The People of the Mist by H. Rider Haggard (christmas read aloud .txt) 📗
- Author: H. Rider Haggard
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“To-day I am a god, Baas,” he answered, “to-morrow I may be carrion. While I am a god, let me drink and be merry. All my days also women have cursed me because I am ugly, but now my wife holds me great and beautiful. What is the good of thinking and looking sad? The end will come soon enough. Already Nam sharpens the knife for our hearts. Come and be merry with me, Baas, if the Shepherdess will let you.”
“Do you take me for a pig like yourself?” said Leonard angrily. “Well, go your own way, foolish that you are, but beware of the beer and the spirits. Now you are beginning to know this language, and when you are drunk you talk, and do you think that there are no spies here? That girl, Saga, is great-niece to Nam, and you are besotted with her. Be careful lest you bring us all to death.”
“Thither we shall come any way, so let us laugh before we weep, Baas,” Otter replied sullenly. “Must I then sit here and do nothing till I die?”
Leonard shrugged his shoulders and went. He could not blame the dwarf, who after all was a savage and looked at things as a savage would, notwithstanding Francisco’s earnest efforts to convert him. He sometimes wished, so deep was his depression, that he also was a savage and could do likewise.
But the worst of their trials is still to be told. For the first week the Settlement men stayed in the palace, their fears and the rumours that had reached them of the terrible fate of their two lost companions keeping them quiet. By degrees, however, this dread wore off, and one afternoon, wearied with the sameness of their life, they yielded to the solicitations of some men who spoke to them through the bars of the great gate, and went out in a body without obtaining Leonard’s permission. That night they returned drunk—at least ten of them dead; the other two were missing. When they were sober again, Leonard questioned them as to the whereabouts of their companions, but they could give him no satisfactory information. They had been into various houses in the city, they said, where the people had plied them with beer, and they remembered nothing more.
These two men never reappeared, but the rest of them, now thoroughly frightened, obeyed Leonard’s orders and stayed in the palace, although the decoy men still came frequently to the gates and called them. They passed the days in wandering about and drinking to drown their fears, and the nights huddled together for protection from an unseen foe, more terrible and craftier than the leopard of their native rocks. But these precautions were all in vain.
One morning, hearing a tumult among them, Leonard went to see what was the matter. Three more of the Settlement men were missing; they had vanished in the night, none could say how, vanished though the doors were barred and guarded. There where they had slept lay their guns and little possessions, but the men were gone, leaving no trace. When he was consulted Olfan looked very grave, but could throw no light upon the mystery beyond suggesting that there were many secret passages in the palace, of which the openings were known only to the priests, and that possibly the men had been let down them—terrible information enough for people in their position.
THE LAST OF THE SETTLEMENT MEN
On that day of the vanishing of the three Settlement men, Nam paid his weekly visit to “do honour to the gods,” and Leonard, who by this time could make himself understood in the tongue of the People of the Mist, attacked him as to the whereabouts of their lost servants.
When he had finished, the priest answered with a cruel smile that he knew nothing of the matter. “Doubtless,” he said, “the gods had information as to the fate of their own servants—it was not for him to seek those whom the gods had chosen to put away.”
Then turning the subject, he went on to ask when it would please the Mother to intercede with the Snake that he might cause the sun to shine and the corn to spring, for the people murmured, fearing a famine in the land.
Of course Juanna was able to give no satisfactory answer to the priest’s questions, and after this the quarters of the Settlement men were changed, and for a few days the survivors slept in safety. On the third night, however, two more of them were taken in the same mysterious manner, and one of those who remained swore that, hearing something stir, he woke and saw the floor open and a vision of great arms dragging his sleeping companions through the hole in it, which closed again instantly. Leonard hurried to the spot and made a thorough examination of the stone blocks of the pavement, but could find no crack in them. And yet, if the man had dreamed, how was the mystery to be explained?
After this, with the exception of Otter, who, sure of the fate that awaited them, took little heed of how or when it might fall, none of the party could even sleep because of their terror of the unseen foe who struck in silence and in darkness, dragging the victim to some unknown awful end. Leonard and Francisco took it in turns to watch each other’s slumbers, laying themselves to rest outside the curtain of Juanna’s room. As for the survivors of the Settlement men, their state can scarcely be described. They followed Leonard about, upbraiding him bitterly for leading them into this evil land and cursing the hour when first they had seen his face. It would have been better, they said, that he should have left them to their fate in the slave camp than have brought them here to die thus; the Yellow Devil was at least a man, but these people were sorcerers and lost spirits in human shape.
Nor did the horror stop here, for at last the headman Peter, a man whom they all liked and respected, went mad with fear and ran to and fro in the palace yard while the guards and women watched him with curious eyes as he shrieked out curses upon Juanna and Leonard. This shocking scene continued for some hours, for his companions would not interfere with him, vowing that he was possessed by a spirit, till at length he put a period to it by suddenly committing suicide. In vain did Leonard caution the survivors to keep their heads and watch at night. They flew to the beer which was supplied to them in plenty, and drank till they were insensible. And still one by one they vanished mysteriously, till at length all were gone.
Never might Leonard forget his feelings when one day at dawn, in the fifth week of their incarceration, he hurried as usual to the chamber where the last two of the unfortunate men were accustomed to sleep, and found them not. There were their blankets, there was the place where they had been, and on it, laid carefully in the form of a St. Andrew’s cross by some unknown hand, shone two huge sacrificial knives such as the priests wore at their girdles.
Sick and faint with fear he staggered back to the throne-room.
“Oh! what is it now?” said Juanna, who, early as it was, had risen already, looking at him with terrified eyes and trembling lips.
“Only this,” he answered hoarsely; “the last two have been taken, and here is what was left in the place of them,” and he cast down the knives on to the pavement.
Then at last Juanna gave way. “Oh! Leonard, Leonard,” she said, weeping bitterly, “they were my father’s servants whom I have known since I was a child, and I have brought them to this cruel end. Cannot you think of any way of getting out of this place? If not, I shall die of fear. I can sleep no more. I feel that I am watched at night, though I cannot tell by whom. Last night I thought that I heard some one moving near the curtain where you and Francisco lie, though Soa declares that it is fancy.”
“It is impossible,” said Leonard; “Francisco was on guard. Ah! here he comes.”
As he spoke Francisco entered the room with consternation written on his face.
“Outram,” he gasped, “some one must have been in the throne chamber where we slept last night. All the rifles have gone, ours and those of the Settlement men also.”
“Great heavens!” said Leonard, “but you were watching.”
“I suppose that I must have dozed for a few moments,” answered the priest; “it is awful, awful; they are gone and we are weaponless.”
“Oh! can we not escape?” moaned Juanna.
“There is no hope of it,” answered Leonard gloomily. “We are friendless here except for Olfan, and he has little real power, for the priests have tampered with the captains and the soldiers who fear them. How can we get out of this city? And if we got out what would become of us, unarmed and alone? All that we can do is to keep heart and hope for the best. Certainly they are right who declare that no good comes of seeking after treasure; though I believe that we shall live to win it yet,” he added.
“What! Deliverer,” said a satirical voice behind him, “do you still desire the red stones, you whose heart’s blood shall soon redden a certain stone yonder? Truly the greed of the white man is great.”
Leonard looked round. It was Soa who spoke, Soa who had been listening to their talk, and she was glaring at him with an expression of intense hate in her sullen eyes. A thought came into his mind. “Was it not possible that this woman had something to do with their misfortunes? How came it about that the others were taken while she was left?”
“Who gave you leave, Soa,” he said, looking her fixedly in the face, “to hearken to our words and thrust yourself into our talk?”
“You have been glad enough of my counsels hitherto, White Man,” she answered furiously. “Who told you the tale of this people? And who led you to their land? Was it I or another?”
“You, I regret to say,” said Leonard coolly.
“Yes, White Man, I led you here that you might steal the treasure of my people like a thief. I did it because the Shepherdess my mistress forced me to the deed, and in those days her will was my law. For her and you I came here to my death, and what has been my reward? I am put away from her, she has no kind word for me now; you are about her always, you hold her counsel, but to me her mind is as a shut door that I can no longer open. Ay! you have poisoned her against me, you and that black swine whom they call a god.
“Moreover, because she has learned to love you, white thief, wanderer without a kraal as you are, at your bidding she has also learned to hate me. Beware, White Man, I am of this people, and you know their temper, it is not gentle; when they hate they find a means to be revenged,” and she ceased, gasping with rage.
Indeed, at that moment Soa would have made no bad model for a statue of one of the furies of Greek mythology.
Then Juanna attempted to interfere, but Leonard waved her back.
“So,” he said, “as I thought, you are at the bottom of all this business. Perhaps you will not mind telling us what has become of your friends, the Settlement men, or, if you feel a delicacy on that point, how it is that you have escaped while they have vanished.”
“I know nothing of the Settlement men,” answered the Fury, “except that they have been taken and sacrificed as was their meed, and as yet I have lifted no hand and said no word against you, though a breath from me would have swept you all to doom. Hitherto I have been spared for the same reason that you and Bald-pate yonder have been spared—because we are the body-servants of the false gods, and are reserved to perish with them when the lie is discovered; or perhaps to
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