WHEREIN ONE SURPRISE BEGETS MANY
Colville leaped ashore. Without appearing to hurry, he was quickly by
Hume's side and asking in an undertone:
"Why has this war-drumming started? I heard it an hour ago down stream.
Our engine was not running well, so the men got the paddles to work and
we cracked on at top speed."
"I do not know," said the missionary, who was more anxious at the
moment to reassure the women than to answer questions.
"But is there any bush fighting going on? Everything was reported to be
all right when I left Ibi."
"May heaven be praised that you were prompted to visit us! My wife,
Miss Dane, our interpreter and myself--four out of two hundred--alone
remain in the mission. Some of our people stole the canoe and made off,
and every other native in the compound has gone into the bush. When we
heard your paddles just now we thought that the war canoes of the King
of Oku were approaching. But please come with me to the house. The mere
sight of your uniform will show the ladies that our danger is at an
end."
Colville was young, but he was old in experience. He had also learned
the exceeding wisdom of repressing opinions that were not called for.
"Wait a few seconds," he said. "Here is Lord Fairholme. But for his
urgent wish to visit Miss Dane, we should not have been in Kadana
to-night. Hello! Who the dev--what canoe is that?"
Even while he was speaking, another craft shot out from the dense layer
of mist that hid the surface of the river. Though the trees on the
opposite bank were clearly visible in the ever-spreading moonlight,
the Benuë itself was invisible. A Hausa sergeant challenged from the
launch, and the reply came in his own tongue. A small native boat,
propelled by two paddles, grated on a strip of shingle, and an Arab and
a negro stepped ashore.
By this time, Fairholme had joined Colville and had been introduced
to Hume. The Arab, hardly waiting an instant for a response to a curt
inquiry, stalked towards them. He was a tall man, gaunt but wiry, and
he carried himself with the listless air of one barely convalescent
after a severe illness.
But there was no trace of listlessness in his voice. He singled out
Colville immediately as the officer in charge of the party, and
addressed him in the Hausa language.
"You would better bring your men ashore, run the launch as far up the
bank as possible, and barricade yourself in the strongest building
available," he said. "The men of Oku are out. Three of their war
canoes are stationed at the bend in the river and their occupants are
armed with Mannlicher rifles. Escape that way is impossible. Your only
chance is to hold this post as long as Allah permits. I shall try to
pass the blockading canoes and reach Ibi, though I fear it will be too
late."
Colville hardly knew at which he was most amazed, the commanding tone
of this haggard son of the desert or the astounding news he brought.
"Say, then, hadji," he cried, half ironically, "What plague has broken
out in Oku that the whole line of the Benuë should be threatened."
"The chief plague is that of blindness among officers who fail to see
the pits dug for them by crafty natives," was the stern answer. "I
speak truly, young master. You have half an hour, at best an hour, in
which to make preparations."
"But these war canoes you speak of--they are not at the bend; I have
just come up stream."
"They passed but now. You did not see them for the mist. I accompanied
them."
"Why did I not hear them?"
"They drifted down quietly lest they should arouse the mission."
"And yet you came here? Why?"
"To warn the mission people. Hurry, I pray you, and waste no time in
useless talk."
"Oh, I say, Colville," broke in Fairholme who understood no word of
this dialogue and wondered why the English officer should permit an
Arab to detain him, "can't Mr. Hume take me to Miss Dane? If she is as
sick of this rotten river as I am she'll be jolly glad to see me."
"Certainly," said Colville. "I shall follow you soon. This chap seems
to be able to explain matters, so I must remain here a few minutes."
Hume, eager to get away, led Fairholme in the direction of the house.
The young soldier felt a strong hand grasp his shoulder, and an English
voice whispered:
"Colville, don't you know me?"
They were standing in a cleared space where the moonbeams gave some
degree of light. The Arab had pushed back his burnous, revealing
a worn, handsome face, tanned brown with exposure. Though the
characteristic traits of his supposed race are the heavy lip, and the
hawk-like nose, this man was straight-nosed and thin-lipped. He was
cadaverous enough, but no Arab.
Colville did more than gaze, he actually gaped at the other. There was
no mistaking the cultured accent of an English gentleman, and yet--the
thing could not be; he fancied he was bewitched.
"My dear Jimmie, have I changed so much, then, since last we played
snooker together in the club?"
"Well, I'm blessed!" muttered Colville, or to be candid, he used the
subaltern's variant of the phrase.
"You soon will be if you don't do as I tell you," came the emphatic
assurance. "But before I go, for I must give the people at Ibi a
chance--though it is a thousand to one I shall be too late--who is the
lady your friend inquired about?"
Colville wanted to say so much that he found but few words. He could
only gasp:
"My dear Warden--didn't you hear?"
"I heard her name, of course, but it cannot be a lady of the same name
in whom I was once interested. Still, it is an odd thing it should be
mentioned to-night, and in this place. Who is she?"
"Oh, d----n it all!" groaned Colville, "how could any poor devil guess
he was in for this sort of stew when he started from Ibi yesterday!"
"I assure you we are wasting precious time, Jimmie. Perhaps it is my
fault, but the question was a natural one under the circumstances. Tell
your men it is all right, or they may want to prevent my departure;
they understand those drums, you know. My only hope of success in case
I am stopped at the bend is to keep up the pretense that I am a special
envoy from the emirs in the interior. Some day, if we win through this
business, I shall have a fine yarn for you. Good-by!"
"But look here, old chap, I can't let you slip away like that. Confound
it! I don't know what to say, but the plain truth is best, perhaps. The
girl you were engaged to, Miss Evelyn Dane, is inside the mission-house
now, this minute, and the man I brought from Ibi is the Earl of
Fairholme. He told me all about you on the way up. He's a decent sort,
and he is wild over Miss Dane. But it is only fair to add----"
A series of blood-curdling yells and a volley of musketry that lit the
bush with spurts of flame put an abrupt end to Colville's qualifying
sentence. He was so taken aback by the extraordinary coincidence that
Warden should arrive at Kadana almost at the same instant as the man
who had come there with the avowed intent of taking Evelyn Dane home to
England as his wife, that for one bemused second he failed to grasp the
imminence or extent of the native onslaught.
It was otherwise with Warden. Though his brain might well have reeled
at the words he had just heard from a brother officer's lips, the
incessant watchfulness demanded by the life of the past five months
had created in him a second nature. While his heart asked tumultuous
questions and found no answer to any of them, his head dictated the
steps that must be taken if they were to offer any sort of organized
defense.
"Company! Attention!" he shouted. "Four men remain with the launch,
keep steam up and shove off from the bank; all others follow to the
mission. Double--March! Beni Kalli, run the canoe ashore and come!"
The loud command, proceeding apparently from their leader, though not
in their leader's voice, was promptly obeyed by the Hausas. They came
running across the clearing, loading their rifles and fixing bayonets
as they ran.
"Now, Colville, take hold!" said Warden coolly. "I'm afraid I startled
you out of your wits, but they're your men, not mine."
The younger man needed no second bidding. Glad of the night that hid
the scarlet in his face, he told the small squad to surround the
mission-house. They would be less visible beneath the veranda than on
it. Hume and Fairholme with two women in white dresses had rushed out
at the first sound of firing, and they were painfully distinct in the
light that came from a large lamp inside the room at the back.
"Shout to them to get inside, close the doors, and extinguish all
lights," said Warden, keeping close to Colville during the combined
rush to gain the obscurity afforded by the heavy beams that supported
the upper story.
Colville obeyed. He was honestly glad that a stronger man had taken
control. His knowledge of the country told him that a most serious and
far-spread rebellion was in progress. Rifles, not gas-pipe guns, were
in the hands of a tribe famed for its fighting qualities. He had a
dozen men, not counting the four in the launch, to meet the onset of as
many thousands. He did not fear death, for he had faced it many times,
but it was one thing to enter on a definite campaign, no matter what
the odds, and quite another to find himself plunged into a seemingly
hopeless fight in a time of profound peace, and at the close of an
exhausting journey undertaken to oblige a sporting British peer.
He had to bellow his instructions twice before the alarmed occupants
of the mission-house quitted the veranda. The sound of his own voice
was helpful; it steadied him. It was in his natural tone that he
growled to Warden:
"Fairholme admits that he is an ass, rather boasts of it, in fact, but
I thought Hume would have more sense than to let the women stand there
offering a clear target."
"They are safe enough yet," was the reply. "Their rooms face the river;
the attack is coming from the bush."
"Wouldn't it be better to take to the river at once?"
"No, that means certain death. There are three canoes, and each has a
Nordenfeldt mounted in its bows."
"Good Lord, man, a Nordenfeldt!"
"Yes, and M'Wanga has a dozen 12-pounders in two batteries at Oku.
Not that they will ever be of much use to him. I took care of that.
But I failed utterly to get on board the canoes. They were moored in
mid-stream, guarded day and night, and the guns were sheeted. Moreover,
I have been out of gear nearly six weeks. This is a big business,
Colville. How is it no one knew of what was going on?"
"There were rumors, but they died down. Forbes----"
"Did they send Forbes in my place?"
"Yes."
"That explains it. He is a capital fellow in an office. To ask him to
unravel an Oku plot was to set a bat catching sparrows by daylight."
They had plenty of time to discuss matters thus coolly. No West
African fighting-man would demean himself by delivering an assault
on an enemy's position without a preliminary hubbub of yells and
wild shooting. It is different when he is the defender. Then he will
lie close as a partridge till the precise moment that his usually
antiquated guns can most effectually belch forth a destroying blast of
nails, iron scraps, pebbles, and broken glass and pottery.
But the seconds passed, and the minutes, and no horde of demoniac
figures poured across the open compound. The shooting was incessant,
yet no bullet struck the house, though not even an indifferent native
marksmen could well avoid hitting a big building in which all the
living-rooms were on the same floor as the veranda. The lower part of
the structure served as a store.
The Hausa soldier-policemen, picked men of the West African Regiment,
were trained not to fire without orders. They were far too few in
number to line the stockade, which enclosed a space fully two acres in
extent. In any case, the defense it afforded was worse than useless.
The gates were jammed open by a year's growth of herbage. In some
instances, a passage had been made by the simple expedient of removing
a whole section. It would demand many hours of labor by a hundred men
to put the palisade in a serviceable condition. Hume's effort was to
establish a mission, not a fort, in this jungle outpost.
The Hausa sergeant was puzzled in more ways than one. He heard his
officer talking English to an Arab, he heard the unmistakable crackling
of rifles fully equal to those with which he and the others were armed,
and he was unable to account for the delay in the attack.
Enjoining on his men the necessity of keeping well within the shadow,
he crept along close to the wall until he stood by Colville's side.
He was about to ask permission to make a reconnaissance, and thus
force the enemy to reveal themselves, when an incident almost without
precedent in bush warfare took place.
The indiscriminate firing stopped, the wild-beast noises died away into
absolute silence, and a strip of white cotton suddenly became visible
in one of the many gaps in the stockade. It was held stationary for a
moment, then a native warrior stepped boldly forth into the moonlight.
His magnificent physique was enhanced by the war trappings that decked
his head, breast, and loins, and he strode forward with the lithe
movements of a man in perfect training. When he entered the compound,
it was seen that he carried a white flag on a lance. He meant to
parley, and such a departure from the savage methods of a semi-cannibal
tribe was hitherto unheard of. Usually, an unprotected party of
Europeans, whether missionaries or traders, are butchered without mercy
if found within the zone of tribal foray.
"By gad," muttered Colville, "they're going to offer terms!"
"I think I can guess what the terms will be," said Warden. "There's a
woman in the case, Jimmie--something new in a bush campaign, eh?"
The subaltern did not understand the curious undertone of grim irony in
the remark; but he was aware of it and made no reply. The black warrior
had halted. His wonderfully developed sense of hearing warned him that
some one not in the house was speaking, and the voices could come from
no other place than the gloomy recess beneath the veranda.
"O Hume!" he cried loudly. "I fit for palaver."
Colville half expected that Warden would answer for Hume. He was
mistaken. His senior leaned back against the wall of the store,
and folded his arms with the air of a man who meant to abide by a
settlement in whose discussion he can take no part.
The negro, though trusting to his vague conception of a code of honor
that he associated with fighting against white men, came no nearer.
"O Hume!" he cried again, "open dem door one-time, an' hear what I fit
for say."
In the strange hush succeeding the frenzied uproar that announced the
presence of a host of armed natives, the envoy's words were clearly
audible to the five people in the upper rooms. Hume came out, followed
by Bambuk.
"Who are you and what do you want?" said the missionary. "Why do you
come to me at night, and threaten the lives of my friends and myself in
this manner?"
"I done tell you if Bambuk lib. I no fit for long palaver."
At this, the interpreter leaned over the rail of the veranda.
"You are Loanda, I think?" he said, using the vernacular.
"Yes," was the reply. "Tell the white man that the lives of himself
and his wife will be spared, and they will be taken in safety to the
frontier, if the English girl now in their house is handed over to us
at once. She, too, will be well treated. One whom she knows, Miguel
Figuero, awaits her at Oku. He is our friend, so she need have no fear.
I, Loanda, say it, and that which I say is done."
Bambuk translated this astounding request literally. Evelyn heard every
word, and she alone grasped their terrible import. She appeared in the
doorway, white-faced, with eyes that terror had made almost distraught.
"Miguel Figuero!" repeated the bewildered Hume. "Isn't that the name of
the Portuguese rascal you have told us of, Miss Dane?"
"Yes," she said, and her voice was tense with the effort to keep it
from breaking. "He is in league with the men of Oku. I knew it, and
Captain Warden warned the authorities at home about him, but no one
here would listen. Oh, Mr. Hume, it is a dreadful thing to say, but
rather than fall into that man's power I would kill myself."
"You surely don't imagine that we would agree to those terms, do you?"
Hume was almost indignant, but Evelyn flung herself on her knees and
lifted her clasped hands in agony to the star-studded sky.
"What else can I do?" she wailed. "My life is broken. I have nothing
left to live for. If I refuse this offer of peace, it means that all
your lives are forfeit--yours and your wife's, and Lord Fairholme's,
and those of the officer and men who came here in the launch from Ibi.
Tell him I agree. I will go to this man. But make the chief promise to
spare you and the others. I must know first that you are safe. Then--O
God, pardon me!--then--I----"
"My dear girl--which of us would purchase a few more hours of life at
such a price?"
"But you do not understand," she blazed forth. "If the death of one can
save many why shouldn't the one die? We can't hope to resist these men;
there are thousands of them. And unless I fall by my own hand, they may
capture me unharmed after you have given your lives uselessly in my
defense. Oh, pity me and pray for me, but do not let me be responsible
for the slaughter of the few friends I possess in the world!"
She could no longer restrain her tears. The dark blue dome that
typified the heaven to which she looked for mercy was blotted out of
sight. She cowered as though from a blow, and wept pitifully. Then a
voice rang out from the compound directly in front of where she knelt.
As the opening syllables reached her ears, though she understood no
word that was uttered, her surcharged brain harbored a new dread, for
the man who was speaking spoke in Warden's voice--Warden, whom she had
learned to regard as dead these months past. Of course, grief and fear
had driven her mad! She swept away the tears that blurred her vision,
and peered through the rails of the veranda, but she saw only a cloaked
Arab who had stepped forth into the moonlight, and was now addressing
stern warnings to the amazed Loanda. And fantasy played her distracted
senses another strange trick. The face of the native chief was plainly
visible. She watched its expression change from sheer wonderment to
baffled rage, and it seemed to her that it was not Loanda who glowered
at the Arab who harangued him, but the scowling mask carved on the
gourd by Domenico Garcia.
Oh, yes, she was truly mad. She realized it herself, but the others
would never suspect it. Then the persistence of the notion brought
relief to her aching heart. A kindly delirium might carry her through
the ordeal that lay before her. She no longer feared insanity, rather
did she welcome it, and now was her chance to act while she was brave
and would not flinch from that which she conceived was her duty.
But why was that tall Arab still talking in Warden's voice, and why
did the stalwart savage seem to threaten him with furious gesture?
Even while she was gazing between the wooden bars of the railing, she
saw Loanda grasp his spear menacingly, whereupon the Arab laughed--how
like it was to Warden's laugh of good-natured raillery!--and a couple
of Hausa soldiers appeared, with rifles held suggestively, as men hold
shotguns when they expect a rabbit to scuttle out of a spinney.
Again, being still under the spell of that sudden lunacy, she heard
the Arab say in English, and more amazingly than ever in Warden's very
tones:
"Now, Jimmie! Four paces to the front in open order--every man--quick!"
An English officer and several soldiers came out into the open. After
one glance of sheer astonishment, the Oku chief turned and stalked away
towards the bush. He did not deign to hurry, but his lithe springy gait
soon carried him into the somber shadows. The dramatic silence that
followed was broken by the man in an officer's uniform.
"By gad, Warden, you did that splendidly," he said. "I should never
have thought of it. Do you think it will work?"
"For to-night, perhaps. One never knows just how the native mind will
look at a thing. It gave Loanda a positive shock when he was really
convinced that a British officer was not only present at most of
M'Wanga's war palavers, but had thrown out of gear every field gun in
his precious battery. He would not tell me where M'Wanga is now, but I
hardly think they will attack us in earnest before consulting him."
"I am inclined to believe you have knocked the bottom out of the whole
bally business," said Colville jubilantly. "They are scared to death of
you, Warden. You are the first man who had the opportunity to bust up
the Oku ju-ju, and, by Jove, didn't you take it?"
But Colville was wrong. The weird hoot of an owl came from the bush, a
drum tapped out a signal, and instantly the forest became alive with
vivid jets of light. The negroes had begun their fusillade again,
and this time they meant to kill, not to frighten. Bullets whistled
past the house, imbedded themselves in the stout timbers, tore huge
splinters from beams, and hurled shingles from the roof. It seemed to
be a miracle that every person in or near the building was not struck
instantly, but the opening volley sent the Hausas to cover beneath the
veranda, where they were told to lie flat on the ground behind the
protecting supports. To reply to the enemy's fire would be merely a
waste of precious ammunition, and the men carried only a small quantity
in their bandoliers. The time to fire was when every shot would be
effective. Rarely will untrained savages press home an attack when
their foremost warriors fall. The Hausas, negroes themselves, had been
taught this in many a bush skirmish, and they had absolute confidence
in their white leaders, for, by this time, the rumor had gone round
that the man in Arab clothing was the well-known deputy commissioner
of the Brass River, under whom some of them had fought in the sister
protectorate.
Hume, who was cool as any soldier, seized Evelyn's arm the instant
that the first bullet crashed into the woodwork. Fairholme, too, who
had recovered from the stupefying suddenness of what was, to him, a
wholly unexpected sequel to a wearisome trip up a fever-laden river,
ran forward to help, and the two men half carried the girl to the
protection of the house.
But she had no thought of danger. Though it was dark inside the main
living-room, she held them fast when they would have released her, and
tried to read their very souls by a look.
"Did you hear?" she gasped. "That man--the Arab--who is he?... The
other called him Warden.... Why should he do that?... Was it not cruel
of him?... And why, why, did it seem to me that I heard Arthur's voice?"
"Calm yourself, Miss Dane," said the missionary quietly. "Providence at
times adopts means not within mortal ken. I could not follow what was
said to Loanda, but Bambuk tells me that, by some astounding chance,
Captain Arthur Warden has not only crossed a large part of Africa, but
has lived many weeks in Oku itself, and is now taking measures which
will, I trust, by God's mercy, secure our safety."
A queer choking cry came from the girl's parched throat.
"Then I am not mad?" she murmured. "He is really there! And he heard
what I said--when--when I offered to go to Figuero?"
"Yes, of course he heard. It seemed to me it was on your account that
he made himself known to the chief. But I do not yet understand exactly
what happened. I only know that when first he spoke to Colville he used
Arabic."
"Yes, by gad," put in Fairholme, finding an opening at last. "I thought
he was a beastly native, an' I cut in like a bloomin' ass. Just my
usual luck, Evelyn. The favorite got up in the last stride an' pipped
the outsider by a short head, eh, what?"
The earl's happy-go-lucky method of expressing himself was singularly
out of tune with his surroundings. Hume had closed the door, and
the windows were already shuttered, so the darkness was now that of
Pharaoh's Egypt when Moses stretched forth his hand towards heaven.
From without came the incessant crackling of musketry, and the maniacal
howlings of negroes inspiring each other for the ultimate hand-to-hand
fight; within, one heard the hysterical sobbing of Mrs. Hume, the
mutterings of the Foulah servant, and the patter of small débris from
walls and roof as the building shook under the sledge-hammer blows of
bullets traveling at a high velocity. Luckily, as Warden had pointed
out, the front of the mission-house faced the river, and there was no
firing from that quarter as yet. The veranda was approached by a double
staircase which mounted from each side and met at a small landing,
whence half a dozen steps led to the level of the upper floor. As both
sections of the stairs projected beyond the line of the building, their
comparatively thin boards were being constantly ripped and split by
the leaden missiles that hurtled in from both flanks.
It was spinning a coin with death for any one to descend either to
right or left, yet that is what Evelyn did when Lord Fairholme's
bizarre explanation brought her back to the world which she had already
quitted in imagination. Owing to the tomb-like blackness of the room,
neither man was aware of her intent until the door was opened and she
was speeding down the shattered stairs.
In her white dress she was a most conspicuous object. A pent-house
roof shielded the stairs from sun and rain, but the moment she emerged
into the moonlit compound she resembled some ethereal creature sent
by the gods to still the wretched strife waged by foolish men. And,
spirit-like, she passed unscathed through the hissing and biting rain
of lead. She had but one thought, and it fluttered tremulously from her
lips.
"Arthur!" she wailed, "Arthur! I am here!"
And again, "Arthur! Come to me! Why don't you speak?... It is I,
Evelyn.... Where are you? Oh, Arthur dear, answer me."
Warden was lying by Colville's side behind a main pillar at an angle of
the house when he heard the girl's rapt cry. Turning on an elbow, he
saw her flitting past. He was up in an instant. Without spoken word he
leaped out and clasped her in his arms.
Colville rose too.
"Oh, good Lord!" he muttered, "they will both be killed!"
But fate had chosen for Warden a strange path to a woman's love, and
the fickle goddess shielded him now when he, all a-quiver with the
thrill of holding Evelyn in his arms, clasped her tightly and ran with
her up the rickety stairs. Even as he hurried to place her in shelter
the bushmen had seen the white-robed apparition and concentrated their
fire in that direction. Bullets spat against the ground, crashed
through the flimsy wooden structure, and pierced their clothing many
times--but neither was injured. A few seconds after she had passed
through the door Evelyn was carried back again. But it was a fitting
outcome of the madness that had fallen on the quiet mission-station
that she should be blithely heedless of the mortal peril which both
she and her lover had escaped. Even while death was missing them by a
hair's breadth, she began to tell Warden in broken phrases how she had
never faltered in her belief that he would one day be restored to her,
and that she had come to Africa and the Benuë strong in the conviction
that they would meet there and nowhere else in the wide world.
All of this, and more, was delightfully inaccurate, but Evelyn believed
it and the man who listened believed it, and love was more potent than
cold reason, so cold reason was barred out among the shrieking hail of
lead that had failed to secure its victims.
Yet their idyll was soon cut short. A red glare became visible through
the chinks of door and windows, and Warden knew what it meant.
"They have set fire to the native huts," he said. "They want to
see where our men are stationed before they try a rush. I must go,
sweetheart. Kiss me! If it is good-by, I shall die content, for I have
passed through much tribulation ere this divine moment was vouchsafed."
Not for all the gold in Africa would she prove herself unworthy of him
in that supreme moment.
"Go, then!" she said. "Whether in life or death we shall not be
separated again."
Warden was at the door when some one sprang after him. In the growing
light of the burning buildings he recognized Colville's companion in
the launch.
"I suppose I can count for one in the scrum," said the stranger.
"Evelyn promised to be my sister, old chap, an' before we all go under
I'll d----n well down a nigger or two for the sake of the family. Can
you spare a gun? I'm a good man at driven birds, an' these black jokers
are several sizes bigger than blackcock--eh, what?"