Allan and the Holy Flower, H. Rider Haggard [best romance books of all time .TXT] 📗

and, after the fashion of these beasts, charged down on us from about fifty yards away. Now I was carrying a heavy, single-barrelled rifle, for as yet we and our weapons were not parted. On came the rhinoceros, and Komba, small blame to him for he only had a spear, started to run. I cocked the rifle and waited my chance.

When it was not more than fifteen paces away the rhinoceros threw up its head, at which, of course, it was useless to fire because of the horn, and I let drive at the throat. The bullet hit it fair, and I suppose penetrated to the heart. At any rate, it rolled over and over like a shot rabbit, and with a single stretch of its limbs, expired almost at my feet.

Komba was much impressed. He returned; he stared at the dead rhinoceros and at the hole in its throat; he stared at me; he stared at the still smoking rifle.

“The great beast of the plains killed with a noise!” he muttered. “Killed in an instant by this little monkey of a white man” (I thanked him for that and made a note of it) “and his magic. Oh! the Motombo was wise when he commanded——” and with an effort he stopped.

“Well, friend, what is the matter?” I asked. “You see there was no need for you to run. If you had stepped behind me you would have been as safe as you are now—after running.”

“It is so, lord Macumazana, but the thing is strange to me. Forgive me if I do not understand.”

“Oh! I forgive you, my lord Kalubi—that is—to be. It is clear that you have a good deal to learn in Pongo-land.”

“Yes, my lord Macumazana, and so perhaps have you,” he replied dryly, having by this time recovered his nerve and sarcastic powers.

Then after telling Mavovo, who appeared mysteriously at the sound of the shot—I think he was stalking us in case of accidents—to fetch men to cut up the rhinoceros, Komba and I proceeded on our walk.

A little further on, just by the edge of the reeds, I caught sight of a narrow, oblong trench dug in a patch of stony soil, and of a rusted mustard tin half-hidden by some scanty vegetation.

“What is that?” I asked, in seeming astonishment, though I knew well what it must be.

“Oh!” replied Komba, who evidently was not yet quite himself, “that is where the white lord Dogeetah, Bausi’s blood-brother, set his little canvas house when he was here over twelve moons ago.”

“Really!” I exclaimed, “he never told me he was here.” (This was a lie, but somehow I was not afraid of lying to Komba.) “How do you know that he was here?”

“One of our people who was fishing in the reeds saw him.”

“Oh! that explains it, Komba. But what an odd place for him to fish in; so far from home; and I wonder what he was fishing for. When you have time, Komba, you must explain to me what it is that you catch amidst the roots of thick reeds in such shallow water.”

Komba replied that he would do so with pleasure—when he had time. Then, as though to avoid further conversation he ran forward, and thrusting the reeds apart, showed me a great canoe, big enough to hold thirty or forty men, which with infinite labour had been hollowed out of the trunk of a single, huge tree. This canoe differed from the majority of those that personally I have seen used on African lakes and rivers, in that it was fitted for a mast, now unshipped. I looked at it and said it was a fine boat, whereon Komba replied that there were a hundred such at Rica Town, though not all of them were so large.

Ah! thought I to myself as we walked back to the camp. Then, allowing an average of twenty to a canoe, the Pongo tribe number about two thousand males old enough to paddle, an estimate which turned out to be singularly correct.

Next morning at dawn we started, with some difficulty. To begin with, in the middle of the night old Babemba came to the canvas shelter under which I was sleeping, woke me up and in a long speech implored me not to go. He said he was convinced that the Pongo intended foul play of some sort and that all this talk of peace was a mere trick to entrap us white men into the country, probably in order to sacrifice us to its gods for a religious reason.

I answered that I quite agreed with him, but that as my companions insisted upon making this journey, I could not desert them. All that I could do was to beg him to keep a sharp look-out so that he might be able to help us in case we got into trouble.

“Here I will stay and watch for you, lord Macumazana,” he answered, “but if you fall into a snare, am I able to swim through the water like a fish, or to fly through the air like a bird to free you?”

After he had gone one of the Zulu hunters arrived, a man named Ganza, a sort of lieutenant to Mavovo, and sang the same song. He said that it was not right that I should go without guns to die among devils and leave him and his companions wandering alone in a strange land.

I answered that I was much of the same opinion, but that Dogeetah insisted upon going and that I had no choice.

“Then let us kill Dogeetah, or at any rate tie him up, so that he can do no more mischief in his madness,” Ganza suggested blandly, whereon I turned him out.

Lastly Sammy arrived and said:

“Mr. Quatermain, before you plunge into this deep well of foolishness, I beg that you will consider your responsibilities to God and man, and especially to us, your household, who are now but lost sheep far from home, and further, that you will remember that if anything disagreeable should overtake you, you are indebted to me to the extent of two months’ wages which will probably prove unrecoverable.”

I produced a little leather bag from a tin box and counted out to Sammy the wages due to him, also those for three months in advance.

To my astonishment he began to weep. “Sir,” he said, “I do not seek filthy lucre. What I mean is that I am afraid you will be killed by these Pongo, and, alas! although I love you, sir, I am too great a coward to come and be killed with you, for God made me like that. I pray you not to go, Mr. Quatermain, because I repeat, I love you, sir.”

“I believe you do, my good fellow,” I answered, “and I also am afraid of being killed, who only seem to be brave because I must. However, I hope we shall come through all right. Meanwhile, I am going to give this box and all the gold in it, of which there is a great deal, into your charge, Sammy, trusting to you, if anything happens to us, to get it safe back to Durban if you can.”

“Oh! Mr. Quatermain,” he exclaimed, “I am indeed honoured, especially as you know that once I was in jail for—embezzlement—with