After the fight was ended, Sir Henry and Good were carried into Twala's
hut, where I joined them. They were both utterly exhausted by exertion
and loss of blood, and, indeed, my own condition was little better. I
am very wiry, and can stand more fatigue than most men, probably on
account of my light weight and long training; but that night I was
quite done up, and, as is always the case with me when exhausted, that
old wound which the lion gave me began to pain. Also my head was aching
violently from the blow I had received in the morning, when I was
knocked senseless. Altogether, a more miserable trio than we were that
evening it would have been difficult to discover; and our only comfort
lay in the reflection that we were exceedingly fortunate to be there to
feel miserable, instead of being stretched dead upon the plain, as so
many thousands of brave men were that night, who had risen well and
strong in the morning.

Somehow, with the assistance of the beautiful Foulata, who, since we
had been the means of saving her life, had constituted herself our
handmaiden, and especially Good's, we managed to get off the chain
shirts, which had certainly saved the lives of two of us that day. As I
expected, we found that the flesh underneath was terribly contused, for
though the steel links had kept the weapons from entering, they had not
prevented them from bruising. Both Sir Henry and Good were a mass of
contusions, and I was by no means free. As a remedy Foulata brought us
some pounded green leaves, with an aromatic odour, which, when applied
as a plaster, gave us considerable relief.

But though the bruises were painful, they did not give us such anxiety
as Sir Henry's and Good's wounds. Good had a hole right through the
fleshy part of his "beautiful white leg," from which he had lost a
great deal of blood; and Sir Henry, with other hurts, had a deep cut
over the jaw, inflicted by Twala's battle-axe. Luckily Good is a very
decent surgeon, and so soon as his small box of medicines was
forthcoming, having thoroughly cleansed the wounds, he managed to
stitch up first Sir Henry's and then his own pretty satisfactorily,
considering the imperfect light given by the primitive Kukuana lamp in
the hut. Afterwards he plentifully smeared the injured places with some
antiseptic ointment, of which there was a pot in the little box, and we
covered them with the remains of a pocket-handkerchief which we
possessed.

Meanwhile Foulata had prepared us some strong broth, for we were too
weary to eat. This we swallowed, and then threw ourselves down on the
piles of magnificent karrosses, or fur rugs, which were scattered about
the dead king's great hut. By a very strange instance of the irony of
fate, it was on Twala's own couch, and wrapped in Twala's own
particular karross, that Sir Henry, the man who had slain him, slept
that night.

I say slept; but after that day's work, sleep was indeed difficult. To
begin with, in very truth the air was full

 "Of farewells to the dying
  And mournings for the dead."

From every direction came the sound of the wailing of women whose
husbands, sons, and brothers had perished in the battle. No wonder that
they wailed, for over twelve thousand men, or nearly a fifth of the
Kukuana army, had been destroyed in that awful struggle. It was
heart-rending to lie and listen to their cries for those who never
would return; and it made me understand the full horror of the work
done that day to further man's ambition. Towards midnight, however, the
ceaseless crying of the women grew less frequent, till at length the
silence was only broken at intervals of a few minutes by a long
piercing howl that came from a hut in our immediate rear, which, as I
afterwards discovered, proceeded from Gagool "keening" over the dead
king Twala.

After that I got a little fitful sleep, only to wake from time to time
with a start, thinking that I was once more an actor in the terrible
events of the last twenty-four hours. Now I seemed to see that warrior
whom my hand had sent to his last account charging at me on the
mountain-top; now I was once more in that glorious ring of Greys, which
made its immortal stand against all Twala's regiments upon the little
mound; and now again I saw Twala's plumed and gory head roll past my
feet with gnashing teeth and glaring eye.

At last, somehow or other, the night passed away; but when dawn broke I
found that my companions had slept no better than myself. Good, indeed,
was in a high fever, and very soon afterwards began to grow
light-headed, and also, to my alarm, to spit blood, the result, no
doubt, of some internal injury, inflicted during the desperate efforts
made by the Kukuana warrior on the previous day to force his big spear
through the chain armour. Sir Henry, however, seemed pretty fresh,
notwithstanding his wound on the face, which made eating difficult and
laughter an impossibility, though he was so sore and stiff that he
could scarcely stir.

About eight o'clock we had a visit from Infadoos, who appeared but
little the worse--tough old warrior that he was--for his exertions in
the battle, although he informed us that he had been up all night. He
was delighted to see us, but much grieved at Good's condition, and
shook our hands cordially. I noticed, however, that he addressed Sir
Henry with a kind of reverence, as though he were something more than
man; and, indeed, as we afterwards found out, the great Englishman was
looked on throughout Kukuanaland as a supernatural being. No man, the
soldiers said, could have fought as he fought or, at the end of a day
of such toil and bloodshed, could have slain Twala, who, in addition to
being the king, was supposed to be the strongest 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
sick-room 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 away--her limbs were
so stiff that she could not move them.

After the turn had once been taken, Good's recovery was rapid and
complete. It was not till he was nearly well that Sir Henry told him of
all he owed to Foulata; and when he came to the story of how she sat by
his side for eighteen hours, fearing lest by moving she should wake
him, the honest sailor's eyes filled with tears. He turned and went
straight to the hut where Foulata was preparing the mid-day meal, for
we were back in our old quarters now, taking me with him to interpret
in case he could not make his meaning clear to her, though I am bound
to say that she understood him marvellously as a rule, considering how
extremely limited was his foreign vocabulary.

"Tell her," said Good, "that I owe her my life, and that I will never
forget her kindness to my dying day."

I interpreted, and under her dark skin she actually seemed to blush.

Turning to him with one of those swift and graceful motions that in her
always reminded me of the flight of a wild bird, Foulata answered
softly, glancing at him with her large brown eyes--

"Nay, my lord; my lord forgets! Did he not save _my_ life, and am I not
my lord's handmaiden?"

It will be observed that the young lady appeared entirely to have
forgotten the share which Sir Henry and myself had taken in her
preservation from Twala's clutches. But that is the way of women! I
remember my dear wife was just the same. Well, I retired from that
little interview sad at heart. I did not like Miss Foulata's soft
glances, for I knew the fatal amorous propensities of sailors in
general, and of Good in particular.

There are two things in the world, as I have found out, which cannot be
prevented: you cannot keep a Zulu from fighting, or a sailor from
falling in love upon the slightest provocation!

It was a few days after this last occurrence that Ignosi held his great
"indaba," or council, and was formally recognised as king by the
"indunas," or head men, of Kukuanaland. The spectacle was a most
imposing one, including as it did a grand review of troops. On this day
the remaining fragments of the Greys were formally paraded, and in the
face of the army thanked for their splendid conduct in the battle. To
each man the king made a large present of cattle, promoting them one
and all to the rank of officers in the new corps of Greys which was in
process of formation. An order was also promulgated throughout the
length and breadth of Kukuanaland that, whilst we honoured the country
by our presence, we three were to be greeted with the royal salute, and
to be treated with the same ceremony and respect that was by custom
accorded to the king. Also the power of life and death was publicly
conferred upon us. Ignosi, too, in the presence of his people,
reaffirmed the promises which he had made, to the effect that no man's
blood should be shed without trial, and that witch-hunting should cease
in the land.

When the ceremony was over we waited upon Ignosi, and informed him that
we were now anxious to investigate the mystery of the mines to which
Solomon's Road ran, asking him if he had discovered anything about them.

"My friends," he answered, "I have discovered this. It is there that
the three great figures sit, who here are called the 'Silent Ones,' and
to whom Twala would have offered the girl Foulata as a sacrifice. It is
there, too, in a great cave deep in the mountain, that the kings of the
land are buried; there ye shall find Twala's body, sitting with those
who went before him. There, also, is a deep pit, which, at some time,
long-dead men dug out, mayhap for the stones ye speak of, such as I
have heard men in Natal tell of at Kimberley. There, too, in the Place
of Death is a secret chamber, known to none but the king and Gagool.
But Twala, who knew it, is dead, and I know it not, nor know I what is
in it. Yet there is a legend in the land that once, many generations
gone, a white man crossed the mountains, and was led by a woman to the
secret chamber and shown the wealth hidden in it. But before he could
take it she betrayed him, and he was driven by the king of that day
back to the mountains, and since then no man has entered the place."

"The story is surely true, Ignosi, for on the mountains we found the
white man," I said.

"Yes, we found him. And now I have promised you that if ye can come to
that chamber, and the stones are there--"

"The gem upon thy forehead proves that they are there," I put in,
pointing to the great diamond I had taken from Twala's dead brows.

"Mayhap; if they are there," he said, "ye shall have as many as ye can
take hence--if indeed ye would leave me, my brothers."

"First we must find the chamber," said I.

"There is but one who can show it to thee--Gagool."

"And if she will not?"

"Then she must die," said Ignosi sternly. "I have saved her alive but
for this. Stay, she shall choose," and calling to a messenger he
ordered Gagool to be brought before him.

In a few minutes she came, hurried along by two guards, whom she was
cursing as she walked.

"Leave her," said the king to the guards.

So soon as their support was withdrawn, the withered old bundle--for
she looked more like a bundle than anything else, out of which her two
bright and wicked eyes gleamed like those of a snake--sank in a heap on
to the floor.

"What will ye with me, Ignosi?" she piped. "Ye dare not touch me. If ye
touch me I will slay you as ye sit. Beware of my magic."

"Thy magic could not save Twala, old she-wolf, and it cannot hurt me,"
was the answer. "Listen; I will this of thee, that thou reveal to us
the chamber where are the shining stones."

"Ha! ha!" she piped, "none know its secret but I, and I will never tell
thee. The white devils shall go hence empty-handed."

"Thou shalt tell me. I will make thee tell me."

"How, O king? Thou art great, but can thy power wring the truth from a
woman?"

"It is difficult, yet will I do so."

"How, O king?"

"Nay, thus; if thou tellest not thou shalt slowly die."

"Die!" she shrieked in terror and fury; "ye dare not touch me--man, ye
know not who I am. How old think ye am I? I knew your fathers, and your
fathers' fathers' fathers. When the country was young I was here; when
the country grows old I shall still be here. I cannot die unless I be
killed by chance, for none dare slay me."

"Yet will I slay thee. See, Gagool, mother of evil, thou art so old
that thou canst no longer love thy life. What can life be to such a hag
as thou, who hast no shape, nor form, nor hair, nor teeth--hast naught,
save wickedness and evil eyes? It will be mercy to make an end of thee,
Gagool."

"Thou fool," shrieked the old fiend, "thou accursed fool, deemest thou
that life is sweet only to the young? It is not so, and naught thou
knowest of the heart of man to think it. To the young, indeed, death is
sometimes welcome, for the young can feel. They love and suffer, and it
wrings them to see their beloved pass to the land of shadows. But the
old feel not, they love not, and, _ha! ha!_ they laugh to see another
go out into the dark; _ha! ha!_ they laugh to see the evil that is done
under the stars. All they love is life, the warm, warm sun, and the
sweet, sweet air. They are afraid of the cold, afraid of the cold and
the dark, _ha! ha! ha!_" and the old hag writhed in ghastly merriment
on the ground.

"Cease thine evil talk and answer me," said Ignosi angrily. "Wilt thou
show the place where the stones are, or wilt thou not? If thou wilt not
thou diest, even now," and he seized a spear and held it over her.

"I will not show it; thou darest not kill me, darest not! He who slays
me will be accursed for ever."

Slowly Ignosi brought down the spear till it pricked the prostrate heap
of rags.

With a wild yell Gagool sprang to her feet, then fell again and rolled
upon the floor.

"Nay, I will show thee. Only let me live, let me sit in the sun and
have a bit of meat to suck, and I will show thee."

"It is well. I thought that I should find a way to reason with thee.
To-morrow shalt thou go with Infadoos and my white brothers to the
place, and beware how thou failest, for if thou showest it not, then
thou shalt slowly die. I have spoken."

"I will not fail, Ignosi. I always keep my word--_ha! ha! ha!_ Once
before a woman showed the chamber to a white man, and behold! evil
befell him," and here her wicked eyes glinted. "Her name was Gagool
also. Perchance I was that woman."

"Thou liest," I said, "that was ten generations gone."

"Mayhap, mayhap; when one lives long one forgets. Perhaps it was my
mother's mother who told me; surely her name was Gagool also. But mark,
ye will find in the place where the bright things are a bag of hide
full of stones. The man filled that bag, but he never took it away.
Evil befell him, I say, evil befell him! Perhaps it was my mother's
mother who told me. It will be a merry journey--we can see the bodies
of those who died in the battle as we go. Their eyes will be gone by
now, and their ribs will be hollow. _Ha! ha! ha!_"

It was already dark on the third day after the scene described in the
previous chapter when we camped in some huts at the foot of the "Three
Witches," as the triangle of mountains is called to which Solomon's
Great Road runs. Our party consisted of our three selves and Foulata,
who waited on us--especially on Good--Infadoos, Gagool, who was borne
along in a litter, inside which she could be heard muttering and
cursing all day long, and a party of guards and attendants. The
mountains, or rather the three peaks of the mountain, for the mass was
evidently the result of a solitary upheaval, were, as I have said, in
the form of a triangle, of which the base was towards us, one peak
being on our right, one on our left, and one straight in front of us.
Never shall I forget the sight afforded by those three towering peaks
in the early sunlight of the following morning. High, high above us, up
into the blue air, soared their twisted snow-wreaths. Beneath the
snow-line the peaks were purple with heaths, and so were the wild moors
that ran up the slopes towards them. Straight before us the white
ribbon of Solomon's Great Road stretched away uphill to the foot of the
centre peak, about five miles from us, and there stopped. It was its
terminus.

I had better leave the feelings of intense excitement with which we set
out on our march that morning to the imagination of those who read this
history. At last we were drawing near to the wonderful mines that had
been the cause of the miserable death of the old Portuguese Dom three
centuries ago, of my poor friend, his ill-starred descendant, and also,
as we feared, of George Curtis, Sir Henry's brother. Were we destined,
after all that we had gone through, to fare any better? Evil befell
them, as that old fiend Gagool said; would it also befall us? Somehow,
as we were marching up that last stretch of beautiful road, I could not
help feeling a little superstitious about the matter, and so I think
did Good and Sir Henry.

For an hour and a half or more we tramped on up the heather-fringed
way, going so fast in our excitement that the bearers of Gagool's
hammock could scarcely keep pace with us, and its occupant piped out to
us to stop.

"Walk more slowly, white men," she said, projecting her hideous
shrivelled countenance between the grass curtains, and fixing her
gleaming eyes upon us; "why will ye run to meet the evil that shall
befall you, ye seekers after treasure?" and she laughed that horrible
laugh which always sent a cold shiver down my back, and for a while
quite took the enthusiasm out of us.

However, on we went, till we saw before us, and between ourselves and
the peak, a vast circular hole with sloping sides, three hundred feet
or more in depth, and quite half a mile round.

"Can't you guess what this is?" I said to Sir Henry and Good, who were
staring in astonishment at the awful pit before us.

They shook their heads.

"Then it is clear that you have never seen the diamond diggings at
Kimberley. You may depend on it that this is Solomon's Diamond Mine.
Look there," I said, pointing to the strata of stiff blue clay which
were yet to be seen among the grass and bushes that clothed the sides
of the pit, "the formation is the same. I'll be bound that if we went
down there we should find 'pipes' of soapy brecciated rock. Look, too,"
and I pointed to a series of worn flat slabs of stone that were placed
on a gentle slope below the level of a watercourse which in some past
age had been cut out of the solid rock; "if those are not tables once
used to wash the 'stuff,' I'm a Dutchman."

At the edge of this vast hole, which was none other than the pit marked
on the old Dom's map, the Great Road branched into two and circumvented
it. In many places, by the way, this surrounding road was built
entirely out of blocks of stone, apparently with the object of
supporting the edges of the pit and preventing falls of reef. Along
this path we pressed, driven by curiosity to see what were the three
towering objects which we could discern from the hither side of the
great gulf. As we drew near we perceived that they were Colossi of some
sort or another, and rightly conjectured that before us sat the three
"Silent Ones" that are held in such awe by the Kukuana people. But it
was not until we were quite close to them that we recognised the full
majesty of these "Silent Ones."

There, upon huge pedestals of dark rock, sculptured with rude emblems
of the Phallic worship, separated from each other by a distance of
forty paces, and looking down the road which crossed some sixty miles
of plain to Loo, were three colossal seated forms--two male and one
female--each measuring about thirty feet from the crown of its head to
the pedestal.

The female form, which was nude, was of great though severe beauty, but
unfortunately the features had been injured by centuries of exposure to
the weather. Rising from either side of her head were the points of a
crescent. The two male Colossi, on the contrary, were draped, and
presented a terrifying cast of features, especially the one to our
right, which had the face of a devil. That to our left was serene in
countenance, but the calm upon it seemed dreadful. It was the calm of
that inhuman cruelty, Sir Henry remarked, which the ancients attributed
to beings potent for good, who could yet watch the sufferings of
humanity, if not without rejoicing, at least without sorrow. These
three statues form a most awe-inspiring trinity, as they sit there in
their solitude, and gaze out across the plain for ever.

Contemplating these "Silent Ones," as the Kukuanas call them, an
intense curiosity again seized us to know whose were the hands which
had shaped them, who it was that had dug the pit and made the road.
Whilst I was gazing and wondering, suddenly it occurred to me--being
familiar with the Old Testament--that Solomon went astray after strange
gods, the names of three of whom I remembered--"Ashtoreth, the goddess
of the Zidonians, Chemosh, the god of the Moabites, and Milcom, the god
of the children of Ammon"--and I suggested to my companions that the
figures before us might represent these false and exploded divinities.

"Hum," said Sir Henry, who is a scholar, having taken a high degree in
classics at college, "there may be something in that; Ashtoreth of the
Hebrews was the Astarte of the Phoenicians, who were the great traders
of Solomon's time. Astarte, who afterwards became the Aphrodite of the
Greeks, was represented with horns like the half-moon, and there on the
brow of the female figure are distinct horns. Perhaps these Colossi
were designed by some Phoenician official who managed the mines. Who
can say?"[1]

Before we had finished examining these extraordinary relics of remote
antiquity, Infadoos came up, and having saluted the "Silent Ones" by
lifting his spear, asked us if we intended entering the "Place of
Death" at once, or if we would wait till after we had taken food at
mid-day. If we were ready to go at once, Gagool had announced her
willingness to guide us. As it was not later than eleven
o'clock--driven to it by a burning curiosity--we announced our
intention of proceeding instantly, and I suggested that, in case we
should be detained in the cave, we should take some food with us.
Accordingly Gagool's litter was brought up, and that lady herself
assisted out of it. Meanwhile Foulata, at my request, stored some
"biltong," or dried game-flesh, together with a couple of gourds of
water, in a reed basket with a hinged cover. Straight in front of us,
at a distance of some fifty paces from the backs of the Colossi, rose a
sheer wall of rock, eighty feet or more in height, that gradually
sloped upwards till it formed the base of the lofty snow-wreathed peak,
which soared into the air three thousand feet above us. As soon as she
was clear of her hammock, Gagool cast one evil grin upon us, and then,
leaning on a stick, hobbled off towards the face of this wall. We
followed her till we came to a narrow portal solidly arched that looked
like the opening of a gallery of a mine.

Here Gagool was waiting for us, still with that evil grin upon her
horrid face.

"Now, white men from the Stars," she piped; "great warriors, Incubu,
Bougwan, and Macumazahn the wise, are ye ready? Behold, I am here to do
the bidding of my lord the king, and to show you the store of bright
stones. _Ha! ha! ha!_"

"We are ready," I said.

"Good, good! Make strong your hearts to bear what ye shall see. Comest
thou too, Infadoos, thou who didst betray thy master?"

Infadoos frowned as he answered--

"Nay, I come not; it is not for me to enter there. But thou, Gagool,
curb thy tongue, and beware how thou dealest with my lords. At thy
hands will I require them, and if a hair of them be hurt, Gagool, be'st
thou fifty times a witch, thou shalt die. Hearest thou?"

"I hear Infadoos; I know thee, thou didst ever love big words; when
thou wast a babe I remember thou didst threaten thine own mother. That
was but the other day. But, fear not, fear not, I live only to do the
bidding of the king. I have done the bidding of many kings, Infadoos,
till in the end they did mine. _Ha! ha!_ I go to look upon their faces
once more, and Twala's also! Come on, come on, here is the lamp," and
she drew a large gourd full of oil, and fitted with a rush wick, from
under her fur cloak.

"Art thou coming, Foulata?" asked Good in his villainous Kitchen
Kukuana, in which he had been improving himself under that young lady's
tuition.

"I fear, my lord," the girl answered timidly.

"Then give me the basket."

"Nay, my lord, whither thou goest there I go also."

"The deuce you will!" thought I to myself; "that may be rather awkward
if we ever get out of this."

Without further ado Gagool plunged into the passage, which was wide
enough to admit of two walking abreast, and quite dark. We followed the
sound of her voice as she piped to us to come on, in some fear and
trembling, which was not allayed by the flutter of a sudden rush of
wings.

"Hullo! what's that?" halloed Good; "somebody hit me in the face."

"Bats," said I; "on you go."

When, so far as we could judge, we had gone some fifty paces, we
perceived that the passage was growing faintly light. Another minute,
and we were in perhaps the most wonderful place that the eyes of living
man have beheld.

Let the reader picture to himself the hall of the vastest cathedral he
ever stood in, windowless indeed, but dimly lighted from above,
presumably by shafts connected with the outer air and driven in the
roof, which arched away a hundred feet above our heads, and he will get
some idea of the size of the enormous cave in which we found ourselves,
with the difference that this cathedral designed by nature was loftier
and wider than any built by man. But its stupendous size was the least
of the wonders of the place, for running in rows adown its length were
gigantic pillars of what looked like ice, but were, in reality, huge
stalactites. It is impossible for me to convey any idea of the
overpowering beauty and grandeur of these pillars of white spar, some
of which were not less than twenty feet in diameter at the base, and
sprang up in lofty and yet delicate beauty sheer to the distant roof.
Others again were in process of formation. On the rock floor there was
in these cases what looked, Sir Henry said, exactly like a broken
column in an old Grecian temple, whilst high above, depending from the
roof, the point of a huge icicle could be dimly seen.

Even as we gazed we could hear the process going on, for presently with
a tiny splash a drop of water would fall from the far-off icicle on to
the column below. On some columns the drops only fell once in two or
three minutes, and in these cases it would be an interesting
calculation to discover how long, at that rate of dripping, it would
take to form a pillar, say eighty feet by ten in diameter. That the
process, in at least one instance, was incalculably slow, the following
example will suffice to show. Cut on one of these pillars we discovered
the crude likeness of a mummy, by the head of which sat what appeared
to be the figure of an Egyptian god, doubtless the handiwork of some
old-world labourer in the mine. This work of art was executed at the
natural height at which an idle fellow, be he Phoenician workman or
British cad, is in the habit of trying to immortalise himself at the
expense of nature's masterpieces, namely, about five feet from the
ground. Yet at the time that we saw it, which _must_ have been nearly
three thousand years after the date of the execution of the carving,
the column was only eight feet high, and was still in process of
formation, which gives a rate of growth of a foot to a thousand years,
or an inch and a fraction to a century. This we knew because, as we
were standing by it, we heard a drop of water fall.

Sometimes the stalagmites took strange forms, presumably where the
dropping of the water had not always been on the same spot. Thus, one
huge mass, which must have weighed a hundred tons or so, was in the
shape of a pulpit, beautifully fretted over outside with a design that
looked like lace. Others resembled strange beasts, and on the sides of
the cave were fanlike ivory tracings, such as the frost leaves upon a
pane.

Out of the vast main aisle there opened here and there smaller caves,
exactly, Sir Henry said, as chapels open out of great cathedrals. Some
were large, but one or two--and this is a wonderful instance of how
nature carries out her handiwork by the same unvarying laws, utterly
irrespective of size--were tiny. One little nook, for instance, was no
larger than an unusually big doll's house, and yet it might have been a
model for the whole place, for the water dropped, tiny icicles hung,
and spar columns were forming in just the same way.

We had not, however, enough time to examine this beautiful cavern so
thoroughly as we should have liked to do, since unfortunately, Gagool
seemed to be indifferent as to stalactites, and only anxious to get her
business over. This annoyed me the more, as I was particularly anxious
to discover, if possible, by what system the light was admitted into
the cave, and whether it was by the hand of man or by that of nature
that this was done; also if the place had been used in any way in
ancient times, as seemed probable. However, we consoled ourselves with
the idea that we would investigate it thoroughly on our way back, and
followed on at the heels of our uncanny guide.

On she led us, straight to the top of the vast and silent cave, where
we found another doorway, not arched as the first was, but square at
the top, something like the doorways of Egyptian temples.

"Are ye prepared to enter the Place of Death, white men?" asked Gagool,
evidently with a view to making us feel uncomfortable.

"Lead on, Macduff," said Good solemnly, trying to look as though he was
not at all alarmed, as indeed we all did except Foulata, who caught
Good by the arm for protection.

"This is getting rather ghastly," said Sir Henry, peeping into the dark
passageway. "Come on, Quatermain--_seniores priores_. We mustn't keep
the old lady waiting!" and he politely made way for me to lead the van,
for which inwardly I did not bless him.

_Tap, tap,_ went old Gagool's stick down the passage, as she trotted
along, chuckling hideously; and still overcome by some unaccountable
presentiment of evil, I hung back.

"Come, get on, old fellow," said Good, "or we shall lose our fair
guide."

Thus adjured, I started down the passage, and after about twenty paces
found myself in a gloomy apartment some forty feet long, by thirty
broad, and thirty high, which in some past age evidently had been
hollowed, by hand-labour, out of the mountain. This apartment was not
nearly so well lighted as the vast stalactite ante-cave, and at the
first glance all I could discern was a massive stone table running down
its length, with a colossal white figure at its head, and life-sized
white figures all round it. Next I discovered a brown thing, seated on
the table in the centre, and in another moment my eyes grew accustomed
to the light, and I saw what all these things were, and was tailing out
of the place as hard as my legs could carry me.

I am not a nervous man in a general way, and very little troubled with
superstitions, of which I have lived to see the folly; but I am free to
own that this sight quite upset me, and had it not been that Sir Henry
caught me by the collar and held me, I do honestly believe that in
another five minutes I should have been outside the stalactite cave,
and that a promise of all the diamonds in Kimberley would not have
induced me to enter it again. But he held me tight, so I stopped
because I could not help myself. Next second, however, _his_ eyes
became accustomed to the light, and he let go of me, and began to mop
the perspiration off his forehead. As for Good, he swore feebly, while
Foulata threw her arms round his neck and shrieked.

Only Gagool chuckled loud and long.

It _was_ a ghastly sight. There at the end of the long stone table,
holding in his skeleton fingers a great white spear, sat _Death_
himself, shaped in the form of a colossal human skeleton, fifteen feet
or more in height. High above his head he held the spear, as though in
the act to strike; one bony hand rested on the stone table before him,
in the position a man assumes on rising from his seat, whilst his frame
was bent forward so that the vertebrae of the neck and the grinning,
gleaming skull projected towards us, and fixed its hollow eye-places
upon us, the jaws a little open, as though it were about to speak.

"Great heavens!" said I faintly, at last, "what can it be?"

"And what are _those things_?" asked Good, pointing to the white
company round the table.

"And what on earth is _that thing_?" said Sir Henry, pointing to the
brown creature seated on the table.

"_Hee! hee! hee!_" laughed Gagool. "To those who enter the Hall of the
Dead, evil comes. _Hee! hee! hee! ha! ha!_"

"Come, Incubu, brave in battle, come and see him thou slewest;" and the
old creature caught Curtis' coat in her skinny fingers, and led him
away towards the table. We followed.

Presently she stopped and pointed at the brown object seated on the
table. Sir Henry looked, and started back with an exclamation; and no
wonder, for there, quite naked, the head which Curtis' battle-axe had
shorn from the body resting on its knees, was the gaunt corpse of
Twala, the last king of the Kukuanas. Yes, there, the head perched upon
the knees, it sat in all its ugliness, the vertebrae projecting a full
inch above the level of the shrunken flesh of the neck, for all the
world like a black double of Hamilton Tighe.[2] Over the surface of the
corpse there was gathered a thin glassy film, that made its appearance
yet more appalling, for which we were, at the moment, quite unable to
account, till presently we observed that from the roof of the chamber
the water fell steadily, _drip! drop! drip!_ on to the neck of the
corpse, whence it ran down over the entire surface, and finally escaped
into the rock through a tiny hole in the table. Then I guessed what the
film was--_Twala's body was being transformed into a stalactite._

A look at the white forms seated on the stone bench which ran round
that ghastly board confirmed this view. They were human bodies indeed,
or rather they had been human; now they were _stalactites_. This was
the way in which the Kukuana people had from time immemorial preserved
their royal dead. They petrified them. What the exact system might be,
if there was any, beyond the placing of them for a long period of years
under the drip, I never discovered, but there they sat, iced over and
preserved for ever by the siliceous fluid.

Anything more awe-inspiring than the spectacle of this long line of
departed royalties (there were twenty-seven of them, the last being
Ignosi's father), wrapped, each of them, in a shroud of ice-like spar,
through which the features could be dimly discovered, and seated round
that inhospitable board, with Death himself for a host, it is
impossible to imagine. That the practice of thus preserving their kings
must have been an ancient one is evident from the number, which,
allowing for an average reign of fifteen years, supposing that every
king who reigned was placed here--an improbable thing, as some are sure
to have perished in battle far from home--would fix the date of its
commencement at four and a quarter centuries back.

But the colossal Death, who sits at the head of the board, is far older
than that, and, unless I am much mistaken, owes his origin to the same
artist who designed the three Colossi. He is hewn out of a single
stalactite, and, looked at as a work of art, is most admirably
conceived and executed. Good, who understands such things, declared
that, so far as he could see, the anatomical design of the skeleton is
perfect down to the smallest bones.

My own idea is, that this terrific object was a freak of fancy on the
part of some old-world sculptor, and that its presence had suggested to
the Kukuanas the idea of placing their royal dead under its awful
presidency. Or perhaps it was set there to frighten away any marauders
who might have designs upon the treasure chamber beyond. I cannot say.
All I can do is to describe it as it is, and the reader must form his
own conclusion.

Such, at any rate, was the White Death and such were the White Dead!

[1] Compare Milton, "Paradise Lost," Book i.:--

                      "With these in troop
    Came Ashtoreth, whom the Phoenicians called
    Astarte, Queen of Heaven, with crescent horns;
    To whose bright image nightly by the moon
    Sidonian virgins paid their vows and songs."

[2] "Now haste ye, my handmaidens, haste and see
    How he sits there and glowers with his head on his knee."

Following Sir Henry's defeat of Twala, both he and Captain Good are carried, exhausted and spent, into Twala's hut. Quatermain notes his own discomfort, particularly the residual effects of his earlier blow to the head, but reflects on the men's good fortune at being alive to feel pain rather than dead on the field of battle. Foulata, the young Kukuana girl whom Sir Henry and Good rescued from becoming a sacrifice, brings herbs to aid in the men's recovery. Captain Good plies his skills as a medic to stitch both Sir Henry's and his own wounds. That night, Sir Henry sleeps upon the couch of his now-dead adversary, Twala. Quatermain attempts to sleep, but cannot due to his own exhaustion and the sound of Kukuana women wailing for their lost husbands and sons. His only sleep comes in fitful bursts, full of battle-borne anxiety startling him into wakefulness time after time. The next day, Good's condition worsens and he begins to spit blood. Quatermain decides that he had suffered an internal injury from the lone Kukuana's spear-strikes the previous day. Infadoos visits the men and stands in particular awe of Sir Henry due to his amazing acts of battle prowess in the fight against Twala. In fact, Sir Henry's mighty deed becomes legendary among the Kukuanas, who eventually come to call any amazing feat of strength or deadly blow "Incubu's blow." Quatermain ponders aloud to Ignosi that the new king had "swum to the throne in blood." Ignosi concurs, but mitigates the statement with the belief that the Kukuana people require massive bloodshed from time to time in their history in order to stabilize the society. Looking upon the crowned Ignosi, Quatermain reflects on his first impression of the man when he seemed a lone Zulu warrior of proud bearing seeking to join the party's search for diamonds and Sir Henry's brother. Quatermain is moved to hail Ignosi as king, to which Ignosi humbly replies that he is king by the grace of the three white men. Quatermain asks Ignosi what he plans to do with the witch Gagool. Ignosi intends to kill her so that her evil will not spread again, but Quatermain is forced to point out that she possessed valuable knowledge which will be very difficult to accumulate again. He reminds Ignosi that Gagool alone knows the secrets of the "Three Witches" mountains and the diamonds which rest there. Ignosi agrees to think on the matter. Quatermain then goes to visit Good, who has been moved to the white men's original hut along with Quatermain and Sir Henry. Good is feverish and delirious, but has picked up a devoted follower in Foulata. In fact, the Kukuana girl gives sole credit for her rescue to Good and seeks to preserve his life as he preserved hers. While Foulata nurses Good back to health, Ignosi commands that the huts, which are three hundred yards away from Good's resting place, be vacated to maintain peace for the recuperating hero. Foulata remains with Good for three days and nights, tending him in his delirium. When Quatermain comes to see Good, he believes Good to have died, but is reassured by a sigh from Good that he yet lives. He notes that Foulata's fingers clasp Good's, and continue to do so for many hours to come. Eventually, Good comes around and is informed by Sir Henry that Foulata sat motionless beside him for eighteen hours to comfort him in his illness. Good is moved to thank her for her devotion, to which Foulata responds that she was only returning the mercy Good had shown her. Quatermain takes a moment to meditate on the easily-infatuated nature of sailors and believes that Good's affection for Foulata will be short-lived. A few days later, Ignosi holds council and honors the remaining Greys by parading them before the village and granting them lavish gifts. Sir Henry, Good, and Quatermain are also honored by Ignosi's declaration that they be greeted with the royal salute and respected equally with the king so long as they were in Kukuanaland. Ignosi also repeats his mandate that no man's blood would again be shed without fair trial. After the ceremony, the white men remind Ignosi of their desire to find the diamonds of King Solomon's Mines. Ignosi has decided to let Gagool choose her fate: aid the men with her knowledge and live, or refuse to help and die slowly and painfully. When these options are presented to her, Gagool attempts arrogance in declaring her knowledge superior and her fear of death nonexistent. But when Ignosi prods Gagool with his spear, she changes her attitude and agrees to help. However, she reminds the men that at another time a woman named Gagool showed a white man the way to the "Silent Ones," and he met an evil fate. She hints that perhaps she was that same Gagool, and that these men's fate will be no better. She finishes her rant by declaring the journey will be a "merry one" as they will be able to see the bodies of the fallen on their way. Three days out from Loo, the party consisting of Quatermain, Good, Sir Henry, Foulata, Infadoos, Gagool, and some guards and attendants makes camp at the foot of the "Three Witches" -three mountain peaks rising up in a triangle from a single wide mountain base. Seeing Solomon's Road stretching before them for five miles more until ending at the furthest of the three peaks, the party presses on for an hour and a half before Gagool's litter-bearers ask the white men to move more slowly that they may keep up. Gagool continues to taunt the men that evil will befall them when they enter the place they seek. Before reaching the third peak, the group comes across a wide hole in the ground, nearly half a mile around and three hundred feet deep. Quatermain identifies this as Solomon's Mine, having seen similar diamond mines at Kimberly. Solomon's road divides around the mine to reach the far peak, so the group continues onward, curious to see what the three towering objects they can discern near that peak might be. As they draw nearer, they see that the three objects are three massive statues, two males and a female, which are likely the Kukuanas' "Silent Ones." The female, set between the two males, is nude and beautiful, with the emblem of the crescent moon arcing up from either side of her head. The flanking male figures were different from one another, the right-hand figure having the face "of a devil" and the left-hand figure possessing a countenance reflecting "the calm of inhuman cruelty." After some discussion the three white men conclude that these statues may in fact represent Ashtoreth, Chimosh, and Milcom, three divinities favored by the people to who Solomon's faith went astray later in his reign. Sir Henry bolsters their argument by identifying Zidonian Ashtoreth with the Phoenician Astarte and Greek Aphrodite, who were represented by the horns of the half moon. The men then decide to push on into the "Place of Death" rather than wait any longer, but prudently take some food with them as they do not know how long they will be there. Gagool rises from her litter to lead the men into the "Place of Death." Foulata balks at entering the burial chamber at first, but decides to follow Good wherever he may lead. As they enter the dark chambers, bats fly past them and hit their faces. Then they enter a huge cave, larger than any structure built by man. ice-like pillars--actually massive white stalactites--extend from the ceiling to the floor, adding to the cathedral-like quality of the cavern. Some of the stalactites take the vague form of beasts and the walls are covered in "fan-like ivory tracings" from the dripping water. Gagool hurries the party to the far end of the cave and through another passageway. From there they enter the "Place of Death." Upon entering, Quatermain is at first only able to see a vast table, at the head of which sits a huge white figure, and which is surrounded by several man-sized white figures. Then he and the rest of the party discern the huge figure to be Death, scythe and all, leaning forward from its seat to hold the scythe over the table. Quatermain nearly runs out of the cavern, but is restrained by Sir Henry. Gagool shows the men the table, upon which sits Twala's decapitated body, his head in his lap. Then the men notice that the water is dripping from the Death-figure's scythe upon Twala, inexorably covering his body in mineral deposits similar to the stalactite columns in the larger chamber. It then dawns on the men that the various human-sized figures around the room are former kings, each one turned into a stalactite-statue over time. Quatermain later ponders the ghastly scene in a more objective light and concludes that the huge figure of Death was sculpted many centuries ago by some Old World sculptor who came here with the peoples working in King Solomon's mines. The detail on the sculpture--made entirely out of a single massive stalactite--is perfect and suggests the same sculptor for the "Silent Ones" without. Quatermain believes it was the presence of this sculpture which led the Kukuanas to make this a place to bury their royal dead.

The necessity of bloodshed, particularly in the case of "savage" cultures, is described by Ignosi:  "The Kukuana people can only be kept cool by letting the blood flow sometimes...After this the land would be quiet for a while" .  This statement is a response to Quatermain's own amazement at how bloody the path to kingship was for Ignosi.  The contrasting views: that there should be other solutions to political disputes beyond violence, and that some nations need violence in order to remain stable, demonstrate again the European attitude toward African  philosophies of life and their own.  A civilized people would have no need for a cycle of violence to keep the peace, therefore the Kukuanas, for all their virtues, are still savages. Ignosi himself seems inured to bloodshed.  He would have Gagool executed, and does not understand the importance of keeping the knowledge the old woman has accumulated available to future generations.  Quatermain must argue that her information is the best way to get to the diamond mines  because Ignosi has no concept of keeping a history of ideas available to his people.  Again, the civilized European tendency to seek and protect knowledge is contrasted to the primitive ignorance of the Kukuanas. Quatermain also expresses his concern over interracial relationships regarding Captain Good's serious injury and Foulata's nursing him back to health: "I did not like Miss Foulata's soft glances, for I knew the fatal amorous propensitie3s of sailors in general, and Good in particular" .  Although Quatermain puts the burden of ignominious behavior on Good as a Naval man, it is clear that Quatermain's default view is that whites and blacks should not intermarry.  Nonetheless, Quatermain seems genuinely concerned about Foulata's feelings.  It is interesting to note that Haggard is one of the first author's to include interracial marriage in his works. Twala is dead, but the true evil in Kukuanaland--Gagool--yet lives.  In typical adventure yarn fashion , Haggard has created his climax early in the novel.  Ignosi has reclaimed his lost throne; the usurper has been destroyed.  All that remains now is to clean up the remaining fallout and complete the white men's quest for diamonds and for Neville.  However, Gagool is still a potential threat, despite her seeming acquiescence to Ignosi's demands.  From this point on in the novel, the dangers are more personal to the men and less based on notions of honor than they are on desire for wealth and the need to survive. Aside from Gagoo's alleged longevity, this scene is the most supernatural Haggard has included in his novel.  The men's attempts to rationalize and comprehend the three statues outside the Place of Death, along with Quatermain's later reflection on the origin of the figure of Death itself, show the European mindset:  if one can understand something's origins or workings, then that object holds no mystery.  Of course, Quatermain's first reaction to the Death statute--fleeing in terror--shows the fragility of this mindset. Note again, however, that the Kukuanas are not responsible for the creation of these statues.  Phoenician sculptors or others from Solomon's day are given credit for the artifice.  The assumption is that the Kukuanas are too primitive to create lasting art , and so remain in awe of the achievements of the past.  However, even this explanation leaves the question of why the early sculptor chose the figure of Death and a table prior to the Kukuanas' using the place as a royal burial chamber unanswered. Twala has arrived before the white men; he again "welcomes" them into his presence, this time as a king of the dead.  The mineral-encrusted former kings surround the table, seemingly forming a royal court for Death, but in the present instance also petrified in a stance of obeisance toward Twala.  Even here, Gagool's chosen king has his throne.  Of course, he holds his once-crowned head in his hands--a testimony to Sir Henry's method of dispatching the Kukuana ruler. The idea of the dripping water creating stalactites out of the dead kings offers a physical--and primitive--view of immortality for the Kukuanas.  These bodies are not buried or cremated--they are forever preserved in rock for all of time.  However, only Gagool visits the Place of Death repeatedly, so their afterlife is limited to Gagool's accounts.  The old wise woman seems to commune with the dead kings, dashing around and whispering to them in view of the white men.  Certainly she has learned many secrets from the past--but whether this is through paying attention to details while the kings lived or through some form of necromancy here in the Place of Death is left uncertain.