Adventure stories; Africa -- Fiction; Hunting guides -- Fiction; Quatermain, Allan (Fictitious character) -- Fiction
I have little doubt that he was addressing his lost wife, some vision
of whom had flashed across his dying sense. Stella, of course, was
overwhelmed with grief at her loss. Till I came her father had been her
sole companion, and therefore, as may be imagined, the tie between them
was much closer than is usual even in the case of father and daughter.
So deeply did she mourn that I began to fear for the effect upon her
health. Nor were we the only ones to grieve; all the natives on the
settlement called Mr. Carson “father,” and as a father they lamented
him. The air resounded with the wailing of women, and the men went
about with bowed heads, saying that “the sun had set in the heavens,
now only the Star (Stella) remained.” Indaba-zimbi alone did not mourn.
He said that it was best that the Inkoos should die, for what was life
worth when one lay like a log?—moreover, that it would have been well
for all if he had died sooner.
On the following day we buried him in the little graveyard near the
waterfall. It was a sad business, and Stella cried very much, in spite
of all I could do to comfort her.
That night as I sat outside the hut smoking—for the weather was hot,
and Stella was lying down inside—old Indaba-zimbi came up, saluted, and
squatted at my feet.
“What is it, Indaba-zimbi?” I said.
“This, Macumazahn. When are you going to trek towards the coast?”
“I don’t know,” I answered. “The Star is not fit to travel now, we must
wait awhile.”
“No, Macumazahn, you must not wait, you must go, and the Star must take
her chance. She is strong. It is nothing. All will be well.”
“Why do you say so? why must we go?”
“For this reason, Macumazahn,” and he looked cautiously round and spoke
low. “The baboons have come back in thousands. All the mountain is full
of them.”
“I did not know that they had gone,” I said.
“Yes,” he answered, “they went after the marriage, all but one or two;
now they are back, all the baboons in the world, I think. I saw a whole
cliff black with them.”
“Is that all?” I said, for I saw that he had something behind. “I am
not afraid of a pack of baboons.”
“No, Macumazahn, it is not all. The Babyan-frau, Hendrika, is with
them.”
Now nothing had been heard or seen of Hendrika since her expulsion, and
though at first she and her threats had haunted me somewhat, by degrees
she to a great extent had passed out of my mind, which was fully
preoccupied with Stella and my father-in-law’s illness. I started
violently. “How do you know this?” I asked.
“I know it because I saw her, Macumazahn. She is disguised, she is
dressed up in baboon skins, and her face is stained dark. But though
she was a long way off, I knew her by her size, and I saw the white
flesh of her arm when the skins slipped aside. She has come back,
Macumazahn, with all the baboons in the world, and she has come back to
do evil. Now do you understand why you should trek?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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