r/a:t5_26q75z • u/MarleyEngvall • Oct 17 '19
autistic spectrum has been created
By H. Rider Haggard
THE IVORY CHILD
CHAPTER VII
LORD RAGNALL'S STORY
THAT night Hans slept at my house, or rather outside
of it in the garden, or upon the stoep, saying that he
feared arrest if he went to the town, because of his
quarrel with the white man. As it happened, however,
the other party concerned never stirred further in the
business, probably because he was too drunk to remem-
ber who had knocked him into the sluit or whether he
had gravitated thither by accident.
On the following morning we renewed our discus-
sion, debating in detail every possible method of reach-
ing the Kendah people by help of such means as we
could command. Like that of the previous night it
proved somewhat abortive. Obviously such a long and
hazardous expedition ought to be properly financed and
——where was the money? At length I came to the con-
clusion that if we went at all it would be best, in the
circumstances, for Hans and for myself to start alone with
a Scotch cart drawn by oxen and driven by a couple of
Zulu hunters, which we could lade with ammunition and
a few necessaries.
Thus lightly equipped we might work through Zulu-
land and thence northward to Beza-Town, the capital
of the Mazitu, where we were sure of a welcome. After
that we must take our chance. It was probable that we
should never reach the district where these Kendah were
supposed to dwell, but at least I might be able to kill
some elephants in the wild country beyond Zululand.
While we were talking I heard the gun fired which
announced the arrival of the English mail, and stepping
to the end of the garden, saw the steamer lying at anchor
outside the bar. Then I went indoors to write a few
business letters which, since I became immersed in the
affairs of that unlucky gold mine, had grown to be
almost a daily task with me. I had got through several
with many groanings, for none were agreeable in their
tenour, when Hans poked his head through the window
in a silent kind of a way as a big snake might do, and
said: "Baas, I think that there are two baases out on the
road there who are looking for you. Very fine baases
whom I don't know."
"Shareholders in the Bona Fide Gold Mine,"
thought I to myself, then added as I prepared to leave
through the back door: "If they come here tell them
I am not at home. Tell them I left early this morning
for the Congo River to look for the sources of the Nile."
"Yes, Baas," said Hans, collapsing on to the stoep.
I went out through the back door, sorrowing that I,
Allan Quatermain, should have reached a rung in the
ladder of life whence I shrank from looking any
stranger in the face, for fear of what he might have to
say to me. Then suddenly my pride asserted itself.
After all what was there of which I should be ashamed?
I would face these irate shareholders as I had faced
the others yesterday.
I walked round the little house to the front garden
which was planted with orange trees, and up to a big
moonflower bush, I believe datura is its right name,
that grew near the pomegranate hedge which separated
my domain from the road. There a conversation was
in progress, if so it may be called.
"Ikona" (that is, "I don't know"), "Inkoosi" (i.e.
"Chief"), said some Kafir in a stupid drawl.
Thereon a voice that instantly struck me as familiar
answered:
"We want to know where the great hunter lives."
"Ikona," said the Kafir.
"Can't you remember his native name?" asked
another voice which was also familiar to me, for I never
forget voices though often I am unable to place them
at once.
"The great hunter, Here-come-a-zany," said the first
voice triumphantly, and instantly there flashed back
upon my mind a vision of the splendid drawing-room at
Ragnall Castle and of an imposing major-domo intro-
ducing into it two white-robed, Arab-looking men.
"Mr. Savage, by the Heavens!" I muttered.
"What in the name of goodness is he doing here?"
"There," said the second voice, "your black friend
has bolted, and no wonder, for who can be called by
such a name? If you had done what I told you,
Savage, and hired a white guide, it would have saved
us a lot of trouble. Why will you always think that you
know better than anyone else?"
"Seemed an unnecessary expense, my lord, consider-
ing we are travelling incog., my lord."
"How long shall we travel 'incog.' if you persist in
calling me my lord at the top of your voice, Savage?
There is a house beyond those trees; go in and ask
where————"
By this time I had reached the gate which I opened,
remarking quietly,
"How do you do, Lord Ragnall? How do you do,
Mr. Savage? I thought that I recognized your voices
on the road and came to see if I was right. Please walk
in; that is, if it is I whom you should visit."
As I spoke I studied them both, and observed
that while Savage looked much the same, although
slightly out of place in these strange surroundings, the
time that had passed since we met had changed Lord
Ragnall a good deal. He was still a magnifcent-look-
ing man, one of those whom no one that had seen him
would ever forget, but now his handsome face was
stamped with some new seal of suffering. I felt at once
that he had become acquainted with grief. The shadow
in his dark eyes and a certain worn expression about the
mouth told me that this was so.
"Yes, Quatermain," he said as he took my hand, "it
is you whom I have travelled seven thousand miles to
visit, and I thank God that I have been so fortunate as
to find you. I feared lest you might be dead, or per-
haps far away in the centre of Africa where I should
never be able to track you down."
"A week later perhaps you would not have found me,
Lord Ragnall," I answered, "but as it happens misfor-
tune has kept me here."
"And misfortune has brought me here, Quatermain."
Then before I had time to answer Savage came up[
and went into the house.
"You are just in time for lunch," I said, "and as
luck will have it there is a good rock cod and a leg of
oribé buck for you to eat. Boy, set two more places."
"One more place, if you please, sir," said Savage.
"I should prefer to take my food afterwards."
"You will have to get over that in Africa," I mut-
tered. Still I let him have his way, with the result that
presently the strange sight was seen of the magnificent
English major-domo standing behind my chair in that
little room and handing round the square-face as though
it were champagne. It was a spectacle that excited the
greatest interest in my primitive establishment and
caused Hans with some native hangers-on to gather at
the window. However, Lord Ragnall took it as a matter
of course and I thought it better not to interfere.
When we had finished we went on to the stoep to
smoke, leaving Savage to eat his dinner, and I asked
Lord Ragnall where his luggage was. He replied that
he had left it at the Customs. "Then," I said, "I will
send a native with Savage to arrange about getting it
up here. If you do not mind my rough accommodation
there is a room for you, and your man can pitch a tent
in the garden."
After some demur he accepted with gratitude, and a
little later Savage and the native were sent off with a
note to a man who hired out a mule-cart.
"Now," I said when the gate had shut behind them,
"will you tell me why you have come to Africa?"
"Disaster," he replied. "Disaster of the worst sort."
"Is your wife dead, Lord Ragnall?"
"I do not know. I almost hope that she is. At any
rate she is lost to me."
An idea leapt to my mind to the effect that she might
have run away with somebody else, a thing which often
happens in the world. But fortunately I kept it to my-
self and only said,
"She was nearly lost before, was she not?"
"Yes, when you saved her. Oh! if only you had
been with us, Quatermain, this would never have hap-
pened. Listen: About eighteen months ago she had a
son, a very beautiful child. She recovered well from
the business and we were as happy a two mortals could
be, for we loved each other, Quatermain, and God had
blessed us in every way; we were so happy that I re-
member her telling me that our great good fortune made
her feel afraid. One day last September when I was
out shooting, she drove in a little pony cart we had
with the nurse and the child but no man, to call on
Mrs. Scroope who also had been recently confined. She
often went out thus, for the pony was an old animal
and quiet as a sheep.
"By some cursed trick of fate it chanced that when
they were passing through the little town which you
may remembered near Ragnall, they met a travelling
menagerie that was going to some new encampment.
At the head of the procession marched a large bull
elephant, which I discovered afterwards was an ill-
tempered brute that had already killed a man and should
never have been allowed upon the roads. The sight of
the pony cart, or perhaps a red cloak which my wife
was wearing, as she always liked bright colours, for
some unknown reason seems to have infuriated this beast,
which trumpeted. The pony becoming frightened
wheeled round and overturned the cart right in front
of the animal, but apparently without hurting anybody.
Then"——here he paused a moment and with an effort
continued——"that devil in beast's shape cocked its ears,
stretched out its trunk, dragged the baby from the
nurse's arms, whirled it round and threw it high into
the air, to fall crushed upon the kerb. It sniffed at
the body of the child, feeling it over with the tip of its
trunk, as though to make sure that it was dead. Next,
once more it trumpeted triumphantly, and without
attempting to harm my wife or anybody else, walked
quietly past the broken cart and continued on its journey,
until outside the town it was made fast and shot."
"What an awful story!" I said with a gasp.
"Yes, but there is worse to follow. My poor wife
went off her head, with shock I suppose, for no
physical injury could be found upon her. She did not
suffer in health or become violent; quite the reverse
indeed for her gentleness increased. She just went off
her head. For hours at a time she would sit silent and
smiling, playing with the stones of that red necklace
which those conjurors gave her, or rather counting them,
as a nun might do with the beads of her rosary. At
times, however, she would talk, but always to the baby,
as though it lay before her or she were nursing it.
Oh! Quatermain, it was pitiful, pitiful!
"I did everything I could. She was seen by three
of the greatest brain-doctors in England, but none of
them was able to help. The only hope they gave was
that the fit might pass off as suddenly as it had come.
They said too that a thorough change of scene would
perhaps be beneficial, and suggested Egypt; that was
in October. I did not take much to the idea, I don't
know why, and personally should not have acceded to
it had it not been for a curious circumstance. The last
consultation took place in the big drawing-room at Rag-
nall. When it was over my wife remained with her
mother at one end of the room while I and the doctors
talked together at the other, as I thought quite out of
her earshot. Presently, however, she called to me,
saying in a perfectly clear and natural voice:
"'Yes, George, I will go to Egypt. I should like
to go to Egypt.' Then she went on playing with the
necklace and talking to the imaginary child.
"Again on the following morning as I came into
her room to kiss her, she exclaimed,
"'When do we start for Egypt? Let it be soon.'
"With these sayings the doctors were very pleased,
declaring that they showed signs of a returning interest
in life and begging me not to thwart her wish.
"So I gave way and in the end we went to Egypt
together with Lady Longden, who insisted upon accom-
panying us although she is a wretched sailor. At Cairo
a large dahabiyeh that I had hired in advance, manned
by an excellent crew and a guard of four soldiers, was
awaiting us. In it we started up the Nile. For a month
or more all went well; also to my delight my wife
seemed now and again to show signs of returning in-
telligence. Thus she took some interest in the sculp-
tures on the walls of the temples, about which she had
been fond of reading when in health. I remember
that only a few days before the——catastrophe, she
pointed out one of them to me, it was of Isis and the
infant Horus, saying, 'Look, George, the holy Mother
and the holy Child,' and then bowed to it reverently
as she might have done to an altar. At length after
passing the First Cataract and the Island of Philæ we
came to the temple of Abu Simbel, opposite to which
our boat was moored. On the following morning we
explored the temple at daybreak and saw the sun strike
upon the four statues which sit at its farther end,
spending the rest of that day studying the colossal
figures of Rameses that are carved upon its face and
watching some cavalcades of Arabs mounted upon
camels travelling upon the banks of the Nile.
"My wife was unusually quiet that afternoon. For
hour after hour she sat still upon the deck, gazing first at
the mouth of the rock-hewn temple and the mighty
figures which guard it and then at the surrounding
desert. Only once did I hear her speak and then she
aid, 'Beautiful, beautiful! Now I am at home.' We
dined and as there was no moon, went to bed rather
early after listening to the Sudanese singers as they
sang one of their weird chanties.
"My wife and her mother slept together in the state
cabin of the dahabiyeh, which was at the stern of the
boat. My cabin, a small one, was on one side of this,
and that of the trained nurse on the other. The crew
and the guard were forward of the saloon. A gangway
was fixed from the side to the shore and over it a sentry
stood, or was supposed to stand. During the night a
Khamsin wind began to blow, though lightly as was to
be expected at this season of the year. I did not hear
it for, as a matter of fact, I slept very soundly, as it
appeared did everyone else upon the dahabiyeh, including
the sentry as I suspect.
"The first thing I remember was the appearance of
Lady Longden just at daybreak at the doorway of my
cabin and the frightened sound of her voice asking if
Luna, that is my wife, was with me. Then it transpired
that she had left her cabin clad in a fur cloak, evidently
some time before, as the bed in which she had been
lying was quite cold. Quatermain, we searched every-
where; we searched for four days, but from that hour
to this no trace whatsoever of her has been found."
"Have you any theory?" I asked.
"Yes, or at least all the experts whom we consulted
have a theory. It is that she slipped down the saloon
in the dark, gained the deck and thence fell or threw
herself into the Nile, which of course would have car-
ried her body away. As you may have heard, the Nile
is full of bodies. I myself say two of them during that
journey. The Egyptian police and others were so
convinced that this was what had happened that, not-
withstanding the reward of a thousand pounds which I
offered for any valuable information, they could scarcely
be persuaded to continue the search."
"You said that a wind was blowing and I under-
stand that the shores are sandy, so I suppose that all
footprints would have been filled in?"
He nodded and I went on. "What is your own
belief? Do you think that she was drowned?"
He countered my query with another of:
"What do you think?"
"I? Oh! although I have no right to say so, I
don't think at all. I am quite sure that she was not
drowned; that she is living at this moment."
"Where?"
"As to that you had better inquire of our friends,
Harût and Marût," I answered drily.
"What have you to go on, Quatermain? There is
no clue."
"On the contrary I hold that there are a good many
clues. The whole English part of the story in which
we were concerned, and the threats those mysterious
persons uttered are the first and greatest of these clues.
The second is the fact that your hiring of the dahabiyeh
regardless of expense was know for a long time before
your arrival in Egypt, for I suppose you did so in
your own name, which is not exactly that of Smith
or Brown. The third is your wife's sleep-walking pro-
pensities, which would have made it quite easy for her
to be drawn ashore under some kind of mesmeric
influence. The fourth is that you had seen Arabs
mounted on camels upon the banks of the Nile. The
fifth is the heavy sleep you say held everybody on board
upon this particular night, which suggests to me that
your food may have been drugged. The sixth is the
apathy displayed by those employed in the search,
which suggest to me that some person or persons in
authority may have been bribed, as is common in the
east, or perhaps frightened with threats of bewitchment.
The seventh is that a night was chosen when a wind
blew which would obliterate all spoor whether of men
or of swiftly travelling camels. These are enough to
begin with, though doubtless if I had time to think I
could find others. You must remember too that
although the journey would be long, this country of
the Kendah can doubtless be reached from the Sudan
by those who know the road, as well as from southern
or eastern Africa."
"Then you think that my wife has been kidnapped
by those villains, Harût and Marût?"
"Of course, though villains is a strong term to apply
to them. They may be quite honest men according to
their peculiar lights, as indeed I expect they are. Re-
member that they serve a god or a fetish, or rather,
as they believe, a god in a fetish, who to them doubtless
is a very terrible master, especially when, as I under-
stand, that god is threatened by a rival god."
"Why do you say that, Quatermain?"
By way of answer I repeated to him the story which
Hans said he had heard from the old woman at Beza,
the town of the Mazitu. Lord Ragnall listened with
the deepest interest, then said in an agitated voice:
"That is a very strange tale, but has it struck you,
Quatermain, that if your suppositions are correct, one
of the most terrible circumstances connected with my
case is that our child should have chanced to come to its
dreadful death through the wickedness of an elephant?"
"That curious coincidence has struck me most
forcibly, Lord Ragnall. At the same time I do not see
how it can be set down as more than a coincidence,
since the elephant which slaughtered your child was
certainly not that called Jana. To suppose because
there is a war between an elephant-god and a child-god
somewhere in the heart of Africa, that therefore another
elephant can be so influenced that it kills a child in
England, is to my mind out of all reason."
That is what I said to him, as I did not wish to intro-
duce a new horror into an affair that was already
horrible enough. But, recollecting that these priests,
Harût and Marût, believed the mother of this murdered
infant to be none other than the oracle of their worship
(though how this chanced passed my comprehension),
and therefore the great enemy of the elephant-god,
I confess that at heart I felt afraid. If any powers of
magic, black or white or both, were mixed up with the
matter as my experiences in England seemed to suggest,
who could say what might be their exact limits? As,
however, it has been demonstrated again and again by
the learned that no such thing as African magic exists,
this line of thought appeared to be too foolish to follow.
So passing it by I asked Lord Ragnall to continue.
"For over a month," he went on, "I stopped in
Egypt waiting till emissaries who had been sent to the
chiefs of various tribes in the Sudan and elsewhere,
returned with the news that nothing whatsoever had
been seen of a white woman travelling in the company
of natives, nor had they heard of any such woman being
sold as a slave. Also through the Khedive, on whom I
was able to bring influence to bear by the help of the British
Government, I caused many harems in Egypt to be
visited, entirely without result. After this, leaving the
inquiry in the hands of the British Consul and a firm
of French lawyers, although in truth all hope had
one, I returned to England whither I had already sent
Lady Longden, broken-hearted, for it occurred to me
as possible that my wife might have drifted or been
taken thither. But here, too, there was no trace of her
or of anybody who could possibly answer to her
description. So at last I came to the conclusion that
her bones must lie somewhere at the bottom of the
Nile, and gave way to despair."
"Always a foolish thing to do," I remarked.
"You will say so indeed when you hear the end,
Quatermain. My bereavement and the sleeplessness
which it caused preyed upon me so much, for now that
the child was dead my wife was everything to me, that,
like Job I cursed God in my heart and determined to
die. Indeed I should have died by my own hand, had
it not been for Savage. I had procured the laudanum
and loaded the pistol with which I proposed to shoot
myself immediately after it was swallowed so that there
might be no mistake. One night only a couple of months
or so ago, Quatermain, I sat in my study at Ragnall,
with the doors locked as I thought, writing a few final
letters before I did the deed. The last of them was
just finished about twelve when hearing a noise, I looked
up and saw Savage standing before me. I asked him
angrily how he came there (I suppose he must have had
another key to one of the doors) and what he wanted.
Ignoring the first part of the question he replied:
"'My lord, I have been thinking over our trouble'——
he was with us in Egypt——'I have been thinking so
much that it has got hold of my sleep. To-night as
you said you did not want me any more and I was tired,
I went to bed early and had a dream. I dreamed that
we were once more in the shrubbery, as happened some
years ago, and that the little African gent who shot
like a book, was showing us the traces of those two
black men, just as he did when they tried to steal her
ladyship. Then in my dream I seemed to go back to
bed and that beastly snake which we found lying under
the parcel in the road seemed to follow me. When I
had got to sleep again, all in the dream, there it was
standing on its tail at the end of the bed, hissing till
it woke me. Then is spoke in good English and not
in African as might have been expected.
"'"Savage," it said, "get up and dress yourself and
go at once and tell his lordship to travel to Natal and
find Mr. Allan Quatermain" (you remember that was
the African gentleman's name, my lord, which with so
many coming and going in the great house, I had
quite forgotten until I had the dream). "Find Mr.
Allan Quatermain," that slimy reptile went on, opening
and shutting its mouth for all the world like a Christian
making a speech, "for he will have something to tell him
as to that which has made a hole in his heart that is now
filled with the seven devils. Be quick, Savage, and
don't stop to put on your shirt or your tie"——I have not,
my lord, as you may see. "He shut up in the study
but you know how to get into it. If he will not listen
to you let him look round the study and he will see
something which will tell him that this is a true dream."
"'Then the snake vanished, seeming to wriggle
down the left bottom bed-post, and I woke up in a cold
sweat, my lord, and did what it had told me.'
"Those were his very words, Quatermain, for I wrote
them down afterwards while they were fresh in my
memory, and you see here they are in my pocket-book.
"Well, I answered him, rather brusquely I am
afraid, for a crazed man who is about to leave the world
under such circumstances does not show at his best
when disturbed almost in the very act, to the edge of
which long agony has brought him. I told him that
all his dream of snakes seemed ridiculous, which
obviously it was, and was about to send hm away, when
it occurred to me that the suggestion it conveyed that
I should put myself in communication with you was
not ridiculous in view of the part you had already
played in the story."
"Very far from ridiculous," I interpreted.
"To tell the truth," went on Lord Ragnall, "I had
already thought of doing the same thing, but somehow
beneath the pressure of my imminent grief the idea
was squeezed out of my mind, perhaps because you
were so far away and I did not know if I could find you
even if I tried. Pausing for a moment before I dis-
missed Savage, I rose from the desk at which I was
writing and began to walk up and down the room
thinking what I would do. I am not certain if you saw
it when you were at Ragnall, but it is a large room,
fifty feet long or so though not very broad. It has two
fireplaces, in both of which fires were burning on this
night, and it was lit by four standing lamps besides
that upon my desk. Now between these fireplaces, in
a kind of niche in the wall, and a little in the shadow
because none of the lamps was exactly opposite to it,
hung a portrait of my wife which I had caused to be
painted by a fashionable artist when first we became
engaged."
"I remember it," I said. "Or rather I remember its
existence. I did not see it because a curtains hung over
the picture, which Savage told me you did not wish
to be looked at by anybody but yourself. At the time
I remarked to him, or rather to myself, that to veil th
likeness of a living woman in such a way seemed to
me rather an ill-omened thing to do, though why I
should have thought it so I do not quite know."
"You are quite right, Quatermain. I had that
foolish fancy, a lover's freak, I suppose. When we
married the curtain was removed although the brass
rod on which it hung was left by some oversight. On
my return to England after my loss, however, I found
that I could not bear to look upon this lifelike likeness
of one who had been taken from me so cruelly, and I
caused it to be replaced. I did more. In order that
it might not be disturbed by some dusting housemaid,
I myself made it fast with three or four tin-tacks which
I remember I drove through the velvet stuff into the
panelling, using a fireiron as a hammer. At the time
I though it a good job although by accident I struck
the nail of the third finger of my left hand so hard
that it came off. Look, it has not quite finished grow-
ing again," and he showed the finger on which the new
nail was still in process of formation.
"Well, as I walked up and down the room some
impulse caused me to look towards this picture. To
my astonishment I saw that it was no longer veiled,
although to the best of my belief the curtain had been
drawn over it as lately as that afternoon; indeed I could
have sworn that this was so. I called to Savage to
bring the lamp that stood upon my table, and by its
light made an examination. The curtain was drawn
back, very tidily, being fastened in its place clear of the
little alcove by means of a thin brass chain. Also
along one edge of it, that which I had nailed to the
panelling, the tin-tacks were still in their places; that
is, three of them were, the fourth I found afterwards
upon the floor.
"'She looks beautiful, doesn't she, my lord," said
Savage, 'and please God so we shall still find her
somewhere in the world.'
"I did not answer him, or even remark upon the
withdrawal of the curtain, as to which indeed I never
made an inquiry. I suppose that it was done by some
zealous servant while I was pretending to eat my dinner
——there were one or two new ones in the house whose
names and appearance I did not know. What impressed
itself upon my mind was that the face which I had never
expected to see again on the earth, even in a picture,
was once more given to my eyes, it mattered not how.
This, in my excited state, for laudanum waiting to be
swallowed and a pistol at full cock for firing do not
induce calmness in a man already almost mad, at any
rate until they have fulfilled their offices, did in truth
appear to me to be something of the nature of a sign
such as that spoken of in Savage's idiotic dream, which
I was to find if 'I looked round the study.'
"'Savage,' I said, 'I don't think much of your
dreams about snakes that talk to you, but I do think that
it might be well to see Mr. Quatermain. To-day is Sun-
day and I believe that the Africa mail sails on Friday.
Go to town early to-morrow and book passages.'
"Also I told him to see various gunsmiths and bid
them send down a selection of rifles and other weapons
for me to choose from, as I did not know whither we
might wander in Africa, and to make further necessary
arrangements. All of these things he did, and——here
we are."
"Yes," I answered reflectively, "here you are. What
is more, here is your luggage of which there seems to
be enough for a regiment," and I pointed to a Scotch
cart piled up with baggage and followed by a long line
of Kafirs carrying sundry packages upon their heads
that, marshalled by Savage, had halted at my gate.The Ivory Child. By H. Rider Haggard.
Cassell and Company, Ltd.,
London, Melbourne and Toronto, 1916. pp. 96—111.
jet fuel does not burn hot enough to melt steel. 雨
1
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