“It is ready; it is ready.”
“Is the pot hot to cook it?” it continued, in a sort of scream that echoed painfully down the great recesses of the cave.
“It is hot; it is hot.”
“Great heavens!” shouted Leo, “remember the writing, ‘The people who place pots upon the heads of strangers.’”
As he said the words, before we could stir, or even take the matter in, two great ruffians sprang up, and, grasping the long pincers, plunged them into the heart of the fire, while the woman who had been caressing Mahomed suddenly produced a fibre noose from under her girdle or moocha, and, slipping it over his shoulders, ran it tight, the men next him seizing him by the legs. These two men with the pincers heaved simultaneously, and, scattering the fire this way and that upon the rocky floor, lifted from it a large earthenware pot, heated to a white glow. In an instant, almost with a single movement, they had reached the spot where Mahomed was struggling. He fought like a fiend, shrieking in the abandonment of his despair, and notwithstanding the noose round him, and the efforts of the men who held his legs, the advancing wretches were for the moment unable to accomplish their purpose, which, horrid and incredible as it seems, was to put the red-hot pot upon his head.
I sprang to my feet with a yell of horror, and drawing my revolver I fired it by instinct straight at the diabolical woman who had been caressing Mahomed, and who was now gripping him in her arms. The bullet struck her in the back and killed her, and to this day I am glad of it, for, as it transpired afterwards, she had availed herself of the anthropophagous customs of the Amahagger to organise this sacrifice in revenge of the slight put upon her by Job. She sank down dead, and as she dropped, to my terror and dismay, Mahomed, by a superhuman effort, burst from his tormentors, and, springing high into the air, fell dying upon her corpse. The heavy bullet from my pistol had driven through the bodies of both, at once striking down the murderess and saving her victim from a death a hundred times more dreadful. It was an awful and yet a most merciful accident.
For a moment there was a silence of astonishment. The Amahagger had never heard the report of a firearm before, and its effects dismayed them. The next instant a man close to us recovered himself, and seized his spear preparatory to making a lunge with it at Leo, who was the nearest to him.
“Run for it!” I shouted, setting the example by starting up the cave as hard as my legs would carry me. I would have headed for the open if it had been possible, but there were men in the way, besides I had caught sight of the forms of a crowd of people standing out clearly against the skyline beyond the entrance to the cave. Up the cave I went, and after me came the others, and after them thundered the whole crowd of cannibals, mad with fury at the death of the woman. With a bound I cleared the prostrate form of Mahomed. As I flew over him I felt the heat from the red-hot pot, which was lying close by, strike upon my legs, and by its glow saw his hands—for he was not quite dead—still feebly moving. At the top of the cave was a little platform of rock three feet or so high by about eight deep, on which two large lamps were placed at night. Whether this platform had been left as a seat, or as a raised point afterwards to be cut away when it had served its purpose as a standing-place from which to carry on the excavations, I do not know—at least, I did not then. At least we reached it, all three of us, and, jumping on to it, prepared to sell our lives as dearly as we could. For a few seconds the crowd that was pressing on our heels hung back when they saw us face round upon them. Job was on one side of the rock to the left, Leo in the centre, and I to the right. Behind us were the lamps. Leo bent forward, and looked down the long lane of shadows, terminating in the fire and lighted lamps, through which the quiet forms of our would-be murderers flitted to and fro with the faint light glinting on their spears, for even their fury was silent as a bulldog’s. The only other thing visible was the red-hot pot still glowing angrily in the gloom. There was a curious gleam in Leo’s eyes, and his handsome face was set like a stone. In his right hand was his heavy hunting-knife. He shifted its thong a little up his wrist, then he put his arm round me and embraced me.
“Good-bye, old fellow,” he said, “my dear friend—my more than father. We have no chance against those scoundrels; they will finish us in a few minutes, and eat us afterwards, I suppose. Good-bye. I led you into this. I hope you will forgive me. Good-bye, Job.”
“God’s will be done,” I said, setting my teeth, as I prepared for the end. At that moment, with an exclamation, Job lifted his revolver, fired, and hit a man—not the man he had aimed at, by the way: anything that Job shot at was perfectly safe.
On they came with a rush, and I fired too as fast as I could, and checked them—between us, Job and I, besides the woman, killed or mortally wounded five men with our pistols before they were emptied. But we had no time to reload, and still they came on in a way which was almost splendid in its recklessness, since they did not know but that we could continue shooting for ever.
A great fellow bounded upon the platform, and Leo struck him dead with one blow of his powerful arm, sending the knife right through him. I did the same by another, but Job missed his stroke, and I saw a brawny Amahagger grip him by the middle and whirl him off the rock. The knife not being secured by a thong fell from Job’s hand at that moment, and, by a most happy accident for him, lit upon its handle on the rock, just as the body of the Amahagger, who was undermost, struck upon its point and was transfixed thereon. What happened to Job after that I am sure I do not know, but my own impression is that he lay still upon the corpse of his deceased assailant, “playing ’possum,” as the Americans say. As for myself, soon I was involved in a desperate encounter with two ruffians, who, luckily for me, had left their spears behind them; and for the first time in my life the great physical power with which Nature has endowed me stood me in good stead. I had hacked at the head of one man with my hunting-knife, which was almost as big and heavy as a short sword, with such vigour that the sharp steel split his skull down to the eyes, and was held so fast by it that as he suddenly fell from me sideways the knife was twisted out of my hand.
Then it was that the two others sprang upon me. I saw them coming, and wound an arm round the waist of each, and down we all fell upon the floor of the cave together, rolling over and over. They were strong men, but I was mad with rage, and that awful lust of battle which will creep into the hearts of the most civilised of us when blows are flying, and life and death tremble on the turn. My arms were about the two swarthy demons, and I hugged them till I heard their ribs crack and crunch up beneath my gripe. They twisted and writhed like snakes, and clawed and battered at me with their fists, but I held on. Lying on my back there, so that their bodies might protect me from spear thrusts from above, I slowly crushed the life out of them, and as I did so, strange as it may seem, I thought of what the amiable Head of my College at Cambridge (who is a member of the Peace Society) and my brother Fellows would say if by clairvoyance they could see me, of all men, playing such a bloody game. Soon my assailants grew faint, and almost ceased to struggle; their breath had failed them, and they were dying, but still I dared not leave them, for they died very slowly. I knew that if I relaxed my grip they would revive. The other savages probably thought—for the three of us were lying in the shadow of the ledge—that we were all dead together, at any rate they did not interfere with our little tragedy.
I turned my head, and as I lay gasping in the throes of that awful struggle I could see that Leo was off the rock now, for the lamplight fell full upon him. He was still on his feet, but in the centre of a surging mass of struggling men, who were striving to pull him down as wolves pull down a stag. Up above them towered his beautiful pale face crowned with its bright curls as he swayed to and fro, and I saw that he was fighting with a desperate abandonment and an energy that was at once splendid and hideous to behold. He drove his knife through one man—they were so close to and mixed up with him that they could not come at him to kill him with their big spears, and they had no knives or s
ticks. The man fell, and then somehow the knife was wrenched from Leo’s hand, leaving him defenceless, and I thought that the end had come. But no; with a desperate effort he broke loose from them, seized the body of the man he had just slain, and lifting it high in the air hurled it right at the mob of his assailants, so that the shock and weight of it swept some five or six of them to the earth. But in a minute they were up again, all except one, whose skull was smashed, and had once more fastened upon him. And now slowly, and with infinite labour and struggling, the wolves bore the lion down. Once even then he recovered himself, and felled an Amahagger with his fist, but it was more than man could do to hold his own for long against so many, and at last he came crashing down upon the rock floor, falling as an oak falls, and bearing with him to the earth all those who clung about him. They gripped him by his arms and legs, and then cleared off his body.
8.2 Up above them towered his beautiful pale face.
“A spear,” cried a voice—“a spear to cut his throat, and a vessel to catch his blood.”
I shut my eyes, for I saw a man run up with the spear, and myself, I could not stir to Leo’s help, for I was growing weak: the two men on me were not yet dead, and a deadly sickness overcame me.
Then suddenly there was a disturbance, and involuntarily I opened my eyes again, and looked towards the scene of murder. The girl Ustane had thrown herself on Leo’s prostrate form, covering his body with her body, and fastening her arms about his neck. They tried to drag her from him, but she twisted her legs round his, and hung on like a bulldog, or rather like a creeper to a tree, and they could not. Then they tried to stab him in the side without hurting her, but somehow she shielded him, and he was only wounded.
At last they lost patience.
“Drive the spear through the man and the woman together,” said a voice, the same voice which had asked the questions at that ghastly feast, “so of a verity shall they be wed.”
Then I saw the man with the weapon straighten himself for the effort. I saw the cold steel gleam on high, and once more I shut my eyes.
Even as I did so I heard the voice of a man thunder out, in tones that rang and echoed down the rocky ways—
“Cease!”
Then I fainted, and as I sank away it flashed through my darkening mind that I was passing down into the last oblivion of death.
*We afterwards learnt that its motive was to pretend to the victim that he was the object of love and admiration, and so to soothe his injured feelings, and cause him to expire in a happy and contented frame of mind.—L. H. H.
IX
A LITTLE FOOT
When I opened my eyes again I found myself lying on a skin mat not far from the fire round which we had been gathered for that dreadful feast. Near to me lay Leo, still lost in a swoon, and over him bent the tall form of the girl Ustane, who was washing a deep spear wound in his side with cold water before binding it up with linen. Leaning against the wall of the cave behind her stood Job, apparently uninjured, but bruised and trembling. On the other side of the fire, tossed about this way and that, as though they had thrown themselves down to sleep in some moment of absolute exhaustion, were the bodies of those whom we had killed in our frightful struggle for life. I counted them: there were twelve besides the woman, and the corpse of poor Mahomed, who had died by my hand, which, the fire-stained pot at its side, was placed at the end of the irregular line. To the left a number of men were engaged in binding behind them the arms of the survivors of the cannibals, and in fastening them two and two. These villains were submitting to their fate with an air of sulky indifference which accorded ill with the baffled fury that gleamed in their sombre eyes. In front of the prisoners, directing the operations, stood no other than our friend Billali, looking rather tired, but particularly patriarchal with his flowing beard, and as cool and unconcerned as though he were superintending the cutting up of an ox.
Presently he turned, and perceiving that I was sitting up advanced to me, and with the utmost courtesy said that he trusted that I felt better. I answered that at present I scarcely knew how I felt, except that I ached all over.
Then he bent down and examined Leo’s wound.
“It is an evil cut,” he said, “but the spear has not pierced the entrails. He will recover.”
“Thanks to thy arrival, my father,” I answered. “In another minute we should all have been beyond the reach of recovery, for those devils of thine sought to slay us as they would have slain our servant,” and I pointed towards Mahomed.
The old man ground his teeth, and I saw an extraordinary expression of malignity flare in his eyes.
“Fear not, my son,” he answered. “Vengeance shall be taken on them such as would make the flesh twist upon the bones merely to hear of it. To She shall they go, and her revenge shall be worthy of her greatness. That man,” pointing to Mahomed, “I tell thee that man would have died a merciful death to the death these hyæna-men shall die. Tell me, I pray of thee, how it came about.”
In a few words I sketched what had happened.
“Ah, so!” he answered. “Thou seest, my son, here there is a custom that if a stranger comes into this country he may be slain by ‘the pot,’ and eaten.”
“That is hospitality turned upside down,” I answered feebly. “In our country we entertain a stranger, and give him food to eat. Here you eat him, and are entertained.”
“It is a custom,” he answered, with a shrug. “Myself, I think it an evil one; but then,” he added by an afterthought, “I do not like the taste of strangers, especially after they have wandered through the swamps and lived on wildfowl. When She-who-must-be-obeyed sent orders that you were to be saved alive she said naught of the black man, therefore, being hyænas, these men lusted after his flesh, and it was the woman, whom thou didst rightly slay, who put it into their evil hearts to ‘hotpot’ him. Well, they will have their reward. Better for them would it be if they had never seen the light than that they should stand before She in her terrible anger. Happy are those of them who died by your hands.
“Ah,” he went on, “it was a gallant fight that you fought. Knowest thou, long-armed old baboon that thou art, that thou hast crushed in the ribs of those two who are laid out there as though they were but the shell on an egg? And the young one, the lion, it was a beautiful stand that he made—one against so many; three did he slay outright, and that one there”—and he pointed to a body which was still moving a little—“will die anon, for his head is cracked across, and others of those who are bound are hurt. It was a gallant fight, and thou and he have made a friend of me by it, for I love to see a well-fought fray. But tell me, my son, the Baboon—and now I think of it thy face, too, is hairy, and altogether like a baboon’s—how was it that you slew those with a hole in them?—You made a noise, they say, and slew them—they fell down on their faces at the noise?”
I explained to him as well as I could, but very shortly—for I felt terribly wearied, and was only persuaded to talk through fear of offending one so powerful if I refused to do so—what were the properties of gunpowder, whereupon he suggested that I should illustrate my words by operating on the person of one of the prisoners. One, he said, never would be counted, and the experiment would not only interest him, but would give me an immediate opportunity of revenge. He was greatly astounded when I told him that it was not our custom to wreak our wrongs in cold blood, and that we left vengeance to the law and a higher Power, of which he knew nothing. I added, however, that when I recovered I would take him out shooting with us, and that he should kill an animal for himself. With this prospect he was as pleased as is a child at the promise of a new toy.
Just then Leo opened his eyes beneath the stimulus of some brandy, of which we still had a little, that Job had poured down his throat, and our conversation came to an end.
After this we managed to carry Leo, who was in a very poor way indeed, and only half conscious, safely to bed, supported by Job and that brave girl Ustane, whom, had I not been afraid that she might
resent it, I would certainly have kissed in acknowledgment of her courage in saving my boy’s life at the risk of her own. But Ustane was a young person with whom I felt that it would be unadvisable to take liberties unless certain that they might not be misunderstood, so I repressed my inclinations. Then, bruised and battered, but with a sense of safety in my breast to which I had for some days been a stranger, I crept off to my own little sepulchre, not forgetting before I laid down in it to thank Providence from the bottom of my heart that it was not a sepulchre indeed, as, save for a merciful combination of events that I can only attribute to its protection, it would certainly have been for me this night. Few men have been nearer their end and yet escaped it than we were on that dreadful day.
I am a bad sleeper at the best of times, and my dreams that night when at last I sank to rest were not of the pleasantest. The awful sight of poor Mahomed struggling to escape the red-hot pot would haunt them. Then in the background of the vision a draped form hovered continually, which, from time to time, seemed to draw the coverings from its body, revealing now the perfect shape of a lovely blooming woman, and again the white bones of a grinning skeleton, which, as it veiled and unveiled, uttered the mysterious and apparently meaningless sentence:—
“That which is alive hath known death, and that which is dead yet can never die, for in the Circle of the Spirit life is naught and death is naught. Yea, all things live for ever, though at times they sleep and are forgotten.”
The morning dawned at last, but when it came I found that I was too stiff and sore to rise. About seven Job arrived, limping terribly, his round face the colour of a rotten apple, and told me that Leo had slept fairly, but was very weak. Two hours afterwards Billali (Job called him “Billy-goat,” to which animal his white beard gave him some resemblance, or more familiarly “Billy”) came too, bearing a lamp in his hand, his towering form reaching nearly to the roof of the little chamber. I pretended to be asleep, and through the cracks of my eyelids I watched his sardonic but handsome old face. He fixed his hawk-like eyes upon me, and stroked his glorious white beard, which, by the way, would have been worth a hundred a year to any London barber as an advertisement.