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- Author: H. Rider Haggard
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“I am named the Shepherdess of Heaven among men. He is named Otter, Dweller in the Waters, among men. Once we had other names.”
“Tell us the other names, O Shepherdess.”
“Once in the far past I was named Brightness, I was named Dawn, I was named Daylight. Once in the far past he was named Silence, he was named Terror, he was named Darkness. Yet at the beginning we had other names. Perchance ye know them, Ministers of the Snake.”
“Perchance we know them, O thou who art named Shepherdess of Heaven, O thou who wert named Brightness, and Dawn, and Daylight; O thou who art named Dweller in the Waters, and wert named Silence, and Terror, and Darkness! Perchance we know them, although they be known to few, and are never spoken, save in utter gloom and with hidden head. But do ye know them, those names of the beginning? For if ye know them not, O Beautiful, ye lie and ye blaspheme, and ye are food for the Snake.”
“Seldom through all the years have those holy names been spoken save in utter darkness and with covered heads,” Juanna answered boldly; “but now is the new hour, the hour of the coming, and now they shall be called aloud in the light of day from open lips and with uplifted eyes. Hearken, Children of the Snake, these are the names by which we were known in the beginning: Aca is my name, the Mother of the Snake. Jâl is he named, who is the Snake. Say, do ye know us now?”
As these words rang on her lips a groan of terror burst from every man who heard them. Then the aged priest cried aloud: “Down upon your faces, ye Children of the Snake; Worship, all ye People of the Spear, Dwellers in the Mist! Aca, the Queen immortal, has come home again: Jâl, the god, has put on the flesh of men. Olfan, lay down thy kingship, it is his: ye priests, throw wide the temples, they are theirs. Worship the Mother, do honour to the god!”
The multitude heard and prostrated themselves like a single man, every one of them crying in a shout of thunder:
“Aca, the Queen of life, has come; Jâl, the doom-god, has put on flesh. Worship the Mother, do honour to the god!”
It was as though the army had suddenly been smitten with death, and of the hundreds there, Juanna and Otter alone were left standing. There was one exception, however, and that was Olfan, the warrior chief, who remained upon his feet, not seeming to relish the command to abdicate his authority thus brusquely in favour of a dwarf, were he god or man.
Otter, who was utterly bewildered, not comprehending a word of what had been said, and being unable to fathom the meaning of these strange antics, pointed at the chief with his spear by way of calling Juanna’s attention to the fact that he was still standing. But the great man interpreted the action otherwise; evidently he thought that the newly arrived god was invoking destruction on him. His pride yielded to his superstition, and he sank to his knees also.
When the sound of the worshipping had passed away Juanna spoke again, addressing the old priest.
“Rise, my child,” she said—he might well have been her great-grandfather—“and rise all ye, soldiers of the Spear and servants of the Snake, and hear my words. Ye know me now, ye know me by the holy name, ye know me by the fashion of my face, and by the red stone that gleams upon my brow. In the beginning my blood fell yonder and was frozen into such gems as these, which to-day ye offer yearly to him who is my child, and slew me. Now the fate is accomplished and his reign is finished. I come with him indeed, and he is still a god, but he loves me as a son again, and bows the knee to me in service.
“Enough, ye know the ancient tale that is fulfilled this day. Now we pass on towards our city, there to sojourn with you awhile and to proclaim the law of the Ending, and we pass alone. There, in our city, let a place be made ready for us, a place apart, but nigh to the temple; and let food be brought to the place, that my servants may eat. At the gates of the city also let men be waiting to bear us to that dwelling. Let none spy upon us, lest an evil fate attend you all; and let none be disobedient, lest we pass from you back to the land of Death and Dreams. Perchance we shall not tarry here for long, perchance we come to bring a blessing and to depart again. Therefore hasten to do our bidding, and do it all. For this time farewell, my servants.”
Having spoken thus with much dignity, accompanied by Otter, whose hand she held as before, Juanna withdrew herself, stepping backwards very slowly towards the circle of rocks, and singing as she went.
THE FOLLY OF OTTER
Juanna and Otter gained the circle of rocks where the little band lay watching and wonder-struck; that is, all except Soa, who sat apart brooding, her arms clasped upon her breast. Things had befallen as she expected, as they must befall indeed, provided that Juanna did not forget her lesson or show fear, and that the dwarf did nothing foolish. But Soa knew well enough that this was but the beginning of the struggle, and that, though it might be comparatively easy for Juanna and Otter to enter the city, and impose themselves upon its superstition-haunted people as the incarnations of their fabled gods, the maintenance of the imposture was a very different matter. Moreover, she knew, should they be discovered, that escape would be impossible, or at the best, that it must be most difficult. Therefore she sat apart and brooded, for, notwithstanding their present triumph, her heart foreboded evil.
But with the others it was different: they had heard the singing, they had seen the regiment of great men prostrate themselves, and the sound of worshipping had come to their ears like thunder; but of the why and wherefore of it all they could only guess.
“What has happened?” said Leonard eagerly; “your initiation seems to have come off well.”
“Bid the men fall back and I will tell you,” Juanna answered.
Leonard did so, but instead of speaking she broke into hysterical laughter. Her nerves had been over-strained, and now they sought relief thus.
“You must all be very respectful to Otter and myself,” she said at length, “for we really are gods—don’t look shocked, Francisco, I begin to believe in it myself. We have only just found it out, but I assure you it is a fact; they accepted us fully, and that after not more than five minutes’ cross-examination. Listen!” And she told them all that had passed.
While she was speaking the regiment began to move, no longer in a square, but in a formation of companies. Company by company it rushed past them, shaking the earth with its footsteps, and as each section went by it tossed its spears into the air as a salute, crying: “Glory to the Mother! glory to the Snake!” and fled on towards the city.
At length the story was done and the regiment was gone.
“Well,” said Leonard, “so far so good. Juanna, you are the bravest and cleverest girl in the whole world. Most young women would have forgotten everything and gone into hysterics at the critical point.”
“I kept them till afterwards,” she answered demurely. “And as for being brave and clever, I only repeated what Soa taught me like a parrot; you see I knew that I should be killed if I made any mistake, and such knowledge sharpens the memory. All I have to say is, if the Snake they talk so much about is anything like those which are tattooed upon the old priests’ breasts, I have no wish to make a nearer acquaintance with it. I hate snakes. There, don’t say any more”—for both Leonard and Francisco were breaking out into fresh protestations of gratitude and admiration; “if you want to thank anybody, thank Soa!”
“And so I do,” said Leonard heartily, for his spirits had risen in a most wonderful manner. “Soa, you have told us the truth, and you have managed well and I thank you.”
“Did you then take me for a liar?” the woman answered, fixing her gloomy eyes upon Leonard’s face. “I told you the truth, Deliverer, when I said that my people would accept the Shepherdess and this black dog of yours as their gods. But did I not tell you also that the death of the rest of us lies in the matter? If not, I say so now. You have not been named a god, Deliverer, nor has yonder Bald-pate”—the natives called Francisco thus because of his tonsure—“and your black dog will betray you by his yapping. When you look down the jaws of the Snake, remember then that Soa told you the truth, Deliverer. Perchance you shall find the red stones you seek hidden in his belly, White Man.”
“Be silent,” said Juanna indignantly, and Soa slunk back like a whipped hound.
“Confound the old woman!” put in Leonard with a shiver. “She is a black Jonah, and if I have to go inside this snake I hope that it will be a case of ladies first, that is all.”
“I am sure I don’t know what has happened to Soa,” said Juanna. “Her native air has a very bad effect upon her temper.”
“Well, the future must look after itself,” answered Leonard, “snake or no snake. At present we must follow our luck. Otter, listen to me. Do you understand that you are a god, the god of this people?”
“The god, Baas? What is a god?”
“Have I not told you, thickhead? You are not a man any more, you are a spirit. Once, so it seems, you ruled this people in the past, and now you will rule them again. You and the Shepherdess are both gods. She is your mother and you are her child.”
“Yes, Baas, no doubt; but once I had another mother, a much uglier one.”
“Otter, cease to talk folly, else when you are no more a god I will beat you. Now you are a god, and we are all your servants, except the Shepherdess. When you speak to us you must speak roughly, like a great chief to the lowest of his people, calling us dogs and slaves. If you name me ‘Baas’ in public, I will beat you privately when you are no more a god. You will do best to speak little or not at all, so that none can take hold of your words, which are always foolish.”
“If you say that I am a god, Baas, it is enough, for doubtless you have met the gods and know their ways, though it is strange that none have told me this before. They must be an ugly people, the gods! But how will it be with the Settlement men when they hear that I am a great spirit? They will say: ‘Does a spirit wait upon a man and call him chief? Does a spirit clean the guns and cook the food of a man?’ They will ask many such things, and the Great people will hear them. And will they think then that I am a god? No, they will know me for a liar, and will kill me and all of us.”
“That is true,” said Leonard. Then he summoned Peter and the Settlement men and addressed them. He told them that the plot had succeeded, and that Otter and the Shepherdess were accepted as the gods of the People of the Mist. Because of this they were left alive and held in honour, who, but for it, would now be dead, riddled through with the arrows of the Great People. He explained to them for the second time that it was necessary to the safety of all that this delusion as to the divinity of Otter and the Shepherdess should be maintained, since, if the slightest suspicion of the fraud crossed the minds of the Great People, without doubt they would all be sacrificed as impostors.
This was the tale that they must tell:—They should say that all of them were hunting game in a far country with himself, Soa, and
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