第32章

THE FEAST, AND AFTER!

On the day following this remarkable scenea scene calculated to make a deep impression upon anybody who beheld it, more because of what it suggested and seemed to foreshadow than of what it revealedit was announced to us that a feast would be held that evening in our honor.I did my best to get out of it, saying that we were modest people, and cared little for feasts but my remarks being received with the silence of displeasure, I thought it wisest to hold my tongue.

Accordingly, just before sundown, I was informed that everything was ready, and, accompanied by Job, went into the cave, where I met Leo, who was, as usual, followed by Ustane.These two had been out walking somewhere, and knew nothing of the projected festivity till that moment.When Ustane heard of it I saw an expression of horror spring up upon her handsome features.Turning, she caught a man who was passing up the cave by the arm, and asked him something in an imperious tone.His answer seemed to reassure her a little, for she, looked relieved, though far from satisfied.Next she appeared to attempt some remonstrance with the man, who was a person in authority, but he spoke angrily to her, and shook her off, and then, changing his mind, led her by the arm, and sat her down between himself and another man in the circle round the fire, and I perceived that for some reason of her own she thought it best to submit.

The fire in the cave was an unusually big one that night, and in a large circle round it were gathered about thirty-five men and two women, Ustane and the woman to avoid whom Job had played the role of another Scriptural character.The men were sitting in perfect silence, as was their custom, each with his great spear stuck upright behind him, in a socket cut in the rock for that purpose.Only one or two wore the yellowish linen garment of which I have spoken, the rest had nothing on except the leopard's skin about the middle.

"What's up now, sir?" said Job, doubtfully."Bless us and save us, there's that woman again.Now, surely, she can't be after me, seeing that I have given her no encouragement.They give me the creeps, the whole lot of them, and that's a fact.Why, look, they have asked Mahomed to dine, too.There, that lady of mine is talking to him in as nice and civil a way as possible.

Well, I'm glad it isn't me, that's all."

We looked up, and sure enough the woman in question had risen, and was escorting the wretched Mahomed from the corner, where, overcome by some acute prescience of horror, he had been seated, shivering and calling on Allah.He appeared unwilling enough to come, if for no other reason perhaps because it was an unaccustomed honor, for hitherto his food had been given to him apart.Anyway I could see that he was in a state of great terror, for his tottering legs would scarcely support his stout, bulky form, and I think it was rather owing to the resources of barbarism behind him, in the shape of a huge Amahagger with a proportionately huge spear, than to the seduction of the lady who led him by the hand, that he consented to come at all.

"Well," I said to the others, "I don't at all like the look of things, but I suppose that we must face it out.Have you fellows got your revolvers on because, if so, you had better see that they're loaded.""I have, sir," said Job, tapping his Colt, "but Mr.

Leo has only got his hunting-knife, though that is big enough, surely."Feeling that it would not do to wait while the missing weapon was fetched, we advanced boldly, and seated ourselves in a line, with our backs against the side of the cave.

As soon as we were seated, an earthenware jar was passed round containing a fermented fluid, of by no means unpleasant taste, though apt to turn upon the stomach, made of crushed grainnot Indian corn, but a small brown grain that grows upon the stem in clusters, not unlike that which in the southern part of Africa is known by the name of Kaffir corn.The vase in which this liquid was handed round was very curious, and as it more or less resembled many hundreds of others in use among the Amahagger I may as well describe it.These vases are of a very ancient manufacture, and of all sizes.None such can have been made in the country for hundreds, or rather thousands, of years.They are found in the rock tombs, of which Ishall give a description in their proper place, and my own belief is that, after the fashion of the Egyptians, with whom the former inhabitants of this country may have had some connection, they were used to receive the viscera of the dead.Leo, however, is of opinion that, as in the case of Etruscan amphorae, they were placed there for the spiritual use of the deceased.They are mostly two-handled, and of all sizes, some being nearly three feet in height, and running from that down to as many inches.In shape they vary, but are all exceedingly beautiful and graceful, being made of a very fine black ware, not lustrous, but slightly rough.On this groundwork were inlaid figures much more graceful and lifelike than any others I have seen on antique vases.Some of these inlaid pictures represented love-scenes with a child-like simplicity and freedom of manner which would not commend itself to the taste of the present day.Others again were pictures of maidens dancing, and yet others of hunting-scenes.For instance, the very vase from which we were then drinking had on one side a most spirited drawing of men, apparently white in color, attacking a bull-elephant with spears, while on the reverse was a picture not quite so well done, of a hunter shooting an arrow at a running antelope, Ishould say, from the look of it, either an eland or a koodoo.