ANITA BECOMES A RESPONSIBILITY
It was two weeks later when Ormsgill reached the Mission with his
boys, footsore, ragged, and worn with travel. He had avoided Anita's
hammock as far as possible on the way, and it was with a certain
relief he saw her safely installed in one of the dusky adherents'
huts. Then he arrayed himself in whole, clean clothes, and when he had
eaten sat on the shadowy veranda talking with his host, a somewhat
ludicrous figure since Father Tiebout's garments were several sizes
too small for him. It was then the hottest part of the afternoon. The
perspiration trickled down their faces, and the little priest blinked
when he met the blazing sunlight with dazzled eyes.
They spoke in disjointed sentences, sometimes mixing words of three
languages, but it was significant that although neither expressed
himself with clearness his companion seldom failed in comprehension,
for priest and rash adventurer were in curious sympathy. Both of them
had borne heat, and fever, and bodily pain, and proved their courage
in a land where the white man often sinks into limp dejection. Each
had also in his own way done what he could for the oppressed, and had,
perhaps, accomplished a little here and there. It was, however,
inevitable that their conversation should turn upon the girl Anita.
"I had not heard of the raid up yonder," said the priest. "I am not
sure that I am sorry. After all, one hears enough. Still, it no doubt
took place. Herrero's companion would have no motive for deceiving
you. The question is what is to be done with the woman. To be frank,
she cannot stay here."
"Why?" and Ormsgill's face grew a trifle grave, for Anita was rapidly
becoming a cause of anxiety to him.
His companion made a little gesture. "She would prove an apple of
discord; she is too pretty. One must not expect too much of human
nature, and one wife alone is permitted. There is not now a boy she
could marry. In the second place, Herrero would probably attempt to
seize her here."
It occurred to Ormsgill that Anita might not be anxious or even
willing to marry anybody. In fact, he felt it would be an almost
astonishing thing if she was. Still, he realized with a vague
uneasiness that it is, after all, very often difficult to foresee the
course a woman would adopt.
"Then," he said, "I don't know what can be done with her."
"You are not one who would leave a task half finished?"
"At least, I cannot turn this woman adrift."
Father Tiebout wrinkled his brows. "There is, I think, only one place
where she would be safe, and that is on the coast. There are also
friends of mine who could be trusted to take good care of her in the
city, and she could be sent down from the San Thome Mission. It is,
however, a long journey."
"If it is necessary," said Ormsgill, "I must make it."
His companion's little gesture seemed to indicate that he believed it
was, and Ormsgill dismissed the subject with a smile.
"In that case I will start again to-morrow," he said.
He set out in the early morning, taking two letters from Father
Tiebout, one for the man who directed the San Thome Mission, and one
to be sent on from there to certain friends of his host's on the
coast, and it was two days later when he lay a little apart from his
carriers in a glade in the bush. Blazing sunshine beat down into it.
There was an overpowering heat, and a deep stillness pervaded the
encircling forest, for the beasts had slunk into their darkest lairs
in the burning afternoon. The snapping of the fire made it the more
perceptible, and Ormsgill could see the blue smoke curl up above a
belt of grass behind which the boys were cooking a meal. Anita, who
was with them, would, he knew, bring him his portion, and in the
meanwhile he felt it was advisable to keep away from her. She had
talked very little with him during the last two days, but that was his
fault, and he fancied that she failed to understand his reticence. In
fact, the signs of favor she had once or twice shown him had rendered
him a little uncomfortable.
For all that, his face relaxed into a little dry smile as he wondered
what the very formal Mrs. Ratcliffe would think of that journey. He
remembered that he had always been more or less of a trial to his
conventional friends even before he had been dismissed from his
country's service for an offense he had not committed, but he was one
of the men who do not greatly trouble themselves about being
misunderstood. It is a misfortune which those who undertake anything
worth doing have usually to bear with.
He was, however, a little drowsy, for they had started at sunrise and
marched a long way since then. There was only one hammock, which
somewhat to the carriers' astonishment Anita had occupied, for this
was distinctly at variance with the customs of a country in which
nobody concerns himself about the comfort of a native woman. It would
also be an hour before the boys went on again, and he stretched
himself out among the grass wearily, but, for all that, with a little
sigh of content. He had found the restraints of civilization galling,
and the untrammeled life of the wilderness appealed to him. The need
of constant vigilance, and the recognition of the hazards he had
exposed himself to, had a bracing effect. It roused the combativeness
that was in his nature, and left him intent, strung up, and resolute.
The task he had saddled himself with had become more engrossing since
it promised to be difficult.
He did not think he slept, for he was conscious of the pungent smell
of the wood smoke all the time, but at last he roused himself to
attention suddenly, and looked about him with dazzled eyes. He could
see the faint blue vapor hanging about the trunks, and hear the boys'
low voices, but except for that the bush was very still. Yet he was
certainly leaning on one elbow with every sense strung up, and he knew
that there must be some cause for it. What had roused him he could not
tell, but he had, perhaps, lived long enough in that land to acquire a
little of the bushman's unreasoning recognition of an approaching
peril. There was, he knew, something that menaced him not far away.
For a moment or two his heart beat faster than usual, and the
perspiration trickled down his set face, and then laying a restraint
upon himself he rose a trifle higher, and swept his eyes steadily
round the glade. There was one spot where it seemed to him that the
outer leaves of a screen of creepers moved. He did not waste a moment
in watching them, but letting his arm fall under him rolled over
amidst the grass which covered him, for it was evidently advisable to
take precautions promptly. Just as the crackling stems closed about
him there was a pale flash and a detonation, and a puff of smoke
floated out from the creepers.
Ormsgill was on his feet in another moment, and running his hardest
plunged into them, but when he had smashed through the tangled, thorny
stems there was nobody there, and except for the clamor of the boys
the bush was very still. Still, this was very much what he had
expected, and looking round he saw the print of naked toes and a knee
in the damp soil before his eyes rested on the brass shell of a spent
cartridge. He picked it up and turned it over in his hand,
recognizing it as one made for a heavy, single-shot rifle of old
fashioned type, which had its significance for him. He fancied his
would-be assassin had been lent the rifle by a white man who in all
probability knew what he meant to do with it. Then he glanced at the
cartridge again, and noticed a slight outward bending of its rim.
There was a portentous little glint in his eyes as he slipped it into
his pocket.
"Some day I may come across the man who owns that rifle," he said.
He stood still for another few moments, grim in face, with his jacket
rent, and a little trickle of blood running from one hand which a
thorn had gashed. Every nerve in him tingled with fierce anger, but he
knew that the man who runs counter to established customs has usually
more than misconception to face in Africa, especially if he
sympathizes with the oppressed, and he was one who could wait. Then
the boys came floundering through the undergrowth, one or two with
heavy matchets, and one or two with long flintlock guns, but Ormsgill,
who recognized that pursuit would certainly prove futile even if they
were willing to undertake it, drove them back to the fire again.
"We will start when I have eaten," was all he said.
Anita brought him his meal, and stood watching him curiously while he
ate, but Ormsgill said nothing, and in half an hour they went on again
and spent the rest of that day and a number of others floundering
amidst and hacking a way through tangled creepers in the dim shadow of
the bush. It was a relief to all of them when at last the thatched
roofs of San Thome Mission rose out of a little opening into which the
dazzling sunlight shone. Ormsgill was received by an emaciated priest
with a dead white face and the intolerant eyes of a fanatic, who
supplied him and the boys with a very frugal meal and took Anita away
from him. Then he read Father Tiebout's letters, and after he had done
so sat with Ormsgill on the veranda.
"Father Tiebout vouches for you--and your purpose," he said, watching
his companion with doubt in his eyes.
"If he had not done so I should probably not have been welcome?" said
Ormsgill, smiling.
The priest made a little gesture which seemed to imply that he did not
intend to discuss that point. "The girl would be safe with the people
he mentions. They are good Catholics."
"I am not sure that is quite sufficient in itself," said Ormsgill
reflectively. "Still, Father Tiebout would scarcely have suggested
sending her to them unless he had felt reasonably certain that they
would show her kindness."
His companion's face hardened. "They are people of blameless lives.
There are, perhaps, two or three such in that city. You could count
upon the woman receiving kindness from them, but one would have you
quite clear about the fact that my recommendation is necessary. It is,
of course, in my power to withhold it, and if it is given you will
undertake not to claim the woman again?"
Ormsgill looked at him with a little smile. "I have no wish to claim
her, though I have only that assurance to offer you, and I must tell
you that I am going to the coast. There are, however, one or two
conditions. She must be treated well, and paid for her services."
"That would be arranged. It is convenient that she should understand
what would be required of her. I will send for her."
Ormsgill made a sign of concurrence, and in another five minutes Anita
stood before them, slight and lithe in form, and very comely, but with
apprehension and anxiety in her brown face. The priest spoke to her
concisely in a coldly even voice, and it was evident that the course
he mentioned was one she had no wish to take. Then he turned from her
to Ormsgill as she stretched out her hands with a little gesture of
appeal towards the latter.
"It is your will that I should go away and live with these people?"
she said.
Ormsgill knew that the priest was watching him, and that there was
only one answer, but he shrank from uttering it. The girl's eyes were
beseeching, and she looked curiously forlorn. She was a castaway
without kindred or country, one who had lived the untrammeled life of
the bush, and he feared that she would find the restraints of the city
intolerably galling.
"It is," he said gravely.
The girl stood very still a moment or two looking at him, and Ormsgill
felt the blood creep into his face. He was, in all probability, the
only man who had ever shown her kindness, and he recognized that she
too had misunderstood his motives and regarded him as rather more than
her rescuer. Then as he made no sign she flung out her hands again,
hopelessly this time, and slowly straightened herself.
"I go," she said simply and turned away from them.
Ormsgill watched her cross the compound, a forlorn object, with the
white cotton robe that flowed about her gleaming in the dazzling
sunlight, and then turn for a moment in the shadowy entrance of a
palm-thatched hut. He was stirred with a vague compassion, but putting
a firm restraint upon himself he sat still, and the girl turning
suddenly once more vanished into the dark gap. It also happened that
he never met her again.
"One's powers are limited, Father. After all, there is not much one
can do for another," he said.
The priest looked hard at him, and then made a little grave gesture.
"It is something if one can ease for a moment another's burden. I
have, it seems, to ask your pardon for a misconception that was,
perhaps, not altogether an unnatural one, Señor."
Ormsgill saw little more of him during the day, and started for the
coast early next morning. He had only accomplished half his purpose,
and that in some respects the easier half, but it was necessary for
him to procure further supplies and communicate with Desmond. Before
he started, however, he sent home most of the boys Father Tiebout had
obtained for him, keeping only two or three of them, for these and
the others he had brought up with him could, he fancied, be relied
upon. They were thick-lipped, wooly-haired heathen, stupid in all
matters beyond their acquaintance, but after the first few weeks they
had, at least, done his bidding unquestioningly.
This quiet white man with the lined face had never used the stick on
one of them, and did not, so far as they were aware, even carry a
pistol. When they slept at a bush village or obtained provisions there
he made the headman a due return before he went away, which was not
the invariable custom of other white men they had traveled with. In
fact, they looked upon him as somewhat of an anachronism in that
country, but since the one attempt a few of them had made to disregard
his authority had signally failed they obeyed him, and little by
little became sensible of a curious confidence in him. What he said he
did, and, what was rather more to the purpose, when he told them that
a certain course was expected from them they usually adopted it, even
when it was far from coinciding with their wishes.
There are a few men of Ormsgill's kind and one or two women who have
made adventurous journeys in the shadowy land unarmed, and carried
away with them the dusky tribesmen's good will, while others have
found it necessary to march with a band of hired swashbucklers and
mark their trail with burnt villages and cartridge shells. As usual, a
good deal depended upon how they set about it.