Already I seemed to hear the water rippling against the desiccated bones and rattling them together, rolling my skull against Mahomed’s, and his against mine, till at last Mahomed’s stood straight up upon its vertebrae, and glared at me through its empty eyeholes, and cursed me with its grinning jaws, because I, a dog of a Christian, disturbed the last sleep of a true believer. I opened my eyes, and shuddered at the horrid dream, and then shuddered again at something that was not a dream, for two great eyes were gleaming down at me through the misty darkness. I struggled up, and in my terror and confusion shrieked, and shrieked again, so that the others sprang up too, reeling, and drunken with sleep and fear. And then all of a sudden there was a flash of cold steel, and a great spear was held against my throat, and behind it other spears gleamed cruelly.
“Peace,” said a voice, speaking in Arabic, or rather in some dialect into which Arabic entered very largely; “who are ye who come hither swimming on the water? Speak or ye die,” and the steel pressed sharply against my throat, sending a cold chill through me.
“We are travellers, and have come hither by chance,” I answered in my best Arabic, which appeared to be understood, for the man turned his head, and, addressing a tall form that towered up in the background, said, “Father, shall we slay?”
“What is the colour of the men?” said a deep voice in answer.
“White is their colour.”
“Slay not,” was the reply. “Four suns since was the word brought to me from ‘She-who-must-be-obeyed,’ ‘White men come; if white men come, slay them not.’ Let them be brought to the house of ‘She-who-must-be-obeyed.’ Bring forth the men, and let that which they have with them be brought forth also.”
“Come,” said the man, half leading and half dragging me from the boat, and as he did so I perceived other men doing the same kind office to my companions.
On the bank were gathered a company of some fifty men. In that light all I could make out was that they were armed with huge spears, were very tall, and strongly built, comparatively light in colour, and nude, save for a leopard skin tied round the middle.
Presently Leo and Job were bundled out and placed beside me.
“What on earth is up?” said Leo, rubbing his eyes.
“Oh, Lord! sir, here’s a rum go,” ejaculated Job; and just at that moment a disturbance ensued, and Mahomed came tumbling between us, followed by a shadowy form with an uplifted spear.
“Allah! Allah!” howled Mahomed, feeling that he had little to hope from man, “protect me! protect me!”
“Father, it is a black one,” said a voice. “What said ‘She-who-must-be-obeyed’ about the black one?”
“She said naught; but slay him not. Come hither, my son.” The man advanced, and the tall shadowy form bent forward and whispered something.
“Yes, yes,” said the other, and chuckled in a rather bloodcurdling tone.
“Are the three white men there?” asked the form.
“Yes, they are there.”
“Then bring up that which is made ready for them, and let the men take all that can be brought from the thing which floats.”
Hardly had he spoken when men came running up, carrying on their shoulders neither more nor less than palanquins – four bearers and two spare men to a palanquin – and in these it was promptly indicated we were expected to stow ourselves.
“Well!” said Leo, “it is a blessing to find anybody to carry us after having to carry ourselves so long.”
Leo always takes a cheerful view of things.
There being no help for it, after seeing the others into theirs I tumbled into my own litter, and very comfortable I found it. It appeared to be manufactured of cloth woven from grass-fibre, which stretched and yielded to every motion of the body, and, being bound top and bottom to the bearing pole, gave a grateful support to the head and neck.
Scarcely had I settled myself when, accompanying their steps with a monotonous song, the bearers started at a swinging trot. For half an hour or so I lay still, reflecting on the very remarkable experiences that we were going through, and wondering if any of my eminently respectable fossil friends down at Cambridge would believe me if I were to be miraculously set at the familiar dinner-table for the purpose of relating them. I do not want to convey any disrespectful notion or slight when I call those good and learned men fossils, but my experience is that people are apt to fossilise even at a University if they follow the same paths too persistently. I was getting fossilised myself, but of late my stock of ideas has been very much enlarged. Well, I lay and reflected, and wondered what on earth would be the end of it all, till at last I ceased to wonder, and went to sleep.
I suppose I must have slept for seven or eight hours, getting the first real rest that I had had since the night before the loss of the dhow, for when I woke the sun was high in the heavens. We were still journeying on at a pace of about four miles an hour. Peeping out through the mist-like curtains of the litter, which were ingeniously fixed to the bearing pole, I perceived to my infinite relief that we had passed out of the region of eternal swamp, and were now travelling over swelling grassy plains towards a cup-shaped hill. Whether or not it was the same hill that we had seen from the canal I do not know, and have never since been able to discover, for, as we afterwards found out, these people will give little information upon such points. Next I glanced at the men who were bearing me. They were of a magnificent build, few of them being under six feet in height, and yellowish in colour. Generally their appearance had a good deal in common with that of the East African Somali, only their hair was not frizzed up, but hung in thick black locks upon their shoulders. Their features were aquiline, and in many cases exceedingly handsome, the teeth being especially regular and beautiful. But notwithstanding their beauty, it struck me that, on the whole, I had never seen a more evil-looking set of faces. There was an aspect of cold and sullen cruelty stamped upon them that revolted me, and which in some cases was almost uncanny in its intensity.
Another thing that struck me about them was that they never seemed to smile. Sometimes they sang the monotonous song of which I have spoken, but when they were not singing they remained almost perfectly silent, and the light of a laugh never came to brighten their sombre and evil countenances. Of what race could these people be? Their language was a bastard Arabic, and yet they were not Arabs; I was quite sure of that. For one thing they were too dark, or rather yellow. I could not say why, but I know that their appearance filled me with a sick fear of which I felt ashamed. While I was still wondering another litter came up alongside of mine. In it – for the curtains were drawn – sat an old man, clothed in a whitish robe, made apparently from coarse linen, that hung loosely about him, who, I at once jumped to the conclusion, was the shadowy figure that had stood on the bank and been addressed as “Father.” He was a wonderful-looking old man, with a snowy beard, so long that the ends of it hung over the sides of the litter, and