at the top of the rise we halted for a second to breathe our horses; and, turning, glanced at the battle beneath us, which, illumined as it was by the fierce rays of the sinking sun staining the whole scene red, looked from where we were more like some wild titanic picture than an actual hand-to-hand combat. the distinguishing scenic effect from that distance was the countless distinct flashes of light reflected from the swords and spears, otherwise the panorama was not so grand as might have been expected. the great green lap of sward in which the struggle was being fought out, the bold round outline of the hills behind, and the wide sweep of the plain beyond, seemed to dwarf it; and what was tremendous enough when one was in it, grew insignificant when viewed from the distance. but is it not thus with all the affairs and doings of our race about which we blow the loud trumpet and make such a fuss and worry? how utterly antlike, and morally and physically insignificant, must they seem to the calm eyes that watch them from the arching depths above!
‘we win the day, macumazahn,’ said old umslopogaas, taking in the whole situation with a glance of his practised eye. ‘look, the lady of the night’s forces give on every side, there is no stiffness left in them, they bend like hot iron, they are fighting with but half a heart. but alas! the battle will in a manner be drawn, for the darkness gathers, and the regiments will not be able to follow and slay!’—and he shook his head sadly. ‘but,’ he added, ‘i do not think that they will fight again. we have fed them with too strong a meat. ah! it is well to have lived! at last i have seen a fight worth seeing.’
by this time we were on our way again, and as we went side by side i told him what our mission was, and how that, if it failed, all the lives that had been lost that day would have been lost in vain.
‘ah!’ he said, ‘nigh on a hundred miles and no horses but these, and to be there before the dawn! well—away! away! man can but try, macumazahn; and mayhap we shall be there in time to split that old “witch-finder’s” [agon’s] skull for him. once he wanted to burn us, the old “rain-maker”, did he? and now he would set a snare for my mother [nyleptha], would he? good! so sure as my name is the name of the woodpecker, so surely, be my mother alive or dead, will i split him to the beard. ay, by t’chaka’s head i swear it!’ and he shook inkosi-kaas as he galloped. by now the darkness was closing in, but fortunately there would be a moon later, and the road was good.
on we sped through the twilight, the two splendid horses we bestrode had got their wind by this, and were sweeping along with a wide steady stride that neither failed nor varied for mile upon mile. down the side of slopes we galloped, across wide vales that stretched to the foot of far-off hills. nearer and nearer grew the blue hills; now we were travelling up their steeps, and now we were over and passing towards others that sprang up like visions in the far, faint distance beyond.
on, never pausing or drawing rein, through the perfect quiet of the night, that was set like a song to the falling music of our horses’ hoofs; on, past deserted villages, where only some forgotten starving dog howled a melancholy welcome; on, past lonely moated dwellings; on, through the white patchy moonlight, that lay coldly upon the wide bosom of the earth, as though there was no warmth in it; on, knee to knee, for hour after hour!
we spake not, but bent us forward on the necks of those two glorious horses, and listened to their deep, long-drawn breaths as they filled their great lungs, and to the regular unfaltering ring of their round hoofs. grim and black indeed did old umslopogaas look beside me, mounted upon the great white horse, like death in the revelation of st john, as now and again lifting his fierce set face he gazed out along the road, and pointed with his axe towards some distant rise or house.
and so on, still on, without break or pause for hour after hour.
at last i felt that even the splendid animal that i rode was beginning to give out. i looked at my watch; it was nearly midnight, and we were considerably more than half way. on the top of a rise was a little spring, which i remembered because i had slept by it a few nights before, and here i motioned to umslopogaas to pull up, having determined to give the horses and ourselves ten minutes to breathe in. he did so, and we dismounted—that is to say, umslopogaas did, and then helped me off, for what with fatigue, stiffness, and the pain of my wound, i could not do so for myself; and then the gallant horses stood panting there, resting first one leg and then another, while the sweat fell drip, drip, from them, and the steam rose and hung in pale clouds in the still night air.
leaving umslopogaas to hold the horses, i hobbled to the spring and drank deep of its sweet waters. i had had nothing but a single mouthful of wine since midday, when the battle began, and i was parched up, though my fatigue was too great to allow me to feel hungry. then, having laved my fevered head and hands, i returned, and the zulu went and drank. next we allowed the horses to take a couple of mouthfuls each—no more; and oh, what a struggle we had to get the poor beasts away from the water! there were yet two minutes, and i employed it in hobbling up and down to try and relieve my stiffness, and in inspecting the condition of the horses. my mare, gallant animal though she was, was evidently much distressed; she hung her head, and her eye looked sick and dull; but daylight, nyleptha’s glorious horse—who, if he is served aright, should, like the steeds who saved great rameses in his need, feed for the rest of his days out of a golden manger—was still comparatively speaking fresh, notwithstanding the fact that he had had by far the heavier weight to carry. he was ‘tucked up’, indeed, and his legs were weary, but his eye was bright and clear, and he held his shapely head up and gazed out into the darkness round him in a way that seemed to say that whoever failed he was good for those five-and-forty miles that yet lay between us and milosis. then umslopogaas helped me into the saddle and—vigorous old savage that he was!—vaulted into his own without touching a stirrup, and we were off once more, slowly at first, till the horses got into their stride, and then more swiftly. so we passed over another ten miles, and then came a long, weary rise of some six or seven miles, and three times did my poor black mare nearly come to the ground with me. but on the top she seemed to gather herself together, and rattled down the slope with long, convulsive strides, breathing in gasps. we did that three or four miles more swiftly than any since we had started on our wild ride, but i felt it to be a last effort, and i was right. suddenly my poor horse took the bit between her teeth and bolted furiously along a stretch of level ground for some three or four hundred yards, and then, with two or three jerky strides, pulled herself up and fell with a crash right on to her head, i rolling myself free as she did so. as i struggled to my feet the brave beast raised her head and looked at me with piteous bloodshot eyes, and then her head dropped with a groan and she was dead. her heart was broken.
umslopogaas pulled up beside the carcase, and i looked at him in dismay. there were still more than twenty miles to do by dawn, and how were we to do it with one horse? it seemed hopeless, but i had forgotten the old zulu’s extraordinary running powers.
without a single word he sprang from the saddle and began to hoist me into it.
‘what wilt thou do?’ i asked.
‘run,’ he answered, seizing my stirrup-leather.
then off we went again, almost as fast as before; and oh, the relief it was to me to get that change of horses! anybody who has ever ridden against time will know what it meant.
daylight sped along at a long stretching hand-gallop, giving the gaunt zulu a lift at every stride. it was a wonderful thing to see old umslopogaas run mile after mile, his lips slightly parted and his nostrils agape like the horse’s. every five miles or so we stopped for a few minutes to let him get his breath, and then flew on again.
‘canst thou go farther,’ i said at the third of these stoppages, ‘or shall i leave thee to follow me?’
he pointed with his axe to a dim mass before us. it was the temple of the sun, now not more than five miles away.
‘i reach it or i die,’ he gasped.
oh, that last five miles! the skin was rubbed from the inside of my legs, and every movement of my horse gave me anguish. nor was that all. i was exhausted with toil, want of food and sleep, and also suffering very much from the blow i had received on my left side; it seemed as though a piece of bone or something was slowly piercing into my lung. poor daylight, too, was pretty nearly finished, and no wonder. but there was a smell of dawn in the air, and we might not stay; better that all three of us should die upon the road than that we should linger while there was life in us. the air was thick and heavy, as it sometimes is before the dawn breaks, and—another infallible sign in certain parts of zu-vendis that sunrise is at hand—hundreds of little spiders pendant on the end of long tough webs were floating about in it. these early-rising creatures, or rather their webs, caught upon the horse’s and our own forms by scores, and, as we had neither the time nor the energy to brush them off, we rushed along covered with hundreds of long grey threads that streamed out a yard or more behind us—and a very strange appearance they must have given us.
and now before us are the huge brazen gates of the outer wall of the frowning city, and a new and horrible doubt strikes me: what if they will not let us in?
‘open! open!’ i shout imperiously, at the same time giving the royal password. ‘open! open! a messenger, a messenger with tidings of the war!’
‘what news?’ cried the guard. ‘and who art thou that ridest so madly, and who is that whose tongue lolls out’—and it actually did—‘and who runs by thee like a dog by a chariot?’
‘it is the lord macumazahn, and with him is his dog, his black dog. open! open! i bring tidings.’
the great gates ran back on their rollers, and the drawbridge fell with a rattling crash, and we dashed on through the one and over the other.
‘what news, my lord, what news?’ cried the guard.
‘incubu rolls sorais back, as the wind a cloud,’ i answered, and was gone.
one more effort, gallant horse, and yet more gallant man!
so, fall not now, daylight, and hold thy life in thee for fifteen short minutes more, old zulu war-dog, and ye shall both live for ever in the annals of the land.
on, clattering through the sleeping streets. we are passing the flower temple now—one mile more, only one little mile—hold on, keep your life in thee, see the houses run past of themselves. up, good horse, up, there—but fifty yards now. ah! you see your stables and stagger on gallantly.
‘thank god, the palace at last!’ and see, the first arrows of the dawn are striking on the temple’s golden dome. {endnote 21} but shall i get in here, or is the deed done and the way barred?
once more i give the password and shout ‘open! open!’
no answer, and my heart grows very faint.
again i call, and this time a single voice replies, and to my joy i recognize it as belonging to kara, a fellow-officer of nyleptha’s guards, a man i know to be as honest as the light—indeed, the same whom nyleptha had sent to arrest sorais on the day she fled to the temple.
‘is it thou, kara?’ i cry; ‘i am macumazahn. bid the guard let down the bridge and throw wide the gate. quick, quick!’
then followed a space that seemed to me endless, but at length the bridge fell and one half of the gate opened and we got into the courtyard, where at last poor daylight fell down beneath me, as i thought, dead. except kara, there was nobody to be seen, and his look was wild, and his garments were all torn. he had opened the gate and let down the bridge alone, and was now getting them up and shut again (as, owing to a very ingenious arrangement of cranks and levers, one man could easily do, and indeed generally did do).
‘where are the guard?’ i gasped, fearing his answer as i never feared anything before.
‘i know not,’ he answered; ‘two hours ago, as i slept, was i seized and bound by the watch under me, and but now, this very moment, have i freed myself with my teeth. i fear, i greatly fear, that we are betrayed.’
his words gave me fresh energy. catching him by the arm, i staggered, followed by umslopogaas, who reeled after us like a drunken man, through the courtyards, up the great hall, which was silent as the grave, towards the queen’s sleeping-place.
we reached the first ante-room—no guards; the second, still no guards. oh, surely the thing was done! we were too late after all, too late! the silence and solitude of those great chambers was dreadful, and weighed me down like an evil dream. on, right into nyleptha’s chamber we rushed and staggered, sick at heart, fearing the very worst; we saw there was a light in it, ay, and a figure bearing the light. oh, thank god, it is the white queen herself, the queen unharmed! there she stands in her night gear, roused, by the clatter of our coming, from her bed, the heaviness of sleep yet in her eyes, and a red blush of fear and shame mantling her lovely breast and cheek.
‘who is it?’ she cries. ‘what means this? oh, macumazahn, is it thou? why lookest thou so wildly? thou comest as one bearing evil tidings—and my lord—oh, tell me not my lord is dead—not dead!’ she wailed, wringing her white hands.
‘i left incubu wounded, but leading the advance against sorais last night at sundown; therefore let thy heart have rest. sorais is beaten back all along her lines, and thy arms prevail.’
‘i knew it,’ she cried in triumph. ‘i knew that he would win; and they called him outlander, and shook their wise heads when i gave him the command! last night at sundown, sayest thou, and it is not yet dawn? surely—’
‘throw a cloak around thee, nyleptha,’ i broke in, ‘and give us wine to drink; ay, and call thy maidens quick if thou wouldst save thyself alive. nay, stay not.’
thus adjured she ran and called through the curtains towards some room beyond, and then hastily put on her sandals and a thick cloak, by which time a dozen or so of half-dressed women were pouring into the room.
‘follow us and be silent,’ i said to them as they gazed with wondering eyes, clinging one to another. so we went into the first ante-room.
‘now,’ i said, ‘give us wine to drink and food, if ye have it, for we are near to death.’
the room was used as a mess-room for the officers of the guards, and from a cupboard some flagons of wine and some cold flesh were brought forth, and umslopogaas and i drank, and felt life flow back into our veins as the good red wine went down.
‘hark to me, nyleptha,’ i said, as i put down the empty tankard. ‘hast thou here among these thy waiting-ladies any two of discretion?’
‘ay,’ she said, ‘surely.’
‘then bid them go out by the side entrance to any citizens whom thou canst bethink thee of as men loyal to thee, and pray them come armed, with all honest folk that they can gather, to rescue thee from death. nay, question not; do as i say, and quickly. kara here will let out the maids.’
she turned, and selecting two of the crowd of damsels, repeated the words i had uttered, giving them besides a list of the names of the men to whom each should run.
‘go swiftly and secretly; go for your very lives,’ i added.
in another moment they had left with kara, whom i told to rejoin us at the door leading from the great courtyard on to the stairway as soon as he had made fast behind the girls. thither, too, umslopogaas and i made our way, followed by the queen and her women. as we went we tore off mouthfuls of food, and between them i told her what i knew of the danger which encompassed her, and how we found kara, and how all the guards and men-servants were gone, and she was alone with her women in that great place; and she told me, too, that a rumour had spread through the town that our army had been utterly destroyed, and that sorais was marching in triumph on milosis, and how in consequence thereof all men had fallen away from her.
though all this takes some time to tell, we had not been but six or seven minutes in the palace; and notwithstanding that the golden roof of the temple being very lofty was ablaze with the rays of the rising sun, it was not yet dawn, nor would be for another ten minutes. we were in the courtyard now, and here my wound pained me so that i had to take nyleptha’s arm, while umslopogaas rolled along after us, eating as he went.
now we were across it, and had reached the narrow doorway through the palace wall that opened on to the mighty stair.
i looked through and stood aghast, as well i might. the door was gone, and so were the outer gates of bronze—entirely gone. they had been taken from their hinges, and as we afterwards found, hurled from the stairway to the ground two hundred feet beneath. there in front of us was the semicircular standing-space, about twice the size of a large oval dining-table, and the ten curved black marble steps leading on to the main stair—and that was all.
