“You got to take your choice, Miss. Come saam into d’ stable wid me and d’ mules or else sit in d’ cart all night wid d’ lions. We can’t cross d’ river.”
“Lions!” I stammered. “But there must be some place, somewhere for me to go to—a hut—a store—something!”
Such a desperate, horrible situation was incredible. The mules were shivering with the steam still rising from them and the driver grew impatient. Apparently he acknowledged a duty to them if not to me. He came close to the cart and spoke menacingly and finally into it.
“See yere: dis is d’ Umzingwani River. No hotels yere, oney plenty of lions, worst place in Africa for lions; dat’s why I’m going to shut me up with d’ eisels. See dat place over dere?” He pointed to another grim shadow that might have represented anything in this grim place of shades—“Baas O’Flynn and Baas Jones kept a store dere. Baas O’Flynn died of d’ jim-jams, and his grave is round back of d’ hut: and a lioness fetched Baas O’Flynn out from behind the counter one day and walked off wid him in front of two kaffirs. I tell you lions is thick round here. Dat’s why dey built a stable dis side for when d’ river’s full, and dat’s why I am going to shut me up wid d’ eisels. So now you better take your choice, Miss, d’ eisels and me—or d’ lions.”
I was silent in amazement and horror, petrified with apprehension; dew was on my forehead. The driver, supposing that I was making my choice, waited for a moment or so, then getting no answer, turned his mules and moved away amidst the jingling of headstalls, muttering and chuckling to himself:
“Ach! arlright den, I told you what, if you don’t come saam wid me!”
I watched his going with despair; but my dry tongue refused to call him back. It seemed to me there could be no worse horror than to spend the night shut in a stable with that brute and the mules. And yet—lions! My backbone became a line of ice.
But I would not recall him. I watched him staggering away from me, the lantern rays flickering between the dark bodies of the mules. They seemed to go a long way off before they reached the stable, but at last I descried the inside of a brick building, narrow and manger-lined. For one moment I had a glimpse of the mules nosing eagerly to their places, then the closing of a heavy door shut out the pale vision, a bar fell heavily into its place, and I was shut and bolted into the outer darkness: alone in a wild and lonely part of Africa.
Began then for me the strangest night of all my life. In the midst of the thick darkness there suddenly and unwarrantably appeared between the branches of trees taller than any I had seen on the whole journey a wraith-like new moon, white as a milk opal. It peered through the black trees like a ghost that has lost its soul and seeks for it in desolate places. It shed no light at all, but just hovered there, peering, paling the light of the stars, and etching into view things that had better have been left hidden. It outlined some white bones that lay in an apart place at the foot of a tree, making them glisten as if they were composed of silver. It revealed the stable crouching amongst the bush like a grey monster. It showed up a spectre-like kopje on the left that I had not known was there at all and that was unlike any kopje I had ever seen, bare as a glacier with neither stock nor stone on it, nothing but one malignant-looking tree perched on its summit, leafless and crooked, holding out a forked arm that beckoned me hideously.
It is not for nothing that a superstition exists purporting bad luck to those who see the new moon through trees. There is indeed something disquietingly sinister in the sight. My Irish heart beat wildly in my breast. I was all superstitious Celt at that moment—not a drop of calm, sane American anywhere about me. My shaking hand clutched at my revolver. I had heard or read somewhere of people shooting the moon, and I wondered vaguely whether it was upon occasions such as this that the dread deed was done. Afar a wail of infinite sadness and melancholy pierced and echoed through the silence. In months to come I was to learn to hear music in the hungry jackal’s dirge, but at that time it sounded to me like the cry of some despairing soul suffering the torments of everlasting fire.