[Victorian Web Home —> Visual Arts —> Illustration —> Maurice Greiffenhagen —> Next]
Up above them towered his beautiful pale face.
Maurice Greiffenhagen
1888
Lithograph
11 cm high by 8 cm wide (4 ⅜ by 3 ⅛ inches), facing p. 105, framed
Fifth regular illustration for H. Rider Haggard's SHE: A History of Adventure, facing p. 105 in the Longman's British edition (1888).
[Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham
I turned my head, and as I lay gasping in the throes of that awful struggle I could see that Leo was off the rock now, for the lamplight fell full upon him. He was still on his feet, but in the centre of a surging mass of struggling men, who were striving to pull him down as wolves pull down a stag. Up above them towered his beautiful pale face crowned with its bright curls (for Leo is six feet two high), and I saw that he was fighting with a desperate abandonment and energy that was at once splendid and hideous to behold. He drove his knife through one man — they were so close to and mixed up with him that they could not get at him to kill him with their big spears, and they had no knives or sticks. The man fell, and then somehow the knife was wrenched from his hand, leaving him defenceless, and I thought the end had come. But no; with a desperate effort he broke loose from them, seized the body of the man he had just slain, and lifting it high in the air hurled it right at the mob of his assailants, so that the shock and weight of it swept some five or six of them to the earth. But in a minute they were all up again, except one, whose skull was smashed, and had once more fastened upon him. And then slowly, and with infinite labour and struggling, the wolves bore the lion down. Once even then he recovered himself, and felled an Amahagger with his fist, but it was more than man could do to hold his own for long against so many, and at last he came crashing down upon the rock floor, falling as an oak falls, and bearing with him to the earth all those who clung about him. They gripped him by his arms and legs, and then cleared off his body.
“A spear,” cried a voice — “a spear to cut his throat, and a vessel to catch his blood.”
I shut my eyes, for I saw the man coming with a spear, and myself, I could not stir to Leo’s help, for I was growing weak, and the two men on me were not yet dead, and a deadly sickness overcame me. [Chapter VIII, "The Feast, and After," pp. 112-113]
At this crucial moment, with Leo finally disarmed, Ustane intervenes by throwing herself upon Leo to protect him from the huge spears of the Amahagger. This volume-edition version of the interrupted cannibal feast is, of necessity, much smaller than the magazine serial's large-scale, highly detailed and panoramic treatment, “I drew my revolver, and fired it by a sort of instinct straight at the diabolical woman who had been caressing Mahommed” (23 October 1886). Greiffenhagen focuses not on Holly's discharging his revolver as an agent of Nemesis, but on the handsome, imperilled youth who is the action tale's romantic lead. The Aryan youth, clad in light jungle-explorer clothing, seems to be engulfed by the intensely black natives whose serpentine arms encircle him in the Baroque darkness of the cavern. This is indeed a cliff-hanger moment as we arrive at the end of the chapter, only to have a booming, authoritative voice commanding the cannibals to "Cease!" just as Holly, narrating these horrific events, faints. The illustration, then, heightens the suspense, compelling the reader to race through the chapter to discover how the trio survives the ordeal.
Above: E. K. Johnson's serial illustration of the scene: “I drew my revolver, and fired it by a sort of instinct straight at the diabolical woman who had been caressing Mahommed.” (23 October 1886)
Haggard, H. Rider. "SHE:" A History of Adventure. Illustrated by E. K. Johnson. The Graphic Magazine, Vols. XXXIV and XXXV. 2 October 1886 to 8 January 1887.
Haggard. H. Rider. SHE: A History of Adventure. Illustrated by E. K. Johnson. New York: Harper & Bros., 1887.
Haggard, H. Rider. SHE: A History of Adventure. Illustrated by Maurice Greiffenhagen and Charles H. M. Kerr. London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1888, rpt. 1927.
Created 7 May 2025