Chapter Fourteen.
Prisoners.
At length, after a tremendous amount of unnecessary confusion and trouble, the oxen were inspanned, and with the usual unearthly yells and loud cracking of the long whip by Jantje, mounted upon the wagon box, the creaking, lumbering vehicle was got under way, Ramoo Samee following close behind and leading the horses, while the dogs and Leo came to heel and trotted along close behind Grosvenor and Dick, as was their wont when their masters chose to walk, which was not very often. As for the soldiers, they arranged themselves as a cordon round the entire cortege, the officer in command leading the way.
This order was maintained until the noon outspan, when the officer, after some pressing, laid aside his aloofness sufficiently to accept Grosvenor’s invitation to join him and Dick at luncheon. This proved to be the thin end of the wedge, so to speak; for the man could scarcely sit at the same table with his two prisoners, partake of their fare, and still preserve his original attitude of silence toward them; indeed it soon became evident that he was consumed with curiosity concerning the two people who had travelled such a distance with such few retainers; who seemed to have absolutely no knowledge of what fear was; and who apparently numbered lions as well as dogs among their domestic animals. He began by making a few tentative remarks, to which Grosvenor responded at some length, and then suddenly demanded, with an air of astonishment that he made scarcely any effort to conceal, how it came about that he, Grosvenor, a total stranger, was able to communicate with a native of the country in what was practically his own language. Then Grosvenor entered into a long explanation, involving a brief history of the principal seats of learning in England, with the methods and subjects of study pursued therein, and including the interesting fact that Hebrew, being commonly regarded as one of the most ancient tongues in the world, was there regarded as especially worthy of attention.
This last statement seemed to be particularly gratifying to the young officer’s vanity, and had a distinctly mollifying effect upon his original hauteur and coldness. He thawed visibly, and even condescended to laugh at some mild joke upon which Grosvenor ventured, and then sought to further satisfy his curiosity by making a number of personal enquiries as to where Phil and his friend came from, why they came, how long they had been upon the journey, and so on. To all these enquiries Grosvenor replied pretty fully, but when in his turn he attempted to elicit some information respecting their destination, and the treatment that they might expect to receive upon their arrival, the man at once shut up like a trap, and thenceforward for the remainder of the journey refused to hold any communication whatever with his prisoners.
Their route lay in the direction of a range of distant hills, which they judged it was the intention of their captor to cross; and as they went they found the country gradually changing its character by subtle gradations, growing ever more fertile and more highly cultivated with every mile of progress, while the houses increased in number and clustered more thickly together. At length, after passing through one of these hamlets, they emerged upon a narrow field path, which widened somewhat when the next hamlet was passed, and so gradually became a more prominent feature until ultimately it developed into a full-blown road, which, rough and uneven at first, steadily improved in appearance and quality until it became a very excellent and much-used thoroughfare, shaded by trees on either hand. In short the country, which on its extreme frontier was a perfect wilderness, steadily improved with every mile of progress toward its interior, as regarded the evidences of a high state of civilisation. One of the strangest things, however, which came under the notice of the Englishmen was that, from the moment of their arrest, the inhabitants—whom they encountered in ever-increasing numbers as the day wore on—manifested the most absolute indifference with regard to them, not even deigning to cast a second glance upon what was clearly a most novel and unusual sight in that country.
At sunset the party encamped at the foot of the hills toward which they had been journeying all day, and which proved to be much more lofty, and at a much greater distance, than they had imagined them to be when they were first sighted; and the whole of the next day was consumed in climbing, by means of an excellent road, to the summit of a pass where, having safely negotiated a short length of exceedingly narrow and difficult roadway between two enormous vertical cliffs, they emerged upon a small plateau of rich grassland that afforded good camping ground for the night.
The spot where the travellers outspanned was the bottom of a miniature basin of some five or six acres in extent, and was surrounded on all sides by steep slopes terminating in a series of jagged peaks, some four or five hundred feet high, that bounded the view in every direction and limited it to a distance of about half a mile. But when, after inspanning on the following morning, they crossed the little plateau upon which they had spent the night, and passed round a bluff at its farther side, a wonderful prospect at once burst upon their astonished gaze. For they now found that the chain of hills, up the outer slope of which they had been laboriously climbing during the whole of the preceding day, formed an unbroken if somewhat irregular circle of something like forty miles in diameter, measuring across from ridge to ridge, the inner slopes of the encircling hills being from three to five miles wide, with a plain of from five to ten miles in width at their feet, this plain in turn encircling a lovely lake, measuring about twenty miles across, the very centre of which was occupied by an island of perhaps three or four miles in diameter, the whole rugged surface of which appeared to be covered with buildings embowered in leafy gardens.
Now at last the travellers began to really understand the wealth and importance of the people into whose country they had entered, uninvited; for, as far as the eye could reach, even with the aid of their exceedingly powerful field glasses, the mountain slopes and the plain that lay circling at their feet consisted of nothing but a practically unbroken sweep of highly cultivated land, dotted with snug farmhouses, and bearing ripening crops of various kinds, interspersed here and there with trim vineyards, or orchards of fruitbearing trees; while, at distances of from three to eight or ten miles apart, there nestled among groves of noble shade trees, villages which must have sheltered from a hundred-and-fifty to, perhaps, four or five hundred inhabitants. And through all there ran a perfect network of roads, carrying, as could be seen with the aid of their glasses, a considerable amount of traffic, among which could be distinguished a number of wheeled vehicles, the first they had seen since entering the country.
The officer, who was their custodian, was evidently intensely gratified at the surprise and admiration freely expressed by his two principal prisoners at the scene that lay spread out at their feet, and even halted the cortege for a few minutes to enable Dick and Grosvenor to take in its multudinous details conveniently, and examine them through their field glasses. It was noticed by the two Englishmen that he regarded these instruments with the most acute curiosity, but either pride or reserve deterred him from asking any question concerning them. When, however, Dick offered him a peep through them, he was wholly unable to resist the temptation, or to restrain his expressions of amazement as, glancing through the tubes at the island, some twenty miles distant, he was enabled to distinguish such details as the roofs, windows, and doors of houses built thereon, while of course the details of houses in the plain below, the character of the several vehicles on the roads, the numbers of oxen in the teams which drew them, were quite unmistakable. But when Grosvenor, seeking to avail himself of this temporary relaxation of manner, attempted once more to engage the man in conversation, he instantly relapsed into his former attitude of unresponsiveness; and his manner soon made it clear that he was determined to risk no complications of any kind by allowing anything in the nature of familiarity or friendliness between himself and his prisoners.
The descent from the crest of the encircling hills to the circular belt of plain below was of course quite an easy matter, compared with the ascent of the outer slope on the previous day, the gradient of the road being practically uniform all the way, and just steep enough to necessitate a slight application of the brakebar to the rear wheels of the wagon from the crest to the plain; and Dick noted with some surprise that their taciturn friend, the officer in command, appeared to be greatly interested in the working of this exceedingly simple piece of apparatus, as though it was something with which he was quite unfamiliar. The party effected the descent and reached the level plain in about an hour and a half from the moment of starting, and soon found themselves travelling along a broad, level, well-kept road among a large number of other people, most of whom looked at them with more or less curiosity, but steadfastly refrained from addressing a word of remark to any of the guard who had them in charge.
About half an hour after reaching the plain they debouched into another and much broader road than that by which they had been previously travelling, and it then became tolerably evident that their ultimate destination must be the island in the centre of the lake; for the road which they were now traversing was absolutely straight all the way to the margin of the lake, and pointed accurately toward the island.
They had been travelling along this road for nearly an hour, and were approaching a village of more importance than any which they had hitherto passed, when there suddenly arose a considerable commotion among the people on the road ahead of them, who were seen running confusedly hither and thither amid a great cloud of dust, while shouts, shrieks, and a sound of low, angry bellowing rose upon the stagnant air. Mechanically the whole party came to a halt to see what was the matter, while Jantje and ’Nkuku began shouting to each other in greatly excited tones, and the oxen which were drawing the wagon began to low, snort, sniff the air, stamp excitedly on the ground, and lunge at each other with their long horns. For perhaps a minute it was impossible to guess what was happening; then the shouts suddenly grew much louder and more excited, the crowd ahead parted right and left as though panic-stricken, there arose a shriek of terror, or pain, or perhaps both, a man’s body was seen to go whirling some eight or ten feet into the air, and then a bulky something, which presently resolved itself into a huge buffalo bull, emerged from the dust-cloud and came charging along the road, striking out with its immense, curved, sharp-pointed horns at everybody in its way. The brute was then only about two hundred yards off, and was galloping straight toward the party, with tail high in the air, head low, eyes aflame with fury, and great gouts of froth dripping from its heavy muzzle. For a moment the soldiers seemed paralysed with terror, the next they all turned as with one accord, and, leaping an irrigation ditch that ran alongside the road, sought safety in flight across a field of young wheat. The buffalo paused a moment in mid-career, as though hesitating whether he should pursue them or charge the wagon and its team of oxen; but the next moment the brute had made up its mind, and, perhaps attracted by the crimson trimming and glittering ornaments of the officer’s tunic, leaped the ditch and deliberately selected that unfortunate individual as the especial object of his pursuit. The position of the man at once became one of deadly peril, for, fast though he ran, the buffalo had the advantage in the matter of speed, and was rapidly gaining upon him when Dick and Grosvenor sprang to the wagon and, hastily seizing their rifles, prepared to act. Dick was the first on the ground again with his weapon, and, sinking on one knee to secure steadiness of aim, he brought the sights to bear exactly behind the animal’s left shoulder, and fired. The spirt of flame and the little jet of filmy blue smoke extorted a sharp ejaculation of astonishment from those who were near enough to notice it, but it was as nothing compared with the shout of mingled amazement, terror, and relief that went up when the huge beast stumbled, fell forward on his head, turned a complete somersault, and lay still, slain at the very instant when, having overtaken the fugitive, he had lowered his head to impale the shrieking man upon his horns.
With such startling abruptness did the huge beast collapse that the pursued officer did not realise the fact until he had run a farther distance of some thirty yards or so, and even then, when at length he halted and looked back at the prostrate and motionless animal, he seemed quite unable to understand that it was dead and harmless; for he shouted an order to his men to close in round the buffalo and secure it with cords before it recovered itself and resumed the aggressive. It was not until a few of the bolder spirits, having cautiously approached the carcass, nearly enough to perceive the bullet hole and the blood flowing from it, had satisfied themselves that the brute was in very truth dead, and had borne emphatic testimony to the extraordinary fact, that he was able to screw up his own courage to the point of personal investigation. Then he calmly made his way back to the road and, approaching Grosvenor, demanded an explanation of the seeming miracle; but even after he had been told, and the rifle exhibited to him and its powers laboriously explained, he seemed quite unable to understand, and was at last fain to dismiss the mystery with an impatient shrug of the shoulders, and an order for the march to be resumed.
But Dick had seen a man tossed by the buffalo, and had judged, by the victim’s shriek of agony, that he was badly hurt; he therefore kept his eyes open as they passed along the road, and sharply directed Grosvenor to call upon the officer to halt when presently they came upon a group of about a dozen persons standing by the side of the road surrounding a little group consisting of two persons, a man and a woman; the man bleeding profusely from a ghastly wound in the thigh, and already grey and sharp of feature under the shadow of death, while the woman crouched helplessly in the dust, supporting the wounded man’s head upon her knees.
Without ceremony Dick forced his way through the little crowd of onlookers, gave one keen glance at the prostrate man, and then, turning, shouted to Grosvenor:
“This chap is bleeding to death, Phil—artery severed apparently. Just explain to our man, will you, and tell him that, with his permission, I propose to save the poor fellow’s life. Mafuta, bring my medicine chest here, quick!”
The little crowd, that was fast being augmented by new arrivals, scowled ferociously at the, to them, uncouthly clad but stalwart figure of the young doctor who had so unceremoniously forced his way in among them, but remained passive, possibly gathering, from the tone of his speech, that he proposed to succour the wounded man; nor did the officer in charge of the party offer any objection, but obediently called a halt when requested by Grosvenor to do so. A few seconds later, therefore, Dick, with Grosvenor as his assistant, was kneeling beside the wounded man, deftly bathing his terrible injury with an antiseptic lotion, prior to the more difficult and delicate task of searching for and securing the ends of the severed artery, which had been spouting blood like a fountain until Dick had applied the tourniquet. The entire operation of dressing, stitching, and binding up the wound occupied the best part of half an hour, by which time the roadway was packed with people anxiously enquiring what was amiss, and eager to get a glimpse of the benevolent young barbarians who had so strangely come among them and at so opportune a moment. Those who were favourably enough placed actually to see what was going on were filled with amazement and—despite their unreasoning hatred of strangers—admiration at the deftness with which Dick first stanched the flow of blood and then proceeded to dress the injury; for, strangely enough, this people, highly civilised though they were in some respects, possessed but the most rudimentary knowledge of medicine and surgery, pinning their faith chiefly to the virtue of charms and incantations, their knowledge being not nearly sufficient to enable them successfully to grapple with so serious an injury as that with which the young Englishman was so calmly and competently dealing. As the operation proceeded, these people, usually so cold and self-contained, reported progress to those who were less favourably situated for observation than themselves, and in this way the entire crowd were kept posted up in every step, until finally a great sigh of relief arose from them as Dick concluded his task and rose to his feet.
But the young doctor had not yet finished with his patient, by any means; he intended to see him safely into his own home before he left him, and this he did, a half-dozen of the soldiers fetching the man’s bed from his house, carefully lifting him thereon, and carrying him in, under Dick’s watchful care, aided by Grosvenor as interpreter. This done, he administered a soothing and fever-allaying draught; after which, upon being informed by the young officer that he would probably have no opportunity of seeing his patient again, he hypnotised the man and subjected him to a powerful mental suggestion that all danger was now past, that no complications of any kind would arise, and that he would rapidly get well without further attention. This done, he and Grosvenor rejoined the wagon and resumed their march.
The delay occasioned by this incident of the buffalo so retarded their progress that it was close upon noon before they arrived at the margin of the lake; and here they were curtly informed that they were about to be conveyed to the island, and that as it was not proposed to take the wagon or any of the animals with them, they must indicate what few articles they thought they might require during the next few days, and those articles would be conveyed across with them. There was a certain indefinable, sinister suggestiveness in the character of this communication that seemed to imply a doubt in the mind of the official who made it whether the individuals to whom it was made would require anything at all after “the next few days”; but Dick and Grosvenor, acting as usual upon the general principle of taking an optimistic view of everything, gave no sign that they detected anything of a covert character in the intimation, and calmly indicated the trunks containing their clothing, the medicine chest, their rifles and revolvers, and a case of ammunition for the same, all of which were duly placed in a large craft, in shape something between a canoe and a lighter, which they afterward discovered was propelled by sixty paddles. At the last moment it transpired that their black attendants, Mafuta, Jantje, and ’Nkuku were to be left behind on the mainland—which arrangement also appeared to bear a certain sinister significance—whereupon Grosvenor suggested the extreme importance of placing them in charge of the wagon and its remaining contents, part of which—two cases of ammunition, to wit—he explained, consisted of terribly powerful magic, any tampering with which by unauthorised persons must inevitably have the most appallingly disastrous results. This suggestion, Grosvenor was informed, would receive the most careful consideration of the authorities; and he had the satisfaction of believing that not only would this probably result in saving the lives of the blacks, at least for a time, but he also perceived that his hint respecting the “magic” had made a very distinct impression.
The preparations for the transport of the prisoners across the lake were soon made, and in about half an hour from the moment of their arrival upon the beach they were under way. A circumstance which at once struck Dick as peculiar was the fact that the craft in which they were making the passage was unprovided with sails, in consequence of which they had to depend entirely upon the exertions of the paddlers, although, as it happened, there was a gentle breeze blowing that was dead fair for them. Thus the boat, being large and of somewhat clumsy model, occupied fully two hours in her passage, of about eight miles from the mainland to the island, notwithstanding the fact that sixty stalwart men were toiling at the paddles.
But this matter was soon banished from the minds of the two young Englishmen by their growing interest in the mysterious island which they were gradually approaching. For mysterious it certainly was in several respects. In the first place its solitary situation, right in the centre of that unknown lake, invested it with a certain aspect of secrecy, and secrecy always suggests mystery. Also there seemed to be little or no traffic between the island and the mainland, for during the two hours occupied by their crossing no other boat or craft of any kind appeared upon any part of the lake. Then, as they gradually drew nearer to the island, and its various details revealed themselves, the two young Englishmen became aware that the entire island, excepting perhaps the actual soil of it, was artificial; that is to say, every square inch of its surface had apparently been arranged or modified by the hand of man, for either it bore a building, was traversed by a road, or formed part of a garden every tree and plant in which owed its existence and its precise position to human design and arrangement. All the natural features of the island seemed to have been ruthlessly swept away to make room for something forming part of a complete, comprehensive plan. And that plan bore eloquent evidence in its every feature that it owed its inception to intellects characterised by a very high degree of culture and refinement, and its execution to hands exceptionally skilled in many of those arts and sciences that are the heritage of ages of civilisation. The architecture was massive, almost heroic in its proportions, and its ornamentation was severe yet graceful, with a very strong and marked suggestion of Egyptian influence. The gardens were elaborately terraced, and consisted for the most part of wide, smooth, grassy lawns thickly dotted with flower beds cut into graceful and fanciful shapes, with trees growing only where they would afford a grateful shade either to the wayfarer or to the gardens arranged upon the flat-topped roofs of the houses. The roads were so cunningly planned that, by means of their serpentine windings, an easy gradient was everywhere maintained; and, lastly, the entire island was encompassed by a lofty and immensely solid wall, or quay, built of enormous blocks of granite the face of which had been worked to so smooth a surface as to render it absolutely unclimbable, the only means of obtaining a landing seeming to be by way of a double flight of wide stone steps leading up from the water to a wide platform which was shut off from the interior of the island by an immensely strong gateway flanked by two lofty towers.
By the time that Dick and Grosvenor had become imbued with a fairly accurate general impression of the extraordinary characteristics of the mysterious unknown island city to which they were bound, the craft that bore them was close in under the frowning protective wall which engirdled it, and a few minutes later the boat ranged up alongside one of the two flights of landing steps, the paddles were laid in, and the crew, springing to their feet, checked the vessel’s way by grappling a number of large bronze mooring rings the shanks of which were deeply sunk into the face of the massive masonry. Then the officer who had arrested the prisoners, and still had them in charge, gave the word to land, and the young Englishmen stepped ashore, closely followed by half a dozen men bearing their several belongings, except their firearms, which they insisted on carrying themselves.
Ascending the long, easy flight of steps, the little procession, led by the officer, presently reached the broad platform on the top, and found themselves confronting a pair of enormous bronze doors which completely filled the gateway, and which swung slowly open, apparently by some mechanical means, to admit them. Passing through the gateway, and noting, as they went, the extraordinary strength and solidity of the doors, they found themselves in a kind of tunnel, or passage, some twenty feet long, in the structure of the gateway, with a sunlit vista of a paved street, bordered on either hand by lofty shade trees, with houses behind them, and thronged with people. Another minute and they had emerged from the archway and were in the street itself, which they now perceived to be one of the business streets of the island, for the houses on either side of it were arranged as shops, the whole of the lower part of each being open, affording a view of the various wares for sale, displayed upon a gently sloping platform, at the rear end of which sat the owner, cross-legged, Eastern fashion, arrayed in long flowing robes of brilliant hues. The fronts of the shops were unglazed, and unprotected by screen or barrier of any kind, nor did the shopkeeper make the slightest attempt to solicit custom; his property was simply protected from the ardent rays of the sun by a gaily coloured blind, or awning, and he sat silently and gravely awaiting the arrival of such customers as might chance to require the particular kind of wares that he had for disposal. These wares, it soon appeared, consisted chiefly of fruit; bread, in the form of small, fancifully shaped loaves; cakes; sweetmeats; drinks of various kinds, mostly compounded of powders while the customer waited—there seemed to be a brisk demand for these—fish, presumably from the lake, alive and swimming about in a large tank from which they were withdrawn as required by means of a hand net; light flimsy muslins, white or dyed in a number of brilliant colours; lengths of exquisite embroidery in gold, silver, or silk thread, and in some cases studded with what looked very much like uncut gems; saddlery and harness, some of it richly mounted or embroidered with gold; queershaped household utensils made of copper or some other metal that had the colour and sheen of gold; jewellery, necklaces, bracelets, armlets, anklets, earrings, and finger rings of gold, and vari-coloured stones that might or might not be gems; and articles of clothing, including sandals of all kinds, from the perfectly plain piece of board, secured by a single strap, to articles of the most elegant design and costly workmanship.
The little party traversed this street for about a quarter of a mile, attracting little or no notice from the passers-by as they went, and then turned abruptly out of it into a wide road leading gradually uphill. The houses which bordered this road were all private residences, detached from each other, and each embosomed in its own spacious garden, aflame with flowers of the most brilliant hues and exquisite perfume, several of the species being quite unknown to the Englishmen. The people who were encountered in this road, or were seen passing in or out of the houses, or moving about in the gardens, appeared to be of decidedly higher caste than any that the travellers had thus far seen. Their skins were not so swarthy, their features were more refined, many of the women being exceedingly beautiful, although the good looks of the men were to a considerable extent marred by an expression which may best be described as latent, cold-blooded ferocity. All these people wore garments of exceedingly fine material, mostly white, richly trimmed with elaborate embroidery in colours or gold, the women’s dress being a long, sleeveless garment reaching from the throat to the feet and confined at the waist by an ornamental belt, handsome sandals, much jewellery, and the head bare, the heavy masses of dark hair being wound upon the head very becomingly, and intertwined with ribbon or strings of coloured beads. The costumes of the men were of two kinds: the elders wore for the most part a long, flowing burnous kind of garment with enormous loose sleeves reaching to the wrists, while the younger men wore a kind of tunic confined at the waist by a belt and reaching just below the knee. All wore either sandals or buskins, and all were bareheaded, the hair of the men being exceedingly thick, allowed to grow long enough to reach the shoulder, and mostly dressed in thick clusters of tight, straight curls. The general type of countenance, as Grosvenor again took occasion to remark to Dick, was distinctly Hebraic.
The road which the party now followed twisted and turned hither and thither, apparently with the object of securing a uniform gradient, but it led continuously upward, until at length it conducted them to an enormous, massively constructed building of brown granite that towered, tier after tier, for five tiers in height; the top tier consisting of a comparatively small edifice with a metal roof which shone in the afternoon sun like burnished gold. This building somehow suggested the idea of a temple, partly, perhaps, because of the fact that it was the topmost portion of the building which occupied the extreme apex of the island; but the newcomers had scant opportunity to take in its details, for they were marched straight to a low doorway cut in the tremendously thick wall of the lower story of the building, which gave them admission to a long labyrinth of twisting passages, lighted only by the smoky flare of half a dozen torches. This network of passages they traversed for a distance which both of them estimated at fully five hundred yards, finally arriving at a small door which was flung open by a man who had accompanied the party from the outer door. The officer motioned his prisoners to enter, and, there being no alternative, they did so, the bearers following with their belongings. These last being deposited on the ground, the bearers retired, the door was slammed-to and barred on the outside, and the two adventurous young Englishmen found themselves alone in a cell or dungeon about eight feet square, devoid of every suggestion of furniture, and lighted only by a small aperture, some six inches square, pierced in an outer wall of the building which must have been at least twelve feet thick.