The Great White Queen: A Tale of Treasure and Treason

For three hours we remained in the tent, sheltered from the sun's glaring heat, while parties of a dozen of our followers continued to arrive. It was Omar's intention to enter the capital with the whole of our faithful band, otherwise he would have started immediately we had gained the summit. Babila urged him to do so, but he expressed a desire that Kona and his heroic blacks should accompany us.

At last the whole of the party had gained the top of the rock and had refreshed themselves after their toil and peril; the rope ladder with its hidden electric wires had been hauled up, and, headed by men blowing loud blasts upon great horns of ivory and gold, we all moved forward, a most imposing and magnificent cavalcade.

Both Omar and myself had been mounted on fine milk-white horses with gay trappings of silver and royal blue, while behind us came Kona with a very unsteady seat upon a long raw-boned stallion. He was evidently not used to horses, and the way he clutched at the mane each time his animal trotted convulsed both his men and the soldiers in the vicinity with laughter.

A shady march of two days in a north-westerly direction up the bank of a babbling stream brought us to higher land. The journey was uneventful, the country being devoid of both game and people. We saw old traces of habitation, it is true, but the people seemed to have been driven away or killed, leaving only the empty stone-built houses. From the hill on the side of which we pitched our camp a marvellous view was obtainable. To the north a black forest extended as far as the eye could reach, broken only by three small hills that served as landmarks. To the west rolled some giant snow-capped mountains, while the range whereon we stood was a low, stone-covered stretch of round-topped hills, flanked by thick mimosa jungle and filled with rhinoceros. Wherever we went, we found traces of them, their feeding ground being apparently restricted to a very small area. Never having been hunted, they probably found no reason to leave such excellent pasture, and it was little wonder that Kona and his men were anxious to remain behind and commit havoc amongst them.

On the third day we encamped near a most extraordinary place. It was a small valley about thirty-five feet below the surrounding ground, looking like the dry bed of a stream, and was about a mile in circumference.

"Come, I want to show you Zomara's Wrath," Omar said, and dismounting we went together towards it, notwithstanding the loud cries of warning that arose on every side. A dog—a lean, hungry, strange-looking brute, who accompanied the troops—bounded after us, and as we approached the place I noticed a suffocating smell, and was attacked by nausea and giddiness. A belt of this fœtid atmosphere surrounded the valley. We, however, passed through it, and in purer air, with hands still over my nose and mouth, was permitted to view the awful spectacle—for it was awful.

The entire bed of the valley seemed like one solid rock, but scattered over the barren floor were skeletons of men, wild hogs, deer, rhinoceros, lions, and all kinds of birds and smaller animals. I could discover no hole or crevice in any place whence the poisonous fumes were emitted. I was anxious to reach the bottom of the valley, if possible, but my suggestion was at once negatived by my companion, who said:

"To go further is certain death. Come, let us return quickly, or we may be overpowered. This is one of the natural wonders of our land."

I determined, however, to see what the fumes smelled like, and, greatly to Omar's horror, started to descend. The dog was with me, and as soon as he saw me step over the side of the bank he rushed down ahead of me.

I endeavoured to call him back, but too late. As soon as the animal reached the rocky bed below he fell upon his side.

He continued to breathe a few moments only, then expired.

CHAPTER XIX

THE CITY IN THE CLOUDS

"There is a strange story connected with this place known to us as Zomara's Wrath," Omar said, when together we turned away and mounted our horses to ride back to the camp.

"Relate it to me," I urged eagerly.

"To-night. After we have eaten at sundown I will tell you about it," he answered, and spurring our horses we galloped quickly forward.

When we had eaten that evening and were seated aside together, I reminded him of his promise.

"It is a story of my ancestors, and it occurred more than a thousand years ago," he said. "Ruler of the great kingdom of Mo, King Lobenba had no children. The three queens observed fasts, kept vows, made offerings to the fetish, all to no effect. By a lucky chance a great hermit made his appearance in our capital. The King and queens received the visitor at the palace, and treated him with the most generous and sincere hospitality. The guest was very pleased; by a prompting of the fetish he knew what they wanted, and gave them three peppercorns, one for each queen. In due time three sons were born, Karmos, Matrugna, and Fausalya, who when they reached a suitable age married by the ceremony of 'choice,' daughters of a branch of the royal family. When the brides arrived at their husbands' family and were disciplined in their wifely duties, King Lobenba, who was growing old, thought the time had arrived for him to make over the royal burden to younger shoulders, and to adopt a hermit's life preliminary to death. So in consultation with the royal fetish-man, a day was appointed for the coronation of Prince Karmos, who had married a beautiful girl named Naya. But the fates had willed it otherwise. Long before the children were born, when King Lobenba, in his younger days, was subduing a revolt in this region where we now are he once fell from his chariot while aiming an arrow, and got his arm crushed under the wheel. The three queens had accompanied their royal husband to the battlefield to soften for him the hardships of his camp life, and during the long illness that followed the wound, Queen Zulnam, who afterwards became mother of Fausalya, nursed him with all the devotion of a wife's first young love. 'Ask me anything and thou shalt have it,' said the monarch during his convalescence. 'I have to ask only two favours, my lord,' she answered. 'I grant them beforehand. Name them,' he cried. But she said she wished for nothing at that time, but would make her request in due course. She waited twenty years. Then she repaired to her husband on the morning of Karmos' coronation and boldly requested that the prince should absent himself for fourteen years, and that her son Fausalya should be crowned instead."

"She was artful," I observed, laughing.

"Yes," he went on. "The words fell like a thunder-bolt upon the king, the light faded from his eyes and he fainted. Nevertheless, Zulnam's wish was granted, and Karmos' departure was heartrending. To soften the austerities of forest life, Prince Matrugna tore himself from his newly-married bride to accompany Karmos. But the hardest was to be the latter's wrench from his devoted Naya. The change from a most exuberant girlish gaiety to quivering grief, and the offer of the delicately-nurtured wife to share with her lord the severities of an exile's life are often told by every wise man in Mo. Fourteen long years Karmos spent in exile with his beautiful wife as companion, until at last they were free to return. The home-coming was one long triumph. The people were mad with delight to welcome their hero Karmos and their beloved Naya. Karmos was crowned, and then began that government whose morality and justice and love and purity have passed into the proverbs of my race. There was, however, one blemish upon it. Poor Naya's evil genius had not yet exhausted his malevolence. A rumour was spread by evil tongues that she was plotting to possess the crown, and Karmos, sacrificing the husband's love, the father's joy, to his kingly duty, while standing on that spot we have visited to-day—then his summer palace surrounded by lovely gardens—pronounced sentence of exile upon her. But in an instant, swift as the lightning from above, the terrible curse of Zomara fell upon him, striking him dead, his magnificent palace was swept away and swallowed up by a mighty earthquake, and from the barren hole, once the fairest spot in the land, there have ever since belched forth fumes that poison every living thing. It is Zomara's Wrath."

"And what became of Naya, the queen?" I asked, struck with the remarkable story that seemed more than a mere legend.

"She reigned in his stead," he answered. "Whenever we speak of the Nayas we sum up all that is noble and mighty and queenly in government, its tact, its talent, its love and its beneficence, for every queen who has since sat on the Great Emerald Throne of Mo has been named after her, and I am her lineal descendant, the last of her line."

That night we rested on soft cushions spread for us in our tent, and marching again early next morning, spent the two following days in crossing a great swamp, which, rather than a miasmatic death-hole, was a naturalist's paradise. As our horses trod the soft, spongy ground, a majestic canopy of stately cypress, mangrove and maple trees protected us from the burning sun, and the sweet-scented flowers of the magnolias, azaleas and wild grapes added fragrance and beauty to the scene. Flies, snakes and frogs were very numerous, but gave us little trouble, nevertheless, I was not sorry when at dawn on the third day after passing the strange natural phenomenon we saw across the level pasture-like plain, high up, spectral and half hidden in the grey haze, the gigantic walls and high embattlements of the mysterious city.

"Lo!" cried Omar, who was riding at my side. "See! At last we are within sight of the goal towards which we have so long striven. Yonder is Mo, sometimes called the City in the Clouds!"

"But for your courage we must have failed long ago," I observed, my eyes turned to where the horizon closed the long perspective of the sky. Away there was the sweetest light. Elsewhere colour marred the simplicity of light; but there colour was effaced, not as men efface it, by a blur or darkness, but by mere light. And against it rose, high and faintly outlined, the defences of the great unknown city standing on the summit of what appeared to be a gigantic rock. "Magnificent!" I exclaimed, entranced by the view. "Superb!"

"It is, as you see, built high upon the rock known as the Throne of the Naya," Omar explained. "Although founded a thousand years ago by the good queen about whom I told you, no stranger has ever yet set foot within its gates. From time to time our monarchs have sent their trusty agents among civilized nations, gathered from them their inventions, and introduced to us the results of their progress. Isolated as we are from the world, we are nevertheless enlightened, as you will shortly see."

I was prompted to make some observation regarding his paganism, but held my peace, knowing that any reference to it wounded his susceptibilities. In everything except his belief in the fetish and his trust in the justice of the Crocodile-god, he was my equal; and I knew that, on more than one occasion, he had been ashamed to practise his savage rites in my presence. Therefore I hesitated, and, as we rode along, the outline of the great city, perched high upon the rock, growing every moment more formidable and distinct, I listened to the many interesting facts he related.

Kona, who followed us, listened with strained ears, and our Dagombas were one and all laughing and keeping up a Babel-like chatter that showed the intense excitement caused among them by the sight of the mysterious capital of the Great White Queen.

We had struck a broad well-made road, and now, as with hastening steps we approached it, we could distinguish quite plainly the inaccessible character of the high rock that rose abruptly a thousand feet above the plain crowned by the frowning walls of immense thickness that enclosed the place. Beyond, rose many lofty towers and several gilded domes which, Omar told me, were the audience-halls of the great palace, and immediately before us we could see in the walls, flanked on either side by great strong watch-towers, a closed gate.

From where we stood we could distinguish no means of approach to the impregnable fortress, but on coming at last to the base of the rock we found a long flight of narrow steps mounting zig-zag up its dark, moss-grown face. When the cavalcade halted before them our trumpeters blew thrice shrill blasts upon their big ivory horns, and like magic the ponderous iron gate far above instantly swung open, and the walls literally swarmed with men, whose bright arms glittered in the sun. Above, where all had been silent a moment before, everything was now bustle and excitement as Babila sprang from his horse and commenced to mount the long flight of steps, followed by myself and my companion.

So steep were these stairs cut in the rock that an iron chain had been placed beside them by which to steady one's-self.

"Are there again a thousand steps?" I asked Omar.

"Yes," he said. "Naya, wife of Karmos, had them cut under her personal supervision. There are exactly a thousand—the number of generations which, she declared, should flourish and die ere Mo be conquered."

Then without further words we eagerly continued our upward climb to the mystic City in the Clouds.

CHAPTER XX

THE GREAT WHITE QUEEN

Gaining the summit and entering the ponderous gate closely behind old Babila, I was amazed at the bewildering aspect of the gigantic city. As Omar placed his foot upon the top step, great drums, ornamented by golden bats with outspread wings, were thumped by a perspiring line of drummers, horns were blown with ear-piercing vehemence, and the huge guns mounted on the walls thundered forth a deafening salute.

Then, as we walked forward along the way kept clear for us through the enormous crowd of curious citizens, Babila at last met the tall, patriarchal-looking man in command of the city-gate.

"Lo!" he cried. "With our Prince Omar there returneth a retinue of strangers. This one," indicating myself, "is from the land of the white men that lieth beyond the great black water. The others are from the borders of Prempeh's kingdom."

"Art thou certain there are no spies among them?" asked the man, glancing at me keenly in suspicion.

"I, Omar, Prince of Mo, vouch for each man's honesty," exclaimed my friend, interrupting. At these words the chief guardian of the gate bowed until his long white beard swept the ground, and we passed on, followed by Kona and our black companions, in whom the denizens of the mysterious place seemed highly interested, never before having seen negro savages.

Now and then as we passed along voices raised in dissension that strangers should be admitted to the inaccessible kingdom reached our ears, but these were drowned by the wild plaudits of the crowd. On every hand Omar was greeted with an enthusiasm befitting the heir to the Emerald Throne, and he, in response, bowed his head from side to side, as with royal gait he strode down the broad handsome thoroughfare. The buildings on either hand were magnificent in their proportions, built of enormous blocks of grey stone finely sculptured, with square ornamented windows. Apparently the manufacture of glass was unknown, for all the windows were uniformly latticed. Here and there through the open doors we caught sight of cool courtyards, with trees and plashing fountains beyond, while from the flat roofs that here seemed to be the principal promenade of the ladies, as in Eastern lands, white hands and bejewelled arms waved us dainty welcome.

Across a great market square, where slaves were being bought and sold, and business was proceeding uninterruptedly, we passed, and as we glanced at the unfortunate ones huddled up in the scanty shadow, we remembered the day when we, too, had been sold by our bitter and well-hated enemy, Samory. I smiled as I reflected what terrible revenge this great army of the Naya could wreak upon the Arab chief, and found myself anticipating the day when the soldiery of Mo should gather before the old villain's stronghold.

Kona, who had come up beside me, walked on in silent amazement. He knew nothing of civilization, and the sights he now witnessed held him dumb. The African mind is slow to understand the benefits of civilization and modern progress, unless it be the substitution of guns for bows and bullets for arrows. At last we turned a corner suddenly, and saw before us, rising against the intensely blue sky and flashing in the brilliant sunlight, the three great gilded domes of the royal palace.

"Gold!" cried Kona, in an awed tone. "See!" and he turned to several of his sable brethren. "See! they build their great huts of solid gold! What treasure they must have!"

As we advanced in imposing procession, the great gate of this royal residence, grim and frowning as a fortress, over which a large flag was floating, bearing the sign of the vampire bat, opened wide, and, unchallenged by the crowds of gaily-dressed soldiers drawn up in line and saluting, we went forward amid vociferous cheering.

Ours was indeed a progress full of triumph and enthusiasm. The heir to the throne, long since mourned for as lost, had returned, and the loyal people were filled with great rejoicing. Through one spacious courtyard after another we passed, always between long lines of stalwart men-at-arms, bearing good English rifles and well-made accoutrements, until, ascending a short flight of wide steps of polished black stone, we found ourselves in a great hall beneath one of the gilded domes that had so impressed our head-man. Before us was a huge curtain of purple velvet that screened from view the further end of the hall, but when all had assembled and stood grouped together, this drapery was suddenly lifted, disclosing to our gaze a sight that filled us with greatest wonder and amazement.

The central object was the historic Emerald Throne, a wonderful golden seat so thickly encrusted with beautiful green gems as to appear entirely constructed of them. Some of the stones were of enormous size, beautifully cut, of amazing brilliance and fabulous value. Above, was suspended a golden representation of a crocodile—the god Zomara. Lolling lazily among the pink silk cushions was a woman, tall, thin-faced and ascetic, with a complexion white as my own, high cheek bones, small black, brilliant eyes, and hair plentifully tinged with grey. Her personality was altogether a striking one, for her brow was low, her face hawk-like, and her long, bony hands resting on the arms of the seat of royalty seemed like the talons of the bird to which her face bore resemblance.

It was the Naya, the dreaded Great White Queen!

Her robes of rich brocaded silk were of a brilliant golden yellow, heavily embroidered with gold thread, and thickly studded with various jewels. In the bright flood of sunlight that struck full upon her from the painted dome above, the diamonds and rubies enriching her handsome corsage gleamed and flashed white, green and blood-red. Indeed, so covered was her breast by the fiery gems that as it heaved and fell their flashing dazzled us; yet in her eyes was a cruel, crafty gleam that from the first moment I saw her roused instinctively within me fear and suspicion.