AN ERROR OF JUDGMENT
Fort San Roque stood, as Father Tiebout sometimes said, on the verge
of extinction in the shadow of the debatable land, but its Commandant
or Chefe, as he was usually termed, had become accustomed to the fact,
and, if he did not forget it altogether, seldom took it into serious
consideration. After all, the European only exists on sufferance in
the hotter parts of Africa, and as a rule, once he realizes it, ceases
to trouble himself about the matter and concentrates his attention on
the acquiring of riches by any means available. Dom Erminio was not an
exception, and being by no means particular, endeavored to make the
most of his opportunities, especially as his term of office was not a
long one. It was, perhaps, not astonishing that in his eagerness to do
so he became to some extent oblivious of everything else, since those
entrusted with authority over a discontented subject people have at
other times and in other places acted as though they were a trifle
blind to what was going on about them. Dom Erminio was cunning, but,
as occasionally happens in the case of cunning men, he was also
short-sighted.
The evening meal had been cleared away when he lay in a canvas lounge,
yellow in face, as white men often become in that part of Africa,
with a cigar in his bony fingers. Darkness had just closed down on the
lonely station, but the little rickety residency had lain for twelve
hours under a burning sun, and now the big oil lamps raised the
already almost insupportable temperature. The Chefe, however, did not
seem to feel it. He lay in his chair apparently languidly content, a
spare figure in loose and somewhat soiled white uniform, looking at
his Lieutenant, who was fingering a glass of red Canary wine. Neither
of them troubled themselves about the fact that there were men in that
country who regarded them with a vindictive hatred.
"I almost think we may as well call that man in," he said.
The Lieutenant Luiz glanced towards the veranda, where a negro was
patiently squatting, as he had, in fact, been doing for most of the
day. He brought a message from a Headman of some importance in the
vicinity, and there was no reason why he should not have been listened
to several hours earlier, except that Dom Erminio preferred to keep
him waiting. It was in his opinion advisable that a negro should be
taught humbly to await the white man's pleasure, which is a policy
that has now and then brought trouble upon the white man. Dom Luiz,
who understood his companion's views on that subject, smiled.
"He has, no doubt, complaints to make. They always have," he said.
"Considering everything, that is not astonishing. I wonder if the
Headman expects us to give them much consideration."
Dom Erminio spread his yellow hands out. "One would have thought we
had taught him to expect nothing. He is, it seems, a little slow to
understand. Perhaps, we have not put the screw on quite hard enough. I
fancy another turn would make him restive."
He looked at his Lieutenant, and both of them laughed. Then the Chefe
made a little sign.
"Bring him in," he said.
The negro came in, a big, heavily-built man, with an expressionless
face. When Dom Erminio made him a sign not to come too near he
squatted down, a huddled object with apathetic patience in its pose,
until the Lieutenant signified that he might deliver his message.
"The Headman sends you greeting. He has a complaint to make," he said,
and another dusky man who had slipped in softly made his observations
plain. "The soldiers have been beating the people in one of his
villages, and carrying off things that did not belong to them again.
The Headman asks for justice in this matter."
"He shall have it," said the Chefe. "His people have been insolent,
and they are certainly getting lazy. We will send him a requisition
for more provisions."
Nobody could have told whether the messenger felt any resentment, but,
after all, very few white men ever quite understand what the African
is thinking. He crouched impassively still, with the lamplight on his
heavy face and his oily skin gleaming softly over the great knotted
muscles of his splendid arms and shoulders. There was something in his
attitude which vaguely suggested dormant force that might spread
destruction when it was unloosed, but that naturally did not occur to
the Chefe, who indicated by a little gesture that he might continue.
"There is another matter," said the negro. "The Headman can not send
in the rubber demanded. Already we have cleared the forest of half the
trees. One has to go a long way to find any more. He will do what he
can, but he asks that you will be content with a little less than
usual."
Dom Erminio shook his head reproachfully. "I have made this man
concessions, and this is the result," he said. "There are many duties
I have released him from, and I only ask a little rubber and a few
other things for the favor."
Then he straightened himself in his chair. "Tell your Headman that not
a load of rubber will be excused him, and he must restrain his people
from provoking the soldiers. Also, the next time he has a complaint to
make let him come himself and lay it before me."
The man stood up, splendid in his animal muscularity, but there was
for just a moment a little gleam in his eyes which suggested that hot
human passions were at work within him. The white men, however, as
usual, did not notice it, and the black interpreter, whose opinion was
seldom invited, said nothing.
"I will tell him," said the messenger, and Dom Erminio looked at the
Lieutenant Luiz when he went out with the interpreter.
"I think," he said reflectively, "we will give the screw that other
turn. It is supposed that our new rulers down yonder"--and he
apparently indicated the coast with a stretched out hand--"are in
favor of a more conciliatory policy, which is not what we would wish
for just now."
"It is clearly out of the question," and Dom Luiz grinned. "I think it
would be advisable if I went out with a few files and made some
further trifling requisition to-morrow."
"You will go, and do what appears desirable," said the Chefe, who
lighted another cigar.
Dom Luiz set out on the morrow with a handful of dusky ruffians in
uniform, and left rage and shame behind him in the villages he
visited, which, as it happened, had results neither he nor Dom Erminio
had anticipated. The Headman did not come to San Roque to make his
humble complaint, but he sent an urgent message to the Suzerain of the
village Ormsgill was confined in, and at last one morning the old man
sent for the latter.
"We march in a few hours, and as we can not leave you here you and the
boys you asked me for will come with us," he said. "What our business
is does not concern you, and you will go with us as prisoners. Just
now I do not know what we will do with you afterwards. It will
depend"--and he looked at Ormsgill with a little grim smile--"a good
deal upon your own behavior."
Ormsgill, who grasped the gist of what he said, could take a hint, and
went back to Nares. The latter listened quietly when he told him what
he had heard.
"I believe there is no other way. Their oppressors have brought it
upon their own heads," he said.
His comrade noticed the curious hardness of his face, and the glint in
his eyes. It was very evident to him that Nares, who had been down
again with fever while they lay in the sweltering heat, had changed.
He had borne many troubles uncomplainingly for several weary years,
and, perhaps because of it, the events of the last few weeks had left
their mark on him. After all, there is a subtle concord between mind
and body, and in that land, at least, the fever-shaken white man who
persists in staggering on under a burden greater than he can
reasonably bear is apt to be suddenly crushed by it. Then his bodily
strength or mental faculties give way once for all beneath the strain.
Ormsgill could not define the change in his companion, but he
recognized it. It was a thing which he had seen happen to other men.
They started in the heat of that afternoon, and Ormsgill, marching
with his boys, watched the long dusky column wind into the forest in
front of him. There were men with Snider rifles, which they were
indifferently accustomed to, men with glinting matchets, and men with
flintlock guns and spears, besides rows of plodding carriers. They
were half-naked most of them, men of primitive passions and no great
intelligence, but they had risen at last in their desperation to
strike for freedom. Behind them rose a tumultuous uproar of barbaric
music, insistent and deafening, that floated far over the forest.
Ormsgill smiled a little as it grew fainter.
"I'm not sure there will be any music when they come back again," he
said. "Still, I almost think they will accomplish--something."
Nares looked straight in front of him as he plodded on, but there was
a curious gleam in his eyes.
"There is no other way," was all he said.
The long dusky column pushed on steadily through dim forest, wide
morass, and tracts of hot white sand, and it happened one evening when
the advance guard were a considerable distance ahead that Dom Erminio
sat alone on the veranda at San Roque. It was then about eight
o'clock, and the night was very dark and hot. Now and then a little
fitful breeze crept up the misty river, and filled the forest that
rose above it with mysterious noises. Then it dropped away again, and
left a silence the Chefe commenced to find oppressive behind it. He
could hear the oily gurgle of sliding water, and at times a sharp
crackle in the crazy building behind him, out of which there drifted a
damp mildewy smell, but that merely emphasized the almost
disconcerting absence of any other sound. Indeed, it was so still that
the soft rustle his duck garments made as he moved jarred on him, and
he was glad when the little muggy breeze flowed into the veranda
again.
There was nothing in all this to trouble a man who was accustomed to
it, but the Chefe was not quite at his ease. Dom Luiz, whom he had
sent out a few days earlier, should have been back that afternoon, but
there was no sign of him yet, nor had the three or four dusky soldiers
who had gone out on some business of their own with his consent as yet
made an appearance. There were very few men in the fort, and when nine
o'clock came Dom Erminio, who was quite aware that the natives had no
great cause to love him, admitted that he was a trifle anxious. Still,
he had, with what he considered a more sufficient reason, been anxious
rather frequently. It was a thing one became accustomed to in the
debatable land, and sitting still he lighted another cigar. He could
see the mists that rolled up from the river, and the forest cutting
faintly black against the sky, and wondered vaguely what was going on
in it. That there was something going on in it he now felt tolerably
certain, though he did not exactly know why.
At last the hoarse cry of a sentry rose out of the night, and when it
was answered he went down to the gate of the stockade. It was not a
gate that opened in the usual fashion, but one that dropped, a stout
affair of logs copied from the form adopted by the inhabitants of the
plateaux to the south. When he reached it two or three black soldiers
were heaving it up, and there was a patter of feet outside. Then a
line of shadowy figures grew out of the darkness, and though there did
not seem to be as many as he had expected it was with a sense of
relief he saw Dom Luiz come in through the gap. The logs clashed down
behind the last of his men, and Dom Erminio straightened himself
suddenly when a sergeant came up with a lantern.
Two of the row of barefooted men appeared scarcely fit to stand. Their
garments were rent to pieces, and there was blood and mire on them,
while neither of them carried rifles. Dom Luiz saw the question in the
Chefe's eyes, and nodded.
"Yes," he said, "I should have been here earlier. It was these two who
detained me. I sent them on to the village in the thicker bush two
days ago, and they came back dragging themselves with difficulty--as
you see them. It seems the villagers had beaten them, and they did not
know what had become of their rifles."
Dom Erminio's face became suddenly intent. "Ah," he said, "they shall
be beaten again to-morrow. You will hand them to the guard. I suppose
you saw nothing of the Sergeant Orticho?"
"No," said Lieutenant Luiz, who was a trifle puzzled by the sudden
change in the Chefe's manner, "I saw no sign of him."
He called to his men, and as they filed by him loaded heavily with
miscellaneous sundries, Dom Erminio smiled significantly.
"They have, it seems, been successful, which is fortunate," he said.
"I almost think it will be some little time before they make any more
requisitions of the kind again."
He turned back towards the house, and was once more sitting on the
veranda when the Lieutenant Luiz rejoined him.
"It would no doubt be advisable that I should set out again in the
morning with a stronger party and chastise those villagers who have
beaten our men?" said the latter.
"No," said the Chefe dryly, "you will probably be busy here. When the
natives venture to beat our men it is, I think, wiser to keep every
man we have inside the fort."
"Ah," said his companion, "you believe they have courage enough to go
further?"
Dom Erminio smiled. "I believe we both admitted that the natives might
resent our attitude. We were, I think, for several reasons not
unwilling that they should do something to make their resentment
evident."
He stopped a moment, and the manner in which he spread out his yellow
hands was very expressive. "Now I fancy we have got what we wished
for--and, perhaps, a little more than could reasonably have been
expected. It is rather a pity that we have lost several men with
sickness lately."
Dom Luiz straightened himself in his chair. "There are very few of us,
and I am not quite sure that one or two of the fresh draft could be
depended on. Still, Orticho has most of them well in hand."
Dom Erminio made a little gesture. "I think we can not count upon
Orticho in this affair. It is scarcely likely that he and the men who
went out with him will come back again. What he has heard in the bush
I do not know, but it is evident that he regards this thing very much
as I do. In fact, I fancy he is heading as fast as possible for the
coast by now."
"Ah," said Dom Luiz, and looked at his companion inquiringly.
"The business we have in hand is perfectly simple," said Dom Erminio.
"We were sent here to hold San Roque, and it must be done. When these
bushmen call upon us we shall be ready. With that in view you will set
about moving the quick-firing gun from where it is now, and when that
is done you will open a loophole for it at the rear of the stockade.
It is not quite so strong at that point, and our friends, who know
where the gun stood, will probably attack us there. It would be
advisable to have it done before the dawn comes."
Dom Luiz rose and set about it. There was no uneasiness in his
companion's manner, but there was a look which had not been there for
some little time in his eyes. He was, perhaps, in several respects a
rogue, but, like other men of that kind, he had his strong points,
too, and nobody had ever accused him of being deficient in manhood,
which, unfortunately, is not always quite the same thing as humanity.
He was also Chefe, Commandant and Administrator, which he never
forgot, and he sat on the veranda smoking cigarette after cigarette
while Dom Luiz toiled for once very strenuously half the night. It
was very dark and hot, the logs he handled were heavy, and the dusky
soldiers seemed unusually slow at understanding. Still, when the dawn
broke the little quick-firing gun stood at the rear of the stockade,
which had been strengthened wherever it was possible.