The Treasure Of The Lake

Chapter VIII The Elephant Dance

Never shall I forget that amazing scene, bitten as it is into the tablets of my mind by the acids of fear and wonder. Imagine it! The wide plain or lake bottom surrounded upon all sides by the black ring of the forest and plunged in a silence so complete that it seemed almost audible. Then there, just beneath us, the gigantic and ancient elephant—for it was ancient, as I could see by various signs, standing motionless and in an attitude which gave a strange impression of melancholy, such melancholy as might possess an aged man who, revisiting the home of his youth, finds it a desolation.

"Baas," whispered Hans, "if you shift a little more to the left you might get him behind the ear and shoot him dead."

"I don't want to shoot him," I replied, "and if you fire I will break your neck."

Hans, I know, thought I made this answer because my nerve was shaken and I feared lest I should bungle the job. But as a matter of fact, it was nothing of the sort. For some unexplained reason I would as soon have committed a murder as shoot that elephant, which had just spared my life when I lay at its mercy.

Low as we spoke, I suppose that the bull must have heard us. At any rate it turned its head and looked in our direction, which caused me to fear lest I should be obliged to fire after all. It was not so, however, for having apparently satisfied itself that we were harmless, once more it fell into contemplation, which must have lasted for another two minutes.

Then suddenly it lifted its trunk and emitted a call or cry louder and more piercing than that of any trumpet. Thrice it repeated this call, and for the third time as its echoes died the silence of the night was broken by a terrifying response. From every part of the surrounding ring of forest rose the sound of elephants trumpeting in unison, hundreds of elephants, or so it seemed.

"Allemagter! Baas," whispered Hans in a shaky voice, "that old spook beast is sending for his friends to kill us. Let us run, Baas."

"Where to, seeing that they are all round us?" I asked faintly, adding: "If he wanted to kill us he could do so for himself. Lie still. It is our only chance; and tell those hunters behind to stop praying so loudly and to unload their rifles, lest they should be tempted to fire."

Hans crept away to the edge of the pool, where the dripping Tom and Jerry were putting up audible petitions in the extremity of their terror. Then watching, I saw the most marvellous sight in my hunting experience. As though they were the trained beasts of India or of the ancient kings, marching in endless lines and ordered ranks, appeared three vast herds of elephants. From the forest in front of us, from that to our right and that to our left, and from aught I know from behind also, though these I could not see, they came out into the moonlit open space, and marched towards the mound with their regulated tread, which shook the earth.

Perhaps I saw double. Perhaps my nerves were so shaken that I could not estimate numbers, but I should be prepared to swear that there were at least a thousand of them, and afterwards the others declared that there were many more. In each troop the bulls marched first, the moonlight shining on their white tusks. Then came the cows with calves running at their side, and last of all the half–grown beasts, sorted seemingly according to their size.

So Kaneke had not lied. This was the meeting of the elephants which he had prophesied we should see. Only how in Heaven's name did he know anything about it? For a few moments I began to think that he was really what Hans and the hunters believed him to be— some kind of magician who perhaps had sent us hither that we might be torn to pieces or trampled to death.

Then I forgot all about Kaneke in the immediate interest of that wild and wonderous spectacle. The herds arrived. They arranged themselves in a semicircle, deep, curved lines of them, in front to the mound upon which stood the ancient bull. For a while they were still, then as though at a signal, they knelt down. Yes, even the calves knelt, with their trunks stretched out straight upon the ground in front of them.

"They do homage to their king, Baas," whispered Hans, and so in truth it seemed to be.

The giant bull trumpeted once, as though in acknowledgment of the salute. The herds rose, and there followed a marvellous performance that might have been taken for a dream. The bulls massed themselves together in squadrons, as it were, and charged past the mound from right to left, trumpeting as they charged. After them came the regiments of the cows, and lastly those of the partly grown beasts, all trumpeting; even the little calves set up piercing squeals. They re–formed, but not as they were before. For now the bulls faced the cows and the rest. Then began a kind of dance, so swift and intricate that I could not follow it, a kind of unearthly quadrille it seemed to be, in which the males sought out the females, or it may have been the other way about, and they caressed each other with their trunks. Perhaps it was some kind of ceremony of betrothal, I do not know.

It ceased as suddenly as it had begun. The herds massed themselves as at first, then wheeled and marched off in their three divisions back to the forest whence they came. Soon all were gone except the old king–bull, who still stood silent just beneath us, majesty and loneliness personified.

"Do you think he is going to stop here always, Baas?" whispered Hans. "Because if so, really it might be best to shoot him now that the others have gone away."

"Be silent," I answered; "he may understand you."

Yes, my nerves were so upset by what I had seen that I was fool enough to talk thus.

"Yes, Baas," assented Hans in his hoarse whisper, "I forgot that; he may, so I didn't really mean what I seemed to say about shooting him. It was only a joke. Also it might bring the others back."

At that moment, to my horror, the king–bull turned and walked straight up to us. I couldn't have shot him if I had wished, because as I had made the others do, I had unloaded my rifle to keep myself out of temptation. Also I did not wish; I was too much afraid. He stood still, contemplating us, a giant of a creature with a mild and meditative eye. Then he lifted his trunk and I muttered a prayer, thinking that all was over. But no, he only placed the tip of it against the middle of Hans, who somehow had got to his knees, and let off one fearful scream accompanied by such a blast of air that it blew Hans backwards down the slope on to the recumbent forms of Tom and Jerry.

This done, the bull turned again, walked down the mound and out across the plain, a picture of stately solitude till at last he vanished in the dark shadow of the forest.

When he was lost to sight I went down to the pool and drank, for the perspiration induced by terror seemed to have dried me up. Then I looked at my three retainers, who were huddled in a heap on the edge of the pool.

"I am dead," muttered Hans, who was lying on the other two. "That Satan of an elephant has blown out my inside. It has gone; there is nothing left but my backbone."

"No wonder, as you cursed him and wanted Macumazahn to shoot him," muttered Tom. "For did not that afreet of a beast cast us into the pool for nothing at all?"

"Whether you have a stomach or not, be pleased to cease sitting on my face, yellow man, or I will make my teeth meet in you," gurgled Jerry.

Thus they went on, and so ridiculous were the aspect and the talk of the three of them, that at last I burst out laughing, which relieved my nerves and did me good. Then I lit my pipe, hoping that those elephants would not see the light or smell the tobacco down in that hole, and not caring much if they did, for I seemed to desire a smoke more than anything on earth.

"Let us talk," I said to the others. "What are we to do?"

"Get out of this, master, and at once," said Tom. "That beast is not an elephant, it is an evil spirit in the shape of one. Yes, I who am a Christian and have renounced all superstitions, say that it is an evil spirit."

"Little Holes is quite right," broke in Jerry. "If it had been an elephant, it would have killed us, but being an evil spirit it threw us into the water."

"Fool!" grunted Hans, rubbing his middle, "do you make an evil spirit better than an elephant? In truth, as the Baas knows, the bull is neither; it is a chief or a king who once lived in this place as a man, and now had turned into an elephant, and all those other beasts whom you did not see, being so much afraid, were once his people, but now also are elephants. That is quite clear to the Baas, and to me who am a better Christian than either of you. Still, I agree with you that the sooner we see the last of this haunted place, the better it will be."

Thus they wrangled on till they were tired. When they had finished I said:

"Here we stop till dawn breaks. Do you three climb to the top of this hole and keep watch. I am tired and am going to sleep. Wake me if you see the elephants coming back."

So I lay down and slept, or at any rate dozed, which, as I have said—thank Heaven!—I can do at any time after any experience. I am a fatalist, one who does not trouble as to what is to happen in the future, because I know it must happen and that worry is therefore useless. If the elephants were going to kill me, I could not help it; meanwhile I would get some rest.

So I slept, and dreamed that I saw this place standing in the middle of a lake and full of people. They were tall, dark men and women, the latter decently dressed in garments that were dyed with various colours. The mound was covered with huts that were thatched with reeds, and wooden jetties, to which canoes were tied, ran out into the surrounding shallow water. On the broad surface of the lake were other canoes, each containing one or two men who were engaged in fishing, while round this lake lay the dense forest, as it did today. In my dream the hollow in which now was the pool by which I lay, was thatched over, the roof being supported by carved posts of black wood. They were very curious carvings, but when I woke up I could not remember their details.

There was a meeting going on in this large public gathering place, and a man who wore a cloak and cap made of feathers, the chief, I take it, had risen from a chair fashioned of four tusks of ivory with a seat of twisted rushes, and was addressing the assembly, apparently upon some important subject, for his audience of old men seemed to be much impressed. He beat his breast and put some question to them. Then, while they debated in low tones as to their answer, I woke up to find that it was light.

Of course this dream was all nonsense born of imaginings as to what might have been the previous history of that place, and I paid no attention to it. Still, it fitted in well enough with the surroundings, so well that had I been mystically minded, I might have been inclined to believe that it did really portray some incident of past history that had happened when this mound was an island in a lake inhabited by a primeval people who dwelt there in order to be safe from the attacks of enemies.

Hans, like myself, had been asleep, but the hunters, who were far too frightened to think of shutting their eyes, reported that they had neither seen nor heard any elephants.

"Then let's go off home, before they come back," I said cheerfully.

So I took a drink of water, ate a handful of watercress, which I have always found a very sustaining herb, and away we started; glad enough to see the last of that haunted mount, as Hans called it. While we were on the plain we felt quite merry, at least Hans and I did, although it was strange to look at that lonesome lake bottom and think of the scene that had been enacted within a few hours, so strange, indeed, that I was almost tempted to believe we had been the victims of a vision of the night, induced by Kaneke's tale as to the great herds of elephants which came together in this district.

When we entered the forest, however, our mood changed, for about this place with its endless giant trees that shut out the light of the sun, there was an air of gloom which was most depressing. On we marched into the depths, following our own trail backwards, for I had been careful to mark the trunk of a tree here and there, Red Indian fashion, so that we might make no mistake upon our return. To lose oneself in that forest would indeed be a dreadful fate. When we had tramped for a good while and reached the spot where we had missed the spoor on the previous day, I observed that Hans was growing anxious, for he kept glancing over his shoulder.

"What is the matter?" I asked.

"If the Baas will look back the Baas will see; that is, unless I have become drunk upon water and stream grasses," he replied in a weak voice.

I did look back and I did see. There, about a hundred yards behind, standing between two tree–trunks, exactly on our spoor, was our friend the king–elephant!

I halted, for I confess that for a moment my knees grew weak.

"Perhaps it is only a shadow—or a fancy," I said.

"Oh no, Baas. It's him right enough. I have felt him in the small of my back for the last half–mile, but did not dare to look. Still, if the Baas has any doubts, perhaps he would like to go and see."

At this moment, Tom and Jerry, who were well ahead, came tearing up to announce that they had caught sight of elephants to their right and left, and that we must go back.

"Oh yes," said Hans, "you are both very brave men, as you have always told me, so please go back," and he pointed with his finger at the apparition behind us, that seemed to have come nearer as we were talking, although, if so, it was once more standing still.

They saw it, and really I thought that one or both of them would collapse in a fit, for they were horribly frightened, as indeed I was myself. However, I pulled myself together and spoke to them severely, ending with an order to advance.

"Oh yes," repeated Hans who, in this extremity seemed to be moved to a kind of grim humour.

"Advance, you brave hunters, for that is your trade, isn't it? and please protect me, the poor little yellow man. No, don't look at those trees, because we are not lizards or woodpeckers and nothing else could run up them. And if we could, what would be the use, seeing that those spook elephants would only wait till we came down again. Advance, brave hunters, who told me only the other night that all elephants will run away from a man."

So he went on till at last I cut his drivel short.

"Come on," I said, "and keep together, for there is nothing else to be done. Remember that if anyone fires unless we are actually charged, probably it will mean the death of all of us. Now follow me."

They obeyed; indeed they followed uncommonly close, so close that when I halted for a moment, the barrel of the rifle of one of them, which I observed was at full cock, poked me in the back.

Soon I became aware that we were absolutely surrounded by elephants. That is to say, the great bull was behind, while unnumbered other beasts were on our right and left, though in front I could detect none. It was as though they were seeing us off the premises and politely leaving a road by which we might depart as quickly as possible. They saw us, there was no doubt of that, for occasionally one of them would stretch out its trunk and sniff as we passed within twenty or thirty yards of it. Moreover there was another thing. All these elephants were standing at intervals head on to our trail, forcing us as it were to keep to a straight and narrow road.

But each of them, when we had passed it, fell in behind the big bull and marched after it. Of this there could be no question, for when we were crossing one of the open glades that I have described, I looked back and saw an enormous number of them, hundreds there seemed to be, stretching along in a solemn and purposeful procession. Yet to right and left there were more ahead. It was as though all the elephants in Central Africa were gathered in that forest!

Well, it is useless to continue the description, because to do so would only be to say the same thing over and over again. For hours this went on, till we got near the camp, indeed, towards which we were travelling much faster than when we left it. Here the forest thinned and the glades were more frequent. I counted them one by one until I knew that we were close to the last of them and about a mile from the boma, or perhaps a little more. Just then one of the hunters looked back and gasped out:

"Lord, the elephants are beginning to run."

I verified the statement. It was true. The king–bull was breaking into a dignified trot, and all his subjects were following his example. Needless to say, we began to run too.

Oh, that last mile! Seldom have I done such time since I was a boy in the long–distance race at school, and fast as I went, the others kept pace with me, or went faster. We streaked across that glade and after us thundered the elephants, the ground shaking beneath their ponderous footfall. They were gaining, they were quite close, I could hear their deep breathing just behind. There ahead was the camp, and there, standing on a great ant–hill just in front of it, conspicuous in his white robe, was Kaneke watching the chase.

Suddenly the elephants seemed to catch sight of him, or perhaps they saw the smoke from the fire. At any rate they stopped dead, turned, and without a sound melted away into the depths of the forest, the king–bull going last as though he were loth to leave us.

I staggered on to the camp, dishevelled, breathless, ridiculous in my humiliation, as I was well aware. For was I not supposed throughout much of Africa to be one of the greatest elephant– hunters of my day?—and here I appeared running away from elephants with never a shot fired. It is true that the audience was small, a mysterious person called Kaneke, a very spider of a man that seemed to have got me into his web, and a score of porters, probably his tribesmen. But that made the matter no better; indeed, if there had been no one at all to see my disgrace, I should have felt almost equally shamed. I was furious, especially with Kaneke, whom I suspected, I dare say unjustly, of being at the bottom of the business. Also I had lost my hat, and what is an Englishman without his hat?

Kaneke descended from his ant–heap to meet me, all smiles and bows.

"I trust that your hunting has been good, Lord, for you seem to have found plenty of elephants," he said.

"You are laughing at me," I replied. "As you know, I have not been hunting; I have been hunted. Well, perhaps one day you will be hunted and I shall laugh at you."

Then I waved him aside and went into my tent to recover breath and composure.

Throwing myself down on the little folding canvas stretcher–bed which, whenever it was possible, I carried with me upon my various expeditions, I watched the arrival of the others who, after the elephants turned, had come on more slowly. Tom and Jerry were almost speechless with rage. They shook their fists at Kaneke; indeed, if their rifles had been at hand, which was not the case for these were dropped in their last desperate race for life (they were recovered afterwards, unhurt, together with my hat), I think it very likely that they would have shot him, or tried to do so.

"You have made us cowards before our master's eyes," gasped one of them, I forget which. Then they passed on out of my range of vision.

Lastly Hans arrived (HE had not dropped his rifle), who squatted on the ground and began to fan himself with his hat.

"Why is everybody so angry with me, Hans?" said Kaneke.

"I don't know," answered Hans, "but perhaps if you gave me a drop out of that bottle which you keep under your blanket I might be able to remember—I mean the one the Baas gave you when you had the toothache."

Kaneke went into the shelter made of boughs where he slept, and returning with a flask of square–face gin, poured a stiff tot of it in to a pannikin, which he gave to Hans, who gulped it down.

"Now I am beginning to remember," said Hans, licking the edge of the empty tin. "They are angry with you, Kaneke, because they think that you have played a great trick upon them who being a wizard, have clothed a lot of spooks that serve you in the shapes of elephants and caused them to hunt us that you might laugh."

"Yet I have done nothing of the sort, Hans," answered Kaneke indignantly. "Am I a god that I can make elephants?"

"Oh no, Kaneke, certainly whatever you may be you are not a god. Nor indeed do I believe anything of this story, like those silly hunters. Yet for your own sake I hope that the next time you send us out hunting, nothing of this sort will happen, because, Kaneke, we can still shoot, and those hunters might be tempted to learn whether a wizard's skin can turn bullets. And now, as your toothache has gone, I will take that gin and give it back to the Baas, because he has not much of it, and even a wizard cannot make good gin."

Then Hans rose and snatched the bottle out of Kaneke's hand. I must add that to his credit he returned it to me undiminished, which—in Hans—was an act of great virtue.

Such was the end of that elephant–hunt, by means of which I had hoped to relieve the tedium of that strangely uneventful journey and to restore the moral tone of Tom and Jerry, also, to a lesser degree, that of Hans and myself. Certainly the first end was achieved, for whatever may be thought of our experiences at the meeting–place of elephants, and afterwards, they were not tedious. But of the second as much could not be said. Indeed, it left the hunters thoroughly frightened, the more so because they did not know exactly of what they were afraid.

All the circumstances of the business were unnatural. None of us had seen elephants behave as did those great herds, and the very mercy that the beasts showed to us was beyond experience.

Why did not the old king–bull either run away or kill us there upon the ground? Why did it and the rest of them hunt us back to the camp in that fashion, yet without doing us any actual harm? No wonder that these uneducated men saw magic at work and were scared.

Thrusting such nonsense from my mind, for nonsense I knew it to be, I could not help remembering the odd coincidence that on this prolonged adventure of our expedition, nothing seemed to materialize. So far it had the inconsequence of a dream. Thus, at the beginning of it, when we expected a desperate fight for our lives, there was no fight, at least on our part. Only one shot was fired, that with which I killed the Arab Gaika, who, be it noted, was Kaneke's particular foe, whose death he ardently desired. In the same way when we went out with much preparation to slay elephants and found them in enormous numbers no shot was fired and the beasts chased us ignominiously back to our camp. Further, there were more incidents of the same kind which I need not particularize.

I was sick of the whole job and longed to escape. Indeed, that night I went to Kaneke and told him so, pointing out that the hunters were off their balance and that as I could not send them back alone I thought it would be well if he parted company with me and my men, as I proposed to retrace my steps towards the coast. Kaneke was much disturbed and argued with me, very politely at first, pointing out the many dangers of such a course. As I would not give way, he changed his tone, and told me flatly that what I proposed would mean the death of all four of us.

"At whose hands? Yours, Kaneke?" I asked.

"Certainly not, Lord," he answered. "However cruelly you break your bargain with me, and this after taking my pay," (here he was alluding to the cash and ivory which, like a fool, I had accepted), "I should not be base enough to lift a hand against one who saved my life at what he believed to be the risk of his own, although in truth no risk was run."

"What do you mean? How do you know that, Kaneke?"

"I mean what I say, and I do know it, Lord. Even in that pit which you thought so dangerous you were quite safe, as you were when the Arabs attacked you and the elephants chased you, and as you will be to the end of this adventure, if only you keep your promises. For was this not vowed to you at the beginning?"

"Yes, Kaneke, by an unhappy woman whom I see no more."

"Those who are not seen may still be present, Lord, or their strength may remain behind them. But if you turn back before your mission is ended, it will depart. Those tribes who have welcomed you upon your outward journey will one and all fight against you on your return, until in this way or in that you are brought to your deaths. Never again will you look upon the sea, Lord."

"That's pleasant!" I exclaimed, controlling my temper as best I could. "Listen. You talk of my mission. Be so good as to tell me what it is. The only mission that I have, or had, was to visit a certain lake called Mone, if it exists, in order to satisfy my curiosity and love of seeing new things. Well, I have changed my mind; I no longer desire to travel to the Lake Mone."

"Yet I think you must go there, Lord, as I must, for that which is stronger than we are draws us both. In this world, Lord, we do not serve ourselves, we serve something else; I cannot tell what it is. Everything we do or seem to do, good and bad together, is done to carry out the purpose of what we cannot see. Like that beast Donna of yours, we travel our road, sometimes willingly, sometimes to satisfy our appetites, sometimes driven forward with strokes. Each of us has his powers, which are given to him, not that he may gain what he desires, but that he may fulfil an invisible purpose. Thus you have yours and I have mine. I know that your servants and others hold me to be a magician, and now and again you are tempted to believe them. Well, perhaps in a certain way I am something of a magician, that is to say, strength works through me, though whence that strength comes I cannot say."

"All this does not leave me much wiser, Kaneke."

"How can we who have no wisdom at all ever grow wiser, Lord? To do so, first we must be wise, and that will not happen to us until we are dead. All our lives we toil that we may grow wise—in death, when we may learn that wisdom is nothingness, or nothingness wisdom."

"Oh, have done!" I said in a rage. "Your talk goes round and round, and ends nowhere. You are fooling me with words, but I suppose that what you mean is, that we must go on with you."

"Yes, Lord, I mean that, amongst other things, unless indeed you wish to stop altogether and go to seek wisdom in the stars, or wherever she may dwell. Safety and good fortune have been promised to you and to the yellow man your servant, knowledge also such as you love. These lie in front of you, but behind lies that which all men shun, or so I read what is written."

"Where do you read it, Kaneke?"

"Yonder," he answered, pointing to the sky that was thick with stars, though the moon had not yet risen.

I stared at this solemn–faced, big–eyed man. Of all that he said I believed nothing, holding that if not merely a clever cheat, like others of his kind, he was a self–deluder. Yet of one thing I was sure, that if I tried to cross his will and deserted him, his prophecies would certainly be fulfilled, so far as we were concerned. Evidently this Kaneke was one who had authority among natives. It would be easy for him to pass a word back over the road that we had travelled, or in any direction that we might go, which word would mean what he foretold for us, four men only who must be at the mercy of a mob of savages, namely—death. On the other hand, if we went forward, his vanity would see to it that what he had asserted should come true, namely that we should be safe. Not till afterwards did I remember that only Hans and I were included in that assertion. Nothing was said about the two hunters.

On the whole, after this talk I hated Kaneke more than ever. Something told me that however plausible and smooth–tongued he might be, at heart the man was deceitful, one, too, whose ends were not good.