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Updated: May 29, 2025
It is a true tale, though hitherto I have hid it from you and your father, Mavoom, lest Mavoom should seek to win the precious stones and come to his death through them.
The march was not a long one, however, for presently the men heard an oath and a crash, and their master vanished; nor could they find him till the dawn came to give them light. Then they discovered that they had halted upon the edge of a small but precipitous cliff, and at the bottom of the donga beneath lay Mavoom not dead, indeed, but senseless, and with three ribs and his right ankle broken.
"Who called me by my old name?" he said hoarsely. "Nay, I dream, Peter is dead." "Peter," said the woman again, "awake, child of Mavoom; it is I, Soa, who am come to save you." The man cried aloud and began to tremble, but the other slaves took no notice, thinking only that he had been smitten with a scourge. "Be silent," said Soa again, "or we are lost.
But it isn't gold, it is rubies. At any rate we must make for the Settlement below Sena, to take these men back and see if we can hear anything of Mavoom." "So," said Otter after a pause. "Well, the Shepherdess, as these Settlement people call her, will want to find her father. Say, Baas, she is proud, is she not? She looks over our heads and speaks little." "Yes, Otter, she is proud."
You saved my mistress, Mavoom her father died, and the time came when I must fulfil my promise. For my own part I would not have fulfilled it, for I only made it that promise hoping to deceive you. But my mistress yonder refused to listen to me. "'No, she said, 'that which you have sworn on my behalf and your own must be carried out.
Leonard's scheme was to walk towards the water-gate, but, if no better plan of reaching it should offer, to turn suddenly and run for the drawbridge, where Soa and the others would be waiting, and thence, with or without the people of Mavoom, to escape up the banks of the Zambesi.
But as to the rescue of this Shepherdess from the Nest of the Yellow Devil, I do not know how it can be brought about. Say, mother, how many of the men of Mavoom were taken prisoners with your mistress?" "Fifty of them perchance," answered Soa. "Well now," went on the dwarf, "if we could loose those men and if they are brave we might do something, but there are many if's about it, Baas.
No, they would do nothing except weep over their dead and the burnt kraals. 'You cowards, I said, 'if you will not come, then I must go alone. At the least let some of you pass up the river and search for Mavoom, to tell him what has chanced here in his house. "The men said that they would do this, and taking a blanket and a little food, I followed upon the track of the slave-drivers.
"Mavoom left, and twelve days went by while I and my mistress the Shepherdess sat at the Settlement waiting till he returned. Now it is the custom of my mistress, when she is dressed, to read each morning from a certain holy book in which are written the laws of that Great-Great whom she worships.
Oh! my Lord, I seem poor and wretched; but I tell you that if you can deliver her you shall win a great reward. Yes, I will reveal to you that which I have kept hidden all my life, ay, even from Mavoom my master; I will reveal to you the secret treasures of my people, 'The Children of the Mist."
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