H. Rider Haggard

“ THE TRIUMPH OF NAM
“Which way are we to go now?” said Juanna; “must we climb down this great gulf?”
“No, Shepherdess,” answered Otter; “see, before you is a bridge,” and he pointed to the band of ice and rock which traversed the wide ravine.
“A bridge?” gasped Juanna, “why it is as slippery as a slide and steep as the side of a house. A fly could not keep its footing on it.”
“Look here, Otter,” put in Leonard, “either you are joking or you are mad. How can we cross that place? We should be dashed to pieces before we had gone ten yards.” ”

“ And now, Queen, I am here to listen to your word, and to offer myself to you, to serve you all my life as your husband and your slave. I have little to give you who have been bred up in sunnier lands, and among a more gentle people; I who am but the wild chief of men whose hearts are rugged as our mountains, and gloomy as a winter’s day that is heavy with snow to come,—only myself, the service of my soldiers’ spears, and the first place among the Children of the Mist. ”

“ Listen, Shepherdess, and for your own sake I implore you, do not give way to grief or rage. I swear to you that no harm shall come to yonder man if you will but do my bidding. Shepherdess, you are found out; I know, and the people know, that you are no goddess. It had been safer to sacrifice you to-day, but partly because of the pleading of my daughter who loves you, and partly for other reasons, I have caused you to be saved alive. Now, Shepherdess, from this country there is no escape; as you have chosen to come hither, here you must remain for life, and in this cell you cannot live and die. ”

“ Very gradually the light increased, and it seemed to Otter that the mist was somewhat thinner than was usual at this hour, though as yet it hung densely between them and the mountain snows. Now he could trace the walls of the amphitheatre, now he could see the black shimmer of the water beneath, and distinguish the glitter of many hundreds of upturned eyeballs as they glared at him and beyond him. The silence grew more and more intense, for none spoke or moved: all were waiting to see the dawn break upon the slope of snow, and wondering—would it be red or white? Must the gods die or live? ”

“ Do his bidding and mine, or die, you disobedient servant.”
This was the end of it. Nam was beaten; for the first time in his life he must own a master, and that master the gods whom he had himself discovered and proclaimed.
“So be it,” he said suddenly. “The old order passes, and the new order comes. So be it! Let your will be done, O Aca and O Jâl. I have striven for your glory, I have fed your altars, and ye threaten me with death and put away my gift. Priests, set free that man who was king. People, have your way, forget your ancient paths, pluck the white flower of peace—and perish! ”

“ Now Xavier was uppermost, and the mob yelled in triumph, for they thought that the stranger’s strength was spent.
“The knife, the knife!” gasped Xavier, and one of his servants sprang forward to give it to him. But Otter was watching and started out of the press, naked sabre in hand: his fierce and ugly face was twitching with excitement, his black eyes shone, and his vast shoulders worked to and fro. To Juanna, fascinated by the fearful struggle, the dwarf looked like some black gnome, like a thing of supernatural power, half toad, half human.
“He who touches the knife dies!” ”

“ Yet, Shepherdess, was it not I after all who saved you yonder in the slave camp? Doubtless I dream, but it seems to me that when those men who are dead deserted you, running this way and that in their fear—and, Shepherdess, it is for this that I am glad they are dead, and lifted no hand to save them—I followed you alone. It seems to me that, having followed you far till I could walk no more for hunger and weariness, I used my wit and bribed a certain white man, of the sort who would sell their sisters and blaspheme their mothers for a reward, to attempt your rescue. ”

“ So soon as they were gone, Otter leaped from his throne with an exclamation of rage that caused the others to burst out laughing.
“Laugh, Baas, laugh if you will!” said the dwarf, “for you have never been a god, and don’t know what it is. What think you, Baas?—all night long I have sat upon that great stool, while those accursed dogs burnt stinking stuff beneath my nostrils and muttered nonsense. One hour more and I should have fallen on them and killed them, for I have had no meat, and hunger makes me mad.”
“Hush!” said Leonard, “I hear footsteps! On to your throne, Otter! Quick, Juanna! ”

“ Now is the hour of reconciliation, now Life and Death walk hand in hand, and the hearts of Aca and Jâl have grown gentle through the ages, and they no longer crave the blood of men as an offering to their majesty. Henceforth ye shall bring them fruits and flowers, and not the lives of men. See, in my hand I hold winter lilies, red and white, blood-red they are and white as snow. Now the red flower, token of sacrifice and slaughter, I crush and cast away, but the white bloom of love and peace I set upon my breast. ”

“ Chief and Father, I salute you! May he whom you named the Otter serve you and the Inkoosi your brother once more in the House of the Great-Great, if one so ugly and misshapen can enter there. As for the Basuto dog whom I slew and who would have stolen your gun, I see now that I killed him in a fortunate hour, that he might be the slave beneath your feet in the House of the Great-Great. Ah! had I known, I would have sent a better man, for there as here Cheat will still be Cheat. Hail, my father! Hail and farewell! Let your spirit watch over us and be gentle towards us, who love you yet. ”

“ As the afternoon waned the air grew hotter and stiller, while a great cloud gathered on the horizon.
“There will be thunder at sundown,” said Leonard aloud; “I wish that Otter would come back, so that we might get the funeral over; otherwise we shall have to wait till to-morrow.”
At length, about half an hour before nightfall, the dwarf appeared at the mouth of the cave, looking more like a gnome than a man against the lurid background of the angry sky. A buck was tied across his enormous shoulders, and in his hand he held a large bunch of the fragrant mountain lilies. ”

“ Remember,” she added with a flash of her grey eyes, “I am not to be played with by you, Soa. In this matter the Deliverer’s interests are my interests, and his ends my ends. Together we stand or fall, together we live or die, and that shall be an unhappy hour for you, Soa, when you attempt to desert or betray us.”
“It is well, Shepherdess,” she answered, “your will is my will, for I love you alone in the world, and all the rest I hate,” and she glared at Leonard and Otter. “You are my father, and my mother, and my child, and where you are, in death or in life, there is my home. ”

“ Still sobbing, but filled with admiration and wonder that a savage could be thus generous, Juanna rose and began to murmur thanks, while the captains stared, and Soa mocked and cursed them both.
“Thank me not,” he said gently. “It seems that you, who can read all hearts, have read mine aright, or perchance you fashioned it as you would have it be. Now, having done with love, let us to war. Woman, what is the secret of that door?”
“Find it for yourself,” snarled Soa. “It is easy to open when once you know the spring—like a woman’s heart, Olfan. ”

“ All this Leonard saw by degrees, but the first thing that he saw has not yet been told. Long before the brilliant rays of the moon lit the amphitheatre they struck upon the huge head of the dwarf idol, and there, on this giddy perch, some seventy feet from the ground, and nearly a hundred above the level of the pool of seething water, sat Juanna herself, enthroned in an ivory chair. She had been divested of her black cloak, and was clad in the robe of snowy linen cut low upon her breast, and fastened round her waist with a girdle. Her dark hair flowed about her shoulders ”

“ Now I will outdo you, for I, who am not noble, will sacrifice my life to disappoint you of your desires. What! shall the ancient holy treasure of the People of the Mist be stolen by two white thieves and their black hound? Never! I would have killed you all had time been granted to me, but in that I failed, and I am glad that I have failed, for now I will deal you a bitterer blow than any death. May the curse of Jâl and Aca cleave to you, you dogs without a kennel! May you live outcasts and die in the dirt, and may your fathers and your mothers and your children spit upon your bones as I do! ”

“ You are not a man any more, you are a spirit. Once, so it seems, you ruled this people in the past, and now you will rule them again. You and the Shepherdess are both gods. She is your mother and you are her child.”
“Yes, Baas, no doubt; but once I had another mother, a much uglier one.”
“Otter, cease to talk folly, else when you are no more a god I will beat you. Now you are a god, and we are all your servants, except the Shepherdess. When you speak to us you must speak roughly, like a great chief to the lowest of his people, calling us dogs and slaves. ”

“ Ay! you have poisoned her against me, you and that black swine whom they call a god.
“Moreover, because she has learned to love you, white thief, wanderer without a kraal as you are, at your bidding she has also learned to hate me. Beware, White Man, I am of this people, and you know their temper, it is not gentle; when they hate they find a means to be revenged,” and she ceased, gasping with rage.
Indeed, at that moment Soa would have made no bad model for a statue of one of the furies of Greek mythology.
Then Juanna attempted to interfere, but Leonard waved her back. ”

“ But you saved me, Outram, though that will not help me, for I shall perish in some such way at last. So be it. It is best that I should die, who cannot conquer the evil of my heart.”
“Nonsense, my friend,” said Leonard; “don’t talk like that about dying. We can none of us afford to die just at present—that is, unless we are obliged to do so. Your nerves are upset, and no wonder! As for ‘the evil of your heart,’ I wish that most men had as little—the world would be better. Come, go to sleep; you will feel very differently to-morrow.” ”

“ Then Nam spoke again.
“We go, Shepherdess, in obedience to your wish, but before evening we shall return to hear your answer. Do not attempt to work mischief upon yourself, for know that you will be watched though you cannot see the eyes that watch you. If you do but so much as lift a hand against your life, or even strive to cut off the light that flows through yonder hole, then at once you will be seized and bound, and my daughter will be set to guard you. Shepherdess, farewell.”
And they went, leaving Juanna alone and a prey to such thoughts as can scarcely be written. ”

“ Like other women, Juanna Rodd had not come to twenty years of age without dreaming of love, and, strange to say, her fancy had always chosen some such man as Leonard for the hero of the story. But that the hero should present himself in this ultra-heroic fashion, that he should buy her with gold, that he should go through a form of marriage with her within an hour of their first meeting—for these things she had not bargained. It was a fact—that marriage was an accomplished fact, although it might be null and void, and the female mind has a great respect for accomplished facts. ”

“ Say, friend, do you think it well to go on with this business?”
“Oh, confound it all!” said Leonard with irritation, “how can we turn back now? Just think of the journey and how foolish we should look. Besides, we have none of us got anything to live upon; it took most of the gold that I had to bribe Peter and his men to accompany us. I dare say that we shall all be killed, that seems very probable, but for my part I really shan’t be sorry. I am tired of life, Francisco; it is nothing but a struggle and a wretchedness, and I begin to feel that peace is all I can hope to win. ”

“ How shall the feast go, and what sacrifice shall be offered unto you?”
“The feast shall go thus,” answered Juanna. “Ye shall offer us a sacrifice indeed; to each of us shall ye offer an ox and a goat, and the ox and the goat shall be given to the Snake to feed him, but not the flesh of men; moreover, the feast shall be held at noon and not in the night-time.”
“An ox and a goat—to each an ox and a goat!” said Nam humbly, but in a voice of bitterest sarcasm. “As ye will so let it be, O ye gentle-hearted gods. ”

“ The sight of the act of death is always terrible; it is terrible to watch the latest wax and ebb of life, and with the intelligence to comprehend that these flickerings, this coming and this going, these sinkings and these last recoveries are the trial flights of the animating and eternal principle—call it soul or what you will—before it trusts itself afar. Still more terrible is it under circumstances of physical and mental desolation such as those present to Leonard Outram in that hour. ”

“ Now then, Francisco, give me that rope.”
“Yes, Baas, I have been drinking,” answered the dwarf humbly; “it is well to drink before one dies, since we may not drink afterwards and I think that the hour of death is at hand. Oh! Shepherdess of the heavens, they said down yonder at the Settlement that you were a great rain-maker: now if you can make the rain to fall, can you not make the sun to shine? Wind and water are all very well, but we have too much of them here.” ”

“ Yonder go the boats of the slave-dealers, and in them are their arms and food. We cut them loose, the Baas and I. There on the island sleep two-and-twenty men—all save one: there they sleep, and when they wake what will they find? They will find themselves on a little isle in the middle of great waters, into which, even if they could, they will not dare to swim because of the alligators. ”

“ The dwarf saluted and went. “Ah!” he said to himself as he waddled down the hill where he hoped to find game, “ah! you do not fear men dead or living—overmuch; yet, Otter, it is true that you are better here in the sun, though the sun is hot, than yonder in the cave. Say, Otter, why does Baas Tom look so awful now that he is dead—he who was so gentle while yet he lived? Cheat did not look awful, only uglier. But then you killed Cheat, and the Heavens killed Baas Tom and set their own seal upon him. And what will Baas Leonard do now that his brother is dead and the Basutos have run away? ”

“ They live in a region of mist, upon high lands beneath the shadow of the tops of snow mountains. They are larger than other men in size, and very cruel, but their women are fair. Now of the beginning of my people I know nothing, for it is lost in the past. But they worship an ancient stone statue fashioned like a dwarf, and to him they offer the blood of men. Beneath the feet of the statue is a pool of water, and beyond the pool is a cave. In that cave, White Man, he dwells whom they adore in effigy above, he, Jâl, whose name is Terror. ”

“ Last night I saw her praying to her gods; she did not know that I was near, for the place was lonely, but I saw her and I never wish to see anything so horrible again. I will tell you why she hates us all so much, Outram. She is jealous, because the senora—does not hate us. That woman’s heart is wicked, wickedness was born in her, yet, as none are altogether evil, she has one virtue, her love of the senora. She is husbandless and childless, for even among the black people, as I have learnt from the Settlement men, all have feared her and shrunk from her notwithstanding her good looks. ”

“ Swiftly he flung himself on to his knees, imploring Leonard to spare him in humble accents, and with gestures that spoke more plainly than his words.
Taking advantage of the pause, again Juanna cried aloud: “Ye see, People of the Mist, I make no idle threats. Where are they now, the disobedient ones? The tongue of flame has licked them and they are dead, and as they have perished, so shall all perish who dare to gainsay my word, or the word of Jâl. Ye know us for gods and ye have crowned us kings, and gods and kings we are indeed. ”

“ Then Leonard looked at Otter, seeking further ideas.
“My snake puts it into my head,” said the dwarf, “that fire is a good friend when men are few and foes are many; also that the reeds yonder are dry, and the sea wind rises and will blow hard before midnight. Moreover all these houses are thatched, and in a wind fire jumps. But can a regiment have two generals? You are our captain, Baas; speak and we will do your bidding. Here one counsel is as good as another. Let fate speak through your mouth.” ”

“ Men, let alone gods, should die fighting, whether it be with other men, with wild beasts, with snakes, or with devils. Think now, if your master, the Deliverer, saw you crouch thus like a toad before an adder, how he would laugh and say, ‘Ho! I thought this man brave. Ho! he talked very loud about fighting the Water Dweller, he who came of a line of warriors; but now I laugh at him, for I see that he is but a cross-bred cur and a coward.’
“Yes, yes, you can hear his words, Otter. Say now, will you bear their shame and sit here until you are snapped up and swallowed?” ”

“ The situation was curious and most unexpected, but Nam, who had been a high priest for more than fifty years, proved himself equal to it.
“This is a marvel indeed!” he cried, when silence had at length been restored; “for no such thing is told of in our history as that a white dawn upon the mountain should turn to red. Yet, O People of the Mist, those whom we thought gods have not been offered up wrongfully. Nay, this is the meaning of the sign: now are the true gods, Aca and Jâl, appeased, because those who dared to usurp their power have gone down to doom. ”

“ Then, at a signal from Nam, she who was crowned with flowers was led before the altar, and thrice she bowed the knee to the idol, or rather to Otter who sat upon it. Now all eyes were fixed on the dwarf, who stared at the girl but made no sign, which was not wonderful, seeing that he had no inkling of the meaning of the ceremony. As it chanced, he could not have acted more wisely, at least in the interests of the bride, for here, as elsewhere, silence was held to give consent.
“Behold, the god accepts,” cried Nam, “the beauty of the maid is pleasing in his eyes. ”

“ If you name me ‘Baas’ in public, I will beat you privately when you are no more a god. You will do best to speak little or not at all, so that none can take hold of your words, which are always foolish.”
“If you say that I am a god, Baas, it is enough, for doubtless you have met the gods and know their ways, though it is strange that none have told me this before. They must be an ugly people, the gods! But how will it be with the Settlement men when they hear that I am a great spirit? ”

“ Juanna rose to obey her, followed by Otter, grumbling, for he hated the old woman as much as she hated him, and, moreover, he did not take kindly to this notion of masquerading as a god, or, indeed, to the prospect of a lengthened sojourn amongst his adoring, but from all accounts somewhat truculent, worshippers. Before they went, however, Leonard spoke.
“I have heard you, Soa,” he said, “and I do not like your words, for they show me that your heart is fierce and evil. Yes, though you love the Shepherdess, your heart is evil. ”

“ Oh, Baas, I would that these wild men had made you a god and left me your servant!” And again he gazed with disgust upon the watercress and rows of leathery vegetables resembling turnips.
“You had better eat them, Otter,” said Juanna, who was still choking with laughter. “If you don’t you may get nothing more for days. Evidently you are supposed to have a small appetite.”
Then, driven to it by his ravening hunger, the wretched Otter fell upon the turnips and munched them sullenly, Leonard rating him all the while for his unequalled stupidity. ”