Chapter XXVIII: Over the Mountain

The next thing I recollect is a feeling of the most dreadful stiffness, and a sort of vague idea passing through my half-awakened brain that I was a carpet that had just been beaten. I opened my eyes, and the first thing they fell on was the venerable countenance of our old friend Billali, who was seated by the side of the improvised bed upon which I was sleeping, and thoughtfully stroking his long beard. The sight of him at once brought back to my mind a recollection of all that we had recently passed through, which was accentuated by the vision of poor Leo lying opposite to me, his face knocked almost to a jelly, and his beautiful crowd of curls turned from yellow to white,[1] and I shut my eyes again and groaned.

[1] Curiously enough, Leo’s hair has lately been to some extent regaining its colour—that is to say, it is now a yellowish grey, and I am not without hopes that it will in time come quite right.—L. H. H.

“Thou hast slept long, my Baboon,” said old Billali.

“How long, my father?” I asked.

“A round of the sun and a round of the moon, a day and a night
hast thou slept, and the Lion also. See, he sleepeth yet.”

“Blessed is sleep,” I answered, “for it swallows up
recollection.”

“Tell me,” he said, “what hath befallen you, and what is this
strange story of the death of Her who dieth not. Bethink thee, my
son: if this be true, then is thy danger and the danger of the
Lion very great—nay, almost is the pot red wherewith ye shall be
potted, and the stomachs of those who shall eat ye are already
hungry for the feast. Knowest thou not that these Amahagger, my
children, these dwellers in the caves, hate ye? They hate ye as
strangers, they hate ye more because of their brethren whom _She_
put to the torment for your sake. Assuredly, if once they learn
that there is naught to fear from Hiya, from the terrible
One-who-must-be-obeyed, they will slay ye by the pot. But let me
hear thy tale, my poor Baboon.”

Thus adjured, I set to work and told him—not everything, indeed,
for I did not think it desirable to do so, but sufficient for my
purpose, which was to make him understand that _She_ was really
no more, having fallen into some fire, and, as I put it—for the
real thing would have been incomprehensible to him—been burnt up.
I also told him some of the horrors we had undergone in effecting
our escape, and these produced a great impression on him. But I
clearly saw that he did not believe in the report of Ayesha’s
death. He believed indeed that we thought that she was dead, but
his explanation was that it had suited her to disappear for a
while. Once, he said, in his father’s time, she had done so for
twelve years, and there was a tradition in the country that many
centuries back no one had seen her for a whole generation, when
she suddenly reappeared, and destroyed a woman who had assumed
the position of Queen. I said nothing to this, but only shook my
head sadly. Alas! I knew too well that Ayesha would appear no
more, or at any rate that Billali would never see her again.

“And now,” concluded Billali, “what wouldst thou do, my Baboon?”

“Nay,” I said, “I know not, my father. Can we not escape from
this country?”

He shook his head.

“It is very difficult. By Kôr ye cannot pass, for ye would be
seen, and as soon as those fierce ones found that ye were alone,
well,” and he smiled significantly, and made a movement as though
he were placing a hat on his head. “But there is a way over the
cliff whereof I once spake to thee, where they drive the cattle
out to pasture. Then beyond the pastures are three days’ journey
through the marshes, and after that I know not, but I have heard
that seven days’ journey from thence is a mighty river, which
floweth to the black water. If ye could come thither, perchance
ye might escape, but how can ye come thither?”

“Billali,” I said, “once, thou knowest, I did save thy life. Now
pay back the debt, my father, and save me mine and my friend’s,
the Lion’s. It shall be a pleasant thing for thee to think of
when thine hour comes, and something to set in the scale against
the evil doing of thy days, if perchance thou hast done any evil.
Also, if thou be right, and if _She_ doth but hide herself,
surely when she comes again she shall reward thee.”

“My son the Baboon,” answered the old man, “think not that I have
an ungrateful heart. Well do I remember how thou didst rescue me
when those dogs stood by to see me drown. Measure for measure
will I give thee, and if thou canst be saved, surely I will save
thee. Listen: by dawn to-morrow be prepared, for litters shall be
here to bear ye away across the mountains, and through the
marshes beyond. This will I do, saying that it is the word of
_She_ that it be done, and he who obeyeth not the word of _She_
food is he for the hyænas. Then when ye have crossed the marshes,
ye must strike with your own hands, so that perchance, if good
fortune go with you, ye may live to come to that black water
whereof ye told me. And now, see, the Lion wakes, and ye must eat
the food I have made ready for you.”

Leo’s condition when once he was fairly aroused proved not to be
so bad as might have been expected from his appearance, and we
both of us managed to eat a hearty meal, which indeed we needed
sadly enough. After this we limped down to the spring and bathed,
and then came back and slept again till evening, when we once
more ate enough for five. Billali was away all that day, no doubt
making arrangements about litters and bearers, for we were
awakened in the middle of the night by the arrival of a
considerable number of men in the little camp.

At dawn the old man himself appeared, and told us that he had by
using _She’s_ dreadful name, though with some difficulty,
succeeded in getting the necessary men and two guides to conduct
us across the swamps, and that he urged us to start at once, at
the same time announcing his intention of accompanying us so as
to protect us against treachery. I was much touched by this act
of kindness on the part of that wily old barbarian towards two
utterly defenceless strangers. A three—or in his case, for he
would have to return, six—days’ journey through those deadly
swamps was no light undertaking for a man of his age, but he
consented to do it cheerfully in order to promote our safety. It
shows that even among those dreadful Amahagger—who are certainly
with their gloom and their devilish and ferocious rites by far
the most terrible savages that I ever heard of—there are people
with kindly hearts. Of course, self-interest may have had
something to do with it. He may have thought that _She_ would
suddenly reappear and demand an account of us at his hands, but
still, allowing for all deductions, it was a great deal more than
we could expect under the circumstances, and I can only say that
I shall for as long as I live cherish a most affectionate
remembrance of my nominal parent, old Billali.

Accordingly, after swallowing some food, we started in the
litters, feeling, so far as our bodies went, wonderfully like our
old selves after our long rest and sleep. I must leave the
condition of our minds to the imagination.

Then came a terrible pull up the cliff. Sometimes the ascent was
more natural, more often it was a zig-zag roadway cut, no doubt,
in the first instance by the old inhabitants of Kôr. The
Amahagger say they drive their spare cattle over it once a year
to pasture outside; all I know is that those cattle must be
uncommonly active on their feet. Of course the litters were
useless here, so we had to walk.

By midday, however, we reached the great flat top of that mighty
wall of rock, and grand enough the view was from it, with the
plain of Kôr, in the centre of which we could clearly make out
the pillared ruins of the Temple of Truth to the one side, and
the boundless and melancholy marsh on the other. This wall of
rock, which had no doubt once formed the lip of the crater, was
about a mile and a half thick, and still covered with clinker.
Nothing grew there, and the only thing to relieve our eyes were
occasional pools of rain-water (for rain had lately fallen)
wherever there was a little hollow. Over the flat crest of this
mighty rampart we went, and then came the descent, which, if not
so difficult a matter as the getting up, was still sufficiently
break-neck, and took us till sunset. That night, however, we
camped in safety upon the mighty slopes that rolled away to the
marsh beneath.

On the following morning, about eleven o’clock, began our dreary
journey across those awful seas of swamps which I have already
described.

For three whole days, through stench and mire, and the
all-prevailing flavour of fear, did our bearers struggle along,
till at length we came to open rolling ground quite uncultivated,
and mostly treeless, but covered with game of all sorts, which
lies beyond that most desolate, and without guides utterly
impracticable, district. And here on the following morning we
bade farewell, not without some regret, to old Billali, who
stroked his white beard and solemnly blessed us.

“Farewell, my son the Baboon,” he said, “and farewell to thee
too, oh Lion. I can do no more to help you. But if ever ye come
to your country, be advised, and venture no more into lands that
ye know not, lest ye come back no more, but leave your white
bones to mark the limit of your journeyings. Farewell once more;
often shall I think of you, nor wilt thou forget me, my Baboon,
for though thy face is ugly thy heart is true.” And then he
turned and went, and with him went the tall and sullen-looking
bearers, and that was the last that we saw of the Amahagger. We
watched them winding away with the empty litters like a
procession bearing dead men from a battle, till the mists from
the marsh gathered round them and hid them, and then, left
utterly desolate in the vast wilderness, we turned and gazed
round us and at each other.

Three weeks or so before four men had entered the marshes of Kôr,
and now two of us were dead, and the other two had gone through
adventures and experiences so strange and terrible that death
himself hath not a more fearful countenance. Three weeks—and only
three weeks! Truly time should be measured by events, and not by
the lapse of hours. It seemed like thirty years since we saw the
last of our whale-boat.

“We must strike out for the Zambesi, Leo,” I said, “but God knows
if we shall ever get there.”

Leo nodded. He had become very silent of late, and we started
with nothing but the clothes we stood in, a compass, our
revolvers and express rifles, and about two hundred rounds of
ammunition, and so ended the history of our visit to the ancient
ruins of mighty and imperial Kôr.

As for the adventures that subsequently befell us, strange and
varied as they were, I have, after deliberation, determined not
to record them here. In these pages I have only tried to give a
short and clear account of an occurrence which I believe to be
unprecedented, and this I have done, not with a view to immediate
publication, but merely to put on paper while they are yet fresh
in our memories the details of our journey and its result, which
will, I believe, prove interesting to the world if ever we
determine to make them public. This, as at present advised, we do
not intend should be done during our joint lives.

For the rest, it is of no public interest, resembling as it does
the experience of more than one Central African traveller.
Suffice it to say, that we did, after incredible hardships and
privations, reach the Zambesi, which proved to be about a hundred
and seventy miles south of where Billali left us. There we were
for six months imprisoned by a savage tribe, who believed us to
be supernatural beings, chiefly on account of Leo’s youthful face
and snow-white hair. From these people we ultimately escaped,
and, crossing the Zambesi, wandered off southwards, where, when
on the point of starvation, we were sufficiently fortunate to
fall in with a half-caste Portuguese elephant-hunter who had
followed a troop of elephants farther inland than he had ever
been before. This man treated us most hospitably, and ultimately
through his assistance we, after innumerable sufferings and
adventures, reached Delagoa Bay, more than eighteen months from
the time when we emerged from the marshes of Kôr, and the very
next day managed to catch one of the steamboats that run round
the Cape to England. Our journey home was a prosperous one, and
we set our foot on the quay at Southampton exactly two years from
the date of our departure upon our wild and seemingly ridiculous
quest, and I now write these last words with Leo leaning over my
shoulder in my old room in my college, the very same into which
some two-and-twenty years ago my poor friend Vincey came
stumbling on the memorable night of his death, bearing the iron
chest with him.

And that is the end of this history so far as it concerns science
and the outside world. What its end will be as regards Leo and
myself is more than I can guess at. But we feel that is not
reached yet. A story that began more than two thousand years ago
may stretch a long way into the dim and distant future.

Is Leo really a reincarnation of the ancient Kallikrates of whom
the inscription tells? Or was Ayesha deceived by some strange
hereditary resemblance? The reader must form his own opinion on
this as on many other matters. I have mine, which is that she
made no such mistake.

Often I sit alone at night, staring with the eyes of the mind
into the blackness of unborn time, and wondering in what shape
and form the great drama will be finally developed, and where the
scene of its next act will be laid. And when that _final_
development ultimately occurs, as I have no doubt it must and
will occur, in obedience to a fate that never swerves and a
purpose that cannot be altered, what will be the part played
therein by that beautiful Egyptian Amenartas, the Princess of the
royal race of the Pharaohs, for the love of whom the Priest
Kallikrates broke his vows to Isis, and, pursued by the
inexorable vengeance of the outraged Goddess, fled down the coast
of Libya to meet his doom at Kôr?