CHAPTER I

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[Illustration: Lord James dropped without a groan. "You coward!--you

murderer!" she gasped. Chapter XXX]

OUT OF THE PRIMITIVE

BY ROBERT AMES BENNET

Author of "Into the Primitive," etc.

WITH FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLORS BY ALLEN T. TRUE

1911

TO MY FRIEND JAMES COLLIER

CHAPTER I

THE CASTAWAYS

The second night north of the Zambezi, as well as the first, the little

tramp rescue steamer had run out many miles into the offing and laid-to

during the hours of darkness. The vicinity of the coral reefs that

fringe the southeast coast of Africa is decidedly undesirable on

moonless nights.

When the Right Honorable the Earl of Avondale came out of his close,

hot stateroom into the refreshing coolness that preceded the dawn, the

position of the Southern Cross, scintillating in the blue-black sky to

port, told him that the steamer was headed in for the coast. The black

surface of the quiet sea crinkled with lines of phosphorescent light

under the ruffling of the faint breeze, which crept offshore heavy with

the stench of rotting vegetation. It was evident that the ship was

already close in again to the Mozambique swamps.

Lord James sniffed the rank odor, and hastened to make his way forward

to the bridge. As he neared the foot of the ladder, his resilient step

and the snowy whiteness of his linen suit attracted the attention of

the watcher above on the bridge.

"Good-morning, m' lord," the officer called down in a bluff but

respectful tone. "You're on deck early."

"Hullo, Meggs! That you?" replied his lordship, mounting the steps with

youthful agility. "It seems you're still earlier."

"Knowing your lordship's anxiety, I decided to run in, so that we could

renew the search with the first glimmer of daylight," explained the

skipper. "We're now barely under headway. According to the smell, we're

as near those reefs as I care to venture in the dark."

"Right-o! We'll lose no time," approved the young earl. "D'you still

think to-day is apt to tell the tale, one way or the other?"

"Aye, your lordship. I may be mistaken; but, as I told you, reckoning

together all the probabilities, we should to-day cover the spot where

the _Impala_ must have been driven on the coral--that is, unless she

foundered in deep water."

"But, man, you said that was not probable."

"A new boat should be able to stand the racking of half a dozen

cyclones, m' lord, without straining a bottom plate. No; it's far more

probable she shook off her screw, or something went wrong with the

steering gear or in the engine room. I've recharted her probable course

and that of the cyclone. It was as well for us to begin our search at

the Zambezi, as I told your lordship. But if to-day we fail to find

where she piled her bones on the coral, it's odds we'll not to-morrow.

On beyond, at Port Mozambique, we got only the north rim of the storm.

I put in there for shelter when the barometer dropped."

"That was on your run south. Glad I had the luck to chance on a man who

knows the coast as you do," remarked Lord James. "Look at those

steamers Mr. Leslie chartered by cable--a good week the start of us,

and still beating the coverts down there along Sofala! Wasting time! If

only I'd not gone off on that shunt to India--And they six weeks in

these damnable swamps--if they won ashore at all! You still believe

they had a chance of that?"

"Aye. As I explained to your lordship, if the _Impala_ hadn't lost all

her boats before she struck, there's a fair probability that the water

inside the reefs--"

"Yes, yes, to be sure! If there was the slightest chance for any one

aboard--Lady Bayrose, Miss Leslie and their maids, the only women

passengers, and a British ship! Everything must have been done to save

them. While Tom--he'd be sure to make the shore, if that was within the

bounds of possibility. Yet even if they were cast up alive--six weeks

on the vilest stretch of coast between Zanzibar and the Zambezi! They

may be dying of the fever now--this very hour! Deuce take it, man!

d'you wonder I'm impatient?"

"Aye, m'lord! But here's the dawn, and McPhee is keeping up a full head

of steam. We'll soon be doing seven knots."

As he spoke, the skipper turned to step into the pilot house. Lord

James faced about to the eastern sky, where the gray dawn was beginning

to lessen the star-gemmed blackness above the watery horizon. Swiftly

the faint glow brightened and became tinged with pink. The day was

approaching with the suddenness of the tropical sunrise. In quick

succession, the pink shaded to rose, the rose to crimson and scarlet

splendor; and then the sun came leaping above the horizon, to flood sea

and sky with its dazzling effulgence.

Captain Meggs had entered the pilot house in the blackness of night. He

came out in the full glare of day. Lord James had turned his back to

the sun. He was staring at the bank of white mist that, less than two

miles to westward, shrouded the swampy coast. Meggs had brought out two

pairs of binoculars, one of which he handed to his charterer.

"Your lordship sees," he remarked. "We're none too far out from the

reefs."

"Beastly mist!" complained Lord James, his handsome high-bred face

creased with impatience and anxiety. "D'you fancy we're anywhere near

the islet from which we put off last evening?"

"I've tried to hold our position, m'lord. But these Mozambique Channel

currents are so strong, and shift so with the tides, we may have been

either set back or ahead."

Already the bank of morning mist was beginning to break up and melt

away under the fervent rays of the sun. The young earl raised his

glasses and gazed southwards along the face of the dissolving curtain.

Through and between the ghostly wreaths and wisps of vapor he could see

the winged habitants of the swamps--flamingoes, cranes, pelicans,

ibises, storks, geese, all the countless tropical waterfowl--swimming

and wading about the reedy lagoons or circling up to fly to other

feeding grounds. Opposite the steamer the glasses showed with startling

distinctness a number of hideous crocodiles crawling out on a slimy

mudbank to bask in the sunshine. But nowhere could the searcher discern

a trace of man or of man's habitation.

"Gad! not a sign! Rotten luck!" he muttered.

He turned and swept the four-mile curve of coast around to the

north-northeast. Suddenly he stiffened and held the glasses fixed.

"Look!" he cried. "Off there to the northwards--cliffs!"

"Cliffs? Aye, a headland," confirmed the skipper.

"Put about for it immediately," directed Lord James. "If they were cast

up here, they'd not have lingered in these vile bogs--would have made

for the high ground."

Meggs nodded, and called the order to the steersman. The ship's bows

swung around, and the little steamer was soon scuttling upcoast towards

the headland, along the outer line of reefs, at a speed of seven knots.

From the first, Lord James held his glasses fixed on the barren

guano-whitened ledges of the headland. But though he could discern with

quickly increasing distinctness the seabirds that soared about the

cliff crest and nested in its crevices, he perceived no sign of any

signal such as castaways might be expected to place on so prominent a

height.

When, after a full half-hour's run, the steamer skirted along the edge

of the reefs, close in under the seaward face of the headland, the

searcher at last lowered his binoculars, bitterly disappointed.

"Not a trace--not a trace!" he complained. "If they've been here,

they've either gone inland or--we're too late! Six

weeks--starvation--fever!"

Meggs shook his head reassuringly. "The top of the headland may be

inaccessible, m'lord. We may find that they--Heh! what's that?"

He leaned forward to peer through his glasses at a second headland that

was swinging into view around the corner of the cliffs.

"_Smoke!_" he cried. "_Smoke!--and a flag!_"

"Gad!" murmured Lord James, hastily bringing his own glasses to bear.

The second headland was about five miles away. The thin column of smoke

that was ascending from its crest near the outer end, could plainly be

seen with the naked eye. But a sunlit cloud beyond necessitated the

full magnifying power of the binoculars to disclose the white signal

flag that flapped lazily on a slender staff near the beacon.

Lord James drew in a deep breath, and his gray eyes glowed with hope.

Here was evidence that not all aboard the wrecked or foundered _Impala_

had been lost.

"Meggs," he cried, "you're the one and only skipper! It must be their

signal--it _is_ their signal! But which of them?--who went under and

who escaped!--Miss Genevieve? Tom?"

"This Mr. Blake?" ventured Meggs. "I take it, he's some relation to

your lordship."

"No; chum--American engineer. Gad! if he went down! But it's

impossible--Most resourceful man I ever knew. He must have won ashore

with the others. And the women--a British captain! It must be we'll

find crew and all safe!"

"Not on this coast," replied Meggs. "They'd have lost most their boats

before the _Impala_ struck."

"In that event--Deuce take it! will we never get there? If I had my

motor-boat now! By Jove, this stretch here between the headlands is not

swamp. It's dry plain--and black. Been burnt over. There's a

place--tree-trunks still smouldering. The grass has been fired within

the last day or two."

"No one in sight as yet, on the cliffs," said the skipper, who had

continued to scrutinize the northern headland. "No watch above; no sign

of any one or any camp below. Must all be around on the far side. We'll

clear the point, and run in through the first break in the reefs."

"If they fail to show up on this side," qualified Lord James, slowly

sweeping the cliffs from foot to crest and inland along the dry

fire-blackened plain.

About half a mile from the beach the wall of rock was cleft by a wooded

ravine that ran up through the cliff ridge. At its foot was a grove of

trees whose bright green foliage seemed to indicate an abundance of

water. Above, a gigantic baobab tree towered out of the cleft and

upreared its enormous cabbage-shaped crown high over the crest of the

ridge.

In the midst of the general barrenness and aridity, the verdant oasis

of the ravine appeared to be the most certain place to look for the

castaways. Lord James fancied that he could discern a slight haze of

smoke rising out of the cleft beneath the baobab. But if there was a

camp in the cleft bottom, it was hidden from view by the trees and

cliff walls. The only certain sign of man within sight was the signal

flag and the smoke of the smouldering fire in the midst of the seabird

colony near the outer end of the cliff crest.

The steamer was gliding along, with slackened headway, close in under

the headland, when a breath of air opened out the folds of the tattered

white flag. Meggs had been watching it through his binoculars. He

lowered the glasses, and remarked knowingly: "Thought so. That's no

ship's canvas. It's linen or duck--A woman's skirt ripped open."

"What! Then at least one of the women got ashore!"

"Aye. But d' you make out how that cloth is lashed to the bamboo? It

was knotted on by a landsman. We'll find neither officers nor crew

among the survivors."

The steamer was now opposite the face of the headland, Meggs sprang

into the pilot house. Within the next few moments the speed of the

vessel fell off to less than a knot. Slowly the old steamer swung her

bows around towards the shore and began feeling her way into a narrow

gap through the half hidden barrier of the reefs, which here were

merged into a single line.

For the time being all the attention of Meggs was concentrated upon the

safe conning of his ship through the dangerous passage. It was

otherwise with Lord James. The last two shiplengths before the turn had

opened up the view around the north corner of the headland. From the

flank of the cliff ridge a wedge of brush-dotted plain extended a

quarter-mile or so to a dense high jungle bordering a small river. The

first glance had shown his lordship that it was of no use to look

beyond the river. The coast trended away northwards in another vast

stretch of fetid swamps and slimy lagoons.

With almost feverish eagerness, he turned to scan the little plain.

First to catch his eye were a dozen or more graceful animals dashing

away from the shore in panic-stricken flight. He turned his glasses

upon them and saw that they were antelope. This was not encouraging.

That the timid animals had been feeding in the vicinity of a human

habitation a full hour after dawn was not probable. Nor did a careful

search of the plain through the glasses disclose any sign of a hut or

tent or the smoke of a camp-fire.

An order from Meggs preparatory for letting go anchor roused Lord James

from his momentary pause. He faced the skipper, who was leaning from a

window of the pilot house.

"Sound your siren, man!" he exclaimed. "There's no camp in sight. Yet

they must be within hearing."

Meggs nodded, called an order for the lowering of a boat, and drew back

into the pilot house. As he reappeared in the doorway, to step out on

the bridge, the tramp's siren shrilled a blast loud enough to carry for

miles. It echoed and re-echoed along the cliff walls, and was flung

back upon the little steamer in a deafening blare.

Lord James turned to sweep the border of the river jungle with his

glasses. A herd of fat ungainly hippopotami, on the bar out beyond the

mangroves of the river mouth, fixed his gaze. But a moment afterwards

one of the sailors in the bows pointed upwards and yelled excitedly:

"Hi! hi!--there aloft! Lookut th' bloomin' mad 'un!"

At last--one of the castaways! High above, on the very brink of the

precipice, near the outer end of the headland, a man stood waving down

to the ship in wild excitement.

Lord James hastily focussed his glasses upon the beckoner. Seen through

their powerful lenses, he seemed to leap to within a few feet--so near

that Lord James could see the heaving of his broad chest under the

tattered flannel shirt as he flung his arms about his head and bellowed

down at the steamer in half frantic joy.

The looker wasted no second glance on the rude trousers of spotted

hyena skin or the big lean body of the castaway. Neither the wild

whirling of the sun-blackened arms nor the bristly stubble of a six

weeks' growth of beard could prevent him from instantly recognizing the

face of his friend.

"Tom!--Tom!" he hailed. "Hullo! hullo, old man! Come down!"

Even as he cried out he realized that he could neither be heard nor

recognized at so great a distance. Though the binoculars enabled him to

see his friend with such wonderful distinctness, the deep shouts that

the other was uttering were hardly audible above the clatter aboard the

steamer. But now the ship's siren began to answer the hails of the

castaway with a succession of joyous shrieks.

In the same moment Lord James perceived that a second castaway--a

woman--was running forward along the crest of the headland. Fearlessly

she came darting down the broken ledges, to stand on the cliff edge

close beside the man. Lord James stared wonderingly at her dainty

girlish form, clad in a barbaric costume of leopard skin. Her bare

arms, slender from privation and burned brown by the sun, were upraised

in graceful greeting above the sensitive high-bred face and its crown

of soft brown hair.

"Genevieve!" murmured the earl. "What luck! Gad! what luck! Even if

Hawkins went to the bottom and took the jewels with him! She's

safe--both of 'em safe! Hey! what's that? Signalling towards the far

side--There he bolts, and she after him! Couldn't run that way if they

had the fever!"

He whirled about and sprang to descend the ladder, but paused to direct

the skipper. "I'll command the boat. Men are not to land. D'you take

me? There's at least one of the ladies here. Have a sling ready, and

tell the stewardess her services will soon be required."

Before Meggs could reply, he was down the ladder and darting across to

the side. But there he turned and ran aft to the cabin. The stewardess,

a buxom Englishwoman, stood at the head of the companionway, gazing

towards the cliff top. At his order, she followed him below. After

several minutes he reappeared with a lady's dust-coat folded over his

arm. The boat was already lowered and manned. He swung himself outboard

and went down the tackle hand under hand.

As he dropped lightly into the sternsheets beside the cockswain he

signed the men to thrust off. The boat shot out across the still water,

and headed shorewards on a slant for the south corner of the headland.

Urged on by their impatient passenger, the rowers bent to their oars

with a will, despite the broiling heat of the sun in the dead calm air

under the lee of the cliffs.

They were well in to the shore before the cockswain discovered a

submerged ledge that ran out athwart their course almost to the coral

reefs. This compelled them to put about and follow the ledge until they

could round its outer end. As the boat at last cleared the obstruction

and headed in again for the shore, the south flank of the cliffs came

into view.

A short distance inland, the two castaways that had appeared on the

cliff top were running towards the beach, the girl clinging to the hand

of the man.

"Give way! give way, men!" urged Lord James. "At least let's not keep

them waiting!"