Adventure stories; Fantasy fiction, English; Quatermain, Allan (Fictitious character) -- Fiction
At this sight a great groan went up from the men of the White Kendah,
the women dressed as goddesses shrieked and tore their robes, and
Harût, who stood near, fell down in a fit or faint.
Once more Jana screamed. Then slowly he knelt down, beat his trunk and
the clattering metal balls upon the ground thrice, as though he were
making obeisance to the beautiful priestess who stood before him,
shivered throughout his mighty bulk, and rolled over—dead!
The fighting ceased. The Black Kendah, who all this while had been
pressing into the court of the temple, saw and stood stupefied. It was
as though in the presence of events to them so pregnant and terrible
men could no longer lift their swords in war.
A voice called: “The god is dead! The king is dead! Jana has slain
Simba and has himself been slain! Shattered is the Child; spilt is the
blood of Jana! Fly, People of the Black Kendah; fly, for the gods are
dead and your land is a land of ghosts!”
From every side was this wail echoed: “Fly, People of the Black Kendah,
for the gods are dead!”
They turned; they sped away like shadows, carrying their wounded with
them, nor did any attempt to stay them. Thirty minutes later, save for
some desperately hurt or dying men, not one of them was left in the
temple or the pass beyond. They had all gone, leaving none but the dead
behind them.
The fight was finished! The fight that had seemed lost was won!
I dragged myself from the ground. As I gained my tottering feet, for
now that all was over I felt as if I were made of running water, I saw
the men who held Ragnall loose their grip of him. He sprang to where
his wife was and stood before her as though confused, much as Jana had
stood, Jana against whose head he rested, his left hand holding to the
brute’s gigantic tusk, for I think that he also was weak with toil,
terror, loss of blood and emotion.
“Luna,” he gasped, “Luna!”
Leaning on the shoulder of a Kendah man, I drew nearer to see what
passed between them, for my curiosity overcame my faintness. For quite
a long while she stared at him, till suddenly her eyes began to change.
It was as though a soul were arising in their emptiness as the moon
arises in the quiet evening sky, giving them light and life. At length
she spoke in a slow, hesitating voice, the tones of which I remembered
well enough, saying:
“Oh! George, that dreadful brute,” and she pointed to the dead
elephant, “has killed our baby. Look at it! Look at it! We must be
everything to each other now, dear, as we were before it came—unless
God sends us another.”
Then she burst into a flood of weeping and fell into his arms, after
which I turned away. So, to their honour be it said, did the Kendah,
leaving the pair alone behind the bulk of dead Jana.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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