Adventure stories; Africa -- Fiction; Hunting guides -- Fiction; Quatermain, Allan (Fictitious character) -- Fiction
I looked. The water grew dark; it cleared, and in it was a picture. I
saw a cave with a fire burning in it. Against the wall of the cave
rested Stella. Her dress was torn almost off her, she looked dreadfully
pale and weary, and her eyelids were red as though with weeping. But
she slept, and I could almost think that I saw her lips shape my name
in her sleep. Close to her, her head upon Stella’s breast, was little
Tota; she had a skin thrown over her to keep out the night cold. The
child was awake, and appeared to be moaning with fear. By the fire, and
in such a position that the light fell full upon her face, and engaged
in cooking something in a rough pot shaped from wood, sat the
Baboon-woman, Hendrika. She was clothed in baboon skins, and her face
had been rubbed with some dark stain, which was, however, wearing off
it. In the intervals of her cooking she would turn on Stella her wild
eyes, in which glared visible madness, with an expression of tenderness
that amounted to worship. Then she would stare at the child and gnash
her teeth as though with hate. Clearly she was jealous of it. Round the
entrance arch of the cave peeped and peered the heads of many baboons.
Presently Hendrika made a sign to one of them; apparently she did not
speak, or rather grunt, in order not to wake Stella. The brute hopped
forward, and she gave it a second rude wooden pot which was lying by
her. It took it and went. The last thing that I saw, as the vision
slowly vanished from the pool, was the dim shadow of the baboon
returning with the pot full of water.
Presently everything had gone. I ceased to feel strange. There beneath
me was the pool, and at my side stood Indaba-zimbi, smiling.
“You have seen things,” he said.
“I have,” I answered, and made no further remark on the matter. What
was there to say?[*] “Do you know the path to the cave?” I added.
[*] For some almost equally remarkable instances of Kaffir magic the
reader is referred to a work named “Among the Zulus,” by David
Leslie.—Editor.
He nodded his head. “I did not follow it all just now, because it
winds,” he said. “But I know it. We shall want the ropes.”
“Then let us be starting; the men have eaten.”
He nodded his head again, and going to the men I told them to make
ready, adding that Indaba-zimbi knew the way. They said that was all
right, if Indaba-zimbi had “smelt her out,” they should soon find the
Star. So we started cheerfully enough, and my spirits were so much
improved that I was able to eat a boiled mealie cob or two as we
walked.
We went up the valley, following the course of the stream for about a
mile; then Indaba-zimbi made a sudden turn to the right, along another
kloof, of which there were countless numbers in the base of the great
hill.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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