Prester John

  Produced by Jo Churcher. HTML version by Al Haines.

  PRESTER JOHN

  by

  JOHN BUCHAN

  TO

  LIONEL PHILLIPS

  Time, they say, must the best of us capture, And travel and battle and gems and gold No more can kindle the ancient rapture, For even the youngest of hearts grows old. But in you, I think, the boy is not over; So take this medley of ways and wars As the gift of a friend and a fellow-lover Of the fairest country under the stars.

  J. B.

  CONTENTS

  I. The Man on the Kirkcaple Shore II. Furth! Fortune! III. Blaauwildebeestefontein IV. My Journey to the Winter-Veld V. Mr Wardlaw Has a Premonition VI. The Drums Beat at Sunset VII. Captain Arcoll Tells a Tale VIII. I Fall in Again with the Reverend John Laputa IX. The Store at Umvelos' X. I Go Treasure-Hunting XI. The Cave of the Rooirand XII. Captain Arcoll Sends a Message XIII. The Drift of the Letaba XIV. I Carry the Collar of Prester John XV. Morning in the Berg XVI. Inanda's Kraal XVII. A Deal and Its Consequences XVIII. How a Man May Sometimes Put His Trust in a Horse XIX. Arcoll's Shepherding XX. My Last Sight of the Reverend John Laputa XXI. I Climb the Crags a Second Time XXII. A Great Peril and a Great Salvation XXIII. My Uncle's Gift Is Many Times Multiplied

  CHAPTER I

  THE MAN ON THE KIRKCAPLE SHORE

  I mind as if it were yesterday my first sight of the man. Little Iknew at the time how big the moment was with destiny, or how often thatface seen in the fitful moonlight would haunt my sleep and disturb mywaking hours. But I mind yet the cold grue of terror I got from it, aterror which was surely more than the due of a few truant lads breakingthe Sabbath with their play.

  The town of Kirkcaple, of which and its adjacent parish of Portincrossmy father was the minister, lies on a hillside above the little bay ofCaple, and looks squarely out on the North Sea. Round the horns ofland which enclose the bay the coast shows on either side a battlementof stark red cliffs through which a burn or two makes a pass to thewater's edge. The bay itself is ringed with fine clean sands, where welads of the burgh school loved to bathe in the warm weather. But onlong holidays the sport was to go farther afield among the cliffs; forthere there were many deep caves and pools, where podleys might becaught with the line, and hid treasures sought for at the expense ofthe skin of the knees and the buttons of the trousers. Many a longSaturday I have passed in a crinkle of the cliffs, having lit a fire ofdriftwood, and made believe that I was a smuggler or a Jacobite newlanded from France. There was a band of us in Kirkcaple, lads of myown age, including Archie Leslie, the son of my father's session-clerk,and Tam Dyke, the provost's nephew. We were sealed to silence by theblood oath, and we bore each the name of some historic pirate orsailorman. I was Paul Jones, Tam was Captain Kidd, and Archie, need Isay it, was Morgan himself. Our tryst was a cave where a little watercalled the Dyve Burn had cut its way through the cliffs to the sea.There we forgathered in the summer evenings and of a Saturday afternoonin winter, and told mighty tales of our prowess and flattered our sillyhearts. But the sober truth is that our deeds were of the humblest,and a dozen of fish or a handful of apples was all our booty, and ourgreatest exploit a fight with the roughs at the Dyve tan-work.

  My father's spring Communion fell on the last Sabbath of April, and onthe particular Sabbath of which I speak the weather was mild and brightfor the time of year. I had been surfeited with the Thursday's andSaturday's services, and the two long diets of worship on the Sabbathwere hard for a lad of twelve to bear with the spring in his bones andthe sun slanting through the gallery window. There still remained theservice on the Sabbath evening--a doleful prospect, for the Rev. MrMurdoch of Kilchristie, noted for the length of his discourses, hadexchanged pulpits with my father. So my mind was ripe for the proposalof Archie Leslie, on our way home to tea, that by a little skill wemight give the kirk the slip. At our Communion the pews were emptiedof their regular occupants and the congregation seated itself as itpleased. The manse seat was full of the Kirkcaple relations of MrMurdoch, who had been invited there by my mother to hear him, and itwas not hard to obtain permission to sit with Archie and Tam Dyke inthe cock-loft in the gallery. Word was sent to Tam, and so it happenedthat three abandoned lads duly passed the plate and took their seats inthe cock-loft. But when the bell had done jowing, and we heard by thesounds of their feet that the elders had gone in to the kirk, weslipped down the stairs and out of the side door. We were through thechurchyard in a twinkling, and hot-foot on the road to the Dyve Burn.It was the fashion of the genteel in Kirkcaple to put their boys intowhat were known as Eton suits--long trousers, cut-away jackets, andchimney-pot hats. I had been one of the earliest victims, and well Iremember how I fled home from the Sabbath school with the snowballs ofthe town roughs rattling off my chimney-pot. Archie had followed, hisfamily being in all things imitators of mine. We were now clothed inthis wearisome garb, so our first care was to secrete safely our hatsin a marked spot under some whin bushes on the links. Tam was free fromthe bondage of fashion, and wore his ordinary best knickerbockers.From inside his jacket he unfolded his special treasure, which was tolight us on our expedition--an evil-smelling old tin lantern with ashutter.

  Tam was of the Free Kirk persuasion, and as his Communion fell on adifferent day from ours, he was spared the bondage of church attendancefrom which Archie and I had revolted. But notable events had happenedthat day in his church. A black man, the Rev. JohnSomething-or-other, had been preaching. Tam was full of the portent.'A nagger,' he said, 'a great black chap as big as your father,Archie.' He seemed to have banged the bookboard with some effect, andhad kept Tam, for once in his life, awake. He had preached about theheathen in Africa, and how a black man was as good as a white man inthe sight of God, and he had forecast a day when the negroes would havesomething to teach the British in the way of civilization. So at anyrate ran the account of Tam Dyke, who did not share the preacher'sviews. 'It's all nonsense, Davie. The Bible says that the children ofHam were to be our servants. If I were the minister I wouldn't let anigger into the pulpit. I wouldn't let him farther than the Sabbathschool.'

  Night fell as we came to the broomy spaces of the links, and ere we hadbreasted the slope of the neck which separates Kirkcaple Bay from thecliffs it was as dark as an April evening with a full moon can be. Tamwould have had it darker. He got out his lantern, and after aprodigious waste of matches kindled the candle-end inside, turned thedark shutter, and trotted happily on. We had no need of his lightingtill the Dyve Burn was reached and the path began to descend steeplythrough the rift in the crags.

  It was here we found that some one had gone before us. Archie was greatin those days at tracking, his ambition running in Indian paths. Hewould walk always with his head bent and his eyes on the ground,whereby he several times found lost coins and once a trinket dropped bythe provost's wife. At the edge of the burn, where the path turnsdownward, there is a patch of shingle washed up by some spate. Archiewas on his knees in a second. 'Lads,' he cried, 'there's spoor here;'and then after some nosing, 'it's a man's track, going downward, a bigman with flat feet. It's fresh, too, for it crosses the damp bit ofgravel, and the water has scarcely filled the holes yet.'

  We did not dare to question Archie's woodcraft, but it puzzled us whothe stranger could be. In summer weather you might find a party ofpicnickers here, attracted by the fine hard sands at the burn mouth.But at this time of night and season of the year there was no call forany one to be trespassing on our preserves. No fishermen came thisway, the lobster-pots being all to the east, and the stark headland ofthe Red Neb made the road to them by the water's edge difficult. Thetan-work lads used to come now and then for a swim,
but you would notfind a tan-work lad bathing on a chill April night. Yet there was noquestion where our precursor had gone. He was making for the shore.Tam unshuttered his lantern, and the steps went clearly down thecorkscrew path. 'Maybe he is after our cave. We'd better go cannily.'

  The glim was dowsed--the words were Archie's--and in the bestcontraband manner we stole down the gully. The business had suddenlytaken an eerie turn, and I think in our hearts we were all a littleafraid. But Tam had a lantern, and it would never do to turn back froman adventure which had all the appearance of being the true sort. Halfway down there is a scrog of wood, dwarf alders and hawthorn, whichmakes an arch over the path. I, for one, was glad when we got throughthis with no worse mishap than a stumble from Tam which caused thelantern door to fly open and the candle to go out. We did not stop torelight it, but scrambled down the screes till we came to the longslabs of reddish rock which abutted on the beach. We could not see thetrack, so we gave up the business of scouts, and dropped quietly overthe big boulder and into the crinkle of cliff which we called our cave.

  There was nobody there, so we relit the lantern and examined ourproperties. Two or three fishing-rods for the burn, much damaged byweather; some sea-lines on a dry shelf of rock; a couple of woodenboxes; a pile of driftwood for fires, and a heap of quartz in which wethought we had found veins of gold--such was the modest furnishing ofour den. To this I must add some broken clay pipes, with which we madebelieve to imitate our elders, smoking a foul mixture of coltsfootleaves and brown paper. The band was in session, so following ourritual we sent out a picket. Tam was deputed to go round the edge ofthe cliff from which the shore was visible, and report if the coast wasclear.

  He returned in three minutes, his eyes round with amazement in thelantern light. 'There's a fire on the sands,' he repeated, 'and a manbeside it.'

  Here was news indeed. Without a word we made for the open, Archiefirst, and Tam, who had seized and shuttered his lantern, coming last.We crawled to the edge of the cliff and peered round, and there sureenough, on the hard bit of sand which the tide had left by the burnmouth, was a twinkle of light and a dark figure.

  The moon was rising, and besides there was that curious sheen from thesea which you will often notice in spring. The glow was maybe ahundred yards distant, a little spark of fire I could have put in mycap, and, from its crackling and smoke, composed of dry seaweed andhalf-green branches from the burnside thickets. A man's figure stoodnear it, and as we looked it moved round and round the fire in circleswhich first of all widened and then contracted.

  The sight was so unexpected, so beyond the beat of our experience, thatwe were all a little scared. What could this strange being want with afire at half-past eight of an April Sabbath night on the Dyve Burnsands? We discussed the thing in whispers behind a boulder, but noneof us had any solution. 'Belike he's come ashore in a boat,' saidArchie. 'He's maybe a foreigner.' But I pointed out that, from thetracks which Archie himself had found, the man must have come overlanddown the cliffs. Tam was clear he was a madman, and was forwithdrawing promptly from the whole business.

  But some spell kept our feet tied there in that silent world of sandand moon and sea. I remember looking back and seeing the solemn,frowning faces of the cliffs, and feeling somehow shut in with thisunknown being in a strange union. What kind of errand had brought thisinterloper into our territory? For a wonder I was less afraid thancurious. I wanted to get to the heart of the matter, and to discoverwhat the man was up to with his fire and his circles.

  The same thought must have been in Archie's head, for he dropped on hisbelly and began to crawl softly seawards. I followed, and Tam, withsundry complaints, crept after my heels. Between the cliffs and thefire lay some sixty yards of _d?bris_ and boulders above the level of allbut the high spring tides. Beyond lay a string of seaweedy pools andthen the hard sands of the burnfoot. There was excellent cover amongthe big stones, and apart from the distance and the dim light, the manby the fire was too preoccupied in his task to keep much look-outtowards the land. I remember thinking he had chosen his place well,for save from the sea he could not be seen. The cliffs are so undercutthat unless a watcher on the coast were on their extreme edge he wouldnot see the burnfoot sands.

  Archie, the skilled tracker, was the one who all but betrayed us. Hisknee slipped on the seaweed, and he rolled off a boulder, bringing downwith him a clatter of small stones. We lay as still as mice, in terrorlest the man should have heard the noise and have come to look for thecause. By-and-by when I ventured to raise my head above a flat-toppedstone I saw that he was undisturbed. The fire still burned, and he waspacing round it. On the edge of the pools was an outcrop of redsandstone much fissured by the sea. Here was an excellentvantage-ground, and all three of us curled behind it, with our eyesjust over the edge. The man was not twenty yards off, and I could seeclearly what manner of fellow he was. For one thing he was huge ofsize, or so he seemed to me in the half-light. He wore nothing but ashirt and trousers, and I could hear by the flap of his feet on thesand that he was barefoot.

  Suddenly Tam Dyke gave a gasp of astonishment. 'Gosh, it's the blackminister!' he said.

  It was indeed a black man, as we saw when the moon came out of a cloud.His head was on his breast, and he walked round the fire with measured,regular steps. At intervals he would stop and raise both hands to thesky, and bend his body in the direction of the moon. But he neveruttered a word.

  'It's magic,' said Archie. 'He's going to raise Satan. We must bidehere and see what happens, for he'll grip us if we try to go back. Themoon's ower high.'

  The procession continued as if to some slow music. I had been in nofear of the adventure back there by our cave; but now that I saw thething from close at hand, my courage began to ebb. There was somethingdesperately uncanny about this great negro, who had shed his clericalgarments, and was now practising some strange magic alone by the sea.I had no doubt it was the black art, for there was that in the air andthe scene which spelled the unlawful. As we watched, the circlesstopped, and the man threw something on the fire. A thick smoke roseof which we could feel the aromatic scent, and when it was gone theflame burned with a silvery blueness like moonlight. Still no soundcame from the minister, but he took something from his belt, and beganto make odd markings in the sand between the inner circle and the fire.As he turned, the moon gleamed on the implement, and we saw it was agreat knife.

  We were now scared in real earnest. Here were we, three boys, at nightin a lonely place a few yards from a savage with a knife. The adventurewas far past my liking, and even the intrepid Archie was having qualms,if I could judge from his set face. As for Tam, his teeth werechattering like a threshing-mill.

  Suddenly I felt something soft and warm on the rock at my right hand.I felt again, and, lo! it was the man's clothes. There were his bootsand socks, his minister's coat and his minister's hat.

  This made the predicament worse, for if we waited till he finished hisrites we should for certain be found by him. At the same time, toreturn over the boulders in the bright moonlight seemed an equally sureway to discovery. I whispered to Archie, who was for waiting a littlelonger. 'Something may turn up,' he said. It was always his way.

  I do not know what would have turned up, for we had no chance oftesting it. The situation had proved too much for the nerves of TamDyke. As the man turned towards us in his bowings and bendings, Tamsuddenly sprang to his feet and shouted at him a piece of schoolboyrudeness then fashionable in Kirkcaple.

  'Wha called ye partan-face, my bonny man?' Then, clutching hislantern, he ran for dear life, while Archie and I raced at his heels.As I turned I had a glimpse of a huge figure, knife in hand, boundingtowards us.

  Though I only saw it in the turn of a head, the face stamped itselfindelibly upon my mind. It was black, black as ebony, but it wasdifferent from the ordinary negro. There were no thick lips and flatnostrils; rather, if I could trust my eyes, the nose was high-bridged,and the lines o
f the mouth sharp and firm. But it was distorted intoan expression of such a devilish fury and amazement that my heartbecame like water.

  We had a start, as I have said, of some twenty or thirty yards. Amongthe boulders we were not at a great disadvantage, for a boy can flitquickly over them, while a grown man must pick his way. Archie, asever, kept his wits the best of us. 'Make straight for the burn,' heshouted in a hoarse whisper; we'll beat him on the slope.'

  We passed the boulders and slithered over the outcrop of red rock andthe patches of sea-pink till we reached the channel of the Dyve water,which flows gently among pebbles after leaving the gully. Here for thefirst time I looked back and saw nothing. I stopped involuntarily, andthat halt was nearly my undoing. For our pursuer had reached the burnbefore us, but lower down, and was coming up its bank to cut us off.

  At most times I am a notable coward, and in these days I was still moreof one, owing to a quick and easily-heated imagination. But now Ithink I did a brave thing, though more by instinct than resolution.Archie was running first, and had already splashed through the burn;Tam came next, just about to cross, and the black man was almost at hiselbow. Another second and Tam would have been in his clutches had Inot yelled out a warning and made straight up the bank of the burn.Tam fell into the pool--I could hear his spluttering cry--but he gotacross; for I heard Archie call to him, and the two vanished into thethicket which clothes all the left bank of the gully. The pursuer,seeing me on his own side of the water, followed straight on; andbefore I knew it had become a race between the two of us.

  I was hideously frightened, but not without hope, for the screes andshelves of this right side of the gully were known to me from many aday's exploring. I was light on my feet and uncommonly sound in wind,being by far the best long-distance runner in Kirkcaple. If I couldonly keep my lead till I reached a certain corner I knew of, I couldoutwit my enemy; for it was possible from that place to make a detourbehind a waterfall and get into a secret path of ours among the bushes.I flew up the steep screes, not daring to look round; but at the top,where the rocks begin, I had a glimpse of my pursuer. The man couldrun. Heavy in build though he was he was not six yards behind me, andI could see the white of his eyes and the red of his gums. I sawsomething else--a glint of white metal in his hand. He still had hisknife.

  Fear sent me up the rocks like a seagull, and I scrambled and leaped,making for the corner I knew of. Something told me that the pursuitwas slackening, and for a moment I halted to look round. A second timea halt was nearly the end of me. A great stone flew through the air,and took the cliff an inch from my head, half-blinding me withsplinters. And now I began to get angry. I pulled myself into cover,skirted a rock till I came to my corner, and looked back for the enemy.There he was scrambling by the way I had come, and making a prodigiousclatter among the stones. I picked up a loose bit of rock and hurledit with all my force in his direction. It broke before it reached him,but a considerable lump, to my joy, took him full in the face. Then myterrors revived. I slipped behind the waterfall and was soon in thethicket, and toiling towards the top.

  I think this last bit was the worst in the race, for my strength wasfailing, and I seemed to hear those horrid steps at my heels. My heartwas in my mouth as, careless of my best clothes, I tore through thehawthorn bushes. Then I struck the path and, to my relief, came onArchie and Tam, who were running slowly in desperate anxiety about myfate. We then took hands and soon reached the top of the gully.

  For a second we looked back. The pursuit had ceased, and far down theburn we could hear the sounds as of some one going back to the sands.

  'Your face is bleeding, Davie. Did he get near enough to hit you?'Archie asked.

  'He hit me with a stone. But I gave him better. He's got a bleedingnose to remember this night by.'

  We did not dare take the road by the links, but made for the nearesthuman habitation. This was a farm about half a mile inland, and whenwe reached it we lay down by the stack-yard gate and panted.

  'I've lost my lantern,' said Tam. 'The big black brute! See if Idon't tell my father.'

  'Ye'll do nothing of the kind,' said Archie fiercely. 'He knowsnothing about us and can't do us any harm. But if the story got outand he found out who we were, he'd murder the lot of US.'

  He made us swear secrecy, which we were willing enough to do, seeingvery clearly the sense in his argument. Then we struck the highroadand trotted back at our best pace to Kirkcaple, fear of our familiesgradually ousting fear of pursuit. In our excitement Archie and Iforgot about our Sabbath hats, reposing quietly below a whin bush onthe links.

  We were not destined to escape without detection. As ill luck wouldhave it, Mr Murdoch had been taken ill with the stomach-ache after thesecond psalm, and the congregation had been abruptly dispersed. Mymother had waited for me at the church door, and, seeing no signs ofher son, had searched the gallery. Then the truth came out, and, had Ibeen only for a mild walk on the links, retribution would haveovertaken my truantry. But to add to this I arrived home with ascratched face, no hat, and several rents in my best trousers. I waswell cuffed and sent to bed, with the promise of full-dresschastisement when my father should come home in the morning.

  My father arrived before breakfast next day, and I was duly and soundlywhipped. I set out for school with aching bones to add to the usualdepression of Monday morning. At the corner of the Nethergate I fellin with Archie, who was staring at a trap carrying two men which wascoming down the street. It was the Free Church minister--he had marrieda rich wife and kept a horse--driving the preacher of yesterday to therailway station. Archie and I were in behind a doorpost in atwinkling, so that we could see in safety the last of our enemy. He wasdressed in minister's clothes, with a heavy fur-coat and a brand newyellow-leather Gladstone bag. He was talking loudly as he passed, andthe Free Church minister seemed to be listening attentively. I heardhis deep voice saying something about the 'work of God in this place.'But what I noticed specially--and the sight made me forget my achinghinder parts--was that he had a swollen eye, and two strips ofsticking-plaster on his cheek.