Allan Quatermain by H. Rider Haggard

Once more I give the password and shout ‘Open! open!’No answer, and my heart grows very faint.

Again I call, and this time a single voice replies, and to my joy I recognize it as belonging to Kara, a fellow-officer of Nyleptha’s guards, a man I know to be as honest as the light — indeed, the same whom Nyleptha had sent to arrest Sorais on the day she fled to the temple.

‘Is it thou, Kara?’ I cry; ‘I am Macumazahn. Bid the guard let down the bridge and throw wide the gate. Quick, quick!’

Then followed a space that seemed to me endless, but at length the bridge fell and one half of the gate opened and we got into the courtyard, where at last poor Daylight fell down beneath me, as I thought, dead. Except Kara, there was nobody to be seen, and his look was wild, and his garments were all torn. He had opened the gate and let down the bridge alone, and was now getting them up and shut again (as, owing to a very ingenious arrangement of cranks and levers, one man could easily do, and indeed generally did do).

‘Where are the guard?’ I gasped, fearing his answer as I never feared anything before.

‘I know not,’ he answered; ‘two hours ago, as I slept, was I seized and bound by the watch under me, and but now, this very moment, have I freed myself with my teeth. I fear, I greatly fear, that we are betrayed.

His words gave me fresh energy. Catching him by the arm, I staggered, followed by Umslopogaas, who reeled after us like a drunken man, through the courtyards, up the great hall, which was silent as the grave, towards the Queen’s sleeping-place.

We reached the first ante-room — no guards; the second, still no guards. Oh, surely the thing was done! we were too late after all, too late! The silence and solitude of those great chambers was dreadful, and weighed me down like an evil dream. On, right into Nyleptha’s chamber we rushed and staggered, sick at heart, fearing the very worst; we saw there was a light in it, ay, and a figure bearing the light. Oh, thank God, it is the White Queen herself, the Queen unharmed! There she stands in her night gear, roused, by the clatter of our coming, from her bed, the heaviness of sleep yet in her eyes, and a red blush of fear and shame mantling her lovely breast and cheek.

‘Who is it?’ she cries. ‘What means this? Oh, Macumazahn, is it thou? Why lookest thou so wildly? Thou comest as one bearing evil tidings — and my lord — oh, tell me not my lord is dead — not dead!’ she wailed, wringing her white hands.

‘I left Incubu wounded, but leading the advance against Sorais last night at sundown; therefore let thy heart have rest. Sorais is beaten back all along her lines, and thy arms prevail.’

‘I knew it,’ she cried in triumph. ‘I knew that he would win; and they called him Outlander, and shook their wise heads when I gave him the command! Last night at sundown, sayest thou, and it is not yet dawn? Surely –‘

‘Throw a cloak around thee, Nyleptha,’ I broke in, ‘and give us wine to drink; ay, and call thy maidens quick if thou wouldst save thyself alive. Nay, stay not.’

Thus adjured she ran and called through the curtains towards some room beyond, and then hastily put on her sandals and a thick cloak, by which time a dozen or so of half-dressed women were pouring into the room.

‘Follow us and be silent,’ I said to them as they gazed with wondering eyes, clinging one to another. So we went into the first ante-room.

‘Now,’ I said, ‘give us wine to drink and food, if ye have it, for we are near to death.’

The room was used as a mess-room for the officers of the guards, and from a cupboard some flagons of wine and some cold flesh were brought forth, and Umslopogaas and I drank, and felt life flow back into our veins as the good red wine went down.