ORMSGILL KEEPS HIS WORD
Forest and compound were wrapped in obscurity, and the night was
almost insufferably hot, when Nares, who had arrived there during the
afternoon, sat in a room of the Mission of Our Lady of Pity. The
little, heavily thatched dwelling stood with the mud-built church and
rows of adherents' huts on the shadowy frontier of the debatable land
whose dusky inhabitants were then plotting a grim retribution for
their wrongs, and on the night in question black, impenetrable
darkness shut it in. Though the smell of wood smoke was still in the
steamy air, the cooking-fires had died out an hour ago, and there was
no sound from any of the clustering huts. Nares, who sat, gaunt and
worn in face, by an open window, could not see one of them. Still, he
was looking out into the compound, and his attitude suggested
expectancy. One could have fancied that he was listening for
something.
"My boys heard in the last village we stopped at that there was
another party coming up behind us, and it's quite likely that there
is," he said. "The bushmen are generally right in these things. I've
seen a whole village clear out half a day before a section or two of
troops arrived, though it's hard to understand how they could possibly
have known."
Father Tiebout, who lay in a canvas chair with the perspiration
trickling down his forehead, smiled. "There are many other things
beyond our comprehension in this country," he said, with a trace of
dryness. "We have our senses and our reason. The negro has them, too,
but he has something more--shall we call it the blind instinct of
self-preservation? It is, at least, certain that it is now and then
necessary to him. So you did not come by San Roque or the new
outpost?"
"I did not. Still, how did you deduce it?"
The priest spread out his hands. "It is simple. One does not find an
inhabited village within easy reach of a fort, my friend. The cause
for that is obvious. You are listening for the other party?"
"Anyway, I was wondering whose it could be."
Father Tiebout smiled. "If there is a white man with the boys it is
Thomas Ormsgill. I have been expecting him the last week. He will be
here within the next two--if he is alive."
He spoke with a quiet certainty, as though the matter admitted of no
doubt, and Nares added,
"Yes," he said, "that is a man who keeps his promise, but you could
give him another week. One knows when the mail-boats arrive, but there
might be difficulties when he got ashore. Anybody who wishes to go
inland is apt to meet with a good many, especially if he isn't looked
upon with favor by the Administration."
Father Tiebout said nothing further. It was almost too hot to talk,
though the silence that brooded over the little gap in the forest was
unpleasantly impressive. It would not be broken until the moon rose
and the beasts awoke. There were also times when Nares, who was not a
nervous man, felt a curious instinctive shrinking from the blackness
of the bush. It was too suggestive. One wondered what it hid, for that
is a land where the Powers of Darkness are apparently omnipotent. It
is filled with rapine and murder, and pestilence stalks through it
unchecked.
At last a faint sighing refrain stole out of the silence, sank into
it, and rose again, and Nares glanced at his companion, for he
recognized that a band of carriers were marching towards the mission
and singing to keep their courage up.
"I think you're right. They're coast boys," Father Tiebout said.
It was some ten minutes later when there was a patter of naked feet in
the compound, and a clamor from the huts. Then a white man walked
somewhat wearily up the veranda stairway into the feeble stream of
light. It was characteristic that Nares was the first to shake hands
with him, while Father Tiebout waited with a little quiet smile.
Ormsgill turned towards the latter.
"Have you a hut I can put the boys in? That's all they want," he said.
"They're fed. We stopped to light our fires at sunset."
The greeting was not an effusive one in view of the difficulties and
privations of the journey, but neither of Ormsgill's companions had
expected anything of that kind from him. It was also noticeable that
there was none of the confusion and bustle that usually follows the
arrival of a band of carriers. This was a man who went about all he
did quietly, and was willing to save his host inconvenience. The
priest went with him to a hut, and the boys were disposed of in five
minutes, and when they came back Ormsgill dropped into a chair.
"Well," he said, "I'm here. Caught the first boat after I got your
letter. I think it was your letter, padre, though Nares signed it."
"At least," said Father Tiebout, "we both foresaw the result of it.
But you have had a long march. Is there anything I can offer you?"
"A little cup of your black coffee," said Ormsgill.
Nares laughed softly. "He's a priest, as well as a Belgian. I believe
they teach them self-restraint," he added. "Still, when I saw you
walking up that stairway I felt I could have forgiven him if he had
flung his arms about your neck."
"You see I had expected him," and Father Tiebout set about lighting a
spirit lamp.
"With a little contrivance one can burn rum in it," he added. "There
are times when I wish it was a furnace."
Ormsgill smiled and shook his head. "You and other well meaning
persons occasionally go the wrong way to work, padre," he said. "Would
you pile up the Hamburg gin merchants' profits, or encourage the folks
here to build new sugar factories? You can't stop the trade in
question while the soil is fruitful and the African is what he is."
"What the white man has made him," said Father Tiebout.
"I believe the nigger knew how to produce tolerably heady liquors and
indulged in them before the white man brought his first gin case in,"
said Ormsgill reflectively. "In any case, Lamartine was a trader,
which is, after all, a slightly less disastrous profession to the
niggers here than a government officer, and I did what I could for
him. From your point of view I've no doubt I acquired a certain
responsibility. Could you do anything useful with £200 or £300
sterling, padre?"
"Ah," said the little priest, "one cannot buy absolution."
Nares smiled. It was seldom he let slip an opportunity of inveigling
Father Tiebout into a good-humored discussion on a point of this kind.
"I fancied it was only we others who held that view," he said. Then he
turned to Ormsgill. "He is forgetting, or, perhaps, breaking loose
from his traditions. After all, one does break away in Africa. It is
possible it was intended that one should do so."
"Still," persisted Ormsgill, "with £300 sterling one could, no doubt,
do something."
Father Tiebout, who ignored Nares' observations, tinkered with his
lamp before he turned to Ormsgill with a little light in his eyes.
"Taking the value of a man's body at just what it is just now one
could, perhaps, win twenty human souls. Of these three or four could
be sent back into the darkness when we were sure of them. Ah," and
there was a little thrill in his voice, "if one had only two or three
to continue the sowing with."
"In this land," said Ormsgill, "the reaper is Death. Their comrades
would certainly sell them to somebody or spear them in the bush. The
priests of the Powers of Darkness would see they did it."
"Where that seed is once sown there must be a propagation. One can
burn the plant with fire or cut it down, but it springs from the root
again, or a grain or two with the germ of life indestructible in it
remains. Flung far by scorching winds or swept by bitter floods, one
of those grains finds a resting place where the soil is fertile. Here
a little and there a little, that crop is always spreading."
Ormsgill turned to Nares. "You could do something with the sum alluded
to?"
Nares shook his head, and there was a shadow of pain in his lean face.
"I am not fixed as Father Tiebout is," he said. "His faith is the
official one. They dare not steal his followers from him. Besides, I
have never bought the body of a man. Sometimes I heal them, and if
they are grateful they are driven away from me." He broke off for a
moment with a curious little laugh. "I am an empty voice in the
darkness that very few dare listen to. Still, I will take a case of
London packed drugs from you."
The Belgian spread his thin hands out. "Four villages snatched from
the pestilence! It was his care that saved them. How many men's bodies
he has healed he can not tell you, but I think that a careful count is
kept of all of them."
"Well," said Ormsgill quietly, "there is £600 to your joint credit in
Lisbon. You should get the bank advices when the next mail comes in.
You can apportion it between you."
Nares stood up with a flush in his worn face, and spoke awkwardly, but
Father Tiebout sat very still. A little glow crept into his eyes, and
he said a few words in the Latin tongue. Then Ormsgill thrust his
chair back noisily and moved towards the lamp.
"I almost think that coffee should be ready," he said.
Father Tiebout served it out, and when the cups were laid aside Nares
looked at Ormsgill with a little smile.
"You have not been long away, but one could fancy you were glad to get
back again," he said.
Ormsgill's face hardened. "In some respects I am. The folks I belonged
to were not the same. My views seemed to pain them. It cost them an
effort to bear with me. Still, that was perhaps no more than natural.
One loses touch with the things he has been used to in this country."
"Sometimes," said Father Tiebout, "one grows out of it, and that is a
little different. Our friend yonder once went home, too, but now I
think he will stay here altogether, as I shall do, unless I am sent
elsewhere."
Nares smiled. "The padre is right, as usual. I went home--and the
folks I had longed for 'most broke my heart between them. It seemed
that I was a failure, and that hurt me. They wanted results, the tale
of souls, and I hadn't one that I was sure of to offer as a trophy.
One, they said, could heal men's bodies in America. As you say, one
falls out of line in Africa."
There was a wistfulness which he could not quite repress in his voice,
and Ormsgill nodded sympathetically.
"Oh," he said, "I know. It hurts hard for awhile. We are most of us
the cast-offs and the mutineers here. Still, in one respect, I
sometimes think Father Tiebout's people are wiser. They don't ask for
results."
The little priest once more spread his hands out. "The results," he
said, "will appear some day, but that is not our concern. It is
sufficient that a man should do the work that is set out for him. And
now we will be practical. Have you any news of Herrero?"
"He is a hundred miles north of us in Ugalla's country, and I am going
on there. You will have to find me a few more carriers. It was Miss
Figuera told me."
"Perhaps one can expect a little now Dom Clemente is in authority. He
is honest as men go in Africa, and at least he is a soldier. Well, you
shall have the carriers in a week or so."
Ormsgill laughed. "I want them to-morrow. There is a good deal to do.
I have the boys Domingo stole to trace when I have bought the woman
back from Herrero."
"Bought!" said Father Tiebout with a twinkle in his eyes. "If Herrero
is not willing to sell?"
"Then," said Ormsgill dryly, "I shall have considerable pleasure in
making him."
He stretched himself wearily with a little yawn. "And now we will talk
about other matters."
It was an hour later when he retired to rest and, hot as it was, sank
into sound sleep within ten minutes, but although he rose early and
roused the little priest to somewhat unusual activity, several days
had passed before his new carriers were collected and ready to march.
They were sturdy, half-naked pagans, and appeared astonished when he
gave them instructions in a few words of the bush tongue and bore with
their slow comprehension instead of applying the stick to their dusky
skin, which was what they had somewhat naturally expected from a white
man.
He shook hands with Nares and Father Tiebout in the sloppy compound
early one morning when the mists were streaming from the dripping
forest, and looked at the little priest with a twinkle in his eyes.
"I haven't asked you how you got those boys," he said. "Still, it must
have cost you something to secure the good will of whoever had the
privilege of supplying them."
He turned to Nares as if to invite his opinion, which was
unhesitatingly offered him. The latter, at least, would make no
compromise.
"It certainly did," he said. "I am glad you did not ask me to hire you
the boys. The system under which he obtained them is an iniquity."
Father Tiebout smiled. "The object, I think, was a pious one. One has
to use the means available."
"Anyway," said Ormsgill, "the responsibility and the cost is mine."
The priest shook his head. "At least, you can take this gift from me,"
he said. "It is not much, but one does with pleasure what he can."
It was offered in such a fashion that Ormsgill could only make his
grateful acknowledgments, though he had grounds for surmising that the
gift would cost the giver months of stringent self-denial, and there
was already very little sign of luxury at the Mission. Then he called
to his carriers, who swung out of the compound with their burdens in
single file, slipping and splashing in the mire. The two men he had
left behind stood watching them until the last strip of fluttering
cotton had vanished into the misty forest when Father Tiebout looked
at his companion with a little smile.
"One could consider the venture our friend has undertaken a folly, but
still I think he will succeed," he said. "One could almost fancy that
the Powers above us hold the men who attempt such follies in their
special keeping."
Nares, as it happened, had been almost uncomfortably stirred during
the last ten minutes, but he was Puritan to the backbone, and usually
endeavored, at least, to prevent what he felt carrying him away. He
was also as a rule ready to join issue with the little priest on any
point that afforded him an opportunity.
"There is a difficulty," he said. "I'm not sure he would admit the
existence of all the Powers you believe in. There are so many of them.
One would fancy that faith was necessary."
Father Tiebout smiled at him again. "Ah," he said, "they who know
everything have doubtless a wide charity."