The Land of the Pigmies
Slow Progress--Forest Life--Hunger--Overtures--A Change of Diet--In
Straits--A Man Hunt--At Bay
Tom awoke when the darkness was fading, and a ghostly light showed him
the still sleeping form of Mbutu hard by.
"Wake up, my katikiro," he said cheerily. "I shall have to teach you
those lines about the sluggard, my boy. Come, what about breakfast?"
Mbutu was wide awake in an instant. He slid down the tree with the
agility of a cat.
"Me get breakfast, sah," he said, "jolly good breakfast."
He was out of sight before Tom, in a more leisurely way, had descended.
Soon the Muhima returned, his arms full of magnificent mushrooms. He
put them down at the foot of the tree and disappeared again, this time
remaining somewhat longer away, and bringing back with him some red
berries of the phrynia and the oblong fruit of the amoma. Tom made a
wry face as he bit one of the berries, and Mbutu laughed and explained
that the kernel was the edible part; but he found the tartish amoma
fruit refreshing, and of these and the mushrooms, fried over a twig
fire, he made a satisfying meal. Then they started on their way, taking
their direction from the rising sun, of which they caught a glimpse
through the trees.
But soon the sun was hidden from their view, and they had to tunnel
their way through creepers, rubber-plants, and tangled vines. The heat
was like the damp heat of a hot-house many times intensified, and they
sweated till they were wringing wet. Sometimes they floundered into
thick scum-faced quagmires green with duckweed, into which they sank
knee-deep, the stench exhaled from the slough almost overcoming Tom.
Then came a new patch of thorn, which Mbutu had to cut away laboriously
with his knife, Tom standing by chafing at his inability to assist.
When they got through, after taking more than an hour to traverse half a
mile, their clothes were in tatters, and Tom’s rueful look provoked a
smile from Mbutu.
"Soon get used to it, sah," he said cheerfully. "No clothes; all same
for one."
"Which means, I suppose, that I’m only very much in the forest fashion!
Well, it’s hot enough for anything; certainly too hot to talk. Let us
rest."
"Berrah soon, sah. I see coney track; rest ober dar."
Following up the slight track which his sharp eyes had discovered, he
led the way to a spot where a camp had evidently been formed not very
long before. The ground was cleared, and several logs of various
lengths lay about. On one of these Tom sat down thankfully to rest.
"It’s time for dinner, I’m sure. I’d give anything for a glass of
cider, but, as that’s out of the question, can you find me some water
anywhere, Mbutu?"
"Oh yes, sah; camp here, must be water."
He went into the undergrowth, and returned by and by with a broad leaf
of the phrynia held cup-shape in his hands, brimming with delicious
water from a rivulet. After quenching their thirst and eating a few
berries they went on again.
Marching began to be monotonous. There was little variety. Sometimes
they crossed the track of an elephant or a buffalo; once they came upon
a stretch of fifty yards of flattened undergrowth exhaling an unpleasant
musky smell, and Mbutu explained that that was the trail of a
boa-constrictor. Later they crossed a track evidently made by human
footsteps, and once Tom was only saved from falling into a deep
elephant-pit by Mbutu snatching at him as he trod at the edge. Always
there was the bush to be penetrated; colossal trees to be avoided;
riotous creepers to be dodged; and Tom was very glad when night came and
Mbutu found him a hollow tree to sleep in.
On this night the parts were reversed, for while Tom fell into a sound
sleep at once, Mbutu sat up, watchful and anxious. He had been
disturbed by the sight of leopard scratches on the trunks of teak, and
as a measure of precaution had borrowed his master’s box of matches and
kindled a fire--a slow process with the damp wood. But he was still
more disturbed by the scarcity of food. He had noticed during their
last hour’s walk the almost complete absence of the edible plants on
which they had fed hitherto, and he feared that they might have reached
one of those regions of the forest where food, except wild animals to be
hunted, is unprocurable. Before he at last closed his eyes he tore a
strip off the burnous girt about his loins, and contrived to make with
it a running noose, which he hung a foot or two above the ground upon a
spray of thorn. This was a simple snare into which he hoped that a
coney or some other small animal might run its neck before morning. But
when the dawn broke, the noose was still hanging empty, and Mbutu, after
a scrutiny of the bush, announced that his master would have to dispense
with breakfast. Tom took the news lightly, in order not to discourage
his companion.
"Cheer up!" he said. "It won’t be the first time I’ve been for a tramp
before breakfast. There’s plenty of dew, I see, so that we can have a
drink, and perhaps by the time we’re sharp-set we shall be in the land
of plenty."
So they started cheerfully enough, making still towards the south-west.
But Tom’s confidence proved to be not justified. The character of the
vegetation had somewhat changed. It grew as thick as ever, but while
many of the plants bore attractive-looking berries, Mbutu informed his
master that they were all poisonous. They did come upon a mass of wild
bananas, but only the cultivated fruit is eatable. Even when they
reached what had once been a clearing, where a grove of plantains might
have been expected, they found that elephants had been running riot, and
the vegetation there was trampled into a pulp. Once Mbutu uttered a cry
of joy on catching sight of a small arum bush; he sprang forward, dug up
the roots with his knife, slit them into slices, and roasted them over a
fire. That was all the food they obtained that day. It had been very
hot, the air had seemed almost solid, and the foetid exhalations from
the soft places they had passed made Tom feel sick and disconsolate.
When they stopped for the night, Mbutu again lit a watch-fire, and set
his noose. In the morning he was wakened by a faint cry, and, springing
up, he saw that a coney had been caught in the snare, and had at that
moment been pounced on by a wild cat. He was too hungry to allow
himself to be forestalled. He picked up his knife and made for the cat,
which turned its head without relaxing its hold, and showed its teeth as
though inclined to fight. But when Mbutu was almost upon it, with an
angry snarl it loosed its prey and sprang up into a tree. The coney was
already dead, its neck broken by the cat’s fierce onslaught. Mbutu had
the animal half-skinned when his master awoke.
"What are you about?" cried Tom, horrified at seeing Mbutu lifting a
piece of raw flesh to his mouth.
"Hungry, sah; coney berrah good."
"But you can’t eat it raw, surely! Ugh! you’ll make me sick."
Mbutu put down the morsel with a look in which mingled emotions were
expressed.
"Make fire in two ticks," he said resignedly, a phrase he had heard Tom
use; and in a short time he was toasting some steaks at the fire, while
his master searched for fruit. He found a few berries, and both he and
Mbutu ate their meal ravenously, feeling still hungry when they had
finished.
The fourth day of their forest march was but a repetition of the third.
They found almost nothing eatable, and even good water was scarcer than
on the previous day. At one point a huge puff-adder lay coiled in their
path, and Mbutu wished to kill it, assuring his master that the reptile
was too sluggish to defend itself. But Tom shuddered, and bade him come
away. Later in the day Mbutu suddenly flung his knife at a tawny
creature with black spots and a long, striped, bushy tail--a genet cat,
as Tom afterwards discovered,--but the weapon missed by barely an inch.
That was the last chance they had that day of securing animal food, and
they had to content themselves with a few dry and unpalatable, though
perfectly wholesome, roots, which Mbutu grubbed up, and the leaves of
herbs growing low.
Both the travellers had spoken jestingly of their hunger, for each was
unwilling to depress the other; but it was a hollow pretence. Both, but
Tom more especially, were already feeling the weakening effects of
privation.
Before they settled for the night, Tom thought it well to speak plainly
to Mbutu. His own uneasiness was deepened by his feeling of
responsibility for the boy.
"Mbutu," he said gravely, "if we do not find food to-morrow we shall
begin to starve. I don’t know what starvation means; it is too
horrible, almost, to think of. Yet we must face the possibility. Now,
I brought you into this, and it isn’t fair that you should come to harm
on my account. If we find no food to-morrow, I think you had better go
on without me. You can make your way more easily than I, and if you
come to a village and get food you can bring me some; if not, go on; it
is better for one to starve than two."
"No! no! no!" said Mbutu vehemently; "sah fader and mudder. Food come
by and by; no die dis time."
But the poor boy, when his master had fallen asleep, looked anxiously at
his pinched face. The cheeks were thinned and drawn, there were dark
sunken patches below the eyes, and his tall frame seemed even taller and
thinner. Ever since the young Englishman had saved him from De Castro’s
whip, Mbutu had cherished a sentiment of absolute devotion for him, only
intensified by the hazards of their later adventures. He would have laid
down his life for him, and indeed, though Tom had not noticed it, the
boy had already stinted himself even of the little food he had obtained.
"My master is much bigger than I," was his half-formed thought, "and
needs more to keep his strength up."
The morning of their fifth day in the forest broke dull and depressing.
Huge blankets of mist clothed tree and shrub, and a light breeze set up
strange cross currents which rolled great white billows one against
another, swirling and eddying, twisting and twining like animate things.
Tom shivered as he awoke; the violent changes of temperature had made
him somewhat feverish, and his sunken eyes, unnaturally bright, seemed
for a moment to gaze out vacantly upon the encircling walls of misty
green. His limbs ached, and he got up stiffly. Mbutu was not in sight,
but returned presently, bringing with him some cassava tubers and arum
roots which he cooked for his master’s breakfast. Tom found it
difficult to eat them. He smiled a weary smile.
"We shall have to tighten our belts to-day, Mbutu," he said. "Did you
ever hear of that? Twist your burnous more tightly round your loins and
you won’t feel the pain so much. And we must be careful of our matches,
too. The box is half-empty and we can’t get any more."
"Make fire with wood, sah," said Mbutu.
"But wouldn’t that be difficult with the damp stuff around us? We must
keep up our courage and get on. We can’t tell the way till the sun is
up, and indeed I’m afraid we shall never see the sun in this thick
forest."
"Me climb tree, sah; see sun den."
Mbutu began to clamber up into the foliage, and springing dexterously
from branch to branch ascended to the top, where, a hundred and fifty
feet from the ground, above the rolling banks of mist, he caught sight
of the red sun rising above the limitless expanse of waving green.
Descending rapidly, he told his master he was now sure of the direction
in which they should go, and before seven o’clock they had begun again
their painful march.
Tom had to stop frequently to rest. The gnawing pains of hunger told
more seriously upon him than upon the Muhima, for his life for the past
three weeks had been more than hard, making unaccustomed demands upon
his strength. He still felt the effects of his wound. They found a few
berries and edible roots, and if such supplies, meagre as they were,
continued, Tom hoped to stave off actual starvation.
"Surely we shall come to a native village by and by," he said hopefully.
"Even the pigmies might take pity on starving men."
But Mbutu shook his head; he had no faith in the compassion or
generosity of pigmies; he knew of them only as dangerous foes. In the
afternoon they reached a spot where the ground began to slope downwards,
and the vegetation appeared still thicker and more entangled.
"Coming to ribber, sah," said Mbutu eagerly. "Perhaps huts; perhaps
catch fish."
Fifteen minutes later, in truth, they came suddenly to the brink of a
river, through a hedge of creeping-plants covering every inch of ground
from the water’s edge to the green-black forest behind. The current was
fairly strong, and the water was tea-coloured, suggesting iron in
solution, swirling with dingy froth around a few boulders that stood out
above the surface here and there. Mbutu, scanning the opposite bank,
uttered a cry of joy. The stream was some fifty yards wide, and on the
other side there was a narrow rift in the vegetation, so narrow indeed
that Tom did not discern it until it was pointed out to him.
"Path, sah!" said Mbutu. "’Spect huts ober dar. Huts, food. Plenty
food, oh yes!"
They sat down for a few moments to rest on a rock at the edge of the
stream, gazing in silence at the gurgling water. Suddenly Mbutu twitched
his master’s sleeve and pointed to the farther bank. Just emerging from
the leafy hedge, through the narrow opening, was a diminutive and
graceful little woman, copper-coloured, with raven-black hair, a broad
round face, and full lustrous eyes. Three iron rings were coiled
spiral-shaped about her neck. She was crooning happily to a tiny brown
child toddling by her side, and on her head a small pitcher was cleverly
balanced. She came down to the water’s edge and stooped to fill her
pitcher, still chanting softly a quaint song that Tom thought
wonderfully pretty. Her boy leant over the water in comical mimicry of
his mother.
"Bambute woman, sah," whispered Mbutu.
Low as the words were uttered, the channel between the high banks acted
as a sound-board, and the sharp ears of the little woman heard them.
She looked up, gave a startled cry, and stepped back. At the same
instant the tiny fellow, alarmed by his mother’s cry, lost his balance
and toppled over into the water. The stream there was deep, flowing in
strong and steady current. For one brief moment the mother seemed
dazed, and Tom looked at the little brown bundle floating down stream as
at some picture, not an actual thing at all. Then the woman screamed,
dropped her pitcher, and forced her way along the bank, wringing her
hands and moaning pitifully as she saw the stream bearing her little son
away.
"She can’t swim!" cried Tom, realizing the situation.
He sprang up, leapt on to the first boulder, then to the second two
yards from it to the left, and took a header into deep water.
Excitement lent him strength; he forgot where he was, forgot all his
late sufferings, forgot the danger of chill and crocodiles; all that he
saw was the drowning child, all that he thought of was his duty to save
it. He struck out energetically, the current assisting him. As yet the
stream had borne the child along upon its surface, but just as Tom
arrived within a dozen yards of him he sank, and the mother’s
heart-broken cry echoed from the forest. Tom quickened his stroke, and,
gathering his breath, dived just beyond the spot where he had last seen
the brown body. It was difficult to make out anything in the
tan-coloured water, but he fancied he saw the little black head, threw
out his right hand, caught a foot, and in a few seconds was safe at the
surface again, the boy in his grasp.
By this time Mbutu had reached his master’s side. He relieved him of
the burden, and together they swam to the shore, where Tom turned the
pigmy urchin on his face and slapped his back and worked his arms about
till the little fellow recovered his breath. A lusty cry soon
proclaimed that there was vigorous life in the tiny body. Then they
carried him with some difficulty along the steep bank to the path by
which he had come from the forest. They caught sight of his mother
darting like a timid gazelle among the trees. Mbutu at Tom’s command
called to her to come and fetch her pickin, using all the dialects he
knew; she stopped and faced the strangers again, but evidently
understood nothing of what the Muhima said, and was too much scared to
approach them. In spite of his exhaustion, Tom could not help smiling
at the woman’s fears.
"Put the little beggar down," he said, "and see him run."
"Want food, sah," expostulated Mbutu; "woman gib food."
"But she wants her baby first; perhaps she thinks we are cannibals, and
mean to make a meal of both of them."
Mbutu shrugged, and set the boy, now fully recovered and crying lustily,
upon his feet. Instantly he scampered off with wild delight to his
mother. She snatched him up, smothered him with kisses, then threw him
over her back and ran fleetly into the forest. In vain Mbutu called to
her to bring food, shouting that the big white man would give his
buttons, his coat, anything, for a chicken and some plantains. His
voice only made her run the faster, and soon a turn in the narrow path
concealed her altogether from view.
"We’d better go along the path after her," said Tom. "There must be a
pigmy village somewhere near, and they’re surely human enough to give us
food."
Mbutu shook his head.
"Bambute much bad people," he said. "See white man; no fink; shoot one,
two, three; sah dead."
"But we saved the youngster."
"Bambute no stop fink. Woman say big sah, berrah big; Bambute no wait;
all come in one big hurry, shoot sah. Better go away too quick."
"Well, you ought to know them better than I." (He suddenly, in one of
those odd flashes of memory that come at the most unlikely moments,
remembered Mr. Barkworth’s positive statement: "There’s no gratitude in
these natives!") "Let us go, then; lead the way."
They scrambled along the bank, stumbling over rocks and projecting
thorn-sprays, Mbutu urging his master to hurry, lest the whole pigmy
village should come hot-foot at their heels. It seemed strange to Tom
that the little people should feel animosity against inoffensive
travellers who had actually done them a service, but he relied upon his
boy, in whom he had seen no signs of cowardice. The fact was that Mbutu
had never before actually come into contact with the pigmies, and knew
them only by hearsay. He had a child’s dread of the unknown, and the
stories he had heard prompted him to keep as far as possible out of
harm’s way.
Tom’s exertions, acting on his enfeebled frame, had worn him out, and
but for Mbutu’s entreaties he would have refused to budge. His clothes
were drying in the sunlight, but he was chilled to the bone, and
terribly hungry. Mbutu insisted that they ought to hide their trail by
wading in the stream where it was shallow enough, and thus, alternately
on land and in water, they covered rather more than three miles. Then
Tom declared that he could go no farther, and sat down upon a dry rock
to rest, while Mbutu scrambled up the bank and into the forest in search
of food. He brought back a handful of papaws and amoma fruits.
"Why, this is quite luxurious!" said Tom, delighted at getting a change
from the disagreeable roots on which he had subsisted for the past few
days.
"Sah wait bit," said Mbutu with a knowing smile. He waded out to a
large rock in mid-stream, threw himself flat upon it, and peered over
into the water. A few moments passed; then Tom saw the boy’s knife
flash as he plunged his arm into the water. He drew it up, and there
was a fine fish, somewhat resembling a trout, gleaming on the point. He
looked round triumphantly at Tom; then bent once more over the water,
and soon speared another fish in the same way. When he had caught four
he returned to the bank, and asked his master for the box of matches.
"Why, they’re soaked; absolutely useless, Mbutu. You’ll have to make
fire some other way."
Mbutu at once cut a small block of hard wood from a tree, and scooped
out a little hollow in it. Then he found a thin straight switch, and
sharpened it at one end. He inserted this in the hollow of the block,
and began to twirl it round rapidly in both hands. He was out of
practice, and looked rather blue when no fire came; but, persevering, he
succeeded after some minutes in kindling a spark. He then lit a fire,
slit and cleaned the fish, and had the delight of offering his master
some appetizing broiled fish-steaks. Not content with this, he returned
to the rock, rapidly captured half a dozen more fish, and then, throwing
on to the fire the leaves of plants that made a thick smoke, he
attempted a rough-and-ready process of dry-curing. This done, he
searched about till he found a thin and flexible tendril, on which he
strung the dried fish, declaring gleefully that his master would
certainly have a good breakfast next day.
There being still two hours or more of daylight left, as they judged by
the position of the sun, they walked on again, feeling refreshed in
body, and more cheerful in mind than they had been for a week. They
still clung to the edge of the stream, and at one point narrowly escaped
treading on a crocodile basking by the bank, where it was
indistinguishable from a log of wood. Mbutu was only warned of the
danger by a sudden startling flash of light. Jumping back, he pointed
out that the glare was the reflection of the sun in the saurian’s greedy
eye. By and by they came to a tributary flowing into the river on the
right hand. It was a fairly large stream, about thirty yards broad at
the point of ingress, and as its course was from the south-east, Tom
decided to turn and follow it up. While tramping below the left bank,
which was high and steep, and finding the walking rather easier than it
had been hitherto, the ground being rocky, they came to a deep inlet, at
the bottom of which there was a cavern; half-hidden by vine-sprays
trailing over the bank.
"The very place for our night’s rest," said Tom.
They entered, strewed leaves and grass on the smooth dry floor, and
slept soundly till daybreak. Though his limbs ached when he rose, and
he was still feverish, Tom felt better than on the previous day, and ate
heartily of the broiled fish and roots which Mbutu had prepared for him.
Then, leaving the cave, they walked for about half a mile, and found
that the stream bent suddenly round to the left. Mbutu climbed a tree,
and told his master that he could see the water for some distance,
forming a loop and winding away towards the north. Arabs would certainly
be ranging the country in that direction; there was nothing for it but
to strike into the forest again, and pursue their journey to the south
or south-west.
Tom was not reassured by the aspect of the forest. While there was less
of tangled undergrowth and thorn, the trees appeared to be thicker and
larger than ever. There was no sign of edible plants, but the animals
were even more numerous, and the insects more multitudinous and
irritating. As they crossed a babbling rivulet, apparently a tributary
of the stream they had recently left, they were met by a cloud of moths
reaching from the water’s face to the loftiest tree-tops, and looking,
as it approached, like a glittering shower of lavender-coloured snow,
the particles whirling about in the slight gusts that blew along the
course of the streamlet. Farther on, a dozen tree stems, thrown down
during a recent storm, lay across one another at various angles,
completely blocking the way, and the travellers found that the easiest
mode of proceeding was to clamber up one of them that sloped at an angle
of forty-five degrees, and to scramble thence on to another, and then to
another sloping downwards, until they reached terra firma again. Their
progress was terribly slow and arduous, and long before the mid-day heat
rendered rest imperative, Tom felt thoroughly exhausted. His clothes
were now a miscellany of rags, his boots mere gaps. He noticed what
appeared to be ulcers breaking out upon his arms, and found that the
exertion of walking and climbing made him faint, and produced a keen
pain in his chest. He had had nothing to eat since the last of Mbutu’s
fish was consumed, and with the faintness and hunger came inevitable
dejection of mind.
While he rested on a log, Mbutu went off alone to search again for food,
but could find nothing but a few withered berries and some fungi, which,
suspicious as they were, Tom was fain to swallow.
"We must try again," he said presently. "I am beginning to think it
would have been better to follow the stream and chance the Arabs. I
can’t keep up much longer, Mbutu."
The Muhima was speechless, though his eyes eloquently expressed his
anxiety and affection. Before they resumed their journey he cut his
master another stout staff from a sapling of hard wood, the first having
been lost in the stream. After struggling through the forest for about
an hour, every step more painful to Tom, they came suddenly upon an
unexpected scene of desolation. It was a wide clearing, on which a
village of considerable dimensions had at one time stood; the blackened
ground told a tale of burning and rapine. Beyond it there were whole
groves of banana-trees scorched and ruined, hundreds of palms lying
prostrate, and acres of ground, once cultivated, now denuded of every
vestige of life. Near a heap of ashes lay a number of charred bones,
and Tom shuddered as he passed on.
Beyond this area of destruction the forest was less dense, and Mbutu by
and by discovered a narrow track which he declared was the pathway of
pigmies. He looked round apprehensively, fearing every moment lest
swift arrows from unseen bows in the brushwood should put a sudden end
to their lives. Once he exclaimed that he heard the clash of spears
amid the foliage, but Tom assured him it must be simply the rustling of
stiff leaves. As the evening shades were falling, the boy asserted
positively that he saw little faces peering at him from the trees, and
Tom, with a weary sigh, answered:
"I do not care, Mbutu. Elves or sprites or human beings, they don’t
concern us unless they bring us food. Perhaps the pigmies have been
shadowing us all the way since we saved that boy; why should they wish
to hurt us? If you see one again, call to him. Call now; perhaps there
is a settlement near; we might miss many in this wild forest."
Mbutu plucked up courage to call, but the only answer was a manifold
echo from the trees, the squawk of parrots, and what sounded like the
barking laugh of the hyena. Tom could walk no farther; he felt that he
would fain rest for ever. On this night Mbutu built up a small hut of
leaves and twigs for his master, and lit a watch-fire to scare, away
wild intruders. For supper they gnawed some leaves, but Tom fell into
the sleep of exhaustion in the middle of his scanty meal, and Mbutu sat
for hours watching him uneasily. He, too, was at last overcome by
fatigue, but not until he had thoughtfully heaped enough fuel on the
fire to last until dawn. Tom woke first. He rose feebly and staggered
oat of the hut, his forehead hot, his hands clammy; and there, between
the still burning fire and his rough shelter, was a huge bunch of
plantains! He could scarcely believe his eyes. He called Mbutu, but
the boy did not stir. He went to him and shook him.
"Where did you get them?" he asked. "Have you eaten some yourself?"
Mbutu sprang up and stared, not understanding what his master meant, and
believing that he must be light-headed. When Tom pointed to the
plantains, the boy gave a gasp and looked up in the trees and all around
in amazement. Without another word both began to eat ravenously, and not
till they had nearly finished the bunch did Mbutu suggest an explanation
of the godsend. The spirits of his ancestors, he said, must have been
watching over him, or perhaps the Great Spirit of whom he had heard the
White Father speak, and who really did seem to care for the black man
and white man alike, as the missionary had averred. Tom let the boy
talk on. Suddenly a hare-shaped animal darted across the ground in
front of them; there was a whirring sound; the animal fell, a short
arrow piercing it to the heart. Mbutu sprang up, and ran towards it;
then started back, and looked about him with wide scared eyes. Nothing
happened; the skilful marksman did not appear to claim his prize; the
morning stillness was not broken by so much as a rustling leaf. Mbutu
again moved towards the animal, treading delicately, and stopping at
every second step to glance fearfully around. He seized the animal, and
ran back swiftly with it.
"Bambute, sah!" he whispered, in a tone of awe. "Sah him friends. Sah
sabe pickin; Bambute much glad. Oh yes! no want food no more; Bambute
gib food."
Again Tom seemed to hear Mr. Barkworth’s voice: "There’s no gratitude in
these natives! I know them." He wondered whether the fact was as Mbutu
had surmised; whether the woman had brought her people to see the white
man; whether they had dogged the travellers all the way, or had come
upon them by accident. Mbutu was already skinning the animal, and
preparing it for the fire. Never was flesh more welcome to starving
men. Refreshed and strengthened, Tom rose with renewed hope to continue
his march.
But next day the old dejection returned. Of the pigmies there was no
sign; no heaven-sent food was placed at their feet; they trudged on and
on, almost blindly, always hungry. So four days passed, days upon which
Tom could never look back without a shudder of horror. Stories of
prisoners starving in barred dungeons recurred to his mind; and he
wondered which was worse, slowly to pine away in confinement, within
bare stone walls that invited death, or to die in the midst of vigorous
life, with liberty to range immense spaces. "Death is only death after
all," he thought, and he remembered Gordon’s words, quoted by Mr.
Barkworth: "Heaven is as near the hot desert as the cool church at
home". But his mind revolted against death. "I am young--young!" his
heart cried. "I want to live, to do things. I am not a broken horse or
a rusty engine. No, Tom Burnaby, I’ll never forgive you if you chuck it
all up yet." And he braced himself and plodded on.
Just after noon, on the fifth day after the pigmies’ present, the
travellers found that the forest was thinning somewhat; the trees were
farther apart, and there was a renewal of the low bush, not so dense or
so obstructive as it had been for the past few days. Presently they
came to an almost open glade, and Mbutu pointed to a track crossing the
direction of their march from clump to clump. It was not four hours
old, he declared; the footprints were still soft and clearly marked.
They were too large to have been made by pigmies. The weary travellers
sat down on a heap of leaves, hastily collected, to talk the matter
over, Mbutu being in favour of going in the same direction as the
footprints, which must lead, sooner or later, to a village. Suddenly
they heard a rapid thud-thud as of heavy footsteps on the sodden ground,
accompanied by a curious clanking, suggesting to Tom the sound of a
loose horseshoe on a turfy moor. As they were wondering what it might
be, a tall black figure, scantily clad, ran out of the forest on their
right, labouring heavily, the sweat rolling off his face and body, his
eyes protruding with eagerness and fear. Tom had just noticed that part
of a chain, with a broken block of wood attached to it, hung from a gyve
on the man’s left ankle, and another chain from an iron circlet about
his left wrist, when three Arabs and a negro came out of the wood at
short intervals in hot pursuit.
Tom and Mbutu were partially concealed from the strangers by the
straggling bush. Pursued and pursuers had almost crossed the wide open
space, the foremost Arab but a yard behind, when the fettered negro
stopped short suddenly, turned round, and with a desperate movement of
his left arm struck the Arab full in the face with the dangling chain.
The Arab dropped, and the hunted man turned again to flee, but the rest
were almost upon him. Tom saw that, encumbered as the negro was, he
must inevitably be run down in a few moments. Instinctively taking the
weaker side, and forgetting his own exhaustion, he sprang up, and
sprinting with all the speed of which his tired limbs were capable, he
dashed after the pursuers, followed closely by Mbutu. The chase had
evidently been a long one; hunters and hunted were breathless, and trod
heavily. In the excitement of the moment Tom dashed along at a speed of
which a minute earlier he would have thought himself utterly incapable;
and he soon saw that he was gaining rapidly on the Arabs. They had
muskets, which he inferred they had already fired, and had had no time
to reload. He had his staff, and Mbutu clutched his knife.
The foremost of the two remaining Arabs and the negro were closing on
the fugitive when Tom overtook the second Arab. He, hearing the thud of
rapid footsteps immediately behind, checked his pace, and gave a
startled glance backwards. Instantly Tom’s fist was flung out, and the
Arab, receiving the full force of the blow between the eyes, spun round,
and rolled over and over. Mbutu, as he shot by, snatched at his falling
musket, and making upon the pursuing negro, thrust it between his legs,
so that he was tripped up and fell heavily. He clutched at Mbutu to save
himself, and both reached the ground together. There was a short, sharp
struggle; Mbutu wriggled out of the big man’s grip, and drove his knife
through his heart.
Meanwhile the fugitive, taking advantage of this miraculous succour, had
stopped running, and was now engaging the only remaining Arab in a
singular duel. He was swinging the chain upon his wrist like a flail,
the Arab using the musket in his left hand to parry its clanking
strokes. It was an unequal contest. The negro’s force was spent; the
chain was no match for weapons firmly held. The Arab was just about to
rush in with his knife under the negro’s guard when he was struck
smartly behind the knee with Tom’s thick staff, and as he half fell his
panting opponent brought the chain down with one tremendous sweep and
stretched him senseless.
The rescued negro flung himself face downwards on the ground, gasping,
almost sobbing, with relief. Tom looked round for the Arab whom he had
first struck down, and caught sight of him speeding back into the
forest. The big negro was dead; one of the prostrate Arabs was
stirring, the other still lay unconscious.
Tom sat down to rest, propping his head on his arms, and panting from
his exertions. Mbutu stood anxiously scanning the fugitive, who by and
by turned over, and looked at his rescuers with eyes that plainly told
how puzzled he was at the mystery of their intervention. He was a
fine-looking man, with strong muscular frame, and a face of great
intelligence and some refinement of feature. About his close woolly
hair he wore two thin fillets, and a dozen necklaces of string encircled
his neck, a number of small wooden charms dangling from them; from a
longer string a cube of wood hung upon his breast. Mbutu, after gazing
at him in silence for a moment or two, suddenly addressed to him a few
words in a Bantu dialect. The man started, fixed his eyes in keen
scrutiny on the boy’s face, and then answered him in the same language.
A rapid dialogue ensued, and Mbutu, turning eagerly to his master,
exclaimed:
"Him Muhima, sah; Muhima like Mbutu; him chief, name Barega. Say sah
him fader and mudder; him gib sah hut, and food--eberyfing belong him."
Tom smiled wearily. His recent exertions had, he felt, precipitated the
inevitable collapse. He was approaching the last stage of exhaustion.
"I’m glad, Mbutu," he said. "But had we not better be going? These
Arabs may belong to a party, and we shall almost certainly be pursued
and outnumbered. I can hardly walk, but the chief’s village may not be
far. Can he take us there?"
Mbutu again spoke with his compatriot.
"Yes, sah," he said at length. "Village five marches ober dar. Say
must go all too quick."
"Five marches! I can never do it."
"Try, sah, try; must do it," cried the boy imploringly himself trembling
with pain and fatigue.
"One more try, then. Can we first knock off the man’s chains?"
The negro, himself exerting tremendous power with fingers and wrist,
managed, with Mbutu’s assistance, to break off both chains, leaving
simply the circles of iron about his wrist and ankle. The three then
prepared to start; but as they turned Tom felt a touch of compunction
for the two Arabs prostrate on the ground, but still alive.
"I don’t like leaving them to perish. What can we do for them?"
"Nuffin, nuffin, sah," cried Mbutu. "All too bad lot. Chief kill."
"No, I can’t allow it," said Tom sternly. "Go to the dead negro, and
tear a strip off his loin-cloth. If you peg it to a tree it is bound to
attract the attention of their companion when he returns with help."
Mbutu having, with rather an ill grace, done his master’s bidding, the
Bahima chief led the way into the forest towards the south-west, Tom and
the boy, each with a musket in his right hand, following him painfully.
They never knew that, just as they disappeared among the trees, half a
dozen little naked figures sprang silently out of the wood on the other
side. They darted to the fallen Arabs, pierced them through and through
with their spears, and then, despoiling them of their clothing, vanished
again into the forest as noiselessly as they had come.