<h3>XIX - "GIVE ME A BLACK GOAT!"</h3>
<p>The conversation after this was of such a desultory order that I do not
quite recollect it. For some reason, perhaps from a desire to keep her
identity and character in reserve, Ayesha did not talk freely, as she
usually did. Presently, however, she informed Leo that she had arranged
a dance that night for our amusement. I was astonished to hear this, as
I fancied that the Amahagger were much too gloomy a folk to indulge
in any such frivolity; but, as will presently more clearly appear,
it turned out that an Amahagger dance has little in common with such
fantastic festivities in other countries, savage or civilised. Then, as
we were about to withdraw, she suggested that Leo might like to see
some of the wonders of the caves, and as he gladly assented thither we
departed, accompanied by Job and Billali. To describe our visit would
only be to repeat a great deal of what I have already said. The tombs
we entered were indeed different, for the whole rock was a honeycomb of
sepulchres,[*] but the contents were nearly always similar. Afterwards
we visited the pyramid of bones that had haunted my dreams on the
previous night, and from thence went down a long passage to one of the
great vaults occupied by the bodies of the poorer citizens of Imperial
Kôr. These bodies were not nearly so well preserved as were those of
the wealthier classes. Many of them had no linen covering on them, also
they were buried from five hundred to one thousand in a single large
vault, the corpses in some instances being thickly piled one upon
another, like a heap of slain.</p>
<p>[*] For a long while it puzzled me to know what could have<br/>
been done with the enormous quantities of rock that must<br/>
have been dug out of these vast caves; but I afterwards<br/>
discovered that it was for the most part built into the<br/>
walls and palaces of Kôr, and also used to line the<br/>
reservoirs and sewers.—L. H. H.<br/></p>
<p>Leo was of course intensely interested in this stupendous and unequalled
sight, which was, indeed, enough to awake all the imagination a man
had in him into the most active life. But to poor Job it did not
prove attractive. His nerves—already seriously shaken by what he had
undergone since we had arrived in this terrible country—were, as may
be imagined, still further disturbed by the spectacle of these masses of
departed humanity, whereof the forms still remained perfect before his
eyes, though their voices were for ever lost in the eternal silence of
the tomb. Nor was he comforted when old Billali, by way of soothing
his evident agitation, informed him that he should not be frightened of
these dead things, as he would soon be like them himself.</p>
<p>"There's a nice thing to say of a man, sir," he ejaculated, when I
translated this little remark; "but there, what can one expect of an old
man-eating savage? Not but what I dare say he's right," and Job sighed.</p>
<p>When we had finished inspecting the caves, we returned and had our
meal, for it was now past four in the afternoon, and we all—especially
Leo—needed some food and rest. At six o'clock we, together with Job,
waited on Ayesha, who set to work to terrify our poor servant still
further by showing him pictures on the pool of water in the font-like
vessel. She learnt from me that he was one of seventeen children, and
then bid him think of all his brothers and sisters, or as many of them
as he could, gathered together in his father's cottage. Then she told
him to look in the water, and there, reflected from its stilly surface,
was that dead scene of many years gone by, as it was recalled to our
retainer's brain. Some of the faces were clear enough, but some were
mere blurs and splotches, or with one feature grossly exaggerated; the
fact being that, in these instances, Job had been unable to recall
the exact appearances of the individuals, or remembered them only by a
peculiarity of his tribe, and the water could only reflect what he saw
with his mind's eye. For it must be remembered that <i>She's</i> power in
this matter was strictly limited; she could apparently, except in very
rare instances, only photograph upon the water what was actually in the
mind of some one present, and then only by his will. But, if she was
personally acquainted with a locality, she could, as in the case of
ourselves and the whale-boat, throw its reflection upon the water, and
also, it seems, the reflection of anything extraneous that was passing
there at the time. This power, however, did not extend to the minds
of others. For instance, she could show me the interior of my college
chapel, as I remembered it, but not as it was at the moment of
reflection; for, where other people were concerned, her art was strictly
limited to the facts or memories present to <i>their</i> consciousness at the
moment. So much was this so that when we tried, for her amusement, to
show her pictures of noted buildings, such as St. Paul's or the Houses
of Parliament, the result was most imperfect; for, of course, though we
had a good general idea of their appearance, we could not recall all the
architectural details, and therefore the minutiæ necessary to a perfect
reflection were wanting. But Job could not be got to understand this,
and, so far from accepting a natural explanation of the matter, which
was after all, though strange enough in all conscience, nothing more
than an instance of glorified and perfected telepathy, he set the whole
thing down as a manifestation of the blackest magic. I shall never
forget the howl of terror which he uttered when he saw the more or less
perfect portraits of his long-scattered brethren staring at him from the
quiet water, or the merry peal of laughter with which Ayesha greeted his
consternation. As for Leo, he did not altogether like it either, but ran
his fingers through his yellow curls, and remarked that it gave him the
creeps.</p>
<p>After about an hour of this amusement, in the latter part of which Job
did <i>not</i> participate, the mutes by signs indicated that Billali was
waiting for an audience. Accordingly he was told to "crawl up," which
he did as awkwardly as usual, and announced that the dance was ready
to begin if <i>She</i> and the white strangers would be pleased to attend.
Shortly afterwards we all rose, and, Ayesha having thrown a dark cloak
(the same, by the way, that she had worn when I saw her cursing by the
fire) over her white wrappings, we started. The dance was to be held in
the open air, on the smooth rocky plateau in front of the great cave,
and thither we made our way. About fifteen paces from the mouth of the
cave we found three chairs placed, and here we sat and waited, for as
yet no dancers were to be seen. The night was almost, but not quite,
dark, the moon not having risen as yet, which made us wonder how we
should be able to see the dancing.</p>
<p>"Thou wilt presently understand," said Ayesha, with a little laugh, when
Leo asked her; and we certainly did. Scarcely were the words out of her
mouth when from every point we saw dark forms rushing up, each bearing
with him what we at first took to be an enormous flaming torch. Whatever
they were, they were burning furiously, for the flames stood out a
yard or more behind each bearer. On they came, fifty or more of them,
carrying their flaming burdens and looking like so many devils from
hell. Leo was the first to discover what these burdens were.</p>
<p>"Great heaven!" he said, "they are corpses on fire!"</p>
<p>I stared and stared again—he was perfectly right—the torches that were
to light our entertainment were human mummies from the caves!</p>
<p>On rushed the bearers of the flaming corpses, and, meeting at a spot
about twenty paces in front of us, built their ghastly burdens crossways
into a huge bonfire. Heavens! how they roared and flared! No tar barrel
could have burnt as those mummies did. Nor was this all. Suddenly I
saw one great fellow seize a flaming human arm that had fallen from its
parent frame, and rush off into the darkness. Presently he stopped, and
a tall streak of fire shot up into the air, illumining the gloom, and
also the lamp from which it sprang. That lamp was the mummy of a woman
tied to a stout stake let into the rock, and he had fired her hair. On
he went a few paces and touched a second, then a third, and a fourth,
till at last we were surrounded on all three sides by a great ring of
bodies flaring furiously, the material with which they were preserved
having rendered them so inflammable that the flames would literally
spout out of the ears and mouth in tongues of fire a foot or more in
length.</p>
<p>Nero illuminated his gardens with live Christians soaked in tar, and
we were now treated to a similar spectacle, probably for the first time
since his day, only happily our lamps were not living ones.</p>
<p>But, although this element of horror was fortunately wanting, to
describe the awful and hideous grandeur of the spectacle thus presented
to us is, I feel, so absolutely beyond my poor powers that I scarcely
dare attempt it. To begin with, it appealed to the moral as well as the
physical susceptibilities. There was something very terrible, and yet
very fascinating, about the employment of the remote dead to illumine
the orgies of the living; in itself the thing was a satire, both on the
living and the dead. Cæsar's dust—or is it Alexander's?—may stop a
bunghole, but the functions of these dead Cæsars of the past was to
light up a savage fetish dance. To such base uses may we come, of so
little account may we be in the minds of the eager multitudes that we
shall breed, many of whom, so far from revering our memory, will live to
curse us for begetting them into such a world of woe.</p>
<p>Then there was the physical side of the spectacle, and a weird and
splendid one it was. Those old citizens of Kôr burnt as, to judge from
their sculptures and inscriptions, they had lived, very fast, and with
the utmost liberality. What is more, there were plenty of them. As soon
as ever a mummy had burnt down to the ankles, which it did in about
twenty minutes, the feet were kicked away, and another one put in its
place. The bonfire was kept going on the same generous scale, and its
flames shot up, with a hiss and a crackle, twenty or thirty feet into
the air, throwing great flashes of light far out into the gloom, through
which the dark forms of the Amahagger flitted to and fro like
devils replenishing the infernal fires. We all stood and stared
aghast—shocked, and yet fascinated at so strange a spectacle, and half
expecting to see the spirits those flaming forms had once enclosed come
creeping from the shadows to work vengeance on their desecrators.</p>
<p>"I promised thee a strange sight, my Holly," laughed Ayesha, whose
nerves alone did not seem to be affected; "and, behold, I have not
failed thee. Also, it hath its lesson. Trust not to the future, for
who knows what the future may bring! Therefore, live for the day, and
endeavour not to escape the dust which seems to be man's end. What
thinkest thou those long-forgotten nobles and ladies would have felt had
they known that they should one day flare to light the dance or boil the
pot of savages? But see, here come the dancers; a merry crew—are they
not? The stage is lit—now for the play."</p>
<p>As she spoke, we perceived two lines of figures, one male and the other
female, to the number of about a hundred, each advancing round the human
bonfire, arrayed only in the usual leopard and buck skins. They formed
up, in perfect silence, in two lines, facing each other between us
and the fire, and then the dance—a sort of infernal and fiendish
cancan—began. To describe it is quite impossible, but, though there was
a good deal of tossing of legs and double-shuffling, it seemed to our
untutored minds to be more of a play than a dance, and, as usual with
this dreadful people, whose minds seem to have taken their colour from
the caves in which they live, and whose jokes and amusements are drawn
from the inexhaustible stores of preserved mortality with which they
share their homes, the subject appeared to be a most ghastly one. I
know that it represented an attempted murder first of all, and then the
burial alive of the victim and his struggling from the grave; each act
of the abominable drama, which was carried on in perfect silence, being
rounded off and finished with a furious and most revolting dance round
the supposed victim, who writhed upon the ground in the red light of the
bonfire.</p>
<p>Presently, however, this pleasing piece was interrupted. Suddenly there
was a slight commotion, and a large powerful woman, whom I had noted as
one of the most vigorous of the dancers, came, made mad and drunken with
unholy excitement, bounding and staggering towards us, shrieking out as
she came:—</p>
<p>"I want a Black Goat, I must have a Black Goat, bring me a Black
Goat!" and down she fell upon the rocky floor foaming and writhing, and
shrieking for a Black Goat, about as hideous a spectacle as can well be
conceived.</p>
<p>Instantly most of the dancers came up and got round her, though some
still continued their capers in the background.</p>
<p>"She has got a Devil," called out one of them. "Run and get a black
goat. There, Devil, keep quiet! keep quiet! You shall have the goat
presently. They have gone to fetch it, Devil."</p>
<p>"I want a Black Goat, I must have a Black Goat!" shrieked the foaming
rolling creature again.</p>
<p>"All right, Devil, the goat will be here presently; keep quiet, there's
a good Devil!"</p>
<p>And so on till the goat, taken from a neighbouring kraal, did at last
arrive, being dragged bleating on to the scene by its horns.</p>
<p>"Is it a Black One, is it a Black One?" shrieked the possessed.</p>
<p>"Yes, yes, Devil, as black as night;" then aside, "keep it behind thee,
don't let the Devil see that it has got a white spot on its rump and
another on its belly. In one minute, Devil. There, cut his throat quick.
Where is the saucer?"</p>
<p>"The Goat! the Goat! the Goat! Give me the blood of my black goat! I
must have it, don't you see I must have it? Oh! oh! oh! give me the
blood of the goat."</p>
<p>At this moment a terrified <i>bah!</i> announced that the poor goat had been
sacrificed, and the next minute a woman ran up with a saucer full of
blood. This the possessed creature, who was then raving and foaming her
wildest, seized and <i>drank</i>, and was instantly recovered, and without
a trace of hysteria, or fits, or being possessed, or whatever dreadful
thing it was she was suffering from. She stretched her arms, smiled
faintly, and walked quietly back to the dancers, who presently withdrew
in a double line as they had come, leaving the space between us and the
bonfire deserted.</p>
<p>I thought that the entertainment was now over, and, feeling rather
queer, was about to ask <i>She</i> if we could rise, when suddenly what
at first I took to be a baboon came hopping round the fire, and was
instantly met upon the other side by a lion, or rather a human being
dressed in a lion's skin. Then came a goat, then a man wrapped in an
ox's hide, with the horns wobbling about in a ludicrous way. After him
followed a blesbok, then an impala, then a koodoo, then more goats, and
many other animals, including a girl sewn up in the shining scaly hide
of a boa-constrictor, several yards of which trailed along the ground
behind her. When all the beasts had collected they began to dance about
in a lumbering, unnatural fashion, and to imitate the sounds produced
by the respective animals they represented, till the whole air was alive
with roars and bleating and the hissing of snakes. This went on for a
long time, till, getting tired of the pantomime, I asked Ayesha if there
would be any objection to Leo and myself walking round to inspect the
human torches, and, as she had nothing to say against it, we started,
striking round to the left. After looking at one or two of the flaming
bodies, we were about to return, thoroughly disgusted with the grotesque
weirdness of the spectacle, when our attention was attracted by one of
the dancers, a particularly active leopard, that had separated itself
from its fellow-beasts, and was whisking about in our immediate
neighbourhood, but gradually drawing into a spot where the shadow
was darkest, equidistant between two of the flaming mummies. Drawn by
curiosity, we followed it, when suddenly it darted past us into the
shadows beyond, and as it did so erected itself and whispered, "Come,"
in a voice that we both recognised as that of Ustane. Without waiting to
consult me Leo turned and followed her into the outer darkness, and I,
feeling sick enough at heart, went after them. The leopard crawled on
for about fifty paces—a sufficient distance to be quite beyond the
light of the fire and torches—and then Leo came up with it, or, rather,
with Ustane.</p>
<p>"Oh, my lord," I heard her whisper, "so I have found thee! Listen. I am
in peril of my life from '<i>She-who-must-be-obeyed</i>.' Surely the Baboon
has told thee how she drove me from thee? I love thee, my lord, and thou
art mine according to the custom of the country. I saved thy life! My
Lion, wilt thou cast me off now?"</p>
<p>"Of course not," ejaculated Leo; "I have been wondering whither thou
hadst gone. Let us go and explain matters to the Queen."</p>
<p>"Nay, nay, she would slay us. Thou knowest not her power—the Baboon
there, he knoweth, for he saw. Nay, there is but one way: if thou wilt
cleave to me, thou must flee with me across the marshes even now, and
then perchance we may escape."</p>
<p>"For Heaven's sake, Leo," I began, but she broke in—</p>
<p>"Nay, listen not to him. Swift—be swift—death is in the air we
breathe. Even now, mayhap, <i>She</i> heareth us," and without more ado she
proceeded to back her arguments by throwing herself into his arms. As
she did so the leopard's head slipped from her hair, and I saw the three
white finger-marks upon it, gleaming faintly in the starlight. Once
more realising the desperate nature of the position, I was about to
interpose, for I knew that Leo was not too strong-minded where women
were concerned, when—oh! horror!—I heard a little silvery laugh behind
me. I turned round, and there was <i>She</i> herself, and with her Billali
and two male mutes. I gasped and nearly sank to the ground, for I knew
that such a situation must result in some dreadful tragedy, of which it
seemed exceedingly probable to me that I should be the first victim. As
for Ustane, she untwined her arms and covered her eyes with her hands,
while Leo, not knowing the full terror of the position, merely covered
up, and looked as foolish as a man caught in such a trap would naturally
do.</p>
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