[Illustration: Cover art]
[Frontispiece: GORUBA AT BAY. _See page_ 268]
THE LONG TRAIL
_A STORY OF
AFRICAN ADVENTURE_
BY
HERBERT STRANG
ILLUSTRATED BY H. EVISON
_With a Frontispiece in Colour by A. della Valle_
HUMPHREY MILFORD
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON, EDINBURGH, GLASGOW
TORONTO, MELBOURNE, CAPE TOWN, BOMBAY
1919
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY R. CLAY AND SONS, LTD.,
BRUNSWICK STREET, STAMFORD STREET, S.E. 1, AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.
HERBERT STRANG
COMPLETE LIST OF STORIES
ADVENTURES OF DICK TREVANION, THE
ADVENTURES OF HARRY ROCHESTER, THE
A GENTLEMAN AT ARMS
A HERO OF LIEGE
AIR PATROL, THE
AIR SCOUT, THE
BARCLAY OF THE GUIDES
BOYS OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE
BROWN OF MOUKDEN
BURTON OF THE FLYING CORPS
CARRY ON
CRUISE OF THE GYRO-CAR, THE
FIGHTING WITH FRENCH
FLYING BOAT, THE
FRANK FORESTER
HUMPHREY BOLD
JACK HARDY
KING OF THE AIR
KOBO
LORD OF THE SEAS
MOTOR SCOUT, THE
OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN, THE
ONE OF CLIVE'S HEROES
PALM TREE ISLAND
ROB THE RANGER
ROUND THE WORLD IN SEVEN DAYS
SAMBA
SETTLERS AND SCOUTS
SULTAN JIM
SWIFT AND SURE
THROUGH THE ENEMY'S LINES
TOM BURNABY
TOM WILLOUGHBY'S SCOUTS
WITH DRAKE ON THE SPANISH MAIN
WITH HAIG ON THE SOMME
CONTENTS
CHAP.
I. THE RUINED VILLAGE
II. THE FIGHT AT DAWN
III. THE STORY OF GORUBA
IV. RUSHED BY TUBUS
V. UNDER THE LASH
VI. THE NORTHWARD TRAIL
VII. THE PYTHON
VIII. SETTING A TRAP
IX. THE BROKEN BRIDGE
X. IN HOT PURSUIT
XI. A STRATEGIC RETREAT
XII. A STAMPEDE
XIII. A NARROW SHAVE
XIV. AT BAY
XV. THE PROBLEM
XVI. A NIGHT INTRUDER
XVII. A NIGHT ADVENTURE
XVIII. ATTACKED BY LIONS
XIX. TRAINING AN ARMY
XX. THE MYSTERY DEEPENS
XXI. A BLOW FOR LIBERTY
XXII. THE DISCOVERY OF RABEH'S HOARD
XXIII. GORUBA IS CAUGHT
XXIV. A FIGHT WITH CROCODILES
XXV. CHARGED BY RHINOCEROSES
XXVI. DISASTER
XXVII. AN ATTACK IN FORCE
XXVIII. THE ELEVENTH HOUR
XXIX. TUBUS TO THE RESCUE
XXX. THE FORWARD MARCH
XXXI. THE LAST FIGHT
XXXII. A HOT CHASE
XXXIII. THE END OF GORUBA
XXXIV. THE GREAT REWARD
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
_COLOUR PLATE BY A. DELLA VALLE_
GORUBA AT BAY (see p. 268) . . . Frontispiece
_DRAWINGS BY H. EVISON_
AT GRIPS WITH THE NEGRO
JOHN ADDRESSES THE SENTRY
THE PRISONER
IN THE PYTHON'S TOILS
COLLAPSE
AT THE EDGE OF THE CLIFF
FACING THE FOE
JOHN TO THE RESCUE
A FATAL LEAP
THE DISCOVERY IN THE DITCH
GAMBARU IS AMAZED
THE FIGHT WITH THE CROCODILES
THE RHINOCEROS IN PURSUIT
GORUBA HAS A BLOW
RESCUED BY THE ENEMY
ROYCE LEADS THE CHARGE
GORUBA CLIMBS THE WELL
The LONG TRAIL
[Illustration: Chapter I headpiece]
CHAPTER I
THE RUINED VILLAGE
On the afternoon of a certain day in spring a party of eighteen men
was marching through the rocky, bush-covered country near the
north-western corner of Lake Chad, in Northern Nigeria. It consisted
of two white men, in khaki and sun helmets, and sixteen stalwart
Hausas, wearing nothing but their loin-cloths, but carrying on their
heads boxes and bundles of all shapes and sizes. The white men and
nine of the negroes had rifles slung over their backs.
They were marching wearily. Since early morning, almost without
stopping, they had been trudging their toilsome way over parched and
barren land, only once discovering a water-hole at which they were
able to slake their burning thirst.
For the greater part of the day the sun had beat upon them fiercely;
but the sky was now overclouded, and a keen north-east wind had
sprung up--the harmattan of the desert--blowing full in their faces,
stinging their skins and filling mouths and ears and nostrils with
the particles of fine grey dust which it swept along in its
desolating course.
The jaded carriers, who were wont to enliven the march with song and
chatter, were now silent. The two Englishmen in advance, bending
forward to keep the grit out of their eyes, tramped along, side by
side, with an air of dejection and fatigue.
"We are down on our luck, old man," said Hugh Royce presently,
turning his back upon the wind. "The village can't be far away, if
Drysdale's map is correct; but we can't go on much farther without a
long rest."
"It's rank bad luck, as you say," replied Tom Challis. "It's not as
if we had been over-marching; we've really taken it pretty easy; but
we didn't reckon with sickness. These Hausas look as strong as
horses, but I doubt whether half of them will be able to lift their
loads to-morrow."
"When we get to the village, we'll let them slack for a day or two,
and dose them well. I'll tell John; it will encourage them to stick
it a little longer."
He beckoned up a strapping negro, the head-man of the company, upon
whom a former employer had bestowed the name John in place of his
own--a succession of clicks and gurgles which white men found
unpronounceable. Telling him the decision just come to, the leader
of the expedition ordered him to acquaint the men with it, and urge
them to persevere a little longer.
The weary, willing carriers perked up a little at the prospect of a
holiday, and began to talk to one another of how much they would eat.
It did not matter, they agreed, if they made themselves ill, for the
little balls out of the white men's bottles would soon set them to
rights again.
Hugh Royce was one of those hardy persons whom wealth does not spoil.
Inheriting, at the age of twenty-three, a large fortune from an
uncle, he resolved to realise his dearest ambition--to travel into
some little-known region of the world, not for mere sport, but to
study its animals and birds, and add something to the general stock
of knowledge.
A chance meeting with a friend of his, named Drysdale, who had just
returned from a sporting expedition in Nigeria, led him to choose
that country as a promising field of discovery.
Being sociably inclined, he wanted a companion. Drysdale himself
could not join him, but he happened to mention that traces of tin had
recently been found near one of the tributaries of the River Yo.
This led Royce to think of his school-fellow, Tom Challis, a mining
engineer who was not getting on so fast as he would have liked. He
went to Challis and proposed that they should go together, Challis to
prospect for tin, while he himself pursued his studies in natural
history.
"If things look well," he said, "we'll start a tin mine, and go
half-shares."
"That's hardly fair to you, as you're going to stand all expenses,"
replied Challis. "I shall be satisfied with a quarter."
"You're too modest, Tom. Well, I want your company, so I'll agree to
a third, nothing less. So that's settled."
Royce purchased a quantity of tinned goods; medical stores; prints,
mirrors, and beads for trading with the natives; rifles and
ammunition; a tent and other necessaries; and they left Southampton
one February day for the Gold Coast. Here they engaged a staff of
experienced Hausa carriers--called "boys," whatever their age might
be--and started for the interior.
That was several weeks ago, and they were now approaching the
tin-bearing region marked on the map with which Drysdale had provided
his friend.
About an hour after the promise of a rest had stimulated the
carriers, they were further encouraged by striking a native track,
which indicated the proximity of a village. Tired as they were, they
quickened their pace, and another half-hour's march brought them to
cultivated fields of millet and ground-nuts.
The white men, walking ahead of the party, looked forward eagerly for
the conical roofs of the village huts, which they expected to see
rising above the crops in the distance, and were surprised to find
that nothing of the sort was in sight.
"It must be a bigger place than I thought," said Royce. "A small
village wouldn't have such extensive fields. Drysdale marks the
people as friendly; I hope we shall find them so."
The narrow track wound through the fields, high stalks growing on
either side. A sudden turn brought them in sight of an object which
caused them to halt, and struck them with a foreboding of ill.
Lying in a curiously huddled posture across the track was the body of
a black man.
Insensibly lightening their tread, they approached it, and found that
the man was dead, and bore marks of slashing and defacement.
"There's been bad work here," said Royce in a whisper.
They looked ahead; no one was in sight. They listened; there was not
a sound but the chirping of insects in the crops.
Unslinging their rifles, they went slowly on, oppressed with a sense
of tragedy; and a few steps more disclosed a scene for which their
discovery of the dead man had partly prepared them. The absence of
the well-known conical roofs was explained. The site of what had
once been a flourishing village was now desolate, a black waste.
Great heaps of ashes marked the spots where the cane huts had stood,
and here and there lay bodies stiff in death, from which a number of
sated carrion birds rose noisily into the air at the approach of men.
Their hearts sank as they contemplated the pitiful scene. It was a
new thing in their experience, though it represented one of the
commonest of tragedies in that region. The village had recently been
raided by a more powerful neighbour; its men had been killed, its
women and children carried off into slavery.
Happily, such raids are becoming less frequent as the Great Powers
strengthen their grip on the areas marked on the maps as their
spheres of influence. But in the remoter parts of those vast
territories, life still proceeds much as it has done for hundreds or
thousands of years past.
The horror of the scene, the misery it represented, sank deep into
the hearts of the two Englishmen. And mingled with the distress
which every humane person must have felt, was their consciousness of
the bearing this discovery would have upon their own situation. They
had hoped to make this village their resting-place, to give their men
time to recover from the sickness which had crept upon them of late,
to renew their store of fresh provisions. But it was now late in the
afternoon; the next village marked on the map was fifteen or twenty
miles away; the fatigue and weakness of the carriers rendered it
impossible for the expedition to advance so far.
"We are indeed down on our luck," said Challis gloomily. "This will
just about be the finishing stroke for our boys."
"They can't move another step, that's certain," said Royce. "We
shall have to camp somewhere about here for the night. Here they
are. Look at their faces! I never saw fright so clearly expressed.
We must put the best face on it with them."
The carriers had halted at the edge of the village clearing, and
stood like images of terror and despair. Royce went up to them.
"This is very bad, John," he said to the head-man. "Keep the boys as
cheerful as you can. They had better put down their loads against
those palm-trees yonder. Find the village well, and get some water;
then the strongest of them must build a zariba for the night. Get up
our tent, and then we'll talk things over."
"Boys 'fraid of Tubus, sah."
"Tubus?"
"Yes, sah--Tubus done dat."
"How do you know?"
"Savvy cuts on black fella's face, sah. Tubus' knives done dat."
"Well, they needn't be afraid. The Tubus won't come again; if they
did, they wouldn't face our rifles. Fix things up, and then come
back. We'll see what can be done."