STELLA
I was not slow to take Indaba-zimbi’s hint. About a hundred and fifty
yards to the left of the laager was a little dell where I had hidden my
horse, together with one belonging to the Boers, and my saddle and
bridle. Thither we went, I carrying the swooning Tota in my arms. To
our joy we found the horses safe, for the Zulus had not seen them. Now,
of course, they were our only means of locomotion, for the oxen had
been sent away, and even had they been there we could not have found
time to inspan them. I laid Tota down, caught my horse, undid his knee
halter, and saddled up. As I was doing so a thought struck me, and I
told Indaba-zimbi to run to the laager and see if he could find my
double-barrelled gun and some powder and shot, for I had only my
elephant “roer” and a few charges of powder and ball with me.
He went, and while he was away, poor little Tota came to herself and
began to cry, till she saw my face.
“Ah, I have had such a bad dream,” she said, in Dutch: “I dreamed that
the black Kaffirs were going to kill me. Where is my papa?”
I winced at the question. “Your papa has gone on a journey, dear,” I
said, “and left me to look after you. We shall find him one day. You
don’t mind going with Heer Allan, do you?”
“No,” she said, a little doubtfully, and began to cry again. Presently
she remembered that she was thirsty, and asked for water. I led her to
the river and she drank. “Why is my hand red, Heer Allan?” she asked,
pointing to the smear of Bombyane’s blood-stained fingers.
At this moment I felt very glad that I had killed Bombyane.
“It is only paint, dear,” I said; “see, we will wash it and your face.”
As I was doing this, Indaba-zimbi returned. The guns were all gone; he
said the Zulus had taken them and the powder. But he had found some
things and brought them in a sack. There was a thick blanket, about
twenty pounds weight of biltong or sun-dried meat, a few
double-handfuls of biscuits, two water-bottles, a tin pannikin, some
matches and sundries.
“And now, Macumazahn,” he said, “we had best be going, for those
Umtetwas are coming back. I saw one of them on the brow of the rise.”
That was enough for me. I lifted little Tota on to the bow of my
saddle, climbed into it, and rode off, holding her in front of me.
Indaba-zimbi slipped a reim into the mouth of the best of the Boer
horses, threw the sack of sundries on to its back and mounted also,
holding the elephant gun in his hand. We went eight or nine hundred
yards in silence till we were quite out of range of sight from the
waggons, which were in a hollow. Then I pulled up, with such a feeling
of thankfulness in my heart as cannot be told in words; for now I knew
that, mounted as we were, those black demons could never catch us. But
where were we to steer for? I put the question to Indaba-zimbi, asking
him if he thought that we had better try and follow the oxen which we
had sent away with the Kaffirs and women on the preceding night. He
shook his head.
“The Umtetwas will go after the oxen presently,” he answered, “and we
have seen enough of them.”
“Quite enough,” I answered, with enthusiasm; “I never want to see
another; but where are we to go? Here we are alone with one gun and a
little girl in the vast and lonely veldt. Which way shall we turn?”
“Our faces were towards the north before we met the Zulus,” answered
Indaba-zimbi; “let us still keep them to the north. Ride on,
Macumazahn; to-night when we off-saddle I will look into the matter.”
So all that long afternoon we rode on, following the course of the
river. From the nature of the ground we could only go slowly, but
before sunset I had the satisfaction of knowing that there must be at
least twenty-five miles between us and those accursed Zulus. Little
Tota slept most of the way, the motion of the horse was easy, and she
was worn out.
At last the sunset came, and we off-saddled in a dell by the river.
There was not much to eat, but I soaked some biscuit in water for Tota,
and Indaba-zimbi and I made a scanty meal of biltong. When we had done
I took off Tota’s frock, wrapped her up in a blanket near the fire we
had made, and lit a pipe. I sat there by the side of the sleeping
orphaned child, and from my heart thanked Providence for saving her
life and mine from the slaughter of that day. What a horrible
experience it had been! It seemed like a nightmare to look back upon.
And yet it was sober fact, one among those many tragedies which dotted
the paths of the emigrant Boers with the bones of men, women, and
children. These horrors are almost forgotten now; people living in
Natal now, for instance, can scarcely realize that some forty years ago
six hundred white people, many of them women and children, were thus
massacred by the Impis of Dingaan. But it was so, and the name of the
district, _Weenen_, or the Place of Weeping, will commemorate them for
ever.
Then I fell to reflecting on the extraordinary adroitness old
Indaba-zimbi had shown in saving my life. It appeared that he himself
had lived among the Umtetwa Zulus in his earlier manhood, and was a
noted rain-doctor and witch-finder. But when T’Chaka, Dingaan’s
brother, ordered a general massacre of the witch-finders, he alone had
saved his life by his skill in magic, and ultimately fled south for
reasons too long to set out here. When he heard, therefore, that the
regiment was an Umtetwa regiment, which, leaving their wives and
children, had broken away from Zululand to escape the cruelties of
Dingaan; under pretence of spying on them, he took the bold course of
going straight up to the chief, Sususa, and addressing him as his
brother, which he was. The chief knew him at once, and so did the
soldiers, for his fame was still great among them. Then he told them
his cock and bull story about my being a white spirit, whose presence
in the laager would render it invincible, and with the object of saving
my life in the slaughter which he knew must ensue, agreed to charm me
out of the laager and deliver me into their keeping. How the plan
worked has already been told; it was a risky one; still, but for it my
troubles would have been done with these many days.
So I lay and thought with a heart full of gratitude, and as I did so
saw old Indaba-zimbi sitting by the fire and going through some
mysterious performances with bones which he produced from his bag, and
ashes mixed with water. I spoke to him and asked what he was about. He
replied that he was tracing out the route that we should follow. I felt
inclined to answer “bosh!” but remembering the very remarkable
instances which he had given of his prowess in occult matters I held my
tongue, and taking little Tota into my arms, worn out with toil and
danger and emotion, I went to sleep.
I awoke just as the dawn was beginning to flame across the sky in
sheets of primrose and of gold, or rather it was little Tota who woke
me by kissing me as she lay between sleep and waking, and calling me
“papa.” It wrung my heart to hear her, poor orphaned child. I got up,
washed and dressed her as best I could, and we breakfasted as we had
supped, on biltong and biscuit. Tota asked for milk, but I had none to
give her. Then we caught the horses, and I saddled mine.
“Well, Indaba-zimbi,” I said, “now what path do your bones point to?”
“Straight north,” he said. “The journey will be hard, but in about four
days we shall come to the kraal of a white man, an Englishman, not a
Boer. His kraal is in a beautiful place, and there is a great peak
behind it where there are many baboons.”
I looked at him. “This is all nonsense, Indaba-zimbi,” I said. “Whoever
heard of an Englishman building a house in these wilds, and how do you
know anything about it? I think that we had better strike east towards
Port Natal.”
“As you like, Macumazahn,” he answered, “but it will take us three
months’ journey to get to Port Natal, if we ever get there, and the
child will die on the road. Say, Macumazahn, have my words come true
heretofore, or have they not? Did I not tell you not to hunt the
elephants on horseback? Did I not tell you to take one waggon with you
instead of two, as it is better to lose one than two?”
“You told me all these things,” I answered.
“And so I tell you now to ride north, Macumazahn, for there you will
find great happiness—yes, and great sorrow. But no man should run away
from happiness because of the sorrow. As you will, as you will!”
Again I looked at him. In his divinations I did not believe, yet I came
to the conclusion that he was speaking what he knew to be the truth. It
struck me as possible that he might have heard of some white man living
like a hermit in the wilds, but preferring to keep up his prophetic
character would not say so.
“Very well, Indaba-zimbi,” I said, “let us ride north.”
Shortly after we started, the river we had followed hitherto turned off
in a westerly direction, so we left it. All that day we rode across
rolling uplands, and about an hour before sunset halted at a little
stream which ran down from a range of hills in front of us. By this
time I was heartily tired of the biltong, so taking my elephant
rifle—for I had nothing else—I left Tota with Indaba-zimbi, and started
to try if I could shoot something. Oddly enough we had seen no game all
the day, nor did we see any on the subsequent days. For some mysterious
reason they had temporarily left the district. I crossed the little
streamlet in order to enter the belt of thorns which grew upon the
hill-side beyond, for there I hoped to find buck. As I did so I was
rather disturbed to see the spoor of two lions in the soft sandy edge
of a pool. Breathing a hope that they might not still be in the
neighbourhood, I went on into the belt of scattered thorns. For a long
while I hunted about without seeing anything, except one duiker buck,
which bounded off with a crash from the other side of a stone without
giving me a chance. At length, just as it grew dusk, I spied a Petie
buck, a graceful little creature, scarcely bigger than a large hare,
standing on a stone, about forty yards from me. Under ordinary
circumstances I should never have dreamed of firing at such a thing,
especially with an elephant gun, but we were hungry. So I sat down with
my back against a rock, and aimed steadily at its head. I did this
because if I struck it in the body the three-ounce ball would have
knocked it to bits. At last I pulled the trigger, the gun went off with
the report of a small cannon, and the buck disappeared. I ran to the
spot with more anxiety than I should have felt in an ordinary way over
a koodoo or an eland. To my delight there the little creature lay—the
huge bullet had decapitated it. Considering all the circumstances I do
not think I have often made a better shot than this, but if any one
doubts, let him try his hand at a rabbit’s head fifty yards away with
an elephant gun and a three-ounce ball.
I picked up the Petie in triumph, and returned to the camp. There we
skinned him and toasted his flesh over the fire. He just made a good
meal for us, though we kept the hind legs for breakfast.
There was no moon this night, and so it chanced that when I suddenly
remembered about the lion spoor, and suggested that we had better tie
up the horses quite close to us, we could not find them, though we knew
they were grazing within fifty yards. This being so we could only make
up the fire and take our chance. Shortly afterwards I went to sleep
with little Tota in my arms. Suddenly I was awakened by hearing that
peculiarly painful sound, the scream of a horse, quite close to the
fire, which was still burning brightly. Next second there came a noise
of galloping hoofs, and before I could even rise my poor horse appeared
in the ring of firelight. As in a flash of lightning I saw his staring
eyes and wide-stretched nostrils, and the broken reim with which he had
been knee-haltered, flying in the air. Also I saw something else, for
on his back was a great dark form with glowing eyes, and from the form
came a growling sound. It was a lion.
The horse dashed on. He galloped right through the fire, for which he
had run in his terror, fortunately, however, without treading on us,
and vanished into the night. We heard his hoofs for a hundred yards or
more, then there was silence, broken now and again by distant growls.
As may be imagined, we did not sleep any more that night, but waited
anxiously till the dawn broke, two hours later.
As soon as there was sufficient light we rose, and, leaving Tota still
asleep, crept cautiously in the direction in which the horse had
vanished. When we had gone fifty yards or so, we made out its remains
lying on the veldt, and caught sight of two great cat-like forms
slinking away in the grey light.
To go any further was useless; we knew all about it now, so we turned
to look for the other horse. But our cup of misfortune was not yet
full; the horse was nowhere to be found. Terrified by the sight and
smell of the lions, it had with a desperate effort also burst the reim
with which it had been knee-haltered, and galloped far away. I sat
down, feeling as though I could cry like a woman. For now we were left
alone in these vast solitudes without a horse to carry us, and with a
child who was not old enough to walk for more than a little way at a
time.
Well, it was no use giving in, so with a few words we went back to our
camp, where I found Tota crying because she had woke to find herself
alone. Then we ate a little food and prepared to start. First we
divided such articles as we must take with us into two equal parts,
rejecting everything that we could possibly do without. Then, by an
afterthought, we filled our water-bottles, though at the time I was
rather against doing so, because of the extra weight. But Indaba-zimbi
overruled me in the matter, fortunately for all three of us. I settled
to look after Tota for the first march, and to give the elephant gun to
Indaba-zimbi. At length all was ready, and we set out on foot. By the
help of occasional lifts over rough places, Tota managed to walk up the
slope of the hill-side where I had shot the Petie buck. At length we
reached it, and, looking at the country beyond, I gave an exclamation
of dismay. To say that it was desert would be saying too much; it was
more like the Karroo in the Cape—a vast sandy waste, studded here and
there with low shrubs and scattered rocks. But it was a great expanse
of desolate land, stretching further than the eye could reach, and
bordered far away by a line of purple hills, in the centre of which a
great solitary peak soared high into the air.
“Indaba-zimbi,” I said, “we can never cross this if we take six days.”
“As you will, Macumazahn,” he answered; “but I tell you that there”—and
he pointed to the peak—“there the white man lives. Turn which way you
like, but if you turn you will perish.”
I reflected for a moment, Our case was, humanly speaking, almost
hopeless. It mattered little which way we went. We were alone, almost
without food, with no means of transport, and a child to carry. As well
perish in the sandy waste as on the rolling veldt or among the trees of
the hill-side. Providence alone could save us, and we must trust to
Providence.
“Come on,” I said, lifting Tota on to my back, for she was already
tired. “All roads lead to rest.”
How am I to describe the misery of the next four days? How am I to tell
how we stumbled on through that awful desert, almost without food, and
quite without water, for there were no streams, and we saw no springs?
We soon found how the case was, and saved almost all the water in our
bottles for the child. To look back on it is like a nightmare. I can
scarcely bear to dwell on it. Day after day, by turns carrying the
child through the heavy sand; night after night lying down in the
scrub, chewing the leaves, and licking such dew as there was from the
scanty grass! Not a spring, not a pool, not a head of game! It was the
third night; we were nearly mad with thirst. Tota was in a comatose
condition. Indaba-zimbi still had a little water in his bottle—perhaps
a wine-glassful. With it we moistened our lips and blackened tongues.
Then we gave the rest to the child. It revived her. She awoke from her
swoon to sink into sleep.
See, the dawn was breaking. The hills were not more than eight miles or
so away now, and they were green. There must be water there.
“Come,” I said.
Indaba-zimbi lifted Tota into the kind of sling that we had made out of
the blanket in which to carry her on our backs, and we staggered on for
an hour through the sand. She awoke crying for water, and alas! we had
none to give her; our tongues were hanging from our lips, we could
scarcely speak.
We rested awhile, and Tota mercifully swooned away again. Then
Indaba-zimbi took her. Though he was so thin the old man’s strength was
wonderful.
Another hour; the slope of the great peak could not be more than two
miles away now. A couple of hundred yards off grew a large baobab tree.
Could we reach its shade? We had done half the distance when
Indaba-zimbi fell from exhaustion. We were now so weak that neither of
us could lift the child on to our backs. He rose again, and we each
took one of her hands and dragged her along the road. Fifty yards—they
seemed to be fifty miles. Ah, the tree was reached at last; compared
with the heat outside, the shade of its dense foliage seemed like the
dusk and cool of a vault. I remember thinking that it was a good place
to die in. Then I remember no more.
I woke with a feeling as though the blessed rain were falling on my
face and head. Slowly, and with great difficulty, I opened my eyes,
then shut them again, having seen a vision. For a space I lay thus,
while the rain continued to fall; I saw now that I must be asleep, or
off my head with thirst and fever. If I were not off my head how came I
to imagine that a lovely dark-eyed girl was bending over me sprinkling
water on my face? A white girl, too, not a Kaffir woman. However, the
dream went on.
“Hendrika,” said a voice in English, the sweetest voice that I had ever
heard; somehow it reminded me of wind whispering in the trees at night.
“Hendrika, I fear he dies; there is a flask of brandy in my saddle-bag;
get it.”
“Ah! ah!” grunted a harsh voice in answer; “let him die, Miss Stella.
He will bring you bad luck—let him die, I say.” I felt a movement of
air above me as though the woman of my vision turned swiftly, and once
again I opened my eyes. She had risen, this dream woman. Now I saw that
she was tall and graceful as a reed. She was angry, too; her dark eyes
flashed, and she pointed with her hand at a female who stood before
her, dressed in nondescript kind of clothes such as might be worn by
either a man or a woman. The woman was young, of white blood, very
short, with bowed legs and enormous shoulders. In face she was not
bad-looking, but the brow receded, the chin and ears were prominent—in
short, she reminded me of nothing so much as a very handsome monkey.
She might have been the missing link.
The lady was pointing at her with her hand. “How dare you?” she said.
“Are you going to disobey me again? Have you forgotten what I told you,
Babyan?”[*]
[*] Baboon.
“Ah! ah!” grunted the woman, who seemed literally to curl and shrivel
up beneath her anger. “Don’t be angry with me, Miss Stella, because I
can’t bear it. I only said it because it was true. I will fetch the
brandy.”
Then, dream or no dream, I determined to speak.
“Not brandy,” I gasped in English as well as my swollen tongue would
allow; “give me water.”
“Ah, he lives!” cried the beautiful girl, “and he talks English. See,
sir, here is water in your own bottle; you were quite close to a
spring, it is on the other side of the tree.”
I struggled to a sitting position, lifted the bottle to my lips, and
drank from it. Oh! that drink of cool, pure water! never had I tasted
anything so delicious. With the first gulp I felt life flow back into
me. But wisely enough she would not let me have much. “No more! no
more!” she said, and dragged the bottle from me almost by force.
“The child,” I said—“is the child dead?”
“I do not know yet,” she answered. “We have only just found you, and I
tried to revive you first.”
I turned and crept to where Tota lay by the side of Indaba-zimbi. It
was impossible to say if they were dead or swooning. The lady sprinkled
Tota’s face with the water, which I watched greedily, for my thirst was
still awful, while the woman Hendrika did the same office for
Indaba-zimbi. Presently, to my vast delight, Tota opened her eyes and
tried to cry, but could not, poor little thing, because her tongue and
lips were so swollen. But the lady got some water into her mouth, and,
as in my case, the effect was magical. We allowed her to drink about a
quarter of a pint, and no more, though she cried bitterly for it. Just
then old Indaba-zimbi came to with a groan. He opened his eyes, glanced
round, and took in the situation.
“What did I tell you, Macumazahn?” he gasped, and seizing the bottle,
he took a long pull at it.
Meanwhile I sat with my back against the trunk of the great tree and
tried to realize the situation. Looking to my left I saw too good
horses—one bare-backed, and one with a rudely made lady’s saddle on it.
By the side of the horses were two dogs, of a stout greyhound breed,
that sat watching us, and near the dogs lay a dead Oribé buck, which
they had evidently been coursing.
“Hendrika,” said the lady presently, “they must not eat meat just yet.
Go look up the tree and see if there is any ripe fruit on it.”
The woman ran swiftly into the plain and obeyed. Presently she
returned. “I see some ripe fruit,” she said, “but it is high, quite at
the top.”
“Fetch it,” said the lady.
“Easier said than done,” I thought to myself; but I was much mistaken.
Suddenly the woman bounded at least three feet into the air and caught
one of the spreading boughs in her large flat hands; then came a swing
that would have filled an acrobat with envy—and she was on it.
“Now there is an end,” I thought again, for the next bough was beyond
her reach. But again I was mistaken. She stood up on the bough,
gripping it with her bare feet, and once more sprang at the one above,
caught it and swung herself into it.
I suppose that the lady saw my expression of astonishment. “Do not
wonder, sir,” she said, “Hendrika is not like other people. She will
not fall.”
I made no answer, but watched the progress of this extraordinary person
with the most breathless interest. On she went, swinging herself from
bough to bough, and running along them like a monkey. At last she
reached the top, and began to swarm up a thin branch towards the ripe
fruit. When she was near enough she shook the branch violently. There
was a crack—a crash—it broke. I shut my eyes, expecting to see her
crushed on the ground before me.
“Don’t be afraid,” said the lady again, laughing gently. “Look, she is
quite safe.”
I looked, and so she was. She had caught a bough as she fell, clung to
it, and was now calmly dropping to another. Old Indaba-zimbi had also
watched this performance with interest, but it did not seem to astonish
him over-much. “Baboon-woman?” he said, as though such people were
common, and then turned his attention to soothing Tota, who was moaning
for more water. Meanwhile Hendrika came down the tree with
extraordinary rapidity, and swinging by one hand from a bough, dropped
about eight feet to the ground.
In another two minutes we were all three sucking the pulpy fruit. In an
ordinary way we should have found it tasteless enough: as it was I
thought it the most delicious thing I had ever tasted. After three days
spent without food or water, in the desert, one is not particular.
While we were still eating the fruit, the lady of my vision set her
companion to work to partially flay the oribé which her dogs had
killed, and busied herself in making a fire of fallen boughs. As soon
as it burned brightly she took strips of the oribé flesh, toasted them,
and gave them to us on leaves. We ate, and now were allowed a little
more water. After that she took Tota to the spring and washed her,
which she sadly needed, poor child! Next came our turn to wash, and oh,
the joy of it!
I came back to the tree, walking painfully, indeed, but a changed man.
There sat the beautiful girl with Tota on her knees. She was lulling
her to sleep, and held up her finger to me enjoining silence. At last
the child went off into a sound natural slumber—an example that I
should have been glad to follow had it not been for my burning
curiosity. Then I spoke.
“May I ask what your name is?” I said.
“Stella,” she answered.
“Stella what?” I said.
“Stella nothing,” she answered, in some pique; “Stella is my name; it
is short and easy to remember at any rate. My father’s name is Thomas,
and we live up there,” and she pointed round the base of the great
peak. I looked at her astonished. “Have you lived there long?” I asked.
“Ever since I was seven years old. We came there in a waggon. Before
that we came from England—from Oxfordshire; I can show you the place on
a big map. It is called Garsingham.”
Again I thought I must be dreaming. “Do you know, Miss Stella,” I said,
“it is very strange—so strange that it almost seems as though it could
not be true—but I also came from Garsingham in Oxfordshire many years
ago.”
She started up. “Are you an English gentleman?” she said. “Ah, I have
always longed to see an English gentleman. I have never seen but one
Englishman since we lived here, and he certainly was not a gentleman—no
white people at all, indeed, except a few wandering Boers. We live
among black people and baboons—only I have read about English
people—lots of books—poetry and novels. But tell me what is your name?
Macumazahn the black man called you, but you must have a white name,
too.”
“My name is Allan Quatermain,” I said.
Her face turned quite white, her rosy lips parted, and she looked at me
wildly with her beautiful dark eyes.
“It is wonderful,” she said, “but I have often heard that name. My
father has told me how a little boy called Allan Quatermain once saved
my life by putting out my dress when it was on fire—see!”—and she
pointed to a faint red mark upon her neck—“here is the scar of the
burn.”
“I remember it,” I said. “You were dressed up as Father Christmas. It
was I who put out the fire; my wrists were burnt in doing so.”
Then for a space we sat silent, looking at each other, while Stella
slowly fanned herself with her wide felt hat, in which some white
ostrich plumes were fixed.
“This is God’s doing,” she said at last. “You saved my life when I was
a child; now I have saved yours and the little girl’s. Is she your own
daughter?” she added, quickly.
“No,” I answered; “I will tell you the tale presently.”
“Yes,” she said, “you shall tell me as we go home. It is time to be
starting home, it will take us three hours to get there. Hendrika,
Hendrika, bring the horses here!”