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
bearingevil
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
stairwayas 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.
CHAPTER XXII
HOW UMSLOPOGAAS HELD THE STAIR
We looked at one another.
'Thou seest,' I said, 'they have taken away the door. Is there
aught with which we may fill the place? Speak quickly for they
will be on us ere the daylight.' I spoke thus, because I knew
that we must hold this place or none, as there were no inner
doors in the palace, the rooms being separated one from another
by curtains. I also knew that if we could by any means defend
this
doorway the murderers could get in
nowhere else; for the
palace is
absolutely impregnable, that is, since the secret door
by which Sorais had entered on that
memorable night of attempted
murder had, by Nyleptha's order, been closed up with masonry.
'I have it,' said Nyleptha, who, as usual with her, rose to the
emergency in a wonderful way. 'On the farther side of the
courtyardare blocks of cut
marble -- the
workmen brought them there for
the bed of the new
statue of Incubu, my lord; let us block the
door with them.'
I jumped at the idea; and having despatched one of the remaining
maidens down the great stair to see if she could
obtain assistance
from the docks below, where her father, who was a great merchant
employing many men, had his dwelling-place, and set another to
watch through the
doorway, we made our way back across the
courtyardto where the hewn
marble lay; and here we met Kara returning
from despatching the first two messengers. There were the
marbleblocks, sure enough, broad,
massive lumps, some six inches thick,
and weighing about eighty pounds each, and there, too, were a
couple of implements like small stretchers, that the
workmenused to carry them on. Without delay we got some of the blocks
on to the stretchers, and four of the girls carried them to the
doorway.
'Listen, Macumazahn,' said Umslopogaas, 'if those low fellows
come, it is I who will hold the stair against them till the door
is built up. Nay, nay, it will be a man's death: gainsay me
not, old friend. It has been a good day, let it now be good
night. See, I throw myself down to rest on the
marble there;
when their footsteps are nigh, wake thou me, not before, for
I need my strength,' and without a word he went outside and flung
himself down on the
marble, and was
instantly" target="_blank" title="ad.立即,立刻">
instantly asleep.
At this time, I too was
overcome, and was forced to sit down
by the
doorway, and content myself with directing operations.
The girls brought the block, while Kara and Nyleptha built them
up across the six-foot-wide
doorway, a
triple row of them, for
less would be
useless. But the
marble had to be brought forty
yards and then there were forty yards to run back, and though
the girls laboured
gloriously, even staggering along alone, each
with a block in her arms, it was slow work,
dreadfully slow.
The light was growing now, and
presently, in the silence, we
heard a
commotion at the far-bottom of the stair, and the faint
clinking of armed men. As yet the wall was only two feet high,
and we had been eight minutes at the building of it. So they
had come. Alphonse had heard aright.
The clanking sound came nearer, and in the
ghostly grey of the
dawning we could make out long files of men, some fifty or so
in all, slowly creeping up the stair. They were now at the half-way
standing place that rested on the great flying arch; and here,
perceiving that something was going on above, they, to our great
gain, halted for three or four minutes and consulted, then slowly
and
cautiouslyadvanced again.
We had been nearly a quarter of an hour at the work now, and
it was almost three feet high.
Then I woke Umslopogaas. The great man rose, stretched himself,
and swung Inkosi-kaas round his head.
'It is well,' he said. 'I feel as a young man once more. My
strength has come back to me, ay, even as a lamp flares up before
it dies. Fear not, I shall fight a good fight; the wine and
the sleep have put a new heart into me.'
'Macumazahn, I have dreamed a dream. I dreamed that thou and
I stood together on a star, and looked down on the world, and
thou wast as a spirit, Macumazahn, for light flamed through thy
flesh, but I could not see what was the fashion of mine own face.
The hour has come for us, old
hunter. So be it: we have had
our time, but I would that in it I had seen some more such fights
as yesterday's.
'Let them bury me after the fashion of my people, Macumazahn,
and set my eyes towards Zululand;' and he took my hand and shook it,
and then turned to face the advancing foe.
Just then, to my
astonishment, the Zu-Vendi officer Kara clambered
over our improvised wall in his quiet, determined sort of way,
and took his stand by the Zulu, unsheathing his sword as he did
so.
'What, comest thou too?' laughed out the old
warrior. 'Welcome
-- a
welcome to thee, brave heart! Ow! for the man who can die
like a man; ow! for the death grip and the ringing of steel.
Ow! we are ready. We wet our beaks like eagles, our spears
flash in the sun; we shake our assegais, and are hungry to fight.
Who comes to give greeting to the Chieftainess [Inkosi-kaas]?
Who would taste her kiss,
whereof the fruit is death? I, the
Woodpecker, I, the Slaughterer, I the Swiftfooted! I, Umslopogaas,
of the tribe of the Maquilisini, of the people of Amazulu, a
captain of the
regiment of the Nkomabakosi: I, Umslopogaas, the
son of Indabazimbi, the son of Arpi the son of Mosilikaatze,
I of the royal blood of T'Chaka, I of the King's House, I the
Ringed Man, I the Induna, I call to them as a buck calls, I challenge
them, I await them. Ow! it is thou, it is thou!'
As he spake, or rather chanted, his wild war-song, the armed
men, among whom in the growing light I recognized both Nasta
and Agon, came streaming up the stair with a rush, and one big
fellow, armed with a heavy spear, dashed up the ten semicircular
steps ahead of his comrades and struck at the great Zulu with
the spear. Umslopogaas moved his body but not his legs, so that
the blow missed him, and next
instant Inkosi-kaas crashed through
headpiece, hair and skull, and the man's
corpse was rattling
down the steps. As he dropped, his round hippopotamus-hide shield
fell from his hand on to the
marble, and the Zulu stooped down
and seized it, still chanting as he did so.
In another second the
sturdy Kara had also slain a man, and then
began a scene the like of which has not been known to me.
Up rushed the assailants, one, two, three at a time, and as fast
as they came, the axe crashed and the sword swung, and down they
rolled again, dead or dying. And ever as the fight thickened,
the old Zulu's eye seemed to get quicker and his arm stronger.
He shouted out his war-cries and the names of chiefs whom he
had slain, and the blows of his awful axe rained straight and
true, shearing through everything they fell on. There was none
of the
scientific method he was so fond of about this last immortal
fight of his; he had no time for it, but struck with his full
strength, and at every stroke a man sank in his tracks, and went
rattling down the
marble steps.
They hacked and hewed at him with swords and spears, wounding