AN UNEXPECTED MEETING--WE FLY, AND I MAKE A NARROW ESCAPE FROM AN
APPALLING FATE.
During many days after the incidents narrated in the last chapter did
Jack, and Peterkin, and Makarooroo, and I, push across the continent
through bush and brake, over hill and dale, morass and plain, at our
utmost possible speed. We did not, during the whole course of our
journey, overtake the Portuguese slave-dealer; but we thought little of
that, for it was not very probable that we should hit upon exactly the
same route, and we entertained sanguine hopes that the energy and speed
with which we kept steadily and undeviatingly on our way would enable us
to reach the village of Mbango before the slave-dealer and his party.
When I look back upon that time now, and reflect calmly on the dangers
we encountered and the hardships we endured, I confess that I am filled
with amazement. I might easily fill several volumes such as this with
anecdotes of our encounters with wild animals, and other adventures; but
however interesting these might be in themselves, I must not forget that
some of the main incidents of our sojourn in Africa have yet to be
related, and that there is a limit to the patience of even youthful
readers.
Our power of enduring fatigue and sustained active exertion, with
comparatively short intervals of nightly repose, was much greater than I
could have believed to be possible. I have no doubt that anxiety to
save Okandaga from the terrible fate that hung over her enabled us to
bear up under fatigues which would at other times have overcome us. I
know not well how it was that I kept up with my strong and agile
comrades. Oftentimes I felt ready to drop down as I walked, yet somehow
I never thought of falling behind, but went doggedly on, and at nights
found myself little worse in condition than they. Peterkin, although
small, was tough and springy, and his spirits seemed rather to rise than
otherwise as his strength abated. As for Jack, I never saw any one like
him. He seemed like a lion roaming in his strength over his native
deserts. So hardened had we all become during the course of our travels
that we found ourselves not only equal to Makarooroo in pedestrian
powers, but superior; for when occasion required we could almost knock
him up, but I am free to admit that we never succeeded in doing this
thoroughly. In short, we were all as nearly as possible equal to each
other, with the exception of Jack, who seemed in every way invulnerable.
During this long and hurried but intensely interesting and delightful
journey we came upon, at different times, almost every species of
animal, plant, and tree peculiar to the African continent. Oftentimes
we passed by droves and herds of elephants, deer, buffalo, giraffes,
antelopes, and zebras; we saw rhinoceroses, alligators, leopards, lions,
apes of several kinds, and smaller monkeys innumerable. We also saw
great numbers of birds--some curious on account of their habits and
form, others beautiful and bright as the rainbow.
Yet although, as I have said, this journey was very delightful, our
feelings were at different times exceedingly varied, and not
unfrequently pained; for while we saw around us much that was beautiful,
innocent, and lovely, we also witnessed the conflicts of many wild
creatures, and sometimes came across evidences of the savage and cruel
dispositions of the human beings by whom the country was peopled. We
always, however, carefully avoided native villages, being anxious not to
be interrupted on our forced march. Neither did we turn aside to hunt,
although we were much tempted so to do, but contented ourselves with
killing such animals as we required for our daily subsistence; and of
these we shot as many as we required without having to turn aside from
our straight course.
Thus we went on day after day, and slept under the shade of the trees or
under the wide canopy of heaven night after night, until we arrived one
day at a beautiful valley, bordered by a plain, and traversed by a
river, where Peterkin met with a sad accident, and our onward progress
was for a short period arrested.
It happened thus:--The region through which we chanced to be passing was
peopled by so many natives that we had the utmost difficulty in avoiding
them, and more than once were compelled to halt during the daytime in
some sequestered dell, and resume our journey during the night.
One day--it was, if I remember rightly, about two o'clock in the
afternoon--we came suddenly in sight of a native village on the banks of
the river whose course we were at that time following, and made a wide
detour in order to avoid it. We had passed it several miles, and were
gradually bending into our course again, when we came unexpectedly upon
a band of natives who had been out hunting and were returning to their
village with the spoils of the chase on their shoulders. Both parties
at once came to an abrupt halt, and we stood for several minutes looking
at each other--the natives in speechless amazement, while we conversed
in whispers, uncertain what to do.
We knew that if we made friendly advances we should no doubt be
welcomed, but then we should certainly be compelled to go back with them
to their village and spend at least a day or two with them, as we could
not hope to give them a satisfactory reason for our going on at once.
We also knew that to go on in spite of them would produce a quarrel,
and, of course, a fight, which, as it would certainly result in
bloodshed, was by all means to be avoided for we could not bear to think
that a mere caprice of ours in visiting Africa should be the means of
causing the death of a single human being, if we could prevent it.
"What _is_ to be done?" said Peterkin, looking at Jack in despair.
"I don't know," replied Jack. "It's very awkward. It will never do to
go all the way back to the village with these stupid fellows, and we
cannot tell them our real reason for going on; for, in the first place,
they would perhaps not believe us, or, in the second place, they might
offer to join us."
"Fight," said Makarooroo in a low tone, grinding his teeth together and
clutching his rifle.
I felt deep sympathy with the poor fellow, for I knew well that in
disposition he was naturally the reverse of quarrelsome, and that his
present state of mind was the consequence of anxiety for the deliverance
of his faithful bride.
"No, no," replied Jack quickly; "we shall not fight."
"Suppose we bolt!" whispered Peterkin, brightening up as the idea
occurred to him--"regularly run away!"
We seized at the idea instantly. We were all of us hard of muscle and
strong of wind now, and we knew that we could outstrip the savages.
"We'll do it!" said Jack hastily. "Let us scatter, too, so as to
perplex them at the outset."
"Capital! Then here goes. I'm off," cried Peterkin.
"Stay!" said Jack.
"Why?" demanded Peterkin.
"Because we must appoint a place of rendezvous if we would hope to meet
again."
"True; I forgot that."
"D'you all see yonder blue mountain-peak?"
"Let us meet there. If we miss each other at the base, let us proceed
to the summit and wait. Away!"
As Jack uttered the last word we all turned right about and fled like
the wind. The savages instantly set up a hideous yell, and darted after
us; but we made for the thick woods, and scattering in all directions,
as had been previously arranged, speedily threw them off the scent, and
finally made our escape.
For the first time since landing on the continent of Africa, I now found
myself totally alone in the wild forest. After separating from my
companions, I ran at my utmost speed in the direction of a dense jungle,
where I purposed taking shelter until the natives should pass by, and
then come out and pursue my way leisurely. But I was prevented from
adopting this course in consequence of two very fleet negroes
discovering my intention, and, by taking a short cut, frustrating it. I
was compelled, therefore, to keep in the more open part of the forest,
and trust simply to speed and endurance for escape.
I should think that I ran nearly two miles at full speed, and kept well
ahead of my pursuers. Indeed, I had distanced them considerably; but
feeling that I could not hold out long at such a killing pace, I pulled
up a little, and allowed them to gain on me slightly. I was just about
to resume my full speed, and, if possible, throw them at once far
behind, when my foot was caught by a thorny shrub, and I fell headlong
to the ground. I was completely stunned for a moment or two, and lay
quite motionless. But my consciousness suddenly returned, accompanied
by a feeling of imminent danger, which caused me to spring up and renew
my headlong career. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw that the two
natives had gained so much on me that had I lain a few seconds longer I
must inevitably have been captured.
I exerted myself now beyond my powers. My head, too, from the shock I
had received, became confused, and I scarce knew whither I was going.
Presently a loud, dull roar, as if of distant thunder, struck upon my
ear, and I beheld what appeared to me to be a vast white plain covered
with mist before. Next moment I found myself on the brink of a
precipice of a hundred feet deep, over which, a little to my left, a
large river fell, and thundered down into a dark abyss, whence issued
those clouds of spray which I had taken for a white plain in the
confusion of my brain and vision.
I made a desperate effort to check myself, but it was too late. My
heels broke off the earthy edge of the cliff, and I obtained just one
awful glance of the horrid turmoil directly below me as I fell over with
a mass of debris. I uttered an involuntary shriek of agony, and flung
my arms wildly out. My hand clutched the branch of an overhanging bush.
This, slight though it was, was the means, under God, of saving my
life. The branch broke off, but it checked my fall, and at the same
time swung me into the centre of a tree which projected out from the
cliff almost horizontally. Through this tree I went crashing with
fearful violence, until I was arrested by my chest striking against a
stout branch. This I clutched with the tenacity of despair, and
wriggling myself, as it were, along it, wound my arms and legs round it,
and held on for some time with the utmost fervour of muscular energy.
My position now was beyond conception horrible. I shut my eyes and
prayed earnestly for help. Presently I opened them, and in the position
in which I then lay, the first thing I saw was the boiling water of the
fall more than a hundred feet below me. My agony was such that large
drops of perspiration broke out all over my forehead. It was many
minutes before I could summon up courage to turn my head so as to look
upward, for I had a vague feeling that if I were to move the branch on
which I lay would break off. When I did so, I observed that the
branches over my head completely screened the sky from me, so that I
knew I had escaped one danger; for the natives, believing, no doubt,
that I had fallen down into the river, would at once give up their
hopeless pursuit. The branch on which I lay was so slender that it
swayed about with every motion that I made, and the longer I remained
there the more nervous did I become.
At last I bethought me that unless I made a manful effort I should
certainly perish, so I looked about me until I became accustomed to the
giddy position. Then I perceived that, by creeping along the branch
until I gained the trunk of the tree, I could descend by means of it to
the face of the precipice from which it projected, and thus gain a
narrow ledge of rock that overhung the abyss. In any other
circumstances I would as soon have ventured to cross the Falls of
Niagara on a tight-rope; but I had no other alternative, so I crept
along the branch slowly and nervously, clinging to it, at the same time,
with terrible tenacity. At last I gained the trunk of the tree and
breathed more freely, for it was much steadier than the branch.
The trunk projected, as I have said, almost horizontally from the
precipice, so I had to draw myself carefully along it, not daring to get
on my hands and knees, and finally reached the ledge above referred to.
Compared with my former position, this was a place of temporary safety,
for it was three feet wide, and having a good head, I had no fear of
falling over. But on looking up my heart sank within me, for the bare
cliff offered no foothold whatever. I do not believe that a monkey
could have climbed it. To descend the precipice was equally impossible,
for it was like a wall. My only hope, therefore, lay in the ledge on
which I stood, and which, I observed, ran along to the right and turned
round a projecting rock that hid the remainder of it from view.
Hasting along it, I found, to my inexpressible relief, that it
communicated with the top of the precipice. The ascent was difficult
and dangerous; but at last I succeeded in passing the most serious part,
and soon gained the summit of the cliff in safety, where I immediately
fell on my knees and returned thanks for my deliverance.
I had passed nearly an hour in the trying adventure which I have just
related, and feeling that my companions would naturally begin soon to be
anxious about me, I started for our rendezvous, which I reached in
little more than an hour and a half. Here I found Jack seated alone
beside a stream of water, from which he occasionally lifted a little in
the hollow of his hand and drank greedily.
"Ah, Ralph, my boy!" he exclaimed joyfully as I came up, "I'm glad
you've come. I had begun to fear that you must have been captured. Ay,
drink, lad! You seem warm enough, though I scarcely think you can be
much more so than I am. What a run we have had, to be sure! But, what,
Ralph--your clothes are much torn, and your face and hands are
scratched. Why, you must have got among thorns. Not badly hurt, I
trust?"
"Oh no; nothing to speak of. I have, however, had a narrow escape. But
before I speak of that, what of Peterkin?"
"I don't know," replied Jack, with an anxious expression; "and to say
truth, I begin to feel uneasy about him, for he ought to have been here
almost as soon as myself."
"How so? Did you, then, run together?"
"Latterly we did. At first we separated, and I knew not what had become
either of him or you. The fact is, I had enough to do to look out for
myself, for a dozen of rascally niggers kept close upon my heels and
tried my powers of running somewhat; so I took to the thick wood and
made a detour, to throw them off the scent. All at once I heard a
smashing of the bushes right in front of me, and before I knew what I
was about, Peterkin bounced through the underwood and almost plunged
into my arms. We both gave an involuntary yell of alarm.
"`There's two of 'em right on my heels,' said he in a gasp, as he dashed
off again. `Come along with me, Jack.'
"I followed as fast as I could, and we crossed an open plain together,
when I looked over my shoulder, and saw that all the other fellows had
given up the chase except the two mentioned by Peterkin. These kept on
after us, and somehow or other we got separated again, just after
re-entering the wood on the other side of the plain. Of course I ran
on, expecting to see my companion every minute. Finally I came to the
rendezvous, and here I found that the savages had given up all hope of
overtaking me, for I could see nothing of them."
"How long ago is that?" I inquired quickly.
"About an hour."
"Then poor Peterkin must have been caught," said I, in a voice of
despair.
"No, that is not likely," replied Jack; "for I climbed a high tree and
saw the savages recrossing the plain alone. I think it probable he may
have lost his way, and is afraid to climb trees or to fire off his gun
to signal us, for fear of being heard or seen by the niggers. I have
sent Mak, who came here soon after I did, to search for him."
"It may be as you say, Jack, but we must go at once to look for him."
"With all my heart, Ralph. I only waited until you had sufficiently
rested."
"The body cannot rest when the mind is ill at ease. Come, let us start
at once. I shall tell you of my little adventure as we go along."
We soon reached the edge of the plain where Jack had been separated from
his companion, and here we proceeded to make a careful search. Being
certain that the savages were now out of earshot, we began to halloo
occasionally as we went along. But monkeys and parrots alone replied to
us.
"This is the very spot where I last saw him," said Jack, leading me to a
palm-tree which stood a little within the outer verge of the wood; "and
here are his footsteps faintly indicated on the grass."
"Ah! then let us follow these up," said I eagerly.
"We might, if we were North American backwoodsmen or Red Indians; but I
can scarcely follow. Stay, here they enter upon a piece of soft ground,
and are more distinct. Now, then, we shall get on."
For nearly quarter of an hour we followed the footprints; then we came
to dry ground again, and lost all traces of them. We wandered about
perseveringly, nevertheless, and were rewarded by again discovering them
about quarter of a mile farther on, leading down to the banks of the
river on another part of which I had had such a narrow escape.
While we were advancing--I in front--I felt the ground beneath me
suddenly begin to give way with a crackling sound. I instinctively
threw up my arms and sprang back.
"Hollo, Ralph!" cried my companion, seizing me with one hand by the
collar, and hauling, or rather lifting me back, as if I had been a
poodle dog. "Why, you were as near as possible into a pitfall."
"Thanks to you, Jack, that I am not actually in," said I, putting my
somewhat twisted costume to rights. "But, I say, does it not strike you
that perhaps Peterkin has fallen into one of these?"
We both started and listened with breathless attention, for at that
moment we heard a faint groan not far from us. It was repeated almost
immediately, though so faintly that we could scarcely ascertain the
direction whence it came. We advanced cautiously, however, a few paces,
and discovered a hole in the ground, from which, at that very moment,
the dishevelled head of poor Peterkin appeared, like Jack coming out of
his box. His sudden appearance and serio-comic expression would have
been at any other time sufficient to have set us off in fits of
laughter; but joy at finding him, and anxiety lest he should prove to be
seriously hurt, restrained us at that time effectually.
"My dear fellow!" cried Jack, hurrying forward.
"Keep back! avaunt ye. Oh dear me, Jack, my poor head!" said Peterkin
with a sigh, pressing his hand to his forehead; "what an intolerable
whack I have got on my miserable caput. There; don't come nearer, else
you'll break through. Reach me your hand. That's it; thank'ee."
"There you are, all safe, my boy," cried Jack, as he drew Peterkin out
of the hole.--"But hollo! I say, Ralph, run down for some water; I
believe the poor fellow has fainted."
I sprang down the river-bank, and speedily returned with some water in
the crown of my wide-awake. Peterkin had recovered before I came back,
and a long draught quite restored him, so that in a few minutes he was
able to relate how the accident had befallen him.
"You see," said he, in a jocular tone, for it was a most unusually
severe accident indeed that could drive the fun out of our little
friend--"you see, after I lost sight of Jack, I took a leaf out of the
hare's book, and doubled on my course. This brought me, unhappily, to
the banks of the river, where I came upon one of the pitfalls that are
made by the niggers here to catch wild beasts, and in I went. I kept
hold of the surface boughs, however, scrambled out again, and pushed on.
But I had not gone ten yards when the ground began to crackle and sink.
I made a desperate bound to clear it, but my foot caught in a branch,
and down I went head foremost into the pit. And that's the whole of my
story. How long I remained there I know not. If I had known what time
it was when I dived in, and you were to tell me what o'clock it is now,
we might arrive at a knowledge of the time I have spent at the bottom of
that hole. All that I can positively affirm is, that I went in, and
within in the last ten minutes I came out!"
We laughed at this free-and-easy manner of narrating the incident, and
then prepared to return to our rendezvous; but on attempting to walk,
Peterkin found that he had received a greater shake than at first he had
imagined. Several times during our march he became giddy, and had to be
supported; and after reaching our encampment, where we found Makarooroo
waiting for us, he fainted. We were therefore obliged to make up our
minds to encamp where we were for a few days.