The black boy whom Malbihn had left awaiting him in the clearing with
instructions to remain until he returned sat crouched at the foot of a
tree for an hour when he was suddenly startled by the coughing grunt of
a lion behind him. With celerity born of the fear of death the boy
clambered into the branches of the tree, and a moment later the king of
beasts entered the clearing and approached the carcass of an antelope
which, until now, the boy had not seen.
Until daylight the beast fed, while the black clung, sleepless, to his
perch, wondering what had become of his master and the two ponies. He
had been with Malbihn for a year, and so was fairly conversant with the
character of the white. His knowledge presently led him to believe that
he had been purposely abandoned. Like the balance of Malbihn’s
followers, this boy hated his master cordially—fear being the only bond
that held him to the white man. His present uncomfortable predicament
but added fuel to the fires of his hatred.
As the sun rose the lion withdrew into the jungle and the black
descended from his tree and started upon his long journey back to camp.
In his primitive brain revolved various fiendish plans for a revenge
that he would not have the courage to put into effect when the test
came and he stood face to face with one of the dominant race.
A mile from the clearing he came upon the spoor of two ponies crossing
his path at right angles. A cunning look entered the black’s eyes. He
laughed uproariously and slapped his thighs.
Negroes are tireless gossipers, which, of course, is but a roundabout
way of saying that they are human. Malbihn’s boys had been no exception
to the rule and as many of them had been with him at various times
during the past ten years there was little about his acts and life in
the African wilds that was not known directly or by hearsay to them
all.
And so, knowing his master and many of his past deeds, knowing, too, a
great deal about the plans of Malbihn and Baynes that had been
overheard by himself, or other servants; and knowing well from the
gossip of the head-men that half of Malbihn’s party lay in camp by the
great river far to the west, it was not difficult for the boy to put
two and two together and arrive at four as the sum—the four being
represented by a firm conviction that his master had deceived the other
white man and taken the latter’s woman to his western camp, leaving the
other to suffer capture and punishment at the hands of the Big Bwana
whom all feared. Again the boy bared his rows of big, white teeth and
laughed aloud. Then he resumed his northward way, traveling at a dogged
trot that ate up the miles with marvelous rapidity.
In the Swede’s camp the Hon. Morison had spent an almost sleepless
night of nervous apprehension and doubts and fears. Toward morning he
had slept, utterly exhausted. It was the headman who awoke him shortly
after sun rise to remind him that they must at once take up their
northward journey. Baynes hung back. He wanted to wait for “Hanson” and
Meriem. The headman urged upon him the danger that lay in loitering.
The fellow knew his master’s plans sufficiently well to understand that
he had done something to arouse the ire of the Big Bwana and that it
would fare ill with them all if they were overtaken in Big Bwana’s
country. At the suggestion Baynes took alarm.
What if the Big Bwana, as the head-man called him, had surprised
“Hanson” in his nefarious work. Would he not guess the truth and
possibly be already on the march to overtake and punish him? Baynes had
heard much of his host’s summary method of dealing out punishment to
malefactors great and small who transgressed the laws or customs of his
savage little world which lay beyond the outer ramparts of what men are
pleased to call frontiers. In this savage world where there was no law
the Big Bwana was law unto himself and all who dwelt about him. It was
even rumored that he had extracted the death penalty from a white man
who had maltreated a native girl.
Baynes shuddered at the recollection of this piece of gossip as he
wondered what his host would exact of the man who had attempted to
steal his young, white ward. The thought brought him to his feet.
“Yes,” he said, nervously, “we must get away from here at once. Do you
know the trail to the north?”
The head-man did, and he lost no time in getting the _safari_ upon the
march.
It was noon when a tired and sweat-covered runner overtook the trudging
little column. The man was greeted with shouts of welcome from his
fellows, to whom he imparted all that he knew and guessed of the
actions of their master, so that the entire _safari_ was aware of
matters before Baynes, who marched close to the head of the column, was
reached and acquainted with the facts and the imaginings of the black
boy whom Malbihn had deserted in the clearing the night before.
When the Hon. Morison had listened to all that the boy had to say and
realized that the trader had used him as a tool whereby he himself
might get Meriem into his possession, his blood ran hot with rage and
he trembled with apprehension for the girl’s safety.
That another contemplated no worse a deed than he had contemplated in
no way palliated the hideousness of the other’s offense. At first it
did not occur to him that he would have wronged Meriem no less than he
believed “Hanson” contemplated wronging her. Now his rage was more the
rage of a man beaten at his own game and robbed of the prize that he
had thought already his.
“Do you know where your master has gone?” he asked the black.
“Yes, Bwana,” replied the boy. “He has gone to the other camp beside
the big _afi_ that flows far toward the setting sun.
“Can you take me to him?” demanded Baynes.
The boy nodded affirmatively. Here he saw a method of revenging himself
upon his hated Bwana and at the same time of escaping the wrath of the
Big Bwana whom all were positive would first follow after the northerly
_safari_.
“Can you and I, alone, reach his camp?” asked the Hon. Morison.
“Yes, Bwana,” assured the black.
Baynes turned toward the head-man. He was conversant with “Hanson’s”
plans now. He understood why he had wished to move the northern camp as
far as possible toward the northern boundary of the Big Bwana’s
country—it would give him far more time to make his escape toward the
West Coast while the Big Bwana was chasing the northern contingent.
Well, he would utilize the man’s plans to his own end. He, too, must
keep out of the clutches of his host.
“You may take the men north as fast as possible,” he said to the
head-man. “I shall return and attempt to lead the Big Bwana to the
west.”
The Negro assented with a grunt. He had no desire to follow this
strange white man who was afraid at night; he had less to remain at the
tender mercies of the Big Bwana’s lusty warriors, between whom and his
people there was long-standing blood feud; and he was more than
delighted, into the bargain, for a legitimate excuse for deserting his
much hated Swede master. He knew a way to the north and his own country
that the white men did not know—a short cut across an arid plateau
where lay water holes of which the white hunters and explorers that had
passed from time to time the fringe of the dry country had never
dreamed. He might even elude the Big Bwana should he follow them, and
with this thought uppermost in his mind he gathered the remnants of
Malbihn’s _safari_ into a semblance of order and moved off toward the
north. And toward the southwest the black boy led the Hon. Morison
Baynes into the jungles.
Korak had waited about the camp, watching the Hon. Morison until the
_safari_ had started north. Then, assured that the young Englishman was
going in the wrong direction to meet Meriem he had abandoned him and
returned slowly to the point where he had seen the girl, for whom his
heart yearned, in the arms of another.
So great had been his happiness at seeing Meriem alive that, for the
instant, no thought of jealousy had entered his mind. Later these
thoughts had come—dark, bloody thoughts that would have made the flesh
of the Hon. Morison creep could he have guessed that they were
revolving in the brain of a savage creature creeping stealthily among
the branches of the forest giant beneath which he waited the coming of
“Hanson” and the girl.
And with passing of the hours had come subdued reflection in which he
had weighed himself against the trimly clad English gentleman and—found
that he was wanting. What had he to offer her by comparison with that
which the other man might offer? What was his “mess of pottage” to the
birthright that the other had preserved? How could he dare go, naked
and unkempt, to that fair thing who had once been his jungle-fellow and
propose the thing that had been in his mind when first the realization
of his love had swept over him? He shuddered as he thought of the
irreparable wrong that his love would have done the innocent child but
for the chance that had snatched her from him before it was too late.
Doubtless she knew now the horror that had been in his mind. Doubtless
she hated and loathed him as he hated and loathed himself when he let
his mind dwell upon it. He had lost her. No more surely had she been
lost when he thought her dead than she was in reality now that he had
seen her living—living in the guise of a refinement that had
transfigured and sanctified her.
He had loved her before, now he worshipped her. He knew that he might
never possess her now, but at least he might see her. From a distance
he might look upon her. Perhaps he might serve her; but never must she
guess that he had found her or that he lived.
He wondered if she ever thought of him—if the happy days that they had
spent together never recurred to her mind. It seemed unbelievable that
such could be the case, and yet, too, it seemed almost equally
unbelievable that this beautiful girl was the same disheveled, half
naked, little sprite who skipped nimbly among the branches of the trees
as they ran and played in the lazy, happy days of the past. It could
not be that her memory held more of the past than did her new
appearance.
It was a sad Korak who ranged the jungle near the plain’s edge waiting
for the coming of his Meriem—the Meriem who never came.
But there came another—a tall, broad-shouldered man in khaki at the
head of a swarthy crew of ebon warriors. The man’s face was set in
hard, stern lines and the marks of sorrow were writ deep about his
mouth and eyes—so deep that the set expression of rage upon his
features could not obliterate them.
Korak saw the man pass beneath him where he hid in the great tree that
had harbored him before upon the edge of that fateful little clearing.
He saw him come and he set rigid and frozen and suffering above him. He
saw him search the ground with his keen eyes, and he only sat there
watching with eyes that glazed from the intensity of his gaze. He saw
him sign to his men that he had come upon that which he sought and he
saw him pass out of sight toward the north, and still Korak sat like a
graven image, with a heart that bled in dumb misery. An hour later
Korak moved slowly away, back into the jungle toward the west. He went
listlessly, with bent head and stooped shoulders, like an old man who
bore upon his back the weight of a great sorrow.
Baynes, following his black guide, battled his way through the dense
underbrush, riding stooped low over his horse’s neck, or often he
dismounted where the low branches swept too close to earth to permit
him to remain in the saddle. The black was taking him the shortest way,
which was no way at all for a horseman, and after the first day’s march
the young Englishman was forced to abandon his mount, and follow his
nimble guide entirely on foot.
During the long hours of marching the Hon. Morison had much time to
devote to thought, and as he pictured the probable fate of Meriem at
the hands of the Swede his rage against the man became the greater. But
presently there came to him a realization of the fact that his own base
plans had led the girl into this terrible predicament, and that even
had she escaped “Hanson” she would have found but little better deserts
awaiting her with him.
There came too, the realization that Meriem was infinitely more
precious to him than he had imagined. For the first time he commenced
to compare her with other women of his acquaintance—women of birth and
position—and almost to his surprise—he discovered that the young Arab
girl suffered less than they by the comparison. And then from hating
“Hanson” he came to look upon himself with hate and loathing—to see
himself and his perfidious act in all their contemptible hideousness.
Thus, in the crucible of shame amidst the white heat of naked truths,
the passion that the man had felt for the girl he had considered his
social inferior was transmuted into love. And as he staggered on there
burned within him beside his newborn love another great passion—the
passion of hate urging him on to the consummation of revenge.
A creature of ease and luxury, he had never been subjected to the
hardships and tortures which now were his constant companionship, yet,
his clothing torn, his flesh scratched and bleeding, he urged the black
to greater speed, though with every dozen steps he himself fell from
exhaustion.
It was revenge which kept him going—that and a feeling that in his
suffering he was partially expiating the great wrong he had done the
girl he loved—for hope of saving her from the fate into which he had
trapped her had never existed. “Too late! Too late!” was the dismal
accompaniment of thought to which he marched. “Too late! Too late to
save; but not too late to avenge!” That kept him up.
Only when it became too dark to see would he permit of a halt. A dozen
times in the afternoon he had threatened the black with instant death
when the tired guide insisted upon resting. The fellow was terrified.
He could not understand the remarkable change that had so suddenly come
over the white man who had been afraid in the dark the night before. He
would have deserted this terrifying master had he had the opportunity;
but Baynes guessed that some such thought might be in the other’s mind,
and so gave the fellow none. He kept close to him by day and slept
touching him at night in the rude thorn _boma_ they constructed as a
slight protection against prowling carnivora.
That the Hon. Morison could sleep at all in the midst of the savage
jungle was sufficient indication that he had changed considerably in
the past twenty-four hours, and that he could lie close beside a
none-too-fragrant black man spoke of possibilities for democracy within
him yet all undreamed of.
Morning found him stiff and lame and sore, but none the less determined
to push on in pursuit of “Hanson” as rapidly as possible. With his
rifle he brought down a buck at a ford in a small stream shortly after
they broke camp, breakfastless. Begrudgingly he permitted a halt while
they cooked and ate, and then on again through the wilderness of trees
and vines and underbrush.
And in the meantime Korak wandered slowly westward, coming upon the
trail of Tantor, the elephant, whom he overtook browsing in the deep
shade of the jungle. The ape-man, lonely and sorrowing, was glad of the
companionship of his huge friend. Affectionately the sinuous trunk
encircled him, and he was swung to the mighty back where so often
before he had lolled and dreamed the long afternoon away.
Far to the north the Big Bwana and his black warriors clung tenaciously
to the trail of the fleeing _safari_ that was luring them further and
further from the girl they sought to save, while back at the bungalow
the woman who had loved Meriem as though she had been her own waited
impatiently and in sorrow for the return of the rescuing party and the
girl she was positive her invincible lord and master would bring back
with him.