King Solomon’s Mines H. Rider Haggard (any book recommendations .txt) 📖

warrior in the country, in single combat, shearing through his bull-neck at a stroke. Indeed, that stroke became proverbial in Kukuanaland, and any extraordinary blow or feat of strength was henceforth known as “Incubu’s blow.”

Infadoos told us also that all Twala’s regiments had submitted to Ignosi, and that like submissions were beginning to arrive from chiefs in the outlying country. Twala’s death at the hands of Sir Henry had put an end to all further chance of disturbance; for Scragga had been his only legitimate son, so there was no rival claimant to the throne left alive.

I remarked that Ignosi had swum to power through blood. The old chief shrugged his shoulders. “Yes,” he answered; “but the Kukuana people can only be kept cool by letting their blood flow sometimes. Many are killed, indeed, but the women are left, and others must soon grow up to take the places of the fallen. After this the land would be quiet for a while.”

Afterwards, in the course of the morning, we had a short visit from Ignosi, on whose brows the royal diadem was now bound. As I contemplated him advancing with kingly dignity, an obsequious guard following his steps, I could not help recalling to my mind the tall Zulu who had presented himself to us at Durban some few months back, asking to be taken into our service, and reflecting on the strange revolutions of the wheel of fortune.

“Hail, O king!” I said, rising.

“Yes, Macumazahn. King at last, by the might of your three right hands,” was the ready answer.

All was, he said, going well; and he hoped to arrange a great feast in two weeks’ time in order to show himself to the people.

I asked him what he had settled to do with Gagool.

“She is the evil genius of the land,” he answered, “and I shall kill her, and all the witch doctors with her! She has lived so long that none can remember when she was not very old, and she it is who has always trained the witch-hunters, and made the land wicked in the sight of the heavens above.”

“Yet she knows much,” I replied; “it is easier to destroy knowledge, Ignosi, than to gather it.”

“That is so,” he said thoughtfully. “She, and she only, knows the secret of the ‘Three Witches,’ yonder, whither the great road runs, where the kings are buried, and the Silent Ones sit.”

“Yes, and the diamonds are. Forget not thy promise, Ignosi; thou must lead us to the mines, even if thou hast to spare Gagool alive to show the way.”

“I will not forget, Macumazahn, and I will think on what thou sayest.”

After Ignosi’s visit I went to see Good, and found him quite delirious. The fever set up by his wound seemed to have taken a firm hold of his system, and to be complicated with an internal injury. For four or five days his condition was most critical; indeed, I believe firmly that had it not been for Foulata’s indefatigable nursing he must have died.

Women are women, all the world over, whatever their colour. Yet somehow it seemed curious to watch this dusky beauty bending night and day over the fevered man’s couch, and performing all the merciful errands of a sickroom swiftly, gently, and with as fine an instinct as that of a trained hospital nurse. For the first night or two I tried to help her, and so did Sir Henry as soon as his stiffness allowed him to move, but Foulata bore our interference with impatience, and finally insisted upon our leaving him to her, saying that our movements made him restless, which I think was true. Day and night she watched him and tended him, giving him his only medicine, a native cooling drink made of milk, in which was infused juice from the bulb of a species of tulip, and keeping the flies from settling on him. I can see the whole picture now as it appeared night after night by the light of our primitive lamp; Good tossing to and fro, his features emaciated, his eyes shining large and luminous, and jabbering nonsense by the yard; and seated on the ground by his side, her back resting against the wall of the hut, the soft-eyed, shapely Kukuana beauty, her face, weary as it was with her long vigil, animated by a look of infinite compassion⁠—or was it something more than compassion?

For two days we thought that he must die, and crept about with heavy hearts. Only Foulata would not believe it.

“He will live,” she said.

For three hundred yards or more around Twala’s chief hut, where the sufferer lay, there was silence; for by the king’s order all who lived in the habitations behind it, except Sir Henry and myself, had been removed, lest any noise should come to the sick man’s ears. One night, it was the fifth of Good’s illness, as was my habit, I went across to see how he was doing before turning in for a few hours.

I entered the hut carefully. The lamp placed upon the floor showed the figure of Good tossing no more, but lying quite still.

So it had come at last! In the bitterness of my heart I gave something like a sob.

“Hush⁠—h⁠—h!” came from the patch of dark shadow behind Good’s head.

Then, creeping closer, I saw that he was not dead, but sleeping soundly, with Foulata’s taper fingers clasped tightly in his poor white hand. The crisis had passed, and he would live. He slept like that for eighteen hours; and I scarcely like to say it, for fear I should not be believed, but during the entire period did this devoted girl sit by him, fearing that if she moved and drew away her hand it would wake him. What she must have suffered from cramp and weariness, to say nothing of want of food, nobody will ever know; but it is the fact that, when at last he woke, she had to be carried