"The Yellow God: An Idol of Africa"
This is one of Haggard's few contemporary novels (written, and apparently set, in 1911). It concerns a young retired army major (Alan Vernon) who is ruined by involvement with speculators - the story is very hostile to financiers - and decides to travel to west Africa to seek his fortune. He plans to help himself to some of the gold which supposedly lies in a mysterious kingdom ruled by an immortal priestess and a pair of idols - at least one of which is apparently alive in some peculiar sense. The speculation - the flooding of the Sahara - is actuallly Vernon's idea, and would be viable as suggested, but the financiers see it only as a means of duping thousands of gullible people. Vernon, who has been growing increasingly suspicious and dissatisfied, leaves the firm after an editor friend of his late father gives him background information on the prior business dealings of his partners. But of course this makes him an enemy of his ex-partners, especially of Aylward, who also wants to marry Barbara Champers-Haswell.
Vernon knows of the gold from his servant, who had escaped from darkest Africa 30 years before with the Reverend Mr Vernon, uncle to Alan. They brought with them Little Bonsa, a gold fetish in the form of a face mask (the Yellow God), which Alan has kept in the office of the senior partner of the firm (Sir Robert Aylward, Bt, then Lord Aylward). He looks upon it as a good luck charm. However, the two senior partners have a nasty experience when they image - or see - the fetish float towards them, look them in the eyes, and show them images of their own death. Both are frightened even more when Jeekie, Vernon's servant, relates the story of the fetish at Haswell's country home, The Court, the next week. Indeed Champers-Haswell has a heart attack, and Aylward is scarcely any better.
Now that Vernon has broken his connection with the firm, on the verge of the flotation of the stock, he faces ruin. His ancestral home, Yarleys, is mortgaged to the firm, and he, at 33, has no job. Since Barbara is Haswell's heiress, and has some money of her own when she turns 25 (in two years time), he is in no position to marry her. They decide that he will go to Asiki-land, his homeland, for gold. The home of the Little Bonsa - and also of the Big Bonsa, and the prieestess Asiki, has lots of gold, and no need for it. Jeekie reluctantly agrees to guide him, but actually believes that Little Bonsa wants to go home.
After a fairly properous journey - they fell in with dwarves who tried to shoot them with poisoned arrows, but were saved when the ran into a tribe of cannibals (Ogula), who ate the dwarves - Vernon and Jeekie arrived in Asiki-land. Vernon wore the fetish on his head, so was welcomed as its guardian. However, he soon discovered that although there is plenty of gold, it will not be easy to take it home. The priestess, Asiki, is young and beautiful, but like the fetish, has an evil beauty. The domestic customs of the Asiki are also delightful, consisting principally of endless sacrifices to the fetish, and to its "spouse", Big Bonsa. The latter is a large head which floats on a canal. When a sacrifice is to be made the fetish swims up to the chosen victim, though whether it is propelled by divers, or whether it is alive, as the priests - and Jeekie - maintain, is unclear.
The gold is posted to the United Kingdom, though Vernon has little hope of it ever getting to its destination. In fact it does, so Vernon's financial problems are solved.
He just manages to avoid being married to the all-but-immortal priestess - whose previous husbands (the Mungana) are all preserved as mummies - who is apparently the daughter of the priestess who ruled when his uncle visited the tribe. She is madly enarmoured of him, but he is repulsed by her. The current husband is due to commit suicide - as they all do when they have been sucked dry by the spirits of the former husbands, but he is jealous of Vernon, and tries to kill him. Vernon compels him to guide them out of the town, which he does, though he then drowns himself after going mad. In escaping Vernon is attacked by the Big Bonsa, which he shoots - it bleeds white "blood", and certainly appears to be alive in some unnatural fashion.
Vernon and Jeekie, with the Ogula who had been captured with them by the Asiki, escape from the Asiki lands. They come across Aylward, who has been pursing Barbara, who has come to Africa to find Vernon - how she managed to find her way past the dwarves and cannibals is not explained, nor how she knew the route - and Aylward shoots at Vernon. Jeekie and Vernon make him prisoner, and Vernon and Barbara are reunited. However the Asiki army is following, doubtless sent on by the furious Asiki, who has been robbed of her prize. Jeekie manages to render Aylward unconsious, and dresses him like Vernon. He then arranges for the Asiki to take him, thinking he is Vernon - the common soldiery had never seen his face, which was always covered by a linen mask. Vernon and Barbara know nothing of this ploy, and think Aylward has simply escaped, and is therefore no longer of concern to them. They are relieved that the Asiki army withdraws, but assume the priestess has given orders for them to do so. They head home.
On the ship for England Vernon and Jeekie see an image of a furious priestess over the waves, obviously lamenting the loss of Vernon, and angrily calling him back. But Jeekie also sees a detail which is hidden from Vernon. It is of Aylward, under the Asiki's feet, after she has "spiflicated" him, as Jeekie described it. His warning of a lingering death, conveyed by the fetish in his office in London, has been fulfilled.
The second financier, Champers-Haswell, is uncle to Alan Vernon's fiance, so dies of natural causes, leaving Vernon entirely innocent.
The story is less satisfactory than his usual, and is somewhat spoilt by Haggard's obvious antagonism to financiers, which rather dominates the story. Characterisation is also weaker than in the other stories, and the idea of a hidden African kingdom is stretching a little thin in a story set when at the it was written. However it is of interest in much of the detail and in the ambivalence of the central character, who despises money yet goes to Africa to find some. The major character is the servant, Jeekie, who is very much the Jeeves of the story.
This story borrows from the African mysticism of his earlier books, but doesn't really develop these; they are a mere veneer to a rather thin story. It stretches credibility that such a tribe could exist in the second decade of the twentieth century. Worse, the morality of Vernon seeking gold there is uncertain - though as it happens the priestess gave him the gold of her own free will, so it is his after all. The Yellow God is both the festish and the gold which Aylward, Haswell and their ilk seek. The former is tainted with blood, but the latter, so Haggard implies, is equally tainted.