CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

KING M'BONGWELE IS TEMPORARILY REDUCED TO SUBMISSION.

In the return of the _Flying Fish_ to her former berth the subject of the reception to be accorded to king M'Bongwele, in the event of his obeying their summons, was somewhat anxiously discussed by the travellers. They had already seen and heard enough to convince them that the individual in question was a sovereign of considerable power, as African kings go, and former experience among savages had taught them that he would, as likely as not, prove to be a crafty, unscrupulous, and slippery customer to deal with. To satisfactorily carry out the object of their visit to this man's country--namely, the examination and exploration of the mysterious and very interesting ruins which surrounded them--it would be absolutely necessary that they should be able to pa.s.s to and fro, freely and unmolested, between the ship and the various points selected for examination; and, in order to secure this perfect freedom, it would be necessary not only to conciliate this powerful ruler and his people, but also to so thoroughly impress him and them with the mysterious and wonderful attributes of their unbidden guests that they should, one and all, be absolutely _afraid_ to interfere with them. The question was, how could this be most effectually achieved? The first part of the programme, namely the conciliation of sovereign and subjects, appeared simple enough; the obvious pride and delight with which Lualamba had received his flashy presents of beads and Manchester finery furnished a key to the satisfactory solution of this difficulty; but how was the second and equally important part of the programme to be carried out? Lualamba, it was true, had been effectually cowed by the simple expedient of carrying him a few thousand feet up into the air; but something more than the mere repet.i.tion of this experiment would be necessary to produce the required impression upon M'Bongwele and the crowd of warriors he would be certain to bring with him. The matter was placed in the hands of the professor for settlement, and he promptly avowed himself to be fully equal to the task.

"Science, my friends," he remarked, "is constantly revealing wonders which surprise and astound even the most cultured minds of the civilised world; how much more capable is it then of overawing the uncultured savage, however shrewd and clever he may be in those simple matters which affect his everyday life! Leave it to me; we have ample scientific means at our command to quell this man and his followers, and to reduce them to a state of the most abject and servile subjection."

Von Schalckenberg then retired to make his preparations, which were soon complete. When next he appeared he carried upon one arm a glittering ma.s.s of what at first sight appeared to be drapery, but which, on his unfolding it, proved to be three suits of chain armour (minus helmet and gauntlets), constructed of very small fine links of aethereum, light and flexible as silk.

"I think," said he, "it will be unadvisable to make any change in our outward appearance in preparing to receive this royal savage; any such change would be certainly noticed, and as certainly regarded as an indication of the importance we attach to his visit. Now, our policy is to treat the whole affair as a matter of no moment whatever, and we will therefore (if you agree with my views) continue to wear the white flannel suits in which we received Lualamba this morning. But I would recommend that each of you don a suit of this mail under your clothing (I have already a.s.sumed mine), and we shall then be pretty well prepared for emergencies. These savages are often exceedingly treacherous fellows, and it is quite among the possibilities that certain of this king's followers may have received instructions to test our supposed invulnerability by a sly stab in the back or something of that kind; it will be well, therefore, that we should be properly prepared for anything of the kind. I had in view some such occasion as the present when I arranged for the construction of these suits. There is a helmet and gauntlets for each; but we shall scarcely need them today, I think, and it would hardly be politic to wear any _visible_ defensive armour."

The luncheon hour arrived and pa.s.sed without sign or token of the presence of a single savage in the neighbourhood, and as the afternoon waned with still no indication of human vicinity, the travellers--but for the absolute impregnability of the _Flying Fish_--would have begun to feel uneasy. About half-past four o'clock, however, as the quartette were languidly puffing at their cigars, lolling meanwhile in the most luxurious of deck-chairs, a huge cloud of yellow dust rising into the air beyond the ruins announced the approach of the cavalcade, and a minute or two later king M'Bongwele at the head of his cavalry swept like a whirlwind into the open s.p.a.ce occupied by the great ship, and, charging in a solid square close up to her, suddenly wheeled right and left into line, and came to an abrupt halt. The evolution was very brilliantly executed, and as Lethbridge lazily scanned the performers through the thin filmy smoke of his cigar, he could not restrain a low murmur of admiration, followed by the remark:

"By George! what splendid soldiers those fellows would make with a couple of months' training!"

"Y-e-s," agreed the baronet, "that was very well done; but I suppose that particular evolution is the one in which they most excel, and of course it was done purely for effect. Ah! the individual now dismounting is, I suppose, our royal visitor."

The baronet was quite right in his conjecture. As the party halted, some ten or a dozen individuals, including Lualamba, flung themselves from their horses, and, advancing reverentially, grouped themselves about the royal charger. Two of them then stepped to the creature's head and grasped the bridle, whilst two more a.s.sisted the king to dismount. The horse was then handed over to the care of a warrior, and the king, closely followed by the members of his suite, advanced to the foot of the rope-ladder, which had been lowered for their accommodation; the professor at the same time stepping to the gangway and inviting the party to ascend.

M'Bongwele looked somewhat doubtfully at the swaying ladder for a moment or two, and then essayed the ascent; but the oscillation set up by his movements proved too much for his nerves--or his dignity--and, much chagrined, he was obliged to desist. The professor then in compa.s.sion suggested the steadying of the ladder at its foot, when the king, promptly giving the necessary order to his suite, ascended to the deck, leaving those who followed him to manage as best they could.

The first glance of the travellers satisfied them that in king M'Bongwele they had a man of more than ordinary intelligence to deal with. The colour of his skin and complexion was a rich deep brown, he stood nearly six feet high on his naked feet, and, but for his somewhat excessive corpulence, he would have been a man of magnificent proportions. His lips were rather thick, and his nose somewhat flattened, but not nearly as much so as in the case of the genuine negro. His forehead was broad and lofty, though receding, his eyes keen, restless, and piercing, and there was a crafty, cruel, resolute look about the lower part of his face which taught his hosts that they would have to be exceedingly cautious in their dealings with him. He was accommodated with a chair between Sir Reginald and the professor, the former being flanked by Lethbridge (Mildmay, in accordance with previous arrangements, had ensconced himself in the pilothouse); Lualamba and the rest of the suite were quietly allowed to squat in a semicircle before them on the deck.

The king opened the conversation by somewhat abruptly demanding the reason for the strangers' visit to his dominions; to which the professor replied by pointing to the ruins, explaining that they were believed to be the remains of a great city built many ages ago by a very interesting race of people of whom but little was known, and he and his companions were anxious to minutely examine and explore what was left, in the hope of discovering some sculptured or other record bearing upon the origin, habits, and history of the builders.

A few minutes of profound meditation on the part of the king followed this announcement, and then he suddenly demanded where the travellers had come from. The professor replied by a comprehensive sweep of the hand skyward.

"But," objected M'Bongwele, "if you are spirits you should know all that you want to know about these ruins without coming here to investigate.

The spirits know everything."

A low murmur of applause from the king's adherents followed this enunciation, showing that they evidently considered their monarch to be getting the better of the strangers, and a smile of gratification flickered for an instant over M'Bongwele's features.

"Not everything," corrected the professor. "We know a great many things, but not everything. And what we know we have been obliged to find out by investigation. We spend the greater part of our existence in pa.s.sing from place to place investigating and finding out things."

"Then I have been misinformed, and the spirits are neither so wise nor so powerful as I thought them to be," retorted the king.

"Perhaps so," quietly remarked the professor. "Nevertheless we are very powerful--sufficiently so to destroy you and your whole army in a moment, should we choose to do so. Would you like to witness a specimen or two of our power?"

M'Bongwele glanced somewhat nervously about him for a second or two, and then with an obvious effort answered:

"Yes."

"I see that some of your followers here are armed with bows," continued the professor. "Are they good marksmen?"

"The best in the world," answered the king proudly.

The professor in his turn hesitated an instant; he was about to make a dangerous experiment. Then he drew from his pocket a small crimson silk rosette, and, placing it in M'Bongwele's hand, said:

"I will attach this to any part of my dress you choose to point out; then order one of your archers to shoot an arrow at it, and observe the result."

The king took the rosette in his hand, examined it carefully, and pa.s.sed it round among his suite for inspection. On receiving it back he suddenly wheeled round in his chair, and, reaching over, laid his finger on Lethbridge's breast exactly over the heart.

"Fasten it _there_," he said with a scornful smile, "and I will shoot at it myself."

The professor was disconcerted. The danger of the experiment consisted in the possibility that the archer, instead of aiming at the rosette, would select an eye or some part of the head for a mark, in which case the result would be fatal. He was quite willing to incur the risk himself, trusting that the archer's vanity would impel him to aim at the right spot; but he had never contemplated the turn which affairs had now taken.

Lethbridge, however, with a languid smile and a shrug of the shoulders, rose to his feet, and, nonchalantly flicking the ash off the end of his cigar, waited for the professor to affix the rosette.

A happy inspiration just then occurred to von Schalckenberg. "It is a very small mark," he murmured confidentially to M'Bongwele; "I do not believe you can hit it. Shall I get something larger?"

The king would not listen to any such proposal; he was evidently anxious to exhibit his skill; and the professor, rea.s.sured, attached the rosette to Lethbridge's coat in the exact spot indicated, M'Bongwele and his companions watching the operation with the keenest interest.

The colonel, glancing round for a good background against which to place himself, noticed a large clump of trees with olive-green foliage growing at a short distance directly astern of the ship. Against these his white-clad figure would stand out in strong relief. He accordingly stepped leisurely out to a suitable position on the deck, and, with one hand in his pocket and his smouldering cigar in the other, patiently awaited the decisive moment. M'Bongwele in the meantime s.n.a.t.c.hed a bow from one of his followers, and, selecting a long straight arrow from the sheaf, retired to the other end of the deck, a distance of about one hundred and fifty feet from his living target. He strung the bow carefully, adjusted the arrow to the string with the utmost nicety, drew it to the head, and then paused for a full minute, apparently waiting for some indication of flinching on Lethbridge's part. In this, however, he was disappointed, not the faintest suggestion of uneasiness could be detected in the colonel's face--indeed, he seemed to be absorbed in a critical contemplation of the smoke which lazily wreathed upward from the end of the cigar. Suddenly the bow tw.a.n.ged loudly, the arrow whizzed through the air, and, striking fair upon the rosette, fell in splinters to the deck. Lethbridge somewhat contemptuously kicked the fragments aside, unpinned the rosette from the breast of his coat, and sauntered back to his former seat. The group of chiefs gathered on the deck glanced at each other and uttered suppressed e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns of dismay. As for M'Bongwele, he was thoroughly discomfited; he had been shrewd enough to suspect in the professor's proposal some preconcerted arrangement, which he flattered himself he had skilfully baffled; instead of which his _ruse_ had simply redounded to his own more complete confusion.

The professor rose and picked up the pierced rosette, which he handed to the king.

"You are very skilful," he remarked, pointing to the puncture; "I compliment you." Then, changing his tone, he continued: "We have allowed you to do this in order that you may be thoroughly convinced of the impossibility of injuring us. Now you shall have a further example of our power. Order your warriors to dismount and try their best to lift this ship from off the ground."

The king turned to Lualamba and gave him the necessary order; whereupon the chief, descending the ladder to the ground, advanced to the troops, and, dismounting them, a.s.sembled them all round the hull; then, at a given signal, the entire body exerted themselves to the utmost to lift the immense fabric from the ground--of course without effect, as her chambers were full of air.

"Now," said the professor when the savages had pretty well exhausted themselves, "let all but one man retire."

This was done, Mildmay meanwhile exhausting the chambers until the gauge showed that the ship weighed only a few pounds. The professor glanced carelessly at the pilot-house, caught the signal that all was in readiness, and said to the king:

"Now order that man to lift the ship on to his shoulders."

M'Bongwele duly repeated the order, without the slightest expectation that it would be fulfilled; and the man--who would have plunged into a blazing bonfire if he had been so ordered--advanced, and, to the unutterable astonishment of himself, the king, and in fact the whole concourse of natives, raised the gigantic structure to his shoulders and held it there with scarcely an effort.

"Now, tell him to toss us into the air," commanded von Schalckenberg, shouting down from the gangway to Lualamba.

And in another second the terrified king and his suite felt a slight movement, and saw the earth sinking far away beneath them. This was altogether too much for the suite, who grovelled on the deck in mortal fear; and even king M'Bongwele felt his courage rapidly oozing away as he sat uneasily in his deck-chair convulsively gripping its arms and glancing anxiously about him.

The ascent was continued to a height of about fifteen thousand feet, at which alt.i.tude the wretched savages were shivering even more with cold than they had hitherto done with fear. The ship was then headed straight for the sea, which she soon reached, and, speeding onward at the rate of thirty miles an hour, her course was continued, accompanied by a gradual descent until the land was lost sight of; when a wide sweep was made, and, at a height of only one hundred feet above the waves, the return journey was commenced. This experience proved sufficient, and more than sufficient, for M'Bongwele; he was completely cowed; and when he found himself hovering over the illimitable sea, without a sign of land in any direction, he flung himself upon his knees before the professor and piteously entreated to be restored to his home and people, abjectly promising that he and they would be the willing slaves of the White Spirits for ever; and as for the ruins, the Spirits might do whatever they chose with them, freely and without let or hindrance.

This was all very well, but von Schalckenberg had not yet fully carried out his programme; he had still one more item in the entertainment which he was determined to produce, and which he fully believed would render M'Bongwele's subjugation not only complete but permanent.

Accordingly, on returning to their starting-place (by which time it was nearly dark), the demoralised warriors, who had all but given up their king as lost, were set to work by von Schalckenberg's orders to collect wood for a gigantic bonfire. This was soon done, and the fire was kindled; but, much of the wood being green, an immense cloud of smoke was raised, with very little flame, which exactly suited the professor's purpose. When the fire was fairly alight, the troops were re-formed in line as close to the ship as possible, and M'Bongwele and his suite were arranged in position on the deck immediately beneath the pilot-house walls. By this time it was perfectly dark, save for the starlight and the flickering gleam of the bonfire; and the air was stark calm.

Gradually and imperceptibly the dense cloud of smoke which hung motionless over the smouldering pile became faintly luminous. The radiance grew stronger and stronger, and presently an immense circular disc of light appeared reflected on the slowly-rising cloud of vapour, in which a host of forms were indistinctly traceable. Another moment and a loud e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of astonishment burst from the savage spectators, for, with another sudden brightening of the luminous disc there appeared the phantom presentment of M'Bongwele's troops drawn up as they had appeared a couple of hours before, when the king had first boarded the _Flying Fish_ So clear and vivid was the representation that it met with instant recognition, amid loud murmurs of amazement from the beholders; the king being quite as strongly moved as any of his subjects.

"Do you recognise the vision?" demanded the professor sternly of M'Bongwele.

"I do, I do. Those are the spirits of my bravest soldiers," murmured the king. "Truly the Spirits of the Winds have wondrous powers."

"You say well," answered von Schalckenberg. "Now, look again and you shall see a few of _our_ warriors."

As he spoke the picture became blurred and indistinct, prismatic colours began to come and go upon the curtain of vapour, and suddenly out flashed the image of a wide-stretching sun-lit plain, upon which were drawn up on parade, in illimitable perspective, a countless host of British troops, infantry, cavalry, and artillery, with bayonets, swords, and lance-points gleaming in the sun, with colours uncased, guns limbered up, and all apparently ready and waiting for the order to march. So realistic was the picture that even the baronet and Lethbridge could scarcely repress an exclamation of astonishment, and as for M'Bongwele and his people, they were perfectly breathless with surprise. The picture was allowed to remain clear, brilliant, and distinct for some ten minutes, then the radiant disc rapidly faded until it vanished altogether, and nothing remained but the red glimmer of the smouldering fire.

A heavy sigh issued from M'Bongwele's breast, and he rose to his feet.