The Treasure Of The Lake

Chapter XV Lake Mone and the Forest

After this tumultuous and exciting night I spent a very quiet time at Dabanda–town, where for the next ten days or so nothing happened that could be called remarkable.

Grateful enough I was to rest thus awhile, because our long journey had tired me out and I found it delightful to enjoy repose and leisure in a climate which although hot, was on the whole delicious. Still as I am an active–minded person, I took advantage of this pause to learn all I could about the Dabanda and their enemies, the Abanda, only to find that in the end I had really learned very little. Kumpana and other members of the Council came to see me frequently and talked with great openness upon many matters, but when I came to boil down their conversation, the residium was small enough.

I was told that Kaneke had escaped, as they said, "by making himself invisible", a feat in which no doubt the darkness helped him. Where he had gone, they were not sure. Possibly, they said, he had turned traitor and run away to the Abanda, though such a crime had never been heard of in their history. Or he might have returned towards the country where I had met him. Or possibly he was dead, killed by the curse of the Engoi, though they did not think this probable, for being himself a magician and one of the initiated, he knew how to fashion shields which would turn aside or delay the deadliest curses.

My inquiries upon other matters were almost equally unfruitful. I asked when the promised war would come and was informed that they did not know, but that no doubt it "would happen at the time appointed".

Nor would they tell me anything definite about the lady called Shadow, whom I had seen upon the altar platform. They were, they asserted, ignorant of what caused her to be fairer–skinned and more beautiful than other women; they only knew that for many generations the Lake–Dweller always had been so; it was a family gift. They admitted that she lived upon an island in the waters of Mone, in the company of certain virgins who dwelt with her in ancient buildings erected by an unknown and forgotten people, but of these buildings and the fashion of her life there they could say nothing, as none of them had ever visited the place, upon which it was unlawful for any man to set foot except the husband of the Engoi after marriage, and so on.

Thus it came about that at last I abandoned inquiries, which led to no result, for the very good reason that those whom I questioned were determined to tell me nothing, and fell back upon my own powers of observation, assisted by those of Hans. Being allowed to do so with an escort, I walked about the country, but saw nothing worthy of note.

Here and there were little villages inhabited by a handful of people, and round these some cultivated fields, also grazing grounds on which were herded cattle of a small breed and goats, but no true woolled sheep, creatures that would not thrive in so hot a district. The rest of the land, which was of extraordinary richness and could have supported ten times as many people, was given up to game of every variety except, as I have said, those that are harmful to man, which did not exist there.

The animals were wonderfully tame; indeed one could walk among them as Adam and Eve are reported to have done in the Garden of Eden. Again I asked Kumpana and others how this came about and was answered—because of the spell laid upon them, also because they were never molested or killed for food. I inquired why and was informed because they were holy, taboo in short, as Father Ambrose had heard from the slave in bygone years. Then for the first time I discovered that the Dabanda believed that after death the spirits of men, or those of certain men of their race, passed into the bodies of animals; also that sometimes this happened before birth.

It was for this reason that the beasts were not touched, since nobody likes to put a spear through his grandmother or his future child.

Next I referred to the elephants we had met outside their country, over which Kaneke seemed to have control, and inquired how this happened. The reply was that these beasts or their progenitors had once lived in Mone–land, whence they were driven, or "requested to leave" as Kumpana put it, because they did so much mischief, which accounted for the mystery.

My own view, of course, is (or, perhaps I should say, was) that the creatures were tame because no man ever harmed them, but I quote the story as an example of the superstitions of these star– worshippers. To many African tribes certain creatures are taboo, but never before or since have I heard of one to which all game was sacred, perchance because no other of small numbers has so rich a food supply that it needs to be supplemented by the flesh of wild animals. Among the Dabanda, however, this was so.

Their fertile soil, amply watered by rain and streams, needed but to be scratched to yield abundantly of corn and various roots and vegetables, while their numerous flocks and herds furnished all the milk and meat they required. Therefore there was no necessity for them to undertake the risk and toil of hunting, with the result that those beasts which they never killed, in the course of time naturally became both tame and sacred.

Having finished such investigation of the country as I was allowed to make—all approach to the lip of the crater was, I should explain, forbidden to me—I was seized with a great desire to explore the forest land and to look upon the sacred waters of the Lake Mone.

At first, when I mentioned this matter, Kumpana always turned the subject, but ultimately on the day of full moon, he said that if I so desired, he was ready to conduct me through the forest so that I might look upon the lake by moonlight, adding that it was not lawful for any man to enter this forest, much less to see the lake, in the daytime.

Of course I jumped at the offer, and shortly after moonrise we started, three of us, Kumpana, I, and Hans, whom at first Kumpana wished to leave behind. Indeed he only gave way on the point when I refused to go without him, while Hans on his part remarked, in infamous Arabic, that it has always been his custom to shoot anyone who tried to separate him from his master.

Within five minutes we found ourselves in a pit of blackness. That forest must have been dark at noonday, and at night, even when there was a full moon, it was like a coal–mine. We could only get along at all by help of some yards of the stem of a creeper of which Kumpana held one end. Then I grasped it at a distance of a few feet, and lastly came Hans holding to the other end.

It may be asked how Kumpana could see his way.

The answer is—that I do not know, but he led us quite briskly along some path that I was unable to perceive, which wound in and out through the trunks of giant trees, and skirted some that had fallen. Thus we walked for some hours, only seeing a ray of light now and then where a tree, dead and devoid of leaf, allowed it to reach the ground.

At length this forest ceased as suddenly as it had begun, and we stood upon the broad beach of the lake, most of which doubtless was covered in times of heavy rain.

Oh, how desolate was that great sheet of water glimmering in the bright moonlight, and yet how beautiful, set in its ring of forest land. Save for the soughing sound of wildfowl flighting far out of sight, and the occasional croak of a frog, it was utterly silent. Its lonesomeness was oppressive, almost terrible, for no beasts seemed to frequent it; nor did I see or hear so much as a fish stirring; well could I understand that a semi–savage race should deem it to be holy and haunted. Far away I could see the island on which the priestess Shadow was said to dwell, and noted that it was large, over a mile long as I judged, though how wide it may have been of course I did not know. What is more, I could distinguish buildings amidst the palms which grew upon this island.

Taking my glasses, very good ones of a German make which were fitted with a lens for use at night, I studied the place and saw at once that these building were large, massive, and apparently covered with sculpture. They seemed to be constructed of limestone or alabaster, or some other white rock such as marble, and before them stood gateways and towers, certain of which looked as though they were half in ruins. In architecture and style they were totally different from any that I knew of in Africa, not excepting the Zimbabwe ruins.

They had, however, a distinct resemblance to the remains of the temples of Old Egypt which at that time I had never seen except in pictures. There were what might be pylon gates; there were walls covered with great carvings; there were courts with pillars in them, for the end of one of these had fallen down or never been completed, and with the glasses I could see the columns.

The sight thrilled me. Was it possible that these mysterious buildings had been erected by people from Ancient Egypt, or even by some race that afterwards had migrated to Egypt, taking their architecture with them? Now that I come to think of it, the truncated pyramid outside the town where stood the stone altar upon which the fire burned, suggested that this might be so.

I turned to Kumpana and questioned him closely, but he could, or would, tell me very little. He repeated that he had never been on the island "in the flesh" for the reasons that he had already explained, but that he understood the buildings there to be tremendous, of a sort indeed to defy time for thousands upon thousands of years. There was no record of their construction, or of the people who had accomplished this mighty work and dwelt there. Not so much as a tradition survived. Time had eaten up their name and race, though perhaps the sculptures might tell something to anyone who learned enough to understand them. For the rest from generation to generation they had always been sacred to the Engoi and the home of her who for her day was known as Shadow, and her virgins.

"Can I not visit them?" I asked.

I saw a sarcastic smile upon Kumpana's wrinkled old face as he answered.

"Oh yes, Lord, if you are a very good swimmer. Only should you live to reach the island the women there will tear you to pieces."

Now since then I have often thought that this was rubbish, for surely women who lived in such an unnatural state would be glad to satisfy their curiosity by inspecting even so unfavourable a specimen of the male sex as myself, that is, if there were any truth at all in this tale of an African nunnery or Order of Virgins, like those of the Sun in Old Peru or the Vestals of Rome. At the time, however, all I thought of was the fate of the men who intruded upon the women's mysteries in ancient Greece, which was not one that I wished to share.

Today I am sorry that I did not show more pluck and have a try to reach that island, but then the adventure appalled me and our lost chances never return again. Not that I believed the story about the nuns, for I felt quite sure that if no one ever visited the island, these sometimes made a trip to the lake shore, as, according to Arkle, the Shadow herself had done. Kumpana's tale, however, was that their numbers were kept up by votaries who joined them every year from the mainland, picked girls of the age of twelve who were called "slaves of the Engoi".

While I was talking to him Hans, who had the sight of a vulture, said in Dutch,

"Look, Baas. The women are coming out of that big house."

Raising my glasses I saw that he was right, for a procession of white–robed figures emerged from under a gateway and walked in procession down to the water's edge. Here they must have entered boats, though, owing to the shadow of palms which grew upon the island shore, I could not see them do so, for presently three large canoes, each containing five or six women, appeared upon the tranquil bosom of the lake and were paddled slowly towards us. (Who made the canoes if no man ever visited the island? I wondered.) In much excitement I asked if they were coming to see me as I might not go to see them; but again Kumpana smiled and shook his head.

On they glided till they were within about two hundred yards from where we stood. Then they halted in a line and began a sweet and plaintive chant, of which in that great stillness the sound reached us clearly.

"What are they doing?" I asked. "Making an offering to the full moon?"

"Yes, Lord," Kumpana answered, "and I think something more."

He was right. There was "something more", for presently the women in the central canoe bent down and lifted a white draped form which they cast over the prow, so that it fell into the water with a large splash and vanished there.

"Is it a funeral?" I asked again.

"No doubt, Lord. See, they throw flowers on to the water where the body sank."

That was his reply, but something in his tone caused uncomfortable doubts to rise in my mind. What if the form wrapped in those white veils was quick—not dead? What if this rite was not one of burial but of sacrifice or execution? Here I may state that afterwards Hans swore that he saw the draped shape struggle, but as I did not, this may have been his imagination.

Still the business was eerie and made me shiver; so much so that I was not sorry when the women turned the canoe–heads islandwards, and departed still singing, or even when Kumpana said it was time for us to follow their example and go home. To my mind there was something weird, even unholy, about this sacred lake and island, where rose fantastic buildings of unknown age inhabited by night– haunting women who made offerings to the full moon, as the old Egyptians might have done, and I believe did to Nut or Hathor, ominous offerings shaped like a human corpse. And if this was so with these, the forest was even worse, as I have now to tell.

We entered its shapes guided as before by Kumpana with the help of the creeper–stem. Somehow it depressed me more even than it had done upon our journey lakewards, perhaps because my nerves were jangled by all that I have described. At any rate, I suppose in an instinctive endeavour to keep up my spirits, I entered into conversation with Hans behind me, speaking perhaps rather more loudly than was necessary as a kind of challenge to that overpowering silence.

I need not repeat our conversation in detail, or further than to say that it had to do with the Dabandas, their superstitions, and their pretentions to magical powers. Speaking in Dutch, and sometimes in English, so that Kumpana might not understand me, I criticized these in no measured terms, announcing my belief that they were rubbish and that the Dabanda priests and magicians were a set of infernal humbugs. Hans, always argumentative, combated this view and gave it as his opinion that the Dabanda, from Kaneke and Kumpana down, were particular favourites of the devil.

At this point Kumpana looked back and remarked somewhat sternly that it was well not to talk so loudly in the forest lest the spirits who had their home there should be angered.

Then I lost my temper and expressed entire disbelief in these spirits, asking him too well what he meant by trying to fool a white man with talk of tree–dwelling spirits, and whether he was referring to monkeys which we knew lived in such places and were reported sometimes to pelt travellers through them with sticks or nuts.

Apparently Kumpana did not appreciate the joke, for he looked back at me (I could see him because at the moment we were wading through a little swamp where no trees grew), with an expression on his face that I thought threatening, and said with cold courtesy:

"I pray you to be silent, Lord Macumazahn, and above all not to offer insults to the masters of this place."

This made me angrier than ever. Was I, a more or less educated Christian man, to have my mouth stopped with the mud of such heathen mumbo–jumbo stuff? Certainly not. Therefore I continued my argument with Hans, speaking more loudly than before. Hans replied with sarcasm which was the more irritating because it contained a grain of truth, that the real reason I talked thus was that I was afraid and therefore made a noise to shout down my fear, as children do. Then he went on with a garbled version of the story of the Witch of Endor who, he declared, I think erroneously, also lived in a wood, and to quote absurd remarks about witchcraft, which he attributed to my poor old father, adding his devout hope that he, "the reverend Predikant" as he called him, was keeping an eye upon us at that moment.

Truly I believe that there must have been some exciting quality in the air of that forest, exhaled perhaps by the foliage or flowers of certain trees or creepers that grew there, for at this point a kind of rage possessed me which caused me to rate and objurgate Hans, begging him to be good enough not to take my father's name in vain and put words in his mouth that he had never spoken, in order to justify his low, savage beliefs in ghosts and magic.

Just then we came to a spot where a great tree had fallen, breaking down others in its descent and allowing the moonlight to reach us for a few paces. As we went round the stump of this prostrate tree Kumpana turned again, saying:

"I have warned you and you will not listen. White stranger, I shall warn you no more."

I looked at the man and it struck me that his aspect had changed. No longer did he seem the little withered old fellow with shrewd eyes and a wrinkled, rather kindly, if cunning, face to whom I was accustomed. He appeared to have grown taller and to have acquired a fierce cast of countenance, while his eyes glowed like those of a lion in a cave.

Remembering that moonlight plays strange tricks and that his added height must be due to the fact that he was standing on a root of the fallen tree, I took no heed, but continued to wrangle with Hans like one who has had too much to drink, or is half under the influence of laughing–gas. Then we proceeded as before and presently were again enveloped in the utter gloom of the forest. Suddenly I was brought to a standstill by butting into the trunk of a tree, while Hans behind ran the muzzle of his rifle into my back.

"Where are you going, Kumpana?" I asked indignantly, but there was no answer.

Then to call his attention I pulled at the vine–like creeper that served us as a rope. It flew back and flicked me in the face; no one was holding it!

"Hans!" I exclaimed. "Kumpana has given us the slip."

"Yes, Baas," he answered. "I thought something of that sort would happen, Baas, if you would keep on spitting in the faces of the forest spirits, of which probably he is one himself."

I reflected a while and had an idea.

"Let us get back to the place where there is light, and think things over," I said.

"Yes, Baas," he answered. "Lead on, Baas, for I don't know the way and can't see our spoor in the dark."

I turned and started, with the most disastrous results. Before we had gone ten paces I crashed into another tree–trunk and hurt myself considerably. Circumventing this, presently I plunged into a piece of swampy ground and sank over my knees in tenacious mud, out of which Hans pulled me with difficulty. Once more we started with my boots full of water, but before I had taken five steps I became entangled in some thorny creeper which pricked me horribly. Freeing myself at length I stepped forward again, only to catch my foot in a root and fall on my face. Then I sat down and said things which I prefer not to record.

"It is very difficult, Baas, to find one's way in a big wood when it is quite dark," remarked Hans blandly. "What does the Baas wish to do now?"

"Stop here till it grows lighter, I suppose, if it ever does in this infernal place," I answered. Then I filled my pipe and finding that I had lost my matches, probably when I fell, I asked Hans for one.

He produced his cherished box, of which we had not too many left, and having first filled his own pipe, struck a match and handed it to me. As I took it I remembered noticing how steadily the flame burned in that utterly still air. Then I lifted the match to my pipe and as I did so something blew it out.

"Why did you do that?" I asked angrily of Hans. "Are you afraid of setting the forest on fire?"

"Yes, Baas—I mean no, Baas. I mean I didn't blow it out, Baas. A monkey blew it out; I saw its ugly face," replied Hans in a voice that suggested to me that he was frightened.

"Rubbish!" I exclaimed. "Give me another match."

He obeyed rather unwillingly and the same thing happened, no doubt because there was a current of air which passed between the tree– trunks in puffs.

Well, my desire to smoke suddenly departed and I told Hans that we must not waste any more matches in such a draughty spot. He agreed and set his back firmly against mine, explaining that he was cold, a palpable lie as the heat in that stifling place was so great that we both ran with perspiration.

"Now be still and don't talk; I am going to sleep. You can wake me up at dawn," I said.

Scarcely were the words out of my mouth, when distinctly I heard laughter, of a queer sort it is true, for it was singularly mirthless, but still eerie laughter which appeared to come first from one quarter and then another.

"That old fool, Kumpana, is making fun of us all the time," I said. "He shall laugh the wrong side of his mouth—if I catch him."

"Yes, Baas, only now he seems to be laughing on all sides of his face and from everywhere at once—" Hans began, but the rest of his remarks were lost in a peal of unholy merriment.

It came, as he said, "from everywhere at once", and seemingly even from above our heads.

"What the deuce is it—hyenas?" I asked.

"No, Baas, it's spooks, very bad spooks. Oh, Baas, why would you come into this accursed forest to look at a lake where they drown people at midnight, and then sneer at the devils of the place and call them monkeys? I am going to pray to your reverend father, Baas, hoping that he will hear me in the Place of Fires. For if he can't help us, no one can."

I did not answer him, for when Hans was in this superstitious mood argument was useless. Moreover I was trying to remember a very interesting lecture I had once heard about echoes and how these are multiplied by natural causes. The laughter had died away and I was just recovering the thread of the lecture when something else happened. A great stone or clod of earth fell with a thud close to me, and was followed presently by scores of similar missiles. None of these touched us, it is true, but they struck everywhere around and even against the trees above our heads.

After that I really cannot recall what followed, for between weariness, bewilderment, and exhaustion I grew confused, so that my mind became torpid. I remember all kinds of sounds, some of them very loud as though trees were crashing at a distance, and some of them small and sharp and close at hand, like the agonizing squeals idle children can produce with a slate–pencil. I remember a feeling on my face which suggested that my ears and nose were being pulled by tiny hands.

I remember, too, Hans announcing in a voice which was full of fear that gorillas with eyes of fire were dancing round us, though if so I never saw them. Lastly I remember that he fired his rifle, I suppose at one of the nightmare gorillas, or some other dream– beast, for the sound of it reverberated through the forest as though it had been a cannon–shot. Also in its blinding flash I thought I saw queer figures round us with fantastic faces.

Then I remember nothing more of all those noises and visions, which were more appropriate to a victim of delirium tremens, than to a strictly sober man lost in a wood, till at length I heard a gentle voice say in Arabic:

"Rise, Macumazahn. You have wandered from your path and the air beneath these trees is poisonous and gives bad dreams. I have been sent to guide you and your servant back to Dabanda–town."

I obeyed in a great hurry and presently felt a soft hand leading me I knew not where. Or perhaps I should say that I thought I felt it, for I dare say this was part of the nightmare from which doubtless I was suffering, and seemed to be led forward, Hans clinging to my coat–tails like a child to its mother's skirts, for how long I cannot tell. All I know is that just as the dawn was breaking we found ourselves upon the edge of the forest, for there in front of us was the truncated pyramid upon which burned the altar fire, and beyond it the town. Here in the shadow of the last trees our guide departed, or seemed to depart. I noted vaguely in the gloom that she was a woman wrapped in white and of a graceful figure.

"Farewell," she said with a suspicion of mockery in her voice that somehow I thought familiar, adding:

"You are very wise, Macumazahn, yet, I pray you, grow a little wiser, for then you will not mock at what you do not understand, and will learn that there are powers in the world known to its ancient peoples of which even white men have not heard."

As she spoke she stepped backwards and before I could answer her had vanished, although still out of the darkness of that accursed forest I could hear her musical voice repeating:

"Farewell, Macumazahn, and mock no more at the powers of the ancient peoples."

"Baas," said Hans as we staggered into our house, "I think that missie must have been White–Mouse come to life again."

"I don't want to know if she was White–Mouse, or Black–Mouse, or Piebald–Mouse, or no Mouse at all. What I want is to get out of this accursed country," I replied savagely, as I kicked off my boots and threw myself down upon the bed.