Queen Sheba's Ring Part 15

"And if we swear, Lady," asked Oliver after reflection, "tell us what rank shall we hold in your service?"

"You shall be my chief captain for this enterprise, O Son of Orme, and those with you shall serve under you in such positions as you may please."

At these words a murmur of dissatisfaction arose from the mail-clad generals in the Council.

"Are we then, to obey this stranger, O Child of Kings?" queried Joshua as their spokesman.

"Aye, my uncle, so far as this great enterprise is concerned, as I have said. Can you handle the firestuffs of which they alone have the secret?

Could any three of you have held the gate of Harmac against the armies of the Fung and sent it flying skyward?"

She paused and waited in the midst of a sullen silence.

"You do not answer because you cannot," continued Maqueda. "Then for this purpose be content to serve awhile under the command of those who have the skill and power which you lack."

Still there was no answer.

"Lady," said Orme in this ominous quiet, "you are so good as to make me a general among your soldiers, but will they obey me? And who are your soldiers? Does every man of the Abati bear arms?"

"Alas! no," she replied, fixing upon this latter question perhaps because she could not answer the first. "Alas! no. In the old days it was otherwise, when my great ancestresses ruled, and then we did not fear the Fung. But now the people will not serve as soldiers. They say it takes them from their trades and the games they love; they say they cannot give the time in youth; they say that it degrades a man to obey the orders of those set over him; they say that war is barbarous and should be abolished, and all the while the brave Fung wait without to ma.s.sacre our men and make our women slaves. Only the very poor and the desperate, and those who have offended against the laws will serve in my army, except it be as officers. Oh! and therefore are the Abati doomed,"

and, throwing back her veil, suddenly, she burst into tears before us all.

I do not know that I ever remember seeing a sight more pathetic in its way than that of this beautiful and high-spirited young woman weeping in the presence of her Council over the utter degeneracy of the race she was called upon to rule. Being old and accustomed to these Eastern expressions of emotion, I remained silent, however; but Oliver was so deeply affected that I feared lest he should do something foolish. He went red, he went white, and was rising from his seat to go to her, had I not caught him by the arm and pulled him back. As for Quick, he turned his eyes to the ceiling, as though engaged in prayer, and I heard him muttering:

"The Lord help the poor thing, the Lord help her; the one pearl in the snout of all these gilded swine! Well, I understand I am a bit of a general now, and if I don't make 'em sit up for her sake my name ain't Samuel Quick."

Meanwhile there was much consternation and indignant murmuring amongst the Court, which felt that reflections had been thrown upon it collectively and individually. At such a crisis, as usual, Prince Joshua took the lead. Rising from his seat, he knelt, not without difficulty, before the throne, and said:

"O Child of Kings, why do you distress us with such words? Have you not the G.o.d of Solomon to protect you?"

"G.o.d protects those who protect themselves," sobbed Maqueda.

"And have you not many brave officers?"

"What are officers without an army?"

"And have you not me, your uncle, your affianced, your lover?" and he laid his hand where he conceived his heart to be, and stared up at her with his rolling, fish-like eyes. "Had it not been for the interference of these Gentiles, in whom you seem to put such trust," he went on, "should I not have taken Barung captive the other day, and left the Fung without a head?"

"And the Abati without such shreds of honour as still belong to them, my uncle."

"Let us be wed, O Bud of the Rose, O Flower of Mur, and soon I will free you from the Fung. We are helpless because we are separate, but together we shall triumph. Say, O Maqueda, when shall we be wed?"

"When the idol Harmac is utterly destroyed, and the Fung have departed for ever, my uncle," she answered impatiently. "But is this a time to talk of marriage? I declare the Council closed. Let the priests bring the rolls that these strangers from the West may take the oath, and then pardon me if I leave you."

Now from behind the throne there appeared a gorgeous gentleman arrayed in a head-dress that reminded me faintly of a bishop's mitre, and wearing over his robes a breastplate of precious stones roughly polished, which was half hidden by a very long white beard.

This person, who it seemed was the high priest, carried in his hand a double roll of parchment written over with characters which we afterwards discovered were b.a.s.t.a.r.d Hebrew, very ancient and only decipherable by three or four of the Abati, if indeed any of them could really read it. At least it was said to be the roll of the law brought by their forefathers centuries ago from Abyssinia, together with Sheba's ring and a few other relics, among them the cradle (a palpable forgery), in which the child of Solomon and Maqueda, or Belchis, the first known Queen of Sheba, was traditionally reported to have been rocked. This roll of the law, which for generations had been used at all important ceremonies among the Abati, such as the swearing-in of their queens and chief officers, was now tendered to us to hold and kiss while we took the oath of obedience and allegiance in the names of Jehovah and of Solomon (a strange mixture, it struck us), solemnly vowing to perform those things which I have already set out.

"This seems a pretty wide promise," said Oliver, after it had been read to us and translated by me to Quick. "Do you think that we ought to take it on?"

I answered "Yes," that was from my point of view, since otherwise I saw no chance of achieving the object that had caused me to enter upon this adventure. Then, being especially requested to do so, the Sergeant, after reflecting awhile, gave his considered opinion.

"Sir," he said to Orme, "we are three white men here consorting with a mob of quarter-bred African Jews and one real lady. It seems to me that we had best swear anything they want us to, trusting to the lady to see us through the mess, since otherwise we shall be mere filibusters in the country without official rank, and liable therefore to be shot on sight by the enemy, or any mutineers who get the upper hand here. Also, we have the Professor and the Doctor's son to think of. Therefore I say: Swear to anything in reason, reserving allegiance to the Crown of Great Britain, and trust to luck. You see, Captain, we are in their power anyway, and this oath may help, but can't hurt us, while to refuse it must give offence to all these skunks, and perhaps to the lady also, which is of more consequence."

"I think you are probably right, Sergeant," said Orme. "Anyway, in for a penny, in for a pound."

Then he turned to Maqueda, who had been watching this conference in an unknown tongue with some anxiety, or so it seemed to me, and added in Arabic: "O Child of Kings, we will take your oath, although it is wide, trusting to your honour to protect us from any pitfalls which it may cover, for we would ask you to remember that we are strangers in your land who do not understand its laws and customs. Only we stipulate that we retain our allegiance to our own ruler far away, remaining the subjects of that monarch with all rights thereto appertaining. Also, we stipulate that before we enter on our duties, or at any rate during those duties, we shall be at full liberty to attempt the rescue of our friend and companion, now a prisoner in the hands of the Fung, and of the son of one of us who is believed to be a slave to them, and that we shall have all the a.s.sistance which you can give us in this matter.

Moreover, we demand that if we should be tried for any offence under this oath, you to whom we swear allegiance shall be our judge alone, none others intermeddling in the trial. If you accept these terms we will swear the oath; otherwise we swear nothing, but will act as occasion may arise."

Now we were requested to stand back while the Child of Kings consulted with her advisers, which she did for a considerable time, since evidently the questions raised involved differences of opinion. In the end, however, she and those who supported her seemed to overrule the objectors, and we were called up and told that our terms had been accepted and engrossed upon the form of the oath, and that everything there included would be faithfully observed by the Ruler and Council of the Abati.

So we signed and swore, kissing the book, or rather the roll, in the civilized fashion. Afterwards, very tired, for all this business had been anxious, we were conducted back to our own quarters to lunch, or rather to dine, for the Abati ate their heaviest meal at midday, taking a siesta after it according to the common Eastern custom.

About four o'clock of that afternoon I was awakened from my nap by the growls of Pharaoh, and looked up to see a man crouching against the door, evidently in fear of the dog's fangs. He proved to be a messenger from Maqueda, sent to ask us if we cared to accompany her to a place that we had never seen. Of course we answered "Yes," and were at once led by the messenger to a disused and dusty hall at the back of the palace, where presently Maqueda and three of her ladies joined us, and with them a number of men who carried lighted lamps, gourds of oil, and bundles of torches.

"Doubtless, friends," said Maqueda, who was unveiled and appeared to have quite recovered from our outburst of the morning, "you have seen many wonderful places in this Africa and other lands, but now I am about to show you one that, I think, is stranger than them all."

Following her, we came to a door at the end of the hall which the men unbolted and shut again behind us, and thence pa.s.sed into a long pa.s.sage cut in the rock, that sloped continuously downwards and at length led through another doorway to the vastest cave that we had ever heard of or seen. So vast was it, indeed, that the feeble light of our lamps did not suffice to reach the roof, and only dimly showed to right and left the outlines of what appeared to be shattered buildings of rock.

"Behold the cave city of Mur," said Maqueda, waving the lamp she held. "Here it was that the ancients whom we believe to have been the forefathers of the Fung, had their secret stronghold. These walls were those of their granaries, temples, and places of ceremonial, but, as I have told you, centuries ago an earthquake shattered them, leaving them as they are now. Also, it broke down much of the cave itself, causing the roof to fall, so that there are many parts where it is not safe to enter. Come now and see what is left."

We followed her into the depth of the wonderful place, our lanterns and torches making little stars of light in that great blackness. We saw the ruins of granaries still filled with the dust of what I suppose had once been corn, and came at length to a huge, roofless building of which the area was strewn with shattered columns, and among them overgrown statues, covered so thick by dust that we could only discover that most of them seemed to be shaped like sphinxes.

"If only Higgs were here," said Oliver with a sigh, and pa.s.sed on to Maqueda, who was calling him to look at something else.

Leaving the temple in which it was unsafe to walk, she led us to where a strong spring, the water supply of the place, bubbled up into a rock basin, and overflowing thence through prepared openings, ran away we knew not whither.

"Look, this fountain is very ancient," said Maqueda, pointing to the lip of the basin that was worn away to the depth of several inches where those who drew water had for many generations rested their hands upon the hard rock.

"How did they light so vast a cavern?" asked Oliver.

"We do not know," she answered, "since lamps would scarcely have served them. It is a secret of the past which none of the Abati have cared to recover, and another is how the air is always kept fresh so deep in the bowels of the mountain. We cannot even say whether this place is natural, as I think, or hollowed out by men."

"Both, I expect," I answered. "But tell me, Lady, do the Abati make any use of this great cave?"

"Some corn is still stored here in pits in case of siege," she replied, adding sadly, "but it is not enough to be of real service, since almost all of it comes from the estates of the Child of Kings. In vain have I prayed the people to contribute, if only a hundredth part of their harvest, but they will not. Each says that he would give if his neighbour gave, and so none give. And yet a day may come when a store of corn alone would stand between them and death by hunger--if the Fung held the valley, for instance," and she turned impatiently and walked forward to show us the stables where the ancients kept their horses and the marks of their chariot wheels in the stone floor.

"Nice people, the Abati, sir," said Quick to me. "If it weren't for the women and children, and, above all, for this little lady, whom I am beginning to worship like my master, as in duty bound, I'd like to see them do a bit of hungering."

"There is one more place to show you," said Maqueda, when we had inspected the stables and argued as to what possible causes could have induced the ancients to keep horses underground, "which perhaps you will think worth a visit, since it holds the treasures that are, or shall be, yours. Come!"

We started forward again along various pa.s.sages, the last of which suddenly widened into a broad and steep incline of rock, which we followed for quite fifty paces till it ended in what seemed to be a blank wall. Here Maqueda bade her ladies and attendants halt, which indeed they seemed very anxious to do, though at the moment we did not know why. Then she went to one end of the wall where it joined that of the pa.s.sage, and, showing us some loose stones, asked me to pull them out, which I did, not without difficulty. When an aperture had been made large enough for a man to creep through, she turned to her people and said:

"You, I know, believe this place to be haunted, nor would the bravest of you enter it save by express command. But I and these strangers have no such fears. Therefore give us a gourd of oil and some torches and bide where you are till we return, setting a lamp in the hole in the wall to guide us in case our own should become extinguished. No, do not reason but obey. There is no danger, for though hot, the air within is pure, as I know who have breathed it more than once."

Then she gave her hand to Oliver, and with his a.s.sistance crept through the hole. We followed, to find ourselves in another cavern, where, as she had said, the temperature was much hotter than that without.

"What is this place?" asked Orme in a low voice, for its aspect seemed to awe him.

"The tomb of the old kings of Mur," she replied. "Presently you shall see," and once more she took his hand, for the slope was sharp and slippery.