ALLAN QUATERMAIN MISSES
I had made my last round of the little corps that I facetiously named
“The Sharpshooters,” though to tell the truth at shooting they were
anything but sharp, and seen that each man was in his place behind a
wall with a reserve man squatted at the rear of every pair of them,
waiting to take his rifle if either of these should fall. Also I had
made sure that all of them had twenty rounds of ammunition in their
skin pouches. More I would not serve out, fearing lest in excitement or
in panic they might fire away to the last cartridge uselessly, as
before now even disciplined white troops have been known to do.
Therefore I had arranged that certain old men of standing who could be
trusted should wait in a place of comparative safety behind the line,
carrying all our reserve ammunition, which amounted, allowing for what
had been expended in practice, to nearly sixty rounds per rifle. This
they were instructed to deliver from their wallets to the firing line
in small lots when they saw that it was necessary and not before.
It was, I admit, an arrangement apt to miscarry in the heat of
desperate battle, but I could think of none better, since it was
absolutely necessary that no shot should be wasted.
After a few words of exhortation and caution to the natives who acted
as sergeants to the corps, I returned to a bough shelter that had been
built for us behind a rock to get a few hours’ sleep, if that were
possible, before the fight began.
Here I found Ragnall, who had just come in from his inspection. This
was of a much more extensive nature than my own, since it involved
going round some furlongs of the rough walls and trenches that he had
prepared with so much thought and care, and seeing that the various
companies of the White Kendah were ready to play their part in the
defence of them.
He was tired and rather excited, too much so to sleep at once. So we
talked a little while, first about the prospects of the morrow’s
battle, as to which we were, to say the least of it, dubious, and
afterwards of other things. I asked him if during his stay in this
place, while I was below at the town or later, he had heard or seen
anything of his wife.
“Nothing,” he answered. “These priests never speak of her, and if they
did Harût is the only one of them that I can really understand.
Moreover, I have kept my word strictly and, even when I had occasion to
see to the blocking of the western road, made a circuit on the
mountain-top in order to avoid the neighbourhood of that house where I
suppose she lives. Oh! Quatermain, my friend, my case is a hard one, as
you would think if the woman you loved with your whole heart were shut
up within a few hundred yards of you and no communication with her
possible after all this time of separation and agony. What makes it
worse is, as I gathered from what Harût said the other day, that she is
still out of her mind.”
“That has some consolations,” I replied, “since the mindless do not
suffer. But if such is the case, how do you account for what you and
poor Savage saw that night in the Town of the Child? It was not
altogether a phantasy, for the dress you described was the same we saw
her wearing at the Feast of the First-fruits.”
“I don’t know what to make of it, Quatermain, except that many strange
things happen in the world which we mock at as insults to our limited
intelligence because we cannot understand them.” (Very soon I was to
have another proof of this remark.) “But what are you driving at? You
are keeping something back.”
“Only this, Ragnall. If your wife were utterly mad I cannot conceive
how it came about that she searched you out and spoke to you even in a
vision—for the thing was not an individual dream since both you and
Savage saw her. Nor did she actually visit you in the flesh, as the
door never opened and the spider’s web across it was not broken. So it
comes to this: either some part of her is not mad but can still
exercise sufficient will to project itself upon your senses, or she is
dead and her disembodied spirit did this thing. Now we know that she is
not dead, for we have seen her and Harût has confessed as much.
Therefore I maintain that, whatever may be her temporary state, she
must still be fundamentally of a reasonable mind, as she is of a
natural body. For instance, she may only be hypnotized, in which case
the spell will break one day.”
“Thank you for that thought, old fellow. It never occurred to me and it
gives me new hope. Now listen! If I should come to grief in this
business, which is very likely, and you should survive, you will do
your best to get her home; will you not? Here is a codicil to my will
which I drew up after that night of dream, duly witnessed by Savage and
Hans. It leaves to you whatever sums may be necessary in this connexion
and something over for yourself. Take it, it is best in your keeping,
especially as if you should be killed it has no value.”
“Of course I will do my best,” I answered as I put away the paper in my
pocket. “And now don’t let us take any more thought of being killed,
which may prevent us from getting the sleep we want. I don’t mean to be
killed if I can help it. I mean to give those beggars, the Black
Kendah, such a doing as they never had before, and then start for the
coast with you and Lady Ragnall, as, God willing, we shall do. Good
night.”
After this I slept like a top for some hours, as I believe Ragnall did
also. When I awoke, which happened suddenly and completely, the first
thing that I saw was Hans seated at the entrance to my little shelter
smoking his corn-cob pipe, and nursing the single-barrelled rifle,
Intombi, on his knee. I asked him what the time was, to which he
replied that it lacked two hours to dawn. Then I asked him why he had
not been sleeping. He replied that he had been asleep and dreamed a
dream. Idly enough I inquired what dream, to which he replied:
“Rather a strange one, Baas, for a man who is about to go into battle.
I dreamed that I was in a large place that was full of quiet. It was
light there, but I could not see any sun or moon, and the air was very
soft and tasted like food and drink, so much so, Baas, that if anyone
had offered me a cup quite full of the best ‘Cape smoke’ I should have
told him to take it away. Then, Baas, suddenly I saw your reverend
father, the Predikant, standing beside me and looking just as he used
to look, only younger and stronger and very happy, and so of course
knew at once that I was dead and in hell. Only I wondered where the
fire that does not go out might be, for I could not see it. Presently
your reverend father said to me: ‘Good day, Hans. So you have come here
at last. Now tell me, how has it gone with my son, the Baas Allan? Have
you looked after him as I told you to do?’
“I answered: ‘I have looked after him as well as I could, O reverend
sir. Little enough have I done; still, not once or twice or three times
only have I offered up my life for him as was my duty, and yet we both
have lived.’ And that I might be sure he heard the best of me, as was
but natural, I told him the times, Baas, making a big story out of
small things, although all the while I could see that he knew exactly
just where I began to lie and just where I stopped from lying. Still he
did not scold me, Baas; indeed, when I had finished, he said:
“‘Well done, O good and faithful servant,’ words that I think I have
heard him use before when he was alive, Baas, and used to preach to us
for such a long time on Sunday afternoons. Then he asked: ‘And how goes
it with Baas Allan, my son, now, Hans?’ to which I replied:
“‘The Baas Allan is going to fight a very great battle in which he may
well fall, and if I could feel sorry here, which I can’t, I should
weep, O reverend sir, because I have died before that battle began and
therefore cannot stand at his side in the battle and be killed for him
as a servant should for his master!’
“‘You will stand at his side in the battle,’ said your reverend father,
‘and those things which you desire you will do, as it is fitting that
you should. And afterwards, Hans, you will make report to me of how the
battle went and of what honour my son has won therein. Moreover, know
this, Hans, that though while you live in the world you seem to see
many other things, they are but dreams, since in all the world there is
but one real thing, and its name is Love, which if it be but strong
enough, the stars themselves must obey, for it is the king of every one
of them, and all who dwell in them worship it day and night under many
names for ever and for ever, Amen.’
“What he meant by that I am sure I don’t know, Baas, seeing that I have
never thought much of women, at least not for many years since my last
old vrouw went and drank herself to death after lying in her sleep on
the baby which I loved much better than I did her, Baas.
“Well, before I could ask him, or about hell either, he was gone like a
whiff of smoke from a rifle mouth in a strong wind.”
Hans paused, puffed at his pipe, spat upon the ground in his usual
reflective way and asked:
“Is the Baas tired of the dream or would he like to hear the rest?”
“I should like to hear the rest,” I said in a low voice, for I was
strangely moved.
“Well, Baas, while I was standing in that place which was so full of
quiet, turning my hat in my hands and wondering what work they would
set me to there among the devils, I looked up. There I saw coming
towards me two very beautiful women, Baas, who had their arms round
each other’s necks. They were dressed in white, with the little hard
things that are found in shells hanging about them, and bright stones
in their hair. And as they came, Baas, wherever they set a foot flowers
sprang up, very pretty flowers, so that all their path across the quiet
place was marked with flowers. Birds too sang as they passed, at least
I think they were birds though I could not see them.”
“What were they like, Hans?” I whispered.
“One of them, Baas, the taller I did not know. But the other I knew
well enough; it was she whose name is holy, not to be mentioned. Yet I
must mention that name; it was the Missie Marie herself as last we saw
her alive many, many years ago, only grown a hundred times more
beautiful.”[2]
[2] See the book called _Marie_ by H. Rider Haggard.
Now I groaned, and Hans went on:
“The two White Ones came up to me, and stood looking at me with eyes
that were more soft than those of bucks. Then the Missie Marie said to
the other: ‘This is Hans of whom I have so often told you, O Star.’”
Here I groaned again, for how did this Hottentot know that name, or
rather its sweet rendering?
“Then she who was called Star asked, ‘How goes it with one who is the
heart of all three of us, O Hans?’ Yes, Baas, those Shining Ones joined
_me_, the dirty little Hottentot in my old clothes and smelling of
tobacco, with themselves when they spoke of you, for I knew they were
speaking of you, Baas, which made me think I must be drunk, even there
in the quiet place. So I told them all that I had told your reverend
father, and a very great deal more, for they seemed never to be tired
of listening. And once, when I mentioned that sometimes, while
pretending to be asleep, I had heard you praying aloud at night for the
Missie Marie who died for you, and for another who had been your wife
whose name I did not remember but who had also died, they both cried a
little, Baas. Their tears shone like crystals and smelt like that stuff
in a little glass tube which Harût said that he brought from some far
land when he put a drop or two on your handkerchief, after you were
faint from the pain in your leg at the house yonder. Or perhaps it was
the flowers that smelt, for where the tears fell there sprang up white
lilies shaped like two babes’ hands held together in prayer.”
Hearing this, I hid my face in my hands lest Hans should see human
tears unscented with attar of roses, and bade him continue.
“Baas, the White One who was called Star, asked me of your son, the
young Baas Harry, and I told her that when last I had seen him he was
strong and well and would make a bigger man than you were, whereat she
sighed and shook her head. Then the Missie Marie said: ‘Tell the Baas,
Hans, that I also have a child which he will see one day, but it is not
a son.’
“After this they, too, said something about Love, but what it was I
cannot remember, since even as I repeat this dream to you it is
beginning to slip away from me fast as a swallow skimming the water.
Their last words, however, I do remember. They were: ‘Say to the Baas
that we who never met in life, but who here are as twin sisters, wait
and count the years and count the months and count the days and count
the hours and count the minutes and count the seconds until once more
he shall hear our voices calling to him across the night.’ That’s what
they said, Baas. Then they were gone and only the flowers remained to
show that they had been standing there.
“Now I set off to bring you the message and travelled a very long way
at a great rate; if Jana himself had been after me I could not have
gone more fast. At last I got out of that quiet place and among
mountains where there were dark kloofs, and there in the kloofs I heard
Zulu impis singing their war-song; yes, they sang the _ingoma_ or
something very like it. Now suddenly in the pass of the mountains along
which I sped, there appeared before me a very beautiful woman whose
skin shone like the best copper coffee kettle after I have polished it,
Baas. She was dressed in a leopard-like moocha and wore on her
shoulders a fur kaross, and about her neck a circlet of blue beads, and
from her hair there rose one crane’s feather tall as a walking-stick,
and in her hand she held a little spear. No flowers sprang beneath her
feet when she walked towards me and no birds sang, only the air was
filled with the sound of a royal salute which rolled among the
mountains like the roar of thunder, and her eyes flashed like summer
lightning.”
Now I let my hands fall and stared at him, for well I knew what was
coming.
“‘Stand, yellow man!’ she said, ‘and give me the royal salute.’
“So I gave her the _Bayéte_, though who she might be I did not know,
since I did not think it wise to stay to ask her if it were hers of
right, although I should have liked to do so. Then she said: ‘The Old
Man on the plain yonder and those two pale White Ones have talked to
you of their love for your master, the Lord Macumazana. I tell you,
little Yellow Dog, that they do not know what love can be. There is
more love for him in my eyes alone than they have in all that makes
them fair. Say it to the Lord Macumazana that, as I know well, he goes
down to battle and that the Lady Mameena will be with him in the battle
as, though he saw her not, she has been with him in other battles, and
will be with him till the River of Time has run over the edge of the
world and is lost beyond the sun. Let him remember this when Jana
rushes on and death is very near to him to-day, and let him look—for
then perchance he shall see me. Begone now, Yellow Dog, to the heels of
your master, and play your part well in the battle, for of what you do
or leave undone you shall give account to me. Say that Mameena sends
her greetings to the Lord Macumazana and that she adds this, that when
the Old Man and the White ones told you that Love is the secret blood
of the worlds which makes them to be they did not lie. Love reigns and
I, Mameena, am its priestess, and the heart of Macumazana is my holy
house.’
“Then, Baas, I tumbled off a precipice and woke up here; and, Baas, as
we may not light a fire I have kept some coffee hot for you buried in
warm ashes,” and without another word he went to fetch that coffee,
leaving me shaken and amazed.
For what kind of a dream was it which revealed to an old Hottentot all
these mysteries and hidden things about persons whom he had never seen
and of whom I had never spoken to him? My father and my wife Marie
might be explained, for with these he had been mixed up, but how about
Stella and above all Mameena, although of course it was possible that
he had heard of the latter, who made some stir in her time? But to hit
her off as he had done in all her pride, splendour, and dominion of
desire!
Well, that was his story which, perhaps fortunately, I lacked time to
analyse or brood upon, since there was much in it calculated to unnerve
a man just entering the crisis of a desperate fray. Indeed a minute or
so later, as I was swallowing the last of the coffee, messengers
arrived about some business, I forget what, sent by Ragnall I think,
who had risen before I woke. I turned to give the pannikin to Hans, but
he had vanished in his snake-like fashion, so I threw it down upon the
ground and devoted my mind to the question raised in Ragnall’s message.
Next minute scouts came in who had been watching the camp of the Black
Kendah all night.
These were sleeping not more than half a mile away, in an open place on
the slope of the hill with pickets thrown out round them, intending to
advance upon us, it was said, as soon as the sun rose, since because of
their number they feared lest to march at night should throw them into
confusion and, in case of their falling into an ambush, bring about a
disaster. Such at least was the story of two spies whom our people had
captured.
There had been some question as to whether we should not attempt a
night attack upon their camp, of which I was rather in favour. After
full debate, however, the idea had been abandoned, owing to the fewness
of our numbers, the dislike which the White Kendah shared with the
Black of attempting to operate in the dark, and the well chosen
position of our enemy, whom it would be impossible to rush before we
were discovered by their outposts. What I hoped in my heart was that
they might try to rush us, notwithstanding the story of the two
captured spies, and in the gloom, after the moon had sunk low and
before the dawn came, become entangled in our pitfalls and outlying
entrenchments, where we should be able to destroy a great number of
them. Only on the previous afternoon that cunning old fellow, Hans, had
pointed out to me how advantageous such an event would be to our cause
and, while agreeing with him, I suggested that probably the Black
Kendah knew this as well as we did, as the prisoners had told us.
Yet that very thing happened, and through Hans himself. Thus: Old Harût
had come to me just one hour before the dawn to inform me that all our
people were awake and at their stations, and to make some last
arrangements as to the course of the defence, also about our final
concentration behind the last line of walls and in the first court of
the temple, if we should be driven from the outer entrenchments. He was
telling me that the Oracle of the Child had uttered words at the
ceremony that night which he and all the priests considered were of the
most favourable import, news to which I listened with some impatience,
feeling as I did that this business had passed out of the range of the
Child and its Oracle. As he spoke, suddenly through the silence that
precedes the dawn, there floated to our ears the unmistakable sound of
a rifle. Yes, a rifle shot, half a mile or so away, followed by the
roaring murmur of a great camp unexpectedly alarmed at night.
“Who can have fired that?” I asked. “The Black Kendah have no guns.”
He replied that he did not know, unless some of my fifty men had left
their posts.
While we were investigating the matter, scouts rushed in with the
intelligence that the Black Kendah, thinking apparently that they were
being attacked, had broken camp and were advancing towards us. We
passed a warning all down the lines and stood to arms. Five minutes
later, as I stood listening to that approaching roar, filled with every
kind of fear and melancholy foreboding such as the hour and the
occasion might well have evoked, through the gloom, which was dense,
the moon being hidden behind the hill, I thought I caught sight of
something running towards me like a crouching man. I lifted my rifle to
fire but, reflecting that it might be no more than a hyena and fearing
to provoke a fusilade from my half-trained company, did not do so.
Next instant I was glad indeed, for immediately on the other side of
the wall behind which I was standing I heard a well-known voice gasp
out:
“Don’t shoot, Baas, it is I.”
“What have you been doing, Hans?” I said as he scrambled over the wall
to my side, limping a little as I fancied.
“Baas,” he puffed, “I have been paying the Black Kendah a visit. I
crept down between their stupid outposts, who are as blind in the dark
as a bat in daytime, hoping to find Jana and put a bullet into his leg
or trunk. I didn’t find him, Baas, although I heard him. But one of
their captains stood up in front of a watchfire, giving a good shot. My
bullet found _him_, Baas, for he tumbled back into the fire making the
sparks fly this way and that. Then I ran and, as you see, got here
quite safely.”
“Why did you play that fool’s trick?” I asked, “seeing that it ought to
have cost you your life?”
“I shall die just when I have to die, not before, Baas,” he replied in
the intervals of reloading the little rifle. “Also it was the trick of
a wise man, not of a fool, seeing that it has made the Black Kendah
think that we were attacking them and caused them to hurry on to attack
_us_ in the dark over ground that they do not know. Listen to them
coming!”
As he spoke a roar of sound told us that the great charge had swept
round a turn there was in the pass and was heading towards us up the
straight. Ivory horns brayed, captains shouted orders, the very
mountains shook beneath the beating of thousands of feet of men and
horses, while in one great yell that echoed from the cliffs and forests
went up the battle-cry of “_Jana! Jana!_”—a mixed tumult of noise which
contrasted very strangely with the utter silence in our ranks.
“They will be among the pitfalls presently,” sniggered Hans, shifting
his weight nervously from one leg on to the other. “Hark! they are
going into them.”
It was true. Screams of fear and pain told me that the front ranks had
begun to fall, horse and foot together, into the cunningly devised
snares of which with so much labour we had dug many, concealing them
with earth spread over thin wickerwork, or rather interlaced boughs.
Into them went the forerunners, to be pierced by the sharp,
fire-hardened stakes set at the bottom of each pit. Vainly did those
who were near enough to understand their danger call to the ranks
behind to stop. They could not or would not comprehend, and had no room
to extend their front. Forward surged the human torrent, thrusting all
in front of it to death by wounds or suffocation in those deadly holes,
till one by one they were filled level with the ground by struggling
men and horses, over whom the army still rushed on.
How many perished there I do not know, but after the battle was over we
found scarcely a pit that was not crowded to the brim with dead. Truly
this device of Ragnall’s, for if I had conceived the idea, which was
unfamiliar to the Kendah, it was he who had carried it out in so
masterly a fashion, had served us well.
Still the enemy surged on, since the pits were only large enough to
hold a tithe of them, till at length, horsemen and footmen mixed up
together in inextricable confusion, their mighty mass became faintly
visible quite close to us, a blacker blot upon the gloom.
Then my turn came. When they were not more than fifty yards away from
the first wall, I shouted an order to my riflemen to fire, aiming low,
and set the example by loosing both barrels of an elephant gun at the
thickest of the mob. At that distance even the most inexperienced shots
could not miss such a mark, especially as those bullets that went high
struck among the oncoming troops behind, or caught the horsemen lifted
above their fellows. Indeed, of the first few rounds I do not think
that one was wasted, while often single balls killed or injured several
men.
The result was instantaneous. The Black Kendah who, be it remembered,
were totally unaccustomed to the effects of rifle fire and imagined
that we only possessed two or three guns in all, stopped their advance
as though paralyzed. For a few seconds there was silence, except for
the intermittent crackle of the rifles as my men loaded and fired. Next
came the cries of the smitten men and horses that were falling
everywhere, and then—the unmistakable sound of a stampede.
“They have gone. That was too warm for them, Baas,” chuckled Hans
exultingly.
“Yes,” I answered, when I had at length succeeded in stopping the
firing, “but I expect they will come back with the light. Still, that
trick of yours has cost them dear, Hans.”
By degrees the dawn began to break. It was, I remember, a particularly
beautiful dawn, resembling a gigantic and vivid rose opening in the
east, or a cup of brightness from which many coloured wines were poured
all athwart the firmament. Very peaceful also, for not a breath of wind
was stirring. But what a scene the first rays of the sun revealed upon
that narrow stretch of pass in front of us. Everywhere the pitfalls and
trenches were filled with still surging heaps of men and horses, while
all about lay dead and wounded men, the red harvest of our rifle fire.
It was dreadful to contrast the heavenly peace above and the hellish
horror beneath.
We took count and found that up to this moment we had not lost a single
man, one only having been slightly wounded by a thrown spear. As is
common among semi-savages, this fact filled the White Kendah with an
undue exultation. Thinking that as the beginning was so the end must
be, they cheered and shouted, shaking each other’s hands, then fell to
eating the food which the women brought them with appetite, chattering
incessantly, although as a general rule they were a very silent people.
Even the grave Harût, who arrived full of congratulations, seemed as
high-spirited as a boy, till I reminded him that the real battle had
not yet commenced.
The Black Kendah had fallen into a trap and lost some of their number,
that was all, which was fortunate for us but could scarcely affect the
issue of the struggle, since they had many thousands left. Ragnall, who
had come up from his lines, agreed with me. As he said, these people
were fighting for life as well as honour, seeing that most of the corn
which they needed for their sustenance was stored in great heaps either
in or to the rear of the temple behind us. Therefore they must come on
until they won or were destroyed. How with our small force could we
hope to destroy this multitude? That was the problem which weighed upon
our hearts.
About a quarter of an hour later two spies that we had set upon the top
of the precipitous cliffs, whence they had a good view of the pass
beyond the bend, came scrambling down the rocks like monkeys by a route
that was known to them. These boys, for they were no more, reported
that the Black Kendah were reforming their army beyond the bend of the
pass, and that the cavalry were dismounting and sending their horses to
the rear, evidently because they found them useless in such a place. A
little later solitary men appeared from behind the bend, carrying
bundles of long sticks to each of which was attached a piece of white
cloth, a proceeding that excited my curiosity.
Soon its object became apparent. Swiftly these men, of whom in the end
there may have been thirty or forty, ran to and fro, testing the ground
with spears in search for pitfalls. I think they only found a very few
that had not been broken into, but in front of these and also of those
that were already full of men and horses they set up the flags as a
warning that they should be avoided in the advance. Also they removed a
number of their wounded.
We had great difficulty in restraining the White Kendah from rushing
out to attack them, which of course would only have led us into a trap
in our turn, since they would have fled and conducted their pursuers
into the arms of the enemy. Nor would I allow my riflemen to fire, as
the result must have been many misses and a great waste of ammunition
which ere long would be badly wanted. I, however, did shoot two or
three, then gave it up as the remainder took no notice whatever.
When they had thoroughly explored the ground they retired until, a
little later, the Black Kendah army began to appear, marching in
serried regiments and excellent order round the bend, till perhaps
eight or ten thousand of them were visible, a very fierce and
awe-inspiring _impi_. Their front ranks halted between three and four
hundred yards away, which I thought farther off than it was advisable
to open fire on them with Snider rifles held by unskilled troops. Then
came a pause, which at length was broken by the blowing of horns and a
sound of exultant shouting beyond the turn of the pass.
Now from round this turn appeared the strangest sight that I think my
eyes had ever seen. Yes, there came the huge elephant, Jana, at a slow,
shambling trot. On his back and head were two men in whom, with my
glasses, I recognized the lame priest whom I already knew too well and
Simba, the king of the Black Kendah, himself, gorgeously apparelled and
waving a long spear, seated in a kind of wooden chair. Round the
brute’s neck were a number of bright metal chains, twelve in all, and
each of these chains was held by a spearman who ran alongside, six on
one side and six on the other. Lastly, ingeniously fastened to the end
of his trunk were three other chains to which were attached spiked
knobs of metal.
On he came as docilely as any Indian elephant used for carrying teak
logs, passing through the centre of the host up a wide lane which had
been left, I suppose for his convenience, and intelligently avoiding
the pitfalls filled with dead. I thought that he would stop among the
first ranks. But not so. Slackening his pace to a walk he marched
forwards towards our fortifications. Now, of course, I saw my chance
and made sure that my double-barrelled elephant rifle was ready and
that Hans held a second rifle, also double-barrelled and of similar
calibre, full-cocked in such a position that I could snatch it from him
in a moment.
“I am going to kill that elephant,” I said. “Let no one else fire.
Stand still and you shall see the god Jana die.”
Still the enormous beast floundered forward; up to that moment I had
never realized how truly huge it was, not even when it stood over me in
the moonlight about to crush me with its foot. Of this I am sure, that
none to equal it ever lived in Africa, at least in any times of which I
have knowledge.
“Fire, Baas,” whispered Hans, “it is near enough.”
But like the Frenchman and the cock pheasant, I determined to wait
until it stopped, wishing to finish it with a single ball, if only for
the prestige of the thing.
At length it did stop and, opening its cavern of a mouth, lifted its
great trunk and trumpeted, while Simba, standing up in his chair, began
to shout out some command to us to surrender to the god Jana, “the
Invincible, the Invulnerable.”
“I will show you if you are invulnerable, my boy,” said I to myself,
glancing round to make sure that Hans had the second rifle ready and
catching sight of Ragnall and Harût and all the White Kendah standing
up in their trenches, breathlessly awaiting the end, as were the Black
Kendah a few hundred yards away. Never could there have been a fairer
shot and one more certain to result in a fatal wound. The brute’s head
was up and its mouth was open. All I had to do was to send a
hard-tipped bullet crashing through the palate to the brain behind. It
was so easy that I would have made a bet that I could have finished him
with one hand tied behind me.
I lifted the heavy rifle. I got the sights dead on to a certain spot at
the back of that red cave. I pressed the trigger; the charge boomed—and
nothing happened! I heard no bullet strike and Jana did not even take
the trouble to close his mouth.
An exclamation of “O-oh!” went up from the watchers. Before it had died
away the second bullet followed the first, with the same result or
rather lack of result, and another louder “O-oh!” arose. Then Jana
tranquilly shut his mouth, having finished trumpeting, and as though to
give me a still better target, turned broadside on and stood quite
still.
With an inward curse I snatched the second rifle and aiming behind the
ear at a spot which long experience told me covered the heart let drive
again, first one barrel and then the other.
Jana never stirred. No bullet thudded. No mark of blood appeared upon
his hide. The horrible thought overcame me that I, Allan Quatermain, I
the famous shot, the renowned elephant-hunter, had four times missed
this haystack of a brute from a distance of forty yards. So great was
my shame that I think I almost fainted. Through a kind of mist I heard
various ejaculations:
“Great Heavens!” said Ragnall.
“_Allemagte!_” remarked Hans.
“The Child help us!” muttered Harût.
All the rest of them stared at me as though I were a freak or a
lunatic. Then somebody laughed nervously, and immediately everybody
began to laugh. Even the distant army of the Black Kendah became
convulsed with roars of unholy merriment and I, Allan Quatermain, was
the centre of all this mockery, till I felt as though I were going mad.
Suddenly the laughter ceased and once more Simba the King began to roar
out something about “Jana the Invincible and Invulnerable,” to which
the White Kendah replied with cries of “Magic” and “Bewitched!
Bewitched!”
“Yes,” yelled Simba, “no bullet can touch Jana the god, not even those
of the white lord who was brought from far to kill him.”
Hans leaped on to the top of the wall, where he danced up and down like
an intoxicated monkey, and screamed:
“Then where is Jana’s left eye? Did not my bullet put it out like a
lamp? If Jana is invulnerable, why did my bullet put out his left eye?”
Hans ceased from dancing on the wall and steadying himself, lifted the
little rifle Intombi, shouting:
“Let us see whether after all this beast is a god or an elephant.”
Then he touched the trigger, and simultaneously with the report, I
heard the bullet clap and saw blood appear on Jana’s hide just by the
very spot over the heart at which I had aimed without result. Of
course, the soft ball driven from a small-bore rifle with a light
charge of powder was far too weak to penetrate to the vitals. Probably
it did not do much more than pierce through the skin and an inch or two
of flesh behind it.
Still, its effects upon this “invulnerable” god were of a marked order.
He whipped round; he lifted his trunk and screamed with rage and pain.
Then off he lumbered back towards his own people, at such a pace that
the attendants who held the chains on either side of him were thrown
over and forced to leave go of him, while the king and the priest upon
his back could only retain their seats by clinging to the chair and the
rope about his neck.
The result was satisfactory so far as the dispelling of magical
illusions went, but it left me in a worse position than before, since
it now became evident that what had protected Jana from my bullets was
nothing more supernatural than my own lack of skill. Oh! never in my
life did I drink of such a cup of humiliation as it was my lot to drain
to the dregs in this most unhappy hour. Almost did I hope that I might
be killed at once.
And yet, and yet, how was it possible that with all my skill I should
have missed this towering mountain of flesh four times in succession.
The question is one to which I have never discovered any answer,
especially as Hans hit it easily enough, which at the time I wished
heartily he had not done, since his success only served to emphasize my
miserable failure. Fortunately, just then a diversion occurred which
freed my unhappy self from further public attention. With a shout and a
roar the great army of the Black Kendah woke into life.
The advance had begun.