THE YELLOW GOD

CHAPTER I.
SAHARA, LIMITED.

Sir Robert Aylward, Bart., M.P., sat in his office in the City of London. It
was a very magnificent office, quite one of the finest that could be found
within half a mile of the Mansion House. Its exterior was built of Aberdeen
granite, a material calculated to impress the prospective investor with a
comfortable sense of security. Other stucco, or even brick-built, offices might
crumble and fall in an actual or a financial sense, but this rock-like edifice
of granite, surmounted by a life-sized statue of Justice with her scales,
admired from either corner by pleasing effigies of Commerce and of Industry,
would surely endure any shock. Earthquake could scarcely shake its strong
foundations; panic and disaster would as soon affect the Bank of England. That
at least was the impression which it had been designed to convey, and not
without success.

“There is so much in externals,” Mr. Champers-Haswell, Sir
Robert’s partner, would say in his cheerful voice. “We are all of
us influenced by them, however unconsciously. Impress the public, my dear
Aylward. Let solemnity without suggest opulence within, and the bread, or
rather the granite, which you throw upon the waters will come back to you after
many days.”

Mr. Aylward, for this conversation occurred before his merits or the depth of
his purse had been rewarded by a baronetcy, looked at his partner in the
impassive fashion for which he was famous, and answered:

“You mix your metaphors, Haswell, but if you mean that the public are
fools who must be caught by advertisement, I agree with you. Only this
particular advertisement is expensive and I do not want to wait many days for
my reward. However, £20,000 one way or the other is a small matter, so tell
that architect to do the thing in granite.”

Sir Robert Aylward sat in his own quiet room at the back of this enduring
building, a very splendid room that any Secretary of State might have envied,
but arranged in excellent taste. Its walls were panelled with figured teak, a
rich carpet made the footfall noiseless, an antique Venus stood upon a marble
pedestal in the corner, and over the mantelpiece hung a fine portrait by
Gainsborough, that of a certain Miss Aylward, a famous beauty in her day, with
whom, be it added, its present owner could boast no connection whatsoever.

Sir Robert was seated at his ebony desk playing with a pencil, and the light
from a cheerful fire fell upon his face.

In its own way it was a remarkable face, as he appeared then in his four and
fortieth year; very pale but with a natural pallor, very well cut and on the
whole impressive. His eyes were dark, matching his black hair and pointed
beard, and his nose was straight and rather prominent. Perhaps the mouth was
his weakest feature, for there was a certain shiftiness about it, also the lips
were thick and slightly sensuous. Sir Robert knew this, and therefore he grew a
moustache to veil them somewhat. To a careful observer the general impression
given by this face was such as is left by the sudden sight of a waxen mask.
“How strong! How lifelike!” he would have said, “but of
course it isn’t real. There may be a man behind, or there may be wood,
but that’s only a mask.” Many people of perception had felt like
this about Sir Robert Aylward, namely, that under the mask of his pale
countenance dwelt a different being whom they did not know or appreciate.

If these had seen him at this moment of the opening of our story, they might
have held that Wisdom was justified of her children. For now in the solitude of
his splendid office, of a sudden Sir Robert’s mask seemed to fall from
him. His face broke up like ice beneath a thaw. He rose from his table and
began to walk up and down the room. He talked to himself aloud.

“Great Heavens!” he muttered, “what a game to have played,
and it will go through. I believe that it will go through.”

He stopped at the table, switched on an electric light and made a rapid
calculation on the back of a letter with a blue pencil.

“Yes,” he said, “that’s my share, a million and
seventeen thousand pounds in cash, and two million in ordinary shares which can
be worked off at a discount—let us say another seven hundred and fifty
thousand, plus what I have got already—put that at only two hundred and
fifty thousand net. Two millions in all, which of course may or may not be
added to, probably not, unless the ordinaries boom, for I don’t mean to
speculate any more. That’s the end of twenty years’ work, Robert
Aylward. And to think of it, eighteen months ago, although I seemed so rich, I
was on the verge of bankruptcy—the very verge, not worth five thousand
pounds. Now what did the trick? I wonder what did the trick?”

He walked down the room and stopped opposite the ancient marble, staring at
it—

“Not Venus, I think,” he said, with a laugh, “Venus never
made any man rich.” He turned and retraced his steps to the other end of
the room, which was veiled in shadow. Here upon a second marble pedestal stood
an object that gleamed dimly through the gloom. It was about ten inches or a
foot high, but in that place nothing more could be seen of it, except that it
was yellow and had the general appearance of a toad. For some reason it seemed
to attract Sir Robert Aylward, for he halted to stare at it, then stretched out
his hand and switched on another lamp, in the hard brilliance of which the
thing upon the pedestal suddenly declared itself, leaping out of the darkness
into light. It was a terrible object, a monstrosity of indeterminate sex and
nature, but surmounted by a woman’s head and face of extraordinary, if
devilish loveliness, sunk back between high but grotesquely small shoulders,
like to those of a lizard, so that it glared upwards. The workmanship of the
thing was rude yet strangely powerful. Whatever there is cruel, whatever there
is devilish, whatever there is inhuman in the dark places of the world, shone
out of the jewelled eyes which were set in that yellow female face, yellow
because its substance was of gold, a face which seemed not to belong to the
embryonic legs beneath, for body there was none, but to float above them. A
hollow, life-sized mask with two tiny frog-like legs, that was the fashion of
it.

“You are an ugly brute,” muttered Sir Robert, contemplating this
effigy, “but although I believe in nothing in heaven above or earth
below, except the abysmal folly of the British public, I am bothered if I
don’t believe in you. At any rate from the day when Vernon brought you
into my office, my luck turned, and to judge from the smile on your sweet
countenance, I don’t think it is done with yet. I wonder what those
stones are in your eyes. Opals, I suppose, from the way they change colour.
They shine uncommonly to-day, I never remember them so bright.
I——”

At this moment a knock came on the door. Sir Robert turned off the lamp and
walked back to the fireplace.

“Come in,” he said, and as he spoke once more his pale face grew
impassive and expressionless.

The door opened and a clerk entered, an imposing-looking clerk with iron-grey
hair, who wore an irreproachable frock coat and patent leather boots. Advancing
to his master, he stood respectfully silent, waiting to be addressed. For quite
a long while Sir Robert looked over his head as though he did not see him; it
was a way of his. Then his eyes rested on the man dreamily and he remarked in
his cold, clear voice:

“I don’t think I rang, Jeffreys.”

“No, Sir Robert,” answered the clerk, bowing as though he spoke to
Royalty, “but there is a little matter about that article in The
Cynic.”

“Press business,” said Sir Robert, lifting his eyebrows; “you
should know by this time that I do not attend to such details. See Mr.
Champers-Haswell, or Major Vernon.”

“They are both out at the moment, Sir Robert.”

“Go on, then, Jeffreys,” replied the head of the firm with a
resigned sigh, “only be brief. I am thinking.”

The clerk bowed again.

“The Cynic people have just telephoned through about that article
we sent them. I think you saw it, sir, and you may remember it
begins——” and he read from a typewritten copy in his hand
which was headed “Sahara, Limited”:

“‘We are now privileged to announce that this mighty scheme which
will turn a desert into a rolling sea bearing the commerce of nations and cause
the waste places of the earth to teem with population and to blossom like the
rose, has been completed in its necessary if dull financial details and will
within a few days be submitted to investors among whom it has already caused so
much excitement. These details we will deal with fully in succeeding articles,
and therefore now need only pause to say that the basis of capitalization
strikes us as wonderfully advantageous to the fortunate public who are asked to
participate in its vast prospective prosperity. Our present object is to speak
of its national and imperial aspects——’”

Sir Robert lifted his eyes in remonstrance:

“How much more of that exceedingly dull and commonplace puff do you
propose to read, Jeffreys?” he asked.

“No more, Sir Robert. We are paying The Cynic thirty guineas to
insert this article, and the point is that they say that if they have to put in
the ‘national and imperial’ business they must have twenty
more.”

“Indeed, Jeffreys? Why?”

“Because, Sir Robert—I will tell you, as you always like to hear
the truth—their advertisement-editor is of opinion that Sahara Limited is
a national and imperial swindle. He says that he won’t drag the nation
and the empire into it in an editorial under fifty guineas.”

A faint smile flickered on Sir Robert’s face.

“Does he, indeed?” he asked. “I wonder at his moderation. Had
I been in his place I should have asked more, for really the style is a little
flamboyant. Well, we don’t want to quarrel with them just now—feed
the sharks. But surely, Jeffreys, you didn’t come to disturb me about
such a trifle?”

“Not altogether, Sir Robert. There is something more important. The
Daily Judge not only declines to put any article whatsoever, but refuses
our advertisement, and states that it means to criticize the prospectus
trenchantly.”

“Ah!” said his master after a moment’s thought, “that
is rather serious, since people believe in the Judge even when it
is wrong. Offer them the advertisement at treble rates.”

“It has been done, sir, and they still refuse.”

Sir Robert walked to the corner of the room where the yellow object squatted on
its pedestal, and contemplated it a while, as a man often studies one thing
when he is thinking of another. It seemed to give him an idea, for he looked
over his shoulder and said:

“That will do, Jeffreys. When Major Vernon comes in, give him my
compliments and say that I should be obliged by a word or two with him.”

The clerk bowed and went as noiselessly as he had entered.

“Let’s see,” added Sir Robert to himself. “Old Jackson,
the editor of The Judge, was a great friend of Vernon’s father,
the late Sir William Vernon, G.C.B. I believe that he was engaged to be married
to his sister years ago, only she died or something. So the Major ought to be
able to get round him if anybody can. Only the worst of it is I don’t
altogether trust that young gentleman. It suited us to give him a share in the
business because he is an engineer who knows the country, and this Sahara
scheme was his notion, a very good one in a way, and for other reasons. Now he
shows signs of kicking over the traces, wants to know too much, is developing a
conscience, and so forth. As though the promoters of speculative companies had
any business with consciences. Ah! here he comes.”

Sir Robert seated himself at his desk and resumed his calculations upon a
half-sheet of note-paper, and that moment a clear, hearty voice was heard
speaking to the clerks in the outer office. Then came the sound of a strong,
firm footstep, the door opened and Major Alan Vernon appeared.

He was still quite a young man, not more than thirty-two or three years of age,
though he lacked the ultra robust and rubicund appearance which is typical of
so many Englishmen of his class at this period of life. A heavy bout of
blackwater fever acquired on service in West Africa, which would have killed
anyone of weaker constitution, had robbed his face of its bloom and left it
much sallower, if more interesting than once it had been. For in a way there
was interest about the face; also a certain charm. It was a good and honest
face with a rather eager, rather puzzled look, that of a man who has
imagination and ideas and who searches for the truth but fails to find it. As
for the charm, it lay for the most part in the pleasant, open smile and in the
frank but rather round brown eyes overhung by a somewhat massive forehead which
projected a little, or perhaps the severe illness already alluded to had caused
the rest of the face to sink. Though thin, the man was bigly built, with broad
shoulders and well-developed limbs, measuring a trifle under six feet in height.

Such was the outward appearance of Alan Vernon. As for his mind, it was able
enough in certain fashions, for instance those of engineering, and the
soldier-like faculties to which it had been trained; frank and kindly also, but
in other respects not quick, perhaps from its unsuspiciousness. Alan Vernon was
a man slow to discover ill and slower still to believe in it even when it
seemed to be discovered, a weakness that may have gone far to account for his
presence in the office of those eminent and brilliant financiers, Messrs.
Aylward & Champers-Haswell. Just now he looked a little worried, like a
fish out of water, or rather a fish which has begun to suspect the quality of
the water, something in its smell or taste.

“Jeffreys tells me that you want to see me, Sir Robert,” he said in
his low and pleasant voice, looking at the baronet rather anxiously.

“Yes, my dear Vernon, I wish to ask you to do something, if you kindly
will, although it is not quite in your line. Old Jackson, the editor of The
Judge, is a friend of yours, isn’t he?”

“He was a friend of my father’s, and I used to know him
slightly.”

“Well, that’s near enough. As I daresay you have heard, he is an
unreasonable old beggar, and has taken a dislike to our Sahara scheme. Someone
has set him against it and he refuses to receive advertisements, threatens
criticisms, etc. Now the opposition of The Judge or any other paper
won’t kill us, and if necessary we can fight, but at the same time it is
always wise to agree with your enemy while he is in the way, and in
short—would you mind going down and explaining his mistake to him?”

Before answering Major Vernon walked to the window leisurely and looked out.

“I don’t like asking favours from family friends,” he replied
at length, “and, as you said, I think it isn’t quite my line.
Though of course if it has anything to do with the engineering possibilities, I
shall be most happy to see him,” he added, brightening.

“I don’t know what it has to do with; that is what I shall be
obliged if you will find out,” answered Sir Robert with some asperity.
“One can’t divide a matter of this sort into watertight
compartments. It is true that in so important a concern each of us has charge
of his own division, but the fact remains that we are jointly and severally
responsible for the whole. I am not sure that you bear this sufficiently in
mind, my dear Vernon,” he added with slow emphasis.

His partner moved quickly; it might almost have been said that he shivered,
though whether the movement, or the shiver, was produced by the argument of
joint and several liability or by the familiarity of the “my dear
Vernon,” remains uncertain. Perhaps it was the latter, since although the
elder man was a baronet and the younger only a retired Major of Engineers, the
gulf between them, as any one of discernment could see, was wide. They were
born, lived, and moved in different spheres unbridged by any common element or
impulse.

“I think that I do bear it in mind, especially of late, Sir
Robert,” answered Alan Vernon slowly.

His partner threw a searching glance on him, for he felt that there was meaning
in the words, but only said:

“That’s all right. My motor is outside and will take you to Fleet
Street in no time. Meanwhile you might tell them to telephone that you are
coming, and perhaps you will just look in when you get back. I haven’t
got to go to the House to-night, so shall be here till dinner time, and so, I
think, will your cousin Haswell. Muzzle that old bulldog, Jackson, somehow. No
doubt he has his price like the rest of them, in meal or malt, and you
needn’t stick at the figure. We don’t want him hanging on our
throat for the next week or two.”

Ten minutes later the splendid, two-thousand guinea motor brougham drew up at
the offices of the Judge and the obsequious motor-footman bowed Major
Vernon through its rather grimy doorway. Within, a small boy in a kind of box
asked his business, and when he heard his name, said that the
“Guvnor” had sent down word that he was go up at once—third
floor, first to the right and second to the left. So up he went, and when he
reached the indicated locality was taken possession of by a worried-looking
clerk who had evidently been waiting for him, and almost thrust through a door
to find himself in a big, worn, untidy room. At a huge desk in this room sat an
elderly man, also big, worn, and untidy-looking, who waved a long slip of
galley-proof in his hand, and was engaged in scolding a sub-editor.

“Who is that?” he said, wheeling round. “I’m busy,
can’t see anyone.”

“I beg your pardon,” answered the Major with humility, “your
people told me to come up. My name is Alan Vernon.”

“Oh! I remember. Sit down for a moment, will you, and—Mr. Thomas,
oblige me by taking away this rot and rewriting it entirely in the sense I have
outlined.”

Mr. Thomas snatched his rejected copy and vanished through another door,
whereon his chief remarked in an audible voice:

“That man is a perfect fool. Lucky I thought to look at his stuff. Well,
he is no worse than the rest, in this weary world,” and he burst into a
hearty laugh and swung his chair round, adding, “Now then, Alan, what is
it? I have a quarter of an hour at your service. Why, bless me! I was
forgetting that it’s more than a dozen years since we met; you were still
a boy then, and now you have left the army with a D.S.O. and gratuity, and
turned financier, which I think wouldn’t have pleased your old father.
Come, sit down here and let us talk.”

“I didn’t leave the army, Mr. Jackson,” answered his visitor;
“it left me; I was invalided out. They said I should never get my health
back after that last go of fever, but I did.”

“Ah! bad luck, very bad luck, just at the beginning of what should have
been a big career, for I know they thought highly of you at the War Office,
that is, if they can think. Well, you have grown into a fine-looking fellow,
like your father, very, and someone else too,” and he sighed, running his
fingers through his grizzled hair. “But you don’t remember her; she
was before your time. Now let us get to business; there’s no time for
reminiscences in this office. What is it, Alan, for like other people I suppose
that you want something?”

“It is about that Sahara flotation, Mr. Jackson,” he began rather
doubtfully.

The old editor’s face darkened. “The Sahara flotation! That
accursed——” and he ceased abruptly. “What have you, of
all people in the world, got to do with it? Oh! I remember. Someone told me
that you had gone into partnership with Aylward the company promoter, and that
little beast, Champers-Haswell, who really is the clever one. Well, set it out,
set it out.”

“It seems, Mr. Jackson, that The Judge has refused not only our
article, but also the advertisement of the company. I don’t know much
about this side of the affair myself, but Sir Robert asked me if I would come
round and see if things couldn’t be arranged.”

“You mean that the man sent you to try and work on me because he knew
that I used to be intimate with your family. Well, it is a poor errand and will
have a poor end. You can’t—no one on earth can, while I sit in this
chair, not even my proprietors.”

There was silence broken at last by Alan, who remarked awkwardly:

“If that is so, I must not take up your time any longer.”

“I said that I would give you a quarter of an hour, and you have only
been here four minutes. Now, Alan Vernon, tell me as your father’s old
friend, why you have gone to herd with these gilded swine?”

There was something so earnest about the man’s question that it did not
even occur to his visitor to resent its roughness.

“Of course it is not original,” he answered, “but I had this
idea about flooding the Desert; I spent a furlough up there a few years ago and
employed my time in making some rough surveys. Then I was obliged to leave the
Service and went down to Yarleys after my father’s death—it’s
mine now, you know, but worth nothing except a shooting rent, which just pays
for the repairs. There I met Champers-Haswell, who lives near and is a kind of
distant cousin of mine—my mother was a Champers—and happened to
mention the thing to him. He took it up at once and introduced me to Aylward,
and the end of it was, that they offered me a partnership with a small share in
the business, because they said I was just the man they wanted.”

“Just the man they wanted,” repeated the editor after him.
“Yes, the last of the Vernons, an engineer with an old name in his
county, a clean record and plenty of ability. Yes, you would be just the man
they wanted. And you accepted?”

“Yes. I was on my beam ends with nothing to do; I wanted to make some
money. You see Yarleys has been in the family for over five hundred years, and
it seemed hard to have to sell it. Also—also——” and he
paused.

“Ever meet Barbara Champers?” asked Mr. Jackson inconsequently.
“I did once. Wonderfully nice girl, and very good-looking too. But of
course you know her, and she is her uncle’s ward, and their place
isn’t far off Yarleys, you say. Must be a connection of yours also.”

Major Vernon started a little at the name and his face seemed to redden.

“Yes,” he said, “I have met her and she is a
connection.”

“Will be a big heiress one day, I think,” went on Mr. Jackson,
“unless old Haswell makes off with her money. I think Aylward knows that;
at any rate he was hanging about when I saw her.”

Vernon started again, this time very perceptibly.

“Very natural—your going into the business, I mean, under all the
circumstances,” went on Mr. Jackson. “But now, if you will take my
advice, you’ll go out of it as soon as you can.”

“Why?”

“Because, Alan Vernon, I am sure you don’t want to see your name
dragged in the dirt, any more than I do.” He fumbled in a drawer and
produced a typewritten document. “Take that,” he said, “and
study it at your leisure. It’s a sketch of the financial career of
Messrs. Aylward and Champers-Haswell, also of the companies which they have
promoted and been connected with, and what has happened to them and to those
who invested in them. A man got it out for me yesterday and I’m going to
use it. As regards this Sahara business, you think it all right, and so it may
be from an engineering point of view, but you will never live to sail upon that
sea which the British public is going to be asked to find so many millions to
make. Look here. We have only three minutes more, so I will come to the point
at once. It’s Turkish territory, isn’t it, and putting aside
everything else, the security for the whole thing is a Firman from the
Sultan?”

“Yes, Sir Robert Aylward and Haswell procured it in Constantinople. I
have seen the document.”

“Indeed, and are you well acquainted with the Sultan’s signature? I
know when they were there last autumn that potentate was very
ill——”

“You mean——” said Major Vernon, looking up.

“I mean, Alan, that I like not the security. I won’t say any more,
as there is a law of libel in this land. But The Judge has certain
sources of information. It may be that no protest will be made at once, for
baksheesh can stop it for a while, but sooner or later the protest or
repudiation will come, and perhaps some international bother; also much
scandal. As to the scheme itself, it is shamelessly over-capitalized for the
benefit of the promoters—of whom, remember, Alan, you will appear as one.
Now time’s up. Perhaps you will take my advice, and perhaps you
won’t, but there it is for what it’s worth as that of a man of the
world and an old friend of your family. As for your puff article and your
prospectus, I wouldn’t put them in The Judge if you paid me a
thousand pounds, which I daresay your friend, Aylward, would be quite ready to
do. Good-bye. Come and see me again sometime, and tell me what has
happened—and, I say”—this last was shouted through the
closing door,—“give my kind regards to Miss Barbara, for wherever
she happens to live, she is an honest woman.”

CHAPTER II.
THE YELLOW GOD.

Alan Vernon walked thoughtfully down the lead-covered stairs, hustled by eager
gentlemen hurrying up to see the great editor, whose bell was already ringing
furiously, and was duly ushered by the obsequious assistant-chauffeur back into
the luxurious motor. There was an electric lamp in this motor, and by the light
of it, his mind being perplexed, he began to read the typewritten document
given to him by Mr. Jackson, which he still held in his hand.

As it chanced they were blocked for a quarter of an hour near the Mansion
House, so that he found time, if not to master it, at least to gather enough of
its contents to make him open his brown eyes very wide before the motor pulled
up at the granite doorway of his office. Alan descended from the machine, which
departed silently, and stood for a moment wondering what he should do. His
impulse was to jump into a bus and go straight to his rooms or his club, to
which Sir Robert did not belong, but being no coward, he dismissed it from his
mind.

His fate hung in the balance, of that he was well aware. Either he must
disregard Mr. Jackson’s warning, confirmed as it was by many secret fears
and instincts of his own, and say nothing except that he had failed in his
mission, or he must take the bull by the horns and break with the firm. To do
the latter meant not only a good deal of moral courage, but practical ruin,
whereas if he chose the former course, probably within a fortnight he would
find himself a rich man. Whatever Jackson and a few others might say in its
depreciation, he was certain that the Sahara flotation would go through, for it
was underwritten, of course upon terms, by responsible people, moreover the
unissued preferred shares had already been dealt in at a heavy premium. Now to
say nothing of the allotment to which he was entitled upon his holding in the
parent Syndicate, the proportion of cash due to him as a partner, would amount
to quite a hundred thousand pounds. In other words, he, who had so many reasons
for desiring money, would be wealthy. After working so hard and undergoing so
much that he felt to be humiliating and even degrading, why should he not take
his reward and clear out afterwards?

This he remembered he could do, since probably by some oversight of
Aylward’s, who left such matters to his lawyers, his deed of partnership
did not bind him to a fixed term. It could be broken at any moment. To this
argument there was only one possible answer, that of his conscience. If once he
were convinced that things were not right, it would be dishonest to participate
in their profits. And he was convinced. Mr. Jackson’s arguments and his
damning document had thrown a flood of light upon many matters which he had
suspected but never quite understood. He was the partner of, well, adventurers,
and the money which he received would, in fact, be filched from the pockets of
unsuspecting persons. He would vouch for that of which he was doubtful and
receive the price of sharp practice. In other words he, Alan Vernon, who had
never uttered a wilful untruth or taken a halfpenny that was not his own, would
before the tribunal of his own mind, stand convicted as a liar and a thief. The
thing was not to be borne. At whatever cost it must be ended. If he were fated
to be a beggar, at least he would be an honest beggar.

With a firm step and a high head he walked straight into Sir Robert’s
room, without even going through the formality of knocking, to find Mr.
Champers-Haswell seated at the ebony desk by his partner’s side examining
some document through a reading-glass, which on his appearance, was folded over
and presently thrust away into a drawer. It seemed, Alan noticed, to be of an
unusual shape and written in some strange character.

Mr. Haswell, a stout, jovial-looking little man with a florid complexion and
white hair, rose at once to greet him.

“How do you do, Alan,” he said in a cheerful voice, for as a cousin
by marriage he called him by his Christian name. “I am just this minute
back from Paris, and you will be glad to learn that they are going to support
us very well there; in fact I may say that the Government has taken up the
scheme, of course under the rose. You know the French have possessions all
along that coast and they won’t be sorry to find an opportunity of
stretching out their hand a little further. Our difficulties as to capital are
at an end, for a full third of it is guaranteed in Paris, and I expect that
small investors and speculators for the rise will gobble a lot more. We shall
plant £10,000,000 worth of Sahara scrip in sunny France, my boy, and foggy
England has underwritten the rest. It will be a case of ‘letters of
allotment and regret,’ and regret, Alan, financially the most
successful issue of the last dozen years. What do you say to that?” and
in his elation the little man puffed out his chest and pursing up his lips,
blew through them, making a sound like that of wind among wires.

“I don’t know, Mr. Haswell. If we are all alive I would prefer to
answer the question twelve months hence, or later, when we see whether the
company is going to be a practical success as well, or not.”

Again Mr. Haswell made the sound of wind among wires, only this time there was
a shriller note in it; its mellowness was gone, it was as though the air had
suddenly been filled with frost.

“A practical success!” he repeated after him. “That is
scarcely our affair, is it? Promoters should not bother themselves with long
views, Alan. These may be left to the investing public, the speculative parson
and the maiden lady who likes a flutter—those props of modern enterprise.
But what do you mean? You originated this idea and always said that the profits
should be great.”

“Yes, Mr. Haswell, on a moderate capitalization and provided that we are
sure of the co-operation of the Porte.”

Mr. Haswell looked at him very searchingly and Sir Robert, who had been
listening, said in his cold voice:

“I think that we thrashed out these points long ago, and to tell you the
truth I am rather tired of them, especially as it is too late to change
anything. How did you get on with Jackson, Vernon?”

“I did not get on at all, Sir Robert. He will not touch the thing on any
terms, and indeed means to oppose it tooth and nail.”

“Then he will find himself in a minority when the articles come out
to-morrow. Of course it is a bore, but we are strong enough to snap our fingers
at him. You see they don’t read The Judge in France, and no one
has ever heard of it in Constantinople. Therefore we have nothing to
fear—so long as we stick together,” he added meaningly.

Alan felt that the crisis had come. He must speak now or for ever hold his
peace; indeed Aylward was already looking round for his hat.

“Sir Robert and Mr. Haswell,” he broke in rather nervously,
“I have something to say to you, something unpleasant,” and he
paused.

“Then please say it at once, Vernon. I want to dress for dinner, I am
going to the theatre to-night and must dine early,” replied Aylward in a
voice of the utmost unconcern.

“It is, Sir Robert,” went on Alan with a rush, “that I do not
like the lines upon which this business is being worked, and I wish to give up
my interest in it and retire from the firm, as I have a right to do under our
deed of partnership.”

“Have you?” said Aylward. “Really, I forget. But, my dear
fellow, do not think that we should wish to keep you for one moment against
your will. Only, might I ask, has that old puritan, Jackson, hypnotized you, or
is it a case of sudden madness after influenza?”

“Neither,” answered Alan sternly, for although he might be
diffident on matters that he did not thoroughly understand, he was not a man to
brook trifling or impertinence. “It is what I have said, no more nor
less. I am not satisfied either as to the capitalization or as to the guarantee
that the enterprise can be really carried out. Further”—and he
paused,—“Further, I should like what I have never yet been able to
obtain, more information as to that Firman under which the concession is
granted.”

For one moment a sort of tremor passed over Sir Robert’s impassive
countenance, while Mr. Haswell uttered his windy whistle, this time in a tone
of plaintive remonstrance.

“As you have formally resigned your membership of the firm, I do not see
that any useful purpose can be served by discussing such matters. The fullest
explanations, of course, we should have been willing to
give——”

“My dear Alan,” broke in Mr. Champers-Haswell, who was quite upset,
“I do implore you to reflect for one moment, for your own sake. In a
single week you would have been a wealthy man; do you really mean to throw away
everything for a whim?”

“Perhaps Vernon remembers that he holds over 1700 of the Syndicate shares
which we have worked up to £18, and thinks it wiser to capture the profit in
sight, generally speaking a very sound principle,” interrupted Aylward
sarcastically.

“You are mistaken, Sir Robert,” replied Alan, flushing. “The
way that those shares have been artificially put up is one of the things to
which I most object. I shall only ask for mine the face value which I paid for
them.”

Now notwithstanding their experience, both of the senior partners did for a
moment look rather scared. Such folly, or such honesty, was absolutely
incredible to them. They felt that there must be much behind. Sir Robert,
however, recovered instantly.

“Very well,” he said; “it is not for us to dictate to you;
you must make your own bed and lie on it. To argue or remonstrate would only be
rude.” He put out his hand and pushed the button of an electric bell,
adding as he did so, “Of course we understand one thing, Vernon, namely,
that as a gentleman and a man of honour you will make no public use of the
information which you have acquired during your stay in this office, either to
our detriment, personal or financial, or to your own advantage.”

“Certainly you may understand that,” replied Vernon. “Unless
my character is attacked and it becomes necessary for me to defend myself, my
lips are sealed.”

“That will never happen—why should it?” said Sir Robert with
a polite bow.

The door opened and the head clerk, Jeffreys, appeared.

“Mr. Jeffreys,” said Sir Robert, “please find us the deed of
partnership between Major Vernon and ourselves, and bring it here. One moment.
Please make out also a transfer of Major Vernon’s parcel of Sahara
Syndicate shares to Mr. Champers-Haswell and myself at par value, and fill in a
cheque for the amount. Please remove also Major Vernon’s name wherever it
appears in the proof prospectus, and—yes—one thing more. Telephone
to Specton—the Right Honourable the Earl of Specton, I mean, and say that
after all I have been able to arrange that he shall have a seat on the Board
and a block of shares at a very moderate figure, and that if he will wire his
assent, his name shall be put into the prospectus. You approve, don’t
you, Haswell?—yes—then that is all, I think, Jeffreys, only please
be as quick as you can, for I want to get away.”

Jeffreys, the immaculate and the impassive, bowed, and casting one swift glance
at Vernon out of the corner of his eye, departed.

What is called an awkward pause ensued; in fact it was a very awkward pause.
The die was cast, the matter ended, and what were the principals to do until
the ratifications had been exchanged or, a better simile perhaps, the decree
nisi pronounced absolute. Mr. Champers-Haswell remarked that the weather
was very cold for April, and Alan agreed with him, while Sir Robert found his
hat and brushed it with his sleeve. Then Mr. Haswell, in desperation, for in
minor matters he was a kindly sort of man who disliked scenes and
unpleasantness, muttered something as to seeing him—Alan—at his
house, “The Court,” in Hertfordshire, from Saturday to Monday.

“That was the arrangement,” answered Alan bluntly, “but
possibly after what has happened you will not wish that it should be
kept.”

“Oh! why not, why not?” said Mr. Haswell. “Sunday is a day of
rest when we make it a rule not to talk business, and if we did, perhaps we
might all change our minds about these matters. Sir Robert is coming, and I am
sure that your cousin Barbara will be very disappointed if you do not turn up,
for she understands nothing about these city things which are Greek to
her.”

At the mention of the name of Barbara Sir Robert Aylward looked up from the
papers which he affected to be tidying, and Alan thought that there was a kind
of challenge in his eyes. A moment before he had made up his mind that no power
on earth would induce him to spend a Sunday with his late partners at The
Court. Now, acting upon some instinct or impulse, he reversed his opinion.

“Thanks,” he said, “if that is understood, I shall be happy
to come. I will drive over from Yarleys in time for dinner to-morrow. Perhaps
you will say so to Barbara.”

“She will be glad, I am sure,” answered Mr. Haswell, “for she
told me the other day that she wants to consult you about some outdoor
theatricals that she means to get up in July.”

“In July!” answered Alan with a little laugh. “I wonder where
I shall be in July.”

Then came another pause, which seemed to affect even Sir Robert’s nerves,
for, abandoning the papers, he walked down the room till he came to the golden
object that has been described, and for the second time that day stood there
contemplating it.

“This thing is yours, Vernon,” he said, “and now that our
relations are at an end, I suppose that you will want to take it away. What is
its history? You never told me.”

“Oh! that’s a long story,” answered Alan in an absent voice.
“My uncle, who was a missionary, brought it from West Africa. I rather
forget the facts, but Jeekie, my negro servant, knows them all, for as a lad my
uncle saved him from sacrifice, or something, in a place where they worship
these things, and he has been with us ever since. It is a fetish with magical
powers and all the rest of it. I believe they call it the Swimming Head and
other names. If you look at it, you will see that it seems to swim between the
shoulders, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Sir Robert, “and I admire the beautiful beast.
She is cruel and artistic, like—like finance. Look here, Vernon, we have
quarrelled, and of course henceforth are enemies, for it is no use mincing
matters, only fools do that. But in a way you are being hardly treated. You
could get £10 apiece to-day for those shares of yours in a block on the market,
and I am paying you £1. I understand your scruples, but there is no reason why
we should not square things. This fetish of yours has brought me luck, so
let’s do a deal. Leave it here, and instead of a check for £1700, I will
make you one out for £17,000.”

“That’s a very liberal offer,” said Vernon. “Give me a
moment to think it over.”

Then he also walked into the corner of the room and contemplated the golden
mask that seemed to float between the frog-like shoulders. The shimmering eyes
drew his eyes, though what he saw in them does not matter. Indeed he could
never remember. Only when he straightened himself again there was left on his
mind a determination that not for seventeen or for seventy thousand pounds
would he part with his ownership in this very unique fetish.

“No, thank you,” he said presently. “I don’t think I
will sell the Yellow God, as Jeekie calls it. Perhaps you will kindly keep her
here for a week or so, until I make up my mind where to stow her.”

Again Mr. Champers-Haswell uttered his windy whistle. That a man should refuse
£17,000 for a bit of African gold worth £100 or so, struck him as miraculous.
But Sir Robert did not seem in the least surprised, only very disappointed.

“I quite understand your dislike to selling,” he said. “Thank
you for leaving it here for the present to see us through the flotation,”
and he laughed.

At that moment Jeffreys entered the room with the documents. Sir Robert handed
the deed of partnership to Alan, and when he had identified it, took it from
him again and threw it on the fire, saying that of course the formal letter of
release would be posted and the dissolution notified in the Gazette.
Then the transfer was signed and the cheque delivered.

“Well, good-bye till Saturday,” said Alan when he had received the
latter, and nodding, to them both, he turned and left the room.

The passage ran past the little room in which Mr. Jeffreys, the head clerk, sat
alone. Catching sight of him through the open door, Alan entered, shutting it
behind him. Finding his key ring he removed from it the keys of his desk and of
the office strongroom, and handed them to the clerk who, methodical in
everything, proceeded to write a formal receipt.

“You are leaving us, Major Vernon?” he said interrogatively as he
signed the paper.

“Yes, Jeffreys,” answered Alan, then prompted by some impulse,
added, “Are you sorry?”

Mr. Jeffreys looked up and there were traces of unwonted emotion upon his hard,
regulated face.

“For myself, yes, Major—for you, on the whole, no.”

“What do you mean, Jeffreys? I do not quite understand.”

“I mean, Major, that I am sorry because you have never tried to shuffle
off any shady business on to my back and leave me to bear the brunt of it; also
because you have always treated me as a gentleman should, not as a machine to
be used until a better can be found, and kicked aside when it goes out of
order.”

“It is very kind of you to say so, Jeffreys, but I can’t remember
having done anything particular.”

“No, Major, you can’t remember what comes natural to you. But I and
the others remember, and that’s why I am sorry. But for yourself I am
glad, since although Aylward and Haswell have put a big thing through and are
going to make a pot of money, this is no place for the likes of you, and now
that you are going I will make bold to tell you that I always wondered what you
were doing here. By and by, Major, the row will come, as it has come more than
once in the past, before your time.”

“And then?” said Alan, for he was anxious to get to the bottom of
this man’s mind, which hitherto he had always found so secret.

“And then, Major, it won’t matter much to Messrs. Aylward and
Champers-Haswell, who are used to that kind of thing and will probably dissolve
partnership and lie quiet for a bit, and still less to folk like myself, who
are only servants. But if you were still here it would have mattered a great
deal to you, for it would blacken your name and break your heart, and then
what’s the good of the money? I tell you, Major,” the clerk went on
with quiet intensity, “though I am nobody and nothing, if I could afford
it I would follow your example. But I can’t, for I have a sick wife and a
family of delicate children who have to live half the year on the south coast,
to say nothing of my old mother, and—I was fool enough to be taken in and
back Sir Robert’s last little venture, which cost me all I had saved. So
you see I must make a bit before the machine is scrapped, Major. But I tell you
this, that if I can get £5000 together, as I hope to do out of Saharas before I
am a month older, for they had to give me a look-in, as I knew too much, I am
off to the country, where I was born, to take a farm there. No more of Messrs.
Aylward & Haswell for Thomas Jeffreys. That’s my bell. Good-bye,
Major, I’ll take the liberty to write you a line sometimes, for I know you
won’t give me away. Good-bye and God bless you, as I am sure He will in
the long run,” and stretching out his hand, he took that of the
astonished Alan and wrung it warmly.

When he was gone Alan went also, noticing that the clerks, whom some rumour of
these events seemed to have reached, eyed him curiously through the glass
screens behind which they sat at their desks, as he thought not without regret
and a kind of admiration. Even the magnificent be-medalled porter at the door
emerged from the carved teak box where he dwelt and touching his cap asked if
he should call a cab.

“No, thank you, Sergeant,” answered Alan, “I will take a bus,
and, Sergeant, I think I forgot to give you a present last Xmas. Will you
accept this?—I wish I could make it more,” and he presented him
with ten shillings.

The Sergeant drew himself up and saluted.

“Thank you kindly, Major,” he said. “I’d rather take
that from you than £10 from the other gentlemen. But, Major, I wish we were out
on the West Coast again together. It’s a stinking, barbarous hole, but
not so bad as this ’ere city.”

For once these two had served as comrades, and it was through Alan that the
sergeant obtained his present lucrative but somewhat uncongenial post.

He was outside at last. The massive granite portal vanished behind him in the
evening mists, much as a nightmare vanishes. He, Alan Vernon, who for a year or
more had been in bondage, was a free man again. All his dreams of wealth had
departed; indeed if anything, save in experience, he was poorer than when first
the shadow of yonder doorway fell upon him. But at least he was safe, safe. The
deed of partnership which had been as a chain about his neck, was now white
ashes; his name was erased from that fearful prospectus of Sahara Limited,
wherein millions which someone would provide were spoken of like silver in the
days of Solomon, as things of no account. The bitterest critic could not say
that he had made a halfpenny out of the venture, in fact, if trouble came, his
voluntary abandonment of the profits due to him must go to his credit. He had
plunged into the icy waters of renunciation and come up clean if naked. Never
since he was a boy could Alan remember feeling so utterly light-hearted and
free from anxiety. Not for a million pounds would he have returned to gather
gold in that mausoleum of reputations. As for the future, he did not in the
least care what happened. There was no one dependent on him, and in this way or
in that he could always earn a crust, a nice, honest crust.

He ran down the street and danced for joy like a child, yes, and presented a
crossing-sweeper against whom he butted with a whole sixpence in compensation.
Thus he reached the Mansion House, not unsuspected of inebriety by the police,
and clambered to the top of a bus crowded with weary and anxious-looking City
clerks returning home after a long day’s labour at starvation wage. In
that cold company and a chilling atmosphere some of his enthusiasm evaporated.
He remembered that this step of his meant that sooner or later, within a year
or two at most, Yarleys, where his family had dwelt for centuries, must go to
the hammer. Why had he not accepted Aylward’s offer and sold that old
fetish to him for £17,000? There was no question of share-dealing there, and if
a very wealthy man chose to give a fancy price for a curiosity, he could take
it without doubt or shame. At least it would have sufficed to save Yarleys,
which after all was only mortgaged for £20,000. For the life of him he could
not tell. He had acted on impulse, a very curious impulse, and there was an end
of it perhaps; it might be because his uncle had told him as a boy that the
thing was unique, or perhaps because old Jeekie, his negro servant, venerated
it so much and swore that it was “lucky.” At any rate he had
declined and there was an end.

But another and a graver matter remained. He had desired wealth to save
Yarleys, but he desired it still more for a different purpose. Above everything
on earth he loved Barbara, his distant cousin and the niece of Mr.
Champers-Haswell, who until an hour ago had been his partner. Now she was a
great heiress, and without fortune he could not marry her, even if she would
marry him, which remained in doubt. For one thing her uncle and guardian
Haswell, under her father’s will, had absolute discretion in this matter
until she reached the age of twenty-five, and for another he was too proud.
Therefore it would seem that, in abandoning his business, he had abandoned his
chance of Barbara also, which was a truly dreadful thought.

Well, it was in order that he might see her, that he had agreed to visit The
Court on the morrow, even though it meant a meeting with his late partners, who
were the last people with whom he desired to foregather again so soon. Then and
there he made up his mind that before he bade Barbara farewell, he would tell
her the whole story, so that she might not misjudge him. After that he would go
off somewhere—to Africa perhaps. Meanwhile he was quite tired out, as
tired as though he had lain a week in the grip of fever. He must eat some food
and get to bed. Sufficient unto the day was the evil thereof, yet on the whole
he blessed the name of Jackson, editor of The Judge and his
father’s old friend.

When Alan had left the office Sir Robert turned to Mr. Champers-Haswell and
asked him abruptly, “What the devil does this mean?”

Mr. Haswell looked up at the ceiling and whistled in his own peculiar fashion,
then answered:

“I cannot say for certain, but our young friend’s strange conduct
seems to suggest that he has smelt a rat, possibly even that Jackson, the old
beast, has shown him a rat—of a large Turkish breed.”

Sir Robert nodded.

“Vernon is a fellow who doesn’t like rats; they seem to haunt his
sleep,” he said; “but do you think that having seen it, he will
keep it in the bag?”

“Oh! certainly, certainly,” answered Mr. Haswell with cheerfulness;
“the man is the soul of honour; he will never give us away. Look how he
behaved about those shares. Still, I think that perhaps we are well rid of him.
Too much honour, like too much zeal, is a very dangerous quality in any
business.”

“I don’t know that I agree with you,” answered Sir Robert.
“I am not sure that in the long run we should not do better for a little
more of the article. For my part, although it will not hurt us publicly, for
the thing will never be noticed, I am sorry that we have lost Vernon, very
sorry indeed. I don’t think him a fool, and awkward as they may be, I
respect his qualities.”

“So do I, so do I,” answered Mr. Haswell, “and of course we
have acted against his advice throughout, which must have been annoying to him.
The scheme as he suggested it was a fair business proposition that might have
paid ten per cent. on a small capital, but what is the good of ten per cent. to
you and me? We want millions and we are going to get them. Well, he is coming
to The Court to-morrow, and perhaps after all we shall be able to arrange
matters. I’ll give Barbara a hint; she has great influence with him, and
you might do the same, Aylward.”

“Miss Champers has great influence with everyone who is fortunate enough
to know her,” answered Sir Robert courteously. “But even if she
chooses to use it, I doubt if it will avail in this case. Vernon has been
making up his mind for a long while. I have watched him and am sure of that.
To-night he determined to take the plunge and I do not think that we shall see
any more of him in this office. Haswell,” he added with sudden energy,
“I tell you that of late our luck has been too good to last. The boom,
the real boom, came in with Vernon, and with Vernon I think that it will
go.”

“At any rate it must leave something pretty substantial behind it this
time, Aylward, my friend. Whatever happens, within a week we shall be rich,
really rich for life.”

“For life, Haswell, yes, for life. But what is life? A bubble that any
pin may prick. Oh! I know that you do not like the subject, but it is as well
to look it in the face sometimes. I’m no church-goer, but if I remember
right we were taught to pray the good Lord to deliver us especially ‘in
all times of our wealth,’ which is followed by something about
tribulation and sudden death, for when they wrote that prayer the wheel of
human fortune went round just as it does to-day. There, let’s get out of
this before I grow superstitious, as men who believe in nothing sometimes do,
because after all they must believe in something, I suppose. Got your hat and
coat? So have I, come on,” and he switched off the light, so that the
room was left in darkness except for the faint glimmering of the fire.

His partner grumbled audibly, for in turning he had knocked his hand against
the desk.

“Leave me my only economy, Haswell,” he answered with a hard little
laugh. “Electricity is strength and I hate to see strength burning to
waste. Why do you mind?” he went on as he stepped towards the door.
“Is it the contrast? In all times of our wealth, in all times of our
tribulation, from sickness and from sudden death——”

“Good Lord deliver us,” chimed in Mr. Haswell in a shaking voice
behind him. “What the devil’s that?”

Sir Robert looked round and saw, or thought that he saw, something very
strange. From the pillar on which it stood the golden fetish with a
woman’s face, appeared to have floated. The firelight showed it gliding
towards them across, but a few inches above the floor of the great room. It
came very slowly, but it came. Now it reached them and paused, and now it rose
into the air until it attained the height of Mr. Champers-Haswell and stayed
there, staring into his face and not a hand’s breadth away, just as
though it were a real woman glaring at him.

He uttered a sound, half whistle and half groan, and fell back, as it chanced
on to a morocco-covered seat behind him. For a moment or two the gleaming,
golden mask floated in the air. Then it turned very deliberately, rose a little
way, and moving sidelong to where Sir Robert stood, hung in front of his
face.

Presently Aylward staggered to the mantelpiece and began to fumble for the
switch; in the silence his nails scratching at the panelling made a sound like
to that of a gnawing mouse. He found it at last, and next instant the office
broke into a blaze of light, showing Mr. Haswell, his rubicund face quite pale,
his hat and umbrella on the floor, gasping like a dying man upon the couch, and
Sir Robert himself clinging to the mantel-shelf as a person might do who had
received a mortal wound, while the golden fetish reposed calmly on its pillar,
to all appearance as immovable and undisturbed as the antique Venus which
matched it at the other end of the room. For a while there was silence. Then
Sir Robert, recovering himself, asked:

“Did you notice anything unusual just now, Haswell?”

“Yes,” whispered his partner. “I thought that hideous African
thing which Vernon brought here, came sliding across the floor and stared into
my face with its glittering eyes, and in the eyes——”

“Well, what was in the eyes?”

“I can’t remember. It was a kind of picture and the meaning of it
was Sudden Death—oh Lord! Sudden Death. Tell me it was a fancy bred of
that ill-omened talk of yours?”

“I can’t tell you anything of the sort,” answered Aylward in
a hollow voice, “for I saw something also.”

“What?” asked his partner.

“Death that wasn’t sudden, and other things.”

Again the silence fell till it was broken by Aylward.

“Come,” he said, “we have been over-working—too much
strain, and now the reaction. Keep this rubbish to yourself, or they will lock
you up in an asylum.”

“Certainly, Aylward, certainly. But can’t you get rid of that
beastly image?”

“Not on any account, Haswell, even if it haunts us all day. Here it shall
stop until the Saharas are floated on Monday, if I have to lock it in the
strongroom and throw the keys into the Thames. Afterwards Vernon can take it,
as he has a right to do, and I am sure that with it will go our luck.”

“Then the sooner our luck goes, the better,” replied Haswell, with
a mere ghost of his former whistle. “Life is better than luck,
and—Aylward, that Yellow God you are so fond of means to murder us. We
are being fatted for the sacrifice, that is all. I remember now, that was one
of the things I saw written in its eyes!”

CHAPTER III.
JEEKIE TELLS A TALE.

The Court, Mr. Champers-Haswell’s place, was a very fine house indeed, of
a sort. That is, it contained twenty-nine bedrooms, each of them with a
bathroom attached, a large number of sitting-rooms, ample garages, stables, and
offices, the whole surrounded by several acres of newly-planted gardens.
Incidentally it may be mentioned that it was built in the most atrocious taste
and looked like a suburban villa seen through a magnifying glass.

It was in this matter of taste that it differed from Sir Robert Aylward’s
home, Old Hall, a few miles away. Not that this was old either, for the
original house had fallen down or been burnt a hundred years before. But Sir
Robert, being gifted with artistic perception, had reared up in place of it a
smaller but really beautiful dwelling of soft grey stone, long and low, and
built in the Tudor style with many gables.

This house, charming as it was, could not of course compare with Yarleys, the
ancient seat of the Vernons in the same neighbourhood. Yarleys was pure
Elizabethan, although it contained an oak-roofed hall which was said to date
back to the time of King John, a remnant of a former house. There was no
electric light or other modern convenience at Yarleys, yet it was a place that
everyone went to see because of its exceeding beauty and its historical
associations. The moat by which it was surrounded, the grass court within, for
it was built on three sides of a square, the mullioned windows, the towered
gateway of red brick, the low-panelled rooms hung with the portraits of
departed Vernons, the sloping park and the splendid oaks that stood about,
singly or in groups, were all of them perfect in their way. It was one of the
most lovely of English homes, and oddly enough its neglected gardens and the
air of decay that pervaded it, added to rather than decreased its charm.

But it is with The Court that we have to do at present, not with Yarleys. Mr.
Champers-Haswell had a week-end party. There were ten guests, all men, and with
the exception of Alan, who it will be remembered was one of them, all rich and
in business. They included two French bankers and three Jews, everyone a prop
of the original Sahara Syndicate and deeply interested in the forthcoming
flotation. To describe them is unnecessary, for they have no part in our story,
being only financiers of a certain class, remarkable for the riches they had
acquired by means that for the most part would not bear examination. The riches
were evident enough. Ever since the morning the owners of this wealth had
arrived by ones or twos in their costly motorcars, attended by smart chauffeurs
and valets. Their fur coats, their jewelled studs and rings, something in their
very faces suggested money, which indeed was the bond that brought and held
them together.

Alan did not come until it was time to dress for dinner, for he knew that
Barbara would not appear before that meal, and it was her society he sought,
not that of his host or fellow guests. Accompanied by his negro servant,
Jeekie, for in a house like this it was necessary to have someone to wait upon
him, he drove over from Yarleys, a distance of ten miles, arriving about eight
o’clock.

“Mr. Haswell has gone up to dress, Major, and so have the other
gentlemen,” said the head butler, Mr. Smith, “but Miss Champers
told me to give you this note and to say that dinner is at half-past
eight.”

Alan took the note and asked to be shown to his room. Once there, although he
had only five-and-twenty minutes, he opened it eagerly, while Jeekie unpacked
his bag.

“Dear Alan,” it ran: “Don’t be late for dinner, or I
may not be able to keep a place next to me. Of course Sir Robert takes me in.
They are a worse lot than usual this time, odious—odious!—and I
can’t stand one on the left hand as well as on the right. Yours,

“B.

“P.S. What have you been doing? Our distinguished guests, to say
nothing of my uncle, seem to be in a great fuss about you. I overheard them
talking when I was pretending to arrange some flowers. One of them called you a
sanctimonious prig and an obstinate donkey, and another answered—I think
it was Sir Robert —‘No doubt, but obstinate donkeys can kick and
have been known to upset other people’s applecarts ere now.’ Is the
Sahara Syndicate the applecart? If so, I’ll forgive you.

“P.P.S. Remember that we will walk to church together to-morrow, but come
down to breakfast in knickerbockers or something to put them off, and
I’ll do the same—I mean I’ll dress as if I were going to
golf. We can turn into Christians later. If we don’t—dress like
that, I mean—they’ll guess and all want to come to church, except
the Jews, which would bring the judgment of Heaven on us.

“P.P.P.S. Don’t be careless and leave this note lying about, for
the under-footman who waits upon you reads all the letters. He steams them over
a kettle. Smith the butler is the only respectable man in this house.”

Alan laughed outright as he finished this peculiar and outspoken epistle, which
somehow revived his spirits, that since the previous day had been low enough.
It refreshed him. It was like a breath of frosty air from an open window
blowing clean and cold into a scented, overheated room. He would have liked to
keep it, but remembering Barbara’s injunctions and the under-footman,
threw it onto the fire and watched it burn. Jeekie coughed to intimate that it
was time for his master to dress, and Alan turned and looked at him in an
absent-minded fashion.

He was worth looking at, was Jeekie. Let the reader imagine a very tall and
powerfully-built negro with a skin as black as a well-polished boot, woolly
hair as white as snow, a little tufted beard also white, a hand like a leg of
mutton, but with long delicate fingers and pink, filbert-shaped nails, an
immovable countenance, but set in it beneath a massive brow, two extraordinary
humorous and eloquent black eyes which expressed every emotion passing through
the brain behind them, that is when their owner chose to allow them to do so.
Such was Jeekie.

“Shall I unlace your boots, Major?” he said in his full, melodious
voice and speaking the most perfect English. “I expect that the gong will
sound in nine and a half minutes.”

“Then let it sound and be hanged to it,” answered Alan; “no,
I forgot—I must hurry. Jeekie, put that fire out and open all the windows
as soon as I go down. This room is like a hot-house.”

“Yes, Major, the fire shall be extinguished and the sleeping-chamber
ventilated. The other boot, if you please, Major.”

“Jeekie,” said Alan, “who is stopping in this place? Have you
heard?”

“I collected some names on my way upstairs, Major. Three of the gentlemen
you have never met before, but,” he added suddenly breaking away from his
high-flown book-learned English, as was his custom when in earnest,
“Jeekie think they just black niggers like the rest, thief people. There
ain’t a white man in this house, except you and Miss Barbara and me,
Major. Jeekie learnt all that in servant’s hall palaver. No, not now,
other time. Everyone tell everything to Jeekie, poor old African fool, and he
look up an answer, ‘O law! you don’t say so?’ but keep his
eyes and ears open all the same.”

“I’ll be bound you do, Jeekie,” replied Alan, laughing again.
“Well, go on keeping them open, and give me those trousers.”

“Yes, Major,” answered Jeekie, reassuming his grand manner,
“I shall continue to collect information which may prove to your
advantage, but personally I wish that you were clear of the whole caboodle,
except Miss Barbara.”

“Hear, hear,” ejaculated Alan, “there goes the gong. Mind you
come in and help to wait,” and hurrying into his coat he departed
downstairs.

The guests were gathered in the hall drinking sherry and bitters, a proceeding
that to Alan’s mind set a stamp upon the house. His host, Mr.
Champers-Haswell, came forward and greeted him with much affectionate
enthusiasm, and Alan noticed that he looked very pale, also that his thoughts
seemed to be wandering, for he introduced a French banker to him as a noted
Jew, and the noted Jew as the French banker, although the distinction between
them was obvious and the gentlemen concerned evidently resented the mistake.
Sir Robert Aylward, catching sight of him, came across the hall in his usual,
direct fashion, and shook him by the hand.

“Glad to see you, Vernon,” he said, fixing his piercing eyes upon
Alan as though he were trying to read his thoughts. “Pleasant change this
from the City and all that eternal business, isn’t it? Ah! you are
thinking that one is not quite clear of business after all,” and he
glanced round at the company. “That’s one of your cousin
Haswell’s faults; he can never shake himself free of the thing, never get
any real recreation. I’d bet you a sovereign that he has a stenographer
waiting by a telephone in the next room, just in case any opportunity should
arise in the course of conversation. That is magnificent, but it is not wise.
His heart can’t stand it; it will wear him out before his time. Listen,
they are all talking about the Sahara. I wish I were there; it must be quiet at
any rate. The sands beneath, the eternal stars above. Yes, I wish I were
there,” he repeated with a sigh, and Alan noted that although his face
could not be more pallid than its natural colour, it looked quite worn and old.

“So do I,” he answered with enthusiasm.

Then a French gentleman on his left, having discovered that he was the engineer
who had formulated the great flooding scheme, began to address him as
“Cher maitre,” speaking so rapidly in his own language that Alan,
whose French was none of the best, struggled after him in vain. Whilst he was
trying to answer a question which he did not understand, the door at the end of
the hall opened, and through it appeared Barbara Champers.

It was a large hall and she was a long way off, which caused her to look small,
who indeed was only of middle height. Yet even at that distance it was
impossible to mistake the dignity of her appearance. A slim woman with brown
hair, cheerful brown eyes, a well-modelled face, a rounded figure and an
excellent complexion, such was Barbara. Ten thousand young ladies could be
found as good, or even better looking, yet something about her differentiated
her from the majority of her sex. There was determination in her step, and
overflowing health and vigour in her every movement. Her eyes had a trick of
looking straight into any other eyes they met, not boldly, but with a kind of
virginal fearlessness and enterprise that people often found embarrassing.
Indeed she was extremely virginal and devoid of the usual fringe of feminine
airs and graces, a nymph of the woods and waters, who although she was three
and twenty, as yet recked little of men save as companions whom she liked or
disliked according to her instincts. For the rest she was sweetly dressed in a
white robe with silver on it, and wore no ornaments save a row of small pearls
about her throat and some lilies of the valley at her breast.

Barbara came straight onwards, looking neither to the right nor to the left,
till she reached her uncle, to whom she nodded. Then she walked to Alan and,
offering him her hand, said:

“How do you do! Why did you not come over at lunch time? I wanted to play
a round of golf with you this afternoon.”

Alan answered something about being busy at Yarleys.

“Yarleys!” she replied. “I thought that you lived in the City
now, making money out of speculations, like everyone else that I know.”

“Why, Miss Champers,” broke in Sir Robert reproachfully, “I
asked you to play a round of golf before tea and you would not.”

“No,” she answered, “because I was waiting for my cousin. We
are better matched, Sir Robert.”

There was something in her voice, usually so soft and pleasant, as she spoke
these words, something of steeliness and defiance that caused Alan to feel at
once happy and uncomfortable. Apparently also it caused Aylward to feel angry,
for he flashed a glance at Alan over her head of which the purport could not be
mistaken, though his pale face remained as immovable as ever. “We are
enemies. I hate you,” said that glance. Probably Barbara saw it; at any
rate before either of them could speak again, she said:

“Thank goodness, there is dinner at last. Sir Robert, will you take me
in, and, Alan, will you sit on the other side of me? My uncle will show the
rest their places.”

The meal was long and magnificent; the price of each dish of it would have kept
a poor family for a month, and on the cost of the exquisite wines they might
have lived for a year or two. Also the last were well patronized by everyone
except Barbara, who drank water, and Alan, who since his severe fever took
nothing but weak whiskey and soda and a little claret. Even Aylward, a
temperate person, absorbed a good deal of champagne. As a consequence the
conversation grew animated, and under cover of it, while Sir Robert was arguing
with his neighbour on the left, Barbara asked in a low voice:

“What is the row, Alan? Tell me, I can’t wait any longer.”

“I have quarrelled with them,” he answered, staring at his mutton
as though he were criticizing it. “I mean, I have left the firm and have
nothing more to do with the business.”

Barbara’s eyes lit up as she whispered back:

“Glad of it. Best news I have heard for many a day. But then, may I ask
why you are here?”

“I came to see you,” he replied humbly—“thought perhaps
you wouldn’t mind,” and in his confusion he let his knife fall into
the mutton, whence it rebounded, staining his shirt front.

Barbara laughed, that happy, delightful little laugh of hers, presumably at the
accident with the knife. Whether or no she “minded” did not appear,
only she handed her handkerchief, a costly, lace-fringed trifle, to Alan to
wipe the gravy off his shirt, which he took thinking it was a napkin, and as
she did so, touched his hand with a little caressing movement of her fingers.
Whether this was done by chance or on purpose did not appear either. At least
it made Alan feel extremely happy. Also when he discovered what it was, he kept
that gravy-stained handkerchief, nor did she ever ask for it back again. Only
once in after days when she happened to come across it stuffed away in the
corner of a despatch-box, she blushed all over, and said that she had no idea
that any man could be so foolish out of a book.

“Now that you are really clear of it, I am going for them,”
she said presently when the wiping process was finished. “I have only
restrained myself for your sake,” and, leaning back in her chair she
stared at the ceiling, lost in meditation.

Presently there came one of those silences which will fall upon dinner-parties
at times, however excellent and plentiful the champagne.

“Sir Robert Aylward,” said Barbara in that clear, carrying voice of
hers, “will you, as an expert, instruct a very ignorant person? I want a
little information.”

“Miss Champers,” he answered, “am I not always at your
service?” and all listened to hear upon what point their hostess desired
to be enlightened.

“Sir Robert,” she went on calmly, “everyone here is, I
believe, what is called a financier, that is except myself and Major Vernon,
who only tries to be and will, I am sure, fail, since Nature made him something
else, a soldier and—what else did Nature make you, Alan?”

As he vouchsafed no answer to this question, although Sir Robert muttered an
uncomplimentary one between his lips which Barbara heard, or read, she
continued:

“And you are all very rich and successful, are you not, and are going to
be much richer and much more successful—next week. Now what I want to ask
you is—how is it done?”

“Accepting the premises for the sake of argument, Miss Champers,”
replied Sir Robert, who felt that he could not refuse the challenge, “the
answer is that it is done by finance.”

“I am still in the dark,” she said. “Finance, as I have heard
of it, means floating companies, and companies are floated to earn money for
those who invest in them. Now this afternoon as I was dull, I got hold of a
book called the Directory of Directors, and looked up all your names in it,
except those of the gentlemen from Paris, and the companies that you
direct—I found out about those in another book. Well, I could not make
out that any of these companies have ever earned any money, a dividend,
don’t you call it? Therefore how do you all grow so rich, and why do
people invest in them?”

Now Sir Robert frowned, Alan coloured, two or three of the company laughed
outright, and one of the French gentlemen who understood English and had
already drunk as much as was good for him, remarked loudly to his neighbour,
“Ah! she is charming. She do touch the spot, like that ointment you give
me to-day. How do we grow rich and why do the people invest? Mon Dieu!
why do they invest? That is the great mystery. I say that cette belle
demoiselle, votre nièce, est ravissante. Elle a d’esprit, mon ami
Haswell.”

Apparently her uncle did not share these sentiments, for he turned as red as
any turkey-cock, and said across the great round table:

“My dear Barbara, I wish that you would leave matters which you do not
understand alone. We are here to dine, not to talk about finance.”

“Certainly, Uncle,” she answered sweetly. “I stand, or rather
sit, reproved. I suppose that I have put my foot into it as usual, and the
worst of it is,” she added, turning to Sir Robert, “that I am just
as ignorant as I was before.”

“If you want to master these matters, Miss Champers,” said Aylward
with a rather forced laugh, “you must go into training and worship at the
shrine of”—he meant to say Mammon, then thinking that the word
sounded unpleasant, substituted—“the Yellow God as we do.”

At these words Alan, who had been studying his plate, looked up quickly, and
her uncle’s face turned from red to white. But the irrepressible Barbara
seized upon them.

“The Yellow God,” she repeated. “Do you mean money or that
fetish thing of Major Vernon’s with the terrible woman’s face that
I saw at the office in the City. Well, to change the subject, tell us, Alan,
what is that yellow god of yours and where did it come from?”

“My uncle Austin, who was my mother’s brother and a missionary,
brought it from West Africa a great many years ago. He was the first to visit
the tribe who worship it; in fact I do not think that anyone has ever visited
them since. But really I do not know all the story. Jeekie can tell you about
it if you want to know, for he is one of that people and escaped with my
uncle.”

Now Jeekie having left the room, some of the guests wished to send for him, but
Mr. Champers-Haswell objected. The end of it was that a compromise was
effected, Alan undertaking to produce his retainer afterwards when they went to
play billiards or cards.

Dinner was over at length and the diners, who had dined well, were gathered in
the billiard room to smoke and amuse themselves as they wished. It was a very
large room, sixty feet long indeed, with a wide space in the centre between the
two tables, which was furnished as a lounge. When the gentlemen entered it they
found Barbara standing by the great fireplace in this central space, a little
shape of white and silver in its emptiness.

“Forgive me for intruding on you,” she said, “and please do
not stop smoking, for I like the smell. I have sat up expressly to hear
Jeekie’s story of the Yellow God. Alan, produce Jeekie, or I shall go to
bed at once.”

Her uncle made a movement as though to interfere, but Sir Robert said something
to him which appeared to cause him to change his mind, while the rest in some
way or another signified an enthusiastic assent. All of them were anxious to
see this Jeekie and hear his tale, if he had one to tell. So Jeekie was sent
for and presently arrived clad in the dress clothes which are common to all
classes in England and America. There he stood before them white-headed,
ebony-faced, gigantic, imperturbable. There is no doubt that his appearance
produced an effect, for it was unusual and indeed striking.

“You sent for me, Major?” he said, addressing his master, to whom
he gave a military salute, for he had been Alan’s servant when he was in
the Army.

“Yes, Jeekie. Miss Barbara here and these gentlemen, wish you to tell
them all that you know about the Yellow God.”

The negro started and rolled his round eyes upwards till the whites of them
showed, then began in his school-book English:

“That is a private subject, Major, upon which I should prefer not to
discourse before this very public company.”

A chorus of remonstrance arose and one of the Jewish gentlemen approaching
Jeekie, slipped a couple of sovereigns into his great hand, which he promptly
transferred to his pocket without seeming to notice them.

“Jeekie,” said Barbara, “don’t disappoint me.”

“Very well, miss, I fall in with your wishes. The Yellow God that all
these gentlemen worship, quite another god to that of which you desire that I
should tell you. You know all about him. My god is of female sex.”

At this statement his audience burst into laughter while Jeekie rolled his eyes
again and waited till they had finished. “My god,” he went on
presently, “I mean, gentlemen, the god I used to pray to, for I am a good
Christian now, has so much gold that she does not care for any more,” and
he paused.

“Then what does she care for?” asked someone.

“Blood,” answered Jeekie. “She is god of Death. Her name is
Little Bonsa or Small Swimming Head; she is wife of Big Bonsa or Great Swimming
Head.”

Again there was laughter, though less general—for instance, neither Sir
Robert nor Mr. Champers-Haswell laughed. This merriment seemed to excite
Jeekie. At any rate it caused him to cease his stilted talk and relapse into
the strange vernacular that is common to all negroes, tinctured with a racy
slang that was all his own.

“You want to hear Yellow God palaver?” he said rapidly. “Very
well, I tell you, you cocksure white men who think you know everything, but
know nothing at all. My people, people of the Asiki, that mean people of
Spirits, what you call ghosts and say you no believe in, but always look for
behind door, they worship Yellow God, Bonsa Big and Bonsa Little, worship both
and call them one; only Little Bonsa on trip to this country just now and sit
and think in City office. Yellow God live long way up a great river, then turn
to the left and walk six days through big forest where dwarf people shoot you
with poisoned arrow. Then turn to the right, walk up stream where many wild
beasts. Then turn to the left again and go in canoe through swamp where you die
of fever, and across lake. Then walk over grassland and mountains. Then in
kloof of the mountains where big black trees make a roof and river fall like
thunder, find Asiki and gold house of the Yellow God. All that mountain gold,
full of gold and beneath gold house Yellow God afloat in water. She what you
call Queen, priestess, live there also, always there, very beautiful woman
called Asika with face like Yellow God, cruel, cruel. She take a husband every
year, and every year he die because she always hunt for right man but never
find him.”

“How does she kill him then?” asked Barbara.

“Oh! no, she no kill him, Miss, he kill himself at end of year, glad to
get away from Asika and go to spirits. While he live he have a very good time,
plenty to eat, plenty wives, fine house, much gold as he like, only nothing to
spend it on, pretty necklace, nice paint for face. But Asika, little bit by
little bit she eat up his spirit. He see too many ghosts. The house where he
sleep with dead men who once have his billet, full of ghosts and every night
there come more and sit with him, sit all round him, look at him with great
eyes, just like you look at me, till at last when Asika finish eating up his
spirit, he go crazy, he howl like man in hell, he throw away all the gold they
give him, and then, sometimes after one week, sometimes after one month,
sometimes after one year if he be strong but never more, he run out at night
and jump into canal where Yellow God float and god get him, while Asika sit on
the bank and laugh, ’cause she hungry for new man to eat up his spirit
too.”

Jeekie’s big voice died away to a whisper and ceased. There was a silence
in the room, for even in the shine of the electric light and through the fumes
of champagne, in more than one imagination there rose a vision of that haunted
water in which floated the great Yellow God, and of some mad being casting
himself to his death beneath the moon, while his beautiful witch wife who was
“hungry for more spirits” sat upon its edge and laughed. Although
his language was now commonplace enough, even ludicrous at times, the negro had
undoubtedly the art of narration. His auditors felt that he spoke of what he
knew, or had seen, that the very recollection of it frightened him, therefore
he frightened them.

Again Barbara broke the silence which she felt to be awkward.

“Why do more ghosts come very night to sit with the queen’s
husband, Jeekie?” she asked. “Where do they come from?”

“Out of the dead, miss, dead husbands of Asika from beginning of the
world; what they call Munganas. Also always they make sacrifice to Yellow God.
From far, far away them poor niggers send people to be sacrifice that their
house or tribe get luck. Sometimes they send kings, sometimes great men,
sometimes doctors, sometimes women what have twin babies. Also the Asiki bring
people what is witches, or have drunk poison stuff which blacks call
muavi and have not been sick, or perhaps son they love best to take
curse off their roof. All these come to Yellow God. Then Asiki doctor, they
have Death-palaver. On night of full moon they beat drum, and drum go Wow! Wow!
Wow! and doctors pick out those to die that month. Once they pick out Jeekie,
oh! good Lord, they pick out me,” and as he said the words he
gasped and with his great hand wiped off the sweat that started from his brow.
“But Yellow God no take Jeekie that time, no want him and I escape.”

“How?” asked Sir Robert.

“With my master, Major’s uncle, Reverend Austin, he who come try to
make Asiki Christian. He snap his fingers, put on small mask of Yellow God
which he prig, Little Bonsa herself, that same face which sit in your office
now,” and he pointed to Sir Robert, “like one toad upon a stone.
Priests think that god make herself into man, want holiday, take me out into
forest to kill me and eat my life. So they let us go by and we go just as
though devil kick us—fast, fast, and never see the Asiki any more. But
Little Bonsa I bring with me for luck, tell truth I no dare leave her behind,
she not stand that; and now she sit in your office and think and think and make
magic there. That why you grow rich, because she know you worship her.”

“That’s a nice way for a baptized Christian to talk,” said
Barbara, adding, “But Jeekie, what do you mean when you say that the god
did not take you?”

“I mean this, miss; when victim offered to Big Yellow God, priest-men
bring him to edge of canal where the great god float. Then if Yellow God want
him, it turn and swim across water.”

“Swim across water! I thought you said it was only a mask of gold?”

“I don’t know, miss, perhaps man inside the mask, perhaps spirit. I
say it swim across water in the night, always in the night, and lift itself up
and look in victim’s face. Then priest take him and kill him, sometimes
one way—sometimes another. Or if he escape and they not kill him, all
same for that Johnnie, he die in about one year, always die, no one ever live
long if Yellow God swim to him in dark and rise up and smile in his face. No
matter if it Big Bonsa or Little Bonsa, for they man and wife joined in holy
matrimony and either do trick.”

As these words left Jeekie’s lips Alan became aware of some unusual
movement on his left and looking round, saw that Mr. Champers-Haswell, who
stood by him, had dropped the cigar which he held and, white as a sheet, was
swaying to and fro. Indeed in another instant he would have fallen had not Alan
caught him in his arms and supported him till others came to his assistance,
when between them they carried him to a sofa. On their way they passed a table
where spirits and soda water were set out, and to his astonishment Alan noticed
that Sir Robert Aylward, looking little if at all better than his partner, had
helped himself to half a tumbler of cognac, which he was swallowing in great
gulps. Then there was confusion and someone went to telephone the doctor, while
the deep voice of Jeekie was heard exclaiming:

“That Yellow God at work—oh yes, Little Bonsa on the job. Jeekie
Christian man but no doubt she very powerful fetish and can do anything she
like to them that worship her, and you see, she sit in office of these
gentlemen. ’Spect she make Reverend Austin and me bring her to England
because she got eye on firm of Messrs. Aylward & Haswell, London, E.C. Oh,
shouldn’t wonder at all, for Bonsa know everything.”

“Oh, confound you and your fetish! Be off, you old donkey,” almost
shouted Alan.

“Major,” replied the offended Jeekie, assuming his grand manner and
language, “it was not I who wished to narrate this history of
blood-stained superstitions of poor African. Mustn’t blame old Jeekie if
they make Christian gents sick as Channel steamer.”

“Be off!” repeated Alan, stamping his foot.

So Jeekie went, but outside the door, as it chanced, he encountered one of the
Jew gentlemen who also appeared to be a little “sick.” An idea
striking him, he touched his white hair with his finger and said:

“You like Jeekie’s pretty story, sir? Well, Jeekie think that if
you make little present to him, like your brother in there, it please Yellow
God very much, and bring you plenty luck.”

Then acting upon some unaccustomed impulse, that Jew became exceedingly
generous. In his pocket was a handful of sovereigns which he had been prepared
to stake at bridge. He grasped them all and thrust them into Jeekie’s
outstretched palm, where they seemed to melt.

“Thank you, sir,” said Jeekie. “Now I sure you have plenty
luck, just like your grandpa Jacob in Book when he do his brudder in eye.”

CHAPTER IV.
ALAN AND BARBARA.

There was no bridge or billiards at the Court that night, where ordinarily the
play ran high enough. After Mr. Haswell had been carried to his room, some of
the guests, among them Sir Robert Aylward, went to bed, remarking that they
could do no good by sitting up, while others, more concerned, waited to hear
the verdict of the doctor, who must drive from six miles away. He came, and
half an hour later Barbara entered the billiard room and told Alan, who was
sitting there smoking, that her uncle had recovered from his faint, and that
the doctor, who was to stay all night, said that he was in no danger, only
suffering from a heart attack brought on apparently by over-work or excitement.

When Alan woke next morning the first thing that he heard through his open
window was the sound of the doctor’s departing dogcart. Then Jeekie
appeared and told him that Mr. Haswell was all right again, but that all night
he had shaken “like one jelly.” Alan asked what had been the matter
with him, but Jeekie only shrugged his shoulders and said that he did not
know—“perhaps Yellow God touch him up.”

At breakfast, as in her note she had said she would, Barbara appeared wearing a
short skirt. Sir Robert, who was there, looking extremely pale even for him
and with black rims round his eyes, asked her if she were going to golf, to
which she answered that she would think it over. It was a somewhat melancholy
meal, and as though by common consent no mention was made of Jeekie’s
tale of the Yellow God, and beyond the usual polite inquiries, very little of
their host’s seizure.

As Barbara went out she whispered to Alan, who opened the door for her,
“Meet me at half-past ten in the kitchen garden.”

Accordingly, having changed his clothes surreptitiously, Alan, avoiding the
others, made his way by a circuitous route to this kitchen garden, which after
the fashion of modern places was hidden behind a belt of trees nearly a quarter
of a mile from the house. Here he wandered about till presently he heard
Barbara’s pleasant voice behind him saying:

“Don’t dawdle so, we shall be late for church.”

So they started, somewhat furtively like runaway children. As they went Alan
asked how her uncle was.

“All right now,” she answered, “but he has had a bad shake.
It was that Yellow God story which did it. I know, for I was there when he was
coming to, with Sir Robert. He kept talking about it in a confused manner,
saying that it was swimming to him across the floor, till at last Sir Robert
bent over him and told him to be quiet quite sternly. Do you know, Alan, I
believe that your pet fetish has been manifesting itself in some unpleasant
fashion up there in the office?”

“Indeed. If so, it must be since I left, for I never heard of anything of
the sort, nor are Aylward and your uncle likely people to see ghosts. In fact
Sir Robert wished to give me about £17,000 for the thing only the day before
yesterday, which doesn’t look as though it had been frightening
him.”

“Well, he won’t repeat the offer, Alan, for I heard him promise my
uncle only this morning that it should be sent back to Yarleys at once. But why
did he want to buy it for such a lot of money? Tell me quickly, Alan, I am
dying to hear the whole story.”

So he began and told her, omitting nothing, while she listened eagerly to every
word, hardly interrupting him at all. As he finished his tale they reached the
door of the quaint old village church just as the clock was striking eleven.

“Come in, Alan,” she said gently, “and thank Heaven for all
its mercies, for you should be a grateful man to-day.”

Then without giving him time to answer she entered the church and they took
their places in the great square pew that for generations had been occupied by
the owners of the ancient house which Mr. Haswell pulled down when he built The
Court. There were their monuments upon the wall and their gravestones in the
chancel floor. But now no one except Barbara ever sat in their pew; even the
benches set aside for the servants were empty, for those who frequented The
Court were not church-goers and “like master, like man.” Indeed the
gentle-faced old clergyman looked quite pleased and surprised when he saw two
inhabitants of that palatial residence amongst his congregation, although it is
true that Barbara was his friend and helper.

The simple service went on; the first lesson was read. It cried woe upon them
that joined house to house and field to field, that draw iniquity with cords of
vanity and sin as it were with a cart-rope; that call evil good and good evil,
that put darkness for light and light for darkness, that justify the wicked for
reward; that feast full but regard not the work of the Lord, neither consider
the operation of His hand, for of such it prophesied that their houses great
and fair should be without inhabitant and desolate.

It was very well read, and Alan, listening, thought that the denunciations of
the old seer of thousands of years ago were not inappropriate to the dwellers
in some houses great and fair of his own day, who, whatever they did or left
undone, regarded not the work of the Lord, neither considered the operation of
His hand. Perhaps Barbara thought so too; at any rate a rather sad little smile
appeared once or twice upon her sweet, firm face as the immortal poem echoed
down the aisle.

The peace that passeth understanding was invoked upon their heads, and rising
with the rest of the scanty congregation they went away.

“Shall we walk home by the woods, Alan?” asked Barbara. “It
is three miles round, but we don’t lunch till two.”

He nodded, and presently they were alone in those woods, the beautiful woods
through which the breath of spring was breathing, treading upon carpets of
bluebell, violet, and primrose; quite alone, unaccompanied save by the wild
things that stole across their path, undisturbed save by the sound of the
singing birds and of the wind among the trees.

“What did you mean, Barbara, when you said that I should be a grateful
man to-day?” asked Alan presently.

Barbara looked him in the eyes in that open, virginal fashion of hers and
answered in the words of the lesson, “‘Woe unto them that draw
iniquity with the cords of vanity and sin as it were with a cart-rope, that lay
house to house,’” and through an opening in the woods she pointed
to the roof of The Court standing on one hill, and to the roof of Old Hall
standing upon another—“‘and field to field,’” and
with a sweep of her hand she indicated all the country round, “‘for
many houses great and fair that have music in their feasts shall be left
desolate.’” Then turning she said:

“Do you understand now, Alan?”

“I think so,” he answered. “You mean that I have been in bad
company.”

“Very bad, Alan. One of them is my own uncle, but the truth remains the
truth. Alan, they are no better than thieves; all this wealth is stolen, and I
thank God that you have found it out in time before you became one of them in
heart as well as in name.”

“If you refer to the Sahara Syndicate,” he said, “the idea is
sound enough; indeed, I am responsible for it. The thing can be done, great
benefits would result, too long to go into.”

“Yes, yes, Alan, but you know that they never mean to do it, they only
mean to get the millions from the public. I have lived with my uncle for ten
years, ever since my poor father died, and I know the backstairs of the
business. There have been half a dozen schemes like this, and although they
have had their bad times, very bad times, he and Sir Robert have grown richer
and richer. But what has happened to those who have invested in them? Oh! let
us drop the subject, it is unpleasant. For myself it doesn’t matter,
because although it isn’t under my control, I have money of my own. You
know we are a plebeian lot on the male side, my grandfather was a draper in a
large way of business, my father was a coal-merchant who made a great fortune.
His brother, my uncle, in whom my father always believed implicitly, took to
what is called Finance, and when my father died he left me, his only child, in
his guardianship. Until I am five-and-twenty I cannot even marry or touch a
halfpenny without his consent; in fact if I should marry against his will the
most of my money goes to him.”

“I expect that he has got it already,” said Alan.

“No, I think not. I found out that, although it is not mine, it is not
his. He can’t draw it without my signature, and I steadily refuse to sign
anything. Again and again they have brought me documents, and I have always
said that I would consider them at five-and-twenty, when I came of age under my
father’s will. I went on the sly to a lawyer in Kingswell and paid him a
guinea for his advice, and he put me up to that. ‘Sign nothing,’ he
said, and I have signed nothing, so, except by forgery nothing can have gone.
Still for all that it may have gone. For anything I know I am not worth more
than the clothes I stand in, although my father was a very rich man.”

“If so, we are about in the same boat, Barbara,” Alan answered with
a laugh, “for my present possessions are Yarleys, which brings in about
£100 a year less than the interest on its mortgages and cost of upkeep, and the
£1700 that Aylward paid me back on Friday for my shares. If I had stuck to them
I understand that in a week or two I should have been worth £100,000, and now
you see, here I am, over thirty years of age without a profession, invalided
out of the army and having failed in finance, a mere bit of driftwood without
hope and without a trade.”

Barbara’s brown eyes grew soft with sympathy, or was it tears?

“You are a curious creature, Alan,” she said. “Why
didn’t you take the £17,000 for that fetish of yours? It would have been
a fair deal and have set you on your legs.”

“I don’t know,” he answered dejectedly. “It went
against the grain, so what is the use of talking about it? I think my old uncle
Austin told me it wasn’t to be parted with—no, perhaps it was
Jeekie. Bother the Yellow God! it is always cropping up.”

“Yes,” replied Barbara, “the Yellow God is always cropping
up, especially in this neighbourhood.”

They walked on a while in silence, till suddenly Barbara sat down upon a bole
of felled oak and began to cry.

“What is the matter with you?” asked Alan.

“I don’t know,” she answered. “Everything goes wrong. I
live in a kind of gilded hell. I don’t like my uncle and I loathe the men
he brings about the place. I have no friends, I scarcely know a woman
intimately, I have troubles I can’t tell you and—I am wretched. You
are the only creature I have left to talk to, and I suppose that after this row
you must go away too to make your living.”

Alan looked at her there weeping on the log and his heart swelled within him,
for he had loved this girl for years.

“Barbara,” he gasped, “please don’t cry, it upsets me.
You know you are a great heiress——”

“That remains to be proved,” she answered. “But anyway, what
has it to do with the case?”

“It has everything to do with it, at least so far as I am concerned. If
it hadn’t been for that I should have asked you to marry me a long while
ago, because I love you, as I would now, but of course it is impossible.”

Barbara ceased her weeping, wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and
looked up at him.

“Alan,” she said, “I think that you are the biggest fool I
ever knew—not but that a fool is rather refreshing when one lives among
knaves.”

“I know I am a fool,” he answered. “If I wasn’t I
should not have mentioned my misfortune to you, but sometimes things are too
much for one. Forget it and forgive me.”

“Oh! yes,” she said; “I forgive you; a woman can generally
forgive a man for being fond of her. Whatever she may be, she is ready to take
a lenient view of his human weakness. But as to forgetting, that is a different
matter. I don’t exactly see why I should be so anxious to forget, who
haven’t many people to care about me,” and she looked at him in
quite a new fashion, one indeed which gave him something of a shock, for he had
not thought the nymph-like Barbara capable of such a look as that. She and any
sort of passion had always seemed so far apart.

Now after all Alan was very much a man, if a modest one, with all a man’s
instincts, and therefore there are appearances of the female face which even
such as he could not entirely misinterpret.

“You—don’t—mean,” he said doubtfully, “you
don’t really mean——” and he stood hesitating before her.

“If you would put your question a little more clearly, Alan, I might be
able to give you an answer,” she replied, that quaint little smile of
hers creeping to the corners of her mouth like sunshine through a mist of rain.

“You don’t really mean,” he went on, “that you care
anything about me, like, like I have cared for you for years?”

“Oh! Alan,” she said, laughing outright, “why in the name of
goodness shouldn’t I care about you? I don’t say that I do, mind,
but why shouldn’t I? What is the gulf between us?”

“The old one,” he answered, “that between Dives and
Lazarus—that between the rich and the poor.”

“Alan,” said Barbara, looking down, “I don’t know what
has come over me, but for some unexplained and inexplicable reason I am
inclined to give Lazarus a lead—across that gulf, the first one, I mean,
not the second!”

Like the glance which preceded it, this was a saying that even Alan could not
misunderstand. He sat himself on the log beside her, while she, still looking
down, watched him out of the corners of her eyes. He went red, he went white,
his heart beat very violently. Then he stretched out his big brown hand and
took her small white one, and as this familiarity produced no remonstrance, let
it fall, and passing his arm about her, drew her to him and embraced her, not
once, but often, with such vigour that a squirrel which had been watching these
proceedings from a neighbouring tree, bolted round it scandalized and was seen
no more.

“I love you, I love you,” he said huskily.

“So I gather,” she answered in a feeble voice.

“Do you care for me?” he asked.

“It would seem that I must, Alan, otherwise I should scarcely—oh!
you foolish Alan,” and heedless of her Sunday hat, which never recovered
from this encounter, but was kept as a holy relic, she let her head fall upon
his shoulder and began to cry again, this time for very happiness.

He kissed her tears away; then, as he could think of nothing else to say, asked
her if she would marry him.

“It is the general sequel to this kind of thing, I believe,” she
answered; “or at any rate it ought to be. But if you want a direct
answer—yes, I will, if my uncle will let me, which he won’t, as you
have quarrelled with him, or at any rate two years hence, when I am
five-and-twenty and my own mistress; that is if we have anything to marry on,
for one must eat. At present our worldly possessions seem to consist chiefly of
a large store of mutual affection, a good stock of clothes and one Yellow God,
which after what happened last night, I do not think you will get another chance
of turning into cash.”

“I must make money somehow,” he said.

“Yes, Alan, but I am afraid it is not easy to do—honestly. Nobody
wants people without capital whose only stock in trade is a brief but
distinguished military career, and a large experience of African fever.”

Alan groaned at this veracious but discouraging remark, and she went on quickly:

“I mean to spend another guinea upon my friend the lawyer at Kingswell.
Perhaps he can raise the wind, by a post-obit, or something,” she added
vaguely, “I mean a post-uncle-obit.”

“If he does, Barbara, I can’t live on your money alone, it
isn’t right.”

“Oh! don’t you trouble about that, Alan. If once I can get hold of
those dim thousands you will soon be able to make more, for unto him that hath
shall be given. But at present they are very dim, and for all I know may be
represented by stock in deceased companies. In short, the financial position is
extraordinarily depressed, as they say in the Market Intelligence in The
Times. But that’s no reason why we should be depressed also.”

“No, Barbara, for at any rate we have got each other.”

“Yes,” she answered, springing up, “we have got each other,
dear, until Death do us part, and somehow I don’t think he’ll do
that yet awhile; it comes into my heart that he won’t do that, Alan, that
you and I are going to live out our days. So what does the rest matter? In two
years I shall be a free woman. In fact, if the worst comes to the worst,
I’ll defy them all,” and she set her little mouth like a rock,
“and marry you straight away, as being over age, I can do, even if it
costs me every halfpenny that I’ve got.”

“No, no,” he said, “it would be wrong, wrong to yourself and
wrong to your descendants.”

“Very well, Alan, then, we will wait, or perhaps luck will come our
way—why shouldn’t it? At any rate for my part I never felt so happy
in my life; for, dear Alan, we have found what we were born to find, found it
once and for always, and the rest is mere etceteras. What would be the use of
all the gold of the Asiki people that Jeekie was talking about last night, to
either of us, if we had not each other? We can get on without the wealth, but
we couldn’t get on apart, or at least I couldn’t and I don’t
mind saying so.”

“No, my darling, no,” he answered, turning white at the very
thought, “we couldn’t get on apart—now. In fact I don’t
know how I have done it so long already, except that I was always hoping that a
time would come when we shouldn’t be apart. That is why I went into that
infernal business, to make enough money to be able to ask you to marry me. And
now I have gone out of the business and asked you just when I
shouldn’t.”

“Yes, so you see you might as well have done it a year or two ago when
perhaps things would have been simpler. Well, it is a fine example of the
vanity of human plans, and, Alan, we must be going home to lunch. If we
don’t, Sir Robert will be organizing a search party to look for us; in
fact, I shouldn’t wonder if he is doing that already, in the wrong
direction.”

The mention of Sir Robert Aylward’s name fell on them both like a blast
of cold wind in summer, and for a while they walked in silence.

“You are afraid of that man, Barbara,” said Alan presently,
guessing her thoughts.

“A little,” she answered, “so far as I can be afraid of
anything any more. And you?”

“A little also. I think that he will give us trouble. He can be very
malevolent and resourceful.”

“Resourceful, Alan; well, so can I. I’ll back my wits against his
any day. He shan’t separate us by anything short of murder, which he
won’t go in for. Men like that don’t like to break the law; they
have too much to lose. But no doubt he will make things uncomfortable for you,
if he can, for several reasons.”

Again they walked on lost in reflections, when Barbara suddenly saw her
lover’s face brighten.

“What is it, Alan?” she asked.

“Something that is rare enough with me, Barbara—an idea. You
remember speaking about that Asiki gold just now. Well, why shouldn’t I
go and get it?”

She stared at him.

“It sounds a little speculative,” she said; “something like
one of my uncle’s companies.”

“Not half so speculative as you think. I have no doubt it is there and
Jeekie knows the way. Also I seem to remember that there is a map and an
account of the whole thing in Uncle Austin’s diaries, though to tell you
the truth the old fellow wrote such a fearful hand, that I have never taken the
trouble to read it. You see,” he went on with enthusiasm, “it is
the kind of business that I can do. I am thoroughly salted to fever, I know the
West Coast, where I spent three years on that Boundary Commission, I have
studied the natives and can talk several of their dialects. Of course there
would be a risk, but there are risks in everything, and like you I am not
afraid about that, for I believe that we have got our lives before us.”

“Read up those diaries, Alan, and we will talk the thing over again.
I’ll pump Jeekie, who will tell me anything by coaxing, and try to get at
the truth. Meanwhile what are you going to do about my uncle?”

“Speak to him, of course, and have the row over.”

“Yes,” she answered, “that is the best and the most honest.
Of course he can turn you out, but he can’t prevent my seeing you. If he
does, go home to Yarleys and I’ll come over and call. Here we are, let us
go in by the back door,” and she pointed to her crushed hat, and laughed.

CHAPTER V.
BARBARA MAKES A SPEECH.

While Alan and Barbara, on the most momentous occasion of their lives, were
seated upon the fallen oak in the woods that thrilled with the breath of
spring, another interview was taking place in Mr. Champers-Haswell’s
private suite at The Court, the decorations of which, as he was wont to inform
his visitors, had cost nearly £2000. Sir Robert, whose taste at any rate was
good, thought them so appalling that while waiting for his host and partner,
whom he had come to see, he took a seat in the bow window of the sitting-room
and studied the view that nobody had been able to spoil. Presently Mr. Haswell
emerged from his bedroom, wrapped in a dressing gown and looking very pale and
shaky.

“Delighted to see you all right again,” said Sir Robert as he
wheeled up a chair into which Mr. Haswell sank.

“I am not all right, Aylward,” he answered; “I am not all
right at all. Never had such an upset in my life; thought I was going to die
when that accursed savage told his beastly tale. Aylward, you are a man of the
world, tell me, what is the meaning of the thing? You remember what we thought
we saw in the office, and then—that story.”

“I don’t know,” he answered; “frankly I don’t
know. I am a man who has never believed in anything I cannot see and test, one
who utterly lacks faith. In my leisure I have examined into the various
religious systems and found them to be rubbish. I am convinced that we are but
highly-developed mammals born by chance, and when our day is done, departing
into the black nothingness out of which we came. Everything else, that is, what
is called the higher and spiritual part, I attribute to the superstitions
incident to the terror of the hideous position in which we find ourselves, that
of gods of a sort hemmed in by a few years of fearful and tormented life. But
you know the old arguments, so why should I enter on them? And now I am
confronted with an experience which I cannot explain. I certainly thought that
in the office on Friday evening I saw that gold mask to which I had taken so
strange a fancy that I offered to give Vernon £17,000 for it because I thought
that it brought us luck, swim across the floor of our room and look first into
your face and then into mine. Well, the next night that negro tells his story.
What am I to make of it?”

“Can’t tell you,” answered Mr. Champers-Haswell with a groan.
“All I know is that it nearly made a corpse of me. I am not like you,
Aylward, I was brought up as an Evangelical, and although I haven’t given
much thought to these matters of late years—well, we don’t shake
them off in a hurry. I daresay there is something somewhere, and when the black
man was speaking, that something seemed uncommonly near. It got up and gripped
me by the throat, shaking the mortal breath out of me, and upon my word,
Aylward, I have been wishing all the morning that I had led a different kind of
life, as my old parents and my brother John, Barbara’s father, who was a
very religious kind of man, did before me.”

“It is rather late to think of all that now, Haswell,” said Sir
Robert, shrugging his shoulders. “One takes one’s line and
there’s an end. Personally I believe that we are overstrained with the
fearful and anxious work of this flotation, and have been the victims of an
hallucination and a coincidence. Although I confess that I came to look upon
the thing as a kind of mascot, I put no trust in any fetish. How can a bit of
gold move, and how can it know the future? Well, I have written to them to
clear it out of the office to-morrow, so it won’t trouble us any more.
And now I have come to speak to you on another matter.”

“Not business,” said Mr. Haswell with a sigh. “We have that
all the week and there will be enough of it on Monday.”

“No,” he answered, “something more important. About your
niece Barbara.”

Mr. Haswell glanced at him with those little eyes of his which were so sharp
that they seemed to bore like gimlets.

“Barbara?” he said. “What of Barbara?”

“Can’t you guess, Haswell? You are pretty good at it, generally.
Well, it is no use beating about the bush; I want to marry her.”

At this sudden announcement his partner became exceedingly interested. Leaning
back in the chair he stared at the decorated ceiling, and uttered his favourite
wind-in-the-wires whistle.

“Indeed,” he said. “I never knew that matrimony was in your
line, Aylward, any more than it has been in mine, especially as you are always
preaching against it. Well, has the young lady given her consent?”

“No, I have not spoken to her. I meant to do so this morning, but she has
slipped off somewhere, with Vernon, I suppose.”

Mr. Haswell whistled again, but on a new note.

“Pray do stop that noise,” said Sir Robert; “it gets upon my
nerves, which are shaky this morning. Listen: It is a curious thing, one less
to be understood even than the coincidence of the Yellow God, but at my present
age of forty-four, for the first time in my life I have committed the folly of
what is called falling in love. It is not the case of a successful, middle-aged
man wishing to ranger himself and settle down with a desirable
partie, but of sheer, stark infatuation. I adore Barbara; the worse she
treats me the more I adore her. I had rather that the Sahara flotation should
fail than that she should refuse me. I would rather lose three-quarters of my
fortune than lose her. Do you understand?”

His partner looked at him, pursed up his lips to whistle, then remembered and
shook his head instead.

“No,” he answered. “Barbara is a nice girl, but I should not
have imagined her capable of inspiring such sentiments in a man almost old
enough to be her father. I think that you are the victim of a kind of mania,
which I have heard of but never experienced. Venus—or is it
Cupid?—has netted you, my dear Aylward.”

“Oh! pray leave gods and goddesses out of it, we have had enough of them
already,” he answered, exasperated. “That is my case at any rate,
and what I want to know now is if I have your support in my suit. Remember, I
have something to offer, Haswell, for instance, a large fortune of which I will
settle half—it is a good thing to do in our business,—and a
baronetcy that will be a peerage before long.”

“A peerage! Have you squared that?”

“I think so. There will be a General Election within the next three
months, and on such occasions a couple of hundred thousand in cool cash come in
useful to a Party that is short of ready money. I think I may say that it is
settled. She will be the Lady Aylward, or any other name she may fancy, and one
of the richest women in England. Now have I your support?”

“Yes, my dear friend, why not, though Barbara does not want money, for
she has plenty of her own, in first-class securities that I could never
persuade her to vary, for she is shrewd in that way and steadily refuses to
sign anything. Also she will probably be my heiress—and, Aylward,”
here a sickly look of alarm spread itself over his face, “I don’t
know how long I have to live. That infernal doctor examined my heart this
morning and told me that it was weak. Weak was his word, but from the tone in
which he said it, I believe that he meant more. Aylward, I gather that I may
die any day.”

“Nonsense, Haswell, so may we all,” he replied, with an affectation
of cheerfulness which failed to carry conviction.

Presently Mr. Haswell, who had hidden his face in his hand, looked up with a
sigh and said:

“Oh! yes, of course you have my support, for after all she is my only
relation and I should be glad to see her safely married. Also, as it happens,
she can’t marry anyone without my consent, at any rate until she is
five-and-twenty, for if she does, under her father’s will all her property
goes away, most of it to charities, except a beggarly £200 a year. You see my
brother John had a great horror of imprudent marriages and a still greater
belief in me, which as it chances, is a good thing for you.”

“Had he?” said Sir Robert. “And pray why is it a good thing
for me?”

“Because, my dear Aylward, unless my observation is at fault, there is
another Richard in the field, our late partner, Vernon, of whom, by the way,
Barbara is extremely fond, though it may only be in a friendly fashion. At any
rate she pays more attention to his wishes and opinions than to mine and yours
put together.”

At the mention of Alan’s name Aylward started violently.

“I feared it,” he said, “and he is more than ten years my
junior and a soldier, not a man of business. Also there is no use disguising
the truth, although I am a baronet and shall be a peer and he is nothing but a
beggarly country gentleman with a D.S.O. tacked on to his name, he belongs to a
different class to us, as she does too on her mother’s side. Well, I can
smash him up, for you remember I took over that mortgage on Yarleys, and
I’ll do it if necessary. Practically our friend has not a shilling that
he can call his own. Therefore, Haswell, unless you play me false, which I
don’t think you will, for I can be a nasty enemy,” he added with a
threat in his voice, “Alan Vernon hasn’t much chance in that
direction.”

“I don’t know, Aylward, I don’t know,” replied Haswell,
shaking his white head. “Barbara is a strong-willed woman and she might
choose to take the man and let the money go, and then—who can stop her?
Also I don’t like your idea of smashing Vernon. It isn’t right, and
it may come back on our own heads, especially yours. I am sorry that he has
left us, as you were on Friday night, for somehow he was a good, honest stick
to lean on, and we want such a stick. But I am tired now, I really can’t
talk any more. The doctor warned me against excitement. Get the girl’s
consent, Aylward, and we’ll see. Ah! here comes my soup. Good-bye for the
present.”

When Sir Robert came down to luncheon he found Barbara looking particularly
radiant and charming, already presiding at that meal and conversing in her best
French to the foreign gentlemen, who were paying her compliments.

“Forgive me for being late,” he said; “first of all I have
been talking to your uncle, and afterwards skimming through the articles in
yesterday’s papers on our little venture which comes out to-morrow. A
cheerful occupation on the whole, for with one or two exceptions they are all
favourable.”

“Mon Dieu,” said the French gentlemen on the right, “seeing
what they did cost, that is not strange. Your English papers they are so
expensive; in Paris we have done it for half the money.”

Barbara and some of the guests laughed outright, finding this frankness
charming.

“But where have you been, Miss Champers? I thought that we were going to
have a round of golf together. The caddies were there, I was there, the greens
had been specially rolled this morning, but there was no You.”

“No,” she answered, “because Major Vernon and I walked to
church and heard a very good sermon upon the observance of the Sabbath.”

“You are severe,” he said. “Do you think it wrong for men who
work hard all the week to play a harmless game on Sunday?”

“Not at all, Sir Robert.” Then she looked at him and, coming to a
sudden decision, added, “If you like I will play you nine holes this
afternoon and give you a stroke a hole, or would you prefer a foursome?”

“No, let us fight alone and let the best player win.”

“Very well, Sir Robert; but you mustn’t forget that I am
handicapped.”

“Don’t look angry,” she whispered to Alan as they strolled
out into the garden after lunch, “I must clear things up and know what we
have to face. I’ll be back by tea-time, and we will have it out with my
uncle.”

The nine holes had been played, and by a single stroke Barbara had won the
match, which pleased her very much, for she had done her best, and with such
heavy odds in his favour Sir Robert, who had also done his best, was no mean
opponent, even for a player of her skill. Indeed the fight had been quite
earnest, for each party knew that it was but a prelude to another and more
serious fight, and looked upon the result as in some sense an omen.

“I am conquered,” he said in a voice in which vexation struggled
with a laugh, “and by a woman over whom I had an advantage. It is
humiliating, for I confess I do not like being beaten.”

“Don’t you think that women generally win if they mean to?”
asked Barbara. “I believe that when they fail, which is often enough, it
is because they don’t care, or can’t make up their minds. A woman
in earnest is a dangerous antagonist.”

“Yes,” he answered, “or the best of allies.” Then he
gave the clubs and half-a-crown to the caddies, and when they were out of
hearing, added, “Miss Champers, I have been wondering for some time
whether it is possible that you would become such an ally to me.”

“I know nothing of business, Sir Robert; my tastes do not lie that
way.”

“You know well that I was not speaking of business, Miss Champers. I was
speaking of another kind of partnership, that which Nature has ordained between
men and women—marriage. Will you accept me as a husband?”

She opened her lips to speak, but he lifted his hand and went on. “Listen
before you give that ready answer which it is so hard to recall, or smooth
away. I know all my disadvantages, my years, which to you may seem many; my
modest origin; my trade, which, not altogether without reason, you despise and
dislike. Well, the first two cannot be changed except for the worse; the second
can be, and already is, buried beneath the gold and ermine of wealth and
titles. What does it matter if I am the son of a City clerk who never earned
more than £2 a week and was born in a tenement at Battersea, when I am one of
the rich men of this rich land and shall die a peer in a palace, leaving
millions and honours to my children? As for the third, my occupation, I am
prepared to give it up. It has served my turn, and after next week I shall have
earned the amount that years ago I determined to earn. Thenceforth, set above
the accidents of fortune, I propose to devote myself to higher aims, those of
legitimate ambition. So far as my time would allow I have already taken some
share in politics as a worker; I intend to continue in them as a ruler which I
still have the health and ability to do. I mean to be one of the first men in
this Empire, to ride to power over the heads of all the nonentities whose only
claim upon the confidence of their countrymen is that they were born in a
certain class, with money in their pockets and without the need to spend the
best of their manhood in work. With you at my side I can do all these things
and more, and such is the future that I have to offer you.”

Again she would have broken in upon his speech and again he stopped her,
reading the unspoken answer on her lips.

“Listen: I have not told you all. Perhaps I have put first what should
have come last. I have not told you that I love you earnestly and sincerely,
with the settled, unalterable love that sometimes comes to men in middle-age
who have never turned their thought that way before. I will not attempt the
rhapsodies of passion which at my time of life might sound foolish or out of
place; yet it is true that I am filled with this passion which has descended on
me and taken possession of me. I who often have laughed at such things in other
men, adore you. You are a joy to my eyes. If you are not in the room, for me it
is empty. I admire the uprightness of your character, and even your prejudices,
and to your standard I desire to approximate my own. I think that no man can
ever love you quite so well as I do, Barbara Champers. Now speak. I am ready to
meet the best or the worst.”

After her fashion Barbara looked him straight in the face with her steady eyes,
and answered gently enough, for the man’s method of presenting his case,
elaborate and prepared though it evidently was, had touched her.

“I fear it is the worst, Sir Robert. There are hundreds of women superior
to myself in every way who would be glad to give you the help and companionship
you ask, with their hearts thrown in. Choose one of them, for I cannot do
so.”

He heard and for the first time his face broke, as it were. All this while it
had remained masklike and immovable, even when he spoke of his love, but now it
broke as ice breaks at the pressure of a sudden flood beneath, and she saw the
depths and eddies of his nature and understood their strength. Not that he
revealed them in speech, angry or pleading, for that remained calm and measured
enough. She did not hear, she saw, and even then it was marvellous to her that
a mere change in a man’s expression could explain so much.

“Those are very cruel words,” he said. “Are they
unalterable?”

“Quite. I do not play in such matters, it would be wicked.”

“May I ask you one question, for if the answer is in the negative, I
shall still continue to hope? Do you care for any other man?”

Again she looked at him with her fearless eyes and answered:

“Yes, I am engaged to another man.”

“To Alan Vernon?”

She nodded.

“When did that happen? Some years ago?”

“No, this morning.”

“Great Heavens!” he muttered in a hoarse voice turning his head
away, “this morning. Then last night it might not have been too late, and
last night I should have spoken to you, I had arranged it all. Yes, if it had
not been for the story of that accursed fetish and your uncle’s illness,
I should have spoken to you, and perhaps succeeded.”

“I think not,” she said.

He turned upon her and notwithstanding the tears in his eyes they burned like
fire.

“You think—you think,” he gasped, “but I know. Of
course after this morning it was impossible. But, Barbara, I say that I will
win you yet. I have never failed in any object that I set before myself, and do
not suppose that I shall fail in this. Although in a way I liked and respected
him, I have always felt that Vernon was my enemy, one destined to bring grief
and loss upon me, even if he did not intend to do so. Now I understand why, and
he shall learn that I am stronger than he. God help him! I say.”

“I think He will,” Barbara answered, calmly. “You are
speaking wildly, and I understand the reason and hope that you will forget your
words, but whether you forget or remember, do not suppose that you frighten me.
You men who have made money,” she went on with swelling indignation,
“who have made money somehow, and have bought honours with the moneys
somehow, think yourselves great, and in your little day, your little, little
day that will end with three lines in small type in The Times, you are
great in this vulgar land. You can buy what you want and people creep round you
and ask you for doles and favours, and railway porters call you ‘my
Lord’ at every other step. But you forget your limitations in this world,
and that which lies above you. You say you will do this and that. You should
study a book which few of you ever read, where it tells you that you do not
know what you will be on the morrow; that your life is even as a vapour
appearing for a little time and then vanishing away. You think that you can
crush the man to whom I have given my heart because he is honest and you are
dishonest, because you are rich and he is poor, and because he chances to have
succeeded where you have not. Well, for myself and for him I defy you. Do your
worst and fail, and when you have failed, in the hour of your extremity
remember my words to-day. If I have given you pain by refusing you it is not my
fault and I am sorry, but when you threaten the man who has honoured me with
his love and whom I honour above every creature upon the earth, then I threaten
back, and may the Power that made us all judge between you and me, as judge it
will,” and bursting into tears she turned and left him.

Sir Robert watched her go.

“What a woman!” he said meditatively, “what a woman—to
have lost. Well she has set the stakes and we will play out the game. The cards
all seem to be in my hands, but it would not in the least surprise me if she
won the rubber, for the element that I call Chance and she would call something
else, may come in. Still, I never refused a challenge yet and we will play the
game out without pity to the loser.”

That night the first trick was played. When he got back to The Court Sir Robert
ordered his motorcar and departed on urgent business, either to his own place,
Old Hall, or to London, saying only that he had been summoned away by telegram.
As the 70-horse-power Mercedes glided out of the gates a pencilled note was put
into Mr. Haswell’s hand.

It ran: “I have tried and failed—for the present. By ill-luck A.V.
had been before me, only this morning. If I had not missed my chance last night
owing to your illness, it would have been different. I do not, however, in the
least abandon my plan, in which of course I rely on and expect your support.
Keep V. in the office or let him go as you like. Perhaps it would be better if
you could prevail upon him to stop there until after the flotation. But
whatever you say at the moment, I trust to you to absolutely veto any
engagement between him and your niece, and to that end to use all your powers
and authority as her guardian. Burn this note.

CHAPTER VI.
MR. HASWELL LOSES HIS TEMPER.

Alan and Barbara sat in Mr. Champers-Haswell’s private sitting-room with
the awful decorations, and before them by the fire Mr. Champers-Haswell
reclined upon his couch. Alan in a few, brief, soldier-like words had just
informed him of his engagement to Barbara. During the recital of this
interesting fact Barbara said nothing, but Mr. Haswell had whistled several
times. Now at length he spoke, in that tone of forced geniality which he
generally adopted towards his cousin.

“You are asking for the hand of a considerable heiress, Alan my
boy,” he said, “but you have neglected to inform me of your own
position.”

“Where is the use of telling you what you know already, Mr. Haswell? I
have left the firm, therefore I have practically nothing.”

“You have practically nothing, and yet——Well, in my young
days men were more delicate, they did not like being called fortune-hunters,
but of course times have changed.”

Alan bit his lip and Barbara sat up quite straight in her chair, observing
which indications, Mr. Haswell went on hurriedly:

“Now if you had stopped in the firm and earned the very handsome
competence in a small way which would have become due to you this week, instead
of throwing us over at the last moment for some quixotic reasons of your own,
it might have been a different matter. I do not say it would have been, I say
it might have been, and you may remember a proverb about winks and nods and
blind horses. So I ask you whether you are inclined to withdraw that
resignation of yours and bring up this question again let us say, next
Sunday?”

Alan thought a while before he answered. As he understood Mr. Haswell
practically was promising to assent to the engagement upon these terms. The
temptation was enormously great, the fiercest that he had ever been called upon
to face. He looked at Barbara. She had closed her eyes and made absolutely no
sign. For some reason of her own she had elected that he should determine this
vital point without the slightest assistance from her. And it must be
determined at once; procrastination was impossible. For a moment he hesitated.
On the one side was Barbara, on the other his conscience. After long doubts he
had come to a certain conclusion which he quite understood to be inconvenient
to his partners. Should he throw it over now? Should he even try to make a sure
and certain bargain as the price of his surrender? Probably he would not suffer
if he did. The flotation was underwritten and bound to go through; the scandal
would come afterwards, months or years hence, long before which he might get
out, as most of the others meant to do. No, he could not. His conscience was
too much for him.

“I do not see any use in reconsidering that question, Mr. Haswell,”
he said quietly; “we settled it on Friday night.”

Barbara reopened her brown eyes and stared amiably at the painted ceiling, and
Mr. Haswell whistled.

“Then I am afraid,” he said, “that I do not see any use in
discussing your kind proposal for my niece’s hand. Listen—I will be
quite open with you. I have other views for Barbara, and as it happens I have
the power to enforce them, or at any rate to prevent their frustration by you.
If Barbara marries against my will before she is five-and-twenty, that is
within the next two years, her entire fortune, with the exception of a
pittance, goes elsewhere. This I am sure is a fact that will influence you, who
have nothing and even if it did not, I presume that you are scarcely so selfish
as to wish to beggar her.”

“No,” answered Alan, “you need not fear that, for it would be
wrong. I understand that you absolutely refuse to sanction my suit on the
ground of my poverty, which under the circumstances is perhaps not wonderful.
Well, the only thing to do is to wait for two years, a long time, but not
endless, and meanwhile I can try to better my position.”

“Do what you will, Alan,” said Mr. Haswell harshly, for now all his
faux bonhomme manner had gone, leaving him revealed in his true
character of an unscrupulous tradesman with dark ends of his own to serve.
“Do what you will, but understand that I forbid all communication between
you and my niece, and that the sooner you cease to trespass upon a hospitality
which you have abused, the better I shall be pleased.”

“I will go at once,” said Alan, rising, “before my temper
gets the better of me and I tell you some truths that I might regret, for after
all you are Barbara’s uncle. But on your part I ask you to understand
that I refuse to cut off from my cousin, who is of full age and has promised to
be my wife,” and he turned to go.

“Stop a minute, Alan,” said Barbara, who all this while had sat
silent. “I have something to say which I wish you to hear. You told us
just now, uncle, that you have other views for me, by which you meant that you
wish me to marry Sir Robert Aylward, whom, as you are probably aware, I refused
definitely this afternoon. Now I wish to make it clear at once that no earthly
power will induce me to take as a husband a man whom I dislike, and whose
wealth, of which you think so much, has in my opinion been dishonestly
acquired.”

“What are you saying?” broke in her uncle furiously. “He has
been my partner for years, you are reflecting upon me.”

“I am sorry, uncle, but I withdraw nothing. Even if Alan here were dead,
I would not marry that man, and perhaps you will make him understand
this,” she added with emphasis. “Indeed I had sooner die myself.
You told us also that if I marry against your will, you can take away all the
property that my father left to me. Uncle, I shall not give you that
satisfaction. I shall wait until I am twenty-five and do what I please with
myself and my fortune. Lastly, you said that you forbade us to see each other
or to correspond. I answer that I shall both write to and see Alan as often as
I like. If you attempt to prevent me from doing so, I shall go to the Court of
Chancery, lay all the facts before it, as I have been advised that I can
do—not by Alan—please remember, all the facts, and ask for
its protection and for a separate maintenance out of my estate until I am
twenty-five. I am sure that the Court would grant me this and would declare
that considering his distinguished family and record Alan is a perfectly proper
person to be my affianced husband. I think that is all I have to say.”

“All you have to say!” gasped Mr. Haswell, “all you have to
say, you impertinent and ungrateful minx!” Then he fell into a furious
fit of rage and in language that need not be repeated, poured a stream of
threats and abuse upon Alan and herself. Barbara waited until he ceased from
exhaustion.

“Uncle,” she said, “you should remember that your heart is
weak and you must not overexcite yourself, also when you are calmer, that if
you speak to me like that again, I shall go to the Court at once, for I will
not be sworn at by you or by any other man. I apologize to you, Alan; I am
afraid I have brought you into strange company. Come, my dear, we will go and
order your dogcart,” and putting her arm affectionately through his, she
went with him from the room.

“I wonder who put her up to all this?” gasped Haswell, as the door
closed behind them. “Some infernal lawyer, I’ll be bound. Well, she
has got the whip hand of me, and I can’t face an investigation in
Chancery, especially as the only thing against Vernon is that the value of his
land has fallen. But I swear that she shall never marry him while I
live,” he ended in a kind of shout and the domed and painted ceiling
echoed back his words—“while I live” after which the
room was silent, save for the heavy thumping of his heart.

When Alan reached home that night after his ten-mile drive he sent Jeekie to
tell the housekeeper to find him some food. In his mysterious African fashion
the negro had already collected much intelligence as to the events of the day,
mostly in the servants’ hall, and more particularly from the two
golf-caddies, sons of one of the gardeners, who it seemed instead of retiring
with the clubs, had taken shelter in some tall whins and thence followed the
interview between Barbara and Sir Robert with the intensest interest.
Reflecting that this was not the time to satisfy his burning curiosity, Jeekie
went and in due course returned with some cold mutton and a bottle of claret.
Then came his chance, for Alan could scarcely touch the mutton and demanded
toast and butter.

“Very inferior chop”—that was his West African word for
food—“for a gentleman, Major,” he said, shaking his white
head sympathetically and pointing to the mutton,—“specially when he
has unexpectedly departed from magnificent eating of The Court. Why did you not
wait till after dinner, Major, before retiring?”

Alan laughed at the man’s inflated English, and answered in a more
nervous and colloquial style:

“Because I was kicked out, Jeekie.”

“Ah! I gathered that kicking was in the wind, Major. Sir Robert Aylward,
Bart., he also was kicked out, but by smaller toe.”

Again Alan laughed and, as it was a relief to talk even to Jeekie, asked him:

“How do you know that?”

“I gathered it out of atmosphere, Major; from Sir Robert’s
gentleman, from two youths who watch Sir Robert and Miss Barbara talking upon
golf green No. 9, from the machine driver of Sir Robert whose eyes he damn in
public, and last but not least from his own noble countenance.”

“I see that you are observant, Jeekie.”

“Observation, Major, it is art of life. I see Miss Barbara’s eyes
red like morning sky and I deduct. I see you shot out and gloomy like evening
cloud, and I deduct. I listen at door of Mr. Haswell’s room, I hear him
curse and swear like holy saint in Book, and you and Miss Barbara answer him
not like saint, though what you speak I cannot hear, and I deduct. Jeekie
deduct this—that you make love to Miss Barbara in proper gentlemanlike,
’nogamous, Christian fashion such as your late Reverend Uncle approve,
and Miss Barbara, she make love to you with ten per cent. compound interest,
but old gent with whistle, he not approve; he say, ‘Where
corresponding cash!’ He say ‘Noble Sir Robert have much cash and
interested in identical business. I prefer Sir Robert. Get out, you
Cashless.’ Often I see this same thing when boy in West Africa, very
common wherever sun shine. I note all these matters and I deduct—that
Jeekie’s way and Jeekie seldom wrong.”

Alan laughed for the third time, until the tears ran down his face indeed.

“Jeekie,” he said, “you are a great
rascal——”

“Yes, yes,” interrupted Jeekie, “great rascal. Best thing to
be in this world, Major. Honourable Sir Robert, Bart., M.P., and Mr.
Champers-Haswell, D.L., J.P., they find that out long ago and sit on top of
tree of opulent renown. Jeekie great rascal and therefore have Savings Bank
account—go on, Major.”

“Well, Jeekie, because if you are a rascal you are kind-hearted and
because I believe that you care for me——”

“Oh! Major,” broke in Jeekie again, “that most
’utterably true. Honour bright I love you, Major, better than anyone on
earth, except my late old woman, now happily dead, gone and forgotten in best
oak coffin, £4 10 without fittings but polished, and perhaps your holy uncle,
Reverend Mr. Austin, also coffined and departed, who saved me from early
extinction in a dark place. Major, I no like graves, I see too much of them,
and can’t tell what lie on other side. Though everyone say they know,
Jeekie not quite sure. May be all light and crowns of glory, may be damp black
hole and no way out. But this at least true, that I love you better, yes,
better than Miss Barbara, for love of woman very poor, uncertain thing, quick
come, quick go. Jeekie find that out—often. Yes, if need be, though death
most nasty, if need be I say I die for you, which great unpleasant
sacrifice,” and Jeekie in the genuine enthusiasm of his warm heart,
throwing himself upon his knees after the African fashion, seized his
master’s hand and kissed it.

“Thanks, Jeekie,” said Alan, “very kind of you, I am sure.
But we haven’t come to that yet, though no one knows what may happen
later on. Now sit upon that chair and take a little whisky—not too
much—for I am going to ask your advice.”

“Major,” said Jeekie, “I obey,” and seizing the whisky
bottle in a casual manner, he poured out half a tumbler full, for Jeekie was
fond of whisky. Indeed before now this taste had brought him into conflict with
the local magistrates.

“Put back three parts of that,” said Alan, and Jeekie did so.
“Now,” he went on, “listen: this is the case, Miss Barbara
and I are——” and he hesitated.

“Oh! I know; like me and Mrs. Jeekie once,” said Jeekie, gulping
down some of the neat whisky. “Go on, Major.”

“And Sir Robert Aylward is——”

“Same thing, Major. Continue.”

“And Mr. Haswell has——”

“Those facts all ascertained, Major,” said Jeekie, contemplating
his glass with a mournful eye. “Now come to the point, Major.”

“Well, the point is, Jeekie, that I am what you called just now cashless,
and therefore——”

“Therefore,” interrupted Jeekie again, “stick fast in
honourable intention towards Miss Barbara owing to obstinate opposition of Mr.
Haswell, legal uncle with control of property fomented by noble Sir Robert who
desire same girl.”

“Quite right, Jeekie, but if you would talk a little less and let me talk
a little more, we might get on better.”

“I henceforth silent, Major,” and lifting his empty tumbler Jeekie
looked through it as if it were a telescope, a hint that Alan ignored.

“Jeekie, you infernal old fool, I want money.”

“Yes, Major, I understand, Major. Forgive me for breaking conspiracy of
silence, but if £500 in Savings Bank any use, very much at your service, Major;
also £20 more extracted last night from terror of wealthy Jew who fear
fetish.”

“Jeekie, you old donkey, I don’t want your £500; I want a great
deal more, £50,000 or £500,000. Tell me how to get it.”

“City best place, Major. But you chuck City, too much honest man, great
mistake to be honest in this terrestrial sphere. Often notice that in West
Africa.”

“Perhaps, Jeekie, but I have done with the City. As you would say, for me
it is ‘wipe out, finish.’”

“Yes, Major, too much pickpocket, too much dirt. Bottom always drop out
of bucket shop at last. I understand, end in police court and severe
magistrate, or perhaps even ‘Gentlemen of Jury’; etcetera.”

“Well, Jeekie, then what remains? Now last night when you told us that
amazing yarn of yours, you said something about a mountain full of gold, and
houses full of gold, among your people. Jeekie, do you
think——” and he paused, looking at him.

Jeekie rolled his black eyes round the room and in a fit of absentmindedness
helped himself to some more whisky.

“Do I think, Major, that this useless lucre could be converted into coin
of gracious King Edward? Not at all, Major, by no one, Major, by no one
whatsoever, except possibly by Major Alan Vernon, D.S.O., and by one, Jeekie,
Christian surname Smith.”

“Proceed, Jeekie,” said Alan, removing the whisky bottle,
“proceed and explain.”

“Major, thus: The Asiki tribe care nothing about all that gold, it no
good to them. Dead people who live long, long ago, no one know when, dig it up
and store it there and make the great fetish which they call Bonsa to keep away
enemy who want to steal. Also old custom when any one in country round find big
nugget, or pretty stone, like ladies wear on bosom, to bring it as offering to
Bonsa, so that there now great plenty of all this stuff. But no one use it for
anything except to set on walls of house of Asiki, or to make basin, stool,
table and pot to cook with. Once Arab come there and I see the priests give him
weight in gold for iron hoe, though afterwards they murder him, not for the
gold, but lest he go away and tell their secret.”

“One might trade with them then, Jeekie?”

He shook his white head doubtfully.

“Yes, perhaps, if you find anything they want buy and can carry it
Asiki-Land. But I think there only one thing they want, and you got that,
Major.”

“I, Jeekie! What have I got?”

The negro leant forward and tapped his master on the knee, saying in a
portentous whisper:

“You got Little Bonsa, which much more holy than anything, even than Big
Bonsa her husband, I mean greater, more powerful devil. That Little Bonsa sit
in front room Asika’s house, and when she want see things, she put it in
big basin of gold, but I no tell you what it float in. Also once or twice every
year they take out Little Bonsa; Asika wear it on head as mask, and whoever
they meet they kill as offering to Little Bonsa, so that spirit come back to
world to be priest of Bonsa. I tell you, Major, that Yellow God see many
thousand of people die.”

“Indeed,” said Alan. “A pleasing fetish truly. I should think
that the Asiki must be glad it is gone.”

“No, not glad, very sorry. No luck for them when Little Bonsa go away,
but plenty luck for those who got her. That why firm Aylward & Haswell make
so much money when you join them and bring her to office. She drop green in eye
of public so they no smell rat. That why you so lucky, not die of blackwater
fever when you should; get safe out of den of thieves in City with good name;
win love of sweet maiden, Miss Barbara. Little Bonsa do all those things for
you, and by and by do plenty more, as Little Bonsa bring my old master, your
holy uncle, safe out of that country because all the Asiki run away when they
see him wear her on head, for they think she come sacrifice them after she eat
up my life.”

“I don’t wonder that they ran,” said Alan, laughing, for the
vision of a missionary with Little Bonsa on his head caught his fancy.
“But come to the point, you old heathen. What do you mean that I should
do?”

“Jeekie not heathen now, Major, but plenty other things true in this
world, besides Christian religion. I no want you do anything, but I say
this—you go back to Asiki wearing Little Bonsa on head and dressed like
Reverend uncle whom you very like, for he just your age then thirty years ago,
and they give you all the gold you want, if you give them back Little Bonsa
whom they love and worship for ever and ever, for Little Bonsa very, very
old.”

Alan sat up in his chair and stared at Jeekie, while Jeekie nodded his head at
him.

“There is something in it,” he said slowly, speaking more to
himself than to the negro, “and perhaps that is why I would not sell the
fetish, for as you say, there are plenty of true things in the world besides
those which we believe. But, Jeekie, how should I find the way?”

“No trouble, Major, Little Bonsa find way, want to get back home, very
hungry by now, much need sacrifice. Think it good thing kill pig to Little
Bonsa—or even lamb. She know you do your best, since human being not to
be come at in Christian land, and say ‘thank you for life of
pig.’”

“Stop that rubbish,” said Alan. “I want a guide; if I go,
will you come with me?”

At this suggestion the negro looked exceedingly uncomfortable.

“Not like to, not like to at all,” he said, rolling his eyes.
“Asiki-land very funny place for native-born. But,” he added sadly,
“if you go Jeekie must, for I servant of Little Bonsa and if I stay
behind, she angry and kill me because I not attend her where she walk. But
perhaps if I go and take her to Gold House again, she pleased and let me off.
Also I able help you there. Yes, if you and Little Bonsa go, think I go
too.”

After this announcement Jeekie rose and walked down the room, carrying the cold
mutton in his hand. Then he returned, replaced it on the table and standing in
front of Alan, said earnestly:

“Major, I tell you all truth, just this once. Jeekie believe he
got go with you to Asiki-land. Jeekie have plenty bad dream lately,
Little Bonsa come in middle of the night and sit on his stomach and scratch his
face with her gold leg, and say, ‘Jeekie, Jeekie, you son of Bonsa, you
get up quick and take me back Bonsa Town, for I darned tired of City fog and
finished all I come here to do. Now I want jolly good sacrifice and got plenty
business attend to there at home, things you not understand just yet. You take
me back sharp, or I make you sit up, Jeekie, my boy;’” and he
paused.

“Indeed,” said Alan; “and did she tell you anything else in
her midnight visitations?”

“Yes, Major. She say, ‘You take that white master of yours along
also, for I want come back Asiki-land on his head, and someone wish see him
there, old pal what he forgot but what not forget him. You tell him Little
Bonsa got score she wants settle with that party and wish use him to square
account. You tell him too that she pay him well for trip; he lose nothing if he
play her game ’cause she got no score against him. But if he not go, that
another matter, then he look out, for Little Bonsa very nasty customer if she
riled, as his late partners find out one day.’”

“Oh! shut up, Jeekie. What’s the use of wasting time telling me
your nightmares?”

“Very well, Major, just as you like, Major. But I got other reasons why I
willing go. Jeekie want see his ma.”

“Your ma? I never heard you had a ma. Besides she must be dead long
ago.”

“No, Major, ’cause she turn up in dream too, very much alive, swear
at me ’cause I bag her blanket. Also she tough old woman, take lot kill
her.”

“Perhaps you have a pa too,” suggested Alan.

“Think not, Major, my ma always say she forget him. What she mean, she
not like talk about him, he such a swell. Why Jeekie so strong, so clever and
with such beautiful face? No doubt because he is son of very great man. All
this true reason why he want to go with you, Major. Still, p’raps poor
old Jeekie make mistake, p’raps he dream ’cause he eat too much
supper, p’raps his ma dead, after all. If so, p’raps better stay at
home—not know.”

“No,” answered Alan, “not know. What between Little Bonsa and
one thing and another my head is swimming—like Little Bonsa in the
water.”

“Big Bonsa swim in water,” interrupted Jeekie. “Little Bonsa
swim in gold tub.”

“Well, Big Bonsa, or Little Bonsa, I don’t care which. I’m
going to bed and you had better clear away these things and do the same. But,
Jeekie, if you say a word of our talk to anyone, I shall be very angry. Do you
understand?”

“Yes, Major, I understand. I understand that if I tell secrets of Little
Bonsa to anyone except you with whom she live in strange land far away from
home, Little Bonsa come at me like one lion, and cut my throat. No fear Jeekie
split on Little Bonsa, oh! no fear at all,” and still shaking his head
solemnly, for the second time he seized the cold mutton and vanished from the
room.

“A farrago of superstitious nonsense,” thought Alan to himself when
he had gone. “But still there may be something to be made out of it.
Evidently there is lots of gold in this Asiki country, if only one can persuade
the people to deal.”

Then weary of Jeekie and his tribal gods, Alan lit his pipe and sat a while
thinking of Barbara and all the events of that tumultuous day. Notwithstanding
his rebuff at the hands of Mr. Haswell and the difficulties and dangers which
threatened, he felt even then that it had been a happy and a fortunate day. For
had he not discovered that Barbara loved him with all her heart and soul as he
loved Barbara? And as this was so, he did not care a—Little Bonsa about
anything else. The future must look to itself, sufficient to the day was the
abiding joy thereof.

So he went to bed and for a while to sleep, but he did not sleep very long, for
presently he fell to dreaming, something about Big Bonsa and Little Bonsa which
sat, or rather floated on either side of his couch and held an interminable
conversation over him, while Jeekie and Sir Robert Aylward, perched
respectively at its head and its foot, like the symbols of the good and evil
genii on a Mohammedan tomb, acted as a kind of insane chorus. He struck his
repeater, it was only one o’clock, so he tried to go to sleep again, but
failed utterly. Never had he been more painfully awake.

For an hour or more Alan persevered, then at last in despair he jumped out of
bed wondering what he could do to occupy his mind. Suddenly he remembered the
diary of his uncle, the Rev. Mr. Austin, which he had inherited with the Yellow
God and a few other possessions, but never examined. They had been put away in
a box in the library about fifteen years before, just at the time he entered
the army, and there doubtless they remained. Well, as he could not sleep, why
should he not examine them now, and thus get through some of this weary night?

He lit a candle and went down to the library, an ancient and beautiful
apartment with black oak panelling between the bookcases, set there in the time
of Elizabeth. In this panelling there were cupboards, and in one of the
cupboards was the box he sought, made of teak wood. On its lid was painted,
“The Reverend Henry Austin. Passenger to Acra,” showing that it had
once been his uncle’s cabin box. The key hung from the handle, and having
lit more candles, Alan drew it out and unlocked it, to be greeted by a smell of
musty documents done up in great bundles. One by one he placed them on the
floor. It was a dreary occupation alone there in that great, silent room at the
dead of night, one indeed with which he was soon satisfied, for somehow it
reminded him of rifling coffins in a vault. Before him so carefully put away
lay the records of a good if not a distinguished life, and until this moment he
had never found the energy even to look through them.

At length he came to the end of the bundles and saw that beneath lay a number
of manuscript books packed closely with their backs upwards,
marked—“Journal”—and with the year and sometimes the
place of the author’s residence. As he glanced at them in dismay, for
they were many, his eye caught the title of one inscribed—as were several
others—“West Africa,” and written in brackets
beneath—“This vol. contains all that is left of the notes of my
escape with Jeekie from the Asiki Devil-worshippers.”

Alan drew it out, and having refilled and closed the box, bore it off to his
room, where he proceeded to read it in bed. As a matter of fact he found that
there was not very much to read, for the reason that most of the
closely-written volume had been so damaged by water, that the pencilled writing
had run and become utterly illegible. The centre pages, however, not having
been soaked, could still be deciphered, at any rate in part, also there was a
large manuscript map, executed in ink, apparently at a later date, on the back
of which was written: “I purpose, D.V., to re-write at some convenient
time all the history of my visit to the unknown Asiki people, as my original
notes were practically destroyed when the canoe overset in the rapids and most
of our few possessions were lost, except this book and the gold fetish mask
which is called Little Bonsa or Small Swimming Head. This I think I can do with
the aid of Jeekie from memory, but as the matter has only a personal and no
religious interest, seeing that I was not able even to preach the Word among
those benighted and bloodthirsty savages in whose country, as I verily
believe, the Devil has one of his principal habitations, it must stand over
till a convenient season, such as the time of old age or sickness. H.A.”

“P.S. I ought to add with gratitude that even out of this hell fire I was
enabled to snatch one brand from the burning, namely, the negro lad, Jeekie, to
whose extraordinary resource and faithfulness I owe my escape. After a long
hesitation I have been able to baptize him, although I fear that the taint of
heathenism still clings to him. Thus not six months ago I caught him
sacrificing a white cock to the image, Little Bonsa, in gratitude, as to my
horror he explained, for my having been appointed an Honorary Canon of the
Cathedral. I have told him to take that ugly mask which has been so often
soaked in human blood, and melt it down over the kitchen stove, after picking
out the gems in the eyes, that the proceeds may be given to the poor.
Note. I had better see to this myself, as where Little Bonsa is
concerned, Jeekie is not to be trusted. He says (with some excuse) that it has
magic, and that if he melts it down, he will melt down too, and so shall I. How
dark and ridiculous are the superstitions of the heathen! Perhaps, however,
instead of destroying the thing, which is certainly unique, I might sell it to
a museum, and thus spare the feelings of that weak vessel, Jeekie, who
otherwise would very likely take it into his head to waste away and die, as
these Africans do when their nerves are affected by terror of their
fetish.”

CHAPTER VII.
THE DIARY.

Reflecting that time evidently had made little change in Jeekie, Alan studied
this route map with care, and found that it started from Old Calabar, in the
Bight of Biafra, on the west coast of Africa, whence it ran up to the Great Qua
River, which it followed for a long way. Then it struck across country marked
“dense forest,” northwards, and came to a river called Katsena,
along the banks of which the route went eastwards. Thence it turned northward
again through swamps, and ended in mountains called Shaku. In the middle of
these mountains was written “Asiki People live here on Raaba River.”

The map was roughly drawn to scale, and Alan, who was an engineer accustomed to
such things, easily calculated that the distance of this Raaba River from Old
Calabar was about 350 miles as the crow flies, though probably the actual route
to be travelled was nearer five hundred miles.

Having mastered the map, he opened the water-soaked diary. Turning page after
page, only here and there could he make out a sentence, such as “so I
defied that beautiful but terrific woman. I, a Christian minister, the husband
of a heathen priestess! Perish the thought. Sooner would I be sacrificed to
Bonsa.”

Then came more illegible pages and again a paragraph that could be
read—“They gave me ‘The Bean’ in a gold cup, and
knowing its deadly nature I prepared myself for death. But happily for me my
stomach, always delicate, rejected it at once, though I felt queer for days
afterwards. Whereon they clapped their hands and said I was evidently innocent
and a great medicine man.”

And again, further on—“never did I see so much gold whether in
dust, nuggets, or worked articles. I imagine it must be worth millions, but at
that time gold was the last thing with which I wished to trouble myself.”

After this entry many pages were utterly effaced.

The last legible passage ran as follows—“So guided by the lad
Jeekie, and wearing the gold mask, Little Bonsa, on my head, I ran through them
all, holding him by the hand as though I were dragging him away. A strange
spectacle I must have been with my old black clergyman’s coat buttoned
about me, my naked legs and the gold mask, as pretending to be a devil such as
they worship, I rushed through them in the moonlight, blowing the whistle in
the mask and bellowing like a bull. . . . Such was the beginning of my dreadful
six months’ journey to the coast. Setting aside the mercy of Providence
that preserved me for its own purposes, I could never have lived to reach it
had it not been for Little Bonsa, since curiously enough I found this fetish
known and dreaded for hundreds of miles, and that by people who had never seen
it, yes, even by the wild cannibals. Whenever it was produced food, bearers,
canoes, or whatever else I might want were forthcoming as though by magic.
Great is the fame of Big and Little Bonsa in all that part of West Africa,
although, strange as it may seem, the outlying tribes seldom mention them by
name. If they must speak of either of these images which are supposed to be man
and wife, they call it the ‘Yellow-God-who-lives-yonder.’”

Not another word of all this strange history could Alan decipher, so with
aching eyes he shut up the stained and tattered volume, and at last, just as
the day was breaking, fell asleep.

At eleven o’clock on that same morning, for he had slept late, Alan rose
from his breakfast and went to smoke his pipe at the open door of the beautiful
old hall in Yarleys that was clad with brown Elizabethan oak for which any
dealer would have given hundreds of pounds. It was a charming morning, one of
those that comes to us sometimes in an English April when the air is soft like
that of Italy and the smell of the earth rises like that of incense, and little
clouds float idly across a sky of tender blue. Standing thus he looked out upon
the park where the elms already showed a tinge of green and the ash-buds were
coal black. Only the walnuts and the great oaks, some of them pollards of a
thousand years of age, remained stark and stern in their winter dress.

Alan was in a reflective mood and involuntarily began to wonder how many of his
forefathers had stood in that same spot upon such April mornings and looked out
upon those identical trees wakening in the breath of spring. Only the trees and
the landscape knew, those trees which had seen every one of them borne to
baptism, to bridal and to burial. The men and women themselves were forgotten.
Their portraits, each in the garb of his or her generation, hung here and there
upon the walls of the ancient house which once they had owned or inhabited, but
who remembered anything of them to-day? In many cases their names even were
lost, for believing that they, so important in their time, could never sink
into oblivion, they had not thought it necessary to record them upon their
pictures.

And now the thing was coming to an end. Unless in this way or in that he could
save it, what remained of the old place, for the outlying lands had long since
been sold, must go to the hammer and become the property of some pushing and
successful person who desired to found a family, and perhaps in days to be
would claim these very pictures that hung upon the walls as those of his own
ancestors, declaring that he had brought in the estate because he was a
relative of the ancient and ruined race.

Well, it was the way of the world, and perhaps it must be so, but the thought
of it made Alan Vernon sad. If he could have continued that business, it might
have been otherwise. By this hour his late partners, Sir Robert Aylward and Mr.
Champers-Haswell, were doubtless sitting in their granite office in the City,
probably in consultation with Lord Specton, who had taken his place upon the
Board of the great Company which was being subscribed that day. No doubt
applications for shares were pouring in by the early posts and by telegram, and
from time to time Mr. Jeffreys respectfully reported their number and amount,
while Sir Robert looked unconcerned and Mr. Haswell rubbed his hands and
whistled cheerfully. Almost he could envy them, these men who were realizing
great fortunes amidst the bustle and excitement of that fierce financial life,
whilst he stood penniless and stared at the trees and the ewes which wandered
among them with their lambs, he who, after all his work, was but a failure.
With a sigh he turned away to fetch his cap and go out walking—there was
a tenant whom he must see, a shifty, new-fangled kind of man who was always
clamouring for fresh buildings and reductions in his rent. How was he to pay
for more buildings? He must put him off, or let him go.

Just then a sharp sound caught his ear, that of an electric bell. It came from
the telephone which, since he had been a member of a City firm, he had caused
to be put into Yarleys at considerable expense in order that he might be able
to communicate with the office in London. “Were they calling him up from
force of habit?” he wondered. He went to the instrument which was fixed
in a little room he used as a study, and took down the receiver.

“Who is it?” he asked. “I am Yarleys. Alan Vernon.”

“And I am Barbara,” came the answer. “How are you, dear? Did
you sleep well?”

“No, very badly.”

“Nerves—Alan, you have got nerves. Now although I had a worse day
than you did, I went to bed at nine, and protected by a perfect conscience,
slumbered till nine this morning, exactly twelve hours. Isn’t it clever
of me to think of this telephone, which is more than you would ever have done?
My uncle has departed to London vowing that no letter from you shall enter this
house, but he forgot that there is a telephone in every room, and in fact at
this moment I am speaking round by his office within a yard or two of his head.
However, he can’t hear, so that doesn’t matter. My blessing be on
the man who invented telephones, which hitherto I have always thought an awful
nuisance. Are you feeling cheerful, Alan?”

“Very much the reverse,” he answered; “never was more gloomy
in my life, not even when I thought I had to die within six hours of blackwater
fever. Also I have lots that I want to talk to you about and I can’t do
it at the end of this confounded wire that your uncle may be tapping.”

“I thought it might be so,” answered Barbara, “so I just rang
you up to wish you good-morning and to say that I am coming over in the motor
to lunch with my maid Snell as chaperone. All right, don’t remonstrate, I
am coming over to lunch—I can’t hear you—never mind
what people will say. I am coming over to lunch at one o’clock, mind you
are in. Good-bye, I don’t want much to eat, but have something for Snell
and the chauffeur. Good-bye.”

Then the wire went dead, nor could all Alan’s “Hello’s”
and “Are you there’s?” extract another syllable.

Having ordered the best luncheon that his old housekeeper could provide Alan
went off for his walk in much better spirits, which were further improved by
his success in persuading the tenant to do without the new buildings for
another year. In a year, he reflected, anything might happen. Then he returned
by the wood where a number of new-felled oaks lay ready for barking. This was
not a cheerful sight; it seemed so cruel to kill the great trees just as they
were pushing their buds for another summer of life. But he consoled himself by
recalling that they had been too crowded and that the timber was really needed
on the estate. As he reached the house again carrying a bunch of white violets
which he had plucked in a sheltered place for Barbara, he perceived a motor
travelling at much more than the legal speed up the walnut avenue which was the
pride of the place. In it sat that young lady herself, and her maid, Snell, a
middle-aged woman with whom, as it chanced, he was on very good terms, as once,
at some trouble to himself, he had been able to do her a kindness.

The motor pulled up at the front door and out of it sprang Barbara, laughing
pleasantly and looking fresh and charming as the spring itself.

“There will be a row over this, dear,” said Alan, shaking his head
doubtfully when at last they were alone together in the hall.

“Of course, there’ll be a row,” she answered. “I mean
that there shall be a row. I mean to have a row every day if necessary, until
they leave me alone to follow my own road, and if they won’t, as I said,
to go to the Court of Chancery for protection. Oh! by the way, I have brought
you a copy of The Judge. There’s a most awful article in it about
that Sahara flotation, and among other things it announces that you have left
the firm and congratulates you upon having done so.”

“They’ll think I have put it in,” groaned Alan as he glanced
at the head lines, which were almost libellous in their vigour, and the
summaries of the financial careers of Sir Robert Aylward and Mr.
Champers-Haswell. “It will make them hate me more than ever, and I say,
Barbara, we can’t live in an atmosphere of perpetual warfare for the next
two years.”

“I can, if need be,” answered that determined young woman.
“But I admit that it would be trying for you, if you stay here.”

“That’s just the point, Barbara. I must not stay here, I must go
away, the further the better, until you are your own mistress.”

“Where to, Alan?”

“To West Africa, I think.”

“To West Africa?” repeated Barbara, her voice trembling a little.
“After that treasure, Alan?”

“Yes, Barbara. But first come and have your lunch, then we will talk. I
have got lots to tell and show you.”

So they lunched, speaking of indifferent things, for the servant was there
waiting on them. Just as they were finishing their meal Jeekie entered the room
carrying a box and a large envelope addressed to his master, which he said had
been sent by special messenger from the office in London.

“What’s in the box?” asked Alan, looking somewhat nervously
at the envelope, which was addressed in a writing that he knew.

“Don’t know for certain, Major,” answered Jeekie, “but
think Little Bonsa; think I smell her through wood.”

“Well, look and see,” replied Alan, while he broke the seal of the
envelope and drew out its contents. They proved to be sundry documents sent by
the firm’s lawyers, among which were a notice of the formal dissolution
of partnership to be approved by him before it appeared in the Gazette,
a second notice calling in a mortgage for fifteen thousand and odd pounds on
Yarleys, which as a matter of business had been taken over by the firm while he
was a partner; a cash account showing a small balance against him, and finally
a receipt for him to sign acknowledging the return of the gold image that was
his property.

“You see,” said Alan with a sigh, pushing over the papers to
Barbara, who read them carefully one by one.

“I see,” she answered presently. “It is war to the knife.
Alan, I hate the idea of it, but perhaps you had better go away. While you are
here they will harass the life out of you.”

Meanwhile with the aid of a big jack-knife and the dining-room poker, Jeekie
had prised off the lid of the box. Chancing to look round Barbara saw him on
his knees muttering something in a strange tongue, and bowing his white head
until it touched an object that lay within the box.

“What are you doing, Jeekie?” she asked.

“Make bow to Little Bonsa, Miss Barbara, tell her how glad I am see her
come back from town. She like feel welcome. Now you come bow too, Little Bonsa
take that as compliment.”

“I won’t bow, but I will look, Jeekie, for although I have heard so
much about it I have never really examined this Yellow God.”

“Very good, you come look, miss,” and Jeekie propped up the case
upon the end of the dining-room table. As from its height and position she
could not see its contents very well whilst standing above it, Barbara knelt
down to get a better view of it.

“My goodness!” she exclaimed, “what a terrible face,
beautiful too in its way.”

Hardly had the words left her lips when for some reason unexplained that
probably had to do with the shifting of the centre of gravity, Little Bonsa
appeared to glide or fall out of her box with a startling suddenness, and
project herself straight at Barbara, who, with a faint scream, fearing lest the
precious thing should be injured, caught it in her arms and for a moment hugged
it to her breast.

“Saved!” she exclaimed, recovering herself and placing it on the
table, whereon Jeekie, to their astonishment, began to execute a kind of war
dance.

“Oh! yes,” he said, “saved, very much saved. All saved, most
magnificent omen. Lady kneel to Little Bonsa and Little Bonsa nip out of box,
make bow and jump in lady’s arms. That splendid, first-class luck, for
miss and everybody. When Little Bonsa do that need fear nothing no more. All
come right as rain.”

“Nonsense,” said Barbara, laughing. Then from a cautious distance
she continued her examination of the fetish.

“See,” said Jeekie, pointing to the misshapen little gold legs
which were yet so designed that it could be stood up upon them, “when
anyone wear Little Bonsa, tie her on head behind by these legs; look, here same
old leather string. Now I put her on, for she like to be worn again,” and
with a quick movement he clapped the mask on to his face, manipulated the
greasy black leather thongs and made them fast. Thus adorned the great negro
looked no less than terrific.

“I see you, miss,” he said, turning the fixed eyes of opal-like
stone, bloodshot with little rubies, upon Barbara, “I see you, though
you no see me, for these eyes made very cunning. But listen, you hear
me,” and suddenly from the mask, produced by some contrivance set within
it, there proceeded an awful, howling sound that made her shiver.

“Take that thing off, Jeekie,” said Alan, “we don’t
want any banshees here.”

“Banshees? Not know him, he poor English fetish p’raps,” said
Jeekie, as he removed the mask. “This real African god, howl banshee and
all that sort into middle of next week. This Little Bonsa and no mistake, ten
thousand years old and more, eat up lives, so many that no one can count them,
and go on eating for ever, yes unto the third and fourth generation, as Ten
Commandments lay it down for benefit of Christian man, like me. Look at her
again, Miss Barbara.”

Miss Barbara took the hateful, ancient thing in her hands and studied it. No
one could doubt its antiquity, for the gold plate of which it was made was
literally worn away wherever it had touched the foreheads of the high priests
or priestesses who donned it upon festive occasions or days of sacrifice,
showing that hundreds and hundreds of them must have used it thus in
succession. So was the vocal apparatus within the mouth, and so were the little
toad-like feet upon which it was stood up. Also the substance of the gold
itself was here and there pitted as though with acid or salts, though what
those salts were she did not inquire. And yet, so consummate was the art with
which it had originally been fashioned, that the battered beautiful face of
Little Bonsa still peered at them with the same devilish smile that it had worn
when it left the hands of its maker, perhaps before Mohammed preached his holy
war, or even earlier.

“What is all that writing on the back of it?” asked Barbara,
pointing to the long lines of rune-like characters which were inscribed within
it.

“Not know, miss, think they dead tongue cut in the beginning when black
men could write. But Asiki priests swear they remember every one of them, and
that why no one can copy Little Bonsa, for they look inside and see if marks
all right. They say they names of those who died for Little Bonsa, and when
they all done, Little Bonsa begin again, for Little Bonsa never die. But
p’raps priests lie.”

“I daresay,” said Barbara, “but take Little Bonsa away, for
however lucky she may be, she makes me feel sick.”

“Where I put her, Major?” asked Jeekie of Alan. “In box in
library where she used to live, or in plate-safe with spoons? Or under your bed
where she always keep eye on you?”

“Oh! put her with the spoons,” said Alan angrily, and Jeekie
departed with his treasure.

“I think, dear,” remarked Barbara as the door closed behind him,
“that if I come to lunch here any more, I shall bring my own christening
present with me, for I can’t eat off silver that has been shut up with
that thing. Now let us get to business—show me the diary and the
map.”

“Dearest Alan,” wrote Barbara from The Court two days later,
“I have been thinking everything over, and since you are so set upon it,
I suppose that you had better go. To me the whole adventure seems perfectly
mad, but at the same time I believe in our luck, or rather in the Providence
which watches over us, and I don’t believe that you, or I either, will
come to any harm. If you stop here, you will only eat your heart out and
communication between us must become increasingly difficult. My uncle is
furious with you, and since he discovered that we were talking over the
telephone, to his own great inconvenience he has had the wires cut outside the
house. That horrid letter of his to you saying that you had
‘compromised’ me in pursuance of a ‘mercenary scheme’
is all part and parcel of the same thing. How are you to stop here and submit
to such insults? I went to see my friend the lawyer, and he tells me that of
course we can marry if we like, but in that case my father’s will, which
he has consulted at Somerset House, is absolutely definite, and if I do so in
opposition to my uncle’s wishes, I must lose everything except £200 a
year. Now I am no money-grubber, but I will not give my uncle the satisfaction
of robbing me of my fortune, which may be useful to both of us by and by. The
lawyer says also that he does not think that the Court of Chancery would
interfere, having no power to do so as far as the will is concerned, and not
being able to make a ward of a person like myself who is over age and has the
protection of the common law of the country. So it seems to me that the only
thing to do is to be patient, and wait until time unties the knot.

“Meanwhile, if you can make some money in Africa, so much the better. So
go, Alan, go as soon as you like, for I do not wish to prolong this agony, or
to see you exposed daily to all you have to bear. Whenever you return you will
find me waiting for you, and if you do not return, still I shall wait, as you
in like circumstances will wait for me. But I think you will return.”

Then followed much that need not be written, and at the end a postscript which
ran:

“I am glad to hear that you have succeeded in shifting the mortgage on
Yarleys, although the interest is so high. Write to me whenever you get a
chance, to the care of the lawyer, for then the letters will reach me, but
never to this house, or they may be stopped. I will do the same to you to the
address you give. Good-bye, dearest Alan, my true and only lover. I wonder
where and when we shall meet again. God be with us both and enable us to bear
our trial.

“P.P.S. I hear that the Sahara flotation was really a success,
notwithstanding the Judge attacks. Sir Robert and my uncle have made
millions. I wonder how long they will keep them.”

A week after he received this letter Alan was on the seas heading for the
shores of Western Africa.

CHAPTER VIII.
THE DWARF FOLK.

It was dawn at last. All night it had rained as it can rain in West Africa,
falling on the wide river with a hissing splash, sullen and continuous. Now,
towards morning, the rain had ceased and everywhere rose a soft and pearly mist
that clung to the face of the waters and seemed to entangle itself like strands
of wool among the branches of the bordering trees. On the bank of the river at
a spot that had been cleared of bush, stood a tent, and out of this tent
emerged a white man wearing a sun helmet and grey flannel shirt and trousers.
It was Alan Vernon, who in these surroundings looked larger and more commanding
than he had done at the London office, or even in his own house of Yarleys.
Perhaps the moustache and short brown beard which he had grown, or his skin,
already altered and tanned by the tropics, had changed his appearance for the
better. At any rate it was changed. So were his manner and bearing, whereof all
the diffidence had gone. Now they were those of a man accustomed to command who
found himself in his right place.

“Jeekie,” he called, “wake up those fellows and come and
light the oil-stove. I want my coffee.”

Thereon a deep voice was heard speaking in some native tongue and saying:

“Cease your snoring, you black hogs, and arouse yourselves, for your lord
calls you,” an invocation that was followed by the sound of kicks,
thumps, and muttered curses.

A minute or two later Jeekie himself appeared, and he also was much changed in
appearance, for now instead of his smart, European clothes, he wore a white
robe and sandals that gave him an air at once dignified and patriarchal.

“Good-morning, Major,” he said cheerfully. “I hope you sleep
well, Major, in this low-lying and accursed situation, which is more than we do
in boat that half full of water, to say nothing of smell of black man and
prevalent mosquito. But the rain it over and gone, and presently the sun shine
out, so might be much worse, no cause at all complain.”

“I don’t know,” answered Alan, with a shiver. “I
believe that I am fever proof, but otherwise I should have caught it last
night, and—just give me the quinine, I will take five grains for
luck.”

“Yes, yes, for luck,” answered Jeekie as he opened the medicine
chest and found the quinine, at the same time glancing anxiously out of the
corner of his eye at his master’s face, for he knew that the spot where
they had slept was deadly to white men at this season of the year. “You
not catch fever, Little Bonsa,” here he dropped his voice and looked down
at the box which had served Alan for a pillow, “see to that. But quinine
give you appetite for breakfast. Very good chop this morning. Which you like
best? Cold ven’son, or fish, or one of them ducks you shoot
yesterday?”

“Oh! some of the cold meat, I think. Give the ducks to the boatmen, I
don’t fancy them in this hot place. By the way, Jeekie, we leave the Qua
River here, don’t we?”

“Yes, yes, Major, just here. I ’member spot well, for your uncle he
pray on it one whole hour; I pretend pray too, but in heart give thanks to
Little Bonsa, for heathen in those days, quite different now. This morning we
begin walk through forest where it rather dark and cool and comfortable, that
is if we no see dwarf people from whom good Lord deliver us,” and he
bowed towards the box containing Little Bonsa.

“Will those four porters come with us through the forest, Jeekie, as they
promised?”

“Yes, yes, they come. Last night they say they not come, too much afraid
of dwarf. But I settle their hash. I tell them I save up bits of their hair and
toe nails when they no thinking, and I mix it with medicine, and if they not
come, they die every one before they get home. They think me great doctor and
they believe. Perhaps they die if they go on. If so, I tell them that because
they want show white feather, and they think me greater doctor still. Oh! they
come, they come, no fear, or else Jeekie know reason why. Now, here coffee,
Major. Drink him hot before you go take tub, but keep in shallow water, because
crocodile he very early riser.”

Alan laughed, and departed to “take tub.” Notwithstanding the
mosquitoes that buzzed round him in clouds, the water was cool and pleasant by
comparison with the hot, sticky air, and the feel of it seemed to rid him of
the languor resulting from his disturbed night.

A month had passed since he had left Old Calabar, and owing to the incessant
rains the journeying had been hard. Indeed the white men there thought that he
was mad to attempt to go up the river at this season. Of course he had said
nothing to them of the objects of his expedition, hinting only that he wished
to explore and shoot, and perhaps prospect for mines. But knowing as they did,
that he was an Engineer officer with a good record and much African experience,
they soon made up their minds that he had been sent by Government upon some
secret mission that for reasons of his own he preferred to keep to himself.
This conclusion, which Jeekie zealously fostered behind his back, in fact did
Alan a good turn, since owing to it he obtained boatmen and servants at a
season when, had he been supposed to be but a private person, these would
scarcely have been forthcoming at any price. Hitherto his journey had been one
long record of mud, mosquitoes, and misery, but otherwise devoid of incident,
except the eating of one of his boatmen by a crocodile which was a particularly
“early riser,” for it had pulled the poor fellow out of the canoe
in which he lay asleep at night. Now, however, the real dangers were about to
begin, since at this spot he left the great river and started forward through
the forest on foot with Jeekie and the four bearers whom he had paid highly to
accompany him.

He could not conceal from himself that the undertaking seemed somewhat
desperate. But of this he said nothing in the long letter he had written to
Barbara on the previous night, sighing as he sealed it, at the thought that it
might well be the last which would ever reach her from him, even if the boatmen
got safely back to Calabar and remembered to put it in the post. The enterprise
had been begun and must be carried through, until it ended in success—or
death.

An hour later they started. First walked Alan as leader of the expedition,
carrying a double-barrelled gun that could be used either for ball or shot,
about fifty cartridges with brass cases to protect them from the damp, a
revolver, a hunting-knife, a cloth mackintosh, and lastly, strapped upon his
back like a knapsack, a tin box containing the fetish, Little Bonsa, which was
too precious to be trusted to anyone else. It was quite a sufficient load for
any white man in that climate, but being very wiry, Alan did not feel its
weight, at any rate at first.

After him in single file came the four porters, laden with a small tent, some
tinned provisions and brandy, ammunition, a box containing beads, watches, etc.
for presents, blankets, spare clothing and so forth. These were stalwart
fellows enough, who knew the forest, but their dejected air showed that now
they had come face to face with its dangers, they heartily wished themselves
anywhere else. Indeed, notwithstanding their terror of Jeekie’s medicine,
at the last moment they threw down their loads intending to make a wild rush
for the departing boat, only to be met by Jeekie himself who, anticipating some
such move, was waiting for them on the bank with a shotgun. Here he remained
until the canoe was too far out in the stream for them to reach it by swimming.
Then he asked them if they wished to sit and starve there with the devils he
would leave them for company, of if they would carry out their bargain like
honest men?

The end of it was they took up their loads again and marched, while behind them
walked the terrible and gigantic Jeekie, the barrels of the shotgun which he
carried at full cock and occasionally used to prod them, pointing directly at
their backs. A strange object he looked truly, for in addition to the weapons
with which he bristled, several cooking-pots were slung about him, to say
nothing of a cork mattress and a mackintosh sheet tied in a flat bundle to his
shoulders, a box containing medicines and food which he carried on his head,
and fastened to the top of it with string like a helmet on a coffin, an
enormous solar-tope stuffed full of mosquito netting, of which the ends fell
about him like a green veil. When Alan remonstrated with him as to the cork
mattress, suggesting that it should be thrown away as too hot to wear, Jeekie
replied that he had been cold for thirty years, and wished to get warm again.
Guessing that his real reason for declining to part with the article, was that
his master should have something to lie on, other than the damp ground, Alan
said no more at the time, which, as will be seen, was fortunate enough for
Jeekie.

For a mile or more their road ran through fantastic-looking mangrove trees
rooted in the mud, that in the mist resembled, Alan thought, many-legged
arboreal octopi feeling for their food, and tall reeds on the tops of which sat
crowds of chattering finches. Then just as the sun broke out, strongly,
cheering them with its warmth and sucking up the vapours, they entered sparse
bush with palms and great cotton trees growing here and there, and so at length
came to the borders of the mighty forest.

Oh! dark, dark was that forest; he who entered it from the cheerful sunshine
felt as though suddenly and without preparation he had wandered out of the
light we know into some dim Hades such as the old Greek fancy painted, where
strengthless ghosts flit aimlessly, mourning the lost light. Everywhere the
giant boles of trees shooting the height of a church tower into the air without
a branch; great rib-rooted trees, and beneath them a fierce and hungry growth
of creepers. Where a tree had fallen within the last century or so, these
creepers ramped upwards in luxuriance, their stems thick as the body of a man,
drinking the shaft of light that pierced downwards, drinking it with eagerness
ere the boughs above met again and starved them. Where no tree had fallen the
creepers were thin and weak; from year to year they lived on feebly, biding
their time, but still they lived, knowing that some day it would come. And
always it was coming to those expectant parasites, since from minute to minute,
somewhere in the vast depths, miles and miles away perhaps, a great crash
echoed in the stillness, the crash of a tree that, sown when the Saxons ruled
in England, or perhaps before Cleopatra bewitched Anthony, came to its end at
last.

On the second day of their march in the forest Alan chanced to see such a tree
fall, and the sight was one that he never could forget. As it happened, owing
to the vast spread of its branches which had killed out all rivals beneath, for
in its day it had been a very successful tree embued with an excellent
constitution by its parent, it stood somewhat alone, so that from several
hundred yards away as these six human beings crept towards it like ants towards
a sapling in a cornfield, its mighty girth and bulk set upon a little mound and
the luxuriant greenness of its far-reaching boughs made a kind of landmark.
Then in the hot noon when no breath of wind stirred, suddenly the end came.
Suddenly that mighty bole seemed to crumble; suddenly those far-reaching arms
were thrown together as their support failed, gripping at each other like
living things, flogging the air, screaming in their last agony, and with an
awful wailing groan sinking, a tumbled ruin, to the earth.

Silence again, and in the midst of the silence Jeekie’s cheerful voice.

“Old tree go flop! Glad he no flop on us, thanks be to Little Bonsa. Get
on, you lazy nigger dog. Who pay you stand there and snivel? Get on or I blow
out your stupid skull,” and he brought the muzzle of the full-cocked,
double-barrelled gun into sharp contact with that part of the terrified
porter’s anatomy.

Such was the forest. Of their march through it for the first four days, there
is nothing to tell. Its depths seemed to be devoid of life, although
occasionally they heard the screaming of parrots in the treetops a couple of
hundred feet above, or caught sight of the dim shapes of monkeys swinging
themselves from bough to bough. That was in the daytime, when, although they
could not see it, they knew that the sun was shining somewhere. But at night
they heard nothing, since beasts of prey do not come where there is no food.
What puzzled Alan was that all through these impenetrable recesses there ran a
distinct road which they followed. To the right and left rose a wall of
creepers, but between them ran this road, an ancient road, for nothing grew on
it, and it only turned aside to avoid the biggest of the trees which must have
stood there from time immemorial, such a tree as that which he had seen fall;
indeed it was one of those round which the road ran.

He asked Jeekie who made the road.

“People who come out Noah’s Ark,” answered Jeekie, “I
think they run up here to get out of way of water, and sent them two elephants
ahead to make path. Or perhaps dwarf people make it. Or perhaps those who go up
to Asiki-land to do sacrifice like old Jews.”

“You mean you don’t know,” said Alan.

“No, of course don’t know. Who know about forest path made before
beginning of world. You ask question, Major, I answer. More lively answer than
to shake head and roll eyes like them silly fool porters.”

It was on the fourth night that the trouble began. As usual they had lit a huge
fire made of the fallen boughs and rotting tree trunks that lay about in
plenty. There was no reason why the fire should be so large, since they had
little to cook and the air was hot, but they made it so for the same reason
that Jeekie answered questions, for the sake of cheerfulness. At least it gave
light in the darkness, leaping up in red tongues of flame twenty or thirty feet
high, and its roar and crackle were welcome in the primeval silence.

Alan lay upon the cork mattress in the open, for here there was no need to
pitch the tent; if any rain fell above, the canopy of leaves absorbed it. He
was amusing himself while he smoked his pipe with watching the reflection of
the fire-light against a patch of darkness caused probably by some bush about
twenty yards away, and by picturing in his own mind the face of Barbara, that
strong, pleasant English face, as it might appear on such a background.
Suddenly there, on the identical spot he did see a face, though one of a very
different character. It was round and small and hideous, resembling in its
general outline that of a bloated child. At this distance he could not
distinguish the features, except the lips, which were large and pendulous, and
between them the flash of white teeth.

“Look here,” he whispered to Jeekie in English, and Jeekie looked,
then without saying a word, lifted the shotgun that lay at his side and fired
straight at the bush. Instantly there arose a squeaking noise, such as might be
made by a wounded animal, and the four porters sprang up in alarm.

“Sit down,” said Jeekie to them in their own tongue, “a
leopard was stalking us and I fired to frighten it away. Don’t go near
the place, as it may be wounded and angry, but drag up some boughs and make a
fence round the fire, for fear of others.”

The men who dreaded leopards, looking on these animals, indeed, with
superstitious reverence, obeyed readily enough, and as there was plenty of wood
lying within a few yards, soon constructed a boma fence that, rough as
it was, would serve for protection.

“Jeekie,” said Alan presently as they laboured at the fence,
“that was not a leopard, it was a man.”

“No, no, Major, not man, little dwarf devil, him that have poisoned
arrow. I shoot at once to make him sit up. Think he no come back to-night, too
much afraid of shot fetish. But to-morrow, can’t say. Not tell those
fellows anything,” and he nodded towards the porters, “or perhaps
they bolt.”

“I think you would have done better to leave the dwarf alone,” said
Alan, “and they might have left us alone. Now they will have a blood feud
against us.”

“Not agree, Major, only chance for us put him in blue funk. If I not
shoot, presently he shoot,” and he made a sound that resembled the
whistling of an arrow, then added, “Now you go sleep. I not tired, I
watch, my eyes see in dark better than yours. Only two more days of this damn
forest, then open land with tree here and there, where dwarf no come because he
afraid of lion and cannibal man, who like eat him.”

As there was nothing else to be done Alan took Jeekie’s advice and in
time fell fast asleep, nor did he wake again till the faint light which, for the
want of a better name, they called dawn, was filtering down to them through the
canopy of boughs.

“Been to look,” said Jeekie as he handed him his coffee. “Hit
that dwarf man, see his blood, but think others carry him away. Jeekie very
good shot, stone, spear, arrow, or gun, all same to him. Now get off as quick
as we can before porters smell a rat. You eat chop, Major, I pack.”

Presently they started on their trudge through those endless trees, with Fear
for a companion. Even the porters, who had been told nothing, seemed more
afraid than usual, though whether this was because they “smell
rat,” as Jeekie called it, or owing to the progressive breakdown of their
nervous systems, Alan did not know. About midday they stopped to eat because
the men were too tired to walk further without rest. For an hour or more they
had been looking for a comparatively open place, but as it chanced could find
none, so were obliged to halt in dense forest. Just as they had finished their
meal and were preparing to proceed, that which they had feared, happened, since
from somewhere behind the tree boles came a volley of reed arrows. One struck a
porter in the neck, one fixed itself in Alan’s helmet without touching
him, and no less than three hit Jeekie on the back and stuck there,
providentially enough in the substance of the cork mattress that he still
carried on his shoulders, which the feeble shafts had not the strength to
pierce.

Everybody sprang up and with a curious fascination instead of attempting to do
anything, watched the porter who had been hit in the neck somewhere in the
region of the jugular vein. The poor man rose to his feet with great
deliberation, reminding Alan in some grotesque way of a speaker who has
suddenly been called on to address a meeting and seeks to gain time for the
gathering of his thoughts. Then he turned towards that vast audience of the
trees, stretched out his hand with a declamatory gesture, said something in a
composed voice, and fell upon his face stone dead! The swift poison had reached
his heart and done its work.

His three companions looked at him for a moment and the next with a yell of
terror, rushed off into the forest, hurling down their loads as they ran. What
became of them Alan never learned, for he saw them no more, and the dwarf
people keep their secrets. At the time indeed he scarcely noticed their
departure, for he was otherwise engaged.

One of their hideous little assailants, made bold by success, ventured to run
across an open space between two trees, showing himself for a moment. Alan had
a gun in his hand, and mad with rage at what had happened, he raised it and
swung on him as he would upon a rabbit. He was a quick and practised shot and
his skill did not fail him now, for just as the dwarf was vanishing behind a
tree, the bullet caught him and next instant he was seen rolling over and over
upon its further side.

“That very nice,” said Jeekie reflectively, “very nice
indeed, but I think we best move out of this.”

“Aren’t you hurt?” gasped Alan. “Your back is full of
arrows.”

“Don’t feel nothing, Major,” he answered, “best cork
mattress, 25/3 at Stores, very good for poisoned arrow, but leave him behind
now, because perhaps points work through as I run, one scratch do trick,”
and as he spoke Jeekie untied a string or several strings, letting the little
mattress fall to the ground.

“Great pity leave all those goods,” said Jeekie, surveying the
loads that the porters had cast away, “but what says Book? Life more than
raiment. Also take no thought for morrow. Dwarf people do that for us. Come,
Major, make tracks,” and dashing at a bag of cartridges which he cast
about his neck, a trifling addition to his other impedimenta, and a small case
of potted meats that he hitched under his arm, he poked his master in the back
with the muzzle of his full-cocked gun as a signal that it was time to start.

“Keep that cursed thing off me,” said Alan furiously. “How
often have I told you never to carry firearms at full cock?”

“About one thousand times, Major,” answered Jeekie imperturbably,
“but on such occasion forget discreetness. My ma just same, it run in
family, but story too long tell you now. Cut, Major, cut like hell. Them dwarfs
be back soon, but,” he puffed, “I think, I think Little Bonsa come
square with them one day.”

So Alan “cut” and the huge Jeekie blundered along after him, the
paraphernalia with which he was hung about rattling like the hoofs of a
galloping giraffe. Nor for all his load did he ever turn a hair. Whether it
were fear within or a desire to save his master, or a belief in the virtues of
Little Bonsa, or that his foot was, as it were, once more upon his native
heath, the fact remained that notwithstanding the fifty years, almost, that had
whitened his wool, Jeekie was absolutely inexhaustible. At least at the end of
that fearful chase, which lasted all the day, and through the night also, for
they dared not camp, he appeared to be nearly as fresh as when he started from
Old Calabar, nor did his spirits fail him for one moment.

When the light came on the following morning, however, they perceived by many
signs and tokens that the dwarf people were all about them. Some arrows were
shot even, but these fell short.

“Pooh!” said Jeekie, “all right now, they much afraid. Still,
no time for coffee, we best get on.”

So they got on as they could, till towards midday the forest began to thin out.
Now as the light grew stronger they could see the dwarfs, of whom there
appeared to be several hundred, keeping a parallel course to their own on
either side of them at what they thought to be a safe distance.

“Try one shot, I think,” said Jeekie, kneeling down and letting fly
at a clump of the little men, which scattered like a covey of partridges,
leaving one of its number kicking on the ground. “Ah! my boy,”
shouted Jeekie in derision, “how you like bullet in tummy? You not know
Paradox guaranteed flat trajectory 250 yard. You remember that next time,
sonny.” Then off they went again up a long rise.

“River other side of that rise,” said Jeekie. “Think those
tree-monkeys no follow us there.”

But the “monkeys” appeared to be angry and determined. They would
not come any more within the range of the Paradox, but they still marched on
either side of the two fugitives, knowing well that at last their strength must
fail and they would be able to creep up and murder them. So the chase went on
till Alan began to wonder whether it would not be better to face the end at
once.

“No, no, if say die, can’t change mind to-morrow morning,”
gasped Jeekie in a hoarse voice. “Here top rise, much nearer than I
thought. Oh, my aunt! who those?” and he pointed to a large number of big
men armed with spears who were marching up the further side of the hill from
the river that ran below.

At the same moment these savages, who were not more than two hundred yards
away, caught sight of them and of their pursuers, who just then appeared on the
ridge to the right and left. The dwarfs, on perceiving these strangers, uttered
a shrill yell of terror, and wheeled about to fly to their fastnesses in the
forest, which evidently they regretted ever having left. It was too late. With
an answering shout the spearsmen, who were extended in a long line, apparently
hunting for game, charged after them at full speed. They were fresh and their
legs were long. Therefore very soon they overtook the dwarfs and even got in
front of them, heading them off from the forest. The end may be
guessed,—save a few whom they reserved alive, they killed them
mercilessly, and almost without loss to themselves, since the little forest
folk were too terrified and exhausted to shoot at them with their poisoned
arrows, and they had no other weapons.

In fact, as Alan discovered afterwards, for generations there had been war
between them, since all the other tribes hate the dwarfs, whom they look upon
as dangerous human monkeys, and never before had the big men found such a
chance of squaring their account.

When Jeekie saw this fearful-looking company, for the first time his spirits
seemed to fail him.

“Ogula!” he exclaimed with a groan and sat himself upon a flat
rock, pulling Alan down beside him. “Ogula! Know them by hair and
spears,” he repeated. “Up gum tree now, say good-night.”

“Why? Who are they?” gasped Alan.

“Great cannibal, Major, eat man, eat us to-night, or perhaps to-morrow
morning when we nice and cool. Say prayers, Major, quick no time waste.”

“I think I will shoot an Ogula or two first,” said Alan grimly, as
he stood up and lifted his gun.

“No, not shoot, no good. Pretend not be afraid, best chance. Let Jeekie
think, let Jeekie think,” and he slapped his forehead with his large hand.

Apparently the action brought inspiration, for next instant he grabbed his
master by the arm and dragged him back behind the shelter of a big boulder
which they had just passed. Then with really marvellous swiftness he cut the
straps of the tin box that Alan wore upon his back, and since there was no time
to find the key and unlock it, seized the little padlock with which it was
fastened between his finger and thumb, and putting out his great strength, with
a single wrench twisted it off.

“What are you——” began Alan.

“Hold tongue,” he answered savagely, “make you god, I priest.
Ogula know Little Bonsa. Quick, quick!”

In a minute it was done, the golden mask was clapped on to Alan’s head,
and the leather thongs were fastened. Moreover, Jeekie himself was arrayed in
the solar-tope to which all this while he had clung, allowing streams of green
mosquito netting to hang down over his white robe.

“Come out now, Major,” he said, “and play god. You whistle, I
do palaver.”

Then hand in hand they walked from behind the rock. By this time the particular
company of the cannibals that was opposite to them, which happened to include
their chief, had climbed the steep slope of the hill and arrived within a
distance of twenty yards. Having seen the two men and guessed that they had
taken refuge behind the rock, their spears were lifted to kill them, since when
he beholds anything strange, the first impulse of a savage is to bring it to
its death. They looked; they saw. Of a sudden down went the raised spears.

Some of those who held them fell upon their faces, while others turned to fly,
appalled by the vision of this strangely clad man with the head of gold. Only
their chief, a great yellow-toothed fellow who wore a necklace of baboon claws,
remained erect, staring at them with open mouth.

Alan blew the whistle that was set between the lips of the mask, and they
shivered. Then Jeekie spoke to them in some tongue which they understood,
saying:

“Do you, O Ogula, dare to offer violence to Little Bonsa and her priests?
Say now, why should we not strike you dead with the magic of the god which she
has borrowed from the white man?” and he tapped the gun he held.

“This is witchcraft,” answered the chief. “We saw two men
running, hunted by the dwarfs, not three minutes ago, and now we see—what
we see,” and he put his hand before his eyes, then after a pause went
on—“As for Little Bonsa, she left this country in my father’s
day. He gave her passage upon the head of a white man and the Asiki wizards
have mourned her ever since, or so I hear.”

“Fool,” answered Jeekie, “as she went, so she returns, on the
head of a white man. Yonder I see an elder with grey hair who doubtless knew of
Little Bonsa in his youth. Let him come up and look and say whether or no this
is the god.”

“Yes, yes,” exclaimed the chief, “go up, old man, go
up,” and he jabbed at him with his spear until, unwillingly enough, he
went.

The elder arrived, making obeisance, and when he was near, Alan blew the
whistle in his face, whereon he fell to his knees.

“It is Little Bonsa,” he said in a trembling voice, “Little
Bonsa without a doubt. I should know, as my father and my elder brother were
sacrificed to her, and I only escaped because she rejected me. Down on your
face, Chief, and do honour to the Yellow God before she slay you.”

Instantly every man within hearing prostrated himself and lay still. Then
Jeekie strode up and down among them shouting out:

“Little Bonsa has come back and brought to you, Man-eaters, a fat
offering, an offering of the dwarf-people whom you hate, of the treacherous
dwarf-people who when you walk the ancient forest path, murder you with their
poisoned arrows. Praise Little Bonsa who delivers you from your foes, and
hearken to her bidding. Send on messengers to the Asiki saying that Little
Bonsa comes home again from across the Black Water bringing the White Preacher,
whom she led away in the day of their fathers. Say to them that the Asiki must
send out a company that Little Bonsa and the Magician with whom she ran away,
may be escorted back to her house with the state which has been hers from the
beginning of time. Say to them also that they must prepare a great offering of
pure gold out of their store, as much gold as fifty strong men can carry, not
one handful less, to be given to the White Magician who brings back Small
Swimming Head, for if they withhold such an offering, he and Little Bonsa will
vanish never to be seen again, and curses and desolation will fall upon their
land. Rise and obey, Chief of the Ogula.”

Then the man scrambled to his feet and answered:

“It shall be done, O Priest of the Yellow God. To-morrow at the dawn
swift messengers will start for the Gold House of the Asiki. To-night they
cannot leave, as we are all very hungry and must eat.”

“What must you eat?” asked Jeekie suspiciously.

“O Priest,” answered the chief with a deprecatory gesture,
“when first we saw you we hoped that it would be the white man and
yourself, for we have never tasted white man. But now we fear that you will not
consent to this, and as you are holy and the guardian of the god, we cannot eat
you without your own consent. Therefore fat dwarf must be our food, of which,
however, there will be plenty for you as well as us.”

“You dog!” exclaimed Jeekie in a voice of furious indignation.
“Do you think that white men and their high-born companions, such as
myself, were made to fill your vile stomachs? I tell you that a meal of the
deadly Bean would agree better with you, for if you dare so much as to look on
us, or on any of the white race with hunger, agony shall seize your vitals and
you and all your tribe shall die as though by poison. Moreover, we do not touch
the flesh of men, nor will we see it eaten. It is our
‘orunda,’ it is consecrate to us, it must not pass our lips,
nor may our eyes behold it. Therefore we will camp apart from you further up
the stream and find our own food. But to-morrow at the dawn the messengers must
leave as we have commanded. Also you shall provide strong men and a large canoe
to bear Little Bonsa forward towards her own home until she finds her people
coming out to greet her.

“It shall be done,” answered the chief humbly, “Everything
shall be done according to the will of Little Bonsa spoken by her priest, that
she may leave a blessing and not a curse upon the heads of the tribe of the
Ogula. Say where you wish to camp and men shall run to build a house of reeds
for the god to dwell in.”

CHAPTER IX.
THE DAWN.

Jeekie looked up and down the river, and saw that in the centre of it about half
a mile away, there was an island on which grew some trees.

“Little Bonsa will camp yonder,” he said. “Go, make her house
ready, light fire and bring canoe to paddle us across. Now leave us, all of
you, for if you look too long upon the face of the Yellow God she will ask a
sacrifice, and it is not lawful that you should see where she hides herself
away.”

At this saying the cannibals departed as one man, and at top speed, some to the
canoes and others to warn their fellows who were engaged in the congenial work
of hunting and killing the dwarfs, not to dare to approach the white man and
his companion. A third party ran to the bank of the river that was opposite to
the island to make ready as they had been bidden, so that presently Alan and
Jeekie were left quite alone.

“Ah!” said Jeekie, with a gasp of satisfaction, “that
all right, everything arranged quite comfortable. Thought Little Bonsa come out
top somehow and score off dirty dwarf monkeys. They never get home to
tea anyway—stay and dine with Ogula.”

“Stop chattering, Jeekie, and untie this infernal mask, I am almost
choked,” broke in Alan in a hollow voice.

“Not say ‘infernal mask,’ Major, say ‘face of
angel.’ Little Bonsa woman and like it better, also true, if on this
occasion only, for she save our skins,” said Jeekie as he unknotted the
thongs and reverently replaced the fetish in its tin box. “My!” he
added, contemplating his master’s perspiring countenance, “you
blush like garden carrot; well, gold hot wear in afternoon sun beneath Tropic
of Cancer. Now we walk on quietly and I tell you all I arrange for
night’s lodging and future progress of joint expedition.”

So gathering together what remained of their few possessions, they started
leisurely down the slope towards the island, and as they went Jeekie explained
all that had happened, since Ogula was not one of the African languages with
which Alan was acquainted and he had only been able to understand a word here
and there.

“Look,” said Jeekie when he had finished, and turning, he pointed
to the cannibals who were driving the few survivors of the dwarfs before them
to the spot where their canoes were beached. “Those dwarfs done for;
capital business, forest road quite safe to travel home by; Ogula best friends
in world; very remarkable escape from delicate situation.”

“Very remarkable indeed,” said Alan; “I shall soon begin to
believe in the luck of Little Bonsa.”

“Yes, Major, you see she anxious to get home and make path clear.
But,” he added gloomily, “how she behave when she reach there,
can’t say.”

“Nor can I, Jeekie, but meanwhile I hope she will provide us with some
dinner, for I am faint for want of food and all the tinned meat is lost.”

“Food,” repeated Jeekie. “Yes, necessity for human stomach,
which unhappily built that way, so Ogula find out, and so dwarfs find out
presently.” Then he looked about him and in a kind of aimless manner
lifted his gun and fired. “There we are,” he said, “Little
Bonsa understand bodily needs,” and he pointed to a fat buck of the sort
that in South Africa is called Duiker, which his keen eyes had discovered in
its form against a stone where it now lay shot through the head and dying.
“No further trouble on score of grub for next three day,” he added.
“Come on to camp, Major. I send one savage skin and bring that
buck.”

So on they went to the river bank, Alan so tired now that the excitement was
over, that he was not sorry to lean upon Jeekie’s arm. Reaching the
stream they drank deep of its water, and finding that it was shallow at this
spot, waded through it to the island without waiting for a canoe to ferry them
over. Here they found a party of the cannibals already at work clearing reeds
with their large, curved knives, in order to make a site for the hut. Another
party under the command of their chief himself had gone to the top end of the
island, to cut the stems of a willow-like shrub to serve as uprights. These
people stared at Alan, which was not strange, as they had never before seen the
face of a white man, and were wondering, doubtless, what had become of the
ancient and terrible fetish that he had worn. Without entering into
explanations Jeekie in a great voice ordered two of them to fetch the buck,
which the white man, whom he described as “husband of the goddess,”
had “slain by thunder.” When these had departed upon their errand,
leaving Jeekie to superintend the building operations, Alan sat down upon a
fallen tree, watching one of the savages making fire with a pointed stick and
some tinder.

Just then from the head of the island where the willows were being cut, rose
the sound of loud roarings and of men crying out in affright. Seizing his gun
Alan ran towards the spot whence the noise came. Forcing his way through a
brake of reeds, he saw a curious sight. The Ogula in cutting the willows which
grew about some tumbled rocks, had disturbed a lioness that had her lair there,
and being fearless savages, had tried to kill her with their spears. The brute,
rendered desperate by wounds, and the impossibility of escape, for here the
surrounding water was deep, had charged them boldly, and as it chanced, felled
to the ground their chief, that yellow-toothed man to whom Jeekie gave his
orders. Now she was standing over him looking round her royally, her great paw
upon his breast, which it seemed almost to cover, while the Ogula ran round and
round shouting, for they feared that if they tried to attack her, she would
kill the chief. This indeed she seemed about to do, for just as Alan arrived
she dropped her head as though to tear out the man’s throat. Instantly he
fired. It was a snap shot, but as it chanced a good one, for the bullet struck
the lioness in the back of the neck just forward of and between the shoulders,
severing the spine so that without a sound or any further movement she sank
stone dead upon the prostrate cannibal. For a while his followers stood
astonished. They might have heard of guns from the coast people, but living as
they did in the interior where white folk did not dare to travel, they had
never seen their terrible effects.

“Magic!” they cried. “Magic!”

“Of course,” exclaimed Jeekie, who by now had arrived upon the
scene. “What else did you expect from the husband of Little Bonsa? Magic,
the greatest of magic. Go, roll that beast away before your chief is crushed to
death.”

They obeyed, and the man sat up, a fearful spectacle, for he was smothered with
the blood of the lion and somewhat cut by her claws, though otherwise unhurt.
Then feeling that the life was still whole in him, he crept on his hands and
knees to where Alan stood, and kissed his feet.

“Aha!” said Jeekie, “Little Bonsa score again. Cannibal tribe
our slave henceforth for evermore. Yes, till kingdom come. Come on, Major, and
cook supper in perfect peace.”

The supper was cooked and eaten with gratitude, for seldom had two men needed a
square meal more, and never did venison taste better. By the time that it was
finished darkness had fallen, and before they turned in to sleep in the neat
reed hut that the Ogula had built, Alan and Jeekie walked up the island to see
if the lioness had been skinned, as they directed. This they found was done;
even the carcase itself had been removed to serve as meat for these
foul-feeding people. They climbed on to the pile of rocks in which the beast
had made her lair, and looked down the river to where, two hundred yards away,
the Ogula were encamped. From this camp there rose a sound of revelry, and by
the light of the great fires that burned there, they perceived that the hungry
savages were busy feasting, for some of them sat in circles, whilst others,
their naked forms looking at that distance like those of imps in the infernal
regions, flitted to and fro against the glowing background of the fires,
bearing strange-looking joints on prongs of wood.

“I suppose they are eating the lioness,” said Alan doubtfully.

“No, no, Major, not lioness; eat dwarf by dozen—just like oysters
at seaside. But for Little Bonsa we sit on those forks now and look
uncommon small.”

“Beasts!” said Alan in disgust; “they make me feel uncommon
sick. Let us go to bed. I suppose they won’t murder us in our sleep, will
they?”

“Not they, Major, too much afraid. Also we their blood-brothers now,
because we bring them first-class dinner and save chief from lion’s fury.
No blame them too much, Major, good fellows really with gentle heart, but grub
like that from generation to generation. Every mother’s son of them have
many men inside, that why they so big and strong. Ogula people cover great
multitude like Charity in Book. No doubt sent by Prov’dence to keep
down extra pop’lation. Not right to think too hard of poor fellows who,
as I say, very kind and gentle at heart and most loving in family relation,
except to old women whom they eat also, so that they no get bored with too
long life.”

Weary and disgusted by this abominable sight though he was, Alan burst out
laughing at his retainer’s apology for the sweet-natured Ogula, who
struck him as the most repulsive blackguards that he had ever met or heard of
in all his experience of African savages. Then wishing to see and hear no more
of them that night, he retreated rapidly to the hut and was soon fast asleep
with his head pillowed on the box that hid the charms of Little Bonsa. When he
awoke it was broad daylight. Rising he went down to the river to wash, and
never had a bath been more welcome, for during all their journey through the
forest no such thing was obtainable. On his return he found his garments well
brushed with dry reeds and set upon a rock in the hot sun to air, while Jeekie
in a cheerful mood, was engaged cooking breakfast in the frying-pan, to which
he had clung through all the vicissitudes of their flight.

“No coffee, Major,” he said regretfully, “that stop in
forest. But never mind, hot water better for nerve. Ogula messengers gone in
little canoe to Asiki at break of day. Travel slow till they work off dwarf,
but afterwards go quick. I send lion skin with them as present from you to
great high-priestess Asika, also claws for necklace. No lions there and she
think much of that. Also it make her love mighty man who can kill fierce lion
like Samson in Book. Love of head woman very valuable ally among beastly savage
peoples.”

“I am sure I hope it won’t,” said Alan with earnestness,
“but no doubt it is as well to keep on the soft side of the good lady if
we can. What time do we start?”

“In one hour, Major. I been to camp already, chosen best canoe and finest
men for rowers. Chief—he called Fanny—so grateful that he come with
them himself.”

“Indeed. That is very kind of him, but I say, Jeekie, what are these
fellows going to live on? I can’t stand what you call their
‘favourite chop.’”

“No, no, Major, that all right. I tell them that when they travel with
Little Bonsa, they must keep Lent like pious Roman Cath’lic family that
live near Yarleys. They catch plenty fish in river, and perhaps we shoot game,
or rich ’potamus, which they like ’cause he fat.”

Evidently the Ogula chief, Fahni by name, not Fanny, as Jeekie called him, was
a man of his word, for before the hour was up he appeared at the island in
command of a large canoe manned by twelve splendid-looking savages. Springing
to land, he prostrated himself before Alan, kissing his feet as he had done on
the previous night, and making a long speech.

“That very good spirit,” exclaimed Jeekie. “Like to see
heathen in his darkness lick white gentleman’s boot. He say you his lord
and great magician who save his life, and know all Little Bonsa’s
secrets, which many and unrepeatable. He say he die for you twice a day if need
be, and go on dying to-morrow and all next year. He say he take you safe till
you meet Asiki and for your sake, though he hungry, eat no man for one whole
month, or perhaps longer. Now we start at once.”

So they started up the river that was called Katsena, Alan and Jeekie seated in
a lordly fashion near the stern of the canoe beneath an awning made out of some
sticks and a grass mat. In truth after their severe toil and adventures in the
forest, this method of journeying proved quite luxurious. Except for a rapid
here and there over or round which the canoe must be dragged, the river was
broad and the scenery on its banks park-like and beautiful. Moreover the
country, perhaps owing to the appetites of the Ogula, appeared to be
practically uninhabited except by vast herds of every sort of game.

All day they sat in the canoe which the stalwart rowers propelled, in silence
for the most part, since they were terribly afraid of the white man, and still
more so of the renowned fetish which they knew he carried with him. Then when
evening came they moored their craft to the bank and camped till the following
morning. Nor did they lack for food, since game being so plentiful, it was only
necessary for Alan to walk a few hundred yards and shoot a fat eland, or
hartebeest, or other buck which in its ignorance of guns would allow him to
approach quite close. Elephants, rhinoceros, and buffalo were also common,
while great herds of giraffe might be seen wandering between the scattered
trees, but as they were not upon a hunting trip and their ammunition was very
limited, with these they did not interfere.

Having their daily fill of meat which their souls loved, the Ogula oarsmen
remained in an excellent mood, indeed the chief, Fahni, informed Alan that if
only they had such magic tubes wherewith to slaughter game, he and his tribe
would gladly give up cannibalism—except on feast days. He added sadly
that soon they would be obliged to do so, or die, since in those parts there
were now few people left to eat, and they hated vegetables. Moreover, they kept
no cattle, it was not the custom of that tribe, except a very few for milk.
Alan advised them to increase their herds, since, as he pointed out to them,
“dog should not eat dog” or the human being his own kind.

The chief answered that there was a great deal in what he said, which on his
return he would lay before his head men. Indeed Alan, to his astonishment,
discovered that Jeekie had been quite right when he alleged that these people,
so terrible in their mode of life, were yet “kind and gentle at
heart.” They preyed upon mankind because for centuries it had been their
custom so to do, but if anyone had been there to show them a better way, he
grew sure that they would follow it gladly. At least they were brave and loyal
and even after their first fear of the white man had worn off, fulfilled their
promises without a murmur. Once, indeed, when he chanced to have gone for a
walk unarmed and to be charged by a bull elephant, these Ogula ran at the brute
with their spears and drove it away, a rescue in which one of them lost his
life, for the “rogue” caught and killed him.

So the days went on while they paddled leisurely up the river, Alan employing
the time by taking lessons in the Asiki tongue from Jeekie, a language which he
had been studying ever since he left England. The task was not easy, as he had
no books and Jeekie himself after some thirty years of absence, was doubtful as
to many of its details. Still being a linguist by nature and education and
finding in the tongue similarities to other African dialects which he knew, he
was now able to speak it a little, in a halting fashion.

On the fifth day of their ascent of the river, they came to a tributary that
flowed into it from the north, up which the Ogula said they must proceed to
reach Asiki-land. The stream was narrow and sluggish, widening out here and
there into great swamps through which it was not easy to find a channel. Also
the district was so unhealthy that even several of the Ogula contracted fever,
of which Alan cured them by heavy doses of quinine, for fortunately his
travelling medicine chest remained to him. These cures were effected after
their chief suggested that they should be thrown overboard, or left to die in
the swamp as useless, with the result that the white man’s magical powers
were thenceforth established beyond doubt or cavil. Indeed the poor Ogula now
looked on him as a god superior even to Little Bonsa, whose familiar he was
supposed to be.

The journey through that swamp was very trying, since in this wet season often
they could find no place on which to sleep at night, but must stay in the canoe
tormented by mosquitoes, and in constant danger of being upset by the
hippopotami that lived there. Moreover, as no game was now available, they were
obliged to live on these beasts, fish when they could catch them, and wildfowl,
which sometimes they were unable to cook for lack of fuel. This did not trouble
the Ogula, who ate them raw, as did Jeekie when he was hungry. But Alan was
obliged to starve until they could make a fire. This it was only possible to do
when they found drift or other wood, since at that season the rank vegetation
was in full growth. Also the fearful thunderstorms which broke continually and
in a few minutes half filled their canoe with water, made the reeds and the
soil on which they grew, sodden with wet. As Jeekie said:

“This time of year only fit for duck and crocodile. Human should remember
uncontrollable forces of nature and wait till winter come in due course, when
quagmire bear sole of his foot.”

This elaborate remark he made to Alan during the progress of a particularly
fearful tempest. The lightning blazed in the black sky and seemed to strike all
about them like stabbing swords of fire, the thunder crashed and bellowed as it
may be supposed that it will do on that day when the great earth, worn out at
last, shall reel and stagger to its doom. The rain fell in a straight and solid
sheet; the tall reeds waved confusedly like millions of dim arms and while they
waved, uttered a vast and groaning noise; the scared wildfowl in their terror,
with screams and the sough of wings, rushed past them in flocks a thousand
strong, now seen and now lost in the vapours. To keep their canoe afloat the
poor, naked Ogula oarsmen, shivering with cold and fear, baled furiously with
their hands, or bowls of hollowed wood, and called back to Alan to save them as
though he were the master of the elements. Even Jeekie was depressed and
appeared to be offering up petitions, though whether these were directed to
Little Bonsa or elsewhere it was impossible to know.

As for Alan, the heart was out of him. It is true that so far he had escaped
fever or other sickness, which in itself was wonderful, but he was chilled
through and through and practically had eaten nothing for two days, and very
little for a week, since his stomach turned from half-cooked hippopotamus fat
and wildfowl. Moreover, they had lost the channel and seemed to be wandering
aimlessly through a wilderness of reeds broken here and there by lines of
deeper water.

According to the Ogula they should have reached the confines of the great lake
several days before and landed on healthful rising ground that was part of the
Asiki territory. But this had not happened, and now he doubted whether it ever
would happen. It was more likely that they would come to their deaths, there in
the marsh, especially as the few ball and shot cartridges which they had saved
in their flight were now exhausted. Not one was left; nothing was left except
their revolvers with some charges, which of course were quite useless for the
killing of game. Therefore they were in a fair way to die of hunger, for here
if fish existed, they refused to be caught and nought remained for them to fill
themselves with except water slugs, and snails which the boatmen were already
gathering and crunching up in their great teeth. Or, perhaps the Ogula,
forgetting friendship under the pressure of necessity, would murder them as
they slept and—revert to their usual diet.

Jeekie was right, he should have remembered the “uncontrollable forces of
Nature.” Only a madman would have undertaken such an expedition in the
rains. No wonder that the Asiki remained a secret and hidden people when their
frontier was protected by such a marsh as this upon the one side and, as he
understood, by impassable mountains upon the other.

There came a lull in the tempest and the boatmen began to get the better of the
water, which now was up to their knees. Alan asked Jeekie if he thought it was
over, but that worthy shook his white head mournfully, causing the spray to fly
as from a twirling mop, and replied:

“Can’t say, cats and dogs not tumble so many for present, only pups
and kitties left, so to speak, but think there plenty more up there,” and
he nodded at the portentous fire-laced cloud which seemed to be spreading over
them, its black edges visible even through the gloom.

“Bad business, I am afraid, Jeekie. Shouldn’t have brought you
here, or those poor beggars either,” and he looked at the scared, frozen
Ogula. “I begin to wonder——”

“Never wonder, Major,” broke in Jeekie in alarm. “If wonder,
not live, if wonder, not be born, too much wonder about everywhere. Can’t
understand nothing, so give it up. Say, ‘Right-O and devil
hindermost!’ Very good motto for biped in tight place. Better drown here
than in City bucket shop. But no drown. Should be dead long ago, but Little
Bonsa play the game, she not want to sink in stinking swamp when so near her
happy home. Come out all right somehow, as from dwarf. Every cloud have silver
lining, Major, even that black chap up there. Oh! my golly!”

This last exclamation was wrung from Jeekie’s lips by a sudden
development of “forces of Nature” which astonished even him.
Instead of a silver lining the “black chap” exhibited one of gold.
In an instant it seemed to turn to acres of flame; it was as though the heavens
had taken fire. A flash or a thunderbolt struck the water within ten yards of
their canoe, causing the boatmen to throw themselves upon their faces through
shock or terror. Then came the hurricane, which fortunately was so strong that
it permitted no more rain to fall. The tall reeds were beaten flat beneath its
breath; the canoe was seized in its grip and whirled round and round, then
driven forward like an arrow. Only the weight of the men and the water in it
prevented it from oversetting. Dense darkness fell upon them and although they
could see no star, they knew that it must be night. On they rushed, driven by
that shrieking gale, and all about and around them this wall of darkness. No
one spoke, for hope was abandoned, and if they had, their voices could not have
been heard. The last thing that Alan remembered was feeling Jeekie dragging a
grass mat over him to protect him a little if he could. Then his senses
wavered, as does a dying lamp. He thought that he was back in what Jeekie had
rudely called “City bucket shop,” bargaining across the telephone
wire, upon which came all the sounds of the infernal regions, with a financial
paper for an article on a Little Bonsa Syndicate that he proposed to float. He
thought he was in The Court woods with Barbara, only the birds in the trees
sang so unnaturally loud that he could not hear her voice, and she wore Little
Bonsa on her head as a bonnet. Then she departed in flame, leaving him and
Death alone.

Alan awoke. Above the sun shone hotly, warming him back to life, but in front
was a thick wall of mist and rising beyond it in the distance he saw the rugged
swelling forms of mountains. Doubtless these had been visible before, but the
tall reeds through which they travelled had hid the sight of them. He looked
behind him and there in a heap lay the Ogula around their chief, insensible or
sleeping. He counted them and found that two were gone, lost in the tempest,
how or where no man ever learned. He looked forward and saw a peculiar sight,
for in the prow of the drifting canoe stood Jeekie clad in the remains of his
white robe and wearing on his head the battered helmet and about his shoulders
the torn fragments of green mosquito net. While Alan was wondering strangely
why he had adopted this ceremonial garb, from out of the mist there came a
sound of singing, of wild and solemn singing. Jeekie seemed to listen to it;
then he lifted up his great musical voice and sang as though in answer. What he
sang Alan could not understand, but he recognized that the language which he
used was that of the Asiki people.

A pause and a confused murmuring, and now again the wild song rose and again
Jeekie answered.

“What the deuce are you doing? Where are we?” asked Alan faintly.

Jeekie turned and beamed upon him; although his teeth were chattering and his
face was hollow, still he beamed.

“You awake, Major?” he said. “Thought good old sun do trick.
Feel your heart now and find it beat. Pulse, too, strong, though
temp’rature not normal. Well, good news this morning. Little Bonsa come
out top as usual. Asiki priests on bank there. Can’t see them, but know
their song and answer. Same old game as thirty years ago. Asiki never change,
which good business when you been away long while.”

“Hang the Asiki,” said Alan feebly, “I think all these poor
beggars are dead,” and he pointed to the rowers.

“Look like it, Major, but what that matter now since you and I alive?
Plenty more where they come from. Not dead though, think only sleep, no like
cold, like dormouse. But never mind cannibal pig. They serve our turn, if they
live, live; if they die, die and God have mercy on souls, if cannibal have
soul. Ah! here we are,” and from beneath six inches of water he dragged
up the tin box containing Little Bonsa, from which he extracted the fetish, wet
but uninjured.

“Put her on now, Major. Put her on at once and come sit in prow of canoe.
Must reach Asiki-land in proper style. Priests think it your reverend uncle
come back again, just as he leave. Make very good impression.”

“I can’t,” said Alan feebly. “I am played out,
Jeekie.”

“Oh! buck up, Major, buck up!” he replied imploringly. “One
kick more and you win race, mustn’t spoil ship for ha’porth of tar.
You just wear fetish, whistle once on land, and then go to sleep for whole week
if you like. I do rest, say it all magic, and so forth—that you been dead
and just come out of grave, or anything you like. No matter if you turn up as
announced on bill and God bless hurricane that blow us here when we expect die.
Come, Major, quick, quick! mist melt and soon they see you.” Then without
waiting for an answer Jeekie clapped the wet mask on his master’s head,
tied the thongs and led Alan to the prow of the canoe, where he set him down on
a little cross bench, stood behind supporting him and again began to sing in a
great triumphant voice.

The mist cleared away, rolling up like a curtain and revealing on the shore a
number of men and women clad in white robes, who were martialled in ranks
there, chanting and staring out at the dim waters of the lagoon. Yonder upon
the waters, driven forward by the gentle breeze, floated a canoe and lo! in the
prow of that canoe sat a white man and on his head the god which they had lost
a whole generation gone. On the head of a white man it had departed; on the
head of a white man it returned. They saw and fell upon their knees.

“Blow, Major, blow!” whispered Jeekie, and Alan blew a feeble note
through the whistle in the mouth of the mask. It was enough, they knew it. They
sprang into the water and dragged the canoe to land. They set Alan on the shore
and worshipped him. They haled up a lad as though for sacrifice, for a priest
flourished a great knife above his head, but Jeekie said something that caused
them to let him go. Alan thought it was to the effect that Little Bonsa had
changed her habits across the Black Water, and wanted no blood, only food. Then
he remembered no more; again the darkness fell upon him.

CHAPTER X.
BONSA TOWN.

When consciousness returned to Alan, the first thing of which he became dimly
aware was the slow, swaying motion of a litter. He raised himself, for he was
lying at full length, and in so doing felt that there was something over his
face.

“That confounded Little Bonsa,” he thought. “Am I expected to
spend the rest of my life with it on my head like the man in the iron
mask?”

Then he put up his hand and felt the thing, to find that it was not Little
Bonsa, but something made apparently of thin, fine linen, fitted to the shape
of his face, for there was a nose on it, and eyeholes through which he could
see, yes, and a mouth whereof the lips by some ingenious contrivance could be
moved up and down.

“Little Bonsa’s undress uniform, I expect,” he muttered, and
tried to drag it off. This, however, proved to be impossible, for it was fitted
tightly to his head and laced or fastened at the back of his neck so securely
that he could not undo it. Being still weak, soon he gave up the attempt and
began to look about him.

He was in a litter, a very fine litter hung round with beautifully woven and
coloured grass mats, inside of which were a kind of couch and cushions of soft
wool or hair, so arranged that he could either sit up or lie down. He peeped
between two of these mats and saw that they were travelling in a mountainous
country over a well-beaten road or trail, and that his litter was borne upon
the shoulders of a double line of white-robed men, while all around him marched
numbers of other men. They seemed to be soldiers, for they were arranged in
companies and carried large spears and shields. Also some of them wore torques
and bracelets of yellow metal that might be either brass or gold. Turning
himself about he found an eyehole in the back of the litter so contrived that
its occupant could see without being seen, and perceived that his escort
amounted to a veritable army of splendid-looking, but sombre-faced savages of a
somewhat Semitic cast of countenance. Indeed many of them had aquiline features
and hair that, although crisped, was long and carefully arranged in something
like the old Egyptian fashion. Also he saw that about thirty yards behind and
separated from him by a bodyguard, was borne a second litter. By means of a
similar aperture in front he discovered yet more soldiers, and beyond them, at
the head of the procession, was what appeared to be a body of white-robed men
and women bearing strange emblems and banners. These he took to be priests and
priestesses.

Having examined everything that was within reach of his eye, Alan sank back
upon his cushions and began to realize that he was very faint and hungry. It
was just then that the sound of a familiar voice reached his ears. It was the
voice of Jeekie, and he did not speak; he chanted in English to a melody which
Alan at once recognized as a Gregorian tone, apparently from the second litter.

“Oh, Major,” he sang, “have you yet awoke from refre-e-eshing
sleep? If so, please answer me in same tone of voice, for remember that you
de-e-evil of a swell, Lord of the Little Bonsa, and must not speak like
co-o-ommon cad.”

Feeble as he was Alan nearly burst out laughing, then remembering that probably
he was expected not to laugh, chanted his answer as directed, which having a
good tenor voice, he did with some effect, to the evident awe and delight of
all the escort within hearing.

“I am awake, most excellent Jee-e-ekie, and feel the need of food, if you
have such a thing abou-ou-out you and it is lawful for the Lord of Little Bonsa
to take nu-tri-ment.”

Instantly Jeekie’s deep voice rose in reply.

“That good tidings upon the mountain tops, Ma-ajor. Can’t come out
to bring you chop because too i-i-infra dig, for now I also biggish bug, the
little bird what sit upon the rose, as poet sa-a-ays. I tell these Johnnies
bring you grub, which you eat without qualm, for Asiki A1 coo-o-ook.”

Then followed loud orders issued by Jeekie to his immediate entourage,
and some confusion.

As a result presently Alan’s litter was halted, the curtains were opened
and kneeling women thrust through them platters of wood upon which, wrapped up
in leaves, were the dismembered limbs of a bird which he took to be chicken or
guinea-fowl, and a gold cup containing water pleasantly flavoured with some
essence. This cup interested him very much both on account of its shape and
workmanship, which if rude, was striking in design, resembling those drinking
vessels that have been found in Mycenian graves. Also it proved to him that
Jeekie’s stories of the abundance of the precious metal among the Asiki
had not been exaggerated. If it were not very plentiful, they would scarcely,
he thought, make their travelling cups of gold. Evidently there was wealth in
the land.

After the food had been handed to him the litter went on again, and seated upon
his cushions, he ate and drank heartily enough, for now that the worst of his
fatigue had passed away, his hunger was great. In some absurd fashion this meal
reminded him of that which a traveller makes out of a luncheon basket upon a
railway line in Europe or America. Only there the cups are not of gold and
among the Asiki were no paper napkins, no salt and mustard, and no three and
sixpence or dollar to pay. Further, until he got used to it, luncheon in a
linen mask with a moveable mouth was not easy. This difficulty he overcame at
last by propping the imitation lips apart with a piece of bone, after which
things were easier.

When he had finished he threw the platter and the remains out of the litter,
retaining the cup for further examination, and recommenced his intoned and
poetical converse with Jeekie.

To set it out at length would be wearisome, but in the course of an hour or so
he collected a good deal of information. Thus he learned that they were due to
arrive at the Asiki city, which was called Bonsa Town, by nightfall, or a
little after. Also he was informed that the mask he wore was, as he had
guessed, a kind of undress uniform without which he must never appear, since
for anyone except the Asika herself to look upon the naked countenance of an
individual so mysteriously mixed up with Little Bonsa, was sacrilege of the
worst sort. Indeed Jeekie assured him that the priests who had put on the
head-dress when he was insensible were first blindfolded.

This news depressed Alan very much, since the prospect of living in a linen
mask for an indefinite period was not cheerful. Recovering, he chanted a query
as to the fate of the Ogula crew and their chief Fahni.

“Not de-ad,” intoned Jeekie in reply, “and not gone back.
A-all alive-O, somewhere behind there. Fanny very sick about it, for he think
Asiki bring them along for sacrifice, poo-or beg-gars.”

Finally he inquired where Little Bonsa was and was answered that he himself as
its lawful guardian, was sitting on the fetish in its tin box, tidings that he
was able to verify by groping beneath the cushions.

After this his voice gave out, though Jeekie continued to sing items of
interesting news from time to time. Indeed there were other things that
absorbed Alan’s attention. Looking through the peepholes and cracks in
the curtains, he saw that at last they had reached the crest of a ridge up
which they had been climbing for hours. Before them lay a vast and fertile
valley, much of which seemed to be under cultivation, and down it flowed a
broad and placid river. Opposite to him and facing west a great tongue of land
ran up to a wall of mountains with stark precipices of black rock that seemed
to be hundreds, or even thousands, of feet high, and at the tip of this tongue
a mighty waterfall rushed over the precipice, looking at that distance like a
cascade of smoke. This torrent, which he remembered was called Raaba, fell into
a great pool and there divided itself into two rushing branches that enclosed
an ellipse of ground, surrounded on all sides by water, for on its westernmost
extremity the branches met again and after flowing a while as one river,
divided once more and wound away quietly to north and south further than the
eye could reach. On the island thus formed, which may have been three miles
long by two in breadth, stood thousands of straw-roofed, square-built huts with
verandas, neatly arranged in blocks and lines and having between them streets
that were edged with palms.

On the hither side of the pool was what looked like a park, for here grew
great, black trees, which from their flat shape Alan took to be some variety of
cedar, and standing alone in the midst of this park where no other habitations
could be discovered, was a large, low building with dark-coloured walls and
gabled roofs that flashed like fire.

“The Gold House!” said Alan to himself with a gasp. “So it is
not a dream or a lie.”

The details at that distance he could not discover, nor did he try to do so,
for the general glory of the scene held him in its grip. At this evening hour,
for a little while, the level rays of the setting sun poured straight up the
huge, water-hollowed kloof. They struck upon the face of the fall, staining it
and the clouds of mist that hung above, to a hundred glorious hues; indeed the
substance of the foaming water seemed to be interlaced with rainbows whereof
the arch reached their crest and the feet were lost in the sullen blackness of
the pool beneath. Beautiful too was the valley, glowing in the quiet light of
evening, and even the native town thus gilded and glorified, looked like some
happy home of peace.

The sun was sinking rapidly, and before the litter reached the foot of the hill
and began to cross the rich valley, all the glory had departed and only the
cataract showed white and ghost-like through the gloom. But still the light,
which seemed to gather to itself, gleamed upon that golden roof amid the cedar
trees; then the moon rose and the gold was turned to silver. Alan lay back upon
his cushions full of wonder, almost of awe. It was a marvellous thing that he
should have lived to reach this secret place hidden in the heart of Africa and
defended by swamps, mountains and savages to which, so far as he knew, only one
white man had ever penetrated. And to think of it! That white man, his own
uncle, had never even held it worth while to make public any account of its
wonders, which apparently had seemed to him of no importance. Or perhaps he
thought that if he did he would not be believed. Well, there they were before
and about him, and now the question was, what would be his fate in this Gold
House where the great fetish dwelt with its priestess?

Ah! that priestess! Somehow he shivered a little when he thought of her; it was
as though her influence were over him already. Next moment he forgot her for a
while, for they had come to the river brink and the litter was being carried on
to a barge or ferry, about which were gathered many armed men. Evidently the
Gold House was well defended both by Nature and otherwise. The ferry was pulled
or rowed across the river, he could not see which, and they passed through a
gateway into the town and up a broad street where hundreds of people watched
his advent. They did not seem to speak, or if they spoke their voices were lost
in the sound of the thunder of the great cataract which dominated the place
with its sullen, continuous roar. It took Alan days to become accustomed to
that roar, but by the inhabitants of Asiki-land apparently it was not noticed;
their ears and voices were attuned to overcome its volume which their fathers
had known from the beginning.

Presently they were through the town and a wooden gate in an inner wall which
surrounded the park where the cedars grew. At this spot Alan noted that
everybody left them except the bearers and a few men whom he took to be
priests. On they stole like ghosts beneath the mighty trees, from whose limbs
hung long festoons of moss. It was very dark there, only in places where a
bough was broken the moonlight lay in white gules upon the ground. Another wall
and another gate, and suddenly the litter was set down. Its curtains opened,
torches flashed, women appeared clad in white robes, veiled and mysterious, who
bowed before him, then half led and half lifted him from his litter. He could
feel their eyes on him through their veils, but he could not see their faces.
He could see nothing except their naked, copper-coloured arms and long thin
hands stretched out to assist him.

Alan descended from the litter as slowly as he could, for somehow he shrank
from the quaint, carved portal which he saw before him. He did not wish to pass
it; its aspect filled him with reluctance. The women drew him on, their hands
pulled at his arms, their shoulders pressed him from behind. Still he hung
back, looking about him, till to his delight he saw the other litter arrive and
out of it emerge Jeekie, still wearing his sun-helmet with its fringe of
tattered mosquito curtain.

“Here we are, Major,” he said in his cheerful voice, “turned
up all right like a bad ha’penny, but in odd situation.”

“Very odd,” echoed Alan. “Could you persuade these ladies to
let go of me?”

“Don’t know,” answered Jeekie. “’Spect they
doubtfully your wives; ’spect you have lots of wives here; don’t
get white man every day, so make most of him. Best thing you do, kick out and
teach them place. Rub nose in dirt at once and make them good, that first-class
plan with female. I no like interfere in such delicate matter.”

Terrified by this information, Alan put out his strength and shook the women
off him, whereon without seeming to take any offence, they drew back to a little
distance and began to bow, like automata. Then Jeekie addressed them in their
own language, asking them what they meant by defiling this mighty lord, born of
the Heavens, with the touch of their hands, whereat they went on bowing more
humbly than before. Next he threw aside the cushions of the litter and finding
the tin box containing Little Bonsa, held it before him in both hands and bade
the women lead on.

The march began, a bewildering march. It was like a nightmare. Veiled women
with torches before and behind, Jeekie stalking ahead carrying the battered tin
box, long passages lined with gold, a vision of black water edged with a wide
promenade, and finally a large lamp-lit room whereof the roof was supported by
gilded columns, and in the room couches of cushions, wooden stools inlaid with
ivory, vessels of water, great basins made of some black, hard wood, and in the
centre a block of stone that looked like an altar.

Jeekie set down the tin box upon the altar-like stone, then he turned to the
crowd of women and said, “Bring food.” Instantly they departed,
closing the door of the room behind them.

“Now for a wash,” said Alan, “unlace this confounded mask,
Jeekie.”

“Mustn’t, Major, mustn’t. Priests tell me that. If those
girls see you without mask, perhaps they kill them. Wait till they gone after
supper, then take it off. No one allowed see you without mask except Asika
herself.”

Alan stepped to one of the wooden bowls full of water which stood under a lamp,
and gazed at his own reflection. The mask was gilded; the sham lips were
painted red and round the eye-holes were black lines.

“Why, it is horrible,” he exclaimed, starting back. “I look
like a devil crossed with Guy Fawkes. Do you mean to tell me that I have got to
live in this thing?”

“Afraid so, Major, upon all public occasion. At least they say that. You
holy, not lawful see your sacred face.”

“Who do the Asiki think I am, then, Jeekie?”

“They think you your reverend uncle come back after many, many year. You
see, Major, they not believe uncle run away with Little Bonsa; they believe
Little Bonsa run away with uncle just for change of air and so on, and that
now, when she tired of strange land, she bring him back again. That why you so
holy, favourite of Little Bonsa who live with you all this time and keep you
just same age, bloom of youth.”

“In Heaven’s name,” asked Alan, exasperated, “what is
Little Bonsa, beyond an ancient and ugly gold fetish?”

“Hush,” said Jeekie, “mustn’t call her names here in
her own house. Little Bonsa much more than fetish, Little Bonsa alive, or
so,” he added doubtfully, “these silly niggers say. She wife of Big
Bonsa, who you see, to-morrow p’raps. But their story this, that she get
dead sick of Big Bonsa and bolt with white Medicine man, who dare preach she
nothing but heathen idol. She want show him whether or no she only idol. That
the yarn, priests tell it me to-day. They always watch for her there by the
edge of the lake. They always sure Little Bonsa come back. Not at all
surprised, but as she love you once, you stop holy; and I holy also, thank
goodness, because she take me too as servant. Therefore we sleep in peace, for
they not cut our throats, at any rate at present, though I think,” he
added mournfully, “they not let us go either.”

Alan sat down on a stool and groaned at the appalling prospect suggested by
this information.

“Cheer up, Major,” said Jeekie sympathetically. “Perhaps
manage hook it somehow, and meanwhile make best of bad business and have high
old time. You see you want to come Asiki-land, though I tell you it rum place,
and,” he added with certitude and a circular sweep of his hand, “by
Jingo! you here now and I daresay they give you all the gold you want.”

“What’s the good of gold unless one can get away with it?
What’s the good of anything if we are prisoners among these devils?”

“Perhaps time show, Major. Hush! here come dinner. You sit still on stool
and look holy.”

The door opened and through it appeared four of the women bearing dishes and
cups full of drink, fashioned of gold like that which had been given to Alan in
the litter. He noticed at once that they had removed their veils and outer
garments, if indeed they were the same women, and now, like many other
Africans, were but lightly clad in linen capes open in front that hung over
their shoulders, short petticoats or skirts about their middles, and sandals.
Such was their attire which, scanty as it might be, was yet becoming enough and
extremely rich. Thus the cape was fastened with a brooch of worked gold, so
were the sandal straps, while the petticoat was adorned with beads of gold that
jingled as they walked, and amongst them strings of other beads of various and
beautiful colours, that might be glass or might be precious stones. Moreover,
these women were young and handsome, having splendid figures and well-cut
features, soft, dark eyes and rather long hair worn in the formal and
attractive fashion that has been described.

Advancing to Alan two of them knelt before him, holding out the trays upon
which was the food. So they remained while he ate, like bronze statues, nor
would they consent to change their posture even when he told them in their
language to be pleased to go away. On hearing themselves addressed in the Asiki
language, they seemed surprised, for their faces changed a little, but go they
would not. The result was that Alan grew extremely nervous and ate and drank so
rapidly that he scarcely noted what he was putting into his mouth. Then before
Jeekie, to whom the women did not kneel, had half finished his dinner, Alan
rose and walked away, whereon two of the women gathered up everything,
including the dishes that had been given to Jeekie, and in spite of his
remonstrances carried them out of the room.

“I say, Major,” said Jeekie, “if you gobble chop so fast you
go ill inside. Poor nigger like me can’t keep up with you and sleep
hungry to-night.”

“I am sorry, Jeekie,” said Alan with a little laugh, “but I
can’t eat off living tables, especially when they stare at one like that.
You tell them that to-morrow we will breakfast alone.”

“Oh, yes, I tell them, Major, but I don’t know if they listen. They
mean it great compliment and only think you not like those girls and send
others.”

“Look here, Jeekie,” exclaimed Alan, turning his masked face
towards the two who remained, “let us come to an understanding at once.
Clear them out. Tell them I am so holy that Little Bonsa is enough for me. Say
I can’t bear the sight of females, and that if they stop here I will
sacrifice them. Say anything you like, only get rid of them and lock the
door.”

Thus adjured, Jeekie began to reason with the women, and as they treated his
remarks with lofty disdain, at last seized first one and then the other by the
elbows and literally ran them out of the room.

“There,” he said, “baggage gone since you make such fuss
about it, though I ’spect they try to give me Bean for this job”
(here he spoke not in figurative English slang, but of the Calabar bean, which
is a favourite native poison). “Well, dinner gone and girls gone, and we
tired, so best go to bed. Think we all private here now, though in Gold House
never can be sure,” and he looked round him suspiciously, adding,
“rummy place, Gold House, full of all sort of holes made by old fellows
thousand year ago, which no one know but Bonsa priests. Still, best risk it and
take off your face so that you have decent wash,” and he began to unlace
the mask on his master’s head.

Never has a City clerk dressed up for a fancy ball in the armour of a Norman
knight, been more glad to get rid of his costume than was Alan of that hateful
head-dress. At length it was gone with his other garments and the much-needed
wash accomplished, after which he clothed himself in a kind of linen gown which
apparently had been provided for him, and lay down on one of the couches,
placing his revolver by his side.

“Will those lamps burn all night, Jeekie?” he asked.

“Hope so, Major, as we haven’t got no match. Not fond of dark in
Gold House,” answered Jeekie sleepily. Then he began to snore.

Alan fell asleep, but was too excited and tired to rest very soundly. All sorts
of dreams came to him, one of which he remembered on awakening, perhaps because
it was the last. He dreamed that he heard some noise and opened his eyes, to
see that they were no longer alone in the room. The oil lamps had burned quite
low, indeed some of them were out, but by the light of those that remained he
saw a tall figure which seemed to appear at the edge of the surrounding
blackness, a woman’s figure. It walked forward to the altar-like stone
upon which lay the tin box containing Little Bonsa, and after several rather
awkward attempts, succeeded in opening it, thereby making a noise which, in his
dream, finally awoke Alan. For a while the figure gazed at the fetish. Then it
shut the box, glided to his bed and bent down as though to study him. Out of
the corners of his eyes he peered up at it, pretending all the while to be fast
asleep.

It was that of a woman wonderfully clad in gold-spangled, veil-like garments
with round bosses shaped to the breast, covered with thin plates of gold
fashioned like the scales of a fish which showed off the extraordinary elegance
of her lithe form. The low lamp-light shone upon her face and the coronet of
gold set upon her dark hair. What a face it was! Never in all his days had he
seen its like for evil loveliness. The great, languid, oblong eyes, the rich
red lips bent like a bow, the cruel smile of the mouth, the broad forehead on
which the hair grew low, the delicately arched eyebrows and the long curving
lashes of the heavy lids beneath them, the rounded cheeks, smooth as a ripe
fruit, the firm, shapely chin, the snake-like poise of the head, the long
bending neck, and the feline smile; all of these combined made such a
dream-vision as he had never seen before, and to tell the truth,
notwithstanding its beauty, for that could not be doubted, never wished to see
again. Somehow he felt that if Satan should happen to have a copper-coloured
wife, the exact picture of that lady had projected itself upon his sleeping
senses.

She seemed to study him very earnestly, with a kind of passionate eagerness,
indeed, moving a little now and again to let the light fall upon some part that
was in shadow. Once even she stretched out her rounded arm and just lifted the
edge of the blanket so as to expose his hand, the left. As it chanced on the
little finger of this hand Alan wore a plain gold ring which Barbara had given
him; once it had been her grandfather’s signet. This ring, which had a
coat of arms cut upon its bezel seemed to interest her very much as she
examined it for a long while. Then she drew off from her own finger another
ring of gold fashioned of two snakes curiously intertwined, and gently, so
gently that in his sleep he scarcely felt it, slipped it on to his finger above
Barbara’s ring.

After this she seemed to vanish away, and Alan slept soundly until the morning,
when he awoke to find the light of the sun pouring into the room through the
high-set latticed window places.

CHAPTER XI.
THE HALL OF THE DEAD.

Alan rose and stretched himself, and hearing him, Jeekie, who had a dog’s
faculty of instantly awaking from what seemed to be the deepest sleep, sat up
also.

“You rest well, Major? No dream, eh?” he asked curiously.

“Not very,” answered Alan, “and I had a dream, of a woman who
stood over me and vanished away, as dreams do.”

“Ah!” said Jeekie. “But where you find that new ring on
finger, Major?”

Alan stared at his hand and started, for there set on it above that of Barbara,
was the little circlet formed of twisted snakes which he had seen in his sleep.

“Then it must have been true,” he said in a low and rather
frightened voice. “But how did she come and go?”

“Funny place, Gold House. I tell you that yesterday, Major. People come
up through hole, like rat. Never quite sure you alone in Gold House. But what
this lady like?”

Alan described his visitor to the best of his ability.

“Ah!” said Jeekie, “pretty girl. Big eyes, gold crown, gold
stays which fit tight in front, very nice and decent; sort of night-shirt with
little gold stars all over—by Jingo! I think that Asika herself. If
so—great compliment.”

“Confound the compliment, I think it great cheek,” answered Alan
angrily. “What does she mean by poking about here at night and putting
rings on my finger?”

“Don’t know, Major, but p’raps she wish make you understand
that she like cut of your jib. Find out by and by. Meanwhile you wear ring, for
while that on finger no one do you any harm.”

“You told me that this Asika is a married woman, did you not?”
remarked Alan gloomily.

“Oh, yes, Major, always married; one down, other come on, you see. But
she not always like her husband, and then she make him sit up, poor devil, and
he die double quick. Great honour to be Asika’s husband, but soon all
finished. P’raps——”

Then he checked himself and suggested that Alan should have a bath while he
cleaned his clothes, an attention that they needed.

Scarcely had Alan finished his toilet, donned the Arab-looking linen robe over
his own fragmentary flannels, and above it the hateful mask which Jeekie
insisted he must wear, when there came a knocking on the door. Motioning to
Alan to take his seat upon a stool, Jeekie undid the bars, and as before women
appeared with food and waited while they ate, which this time, having overcome
his nervousness, Alan did more leisurely. Their meal done, one of the women
asked Jeekie, for to his master they did not seem to dare to speak, whether the
white lord did not wish to walk in the garden. Without waiting for an answer
she led him to the end of the large room and, unbarring another door that they
had not noticed, revealed a passage, beyond which appeared trees and flowers.
Then she and her companions went away with the fragments of the meal.

“Come on,” said Alan, taking up the box containing Little Bonsa,
which he did not dare to leave behind, “and let us get into the
air.”

So they went down the passage and at the end of it through gates of copper or
gold, they knew not which, that had evidently been left open for them, into the
garden. It was a large place, a good many acres in extent indeed, and kept with
some care, for there were paths in it and flowers that seemed to have been
planted. Also here grew certain of the mighty cedar trees that they had seen
from far off, beneath whose spreading boughs twilight reigned, while beyond,
not more than half a mile away, the splendid river-fall thundered down the
precipice. For the rest they could find no exit to that garden which on one
side was enclosed by a sheer cliff of living rock, and on the others with steep
stone walls beyond which ran a torrent, and by the buildings of the Gold House
itself.

For a while they walked up and down the rough paths, till at last Jeekie,
wearying of this occupation, remarked:

“Melancholy hole this, Major. Remind me of Westminster Abbey in London
fog, where your uncle of blessed mem’ry often take me pray and look at
fusty tomb of king. S’pose we go back Gold House and see what happen.
Anything better than stand about under cursed old cedar tree.”

“All right,” said Alan, who through the eyeholes of his mask had
been studying the walls to seek a spot in them that could be climbed if
necessary, and found none.

So they returned to the room, which had been swept and garnished in their
absence. No sooner had they entered it than the door opened and through it came
long lines of Asiki priests, each of whom staggered beneath the weight of a
hide bag that he bore upon his shoulder, which bags they piled up about the
stone altar. Then, as though at some signal, each priest opened the mouth of
his bag and Alan saw that they wee filled with gold, gold in dust, gold in
nuggets, gold in vessels perfect or broken; more gold than Alan had ever seen
before.

“Why do they bring all this stuff here?” he asked, and Jeekie
translated his question.

“It is an offering to the lord of Little Bonsa,” answered the head
priest, bowing, “a gift from the Asika. The heaven-born white man sent
word by his Ogula messengers that he desired gold. Here is the gold that he
desired.”

Alan stared at the treasure, which after all was what he had come to seek. If
only he had it safe in England, he would be a rich man and his troubles ended.
But how could he get it to England? Here it was worthless as mud.

“I thank the Asika,” he said. “I ask for porters to bear her
gift back to my own country, since it is too heavy for me and my servant to
carry alone.”

At these words the priest smiled a little, then said that the Asika desired to
see the white lord and to receive from him Little Bonsa in return for the gold,
and that he could proffer his request to her.

“Good,” replied Alan, “lead me to the Asika.”

Then they started, Alan bearing the box containing Little Bonsa, and Jeekie
following after him. They went down passages and through sundry doors till at
length they came to a long and narrow hall that seemed to be lined with plates
of gold. At the end of this hall was a large chair of black wood and ivory
placed upon a daïs, and sitting in this chair with the light pouring on her
from some opening above, was the woman of Alan’s dream, beautiful to look
on in her crown and glittering garments. Upon a stool at the foot of the daïs
sat a man, a handsome and melancholy man. His hair was tied behind his head in
a pigtail and gilded, his face was painted red, white and yellow; he wore ropes
of bright-coloured stones about his neck, middle, arms and ankles, and held a
kind of sceptre in his hand.

“Who is that creature?” asked Alan over his shoulder to Jeekie.
“The Court fool?”

“That husband of Asika, Major. He not fool, very big gun, but look a
little low now because his time soon up. Come on, Major, Asika beckon us. Get
on stomach and crawl; that custom here,” he added, going down on to his
hands and knees, as did all the priests who followed them.

“I’ll see her hanged first,” answered Alan in English.

Then, accompanied by the creeping Jeekie and the train of prostrate priests, he
marched up the long hall to the edge of the daïs and there stood still and
bowed to the woman in the chair.

“Greeting, white man,” she said in a low voice when she had studied
him for a while. “Do you understand my tongue?”

“A little,” he answered in Asiki, “moreover, my servant here
knows it well and can translate.”

“I am glad,” she said. “Tell me then, in your country do not
people go on to their knees before their queen, and if not, how do they greet
her?”

“No,” answered Alan with the help of Jeekie. “They greet her
by raising their head-dress or kissing her hand.”

“Ah!” she said. “Well, you have no head-dress, so kiss
my hand,” and she stretched it out towards him, at the same time
prodding the man whom Jackie had said was her husband, in the back with her
foot, apparently to make him get out of the way.

Not knowing what else to do, Alan stepped on to the daïs, the painted man
scowling at him as he passed. Then he halted and said:

“How can I kiss your hand through this mask, Asika?”

“True,” she answered, then considered a little and added,
“White man, you have brought back Little Bonsa, have you not, Little
Bonsa who ran away with you a great many years ago?”

“I have,” he said, ignoring the rest of the question.

“Your messengers said that you required a present of gold in return for
Little Bonsa. I have sent you one, is it sufficient? If not, you can have
more.”

“I cannot say, O Asika, I have not examined it. But I thank you for the
present and desire porters to enable me to carry it away.”

“You desire porters,” she repeated meditatively. “We will
talk of that when you have rested here a moon or two. Meanwhile, give me Little
Bonsa that she may be restored to her own place.”

Alan opened the tin box and lifting out the fetish, gave it to the priestess,
who took it and with a serpentine movement of extraordinary grace glided from
her chair on to her knees, holding the mask above her head in both hands, then
thrice covered her face with it. This done, she called to the priests, bidding
them take Little Bonsa to her own place and give notice throughout the land
that she was back again. She added that the ancient Feast of Little Bonsa would
be held on the night of the full moon within three days, and that all
preparations must be made for it as she had commanded.

Then the head medicine-man, raising himself upon his knees, crept on to the
daïs, took the fetish from her hands, and breaking into a wild song of triumph,
he and his companions crawled down the hall and vanished through the door,
leaving them alone save for the Asika’s husband.

When they had gone the Asika looked at this man in a reflective way, and Alan
looked at him also through the eyeholes of his mask, finding him well worth
studying. As has been said, notwithstanding his paint and grotesque
decorations, he was very good-looking for a native, with well-cut features of
an Arab type. Also he was tall and muscular and not more than thirty years of
age. What struck Alan most, however, was none of these things, nor his jewelled
chains, nor even his gilded pigtail, but his eyes, which were full of terrors.
Seeing them, Alan remembered Jeekie’s story, which he had told to Mr.
Haswell’s guests at The Court, of how the husband of the Asika was driven
mad by ghosts.

Just then she spoke to the man, addressing him by name and saying:

“Leave us alone, Mungana, I wish to speak with this white lord.”

He did not seem to hear her words, but continued to stare at Alan.

“Hearken!” she exclaimed in a voice of ice. “Do my bidding
and begone, or you shall sleep alone to-night in a certain chamber that you
know of.”

Then Mungana rose, looked at her as a dog sometimes does at a cruel master who
is about to beat it, yes, with just that same expression, put his hands before
his eyes for a little while, and turning, left the hall by a side door which
closed behind him. The Asika watched him go, laughed musically and said:

“It is a very dull thing to be married,—but how are you named,
white man?”

“Vernon,” he answered.

“Vernoon, Vernoon,” she repeated, for she could not pronounce the O
as we do. “Are you married, Vernoon?”

He shook his head.

“Have you been married?”

“No,” he answered, “never, but I am going to be.”

“Yes,” she repeated, “you are going to be. You remember that
you were near to it many years ago, when Little Bonsa got jealous and ran away
with you. Well, she won’t do that again, for doubtless she is tired of
you now, and besides,” she added with a flash of ferocity,
“I’d melt her with fire first and set her spirit free.”

While Jeekie was trying to explain this mysterious speech to Alan, the Asika
broke in, asking:

“Do you always want to wear that mask?”

He answered, “Certainly not,” whereon she bade Jeekie take it off,
which he did.

“Understand me,” she said, fixing her great languid eyes upon his
in a fashion that made him exceedingly uncomfortable, “understand,
Vernoon, that if you go out anywhere, it must be in your mask, which you can
only put off when you are alone with me.”

“Why?”

“Because, Vernoon, I do not choose that any other woman should see your
face. If a woman looks upon your uncovered face, remember that she
dies—not nicely.”

Alan stared at her blankly, being unable to find appropriate Asiki words in
which to reply to this threat. But the Asika only leaned back in her chair and
laughed at his evident confusion and dismay, till a new thought struck her.

“Your lips are free now,” she said; “kiss my hand after the
fashion of your own country,” and she stretched it out to Alan, leaving
him no choice but to obey her.

“Why,” she went on mischievously, taking his hand and in turn
touching it with her red lips, “why, are you a thief, Vernoon? That ring
was mine and you have stolen it. How did you steal that ring?”

“I don’t know,” he answered, through Jeekie, “I found
it on my finger. I cannot understand how it came there. I understand nothing of
all this talk.”

“Well, well, keep it, Vernoon, only give me that other ring of yours in
exchange.”

“I cannot,” he replied, colouring. “I promised to wear it
always.”

“Whom did you promise?” she asked with a flash of rage. “Was
it a woman? Nay, I see, it is a man’s ring, and that is well, for
otherwise I would bring a curse on her, however far off she may be dwelling.
Say no more and forgive my anger. A vow is a vow—keep your ring. But
where is that one you used to wear in bygone days? I recall that it had a cross
upon it, not this star and figure of an eagle.”

Now Alan remembered that his uncle owned such a ring with a cross upon it, and
was frightened, for how did this woman know these things?

“Jeekie,” he said, “ask the Asika if I am mad, or if she is.
How can she know what I used to wear, seeing that I was never in this place
till yesterday, and certainly I have not met her anywhere else.”

“She mean when you your reverend uncle,” said Jeekie, wagging his
great head, “she think you identical man.”

“What troubles you, Vernoon,” the Asika asked softly, then added
anything but softly to Jeekie, “Translate, you dog, and be swift.”

So Jeekie translated in a great hurry, telling her what Alan had said, and
adding on his own account that he, silly white man that he was, could not
understand how, as she was quite a young woman, she could have seen him before
she was born. If that were so, she would be old and ugly now, not beautiful as
she was.

“I never saw you before, and you never saw me, Lady, yet you talk as
though we had been friends,” broke in Alan in his halting Asiki.

“So we were in the spirit, Vernoon. It was she who went before me who
loved that white man whose face was as your face is, but her ghost lives on in
me and tells me the tale. There have been many Asikas, for thousands of years
they have ruled in this land, yet but one spirit belongs to them all; it is the
string upon which the beads of their lives are threaded. White man, I, whom you
think young, know everything back to the beginning of the world, back to the
time when I was a monkey woman sitting in those cedar trees, and if you wish, I
can tell it you.”

“I should like to hear it very much indeed,” answered Alan, when he
had mastered her meaning, “though it is strange that none of the rest of
us remember such things. Meanwhile, O Asika, I will tell you that I desire to
return to my own land, taking with me that gift of gold that you have given me.
When will it please you to allow me to return?”

“Not yet a while, I think,” she said, smiling at him weirdly, for
no other word will describe that smile. “My spirit remembers that it was
always thus. Those wanderers who came hither always wished to return again to
their own country, like the birds in spring. Once there was a white man among
them, that was more than twenty hundred years ago; he was a native of a country
called Roma, and wore a helmet. He wished to return, but my mother of that day,
she kept him and by and by I will show him to you if you like. Before that
there was a brown man who came from a land where a great river overflows its
banks every year. He was a prince of his own country, who had fled from his
king and the desert folk made a slave of him, and so he drifted hither. He
wished to return also, for my mother of that day, or my spirit that dwelt in
her, showed to him that if he could but be there they would make him king in
his own land. But my mother of that day, she would not let him go, and by and
by I will show him to you, if you wish.”

Bewildered, amazed, Alan listened to her. Evidently the woman was mad, or else
she played some mystical part for reasons of her own.

“When will you let me go, O Asika?” he repeated.

“Not yet a while, I think,” she said again. “You are too
comely and I like you,” and she smiled at him. There was nothing coarse
in the smile, indeed it had a certain spiritual quality which thrilled him.
“I like you,” she went on in her dreamy voice, “I would keep
you with me until your spirit is drawn up into my spirit, making it strong and
rich as all the spirits that went before have done, those spirits that my
mothers loved from the beginning, which dwell in me to-day.”

Now Alan grew alarmed, desperate even.

“Queen,” he said, “but just now your husband sat here, is it
right then that you should talk to me thus?”

“My husband,” she answered, laughing. “Why, that man is but a
slave who plays the part of husband to satisfy an ancient law. Never has he so
much as kissed my finger tips; my women—those who waited on you last
night—are his wives, not I,—or may be, if he will. Soon he will die
of love for me, and then when he is dead, though not before, I may take another
husband, any husband that I choose, and I think that no black man shall be my
lord, who have other, purer blood in me. Vernoon, five centuries have gone by
since an Asika was really wed to a foreign man who wore a green turban and
called himself a son of the Prophet, a man with a hooked nose and flashing
eyes, who reviled our gods until they slew him, even though he was the beloved
of their priestess. She who went before me also would have married that white
man whose face was like your face, but he fled with Little Bonsa, or rather
Little Bonsa fled with him. So she passed away unwed, and in her place I
came.”

“How did you come, if she whom you call your mother was not your
mother?” asked Alan.

“What is that to you, white man?” she replied haughtily. “I
am here, as my spirit has been here from the first. Oh! I see you think I lie
to you, come then, come, and I will show you those who from the beginning have
been the husbands of the Asika,” and rising from her chair she took him
by the hand.

They went through doors and by long, half-lit passages till they came to great
gates guarded by old priests armed with spears. As they drew near to these
priests the Asika loosed a scarf that she wore over her breast-plate of gold
fish scales, and threw the star-spangled thing over Alan’s head, that
even these priests should not see his face. Then she spoke a word to them and
they opened the gates. Here Jeekie evinced a disposition to remain, remarking
to his master that he thought that place, into which he had never entered,
“much too holy for poor nigger like him.”

The Asika asked him what he had said and he explained his sense of unworthiness
in her own tongue.

“Come, fellow,” she exclaimed, “to translate my words and to
bear witness that no trick is played upon your lord.”

Still Jeekie lingered bashfully, whereon at a sign from her, one of the priests
pricked him behind with his great spear, and uttering a low howl he sprang
forward.

The Asika led the way down a passage, which they saw ended in a big hall lit
with lamps. Now they were in it and Alan became aware that they had entered the
treasure house of the Asiki, since here were piled up great heaps of gold, gold
in ingots, gold in nuggets, in stone jars filled with dust, in vessels plain or
embossed with monstrous shapes in fetishes and in little squares and discs that
looked as though they had served as coins. Never had he seen so much gold
before.

“You are rich here, Lady,” he said, gazing at the piles astonished.

She shrugged her shoulders. “Yes, as I have heard that some people count
wealth. These are the offerings brought to our gods from the beginning; also
all the gold found in the mountains belongs to the gods, and there is much of
it there. The gift I sent to you was taken from this heap, but in truth it is
but a poor gift, seeing that although this stuff is bright and serves for cups
and other things, it has no use at all and is only offered to the gods because
it is harder to come by than other metals. Look, these are prettier than the
gold,” and from a stone table she picked up at hazard a long necklace of
large, uncut stones, red and white in colour and set alternatively, that Alan
judged to be crystals and spinels.

“Take it,” she said, “and examine it at your leisure. It is
very old. For hundreds of years no more of these necklaces have been
made,” and with a careless movement she threw the chain over his head so
that it hung upon his shoulders.

Alan thanked her, then remembered that the man called Mungana, who was the
husband, real or official, of this priestess, had been somewhat similarly
adorned, and shivered a little as though at a presage of advancing fate. Still
he did not return the thing, fearing lest he should give offence.

At this moment his attention was taken from the treasure by the sound of a
groan behind him. Turning round he perceived Jeekie, his great eyes rolling as
though in an extremity of fear.

“Oh my golly! Major,” he ejaculated, pointing to the wall,
“look there.”

Alan looked, but at first in that dim light could only discover long rows of
gleaming objects which reached from the floor to the roof.

“Come and see,” said the Asika, and taking a lamp from that table
on which lay the gems, she led him past the piles of gold to one side of the
vault or hall. Then he saw, and although he did not show it, like Jeekie he was
afraid.

For there, each in his own niche and standing one above the other, were what
looked like hundreds of golden men with gleaming eyes. At first until the utter
stillness undeceived him, he thought that they must be men. Then he
understood that this was what they had been; now they were corpses wrapped in
sheets of thin gold and wearing golden masks with eyes of crystal, each mask
being beaten out to a hideous representation of the man in life.

“All these are the husbands of my spirit,” said the priestess,
waving the lamp in front of the lowest row of them, “Munganas who were
married to the Asikas in the past. Look, here is he who said that he ought to
be king of that rich land where year after year the river overflows its
banks,” and going to one of the first of the figures in the bottom row,
she drew out a fastening and suffered the gold mask to fall forward on a hinge,
exposing the face within.

Although it had evidently been treated with some preservative, this head now
was little more than a skull still covered with dark hair, but set upon its
brow appeared an object that Alan recognized at once, a simple band of plain
gold, and rising from it the head of an asp. Without doubt it was the
uraeus, that symbol which only the royalties of Old Egypt dared to wear.
Without doubt also either this man had brought it with him from the Nile, or in
memory of his rank and home he had fashioned it of the gold that was so
plentiful in the place of his captivity. So this woman’s story was true,
an ancient Egyptian had once been husband to the Asika of his day.

Meanwhile his guide had passed a long way down the line and halting in front of
another gold-wrapped figure, opened its mask.

“This is that man,” she said, “who told us he came from a
land called Roma. Look, the helmet still rests upon his head, though time has
eaten into it, and that ring upon your hand was taken from his finger. I have a
head-dress made upon the model of that helmet which I wear sometimes in memory
of this man who, my soul remembers, was brave and pleasant and a gallant
lover.”

“Indeed,” answered Alan, looking at the sunken face above which a
rim of curls appeared beneath the rusting helmet. “Well, he doesn’t
look very gallant now, does he?” Then he peered down between the body and
its gold casing and saw that in his bony hand the man still held a short Roman
sword, lifted as though in salute. So she had not lied in this matter either.

Meanwhile the Asika had glided on to the end of the hall behind the heaps of
treasure.

“There is one more white man,” she said, “though we know
little of him, for he was fierce and barbarous and died without learning our
tongue, after killing a great number of the priests of that day because they
would not let him go; yes, died cutting them down with a battle-axe and singing
some wild song of his own country. Come hither, slave, and bend yourself so,
resting your hands upon the ground.”

Jeekie obeyed, and actively as a cat the priestess leaped on to his back, and
reaching up opened the mask of a corpse in the second row and held her lamp
before its face.

It was better preserved than the others, so that its features remained
comparatively perfect, and about them hung a tangle of golden hair. Moreover, a
broad battle-axe appeared resting on the shoulder.

“A viking,” thought Alan. “I wonder how he came
here.”

When he had looked the Asika leaped from Jeekie’s back to the ground and,
waving her arm around her, began to talk so rapidly that Alan could understand
nothing of her words, and asked Jeekie to translate them.

“She say,” explained Jeekie between his chattering teeth,
“that all rest these Johnnies very poor crew, natives and that lot except
one who worship false Prophet and cut throat of Asika of that time, because she
infidel and he teach her better; also eat his dinner out of Little Bonsa and
chuck her into water. Very wild man, that Arab, but priests catch him at last
and fill him with hot gold before Little Bonsa because he no care a damn for
ghosts. So he die saying Hip, hip, hurrah! for houri and green field of Prophet
and to hell with Asika and Bonsa, Big and Little! Now he sit up there and at
night time worst ghost of all the crowd, always come to finish off Mungana.
That all she say, and quite enough too. Come on quick, she want you and no like
wait.”

By now the Asika had passed almost round the hall, and was standing opposite to
an empty niche beyond and above which there were perhaps a score of bodies
gold-plated in the usual fashion.

“That is your place, Vernoon,” she said gently, contemplating him
with her soft and heavy eyes, “for it was prepared for the white man with
whom Little Bonsa fled away, and since then, as you see, there have been many
Munganas, some of whom belong to me; indeed, that one,” and she touched a
corpse on which the gold looked very fresh, “only left me last year. But
we always knew that Little Bonsa would bring you back again, and so you see, we
have kept your place empty.”

“Indeed,” remarked Alan, “that is very kind of you,”
and feeling that he would faint if he stayed longer in this horrible and
haunted vault, he pushed past her with little ceremony and walked out through
the gates into the passage beyond.

CHAPTER XII.
THE GOLD HOUSE.

“How you like Asiki-land, Major?” asked Jeekie, who had followed
him and was now leaning against a wall fanning himself feebly with his great
hand. “Funny place, isn’t it, Major? I tell you so before you come,
but you no believe me.”

“Very funny,” answered Alan, “so funny that I want to get
out.”

“Ah! Major, that what eel say in trap where he go after lob-worm, but he
only get out into frying pan after cook skin him alive-o. Ah! here come
cook—I mean Asika. She only stop shut up those stiff ’uns, who all
love lob-worm one day. Very pretty woman, Asika, but thank God she not set cap
at me, who like to be buried in open like Christian man.”

“If you don’t stop it, Jeekie,” replied Alan in a
concentrated rage, “I’ll see that you are buried just where you
are.”

“No offence, Major, no offence, my heart full and bubble up. I wonder
what Miss Barbara say if she see you mooing and cooing with dark-eyed girl in
gold snake skin?”

Just then the Asika arrived and by way of excuse for his flight, Alan remarked
to her that the treasure-hall was hot.

“I did not notice it,” she answered, “but he who is called my
husband, the Mungana, says the same. The Mungana is guardian of the dead,”
she explained, “and when he is required so to do, he sleeps in the Place
of the Treasure and gathers wisdom from the spirits of those Munganas who were
before him.”

“Indeed. And does he like that bed-chamber?”

“The Mungana likes what I like, not what he likes,” she replied
haughtily. “Where I send him to sleep, there he sleeps. But come,
Vernoon, and I will show you the Holy Water where Big Bonsa dwells; also the
house in which I have my home, where you shall visit me when you please.”

“Who built this place?” asked Alan as she led him through more dark
and tortuous passages. “It is very great.”

“My spirit does not remember when it was built, Vernoon, so old is it,
but I think that the Asiki were once a big and famous people who traded to the
water upon the west, and even to the water on the east, and that was how those
white men became their slaves and the Munganas of their queens. Now they are
small and live only by the might and fame of Big and Little Bonsa, not half
filling the rich land which is theirs. But,” she added reflectively and
looking at him, “I think also that this is because in the past fools have
been thrust upon my spirit as Munganas. What it needs is the wisdom of the
white man, such wisdom as yours, Vernoon. If that were added to my magic, then
the Asiki would grow great again, seeing that they have in such plenty the gold
which you have shown me the white man loves. Yes, they would grow great, and
from coast to coast the people should bow at the name of Bonsa and send him
their sons for sacrifice. Perhaps you will live to see that day, Vernoon.
Slave,” she added, addressing Jeekie, “set the mask upon your
lord’s head, for we come where women are.”

Alan objected, but she stamped her foot and said it must be so, having once
worn Little Bonsa, as her people told her he had done, his naked face might not
be seen. So Alan submitted to the hideous head-dress and they entered the
Asika’s house by some back entrance.

It was a place with many rooms in it, but they were all remarkable for extreme
simplicity. With a single exception no gilding or gold was to be seen, although
the food vessels were made of this material here as everywhere. The chambers,
including those in which the Asika lived and slept, were panelled, or rather
boarded with cedar wood that was almost black with age, and their scanty
furniture was mostly made of ebony. They were very insufficiently lighted, like
his own room, by means of barred openings set high in the wall. Indeed gloom
and mystery were the keynotes of this place, amongst the shadows of which
handsome, half-naked servants or priestesses flitted to and fro at their tasks,
or peered at them out of dark corners. The atmosphere seemed heavy with secret
sin; Alan felt that in those rooms unnameable crimes and cruelties had been
committed for hundreds or perhaps thousands of years, and that the place was
yet haunted by the ghosts of them. At any rate it struck a chill to his healthy
blood, more even than had that Hall of the Dead and of heaped-up golden
treasure.

“Does my house please you?” the Asika asked of him.

“Not altogether,” he answered, “I think it is dark.”

“From the beginning my spirit has ever loved the dark, Vernoon. I think
that it was shaped in some black midnight.”

They passed through the chief entrance of the house which had pillars of
woodwork grotesquely carved, down some steps into a walled and roofed-in yard
where the shadows were even more dense than in the house they had left. Only at
one spot was there light flowing down through a hole in the roof, as it did
apparently in that hall where Alan had found the Asika sitting in state. The
light fell on to a pedestal or column made of gold which was placed behind an
object like a large Saxon font, also made of gold. The shape of this column
reminded Alan of something, namely of a very similar column, although fashioned
of a different material which stood in the granite-built office of Messrs.
Aylward & Haswell in the City of London. Nor did this seem wonderful to
him, since on top of it, squatting on its dwarf legs, stood a horrid but
familiar thing, namely Little Bonsa herself come home at last. There she sat
smiling cruelly, as she had smiled from the beginning, forgetful doubtless of
her wanderings in strange lands, while round her stood a band of priests armed
with spears.

Followed by the Asika and Jeekie, Alan walked up and looked her in the face, and
to his excited imagination she appeared to grin at him in answer. Then while
the priests prostrated themselves, he examined the golden basin or laver, and
saw that at the further side of it was a little platform approached by steps.
On the top of these golden steps were two depressions such as might have been
worn out in the course of ages by persons kneeling there. Also the flat edge of
the basin which stood about thirty inches above the level of the topmost step,
was scored as though by hundreds of sword cuts which had made deep lines in the
pure metal. The basin itself was empty.

Seeing that these things interested him, the Asika volunteered the information
through Jeekie, that this was a divining-bowl, and that if those who went
before her had wished to learn the future, they caused Little Bonsa to float in
it and found out all they wanted to know by her movements. She, however, she
added, had other and better methods of learning things that were predestined.

“Where does the water come from?” asked Alan thoughtlessly
searching the bowl for some tap or inlet.

“Out of the hearts of men,” she answered with a low and dreadful
laugh. “These marks are those of swords and every one of them means a
life.” Then seeing that he looked incredulous she added, “Stay, I
will show you. Little Bonsa must be thirsty who has fasted so long, also there
are matters that I desire to know. Come hither—you, and you,” and
she pointed at hazard to the two priests who knelt nearest to her, “and
do you bid the executioner bring his axe,” she went on to a third.

The dark faces of the men turned ashen, but they made no effort to escape their
doom. One of them crept up the steps and laid his neck upon the edge of gold,
while the other, uttering no word, threw himself on his face at the foot of
them, waiting his turn. Then a door opened and there appeared a great and
brutal-looking fellow, naked except for a loin cloth, who bore in his hand a
huge weapon, half knife and half axe.

First he looked at the Asika, who nodded almost imperceptibly, then sprang on
to a prolongation of the golden steps, bowed to Little Bonsa on her column
behind and heaved up his knife.

Now for the first time Alan really understood what was about to happen, and
that what he had imagined a stage rehearsal, was to become a hideous murder.

“Stop!” he shouted in English, being unable to remember the native
word.

The executioner paused with his axe poised in mid-air; the victim turned his
head and looked, as though surprised; the second victim and the priests their
companions looked also. Jeekie fell on to his knees and burst into fervent
prayer addressed apparently to Little Bonsa. The Asika smiled and did nothing.

Again the weapon was lifted and as he felt that words were no longer of any
use, even if he could find them, Alan took refuge in action. Springing on to
the other side of the little platform, he hit out with all his strength across
the kneeling man. Catching the executioner on the point of the chin, he knocked
him straight backwards in such fashion that his head struck upon the floor
before any other portion of his body, so that he lay there either dead or
stunned. Alan never learned which, since the matter was not thought of
sufficient importance to be mentioned.

At this sight the Asika burst into a low laugh, then asked Alan why he had
felled the executioner. He answered because he would not stand by and see two
innocent men butchered.

“Why not,” she said in an astonished voice; “if Little Bonsa,
whose priests they are, needs them, and I, who am the Mouth of the gods declare
that they should die? Still, she has been in your keeping for a long while and
you may know her will, so if you wish it, let them live. Or perhaps you require
other victims,” and she fixed her eyes upon Jeekie with a glance of
suggestive hope.

“Oh my golly!” gasped Jeekie in English, “tell her not for
Joe, Major, tell her most improper. Say Yellow God my dearest friend and go mad
as hatter if my throat cut——”

Alan stopped his protestations with a secret kick.

“I choose no victims,” he broke in, “nor will I see
man’s blood shed—to me it is orunda—unholy; I may not
look on human blood, and if you cause me to do so, Asika, I shall hate you
because you make me break my oath.”

The Asika reflected for a moment, while Jeekie behind muttered between his
chattering teeth:

“Good missionary talk that, Major. Keep up word in season, Major. If she
make Christian martyr of Jeekie, who get you out of this confounded hole?”

Then the Asika spoke.

“Be it as you will, for I desire neither that you should hate me, nor
that you should look on that which is unlawful for your eyes to see. The feasts
and ceremonies you must attend, but if I can help it, no victim shall be slain
in your presence, not even that whimpering hound, your servant,” she
added with a contemptuous glance at Jeekie, “who it seems, fears to give
his life for the glory of the god, but who because he is yours, is safe now and
always.”

“That very satisfactory,” said Jeekie, rising from his
knees, his face wreathed in smiles, for he knew well that a decree of the Asika
could not be broken. Then he began to explain to the priestess that it was not
fear of losing his own life that had moved him, but the certainty that this
occurrence would disagree morally with Little Bonsa, whose entire confidence he
possessed.

Taking no notice of his words, with a slight reverence to the fetish, she
passed on, beckoning to Alan. As he went by the two prostrate priests whose
lives he had saved, lifted their heads a little and looked at him with
heartfelt gratitude in their eyes; indeed one of them kissed the place where
his foot had trodden. Jeekie, following, gave him a kick to intimate that he
was taking a liberty, but at the same time stooped down and asked the man his
name. It occurred to him that these rescued priests might some day be useful.

Alan followed her through a kind of swing door which opened into another of the
endless halls, but when he looked for her there she was nowhere to be seen. A
priest who was waiting beyond the door bowed and informed him that the Asika
had gone to her own place, and would see him that evening. Then bowing again he
led them back by various passages to the room where they had slept.

“Jeekie,” said Alan after their food had been brought to them, this
time, he observed, by men, for it was now past midday, “you were born in
Asiki-land; tell me the truth of this business. What does that woman mean when
she talks about her spirit having been here from the beginning.”

“She mean, Major, that every time she die her soul go into someone else,
whom priests find out by marks. Also Asika always die young, they never let her
become old woman, but how she die and where they bury her, no one know
’cept priests. Sometimes she have girl child who become Asika after her,
but if they have boy child, they kill him. I think this Asika daughter of her
who make love to your reverend uncle. All that story ’bout her mother not
being married, lies, and all her story lies too, she often marry.”

“But how about the spirit coming back, Jeekie?”

“’Spect that lie too, Major, though she think it solemn fact.
Priests teach her all those old things. Still,” he added doubtfully,
“Asika great medicine-woman, and know a lot we don’t know,
can’t say how. Very awkward customer, Major.”

“Quite so, Jeekie, I agree with you. But to come to the point, what is
her game with me?”

“Oh! Major,” he answered with a grin, “that simple
enough. She tired of black man, want change, mean to marry you according to
law, that is when Mungana dies, and he die jolly quick now. She mustn’t
kill him, but polish him off all the same, stick him to sleep with those dead
’uns, till he go like drunk man and see things and drown himself. Then
she marry you. But till he dead, you all right, she only talk and make eyes,
’cause of Asiki law, not ’cause she want to stop there.”

“Indeed, Jeekie, and how long do you think that Mungana will last?”

“Perhaps three months, Major, and perhaps two. Think not more than two.
Strong man, but he look devilish dicky this morning. Think he begin see
snakes.”

“Very well, Jeekie. Now listen to me—you’ve got to get us out
of Asiki-land by this day two months. If you don’t, that lady will do
anything to oblige me and no doubt there are more executioners left.”

“Oh! Major, don’t talk like silly fool. Jeekie always hate fools
and suffer them badly—like holy first missionary bishop. You know very
well this no place for ultra-Christian man like Jeekie, who only come here to
please you. Both in same bag, Major, if I die, you die and leave Miss Barbara
up gum tree. I get you out if I can. But this stuff the trouble,” and he
pointed to the bags of gold. “Not want to leave all that behind after
such arduous walk. No, no, I try get you out, meanwhile you play game.”

“The game! What game, Jeekie?”

“What game? Why, Asika-game of course. If she sigh, you sigh; if she look
at you, you look at her; if she squeeze hand, you squeeze hand; if she kiss,
you kiss.”

“I am hanged if I do, Jeekie.”

“Must, Major; must or never get out of Asiki-land. What all that
matter?” he added confidentially. “Miss Barbara never know. Jeekie
doesn’t split, also quite necessary in situation, and you can’t be
married till that Mungana dead. All matter business, Major; make time pass
pleasant as well. Asika jolly enough if you stroke her fur right way, but if
you put her back up—oh Lor’! No trouble, sit and smile and say,
‘Oh, ducky, how beautiful you are!’ that not hurt
anybody.”

In spite of himself Alan burst out laughing.

“But how about the Mungana?” he asked.

“Mungana, he got take that with rest. Also I try make friends with that
poor devil. Tell him it all my eye. Perhaps he believe me—not sure. If he
me, I no believe him. Mungana,” he added oracularly,
“Mungana take his chance. What matter? In two months’ time he
nothing but gold figure, No. 2403; just like one mummy in museum. Now I try
catch my ma. I hear she alive somewhere. They tell me she used keep lodging
house for Bonsa pilgrim, but steal grub, say it cat, all that sort of thing,
and get run in as thief. Afraid my ma come down very much in world, not society
lady now, shut up long way off in suburb. Still p’raps she useful so best
send her message by p’liceman, say how much I love her; say her dear
little Jeekie turn up again just to see her sweet face. Only don’t know
if she swallow that or if they let her out prison unless I pay for all she
prig.”

CHAPTER XIII.
THE FEAST OF LITTLE BONSA.

It was the night of full moon and of the great feast of the return of Little
Bonsa. Alan sat in his chamber waiting to be summoned to take part in this
ceremony and listening the while to that Wow! Wow! Wow! of the death
drums, whereof Jeekie had once spoken in England, which could be clearly heard
even above the perpetual boom of the cataract tumbling down its cliff behind
the town. By now he had recovered from the fatigue of his journey and his
health was good, but the same could not be said of his spirits, for never in
his life had he felt more downhearted, not even when he was sickening for
blackwater fever, or lay in bondage in the City, expecting every morning to
wake up and find his reputation blasted. He was a prisoner in this dreadful,
gloomy place where he must live like a second Man in the Iron Mask, without
recreation or exercise other than he could find in the walled garden where grew
the black cedar trees, and, so far as he could see, a prisoner without hope of
escape.

Moreover, he could no longer disguise from himself the truth; Jeekie was right.
The Asika had fallen in love with him, or at any rate made up her mind that he
should be her next husband. He hated the sight of the woman and her sinuous,
evil beauty, but to be free of her was impossible, and to offend her, death.
All day long she kept him about her, and from his sleep he would wake up and as
on the night of his arrival, distinguish her leaning over him studying his face
by the light of the faintly-burning lamps, as a snake studies the bird it is
about to strike. He dared not stir or give the slightest sign that he saw her.
Nor indeed did he always see her, for he kept his eyes closely shut. But even
in his heaviest slumber some warning sense told him of her presence, and then
above Jeekie’s snores (for on these occasions Jeekie always snored his
loudest) he would hear a soft footfall, as cat-like, she crept towards him, or
the sweep of her spangled robe, or the tinkling of the scales of her golden
breastplate. For a long while she would stand there, examining him greedily and
even the few little belongings that remained to him, and then with a hungry
sigh glide away and vanish in the shadows. How she came or how she vanished
Alan could not discover. Clearly she did not use the door, and he could find no
other entrance to the room. Indeed at times he thought he must be suffering
from delusion, but Jeekie shook his great head and did not agree with him.

“She there right enough,” he said. “She walk over me as
though I log and I smell stuff she put on hair, but I think she come and go by
magic. Asika do that if she please.”

“Then I wish she would teach me the secret, Jeekie. I should soon be out
of Asiki-land, I can tell you.”

All that day Alan had been in her company, answering her endless questions
about his past, the lands that he had visited, and especially the women that he
had known. He had the tact to tell her that none of these were half so
beautiful as she was, which was true in a sense and pleased her very much, for
in whatever respects she differed from them, in common with the rest of her sex
she loved a compliment. Emboldened by her good humour, he had ventured to
suggest that being rested and having restored Little Bonsa, he would be glad to
return with her gifts to his own country. Next instant he was sorry, for as
soon as she understood his meaning she grew almost white with rage.

“What!” she said; “you desire to leave me? Know, Vernoon,
that I will see you dead first and myself also, for then we shall be born again
together and can never more be separated.”

Nor was this all, for she burst into weeping, threw her arms about him, drew
him to her, kissed him on the forehead, and then thrust him away, saying:

“Curses on the priests’ law that makes us wait so long, and curses
on that Mungana who will not die and may not be killed. Well, he shall pay for
it and within two months, Vernoon, oh! within two months——”
and she stretched out her arms with a gesture of infinite passion, then turned
and left him.

“My!” said Jeekie afterwards, for he had watched all this scene
open-mouthed, “my! but she mean business. Mrs. Jeekie never kiss me like
that, nor any other female either. She dead nuts on you, Major. Very great
compliment! ’Spect when you Mungana, she keep you alive a long time, four
or five years perhaps, if no other white man come this way. Pity you
can’t take it on a bit, Major,” he added insidiously,
“because then she grow careless and make you chief and we get chance
scoop out that gold house and bolt with bally lot. Miss Barbara sensible woman,
when she see all that cash she not mind, she say ‘Bravo, old boy, quite
right spoil Lady Potiphar in land of bondage, but Jeekie must have ten per
cent. because he show you how do it.’”

Alan was so depressed, and indeed terrified by this demonstration on the part
of his fearful hostess, that he could neither laugh at Jeekie, nor swear at
him. He only sat still and groaned, feeling that bad as things were they were
bound to become worse.

Above the perpetual booming of the death drums rose a sound of wild music. The
door burst open, and through it came a number of priests, their nearly naked
bodies hideously painted and on their heads the most devilish-looking masks.
Some of them clashed cymbals, some blew horns and some beat little drums all to
time which was given to them by a bandmaster with a golden rod. In front of
them with painted face and decked in his gorgeous apparel, walked the Mungana
himself.

“They come to take us to Bonsa worship,” explained Jeekie.
“Cheer up, Major, very exciting business, no go to sleep there, as in
English church. See the god all time and no sermon.”

Alan, who wore a linen robe over the remains of his European garments, and
whose mask was already on his head, rose listlessly and bowed to the gorgeous
Mungana who, poor man, answered him with a stare of hate, knowing that this
wanderer was destined to fill his place. Then they started, Jeekie accompanying
them, and walked a long way through various halls and passages, bearing first
to the left and then to the right again, till suddenly through some side door
they emerged upon a marvellous scene. The first impressions that reached
Alan’s mind were those of a long stretch of water, very black and still
and not more than eighty feet in width. On the hither edge of this canal,
seated upon a raised daïs in the midst of a great open space of polished rock,
was the Asika, or so he gathered from her gold breastplate and sparkling
garments, for her fierce and beautiful features were hid beneath an object
familiar enough to him, the yellow, crystal-eyed mask of Little Bonsa. Arranged
in companies about and behind her were hundreds of people, male and female,
clad in hideous costumes to resemble demons, with masks to match. Some of these
masks were semi-human and some of them bore a likeness to the heads of animals
and had horns on them, while their wearers were adorned with skins and tails.
To describe them in their infinite variety would be impossible; indeed the
recollection that Alan carried away was one of a mediæval hell as it is
occasionally to be found portrayed upon “Doom pictures” in old
churches.

On the further side of the water the entire Asiki people seemed to be gathered;
at least there were thousands of them seated upon a rising rocky slope as in an
amphitheatre, clad only in the ordinary costume of the Western African native,
and in some instances in linen cloaks. This great amphitheatre was surrounded
by a high wall with gates, but in the moonlight he found it difficult to
discern its exact limits.

Jeekie nudged Alan and pointed to the centre of the canal or pool. He looked
and saw floating there a huge and hideous golden head, twenty times as large as
life perhaps, with great prominent eyes that glared up to the sky. Its
appearance was quite unlike anything else in the world, more loathsome, more
horrible, man, fish and animal, all seemed to have their part in it, human
mouth and teeth, fish-like eyes and snout, bestial expression.

“Big Bonsa,” whispered Jeekie. “Just the same as when I sweet
little boy.—He live here for thousand of years.”

Preceded by the Mungana and followed by Jeekie and the priests, the band
bringing up the rear, Alan was marched down a lane left open for him till he
came to some steps leading to the daïs, upon which in addition to that occupied
by the Asika, stood two empty chairs. These steps the Mungana motioned him to
mount, but when Jeekie tried to follow him he turned and struck him
contemptuously in the face. At once the Asika, who was watching Vernon’s
approach through the eye-holes in the Little Bonsa mask, said fiercely:

“Who bade you strike the servant of my guest, O Mungana? Let him come
also, that he may stand behind us and interpret.”

Her wretched husband, who knew that this public slight was put upon him
purposely, but did not dare to protest against it, bowed his head. Then all
three of them climbed to the daïs, the priests and the musicians remaining
below.

“Welcome, Vernoon,” said the Asika through the lips of the mask,
which to Alan, notwithstanding the dreadful cruelty of its expression, looked
less hateful than the lovely, tigerish face it hid. “Welcome and be
seated here on my left hand, since on my right you may not sit—as
yet.”

He bowed and took the chair to which she pointed, while her husband placed
himself in the other chair upon her right, and Jeekie stood behind, his great
shape towering above them all.

“This is a festival of my people, Vernoon,” she went on,
“such a festival as has not been seen for years, celebrated because
Little Bonsa has come back to them.”

“What is to happen?” he asked uneasily. “I have told you,
Lady, that blood is orunda to me. I must not witness it.”

“I know, be not afraid,” she answered. “Sacrifice there must
be, since it is the custom and we may not defraud the gods, but you shall not
see the deed. Judge from this, Vernoon, how greatly I desire to please
you.”

Now Alan, looking about him, saw that immediately beneath the daïs and between
them and the edge of the water, were gathered his cannibal friends, the Ogula
and Fahni their chief who had rowed him to Asiki-land, and with them the
messengers whom they had sent on ahead. Also he saw that their arms were tied
behind them and that they were guarded by men dressed like devils and armed
with spears.

“Ask Fahni why he and his people are bound, Jeekie,” said Alan,
“and why have they not returned to their own country.”

Jeekie obeyed, putting the question in the Ogula language, whereon the poor men
turned and began to implore Alan to save their lives, Fahni adding that he had
been told they were to be killed that night.

“Why are these men to be slain?” asked Alan of the Asika.

“Because I have learned that they attacked you in their own country,
Vernoon,” she answered, “and would have killed you had it not been
for Little Bonsa. It is therefore right that they should die as an offering to
you.”

“I refuse the offering since afterwards they dealt well with me. Set them
free and let them return to their own land, Asika.”

“That cannot be,” she replied coldly. “Here they are and here
they remain. Still, their lives are yours to take or to spare, so keep them as
your servants if you will,” and bending down she issued a command which
was instantly obeyed, for the men dressed like devils cut the bonds of the
Ogula and brought them round to the back of the daïs, where they stood blessing
Alan loudly in their own tongue.

Then the ceremonies began with a kind of infernal ballet. On the smooth space
between them and the water’s edge appeared male and female bands of
dancers who emerged from the shadows. For the most part they were dressed up
like animals and imitated the cries of the beasts that they represented,
although some of them wore little or no clothing. To the sound of wild music of
horns and drums these creatures danced a kind of insane quadrille which seemed
to suggest everything that is cruel and vile upon the earth. They danced and
danced in the moonlight till the madness spread from them to the thousands who
were gathered upon the farther side of the water, for presently all of these
began to dance also. Nor did it stop there, since at length the Asika rose from
her chair upon the daïs and joined in the performance with the Mungana her
husband. Even Jeekie began to prance and shout behind, so that at last Alan and
the Ogula alone remained still and silent in the midst of a scene and a noise
which might have been that of hell let loose.

Leaving go of her husband, the Asika bounded up to Alan and tried to drag him
from his chair, thrusting her gold mask against his mask. He refused to move
and after a while she left him and returned to Mungana. Louder and louder
brayed the music and beat the drums, wilder and wilder grew the shrieks.
Individuals fell exhausted and were thrown into the water where they sank or
floated away on the slow moving stream, as part of some inexplicable play that
was being enacted.

Then suddenly the Asika stood still and threw up her arms, whereon all
the thousands present stood still also. Again she threw up her arms and they
fell upon their faces and lay as though they were dead. A third time she threw
up her arms and they rose and remained so silent that the only sound to be
heard was that of their thick breathing. Then she spoke, or rather screamed,
saying:

“Little Bonsa has come back again, bringing with her the white man whom
she led away,” and all the audience answered, “Little Bonsa has
come back again. Once more we see her on the head of the Asika as our fathers
did. Give her a sacrifice. Give her the white man.”

“Nay,” she screamed back, “the white man is mine. I name him
as the next Mungana.”

“Oho!” roared the audience, “Oho! she names him as the next
Mungana. Good-bye, old Mungana! Greeting, new Mungana! When will be the
marriage feast?”

“Tell us, Mungana, tell us,” cried the Asika, patting her wretched
husband on the cheek. “Tell us when you mean to die, as you are bound to
do.”

“On the night of the second full moon from now,” he answered with a
terrible groan that seemed to be wrung out of his heavy heart; “on that
night my soul will be eaten up and my day done. But till then I am lord of the
Asika, and if she forgets it, death shall be her portion, according to the
ancient law.”

“Yes, yes,” shouted the multitude, “death shall be her
portion, and her lover we will sacrifice. Die in honour, Mungana, as all those
died that went before you.”

“Thank Heaven!” muttered Alan to himself, “I am safe from
that witch for the next two months,” and through the eye-holes of his
mask he contemplated her with loathing and alarm.

At the moment, indeed, she was not a pleasing spectacle, for in the heat and
excitement of her mad dance she had cast off her gold breast-plate or
stomacher, leaving herself naked except for her kirtle and the thin,
gold-spangled robe upon her shoulders over which streamed her black, disordered
hair. Contrasting strangely in the silver moonlight with her glistening,
copper-coloured body, the mask of Little Bonsa on her head glared round with
its fixed crystal eyes and fiendish smile as she turned her long neck from side
to side. Seen thus she scarcely looked human, and Alan’s heart was filled
with pity for the poor bedizened wretch she named her husband, who had just
been forced to announce the date of his own suicide.

Soon, however, he forgot it, for a new act in the drama had begun. Two priests
clad in horns and tails leapt on to the daïs and at a signal unlaced the mask
of Little Bonsa. Now the Asika lifted it from her streaming face and held it on
high, then she lowered it to the level of her breast, and holding it in both
hands, walked to the edge of the daïs, whereon priests, disguised as fiends,
began to leap at it, striving to reach it with their fingers and snatch it from
her grasp. One by one they leapt with the most desperate energy, each man being
allowed to make three attempts, and Alan noted that this novel jumping
competition was watched with the deepest interest by all the audience, at the
time he knew not why.

The first two, who were evidently elderly men, who failed to come anywhere near
the mark. Their failure was received with shouts of derision. They sank
exhausted to the ground and from the motion of his body Alan could see that one
of them was weeping, while the other remained sullenly silent. Then a younger
man advanced and at the third try almost grasped the fetish. Indeed he would
have grasped it had he not met with foul play, for the Asika, seeing that he
was about to succeed, lifted it an inch or two, so that he also missed and with
a groan joined the band of the defeated. Next appeared a fourth priest, even
more horribly arrayed than those before him, but Alan noticed that his mask was
of the lightest, and that his garments consisted chiefly of paint, the main
idea of his make-up being that of a skeleton. He was a thin active fellow, and
all the watching thousands greeted him with a shout. For a few seconds he stood
back gazing at the mask as a wolf might at an unapproachable bone. Then
suddenly he ran forward and sprang into the air. Such an amazing jump Alan had
never seen before. So high was it indeed that his head came level with that of
the fetish, which he snatched with both hands tearing it from Asika’s
grasp. Coming to the ground again with a thud, he began to caper to and fro,
kissing the mask, while the audience shouted:

“Little Bonsa has chosen. What fate for the fallen? Ask her,
priest?”

The man stopped his capering and held the mouth of Little Bonsa to his ear,
nodding from time to time as though she were speaking to him and he heard what
she said. Then he passed round the daïs where Alan could not see him, and
presently reappeared holding Little Bonsa in his right hand and in his left a
great gold cup. A silence fell upon the place. He advanced to the first man who
had jumped and offered him the cup. He turned his head away, but a thousand
voices thundered “Drink!” Then he took it and drank, passing it to
a companion in misfortune, who in turn drank also and gave it to the third
priest, he who would have snatched the mask had not the Asika lifted it out of
his reach.

This man drained it to the dregs, and with an exclamation of rage dashed the
empty vessel into the face of the chosen priest with such fury that the man
rolled upon the ground and for a while lay there stunned. Now he who had drunk
first began to spring about in a ludicrous fashion, and presently was joined in
his dance by the other two. So absurd were their motions and tumblings and
clownlike grimaces, for they had dragged off their masks, that roars of brutal
laughter rose from the audience, in which the Asika joined.

At first Alan thought that the thing was a joke, and that the men had merely
been made mad drunk, till catching sight of their eyes in the moonlight, he
perceived that they were in great pain and turned indignantly to remonstrate
with the Asika.

“Be silent, Vernoon,” she said savagely, “blood is your
orunda and I respect it. Therefore by decree of the god these die of
poison,” and again she fell to laughing at the contortions of the victims.

Alan shut his eyes, and when at length, drawn by some fearful fascination, he
opened them once more, it was to see that the three poor creatures had thrown
themselves into the water, where they rolled over and over like wounded
porpoises, till presently they sank and vanished there.

This farce, for so they considered it, being ended and the stage, so to speak,
cleared, the audience having laughed itself hoarse, set itself to watch the
proceedings of the newly chosen high-priest of Little Bonsa, who by now had
recovered from the blow dealt to him by one of the murdered men. With the help
of some other priests he was engaged in binding the fetish on to a little raft
of reeds. This done he laid himself flat upon a broad plank which had been made
ready for him at the edge of the water, placing the mask in front of him and
with a few strokes of his feet that hung over the sides of the plank, paddled
himself out to the centre of the canal where the god called Big Bonsa floated,
or was anchored. Having reached it he pushed the little raft off the plank into
the water, and in some way that Alan could not see, made it fast to Big Bonsa,
so that now the two of them floated one behind the other. Then while the people
cheered, shouting out that husband and wife had come together again at last, he
paddled his plank back to the water’s edge, sat down and waited.

Meanwhile, at a sign from the Asika, all the scores of priests and priestesses
who were dressed as devils had filed off to right and left, and vanished,
presumably to cross the water by bridges or boats that were out of sight. At
any rate now they began to appear upon its further side and to wind their way
singly among the thousands of the Asiki people who were gathered upon the rocky
slope beyond in order to witness this fearsome entertainment. Alan observed
that the spectators did not appear to appreciate the arrival amongst them of
these priests, from whom they seemed to edge away. Indeed many of them rose and
tried to depart altogether, only to be driven back to their places by a double
line of soldiers armed with spears, who now for the first time became visible,
ringing in the audience. Also other soldiers and with them bodies of men who
looked like executioners, showed themselves upon the further brink of the water
and then marched off, disappearing to left and right.

“What’s the matter now?” Alan asked of Jeekie over his
shoulder.

“All in blue funk,” whispered Jeekie back, “joke done. Get to
business now. Silly fools forget that when they laugh so much. Both Bonsas very
hungry and Asika want wipe out old scores. Presently you see.”

Presently Alan did see, for at some preconcerted signal the devil priests, each
of them, jumped with a yell at a person near to them, gripping him or her by
the hair, whereon assistants rushed in and dragged them down to the bank of the
canal. Here to the number of a hundred or more, a wailing, struggling mass,
they were confined in a pen like sheep. Then a bar was lifted and one of them
allowed to escape, only to find himself in a kind of gangway which ran down
into shallow water. Being forced along this he came to an open space of water
exactly opposite to the floating fetishes, and there was kept a while by men
armed with spears. As nothing happened they lifted their spears and the man
bolted up an incline and was lost among the thousands of spectators.

The next one, evidently a person of rank, was not so fortunate. Jumping into
the pool off the gangway, he stood there like a sheep about to be washed, the
water reaching up to his middle. Then Alan saw a terrifying thing, for suddenly
the horrid, golden head of Big Bonsa, towing Little Bonsa behind it, began to
swim with a deliberate motion across the stream until, reaching the man, it
seemed to rear itself up and poke him with its snout in the chest as a turtle
might do. Then it sank again into the water and slowly floated back to its
station, directed by some agency or power that Alan could not discover.

At the touch of the fetish the man screamed like a horse in pain or terror, and
soldiers leaping on him with a savage shout, dragged him up another gangway
opposite to that by which he had descended, whereon, to all appearances more
dead than alive, he departed into the shadows. The horns and drums set up a
bray of triumph, the Asika clapped her hands approvingly, the spectators
cheered, and another victim was bundled down the gangway and submitted to the
judgment of the Bonsas, which came at him like hungry pikes at a frog. Then
followed more and more, some being chosen and some let go, till at last,
growing weary, the priests directed the soldiers to drive the prisoners down in
batches until the pen in the water was full as though with huddled sheep. If
the horrible golden masks swam at them and touched one of their number, they
were all dragged away; if these remained quiescent they were let go.

So the thing went on until at length Alan could bear no more of it.

“Lady,” he said to the Asika when she paused for a moment from her
hand-clapping, “I am weary, I would sleep.”

“What!” she exclaimed, “do you wish to sleep on such a
glorious night when so many evil doers are coming to their just doom? Well,
well, go if you will, for then my promise is off me and I can hasten this
business and deal with the wicked before the people according to our custom.
Good-night to you, Vernoon, to-morrow we will meet,” and she called to
some priests to lead him away, and with him the Ogula cannibals whom she had
given to him as servants.

Alan went thankfully enough. As he plunged into one of the passages the sound
of frightful yelling reached his ears, followed by loud, triumphant shouts.

“Now you gone they kill those who Bonsa smell out,” said Jeekie.
“Why you no wait and see? Very interesting sight.”

“Hold your tongue,” answered Alan savagely. “Did you think so
years ago when you were put into that pen to be butchered?”

“No, Major,” replied the unabashed Jeekie, “not think at all
then, too far gone. But see other people in there and know it not you,
quite different matter.”

They reached their room. At the door of it Fahni and his followers were led off
to some quarters near by, blessing Alan as they went because he had saved their
lives.

“Jeekie,” he said when they were alone, “tell me, what makes
that hellish idol swim about in the water picking out some people and leaving
others alone?”

“Major, I not know, no one know except top priest and Asika. Perhaps
there man underneath, perhaps they pull string, or perhaps fetish alive and he
do what he like. Please don’t call him names, Major, or he remember and
come after us one time, and that bad job,” and Jeekie shivered visibly.

“Bosh!” answered Alan, but all the same he shivered also.
“Jeekie,” he asked again, “what happens to those people whom
the Bonsas smell out?”

“Case of good-bye, Major. Sometimes they chop off nut, sometimes they
spiflicate in gold tub, sometimes priest-man make hole in what white doctor
call diagram—and shake hands with heart.—All matter of
taste, Major, just as Asika please. If she like victim or they old friends,
chop off head; if she not like him—do worse things.”

More than satisfied with his information Alan went to bed. For hour after hour
that night he lay tossing and turning, haunted by the recollections of the
dreadful sights that he had seen and of the horrible Asika, beautiful and
half-naked, glaring at him amorously through the crystal eyes of Little Bonsa.
When at last he fell asleep it was to dream that he was alone in the water with
the god which pursued him as a shark pursues a shipwrecked sailor. Never did he
experience a nightmare that was half so awful. Only one thing could be more
awful, the reality itself.

CHAPTER XIV.
THE MOTHER OF JEEKIE.

“Jeekie,” said Alan next morning, “I tell you again that I
have had enough of this place, I want to get out.”

“Yes, Major, that just what mouse say when he finish cheese in trap, but
missus come along, call him ‘Pretty, pretty,’ and drown him all the
same,” and he nodded in the direction of the Asika’s house.

“Jeekie, it has got to be done—do you hear me? I had rather die
trying to get away than stop here till the next two months are up. If I am here
on the night of the next full moon but one, I shall shoot that Asika and then
shoot myself, and you must take your chance. Do you understand?”

“Understand that foolish game and poor lookout for Jeekie, Major, but
can’t think of any plan.” Then he rubbed his big nose reflectively
and added, “Fahni and his people your slaves now, ’spose we have
talk with him. I tell priests to bring him along when they come with breakfast.
Leave it to me, Major.”

Alan did leave it to him, with the result that after long argument the priests
consented or obtained permission to produce Fahni and his followers, and a
little while after the great men arrived looking very dejected, and saluted
Alan humbly. Bidding the rest of them be seated, he called Fahni to the end of
the room and asked him through Jeekie if he and his men did not wish to return
home.

“Indeed we do, white lord,” answered the old chief, “but how
can we? The Asika has a grudge against our tribe and but for you would have
killed every one of us last night. We are snared and must stop here till we
die.”

“Would not your people help you if they knew, Fahni?”

“Yes, lord, I think so. But how can I tell them who doubtless believe us
dead? Nor can I send a messenger, for this place is guarded and he would be
killed at once. We came here for your sake because you had Little Bonsa, a god
that is known in the east and the west, in the north and the south, and because
you saved me from the lion, and here, alas! we must perish.”

“Jeekie,” said Alan, “can you not find a messenger? Have you,
who were born of this people, no friend among them at all?”

Jeekie shook his white head and rolled his eyes. Then suddenly an idea struck
him.

“Yes,” he said, “I think one, p’raps. I mean my
ma.”

“Your ma!” said Alan. “Oh! I remember. Have you heard
anything more about her?”

“Yes, Major. Very old girl now, but strong on leg, so they say. Believe
she glad go anywhere, because she public nuisance; they tired of her in prison
and there no workhouse here, so they want turn her out starve, which of course
break my heart. Perhaps she take message. Some use that way. Only think she
afraid go Ogula-land because they nasty cannibal and eat old woman.”

When all this was translated to Fahni he assured Jeekie with earnestness that
nothing would induce the Ogula people to eat his mother; moreover, that for her
sake they would never look carnivorously on another old woman, fat or thin.

“Well,” said Jeekie, “I try again to get hold of old lady and
we see. I pray priests, whom you save other day, let her out of chokey as I
sick to fall upon bosom, which quite true, only so much to think of that no
time to attend to domestic relation till now.”

That very afternoon, on returning to his room from walking in the dismal cedar
garden, Alan’s ears were greeted by a sound of shrill quarrelling.
Looking up he saw an extraordinary sight. A tall, gaunt, withered female who
might have been of any age between sixty and a hundred, had got Jeekie’s
ear in one hand, and with the other was slapping him in the face while she
exclaimed:

“O thief, whom by the curse of Bonsa I brought into the world, what have
you done with my blanket? Was it not enough that you, my only son, should leave
me to earn my own living? Must you also take my best blanket with you, for
which reason I have been cold ever since. Where is it, thief, where is
it?”

“Worn out, my mother, worn out,” he answered, trying to free
himself. “You forget, honourable mother, that I grow old and you should
have been dead years ago. How can you expect a blanket to last so long? Leave
go of my ear, beloved mother, and I will give you another. I have travelled
across the world to find you and I want to hear news of your husband.”

“My husband, thief, which husband? Do you mean your father, the one with
the broken nose, who was sacrificed because you ran away with the white man
whom Bonsa loved? Well, you look out for him when you get into the world of
ghosts, for he said that he was going to wait for you there with the biggest
stick that he could find. Why I haven’t thought of him for years, but
then I have had three other husbands since his time, bad enough, but better
than he was, so who would? And now Bonsa has got the lot, and I have no
children alive, and they say I am to be driven out of the prison to starve next
week as they won’t feed me any longer, I who can still work against any
one of them, and—you’ve got my blanket, you ugly old rascal,”
and collapsing beneath the weight of her recited woes, the hag burst into a
melancholy howl.

“Peace, my mother,” said Jeekie, patting her on the head. “Do
what I tell you and you shall have more blankets than you can wear and, as you
are still so handsome, another husband too if you like, and a garden and slaves
to work for you and plenty to eat.”

“How shall I get all these things, my son?” asked the old woman,
looking up. “Will you take me to your home and support me, or will that
white lord marry me? They told me that the Asika had named him as the Mungana,
and she is very jealous, the most jealous Asika that I have ever known.”

“No, mother, he would like to, but he dare not, and I cannot support you
as I should wish, as here I have no house or property. You will get all this by
taking a walk and holding your tongue. You see this man here, he is Fahni, king
of a great tribe, the Ogula. He wants you to carry a message for him, and by
and by he will marry you, won’t you, Fahni?”

“Oh! yes, yes,” said Fahni; “I will do anything she likes. No
one shall be so rich and honoured in my country, and for her sake we will never
eat another old woman, whereas if she stays here she will be driven to the
mountains to starve in a week.”

“Set out the matter,” said the mother of Jeekie, who was by no
means so foolish as she seemed.

So they told her what she must do, namely, travel down to the Ogula and tell
them of the plight of their chief, bidding them muster all their fighting men
and when the swamps were dry enough, advance as near as they dared to the Asiki
country and, if they could not attack it, wait till they had further news.

The end of it was that the mother of Jeekie, who knew her case to be desperate
at home, where she was in no good repute, promised to attempt the journey in
consideration of advantages to be received. Since she was to be turned adrift
to meet her fate with as much food as she could carry, this she could do
without exciting any suspicion, for who would trouble about the movements of a
useless old thief? Meanwhile Jeekie gave her one of the robes which the Asika
had provided for Alan, also various articles which she desired and, having
learned Fahni’s message by heart and announced that she considered
herself his affianced bride, the gaunt old creature departed happy enough after
exchanging embraces with her long lost son.

“She will tell somebody all about it and we shall only get our throats
cut,” said Alan wearily, for the whole thing seemed to him a foolish
farce.

“No, no, Major. I make her swear not split on ghosts of all her husbands
and by Big Bonsa hisself. She sit tight as wax, because she think they haunt
her if she don’t and I too by and by when I dead. P’raps she get to
Ogula country and p’raps not. If she don’t, can’t help it and
no harm done. Break my heart, but only one old woman less. Anyhow she hold
tongue, that main point, and I really very glad find my ma, who never hoped to
see again. Heaven very kind to Jeekie, give him back to family bosom,” he
added, unctuously.

That day there were no excitements, and to Alan’s intense relief he saw
nothing of the Asika. After its orgy of witchcraft and bloodshed on the
previous night, weariness and silence seemed to have fallen upon the town. At
any rate no sound came from it that could be heard above the low, constant
thunder of the great waterfall rushing down its precipice, and in the
cedar-shadowed garden where Alan walked till he was weary, attended by Jeekie
and the Ogula savages, not a soul was to be seen.

On the following morning, when he was sitting moodily in his room, two priests
came to conduct him to the Asika. Having no choice, followed by Jeekie, he
accompanied them to her house, masked as usual, for without this hateful
disguise he was not allowed to stir. He found her lying upon a pile of cushions
in a small room that he had never seen before, which was better lighted than
most in that melancholy abode, and seemed to serve as her private chamber. In
front of her lay the skin of the lion that he had sent as a present, and about
her throat hung a necklace made of its claws, heavily set in gold, with which
she was playing idly.

At the opening of the door she looked up with a swift smile that turned to a
frown when she saw that he was followed by Jeekie.

“Say, Vernoon,” she asked in her languorous voice, “can you
not stir a yard without that ugly black dog at your heels? Do you bring him to
protect your back? If so, what is the need? Have I not sworn that you are safe
in my land?”

Alan made Jeekie interpret this speech, then answered that the reason was that
he knew but little of her tongue.

“Can I not teach it to you alone, then, without this low fellow hearing
all my words? Well, it will not be for long,” and she looked at Jeekie in
a way that made him feel very uncomfortable. “Get behind us, dog, and
you, Vernoon, come sit on these cushions at my side. Nay, not there, I said
upon the cushions—so. Now I will take off that ugly mask of yours, for I
would look into your eyes. I find them pleasant, Vernoon,” and, without
waiting for his permission, she sat up and did so. “Ah!” she went
on, “we shall be happy when we are married, shall we not? Do not be
afraid, Vernoon, I will not eat out your heart as I have those of the men that
went before you. We will live together until we are old, and die together at
last, and together be born again, and so on and on till the end which even I
cannot foresee. Why do you not smile, Vernoon, and say that you are pleased,
and that you will be happy with me who loved you from the moment that my eyes
fell upon you in sleep? Speak, Vernoon, lest I should grow angry with
you.”

“I don’t know what to say,” answered Alan despairingly
through Jeekie, “the honour is too great for me, who am but a wandering
trader who came here to barter Little Bonsa against the gold I
need”—to support my wife and family, he was about to add, then
remembering that this statement might not be well received, substituted,
“to support my old parents and eight brothers and sisters who are
dependent upon me, and remain hungry until I return to them.”

“Then I think they will remain hungry a long time, Vernoon, for while I
live you shall never return. Much as I love you I would kill you first,”
and her eyes glittered as she said the words. “Still,” she added,
noting the fall in his face, “if it is gold that they need, you shall
send it them. Yes, my people shall take all that I gave you down to the coast,
and there it can be put in a big canoe and carried across the water. See to the
packing of the stuff, you black dog,” she said to Jeekie over her
shoulder, “and when it is ready I will send it hence.”

Alan began to thank her, though he thought it more than probable that even if
she kept her word, this bullion would never get to Old Calabar, and much less
to England. But she waived the matter aside as one in which she was not
interested.

“Tell me,” she asked; “would you have me other than I am?
First, do you think me beautiful?”

“Yes,” answered Alan honestly, “very beautiful when you are
quiet as now, not when you are dancing as you did the other night without your
robes.”

When she understood what he meant the Asika actually blushed a little.

“I am sorry,” she answered in a voice that for her was quite
humble. “I forget that it might seem strange in your eyes. It has always
been the custom for the Asika to do as I did at feasts and sacrifices, but
perhaps that is not the fashion among your women; perhaps they always remain
veiled, as I have heard the worshippers of the Prophet do, and therefore you
thought me immodest. I am very, very sorry, Vernoon. I pray you to forgive me
who am ignorant and only do what I have been taught.”

“Yes, they always remain veiled,” stammered Alan, though he was not
referring to their faces, and as the words passed his lips he wondered what the
Asika would think if she could see a ballet at a London music-hall.

“Is there anything else wrong?” she went on gently. “If so,
tell me that I may set it right.”

“I do not like cruelty or sacrifices, O Asika. I have told you that
bloodshed is orunda to me, and at the feast those men were poisoned and
you mocked them in their pain; also many others were taken away to be killed
for no crime.”

She opened her beautiful eyes and stared at him, answering:

“But, Vernoon, all this is not my fault; they were sacrifices to the
gods, and if I did not sacrifice, I should be sacrificed by the priests and
wizards who live to sacrifice. Yes, myself I should be made to drink the poison
and be mocked at while I died like a snake with a broken back. Or even if I
escaped the vengeance of the people, the gods themselves would kill me and
raise up another in my place. Do they not sacrifice in your country,
Vernoon?”

“No, Asika, they fight if necessary and kill those who commit murder. But
they have no fetish that asks for blood, and the law they have from heaven is a
law of mercy.”

She stared at him again.

“All this is strange to me,” she said. “I was taught
otherwise. Gods are devils and must be appeased, lest they bring misfortune on
us; men must be ruled by terror, or they would rebel and pull down the great
House; doctors must learn magic, or how could they avert spells? wizards must
be killed, or the people would perish in their net. May not we who live in a
hell, strive to beat back its flame with the wisdom our forefathers have handed
on to us? Tell me, Vernoon, for I would know.”

“You make your own hell,” answered Alan when with the help of
Jeekie he understood her talk.

She pondered over his words for a while, then said:

“I must think. The thing is big. I wander in blackness; I will speak with
you again. Say now, what else is wrong with me?”

Now Alan thought that he saw opportunity for a word in season and made a great
mistake.

“I think that you treat your husband, that man whom you call Mungana,
very badly. Why should you drive him to his death?”

At these words the Asika leapt up in a rage, and seeking something to vent her
temper on, violently boxed Jeekie’s ears and kicked him with her
sandalled foot.

“The Mungana!” she exclaimed, “that beast! What have I to do
with him? I hate him, as I hated the others. The priests thrust him on me. He
has had his day, let him go. In your country do they make women live with men
whom they loathe? I love you, Bonsa himself knows why. Perhaps because
you have a white skin and white thoughts. But I hate that man. What is the use
of being Asika if I cannot take what I love and reject what I hate? Go away,
Vernoon, go away, you have angered me, and if it were not for what you have
said about that new law of mercy, I think that I would cut your throat,”
and again she boxed Jeekie’s ears and kicked him in the shins.

Alan rose and bowed himself towards the door while she stood with her back
towards him, sobbing. As he was about to pass it she wheeled round, wiping the
tears from her eyes with her hand, and said:

“I forgot, I sent for you to thank you for your presents; that,”
and she pointed to the lion skin, “which they tell me you killed with
some kind of thunder to save the life of that old cannibal, and this,”
and she pulled off the necklace of claws, then added, “as I am too bad to
wear it, you had better take it back again,” and she threw it with all
her strength straight into Jeekie’s face.

Fearing worse things, the much maltreated Jeekie uttered a howl and bolted
through the door, while Alan, picking up the necklace, returned it to her with
a bow. She took it.

“Stop,” she said. “You are leaving the room without your mask
and my women are outside. Come here,” and she tied the thing upon his
head, setting it all awry, then pushed him from the place.

“Very poor joke, Major, very poor indeed,” said Jeekie when they
had reached their own apartment. “Lady make love to you;
you play prig and lecture lady about holy customs of her country and she
box my ear till head sing, also kick me all over and throw sharp claws
in face. Please you do it no more. The next time, who knows? she stick knife in
my gizzard, then kiss you afterward and say she so sorry and hope
she no hurt you. But how that help poor departed Jeekie who get all
kicks, while you have ha’pence?”

“Oh! be quiet,” said Alan; “you are welcome to the halfpence
if you would only leave me the kicks. The question is, how am I to get out of
this mess? While she was a beautiful savage devil one could deal with the
thing, but if she is going to become human it is another matter.”

Jeekie looked at him with pity in his eyes.

“Always thought white man mad at bottom,” he said, shaking his big
head. “To benighted black nigger thing so very simple. All you got to do,
make love and cut when you get chance. Then she pleased as Punch, everything go
smooth and Jeekie get no more kicks. Christian religion business very good, but
won’t wash in Asiki-land. Your reverend uncle find out that.”

Not wishing to pursue the argument, Alan changed the subject by asking his
indignant retainer if he thought that the Asika had meant what she said when
she offered to send the gold down to the coast.

“Why not, Major? That good lady always mean what she say, and what she do
too,” and he dabbed wrathfully at the scratches made by the lion’s
claws on his face, then added, “She know her own mind, not like
shilly-shally, see-saw white woman, who get up one thing and go to bed another.
If she love she love, if she hate she hate. If she say she send gold, she send
it, though pity to part with all that cash, because ’spect someone bag
it.”

Alan reflected a while.

“Don’t you see, Jeekie, that here is a chance, if a very small one,
of getting a message to the coast. Also it is quite clear that if we are ever
able to escape, it will be impossible for us to carry this heavy stuff, whereas
if we send it on ahead, perhaps some of it might get through. We will pack it
up, Jeekie, at any rate it will be something to do. Go now and send a message
to the Asika, and ask her to let us have some carpenters, and a lot of
well-seasoned wood.”

The message was sent and an hour later a dozen of the native craftsmen arrived
with their rude tools and a supply of planks cut from a kind of iron-wood or
ebony tree. They prostrated themselves to Alan, then the master of them rising,
instantly began to measure Jeekie with a marked reed. That worthy sprang back
and asked what in the name of Bonsa, Big and Little, they were doing, whereon
the man explained with humility that the Asika had said that she thought the
white lord wanted the wood to make a box to bury his servant in, as he, the
said servant, had offended her that morning, and doubtless the white lord
wished to kill him on that account, or perhaps to put him away under ground
alive.

“Oh, my golly!” said Jeekie, shaking till his great knees knocked
together, “oh! my golly! here pretty go. She think you want bury me all
alive. That mean she want to be rid of Jeekie, because he got sit there and
play gooseberry when she wish talk alone with you. Oh, yes! I see her little
game.”

“Well, Jeekie,” said Alan, bursting into such a roar of laughter
that he nearly shook off his mask, “you had better be careful, for you
just told me that the Asika is not like a see-saw white woman and never changes
her mind. Say to this man that he must tell the Asika there is a mistake, and
that however much I should like to oblige her, I can’t bury you because
it has been prophesied to me that on the day you are buried, I shall be buried
also, and that therefore you must be kept alive.”

“Capital notion that, Major,” said Jeekie, much relieved.
“She not want bury you just at present; next year perhaps, but not now. I
tell him.” And he did with much vigour.

This slight misconception having been disposed of, they explained to the
carpenters what was wanted. First, all the gold was emptied out of the sacks in
which it remained as the priests had brought it, and divided into heaps, each
of which weighed about forty pounds, a weight that with its box Alan considered
would be a good load for a porter. Of these heaps there proved to be
fifty-three, their total value, Alan reckoned, amounting to about £100,000
sterling. Then the carpenters were set to work to make a model box, which they
did quickly enough and with great ingenuity, cutting the wood with their native
saws, dovetailing it as a civilized craftsman would do, and finally securing it
everywhere with ebony pegs, driven into holes which they bored with a hot iron.
The result was a box that would stand any amount of rough usage and when
finally pegged down, one that could only be opened with a hammer and a cold
chisel.

This box-making went on for two whole days. As each of them was filled and
pegged down, the gold within being packed in sawdust to keep it from rattling,
Alan amused himself in adding an address with a feather brush and a supply of
red paint such as the Asiki priests used to decorate their bodies. At first he
was puzzled to know what address to put, but finally decided upon the following:

Major A. Vernon, care of Miss Champers, The Court, near Kingswell,
England. Adding in the corner, From A. V., Asiki Land, Africa.

It was all childish enough, he knew, yet when it was done he regarded his
handiwork with a sort of satisfaction. For, reflected Alan, if but one of those
boxes should chance to get through to England, it would tell Barbara a great
deal, and if it were addressed to himself, her uncle could scarcely dare to
take possession of it.

Then he bethought him of sending a letter, but was obliged to abandon the idea,
as he had neither pen, pencil, ink, nor paper left to him. Whatever arts
remained to them, that of any form of writing was now totally unknown to the
Asiki, although marks that might be writing, it will be remembered, did appear
on the inner side of the Little Bonsa mask, an evidence of its great antiquity.
Even in the days when they had wrapped up the Egyptian, the Roman, and other
early Munganas in sheets of gold and set them in their treasure-house,
apparently they had no knowledge of it, for not even an hieroglyph or a rune
appeared upon the imperishable metal shrouds. Since that time they had
evidently decreased, not advanced, in learning till at the present day, except
for these relics and some dim and meaningless survival of rites that once had
been religious and were still offered to the same ancient idols, there was
little to distinguish them from other tribes of Central African savages. Still
Alan did something, for obtaining a piece of white wood, which he smoothed as
well as he was able with a knife, he painted on it this message:

“Messrs. Aston, Old Calabar. Please forward accompanying fifty-three
packages, or as many as arrive, and cable as follows (all costs will be
remitted): Miss Champers, Kingswell, England. Prisoner among Asiki. No present
prospect of escape, but hope for best. Jeekie and I well. Allowed send this,
but perhaps no future message possible. Good-bye. Alan.”

As it happened just as Alan was finishing this scrawl with a sad heart, he
heard a movement and glancing up, perceived standing at his side the Asika, of
whom he had seen nothing since the interview when she had beaten Jeekie:

“What are those marks that you make upon the board, Vernoon?” she
asked suspiciously.

With the assistance of Jeekie, who kept at a respectful distance, he informed
her that they were a message in writing to tell the white men at the coast to
forward the gold to his starving family.

“Oh!” she said, “I never heard of writing. You shall teach it
me. It will serve to pass the time till we are married, though it will not be
of much use afterwards, as we shall never be separated any more and words are
better than marks upon a board. But,” she added cheerfully, “I can
send away this black dog of yours,” and she looked at Jeekie, “and
he can write to us. No, I cannot, for an accident might happen to him, and they
tell me you say that if he dies, you die also, so he must stop here always.
What have you in those little boxes?”

“The gold you gave me, Asika, packed in loads.”

“A small gift enough,” she answered contemptuously; “would
you not like more, since you value that stuff? Well, another time you shall
send all you want. Meanwhile the porters are waiting, fifty men and three, as
you sent me word, and ten spare ones to take the place of any who die. But how
they will find their way, I know not, since none of them have ever been to the
coast.”

An idea occurred to Alan, who had small faith in Jeekie’s
“ma” as a messenger.

“The Ogula prisoners could show them,” he said; “at any rate
as far as the forest, and after that they could find out. May they not go,
Asika?”

“If you will,” she answered carelessly. “Let them be ready to
start to-morrow at the dawn, all except their chief, Fahni, who must stop here
as a hostage. I do not trust those Ogula, who more than once have threatened to
make war upon us,” she added, then turned and bade the priests bring in
the bearers to receive their instructions.

Presently they came, picked men all of them, under the command of an Asiki
captain, and with them the Ogula, whom she summoned also.

“Go where the white lord sends you,” she said in an indifferent
voice, “carrying with you these packages. I do not know where it is, but
these man-eaters will show you some of the way, and if you fail in the business
but live to come back again, you shall be sacrificed to Bonsa at the next
feast; if you run away then your wives and children will be sacrificed. Food
shall be given you for your journey, and gold to buy more when it is gone. Now,
Vernoon, tell them what they have to do.”

So Alan, or rather Jeekie, told them, and these directions were so long and
minute, that before they were finished the Asika grew tired of listening and
went away, saying as she passed the captain of the company:

“Remember my words, man, succeed or die, but of your land and its secrets
say nothing.”

“I hear,” answered the captain, prostrating himself.

That night Alan summoned the Ogula and spoke to them through Jeekie in their
own language. At first they declared that they would not leave their chief,
preferring to stay and die with him.

“Not so,” said Fahni; “go, my children, that I may live. Go
and gather the tribe, all the thousands of them who are men and can fight, and
bring them up to attack Asiki-land, to rescue me if I still live, or to avenge
me if I am dead. As for these bearers, do them no harm, but send them on to the
coast with the white man’s goods.”

So in the end the Ogula said that they would go, and when Alan woke up on the
following morning, he was informed that they and the Asiki porters had already
departed upon their journey. Then he dismissed the matter from his mind, for to
tell the truth he never expected to hear of them any more.

CHAPTER XV.
ALAN FALLS ILL.

After the departure of the messengers a deep melancholy fell upon Alan, who was
sure that he had now no further hope of communicating with the outside world.
Bitterly did he reproach himself for his folly in having ever journeyed to this
hateful place in order to secure—what? About £100,000 worth of gold which
of course he never could secure, as it would certainly vanish or be stolen on
its way to the coast. For this gold he had become involved in a dreadful
complication which must cost him much misery, and sooner or later life itself,
since he could not marry that beautiful savage Asika, and if he refused her she
would certainly kill him in her outraged pride and fury.

Day by day she sent for him, and when he came, assumed a new character, that of
a woman humbled by a sense of her own ignorance, which she was anxious to
amend. So he must play the role of tutor to her, telling her of civilized
peoples, their laws, customs and religions, and instructing her how to write
and read. She listened and learned submissively enough, but all the while Alan
felt as one might who is called upon to teach tricks to a drugged panther. The
drug in this case was her passion for him, which appeared to be very genuine.
But when it passed off, or when he was obliged to refuse her, what, he
wondered, would happen then?

Anxiety and confinement told on him far more than all the hardships of his
journey. His health ran down, he began to fall ill. Then as bad luck would have
it, walking in that damp, unwholesome cedar garden, out of which he might not
stray, he contracted the germ of some kind of fever which in autumn was very
common in this poisonous climate. Three days later he became delirious, and for
a week after that hung between life and death. Well was it for him that his
medicine-chest still remained intact, and that recognizing his own symptoms
before his head gave way, he was able to instruct Jeekie what drugs to give him
at the different stages of the disease.

For the rest his memories of that dreadful illness always remained very vague.
He had visions of Jeekie and of a robed woman whom he knew to be the Asika,
bending over him continually. Also it seemed to him that from time to time he
was talking with Barbara, which even then he knew must be absurd, for how could
they talk across thousands of miles of land and sea.

At length his mind cleared suddenly, and he awoke as from a nightmare to find
himself lying in the hall or room where he had always been, feeling quite cool
and without pain, but so weak that it was an effort to him to lift his hand. He
stared about him and was astonished to see the white head of Jeekie rolling
uneasily to and fro upon the cushions of another bed near by.

“Jeekie,” he said, “are you ill too, Jeekie?”

At the sound of that voice his retainer started up violently.

“What, Major, you awake?” he said. “Thanks be to all gods,
white and black, yes, and yellow too, for I thought your goose cooked. No, no,
Major, I not ill, only Asika say so. You go to bed, so she make me go to bed.
You get worse, she treat me cruel; you seem better, she stuff me with food till
I burst. All because you tell her that you and I die same day. Oh, Lord! poor
Jeekie think his end very near just now, for he know quite well that she not
let him breathe ten minutes after you peg out. Jeekie never pray so hard for
anyone before as he pray this week for you, and by Jingo! I think he do the
trick, he and that medicine stuff which make him feel very bad in
stomach,” and he groaned under the weight of his many miseries.

Weak as he was Alan began to laugh, and that laugh seemed to do him more good
than anything that he could remember, for after it he was sure that he would
recover.

Just then an agonized whisper reached him from Jeekie.

“Look out!” it said, “here come Asika. Go sleep and seem
better, Major, please, or I catch it hot.”

So Alan almost shut his eyes and lay still. In another moment she was standing
over him and he noticed that her hair was dishevelled and her eyes were red as
though with weeping. She scanned him intently for a little while, then passed
round to where Jeekie lay, and appeared to pinch his ear so hard that he
wriggled and uttered a stifled groan.

“How is your lord, dog?” she whispered.

“Better, O Asika, I think that last medicine do us good, though it make
me very sick inside. Just now he spoke to me and said that he hoped that your
heart was not sad because of him and that all this time in his dreams he had
seen and thought of nobody but you, O Asika.”

“Did he?” asked that lady, becoming intensely interested.
“Then tell me, dog, why is he ever calling upon one Bar-bar-a? Surely
that is a woman’s name?”

“Yes, O Asika, that is the name of his mother, also of one of his
sisters, whom, after you, he loves best of anyone in the whole world. When you
are here he talks of them, but when you are not here he talks of no one but
you. Although he is so sick he remembers white man’s custom, which tells
him that it is very wrong to say sweet things to lady’s face till he is
quite married to her. After that they say them always.”

She looked at him suspiciously and muttering, “Here it is otherwise. For
your own sake, man, I trust that you do not lie,” left him, and drawing a
stool up beside Alan’s bed, sat herself down and examined him carefully,
touching his face and hands with her long thin fingers. Then noting how white
and wasted he was, of a sudden she began to weep, saying between her sobs:

“Oh! if you should die, Vernoon, I will die also and be born again not as
Asika, as I have been for so many generations, but as a white woman that I may
be with you. Only first,” she added, setting her teeth, “I will
sacrifice every wizard in this land, for they have brought the sickness on you
by their magic, and I will burn Bonsa Town and cast its gods to melt in the
flames, and the Mungana with them. And then amid their ashes I will let out my
life,” and again she began to weep very piteously and to call him by
endearing names and pray him that he would not die.

Now Alan thought it time to wake up. He opened his eyes, stared at her
vacantly, and asked if it were raining, which indeed it might have been, for
her big tears were falling on his face. She uttered a gasp of joy.

“No, no,” she answered, “the weather is very fine. It is
I—I who have rained because I thought you die.” She wiped his
forehead with the soft linen of her robe, then went on, “But you will not
die; say that you will live, say that you will live for me, Vernoon.”

He looked at her, and feeble though he was, the awfulness of the situation sank
into his soul.

“I hope that I shall live,” he answered. “I am hungry, please
give me some food.”

Next instant there was a tumult near by, and when Alan looked up again it was
to see Jeekie, very lightly clad, risen from his bed of sympathetic sickness
and flying through the door.

“It will be here presently,” she said. “Oh! if you knew what
I have suffered, if you only knew. Now you will recover whom I thought dead,
for this fever passes quickly, and there shall be such a sacrifice—no, I
forgot, you hate sacrifices—there shall be no sacrifice, there shall be a
thanksgiving, and every woman in the land shall break her bonds to husband or
to lover and take him whom she desires without reproach or loss. I will do as I
would be done by, that is the law you taught me, is it not?”

This novel interpretation of a sacred doctrine, worthy of Jeekie himself, so
paralyzed Alan’s enfeebled brain that he could make no answer, nor do
anything except wonder what would happen in Asiki-land when the decree of its
priestess took effect. Then Jeekie arrived with something to drink which he
swallowed with the eagerness of the convalescent and almost immediately went to
sleep in good earnest.

Alan’s recovery was rapid, since as the Asika had told him, if a patient
lives through it, the kind of fever that he had taken did not last long enough
to exhaust his vital forces. When she asked him if he needed anything to make
him well, he answered:

“Yes, air and exercise.”

She replied that he should have both, and next morning his hated mask was put
upon his face and he was supported by priests to a door where a litter, or
rather litters were waiting, one for himself and another for Jeekie who,
although in robust health, was still supposed to be officially ill and not
allowed to walk upon his own legs. They entered these litters and were borne
off till presently they met a third litter of particularly gorgeous design
carried by masked bearers, wherein was the Asika herself, wearing her coronet
and a splendid robe.

Into this litter, which was fitted with a second seat, Alan was transferred,
the Mungana, for whom it was designed, being placed in that vacated by Alan,
which either by accident or otherwise, was no more seen that day. They went up
the mountain side and to the edge of the great fall and watched the waters
thunder down, though the crest of them they could not reach. Next they wandered
off into the huge forests that clothed the slopes of the hills and there halted
and ate. Then as the sun sank they returned to the gloomy Bonsa Town beneath
them.

For Alan, notwithstanding his weakness and anxieties, it was a heavenly day.
The Asika was passive, some new mood being on her, and scarcely troubled him at
all except to call his attention to a tree, a flower, or a prospect of the
scenery. Here on the mountain side, too, the air was sweet, and for the
rest—well, he who had been so near to death, was escaped for an hour from
that gloomy home of bloodshed and superstition, and saw God’s sky again.

This journey was the first of many. Every day the litters were waiting and they
visited some new place, although into the town itself they never went.
Moreover, if they passed through outlying villages, though Alan was forced to
wear his mask, their inhabitants had been warned to absent themselves, so that
they saw no one. The crops were left untended and the cattle and sheep lowed
hungrily in their kraals. On certain days, at Alan’s request, they were
taken to the spots where the gold was found in the gravel bed of an almost dry
stream that during the rains was a torrent.

He descended from the litter and with the help of the Asika and Jeekie, dug a
little in this gravel, not without reward, for in it they found several
nuggets. Above, too, where they went afterwards, was a huge quartz reef denuded
by water, which evidently had been worked in past ages and was still so rich
that in it they saw plenty of visible gold. Looking at it Alan bethought him of
his City days and of the hundreds of thousands of pounds capital with which
this unique proposition might have been floated. Afterwards they were carried
to the places where the gems were found, stuck about in the clay, like plums in
a pudding, though none ever sought them now. But all these things interested
the Asika not at all.

“What is the good of gold,” she asked of Alan, “except to
make things of, or the bright stones except to play with? What is the good of
anything except food to eat and power and wisdom that can open the secret doors
of knowledge, of things seen and things unseen, and love that brings the lover
joy and forgetfulness of self and takes away the awful loneliness of the soul,
if only for a little while?”

Not wishing to drift into discussion on the matter of love, Alan asked the
priestess to define her “soul,” whence it came and whither she
believed it to be going.

“My soul is I, Vernoon,” she answered, “and already very,
very old. Thus it has ruled amongst this people for thousands of years.”

“How is that?” he asked, “seeing that the Asika dies?”

“Oh! no, Vernoon, she does not die; she only changes. The old body dies,
the spirit enters into another body which is waiting. Thus until I was fourteen
I was but a common girl, the daughter of a headman of that village yonder, at
least so they tell me, for of this time I have no memory. Then the Asika died
and as I had the secret marks and the beauty that is hers the priests burnt her
body before Big Bonsa and suffocated me, the child, in the smoke of the
burning. But I awoke again and when I awoke the past was gone and the soul of
the Asika filled me, bringing with it its awful memories, its gathered wisdom,
its passion of love and hate, and its power to look backward and before.”

“Do you ever do these things?” asked Alan.

“Backward, yes, before very little; since you came, not at all, because
my heart is a coward and I fear what I might see. Oh! Vernoon, Vernoon, I know
you and your thoughts. You think me a beautiful beast who loves like a beast,
who loves you because you are white and different from our men. Well, what
there is of the beast in me the gods of my people gave, for they are devils and
I am their servant. But there is more than that, there is good also which I
have won for myself. I knew you would come even before I had seen your face, I
knew you would come,” she went on passionately, “and that is why I
was yours already. But what would befall after you came, that I neither knew,
nor know, because I will not seek, who could learn it all.”

He looked at her and she saw the doubt in his eyes.

“You do not believe me, Vernoon. Very well, this night you shall see, you
and that black dog of yours, that you may know I do not trick you, and he shall
tell me what you see, for he being but a low-born pig will speak the truth, not
minding if it hurts me, whereas you are gentle and might spare, and myself I
have sworn not to search the future by an oath that I may not break.”

“What of the past?” asked Alan.

“We will not waste time on it, for I know it all. Vernoon, have you no
memories of Asiki-land? Do you think you never visited it before?”

“Never,” said Alan; “it was my uncle who came and ran away
with Little Bonsa on his head.”

“That is news indeed,” she replied mockingly. “Did you then
think that I believed it to be you, though it is true that she who went before,
or my spirit that was in her, fell into error for an hour, and thought that
fool-uncle of yours was the Man. When she found her mistake she let him
go, and bade the god go with him that it might bring back the appointed Man, as
it has done; yes, that Little Bonsa, who knew him of old, might search him out
from among all the millions of men, born or unborn, and bring him back to me.
Therefore also she chose a young black dog who would live for many years, and
bade the god to take him with her, and told him of the wealth of our people
that it might be a bait upon the hook. Do you see, Vernoon, that yellow dirt
was the bait, that I—I am the hook? Well, you have felt it before, so it
should not gall you overmuch.”

Now Alan was more frightened than he had been since he set foot in Asiki-land,
for of a sudden this woman became terrible to him. He felt that she knew things
which were hidden from him. For the first time he believed in her, believed,
that she was more than a mere passionate savage set by chance to rule over a
bloodthirsty tribe; that she was one who had a part in his destiny.

“Felt the hook?” he muttered. “I do not understand.”

“You are very forgetful,” she answered. “Vernoon, we have
lived and loved before, who were twin souls from the first. That man now, whom
I told you lived once on the great river called the Nile, have you no memory of
him? Well, well, let it be, I will tell you afterwards. Here we are at the Gold
House again, to-night when I am ready I will send for you, and this I promise,
you shall leave me wiser than you were.”

When they were alone in their room Alan told Jeekie of the expected
entertainment of crystal gazing, or whatever it might be, and the part that he
was to play in it.

“You say that again, Major,” said Jeekie.

Alan repeated the information, giving every detail that he could remember.

“Oh!” said Jeekie, “I see Asika show us things, ’cause
she afraid to look at them herself, or take oath, or can’t, or something.
She no ask you tell her what she see, because you too kind hurt her feeling, if
happen to be something beastly. But Jeekie just tell her because he so truthful
and not care curse about her feeling. Well, that all right, Jeekie tell her
sure enough. Only, Major, don’t you interrupt. Quite possible these magic
things, I see one show, you see another. So don’t you go say,
‘Jeekie, that a lie,’ and give me away to Asika just because you
think you see different, ‘cause if so you put me into dirty hole, and of
course I catch it afterwards. You promise, Major?”

“Oh! yes, I promise. But, Jeekie, do you really think we are going to see
anything?”

“Can’t say, Major,” and he shook his head gloomily.
“P’raps all put up job. But lots of rum things in world, Major,
specially among beastly African savage who very curious and always ready pay
blood to bad Spirit. Hope Asika not get this into her head, because no one know
what happen. P’raps we see too much and scared all our lives; but
p’raps all tommy rot.”

“That’s it—tommy rot,” answered Alan, who was not
superstitious. “Well, I suppose that we must go through with it. But oh!
Jeekie, I wish you would tell me how to get out of this.”

“Don’t know, Major, p’raps never get out; p’raps learn
how to-night. Have to do something soon if want to go. Mungana’s time
nearly up, and then—oh my eye!”

It was night, about ten o’clock indeed, the hour at which Alan generally
went to bed. No message had come and he began to hope that the Asika had
forgotten, or changed her mind, and was just going to say so to Jeekie when a
light coming from behind him attracted his attention and he turned to see her
standing in a corner of the great room, holding a lamp in her hand and looking
towards him. Her gold breastplate and crown were gone, with every other
ornament, and she was clad, or rather muffled in robes of pure white fitted
with a kind of nun’s hood which lay back upon her shoulders. Also on her
arm she carried a shawl or veil. Standing thus, all undecked, with her long
hair fastened in a simple knot, she still looked very beautiful, more so than
she had ever been, thought Alan, for the cruelty of her face had faded and was
replaced by a mystery very strange to see. She did not seem quite like a
natural woman, and that was the reason, perhaps, that Alan for the first time
felt attracted by her. Hitherto she had always repelled him, but this night it
was otherwise.

“How did you come here?” he asked in a more gentle voice than he
generally used towards her.

Noting the change in his tone, she smiled shyly and even coloured a little,
then answered:

“This house has many secrets, Vernoon. When you are lord of it you shall
learn them all, till then I may not tell them to you. But, come, there are
other secrets which I hope you shall see to-night, and, Jeekie, come you also,
for you shall be the mouth of your lord, so that you may tell me what perhaps
he would hide.”

“I will tell you everything, everything, O Asika,” answered Jeekie,
stretching out his hands and bowing almost to the ground.

Then they started and following many long passages as before, although whether
they were the same or others Alan could not tell, came at last to a door which
he recognized, that of the Treasure House. As they approached this door it
opened and through it, like a hunted thing, ran the bedizened Mungana, husband
of the Asika, terror, or madness, shining in his eyes. Catching sight of his
wife, who bore the lamp, he threw himself upon his knees and snatching at her
robe, addressed some petition to her, speaking so rapidly that Alan could not
follow his words.

For a moment she listened, then dragged her dress from his hand and spurned him
with her foot. There was something so cruel in the gesture and the action, so
full of deadly hate and loathing, that Alan, who witnessed it, experienced a
new revulsion of feeling towards the Asika. What kind of a woman must she be,
he wondered, who could treat a discarded lover thus in the presence of his
successor?

With a groan or a sob, it was difficult to say which, the poor man rose and
perceived Alan, whose face he now beheld for the first time, since the Asika
had told him not to mask himself as they would meet no one. The sight of it
seemed to fill him with jealous fury; at any rate he leapt at his rival,
intending, apparently, to catch him by the throat. Alan, who was watching him,
stepped aside, so that he came into violent contact with the wall of the
passage and, half-stunned by the shock, reeled onwards into the darkness.

“The hog!” said the Asika, or rather she hissed it, “the hog,
who dared to touch me and to strike at you. Well, his time is short—would
that I could make it shorter! Did you hear what he sought of me?”

Alan, who wished for no confidences, replied by asking what the Mungana was
doing in the Treasure House, to which she answered that the spirits who dwelt
there were eating up his soul, and when they had devoured it all he would go
quite mad and kill himself.

“Does this happen to all Munganas?” inquired Alan.

“Yes, Vernoon, if the Asika hates them, but if she loves them it is
otherwise. Come, let us forget the wretch, who would kill you if he
could,” and she led the way into the hall and up it, passing between the
heaps of gold.

On the table where lay the necklaces of gems she set down her lamp, whereof the
light, all there was in that great place, flickered feebly upon the mask of
Little Bonsa, which had been moved here apparently for some ceremonial purpose,
and still more feebly upon the hideous, golden countenances and winding sheets
of the ancient, yellow dead who stood around in scores placed one above the
other, each in his appointed niche. It was an awesome scene and one that
oppressed Jeekie very much, for he murmured to Alan:

“Oh my! Major, family vault child’s play to this hole, just
like——” here his comparison came to an end, for the Asika cut
it short with a single glance.

“Sit here in front of me,” she said to Alan, “and you,
Jeekie, sit at your lord’s side, and be silent till I bid you
speak.”

Then she crouched down in a heap behind them, threw the cloth or veil she
carried over her head, and in some way that they did not see, suddenly
extinguished the lamp.

Now they were in deep darkness, the darkness of death, and in utter silence,
the silence of the dead. No glimmer of light, and yet to Alan it seemed as
though he could feel the flash of the crystal eyes of Little Bonsa, and of all
the other eyes set in the masks of those departed men who once had been the
husbands of the blood-stained priestess of the Asiki, till one by one, as she
wearied of them, they were bewitched to madness and to doom. In that utter
quiet he thought even that he could hear them stir within their winding sheets,
or it may have been that the Asika had risen and moved among them on some
errand of her own. Far away something fell to the floor, a very light object,
such as a flake of rock or a scale of gold. Yet the noise of it struck his
nerves loud as a clap of thunder, and those of Jeekie also, for he felt him
start at his side and heard the sudden hammerlike beat of his heart.

What was the woman doing in this dreadful place, he wondered. Well, it was easy
to guess. Doubtless she had brought them here to scare and impress them.
Presently a voice, that of some hidden priest, would speak to them, and they
would be asked to believe it a message from the spirit world, or a spirit
itself might be arranged—what could be easier in their mood and these
surroundings?

Now the Asika was speaking behind them in a muffled voice. From the tone of it
she appeared to be engaged in argument or supplication in some strange tongue.
At any rate Alan could not understand a word of what she said. The argument, or
prayer, went on for a long while, with pauses as though for answers. Then
suddenly it ceased and once more they were plunged into that unfathomable
silence.

CHAPTER XVI.
WHAT THE ASIKA SHOWED ALAN.

It seemed to Alan that he went to sleep and dreamed.

He dreamed that it was late autumn in England. Leaves drifted down from the
trees beneath the breath of a strong, damp wind, and ran or floated along the
road till they vanished into a ditch, or caught against a pile of stones that
had been laid ready for its repair. He knew the road well enough; he even knew
the elm tree beneath which he seemed to stand on the crest of a hill. It was
that which ran from Mr. Champers-Haswell’s splendid house, The Court, to
the church; he could see them both, the house to the right, the church to the
left, and his eyesight seemed to have improved, since he was able to observe
that at either place there was bustle and preparation as though for some big
ceremony.

Now the big gates of The Court opened and through them came a funeral. It
advanced toward him with unnatural swiftness, as though it floated upon air,
the whole melancholy procession of it. In a few seconds it had come and gone
and yet during those seconds he suffered agony, for there arose in his mind a
horrible terror that this was Barbara’s burying. He could not have
endured it for another moment; he would have cried out or died, only now the
mourners passed him, following the coffin, and in the first carriage he saw
Barbara seated, looking sad and somewhat troubled, but well. A little further
down the line came another carriage, and in it was Sir Robert Aylward, staring
before him with cold, impassive face.

In his dream Alan thought to himself that he must have borrowed this carriage,
which would not be strange, as he generally used motors, for there was a
peer’s coronet upon the panels and the silver-mounted harness.

The funeral passed and suddenly vanished into the churchyard gates, leaving
Alan wondering why his cousin Haswell was not seated at Barbara’s side.
Then it occurred to him that it might be because he was in the coffin, and at
that moment in his dream he heard the Asika asking Jeekie what he saw; heard
Jeekie answering also, “A burying in the country called England.”

“Of whom, Jeekie?” Then after some hesitation, the answer:

“Of a lady whom my lord loves very much. They bury her.”

“What was her name, Jeekie?”

“Her name was Barbara.”

“Bar-bara, why that you told me was the name of his mother and his
sister. Which of them is buried?”

“Neither, O Asika. It was another lady who loved him very much and wanted
to marry him, and that was why he ran away to Africa. But now she is dead and
buried.”

“Are all women in England called Bar-bara, Jeekie?”

“Yes, O Asika, Barbara means woman.”

“If your lord loved this Barbara, why then did he run away from her?
Well, it matters not since she is dead and buried, for whatever their spirits
may feel, no man cares for a woman that is dead until she clothes herself in
flesh again. That was a good vision and I will reward you for it.”

“I have earned nothing, O Asika,” answered Jeekie modestly,
“who only tell you what I see as I must. Yet, O Asika,” he added
with a note of anxiety in his voice, “why do you not read these magic
writings for yourself?”

“Because I dare not, or rather because I can not,” she answered
fiercely. “Be silent, slave, for now the power of the good broods upon my
soul.”

The dream went on. A great forest appeared, such a forest as they had passed
before they met the cannibals, and set beneath one of the trees, a tent and in
that tent Barbara, Barbara weeping. Someone began to lift the flap of the tent.
She sprang up, snatching at a pistol that lay beside her, turning its muzzle
towards her breast. A man entered the tent. Alan saw his face, it was his own.
Barbara let fall the pistol and fell backwards as though a bullet from it had
pierced her heart. He leapt towards her, but before he came to where she lay
everything had vanished and he heard Jeekie droning out his lies to the Asika,
telling her that the vision he had seen was one of her and his master seated
with their arms about each other in a chamber of the Golden House.

A third time the dream descended on Alan like a cloud. It seemed to him that he
was borne beyond the flaming borders of the world. Everything around was new
and unfamiliar, vast, changing, lovely, terrible. He stood alone upon a pearly
plain and the sky above him was lit with red moons, many and many of them that
hung there like lamps. Spirits began to pass him. He could catch something of
their splendour as they sped by with incredible swiftness; he could hear the
music of their laughter. One rose up at his side. It was the Asika, only a
thousand times more splendid; clothed in all the glory of hell. Majestically
she bent towards him, her glowing eyes held his, the deadly perfume of her
breath beat upon his brow and made him drunken.

She spoke to him and her voice sounded like distant bells.

“Through many a life, through many a life,” she said, “bought
with much blood, paid for with a million tears, but mine at last, the soul that
I have won to comfort my soul in the eternal day. Come to the place I have made
ready for you, the hell that shall turn to heaven at your step, come, you by
whom I am redeemed, and drive away those gods that torture me because I was
their servant that I might win you.”

So she spoke, and though all his soul revolted, yet the fearful strength that
was in her seemed to draw him onward whither she would go. Then a light shone,
and that light was the face of Barbara, and with a suddenness which was almost
awful, the wild dream came to an end.

Alan was in his own room again, though how he got there he did not recollect.

“Jeekie,” he said, “what has happened? I seem to have had a
very curious dream, there in the Treasure-place, and to have heard you telling
the Asika a string of incredible falsehoods.”

“Oh! no, Major, Jeekie can’t lie, too good Christian; he tell her
what he see, or what he think she see if she look, ’cause though
p’raps he see nothing, she never believe that. And,” he added with
a burst of confidence, “what the dickens it matter what he tell her, so
long as she swallow same and keep quiet? Nasty things always make women like
Asika quite outrageous. Give them sweet to suck, say Jeekie, and if they ill
afterwards, that no fault of his. They had sweet.”

“Quite so, Jeekie, quite so, only I should advise you not to play too
many tricks upon the Asika, lest she should happen to find you out. How did I
get back here?”

“Like man that walk in his sleep, Major. She go first, you follow, just
as little lamb after Mary in hymn.”

“Jeekie, did you really see anything at all?”

“No, Major, nothing partic’lar, except ghost of Mrs. Jeekie and of
your reverend uncle, both of them very angry. That magic all stuff, Major.
Asika put something in your grub make you drunk, so that you think her very
wise. Don’t think of it no more, Major, or you go off your chump. If
Jeekie see nothing, depend on it there nothing to see.”

“Perhaps so, Jeekie, but I wish I could be sure you had seen nothing.
Listen to me; we must get out of this place somehow, or as you say, I shall go
off my chump. It’s haunted, Jeekie, it’s haunted, and I think that
Asika is a devil, not a woman.”

“That what priests say, Major, very old devil—part of Bonsa,”
he answered, looking at his master anxiously. “Well, don’t you
fret, Jeekie not afraid of devils, Jeekie get you out in good time. Go to bed
and leave it all to Jeekie.”

Fifteen more days had gone by, and it was the eve of the night of the second
full moon when Alan was destined to become the husband of the Asika. She had
sent for him that morning and he found her radiant with happiness. Whether or
no she believed Jeekie’s interpretation of the visions she had called up,
it seemed quite certain that her mind was void of fears and doubts. She was
sure that Alan was about to become her husband, and had summoned all the people
of the Asiki to be present at the ceremony of their marriage, and incidentally
of the death of the Mungana who, poor wretch, was to be forced to kill himself
upon that occasion.

Before they parted she had spoken to Alan sweetly enough.

“Vernoon,” she said, “I know that you do not love me as I
love you, but the love will come, since for your sake I will change myself. I
will grow gentle; I will shed no more blood; that of the Mungana shall be the
last, and even him I would spare if I could, only while he lives I may not
marry you; it is the one law that is stronger than I am, and if I broke it I
and you would die at once. You shall even teach me your faith, if you will, for
what is good to you is henceforth good to me. Ask what you wish of me, and as
an earnest I will do it if I can.”

Now Alan looked at her. There was one thing that he wished above all
others—that she would let him go. But this he did not dare to ask;
moreover, it would have been utterly useless. After all, if the Asika’s
love was terrible, what would be the appearance of her outraged hate? What
could he ask? More gold? He hated the very name of the stuff, for it had
brought him here. He remembered the old cannibal chief, Fahni, who, like
himself, languished a prisoner, daily expecting death. Only that morning he had
implored him to obtain his liberty.

“I thank you, Asika,” he said. “Now, if your words are true,
set Fahni free and let him return to his own country, for if he stays here he
will die.”

“Surely, Vernoon, that is a small thing,” she answered, smiling,
“though it is true that when he gets there he will probably make war upon
us. Well, let him, let him.” Then she clapped her hands and summoned
priests, whom she bade go at once and conduct Fahni out of Bonsa Town. Also she
bade them loose certain slaves who were of the Ogula tribe, that they might
accompany him laden with provisions, and send on orders to the outposts that
Fahni and his party should be furnished with a canoe and pass unmolested from
the land.

This done, she began to talk to Alan about many matters, however little he
might answer her. Indeed it seemed almost as though she feared to let him leave
her side; as though some presentiment of loss oppressed her.

At length, to Alan’s great relief, the time came when they must part,
since it was necessary for her to attend a secret ceremony of preparation or
purification that was called “Putting-off-the-Past.” Although she
had been thrice summoned, still she would not let him go.

“They call you, Asika,” said Alan.

“Yes, yes, they call me,” she replied, springing up. “Leave
me, Vernoon, till we meet to-morrow to part no more. Oh! why is my heart so
heavy in me? That black dog of yours read the visions that I summoned but might
not look on, and they were good visions. They showed that the woman who loved
you is dead; they showed us wedded, and other deeper things. Surely he would
not dare to lie to me, knowing that if he did I would flay him living and throw
him to the vultures. Why, then, is my heart so heavy in me? Would you escape
me, Vernoon? Nay, you are not so cruel, nor could you do it except by death.
Moreover, man, know that even in death you cannot escape me, for there be sure
I shall follow you and claim you, to whose side my spirit has toiled for ages,
and what is there so strong that it can snatch you from my hand?”

She looked at him a moment, then of a sudden burst into a flood of tears, and,
seizing his hand threw herself upon her knees and kissed it again and again.

“Go now,” she said, “go, and let my love go with you, through
lives and deaths, and all the dreams beyond, oh! let my love go with you, as it
shall, Vernoon.”

So he went, leaving her weeping on her knees.

During the dark hours that followed Alan and madness were not far apart. What
could he do? Escape was utterly impossible. For weeks he and Jeekie had
considered it in vain. Even if they could win out of the Gold House fortress,
what hope had they of making their way through the crowded, tortuous town
where, after the African fashion, peopled walked about all night, every one of
whom would recognize the white man, whether he were masked or no? Besides,
beyond the town were the river and the guarded walls and gates and beyond them
open country where they would be cut off or run down. No, to attempt escape was
suicide. Suicide! That gave him an idea, why should he not kill himself? It
would be easy enough, for he still had his revolver and a few cartridges, and
surely it was better than to enter on such a life as awaited him as the
plaything of a priestess of a tribe of fetish-worshipping savages.

But if he killed himself, how about Barbara and how about poor old Jeekie, who
would certainly be killed also? Besides, it was not the right thing to do, and
while there is life there is always hope.

Alan paused in his walk up and down the room and looked at Jeekie, who sat upon
the floor with his back resting against the stone altar, reflectively pulling
down his thick under-lip and letting it fly back, negro-fashion.

“Jeekie,” he said, “time’s up. What am I to do?”

“Do, Major?” he replied with affected cheerfulness. “Oh! that
quite simple. Jeekie arrange everything. You marry Asika and by and by, when
you master here and tired of her, you give her slip. Very interesting
experience; no white man ever have such luck before. Asika not half bad,
if she fond of you; she like little girl in song, when she good, she
very, very good. At any rate, nothing else to do. Marry Asika or spiflicate,
which mean, Major, that Jeekie spiflicate too, and,” he added, shaking
his white head sadly, “he no like that. One or two little things
on his mind that no get time to square up yet. Daren’t pray like
Christian here, ’cause afraid of Bonsas, and Bonsas come even with him by
and by, ’cause he been Christian, so poor Jeekie fall down bump between
two stools. ’Postles kick him out of heaven and Bonsas kick him out of
hell, and where Jeekie go to then?”

“Don’t know, I am sure,” answered Alan, smiling a little in
spite of his sorrow, “but I think the Bonsas might find a corner for you
somewhere. Look here, Jeekie, you old scamp, I am sorry for you, for you have
been a good friend to me and we are fond of each other. But just understand
this, I am not going to marry that woman if I can help it. It’s against
my principles. So I shall wait till to-morrow and then I shall walk out of this
place. If the guards try to stop me I shall shoot them while I have any
cartridges. Then I shall go on until they kill me.”

“Oh! But Major, they not kill you—never; they chuck blanket over
your head and take you back to Asika. It Jeekie they kill, skin him alive-o,
and all the rest of it.”

“Hope not, Jeekie, because they think we shall die the same day. But if
so, I can’t help it. To-morrow morning I shall walk out, and now
that’s settled. I am tired and going to sleep,” and he threw
himself down upon the bed and, being worn out with weariness and anxiety, soon
fell fast asleep.

But Jeekie did not sleep, although he too lay down upon his bed. On the
contrary, he remained wide awake and reflected, more deeply perhaps than he had
ever done before, being sure the superstition as to the dependence of
Alan’s life upon his own was now worn very thin, and that his hour was at
hand. He thought of making Alan’s wild attempt to depart impossible by
the simple method of warning the Asika, but, notwithstanding his native
selfishness, was too loyal to let that idea take root in his mind. No, there
was nothing to be done; if the Major wished to start, the Major must start, and
he, Jeekie, must pay the price. Well, he deserved it, who had been fool enough
to listen to the secret promptings of Little Bonsa and conduct him to
Asiki-land.

Thus he passed several hours, for the most part in melancholy speculations as
to the exact fashion of his end, until at length weariness overcame him also
and, shutting his eyes, Jeekie began to doze. Suddenly he grew aware of the
presence of some other person in the room, but thinking that it was only the
Asika prowling about in her uncanny fashion, or perhaps her spirit, for how her
body entered the place he could not guess, he did not stir, but lay breathing
heavily and watching out of the corner of his eye.

Presently a figure emerged from the shadows into the faint light thrown by the
single lamp that burned above, and though it was wrapped in a dark cloak,
Jeekie knew at once that it was not the Asika. Very stealthily the figure crept
towards him, as a leopard might creep, and bent down to examine him. The
movement caused the cloak to slip a little, and for an instant Jeekie caught
sight of the wasted, half-crazed face of the Mungana, and of a long, curved
knife that glittered in his hand. Paralyzed with fear, he lay quite still,
knowing that should he show the slightest sign of consciousness that knife
would pierce his heart.

The Mungana watched him a while, then satisfied that he slept, turned round
and, bending himself almost double, glided with infinite precautions towards
Alan’s bed, which stood some twelve or fourteen feet away. Silently as a
snake that uncoils itself, Jeekie slipped from between his blankets and crept
after him, his naked feet making no noise upon the mat-strewn floor. So intent
was the Mungana upon the deed which he had come to do that he never looked
back, and thus it happened that the two of them reached the bed one immediately
behind the other.

Alan was lying on his back with his throat exposed, a very easy victim. For a
moment the Mungana stared. Then he erected himself like a snake about to
strike, and lifted the great curved knife, taking aim at Alan’s naked
breast. Jeekie erected himself also, and even as the knife began to fall, with
one hand he caught the arm that drove it and with the other the
murderer’s throat. The Mungana fought like a wild-cat, but Jeekie was too
strong for him. His fingers held the man’s windpipe like a vise. He
choked and weakened; the knife fell from his hand. He sank to the ground and
lay there helpless, whereon Jeekie knelt upon his chest and, possessing himself
of the knife, held it within an inch of his heart.

It was at this juncture that Alan woke up and asked sleepily what was the
matter.

“Nothing, Major,” answered Jeekie in low and cheerful tones.
“Snake just going to bite you and I catch him, that all,” and he
gave an extra squeeze to the Mungana’s throat, who turned black in the
face and rolled his eyes.

“Be careful, Jeekie, or you will kill the man,” exclaimed Alan,
recognizing the Mungana and taking in the situation.

“Why not, Major? He want kill you, and me too afterwards. Good riddance
of bad rubbish, as Book say.”

“I am not so sure, Jeekie. Give him air and let me think. Tell him that
if he makes any noise, he dies.”

Jeekie obeyed, and the Mungana’s darkening eyes grew bright again as he
drew his breath in great sobs.

“Now, friend,” said Alan in Asiki, “why did you wish to stab
me?”

“Because I hate you,” answered the man, “who to-morrow will
take my place and the wife I love.”

“As a year or two ago you took someone else’s place, eh? Well,
suppose now that I don’t want either your place or your wife.”

“What would that matter even it if were true, white man, since she wants
you?”

“I am thinking, friend, that there is someone else she will want when she
hears of this. How do you suppose that you will die to-morrow? Not so easily as
you hope, perhaps.”

The Mungana’s eyes seemed to sink into his head, and his face to sicken
with terror. That shaft had gone home.

“Suppose I make a bargain with you,” went on Alan slowly.
“Supposing I say: ‘Mungana, show me the way out of this place, as
you can, now at once. Or if you prefer it, refuse and be given up to the
Asika?’ Come, you are not too mad to understand. Answer—and
quickly.”

“Would you kill me afterwards?” he asked.

“Not I. Why should I wish to kill you? You can come with us and go where
you will. Or you can stay here and die as the Asika directs.”

“I cannot believe you, white man. It is not possible that you should wish
to run away from so much love and glory, or to spare one who would have slain
you. Also it would be difficult to get you out of Bonsa Town.”

“Jeekie,” said Alan, “this fellow is mad after all, I think
you had better go to the door and shout for the priests.”

“No, no, lord,” begged the wretched creature, “I will trust
you; I will try, though it is you who must be mad.”

“Very good. Stand over him, Jeekie, while I put on my things and, yes,
give me that mask. If he stirs, kill him at once.”

So Alan made himself ready. Then he mounted guard over the Mungana, as did
Jeekie, although he shook his head over their prospect of escape.

“No go,” he muttered, “no go! If we get past priests, Asika
catch us with her magic. When I bolt with your reverend uncle last time, Little
Bonsa arrange business because she go abroad fetch you. Now likely as not she
bowl you out, and then good-bye Jeekie.”

Alan sternly bade him be quiet and stop behind if he did not wish to come.

“No, no, Major,” he answered, “I come all right. Asika very
prejudiced beggar, and if she find me here alone—oh my! Better die double
after all, Two’s company, Major. Now, all ready, March!” and
he gave the unfortunate Mungana a fearful kick as a hint to proceed, adding
reflectively “Everything come square in end, Major. You ’member once
this chap bump Jeekie’s head at feast of Little Bonsa. Well, now I bump
his tail,” and he kicked him again.

So utterly crushed was the poor wretch that even this insult did not stir him
to resentment.

“Follow me, white man,” he said, “and if you desire to live,
be silent. Throw your cloaks about your heads.”

They did so, and holding their revolvers in their right hands, glided after the
Mungana. In the corner of the big room they came to a little stair. How it
opened in that place where no stair had been, they could not see or even guess,
for it was too dark, only now they knew the means by which the Asika had been
able to visit them at night.

The Mungana went first down the stair. Jeekie followed, grasping him by the arm
with one hand, while in the other he kept his own knife ready to stab him at
the first sign of treachery. Alan brought up the rear, keeping hold of
Jeekie’s cloak. They passed down twelve steps of stair, then turned to
the right along a tunnel, then to the left, then to the right again. In the
pitch darkness it was an awful journey, since they knew not whither they were
being led, and expected that every moment would be their last. At length, quite
of a sudden, they emerged into moonlight.

Alan looked about him and knew the place. It was where the feast had been held
two months before, when the priests were poisoned and the Bonsas chose the
victims for sacrifice. Already it was prepared for the great festival of
to-morrow, when the Mungana should drown himself and Alan be married to the
Asika. There on the daïs were the gold chairs in which they were to sit, and
green branches of trees mixed with curious flags decked the vast amphitheatre
beyond. Moreover, there was the broad canal, and floating in the midst of it
the hideous gold fetish, Big Bonsa. The moon shone on its glaring, deathly
eyes, its fish-like snout and its huge, pale teeth. Alan looked at it and
shivered, for the thing was horrid and uncanny, and the utter loneliness in
which it lay staring up at the moon, seemed to accentuate the horror.

The Mungana noticed his fear and whispered:

“We must swim the water. If you have a god, white man, pray him to
protect you from Bonsa.”

“Lead on,” answered Alan, “I do not dread a foul fetish, only
the look of it. But is there no way round?”

The Mungana shook his head and began to enter the canal. Jeekie, whose teeth
were chattering, hung back, but Alan pushed him from behind, so sharply that he
stumbled and made a splash. Then Alan followed, and as the cold, black water
rose to his chest, looked again at Big Bonsa.

It seemed to him that the thing had turned round and was staring at them.
Surely a few seconds ago its snout pointed the other way. No, that must be
fancy. He was swimming now, they were all swimming, Alan and Jeekie holding
their pistols and little stock of cartridges above their heads to keep them
dry. The gold head of Big Bonsa appeared to be lifting itself up in the water,
as a reptile might, in order to get a better view of these proceedings, but
doubtless it was the ripples that they caused which gave it this appearance.
Only why did the ripples make it come towards them, quite gently, like an
investigating fish?

It was about ten yards off and they were in the middle of the canal. The
Mungana had passed it. It was in a line with Alan’s head. Oh Heavens! a
sudden smother of foam, a rush like that of a torpedo, and set low down between
two curving waves, a flash of gold. Then a gurgling, inhuman laugh and a weight
upon his back. Down went Alan, down and down!

CHAPTER XVII.
THE END OF THE MUNGANA.

The moonlight above vanished. Alan was alone in the depths with this devil, or
whatever it might be. He could feel hands and feet gripping and treading on
him, but they did not seem to be human, for there were too many of them. Also
they were very cold. He gave himself up for dead and thought of Barbara.

Then something flashed into his mind. In his hand he still held the revolver.
He pressed it upwards against the thing that was smothering him, and pulled the
trigger. Again he pulled it, and again, for it was a self-cocking weapon, and
even there deep down in the water he heard the thud of the explosion of the
damp-proof copper cartridges. His lungs were bursting, his senses reeled, only
enough of them remained to tell him that he was free of that strangling grip
and floating upwards. His head rose above the surface, and through the mouth of
his mask he drew in the sweet air with quick gasps. Down below him in the clear
water he saw the yellow head of Big Bonsa rocking and quivering like a great
reflected moon, saw too that it was beginning to rise. Yet he could not swim
away from it, the fetish seemed to have hypnotized him. He heard Jeekie calling
to him from the shallow water near the further bank, but still he floated there
like a log and stared down at Big Bonsa wallowing beneath.

Jeekie plunged back into the canal and with a few strong strokes reached him,
gripped him by the arm and began to tow him to the shore. Before they came
there Big Bonsa rose like a huge fish and tried to follow them, but could not,
or so it seemed. At any rate it only whirled round and round upon the surface,
while from it poured a white fluid that turned the black water to the hue of
milk. Then it began to scream, making a thin and dreadful sound more like that
of an infant in pain than anything they had ever heard, a very sickening sound
that Alan never could forget. He staggered to the bank and stood staring at it
where it bled, rolled and shrieked, but because of the milky foam could make
nothing out in that light.

“What is it, Jeekie?” he said with an idiotic laugh. “What is
it?”

“Oh! don’t know. Devil and all, perhaps. Come on, Major, before it
catch us.”

“I don’t think it will catch anyone just at present. Devil or not
hollow-nosed bullets don’t agree with it. Shall I give it another,
Jeekie?” and he lifted the pistol.

“No, no, Major, don’t play tomfool,” and Jeekie grabbed him
by the arm and dragged him away.

A few paces further on stood the Mungana like a man transfixed, and even then
Alan noticed that he regarded him with something akin to awe.

“Stronger than the god,” he muttered, “stronger than the
god,” and bounded forward.

Following the path that ran beside the canal, they plunged into a tunnel,
holding each other as before. In a few minutes they were through it and in a
place full of cedar trees outside the wall of the Gold House, under which
evidently the tunnel passed, for there it rose behind them. Beneath these cedar
trees they flitted like ghosts, now in the moonlight and now in the shadow.

The great fall to the back of the town was on their left, and in front of them
lay one of the arms of the river, at this spot a raging torrent not much more
than a hundred feet in width, spanned by a narrow suspension bridge which
seemed to be supported by two fibre ropes. On the hither side of this bridge
stood a guard hut, and to their dismay out of this hut ran three men armed with
spears, evidently to cut them off. One of these men sped across the bridge and
took his stand at the further end, while the other two posted themselves in
their path at the entrance to it.

The Mungana slacked his speed and said one word—“Finished!”
and Jeekie also hesitated, then turned and pointed behind them.

Alan looked back and flitting in and out between the cedar trees, saw the white
robes of the priests of Bonsa. Then despair seized them all, and they rushed at
the bridge. Jeekie reached it first and dodging beneath the spears of the two
guards, plunged his knife into the breast of one of them, and butted the other
with his great head, so that he fell over the side of the bridge on to the
rocks below.

“Cut, Major, cut!” he said to Alan, who pushed past him. “All
right now.”

They were on the narrow swaying bridge—it was but a single
plank—Alan first, then the Mungana, then Jeekie. When they were half way
across Alan looked before him and saw a sight he could never forget.

The third guard at the further side was sawing through one of the fibre ropes
with his spear. There they were on the middle of the bridge with the torrent
raving fifty feet beneath them, and the man had nearly severed the rope! To get
over before it parted was impossible; behind were the priests; beneath the
roaring river. All three of them stopped as though paralyzed, for all three had
seen. Something struck against Alan’s leg, it was his pistol that still
remained fastened to his wrist by its leather thong. He cocked and lifted it,
took aim and fired. The shot missed, which was not wonderful considering the
light and the platform on which the shooter stood. It missed, but the man,
astonished, for he had never seen or heard such a thing before, stopped his
sawing for a moment, and stared at them. Then as he began again Alan fired once
more, and this time by good fortune the bullet struck the man somewhere in the
body. He fell, and as he fell grasped the nearly separated rope and hung to it.

“Get hold of the other rope and come on,” yelled Alan, and once
more they bounded forward.

“My God! it’s going!” he yelled again. “Hold fast,
Jeekie, hold fast!”

Next instant the rope parted and the man vanished. The bridge tipped over, and
supported by the remaining rope, hung edgeways up. To this rope the three of
them clung desperately, resting their feet upon the edge of the swaying plank.
For a few seconds they remained thus, afraid to stir, then Jeekie called out:

“Climb on, Major, climb on like one monkey. Look bad, but quite safe
really.”

As there was nothing else to be done Alan began to climb, shifting his feet
along the plank edge and his hands along the rope, which creaked and stretched
beneath their threefold weight.

It was a horrible journey, and in his imagination took at least an hour. Yet
they accomplished it, for at last they found themselves huddled together but
safe upon the further bank. The sweat pouring down from his head almost blinded
Alan; a deadly nausea worked within him, sickly tremors shot up and down his
spine; his brain swam. Yet he could hear Jeekie, in whom excitement always took
the form of speech, saying loudly:

“Think that man no liar what say our great papas was monkeys. Never look
down on monkey no more. Wake up, Major, those priests monkey-men too, for we
all brothers, you know. Wait a bit, I stop their little game,” and
springing up with three or four cuts of the big curved knife, he severed the
remaining rope just as their pursuers reached the further side of the chasm.

They shouted with rage as the long bridge swung back against the rock, the cut
end of it falling into the torrent, and waved their spears threateningly. To
this demonstration Jeekie replied with gestures of contempt such as are known
to street Arabs. Then he looked at the Mungana, who lay upon the ground a
melancholy and dilapidated spectacle, for the perspiration had washed lines of
paint off his face and patches of dye from his hair, also his gorgeous robes
were water-stained and his gem necklaces broken. Having studied him a while
Jeekie kicked him meditatively till he got up, then asked him to set out the
exact situation. The Mungana answered that they were safe for a while, since
that torrent could only be crossed by the broken bridge and was too rapid to
swim. The Asiki, he added, must go a long journey round through the city in
order to come at them, though doubtless they would hunt them down in time.

Here Jeekie cut him short, since he knew all that country well and only wished
to learn whether any more bridges had been built across the torrent since he
was a boy.

“Now, Major,” he said, “you get up and follow me, for I know
every inch of ground, also by and by good short cut over mountains. You see
Jeekie very clever boy, and when he herd sheep and goat he made note of
everything and never forget nothing. He pull you out of this hole, never
fear.”

“Glad to hear it, I am sure,” answered Alan as he rose. “But
what’s to become of the Mungana?”

“Don’t know and don’t care,” said Jeekie; “no
more good to us. Can go and see how Big Bonsa feel, if he like,” and
stretching out his big hand as though in a moment of abstraction, he removed
the costly necklaces from their guide’s neck and thrust them into the
pouch he wore. Also he picked up the gilded linen mask which Alan had removed
from his head and placed it in the same receptacle, remarking, that he
“always taught that it wicked to waste anything when so many poor in the
world.”

Then they started, the Mungana following them. Jeekie paused and waved him off,
but the poor wretch still came on, whereon Jeekie produced the big, crooked
knife, Mungana’s own knife.

“What are you going to do?” said Alan, awaking to the situation.

“Cut off head of that cocktail man, Major, and so save him lot of
trouble. Also we got no grub, and if we find any he want eat a lot. Chop what
do for two p’raps, make very short commons for three. Also he might play
dirty trick, so much best dead.”

“Nonsense,” said Alan sternly; “let the poor devil come along
if he likes. One good turn deserves another.”

“Just so, Major; that hello-swello want cut our throats, so I want cut
his—one good turn deserve another, as wise king say in Book, when he give
half baby to woman what wouldn’t have it. Well, so be, Major, specially
as it no matter, for he not stop with us long.”

“You mean that he will run away, Jeekie?”

“Oh! no, he not run away, he in too blue funk for that. But something run
away with him, because he ought die to-morrow night. Oh! yes, you see, you see,
and Jeekie hope that something not run away with you too, Major, because you
ought be married at same time.”

“Hope not, I am sure,” answered Alan, and bethinking him of Big
Bonsa wallowing and screaming on the water and bleeding out white blood, he
shivered a little.

By this time, advancing at a trot, the Mungana running after them like a dog,
they had entered the bush pierced with a few wandering paths. Along these paths
they sped for hour after hour, Jeekie leading them without a moment’s
hesitation. They met no man and heard nothing, except occasional weird sounds
which Alan put down to wild beasts, but Jeekie and the Mungana said were
produced by ghosts. Indeed it appeared that all this jungle was supposed to be
haunted, and no Asiki would enter it at night, or unless he were very bold and
protected by many charms, by day either. Therefore it was an excellent place
for fugitives who sorely needed a good start.

At length the day began to dawn just as they reached the main road where it
crossed the hills, whence on his journey thither Alan had his first view of
Bonsa Town. Peering from the edge of the bush, they perceived a fire burning
near the road and round it five or six men, who seemed to be asleep. Their
first thought was to avoid them, but the Mungana, creeping up to Alan, for
Jeekie he would not approach, whispered:

“Not Asiki, Ogula chief and slaves who left Bonsa Town yesterday.”

They crept nearer the fire and saw that this was so. Then rejoicing
exceedingly, they awoke the old chief, Fahni, who at first thought they must be
spirits. But when he recognized Alan, he flung himself on his knees and kissed
his hand, because to him he owed his liberty.

“No time for all that, Fahni,” said Alan. “Give us
food.”

Now of this as it chanced there was plenty, since by the Asika’s orders
the slaves had been laden with as much as they could carry. They ate of it
ravenously, and while they ate, told Fahni something of the story of their
escape. The old chief listened amazed, but like Jeekie asked Alan why he had
not killed the Mungana, who would have killed him.

Alan, who was in no mood for long explanations, answered that he had kept him
with them because he might be useful.

“Yes, yes, friend, I see,” exclaimed the old cannibal,
“although he is so thin he will always make a meal or two at a pinch.
Truly white men are wise and provident. Like the ants, you take thought for the
morrow.”

As soon as they had swallowed their food they started all together, for
although Alan pointed out to Fahni that he might be safer apart, the old chief
who had a real affection for him, would not be persuaded to leave him.

“Let us live or die together,” he said.

Now Jeekie, abandoning the main road, led them up a stream, walking in the
water so that their footsteps might leave no trace, and thus away into the
barren mountains which rose between them and the great swamp. On the crest of
these mountains Alan turned and looked back towards Bonsa Town. There far
across the fertile valley was the hateful, river-encircled place. There fell
the great cataract in the roar of which he had lived for so many weeks. There
were the black cedars and there gleamed the roofs of the Gold House, his prison
where dwelt the Asika and the dreadful fetishes of which she was the priestess.
To him it was like the vision of a nightmare, he could scarcely think it real.
And yet by this time doubtless they sought him far and wide. What mood, he
wondered, would the Asika be in when she learned of his escape and the fashion
of it, and how would she greet him if he were recaptured and taken back to her?
Well, he would not be recaptured. He had still some cartridges and he would
fight till they killed him, or failing that, save the last of them for himself.
Never, never could he endure to be dragged back to Bonsa Town there to live and
die.

They went on across the mountains, till in the afternoon once more they saw the
road running beneath them like a ribbon, and at the end of it the lagoon. Now
they rested a while and held a consultation while they ate. Across that lagoon
they could not escape without a canoe.

“Lord,” said the Mungana presently, “yesterday when these
cannibals were let go a swift runner was sent forward, commanding that a good
boat should be provisioned and made ready for them, and by now doubtless this
has been done. Let them descend to the road, walk on to the bay and ask for the
boat. Look, yonder, far away a tongue of land covered with trees juts out into
the lake. We will make our way thither and after nightfall this chief can row
back to it and take us into the canoe.”

Alan said that the plan was good, but Jeekie shook his head, asking what would
happen if Fahni, finding himself safe upon the water, thought it wisest not to
come to fetch them.

Alan translated his words to the old chief, whereon Fahni wanted to fight
Jeekie because of the slur that he had cast upon his honour. This challenge
Jeekie resolutely declined, saying that already there were plenty of ways to
die in Asiki-land without adding another to them. Then Fahni swore by his
tribal god and by the spirit of every man he had ever eaten, that he would come
to that promontory after dark, if he were still alive.

So they separated, Fahni and his men slipping down to the road, which they did
without being seen by anyone, while Alan, Jeekie and the Mungana bore away to
the right towards the promontory. The road was long and rough and, though by
good fortune they met no one, since the few who dwelt in these wild parts had
gone up to Bonsa Town to be present at the great feast, the sun was sinking
before ever they reached the place. Moreover, this promontory proved to be
covered with dense thorn scrub, through which they must force a way in the
gathering darkness, not without hurt and difficulty. Still they accomplished it
and at length, quite exhausted, crept to the very point, where they hid
themselves between some stones at the water’s edge.

Here they waited for three long hours, but no boat came.

“All up a gum-tree now, Major,” said Jeekie. “Old blackguard,
Fanny, bolt and leave us here. He play hookey-walker, and to-morrow
morning Asika nobble us. Better have gone down to bay, steal his boat
and leave him behind, because Asika no want him. That only common
sense.”

Alan made no answer. He was too tired, and although he trusted Fahni, it seemed
likely enough that Jeekie was right, or perhaps the cannibals had not been able
to get the boat. Well, he had done his best, and if Fate overtook them it was
no fault of his. He began to doze, for even their imminent peril could not keep
his eyes open, then presently awoke with a start, for in his sleep he thought
he heard the sounds of paddles beating the quiet water. Yes, there dimly seen
through the mist, was a canoe, and seated in the stern of it Fahni. So that
danger had gone by also.

He woke his companions, who slept at his side, and very silently they rose,
stepping from rock to rock till they reached the canoe and entered it. It was
not a large craft, barely big enough to hold them all indeed, but they found
room, and then at a sign from Fahni the oarsmen gave way so heartily that
within half an hour they had lost sight of the accursed shores of Asiki-land,
although presently its mountains showed up clearly beneath the moon.

Meanwhile Fahni had told his tale. It appeared that when he reached the bay he
found the Asiki headman who dwelt there, and those under him, in a state of
considerable excitement.

Rumours had reached them that someone had escaped from Bonsa Town; they thought
it was the Mungana. Fahni asked who had brought the rumour, whereon the headman
answered that it came “in a dream,” and would say no more. Then he
demanded the canoe which had been promised to him and his people, and the
headman admitted that it was ready in accordance with orders received from the
Asika, but demurred to letting him have it. A long argument followed, in the
midst of which Fahni and his men got into the canoe, the headman apparently not
daring to use force to prevent him. Just as they were pushing off a messenger
arrived from Bonsa Town, reeling with exhaustion and his tongue hanging from
his jaws, who called out that it was the white man who had escaped with his
servant and the Mungana, and that although they were believed to be still
hidden in the holy woods near Bonsa Town, none were to be allowed to leave the
bay. So the headman shouted to Fahni to return, but he pretended not to hear
and rowed away, nor did anyone attempt to follow him. Still it was only after
nightfall that he dared to put the boat about and return to the headland to
pick up Alan and the others as he had promised. That was all he had to say.

Alan thanked him heartily for his faithfulness and they paddled on steadily,
putting mile after mile of water between them and Asiki-land. He wondered
whether he had seen the last of that country and its inhabitants. Something
within him answered No. He was sure that the Asika would not allow him to
depart in peace without making some desperate effort to recapture him. Far as
he was away, it seemed to him that he could feel her fury hanging over him like
a cloud, a cloud that would burst in a rain of blood. Doubtless it would have
burst already had it not been for the accident that he and his companions were
still supposed to be hiding in the woods. But that error must be discovered,
and then would come the pursuit.

He looked at the full moon shining upon him and reflected that at this very
hour he should have been seated upon the chair of state, wedding, or rather
being wedded by the Asika in the presence of Big and Little Bonsa and all the
people. His eye fell upon the Mungana, who had also been destined to play a
prominent part in that ceremony. At once he saw that there was something wrong
with the man. A curious change had come over his emaciated face. It was working
like that of a maniac. Foam appeared upon his dyed lips, his haunted eyes
rolled, his thin hands gripped the side of the canoe and he began to sing, or
rather howl like a dog baying at the stars. Jeekie hit him on the head and bade
him be silent, but he took no notice, even when he hit him again more heavily.
Presently came the climax. The man sprang up in the canoe, causing it to rock
from side to side. He pointed to the full moon above and howled more loudly
than before; he pointed to something that he seemed to see in the air near by
and gibbered as though in terror. Then his eyes fixed themselves upon the water
at which he stared.

Harder and harder he stared, his head sinking lower every moment, till at
length without another sound, very quietly and unexpectedly he went over the
side of the boat. For a few seconds they saw his bright-coloured garments
sinking to the depths, then he vanished.

They waited a while, expecting that he would rise again. But he never rose. A
shot-weighted corpse could not have disappeared more finally and completely.
The thing was very awful, and for a while there was silence, which as usual was
broken by Jeekie.

“That gay dog gone,” he said in a reflective voice. “All
those old ghosts come to fetch him at proper time. No good run away from
ghosts; they travel too quick; one jump, and pop up where you no expect. Well,
more place for Jeekie now,” and he spread himself out comfortably in the
empty seat, adding, “like hello-swello’s room much better than
company, he go in scent-bath every day and stink too much, all that water never
wash him clean.”

Thus died the Mungana, and such was the poor wretch’s requiem. With a
shiver Alan reflected that had it not been for him and his insane jealousy, he
too might have been expected to go into that same scent-bath and have his face
painted like a chorus girl. Only would he escape the spell that had destroyed
his predecessor in the affections of the priestess of the Bonsas? Or would some
dim power such as had drawn Mungana to the death drag him back to the arms of
the Asika or to the torture pit of “Great Swimming Head.” He
remembered his dream in the Treasure Hall and shuddered at the very thought of
it, for all he had undergone and seen made him superstitious; then bade the men
paddle faster, ever faster.

All that night they rowed on, taking turns to rest, except Alan and Jeekie, who
slept a good deal and as a consequence awoke at dawn much refreshed. When the
sun rose they found themselves across the lagoon, over thirty miles from the
borders of Asiki-land, almost at the spot where the river up which they had
travelled some months before, flowed out of the lake. Whether by chance or
skill Fahni had steered a wonderfully straight course. Now, however, they were
face to face with a new trouble, for scarcely had they begun to descend the
river when they discovered that at this dry season of the year it was in many
places too shallow to allow the canoe to pass over the sand and mud banks.
Evidently there was but one thing to be done—abandon it and walk.

So they landed, ate from their store of food and began a terrible and toilsome
journey. On either side of the river lay desiccated swamp covered with dead
reeds ten or twelve feet high. Doubtless beyond the swamp there was high land,
but in order to reach this, if it existed, they would be obliged to force a
path through miles of reeds. Therefore they thought it safer to follow the
river bank. Their progress was very slow, since continually they must make
detours to avoid a quicksand or a creek, also the stones and scrubby growth
delayed them so that fifteen or at most twenty miles was a good day’s
march.

Still they went on steadily, seeing no man, and when their food was exhausted,
living on the fish which they caught in plenty in the shallows, and on young
flapper ducks that haunted the reeds. So at length they came to the main river
into which this tributary flowed, and camped there thankfully, believing that
if any pursuit of them had been undertaken, it was abandoned. At least Alan and
the rest believed this, but Jeekie did not.

On the following morning, shortly after dawn, Jeekie awoke his master.

“Come here, Major,” he said in a solemn voice, “I got
something pretty show you,” and he led him to the foot of an old willow
tree, adding, “now up you go, Major, and look.”

So Alan went up and from the topmost fork of that tree saw a sight at which his
blood turned cold. For there, not five miles behind them, on either side of the
river bank, the light gleaming on their spears, marched two endless columns of
men, who from their head-dresses he took to be Asiki. For a minute he looked,
then descended the tree and approaching the others, asked what was to be done.

“Hook, scoot, bolt, leg it!” exclaimed Jeekie emphatically; then he
licked his finger, held it up to the wind, and added, “but first fire
reeds and make it hot for Bonsa crowd.”

This was a good suggestion and one on which they acted without delay. Taking
red embers, they blew them into a flame and lit torches, which they applied to
the reeds over a width of several hundred yards. The strong northward wind soon
did the rest; indeed with a quarter of an hour a vast sheet of flame twenty or
thirty feet in height was rushing towards the Asiki columns. Then they began
their advance along the river bank, running at a steady trot, for here the
ground was open.

All that day they ran, pausing at intervals to get their breath, and at night
rested because they must. When the light came upon the following morning they
looked back from a little hill and saw the outposts of the Asiki advancing not
a mile behind. Doubtless some of the army had been burned, but the rest,
guessing their route, had forced a way through the reeds and cut across
country. So they began to run again harder than before, and kept their lead
during the morning. But when afternoon came the Asika gained on them. Now they
were breasting a long rise, the river running in the cleft beneath, and Jeekie,
who seemed to be absolutely untiring, held Alan by the hand, Fahni following
close behind. Two of their men had fallen down and been abandoned, and the rest
straggled.

“No go, Jeekie,” gasped Alan, “they will catch us at the top
of the hill.”

“Never say die, Major, never say die,” puffed Jeekie; “they
get blown too, and who know what other side of hill?”

Somehow they struggled to the crest and behold! there beneath them was a great
army of men.

“Ogula!” yelled Jeekie, “Ogula! Just what I tell you, Major,
who know what other side of any hill.”

CHAPTER XVIII.
A MEETING IN THE FOREST.

In five minutes more Alan and Jeekie were among the Ogula, who, having
recognized their chief while he was yet some way off, greeted him with
rapturous cheers and the clapping of hands. Then as there was no time for
explanation, they retreated across a little stream which ran down the valley,
four thousand or more of them, and prepared for battle. That evening, however,
there was no fighting, for when the first of the Asiki reached the top of the
rise and saw that the fugitives had escaped to the enemy, who were in strength,
they halted and finally retired.

Now Alan, and Fahni also, hoped that the pursuit was abandoned, but again
Jeekie shook his big head, saying:

“Not at all, Major, I know Asiki and their little ways. While one of them
alive, not dare go back to Asika without you, Major.”

“Perhaps she is with them herself,” suggested Alan, “and we
might treat with her.”

“No, Major, Asika never leave Bonsa Town, that against law, and if she do
so, priests make another Asika and kill her when they catch her.”

After this a council of war was held, and it was decided to camp there that
night, since the position was good to meet an attack if one should be made, and
the Ogula were afraid of being caught on the march with their backs towards the
enemy. Alan was glad enough to hear this decision, for he was quite worn out
and ready to take any risk for a few hours’ rest. At this council he
learned also that the Asiki bearers carrying his gold with their Ogula guides
had arrived safely among the Ogula, who had mustered in answer to their
chief’s call and were advancing towards Asiki-land, though the business
was one that did not please them. As for these Asiki bearers, it seemed that
they had gone on into the forest with the gold, and nothing more had been heard
of them.

As they were leaving the council Alan asked Jeekie if he had any tidings of his
mother, who had been their first messenger.

“No, Major,” he answered gloomily, “can’t learn nothing
of my ma, don’t know where she is. Ogula camp no place for old girl if
they short of chop and hungry. But p’raps she never get there; I nose
round and find out.”

Apparently Jeekie did “nose round” to some purpose, for just as
Alan was dropping off to sleep in his bough shelter a most fearful din arose
without, through which he recognized the vociferations of Jeekie. Running out
of the shelter he discovered his retainer and a great Ogula whom he knew again
as the headman who had been imprisoned with him and freed by the Asika to guide
the bearers, rolling over and over on the ground, watched by a curious crowd.
Just as he arrived Jeekie, who, notwithstanding his years, was a man of enormous
strength, got the better of the Ogula and kneeling on his stomach, was
proceeding to throttle him. Rushing at him, Alan dragged him off and asked what
was the matter.

“Matter, Major!” yelled the indignant Jeekie. “My ma inside
this black villain, that the matter. Dirty cannibal got digestion of one
ostrich and eat her up with all his mates, all except one who not like her
taste and tell me. They catch poor old lady asleep by road so stop and lunch at
once when Asiki bearers not looking. Let me get at him, Major, let me get at
him. If I can’t bury my ma, as all good son ought to do, I bury him,
which next best thing.”

“Jeekie, Jeekie,” said Alan, “exercise a Christian spirit and
let bygones be bygones. If you don’t, you will make a quarrel between us
and the Ogula, and they will give us up to the Asiki. Perhaps the man did not
eat your mother; I understand that he denies it, and when you remember what she
was like, it seems incredible. At any rate he has a right to a trial, and I
will speak to Fahni about it to-morrow.”

So they were separated, but as it chanced that case never came on, for next
morning this Ogula was killed in the fighting together with two of his
companions, while the others involved in the charge kept themselves out of
sight. Whether Jeekie’s “ma” was or was not eaten by the
Ogula no one ever learned for certain. At least she was never heard of any more.

Alan was sleeping heavily when a sound of rushing feet and of strange,
thrilling battle-cries awoke him. He sprang up, snatching at a spear and shield
which Jeekie had provided for him, and ran out to find from the position of the
moon that dawn was near.

“Come on, Major,” said Jeekie, “Asiki make night attack; they
always like do everything at night who love darkness, because their eye evil.
Come on quick, Major,” and he began to drag him off toward the rear.

“But that’s the wrong way,” said Alan presently. “They
are attacking over there.”

“Do you think Jeekie fool, Major, that he don’t know that? He take
you where they not attacking. Plenty Ogula to be killed, but not
many white men like you, and in all world only one Jeekie!”

“You cold-blooded old scoundrel!” ejaculated Alan as he turned and
bolted back towards the noise of fighting, followed by his reluctant servant.

By the time that he reached the first ranks, which were some way off, the worst
of the attack was over. It had been short and sharp, for the Asiki had hoped to
find the Ogula unprepared and to take their camp with a rush. But the Ogula,
who knew their habits, were waiting for them, so that presently they withdrew,
carrying off their wounded and leaving about fifty dead upon the ground. As
soon as he was quite sure that the enemy were all gone, Jeekie, armed with a
large battle-axe, went off to inspect these fallen soldiers. Alan, who was
helping the Ogula wounded, wondered why he took so much interest in them. Half
an hour later his curiosity was satisfied, for Jeekie returned with over twenty
heavy gold rings, torques, and bracelets slung over his shoulder.

“Where did you get those, Jeekie?” he asked.

“Off poor chaps that peg out just now, Major. Remember Asiki soldiers
nearly always wear these things, and that filthy lucre no more use where they
gone to, ’cause they melt there. But if ever he get out of this Jeekie
want spend his old age in respectable peace. So he fetch them. Hard work,
though, for rings all in one bit and Asiki very tough to chop. Don’t look
cross, Major; you remember what ’postle say, that he who no provide for
his own self worse than cannibal.”

Just then Fahni came up and announced that the Asiki general had sent a
messenger into the camp proposing terms of peace.

“What terms?” asked Alan.

“These, white man: that we should surrender you and your servant and go
our way unharmed.”

“Indeed, Fahni, and what did you answer?”

“White man, I refused; but I tell you,” he added warningly,
“that my captains wished to accept. They said that I had come back to
them safe and that they fear the Asiki, who are devils, not men, and who will
bring the curse of Bonsa on us if we go on fighting with them. Still I refused,
saying that if they gave you up I would go with you, who saved my life from the
lion and afterwards from the priests of Bonsa. So the messenger went back and,
white man, we march at once, and I pray you always to keep close to me that I
may watch over you.”

Then began that long tramp down the river, which Alan always thought afterwards
tried him more than any of the terrible events of his escape. For although
there was but little fighting, only rearguard actions indeed, every day the
Asiki sent messengers renewing their offers of peace on the sole condition of
the surrender of himself and Jeekie. At last one evening they came to that
place where Alan first met the Ogula, and once more he camped upon the island
on which he had shot the lion. At nightfall, after he had eaten, Fahni visited
him here and Alan boded evil from his face.

“White man,” he said, “I can protect you no longer. The Asiki
messengers have been with us again and they say that unless we give you up
to-morrow at the dawn, their army will push on ahead of us and destroy my town,
which is two days’ march down the river, and all the women and children
in it, and that afterwards they will fight a great battle with us. Therefore my
people say that I must give you up, or that if I do not they will elect another
chief and do so themselves.”

“Then you will give up a dead man, Fahni.”

“Friend,” said the old chief in a low voice, “the night is
dark and the forest not so far away. Moreover, I have set no guards on that
side of the river, and Jeekie here does not forget a road that he has
travelled. Lastly, I have heard it said that there are some other white people
with soldiers camped in the edge of the forest. Now, if you were not here in
the morning, how could I give you up?”

“I understand, Fahni. You have done your best for me, and now,
good-night. Jeekie and I are going to take a walk. Sometimes you will think of
the months we spent together in Bonsa Town, will you not?”

“Yes, and of you also, white man, for so long as I shall live. Walk fast
and far, for the Asiki are clever at following a spoor. Good-night, Friend, and
to you, Jeekie the cunning, good-night also. I go to tell my captains that I
will surrender you at dawn,” and without more words he vanished out of
their sight and out of their lives.

Meanwhile Jeekie, foreseeing the issue of this talk, was already engaged in
doing up their few belongings, including the gold rings, some food, and a
native cooking pot, in a bundle surrounded by a couple of bark blankets.

“Come on, Major,” he said, handing Alan one spear and taking
another himself. “Old cannibal quite right, very nice night for a walk.
Come on, Major, river shallow just here. I think this happen and try it before
dark. You just follow Jeekie, that all you got to do.”

So leaving the fire burning in front of their bough shelter, they waded the
stream and started up the opposing slope, meeting no man. Dark as it was,
Jeekie seemed to have no difficulty in finding the way, for as Fahni said, a
native does not forget the path he has once travelled. All night long they
walked rapidly, and when dawn broke found themselves at the edge of the forest.

“Jeekie,” said Alan, “what did Fahni mean by that tale about
white people?”

“Don’t know, Major, think perhaps he lie to let you down easy. My
golly! what that?”

As he spoke a distant echo reached their ears, the echo of a rifle shot.
“Think Fanny not lie after all,” went on Jeekie; “that white
man’s gun, sharp crack, smokeless powder, but wonder how he come in this
place. Well, we soon find out. Come on, Major.”

Tired as they were they broke into a run; the prospect of seeing a white face
again was too much for them. Half a mile or so further on they caught sight of
a figure evidently engaged in stalking game among the trees, or so they judged
from his cautious movements.

“White man!” said Jeekie, and Alan nodded.

They crept forward silently and with care, for who knew what this white man
might be after, keeping a great tree between them and the man, till at length,
passing round its bole, they found themselves face to face with him and not
five yards away. Notwithstanding his unaccustomed tropical dress and his face
burnt copper colour by the sun, Alan knew the man at once.

“Aylward!” he gasped; “Aylward! You here?”

He started. He stared at Alan. Then his countenance changed. Its habitual calm
broke up as it was wont to do in moments of deep emotion. It became very evil,
as though some demon of hate and jealousy were at work behind it. The thin lips
quivered, the eyes glared, and without spoken word or warning, he lifted the
rifle and fired straight at Alan. The bullet missed him, for the aim was high.
Passing over Alan’s head, it cut a neat groove through the hair of the
taller Jeekie who was immediately behind him.

Next instant, with a spring like that of a tiger Jeekie was on Aylward. The
weight of his charge knocked him backwards to the ground, and there he lay,
pinned fast.

“What for you do that?” exclaimed the indignant Jeekie. “What
for you shoot through wool of respectable nigger, Sir Robert Aylward, Bart.?
Now I throttle you, you dirty hog-swine. No Magistrates’ Court here in
Dwarf Forest,” and he began to suit the action to the word.

“Let him go, Jeekie. Take his rifle and let him go,” exclaimed
Alan, who all this while had stood amazed. “There must be some mistake,
he cannot have meant to murder me.”

“Don’t know what he mean, but know his bullet go through my hair,
Major, and give me new parting,” grumbled Jeekie as he obeyed.

“Of course it was a mistake, Vernon, for I suppose it is Vernon,”
said Aylward, as he rose. “I do not wonder that your servant is angry,
but the truth is that your sudden appearance frightened me out of my wits and I
fired automatically. We have been living in some danger here, and my nerves are
not as strong as they used to be.”

“Indeed,” answered Alan. “No, Jeekie will carry the rifle for
you; yes, and I think that pistol also, every ounce makes a difference walking
in a hot climate, and I remember that you always were dangerous with firearms.
There, you will be more comfortable so. And now, who do you mean by
‘we’?”

“I mean Barbara and myself,” he answered slowly.

Alan’s jaw dropped, he shook upon his feet.

“Barbara and yourself!” he said. “Do I
understand——”

“Don’t you understand nothing, Major,” broke in Jeekie.
“Don’t you believe one word what this pig dog say. If Miss Barbara
marry him he no want shoot you; he ask you to tea to see the Missus and how
much she love him, ducky! We just go on and call on Miss Barbara and hear the
news. Walk up, Sir Robert Aylward, Bart., and show us which way.”

“I do not choose to receive you and your impertinent servant at my
camp,” said Aylward, grinding his teeth.

“We quite understand that, Sir Robert Aylward——”

“Lord Aylward, if you please, Major Vernon.”

“I beg your pardon—Lord Aylward. I was aware of the contemplated
purchase of that title, I did not know that it had been completed. I was about
to add that all the same we mean to go to that camp, and that if any violence
towards us is attempted as we approach it, you will remember that you are in
our hands.”

“Yes, my Lord,” added Jeekie, bowing, “and that monkeys
don’t tell no tales, my Lord, and that here there ain’t no twelve
Good-Trues to sit on noble corpse unhappily deceased, my Lord, and to bring in
Crowner’s verdict of done to death lawful or unlawful, according as
evidence may show when got, my Lord. So march on, for we no breakfast yet. No,
not that way, round here to left, where I think I hear kettle sing.”

So having no choice, Aylward came, marching between the other two and saying
nothing. When they had gone a couple of hundred yards Alan also heard
something, and to him it sounded like a man crying out in pain. Then suddenly
they passed round some great trees and reached a glade in the forest where
there was a spring of water which Alan remembered. In this glade the camp had
been built, surrounded by a “boma” or palisade of rough wood,
within which stood two tents and some native shelters made of tall grass and
boughs. Outside of this camp a curious and unpleasant scene was in progress.

To a small tree that grew there was tied a man, whom from the fashion of his
hair Alan knew to belong to the Coast negroes, while two great fellows,
evidently of another tribe, flogged him unmercifully with hide whips.

“Ah!” exclaimed Jeekie, “that the kettle I hear sing. Think
you better taken him off the fire, my Lord, or he boil over. Also his brothers
no seem like that music,” and he pointed to a number of other men who
were standing round watching the scene with sullen dissatisfaction.

“A matter of camp discipline,” muttered Aylward. “This man
has disobeyed orders.”

By now Jeekie was shouting something to the natives in an unknown tongue, which
they seemed to understand well enough. At any rate the flogging ceased, the two
fellows who were inflicting it slunk away, and the other men ran towards them,
shouting back as they came.

“All right, Major. You please stop here one minute with my Lord, late
Bart. of Bloody Hand. Some of these chaps friends of mine, I meet them Old
Calabar while we get ready to march last rains. Now I have little talk with
them and find out thing or two.”

Aylward began to bluster about interference with his servants and so forth.
Jeekie turned on him with a very ugly grin, and showing his white teeth, as was
his fashion when he grew fierce.

“Beg pardon, Right Honourable Lord,” he said, or rather snarled,
“you do what I tell you just to please Jeekie. Jeekie no one in England,
but Jeekie damn big Lord too out here, great medicine man, pal of Little Bonsa.
You remember Little Bonsa, eh! These chaps think it great honour to meet
Jeekie, so, Major, if he stir, please shoot him through head; Jeekie
’sponsible, not you. Or if you not like do it, I come back and see to job
myself and don’t think those fellows cry very much.”

There was something about Jeekie’s manner that frightened Aylward, who
understood for the first time that beneath all the negro’s grotesque talk
lay some dreadful, iron purpose, as courage lay under his affected cowardice
and under his veneer of selfishness, fidelity. At any rate he halted with Alan,
who stood beside him, the revolver of which Aylward had been relieved by
Jeekie, in his hand. Meanwhile Jeekie, who held the rifle which he had
reloaded, went on and met the natives about twenty yards away.

“We always disliked each other, Vernon, but I must say that I never
thought a day would come when you proposed to murder me in my own camp,”
said Aylward.

“Odd thing,” answered Alan, “but a very similar idea was in
my mind. I never thought, Lord Aylward, that however unscrupulous you might
be—financially—a day would come when you would attempt to shoot
down an unarmed man in an African forest. Oh! don’t waste breath in
lying; I saw you recognize me, aim, and fire, after which Jeekie would have had
the other barrel, and who then would have remained to tell the story, Lord
Aylward?”

Aylward made no answer, but Alan felt that if wishes could kill him he would
not live long. His eye fell upon a long, unmistakable mound of fresh earth,
beneath a tree. He calculated its length, and with a thrill of terror noticed
that it was too small for a negro.

“Who is buried there?” he asked.

“Find out for yourself,” was the sneering answer.

“Don’t be afraid, Lord Aylward; I shall find out everything in
time.”

The conversation between Jeekie and the natives proceeded, their heads were
close together; it grew animated. They seemed to be coming to some decision.
Presently one of them ran and cut the lashings of the man who had been bound to
the tree, and he staggered towards them and joined in the talk, pointing to his
wounds. Then the two fellows who had been engaged in flogging him, accompanied
by eight companions of the same type—they appeared to be soldiers, for
they carried guns—swaggered towards the group who were being addressed by
Jeekie, of whom Alan counted twenty-three. As they approached Jeekie made some
suggestion which, after one hesitating moment, the others seemed to accept, for
they nodded their heads and separated out a little.

Jeekie stepped forward and asked a question of the guards, to which they
replied with a derisive shout. Then without a word of warning he lifted
Aylward’s express rifle which he carried, and fired first one barrel and
then the other, shooting the two leading soldiers dead. Their companions halted
amazed, but before they could lift their guns, Jeekie and those with him rushed
at them and began stabbing them with spears and striking them with sticks. In
three minutes it was over without another shot being fired. Most of them were
despatched, and the others, throwing down their guns, had fled wounded into the
forest.

Now, shouting in jubilation, some of the men began to drag away the dead
bodies, while others collected the rifles and the remainder, headed by Jeekie,
advanced towards Alan and Aylward, waving their red spears. Alan stood staring,
for he did not in the least understand the meaning of what had happened, but
Aylward, who had turned very pale, addressed Jeekie, saying:

“I suppose that you have come to murder me also, you black villain.”

“No, no, my Lord,” answered Jeekie politely, “not at present.
Also that wrong word, execute, not murder, just what you do to some of these
poor devils,” and he pointed to the mob of porters. “Besides,
mustn’t kill holy white man, poor black chap don’t matter, plenty
more where he come from. Think we all go see Miss Barbara now. You come too, my
Lord Bart., but p’raps best tie your hands behind you first; if you want
scratch head, I do it for you. That only fair, you scratch mine this
morning.”

Then at a word from Jeekie some of the natives sprang on Aylward and tied his
hands behind his back.

“Is Miss Barbara alive?” said Alan to Jeekie in an agonized
whisper, at the same time nodding towards the grave that was so ominously short.

“Hope so, think so, these cards say so, but God He know alone,”
answered Jeekie. “Go and look, that best way to find out.”

So they advanced into the camp through a narrow gateway made of a V-shaped
piece of wood, to where the two tents were placed in its inner division. Of
these tents, the first was open, whereas the second was closed. As the open
tent was obviously empty, they went to the second, whereof Jeekie began to
loosen the lashings of the flap. It was a long business, for they seemed to
have been carefully knotted inside; indeed at last, growing impatient, Jeekie
cut the cord, using the curved knife with which the Mungana had tried to kill
Alan.

Meanwhile Alan was suffering torments, being convinced that Barbara was dead
and buried in that new-made grave beneath the trees. He could not speak, he
could scarcely stand, and yet a picture began to form in his numb mind. He saw
himself seated in the dark in the Treasure House at Bonsa Town; he saw a vision
in the air before him.

Lo! the tent door opened and that vision reappeared.

There was the pale Barbara seated, weeping. There again, as he entered she
sprang up and snatching the pistol that lay beside her, turned it to her
breast. Then she perceived him and the pistol sank downwards till from her
relaxed hand it dropped to the ground. She threw up her arms and without a
sound fell backwards, or would have fallen, had he not caught her.

CHAPTER XIX.
THE LAST OF THE ASIKI.

Barbara had recovered. She sat upon her bed in the tent and by her sat Alan,
holding her hand, while before them stood Aylward like a prisoner in the dock,
and behind him the armed Jeekie.

“Tell me the story, Barbara,” said Alan, “and tell it
briefly, for I cannot bear much more of this.”

She looked at him and began in a slow, even voice:

“After you had gone, dear, things went on as usual for a month or two.
Then came the great Sahara Company trouble. First there were rumours and the
shares began to go down. My uncle bought them in by tens and hundreds of
thousands, to hold up the market, because he was being threatened, but of
course he did not know then that Lord Aylward—for I forgot to tell you,
he had become a lord somehow—was secretly one of the principal sellers,
let him deny it if he can. At last the Ottoman Government, through the English
ambassador, published its repudiation of the concession, which it seems was a
forgery, actually executed or obtained in Constantinople by my uncle. Well,
there was a fearful smash. Writs were taken out against my uncle, but before
they could be served, he died suddenly of heart disease. I was with him at the
time, and he kept saying he saw that gold mask which Jeekie calls Bonsa, the
thing you took back to Africa. He had a fine funeral, for what he had done was
not publicly known, and when his will was opened I found that he had left me
his fortune, but made Lord Aylward there my trustee until I came to the full
age of twenty-five under my father’s will. Alan, don’t force me to
tell you what sort of a guardian he was to me; also there was no fortune, it
had all gone; also I had very, very little left, for almost all my own money
had gone too. In his despair he had forged papers to get it in order to support
those Sahara Syndicate shares. Still I managed to borrow about £2000 from that
little lawyer out of the £5000 that remain to me, an independent sum which he
was unable to touch, and, Alan, with it I came to find you.

“Alan, Lord Aylward followed me; although everybody else was ruined, he
remained rich, very, very rich, they say, and his fancy was to marry me, also I
think it was not comfortable for him in England. It is a long tale, but I got
up here with about five-and-twenty servants, and Snell, my maid, whom you
remember. Then we were both taken ill with some dreadful fever and had it not
been for those good black people, I should have died, for I have been very
sick, Alan. But they nursed me and I recovered; it was poor Snell who died,
they buried her a few days ago. I thought that she would live, but she had a
relapse. Next Lord Aylward appeared with twelve soldiers and some porters who,
I believe, have run away now,—oh! you can guess, you can guess. He wanted
my people to carry me off somewhere, to the coast, I suppose, but they were
faithful to me and would not. Then he set his soldiers on to maltreat them.
They shot several of them and flogged them on every opportunity; they were
flogging one of them just now, I heard them. Well, the poor men made me
understand that they could bear it no longer and must do what he told them.

“And so, Alan, as I was quite hopeless and helpless, I made up my mind to
kill myself, hoping that God would forgive me and that I should find you
somewhere, perhaps after sleeping a while, for it was better to die than to be
given into the power—of that man. I thought that he was coming for me
just now and I was about to do it, but it was you instead, Alan, you,
and only just in time. That is all the story, and I hope you will not think
that I have acted very foolishly, but I did it for the best. If you only knew
what I have suffered, Alan, what I have gone through in one way and another, I
am sure that you would not judge me harshly; also I kept dreaming that you were
in trouble and wanted me to come to you, and of course I knew where you were
gone and had that map. Send him away, Alan, for I am still so weak and I cannot
bear the sight of his face. If you knew everything, you would understand.”

Alan turned on Aylward and in a cold, quiet voice asked him what he had to say
to this story.

“I have to say, Major Vernon, that it is a clever mixture of truth and
falsehood. It is true that your cousin, Champers-Haswell, had been proved
guilty of some very shameful conduct. For instance, it appears that he did
forge, or rather cause to be forged that Firman from the Sultan, although I
knew nothing of this until it was publicly repudiated. It is also true that
fearing exposure he entirely lost his head and spent not only his own great
fortune but that of Miss Champers also, in trying to support Sahara shares. I
admit also that I sold many hundreds of thousands of those shares in the
ordinary way, having made up my mind to retire from business when I was raised
to the peerage. I admit further, what you knew before, that I was attached to
Miss Champers and wished to marry her. Why should I not, especially as I had a
good deal to offer to a lady who has been proved to be almost without fortune?

“For the rest she set out secretly on this mad journey to Africa, whither
both my duty as her trustee and my affection prompted me to follow her. I found
her here recovering from an illness, and since she has dwelt upon the point, in
self-defence I must tell you that whatever has taken place between us, has been
with her full consent and encouragement. Of course I allude only to those
affectionate amenities which are common between people who purpose to marry as
soon as opportunity may offer.”

At this declaration poor Barbara gasped and leaned back against her pillow.
Alan stood silent, though his lips turned white, while Jeekie thrust his big
head through the tent opening and stared upwards.

“What are you looking at, Jeekie?” asked Alan irritably.

“Seem to want air, Major, also look to see if clouds tumble. Believe
partickler big lie do that sometimes. Please go on, O good Lord, for Jeekie
want his breakfast.”

“As regards the execution of two of Miss Champers’ bearers and the
flogging of some others, these punishments were inflicted for mutiny,”
went on Aylward. “It was obviously necessary that she should be moved
back to the coast, but I found out that they were trying to desert her in a
body and to tamper with my own servants, and so was obliged to take strong
measures.”

“Sure those clouds come down now,” soliloquized Jeekie, “or
least something rummy happen.”

“I have only to add, Major Vernon, that unless you make away with me
first, as I daresay you will, as soon as we reach civilization again I shall
proceed against you and this fellow for the cold-blooded murder of my men, in
punishment of which I hope yet to live to see you hanged. Meanwhile, I have
much pleasure in releasing Miss Champers from her engagement to me which,
whatever she may have said to you in England, she was glad enough to enter on
here in Africa, a country of which I have been told the climate frequently
deteriorates the moral character.”

“Hear, hear!” ejaculated Jeekie, “he say something true at
last; by accident, I think, like pig what find pearl in muck-heap.”

“Hold your tongue, Jeekie,” said Alan. “I do not intend to
kill you, Lord Aylward, or to do you any harm——”

“Nor I neither,” broke in Jeekie, “all I do to my Lord just
for my Lord’s good; who Jeekie that he wish to hurt noble British
’ristocrat?”

“But I do intend that it shall be impossible that Miss Champers should be
forced to listen to more of your insults,” went on Alan, “and to
make sure that your gun does not go off again as it did this morning. So, Lord
Aylward, until we have settled what we are going to do, I must keep you under
arrest. Take him to his tent, Jeekie, and put a guard over him.”

“Yes, Major, certainly, Major. Right turn, march! my Lord, and quick,
please, since poor, common Jeekie not want dirty his black finger touching
you.”

Aylward obeyed, but at the door of the tent swung round and favoured Alan with
a very evil look.

“Luck is with you for the moment, Major Vernon,” he said,
“but if you are wise you will remember that you never have been and never
will be my match. It will turn again, I have no doubt, and then you may look to
yourself, for I warn you I am a bad enemy.”

Alan did not answer, but for the first time Barbara sprang to her feet and
spoke.

“You mean that you are a bad man, Lord Aylward, and a coward too, or
otherwise you would not have tortured me as you have done. Well, when it seemed
impossible that I should escape from you except in one way, I was saved by
another way of which I never dreamed. Now I tell you that I do not fear you any
more. But I think,” she added slowly, “that you would do well to
fear for yourself. I don’t know why, but it comes into my mind that
though neither Alan nor I shall lift a finger against you, you have a great
deal of which to be afraid. Remember what I said to you months ago when you
were angry because I would not marry you. I believe it is all coming true, Lord
Aylward.”

Then Barbara turned her back upon him, and that was the last time that either
she or Alan ever saw his face.

He was gone, and Barbara, her head upon her lover’s shoulder and her
sweet eyes filled with tears of joy and gratitude, was beginning to tell him
everything that had befallen her when suddenly they heard a loud cough outside
the tent.

“It’s that confounded Jeekie,” said Alan, and he called to
him to come in.

“What’s the matter now?” he asked crossly.

“Breakfast, Major. His lordship got plenty good stores, borrow some from
him and give him chit. Coming in one minute—hot coffee, kipper herring,
rasher bacon, also butter (best Danish), and Bath Oliver biscuit.”

“Very well,” said Alan, but Jeekie did not move.

“Very well,” repeated Alan.

“No, Major, not very well, very ill. Thought those lies bring down
clouds.”

“What do you mean, Jeekie?”

“Mean, Major, that Asiki smelling about this camp. Porter-man what go to
fetch water see them. Also believe they catch rest of those soldier chaps and
polish them, for porter-man hear the row.”

Alan sprang up with an exclamation; in his new-found joy he had forgotten all
about the Asiki.

“Keep hair on, Major,” said Jeekie cheerfully; “don’t
think they attack yet, plenty of time for breakfast first. When they come we
make it very hot for them, lots of rifle and cartridge now.”

“Can’t we run away?” asked Barbara.

“No, Missy, can’t run; must stop here and do best. Camp well built,
open all round, don’t think they take it. You leave everything to Jeekie,
he see you through, but p’raps you like come breakfast outside, where you
know all that go on.”

Barbara did like, but as it happened they were allowed to consume their meal in
peace, since no Asiki appeared. As soon as it was swallowed she returned to her
tent, while Alan and Jeekie set to work to strengthen the defences of the
little camp as well as they were able, and to make ready and serve out the arms
and ammunition.

About midday a man whom they had posted in a tree that grew inside the camp
announced that he saw the enemy, and next moment a company of them rushed
towards them across the open and were greeted by a volley which killed and
wounded several men. At this exhibition of miraculous power, for none of these
soldiers had ever heard the report of firearms or seen their effect, they
retreated rapidly, uttering shouts of dismay and carrying their dead and
wounded with them.

“Do you suppose they have gone, Jeekie?” asked Alan anxiously.

He shook his head.

“Think not, Major, think they frightened, by big bullet magic, and go
consult priest. Also only a few of them here, rest of army come later and try
rush us to-morrow morning before dawn. That Asiki custom.”

“Then what shall we do, Jeekie? Run for it or stop here?”

“Think must stop here, Major. If we bolt, carrying Miss Barbara, who
can’t walk much, they follow on spoor and catch us. Best stick inside
this fence and see what happen. Also once outside p’raps porters desert
and leave us.”

So as there was nothing else to do they stayed, labouring all day at the
strengthening of their fortifications till at length the boma or fence of
boughs, supported by earth, was so high and thick that while any were left to
fire through the loopholes, it would be very difficult to storm by men armed
with spears.

It was a dreadful and arduous day for Alan, who now had Barbara’s safety
to think of, Barbara with whom as yet he had scarcely found time to exchange a
word. By sunset indeed he was so worn out with toil and anxiety that he could
scarcely stand upon his feet. Jeekie, who all that afternoon had been strangely
quiet and reflective, surveyed him critically, then said:

“You have good drink and go sleep a bit, Major. Very good little shelter
there by Miss Barbara’s tent, and you hold her hand if you like
underneath the canvas, which comforting and all correct. Jeekie never get
tired, he keep good lookout and let you know if anything happen, and then you
jump up quite fresh and fight like tom-cat in corner.”

At first Alan refused to listen, but when Barbara added her entreaties to those
of Jeekie he gave way, and ten minutes later was as soundly asleep as he had
ever been in his life.

“Keep eye on him, Miss Barbara, and call me if he wake. Now I go give
noble lord his supper and see that he quite comfortable. Jeekie seem very busy
to-night, just like when Major have dinner-party at Yarleys and old cook get
drunk in kitchen.”

If Barbara could have followed Jeekie’s movements for the next few hours,
she would probably have agreed that he was busy. First he went to
Aylward’s tent, and as he had said he would, gave him his supper, and
with it half a bottle of whisky from the stores which he had been carrying
about with him for some time, as he said, to prevent the porters from getting
at it. Aylward would drink little, though as his arms were tied to the
tent-pole, Jeekie sat beside him and fed him like a baby, conversing pleasantly
with him all the while, informing him amongst other things that he had better
say “big prayer,” because the Asiki would probably cut his throat
before morning.

Aylward, who was in a state of sullen fury, scarcely replied to this talk,
except to say that if so, there was one comfort, they would cut his and his
master’s also.

“Yes, Lord,” answered Jeekie, “that quite true, so drink
to next meeting, though I think you go different place to me, and when you got
tail and I wing, you horn and I crown of glory, of course we not talk much
together,” and he held a mug of whisky and water—a great deal of
whisky and a very little water—to his prisoner’s mouth.

Aylward drained it, feeling a need for stimulant.

“There,” said Jeekie, holding it upside down, “you drink
every drop and not offer one to poor old Jeekie. Well, he turned teetotaller,
so no matter. Good-night, my Lord, I call you if Asiki come.”

“Who are the Asiki?” asked Aylward drowsily.

“Oh! you want to know? I tell you,” and he began a long, rambling
story.

Before he ever came to the end of it Aylward had fallen on his side and was
fast asleep.

“Dear me!” said Jeekie, contemplating him, “that whisky very
strong, though bottle say same as they drink in House of Common. That whisky so
strong I think I pour away rest of it,” and he did to the last drop, even
taking the trouble to wash out the bottle with water. “Now you no tempt
anyone,” he said, addressing the said bottle with a very peculiar smile,
“or if you tempt, at least do no harm—like kiss down
telephone!” Then he laid down the bottle on its side and left the tent.

Outside of it three of the head porters, who appeared to be friends of his,
were waiting for him, and with these men he engaged in low and earnest
conversation. Next, after they had arrived at some agreement, which they seemed
to ratify by a curious oath that involved their crossing and clasping hands in
an odd fashion, and other symbols known to West African secret societies,
Jeekie went the round of the camp to see that everyone was at his post. Then he
did what most people would have thought a very curious and strange thing,
namely climbed the fence and vanished into the forest, where presently a sound
was heard as of an owl hooting.

A little while later and another owl began to hoot in the distance, whereat the
three head porters nudged each other. Perhaps they had heard such owls hoot
before at night, and perhaps they knew that Jeekie, who had “passed
Bonsa,” could only be harmed by the direct command of Bonsa speaking
through the mouth of the Asika herself. Still they might have been interested
in the nocturnal conversation of those two owls, which, as is common with such
magical fowl in West Africa, had transformed themselves into human shapes, the
shape of Jeekie and the shape of an Asiki priest, who was, as it happened, a
blood relation of Jeekie.

“Very good, Brother,” said Owl No. 1; “all you want is this
white man whom the Asika desires for a husband. Well, I have done my best for
him, but I must think of myself and others, and he goes to great happiness. I
have given him something to make him sleep; do you come presently with eight
men, no more, or we shall kill you, to the fence of the camp, and we will hand
over the white man, Vernoon, to you to take back to the Asika, who will give
you a wonderful reward, such a reward as you have never imagined. Now let me
hear your word.”

Then Owl No. 2 answered:

“Brother, I make the bargain on behalf of the army, and swear to it by
the double Swimming Head of Bonsa. We will come and take the white man,
Vernoon, who is to be Mungana, and carry him away. In return we promise not to
follow or molest you, or any others in your camp. Indeed, why should we, who do
not desire to be killed by the dreadful magic that you have, a magic that makes
a noise and pierces through our bodies from afar? What were the words of the
Asika? ’Bring back Vernoon, or perish. I care for nothing else, bring
back Vernoon to be my husband.’”

“Good,” said Owl No. 1, “within the half of an hour Vernoon
shall be ready for you.”

“Good,” answered Owl No. 2, “within half an hour eight of us
will be without the east face of your camp to receive him.”

“Silently?”

“Silently, my brother in Bonsa. If he cries out we will gag him. Fear
not, none shall know your part in this matter.”

“Good, my brother in Bonsa. By the way, how is Big Bonsa? I fear that the
white man, Vernoon, hurt him very much, and that is why I give him
up—because of his sacrilege.”

“When I left the god was very sick and all the people mourned, but
doubtless he is immortal.”

“Doubtless he is immortal, my brother, a little hard magic in his
stomach—if he has one—cannot hurt him. Farewell, dear
brother in Bonsa, I wish that I were you to get the great reward that the Asika
will give to you. Farewell, farewell.”

Then the two owls flitted apart again, hooting as they went, till they came to
their respective camps.

Jeekie was in the tent performing a strange toilet upon the sleeping Aylward by
the light of a single candle. From his pouch he produced the mask of linen
painted with gold that Alan used to be forced to wear, and tied it securely
over Aylward’s face, murmuring:

“You always love gold, my Lord Aylward, and Jeekie promise you see plenty
of it now.”

Then he proceeded to remove his coat, his waistcoat, his socks, and his boots
and to replace these articles of European attire by his own worn Asiki sandals
and his own dirty Asiki robe.

“There,” he said, “think that do,” and he studied him
by the light of the candle. “Same height, same colour hair, same dirty
clothes, and as Asiki never see Major’s face because he always wear mask
in public, like as two peas on shovel. Oh my! Jeekie clever chap, Jeekie
devilish clever chap. But when Asika pull off that mask to give him true lover
kiss, OH MY! wonder that happen then? Think whole of Bonsa Town bust up; think
big waterfall run backwards; think she not quite pleased; think my good Lord
find himself in false position; think Jeekie glad to be on coast; think he not
go back to Bonsa Town no more. Oh my aunt! no, he stop in England and go church
twice on Sunday,” and, pressing his big hands on the pit of his stomach he
rocked and rolled in fierce, silent laughter.

Then an owl hooted again immediately beneath the fence and Jeekie, blowing out
the candle, opened the flap of the tent and tapped the head porter, who stood
outside, on the shoulder. He crept in and between them they lifted the
senseless Aylward and bore him to the V-shaped entrance of the boma which was
immediately opposite to the tent and, oddly enough, half open. Here the two
other porters with whom Jeekie had performed some ceremony, chanced to be on
guard, the rest of their company being stationed at a distance. Jeekie and the
head porter went through the gap like men carrying a corpse to midnight burial,
and presently in the darkness without two owls began to hoot.

Now Aylward was laid upon a litter that had been prepared, and eight
white-robed Asiki bearers stared at his gold mask in the faint starlight.

“I suppose he is not dead, brother,” said Owl No. 2 doubtfully.

“Nay, brother,” said Owl No. 1, “feel his heart and his
pulse. Not dead, only drunk. He will wake up by daylight, by which time you
should be far upon your way. Be good and gentle to the white man Vernoon, who
has been my master. Be careful, too, that he does not escape you, brother, for
as you know he is very strong and cunning. Say to the Asika that Jeekie her
servant makes his reverence to her, and hopes that she will have many, many
happy years with the husband that he sends her; also that she will remember
him whom she called ‘black dog,’ and whose face she often smacked,
in her prayers to the gods and spirits of our people.”

“It shall be done, brother, but why do you not return with us?”

“Because, brother, I have ties across the Black Water—dear
children, almost white—whom I love so much that I cannot leave them.
Farewell, brethren, the blessings of the Bonsas be on you, and may you grow fat
and prosper in the love and favour of our lady the Asika.”

“Farewell,” they murmured in answer. “Good fortune be your
bedfellow.”

Another minute and they had lifted up the litter and vanished at a swinging
trot into the shadow of the trees. Jeekie returned to the camp and ordered the
three men to re-stop the gateway with thorns, muttering in their ears:

“Remember, brethren, one word of this and you die, all of you, as those
die who break the oath.”

“Have we not sworn?” they whispered, as they went back to their
posts.

Jeekie stood a while in front of the empty tent and if any had been there to
note him, they might have seen a shadow as of compunction creep over his
powerful black face.

“When he wake up he won’t know where he are,” he reflected,
“and when he get to Bonsa Town he’ll wonder where he is, and when
he meet Asika! Well, he very big blackguard; try to murder Major, whom Jeekie
nurse as baby, the only thing that Jeekie care for—except—Jeekie;
try to make love to Miss Barbara against will when he catch her alone in
forest, which not playing game. Jeekie self not such big blackguard as that
dirt-born noble Lord; Jeekie never murder no one—not quite; Jeekie never
make love to girl what not want him—no need, so many what do that he have
to shove them off, like good Christian man. Mrs. Jeekie see to that while she
live. Also better that mean white man go call on Bonsas than Major and Missy
Barbara and all porters, and Jeekie—specially Jeekie—get throat
cut. No, no, Jeekie nothing to be ashamed of, Jeekie do good day’s work,
though Jeekie keep it tight as wax since white folk such silly people, and when
Major in a rage, he very nasty customer and see everything upside down. Now,
Jeekie quite tired, so say his prayers and have nap. No, think not in tent,
though very comfortable. Major might wake up, poke his nose in there, and if he
see black face instead of white one, ask ugly question, which if Jeekie half
asleep he no able to answer nice and neat. Still he just arrange things a
little so they look all right.”

CHAPTER XX.
THE ASIKA’S MESSAGE.

Dawn began to break in the forest, and Alan woke in his shelter and stretched
himself. He had slept soundly all the night, so soundly that the innocent
Jeekie wondered much whether by any chance he also had taken a tot out of that
particular whisky bottle, as indeed he had recommended him to do. People who
drink whisky after long abstinence from spirits are apt to sleep long, he
reflected.

Alan crept out of the shelter and gazed affectionately at the tent in which
Barbara slumbered. Thank Heaven she was safe so far, as for some unknown
reason, evidently the Asiki had postponed their attack. Just then a clamour
arose in the air, and he perceived Jeekie striding towards him waving one arm
in an excited fashion, while with the other he dragged along the captain of the
porters, who appeared to be praying for mercy.

“Here pretty go, Major,” he shouted, “devil and all to pay!
That my Lord, he gone and bolted. This silly fool say that three hours ago he
hear something break through fence and think it only hyæna what come to steal,
so take no notice. Well, that hyæna, you guess who he is. You come look,
Major, you come look, and then we tie this fellow up and flog him.”

Alan ran to Aylward’s tent, to find it empty.

“Look,” said Jeekie, who had followed, “see how he do
business, that jolly clever hyæna,” and he pointed to a broken whisky
bottle and some severed cords. “You see he manage break bottle and rub
rope against cut glass till it come in two. Then he do hyæna dodge and hook
it.”

Alan inspected the articles, nor did any shadow of doubt enter his mind.

“Certainly he managed very well,” he said, “especially for a
London-bred man, but, Jeekie, what can have been his object?”

“Oh! who know, Major? Mind of man very strange and various thing;
p’raps he no bear to see you and Miss Barbara together; p’raps he
bolt coast, get ear of local magistrate before you; p’raps he sit up tree
to shoot you; p’raps nasty temper make him mad. But he gone anyway, and
I hope he no meet Asiki, poor fellow, ’cause if so, who know?
P’raps they knock him on head, or if they think him you, they make him
prisoner and keep him quite long while before they let him go again.”

“Well,” said Alan, “he has gone of his own free will, so we
have no responsibility in the matter, and I can’t pretend that I am sorry
to see the last of him, at any rate for the present. Let that poor beggar
loose, there seems to have been enough flogging in this place, and after all he
isn’t much to blame.”

Jeekie obeyed, apparently with much reluctance, and just then they saw one of
their own people running towards the camp.

“’Fraid he going to tell us Asiki come attack,” said Jeekie,
shaking his head. “Hope they give us time breakfast first.”

“No doubt,” answered Alan nervously, for he feared the result of
that attack.

Then the man arrived breathless and began to gasp out his news, which filled
Alan with delight and caused a look of utter amazement to appear upon the broad
face of Jeekie. It was to the effect that he had climbed a high tree as he had
been bidden to do, and from the top of that tree by the light of the first rays
of the rising sun, miles away on the plain beyond the forest, he had seen the
Asiki army in full retreat.

“Thank God!” exclaimed Alan.

“Yes, Major, but that very rum story. Jeekie can’t swallow it all
at once. Must send out see none of them left behind. P’raps they play
trick, but if they really gone, ’spose it ’cause guns frightens
them so much. Always think powder very great ’vention, especially when
enemy hain’t got none, and quite sure of it now. Jeekie very, very seldom
wrong. Soon believe,” he added with a burst of confidence, “that
Jeekie never wrong at all. He look for truth so long that at last he find it
always.”

Something more than a month had gone by and Major and Mrs. Vernon, the latter
fully restored to health and the most sweet and beautiful of brides, stood upon
the steamship Benin, and as the sun sank, looked their last upon the
coast of Western Africa.

“Yes, dear,” Alan was saying to his wife, “from first to last
it has been a very queer story, but I really think that our getting that Asiki
gold after all was one of the queerest parts of it; also uncommonly convenient,
as things have turned out.”

“Namely that you have got a little pauper for a wife instead of a great
heiress, Alan. But tell me again about the gold. I have had so much to think of
during the last few days,” and she blushed, “that I never quite
took it all in.”

“Well, love, there isn’t much to tell. When that forwarding agent,
Mr. Aston, knew that we were in the town, he came to me and said that he had
about fifty cases full of something heavy, as he supposed samples of ore,
addressed to me to your care in England which he was proposing to ship on by
the Benin. I answered ‘Yes, that was all right,’ and did not
undeceive him about their contents. Then I asked how they had arrived, and if
he had not received a letter with them. He replied that one morning before the
warehouse was open, some natives had brought them down in a canoe, and dumped
them at the door, telling the watchman that they had been paid to deliver them
there by some other natives whom they met a long way up the river. Then they
went away without leaving any letter or message. Well, I thanked Aston and paid
his charges and there’s an end of the matter. Those fifty-three cases are
now in the hold invoiced as ore samples and, as I inspected them myself and am
sure that they have not been tampered with, besides the value of the necklace
the Asika gave me we’ve got £100,000 to begin our married life upon with
something over for old Jeekie, and I daresay we shall do very well on
that.”

“Yes, Alan, very well indeed.” Then she reflected a while, for the
mention of Jeekie’s name seemed to have made her thoughtful, and added,
“Alan, what do you think became of Lord Aylward?”

“I am sure I don’t know. Jeekie and I and some of the porters went
to see the Old Calabar officials and made affidavits as to the circumstances of
his disappearance. We couldn’t do any more, could we?”

“No, Alan. But do you think that Jeekie quite understands the meaning of
an oath? I mean it seems so strange that we should never have found the
slightest trace of him, and, Alan, I don’t know if you noticed it, but
why did Jeekie appear that morning wearing Lord Aylward’s socks and
boots?”

“He ought to know all about oaths, he has heard enough of them in
Magistrates’ Courts, but as regards the boots, I am sure I can’t
say, dear,” answered Alan uneasily. “Here he comes, we will ask
him,” and he did.

“Sock and boot,” replied Jeekie, with a surprised air, “why,
Mrs. Major, if that good lord go mad and cut off into forest leaving them
behind, of course I put them on, as they no more use to him, and I just burn my
dirty old Asiki dress and sandal and got nothing to keep jigger out of toe.
Don’t you sit up here in this damp, cold, Mrs. Major, else you get more
fever. You go down and dress dinner, which at half-past six to-night. I just
come tell you that.”

So Barbara went, leaving the other two talking about various matters, for they
were alone together on the deck, all the passengers, of whom there were but
few, having gone below.

The short African twilight had come, a kind of soft blue haze that made the
ship look mysterious and unnatural. By degrees their conversation died away.
They lapsed into a silence, which Alan was the first to break.

“What are you thinking of, Jeekie?” he asked nervously.

“Thinking of Asika, Major,” he answered in a scared whisper.
“Seem to me that she about somewhere, just as she use pop up in room in
Gold House; seem to me I feel her all down my back, likewise in head wool,
which stand up.”

“It’s very odd, Jeekie,” replied Alan, “but so do
I.”

“Well, Major, ’spect she thinking of us, specially of you, and just
throw what she think at us, like boy throw stones at bird what fly away out of
cage. Asika do all that, you know, she not quite human, full of plenty Bonsa
devil, from gen’ration to gen’rations, amen! P’raps she just
find out something what make her mad.”

“What could she find out after all this time, Jeekie?”

“Oh, don’t know. How I know? Jeekie can’t guess. Find out you
marry Miss Barbara, p’raps. Very sick that she lose you for this time,
p’raps. Kill herself that she keep near you, p’raps, while she wait
till you come round again, p’raps. Asika can do all these things if she
like, Major.”

“Stuff and rubbish,” answered Alan uneasily, for Jeekie’s
suggestions were most uncomfortable, “I believe in none of your West
Coast superstitions.”

“Quite right, Major, nor don’t I. Only you ’member, Major,
what she show us there in Treasure-place—Mr. Haswell being buried, eh?
Miss Barbara in tent, eh? t’other job what hasn’t come off yet, eh?
Oh! my golly! Major, just you look behind you and say you see nothing,
please,” and the eyes of Jeekie grew large as Maltese oranges, while with
chattering teeth he pointed over the bulwark of the vessel.

Alan turned and saw.

This was what he saw or seemed to see: The figure of the Asika in her robes and
breastplate of gold, standing upon the air, just beyond the ship, as though on
it she might set no foot. Her waving black hair hung about her shoulders, but
the sharp wind did not seem to stir it nor did her white dress flutter, and on
her beautiful face was stamped a look of awful rage and agony, the rage of
betrayal, the agony of loss. In her right hand she held a knife, and from a
wound in her breast the red blood ran down her golden corselet. She pointed to
Jeekie with the knife, she opened her arms to Alan as though in unutterable
longing, then slowly raised them upwards towards the fading glory of the sky
above—and was gone.

Jeekie sat down upon the deck, mopping his brow with a red handkerchief, while
Alan, who felt faint, clung to the bulwarks.

“Tell you, Major, that Asika can do all that kind of thing. Never know
where you find her next. ’Spect she come to live with us in England and
just call in now and again when it dark. Tell you, she very awkward customer,
think p’raps you done better stop there and marry her. Well, she gone
now, thank Heaven! seem to drop in sea and hope she stay there.”

“Jeekie,” said Alan, recovering himself, “listen to me; this
is all infernal nonsense; we have gone through a great deal and the nerves of
both of us are overstrained. We think we saw what we did not see, and if you
dare to say a single word of it to your mistress, I’ll break your neck.
Do you understand?”

“Yes, Major, think so. All ’fernal nonsense, nerves strained,
didn’t see what we see, and say nothing of what did see to Mrs. Major, if
either do say anything, t’other one break his neck. That all right, quite
understand. Anything else, Major?”

“Yes, Jeekie. We have had some wonderful adventures, but they are past
and done with and the less we talk or even think about them the better, for
there is a lot that would be rather difficult to explain, and that if explained
would scarcely be believed.”

“Yes, Major, for instance, very difficult explain Mrs. Barbara how Asika
so fond of you if you only tell her, ‘Go away, go away!’ all the
time, like old saint-gentleman to pretty girl in picture. P’raps she
smell rat.”

“Stop your ribald talk,” said Alan in a stern voice. “It
would be better if instead of making jokes you gave thanks to Providence for
bringing both of us alive and well out of very dreadful dangers. Now I am going
to dress for dinner,” and with an anxious glance seaward into the
gathering darkness, he turned and went.

Jeekie stood alone upon the empty deck, wagging his great white head to and fro
and soliloquizing thus:

“Wonder if Major see what under lady Asika’s feet when she stand
out there over nasty deep. Think not or he say something. That noble lord not
look nice. No, private view for Jeekie only, free ticket and nothing to pay and
me hope it no come back when I go to bed. Major know nothing about it, so he
not see, but Jeekie know a lot. Hope that Aylward not write any letters home,
or if he write, hope no one post them. Ghost bad enough, but murder, oh
my!”

He paused a while, then went on:

“Jeekie do big sacrifice to Bonsa when he reach Yarleys, get lamb in back
kitchen at night, or if ghost come any more, calf in wood outside. Not steal
it, pay for it himself. Then think Jeekie turn Cath’lic; confess his
sins, they say them priest chaps not split, and after they got his sins, they
tackle Asika and Bonsas too,” and he uttered a series of penitent groans,
turning slowly round and round to be sure that nothing was behind him.

Just then the full moon appeared out of a bank of clouds, and as it rose
higher, flooding the world with light, Jeekie’s spirits rose also.

“Asika never come in moonshine,” he said, “that not the game,
against rule, and after all, what Jeekie done bad? He very good fellow really.
Aylward great villain, serve him jolly well right if Asika spiflicate him, that
not Jeekie’s fault. What Jeekie do, he do to save master and missus who
he love. Care nothing for his self, ready to die any day. Keep it dark to save
them too, ’cause they no like the story. If once they know, it always
leave taste in mouth, same as bad oyster. Also Jeekie manage very well, take
Major safe Asiki-land (’cause Little Bonsa make him), give him very
interesting time there, get him plenty gold, nurse him when he sick, nobble
Mungana, bring him out again, find Miss Barbara, catch hated rival and
bamboozle all Asiki army, bring happy pair to coast and marry them, arrange
first-class honeymoon on ship—Jeekie do all these things, and lots more
he could tell, if he vain and not poor humble nigger.”

Once more he paused a while, lost in the contemplation of his own modesty and
virtues, then continued:

“This very ungrateful world. Major there, he not say, ‘Thank you,
Jeekie, Jeekie, you great, wonderful man. Brave Jeekie, artful Jeekie. Jeekie
smart as paint who make all world believe just what he like, and one too many
for Asika herself.’ No, no, he say nothing like that. He say ‘thank
Prov’dence,’ not ‘Jeekie,’ as though Prov’dence
do all them things. White folk think they clever, but great fools, really,
don’t know nothing. Prov’dence all very well in his
way—p’raps, but Prov’dence not a patch on Jeekie.

“Hullo! moon get behind cloud and there second bell; think Jeekie go down
and wait dinner; lonely up here and sure Asika never stand ’lectric
light.”