A CATASTROPHE.
In less than an hour we were on the road, stepping out briskly
towards the south. A good store of provisions was in our scrip, and we
had that comfortable feeling of being independent of the vicissitudes
of the hour that accompanies a well-lined purse.
The musicians strode on ahead, Osman leading, and as they went they
chattered gaily, and broke out from time to time in snatches of song.
Aminé and I walked some distance behind that we might talk more
freely, for neither of us felt any desire to increase our intimacy
with the minstrels.
“Yúsufu,” said Aminé suddenly, when we had left the town behind,
“what was it that thou hadst in thy hand when Abduláhi and I came
upon thee sitting under the tree?”
“In my hand?” I repeated, considerably disconcerted by the question.
“Yes. Thou didst hide it when I spoke, so I said nothing, because
Abduláhi was there.”
I was surprised at her discretion, and after a moment’s reflection
decided to get the explanation over at once. I therefore drew out the
locket (which I had not yet sewn up in its hiding place) and opened
it. Aminé gazed at the two faces in blank amazement, and for a time
spoke not a word.
“What is it?” she asked at length; “is it witchcraft?” and then with
sudden suspicion, “who are they? Who is the woman?”
“She is the maid who is to be my wife,” I replied, feeling about as
comfortable as a polar bear might in a Turkish bath, and perspiring
almost as freely. “The old man is her father.”
“Thy wife!” exclaimed Aminé hoarsely. “Thou toldest me nothing of
this!”
She made a sudden snatch at the locket, which I narrowly evaded, and
hastened to stow the precious bauble out of harm’s way.
“I will get that thing and fling it in the fire,” Aminé declared in a
voice husky with anger, “and as to the woman, I will kill her when I
meet her.”
I made no reply, being not a little distressed at the turn things were
taking.
“Why didst not thou tell me?” Aminé continued passionately, “that
thou hadst a beautiful wife, one far more handsome than me? I would
not have come with thee. Abduláhi would have taken me gladly.”
I wished most fervently that he had, but held my peace.
Suddenly she burst into a storm of sobs, beating her breast and
moaning aloud, and tearing the coral necklace asunder, she flung it
down in the road.
I feigned not to see this, and presently she went back and picked it
up, but she did not again overtake me, but continued to follow some
twenty or thirty yards behind.
Throughout the day she maintained an attitude of sullen aloofness,
never coming near me nor speaking unless under actual necessity, and
when she was compelled to address me she spoke with a gruff curtness
in extreme contrast to her usual soft and winning manner. Her altered
behaviour was viewed with but ill-concealed amusement by the
musicians, and Ali took the opportunity to adopt a highly insinuating
and sympathetic manner towards her; but his attempts to fish in
troubled waters met with no better result than a vehemently uttered
threat on her part to break his skull with a large stone.
Late in the afternoon we turned off the road on which we had been
travelling, and took a small and indistinct track, which Osman
informed me would shorten our journey by a couple of days, and which
presently brought us to a tiny hamlet on the bank of the river Tain--a
large tributary of the Firráo or Volta. Here Aminé obtained for
herself and me a house which stood in a small compound of its own, and
she commenced to prepare our meal, leaving the minstrels to make their
own arrangements. When the meal was ready she took it into the house,
and set it before me in silence; but instead of sitting down with me
to share it, she went out into the compound and supped alone by the
fire.
By the time I had finished eating the night had closed in and the hut
was in darkness, but presently Aminé brought in a large shea-butter
lamp or candle and set it on the floor; then she cleared away the
remains of the food, and again left me in solitude.
For a long time I sat cross-legged at the end of my mat, watching the
shadows dance upon the walls as the unsteady flame flickered in the
draught, meditating gloomily upon this new complication in my affairs,
and wondering what the end of it would be. My reflections were at
length interrupted by the entrance of Aminé, who walked straight up
to my mat, and, kneeling down upon it, laid her head upon my feet.
“Wilt thou forgive me, Yúsufu?” she asked meekly, “for the wrong that
I have done thee? I was vexed when thou didst show me the face of thy
wife, and I saw that she was so fair to look upon, for I feared that
thou wouldst love her only and not me. I will trouble thee no more, my
husband, nor make strife in thy house, and the beautiful woman shall
be as my sister, and I will even be subject to her, and serve her as
her bond-maid if it please thee, so that thou shalt love me too. Wilt
thou not forgive me, seeing that I am but a woman, and that my folly
ariseth out of my love for thee?”
She raised a piteous face to me, and her big eyes were swimming with
tears as she made her humble appeal. As to me, I was too much overcome
to be capable of any reply, and giving way to a natural, though
insane, impulse, I took her head in my hands, and laid her cheek
against mine. She uttered a sigh of profound content, and presently
rose, and, spreading her mat near mine, curled herself up upon it and
there lay, not sleeping, but watching me like some devoted terrier
basking upon a rug, with one fond eye fixed upon its master.
I was deeply affected, and very angry with myself, for by thus weakly
yielding to my emotion, natural though it was, I had made the
situation far worse than it was before, and the bitter disillusionment
had to be begun all over again. And then how pitiful it was to see all
this noble and faithful love running to waste in a world where it is
so precious and so rare; when so many have to pass through life
uncared for and alone.
When I came out of the hut in the morning I found Aminé dressed in
her old _túrkedi_, holding a review of our household goods, which
were spread out on her mat.
“I have been thinking,” she said, “that it seemeth a pity for us to be
wearing our fine clothes on this rough journey through the forest, so
I have put on my old _túrkedi_. Wilt thou, too, not wear thy old
_riga_ and _wondo_, and let me put the fine ones in a bundle and carry
them?”
It seemed a reasonable suggestion, so taking the old clothing into the
hut, I made the change.
“It would be well,” said she, as she folded my embroidered _riga_, “to
put in the bundle all that thou needest not for use on the road, so
that thou shalt walk more easily.”
To this I also agreed, and laid on the mat my watch, pistol, and
cartridge box, my purse with the remaining money in it, the bag of
gold dust that I had received from Musa, and a few other odds and
ends. I kept out a bag of _kurdi_ for our immediate wants, and I wore
my two knives--my original knife and the one I had obtained in the
mine--stuck through the waist-band of my _wondo_. The locket I had
already hastily stitched into its case, and this hung round my neck.
As Aminé was putting the finishing touches to the bundle, I strolled
towards the gate of the compound, and was just stepping out, when Ali
strode up hurriedly and with an air of confusion for which I could not
at the moment account.
“I have come to look for thee, thou sluggard,” said he boisterously.
“Wilt thou keep us waiting for ever?”
“I am going to find our landlord, that I may pay him for our
lodgings,” I replied, but at that moment the man himself appeared and
saluted me civilly. I thanked him (in Hausa--which he did not
understand) for the loan of his house, and presented him with a
handful of cowries, which he received with lively tokens of gratitude,
and as Aminé was now waiting with our entire effects upon her head,
we made our way to the river, picking up Osman and Baku on the way.
We forded the Tain without difficulty, for there was barely four feet
of water in the middle, the river being now at its lowest; but the
high, steep banks showed us what a volume it swelled to in the wet
season, and we saw that, had we been a month later, it would have been
quite impassable. For we were now at the very end of the dry season,
and, indeed, one or two showers had fallen while we were at Banda.
The track along which we travelled became more and more obscure as we
went on, but Osman picked his way along it with the confidence of a
skilled path-finder. I noted, however, with some concern, that in spite
of his promise that we should keep to the more open orchard-country,
we were already entering the outskirts of the forest. Another thing I
noticed before we had been long on the road, and that was that we had
evidently crossed a water-parting, for the brooks and little streams
that we forded in the early part of the day all ran towards the
north-east, evidently going to join the Tain, but about midday we began
to meet tiny streams meandering away to the south-west; and in the
afternoon we crossed a more considerable--though still small--river,
three times in rapid succession, after which it turned westward, and
we saw it no more. About an hour after we had crossed this river the
sky became suddenly overcast, and the chill of approaching rain was
sensible in the air, while the forest was filled with the strange
continuous murmur of moving leaves that foretells a storm.
We had passed no village or sign of habitation since leaving the Tain,
and Osman assured us that we should meet with none until late on the
morrow.
“Wherefore,” said he, “we had better make ourselves a shelter against
the storm as quickly as we can.”
On hearing this we lost no time, but forthwith set about collecting
the necessary materials, the minstrels and I cutting long sticks for
the framework, while Aminé, armed with one of my knives, mowed down
the high elephant grass of the opening in which we were to camp, thus
at once clearing a space for the huts, and accumulating a pile of cut
grass with which to thatch them. We worked with such a will that in
less than an hour we had two tiny wigwam-like huts erected in the
middle of the opening, where, if they were more exposed to the rain,
they were safe from the principal danger--that of falling trees.
We had just finished the huts and piled inside one of them as many dry
sticks as we had been able to find, when the storm burst and the rain
fell in torrents. But in spite of the threatening signs of its
approach, it was but a small affair after all, and in half an hour the
sun was shining again, and there was every promise of a fine night.
“That is well over,” observed Ali, putting his head out of the low
doorway of his hut. “We can make us a fire outside now, and cook us
some food.”
“There is mighty little to cook,” said Baku, following his leader into
the outer air. “It is a pity that we did not stop to catch some of the
fish that were swimming about in the river. There were plenty of them,
and fine, large ones too.”
“For that matter,” said Osman, “we might go and catch some now while
Aminé tends the fire. I have some hooks that I bought at Táari.”
“It is a long way back,” I objected.
“We need not go back,” replied Osman. “The river is not far from here;
I can show thee quite a short way. It should be good fishing after the
rain.”
“Then we should have to leave Aminé all alone,” I said.
“I do not mind being left,” said she. “You will be back by the time it
is dark. Go and catch some fish while I get the fire ready to cook
it.”
I at length agreed to “go a-angling” with the musicians, and in a few
minutes had made the necessary preparations. A wicker bag--Aminé’s
original caterpillar bag, in fact--fitted with a sling of creeper,
answered as a creel; a ball of cotton yarn from Aminé’s private
bundle would serve as a line, and Osman had a dozen or so of large,
coarse hooks. With these appliances, and such bait as we might pick
up, it would be possible to capture some of the fish, provided they
were of an unusually unsophisticated and confiding nature.
Osman’s short cut to the river turned out as disappointing as short
cuts generally do. We scrambled through the thick undergrowth, pushing
through thorny bushes and tripping up over the sprawling roots of
great trees, but making very little headway, and the manner in which
we twisted and turned and altered our course made me fear that Osman
had lost his way.
“We should have done better to go by the road,” I grumbled, as I
extricated myself from the grapnels of a climbing palm; “we should
have been there by now, and with less labour.”
“The way is rough, indeed,” Osman admitted, “but we are nearly there.”
He pushed on ahead and disappeared among the trees, and sure enough in
a few minutes we heard his cheery announcement:
“Here we are; here is the river at last, and here are the fish,
too--swarms of them.”
The conditions were certainly favourable enough for sport, for the
river, swollen by the rain, was now swift and turbid, and even through
the muddy water we could see the fish snapping at the floating insects
and _débris_ that had been swept into the stream. Nor was there any
scarcity of bait, for snails, large and small, crept upon every bush,
and caterpillars and grubs could be collected by the dozen.
Osman served out to each of us four hooks, while I furnished the
others with lengths of cotton yarn, and soon we were fully equipped,
with the spare hooks stuck in our _rigas_. A fat, green caterpillar
served me for bait, and with my spear as a rod I proceeded to make a
trial cast.
The fish were truly most confiding. Quite unsuspicious of the thick
white yarn and the great hook, they proceeded to gorge the wriggling
bait and came up spluttering on to the bank in the greatest
astonishment. It was magnificent, but it was not sport; however, the
basket soon began to wax heavy, and visions of broiled fish floated
across my mental horizon.
“Where are Ali and Osman?” I asked of Baku, who was fishing a few
yards away from me.
“They are further down, just by the bend,” he replied.
“If they have been as successful as thou and I, they will have nearly
enough,” I said, for I had seen Baku hooking the fish out even faster
than I was doing. “We must not stay too long, or we shall have the
darkness upon us.”
“That is true,” he answered. “I shall go and collect a few more
caterpillars, and then when I have caught three more fish I shall
angle no more.”
He wound up his line and began searching the bushes, among which I
soon lost sight of him. I had just stowed a specially large fish in my
basket when, looking up, it seemed to me that the light was beginning
to fail.
“Come, Baku,” I called out; “here is the evening closing in, and we
have to get back. We must start at once.”
He did not answer.
“Where art thou, Baku?” I called again, raising my voice, as I wound
up my line and stuck the hook in my _riga_.
There was still no answer.
“Ho, there!” I shouted. “Ali! Osman! Where are you all?”
I listened, but not a sound came back but the cry of a hornbill that
had been startled by my shout.
With a sudden pang of suspicion I ran along the bank looking in all
directions and shouting at the top of my voice, but no sign of my
companions was to be seen nor did my shouts evoke any answer. They had
gone, and the stealthy manner of their departure filled me alike with
anger and anxiety. For when I would have followed them I realised that
I had but the vaguest idea of the direction in which the camp lay. The
devious manner in which we had approached the river had completely
bewildered me, and I dared not trust myself to plunge into the
pathless forest in search of so small a point as our opening. There
was only one thing to be done; I must work my way up the river and
endeavour to identify the place where we had crossed it, and this
would be difficult enough, for, as I have said, the path on which we
had been travelling was but an obscure and unfrequented track, and it
was now rapidly growing dark. Moreover, I had no means of judging how
far I was from the ford, whether it was but a few hundred yards away
or a dozen miles; I could not even be certain that this was the same
river, although I felt very little doubt that it was.
I at once commenced a systematic examination of the banks, working my
way slowly up stream--for the ford undoubtedly lay in that
direction--and the more I searched, the more hopeless did the task
appear. The night came on apace, and soon I could barely see the
ground without stooping. Once or twice I struck off on what I thought
looked like a trail, but after following it for a hundred yards or
more, found myself in impenetrable bush. And every moment my anxiety
grew more and more intense.
As I recalled the incidents of the day the evidence of a settled plot
became so manifest that I marvelled at my blindness. I remembered
Ali’s confusion when I encountered him at the compound gate, where he
had without doubt been watching through the fence as Aminé packed the
valuables in her bundle; I perceived that Osman’s pretended short cut
to the river through the trackless bush was but a device to prevent me
from finding my way back; and again the sinister question presented
itself, “What was their object in all this?” That they intended to
make off with the gold was obvious, but what about Aminé? Would they
drag her off with them, or would they leave her alone and helpless in
the wilderness? With these questions I continued to torture myself,
cursing my folly in having associated myself with these villains after
what I had seen of them, and still searching with a sinking heart for
any trace of our trail on the banks.
It had been dark more than two hours, during which time I had toiled
painfully along the brink of the river, now wading in the shallows and
now climbing the rugged banks, oblivious alike of the stampede of
startled antelopes and the angry growls of beasts of prey, when the
rising moon threw a shaft of pale red light through the trees; and at
the same moment I seemed to recognise something familiar in the
surroundings.
I gazed at the banks and perceived that they shelved in the same
manner as I remembered them to have done at the ford. Trembling with
mingled hope and anxiety, I eagerly examined the ground by the wan
moonlight; and suddenly my heart gave a bound, for there in the soft
earth was a familiar little oblong depression, and near it a
footprint. The depression was the mark of the heel iron of my spear,
as I now made certain by fitting the iron into it, and the little
track, indistinct as it was, could yet be made out, meandering away
into the forest.
Having definitely ascertained that this was really the path, I hurried
forward as fast as I dared in the dim moonlight--for the track in
places almost completely disappeared--my anxiety becoming keener with
every moment that passed; but with all my haste, a full hour passed,
and yet no sign of the camp appeared. A dreadful fear that I had
strayed from the track began to be added to my other troubles, and
grew momentarily more acute.
Suddenly a breath of wind in my face brought with it the scent of
burning wood, and a minute later I perceived through the trees the
glow of a fire. In a tumult of excitement I broke into a run, and
almost immediately came out into the opening by the two huts.
The large untended fire and the silence of the camp struck me with a
chill of foreboding. I rushed forward, calling loudly to Aminé, and,
receiving no answer, dragged aside the thatch of our hut and crept in
trembling with fear, and reaching out my hand touched a soft, chilly
arm.
“Who is it?” I gasped. “Is it thou, Aminé?” and then, receiving no
reply, I dashed out of the hut, and snatching a great faggot from the
fire, ran back, blowing it into a flame.
Great God! What was this?
It was indeed Aminé!
Aminé with limp disordered limbs, and staring eyes that saw not, with
a little pool of blood by her side, and a gaping wound in her breast!
For a full minute I knelt transfixed, holding the shaking brand over
her face; then with a hoarse cry I rushed from the hut and flung
myself on the earth.
I thought my last moments had come, and that I must die where I lay.
My head seemed bursting; a roaring was in my ears, and lights danced
before my eyes.
As I slowly recovered, the shock of overwhelming horror and grief
became mingled with an access of fury that threatened my reason. I
stalked up and down before the huts, shaking my fists and cursing
aloud like a maniac. If I could have laid my hands at that moment on
the murderers, there is no act of ferocious cruelty of which I should
not have been capable. To merely tear them limb from limb or hack them
into pieces would have seemed too merciful, in the passion of hatred
and rage that now possessed me, and I have since been thankful that I
did not then encounter them, for I should certainly have disgraced my
civilisation with some horrid act of barbaric vengeance.
Presently I grew calmer, and setting a cotton wick--torn from my
_riga_--to one of the balls of shea butter that lay in her brass
cooking-pan near the fire, I made a lamp and carried it into the hut.
Poor child! Poor faithful heart! Was it for this that I had brought
her through so many perils and hardships, away from the promise of a
home in some far away Hausa city, where she might have shared the love
of some husband of her own race and seen her children grow up around
her? In a passion of sorrow and bitter regret I stooped and kissed the
cold cheek of the sweet barbarian, and knew for the first time how
dear she had become to me with her simple faith and love, so childlike
and yet so womanly.
As to the details of the foul deed, they were now obvious and plain.
The fishing excursion had been deliberately planned to get me out of
the way, and Osman’s devious wanderings to and fro in the forest were
doubtless designed to confuse me as to our direction (for probably the
river was really close at hand, as he had said). When we arrived at
the river, Ali and Osman must have hurried back almost immediately,
while Baku remained for a time to occupy my attention. No doubt the
two villains had endeavoured to persuade Aminé to accompany them in
their flight (for Ali had ever cast a greedy eye on the handsome Fulah
girl), and on her refusing and retreating to the hut to protect our
valuables, they had followed her and silenced her resistance by
stabbing her to the heart. As to which of them was the actual murderer
I had little doubt, but any that I had was quickly resolved, for one
of the hands of the poor dead maid was closed and seemed to grasp
something, and on my gently opening it I took out a wisp of hair and
a couple of red glass beads. Now, the three musicians wore, after the
Wongára fashion, a plait of hair on each side of the face. Osman’s
plaits were plain, Baku’s were ornamented with threads of coloured
cotton, while Ali had decorated each of his plaits with a bunch of red
glass beads.
If curses could have killed, the villainous balafu-player would never
again have looked upon the daylight, for I heaped upon him every
malediction that my lips could frame or my heart conceive, and I swore
that if ever I met him, even though it were under the very walls of
the castle, he should not escape until he had paid his debt to the
uttermost farthing.
Curses, however, could not undo the dreadful deed nor bring back life
to the poor chill body, and there remained the last sad offices to be
performed for the lost companion of my wanderings. These I set about
with the tears streaming down my face, and many a choking sob, as I
recalled the little incidents of our comradeship, and especially the
affecting scene of the previous night; reverently I composed the
contorted limbs, and closed the eyes that had looked on me with such
fond devotion, and with my broad spear-head began to turn up the earth
in the floor of the hut.
It was but a shallow grave that I could dig with my imperfect
appliances, for the soil was gravelly and hard, and the greater part
of the night was spent before the narrow trench was hollowed out. By
that time the last of the shea butter was burnt out, and I was faint
from want of food, so I went out, and, laying a few of the fish upon
the red embers, waited for the dawn, unmindful of the hyænas that
prowled, moaning and snuffling around the camp.
As the first pale glimmer appeared above the trees, I went back to the
hut. The little clay tablet that the poor child had so prized still
hung in its bag around her neck. I untied the string and transferred
it to my own neck, and having cut off one of the long soft plaits of
which she was so justly proud, I lifted the dead girl and tenderly
laid her in her narrow bed, spreading her _turkedi_ over her and
tucking it around her that I might not see the cold earth fall upon
her body. Then I filled in the grave and piled the little mound of
earth over her, and going out, securely closed up the doorway of the
hut.
The rest of the day I resolved to spend collecting stones with which
to build a cairn over the grave, for I could not bear to think of her
resting-place being desecrated by the ghoul-like beasts of the night.
I had for a moment had a wild idea of going in pursuit of the
murderers, but the futility of this was so apparent that I immediately
abandoned it; for apart from the fact that they had many hours’ start,
I could not tell whether they had gone forward or backward, and it was
quite certain that they would take effectual means to avoid being
overtaken. I therefore broiled the remainder of the fish, and when I
had eaten it and piled up the fire with green wood, I took my mat into
the vacant hut to sleep awhile before resuming my labours.
I did not sleep more than two or three hours, notwithstanding my
fatigue, for the sun was near the zenith when I arose, and as I wished
to complete my task before night, I set to work without delay. There
are plenty of large stones to be picked up in most parts of the
forest, for the heavy rains lay bare the rocky subsoil wherever there
is much slope, so I had little difficulty in finding the material for
the cairn, although it was heavy work carrying what I had collected to
the camp.
In one of my excursions I took my way, with the wicker bag, down the
path that led from the camp, as I had observed the ground to be more
stony in that direction, and I had walked barely half a mile when I
came to the river, which here made a sweep to the east and then turned
away westward again. At this point there was a small rapid, and the
bed of the stream was full of waterworn fragments of rock, most of
them of considerable size. With these I filled up my bag, but before
returning to the camp I baited a couple of my hooks with fragments of
snail and secured the lines to overhanging branches so that the baited
hooks nearly touched the bottom.
I made several journeys to the river, returning each time with a bag
of stones on my head, a number of others in my pocket, and a big one
under each arm, and in the course of the afternoon I caught four good
sized fish. The day’s wants being thus provided for, I proceeded with
my melancholy task, and before nightfall I had built up a cairn over
poor Aminé’s grave that nearly covered the floor of the little hut,
and had moreover strengthened the hut itself with a number of thorny
branches, which I hoped would effectually prevent the beasts from
tearing it open. The short remainder of the daylight I spent in making
more secure the hut in which I was to sleep, and in collecting an
abundance of firewood; and when the darkness at length closed in I
cooked my frugal meal and then made up the fire. I did not turn in for
a long time, but sat by the fire, in the blackest dejection, gazing at
the crackling sticks, meditating upon my forlorn and hopeless
condition, and thinking of the poor murdered girl who lay under the
cairn, whom but yesterday I was so anxious to be rid of, and whose
cheerful prattle I would have given so much to listen to again.
At length, as I felt that I was becoming sleepy and the prowling
beasts were stealing up on all sides, I again fed the fire and banked
it up with grass and sods of earth, and retiring to my hut, secured
the doorway with strong lashings of creeper.
But I spent a miserable and unrestful night, for as soon as the fire
burned low the camp was filled with the most hellish uproar, and
several times a vigorous scratching at the frail wall of my hut had to
be stopped by a thrust of my spear between the frame poles. Towards
morning, however, the hubbub subsided, and I fell into a sound sleep
from which I did not waken until the sunlight was streaming in through
the chinks in the thatch.