



Produced by John Bickers; Dagny





THE PEOPLE OF THE MIST

By H. Rider Haggard

First Published 1894.



DEDICATION

I DEDICATE THIS EFFORT OF
"PRIMEVAL AND TROGLODYTE IMAGINATION"
THIS RECORD OF BAREFACED AND FLAGRANT ADVENTURE

TO MY GODSONS

IN THE HOPE THAT THEREIN THEY MAY FIND
SOME STORE OF HEALTHY AMUSEMENT.

_Ditchingham_, 1894.




AUTHOR'S NOTE

On several previous occasions it has happened to this writer of romance
to be justified of his romances by facts of startling similarity,
subsequently brought to light and to his knowledge. In this tale occurs
an instance of the sort, a "double-barrelled" instance indeed, that to
him seems sufficiently curious to be worthy of telling. The People of
the Mist of his adventure story worship a sacred crocodile to which they
make sacrifice, but in the original draft of the book this crocodile was
a snake--_monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens_. A friend of the writer,
an African explorer of great experience who read that draft, suggested
that the snake was altogether too unprecedented and impossible.
Accordingly, also at his suggestion, a crocodile was substituted.
Scarcely was this change effected, however, when Mr. R. T. Coryndon, the
slayer of almost the last white rhinoceros, published in the _African
Review_ of February 17, 1894, an account of a huge and terrific serpent
said to exist in the Dichwi district of Mashonaland, that in many
particulars resembled the snake of the story, whose prototype, by the
way, really lives and is adored as a divinity by certain natives in the
remote province of Chiapas in Mexico. Still, the tale being in type, the
alteration was suffered to stand. But now, if the _Zoutpansberg Review_
may be believed, the author can take credit for his crocodile also,
since that paper states that in the course of the recent campaign
against Malaboch, a chief living in the north of the Transvaal, his
fetish or god was captured, and that god, a crocodile fashioned in wood,
to which offerings were made. Further, this journal says that among
these people (as with the ancient Egyptians), the worship of the
crocodile is a recognised cult. Also it congratulates the present writer
on his intimate acquaintance with the more secret manifestations of
African folklore and beast worship. He must disclaim the compliment in
this instance as, when engaged in inventing the 'People of the Mist,'
he was totally ignorant that any of the Bantu tribes reverenced either
snake or crocodile divinities. But the coincidence is strange, and once
more shows, if further examples of the fact are needed, how impotent
are the efforts of imagination to vie with hidden truths--even with the
hidden truths of this small and trodden world.

_September_ 20, 1894.





THE PEOPLE OF THE MIST



CHAPTER I

THE SINS OF THE FATHER ARE VISITED ON THE CHILDREN

The January afternoon was passing into night, the air was cold and
still, so still that not a single twig of the naked beech-trees stirred;
on the grass of the meadows lay a thin white rime, half frost, half
snow; the firs stood out blackly against a steel-hued sky, and over the
tallest of them hung a single star. Past these bordering firs there ran
a road, on which, in this evening of the opening of our story, a young
man stood irresolute, glancing now to the right and now to the left.

To his right were two stately gates of iron fantastically wrought,
supported by stone pillars on whose summits stood griffins of black
marble embracing coats of arms, and banners inscribed with the device
_Per ardua ad astra_. Beyond these gates ran a broad carriage drive,
lined on either side by a double row of such oaks as England alone can
produce under the most favourable circumstances of soil, aided by the
nurturing hand of man and three or four centuries of time.

At the head of this avenue, perhaps half a mile from the roadway,
although it looked nearer because of the eminence upon which it was
placed, stood a mansion of the class that in auctioneers' advertisements
is usually described as "noble." Its general appearance was Elizabethan,
for in those days some forgotten Outram had practically rebuilt it; but
a large part of its fabric was far more ancient than the Tudors,
dating back, so said tradition, to the time of King John. As we are
not auctioneers, however, it will be unnecessary to specify its many
beauties; indeed, at this date, some of the tribe had recently employed
their gift of language on these attractions with copious fulness and
accuracy of detail, since Outram Hall, for