Queen Sheba's Ring: Chapter 3

Chapter 3

THE PROFESSOR GOES OUT SHOOTING

Of all our tremendous journey across the desert until we had passed the
forest and reached the plains which surrounded the mountains of Mur,
there are, I think, but few incidents with which the reader need be
troubled. The first of these was at Assouan, where a letter and various
telegrams overtook Captain Orme, which, as by this time we had become
intimate, he showed to me. They informed him that the clandestine infant
whom his uncle left behind him had suddenly sickened and died of some
childish ailment, so that he was once again heir to the large property
which he thought he had lost, since the widow only took a life interest
in some of the personalty. I congratulated him and said I supposed this
meant that we should not have the pleasure of his company to Mur.

"Why not?" he asked. "I said I was going and I mean to go; indeed, I
signed a document to that effect."

"I daresay," I answered, "but circumstances alter cases. If I might say
so, an adventure that perhaps was good enough for a young and well-born
man of spirit and enterprise without any particular resources, is no
longer good enough for one who has the ball at his feet. Think what a
ball it is to a man of your birth, intelligence, record, and now,
great fortune come to you in youth. Why, with these advantages there
is absolutely nothing that you cannot do in England. You can go into
Parliament and rule the country; if you like you can become a peer.
You can marry any one who isn't of the blood royal; in short, with
uncommonly little effort of your own, your career is made for you. Don't
throw away a silver spoon like that in order, perhaps, to die of thirst
in the desert or be killed in a fight among unknown tribes."

"Oh, I don't know," he answered. "I never set heart much on spoons,
silver or other. When I lost this one I didn't cry, and now that I have
found it again I shan't sing. Anyway, I am going on with you, and you
can't prevent me under the agreement. Only as I have got such a lot to
leave, I suppose I had better make a will first and post it home, which
is a bore."

Just then the Professor came in, followed by an Arab thief of a dealer,
with whom he was trying to bargain for some object of antiquity. When
the dealer had been ejected and the position explained to him, Higgs,
who whatever may be his failings in small matters, is unselfish enough
in big ones, said that he agreed with me and thought that under the
circumstances, in his own interest, Orme ought to leave us and return
home.

"You may save your breath, old fellow," answered the Captain, "for this
reason if for no other," and he threw him a letter across the table,
which letter I saw afterwards. To be brief, it was from the young
lady to whom he had been engaged to be married, and who on his loss of
fortune had jilted him. Now she seemed to have changed her mind
again, and, although she did not mention the matter, it is perhaps not
uncharitable to suppose that the news of the death of the inconvenient
child had something to do with her decision.

"Have you answered this?" asked Higgs.

"No," answered Orme, setting his mouth. "I have not answered, and I
am not going to answer it, either in writing or in person. I intend to
start to-morrow for Mur and to travel as far on that road as it pleases
fate to allow, and now I am going to look at the rock sculptures by the
cataract."

"Well, that's flat," said Higgs after he had departed, "and for my part
I am glad of it, for somehow I think he will be a useful man among those
Fung. Also, if he went I expect that the Sergeant would go too, and
where should we be without Quick, I should like to know?"

Afterwards I conversed with the said Quick about this same matter,
repeating to him my opinions, to which the Sergeant listened with the
deference which he was always kind enough to show to me.

"Begging your pardon, sir," he said, when I had finished, "but I think
you are both right and wrong. Everything has two ends, hasn't it? You
say that it would be wicked for the Captain to get himself killed, there
being now so much money for him to live for, seeing that life is common
as dirt while money is precious, rare and hard to come by. It ain't
the kings we admire, it's their crowns; it ain't the millionaires,
it's their millions; but, after all, the millionaires don't take their
millions with them, for Providence, that, like Nature, hates waste,
knows that if they did they'd melt, so one man dead gives another bread,
as the saying goes, or p'raps I should say gingerbread in such cases.

"Still, on the whole, sir, I admit you are right as to the sinfulness of
wasting luck. But now comes the other end. I know this young lady what
the Captain was engaged to, which he never would have been if he had
taken my advice, since of all the fish-blooded little serpents that ever
I set eyes on she's the serpentest, though pretty, I allow. Solomon said
in his haste that an honest woman he had not found, but if he had met
the Honourable Miss--well, never mind her name--he'd have said it at
his leisure, and gone on saying it. Now, no one should never take back
a servant what has given notice and then says he's sorry, for if he does
the sorrow will be on the other side before it's all done; and much less
should he take back a _fianc�e_ (Quick said a 'finance'), on the whole,
he'd better drown himself--I tried it once, and I know. So that's the
tail of the business.

"But," he went on, "it has a couple of fins as well, like that eel beast
I caught in the Nile. One of them is that the Captain promised and vowed
to go through with this expedition, and if a man's got to die, he'd
better die honest without breaking his word. And the other is what
I said to you in London when I signed on, that he won't die a minute
before his time, and nothing won't happen to him, but what's bound
to happen, and therefore it ain't a ha'porth of use bothering about
anything, and that's where the East's well ahead of the West.

"And now, sir, I'll go and look after the camels and those half-bred
Jew boys what you call Abati, but I call rotten sneaks, for if they get
their thieving fingers into those canisters of picric salts, thinking
they're jam, as I found them trying to do yesterday, something may
happen in Egypt that'll make the Pharaohs turn in their graves and the
Ten Plagues look silly."

So, having finished his oration, Quick went, and in due course we
started for Mur.

The second incident that is perhaps worth recording was an adventure
that happened to us when we had completed about two of our four months'
journey.

After weeks of weary desert travel--if I remember right, it was exactly
a fortnight after the dog Pharaoh, of which I shall soon have plenty to
say, had come into Orme's possession--we reached an oasis called Zeu,
where I had halted upon my road down to Egypt. In this oasis, which,
although not large in extent, possesses springs of beautiful water and
groves of date-trees, we were, as it chanced, very welcome, since when
I was there before, I had been fortunate enough to cure its sheik of
an attack of ophthalmia and to doctor several of his people for various
ailments with good results. So, although I was burning to get forward, I
agreed with the others that it would be wise to accede to the request
of the leader of our caravan, a clever and resourceful, but to my mind
untrustworthy Abati of the name of Shadrach, and camp in Zeu for a week
or so to rest and feed our camels, which had wasted almost to nothing on
the scant herbage of the desert.

This Shadrach, I may add here, whom his companions, for some reason
unknown to me at that time, called the Cat, was remarkable for a triple
line of scars upon his face, which, he informed me, had been set there
by the claws of a lion. Now the great enemies of this people of Zeu were
lions, which at certain seasons of the year, I suppose when food grew
scarce, descended from the slopes of a range of hills that stretched
east and west at a distance of about fifty miles north of the oasis,
and, crossing the intervening desert, killed many of the Zeu sheep,
camels, and other cattle, and often enough any of the tribe whom they
could catch. As these poor Zeus practically possessed no firearms, they
were at the mercy of the lions, which grew correspondingly bold. Indeed,
their only resource was to kraal their animals within stone walls at
night and take refuge in their huts, which they seldom left between
sunset and dawn, except to replenish the fires that they lit to scare
any beast of prey which might be prowling through the town.

Though the lion season was now in full swing, as it happened, for the
first five days of our stay at Zeu we saw none of these great cats,
although in the darkness we heard them roaring in the distance. On the
sixth night, however, we were awakened by a sound of wailing, which came
from the village about a quarter of a mile away, and when we went out
at dawn to see what was the matter, were met by a melancholy procession
advancing from its walls. At the head of it marched the grey-haired old
chief, followed by a number of screaming women, who in their excitement,
or perhaps as a sign of mourning, had omitted to make their toilette,
and by four men, who carried something horrid on a wickerwork door.

Soon we learned what had happened. It seemed that hungry lions, two or
three of them, had broken through the palm-leaf roof of the hut of one
of the sheik's wives, she whose remains were stretched upon the door,
and, in addition to killing her, had actually carried off his son.
Now he came to implore us white men who had guns to revenge him on the
lions, which otherwise, having once tasted human flesh, would destroy
many more of his people.

Through an interpreter who knew Arabic, for not even Higgs could
understand the peculiar Zeu dialect, he explained in excited and
incoherent words that the beasts lay up among the sand-hills not very
far away, where some thick reeds grew around a little spring of water.
Would we not come out and kill them and earn the blessing of the Zeus?

Now I said nothing, for the simple reason that, having such big matters
on hand, although I was always fond of sport, I did not wish any of us
to be led off after these lions. There is a time to hunt and a time
to cease from hunting, and it seemed to me, except for the purposes of
food, that this journey of ours was the latter. However, as I expected,
Oliver Orme literally leaped at the idea. So did Higgs, who of late
had been practising with a rifle and began to fancy himself a shot.
He exclaimed loudly that nothing would give him greater pleasure,
especially as he was sure that lions were in fact cowardly and overrated
beasts.

From that moment I foreboded disaster in my heart. Still, I said I would
come too, partly because I had not shot a lion for many a day and had
a score to settle with those beasts which, it may be remembered, nearly
killed me on the Mountain of Mur, and partly because, knowing the desert
and also the Zeu people much better than either the Professor or Orme, I
thought that I might possibly be of service.

So we fetched our rifles and cartridges, to which by an afterthought we
added two large water-bottles, and ate a hearty breakfast. As we were
preparing to start, Shadrach, the leader of the Abati camel-drivers,
that man with the scarred face who was nicknamed the Cat, came up to me
and asked me whither we were going. I told him, whereon he said:

"What have you to do with these savages and their troubles, lords? If
a few of them are killed it is no matter, but as you should know, O
Doctor, if you wish to hunt lions there are plenty in that land whither
you travel, seeing that the lion is the fetish of the Fung and therefore
never killed. But the desert about Zeu is dangerous and harm may come to
you."

"Then accompany us," broke in the Professor, between whom and Shadrach
there was no love lost, "for, of course, with you we should be quite
safe."

"Not so," he replied, "I and my people rest; only madmen would go to
hunt worthless wild beasts when they might rest. Have we not enough of
the desert and its dangers as it is? If you knew all that I do of lions
you would leave them alone."

"Of the desert we have plenty also, but of shooting very little,"
remarked the Captain, who talked Arabic well. "Lie in your beds; we go
to kill the beasts that harass the poor people who have treated us so
kindly."

"So be it," said Shadrach with a smile that struck me as malicious. "A
lion made this"--pointing to the dreadful threefold scar upon his face.
"May the God of Israel protect you from lions. Remember, lords, that,
the camels being fresh again, we march the day after to-morrow, should
the weather hold, for if the wind blows on yonder sand-hills, no man may
live among them;" and, putting up his hand, he studied the sky carefully
from beneath its shadow, then, with a grunt, turned and vanished behind
a hut.

All this while Sergeant Quick was engaged at a little distance in
washing up the tin breakfast things, to all appearance quite unconscious
of what was going on. Orme called him, whereupon he advanced and
stood to attention. I remember thinking how curious he looked in those
surroundings--his tall, bony frame clothed in semi-military garments,
his wooden face perfectly shaved, his iron-grey hair neatly parted and
plastered down upon his head with pomade or some equivalent after the
old private soldier fashion, and his sharp ferret-like grey eyes taking
in everything.

"Are you coming with us, Sergeant?" asked Orme.

"Not unless ordered so to do, Captain. I like a bit of hunting well
enough, but, with all three officers away, some one should mount guard
over the stores and transport, so I think the dog Pharaoh and I had best
stop behind."

"Perhaps you are right, Sergeant, only tie Pharaoh up, or he'll follow
me. Well, what do you want to say? Out with it."

"Only this, Captain. Although I have served in three campaigns among
these here Arabians (to Quick, all African natives north of the Equator
were Arabians, and all south of it, niggers), I can't say I talk their
lingo well. Still, I made out that the fellow they call Cat don't like
this trip of yours, and, begging your pardon, Captain, whatever else Cat
may be, he ain't no fool."

"Can't help it, Sergeant. For one thing, it would never do to give in to
his fancies now."

"That's true, Captain. When once it's hoist, right or wrong, keep the
flag flying, and no doubt you'll come back safe and sound if you're
meant to."

Then, having relieved his mind, the Sergeant ran his eye over our
equipment to see that nothing had been forgotten, rapidly assured
himself that the rifles were in working order, reported all well,
and returned to his dishes. Little did any of us guess under what
circumstances we should next meet with him.

After leaving the town and marching for a mile or so along the oasis,
accompanied by a mob of the Zeus armed with spears and bows, we were
led by the bereaved chief, who also acted as tracker, out into the
surrounding sands. The desert here, although I remembered it well
enough, was different from any that we had yet encountered upon this
journey, being composed of huge and abrupt sand-hills, some of which
were quite three hundred feet high, separated from each other by deep,
wind-cut valleys.

For a distance, while they were within reach of the moist air of the
oasis, these sand-mountains produced vegetation of various sorts.
Presently, however, we passed out into the wilderness proper, and for
a while climbed up and down the steep, shifting slopes, till from the
crest of one of them the chief pointed out what in South Africa is
called a pan, or _vlei_, covered with green reeds, and explained by
signs that in these lay the lions. Descending a steep declivity, we
posted ourselves, I at the top, and Higgs and Orme a little way down
either side of this _vlei_. This done, we dispatched the Zeus to beat
it out towards us, for although the reeds grew thick along the course
of the underground water, it was but a narrow place, and not more than a
quarter of a mile in length.

Scarcely had the beaters entered the tall reeds, evidently with
trepidation, for a good many of them held back from the adventure,
when a sound of loud wailing informed us that something had happened. A
minute or two later we saw two of them bearing away what appeared to be
the mangled remains of the chief's son who had been carried off on the
previous night.

Just then, too, we saw something else, for half-way down the marsh
a great male lion broke cover, and began to steal off toward the
sand-hills. It was about two hundred yards from Higgs, who chanced to
be nearest to it, and, therefore, as any big-game hunter will know, for
practical purposes, far out of shot. But the Professor, who was quite
unaccustomed to this, or, indeed, any kind of sport, and, like all
beginners, wildly anxious for blood, lifted his rifle and fired, as he
might have done at a rabbit. By some marvellous accident the aim was
good, and the bullet from the express, striking the lion fair behind the
shoulder, passed through its heart, and knocked it over dead as a stone.

"By Jingo! Did you see that?" screamed Higgs in his delight. Then,
without even stopping to reload the empty barrel, he set off at the top
of his speed toward the prostrate beast, followed by myself and by Orme,
as fast as our astonishment would allow.

Running along the edge of the marsh, Higgs had covered about a hundred
yards of the distance, when suddenly, charging straight at him out of
the tall reeds, appeared a second lion, or rather lioness. Higgs wheeled
round, and wildly fired the left barrel of his rifle without touching
the infuriated brute. Next instant, to our horror, we saw him upon
his back, with the lioness standing over him, lashing her tail, and
growling.

We shouted as we ran, and so did the Zeus, although they made no attempt
at rescue, with the result that the lioness, instead of tearing Higgs
to pieces, turned her head confusedly first to one side and then to
the other. By now I, who had a long start of Orme, was quite close,
say within thirty yards, though fire I dared not as yet, fearing lest,
should I do so, I might kill my friend. At this moment the lioness,
recovering her nerves, squatted down on the prostrate Higgs, and though
he hit at her with his fists, dropped her muzzle, evidently with the
intention of biting him through the head.

Now I felt that if I hesitated any more, all would be finished. The
lioness was much longer than Higgs--a short, stout man--and her hind
quarters projected beyond his feet. At these I aimed rapidly, and,
pressing the trigger, next second heard the bullet clap upon the great
beast's hide. Up she sprang with a roar, one hind leg dangling, and
after a moment's hesitation, fled toward the sand-hill.

Now Orme, who was behind me, fired also, knocking up the dust beneath
the lioness's belly, but although he had more cartridges in his rifle,
which was a repeater, before either he or I could get another chance,
it vanished behind a mound. Leaving it to go where it would, we ran on
towards Higgs, expecting to find him either dead or badly mauled,
but, to our amazement and delight, up jumped the Professor, his blue
spectacles still on his nose, and, loading his rifle as he went, charged
away after the wounded lioness.

"Come back," shouted the Captain as he followed.

"Not for Joe!" yelled Higgs in his high voice. "If you fellows think
that I'm going to let a great cat sit on my stomach for nothing, you are
jolly well mistaken."

At the top of the first rise the long-legged Orme caught him, but
persuade him to return was more than he, or I when I arrived, could do.
Beyond a scratch on his nose, which had stung him and covered him
with blood, we found that he was quite uninjured, except in temper and
dignity. But in vain did we beg him to be content with his luck and the
honours he had won.

"Why?" he answered, "Adams wounded the beast, and I'd rather kill two
lions than one; also I have a score to square. But if you fellows are
afraid, you go home."

Well, I confess I felt inclined to accept the invitation, but Orme, who
was nettled, replied:

"Come, come; that settles the question, doesn't it? You must be shaken
by your fall, or you would not talk like that, Higgs. Look, here runs
the spoor--see the blood? Well, let's go steady and keep our wind.
We may come on her anywhere, but don't you try any more long distance
shots. You won't kill another lion at two hundred and fifty yards."

"All right," said Higgs, "don't be offended. I didn't mean anything,
except that I am going to teach that beast the difference between a
white man and a Zeu."

Then we began our march, following the blood tracks up and down the
steep sand-slopes. When we had been at it for about half-an-hour our
spirits were cheered by catching sight of the lioness on a ridge five
hundred yards away. Just then, too, some of the Zeus overtook us and
joined the hunt, though without zeal.

Meanwhile, as the day grew, the heat increased until it was so intense
that the hot air danced above the sand slopes like billions of midges,
and this although the sun was not visible, being hidden by a sort of
mist. A strange silence, unusual even in the desert, pervaded the earth
and sky; we could hear the grains of sand trickling from the ridges.
The Zeus, who accompanied us, grew uneasy, and pointed upward with their
spears, then behind toward the oasis of which we had long lost sight.
Finally, when we were not looking, they disappeared.

Now I would have followed them, guessing that they had some good reason
for this sudden departure. But Higgs refused to come, and Orme, in whom
his foolish taunt seemed still to rankle, only shrugged his shoulders
and said nothing.

"Let the black curs go," exclaimed the Professor as he polished his blue
spectacles and mopped his face. "They are a white-livered lot of sneaks.
Look! There she is, creeping off to the left. If we run round that
sand-hill we shall meet her."

So we ran round the sand-hill, but we did not meet her, although after
long hunting we struck the blood spoor afresh, and followed it for
several miles, first in this direction, and then in that, until Orme and
I wondered at Higgs's obstinacy and endurance. At length, when even he
was beginning to despair, we put up the lioness in a hollow, and fired
several shots at her as she hobbled over the opposing slope, one of
which hit her, for she rolled over, then picked herself up again,
roaring. As a matter of fact, it came from the Captain's rifle, but
Higgs, who, like many an inexperienced person was a jealous sportsman,
declared that it was his and we did not think it worth while to
contradict him.

On we toiled, and, just beyond the ridge, walked straight into the
lioness, sitting up like a great dog, so injured that she could do
nothing but snarl hideously and paw at the air.

"Now it is my turn, old lady," ejaculated Higgs, and straightway
missed her clean from a distance of five yards. A second shot was more
successful, and she rolled over, dead.

"Come on," said the exultant Professor, "and we'll skin her. She sat on
me, and I mean to sit on her for many a day."

So we began the job, although I, who had large experience of this
desert, and did not like the appearance of the weather, wished to leave
the beast where it lay and get back to the oasis. It proved long, for
I was the only one of us who had any practical knowledge of flaying
animals, and in that heat extremely unpleasant.

At length it was done, and, having doubled the hide over a rifle for two
of us to carry in turns, we refreshed ourselves from the water-bottles
(I even caught the Professor washing the blood off his face and hands
with some of the precious fluid). Then we started for the oasis, only to
discover, though we were all sure that we knew the way, that not one
of us had a slightest idea of its real direction. In the hurry of our
departure we had forgotten to bring a compass, and the sun, that would
have been our guide in ordinary circumstances, and to which we always
trusted in the open desert, was hidden by the curious haze that has been
described.

So, sensibly enough, we determined to return to the sand crest where we
had killed the lioness, and then trace our own footprints backward. This
seemed simple enough, for there, within half-a-mile, rose the identical
ridge.

We reached it, grumbling, for the lion-skin was heavy, only to discover
that it was a totally different ridge. Now, after reflection and
argument, we saw our exact mistake, and made for what was obviously the
real ridge--with the same result.

We were lost in the desert!

Back to chapter list of: Queen Sheba's Ring