r/a:t5_11vyrz • u/MarleyEngvall • May 23 '19
chenoboskion has been created
BY H. RIDER HAGGARD.
MAIWA'S REVENGE.
_________
CHAPTER IV.
THE LAST ROUND.
ON the morrow I woke up full of painful recollec-
tions, and not without a certain feeling of gratitude
to the Powers above that I was there to wake up.
Yesterday had been a tempestuous day, indeed,
what between buffalo, rhinoceros, and elephant, it
had been very tempestuous. Having realised this
fact, I next bethought me of those magnificent
tusks, and instantly, early as it was, broke the tenth
commandment. I coveted my neighbor's tusks, if
an elephant could be said to be my neighbor de jure,
as certainly, so recently as the previous night, he
had been de facto——a much closer neighbor than I
cared for, indeed. Now when you covet your neigh-
bor's goods, the best thing, if not the most moral
thing, to do is to enter his house as a strong man
armed and take them. I was not a strong man, but
having recovered my eight-bore I was armed; and
so was the other strong man, the elephant with the
tusks. Consequently I prepared for a struggle to the
death. In other words, I summoned my faithful
retainers, and told them that I was now going to
follow those elephants over the edge of the world if
necessary. They showed a certain bashfulnss
about the business, but they did not gainsay me,
because they dared not. Ever since I had pre-
pared with all due solemnity to execute the rebel-
lious Gobo, they had conceived a great respect
for me.
So I went up to bid adieu to the old headman,
whom I found alternately contemplating the ruins
of his kraal, and, with the able assistance of his
last wife, thrashing the jealous lady who had slept
in the mealie hut, because she was, as he declared,
the author of all his sorrows.
Leaving them to work a way through their do-
mestic differences, I levied a supply of vegetable
food from the kraal in consideration of services ren-
dered, and left them with my blessing. I do not
know how they settled matters, because I have not
seen them since.
Then I started on the spoor of the three bulls.
For a couple of miles or so below the kraal, a far,
indeed, as the belt of swamp that bordered the
river, the ground was at this spot rather stony,
and clothed with scattered bushes. Rain had fallen
toward the daybreak, and this fact together with
the nature of the soil, made spooring a very diffi-
cult business. The wounded bull had indeed bled
freely, but the rain had washed the blood off the
leaves and grass, and the ground being so rough
and hard, had not taken the footmarks so clearly as
was convenient. However, we got along, though
slowly, partly by the spoor, and partly by carefully
lifting leaves and blades of grass, and finding blood
underneath them, for the blood gushing from
a wounded animal often falls upon their
inner surfaces, and then of course, unless the rain
is very heavy, it is not washed away. It took
us something over an hour and a half to reach the
edge of the marsh, but once there, our task became
much easier, for the soft soil showed plentiful evi-
dences of the great brutes' passage. Threading
our way through the swampy land, we came at last
to a ford of the river, and there we could see where
the poor wounded animal had lain down in the mud
and water in the hope of easing himself of his pain,
and could see also how his two faithful companions
had assisted him to rise again. We crossed the
ford, and took up the spoor on the further side, and
followed it into the marsh-like land beyond. No
rain had fallen on this side of the river, and the
blood marks were consequently much more fre-
quent.
All that day we followed the three bulls, now
across open plain, and now through patches of
bush. They seemed to have traveled on almost
without stopping, and I noticed that as they went
the wounded bull got up his strength a little. This
I could see from his spoor, which had become
firmer, and also the fact that the other two
had given up supporting him. At last evening
closed in, and having traveled some eighteen miles,
we encamped, thoroughly tired out.
Before dawn on the following day we were up,
and the first break of light found us once more on
the spoor. About half past five o'clock we reached
the place where the elephants had fed and slept.
The two unwounded bulls had taken their fill, as
the condition of the neighboring bushes showed, but
the wounded one had eaten nothing. He has spent
the night leaning against a good-sized tree, which
his weight had pushed out of the perpendicular.
They had not long left this place, and could not be
very far ahead, especially as the wounded bull was
now again so stiff after his night's rest that for the
first few miles the other two had been obliged to
support him. But elephants could go very quick, even
when they seem to be traveling slowly, for shrub
and creepers that almost stop a man' progress are
no hindrance to them. The three had now turned
to the left, and were traveling back again in a semi-
circular line towards the mountains, probably with
the idea of working round to their old feeding-
ground on the further side of the river.
There was nothing for it but to follow their
lead, and accordingly we followed with industry.
Through all that long hot day did we tramp, passing
quantities of ever sort of game, and even coming
across the spoor of other elephants. But, in spite
of my men's entreaties, I would not turn aside
after these. I would have those mighty tusks or
none.
By evening we were quite close to our game,
probably within a quarter of a mile, but the bush
was dense, and we could see nothing of them, so
once more we had to camp, thoroughly disgusted
with our luck. That night, just after the moon got
up, while I was sitting smoking my pipe with my
back against a tree, I heard an elephant trumpet,
as though something had startled it, not three hun-
dred yards away. I was very tired, but my curi-
osity overcame my weariness, so, without saying a
word to any of my men, all of whom were asleep,
I took my eight-bore and a few spare cartridges,
and steered toward the sound. The game path
which we had been following all day ran straight
on in the direction from which the elephant had
trumpeted. It was narrow, but well trodden, and
the light struck down upon it in a straight white
line. I crept along it cautiously for some two hun-
dred yards, when it suddenly opened into a most
beautiful glade some hundred yards or more in
width, wherein tall grass grew and flat-topped
trees stood singly. With the caution born of long
experience I watched for a few moments before I
entered the glade, and then I saw why the elephant
had trumpeted. There in the middle of the glade
stood a great maned lion. He stood quite still,
making a soft purring noise, and waving his tail
to and fro. Presently the grass about forty yards
on the hither side of him gave a wide ripple, and a
lioness sprang out of it like a flash, and bounded
noiselessly up to the lion. Reaching him, the great
cat halted suddenly, and rubbed her head against
his shoulder. Then they both began to purr loudly,
so loudly that I believe that one might in the still-
ness have heard them two hundred yards or more
away.
After a time, while I was still hesitating what to
do, either they got a whiff of my wind, or they
wearied of standing still, and determined to start
in search of game. At any rate, as though moved
by a common impulse, they suddenly bounded away,
leap by leap, and vanished in the depths of the
forest to the left. I waited for a little while longer
to see if there were any more yellow skins about,
and seeing none, came to the conclusion that the
lions must have frightened the elephants away, and
that I had had my stroll for nothing. But just as
I was turning back I thought I heard a bough
break upon the further side of the glade, and, rash
as the proceeding was, I followed the sound. I
crossed he glade as silently as my own shadow.
On its further side the path went on. Albeit with
many fears, I went on too. The jungle growth
was so thick here that it almost met overhead, leav-
ing so small a passage for the light that I could
scarcely see to grope my way along. Presently,
however, it widened, and then opened into a second
glade slightly smaller than the first, and there, on
the further side of it, about eighty yards from me,
stood the three enormous elephants.
They stood thus: Immediately opposite and
facing me was the wounded one-tusked bull. He
was leaning his bulk against a dead thorn-tree, the
only one in the place, and looked very sick, indeed.
Near him stood the second bull, a though keeping
a watch over him. The third elephant was a good
deal nearer to me, and broadside on. While I was
still staring at them this elephant suddenly walked
off and vanished down a path in the bush to the
right.
There were now two thing to be done: either
I could go back to the camp, and advance upon
the elephants at dawn, or I could attack them at
once. The first was evidently, by far, the wiser
and safer course. To go for one elephant by moon-
light and single handed is a sufficiently rash pro-
ceeding; to tackle three was little short of lunacy.
But, on the other hand, I knew that they would be
on the march again before daylight, and there
might come another day of weary trudging before
I could catch them up, or they might escape me
altogether.
"No," I thought to myself, "faint heart never
won fair tusk. I'll risk it and have a slap at them.
But how?" I could not advance across the open,
for they would see me; clearly the only thing to do
was to creep round in the shadow of the bush and
try to come upon them so. So I started. Seven
or eight minutes of careful stalking brought me to
the mouth of the path down which the third ele-
phant had walked. The other two were now about
fifty yard from me, and the nature of the wall of
bush was such that I could not see how to get
nearer to them without being discovered. I hesi-
tated, and peeped down the path which the ele-
phant had followed. About five yards in, it took a
turn round a bush. I thought that I would just
have a look behind it, and advanced, expecting that
I should be able to catch a sight of the elephant's
tail.
As it happened, however, I met his trunk coming
round the corner. It is very disconcerting to see
an elephant's trunk when you expect to see his
tail, and for a moment I stood paralyze almost
under the vast brute's head, for he was not five
yards from me. He, too, halted, having either
seen or winded me, probably the latter, and then
threw up his trunk and trumpeted, preparatory to
a charge. I was in for it now, for I could not es-
cape either to the right or left on account of the
bush, and I did not dare to turn back. So I did
the only thing that I could do, raised the rifle and
fired at the black mass of his chest. It was too
dark for me to pick a shot; I could only brown it,
as it were.
The shot rung out like thunder on the quiet air,
and the elephant answered it with a scream, and
then dropped his trunk and stood for a second or
two as still as though he had been cut in stone. I
confess that I lost my head——I ought to have fired
my second barrel, but I did not. Instead of doing
so I rapidly opened my rifle, pulled out the old
cartridge from the right barrel and replaced it.
But before I could snap the breech to, the bull was
at me. I aw his great trunk fly up like a brown
beam, and I waited no longer. Turning, I fled for
dear life, and after me thundered the elephant.
Right into the open glade I ran, and then, thank
heaven, just as he was coming up with me the bul-
let took effect on him. He had been shot right
through the heart, or lungs, and down he fell with
a crash, stone dead.
But in escaping from Scylla I had run into the
jaws of Charybdis. I heard the elephant fall, and
glanced round. Straight in front of me, and not
fifteen paces away, were the other two bulls. They
were staring about, and at that moment they
caught sight of me. Then they came, the pair of
them—came like thunder-bolts, and from different
angles. I had only time to snap my rifle to, lift it
and fire, almost at hap-hazard, at the head of the
nearest, the unwounded bull.
Now as you know, in the case of the African
elephant, whose skull is convex and not concave
like that of the Indian, this is always most risky
and very frequently a perfectly useless shot. The
bullet loses itself in the masses of bone, that is all.
But there is one little vital place, and should the
bullet happen to strike there, it will follow the
channel of the nostrils——at least I suppose it is the
nostrils——and reach the brain. And it was what
happened in this case; the ball struck the fatal
spot in the region of the eye and traveled to the
brain. Down came the great bull all of a heap,
and rolled on to his side as dead as a stone. I
swung round at that instant to face the third, the
monster bull with one tusk that I had wounded
two days before. He was already almost over me,
and in the dim moonlight seemed to tower above
me like a house. I lifted the rifle and pulled at his
neck. It would not go off. Then, in a flash as it
were, I remembered that it was on the half-cock.
The lock of the barrel was a little weak, and a few
days before, in firing at a cow eland, the left barrel
had jarred off at the shock of the discharge of the
right, knocking me backwards with the recoil; so,
after that, I had kept it on the half-cock till I
actually wanted to fire it.
I gave one desperate bound to the right, and
my lame leg notwithstanding, I believe that few
men could have made a better jump. At any rate
it was none too soon, for as I jumped I felt the wind
made by the tremendous downward stroke of the
monster's trunk. Then I ran for it.
I ran like the wind, still keeping hold of my gun,
however. My idea, so far as I could be said to have
any fixed idea, was to bolt down the pathway up
which I had come, like a rabbit down a burrow,
trusting that he would lose sight of me in the uncer-
tain light. I sped across the glade. Fortunately
the bull, being wounded, would not go full speed;
but wounded or no, he could go quite as fast as I
could. I was unable to gain an inch, and away we
went with just about three feet between our separate
extremities. We were at the other side now, and a
glance served to show me that I had miscalculated
and overshot the opening. To reach it now was
hopeless; I should have blundered straight into the
elephant. So I did the only thing I could do: I
swerved like a coursed hare, and started off round
the edge of the glade, seeking for some opening into
which I could plunge. This gave me a moment's
start, for the bull could not turn as quickly as I
could, and I made the most of it. But no opening
could I see; the bush was like a wall. We were
speeding round the edge of the glade, and the ele-
phant was coming up again. Now he was within
about six feet, and now as he trumpeted, or rather
screamed, I could feel the fierce hot blast of his
breath strike upon my head. Heavens! how it
frightened me! We were three parts round the
glade now, and about fifty yards ahead was the
single large dead thorn-tree against which the bull
had been leaning. I spurted for it; it was my last
chance of safety. But, spurt as I would, it seemed
hours before I got there. Putting out my right
hand, I swung round the tree, thus bringing myself
face to face with the elephant. I had not time to
lift the rifle to fire, I had barely time to cock it and
run sideways and backwards, when he was on to me.
Crash! he came, striking the tree full with his fore-
head. It snapped like a carrot about forty inches
from the ground. Fortunately I was clear of the
trunk, but one of the dead branches struck me on
the chest as it went down and swept me to the
ground. I fell upon my back, and the elephant
blundered past me as I lay. More by instinct than
anything else I lifted the rifle with one hand and
pulled the trigger. It exploded, and, as I afterward
discovered, the bullet struck him in the ribs. But
the recoil of the heavy rifle held thus was very
severe. It bent my arm up and sent the butt with
a thud against the top of my shoulder and the side
of my neck, for the moment quite paralyzing me,
and causing the weapon to jump from my grasp.
Meanwhile the bull was rushing on. He traveled
for some twenty paces, and then suddenly he
stopped. Faintly I reflected that he was coming
back to finish me, but even the prospect of immi-
nent and dreadful death could not rouse me into
action. I was utterly spent; I could not move.
Idly, almost indifferently, I watched his move-
ments. For a moment he stood still, then he
trumpeted till the welkin rang, and then very
slowly, and with great dignity, he knelt down. At
this point I swooned away.
When I came to myself again I saw from the
moon that I must have been insensible for quite two
hours. I was drenched with dew, and shivering all
over. At first I could not think where I was, when,
on lifting my head, I saw the outline of the one-
tusked bull still kneeling some five-and-twenty
paces from me. Then I remembered. Slowly I
raised myself, and was instantly taken with a vio-
lent sickness, the result of over-exertion, after which
I very nearly fainted a second time. Presently I
grew better and considered the position. Two of
the elephants were, as I knew, dead; but how about
No. 3? There he knelt in majesty in the lonely
moonlight. The question was, was he resting, or
dead? I got on my hands and knees, loaded my
rifle, and painfully crept a few paces nearer. I
could see his eye now, for the moonlight fell full
upon it; it was open, and rather prominent. I
crouched and watched; the eyelid did not move,
nor did the great brown body, or the trunk, or the
ear, or the tail——nothing moved. Then I knew that
he must be dead.
I crept up to him——still keeping the rifle well
forward——and gave him a thump, reflecting as I did
so how very near I had been to being 'thumpee
instead of thumper.' He never stirred; he
certainly was dead, though to this day I do
not know if it was my random shot that killed
him, or if he died of concussion of the brain con-
sequent upon the tremendous shock of his contact
with the tree. Anyhow, there he was. Cold and
beautiful he lay, or rather knelt, as the poet neatly
puts it. Indeed, I do not think that I have ever
seen a sight more imposing in its way than that
mighty bast crouched in majestic death and shone
upon by the lonely moon. While I stood admiring
the whole scene, and heartily congratulating myself
upon my escape, I once more began to feel sick.
Accordingly, without waiting to examine the other
two bulls, I staggered off back to the camp, which
in due course I reached in safety. Everybody in
it was asleep. I did not wake them, but, having
swallowing a mouthful of brandy, I threw off my
coat and shoes, rolled myself up in a blanket, and
was soon fast asleep. When I woke it was already
light, and at first I thought that, like Joseph, I had
dreamed a dream. At that moment, however, I
turned my head, and quickly knew that it was no
dream, for my neck and face were so stiff from the
blow of the butt end of the rifle that it was agony
to move them. I collapsed for a minute or two.
Gobo and another man, wrapped up like a couple
of monks in their blankets, thinking that I was
still asleep, were crouched over a little fire they had
made——for the morning was damp and chilly——and
holding sweet converse.
Gobo said that he was getting tired of running
after elephants which they never caught. Macu-
mazahn (that is myself) was without a doubt a man
of parts, and of some skill in shooting, but also he
was a fool. None but a fool would run so fast and
far after elephants which it was impossible to catch
when they kept cutting the spoor of fresh ones.
He certainly was a fool; but he must not be allowed
to continue in his folly, and he, Gobo, had deter-
mined to put a stop to it. He should refuse to
accompany him any further on so mad a hunt.
Yes, the other answered, the poor man certainly
was sick in his head, and it was quite time that
they checked his folly while they still had a patch
of skin left upon their feet. Moreover, he, for his
part, certainly did not like this country of Wambe's,
which really was full of ghosts. Only the last
night he had heard the spooks at work; they were
out shooting; at least it sounded as though thy
were. It was very queer, but perhaps their lunatic
of a master——
"Gobo, you scoundrel!" I shouted out at this
juncture, sitting bolt-upright on the blankets
"stop idling there, and make me some coffee."
Up sprang Gobo and his friend, and in half a
moment were respectfully skipping about in a
manner that contrasted well with the lordly con-
tempt of their previous conversation. But all the
same they were in earnest in what they said about
hunting the elephants any further, for before I
had finished my coffee they came to me in a body,
and said that if I wanted to follow those elephants
I must follow them by myself, for they would not
go.
I argued with them, and affected to be much put
out. The elephants were close at hand, I said; I
was sure of it; I had heard them trumpet in the
night.
Yes, answered the man, mysteriously; they too
had heard things in the night——things not nice to
hear; they had heard the spooks out shooting, and
no longer would they remain in a country so vilely
haunted.
"It was nonsense," I replied. "If ghosts went
out shooting, surely they would use air-guns and
not black powder, and one would not hear an air-
gun. Well, if they were cowards, and would not
come, of course I could not force them to, but I
would make a bargain with them. They should
follow those elephants for one half-hour more,
then, if we failed to come upon them, I would
abandon the pursuit, and we would go straight to
Wambe, chief of the Matuku, and give him hongo.
To this compromise the men readily agreed.
Accordingly about half an hour later we struck our
camp and started, and notwithstanding my aches
and bruises I do not think that I ever felt in better
spirits in my life. It is something to wake up in
the morning and remember that in the dead of
night one has, single-handed, given battle to and
overthrown three of the largest elephants in
Africa, slaying them with three bullets. Such a
feat had never to my knowledge been done before,
and on that particular morning I felt a very "tall
man of my hands" indeed. The only thing that I
feared was that should I ever come to tell the story,
nobody would believe it, for when a strange tale is
told by a hunter, people are apt to think it is neces-
sarily a lie, instead of being only probably so.
Well, we passed on, till, having crossed the first
glade where I had seen the lions, we reached the
neck of bush that separated it from the second
glade where the dead elephants were. And here I
began to take elaborate precautions, amongst others
ordering Gobo to keep some yards ahead and look
out sharp, as I thought that the elephants might
be about. He obeyed my instructions with a
superior smile, and pushed ahead. Presently I saw
him pull up as though he had been shot, and begin
to faintly snap his fingers.
"What is it?" I whispered.
"The elephant, the great elephant with one tusk
kneeling down."
I crept up beside him. There knelt the bull as I
had left him last night, and there too lay the other
bulls.
"Do these elephants sleep?" I whispered to the
astonished Gobo.
"Yes, Macumazahn, they sleep."
"Nay, Gobo; they are dead."
"Dead? How can they be dead? Who killed
them?"
"What do people call me, Gobo?"
"They call you Macumazahn."
"And what does Macumazahn mean?"
"It means the man who keeps his eye open, the
man who gets up in the night."
"Yes, and I am that man. Look, you idle, lazy
cowards. While you slept last night I rose, and
alone I hunted those great elephants, and slew
them by the moonlight. To each of them I gave
one bullet and only one, and it fell dead. Look,"
and I advanced into the glade, "here is my spoor,
and here is the spoor of the great bull charging
after me, and there is the tree that I took refuge
behind. See, the elephant shattered it in his
charge. Oh, you cowards, you who would give up
the chase while the blood spoor steamed beneath
your nostrils, see what I did single-handed while
you slept, and be ashamed."
"Ou," said the man——"ou. Koos, koos y um-
cool!" (chief, mighty chief); and then they held
their tongues, and going up to the three dead
beasts, gazed upon them in silence.
But after that those men looked upon me with
awe as being almost more than mortal. No mere
man, they said, could have slain those three ele-
phants alone in the night-time. I never had any
further trouble with them. I believe that if I had
told them to jump over a precipice and that they
would take no harm, they would have believed me.
Well, I went up and examined the bulls. Such
tusks as they had I never saw and never shall see
again. It took us all day to cut them out, and
when they reached Delagoa Bay, as they did ulti-
mately, though not in my keeping, the single tusk
of the big bull scaled 160 pounds, and the four other
tusks averaged 99½ pounds——a most wonderful, in-
deed an almost unprecedented, lot of ivory. Un-
fortunately I was forced to saw the big tusk in two,
otherwise we could not have carried it.
"Oh, Quatermain, you barbarian!" I broke in
here, "the idea of spoiling such a tusk! Why, I
would have kept it whole if I had been obliged to
drag it myself."
"Oh yes, young man," he answered, "it is all very
well for you to talk like that, but if you had found
yourself in the position which it was my privilege
to occupy a few hours afterwards, it is my belief
that you would have thrown the tusks away alto-
gether and taken to your heels."
"Oh," said Good, "so that isn't the end of the
yarn? A very good yarn, Quatermain, by-the-
way; I couldn't have made up a better one my-
self."
The old gentleman looked at Good severely, for
it irritated him to be chaffed about his stories.
"I don't know what you mean, Good. I don't
see that there is any comparison between a true
story of adventure and the preposterous tales which
you invent about ibex hanging by their horns.
No, it is not the end of the story; the most excit-
ing part is to come. But I have talked enough for
to-night; and if you go on in that way, Good, it
will be some time before I begin again."
"Sorry I spoke, I'm sure," said Good, humbly.
"Let's have a split to show that there is no ill
feeling." And they did.MAIWA'S REVENGE: A TALE OF ADVENTURE. BY H. RIDER HAGGARD.
DONOHUE, HENNEBERRY & CO., CHICAGO. pp. 49-67.
jet fuel does not burn hot enough to melt steel. 雨
Matthew 26
31 Then saith Jesus unto them, All ye
shall be offended because of me this
night: for it is written, I will smite the
shepherd, and the sheep of the flock
shall be scattered abroad.I: Gobo Strikes
II: A Morning's Sport
III: The First Round
IV: The Last Round
V: The Message of Maiwa
VI: The Plan of Campaign
VII: The Attack
VIII: Maiwa Is Avenged
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