In an instant Lualamba—anxious above all things to please the powers that be, and having, moreover, in revengeful remembrance many little gratuitous slights and insults which he had suffered at the king’s hands—dismounted a squadron of the guard, and, surrounding the palace, himself entered the building at the head of half a dozen men. Two or three minutes later the party reappeared with the dethroned monarch in their midst. They advanced until almost level with the spot occupied by Seketulo, when, at a sign from the professor, they halted; the guards disposing themselves round M’Bongwele in such a manner that, whilst to escape was an utter impossibility, he could still see and hear the individual who, perched far aloft in the gangway of the ship, was about to address him.
M’Bongwele never, perhaps, looked more kingly than whilst he thus stood to receive his sentence of dethronement. He was fully conscious of his treacherous behaviour to his guests, but he felt no shame thereat, for he had been schooled in the belief that treachery, falsehood, ay, even deliberate, cold-blooded murder, was perfectly justifiable in the pursuit of power. His only feeling was that he had played a bold game for a high stake and had lost it. The moment of reckoning had now arrived, the penalty of failure had to be paid, and though he knew not what that penalty might be—though his brain was teeming with all sorts of possible and impossible horrors—he never for a moment forgot that he was a monarch, that the eyes of his people were on him, noting his every look and gesture, and he summoned all his fortitude to his aid, in order that, since fall he must, he should fall as becomes a king.
So there he stood in the bright sunlight of the early morning—an unarmed man, surrounded by those who, whilst they would yesterday have poured out their heart’s blood at his command, were now prepared to hew him in pieces at the bidding of a white-skinned stranger—with arms folded across the muscular naked chest which throbbed visibly with the intensity of his hardly repressed emotions, his head thrown back, his brows knitted, his lips firmly closed over his rigidly set teeth, and his eyes unquailingly fixed upon the group of white men whom he recognised and tacitly acknowledged as his conquerors and judges. And when the sentence of dethronement, separation from his family, and instant banishment for life from his country, was pronounced upon him, he offered no plea for pardon or mitigation of his punishment; he urged nothing in extenuation or justification of his conduct, but simply bowed his head in token of his submission to the inevitable, and begged a respite of a few minutes in which to bid farewell to his family before setting out upon his journey to the frontier, whither he was to be escorted by a small well-armed party, in whom Seketulo knew he could place implicit trust.
This somewhat painful scene over, the troops and people there present were required to swear allegiance and fidelity to their new king, which they readily did with all the formalities customary among them on such occasions; after which the crown of gold and feathers worn by M’Bongwele was brought forward and placed upon Seketulo’s head; and the new king was then invited on board the ship to confer with—and in reality to receive instructions respecting his future policy and conduct from—the men who had raised him to the supreme dignity. The advice—given with sufficient firmness and emphasis to constitute a command—comprised many valuable hints for the wise and humane government of the nation, and was concluded with a powerful exhortation to treat with fairness, justice, humanity, and hospitality all strangers who might be brought by accident or otherwise into the country; to succour, nourish, and carefully protect them from molestation or spoliation of any and every kind whilst within its borders; and to afford them every help and facility to leave whensoever they might desire. And, finally, a satisfactory arrangement was made whereby the baronet and his companions were enabled to continue and complete their exploration and examination of the ruins.
The Flying Fish and her inmates remained in the country for rather more than three months from that date; quite long enough to satisfy the party that they had really acted wisely, and for the benefit of the nation, in deposing M’Bongwele; and long enough to enable them to make several most surprising and interesting discoveries among the ruins—discoveries which it is not necessary to describe or particularise here, since the professor has prepared, and is now revising for the press, an elaborate and exhaustive treatise upon the subject.
Chapter Twenty Two.
An Adventure on the Top of Mount Everest.
Leaving the country at last—to the very great regret of the inhabitants, who found that every little service rendered to the white strangers was munificently rewarded by a present of beads, buttons, party-coloured cloth, or perhaps a small hand mirror—the travellers made the best of their way to Bombay, at which place Mrs Scott and her nieces were anxious to be landed, and there they bade their fair guests a reluctant adieu. Thence, starting under cover of night and rising to a height of about ten thousand feet above the ground surface, the travellers made their way across the Indian peninsula in a north-easterly direction, travelling at a speed of about one hundred miles per hour, and arriving about eight o’clock the next morning at the foot of Mount Everest, the summit of which—towering into the sky to the enormous altitude of twenty-nine thousand feet above the sea-level, and believed to be the most lofty spot of earth on the surface of our globe—they intended attempting to reach.