She and Allan: Chapter 1

Chapter 1

THE TALISMAN

I believe it was the old Egyptians, a very wise people, probably indeed
much wiser than we know, for in the leisure of their ample centuries
they had time to think out things, who declared that each individual
personality is made up of six or seven different elements, although the
Bible only allows us three, namely, body, soul, and spirit. The body
that the man or woman wore, if I understand their theory aright which
perhaps I, an ignorant person, do not, was but a kind of sack or fleshly
covering containing these different principles. Or mayhap it did not
contain them all, but was simply a house as it were, in which they lived
from time to time and seldom all together, although one or more of them
was present continually, as though to keep the place warmed and aired.

This is but a casual illustrative suggestion, for what right have
I, Allan Quatermain, out of my little reading and probably erroneous
deductions, to form any judgment as to the theories of the old
Egyptians? Still these, as I understand them, suffice to furnish me with
the text that man is not one, but many, in which connection it may be
remembered that often in Scripture he is spoken of as being the home of
many demons, seven, I think. Also, to come to another far-off example,
the Zulus talk of their witch-doctors as being inhabited by "a multitude
of spirits."

Anyhow of one thing I am quite sure, we are not always the same.
Different personalities actuate us at different times. In one hour
passion of this sort or the other is our lord; in another we are reason
itself. In one hour we follow the basest appetites; in another we hate
them and the spirit arising through our mortal murk shines within or
above us like a star. In one hour our desire is to kill and spare not;
in another we are filled with the holiest compassion even towards an
insect or a snake, and are ready to forgive like a god. Everything
rules us in turn, to such an extent indeed, that sometimes one begins to
wonder whether we really rule anything.

Now the reason of all this homily is that I, Allan, the most practical
and unimaginative of persons, just a homely, half-educated hunter and
trader who chances to have seen a good deal of the particular little
world in which his lot was cast, at one period of my life became the
victim of spiritual longings.

I am a man who has suffered great bereavements in my time such as have
seared my soul, since, perhaps because of my rather primitive and simple
nature, my affections are very strong. By day or night I can never
forget those whom I have loved and whom I believe to have loved me.

For you know, in our vanity some of us are apt to hold that certain
people with whom we have been intimate upon the earth, really did
care for us and, in our still greater vanity--or should it be called
madness?--to imagine that they still care for us after they have left
the earth and entered on some new state of society and surroundings
which, if they exist, inferentially are much more congenial than any
they can have experienced here. At times, however, cold doubts strike us
as to this matter, of which we long to know the truth. Also behind looms
a still blacker doubt, namely whether they live at all.

For some years of my lonely existence these problems haunted me day by
day, till at length I desired above everything on earth to lay them
at rest in one way or another. Once, at Durban, I met a man who was a
spiritualist to whom I confided a little of my perplexities. He laughed
at me and said that they could be settled with the greatest ease. All
I had to do was to visit a certain local medium who for a fee of one
guinea would tell me everything I wanted to know. Although I rather
grudged the guinea, being more than usually hard up at the time, I
called upon this person, but over the results of that visit, or rather
the lack of them, I draw a veil.

My queer and perhaps unwholesome longing, however, remained with me and
would not be abated. I consulted a clergyman of my acquaintance, a good
and spiritually-minded man, but he could only shrug his shoulders and
refer me to the Bible, saying, quite rightly I doubt not, that with what
it reveals I ought to be contented. Then I read certain mystical
books which were recommended to me. These were full of fine words,
undiscoverable in a pocket dictionary, but really took me no forwarder,
since in them I found nothing that I could not have invented myself,
although while I was actually studying them, they seemed to convince
me. I even tackled Swedenborg, or rather samples of him, for he is very
copious, but without satisfactory results. [Ha!--JB]

Then I gave up the business.

Some months later I was in Zululand and being near the Black Kloof
where he dwelt, I paid a visit to my acquaintance of whom I have
written elsewhere, the wonderful and ancient dwarf, Zikali, known as
"The-Thing-that-should-never-have-been-born," also more universally
among the Zulus as "Opener-of-Roads." When we had talked of many things
connected with the state of Zululand and its politics, I rose to leave
for my waggon, since I never cared for sleeping in the Black Kloof if it
could be avoided.

"Is there nothing else that you want to ask me, Macumazahn?" asked
the old dwarf, tossing back his long hair and looking at--I had almost
written through--me.

I shook my head.

"That is strange, Macumazahn, for I seem to see something written on
your mind--something to do with spirits."

Then I remembered all the problems that had been troubling me, although
in truth I had never thought of propounding them to Zikali.

"Ah! it comes back, does it?" he exclaimed, reading my thought. "Out
with it, then, Macumazahn, while I am in a mood to answer, and before
I grow tired, for you are an old friend of mine and will so remain till
the end, many years hence, and if I can serve you, I will."

I filled my pipe and sat down again upon the stool of carved red-wood
which had been brought for me.

"You are named 'Opener-of-Roads,' are you not, Zikali?" I said.

"Yes, the Zulus have always called me that, since before the days of
Chaka. But what of names, which often enough mean nothing at all?"

"Only that _I_ want to open a road, Zikali, that which runs across the
River of Death."

"Oho!" he laughed, "it is very easy," and snatching up a little assegai
that lay beside him, he proffered it to me, adding, "Be brave now and
fall on that. Then before I have counted sixty the road will be wide
open, but whether you will see anything on it I cannot tell you."

Again I shook my head and answered,

"It is against our law. Also while I still live I desire to know whether
I shall meet certain others on that road after my time has come to cross
the River. Perhaps you who deal with spirits, can prove the matter to
me, which no one else seems able to do."

"Oho!" laughed Zikali again. "What do my ears hear? Am I, the poor Zulu
cheat, as you will remember once you called me, Macumazahn, asked
to show that which is hidden from all the wisdom of the great White
People?"

"The question is," I answered with irritation, "not what you are asked
to do, but what you can do."

"That I do not know yet, Macumazahn. Whose spirits do you desire to see?
If that of a woman called Mameena is one of them, I think that perhaps I
whom she loved----"[*]

[*] For the history of Mameena see the book called "Child of
Storm."--Editor.

"She is _not_ one of them, Zikali. Moreover, if she loved you, you paid
back her love with death."

"Which perhaps was the kindest thing I could do, Macumazahn, for reasons
that you may be able to guess, and others with which I will not trouble
you. But if not hers, whose? Let me look, let me look! Why, there seems
to be two of them, head-wives, I mean, and I thought that white men only
took one wife. Also a multitude of others; their faces float up in the
water of your mind. An old man with grey hair, little children, perhaps
they were brothers and sisters, and some who may be friends. Also very
clear indeed that Mameena whom you do not wish to see. Well, Macumazahn,
this is unfortunate, since she is the only one whom I can show you,
or rather put you in the way of finding. Unless indeed there are other
Kaffir women----"

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I mean, Macumazahn, that only black feet travel on the road which I can
open; over those in which ran white blood I have no power."

"Then it is finished," I said, rising again and taking a step or two
towards the gate.

"Come back and sit down, Macumazahn. I did not say so. Am I the only
ruler of magic in Africa, which I am told is a big country?"

I came back and sat down, for my curiosity, a great failing with me, was
excited.

"Thank you, Zikali," I said, "but I will have no dealings with more of
your witch-doctors."

"No, no, because you are afraid of them; quite without reason,
Macumazahn, seeing that they are all cheats except myself. I am the last
child of wisdom, the rest are stuffed with lies, as Chaka found out when
he killed every one of them whom he could catch. But perhaps there might
be a white doctor who would have rule over white spirits."

"If you mean missionaries----" I began hastily.

"No, Macumazahn, I do not mean your praying men who are cast in one
mould and measured with one rule, and say what they are taught to say,
not thinking for themselves."

"Some of them think, Zikali."

"Yes, and then the others fall on them with big sticks. The real priest
is he to whom the Spirit comes, not he who feeds upon its wrappings, and
speaks through a mask carved by his father's fathers. I am a priest like
that, which is why all my fellowship have hated me."

"If so, you have paid back their hate, Zikali, but cease to cast round
the lion, like a timid hound, and tell me what you mean. Of whom do you
speak?"

"That is the trouble, Macumazahn. I do not know. This lion, or rather
lioness, lies hid in the caves of a very distant mountain and I have
never seen her--in the flesh."

"Then how can you talk of what you have never seen?"

"In the same way, Macumazahn, that your priests talk of what they have
never seen, because they, or a few of them, have knowledge of it. I
will tell you a secret. All seers who live at the same time, if they are
great, commune with each other because they are akin and their spirits
meet in sleep or dreams. Therefore I know of a mistress of our craft, a
very lioness among jackals, who for thousands of years has lain sleeping
in the northern caves and, humble though I am, she knows of me."

"Quite so," I said, yawning, "but perhaps, Zikali, you will come to the
point of the spear. What of her? How is she named, and if she exists
will she help me?"

"I will answer your question backwards, Macumazahn. I think that she
will help you if you help her, in what way I do not know, because
although witch-doctors sometimes work without pay, as I am doing now,
Macumazahn, witch-doctoresses never do. As for her name, the only one
that she has among our company is 'Queen,' because she is the first of
all of them and the most beauteous among women. For the rest I can tell
you nothing, except that she has always been and I suppose, in this
shape or in that, will always be while the world lasts, because she has
found the secret of life unending."

"You mean that she is immortal, Zikali," I answered with a smile.

"I do not say that, Macumazahn, because my little mind cannot shape the
thought of immortality. But when I was a babe, which is far ago, she had
lived so long that scarce would she knew the difference between then
and now, and already in her breast was all wisdom gathered. I know it,
because although, as I have said, we have never seen each other, at
times we walk together in our sleep, for thus she shares her loneliness,
and I think, though this may be but a dream, that last night she told me
to send you on to her to seek an answer to certain questions which you
would put to me to-day. Also to me she seemed to desire that you should
do her a service; I know not what service."

Now I grew angry and asked,

"Why does it please you to fool me, Zikali, with such talk as this? If
there is any truth in it, show me where the woman called _Queen_ lives
and how I am to come to her."

The old wizard took up the little assegai which he had offered to me and
with its blade raked our ashes from the fire that always burnt in front
of him. While he did so, he talked to me, as I thought in a random
fashion, perhaps to distract my attention, of a certain white man whom
he said I should meet upon my journey and of his affairs, also of other
matters, none of which interested me much at the time. These ashes
he patted down flat and then on them drew a map with the point of his
spear, making grooves for streams, certain marks for bush and forest,
wavy lines for water and swamps and little heaps for hills.

When he had finished it all he bade me come round the fire and study the
picture across which by an after-thought he drew a wandering furrow with
the edge of the assegai to represent a river, and gathered the ashes in
a lump at the northern end to signify a large mountain.

"Look at it well, Macumazahn," he said, "and forget nothing, since if
you make this journey and forget, you die. Nay, no need to copy it in
that book of yours, for see, I will stamp it on your mind."

Then suddenly he gathered up the warm ashes in a double handful and
threw them into my face, muttering something as he did so and adding
aloud,

"There, now you will remember."

"Certainly I shall," I answered, coughing, "and I beg that you will not
play such a joke upon me again."

As a matter of fact, whatever may have been the reason, I never forgot
any detail of that extremely intricate map.

"That big river must be the Zambesi," I stuttered, "and even then the
mountain of your Queen, if it be her mountain, is far away, and how can
I come there alone?"

"I don't know, Macumazahn, though perhaps you might do so in company. At
least I believe that in the old days people used to travel to the place,
since I have heard a great city stood there once which was the heart of
a mighty empire."

Now I pricked up my ears, for though I believed nothing of Zikali's
story of a wonderful Queen, I was always intensely interested in past
civilisations and their relics. Also I knew that the old wizard's
knowledge was extensive and peculiar, however he came by it, and I did
not think that he would lie to me in this matter. Indeed to tell the
truth, then and there I made up my mind that if it were in any way
possible, I would attempt this journey.

"How did people travel to the city, Zikali?"

"By sea, I suppose, Macumazahn, but I think that you will be wise not to
try that road, since I believe that on the sea side the marshes are now
impassable and you will be safer on your feet."

"You want me to go on this adventure, Zikali. Why? I know you never do
anything without motive."

"Oho! Macumazahn, you are clever and see deeper into the trunk of a tree
than most. Yes, I want you to go for three reasons. First, that you
may satisfy your soul on certain matters and I would help you to do so.
Secondly, because I want to satisfy mine, and thirdly, because I know
that you will come back safe to be a prop to me in things that will
happen in days unborn. Otherwise I would have told you nothing of this
story, since it is necessary to me that you should remain living beneath
the sun."

"Have done, Zikali. What is it that you desire?"

"Oh! a great deal that I shall get, but chiefly two things, so with
the rest I will not trouble you. First I desire to know to know whether
these dreams of mine of a wonderful white witch-doctoress, or witch, and
of my converse with her are indeed more than dreams. Next I would learn
whether certain plots of mine at which I have worked for years, will
succeed."

"What plots, Zikali, and how can my taking a distant journey tell you
anything about them?"

"You know them well enough, Macumazahn; they have to do with the
overthrow of a Royal House that has worked me bitter wrong. As to how
your journey can help me, why, thus. You shall promise to me to ask
of this Queen whether Zikali, Opener-of-Roads, shall triumph or be
overthrown in that on which he has set his heart."

"As you seem to know this witch so well, why do you not ask her
yourself, Zikali?"

"To ask is one thing, Macumazahn. To get an answer is another. I have
asked in the watches of the night, and the reply was, 'Come hither and
perchance I will tell you.' 'Queen,' I said, 'how can I come save in the
spirit, who am an ancient and a crippled dwarf scarcely able to stand
upon my feet?'

"'Then send a messenger, Wizard, and be sure that he is white, for of
black savages I have seen more than enough. Let him bear a token also
that he comes from you and tell me of it in your sleep. Moreover let
that token be something of power which will protect him on the journey.'

"Such is the answer that comes to me in my dreams, Macumazahn."

"Well, what token will you give me, Zikali?"

He groped about in his robe and produced a piece of ivory of the size
of a large chessman, that had a hole in it, through which ran a plaited
cord of the stiff hairs from an elephant's tail. On this article, which
was of a rusty brown colour, he breathed, then having whispered to it
for a while, handed it to me.

I took the talisman, for such I guessed it to be, idly enough, held it
to the light to examine it, and started back so violently that almost
I let it fall. I do not quite know why I started, but I think it was
because some influence seemed to leap from it to me. Zikali started also
and cried out,

"Have a care, Macumazahn. Am I young that I can bear bring dashed to the
ground?"

"What do you mean?" I asked, still staring at the thing which I
perceived to be a most wonderfully fashioned likeness of the old dwarf
himself as he appeared before me crouched upon the ground. There were
the deepset eyes, the great head, the toad-like shape, the long hair,
all.

"It is a clever carving, is it not, Macumazahn? I am skilled in that
art, you know, and therefore can judge of carving."

"Yes, I know," I answered, bethinking me of another statuette of his
which he had given to me on the morrow of the death of her from whom it
was modelled. "But what of the thing?"

"Macumazahn, it has come down to me through the ages. As you may
have heard, all great doctors when they die pass on their wisdom and
something of their knowledge to another doctor of spirits who is still
living on the earth, that nothing may be lost, or as little as possible.
Also I have learned that to such likenesses as these may be given the
strength of him or her from whom they were shaped."

Now I bethought me of the old Egyptians and their _Ka_ statues of which
I had read, and that these statues, magically charmed and set in the
tombs of the departed, were supposed to be inhabited everlastingly by
the Doubles of the dead endued with more power even than ever these
possessed in life. But of this I said nothing to Zikali, thinking that
it would take too much explanation, though I wondered very much how he
had come by the same idea.

"When that ivory is hung over your heart, Macumazahn, where you must
always wear it, learn that with it goes the strength of Zikali; the
thought that would have been his thought and the wisdom that is his
wisdom, will be your companions, as much as though he walked at your
side and could instruct you in every peril. Moreover north and south and
east and west this image is known to men who, when they see it, will
bow down and obey, opening a road to him who wears the medicine of the
Opener-of-Roads."

"Indeed," I said, smiling, "and what is this colour on the ivory?"

"I forget, Macumazahn, who have had it a great number of years, ever
since it descended to me from a forefather of mine, who was fashioned in
the same mould as I am. It looks like blood, does it not? It is a pity
that Mameena is not still alive, since she whose memory was so excellent
might have been able to tell you," and as he spoke, with a motion that
was at once sure and swift, he threw the loop of elephant hair over my
head.

Hastily I changed the subject, feeling that after his wont this old
wizard, the most terrible man whom ever I knew, who had been so much
concerned with the tragic death of Mameena, was stabbing at me in some
hidden fashion.

"You tell me to go on this journey," I said, "and not alone. Yet for
companion you give me only an ugly piece of ivory shaped as no man ever
was," here I got one back at Zikali, "and from the look of it, steeped
in blood, which ivory, if I had my way, I would throw into the camp
fire. Who, then, am I to take with me?"

"Don't do that, Macumazahn--I mean throw the ivory into the fire--since
I have no wish to burn before my time, and if you do, you who have worn
it might burn with me. At least certainly you would die with the magic
thing and go to acquire knowledge more quickly than you desire. No, no,
and do not try to take it off your neck, or rather try if you will."

I did try, but something seemed to prevent me from accomplishing my
purpose of giving the carving back to Zikali as I wished to do. First
my pipe got in the way of my hand, then the elephant hairs caught in the
collar of my coat; then a pang of rheumatism to which I was accustomed
from an old lion-bite, developed of a sudden in my arm, and lastly I
grew tired of bothering about the thing.

Zikali, who had been watching my movements, burst out into one of his
terrible laughs that seemed to fill the whole kloof and to re-echo from
its rocky walls. It died away and he went on, without further reference
to the talisman or image.

"You asked whom you were to take with you, Macumazahn. Well, as to this
I must make inquiry of those who know. Man, my medicines!"

From the shadows in the hut behind darted out a tall figure carrying
a great spear in one hand and in the other a catskin bag which with a
salute he laid down at the feet of his master. This salute, by the way,
was that of a Zulu word which means "Lord" or "Home" of Ghosts.

Zikali groped in the bag and produced from it certain knuckle-bones.

"A common method," he muttered, "such as every vulgar wizard uses, but
one that is quick and, as the matter concerned is small, will serve my
turn. Let us see now, whom you shall take with you, Macumazahn."

Then he breathed upon the bones, shook them up in his thin hands and
with a quick turn of the wrist, threw them into the air. After this
he studied them carefully, where they lay among the ashes which he had
raked out of the fire, those that he had used for the making of his map.

"Do you know a man named Umslopogaas, Macumazahn, the chief of a tribe
that is called The People of the Axe, whose titles of praise are Bulalio
or the Slaughterer, and Woodpecker, the latter from the way he handles
his ancient axe? He is a savage fellow, but one of high blood and
higher courage, a great captain in his way, though he will never come to
anything, save a glorious death--in your company, I think, Macumazahn."
(Here he studied the bones again for a while.) "Yes, I am sure, in your
company, though not upon this journey."

"I have heard of him," I answered cautiously. "It is said in the land
that he is a son of Chaka, the great king of the Zulus."

"Is it, Macumazahn? And is it said also that he was the slayer of
Chaka's brother, Dingaan, also the lover of the fairest woman that the
Zulus have ever seen, who was called Nada the Lily? Unless indeed a
certain Mameena, who, I seem to remember, was a friend of yours, may
have been even more beautiful?"

"I know nothing of Nada the Lily," I answered.

"No, no, Mameena, 'the Waiting Wind,' has blown over her fame, so
why should you know of one who has been dead a long while? Why also,
Macumazahn, do you always bring women into every business? I begin to
believe that although you are so strict in a white man's fashion, you
must be too fond of them, a weakness which makes for ruin to any man.
Well, now, I think that this wolf-man, this axe-man, this warrior,
Umslopogaas should be a good fellow to you on your journey to visit the
white witch, Queen--another woman by the way, Macumazahn, and
therefore one of whom you should be careful. Oh! yes, he will come with
you--because of a man called Lousta and a woman named Monazi, a wife of
his who hates him and does--not hate Lousta. I am almost sure that he
will come with you, so do not stop to ask questions about him."

"Is there anyone else?" I inquired.

Zikali glanced at the bones again, poking them about in the ashes with
his toe, then replied with a yawn,

"You seem to have a little yellow man in your service, a clever snake
who knows how to creep through grass, and when to strike and when to lie
hidden. I should take him too, if I were you."

"You know well that I have such a man, Zikali, a Hottentot named Hans,
clever in his way but drunken, very faithful too, since he loved my
father before me. He is cooking my supper in the waggon now. Are there
to be any others?"

"No, I think you three will be enough, with a guard of soldiers from the
People of the Axe, for you will meet with fighting and a ghost or two.
Umslopogaas has always one at his elbow named Nada, and perhaps you have
several. For instance, there was a certain Mameena whom I always seem to
feel about me when you are near, Macumazahn.

"Why, the wind is rising again, which is odd on so still an evening.
Listen to how it wails, yes, and stirs your hair, though mine hangs
straight enough. But why do I talk of ghosts, seeing that you travel to
seek other ghosts, white ghosts, beyond my ken, who can only deal with
those who were black?

"Good-night, Macumazahn, good-night. When you return from visiting the
white Queen, that Great One beneath those feet I, Zikali, who am also
great in my way, am but a grain of dust, come and tell me her answer to
my question.

"Meanwhile, be careful always to wear that pretty little image which I
have given you, as a young lover sometimes wears a lock of hair cut from
the head of some fool-girl that he thinks is fond of him. It will bring
you safety and luck, Macumazahn, which, for the most part, is more than
the lock of hair does to the lover. Oh! it is a strange world, full of
jest to those who can see the strings that work it. I am one of them,
and perhaps, Macumazahn, you are another, or will be before all is
done--or begun.

"Good-night, and good fortune to you on your journeyings, and,
Macumazahn, although you are so fond of women, be careful not to fall in
love with that white Queen, because it would make others jealous; I mean
some who you have lost sight of for a while, also I think that being
under a curse of her own, she is not one whom you can put into your
sack. _Oho! Oho-ho!_ Slave, bring me my blanket, it grows cold, and my
medicine also, that which protects me from the ghosts, who are thick
to-night. Macumazahn brings them, I think. _Oho-ho!_"

I turned to depart but when I had gone a little way Zikali called me
back again and said, speaking very low,

"When you meet this Umslopogaas, as you will meet him, he who is called
the Woodpecker and the Slaughterer, say these words to him,

"'A bat has been twittering round the hut of the Opener-of-Roads, and
to his ears it squeaked the name of a certain Lousta and the name of a
woman called Monazi. Also it twittered another greater name that may not
be uttered, that of an elephant who shakes the earth, and said that this
elephant sniffs the air with his trunk and grows angry, and sharpens his
tusks to dig a certain Woodpecker out of his hole in a tree that grows
near the Witch Mountain. Say, too, that the Opener-of-Roads thinks that
this Woodpecker would be wise to fly north for a while in the company of
one who watches by night, lest harm should come to a bird that pecks at
the feet of the great and chatters of it in his nest.'"

Then Zikali waved his hand and I went, wondering into what plot I had
stumbled.

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