The Ivory Child by H. Rider Haggard (best contemporary novels TXT) 📕

“Well, did you see anything?” asked a chorus of voices.

I told them what I had seen, leaving out the last part.

“I say, old fellow,” said Scroope, “you must have been pretty clever to get all that in, for your eyes weren’t shut for more than ten seconds.”

“Then I wonder what you would say if I repeated everything,” I answered, for I still felt dreamy and not quite myself.

“You see elephant Jana?” asked Har�t. “He kill woman and child, eh? Well, he do that every night. Well, that why people of White Kendah want you to kill him and take all that ivory which they no dare touch because it in holy place and Black Kendah not let them. So he live still. That what we wish know. Thank you much, Macumazana. You very good look through-distance man. Just what I think. Kendah ‘bacco smoke work very well in you. Now, beautiful lady,” he added turning to Miss Holmes, “you like look too? Better look. Who knows what you see?”

Miss Holmes hesitated a moment, studying me with an inquiring eye. But I made no sign, being in truth very curious to hear her experience.

“Yes,” she said.

“I would prefer, Luna, that you left this business alone,” remarked Lord Ragnall uneasily. “I think it is time that you ladies went to bed.”

“Here is a match,” said Miss Holmes to Har�t who was engaged in putting more tobacco into the bowl, the suspicion of a smile upon his grave and statuesque countenance. Har�t received the match with a low bow and fired the stuff as before. Then he handed the bowl, from which once again the blue smoke curled upwards, to Miss Holmes, and gently and gracefully let the antimacassar fall over it and her head, which it draped as a wedding veil might do. A few seconds later she threw off the antimacassar and cast the bowl, in which the fire was now out, on to the floor. Then she stood up with wide eyes, looking wondrous lovely and, notwithstanding her lack of height, majestic.

“I have been in another world,” she said in a low voice as though she spoke to the air, “I have travelled a great way. I found myself in a small place made of stone. It was dark in the place, the fire in that bowl lit it up. There was nothing there except a beautiful statue of a naked baby which seemed to be carved in yellow ivory, and a chair made of ebony inlaid with ivory and seated with string. I stood in front of the statue of the Ivory Child. It seemed to come to life and smile at me. Round its neck was a string of red stones. It took them from its neck and set them upon mine. Then it pointed to the chair, and I sat down in the chair. That was all.”

Har�t followed her words with an interest that I could see was intense, although he attempted to hide it. Then he asked me to translate them, which I did.

As their full sense came home to him, although his face remained impassive, I saw his dark eyes shine with the light of triumph. Moreover I heard him whisper to Mar�t words that seemed to mean,

“The Sacred Child accepts the Guardian. The Spirit of the White Kendah finds a voice again.”

Then as though involuntarily, but with the utmost reverence, both of them bowed deeply towards Miss Holmes.

A babel of conversation broke out.

“What a ridiculous dream,” I heard Lord Ragnall say in a vexed voice. “An ivory child that seemed to come to life and to give you a necklace. Whoever heard such nonsense?”

“Whoever heard such nonsense?” repeated Miss Holmes after him, as though in polite acquiescence, but speaking as an automaton might speak.

“I say,” interrupted Scroope, addressing Miss Manners, “this is a drawing-room entertainment and a half, isn’t it, dear?”

“I don’t know,” answered Miss Manners, doubtfully, “it is rather too queer for my taste. Tricks are all very well, but when it comes to magic and visions I get frightened.”

“Well, I suppose the show is over,” said Lord Ragnall. “Quatermain, would you mind asking your conjurer friends what I owe them?”

Here Har�t, who had understood, paused from packing up his properties and answered,

“Nothing, O great Lord, nothing. It is we owe you much. Here we learn what we want know long time. I mean if elephant Jana still kill people of Kendah. Kendah ‘bacco no speak to us. Only speak to new spirit. You got great gift, lady, and you too, Macumazana. You not like smoke more Kendah ‘bacco and look into past, eh? Better look! Very full, past, learn much there about all us; learn how things begin. Make you understand lot what seem odd to-day. No! Well, one day you look p’raps, ‘cause past pull hard and call loud, only no one hear what it say. Good night, O great Lord. Good night, O beautiful lady. Good night, O Macumazana, till we meet again when you come kill elephant Jana. Blessing of the Heaven-Child, who give rain, who protect all danger, who give food, who give health, on you all.”

Then making many obeisances they walked backwards to the door where they put on their long cloaks.

At a sign from Lord Ragnall I accompanied them, an office which, fearing more snakes, Mr. Savage was very glad to resign to me. Presently we stood outside the house amidst the moaning trees, and very cold it was there.

“What does all this mean, O men of Africa?” I asked.

“Answer the question yourself when you stand face to face with the great elephant Jana that has in it an evil spirit, O Macumazana,” replied Har�t. “Nay, listen. We are far from our home and we sought tidings through those who could give it to us, and we have won those tidings, that is all. We are worshippers of the Heavenly Child that is eternal youth and all good things, but of late the Child has lacked a tongue. Yet to-night it spoke again. Seek to know no more, you who in due season will know all things.”

“Seek to know no more,” echoed Mar�t, “who already, perhaps, know too much, lest harm should come to you, Macumazana.”

“Where are you going to sleep to-night?” I asked.

“We do not sleep here,” answered Har�t, “we walk to the great city and thence find our way to Africa, where we shall meet you again. You know that we are no liars, common readers of thought and makers of tricks, for did not Dogeetah, the wandering white man, speak to you of the people of whom he had heard who worshipped the Child of Heaven? Go in, Macumazana, ere you take harm in this horrible cold, and take with you this as a marriage gift from the Child of Heaven whom she met to-night, to the beautiful lady stamped with the sign of the young moon who is about to marry the great lord she loves.”

Then he thrust a little linen-wrapped parcel into my hand and with his companion vanished into the darkness.

I returned to the drawing-room where the others were still discussing the remarkable performance of the two native conjurers.

“They have gone,” I said in answer to Lord Ragnall, “to walk to London as they said. But they have sent a wedding-present to Miss Holmes,” and I showed the parcel.

“Open it, Quatermain,” he said again.

“No, George,” interrupted Miss Holmes, laughing, for by now she seemed to have quite recovered herself, “I like to open my own presents.”

He shrugged his shoulders and I handed her the parcel, which was neatly sewn up. Somebody produced scissors and the stitches were cut. Within the linen was a necklace of beautiful red stones, oval-shaped like amber beads and of the size of a robin’s egg. They were roughly polished and threaded on what I recognized at once to be hair from an elephant’s tail. From certain indications I judged these stones, which might have been spinels or carbuncles, or even rubies, to be very ancient. Possibly they had once hung round the neck of some lady in old Egypt. Indeed a beautiful little statuette, also of red stone, which was suspended from the centre of the necklace, suggested that this was so, for it may well have been a likeness of one of the great gods of the Egyptians, the infant Horus, the son of Isis.

“That is the necklace I saw which the Ivory Child gave me in my dream,” said Miss Holmes quietly.

Then with much deliberation she clasped it round her throat.