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

The fact is that I am rather fond of mountaineering, and seeing this great peak above us—I am told that it is the highest in the Bisa-Mushinga Mountains—I thought that I might as well have a try at it before I turn homewards, via Lake Nyassa, Livingstonia, Blantyre, and Quilimane. But perhaps you will not mind telling me how you came to be here. I have heard something from the dwarf, but his tale seems a little too steep.”

“I am afraid you will think ours rather steeper, Mr. Wallace,” said Leonard, and he proceeded to give him a short outline of their adventures.

When he came to their arrival among the People of the Mist, and described the inauguration of Otter and Juanna as gods in the temple of the colossus, he noticed that his auditor had let the eyeglass fall from his round eye, and was regarding him with mild amazement.

“I am afraid that all this does not interest you,” said Leonard stiffly.

“On the contrary, Mr. Outram, it interests me very much. I am exceedingly fond of romances, and this is rather a good one.”

“As I thought; it is scarcely worth while to go on,” said Leonard again. “Well, I cannot wonder that you do not believe me.”

“Leonard,” interposed Juanna quietly, “you still have the star ruby; show it to Mr. Wallace!”

He did so, somewhat sulkily, and then, as he seemed disinclined to say anything more, Juanna took up the tale, showing in evidence of its truth the spear, the frayed rope, and the tattered white robe which she had worn in her character of Aca, and, indeed, still wore beneath poor Francisco’s cassock—for she had no other.

Mr. Wallace heard her out, then, without making any comment, he rose, saying that he must try to shoot some meat for the camp, and begged that they would make themselves comfortable until his return that evening.

Before sundown he reappeared, and, coming straight to the tent, asked their pardon for his incredulity.

“I have been up yonder,” he said, “following your spoor backwards. I have seen the snow-bridge and the stones, and the nicks which the dwarf cut in the ice. All is just as you told me, and it only remains for me to congratulate you upon having escaped from the strangest series of dangers that ever I heard of”; and he held out his hand, which both Leonard and Juanna shook warmly.

“By the way,” he added, “I sent men to examine the gulf for several miles, but they report to me that they found no spot where it would be possible to descend it, and I fear, therefore, that the jewels are lost for ever. I confess that I should have liked to try to penetrate into the Mist country, but my nerves are not strong enough for the ice-bridge, and if they were, stones won’t slide uphill. Besides, you must have had about enough of roughing it, and will be anxious to turn your faces towards civilisation. So after you have rested another couple of days I think that we had better start for Quilimane, which, barring accidents, is about three months’ march from here.”

Shortly afterwards they started accordingly, but with the details of their march we need not concern ourselves. An exception must be made, however, in the case of a single event which happened at the mission-station of Blantyre. That event was the wedding of Leonard and Juanna in conformance with the ceremonies of their own church.

No word of marriage had been spoken between them for some weeks, and yet the thought of it was never out of the minds of either. Indeed, had their feelings been much less tender towards each other than was the case, it would still have been desirable, in view of the extraordinary intimacy into which they had been thrown during the past months, that they should become man and wife. Leonard felt that alone as she was in the wide world, nothing short of mutual aversion would have justified him in separating from Juanna, and as it was love and not aversion that he entertained towards her, this argument came home to him with overmastering force.

“Juanna,” he said to her on the day of their arrival at Blantyre, “you remember some words that passed between your father and myself when he lay upon his death-bed, to the effect that, should we both wish it, he trusted to my honour to remarry you formally as soon as an opportunity might arise.

“Now the opportunity is here, and I ask you if you desire to take me for your husband, as, above everything in the world, I desire to make you my beloved wife.”

She coloured to her beautiful eyes and answered in a voice that was almost a whisper:

“If you wish it and think me worthy of you, Leonard, you know that I wish it also. I have always loved you, dear, yes, even when I was behaving worst to you; but there is—Jane Beach!”

“I have told you before, Juanna,” he answered with some little irritation, “and now I tell you again, that Jane Beach and I have done with each other.”

“I am sure that I am very glad to hear it,” Juanna replied, still somewhat dubiously. The rest of that conversation, being of a private character, will scarcely interest the public.

When he spoke thus, Leonard little knew after what fashion Jane Beach and he had wound up their old love affair.

Two days later Leonard Outram took Juanna Rodd to wife, “to have and to hold, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish till death did them part,” and their rescuer, Sydney Wallace, who by now had become their fast friend, gave her away.

Very curious were the memories that passed through Juanna’s mind as she stood by her husband’s side in the little grass-roofed chapel of Blantyre, for was this not the third time that she had been married, and now only of her own free will? She bethought her of that wild scene in the slave camp; of Francisco who died to save her, and of the blessing which he had called down upon her and this very man; of that other scene in the rock prison, when, to protect Leonard’s life, she was wed, according to the custom of the Children of the Mist, to that true-hearted gentleman and savage, Olfan, their king. Then she awoke with a happy sigh to know that the lover at her side could never be taken from her again until death claimed one of them.

“We shall be dreadfully poor, Leonard,” she said to him afterwards; “it would have been much better for you, dear, if I had fallen into the gulf instead of the rubies.”

“I am not of your opinion, love,” he answered with a smile for he was very happy. “Hang the rubies! Your price is far above rubies, and no man may struggle against fate. I have always been able to make a living for myself heretofore, and I do not doubt that I shall continue to do so for both of us, and we will leave the rest to Providence. You are more to me, Juanna, than any wealth—more even than Outram.”

That evening Mr. Wallace found Otter gazing disconsolately at the little house in which Leonard and Juanna were staying.

“Are you sad because your master is married, Otter?” he asked.

“No,” answered the dwarf, “I am glad. For months he has been running after her and dreaming of her, and now at last he has got her. Henceforth she must dream of him and run after him, and he will have time to think about other people, who love him quite as well.”

Another month or so went by while the party journeyed in easy stages towards the coast, and never had wedded lovers a happier honeymoon, or one more unconventional, than that passed by Leonard and Juanna, though perhaps Mr. Wallace and Otter did not find the contemplation of their raptures a very exhilarating occupation.

At last they reached Quilimane in safety, and pitched their camp on some rising ground outside of the settlement, which is unhealthy. Next morning at daybreak Mr. Wallace started to the post-office, where he expected to find letters. Leonard and Juanna did not accompany him, but went for a walk before the sun grew hot. Then it was, as they walked, that a certain fact came home to them; namely, that they could not avail themselves of their host’s kindness any longer, and, further, that they were quite penniless. When one is moving slowly across the vast African wilds, and living on the abounding game, love and kisses seem an ample provision for all wants. But the matter strikes the mind in a different light after the trip is done, and civilisation with its necessities looms large in the immediate future.

“What are we to do, Juanna?” asked Leonard in dismay. “We have no money to enable us to reach Natal or anywhere, and no credit on which to draw.”

“I suppose that we must sell the great ruby,” she answered, with a sigh, “though I shall be sorry to part with it.”

“Nobody will buy such a stone here, Juanna, and it may not be a real ruby after all. Perhaps Wallace might be willing to advance me a trifle on it, though I hate having to ask him.”

Then they went back to breakfast, which they did not find an altogether cheerful meal. As they were finishing, Mr. Wallace returned from the town.

“I have got good news,” he said; “the British India mail will be here in two days, so I shall pay off my men and go up to Aden in her, and thence home. Of course you will come too, for, like me, I expect you have had enough of Africa for the present. Here are some copies of the weekly edition of the ‘Times’; look through them, Mrs. Outram, and see the news while I read my letters.”

Leonard turned aside moodily and lit his pipe. How was he to find money to take even a third-class passage on the British India mail? But Juanna, obeying the instinct that prompts a woman to keep up appearances at all hazards, took one of the papers and opened it, although the tears which swam in her eyes would scarcely suffer her to see the print. Thus things went on for ten minutes or more, as she idly turned the pages of two or three issues of the weekly “Times,” trying to collect her thoughts and pick up the thread of current events.

But it is wonderful how uninteresting and far-away those events appear after the reader has been living a life to herself for a year or so, and Juanna, preoccupied as she was with her own thoughts, was about to give up the attempt as a failure, when the name of Outram started to her eyes.

A minute later her two companions heard a sharp exclamation and turned round.

“What is the matter, Mrs. Outram?” said Wallace. “Has France declared war against Germany, or is Mr. Gladstone dead?”

“Oh! no, something much more important than that. Listen to this advertisement, Leonard:—

“‘If Leonard Outram, second son of Sir Thomas Outram, Bart., late of Outram Hall, who was last heard of in the territory to the north of Delagoa Bay, Eastern Africa, or, in the event of his death, his lawful heirs, will communicate with the undersigned, he or they will hear of something very greatly to his or their advantage. Thomson & Turner, 2 Albert Court, London, E.C.’”

“Are you joking, Juanna?” said Leonard after a pause.

“Look for yourself,” she answered.

He took the paper, and read and reread the notice.

“Well, there is one thing certain,” he said, “that no one ever stood in greater need of hearing something to his advantage than I do at this moment, for excepting the ruby, which may not be a true stone, we haven’t a stiver to bless ourselves with in the world. Indeed, I don’t know how I am to avail myself of Messrs. Thomson & Turner’s kind invitation, unless I write them a letter and go to live in a Kaffir hut till the answer comes.”

“Don’t let that trouble you, my dear fellow,” said Wallace; “I can get plenty of cash here, and it is very much at your service.”

“I am ashamed to take further advantage of your kindness,” answered Leonard, flushing. “This advertisement may mean nothing, or perhaps a legacy of fifty pounds, though I am sure I don’t know who would leave me even that sum. And then, how should I repay you?”

“Stuff!” said Wallace.

“Well,” replied Leonard, “beggars must put their pride in their pockets. If you will lend me a couple of hundred pounds and take the ruby in pledge, I shall be