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Chapter Twenty Three.
Entombed
When John Ames at last returned to consciousness, the first thought to take definite shape was that he was dead. There was a rock ceiling overhead. He had been dragged into a cave, he decided, a favourite place of sepulture for natives of rank. His enemies had accorded him that distinction. He could not move his limbs. They had been bound round him.
Then there returned in dim confused fashion the events of the day; the surprise; the visit to Madúla’s camp; the crafty pursuit; the sudden ending of the ground beneath his feet; the plunge through empty air; then – starry void; and remembering it all, the supposed funeral ligatures took the form of a blanket, which, wrapped tightly round him, impeded the use of his limbs. He was not dead, only dreaming, suffering from a bad nightmare. The blanket – the rock overhead! What a blessed relief! All the events, terrible and tragic, he had just gone through, were parts of a dream. Nidia was not left alone in that savage wilderness, but here, within a few yards of him. He was lying across the entrance of her retreat, as usual, that none might imperil her save by passing over him. Filled with an intense thankfulness, he lay and revelled in the realisation that it had all been a dream. Still it should act as a warning one. Never would he be so confiding in their security again.
The light grew and spread. The grey rock above him became less shadowy, more distinct. Whence the languor that seemed to attend his waking hours, the drowsy disinclination to move? Yet there it was. Well, he must combat it; and with this idea he suddenly sat up, only to fall back with a cry of acute anguish. His head was splitting.
For some time he lay, unable to move, thinking the while whether his cry had disturbed Nidia. No; she had not moved. At last an idea took hold of his confused brain. Their camping-ground this time was not a cave. It was in the open. Whence, then, this rock – this rock which somehow seemed to weigh upon him like a tombstone? And – Heavens! What was that over there? A table?
A table! Why, a railway engine would have been no more phenomenal at that moment. A table! Was he dreaming? No. There it stood; a sturdy, if unpretentious four-legged table, right up against a tolerably perpendicular rock-wall.
He stared at it – stared wildly. Surely no such homely and commonplace object had ever been the motive power for such consternation, such despairing, sickening disappointment before. For it conveyed to him that the events of the previous day had been no dream, but dire reality. Where he now was he had no idea, but wherever it might be, it was certainly not in the place where he had parted from Nidia and she would still be undergoing all the horrors of utter solitude. Again he tried to leap up; but this time an invisible hand seemed to press him down, an unseen force to calm and hypnotise him, and in the result everything faded into far-away dimness. Nothing seemed to matter. Once more he dropped off into a soothing, dreamless slumber.
How long this lasted he could not have told. On awakening, the frightful brain agony had left him. He could now raise his head without falling back again sick with pain. The first thing he noticed was that the place was a rock-chamber of irregular shape; the further wall nearly perpendicular, the ceiling slanting to the side on which he lay. A strange roseate light filled the place, proceeding from whence he knew not. But now he became conscious of a second presence. Standing within this light was a human figure. What – who could it be? It was not that of a native. So much he could see, although the back was towards him. Then it turned. Heavens! though he had not seen it before, the recognition was instantaneous. This was the apparition at their former camp. The tall figure, the weather-worn clothing, the long white beard, and – the face! Turned full upon him, in all its horror, John Ames felt his flesh creep. The blasting, mesmeric power of the eyes, surcharged with hate, seemed to freeze the very marrow of his bones. This, then, was petrifying him. This, with its baleful, basilisk stare, was turning his heart to water. What was it? Man or devil?
There was a spell in the stare. That glance John Ames felt that his own could not leave. It held him enthralled. At all risks he must break the spell. “Where am I?” he exclaimed, astonished at the feebleness of his own voice.
“In luck’s way this time. Perhaps not,” came the reply, in full, deep tones. “What do you think of that, John Ames?”
“You appear to know me; but, I am sorry to say, the advantage is all on your side. Where have we met before?”
The other’s set face relaxed. A ghastly, mirthless laugh proceeded from a scarcely opened mouth. There was that in it which made the listener start, such an echo was it of the mocking laugh thrown back at him out of the darkness when challenging that shadowy figure at their former camp.
“Where have we not met?” came the reply, after a pause. “That would be an easier question to answer.”
“Well, at any rate, it is awfully good of you to have taken care of me like this,” said John Ames, thinking it advisable to waive the question of identity for the present. “Did I fall far?”
“So far that, but for a timely tree breaking your fall, you would hardly have an unbroken bone within you now.”
“But how did I get here? Did you get me here alone?”
“A moment ago you were deciding that curiosity might sometimes be out of place. You are quick at changing your mind, John Ames.”
The latter felt guilty. This was indeed “thought-reading” with a vengeance.
“Yes; but pardon me if it seems to you inquisitive – it is not meant that way,” he said. “The fact is, I am not alone. I have a friend who will be terribly anxious – in fact, terribly frightened at my absence. I suppose you are in hiding, like ourselves?” Again that mirthless laugh.
“In hiding? Yes; in hiding. But not like yourselves.”
“But will you not join us? I know my way about this sort of country fairly well, and it is only a question of a little extra care, and we are bound to come through all right.”
“Such ‘little extra care’ as you displayed only yesterday, John Ames? Yet an evening or so back you thought my presence hardly likely to prove an acquisition.”
The cold, sneering tone scarcely tended to allay the confusion felt by the other at this reminder. This, then, was the apparition seen by Nidia, and he had been able to draw near enough to overhear their conversation with reference to his appearance. The thought was sufficiently uncomfortable. Who could the man be? That he was an eccentricity was self-evident. He went on —
“You were right in saying that your ‘friend’ would be terribly frightened. She has gone through such a night as she hopes never to spend again, and her fears are not over, but this time they are very material, and are for herself. There are shapes stealing upon her down the rocks – dark shapes. Natives? No. Human? No. What then? Beasts. She screams; tries to drive them off. They grow bolder and bolder – and – ”
“Heavens alive, man, don’t drive me mad!” roared John Ames, whirling up from his couch, forgetful alike of aching bones and bruised and shaken frame. “What, is it you see – or know? Are you the devil himself?”
But the face of the seer remained perfectly impassible. Not so much as a finger of his moved. His eyes seemed to open wider, then to close; then to open again, as one awakening from a trance. Their expression was that of slight, unperturbed surprise.
“Look here, now,” said John Ames, quickly and decidedly. “You have taken care of me when I was in a bad fix, and most likely saved my life. I am deeply grateful, and hope we shall get to know each: other properly. But just now I must not lose a moment in going back to my friend, and if you won’t go with me, I’ll ask you to put me into my bearings.”
The stranger did not move in his attitude, or relax a muscle.
“You can’t go from here now,” he said; “nor, in fact, until I allow you.”
“Can’t? But I must!” shouted John Ames. “Heavens! I don’t see how you can know all you have been saying; but the bare suggestion that she may be in danger – all alone and helpless – oh, good God, but it’ll drive me mad!”
“How I can know? Well, perhaps I can’t – perhaps I can. Anyway, there’s one thing you can’t do, and that is leave this place without my aid. If you don’t believe me, just take a look round and try.”
He waved his hand with a throw-everything-open sort of gesture. In feverish strides, like those of a newly caged tiger, John Ames quickly explored the apartment, likewise another which opened out of it. His mind fired with Nidia’s helplessness and danger, he gave no thought to the curious nature of this subterranean dwelling; all he thought about was means of egress.
At the further end of the apartment in which he had been lying yawned a deep shaft like that of a disused mine. Air floated up this; clearly, therefore, it gave egress. But the means of descent? He looked around and above. No apparatus rewarded his view – not even a single rope. He explored the further chamber, which, like the first, was lighted by a curious eye-shaped lamp fixed in a hole in the rock-partition wall. Here too were several smaller oubliette-like shafts. But no means of exit.
The while, his host – or gaoler – had been standing immovable, as though these investigations and their results had not the faintest interest for him. John Ames, utterly baffled, gave up the search, and the terrible conviction forced itself upon him that he was shut up in the very heart of the earth with a malevolent lunatic. Yet there was that about the other’s whole personality which was not compatible with the lunatic theory; a strong, mesmeric, compelling force, as far removed from insanity in any known phase as it could possibly be. Power was proclaimed large in every look, in every utterance.
“Was I right?” he said. “But patience, John Ames; you must be pitifully wrapped up in this – ‘friend’ of yours, to lose your head in that unwonted fashion. Unwonted – yes. I know you, you see, better than you do me. Well, I won’t try your patience any longer. Had you not interrupted me it would have been better for you; I was going on to say that while I saw danger I saw, also, succour – rescue – safety.”
“Safety? Rescue?” echoed John Ames, in almost an awed tone, but one that was full of a great thankfulness and relief. “Ah, well, my awful anxiety was deserved. Forgive me the interruption.”
Even then it did not occur to him, the level-headed, the thinking, the judicious, that here was a man – a strange one certainly – who had just told him a cock-and-bull story about events he could not possibly know, with the result of driving him perfectly frantic with anxiety and a sense of his own helplessness. Why not? Because the narrative had been unfolded with a knowledge stamped upon the narrator’s countenance that was as undeniable as the presence of the narrator himself. Strange to say, not for a moment did it occur to him to question it.
He looked at the seer; a steadfast, penetrating, earnest glance. The face was a refined one; handsome, clear-cut, furrowing somewhat with age and hardness; but it was the face of one who had renounced all – hence its power; of one who, for some reason or other, was a bitter hater of his species, yet which as surely bore traces of a great overwhelming sorrow, capabilities of a vast and selfless love. Who was this strange being? What his tragic past? John Ames, thus striving to penetrate it, felt all his repulsion for the other melt away into a warm, indefinable sense of sympathy. Then he replied —
“In using the expression ‘wrapped up in,’ you have used the right one. If harm were to befall her I should feel that life had no more value.”
“Then how will you face the – parting of the ways?”
The question chilled upon its hearer. Was it a prophecy?
“The parting of the ways?” he echoed slowly, comprehending the other’s meaning. “Why should there be any parting?”
“Because it is the way of life.”
And with the harsh, jeering, mirthless laugh which accompanied the cynicism, the stranger’s countenance became once more transformed. The stare of hate and repulsion came into it again, and he turned away. But in the mind of his hearer there arose a vision of that last farewell, and he felt reassured – yet not. Coming from any other, he would have laughed at the utterance as a mere cynical commonplace, but from this one it impressed him as a dire prophecy.
“There will come a time when you will look back upon these rough wanderings of yours – the two of you – as a dream of Paradise, John Ames. Hourly danger; scarce able to compass the means of existence; unknown country swarming with enemies; what a fearful experience it seems! Yet – how you will look back to it, will long for it! Ah, yes, I know; for your experience was once mine.”
“Once yours?”
“Once mine.” Then, with sudden change of tone and demeanour – “And now, be advised by me, and restore Nature a little. You will find the wherewithal in that chest, for you may need all your strength.”
Had it been anybody else, John Ames might have thought it somewhat unhostlike of the other to leave him to do all the foraging for himself, but somehow in this case it seemed all right. He could hardly have imagined this strange being bustling about over such commonplace work as rummaging out food. So he opened the chest indicated, and found it well stored with creature comforts. He set out, upon the table which had so startled him at first, enough for his present wants, and turned to speak to his host. But the latter was no longer there. He looked in the other apartment. That, too, was empty!
Weird and uncanny as this disappearance was, it disconcerted John Ames less than it would have done at first. In was in keeping with the place and its strange occupant, for now, as he gazed around, he noted that the rock in places was covered with strange hieroglyphics. He had seen Bushman drawings in the caves of the Drakensberg, executed with wonderful clearness and a considerable amount of rude skill. These, however, seemed the production of a civilised race, and that in the dim ages of a remote past, probably the race which was responsible for the ancient gold workings whereof the land showed such plentiful remains. At any other time the investigation of these hieroglyphics would have afforded him a rare interest, at present he had enough to think about. But if his host – or gaoler – chose to disappear into the earth or air at will it was no concern of his, and he had not as yet found any great encouragement to curiosity in that quarter. Meanwhile, he set to work to make a hearty breakfast – or dinner – or whatever it might be, for he had no idea of time, his watch having been smashed in his fall.
Strangely enough, a feeling of complete confidence had succeeded to his agony of self-reproach and anxiety as to Nidia’s safety. Stranger, too, that such should be inspired by the bare word of this marvellous being who held him, so far, in his power. Yet there it was, this conviction. It surprised him. It was unaccountable. Yet there it was.
Among other creature comforts he had found in the cupboard was a bottle of whisky. He mixed himself a modest “peg.” But somehow the taste brought back the terrible tragedy in Inglefield’s hut, that, perforce, being the last time he had drunk any, and a sort of disgust for the spirit came over him.
So did something else – a sadden and unaccountable drowsiness, to wit. He strove to combat it, but fruitlessly. Returning to his couch, he lay down, and fell into a deep and heavy sleep.
Chapter Twenty Four.
What was Disclosed
When he awoke, John Ames found himself in the dark; not the ordinary darkness of night, wherein objects are faintly outlined, but black, pitchy, impenetrable gloom – an outer darkness which weighed upon mind and spirits with a sense of living entombment.
Breathed there a mystic atmosphere in this weird place which affected the mind? This darkness seemed to unnerve him, to start him wide awake with a feeling of chill fear. Light! That was the first requisite. But a hurried search in every pocket revealed that he was without the means of procuring that requisite. He could find no matches. Had he by chance put them on the table, and left them there? He had no recollection of doing so, but in any case dared not get up and grope for them, bearing in mind the shaft-like pit at one end of the room. Nothing would be easier than to fall into this in the bewildering blackness. Equally nothing was there for it but to lie still and await the course of events.
More and more did the walled-in blackness weigh him down. The air seemed full of whispering voices – indistinct, ghostly, rising and falling in far-away flute-like wailings; and there came upon him a vision. He saw again the great granite cone with the black hole, dark and forbidding, piercing its centre; but not as he had pointed it out to his fellow-fugitive in the sunlight gold. No; it was night now, and there, around its base, a mighty gathering occupied the open, and from this arose a roar of voices – voices in supplication, voices in questionings, voices singing fierce songs of war. Then there would be silence, and from the cavern mouth would issue one voice – denunciatory, reproachful, prophetic, yet prophesying no good thing. And the voice was as that of the strange being in whose power he lay.
Louder and louder boomed the roar of the war-song. It shook the air; it vibrated as in waves upon the dense opacity of the darkness, echoing from the walls of this mysterious vault, for he was conscious of a dual personality – one side of it without, a witness of the scene conjured up by the vision; the other still within himself, still entombed and helpless within the heart of the earth. And then again the whole faded, into sleep or nirvana.
Once more came awakening. He was no longer in darkness. The rose-light threw quivering shadows from the objects about the place, and he was no longer alone. His host – or gaoler stood contemplating him.
“You have had a long sleep, John Ames.”
“And strange dreams, too,” was the reply, made with a certain significance. “When I woke up in the dark – ”
“Are you sure you did wake up in the dark? Are you sure you did not dream you woke up?”
“Upon my word, I can’t tell. I sometimes think that in these days I can be sure of nothing.”
“Well, you shall hear what will give you something to rejoice over. The ‘friend’ you were taking care of is safe.”
“Safe?”
“Yes. I told you exactly what had happened. And now she will be in Bulawayo as soon as yourself.”
“As soon as myself?”
“Yes, for you will soon be there. You see, I have a use to turn you to. I have a message for the outside world, and you shall be the means of transmitting it.”
“That will I do, with the greatest of pleasure. But what if I do not get through? The Matabele seem to be taking to the hills in force, and it’s a long few days to get through from where we are – or were, rather, should I say, for I’m not at all sure where I am now.”
“Quite right, John Ames. You are not. Still you shall get through. And then, when you rejoin your ‘friend’ – the girl with the very blue eyes, and the quick lift of the eyelids, and the animated countenance changing vividly with every expression, and the brown-gold hair – I suppose you will think life holds for you no greater good?”
“I say, but you seem to have studied her rather closely,” was the rejoinder, with a dry smile. “Anybody would think you knew her.”
“I have watched her from far more closely than you dream of, John Ames. For instance, every step of your way since leaving Shiminya tied up in his hut, has been known to me and to others too. Your life – both your lives – have been in my hand throughout, what time you have prided yourself upon your astuteness in evading pursuit and discovery. The lives of others have been in my hand in like manner, and – the hand has closed on them. You will soon learn how few have escaped.”
The grim relentlessness succeeding to the even, almost benevolent tone which had characterised the first part of this extraordinary statement impressed John Ames. At the same time he felt correspondingly reduced. He had prided himself, too – in advance – upon bringing Nidia safely in, alone and unaided; now he was done out of this satisfaction, and others would take to themselves the credit. Then he felt smaller still because thoroughly ashamed of himself. How could he harbour such a thought amid the great glad joy of hearing that her safety was assured?
“Are you influencing these rebels, then?” he asked, all his old repulsion for the other returning, as he saw, as in a flash, the fell meaning of the words. “It seems strange that you should aid in the murder of your own countrymen.”
“My own countrymen!” and the expression of the speaker became absolutely fiendish. “‘My own countrymen’ would have doomed me to a living death – a living hell – long years ago, for no crime; for that which injured nobody, but was a mere act of self-defence. Well, ‘my own countrymen’ have yielded up hundreds of lives in satisfaction since then.”
“But – great Heavens! you say ‘would have.’ They would have done this? Why, even if it had happened, such a revenge as yours would have been too monstrous. Now I begin to see. Yet, in aiding these murderers of women and children, you are sacrificing those who never harmed you. But surely you can never have done this!”
“Ha, ha! Really, John Ames, I am beginning to feel I have made a mistake – to feel disappointed in you, in thinking you were made of very different clay to the swaggering, bullet-headed fool, the first article of whose creed is that God made England and the devil the remainder of the world. Well, listen further. To escape from this doom I was forced to flee – to hide myself. And with me went one other. We wandered day after day as you have wandered – we two alone.”
In spite of his repulsion John Ames was interested, vividly interested. Verily here a fellow-feeling came in. A marvellous change had crept into the face of the other. The hard steely expression, the eyes glittering with hate, had given way to such a look of wondrous softness as seemed incredible that that countenance could take on.
“There is a lonely grave in the recesses of the Lebombo Mountains, unmarked, unknown to any but myself. I once had a heart, John Ames, strange to say, and it lies buried there. But every time I return thence it is with the fire renewed within me; and the flames of that fire are the hate of hell for those you were just now describing as ‘my own countrymen.’”
The hopeless pathos, the white-hot revenge running side by side, silenced the listener. There was a fury of passion and of pain here which admitted of no comment. To strive further to drive home his original protest struck him now as impertinent and commonplace. For a while neither spoke.
“This is not the first time ‘my own countrymen’ have felt my unseen hand,” continued the narrator. “They felt it when three miles of plain were watered with British blood, and a line of whitened bones, as the line of a paper-chase, marked out a broad way from Isandhlwana to the Buffalo drift. They felt it when British blood poured into the swollen waters of the Intombi river, and when the ‘neck’ on Hlobane mountain was choked with struggling men and horses fleeing for dear life, and but few escaping. That was for me. They have felt it often since. That was for her. They felt it when the hardest blow of all was dealt to their illimitable self-righteousness a year later; and, in short, almost whenever there has been opportunity for decimating them this side of the equator, my hand has been there. They would have felt it three years ago, when they seized this country we are now in, but for a wholly unavoidable reason, and then even the strong laagers and parks of Maxims would have counted for nought. That was for her. The malice of the devilish laws of ‘my country’ drove me forth, and with me went that one. In the malarial valleys of the foothills of the Lebombo she died. I still live; but I live for a lifelong revenge upon ‘my countrymen’ – and hers.”
Listening with the most vivid interest, John Ames was awed. The narrative just then could not but appeal to him powerfully. What if his own wanderings had ended thus, substituting Matopo for Lebombo? He shuddered to think that but for their signal good fortune in being blessed with fine dry weather, such might not inconceivably have been the case. The earlier and more tragic of the historical events referred to had taken place during the period of his English education, but now there recurred to his memory certain tales which he had heard on his return to his native colony of Natal, relating to the disappearance during the Zulu war of a border outlaw under circumstances of romantic interest. Could they have been authentic? Could this mysterious personage be indeed the chief actor in them? But, then, what must have been the strength and power of such a passion as had been this man’s, that he should cherish it full and strong after all these years; to the compassing of illimitable bloodshed, prosecuting the fierce and relentless hatred of his own countrymen to the extent of metamorphosing the memory of its object into a very Kali, sacrificing to that memory in blood! Of a truth it could be nothing less than a mania – a grim and terrible monomania.
“You are already beginning to lose your horror at what I have told you, John Ames,” went on the other, his keen, darting eyes reading his listener’s face like an open page. “Yet why should you ever have entertained it? Is not this blue-eyed girl you were taking care of for so many days all the world to you – more than life itself?”
“She is. She is indeed, God knows,” was the reply, emphatically fervent.
“Then what revenge could you wreak that would be too full, too sweet, upon whosoever should be instrumental in bereaving you of her for ever? You have not yet been tried, John Ames, and yours is a character outside the ordinary.”
Was the speaker right, after all? thought John Ames. He looked at the dark face and silvery beard, and the glitter of the keen grey eyes, and wondered. Yet as he looked, he decided that the owner of that face must be considerably younger than his appearance. Was he himself capable of such a hardening – of so gigantic and ruthless and lifelong a feud? One thing was incontestable. He certainly had lost the first feeling of repulsion and horror; indeed, he could not swear it had not been replaced by one of profound sympathy. The other continued.
“This is what you will do. First of all, you will give me your word to make no attempt to seek out this place, though it would be futile even if made. For remember I have saved your life, and the life of one who is more to you than life, not once, but many times, though unknown to you. Others sought escape in the same way as yourselves. Ask, when you are safe again, how many found it? I did not spare them. I spared you, John Ames, because your wanderings reminded me of my own. I watched you both frequently, unknown to yourselves, and doing so the past came back so vividly as to render me more merciless still towards others in the same plight. But you two I spared.”
“Then it was you I challenged that morning in the dark?”
“Even your vigilance was as nothing against me, John Ames, for did I not step right over you while you slept?”
The other whistled. There could be no doubt about that.
“Then you will take these two packets. The one marked on the outside ‘A’ you will open at once, and with every precaution will forward the enclosure it contains to the address that enclosure bears.”
This John Ames promised to do. He would register it if the post lines were still open. If not, he would take every precaution for its safety until they were.
“But they will be still open,” was the decided reply. “As for the next packet, marked ‘B,’ you will not open it – not yet. Keep it with you. The time may come when you will see everything dark around you, and there is no outlook, and life hardly worth prolonging. Then, and then only, open it. Do you promise to observe my instructions implicitly?”
“I pledge you my word of honour to do so,” replied John Ames, gravely.
“Then our time for parting is very near. Remember that you owe your life – both your lives – to me. Don’t interrupt. It is not unnecessary to remind you again of this, for you will meet with every temptation to reveal that which I charge you to keep to yourself – viz. all relating to my personality and what you have seen and heard.”
“One moment. Pardon my asking,” said John Ames, tentatively. “But have you ever told anybody else what you have told me?”
“Not one living soul. Why have I told you? Perhaps I had my reasons: perhaps the sight of you two wandering as I have wandered. It is immaterial. My work here is nearly done. This rising which has been so disastrous to your countrymen and mine – how disastrous you have yet to learn – my hand has fostered and fed. I have foreseen the opportunity. I waited for it patiently, and when it came I seized it. But there will be more work in other parts, and, mark me, John Ames, my unseen hand will again be there to strike.”
“Tell me one thing more. If it was through your influence the people spared us, how is it they tried to kill me that time I was leaving Madúla, when they drove me over the dwala, and I woke up to find myself here? That was a narrow squeak, I can tell you.”
“It was indeed, John Ames. But that was accidental, and was contrary to my orders.”
“Contrary to your orders? But,” – sitting up, with a stare of blank amazement – “but – who are you?”
“I am Umlimo.”
“What! You Umlimo? It cannot be. I have always held Umlimo to be a sort of fraudulent abstraction, engineered by innyangas like Shiminya and others. You the Umlimo?”
