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

“Be silent!” I whispered, and all understood my tone if they did not catch the words. Then steadying myself with an effort, for this hideous vision, which might have been a picture from hell, made me feel faint, I glanced at Komba, who was a pace or two in front of us. Evidently he was much disturbed—the motions of his back told me this—by the sense of some terrible mistake that he had made. For a moment he stood still, then wheeled round and asked me if we had seen anything.

“Yes,” I answered indifferently, “we saw a number of men gathered round a fire, nothing more.”

He tried to search our faces, but luckily the great moon, now almost at her full, was hidden behind a thick cloud, so that he could not read them well. I heard him sigh in relief as he said:

“The Kalubi and the head men are cooking a sheep; it is their custom to feast together on those nights when the moon is about to change. Follow me, white lords.”

Then he led us round the end of the long shed at which we did not even look, and through the garden on its farther side to the two fine huts I have mentioned. Here he clapped his hands and a woman appeared, I know not whence. To her he whispered something. She went away and presently returned with four or five other women who carried clay lamps filled with oil in which floated a wick of palm fibre. These lamps were set down in the huts that proved to be very clean and comfortable places, furnished after a fashion with wooden stools and a kind of low table of which the legs were carved to the shape of antelope’s feet. Also there was a wooden platform at the end of the hut whereon lay beds covered with mats and stuffed with some soft fibre.

“Here you may rest safe,” he said, “for, white lords, are you not the honoured guests of the Pongo people? Presently food” (I shuddered at the word) “will be brought to you, and after you have eaten well, if it is your pleasure, the Kalubi and his councillors will receive you in yonder feast-house and you can talk with them before you sleep. If you need aught, strike upon that jar with a stick,” and he pointed to what looked like a copper cauldron that stood in the garden of the hut near the place where the women were already lighting a fire, “and some will wait on you. Look, here are your goods; none are missing, and here comes water in which you may wash. Now I must go to make report to the Kalubi,” and with a courteous bow he departed.

So after a while did the silent, handsome women—to fetch our meal, I understood one of them to say, and at length we were alone.

“My aunt!” said Stephen, fanning himself with his pocket-handkerchief, “did you see that lady toasting? I have often heard of cannibals, those slaves, for instance, but the actual business! Oh! my aunt!”

“It is no use addressing your absent aunt—if you have got one. What did you expect if you would insist on coming to a hell like this?” I asked gloomily.

“Can’t say, old fellow. Don’t trouble myself much with expectations as a rule. That’s why I and my poor old father never could get on. I always quoted the text ‘Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof’ to him, until at length he sent for the family Bible and ruled it out with red ink in a rage. But I say, do you think that we shall be called upon to understudy St. Lawrence on that grid?”

“Certainly, I do,” I replied, “and, as old Babemba warned you, you can’t complain.”

“Oh! but I will and I can. And so will you, won’t you, Brother John?”

Brother John woke up from a reverie and stroked his long beard.

“Since you ask me, Mr. Somers,” he said, reflectively, “if it were a case of martyrdom for the Faith, like that of the saint to whom you have alluded, I should not object—at any rate in theory. But I confess that, speaking from a secular point of view, I have the strongest dislike to being cooked and eaten by these very disagreeable savages. Still, I see no reason to suppose that we shall fall victims to their domestic customs.”

I, being in a depressed mood, was about to argue to the contrary, when Hans poked his head into the hut and said:

“Dinner coming, Baas, very fine dinner!”

So we went out into the garden where the tall, impassive ladies were arranging many wooden dishes on the ground. Now the moon was clear of clouds, and by its brilliant light we examined their contents. Some were cooked meat covered with a kind of sauce that made its nature indistinguishable. As a matter of fact, I believe it was mutton, but—who could say? Others were evidently of a vegetable nature. For instance, there was a whole platter full of roasted mealie cobs and a great boiled pumpkin, to say nothing of some bowls of curdled milk. Regarding this feast I became aware of a sudden and complete conversion to those principles of vegetarianism which Brother John was always preaching to me.

“I am sure you are quite right,” I said to him, nervously, “in holding that vegetables are the best diet in a hot climate. At any rate I have made up my mind to try the experiment for a few days,” and throwing manners to the winds, I grabbed four of the upper mealie cobs and the top of the pumpkin which I cut off with a knife. Somehow I did not seem to fancy that portion of it which touched the platter, for who knew what those dishes might have contained and how often they were