By the time that we were finally ready to start it was about noon, and
the heat had become intensely oppressive. The refreshing zephyrs of the
morning had died completely away, and the motionless atmosphere,
rarefied by the burning rays of the sun, was all a-quiver. Not a beast,
bird, or insect was stirring throughout the whole length and breadth of
the far-stretching forest aisles. The grass, the flowers, the leaves of
the trees, the graceful festoons of parasitic creepers, were all as
still as though cut out of iron. The stagnant air was saturated to
oppressiveness with a thousand mingled perfumes; and not a sound of any
kind broke in upon the death-like stillness of the scene. It was
Nature's silent hour, the hour of intensest heat; that short interval
about noon when all living things appear to retire into the most
sheltered nooks--the darkest, coolest shadows; the one hour out of the
twenty-four when absolute, unbroken silence reigns throughout the
African forest.
Under Daphne's leadership we struck off on a westerly course through the
green shadows of the forest, and toiled laboriously forward until the
dusky twilight warned us of the necessity for seeking a resting-place
wherein to pass the coming night. This was found at length in the
centre of a wide clearing or break in the forest; and Smellie and I, at
Daphne's expressively--conveyed pantomimic suggestion, forthwith set
about gathering the wherewithal to build a fire, whilst the damsel
herself undertook the task of providing a supper for the party. Our
task was barely completed when her dusky ladyship returned with three
grey parrots and a pair of green pigeons, as well as a large gourd of
water, from which we eventually managed to make a very satisfying
supper. A circle of fires was then built about our camping-place, and
we flung ourselves down in the long grass to sleep, two at least of the
party being, as I can vouch, thoroughly done up.
We managed to get perhaps a couple of hours of sleep, and then our rest
was completely destroyed for the remainder of the night by a well-
sustained attack on the part of countless ticks, ants, and other
inquisitive insects, which persisted in perambulating our bodies and
busily taking sample bites out of our skins in an evident effort to
ascertain the locality of the tenderest portions of our anatomy.
Next morning I discovered with the greatest concern that Smellie was
downright ill, so much so that it soon became evident it would be quite
impossible for us to prosecute our journey, for that day at least.
Daphne's distress at this unfortunate state of affairs was very keen,
but she was a pre-eminently sensible little body, seeing almost at a
glance what was wanted; and promptly diverting her sympathies into a
practical channel, she at once set off in search of a more suitable
abiding place than the one we had occupied through the night. This she
at length found in an open glade at no great distance; and thither we
promptly removed our patient, the rapidly-increasing seriousness of his
symptoms admonishing us that there was little room for delay.
Our new camping-place was a lovely spot, being an open amphitheatre of
about ten acres in extent surrounded on all sides by the forest, and
having a tiny rivulet of pure sparkling fresh water flowing through it.
Daphne of course at once took the lead in the arrangements necessary for
what threatened to be a somewhat protracted sojourn; and by her
directions (it was singular how rapidly we were learning to make
ourselves mutually understood) I proceeded in the first instance to
clear away the grass, as far as possible, from a circular space some
fifteen feet in diameter, within a few yards of the bank of the stream.
Daphne, meanwhile, having borrowed Smellie's knife, went off into the
forest, from which she soon afterwards returned with a heavy load of
long tough pliant wands. Flinging these upon the ground, she next
busied herself in lighting a fire on the partially cleared space,
employing me to procure for her the necessary materials; and when a
large enough bonfire had been constructed, and the embers were all red-
hot, she spread them carefully over the whole of the space upon which I
had been working, and thus effectually destroyed what grass I had been
unable to remove. This done our next task was to cut all the wands or
wattles to a uniform length of about twenty-seven feet and point them at
both ends; after which, by driving the ends into the soil on opposite
sides of our cleared circle of ground, we soon had complete the
framework of a hemi-spherical bee-hive-like structure. A second load of
wattles was, however, necessary to strengthen this framework to Daphne's
liking, and leaving poor Smellie for the nonce to take care of himself,
the pair of us set out to procure them. Daphne led me to a dense brake
wherein immense numbers of these wattles were to be found, and leaving
me to cut as many as I could carry, proceeded further afield in quest of
building material of another sort I had completed my task and was back
in camp preparing my load for use when Daphne returned; and this time
she came staggering in under a tremendous load of palm-leaves, which I
rightly guessed were to be used for thatch. So we toiled on during the
whole of that day, which, like the preceding, was intensely hot, and by
dusk our hut was so far complete as to be capable of affording us a
shelter during the succeeding night. By mid-day of the following day it
was quite finished; and an efficient shelter having thus been provided
for Smellie from the scorching rays of the sun, we were then in a
position to give him our undivided attention, of which he by that time
stood in most urgent need.
The ensuing fortnight was one of ceaseless anxiety to Daphne and myself,
poor Smellie being prostrate with raging fever and utterly helpless
during the whole of that time. Fugitives as we were, and in a savage
country, it was quite out of our power to procure assistance, medical or
otherwise. We were thrown completely upon our own resources, and we had
nothing whatever to guide us in our inexperience. Daphne, to my
surprise, appeared to possess no knowledge whatever of the healing art;
and thus the treatment of our patient devolved solely upon me. And what
could I do?
I had no drugs; and had I had access to the best appointed apothecary's
shop I should still have lacked the knowledge requisite for a right use
of its contents. So we were obliged, no doubt fortunately for the
patient, to allow Nature to take her course, merely adopting such simple
precautionary measures as would suggest themselves to anyone possessed
of average common sense. We provided for our patient a comfortable,
fragrant, springy bed of a species of heather; cleansed and dressed his
wounds as often as seemed necessary; kept him as cool as possible, and
fed him entirely upon fruits of a mild and agreeable acid flavour.
During that fortnight Smellie was undoubtedly hovering on the borderland
between life and death, and but for the tireless and tender solicitude
of Daphne I am convinced he would have passed across the dividing line
and entered the land of shadows. I soon saw that this poor ignorant
black girl, this unsophisticated savage, had, all unknowingly to
Smellie, yielded up her simple untutored heart a willing captive to the
charm of his genial manner and gallant bearing; and as the crisis
approached which was to decide the question of life or death with him,
the unhappy girl established herself beside him and seemed to enter upon
a blind, dogged, obstinate struggle with the Grim Destroyer, with the
life of the unconscious patient as the stake.
As for me, I was wretched, miserable beyond all power of description.
Knowing but little of Smellie, save as my superior officer, until the
terrible night when we found ourselves fellow-captives doomed to a cruel
death together, I had since then seen so much that was noble and good in
him that I had speedily learned to _love_ him with all my heart, ay,
with the same love which David bore to Jonathan. And there he lay, sick
unto death, and I was powerless to help him.
At length, leaving him one day under Daphne's care, I sallied forth to
seek a fresh supply of fruit for him, and, wandering farther than usual
afield in my misery and abstraction, I discovered a fruit-bearing tree
quite new to me. The fruit--a kind of nut somewhat similar to a
walnut--had a very strong, but by no means unpleasant, bitter taste, and
it suddenly occurred to me that possibly this fruit might prove to be a
not altogether ineffective substitute for quinine. At all events, I was
resolved to try it, on myself first, if necessary, and I gathered as
many of the nuts as I could conveniently carry.
On my arrival at the hut I showed them to Daphne, and tried to find out
whether she knew anything about them; but for once we failed to
comprehend each other, and I was obliged to carry out my original
intention of experimenting upon myself. With this object I opened the
nuts and set the kernels to steep in water in a gourd basin (upon
setting up housekeeping we soon accumulated quite a number of gourd
utensils). I observed with satisfaction that the water soon began to
acquire a brown colour; and after my decoction had stood for about three
hours I found that its flavour had become quite as strong as was
desirable. Fearing to take much at the outset, lest I should
unwittingly be swallowing poison, I drank about a quarter of a pint, and
then, with some anxiety, awaited the result. It was about noon when I
swallowed the potion, and two hours afterwards I was more hungry than I
remembered to have ever been before. So far, good; I determined to wait
until night, and then, if no worse result than hunger revealed itself,
try the effect of my new medicine upon Smellie. By sunset I had come to
the conclusion, that whatever else my decoction might be, it was not a
poison, and with, I must confess, a certain amount of fear and
trepidation, I at last prevailed upon myself to administer the draught,
sitting down forthwith to watch and await the result. By midnight the
most that could be said of our patient was that he was no worse; and,
encouraged on the whole by this negative result, I then administered a
second and larger dose. Next morning I thought I detected signs of
improvement, and by sundown the improvement was no longer doubtful; the
dry, scorching feeling of the skin had given place to a cool healthy
moisture; the pulse was slower; the fevered and excited brain at length
found rest, and the patient at last even pleaded guilty to a feeling of
hunger.
Jubilation now reigned supreme in our palm-leaf hut; the fatted calf (in
the shape of a parrot of gorgeous plumage) was killed--and devoured by
the patient with something approaching to relish--and my reputation as a
great medicine-man was thenceforth fully established.
From this time Smellie began to slowly mend, thanks as much, probably,
to Daphne's tireless nursing and assiduous care as to the relentless
perseverance with which I administered my new medicine; and in little
more than a week he was able, with assistance, to totter into the open
air and sit for half an hour or so under the shadow of a rough awning of
thatch which Daphne and I had with some difficulty contrived to rig up
for him.
Our little black friend still continued to devote herself wholly to
Smellie, waiting upon him hand and foot, watching beside him night and
day, fanning him with a palm-leaf, or feeding him on delicious fruit
whilst he lay awake under his rude shelter drawing in fresh life and
renewed health at every inspiration of the delicious, perfume-laden air,
and snatching brief intervals of rest only whilst he slept. In
consequence of this arrangement the furnishing of the larder devolved
wholly upon me, and I soon acquired a considerable amount of skill in
bringing down my game, principally birds, either by a dexterous cast of
my club, or by means of a long reed tube, like an exaggerated pea-
shooter, from which I puffed little reed darts to a great distance with
considerable force.
About a fortnight after Smellie had exhibited the first symptoms of
improvement I went out foraging as usual, and, having secured the
necessary supplies, was within a quarter of a mile of our hut, on my
return journey, when I suddenly discovered a negro stealing cautiously
along from tree to tree before me. His actions were so suspicious that
my curiosity was aroused, and, placing myself in ambush behind the
nearest tree, I resolved to watch him. He was making straight for our
hut, dodging from tree to tree, and lurking behind each until he had
apparently satisfied himself that the coast ahead was perfectly clear.
Such excessive caution on the stranger's part, coupled with the fact
that he carried four broad-pointed spears, seemed to me to indicate a
purpose the direct reverse of friendly, and I came to the conclusion
that it would be well to shorten the distance between him and myself a
trifle, if possible. This, however, was not by any means easy to do
until the skulking savage had arrived within sight of the hut, when he
paused long enough to allow of my creeping up to within a dozen yards of
him, when the reason for his hesitation became apparent. Smellie and
Daphne were under the awning outside the hut, and my mysterious friend
could advance no further without passing into the open clearing, and so
revealing himself.
We remained thus for fully half an hour, the savage so intently watching
the couple under the awning that he had not the remotest suspicion of
being himself watched. At the end of that time, the sun having set
meanwhile, Smellie staggered to his feet, and, leaning on Daphne's
shoulder, passed into the hut.
My mysterious neighbour maintained his position for some five minutes
longer, and then, springing from his hiding-place, made a dash for the
hut at full speed, I following. When I emerged from the forest into the
open amphitheatre in the centre of which stood our hut, the savage was
some fifty yards ahead of me, running like a hunted deer. I began to
fear that he was bent on mischief of some kind, and--now that it was too
late--keenly regretted the indecision which had allowed him to remain so
long unchallenged. In my anxiety to check his speed I raised a shout.
At the sound he glanced over his shoulder, saw me in hot pursuit, and
paused for an instant, dashing forward the next moment, however, more
rapidly than ever.
My shout was evidently heard by the occupants of the hut, for Daphne
immediately afterwards appeared at the entrance. At the sight of the
figure bounding toward her she uttered a little cry and put out her
hands protestingly, calling out to him at the same time. I could not
catch the words she uttered, and if I could have done so it is very
improbable that I should have understood them, but it struck me that
they conveyed either a warning or an appeal. Whatever they were, he
paid no attention to them, but still rushed forward, brandishing a spear
threateningly. In another second or two he reached the hut and
endeavoured to force an entrance. To this, however, Daphne offered the
most energetic opposition, obstinately maintaining her position in the
doorway. The savage then strove to _force_ his way in, but Daphne still
persisting in her opposition he drew back a pace, and, raising his arm
with a savage cry, drove the broad-bladed javelin with all his brutal
strength down into her bare bosom. The poor girl staggered under the
force of the blow, and with a stifled shriek and an appealing cry to
"Halold," reeled backward, and fell to the ground inside the hut.
Meanwhile, the savage, leaving the javelin quivering in the body of his
victim, turned to meet me, snatching another javelin with his right hand
from his left at the same instant; and as he did so I recognised our
former enemy, the fetish-man or witch-doctor of Daphne's village. I was
by this time within arm's-length of him, and, quick as light, he made a
lunge at me. By a happy chance I succeeded in parrying the stroke with
the blow-pipe which I held in my left hand, and then, springing in upon
him, I dealt him so tremendous a blow with my heavy, knotted, hard-wood
club that his skull crashed under it like an egg-shell, and he fell a
brainless corpse at my feet.
Entering the hut I found Smellie on his knees beside the lifeless body
of Daphne.
"Too late, Hawkesley! you were just too late to save this poor devoted
girl," he murmured. "Only a few seconds earlier, and you would have
been in time to arrest the murderous blow. She is quite dead; indeed
her death must have been instantaneous. See, the blade of the javelin
is quite a foot long, and it was completely buried in her body; it must
have passed clean through her heart. Poor girl! she was indeed faithful
unto death, for it was my life that yonder murderous wretch thirsted
for. You doubtless recognised him--the fetish-man who strove so hard to
terrify us on the night of the sacrifice in the village! I am convinced
that, in his anger and chagrin at our escape, he has patiently hunted us
down, determined to make us feel his vengeance in one way if he failed
in the other. Poor Daphne clearly read his intention, I am sure; and it
was her resistance, her defence of poor helpless me, that brought this
cruel death upon her. Well, God's will be done! The poor girl was only
an ignorant savage, and it is hardly possible that she can ever have
heard His holy name mentioned; but for all that she had pity upon the
stranger and him who had no helper, and I cannot but believe that she
will therefore receive her full reward. It only remains now to so
dispose of her body that it shall be secure from violation by the birds
of the air and the beasts of the field. But how is that to be done?"
He might well ask. We had neither shovel nor any other appliance
wherewith to dig a grave, and it was obviously impossible to do so with
our bare hands alone. We at length decided to burn both the bodies, and
I forthwith set about the construction of a funeral pyre. Fortunately,
we had the forest close at hand; the ground beneath the trees was
abundantly strewn with dry leaves, twigs, and branches, and thus I had
not far to go for fuel. By the time that darkness closed in I had
accumulated a goodly pile close to the edge of the open amphitheatre,
and thither I at length conveyed both the bodies, laid them on the top
of the pyre, and finally ignited the heap of dried leaves which I had
arranged in the centre.
This done, Smellie came out of the hut, and we stood side by side
mournfully watching the crematory process. Naturally, we were very
keenly distressed at the untimely and tragic fate which had overtaken
our staunch little friend Daphne. She had been so cheerful, so helpful,
and--particularly during Smellie's illness--so tender, so gentle, so
sympathetic, and so tireless in her ministrations, that, unconsciously
to ourselves, we had acquired for her quite a fraternal affection. As I
stood there watching the fierce, bright flames which were steadily
reducing her body to ashes, and recalled to mind the countless services
she had rendered us during the short period of our mutual wanderings,
and, above all, the fervent compassion which had moved her to a
voluntary and permanent abandonment of home and friends for the sake of
two helpless strangers of a race entirely alien to her own, my heart
felt as though it would burst with sorrow at her cruel fate. As for
Smellie, trembling with weakness and depressed in spirits as he was
after his recent sharp attack of fever, he completely broke down, and,
laying his head upon my shoulder, sobbed like a child. Poor Daphne! it
seemed hard that she should thus, in the first bright flush and glory of
her maidenhood, be struck down, and the light of her life extinguished
by the ruthless hand of a murderer; and yet, perhaps, after all, it was
better so, better that she should enjoy the bliss of laying down her
life for the sake of the man she loved, rather than that, living on, she
should see the day when all the vague, indefinite hopes and aspirations
of her innocent, unsophisticated heart would crumble into ashes in a
moment, and the man who, all unknowingly, had become the autocrat of her
fate and the recipient of her blind, passionate, unreasoning love should
lightly and smilingly bid her an eternal farewell.
At length the fire died down: the crematory process was completed;
nothing remained of the pyre and its burden but a smouldering heap of
grey, flaky ashes; and we returned sorrowfully to our hut, there to
forget in sleep, if we could, the grievous loss we had sustained.
The painful incident of Daphne's death produced so distressing an effect
upon Smellie in his feeble condition that another week passed away
before he was sufficiently recovered to admit of our resuming our
journey. By the end of that time, however, his strength had in some
measure returned, and a feverish anxiety to get away from the scene of
the tragedy having taken possession of him, we made what few
preparations we had it in our power to make and got under weigh directly
after breakfast on one of the most delightful mornings it has ever been
my good fortune to witness.
Our progress was, of course, painfully slow; but by this time speed was
a matter of merely secondary importance, since we knew that we must long
since have been given up by our shipmates as dead; and that the _Daphne_
was, in all probability, hundreds of miles away in an unknown direction.
It was quite possible that on reaching the river's mouth we might have
to wait weeks, or even months, before she would again make her
appearance and give us an opportunity to rejoin.
Day after day we plodded on through the glorious forest, following no
pathway, but shaping a course as directly west as circumstances would
permit, meeting with no incidents worthy of mention, picking up a
sufficient subsistence without much trouble, our way beguiled by
glorious prospects of wood and river, and our curiosity fed by the
countless strange glimpses into the secrets of nature afforded us as we
wended our way through that lonely wilderness. We slept well at night
in spite of the babel of sounds which rose and fell around us; awoke in
the morning refreshed and hungry; and so entered upon another day. The
life was by no means one of hardship; and what was most important of
all, Smellie was slowly but steadily regaining strength and progressing
toward recovery.
At length, late in the afternoon of the fifth day from that which had
witnessed the resumption of our journey, our wanderings came
unexpectedly to an end, for a time at least, by our stumbling, in the
most unexpected manner in the world, upon a human habitation. And the
strangest as well as the most fortunate part of it was that the
habitation in question was the abode of _civilised_ humanity. We had
been travelling, almost uninterruptedly, along the ridge of a range of
hills, and on the afternoon in question had reached a spot where the
range took an abrupt turn to the southward, curving round in a sort of
arm which encircled a basin or valley of perhaps half a mile in width,
open to the river on the north side. The hill-side sloped gently down
to the valley bottom on the eastern, southern, and western sides, and
was much more thickly wooded than the country through which we had
hitherto been passing. In the very thickest part of the wood, however,
and about half-way down the slope, was a clearing of some ten acres in
extent, and in the centre of the clearing a very neat and pretty-looking
house, with a verandah running all round it, and a thatched roof. The
clearing itself appeared to be in a high state of cultivation, a flower-
garden of about an acre in extent lying immediately in front of the
house, whilst the remainder of the ground was thickly planted with
coffee, peach, banana, orange, and various other fruit-trees.
We lost no time in making our way to this very desirable haven, and had
scarcely passed through the gate in the fence which surrounded the
clearing when we were fortunate enough to encounter the proprietor
himself. He was a very fine handsome specimen of a man, with snow-white
hair and moustache, both closely cropped, and an otherwise clean-shaven
face, which, with his neck and hands, were deeply bronzed by exposure to
the vertical rays of the sun. He was clad in white flannel, his head
being protected by a light and very finely-woven grass hat with an
enormous brim, whilst his feet were encased in a pair of slippers of
soft untanned leather. He was busily engaged among his coffee-trees
when he first caught sight of us; and his start of surprise at our
extraordinary appearance was closely followed up by a profound bow as he
at once came forward and courteously addressed us in Spanish. Unhappily
neither Smellie nor I understood a word of the language, so the second
lieutenant answered the hail in French. The old gentleman shook his
head and, I thought, looked rather annoyed, whereupon Smellie tried him
in English, to which, very much to my surprise, I must confess, he
responded with scarcely a trace of accent.
"Welcome, gentlemen, welcome!" he exclaimed, with outstretched hand.
"So you are English? Well, after all, I might have guessed it. I am
glad you are not French--_very_ glad. Do me the honour to consider my
house and everything it contains as your own. You have met with some
serious misfortune, I grieve to see; but if you will allow him, Manuel
Carnero will do his best to repair it. You have evidently suffered
much, and appear to be in as urgent need of medical attendance as you
are of clothing. Fortunately, I can supply you with both, and shall be
only too happy to do so; I have a very great regard for the English.
Come, gentlemen, allow me to conduct you to the house."
So saying, he escorted us up the pathway until the house was reached,
when, stepping quickly before us, he passed through the open doorway,
and then, turning round, once more bade us welcome to his roof.