Queen Sheba's Ring Read online

  CHAPTER III

  THE PROFESSOR GOES OUT SHOOTING

  Of all our tremendous journey across the desert until we had passed theforest and reached the plains which surrounded the mountains of Mur,there are, I think, but few incidents with which the reader need betroubled. The first of these was at Assouan, where a letter and varioustelegrams overtook Captain Orme, which, as by this time we had becomeintimate, he showed to me. They informed him that the clandestine infantwhom his uncle left behind him had suddenly sickened and died of somechildish ailment, so that he was once again heir to the large propertywhich he thought he had lost, since the widow only took a life interestin some of the personalty. I congratulated him and said I supposed thismeant that we should not have the pleasure of his company to Mur.

  "Why not?" he asked. "I said I was going and I mean to go; indeed, Isigned a document to that effect."

  "I daresay," I answered, "but circumstances alter cases. If I might sayso, an adventure that perhaps was good enough for a young and well-bornman of spirit and enterprise without any particular resources, is nolonger good enough for one who has the ball at his feet. Think what aball it is to a man of your birth, intelligence, record, and now,great fortune come to you in youth. Why, with these advantages thereis absolutely nothing that you cannot do in England. You can go intoParliament and rule the country; if you like you can become a peer.You can marry any one who isn't of the blood royal; in short, withuncommonly little effort of your own, your career is made for you. Don'tthrow away a silver spoon like that in order, perhaps, to die of thirstin the desert or be killed in a fight among unknown tribes."

  "Oh, I don't know," he answered. "I never set heart much on spoons,silver or other. When I lost this one I didn't cry, and now that I havefound it again I shan't sing. Anyway, I am going on with you, and youcan't prevent me under the agreement. Only as I have got such a lot toleave, I suppose I had better make a will first and post it home, whichis a bore."

  Just then the Professor came in, followed by an Arab thief of a dealer,with whom he was trying to bargain for some object of antiquity. Whenthe dealer had been ejected and the position explained to him, Higgs,who whatever may be his failings in small matters, is unselfish enoughin big ones, said that he agreed with me and thought that under thecircumstances, in his own interest, Orme ought to leave us and returnhome.

  "You may save your breath, old fellow," answered the Captain, "for thisreason if for no other," and he threw him a letter across the table,which letter I saw afterwards. To be brief, it was from the younglady to whom he had been engaged to be married, and who on his loss offortune had jilted him. Now she seemed to have changed her mindagain, and, although she did not mention the matter, it is perhaps notuncharitable to suppose that the news of the death of the inconvenientchild had something to do with her decision.

  "Have you answered this?" asked Higgs.

  "No," answered Orme, setting his mouth. "I have not answered, and Iam not going to answer it, either in writing or in person. I intend tostart to-morrow for Mur and to travel as far on that road as it pleasesfate to allow, and now I am going to look at the rock sculptures by thecataract."

  "Well, that's flat," said Higgs after he had departed, "and for my partI am glad of it, for somehow I think he will be a useful man among thoseFung. Also, if he went I expect that the Sergeant would go too, andwhere should we be without Quick, I should like to know?"

  Afterwards I conversed with the said Quick about this same matter,repeating to him my opinions, to which the Sergeant listened with thedeference which he was always kind enough to show to me.

  "Begging your pardon, sir," he said, when I had finished, "but I thinkyou are both right and wrong. Everything has two ends, hasn't it? Yousay that it would be wicked for the Captain to get himself killed, therebeing now so much money for him to live for, seeing that life is commonas dirt while money is precious, rare and hard to come by. It ain'tthe kings we admire, it's their crowns; it ain't the millionaires,it's their millions; but, after all, the millionaires don't take theirmillions with them, for Providence, that, like Nature, hates waste,knows that if they did they'd melt, so one man dead gives another bread,as the saying goes, or p'raps I should say gingerbread in such cases.

  "Still, on the whole, sir, I admit you are right as to the sinfulness ofwasting luck. But now comes the other end. I know this young lady whatthe Captain was engaged to, which he never would have been if he hadtaken my advice, since of all the fish-blooded little serpents that everI set eyes on she's the serpentest, though pretty, I allow. Solomon saidin his haste that an honest woman he had not found, but if he had metthe Honourable Miss--well, never mind her name--he'd have said it athis leisure, and gone on saying it. Now, no one should never take backa servant what has given notice and then says he's sorry, for if he doesthe sorrow will be on the other side before it's all done; and much lessshould he take back a _fiancee_ (Quick said a 'finance'), on the whole,he'd better drown himself--I tried it once, and I know. So that's thetail of the business.

  "But," he went on, "it has a couple of fins as well, like that eel beastI caught in the Nile. One of them is that the Captain promised and vowedto go through with this expedition, and if a man's got to die, he'dbetter die honest without breaking his word. And the other is whatI said to you in London when I signed on, that he won't die a minutebefore his time, and nothing won't happen to him, but what's boundto happen, and therefore it ain't a ha'porth of use bothering aboutanything, and that's where the East's well ahead of the West.

  "And now, sir, I'll go and look after the camels and those half-bredJew boys what you call Abati, but I call rotten sneaks, for if they gettheir thieving fingers into those canisters of picric salts, thinkingthey're jam, as I found them trying to do yesterday, something mayhappen in Egypt that'll make the Pharaohs turn in their graves and theTen Plagues look silly."

  So, having finished his oration, Quick went, and in due course westarted for Mur.

  The second incident that is perhaps worth recording was an adventurethat happened to us when we had completed about two of our four months'journey.

  After weeks of weary desert travel--if I remember right, it was exactlya fortnight after the dog Pharaoh, of which I shall soon have plenty tosay, had come into Orme's possession--we reached an oasis called Zeu,where I had halted upon my road down to Egypt. In this oasis, which,although not large in extent, possesses springs of beautiful water andgroves of date-trees, we were, as it chanced, very welcome, since whenI was there before, I had been fortunate enough to cure its sheik ofan attack of ophthalmia and to doctor several of his people for variousailments with good results. So, although I was burning to get forward, Iagreed with the others that it would be wise to accede to the requestof the leader of our caravan, a clever and resourceful, but to my minduntrustworthy Abati of the name of Shadrach, and camp in Zeu for a weekor so to rest and feed our camels, which had wasted almost to nothing onthe scant herbage of the desert.

  This Shadrach, I may add here, whom his companions, for some reasonunknown to me at that time, called the Cat, was remarkable for a tripleline of scars upon his face, which, he informed me, had been set thereby the claws of a lion. Now the great enemies of this people of Zeu werelions, which at certain seasons of the year, I suppose when food grewscarce, descended from the slopes of a range of hills that stretchedeast and west at a distance of about fifty miles north of the oasis,and, crossing the intervening desert, killed many of the Zeu sheep,camels, and other cattle, and often enough any of the tribe whom theycould catch. As these poor Zeus practically possessed no firearms, theywere at the mercy of the lions, which grew correspondingly bold. Indeed,their only resource was to kraal their animals within stone walls atnight and take refuge in their huts, which they seldom left betweensunset and dawn, except to replenish the fires that they lit to scareany beast of prey which might be prowling through the town.

  Though the lion season was now in full swing, as it happened, for thefirst five days of our stay at Zeu we
saw none of these great cats,although in the darkness we heard them roaring in the distance. On thesixth night, however, we were awakened by a sound of wailing, which camefrom the village about a quarter of a mile away, and when we went outat dawn to see what was the matter, were met by a melancholy processionadvancing from its walls. At the head of it marched the grey-haired oldchief, followed by a number of screaming women, who in their excitement,or perhaps as a sign of mourning, had omitted to make their toilette,and by four men, who carried something horrid on a wickerwork door.

  Soon we learned what had happened. It seemed that hungry lions, two orthree of them, had broken through the palm-leaf roof of the hut of oneof the sheik's wives, she whose remains were stretched upon the door,and, in addition to killing her, had actually carried off his son.Now he came to implore us white men who had guns to revenge him on thelions, which otherwise, having once tasted human flesh, would destroymany more of his people.

  Through an interpreter who knew Arabic, for not even Higgs couldunderstand the peculiar Zeu dialect, he explained in excited andincoherent words that the beasts lay up among the sand-hills not veryfar away, where some thick reeds grew around a little spring of water.Would we not come out and kill them and earn the blessing of the Zeus?

  Now I said nothing, for the simple reason that, having such big matterson hand, although I was always fond of sport, I did not wish any of usto be led off after these lions. There is a time to hunt and a timeto cease from hunting, and it seemed to me, except for the purposes offood, that this journey of ours was the latter. However, as I expected,Oliver Orme literally leaped at the idea. So did Higgs, who of latehad been practising with a rifle and began to fancy himself a shot.He exclaimed loudly that nothing would give him greater pleasure,especially as he was sure that lions were in fact cowardly and overratedbeasts.

  From that moment I foreboded disaster in my heart. Still, I said I wouldcome too, partly because I had not shot a lion for many a day and hada score to settle with those beasts which, it may be remembered, nearlykilled me on the Mountain of Mur, and partly because, knowing the desertand also the Zeu people much better than either the Professor or Orme, Ithought that I might possibly be of service.

  So we fetched our rifles and cartridges, to which by an afterthought weadded two large water-bottles, and ate a hearty breakfast. As we werepreparing to start, Shadrach, the leader of the Abati camel-drivers,that man with the scarred face who was nicknamed the Cat, came up to meand asked me whither we were going. I told him, whereon he said:

  "What have you to do with these savages and their troubles, lords? Ifa few of them are killed it is no matter, but as you should know, ODoctor, if you wish to hunt lions there are plenty in that land whitheryou travel, seeing that the lion is the fetish of the Fung and thereforenever killed. But the desert about Zeu is dangerous and harm may come toyou."

  "Then accompany us," broke in the Professor, between whom and Shadrachthere was no love lost, "for, of course, with you we should be quitesafe."

  "Not so," he replied, "I and my people rest; only madmen would go tohunt worthless wild beasts when they might rest. Have we not enough ofthe desert and its dangers as it is? If you knew all that I do of lionsyou would leave them alone."

  "Of the desert we have plenty also, but of shooting very little,"remarked the Captain, who talked Arabic well. "Lie in your beds; we goto kill the beasts that harass the poor people who have treated us sokindly."

  "So be it," said Shadrach with a smile that struck me as malicious. "Alion made this"--pointing to the dreadful threefold scar upon his face."May the God of Israel protect you from lions. Remember, lords, that,the camels being fresh again, we march the day after to-morrow, shouldthe weather hold, for if the wind blows on yonder sand-hills, no man maylive among them;" and, putting up his hand, he studied the sky carefullyfrom beneath its shadow, then, with a grunt, turned and vanished behinda hut.

  All this while Sergeant Quick was engaged at a little distance inwashing up the tin breakfast things, to all appearance quite unconsciousof what was going on. Orme called him, whereupon he advanced andstood to attention. I remember thinking how curious he looked in thosesurroundings--his tall, bony frame clothed in semi-military garments,his wooden face perfectly shaved, his iron-grey hair neatly parted andplastered down upon his head with pomade or some equivalent after theold private soldier fashion, and his sharp ferret-like grey eyes takingin everything.

  "Are you coming with us, Sergeant?" asked Orme.

  "Not unless ordered so to do, Captain. I like a bit of hunting wellenough, but, with all three officers away, some one should mount guardover the stores and transport, so I think the dog Pharaoh and I had beststop behind."

  "Perhaps you are right, Sergeant, only tie Pharaoh up, or he'll followme. Well, what do you want to say? Out with it."

  "Only this, Captain. Although I have served in three campaigns amongthese here Arabians (to Quick, all African natives north of the Equatorwere Arabians, and all south of it, niggers), I can't say I talk theirlingo well. Still, I made out that the fellow they call Cat don't likethis trip of yours, and, begging your pardon, Captain, whatever else Catmay be, he ain't no fool."

  "Can't help it, Sergeant. For one thing, it would never do to give in tohis fancies now."

  "That's true, Captain. When once it's hoist, right or wrong, keep theflag flying, and no doubt you'll come back safe and sound if you'remeant to."

  Then, having relieved his mind, the Sergeant ran his eye over ourequipment to see that nothing had been forgotten, rapidly assuredhimself that the rifles were in working order, reported all well,and returned to his dishes. Little did any of us guess under whatcircumstances we should next meet with him.

  After leaving the town and marching for a mile or so along the oasis,accompanied by a mob of the Zeus armed with spears and bows, we wereled by the bereaved chief, who also acted as tracker, out into thesurrounding sands. The desert here, although I remembered it wellenough, was different from any that we had yet encountered upon thisjourney, being composed of huge and abrupt sand-hills, some of whichwere quite three hundred feet high, separated from each other by deep,wind-cut valleys.

  For a distance, while they were within reach of the moist air of theoasis, these sand-mountains produced vegetation of various sorts.Presently, however, we passed out into the wilderness proper, and fora while climbed up and down the steep, shifting slopes, till from thecrest of one of them the chief pointed out what in South Africa iscalled a pan, or _vlei_, covered with green reeds, and explained bysigns that in these lay the lions. Descending a steep declivity, weposted ourselves, I at the top, and Higgs and Orme a little way downeither side of this _vlei_. This done, we dispatched the Zeus to beatit out towards us, for although the reeds grew thick along the courseof the underground water, it was but a narrow place, and not more than aquarter of a mile in length.

  Scarcely had the beaters entered the tall reeds, evidently withtrepidation, for a good many of them held back from the adventure,when a sound of loud wailing informed us that something had happened. Aminute or two later we saw two of them bearing away what appeared to bethe mangled remains of the chief's son who had been carried off on theprevious night.

  Just then, too, we saw something else, for half-way down the marsha great male lion broke cover, and began to steal off toward thesand-hills. It was about two hundred yards from Higgs, who chanced tobe nearest to it, and, therefore, as any big-game hunter will know, forpractical purposes, far out of shot. But the Professor, who was quiteunaccustomed to this, or, indeed, any kind of sport, and, like allbeginners, wildly anxious for blood, lifted his rifle and fired, as hemight have done at a rabbit. By some marvellous accident the aim wasgood, and the bullet from the express, striking the lion fair behind theshoulder, passed through its heart, and knocked it over dead as a stone.

  "By Jingo! Did you see that?" screamed Higgs in his delight. Then,without even stopping to reload the empty barrel, he set off at the topof his speed toward the prostrate beast,
followed by myself and by Orme,as fast as our astonishment would allow.

  Running along the edge of the marsh, Higgs had covered about a hundredyards of the distance, when suddenly, charging straight at him out ofthe tall reeds, appeared a second lion, or rather lioness. Higgs wheeledround, and wildly fired the left barrel of his rifle without touchingthe infuriated brute. Next instant, to our horror, we saw him uponhis back, with the lioness standing over him, lashing her tail, andgrowling.

  We shouted as we ran, and so did the Zeus, although they made no attemptat rescue, with the result that the lioness, instead of tearing Higgsto pieces, turned her head confusedly first to one side and then tothe other. By now I, who had a long start of Orme, was quite close,say within thirty yards, though fire I dared not as yet, fearing lest,should I do so, I might kill my friend. At this moment the lioness,recovering her nerves, squatted down on the prostrate Higgs, and thoughhe hit at her with his fists, dropped her muzzle, evidently with theintention of biting him through the head.

  Now I felt that if I hesitated any more, all would be finished. Thelioness was much longer than Higgs--a short, stout man--and her hindquarters projected beyond his feet. At these I aimed rapidly, and,pressing the trigger, next second heard the bullet clap upon the greatbeast's hide. Up she sprang with a roar, one hind leg dangling, andafter a moment's hesitation, fled toward the sand-hill.

  Now Orme, who was behind me, fired also, knocking up the dust beneaththe lioness's belly, but although he had more cartridges in his rifle,which was a repeater, before either he or I could get another chance,it vanished behind a mound. Leaving it to go where it would, we ran ontowards Higgs, expecting to find him either dead or badly mauled,but, to our amazement and delight, up jumped the Professor, his bluespectacles still on his nose, and, loading his rifle as he went, chargedaway after the wounded lioness.

  "Come back," shouted the Captain as he followed.

  "Not for Joe!" yelled Higgs in his high voice. "If you fellows thinkthat I'm going to let a great cat sit on my stomach for nothing, you arejolly well mistaken."

  At the top of the first rise the long-legged Orme caught him, butpersuade him to return was more than he, or I when I arrived, could do.Beyond a scratch on his nose, which had stung him and covered himwith blood, we found that he was quite uninjured, except in temper anddignity. But in vain did we beg him to be content with his luck and thehonours he had won.

  "Why?" he answered, "Adams wounded the beast, and I'd rather kill twolions than one; also I have a score to square. But if you fellows areafraid, you go home."

  Well, I confess I felt inclined to accept the invitation, but Orme, whowas nettled, replied:

  "Come, come; that settles the question, doesn't it? You must be shakenby your fall, or you would not talk like that, Higgs. Look, here runsthe spoor--see the blood? Well, let's go steady and keep our wind.We may come on her anywhere, but don't you try any more long distanceshots. You won't kill another lion at two hundred and fifty yards."

  "All right," said Higgs, "don't be offended. I didn't mean anything,except that I am going to teach that beast the difference between awhite man and a Zeu."

  Then we began our march, following the blood tracks up and down thesteep sand-slopes. When we had been at it for about half-an-hour ourspirits were cheered by catching sight of the lioness on a ridge fivehundred yards away. Just then, too, some of the Zeus overtook us andjoined the hunt, though without zeal.

  Meanwhile, as the day grew, the heat increased until it was so intensethat the hot air danced above the sand slopes like billions of midges,and this although the sun was not visible, being hidden by a sort ofmist. A strange silence, unusual even in the desert, pervaded the earthand sky; we could hear the grains of sand trickling from the ridges.The Zeus, who accompanied us, grew uneasy, and pointed upward with theirspears, then behind toward the oasis of which we had long lost sight.Finally, when we were not looking, they disappeared.

  Now I would have followed them, guessing that they had some good reasonfor this sudden departure. But Higgs refused to come, and Orme, in whomhis foolish taunt seemed still to rankle, only shrugged his shouldersand said nothing.

  "Let the black curs go," exclaimed the Professor as he polished his bluespectacles and mopped his face. "They are a white-livered lot of sneaks.Look! There she is, creeping off to the left. If we run round thatsand-hill we shall meet her."

  So we ran round the sand-hill, but we did not meet her, although afterlong hunting we struck the blood spoor afresh, and followed it forseveral miles, first in this direction, and then in that, until Orme andI wondered at Higgs's obstinacy and endurance. At length, when even hewas beginning to despair, we put up the lioness in a hollow, and firedseveral shots at her as she hobbled over the opposing slope, one ofwhich hit her, for she rolled over, then picked herself up again,roaring. As a matter of fact, it came from the Captain's rifle, butHiggs, who, like many an inexperienced person was a jealous sportsman,declared that it was his and we did not think it worth while tocontradict him.

  On we toiled, and, just beyond the ridge, walked straight into thelioness, sitting up like a great dog, so injured that she could donothing but snarl hideously and paw at the air.

  "Now it is my turn, old lady," ejaculated Higgs, and straightwaymissed her clean from a distance of five yards. A second shot was moresuccessful, and she rolled over, dead.

  "Come on," said the exultant Professor, "and we'll skin her. She sat onme, and I mean to sit on her for many a day."

  So we began the job, although I, who had large experience of thisdesert, and did not like the appearance of the weather, wished to leavethe beast where it lay and get back to the oasis. It proved long, forI was the only one of us who had any practical knowledge of flayinganimals, and in that heat extremely unpleasant.

  At length it was done, and, having doubled the hide over a rifle for twoof us to carry in turns, we refreshed ourselves from the water-bottles(I even caught the Professor washing the blood off his face and handswith some of the precious fluid). Then we started for the oasis, only todiscover, though we were all sure that we knew the way, that not oneof us had a slightest idea of its real direction. In the hurry of ourdeparture we had forgotten to bring a compass, and the sun, that wouldhave been our guide in ordinary circumstances, and to which we alwaystrusted in the open desert, was hidden by the curious haze that has beendescribed.

  So, sensibly enough, we determined to return to the sand crest where wehad killed the lioness, and then trace our own footprints backward. Thisseemed simple enough, for there, within half-a-mile, rose the identicalridge.

  We reached it, grumbling, for the lion-skin was heavy, only to discoverthat it was a totally different ridge. Now, after reflection andargument, we saw our exact mistake, and made for what was obviously thereal ridge--with the same result.

  We were lost in the desert!