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<h2> CHAPTER XI<br/> THE COMING OF DOGEETAH </h2>
<p>The sunset that day was like the sunrise, particularly fine, although as
in the case of the tea, I remembered little of it till afterwards. In
fact, thunder was about, which always produces grand cloud effects in
Africa.</p>
<p>The sun went down like a great red eye, over which there dropped suddenly
a black eyelid of cloud with a fringe of purple lashes.</p>
<p>There’s the last I shall see of you, my old friend, thought I to myself,
unless I catch you up presently.</p>
<p>The gloom began to gather. The king looked about him, also at the sky
overhead, as though he feared rain, then whispered something to Babemba,
who nodded and strolled up to my post.</p>
<p>“White lord,” he said, “the Elephant wishes to know if you are ready, as
presently the light will be very bad for shooting?”</p>
<p>“No,” I answered with decision, “not till half an hour after sundown as
was agreed.”</p>
<p>Babemba went to the king and returned to me.</p>
<p>“White lord, the king says that a bargain is a bargain, and he will keep
to his word. Only you must not then blame him if the shooting is bad,
since of course he did not know that the night would be so cloudy, which
is not usual at this time of year.”</p>
<p>It grew darker and darker, till at length we might have been lost in a
London fog. The dense masses of the people looked like banks, and the
archers, flitting to and fro as they made ready, might have been shadows
in Hades. Once or twice lightning flashed and was followed after a pause
by the distant growling of thunder. The air, too, grew very oppressive.
Dense silence reigned. In all those multitudes no one spoke or stirred;
even Sammy ceased his howling, I suppose because he had become exhausted
and fainted away, as people often do just before they are hanged. It was a
most solemn time. Nature seemed to be adapting herself to the mood of
sacrifice and making ready for us a mighty pall.</p>
<p>At length I heard the sound of arrows being drawn from their quivers, and
then the squeaky voice of Imbozwi, saying:</p>
<p>“Wait a little, the cloud will lift. There is light behind it, and it will
be nicer if they can see the arrows coming.”</p>
<p>The cloud did begin to lift, very slowly, and from beneath it flowed a
green light like that in a cat’s eye.</p>
<p>“Shall we shoot, Imbozwi?” asked the voice of the captain of the archers.</p>
<p>“Not yet, not yet. Not till the people can watch them die.”</p>
<p>The edge of cloud lifted a little more; the green light turned to a fiery
red thrown by the sunk sun and reflected back upon the earth from the
dense black cloud above. It was as though all the landscape had burst into
flames, while the heaven over us remained of the hue of ink. Again the
lightning flashed, showing the faces and staring eyes of the thousands who
watched, and even the white teeth of a great bat that flittered past. That
flash seemed to burn off an edge of the lowering cloud and the light grew
stronger and stronger, and redder and redder.</p>
<p>Imbozwi uttered a hiss like a snake. I heard a bow-string twang, and
almost at the same moment the thud of an arrow striking my post just above
my head. Indeed, by lifting myself I could touch it. I shut my eyes and
began to see all sorts of queer things that I had forgotten for years and
years. My brain swam and seemed to melt into a kind of confusion. Through
the intense silence I thought I heard the sound of some animal running
heavily, much as a fat bull eland does when it is suddenly disturbed.
Someone uttered a startled exclamation, which caused me to open my eyes
again. The first thing I saw was the squad of savage archers lifting their
bows—evidently that first arrow had been a kind of trial shot. The
next, looking absolutely unearthly in that terrible and ominous light, was
a tall figure seated on a white ox shambling rapidly towards us along the
open roadway that ran from the southern gate of the market-place.</p>
<p>Of course, I knew that I dreamed, for this figure exactly resembled
Brother John. There was his long, snowy beard. There in his hand was his
butterfly net, with the handle of which he seemed to be prodding the ox.
Only he was wound about with wreaths of flowers as were the great horns of
the ox, and on either side of him and before and behind him ran girls,
also wreathed with flowers. It was a vision, nothing else, and I shut my
eyes again awaiting the fatal arrow.</p>
<p>“Shoot!” screamed Imbozwi.</p>
<p>“Nay, shoot not!” shouted Babemba. “<i>Dogeetah is come!</i>”</p>
<p>A moment’s pause, during which I heard arrows falling to the ground; then
from all those thousands of throats a roar that shaped itself to the
words:</p>
<p>“Dogeetah! Dogeetah is come to save the white lords.”</p>
<p>I must confess that after this my nerve, which is generally pretty good,
gave out to such an extent that I think I fainted for a few minutes.
During that faint I seemed to be carrying on a conversation with Mavovo,
though whether it ever took place or I only imagined it I am not sure,
since I always forgot to ask him.</p>
<p>He said, or I thought he said, to me:</p>
<p>“And now, Macumazana, my father, what have you to say? Does my Snake stand
upon its tail or does it not? Answer, I am listening.”</p>
<p>To which I replied, or seemed to reply:</p>
<p>“Mavovo, my child, certainly it appears as though your Snake <i>does</i>
stand upon its tail. Still, I hold that all this is a phantasy; that we
live in a land of dream in which nothing is real except those things which
we cannot see or touch or hear. That there is no me and no you and no
Snake at all, nothing but a Power in which we move, that shows us pictures
and laughs when we think them real.”</p>
<p>Whereon Mavovo said, or seemed to say:</p>
<p>“Ah! at last you touch the truth, O Macumazana, my father. All things are
a shadow and we are shadows in a shadow. But what throws the shadow, O
Macumazana, my father? Why does Dogeetah appear to come hither riding on a
white ox and why do all these thousands think that my Snake stands so very
stiff upon its tail?”</p>
<p>“I’m hanged if I know,” I replied and woke up.</p>
<p>There, without doubt, <i>was</i> old Brother John with a wreath of flowers—I
noted in disgust that they were orchids—hanging in a bacchanalian
fashion from his dinted sun-helmet over his left eye. He was in a furious
rage and reviling Bausi, who literally crouched before him, and I was in a
furious rage and reviling him. What I said I do not remember, but he said,
his white beard bristling with indignation while he threatened Bausi with
the handle of the butterfly net:</p>
<p>“You dog! You savage, whom I saved from death and called Brother. What
were you doing to these white men who are in truth my brothers, and to
their followers? Were you about to kill them? Oh! if so, I will forget my
vow, I will forget the bond that binds us and——”</p>
<p>“Don’t, pray don’t,” said Bausi. “It is all a horrible mistake; I am not
to be blamed at all. It is that witch-doctor, Imbozwi, whom by the ancient
law of the land I must obey in such matters. He consulted his Spirit and
declared that you were dead; also that these white lords were the most
wicked of men, slave-traders with spotted hearts, who came hither to spy
out the Mazitu people and to destroy them with magic and bullets.”</p>
<p>“Then he lied,” thundered Brother John, “and he knew that he lied.”</p>
<p>“Yes, yes, it is evident that he lied,” answered Bausi. “Bring him here,
and with him those who serve him.”</p>
<p>Now by the light of the moon which was shining brightly in the heavens,
for the thunder-clouds had departed with the last glow of sunset, soldiers
began an active search for Imbozwi and his confederates. Of these they
caught eight or ten, all wicked-looking fellows hideously painted and
adorned like their master, but Imbozwi himself they could not find.</p>
<p>I began to think that in the confusion he had given us the slip, when
presently from the far end of the line, for we were still all tied to our
stakes, I heard the voice of Sammy, hoarse, it is true, but quite cheerful
now, saying:</p>
<p>“Mr. Quatermain, in the interests of justice, will you inform his Majesty
that the treacherous wizard for whom he is seeking, is now peeping and
muttering at the bottom of the grave which was dug to receive my mortal
remains.”</p>
<p>I did inform his Majesty, and in double-quick time our friend Imbozwi was
once more fished out of a grave by the strong arms of Babemba and his
soldiers, and dragged into the presence of the irate Bausi.</p>
<p>“Loose the white lords and their followers,” said Bausi, “and let them
come here.”</p>
<p>So our bonds were undone and we walked to where the king and Brother John
stood, the miserable Imbozwi and his attendant doctors huddled in a heap
before them.</p>
<p>“Who is this?” said Bausi to him, pointing at Brother John. “Is it not he
whom you vowed was dead?”</p>
<p>Imbozwi did not seem to think that the question required an answer, so
Bausi continued:</p>
<p>“What was the song that you sang in our ears just now—that if
Dogeetah came you would be ready to be shot to death with arrows in the
place of these white lords whose lives you swore away, was it not?”</p>
<p>Again Imbozwi made no answer, although Babemba called his attention to the
king’s query with a vigorous kick. Then Bausi shouted:</p>
<p>“By your own mouth are you condemned, O liar, and that shall be done to
you which you have yourself decreed,” adding almost in the words of Elijah
after he had triumphed over the priests of Baal, “Take away these false
prophets. Let none of them escape. Say you not so, O people?”</p>
<p>“Aye,” roared the multitude fiercely, “take them away.”</p>
<p>“Not a popular character, Imbozwi,” Stephen remarked to me in a reflective
voice. “Well, he is going to be served hot on his own toast now, and serve
the brute right.”</p>
<p>“Who is the false doctor now?” mocked Mavovo in the silence that followed.
“Who is about to sup on arrow-heads, O Painter-of-white-spots?” and he
pointed to the mark that Imbozwi had so gleefully chalked over his heart
as a guide to the arrows of the archers.</p>
<p>Now, seeing that all was lost, the little humpbacked villain with a sudden
twist caught me by the legs and began to plead for mercy. So piteously did
he plead, that being already softened by the fact of our wonderful escape
from those black graves, my heart was melted in me. I turned to ask the
king to spare his life, though with little hope that the prayer would be
granted, for I saw that Bausi feared and hated the man and was only too
glad of the opportunity to be rid of him. Imbozwi, however, interpreted my
movement differently, since among savages the turning of the back always
means that a petition is refused. Then, in his rage and despair, the venom
of his wicked heart boiled over. He leapt to his feet, and drawing a big,
carved knife from among his witch-doctor’s trappings, sprang at me like a
wild cat, shouting:</p>
<p>“At least you shall come too, white dog!”</p>
<p>Most mercifully Mavovo was watching him, for that is a good Zulu saying
which declares that “Wizard is Wizard’s fate.” With one bound he was on
him. Just as the knife touched me—it actually pricked my skin though
without drawing blood, which was fortunate as probably it was poisoned—he
gripped Imbozwi’s arm in his grasp of iron and hurled him to the ground as
though he were but a child.</p>
<p>After this of course all was over.</p>
<p>“Come away,” I said to Stephen and Brother John; “this is no place for
us.”</p>
<p>So we went and gained our huts without molestation and indeed quite
unobserved, for the attention of everyone in Beza Town was fully occupied
elsewhere. From the market-place behind us rose so hideous a clamour that
we rushed into my hut and shut the door to escape or lessen the sound. It
was dark in the hut, for which I was really thankful, for the darkness
seemed to soothe my nerves. Especially was this so when Brother John said:</p>
<p>“Friend, Allan Quatermain, and you, young gentleman, whose name I don’t
know, I will tell you what I think I never mentioned to you before, that,
in addition to being a doctor, I am a clergyman of the American
Episcopalian Church. Well, as a clergyman, I will ask your leave to return
thanks for your very remarkable deliverance from a cruel death.”</p>
<p>“By all means,” I muttered for both of us, and he did so in a most earnest
and beautiful prayer. Brother John may or may not have been a little
touched in the head at this time of his life, but he was certainly an able
and a good man.</p>
<p>Afterwards, as the shrieks and shouting had now died down to a confused
murmur of many voices, we went and sat outside under the projecting eaves
of the hut, where I introduced Stephen Somers to Brother John.</p>
<p>“And now,” I said, “in the name of goodness, where do you come from tied
up in flowers like a Roman priest at sacrifice, and riding on a bull like
the lady called Europa? And what on earth do you mean by playing us such a
scurvy trick down there in Durban, leaving us without a word after you had
agreed to guide us to this hellish hole?”</p>
<p>Brother John stroked his long beard and looked at me reproachfully.</p>
<p>“I guess, Allan,” he said in his American fashion, “there is a mistake
somewhere. To answer the last part of your question first, I did not leave
you without a word; I gave a letter to that lame old Griqua gardener of
yours, Jack, to be handed to you when you arrived.”</p>
<p>“Then the idiot either lost it and lied to me, as Griquas will, or he
forgot all about it.”</p>
<p>“That is likely. I ought to have thought of that, Allan, but I didn’t.
Well, in that letter I said that I would meet you here, where I should
have been six weeks ago awaiting you. Also I sent a message to Bausi to
warn him of your coming in case I should be delayed, but I suppose that
something happened to it on the road.”</p>
<p>“Why did you not wait and come with us like a sensible man?”</p>
<p>“Allan, as you ask me straight out, I will tell you, although the subject
is one of which I do not care to speak. I knew that you were going to
journey by Kilwa; indeed it was your only route with a lot of people and
so much baggage, and I did not wish to visit Kilwa.” He paused, then went
on: “A long while ago, nearly twenty-three years to be accurate, I went to
live at Kilwa as a missionary with my young wife. I built a mission
station and a church there, and we were happy and fairly successful in our
work. Then on one evil day the Swahili and other Arabs came in dhows to
establish a slave-dealing station. I resisted them, and the end of it was
that they attacked us, killed most of my people and enslaved the rest. In
that attack I received a cut from a sword on the head—look, here is
the mark of it,” and drawing his white hair apart he showed us a long scar
that was plainly visible in the moonlight.</p>
<p>“The blow knocked me senseless just about sunset one evening. When I came
to myself again it was broad daylight and everybody was gone, except one
old woman who was tending me. She was half-crazed with grief because her
husband and two sons had been killed, and another son, a boy, and a
daughter had been taken away. I asked her where my young wife was. She
answered that she, too, had been taken away eight or ten hours before,
because the Arabs had seen the lights of a ship out at sea, and thought
they might be those of a British man-of-war that was known to be cruising
on the coast. On seeing these they had fled inland in a hurry, leaving me
for dead, but killing the wounded before they went. The old woman herself
had escaped by hiding among some rocks on the seashore, and after the
Arabs had gone had crept back to the house and found me still alive.</p>
<p>“I asked her where my wife had been taken. She said she did not know, but
some others of our people told her that they had heard the Arabs say they
were going to some place a hundred miles inland, to join their leader, a
half-bred villain named Hassan-ben-Mohammed, to whom they were carrying my
wife as a present.</p>
<p>“Now we knew this wretch, for after the Arabs landed at Kilwa, but before
actual hostilities broke out between us, he had fallen sick of smallpox
and my wife had helped to nurse him. Had it not been for her, indeed, he
would have died. However, although the leader of the band, he was not
present at the attack, being engaged in some slave-raiding business in the
interior.</p>
<p>“When I learned this terrible news, the shock of it, or the loss of blood,
brought on a return of insensibility, from which I only awoke two days
later to find myself on board a Dutch trading vessel that was sailing for
Zanzibar. It was the lights of this ship that the Arabs had seen and
mistaken for those of an English man-of-war. She had put into Kilwa for
water, and the sailors, finding me on the verandah of the house and still
living, in the goodness of their hearts carried me on board. Of the old
woman they had seen nothing; I suppose that at their approach she ran
away.</p>
<p>“At Zanzibar, in an almost dying condition, I was handed over to a
clergyman of our mission, in whose house I lay desperately ill for a long
while. Indeed six months went by before I fully recovered my right mind.
Some people say that I have never recovered it; perhaps you are one of
them, Allan.</p>
<p>“At last the wound in my skull healed, after a clever English naval
surgeon had removed some bits of splintered bone, and my strength came
back to me. I was and still am an American subject, and in those days we
had no consul at Zanzibar, if there is one there now, of which I am not
sure, and of course no warship. The English made what inquiries they could
for me, but could find out little or nothing, since all the country about
Kilwa was in possession of Arab slave-traders who were supported by a
ruffian who called himself the Sultan of Zanzibar.”</p>
<p>Again he paused, as though overcome by the sadness of his recollections.</p>
<p>“Did you never hear any more of your wife?” asked Stephen.</p>
<p>“Yes, Mr. Somers; I heard at Zanzibar from a slave whom our mission bought
and freed, that he had seen a white woman who answered to her description
alive and apparently well, at some place I was unable to identify. He
could only tell me that it was fifteen days’ journey from the coast. She
was then in charge of some black people, he did not know of what tribe,
who, he believed, had found her wandering in the bush. He noted that the
black people seemed to treat her with the greatest reverence, although
they could not understand what she said. On the following day, whilst
searching for six lost goats, he was captured by Arabs who, he heard
afterwards, were out looking for this white woman. The day after the man
had told me this, he was seized with inflammation of the lungs, of which,
being in a weak state from his sufferings in the slave gang, he quickly
died. Now you will understand why I was not particularly anxious to
revisit Kilwa.”</p>
<p>“Yes,” I said, “we understand that, and a good deal more of which we will
talk later. But, to change the subject, where do you come from now, and
how did you happen to turn up just in the nick of time?”</p>
<p>“I was journeying here across country by a route I will show you on my
map,” he answered, “when I met with an accident to my leg” (here Stephen
and I looked at each other) “which kept me laid up in a Kaffir hut for six
weeks. When I got better, as I could not walk very well I rode upon oxen
that I had trained. That white beast you saw is the last of them; the
others died of the bite of the tsetse fly. A fear which I could not define
caused me to press forward as fast as possible; for the last twenty-four
hours I have scarcely stopped to eat or sleep. When I got into the Mazitu
country this morning I found the kraals empty, except for some women and
girls, who knew me again, and threw these flowers over me. They told me
that all the men had gone to Beza Town for a great feast, but what the
feast was they either did not know or would not reveal. So I hurried on
and arrived in time—thank God in time! It is a long story; I will
tell you the details afterwards. Now we are all too tired. What’s that
noise?”</p>
<p>I listened and recognised the triumphant song of the Zulu hunters, who
were returning from the savage scene in the market-place. Presently they
arrived, headed by Sammy, a very different Sammy from the wailing creature
who had gone out to execution an hour or two before. Now he was the gayest
of the gay, and about his neck were strung certain weird ornaments which I
identified as the personal property of Imbozwi.</p>
<p>“Virtue is victorious and justice has been done, Mr. Quatermain. These are
the spoils of war,” he said, pointing to the trappings of the late
witch-doctor.</p>
<p>“Oh! get out, you little cur! We want to know nothing more,” I said. “Go,
cook us some supper,” and he went, not in the least abashed.</p>
<p>The hunters were carrying between them what appeared to be the body of
Hans. At first I was frightened, thinking that he must be dead, but
examination showed that he was only in a state of insensibility such as
might be induced by laudanum. Brother John ordered him to be wrapped up in
a blanket and laid by the fire, and this was done.</p>
<p>Presently Mavovo approached and squatted down in front of us.</p>
<p>“Macumazana, my father,” he said quietly, “what words have you for me?”</p>
<p>“Words of thanks, Mavovo. If you had not been so quick, Imbozwi would have
finished me. As it is, the knife only touched my skin without breaking it,
for Dogeetah has looked to see.”</p>
<p>Mavovo waved his hand as though to sweep this little matter aside, and
asked, looking me straight in the eyes:</p>
<p>“And what other words, Macumazana? As to my Snake I mean.”</p>
<p>“Only that you were right and I was wrong,” I answered shamefacedly.
“Things have happened as you foretold, how or why I do not understand.”</p>
<p>“No, my father, because you white men are so vain” (“blown out” was his
word), “that you think you have all wisdom. Now you have learned that this
is not so. I am content. The false doctors are all dead, my father, and I
think that Imbozwi——”</p>
<p>I held up my hand, not wishing to hear details. Mavovo rose, and with a
little smile, went about his business.</p>
<p>“What does he mean about his Snake?” inquired Brother John curiously.</p>
<p>I told him as briefly as I could, and asked him if he could explain the
matter. He shook his head.</p>
<p>“The strangest example of native vision that I have ever heard of,” he
answered, “and the most useful. Explain! There is no explanation, except
the old one that there are more things in heaven and earth, etc., and that
God gives different gifts to different men.”</p>
<p>Then we ate our supper; I think one of the most joyful meals of which I
have ever partaken. It is wonderful how good food tastes when one never
expected to swallow another mouthful. After it was finished the others
went to bed but, with the still unconscious Hans for my only companion, I
sat for a while smoking by the fire, for on this high tableland the air
was chilly. I felt that as yet I could not sleep; if for no other reason
because of the noise that the Mazitu were making in the town, I suppose in
celebration of the execution of the terrible witch-doctors and the return
of Dogeetah.</p>
<p>Suddenly Hans awoke, and sitting up, stared at me through the bright flame
which I had recently fed with dry wood.</p>
<p>“Baas,” he said in a hollow voice, “there you are, here I am, and there is
the fire which never goes out, a very good fire. But, Baas, why are we not
inside of it as your father the Predikant promised, instead of outside
here in the cold?”</p>
<p>“Because you are still in the world, you old fool, and not where you
deserve to be,” I answered. “Because Mavovo’s Snake was a snake with a
true tongue after all, and Dogeetah came as it foretold. Because we are
all alive and well, and it is Imbozwi with his spawn who are dead upon the
posts. That is why, Hans, as you would have seen for yourself if you had
kept awake, instead of swallowing filthy medicine like a frightened woman,
just because you were afraid of death, which at your age you ought to have
welcomed.”</p>
<p>“Oh! Baas,” broke in Hans, “don’t tell me that things are so and that we
are really alive in what your honoured father used to call this gourd full
of tears. Don’t tell me, Baas, that I made a coward of myself and
swallowed that beastliness—if you knew what it was made of you would
understand, Baas—for nothing but a bad headache. Don’t tell me that
Dogeetah came when my eyes were not open to see him, and worst of all,
that Imbozwi and his children were tied to those poles when I was not able
to help them out of the bottle of tears into the fire that burns for ever
and ever. Oh! it is too much, and I swear, Baas, that however often I have
to die, henceforward it shall always be with my eyes open,” and holding
his aching head between his hands he rocked himself to and fro in bitter
grief.</p>
<p>Well might Hans be sad, seeing that he never heard the last of the
incident. The hunters invented a new and gigantic name for him, which
meant “The little-yellow-mouse-who-feeds-on-sleep-while-the-black-rats
eat-up-their-enemies.” Even Sammy made a mock of him, showing him the
spoils which he declared he had wrenched unaided from the mighty master of
magic, Imbozwi. As indeed he had—after the said Imbozwi was stone
dead at the stake.</p>
<p>It was very amusing until things grew so bad that I feared Hans would kill
Sammy, and had to put a stop to the joke.</p>
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