「ソロモン王の洞窟」第16章・・・死者の住家 THE PLACE OF DEATH

「ソロモン王の洞窟」第16章・・・死者の住家

THE PLACE OF DEATH

It was already dark on the third day after the scene described in the
previous chapter when we camped in some huts at the foot of the "Three
Witches," as the triangle of mountains is called to which Solomon's
Great Road runs. Our party consisted of our three selves and Foulata,
who waited on us--especially on Good--Infadoos, Gagool, who was borne
along in a litter, inside which she could be heard muttering and
cursing all day long, and a party of guards and attendants. The
mountains, or rather the three peaks of the mountain, for the mass was
evidently the result of a solitary upheaval, were, as I have said, in
the form of a triangle, of which the base was towards us, one peak
being on our right, one on our left, and one straight in front of us.
Never shall I forget the sight afforded by those three towering peaks
in the early sunlight of the following morning. High, high above us,
up into the blue air, soared their twisted snow-wreaths. Beneath the
snow-line the peaks were purple with heaths, and so were the wild
moors that ran up the slopes towards them. Straight before us the
white ribbon of Solomon's Great Road stretched away uphill to the foot
of the centre peak, about five miles from us, and there stopped. It
was its terminus.

I had better leave the feelings of intense excitement with which we
set out on our march that morning to the imagination of those who read
this history. At last we were drawing near to the wonderful mines that
had been the cause of the miserable death of the old Portuguese Dom
three centuries ago, of my poor friend, his ill-starred descendant,
and also, as we feared, of George Curtis, Sir Henry's brother. Were we
destined, after all that we had gone through, to fare any better? Evil
befell them, as that old fiend Gagool said; would it also befall us?
Somehow, as we were marching up that last stretch of beautiful road, I
could not help feeling a little superstitious about the matter, and so
I think did Good and Sir Henry.

For an hour and a half or more we tramped on up the heather-fringed
way, going so fast in our excitement that the bearers of Gagool's
hammock could scarcely keep pace with us, and its occupant piped out
to us to stop.

"Walk more slowly, white men," she said, projecting her hideous
shrivelled countenance between the grass curtains, and fixing her
gleaming eyes upon us; "why will ye run to meet the evil that shall
befall you, ye seekers after treasure?" and she laughed that horrible
laugh which always sent a cold shiver down my back, and for a while
quite took the enthusiasm out of us.

However, on we went, till we saw before us, and between ourselves and
the peak, a vast circular hole with sloping sides, three hundred feet
or more in depth, and quite half a mile round.

"Can't you guess what this is?" I said to Sir Henry and Good, who were
staring in astonishment at the awful pit before us.

They shook their heads.

"Then it is clear that you have never seen the diamond diggings at
Kimberley. You may depend on it that this is Solomon's Diamond Mine.
Look there," I said, pointing to the strata of stiff blue clay which
were yet to be seen among the grass and bushes that clothed the sides
of the pit, "the formation is the same. I'll be bound that if we went
down there we should find 'pipes' of soapy brecciated rock. Look,
too," and I pointed to a series of worn flat slabs of stone that were
placed on a gentle slope below the level of a watercourse which in
some past age had been cut out of the solid rock; "if those are not
tables once used to wash the 'stuff,' I'm a Dutchman."

At the edge of this vast hole, which was none other than the pit
marked on the old Dom's map, the Great Road branched into two and
circumvented it. In many places, by the way, this surrounding road was
built entirely out of blocks of stone, apparently with the object of
supporting the edges of the pit and preventing falls of reef. Along
this path we pressed, driven by curiosity to see what were the three
towering objects which we could discern from the hither side of the
great gulf. As we drew near we perceived that they were Colossi of
some sort or another, and rightly conjectured that before us sat the
three "Silent Ones" that are held in such awe by the Kukuana people.
But it was not until we were quite close to them that we recognised
the full majesty of these "Silent Ones."

There, upon huge pedestals of dark rock, sculptured with rude emblems
of the Phallic worship, separated from each other by a distance of
forty paces, and looking down the road which crossed some sixty miles
of plain to Loo, were three colossal seated forms--two male and one
female--each measuring about thirty feet from the crown of its head to
the pedestal.

The female form, which was nude, was of great though severe beauty,
but unfortunately the features had been injured by centuries of
exposure to the weather. Rising from either side of her head were the
points of a crescent. The two male Colossi, on the contrary, were
draped, and presented a terrifying cast of features, especially the
one to our right, which had the face of a devil. That to our left was
serene in countenance, but the calm upon it seemed dreadful. It was
the calm of that inhuman cruelty, Sir Henry remarked, which the
ancients attributed to beings potent for good, who could yet watch the
sufferings of humanity, if not without rejoicing, at least without
sorrow. These three statues form a most awe-inspiring trinity, as they
sit there in their solitude, and gaze out across the plain for ever.

Contemplating these "Silent Ones," as the Kukuanas call them, an
intense curiosity again seized us to know whose were the hands which
had shaped them, who it was that had dug the pit and made the road.
Whilst I was gazing and wondering, suddenly it occurred to me--being
familiar with the Old Testament--that Solomon went astray after
strange gods, the names of three of whom I remembered--"Ashtoreth, the
goddess of the Zidonians, Chemosh, the god of the Moabites, and
Milcom, the god of the children of Ammon"--and I suggested to my
companions that the figures before us might represent these false and
exploded divinities.

"Hum," said Sir Henry, who is a scholar, having taken a high degree in
classics at college, "there may be something in that; Ashtoreth of the
Hebrews was the Astarte of the Phoenicians, who were the great traders
of Solomon's time. Astarte, who afterwards became the Aphrodite of the
Greeks, was represented with horns like the half-moon, and there on
the brow of the female figure are distinct horns. Perhaps these
Colossi were designed by some Phoenician official who managed the
mines. Who can say?"[*]

[*] Compare Milton, "Paradise Lost," Book i.:--

                      "With these in troop
    Came Ashtoreth, whom the Phoenicians called
    Astarte, Queen of Heaven, with crescent horns;
    To whose bright image nightly by the moon
    Sidonian virgins paid their vows and songs."

Before we had finished examining these extraordinary relics of remote
antiquity, Infadoos came up, and having saluted the "Silent Ones" by
lifting his spear, asked us if we intended entering the "Place of
Death" at once, or if we would wait till after we had taken food at
mid-day. If we were ready to go at once, Gagool had announced her
willingness to guide us. As it was not later than eleven o'clock--
driven to it by a burning curiosity--we announced our intention of
proceeding instantly, and I suggested that, in case we should be
detained in the cave, we should take some food with us. Accordingly
Gagool's litter was brought up, and that lady herself assisted out of
it. Meanwhile Foulata, at my request, stored some "biltong," or dried
game-flesh, together with a couple of gourds of water, in a reed
basket with a hinged cover. Straight in front of us, at a distance of
some fifty paces from the backs of the Colossi, rose a sheer wall of
rock, eighty feet or more in height, that gradually sloped upwards
till it formed the base of the lofty snow-wreathed peak, which soared
into the air three thousand feet above us. As soon as she was clear of
her hammock, Gagool cast one evil grin upon us, and then, leaning on a
stick, hobbled off towards the face of this wall. We followed her till
we came to a narrow portal solidly arched that looked like the opening
of a gallery of a mine.

Here Gagool was waiting for us, still with that evil grin upon her
horrid face.

"Now, white men from the Stars," she piped; "great warriors, Incubu,
Bougwan, and Macumazahn the wise, are ye ready? Behold, I am here to
do the bidding of my lord the king, and to show you the store of
bright stones. /Ha! ha! ha!/"

"We are ready," I said.

"Good, good! Make strong your hearts to bear what ye shall see. Comest
thou too, Infadoos, thou who didst betray thy master?"

Infadoos frowned as he answered--

"Nay, I come not; it is not for me to enter there. But thou, Gagool,
curb thy tongue, and beware how thou dealest with my lords. At thy
hands will I require them, and if a hair of them be hurt, Gagool,
be'st thou fifty times a witch, thou shalt die. Hearest thou?"

"I hear Infadoos; I know thee, thou didst ever love big words; when
thou wast a babe I remember thou didst threaten thine own mother. That
was but the other day. But, fear not, fear not, I live only to do the
bidding of the king. I have done the bidding of many kings, Infadoos,
till in the end they did mine. /Ha! ha!/ I go to look upon their faces
once more, and Twala's also! Come on, come on, here is the lamp," and
she drew a large gourd full of oil, and fitted with a rush wick, from
under her fur cloak.

"Art thou coming, Foulata?" asked Good in his villainous Kitchen
Kukuana, in which he had been improving himself under that young
lady's tuition.

"I fear, my lord," the girl answered timidly.

"Then give me the basket."

"Nay, my lord, whither thou goest there I go also."

"The deuce you will!" thought I to myself; "that may be rather awkward
if we ever get out of this."

Without further ado Gagool plunged into the passage, which was wide
enough to admit of two walking abreast, and quite dark. We followed
the sound of her voice as she piped to us to come on, in some fear and
trembling, which was not allayed by the flutter of a sudden rush of
wings.

"Hullo! what's that?" halloed Good; "somebody hit me in the face."

"Bats," said I; "on you go."

When, so far as we could judge, we had gone some fifty paces, we
perceived that the passage was growing faintly light. Another minute,
and we were in perhaps the most wonderful place that the eyes of
living man have beheld.

Let the reader picture to himself the hall of the vastest cathedral he
ever stood in, windowless indeed, but dimly lighted from above,
presumably by shafts connected with the outer air and driven in the
roof, which arched away a hundred feet above our heads, and he will
get some idea of the size of the enormous cave in which we found
ourselves, with the difference that this cathedral designed by nature
was loftier and wider than any built by man. But its stupendous size
was the least of the wonders of the place, for running in rows adown
its length were gigantic pillars of what looked like ice, but were, in
reality, huge stalactites. It is impossible for me to convey any idea
of the overpowering beauty and grandeur of these pillars of white
spar, some of which were not less than twenty feet in diameter at the
base, and sprang up in lofty and yet delicate beauty sheer to the
distant roof. Others again were in process of formation. On the rock
floor there was in these cases what looked, Sir Henry said, exactly
like a broken column in an old Grecian temple, whilst high above,
depending from the roof, the point of a huge icicle could be dimly
seen.

Even as we gazed we could hear the process going on, for presently
with a tiny splash a drop of water would fall from the far-off icicle
on to the column below. On some columns the drops only fell once in
two or three minutes, and in these cases it would be an interesting
calculation to discover how long, at that rate of dripping, it would
take to form a pillar, say eighty feet by ten in diameter. That the
process, in at least one instance, was incalculably slow, the
following example will suffice to show. Cut on one of these pillars we
discovered the crude likeness of a mummy, by the head of which sat
what appeared to be the figure of an Egyptian god, doubtless the
handiwork of some old-world labourer in the mine. This work of art was
executed at the natural height at which an idle fellow, be he
Phoenician workman or British cad, is in the habit of trying to
immortalise himself at the expense of nature's masterpieces, namely,
about five feet from the ground. Yet at the time that we saw it, which
/must/ have been nearly three thousand years after the date of the
execution of the carving, the column was only eight feet high, and was
still in process of formation, which gives a rate of growth of a foot
to a thousand years, or an inch and a fraction to a century. This we
knew because, as we were standing by it, we heard a drop of water
fall.

Sometimes the stalagmites took strange forms, presumably where the
dropping of the water had not always been on the same spot. Thus, one
huge mass, which must have weighed a hundred tons or so, was in the
shape of a pulpit, beautifully fretted over outside with a design that
looked like lace. Others resembled strange beasts, and on the sides of
the cave were fanlike ivory tracings, such as the frost leaves upon a
pane.

Out of the vast main aisle there opened here and there smaller caves,
exactly, Sir Henry said, as chapels open out of great cathedrals. Some
were large, but one or two--and this is a wonderful instance of how
nature carries out her handiwork by the same unvarying laws, utterly
irrespective of size--were tiny. One little nook, for instance, was no
larger than an unusually big doll's house, and yet it might have been
a model for the whole place, for the water dropped, tiny icicles hung,
and spar columns were forming in just the same way.

We had not, however, enough time to examine this beautiful cavern so
thoroughly as we should have liked to do, since unfortunately, Gagool
seemed to be indifferent as to stalactites, and only anxious to get
her business over. This annoyed me the more, as I was particularly
anxious to discover, if possible, by what system the light was
admitted into the cave, and whether it was by the hand of man or by
that of nature that this was done; also if the place had been used in
any way in ancient times, as seemed probable. However, we consoled
ourselves with the idea that we would investigate it thoroughly on our
way back, and followed on at the heels of our uncanny guide.

On she led us, straight to the top of the vast and silent cave, where
we found another doorway, not arched as the first was, but square at
the top, something like the doorways of Egyptian temples.

"Are ye prepared to enter the Place of Death, white men?" asked
Gagool, evidently with a view to making us feel uncomfortable.

"Lead on, Macduff," said Good solemnly, trying to look as though he
was not at all alarmed, as indeed we all did except Foulata, who
caught Good by the arm for protection.

"This is getting rather ghastly," said Sir Henry, peeping into the
dark passageway. "Come on, Quatermain--/seniores priores/. We mustn't
keep the old lady waiting!" and he politely made way for me to lead
the van, for which inwardly I did not bless him.

/Tap, tap,/ went old Gagool's stick down the passage, as she trotted
along, chuckling hideously; and still overcome by some unaccountable
presentiment of evil, I hung back.

"Come, get on, old fellow," said Good, "or we shall lose our fair
guide."

Thus adjured, I started down the passage, and after about twenty paces
found myself in a gloomy apartment some forty feet long, by thirty
broad, and thirty high, which in some past age evidently had been
hollowed, by hand-labour, out of the mountain. This apartment was not
nearly so well lighted as the vast stalactite ante-cave, and at the
first glance all I could discern was a massive stone table running
down its length, with a colossal white figure at its head, and life-
sized white figures all round it. Next I discovered a brown thing,
seated on the table in the centre, and in another moment my eyes grew
accustomed to the light, and I saw what all these things were, and was
tailing out of the place as hard as my legs could carry me.

I am not a nervous man in a general way, and very little troubled with
superstitions, of which I have lived to see the folly; but I am free
to own that this sight quite upset me, and had it not been that Sir
Henry caught me by the collar and held me, I do honestly believe that
in another five minutes I should have been outside the stalactite
cave, and that a promise of all the diamonds in Kimberley would not
have induced me to enter it again. But he held me tight, so I stopped
because I could not help myself. Next second, however, /his/ eyes
became accustomed to the light, and he let go of me, and began to mop
the perspiration off his forehead. As for Good, he swore feebly, while
Foulata threw her arms round his neck and shrieked.

Only Gagool chuckled loud and long.

It /was/ a ghastly sight. There at the end of the long stone table,
holding in his skeleton fingers a great white spear, sat /Death/
himself, shaped in the form of a colossal human skeleton, fifteen feet
or more in height. High above his head he held the spear, as though in
the act to strike; one bony hand rested on the stone table before him,
in the position a man assumes on rising from his seat, whilst his
frame was bent forward so that the vertebrae of the neck and the
grinning, gleaming skull projected towards us, and fixed its hollow
eye-places upon us, the jaws a little open, as though it were about to
speak.

"Great heavens!" said I faintly, at last, "what can it be?"

"And what are /those things/?" asked Good, pointing to the white
company round the table.

"And what on earth is /that thing/?" said Sir Henry, pointing to the
brown creature seated on the table.

"/Hee! hee! hee!/" laughed Gagool. "To those who enter the Hall of the
Dead, evil comes. /Hee! hee! hee! ha! ha!/"

"Come, Incubu, brave in battle, come and see him thou slewest;" and
the old creature caught Curtis' coat in her skinny fingers, and led
him away towards the table. We followed.

Presently she stopped and pointed at the brown object seated on the
table. Sir Henry looked, and started back with an exclamation; and no
wonder, for there, quite naked, the head which Curtis' battle-axe had
shorn from the body resting on its knees, was the gaunt corpse of
Twala, the last king of the Kukuanas. Yes, there, the head perched
upon the knees, it sat in all its ugliness, the vertebrae projecting a
full inch above the level of the shrunken flesh of the neck, for all
the world like a black double of Hamilton Tighe.[*] Over the surface
of the corpse there was gathered a thin glassy film, that made its
appearance yet more appalling, for which we were, at the moment, quite
unable to account, till presently we observed that from the roof of
the chamber the water fell steadily, /drip! drop! drip!/ on to the
neck of the corpse, whence it ran down over the entire surface, and
finally escaped into the rock through a tiny hole in the table. Then I
guessed what the film was--/Twala's body was being transformed into a
stalactite./

[*] "Now haste ye, my handmaidens, haste and see
    How he sits there and glowers with his head on his knee."

A look at the white forms seated on the stone bench which ran round
that ghastly board confirmed this view. They were human bodies indeed,
or rather they had been human; now they were /stalactites/. This was
the way in which the Kukuana people had from time immemorial preserved
their royal dead. They petrified them. What the exact system might be,
if there was any, beyond the placing of them for a long period of
years under the drip, I never discovered, but there they sat, iced
over and preserved for ever by the siliceous fluid.

Anything more awe-inspiring than the spectacle of this long line of
departed royalties (there were twenty-seven of them, the last being
Ignosi's father), wrapped, each of them, in a shroud of ice-like spar,
through which the features could be dimly discovered, and seated round
that inhospitable board, with Death himself for a host, it is
impossible to imagine. That the practice of thus preserving their
kings must have been an ancient one is evident from the number, which,
allowing for an average reign of fifteen years, supposing that every
king who reigned was placed here--an improbable thing, as some are
sure to have perished in battle far from home--would fix the date of
its commencement at four and a quarter centuries back.

But the colossal Death, who sits at the head of the board, is far
older than that, and, unless I am much mistaken, owes his origin to
the same artist who designed the three Colossi. He is hewn out of a
single stalactite, and, looked at as a work of art, is most admirably
conceived and executed. Good, who understands such things, declared
that, so far as he could see, the anatomical design of the skeleton is
perfect down to the smallest bones.

My own idea is, that this terrific object was a freak of fancy on the
part of some old-world sculptor, and that its presence had suggested
to the Kukuanas the idea of placing their royal dead under its awful
presidency. Or perhaps it was set there to frighten away any marauders
who might have designs upon the treasure chamber beyond. I cannot say.
All I can do is to describe it as it is, and the reader must form his
own conclusion.

Such, at any rate, was the White Death and such were the White Dead!