CHAPTER XVIII.JONAH WAXES AMBITIOUS.
"Where'smy wine?" was Jonah's first inquiry.
"Coming in good time," I answered; "but you must have patience to wait, it may be a few months."
The giant looked aghast and stupified, until he was recalled to himself by a friendly poke from Chamai.
"Glad to see you amongst us again, old tippler!"
"And I am glad too," he said; "but what am I to do next?"
"Whatever else you do, you must obey Hanno," I said; "he is trying to accomplish our escape to our ships."
What I informed him seemed to have the effect of plunging him into a deep reverie; he knitted his forehead till a layer of red paint peeled off, and at last roused himself to ask if he should have to accompany us.
"Certainly," I replied; "unless you prefer remaining with these barbarians."
"And with their revolting fish-oil," put in Himilco.
"But here I am a god," said the trumpeter, slowly, as if pondering the matter. "On board ship, Chamai knocks me about, and Hannibal kicks me, and every one calls me a lubber: but here it is all different; instead of being thumped, I may thump whom I please; I gave the god of the savages in the north such a thrashing that he died an hour afterwards. At home too, in Eltekeh, the little children used to call me a blockhead, and the men used to make me carry olive-baskets on my head and sacks of corn on myback, and scant measure of wine did I ever get; but here, I blow my trumpet, and in there comes no end of good things, meat and venison and fish, more than I can eat. It's no bad thing to be a god."
We all stared in amazement. He had never been known to make such a long speech before, far less to arrive so logically at any conclusion; at any rate, his deification had expanded his ideas, and inspired him with a new ambition.
"So then," I said, "you do not mean to go back with us."
He hesitated; but soon said that where Hanno went he should go too.
Himilco began to jeer him:
"O! you mean that you like Suomi fish-oil better than Helbon wine? and you prefer the chilly fogs of the marshes to the olive-yards of Dan? and you like slices of reindeer more than wheat and honey cakes?"
A tear stood trembling in the giant's eye.
"I think," he said, "I would rather go with you."
"And surely," added Hanno, "you would wish to go back to Eltekeh; you must want to tell them all about the leviathans, and the behemoths, and Nergal's kitchen, and how you have been a god yourself."
"They wouldn't believe me!"
"And think," said Bichri, "we shall have old Gebal with us to show the men of Dan!"
This last appeal was too much for Jonah, and fairly bursting out into tears, he sobbed out:
"Yes, I must go; I must go with you and Gebal."
Hannibal laughed outright at what he called Jonah's calf's tears, but declared that he was really very pleased to have his trumpeter back again, and pulling out two silver shekels from his purse, which he had contrived to retain, he said:
"There, man, take these; they will pay somebody to give you a good wash when you get on board."
Hanno now proceeded to explain his scheme. Thewritten message he had sent to Hamilcar was to the effect that he should parley with the Suomi until he heard the sound of Jonah's trumpet, and should then answer the signal by his own trumpet.
"I shall pretend to the savages," he continued, "that their god has ordered them to lead out their victims for sacrifice, and if by this stratagem we can once get over the causeway and within reach of our own people, everything is easy."
Approving of his plan, I merely observed that there might be some difficulty in knowing when our comrades were holding their parley; but Hanno at once assured me that the savages would not do anything without consulting him as their priest, so that he should be fully informed of everything that transpired.
We had now been twenty-four hours without food, and were suffering from fatigue and hunger. Hannibal ventured to ask whether some provisions were not to be had, and in an instant Hanno went to the door and uttered a few syllables that sounded something like the croaking of an old crow.
"I have told them," he said, "that Jono wants something to eat. They know what his appetite is; I daresay they will bring enough for you all."
Very shortly there was a knocking at the entrance of the temple; some savages had brought platters of boiled fish and roast venison, and several large horns full of drink, the whole of which Hanno took from their hands at the door and passed on to us. Half-famished as we were, we made short work with the dishes, the god appropriating as his own modest share a fish half as large as a tunny, and a reindeer-steak. Hanno joined us, and asked innumerable questions all the time we were eating. Both he and Jonah drank freely from the horns, which had been placed with their small ends on the ground; but Himilco and Hannibal could not conceal their disgust at seeing them swallow what they supposed to be rancid oil. Hanno, however,soon explained that the contents of the horns was a liquid made of fermented barley and some vegetable juice, and that it was the common beverage, not only of the Suomi and Cymri, but of the Celts of the west, the Gothi of the east, and the Germani of the south.
"I should not think of saying that it is in any way equal to the juice of the grape," he said; "but it is really not unpalatable; you may safely taste it."
Hannibal looked doubtful. Himilco said that he had heard Gisgo speak of some preparation of the kind before, and that he was not sure he had not himself tasted it at the mouth of the Rhone; he raised one of the horns cautiously to his lips, sipped, and said nothing.
We all in turn followed his example. Bichri pronounced it very acid; Chamai declared it was detestably bitter; the sailor and I both recognised it as very like what we had tasted elsewhere.
"Not good for much!" said Hannibal, after he had taken a good draught; "is it intoxicating?"
"Most assuredly it is," replied Hanno.
"The most villainous stuff I ever tasted," said Himilco, the last to pass an opinion. "However, I think I will have a little more."
And he drained another horn.
"Disgusting!" he sputtered out; but he seemed so thoroughly to have reconciled himself to the flavour of what he abused, that I was only fearful that he would take more than was good for him.
By the time we had finished our refreshment, day was beginning to dawn, and Hanno was summoned outside; he returned almost immediately, ordered Jonah to sound his trumpet, and bade us all be prepared to start.
Jonah went to the doorway and delivered a ringing blast.
Himilco hastily emptied every one of the horns, protesting all the while that it was odious stuff, sickening to the palate, and almost as vile a drink as plain water.
In answer to Jonah's signal we soon heard the reverberation of our Phœnician trumpets, and without loss of time, Jonah and Hanno at our head, we marched out of the temple. The crowd outside, regarding us with a superstitious reverence, allowed us to pass freely through them, and to proceed onwards without hindrance, so that in the course of half-an-hour we were in the midst of our friends, Hanno clasping Chryseis in his arms, Jonah hugging Judge Gebal, and Chamai so engaged with Abigail, that he did not notice how Hannibal, Himilco, and Bichri had been mercilessly thrashing a group of the nearest savages.
Our reception by our party had the immediate effect of opening the eyes of the barbarians to the terrestrial nature of their supposed god; and they no sooner became aware how we had escaped their clutches than they began to assail us with showers of stones and lances, so that our retreat to the ships was a matter of considerable peril. No one, however, was seriously injured; there were many slight contusions, and Jonah's nose was ignominiously bruised by a stone hurled at him by one of his late worshippers.
Once safely on board, we made no delay in turning ourbacks upon this inhospitable shore, and steering westwards, made towards the island of Prydhayn.
With a calm sea and a favourable wind, our progress was easy; and anxious to learn all that had befallen Hanno and Jonah since we had lost them, we assembled on the stern of theAshtorethexpressly to hear their story. Jonah, who had been well washed, insisted upon being dressed in Phœnician costume, and took his seat, with the monkey upon his shoulder, by the side of the scribe, who proceeded to recount their adventures.
"It is now, you know, more than a year since the day when we were caught in the ambush of the men of Tarshish. When we were first captured our lives were in the greatest jeopardy, for according to what we were told by a Phœnician I met, we were at once to be handed over to Bodmilcar, who was close at hand. Negotiations to this effect were going on, when it transpired that one of the Iberian chiefs had been so fascinated by Jonah's trumpet that we were to be retained, and not given over to the Tyrian, who was reported to be wounded. During this respite I contrived, by means of a stick and some blood from a wound of my own, to write a message for you on my sandal-strap; I had no doubt that the instinct of Gebal would take him back to Bichri, and accordingly I resolved to make him my messenger."
"Yes; and your message came that night," I said.
"I conjectured so," he continued, "by the monkey not returning. We were soon sent off towards the north, under the guardianship of a troop of Iberians, who did not by any means treat us badly, and after a toilsome journey came to a region where the mountains were so high that they were all covered with snow; they separated the land of Tarshish from the land of the Celts, and were called the Pyrenees. Here we were handed over to the chief of the Guipuzcoa, for whom we were destined. These Guipuzcoa are sometimes known as Bascons; they are a warlike people, perpetually engaged in hostilities with the Aitzcoa,or "men of the rocks," on the north-west, and with other Iberians on the south. We remained for more than two months before any opportunity of escape occurred; but at last, during one of the forays, we were left behind in the village, which was built upon piles at the mouth of a small river. We got possession of a canoe, and having filled it as far as we could with provisions, we ventured out to sea, and contrived to reach the shores of the Celts, from whom, in answer to many inquiries, I ascertained that some ships had recently passed along their coast, and, from various articles that they showed me, I had little doubt they were theAshtoreth, theDagon, and theCabiros. Making out from the Celts that you had gone northwards, we left our canoe, and took passage in one of their ships that was on the point of sailing for Ar-Mor; but upon our arrival we found the people engaged in war with the Cymri of the Island of Prydhayn, so that we could not get transported there. For two months I sojourned in various parts of the islands of Ar-Mor, and picked up some knowledge of Celtic; but all the time I was trying to devise some plan of following youin the direction I felt sure you had taken. At length it chanced that I found a tribe of Cymri who were not at war with the people of Prydhayn, and embarked in one of their boats; but a tremendous storm arose, and we were driven far away to the east."
"Talk of storms," said Jonah, putting in his word; "was not that a storm? I saw leviathans spouting water from their noses as high as your mast, and we were tossed about the waters like a log. For three days we had nothing to eat or to drink."
"Jonah is right," continued Hanno; "the tempest was really frightful, and we were dashed upon the muddy swamps of the coast. The Cymri drowned themselves in sheer desperation, and we, more dead than alive, existed for more than a week upon roots and wild fruit from the wood."
"And what did you find to drink?" asked Himilco.
"Nothing but muddy water."
The good pilot's sympathy was deeply moved, and he said:
"Sorry drink that, as I know by experience."
After this interruption, Hanno went on:
Illustration: BLOWING HIS TRUMPETExpandBLOWING HIS TRUMPET.To facepage 284.
ExpandBLOWING HIS TRUMPET.
To facepage 284.
"Jonah persisted in blowing his trumpet perpetually, resolved if possible to attract attention, and at length succeeded in making himself heard by a troop of Suomi who were migrating eastwards in consequence of the aggressions of the Cymri and the Germani, who were appropriating territory after territory to themselves. Not only did Jonah's enormous trumpet excite the wonder of the Suomi, but I could observe at once that his huge and imposing stature, and his abundant growth of shaggy hair impressed this diminutive, smooth-faced people with superstitious awe, a sentiment which I resolved to encourage, with the object of turning it to our own advantage. We accompanied them in their migration to their new settlement, where we witnessed the erection of the village in which you found us, and my representations prevailed socompletely that they recognised Jonah—Jono, as they called him—as their presiding deity, regarding me as his high priest. For some time, then, you see we have been in the lap of luxury; but nothing has ever led me for a moment to forget you or your ships, or to cease to long for the Great Sea and our noble Sidon."
"And Sidon ere long you shall see!" said I, when he had finished his narrative; "we are now on our way back; it is impossible to penetrate farther, and we are homeward bound."
"Sidon for ever! and long live the King!" shouted Chamai; "we shall see the sun again."
"And get some wine!" cried Himilco, tossing his cap in the air.
"And some new clothes!" chimed in Hannibal; "beggars in rags are our soldiers now."
In the midst of the general hilarity Jonah sat silent and full of thought.
"What ails you, trumpeter?" I asked; "cannot you quite make up your mind to go back?"
"It is no good my going back," he half blubbered out; "they will never believe me; they will only laugh when I tell them I have been to Nergal's kitchen and seen behemoths by dozens; and if I were to say I have been worshipped for a god, and had dinners brought me every day, big enough for a month, they will declare I'm stark mad."
"Never mind, old fellow," said Chamai; "we'll back you up; we will testify to the truth of your stories; and what's more, you shall be presented to the King, and he shall hear you blow your trumpet."
Overcome by Chamai's good-natured encouragement, and his own prospective honours, he fairly burst into tears.
"Do you really mean it? and will the King see Gebal too?"
"Aye, that he will; and we must teach old Gebal to act the courtier, and to make a bow."
Hannibal declared that he thought Jonah ought to be court-trumpeter, and to wear a scarlet tunic; and I pledged myself to use any influence I could to secure him the appointment, promising that if I succeeded I would make him a present of his first uniform.
Jonah chuckled aloud with delight.
"And shall I wear a scarlet tunic? and shall I play before the King? What will they say at Eltekeh? Happy day that made me come to Tarshish! Long live the King!"
With ejaculations such as these he withdrew to the extreme limit of the prow, and relapsing into silence, mused in solitude upon the dignity that awaited him.
From that day forward, Jonah was another man.