The People Of The Mist: Chapter 18

Chapter 18

SOA SHOWS HER TEETH

Three months had passed since that day, when Juanna declared her
unalterable determination to accompany Leonard upon his search for the
treasures of the People of the Mist.

It was evening, and a party of travellers were encamped on the side of
a river that ran through a great and desolate plain. They were a small
party, three white people, namely, Leonard, Francisco, and Juanna,
fifteen of the Settlement men under the leadership of Peter--that same
headman who had been rescued from the slave camp--the dwarf, Otter, and
Juanna's old nurse, Soa.

For twelve weeks they had travelled almost without intermission with Soa
for their guide, steering continually northward and westward. First they
followed the course of the river in canoes for ten days or more; then,
leaving the main stream, they paddled for three weeks up that of a
tributary called Mavuae, which ran for many miles along the foot of
a great range of mountains named Mang-anja. Here they made but slow
progress because of the frequent rapids, which necessitated the
porterage of the canoes over broken ground, and for considerable
distances. At length they came to a rapid which was so long and so
continuous that regretfully enough they were obliged to abandon the
canoes altogether and proceed on foot.

The dangers of their water journey had been many, but they were nothing
compared with those that now environed them, and in addition to bodily
perils, they must face the daily and terrible fatigue of long marches
through an unknown country, cumbered as they were with arms and other
absolutely necessary baggage. The country through which they were now
passing was named Marengi, a land uninhabited by man, the home of herds
of countless game.

On they went northward and upward through a measureless waste; plain
succeeded plain in endless monotony, distance gave place to distance,
and ever there were more beyond.

Gradually the climate grew colder: they were traversing a portion of
the unexplored plateau that separates southern from central Africa. Its
loneliness was awful, and the bearers began to murmur, saying that they
had reached the end of the world, and were walking over its edge. Indeed
they had only two comforts in this part of their undertaking; the land
lay so high that none of them were stricken by fever, and they could
not well miss the road, which, if Soa was to be believed, ran along the
banks of the river that had its source in the territories of the People
of the Mist.

The adventures that befell them were endless, but it is not proposed to
describe them in detail. Once they starved for three days, being unable
to find game. On another occasion they fell in with a tribe of bushmen
who harassed them with poisoned arrows, killing two of their best
men, and were only prevented from annihilating them through the terror
inspired by their firearms, which they took for magical instruments.

Escaping from the bushmen, they entered a forest country which teemed
with antelope and also with lions, that night by night they must keep
at bay as best they could. Then came several days' march through a plain
strewn with sharp stones which lamed most of the party; and after this
eighty or a hundred miles of dreary rolling veldt, clothed with rank
grass just now brown with the winter frosts, that caught their feet at
every step.

Now at length they halted on the boundary of the land of the People of
the Mist. There before them, not more than a mile away, towered a huge
cliff or wall of rock, stretching across the plain like a giant step,
far as the eye could reach, and varying from seven hundred to a thousand
feet in height. Down the surface of this cliff the river flowed in a
series of beautiful cascades.

Before they had finished their evening meal of buck's flesh the moon was
up, and by its light the three white people stared hopelessly at this
frowning natural fortification, wondering if they could climb it, and
wondering also what terrors awaited them upon its further side. They
were silent that night, for a great weariness had overcome them, and if
the truth must be known, all three of them regretted that they had ever
undertaken this mad adventure.

Leonard glanced to the right, where, some fifty paces away, the
Settlement men were crouched round the fire. They also were silent, and
it was easy to see that the heart was out of them.

"Won't somebody say something?" said Juanna at last with a rather
pathetic attempt at playfulness. How could she be cheerful, poor girl,
when her feet were sore and her head was aching, and she wished that she
were dead, almost?

"Yes," answered Leonard, "I will say that I admire your pluck. I should
not have thought it possible for any young lady to have gone through the
last two months, and 'come out smiling' at the end of them."

"Oh, I am quite happy. Don't trouble about me," she said, laughing as
merrily as though there were no such things as sore feet and headaches
in the world.

"Are you?" said Leonard, "then I envy you, that is all. Here comes old
Soa, and Otter after her. I wonder what is the matter now. Something
disagreeable, I suppose."

Soa arrived and squatted down in front of them, her tall spare form
and somewhat sullen face looking more formidable than usual in the
moonlight. Otter was beside her, and though he stood and she sat, their
heads were almost on a level.

"What is it, Soa?" said Leonard carelessly.

"Deliverer," she answered, for all the natives knew him now by this
name, "some months ago, when you were digging for gold yonder, in the
Place of Graves, I made a bargain with you, and we set the bargain down
on paper. In that paper I promised that if you rescued my mistress I
would lead you to the land were precious stones were to be won, and I
gave you one of those stones in earnest. You saved my mistress, Mavoom
her father died, and the time came when I must fulfil my promise. For my
own part I would not have fulfilled it, for I only made it that promise
hoping to deceive you. But my mistress yonder refused to listen to me.

"'No,' she said, 'that which you have sworn on my behalf and your own
must be carried out. If you will not carry it out, go away, Soa, for I
have done with you.'

"Then, Deliverer, rather than part with her whom I loved, and whom I had
nursed from a babe, I yielded. And now you stand upon the borders of the
country of my people. Say, are you minded to cross them, Deliverer?"

"What else did I come for, Soa?" he asked.

"Nay, I know not. You came out of the folly of your heart, to satisfy
the desire of your heart. Listen, that tale I told you is true, and yet
I did not tell you all the truth. Beyond that cliff live a people of
great stature, and very fierce; a people whose custom it is to offer up
strangers to their gods. Enter there, and they will kill you thus."

"What do you mean, woman?" asked Leonard.

"I mean that if you hold your life dear, or her life," and she pointed
to Juanna, "you will turn with the first light and go back whence you
came. It is true that the stones are there, but death shall be the
reward of him who strives to steal them."

"I must say this is cheerful," replied Leonard. "What did you mean,
then, by all that story you told me about a plan that you had to win the
treasures of this people? Are you a liar, Soa?"

"I have said that all I told you was true," she answered sullenly.

"Very well, then, I have come a good many hundred miles to put it to the
proof, nor am I going to turn back now. You can leave me one and all if
you like, but I shall go on. I will not be made a fool of in this way."

"None of us have any wish to be made fools of, Mr. Outram," said Juanna
gently; "and, speaking for myself, I would far rather die at once than
attempt a return journey just at present. So now, Soa, perhaps you will
stop croaking and tell us definitely what we must do to conciliate
these charming countrymen of yours, whom we have come so far to spoil.
Remember," she added with a flash of her grey eyes, "I am not to be
played with by you, Soa. In this matter the Deliverer's interests are my
interests, and his ends my ends. Together we stand or fall, together we
live or die, and that shall be an unhappy hour for you, Soa, when you
attempt to desert or betray us."

"It is well, Shepherdess," she answered, "your will is my will, for I
love you alone in the world, and all the rest I hate," and she glared at
Leonard and Otter. "You are my father, and my mother, and my child, and
where you are, in death or in life, there is my home. Let us go then
among this people of mine, there to perish miserably, so that the
Deliverer may seek to glut himself with wealth.

"Listen; this is the law of my people, or this was their law when I left
them forty years ago: That every stranger who passes through their gates
should be offered as a sacrifice to Aca the mother if the time of his
coming should be in summer, and to Jal the son if the time of his coming
be in winter, for the Mist-dwellers do not love strangers. But there is
a prophecy among my people which tells, when many generations have gone
by, that Aca the mother, and Jal the son, shall return to the land which
once they ruled, clothed in the flesh of men. And the shape of Aca shall
be such a shape as yours, Shepherdess, and the shape of Jal shall be as
is the shape of this black dog of a dwarf, whom when first I saw him in
my folly I deemed immortal and divine. Then the mother and the son
shall rule in the land, and its kings shall cease from kingship, and the
priests of the Snake shall be their servants, and with them shall come
peace and prosperity that do not pass away.

"Shepherdess, you know the tongue of the People of the Mist, for
when you were little I taught it to you, because to me it is the
most beautiful of tongues. You know the song also, the holy Song of
Re-arising, that shall be on the lips of Aca when she comes again,
and which I, being the daughter of the high-priest, learned, with many
another secret, before I was doomed to be a bride to the Snake and fled,
fearing my doom. Now come apart with me, Shepherdess, and you, Black
One, come also, that I may teach you your lesson of what you shall do
when we meet the squadrons of the People of the Mist."

Juanna rose to obey her, followed by Otter, grumbling, for he hated
the old woman as much as she hated him, and, moreover, he did not take
kindly to this notion of masquerading as a god, or, indeed, to the
prospect of a lengthened sojourn amongst his adoring, but from all
accounts somewhat truculent, worshippers. Before they went, however,
Leonard spoke.

"I have heard you, Soa," he said, "and I do not like your words, for
they show me that your heart is fierce and evil. Yes, though you love
the Shepherdess, your heart is evil. Now hear me. Should you dare to
play us false, whatever may befall us, be sure of this, that moment you
die. Go!"

"Spare your threats, Deliverer," answered Soa haughtily. "I shall not
betray you, because to do so would be to betray the Shepherdess. But are
you then a fool that you think I should fear death at your hands, who
to-morrow with a word could give you all to torment? Pray, Deliverer,
that the hour may not be near when you shall rejoice to die by the
bullet with which you threaten me, so that you may escape worse things."
And she turned and went.

"I am not nervous," said Leonard to Francisco, "but that she-devil
frightens me. If it were not for Juanna, she would cause us to be
murdered on the first possible opportunity, and if only she can secure
her safety, I believe that she will do it yet."

"And I believe that she is a witch, Outram," answered the priest with
fervour, "a servant of the Evil One, such as are written of in the
Scriptures. Last night I saw her praying to her gods; she did not know
that I was near, for the place was lonely, but I saw her and I never
wish to see anything so horrible again. I will tell you why she hates us
all so much, Outram. She is jealous, because the senora--does not hate
us. That woman's heart is wicked, wickedness was born in her, yet, as
none are altogether evil, she has one virtue, her love of the senora.
She is husbandless and childless, for even among the black people, as I
have learnt from the Settlement men, all have feared her and shrunk from
her notwithstanding her good looks. Therefore, everything that is best
in her has gone to nourish this love for the woman whom she nursed from
a babe. It was because of her fierceness that the Senor Rodd, who is
dead, chose her for his daughter's nurse, when he found that her heart
was hungry with love for the child, for he knew that she would die
before she suffered harm to come to her."

"He showed good judgment there," said Leonard. "Had it not been for Soa,
Juanna would have been a slave-girl now, or dead."

"That is so, Outram, but whether we showed good judgment in trusting our
lives to her tender mercies is quite another matter. Say, friend, do you
think it well to go on with this business?"

"Oh, confound it all!" said Leonard with irritation, "how can we turn
back now? Just think of the journey and how foolish we should look.
Besides, we have none of us got anything to live upon; it took most of
the gold that I had to bribe Peter and his men to accompany us. I dare
say that we shall all be killed, that seems very probable, but for my
part I really shan't be sorry. I am tired of life, Francisco; it is
nothing but a struggle and a wretchedness, and I begin to feel that
peace is all I can hope to win. I have done my best here according to my
lights, so I don't know why I should be afraid of the future, especially
as it has been taken out of me pretty well in the present, though of
course I _am_ afraid for all that, every man is. The only thing that
troubles me is a doubt whether we ought to take Juanna into such a
place. But really I do not know but what it would be as dangerous to go
back as to proceed: those gentlemen with the poisoned arrows may have
recovered from their fear of firearms by now."

"I wish we had nothing worse than the Hereafter to fear," said Francisco
with a sigh. "It is the journey thither that is so terrible. As for
our expedition, having undertaken it, I think on the whole that we had
better persevere, especially as the senora wishes it, and she is very
hard to turn. After all our lives are in the hands of the Almighty, and
therefore we shall be just as safe, or unsafe, among the People of the
Mist as in a European city. Those of us who are destined to live will
live, and those whose hour is at hand must die. And now good night, for
I am going to sleep."

Next morning, shortly before dawn, Leonard was awakened by a hubbub
among the natives, and creeping out of his blankets, he found that
some of them, who had been to the river to draw water, had captured two
bushmen belonging to a nomadic tribe that lived by spearing fish. These
wretched creatures, who notwithstanding the cold only wore a piece of
bark tied round their shoulders, were screaming with fright, and it
was not until they had been pacified by gifts of beads and empty brass
cartridges that anything could be got out of them.

When confidence had at length been restored, Otter questioned them
closely as to the country that lay beyond the wall of rock and the
people who dwelt in it, through one of the Settlement men, who spoke a
language sufficiently like their own to make himself understood. They
replied that they had never been in that country themselves, because
they dared not go there, but they had heard of it from others.

The land was very cold and foggy, they said, so foggy that sometimes
people could not see each other for whole days, and in it dwelt a race
of great men covered with hair, who sacrificed strangers to a snake
which they worshipped, and married all their fairest maidens to a god.
That was all they knew of the country and of the great men, for few who
visited there ever returned to tell tidings. It was certainly a haunted
land.

Finding that there was no more to be learnt from the bushmen, Leonard
suffered them to depart, which they did at considerable speed, and
ordered the Settlement men to make ready to march. But now a fresh
difficulty arose. The interpreter had repeated all the bushmen's story
to his companions, among whom, it is needless to say, it produced no
small effect. Therefore when the bearers received their orders, instead
of striking the little tent in which Juanna slept, and preparing their
loads as usual, after a brief consultation they advanced upon Leonard in
a body.

"What is it, Peter?" he asked of the headman.

"This, Deliverer: we have travelled with you and the Shepherdess for
three full moons, enduring much hardship and passing many dangers.
Now we learn that there lies before us a land of cold and darkness,
inhabited by devils who worship a devil. Deliverer, we have been good
servants to you, and we are not cowards, as you know, but it is true
that we fear to enter this land."

"What do you wish to do then, Peter?" asked Leonard.

"We wish to return whence we came, Deliverer. Already we have nearly
earned the money that you gave to us before we started, and we will take
no more pay if we must win it by crossing yonder wall."

"The way back is far, Peter," answered Leonard, "and you know its
perils. How many, think you, will reach their homes alive if I am not
there to guide them? For know, Peter, I will not turn back now. Desert
me, if you wish, all of you, and still I will enter this country alone,
or with Otter only. Alone we took the slave camp and alone we will visit
the People of the Mist."

"Your words are true, Deliverer," said Peter, "the homeward way is far
and its perils are many; mayhap but very few of us will live to see
their huts again, for this is an ill-fated journey. But if we pass
yonder," and he pointed to the wall of rock, "then we shall all of us
certainly die, and be offered to a devil by devils."

Leonard pulled his beard thoughtfully and said: "It seems there is
nothing else to say, Peter, except good-bye."

The headman saluted and was turning away with an abashed countenance
when Juanna stopped him. Together with Otter and the others she had been
listening to the colloquy in silence, and now spoke for the first time.

"Peter," she said gently, "when you and your companions were in the
hands of the Yellow Devil and about to be sold as slaves, who was it
that rescued you?"

"The Deliverer, Shepherdess."

"Yes. And now do my ears betray me, or do I hear you say that you and
your brethren, who with many another were saved from shame and toil by
the Deliverer, are about to leave him in his hour of danger?"

"You have heard aright, Shepherdess," the man answered sadly.

"It is well, Peter. Go, children of Mavoom, my father, who can desert me
in my need. For learn, Peter, that where you fear to tread, there I,
a white woman, will pass alone with the Deliverer. Go, children of my
father, and may peace go with you. Yet, as you know, I, who foretold
the doom of the Yellow Devil, am a true prophetess, and I tell you this,
that but a very few of you shall live to see your kraal again, and _you_
will not be of their number, Peter. As for those who come home safely,
their names shall be a mockery, the little children shall call them
coward, and traitor and jackal, and one by one they shall eat out
their hearts and die, because they deserted him who saved them from the
slave-ship and the scourge. Farewell, children of my father: may peace
go with you, and may his ghost not come to haunt you on your path," and
with one indignant glance she turned scornfully away.

"Brethren," said Peter after a moment's pause, "is it to be borne that
the Shepherdess should mock us thus and tie such ropes of shame about
our necks?"

"No," they answered, "we cannot bear it."

Then for a while they consulted together again, and presently Peter
stood forward and said: "Deliverer, we will accompany you and the
Shepherdess into the country of devils, nor need you fear that we shall
desert or betray you. We know well that we go to our death, every one
of us; still it is better to die than to live bearing the burden of such
bitter words as hide within the Shepherdess's lips."

"Very well," answered Leonard. "Get your loads and let us start."

"Ay! It is well indeed," put in Otter with a snort of indignation. "I
tell you this, Peter, that before you left this place the words of the
Shepherdess had come true for you and one or two others, for I should
have fought you till I was killed, and though I have little wisdom yet I
know how to fight."

Leonard smiled at the dwarf's rage, but his heart was heavy within him.
He knew that these men had reason on their side, and he feared greatly
lest their evil forebodings should come true and the lives of all of
them pay forfeit for his rashness.

But it was too late to turn back now: things must befall as they were
fated.

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