CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.
A NATIVE CHIEFTAIN'S VISIT TO CLOUDLAND.
The travellers, safely shut up in that impregnable fortress, the hull ofthe _Flying Fish_, passed the night in peaceful slumber, undisturbed, inthe confidence begotten of a sense of perfect security, by the weirdcries of the night birds, the incessant howling of the jackals, themaniacal laugh of the prowling hyena, the occasional roar of the lion,the loud _whirr_ of myriads of insects, the croaking of bull-frogs, andthe other multitudinous nocturnal sounds which floated in through theopen windows of their state-rooms. They were early astir in themorning, eager to commence their investigations as are school-boys toplunge into the enjoyments of a long-anticipated holiday. Moved by acommon impulse, they all went out on deck to witness the ruins under theeffect of sunrise previous to their plunge into the matutinal bath; andit was whilst they were admiring the exquisite beauty of the scene thatthe keen-eyed colonel became conscious of the fact that they werebeleaguered by a host of lurking savages.
"Umph!" he commented, "I expected as much."
"You expected as much as what? What is it, Lethbridge?" asked SirReginald.
"Look there," was the reply; "and there, and there, and there. Do younotice anything peculiar in the appearance of the undergrowth about us,especially where it is thickest?"
"N-o, I can't say that I do--unless you refer to those occasional quickgleams which come and go here and there. What are they? At first Ithought it was the flash of the sun on the dew-laden grass and leaves asthey wave in the wind, but it can hardly be that, or we should see moreof it."
"No," said the colonel, "it is not that; it is the occasional glint ofthe sun on a native spear-head. I have been through the Kaffir war, andhave seen the same thing before, though not so distinctly as now, ourpresent towering height above the ground giving us an advantage in thatrespect which we sadly lacked before. We are beset by the natives. Youcannot see _one_, I know, but they are all about us, all the same. Ah!look there, just behind that magnolia bush. Do you see a small darkobject rising slowly into view? That is the head of a savage, and heis--ah! now he has ducked again, having caught sight of us."
"And what do you suppose the fellows want?" asked the baronet. "Theycannot attack us, you know."
"No; but _they_ don't know it. Their object is to steal up as close aspossible to us in order, in the first place, to satisfy their curiosity,and, in the second place, to make a sudden swoop if they see any fanciedchance of being successful."
"Well," said Sir Reginald. "I should like to see the savage who canreach us so long as we stick to the _Flying Fish_. But we don't want tostick to her, so we will leave them undisturbed to satisfy theircuriosity to its fullest extent until after breakfast, when we mustadopt measures either to conciliate them or to terrorise them intoleaving us alone. Come, gentlemen, we shall be late for breakfast.What a superb mass of ruins it is!--beats the Acropolis; don't you thinkso?"
If the thousand or more savages, who had spent nearly half the night inaccomplishing the engirdlement of the _Flying Fish_, could have heardand understood the airy way in which the fact of their close proximitywas dismissed by the baronet as a matter of the most trivial importance,they would have been intensely disgusted. Happily for their dignitythey were blissfully unconscious of it; and whilst Sir Reginald and hiscompanions were luxuriating in the bath, and afterwards dallying with alight but dainty breakfast, the sable warriors continued to closecautiously in upon the huge white gleaming object which had come intotheir midst in so unexpected and extraordinary a manner. Slowly,cautiously, with untiring patience, and practising every known art ofsavage warfare, the band drew closer and closer, until they foundthemselves within about a hundred feet of the hull, and almostovershadowed by her enormous bulk, when considerations of personalsafety prevailed over the ardour of the warrior burning to distinguishhimself, and further advance was, as by unanimous consent, checked. Thehuge monster, with its gleaming silvery skin and its curiously-shapedtail, lay so ominously still and silent, with its enormous circularblack eyes so wide open and fixed, that, having heard of its threateningdemonstration against the cavalry who attacked it on the previous day,they felt certain it meant mischief, and was only waiting for somefoolhardy wight to venture within its reach, to seize and devour him.They had been despatched by a despotic king to capture or kill thecreature; but, whilst every man there would have emulated his neighbourin rushing to certain death against the ranks of an enemy, there seemedto be so little glory in furnishing a breakfast to this monster thatevery individual there inwardly resolved that some other man thanhimself should be the first to offer himself as a sacrifice. And,equally afraid to advance or to retire, there they remained motionless,and in a state of breathless suspense, waiting for events to developthemselves. And there they were distinctly visible from the loftystand-point of the _Flying Fish's_ deck when the quartette, cigar inmouth, emerged from the pilot-house after breakfast.
The situation was decidedly comical, and the travellers indulged in ahearty laugh at the expense of the discomfited savages. But it wasobvious that matters could not be allowed to remain in that condition;the natives must be impressed with the conviction that hostilities wereneither necessary nor desirable, and that it would be to their advantageto be on terms of amity with the newcomers. How could this be achieved?A parley offered the most ready solution of the difficulty; and theprofessor--who was a perfect polyglot dictionary in human form--offeredto essay the task of conducting it. This was by no means his firstintroduction to savages; he had encountered them in various parts of theworld before, and had never experienced any very serious difficulty incommunicating with them, so that he felt tolerably sanguine of successon the present occasion.
"The matter is very simple, I think," remarked the German, as he led theway to the larboard gangway. "We want these people to understand thatwe are friendly disposed toward them; that they have nothing whatever tofear from us; that we have not come here to rob them of one tittle oftheir possessions; that we merely wish to explore and examine theseancient ruins; and that, if they will receive us among them as friends,they will be distinct and decided gainers by the transaction. Is notthat so?"
"Certainly," remarked the baronet. "Tell them--if you can--that all weask is permission to investigate and explore unmolested; and that ifthey will accord us this privilege they shall be substantiallyrewarded."
"Very good; I will do my best. And that reminds me that you had betterorder George to bring on deck and open a small case of those beads andnick-nacks that we provided for such occasions as the present," remarkedthe professor.
The baronet returned to the pilot-house to give the order; and vonSchalckenberg drew out his white pocket-handkerchief, waved it two orthree times in the air, and then demanded, in the language he thoughtmost likely to be intelligible:
"What chief commands the warriors who have assembled to pay homage tothe four Spirits of the Winds?"
Most luckily for the professor's prestige and reputation as an all-wiseSpirit, the dialect he had adopted, though not the language actuallyspoken by the tribe he addressed, was so far similar that his questionwas understood; and whilst the astounded blacks started to their feet indismay at finding themselves at last actually face to face with andaddressed by an avowed Spirit, one of them hesitatingly and timorouslyadvanced a few paces, threw himself prostrate on the ground, and,maintaining his posture of humility, stammered out:
"I, Lualamba, am the leader of these warriors, O most potent Spirit."
"Approach, brave Lualamba, and ascend to us by the ladder which we willlet down to you. We have that to say which must be heard by your earalone," commanded the professor, waving his hand majestically.
A rope-ladder was attached to the lower extremity of the side-ladder andlet down to the ground; and the chief, in a state of mind about equallydivided between the extremity of bodily fear on the one hand and prideat being selected as the recipient of a special communication from theSpirit
Land on the other, hesitatingly and falteringly, and with manydoubtful pauses, advanced until he reached the foot of the ladder, whenhis courage failed him, and he came to a dead halt.
"Ascend, and fear not," called out the professor encouragingly; "we arethe friends of your nation, and have forgiven the attack which some ofyour people (not knowing us) made upon us yesterday. We have comehither to shower gifts and benefits upon you--if you are obedient; butif you reject our friendship, beware!"
Upon this the savage, no doubt feeling that, by placing himself at thehead of this most unlucky expedition, he had already gone too far topermit of withdrawal, summoned up all his courage, and, with the air ofa man who knew himself to be treading on mined ground, scrambled up theswaying ladder, and finally stepped in through the gangway on to thespacious deck of the _Flying Fish_, upon which he prostrated himself onhis face, laying his shield and weapons--his most valued possessions--asan offering at the feet of the professor.
The latter, touching him lightly on the shoulder, at once bade him rise;and, as the chief gathered himself up and regained his feet, vonSchalckenberg threw round the quaking but gratified savage's neck astring of large opaque, turquoise-blue glass beads, and over his nakedshoulders a length of gaudily-flowered chintz. A loud shout ofadmiration from the crowd of natives below proclaimed the fact that theyhad witnessed the bestowal of these gifts, whilst Lualamba,notwithstanding the august presence in which he found himself, could notrestrain the broad grin of delight which spontaneously overspread hisfeatures.
A few judicious questions, artfully put, soon elicited from the savagethe information that the travellers were now in the country belonging toM'Bongwele, a fierce, cruel, and jealous despot, so suspicious offoreigners that the most stringent orders were in force to allow nonesuch to cross his borders upon any pretence whatever. This king hadbeen duly apprised, through the medium of the curious voice-telegraphicmode of communication already described, of the mysterious arrival inhis dominions on the day previous; and had been so greatly disconcertedand enraged at the news that he had forthwith issued the most peremptoryorders for the capture or slaughter of the monstrous visitant; and hewas now, according to Lualamba, impatiently awaiting in his palace, afew miles distant, the intelligence that his order had been executed.The chief, during the conversation which elicited these facts, had sofar recovered his self-possession and equanimity as to be able to makethe best possible use of his eyes; and, being a very shrewd fellow, hewas not long in arriving at the conclusion that the gigantic monster onwhose back he stood was, after all, nothing more nor less than aninanimate, though unquestionably wonderful, _vehicle_ of some sort; andthat the fair-skinned beings to whom he was talking, though they claimedto be the four Spirits of the Winds, were very similar in many respectsto certain white men whom he had seen only a few moons ago. The wilysavage accordingly made up his mind that, if he could only induce thesebeings to accompany him into the king's presence, he would, after all,have most satisfactorily accomplished his mission; and he forthwithproceeded, with all the craft and subtlety of which he was master, tourge upon them the desirability of an immediate visit to kingM'Bongwele, who, averse as he was to the prying visits of strange _men_,would, he assured them, be highly gratified at the honour of having ashis guests the four Spirits of the Winds.
This proposition, however, by no means accorded with the views of thetravellers; and von Schalckenberg somewhat sternly intimated that,whilst an interview with M'Bongwele was undoubtedly desirable, it was_he_ who must visit and pay homage to _them_, and not they to him. Theyhad entered the country with the most friendly disposition towardM'Bongwele and his people, and that friendly disposition would bemanifested to the distinct advantage of the entire nation if the kingshowed himself properly appreciative of the honour done him by thisvisit. But if not, king and people would be very severely punished forthe insult offered to their potent visitors, "and," continued theprofessor, "in order that Lualamba might see for himself that, in makingthis threat, they were indulging in no mere empty boast, he would givethe chief and his followers a single specimen of their power."
Mildmay having, during the progress of this conversation, received ahint from the professor how to act, had quietly, and as if notparticularly interested in what was going forward, sauntered off to thepilot-house, where, stationing himself at the engine and other leverscontrolling the movements of the ship, he awaited further instructions.
The professor, having promised to give the savages a specimen of theirvisitors' power, now waved his right hand very slowly and impressivelyskyward, as a signal to the watchful Mildmay, loudly exclaiming as hedid so:
"Lualamba will now accompany the four Spirits of the Winds to yondercloud," pointing, as he spoke, to a single small white fleecy cloudwhich was floating at the moment across the sun's disc.
Dexterously manipulating the various valves, Mildmay caused the _FlyingFish_ to rise with a gentle and almost imperceptible motion from theearth. So gentle was the movement that Lualamba was utterly unconsciousof it, and it was not until some seconds had elapsed that he fullyrealised what was happening. The savages below, however, no soonerheard von Schalckenberg's exclamation than, to their inexpressiblehorror, they beheld the huge structure, round which they were standing,lift itself off the earth without the slightest visible effort and beginto rise into the air. Many of them were so overpowered by astonishmentthat they could only stand, open-mouthed and as motionless as statues,staring at the extraordinary sight; others, however, remembering thestringent orders of the king, and feeling that the prize which they hadbelieved to be so secure was not only escaping them but also carryingoff one of their number, rushed forward, and, whilst some fruitlesslyattempted to grasp and hold the smooth and polished hull, others seizedand clung tenaciously to the rope-ladder. The weight of some seven oreight natives clinging to the dangling ladder had, of course, no visibleeffect upon the movement of the great ship; and, finding themselvesbeing helplessly dragged skyward, they let go their hold with a yell ofdismay when they were some four or five yards from the earth, upon whichthey dropped back heavily.
The ship once fairly off the ground, Mildmay increased the rarefactionof the air in the air-chambers to an almost perfect vacuum, and theimmense structure soared skyward with great rapidity. Lualamba, hearingthe shouts of his people from below, stepped to the gangway to ascertainthe cause; and it was then that, to his inexpressible dismay, he saw theearth apparently falling from under him, and the upturned faces of hisfollowers rapidly dwindling until they became unrecognisable. In thefirst extremity of his terror he would have flung himself headlong fromthe deck had he not been prevented; failing in this he prostratedhimself, and for some time lay motionless, with his face hidden in hishands. At length, however, somewhat reassured by the encouragingadjurations of the professor and the apparent absence of movement in theship, he ventured first of all to uncover his eyes and then to riseslowly to his feet. He glanced wildly about him, but could see nothing,save a thick white mist which completely enveloped the ship (for she hadjust plunged into the centre of the cloud), with the sun dimly visiblethrough it; and a fresh paroxysm of terror seized him, for the horriblethought at once suggested itself that he had looked his last upon motherEarth. The professor, however, speedily reassured him upon this point,and, leading him to the guard-rail which ran round the deck, bade himlook downward. Terrified into the most servile obedience, the wretchedchief did as he was bidden, and in a few minutes, the mist growingthinner and thinner, he once more caught sight of the earth at animmense distance below, the gigantic ruins above which they werehovering dwarfed to a mere sprinkling of boulders over the plain; thetrees, the clumps of bush, and the meandering streams stretching away tothe horizon in almost illimitable perspective, and to the eastward thesea, with just one solitary sail upon it, barely visible above itsgleaming rim.
Ignorant savage though he was, Lualamba was quite intelligent enough toappreciate the novel beauty of the scene upon which his eyes now rested;a
nd, forgetting for the moment all his terrors, he leaned upon the rail,lost in wonder and admiration. And when, after a minute or two, hebecame conscious that the ship was again nearing the earth, his delightknew no bounds, for he felt that, as the hero of so unique an experienceas he was now passing through, he must henceforth be a person of muchgreater consequence among his countrymen than he had ever been before.
Meanwhile the travellers had availed themselves of their recent ascentto sharply scrutinise the face of the country immediately adjacent tothe ruins, and had at length discovered, on the summit of a distanthill, an extensive village or settlement, strongly defended by acircular stockade, which they shrewdly suspected to be the headquartersof king M'Bongwele. The single street, which ran through the centre ofthe village from end to end, was crowded with people all gazing skywardat the unwonted apparition of the aerial ship; and, with the aid oftheir telescopes, the travellers could see in the central square a smallgroup of persons (who they conjectured to be the king and his suite)similarly engaged, surrounded and protected from the rabble by a phalanxof armed men.
The ship swept rapidly onward until she hovered immediately over thelast-named party (just to impress upon the king a wholesome convictionof the utter uselessness of his stockade as a protection against such afoe as the _Flying Fish_), and then, making a majestic sweep, camegently to earth immediately opposite the principal gate in the stockade.
"Now, go," said the professor, addressing Lualamba, "and inform kingM'Bongwele that we await him on the spot among the ruins where you foundus this morning."
The bewildered chief, scarcely able to realise the fact that he hadactually been brought safely back to _terra firma_, lost no time inavailing himself of the permission given him to depart, and, scramblingdown the ship's side and the rope-ladder, he reached the ground andbounded off like a startled deer toward the gate, which was hastilythrown open to admit him, and as hastily closed and barred again themoment he had passed through. The _Flying Fish_ then rose once moreinto the air and leisurely made her way back to the ruins, passing, _enroute_, the force which had been sent out to capture her, and which wasnow making the best of its way back to the village to report the resultof the expedition.
Meanwhile Lualamba made his way rapidly up through the village to theking's palace (which was, after all, merely the largest hut in theinclosure), having gained which he besought an immediate audience withM'Bongwele on a matter of the utmost importance. The king, who hadalready been made acquainted with the circumstance of the chief'sinvoluntary journey into the upper regions, was, of course, allcuriosity to learn the fullest details of the adventure, and the desiredaudience was accordingly at once granted. Conscious of the fact that,for the first time in his life, he had failed to execute the missionintrusted to him, and extremely doubtful as to the reception which wouldbe accorded to the message of which he was the unwilling bearer,Lualamba deemed it best on this occasion to tell a plain unvarnishedtale, and, commencing his narrative at the point where he and hiswarriors had first come within sight of the huge object of which theywere in quest, he described in full detail all his subsequentadventures, with the thoughts, feelings, and impressions resultingtherefrom, and wound up falteringly with the message.
His story was received by the king and his suite with ejaculations ofwonder and incredulity, interspersed with many sharp commands from themonarch to repeat or to explain more fully certain passages; and whenthe message was delivered a profound silence reigned for fully an hour.King M'Bongwele was a despot, accustomed to issue his commands in themost heedless manner and to have them executed at all costs; but to_receive_ a command was an entirely novel and decidedly disagreeableexperience, and he was thoroughly puzzled how to act. His first feelingwas one of speechless indignation at the insolence of these audaciousstrangers; his second, a wholesome fear of the consequences ofdisobedience. For if these mysterious visitants had the power ofsoaring into the air by a mere wave of the hand, what might it not bepossible for them to do in the event of their being seriously provoked.Besides, he had already received a practical assurance of his impotencyso far as they were concerned; moreover, he was consumed by curiosity tosee for himself the marvels so graphically described by his lieutenant,to receive a moiety of those magnificent gifts which the strangersseemed prepared to lavish broadcast upon all with whom they chanced tocome into contact, and, above all, to satisfy himself with respect tocertain conjectures which had flitted through his brain whilst listeningto the astonishing narrative of Lualamba. M'Bongwele was an ignorantsavage, it is true, but he was possessed of a dauntless courage, apersistency of purpose, and an unscrupulous craftiness and ambitiousnessof character which would have won him distinction of a certainunenviable kind in any community. Already his brain was teeming withvague unformed plots of the wildest and most audaciously extravagantdescription, the possibility of which he was determined to ascertain forhimself, and the maturing of which he was quite prepared to leave totime. He therefore ultimately resolved to obey the summons sent him bythe strangers; but, remembering his kingly dignity, he postponedobedience as long as he dared, and it was not until four o'clock in theafternoon that he set out for the ruins, attired in all his nativefinery, consisting of a lion-skin mantle and magnificent gold coronetadorned with flamingo's feathers--the emblems of his regal power--goldbangles on his arms and ankles, a necklace of lion's teeth and clawsround his neck, and a short petticoat of leopard's skin about his loins.He was armed with a sheaf of light javelins or assegais, he carried inhis left hand a long narrow shield of rhinoceros hide decorated withostrich plumes, and he was mounted on a superb black horse (which herode bare-backed and managed with the skill of a finished equestrian).His followers, numbering about five hundred, were also fully armed andexcellently mounted, they being, indeed, with the exception of a fewcourt officials, his regiment of household cavalry, the pick of hisnative warriors and the very flower of his army. He was anxious to makethe profoundest possible impression of his power and greatness upon themysterious beings he was about to visit; and, indeed, the cavalcade, asit swept at a hand-gallop out through the wide gateway which formed theprincipal opening in the stockade, constituted, with its tossing plumes,its fluttering mantles, its glancing weapons, and its prancing horses, asight to make a soldier's heart bound with appreciative delight.