The Way of the Spirit (1906) by H. Rider Haggard

Author:H. Rider Haggard [Haggard, H. Rider]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Delphi Main Series
Publisher: Delphi Classics
Published: 2020-12-20T15:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XIV

MEA MAKES A PROPOSAL

THAT SIGHT OF the corpses of his tormentors hanging to the thorn trees was the last that Rupert was destined to see for many a day. Indeed for weeks, so far as any subsequent memory was concerned, he remained quite unconscious. Unconscious they bore him in a litter across the desert to the Black Pass of the further mountains where no white man had set foot, and on through the heart of them to the hidden oasis around which they stood like sentinels. Here placed by the waters, beneath the shade of palms and near to the towering pylons of the ruined temple, stood the town, Tama, over which by right of descent the lady Mea held her rule. It was not a large town, for the tribe was small, not numbering more than four hundred men who could bear arms for, proud of their ancient blood and hating strangers, they would intermarry with no other folk, and therefore the old race dwindled. But the land was very rich, and the houses were well built and stored, since being so few in number there was little poverty among the children of Tama.

Mea brought Rupert to her own home, which was large, comfortable and built of stone taken from the ruined temple; surrounded also by gardens. Here she and Bakhita nursed him as a man has seldom been nursed before. There were doctors in the tribe who, as is sometimes the case among African natives, had a certain rude knowledge of surgery.

These men drew the seared flesh over his severed bone so that in this pure air, and kept clean with astringent ointment, it healed without mortifying or other complications. They doctored his head also, but in such matters their skill was little, nor could anything they were able to do prevent the inflammation from spreading to the other eye. This passed in time, but its sight was affected so much that when at length Rupert woke up from his wanderings, he thought that it must be night-time, for dense darkness hung before him like a veil.

For a long while he could not remember or guess where he was, but by degrees recollection returned, only he thought it must be that left by a nightmare.

It was Mea’s voice which in the end opened the closed doors of his understanding. She had seen the change in Rupert’s face and trembled with hope, believing that at last his reason had come back to him. For a while she watched him as he groped about aimlessly with his hands until she learnt that as they had feared, he was blind. At length, able to bear the suspense no more, she spoke to him in her quaint English.

“You sleep very long, Rupert Bey. Now you awake, yes?”

He turned his head, listening intently, then said:

“Is that not Mea’s voice, the lady Mea who poured a libation to the gods at Abu-Simbel?”

“Yes, yes,” she answered eagerly, “of course. No one else have voice like Mea.

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