Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 December 1889 — ALLAN QUATERMAIN. [ARTICLE]

ALLAN QUATERMAIN.

A Record of Remarkable Advent- < ures and Discoveries.-

BY H. RIDER HAGGARD.

————■ CHAPTER Vll.— Continued. Presently, do as we would, the beam of the balance began to rise against us. We had not more than fifteen or sixteen effectives left now, and tho Masai had at least fifty. Of course if they had kept their heads, and shaken themselves together, they could soon have made an eud of the matter; but that is just what they did not do, not having yet recovered from their start, and some of them having actually fled from their sleeping-places without their weapons. Still by now many individuals were fighting with their normal courage and discretion, and this alone was sufficient to defeat us. To make matters worse, just then, when Mackenzie’s rifle was empty, a brawny savage armed with a •■sime” or sword, made a rush for him. The clergyman flung down his gun, and drawing his huge oarver from his elastic belt (his revolver had dropped out in the fight), they closed in desperate struggle. It really was a sight to see that good but angular man go in—coat-tails, broadbrimmed hat, carving-knife • and all. They say that nobody is so bitter as an apostate, so, on the same principle, for fighting purposes at a pinch commend me to a man of peace. At any rate, Mackenzie’s play with the carv-ing-knife was something beautiful, though I fear the Society of Friends would not have approved of this way of ‘♦converting the heathen.” Presently, locked in a close embrace, missionary and Masai rolled on to the ground behind the wall, and for some time I, being amply occupied with my own affairs, and in keeping my skin from being pricked, remained in ignorance of his fate or how the duel had ended.

To and fro surged the fight, slowly turning round like the vortex of a human whirlpool, and things began to look very bad for us. Just then, however, a fortunate thing happened. Umslopogaas, either by accident or design, broke out of the ring and engaged a warrior at some few paces from it. As he did so, another man ran up and struck him with all his force between the shoulders with his great spear, which, falling on the tough shield shirt, failed to pierce it, and rebounded. For a moment the man stared aghast—protective armor being unknown among these tribes—and then he yelled out at the top of his voice—- “ They are devils—bewitched, bewitched!” And seized by a sudden panic, he threw down his spear, and began to fly. I cut short his career with a bullet, and Umslopogaas brained his man, and then the panic spread to the others. “Bewitched, bewitched!” they cried, and tried to escape in every direction, utterly demoralized and broken-spirit-ed, for the most part even throwing down their shields and spears. On the last scene of that dreadful fight I need not dwell. It was a slaughter great and grim, in which no quarter was asked nor given. One incident, however, is worth detailing. Just as I was hoping that it was all done with, suddenly from under a heap of slain where he had been hiding, an unwounded warrior sprang up, and. clearing the piles of dying and dead like an antelope, sped like the wind up the kraal toward the spot where I was standing at the moment But he was not alone, for Umslopogaas came gliding on his tracks with the peculiar swallow-like mo don for which he was noted, and as they neared me. I recognized in the Masai the herald of the previous hight Finding that, run as he would, his pursuer was gaining on him, the man halted and turned round ~to give battle. Umslopogaas also pulled np. “Ah, ah,” he cried, in mookery, to the Elmoran, *ut is thou whom I talked with last night—the Lygonani, the Hcndd, the capturer of little girls —he would kill a little girl, And thou didst hope to stand man to man and face to face with an induna of the tribe of of the people of the Amazula? Behold, tby prayer is granted! And 1 did swear to hew thee limb from limb, thou insolent dog. Behold, 1 will do it even now!” The Masai ground his teeth with fury, and charged at the Zulu with his spear. As he came, Umslopogaas deftly stepped aside, an swinging Inkosiflcaas high above his head with both hands, brought the broad blade down withsueh tearful force from behind upon the Masai's shoulder just where the nook is set into the frame, that its razor edge shore right through the bone and flesh and muscle, almost severing the head and one arm from the bedy. * "Ou!" ej&oulalated Umslopogaas, contemplating the corpse of his foe; “I have kept my word. It was a good stroke." CHAPTER VIIL ALPHONSE EXPLAINS. And bo the fight was ended. On horning from this shocking scene it Mddenly struck me that I had seen nothing of Alphonse since the moment, some twenty minutes before- -for though this fight has taken a long while to describe, it did not take long in reality—when I had been forced to hit him In the wind with the result of nearly getting myself shot. Fearing that the poor little man had perished in the battle I began to hunt about among the dead for his body, but, not being able either to see or hear anything of it, I concluded that he must have survived, and walked down the side of the kraal where we had first taken our ttand, calling him by name. Now ■ some fifteen panes back from the kraal

wall stood a very ancient tree of th< banyan species. So ancient was it that alTthe* inside had in the course o ages decayed away, leaving nothing but a shell of bark; “Alphonse,” I called, as I walkec down the wall, “.Alphonse!” “Oui, monsieur,” answered a voice. “Here am I.” I looked round but could see nobody. “Where?" I cried ■ “Here am I, monsieur, in the tree.” I looked, and there, peering out of a hole in the trunk of the banyan about five feet from the ground, I saw a pale face and a pair of large mustaches, one clipped short and the other lamentably out of curl as the tail of a newly whipped pug. Then, for the first time, I realized what I had suspected before—namely, that Alphonse was an arrant coward. I walked up to him. * ‘Come out of that hole, ” I I said. “Is it. finished, monsieur?” he asked, anxiously; “quite finished? Ah, the horrors I have undergone, and the prayers I have uttered!” ‘ ‘Come out, you little skunk, ” I said, for I did not feel amiable; * ‘it is all over.” “So, mdnsieur, then my prayers have prevailed? I emerge, ” and he did so. As we were walking down together to join the others, who were gathered in a group by the wide entrance to the kraal, which now resembled a veritable charnel house, a Masai, who had escaped so far and been hiding under a bush, suddenly sprung up and charged furiously at us. Off went Alphonse with a howl of terror, and after him flew the Masai, bent upon doing some execution before he died. He soon overtook the poor little Frenchman and would have finished him then and there had I not, just as Alphonse made a last agonized double in the vain hope of avoiding the yard of steel that was flashing in his immediate rear, managed to plant a bullet between the Eimoran’s broad shoulders, which brought matters to a satisfactory conclusion so far as the Frenchman was concerned. But just then he tripped and fell flat, and the body of the Masai fell right on top of him, moving convulsively in the death struggle: Thereupon there arose such a series of piercing howls that I concluded that before he died the savage must have managed to skewer poor Alphonse. I ran up in a hurry, and pulled the Masai off, and there beneath him lay Alphonse covered with blood and jerking himself about like a galvanized frog. Poor fellow! thought 1, he is done for, and kneeling down by him I began to search for his wound as well as his struggles would allow. “Oh. the hole in my back!” he yelled. “I am murdered. lam dead. Oh, Annette!" I searched again, but could see no wound. Then the truth dawned on me—the man was frightened, not hurt. “Get up,” I shouted, “get up. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? You era not touched." Thereupon he rose, not a penny the worse. “But, monsieur, I thought I was,” he said, apologetically; “I did not know that I had conquered.” Then, giving the body of the Masai a kick, he ejaculated triumphantly, “Ah, dog of a black savage, thou art dead; what victory!” Thoroughly disgusted, I left Alphonse to look after himself, which he did by following me like a shadow, and proceeded to join the others by the large entrance. The first thing that I saw was Mackenzie, seated on a stone with a handkerchief twisted around his thigh, from which he was bleeding freely, having, indeed, received a spear-thrust that passed right through it, and still holding in his hand his favorite carving-knife now covered with blood and bent nearly double, from which I gathered that he had been successful in his rough and tumble with the Elmoran. “Ah, Quatermain!” he sung out in a trembling, excited voice, ‘ ‘so we have conquered; but it is a sorry sight, a sorry sight;” and then breaking into broad Scotch and glancing at the bent knife in his hand, “It grieves me sair to hae bent my best carver on the breast-bane of a savage" and he laughed hysterically. Poor fellow, what between his w-qpnd and the killing excitement he had undergone his nerves were much shaken, and no wonder! It is hard upon a man of peace and kindly heart to be called upon to join in such a gruesome business. But, then, fate puts us sometimes into very ironical positions! At the kraal entrance the scene was a strange one. The slaughter was over by now, and the wounded men had been put out of their pain, for no quarter had been given. The bushclosed entrance had been trampled flat, and place of the bushes were the bodies of dead men. Dead men, everywhere dead men—they lay about in knots, they were flung by ones and twos in every position upon the open spaces, for all the world like the people on the grass in one of the London parks on a particularly hot Sunday in August. In front of this entrance, on a space which had been cleared of dead and of the shields and spears which were scattered in all directions as they had fallen or been thrown from the hands of their owners, stood and lay the survivors of the awful struggle, aud at their feet were four wounded men. We had gone into the fight thirty strong, and of the thirty but fifteen remained alive, and five of them (including Mr. Mackenzie) were wounded, two mortally. Of those who held the entrance, Curtis and the Zulu alone remained- Good had lost five men killed, I had lost two killed, and Mackenzie no less than five out of the six with him. As for the survivors they were, with the exception of myself, who had never come to close quarters, red from head to foot—Sir Henry’s armor * might have been painted that color—-

i and utterly exhausted, except Umsiopogaas, who, aa he stood on a little mound above a heap of dead, leaning as usual upon his ax, did not seem particularly distressed, although the skin over the hole in his head palpitated violently. “Ah, Macumazahn!” he s&id to me as I limped up, feeling very sick, “I told thee that it would be a good fight, -and it has. Never have I seen a better, or one more bravely fought. As for this iron shirt, surely it is ‘tagati’ [bewitched]; nothing could pierce it. Had it not been for the garment I should have been there,” and he nodded toward the great pile of dead men beneath him. “I give it thee; thou art a gallant man,” said Sir Henry, briefly. “Koos!” answered the Zulu, deeply pleased both at the gift and the compliment. “Thou; too, Incubu, didst bear thyself as a man, but I must give thee some lessons with the ax; thou dost waste thy strength.” Just then Mackenzie asked about Flossie, and we were all greatly relieved when one of the men said he had seen her flying toward the house with the nurse. Then bearing such of the wounded as could be moved at the moment .with us, we slowly made ; our way toward the Mission-house, spent with toil and bloodshed, but with the glorious sense of victory against overwhelming odds glowing in our hearts. We had saved the life of the little maid, and taught the Masai of those parts a lesson that they will not forget for ten years—but at what a cost! • - - ~

Painfully we made our way up the hill which, but a little more than an hour before, we had descended under such different circumstances. At the gate of the wall stood Mrs. Mackenzie waiting for us. When her eyes fell upon us, however, she shrieked out, and covered her face with her hands, crying, “Horrible, horrible!” Nor were her fears allayed when she discovered her worthy husband being borne upon an improvised stretcher; but her doubts as to the nature of his injury were soon set at rest. Then when in a few brief words I had told her the upshot of the struggle (nf which Flossie, who had arrived in safety, had been able to explain something) she came up to me and solemnly kissed me on the forehead. “God, bless you all, Mr. Quatermain; you have saved my child’s life,” she said simply. Then we went in and got pur clothes off and doctored our wounds; I am glad •pressive manner. It was melancholy in the extreme, but, as Good said, it might have been worse, for we might have had “to bury ourselves.” I pointed out that this would have been a difficult feat, but I knew what he meant.~ ' " Next we set to work to load an oxwagon which had been brought round from the Mission, with the dead bodies of the Masai, having first collected the spears, shields, and other arms. We loaded the wagon five about fifty bodies to the load, and it into the Tana. From this itwas evident that very few of the Masai could have escaped. The crocodiles must have been well fed that night. One of the last bodies we picked up was that of the sentry at the upper end. to say I had none, and Sir Henry’s and Good’s were, thanks to those invaluable chain shirts, of a comparatively harmless nature, and to be dealt with by . means of a few stitches and sticking plaster. Mackenzie’s, however, was serious, through fortunately the spear had not severed any large artery. After that we had a bath, and oh, what a luxury it was! and having clad ourslves in ordinary clothes, proceeded to the dining-room, where breakfast was set as usual. It was curious sitting down there, drinking tea and eating toast in an ordinary nineteenth-century v ßort of a way just as though we had - not employed the early hours in a regular primitive hand-to-hand middle-ages kind of struggle. As Good said, the whole thing seemed more as though one had had a bad nightmare just before being called, than as & deed done. When we were finishing our breakfast the door opened, and in came little Flossie, very pale and tottery, but quite unhurt. She kissed us all and thanked us. I congratulated her on the presence of mind she had shown in shooting the Masai with her Derringer pistol, and thereby saving her own life. To be Continued.