Chapter IIIWhat Next Befell
On they came, like a swarm of angry bees from a hive; and I saw that they were mostly men of great stature, though mine, I judged, would still overtop the tallest, the which I do not say boastfully, but as one bearing witness to the truth.
Now that we had come at last to open war, my mind was clear, as my hand and heart were steady, and I could take calm note of this, as of other matters.
Lestrade was humming a gay tune at my side, his rifle well aimed, his finger on the trigger.
These people were clearly brethren of the dead priest Sagamoso, for they were of the same bronze color; and as they drew nearer, I perceived the regularity of their features, like to his.
They carried spears and swords that flashed bright in the rays of the setting sun. They called to us in a strange language and with threatening gestures; but I am, as I have said, a peaceful man, and loath to shed blood, so with a word I restrained my more fiery Lestrade, and we abode their onslaught.
Then a spear hurtled through the air and clove the fleshy portion of my arm, and with that, the lust of conflict fell upon me, and my eyes saw red, and verily I was mad with the joy of battle.
The foremost dropped before me, shot through the heart, and the second.
They paused for an instant in their onward rush, but I thought not so much with fear or surprise, as in obedience to a command. Then they pressed forward. My rifle emptied itself into the compact living mass. Lestrade was close behind. I seized the barrel in my hand, and the first oncomer fell like an ox beneath the blow.
So, thrusting, beating down the line of shining weapons, I clove my way through, and for me there was no weariness, nor fear,nor prick of bodily hurt. Only that fierce gladness, that inasmuch as it is the man’s portion, transcends the lot of woman. There was one strange thing I noted even in the midst of the tumult. The warriors seemed bound by some observance to disable rather than to wound us. They struck heavily, it is true, but with the flat of their swords, and this I could see was from no love of the stranger.
Hate flashed from their eyes and rang in their voices; so as I laid stoutly about me, I did so with the more good-will in that I felt myself reserved with Lestrade for some more devoted sacrifice than was possible at the moment.
On a sudden the howling horde melted away, and a new enemy appeared. Down the open space, with great leaps, and with a cry, half bestial, half human in its malice, it came. A gray, furry body, fantastically striped in red and blue, two shining, bead-like eyes. This I saw; the next instant two sinewy claw-like hands were at my throat, and we were rolling over and over in the dust, thecreature biting and striving to smother me in its embrace. It was strong, and it knew the tricks of wrestling. For a time neither one of us could boast of vantage.
The fight had ceased, and I dimly saw Lestrade trussed into a helpless bundle and lying upon the ground. The people of the Walled City stood in silence, resting upon their arms, like warriors of bronze.
Then the inward fury that consumed me stiffened my muscles to steel. My knee rested on the creature’s hairy chest. I seized its jaw in my hand, and forced its head slowly, slowly back.
Its eyes rolled in helpless fury; its great teeth were ground together in a rage that defied me to the worst; the tongue protruded. There was a quick snap like the breaking of sugar-cane. The giant head rolled limply to one side; the long arms relaxed their pressure. A wail of sorrow and of anger rose from the waiting throng; I stood one instant, conqueror and free! In another, I was brought heavily to my knees, and the meshes of a net encompassed me. The hordeof warriors fell into line. A litter of crossed spears was quickly made, and Lestrade and I were hoisted up and so with ignominy carried onward as is a bale of goods to the warehouse. Through the cleft in the wall of the Pass of Blood, which closed with ominous silence behind us; on through a passage-way, deep, narrow, hewn out of the solid rock; so once more were we borne close guarded, into the sunlight, and within the City of the worshippers of the serpent god, the City of our golden dreams and the dead priest’s promise.
The street that opened was straight and wide, and bordered by houses of good size, generally of one story only, but built in every case of stone. Lestrade and I had never seen the like in all Africa, and the smooth, hard roadbed over which we were carried was another proof of the skill of this strange people.
Now that the stress of battle was over, I could look about me. From the open doorways of the houses peered a curious throng, men, children, and women also, but these lastwere close veiled, much to my good Gaston’s disappointment, as I could see.
Our bodyguard were fine, stalwart fellows; each man had filed his two upper and two lower front teeth to a point, a custom I have elsewhere observed, and one giving the countenance a singularly wolfish look. Their long black locks were braided, and the plats were interwoven with strands of golden wire. They bore spears, and long curved knives stuck in girdles of panther skin. They carried also shields of hide, and on their feet were curious sandals that were laced to the calf with leathern strips.
The heads of the leaders were decorated with feathers held in place by a jewelled clasp, and the size of the gems sent the blood tingling through my veins.
I could now see that one man commanded this array, and I was the more sorry for that inasmuch as the steely glitter of his eye when turned our way, boded his prisoners little good. He was an old man and unlike the rest, covered from neck to heel by a flowing white garment around whose hem appearedstrange characters writ in scarlet. A long gray beard fell over his breast, and his hair was bound by a plain gold fillet that crossed the forehead. In his hand he carried a short rod of ebony, and I noted with growing pain the reverence with which his followers observed his every gesture.
On a sudden, he raised his staff, and like one man the warriors halted.
We had stopped before an archway that spanned the street, and which was guarded by a gate of woven bamboo made strong by bars of iron, and bristling with points of the same metal. This gate swung on a pivot, and a man appeared who held earnest conference with our aged leader.
This newcomer looked to be about thirty years of age. I judged that he was not more than five feet tall, but the spread of his shoulders was so enormous that he might well have looked shorter than his real height. His massive arms were covered with bracelets of the precious yellow metal; his garments were striped with gold and blue. He carried no spear or buckler, but a short,straight two-edged sword hung from his side.
The talk was brief but earnest, and its import was clearly not to the satisfaction of our venerable friend. At last, with a vindictive backward glance at me, he pointed his long, bony finger at the body of the dead ape, for now I knew the kind of creature whose neck I had broken.
He of the broad shoulders looked at it and then at me again with more discernment, and I thought with no less liking than before. Then as the tide of remonstrance from him of the evil eye and white beard did not cease, the other took from a fold in his garments a thing that glistened and glittered like a molten rainbow in the fading light, a girdle whose links were gold fastening squares studded with gems that defied, in their brilliance, the noonday sun.
This he laid upon the outstretched hand of the elder, and his clamor ceased, hushed to muttered murmuring. The armed throng passed the open gate, and as they defiled before him with the jewelled girdle, eachtouched, with outstretched palm, the breast and forehead, and the broad-shouldered one gravely bent his head in answer to their salute.
So were we borne along through a maze of streets like to that through which we had first come.
At length a halt was called, and we found ourselves before a temple built, indeed, of stone, but ornamented with carvings of fruit and flowers and strange figures of beasts and birds, covered with a curious lacquer in brilliant tints, red, green, violet, and gold.
Six men received us. They wore short, white tunics, and had shaven crowns bound by silver fillets, and they looked, I thought, with ill-concealed pleasure on the body of the dead ape.
Only a small bodyguard followed Lestrade and myself within the portals of this temple. We were borne along a curious labyrinth of passages all going downward and towards a common centre. A door of iron, heavily barred, was loosened and turned upon its pivot. We were carried within. Here ourbonds were struck off by order of the chief with broad shoulders, but contrariwise, a metal girdle was locked about our waists, and this in turn was fastened by a stout but sufficiently long chain to a staple in the wall of our prison chamber.
Then the guards withdrew, and through the bars of the door I saw the leader bind the outer bolts with a small cord. This he sealed with wax, and likewise stamped the seal with a square of the jewelled girdle in such manner that none could enter without having first broken the wax itself. Then he also left us, and Lestrade and I were once more alone.
We turned with one consent, and after we had each spoken somewhat to the other on the marvels of our capture and present escape from death, and had rubbed our arms and legs to a more comfortable complexion, for our bonds had been drawn about us with no light hand, we then took, what was plainly the next thing in order, and examined with due care our forced abiding-place.
The worst thing to be said against it was the darkness, for all light filtered from a distancethrough slits in the roof. The room was airy enough, however, and cool. The walls were closely overlaid with sticks of bamboo, and the floor was of earth pressed into bricks and colored with some show of art. Two woven sacks were filled to a pleasant thickness with some sweet-smelling leaves, and were each provided with a soft, wide strip of cloth, so that in the matter of beds, these heathen had given us nothing of which to complain.
A long, low settle of heavy black wood was also given over to our use, and this made complete the furnishing of the place.
After some hours of converse, and when darkness had settled like a pall upon the chamber, we heard approaching footsteps, and a lighted torch was thrust through the bars of the upper part of the door and into a socket set for the purpose. Then from the same hand came a wooden platter piled high with steaming meat and plantains, a gourd of water, and three small stone pitchers brimming with palm wine.
The three pitchers, and the fact that themeat was also divided into three portions, puzzled, at the time, both Gaston and myself, but we found afterwards that as I had killed the sacred ape belonging to the service of Hed, I was supposed to be possessed of a devil to whose strength was due this feat.
One portion of all our food was therefore set apart for the use of this same familiar. That I, who am, as I have said, a religious man, should be so thought of, filled me, when I knew the facts, with righteous indignation; but at the time, in my ignorance, I cheerfully abode the insult, and the portion of the evil spirit said to dwell within me was consumed like to the other victuals, with all the zeal and constancy of a hungry man.
After our first prison meal, Lestrade and I betook ourselves to bed, and being a heavy sleeper, I knew no more until a hand shook me roughly by the shoulder. Now I could never abide being broken of my rest, a thing which was the less to be desired after the wearying events of the bygone day. So it was with little ceremony I struck out, andshould perhaps, between sleeping and waking, have done some damage, had not the same hand deftly emptied the gourd of water over my head, while Gaston’s familiar voice cried, with less courtesy than need be, “Fool!”
This brought me briskly to my senses, and I was about to argue the point with him, when a new sound hushed my tongue to silence, and I needed not Lestrade’s command to listen.
A curious sound it was, and awesome, there in the midnight hour,—a sound not all a wail, not all a chant, but holding a note of jubilee so coldly cruel that it pierced with icy fear the very marrow of him who heard it.
Three times this strange song rose and fell distinctly to our waiting ears. Then it grew fainter and fainter, and died away, at length, in the distance.
I thought of my past sins and of my present straits, and I wished, with all earnestness, that I and my good rifle had not been parted.
Then sleep bore heavy upon my eyelids, and I turned over on my sack of leaves, leaving Lestrade still sitting with the white moonlight shining down through the slits in the roof above us upon his face.