by John Buchan
Bill looked out of the library window and watched the rain drifting over the lawn. He felt a great longing for Africa. Without more ado he went up to his bedroom and got into flannel shorts and a thin shirt; then he put on his thickest overcoat and announced to his mother that he was going out for the day.
She made no objection.
“I’m glad you are taking your ulster with you,” she said, “for it is very cold, and you are usually rather naughty about wrapping up. Don’t be a minute later than four o’clock in getting back. The Harding children are coming to tea, and Peter is in bed, so you will have to be a good boy and help to entertain them.”
As Bill dived into the thick cover of Wildash Great Spinney he thought with amusement of the Harding children. Two foolish little pigtailed girls! He hid his gun and his overcoat among the bracken and stood up to twirl the stick in clothes fit only for the hottest July afternoon.
His first thought was that the staff had misunderstood him. He had pictured a valley like a Highland glen, a bright open place with a tumbling burn in the midst of it. Instead he found himself in a cavern.
It was an enormous cavern, at least half a mile broad and a mile or two long. It was dark, the sun being not yet high enough to enter it, but Bill saw far above him a band of deep violet sky. On all sides were sheer walls of rock, black as coal at the foot, but showing a faint pink towards the summit. Never had he seen, never had he dreamed of, such tremendous precipices. Even a bird would be weary before it surmounted them.
The floor of the valley seemed to be sand and rock, and there was no stream. Indeed, the intense dryness of the place was what first struck him, far drier than the Sahara of yesterday. His mouth seemed in a moment to grow hot and his lips to grow hard, while he felt an odd difficulty in drawing breath.
But the main thing was the stench. It was awful — a combination of all the worst smells that Bill ever remembered. It afflicted him like a toothache, also he felt giddy and a little sick. He sat down, and presently jumped up, for on the ground there was something — something rotting and horrible.
It took all his fortitude to carry on. Holding his nose he looked round him. He was close to the lower end of the valley, and the ground was piled with gruesome shapes — heaps of grey, dust-covered skin, which had split in parts and showed awful blue decomposing flesh. Out of these masses stuck yellow tusks like the bowsprits of ships. He was in a graveyard, an open graveyard, where the corpses of great beasts lay like pebbles on a beach.
He could not stay there, for he was retching with nausea, and he was in terror of fainting and falling down among these horrid relics. He must move, for a little way ahead he thought he saw what looked like barer ground strewn with whitish-grey stones. So he ran, stumbling, picking his way among the rotting masses, and now and then slipping on some slimy horror. With one hand holding his nose and the other clutching his stick, he managed to get out of the lower trough of the valley to a higher level.
Here the stench began to abate, and in its place came a dry, half-sweet smell, like that of an old calf-bound book, or the vaults of the village church when summer abated their damp. He realised the meaning of it all. In the lower end of the valley were the elephants that had come there recently to die, but he was now moving towards the relics of ancient death.
It was a marvellous place in which he found himself. The sun was getting up in the heavens and about half of one side of the rocks was a rosy gold. The light was now clear enough to reveal the whole extent of the valley. Bill found himself walking in a place exactly like a seashore — only instead of sand there was a fine grey dust, into which myriads of dead elephants had crumbled. Everywhere, piled and scattered at random, were things like the ribs of old shipwrecked boats.
Such tusks he had never dreamed of. Some were like the jaw-bones of whales which he remembered seeing at coast villages in Scotland. They were black with age, but when he scraped with his penknife he revealed the white ivory beneath. Some had got a dull yellow colour with queer red ochreous stains. It was the size of them more than their number that amazed him, and then he knew the reason. The elephants who came here to die must have been the kings of the herd, the finest and strongest, who could escape their enemies of the forest and find a natural death of old age.
He could breathe freely now, though there was still that dryness in his throat which made him cough. He had no longer any repulsion towards the things at his feet. They seemed to him natural and harmless, like the horns of deer which hung in the hall and corridors at home.
As he picked his way through the dust he felt very solemn. He was the first mortal that had ever entered this sepulchre. Many had tried for it and fought their way up through the desert and jungles, but none had ever trod this floor. The thought did not make Bill exult. He felt very much as he had felt in church the week before when he attended old Grampound’s funeral.
And then suddenly his mood changed. He looked up at the beetling walls and felt himself choking; he was alone here in this pit of death, a prisoner in a tomb.
Bill was not much afraid of ghosts, and this bare silent place was not ghostly, for it had no connection with human life. But he felt what, if he had known it, the Greeks called “panic,” the terror of man in the face of a nature which he has not subdued.
He felt his heart fluttering and something moving in his throat which stopped his breath. For a second his eyes dazzled and he almost fainted. Then an overpowering desire came upon him to escape, and with that desire a little clearness of mind.
He twirled the staff and wished himself on the top of the cliffs, on the containing rim of the valley.
CHAPTER XII. THE ADVENTURE OF THE IVORY VALLEY — II.
IT was suddenly quite cool, and Bill breathed pleasantly again.
He looked back, and there beneath him — miles beneath him it seemed, like a landscape seen through the wrong end of a telescope — was the Ivory Valley. From the height on which he stood it was so distant that the bottom seemed only a blur of grey, like the floor of the sea when you look down from a boat through deep waters. No one standing on that ridge could realise what lay at the foot of the sword-cut. How did the dying beasts enter? — that was what puzzled Bill.
It was a very wonderful place. At the head of the valley was a huge moraine, and beyond it a glistening cap of snow. There were the shoulders and summits of other mountains in the same direction, which Bill realised was the west. But to east and north a blue plain ran out to the horizon, a plain with a shimmering haze in the far distance. It must have been very far below him, for in the foreground wave after wave of foot-hills descended to it like a cascade.
Not only the view but the air told Bill how high up he was. It would have been chilly, but for the glare of the sun which wrapped him round like a warm bath. Bill’s tweed cap was not much of a protection, so he used his handkerchief to screen his neck.
Then he took note of his immediate surroundings. He dare not look back into the depths of the valley, so he turned to the flat rim of it. There was turf here very like Scotland, short mossy turf, with wonderful little flowers. But a few yards from the edge a covert began. Bill called it a covert to himself, for it should have been a covert, but it was magnified to the dimensions of a forest.
There was heather, real heather, but it grew as tall as birch trees. There was bracken of a most miraculous size. There were what looked like groundsels, but they had become as big as oaks. It was as if a bit of Scots moorland had been swollen into a garden for giants. And there was everywhere a delicious aromatic fragrance.
But what concerned Bill was the geography of the Ivory Valley. How did the elephants enter? He felt all the zest of the explorer on the edge of a mighty secret. Clearly not at the top, for there was no inlet by the way of the snow mountain. Not by the sides, for nothing could descend those glassy rock walls. It must be by the foot. Now Bill judged that he was not more than a mile from the foot, so he started off to prospect along the rim.
For the sake of sha
de he dived into the covert, emerging only when the bracken grew too much for him. There were birds in plenty — one looking very like a blackbird with a scarlet breast; and a kind of finch which piped divinely. Also there was a multitude of bright moths, a subject of which Bill knew nothing. But there was no sign of anything dangerous, though Bill went circumspectly, for he remembered his father’s tales of mambas and fierce bush-buck rams and crouching leopards.
Presently he was forced back on to the scarp, which had changed its character. The turf was gone and the wildwood had crept up and covered it. He made his way to the edge in quest of a view. He was very near the bottom end of the valley — that much he realised, but he could not make out any way of entrance.
A few yards more and he discovered it. There was a rift in the containing wall, for the ground seemed to sink under his feet. He looked down over tree-tops to a V-shaped gap far below him.
It seemed possible to descend, and Bill, after a moment’s hesitation, started out. The angle was steep, but not too steep to prevent trees finding a footing, and it was through a clinging forest that Bill made his way. He began by slithering down a long bank of earth and stones which scarified his bare legs. After that he grew bold and took big leaps, calculating to stop himself by the trees. In this way he descended about half the distance into the gap.
Then the character of the wood changed. The whole hillside seemed to ooze water. Every few yards was a spring and the ground was seamed with tiny watercourses. With the water came a different vegetation. The wood took on a new character, for it was thicker, wilder, greener, and desperately tangled. Asparagus creepers began to festoon the trees, and bright flowers of a species quite unknown to Bill clothed the sides of each runnel. Also there were thorns, long trailing things which almost tore the shirt and shorts from his body. It had become very hot, and the sweat clouded his eyes.
Still he descended, rolling, slipping, jumping, until he came to a covert so thick that he had to crawl with his face almost in the mud. This was the place for a tiger-cat or a bush-buck ram, and the thought made Bill increase his speed. He was determined to get to the gap, but he held himself ready at any moment to twirl the staff.
The jungle ceased and Bill finished his course on a smooth slope of screes. He finished it dramatically, for he rolled the last hundred feet and stood up breathless to look about him.
It was a pass sure enough, the entry into the Ivory Valley. Behind on the forest side was a long descending gulley, rolled smooth like an alley in a pine wood along which trees have been drawn. By this path the dying elephants had ascended from all Equatoria.
On the valley side there was also a slope, but far steeper and sheerer. It was rubbed bare of both vegetation and stones, a long shoot of earth ending up among fallen boulders. Bill rubbed his eyes and saw that they were not boulders, but the rotting carcases he had already visited. It was like a gigantic toboggan run, and the elephants, when they wearily reached the pass, must have, with their last strength, glissaded into their sepulchre.
Very still and solemn was Bill as he looked at this portal of death. Then a little way up on the left-hand side something caught his eye. It was a bare place, a rocky shelf, and something white lay on it.
He saw that it was bones, and something told him that they were human. This had been the last camp of a pioneer who had found the valley only to die. Long ago the bones had been picked clean by bird and beast, and were now only to be distinguished by their blanched whiteness from the grey screes.
There was something more there. Bill picked out of the stones five coins. They were discoloured and encrusted, but gold beyond doubt. He rubbed them and one showed a king’s head on it, and another some spidery marks like Chinese letters. The dead adventurer must have belonged to a very distant generation.
Bill pocketed them. This was not loot, he felt, but a legitimate find, and Bands could not disapprove.
And then across the gap he saw that which put everything else out of his head. It was not a bush-buck ram or a leopard, but something far more formidable. A huge animal had come out of the covert. At first Bill thought it was a savage, for it squatted on its heels like a human being and beat its breast with its arms; also from its mouth came a dreadful throaty muttering, like that of some madman in a nightmare.
The gorilla brooded like some obscene vampire that drew its life from this place of death. It had caught sight of Bill and was staring at him with red eyes. Then its muttering changed into a howl of rage. With one mighty bound it covered half the distance between them.
Bill did not stay upon the order of his going.
He sat in the dripping silence of Wildash Great Spinney for a full five minutes before the terrible sound had gone out of his ears. He felt very much shaken and solemnised, and also very cold. He was glad of his overcoat.
“La, Master Bill!” Elsie the nurse exclaimed when she saw him. “ What have you done to your clothes? You look as if you had been clawed by a gorilla.” In high dudgeon she removed the ragged remains of his shirt and breeches.
Bill behaved very well at tea. He was quiet and gentle, and played most amiably with the Harding children. He was glad to be back among the kindly faces of the living, even if they were pig-tailed little girls. He locked the five gold coins in his money-box, for they rather frightened him.
CHAPTER XIII. BILL HEARS OF PRINCE ANATOLE.
THERE was still a fortnight before the holidays ended, and to the employment of this space of time Bill addressed himself like a usurer. The position was not without difficulties.
First there was Peter. Bill had decided that the discretion of that gay youth was not to be trusted. He could not be admitted further into the game, for his twittering nerves would certainly betray it. The Glenmore visit had convinced Bill of that, for with the utmost difficulty Peter had been prevented from blabbing the whole story next morning at breakfast. Threats were of no use, physical violence was futile, and the only way was to convince Peter that the adventure had been a dream. At Peter’s age one is not an exact reasoner, and he had come to accept this view, especially as Bill had laid himself out to be especially kind to him, and he did not feel in the mood to contradict a beneficent brother.
Nevertheless, Peter remained a snag. He was devoted to Bill and usually shared most of his holiday enterprises. But with Peter dogging his heels Bill could have no leisure for the magic staff, for he was resolute not to take Peter with him on any further adventures. Yet Bill’s heart smote him. Peter was a good little chap and would have a dull time of it if Bill immured himself all day in the recesses of Alemoor. Besides, the family would ask questions — particularly Barbara, who was Peter’s special protector.
Then there was Uncle Bob. He was being entertained at some big dinner in London, and must remain in town for several days; but he had wired at once, in reply to the family’s congratulations, offering a visit the following week. He said he wanted to see them all again, especially Bill. At any other time these words would have made Bill carry his head high, but now they only embarrassed him.
For Uncle Bob’s appearance would be awkward. He was certain to tell the story of Bill’s miraculous appearance and heroic conduct. And what was Bill to say? He could of course deny it, but he had a dislike of telling lies, and he knew that he was not very good at it. As a matter of fact, Uncle Bob had decided that the whole episode had been a light-headed dream which inexplicably his French rescuers had shared. He was hopelessly puzzled, but any other conclusion would have meant that he had lost his reason. He only wanted to see Bill to make sure that he had not become a disembodied spirit. But a small boy is not, like his elders, under the bondage of a narrow reason. Bill was convinced that Uncle Bob must regard his visit as a real, if inexplicable, event, and be set on making enquiries.
A way out appeared just before New Year. At breakfast one morning his mother had two announcements to make. Peter and Barbara had been asked to stay for a week with Aunt Alice in London. Barbara was joyful, and Peter, who had a
taste for the pleasures of the metropolis, was not unwilling, especially as Aunt Alice was under bond to present him some day with a new camera, and he hoped to expedite the gift.
“Bill, dear,” his mother added, “don’t you think it would be nice if you paid a visit to Grannie? You haven’t been to see her for nearly a year, and she is getting pretty old, and she is so fond of you.”
She expected a protest, for visits to Grannie were not very popular with Bill. Grannie herself was an admitted darling, but she was very old, and very deaf, and very blind, and she did not get out of bed until the afternoon. She had a very old butler called Backus, who was rather cross, and an old maid called Grimes, who was very cross, and an old lame cook, with whom one could not take liberties, and an old head-housemaid who wore spectacles. The house, which was called Farover, was in a dull part of the next county, and there was little for a boy to do there. There was no shooting; if it froze hard there was no water near to skate on; there were no ponies; and there was nobody to play with except the parson’s son, a red-headed urchin whom Bill detested.
But to his mother’s surprise Bill made no protest. He said meekly that he would rather like to see Grannie again, and that he did not mind if he went to Farover for a bit. His mother was so astounded by this renouncement of the habits of a lifetime that she asked anxiously if he was quite well. Little she knew the sudden exultation in her son’s heart.
