Bab Bab 15 · GOOD FALLS SICK

. GOOD FALLS SICK

After the fight was ended, Sir Henry and Good were carried into Twala’s

hut, where I joined them. They were both utterly exhausted by exertion

and loss of blood, and, indeed, my own condition was little better. I

am very wiry, and can stand more fatigue than most men, probably on

account of my light weight and long training; but that night I was

quite done up, and, as is always the case with me when exhausted, that

old wound which the lion gave me began to pain. Also my head was aching

violently from the blow I had received in the morning, when I was

knocked senseless. Altogether, a more miserable trio than we were that

evening it would have been difficult to discover; and our only comfort

lay in the reflection that we were exceedingly fortunate to be there to

feel miserable, instead of being stretched dead upon the plain, as so

many thousands of brave men were that night, who had risen well and

strong in the morning.

Somehow, with the assistance of the beautiful Foulata, who, since we

had been the means of saving her life, had constituted herself our

handmaiden, and especially Good’s, we managed to get off the chain

shirts, which had certainly saved the lives of two of us that day. As I

expected, we found that the flesh underneath was terribly contused, for

though the steel links had kept the weapons from entering, they had not

prevented them from bruising. Both Sir Henry and Good were a mass of

contusions, and I was by no means free. As a remedy Foulata brought us

some pounded green leaves, with an aromatic odour, which, when applied

as a plaster, gave us considerable relief.

But though the bruises were painful, they did not give us such anxiety

as Sir Henry’s and Good’s wounds. Good had a hole right through the

fleshy part of his “beautiful white leg,” from which he had lost a

great deal of blood; and Sir Henry, with other hurts, had a deep cut

over the jaw, inflicted by Twala’s battle-axe. Luckily Good is a very

decent surgeon, and so soon as his small box of medicines was

forthcoming, having thoroughly cleansed the wounds, he managed to

stitch up first Sir Henry’s and then his own pretty satisfactorily,

considering the imperfect light given by the primitive Kukuana lamp in

the hut. Afterwards he plentifully smeared the injured places with some

antiseptic ointment, of which there was a pot in the little box, and we

covered them with the remains of a pocket-handkerchief which we

possessed.

Meanwhile Foulata had prepared us some strong broth, for we were too

weary to eat. This we swallowed, and then threw ourselves down on the

piles of magnificent karrosses, or fur rugs, which were scattered about

the dead king’s great hut. By a very strange instance of the irony of

fate, it was on Twala’s own couch, and wrapped in Twala’s own

particular karross, that Sir Henry, the man who had slain him, slept

that night.

I say slept; but after that day’s work, sleep was indeed difficult. To

begin with, in very truth the air was full

“Of farewells to the dying

And mournings for the dead.”

From every direction came the sound of the wailing of women whose

husbands, sons, and brothers had perished in the battle. No wonder that

they wailed, for over twelve thousand men, or nearly a fifth of the

Kukuana army, had been destroyed in that awful struggle. It was

heart-rending to lie and listen to their cries for those who never

would return; and it made me understand the full horror of the work

done that day to further man’s ambition. Towards midnight, however, the

ceaseless crying of the women grew less frequent, till at length the

silence was only broken at intervals of a few minutes by a long

piercing howl that came from a hut in our immediate rear, which, as I

afterwards discovered, proceeded from Gagool “keening” over the dead

king Twala.

After that I got a little fitful sleep, only to wake from time to time

with a start, thinking that I was once more an actor in the terrible

events of the last twenty-four hours. Now I seemed to see that warrior

whom my hand had sent to his last account charging at me on the

mountain-top; now I was once more in that glorious ring of Greys, which

made its immortal stand against all Twala’s regiments upon the little

mound; and now again I saw Twala’s plumed and gory head roll past my

feet with gnashing teeth and glaring eye.

At last, somehow or other, the night passed away; but when dawn broke I

found that my companions had slept no better than myself. Good, indeed,

was in a high fever, and very soon afterwards began to grow

light-headed, and also, to my alarm, to spit blood, the result, no

doubt, of some internal injury, inflicted during the desperate efforts

made by the Kukuana warrior on the previous day to force his big spear

through the chain armour. Sir Henry, however, seemed pretty fresh,

notwithstanding his wound on the face, which made eating difficult and

laughter an impossibility, though he was so sore and stiff that he

could scarcely stir.

About eight o’clock we had a visit from Infadoos, who appeared but

little the worse—tough old warrior that he was—for his exertions in the

battle, although he informed us that he had been up all night. He was

delighted to see us, but much grieved at Good’s condition, and shook

our hands cordially. I noticed, however, that he addressed Sir Henry

with a kind of reverence, as though he were something more than man;

and, indeed, as we afterwards found out, the great Englishman was

looked on throughout Kukuanaland as a supernatural being. No man, the

soldiers said, could have fought as he fought or, at the end of a day

of such toil and bloodshed, could have slain Twala, who, in addition to

being the king, was supposed to be the strongest warrior in the

country, in single combat, shearing through his bull-neck at a stroke.

Indeed, that stroke became proverbial in Kukuanaland, and any

extraordinary blow or feat of strength was henceforth known as

“Incubu’s blow.”

Infadoos told us also that all Twala’s regiments had submitted to

Ignosi, and that like submissions were beginning to arrive from chiefs

in the outlying country. Twala’s death at the hands of Sir Henry had

put an end to all further chance of disturbance; for Scragga had been

his only legitimate son, so there was no rival claimant to the throne

left alive.

I remarked that Ignosi had swum to power through blood. The old chief

shrugged his shoulders. “Yes,” he answered; “but the Kukuana people can

only be kept cool by letting their blood flow sometimes. Many are

killed, indeed, but the women are left, and others must soon grow up to

take the places of the fallen. After this the land would be quiet for a

while.”

Afterwards, in the course of the morning, we had a short visit from

Ignosi, on whose brows the royal diadem was now bound. As I

contemplated him advancing with kingly dignity, an obsequious guard

following his steps, I could not help recalling to my mind the tall

Zulu who had presented himself to us at Durban some few months back,

asking to be taken into our service, and reflecting on the strange

revolutions of the wheel of fortune.

“Hail, O king!” I said, rising.

“Yes, Macumazahn. King at last, by the might of your three right

hands,” was the ready answer.

All was, he said, going well; and he hoped to arrange a great feast in

two weeks’ time in order to show himself to the people.

I asked him what he had settled to do with Gagool.

“She is the evil genius of the land,” he answered, “and I shall kill

her, and all the witch doctors with her! She has lived so long that

none can remember when she was not very old, and she it is who has

always trained the witch-hunters, and made the land wicked in the sight

of the heavens above.”

“Yet she knows much,” I replied; “it is easier to destroy knowledge,

Ignosi, than to gather it.”

“That is so,” he said thoughtfully. “She, and she only, knows the

secret of the ‘Three Witches,’ yonder, whither the great road runs,

where the kings are buried, and the Silent Ones sit.”

“Yes, and the diamonds are. Forget not thy promise, Ignosi; thou must

lead us to the mines, even if thou hast to spare Gagool alive to show

the way.”

“I will not forget, Macumazahn, and I will think on what thou sayest.”

After Ignosi’s visit I went to see Good, and found him quite delirious.

The fever set up by his wound seemed to have taken a firm hold of his

system, and to be complicated with an internal injury. For four or five

days his condition was most critical; indeed, I believe firmly that had

it not been for Foulata’s indefatigable nursing he must have died.

Women are women, all the world over, whatever their colour. Yet somehow

it seemed curious to watch this dusky beauty bending night and day over

the fevered man’s couch, and performing all the merciful errands of a

sick-room swiftly, gently, and with as fine an instinct as that of a

trained hospital nurse. For the first night or two I tried to help her,

and so did Sir Henry as soon as his stiffness allowed him to move, but

Foulata bore our interference with impatience, and finally insisted

upon our leaving him to her, saying that our movements made him

restless, which I think was true. Day and night she watched him and

tended him, giving him his only medicine, a native cooling drink made

of milk, in which was infused juice from the bulb of a species of

tulip, and keeping the flies from settling on him. I can see the whole

picture now as it appeared night after night by the light of our

primitive lamp; Good tossing to and fro, his features emaciated, his

eyes shining large and luminous, and jabbering nonsense by the yard;

and seated on the ground by his side, her back resting against the wall

of the hut, the soft-eyed, shapely Kukuana beauty, her face, weary as

it was with her long vigil, animated by a look of infinite

compassion—or was it something more than compassion?

For two days we thought that he must die, and crept about with heavy

hearts.

Only Foulata would not believe it.

“He will live,” she said.

For three hundred yards or more around Twala’s chief hut, where the

sufferer lay, there was silence; for by the king’s order all who lived

in the habitations behind it, except Sir Henry and myself, had been

removed, lest any noise should come to the sick man’s ears. One night,

it was the fifth of Good’s illness, as was my habit, I went across to

see how he was doing before turning in for a few hours.

I entered the hut carefully. The lamp placed upon the floor showed the

figure of Good tossing no more, but lying quite still.

So it had come at last! In the bitterness of my heart I gave something

like a sob.

“Hush—h—h!” came from the patch of dark shadow behind Good’s head.

Then, creeping closer, I saw that he was not dead, but sleeping

soundly, with Foulata’s taper fingers clasped tightly in his poor white

hand. The crisis had passed, and he would live. He slept like that for

eighteen hours; and I scarcely like to say it, for fear I should not be

believed, but during the entire period did this devoted girl sit by

him, fearing that if she moved and drew away her hand it would wake

him. What she must have suffered from cramp and weariness, to say

nothing of want of food, nobody will ever know; but it is the fact

that, when at last he woke, she had to be carried away—her limbs were

so stiff that she could not move them.

After the turn had once been taken, Good’s recovery was rapid and

complete. It was not till he was nearly well that Sir Henry told him of

all he owed to Foulata; and when he came to the story of how she sat by

his side for eighteen hours, fearing lest by moving she should wake

him, the honest sailor’s eyes filled with tears. He turned and went

straight to the hut where Foulata was preparing the mid-day meal, for

we were back in our old quarters now, taking me with him to interpret

in case he could not make his meaning clear to her, though I am bound

to say that she understood him marvellously as a rule, considering how

extremely limited was his foreign vocabulary.

“Tell her,” said Good, “that I owe her my life, and that I will never

forget her kindness to my dying day.”

I interpreted, and under her dark skin she actually seemed to blush.

Turning to him with one of those swift and graceful motions that in her

always reminded me of the flight of a wild bird, Foulata answered

softly, glancing at him with her large brown eyes—

“Nay, my lord; my lord forgets! Did he not save _my_ life, and am I not

my lord’s handmaiden?”

It will be observed that the young lady appeared entirely to have

forgotten the share which Sir Henry and myself had taken in her

preservation from Twala’s clutches. But that is the way of women! I

remember my dear wife was just the same. Well, I retired from that

little interview sad at heart. I did not like Miss Foulata’s soft

glances, for I knew the fatal amorous propensities of sailors in

general, and of Good in particular.

There are two things in the world, as I have found out, which cannot be

prevented: you cannot keep a Zulu from fighting, or a sailor from

falling in love upon the slightest provocation!

It was a few days after this last occurrence that Ignosi held his great

“indaba,” or council, and was formally recognised as king by the

“indunas,” or head men, of Kukuanaland. The spectacle was a most

imposing one, including as it did a grand review of troops. On this day

the remaining fragments of the Greys were formally paraded, and in the

face of the army thanked for their splendid conduct in the battle. To

each man the king made a large present of cattle, promoting them one

and all to the rank of officers in the new corps of Greys which was in

process of formation. An order was also promulgated throughout the

length and breadth of Kukuanaland that, whilst we honoured the country

by our presence, we three were to be greeted with the royal salute, and

to be treated with the same ceremony and respect that was by custom

accorded to the king. Also the power of life and death was publicly

conferred upon us. Ignosi, too, in the presence of his people,

reaffirmed the promises which he had made, to the effect that no man’s

blood should be shed without trial, and that witch-hunting should cease

in the land.

When the ceremony was over we waited upon Ignosi, and informed him that

we were now anxious to investigate the mystery of the mines to which

Solomon’s Road ran, asking him if he had discovered anything about

them.

“My friends,” he answered, “I have discovered this. It is there that

the three great figures sit, who here are called the ‘Silent Ones,’ and

to whom Twala would have offered the girl Foulata as a sacrifice. It is

there, too, in a great cave deep in the mountain, that the kings of the

land are buried; there ye shall find Twala’s body, sitting with those

who went before him. There, also, is a deep pit, which, at some time,

long-dead men dug out, mayhap for the stones ye speak of, such as I

have heard men in Natal tell of at Kimberley. There, too, in