THE SANCTUARY AND THE OATH
That evening shortly after sundown the three of us started boldly from
our house wearing over our clothes the Kendah dresses which Ragnall had
bought, and carrying nothing save sticks in our hands, some food and
the lantern in our pockets. On the outskirts of the town we were met by
certain Kendah, one of whom I knew, for I had often ridden by his side
on our march across the desert.
“Have any of you arms upon you, Lord Macumazana?” he asked, looking
curiously at us and our white robes.
“None,” I answered. “Search us if you will.”
“Your word is sufficient,” he replied with the grave courtesy of his
people. “If you are unarmed we have orders to let you go where you wish
however you may be dressed. Yet, Lord,” he whispered to me, “I pray you
do not enter the cave, since One lives there who strikes and does not
miss, One whose kiss is death. I pray it for your own sakes, also for
ours who need you.”
“We shall not wake him who sleeps in the cave,” I answered
enigmatically, as we departed rejoicing, for now we had learned that
the Kendah did not yet know of the death of the serpent.
An hour’s walk up the hill, guided by Hans, brought us to the mouth of
the tunnel. To tell the truth I could have wished it had been longer,
for as we drew near all sorts of doubts assailed me. What if Hans
really had been drinking and invented this story to account for his
absence? What if the snake had recovered from a merely temporary
indisposition? What if it had a wife and family living in that cave,
every one of them thirsting for vengeance?
Well, it was too late to hesitate now, but secretly I hoped that one of
the others would prefer to lead the way. We reached the place and
listened. It was silent as a tomb. Then that brave fellow Hans lit the
lantern and said:
“Do you stop here, Baases, while I go to look. If you hear anything
happen to me, you will have time to run away,” words that made me feel
somewhat ashamed of myself.
However, knowing that he was quick as a weasel and silent as a cat, we
let him go. A minute or two later suddenly he reappeared out of the
darkness, for he had turned the metal shield over the bull’s-eye of the
lantern, and even in that light I could see that he was grinning.
“It is all right, Baas,” he said. “The Father of Serpents has really
gone to that land whither he sent Bena, where no doubt he is now
roasting in the fires of hell, and I don’t see any others. Come and
look at him.”
So in we went and there, true enough, upon the floor of the cave lay
the huge reptile stone dead and already much swollen. I don’t know how
long it was, for part of its body was twisted into coils, so I will
only say that it was by far the most enormous snake that I have ever
seen. It is true that I have heard of such reptiles in different parts
of Africa, but hitherto I had always put them down as fabulous
creatures transformed into and worshipped as local gods. Also this
particular specimen was, I presume, of a new variety, since, according
to Ragnall, it both struck like the cobra or the adder, and crushed
like the boa-constrictor. It is possible, however, that he was mistaken
on this point; I do not know, since I had no time, or indeed
inclination, to examine its head for the poison fangs, and when next I
passed that way it was gone.
I shall never forget the stench of that cave. It was horrible, which is
not to be wondered at seeing that probably this creature had dwelt
there for centuries, since these large snakes are said to be as long
lived as tortoises, and, being sacred, of course it had never lacked
for food. Everywhere lay piles of cast bones, amongst one of which I
noticed fragments of a human skull, perhaps that of poor Savage. Also
the projecting rocks in the place were covered with great pieces of
snake skin, doubtless rubbed off by the reptile when once a year it
changed its coat.
For a while we gazed at the loathsome and still glittering creature,
then pushed on fearful lest we should stumble upon more of its kind. I
suppose that it must have been solitary, a kind of serpent rogue, as
Jana was an elephant rogue, for we met none and, if the information
which I obtained afterwards may be believed, there was no species at
all resembling it in the country. What its origin may have been I never
learned. All the Kendah could or would say about it was that it had
lived in this hole from the beginning and that Black Kendah prisoners,
or malefactors, were sometimes given to it to kill, as White Kendah
prisoners were given to Jana.
The cave itself proved to be not very long, perhaps one hundred and
fifty feet, no more. It was not an artificial but a natural hollow in
the lava rock, which I suppose had once been blown through it by an
outburst of steam. Towards the farther end it narrowed so much that I
began to fear there might be no exit. In this I was mistaken, however,
for at its termination we found a hole just large enough for a man to
walk in upright and so difficult to climb through that it became clear
to us that certainly this was not the path by which the White Kendah
approached their sanctuary.
Scrambling out of this aperture with thankfulness, we found ourselves
upon the slope of a kind of huge ditch of lava which ran first
downwards for about eighty paces, then up again to the base of the
great cone of the inner mountain which was covered with dense forest.
I presume that the whole formation of this peculiar hill was the result
of a violent volcanic action in the early ages of the earth. But as I
do not understand such matters I will not dilate upon them further than
to say that, although comparatively small, it bore a certain
resemblance to other extinct volcanoes which I had met with in
different parts of Africa.
We climbed down to the bottom of the ditch that from its general
appearance might have been dug out by some giant race as a protection
to their stronghold, and up its farther side to where the forest began
on deep and fertile soil. Why there should have been rich earth here
and none in the ditch is more than we could guess, but perhaps the
presence of springs of water in this part of the mount may have been a
cause. At any rate it was so.
The trees in this forest were huge and of a variety of cedar, but did
not grow closely together; also there was practically no undergrowth,
perhaps for the reason that their dense, spreading tops shut out the
light. As I saw afterwards both trunks and boughs were clothed with
long grey moss, which even at midday gave the place a very ghostly
appearance. The darkness beneath those trees was intense, literally we
could not see an inch before our faces. Yet rather than stand still we
struggled on, Hans leading the way, for his instincts were quicker than
ours. The steep rise of the ground beneath our feet told us that we
were going uphill, as we wished to do, and from time to time I
consulted a pocket compass I carried by the light of a match, knowing
from previous observations that the top of the Holy Mount lay due
north.
Thus for hour after hour we crept up and on, occasionally butting into
the trunk of a tree or stumbling over a fallen bough, but meeting with
no other adventures or obstacles of a physical kind. Of moral, or
rather mental, obstacles there were many, since to all of us the
atmosphere of this forest was as that of a haunted house. It may have
been the embracing darkness, or the sough of the night wind amongst the
boughs and mosses, or the sense of the imminent dangers that we had
passed and that still awaited us. Or it may have been unknown horrors
connected with this place of which some spiritual essence still
survived, for without doubt localities preserve such influences, which
can be felt by the sensitive among living things, especially in
favouring conditions of fear and gloom. At any rate I never experienced
more subtle and yet more penetrating terrors than I did upon that
night, and afterwards Ragnall confessed to me that my case was his own.
Black as it was I thought that I saw apparitions, among them glaring
eyes and that of the elephant Jana standing in front of me with his
trunk raised against the bole of a cedar. I could have sworn that I saw
him, nor was I reassured when Hans whispered to me below his breath,
for here we did not seem to dare to raise our voices:
“Look, Baas. Is it Jana glowing like hot iron who stands yonder?”
“Don’t be a fool,” I answered. “How can Jana be here and, if he were
here, how could we see him in the night?” But as I said the words I
remembered Harût had told us that Jana had been met with on the Holy
Mount “in the spirit or in the flesh.” However this may be, next
instant he was gone and we beheld him or his shadow no more. Also we
thought that from time to time we heard voices speaking all around us,
now here, now there and now in the tree tops above our heads, though
what they said we could not catch or understand.
Thus the long night wore away. Our progress was very slow, but guided
by occasional glimpses at the compass we never stopped but twice, once
when we found ourselves apparently surrounded by tree boles and fallen
boughs, and once when we got into swampy ground. Then we took the risk
of lighting the lantern, and by its aid picked our way through these
difficult places. By degrees the trees grew fewer so that we could see
the stars between their tops. This was a help to us as I knew that one
of them, which I had carefully noted, shone at this season of the year
directly over the cone of the mountain, and we were enabled to steer
thereby.
It must have been not more than half an hour before the dawn that Hans,
who was leading—we were pushing our way through thick bushes at the
time—halted hurriedly, saying:
“Stop, Baas, we are on the edge of a cliff. When I thrust my stick
forward it stands on nothing.”
Needless to say we pulled up dead and so remained without stirring an
inch, for who could say what might be beyond us? Ragnall wished to
examine the ground with the lantern. I was about to consent, though
doubtfully, when suddenly I heard voices murmuring and through the
screen of bushes saw lights moving at a little distance, forty feet or
more below us. Then we gave up all idea of making further use of the
lantern and crouched still as mice in our bushes, waiting for the dawn.
It came at last. In the east appeared a faint pearly flush that by
degrees spread itself over the whole arch of the sky and was welcomed
by the barking of monkeys and the call of birds in the depths of the
dew-steeped forest. Next a ray from the unrisen sun, a single spear of
light shot suddenly across the sky, and as it appeared, from the
darkness below us arose a sound of chanting, very low and sweet to
hear. It died away and for a little while there was silence broken only
by a rustling sound like to that of people taking their seats in a dark
theatre. Then a woman began to sing in a beautiful, contralto voice,
but in what language I do not know, for I could not catch the words, if
these were words and not only musical notes.
I felt Ragnall trembling beside me and in a whisper asked him what was
the matter. He answered, also in a whisper:
“I believe that is my wife’s voice.”
“If so, I beg you to control yourself,” I replied.
Now the skies began to flame and the light to pour itself into a misty
hollow beneath us like streams of many-coloured gems into a bowl,
driving away the shadows. By degrees these vanished; by degrees we saw
everything. Beneath us was an amphitheatre, on the southern wall of
which we were seated, though it was not a wall but a lava cliff between
forty and fifty feet high which served as a wall. The amphitheatre
itself, however, almost exactly resembled those of the ancients which I
had seen in pictures and Ragnall had visited in Italy, Greece, and
Southern France. It was oval in shape and not very large, perhaps the
flat space at the bottom may have covered something over an acre, but
all round this oval ran tiers of seats cut in the lava of the crater.
For without doubt this was the crater of an extinct volcano.
Moreover, in what I will call the arena, stood a temple that in its
main outlines, although small, exactly resembled those still to be seen
in Egypt. There was the gateway or pylon; there the open outer court
with columns round it supporting roofed cloisters, which, as we
ascertained afterwards, were used as dwelling-places by the priests.
There beyond and connected with the first by a short passage was a
second rather smaller court, also open to the sky, and beyond this
again, built like all the rest of the temple of lava blocks, a roofed
erection measuring about twelve feet square, which I guessed at once
must be the sanctuary.
This temple was, as I have said, small, but extremely well
proportioned, every detail of it being in the most excellent taste
though unornamented by sculpture or painting. I have to add that in
front of the sanctuary door stood a large block of lava, which I
concluded was an altar, and in front of this a stone seat and a basin,
also of stone, supported upon a very low tripod. Further, behind the
sanctuary was a square house with window-places.
At the moment of our first sight of this place the courts were empty,
but on the benches of the amphitheatre were seated about three hundred
persons, male and female, the men to the north and the women to the
south. They were all clad in pure white robes, the heads of the men
being shaved and those of the women veiled, but leaving the face
exposed. Lastly, there were two roadways into the amphitheatre, one
running east and one west through tunnels hollowed in the encircling
rock of the crater, both of which roads were closed at the mouths of
the tunnels by massive wooden double doors, seventeen or eighteen feet
in height. From these roadways and their doors we learned two things.
First, that the cave where had lived the Father of Serpents was, as I
had suspected, not the real approach to the shrine of the Child, but
only a blind; and, secondly, that the ceremony we were about to witness
was secret and might only be attended by the priestly class or families
of this strange tribe.
Scarcely was it full daylight when from the cells of the cloisters
round the outer court issued twelve priests headed by Harût himself,
who looked very dignified in his white garment, each of whom carried on
a wooden platter ears of different kinds of corn. Then from the cells
of the southern cloister issued twelve women, or rather girls, for all
were young and very comely, who ranged themselves alongside of the men.
These also carried wooden platters, and on them blooming flowers.
At a sign they struck up a religious chant and began to walk forward
through the passage that led from the first court to the second.
Arriving in front of the altar they halted and one by one, first a
priest and then a priestess, set down the platters of offerings, piling
them above each other into a cone. Next the priests and the priestesses
ranged themselves in lines on either side of the altar, and Harût took
a platter of corn and a platter of flowers in his hands. These he held
first towards that quarter of the sky in which swam the invisible new
moon, secondly towards the rising sun, and thirdly towards the doors of
the sanctuary, making genuflexions and uttering some chanted prayer,
the words of which we could not hear.
A pause followed, that was succeeded by a sudden outburst of song
wherein all the audience took part. It was a very sonorous and
beautiful song or hymn in some language which I did not understand,
divided into four verses, the end of each verse being marked by the
bowing of every one of those many singers towards the east, towards the
west, and finally towards the altar.
Another pause till suddenly the doors of the sanctuary were thrown wide
and from between them issued—the goddess Isis of the Egyptians as I
have seen her in pictures! She was wrapped in closely clinging
draperies of material so thin that the whiteness of her body could be
seen beneath. Her hair was outspread before her, and she wore a
head-dress or bonnet of glittering feathers from the front of which
rose a little golden snake. In her arms she bore what at that distance
seemed to be a naked child. With her came two women, walking a little
behind her and supporting her arms, who also wore feather bonnets but
without the golden snake, and were clad in tight-fitting, transparent
garments.
“My God!” whispered Ragnall, “it is my wife!”
“Then be silent and thank Him that she is alive and well,” I answered.
The goddess Isis, or the English lady—in that excitement I did not reck
which—stood still while the priests and priestesses and all the
audience, who, gathered on the upper benches of the amphitheatre, could
see her above the wall of the inner court, raised a thrice-repeated and
triumphant cry of welcome. Then Harût and the first priestess lifted
respectively an ear of corn and a flower from the two topmost platters
and held these first to the lips of the child in her arms and secondly
to her lips.
This ceremony concluded, the two attendant women led her round the
altar to the stone chair, upon which she seated herself. Next fire was
kindled in the bowl on the tripod in front of the chair, how I could
not see; but perhaps it was already smouldering there. At any rate it
burnt up in a thin blue flame, on to which Harût and the head priestess
threw something that caused the flame to turn to smoke. Then Isis, for
I prefer to call her so while describing this ceremony, was caused to
bend her head forward, so that it was enveloped in the smoke exactly as
she and I had done some years before in the drawing-room at Ragnall
Castle. Presently the smoke died away and the two attendants with the
feathered head-dresses straightened her in the chair where she sat
still holding the babe against her breast as she might have done to
nurse it, but with her head bent forward like that of a person in a
swoon.
Now Harût stepped forward and appeared to speak to the goddess at some
length, then fell back again and waited, till in the midst of an
intense silence she rose from her seat and, fixing her wide eyes on the
heavens, spoke in her turn, for although we heard nothing of what she
said, in that clear, morning light we could see her lips moving. For
some minutes she spoke, then sat down again upon the chair and remained
motionless, staring straight in front of her. Harût advanced again,
this time to the front of the altar, and, taking his stand upon a kind
of stone step, addressed the priests and priestesses and all the
encircling audience in a voice so loud and clear that I could
distinguish and understand every word he said.
“The Guardian of the heavenly Child, the Nurse decreed, the appointed
Nurturer, She who is the shadow of her that bore the Child, She who in
her day bears the symbol of the Child and is consecrated to its service
from of old, She whose heart is filled with the wisdom of the Child and
who utters the decrees of Heaven, has spoken. Hearken now to the voice
of the Oracle uttered in answer to the questions of me, Harût, the head
priest of the Eternal Child during my life-days. Thus says the Oracle,
the Guardian, the Nurturer, marked like all who went before her with
the holy mark of the new moon. She on whom the spirit, flitting from
generation to generation, has alighted for a while. ‘O people of the
White Kendah, worshippers of the Child in this land and descendants of
those who for thousands of years worshipped the Child in a more ancient
land until the barbarians drove it thence with the remnant that
remained. War is upon you, O people of the White Kendah. Jana the evil
one; he whose other name is Set, he whose other name is Satan, he who
for this while lives in the shape of an elephant, he who is worshipped
by the thousands whom once you conquered, and whom still you bridle by
my might, comes up against you. The Darkness wars against the Daylight,
the Evil wars against the Good. My curse has fallen upon the people of
Jana, my hail has smitten them, their corn and their cattle; they have
no food to eat. But they are still strong for war and there is food in
your land. They come to take your corn; Jana comes to trample your god.
The Evil comes to destroy the Good, the Night to Devour the Day. It is
the last of many battles. How shall you conquer, O People of the Child?
Not by your own strength, for you are few in number and Jana is very
strong. Not by the strength of the Child, for the Child grows weak and
old, the days of its dominion are almost done, and its worship is
almost outworn. Here alone that worship lingers, but new gods, who are
still the old gods, press on to take its place and to lead it to its
rest.’
“How then shall you conquer that, when the Child has departed to its
own place, a remnant of you may still remain? In one way only—so says
the Guardian, the Nurturer of the Child speaking with the voice of the
Child; by the help of those whom you have summoned to your aid from
far. There were four of them, but one you have suffered to be slain in
the maw of the Watcher in the cave. It was an evil deed, O sons and
daughters of the Child, for as the Watcher is now dead, so ere long
many of you who planned this deed must die who, had it not been for
that man’s blood, would have lived on a while. Why did you do this
thing? That you might keep a secret, the secret of the theft of a
woman, that you might continue to act a lie which falls upon your head
like a stone from heaven.
“Thus saith the Child: ‘Lift no hand against the three who remain, and
what they shall ask, that give, for thus alone shall some of you be
saved from Jana and those who serve him, even though the Guardian and
the Child be taken away and the Child itself returned to its own
place.’ These are the words of the Oracle uttered at the Feast of the
First-fruits, the words that cannot be changed and mayhap its last.”
Harût ceased, and there was silence while this portentous message sank
into the minds of his audience. At length they seemed to understand its
ominous nature and from them all there arose a universal, simultaneous
groan. As it died away the two attendants dressed as goddesses assisted
the personification of the Lady Isis to rise from her seat and, opening
the robes upon her breast, pointed to something beneath her throat,
doubtless that birthmark shaped like the new moon which made her so
sacred in their eyes since she who bore it and she alone could fill her
holy office.
All the audience and with them the priests and priestesses bowed before
her. She lifted the symbol of the Child, holding it high above her
head, whereon once more they bowed with the deepest veneration. Then
still holding the effigy aloft, she turned and with her two attendants
passed into the sanctuary and doubtless thence by a covered way into
the house beyond. At any rate we saw her no more.
As soon as she was gone the congregation, if I may call it so, leaving
their seats, swarmed down into the outer court of the temple through
its eastern gate, which was now opened. Here the priests proceeded to
distribute among them the offerings taken from the altar, giving a
grain of corn to each of the men to eat and a flower to each of the
women, which flower she kissed and hid in the bosom of her robe.
Evidently it was a kind of sacrament.
Ragnall lifted himself a little upon his hands and knees, and I saw
that his eyes glowed and his face was very pale.
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
“Demand that those people give me back my wife, whom they have stolen.
Don’t try to stop me, Quatermain, I mean what I say.”
“But, but,” I stammered, “they never will and we are but three unarmed
men.”
Hans lifted up his little yellow face between us.
“Baas,” he hissed, “I have a thought. The Lord Baas wishes to get the
lady dressed like a bird as to her head and like one for burial as to
her body, who is, he says, his wife. But for us to take her from among
so many is impossible. Now what did that old witch-doctor Harût declare
just now? He declared, speaking for his fetish, that by our help alone
the White Kendah can resist the hosts of the Black Kendah and that no
harm must be done to us if the White Kendah would continue to live. So
it seems, Baas, that we have something to sell which the White Kendah
must buy, namely our help against the Black Kendah, for if we will not
fight for them, they believe that they cannot conquer their enemies and
kill the devil Jana. Well now, supposing that the Baas says that our
price is the white woman dressed like a bird, to be delivered over to
us when we have defeated the Black Kendah and killed Jana—after which
they will have no more use for her. And supposing that the Baas says
that if they refuse to pay that price we will burn all our powder and
cartridges so that the rifles are no use? Is there not a path to walk
on here?”
“Perhaps,” I answered. “Something of the sort was working in my mind
but I had no time to think it out.”
Turning, I explained the idea to Ragnall, adding:
“I pray you not to be rash. If you are, not only may we be killed,
which does not so much matter, but it is very probable that even if
they spare us they will put an end to your wife rather than suffer one
whom they look upon as holy and who is necessary to their faith in its
last struggle to be separated from her charge of the Child.”
This was a fortunate argument of mine and one which went home.
“To lose her now would be more than I could bear,” he muttered.
“Then will you promise to let me try to manage this affair and not to
interfere with me and show violence?”
He hesitated a moment and answered:
“Yes, I promise, for you two are cleverer than I am and—I cannot trust
my judgment.”
“Good,” I said, assuming an air of confidence which I did not feel.
“Now we will go down to call upon Harût and his friends. I want to have
a closer look at that temple.”
So behind our screen of bushes we wriggled back a little distance till
we knew that the slope of the ground would hide us when we stood up.
Then as quickly as we could we made our way eastwards for something
over a quarter of a mile and after this turned to the north. As I
expected, beyond the ring of the crater we found ourselves on the
rising, tree-clad bosom of the mountain and, threading our path through
the cedars, came presently to that track or roadway which led to the
eastern gate of the amphitheatre. This road we followed unseen until
presently the gateway appeared before us. We walked through it without
attracting any attention, perhaps because all the people were either
talking together, or praying, or perhaps because like themselves we
were wrapped in white robes. At the mouth of the tunnel we stopped and
I called out in a loud voice:
“The white lords and their servant have come to visit Harût, as he
invited them to do. Bring us, we pray you, into the presence of Harût.”
Everyone wheeled round and stared at us standing there in the shadow of
the gateway tunnel, for the sun behind us was still low. My word, how
they did stare! A voice cried:
“Kill them! Kill these strangers who desecrate our temple.”
“What!” I answered. “Would you kill those to whom your high-priest has
given safe-conduct; those moreover by whose help alone, as your Oracle
has just declared, you can hope to slay Jana and destroy his hosts?”
“How do they know that?” shouted another voice. “They are magicians!”
“Yes,” I remarked, “all magic does not dwell in the hearts of the White
Kendah. If you doubt it, go to look at the Watcher in the Cave whom
your Oracle told you is dead. You will find that it did not lie.”
As I spoke a man rushed through the gates, his white robe streaming on
the wind, shouting as he emerged from the tunnel:
“O Priests and Priestesses of the Child, the ancient serpent is dead. I
whose office it is to feed the serpent on the day of the new moon have
found him dead in his house.”
“You hear,” I interpolated calmly. “The Father of Snakes is dead. If
you want to know how, I will tell you. We looked on it and it died.”
They might have answered that poor Savage also looked on it with the
result that _he_ died, but luckily it did not occur to them to do so.
On the contrary, they just stood still and stared at us like a flock of
startled sheep.
Presently the sheep parted and the shepherd in the shape of Harût
appeared looking, I reflected, the very picture of Abraham softened by
a touch of the melancholia of Job, that is, as I have always imagined
those patriarchs. He bowed to us with his usual Oriental courtesy, and
we bowed back to him. Hans’ bow, I may explain, was of the most
peculiar nature, more like a _skulpat_, as the Boers call a
land-tortoise, drawing its wrinkled head into its shell and putting it
out again than anything else. Then Harût remarked in his peculiar
English, which I suppose the White Kendah took for some tongue known
only to magicians:
“So you get here, eh? Why you get here, how the devil you get here,
eh?”
“We got here because you asked us to do so if we could,” I answered,
“and we thought it rude not to accept your invitation. For the rest, we
came through a cave where you kept a tame snake, an ugly-looking
reptile but very harmless to those who know how to deal with snakes and
are not afraid of them as poor Bena was. If you can spare the skin I
should like to have it to make myself a robe.”
Harût looked at me with evident respect, muttering:
“Oh, Macumazana, you what you English call cool, quite cool! Is that
all?”
“No,” I answered. “Although you did not happen to notice us, we have
been present at your church service, and heard and seen everything. For
instance, we saw the wife of the lord here whom you stole away in
Egypt, her that, being a liar, Harût, you swore you never stole. Also
we heard her words after you had made her drunk with your tobacco
smoke.”
Now for once in his life Harût was, in sporting parlance, knocked out.
He looked at us, then turning quite pale, lifted his eyes to heaven and
rocked upon his feet as though he were about to fall.
“How you do it? How you do it, eh?” he queried in a weak voice.
“Never you mind how we did it, my friend,” I answered loftily. “What we
want to know is when you are going to hand over that lady to her
husband.”
“Not possible,” he answered, recovering some of his tone. “First we
kill you, first we kill her, she Nurse of the Child. While Child there,
she stop there till she die.”
“See here,” broke in Ragnall. “Either you give me my wife or someone
else will die. You will die, Harût. I am a stronger man than you are
and unless you promise to give me my wife I will kill you now with this
stick and my hands. Do not move or call out if you want to live.”
“Lord,” answered the old man with some dignity, “I know you can kill
me, and if you kill me, I think I say thank you who no wish to live in
so much trouble. But what good that, since in one minute then you die
too, all of you, and lady she stop here till Black Kendah king take her
to wife or she too die?”
“Let us talk,” I broke in, treading warningly upon Ragnall’s foot. “We
have heard your Oracle and we know that you believe its words. It is
said that we alone can help you to conquer the Black Kendah. If you
will not promise what we ask, we will not help you. We will burn our
powder and melt our lead, so that the guns we have cannot speak with
Jana and with Simba, and after that we will do other things that I need
not tell you. But if you promise what we ask, then we will fight for
you against Jana and Simba and teach your men to use the fifty rifles
which we have here with us, and by our help you shall conquer. Do you
understand?”
He nodded and stroking his long beard, asked:
“What you want us promise, eh?”
“We want you to promise that after Jana is dead and the Black Kendah
are driven away, you will give up to us unharmed that lady whom you
have stolen. Also that you will bring her and us safely out of your
country by the roads you know, and meanwhile that you will let this
lord see his wife.”
“Not last, no,” replied Harût, “that not possible. That bring us all to
grave. Also no good, ‘cause her mind empty. For rest, you come to other
place, sit down and eat while I talk with priests. Be afraid nothing;
you quite safe.”
“Why should we be afraid? It is you who should be afraid, you who stole
the lady and brought Bena to his death. Do you not remember the words
of your own Oracle, Harût?”
“Yes, I know words, but how _you_ know them _that_ I not know,” he
replied.
Then he issued some orders, as a result of which a guard formed itself
about us and conducted us through the crowd and along the passage to
the second court of the temple, which was now empty. Here the guard
left us but remained at the mouth of the passage, keeping watch.
Presently women brought us food and drink, of which Hans and I partook
heartily though Ragnall, who was so near to his lost wife and yet so
far away, could eat but little. Mingled joy because after these months
of arduous search he found her yet alive, and fear lest she should
again be taken from him for ever, deprived him of all appetite.
While we ate, priests to the number of about a dozen, who I suppose had
been summoned by Harût, were admitted by the guard and, gathering out
of earshot of us between the altar and the sanctuary, entered on an
earnest discussion with him. Watching their faces I could see that
there was a strong difference of opinion between them, about half
taking one view on the matter of which they disputed, and half another.
At length Harût made some proposition to which they all agreed. Then
the door of the sanctuary was opened with a strange sort of key which
one of the priests produced, showing a dark interior in which gleamed a
white object, I suppose the statue of the Child. Harût and two others
entered, the door being closed behind them. About five minutes later
they appeared again and others, who listened earnestly and after
renewed consultation signified assent by holding up the right hand. Now
one of the priests walked to where we were and, bowing, begged us to
advance to the altar. This we did, and were stood in a line in front of
it, Hans being set in the middle place, while the priests ranged
themselves on either side. Next Harût, having once more opened the door
of the sanctuary, took his stand a little to the right of it and
addressed us, not in English but in his own language, pausing at the
end of each sentence that I might translate to Ragnall.
“Lords Macumazana and Igeza, and yellow man who is named
Light-in-Darkness,” he said, “we, the head priests of the Child,
speaking on behalf of the White Kendah people with full authority so to
do, have taken counsel together and of the wisdom of the Child as to
the demands which you make of us. Those demands are: First, that after
you have killed Jana and defeated the Black Kendah we should give over
to you the white lady who was born in a far land to fill the office of
Guardian of the Child, as is shown by the mark of the new moon upon her
breast, but who, because for the second time we could not take her,
became the wife of you, the Lord Igeza. Secondly, that we should
conduct you and her safely out of our land to some place whence you can
return to your own country. Both of these things we will do, because we
know from of old that if once Jana is dead we shall have no cause to
fear the Black Kendah any more, since we believe that then they will
leave their home and go elsewhere, and therefore that we shall no
longer need an Oracle to declare to us in what way Heaven will protect
us from Jana and from them. Or if another Oracle should become
necessary to us, doubtless in due season she will be found. Also we
admit that we stole away this lady because we must, although she was
the wife of one of you. But if we swear this, you on your part must
also swear that you will stay with us till the end of the war, making
our cause your cause and, if need be, giving your lives for us in
battle. You must swear further that none of you will attempt to see or
to take hence that lady who is named Guardian of the Child until we
hand her over to you unharmed. If you will not swear these things, then
since no blood may be shed in this holy place, here we will ring you
round until you die of hunger and of thirst, or if you escape from this
temple, then we will fall upon you and put you to death and fight our
own battle with Jana as best we may.”
“And if we make these promises how are we to know that you will keep
yours?” I interrupted.
“Because the oath that we shall give you will be the oath of the Child
that may not be broken.”
“Then give it,” I said, for although I did not altogether like the
security, obviously it was the best to be had.
So very solemnly they laid their right hands upon the altar and “in the
presence of the Child and the name of the Child and of all the White
Kendah people,” repeated after Harût a most solemn oath of which I have
already given the substance. It called down on their heads a very
dreadful doom in this world and the next, should it be broken either in
the spirit or the letter; the said oath, however, to be only binding if
we, on our part, swore to observe their terms and kept our engagement
also in the spirit and the letter.
Then they asked us to fulfil our share of the pact and very
considerately drew out of hearing while we discussed the matter; Harût,
the only one of them who understood a word of English, retiring behind
the sanctuary. At first I had difficulties with Ragnall, who was most
unwilling to bind himself in any way. In the end, on my pointing out
that nothing less than our lives were involved and probably that of his
wife as well, also that no other course was open to us, he gave way, to
my great relief.
Hans announced himself ready to swear anything, adding blandly that
words mattered nothing, as afterwards we could do whatever seemed best
in our own interests, whereon I read him a short moral lecture on the
heinousness of perjury, which did not seem to impress him very much.
This matter settled, we called back the priests and informed them of
our decision. Harût demanded that we should affirm it “by the Child,”
which we declined to do, saying that it was our custom to swear only in
the name of our own God. Being a liberal-minded man who had travelled,
Harût gave way on the point. So I swore first to the effect that I
would fight for the White Kendah to the finish in consideration of the
promises that they had made to us. I added that I would not attempt
either to see or to interfere with the lady here known as the Guardian
of the Child until the war was over or even to bring our existence to
her knowledge, ending up, “so help me God,” as I had done several times
when giving evidence in a court of law.
Next Ragnall with a great effort repeated my oath in English, Harût
listening carefully to every word and once or twice asking me to
explain the exact meaning of some of them.
Lastly Hans, who seemed very bored with the whole affair, swore, also
repeating the words after me and finishing on his own account with “so
help me the reverend Predikant, the Baas’s father,” a form that he
utterly declined to vary although it involved more explanations. When
pressed, indeed, he showed considerable ingenuity by pointing out to
the priests that to his mind my poor father stood in exactly the same
relation to the Power above us as their Oracle did to the Child. He
offered generously, however, to throw in the spirits of his grandfather
and grandmother and some extraordinary divinity they worshipped, I
think it was a hare, as an additional guarantee of good faith. This
proposal the priests accepted gravely, whereon Hans whispered into my
ear in Dutch:
“Those fools do not remember that when pressed by dogs the hare often
doubles on its own spoor, and that your reverend father will be very
pleased if I can play them the same trick with the white lady that they
played with the Lord Igeza.”
I only looked at him in reply, since the morality of Hans was past
argument. It might perhaps be summed up in one sentence: To get the
better of his neighbour in his master’s service, honestly if possible;
if not, by any means that came to his hand down to that of murder. At
the bottom of his dark and mysterious heart Hans worshipped only one
god, named Love, not of woman or child, but of my humble self. His
principles were those of a rather sly but very high-class and exclusive
dog, neither better nor worse. Still, when all is said and done, there
are lower creatures in the world than high-class dogs. At least so the
masters whom they adore are apt to think, especially if their
watchfulness and courage have often saved them from death or disaster.