Adventure stories; Fantasy fiction, English; Quatermain, Allan (Fictitious character) -- Fiction
I will confess, however foolish it may seem, that I gave him certain
messages, but what they were I shall not write down. Let them remain
secret between me and him. Yes, between me and him and perhaps those to
whom they were to be delivered. For after all, in his own words, who
can know exactly where fancies end and truths begin, and whether at
times fancies are not the veritable truths in this universal mystery of
which the individual life of each of us is so small a part?
Hans repeated what I had spoken to him word for word, as a native does,
repeated it twice over, after which he said he knew it by heart and
remained silent for a long while. Then he asked me to lift him up in
the doorway of the cell so that he might look at the sun setting for
the last time, “for, Baas,” he added, “I think I am going far beyond
the sun.”
He stared at it for a while, remarking that from the look of the sky
there should be fine weather coming, “which will be good for your
journey towards the Black Water, Baas, with all that ivory to carry.”
I answered that perhaps I should never get the ivory from the graveyard
of the elephants, as the Black Kendah might prevent this.
“No, no, Baas,” he replied, “now that Jana is dead the Black Kendah
will go away. I know it, I know it!”
Then he wandered for a space, speaking of sundry adventures we had
shared together, till quite before the last indeed, when his mind
returned to him.
“Baas,” he said, “did not the captain Mavovo name me Light-in-Darkness,
and is not that my name? When you too enter the Darkness, look for that
Light; it will be shining very close to you.”
He only spoke once more. His words were:
“Baas, I understand now what your reverend father, the Predikant, meant
when he spoke to me about Love last night. It had nothing to do with
women, Baas, at least not much. It was something a great deal bigger,
Baas, something as big as what I feel for you!”
Then Hans died with a smile on his wrinkled face.
I wept!
CHAPTER XXI.
HOMEWARDS
There is not much more to write of this expedition, or if that
statement be not strictly true, not much more that I wish to write,
though I have no doubt that Ragnall, if he had a mind that way, could
make a good and valuable book concerning many matters on which,
confining myself to the history of our adventure, I have scarcely
touched. All the affinities between this Central African Worship of the
Heavenly Child and its Guardian and that of Horus and Isis in Egypt
from which it was undoubtedly descended, for instance. Also the part
which the great serpent played therein, as it may be seen playing a
part in every tomb upon the Nile, and indeed plays a part in our own
and other religions. Further, our journey across the desert to the Red
Sea was very interesting, but I am tired of describing journeys—and of
making them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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