I gazed about me in blank amazement, for even as my conductress spoke, she deftly stretched forth a pole and arrested the progress of the boat at a flight of well-worn steps, while above, my wondering eyes fell upon the great white facade of a palace with an enormous gilded dome.
"Yonder is my dwelling-place," she explained with a wave of the hand, and as we stepped upon the bank a crowd of fierce-looking armed warriors appeared, raising their spears high in salutation.
"This is Ahamadou," she explained, "the dreaded Sheikh of the Azjar, who hath come to make brotherhood with us. He is guest of Nara, thy Ruler."
"Welcome, O Ahamadou!" they cried, with one voice. "Of a verity thou art the lion of the desert, for the leader of the Breath of the Wind knoweth not fear."
"I am thy friend, O friends," I answered, as by Nara"s side I strode onward to the wondrous palace, so magnificent, yet of such delicate architecture that one marvelled how human hands could have fashioned it.
The country I had entered was red with flowers and green with many leaves; a fruitful, peaceful region, the spires and domes of the great City of the Golden Tombs rising in the distance far down the valley, white and clear-cut as cameos against the liquid gold of the sunset.
Together we ascended the long flight of marble steps which led to the great colonnade, and gave entrance to a palace of similar design to those of the ancient palaces of Egypt in those forgotten days long before the Prophet. As our feet touched the last step, the air was rent by a fanfare of a hundred trumpets, causing the valley to re-echo. Then a file of armed men, headed by the blood-red banner of Akkar, lined our route, bowing low as we pa.s.sed on into a hall, high vaulted and of enormous proportions, in the centre of which stood a wonderful throne of gold, covered with hundreds upon hundreds of eyes of every variety and size, wrought in gems to imitate those of human beings and of animals.
As I gazed upon it I suddenly recollected what I had heard from the story-tellers about this wondrous seat of Akkar"s Queen. It was the ancient throne whereon, for nearly two thousand years, the rulers of the City of the Golden Tombs had sat, and was known in legendary lore as the Throne of the Thousand Eyes, each eye recording a battle, and being formed of the greatest gem taken in the loot on that occasion. As I approached I saw that some were of diamonds, others of rubies, of emeralds, of jade, of jacinth, of jasper, of pearl, and of sapphires, each perfectly formed, but some kindly-looking, while on others the expression was that of terror, of hatred, or of agony, truly the strangest and weirdest seat of royalty in all the world.
Around me the excitement rose to fever-heat as the people a.s.sembled, and Nara seated herself upon the throne after casting aside the travel-stained haick she had worn on the journey. I saw everywhere evidences of unbounded riches. The silken robes of the courtiers were sewn with jewels, and as their queen sank among her soft cushions, and her women put upon her necklaces and anklets of enormous worth, the great chamber became filled with the clank of arms and the murmur of many voices, while I was closely scrutinised and my appearance commented upon. Suddenly, the great Queen rose, lifting her arms, and with an expression of uncontrollable anger upon her white face, said--
"Lo, my people, hear this my word! I have travelled afar into the country of our enemies, and have brought hither the person of Ahamadou, their chief."
"I am not thine enemy, O Queen!" I hastened to a.s.sure her. "Thine ally, if thou wilt."
"I have brought hither this man," she cried, "I have brought him hither in fulfilment of my oath in order that punishment shall be meted out to him."
"Punishment!" I gasped, wondering if I had taken leave of my senses.
"Remember, that this man is Ahamadou, chief of the pirates, who have captured so many of our caravans, and who slew my son Kourra, heir to this my throne, six moons ago!" she cried, in a paroxysm of rage, lifting her thin bare arms, her face growing hideous in her fearful ebullition of anger. I saw that I had fallen helplessly into the hands of my enemies, and bit my lip without uttering a single word. To escape from that unexplored rock-bound kingdom was hopeless. I could only show them that fear dwelleth not in the heart of an Azjar, even though thousands lifted their hands against him.
"I have," she cried, "sought out this man, alone and unaided, according to the oath I took before the sacred scarabaeus upon this the Throne of the Thousand Eyes, and conducted him hither in order that ye may pa.s.s judgment upon him. Speak, say what torture shall he undergo?"
In an instant the air was rent by loud cries of--
"Let the scarabaeus devour him! Let him witness the torture of the spies, and afterwards let the same be applied to him! Let him die the most terrible of all deaths; let the sacred beetle crush him beneath its fangs!"
A dozen men, aged, white-robed, with beards so long that some almost swept the ground, whom I judged were priests, held brief consultation: then, amid the uproar, they seized me, wrenched from me my arms, and led me away ere I could raise my voice to charge their dreaded ruler with treachery. Followed by the jeering, excited mult.i.tude, they conducted me along the wide level road to the mysterious city, upon the high gates of which were mounted strong guards, with breast-plates whereon the image of the sacred beetle was worked in crimson, and through great streets and squares until we came to a huge mosquelike structure, the three golden domes of which I had noticed glittering afar as the dying rays of the sunset slanted upon them.
The dimly-lit interior was magnificent, but as they dragged me forward, I saw placed beneath the central dome a colossal figure of the sacred Scarabaeus a hundred feet in height, and two hundred feet square, plated over with gold. From the two hideous eyes shone lines of white light like the rays of the searchlights of the Infidels, while, by some mechanical contrivance, the wide mouth now and then opened and closed, as though the monstrous emblem of the eternal were eager to devour those who worshipped before it.
The bearded priests who held me threw themselves upon their knees before it in adoration, uttering a low kind of chant, while almost at the same instant a quivering terrified man, haggard, thin, and bearing signs of long imprisonment, was dragged forth from a kind of cell in the colossal walls, and made to bend upon his knees upon a grey circular stone immediately before the monster Throat of Death.
"No! no!" he shrieked in horror. "Kill me by the sword! Let my body be given to the alligators--anything--but spare me the torture of the Beetle! I am innocent! It is but Nara"s love of bloodshed and torture of the flesh that hath caused her to condemn me. May the curse of the Beetle be ever upon her!"
Ere he could utter another word six black slaves, veritable giants in stature, seized the unfortunate wretch, and as the mouth of the monster again opened, they flung him headlong into it.
Next second the cruel terrible mouth closed, and the shrieks and crushing of bones told how terrible was the torture of the human victim within its insatiable maw.
The sight caused me to shudder. To this frightful ignominious death had this fair-faced, soft-spoken woman condemned me.
Again the enormous golden jaws opened, and again, as they closed, the victim"s piercing shrieks told that his agony was renewed, and that death did not come quickly within that weird colossal figure of the insect, once held sacred from the sh.o.r.es of the Red Sea unto the great black ocean. In this, the last place in all the world where its worship still remained, the people were the most cruel and relentless of any in our great dark continent, Africa. A dozen times the mouth opened and closed, and each occasion the cries of the agonised man were frightful to hear, until at last they died away, and as they did so the light also died from the monster"s eyes.
Soon, however, another thin, cringing man, starved almost to a skeleton, was brought forth, and with similar scant ceremony was cast into the colossal jaws, whereupon the light in the giant eyes grew brilliant again, and the shrieks for release, as the mouth reopened, were only answered by the loud jeers of the a.s.sembled mult.i.tude, by this time increased until every part of the magnificent building was crowded to suffocation, while at that instant Nara, still upon the Throne of the Thousand Eyes, was dragged in by a crowd of nearly a thousand persons.
Twelve black slaves slowly fanned her as she sat, her chin resting upon her hand, watching in silence.
One after another were victims brought forth and hurled to the horrible monster, to be slowly cut to pieces by the myriad gleaming knives and fine-edged saws set within those terrible jaws, until at last some one in the crowd cried out with a loud voice--
"Let the pirate Ahamadou die! His men killed our Prince, the valiant Kourra, therefore no mercy shall be shown the Veiled Man. Let him be given to the Sacred Beetle!"
In an instant the cry was taken up on every hand. "Let him die!" they shouted wildly. "Let us witness his body being cut to ribbons!"
The priests hesitated, while in that perilous moment I repeated a _sura_, and heeded not these Infidel worshippers of insects and idolators of golden effigies.
But at a sign from Nara, the relentless figure in white seated upon her wondrous Throne of the Thousand Eyes, they seized me, forced me to kneel upon the circular stone, and then, as those hideous jaws opened with a swift movement, they lifted me and cast me in.
For an instant my head reeled, and all breath left me, for I knew that a fearful agonising death was nigh; but as Allah willed it, I alighted upon my feet, and finding in the darkness that the floor sloped down, I started running with all my might, gashing myself upon the knives, set upright like teeth, but nevertheless speedily forward, heedless of the pain. Slowly and surely the walls of that strange torture-chamber closed about me with a creaking and groaning horrible to hear, until I found myself squeezed tightly with irresistible force on every side. I held my breath, for upon my chest was a great weight, and I knew that next instant my frame must be crushed to pulp.
Slowly, however, almost imperceptibly, the frightful pressure upon my body began to relax, and ere I realised the welcome truth, I found myself able to breathe again. By dashing forward I had advanced far down the dreaded Throat of Death to a point where the pa.s.sage began to widen, and by the freshness of the air I now felt that some outlet lay beyond. Therefore, without hesitation, I sped again onward, stumbling over some soft objects on the ground, which I instinctively knew to be the remains of my fellow victims, until a faint grey glimmer of light showed in the distance. The floor still sloped steeply, and by feeling about me, I discovered that the Throat was now simply a natural burrow in the rock.
Without loss of a second I soon gained the outlet, and peered forth, aghast to discover that the tunnel ended abruptly in the face of a bare precipice; and that in the valley some two hundred feet below lay a great heap of sun-bleached bones, the remains of those who had pa.s.sed through the Throat of Death. Undoubtedly, when the channel became choked with the rotting remains of the victims they were cast forth to the vultures and the wolves.
Eager to escape from the noisome place, I climbed with difficulty down the face of the mountain, and on gaining the valley, quickly recognised, with satisfaction, that I was actually beyond the confines of the accursed Land of Akkar. Truly I had encountered death as a very near neighbour. The high range with their snowy crests were the same as my treacherous guide had pointed out to me, and next day I skirted the lake which, emptying itself by the subterranean river, gave entrance to the mystic land of Nara. Through many weary weeks I travelled hither and thither, ill and half-starved, until at length I fell in with a camel caravan, and travelling with them to Ideles, subsequently rejoined my own tribesmen, who had, by that time, begun to despair of my safety.
Within six moons I made a report of the mysterious land, and all that I had witnessed therein, to the Bureau Arabe, in Algiers, and ere six more moons had waned, the Franks sent an armed expedition to enter and explore the country. Of this expedition I was appointed guide, all past offences of my tribesmen being forgiven; but the soldiers of Nara offering a determined resistance, their country was at once subdued and occupied by the white conquerors. The sacred Scarabaeus was destroyed by dynamite, and the Throat of Death widened until it now forms one of the entrances to the land so long unknown. The dreaded Nara was sent as prisoner down to Senegal, where she still lives in exile; but her wondrous throne still remains in her great white palace--now a barrack of the Spahis and Cha.s.seurs--and the Arab story-tellers in every desert town, from the Atlas to Lake Tsad, continue to relate weird and wonderful tales of the City of the Golden Tombs and the Evil of the Thousand Eyes.
CHAPTER SEVEN.
THE GATE OF h.e.l.l.
Lounging on a bench under the tall date-palms in the market-place of Hamman-el-Enf, I smoked a rank _cherbli_ in dreamy laziness. The day was dying; the blazing African sun sank, flooding the broad Bay of Tunis with its blood-red afterglow, and the giant palms cast their long, straight shadows over the hot, sun-blanched stones. There are no half lights in Northern Africa; all is either glaring brilliance or sombre shadow. Little twilight is there in that land of mosques and marabouts; night follows the death of day with astonishing rapidity. Even while I sat, darkness crept on; the squatting, chattering crowd of white-burnoused Moors and Arabs and red-fezzed negroes had dispersed, and the sunbaked little village seemed almost deserted. Suddenly the white figure of an Arab woman glided slowly and ghost-like from the deep shadow of the ilexes. Like all others of her s.e.x, she was enshrouded in a _haick_, and the lower portion of her face was hidden by her thick white veil, only a magnificent pair of black sparkling eyes, and a forehead upon which rows of gold sequins tinkled, being visible.
Halting for a few seconds, she stared at me as if in surprise, then, in soft musical Arabic, gave me peace, exclaiming--
"Sadness dwelleth in the heart of the Touareg. Of a verity thou art not more sad than I," and, sighing, she drew her _adjar_ closer across her face, and was about to pa.s.s on.
"Sad, art thou?" I answered, surprised that she should address me, a veiled man of the desert. In the dim light I could distinguish that her hose were of the finest white silk, that her tiny shoes were Paris made and of patent leather, and that the hand which held the _haick_ around her was loaded with valuable rings. "Loosen thy tongue"s strings, O one of beauty," I said, gallantly. "Tell me why speakest thou unto me; why unhappiness hath fallen upon thee."
"Ah, no!" she replied, in a hoa.r.s.e half-whisper, glancing round in apparent fear. "My people must not observe me having speech with thee.
Ah, Allah may bring one of us to Certainty before to-morrow, and--if thou wouldst only help me!"
"What service can I render?" I asked, quickly, well aware that the fact of her speaking to a Touareg in a public place was of itself a very grave offence in the eyes of the fanatical Aissawa. The barrier between the Berber and the Touareg in Tunis is still insurmountable.
"First, thou must trust me," she said frankly. "I am called Fathma Khadidja; and thy name--already I know it. It is dangerous for me to hold converse here with thee. Let thy footsteps follow mine. Come, and may Allah, who knoweth the innermost parts of the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of men, shower upon thee bounteous blessings," and she turned and started off with that waddling gait peculiar to all Arab women.
I hesitated. If really in distress, it was strange that she had not called upon her own people to help her, instead of requesting a Touareg and a stranger to render a.s.sistance.
No. I decided not to go, and sat watching her receding figure cross the market-place where slaves were sold even within recent years, and disappear in the shadow of the mosque.
In an hour I had forgotten the mysterious Fathma and her troubles, and returned to Tunis.
Next afternoon, as I entered my temporary abode in the Kasbah-Kasneh, my slave handed me a note. As I tore it open it emitted an odour of geranium, the favourite perfume of the harem. Having read the three long lines of sprawly Arabic characters it contained, I placed the missive in my pocket and turned away. If I valued my life, I was to meet Khadidja that evening. Was that a threat, or a warning? During the remainder of that day I lounged outside the cafes and pondered deeply. For hours I ruminated over absinthe and mazagran, ca.s.sis and bock; and, after much consideration, I at length resolved to keep the appointment, and ascertain the extent of the mysterious danger of which she wrote.
At the appointed hour I awaited her at a secluded spot outside the Bab Alewa. The clock of the Mosque of Sidi Mahrez, close by, struck solemnly, and as the last sound died away I heard the _frou-frou_ of feminine garments, as a shrouded figure advanced to meet me.