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- Author: H. Rider Haggard
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I suppose that the lady saw my expression of astonishment. “Do not wonder, sir,” she said, “Hendrika is not like other people. She will not fall.”
I made no answer, but watched the progress of this extraordinary person with the most breathless interest. On she went, swinging herself from bough to bough, and running along them like a monkey. At last she reached the top, and began to swarm up a thin branch towards the ripe fruit. When she was near enough she shook the branch violently. There was a crack—a crash—it broke. I shut my eyes, expecting to see her crushed on the ground before me.
“Don’t be afraid,” said the lady again, laughing gently. “Look, she is quite safe.”
I looked, and so she was. She had caught a bough as she fell, clung to it, and was now calmly dropping to another. Old Indaba-zimbi had also watched this performance with interest, but it did not seem to astonish him over-much. “Baboon-woman?” he said, as though such people were common, and then turned his attention to soothing Tota, who was moaning for more water. Meanwhile Hendrika came down the tree with extraordinary rapidity, and swinging by one hand from a bough, dropped about eight feet to the ground.
In another two minutes we were all three sucking the pulpy fruit. In an ordinary way we should have found it tasteless enough: as it was I thought it the most delicious thing I had ever tasted. After three days spent without food or water, in the desert, one is not particular. While we were still eating the fruit, the lady of my vision set her companion to work to partially flay the oribé which her dogs had killed, and busied herself in making a fire of fallen boughs. As soon as it burned brightly she took strips of the oribé flesh, toasted them, and gave them to us on leaves. We ate, and now were allowed a little more water. After that she took Tota to the spring and washed her, which she sadly needed, poor child! Next came our turn to wash, and oh, the joy of it!
I came back to the tree, walking painfully, indeed, but a changed man. There sat the beautiful girl with Tota on her knees. She was lulling her to sleep, and held up her finger to me enjoining silence. At last the child went off into a sound natural slumber—an example that I should have been glad to follow had it not been for my burning curiosity. Then I spoke.
“May I ask what your name is?” I said.
“Stella,” she answered.
“Stella what?” I said.
“Stella nothing,” she answered, in some pique; “Stella is my name; it is short and easy to remember at any rate. My father’s name is Thomas, and we live up there,” and she pointed round the base of the great peak. I looked at her astonished. “Have you lived there long?” I asked.
“Ever since I was seven years old. We came there in a waggon. Before that we came from England—from Oxfordshire; I can show you the place on a big map. It is called Garsingham.”
Again I thought I must be dreaming. “Do you know, Miss Stella,” I said, “it is very strange—so strange that it almost seems as though it could not be true—but I also came from Garsingham in Oxfordshire many years ago.”
She started up. “Are you an English gentleman?” she said. “Ah, I have always longed to see an English gentleman. I have never seen but one Englishman since we lived here, and he certainly was not a gentleman—no white people at all, indeed, except a few wandering Boers. We live among black people and baboons—only I have read about English people—lots of books—poetry and novels. But tell me what is your name? Macumazahn the black man called you, but you must have a white name, too.”
“My name is Allan Quatermain,” I said.
Her face turned quite white, her rosy lips parted, and she looked at me wildly with her beautiful dark eyes.
“It is wonderful,” she said, “but I have often heard that name. My father has told me how a little boy called Allan Quatermain once saved my life by putting out my dress when it was on fire—see!”—and she pointed to a faint red mark upon her neck—“here is the scar of the burn.”
“I remember it,” I said. “You were dressed up as Father Christmas. It was I who put out the fire; my wrists were burnt in doing so.”
Then for a space we sat silent, looking at each other, while Stella slowly fanned herself with her wide felt hat, in which some white ostrich plumes were fixed.
“This is God’s doing,” she said at last. “You saved my life when I was a child; now I have saved yours and the little girl’s. Is she your own daughter?” she added, quickly.
“No,” I answered; “I will tell you the tale presently.”
“Yes,” she said, “you shall tell me as we go home. It is time to be starting home, it will take us three hours to get there. Hendrika, Hendrika, bring the horses here!”
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 old black man must ride on the other. I will walk, and Hendrika will carry the child. Oh, do not be afraid, she is very strong, she could carry you or me.”
Hendrika grunted assent. I am sorry that I cannot express her method of speech by any more polite term. Sometimes she grunted like a monkey, sometimes she clicked like a Bushman, and sometimes she did both together, when she became quite unintelligible.
I expostulated against this proposed arrangement, saying that we could walk, 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 elephant gun, but took it herself. So we mounted with some difficulty, and Hendrika took up the sleeping Tota in her long, sinewy arms.
“See that the ‘Baboon-woman’ does not run away into the mountains with the little white one,” said Indaba-zimbi to me in Kaffir, as he climbed slowly on to the horse.
Unfortunately Hendrika understood his speech. Her face twisted and grew livid with fury. She put down Tota and literally sprang at Indaba-zimbi as a monkey springs. But weary and worn as he was, the old gentleman was too quick for her. With an exclamation of genuine fright he threw himself from the horse on the further side, with the somewhat ludicrous result that all in a moment Hendrika was occupying the seat which he had vacated. 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 literally grovelled 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 between these two.
Harmony having been thus restored, we started, the dogs following us. A small strip of desert intervened between us and the slope of the peak—perhaps it was two miles wide. We crossed it and reached rich grass lands, for here a considerable stream gathered from the hills; but it did not flow across the barren lands, it passed to the east along the foot of the hills. This stream we had to cross by a ford. Hendrika walked boldly through it, holding Tota in her arms. Stella leapt across from stone to stone like a roebuck; I thought to myself that she was the most graceful creature that I had ever seen. After this the track passed around a pleasantly-wooded shoulder of the peak, which was, I found, known as Babyan Kap, or Baboon Head. Of course we could only go at a foot pace, so our progress was slow. Stella walked for some way in silence, then she spoke.
“Tell me, Mr. Allan,” she said, “how it was that I came to find you dying in the desert?”
So I began and told her all. It took an hour or more to do so, and she listened intently, now and again asking a question.
“It is all very wonderful,” she said when I had done, “very wonderful indeed. Do you know I went out this morning with Hendrika and the dogs for 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 to turn, when we were about where we are now—yes, that was the very bush—an oribé got up, and the dogs chased it. I followed them for the gallop, and when we came to the river, instead of turning to the left as bucks generally do, the oribé swam the stream and took to the Bad Lands beyond. I followed it, and within a hundred yards of the big tree the dogs killed it. Hendrika wanted to turn back at once, but I said that we would rest under the shade of the tree, for I knew that there was a spring of water near. Well, we went; and there I saw you all lying like dead; but Hendrika, who is very clever in some ways, said no—and you know 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 that all these mountains and the country beyond are full of baboons. When I was a girl of about ten I used to wander a great deal alone in the hills and valleys, and watch the baboons as they played among the rocks. There was one family of baboons that I watched especially—they used to live in a kloof about a mile from the house. The old man baboon was very large, and one of the females had a grey face. But the reason why I watched them so much was because I saw that they had with them a creature that looked like a girl, for her skin was quite white, and, what was more, that she was protected from the weather when it happened to 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 with their arms round her neck. For nearly a whole summer I watched this particular white-skinned baboon till at last my curiosity quite overmastered me. I noticed that, though she climbed about the cliffs with the other monkeys, at a certain hour a little before sundown they used to put her with one or two other much smaller ones into a little cave, while the family went off somewhere to get food, to the mealie fields, I suppose. Then I got an idea that I would catch this white baboon 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—who lived on the stead, into my confidence. He was called Hendrik, and was very fond of me; but for a long while he would not
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