Allan's Wife Page 8

  CHAPTER VII

  THE BABOON-WOMAN

  Hendrika obeyed, leading the horses to the side of the tree.

  "Now, Mr. Allan," said Stella, "you must ride on my horse, and the oldblack man must ride on the other. I will walk, and Hendrika will carrythe child. Oh, do not be afraid, she is very strong, she could carry youor me."

  Hendrika grunted assent. I am sorry that I cannot express her methodof speech by any more polite term. Sometimes she grunted like a monkey,sometimes she clicked like a Bushman, and sometimes she did bothtogether, when she became quite unintelligible.

  I expostulated against this proposed arrangement, saying that we couldwalk, which was a fib, for I do not think that I could have done a mile;but Stella would not listen, she would not even let me carry my elephantgun, but took it herself. So we mounted with some difficulty, andHendrika took up the sleeping Tota in her long, sinewy arms.

  "See that the 'Baboon-woman' does not run away into the mountains withthe little white one," said Indaba-zimbi to me in Kaffir, as he climbedslowly on to the horse.

  Unfortunately Hendrika understood his speech. Her face twisted and grewlivid with fury. She put down Tota and literally sprang at Indaba-zimbias a monkey springs. But weary and worn as he was, the old gentlemanwas too quick for her. With an exclamation of genuine fright he threwhimself from the horse on the further side, with the somewhat ludicrousresult that all in a moment Hendrika was occupying the seat which he hadvacated. Just then Stella realized the position.

  "Come down, you savage, come down!" she said, stamping her foot.

  The extraordinary creature flung herself from the horse and literallygrovelled on the ground before her mistress and burst into tears.

  "Pardon, Miss Stella," she clicked and grunted in villainous English,"but he called me 'Babyan-frau' (Baboon-woman)."

  "Tell your servant that he must not use such words to Hendrika, Mr.Allan," Stella said to me. "If he does," she added, in a whisper,"Hendrika will certainly kill him."

  I explained this to Indaba-zimbi, who, being considerably frightened,deigned to apologize. But from that hour there was hate and war betweenthese two.

  Harmony having been thus restored, we started, the dogs following us.A small strip of desert intervened between us and the slope of thepeak--perhaps it was two miles wide. We crossed it and reached richgrass lands, for here a considerable stream gathered from the hills; butit did not flow across the barren lands, it passed to the east alongthe foot of the hills. This stream we had to cross by a ford. Hendrikawalked boldly through it, holding Tota in her arms. Stella leapt acrossfrom stone to stone like a roebuck; I thought to myself that she was themost graceful creature that I had ever seen. After this the track passedaround a pleasantly-wooded shoulder of the peak, which was, I found,known as Babyan Kap, or Baboon Head. Of course we could only go ata foot pace, so our progress was slow. Stella walked for some way insilence, then she spoke.

  "Tell me, Mr. Allan," she said, "how it was that I came to find youdying in the desert?"

  So I began and told her all. It took an hour or more to do so, and shelistened intently, now and again asking a question.

  "It is all very wonderful," she said when I had done, "very wonderfulindeed. Do you know I went out this morning with Hendrika and the dogsfor a ride, meaning to get back home by mid-day, for my father is ill,and I do not like to leave him for long. But just as I was going toturn, when we were about where we are now--yes, that was the verybush--an oribe got up, and the dogs chased it. I followed them for thegallop, and when we came to the river, instead of turning to the left asbucks generally do, the oribe swam the stream and took to the Bad Landsbeyond. I followed it, and within a hundred yards of the big tree thedogs killed it. Hendrika wanted to turn back at once, but I said thatwe would rest under the shade of the tree, for I knew that there was aspring of water near. Well, we went; and there I saw you all lying likedead; but Hendrika, who is very clever in some ways, said no--and youknow the rest. Yes, it is very wonderful."

  "It is indeed," I said. "Now tell me, Miss Stella, who is Hendrika?"

  She looked round before answering to see that the woman was not near.

  "Hers is a strange story, Mr. Allan. I will tell you. You must know thatall these mountains and the country beyond are full of baboons. When Iwas a girl of about ten I used to wander a great deal alone in the hillsand valleys, and watch the baboons as they played among the rocks. Therewas one family of baboons that I watched especially--they used to livein a kloof about a mile from the house. The old man baboon was verylarge, and one of the females had a grey face. But the reason whyI watched them so much was because I saw that they had with them acreature that looked like a girl, for her skin was quite white, and,what was more, that she was protected from the weather when it happenedto be cold by a fur belt of some sort, which was tied round her throat.The old baboons seemed to be especially fond of her, and would sit withtheir arms round her neck. For nearly a whole summer I watched thisparticular white-skinned baboon till at last my curiosity quiteovermastered me. I noticed that, though she climbed about the cliffswith the other monkeys, at a certain hour a little before sundown theyused to put her with one or two other much smaller ones into a littlecave, while the family went off somewhere to get food, to the mealiefields, I suppose. Then I got an idea that I would catch this whitebaboon and bring it home. But of course I could not do this by myself,so I took a Hottentot--a very clever man when he was not drunk--wholived on the stead, into my confidence. He was called Hendrik, and wasvery fond of me; but for a long while he would not listen to my plan,because he said that the babyans would kill us. At last I bribed himwith a knife that had four blades, and one afternoon we started, Hendrikcarrying a stout sack made of hide, with a rope running through it sothat the mouth could be drawn tight.

  "Well, we got to the place, and, hiding ourselves carefully in the treesat the foot of the kloof, watched the baboons playing about and gruntingto each other, till at length, according to custom, they took the whiteone and three other little babies and put them in the cave. Then the oldman came out, looked carefully round, called to his family, and went offwith them over the brow of the kloof. Now very slowly and cautiously wecrept up over the rocks till we came to the mouth of the cave and lookedin. All the four little baboons were fast asleep, with their backstowards us, and their arms round each other's necks, the white one beingin the middle. Nothing could have been better for our plans. Hendrik,who by this time had quite entered into the spirit of the thing, creptalong the cave like a snake, and suddenly dropped the mouth of the hidebag over the head of the white baboon. The poor little thing woke up andgave a violent jump which caused it to vanish right into the bag. ThenHendrik pulled the string tight, and together we knotted it so thatit was impossible for our captive to escape. Meanwhile the other babybaboons had rushed from the cave screaming, and when we got outside theywere nowhere to be seen.

  "'Come on, Missie,' said Hendrik; 'the babyans will soon be back.' Hehad shouldered the sack, inside of which the white baboon was kickingviolently, and screaming like a child. It was dreadful to hear itsshrieks.

  "We scrambled down the sides of the kloof and ran for home as fast aswe could manage. When we were near the waterfall, and within about threehundred yards of the garden wall, we heard a voice behind us, and there,leaping from rock to rock, and running over the grass, was the wholefamily of baboons headed by the old man.

  "'Run, Missie, run!' gasped Hendrik, and I did, like the wind, leavinghim far behind. I dashed into the garden, where some Kaffirs wereworking, crying, 'The babyans! the babyans!' Luckily the men had theirsticks and spears by them and ran out just in time to save Hendrik, whowas almost overtaken. The baboons made a good fight for it, however,and it was not till the old man was killed with an assegai that they ranaway.

  "Well, there is a stone hut in the kraal at the stead where my fathersometimes shuts up natives who have misbehaved. It is very strong, andhas a barred window. To this hut Hendrik carried th
e sack, and, havinguntied the mouth, put it down on the floor, and ran from the place,shutting the door behind him. In another moment the poor little thingwas out and dashing round the stone hut as though it were mad. It sprungat the bars of the window, clung there, and beat its head against themtill the blood came. Then it fell to the floor, and sat upon it cryinglike a child, and rocking itself backwards and forwards. It was so sadto see it that I began to cry too.

  "Just then my father came in and asked what all the fuss was about. Itold him that we had caught a young white baboon, and he was angry, andsaid that it must be let go. But when he looked at it through the barsof the window he nearly fell down with astonishment.

  "'Why!' he said, 'this is not a baboon, it is a white child that thebaboons have stolen and brought up!'

  "Now, Mr. Allan, whether my father is right or wrong, you can judge foryourself. You see Hendrika--we named her that after Hendrik, who caughther--she is a woman, not a monkey, and yet she has many of the waysof monkeys, and looks like one too. You saw how she can climb, forinstance, and you hear how she talks. Also she is very savage, and whenshe is angry or jealous she seems to go mad, though she is as clever asanybody. I think that she must have been stolen by the baboons whenshe was quite tiny and nurtured by them, and that is why she is so likethem.

  "But to go on. My father said that it was our duty to keep Hendrikaat any cost. The worst of it was, that for three days she would eatnothing, and I thought that she would die, for all the while she satand wailed. On the third day, however, I went to the bars of the windowplace, and held out a cup of milk and some fruit to her. She looked atit for a long while, then crept up moaning, took the milk from my hand,drank it greedily, and afterwards ate the fruit. From that time forwardshe took food readily enough, but only if I would feed her.

  "But I must tell you of the dreadful end of Hendrik. From the day thatwe captured Hendrika the whole place began to swarm with baboons whichwere evidently employed in watching the kraals. One day Hendrik went outtowards the hills alone to gather some medicine. He did not come backagain, so the next day search was made. By a big rock which I can showyou, they found his scattered and broken bones, the fragments of hisassegai, and four dead baboons. They had set upon him and torn him topieces.

  "My father was very much frightened at this, but still he would not letHendrika go, because he said that she was human, and that it was ourduty to reclaim her. And so we did--to a certain extent, at least. Afterthe murder of Hendrik, the baboons vanished from the neighbourhood,and have only returned quite recently, so at length we ventured to letHendrika out. By this time she had grown very fond of me; still, on thefirst opportunity she ran away. But in the evening she returned again.She had been seeking the baboons, and could not find them. Shortlyafterwards she began to speak--I taught her--and from that time she hasloved me so that she will not leave me. I think it would kill her if Iwent away from her. She watches me all day, and at night sleeps on thefloor of my hut. Once, too, she saved my life when I was swept down theriver in flood; but she is jealous, and hates everybody else. Look, howshe is glaring at you now because I am talking to you!"

  I looked. Hendrika was tramping along with the child in her arms andstaring at me in a most sinister fashion out of the corners of her eyes.

  While I was reflecting on the Baboon-woman's strange story, and thinkingthat she was an exceedingly awkward customer, the path took a suddenturn.

  "Look!" said Stella, "there is our home. Is it not beautiful?"

  It was beautiful indeed. Here on the western side of the great peak abay had been formed in the mountain, which might have measured eighthundred or a thousand yards across by three-quarters of a mile in depth.At the back of this indentation the sheer cliff rose to the height ofseveral hundred feet, and behind it and above it the great Babyan Peaktowered up towards the heavens. The space of ground, embraced thus inthe arms of the mountain, as it were, was laid out, as though by thecunning hand of man, in three terraces that rose one above the other. Tothe right and left of the topmost terrace were chasms in the cliff, anddown each chasm fell a waterfall, from no great height, indeed, but ofconsiderable volume. These two streams flowed away on either side ofthe enclosed space, one towards the north, and the other, the courseof which we had been following, round the base of the mountain. At eachterrace they made a cascade, so that the traveller approaching had aview of eight waterfalls at once. Along the edge of the stream to ourleft were placed Kaffir kraals, built in orderly groups with verandahs,after the Basutu fashion, and a very large part of the entire space ofland was under cultivation. All of this I noted at once, as well as theextraordinary richness and depth of the soil, which for many ages pasthad been washed down from the mountain heights. Then following the lineof an excellent waggon road, on which we now found ourselves, that woundup from terrace to terrace, my eye lit upon the crowning wonder of thescene. For in the centre of the topmost platform or terrace, which mayhave enclosed eight or ten acres of ground, and almost surrounded bygroves of orange trees, gleamed buildings of which I had never seen thelike. There were three groups of them, one in the middle, and one oneither side, and a little to the rear, but, as I afterwards discovered,the plan of all was the same. In the centre was an edifice constructedlike an ordinary Zulu hut--that is to say, in the shape of a beehive,only it was five times the size of any hut I ever saw, and builtof blocks of hewn white marble, fitted together with extraordinaryknowledge of the principles and properties of arch building, and with somuch accuracy and finish that it was often difficult to find the jointsof the massive blocks. From this centre hut ran three covered passages,leading to other buildings of an exactly similar character, onlysmaller, and each whole block was enclosed by a marble wall about fourfeet in height.

  Of course we were as yet too far off to see all these details, but thegeneral outline I saw at once, and it astonished me considerably. Evenold Indaba-zimbi, whom the Baboon-woman had been unable to move, deignedto show wonder.

  "Ou!" he said; "this is a place of marvels. Who ever saw kraals built ofwhite stone?"

  Stella watched our faces with an expression of intense amusement, butsaid nothing.

  "Did your father build those kraals?" I gasped, at length.

  "My father! no, of course not," she answered. "How would it have beenpossible for one white man to do so, or to have made this road? He foundthem as you see."

  "Who built them, then?" I said again.

  "I do not know. My father thinks that they are very ancient, for thepeople who live here now do not know how to lay one stone upon another,and these huts are so wonderfully constructed that, though they musthave stood for ages, not a stone of them had fallen. But I can show youthe quarry where the marble was cut; it is close by and behind it is theentrance to an ancient mine, which my father thinks was a silver mine.Perhaps the people who worked the mine built the marble huts. Theworld is old, and no doubt plenty of people have lived in it and beenforgotten."[*]

  [*] Kraals of a somewhat similar nature to those described by Mr. Quatermain have been discovered in the Marico district of the Transvaal, and an illustration of them is to be found in Mr. Anderson's "Twenty-five Years in a Waggon," vol. ii. p. 55. Mr. Anderson says, "In this district are the ancient stone kraals mentioned in an early chapter; but it requires a fuller description to show that these extensive kraals must have been erected by a white race who understood building in stone and at right angles, with door-posts, lintels, and sills, and it required more than Kaffir skill to erect the stone huts, with stone circular roofs, beautifully formed and most substantially erected; strong enough, if not disturbed, to last a thousand years." --Editor.

  Then we rode on in silence. I have seen many beautiful sights in Africa,and in such matters, as in others, comparisons are odious and worthless,but I do not think that I ever saw a lovelier scene. It was no onething--it was the combination of the mighty peak looking forth on to theeverlasting plains, the great cliffs, the w
aterfalls that sparkledin rainbow hues, the rivers girdling the rich cultivated lands, thegold-specked green of the orange trees, the flashing domes of the marblehuts, and a thousand other things. Then over all brooded the peace ofevening, and the infinite glory of the sunset that filled heaven withchanging hues of splendour, that wrapped the mountain and cliffs incloaks of purple and of gold, and lay upon the quiet face of the waterlike the smile of a god.

  Perhaps also the contrast, and the memory of those three awful daysand nights in the hopeless desert, enhanced the charm, and perhaps thebeauty of the girl who walked beside me completed it. For of this I amsure, that of all sweet and lovely things that I looked on then, she wasthe sweetest and the loveliest.

  Ah, it did not take me long to find my fate. How long will it be beforeI find her once again?