Then in the politest way possible she took me by the hand, and followed by Stephen, we entered the house, leaving Mavovo and Hans to watch outside.
It consisted of but two rooms, one for living and one for sleeping. In the former we found Brother John and his wife seated on a kind of couch gazing at each other in a rapt way. I noted that they both looked as though they had been crying—with happiness, I suppose.
“Elizabeth,” said John as we entered, “this is Mr. Allan Quatermain, through whose resource and courage we have come together again, and this young gentleman is his companion, Mr. Stephen Somers.”
She bowed, for she seemed unable to speak, and held out her hand, which we shook.
“What be ‘resource and courage’?” I heard her daughter whisper to Stephen, “and why have you none, O Stephen Somers?”
“It would take a long time to explain,” he said with his jolly laugh, after which I listened to no more of their nonsense.
Then we sat down to the meal, which consisted of vegetables and a large bowl of hard-boiled ducks’ eggs, of which eatables an ample supply was carried out to Hans and Mavovo by Stephen and Hope. This, it seemed, was the name that her mother had given to the girl when she was born in the hour of her black despair.
It was an extraordinary story that Mrs. Eversley had to tell, and yet a short one.
She had escaped from Hassan-ben-Mohammed and the slave-traders, as the rescued slave told her husband at Zanzibar before he died, and, after days of wandering, been captured by some of the Pongo who were scouring the country upon dark business of their own, probably in search of captives. They brought her across the lake to Pongo-land and, the former Mother of the Flower, an albino, having died at a great age, installed her in the office on this island, which from that day she had never left. Hither she was led by the Kalubi of the time and some others who had “passed the god.” This brute, however, she had never seen, although once she heard him roar, for it did not molest them or even appear upon their journey.
Shortly after her arrival on the island her daughter was born, on which occasion some of the women “servants of the Flower” nursed her. From that moment both she and the child were treated with the utmost care and veneration, since the Mother of the Flower and the Flower itself being in some strange way looked upon as embodiments of the natural forces of fertility, this birth was held to be the best of omens for the dwindling Pongo race. Also it was hoped that in due course the “Child of the Flower” would succeed the Mother in her office. So here they dwelt absolutely helpless and alone, occupying themselves with superintending the agriculture of the island. Most fortunately also when she was captured, Mrs. Eversley had a small Bible in her possession which she had never lost. From this she was able to teach her child to read and all that is to be learned in the pages of Holy Writ.