I hesitated till Scroope said:
"Come, Allan, don"t shirk this Central African adventure. I"ll try if you like."
"No," said Hart brusquely, "_you_ no good."
Then curiosity and perhaps the fear of being laughed at overcame me. I took the bowl and held it under my nose, while Hart threw over my head the antimaca.s.sar which he had used in the mango trick, to keep in the fumes I suppose.
At first these fumes were unpleasant, but just as I was about to drop the bowl they seemed to become agreeable and to penetrate to the inmost recesses of my being. The general affect of them was not unlike that of the laughing gas which dentists give, with this difference, that whereas the gas produces insensibility, these fumes seemed to set the mind on fire and to burn away all limitations of time and distance. Things shifted before me. It was as though I were no longer in that room but travelling with inconceivable rapidity.
Suddenly I appeared to stop before a curtain of mist. The mist rolled up in front of me and I saw a wild and wonderful scene. There lay a lake surrounded by dense African forest. The sky above was still red with the last lights of sunset and in it floated the full moon. On the eastern side of the lake was a great open s.p.a.ce where nothing seemed to grow and all about this s.p.a.ce were the skeletons of hundreds of dead elephants.
There they lay, some of them almost covered with grey mosses hanging to their bones, through which their yellow tusks projected as though they had been dead for centuries; others with the rotting hide still on them.
I knew that I was looking on a cemetery of elephants, the place where these great beasts went to die, as I have since been told the extinct moas did in New Zealand. All my life as a hunter had I heard rumours of these cemeteries, but never before did I see such a spot even in a dream.
See! There was one dying now, a huge gaunt bull that looked as though it were several hundred years old. It stood there swaying to and fro. Then it lifted its trunk, I suppose to trumpet, though of course I could hear nothing, and slowly sank upon its knees and so remained in the last relaxation of death.
Almost in the centre of this cemetery was a little mound of water-washed rock that had endured when the rest of the stony plain was denuded in past epochs. Suddenly upon that rock appeared the shape of the most gigantic elephant that ever I beheld in all my long experience. It had one enormous tusk, but the other was deformed and broken off short. Its sides were scarred as though with fighting and its eyes shone red and wickedly. Held in its trunk was the body of a woman whose hair hung down upon one side and whose feet hung down upon the other. Clasped in her arms was a child that seemed to be still living.
The rogue, as a brute of this sort is called, for evidently such it was, dropped the corpse to the ground and stood a while, flapping its ears.
Then it felt for and picked up the child with its trunk, swung it to and fro and finally tossed it high into the air, hurling it far away. After this it walked to the elephant that I had just seen die, and charged the carca.s.s, knocking it over. Then having lifted its trunk as though to trumpet in triumph, it shambled off towards the forest and vanished.
The curtain of mist fell again and in it, dimly, I thought I saw--well, never mind who or what I saw. Then I awoke.
"Well, did you see anything?" asked a chorus of voices.
I told them what I had seen, leaving out the last part.
"I say, old fellow," said Scroope, "you must have been pretty clever to get all that in, for your eyes weren"t shut for more than ten seconds."
"Then I wonder what you would say if I repeated everything," I answered, for I still felt dreamy and not quite myself.
"You see elephant Jana?" asked Hart. "He kill woman and child, eh?
Well, he do that every night. Well, that why people of White Kendah want you to kill _him_ and take all that ivory which they no dare touch because it in holy place and Black Kendah not let them. So he live still. That what we wish know. Thank you much, Mac.u.mazana. You very good look through-distance man. Just what I think. Kendah "bacco smoke work very well in you. Now, beautiful lady," he added turning to Miss Holmes, "you like look too? Better look. Who knows what you see?"
Miss Holmes hesitated a moment, studying me with an inquiring eye. But I made no sign, being in truth very curious to hear _her_ experience.
"Yes," she said.
"I would prefer, Luna, that you left this business alone," remarked Lord Ragnall uneasily. "I think it is time that you ladies went to bed."
"Here is a match," said Miss Holmes to Hart who was engaged in putting more tobacco into the bowl, the suspicion of a smile upon his grave and statuesque countenance. Hart received the match with a low bow and fired the stuff as before. Then he handed the bowl, from which once again the blue smoke curled upwards, to Miss Holmes, and gently and gracefully let the antimaca.s.sar fall over it and her head, which it draped as a wedding veil might do. A few seconds later she threw off the antimaca.s.sar and cast the bowl, in which the fire was now out, on to the floor. Then she stood up with wide eyes, looking wondrous lovely and, notwithstanding her lack of height, majestic.
"I have been in another world," she said in a low voice as though she spoke to the air, "I have travelled a great way. I found myself in a small place made of stone. It was dark in the place, the fire in that bowl lit it up. There was nothing there except a beautiful statue of a naked baby which seemed to be carved in yellow ivory, and a chair made of ebony inlaid with ivory and seated with string. I stood in front of the statue of the Ivory Child. It seemed to come to life and smile at me. Round its neck was a string of red stones. It took them from its neck and set them upon mine. Then it pointed to the chair, and I sat down in the chair. That was all."
Hart followed her words with an interest that I could see was intense, although he attempted to hide it. Then he asked me to translate them, which I did.
As their full sense came home to him, although his face remained impa.s.sive, I saw his dark eyes shine with the light of triumph. Moreover I heard him whisper to Mart words that seemed to mean,
"The Sacred Child accepts the Guardian. The Spirit of the White Kendah finds a voice again."
Then as though involuntarily, but with the utmost reverence, both of them bowed deeply towards Miss Holmes.
A babel of conversation broke out.
"What a ridiculous dream," I heard Lord Ragnall say in a vexed voice.
"An ivory child that seemed to come to life and to give you a necklace.
Whoever heard such nonsense?"
"Whoever heard such nonsense?" repeated Miss Holmes after him, as though in polite acquiescence, but speaking as an automaton might speak.
"I say," interrupted Scroope, addressing Miss Manners, "this is a drawing-room entertainment and a half, isn"t it, dear?"
"I don"t know," answered Miss Manners, doubtfully, "it is rather too queer for my taste. Tricks are all very well, but when it comes to magic and visions I get frightened."
"Well, I suppose the show is over," said Lord Ragnall. "Quatermain, would you mind asking your conjurer friends what I owe them?"
Here Hart, who had understood, paused from packing up his properties and answered,
"Nothing, O great Lord, nothing. It is we owe you much. Here we learn what we want know long time. I mean if elephant Jana still kill people of Kendah. Kendah "bacco no speak to us. Only speak to new spirit. You got great gift, lady, and you too, Mac.u.mazana. You not like smoke more Kendah "bacco and look into past, eh? Better look! Very full, past, learn much there about all us; learn how things begin. Make you understand lot what seem odd to-day. No! Well, one day you look p"raps, "cause past pull hard and call loud, only no one hear what it say.
Good night, O great Lord. Good night, O beautiful lady. Good night, O Mac.u.mazana, till we meet again when you come kill elephant Jana.
Blessing of the Heaven-Child, who give rain, who protect all danger, who give food, who give health, on you all."
Then making many obeisances they walked backwards to the door where they put on their long cloaks.
At a sign from Lord Ragnall I accompanied them, an office which, fearing more snakes, Mr. Savage was very glad to resign to me. Presently we stood outside the house amidst the moaning trees, and very cold it was there.
"What does all this mean, O men of Africa?" I asked.
"Answer the question yourself when you stand face to face with the great elephant Jana that has in it an evil spirit, O Mac.u.mazana," replied Hart. "Nay, listen. We are far from our home and we sought tidings through those who could give it to us, and we have won those tidings, that is all. We are worshippers of the Heavenly Child that is eternal youth and all good things, but of late the Child has lacked a tongue.
Yet to-night it spoke again. Seek to know no more, you who in due season will know all things."
"Seek to know no more," echoed Mart, "who already, perhaps, know too much, lest harm should come to you, Mac.u.mazana."
"Where are you going to sleep to-night?" I asked.
"We do not sleep here," answered Hart, "we walk to the great city and thence find our way to Africa, where we shall meet you again. You know that we are no liars, common readers of thought and makers of tricks, for did not Dogeetah, the wandering white man, speak to you of the people of whom he had heard who worshipped the Child of Heaven? Go in, Mac.u.mazana, ere you take harm in this horrible cold, and take with you this as a marriage gift from the Child of Heaven whom she met to-night, to the beautiful lady stamped with the sign of the young moon who is about to marry the great lord she loves."
Then he thrust a little linen-wrapped parcel into my hand and with his companion vanished into the darkness.
I returned to the drawing-room where the others were still discussing the remarkable performance of the two native conjurers.
"They have gone," I said in answer to Lord Ragnall, "to walk to London as they said. But they have sent a wedding-present to Miss Holmes," and I showed the parcel.
"Open it, Quatermain," he said again.
"No, George," interrupted Miss Holmes, laughing, for by now she seemed to have quite recovered herself, "I like to open my own presents."