However he did know it, though to call it a path is a misnomer, because there was nothing to show that it was used by man. For three or four days we crept along the base of those great bare cliffs, always at length finding some crack by which their flanks could be turned. So it went on, an exhausting business, and as we mounted higher, very cold at night, for although there was no snow, the air grew thin and piercing.
At length we reached the summit of the mountains, which I found to be table–topped, a very common African formation. (What caused it? I wonder. Were the crests shorn off by ice in some remote era of the world's history, say, a few hundred million years ago?) As it was nightfall I could see no more, especially as a sort of blinding Scotch mist, the fog called the "table–cloth" which so often hangs about these flat–topped mountains, came up and obscured everything.
Next morning before the dawn Hans woke me up saying that Kaneke wished to speak with me. I went grumbling in all the clothes I had, with a blanket on the top of them and an old otter–skin kaross, that I used above the thin cork mattress of my portable bedstead, thrown over that, for the cold was bitter, or seemed so, after those hot tsetse–haunted lowlands. I found Kaneke seated on a stone near to the edge of the tableland. He rose and greeted me in his ceremonious fashion, saying:
"Lord, you should not have slept so long, for after midnight the mist melted or was blown away, and the stars were more beautiful and brighter than I have seen them since last I stood upon this place a long while ago. Indeed, so clear were they that in them I read many things which hitherto had been hidden from me."
"Did you?" I exclaimed. "I hope that among them you read that we shall soon escape from this cold which is gnawing my bones."
"Yes, Lord, I can promise you that before long you will be hot enough. Hearken," he went on with a change of tone, "the time has come when I must tell you something of my country and of what lies before us. Look! The sun rises in the east. The sight is fine, is it not?"
I nodded. It was very fine. The rays of the morning light revealed a vast plain lying some thousands of feet beneath us, and far away, set apparently in the centre of this plain, other mountains shaped like a flattened ring. Or perhaps it was a single mountain; at that distance I could not be sure.
"See," went on Kaneke, pointing to this mass, "yonder within that wall of cliff is the home of my people, the Dabanda, and there too is the holy lake, Mone. From here the place looks small, but it is not small. For a whole day a swift–footed man might run and not cross it from side to side."
"What is it?" I asked. "A valley?"
"I think not, Lord. I think that it is the cup of one or more of those great mountains that once vomited out fire; a huge basin with steep walls that cannot be climbed, and slopes within that run down to the forest at its base, which forest surrounds the Holy Lake."
"How large is this lake, Kaneke?"
"I do not know. Perhaps if a man could walk on water it would take him two hours to reach the island in its centre; one hour to cross that island and another two hours to come to the farther shore."
"That is a big piece of water, Kaneke, which means that the whole space within the lip of the rock must be large. Are your people who dwell in it also large?"
"Nay, Lord. Perhaps they can count five hundred men of an age to bear arms; not more. Still, they are strong because they are holy, and for another reason."
"What other reason?"
He dropped his voice as he answered:
"Did I not tell you the story of the goddess who dwells in my country, she whose title is Engoi the Divine, and whose name is Shadow?"
"You told me a story of which I remember something, as I remember also that I did not believe a word of it."
"There you are both right and wrong, Lord Macumazahn, because some of that story was lies with which I filled your ears for my own purposes, and some was true. For instance, what I said about the Engoi waiting for a white man was a lie. It was a bait in my trap. Lord, it was necessary that you should come with me; why, I do not quite know, but so I was commanded."
"Who commanded you?"
"That is my secret, Lord."
Now I bethought me of the deceased White–Mouse, and did not pursue the matter, but asked:
"What do you mean by telling me that this lie was a bait?"
"What I say, Lord. I have learned through your servant, the yellow man, who told it not to me but to another, that you worship all that is beautiful, especially beautiful women, who when they see you, so you announce, fall in love with you at once. Now you will understand, Lord, why I baited my trap with this story of one who was very lovely and waited for a white man, namely because I knew that you would believe yourself to be that man and come with me upon that journey, being sure that she who is named Shadow would reward you by kissing your feet and redeeming you from your sins towards the other beautiful women, whom the yellow man says you throw aside one after another as soon as you are tired of them."
Now when I heard this preposterous and most shameless yarn, it is true that, cold as it was, I nearly burst with heat and rage. If that mischievous and romancing little Hans had been there, which he was not, I declare that it would have gone ill with him; indeed, so angry was I with Kaneke for repeating his calumnies, that I nearly made a physical attack upon him. On second thoughts, however, I refrained—first, because he was a much larger and stronger man than myself, and, secondly, because I wished to get at the kernel of this mystery, for I felt that, divested of the trappings invented by Kaneke, there remained something most unusual to be elucidated. So I put the brake upon my temper and answered:
"I thought that in your way you were a wise man, Kaneke, but now I see that after all you are but a fool, who otherwise would have known that Hans is an even bigger liar than you announce yourself to be, and that the last thing I wish is to run after beautiful women, or any woman, which always ends like our adventures with the elephants, in the hunter being hunted. But let that be. Was any of your story true?"
"Yes, Lord, much. We have a goddess who is called Shadow, and who, as we believe and not we alone, controls the gifts of heaven, sending rain or withholding it, causing women to bear children or making them barren, and doing many such things that bring happiness or misery to men, though this goddess I have never seen, except once, as I told you."
"A goddess! Do you mean that she is immortal?"
"No, Lord, but I mean that her power is immortal, or at least that it goes on from generation to generation. The goddess, as I think, when her office is fulfilled, dies or perhaps is killed."
"What office?"
"Lord, the Chief of my tribe, the Dabanda, is her head–priest. When the goddess is of ripe age he is married to her, and in due time becomes the father of a daughter, of which she is the mother. Perhaps he is also the father of male children, but if so they are never heard of, so I suppose that they are killed. When this daughter, the Engoi–to–be, grows up, her mother, the Engoi–that– was, vanishes away."
"Vanishes! How does she vanish?"
"I do not know, Lord. Some say that she who is called Shadow is drawn up to heaven, some that she who is also called the Lake– dweller, or Treasure of the Lake, swims out into the lake and is lost beneath its waters, and some that the virgins who attend her, poison her with the scent of certain flowers that bloom upon the island. At least she departs, and her daughter, the new Engoi, reigns in her place and, like her mothers before her, is married to her high–priest, the Chief of the Dabanda."
"What!" I asked, horrified. "Do you mean to say that this chief marries his own daughter?"