 6 Stellar I was not slow to take in Daba Zimbi's hint. About a hundred and fifty yards to the left of the lago was a little dell where I had hidden my horse, together with one belonging to the boars, and my saddle and bridle. Thither we went, I carrying the swooning totter in my arms. To our joy we found the horses safe, for the Zulus had not seen them. Now of course they were our only means of locomotion, for the oxen had been sent away, and even had they been there we could not have found time to in-span them. I laid totter down, caught my horse, undid his knee-halter, and saddled up. As I was doing so a thought struck me, and I told in Daba Zimbi to run to the lager and see if he could find my double-barrelled gun, and some powder and shot, for I had only my elephant roar and a few charges of powder and ball with me. He went, and while he was away poor little totter came to herself, and began to cry till she saw my face. Ah! I have had such a bad dream! she said in Dutch. I dreamt that the black gaffiers were going to kill me. Where is my papa? I winced at the question. Your papa has gone on a journey, dear, I said, and left me to look after you. We shall find him one day. You don't mind going with here, Alan, do you?" No. She said a little doubtfully, and began to cry again. Presently she remembered that she was thirsty, and asked for water. I led her to the river, and she drank. I was my hand-read, here, Alan, she asked, pointing to the smear of Bombiani's blood-stained fingers. At this moment I felt very glad that I had killed Bombiani. It is only paint, dear, I said. See, we will wash it and your face. As I was doing this, and Daba Zimbi returned. The guns were all gone, he said, the Zulus had taken them and the powder, but he had found some things and brought them in a sack. There was a thick blanket, about twenty pounds weight of bill-tongue, or sun-dried meat, a few double-handfuls of biscuit, two water-bottles, a tin panicon, some matches, and sundries. An almakumar zahan, he said, we had best be going, for those umptetwa's are coming back. I saw one of them on the brow of the rise. That was enough for me. I lifted little Tota onto the bow of my saddle, climbed into it, and rode off, holding her in front of me. In Daba Zimbi slipped a ream into the mouth of the best of the boar-horses, threw on the sack of sundries onto its back, and mounted also, holding the elephant gun in his hand, we went eight or nine hundred yards in silence, till we were quite out of range of sight from the wagons, which were in a hollow. Then I pulled up, with such a feeling of thankfulness in my heart, as cannot be told in words, for now I knew that, mounted as we were, those black demons could never catch us. But where were it his steer for? I put the question to in Daba Zimbi, asking him if he thought that we had better try and follow the oxen, which we had sent away with the cafirs and women on the preceding night. He shook his head. The umdettwas will go after the oxen presently, he answered, and we have seen enough of them. Quite enough, I answered with enthusiasm, I never want to see another, but where are we to go? Here we are alone, with one gun and a little girl in a vast and lonely belt. Which way shall we turn? Our faces were towards the north before we met the Zulus, answered in Daba Zimbi. Let us still keep them to the north. Ride on, Mokuma Zahan, to night when we off-saddle I will look into the matter. So all that long afternoon we rode on, following the course of the river. From the nature of the ground we could only go slowly, but before sunset I had the satisfaction of knowing that there must be at least twenty-five miles between us and those of cursed Zulus. Little totus slept most of the way. The motion of the horse was easy, and she was worn out. At last the sunset came, and we off-saddled in a dell by the river. There was not much to eat, but I soaked some biscuit in water for tota, and in Daba Zimbi and I made a scanty meal of bill-tongue. When we had done I took off tota's frock, wrapped her up in a blanket near the fire we had made, and lit a pipe. I sat there by the side of the sleeping orphaned child, and from my heart thanked Providence for saving her life and mine from the slaughter of that day. What a horrible experience it had been. It seemed like a nightmare to look back upon, and yet it was sober fact, one among those many tragedies which dotted the paths of the emigrant boars with the bones of men, women, and children. These horrors are almost forgotten now. People living in Natal now, for instance, can scarcely realise that some forty years ago six hundred white people, many of the women and children, were thus massacred by the impies of Dingan, that it was so, and the name of the district, Winen, or the place of weeping, will commemorate them for ever. Then I felt reflecting on the extraordinary adroitness Olden Daba Zimbi had shown in saving my life. It appeared that he himself had lived among the Imtetwa Zulas in his early manhood, and was a noted rain-doctor and witch-finder. But when Chaka, Dingan's brother, ordered a general massacre of the witch-finders, he alone had saved his life by his skill in magic, and ultimately fled south for reasons too long to set out here. When he heard, therefore, that the regiment was an Imtetwa regiment, which, leaving their wives and children, had broken away from Zululand to escape the cruelties of Dingan, under pretence of spying on them, he took the bold course of going straight up to the chief Sususa, and addressing him as his brother, which he was. The chief knew him at once, and so did the soldiers, for his fame was still great among them. Then he told them his cock-and-ball story about my being a white spirit whose presence in the lager would render it invincible, and with the object of saving my life in the slaughter which he knew must ensue, agreed to charm me out of the lager and deliver me into their keeping. How the plan worked has already been told. It was a risky one, still, but for it my troubles would have been done with these many days. So I lay unthought with a heart full of gratitude, and as I did so, saw Olden Dalba Zimby sitting by the fire, and going through some mysterious performances with bones which he produced from his bag, and ashes mixed with water. I spoke to him and asked what he was about. He replied that he was tracing out the wood that we should follow. I felt inclined to answer bosh, but remembering the very remarkable instances which he had given of his prowess in occult matters, I held my tongue, and taking Little Tota into my arms, worn out with toil, and danger, and emotion. I went to sleep. I awoke just as the dawn was beginning to flame across the sky in sheets of primrose and of gold, or rather it was Little Tota who woke me by kissing me as she lay between sleep and waking, and calling me Papa. It rung my heart to hear her orphaned child. I got up, washed, and dressed her as best I could, and we breakfasted as we had sucked on bill-tongue and biscuit. Tota asked for milk, but I had none to give her. Then we caught the horses, and I saddled mine. Well, in Dalba Zimby, I said, now what path do your bones point to? Straight north, he said, the journey will be hard, but in about four days we shall come to the krall of a white man, an Englishman, not a boar. His krall is in a beautiful place, and there is a great peak behind it where there are many baboons. I looked at him. This is all nonsense in Dalba Zimby, I said. Who ever heard of an Englishman building a house in these wilds, and how do you know anything about it? I think that we had better strike east towards Port Natal. As you like, Makumazahan, he answered, but it will take us three months' journey to get to Port Natal, if we ever get there, and the child will die on the road. Say, Makumazahan, have my words come true here to four, or have they not? Did I not tell you not to hunt the elephants on horseback? Did I not tell you to take one wagon with you instead of two, as it is better to lose one than two? You told me all these things, I answered, and so I'd tell you now to ride north Makumazahan, for there you will find great happiness, yes, and great sorrow, but no man should run away from happiness because of the sorrow. As you will, as you will. Again I looked at him. In his divinations I did not believe, yet I came to the conclusion that he was speaking what he knew to be the truth. It struck me as possible that he might have heard of some white man living like a hermit in the wilds, but preferring to keep up his prophetic character would not say so. Very well, in Dalba Zimby, I said, let us ride north. Only after we started the river we had followed hither too turned off in a westerly direction, so we left it. All that day we rode across rolling uplands, and about an hour before sunset halted a little stream which ran down from a range of hills in front of us. By this time I was heartily tired of the bill-tong, so taking my elephant rifle, for I had nothing else. I left Tota and in Dalba Zimby and started to try if I could shoot something. Oddly enough we had seen no game all the day, nor did we see any on the subsequent days. For some mysterious reason they had temporarily left the district. I crossed the little streamlet in order to enter the belt of thorns which grew upon the hillside beyond, for there I hoped to find Buck. As I did so I was rather disturbed to see the spore of two lions and the soft sandy edge of a pool. Breathing I hoped that they might not still be in the neighbourhood, I went on into the belt of scattered thorns. For a long while I hunted about without seeing anything, except one dookoo buck, which bounded off of the crash from the other side of a stone without giving me a chance. At length, just as it grew dusk, I spied a peaty buck, a graceful little creature scarcely bigger than a large hare standing on a stone about forty yards from me. Under ordinary circumstances I should never have dreamed of firing at such a thing, especially with an elephant gun, but we were hungry. So I sat down with my back against a rock and aimed steadily at its head. I did this because if I struck it in the body the three-ounce ball would have knocked it to bits. At last I pulled the trigger, the gun went off with the report of a small cannon, and the buck disappeared. I ran to the spot with more anxiety than I should have felt in an ordinary way over a kudu or an eland. To my delight there the little creature lay, the huge bullet had decapitated it. Considering all the circumstances I do not think I have often made a better shot than this, but if anyone doubts it let him try his hand at a rabbit's head fifty yards away with an elephant gun and a three-ounce ball. I picked up the peaty in triumph and returned to the camp. There we skinned him and toasted his flesh over the fire. He just made a good meal for us, though we kept the hind legs for breakfast. There was no moon this night, and so it's chance that when I suddenly remembered about the lion's spore and suggested that we had better tie up the horses quite close to us, we could not find them, though we knew they were grazing within fifty yards. This being so we could only make up the fire and take our chance. Shortly afterwards I went to sleep with little tota in my arms. Suddenly I was awakened by hearing that peculiarly painful sound, the scream of a horse quite close to the fire which was still burning brightly. Next second there came a noise of galloping hooves, but before I could even rise my poor horse appeared in the ring of fire-light. As in a flash of lightning I saw his staring eyes and wide-stretched nostrils and the broken ring with which he had been knee-haltered flying in the air. Also I saw something else, for on his back was a great dark form with glowing eyes, and from the form came a growling sound. It was a lion. The horse dashed on. He galloped right through the fire for which he had run in his terror, fortunately, however, without treading on us and vanished into the night. We heard his hooves for a hundred yards or more, then there was silence, broken now and again by distant growls. As may be imagined we did not sleep any more that night but waited anxiously till the dawn broke two hours later. As soon as there was sufficient light we rose, and leaving tota still asleep crept cautiously in the direction in which the horse had vanished. When we had gone fifty yards or so we made out its remains lying on the belt and caught sight of two great cat-like forms slinking away in the gray light. To go any further was useless. We knew all about it now, so we turned to look for the other horse. But our cup of misfortune was not yet for—the horse was nowhere to be found. Terrified by the sight and smell of the lions, it had, with a desperate effort, also burst the ream with which it had been knee-haltered and galloped far away. I sat down, feeling as though I could cry like a woman. But now we were left alone in these vast solitudes without a horse to carry us, and with a child who was not old enough to walk from more than a little way at a time. Well, it was no use giving in, so with a few words we went back to our camp, where I found tota crying because she had worked to find herself alone. Then we ate a little food and prepared to start. First we divided such articles as we might take with us into two equal parts, rejecting everything that we could possibly do without. Then by an afterthought we filled our water-bottles, though at the time I was rather against doing so because of the extra weight. But endarba zinbi overruled me in the matter, fortunately for all three of us. I settled to look after tota for the first march, and to give the elephant gun to endarba zinbi. At length the war was ready, and we sat out on foot. By the help of occasional lifts over rough places, tota managed to walk up the slope of the hillside where I had shot the peaty buck. At length we reached it, and looking at the country beyond, I gave an exclamation of dismay. To say that it was desert would be saying too much. It was more like the keru in the cape, a vast, sandy waste, studded here and there with low shrubs and scattered rocks. But it was a great expanse of desolate land, stretching further than the eye could reach, and boarded far away by a line of purple hills, in the centre of which a great solitary peak soared high into the air. In dava zinbi, I said, we can never cross this if we take six days. As you will, makuma zahan, he answered, but I tell you that there, and he pointed to the peak, there the white man lives. Turn which way you like, but if you turn, you will perish. I reflected for a moment. Our case was, humanly speaking, almost hopeless. It mattered little which way we went. We were alone, almost without food, with no means of transport and a child to carry. As well perish in the sandy waste as on the rolling-belt were among the trees of the hillside, Providence alone could save us, and we must trust to Providence. Come on! I said, lifting Tota onto my back, for she was already tired. All roads lead to rest. How am I to describe the misery of the next four days? How am I to tell how we stumbled on through that awful desert, almost without food and quite without water, for there were no streams, and we saw no springs? We soon found how the case was, and saved almost all the water in our bottles for the child. To look back on it is like a nightmare. I can scarcely bear to dwell on it, day after day, by turns carrying the child through the heavy sand, night after night, lying down in the scrub, chewing the leaves and licking such dew as there was from the scanty grass, not a spring, not a pool, not a head of game. It was the third night. We were nearly mad with thirst. Tota was in a comatose condition. Endaba Zimbi still had a little water in his bottle, perhaps a wine-glass for. With it we moistened our lips and blackened tongues. Then we gave the rest to the child. It revived her. She awoke from her swoon to sink into sleep. See, the dawn was breaking. The hills were not more than eight miles or so away now, and they were green. There must be water there. Come, I said. Endaba Zimbi lifted Tota into a kind of sling that we had made out of the blanket in which to carry her on our backs, and we staggered on for an hour through the sand. She awoke crying for water, and alas we had none to give her. Our tongues were hanging from our lips. We could scarcely speak. We rested a while, and Tota mercifully swooned away again. Then Endaba Zimbi took her. Though he was so thin, the old man's strength was wonderful. Another hour. The slope of the great peak could not be more than two miles away now. A couple of hundred yards off grew a large baobab tree. Could we reach its shade? We had done half the distance when Endaba Zimbi fell from exhaustion. We were now so weak that neither of us could lift the child onto our backs. He rose again, and we each took one of her hands and dragged her along the road. Fifty yards, they seemed to be fifty miles. Ah, the tree was reached at last. Compared with the heat outside, the shade of its dense foliage seemed like the dusk and cool of a vault. I remember thinking that it was a good place to die in. Then I remember no more. I woke with a feeling as though the blessed rain were falling on my face and head. Slowly and with great difficulty I opened my eyes, then shut them again, having seen a vision. For a space I lay thus while the rain continued to fall. I saw now that I must be asleep, or off my head with thirst and fever. If I were not off my head, how came I to imagine that a lovely dark-eyed girl was bending over me sprinkling water on my face? A white girl, too, not a kaffir woman. However, the dream went on. Handrika, said a voice in English, the sweetest voice that I had ever heard. Somehow it reminded me of a wind whispering in the trees at night. Handrika, I fear he dies. There is a flask of brandy in my saddlebag. Get it. Ah-ha! grunted a harsh voice in answer. Let him die, Miss Stella. He will bring you bad luck. Let him die, I say. I felt a movement of air above me as though the woman of my vision turned swiftly, and once again I opened my eyes. She had risen this stream woman. Now I saw that she was tall and graceful as a reed. She was angry, too. Her dark eyes flashed, and she pointed with her hand at a female who stood before her, dressed in nondescript kind of clothes such as might be worn by either a man or woman. The woman was young, of white blood, very short, with bowed legs and enormous shoulders. In face she was not bad looking, but the brow receded, the chin and ears were prominent. In short she reminded me of nothing so much as a very handsome monkey. She might have been the missing link. The lady was pointing at her with her hand. How dare you, she said. Why are you going to disobey me again? Have you forgotten what I told you, Bob-Yan? Baboon. Ah! grunted the woman, who seemed literally to curl and shrivel up beneath her anger. Don't be angry with me, Miss Stella, because I can't bear it. I only said it because it was true. I will fetch you the brandy. Then dream or no dream I determined to speak. Not brandy, I gasped in English, as well as my swollen tongue would allow. Give me water. Ah! he lives! cried the beautiful girl, and he talks English. See, sir, here is water in your own bottle. You were quite close to a spring. It is on the other side of the tree. I struggled to a sitting position, lifted the bottle to my lips and drank from it. Oh! that drink of cool, pure water! Never had I tasted anything so delicious. With the first gulp I felt life flow back into me. But wisely enough she would not let me have much. No more, no more, she said, and dragged the bottle from me, almost by force. The child, I said. Is the child dead? I do not know yet, she answered. We've only just found you, and I tried to revive you first. I turned and crept to where Tota lay beside the side of Indaba Zimbi. It was impossible to say if they were dead or swooning. The lady sprinkled Tota's face with water, which I watched greedily, for my thirst was still awful, while the woman, Handrika, did the same office for Indaba Zimbi. Presently, to my vast delight, Tota opened her eyes and tried to cry, but could not, poor little thing, because her tongue and lips were so swollen. But the lady got some water into her mouth, and, as in my case, the effect was magical. We allowed her to drink about a quarter of a pint, and no more, though she cried bitterly for it. Just then, old Indaba Zimbi came to with a groan. He opened his eyes, glanced round, and took in the situation. What did I tell you, Makumazahan? he gasped, and, seizing the bottle, he took a long pull at it. Meanwhile, I sat with my back against the trunk of the great tree, and tried to realize the situation. Looking to my left, I saw two good horses, one barebacked, and one with a rudely made lady's saddle on it. By the side of the horses were two dogs, of a stout greyhound breed that sat watching us, and near the dogs lay a dead or reed buck which they had evidently been coursing. Handrika, said the lady presently, they must not eat meat just yet. Go up the tree and see if there is any ripe fruit on it. The woman ran swiftly into the plain and obeyed. Presently she returned. I see some ripe fruit, she said, but it is high, quite at the top. Fetch it, said the lady. Easier said than done, I thought to myself, but I was much mistaken. Suddenly the woman bounded at least three feet into the air, and caught one of the spreading boughs and her large, flat hands. Then came a swing that would have filled an acrobat with envy, and she was on it. Now there is an end, I thought again, for the next bough was beyond her reach, but again I was mistaken. She stood up on the bough, gripping it with her bare feet, and once more sprang at the one above, caught it, and swung herself onto it. I suppose that the lady saw my expression of astonishment. Do not wonder, sir, she said, Handrika is not like other people, she will not fall. I made no answer but watched the progress of this extraordinary person with the most breathless interest. On she went, swinging herself from bough to bough, and running along them like a monkey. At last she reached the top and began to swarm up a thin branch towards the ripe fruit. When she was near enough, she shook the branch violently. There was a crack, a crash. It broke. I shut my eyes, expecting to see her crushed on the ground before me. Don't be afraid, said the lady again, laughing gently. Look! she's quite safe. I looked, and so she was. She had caught a bough as she fell, clung to it, and was now calmly dropping to another. Olden Darba Zimby had also watched this performance with interest, but it did not seem to astonish him over much. Bubble woman, he said, as though such people were common, and then turned his attention to soothing Tota who was moaning for more water. Meanwhile, Handrika came down the tree with extraordinary rapidity, and, swinging by one hand from a bough, dropped about eight feet to the ground. In another two minutes we were all three sucking the pulpy fruit. In an ordinary way we should have found it tasteless enough, as it was I thought it the most delicious thing I had ever tasted. After three days spent without food or water in the desert, one is not particular. While we were still eating the fruit, the lady of my vision set her companion to work to partially flay the oree which her dogs had killed, and busied herself in making a fire of fallen boughs. As soon as it burned brightly she took strips of the oreed flesh, toasted them, and gave them to us on leaves. We ate, and now we're allowed a little more water. After that she took Tota to the spring and washed her which she sadly needed for child. Next came our turn to wash, and oh, the joy of it! I came back to the tree, walking painfully indeed, but a changed man. There sat the beautiful girl with Tota on her knees. She was lulling her to sleep, and held up her finger to me and joining silence. At last the child went off into a sound natural slumber, an example that I should have been glad to follow had it not been for my burning curiosity. Then I spoke. May I ask what your name is? I said. Stella, she answered. Stella what? I said. Stella nothing, she answered, and some peak. Stella is my name. It is short and easy to remember at any rate. My father's name is Thomas, and we live up there. And she pointed round the base of the great peak. I looked at her astonished. Have you lived there long, I asked? Ever since I was seven years old. We came there in a wagon. Before that we came from England, from Oxfordshire. I can show you the place on a big map. It's called Garzingham. Again I thought I must be dreaming. Do you know, Miss Stella? I said. It is very strange, so strange that it almost seems as though it could not be true. But I also came from Garzingham and Oxfordshire many years ago. She started up. Are you an English gentleman? She said. Ah, I have always longed to see an English gentleman. I have never seen but one Englishman since we lived here, and he certainly was not a gentleman. No white people at all, indeed, except a few wandering boers. We live among black people and baboons. Only I have read about English people, lots of books, poetry and novels. But tell me, what is your name? Maccuma Zahan, the black man called you, but you must have a white name too. My name is Alan Quortemaine, I said. Her face turned quite white. Her rosy lips parted, and she looked at me wildly with her beautiful dark eyes. It is wonderful, she said, but I have often heard that name. My father has told me how a little boy called Alan Quortemaine once saved my life by putting out my dress when it was on fire. See? And she pointed to a faint red mark upon her neck. Here is the scar of the burn. I remember it, I said. You were dressed up as Father Christmas. It was I who put out the fire. My wrists were burnt in doing so. Then for a space we sat silent, looking at each other, while Stella slowly fanned herself with her wide-felt hat, in which some white ostrich plumes were fixed. This is God's doing, she said at last. You saved my life when I was a child. Now I have saved yours and the little girls. Is she your own daughter, she added quickly? No, I answered. I will tell you the tale presently. Yes, she said. You shall tell me as we go home. It is time to be starting home. It will take us three hours to get there. Henryka, Henryka, bring the horses here. End of Chapter 6 Henryka obeyed, leading the horses to the side of the tree. Now, Mr. Alan, said Stella, you must ride on my horse and the old black man must ride on the other. I will walk, and Henryka will carry the child. Oh, do not be afraid. She is very strong. She could carry you or me. Henryka grunted ascent. I am sorry that I cannot express her method of speech by any more polite term. Sometimes she grunted like a monkey. Sometimes she clicked like a bushman. And sometimes she did both together, when she became quite unintelligible. I expostulated against this proposed arrangement, saying that we could walk, which was a fib. For I do not think that I could have done a mile. But Stella would not listen. She would not even let me carry my elephant gun, but took it herself. So we mounted with some difficulty, and Henryka took up the sleeping totter in her long, simile arms. See that the baboon woman does not run away into the mountains with a little white one, said Indava Zimbi to me in kaffir as he climbed slowly onto the horse. Unfortunately, Henryka understood his speech. Her face twisted and grew livid with fury. She put down totter and literally sprang at Indava Zimbi as a monkey springs. But weary and worn as he was, the old gentleman was too quick for her. With an exclamation of genuine fright, he threw himself from the horse on the further side, with the somewhat ludicrous result that all in a moment Henryka was occupying a seat which he had vacated. Just then Stella realised the position. Come down, you savage, come down! she said, stamping her foot. The extraordinary creature flung herself from the horse and literally groveled on the ground before her mistress, and burst into tears. Pardon me, Miss Stella! she clipped, and grunted in villainous English, but he called me a bhabion frau baboon woman. Tell your servant that he must not use such words to Henryka, Mr. Allen, Stella said to me. If he does, she added a whisper. Henryka will certainly kill him. I explained this to Indava Zimbi, who, being considerably frightened, adained to apologise. But from that hour there was hate and war between these two. Harmony having been thus restored, we started the dogs following us. A small strip of desert intervened between us and the slope of the peak. Perhaps it was two miles wide. We crossed it and reached rich grasslands. For here a considerable stream gathered from the hills. But it did not flow across the barren lands. It passed to the east along the foot of the hills. This stream we had to cross by a ford. Henryka walked boldly through it, holding Tota in her arms. Stella leapt across from stone to stone like a row-buck. I thought to myself that she was the most graceful creature that I had ever seen. After this the track passed around a pleasantly wooded shoulder of the peak, which was I found known as Babian Cap or Baboon Head. Of course we could only go at a foot pace, so our progress was slow. Stella walked for some way in silence, then she spoke. Tell me, Mr. Allen, she said, how was it that I came to find you dying in the desert? So I began and told her all, and it took an hour or more to do so, and she listened intently, now and again, asking a question. It is all very wonderful, she said, when I had done very wonderful indeed. Do you know I went out this morning with Henryka and the dogs for a ride? Me need to get back home by midday, for my father is ill, and I do not like to leave him for long. But just as I was going to turn when we were about where we are now, yes, that was the very bush, and a reed got up and the dogs chased it. I followed them for a gallop, and when we came to the river, instead of turning to the left as bucks generally do, the reeds swam the stream and took to the badlands beyond. I followed it, and with a hundred yards of the big tree, the dogs killed it. Henryka wanted to turn back at once, but I said that we would rest under the shade of the tree, for I knew that there was a spring of water near. Well, we went, and there I saw you all lying like dead. But Henryka, who is very clever in some way, said no, and you know the rest. Yes, it is very wonderful. It is indeed, I said. Now tell me, Miss Stella, who is Henryka? She looked round before answering to see that the woman was not near. Here is a strange story, Mr. Allen, I will tell you. You must know that all these mountains and the country beyond are full of baboons. When I was a girl of about ten, I used to wander a great deal alone in the hills and valleys, and watch the baboons as they played among the rocks. There was one family of baboons that I watched, especially. They used to live in a ploof about a mile from the house. The old man baboon was very large, and one of the females had a grey face. But the reason why I watched them so much was because I saw that they had with them a creature that looked like a girl. For her skin was quite white, and what was more, that she was predicted from the weather when it happened to be cold by a fur belt of some sort, which was tied round her throat. The old baboon seemed to be especially fond of her, and would sit with her arms round her neck. For nearly a whole summer I watched this particular white skin to baboon, till at last my curiosity quite overmastered me. I noticed that, though she climbed about the cliffs with the other monkeys. At a certain hour, a little before sundown, they used to put her with one or two much smaller ones into a little cave, while the family went off somewhere to get food, to the mealy fields, I suppose. Then I got an idea that I would catch this white baboon and bring it home. But of course I could not do this by myself, so I took a hotentot, a very clever man when he was not drunk, who lived on the stead into my confidence. He was called Hendrick, and was very fond of me, but for a long while he would not listen to my plan, because he said that the babions would kill us. At last I bribed him with a knife that had four blades, and one afternoon we started Hendrick carrying a stout sack made of hide, with a rope running through it, so that the mouth could be drawn tight. Well, we got to the place, and hiding ourselves carefully in the trees at the foot of the cliff, watched the baboons playing about and grunting to each other, till at length, according to custom, they took the white one and three other little babies and put them in the cave. Then the old man came out, looked carefully round, called to his family, and went off with them over the brow of the cliff. Now, very slowly and cautiously, we crept up over the rocks, till we came to the mouth of the cave and looked in. All the four little baboons were fast asleep with their backs towards us, and their arms round each other's necks, the white one being in the middle. Nothing could have been better for our plans. Hendrick, who by this time had quite entered into the spirit of the thing, crept along the cave like a snake, and suddenly dropped the mouth of the hide-bag over the head of the white baboon. The poor little thing woke up and gave a violent jump which caused it to vanish right into the bag. Then Hendrick pulled the string tight, and together we knotted it, so that it was impossible for our captive to escape. Meanwhile the other baby baboons had rushed from the cave screaming, and when we got outside they were nowhere to be seen. Come on, Missy," said Hendrick. The baboons will soon be back. He had shouldered the sack, inside of which the white baboon was kicking violently and screaming like a child. It was dreadful to hear its shrieks. We scrambled down the sides of the cliff and ran for home as fast as we could manage. When we were near the waterfall and within about three-hundred yards of the garden wall, we heard a voice behind us, and there, leaping from rock to rock and running over the grass, was the whole family of baboons headed by the old man. Run, Missy, quick," grasped Hendrick, and I did, like the wind, leaving him far behind. I dashed into the garden where some gaffiers were working, crying, The babbions, the babbions! Luckily the men had their sticks and spears by them, and ran out just in time to save Hendrick, who was almost overtaken. The baboons made a good fight for it, however, and it was not till the old man was killed with an asagai that they ran away. Well, there is a stone hut in the crawl at the stead where my father sometimes shuts up natives who have misbehaved. It is very strong and has a barred window. To this hut Hendrick carried the sack, and having untied the mouth, put it down on the floor, and ran from the place, shutting the door behind him. In another moment the poor little thing was out and dashing round the stone hut as though it were mad. It sprung at the bars of the window, clung there, and beat its head against them till the blood came. Then it fell to the floor and sat upon it crying like a child, and rocking itself backwards and forwards. It was so sad to see that I began to cry too. Just then my father came in and asked what all the fuss was about. I told him that we had caught a young white baboon, and he was angry, and said that it must be let go. But, when he looked at it through the bars of the window, he nearly fell down in astonishment. Why, he said, that is not a baboon, it is a white child that the baboons have stolen and brought up. Now, Mr. Allen, whether my father is right or wrong, you can judge for yourself. You see, Hendricka, we named her that after Hendrick, who caught her. She is a woman, not a monkey, and yet she has many of the ways of monkeys, and looks like one too. You saw how she can climb, for instance, and you hear how she talks. Also, she is very savage, and when she is angry or jealous, she seems to go mad, though she is as clever as anybody. I think that she must have been stolen by the baboons when she was quite tiny and nurtured by them, and that is why she is so like them. But to go on. My father said that it was our duty to keep Hendricka at any cost. The worst of it was that for three days she would eat nothing, and I thought that she would die, for all the while she sat and wailed. On the third day, however, I went to the bars of the window-place, and held out a cup of milk and some fruit to her. She looked at it for a long while, then crept up moaning, took the milk from my hand, drank it greedily, and afterwards ate the fruit. From that time forward she took food readily enough, but only if I would feed her. But I must tell you of the dreadful end of Hendrick. From the day that we captured Hendricka, the whole place began to swarm with baboons, which were evidently employed in watching the crawls. One day Hendrick went out towards the hills alone to gather some medicine. He did not come back again. So the next day's search was made. By a big rock, which I can show you, they found his scattered and broken bones, the fragments of his asagai, and four dead baboons. They had set upon him and torn him to pieces. My father was very much frightened at this, but still he would not let Hendricka go, because he said that she was human, and that it was our duty to reclaim her. And so we did, to a certain extent, at least. After the murder of Hendrick, the baboons vanished from the neighborhood, and have only returned quite recently, so at length we ventured to let Hendricka out. By this time she had grown very fond of me. Still, on the first opportunity she ran away. But in the evening she returned again. She had been seeking the baboons, and could not find them. Shortly afterwards she began to speak, I taught her, and from that time she has loved me so that she will not leave me. I think it would kill her if I went away from her. She watches me all day, and at night sleeps on the floor of my hut. Once too she saved my life when I was swept down the river in flood. But she is jealous, and hates everybody else. Look how she is glaring at you now, because I am talking to you. I looked. Hendricka was tramping along with a child in her arms, and staring at me in a most sinister fashion out of the corner of her eyes. While I was reflecting on the baboon woman's strange story, and thinking that she was an exceedingly awkward customer, the path took a sudden turn. Look, said Stella, there is our home. Is it not beautiful? It was beautiful indeed. Here on the western side of the great peak a bay had been formed in the mountain, which might have measured eight hundred or a thousand yards across by three quarters of a mile in depth. At the back of this indentation the sheer cliff rose to the height of several hundred feet, and behind it and above it the great baboon peak towered up toward the heavens. The space of ground embraced thus in the arms of the mountain, as it were, was laid out, as though by the cunning hand of man, in three terraces that rose one above the other. To the right and left of the topmost terraces were chasms and the cliff, and down each chasm fell a waterfall from no great height, indeed but from considerable volume. These two streams flowed away on either side of the enclosed space, one towards the north, and the other the course of which we had been following, round the base of the mountain. At each terrace they made a cascade, so that the traveller approaching had a view of eight waterfalls at once. Along the edge of the stream to our left replaced kafir-crawls, built in orderly groups with verandas after the bas-sutu fashion, and a very large part of the entire space of land was under cultivation. All of this I noted at once, as well as the extraordinary richness and depth of the soil, which for many ages past had been washed down from the mountain heights. Then following the line of an excellent wagon-road on which we now found ourselves, that wound up from terrace to terrace, my eye lit upon the crowning wonder of the scene, for in the centre of the topmost platform or terrace, which may have enclosed eight or ten acres of ground, and almost surrounded by grows of orange trees, gleamed buildings of which I had never seen the like. There were three groups of them, one in the middle and one on either side, and a little to the rear, but as I afterwards discovered, the plan of all was the same. In the centre was an edifice constructed like an ordinary zulu hut, that is to say in the shape of a beehive, only it was five times the size of any hut I ever saw, and built of blocks of hewn white marble fitted together with extraordinary knowledge of the principles and properties of arch-building, and with so much accuracy and finish that it was often difficult to find the joints of the massive blocks. From this centre hut ran three covered passages, leading to other buildings of an exactly similar character, only smaller, and each whole block was enclosed by a marble wall about four feet in height. Of course we were as yet too far off to see all these details, but the general outline I saw at once, and it astonished me considerably, even old and other zimby whom the baboon woman had been unable to move, deigned to show wonder. Oh! he said, this is a place of marvels! Whoever saw growls built of white stone! Stella watched our faces with an expression of intense amusement, but said nothing. Did your father build those crawls? I gasped at length. My father had no, of course not, she answered. How would it have been possible for one white man to do so, or to have made this road? He found them as you see. Who built them, then, I said. I do not know. My father thinks they are very ancient, for the people who live here now do not know how to lay one stone upon another, and these huts are so wonderfully constructed that, though they must have stood for ages, not a stone of them had fallen. But I can show you the quarry where the marble was cut. It is close by, and behind it is the entrance to an ancient mine, which my father thinks was a silver mine. Perhaps the people who worked the mine built the marble huts. The world is old, and no doubt plenty of people have lived in it, and been forgotten. Crawls, of a somewhat similar nature to those described by Mr. Quartermayne, have been discovered in the Marisa district of the Transvaal, and an illustration of them is to be found in Mr. Anderson's 25 Years in a Wagon, Volume 2, page 55. Mr. Anderson says, In this district are the ancient stone crawls mentioned in an early chapter. But it requires a fuller description to show that these extensive crawls must have been erected by a white race, who understood building in stone and at right angles, with doorposts, lintels, and sills, and it required more than kafia skill to erect the stone huts, with stone circular rooms, beautifully formed, and most substantially erected, strong enough, if not disturbed, to last a thousand years. Then we rode on in silence. I have seen many beautiful sites in Africa, and in such matters as in others comparisons are odious and worthless. But I do not think that I ever saw a lovelier scene. It was no one thing, it was the combination of the mighty peak looking forth onto the everlasting plains, the great cliffs, the waterfalls that sparkled in rainbow hues, the rivers girdling the rich cultivated lands, the gold-spect green of the orange trees, the flashing domes of the marble huts, and a thousand other things. Then overall brooded the peace of evening, and the infinite glory of the sunset that filled heaven with changing hues of splendour, that wrapped the mountain and cliffs in cloaks of purple and of gold, and lay upon the quiet face of the water like the smile of a god. Perhaps also in contrast, and the memory of those three awful days and nights in the hopeless desert, enhanced the charm, and perhaps the beauty of the girl who walked beside me completed it. For of this I am sure, that of all sweet and lovely things that I looked on then, she was the sweetest and the loveliest. Ah, it did not take me long to find my fate. How long will it be before I find her once again? CHAPTER VIII The Marble Crawls At length the last platform or terrace was reached, and we pulled up outside the wall surrounding the central group of marble huts, for so I must call them for want of a better name. Our approach had been observed by a crowd of natives, whose race I have never been able to determine accurately. They belonged to the basutu and peaceful section of the Bantu peoples, rather than to the zulu and warlike. Several of these ran up to take the horses, gazing on us with astonishment, not unmixed with awe. We dismounted, speaking for myself, not without difficulty. Indeed, had it not been for stellar support I should have fallen. Now you must come and see my father, she said. I wonder what he will think of it. It is also strange. Hendrika, take the child to my hut, and give her milk, then put her into my bed. I will come presently. Hendrika went off with a somewhat ugly grin to do her mistresses bidding, and stellar led the way through the narrow gateway in the marble wall, which may have enclosed nearly half an earth, or three quarters of an acre of ground in all. It was beautifully planted as a garden. Many European vegetables and flowers were growing in it, besides others with which I was not acquainted. Presently we came to the centre hut, and it was then that I noticed the extraordinary beauty and finish of the marble masonry. In the hut, and facing the gateway, was a modern door, rather rudely fashioned of buckenhout, a beautiful reddish wood that has the appearance of having been sedulously pricked with a pin. Stellar opened it, and we entered. The interior of the hut was the size of a large and lofty room, the walls being formed of plain polished marble. It was lighted somewhat dimly, but quite effectively, by peculiar openings in the roof, from which the rain was excluded by overhanging eaves. The marble floor was strewn with native mats and skins of animals. Bookcases filled with books were placed against the walls. There was a table in the centre, chairs seated with rimpy or strips of hide stood about, and beyond the table was a couch on which a man was lying, reading. —'Is that you, Stellar?' said a voice, that even after so many years seemed familiar to me. —'Where have you been, my dear?' began to think that you had lost yourself again. —'No, Father dear, I have not lost myself, but I have found somebody else. At that moment I stepped forward so that the light fell on me. The old gentleman on the couch rose with some difficulty and bowed with much courtesy. He was a fine-looking old man, with deep-set dark eyes, a pale face that bore many traces of physical and mental suffering, and a long white beard. —'Be welcome, sir,' he said. —'It is long since we have seen a white face in these wilds, and yours, if I am not mistaken, is that of an Englishman. There has been but one Englishman here for twelve years, and he, I grieve to say, was an outcast flying from justice. And he bowed again and stretched out his hand. I looked at him, and then of a sudden his name flashed back into my mind. I took his hand. —'How do you do, Mr. Carson?' I said. He started as though he had been stung. —'Who told you that name?' he cried. —'It is a dead name. Stellar, is it you? I forbid you to let it pass your lips.' —'I did not speak at, father. I have never spoken it,' she answered. —'Sir, I broke in. If you will allow me, I will show you how I came to know your name. Do you remember many years ago coming into the study of a clergyman in Oxfordshire, and telling him that you were going to leave England for ever?' He bowed his head. —'And do you remember a little boy who sat upon the hearth-rug, writing with a pencil?' —'I do,' he said. —'Sir, I was that boy. And my name is Alan Quortemaine. Those children who lay sick are all dead. Their mother is dead. And my father, your old friend, is dead also. Like you,' he emigrated, and last year he died in the Cape. But that is not all the story. After many adventures, I, one kafir, and a little girl lay senseless and dying in the bad lands, where we had wandered for days without water, and there we should have perished, but your daughter, Miss—'Call her Stella,' he broke in hastily. —'I cannot bear to hear that name. I have foresworn it.' Miss Stella found us by chance, and saved our lives. —'By chance, did you say Alan Quortemaine?' he answered. —'There is little chance in all this. Such chance has springed from another will than ours. Welcome, Alan, son of my old friend. Here we live as it were in a hermitage, with nature as our only friend, that such as we have is yours, and for as long as you will take it. But you must be starving, talk no more now. Stella, it is time to eat. Tomorrow we will talk.' To tell the truth I can recall very little of the events of that evening. A kind of dizzy weariness overmastered me. I remember sitting at a table next to Stella and eating heartily, and then I remember nothing more. I woke to find myself lying on a comfortable bed in a hut built and fashioned on the same model as the centre one. While I was wondering what time it was, a native came bringing some clean clothes on his arm, and a luxury of luxuries produced a bath hollowed from wood. I rose, feeling a very different man. My strength had come back again to me. I dressed, and following a covered passage found myself in the centre hut. Here the table was set for breakfast with all manner of good things such as I had not seen for many a month, which I contemplated with healthy satisfaction. Presently I looked up, and there before me was a more delightful sight, for standing in one of the doorways which led to the sleeping-huts was Stella, leading little Toto by the hand. She was very simply dressed in a loose blue gown with a wide collar, and girded in at the waist by a little leather belt. In the bosom of her robe was a bunch of orange blossoms, and her rippling hair was tied in a single knot behind her shapely head. She greeted me with a smile, asking how I had slept, and then held Toto up for me to kiss. Under her loving care the child had been quite transformed. She was neatly dressed in a garment of the same blue stuff that Stella wore. Her fair hair was brushed, indeed, had it not been for the sun-blisters on her face and hands, one would have scarcely believed that this was the same child whom and other Zimbi and I had dragged for hour after hour through the burning waterless desert. We must breakfast alone, Mr. Allen, she said. My father is so upset by your arrival that he will not get up yet. Oh, you cannot tell how thankful I am that you have come. I have been so anxious about him of late. He grows weaker and weaker. It seemed to me as though the strength were ebbing away from him. Now he scarcely leaves the crawl. I have to manage everything about the farm. He does nothing but read and think. Just then Hendrika entered, bearing a jug of coffee in one hand and of milk in the other, which she set down upon the table, casting a look of little love at me as she did so. Be careful, Hendrika. You are spilling the coffee, said Stella. Don't you wonder how we come to have coffee here, Mr. Allen? I will tell you. We grow it. That was my idea. Oh, I have lots of things to show you. You don't know what we have managed to do in the time that we have been here. You see, we have plenty of labour for the people about to look upon my father as their chief. Yes, I said, but how do you get all these luxuries of civilization? And I pointed to the books, the crockery, and the knives and forks. Very simply, most of the books my father brought with him when we first trekked into the wilds. There was nearly a wagon load of them, but every few years we have sent an expedition of three wagons right down to Port Natal. The wagons are loaded with ivory and other goods, and come back with all kinds of things that have been sent out from England for us. So you see, although we live in this wild place, we are not altogether cut off. We can send runners to Natal and back in three months, and the wagons get there and back in a year. The last lot arrived quite safe about three months ago. Our servants are very faithful, and some of them speak Dutch well. Have you ever been with wagons, I asked? Since I was a child I have never been more than thirty miles from Babien's Peak, she answered. Do you know, Mr. Allen, that you are, with one exception, the first Englishman that I have known out of the book. I suppose that I must seem very wild and savage to you, but I have had one advantage—a good education. My father has taught me everything, and perhaps I know some things that you don't. I can read French and German, for instance. I think that my father's first idea was to let me run wild altogether, but he gave it up. And don't you wish to go into the world, I asked? Sometimes, she said, when I get lonely, but perhaps my father is right, perhaps it would frighten and bewilder me. At any rate he would never return to civilization. It is his idea, you know, although I am sure I do not know where he got it from, nor why he cannot bear that our name should be spoken. In short, Mr. Quatermain, we do not make our lives. We must take them as we find them. Have you done your breakfast? Let us go out, and I will show you our home. I rose and went to my sleeping-place to fetch my hat. When I returned, Mr. Carson, for after all that was his name, though he would never allow it to be spoken, had come into the hut, he felt better now, he said, and would accompany us on our walk if Stella would give him an arm. So we started, and after us came Handrika with Tota and Olden Daba Zimby, whom I found sitting outside as fresh as paint. Nothing could tire that old man. The view from the platform was almost as beautiful as that from the lower ground looking up to the peak. The marble crawls, as I have said, faced west. Consequently all the upper terrace lay in the shadow of the great peak till nearly eleven o'clock in the morning. A great advantage in that warm latitude. First we walked through the garden, which was beautifully cultivated, and one of the most productive that I ever saw. There were three or four natives working in it, and they all saluted my host as Baba, or Father. Then we visited the other two groups of marble huts. One of these was used for stables and outbuildings, the other as storehouses. The centre hut, having been, however, turned into a chapel. Mr. Carson was not ordained, but he earnestly tried to convert the natives, most of whom were refugees who had come to him for shelter, and he had practiced the more elementary rites of the church for so long that I think he began to believe that he really was a clergyman. For instance, he always married those of his people who would consent to a monogamous existence and baptize their children. When we had examined those wonderful remains of antiquity, the marble huts, and admired the orange trees, the vines, and fruits which thrived like weeds in this marvellous soil and climate, we descended to the next platform, and saw the farming operations in full swing. I think that it was the best farm I have ever seen in Africa. There was ample water for purposes of irrigation. The grasslands below gave pastureage for hundreds of head of cattle and horses, and for natives the people were most industrious. Moreover, the whole place was managed by Mr. Carson on the cooperative system. He only took a tithe of the produce. Indeed, in this land of teeming plenty, what was he to do with more? Consequently, the tribesmen, who, by the way, call themselves the children of Thomas, were able to accumulate considerable wealth. All their disputes were referred to their father, and he was also judge of offences and crimes. Some were punished by imprisonment, whipping, and loss of goods. Other and graver transgressions by expulsion from the community. A fiat which, to one of these favoured natives, must have seemed as heavy as the decree that drove Adam from the Garden of Eden. Old Mr. Carson leaned upon his daughter's arm and contemplated the scene with pride. I have done all this, Alan Cortemane, he said, when renouncing civilisation. I wandered here by chance, seeking a home in the remotest places of the world. I found this lonely spot a wilderness. Nothing was to be seen except the site, the domes of the marble huts and the waterfalls. I took position of the huts, I cleared the path of Garden land, and planted the orange grove. I had only six natives then, but by degrees others joined me. Now my tribe is a thousand strong. Here we live in profound peace and plenty. I have all I need, and I seek no more. Heaven has prospered me so far. May it do so to the end which for me draws nigh. And now I am tired, and will go back. If you wish to see the old quarry in the mouth of the ancient mines, Stella will show them to you. No, my love, you need not trouble to come, I can manage. Look, some of the headmen are waiting to see me. So he went, but still followed by Handrika and Indava Zimbi, we turned, and walking along the bank of one of the rivers, passed up behind the marble crawls, and came to the quarry, once the material of which they were built had been cut in some remote age. The pit opened up a very thick seam of the whitest and most beautiful marble. I know another like it in the tall, but by whom it had been worked, I cannot say, not by natives that is certain, though the builders of these crawls had condescended to borrow the shape of native huts for their model. By the way, the only relic of those builders that I ever saw was a highly finished bronze pickaxe which Stella had found one day in the quarry. After we had examined this quarry we climbed the slope of the hill till we came to the mouth of the ancient mines which were situated in a gorge. I believe them to have been silver mines. The gorge was long and narrow, and the moment we entered it there rose from every side a sound of groaning and barking that was almost enough to deafen us. I knew what it was at once. The whole place was filled with baboons which clambered down the rocks towards us from every direction and in a manner that struck me as being unnaturally fearless. Stella turned a little pale and clung to my arm. It is very silly of me, she whispered. I am not at all nervous, but ever since they killed Hendrick I cannot bear the sight of those animals. I always think that they have something human about them. Meanwhile the baboons drew nearer, talking to each other as they came, and Ota began to cry and clung to Stella. Stella clung to me while I and Endaba Zimbi put as bold a front on the matter as we could. Only Hendricka stood looking at the brutes with an unconcerned smile on her monkey face. When the great apes were quite near she suddenly called aloud. Instantly they stopped their hideous clamour as though at a word of command. Then Hendricka addressed them. I can only describe it so. That is to say she began to make a noise such as baboons do when they converse with each other. I have known hotentots and bushmen who said that they could talk with the baboons and understand their language, but I confess I never heard it done before or since. From the mouth of Hendricka came a succession of grunts, groans, squeals, clicks, and every other abominable noise that can be conceived, conveying to my mind a general idea of expostulation. At any rate the baboons listened. One of them grunted back some answer and then the whole mob drew off to the rocks. I stood astonished and without a word we turned back to the crawl for Hendricka was too close to allow me to speak. When we reached the dining-hat, Stella went in followed by Hendricka, but Endaba Zimbi plucked me by the sleeve and I stopped outside. Mokuma Zahan, he said, baboon woman, devil woman, be careful Mokuma Zahan. She loves that star. The natives aptly enough called Stella the star, and as jealous. Be careful Mokuma Zahan, or the star will set. End of Chapter 8 Chapter 9 of Alan's Wife. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Alan's Wife by H. Rider Haggard. Chapter 9. Let us go in, Alan. It is very difficult for me to describe the period of time which elapsed between my arrival at Babion's Peak and my marriage with Stella. When I look back on it it seems sweet as with the odour of flowers and dim as with the happy dusk of summer eaves, while through the sweetness comes the sound of Stella's voice and through the gloom shines the starlight of her eyes. I think that we loved each other from the first, though for a while we said no word of love. Day by day I went about the place with her accompanied by little Tota and Hendrika only while she attended to the Thousand and One Matters which her father's ever-growing weakness had laid upon her, or rather as time drew on I attended to the business and she accompanied me. All day though we were together. Then after supper when the night had fallen we would walk together in the garden and come at length to hear her father read aloud sometimes from the works of a poet, sometimes from history, or if he did not feel well Stella would read, and when this was done Mr. Carson would celebrate a short form of prayer and we would separate till the morning once more brought our happy hour of meeting. So the weeks went by and with each week I grew to know my darling better. Often I wonder now if my fond fancy deceives me, or if indeed there are women as sweet and dear as she. Was it solitude that had given such depth and gentleness to her? Was it the long years of communing with nature that had endowed her with such peculiar grace, the grace we find in opening flowers and budding trees? Had she caught that murmuring voice from the sound of the streams which fall continually about her rocky home? Was it the tenderness of the evening sky beneath which she loved to walk that lay like a shadow on her face and the light of the evening stars that shone in her quiet eyes? At the least to me she was the realisation of that dream which haunts the sleep of sin-stained men. So my memory paints her. So I hope to find her when at last the sleep has rolled away and the fevered dreams are done. At last there came a day, the most lest day of my life, when we told our love. We had been together all the morning, but after dinner Mr. Carson was so unwell that Stella stopped in with him. At supper we met again, and after supper, when she had put little tota, to whom she had grown much attached to bed, we went out, leaving Mr. Carson dozing on the couch. The night was warm and lovely, and without speaking we walked up the garden to the orange grove and sat down upon a rock. There was a little breeze which shook the petals of the orange blooms over us and showers, and bore their delicate fragrance far and wide. Silence reigned around, broken only by the sound of the falling waterfalls that now died to a faint murmur, and now as the wavering breeze turned boomed loudly in our ears. The moon was not yet visible, but already the dark clouds which floated through the sky above us, for there had been rain, showed a glow of silver, telling us that she shone brightly behind the peak. Stella began to talk in her low, gentle voice, speaking to me of her life in the wilderness, how she had grown to love it, how her mind had gone on from idea to idea, and how she pictured the great rushing world that she had never seen as it was reflected to her from the books which she had read. It was a curious vision of life that she had. Things were out of proportion to it. It was more like a dream than a reality, a mirage, than the actual face of things. The idea of great cities, and especially of London, had a kind of fascination for her. She could scarcely realise the rush, the war, and hurry, the hard crowds of men and women, strangers to each other, feverishly seeking for wealth and pleasure beneath a murky sky, and treading one another down in the fury of their competition. What is it all for? she asked earnestly. What do they seek? Having so few years to live, why do they waste them thus? I told her that in the majority of instances it was actual hard necessity that drove them on, but she could barely understand me. Living as she had done in the midst of the teeming plenty of a fruitful earth, she did not seem able to grasp the fact that there were millions who from day to day know not how to stay their hunger. I never want to go there, she went on. I should be bewildered and frightened to death. It is not natural to live like that. God put Adam and Eve in a garden, and that is how he meant their children to live, in peace, and looking always on beautiful things. This is my idea of perfect life. I want no other. I thought you once told me that you found it lonely, I said. So I did, she answered innocently, but that was before you came. Now I'm not lonely any more, and it is perfect, perfect as the night. Just then the full moon rose above the elbow of the peak, and her rays stole far and wide down the misty valley, gleaming on the water, brooding on the plains, searching out the hidden places of the rocks, wrapping the fair form of nature as in a silver bridal veil through which her beauty shone mysteriously. Stella looked down the terraced valley, she turned and looked up at the scarred face of the golden moon, and then she looked at me. The beauty of the night was about her face, the scent of the night was on her hair, the mystery of the night shone in her shadowed eyes. She looked at me, I looked on her, and all our hearts' love blossomed within us. We spoke no word, we had no words to speak, but slowly we drew near, till lips were pressed to lips as we kissed our eternal truth. It was she who broke that holy silence, speaking in a changed voice, in soft deep notes that thrilled me like the lowest cords of a smitten harp. Ah, now I understand, she said. Now I know why we are lonely, and how we can lose our loneliness. Now I know what it is that stirs us in the beauty of the sky, and the sound of water and in the scent of flowers. It is love who speaks in everything, though till we hear his voice we understand nothing. But when we hear, then the riddle is answered, and the gates of our heart are opened, and, Alan, we see the way that wanes through death to heaven, and is lost in the glory of which our love is but a shadow. Let us go in, Alan. Let us go before the spell breaks, so that whatever overtakes us, sorrow, death, or separation, we may always have this perfect memory to save us. Come, dearest, let us go. I rose like a man in a dream, still holding her by her hand, but as I rose my eye fell upon something that gleamed white among the foliage of the orange bush at my side. I said nothing but looked. The breeze stirred the orange leaves, the moonlight struck for a moment full upon the white object. It was the face of Hendrika, the Babian woman, as Ndava Zimbi had called her, and on it was a glare of hate that made me shudder. I said nothing, the face vanished, and just then I heard a baboon bark in the rocks behind. Then we went down the garden, and Stella passed into the centre hut. I saw Hendrika standing in the shadow near the door, and went up to her. Hendrika, I said, why were you watching Stella and myself in the garden? She drew her lips up till her teeth gleamed in the moonlight. Have I not watched her these many years, Mokuma Zahan? I not cease to watch because a hundering white man comes to steal her. Why were you kissing her in the garden, Mokuma Zahan? How dare you kiss her, who is a star? I kissed her because I love her, and because she loves me, I answered. What is that to do with you, Hendrika? Because you love her, she hissed in answer, and do I not love her also, who saved me from the baboons? I'm a woman as she is, and you are a man, and they say in the crowds that men love women better than women love women. But it is a lie, though it is true, that if a woman loves a man she forgets all of the love, have I not seen it? I gather her flowers, beautiful flowers, I climb the rocks where you had never dared to go find them. You pluck a piece of orange bloom into the garden and give it to her. What does she do? She takes the orange bloom, she puts it in her breast, and lets my flowers die. I call to her, and she does not hear me. She is thinking. You whisper to someone far away, and she hears and smiles. She used to kiss me sometimes. Now she kisses that white brat you brought, because you brought it. Oh, I see it all. Oh, I have seen it from the first. You are stealing her from us, stealing her to yourself, and those who loved her before you came are forgotten. Be careful, my koum as a ham. Be careful, lest I am avenged upon you. You hate me. You think me half a monkey, that servant of yours calls me baboon woman. Well, I have lived with baboon, and they are clever, yes. They can play tricks, and know things you don't. And I am cleverer than they, for I have learnt the wisdom of white people also. And I say to you, rock softly, be koum as a ham, or you will fall into a pit. And with one more look of malice, she was gone. I stood for a moment reflecting. I was afraid of this strange creature who seemed to combine the cunning of the great apes that had reared her with the passions and skill of humankind. I foreboded evil at her hands, and yet there was something almost touching in the fierceness of her jealousy. It is generally supposed that this passion only exists in strength when the object loved is of another sex from the lover, but I confess that both in this instance and in some others that I have met with. This has not been my experience. I have known men, and especially uncivilized men, who were as jealous of the affection of their friend or master as any lover could be of that of his mistress, and who has not seen the cases of the same thing, where parents and their children are concerned. But the lower one gets in the scale of humanity, the more readily this passion thrives. Indeed, it may be said to come to its intensest perfection in brutes. Women are more jealous than men. Small-hearted men are more jealous than those of larger mind and wider sympathy, and animals are the most jealous of all. Now, Handrico was in some ways not far removed from animal, which may perhaps account for the ferocity of her jealousy of her mistress's affection. Shaking off my presentments of evil, I entered the centre hut. Mr. Carson was resting on the sofa, and by him knelt Stella holding his hand, and her head resting on his breast. I saw at once that she had been telling him of what had come about between us. Nor was I sorry, for it is a task that a would-be son-in-law is generally glad to do by deputy. He said almost sternly, and my heart gave a jump, for I feared lest he might be about to require me to go about my business, but I came. Stella tells me, he went on, that you too have entered into a marriage engagement. She tells me also that she loves you, and that you say that you love her. I do indeed, sir. I broke in. I love her truly. If ever a woman was loved in this world, I love her. I thank heaven for it, said the old man. Listen, my children, many years ago a great shame and sorrow fell upon me, so great a sorrow that, as I sometimes think, it affected my brain. At any rate I determined to do what most men would have considered the act of a madman, to go far away into the wilderness with my own child, there to relive remote from civilization and its evils. I did so, I found this place, and here we have lived for many years happily enough, and perhaps not without doing good in our generation, but still in a way unnatural to our race and status. At first I thought I would let my daughter grow up in a state of complete ignorance, that she should be nature's child. But as time went on I saw the folly and wickedness of my plan. I had no right to degrade her to the level of the savages around me, for if the fruit of the tree of knowledge is a bitter fruit, still it teaches good from evil. So I educated her as well as I was able, till in the end I knew that in mind as in body she was in no way inferior to her sisters, the children of the civilized world. She grew up and entered into womanhood, and then it came into my mind that I was doing her a bitter wrong, that I was separating her from her kind and keeping her in a wilderness where she could find neither mate nor companion. But though I knew this I could not yet make up my mind to return to active life, I had grown to love this place. I dreaded to return into the world I had abjured, again and again I put my resolutions aside, then it's the commencement of this year I felt ill, for while I waited hoping that I might get better, but at last I realised that I should never get better, that the hand of death was upon me. Oh no, Father, not that! Stella said with a cry, yes, love that, and it is true. Now you will be able to forget our separation and the happiness of a new meeting. And he glanced at me and smiled. Well, when this knowledge came home to me I determined to abandon this place and trek for the coast, though I well knew that the journey would kill me, I should never live to reach it. But Stella would, and it would be better than leaving her here alone with savages in the wilderness. On the very day that I had made up my mind to take this step, Stella found you dying in the Badlands, Alan Quartermain, and brought you here. She brought you, of all men in the world, you whose father had been my dear friend, and who once with your baby hands had saved her life from fire, that she might live to save yours from thirst. At the time I said little, and I saw the hand of Providence in this, and I determined to wait and see what came about between you. At the worst, if nothing came about, I soon learned that I could trust you to see her safely to the coast after I was gone. But many days go I knew how it stood between you, and now things are determined as I prayed they might be. God bless you both my children, and may you be happy in your love. May it endure till death and beyond it. God bless you both. And he stretched out his hand towards me. I took it and Stella kissed him. Presently he spoke again. It is my intention, he said, if you too consent to marry you next Sunday. I wish to do so soon, for I do not know how much longer will be allowed to me. I believe that such a ceremony solemnly celebrated and entered into before witness will under the circumstances be perfectly legal, but of course you will repeat it with every formality the first moment it lies in your power so to do. And now there is one more thing. When I left England my fortunes were in a shattered condition. In the course of years they have recovered themselves. The accumulated rents, as I heard but recently, when the wagons last returned from Portland at all, have sufficed to pay off all charges, and there is a considerable balance over. Consequently you will not marry on nothing, for of course you, Stella, are my heiress, and I wish to make a stipulation. It is this. That so soon as my death occurs you should leave this place and take the first opportunity of returning to England. I do not ask you to live there always. It might prove too much for people reared in the wilds, as both of you have been, but I do ask you to make it your permanent home. Do you consent and promise this? I do, I answered. And so do I, said Stella. Very well, he answered. And now I'm tired out. Again God bless you both, and good night. Allen's Wife by H. Rider Haggard, Chapter 10. Hendrika Plotts, Evil On the following morning I had a conversation with Indava Zimbi. First of all, I told him that I was going to marry Stella. Oh, he said, I thought so, Makumazahan. Did I not tell you that you would find happiness on this journey? Most men must be content to watch the star from a long way off. To you it is given to wear her on your heart. But remember, Makumazahan, remember that star set. Can you not stop your croaking even for a day? I answered angrily, for his words sent a thrill of fear through me. A true prophet must tell the ill as well as the good Makumazahan. I only speak what is on my mind, but what of it? What is life but loss? Loss upon loss, till life itself be lost. But in death we may find all things that we have lost. So your father taught Makumazahan and there was wisdom in his gentleness. Oh, I do not believe in death. It is change that is all Makumazahan. Look now, the rain falls, the drops of rain that were one water in the clouds fall side by side. They sink into the ground. Presently the sun will come out, the earth will be dry, the drops will be gone. A fool looks and says the drops are dead. They will never be one again. They will never again fall side by side. But I am a rainmaker and I know the ways of rain it is not true. The drops will drain by many paths into the river and will be one water there. They will go up to the clouds again in the mists of morning and they will again be as they have been. We are the drops of rain Makumazahan. When we fall that is our life. When we sink into the ground that is death. And when we are drawn up again to the sky what is that Makumazahan? No, no. When we find we lose. And when we seem to lose then we shall really find. I am not a Christian Makumazahan but I am old and I have watched and seen things that perhaps Christians do not see. There I have spoken. Be happy with your star and if it sets, wait Makumazahan. Wait till it arises again. It will not be long. One day you will go to sleep. Then your eyes will open on another sky and there your star will be shining Makumazahan. I made no answer at the time. I could not bear to talk of such a thing. But often and often in the after years I have thought of Indaba Zimbi and his beautiful simile and gathered comfort from it. He was a strange man, this old rain-making savage, and there was more wisdom in him than in many learned atheists, those spiritual destroyers who in the name of progress and humanity would divorce hope from life and leave us wandering in a lonesome, self-consecrated hell. In Daba Zimbi I said changing the subject I have something to say, and I told him of the threats of Henrika. He listened with an unmoved face nodding his white-lock at intervals as the narrative went on, but I saw that he was disturbed by it. Makumazahan, he said at length, I have told you that this is an evil woman. She was nourished on baboon milk, and the baboon nature is in her veins. Such creatures should be killed, not kept. She will make you Mr. Fishikan. But I will watch her Makumazahan. Look, this star is waiting for you. Go, or she will hate me as Henrika hates you. So I went, nothing loath. For attractive as was the wisdom of Indaba Zimbi, I found a deeper meaning in Stella's simplest word. All the rest of that day I passed in her company, and the greater part of the two following days. At last came Saturday night, the eve of our marriage. It rained that night, so we did not go out, but spent the evening in the hut. We sat hand in hand, saying little, but Mr. Carson talked a good deal, telling us tales of his youth and of countries that he had visited. Then he read aloud from the Bible and bade us good night. I also kissed Stella and went to bed. I reached my hut by the covered way, and before I undressed, opened the door to see what the night was like. It was very dark, and the rain was still falling. But as the light streamed out into the gloom, I fancied that I caught sight of a dusky form gliding away. The thought of Henrika flashed into my mind. Could she be skulking about outside there? Now I had said nothing of Henrika and her threats, either to Mr. Carson or Stella, because I did not wish to alarm them. Also, I knew that Stella was attached to this strange person, and I did not wish to shake her confidence in her unless it was absolutely necessary. For a moment or two I stood hesitating, then, reflecting that if it was Henrika, there she should stop. I went in and put up the stout wooden bar that was used to secure the door. For the last few nights Olden Darba Zimby had made a habit of sleeping in the covered passage, which was the only other possible way of excess. As I came to bed I had stepped over him rolled up in his blanket, and to all appearances fast asleep. So it being evident that I had nothing to fear I promptly dismissed the matter from my mind, which, as may be imagined, was indeed fully occupied with other thoughts. I got into bed, and for a while thinking of the great happiness in store for me, and of the providential course of events that had brought it within my reach. A few weeks since, and I was wandering in the desert a dying man, bearing a dying child, and with scarcely a possession left in the world except a store of buried ivory that I never expected to see again. And now I was about to wed one of the sweetest and loveliest women on the whole earth, a woman whom I loved more than I could have thought possible, and who loved me back again. Also as though that were not good fortune enough I was to acquire with her very considerable possessions, quite sufficiently large to enable us to follow any plan of life we found agreeable. As I lay and reflected on all this I grew afraid of my good fortune. Olden Darba Zimby's melancholy prophecies came into my mind. Hitherto he had always prophesied truly, What if they should be true also? I turned cold as I thought of it, and prayed to the power above to preserve us both to live and love together. Never was prayer more needed. While its words were still upon my lips I dropped to sleep, and dreamed a most dreadful dream. I dreamed that Stella and I were standing together to be married. She was dressed in white and radiant with beauty, but it was a wild spiritual beauty which frightened me. Her eyes shone like stars, a pale flame played about her features, and the wind that blew did not stir her hair. Nor was this all, for her white robes were death wrappings, and the altar at which we stood was formed of the piled-up earth from an open grave that yawned between us. So we stood waiting for one to wed us, but no one came. Presently from the open grave sprang the form of Hendrika. In her hand was a knife with which she stabbed at me, but pierced the heart of Stella, who without a cry fell backwards into the grave, still looking at me as she fell. Then Hendrika leaped after her into the grave. I heard her feet strike heavily. Awake! Mukumazahan! Awake! cried the voice of Indava Zimbi. I awoke and bounded from the bed a cold perspiration pouring from me. In the darkness on the other side of the hut I heard sounds of furious struggling. Luckily I kept my head. Just by me was a chair on which were matches and a rushed taper. I struck a match and held it to the taper. Now in the growing light I could see two forms rolling one over the other on the floor, and from between them came the flash of steel. The fat melted and the light burnt up. It was Indava Zimbi, and the woman Hendrika who was struggling and what is more the woman was getting the better of the man strong as he was. I rushed towards them. Now she was uppermost. Now she had wrenched herself from his fierce grip, and now the great knife she had in her hand flashed up. But I was behind her, and placing my hands beneath her arms jerked with all my strength. She fell backwards, and in her effort to save herself most fortunately dropped the knife. Then we flung ourselves upon her. Heavens! The strength of that she-devil! Nobody who has not experienced it could believe it. She fought and scratched and bit, and at one time nearly mastered the two of us. As it was she did break loose. She rushed at the bed, sprung on it, and bounded then straight up to the roof of the hut. I never saw such a jump, and could not conceive what she meant to do. In the roof were the peculiar holes which I have described. They were designed to admit light and covered with overhanging eaves. She sprung straight and true like a monkey, and catching the edge of the hole with her hands strove to draw herself through it. But here her strength exhausted with a long struggle failed her. For a moment she swung, then dropped to the ground and fell senseless. How! gasped Indaba Zimbi, let us die that devil up before she comes to life again. I thought this a good counsel, so we took a ream that lay in the corner of the room, and lashed her hands and feet in such a fashion that even she could scarcely escape. Then we carried her into the passage, and Indaba Zimbi sat over her, the knife in his hand, for I did not wish to raise an alarm at that hour of the night. Do you know how I caught her, Makuma Zahan? he said. For several nights I have slept here with one eye open, for I thought she had made a plan. To night I kept awake, though I pretended to be asleep. An hour after you got into the blankets the moon rose, and I saw a beam of light come into the hut through the hole in the roof. Presently I saw the beam of light vanish. At first I thought that a cloud was passing over the moon, but I listened and heard a noise as though someone was squeezing himself through a narrow space. Presently he was through and hanging by his hands. Then the light came in again, and in the middle of it I saw the babbian frow swinging from the roof and about to drop into the hut. She clung by both hands and in her mouth was a great knife. She dropped, and I ran forward to seize her as she dropped and grit her around the middle. But she heard me come, and seizing the knife struck at me in the dark and missed me. Then we struggled, and you know the rest. You were very nearly dead to night, Makuma Zahan. Very nearly indeed, I answered, still panting, and arranging the rags of my nightdress round me as best I could. Then the memory of my horrid dream flashed into my mind, doubtless it had been conjured up by the sound of Hendrika dropping to the floor. In my dream it had been a grave that she dropped into. All of it then had been experienced in that second of time. Well, dreams are swift. Perhaps time itself is nothing but a dream, and events that seem far apart really occur simultaneously. We passed the rest of the night, watching Hendrika. Presently she came to herself and struggled furiously to break the ream, but the untanned buffalo hide was too strong even for her, and moreover Indaba Zimbi unceremoniously sat upon her to keep her quiet. At last she gave it up. In due course the day broke, my marriage day. Leaving Indaba Zimbi to watch my would-be murderous, I went and fetched some natives from the stables, and with her aid bore Hendrika to the prison hut, that same hut in which she had been confined when she had been brought a baboon-child from the rocks. Here we shut her up, and leaving Indaba Zimbi to watch outside, I returned to my sleeping-place, and dressed in the best garments that the Babian crows could furnish. But when I looked at the reflection of my face I was horrified. I was covered with scratches inflicted by the nails of Hendrika. I doctored them up as best I could, then went out for a walk to calm my nerves, which, what between the events of the past night, and of those pending that day, were not a little disturbed. When I returned it was breakfast-time. I went into the dining- hut, and there Stella was waiting to greet me, dressed in simple white and with orange flowers on her breast. She came forward to me shyly enough, then seeing the condition of my face started back. Why, Alan, what have you been doing to yourself? she asked. As I was about to answer, her father came in leaning on his stick, and catching sight of me instantly asked the same question. Then I told them everything, both of Hendrika's threats and of her fierce attempt to carry them into execution. But I did not tell my horrid dream. Stella's face grew white as the flowers on her breast, but that of her father became very stern. I should have spoken of this before, Alan, he said. I now see that I did wrong to attempt to civilise this wicked and provincial creature, who, if she is human, has all the evil passions of the brutes that rear her. Well, I will make an end of it this very day. Oh, father, said Stella, don't have her killed. It is all dreadful enough, but that would be more dreadful still. I have been very fond of her, and bad as she is, she has loved me. Do not have her killed on my marriage day. Narrow, her father answered, she shall not be killed. For though she deserves to die, I would not have her blood upon our hands. She is a brute, and has followed the nature of brutes. She shall go back once she came. No more was said on the matter at the time, but when breakfast, which was rather a farce, was done, Mr. Carson sent for his headman and gave him certain orders. We were to be buried after the service which Mr. Carson held every Sunday morning, and the large marble hut set apart for that purpose. The service began at ten o'clock, but long before that hour all the natives on the place came up in troops, singing as they came, to be present at the wedding of the star. It was a pretty sight to see them, the men dressed in all their finery, and carrying shields and sticks in their hands, and the women and children bearing green branches of trees, ferns, and flowers. At length, about half past nine, Stella Rose pressed my hand and left me to my reflections. A few minutes to ten she reappeared again with her father, dressed in a white veil, a wreath of orange flowers on her dark, curling hair, a bouquet of orange flowers in her hand. To me she seemed like a dream of loveliness. With her came little Tota in a high state of glee and excitement. She was Stella's only bridesmaid. Then we all passed out towards the church hut. The bare space in front of it was filled with hundreds of natives who set up a song as we came. We went on into the hut, which was crowded with such of the natives as usually worshipped there. Here Mr. Carson, as usual, read the service, though he was obliged to sit down in order to do so. When it was done, and to me it seemed indomitable, Mr. Carson whispered that he meant to marry us outside the hut inside of all the people. So we went out and took our stand under the shade of a large tree that grew near the hut facing the bare space where the natives were gathered. Mr. Carson held up his hand to enjoy in silence. Then, speaking in the native dialect, told them that he was about to make us man and wife after the Christian fashion and in the sight of all men. This done he proceeded to read the marriage service over us, and very solemnly and beautifully he did it. We said the words, I placed the ring, it was her father's signet ring, for we had no other, upon Stella's finger, and it was done. Then Mr. Carson spoke, Alan and Stella, he said, I believe that the ceremony which has been performed makes you man and wife in the sight of God and man, for all that is necessary to make a marriage binding is that it should be celebrated according to the custom of the country where the parties to it reside. It is according to the custom that has been enforced here for fifteen years or more that you have been married in the face of all the people, and in token of it you will both sign the register that I have kept of such marriages, among those of my people have adopted the Christian faith. Still, in case there should be any legal flaw, I again demand the solemn promise of you both that on the first opportunity you will cause this marriage to be re-celebrated in some civilised land. Do you promise? We do, we answered. Then the book was brought out and we signed our names. At first my wife signed her Stella only, but her father bade her write it Stella Carson for the first and last time in her life. Then several of the Adnanas or headmen, including old Indaba Zimbi, put their marks and witness. Indaba Zimbi drew his mark in the shape of a little star in a hubris illusion to Stella's native name. That register is before me now as I write. That were the lock of my darling's hair which lies between its leaves is my dearest possession. There are all the names and marks as they were written many years ago beneath the shadow of the tree at the Babian Crows in the wilderness. But alas, and alas, where are those who wrote them? My people, said Mr. Carson when the signing was done and we had kissed each other before them all. My people, Mokuma Zahan and the star, my daughter, are now man and wife, to live in one crawl, to eat of one bowl, to share one fortune till they reach the grave. Here now, my people, you know this woman. And turning he pointed to Hendrika who, unseen by us, had been led out of the prison hut. Yas, yas, we know her! said a little ring of headmen who formed of the primitive court of justice, and after the fashion of natives had squattered themselves in a circle on the ground in front of us. We know her. She is the white Babian woman. She has Hendrika, the body servant of the star. You know her, said Mr. Carson, but you do not know her altogether. Stand forward, Indaba Zimbi, and tell the people what came about last night in the hut of Mokuma Zahan. Accordingly, old Indaba Zimbi came forward and, squatting down, told his moving tale with much descriptive force and many gestures, finishing up by producing the great knife from which his watchfulness had saved me. Then I was called upon, and in a few brief words substantiated his story. Indeed, my face did that in the sight of all men. Then Mr. Carson turned to Hendrika, who stood in sullen silence, her eyes fixed upon the ground, and asked her if she had anything to say. She looked up boldly and answered, Mokuma Zahan has robbed me of the love of my mistress. I would have robbed him of his left, which is a little thing compared to that which I have lost at his hands. I have failed, and I am sorry for it, for I had killed him and left no trace the star would have forgiven him, and shone on me again. Never, whispered Stella in my ear, that Mr. Carson turned white with wrath. My people, he said, you hear the words of this woman, you hear how she pays me back, me and my daughter whom she swears she loves. She says that she would have murdered a man who has done her no evil, the man who is the husband of her mistress. We saved her from the Babians, we tamed her, we fed her, we taught her, and this is how she pays us back. Say, my people, what reward should be given to her? Death, said the circle of Indana's, pointing their thumbs downward, and all the multitude beyond echoed the word, death. Death, repeated the head Indana, adding, if you save her, my father, we will slay her with our own hands. She is a Babian woman, a devil woman. Ah yes, we have heard of such before, let her be slain before she works more evil. Then it was that Stella stepped forward and begged for Hendrika's life in moving terms. She pleaded the savagery of the woman's nature, her long service, and the affection that she had always shown towards herself. She said that I, whose life had been attempted, forgave her, and she, my wife, who had nearly been left a widow before she was made a bride, forgave her. Let them forgive her also. Let her be sent away, not slain. Let not her marriage day be stained with blood. Now her father listened readily enough, for he had no intention of killing Hendrika. Indeed, he had already promised not to do so. But the people were in a different humor. They looked upon Hendrika as a devil, and would have torn her to pieces there and then. Could they have had their way? Nor were matters mended by Indava Zinbi, who had already gained a great reputation for wisdom and magic in the place. Suddenly the old man rose and made quite an impassioned speech, urging them to kill Hendrika at once, or mischief for the gum of it. At last matters got very bad, for two of the Indanas came forward to drag her off to execution, and it was not until Stella burst into tears that the sight of her grief, backed by Mr. Carson's orders, and my own remonstrances carried the day. All this while Hendrika had been standing quite unmoved. At last the tumult ceased, and the leading Indana called to her to go, promising that if she ever showed her face near the crawls again she should be stabbed like a jackal. Then Hendrika spoke to Stella in a low voice and in English. Stella did not answer, and they lost her. She stepped forward and looked at the natives with a stare of hate. Then she turned and walked past me, and as she passed whispered a native phrase in my ear, that being literally translated means till another moon, but which has the same significance as the French au foie. It frightened me, for I knew that she meant that she had not done with me, and saw that our mercy was misplaced. Seeing my face change she ran swiftly from me, and as she passed in Darba Zimby, with a sudden movement snatched her great knife from his hand. When she had gone about twenty paces she halted, looked long and earnestly on Stella, gave one loud cry of anguish and fled. A few minutes later we saw her far away, bounding up the face of an almost perpendicular cliff, a cliff that nobody except herself and the baboons could possibly climb. Look, said in Darba Zimby in my ear, look Mukuma Zahan, there goes the baboon fro, but Mukuma Zahan, she will come back again. Ah, why will you not listen to my words? Have they not always been through words, Mukuma Zahan? And he shrugged his shoulders and turned away. For a while I was much disturbed, that at any rate Hendrika was gone for the present, and Stella, my dear and lovely wife, was there at my side, and in her smiles I forgot my fears. For the rest of that day, why should I write of it? There are things too happy and too sacred to be written of. At last I had, if only for a little while, found that rest, that perfect joy which we seek so continually and so rarely clasp. I wonder if many married couples are quite as happy as we found ourselves. Cynics, a growing class, declare that few illusions can survive a honeymoon, while I do not know about it, for I only married once, that can speak from my limited experience, that certainly our illusion, or rather the great truth of which it is the shadow, did survive, and as to this day it survives in my heart across all the years of utter separation, and across the unanswering gulf of gloom. But complete happiness is not allowed in this world even for an hour, as our marriage day had been shadowed by the scene which has been described, so our married life was shadowed by its own sorrow. Three days after our wedding Mr. Carson had a stroke. It had been long impending, now it fell. We came into the centre hut to dinner and found him lying speechless on the couch. At first I thought that he was dying, but this was not so. On the contrary, within four days he recovered his speech and some power of movement, but he never recovered his memory, though he still knew Stella and sometimes myself. Curiously enough he remembered little Tota best of all three, though occasionally he thought that she was his own daughter in her childhood, and would ask her where her mother was. This state of affairs lasted some seven months. The old man gradually grew weaker, but he did not die. Of course his condition quite precluded the idea of our leaving Babian Crows to all was over. This was the more distressing to me because I had a nervous presentment that Stella was incurring danger by staying there, and also because the state of her health rendered it desirable that we should reach a civilised region as soon as possible. However it could not be helped. At length the end came very suddenly. We were sitting one evening by Mr. Carson's bedside in his hut, when to our astonishment he sat up and spoke in a strong full voice. I hear you, he said. Yes, yes, I forgive you, poor woman, you too have suffered. And he fell back dead. I have little doubt that he was addressing his lost wife, some vision of whom had flashed across his dying sense. Stella, of course, was overwhelmed with grief at her loss. Till I came her father had been her sole companion, and therefore, as may be imagined, the tie between them was much closer than as usual, even in the case of father and daughter. So deeply did she mourn that I began to fear for the effect upon her health, nor were we the only ones to grieve. All the natives on the settlement called Mr. Carson father, and as a father they lamented him. The air resounded with a wailing of women, and the men went about with bowed heads, saying that the sun had set in the heavens, now only the star, Stella, remained. And of a Zimby alone did not mourn. He said that it was best that the Incos should die, for what was life worth when one lay like a log, moreover, that it would have been well for all if he had died sooner. On the following day we buried him in the little graveyard near the waterfall. It was a sad business, and to Stella cried very much, in spite of all I could do to comfort her. That night as I sat outside the hut smoking, for the weather was hot, and Stella was lying down inside, old Indaba Zimby came up, saluted, and squatted at my feet. What is it, Indaba Zimby? I said. This, Mukumazahan, when are you going to direct towards the coast? I don't know, I answered. The star is not fit to travel now. We must wait a while. No, Mukumazahan, you must not wait. We must go, and the star must take a chance. She is strong. It is nothing. All will be well. Why do you say so? Why, must we go? For this reason Mukumazahan, and he looked cautiously round and spoke low. The baboons have come back and thousands. All the mountain is full of them. I did not know that they had gone, I said. Yes, he answered. They went after the marriage, all but one or two. Now they are back, all the baboons in the world, I think. I saw a whole cliff back with them. Is that all, I said? For I saw that he had something behind. I am not afraid of a pack of baboons. No, Mukumazahan, it is not all. The babian-frau, Andrika, is with them. Now nothing had been heard or seen of Andrika since her expulsion, and though at first she and her threats had haunted me somewhat, by degree she to a great extent had passed out of my mind, which was fully preoccupied with Stella and my father-in-law's illness. I started violently. How do you know this? I asked. I know it because I saw her Mukumazahan. She is disguised, she is dressed up in baboon-skins, and her faces stained dark. But though she was a very long way off, I knew her by her size, and I saw the weight flesh of her arm when the skin slipped aside. She has come back, Mukumazahan, with all the baboons in the world, and she has come back to do evil. Now do you understand why you should trek? Yes, I said. No, I don't see how she and the baboons can harm us. I think that it will be better to go. If necessary, we can camp the wagon somewhere for a while on the journey. Harkin and other Zinbi say nothing of this to the star. I will not have her frightened. And Harkin again. Speak to the headman and see that watches are set all round the huts and gardens, and kept there night and day. Tomorrow we will get the wagons ready, and next day we will trek. He nodded his white-lock and went to do my bidding, leaving me not a little disturbed, unreasonably so indeed. It was a strange story—that this woman had the power of conversing with baboons I knew. For an instance of this, see Anderson's Twenty-Five Years in a Wagon, Volume 1, Page 262, Editor. That was not so very wonderful, seeing that the Bushmen claim to be able to do the same thing, and she had been nurtured by them, but that she had been able to muster them, and by the strength of her human will and intelligence, muster them in order to forward her ends of revenge, seemed to me so incredible that after reflection my fears grew light. Still, I determined to trek. After all, a journey in an ox-wagon would not be such a very terrible thing to a strong woman accustomed to roughing it whatever her state of health, and when all was said and done, I did not like this tale of the presence of Hendryka with countless hosts of baboons. So I went into Stella, and without saying a word to her of the baboon's story, I told her I had been thinking matters over, and had come to the conclusion that it was our duty to follow her father's instructions to the letter, and leave baboon-crow's at once. Into all our talk I need not enter, but the end of it was that she agreed with me, and declared that she could quite well manage the journey, saying moreover that now that her dear father was dead, she would be glad to get away. Nothing happened to disturb us that night, and on the following morning I was up early making preparations. The despair of the people when they learned that we were going to leave them was something quite pityable. I could only console them by declaring that we were, but on a journey, and would return the following year. They had lived in the shadow of their father who was dead, they declared, ever since they were little they had lived in his shadow. He had received them when they were outcasts and wanderers without a mat to lie on or a blanket to cover them, and they had grown fat in his shadow. Then he had died, and the star their father's daughter had married me, Makuma Zahan, and they had believed that I should take their father's place, and let them live in my shadow. What should they do when there was no one to protect them? The tribes were kept from attacking them by fear of the white man. If we went they would be eaten up, and so on. Alas, there was but too much foundation for their fears. I returned to the hut at midday to get some dinner. Stella said that she was going to pack during the afternoon, so I did not think it necessary to caution her about going out alone, as I did not wish to allude to the subject of Hendrika and the baboons unless I was obliged to. I told her, however, that I would come back to help her as soon as I could get away. Then I went down to the native-crowls to sort out such cattle as had belonged to Mr. Carson, from those which belonged to the Cafiers, for I proposed to take them with us. It was a large herd, and the business took an incalculable time. At length, a little before sundown, I gave it up, and leaving in Darba Zimby to finish the job, got on my horse, and rode homewards. Arriving I gave the horse to one of the stable-boys, and went into the central hut. There was no sign of Stella, though the thing she had been packing lay about the floor. I passed first into our sleeping hut, thence one by one into all the others, but still saw no sign of her. Then I went out, and calling to a café in the garden, asked him if he had seen his mistress. He answered, yes. He had seen her carrying flowers, and walking towards the graveyard, holding the little white girl, my daughter, as he called her, by the hand, when the sun stood there, and he pointed to a spot on the horizon where it would have been about an hour and a half before. Two dogs were with them, he added. I turned and ran towards the graveyard, which was about a quarter of a mile from the huts. Of course, there was no reason to be anxious. Evidently she had gone to lay the flowers on her father's grave, and yet I was anxious. When I got near to the graveyard, I met one of the natives, who by my orders had been set round the crowds to watch the place, and noticed that he was rubbing his eyes and yawning. Clearly he had been asleep. I asked him if he had seen his mistress, and he answered that he had not, which under the circumstances was not wonderful. Without stopping to approach him, I ordered the man to follow me, and went on to the graveyard. There, on Mr. Carson's grave, lay the drooping flowers which Stella had been carrying, and there, in the fresh mound, was the spore of Tota's velled shul, or hide-slipper. But where were they? I ran from the graveyard and called aloud at the top of my voice, but no answer came. Meanwhile the native was more profitably engaged in tracing their spore. He followed it for about a hundred yards till he came to a clump of mimosa bush that was situated between the stream and the ancient marble quarries just over the waterfall, and at the mouth of the ravine. Here he stopped, and I heard him give a startled cry. I rushed to the spot, passed through the trees, and saw this. The little open space in the centre of the glade had been the scene of a struggle. There, in the soft earth, were the marks of three pairs of human feet, two shard, one naked, Stella's, Tota's, and Hendrika's. Nor was this all. There, close by, lay the fragments of the two dogs. There were nothing more, and one baboon not yet quite dead, which had been bitten in the throat by the dogs. All round was the spore of numberless baboons. The full horror of what had happened flashed into my mind. My wife and Tota had been carried off by the baboons, as yet they had not been killed, for if so their remains would have been found with those of the dogs. They had been carried off. The brutes, acting under the direction of that woman Monkey Hendrika, had dragged them away to some secret den there to keep them till they died or kill them. For a moment I literally staggered beneath the terror of the shock, then I roused myself from my despair. I bade the native run and alarm the people at the crawls, telling them to come armed and bring me guns and ammunition. He went like the wind, and I turned to follow the spore. For a few yards it was plain enough. Stella had been dragged along. I could see where her heels had struck the ground. The child had, I presumed, been carried. At least there were no marks of her feet. At the water's edge the spore vanished. The water was shallow, and they had gone along in it, or at least Hendrika and her victim had, in order to obliterate the trail. I could see where a moss-grown stone had been freshly turned over in the waterbed. I ran along the bank some way up the ravine, in the vain hope of catching a sight of them. Presently I heard a bark in the cliffs above me. It was answered by another, and then I saw that scores of baboons were hidden about among the rocks on either side, and were softly swinging themselves down to bar the path. To go on unarmed as I was would be useless. I should only be torn to pieces as the dogs had been, so I turned and fled back towards the huts. As I drew near I could see that my messenger had roused the settlement, for natives with spears and caries in their hands were running up towards the crawls. When I reached the hut I met old Ndaba Zimbi, who wore a very serious face. So the evil has fallen Makuma Zahan, he said. It has fallen, I answered. Gave a good heart to Makuma Zahan, he said again. She is not dead, nor is the little maid, and before they die we shall find them. Remember this. Andrika loves her. She will not harm her, or allow the baboons to harm her. She will try to hide her away from you, that is all. Pray God that we may find her, I groaned. The light is going fast. The moon rises in three hours, he answered. We will search by moonlight. It is useless to start now. See, the sun sinks. Let us get the men together, eat, and make things ready. As there was no help I took his advice. I could not eat food, but I packed some to take with us, and made ready ropes and a rough kind of litter. If we found them they would scarcely be able to walk. If we found them. How slowly the time passed it seemed hours before the moon rose, but at last it did. Then we started. In all we were about a hundred men, but we only musted five guns between us, my elephant roar, and four that had belonged to Mr. Carson. End of Chapter 11