The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ivory Child, by H. Rider Haggard

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Title: The Ivory Child

Author: H. Rider Haggard

Release Date: March 31, 2006 [EBook #2841]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE IVORY CHILD ***

Produced by John Bickers; Emma Dudding; Dagny

THE IVORY CHILD

by H. Rider Haggard

CHAPTER I

ALLAN GIVES A SHOOTING LESSON

Now I, Allan Quatermain, come to the story of what was, perhaps, one of
the strangest of all the adventures which have befallen me in the course
of a life that so far can scarcely be called tame or humdrum.

Amongst many other things it tells of the war against the Black Kendah
people and the dead of Jana, their elephant god. Often since then I
have wondered if this creature was or was not anything more than a mere
gigantic beast of the forest. It seems improbable, even impossible, but
the reader of future days may judge of this matter for himself.

Also he can form his opinion as to the religion of the White Kendah and
their pretensions to a certain degree of magical skill. Of this magic
I will make only one remark: If it existed at all, it was by no means
infallible. To take a single instance, Harut and Marut were convinced
by divination that I, and I only, could kill Jana, which was why they
invited me to Kendahland. Yet in the end it was Hans who killed him.
Jana nearly killed me!

Now to my tale.

In another history, called "The Holy Flower," I have told how I came to
England with a young gentleman of the name of Scroope, partly to see him
safely home after a hunting accident, and partly to try to dispose of
a unique orchid for a friend of mine called Brother John by the white
people, and Dogeetah by the natives, who was popularly supposed to be
mad, but, in fact, was very sane indeed. So sane was he that he pursued
what seemed to be an absolutely desperate quest for over twenty years,
until, with some humble assistance on my part, he brought it to a
curiously successful issue. But all this tale is told in "The Holy
Flower," and I only allude to it here, that is at present, to explain
how I came to be in England.

While in th