EVAN'S SORTIE.
We explored the house first and came upon a surprise. The native girl
I had seen conducted to the house by the juju procession two months
before crouched in one corner. She was too much frightened to give any
coherent account of the other servants' leaving.
They had simply gone, she said. No one had said anything to her, and
she had been left behind. The oxen lay in their stalls, their heads
beaten in with blows from a heavy iron bar that lay bent on the ground
beside them. Even my own boys had vanished. That struck me most
forcibly of all, because I had treated them well and had thought I
could count on as much loyalty from them as any white man can expect
from the average native.
Mboka's defection really bothered me. I had believed well of him and
was in a way genuinely fond of him. He had gone with the rest, though.
The loads of the carriers lay in a huge pile. Small and precious
possessions of my boys lay about them. That was perhaps the queerest
part of the whole affair. In leaving secretly in the middle of the
night, the servants had not stopped to steal, or even to take with
them what was their own. They had apparently risen and stolen away in
shivering fear.
We went back to the house from the servants' quarters full of rather
uneasy speculations. Juju was obviously at the bottom of whatever
was happening, and there is no telling what may enter the head of a
juju doctor. Passing through the rear rooms, Evan paused to order the
solitary native girl to prepare food for us. We went on to find Alicia
and Mrs. Braymore up and curious. They were on the front porch when
they heard us, and Alicia came inside to smile at all of us and ask
questions.
"Where are all the servants, Evan?" she demanded. "We had not a drop of
water this morning. And what's happened to the native village? On the
way up here we saw lots of villages, but none of them were quite like
yours."
We looked down at the squalid huts of the village. Not a sign of
life could be seen. Not one of the usually innumerable tiny fires of
a native village was burning, and the single street was absolutely
deserted.
"We'll take a look at it," said Arthur grimly. "I don't like this
business. Murray, you'll come?"
I picked up my rifle and moved forward. As we walked across the
clearing before the casa, Arthur turned to me.
"Don't forget about that big ape, either. He's probably waiting for a
chance to drop out of a tree on top of us."
It was a pleasant prospect. If we went down the cleared way toward
the village, we would be perfect targets for bowmen or spear throwers
from the bush on either side. If we went through the bush, we ran
an amazingly good chance of running up against the gorilla. And the
gorilla had learned cunning, too, and would not expose himself to a
shot if he could help it. He would wait patiently until the chance
came for him to rush upon us and crack our skulls together without our
having time to raise a firearm, or else, until he could reach a hairy
arm down and seize us----
I have seen iron bars bent and twisted by the hands of those big apes.
A sudden thought came to me. The iron bar in the stables, with which
the oxen had been clubbed to death!
We made our way cautiously down to the center of the cleared space,
searching the bush on either side with our eyes, but affecting an
unconcerned air in case hidden watchers saw us. We came to the village
and strolled inside. It was absolutely deserted. Not one man, woman, or
child remained within it. Their possessions were undisturbed, save that
all their arms were gone, but cooking pots, carved stools, skin robes,
ornaments, minor fetishes, children's toys, everything else lay as it
had last been used by its owners. Only a few native dogs skulked around
the silent huts. There was not a single sign that gave a hint of the
reason for the mysterious exodus of the natives.
"I've not been out here long," said Arthur crisply, "but I've learned
that when natives do inexplicable things, juju is at the bottom of it.
What do you say?"
"I agree with you. I wish I could see some signs, though. I can read
some juju palaver. But there isn't a sign. No charms, no _spoor_
whatever. We'll go back to the house and talk it over with Evan."
We started slowly back toward the house. I was walking on ahead,
puzzling over the oddities of the situation and trying to piece
together a meaning in it all when Arthur stopped short. His voice
reached me, little more than a whisper.
"Murray," he said sharply, "that pongo is trailing us."
I listened, but could hear nothing. One would hardly expect a white
man's ears to detect a gorilla taking special pains to be quiet. Arthur
seemed to hear something, however. He quietly raised his rifle. I
followed the direction in which he was pointing, but could see nothing.
He fired. A branch swayed slightly where his bullet had grazed it, but
aside from that there was no sign.
"I didn't see a thing," I remarked.
Arthur shook his head. "It may be nerves," he said quietly. "That
damned beast has haunted me, but I think I saw it."
We went on up to the house slowly. Just before we reached the porch
Arthur looked at me pitifully.
"I heard it following us all the way," he told me. The perspiration was
standing out on his forehead. "It _is_ there, and it _is_ waiting for a
chance to revenge itself on me. And the beast has learned cunning! We
must look out for Alicia."
I nodded. Evan was waiting for us.
"Find anything?" he called down. "What did you shoot at?"
"The gorilla," said Arthur in a low tone. "It's there and it's
determined. We'd better warn Alicia and Mrs. Braymore."
Evan looked dubious. "Did Murray see it?"
I shook my head.
Evan frowned thoughtfully. "Arthur, old chap, it may be just nerves.
The women have enough to worry them with the way the natives are
acting, anyway. We'll keep a sharp lookout, of course. I'm going to
hunt up those natives, though."
"They're your natives," I said, "but I question whether that's a wise
move. If it's just native foolishness, they'll come back. If not,
they're liable to be pretty--well, reckless."
"They're my natives," said Evan angrily. "I don't intend to humor them.
I'll throw a scare into them that will last them ten years. If I know
anything of juju----"
"What?" I asked.
"They'll never dare breathe without permission hereafter," Evan said
grimly.
He seemed to be in a cold fury. Remembering the abject fear in which
his slaves seemed to be all the time, I wondered what he might have
in store for them. I opened my mouth to protest against his trying to
look for his natives, but stopped. That juju house at which my boys had
hinted, concealed in some hidden clearing near the village, might hold
a secret by which he controlled them. In any event, he knew his own
natives best.
We went into the house and sat down to breakfast. We must have made a
queer sight, sitting there before that spotless table, our clothing
disheveled and hastily donned, our rifles leaning against our chairs.
Neither Arthur nor myself could eat more than a little, but Evan's
appetite seemed undiminished. The native girl waited on us, the lurking
panic in her eyes never very far from the surface. It seemed nearest
when she looked at Evan.
I was most worried about my own boys. It was decidedly queer that
they had deserted me, especially Mboka. He had been with me for all
of a year, and I had really grown to trust him. He had gone with the
others, though, and the very mystery of his disappearance seemed to add
somewhat to the menace of the silence that surrounded us.
When I thought of it, however, it was no less odd that Evan's overseers
had vanished. From the nature of their position, they would be hated by
the other and full-blooded natives, and it was singular in the extreme
that they had gone with them.
Then I remembered a tale I had once heard, of a mystic voodoo worship
that was spreading secretly over the whole of West Africa. The story
ran that an attempt was being made to band all the natives possible
together in this voodoo worship, and then at a given signal they were
all to rise. The Indian Mutiny would be repeated. Every white man on
the West Coast would be rushed by the nearest blacks, and the dominance
of the white race made a thing of the past, in Africa any rate.
I felt cold at the thought that the attempt--which I had thought dead
these many years--might have been secretly and insidiously winning
converts all this time, and that all the blacks between us and the
coast might be risen and only waiting for courage to attack us. We were
the only whites in a hundred and fifty miles anyway, and if the strange
behavior of the natives meant mischief, we were probably doomed as it
was. It gave me a sickish feeling to think that the other might be
true, though, that a second mutiny was in progress.
As if to confirm my belief, at just that moment, drums began to beat,
far off in the bush. To the south of us they began their monotonous,
rhythmic rumble. Boom, boom, boom, boom! Never a pause, never skipping
a beat, never altering in the slightest the hypnotic muttering. We
stopped eating and stared at each other. The drums throbbed on,
sullenly, far, far away. Evan grew angry at the insolence of his
slaves. I looked at Alicia and made a mental vow that my last cartridge
should be saved for her. Arthur listened with an air of detachment, and
then went on with his breakfast.
The first drums had been beating for perhaps fifteen minutes when, to
the northeast, more drums took up the rhythmic pounding. Evan's eyes
narrowed. He went to a window and looked out. As he moved, he passed
close to the native girl, and she shrank back fearfully. While he
stared out across the clearing, a third set of drums began to beat--to
the northwest, this time. We were ringed in.
Evan came to the table with a grim expression on his face. "The black
fools!" he said furiously. "They dared not come to me! I'll go to them
and put a stop to this!"
"Evan!" exclaimed Alicia, frightened. "You'll stay here with us!"
"This is no time for caution," said Evan grimly. "If we leave them
alone, they'll hold a juju palaver until they've gathered nerve to rush
us. I'll walk in on their council, and we'll see what happens."
"I'll go," said Arthur, quickly sensing the psychology of the move Evan
proposed to make. "I'd better go."
"It would be suicide!" Alicia exclaimed again. "One white man among all
those blacks. They could kill you in an instant."
"That is precisely why they would be afraid to," I interposed. "The
mere fact that a white man dared walk into their palaver and order them
about, would frighten them. No negro would dare do it, and they would
not understand how a white man could. It's quite possible that a sheer
bluff may win out. Of course we've got to do something. I think I'd
better go, though. My boys are in that crowd and they're rather fond of
me, I believe. I'll have some of them halfway with me at the start."
Evan shook his head. "Your boys are in that crowd," he said curtly,
"but the very fact that they're fond of you will make them kill you
that much quicker. You know natives. Now _my_ natives hate me like
poison, and there's not one of them but would kill me like a shot if he
dared. They'll be afraid when I drop in on them. I'm the one to go and
I'm going. Besides, I know the local dialect. You don't. You'll hear
one set of drums stop in half an hour."
He picked up his rifle and went out of the door. Alicia watched him
leave, her face utterly pale.
"He's going to his death!" she said in a whisper. "Stop him, oh, please
stop him!"
"We're all in just as much danger as he is, dear," said Arthur
tenderly. "He's taking the one chance that may bring us out of this
without fighting. He'll go into the middle of that bunch of natives and
by sheer nerve frighten them into doing as he says. If all three of us
went, we'd be rushed on sight."
Alicia's lips trembled, and Arthur tried to comfort her. I went to the
door and stood looking after Evan. It was illogical, but with all of us
very probably facing death, and certainly a siege, I was struck with a
pang of jealousy when I saw Arthur put his arms about Alicia's shoulder
to comfort her. Mrs. Braymore was white to the lips, but gamely tried
to be casual and cheerful. She came and stood by me as I looked out of
the door.
"Quite frankly," she asked me quietly, "what are our chances?"
"I don't know," I told her gloomily. "We don't even know what the
natives are up to yet. Those drums do not sound well. They may mean
anything and they may mean nothing."
Mrs. Braymore looked at me searchingly. Any one could see that she was
frightened, but she was doing her best not to show it.
"And if they mean--anything?"
"There is a Portuguese fort a hundred and fifty miles away," I answered
grimly. "They might send soldiers to lift the siege on us if they hear
about it. I'm assuming we'll be besieged. Things look that way. Evan
must have treated his slaves worse than usual. Usually they simply run
away. It's not often they try anything of this kind. I don't like the
sound of those drums. That means organization and purpose. All I can
say is that I hope Evan succeeds with the natives."
Mrs. Braymore blanched a little more, but smiled as bravely as she
could.
"Well," she said quietly, "I know Alicia well enough to promise you
that we'll be as little of a drawback as possible. If you decide to try
anything drastic, such as attempting to escape through the bush, we'll
do our best to keep up. And I think both of us are fairly good shots."
"I'm hoping there'll be no need for anything on that order," I said
with more respect than before in my tone. "We'll try to stick it out
here. My boys are loyal, I think, at least they've been loyal up to
now, and even if we are besieged, one of them will probably take a
message to the fort."
I had little enough hope of that, Heaven knows, but I did not want Mrs.
Braymore to worry more than was necessary. She seemed to realize that I
was speaking more from my hopes than my beliefs, because she shrugged
her shoulders.
"There's really no need to soften things for me," she said, "Alicia and
I won't----"
She stopped and caught her breath. A shot had sounded, off in the bush
from the direction in which Evan had vanished. A second's interval, and
another shot. Then there was a horrid outcry, and a maniacal shrieking.
"The gorilla," I snapped, and started down the steps with my rifle at
full cock.
We heard a second outburst of the same beastlike sounds and a crashing
in the bushes. I raised my rifle. A figure showed dimly through the
bush. I fired vindictively. _Evan_ stumbled and fell in the clearing,
just out of the jungle!