CHAPTER XXIV BY ANOTHER HAND
A year has elapsed since our most dear friend Allan Quatermain wrote thewords '_I have spoken_' at the end of his record of our adventures. Norshould I have ventured to make any additions to the record had it nothappened that by a most strange accident a chance has arisen of itsbeing conveyed to England. The chance is but a faint one, it is true;but, as it is not probable that another will arise in our lifetimes,Good and myself think that we may as well avail ourselves of it, such asit is. During the last six months several Frontier Commissions havebeen at work on the various boundaries of Zu-Vendis, with a view ofdiscovering whether there exists any possible means of ingress or egressfrom the country, with the result that a channel of communication withthe outer world hitherto overlooked has been discovered. This channel,apparently the only one (for I have discovered that it was by it thatthe native who ultimately reached Mr Mackenzie's mission station,and whose arrival in the country, together with the fact of hisexpulsion--for he _did_ arrive about three years before ourselves--wasfor reasons of their own kept a dead secret by the priests to whom hewas brought), is about to be effectually closed. But before this isdone, a messenger is to be despatched bearing with him this manuscript,and also one or two letters from Good to his friends, and from myself tomy brother George, whom it deeply grieves me to think I shall never seeagain, informing them, as our next heirs, that they are welcome to oureffects in England, if the Court of Probate will allow them to take them{Endnote 22}, inasmuchas we have made up our minds never to return toEurope. Indeed, it would be impossible for us to leave Zu-Vendis even ifwe wished to do so.
The messenger who is to go--and I wish him joy of his journey--isAlphonse. For a long while he has been wearied to death of Zu-Vendisand its inhabitants. 'Oh, oui, c'est beau,' he says, with an expressiveshrug; 'mais je m'ennuie; ce n'est pas chic.' Again, he complainsdreadfully of the absence of cafes and theatres, and moans continuallyfor his lost Annette, of whom he says he dreams three times a week. ButI fancy his secret cause of disgust at the country, putting aside thehomesickness to which every Frenchman is subject, is that the peoplehere laugh at him so dreadfully about his conduct on the occasion of thegreat battle of the Pass about eighteen months ago, when he hid beneatha banner in Sorais's tent in order to avoid being sent forth to fight,which he says would have gone against his conscience. Even the littleboys call out at him in the streets, thereby offending his pride andmaking his life unbearable. At any rate, he has determined to brave thehorrors of a journey of almost unprecedented difficulty and danger, andalso to run the risk of falling into the hands of the French policeto answer for a certain little indiscretion of his own some years old(though I do not consider that a very serious matter), rather thanremain in ce triste pays. Poor Alphonse! we shall be very sorry to partwith him; but I sincerely trust, for his own sake and also for the sakeof this history, which is, I think, worth giving to the world, that hemay arrive in safety. If he does, and can carry the treasure we haveprovided him with in the shape of bars of solid gold, he will be,comparatively speaking, a rich man for life, and well able to marry hisAnnette, if she is still in the land of the living and willing to marryher Alphonse.
Anyhow, on the chance, I may as well add a word or two to dear oldQuatermain's narrative.
He died at dawn on the day following that on which he wrote the lastwords of the last chapter. Nyleptha, Good and myself were present, and amost touching and yet in its way beautiful scene it was. An hour beforethe daybreak it became apparent to us that he was sinking, and ourdistress was very keen. Indeed, Good melted into tears at the idea--afact that called forth a last gentle flicker of humour from our dyingfriend, for even at that hour he could be humorous. Good's emotion had,by loosening the muscles, naturally caused his eyeglass to fall fromits accustomed place, and Quatermain, who always observed everything,observed this also.
'At last,' he gasped, with an attempt at a smile, 'I have seen Goodwithout his eyeglass.'
After that he said no more till the day broke, when he asked to belifted up to watch the rising of the sun for the last time.
'In a very few minutes,' he said, after gazing earnestly at it, 'I shallhave passed through those golden gates.'
Ten minutes afterwards he raised himself and looked us fixedly in theface.
'I am going a stranger journey than any we have ever taken together.Think of me sometimes,' he murmured. 'God bless you all. I shall waitfor you.' And with a sigh he fell back dead.
And so passed away a character that I consider went as near perfectionas any it has ever been my lot to encounter.
Tender, constant, humorous, and possessing of many of the qualities thatgo to make a poet, he was yet almost unrivalled as a man of action anda citizen of the world. I never knew any one so competent to form anaccurate judgment of men and their motives. 'I have studied human natureall my life,' he would say, 'and I ought to know something about it,'and he certainly did. He had but two faults--one was his excessivemodesty, and the other a slight tendency which he had to be jealous ofanybody on whom he concentrated his affections. As regards the first ofthese points, anybody who reads what he has written will be able to formhis own opinion; but I will add one last instance of it.
As the reader will doubtless remember, it is a favourite trick of his totalk of himself as a timid man, whereas really, though very cautious,he possessed a most intrepid spirit, and, what is more, never lost hishead. Well, in the great battle of the Pass, where he got the wound thatfinally killed him, one would imagine from the account which he givesof the occurrence that it was a chance blow that fell on him in thescrimmage. As a matter of fact, however, he was wounded in a mostgallant and successful attempt to save Good's life, at the risk and, asit ultimately turned out, at the cost of his own. Good was down on theground, and one of Nasta's highlanders was about to dispatch him, whenQuatermain threw himself on to his prostrate form and received the blowon his own body, and then, rising, killed the soldier.
As regards his jealousy, a single instance which I give in justice tomyself and Nyleptha will suffice. The reader will, perhaps, recollectthat in one or two places he speaks as though Nyleptha monopolized me,and he was left by both of us rather out in the cold. Now Nyleptha isnot perfect, any more than any other woman is, and she may be a littleexigeante at times, but as regards Quatermain the whole thing is pureimagination. Thus when he complains about my not coming to see him whenhe is ill, the fact was that, in spite of my entreaties, the doctorspositively forbade it. Those little remarks of his pained me very muchwhen I read them, for I loved Quatermain as dearly as though he weremy own father, and should never have dreamed of allowing my marriage tointerfere with that affection. But let it pass; it is, after all, butone little weakness, which makes no great show among so many and suchlovable virtues.
Well, he died, and Good read the Burial Service over him in the presenceof Nyleptha and myself; and then his remains were, in deference to thepopular clamour, accorded a great public funeral, or rather cremation. Icould not help thinking, however, as I marched in that long and splendidprocession up to the Temple, how he would have hated the whole thingcould he have been there to see it, for he had a horror of ostentation.
And so, a few minutes before sunset, on the third night after his death,they laid him on the brazen flooring before the altar, and waited forthe last ray of the setting sun to fall upon his face. Presently itcame, and struck him like a golden arrow, crowning the pale brows withglory, and then the trumpets blew, and the flooring revolved, and allthat remained of our beloved friend fell into the furnace below.
We shall never see his like again if we live a hundred years. He wasthe ablest man, the truest gentleman, the firmest friend, the finestsportsman, and, I believe, the best shot in all Africa.
And so ended the very remarkable and adventurous life of HunterQuatermain.
Since then things have gone very well with us. Good has been, and stillis, busily employed in the construction of a navy on Lake Milosis andanothe
r of the large lakes, by means of which we hope to be able toincrease trade and commerce, and also to overcome some very troublesomeand warlike sections of the population who live upon their borders. Poorfellow! he is beginning to get over the sad death of that misguided butmost attractive woman, Sorais, but it is a sad blow to him, for he wasreally deeply attached to her. I hope, however, that he will in timemake a suitable marriage and get that unhappy business out of his head.Nyleptha has one or two young ladies in view, especially a daughter ofNasta's (who was a widower), a very fine imperial-looking girl, but withtoo much of her father's intriguing, and yet haughty, spirit to suit mytaste.
As for myself, I should scarcely know where to begin if I set to workto describe my doings, so I had best leave them undescribed, and contentmyself with saying that, on the whole, I am getting on very well in mycurious position of King-Consort--better, indeed, than I had any rightto expect. But, of course, it is not all plain sailing, and I find theresponsibilities very heavy. Still, I hope to be able to do some good inmy time, and I intend to devote myself to two great ends--namely, to theconsolidation of the various clans which together make up the Zu-Vendipeople, under one strong central government, and to the sapping of thepower of the priesthood. The first of these reforms will, if it canbe carried out, put an end to the disastrous civil wars that have forcenturies devastated this country; and the second, besides removing asource of political danger, will pave the road for the introduction oftrue religion in the place of this senseless Sun worship. I yet hope tosee the shadow of the Cross of Christ lying on the golden dome of theFlower Temple; or, if I do not, that my successors may.
There is one more thing that I intend to devote myself to, and that isthe total exclusion of all foreigners from Zu-Vendis. Not, indeed, thatany more are ever likely to get here, but if they do, I warn them fairlythat they will be shown the shortest way out of the country. I do notsay this from any sense of inhospitality, but because I am convinced ofthe sacred duty that rests upon me of preserving to this, on thewhole, upright and generous-hearted people the blessings of comparativebarbarism. Where would all my brave army be if some enterprising rascalwere to attack us with field-guns and Martini-Henrys? I cannot see thatgunpowder, telegraphs, steam, daily newspapers, universal suffrage,etc., etc., have made mankind one whit the happier than they used tobe, and I am certain that they have brought many evils in their train.I have no fancy for handing over this beautiful country to be torn andfought for by speculators, tourists, politicians and teachers, whosevoice is as the voice of Babel, just as those horrible creatures in thevalley of the underground river tore and fought for the body of the wildswan; nor will I endow it with the greed, drunkenness, new diseases,gunpowder, and general demoralization which chiefly mark the progressof civilization amongst unsophisticated peoples. If in due course itpleases Providence to throw Zu-Vendis open to the world, that is anothermatter; but of myself I will not take the responsibility, and I may addthat Good entirely approves of my decision. Farewell.
Henry Curtis
December 15, 18--.
PS--I quite forgot to say that about nine months ago Nyleptha (whois very well and, in my eyes at any rate, more beautiful than ever)presented me with a son and heir. He is a regular curly-haired,blue-eyed young Englishman in looks, and, though he is destined, if helives, to inherit the throne of Zu-Vendis, I hope I may be able to bringhim up to become what an English gentleman should be, and generallyis--which is to my mind even a prouder and a finer thing than beingborn heir apparent to the great House of the Stairway, and, indeed, thehighest rank that a man can reach upon this earth.
H. C.
NOTE BY GEORGE CURTIS, Esq.