"Holy Flower"
North of the Limpopo river, on the border of the Transvaal, Alan Quarterman is escorting a wealthy sportsman, Charles Scroope. Mr Scroope is injured rescuing Quatermain from a leopard, and returns to Englans with an enhanced reputation - somewhat exaggerated by Quatermain, in order to reconcile with his estranged fiancee Margaret Manners. Quarterman has not been to England since he was a child. He takes with him a pressed orchid bloom, given to him by an old friend, Brother John (known as Dogeetah to the natives), an apparently half-crazed wanderer after butterflies and shich-like, and a capable doctor. John has acquired this bloom when staying with his blood-brother Bausi, chief of the Marzitu, beyond Lake Kirua, where a Holy Flower and a white gorilla are joint gods of the savage and cannibal Pongo. Kalubi, the chief of the Pongo, gave John the bloom in return for treating a "monkey" bite. The flower is said to be in the custody of a white goddess
Quatermain shows the bloom to Stephen Somers, a wealthy collector (John has valued it at £20,000), son of Sir Alexander Somers, a bullion broker. Stephen (known to the blacks as Wazela) accompanies Quatermain on an expedition to find the orchid, gorilla and goddess. John is to be their guide, but he is missing from Quatermain's home in Durban, and the party set out for Pongo-land without him. The party includes the Zulu Mavovo (a morose petty chief, "at times given to the practice of uncanny arts" and a one-time pupil of Zikali), Quatermain's old Hottentot servant Hans, and coloured cook Sammy.
They travel up the coast on a cargo vessel in company with Bey Hassan, a villainous Arab. They are dropped at Kilwa, when it becomes apparent that Hassan is a slaver. They stop at a sacked mission station, where Quatermain recovers an old bible and a drawing of a woman. A dispute arises with Hassan, and they flee inland. As Mavovo remarks "This is a lucky journey: I never thought there would be hope of war so soon".
The party is attacked by the Arabs, but these are repulsed in part through the ruse of freeing the slaves. Quatermain and company trek inland for a month, with some of the slaves following them. The find themselves surrounded by a regiment of Mazitu soldiers, led by an old one-eyed general, Babemba. They win over the old general with coffee, and a mirror. But in so doing the raise the emnity of Imbozwi, the head witch doctor. They are taken to the town, where they learn that they are to be put to death unless Brother John can vouch for them. They prophecise that he will come in two days - relying in Mavovo's snake (his spirit familiar). John arrives in the nick of time, and the villainous Imbozwi is shot to death with arrows in their place (as he foolishly offered to suffer).
Brother John discloses to Quatermain that he is an Episcopalian minister, whose mission station at Kilwa was sacked 23 years before, and his pregnant wife disappeared. He has been scouring Africa since then for her, in the guise of a madman (which gave him a measure of immunity). He has learnt that in Pongo-land the Holy Flower is guarded by a white Mother of the Flower, and suspects that it might be his missing wife, Elizabeth.
As soon as friendly relations are restored with the Mazitu chief, an embassy from Pongo-land arrives. Although there has been emnity between the two tribes for years, they offer a peace treaty. John, Quatermain, and Stephen agree to be an embassy for the Mazitu (which John is entitled to be). They take two Marzitu guides (Tom and Jerry), Hans, and Mavovo with them. The only condition of the embassy is that they may not bring their guns with them. To this they reluctantly agree.
The Kalubi of Pongo-land is a nervous wreck - he fears that the White God will kill him. His fears are justified, since the god, a giant gorilla, always tires of his chief minister, and despatches them one after the other, always with a warning bite first (to remove a finger). The gorilla, which allegedly lives for ever, dwells on the slopes of a mountain. The co-divinity, the Holy Flower, with its attendant Mother of the Flower, grows on an island at the top of the mountain. The Mother is chosen from natural albinos, though the current Mother is a white woman. She has a daughter of 20 years or so of age.
Strangers are not welcomed in Pongo-land. The party are condemned to a "hot death" if they escape the fangs of the White god. They are taken to taken to see the chief witch-doctor, the Motombo, who lives in a cave in the cliffs adjacent to the abode of the gods. The Kalubi, who fears his inevitable death at the hands (or rather teeth) of the god, encourages the party to kill the White god, in return for the Holy Flower. He is discovered by the Kalubi-who-is-to-come, Komba, who is a particularly cold blooded example of Pongo manhood. The party, with the Kalubi-who-was, are taken across the lake to the House of the God (the forested mountain) on the orders of the toad-like Motombo. Although they had been checked for guns, Hans has hidden Quatermain's hunting rifle in his walking stick. The stock is in a large head of tobacco. Unfortunately Hans has lost all but 4 of the caps he had in his waistcoat - the others, disguised as charms, have fallen through the rotten material.
The White god ambushes the party, and kills the Kalubi, and Jerry, before they can intervene. However, while Mavovo engages it with a spear they have recovered from one of the Kabulis' graves, Quatermain is able to shoot it. They skin the monster.
Passing on to the enclosure of the Holy Flower, Alan Quatermain goes in first, and discovers a woman who is evidently Brother John's long lost wife Elizabeth, and her daughter, who she has named Hope. They are the Mother of the Holy Flower, and Daughter of the Holy Flower respectively. Quatermain admits Brother John (really Rev'd John Eversley) into the compound and quietly withdraws.
After an appropriate interval Quatermain, Stephen, and the other members of the party enter the enclosure, where they are welcomed by Mrs Eversley. She has lived in some loneliness, for the Pongo seldom visit the island except for the annual sowing of the Sacred Seed (the corn used to feed the White God), and occasionally at other times. She was not aware of the cannibalism of the people, and had never seen the White god. On the other hand, she was attended by a devoted group of a dozen albino servant women - the eldest of whom looked (according to Stephen) like a giant Angora rabbit. Hope has been taught to read and write with the aid of a Bible Mrs Eversley preserved, but her history and knowledge of the outside world is limited, and her very language has a biblical flavour.
Mrs Eversley shows them the Holy Flower. They are all astounded, and Stephen bows down in the earth before it. Even the Zulus, for whom flowers have little interest (except if they can be eaten), are impressed by its size - 8 feet across.
To get through the guards Hans is dressed in the skin of the monster, which has dried and shrunk in the sun. Forest ants have cleaned it, but it is still uncomfortable for Hans to wear. Because they don't have a canoe Quatermain swims the lake (avoiding the alligators). But because the elderly and sinister Motombo is always watching the island Quatermain has to shoot the witch-doctor to prevent him raising the alarm. They all escape in the canoe. However they are seen, and a pursuit ensues when it is seen that the White god is only a skin (Hans pokes his head out to get some air). They also see that the party have the Holy Flower, which has been carefull dug up under the superintendence of Stephen. The pursuit is led by the new Kalubi, Komba.
The pursuers gradually catch up, though they are delayed by Quatermain shooting Komba, and when they through the skin of the monster into the lake (the Pongo stop to pick up the holy relic). When the leading pursuers almost reach the party, they abandon the canoe and wade ashore. However, Stephen turns back to save the Holy Flower. Hope intervenes to prevent the Pongo from killing Stephen, by using a malediction as Daughter of the Holy Flower. This deters them enough for Stephen (though wounded in the shoulder by a spear) to be rescued. The flower is lost, and is never recovered (though Quatermain preserved a seed pod, which later is used to raise several specimens).
There is a Battle of the Reeds between the Pongo and the Mazitu led by Babemba, who have now come up. The guns of the Zulu hunters decide the battle, though it is nearly a draw. The Pongo, with their flower, are never seen again, and are believed to have returned to their ancestral home in heart of the continent.
Stephen is delerious due to his injury, and is nursed by Brother John assisted by Hope. John gives up the case as hopeless. However, in his ravings about the Flower, Hope persuades him that the Flower has been recovered, pointing to a clear spot on the floor of the Mazitu hut. Stephen believes he sees the flower, and falls into a natural sleep, from which he awakes almost fully recovered. When he asks Hope about the Flower she replies that it has been recovered, for is she not the Child of the Flower (she says this standing on the same spot of the hut where Stephen thought he saw the Flower). The couple declare their love for one another, and all are happy.
However, a gunshot is heard. It is the Arab slavers, led by Hassan, come to storm the town (Beza), capture the Europeans, kill the men and and take the women and children as slaves. Because the Mazitu had lived in peace - except for the Pongo - they didn't have many sentries, and only a few hundred soldiers in the town. There are 400 slavers, all armed with guns. Quatermain and company take shelter on a rise. The Arabs take the town, from which the people have fled after a token defence led by the king himself. The town begins to burn (secretly lit by Hans), and the Arabs are burnt within its walls, since the Mazitu soldiers prevent them escaping over the town walls. They rush the southern gate but Quatermain and Mavovo and their Zulus, with Babemba and some Mazitu, prevent their escape. In the Battle of the Gate four Zulu are killed and three injured, including Mavovo. Only a few Arabs - including Hassan - survive, for a time. Of the rest, as Quatermain observed, "they had gone to their own place, of which sometimes that flaming African city has seemed to me a symbol". Quatermain refuses to hear from Hans and the others which Hassan's subsequent fate was.
Mavovo admits to Quatermain that the first lot he had drawn when he prophecised the fate of the party was his own - he is dying. The party learn that it was Hans who lit the fires which destroyed the Arabs, and led Babemba to come to the south gate in the nick of time. Mavovo dies happy, after renaming Hans (who he had always derided as a coward) "Light in darkness", and "Lord of the Fire" (formal titles by which Hans was henceforth known by the natives), and calling out "Baba! Inkoosi" to Quatermain.
Sammy is found still in the town. He is hiding in a corn pit outside their hut, having hidden their goods there and found himself surrounded by fire. The party trek home, Hope and Stephen to marry in Durban, where they meet Sir Alexander, and to settle back in England, where John receives a parish in the gift of Sir Alexander.
This is another of the ubiquitious Quarterman quest stories. Like most, though unlike the last, "Allan Quatermain", it ends happily enough for the main participants - two of whom marry. But Quartermain himself gets little, and the Zulu Mavovo dies. In common with several other stories, such as "The People of the Mist", the real villains are the Arab slavers. In both stories they come to suitably fiery ends (no doubt giving them a taste for their lot in the next world). The cruelty of the Pongo and the Mazitu is not to be sniffed at, but at least it wasn't for personal gain, and was exercised in ignorance of a better way.
The gorilla god is typical of Haggard, but isn't fully developed. Motombo is another speciality, an evil and aged witchdoctor of appropriately unpleasant appearance. The Flower, and its white guardian, is a more ambitious touch, and has clear links with the "Ivory Child", and other remnants of ancient, more civilised, religion, as in "Queen Sheba's Ring". Overall this would have to be one of the more formulaic stories Haggard has left us, and there are few really memorable episodes. The humour helps - such as Sammy emerging from the pit - and nicely balances elements of what might otherwise be regarded as a dismal story. Deaths are many (though this is nothing unusual in Haggard, the "novelist of blood"), and often fairly messy. But this was in keeping with a tale of "darkest Africa" at its least tamed.