Gone Away!
Through the Net--A Call in Passing--A Chase in the Dark--On the
Track--Signals--The Little People--Ka-lu-ké-ke--Visions of the Night
It was desperately cold. Since he had left Kisumu, Tom had spent every
night under a blanket, and, standing now with his back to the tree, a
rope about his waist, another about his legs, a third tying his arms, he
had nothing to defend him from the keen air but the clothes he stood in,
and was unable to gain warmth by movement. He chafed under this bitter
constraint; tried the strength of the ropes by straining at them with
all his might; gave up the effort in sheer impotence, and wondered
whether he should live to see another dawn.
"The blackguards!" he said to himself. A whimsical smile twitched his
lips as he caught sight of the eight men set to watch him, squatting
around a fire some distance away, and beguiling the time with a game
somewhat resembling knuckle-bones. He fixed his eyes on the fire,
following the leaping flames, indulging his fancy in imaging strange
monstrous shapes; then recalled chestnut nights by the big-room fire at
school; by and by found himself whistling "Follow up" and "Forty years
on", at which the watchers dropped their dice and their talk for a
moment and turned their listening faces towards him. Then the numbing
cold began its soporific work. He felt dazed; fantastic visions danced
before his eyes. Presently his lips moved without his knowing it,
framing foolish remarks at which it seemed that another self was
laughing; then his head bent forward, and he slept.
Somewhere about midnight it seemed to him in a dream that water was
trickling down his neck. He awoke and threw back his head and hitched
his shoulders, and felt that it was not water but something sinuous and
solid, caught between tie back of his head and his coat collar. While
he was wondering whether a snake had sought refuge there from the cold,
he felt the intruder withdrawn, or rather was conscious that he had
jerked his head away from it. The next moment the cold thin line, of he
knew not what, wandered round and tickled his nose. Again he moved his
head away. Now fully awake, he concluded that a strand of some creeping
plant was dangling from the tree, and hoped forlornly that his
discomfort, already not far short of actual torture, was not to be
increased in any such irritating manner. He could not bend low enough
to scratch his nose. The detestable thing seemed to follow him. He
might move his head to left or to right, jerk it back or bend it
forward, but he could not avoid the persistent tickler, which he had now
recognized by the wan light of the moon, in her fourth quarter and
sailing high, as the leafless tendril of a creeper.
He was tempted to call out to the watchers, and ask them to relieve him
of this torment. But at the same moment he noticed that the eight
negroes about the smouldering fire had dropped their heads on their
knees, and that the creeper was swinging to and fro with a regular
pendulum movement that was hardly natural, and was certainly not due to
the wind, which blew fitfully in sudden gusts. It flashed upon him that
somebody, perhaps the hakim, was up the tree, signalling to him.
Bending his head back as far as he could, he peered up into the
branches. At the same instant, the dangling switch ascended before his
eyes; he gazed more intently, and by the faint glow of the fire from
below, rather than by the filtering rays from the moon, he distinguished
a crouching form at the fork of bough and trunk. It might have been an
animal, but while Tom was still gazing up in a kind of dull amazement
the form moved, a human arm was stretched downward, and within the grasp
of a human hand a long blade caught a glint of red light from the
watchers’ fire. Tom longed to snatch at it. There it was, three feet
above his head! He tore desperately at his fastenings, but the cords
only cut into his flesh. "Come down and cut me free!" he whispered; but
just then one of the Manyema turned his head, the knife was instantly
withdrawn, the figure crawled back upon the branch, and disappeared from
view.
Tom wondered. Surely the hakim, if it was the hakim, was not going to
desert him. He waited and fretted; minute after minute passed; there
was no sound, no sign. His heart sank; somnolence was again creeping
over his senses when, nearly an hour after he had been first awaked, he
heard a faint rustle in the tree above him. He looked up; there again
was the form, its features indistinguishable in the foliage. As he gazed
he saw a rod let down; the long knife was swathed about the end. It
came lower; it reached the level of his hands, and stopped. He looked
at it with wonder; then from the tree came a whisper:
"Cut; quick!"
He almost laughed at the absurdity of the suggestion. His hands were
tied; his arms were bent in front of his chest, elbows and palms
together, and strong cords were wound tightly about the wrists and
forearms. But there was the sharp blade turned towards him, within half
an inch of the ropes, held stiffly as though some malicious elf were
bent on tantalizing him. Again came the eager whisper:
"Cut, cut; up and down, up and down!"
The knife moved closer, it touched the rope about his wrists; he felt
its pressure. Was the thing possible? He tried to pull his cramped
arms apart, and found that, firmly as they were bound, he could move
them up and down for about an inch. He made a downward movement, the
ropes scraping against the blade; up again, then down, again, again,
with increasing rapidity as his excitement grew. One of the guards
heaved a great sigh; Tom instantly stopped rubbing, and when the negro
turned sleepily to look at the prisoner, he saw him tied to the tree,
his head bent on his chest, his eyes closed. The man stretched out his
arms, shifted his position, and gave himself again to slumber. Then the
knife moved again, the rubbing was resumed; one strand gave way, then
another, the tension was slackened, and with one final wrench Tom found
his aching hands free!
He pressed them under his armpits to warm them and remove something of
the pain; but the figure above was impatient, insistent. He lowered the
knife still farther, and pressed it against the rope around Tom’s waist.
Tom took it. A few moments’ sawing severed that rope also; then he
stooped to his feet, and with three sharp strokes upon the cords about
his ankles his last bonds were snapped, and he stood once more a free
man. The negroes still slept, and the fire had died down upon its
embers.
What was he now to do? Who was his obliging friend? He had little time
to wonder; the rod was withdrawn into the tree; a few moments later it
came down--the knife was gone.
"Climb up, sah!" came the eager whisper.
Tom grasped the rod, set his feet upon the knobby bole, and with
exertions which strained the muscles of arms and legs to the verge of
cramp he heaved himself into the leafy bough. The figure there clutched
him as he was on the point of falling. "Sah! sah!" it said with a sob
of joy. Tom gripped Mbutu’s hand, and sat for a minute breathless,
peering down towards the circle of sleeping negroes. The wind blew with
increasing force, rustling the leaves, and the branch swayed heavily,
grazing the hut’s thatched roof.
"No time fink, sah," said Mbutu. "Must run away!"
But now that he was free Tom had recovered his wits, and saw that if he
was to get clear away he must exercise all his cunning. There was the
hut in which the chief, his enemy, lay; there were the guards, sleeping,
it was true, but likely to wake at any moment. Around was the village,
filled with Arabs, Manyema, and slaves; an alarm would set hundreds of
men on the alert, and there was but a slender chance of escaping from so
many. Beyond the village, three hundred yards away, was the thin outer
belt of the forest; could he but gain that, Tom thought, he might hide
and elude pursuit. There was danger from wild beasts, no doubt; but a
wild beast was less dangerous than the vengeful Portuguese. It must be
a dash for life and liberty, he saw. How was he to escape immediate
danger of detection?
His quick eye noticed that Mbutu wore the burnous and turban of an Arab.
With a leaping heart he saw in a flash of thought his way made plain.
It involved manifold risks. "Never venture never win," he said to
himself, and proceeded to put his plan into operation. Tying the knife
again to the rod, but at an angle to form a crook, he let it down, and
hooked up the severed cords that lay at the foot of the tree. He swiftly
knotted them to form two strong ropes. Then bidding Mbutu secure the
knife and follow him, he crept cautiously along the bough towards the
hut. The wind was stiffening to a gale; the horned moon was dipping
behind the forest, and the hut lay in shadow. He came to the end of the
branch, and crawled on to the roof, Mbutu following close. Moving only
when the swaying bough rustled against the thatch, drowning all other
sounds, he made his way cat-like across the roof, reached the edge, slid
over, and slipped noiselessly down one of the wooden posts supporting
the thatch at the distance of a foot from the wall of the hut. He was
on the ground on the side farthest from the tree. For some moments he
stood and listened. There was a sound of voices not far to his right,
and he thought he detected a low murmur from two or three quarters.
Evidently there were many still awake. Tom decided that the plan he had
formed offered a better chance of escape than a mere dash for the
forest. Taking off the turban with which he had been provided by the
hakim, he opened it out, and folded the sheet of linen over and over
until it made a long tight roll. In a few whispered words he explained
his plan to Mbutu; then, signing to the boy to come after him quietly,
he crept through one of the holes in the wall, and found himself inside
the hut. On a rude table a small rushlight was burning, by whose
glimmer he saw the chief stretched upon his back on a narrow plank, his
burnous cast aside, his long form covered with a red blanket. He was
fast asleep, with his mouth open, his breath coming and going with long
soundless heaves. With heart beating violently in spite of himself, Tom
stole behind the Arab, and then whispered to Mbutu that he was to hold
the man’s head when he gave the signal. Both then stooped; Tom gave a
nod; Mbutu pressed the chief’s head down firmly with both hands, and at
the same instant Tom stuffed the rolled turban into his mouth, and
knotted it beneath his neck. He wriggled and half rose upon his elbow;
instantly Mbutu’s arms were thrown around him, and he was pulled
backward and held in a firm grip. Tom had meanwhile run to his feet,
and, whipping one of the lengths of cord from his pocket, he swiftly
tied the chief’s ankles together. Now that it was impossible for the
Arab to stand, Tom bade Mbutu assist him. There was a short struggle,
the Arab striving to wriggle out of Mbutu’s grasp. It was in vain; with
the remaining cord Tom bound the Arab’s arms together, and in five
minutes after their entrance the chief lay securely gagged and bound.
Without losing a moment Tom donned the Arab’s burnous and turban.
"Do you know the nearest way to the forest?" he asked Mbutu.
The Muhima nodded, and Tom told him that, relying upon his disguise, he
was going to walk boldly through the camp. If they met anyone, Mbutu was
to address him in his own tongue in such a way as to disarm suspicion.
Tom reckoned on his own height to enable him to pass for the chief.
There was a box of matches by the rushlight; he put that in his pocket,
caught up a small bag of nuts that lay beside the Arab, and without
bestowing another glance on the prostrate form, whose eyes were glaring
at him with all the fury of impotent rage, he walked slowly out of the
hut, Mbutu a yard behind.
They went quickly, stepping in the shade of the huts. Their way led past
the hut in which the Portuguese was sleeping. The African native is
sensitive to the slightest tremor of the ground, and one of the negroes
who had accompanied De Castro, and was acting as sentry over him,
crouching over a watch-fire, heard the footfall of the two fugitives,
and came round the hut towards them. He dimly saw, as he supposed, the
tall form of the Arab chief stalking by, accompanied by one of his men.
He stepped back, and at the same moment Mbutu, with a power of mimicry
that surprised his master, addressed him in a few quiet words, bidding
him keep good watch over the señor, while Tom walked on with a dignified
air, as though the negro were beneath his notice. When out of the man’s
sight they quickened their steps. They reached the outer circle of
huts, evaded the watch-fires placed at intervals, crossed the fence and
ditch, and, breaking into a run, plunged into the dense bush at the edge
of the compound. The fugitives had barely gone two hundred yards when
they heard a great outcry in the camp behind. One of the eight guards
had awoke and rekindled the dying fire. Glancing at the tree, he
discovered that the prisoner was gone. He roused his companions, and
with mutual upbraidings they began to dispute who should venture to
inform the chief of the escape. Their voices rose in altercation, and
De Castro’s sentry, hearing the noise, came to see what had happened.
As soon as he knew that the Englishman had escaped, he ran to his
master’s hut, whence in a moment issued the Portuguese, swearing great
oaths at being disturbed when he so much needed rest, and for the moment
not understanding what his man said. A glance at the tree apprised him
that his anticipated victim had escaped his clutches. Heedless of the
news that the chief had but just before been seen walking through the
camp, he rushed to the hut, and finding Mustapha there bound and gagged,
began with frantic haste and fearful imprecations, in which he could not
refrain from mingling taunts, to cut him free. Both men were beside
themselves with fury. The whole camp was by this time alarmed, and
Arabs and Manyema alike cowered before the wrath of their infuriated
superiors. De Castro ran wildly about crying for torches, while
Mustapha ordered every man in the camp to set off in search of the
escaped prisoner, and despatched parties in all directions. He went
himself to the hakim’s hut, believing that the Arab seen walking in the
prisoner’s company must be Mahmoud and no other. Meeting the grave
physician as he came out to enquire the reason of the uproar, the chief
roundly accused him of effecting or conniving at the release of the
Englishman. The hakim’s face showed neither surprise nor pleasure; he
was as coldly imperturbable as ever. Quietly denying that he had had
any hand in the escape, he asked the Arab what he expected to gain by
wild ill-directed searches in the dark; the torches and the din would
only give warning to the fugitives, and help them to elude pursuit.
Mustapha saw the absurdity of his proceedings, and chafed under the
cynical scorn of the physician, whose calling and character enforced his
unwilling respect. Turning on his heel, he ordered drums to be beaten
to recall the search-parties, and enquiry to be made for the traitor in
the camp; and when De Castro came up to him, foaming with passion and
shouting that the whole thing had been planned to spite him, Mustapha
bade him keep a still tongue in his head, or he would find himself in
the Englishman’s place. It wanted still more than three hours to
sunrise, and giving orders that the search should be diligently resumed
at dawn, the chief returned to his hut.
In the meantime the outcry had at first caused the fugitives to hasten
their steps; but, fearing that the rustle and crash of their progress
through the bush would arrest the pursuers’ attention, they dropped
behind a fallen tree. Not many minutes afterwards a party of Manyema
who had outstripped the rest, keeping close together in their mutual
fear, came within a few yards of Tom’s hiding-place. There was one
moment of suspense, then they passed on with torches burning; but soon
the tap-tap of the recalling drums sounded through the wood, and they
turned, passed within a few paces of where the panting fugitives lay
crouched, and retraced their steps to the camp.
"All go back, sah!" whispered Mbutu gleefully. "No catch dis night.
All jolly safe now, sah."
"I hope so," said Tom. "It was a narrow shave, Mbutu. We’ll wait till
all is quiet, and consider what we had better do."
"Must go on, sah; black men gone; rest by and by; time fink by and by."
They rose and pursued their way into the forest, picking their steps as
best they could in the increasing darkness, among trees, profuse grass,
and creeping plants that threw their sprays in intricate mazes across
their path. When they had gone about a mile from the camp the forest
became so thick that it was impossible to proceed farther that night.
Mbutu suggested that they should climb a tree as the best protection
from prowling beasts, and wait until morning. To this Tom agreed, and
finding a trunk easy to climb, they got up into its lower branches, and
made themselves as comfortable as possible. Their ascent caused a
commotion among the feathered denizens of their shelter, and Mbutu
declared he heard the gibber of a monkey angry at the disturbance of his
ancestral home; but they rested without molestation till the dawn sent
feeble glimmers through the foliage, and during that time Mbutu told his
story.
His master’s disappearance, he said, had caused the utmost consternation
and distress to the whole force. After some hours of fruitless search
next morning, the major had sorrowfully decided that he must complete
the object of his expedition, leaving all further efforts to find Tom
until his work was done. Promising, then, a rich reward to any native
who should give him information as to the young man’s fate, he had
continued his march, and arriving at the native chief’s village, after a
stubborn fight had burnt it to the ground. Most of the inhabitants
fled, among them the chief. The major then returned rapidly over his
tracks, and spent several days in searching far and wide through the
country. Mbutu, meanwhile, had felt sure from the very first that his
master was not dead, and had accompanied the expedition in the hope that
ere long some trace of him would be found. Then, giving up hope of
this, and learning that the major had decided to return to Kisumu, he
had resolved to go on the search alone. Slipping away from the column
soon after it passed the scene of the ambush, he had cut into the woods,
and coming upon the dead bodies of Arabs, he had, as a measure of
precaution, appropriated the burnous and turban of one of them. Then he
sought for the trail of the retreating Arabs, believing that his master
was among them. Fortunately they had marched in almost a straight line,
so that he tracked them easily until he came to the river where they had
sighted the Belgians, and there he was for a time at fault. But he
encountered a native, who informed him of the sharp fight at the swamp,
and put him on the right track again. Two days before he arrived at the
camp he had descried the caravan, and from that moment he dogged it
patiently and warily, at one point of the route creeping up so close
that he was able to see, from the shelter of a bushy tree, the figure of
his master among the Manyema guard. Then he followed up more cautiously
than ever, in the hope of discovering some means of effecting the
prisoner’s release. No opportunity had offered, and his heart sank when
he saw the Portuguese join the caravan, still more when, as he peered
from a safe hiding-place among the trees, he saw the Arab chief
accompany De Castro to the hut where Tom lay. The tying-up had made him
desperate. He had thought at first of creeping up and cutting his
master free, but every time he took a step forward towards the tree one
of the guard moved, or some noise had startled him, as a mouse peeping
out from its hole is startled by the faintest sound of movement. Then
he had the happy thought to climb the tree, and endeavour to cut his
master’s bonds from above. The discovery that he could not reach was at
first agony, but he was strung up to a pitch of desperation that set all
his wits on the alert. He had crept back into the forest and cut the
rod to which he had tied the knife; and now, with touching earnestness,
he assured his master that he would never leave him until he was once
more safe among his own people.
"Poor old Uncle," said Tom, when Mbutu had ended his story; "how I wish
I could let him know I am alive and well and free! And you, Mbutu, how
am I to thank you for your faithful service? I can tell you this: that
when I do see my friends again, you shall not be forgotten, my boy. But
where are we? What are we to do? Do you know anything about this part
of the country?"
"Yes, sah; know lot, sah. Forest ober dar, ober dar, ober dar."
He pointed successively in three directions--north, south, and west.
"Then we must go to the east, eh?--the other way, you know."
"No, sah, nebber do; all Arab dat way."
And then he went on to explain that the open country through which the
Arab caravan had lately been travelling was the last clear stretch by
which their stronghold could be reached. It was wedge-shaped, narrowing
as it became engulfed in the forest. The few natives whose hamlets were
dotted about it were all in the Arabs’ pay, and were treated with
special and unusual consideration, in order that they might be disposed
to give early tidings of an enemy’s approach. Mbutu assured his master
that the Arab chief would at once acquaint the natives all through that
district with his prisoner’s escape and offer a reward for his capture,
expecting him to make his way eastward, where every path and cross-road
would be narrowly watched.
"In that case we had better strike southward into the forest," said Tom.
"A pleasant prospect!" he mused. "I have some recollection of reading
in one of Stanley’s books about this forest: hundreds of miles long, and
hundreds broad; one could drop Great Britain and Ireland into it, to say
nothing of the kingdom of Man. But I suppose," he said, turning again
to Mbutu, "after a time we could safely make a turn to the south-east
and reach the River Rutchuru again? What about your own country, Mbutu?
Couldn’t we make for that?"
"’Fraid no, sah; my country days and days ober dar." He pointed to the
south-west, then looked puzzled, and finally confessed that in the dark
he was not quite sure of the direction. "My people all gone dead, sah;
live man all stole, huts burnt in big fire. No; Mbutu no fader, no
mudder, no pickin: no nuffin--only sah."
"Poor fellow! Well, I see nothing for it but to go into the forest as
soon as it is light. We’ve nothing to keep us warm at night; no food
except these nuts I brought. I have no watch and no compass: you’ve
nothing but a knife; we’re both desperately poor, Mbutu, and we’ll have
to live on our wits, I’m afraid.--Hark! what’s that?"
The dawn came up like thunder, indeed. Through the wood resounded the
thud-thud of many drums of various tones, some rattling a rapid rat-tat,
others booming with deep, hollow, reverberating notes. Mbutu turned his
ear towards the sound, listening with peculiar intentness for several
minutes. Then he shook his head.
"Not know dat!" he said. He explained that many tribes had their own
individual codes of drum-signals, which could only be recognized by
their own friends. By means of these information was often telegraphed
for miles in a very few minutes, the note of the drum reaching far, and
being taken up and repeated from point to point. Though he had never
heard these particular notes before, he surmised that the Arab chief was
already signalling the escape of his prisoner. It was clearly time to be
off. Slipping down from the tree, the two fugitives struck into the
forest in a south-westerly direction, and were relieved to hear the
drum-taps becoming ever fainter and fainter as they proceeded. When the
sounds had died away altogether, they sat down on a fallen tree and made
a frugal breakfast of nuts, sipping up the gigantic beads of dew which
covered the spreading leaves of plants near the ground. Then they arose
and went on their way.
By this time they were well on the outskirts of the great Congo Forest,
which stretches for hundreds of miles westward of Lake Albert Edward and
the rivers flowing into it. Tom began to be oppressed by a sort of
nightmare feeling, which damped his spirits and made him drop his voice
to a whisper when he spoke to Mbutu. The silence was awful. Trees
large and small, packed so close together that there seemed at a
distance barely room to squeeze between them, rose up, some straight of
stem, some twisted and warped, others snapped off high above the ground,
their foliage interlacing and shutting off all view of sky and sun, the
space beneath as dim as the aisles of some vast cathedral. From tree to
tree ran huge festoons of creeper and vine, weaving intricate patterns
with each other, clinging in great coils about the trunks. At every
fork and on every branch huge lichens were embossed, with broad
spear-leaved plants, and clusters of orchid and liana. The sodden
forest floor was covered with bush and amoma, save where a group of
fallen trees, split or scorched by the lightning, had made a gap and let
in the sunlight, and there innumerable baby trees had sprung up,
jostling each other in their eagerness to catch the stream of light and
heat.
At one point Tom sat down to rest on a prostrate moss-covered trunk. It
crumbled into rottenness under his weight, and, looking, he saw that it
had been mined by countless termites. Red ants scurried after one
another in the wrinkles of the bark, and a huge blue scorpion darted out
of a hole, causing Tom to start back with loathing. Near at hand was a
shallow pool, green with duckweed, its surface covered with leaves of
lotus and lilies, and a green, greasy scum of microscopic plants. Above
this was a crooked tree, whose trunk seemed to have broken out in great
ulcerous sores, from which swollen globules of gum exuded, dropping with
heavy pong into the pool. Not a sound broke the stillness; the silver
trill of the mavis, the strident caw of rooks, the brisk chirp of
grasshoppers, all the myriad sounds of an English wood, were absent; and
Tom, gazing into the confused mass of green, his feet chilled on the
spongy humus, felt that he was surrounded in very truth by death in
life.
Marching on again along a narrow path which seemed a mere tunnel in the
forest, Mbutu had often to use his knife to cut away obstructive
growths--great sprays of thorn that grabbed at their clothes, caught
them under the chin, and seemed bent on cutting their throats.
Presently they came to an abandoned clearing, where the vegetation now
grew more luxuriantly than ever; the charred poles of native huts
covered with climbing plants of vivid green, mingled with white and
purple flowers, forming bowers fit for Titania the fairy queen. Just
beyond was a stream, dashing over rocks between banks covered with
vegetation, some of the larger trees bending over the current at the
height of fifty feet, thus forming a huge shed beneath which hundreds of
boats might have been sheltered. Here Tom got Mbutu to cut him a stout
cudgel of hard wood from one of the stooping monsters, thinking it might
prove useful as they progressed. The pedestrians drank their fill of the
delicious water, crossed on the rocks, and forced their way up the
opposite bank into the forest again. Half a mile farther on they came
to a trickling stream, and beyond it, in a hollow, under a dense canopy
of foliage so thick that, but for twinkling points of blue here and
there, the sky was invisible, they lighted upon tiny, cage-like
habitations no more than three feet high, made of sticks and leaves, and
erected in a narrow clearing between clumps of gigantic trees. Mbutu
stopped short and uttered a low cry of alarm, looking round with evident
apprehension.
"What is it?" asked Tom in surprise, for the boy had hitherto shown
himself absolutely fearless.
"Bambute, sah!" he whispered; "little tiny people, berrah tiny small.
Dey shoot poison, sah: one scratch, man dead."
And Mbutu pulled his master away, and did not quit his hold until he had
led him half a mile farther into the forest. He then explained that here
and there, in such small clearings as they had just traversed, there
dwelt little communities of strange dwarf-like people, whose naked
bodies were covered with a thin down, and who lived a sort of elfin
life, stealing about from glade to glade, hardly ever visible, as
difficult to discover as mice in a corn-field. They were skilled in
woodcraft and the chase, agile and fleet of foot, and so well versed in
poisons that with their toy-like bows and arrows they could kill fowl,
and men, and even elephants, with a mere scratch. They could shoot three
arrows so rapidly that the last sprang from the bow before the first had
reached its mark. They fed on grubs and beetles, honey, mushrooms, and
roots, besides coneys and hares and other spoils of the chase, and had a
sweet tooth for the potatoes and bananas cultivated by their taller
neighbours. Mbutu said that he was not afraid of ordinary negroes or
Arabs, they could easily be avoided; but if he and his master stumbled
into a nest of dwarfs, he feared they would not escape with their lives.
At noon Tom sat down upon a recently fallen trunk to rest. Mbutu went
off by himself to find food, and luckily came upon a deserted clearing
where bananas were still growing. He returned with a luscious bunch,
and after eating and resting a while, the travellers again resumed their
march. The heat of the afternoon had brought out myriad insects that
buzzed about their heads, darting in every now and then to sting. Bees,
wasps, and ticks innumerable sported hither and thither across their
path; sometimes a flock of pigeons would clatter out of a tree, and high
over their heads shrilled the mocking notes of parrots.
As the afternoon wore on, the heat became oppressive, suffocating. An
ominous heaviness brooded over everything; the dimness deepened into
darkness, and a feeling as of an approaching calamity crept over Tom.
Suddenly he heard a faint rumble like artillery far away; through a
narrow opening in the forest he saw a spear of white flame dart across
from tree to tree; then the silent trees rustled, swayed, and smote
their tops one against another like masts straining under heavy canvas
in a hurricane. Then roared the thunder; forked lightning flashed
pale-green across the tree-tops, and the massive trees bent and reeled
like rushes, recovering themselves from the first blow, staggering
forward, jerked back by the climbing plants around them, clashing,
roaring, screaming like fierce savage warriors in mortal fight. Tom
stood still, amazed at the wild warfare, deafened by the reverberating
thunder-claps, blinded by the scathing flames of lightning, yet
exhilarated as he watched the fray. Then out of the black sky poured a
deluge of rain, sheet upon sheet, hissing like water poured on hot iron,
every drop as large as a crown-piece, penetrating the cotton garments of
the travellers, drenching them in a moment to the skin. For three
minutes the torrents fell; then, as suddenly as it had begun, the storm
ceased, its fury was extinguished, the sky cleared, the trees stood
still, and there was nothing to mark the terrific elemental strife but
the streaming foliage, the soaked ground, and two giant stems which,
cleft by the lightning, had crashed down and overwhelmed many smaller
trees beneath them.
"Whew! that was a storm indeed!" said Tom. "What are we to do now? We
can’t go on in this sopping state."
"I know, sah; climb tree, dry clothes in sun."
"A novel drying-room!" said Tom with a smile. "Well, let’s try it."
The fallen trees lay across others in such a way that they formed a sort
of inclined path leading from the ground up into the forks of trees
still standing. Tom and the Muhima nimbly climbed up until they were
almost at the top of a giant of the woods, and there they sat amid the
foliage and easily dried their dripping garments in the fierce sunlight.
When that was done they felt hungry, and after they had reached the
ground, Mbutu found some small berries which he assured his master were
perfectly good to eat. Then they went on again. It was impossible to
tell how far they had come. Tom had left the direction to Mbutu, who
seemed to find the way by instinct. Judging by the height of the sun
that it was now about four o’clock, Tom wondered how they were to pass
the approaching night. They had seen no human beings, and few living
creatures at all save insects and snakes; Mbutu, indeed, assured his
master that beasts of prey were not much to be dreaded in such dense
forest, though he would not be surprised if an elephant should come
rushing out upon them.
They were sitting at the edge of a clearing, with their backs against a
huge tree, to rest for a few minutes before starting for the last hour’s
walk, when Mbutu suddenly clutched Tom by the sleeve. At the same
moment Tom heard a curious rhythmic chant, beginning on a low note,
skipping three or four tones, and then descending to a chromatic note
midway between. Then out of the forest to their left came a strange
procession, a line of some thirty little naked figures, well-formed,
cheerful-looking, diminutive men less than four feet high, trotting
along in single file, their passage absolutely soundless save for the
crooning chant in time with their footsteps. "Ka-lu-ké-ke,
ka-lu-ké-ke," they sang, their voices low and pleasant and melodious,
their motions lithe and graceful. They carried bows and arrows, and one,
who appeared to be their chief, had a light spear in addition. Without
turning their heads they rapidly crossed the glade, and disappeared like
gnomes in the forest on the other side.
Mbutu heaved a sigh of relief.
"Bambute!" he said. "No see us dis time; plenty poison dem arrows."
"So those are your pigmies, eh? Upon my word, Mbutu, they looked quite
an interesting lot of little fellows. I liked that song of theirs much
better than the ’man all alone’, you know. We have a saying in my
country, ’little and good’; many a little man has been a hero. There’s
Bobs, you know; ever heard of Bobs? Well, I’ll tell you all about him
some day. I declare I’m sleepy; there’s no hut for us to-night; I think
we had better climb that big tree there and sleep on the lowest fork,
eh?"
"All right, sah! No dago man now, sah," he added.
"That’s true; but we aren’t out of the wood yet! We have done well
to-day, I think; now for our leafy bed."
Mbutu was asleep as soon his head touched the bough on which he had
perched himself. But Tom was awake for hours, pondering on many things.
The night-wind swayed the branches all around him, waking a chorus of
creaking stems, swinging boughs, rustling leaves. From below came the
ceaseless scraping chirp of crickets, the shrill piping call of cicadas,
the tuneless croak of frogs. In the distance he heard the harsh,
rasping cry of the lemur, and a strange sound like the noise of a stick
rattled against iron railings; this, Mbutu explained afterwards, was a
soko or chimpanzee amusing himself with striking upon a tree. Once Tom
was startled by a sudden crackle, followed by a rending and rushing and
a heavy thump that shook the fork on which he lay. In the morning he
found that a dead tree had fallen, crashing through the forest and
overwhelming many a living tree with its weight. All these sounds,
breaking in upon the sad rustle of the foliage, filled Tom’s soul with a
sense of forlornness. By and by the sounds were unheeded; his mind was
occupied with thronging memories and thoughts. He was reminded of the
sleepless nights he had sometimes spent in his father’s parsonage,
hearkening to the rooks in the trees just opposite his window. He
thought of his boyish ambitions; of the pride and eagerness with which
he had listened to his uncle Jack’s stories when he came on rare visits
to the parsonage; of the blow to all his hopes when his father died.
Then he lived again in thought through the long months at Glasgow; heard
the din of the engine-shop, and felt once more the dissatisfied longing
of that dreary time. That appeared now to be far back in a dim remote
past. It was only a few weeks since he had left England, and yet how
much had happened in the interval! The events of years seemed to have
been compressed into days. His thirst for adventure was more than
satisfied; yet here he was, in the heart of an African forest, with who
could tell what new experiences in store for him?
And as his mind rolled question after question round an empty ring,
eerie shapes seemed to creep out of the darkness, mocking and jibing,
whispering words of evil augury, prophesying comfortless days of
weariness and pain, of aimless wandering in the immeasurable forest,
where he would finally drop and die, a prey to jackal or vulture. He
strained his eyes, as though to see if these were in very truth bodily
forms surrounding him; then upon his mental sight another scene
rose--reminiscences of his brief captivity with the Arabs; stark forms
lying in chains upon the swampy path; men and women and children sobbing
out their lives in slavery; the slaver’s cruel whip descending on the
backs of young boys and maidens, who writhed and shrieked and fell
bleeding and exhausted, many to rise no more. His own dark fancies fled
the horrors of the slave-trade came home to him. He forgot his own puny
troubles, and even his present extremity. Once more he registered the
vow that, if he were spared, he would strike a blow, however feeble,
against this hideous traffic in humanity. Suddenly there fell upon his
inward ear the cry of the Arabs in the fight by the bridge:
"Allah-il-Allah! God is God!" A solemn quiet brooded upon his mind; the
wind itself lulled and the rustle of the leaves around him ceased.
Looking up through the canopy of green, he saw one star faintly
twinkling. His depression passed away; he found himself murmuring the
lines of a poem that had been a favourite with his father:
"God’s in His heaven,
All’s right with the world".
Thoughts of all the good things of life crowded through his mind; he
felt contented and at rest; and with recollections his uncle, Dr.
O’Brien, Mr. Barkworth, and the padre making a dancing medley in his
brain with hippos and crocodiles, Arabs and pigmies, he at last fell
into a dreamless sleep.