Prester John by John Buchan (great reads TXT) 📕

right hand over the schimmel's eyes, strained his ears like a sable antelope who has scented danger.

There was never a more brutal gagging. The rope crushed my nose and drove my lips down on my teeth, besides gripping my throat so that I could scarcely breathe. The pain was so great that I became sick, and would have fallen but for Laputa. Happily I managed to get my teeth apart, so that one coil slipped between, and eased the pain of the jaws. But the rest was bad enough to make me bite frantically on the tow, and I think in a little my sharp front teeth would have severed it. All this discomfort prevented me seeing what happened. The wood, as I have said, was thin, and through the screen of leaves I had a confused impression of men and horses passing interminably. There can only have been a score at the most; but the moments drag if a cord is gripping your throat. When Laputa at length untied me, I had another fit of nausea, and leaned helplessly against a tree.

Laputa listened till the sound of the horses had died away; then silently we stole to the edge of the road, across, and into the thicker evergreen bush on the far side. At a pace which forced me to run hard, we climbed a steepish slope, till ahead of us we saw the bald green crown of the meadowlands. I noticed that his face had grown dark and sullen again. He was in an enemy's country, and had the air of the hunted instead of the hunter. When I stopped he glowered at me, and once, when I was all but overcome with fatigue, he lifted his hand in a threat. Had he carried a sjambok, it would have fallen on my back.

If he was nervous, so was I. The fact that I was out of the Kaffir country and in the land of my own folk was a kind of qualified liberty. At any moment, I felt, Providence might intervene to set me free. It was in the bond that Laputa should shoot me if we were attacked; but a pistol might miss. As far as my shaken wits would let me, I began to forecast the future. Once he got the jewels my side of the bargain was complete. He had promised me my life, but there had been nothing said about my liberty; and I felt assured that Laputa would never allow one who had seen so much to get off to Arcoll with his tidings. But back to that unhallowed kraal I was resolved I would not go. He was armed, and I was helpless; he was strong, and I was dizzy with weakness; he was mounted, and I was on foot: it seemed a poor hope that I should get away. There was little chance from a wandering patrol, for I knew if we were followed I should have a bullet in my head, while Laputa got off on the schimmel. I must wait and bide events. At the worst, a clean shot on the hillside in a race for life was better than the unknown mysteries of the kraal. I prayed earnestly to God to show me His mercy, for if ever man was sore bested by the heathen it was I.

To my surprise, Laputa chose to show himself on the green hill-shoulder. He looked towards the Wolkberg and raised his hands. It must have been some signal. I cast my eyes back on the road we had come, and I thought I saw some figures a mile back, on the edge of the Letaba gorge. He was making sure of my return.

By this time it was about four in the afternoon, and as heavenly weather as the heart of man could wish. The meadows were full of aromatic herbs, which, as we crushed them, sent up a delicate odour. The little pools and shallows of the burns were as clear as a Lothian trout-stream. We were now going at a good pace, and I found that my earlier weariness was growing less. I was being keyed up for some great crisis, for in my case the spirit acts direct on the body, and fatigue grows and ebbs with hope. I knew that my strength was not far from breaking-point; but I knew also that so long as a chance was left me I should have enough for a stroke.

Before I realized where we were we had rounded the hill, and were looking down on the green cup of the upper Machudi's glen. Far down, I remember, where the trees began, there was a cloud of smoke. Some Kaffir—or maybe Arcoll—had fired the forest. The smoke was drifting away under a light west wind over the far plains, so that they were seen through a haze of opal.

Laputa bade me take the lead. I saw quite clear the red kloof on the far side, where the collar was hid. To get there we might have ridden straight into the cup, but a providential instinct made me circle round the top till we were on the lip of the ravine. This was the road some of Machudi's men had taken, and unthinkingly I followed them. Twenty minutes' riding brought us to the place, and all the while I had no kind of plan of escape. I was in the hands of my Maker, watching, like the Jews of old, for a sign.

Laputa dismounted and looked down into the gorge.

'There is no road there,' I said. 'We must go down to the foot and come up the stream-side. It would be better to leave your horse here.' He started down the cliff, which from above looks a sheer precipice. Then he seemed to agree with me, took the rope from the schimmel's neck, and knee-haltered his beast. And at that moment I had an inspiration.

With my wrist-rope in his hand, he preceded me down the hill till we got to the red screes at the foot of the kloof. Then, under my guidance, we turned up into the darkness of the gorge. As we entered I looked back, and saw figures coming over the edge of the green cup—Laputa's men, I guessed. What I had to do must be done quickly.

We climbed up the burn, over the succession of little cataracts, till we came to the flat space of shingle and the long pool where I had been taken that morning. The ashes of the fire which Machudi's men had made were plain on the rock. After that I had to climb a waterfall to get to the rocky pool where I had bestowed the rubies.

'You must take off this thong,' I said. 'I must climb to get the collar. Cover me with a pistol if you like. I won't be out of sight.'

Laputa undid the thong and set me free. From his belt he took a pistol, cocked it, and held it over his left hand. I had seen this way of shooting adopted by indifferent shots, and it gave me a wild hope that he might not be much of a marksman.

It did not take me long to find the pool, close against the blackened stump of a tree-fern. I thrust in my hand and gathered up the jewels from the cool sand. They came out glowing like living fires, and for a moment I thrilled with a sense of reverence. Surely these were no common stones which held in them the very heart of hell. Clutching them tightly, I climbed down to Laputa.

At the sight of the great Snake he gave a cry of rapture. Tearing it from me, he held it at arm's length, his face lit with a passionate joy. He kissed it, he raised it to the sky; nay, he was on his knees before it. Once more he was the savage transported in the presence of his fetich. He turned to me with burning eyes.

'Down on your knees,' he cried, 'and reverence the Ndhlondhlo. Down, you impious dog, and seek pardon for your sacrilege.'

'I won't,' I said. 'I won't bow to any heathen idol.'

He pointed his pistol at me.

'In a second I shoot where your head is now. Down, you fool, or perish.'

'You promised me my life,' I said stubbornly, though Heaven knows why I chose to act thus.

He dropped the pistol and flung himself on me. I was helpless as a baby in his hands. He forced me to the ground and rolled my face in the sand; then he pulled me to my feet and tossed me backward, till I almost staggered into the pool. I saved myself, and staggered instead into the shallow at the foot of it, close under the ledge of the precipice.

That morning, when Machudi's men were cooking breakfast, I had figured out a route up the cliff. This route was now my hope of escape. Laputa had dropped his pistol, and the collar had plunged him in an ecstasy of worship. Now, if ever, was my time. I must get on the shelf which ran sideways up the cliff, and then scramble for dear life.

I pretended to be dazed and terrified.

'You promised me my life,' I whimpered.

'Your life,' he cried. 'Yes, you shall have your life; and before long you will pray for death.'

'But I saved the Collar,' I pleaded. 'Henriques would have stolen it. I brought it safe here, and now you have got it.'

Meantime I was pulling myself up on the shelf, and loosening with one hand a boulder which overhung the pool.

'You have been repaid,' he said savagely. 'You will not die.'

'But my life is no use without liberty,' I said, working at the boulder till it lay loose in its niche.

He did not answer, being intent on examining the Collar to see if it had suffered any harm.

'I hope it isn't scratched,' I said. 'Henriques trod on it when I hit him.'

Laputa peered at the gems like a mother at a child who has had a fall. I saw my chance and took it. With a great heave I pulled the boulder down into the pool. It made a prodigious splash, sending a shower of spray over Laputa and the Collar. In cover of it I raced up the shelf, straining for the shelter of the juniper tree.

A shot rang out and struck the rock above me. A second later I had reached the tree and was scrambling up the crack beyond it.

Laputa did not fire again. He may have distrusted his shooting, or seen a better way of it. He dashed through the stream and ran up the shelf like a klipspringer after me. I felt rather than saw what was happening, and with my heart in my mouth I gathered my dregs of energy for the last struggle.

You know the nightmare when you are pursued by some awful terror, and, though sick with fear, your legs have a strange numbness, and you cannot drag them in obedience to the will. Such was my feeling in the crack above the juniper tree. In truth, I had passed the bounds of my endurance. Last night I had walked fifty miles, and all day I had borne the torments of a dreadful suspense. I had been bound and gagged and beaten till the force was out of my limbs. Also, and above all, I had had little food, and I was dizzy with want of sleep. My feet seemed leaden, my hands had no more grip than putty. I do not know how I escaped falling into the pool, for my head was singing and my heart thumping in my throat. I seemed to feel Laputa's great hand every second clawing at my heels.

I had reason for my fears. He had entered the crack long before I had reached the top, and his progress was twice as fast as mine. When I emerged on the topmost shelf he was scarcely a yard behind me. But an overhang checked his bulky figure and gave me a few seconds' grace. I needed it all, for these last steps on the shelf were the totterings of an old man. Only a desperate resolution and an extreme terror made me drag one foot after