CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.
VICTORY, TRIUMPH, AND--THE END.
This grave news created the utmost consternation and dismay among theElders and nobles of Bethalia; for they had, almost with one accord,persisted in believing that at the last moment the savages had shrunkfrom the contest. There was, however, one solitary crumb of comfort inthe news that now came almost hourly from the front, which was that,severely as the Izreelites had suffered, the enemy had suffered tentimes more severely, having been kept completely at arm's length, solong as the defenders' stock of arrows had lasted, and that it was onlywhen these had become exhausted that the savages had succeeded instorming the blockhouses and driving out the defenders. This containeda lesson that Grosvenor and Dick were quick to profit by, and no soonerdid the news come to hand than every available person was set to workmanufacturing arrows, thousands of which were daily dispatched to thefront.
Thus far the two Englishmen had remained at Bethalia, receiving news anddirecting operations from there, at the urgent request of the Elders;but as intelligence continued to arrive from the front reporting thepresence of the enemy in overwhelming numbers, and the retirement ofgarrison after garrison, with details of terrific fighting in everydirection, it was not to be supposed that Dick and Grosvenor wouldconsent to remain tamely pent up in the city, while the chance of theirlives was beckoning them from a distance that could now be covered onhorseback in a couple of days' smart riding. They consequently inducedthe armourers of the town to knock them out a couple of makeshiftsabres, which they intended to take with them in addition to theirrevolvers and magazine rifles, and announced their intention ofproceeding forthwith to the front.
But had a bombshell exploded and blown to pieces the temple that formedthe top story of the House of Legislature, or unroofed the palace, itcould scarcely have produced a more tremendous effect, or createdgreater consternation, than did this simple announcement. The Elderswere convinced that if the guiding spirits of the campaign were everpermitted to take the field they would inevitably be slain and the endof all things would come. The nobles were animated by pretty much thesame uncomfortable conviction; and as for the Queen, when, despite theremonstrances and entreaties of the Elders and nobles, Dick andGrosvenor presented themselves at the palace to bid Her Majestyfarewell, she promptly ordered the arrest of the pair, and gave themtheir choice of being confined close prisoners, or pledging their wordof honour to abandon their intention! It was in vain that the culpritspleaded, argued, and drew the most harrowing pictures of what mustinevitably happen if they were not allowed to proceed to the front andpersonally supervise operations. The Queen turned a deaf ear to allthat they said; positively refused to give her consent; entreated andupbraided in her turn; and, finally, bursting into a passion of tears,declared that if anything were to happen to Phil she would die! Atwhich statement Grosvenor incontinently took the young lady in his arms,kissed her, soothed her back into self-possession again, and vowed withardour that if that was how she felt about it he was more than contentto remain behind and look after her, provided that she would allow Dickto go. To which compromise she at once smilingly assented. For such isthe selfishness of lovers!
The murder was out at last, and the precise thing had happened whichDick had foreseen, and had vowed to prevent, if possible, because of theterrible complications which, as he believed, must inevitably ensue.These two had fallen in love with each other, and the chances were that,as soon as the news reached the ears of the already jealous nobles,Grosvenor and Dick would be "removed", either openly or privately, whilethe Queen would at once be ruthlessly forced into the kind of marriagethat she had all along regarded with such utter dread and detestation.
Here was a pretty kettle of fish! and occurring, too, at such a terriblyinopportune moment. Yet, as Dick moodily reflected, while being ferriedacross to the mainland in one of Grosvenor's new, fast-sailing cutters,perhaps the moment might not be so very inopportune after all. It was afact that, under the able leadership of Mokatto, the savages werepressing Izreel as it had never before been pressed within its recordedhistory. Izreel was now literally fighting for its life, its veryexistence; and if, through the help of the two Englishmen, the countryshould by any chance win out and achieve a decisive victory over hercombined enemies, it was just possible that gratitude, that rarest ofhuman sentiments, might take the form of forgiveness, if nothing more;in which case there was perhaps a bare possibility that Grosvenor andDick might be released from their oath and permitted to return to theirown country. But it was doubtful, Dick decided, very doubtful; and hismeditations assumed a distinctly gloomy tone as, having arrived on themainland, he hunted up Mafuta and explained to that jubilant savage thatthey were about to proceed to the front and take part in the fighting.
To attempt anything even remotely resembling a detailed account of DickMaitland's adventures during the ensuing three weeks would beimpossible, for they were numerous and exciting enough to demand anentire volume to do justice to them. It must suffice to say that duringthat eventful period the youngster saw enough fighting to satisfy himfor the remainder of his life--desperate, ferocious, hand-to-handfighting, in which neither side ever dreamed of asking or givingquarter, in which a disabling wound was immediately followed by deathupon the spear-points of the enemy, and the salient characteristics ofwhich were continuous ear-splitting yells, the shrill whistling of thesavages, the rumbling thunder of thousands of fiercely rushing feet,blinding clouds of dust through which there appeared a phantasmagoria offerocious countenances, gnashing teeth, glaring eyeballs, the ruddyflash of ensanguined spear-points, hurtling knobkerries and whirlingwar-clubs, upthrown arms, clenched fists, reeling bodies, the shout oftriumph and the short, quick gasp that followed the home-thrust of thestabbing spear. This was the kind of thing that marked the end of eachday's fight when, the stock of the Izreelites, arrows being exhausted,it became necessary at last to evacuate a stubbornly held position andto retire before the overwhelming hordes of savages that, despite thefrightful losses sustained by them in the course of each day's fighting,seemed daily to increase in numbers as the encircling cloud of themcontracted with the daily retirement of the defenders towards the lake.
As for Dick, he seemed to bear a charmed life; for although hefearlessly exposed himself, day after day, wherever the fightinghappened to be fiercest and most stubborn, he had thus far received nohurt more serious than a mere scratch or two, and a rather severecontusion from the blow of a knobkerrie that had all but unhorsed him;but this immunity may have been due, at least in part, to the fact thatMafuta was always unobtrusively close at hand, ready to guard hisbeloved young master, ay, and even to lay down his life for him, ifnecessary.
Those were strenuous days indeed for all concerned, and especially forthe defenders; for the fighting usually began with the dawn, andcontinued all through the day as long as there was light enough todistinguish friend from foe; while, so far as the Izreelites wereconcerned, they were obliged to maintain a watch all through the hoursof darkness, in order to be prepared for the surprise night attackswhich the savages sprang upon them from time to time, with the obviouspurpose of exhausting the defenders' strength.
But while Mokatto and the other savage kings who had thrown in their lotwith him for the purpose of "eating up" the Izreelites, and partitioningtheir country, were solacing themselves with the assurance that, despitetheir frightful daily losses in men, they were winning all along theline, Dick was artfully drawing them after him into the heart of thechain of mountains that encircled the lake and the island city ofBethalia. These mountains, or hills rather--for they were scarcelylofty enough to be worthy of the more imposing appellation--were of anexceptionally rugged and precipitous character, to such an extent,indeed, that they were absolutely impassable except at four points,where the natural features had been so far improved upon that passes ofa sort--narrow ledges for the most part, bounded on one side by avertical, unclimbable face of rock and upon the other by an appallingchasm--had been
painfully hewn out of the stubborn granite; and it wasin the direction of these four passes that young Maitland was nowretiring in excellent order, and enticing the enemy to follow him. Forit was in these passes that he expected to win the victory which heintended to convert finally into a complete, disastrous, panic-strickenrout of the enemy. To this end he had already made certainpreparations, for news of the completion of which he was anxiouslywaiting. And at length the news came; whereupon, having dispatched tothe commanders at the other three points identical sets of instructions,of a sufficiently elastic character to leave plenty of scope forinitiative on the part of the leaders, he summoned the commanders of hisown division to his tent as soon as the day's fighting was over, and,having carefully and fully explained his plans to them, gave themexplicit instructions regarding their conduct upon the following day,and dismissed them. Then, mounting his tired horse, Dick rode off upthe pass at a foot-pace, closely followed by the faithful Mafuta, who,dog-tired though he was after many long days of strenuous fighting,chuckled grimly as his young master unfolded his plan of campaign.
The fighting which began with dawn upon the following morning was of asomewhat different character from that of the preceding days; forhitherto the Izreelites had always begun the day behind the shelter ofstone walls of some sort, from which it had taken the best part of theday to dislodge them, and from which, when dislodged, they had been wontto retreat in more or less good order to the next stronghold in theirrear. But now the last of these fortified positions had been abandonedand the Izreelite armies had retired--or been driven back, as the enemyfirmly believed--into the mouths of the four passes which led across thehills to the lake and Bethalia. They had not only entered the mouths ofthe passes, but had retired into them, until they had reached certainspots where the natural configuration of the surrounding hills was ofsuch a character as to constitute the position a natural fortresscapable of being held and defended by a comparatively small body of men;and here they halted and lighted their watch fires. The enemy alsohalted, about half a mile lower down the pass, and, as soon as it wasdark, sent out a number of scouts with instructions to search for a wayby which the savages might slip past during the night, and get round tothe rear of the Izreelites. Some of those scouts never returned totheir camp; those who did reported that the task assigned to them hadproved an impossible one, for that, after climbing laboriously and atthe risk of their necks for varying distances, they had all, withoutexception, arrived at a point where farther progress was impossible andretreat scarcely less so. Meanwhile, the Izreelite watch fires, theforemost line of which happened to be at a turn of the pass, just wherethey were well within sight of the enemy, were kept brilliantly burningall through the night, evidencing an untiring vigilance on the part ofthe Izreelite outposts, who could be seen, by the light of the fires,moving about from time to time.
But when at length the first rays of the morning sun smote the topmostridges of the hills and came stealing down their sides, arousing thecombatants to another day of sanguinary strife, behold! there were noIzreelites to be seen in the neighbourhood of the still briskly blazingfires, nor could the fresh scouts which were promptly sent out find anytrace of them. Then Mokatto, suspecting an ambush, sent forward otherscouts, in relays, with orders to advance up the pass--each relaykeeping the one next before it in sight--until the leading band shouldregain touch with the enemy, when a single scout was to return with theintelligence. But, strange to say, the single scout did not return; andwhen at length the fiery chief, losing patience at the absence of allnews, gave orders for a general advance up the pass, the impi who ledthe way soon discovered the reason, for they came upon the bodies ofthose scouts, one after the other, lying in the narrowing roadway, eachwith an arrow through his heart, evidently shot from some spot near athand, but quite inaccessible from the roadway itself.
Yet still no enemy was to be seen, no sign of his presence to bediscovered, until Mokatto, leading his contingent and advancing with theutmost caution, reached the summit of the pass, when he found that thenarrow roadway, at a point where it turned sharply round an elbow, hadbeen broken down for a distance of some fifty feet, until only spaceenough was left for men to pass in single file. And as the first manessayed the passage of this perilous path and attempted to work hisprecarious way round the perpendicular buttress of rock that formed theelbow, a spear, wielded by an unseen hand, was observed to dart forwardand bury itself deep in his naked breast, and the next moment he wenthurtling downward off the narrow ledge into the ghastly abyss thatyawned beside him. And as it was with the first man so was it withthose who followed him in the desperate attempt to round that fatalelbow, until even Mokatto himself, fearless and resolute warrior as hewas, was fain reluctantly to admit that farther progress, by that way atleast, was impossible.
There was nothing for it but to call a halt, and consider what was thenext thing to be done. To advance was impossible; to retreat wasequivalent to an acknowledgment of defeat, which, after the frightfullosses already sustained by the savages, would probably result in themrising upon their leaders and slaying them in revenge for havingfomented so disastrous a war; while a very brief inspection of theirsurroundings sufficed to convince them that nothing without wings couldpossibly surmount that vertical rock on the one hand, or descend thatawful precipice on the other. Yet, as they looked, the savage warriorsbecame aware that somewhere there must be a path to the top of the rock,for they caught sight first of one, then of another, and then of manyIzreelites peering down upon them from above. Then, suddenly, therecame hurtling down from the summit of the rock, some five hundred feetabove the heads of the savages, a shower of stones, not very big, yetbig enough, falling from that height, to dash a man's brains out, smashan arm or a leg like a dried twig, or send him reeling off the narrowpathway to the depths below.
The word was given to retire. There was no other course open to theinvaders, for obviously it was worse than useless to stand huddledhelplessly together upon that narrow pathway and suffer themselves to bedestroyed without the ability to strike a blow in self-defence--and theretreat down the pass began. Then, with the first rearward movement,the air, pent in between the rocky walls of that savage gorge, began tovibrate with a most dreadful outcry of shrieks, shouts, and yells ofdismay and panic; for, as though at some preconcerted signal, adevastating shower of great boulders came pouring over the crest of thecliff above the pass, crushing men into unrecognisable fragments orhurling them by hundreds over the edge of the narrow pathway. Moreoverthis state of affairs prevailed not at one isolated spot only, but allalong the road, as far as it was occupied by the battalions of thesavages. There was a moment of helpless confusion, during which thosewho were fortunate enough to have escaped the first effects of thatterrible shower stood, stricken motionless and dumb, gazing as in adream at the frightful, overwhelming destruction that had come upon themin that awful gorge. Then blind, raging panic seized upon thesurvivors, who turned and fled shrieking down the pass, intent only uponescaping from the ceaseless pounding of that merciless hail of boulders,madly fighting for precedence with their equally panic-strickencomrades, savagely grappling with those who happened to be in front ofthem impeding their passage, and either hurling them, or beingthemselves hurled, into the ravine that gaped to receive them.
The scene was appalling beyond all possibility of description; it wasnot a defeat only, it was not even merely a disastrous rout, it waspractically annihilation; for of the thousands of savages who enteredthat pass--that awful death-trap--on that fatal day, only hundredsemerged from it again; and they were so utterly demoralised and unnervedwith terror that no thought of rallying or making a stand ever enteredtheir minds; they simply ran blindly ahead until they fell exhausted,and there lay, absolutely heedless of what might befall them. And as itwas with Mokatto and his legions in the one pass, so was it with thechiefs and those who followed them in the other three passes; many ofthe leaders--Mokatto himself among others--were numbered among theslain; and there seem
ed to be nobody to take the lead or to assumecommand. The invading armies had been practically wiped out, and thefew survivors had degenerated into a flying, panic-stricken mobdominated only by the one idea of escape into the comparative safety oftheir own land.
As for the Izreelites, infuriated at the wanton invasion of theircountry, and fully realising what would have been their own fate had thesavages chanced to have been the victors, they relentlessly pursued theflying enemy during the whole of their retreat down the passes, andwould doubtless have destroyed them to the very last man had not Dickpersonally, and by means of imperative messages persistently reiterated,stayed the slaughter, by pointing out that the victory was too decisiveand complete for further aggression to ever again become a possibility;and that a too relentless pursuit of already desperate men could butresult in a further loss of life among the Izreelites themselves. Eventhis representation, forcibly as it appealed to a people who regardedthe lives of their men-kind as the most precious possession of thenation, scarcely sufficed to curb their lust for further slaughter, forthey had become, for the moment, human tigers who, having tasted blood,abandoned their prey only with the utmost reluctance and with muchsavage snarling of discontent and disappointment. But at length theobvious soundness of Dick's reasoning gained recognition and acceptanceby the Izreelite chiefs, who finally persuaded their followers tocontent themselves with the mere ejectment of the insignificant remnantsof the enemy beyond the frontier.
Meanwhile Dick, having paid a flying visit to Bethalia, to satisfyhimself that all was well in that quarter, made arrangements for theimmediate reconstruction of those portions of the roads through thepasses that had been broken down, in order to check the advance of theinvaders. This was temporarily accomplished by the building of roughbridges across the gaps; but, fully recognising how important a part hadbeen played by those gaps, he sketched out a scheme whereby they shouldbe made permanent, spanned by substantial drawbridges, and defended atthe inner extremity by strongly fortified gateways. This scheme he laidbefore the Elders, who immediately approved of it, and ultimately thework was carried out.
But long before that many things had happened. In the first place thevictorious Izreelites, having shepherded the last of the fugitives overthe border, had returned in triumph, each to his own home, and had setto work to repair the devastation wrought by the fighting on the landsthat lay outside the circle of the protecting hills. This wasconsiderably less than had been anticipated; for, so certain had Mokattoand his colleagues been of victory that they had issued the moststringent orders against any wanton destruction of property, the resultbeing that such damage as had accrued had only amounted to what wasinevitable in the course of a stubbornly contested fight; and that didnot amount to very much where neither of the combatants possessed gunsor other battering paraphernalia of any description.
The return of the triumphant army to Bethalia was a pageant exceeding ingorgeousness of display and general enthusiasm anything that had everbefore occurred within the memory of any living inhabitant of the city.The regular troops were comparatively few in number, every maleIzreelite being armed and liable to be called upon for active service,should occasion for such service arise; but the paucity of numbers wasan altogether insignificant detail; the one thing that was ofimportance, and counted, was that they had fought and signally defeateda force of overwhelming numerical superiority, and inflicted upon theirimmemorial enemy a blow of such crushing severity that a lasting peacewas now assured. Little wonder that the people so recently hag-riddenwith a perpetual fear, that often approached perilously close to panic,scarcely knew how to give adequate expression to the feeling of joy andrelief that now possessed them, and were just a little inclined tobecome extravagantly demonstrative.
The troops, conveyed across from the mainland in boats, and landed atthe one grand flight of steps which afforded the solitary means ofaccess to the island, were marched through the city to the palace andthe House of Legislature, where they received the thanks of the Queenand the Elders for their gallantry; and at the last moment it was madeknown to Dick--to his secret but profound annoyance and discomfiture--that nothing would satisfy the populace but that he, as the one hero,_par excellence_, of the brief but sanguinary war, must head the troops,mounted on the horse that had carried him so gallantly and well in thepress of battle! He would willingly have avoided the distinction if ithad been possible, and had indeed fully intended to absent himself fromall active participation in the pageant; but a note from Grosvenor,informing him that the idea had really originated with Queen Myra, andthat Her Majesty would be intensely disappointed if he refused, causedhim good-naturedly to set his own feelings on one side for the nonce andconsent to become a puppet for once in a way. Accordingly he was thefirst warrior to pass through the gateway which gave access to theinterior of the town, and as he emerged from the shadow of the arch intothe dazzling sunshine that flooded the streets he was met by a choir ofsome sixty young women arrayed in gala attire, crowned with roses, andwearing garlands of flowers round their necks, who, forming up at thehead of the procession, led the way, some singing a hymn of triumph,rejoicing, and glorification of the victors, while others accompaniedthem on flutes, flageolets, and cymbals. But this was not all. AsDick, blushing furiously and feeling more uncomfortable than he everbefore remembered, emerged from the gateway, two maidens steppedforward, one from each side of the way, and while one deftly twined agarland of roses round the horse's neck, the other, catching the lad'shand, gently drew him down and caused him to bend in the saddlesufficiently to permit her to cast a similar garland round his neck!
It was a distinctly embarrassing situation for a modest young Englishmanto find himself in, but as he heard the shouts of greeting andacclamation that rang out from the throats of the jubilant crowd whothronged the streets, and realised that all this was but the outwardexpression of a very real and deep feeling of gratitude for importantservices rendered, he put his embarrassment on one side, and bowed andsmiled his acknowledgments, to the frantic delight of the spectators.
In this fashion, then, the troops paraded the principal streets of thecity, while young girls and tiny children strewed flowers before them inthe roadway, and the populace cheered and applauded, until the spaciouspark in which stood the palace and the House of Legislature was reached,when a halt was called before the principal entrance of the palace,where the Queen, once more in radiant health, came forth and, in a fewwell-chosen words, expressed her fervent gratitude to all the brave menwho had borne themselves so nobly and gallantly in the defence of theircountry, winding up with an expression of admiration and sorrow for thefallen, and of sympathy for those whom the relentless cruelty of war hadbereaved of their nearest and dearest.
Then Malachi and his fellow Elders appeared and pronounced a longoration of a very similar character, but going somewhat more intodetail. He dwelt particularly upon the fierce, undying animosity withwhich the savages of the surrounding nations had regarded the presenceof the Izreelites in the country from time immemorial, reminded hishearers of the state of almost perpetual warfare in which the nation hadlived through the ages, and described the recent attack as the mostvirulent and determined that they had ever experienced, being nothingless than a carefully elaborated and well-ordered plan for theircomplete extermination. Then he touched upon the arrival of the twoyoung Englishmen in the country, spoke of the law prohibiting theadmission of strangers, and fully explained the reasons which had led toan exception being made in their case, and congratulated himself andeverybody else upon the happy issue of that exception, going on to saythat but for the warlike knowledge and skill of the visitors, and thesuperlative importance of the parts which they had played in planningand carrying out the scheme of defence, that day of triumph and gloryfor Izreel would never have dawned. And he wound up by saying that, inacknowledgment and recognition of the enormously important and valuableservices which these young men had rendered to the nation, he and hisfellow Elders had felt it to be their duty
to recommend the Queen toconfer upon both the honour and distinction accompanying the title ofPrinces.
A roar of delighted approval greeted this peroration; and if perchancethere happened to be here and there a noble or two who regarded withdisapprobation the bestowal of this unique honour upon aliens, they weretoo prudent to permit that disapprobation to be suspected, in view ofthe apparently universal popularity of the act.
The Queen, acutely conscious of the fact that she contemplated a step,the effect of the announcement of which it was utterly impossible toforesee, and quick to recognise that the popularity of Grosvenor andDick would probably never be greater than it was at that moment,determined to make the utmost of the opportunity; and, upon the occasionof the public investiture of the newly created princes, electrifiedeverybody present by calmly announcing--in a manner which seemed tosuggest that she was doing something which she was certain would meetwith the full and unanimous approval of her people--that it was herintention to espouse Prince Philip as soon as the necessary preparationsfor the ceremony could be made!
The announcement was followed by silence so tense that, to make use of amuch hackneyed expression, one might have heard a pin drop, and itlasted so long that the Queen grew white to the lips, and her eyes beganto glitter ominously. Was it possible that the nobles--who but for themilitary genius of Phil and Dick would now in all probability have been,with herself, captives in the hands of the savages--were going to showthemselves so selfishly ungrateful as to disapprove of her choice? Animpatient stamp of her little foot on the dais, and a defiant upwardtoss of her head seemed to threaten an outburst that would probably havecaused the ears of those present to tingle, when somebody--whoseidentity was never established--began to applaud vociferously. Theapplause was almost instantly taken up by another, and another, andothers, until within a moment or two the vast chamber was ringing andvibrant with the expressions of approval and rejoicing. The verdict,though delayed, perhaps, a second or two too long for Her Majesty'sentire liking, was decisive, unmistakable, and not to be gainsaid; andif there were any present who recognised that it meant the finalcollapse of certain cherished ambitions of their own, they were wiseenough to say nothing about it.
But although the Queen's choice of a husband was thus ratified by theonly section of her subjects who might possibly have raised objectionsto it, a great deal of exceedingly delicate negotiation and arrangementwas found to be necessary, and a number of quite unexpected difficultiesand hitches arose, before the path to the hymeneal altar was madeperfectly smooth for the royal lovers; while, on the other hand, as thenegotiations and arrangements progressed, it grew increasingly clearthat a man possessed of Grosvenor's outside knowledge and experience wasinfinitely preferable, from the point of view of the national advantage,as a ruler, to even the most powerful and influential of the Izreelitenobles. By the time, therefore, that everything was settled, approvalhad become intensified into delight, and there was every prospect thatPhil's reign would be a highly popular one. Then, in due time, came themarriage, which may be dismissed with the mere mention of the fact,since this makes no pretence to being a love story.
But although even a royal wedding may possess little or no interest forthose for whose entertainment this story is written, it had a mostimportant effect upon the fortunes of those whose adventures are hereset forth. For, by the Izreelite law, it not only made Philip Grosvenorthe Consort of the Queen, but it also put into his hands the actualgovernment of the nation; it made him, in fact, the King, an absolutemonarch, with power to shape and control the destinies of the nation asseemed to him good; with nobody to say him nay, whatever the nature ofthe decrees he might promulgate, and to whom even the Queen herselfbecame subject. Then, with regard to Dick Maitland, it will beremembered that he, as well as Grosvenor, had been compelled to take anoath that he would never seek to leave the country without the royalassent. But, now that Phil was King, that assent was, of course, to beobtained easily enough; and obtained it was, as soon as the wedding wasover and Grosvenor was securely installed in his new position. For,whatever inducements there might be for Phil to pass the remainder ofhis life in the strange, scarcely-heard-of land of the Izreelites, nosuch inducements existed in the case of Dick Maitland, who was now allimpatience to return to England and provide for the welfare of hismother--if, haply, she still survived.
Accordingly, having in due form sought and obtained the royal assent tohis departure from Izreel, Dick lost no time in completing hispreparations for the long and perilous journey that lay before him.And, first of all, he presented Leo--now nearly full-grown and, thanksto careful and judicious training, a most amiable, docile, andaffectionate beast--to Queen Myra, as the most cherished possession itwas in his power to offer her. Of the horses which they had broughtwith them into the country he kept only the one which King Lobelalatutuhad given him, leaving the rest with Phil--there being no horses inIzreel. Ramoo Samee, being given his choice, elected to remain inIzreel, in the capacity of stud groom; but Mafuta, Jantje, and 'Nkukureturned with Dick, as a matter of course. And, as a measure ofprecaution, Grosvenor arranged for an escort of five hundred Izreelitewarriors to accompany the wagon through the country immediately on theother side of the border; for although the savage inhabitants hadreceived such terrible chastisement that they were scarcely likely tointerfere with anyone coming from Izreel, it was deemed wisest to run norisk of a possible hostile demonstration.
At length the day and hour of parting came, and Dick, fully equipped forhis journey, presented himself at the palace to say farewell. Themoment was not without its emotions, for although it had already beenplanned that at no very distant date Maitland should revisit Izreel,bringing with him certain matters which Grosvenor felt it would behighly desirable for him to possess as monarch of a people of such greatpotential possibilities as the Izreelites, both remembered that thejourney from Bethalia to the nearest confines of civilisation was a longand arduous one, bristling with perils of every imaginable kind, and whocould say that it would be accomplished in safety, or, if accomplished,could be repeated? For life is too full of chances for a man to makeplans for the future, with any certainty that he will be able to carrythem out. Therefore, when these two adventurous sons of the mostadventurous nation on earth finally clasped hands and said their lastwords of farewell, though those words were entirely cheery andoptimistic, the voices which spoke them were a little husky withfeeling, and the firm, strong hand-grip was lingering, and relaxed withmuch reluctance.
Dick's ride from the palace through the town to the point of embarkationfor the mainland was one long, unbroken ovation; for there had now beentime for the people to recognise, and also to appreciate, the many finequalities of the young Englishman's character; realisation of theenormous debt which they owed to him and to his friend, their new king,had come to them, and they were as unfeignedly sorry to witness hisdeparture from among them as a naturally unemotional people could wellbe.
As he stepped into the swift-sailing cutter which was to convey himacross to the mainland, where the wagon, already inspanned, was awaitinghim, a letter was handed to him by one of two men who had just carefullydeposited in the boat a well-filled leather portmanteau bearingGrosvenor's initials. The letter ran thus:
"Dear old Chap,--
"The portmanteau which accompanies this note contains Myra's and my own parting gift to you, in the shape of the finest diamonds which a gang of twenty men have been able to extract from the newly discovered mine during the last month. They are quite valueless to us, it is true, but in the dear old country to which you are bound they ought, even apart from the rubies which you are taking back, to make you one of the most wealthy men in the world. May God grant you health and long life to enjoy that wealth, and to employ it--as we know you will--in ameliorating the lot of those who are worse off than yourself! We confidently look forward to your return to Izreel in the course of the next year or two; but should unkind fortune forbid that return, think of us occasio
nally, and remember that in the far interior of Africa there are two hearts in which your memory will be cherished so long as life shall last.
"Yours, in undying friendship,--
"Phil."
My story is told. It only remains to add that, some six months later,Dick Maitland arrived safely in England, with all his treasure intact,just in time to rescue his mother from the grip of destitution that wason the point of closing relentlessly upon her, and to place her in aposition of such absolute safety and luxury that it was months beforethe dear old lady could persuade herself it was not all a tantalisingdream, from which she would sooner or later awake to again find herselfface to face with the ever-recurring, harassing, heart-breaking problemof ways and means, and the even more painful state of anxiety anduncertainty concerning the whereabouts of her son that had so worriedand distressed her during the past year.
As for Doctor Julian Humphreys, Dick nearly drove the good man crazywith delight by placing to his credit at the bank a sum so stupendousthat he might have spent the rest of his days in riotous luxury, had heso chosen. But that was not Humphreys' way at all; his heart was setupon the relief of those who suffered the keen pangs of poverty throughno fault of their own; and he thenceforth enjoyed the pleasure of doinggood to the top of his bent, retaining his modest establishment at 19Paradise Street, but greatly enlarging his surgery, stocking itabundantly with every drug, instrument, and appliance that couldpossibly ameliorate pain or heal disease, and continuingenthusiastically to practise medicine and surgery among the poor,without fee or reward of any sort, save an occasional expression ofgratitude from some more than usually appreciative patient.
The Adventures of Dick Maitland: A Tale of Unknown Africa Page 17
