeared suddenly to have
experienced the full effects of a northern winter. Not a leaf was left
upon the trees, which stood there pointing their naked boughs to
heaven.
No one who had not seen it could imagine the devastating fury of that
storm. For example, the head of the diviner who was buried in the
court-yard awaiting resurrection through our magic was, it may be
recalled, covered with a stout earthenware pot. Now that pot had
shattered into sherds and the head beneath was nothing but bits of
broken bone which it would have been impossible for the very best magic
to reconstruct to the likeness of a human being.
Calamity indeed stalked naked through the land.