Here old Quatermain broke off suddenly.
“Look here, you fellows,” he said, “I can’t bear to go on with this part of the story, because I never could stand either seeing or talking of the sufferings of children. You can guess what that devil did, and what the poor mother was forced to witness. Would you believe it, she told me the tale without a tremor, in the most matter-of-fact way. Only I noticed that her eyelid quivered all the time.
“ ‘Well,’ I said, as unconcernedly as though I had been talking of the death of a lamb, though inwardly I was sick with horror and boiling with rage, ‘and what do you mean to do about the matter, Maiwa, wife of Wambe?’
“ ‘I mean to do this, white man,’ she answered, drawing herself up to her full height, and speaking in tones as hard as steel and cold as ice—‘I mean to work, and work, and work, to bring this to pass, and to bring that to pass, until at length it comes to pass that with these living eyes I behold Wambe dying the death that he gave to his child and my child.’
“ ‘Well said,’ I answered.
“ ‘Ay, well said, Macumazahn, well said, and not easily forgotten. Who could forget, oh, who could forget? See where this dead hand rests against my side; so once it rested when alive. And now, though it is dead, now every night it creeps from its nest and strokes my hair and clasps my fingers in its tiny palm. Every night it does this, fearing lest I should forget. Oh, my child! my child! ten days ago I held thee to my breast, and now this alone remains of thee,’ and she kissed the dead hand and shivered, but never a tear did she weep.
“ ‘See now,’ she went on, ‘the white man, the prisoner at Wambe’s kraal, he was kind to me. He loved the child that is dead, yes, he wept when its father slew it, and at the risk of his life told Wambe, my husband—ah, yes, my husband!—that which he is! He too it was who made a plan. He said to me, “Go, Maiwa, after the custom of thy people, go purify thyself in the bush alone, having touched a dead one. Say to Wambe thou goest to purify thyself alone for fifteen days, according to the custom of thy people. Then fly to thy father, Nala, and stir him up to war against Wambe for the sake of the child that is dead.” This then he said, and his words seemed good to me, and that same night ere I left to purify myself came news that a white man hunted in the country, and Wambe, being mad with drink, grew very wrath, and gave orders that an impi should be gathered to slay the white man and his people and seize his goods. Then did the “Smiter of Iron” (Every) write the message on the green leaves, and bid me seek thee out, and show forth the matter, that thou mightest save thyself by flight; and behold, this thing have I done, Macumazahn, the hunter, the Slayer of Elephants.’
“ ‘Ah,’ I said, ‘I thank you. And how many men be there in the impi of Wambe?’
“ ‘A hundred of men and half a hundred.’
“ ‘And where is the impi?’
“ ‘There to the north. It follows on thy spoor. I saw it pass yesterday, but myself I guessed that thou wouldst be nigher to the mountain, and came this way, and found thee. Tomorrow at the daybreak the slayers will be here.’
“ ‘Very possibly,’ I thought to myself; ‘but they won’t find Macumazahn. I have half a mind to put some strychnine into the carcases of those elephants for their especial benefit though.’ I knew that they would stop to eat the elephants, as indeed they did, to our great gain, but I abandoned the idea of poisoning them, because I was rather short of strychnine.”
“Or because you did not like to play the trick, Quatermain?” I suggested with a laugh.
“I said because I had not enough strychnine. It would take a great deal of strychnine to poison three elephants effectually,” answered the old gentleman testily.
I said nothing further, but I smiled, knowing that old Allan could never have resorted to such an artifice, however severe his strait. But that was his way; he always made himself out to be a most unmerciful person.
“Well,” he went on, “at that moment Gobo came up and announced that we were ready to march. ‘I am glad that you are ready,’ I said, ‘because if you don’t march, and march quick, you will never march again, that is all. Wambe has an impi out to kill us, and it will be here presently.’
“Gobo turned positively green, and his knees knocked together. ‘Ah, what did I say?’ he exclaimed. ‘Fate walks about loose in Wambe’s country.’
“ ‘Very good; now all you have to do is to walk a little quicker than he does. No, no, you don’t leave those elephant tusks behind—I am not going to part with them I can tell you.’
“Gobo said no more, but hastily directed the men to take up their loads, and then asked which way we were to run.
“ ‘Ah,’ I said to Maiwa, ‘which way?’
“ ‘There,’ she answered, pointing towards the great mountain spur which towered up into the sky some forty miles away, separating the territories of Nala and Wambe—‘there, below that
