The People of the Mist by H. Rider Haggard (christmas read aloud .txt) 📗

incarnations of the divinities whom for some eighty years he had worshipped as powers spiritual.

But though pious zeal had much to do with this action, as Olfan informed Juanna, it was not devoid of worldly motives. He desired the glory of being the discoverer of the gods, he desired also the consolidation of the rule which his cruelties had shaken, that must result from their advent.

All this was well enough, but he had never even dreamed that the first step of these new-born divinities would be to discard the ancient ceremonial without which his office would become a sinecure and his power a myth, and even to declare an active hostility against himself.

Were they or were they not gods? This was the question that exercised his mind. If there was truth in prophesies they should be gods. On the other hand he could discover nothing particularly divine about their persons, characters, or attributes—that is to say, nothing sufficiently divine to deceive Nam himself, whatever impression they produced upon the vulgar. Thus Juanna might be no more than a very beautiful woman white in colour, and Otter only what he knew him to be through his spies, a somewhat dissolute dwarf.

That they had no great power was also evident, seeing that he, Nam, without incurring the heavenly vengeance, had been able to abstract, and afterwards to sacrifice comfortably, the greater number of their servants. Another thing which pleaded against their celestial origin was that so far, instead of peace and prosperity blessing the land as it should have done immediately on their arrival, the present season was proving itself the worst on record, and the country was face to face with a prospect of famine in the ensuing winter.

And yet, if they were not gods, who were they? Would any human beings in their senses venture among such people as the Children of the Mist, merely to play off a huge practical joke of which the finale was likely to be so serious to themselves? The idea was preposterous, since they had nothing to gain by so doing, for Nam, it may be observed, was ignorant of the value of rubies, which to him were only emblems employed in their symbolical ceremonies. Think as he would, he could come to no definite conclusion. One thing was clear, however, that it was now very much to his interest to demonstrate their non-celestial origin, though to do so would be to stultify himself and to prove that his judgment was not infallible. Otherwise, did the “gods” succeed in establishing their power, he and his authority seemed likely to come to a sudden end in the jaws of that monster, which his order had fostered for so many generations.

Thus reflected Nam in perplexity of soul, wishing to himself the while that he had retired from his office before he was called upon to face questions so difficult and so dangerous.

“I must be patient,” he muttered to himself at last; “time will show the truth, or, if the weather does not change, the people will settle the matter for me.”

As it chanced he had not long to wait, for just then there was a knock upon his door.

“Enter,” he said, arranging his goat-skin robe about his broad shoulders.

A priest came in bearing a torch, for there was no window to the chamber, and after him two women.

“Who is this?” said Nam, pointing to the second of the women.

“This is she who is servant to Aca, Father,” answered the priest.

“How comes she here?” said Nam again. “I gave no orders that she should be taken.”

“She comes of her own free will, Father, having somewhat to say to you.”

“Fool, how can she speak to me when she does not know our tongue? But of her presently; take her aside and watch her. Now, Saga, your report. First, what of the weather?”

“It is grey and pitiless, father. The mist is dense and no sun can be seen.”

“I thought it, because of the cold,” and he drew his robe closer round him. “A few more days of this——” and he stopped, then went on. “Tell me of Jâl, your lord.”

“Jâl is as Jâl was, merry and somewhat drunken. He speaks our language very ill, yet when he was last in liquor he sang a song which told of deeds that he, and he whom they name the Deliverer, had wrought together down in the south, rescuing the goddess Aca from some who had taken her captive. At least, so I understood that song.”

“Perhaps you understood it wrong,” answered Nam. “Say, niece, do you still worship this god?”

“I worship the god Jâl, but the man, Dweller in the Waters, I hate,” she said fiercely.

“Why, how is this? But two days gone you told me that you loved him, and that there was no such god as this man, and no such man as this god.”

“That was so, father, but since then he has thrust me aside, saying that I weary him, and courts a handmaid of mine own, and therefore I demand the life of that handmaiden.”

Nam smiled grimly. “Perchance you demand the life of the god also?”

“Yes,” she replied without hesitation, “I would see him dead if it can be brought about.”

Again Nam smiled. “Truly, niece, your temper is that of my sister, your grandmother, who brought three men to sacrifice because she grew jealous of them. Well, well, these are strange times, and you may live to see your desire satisfied by the death of the god. Now, what of that woman? How comes she to be with you?”

“She was bound by the order of Aca, father, and Jâl was set to watch her; but I drugged Jâl, and loosing her bonds I led her down the secret way, for she desires to speak to you.”

“How can that be, niece? Can I then understand her language?”

“Nay, father, but she understands ours. Had she been bred in the land she could not speak it better.”

Nam looked astonished, and going to the door he called to the priest without to lead in the stranger.

“You have words to say to me,” he said.

“Yes, lord, but not before these. That which I have to say is secret.”

Nam hesitated.

“Have no fear, lord,” said Soa, reading his thoughts. “See, I am unarmed.”

Then he commanded the others to go, and when the door had closed behind them, he looked at her inquiringly.

“Tell me, lord, who am I?” asked Soa, throwing the wrapping from her head and turning her face to the glare of the torchlight.

“How can I know who you are, wanderer? Yet, had I met you by chance, I should have said that you were of our blood.”

“That is so, lord, I am of your blood. Cast your mind back and think if you can remember a certain daughter whom you loved many years ago, but who through the workings of your foes was chosen to be a bride to the Snake,” and she paused.

“Speak on,” said Nam in a low voice.

“Perchance you can recall, lord, that, moved to it by love and pity, on the night of the sacrifice you helped that daughter to escape the fangs of the Snake.”

“I remember something of it,” he replied cautiously; “but tidings were brought to me that this woman of whom you speak was overtaken by the vengeance of the god, and died on her journey.”

“That is not so, lord. I am your daughter, and you are none other than my father. I knew you when I first saw your face, though you did not know me.”

“Prove it, and beware how you lie,” he said. “Show me the secret sign, and whisper the hidden word into my ear.”

Then, glancing suspiciously behind her, Soa came to him, and made some movements with her hands in the shadow of the table. Next bending forward, she whispered awhile into his ear. When she had finished, her father looked up, and there were tears in his aged eyes.

“Welcome, daughter,” he said. “I thought that I was alone, and that none of my issue lived anywhere upon the earth. Welcome! Your life is forfeit to the Snake, but, forgetting my vows, I will protect you, ay, even at the cost of my own.”

Then the two embraced each other with every sign of tenderness, a spectacle that would have struck anyone acquainted with their characters as both curious and interesting.

Presently Nam left the chamber, and having dismissed the attendant priest and his great-niece, Saga, who were waiting outside, he returned and prayed his daughter to explain the reason of her presence in the train of Aca.

“First, you shall swear an oath to me, my father,” said Soa, “and if you swear it not, I will tell you no word of my story. You shall swear by the blood of Aca that you will do nothing against the life of that Queen with whom I journeyed hither. For the others, you may work your will upon them, but her you shall not harm.”

“Why should I swear this, daughter?” he asked.

“You shall swear it because I, whom you love, love her, and also because so you shall gain the greater honour.”

“Who am I that I should lift my hand against the gods, daughter? I swear it by the blood of Aca, and if I break my oath, then may Jâl deal with me as once he dealt with Aca.”

Then Soa went on freely, for she knew that this was a vow that could not be broken. Beginning at its commencement, she told him all the story of her life since, forty years ago, she had fled from among the People of the Mist, passing on rapidly, however, to that part of it which had to do with the capture and rescue of Juanna from the slave-traders, and with the promise that she had made to Leonard as the price of his assistance. This promise, she was careful to explain, she had not intended to fulfil until she was forced to do so by Juanna herself. Then she gave him a minute history of the object and details of their expedition, down to her final quarrel with Leonard and her mistress on the previous day.

To say that the old priest was thunderstruck at these extraordinary revelations would be too little; he was overwhelmed—so overwhelmed that for a while he could scarcely speak.

“It is fortunate for this jade of a mistress of yours, who dares to make a mockery of our goddess that she may steal her wealth, that I have sworn to save her from harm, daughter,” he gasped at length, “else she had died, and swiftly. At least, the others remain to me,” and he sprang to his feet.

“Stay awhile, father,” said Soa, catching his cloak, “what is your plan?”

“My plan? To drag them to the temple and denounce them. What else is there to do?”

“And thereby denounce yourself also, who proclaimed them gods. I think I have a better.”

“Tell it then, daughter.”

“It is this. Do you pass in before the gods this day, speak humbly to the gods, praying them to change the face of the heavens that the sun may shine; telling them also that strange talk has come to your ears by the mouth of Saga and the other women, of words that have been spoken by the god Jâl, which would seem to show that he is no god, but that of this you believe nothing as yet. Then say to them that if the face of the heavens remains grey on the morrow, you will know that this talk is true, and that they will be brought to the temple, there to be judged and dealt with according to the finding of the people, who have heard these things also.”

“And what if the weather should change, daughter?”

“It will not change yet awhile; but if that should chance, we must make another plan.”

“Just now I swore to you that I would not harm her whom you love, and yet, daughter, if she is proved to be a false goddess in the face of all the multitude, how shall she escape harm, for then her end must be quick and terrible?”

“She shall escape because she will not be there, father. You have seen the white man with her—not the Deliverer, the other. Were that man dressed in the robes of Aca, and sat on high upon the head of the statue when the light is low, who should say that he was not Aca?”

“Then you would give all the others to death, daughter?”

“Nay, I would save the Deliverer alive, for a while at least.”

“And wherefore? You are too subtle for me.”

“For this reason, father; he loves her who is named Aca, and trusts to marry her, to marry her fully