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_ A week had passed, and we all sat at supper one night in the
Mission dining-room, feeling very much depressed in spirits, for
the reason that we were going to say goodbye to our kind friends,
the Mackenzies, and depart upon our way at dawn on the morrow.
Nothing more had been seen or heard of the Masai, and save for a
spear or two which had been overlooked and was rusting in the
grass, and a few empty cartridges where we had stood outside the
wall, it would have been difficult to tell that the old cattle
kraal at the foot of the slope had been the scene of so desperate
a struggle. Mackenzie was, thanks chiefly to his being so
temperate a man, rapidly recovering from his wound, and could get
about on a pair of crutches; and as for the other wounded men,
one had died of gangrene, and the rest were in a fair way to
recovery. Mr Mackenzie's caravan of men had also returned from
the coast, so that the station was now amply garrisoned.
Under these circumstances we concluded, warm and pressing as were
the invitations for us to stay, that it was time to move on,
first to Mount Kenia, and thence into the unknown in search of
the mysterious white race which we had set our hearts on
discovering. This time we were going to progress by means of the
humble but useful donkey, of which we had collected no less than
a dozen, to carry our goods and chattels, and, if necessary,
ourselves. We had now but two Wakwafis left for servants, and
found it quite impossible to get other natives to venture with us
into the unknown parts we proposed to explore--and small blame to
them. After all, as Mr Mackenzie said, it was odd that three
men, each of whom possessed many of those things that are
supposed to make life worth living--health, sufficient means, and
position, etc.--should from their own pleasure start out upon a
wild-goose chase, from which the chances were they never would
return. But then that is what Englishmen are, adventurers to the
backbone; and all our magnificent muster-roll of colonies, each
of which will in time become a great nation, testify to the
extraordinary value of the spirit of adventure which at first
sight looks like a mild form of lunacy. 'Adventurer'--he that
goes out to meet whatever may come. Well, that is what we all do
in the world one way or another, and, speaking for myself, I am
proud of the title, because it implies a brave heart and a trust
in Providence. Besides, when many and many a noted Croesus, at
whose feet the people worship, and many and many a time-serving
and word-coining politician are forgotten, the names of those
grand-hearted old adventurers who have made England what she is,
will be remembered and taught with love and pride to little
children whose unshaped spirits yet slumber in the womb of
centuries to be. Not that we three can expect to be numbered
with such as these, yet have we done something--enough, perhaps,
to throw a garment over the nakedness of our folly.
That evening, whilst we were sitting on the veranda, smoking a
pipe before turning in, who should come up to us but Alphonse,
and, with a magnificent bow, announce his wish for an interview.
Being requested to 'fire away', he explained at some length that
he was anxious to attach himself to our party--a statement that
astonished me not a little, knowing what a coward the little man
was. The reason, however, soon appeared. Mr Mackenzie was going
down to the coast, and thence on to England. Now, if he went
down country, Alphonse was persuaded that he would be seized,
extradited, sent to France, and to penal servitude. This was the
idea that haunted him, as King Charles's head haunted Mr Dick,
and he brooded over it till his imagination exaggerated the
danger ten times. As a matter of fact, the probability is that
his offence against the laws of his country had long ago been
forgotten, and that he would have been allowed to pass unmolested
anywhere except in France; but he could not be got to see this.
Constitutional coward as the little man was, he infinitely
preferred to face the certain hardships and great risks and
dangers of such an expedition as ours, than to expose himself,
notwithstanding his intense longing for his native land, to the
possible scrutiny of a police officer--which is after all only
another exemplification of the truth that, to the majority of
men, a far-off foreseen danger, however shadowy, is much more
terrible than the most serious present emergency. After
listening to what he had to say, we consulted among ourselves,
and finally agreed, with Mr Mackenzie's knowledge and consent, to
accept his offer. To begin with, we were very short-handed, and
Alphonse was a quick, active fellow, who could turn his hand to
anything, and cook--ah, he COULD cook! I believe that he would
have made a palatable dish of those gaiters of his heroic
grandfather which he was so fond of talking about. Then he was a
good-tempered little man, and merry as a monkey, whilst his
pompous, vainglorious talk was a source of infinite amusement to
us; and what is more, he never bore malice. Of course, his being
so pronounced a coward was a great drawback to him, but now that
we knew his weakness we could more or less guard against it. So,
after warning him of the undoubted risks he was exposing himself
to, we told him that we would accept his offer on condition that
he would promise implicit obedience to our orders. We also
promised to give him wages at the rate of ten pounds a month
should he ever return to a civilized country to receive them. To
all of this he agreed with alacrity, and retired to write a
letter to his Annette, which Mr Mackenzie promised to post when
he got down country. He read it to us afterwards, Sir Henry
translating, and a wonderful composition it was. I am sure the
depth of his devotion and the narration of his sufferings in a
barbarous country, 'far, far from thee, Annette, for whose adored
sake I endure such sorrow,' ought to have touched the feelings of
the stoniest-hearted chambermaid.
Well, the morrow came, and by seven o'clock the donkeys were all
loaded, and the time of parting was at hand. It was a melancholy
business, especially saying goodbye to dear little Flossie. She
and I were great friends, and often used to have talks
together--but her nerves had never got over the shock of that
awful night when she lay in the power of those bloodthirsty
Masai. 'Oh, Mr Quatermain,' she cried, throwing her arms round
my neck and bursting into tears, 'I can't bear to say goodbye to
you. I wonder when we shall meet again?'
'I don't know, my dear little girl,' I said, 'I am at one end of
life and you are at the other. I have but a short time before me
at best, and most things lie in the past, but I hope that for you
there are many long and happy years, and everything lies in the
future. By-and-by you will grow into a beautiful woman, Flossie,
and all this wild life will be like a far-off dream to you; but I
hope, even if we never do meet again, that you will think of your
old friend and remember what I say to you now. Always try to be
good, my dear, and to do what is right, rather than what happens
to be pleasant, for in the end, whatever sneering people may say,
what is good and what is happy are the same. Be unselfish, and
whenever you can, give a helping hand to others--for the world is
full of suffering, my dear, and to alleviate it is the noblest
end that we can set before us. If you do that you will become a
sweet and God-fearing woman, and make many people's lives a
little brighter, and then you will not have lived, as so many of
your sex do, in vain. And now I have given you a lot of
old-fashioned advice, and so I am going to give you something to
sweeten it with. You see this little piece of paper. It is what
is called a cheque. When we are gone give it to your father with
this note--not before, mind. You will marry one day, my dear
little Flossie, and it is to buy you a wedding present which you
are to wear, and your daughter after you, if you have one, in
remembrance of Hunter Quatermain.
Poor little Flossie cried very much, and gave me a lock of her
bright hair in return, which I still have. The cheque I gave her
was for a thousand pounds (which being now well off, and having
no calls upon me except those of charity, I could well afford),
and in the note I directed her father to invest it for her in
Government security, and when she married or came of age to buy
her the best diamond necklace he could get for the money and
accumulated interest. I chose diamonds because I think that now
that King Solomon's Mines are lost to the world, their price will
never be much lower than it is at present, so that if in
after-life she should ever be in pecuniary difficulties, she will
be able to turn them into money.
Well, at last we got off, after much hand-shaking, hat-waving,
and also farewell saluting from the natives, Alphonse weeping
copiously (for he has a warm heart) at parting with his master
and mistress; and I was not sorry for it at all, for I hate those
goodbyes. Perhaps the most affecting thing of all was to witness
Umslopogaas' distress at parting with Flossie, for whom the grim
old warrior had conceived a strong affection. He used to say
that she was as sweet to see as the only star on a dark night,
and was never tired of loudly congratulating himself on having
killed the Lygonani who had threatened to murder her. And that
was the last we saw of the pleasant Mission-house--a true oasis
in the desert--and of European civilization. But I often think
of the Mackenzies, and wonder how they got down country, and if
they are now safe and well in England, and will ever see these
words. Dear little Flossie! I wonder how she fares there where
there are no black folk to do her imperious bidding, and no
sky-piercing snow-clad Kenia for her to look at when she gets up
in the morning. And so goodbye to Flossie.
After leaving the Mission-house we made our way, comparatively
unmolested, past the base of Mount Kenia, which the Masai call
'Donyo Egere', or the 'speckled mountain', on account of the
black patches of rock that appear upon its mighty spire, where
the sides are too precipitous to allow of the snow lying on them;
then on past the lonely lake Baringo, where one of our two
remaining Askari, having unfortunately trodden on a puff-adder,
died of snake-bite, in spite of all our efforts to save him.
Thence we proceeded a distance of about a hundred and fifty miles
to another magnificent snow-clad mountain called Lekakisera,
which has never, to the best of my belief, been visited before by
a European, but which I cannot now stop to describe. There we
rested a fortnight, and then started out into the trackless and
uninhabited forest of a vast district called Elgumi. In this
forest alone there are more elephants than I ever met with or
heard with before. The mighty mammals literally swarm there
entirely unmolested by man, and only kept down by the natural law
that prevents any animals increasing beyond the capacity of the
country they inhabit to support them. Needless to say, however,
we did not shoot many of them, first because we could not afford
to waste ammunition, of which our stock was getting perilously
low, a donkey loaded with it having been swept away in fording a
flooded river; and secondly, because we could not carry away the
ivory, and did not wish to kill for the mere sake of slaughter.
So we let the great beasts be, only shooting one or two in
self-protection. In this district, the elephants, being
unacquainted with the hunter and his tender mercies, would allow
one to walk up to within twenty yards of them in the open, while
they stood, with their great ears cocked for all the world like
puzzled and gigantic puppy-dogs, and stared at that new and
extraordinary phenomenon--man. Occasionally, when the inspection
did not prove satisfactory, the staring ended in a trumpet and a
charge, but this did not often happen. When it did we had to use
our rifles. Nor were elephants the only wild beasts in the great
Elgumi forest. All sorts of large game abounded, including
lions--confound them! I have always hated the sight of a lion
since one bit my leg and lamed me for life. As a consequence,
another thing that abounded was the dreadful tsetse fly, whose
bite is death to domestic animals. Donkeys have, together with
men, hitherto been supposed to enjoy a peculiar immunity from its
attacks; but all I have to say, whether it was on account of
their poor condition, or because the tsetse in those parts is
more poisonous than usual, I do not know, but ours succumbed to
its onslaught. Fortunately, however, that was not till two
months or so after the bites had been inflicted, when suddenly,
after a two days' cold rain, they all died, and on removing the
skins of several of them I found the long yellow streaks upon the
flesh which are characteristic of death from bites from the
tsetse, marking the spot where the insect had inserted his
proboscis. On emerging from the great Elgumi forest, we, still
steering northwards, in accordance with the information Mr
Mackenzie had collected from the unfortunate wanderer who reached
him only to die so tragically, struck the base in due course of
the large lake, called Laga by the natives, which is about fifty
miles long by twenty broad, and of which, it may be remembered,
he made mention. Thence we pushed on nearly a month's journey
over great rolling uplands, something like those in the
Transvaal, but diversified by patches of bush country.
All this time we were continually ascending at the rate of about
one hundred feet every ten miles. Indeed the country was on a
slope which appeared to terminate at a mass of snow-tipped
mountains, for which we were steering, and where we learnt the
second lake of which the wanderer had spoken as the lake without
a bottom was situated. At length we arrived there, and, having
ascertained that there WAS a large lake on top of the mountains,
ascended three thousand feet more till we came to a precipitous
cliff or edge, to find a great sheet of water some twenty miles
square lying fifteen hundred feet below us, and evidently
occupying an extinct volcanic crater or craters of vast extent.
Perceiving villages on the border of this lake, we descended with
great difficulty through forests of pine trees, which now clothed
the precipitous sides of the crater, and were well received by
the people, a simple, unwarlike folk, who had never seen or even
heard of a white man before, and treated us with great reverence
and kindness, supplying us with as much food and milk as we could
eat and drink. This wonderful and beautiful lake lay, according
to our aneroid, at a height of no less than 11,450 feet above
sea-level, and its climate was quite cold, and not at all unlike
that of England. Indeed, for the first three days of our stay
there we saw little or nothing of the scenery on account of an
unmistakable Scotch mist which prevailed. It was this rain that
set the tsetse poison working in our remaining donkeys, so that
they all died.
This disaster left us in a very awkward position, as we had now
no means of transport whatever, though on the other hand we had
not much to carry. Ammunition, too, was very short, amounting to
but one hundred and fifty rounds of rifle cartridges and some
fifty shot-gun cartridges. How to get on we did not know; indeed
it seemed to us that we had about reached the end of our tether.
Even if we had been inclined to abandon the object of our search,
which, shadow as it was, was by no means the case, it was
ridiculous to think of forcing our way back some seven hundred
miles to the coast in our present plight; so we came to the
conclusion that the only thing to be done was to stop where we
were--the natives being so well disposed and food plentiful--for
the present, and abide events, and try to collect information as
to the countries beyond.
Accordingly, having purchased a capital log canoe, large enough
to hold us all and our baggage, from the headman of the village
we were staying in, presenting him with three empty cold-drawn
brass cartridges by way of payment, with which he was perfectly
delighted, we set out to make a tour of the lake in order to find
the most favourable place to make a camp. As we did not know if
we should return to this village, we put all our gear into the
canoe, and also a quarter of cooked water-buck, which when young
is delicious eating, and off we set, natives having already gone
before us in light canoes to warn the inhabitants of the other
villages of our approach.
As we were puddling leisurely along Good remarked upon the
extraordinary deep blue colour of the water, and said that he
understood from the natives, who were great fishermen--fish,
indeed, being their principal food--that the lake was supposed to
be wonderfully deep, and to have a hole at the bottom through
which the water escaped and put out some great fire that was
raging below.
I pointed out to him that what he had heard was probably a legend
arising from a tradition among the people which dated back to the
time when one of the extinct parasitic volcanic cones was in
activity. We saw several round the borders of the lake which had
no doubt been working at a period long subsequent to the volcanic
death of the central crater which now formed the bed of the lake
itself. When it finally became extinct the people would imagine
that the water from the lake had run down and put out the big
fire below, more especially as, though it was constantly fed by
streams running from the snow-tipped peaks about, there was no
visible exit to it.
The farther shore of the lake we found, on approaching it, to
consist of a vast perpendicular wall of rock, which held the
water without any intermediate sloping bank, as elsewhere.
Accordingly we paddled parallel with this precipice, at a
distance of about a hundred paces from it, shaping our course for
the end of the lake, where we knew that there was a large
village.
As we went we began to pass a considerable accumulation of
floating rushes, weed, boughs of trees, and other rubbish,
brought, Good supposed, to this spot by some current, which he
was much puzzled to account for. Whilst we were speculating
about this, Sir Henry pointed out a flock of large white swans,
which were feeding on the drift some little way ahead of us. Now
I had already noticed swans flying about this lake, and, having
never come across them before in Africa, was exceedingly anxious
to obtain a specimen. I had questioned the natives about them,
and learnt that they came from over the mountain, always arriving
at certain periods of the year in the early morning, when it was
very easy to catch them, on account of their exhausted condition.
I also asked them what country they came from, when they shrugged
their shoulders, and said that on the top of the great black
precipice was stony inhospitable land, and beyond that were
mountains with snow, and full of wild beasts, where no people
lived, and beyond the mountains were hundreds of miles of dense
thorn forest, so thick that even the elephants could not get
through it, much less men. Next I asked them if they had ever
heard of white people like ourselves living on the farther side
of the mountains and the thorn forest, whereat they laughed. But
afterwards a very old woman came and told me that when she was a
little girl her grandfather had told her that in his youth HIS
grandfather had crossed the desert and the mountains, and pierced
the thorn forest, and seen a white people who lived in stone
kraals beyond. Of course, as this took the tale back some two
hundred and fifty years, the information was very indefinite; but
still there it was again, and on thinking it over I grew firmly
convinced that there was some truth in all these rumours, and
equally firmly determined to solve the mystery. Little did I
guess in what an almost miraculous way my desire was to be
gratified.
Well, we set to work to stalk the swans, which kept drawing, as
they fed, nearer and nearer to the precipice, and at last we
pushed the canoe under shelter of a patch of drift within forty
yards of them. Sir Henry had the shot-gun, loaded with No. 1,
and, waiting for a chance, got two in a line, and, firing at
their necks, killed them both. Up rose the rest, thirty or more
of them, with a mighty splashing; and, as they did so, he gave
them the other barrel. Down came one fellow with a broken wing,
and I saw the leg of another drop and a few feathers start out of
his back; but he went on quite strong. Up went the swans,
circling ever higher till at last they were mere specks level
with the top of the frowning precipice, when I saw them form into
a triangle and head off for the unknown north-east. Meanwhile we
had picked up our two dead ones, and beautiful birds they were,
weighing not less than about thirty pounds each, and were chasing
the winged one, which had scrambled over a mass of driftweed into
a pool of clear water beyond. Finding a difficulty in forcing
the canoe through the rubbish, I told our only remaining Wakwafi
servant, whom I knew to be an excellent swimmer, to jump over,
dive under the drift, and catch him, knowing that as there were
no crocodiles in this lake he could come to no harm. Entering
into the fun of the thing, the man obeyed, and soon was dodging
about after the winged swan in fine style, getting gradually
nearer to the rock wall, against which the water washed as he did
so.
Presently he gave up swimming after the swan, and began to cry
out that he was being carried away; and, indeed, we saw that,
though he was swimming with all his strength towards us, he was
being drawn slowly to the precipice. With a few desperate
strokes of our paddles we pushed the canoe through the crust of
drift and rowed towards the man as hard as we could, but, fast as
we went, he was drawn faster to the rock. Suddenly I saw that
before us, just rising eighteen inches or so above the surface of
the lake, was what looked like the top of the arch of a submerged
cave or railway tunnel. Evidently, from the watermark on the
rock several feet above it, it was generally entirely submerged;
but there had been a dry season, and the cold had prevented the
snow from melting as freely as usual; so the lake was low and the
arch showed. Towards this arch our poor servant was being sucked
with frightful rapidity. He was not more than ten fathoms from
it, and we were about twenty when I saw it, and with little help
from us the canoe flew along after him. He struggled bravely,
and I thought that we should have saved him, when suddenly I
perceived an expression of despair come upon his face, and there
before our eyes he was sucked down into the cruel swirling blue
depths, and vanished. At the same moment I felt our canoe seized
as with a mighty hand, and propelled with resistless force
towards the rock.
We realized our danger now and rowed, or rather paddled,
furiously in our attempt to get out of the vortex. In vain; in
another second we were flying straight for the arch like an
arrow, and I thought that we were lost. Luckily I retained
sufficient presence of mind to shout out, instantly setting the
example by throwing myself into the bottom of the canoe, 'Down on
your faces--down!' and the others had the sense to take the hint.
In another instant there was a grinding noise, and the boat was
pushed down till the water began to trickle over the sides, and I
thought that we were gone. But no, suddenly the grinding ceased,
and we could again feel the canoe flying along. I turned my head
a little--I dared not lift it--and looked up. By the feeble
light that yet reached the canoe, I could make out that a dense
arch of rock hung just over our heads, and that was all. In
another minute I could not even see as much as that, for the
faint light had merged into shadow, and the shadows had been
swallowed up in darkness, utter and complete.
For an hour or so we lay there, not daring to lift our heads for
fear lest the brains should be dashed out of them, and scarcely
able to speak even, on account of the noise of the rushing water
which drowned our voices. Not, indeed, that we had much
inclination to speak, seeing that we were overwhelmed by the
awfulness of our position and the imminent fear of instant death,
either by being dashed against the sides of the cavern, or on a
rock, or being sucked down in the raging waters, or perhaps
asphyxiated by want of air. All of these and many other modes of
death presented themselves to my imagination as I lay at the
bottom of the canoe, listening to the swirl of the hurrying
waters which ran whither we knew not. One only other sound could
I hear, and that was Alphonse's intermittent howl of terror
coming from the centre of the canoe, and even that seemed faint
and unnatural. Indeed, the whole thing overpowered my brain, and
I began to believe that I was the victim of some ghastly
spirit-shaking nightmare. _
Read next: CHAPTER X - THE ROSE OF FIRE
Read previous: CHAPTER VIII - ALPHONSE EXPLAINS
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