HUNTED.

On, through the steamy forest, heavy and damp with the tropical rain;

on, over stodgy swamp land, whose miasmatic exhalations rise misty and

foul in visible vapour, the fugitive is wending. Toiling for very life

is he, dragging with infinite labour each spent footstep over the

yielding and spongy ground, drawing breath in long gasps; and ever

throughout his entire frame that sinking and yet sickening and agonising

sensation of feeling utterly spent; wounded too, in more places than

one, unarmed and without means of defence--a solitary fugitive in the

mighty heart of that vast stretch of African forest land. What chance

has he?

He stumbles on, and a sigh of relief, of thankfulness, escapes him, as

his feet once more tread firm ground, though, did he but know it, the

soil of the washy swamp, by closing over his footsteps, has rendered him

invaluable service in hiding his spoor from his enemies. That he has

enemies, more than one furtive and anxious glance behind--if nothing

else--would serve to show.

A pitiable spectacle, his clothing in rags and plentifully soaked with

blood--his own blood--still welling from and clotting round his wounds,

as he toils onwards, his heavy unkempt beard matted with it as it

trickles from a gash in his head, his progress beset by a whole cloud of

flies and voracious winged insects, yet the fugitive is a well-built,

strong-framed man of medium height, and well below middle age; strong

indeed he must be, for in this deplorable plight he has covered many a

weary mile, nor before him is there any hope of succour or refuge. Yet

the sheer dogged instinct of self-preservation buoys him up, keeps him

ever moving forward, anywhere so that it is only forward.

The low-lying ragged rain clouds roll back over the tree tops, and the

dull blaze of the sun, watery through the tropical mist, but intensely

piercing and penetrating as though focussed through the lens of a

burning-glass, envelops him in an overpowering fold of heat, His brain

reels, his uneven steps are more staggering than ever. Why keep on?

Why struggle further? The spears and hatchets of his enemies were more

merciful. Yes, but the fire, the lingering death of torment by that or

any other form, or at best the yoke and slave chain, and being

weaponless, he has no means of selling his life dearly, or even of

ending it with his own hand when the last hope had vanished.

Ah! the welcome shade of the trees is gained at length. The lay of the

land is flat, with a scarcely perceptible undulation, and alternates in

open spaces--mostly swampy--and forest, the latter, however, not thick

with undergrowth. Once within the shade, cool by comparison, the

fugitive sinks to the earth. With bursting heart and labouring lungs,

his strong frame weakened by continual loss of blood, he can go no

further. A lurid mist is before his eyes, and a feeling of intense

lassitude, of dissolution, overpowers him, and he lies unconscious.

Not for long, however. All creation--human, animal, insect, even

vegetable life--seems leagued together against the hunted man. Great

black ants, attracted by the blood from his wounds, are crawling over

him, and soon their sharp bites have the effect of bringing him back to

himself again. But on the whole the infliction is salutary, for it acts

as a spur; and, staggering to his feet in quick loathing, the fugitive

shakes off the horrible insects, and drags on his weary way.

The solitude is intense, but not so the silence. The call of bird

voices echoes through the shade; some shrill and piping and not

unmelodious, others harsh, half human, almost menacing; the screech of

cicalas too, loud, vibrant, distressing to overwrought and weakened

nerves. Green lizards of some size dart scramblingly through the

scattered bark or lie motionless, with head erect, and ruby-like eyes

dilated, as they watch the intruder; and a great tree spider, huge,

hairy, and hideous, shoggles up a trunk within a yard and a half of the

wanderer's face.

And now hunger is gripping the unfortunate man; thirst, too, which the

slimy swamp water he has drunk--though, in prudence, sparingly--has not

availed to stave off for long. The day is waning, moreover, and well he

knows that another night spent in the forest spells death. And still no

sign of human habitation or friendly succour; yet how should there be,

seeing that the red scourge of the slave-hunter, or of warring barbarian

clans, equally ruthless, has swept this zone of terror and of blood,

leaving it a howling waste of uninhabited wilderness. Or even were

things otherwise, why should those he half hoped to meet prove any more

desirable than those from whom he fled, here in the dark places of the

earth, where anything in human shape, any fellow creature, was almost

synonymous with a cruel and ruthless enemy? But the enduring courage,

the bulldog tenacity of purpose, which characterise the true explorer or

up-country adventurer, whatever his nationality, is to this man an ever

present force. The traditions of his order that no hardship, no peril,

however great, however hopeless, is without abundant precedent, are with

him now, to steady his staggering steps as he plunges forward, to uphold

and cheer his despairing mind.

There is light ahead; a break in the skies. Only another tract of open

swamp, is the first thought of the fugitive; and yet with it a sort of

instinct--hardly more, although the creation of experience--warns him,

tells him, that human habitation lies at hand. With renewed strength

and quickened steps he presses forward to the edge of the forest line

and peers forth.

At the sight which meets his gaze his heart gives a great bound. His

instinct has not been at fault. There, in the midst of the open space,

are the thatched roofs of a native village--and a village of some size.

It is situated in the open--in the midst of an amphitheatre of forest

which engirdles it on three sides, the further being bounded by a line

of jagged rocks of no great height. But around it there is no sign of

life. No human forms are issuing from or entering its low stockade, no

sound of human voices comes to him from within it. Perhaps they are

sleeping throughout the heat of the day. And then he pauses.

What will be his reception? Hostile possibly. Yet here lies his only

hope. To remain as he is means certain death. He will warn the

inhabitants of yonder place of the proximity of his enemies and theirs,

that it not strong enough for defence, which is more than likely, they

may save their lives--and his--in timely flight. And, having decided

upon this line of conduct, he steps from his hiding-place, and proceeds

to cross the intervening space.

But as he draws near the village, he is conscious of a renewed sinking

of the heart; for now he perceives that the stockade is broken down in

several places, and what he has hardly noticed before in his excitement

and hunger as he snatched at the bunches of millet--a field of which he

is passing through--that the crops are trampled and torn about, as

though hurriedly foraged. And then, as he gains a wide breach in the

stockade, and is about to step through, a sight meets his gaze which is

not entirely unfamiliar, but which somehow or other never seems entirely

to lose its horror and repulsion.

Strewn around in scattered profusion are hundreds of bones. Skulls,

too, grinning up out of the long herbage which in some instances has

sprouted right through the battered orifice which has let out the life,

producing the most hideous and ghastly effect. Everywhere they lie,

grouped in batches, mostly just within the stockade, though others are

not wanting immediately around the low-roofed grass huts. Well enough

does the fugitive know these signs. The fate of this village has been

that of many another in the blood-stained heart of the Dark Continent.

Its inhabitants have been surprised, and all who have shown resistance,

or for any reason were not worth carrying away, ruthlessly massacred,

regardless of age or sex--as not a few skulls of diminutive size lying

around eloquently proclaim. His supposed place of refuge is but a

village inhabited by the dead.

Grim and gruesome as this thought is, a new hope springs within the

hunted man's resourceful mind. His pursuers, even should they suspect

the direction he has taken--he is satisfied that they have lost his

spoor, or they would have been upon him long since--will forbear to

follow him here. The last asylum they will dream of him seeking will be

this village of the dead. There is comfort in this, at any rate, and

now, his next thought is to collect the ears, or rather bunches of

millet--there is still plenty left which is not crushed and trampled--

and as he devours great handfuls of the grain, he remembers that where

there is a village there must be water. Fortified by even this sorry

food, rough, indigestible, unwholesome as it is, he renews his search

and is soon rewarded. He has no difficulty--save for the exhaustion of

dragging along his weary frame--in finding water, which, though slimy,

and tepid and unpalatable, is still water--and having slaked his thirst,

he crawls back to the village again.

The sun has sunk beneath the ridge of black rocks, and in the brief

gloaming the miasmatic vapours seem to roll up thicker than before. One

by one, the stars twinkle forth into the hot misty sky, and soon the

reddening glow of a broad moon suffuses the tree tops, flooding with its

spectral light the open space and whitened relics of those who erewhile

tenanted these silent and primitive dwellings. Gigantic bats are

flitting to and fro, uttering their strident squeaks, and the forest

depths begin to resound with the howling of hyaenas, and the shrill

baying of hunting jackals. To the fugitive the sounds are not without a

certain sinister significance. Well he knows that the hyaena is the

most cowardly of beasts, but he remembers too, how in these regions of

constant massacre, even the most cowardly of beasts can hardly have

failed to lose all respect for the dominant animal, Man--seeing that he,

at any rate dead, constitutes an easy and abundant form of prey. He

realises his own enfeebled state, and knows that the otherwise cowardly

carnivora will realise it too. Even now, he can descry grisly,

blunt-snouted shapes, skulking about in the moonlight, allured by the

scent of fresh blood--his own blood to wit--nor does the occasional

subdued shout he utters avail to alarm them overmuch, or cause them to

retire very for. The stealthy patter of their footfalls seems ever to

increase--to be drawing nearer and nearer.

Hitherto he has shrunk from entering any of the huts; now, however, the

instinct of sheer self-preservation prescribes that course. Selecting

one, a large oblong structure, whose wide low-pitched roof forms a kind

of verandah all round it, he crawls within. But it has no door, and his

strength is not equal to questing about for a substitute for one--

indeed, hardly is he within when he stumbles forward, and sinks to the

ground. The pain of his wounds has become intolerable, a deadly

faintness seizes him--and before his final unconsciousness his hand

closes with convulsive grip upon the skull belonging to a fleshless

skeleton lying there within.

Huge spiders--hairy monsters, the size of a man's hand--crawl over the

prostrate form, then, startled by the instinct that here is life, scurry

back to the shelter of the thatch again. A wicked-looking centipede

draws its shining rings in disgusting length along the ground in the

stripe of moonlight, and flying beetles whirr and buzz in and out of the

doorway; and there, among such surroundings, lies the dying explorer--

his sands of life run out--every object which might meet his failing

gaze, that of loathing and horror and repulsion.

But, outside, the whole place is alive with stealing, skulking shapes.

Here and there a subdued snarl, or some snapping, is audible, but they

are all converging on one point--the structure which as their scent

informs them contains fresh blood; and the pointed ears and bared fangs

of the hideous, blunt-snouted brutes, show plain in the moonlight. And

now the foremost is standing snuffing within the open doorway, while

others are stealing up, by dozens, behind the first.