 CHAPTER XII. We gained the spot by the stream where Stella had been taken. The natives looked at the torn fragments of the dogs, and at the marks of violence, and I heard them swearing to each other, that whether the star lived or died they would not rest till they had exterminated every baboon on Babayan's peak. I echoed the oath, and, as shall be seen, we kept it. We started on along the stream following the spore of the baboons as we best could, but the stream left no spore and the hard rocky banks very little. Still we wandered on. All night we wandered through the lonely moonlit valleys, startling the silence into a thousand echoes with our cries, but no answer came to them. In vain our eyes searched the sides of precipices formed of water-riven rocks fantastically piled one upon another. In vain we searched through endless dels and fern-clad crannies. There was nothing to be found. How could we expect to find two human beings hidden away in the recesses of this vast stretch of mountain ground which no man yet had ever fully explored? They were lost, and in all human probability lost forever. To and fro we wandered hopelessly till at last dawn found us foot sore and weary nearly at the spot whence we had started. We sat down waiting for the sun to rise, and the men ate of such food as they had brought with them and sent to the crawls for more. I sat upon a stone with a breaking heart. I cannot describe my feelings. Let the reader put himself in my position, and perhaps he may get some idea of them. Near me was Olden Darba Zimby, who sat staring straight before him as though he were looking into space and taking note of what went on there. An idea struck me. This man had some occult power, several times during our adventures he had prophesied, and in every case his prophecies had proved true. He it was who, when we escaped from the Zulu Impy, had told me to steer north, because there we should find the place of a white man who lived under the shadow of a great peak that was full of baboons. Perhaps he could help in this extremity. At any rate it was worth trying. In Darba Zimby I said, you say that you can send your spirit through the doors of space and see what we cannot see? At the least I know that you can do strange things. Can you not help me now? If you can, and will save her, I will give you half the cattle that we have here. I never said anything of the sort to Makumazahan, he answered. I do things. I do not talk about them. Neither do I seek reward for what I do like a common witch doctor. It is well that you have asked me to use my wisdom Makumazahan, for I should not have used it again without being asked. No, not even for the sake of the star and yourself whom I love, for if so my spirit would have been angry. In the other matters I had a part, for my life was concerned as well as yours, but in this matter I have no part, and therefore I might not use my wisdom unless you thought well to call upon my spirit. However, it would have been no good to ask me before, for I have only just found the herb I want. And he produced a handful of the leaves of a plant that was unfamiliar to me. It had prickly leaves shaped very much like those of the common English nettle. Now, Makumazahan, he went on, bid the men leave us alone, and then follow me presently to the little glade down there by the water. I did so. When I reached the glade I found in Daba Zimbi kindling a small fire under the shadow of a tree by the edge of the water. Sit there, Makumazahan, he said, pointing to a stone near the fire, and do not be surprised or frightened at anything you see. If you move or call out we shall learn nothing. I sat down and watched. When the fire was alight and burning brightly the old fellow stripped himself stark naked, and going to the foot of the pool dipped himself in the water. When he came back shivering with the cold, and leaning over the little fire, thrust leaves of the plant I have mentioned into his mouth, and began to chew them, muttering as he chewed. Most of the remaining leaves he threw onto the fire. A dense smoke rose from them, but he held his head in this smoke and drew it down into his lungs till I saw that he was exhibiting every sign of suffocation. The veins in his throat and chest swelled, he gasped loudly, and his eyes, from which tears were streaming, seemed as though they were going to start from his head. Presently he fell over on his side and lay senseless. I was terribly alarmed, and my first impulse was to run to his assistance, but fortunately I remembered his caution and sat quiet. In Daba Zimbi lay on the ground like a person quite dead. His limbs had all the utter relaxation of death, but as I watched I saw them begin to stiffen exactly as though Rigor Mortis had set in. Then to my astonishment I perceived them once more relaxed, and this time there appeared upon his chest the stain of decomposition. It spread and spread. In three minutes the man to all appearances was a livid corpse. I sat amazed watching this uncanny sight, and wondering if any further natural process was about to be enacted. Perhaps in Daba Zimbi was going to fall to dust before my eyes. As I watched I observed that the discoloration was beginning to fade. First it vanished from the extremities, then from the larger limbs, and lastly from the trunk. Then in turn came the third stage of relaxation, the second stage of stiffness or Rigor, and the first stage of after-death collapse. When all these had rapidly succeeded each other, in Daba Zimbi quietly woke up. I was too astonished to speak. I simply looked at him with my mouth open. Well, Makumazahan, he said, putting his head on one side like a bird, and nodding his white lock in a comical fashion, it is all right, I have seen her. Seen who? I asked. The star, your wife, and the little maid. They are much frightened, but unharmed. The baboon-frau watches them. She is mad, but the baboons obey her, and do not hurt them. The star was sleeping from weariness, so I whispered in her ear, and told her not to be frightened, for you would soon rescue her, and that meanwhile she must seem to be pleased to have Handrika near her. You whispered in her ear, I said. How could you whisper in her ear? Bah, Makumazahan, how could I seem to die and go rotten before your eyes? You don't know, do you? Well, I will tell you one thing. I had to die to pass the doors of space, as you call them. I had to draw all the healthy strength and life from my body in order to gather power to speak with the star. It was a dangerous business, Makumazahan, for if I had let things go a little further, they must have stopped so, and there would have been an end of end of a zimbi. Ah, but you white men, you know so much that you think you know everything. But you don't. You are always daring at the clouds and can't see the things that lie at your feet. You hardly believe me now, do you, Makumazahan? Well, I will show you. Have you anything on you that the star has dutched or worn? I thought for a moment and said that I had a lock of her hair in my pocketbook. He told me to give it him. I did so. Going to the fire, he lit the lock of hair in the flame and let it burn to ashes which he caught in his left hand. These ashes he mixed up in a paste with the juice of one of the leaves of the plant I have spoken of. Now, Makumazahan, shut your eyes, he said. I did so, and he rubbed his paste onto my eyelids. At first it burnt me, then my head swam strangely. Presently this effect passed off and my brain was perfectly clear again, but I could not feel the ground with my feet. Indaba Zimbi led me to the side of the stream. Beneath us was a pool of beautifully clear water. Look into the pool, Makumazahan, said Indaba Zimbi, and his voice sounded hollow and far away in my ears. I looked. The water grew dark. It cleared, and in it was a picture. I saw a cave with a fire burning in it. Against the wall of the cave rested Stella. Her dress was almost torn off her. She looked dreadfully pale and weary, and her eyelids were red as though with weeping. But she slept, and I could almost think that I saw her lips shape my name and her sleep. Close to her, her head upon Stella's breast was little tota. She had a skin thrown over her to keep out the night cold. The child was awake and appeared to be moaning with fear. By the fire, in such a position that the light fell full upon her face, and engaged in cooking something in a rough pot shaped from wood, sat the baboon woman, Henrica. She was clothed in baboon skins, and her face had been rubbed with some dark stain, which was, however, wearing off it. In the intervals of her cooking she would turn on Stella her wild eyes, in which glared visible madness, with an expression of tenderness that amounted to worship. Then she would stare at the child and gnash her teeth as though with hate. Clearly she was jealous of it. Round the entrance arch of the cave peaked and appeared the heads of many baboons. Presently Henrica made a sign to one of them. Apparently she did not speak or rather grunt in order not to wake Stella. The brute hopped forward, and she gave it a second rude wooden pot which was lying by her. It took it and went. The last thing that I saw as the vision slowly vanished from the pool was the dim shadow of the baboon returning, with a pot full of water. Presently everything had gone. I ceased to feel strange. There beneath me was the pool, and at my side stood Indaba Zimbi, smiling. You have seen things, he said. I have, I answered, and made no further remark on the matter. What was there to say? For some almost equally remarkable instances of café or magic, the reader is referred to a work named Among the Zourous by David Leslie, editor. Do you know the path to the cave, I added? He nodded his head. I did not follow it all just now because it winds, he said. But I know it, we shall want the ropes. Then let us be starting, the men have eaten. He nodded his head again, and going to the men, I told them to make ready, adding that Indaba Zimbi knew the way. They said that was all right, if Indaba Zimbi had smelt her out, they would soon find the star. So we started cheerfully enough, and my spirits were so much improved that I was able to eat a boiled mealy-cob or two as we walked. We went up the valley, following the course of the stream for about a mile. Then Indaba Zimbi made a sudden turn to the right, along another cliff of which there were countless numbers in the base of the Great Hill. On we went through cliff after cliff. Indaba Zimbi, who led us, was never at a loss. He turned up gullies and struck across necks of hills with the certainty of a hound on a hot scent. At length, after about three hours' march, we came to a big silent valley on the northern slope of the Great Peak. On one side of this valley was a series of stony copies, on the other rose a sheer wall of rock. We marched along the wall for a distance of some two miles, then suddenly Indaba Zimbi halted. This is the place, he said, pointing to an opening in the cliff. This opening was about forty feet from the ground, and ellipse shaped. It cannot have been more than twenty feet high by ten wide, and was partially hidden by ferns and bushes that grew about it in the surface of the cliff. Keen as my eyes were, I doubt if I should ever have noticed it, for there were many such cracks and crannies and the rocky face of the Great Mountain. We drew near and looked carefully at the place. The first thing I noticed was that the rock, which was not quite perpendicular, had been worn by the continual passage of baboons, the second that something white was hanging on a bush near the top of the ascent. It was a pocket handkerchief. Now there was no more doubt about the matter. For the beating heart I began the ascent. For the first twenty feet it was comparatively easy for the rock shelved. The next ten feet was very difficult, but still possible to an active man, and I achieved it, followed by Indaba Zimbi. But the last twelve or fifteen feet could only be scaled by throwing a rope over the trunk of a stunted tree, which grew at the bottom of the opening. This we accomplished with some trouble, and the rest was easy. A foot or two above my head the handkerchief fluttered in the wind. Hanging to the rope I grasped it. It was my wife's. As I did so, I noticed the face of a baboon peering at me over the edge of a cleft. The first baboon we had seen that morning. The brute gave a bark and vanished. Thrusting the handkerchief into my breast, I set my feet against the cliff and scrambled up as hard as I could go. I knew that we had no time to lose, for the baboon would quickly alarm the others. I gained the cleft. It was a mere arched passage cut by water, ending in a gully which led to a wide open space of some sort. I looked through the passage and saw that the gully was black with baboons. On they came by the hundred. I unslunged my elephant gun from my shoulders and waited, calling to the men below to come up with all possible speed. The brutes streamed on down, the gloomy gulf towards me, barking, grunting, and showing their huge teeth. I waited till they were within fifteen yards, then I fired the elephant gun, which was loaded with slugs right into the thick of them. In that narrow place the report echoed like a cannon shot, but its sound was quickly swallowed in the volley of piercing human-sounding groans and screams that followed. The charge of heavy slugs had plowed through the host of baboons, of which at least a dozen lay dead or dying in the passage. For a moment they hesitated, then they came on again with a hideous clamour. Fortunately by this time Indaba Zimbi who also had a gun was standing by my side, otherwise I should have been torn to pieces before I could reload. He fired both barrels into them and again checked the rush. But they came on again, and notwithstanding the appearance of two other natives with guns, which they let off with more or less success, we should have been overwhelmed by the great and ferocious apes, had I not by this time succeeded in reloading the elephant gun. When they were right on us I fired with even more deadly effect than before, for at that distance every slug told on their long line. The hulls and screams of pain and rage were now something inconceivable. One might have thought that we were doing battle with a host of demons. Indeed in that light, for the overhanging arch of rock made it very dark, the gnashing snouts and somber glowing eyes of the apes looked like those of devils as they are represented by monkish fancy. But the last shot was too much for them. They withdrew, dragging some of their wounded with them, and thus gave us time to get our men up the cliff. In a few minutes all were there and we advanced down the passage, which presently opened into a rocky gully with shelving sides. This gully had a waterway at the bottom of it. It was about a hundred yards long and the slopes on either side were topped by precipitous cliffs. I looked at these slopes, they literally swarmed with baboons, grunting, barking, screaming, and beating their breasts with their long arms in fury. I looked up the waterway, along it accompanied by a mob, or as it were a guard of baboons, ran Hendrika, her long hair flying, madness written on her face, and in her arms was the senseless form of little Tota. She saw us, and a foam of rage burst from her lips. She screamed aloud. To me the sound was a mere inarticulate cry, but the baboons clearly understood it, for they began to roll rocks down onto us. One boulder leaped past me and struck down a kaffir behind. Another fell from the roof of the arch onto a man's head and killed him. In dub a Zimbi lifted his gun to shoot Hendrika. I knocked it up so that the shot went over her, crying that he would kill the child. Then I shouted to the men to open out and form a line from side to side of the shelving gully. Furious at the loss of their two comrades, they obeyed me, and keeping in the wart way myself, together with in dub a Zimbi and the other guns, I gave the word to charge. Then the real battle began. It is difficult to say who fought the most fiercely, the natives or the baboons. The kaffirs charged along the slopes, and as they came, encouraged by the screens of Hendrika, who rushed to and fro holding the wretched Tota before her as a shield, the apes bounded at them in fury. Scores were killed by the Asagais, and many more fell beneath our gun-shots, but still they came on. Nor did we go scatheless. Occasionally a man would slip or be pulled over in the grip of a baboon, then the others would fling themselves upon him like dogs on a rat and worry him to death. We lost five men in this way, and I myself received a bite through the fleshy part of the left arm, but fortunately a native near me Asagaid the animal before I was pulled down. At length, and all of a sudden the baboons gave up. A panic seemed to seize them. Notwithstanding the cries of Hendrika, they thought no more of fight, but only of escape. Some even did not attempt to get away from the Asagais of the kaffirs. They simply hid their horrible faces in their paws, and moaning piteously, waited to be slain. Hendrika saw that the battle was lost. Dropping the child from her arms, she rushed straight at us a very picture of horrible insanity. I lifted my gun, but could not bear to shoot. After all, she was but a mad thing, half-eight, half-woman. So I sprang to one side, and she landed full on and dubbed a Zimbi knocking him down. But she did not stay to do any more. Wailing terribly, she rushed down the gully and through the arch, followed by a few of the surviving baboons, and vanished from our sight. End of Chapter 12 Chapter 13 of Alan's Wife This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Alan's Wife by H. Rider Haggard Chapter 13 What Happened to Stella The fight was over. In all, we had lost seven men killed, and several more severely bitten, while but few had escaped without some tokens, whereby he might remember what a baboon's teeth and claws are like. How many of the brutes we killed I never knew, because we did not count, but it was a vast number. I should think that the stock must have been low about Babian's peak for many years afterwards. From that day to this, however, I have always avoided the baboons, feeling more afraid of them than any beast that lives. The path was clear, and we rushed forward along the water-course, but first we picked up little Tota. The child was not in a swoon, as I had thought, but paralyzed by terror so that she could scarcely speak. Otherwise she was unhurt, though it took her many a week to recover her nerve. Had she been older, had she not remembered Hendrika, I doubt she would have recovered it. She knew me again and flung her little arms about my neck, clinging to me so closely that I did not dare to give her to anyone else to carry, lest I should add to her terrors. So I went on with her in my arms. The fears that pierced my heart may well be imagined. Should I find Stella living or dead? Should I find her at all? Well, we should soon know now. We stumbled on up the stony water-course, notwithstanding the weight of Tota I led the way, for suspense lent me wings. Now we were through, and an extraordinary scene lay before us. We were in a great natural amphitheater. Only it was three times the size of any amphitheater ever shaped by man, and the walls were formed by precipitous cliffs, ranging from one to two hundred feet in height. For the rest of the space thus enclosed was level, studded with park-like trees, brilliant with flowers, and having a stream running through the centre of its that, as I afterwards discovered, welled up from the ground at the head of the open space. We spread ourselves out in a line, searching everywhere, for Tota was too overcome to be able to tell us where Stella was hidden away. For nearly half an hour we searched and searched, scanning the walls of rock for any possible openings to a cave, in vain we could find none. I applied to Olden Darba Zimby, but his foresight was at fault here. All he could say was that this was the place, and that the star was hidden somewhere in a cave, but where the cave was he could not tell. At last we came to the top of the amphitheater, there before us was a wall of rock, of which the lower parts were here and there clothed in grasses, lichens, and creepers. I walked along, calling at the top of my voice. Presently my heart stood still, for I thought I heard a faint answer. I drew nearer to the place from which the sound seemed to come, and again called, Yes, there was an answer in my wife's voice. It seemed to come from the rock. I went up to it and searched among the creepers, but still could find no opening. Move the stone! cried Stella's voice. The cave is shut with a stone. I took a spear, and prodded at the cliff whence the sound came. Suddenly the spear sunk in through a massive lichen. I swept the lichen aside, revealing a boulder that had been rolled into the mouth of an opening in the rock, which fitted it so accurately that, covered as it was by the overhanging lichen, it might well have escaped the keenest eye. We dragged the boulder out. It was two men's work to do it. Beyond was a narrow, water-worn passage, which I followed with a beating heart. Presently the passage opened into a small cave, shaped like a pickle-bottle, and coming to a neck at the top end. We passed through and found ourselves in a second, much larger cave, that I at once recognized as the one of which Indaba Zimbi had shown me a vision in the water. Light reached it from above—how, I know not—and by it I could see a form half sitting, half lying on some skins at the top end of the cave. I rushed to it. It was Stella, Stella bound with strips of hide, bruised torn, but still Stella, and alive. She saw me. She gave one cry. Then, as I caught her in my arm, she fainted. It was a happy indeed that she did not faint before, for had it not been for the sound of her voice, I do not believe we should ever have found that cunningly hidden cave, unless indeed Indaba Zimbi's magic, on which be blessings, had come to our assistance. We bore her to the open air, laid her beneath the shade of a tree, and cut the bonds loose from her ankles. As we went I glanced at the cave. It was exactly as I had seen it in the vision. There burnt the fire. There were the rude wooden vessels, one of them still half full of the water which I had seen the baboon bring. I felt awed as I looked, and marbled at the power wielded by a savage who could not even read and write. Now I could see Stella clearly. Her face was scratched and haggard with fear and weeping. Her clothes were almost torn off her, and her beautiful hair was loose and tangled. I sent for water and was sprinkled her face. Then I forced a little of the brandy which we distilled from peaches at the crawls between her lips, and she opened her eyes and, throwing her arms about me, clung to me as little Tota had done, sobbing, Thank God! Thank God! After a while she grew quieter, and I made her and Tota eat some food from the store that we had brought with us. I too ate and was thankful, for with the exception of the mealy-cobbs I had tasted nothing for nearly four and twenty hours. Then she washed her face and hands, and tidied her rags of dress as well as she was able, as she did so by degrees, I drew her story from her. It seemed that on the previous afternoon, being wearied with packing, she went out to visit her father's grave, taking Tota with her, and was followed there by the two dogs. She wished to lay some flowers on the grave and take farewell of the dust it covered, for as we had expected to trek early on the morrow, she did not know if she would find a later opportunity. They passed up the garden, and gathering some flowers from the orange trees and elsewhere, went on to the little graveyard. Here she laid them on the grave as we had found them. And then sitting down fell into a deep and sad reverie, such as the occasion would naturally induce. While she sat thus, Tota, who was a lively child and active as a kitten, strayed away without stellar observing it. With her went the dogs, who also had grown tired of inaction. A while passed, and suddenly she heard the dogs barking furiously about a hundred and fifty yards away. Then she heard Tota scream, and the dogs also yelling with fear and pain. She rose and ran as swiftly as she could towards the spot whence the sound came. Presently she was there. Before her in the glade, holding the screening Tota in her arms, was a figure in which, notwithstanding the rough disguise of baboon skins and colouring matter, she had no difficulty in recognising Hendrica. And all about her were numbers of baboons rolling over and over in two hideous heaps of which the centres were the unfortunate dogs now in process of being rent to fragments. Hendrica! Stella cried. What does this mean? What are you doing with Tota and those brutes? The woman heard her and looked up. Then Stella saw that she was mad. Madness stared from her eyes. She dropped the child, which instantly flew to Stella for protection. Stella clasped it, only to be herself clasped by Hendrica. She struggled fiercely, but it was of no use. The Bubbian frow had the strength of ten. She lifted her and Tota as though they were nothing, and ran off with them, following the bed of the stream in order to avoid leaving a spore. Only the baboons who came with her, minus the one the dogs had killed, would not take to the water, but kept pace with them on the bank. Stella said that the night which followed was more like a hideous nightmare than a reality. She was never able to tell me all that occurred in it. She had a vague recollection of being born over rocks and along cluffs, while around her echoed the horrible grunts and clicks of the baboons. She spoke to Hendrica in English and Kaffir imploring her to let them go. But the woman, if I may call her so, seemed in her madness to have entirely forgotten those tongues. When Stella spoke, she would kiss her and stroke her hair, but she did not seem to understand what it was she said. On the other hand she could and did talk to the baboons that seemed to obey her implicitly. Moreover, she would not allow them to touch either Stella or the child in her arms. Once one of them tried to do so, and she seized a dead stick and struck it so heavily on the head that it fell senseless. Thrice, Stella made an attempt to escape, for sometimes even Hendrica's giant strength waned, and she had to set them down, but on each occasion she caught them, and it was in these struggles that Stella's clothes were so torn. At length, before daylight, they reached to the cliff, and with the first break of light the ascent began. Hendrica dragged them up the first stages, but when they came to the precipitous place she tied the strips of hide of which she had a supply wound round her waist, beneath Stella's arms. Steep as the place was the baboons ascended it easily enough, springing from the knock of rock to the trunk of the tree that grew on the edge of the crevasse. Hendrica followed them, holding the end of the hide reamed her teeth, one of the baboons hanging down from the tree to assist her ascent. It was while she was ascending that Stella bethought of letting fall her handkerchief, in the faint hope that some searcher might see it. By this time Hendrica was on the tree, and grunting out orders to the baboons which clustered about Stella below. Suddenly these seized her and little Toto, who was in her arms, and lifted her from the ground. Then Hendrica above, aided by other baboons, put out all her great strength and pulled the two of them up the rock. Twice Stella swung heavily against the cliff. After the second blow she felt her senses going, and was consumed with terror lest she should drop Toto, but she managed to cling to her, and together they reached at the cleft. From that time, Stella went on, I remember no more till I woke to find myself in a gloomy cave resting on a bed of skins. My legs were bound, and Hendrica sat near me, watching me, while round the edge of the cave peered the heads of those horrible baboons. Toto was still in my arms and half dead from terror. Her moans were pitiful to hear. I spoke to Hendrica, imploring her to release us, that either she has lost all understanding of human speech, or she pretends to have done so. All she would do was to caress me, and even kiss my hands and dress with extravagant signs of affection. As she did so, Toto shrunk closer to me. This Hendrica saw and glared so savagely at the child, that I feared lest she was going to kill her. I diverted her attention by making signs that I wanted water, and this she gave me in a wooden bowl. As you saw, the cave was evidently Hendrica's dwelling place. There are stores of fruit in it, and some strips of dried flesh. She gave me some of the fruit, and Toto a little, and I made Toto eat some. You can never know what I went through, Alan. I saw now that Hendrica was quite mad, but little removed from the brutes to which she is a kin, and over which she has such unholy power. The only trace of humanity left about her was her affection for me. Evidently her idea was to keep me here with her, to keep me away from you, and to carry out this idea she was capable of the exercise of every artifice and cunning. In this way she was sane enough, but in every other way she was mad. Moreover she had not forgotten her horrible jealousy. Already I saw her glaring at Toto, and knew that the child's murder was only a matter of time. Probably within a few hours she would be killed before my eyes. Of escape even if I had the strength there was absolutely no chance, and little enough of our ever being found. No, we should be kept here guarded by a mad thing, half a half woman till we perished miserably. Then I thought of you, dear, and of all that you must be suffering, and my heart nearly broke. I could only pray to God that I might either be rescued or die swiftly. As I prayed I dropped into a kind of dose from utter weariness, and then I had the strangest dream. I dreamt that Indava Zimbi stood over me nodding his white lock, and spoke to me in kafir, telling me not to be frightened, for you would soon be with me, and that meantime I must humour Hendrika, pretending to be pleased to have her near me. The dream was so vivid that I actually seemed to see and hear him, as I see and hear him now. Here I looked up and glanced at Old Indava Zimbi, who was sitting near, but it was not till afterwards that I told Stella of how her vision was brought about. At any rate, she went on, when I awoke I determined to act on my dream. I took Hendrika's hand and depressed it. She actually laughed in a wild kind of way with happiness, and laid her head upon my knee. Then I made signs that I wanted food, and she threw wood on the fire, which I forgot to tell you was burning in the cave, and began to make some of the broth that she used to cook very well, and she did not seem to have forgotten all about it. At any rate, the broth was not bad, though neither totem nor eye could drink much of it. Bright and weariness had taken away our appetites. After the meal was done, and I prolonged it as much as possible, I saw Hendrika was beginning to get jealous of Tota again. She glared at her, and then at the big knife which was tied round her own body. I knew the knife again. It was the one with which she had tried to murder you, dear. At last she went so far as to draw the knife. I was paralyzed with fear. Then suddenly I remembered that when she was our servant, and used to get out of temper and sulk, I could always calm her by singing to her. So I began to sing hymns. Instantly she forgot her jealousy, and put the knife back into its sheath. She knew the sound of the singing, and sat listening to it with a wrapped face. The baboons, too, crowded in at the entrance of the cave to listen. I must have sung for an hour or more all the hymns that I could remember. It was so very strange and dreadful sitting there singing to mad Hendrika, and those hideous man-like apes that shut their eyes and nodded their great heads as I sang. It was a horrible nightmare, but I believed that the baboons are almost as human as the bushmen. Well, this went on for a long time till my voice was getting exhausted. Then suddenly I heard the baboons outside raise a loud noise, as they do when they are angry. Then, dear, I heard the boom of your elephant gun, and I think it was the sweetest sound that ever came to my ears. Hendrika heard it, too. She sprang up, stood for a moment, then to my horror, swept Tota into her arms, and rushed down the cave. Of course I could not stir to follow her, for my feet were tied. Next instant I heard the sound of a rock being moved, and presently the lessening of the light in the cave told me that I was shut in. Now the sound even of the elephant gun only reached me very faintly, and presently I could hear nothing more straining my ears as I would. At last I heard a faint shouting that reached me through the wall of rock. I answered as loud as I could. You know the rest, and oh my dear husband, thank God, thank God! And she fell weeping into my arms. End of Chapter 13 Chapter 14 of Allen's Wife Both Stella and Tota were too weary to be moved, so we camped that night in the baboon's home, but were troubled by no baboons. Stella would not sleep in the cave. She said the place terrified her, so I made her up a kind of bed under a thorn-tree. As this rock-bound valley was one of the hottest places I was ever in, I thought that this would not matter. But when at sunrise, on the following morning, I saw a veil of miasmatic mist hanging over the surface of the ground, I changed my opinion. However, neither Stella nor Tota seemed the worse, so as soon as was practical we started homewards. I had already, on the previous day, sent some of the men back to the crows to fetch a ladder, and when we reached the cliff we found them waiting for us beneath. With the help of the ladder the descent was easy. Stella simply got out of her rough litter at the top of the cliff, for we found it necessary to carry her. Climbed down the ladder, and got into it again at the bottom. Well, we reached the crows safely enough, seeing nothing more of Hendrika, and were this a story, doubtless I should end it here with, and lived happily ever after. But alas, it is not so. How am I to write it? My dearest wife's vital energy seemed completely to fail her now that the danger was past, and within twelve hours of our return I saw that her state was such as to necessitate the abandonment of any idea of leaving Babian crows at present. The bodily exertion, the anguish of mind, and the terror which she had endured during that dreadful night, combined with her delicate state of health, had completely broken her down. To make matters worse also she was taken with an attack of fever, contracted no doubt in the unhealthy atmosphere of that accursed valley. In time she shook the fever off, but it left her dreadfully weak, and quite unfit to face the trial before her. I think she knew that she was going to die. She always spoke of my future, never of our future. It is impossible for me to tell how sweet she was, how gentle, how patient and resigned. Nor indeed do I wish to tell it. It is too sad. But this I will say. I believe that if ever a woman drew near to perfection while yet living on earth stellar quarter-main did so. The fatal hour drew on. My boy Harry was born, and his mother lived to kiss and bless him. Then she sank. We did what we could, but we had little skill, and might not hold her back from death. All through one weary night I watched her with a breaking heart. The dawn came. The sun rose in the east. His rays falling on the peak behind were reflected in glory upon the bosom of the western sky. Stella awoke from her swoon and saw the light. She whispered to me to open the door of the hut. I did so, and she fixed her dying eyes on the splendour of the morning sun. She looked on me and smiled as an angel might smile. Then, with a last effort, she lifted her hand and, pointing to the radiant heavens, whispered, There, Alan, there. It was done, and I was broken-hearted, and broken-hearted I must wander to the end. Those who have endured my loss will know my sorrow. It cannot be written. In such peace and at such an hour may I also die. Yes, it is a sad story, but wonder where we will about the world we can never go beyond the sound of the passing bell. For me, as for my father before me, and for the millions who have been and who shall be, there is but one word of comfort. The Lord hath given, and the Lord hath taken away. Let us then bow our heads in hope and add with a humble heart. Blessed be the name of the Lord. I buried her by her father's side, and the weeping of the people who had loved her went up to heaven, even in Darbazin be wept, but I could weep no more. On the second night from her burial I could not sleep. I rose, dressed myself, and went out into the night. The moon was shining brightly, and by its rays I shaped my course towards the graveyard. I drew near silently, and as I came I thought that I heard a sound of moaning on the further side of the wall. I looked over it. Crouched by Stella's grave, and tearing at its sobs with her hands as though she were on earth that which lay within, was Hendrika. Her face was wild and haggard, her form so emaciated that when the pelt she wore slipped aside the shoulder blade seemed to project almost through her skin. Suddenly she looked up and saw me. Laughing a dreadful maniac laugh, she put her hand to her girdle and drew her great knife from it. I thought that she was about to attack me, and prepared to defend myself as best I could, for I was unarmed. But she made no effort to do so. Lifting the knife on high for a moment she held it glittering in the moonlight, then plunged it into her own breast, and fell headlong to the ground. I sprang over the wall and ran to her. She was not yet dead. Presently she opened her eyes, and I saw that the madness had gone out of them. She said, speaking in English, and in a thick, difficult voice like one who half-forgot, and half-remembered. I remember now. I have been mad. Is she really dead? Yes, I said. She is dead, and you killed her. I killed her. The dying woman faltered. And I loved her? Yes, yes, I know now. I became a brute again, and dragged her to the brutes. And now once more I am a woman, and she is dead, and I killed her. Because I loved her so. I killed her who saved me from the brutes. I am not dead yet, Mokoma Zahan. Take me, and torture me to death. Slowly, very slowly. It was jealousy of you that drove me mad, and I have killed her, and now she can never forgive me. Ask forgiveness from above, I said, for Hendrika had been a Christian, and the torment of her remorse touched me. I ask no forgiveness, she said. May God torture me forever, because I killed her. May I become a brute forever till she comes to find me and forgives me. I only want her forgiveness. And wailing in an anguish of the heart so strong that her bodily suffering seemed to be forgotten, Hendrika, the baboon woman, died. I went back to the crows, and waking in Dabba Zimbi told him what had happened, asking him to send someone to watch the body, as I proposed to give it burial. But next morning it was gone, and I found that the natives, hearing of the event, had taken the corpse and thrown it to the vultures with every mark of hate. Such then was the end of Hendrika. A week after Hendrika's death I left Babion Crows. The place was hateful to me now, it was a haunted place. I sent for Olden Dabba Zimbi and told him that I was going. He answered that it was well. The place has served your turn, he said. Here you have won that joy which was fated you should win, and have suffered those things that it was fated you should suffer. Yes, and though you know it not now, the joy and the suffering, like the sunshine and the storm, are the same thing, and will rest at last in the same heaven, the heaven from which they came. Now go, Makumazahan. I asked him if he was coming with me. No, he answered. Are Baal's lie apart henceforth Makumazahan? We met together for certain ends. Those ends are fulfilled. Now each one goes his own way. You have still many years before you, Makumazahan. My years are few. When we shake hands here it will be for the last time. Perhaps we may meet again, but it will not be in this world. Henceforth we have each of us a friend the less. Heavy words, I said. True words, he answered. Well, I have little heart to write the rest of it. I went, leaving Indaba Zimbi in charge of the place, and making him a present of such cattle and goods as I did not want. Tota I, of course, took with me. Fortunately by this time she had almost recovered the shock to her nerves. The baby Harry, as he was afterwards named, was a fine, healthy child, and I was lucky in getting a respectable native woman whose husband had been killed in the fight with the baboons to accompany me as his nurse. Slowly, and followed for a distance by all the people, I trekked away from babian crows. My route towards Natal was along the edge of the badlands, and my first night's outspan was beneath that very tree where Stella, my lost wife, had found us as we lay dying of first. I did not sleep much that night, and yet I was glad that I had not died in the desert about eleven months before. I felt then, as from year to year, I have continued to feel while I wander through the lonely wilderness of life, that I had been preserved to an end. I had won my darling's love, and for a little while we had been happy together. Our happiness was too perfect to endure. She is lost to me now, that she is lost to be found again. Here, on the following morning, I bade farewell to Indava Zimbi. Good-bye, Makumazahan, he said, nodding his white lock at me. Good-bye for a while. I am not a Christian, your father could not make me that, but he was a wise man, and when he said that those who loved each other shall meet again, he did not lie. And I too am a wise man in my way, Makumazahan, and I say it is true that we shall meet again. All my prophecies to you have come through, Makumazahan, and this one shall come through also. I tell you that you shall return to Babian crawls, and shall not find me. I tell you that you shall journey to a further land than Babian crawls, and shall find me farewell. And he took a pinch of snuff, turned, and went. Of my journey down to Natal there is little to tell. I met with many adventures, but they were of an everyday kind, and in the end arrived safely at Port Durban, which I now visited for the first time. Both Tota and my baby boy bore the journey well, and here I may as well chronicle the destiny of Tota. For a year she remained under my charge. Then she was adopted by a lady, the wife of an English colonel, who was stationed at the Cape. She was taken by her adopted parents to England, where she grew up a very charming and pretty girl, and ultimately married a clergyman in Norfolk. But I never saw her again, though we often wrote to each other. Before I returned to the country of my birth, she too had been gathered to the land of shadows, leaving three children behind her. Ah me! All this took place so long ago, when I was young, who am now old. Perhaps it may interest the reader to know the fate of Mr. Carson's property, which should of course have gone to his grandson Harry. I wrote to England to claim the estate on his behalf, but the lawyer to whom the matter was submitted said that my marriage to Stella, not having been celebrated by an ordained priest, was not legal according to English law, and therefore Harry could not inherit. Foolishly enough I acquiesced in this, and the property passed to a cousin of my father-in-laws. But since I have come to live in England I have been informed that this opinion is open to great suspicion, and that there is every probability that the courts would have declared the marriage perfectly binding, as having been solemnly entered into an accordance with the custom of the place where it was contracted. But I am now so rich that it is not worthwhile to move in a matter. The cousin is dead, his son is in possession, so let him keep it. Once, and once only, did I revisit Babian Crows. Some fifteen years after my darling's death, when I was a man in middle life, I undertook an expedition to the Zambezi, and one night outspanned at the mouth of the well-known valley beneath the shadow of the Great Peak. I mounted my horse, and quite alone rode up the valley, noticing with a strange prescience of evil that the road was overgrown, and save for the music of the waterfalls, the place silent as death. The crowd that used to be to the left of the road by the river had vanished. I rode towards their sight. The mealy fields were choked with weeds. The paths were dumb with grass. Presently I reached the place. There, overgrown with grass, were the burnt ashes of the crows, and there among the ashes, gleaming in the moonlight, lay the white bones of men. Now it was clear to me. The settlement had been fallen on by some powerful foe, and its inhabitants put to the Asagai. The forebodings of the natives had come true. Babian Crows was peopled by memories alone. I passed on up the terraces. There shone the roofs of the marble huts. They would not burn, and were too strong to be easily pulled down. I entered one of them. It had been our sleeping hut, and a littered candle which I had with me. The huts had been sacked. Leaves of books and broken, mouldering fragments of the familiar furniture lay about. Then I remembered that there was a secret place hollowed in the floor and concealed by a stone where Stella used to hide her little treasures. I went to the stone and dragged it up. There was something within wrapped in rotting native cloth. I undid it. It was the dress my wife had been married in. In the centre of the dress were the withered wreath and flower she had worn, and with them a little paper packet. I opened it. It contained a lock of my own hair. I remembered then that I had searched for this dress when I came away and could not find it, for I had forgotten the secret recess in the floor. Taking the dress with me, I left the hut for the last time. Leaving my horse tied to a tree, I walked to the graveyard through the ruined garden. There it was a mass of weeds, but over my darling's grave grew a self-sewn orange bush of which the scented petals fell in showers onto the mound beneath. As I drew near there was a crash and a rush. A great baboon leapt from the centre of the graveyard and vanished into the trees. I could almost believe that it was the wraith of Hendrika doomed to keep an eternal watch over the bones of the woman her jealous rage had done to death. I tarried there awhile, filled with such thoughts as may not be written. Then, leaving my dead wife to her long sleep, where the waters fall in melancholy music beneath the shadow of the everlasting mountain, I turned and sought that spot where first we had told our love. Now the orange grove was nothing but a tangled thicket. Many of the trees were dead, choked with creepers, but some still flourished. There stood the one beneath which we had lingered, there was the rock that had been our seat, and there on the rock sat the wraith of Stella, the Stella whom I had wed. Hi, there she sat, and on her upturned face was that same spiritual look which I saw upon it in the hour when we had first kissed. The moonlight shone in her dark eyes, the breeze wavered in her curling hair, her breast rose and fell, a gentle smile played about her parted lips. I stood transfixed with awe and joy, gazing on that lost loveliness which once was mine. I could not speak, and she spoke no word. She did not even seem to see me. Now her eyes fell, for a moment they met mine, and their message entered into me. Then she was gone. She was gone. Nothing was left but the tremulous moonlight falling where she had been, the melancholy music of the waters, the shadow of the everlasting mountain, and in my heart the sorrow and the hope.