readenglishbook.com » Adventure » Allan's Wife, H. Rider Haggard [classic fiction txt] 📗

Book online «Allan's Wife, H. Rider Haggard [classic fiction txt] 📗». Author H. Rider Haggard



1 ... 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 ... 27
Go to page:
there and then, could they have had their way. Nor were matters mended by Indaba-zimbi, 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 would come of it.

At last matters got very bad, for two of the Indunas 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 induna called to her to go, promising that if ever she showed her face near the kraals again she should be stabbed like a jackal. Then Hendrika spoke to Stella in a low voice and in English—

“Better let them kill me, mistress, better for all. Without you to love I shall go mad and become a babyan again.”

Stella did not answer, and they loosed 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 revoir.”

It frightened me, for I knew 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 Indaba-zimbi, 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 Indaba-zimbi in my ear—“Look, Macumazahn, there goes the Babyan-frau. But, Macumazahn, she will come back again. Ah, why will you not listen to my words. Have they not always been true words, Macumazahn?” and he shrugged his shoulders and turned away.

For a while I was much disturbed, but 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.





CHAPTER XI GONE!

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. Well, I do not know about it, for I only married once, and can but speak from my limited experience. But certainly our illusion, or rather the great truth of which it is the shadow, did survive, 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 for 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 Babyan Kraals till all was over. This was the more distressing to me because I had a nervous presentiment that Stella was incurring danger by staying there, and also because the state of her health rendered it desirable that we should reach a civilized 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 is 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 the 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.” Indaba-zimbi alone did not mourn. He said that it was best that the Inkoos 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 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-zimbi came up, saluted, and squatted at my feet.

“What is it, Indaba-zimbi?” I said.

“This, Macumazahn. When are you going to trek towards the coast?”

“I don’t know,” I answered. “The Star is not fit to travel now, we must wait awhile.”

“No, Macumazahn, you must not wait, you must go, and the Star must take her chance. She is strong. It is nothing. All will be well.”

“Why do you say so? why must we go?”

“For this reason, Macumazahn,” and he looked cautiously round and spoke low. “The baboons have come back in 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, Macumazahn, it is not all. The Babyan-frau, Hendrika, is with them.”

Now nothing had been heard or seen of Hendrika since her expulsion, and though at first she and her threats had haunted me somewhat, by degrees 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, Macumazahn. She is disguised, she is dressed up in baboon skins, and her face is stained dark. But though she was a long way off, I knew her by her size, and I saw the white flesh of her arm when the skins slipped aside. She has come back, Macumazahn, 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, “though 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 waggons somewhere for a while on the journey. Hearken, Indaba-zimbi: say nothing of this to the Star; I will not have her frightened. And hearken again. Speak to the headmen, and see that watchers are set all round the huts and gardens, and kept there night and day. To-morrow we will get the waggons 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.[*] 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 waggon 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 Hendrika with countless hosts of baboons.

     [*] For an instance of this, see Anderson’s “Twenty-five
     Years in a Waggon,” vol. i. p. 262.—Editor.

So I went in to Stella, and without saying a word to her of the baboon story, 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 Babyan Kraals 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 pitiable. 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, Macumazahn, 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 huts at mid-day 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 kraals to sort out such cattle as had belonged to

1 ... 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 ... 27
Go to page:

Free e-book «Allan's Wife, H. Rider Haggard [classic fiction txt] 📗» - read online now

Comments (0)

There are no comments yet. You can be the first!
Add a comment