ACROSS THE LAGOON
As the night came stealthily creeping over wood and water, sending
hosts of birds with loud scoldings to their chosen roosting-places--
for out of those myriads of trees only certain trees were selected--
the boat was put in near the right bank. The levers were muffled,
and the "lookout," with a bill-hook ready to fend off any snag, and
a bull's-eye lantern to shoot a sudden light, took up his position
in the bows. She crept on slowly through the pitch darkness, the
crew easing off at times to listen as some loud noise broke the
silence--the plunge of a hippo, the snort of an angry bull, the
swirl of a fish, or the cry of an otter from the bank. In one of
these silences a whisper came from the bows.
"Look," said Venning; and he flashed the bull's-eye on the bank.
The others, glancing along the streamer of light, saw reflected two
bright eyes, a gleaming muzzle, and the tips of curved horns.
"A buffalo," whispered Mr. Hume.
As the boat drifted slowly past, they watched the bright eyes, and
the eyes of the animal followed them. Out of the intense blackness
only those points were visible--the luminous eyes, the shining
muzzle, and the tips of the horns. The rest was left to the
imagination; yet the picture seemed to stand out of a shaggy forest
bull, his fore feet on the brink of the water, and his head thrown
up.
"What a picture for a flash-light photo!" muttered Venning,
longingly.
"What a mark for a shot!" sighed Mr. Hume. "And red meat would be
very welcome."'
As they slipped away the buffalo snorted, crashed into the forest,
and battered his way on a course parallel to them to get another
view of that mysterious light, for presently they heard his snort
again. A little further on a bull hippo charged at them, but the
glare of the light full in his eyes stopped him, and he remained
open-mouthed, so that all they saw was a yawning gulf bristling with
ivory. Mr. Hume, who had picked up his Express at the first snort,
laid it down again with a laugh.
"Took the fight out of him that time, Venning; but it's a little
risky."
"Keeps one wide awake, at any rate," said Compton.
"We'll continue for an hour or so and then tie up, for we may have a
heavy day to-morrow."
For a couple of miles the boat felt its way through the dark without
incident, and then the look-out signalled another discovery.
"Light ahead!"
The Okapi was brought broadside on, so that the crew could have a
clear view of the river; and they sat for some time in silence,
looking at the strange object--a tiny but steady glow of fire.
"Shut off the bull's-eye, Venning. We'll make for mid-stream, and
approach the fire with caution."
The boat moved out into the current, then worked up very tenderly
while Venning steered, with his eyes fixed on that little speck of
red. Slowly they advanced, cautiously were the levers pulled over
and shot back, so that there should be no noise, and silently the
smooth craft cut into the darkness. But light travels far, and they
seemed to get no nearer.
"I believe it's a light in a boat," muttered the lookout.
The others slowed up, and they listened, but they heard no sound of
paddles, only innumerable stealthy whisperings from the woods.
"It is stationary," said Mr. Hume, "and ashore, as you may see from
its fixity. Beep her away. We can't be too careful."
They made a long reach down, going very warily, and taking care not
to keep their eyes solely upon the fire; for a light is a good lure
to draw the careless into an ambush, unless they are on the look-out
for danger in a different quarter.
"I can't see any one about," said Venning, who was using the night-
glasses.
In complete silence they came at last opposite the fire, but no
sooner had they passed it than it went out.
"Put her round," whispered Mr. Hume.
The boat answered her helm like a well-trained horse, and they went
back on their course to see if they could fetch the light again.
"Yes, there it is."
"Then it's a signal," muttered Mr. Hume; "only to be seen by some
one coming up-stream."
"Suppose it is meant for us?"
Mr. Hume went forward with his Express, and relieved Venning at the
helm.
"We'll creep nearer in this time, but be ready to make a dash if it
proves to be one of Hassan's watch-parties."
This time the Okapi hugged the shore, and stopped when it came
opposite the light.
Out of the darkness came a low laugh. "I have been awaiting you, O
great one; but you came so softly that I should not have known
except for these wise ones here."
"Welcome, Muata!" The boat was run in now without further pause, and
Mr. Hume leapt ashore with the line. "And who are the wise ones,
chief, that could smell us out in the dark?"
"Who but the jackal and the wise woman?"
"You found your mother, then! I'm very glad--very glad. And what
about Hassan? He has passed this way, and made his sign at the
village where we left the old Arab."
"The Arab thief comes up the little river with many canoes and the
whole pack of man-eaters. So we three will get into the shining
canoe, if the great one wills, and make good the time before
sunrise."
"The boat is ready."
Muata called. The fire was put out, and presently two figures
appeared within the range of the bull's-eye lantern--a woman and the
jackal. The woman halted to speak a few words to Muata, then she put
a hand on the hunter's shoulder and peered into his face. She
laughed and said something.
"What says the wise woman, Muata?"
"Lion--not gorilla. Haw! We heard the story from the little men how
the great one cleft the skull of the gorilla; and how they called
you my father, after the man-monkey. But I told her you were more
lion than ape, and she has judged for herself."
Mr. Hume laughed, and held a hand to help the woman into the boat;
but she stepped aboard unassisted, and moved forward, the jackal
following very humbly.
"And the river-man?"
"He struck the trail of three man-eaters, and followed them, seeing
red. Maybe he slew them and was slain, for there was much noise, and
he did not return. So we here are all till we reach the hiding-
place."
The boat was pushed off, and Muata took one of the levers.
"Let the young lions sleep," he said. "We can have no better watch
than we now have. See! the jackal smelt you while you were still
afar, and the chiefs wife heard the noise of the boat before I did.
Wow! We are safe while they watch."
"Does the chiefs wife smoke?" "Ow ay! tobacco would please her
heart." Mr. Hume passed a pipe and tobacco to the woman, and Compton
gave her a lighted match. She took them as if they were ordinary
objects of her life, lit the pipe, and by the flame of the match
leant forward to peer into the boy's face as she had stared at Mr.
Hume. And she spoke a word or two before turning her face to the
bows for the long watch.
"The river runs into the sea; but the river is always full. That is
her word, young lion."
"Which means?"
"I told her you were the white man's son, and she has seen for
herself. Maybe her words mean that when the father is gone the son
takes his place. But in time you will know, for her meaning is
sometimes hard to understand. Now sleep, you two, for there is great
need for us ahead."
Without more ado the two "young lions" rolled themselves in their
blankets and enjoyed the rare luxury of an untroubled sleep, and
when they awoke they were in a vast lagoon, out of which stood the
bleached skeletons of dead trees, with gaunt bare branches, in all
manner of fantastic shapes. But it was only the trees that were
dead, for the astonished eyes of the boys rested on such a
multiplicity of animal life as they had never before seen. Birds
roosted on the aforesaid dead branches--sooty ibis, white pelicans,
crows, kingfishers, and here and there, like sentinels on the
topmost branches, a white-headed eagle, with his hooked bill,
dominating the scene. Wheeling through the air were strings of duck
and wisps of snipe in battalions, rows of cranes with their long
legs trailing, and on the surface of the smooth water, on scores of
small islands, formed originally by uprooted trees, and under the
water, there were yet innumerable creatures. It was certainly grand
hunting for all. There were flies and gnats for the frogs, tadpoles
and the spawn of frogs for the little fishes, little fishes were
preyed on by the ducks and the big fishes, while the birds and the
big fishes in turn provided breakfast, dinner, and supper for the
crocodiles. Apparently the crocodiles were too tough, too musky, and
too powerful, to serve as food for any other animal higher up in the
scale; but it is not to be supposed that they had merely to open
their jaws to snatch a meal, for there were shallows all about where
the waders could go to sleep in peace, standing on one leg. And
there they stood, regiments of them--crested cranes, blue cranes,
black ibis, pink ibis, flamingoes, and wild geese.. And the noise
was tremendous!
The Okapi sailed under a gentle breeze right into the thick of this
sportsman's paradise, and from the low islands armies of mosquitoes
gaily advanced to meet her until they formed a moving cloud around
her, only kept off from eating up the crew by the merciful
intervention of the canvas awning and mosquito curtains.
"What a magnificent specimen of the spoonbill bittern," groaned
Venning. "If we had only brought an air-gun--for I suppose we cannot
fire."
"Look at those fat geese in a row," said Compton. "What a stew they
would make. Just one shot, sir."
"It won't do," said Mr. Hume. "A single shot would raise noise
enough to wake the seven sleepers."
"There is another way," said Muata.
"What way?"
"A line such as you used for fish--see." He shaved off some thin
shreds of buffalo biltong, chewed it, and dropped it astern. An
inquisitive teal watched him keenly, and, as the boat went by, made
a swoop for the fragment. The incident was noticed, and a big
gander, curiously tame, came sailing up, arching its neck in
imitation of the swan. The boys were at the lockers in a flash, drew
out a couple of lines, bent on a large hook, buoyed it, by the
advice of Mr. Hume, between two floats, baited the hooks, and payed
the line over the stem, while Muata dropped over a few more pellets.
There was a flotilla of duck and geese following in the wake of the
Okapi, and in less than a minute there were two bites. Compton had
the black and grey gander, while Venning had a fat duck in tow. The
Okapi was backed full speed astern and the astonished fowl pulled on
board before they knew what had happened. The geese sheered off at
once, speaking to each other in subdued tones, but in the next
quarter of an hour three more ducks were added to the bag. Then a
piratical craft appeared in the very thick of the peaceful convoy,
opened its broadside, as it were, and engulfed a couple. There was a
swirl in the water, a resounding smack made by a long scaley tail,
and a third fowl went the way of the others. Beating their wings,
the duck rose with loud quacks to seek the safety of a shallow, and
the leery green eyes of the piratical crocodile appeared above the
disturbed water.
"You old thief!" cried Venning.
"It is his hunting-ground," said Muata, with a chuckle, as he passed
the birds to his mother, who began at once to pluck them.
"Out with the big pot and the preserved vegetables," said Compton.
"We'll have one big feast, even if we go hungry for a week."
The pot was got out, water from the lagoon was boiled, strained, and
boiled again, then, as each bird was cleaned, it was cut up and
placed in the pot, the offal falling to the share of the jackal. It
was a great meal, of soup, game, cabbage, potatoes, onions, and
carrots, all mixed up, and when it had been eaten down to the last
drop, with a dose of quinine for safety, and a cup of coffee for
comfort, they were all shiny and happy. The oily fat from the birds,
which formed a layer on the top while the mess was boiling, had been
carefully removed, and when it had cooled, Muata and his mother
rubbed it over their faces, necks, arms, and hair until they
glistened.
"Well, I'm sugared!" said Compton.
"Fat very good for the skin," said Muata, showing his teeth. "You
try."
"Better for the guns, chief.''
"Wow! and for the big knife;" and the chief polished up his Ghoorka
blade, while the boys greased the rifles and stared at the chief's
wife, thinking, as they stared, of the adventures which she had been
through since she fled from the kraal of her husband, driven out by
the slave-hunters. They had seen old black women at the villages,
wrinkled old crones, phenomenally thin; but this woman was not much
wrinkled, and she was not thin. Neither was she ugly as those others
had been, for she carried herself straight, and there was a dignity
about her actions whenever she moved her long bare arms. But they
came to the conclusion that she was not a person to sew on buttons,
for there was a hard look about the eyes, and the whole cast of the
face was set and stem. It did not seem possible that she could
smile, and, remembering the careless laughter of native women, who
were amused at anything or nothing, she was a mystery to them. So
they very soon gave up trying to make anything out of her, and
turned their attention to the lagoon, which stretched away a good
ten miles on either hand to the dark fringe of forest. Evidently the
forest had grown where the shallow waters now were, as the dead
trees testified.
"The land has sunk about here," said Venning, "and underneath there
must be a coal-bed in process of formation. Now, if there were hills
around, and a nice clean sand-beach, I should like to spend months
here."
"Too many mosquitoes!"
"Besides," said Mr. Hume, striking in, "there are hills."
"Where? Over there? Why, that's a cloud!"
"Perhaps so; but the cloud rests on a hill-top. Isn't that so,
Muata?"
"Those be the gates to the Place of Rest."
"By Jimminy! How far?" This was something to be excited about.
Muata held up five fingers. "So many suns will rise and set."
"And does the forest lie in between?"
"Between and beyond."
"And the Place of Rest, is that forest also?"
"The sun shines there all day," said the chief; "and a man can see
his shadow lengthen. The little ones play on the white sand, the
women and the girls work in the gardens on the open slopes of the
hills, and the men----"
"Well, what about the men?"
"They lie in the sand like lizards, and talk like parrots."
It was the chief's wife who spoke scornfully, using the language
they had mastered.
"Wow!" chimed in the chief, "they are timid people, the men; but the
time is at hand when those who will not fight will be set to do
women's work in the gardens."
The woman nodded her head grimly. "The time is at hand when the
reapers will work, not in the cornfields, but about the fires where
the men sit. Hassan is to be feared; but he can only enter if he is
helped from within."
"I listen, O wise one," said the son, sternly. "Even if I weed them
all out so that there are none left but Muata and these three white
strangers, your counsel shall be followed."
"It is well," said the mother, nodding her head.
"You seem to have little faith in your people," said Compton.
"Haw! They grow fat and timid. They have no fight in them. Once
before, when I was a boy, I beat them; but they have forgotten."
"I rather think, chief, that they would be as well off under Hassan
as under you."
"Hassan would yoke them in and drive them out through the forest
into the plains. A man must fight for his kraal. That is the law."
"It is the law," said the woman.
"And that is the Place of Rest?" said Venning, lingering on the
sight. "More like a place of trouble for some; but, at any rate, if
there are hills and open places, I shall be glad to get there. It
would be a real treat to have space enough for a trot. But, I say,
it is time you two slept."
"That is just what I have been thinking," said Mr. Hume.
The two boys took the levers, but Muata declined to rest. He said
there were two openings leading from the lagoon to the hills--one a
broad channel, commonly used, the other a smaller channel.
"We will take the little river," he said, "so that Hassan, who will
follow the other track, will not know of our going. But it is hard
to find this little water-path, and I must search for it."
"Don't go up a track that will not give water for the boat. Are you
sure that it will carry us?"
"Ow ay! there is water enough, great one. So sleep well."
For a couple of hours the boys worked the levers, and at the end
they came upon a thicket of reeds, along which the Okapi skirted,
while the chief and his mother kept a keen outlook. Twice they
plunged into the reeds on a false trail; and then, as they lay off
scanning the oily water for trace of a current, the woman held up
her hand.
"It is Hassan," said the chief.
Venning reached for his glasses, and far back over the shining lake
he saw little black specks emerging, as it were, out of the forest.
"Canoes," he said; "a great many."
If they did not find the outlet soon they would be sighted. Muata
and his mother spoke a few words rapidly, and then he signalled to
the crew to enter the reeds. This done, and the boat screened, he
slipped into the water and disappeared shorewards. For some time he
was away, during which the flotilla of canoes came into view like a
flock of ducks, still so far off that the boys could not hear the
sound of paddles. Presently Muata splashed back, and, towing the
boat, made across a barrier of reeds that had been banked up,
forming a sort of natural breakwater, and most effectually hiding
the mouth of the stream he sought. Mr. Hume was awakened, and the
entire crew, taking to the water, managed to hoist the boat over the
barrier. This done, they climbed on board again, and were soon in
the mouth of a dark river, almost overhung by great trees.
"That is well done," said Muata. "Now we can sleep, great one; for
the other river runs far from this, so that Hassan's men will not
hear us."
They were soon asleep. Even the chief's wife stretched herself out
with the jackal at her feet, and the two boys were left in sole
charge. They had been toughened by the rough-and-tumble of their
strange experiences, and inured to the brooding silence and dark
avenues of the forest; but they entered into a scene that tried
their nerves. The trees closed in as they advanced, and very soon
they entered a leafy tunnel, lit up by a faint light that barely
showed up the slimy banks, covered by a network of snake-like roots.
The little waves churned up by the screw splashed softly upon the
roots, making the only sound that disturbed the sombre silence of
the place. So low was the leafy roof at places that branches rustled
on the awning.
"Fix up the big lantern in the bows, old man," said Compton, who was
facing up-stream. "There is not light enough to steer by. Better sit
up there with the bill-hook while I work the levers."
Venning went forward, and soon a shaft of light pierced the gloom.
For a mile or more they threaded this tunnel, and not a sign of life
was there the whole way. When they emerged from the darkness into
comparative space and light, the boys wiped their faces, which were
clammy with moisture.
"A few more experiences like that, Dick, and we cross the river for
good."
"Eh?"
"Why, man, it's the Styx. It has given me the shivers."
"Quinine," said Compton; and they dosed one another there and then.
"I say, I'd give the whole five hundred miles square of this forest
for one little glade in Epping."
"Bother!"
"Of all the squirmy, snaky, gloomy, airless, sunless, moist,
decaying masses of misery, I think this is the worst."
"It is, Dick; it is. There's not a butterfly even."
"Thunder! It's raining fire! No; it's an ant S It's raining ants, by
gum!"
"You ass, you've hooked the bill into a nest. There--that round,
black thing--like a football. They're running up the bill-hook."
There was a splash as the boat was shoved off, then muttered
exclamations and a yelp from the jackal: Many scores of ants had
invaded the Okapi, and each ant, full of murderous rage for the
wanton attack upon the nest, seized hold of the first soft thing it
came across, and once it gripped it held on like a bull-dog. War was
waged on the invaders, and when the last had been discovered and
crushed, there was no sleep in the savage eyes of the awakened.
Incidents like these alone varied the monotony of the dreary days
they spent in that mournful slough, and if it had not been for the
regular exercise at the levers, and the hope of a speedy release
from their surroundings, the young explorers must have succumbed. As
it was, they lost colour, became pale, languid, and heavy-eyed; and
Mr. Hume, noting the signs of the dreaded wasting sickness with
anxiety, did not spare himself or Muata when it came to their turn
to work the levers.