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<h2> CHAPTER XX<br/> THE BATTLE OF THE GATE </h2>
<p>By now heavy firing had begun at the north gate of the town, accompanied
by much shouting. The mist was still too thick to enable us to see
anything at first. But shortly after the commencement of the firing a
strong, hot wind, which always followed these mists, got up and gradually
gathered to a gale, blowing away the vapours. Then from the top of the
crest, Hans, who had climbed a tree there, reported that the Arabs were
advancing on the north gate, firing as they came, and that the Mazitu were
replying with their bows and arrows from behind the palisade that
surrounded the town. This palisade, I should state, consisted of an
earthen bank on the top of which tree trunks were set close together. Many
of these had struck in that fertile soil, so that in general appearance
this protective work resembled a huge live fence, on the outer and inner
side of which grew great masses of prickly pear and tall, finger-like
cacti. A while afterwards Hans reported that the Mazitu were retreating
and a few minutes later they began to arrive through the south gate,
bringing several wounded with them. Their captain said that they could not
stand against the fire of the guns and had determined to abandon the town
and make the best fight they could upon the ridge.</p>
<p>A little later the rest of the Mazitu came, driving before them all the
non-combatants who remained in the town. With these was King Bausi, in a
terrible state of excitement.</p>
<p>“Was I not wise, Macumazana,” he shouted, “to fear the slave-traders and
their guns? Now they have come to kill those who are old and to take the
young away in their gangs to sell them.”</p>
<p>“Yes, King,” I could not help answering, “you were wise. But if you had
done what I said and kept a better look-out Hassan could not have crept on
you like a leopard on a goat.”</p>
<p>“It is true,” he groaned; “but who knows the taste of a fruit till he has
bitten it?”</p>
<p>Then he went to see to the disposal of his soldiers along the ridge,
placing, by my advice, the most of them at each end of the line to
frustrate any attempt to out-flank us. We, for our part, busied ourselves
in serving out those guns which we had taken in the first fight with the
slavers to the thirty or forty picked men whom I had been instructing in
the use of firearms. If they did not do much damage, at least, I thought,
they could make a noise and impress the enemy with the idea that we were
well armed.</p>
<p>Ten minutes or so later Babemba arrived with about fifty men, all the
Mazitu soldiers who were left in the town. He reported that he had held
the north gate as long as he could in order to gain time, and that the
Arabs were breaking it in. I begged him to order the soldiers to pile up
stones as a defence against the bullets and to lie down behind them. This
he went to do.</p>
<p>Then, after a pause, we saw a large body of the Arabs who had effected an
entry, advancing down the central street towards us. Some of them had
spears as well as guns, on which they carried a dozen or so of human heads
cut from the Mazitus who had been killed, waving them aloft and shouting
in triumph. It was a sickening sight, and one that made me grind my teeth
with rage. Also I could not help reflecting that ere long our heads might
be upon those spears. Well, if the worst came to the worst I was
determined that I would not be taken alive to be burned in a slow fire or
pinned over an ant-heap, a point upon which the others agreed with me,
though poor Brother John had scruples as to suicide, even in despair.</p>
<p>It was just then that I missed Hans and asked where he had gone. Somebody
said that he thought he had seen him running away, whereon Mavovo, who was
growing excited, called out:</p>
<p>“Ah! Spotted Snake has sought his hole. Snakes hiss, but they do not
charge.”</p>
<p>“No, but sometimes they bite,” I answered, for I could not believe that
Hans had showed the white feather. However, he was gone and clearly we
were in no state to send to look for him.</p>
<p>Now our hope was that the slavers, flushed with victory, would advance
across the open ground of the market-place, which we could sweep with our
fire from our position on the ridge. This, indeed, they began to do,
whereon, without orders, the Mazitu to whom we had given the guns, to my
fury and dismay, commenced to blaze away at a range of about four hundred
yards, and after a good deal of firing managed to kill or wound two or
three men. Then the Arabs, seeing their danger, retreated and, after a
pause, renewed their advance in two bodies. This time, however, they
followed the streets of huts that were built thickly between the outer
palisade of the town and the market-place, which, as it had been designed
to hold cattle in time of need, was also surrounded with a wooden fence
strong enough to resist the rush of horned beasts. On that day, I should
add, as the Mazitu never dreamed of being attacked, all their stock were
grazing on some distant veldt. In this space between the two fences were
many hundreds of huts, wattle and grass built, but for the most part
roofed with palm leaves, for here, in their separate quarters, dwelt the
great majority of the inhabitants of Beza Town, of which the northern part
was occupied by the king, the nobles and the captains. This ring of huts,
which entirely surrounded the market-place except at the two gateways, may
have been about a hundred and twenty yards in width.</p>
<p>Down the paths between these huts, both on the eastern and the western
side, advanced the Arabs and half-breeds, of whom there appeared to be
about four hundred, all armed with guns and doubtless trained to fighting.
It was a terrible force for us to face, seeing that although we may have
had nearly as many men, our guns did not total more than fifty, and most
of those who held them were quite unused to the management of firearms.</p>
<p>Soon the Arabs began to open fire on us from behind the huts, and a very
accurate fire it was, as our casualties quickly showed, notwithstanding
the stone <i>schanzes</i> we had constructed. The worst feature of the
thing also was that we could not reply with any effect, as our assailants,
who gradually worked nearer, were effectively screened by the huts, and we
had not enough guns to attempt organised volley firing. Although I tried
to keep a cheerful countenance I confess that I began to fear the worst
and even to wonder if we could possibly attempt to retreat. This idea was
abandoned, however, since the Arabs would certainly overtake and shoot us
down.</p>
<p>One thing I did. I persuaded Babemba to send about fifty men to build up
the southern gate, which was made of trunks of trees and opened outwards,
with earth and the big stones that lay about in plenty. While this was
being done quickly, for the Mazitu soldiers worked at the task like demons
and, being sheltered by the palisade, could not be shot, all of a sudden I
caught sight of four or five wisps of smoke that arose in quick succession
at the north end of the town and were instantly followed by as many bursts
of flame which leapt towards us in the strong wind.</p>
<p>Someone was firing Beza Town! In less than an hour the flames, driven by
the gale through hundreds of huts made dry as tinder by the heat, would
reduce Beza to a heap of ashes. It was inevitable, nothing could save the
place! For an instant I thought that the Arabs must have done this thing.
Then, seeing that new fires continually arose in different places, I
understood that no Arabs, but a friend or friends were at work, who had
conceived the idea of <i>destroying the Arabs with fire</i>.</p>
<p>My mind flew to Sammy. Without doubt Sammy had stayed behind to carry out
this terrible and masterly scheme, of which I am sure none of the Mazitu
would have thought, since it involved the absolute destruction of their
homes and property. Sammy, at whom we had always mocked, was, after all, a
great man, prepared to perish in the flames in order to save his friends!</p>
<p>Babemba rushed up, pointing with a spear to the rising fire. Now my
inspiration came.</p>
<p>“Take all your men,” I said, “except those who are armed with guns. Divide
them, encircle the town, guard the north gate, though I think none can win
back through the flames, and if any of the Arabs succeed in breaking
through the palisade, kill them.”</p>
<p>“It shall be done,” shouted Babemba, “but oh! for the town of Beza where I
was born! Oh! for the town of Beza!”</p>
<p>“Drat the town of Beza!” I holloaed after him, or rather its native
equivalent. “It is of all our lives that I’m thinking.”</p>
<p>Three minutes later the Mazitu, divided into two bodies, were running like
hares to encircle the town, and though a few were shot as they descended
the slope, the most of them gained the shelter of the palisade in safety,
and there at intervals halted by sections, for Babemba managed the matter
very well.</p>
<p>Now only we white people, with the Zulu hunters under Mavovo, of whom
there were twelve in all, and the Mazitu armed with guns, numbering about
thirty, were left upon the slope.</p>
<p>For a little while the Arabs did not seem to realise what had happened,
but engaged themselves in peppering at the Mazitu, who, I think, they
concluded were in full flight. Presently, however, they either heard or
saw.</p>
<p>Oh! what a hubbub ensued. All the four hundred of them began to shout at
once. Some of them ran to the palisade and began to climb it, but as they
reached the top of the fence were pinned by the Mazitu arrows and fell
backwards, while a few who got over became entangled in the prickly pears
on the further side and were promptly speared. Giving up this attempt,
they rushed back along the lane with the intention of escaping at the
north-gate. But before ever they reached the head of the market-place the
roaring, wind-swept flames, leaping from hut to hut, had barred their
path. They could not face that awful furnace.</p>
<p>Now they took another counsel and in a great confused body charged down
the market-place to break out at the south gate, and our turn came. How we
raked them as they sped across the open, an easy mark! I know that I fired
as fast as I could using two rifles, swearing the while at Hans because he
was not there to load for me. Stephen was better off in this respect, for,
looking round, to my astonishment I saw Hope, who had left her mother on
the other side of the hill, in the act of capping his second gun. I should
explain that during our stay in Beza Town we had taught her how to use a
rifle.</p>
<p>I called to him to send her away, but again she would not go, even after a
bullet had pierced her dress.</p>
<p>Still, all our shooting could not stop that rush of men, made desperate by
the fear of a fiery death. Leaving many stretched out behind them, the
first of the Arabs drew near to the south gate.</p>
<p>“My father,” said Mavovo in my ear, “now the real fighting is going to
begin. The gate will soon be down. <i>We</i> must be the gate.”</p>
<p>I nodded, for if the Arabs once got through, there were enough of them
left to wipe us out five times over. Indeed, I do not suppose that up to
this time they had actually lost more than forty men. A few words
explained the situation to Stephen and Brother John, whom I told to take
his daughter to her mother and wait there with them. The Mazitu I ordered
to throw down their guns, for if they kept these I was sure they would
shoot some of us, and to accompany us, bringing their spears only.</p>
<p>Then we rushed down the slope and took up our position in a little open
space in front of the gate, that now was tottering to its fall beneath the
blows and draggings of the Arabs. At this time the sight was terrible and
magnificent, for the flames had got hold of the two half-circles of huts
that embraced the market-place, and, fanned by the blast, were rushing
towards us like a thing alive. Above us swept a great pall of smoke in
which floated flakes of fire, so thick that it hid the sky, though
fortunately the wind did not suffer it to sink and choke us. The sounds
also were almost inconceivable, for to the crackling roar of the
conflagration as it devoured hut after hut, were added the coarse, yelling
voices of the half-breed Arabs, as in mingled rage and terror they tore at
the gateway or each other, and the reports of the guns which many of them
were still firing, half at hazard.</p>
<p>We formed up before the gate, the Zulus with Stephen and myself in front
and the thirty picked Mazitu, commanded by no less a person than Bausi,
the king, behind. We had not long to wait, for presently down the thing
came and over it and the mound of earth and stones we had built beyond,
began to pour a mob of white-robed and turbaned men whose mixed and
tumultuous exit somehow reminded me of the pips and pulp being squeezed
out of a grenadilla fruit.</p>
<p>I gave the word, and we fired into that packed mass with terrible effect.
Really I think that each bullet must have brought down two or three of
them. Then, at a command from Mavovo, the Zulus threw down their guns and
charged with their broad spears. Stephen, who had got hold of an assegai
somehow, went with them, firing a Colt’s revolver as he ran, while at
their backs came Bausi and his thirty tall Mazitu.</p>
<p>I will confess at once that I did not join in this terrific onslaught. I
felt that I had not weight enough for a scrimmage of the sort, also that I
should perhaps be better employed using my wits outside and watching for a
chance to be of service, like a half-back in a football field, than in
getting my brains knocked out in a general row. Or mayhap my heart failed
me and I was afraid. I dare say, for I have never pretended to great
courage. At any rate, I stopped outside and shot whenever I got the
chance, not without effect, filling a humble but perhaps a useful part.</p>
<p>It was really magnificent, that fray. How those Zulus did go in. For quite
a long while they held the narrow gateway and the mound against all the
howling, thrusting mob, much as the Roman called Horatius and his two
friends held the entrance to some bridge or other long ago at Rome against
a great force of I forget whom. They shouted their Zulu battle-cry of <i>Laba!
Laba!</i> that of their regiment, I suppose, for most of them were men of
about the same age, and stabbed and fought and struggled and went down one
by one.</p>
<p>Back the rest of them were swept; then, led by Mavovo, Stephen and Bausi,
charged again, reinforced with the thirty Mazitu. Now the tongues of flame
met almost over them, the growing fence of prickly pear and cacti withered
and crackled, and still they fought on beneath that arch of fire.</p>
<p>Back they were driven again by the mere weight of numbers. I saw Mavovo
stab a man and go down. He rose and stabbed another, then fell again for
he was hard hit.</p>
<p>Two Arabs rushed to kill him. I shot them both with a right and left, for
fortunately my rifle was just reloaded. He rose once more and killed a
third man. Stephen came to his support and grappling with an Arab, dashed
his head against the gate-post so that he fell. Old Bausi, panting like a
grampus, plunged in with his remaining Mazitu and the combatants became so
confused in the dark gloom of the overhanging smoke that I could scarcely
tell one from the other. Yet the maddened Arabs were winning, as they
must, for how could our small and ever-lessening company stand against
their rush?</p>
<p>We were in a little circle now of which somehow I found myself the centre,
and they were attacking us on all sides. Stephen got a knock on the head
from the butt end of a gun, and tumbled against me, nearly upsetting me.
As I recovered myself I looked round in despair.</p>
<p>Now it was that I saw a very welcome sight, namely Hans, yes, the lost
Hans himself, with his filthy hat whereof I noticed even then the frayed
ostrich feathers were smouldering, hanging by a leather strap at the back
of his head. He was shambling along in a sly and silent sort of way, but
at a great rate with his mouth open, beckoning over his shoulder, and
behind him came about one hundred and fifty Mazitu.</p>
<p>Those Mazitu soon put another complexion upon the affair, for charging
with a roar, they drove back the Arabs, who had no space to develop their
line, straight into the jaws of that burning hell. A little later the rest
of the Mazitu returned with Babemba and finished the job. Only quite a few
of the Arabs got out and were captured after they had thrown down their
guns. The rest retreated into the centre of the market-place, whither our
people followed them. In this crisis the blood of these Mazitu told, and
they stuck to the enemy as Zulus themselves would certainly have done.</p>
<p>It was over! Great Heaven! it was over, and we began to count our losses.
Four of the Zulus were dead and two others were badly wounded—no,
three, including Mavovo. They brought him to me leaning on the shoulder of
Babemba and another Mazitu captain. He was a shocking sight, for he was
shot in three places, and badly cut and battered as well. He looked at me
a little while, breathing heavily, then spoke.</p>
<p>“It was a very good fight, my father,” he said. “Of all that I have fought
I can remember none better, although I have been in far greater battles,
which is well as it is my last. I foreknew it, my father, for though I
never told it you, the first death lot that I drew down yonder in Durban
was my own. Take back the gun you gave me, my father. You did but lend it
me for a little while, as I said to you. Now I go to the Underworld to
join the spirits of my ancestors and of those who have fallen at my side
in many wars, and of those women who bore my children. I shall have a tale
to tell them there, my father, and together we will wait for you—till
you, too, die in war!”</p>
<p>Then he lifted up his arm from the neck of Babemba, and saluted me with a
loud cry of <i>Baba! Inkosi!</i> giving me certain great titles which I
will not set down, and having done so sank to the earth.</p>
<p>I sent one of the Mazitu to fetch Brother John, who arrived presently with
his wife and daughter. He examined Mavovo and told him straight out that
nothing could help him except prayer.</p>
<p>“Make no prayers for me, Dogeetah,” said the old heathen; “I have followed
my star,” (i.e. lived according to my lights) “and am ready to eat the
fruit that I have planted. Or if the tree prove barren, then to drink of
its sap and sleep.”</p>
<p>Waving Brother John aside he beckoned to Stephen.</p>
<p>“O Wazela!” he said, “you fought very well in that fight; if you go on as
you have begun in time you will make a warrior of whom the Daughter of the
Flower and her children will sing songs after you have come to join me,
your friend. Meanwhile, farewell! Take this assegai of mine and clean it
not, that the red rust thereon may put you in mind of Mavovo, the old Zulu
doctor and captain with whom you stood side by side in the Battle of the
Gate, when, as though they were winter grass, the fire burnt up the
white-robed thieves of men who could not pass our spears.”</p>
<p>Then he waved his hand again, and Stephen stepped aside muttering
something, for he and Mavovo had been very intimate and his voice choked
in his throat with grief. Now the old Zulu’s glazing eye fell upon Hans,
who was sneaking about, I think with a view of finding an opportunity of
bidding him a last good-bye.</p>
<p>“Ah! Spotted Snake,” he cried, “so you have come out of your hole now that
the fire has passed it, to eat the burnt frogs in the cinders. It is a
pity that you who are so clever should be a coward, since our lord
Macumazana needed one to load for him on the hill and would have killed
more of the hyenas had you been there.”</p>
<p>“Yes, Spotted Snake, it is so,” echoed an indignant chorus of the other
Zulus, while Stephen and I and even the mild Brother John looked at him
reproachfully.</p>
<p>Now Hans, who generally was as patient under affront as a Jew, for once
lost his temper. He dashed his hat upon the ground, and danced on it; he
spat towards the surviving Zulu hunters; he even vituperated the dying
Mavovo.</p>
<p>“O son of a fool!” he said, “you pretend that you can see what is hid from
other men, but I tell you that there is a lying spirit in your lips. You
called me a coward because I am not big and strong as you were, and cannot
hold an ox by the horns, but at least there is more brain in my stomach
than in all your head. Where would all of you be now had it not been for
poor Spotted Snake the ‘coward,’ who twice this day has saved every one of
you, except those whom the Baas’s father, the reverend Predikant, has
marked upon the forehead to come and join him in a place that is even
hotter and brighter than that burning town?”</p>
<p>Now we looked at Hans, wondering what he meant about saving us twice, and
Mavovo said:</p>
<p>“Speak on quickly, O Spotted Snake, for I would hear the end of your
story. How did you help us in your hole?”</p>
<p>Hans began to grub about in his pockets, from which finally he produced a
match-box wherein there remained but one match.</p>
<p>“With this,” he said. “Oh! could none of you see that the men of Hassan
had all walked into a trap? Did none of you know that fire burns thatched
houses, and that a strong wind drives it fast and far? While you sat there
upon the hill with your heads together, like sheep waiting to be killed, I
crept away among the bushes and went about my business. I said nothing to
any of you, not even to the Baas, lest he should answer me, ‘No, Hans,
there may be an old woman sick in one of those huts and therefore you must
not fire them.’ In such matters who does not know that white people are
fools, even the best of them, and in fact there were several old women,
for I saw them running for the gateway. Well, I crept up by the green
fence which I knew would not burn and I came to the north gate. There was
an Arab sentry left there to watch.</p>
<p>“He fired at me, look! Well for Hans his mother bore him short”; and he
pointed to a hole in the filthy hat. “Then before that Arab could load
again, poor coward Hans got his knife into him from behind. Look!” and he
produced a big blade, which was such as butchers use, from his belt and
showed it to us. “After that it was easy, since fire is a wonderful thing.
You make it small and it grows big of itself, like a child, and never gets
tired, and is always hungry, and runs fast as a horse. I lit six of them
where they would burn quickest. Then I saved the last match, since we have
few left, and came through the gate before the fire ate me up; me, its
father, me the Sower of the Red Seed!”</p>
<p>We stared at the old Hottentot in admiration, even Mavovo lifted his dying
head and stared. But Hans, whose annoyance had now evaporated, went on in
a jog-trot mechanical voice:</p>
<p>“As I was returning to find the Baas, if he still lived, the heat of the
fire forced me to the high ground to the west of the fence, so that I saw
what was happening at the south gate, and that the Arab men must break
through there because you who held it were so few. So I ran down to
Babemba and the other captains very quickly, telling them there was no
need to guard the fence any more, and that they must get to the south gate
and help you, since otherwise you would all be killed, and they, too,
would be killed afterwards. Babemba listened to me and started sending out
messengers to collect the others and we got here just in time. Such is the
hole I hid in during the Battle of the Gate, O Mavovo. That is all the
story which I pray that you will tell to the Baas’s reverend father, the
Predikant, presently, for I am sure that it will please him to learn that
he did not teach me to be wise and help all men and always to look after
the Baas Allan, to no purpose. Still, I am sorry that I wasted so many
matches, for where shall we get any more now that the camp is burnt?” and
he gazed ruefully at the all but empty box.</p>
<p>Mavovo spoke once more in a slow, gasping voice.</p>
<p>“Never again,” he said, addressing Hans, “shall you be called Spotted
Snake, O little yellow man who are so great and white of heart. Behold! I
give you a new name, by which you shall be known with honour from
generation to generation. It is ‘Light in Darkness.’ It is ‘Lord of the
Fire.’”</p>
<p>Then he closed his eyes and fell back insensible. Within a few minutes he
was dead. But those high names with which he christened Hans with his
dying breath, clung to the old Hottentot for all his days. Indeed from
that day forward no native would ever have ventured to call him by any
other. Among them, far and wide, they became his titles of honour.</p>
<p>The roar of the flames grew less and the tumult within their fiery circle
died away. For now the Mazitu were returning from the last fight in the
market-place, if fight it could be called, bearing in their arms great
bundles of the guns which they had collected from the dead Arabs, most of
whom had thrown down their weapons in a last wild effort to escape. But
between the spears of the infuriated savages on the one hand and the
devouring fire on the other what escape was there for them? The
blood-stained wretches who remained in the camps and towns of the
slave-traders, along the eastern coast of Africa, or in the Isle of
Madagascar, alone could tell how many were lost, since of those who went
out from them to make war upon the Mazitu and their white friends, none
returned again with the long lines of expected captives. They had gone to
their own place, of which sometimes that flaming African city has seemed
to me a symbol. They were wicked men indeed, devils stalking the earth in
human form, without pity, without shame. Yet I could not help feeling
sorry for them at the last, for truly their end was awful.</p>
<p>They brought the prisoners up to us, and among them, his white robe
half-burnt off him, I recognised the hideous pock-marked
Hassan-ben-Mohammed.</p>
<p>“I received your letter, written a while ago, in which you promised to
make us die by fire, and, this morning, I received your message, Hassan,”
I said, “brought by the wounded lad who escaped from you when you murdered
his companions, and to both I sent you an answer. If none reached you,
look around, for there is one written large in a tongue that all can
read.”</p>
<p>The monster, for he was no less, flung himself upon the ground, praying
for mercy. Indeed, seeing Mrs. Eversley, he crawled to her and catching
hold of her white robe, begged her to intercede for him.</p>
<p>“You made a slave of me after I had nursed you in the spotted sickness,”
she answered, “and tried to kill my husband for no fault. Through you,
Hassan, I have spent all the best years of my life among savages, alone
and in despair. Still, for my part, I forgive you, but oh! may I never see
your face again.”</p>
<p>Then she wrenched herself free from his grasp and went away with her
daughter.</p>
<p>“I, too, forgive you, although you murdered my people and for twenty years
made my time a torment,” said Brother John, who was one of the truest
Christians I have ever known. “May God forgive you also”; and he followed
his wife and daughter.</p>
<p>Then the old king, Bausi, who had come through that battle with a slight
wound, spoke, saying:</p>
<p>“I am glad, Red Thief, that these white people have granted you what you
asked—namely, their forgiveness—since the deed is greatly to
their honour and causes me and my people to think them even nobler than we
did before. But, O murderer of men and women and trafficker in children, I
am judge here, not the white people. Look on your work!” and he pointed
first to the lines of Zulu and Mazitu dead, and then to his burning town.
“Look and remember the fate you promised to us who have never harmed you.
Look! Look! Look! O Hyena of a man!”</p>
<p>At this point I too went away, nor did I ever ask what became of Hassan
and his fellow-captives. Moreover, whenever any of the natives or Hans
tried to inform me, I bade them hold their tongues.</p>
<h2> EPILOGUE </h2>
<p>I have little more to add to this record, which I fear has grown into
quite a long book. Or, at any rate, although the setting of it down has
amused me during the afternoons and evenings of this endless English
winter, now that the spring is come again I seem to have grown weary of
writing. Therefore I shall leave what remains untold to the imagination of
anyone who chances to read these pages.</p>
<p>We were victorious, and had indeed much cause for gratitude who still
lived to look upon the sun. Yet the night that followed the Battle of the
Gate was a sad one, at least for me, who felt the death of my friend the
foresighted hero, Mavovo, of the bombastic but faithful Sammy, and of my
brave hunters more than I can say. Also the old Zulu’s prophecy concerning
me, that I too should die in battle, weighed upon me, who seemed to have
seen enough of such ends in recent days and to desire one more tranquil.</p>
<p>Living here in peaceful England as I do now, with no present prospect of
leaving it, it does not appear likely that it will be fulfilled. Yet,
after my experience of the divining powers of Mavovo’s “Snake”—well,
those words of his make me feel uncomfortable. For when all is said and
done, who can know the future? Moreover, it is the improbable that
generally happens[*]</p>
<p>[*] As the readers of “Allan Quatermain” will be aware, this prophecy of
the dying Zulu was fulfilled. Mr. Quatermain died at Zuvendis as a result
of the wound he received in the battle between the armies of the rival
Queens.—Editor.</p>
<p>Further, the climatic conditions were not conducive to cheerfulness, for
shortly after sunset it began to rain and poured for most of the night,
which, as we had little shelter, was inconvenient both to us and to all
the hundreds of the homeless Mazitu.</p>
<p>However, the rain ceased in due time, and on the following morning the
welcome sun shone out of a clear sky. When we had dried and warmed
ourselves a little in its rays, someone suggested that we should visit the
burned-out town where, except for some smouldering heaps that had been
huts, the fire was extinguished by the heavy rain. More from curiosity
than for any other reason I consented and accompanied by Bausi, Babemba
and many of the Mazitu, all of us, except Brother John, who remained
behind to attend to the wounded, climbed over the debris of the south gate
and walked through the black ruins of the huts, across the market-place
that was strewn with dead, to what had been our own quarters.</p>
<p>These were a melancholy sight, a mere heap of sodden and still smoking
ashes. I could have wept when I looked at them, thinking of all the trade
goods and stores that were consumed beneath, necessities for the most
part, the destruction of which must make our return journey one of great
hardship.</p>
<p>Well, there was nothing to be said or done, so after a few minutes of
contemplation we turned to continue our walk through what had been the
royal quarters to the north gate. Hans, who, I noted, had been ferreting
about in his furtive way as though he were looking for something, and I
were the last to leave. Suddenly he laid his hand upon my arm and said:</p>
<p>“Baas, listen! I hear a ghost. I think it is the ghost of Sammy asking us
to bury him.”</p>
<p>“Bosh!” I answered, and then listened as hard as I could.</p>
<p>Now I also seemed to hear something coming from I knew not where, words
which were frequently repeated and which seemed to be:</p>
<p>“<i>O Mr. Quatermain, I beg you to be so good as to open the door of this
oven.</i>”</p>
<p>For a while I thought I must be cracked. However, I called back the others
and we all listened. Of a sudden Hans made a pounce, like a terrier does
at the run of a mole that he hears working underground, and began to drag,
or rather to shovel, at a heap of ashes in front of us, using a bit of
wood as they were still too hot for his hands. Then we listened again and
this time heard the voice quite clearly coming from the ground.</p>
<p>“Baas,” said Hans, “it is Sammy in the corn-pit!”</p>
<p>Now I remembered that such a pit existed in front of the huts which,
although empty at the time, was, as is common among the Bantu natives,
used to preserve corn that would not immediately be needed. Once I myself
went through a very tragic experience in one of these pits, as any who may
read the history of my first wife, that I have called <i>Marie</i>, can
see for themselves.</p>
<p>Soon we cleared the place and had lifted the stone, with ventilating holes
in it—well was it for Sammy that those ventilating holes existed;
also that the stone did not fit tight. Beneath was a bottle-shaped and
cemented structure about ten feet deep by, say, eight wide. Instantly
through the mouth of this structure appeared the head of Sammy with his
mouth wide open like that of a fish gasping for air. We pulled him out, a
process that caused him to howl, for the heat had made his skin very
tender, and gave him water which one of the Mazitu fetched from a spring.
Then I asked him indignantly what he was doing in that hole, while we
wasted our tears, thinking that he was dead.</p>
<p>“Oh! Mr. Quatermain,” he said, “I am a victim of too faithful service. To
abandon all these valuable possessions of yours to a rapacious enemy was
more than I could bear. So I put every one of them in the pit, and then,
as I thought I heard someone coming, got in myself and pulled down the
stone. But, Mr. Quatermain, soon afterwards the enemy added arson to
murder and pillage, and the whole place began to blaze. I could hear the
fire roaring above and a little later the ashes covered the exit so that I
could no longer lift the stone, which indeed grew too hot to touch. Here,
then, I sat all night in the most suffocating heat, very much afraid, Mr.
Quatermain, lest the two kegs of gunpowder that were with me should
explode, till at last, just as I had abandoned hope and prepared to die
like a tortoise baked alive by a bushman, I heard your welcome voice. And
Mr. Quatermain, if there is any soothing ointment to spare, I shall be
much obliged, for I am scorched all over.”</p>
<p>“Ah! Sammy, Sammy,” I said, “you see what comes of cowardice? On the hill
with us you would not have been scorched, and it is only by the merest
chance of owing to Hans’s quick hearing that you were not left to perish
miserably in that hole.”</p>
<p>“That is so, Mr. Quatermain. I plead guilty to the hot impeachment. But on
the hill I might have been shot, which is worse than being scorched. Also
you gave me charge of your goods and I determined to preserve them even at
the risk of personal comfort. Lastly, the angel who watches me brought you
here in time before I was quite cooked through. So all’s well that ends
well, Mr. Quatermain, though it is true that for my part I have had enough
of bloody war, and if I live to regain civilized regions I propose
henceforth to follow the art of food-dressing in the safe kitchen of an
hotel; that is, if I cannot obtain a berth as an instructor in the English
tongue!”</p>
<p>“Yes,” I answered, “all’s well that ends well, Sammy my boy, and at any
rate you have saved the stores, for which we should be thankful to you. So
go along with Mr. Stephen and get doctored while we haul them out of that
grain-pit.”</p>
<p>Three days later we bid farewell to old Bausi, who almost wept at parting
with us, and the Mazitu, who were already engaged in the re-building of
their town. Mavovo and the other Zulus who died in the Battle of the Gate,
we buried on the ridge opposite to it, raising a mound of earth over them
that thereby they might be remembered in generations to come, and laying
around them the Mazitu who had fallen in the fight. As we passed that
mound on our homeward journey, the Zulus who remained alive, including two
wounded men who were carried in litters, stopped and saluted solemnly,
praising the dead with loud songs. We white people too saluted, but in
silence, by raising our hats.</p>
<p>By the way, I should add that in this matter also Mavovo’s “Snake” did not
lie. He had said that six of his company would be killed upon our
expedition, and six were killed, neither more nor less.</p>
<p>After much consulting we determined to take the overland route back to
Natal, first because it was always possible that the slave-trading
fraternity, hearing of their terrible losses, might try to attack us again
on the coast, and secondly for the reason that even if they did not,
months or perhaps years might pass before we found a ship at Kilwa, then a
port of ill repute, to carry us to any civilized place. Moreover, Brother
John, who had travelled it, knew the inland road well and had established
friendly relations with the tribes through whose country we must pass,
till we reached the brothers of Zululand, where I was always welcome. So
as the Mazitu furnished us with an escort and plenty of bearers for the
first part of the road and, thanks to Sammy’s stewardship in the corn-pit,
we had ample trade goods left to hire others later on, we made up our
minds to risk the longer journey.</p>
<p>As it turned out this was a wise conclusion, since although it took four
weary months, in the end we accomplished it without any accident
whatsoever, if I except a slight attack of fever from which both Miss Hope
and I suffered for a while. Also we got some good shooting on the road. My
only regret was that this change of plan obliged us to abandon the tusks
of ivory we had captured from the slavers and buried where we alone could
find them.</p>
<p>Still, it was a dull time for me, who, for obvious reasons, of which I
have already spoken, was literally a fifth wheel to the coach. Hans was an
excellent fellow, and, as the reader knows, quite a genius in his own way,
but night after night in Hans’s society began to pall on me at last, while
even his conversation about my “reverend father,” who seemed positively to
haunt him, acquired a certain sameness. Of course, we had other subjects
in common, especially those connected with Retief’s massacre, whereof we
were the only two survivors, but of these I seldom cared to speak. They
were and still remain too painful.</p>
<p>Therefore, for my part I was thankful when at last, in Zululand, we fell
in with some traders whom I knew, who hired us one of their wagons. In
this vehicle, abandoning the worn-out donkeys and the white ox, which we
presented to a chief of my acquaintance, Brother John and the ladies
proceeded to Durban, Stephen attending them on a horse that we had bought,
while I, with Hans, attached myself to the traders.</p>
<p>At Durban a surprise awaited us since, as we trekked into the town, which
at that time was still a small place, whom should we meet but Sir
Alexander Somers, who, hearing that wagons were coming from Zululand, had
ridden out in the hope of obtaining news of us. It seemed that the
choleric old gentleman’s anxiety concerning his son had so weighed on his
mind that at length he made up his mind to proceed to Africa to hunt for
him. So there he was. The meeting between the two was affectionate but
peculiar.</p>
<p>“Hullo, dad!” said Stephen. “Whoever would have thought of seeing you
here?”</p>
<p>“Hullo, Stephen,” said his father. “Whoever would have expected to find
you alive and looking well—yes, very well? It is more than you
deserve, you young ass, and I hope you won’t do it again.”</p>
<p>Having delivered himself thus, the old boy seized Stephen by the hair and
solemnly kissed him on the brow.</p>
<p>“No, dad,” answered his son, “I don’t mean to do it again, but thanks to
Allan there we’ve come through all right. And, by the way, let me
introduce you to the lady I am going to marry, also to her father and
mother.”</p>
<p>Well, all the rest may be imagined. They were married a fortnight later in
Durban and a very pleasant affair it was, since Sir Alexander, who by the
way, treated me most handsomely from a business point of view, literally
entertained the whole town on that festive occasion. Immediately
afterwards Stephen, accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. Eversley and his father,
took his wife home “to be educated,” though what that process consisted of
I never heard. Hans and I saw them off at the Point and our parting was
rather sad, although Hans went back the richer by the £500 which Stephen
had promised him. He bought a farm with the money, and on the strength of
his exploits, established himself as a kind of little chief. Of whom more
later—as they say in the pedigree books.</p>
<p>Sammy, too, was set up as the proprietor of a small hotel, where he spent
most of his time in the bar dilating to the customers in magnificent
sentences that reminded me of the style of a poem called “The Essay on
Man” (which I once tried to read and couldn’t), about his feats as a
warrior among the wild Mazitu and the man-eating, devil-worshipping Pongo
tribes.</p>
<p>Two years or less afterwards I received a letter, from which I must quote
a passage:</p>
<p>“As I told you, my father has given a living which he owns to Mr.<br/>
Eversley, a pretty little place where there isn’t much for a<br/>
parson to do. I think it rather bores my respected parents-in-law.<br/>
At any rate, ‘Dogeetah’ spends a lot of his time wandering about<br/>
the New Forest, which is near by, with a butterfly-net and trying<br/>
to imagine that he is back in Africa. The ‘Mother of the Flower’<br/>
(who, after a long course of boot-kissing mutes, doesn’t get on<br/>
with English servants) has another amusement. There is a small<br/>
lake in the Rectory grounds in which is a little island. Here she<br/>
has put up a reed fence round a laurustinus bush which flowers at<br/>
the same time of year as did the Holy Flower, and within this reed<br/>
fence she sits whenever the weather will allow, as I believe going<br/>
through ‘the rites of the Flower.’ At least when I called upon her<br/>
there one day, in a boat, I found her wearing a white robe and<br/>
singing some mystical native song.”<br/></p>
<p>Many years have gone by since then. Both Brother John and his wife have
departed to their rest and their strange story, the strangest almost of
all stories, is practically forgotten. Stephen, whose father has also
departed, is a prosperous baronet and rather heavy member of Parliament
and magistrate, the father of many fine children, for the Miss Hope of old
days has proved as fruitful as a daughter of the Goddess of Fertility, for
that was the “Mother’s” real office, ought to be.</p>
<p>“Sometimes,” she said to me one day with a laugh, as she surveyed a large
(and noisy) selection of her numerous offspring, “sometimes, O Allan”—she
still retains that trick of speech—“I wish that I were back in the
peace of the Home of the Flower. Ah!” she added with something of a thrill
in her voice, “never can I forget the blue of the sacred lake or the sight
of those skies at dawn. Do you think that I shall see them again when I
die, O Allan?”</p>
<p>At the time I thought it rather ungrateful of her to speak thus, but after
all human nature is a queer thing and we are all of us attached to the
scenes of our childhood and long at times again to breathe our natal air.</p>
<p>I went to see Sir Stephen the other day, and in his splendid greenhouses
the head gardener, Woodden, an old man now, showed me three noble,
long-leaved plants which sprang from the seed of the Holy Flower that I
had saved in my pocket.</p>
<p>But they have not yet bloomed.</p>
<p>Somehow I wonder what will happen when they do. It seems to me as though
when once more the glory of that golden bloom is seen of the eyes of men,
the ghosts of the terrible god of the Forest, of the hellish and
mysterious Motombo, and perhaps of the Mother of the Flower herself, will
be there to do it reverence. If so, what gifts will they bring to those
who stole and reared the sacred seed?</p>
<p>P.S.—I shall know ere long, for just as I laid down my pen a
triumphant epistle from Stephen was handed to me in which he writes
excitedly that at length two of the three plants are <i>showing for flower</i>.</p>
<p>Allan Quatermain.<br/></p>
<p><br/></p>
<hr />
<p><br/></p>
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