CHAPTER XI
THE CAVE OF THE ROOIRAND
I was roused by a sudden movement. The whole assembly stood up, andeach man clapped his right hand to his brow and then raised it high. Alow murmur of 'Inkulu' rose above the din of the water. Laputa strodedown the hall, with Henriques limping behind him. They certainly didnot suspect my presence in the cave, nor did Laputa show any rufflingof his calm. Only Henriques looked weary and cross. I guessed he hadhad to ride my pony.
The old man whom I took to be the priest advanced towards Laputa withhis hands raised over his head. A pace before they met he halted, andLaputa went on his knees before him. He placed his hands on his head,and spoke some words which I could not understand. It reminded me, soqueer are the tricks of memory, of an old Sabbath-school book I used tohave which had a picture of Samuel ordaining Saul as king of Israel. Ithink I had forgotten my own peril and was enthralled by the majesty ofthe place--the wavering torches, the dropping wall of green water,above all, the figures of Laputa and the Keeper of the Snake, whoseemed to have stepped out of an antique world.
Laputa stripped off his leopard skin till he stood stark, a noble formof a man. Then the priest sprinkled some herbs on the fire, and a thinsmoke rose to the roof. The smell was that I had smelled on theKirkcaple shore, sweet, sharp, and strange enough to chill the marrow.And round the fire went the priest in widening and contracting circles,just as on that Sabbath evening in spring.
Once more we were sitting on the ground, all except Laputa and theKeeper. Henriques was squatting in the front row, a tiny creatureamong so many burly savages. Laputa stood with bent head in the centre.
Then a song began, a wild incantation in which all joined. The oldpriest would speak some words, and the reply came in barbaric music.The words meant nothing to me; they must have been in some tongue longsince dead. But the music told its own tale. It spoke of old kingsand great battles, of splendid palaces and strong battlements, ofqueens white as ivory, of death and life, love and hate, joy andsorrow. It spoke, too, of desperate things, mysteries of horror longshut to the world. No Kaffir ever forged that ritual. It must havecome straight from Prester John or Sheba's queen, or whoever ruled inAfrica when time was young.
I was horribly impressed. Devouring curiosity and a lurking namelessfear filled my mind. My old dread had gone. I was not afraid now ofKaffir guns, but of the black magic of which Laputa had the key.
The incantation died away, but still herbs were flung on the fire, tillthe smoke rose in a great cloud, through which the priest loomed mistyand huge. Out of the smoke-wreaths his voice came high and strange.It was as if some treble stop had been opened in a great organ, asagainst the bass drone of the cataract.
He was asking Laputa questions, to which came answers in that richvoice which on board the liner had preached the gospel of Christ. Thetongue I did not know, and I doubt if my neighbours were in bettercase. It must have been some old sacred language--Phoenician, Sabaean,I know not what--which had survived in the rite of the Snake.
Then came silence while the fire died down and the smoke eddied away inwreaths towards the river. The priest's lips moved as if in prayer: ofLaputa I saw only the back, and his head was bowed.
Suddenly a rapt cry broke from the Keeper. 'God has spoken,' he cried.'The path is clear. The Snake returns to the House of its Birth.'
An attendant led forward a black goat, which bleated feebly. With ahuge antique knife the old man slit its throat, catching the blood in astone ewer. Some was flung on the fire, which had burned small and low.
'Even so,' cried the priest, 'will the king quench in blood thehearth-fires of his foes.'
Then on Laputa's forehead and bare breast he drew a bloody cross. 'Iseal thee,' said the voice, 'priest and king of God's people.' The ewerwas carried round the assembly, and each dipped his finger in it andmarked his forehead. I got a dab to add to the other marks on my face.
'Priest and king of God's people,' said the voice again, 'I call theeto the inheritance of John. Priest and king was he, king of kings,lord of hosts, master of the earth. When he ascended on high he leftto his son the sacred Snake, the ark of his valour, to be God's dowerand pledge to the people whom He has chosen.'
I could not make out what followed. It seemed to be a long roll of thekings who had borne the Snake. None of them I knew, but at the end Ithought I caught the name of Tchaka the Terrible, and I rememberedArcoll's tale.
The Keeper held in his arms a box of curiously wrought ivory, about twofeet long and one broad. He was standing beyond the ashes, from which,in spite of the blood, thin streams of smoke still ascended. He openedit, and drew out something which swung from his hand like a cascade ofred fire.
'Behold the Snake,' cried the Keeper, and every man in the assembly,excepting Laputa and including me, bowed his head to the ground andcried 'Ow.'
'Ye who have seen the Snake,' came the voice, 'on you is the vow ofsilence and peace. No blood shall ye shed of man or beast, no fleshshall ye eat till the vow is taken from you. From the hour of midnighttill sunrise on the second day ye are bound to God. Whoever shallbreak the vow, on him shall the curse fall. His blood shall dry in hisveins, and his flesh shrink on his bones. He shall be an outlaw andaccursed, and there shall follow him through life and death theAvengers of the Snake. Choose ye, my people; upon you is the vow.'
By this time we were all flat on our faces, and a great cry of assentwent up. I lifted my head as much as I dared to see what would happennext.
The priest raised the necklace till it shone above his head like a haloof blood. I have never seen such a jewel, and I think there has neverbeen another such on earth. Later I was to have the handling of it,and could examine it closely, though now I had only a glimpse. Therewere fifty-five rubies in it, the largest as big as a pigeon's egg, andthe least not smaller than my thumbnail. In shape they were oval, cuton both sides en cabochon, and on each certain characters wereengraved. No doubt this detracted from their value as gems, yet thecharacters might have been removed and the stones cut in facets, andthese rubies would still have been the noblest in the world. I was nojewel merchant to guess their value, but I knew enough to see that herewas wealth beyond human computation. At each end of the string was agreat pearl and a golden clasp. The sight absorbed me to the exclusionof all fear. I, David Crawfurd, nineteen years of age, anassistant-storekeeper in a back-veld dorp, was privileged to see asight to which no Portuguese adventurer had ever attained. There,floating on the smoke-wreaths, was the jewel which may once have burnedin Sheba's hair. As the priest held the collar aloft, the assemblyrocked with a strange passion. Foreheads were rubbed in the dust, andthen adoring eyes would be raised, while a kind of sobbing shook theworshippers. In that moment I learned something of the secret ofAfrica, of Prester John's empire and Tchaka's victories.
'In the name of God,' came the voice, 'I deliver to the heir of Johnthe Snake of John.'
Laputa took the necklet and twined it in two loops round his neck tillthe clasp hung down over his breast. The position changed. The priestknelt before him, and received his hands on his head. Then I knewthat, to the confusion of all talk about equality, God has ordainedsome men to be kings and others to serve. Laputa stood naked as whenhe was born. The rubies were dulled against the background of his skin,but they still shone with a dusky fire. Above the blood-red collar hisface had the passive pride of a Roman emperor. Only his great eyesgloomed and burned as he looked on his followers.
'Heir of John,' he said, 'I stand before you as priest and king. Mykingship is for the morrow. Now I am the priest to make intercessionfor my people.'
He prayed--prayed as I never heard man pray before--and to the God ofIsrael! It was no heathen fetich he was invoking, but the God of whomhe had often preached in Christian kirks. I recognized texts fromIsaiah and the Psalms and the Gospels, and very especially from the twolast chapters of Revelation. He pled with God to forget the sins ofhis people, to recall the bo
ndage of Zion. It was amazing to hearthese bloodthirsty savages consecrated by their leader to the meekservice of Christ. An enthusiast may deceive himself, and I did notquestion his sincerity. I knew his heart, black with all the lusts ofpaganism. I knew that his purpose was to deluge the land with blood.But I knew also that in his eyes his mission was divine, and that hefelt behind him all the armies of Heaven.
_'Thou hast been a strength to the poor,' said the voice, 'a refugefrom the storm, a shadow from the heat, when the blast of the TerribleOnes is as a storm against a wall._
_'Thou shalt bring down the noise of strangers, as the heat in a dryplace; the branch of the Terrible Ones shall be brought low._
_'And in this mountain shall the Lord of Hosts make unto all people afeast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things fullof marrow._
_'And He will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering castover all people, and the vail that is brought over all nations._
_'And the rebuke of His people shall He take away from off all theearth; for the Lord hath spoken it.'_
I listened spellbound as he prayed. I heard the phrases familiar to mein my schooldays at Kirkcaple. He had some of the tones of my father'svoice, and when I shut my eyes I could have believed myself a childagain. So much he had got from his apprenticeship to the ministry. Iwondered vaguely what the good folks who had listened to him inchurches and halls at home would think of him now. But there was inthe prayer more than the supplications of the quondam preacher. Therewas a tone of arrogant pride, the pride of the man to whom the Almightyis only another and greater Lord of Hosts. He prayed less as asuppliant than as an ally. A strange emotion tingled in my blood, halfawe, half sympathy. As I have said, I understood that there are menborn to kingship.
He ceased with a benediction. Then he put on his leopard-skin cloakand kilt, and received from the kneeling chief a spear and shield. Nowhe was more king than priest, more barbarian than Christian. It was asa king that he now spoke.
I had heard him on board the liner, and had thought his voice the mostwonderful I had ever met with. But now in that great resonant hall themagic of it was doubled. He played upon the souls of his hearers as ona musical instrument. At will he struck the chords of pride, fury,hate, and mad joy. Now they would be hushed in breathless quiet, andnow the place would echo with savage assent. I remember noticing thatthe face of my neighbour, 'Mwanga, was running with tears.
He spoke of the great days of Prester John, and a hundred names I hadnever heard of. He pictured the heroic age of his nation, when everyman was a warrior and hunter, and rich kraals stood in the spots nowdesecrated by the white man, and cattle wandered on a thousand hills.Then he told tales of white infamy, lands snatched from their rightfulpossessors, unjust laws which forced the Ethiopian to the bondage of adespised caste, the finger of scorn everywhere, and the mocking word.If it be the part of an orator to rouse the passion of his hearers,Laputa was the greatest on earth. 'What have ye gained from the whiteman?' he cried. 'A bastard civilization which has sapped your manhood;a false religion which would rivet on you the chains of the slave. Ye,the old masters of the land, are now the servants of the oppressor.And yet the oppressors are few, and the fear of you is in their hearts.They feast in their great cities, but they see the writing on the wall,and their eyes are anxiously turning lest the enemy be at their gates.'I cannot hope in my prosaic words to reproduce that amazing discourse.Phrases which the hearers had heard at mission schools now suddenlyappeared, not as the white man's learning, but as God's message to Hisown. Laputa fitted the key to the cipher, and the meaning was clear.He concluded, I remember, with a picture of the overthrow of the alien,and the golden age which would dawn for the oppressed. AnotherEthiopian empire would arise, so majestic that the white man everywherewould dread its name, so righteous that all men under it would live inease and peace.
By rights, I suppose, my blood should have been boiling at thistreason. I am ashamed to confess that it did nothing of the sort. Mymind was mesmerized by this amazing man. I could not refrain fromshouting with the rest. Indeed I was a convert, if there can beconversion when the emotions are dominant and there is no assent fromthe brain. I had a mad desire to be of Laputa's party. Or rather, Ilonged for a leader who should master me and make my soul his own, asthis man mastered his followers. I have already said that I might havemade a good subaltern soldier, and the proof is that I longed for sucha general.
As the voice ceased there was a deep silence. The hearers were in asort of trance, their eyes fixed glassily on Laputa's face. It was thequiet of tense nerves and imagination at white-heat. I had to strugglewith a spell which gripped me equally with the wildest savage. Iforced myself to look round at the strained faces, the wall of thecascade, the line of torches. It was the sight of Henriques that brokethe charm. Here was one who had no part in the emotion. I caught hiseye fixed on the rubies, and in it I read only a devouring greed. Itflashed through my mind that Laputa had a foe in his own camp, and thePrester's collar a votary whose passion was not that of worship.
The next thing I remember was a movement among the first ranks. Thechiefs were swearing fealty. Laputa took off the collar and called Godto witness that it should never again encircle his neck till he had ledhis people to victory. Then one by one the great chiefs and indunasadvanced, and swore allegiance with their foreheads on the ivory box.Such a collection of races has never been seen. There were tall Zulusand Swazis with _ringkops_ and feather head-dresses. There were men fromthe north with heavy brass collars and anklets; men with quills intheir ears, and earrings and nose-rings; shaven heads, and heads withwonderfully twisted hair; bodies naked or all but naked, and bodiesadorned with skins and necklets. Some were light in colour, and somewere black as coal; some had squat negro features, and some thin,high-boned Arab faces. But in all there was the air of mad enthusiasm.For a day they were forsworn from blood, but their wild eyes andtwitching hands told their future purpose.
For an hour or two I had been living in a dream-world. Suddenly myabsorption was shattered, for I saw that my time to swear was coming.I sat in the extreme back row at the end nearest the entrance, andtherefore I should naturally be the last to go forward. The crisis wasnear when I should be discovered, for there was no question of myshirking the oath.
Then for the first time since I entered the cave I realized thefrightful danger in which I stood. My mind had been strung so high bythe ritual that I had forgotten all else. Now came the rebound, andwith shaky nerves I had to face discovery and certain punishment. Inthat moment I suffered the worst terror of my life. There was much tocome later, but by that time my senses were dulled. Now they had beensharpened by what I had seen and heard, my nerves were alreadyquivering and my fancy on fire. I felt every limb shaking as 'Mwangawent forward. The cave swam before my eyes, heads were multipliedgiddily, and I was only dimly conscious when he rose to return.
Nothing would have made me advance, had I not feared Laputa less thanmy neighbours. They might rend me to pieces, but to him the oath wasinviolable. I staggered crazily to my feet, and shambled forwards. Myeye was fixed on the ivory box, and it seemed to dance before me andretreat.
Suddenly I heard a voice--the voice of Henriques--cry, 'By God, a spy!'I felt my throat caught, but I was beyond resisting.
It was released, and I was pinned by the arms. I must have stoodvacantly, with a foolish smile, while unchained fury raged round me. Iseemed to hear Laputa's voice saying, 'It is the storekeeper.' Hisface was all that I could see, and it was unperturbed. There was amocking ghost of a smile about his lips.
Myriad hands seemed to grip me and crush my breath, but above theclamour I heard a fierce word of command. After that I fainted.