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"Holly, Hirsute Narrator-Protagonist, and The Bearded Patriarch, Billali

The morning dawned at last, but when it came I found that I was too stiff and sore to rise. About seven Job arrived, limping terribly, and with his face the colour of a rotten apple, and told me that Leo had slept fairly, but was very weak. Two hours afterwards Billali (Job called him “Billy-goat,” to which, indeed, his white beard gave him some resemblance, or more familiarly, “Billy”) came too, bearing a lamp in his hand, his towering form reaching nearly to the roof of the little chamber. I pretended to be asleep, and through the cracks of my eyelids watched his sardonic but handsome old face. He fixed his hawk-like eyes upon me, and stroked his glorious white beard, which, by the way, would have been worth a hundred a year to any London barber as an advertisement.

“Ah!” I heard him mutter (Billali had a habit of muttering to himself), “he is ugly — ugly as the other is beautiful — a very Baboon, it was a good name. But I like the man. Strange now, at my age, that I should like a man. What says the proverb — “Mistrust all men, and slay him whom thou mistrustest overmuch; and as for women, flee from them, for they are evil, and in the end will destroy thee.” It is a good proverb, especially the last part of it: I think that it must have come down from the ancients. Nevertheless I like this Baboon, and I wonder where they taught him his tricks, and I trust that  She will not bewitch him. Poor Baboon! he must be wearied after that fight. I will go lest I should awake him.”

I waited till he had turned and was nearly through the entrance, walking softly on tiptoe, and then I called after him.

“My father,” I said, “is it thou?”

“Yes, my son, it is I; but let me not disturb thee. I did but come to see how thou didst fare, and to tell thee that those who would have slain thee, my Baboon, are by now far on their road to She. She said that ye also were to come at once, but I fear ye cannot yet.” [Chapter IX, "A Little Foot," in the 1888 volume, pp. 117-118]

Commentary: But Just Who is the Patriarch Billali?

After the critical curtain in which the bearded patriarch of the Amahagger rescues Holly, Job, and Leo from the cannibals, Haggard develops the character of their enigmatic rescuer. This interview as Greiffenhagen pictures it resembles somewhat the parallel illustration in the serial: “I took this cold fragment of mortality in my hand, and looked at it in the light of the lamp with feelings which I cannot describe.” (30 October 1886). Although Greiffenhagen focuses on the two highly recognizable figures, he provides some contextual details as to the scene realised: the cave, the rotting rag, the European travelling bag in the foreground, and of course the little foot which Billali holds up for Holly to inspect.

Billali, the startlingly White, elderly, bearded chief or "father" of one of the Amahagger tribes, takes charge of the three men, introducing them to the ways of his people. Billali leaves the gigantic cave of his seven-thousand-member followers to report the arrival of the three European explorers and their Arab helmsman Mohamed to the distant queen, Ayesha, She-who-must-be-obeyed. While he is away, the Amahagger throw a "feast" for their guests — and the centrepiece is to be the cooked Arab as the ritual "hot pot." Holly shoots the instigator and several of the Amahagger, but also accidentally shoots Mahomed. Leo is gravely wounded in a struggle, but the enamoured maiden Ustane saves his life by throwing herself onto his prostrate body before his spear-wielding pursuers can kill him. At the curtain of the previous instalment (23 October 1886) Billali returns and declares that the three men are under the queen's protection.

Bibliography

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.

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