CHAPTER XIII - RICA TOWN

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CHAPTER XIII - RICA TOWN

As a matter of fact we did not leave Beza Town till twenty-four hours
later than had been arranged, since it took some time for old Babemba,
who was to be in charge of it, to collect and provision our escort of
five hundred men.

Here, I may mention, that when we got back to our huts we found the
two Mazitu bearers, Tom and Jerry, eating a hearty meal, but looking
rather tired. It appeared that in order to get rid of their favourable
evidence, the ceased witch-doctor, Imbozwi, who for some reason or
other had feared to kill them, caused them to be marched off to a
distant part of the land where they were imprisoned. On the arrival of
the news of the fall and death of Imbozwi and his subordinates, they
were set at liberty, and at once returned to us at Beza Town.

Of course it became necessary to explain to our servants what we were
about to do. When they understood the nature of our proposed
expedition they shook their heads, and when they learned that we had
promised to leave our guns behind us, they were speechless with
amazement.

"/Kransick! Kransick!/" which means "ill in the skull," or "mad,"
exclaimed Hans to the others as he tapped his forehead significantly.
"They have caught it from Dogeetah, one who lives on insects which he
entangles in a net, and carries no gun to kill game. Well, I knew they
would."

The hunters nodded in assent, and Sammy lifted his arms to Heaven as
though in prayer. Only Mavovo seemed indifferent. Then came the
question of which of them was to accompany us.

"So far as I am concerned that is soon settled," said Mavovo. "I go
with my father, Macumazana, seeing that even without a gun I am still
strong and can fight as my male ancestors fought with a spear."

"And I, too, go with the Baas Quatermain," grunted Hans, "seeing that
even without a gun I am cunning, as /my/ female ancestors were before
me."

"Except when you take medicine, Spotted Snake, and lose yourself in
the mist of sleep," mocked one of the Zulus. "Does that fine bedstead
which the king sent you go with you?"

"No, son of a fool!" answered Hans. "I'll lend it to you who do not
understand that there is more wisdom within me when I am asleep than
there is in you when you are awake."

It remained to be decided who the third man should be. As neither of
Brother John's two servants, who had accompanied him on his cross-
country journey, was suitable, one being ill and the other afraid,
Stephen suggested Sammy as the man, chiefly because he could cook.

"No, Mr. Somers, no," said Sammy, with earnestness. "At this proposal
I draw the thick rope. To ask one who can cook to visit a land where
he will be cooked, is to seethe the offspring in its parent's milk."

So we gave him up, and after some discussion fixed upon Jerry, a smart
and plucky fellow, who was quite willing to accompany us. The rest of
that day we spent in making our preparations which, if simple,
required a good deal of thought. To my annoyance, at the time I wanted
to find Hans to help me, he was not forthcoming. When at length he
appeared I asked him where he had been. He answered, to cut himself a
stick in the forest, as he understood we should have to walk a long
way. Also he showed me the stick, a long, thick staff of a hard and
beautiful kind of bamboo which grows in Mazitu-land.

"What do you want that clumsy thing for," I said, "when there are
plenty of sticks about?"

"New journey, new stick! Baas. Also this kind of wood is full of air
and might help me to float if we are upset into the water."

"What an idea!" I exclaimed, and dismissed the matter from my mind.

At dawn, on the following day, we started, Stephen and I riding on the
two donkeys, which were now fat and lusty, and Brother John upon his
white ox, a most docile beast that was quite attached to him. All the
hunters, fully armed, came with us to the borders of the Mazitu
country, where they were to await our return in company with the
Mazitu regiment. The king himself went with us to the west gate of the
town, where he bade us all, and especially Brother John, an
affectionate farewell. Moreover, he sent for Komba and his attendants,
and again swore to him that if any harm happened to us, he would not
rest till he had found a way to destroy the Pongo, root and branch.

"Have no fear," answered the cold Komba, "in our holy town of Rica we
do not tie innocent guests to stakes to be shot to death with arrows."

The repartee, which was undoubtedly neat, irritated Bausi, who was not
fond of allusions to this subject.

"If the white men are so safe, why do you not let them take their guns
with them?" he asked, somewhat illogically.

"If we meant evil, King, would their guns help them, they being but
few among so many. For instance, could we not steal them, as you did
when you plotted the murder of these white lords. It is a law among
the Pongo that no such magic weapon shall be allowed to enter their
land."

"Why?" I asked, to change the conversation, for I saw that Bausi was
growing very wrath and feared complications.

"Because, my lord Macumazana, there is a prophecy among us that when a
gun is fired in Pongo-land, its gods will desert us, and the Motombo,
who is their priest, will die. That saying is very old, but until a
little while ago none knew what it meant, since it spoke of 'a hollow
spear that smoked,' and such a weapon was not known to us."

"Indeed," I said, mourning within myself that we should not be in a
position to bring about the fulfilment of that prophecy, which, as
Hans said, shaking his head sadly, "was a great pity, a very great
pity!"

Three days' march over country that gradually sloped downwards from
the high tableland on which stood Beza Town, brought us to the lake
called Kirua, a word which, I believe, means The Place of the Island.
Of the lake itself we could see nothing, because of the dense brake of
tall reeds which grew out into the shallow water for quite a mile from
the shore and was only pierced here and there with paths made by the
hippopotami when they came to the mainland at night to feed. From a
high mound which looked exactly like a tumulus and, for aught I know,
may have been one, however, the blue waters beyond were visible, and
in the far distance what, looked at through glasses, appeared to be a
tree-clad mountain top. I asked Komba what it might be, and he
answered that it was the Home of the gods in Pongo-land.

"What gods?" I asked again, whereon he replied like a black Herodotus,
that of these it was not lawful to speak.

I have rarely met anyone more difficult to pump than that frigid and
un-African Komba.

On the top of this mound we planted the Union Jack, fixed to the
tallest pole that we could find. Komba asked suspiciously why we did
so, and as I was determined to show this unsympathetic person that
there were others as unpumpable as himself, I replied that it was the
god of our tribe, which we set up there to be worshipped, and that
anyone who tried to insult or injure it, would certainly die, as the
witch-doctor, Imbozwi, and his children had found out. For once Komba
seemed a little impressed, and even bowed to the bunting as he passed
by.

What I did not inform him was that we had set the flag there to be a
sign and a beacon to us in case we should ever be forced to find our
way back to this place unguided and in a hurry. As a matter of fact,
this piece of forethought, which oddly enough originated with the most
reckless of our party, Stephen, proved our salvation, as I shall tell
later on. At the foot of the mound we set our camp for the night, the
Mazitu soldiers under Babemba, who did not mind mosquitoes, making
theirs nearer to the lake, just opposite to where a wide hippopotamus
lane pierced the reeds, leaving a little canal of clear water.

I asked Komba when and how we were to cross the lake. He said that we
must start at dawn on the following morning when, at this time of the
year, the wind generally blew off shore, and that if the weather were
favourable, we should reach the Pongo town of Rica by nightfall. As to
how we were to do this, he would show me if I cared to follow him. I
nodded, and he led me four or five hundred yards along the edge of the
reeds in a southerly direction.

As we went, two things happened. The first of these was that a very
large, black rhinoceros, which was sleeping in some bushes, suddenly
got our wind and, after the fashion of these beasts, charged down on
us from about fifty yards away. Now I was carrying a heavy, single-
barrelled rifle, for as yet we and our weapons were not parted. On
came the rhinoceros, and Komba, small blame to him for he only had a
spear, started to run. I cocked the rifle and waited my chance.

When it was not more than fifteen paces away the rhinoceros threw up
its head, at which, of course, it was useless to fire because of the
horn, and I let drive at the throat. The bullet hit it fair, and I
suppose penetrated to the heart. At any rate, it rolled over and over
like a shot rabbit, and with a single stretch of its limbs, expired
almost at my feet.

Komba was much impressed. He returned; he stared at the dead
rhinoceros and at the hole in its throat; he stared at me; he stared
at the still smoking rifle.

"The great beast of the plains killed with a noise!" he muttered.
"Killed in an instant by this little monkey of a white man" (I thanked
him for that and made a note of it) "and his magic. Oh! the Motombo
was wise when he commanded----" and with an effort he stopped.

"Well, friend, what is the matter?" I asked. "You see there was no
need for you to run. If you had stepped behind me you would have been
as safe as you are now--after running."

"It is so, lord Macumazana, but the thing is strange to me. Forgive me
if I do not understand."

"Oh! I forgive you, my lord Kalubi--that is--to be. It is clear that
you have a good deal to learn in Pongo-land."

"Yes, my lord Macumazana, and so perhaps have you," he replied dryly,
having by this time recovered his nerve and sarcastic powers.

Then after telling Mavovo, who appeared mysteriously at the sound of
the shot--I think he was stalking us in case of accidents--to fetch
men to cut up the rhinoceros, Komba and I proceeded on our walk.

A little further on, just by the edge of the reeds, I caught sight of
a narrow, oblong trench dug in a patch of stony soil, and of a rusted
mustard tin half-hidden by some scanty vegetation.

"What is that?" I asked, in seeming astonishment, though I knew well
what it must be.

"Oh!" replied Komba, who evidently was not yet quite himself, "that is
where the white lord Dogeetah, Bausi's blood-brother, set his little
canvas house when he was here over twelve moons ago."

"Really!" I exclaimed, "he never told me he was here." (This was a
lie, but somehow I was not afraid of lying to Komba.) "How do you know
that he was here?"

"One of our people who was fishing in the reeds saw him."

"Oh! that explains it, Komba. But what an odd place for him to fish
in; so far from home; and I wonder what he was fishing for. When you
have time, Komba, you must explain to me what it is that you catch
amidst the roots of thick reeds in such shallow water."

Komba replied that he would do so with pleasure--when he had time.
Then, as though to avoid further conversation he ran forward, and
thrusting the reeds apart, showed me a great canoe, big enough to hold
thirty or forty men, which with infinite labour had been hollowed out
of the trunk of a single, huge tree. This canoe differed from the
majority of those that personally I have seen used on African lakes
and rivers, in that it was fitted for a mast, now unshipped. I looked
at it and said it was a fine boat, whereon Komba replied that there
were a hundred such at Rica Town, though not all of them were so
large.

Ah! thought I to myself as we walked back to the camp. Then, allowing
an average of twenty to a canoe, the Pongo tribe number about two
thousand males old enough to paddle, an estimate which turned out to
be singularly correct.

Next morning at dawn we started, with some difficulty. To begin with,
in the middle of the night old Babemba came to the canvas shelter
under which I was sleeping, woke me up and in a long speech implored
me not to go. He said he was convinced that the Pongo intended foul
play of some sort and that all this talk of peace was a mere trick to
entrap us white men into the country, probably in order to sacrifice
us to its gods for a religious reason.

I answered that I quite agreed with him, but that as my companions
insisted upon making this journey, I could not desert them. All that I
could do was to beg him to keep a sharp look-out so that he might be
able to help us in case we got into trouble.

"Here I will stay and watch for you, lord Macumazana," he answered,
"but if you fall into a snare, am I able to swim through the water
like a fish, or to fly through the air like a bird to free you?"

After he had gone one of the Zulu hunters arrived, a man named Ganza,
a sort of lieutenant to Mavovo, and sang the same song. He said that
it was not right that I should go without guns to die among devils and
leave him and his companions wandering alone in a strange land.

I answered that I was much of the same opinion, but that Dogeetah
insisted upon going and that I had no choice.

"Then let us kill Dogeetah, or at any rate tie him up, so that he can
do no more mischief in his madness," Ganza suggested blandly, whereon
I turned him out.

Lastly Sammy arrived and said:

"Mr. Quatermain, before you plunge into this deep well of foolishness,
I beg that you will consider your responsibilities to God and man, and
especially to us, your household, who are now but lost sheep far from
home, and further, that you will remember that if anything
disagreeable should overtake you, you are indebted to me to the extent
of two months' wages which will probably prove unrecoverable."

I produced a little leather bag from a tin box and counted out to
Sammy the wages due to him, also those for three months in advance.

To my astonishment he began to weep. "Sir," he said, "I do not seek
filthy lucre. What I mean is that I am afraid you will be killed by
these Pongo, and, alas! although I love you, sir, I am too great a
coward to come and be killed with you, for God made me like that. I
pray you not to go, Mr. Quatermain, because I repeat, I love you,
sir."

"I believe you do, my good fellow," I answered, "and I also am afraid
of being killed, who only seem to be brave because I must. However, I
hope we shall come through all right. Meanwhile, I am going to give
this box and all the gold in it, of which there is a great deal, into
your charge, Sammy, trusting to you, if anything happens to us, to get
it safe back to Durban if you can."

"Oh! Mr. Quatermain," he exclaimed, "I am indeed honoured, especially
as you know that once I was in jail for--embezzlement--with
extenuating circumstances, Mr. Quatermain. I tell you that although I
am a coward, I will die before anyone gets his fingers into that box."

"I am sure that you will, Sammy my boy," I said. "But I hope, although
things look queer, that none of us will be called upon to die just
yet."

 

The morning came at last, and the six of us marched down to the canoe
which had been brought round to the open waterway. Here we had to
undergo a kind of customs-house examination at the hands of Komba and
his companions, who seemed terrified lest we should be smuggling
firearms.

"You know what rifles are like," I said indignantly. "Can you see any
in our hands? Moreover, I give you my word that we have none."

Komba bowed politely, but suggested that perhaps some "little guns,"
by which he meant pistols, remained in our baggage--by accident. Komba
was a most suspicious person.

"Undo all the loads," I said to Hans, who obeyed with an enthusiasm
which I confess struck me as suspicious.

Knowing his secretive and tortuous nature, this sudden zeal for
openness seemed almost unnatural. He began by unrolling his own
blanket, inside of which appeared a miscellaneous collection of
articles. I remember among them a spare pair of very dirty trousers, a
battered tin cup, a wooden spoon such as Kaffirs use to eat their
/scoff/ with, a bottle full of some doubtful compound, sundry roots
and other native medicines, an old pipe I had given him, and last but
not least, a huge head of yellow tobacco in the leaf, of a kind that
the Mazitu, like the Pongos, cultivate to some extent.

"What on earth do you want so much tobacco for, Hans?" I asked.

"For us three black people to smoke, Baas, or to take as snuff, or to
chew. Perhaps where we are going we may find little to eat, and then
tobacco is a food on which one can live for days. Also it brings sleep
at nights."

"Oh! that will do," I said, fearing lest Hans, like a second Walter
Raleigh, was about to deliver a long lecture upon the virtue of
tobacco.

"There is no need for the yellow man to take this weed to our land,"
interrupted Komba, "for there we have plenty. Why does he cumber
himself with the stuff?" and he stretched out his hand idly as though
to take hold of and examine it closely.

At this moment, however, Mavovo called attention to his bundle which
he had undone, whether on purpose or by accident, I do not know, and
forgetting the tobacco, Komba turned to attend to him. With a
marvellous celerity Hans rolled up his blanket again. In less than a
minute the lashings were fast and it was hanging on his back. Again
suspicion took me, but an argument which had sprung up between Brother
John and Komba about the former's butterfly net, which Komba suspected
of being a new kind of gun or at least a magical instrument of a
dangerous sort, attracted my notice. After this dispute, another arose
over a common garden trowel that Stephen had thought fit to bring with
him. Komba asked what it was for. Stephen replied through Brother John
that it was to dig up flowers.

"Flowers!" said Komba. "One of our gods is a flower. Does the white
lord wish to dig up our god?"

Of course this was exactly what Stephen did desire to do, but not
unnaturally he kept the fact to himself. The squabble grew so hot that
finally I announced that if our little belongings were treated with so
much suspicion, it might be better that we should give up the journey
altogether.

"We have passed our word that we have no firearms," I said in the most
dignified manner that I could command, "and that should be enough for
you, O Komba."

Then Komba, after consultation with his companions, gave way.
Evidently he was anxious that we should visit Pongo-land.

So at last we started. We three white men and our servants seated
ourselves in the stern of the canoe on grass cushions that had been
provided. Komba went to the bows and his people, taking the broad
paddles, rowed and pushed the boat along the water-way made by the
hippopotami through the tall and matted reeds, from which ducks and
other fowl rose in multitudes with a sound like thunder. A quarter of
an hour or so of paddling through these weed-encumbered shallows
brought us to the deep and open lake. Here, on the edge of the reeds a
tall pole that served as a mast was shipped, and a square sail, made
of closely-woven mats, run up. It filled with the morning off-land
breeze and presently we were bowling along at a rate of quite eight
miles the hour. The shore grew dim behind us, but for a long while
above the clinging mists I could see the flag that we had planted on
the mound. By degrees it dwindled till it became a mere speck and
vanished. As it grew smaller my spirits sank, and when it was quite
gone, I felt very low indeed.

Another of your fool's errands, Allan my boy, I said to myself. I
wonder how many more you are destined to survive.

The others, too, did not seem in the best of spirits. Brother John
stared at the horizon, his lips moving as though he were engaged in
prayer, and even Stephen was temporarily depressed. Jerry had fallen
asleep, as a native generally does when it is warm and he has nothing
to do. Mavovo looked very thoughtful. I wondered whether he had been
consulting his Snake again, but did not ask him. Since the episode of
our escape from execution by bow and arrow I had grown somewhat afraid
of that unholy reptile. Next time it might foretell our immediate
doom, and if it did I knew that I should believe.

As for Hans, he looked much disturbed, and was engaged in wildly
hunting for something in the flap pockets of an antique corduroy
waistcoat which, from its general appearance, must, I imagine, years
ago have adorned the person of a British game-keeper.

"Three," I heard him mutter. "By my great grandfather's spirit! only
three left."

"Three what?" I asked in Dutch.

"Three charms, Baas, and there ought to have been quite twenty-four.
The rest have fallen out through a hole that the devil himself made in
this rotten stuff. Now we shall not die of hunger, and we shall not be
shot, and we shall not be drowned, at least none of those things will
happen to me. But there are twenty-one other things that may finish
us, as I have lost the charms to ward them off. Thus----"

"Oh! stop your rubbish," I said, and fell again into the depths of my
uncomfortable reflections. After this I, too, went to sleep. When I
woke it was past midday and the wind was falling. However, it held
while we ate some food we had brought with us, after which it died
away altogether, and the Pongo people took to their paddles. At my
suggestion we offered to help them, for it occurred to me that we
might just as well learn how to manage these paddles. So six were
given to us, and Komba, who now I noted was beginning to speak in a
somewhat imperious tone, instructed us in their use. At first we made
but a poor hand at the business, but three or four hours' steady
practice taught us a good deal. Indeed, before our journey's end, I
felt that we should be quite capable of managing a canoe, if ever it
became necessary for us to do so.

By three in the afternoon the shores of the island we were approaching
--if it really was an island, a point that I never cleared up--were
well in sight, the mountain top that stood some miles inland having
been visible for hours. In fact, through my glasses, I had been able
to make out its configuration almost from the beginning of the voyage.
About five we entered the mouth of a deep bay fringed on either side
with forests, in which were cultivated clearings with small villages
of the ordinary African stamp. I observed from the smaller size of the
trees adjacent to these clearings, that much more land had once been
under cultivation here, probably within the last century, and asked
Komba why this was so.

He answered in an enigmatic sentence which impressed me so much that I
find I entered it verbatim in my notebook.

"When man dies, corn dies. Man is corn, and corn is man."

Under this entry I see that I wrote "Compare the saying, 'Bread is the
staff of life.'"

I could not get any more out of him. Evidently he referred, however,
to a condition of shrinking in the population, a circumstance which he
did not care to discuss.

After the first few miles the bay narrowed sharply, and at its end
came to a point where a stream of no great breadth fell into it. On
either side of this stream that was roughly bridged in many places
stood the town of Rica. It consisted of a great number of large huts
roofed with palm leaves and constructed apparently of whitewashed
clay, or rather, as we discovered afterwards, of lake mud mixed with
chopped straw or grass.

Reaching a kind of wharf which was protected from erosion by piles
formed of small trees driven into the mud, to which were tied a fleet
of canoes, we landed just as the sun was beginning to sink. Our
approach had doubtless been observed, for as we drew near the wharf a
horn was blown by someone on the shore, whereon a considerable number
of men appeared. I suppose out of the huts, and assisted to make the
canoe fast. I noted that these all resembled Komba and his companions
in build and features; they were so like each other that, except for
the difference of their ages, it was difficult to tell them apart.
They might all have been members of one family; indeed, this was
practically the case, owing to constant intermarriage carried on for
generations.

There was something in the appearance of these tall, cold, sharp-
featured, white-robed men that chilled my blood, something unnatural
and almost inhuman. Here was nothing of the usual African jollity. No
one shouted, no one laughed or chattered. No one crowded on us, trying
to handle our persons or clothes. No one appeared afraid or even
astonished. Except for a word or two they were silent, merely
contemplating us in a chilling and distant fashion, as though the
arrival of three white men in a country where before no white man had
ever set foot were an everyday occurrence.

Moreover, our personal appearance did not seem to impress them, for
they smiled faintly at Brother John's long beard and at my stubbly
hair, pointing these out to each other with their slender fingers or
with the handles of their big spears. I remarked that they never used
the blade of the spear for this purpose, perhaps because they thought
that we might take this for a hostile or even a warlike demonstration.
It is humiliating to have to add that the only one of our company who
seemed to move them to wonder or interest was Hans. His extremely ugly
and wrinkled countenance, it was clear, did appeal to them to some
extent, perhaps because they had never seen anything in the least like
it before, or perhaps for another reason which the reader may guess in
due course.

At any rate, I heard one of them, pointing to Hans, ask Komba whether
the ape-man was our god or only our captain. The compliment seemed to
please Hans, who hitherto had never been looked on either as a god or
a captain. But the rest of us were not flattered; indeed, Mavovo was
indignant, and told Hans outright that if he heard any more such talk
he would beat him before these people, to show them that he was
neither a captain nor a god.

"Wait till I claim to be either, O butcher of a Zulu, before you
threaten to treat me thus!" ejaculated Hans, indignantly. Then he
added, with his peculiar Hottentot snigger, "Still, it is true that
before all the meat is eaten (i.e. before all is done) you may think
me both," a dark saying which at the time we did not understand.

When we had landed and collected our belongings, Komba told us to
follow him, and led us up a wide street that was very tidily kept and
bordered on either side by the large huts whereof I have spoken. Each
of these huts stood in a fenced garden of its own, a thing I have
rarely seen elsewhere in Africa. The result of this arrangement was
that although as a matter of fact it had but a comparatively small
population, the area covered by Rica was very great. The town, by the
way, was not surrounded with any wall or other fortification, which
showed that the inhabitants feared no attack. The waters of the lake
were their defence.

For the rest, the chief characteristic of this place was the silence
that brooded there. Apparently they kept no dogs, for none barked, and
no poultry, for I never heard a cock crow in Pongo-land. Cattle and
native sheep they had in abundance, but as they did not fear any
enemy, these were pastured outside the town, their milk and meat being
brought in as required. A considerable number of people were gathered
to observe us, not in a crowd, but in little family groups which
collected separately at the gates of the gardens.

For the most part these consisted of a man and one or more wives,
finely formed and handsome women. Sometimes they had children with
them, but these were very few; the most I saw with any one family was
three, and many seemed to possess none at all. Both the women and the
children, like the men, were decently clothed in long, white garments,
another peculiarity which showed that these natives were no ordinary
African savages.

Oh! I can see Rica Town now after all these many years: the wide
street swept and garnished, the brown-roofed, white-walled huts in
their fertile, irrigated gardens, the tall, silent folk, the smoke
from the cooking fires rising straight as a line in the still air, the
graceful palms and other tropical trees, and at the head of the
street, far away to the north, the rounded, towering shape of the
forest-clad mountain that was called House of the Gods. Often that
vision comes back to me in my sleep, or at times in my waking hours
when some heavy odour reminds me of the overpowering scent of the
great trumpet-like blooms which hung in profusion upon broad-leaved
bushes that were planted in almost every garden.

On we marched till at last we reached a tall, live fence that was
covered with brilliant scarlet flowers, arriving at its gate just as
the last red glow of day faded from the sky and night began to fall.
Komba pushed open the gate, revealing a scene that none of us are
likely to forget. The fence enclosed about an acre of ground of which
the back part was occupied by two large huts standing in the usual
gardens.

In front of these, not more than fifteen paces from the gate, stood
another building of a totally different character. It was about fifty
feet in length by thirty broad and consisted only of a roof supported
upon carved pillars of wood, the spaces between the pillars being
filled with grass mats or blinds. Most of these blinds were pulled
down, but four exactly opposite the gate were open. Inside the shed
forty or fifty men, who wore white robes and peculiar caps and who
were engaged in chanting a dreadful, melancholy song, were gathered on
three sides of a huge fire that burned in a pit in the ground. On the
fourth side, that facing the gate, a man stood alone with his arms
outstretched and his back towards us.

Of a sudden he heard our footsteps and turned round, springing to the
left, so that the light might fall on us. Now we saw by the glow of
the great fire, that over it was an iron grid not unlike a small
bedstead, and that on this grid lay some fearful object. Stephen, who
was a little ahead, stared, then exclaimed in a horrified voice:

"My God! it is a woman!"

In another second the blinds fell down, hiding everything, and the
singing ceased.

Content of CHAPTER XIII - RICA TOWN [H. Rider Haggard's novel: Allan and the Holy Flower]

_

Read next: CHAPTER XIV - THE KALUBI'S OATH

Read previous: CHAPTER XII - BROTHER JOHN'S STORY

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