KIDNAPPED
"GOOD night's work that, Tiny, old bird," remarked Colin.
"Yes, you lucky beggar," agreed his chum enviously. "Of course, it's
jolly sporting of you to divide your share, and I'm grateful. At the
same time, 'tisn't the same, if you can understand. S'posing, for
instance, it had been my lucky shot, you'd understand then."
"It was a jolly good thing I picked up those explosive cartridges by
accident," conceded Sinclair. "It was a fluke--absolutely."
"Colonel Narfield would have been snuffed out if you hadn't," said
Tiny. "The ordinary .303's had no more effect than tickling a wild
cat with a straw. By Jove! I am sleepy ... aren't those niggers
kicking up an infernal row?"
"Let's slow down a bit and miss most of the dust and noise,"
suggested Colin. "We can keep an eye on the bearers just as well, if
not better."
Checking their horses, the two chums allowed the bearers to draw on
ahead. It was a case of distance lending enchantment to the scene,
as the early sunlight glinted on the muscular, copper skins of the
wildly-excited natives.
"Ugh! The flies!" exclaimed Tiny. "That one nearly jumped down my
throat. 'Tain't all jam being in the rear of a procession--eh,
what?"
"I'm going to have the best piece of the ivory sawn off," declared
Colin, ignoring his companion's complaint and reverting to the
subject of the spoils of the chase. "Then I'll send it home to my
people. And a chunk for Dr. Narfield, too. Probably the head will
shove it in the school museum with a notice on it, 'Shot by an Old
Boy,' sort of thing. My word, I'm jolly glad I came out here, aren't
you?"
"Better'n fooling round in an office, any old day," declared Tiny.
"More than likely I'd have been under the turf now if I'd stopped at
home."
"And now you're quite fit," remarked his chum.
"Hope so," said Desmond. "There's one thing, I've lost that rotten
cough .... Hullo! We're nearly into the forest. Hadn't we better
hurry along a bit. If those niggers took it into their heads to do a
bunk, you'd lose your ivory for a dead cert., old son."
"Half a mo!" exclaimed Colin. "My girth's slipping a bit. Hang on,
old man."
Throwing his reins to his chum, Sinclair dismounted and deftly
readjusted the slack girth. Then, climbing into the saddle, he urged
his horse onwards.
By this time the rear of the column was nearly three hundred yards
ahead and already in the shade of the dense foliage. The bearers,
probably with the idea of keeping up their courage in the gloom,
redoubled their shouts.
"What a contrast!" remarked Desmond as the two lads entered the
forest. "After the glare I can hardly see a yard----"
His remarks were cut short in a totally unexpected manner. From a
stout branch of a tree immediately overhead two hide ropes,
terminating in running nooses, were dexterously dropped over the
shoulders of the astonished lads.
Before they could utter a sound--even if they had, the din made by
the native bearers would have deadened it--they were jerked out of
the saddles and hauled aloft.
At the sudden tightening of the noose, Colin immediately relaxed his
grip of the reins and instinctively made a frantic ineffectual grab
at his slung rifle. The noose, pinning his arms tightly against his
sides, rendered the attempt futile.
Like a shoulder of mutton hanging from a roasting-jack, Colin found
himself being hoisted upwards, spinning round and round, and more
than once colliding with his companion in misfortune.
The _coup_ had been neatly planned and dexterously executed. Strong,
lithe, brown hands emerging from the leafy cover gripped the two
lads, stifling their unheard shouts for aid. Other hands grasped
their rifles, cutting the leather slings in order to disarm the
kidnapped youths.
Then, bound hand and foot and effectually gagged, Colin and Tiny
were laid at full length upon a broad branch thirty feet above the
ground, with a dozen or more sinewy, active men keeping guard over
the captives and others in the higher branches watching with much
approval the deft work of their companions.
Then someone spoke in a tongue that neither Colin nor Tiny
recognised, although by this time they had a useful smattering of
the native dialects in use around Kilembonga.
There was no doubt about it--the man in charge of the kidnappers
knew how to handle them. The discipline was perfect. Unlike most
African natives, who can hardly ever carry out any work silently,
these men maintained absolute quiet, moving with the precision and
smoothness of a well-regulated machine.
Each captive was carefully lifted from branch to branch until they
were at least eighty feet above the ground. During the operation the
men took particular pains not to break off any of the foliage,
methodically bending the twigs that hampered their progress, and not
allowing any part of the captives' bodies or clothing to come in
contact with the bark.
The next step was to pass the prisoners literally from hand to hand
and from tree to tree, the close formation of the massive branches
forming an almost continuous arboreal highway.
As fast as each native passed on his load he dropped to a lower
branch and made his way to the front of the long line of bearers
ready to renew his part in the endless human chain, so that at the
end of an hour Colin and Desmond were at least two miles from the
scene of their capture.
Here the party--captors and captives--descended to the ground. More
natives were waiting with two hammock-like litters of woven grass.
Into these Colin and Desmond were placed, no attempt being made to
remove either their gags or their bonds.
Then at a rapid pace, but with the same orderly silence that
characterised the opening stages of the operations, the natives
moved off, the two litters being borne in the centre of the long
double file.
At the end of a tedious journey, in which Colin calculated they had
covered from ten to twelve miles, the _cortège_ halted in an open
space, bounded on three sides by the forest, and on the fourth by a
cliff rising sheer to a height of two thousand feet.
The gags were then removed and the prisoners' ankles freed, although
their arms were still securely bound as before. Then into a vast
circle of armed warriors Colin and his chum were led, to find
themselves confronted by a gigantic man holding a gleaming axe of
yellow metal. By his side was a pillar of wood, somewhat resembling
the mediaeval executioner's block.
"If they've brought us all this way for the purpose of cutting off
our heads," thought Colin, "all I can say is they've gone to a lot
of unnecessary trouble. Tiny, old man," he added aloud, "for
goodness' sake don't let them see we've got the wind up. Let them
see we're Englishmen."