X
SPECULATIONS
Within an hour of our finally deciding to start five litters werebrought up to the door of the cave, each accompanied by four regularbearers and two spare hands, also a band of about fifty armed Amahagger,who were to form the escort and carry the baggage. Three of theselitters, of course, were for us, and one for Billali, who, I wasimmensely relieved to hear, was to be our companion, while the fifth Ipresumed was for the use of Ustane.
"Does the lady go with us, my father?" I asked of Billali, as he stoodsuperintending things in general.
He shrugged his shoulders as he answered--
"If she wills. In this country the women do what they please. We worshipthem, and give them their way, because without them the world could notgo on; they are the source of life."
"Ah," I said, the matter never having struck me quite in that lightbefore.
"We worship them," he went on, "up to a point, till at last they getunbearable, which," he added, "they do about every second generation."
"And then what do you do?" I asked, with curiosity.
"Then," he answered, with a faint smile, "we rise, and kill the oldones as an example to the young ones, and to show them that we are thestrongest. My poor wife was killed in that way three years ago. It wasvery sad, but to tell thee the truth, my son, life has been happiersince, for my age protects me from the young ones."
"In short," I replied, quoting the saying of a great man whose wisdomhas not yet lightened the darkness of the Amahagger, "thou hast foundthy position one of greater freedom and less responsibility."
This phrase puzzled him a little at first from its vagueness, though Ithink my translation hit off its sense very well, but at last he saw it,and appreciated it.
"Yes, yes, my Baboon," he said, "I see it now, but all the'responsibilities' are killed, at least some of them are, and that iswhy there are so few old women about just now. Well, they brought it onthemselves. As for this girl," he went on, in a graver tone, "I knownot what to say. She is a brave girl, and she loves the Lion (Leo); thousawest how she clung to him, and saved his life. Also, she is, accordingto our custom, wed to him, and has a right to go where he goes, unless,"he added significantly, "_She_ would say her no, for her word overridesall rights."
"And if _She_ bade her leave him, and the girl refused? What then?"
"If," he said, with a shrug, "the hurricane bids the tree to bend, andit will not; what happens?"
And then, without waiting for an answer, he turned and walked to hislitter, and in ten minutes from that time we were all well under way.
It took us an hour and more to cross the cup of the volcanic plain,and another half-hour or so to climb the edge on the farther side. Oncethere, however, the view was a very fine one. Before us was a long steepslope of grassy plain, broken here and there by clumps of trees mostlyof the thorn tribe. At the bottom of this gentle slope, some nine or tenmiles away, we could make out a dim sea of marsh, over which the foulvapours hung like smoke about a city. It was easy going for the bearersdown the slopes, and by midday we had reached the borders of the dismalswamp. Here we halted to eat our midday meal, and then, following awinding and devious path, plunged into the morass. Presently the path,at any rate to our unaccustomed eyes, grew so faint as to be almostindistinguishable from those made by the aquatic beasts and birds, andit is to this day a mystery to me how our bearers found their way acrossthe marshes. Ahead of the cavalcade marched two men with long poles,which they now and again plunged into the ground before them, the reasonof this being that the nature of the soil frequently changed from causeswith which I am not acquainted, so that places which might be safeenough to cross one month would certainly swallow the wayfarer the next.Never did I see a more dreary and depressing scene. Miles on miles ofquagmire, varied only by bright green strips of comparatively solidground, and by deep and sullen pools fringed with tall rushes, in whichthe bitterns boomed and the frogs croaked incessantly: miles on miles ofit without a break, unless the fever fog can be called a break. The onlylife in this great morass was that of the aquatic birds, and the animalsthat fed on them, of both of which there were vast numbers. Geese,cranes, ducks, teal, coot, snipe, and plover swarmed all around us, manybeing of varieties that were quite new to me, and all so tame that onecould almost have knocked them over with a stick. Among these birds Iespecially noticed a very beautiful variety of painted snipe, almost thesize of a woodcock, and with a flight more resembling that bird's thanan English snipe's. In the pools, too, was a species of small alligatoror enormous iguana, I do not know which, that fed, Billali told me, uponthe waterfowl, also large quantities of a hideous black water-snake, ofwhich the bite is very dangerous, though not, I gathered, so deadly as acobra's or a puff adder's. The bull-frogs were also very large, andwith voices proportionate to their size; and as for the mosquitoes--the"musqueteers," as Job called them--they were, if possible, even worsethan they had been on the river, and tormented us greatly. Undoubtedly,however, the worst feature of the swamp was the awful smell ofrotting vegetation that hung about it, which was at times positivelyoverpowering, and the malarious exhalations that accompanied it, whichwe were of course obliged to breathe.
On we went through it all, till at last the sun sank in sullen splendourjust as we reached a spot of rising ground about two acres in extent--alittle oasis of dry in the midst of the miry wilderness--where Billaliannounced that we were to camp. The camping, however, turned out to bea very simple process, and consisted, in fact, in sitting down on theground round a scanty fire made of dry reeds and some wood that had beenbrought with us. However, we made the best we could of it, and smokedand ate with such appetite as the smell of damp, stifling heat wouldallow, for it was very hot on this low land, and yet, oddly enough,chilly at times. But, however hot it was, we were glad enough to keepnear the fire, because we found that the mosquitoes did not like thesmoke. Presently we rolled ourselves up in our blankets and tried togo to sleep, but so far as I was concerned the bull-frogs, and theextraordinary roaring and alarming sound produced by hundreds of snipehovering high in the air, made sleep an impossibility, to say nothing ofour other discomforts. I turned and looked at Leo, who was next me; hewas dozing, but his face had a flushed appearance that I did not like,and by the flickering fire-light I saw Ustane, who was lying on theother side of him, raise herself from time to time upon her elbow, andlook at him anxiously enough.
However, I could do nothing for him, for we had all already taken agood dose of quinine, which was the only preventive we had; so I lay andwatched the stars come out by thousands, till all the immense arch ofheaven was strewn with glittering points, and every point a world!Here was a glorious sight by which man might well measure his owninsignificance! Soon I gave up thinking about it, for the mind wearieseasily when it strives to grapple with the Infinite, and to trace thefootsteps of the Almighty as he strides from sphere to sphere, ordeduce His purpose from His works. Such things are not for us to know.Knowledge is to the strong, and we are weak. Too much wisdom wouldperchance blind our imperfect sight, and too much strength would makeus drunk, and over-weight our feeble reason till it fell and we weredrowned in the depths of our own vanity. For what is the first resultof man's increased knowledge interpreted from Nature's book by thepersistent effort of his purblind observation? It is not but too oftento make him question the existence of his Maker, or indeed of anyintelligent purpose beyond his own? The truth is veiled, because wecould no more look upon her glory than we can upon the sun. It woulddestroy us. Full knowledge is not for man as man is here, for hiscapacities, which he is apt to think so great, are indeed but small. Thevessel is soon filled, and, were one-thousandth part of the unutterableand silent wisdom that directs the rolling of those shining spheres, andthe Force which makes them roll, pressed into it, it would be shatteredinto fragments. Perhaps in some other place and time it may beotherwise, who can tell? Here the lot of man born of the flesh is butto endure midst toil and tribulation, to catch at the bubbles blown byFate, wh
ich he calls pleasure, thankful if before they burst they resta moment in his hand, and when the tragedy is played out, and his hourcomes to perish, to pass humbly whither he knows not.
Above me, as I lay, shone the eternal stars, and there at my feet theimpish marsh-born balls of fire rolled this way and that, vapour-tossedand earth-desiring, and methought that in the two I saw a type and imageof what man is, and what perchance man may one day be, if the livingForce who ordained him and them should so ordain this also. Oh, that itmight be ours to rest year by year upon that high level of the heart towhich at times we momentarily attain! Oh, that we could shake loose theprisoned pinions of the soul and soar to that superior point, whence,like to some traveller looking out through space from Darien's giddiestpeak, we might gaze with spiritual eyes deep into Infinity!
What would it be to cast off this earthy robe, to have done for everwith these earthy thoughts and miserable desires; no longer, like thosecorpse candles, to be tossed this way and that, by forces beyond ourcontrol; or which, if we can theoretically control them, we are at timesdriven by the exigencies of our nature to obey! Yes, to cast them off,to have done with the foul and thorny places of the world; and, like tothose glittering points above me, to rest on high wrapped for ever inthe brightness of our better selves, that even now shines in us as firefaintly shines within those lurid balls, and lay down our littleness inthat wide glory of our dreams, that invisible but surrounding Good, fromwhich all truth and beauty comes!
These and many such thoughts passed through my mind that night. Theycome to torment us all at times. I say to torment, for, alas! thinkingcan only serve to measure out the helplessness of thought. What is thepurpose of our feeble crying in the awful silences of space? Can our dimintelligence read the secrets of that star-strewn sky? Does any answercome out of it? Never any at all, nothing but echoes and fantasticvisions! And yet we believe that there is an answer, and that upon atime a new Dawn will come blushing down the ways of our enduring night.We believe it, for its reflected beauty even now shines up continuallyin our hearts from beneath the horizon of the grave, and we call itHope. Without Hope we should suffer moral death, and by the help of Hopewe yet may climb to Heaven, or at the worst, if she also prove but akindly mockery given to hold us from despair, be gently lowered into theabysses of eternal sleep.
Then I fell to reflecting upon the undertaking on which we were bent,and what a wild one it was, and yet how strangely the story seemed tofit in with what had been written centuries ago upon the sherd. Whowas this extraordinary woman, Queen over a people apparently asextraordinary as herself, and reigning amidst the vestiges of a lostcivilisation? And what was the meaning of this story of the Fire thatgave unending life? Could it be possible that any fluid or essenceshould exist which might so fortify these fleshy walls that theyshould from age to age resist the mines and batterings of decay? It waspossible, though not probable. The infinite continuation of life wouldnot, as poor Vincey said, be so marvellous a thing as the production oflife and its temporary endurance. And if it were true, what then? Theperson who found it could no doubt rule the world. He could accumulateall the wealth in the world, and all the power, and all the wisdom thatis power. He might give a lifetime to the study of each art or science.Well, if that were so, and this _She_ were practically immortal, whichI did not for one moment believe, how was it that, with all these thingsat her feet, she preferred to remain in a cave amongst a societyof cannibals? This surely settled the question. The whole story wasmonstrous, and only worthy of the superstitious days in which it waswritten. At any rate I was very sure that _I_ would not attempt toattain unending life. I had had far too many worries and disappointmentsand secret bitternesses during my forty odd years of existence to wishthat this state of affairs should be continued indefinitely. And yet Isuppose that my life has been, comparatively speaking, a happy one.
And then, reflecting that at the present moment there was far morelikelihood of our earthly careers being cut exceedingly short than oftheir being unduly prolonged, I at last managed to get to sleep, a factfor which anybody who reads this narrative, if anybody ever does, mayvery probably be thankful.
When I woke again it was just dawning, and the guard and bearers weremoving about like ghosts through the dense morning mists, getting readyfor our start. The fire had died quite down, and I rose and stretchedmyself, shivering in every limb from the damp cold of the dawn. Then Ilooked at Leo. He was sitting up, holding his hands to his head, and Isaw that his face was flushed and his eye bright, and yet yellow roundthe pupil.
"Well, Leo," I said, "how do you feel?"
"I feel as though I were going to die," he answered hoarsely. "My headis splitting, my body is trembling, and I am as sick as a cat."
I whistled, or if I did not whistle I felt inclined to--Leo had got asharp attack of fever. I went to Job, and asked him for the quinine,of which fortunately we had still a good supply, only to find that Jobhimself was not much better. He complained of pains across the back, anddizziness, and was almost incapable of helping himself. Then I did theonly thing it was possible to do under the circumstances--gave them bothabout ten grains of quinine, and took a slightly smaller dose myself asa matter of precaution. After that I found Billali, and explained to himhow matters stood, asking at the same time what he thought had best bedone. He came with me, and looked at Leo and Job (whom, by the way,he had named the Pig on account of his fatness, round face, and smalleyes).
"Ah," he said, when we were out of earshot, "the fever! I thought so.The Lion has it badly, but he is young, and he may live. As for the Pig,his attack is not so bad; it is the 'little fever' which he has; thatalways begins with pains across the back, it will spend itself upon hisfat."
"Can they go on, my father?" I asked.
"Nay, my son, they must go on. If they stop here they will certainlydie; also, they will be better in the litters than on the ground. Byto-night, if all goes well, we shall be across the marsh and in goodair. Come, let us lift them into the litters and start, for it is verybad to stand still in this morning fog. We can eat our meal as we go."
This we accordingly did, and with a heavy heart I once more set out uponour strange journey. For the first three hours all went as well ascould be expected, and then an accident happened that nearly lost us thepleasure of the company of our venerable friend Billali, whose litterwas leading the cavalcade. We were going through a particularlydangerous stretch of quagmire, in which the bearers sometimes sank up totheir knees. Indeed, it was a mystery to me how they contrived tocarry the heavy litters at all over such ground as that which we weretraversing, though the two spare hands, as well as the four regularones, had of course to put their shoulders to the pole.
Presently, as we blundered and floundered along, there was a sharpcry, then a storm of exclamations, and, last of all, a most tremendoussplash, and the whole caravan halted.
I jumped out of my litter and ran forward. About twenty yards ahead wasthe edge of one of those sullen peaty pools of which I have spoken, thepath we were following running along the top of its bank, that, as ithappened, was a steep one. Looking towards this pool, to my horror I sawthat Billali's litter was floating on it, and as for Billali himself, hewas nowhere to be seen. To make matters clear I may as well explainat once what had happened. One of Billali's bearers had unfortunatelytrodden on a basking snake, which had bitten him in the leg, whereon hehad, not unnaturally, let go of the pole, and then, finding that hewas tumbling down the bank, grasped at the litter to save himself. Theresult of this was what might have been expected. The litter was pulledover the edge of the bank, the bearers let go, and the whole thing,including Billali and the man who had been bitten, rolled into the slimypool. When I got to the edge of the water neither of them were to beseen; indeed, the unfortunate bearer never was seen again. Either hestruck his head against something, or get wedged in the mud, or possiblythe snake-bite paralyzed him. At any rate he vanished. But thoughBillali was not to be seen, his whereabouts was clear enough from theagita
tion of the floating litter, in the bearing cloth and curtains ofwhich he was entangled.
"He is there! Our father is there!" said one of the men, but he did notstir a finger to help him, nor did any of the others. They simply stoodand stared at the water.
"Out of the way, you brutes!" I shouted in English, and throwing off myhat I took a run and sprang well out into the horrid slimy-looking pool.A couple of strokes took me to where Billali was struggling beneath thecloth.
Somehow, I do not quite know how, I managed to push it free of him,and his venerable head all covered with green slime, like that of ayellowish Bacchus with ivy leaves, emerged upon the surface of thewater. The rest was easy, for Billali was an eminently practicalindividual, and had the common sense not to grasp hold of me as drowningpeople often do, so I got him by the arm, and towed him to the bank,through the mud [out] of which we were with difficulty dragged. Such a filthyspectacle as we presented I have never seen before or since, and it willperhaps give some idea of the almost superhuman dignity of Billali'sappearance when I say that, coughing, half-drowned, and covered with mudand green slime as he was, with his beautiful beard coming to a drippingpoint, like a Chinaman's freshly-oiled pig-tail, he still lookedvenerable and imposing.
"Ye dogs," he said, addressing the bearers, as soon as he hadsufficiently recovered to speak, "ye left me, your father, to drown.Had it not been for this stranger, my son the Baboon, assuredly I shouldhave drowned. Well, I will remember it," and he fixed them with hisgleaming though slightly watery eye, in a way I saw that they did notlike, though they tried to appear sulkily indifferent.
"As for thee, my son," the old man went on, turning towards me andgrasping my hand, "rest assured that I am thy friend through good andevil. Thou hast saved my life: perchance a day may come when I shallsave thine."
After that we cleaned ourselves as best we could, fished out the litter,and went on, _minus_ the man who had been drowned. I do not know ifit was owing to his being an unpopular character, or from nativeindifference and selfishness of temperament, but I am bound to say thatnobody seemed to grieve much over his sudden and final disappearance,unless, perhaps, it was the men who had to do his share of the work.