Adventure stories; Africa -- Fiction; Hunting guides -- Fiction; Quatermain, Allan (Fictitious character) -- Fiction
We were to be married after the service which Mr. Carson held every
Sunday morning in the large marble hut set apart for that purpose. The
service began at ten o’clock, but long before that hour all the natives
on the place came up in troops, singing as they came, to be present at
the wedding of the “Star.” It was a pretty sight to see them, the men
dressed in all their finery, and carrying shields and sticks in their
hands, and the women and children bearing green branches of trees,
ferns, and flowers. At length, about half-past nine, Stella rose,
pressed my hand, and left me to my reflections. A few minutes to ten
she reappeared again with her father, dressed in a white veil, a wreath
of orange flowers on her dark curling hair, a bouquet of orange flowers
in her hand. To me she seemed like a dream of loveliness. With her came
little Tota in a high state of glee and excitement. She was Stella’s
only bridesmaid. Then we all passed out towards the church hut. The
bare space in front of it was filled with hundreds of natives, who set
up a song as we came. But we went on into the hut, which was crowded
with such of the natives as usually worshipped there. Here Mr. Carson,
as usual, read the service, though he was obliged to sit down in order
to do so. When it was done—and to me it seemed interminable—Mr. Carson
whispered that he meant to marry us outside the hut in sight of all the
people. So we went out and took our stand under the shade of a large
tree that grew near the hut facing the bare space where the natives
were gathered.
Mr. Carson held up his hand to enjoin silence. Then, speaking in the
native dialect, he told them that he was about to make us man and wife
after the Christian fashion and in the sight of all men. This done, he
proceeded to read the marriage service over us, and very solemnly and
beautifully he did it. We said the words, I placed the ring—it was her
father’s signet ring, for we had no other—upon Stella’s finger, and it
was done.
Then Mr. Carson spoke. “Allan and Stella,” he said, “I believe that the
ceremony which has been performed makes you man and wife in the sight
of God and man, for all that is necessary to make a marriage binding
is, that it should be celebrated according to the custom of the country
where the parties to it reside. It is according to the custom that has
been in force here for fifteen years or more that you have been married
in the face of all the people, and in token of it you will both sign
the register that I have kept of such marriages, among those of my
people who have adopted the Christian Faith. Still, in case there
should be any legal flaw I again demand the solemn promise of you both
that on the first opportunity you will cause this marriage to be
re-celebrated in some civilized land. Do you promise?”
“We do,” we answered.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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