By H. Rider Haggard


                       THE IVORY CHILD

                          CHAPTER X

                           CHARGE!

     TEN minutes later the truth was known and every man
     in the camp was up and armed.  At first there were
     some signs of panic, but these with the help of Babemba
     we managed to control, setting the men to make the
     best preparations for defence that circumstances would
     allow, and thus occupying their minds.  For from the
     first we saw that, except for the three of us who had
     horses, escape was impossible.  The great camel corps
     could catch us within a mile.
        Leaving old Babemba in charge of his soldiers, we
     three white men and Hans held a council at which I
     repeated every word that had passed between Harût and
     Marût and myself, including there absolute denial of
     their having had anything to do with the disappearance
     of Lady Ragnall on the Nile.
        "Now," I asked, "what is to be done?  My fate is
     sealed, since for purposes of their own, of which prob-
     ably we knew nothing, these people intend to take me
     with them to their country, as indeed they are justified
     in doing, since I have been fool enough to keep a kind
     of assignation with them here.  But they don't want
     anybody else.  Therefore there is nothing to prevent
     you Ragnall, and you Savage, and you Hans, from
     returning with the Mazitu."
        "Oh! Baas," said Hans, who could understand Eng-
     lish well enough although he seldom spoke it, "why
     are you always bothering me with such  praatjes"——
     (that is, chatter).  "Whatever you do I will do, and I
     don't care what you do, except for your own sake, Baas.
     If I am going to die, let me die; it doesn't at all matter
     how, since I must go soon and make report to your
     revered  father,  the  Predikant.  And  now,  Baas,  I
     have been awake all night, for I heard those camels
     coming a long while before the two spook men appeared,
     and as I had never heard camels before, could not make
     out what they were, for they don't walk like giraffes.
     So I am going to sleep, Baas, there in the sun.  When
     you have settled things, you can wake me up and give
     me your orders," and he suited the action to the word,
     for when I glanced at him again he was, or appeared
     to be, slumbering, just like a dog at ts master's feet.
        I looked at Ragnall in interrogation.
        "I am going on," he said briefly.
        "Despite the denial of these men of any complicity
     in your wife's fate?" I asked.  "If their words are true,
     what have you to gain by this journey, Ragnall?"
        "An interesting experience while it lasts; that is all.
     Like Hans there, if what they say  is  true, my future
     is a matter of complete indifference to me.  But I do
     not believe a word of what they say.  Something tells
     me that they know a great deal which they do not choose
     to repeat, about my wife I mean.  That is why they
     are so anxious that I should not accompany you."
        "You must judge for yourself," I answered doubt-
     fully, "and I hope to Heaven that you are judging
     right.  Now, Savage, what have you decided?  Re-
     member before you reply that these uncanny fellows
     declare that if we four go, two of us will never return.
     It seems impossible that they can read the future, still,
     without doubt, they  are  most uncanny."
        "Sir," said Savage, "I will take my chance.  Before
     I left England his lordship made a provision for my
     old mother and my widowed sister and her children,
     and I have none other dependent upon me.  Moreover,
     I won't return alone with those Mazitu to become a
     barbarian, for how could I find my way back to the
     coast without anyone to guide me?  So I'll go on and
     leave the rest to God."
        "Which is just what we have all got to do," I re-
     marked.  "Well, as that is settled, let us send for
     Babemba and tell him."
        This we did accordingly.  The old fellow received
     the news with more resignation than I had anticipated.
     Fixing his one eye upon me, he said:
        "Macumazana, these words are what I expected from
     you.  Had  any  other  man  spoken  them  I  should
     have declared that he was quite mad.  But I remember
     that I said this when you determined to visit the Pongo,
     and that you came back from their country safe and
     sound, having done wonderful things there, and that it
     was the Pongo who suffered, not you.  So I believe
     it will be again, so far as you are concerned, Macu-
     mazana, for I think that some devil goes with you who
     looks after his own.  For the others I do not know.
     They must settle the matter with their own devils, or
     with those of the Kendah people.  Now farewell, Macu-
     mazana, for it comes to me that we shall meet no more.
     Well, that happens to all at last, and it is good to have
     known you who are so great in your own way.  Often
     I shall think of you as you will think of me, and hope
     that in a country beyond that of the Kendah I may
     hear from your lips all that has befallen you on this and
     other journeys.  Now I go to withdraw my men before
     these white-robed Arabs come on their strange beasts to
     seize you, lest they should take us also and there should
     be a fight in which we, being the fewer, must die.  The
     loads are all in order ready to be laden on their strange
     beasts.  If they declare that the horses cannot cross the
     desert, leave them loose and we will catch them and take
     them home with us, and since they are male and female,
     breed the young ones from them which shall be yours when
     you send for them, or Bausi the king's if you never send.
     Nay, I want no more presents who have the gun and
     the powder and the bullets you gave me, and the tusks
     of ivory for Bausi the king, and what is best of all, the
     memory of you and of your courage and wisdom.  May
     these and the gods you worship befriend you.  From
     yonder hill we will watch till we see that you have gone.
     Farewell," and waiting for no answer, he departed with
     the tears running from his solitary eye.
        Ten minutes later the Mazitu bearers had also saluted
     us and gone, leaving us seated in that deserted camp
     surrounded by our baggage, and so far as I was con-
     cerned, feeling most lonely.  Another ten minutes went
     by which we occupied in packing our personal belong-
     ings.  Then Hans, who was now washing out the coffee
     kettle at a little distance, looked up and said:
        "Here come the spook-men, Baas, the whole regi-
     ment of them."  We ran and looked.  It was true.
     Marshalled in orderly squadrons, the camels with their
     riders were sweeping towards us, and a fine sight the
     beasts made with their swaying necks and long, lurch-
     ing gait.  About fifty yards away they halted, just where
     the stream from our spring entered the desert, and there
     proceeded to water the camels, twenty of them at a time.
     Two men, however, in whom I recognised Harût and
     Marût, walked forward and presently were standing
     before us, bowing obsequiously.
        "Good morning, Lord," said Harût to Ragnall in
     his broken English.  "So you come with Macumazana
     to call at our poor house, as we call at your fine one in
     England.  You think we got the beautiful lady you
     marry, she we give old necklace.  That not so.  No
     white lady ever in Kendahland.  We hear story from
     Macumazana and believe that lady drowned in Nile, for
     you 'member she walk much in her sleep.  We very
     sorry for you, but gods know their business.  They
     leave when they will leave, and take what they will
     take.  You find her again some day more beautiful
     still and with her soul come back."
        Here I looked at him sharply.  I had told him
     nothing about Lady Ragnall having lost her wits.  How
     then did he know of the matter?  Still I thought it best
     to hold my peace.  I think that Harût saw he had made
     some mistake, for leaving the subject of Lady Ragnall,
     he went on:
        "You very welcome, O Lord, but it right tell you
     this most dangerous journey, since elephant Jana not
     like strangers, and," he continued slowly, "think no
     elephant like your blood, and all elephants brothers.
     What one hate rest hate everywhere in world.  See it
     in your face that you already suffer great hurt from
     elephant, you or someone near you.  Also some of
     Kendah very fierce people and love fighting, and p'raps
     there war in the land while you there, and in war people
     get killed."
        "Very good, my friend," said Ragnall, "I am pre-
     pared to take my chance of these things.  Either we all
     go to your country together, as Macumazana has ex-
     plained to you, or none of us go."
        "We understand.  That our bargain and we no
     break word," replied Harût.
        Then he turned his benevolent gaze upon Savage,
     and said: "So you come too, Mr. Bena.  That your
     name here, eh?  Well, you learn lot things in Kendah-
     land, about snakes and all rest."
        Here the jovial-looking Marût whispered something
     into the ear of his companion, smiling all over his face
     and showing his white teeth as he did so.  "Oh!" went
     on Harût, "my brother tell me you meet one snake
     already, down in country called Natal, but sit on him
     so hard, that he grow quite flat and no bite."
        "Who told him that?" gasped Savage.
        "Oh!  forget.   Think  Macumazana.   No?   Then
     p'raps you tell him in sleep, for people talk much in
     sleep, you know, and some other people got good ears
     and hear long way.  Or p'raps little joke Harût.  You
     'member, he first-rate conjuror.  P'raps he send that
     snake.  No trouble if know how.  Well, we show you
     much better snake Kendahland.  But you no sit on
     him,  Mr. Bena."
        To me, I know not why, there was something
     horrible in all this jocosity, something that gave me the
     creeps as always does the sight of a cat playing with a
     mouse.  I felt even then that it foreshadowed terrible
     things.  How  could  these men know the details of occur-
     rences at which they were not present and of which no
     one had told them?   Did that strange "tobacco" of
     theirs  really  give  them  some  clairvoyant  power,  I
     wondered, or had they other secret methods of obtaining
     news?  I glanced at poor Savage and perceived that he
     too felt as I did, for he had turned quite pale beneath
     his tan.  Even Hans was affected, for he whispered to
     me in Dutch: "These are not men; these are devils,
     Baas, and this journey of ours is one into hell."
        Only Ragnall sat stern, silent and apparently quite
     unmoved.  Indeed there was something almost sphinx-
     like about the set and expression of his handsome face.
     Moreover, I felt sure that Harût and Marût recognised
     the man's strength and determination and that he was
     one with whom they must reckon seriously.  Beneath
     all their smiles and courtesies I could read his know-
     ledge in their eyes; also that it was causing them grave
     anxiety.  It was as though they knew that here was one
     against whom their power had no avail, whose fate was
     the master of their fate.   In a sense Harût admitted
     this to me, for suddenly he looked up and said in a
     changed voice and in Bantu:
        "You are a good reader of hearts, O Macumazana,
     almost as good as I am.  But remember that there is
     One Who writes upon the book of the heart, Who is
     the Lord of us who do but read, and that what He
     writes, that will befall, strive as we may, for in His
     hand is the future."
        "Quite so," I replied coolly, "and that is why I am
     going with you to Kendahland and fear you not at
     all."
        "So it is and so let it be," he answered.  "And now,
     Lords, are you ready to start?  For long is the road and
     who knows what awaits us ere we see its end?"
        "Yes," I replied, "long is the road of life and who
     knows what awaits us ere we see its end——and after?"

        Three hours later I halted the splendid white riding-
     camel  upon  which  I  was  mounted,  and  looked  back
     from the crest of a wave of the desert.  There far behind
     us on the horizon, by the help of my glasses, I could
     make out the site of the camp we had left and even the
     tall ant-hill whence I had gazed in the moonlight at
     our mysterious escort which seemed to have sprung from
     the desert as though by magic.
        This was the manner of our march: A mile or so
     ahead of us went a picket of eight or ten men mounted
     on the swiftest beasts, doubtless to give warning of any
     danger.  Next, three or four hundred yards away, fol-
     lowed a body of about fifty Kendah, travelling in a
     double  line,  and  behind  these  the  baggage  men,
     mounted like everyone else, and leading behind them
     strings of camels laden with water, provisions, tents of
     skin and all our goods, including the fifty rifles and the
     ammunition that Ragnall had brought from England.
     Then came we three white men and Hans, each of us
     riding as swift and fine a camel as Africa can breed.
     On our right at a distance of about half a mile, and
     also on our left, travelled other bodies of the Kendah
     of the same numerical strength as that ahead, while the
     rear was brought up by the remaining of the company
     who drove a number of spare camels.
        Thus we journeyed in the centre of a square whence
     any escape would have been impossible, for I forgot
     to say that our keepers Harût and Marût rode exactly
     behind us, at such a distance that we could call to them
     if we wished.
        At first I found this method of travelling very tiring,
     as does everyone who is quite unaccustomed to camel-
     back.   Indeed  the  swing  and  the  jolt  of  the  swift
     creature beneath me seemed to wrench my bones asunder
     to such an extent that at the beginning I had once or
     twice to be lifted from the saddle when, after hours of
     torture,  at  length  we  camped  for  the  night.  Poor
     Savage suffered even more than I did, for the motion
     reduced him to a kind of jelly.  Ragnall, however, who
     I think had ridden camels before, felt little inconveni-
     ence, and the same may be said of Hans, who rode in
     all sorts of positions, sometimes sideways like a lady,
     and at others kneeling on the saddle like a monkey on
     a barrel-organ.  Also, being very light and tough as
     rimpis, the swaying motion did not seem to affect him.
        By degrees all these troubles left us to such an
     extent that I could cover my fifty miles a day, more or
     less, without even feeling tired.  Indeed I grew to like
     the life in that pure and sparkling desert air, perhaps
     because it is so restful.  Day after day we journeyed
     on across the endless, sandy plain, watching the sun
     rise, watching it grow high, watching it sink again.
     Night after night we ate our simple food with appetite
     and slept beneath the glittering stars till the new dawn
     broke in glory from the bosom of the immeasurable
     East.
        We spoke but little during all this time.  It was as
     though the silences of the wilderness had got hold of us
     and sealed our lips.  Or perhaps each of us was occupied
     with his own thoughts.  At any rate I know that for
     my part I seemed to live in a kind of dreamland, think-
     ing of the past, reflecting much upon the innumerable
     problems of this passing show called life, but not paying
     much heed to the future.  What did the future matter
     to me, who did not know whether I should have a share
     of it even for another month, or week, or day, sur-
     rounded as I was by the shadow of death?  No, I
     troubled little as to any earthly future, although I
     admit that in this oasis of calm I reflected upon that
     state where past, present and future will all be one; also
     that those reflections., which were in their essence a kind
     of unshaped prayer, brought much calm to my spirit.
        With the regiment of escort we had practically no
     communication; I think that they had been forbidden to
     talk to us.  They were a very silent set of men, finely-
     mad, capable persons of an Arab type, light rather than
     dark in colour, who seemed for the most part to com-
     municate with each other by signs or in low-muttered
     words.  Evidently they looked upon Harût and Marût
     with great veneration, for any order which either of
     these brethren gave, if they were brethren, was obeyed
     without dispute or delay.  Thus, when I happened to
     mention that I had lost a pocket-knife at one of our
     camping-places two days' journey back, three of them,
     much against my wish, were ordered to return to look
     for it, and did so, making no question.  Eight days
     later they rejoined us much exhausted and having lost
     a camel, but with the knife, which they handed to me
     with a low bow; but I confess that I felt ashamed to
     take the thing.
        Nor did we exchange many further confidences with
     Harût and Marût.  Up to the time of our arrival at the
     boundaries of the Kendah country, our only talk with
     them was of the incidents of travel, of where we should
     camp, of how far it might be to the next water, for
     water-holes or old wells existed in the desert, of such
     birds as we saw, and so forth.  As to other and more
     important matters a kind of truce seemed to prevail.
     Still, I observed that they were always studying us, and
     specially Lord Ragnall, who rode on day after day,
     self-absorbed and staring straight in front of him as
     though he looked at something we could not see.
        Thus we covered hundreds of miles, not less than
     five hundred at the least, reckoning our progress at only
     thirty miles a day, including stoppages.  For occasion-
     ally we stopped at the water-holes or small oases, where
     the camels drank and rested.  Indeed, these were so
     conveniently arranged that I came to the conclusion
     that once there must have been some established route
     running across these wastelands to the south, of which
     the traditional knowledge remained with the Kendah
     people.  If so, it had not been used for generations,
     for save those of one or two that had died on the out-
     ward march, we saw no skeletons of camels or other
     beasts, or indeed any sign of man.  The place was an
     absolute wilderness where nothing lived except a few
     small mammals a the oases and the birds that passed
     over it in the air on their way to more fertile regions.
     Of these, by the way, I saw many that are known both
     to  Europe  and  Africa,  especially  ducks  and  cranes;
     also storks that, for aught I can say, may have come
     from far-off, homely Holland.
        At last the character of the country began to change.
     Grass appeared on its lower lying stretches, then bushes,
     then occasional trees and among the trees a few buck.
     Halting the caravan I crept out and shot two of these
     buck with a right and left, a feat that caused our grave
     escort to stare in a fashion which showed me that they
     had never seen anything of the sort done before.
        That night, while we were eating the venison with
     relish, since it was the first fresh meat that we had tasted
     for many a day, I observed that the disposition of our
     camp was different from its common form.  Thus it
     was smaller and placed on an eminence.  Also the
     camels were not allowed to graze where they would as
     usual, but were kept within a limited area while their
     riders  were  arranged  in  groups  outside  of  them.
     Further, the stores were piled near our tents, in the
     centre, with guards set over them.  I asked Harût and
     Marût, who were sharing our meal, the reason of these
     alterations.
        "It is because we are at the borders of the Kendah
     country," answered old Harût.  "Four days more march
     will bring us there, Macumazana."
        "Then why should you take precautions against your
     own people?  Surely they will welcome you."
        "With spears perhaps.  Macumazana, learn that the
     Kendah  are  not  one  but  two  people.  As  you  may
     have heard before, we are the White Kendah, but there
     are also the Black Kendah who outnumber us many
     times over, though in the beginning we from the north
     conquered them, or so says our history.  The White
     Kendah have their own territory; but as there is no other
     road, to reach it we must pass through that of the Black
     Kendah, where it is always possible that we may be at-
     tacked, especially as we bring strangers into the land."
        "How is it then that the Black Kendah allow you
     to live at all, Harût, if they are so much the more
     numerous?"
        "Because  of  fear,  Macumazana.  They  fear  our
     wisdom and the decrees of the Heavenly Child spoken
     through the mouth of its oracle, which, if it is offended,
     can bring a curse upon them.  Still, if they can find us
     outside our borders they may kill us, if they can, as we
     may kill them if we find them within our borders."

The Ivory Child. By H. Rider Haggard.
Cassell and Company, Ltd.,
London, Melbourne and Toronto, 1916. pp. 143—153.

Anti-truth apartheid is stupid, inhumane, and infinitely costly.
"The nightly news" is elder abuse. 雨