CHAPTER IX.

INTO THE UNKNOWN

A week had passed, and we all sat at supper one night in the Mission

dining-room, feeling very much depressed in spirits, for the reason

that we were going to say goodbye to our kind friends, the Mackenzies,

and depart upon our way at dawn on the morrow. Nothing more had been

seen or heard of the Masai, and save for a spear or two which had been

overlooked and was rusting in the grass, and a few empty cartridges

where we had stood outside the wall, it would have been difficult to

tell that the old cattle kraal at the foot of the slope had been the

scene of so desperate a struggle. Mackenzie was, thanks chiefly to his

being so temperate a man, rapidly recovering from his wound, and could

get about on a pair of crutches; and as for the other wounded men, one

had died of gangrene, and the rest were in a fair way to recovery. Mr

Mackenzie’s caravan of men had also returned from the coast, so that

the station was now amply garrisoned.

Under these circumstances we concluded, warm and pressing as were the

invitations for us to stay, that it was time to move on, first to Mount

Kenia, and thence into the unknown in search of the mysterious white

race which we had set our hearts on discovering. This time we were

going to progress by means of the humble but useful donkey, of which we

had collected no less than a dozen, to carry our goods and chattels,

and, if necessary, ourselves. We had now but two Wakwafis left for

servants, and found it quite impossible to get other natives to venture

with us into the unknown parts we proposed to explore—and small blame

to them. After all, as Mr Mackenzie said, it was odd that three men,

each of whom possessed many of those things that are supposed to make

life worth living—health, sufficient means, and position, etc.—should

from their own pleasure start out upon a wild-goose chase, from which

the chances were they never would return. But then that is what

Englishmen are, adventurers to the backbone; and all our magnificent

muster-roll of colonies, each of which will in time become a great

nation, testify to the extraordinary value of the spirit of adventure

which at first sight looks like a mild form of lunacy. “Adventurer”—he

that goes out to meet whatever may come. Well, that is what we all do

in the world one way or another, and, speaking for myself, I am proud

of the title, because it implies a brave heart and a trust in

Providence. Besides, when many and many a noted Croesus, at whose feet

the people worship, and many and many a time-serving and word-coining

politician are forgotten, the names of those grand-hearted old

adventurers who have made England what she is, will be remembered and

taught with love and pride to little children whose unshaped spirits

yet slumber in the womb of centuries to be. Not that we three can

expect to be numbered with such as these, yet have we done

something—enough, perhaps, to throw a garment over the nakedness of our

folly.

That evening, whilst we were sitting on the veranda, smoking a pipe

before turning in, who should come up to us but Alphonse, and, with a

magnificent bow, announce his wish for an interview. Being requested to

“fire away”, he explained at some length that he was anxious to attach

himself to our party—a statement that astonished me not a little,

knowing what a coward the little man was. The reason, however, soon

appeared. Mr Mackenzie was going down to the coast, and thence on to

England. Now, if he went down country, Alphonse was persuaded that he

would be seized, extradited, sent to France, and to penal servitude.

This was the idea that haunted him, as King Charles’s head haunted Mr

Dick, and he brooded over it till his imagination exaggerated the

danger ten times. As a matter of fact, the probability is that his

offence against the laws of his country had long ago been forgotten,

and that he would have been allowed to pass unmolested anywhere except

in France; but he could not be got to see this. Constitutional coward

as the little man was, he infinitely preferred to face the certain

hardships and great risks and dangers of such an expedition as ours,

than to expose himself, notwithstanding his intense longing for his

native land, to the possible scrutiny of a police officer—which is

after all only another exemplification of the truth that, to the

majority of men, a far-off foreseen danger, however shadowy, is much

more terrible than the most serious present emergency. After listening

to what he had to say, we consulted among ourselves, and finally

agreed, with Mr Mackenzie’s knowledge and consent, to accept his offer.

To begin with, we were very short-handed, and Alphonse was a quick,

active fellow, who could turn his hand to anything, and cook—ah, he

_could_ cook! I believe that he would have made a palatable dish of

those gaiters of his heroic grandfather which he was so fond of talking

about. Then he was a good-tempered little man, and merry as a monkey,

whilst his pompous, vainglorious talk was a source of infinite

amusement to us; and what is more, he never bore malice. Of course, his

being so pronounced a coward was a great drawback to him, but now that

we knew his weakness we could more or less guard against it. So, after

warning him of the undoubted risks he was exposing himself to, we told

him that we would accept his offer on condition that he would promise

implicit obedience to our orders. We also promised to give him wages at

the rate of ten pounds a month should he ever return to a civilized

country to receive them. To all of this he agreed with alacrity, and

retired to write a letter to his Annette, which Mr Mackenzie promised

to post when he got down country. He read it to us afterwards, Sir

Henry translating, and a wonderful composition it was. I am sure the

depth of his devotion and the narration of his sufferings in a

barbarous country, “far, far from thee, Annette, for whose adored sake

I endure such sorrow,” ought to have touched the feelings of the

stoniest-hearted chambermaid.

Well, the morrow came, and by seven o’clock the donkeys were all

loaded, and the time of parting was at hand. It was a melancholy

business, especially saying goodbye to dear little Flossie. She and I

were great friends, and often used to have talks together—but her

nerves had never got over the shock of that awful night when she lay in

the power of those bloodthirsty Masai. “Oh, Mr Quatermain,” she cried,

throwing her arms round my neck and bursting into tears, “I can’t bear

to say goodbye to you. I wonder when we shall meet again?”

“I don’t know, my dear little girl,” I said, “I am at one end of life

and you are at the other. I have but a short time before me at best,

and most things lie in the past, but I hope that for you there are many

long and happy years, and everything lies in the future. By-and-by you

will grow into a beautiful woman, Flossie, and all this wild life will

be like a far-off dream to you; but I hope, even if we never do meet

again, that you will think of your old friend and remember what I say

to you now. Always try to be good, my dear, and to do what is right,

rather than what happens to be pleasant, for in the end, whatever

sneering people may say, what is good and what is happy are the same.

Be unselfish, and whenever you can, give a helping hand to others—for

the world is full of suffering, my dear, and to alleviate it is the

noblest end that we can set before us. If you do that you will become a

sweet and God-fearing woman, and make many people’s lives a little

brighter, and then you will not have lived, as so many of your sex do,

in vain. And now I have given you a lot of old-fashioned advice, and so

I am going to give you something to sweeten it with. You see this

little piece of paper. It is what is called a cheque. When we are gone

give it to your father with this note—not before, mind. You will marry

one day, my dear little Flossie, and it is to buy you a wedding present

which you are to wear, and your daughter after you, if you have one, in

remembrance of Hunter Quatermain.”

Poor little Flossie cried very much, and gave me a lock of her bright

hair in return, which I still have. The cheque I gave her was for a

thousand pounds (which being now well off, and having no calls upon me

except those of charity, I could well afford), and in the note I

directed her father to invest it for her in Government security, and

when she married or came of age to buy her the best diamond necklace he

could get for the money and accumulated interest. I chose diamonds

because I think that now that King Solomon’s Mines are lost to the

world, their price will never be much lower than it is at present, so

that if in after-life she should ever be in pecuniary difficulties, she

will be able to turn them into money.

Well, at last we got off, after much hand-shaking, hat-waving, and also

farewell saluting from the natives, Alphonse weeping copiously (for he

has a warm heart) at parting with his master and mistress; and I was

not sorry for it at all, for I hate those goodbyes. Perhaps the most

affecting thing of all was to witness Umslopogaas’ distress at parting

with Flossie, for whom the grim old warrior had conceived a strong

affection. He used to say that she was as sweet to see as the only star

on a dark night, and was never tired of loudly congratulating himself

on having killed the Lygonani who had threatened to murder her. And

that was the last we saw of the pleasant Mission-house—a true oasis in

the desert—and of European civilization. But I often think of the

Mackenzies, and wonder how they got down country, and if they are now

safe and well in England, and will ever see these words. Dear little

Flossie! I wonder how she fares there where there are no black folk to

do her imperious bidding, and no sky-piercing snow-clad Kenia for her

to look at when she gets up in the morning. And so goodbye to Flossie.

After leaving the Mission-house we made our way, comparatively

unmolested, past the base of Mount Kenia, which the Masai call “Donyo

Egere”, or the “speckled mountain”, on account of the black patches of

rock that appear upon its mighty spire, where the sides are too

precipitous to allow of the snow lying on them; then on past the lonely

lake Baringo, where one of our two remaining Askari, having

unfortunately trodden on a puff-adder, died of snake-bite, in spite of

all our efforts to save him. Thence we proceeded a distance of about a

hundred and fifty miles to another magnificent snow-clad mountain

called Lekakisera, which has never, to the best of my belief, been

visited before by a European, but which I cannot now stop to describe.

There we rested a fortnight, and then started out into the trackless

and uninhabited forest of a vast district called Elgumi. In this forest

alone there are more elephants than I ever met with or heard of before.

The mighty mammals literally swarm there entirely unmolested by man,

and only kept down by the natural law that prevents any animals

increasing beyond the capacity of the country they inhabit to support

them. Needless to say, however, we did not shoot many of them, first

because we could not afford to waste ammunition, of which our stock was

getting perilously low, a donkey loaded with it having been swept away

in fording a flooded river; and secondly, because we could not carry

away the ivory, and did not wish to kill for the mere sake of

slaughter. So we let the great beasts be, only shooting one or two in

self-protection. In this district, the elephants, being unacquainted

with the hunter and his tender mercies, would allow one to walk up to

within twenty yards of them in the open, while they stood, with their

great ears cocked for all the world like puzzled and gigantic

puppy-dogs, and stared at that new and extraordinary phenomenon—man.

Occasionally, when the inspection did not prove satisfactory, the

staring ended in a trumpet and a charge, but this did not often happen.

When it did we had to use our rifles. Nor were elephants the only wild

beasts in the great Elgumi forest. All sorts of large game abounded,

including lions—confound them! I have always hated the sight of a lion

since one bit my leg and lamed me for life. As a consequence, another

thing that abounded was the dreadful tsetse fly, whose bite is death to

domestic animals. Donkeys have, together with men, hitherto been

supposed to enjoy a peculiar immunity from its attacks; but all I have

to say, whether it was on account of their poor condition, or because

the tsetse in those parts is more poisonous than usual, I do not know,

but ours succumbed to its onslaught. Fortunately, however, that was not

till two months or so after the bites had been inflicted, when

suddenly, after a two days’ cold rain, they all died, and on removing

the skins of several of them I found the long yellow streaks upon the

flesh which are characteristic of death from bites from the tsetse,

marking the spot where the insect had inserted his proboscis. On

emerging from the great Elgumi forest, we, still steering northwards,

in accordance with the information Mr Mackenzie had collected from the

unfortunate wanderer who reached him only to die so tragically, struck

the base in due course of the large lake, called Laga by the natives,

which is about fifty miles long by twenty broad, and of which, it may

be remembered, he made mention. Thence we pushed on nearly a month’s

journey over great rolling uplands, something like those in the

Transvaal, but diversified by patches of bush country.

All this time we were continually ascending at the rate of about one

hundred feet every ten miles. Indeed the country was on a slope which

appeared to terminate at a mass of snow-tipped mountains, for which we

were steering, and where we learnt the second lake of which the

wanderer had spoken as the lake without a bottom was situated. At

length we arrived there, and, having ascertained that there _was_ a

large lake on top of the mountains, ascended three thousand feet more

till we came to a precipitous cliff or edge, to find a great sheet of

water some twenty miles square lying fifteen hundred feet below us, and

evidently occupying an extinct volcanic crater or craters of vast

extent. Perceiving villages on the border of this lake, we descended

with great difficulty through forests of pine trees, which now clothed

the precipitous sides of the crater, and were well received by the

people, a simple, unwarlike folk, who had never seen or even heard of a

white man before, and treated us with great reverence and kindness,

supplying us with as much food and milk as we could eat and drink. This

wonderful and beautiful lake lay, according to our aneroid, at a height

of no less than 11,450 feet above sea-level, and its climate was quite

cold, and not at all unlike that of England. Indeed, for the first

three days of our stay there we saw little or nothing of the scenery on

account of an unmistakable Scotch mist which prevailed. It was this

rain that set the tsetse poison working in our remaining donkeys, so

that they all died.

This disaster left us in a very awkward position, as we had now no

means of transport whatever, though on the other hand we had not much

to carry. Ammunition, too, was very short, amounting to but one hundred

and fifty rounds of rifle cartridges and some fifty shot-gun

cartridges. How to get on we did not know; indeed it seemed to us that

we had about reached the end of our tether. Even if we had been

inclined to abandon the object of our search, which, shadow as it was,

was by no means the case, it was ridiculous to think of forcing our way

back some seven hundred miles to the coast in our present plight; so we

came to the conclusion that the only thing to be done was to stop where

we were—the natives being so well disposed and food plentiful—for the

present, and abide events, and try to collect information as to the

countries beyond.

Accordingly, having purchased a capital log canoe, large enough to hold

us all and our baggage, from the headman of the village we were staying

in, presenting him with three empty cold-drawn brass cartridges by way

of payment, with which he was perfectly delighted, we set out to make a

tour of the lake in order to find the most favourable place to make a

camp. As we did not know if we should return to this village, we put

all our gear into the canoe, and also a quarter of cooked water-buck,

which when young is delicious eating, and off we set, natives having

already gone before us in light canoes to warn the inhabitants of the

other villages of our approach.

As we were paddling leisurely along Good remarked upon the

extraordinary deep blue colour of the water, and said that he

understood from the natives, who were great fishermen—fish, indeed,

being their principal food—that the lake was supposed to be wonderfully

deep, and to have a hole at the bottom through which the water escaped

and put out some great fire that was raging below.

I pointed out to him that what he had heard was probably a legend

arising from a tradition among the people which dated back to the time

when one of the extinct parasitic volcanic cones was in activity. We

saw several round the borders of the lake which had no doubt been

working at a period long subsequent to the volcanic death of the

central crater which now formed the bed of the lake itself. When it

finally became extinct the people would imagine that the water from the

lake had run down and put out the big fire below, more especially as,

though it was constantly fed by streams running from the snow-tipped

peaks about, there was no visible exit to it.

The farther shore of the lake we found, on approaching it, to consist

of a vast perpendicular wall of rock, which held the water without any

intermediate sloping bank, as elsewhere. Accordingly we paddled

parallel with this precipice, at a distance of about a hundred paces

from it, shaping our course for the end of the lake, where we knew that

there was a large village.

As we went we began to pass a considerable accumulation of floating

rushes, weed, boughs of trees, and other rubbish, brought, Good

supposed, to this spot by some current, which he was much puzzled to

account for. Whilst we were speculating about this, Sir Henry pointed

out a flock of large white swans, which were feeding on the drift some

little way ahead of us. Now I had already noticed swans flying about

this lake, and, having never come across them before in Africa, was

exceedingly anxious to obtain a specimen. I had questioned the natives

about them, and learnt that they came from over the mountain, always

arriving at certain periods of the year in the early morning, when it

was very easy to catch them, on account of their exhausted condition. I

also asked them what country they came from, when they shrugged their

shoulders, and said that on the top of the great black precipice was

stony inhospitable land, and beyond that were mountains with snow, and

full of wild beasts, where no people lived, and beyond the mountains

were hundreds of miles of dense thorn forest, so thick that even the

elephants could not get through it, much less men. Next I asked them if

they had ever heard of white people like ourselves living on the

farther side of the mountains and the thorn forest, whereat they

laughed. But afterwards a very old woman came and told me that when she

was a little girl her grandfather had told her that in his youth _his_

grandfather had crossed the desert and the mountains, and pierced the

thorn forest, and seen a white people who lived in stone kraals beyond.

Of course, as this took the tale back some two hundred and fifty years,

the information was very indefinite; but still there it was again, and

on thinking it over I grew firmly convinced that there was some truth

in all these rumours, and equally firmly determined to solve the

mystery. Little did I guess in what an almost miraculous way my desire

was to be gratified.

Well, we set to work to stalk the swans, which kept drawing, as they

fed, nearer and nearer to the precipice, and at last we pushed the

canoe under shelter of a patch of drift within forty yards of them. Sir

Henry had the shot-gun, loaded with No. 1, and, waiting for a chance,

got two in a line, and, firing at their necks, killed them both. Up

rose the rest, thirty or more of them, with a mighty splashing; and, as

they did so, he gave them the other barrel. Down came one fellow with a

broken wing, and I saw the leg of another drop and a few feathers start

out of his back; but he went on quite strong. Up went the swans,

circling ever higher till at last they were mere specks level with the

top of the frowning precipice, when I saw them form into a triangle and

head off for the unknown north-east. Meanwhile we had picked up our two

dead ones, and beautiful birds they were, weighing not less than about

thirty pounds each, and were chasing the winged one, which had

scrambled over a mass of driftweed into a pool of clear water beyond.

Finding a difficulty in forcing the canoe through the rubbish, I told

our only remaining Wakwafi servant, whom I knew to be an excellent

swimmer, to jump over, dive under the drift, and catch him, knowing

that as there were no crocodiles in this lake he could come to no harm.

Entering into the fun of the thing, the man obeyed, and soon was

dodging about after the winged swan in fine style, getting gradually

nearer to the rock wall, against which the water washed as he did so.

Presently he gave up swimming after the swan, and began to cry out that

he was being carried away; and, indeed, we saw that, though he was

swimming with all his strength towards us, he was being drawn slowly to

the precipice. With a few desperate strokes of our paddles we pushed

the canoe through the crust of drift and rowed towards the man as hard

as we could, but, fast as we went, he was drawn faster to the rock.

Suddenly I saw that before us, just rising eighteen inches or so above

the surface of the lake, was what looked like the top of the arch of a

submerged cave or railway tunnel. Evidently, from the watermark on the

rock several feet above it, it was generally entirely submerged; but

there had been a dry season, and the cold had prevented the snow from

melting as freely as usual; so the lake was low and the arch showed.

Towards this arch our poor servant was being sucked with frightful

rapidity. He was not more than ten fathoms from it, and we were about

twenty when I saw it, and with little help from us the canoe flew along

after him. He struggled bravely, and I thought that we should have

saved him, when suddenly I perceived an expression of despair come upon

his face, and there before our eyes he was sucked down into the cruel

swirling blue depths, and vanished. At the same moment I felt our canoe

seized as with a mighty hand, and propelled with resistless force

towards the rock.

We realised our danger now and rowed, or rather paddled, furiously in

our attempt to get out of the vortex. In vain; in another second we

were flying straight for the arch like an arrow, and I thought that we

were lost. Luckily I retained sufficient presence of mind to shout out,

instantly setting the example by throwing myself into the bottom of the

canoe, “Down on your faces—down!” and the others had the sense to take

the hint. In another instant there was a grinding noise, and the boat

was pushed down till the water began to trickle over the sides, and I

thought that we were gone. But no, suddenly the grinding ceased, and we

could again feel the canoe flying along. I turned my head a little—I

dared not lift it—and looked up. By the feeble light that yet reached

the canoe, I could make out that a dense arch of rock hung just over

our heads, and that was all. In another minute I could not even see as

much as that, for the faint light had merged into shadow, and the

shadows had been swallowed up in darkness, utter and complete.

For an hour or so we lay there, not daring to lift our heads for fear

lest the brains should be dashed out of them, and scarcely able to

speak even, on account of the noise of the rushing water which drowned

our voices. Not, indeed, that we had much inclination to speak, seeing

that we were overwhelmed by the awfulness of our position and the

imminent fear of instant death, either by being dashed against the

sides of the cavern, or on a rock, or being sucked down in the raging

waters, or perhaps asphyxiated by want of air. All of these and many

other modes of death presented themselves to my imagination as I lay at

the bottom of the canoe, listening to the swirl of the hurrying waters

which ran whither we knew not. One only other sound could I hear, and

that was Alphonse’s intermittent howl of terror coming from the centre

of the canoe, and even that seemed faint and unnatural. Indeed, the

whole thing overpowered my brain, and I began to believe that I was the

victim of some ghastly spirit-shaking nightmare.