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CHAPTER XV - THE MOTOMBO
After my dream I went to sleep again, till I was finally aroused by a
strong ray of light hitting me straight in the eye.
Where the dickens does that come from? thought I to myself, for these
huts had no windows.
Then I followed the ray to its source, which I perceived was a small
hole in the mud wall some five feet above the floor. I rose and
examined the said hole, and noted that it appeared to have been
freshly made, for the clay at the sides of it was in no way
discoloured. I reflected that if anyone wanted to eavesdrop, such an
aperture would be convenient, and went outside the hut to pursue my
investigations. Its wall, I found, was situated about four feet from
the eastern part of the encircling reed fence, which showed no signs
of disturbance, although there, in the outer face of the wall, was the
hole, and beneath it on the lime flooring lay some broken fragments of
plaster. I called Hans and asked him if he had kept watch round the
hut when the wrapped-up man visited us during the night. He answered
yes, and that he could swear that no one had come near it, since
several times he had walked to the back and looked.
Somewhat comforted, though not satisfied, I went in to wake up the
others, to whom I said nothing of this matter since it seemed foolish
to alarm them for no good purpose. A few minutes later the tall,
silent women arrived with our hot water. It seemed curious to have hot
water brought to us in such a place by these very queer kind of
housemaids, but so it was. The Pongo, I may add, were, like the Zulus,
very clean in their persons, though whether they all used hot water, I
cannot say. At any rate, it was provided for us.
Half an hour later they returned with breakfast, consisting chiefly of
a roasted kid, of which, as it was whole, and therefore unmistakable,
we partook thankfully. A little later the Majestic Komba appeared.
After many compliments and inquiries as to our general health, he
asked whether we were ready to start on our visit to the Motombo who,
he added, was expecting us with much eagerness. I inquired how he knew
that, since we had only arranged to call on him late on the previous
night, and I understood that he lived a day's journey away. But Komba
put the matter by with a smile and a wave of his hand.
So in due course off we went, taking with us all our baggage, which
now that it had been lightened by the delivery of the presents, was of
no great weight.
Five minutes' walk along the wide, main street led us to the northern
gate of Rica Town. Here we found the Kalubi himself with an escort of
thirty men armed with spears; I noted that unlike the Mazitu they had
no bows and arrows. He announced in a loud voice that he proposed to
do us the special honour of conducting us to the sanctuary of the Holy
One, by which we understood him to mean the Motombo. When we politely
begged him not to trouble, being in an irritable mood, or assuming it,
he told us rudely to mind our own business. Indeed, I think this
irritability was real enough, which, in the circumstances known to the
reader, was not strange. At any rate, an hour or so later it declared
itself in an act of great cruelty which showed us how absolute was
this man's power in all temporal matters.
Passing through a little clump of bush we came to some gardens
surrounded by a light fence through which a number of cattle of a
small and delicate breed--they were not unlike Jerseys in appearance--
had broken to enjoy themselves by devouring the crops. This garden, it
appeared, belonged to the Kalubi for the time being, who was furious
at the destruction of its produce by the cattle which also belonged to
him.
"Where is the herd?" he shouted.
A hunt began--and presently the poor fellow--he was no more than a
lad, was discovered asleep behind a bush. When he was dragged before
him the Kalubi pointed, first to the cattle, then to the broken fence
and the devastated garden. The lad began to mutter excuses and pray
for mercy.
"Kill him!" said the Kalubi, whereon the herd flung himself to the
ground, and clutching him by the ankles, began to kiss his feet,
crying out that he was afraid to die. The Kalubi tried to kick himself
free, and failing in this, lifted his big spear and made an end of the
poor boy's prayers and life at a single stroke.
The escort clapped their hands in salute or approval, after which four
of them, at a sign, took up the body and started with it at a trot for
Rica Town, where probably that night it appeared upon the grid.
Brother John saw, and his big white beard bristled with indignation
like the hair on the back of an angry cat, while Stephen spluttered
something beginning with "You brute," and lifted his fist as though to
knock the Kalubi down. This, had I not caught hold of him, I have no
doubt he would have done.
"O Kalubi!" gasped Brother John, "do you not know that blood calls for
blood? In the hour of your own death remember this death."
"Would you bewitch me, white man?" said the Kalubi, glaring at him
angrily. "If so----" and once more he lifted the spear, but as John
never stirred, held it poised irresolutely. Komba thrust himself
between them, crying:
"Back, Dogeetah, who dare to meddle with our customs! Is not the
Kalubi Lord of life and death?"
Brother John was about to answer, but I called to him in English:
"For Heaven's sake be silent, unless you want to follow the boy. We
are in these men's power."
Then he remembered and walked away, and presently we marched forward
as though nothing had happened. Only from that moment I do not think
that any of us worried ourselves about the Kalubi and what might
befall him. Still, looking back on the thing, I think that there was
this excuse to be made for the man. He was mad with the fear of death
and knew not what he did.
All that day we travelled on through a rich, flat country that, as we
could tell from various indications, had once been widely cultivated.
Now the fields were few and far between, and bush, for the most part a
kind of bamboo scrub, was reoccupying the land. About midday we halted
by a water-pool to eat and rest, for the sun was hot, and here the
four men who had carried off the boy's body rejoined us and made some
report. Then we went forward once more towards what seemed to be a
curious and precipitous wall of black cliff, beyond which the
volcanic-looking mountain towered in stately grandeur. By three
o'clock we were near enough to this cliff, which ran east and west as
far as the eye could reach, to see a hole in it, apparently where the
road terminated, that appeared to be the mouth of a cave.
The Kalubi came up to us, and in a shy kind of way tried to make
conversation. I think that the sight of this mountain, drawing ever
nearer, vividly recalled his terrors and caused him to desire to
efface the bad impression he knew he had made on us, to whom he looked
for safety. Among other things he told us that the hole we saw was the
door of the House of the Motombo.
I nodded my head, but did not answer, for the presence of this
murderous king made me feel sick. So he went away again, looking at us
in a humble and deprecatory manner.
Nothing further happened until we reached the remarkable wall of rock
that I have mentioned, which I suppose is composed of some very hard
stone that remained when the softer rock in which it lay was
disintegrated by millions of years of weather or washings by the water
of the lake. Or perhaps its substance was thrown out of the bowels of
the volcano when this was active. I am no geologist, and cannot say,
especially as I lacked time to examine the place. At any rate there it
was, and there in it appeared the mouth of a great cave that I presume
was natural, having once formed a kind of drain through which the lake
overflowed when Pongo-land was under water.
We halted, staring dubiously at this darksome hole, which no doubt was
the same that Babemba had explored in his youth. Then the Kalubi gave
an order, and some of the soldiers went to huts that were built near
the mouth of the cave, where I suppose guardians or attendants lived,
though of these we saw nothing. Presently they returned with a number
of lighted torches that were distributed among us. This done, we
plunged, shivering (at least, I shivered), into the gloomy recesses of
that great cavern, the Kalubi going before us with half of our escort,
and Komba following behind us with the remainder.
The floor of the place was made quite smooth, doubtless by the action
of water, as were the walls and roof, so far as we could see them, for
it was very wide and lofty. It did not run straight, but curved about
in the thickness of the cliff. At the first turn the Pongo soldiers
set up a low and eerie chant which they continued during its whole
length, that according to my pacings was something over three hundred
yards. On we wound, the torches making stars of light in the intense
blackness, till at length we rounded a last corner where a great
curtain of woven grass, now drawn, was stretched across the cave. Here
we saw a very strange sight.
On either side of it, near to the walls, burned a large wood fire that
gave light to the place. Also more light flowed into it from its
further mouth that was not more than twenty paces from the fires.
Beyond the mouth was water which seemed to be about two hundred yards
wide, and beyond the water rose the slopes of the mountain that was
covered with huge trees. Moreover, a little bay penetrated into the
cavern, the point of which bay ended between the two fires. Here the
water, which was not more than six or eight feet wide, and shallow,
formed the berthing place of a good-sized canoe that lay there. The
walls of the cavern, from the turn to the point of the tongue of
water, were pierced with four doorways, two on either side, which led,
I presume, to chambers hewn in the rock. At each of these doorways
stood a tall woman clothed in white, who held in her hand a burning
torch. I concluded that these were attendants set there to guide and
welcome us, for after we had passed, they vanished into the chambers.
But this was not all. Set across the little bay of water just above
the canoe that floated there was a wooden platform, eight feet or so
square, on either side of which stood an enormous elephant's tusk,
bigger indeed than any I have seen in all my experience, which tusks
seemed to be black with age. Between the tusks, squatted upon rugs of
some kind of rich fur, was what from its shape and attitude I at first
took to be a huge toad. In truth, it had all the appearance of a very
bloated toad. There was the rough corrugated skin, there the prominent
backbone (for its back was towards us), and there were the thin,
splayed-out legs.
We stared at this strange object for quite a long while, unable to
make it out in that uncertain light, for so long indeed, that I grew
nervous and was about to ask the Kalubi what it might be. As my lips
opened, however, it stirred, and with a slow, groping, circular
movement turned itself towards us very slowly. At length it was round,
and as the head came in view all the Pongo from the Kalubi down ceased
their low, weird chant and flung themselves upon their faces, those
who had torches still holding them up in their right hands.
Oh! what a thing appeared! It was not a toad, but a man that moved
upon all fours. The large, bald head was sunk deep between the
shoulders, either through deformity or from age, for this creature was
undoubtedly very old. Looking at it, I wondered how old, but could
form no answer in my mind. The great, broad face was sunken and
withered, like to leather dried in the sun; the lower lip hung
pendulously upon the prominent and bony jaw. Two yellow, tusk-like
teeth projected one at each corner of the great mouth; all the rest
were gone, and from time to time it licked the white gums with a red-
pointed tongue as a snake might do. But the chief wonder of the Thing
lay in its eyes that were large and round, perhaps because the flesh
had shrunk away from them, which gave them the appearance of being set
in the hollow orbits of a skull. These eyes literally shone like fire;
indeed, at times they seemed positively to blaze, as I have seen a
lion's eyes do in the dark. I confess that the aspect of the creature
terrified and for a while paralysed me; to think that it was human was
awful.
I glanced at the others and saw that they, too, were frightened.
Stephen turned very white. I thought that he was going to be sick
again, as he was after he drank the coffee out of the wrong bowl on
the day we entered Mazitu-land. Brother John stroked his white beard
and muttered some invocation to Heaven to protect him. Hans exclaimed
in his abominable Dutch:
"/Oh! keek, Baas, da is je lelicher oud deel!/" ("Oh! look, Baas,
there is the ugly old devil himself!")
Jerry went flat on his face among the Pongo, muttering that he saw
Death before him. Only Mavovo stood firm; perhaps because as a witch-
doctor of repute he felt that it did not become him to show the white
feather in the presence of an evil spirit.
The toad-like creature on the platform swayed its great head slowly as
a tortoise does, and contemplated us with its flaming eyes. At length
it spoke in a thick, guttural voice, using the tongue that seemed to
be common to this part of Africa and indeed to that branch of the
Bantu people to which the Zulus belong, but, as I thought, with a
foreign accent.
"So /you/ are the white men come back," it said slowly. "Let me
count!" and lifting one skinny hand from the ground, it pointed with
the forefinger and counted. "One. Tall, with a white beard. Yes, that
is right. Two. Short, nimble like a monkey, with hair that wants no
comb; clever, too, like a father of monkeys. Yes, that is right.
Three. Smooth-faced, young and stupid, like a fat baby that laughs at
the sky because he is full of milk, and thinks that the sky is
laughing at him. Yes, that is right. All three of you are just the
same as you used to be. Do you remember, White Beard, how, while we
killed you, you said prayers to One Who sits above the world, and held
up a cross of bone to which a man was tied who wore a cap of thorns?
Do you remember how you kissed the man with the cap of thorns as the
spear went into you? You shake your head--oh! you are a clever liar,
but I will show you that you are a liar, for I have the thing yet,"
and snatching up a horn which lay on the kaross beneath him, he blew.
As the peculiar, wailing note that the horn made died away, a woman
dashed out of one of the doorways that I have described and flung
herself on her knees before him. He muttered something to her and she
dashed back again to re-appear in an instant holding in her hand a
yellow ivory crucifix.
"Here it is, here it is," he said. "Take it, White Beard, and kiss it
once more, perhaps for the last time," and he threw the crucifix to
Brother John, who caught it and stared at it amazed. "And do you
remember, Fat Baby, how we caught you? You fought well, very well, but
we killed you at last, and you were good, very good; we got much
strength from you.
"And do you remember, Father of Monkeys, how you escaped from us by
your cleverness? I wonder where you went to and how you died. I shall
not forget you, for you gave me this," and he pointed to a big white
scar upon his shoulder. "You would have killed me, but the stuff in
that iron tube of yours burned slowly when you held the fire to it, so
that I had time to jump aside and the iron ball did not strike me in
the heart as you meant that it should. Yet, it is still here; oh! yes,
I carry it with me to this day, and now that I have grown thin I can
feel it with my finger."
I listened astonished to this harangue, which if it meant anything,
meant that we had all met before, in Africa at some time when men used
matchlocks that were fired with a fuse--that is to say, about the year
1700, or earlier. Reflection, however, showed me the interpretation of
this nonsense. Obviously this old priest's forefather, or, if one put
him at a hundred and twenty years of age, and I am sure that he was
not a day less, perhaps his father, as a young man, was mixed up with
some of the first Europeans who penetrated to the interior of Africa.
Probably these were Portuguese, of whom one may have been a priest and
the other two an elderly man and his son, or young brother, or
companion. The manner of the deaths of these people and of what
happened to them generally would of course be remembered by the
descendants of the chief or head medicine-man of the tribe.
"Where did we meet, and when, O Motombo?" I asked.
"Not in this land, not in this land, Father of Monkeys," he replied in
his low rumbling voice, "but far, far away towards the west where the
sun sinks in the water; and not in this day, but long, long ago.
Twenty Kalubis have ruled the Pongo since that day; some have ruled
for many years and some have ruled for a few years--that depends upon
the will of my brother, the god yonder," and he chuckled horribly and
jerked his thumb backwards over his shoulder towards the forest on the
mountain. "Yes, twenty have ruled, some for thirty years and none for
less than four."
"Well, you /are/ a large old liar," I thought to myself, for, taking
the average rule of the Kalubis at ten years, this would mean that we
met him two centuries ago at least.
"You were clothed otherwise then," he went on, "and two of you wore
hats of iron on the head, but that of White Beard was shaven. I caused
a picture of you to be beaten by the master-smith upon a plate of
copper. I have it yet."
Again he blew upon his horn; again a woman darted out, to whom he
whispered; again she went to one of the chambers and returned bearing
an object which he cast to us.
We looked at it. It was a copper or bronze plaque, black, apparently
with age, which once had been nailed on something for there were the
holes. It represented a tall man with a long beard and a tonsured head
who held a cross in his hand; and two other men, both short, who wore
round metal caps and were dressed in queer-looking garments and boots
with square toes. These man carried big and heavy matchlocks, and in
the hand of one of them was a smoking fuse. That was all we could make
out of the thing.
"Why did you leave the far country and come to this land, O Motombo?"
I asked.
"Because we were afraid that other white men would follow on your
steps and avenge you. The Kalubi of that day ordered it, though I said
No, who knew that none can escape by flight from what must come when
it must come. So we travelled and travelled till we found this place,
and here we have dwelt from generation to generation. The gods came
with us also; my brother that dwells in the forest came, though we
never saw him on the journey, yet he was here before us. The Holy
Flower came too, and the white Mother of the Flower--she was the wife
of one of you, I know not which."
"Your brother the god?" I said. "If the god is an ape as we have
heard, how can he be the brother of a man?"
"Oh! you white men do not understand, but we black people understand.
In the beginning the ape killed my brother who was Kalubi, and his
spirit entered into the ape, making him as a god, and so he kills
every other Kalubi and their spirits enter also into him. Is it not
so, O Kalubi of to-day, you without a finger?" and he laughed
mockingly.
The Kalubi, who was lying on his stomach, groaned and trembled, but
made no other answer.
"So all has come about as I foresaw," went on the toad-like creature.
"You have returned, as I knew you would, and now we shall learn
whether White Beard yonder spoke true words when he said that his god
would be avenged upon our god. You shall go to be avenged on him if
you can, and then we shall learn. But this time you have none of your
iron tubes which alone we fear. For did not the god declare to us
through me that when the white men came back with an iron tube, then
he, the god, would die, and I, the Motombo, the god's Mouth, would
die, and the Holy Flower would be torn up, and the Mother of the
Flower would pass away, and the people of the Pongo would be dispersed
and become wanderers and slaves? And did he not declare that if the
white men came again without their iron tubes, then certain secret
things would happen--oh! ask them not, in time they shall be known to
you, and the people of the Pongo who were dwindling would again become
fruitful and very great? And that is why we welcome you, white men,
who arise again from the land of ghosts, because through you we, the
Pongo, shall become fruitful and very great."
Of a sudden he ceased his rumbling talk, his head sank back between
his shoulders and he sat silent for a long while, his fierce,
sparkling eyes playing on us as though he would read our very
thoughts. If he succeeded, I hope that mine pleased him. To tell the
truth, I was filled with mixed fear, fury and loathing. Although, of
course, I did not believe a word of all the rubbish he had been
saying, which was akin to much that is evolved by these black-hearted
African wizards, I hated the creature whom I felt to be only half-
human. My whole nature sickened at his aspect and talk. And yet I was
dreadfully afraid of him. I felt as a man might who wakes up to find
himself alone with some peculiarly disgusting Christmas-story kind of
ghost. Moreover I was quite sure that he meant us ill, fearful and
imminent ill. Suddenly he spoke again:
"Who is that little yellow one," he said, "that old one with a face
like a skull," and he pointed to Hans, who had kept as much out of
sight as possible behind Mavovo, "that wizened, snub-nosed one who
might be a child of my brother the god, if ever he had a child? And
why, being so small, does he need so large a staff?" Here he pointed
again to Hans's big bamboo stick. "I think he is as full of guile as a
new-filled gourd with water. The big black one," and he looked at
Mavovo, "I do not fear, for his magic is less than my magic," (he
seemed to recognise a brother doctor in Mavovo) "but the little yellow
one with the big stick and the pack upon his back, I fear him. I think
he should be killed."
He paused and we trembled, for if he chose to kill the poor Hottentot,
how could we prevent him? But Hans, who saw the great danger, called
his cunning to his aid.
"O Motombo," he squeaked, "you must not kill me for I am the servant
of an ambassador. You know well that all the gods of every land hate
and will be revenged upon those who touch ambassadors or their
servants, whom they, the gods, alone may harm. If you kill me I shall
haunt you. Yes, I shall sit on your shoulder at night and jibber into
your ear so that you cannot sleep, until you die. For though you are
old you must die at last, Motombo."
"It is true," said the Motombo. "Did I not tell you that he was full
of cunning? All the gods will be avenged upon those who kill
ambassadors or their servants. That"--here he laughed again in his
dreadful way--"is the rights of the gods alone. Let the gods of the
Pongo settle it."
I uttered a sigh of relief, and he went on in a new voice, a dull,
business-like voice if I may so describe it:
"Say, O Kalubi, on what matter have you brought these white men to
speak with me, the Mouth of the god? Did I dream that it was a matter
of a treaty with the King of the Mazitu? Rise and speak."
So the Kalubi rose and with a humble air set out briefly and clearly
the reason of our visit to Pongo-land as the envoys of Bausi and the
heads of the treaty that had been arranged subject to the approval of
the Motombo and Bausi. We noted that the affair did not seem to
interest the Motombo at all. Indeed, he appeared to go to sleep while
the speech was being delivered, perhaps because he was exhausted with
the invention of his outrageous falsehoods, or perhaps for other
reasons. When it was finished he opened his eyes and pointed to Komba,
saying:
"Arise, Kalubi-that-is-to-be."
So Komba rose, and in his cold, precise voice narrated his share in
the transaction, telling how he had visited Bausi, and all that had
happened in connection with the embassy. Again the Motombo appeared to
go to sleep, only opening his eyes once as Komba described how we had
been searched for firearms, whereon he nodded his great head in
approval and licked his lips with his thin red tongue. When Komba had
done, he said:
"The gods tell me that the plan is wise and good, since without new
blood the people of the Pongo will die, but of the end of the matter
the god knows alone, if even he can read the future."
He paused, then asked sharply:
"Have you anything more to say, O Kalubi-that-is-to-be? Now of a
sudden the god puts it into my mouth to ask if you have anything more
to say?"
"Something, O Motombo. Many moons ago the god bit /off/ the finger of
our High Lord, the Kalubi. The Kalubi, having heard that a white man
skilled in medicine who could cut off limbs with knives, was in the
country of the Mazitu and camped on the borders of the great lake,
took a canoe and rowed to where the white man was camped, he with the
beard, who is named Dogeetah, and who stands before you. I followed
him in another canoe, because I wished to know what he was doing, also
to see a white man. I hid my canoe and those who went with me in the
reeds far from the Kalubi's canoe. I waded through the shallow water
and concealed myself in some thick reeds quite near to the white man's
linen house. I saw the white man cut off the Kalubi's finger and I
heard the Kalubi pray the white man to come to our country with the
iron tubes that smoke, and to kill the god of whom he was afraid."
Now from all the company went up a great gasp, and the Kalubi fell
down upon his face again, and lay still. Only the Motombo seemed to
show no surprise, perhaps because he already knew the story.
"Is that all?" he asked.
"No, O Mouth of the god. Last night, after the council of which you
have heard, the Kalubi wrapped himself up like a corpse and visited
the white men in their hut. I thought that he would do so, and had
made ready. With a sharp spear I bored a hole in the wall of the hut,
working from outside the fence. Then I thrust a reed through from the
fence across the passage between the fence and the wall, and through
the hole in the hut, and setting my ear to the end of the reed, I
listened."
"Oh! clever, clever!" muttered Hans in involuntary admiration, "and to
think that I looked and looked too low, beneath the reed. Oh! Hans,
though you are old, you have much to learn."
"Among much else I heard this," went on Komba in sentences so clear
and cold that they reminded me of the tinkle of falling ice, "which I
think is enough, though I can tell you the rest if you wish, O Mouth.
I heard," he said, in the midst of a silence that was positively
awful, "our lord, the Kalubi, whose name is Child of the god, agree
with the white men that they should kill the god--how I do not know,
for it was not said--and that in return they should receive the
persons of the Mother of the Holy Flower and of her daughter, the
Mother-that-is-to-be, and should dig up the Holy Flower itself by the
roots and take it away across the water, together with the Mother and
the Mother-that-is-to-be. That is all, O Motombo."
Still in the midst of an intense silence, the Motombo glared at the
prostrate figure of the Kalubi. For a long while he glared. Then the
silence was broken, for the wretched Kalubi sprang from the floor,
seized a spear and tried to kill himself. Before the blade touched him
it was snatched from his hand, so that he remained standing, but
weaponless.
Again there was silence and again it was broken, this time by the
Motombo, who rose from his seat before which he stood, a huge, bloated
object, and roared aloud in his rage. Yes, he roared like a wounded
buffalo. Never would I have believed that such a vast volume of sound
could have proceeded from the lungs of a single aged man. For fully a
minute his furious bellowings echoed down that great cave, while all
the Pongo soldiers, rising from their recumbent position, pointed
their hands, in some of which torches still burned, at the miserable
Kalubi on whom their wrath seemed to be concentrated, rather than on
us, and hissed like snakes.
Really it might have been a scene in hell with the Motombo playing the
part of Satan. Indeed, his swollen, diabolical figure supported on the
thin, toad-like legs, the great fires burning on either side, the
lurid lights of evening reflected from the still water beyond and
glowering among the tree tops of the mountain, the white-robed forms
of the tall Pongo, bending, every one of them, towards the wretched
culprit and hissing like so many fierce serpents, all suggested some
uttermost deep in the infernal regions as one might conceive them in a
nightmare.
It went on for some time, I don't know how long, till at length the
Motombo picked up his fantastically shaped horn and blew. Thereon the
women darted from the various doorways, but seeing that they were not
wanted, checked themselves in their stride and remained standing so,
in the very attitude of runners about to start upon a race. As the
blast of the horn died away the turmoil was suddenly succeeded by an
utter stillness, broken only by the crackling of the fires whose
flames, of all the living things in that place, alone seemed heedless
of the tragedy which was being played.
"All up now, old fellow!" whispered Stephen to me in a shaky voice.
"Yes," I answered, "all up high as heaven, where I hope we are going.
Now back to back, and let's make the best fight we can. We've got the
spears."
While we were closing in the Motombo began to speak.
"So you plotted to kill the god, Kalubi-who-/was/," he screamed, "with
these white ones whom you would pay with the Holy Flower and her who
guards it. Good! You shall go, all of you, and talk with the god. And
I, watching here, will learn who dies--you or the god. Away with
them!"
Content of CHAPTER XV - THE MOTOMBO [H. Rider Haggard's novel: Allan and the Holy Flower]
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