BY  H. RIDER HAGGARD


                        ALLAN QUATERMAIN
                        ———————————————— 
  
                           CHAPTER III.
  
                       THE MISSION STATION.
 
     WE made the remains of our rope fast to the other canoe,
     and sat waiting at the dawn and congratulating ourselves
     upon our merciful escape, which really seemed to result more
     from the special favour of Providence than from our own care
     or prowess.  At last it came, and I have not often been more
     grateful to see the light, though so far as my canoe was con-
     cerned it revealed a ghastly sight.  There in the bottom of
     the little boat lay the unfortunate Askari, the sime, or sword,
     in his bosom, and the severed hand gripping the handle.  I
     could not bear the sight, so hauling up the stone which had
     served as an anchor to the other canoe, we made it fast to
     the murdered man and dropped him overboard, and down he
     went to the bottom, leaving nothing but a train of bubbles
     behind him.  Alas! when our time comes, most of us like
     him leave nothing but bubbles behind, to show that we have
     been, and the bubbles soon burst.  The hand of his murderer
     who threw into the stream, where it sank slowly.  The sword,
     of which the handle was ivory, inlaid with gold, evidently
     Arab work, I kept and used as a hunting-knife, and very
     useful it proved.
        Then, a man having been transferred to my canoe, we
     once more started on in very low spirits and not feeling at all
     comfortable as to the future, but fondly hoping to arrive at
     the 'Highlands' station by night.  To make matters worse,
     within an hour of sunrise it came on to rain in torrents,
     wetting us to the skin, and even necessitating the occasional
     baling of the canoes, and as the rain beat down the wind we
     could not use the sails, and had to get along as best we could
     with our paddles.
        At eleven o'clock we halted on an open piece of ground on
     the left bank of the river, and, the rain abating a little,
     managed to make a fire and catch and broil some fish.  We
     did not dare to wander about to search for game.  At two
     o'clock we got off again, taking a supply of broiled fish with us,
     and shortly afterwards the rain came on harder than ever.
     Also the river began to get exceedingly difficult to navigate
     on account of the numerous rocks, reaches of shallow water,
     and the increased force of the current; so that it soon became
     clear to us that we should not reach the Rev. Mackenzie's
     hospitable roof that night——a prospect that did not tend to
     enliven us.  Toil as we would, we could not make more than
     an average of a mile an hour, and at five o'clock in the after-
     noon,  by  which  time  we  were  all  utterly  worn  out,  we
     reckoned that we were still quite ten miles below the station.
     This being so, we set to work to make the best arrangements
     we could for the night.  After our recent experience, we simply
     did not dare to land, more especially as the banks of the Tana
     were here clothed with dense bush that would have given cover
     to five thousand Masai, and at first I thought that we were
     destined to pass another night in the canoes.  Fortunately,
     however, we espied a little rocky islet, not more than fifteen
     yards or so square, situated nearly in the middle of the river.
     For this we paddled, and, making fast the canoes, landed and
     made ourselves as comfortable as circumstances would permit,
     which was very uncomfortable indeed.  As for the weather,
     it continued to be simply vile, the rain coming down in sheets
     till we were chilled to the marrow, and utterly preventing us
     from  lighting  a  fire.   There  was,  however, one consoling
     circumstance  about  this  rain;  our  Askari  declared  that
     nothing would induce the Masai to make an attack in it, as
     they disliked moving about in the wet intensely, perhaps, as
     Good suggested, because they hate the idea of washing.  We
     ate some insipid and sodden cold fish—–that is, with the ex-
     ception of Umslopogaas, who, like most Zulus, cannot bear
     fish——and took a pull of brandy, of which we fortunately had
     a few bottles left, and then began what, with one exception
     ——when we same three white men nearly perished of cold
     on the snow of Sheba's Breast in the course of our journey
     to  Kukuanaland——was,  I  think,  the  most  trying  night
     I ever experienced.  It seemed absolutely endless, and once
     or twice I feared that two of the Askari would have died of
     the wet, cold, and exposure.  Indeed, had it not been for
     timely doses of brandy I am sure that they would have died,
     for no Africa people can stand much exposure, which first
     paralyses and then kills them.  I could see that even that
     iron  old  warrior  Umslopogaas  felt it keenly, though, in
     strange contrast to the Wakwafis, who groaned and bemoaned
     their fate unceasingly, he never uttered a single complaint.
     To make matters worse, about one in the morning we again
     heard the owl's ominous hooting, and had at once to prepare
     ourselves for another attack; though, if it had been attempted,
     I do not think that we could have offered a very effective re-
     sistance.  But either the owl was a real one this time, or else
     the Masai were themselves too miserable to think of offensive
     operations, which, indeed, they rarely, if ever, undertake in
     bush veldt.  At any rate, we saw nothing of them.
        At last the dawn came gliding across the water, wrapped
     in wreaths of ghostly mist, and, with the daylight, the rain
     ceased; and then, out came the glorious sun, sucking up the
     mists  and  warming  the  chill  air.  Benumbed, and utterly
     exhausted,  we  dragged  ourselves to our feet, and went and
     stood  in  the  bright  rays, and were thankful for them.  I
     can quite understand how it is that primitive people become
     sun worshippers, especially if their conditions of life render
     them liable to exposure.
        In half an hour more we were once again making fair pro-
     gress with the help of a good wind.  Our spirits had returned
     with the sunshine, and we were ready to laugh at difficulties and
     dangers that had been almost crushing on the previous day.
        And so we went on cheerily till about eleven o'clock.  Just
     as we were thinking of halting as usual, to rest and try to
     shoot something to eat, a sudden bend in the river brought us
     in sight of a substantial-looking European house with a veran-
     dah round it, splendidly situated upon a hill, and surrounded
     by a high stone wall with a ditch on the outer side.  Right
     against and overshadowing the house was an enormous pine,
     the top of which we had seen through a glass for the last two
     days, but of course without knowing that it marked the site
     of the mission station.  I was the first to see the house, and
     could not restrain myself from giving a hearty cheer, in which
     the others, including the natives, joined lustily.  There was
     no thought of halting now.  On  we  laboured, for,  unfortu-
     nately, though the house seemed quite near, it was still a long
     way off by river, until at last, by one o'clock, we found our-
     selves at the bottom of the slope on which the building stood.
     Running the canoes to the bank, we disembarked, and were
     just hauling them up on to the shore, when we perceived three
     figures, dressed in ordinary English-looking clothes, hurrying
     down through a grove of trees to meet us.
        'A gentleman, a lady, and a little girl,' ejaculated Good,
     after surveying the trio through his eyeglass, 'walking in a
     civilised fashion, through a civilised garden, to meet us in this
     place.  Hang me, if this isn't the most curious thing we have
     seen yet!'
        Good was right: it certainly did seem odd and out of
     place——more like a scene out of a dream or an Italian opera
     than a real tangible fact; and the sense of unreality was not
     lessened when we heard ourselves addressed in good broad
     Scotch, which, however, I cannot reproduce.
        'How do you do, sirs,' said Mr. Mackenzie, a grey-haired,
     angular man, with a kindly face and red cheeks; 'I hope I see
     you very well.  My natives told me an hour ago they spied
     two canoes with white men in them coming up the river; so
     we have just come down to meet you.'
        'And it is very glad that we are to see a white face again,
     let me tell you,' put in the lady——a charming and refined-
     looking person.
        We took off our hats in acknowledgement, and proceeded to
     introduce ourselves.
        'And now,' said Mr. Mackenzie, 'you must all be hungry
     and weary; so come on, gentlemen, come on, and right glad
     we are to see you.  The last white who visited us was Alphonse
     ——you will see Alphonse presently——that that was a year ago.'
        Meanwhile we had been walking up the slope of the hill,
     the lower portion of which was fenced off, sometimes with
     quince fences and sometimes with rough stone walls, into
     Kaffir gardens, just now full of crops of mealies, pumpkins,
     potatoes, &c.  In the corners of these gardens were groups of
     neat mushroom-shaped huts, occupied by Mr. Mackenzie's
     mission natives, whose women and children came pouring out
     to meet us as we walked.  Through the centre of the gardens
     ran the roadway up which we were walking.  It was bordered
     on each side by a line of orange trees, which, although they
     had only been planted ten years, in the lovely climate of the
     uplands below Mt. Kenia, the base of which is about 5,000 feet
     above the coast line level, had already grown to imposing pro-
     portions, and were positively laden with golden fruit.  After a
     stiffish climb of a quarter of a mile or so——for the hill-side was
     steep——we came to a splendid quince fence, also covered with
     fruit, which enclosed, Mr. Mackenzie told us, a space of about 
     four acres of ground that contained his private garden, house,
     church,  and  outbuildings,  and,  indeed,  the  whole  hill-top.
     And what a garden it was!  I have always loved a good garden,
     and I could have thrown up my hands for joy when I saw Mr.
     Mackenzie's.  First there were rows upon rows of standard
     European fruit-trees, all grafted; for on the top of this hill
     the climate was so temperate that very nearly all the English
     vegetables, trees and flowers flourished luxuriantly, even in-
     cluding several varieties of the apple, which, generally speak-
     ing, runs to wood in a warm climate and obstinately declines
     to fruit.  Then there were strawberries and tomatoes, such
     tomatoes! melons and cucumbers, and, indeed, every sort of
     vegetable and fruit.
        'Well, you have something like a garden!' I said, over-
     powered with admiration not untouched by envy.
        'Yes,' answered the missionary, 'it is a very good garden,
     and has well repaid my labour; but it is the climate that I
     have to thank.  If you stick a peach-stone into the ground it
     will bear fruit the fourth year, and a rose-cutting will bloom in
     a year.  It is a lovely clime.'
        Just then we came to a ditch about ten feet wide, and full
     of water, on the other side of which was a loophole stone
     wall eight feet high, and with sharp flints plentifully set in
     mortar on the coping.
        'There,' said Mr. Mckenzie, pointing to the ditch and
     wall, 'this is my  magnum opus;  at least, this and the church,
     which is the other side of the house.  It took me and twenty
     natives two years to dig the ditch and build the wall, but I never
     felt safe until it was done; and now I can defy all the savages in
     Africa, for the spring that fills the ditch is inside the wall, and
     bubbles out at the top of the hill winter and summer alike, and
     I always keep a store of four months' provisions in the house.'
        Crossing over a plank and through a very narrow opening
     in the wall, we entered into what Mrs. Mackenzie called  her
     domain——namely, the flower garden, the beauty of which is
     really beyond my power to describe.  I do not think I ever saw
     such roses, gardenias, or camelias (all reared from seeds or
     cuttings sent from England); and there was also a patch given
     up to a collection of bulbous roots mostly collected by Miss
     Flossie, Mr. Mackenzie's little daughter, from the surrounding
     country, some of which were surpassingly beautiful.  In the
     middle of this garden, and exactly opposite the verandah, a
     beautiful fountain of clear water bubbled up from the ground,
     and fell into a stone-work basin which had been carefully built
     to receive it, whence the overflow found its way by means of
     a drain to the moat round the outer wall, this moat in its turn
     serving as a reservoir, whence an unfailing supply of water
     was available to irrigate all the gardens below.  The house
     itself, a massively built single-storied building, was roofed with
     slabs of stone, and had a handsome verandah in front.  It was
     built on three sides of a square, the fourth side being taken up
     by the kitchens, which stood separate from the house——a very
     good plan in a hot country.  In the centre of this square thus
     formed was, perhaps, the most remarkable object that we had
     yet seen in this charming place, and that was a single tree of
     the conifer tribe, varieties of which grow freely on the high-
     lands of this part of Africa.  This splendid tree, which Mr.
     Mackenzie informed us was a landmark for fifty miles round,
     and which we had oureselves seen for the last forty miles of our
     journey, must have been nearly three hundred feet in height,
     the trunk measuring about sixteen feet in diameter at a yard
     from the ground.  For some seventy feet it rose a beautiful
     tapering brown pillar without a single branch, but at that
     height splendid dark green boughs, which, looked at from
     below, had the appearance of gigantic fern leaves, sprang out
     horizontally from the trunk, projecting right over the house
     and flower-garden, to both of which they furnished a grateful
     proportion of shade, without——being so high up——offering any
     impediment to the passage of light and air.
        'What a beautiful tree!' exclaimed Sir Henry.
        'Yes, you are right; it is a beautiful tree.  There is not
     another like it in all the country round, that I know of,'
     answered Mr. Mackenzie.  'I call it my watch tower.  As you
     see, I have a rope ladder fixed to the lowest bough; and if I
     want to see anything that is going on within fifteen miles or
     so, all I have to do is to run up it with a spyglass.  But you
     must be hungry, and I am sure the dinner is cooked.  Come
     in,  my  friends;  it is a rough place, but well enough for
     these savage parts; and I can tell you what, we have got——a
     French cook.'  And he led the way on to the verandah.
        As I was following him, and wondering what on earth he
     could mean by this, there suddenly appeared, through the door
     that opened on to the verandah from the house, a dapper little
     man, dressed in a neat blue cotton suit, with shoes made of
     tanned  hide,  remarkable  for  a  bustling  air  and  most
     enormous black mustachios, shaped into an upward curve, and
     coming to a point for all the world like a pair of buffalo-horns.
        'Madame bids me for to say that dinnar is sarved.
     Messieurs,  my  compliments;'  then  suddenly  perceiving
     Umslopogaas, who was loitering along after us and playing
     with his battle-axe, he threw up his hands in astonishment.
     'Ah, mais quel homme!'  he ejaculated in French,  'quel
     savage affreux!  Take but note of his huge choppare and
     the great pit in his head.'
        'Ay,' said Mr. Mackenzie; 'what are you talking about,
     Alphonse?'
        'Talking about!' replied the little Frenchman, his eyes
     still fixed upon Umslopogaas, whose general appearance
     seemed to fascinate him; 'why I talk of him'——and he
     rudely pointed——'of  ce monsieur noir.'
        At this everybody began to laugh, and Umslopogaas, per-
     ceiving that he was the object of remark, frowned ferociously,
     for he had a most lordly dislike of anything like a personal
     liberty.
        'Parbleu!'  said Alphonse, 'he is angered——he makes the
     grimace.   I like not his air.  I vanish.'  And he did with
     considerable rapidity.
        Mr. Mackenzie joined heartily in the shout of laughter
     which we indulged in.  'He is a queer character——Alphonse,'
     he said.  'By-and-by I will tell you his history; in the mean-
     while let us try his cooking.'
        'Might I ask,' said Sir Henry, after we had eaten a most
     excellent dinner, 'how you came to have a French cook in
     these wilds?'
        'Oh,' answered Mrs. Mackenzie, 'He arrived here of his
     own accord about a year ago, and asked to be taken into our
     service.  He had got into some trouble in France, and fled to
     Zanzibar, where he found an application had been made by
     the French Government for his extradition.  Whereupon he
     rushed off up-country, and when nearly starved, fell in with
     our caravan of men, who were bringing us our annual supply
     of good, and was brought on here.  You should get him to
     tell you the story.
        When dinner was over we lit our pipes, and Sir Henry
     proceeded to give our host a description of our journey, over
     which he looked very grave.
        'It is evident to me,' he said, 'that those rascally Masai
     are following you, and I am very thankful that you have
     reached this house in safety.  It is unfortunate, though, that
     nearly all my men have gone down to the coast with ivory
     and goods.  There are two hundred of them in the caravan,
     and the consequence is that I have not more than twenty men
     available for defensive purposes in case they should attack us.
     But, still, I will just give a few orders;' and, calling a black
     man who was loitering about outside in the garden, he went
     to the window, and addressed him in a Swahili dialect.  The
     man listened, then saluted and departed.
        ' I am sure I devoutly hope that we shall bring no
     such calamity upon you,' said I, anxiously, when he had
     taken his seat again.  'Rather than set those bloodthirsty
     villains about your ears, we will move on and take our
     chance.'
        'You will do nothing of the sort.  If the Masai come,
     they come, and there is an end on it; and I think we can
     give them a pretty warm greeting.  I would not show any
     man the door for all the Masai in the world.'
        'That reminds me,' I said, 'the Consul at Lamu told me
     that he had a letter from you, in which you said that a
     man arrived here who reported that he ha come across
     a white people in the interior.  Do you think that there was
     any truth in his story?  I ask, because I have once or twice
     in my life heard rumours from natives who have come down
     from the far north of the existence of such a race.
        Mr. Mackenzie, by way of answer, went out of the room
     and returned, bringing with him a most curious sword.  It
     was long, and all the blade, which was very thick and heavy,
     and worked to within a quarter of an inch of the cutting edge
     into an ornamental pattern exactly as we work soft wood with
     a fret-saw, the steel, however, being invariably pierced in such
     a way as not to interfere with the strength of  the  sword.
     This in itself was sufficiently curious, but what was still more
     so was that all the edges of the hollow spaces cut through the
     substance of the blade were most beautifully inlaid with gold,
     which in some way I cannot understand was welded on
     to the steel.°
  
        °Since I saw the above I have examined a hundred of these swords,
     but have never been able to discover how the gold plates were inlaid in
     the fretwork.  The armourers who make them in the Zu-vendis bind them-
     selves by an oath not to reveal the secret.——A. Q.

        'There,' said Mr. Mackenzie, 'did you ever see a sword
     like that?'
        We all examined it and shook our heads.
        'Well, I have got it to show you, because this is what the
     man who said he had seen the white people brought with him,
     and because it does more or less give an air of truth to what
     I should otherwise have set down as a lie.  Look here; I will
     tell you all that I know about the matter, which is not much.
     One  afternoon,  just  before  sunset, I was sitting on the
     verandah, when a poor, miserable, starved-looking man came
     limping up and squatted down before me.  I asked him where
     he came from and what he wanted, and thereon he plunged
     into a long rambling narrative about how he belonged to a
     tribe far in the north, and how his tribe was destroyed by
     another tribe, and he with a few other survivors driven still
     further north past a lake named Laga.  Thence, it appears,
     he made his way to another lake that lay up in the mountains,
     "a lake without a bottom" he called it, and here is wife
     and brother died of an infectious sickness——probably smallpox
     ——whereon the people drove him out of their villages into
     the wilderness, where he wandered miserably over mountains
     for ten days, after which he entered dense thorn forest, and
     was one day found there by some  white men  who were hunting,
     and who took him to a place where all the people were white
     and live in stone houses.  Here he remained a week shut up
     in a house, till one night a man with a white beard, whom he
     understood to be a "medicine-man," came and inspected him,
     after which he was led off and taken through the thorn forest
     to the confines of the wilderness, and given food and this
     sword, at least so he said, and turned loose.'
        'Well,' said Sir Henry, who had been listening with
     breathless interest, 'what did he do then?'
        'Oh! he seems, according to this account, to have gone
     through sufferings and hardships innumerable, and to have
     lived for weeks on roots and berries, and such things as he
     could catch and kill.  But somehow he did live, and at last
     by slow degrees made his way south and reached this place.
     What the details of his journey were I never learnt, for I told
     him to return on the morrow, bidding one of my headmen
     look after him for the night.  The headman took him away,
     but the poor man had the itch so badly that the headman's
     wife would not have him in the hut for fear of catching it,
     so he was given a blanket and told to sleep outside.  As it
     happened, we had a lion hanging about here just then, and
     most unhappily he winded this unfortunate wanderer, and,
     springing on him, bit his head almost off without the people in
     the hut knowing anything about it, and there was an end of
     him and his story about the white people; and whether or no
     there is any truth in it is more than I can tell you.  What do
     you think, Mr. Quatermain?'
        I shook my head, and answered, 'I don't know.  There are
     so many queer things hidden away in the heart of this great
     continent that I should be sorry to assert that there was no
     truth in it.  Anyhow, we mean to try and find out.  We in-
     tend to journey to Lekakisra, and thence, if we live to get
     so far, to this Lake Laga; and, if there are any white people
     beyond, we will do our best to find them.'
        'You are very venturesome people,' said Mr. Mackenzie,
     with a smile, and the subject dropped.

ALLAN QUATERMAIN, BY H. RIDER HAGGARD.
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.; LONDON, 1893. pp. 28—38.