"Oh! I beg pardin'. Didn't I forgot; you's on'y a white man. But
stop; I come ober agin an' took you on my back."
He pretended to be on the point of recrossing, but the sailor had
already got upon the bridge, and, with much balancing and waving of his
long arms, passed over in safety. Mark was about to follow, when
Hockins called out, "Better pitch over the powder-flask in case you fall
in."
"That's true, for I mayn't be as good as you or Ebony on the tight-rope.
Look out!"
He pulled the powder-flask out of his pocket and threw it towards his
comrades. Unfortunately the branch of an overhanging bush had touched
his hand. The touch was slight, but it sufficed to divert the flask
from its proper course, and sent it into the middle of the stream.
Ebony followed it head first like an otter, but soon reappeared, gasping
and unsuccessful. Again and again he dived, but failed to find the
flask, without which, of course, their gun was useless, and at last they
were obliged to continue their flight without it.
This was a very serious loss, for they had not an ounce of provisions
with them, and were in a land the character and resources of which were
utterly unknown at least to two of them, while the youth who had become
their leader knew very little more than the fact that it was the island
of Madagascar, that it lay about 300 miles off the eastern shores of
Africa, and that the tribes by whom they were surrounded were little if
at all better than savages.
That day they wandered far into the depths of a dark and tangled forest,
intentionally seeking its gloomiest recesses in order to avoid the
natives, and at night went supperless to rest among the branches of an
umbrageous tree, not knowing what danger from man or beast might assail
them if they should venture to sleep on the ground.
Although possessed of flint and steel, as well as tinder, they did not
use them for fear of attracting attention. As they had nothing to cook,
the deprivation was not great. Fortunately the weather at the time was
pleasantly warm, so that beyond the discomfort of not being able to
stretch out at full length, the occasional poking of awkward knots and
branches into their ribs, and the constant necessity of holding on lest
they should fall off, their circumstances were not insufferable, and
might have been worse.
While they are enjoying their repose, we will tell in a few sentences
who they were and how they got there.
When Mark Breezy, in the closing years of his medical-student career,
got leave to go on a voyage to China in one of his father's ships, the
_Eastern Star_, for the benefit of his health and the enlargement of his
understanding, he had no more idea that that voyage would culminate in a
bed up a tree in the forests of Madagascar than you, reader, have that
you will ultimately become an inhabitant of the moon! The same remark
may with equal truth be made of John Hockins when he joined the _Eastern
Star_ as an able seaman, and of James Ginger--alias Ebony--when he
shipped as cook. If the captain of the _Eastern Star_ had introduced
those three,--who had never seen each other before--and told them that
they would spend many months together among savages in the midst of
terrestrial beauty, surrounded by mingled human depravity and goodness,
self-denial and cruelty, fun and tragedy such as few men are fated to
experience, they would have smiled at each other with good-natured
scepticism and regarded their captain as a facetious lunatic.
Yet so it turned out, though the captain prophesied it not--and this was
the way of it.
Becalmed off the coast of Madagascar, and having, through leakage in one
of the tanks, run short of water, the captain ordered a boat with casks
to be got ready to go ashore for water. The young doctor got leave to
land and take his gun for the purpose of procuring specimens--for he was
something of a naturalist--and having a ramble.
"Don't get out of hail, Doctor," said the captain, as the boat shoved
off.
"All right, sir, I won't."
"An' take a couple o' the men into the bush with you in case of
accidents."
"Ay ay, sir," responded Mark, waving his hand in acknowledgment.
And that was the last that Mark Breezy and the captain of the _Eastern
Star_ saw of each other for many a day.
"Who will go with me?" asked Mark, when the boat touched the shore.
"Me, massa," eagerly answered the negro cook, who had gone ashore in the
hope of being able to get some fresh vegetables from the natives if any
were to be found living there. "Seems to me dere's no black mans here,
so may's well try de woods for wild wegibles."
"No no, Ebony," said the first mate, who had charge of the boat, "you'll
be sure to desert if we let you go--unless we send Hockins to look after
you. He's the only man that can keep you in order."
"Well, I'll take Hockins also," said Mark, "you heard the captain say I
was to have two men. Will you go, Hockins?"
"Ay, ay, sir," answered the seaman, sedately, but with a wrinkle or two
on his visage which proved that the proposal was quite to his taste.
All the men of the boat's crew were armed either with cutlass or
carbine--in some cases with both; for although the natives were
understood to be friendly at that part of the coast it was deemed
prudent to be prepared for the reverse. Thus John Hockins carried a
cutlass in his belt, but no fire-arm, and the young doctor had his
double-barrelled gun, with powder-flask and shot-belt, but Ebony--being
a free-and-easy, jovial sort of nigger--went unarmed, saying he "didn't
want to carry no harms, seein' he would need all harms he had to carry
back de fresh wegibles wid."
Thus those three went into the bush, promising to keep well within
ear-shot, and to return instantly at the first summons.
That summons came--not as a shout, as had been expected, but as a shot--
about an hour after the landing. Our explorers ran to the top of a
neighbouring mound in some surprise, not unmixed with anxiety. Before
they reached the summit a volley from the direction of the sea, followed
by fierce yells, told that some sort of evil was going on. Another
moment, and they reached the eminence just in time to behold their
boat's crew pulling off shore while a band of at least a hundred savages
attacked them--some rushing into the water chest-deep in order to seize
the boat. Cutlass and carbine, however, proved more than a match for
stone and spear.
The fight had scarce lasted a minute, and our trio were on the point of
rushing down to the rescue, when a white cloud burst from the side of
the _Eastern Star_, the woods and cliffs echoed with the roar of a big
gun, and a shot, plunging into the crowd of natives, cut down many of
them and went crashing into the bushes.
It was enough. The natives turned and fled while the boat pulled to the
ship.
Uncertainty as to what should be done kept Mark Breezy and his
companions rooted for a few seconds to the spot. Indecision was
banished, however, when they suddenly perceived a band of thirty or
forty natives moving stealthily towards them by a circuitous route,
evidently with the intention of taking them in rear and preventing them
from finding shelter in the woods.
It was the first time that the young student's manhood had been put
severely to the test. There was a rush of hot blood to his forehead,
and his heart beat powerfully as he saw and realised the hopelessness of
their case with such tremendous odds against them.
"We can die but once," he said with forced calmness, as he cocked his
gun and prepared to defend himself.
"I's not a-goin' to die at all," said the negro, hastily tightening his
belt, "I's a-goin' to squatilate."
"And you?" said Mark, turning to the seaman.
"Run, says I, of coorse," replied Hockins, with something between a grin
and a scowl; "ye know the old song--him wot fights an' runs away, may
live to fight another day!"
"Come along, then!" cried Mark, who felt that whether they fought or ran
he was bound to retain the leadership of his little party.
As we have seen, they ran to some purpose. No doubt if they had started
on equal terms, the lithe, hardy, and almost naked savages would have
soon overtaken them, but fortunately a deep gully lay between them and
the party of natives who had first observed them. Before this was
crossed the fugitives were over the second ridge of rolling land that
lay between the thick woods and the sea, and when the savages at last
got upon their track and began steadily to overhaul them, the white men
had got fairly into the forest.
Still there would have been no chance of ultimate escape if they had not
come upon the footpath down the precipice which we have described as
having been partly carried away by falling rocks, thus enabling Hockins
and his companions to make a scramble for life which no one but a
sailor, a monkey, or a hero, would have dared, and the impossibility of
even attempting which never occurred to the pursuers, who concluded, as
we have seen, that the white men had been dashed to pieces on the rocks
far below.
Whether they afterwards found out their mistake or not we cannot tell.
The reason--long afterwards ascertained--of this unprovoked attack on
the boat's crew, was the old story. A party of godless white men had
previously visited that part of the coast and treated the poor natives
with great barbarity, thus stirring up feelings of hatred and revenge
against _all_ white men--at least for the time being. In this way the
innocent are too often made to suffer for the guilty.
We will now return to our friends in the tree.