第31章

I asked what size the land was, and how many people lived in it.She answered that there were ten "households," like this that she knew of, including the big "household," where the queen was; that all the "households" lived in caves, in places resembling this stretch of raised country, dotted about in a vast extent of swamp, which was only to be threaded by secret paths.Often the "households" made war on each other until _i_ She _i_ sent word that it was to stop, and then they instantly ceased.That and the fever which they caught in crossing the swamps prevented their numbers from increasing too much.They had no connection with any other race, indeed none lived near them, or were able to thread the vast swamps.Once an army from the direction of the great river (presumably the Zambesi) had attempted to attack them, but they got lost in the marshes, and at night, seeing the great balls of fire that move about there, tried to come to them, thinking that they marked the enemy's camp, and half of them were drowned.As for the rest, they soon died of fever and starvation, not a blow being struck at them.The marshes, she told us, were absolutely impassable except to those who knew the paths, adding, what I could well believe, that we should never have reached this place where we then were had we not been brought thither.

These and many other things we learned from Ustane during the four days pause before our real adventures began gave us considerable cause for thought.The whole thing was exceedingly remarkable, almost incredibly so, indeed, and the oddest part of it was that so far it did more or less correspond to the ancient writing on the sherd.And now it appeared that there was a mysterious queen clothed by rumor with dread and wonderful attributes, and commonly known by the impersonal but, to my mind, rather awesome title of _i_ She _i_.Altogether, I could not make it out, nor could Leo, though of course he was exceedingly triumphant over me because I had persistently mocked at the whole thing.As for Job, he had long since abandoned any attempt to call his reason his own, and left it to drift on the sea of circumstance.Mahomed, the Arab, who was, by the way, treated civilly indeed, but with chilling contempt, by the Amahagger, was, Idiscovered, in a great fright, though I could not quite make out what he was frightened about.He would sit crouched in a corner of the cave all day long, calling upon Allah and the Prophet to protect him.

When I pressed him about it, he said that he was afraid because these people were not men and women at all, but devils, and that this was an enchanted land;and, upon my word, once or twice since then I have been inclined to agree with him.And so the time went on, till the night of the fourth day after Billali had left, when something happened.

We three and Ustane were sitting round a fire in the cave just before bedtime, when suddenly the woman, who had been brooding in silence, rose, and laid her hand upon Leo's golden curls, and addressed him.Even now, when I shut my eyes, I can see her proud, imperial form, clothed alternately in dense shadow and the red flickering of the fire, as she stood, the wild centre of as weird a scene as I ever witnessed, and delivered herself of the burden of her thoughts and forebodings in a kind of rhythmical speech that ran something follows:

[poem in italics]

"Thou art my chosenI have waited for thee from the beginning!

Thou art very beautiful.Who hath hair like unto thee, or skin so white?

Who hath so strong an arm, who is so much a man.

Thine eyes are the sky, and the light in them is the stars.

Thou art perfect and of a happy face, and my heart turned itself towards thee.

Ay, when mine eyes fell on thee I did desire theeThen did I take thee to methou, my Beloved, And hold thee fast, lest harm should come unto thee.

Ay, I did cover thine head with mine hair, lest the sun should strike it;And altogether was I thine, and thou wast altogether mine.

And so it went for a little space, till Time was in labor with an evil Day;And then what befell on that day?

Alas! my Beloved, I know not!

But I, I saw thee no moreI, I was lost in the blackness.

And she who is stronger did take thee;

ay, she who is fairer than Ustane.

Yet didst thou turn and call upon me, and let thine eyes wander in the darkness.

But, nevertheless, she prevailed by Beauty, and led thee down horrible places, And then, ah! then my Beloved"Here this extraordinary woman broke off her speech, or chant, which was so much musical gibberish to us, for all that we understood of what she was talking about, and seemed to fix her flashing eyes upon the deep shadow before her.Then in a moment they acquired a vacant, terrified stare, as though they were striving to realize some half seen horror.She lifted her hand from Leo's head, and pointed into the darkness.We all looked, and could see nothing; but she saw something, or thought she did, and something evidently that affected even her iron nerves, for, without another sound, down she fell senseless between us.

Leo, who was growing really attached to this remarkable young person, was in a great state of alarm and distress, and I, to be perfectly candid, was in a condition not far removed from superstitious fear.The whole scene was an uncanny one.

Presently, however, she recovered, and sat up with an extraordinary convulsive shudder.

"What didst thou mean, Ustane?" asked Leo, who, thanks to years of tuition, spoke Arabic very prettily.

"Nay, my chosen," she answered, with a little forced laugh, "I did but sing unto thee after the fashion of my people.Surely, I meant nothing.How could I speak of that which is not yet?""And what didst thou see, Ustane?" I asked, looking her sharply in the face.

"Nay," she answered again; "I saw naught.Ask me not what I saw.Why should I fright ye?" And then, turning to Leo with a look of the most utter tenderness that Iever saw upon the face of a woman, civilized or savage, she took his head between her hands, and kissed him on the forehead as a mother might."When Iam gone from thee, my chosen; when at night thou stretchest out: thy hand and canst not find me, then shouldst thou think at times of me, for of a truth Ilove thee well, though I be not fit to wash thy feet.

And now let us love and take that which is given us, and be happy; for in the grave there is no love and no warmth, nor any touching of the lips.Nothing perchance, or perchance but bitter memories of what might have been.To-night the hours are our own, how know we to whom they shall belong to-morrow?"