Chapter VII. Captain Arcoll Tells a Tale

Prester John

by John Buchan

It froze in the night, harder than was common on the Berg even in
winter, and as I crossed the road next morning it was covered with
rime. All my fears had gone, and my mind was strung high with
expectation. Five pencilled words may seem a small thing to build
hope on, but it was enough for me, and I went about my work in the
store with a reasonably light heart. One of the first things I did
was to take stock of our armoury. There were five sporting Mausers
of a cheap make, one Mauser pistol, a Lee-Speed carbine, and a little
nickel- plated revolver. There was also Japp's shot-gun, an old
hammered breech-loader, as well as the gun I had brought out with me.
There was a good supply of cartridges, including a stock for a .400
express which could not be found. I pocketed the revolver, and
searched till I discovered a good sheath-knife. If fighting was in
prospect I might as well look to my arms.

All the morning I sat among flour and sugar possessing my soul
in as much patience as I could command. Nothing came down the white
road from the west. The sun melted the rime; the flies came out and
buzzed in the window; Japp got himself out of bed, brewed strong
coffee, and went back to his slumbers. Presently it was dinner-time,
and I went over to a silent meal with Wardlaw. When I returned I
must have fallen asleep over a pipe, for the next thing I knew I was
blinking drowsily at the patch of sun in the door, and listening for
footsteps. In the dead stillness of the afternoon I thought I could
discern a shuffling in the dust. I got up and looked out, and there,
sure enough, was some one coming down the road.

But it was only a Kaffir, and a miserable-looking object at
that. I had never seen such an anatomy. It was a very old man, bent
almost double, and clad in a ragged shirt and a pair of foul khaki
trousers. He carried an iron pot, and a few belongings were tied up
in a dirty handkerchief. He must have been a dacha* smoker, for he
coughed hideously, twisting his body with the paroxysms. I had seen
the type before - the old broken-down native who had no kin to
support him, and no tribe to shelter him. They wander about the
roads, cooking their wretched meals by their little fires, till one
morning they are found stiff under a bush.

*Hemp.

The native gave me a good-day in Kaffir, then begged for tobacco
or a handful of mealie-meal.

I asked him where he came from.

'From the west, Inkoos,' he said, 'and before that from the
south. It is a sore road for old bones.'

I went into the store to fetch some meal, and when I came out he
had shuffled close to the door. He had kept his eyes on the ground,
but now he looked up at me, and I thought he had very bright eyes for
such an old wreck.

'The nights are cold, Inkoos,' he wailed, 'and my folk are
scattered, and I have no kraal. The aasvogels follow me, and I can
hear the blesbok.' 'What about the blesbok?' I asked with a start.

'The blesbok are changing ground,' he said, and looked me
straight in the face.

'And where are the hunters?' I asked. 'They are here and behind
me,' he said in English, holding out his pot for my meal, while he
began to edge into the middle of the road.

I followed, and, speaking English, asked him if he knew of a man
named Colles.

'I come from him, young Baas. Where is your house? Ah, the
school. There will be a way in by the back window? See that it is
open, for I'll be there shortly.' Then lifting up his voice he
called down in Sesuto all manner of blessings on me for my kindness,
and went shuffling down the sunlit road, coughing like a volcano.

In high excitement I locked up the store and went over to Mr
Wardlaw. No children had come to school that day, and he was sitting
idle, playing patience. 'Lock the door,' I said, 'and come into my
room. We're on the brink of explanations.'

In about twenty minutes the bush below the back-window parted
and the Kaffir slipped out. He grinned at me, and after a glance
round, hopped very nimbly over the sill. Then he examined the window
and pulled the curtains.

'Is the outer door shut?' he asked in excellent English. 'Well,
get me some hot water, and any spare clothes you may possess, Mr
Crawfurd. I must get comfortable before we begin our indaba.* We've
the night before us, so there's plenty of time. But get the house
clear, and see that nobody disturbs me at my toilet. I am a modest
man, and sensitive about my looks.'

*Council.

I brought him what he wanted, and looked on at an amazing
transformation. Taking a phial from his bundle, he rubbed some
liquid on his face and neck and hands, and got rid of the black
colouring. His body and legs he left untouched, save that he covered
them with shirt and trousers from my wardrobe. Then he pulled off a
scaly wig, and showed beneath it a head of close-cropped grizzled
hair. In ten minutes the old Kaffir had been transformed into an
active soldierly-looking man of maybe fifty years. Mr Wardlaw stared
as if he had seen a resurrection.

'I had better introduce myself,' he said, when he had taken the
edge off his thirst and hunger. 'My name is Arcoll, Captain James
Arcoll. I am speaking to Mr Crawfurd, the storekeeper, and Mr
Wardlaw, the schoolmaster, of Blaauwildebeestefontein. Where, by the
way, is Mr Peter Japp? Drunk? Ah, yes, it was always his failing.
The quorum, however, is complete without him.'

By this time it was about sunset, and I remember I cocked my ear
to hear the drums beat. Captain Arcoll noticed the movement as he
noticed all else. 'You're listening for the drums, but you won't hear
them. That business is over here. To-night they beat in Swaziland
and down into the Tonga border. Three days more, unless you and I,
Mr Crawfurd, are extra smart, and they'll be hearing them in
Durban.'

It was not till the lamp was lit, the fire burning well, and the
house locked and shuttered, that Captain Arcoll began his tale.

'First,' he said, 'let me hear what you know. Colles told me
that you were a keen fellow, and had wind of some mystery here. You
wrote him about the way you were spied on, but I told him to take no
notice. Your affair, Mr Crawfurd, had to wait on more urgent
matters. Now, what do you think is happening?' I spoke very shortly,
weighing my words, for I felt I was on trial before these bright
eyes. 'I think that some kind of native rising is about to
commence.'

'Ay,' he said dryly, 'you would, and your evidence would be the
spying and drumming. Anything more?'

'I have come on the tracks of a lot of I.D.B. work in the
neighbourhood. The natives have some supply of diamonds, which they
sell bit by bit, and I don't doubt but they have been getting guns
with the proceeds.'

He nodded, 'Have you any notion who has been engaged in the
job?'

I had it on my tongue to mention Japp, but forbore, remembering
my promise. 'I can name one,' I said, 'a little yellow Portugoose,
who calls himself Henriques or Hendricks. He passed by here the day
before yesterday.'

Captain Arcoll suddenly was consumed with quiet laughter. 'Did
you notice the Kaffir who rode with him and carried his saddlebags?
Well, he's one of my men. Henriques would have a fit if he knew what
was in those saddlebags. They contain my change of clothes, and
other odds and ends. Henriques' own stuff is in a hole in the
spruit. A handy way of getting one's luggage sent on, eh? The bags
are waiting for me at a place I appointed.' And again Captain Arcoll
indulged his sense of humour. Then he became grave, and returned to
his examination. 'A rising, with diamonds as the sinews of war, and
Henriques as the chief agent. Well and good! But who is to lead,
and what are the natives going to rise about?'

'I know nothing further, but I have made some guesses.'

'Let's hear your guesses,' he said, blowing smoke rings from his
pipe. 'I think the main mover is a great black minister who calls
himself John Laputa.'

Captain Arcoll nearly sprang out of his chair. 'Now, how on
earth did you find that out? Quick, Mr Crawfurd, tell me all you
know, for this is desperately important.'

I began at the beginning, and told him the story of what
happened on the Kirkcaple shore. Then I spoke of my sight of him on
board ship, his talk with Henriques about Blaauwildebeestefontein,
and his hurried departure from Durban.

Captain Arcoll listened intently, and at the mention of Durban
he laughed. 'You and I seem to have been running on lines which
nearly touched. I thought I had grabbed my friend Laputa that night
in Durban, but I was too cocksure and he slipped off. Do you know,
Mr Crawfurd, you have been on the right trail long before me? When
did you say you saw him at his devil-worship? Seven years ago? Then
you were the first man alive to know the Reverend John in his true
colours. You knew seven years ago what I only found out last
year.'

'Well, that's my story,' I said. 'I don't know what the rising
is about, but there's one other thing I can tell you. There's some
kind of sacred place for the Kaffirs, and I've found out where it
is.' I gave him a short account of my adventures in the Rooirand.

He smoked silently for a bit after I had finished. 'You've got
the skeleton of the whole thing right, and you only want the filling
up. And you found out everything for yourself? Colles was right;
you're not wanting in intelligence, Mr Crawfurd.'

It was not much of a compliment, but I have never been more
pleased in my life. This slim, grizzled man, with his wrinkled face
and bright eyes, was clearly not lavish in his praise. I felt it was
no small thing to have earned a word of commendation.

'And now I will tell you my story,' said Captain Arcoll. 'It is
a long story, and I must begin far back. It has taken me years to
decipher it, and, remember, I've been all my life at this native
business. I can talk every dialect, and I have the customs of every
tribe by heart. I've travelled over every mile of South Africa, and
Central and East Africa too. I was in both the Matabele wars, and
I've seen a heap of other fighting which never got into the papers.
So what I tell you you can take as gospel, for it is knowledge that
was not learned in a day.'

He puffed away, and then asked suddenly, 'Did you ever hear of
Prester John?'

'The man that lived in Central Asia?' I asked, with a
reminiscence of a story-book I had as a boy. 'No, no,' said Mr
Wardlaw, 'he means the King of Abyssinia in the fifteenth century.
I've been reading all about him. He was a Christian, and the
Portuguese sent expedition after expedition to find him, but they
never got there. Albuquerque wanted to make an alliance with him and
capture the Holy Sepulchre.'

Arcoll nodded. 'That's the one I mean. There's not very much
known about him, except Portuguese legends. He was a sort of
Christian, but I expect that his practices were as pagan as his
neighbours'. There is no doubt that he was a great conqueror. Under
him and his successors, the empire of Ethiopia extended far south of
Abyssinia away down to the Great Lakes.'

'How long did this power last?' I asked wondering to what tale
this was prologue.

'That's a mystery no scholar has ever been able to fathom.
Anyhow, the centre of authority began to shift southward, and the
warrior tribes moved in that direction. At the end of the sixteenth
century the chief native power was round about the Zambesi. The
Mazimba and the Makaranga had come down from the Lake Nyassa quarter,
and there was a strong kingdom in Manicaland. That was the
Monomotapa that the Portuguese thought so much of.'

Wardlaw nodded eagerly. The story was getting into ground that
he knew about.

'The thing to remember is that all these little empires thought
themselves the successors of Prester John. It took me a long time to
find this out, and I have spent days in the best libraries in Europe
over it. They all looked back to a great king in the north, whom
they called by about twenty different names. They had forgotten
about his Christianity, but they remembered that he was a
conqueror.

'Well, to make a long story short, Monomotapa disappeared in
time, and fresh tribes came down from the north, and pushed right
down to Natal and the Cape. That is how the Zulus first appeared.
They brought with them the story of Prester John, but by this time it
had ceased to be a historical memory, and had become a religious
cult. They worshipped a great Power who had been their ancestor, and
the favourite Zulu word for him was Umkulunkulu. The belief was
perverted into fifty different forms, but this was the central creed
- that Umkulunkulu had been the father of the tribe, and was alive as
a spirit to watch over them.

'They brought more than a creed with them. Somehow or other,
some fetich had descended from Prester John by way of the Mazimba and
Angoni and Makaranga. What it is I do not know, but it was always in
the hands of the tribe which for the moment held the leadership. The
great native wars of the sixteenth century, which you can read about
in the Portuguese historians, were not for territory but for
leadership, and mainly for the possession of this fetich. Anyhow, we
know that the Zulus brought it down with them. They called it
Ndhlondhlo, which means the Great Snake, but I don't suppose that it
was any kind of snake. The snake was their totem, and they would
naturally call their most sacred possession after it.

'Now I will tell you a thing that few know. You have heard of
Tchaka. He was a sort of black Napoleon early in the last century,
and he made the Zulus the paramount power in South Africa,
slaughtering about two million souls to accomplish it. Well, he had
the fetich, whatever it was, and it was believed that he owed his
conquests to it. Mosilikatse tried to steal it, and that was why he
had to fly to Matabeleland. But with Tchaka it disappeared. Dingaan
did not have it, nor Panda, and Cetewayo never got it, though he
searched the length and breadth of the country for it. It had gone
out of existence, and with it the chance of a Kaffir empire.'

Captain Arcoll got up to light his pipe, and I noticed that his
face was grave. He was not telling us this yarn for our
amusement.

'So much for Prester John and his charm,' he said. 'Now I have
to take up the history at a different point. In spite of risings
here and there, and occasional rows, the Kaffirs have been quiet for
the better part of half a century. It is no credit to us. They have
had plenty of grievances, and we are no nearer understanding them
than our fathers were. But they are scattered and divided. We have
driven great wedges of white settlement into their territory, and we
have taken away their arms. Still, they are six times as many as we
are, and they have long memories, and a thoughtful man may wonder how
long the peace will last. I have often asked myself that question,
and till lately I used to reply, "For ever because they cannot find a
leader with the proper authority, and they have no common cause to
fight for." But a year or two ago I began to change my mind.

'It is my business to act as chief Intelligence officer among
the natives. Well, one day, I came on the tracks of a curious
person. He was a Christian minister called Laputa, and he was going
among the tribes from Durban to the Zambesi as a roving evangelist.
I found that he made an enormous impression, and yet the people I
spoke to were chary of saying much about him. Presently I found that
he preached more than the gospel. His word was "Africa for the
Africans," and his chief point was that the natives had had a great
empire in the past, and might have a great empire again. He used to
tell the story of Prester John, with all kinds of embroidery of his
own. You see, Prester John was a good argument for him, for he had
been a Christian as well as a great potentate. 'For years there has
been plenty of this talk in South Africa, chiefly among Christian
Kaffirs. It is what they call "Ethiopianism," and American negroes
are the chief apostles. For myself, I always thought the thing
perfectly harmless. I don't care a fig whether the native missions
break away from the parent churches in England and call themselves by
fancy names. The more freedom they have in their religious life, the
less they are likely to think about politics. But I soon found out
that Laputa was none of your flabby educated negroes from America,
and I began to watch him.

'I first came across him at a revival meeting in London, where
he was a great success. He came and spoke to me about my soul, but
he gave up when I dropped into Zulu. The next time I met him was on
the lower Limpopo, when I had the pleasure of trying to shoot him
from a boat.' Captain Arcoll took his pipe from his mouth and laughed
at the recollection.

'I had got on to an I.D.B. gang, and to my amazement found the
evangelist among them. But the Reverend John was too much for me.
He went overboard in spite of the crocodiles, and managed to swim
below water to the reed bed at the side. However, that was a valuable
experience for me, for it gave me a clue.

'I next saw him at a Missionary Conference in Cape Town, and
after that at a meeting of the Geographical Society in London, where
I had a long talk with him. My reputation does not follow me home,
and he thought I was an English publisher with an interest in
missions. You see I had no evidence to connect him with I.D.B., and
besides I fancied that his real game was something bigger than that;
so I just bided my time and watched.

'I did my best to get on to his dossier, but it was no easy job.
However, I found out a few things. He had been educated in the
States, and well educated too, for the man is a good scholar and a
great reader, besides the finest natural orator I have ever heard.
There was no doubt that he was of Zulu blood, but I could get no
traces of his family. He must come of high stock, for he is a fine
figure of a man. 'Very soon I found it was no good following him in
his excursions into civilization. There he was merely the educated
Kaffir; a great pet of missionary societies, and a favourite speaker
at Church meetings. You will find evidence given by him in
Blue-Books on native affairs, and he counted many members of
Parliament at home among his correspondents. I let that side go, and
resolved to dog him when on his evangelizing tours in the
back-veld.

'For six months I stuck to him like a leech. I am pretty good
at disguises, and he never knew who was the broken-down old Kaffir
who squatted in the dirt at the edge of the crowd when he spoke, or
the half-caste who called him "Sir" and drove his Cape-cart. I had
some queer adventures, but these can wait. The gist of the thing is,
that after six months which turned my hair grey I got a glimmering of
what he was after. He talked Christianity to the mobs in the kraals,
but to the indunas* he told a different story.'

*Lesser chiefs.

Captain Arcoll helped himself to a drink. 'You can guess what
that story was, Mr Crawfurd. At full moon when the black cock was
blooded, the Reverend John forgot his Christianity. He was back four
centuries among the Mazimba sweeping down on the Zambesi. He told
them, and they believed him, that he was the Umkulunkulu, the
incarnated spirit of Prester John. He told them that he was there to
lead the African race to conquest and empire. Ay, and he told them
more: for he has, or says he has, the Great Snake itself, the necklet
of Prester John.'

Neither of us spoke; we were too occupied with fitting this news
into our chain of knowledge.

Captain Arcoll went on. 'Now that I knew his purpose, I set
myself to find out his preparations. It was not long before I found
a mighty organization at work from the Zambesi to the Cape. The
great tribes were up to their necks in the conspiracy, and all manner
of little sects had been taken in. I have sat at tribal councils and
been sworn a blood brother, and I have used the secret password to
get knowledge in odd places. It was a dangerous game, and, as I have
said, I had my adventures, but I came safe out of it - with my
knowledge.

'The first thing I found out was that there was a great deal of
wealth somewhere among the tribes. Much of it was in diamonds, which
the labourers stole from the mines and the chiefs impounded. Nearly
every tribe had its secret chest, and our friend Laputa had the use
of them all. Of course the difficulty was changing the diamonds into
coin, and he had to start I.D.B. on a big scale. Your pal,
Henriques, was the chief agent for this, but he had others at
Mozambique and Johannesburg, ay, and in London, whom I have on my
list. With the money, guns and ammunition were bought, and it seems
that a pretty flourishing trade has been going on for some time. They
came in mostly overland through Portuguese territory, though there
have been cases of consignments to Johannesburg houses, the contents
of which did not correspond with the invoice. You ask what the
Governments were doing to let this go on. Yes, and you may well ask.
They were all asleep. They never dreamed of danger from the
natives, and in any case it was difficult to police the Portuguese
side. Laputa knew our weakness, and he staked everything on it.

'my first scheme was to lay Laputa by the heels; but no
Government would act on my information. The man was strongly
buttressed by public support at home, and South Africa has burned her
fingers before this with arbitrary arrests. Then I tried to fasten
I.D.B. on him, but I could not get my proofs till too late. I nearly
had him in Durban, but he got away; and he never gave me a second
chance. For five months he and Henriques have been lying low,
because their scheme was getting very ripe. I have been following
them through Zululand and Gazaland, and I have discovered that the
train is ready, and only wants the match. For a month I have never
been more than five hours behind him on the trail; and if he has laid
his train, I have laid mine also.'

Arcoll's whimsical, humorous face had hardened into grimness,
and in his eyes there was the light of a fierce purpose. The sight of
him comforted me, in spite of his tale.

'But what can he hope to do?' I asked. 'Though he roused every
Kaffir in South Africa he would be beaten. You say he is an educated
man. He must know he has no chance in the long run.'

'I said he was an educated man, but he is also a Kaffir. He can
see the first stage of a thing, and maybe the second, but no more.
That is the native mind. If it was not like that our chance would be
the worse.'

'You say the scheme is ripe,' I said; 'how ripe?'

Arcoll looked at the clock. 'In half an hour's time Laputa will
be with 'Mpefu. There he will stay the night. To-morrow morning he
goes to Umvelos' to meet Henriques. To-morrow evening the gathering
begins.'

'One question,' I said. 'How big a man is Laputa?'

'The biggest thing that the Kaffirs have ever produced. I tell
you, in my opinion he is a great genius. If he had been white he
might have been a second Napoleon. He is a born leader of men, and
as brave as a lion. There is no villainy he would not do if
necessary, and yet I should hesitate to call him a blackguard. Ay,
you may look surprised at me, you two pragmatical Scotsmen; but I
have, so to speak, lived with the man for months, and there's
fineness and nobility in him. He would be a terrible enemy, but a
just one. He has the heart of a poet and a king, and it is God's
curse that he has been born among the children of Ham. I hope to
shoot him like a dog in a day or two, but I am glad to bear testimony
to his greatness.'

'If the rising starts to-morrow,' I asked, 'have you any of his
plans?'

He picked up a map from the table and opened it. 'The first
rendezvous is somewhere near Sikitola's. Then they move south,
picking up contingents; and the final concentration is to be on the
high veld near Amsterdam, which is convenient for the Swazis and the
Zulus. After that I know nothing, but of course there are local
concentrations along the whole line of the Berg from Mashonaland to
Basutoland. Now, look here. To get to Amsterdam they must cross the
Delagoa Bay Railway. Well, they won't be allowed to. If they get as
far, they will be scattered there. As I told you, I too have laid my
train. We have the police ready all along the scarp of the Berg.
Every exit from native territory is watched, and the frontier farmers
are out on commando. We have regulars on the Delagoa Bay and Natal
lines, and a system of field telegraphs laid which can summon further
troops to any point. It has all been kept secret, because we are
still in the dark ourselves. The newspaper public knows nothing about
any rising, but in two days every white household in South Africa
will be in a panic. Make no mistake, Mr Crawfurd; this is a grim
business. We shall smash Laputa and his men, but it will be a fierce
fight, and there will be much good blood shed. Besides, it will
throw the country back another half-century. Would to God I had been
man enough to put a bullet through his head in cold blood. But I
could not do it - it was too like murder; and maybe I shall never
have the chance now.'

'There's one thing puzzles me,' I said. 'What makes Laputa come
up here to start with? Why doesn't he begin with Zululand?'

'God knows! There's sure to be sense in it, for he does nothing
without reason. We may know to-morrow.'

But as Captain Arcoll spoke, the real reason suddenly flashed
into my mind: Laputa had to get the Great Snake, the necklet of
Prester John, to give his leadership prestige. Apparently he had not
yet got it, or Arcoll would have known. He started from this
neighbourhood because the fetich was somewhere hereabouts. I was
convinced that my guess was right, but I kept my own counsel.

'To-morrow Laputa and Henriques meet at Umvelos', probably at
your new store, Mr Crawfurd. And so the ball commences.'

My resolution was suddenly taken.

'I think,' I said, 'I had better be present at the meeting, as
representing the firm.'

Captain Arcoll stared at me and laughed. 'I had thought of
going myself,' he said.

'Then you go to certain death, disguise yourself as you please.
You cannot meet them in the store as I can. I'm there on my ordinary
business, and they will never suspect. If you're to get any news,
I'm the man to go.'

He looked at me steadily for a minute or so. 'I'm not sure
that's such a bad idea of yours. I would be better employed myself
on the Berg, and, as you say, I would have little chance of hearing
anything. You're a plucky fellow, Mr Crawfurd. I suppose you
understand that the risk is pretty considerable.'

'I suppose I do; but since I'm in this thing, I may as well see
it out. Besides, I've an old quarrel with our friend Laputa.'

'Good and well,' said Captain Arcoll. 'Draw in your chair to
the table, then, and I'll explain to you the disposition of my men.
I should tell you that I have loyal natives in my pay in most tribes,
and can count on early intelligence. We can't match their telepathy;
but the new type of field telegraph is not so bad, and may be a
trifle more reliable.'

Till midnight we pored over maps, and certain details were
burned in on my memory. Then we went to bed and slept soundly, even
Mr Wardlaw. It was strange how fear had gone from the establishment,
now that we knew the worst and had a fighting man by our side.