ON TO THE COAST
Nature, untrammeled by human inventions, takes her own way swiftly in
the fever land, and the sun had hardly cleared the cottonwoods when Dane
found himself mechanically following a tattered hammock borne high on
the heads of dusky men. Though there was somber cloud above, dazzling
brightness beat into their set faces, and flashed on glistening blade
and long gun-barrel borne by those who marched behind. There was no word
spoken. Only the patter of naked feet and the jingle of steel broke
through the impressive hush, for that morning every leaf hung limp and
still. It was with all solemnity that Carsluith Maxwell set out on his
last journey.
Dane halted by the eastern gate of the stockade, watching the black men
swing past him file by file; they were as strange a company as ever
followed a British gentleman to his grave--Moslem bandit, woolly haired
bush thief, stalwart, heathen Kroo, brown desperadoes who had fought the
French under the banner of the great Sultan, and two-legged beasts of
burden from the steaming swamps. Still, unstable and unreasoning, with
the light-heartedness of a child and the cruelty of a devil, as many
were, it gave the watcher a mournful pleasure to see that one and all
had come to pay respect to their dead leader; and he showed his wonder
when Amadu cried aloud, and the glinting flintlocks swung together, with
muzzles to the rear. Dane guessed that the dusky adventurer had not
learned to reverse arms in the service of any hinterland Emir.
He followed, seeing as one walking in a dream, the sinuous line of sable
limbs and white and blue draperies wind on through deepening shadow.
When Amadu cried again, the moving figures fell apart on either hand,
and Dane was left with their leader and the bearers beside a shallow
trench, on which one shaft of sunlight fell. He cast his ragged hat down
on the sand, and in a voice which seemed to belong to some other person
recited such fragmentary portions of the last office as he could
remember. No one moved among all the silent company, but there was an
inarticulate murmur when at last the solemn words broke off.
Dane remembered nothing further beyond the dull thud of shovels; his
eyesight seemed to fail him, until presently he found himself moving
dejectedly back to camp behind the straggling company. He must have
slept when he reached his tent, for the sun was low when Monday and
Amadu stood outside the entrance, calling him. When he rose wearily,
Amadu pointed to the groups of men waiting without.
"Them boy lib for savvy what you do now, sah," he said in the coast
palaver.
"I can't tell them just yet," Dane answered. "What do they wish
themselves?"
It was a few moments before his meaning dawned upon Amadu, for the white
man felt too dazed to frame his thoughts in other than everyday English.
"Them carrier bushmen lib for beach and go back to his own country one
time," said Amadu. "Say this country belong to the Ju-ju."
No man could have blamed the carriers. They had in their own fashion
done their utmost, and Dane almost shared their opinion about the
locality; but he pointed to other men of lighter color and soldierly
aspect.
"Do these want to lib for their own country one time, too?" he asked.
Amadu laughed mirthlessly, and fingering the hilt of the straight blade
glanced at Monday, whose face was very grim, and the little negro, Bad
Dollar, crouching close by with a polished matchet in his hand.
"They say they follow you if you be fit to hunt them Leopard or go chop
them dam Rideau."
"They shall have an answer to-morrow," said Dane. "Monday, see there is
order in the camp. Tell them no man is fit to reach the coast himself,
and must wait until I go with him. There is something I want to ask you,
Amadu. What you did was well done, but who taught you how, when a white
soldier is buried, men carry the gun. Your master has gone, and I am
Cappy now."
As it were mechanically, the big dusky alien closed his heels together,
while his hand went up to his ragged turban and fell again with a rigid
precision.
"I had suspected it already," said Dane, half-aloud. "Sit down and tell
me about it. Monday, see no boy leaves the camp."
The others disappeared, and Dane was glad when the man obeyed him. He
was respectful and intelligent, and Dane felt the need of company. It
seemed that the same feeling troubled Amadu.
"The white man has guessed," he said, in a strangely mixed idiom. "I
carried an Emir's standard in the North, in the dry country where men
fear Allah, and there is corn and tobacco. My master mocked at the
Sultan, refusing his tribute, and the Sultan's horsemen came upon us
while we slept. They wore fine iron chain and carried the guns which
come south through the desert from where no man knows, but for an hour a
handful of us held the gate with the sword. Then when other gates went
down and the huts burned behind us, some one brought my master's horse,
and he rode out upon them. There were less than a score of us living
then, but we carried the standard almost through their midst, and when
my master went down, I and three others stood over him. The Sultan had
fewer men and horses when at last a gun-butt struck me down."
Amadu flung his head up as he halted, and his eyes glittered when they
fastened on the listener's face.
"The Sultan was served by men, and not by such as the heathen who follow
the little white man," he said.
Dane could draw the intended inference, and when he nodded Amadu
appeared satisfied.
"When I lay in the grass next morning only the wall remained of the
town," continued the dusky soldier of fortune. "There were sufficient
heads hung about it already, so I fled south to serve the White Queen,
as others of my people had done. We would follow the strongest, and knew
how the great Emir of the West had mocked the white men who do not speak
your tongue. So I came south and learned the drill, and wondered if the
English were mad when they sent a lad with the face of a woman to lead
us. There were twenty of us, all broken men who had lived by the sword,
and some laughed when for the first time our officer spoke to us. Others
answered him openly, and, perhaps not understanding all, he said no word
to them; but when one night four men returned carrying plunder they had
stolen from the heathen, and, mocking at his orders, threatened him, he
shot their leader. He stood alone before us, very slight and slender,
with the smoke of the pistol curling about him, and any one of those who
stood by could have crushed him with their hand; but we went back to our
huts when he told us, and henceforward obeyed him.
"It happened that when time had passed, and we knew our officer, as he
knew us, we went up with him to chastise certain thieves, and came upon
a stockade across the path, with many men who carried guns behind it.
The sun hung low over the forest, and we feared treachery when one held
out a palm branch; but refusing to heed us, our officer went forward
alone to speak with the heathen. He stood as he used to stand, with one
hand on his side, so, holding in the other only a little cane, the
stockade ten paces from him, and we waiting, as he had bidden us, it may
be a hundred, behind him. A wise man would not have done so, but the one
who led us feared nothing. He spoke, and his voice came clear through
the shadow as he stood twisting his cane a little, one lonely white man
demanding submission from the heathen. Then a gun flashed, and he fell
forward on his face, and with a cry for vengeance we swept the stockade.
The heathen did not wait for the steel, and most of them escaped, for
darkness fell suddenly upon the forest.
"We knew they would fly to the stronghold of a thief in the country of
the white men who speak a different tongue, where, when certain thieves
had done so, our leader might not follow; but when we had buried him we
made a plan, and swore to send many of the bushmen after him. The night
was far spent when we crept softly about the stockade of that heathen
village, but men drunk with palm wine made merry within, doubtless
boasting how they had slain our leader. It was one who had served the
Sultan, climbing the stockade, drove his bayonet through the watcher at
the gate, and no man saw us slip from hut to hut until we gathered
softly about the headman's house, where in honor of the strangers who
had killed a white man there was feasting.
"Three we could count on held the door, the rest went in, and there
remained no one living when they came out again. Then we burned the
village, and I went back to the outpost of the next white Captain and
told him what we had done. He had eyes like the Captain Maxwell, and
listened very quietly, tapping with his fingers on the table--so--but
another white man whom I did not know, smote it, calling upon Allah in
the speech of the English.
"Then the Captain looked hard at me, asking, 'You had no order?'
"'No. He was our master, and those bush thieves killed him
treacherously,' I said boldly, and one white man nodded to the other.
"'You were wise to speak the truth in this,' said the Captain. 'Your
master would never have given that order; but there are men who will not
believe the rest of your tale.'
"'By salt and by fire,' I was answering, when he lifted his hand.
"'I said there are men who will doubt you, and say you shot your leader.
Even if that is not so, you have killed many of our good friends'
people.' When he said this the listening white man laughed a little.
'Their nation will demand restitution, and it is possible the
Commissioner will hang you for what you did--which would not please me,
for you are a good soldier, Amadu. Now you must wait in prison until we
hear from him.'
"Again the white man smiled, and I could not read all that was in the
Captain's face as he looked at me, but his friend spoke, in the speech
of the English, saying that if he did something he would be condemned.
So I was laid in prison, and stayed there several days, fearing greatly
that I, who had carried the Emir's standard, should hang like a common
bushman, until one night the comrade who brought me rations set down a
treble quantity.
"'Am I to hang, a fat man, to please the white men who speak
differently?' I asked him, but he answered nothing.
"It was near midnight when I heard the silver whistle, and a sound of
running feet, after some one called the guard. Now I did not wish to
hang, and Allah gave me understanding. The roof was of whitened iron,
but the door was not strong, and they had left me my rifle, which was
not usual. The door went down at the second blow, and no man saw me as I
fled for the bush, taking the rifle and three days' food with me. Still,
I knew it would not be well for me to remain in the country of the
English, and when no man would hire me, I took service with my last
master. Two I had were killed before him, but neither was his equal,
and I shall not find such another in all Africa--though my service is
not completed yet."
Again there was a mutual understanding between the pair, and when Dane
nodded Amadu went out softly. The story had interested and also
encouraged him, for he knew he would not be left without a helper in
what he had still to do. Now that the numbness which followed the blow
had begun to pass, there was sufficient to occupy his attention, and
Dane never closed his eyes that night. The gold won would suffice to
cover the cost of the two expeditions, and leave a balance which would
enable him to launch his invention. Dane feared that, situated where the
mine was, no company could be induced to handle it. It appeared certain
that the climate, the sicknesses, and the hostility of the natives would
between them prevent any private adventurers from working it
successfully. Nothing could be done for some months at least, until the
rains had ceased; and before morning the one white man who knew the
river's secret had decided to keep it and send no more of his countrymen
to their deaths in the Leopards' country. At the best, the mine lay in
no-man's-land, and he had not even a black ruler's doubtful concession
for reckless speculators to operate upon.
What Dane had seen and suffered had humbled his pride. Maxwell's last
news still thrilled him, and he determined he would do what might better
have been done earlier--ask the woman for whose sake he had pressed on
into that forest to wait until he had made further progress in his
legitimate profession. So far, the way was clear, but even before his
comrade left him a desire for vengeance had been growing stronger
within the survivor, and now a sullen fury filled the lonely man, who
had pledged himself to demand a full account for any breach of trust,
and had not hitherto failed his promise.
At sunrise, leaving his tent unrefreshed, he called the men together and
addressed them first collectively.
"I will take you all back to the coast, and you will receive more than
you bargained for when you get there," he said, rendering it, however,
into the seaboard tongue. "Still, as the bushmen may try to stop us on
the way, you will not start until you are rested, and I think you ready.
We may not go quite the shortest way, but no boy shall suffer for it who
serves me well."
There was an approving shout when the listeners grasped his meaning, but
Dane called Amadu and Monday aside.
"Before or after I take these boys to the coast, I have an account to
settle with Rideau. You will help me?" he said; and when he had made his
purpose plainer, a dozen of his special bodyguard came forward,
protesting their willingness to follow.
They set to work at once, and there was much to be done. Arms required
to be stripped and oiled, loads packed for transport, and Dane drilled
his men an hour or two each day. A number of days passed before all was
ready, and then the combined forces looked fit for whatever they might
have to do; their leader recognized that the work might be arduous.
It was early in the morning, and all waited for the word to march, when
Dane stood bareheaded beside a little cross on the bluff beyond the
camp. For a few moments his eyes grew misty as he glanced down at the
date and name he had painfully hacked upon it. He felt that he would
never meet the equal of the man who slept beneath.
"Good-by, comrade. You will be long remembered," he murmured thickly;
then he solemnly recorded a vow that while Rideau went free and
unpunished his own affairs would wait. Dane owed the dead man a duty,
and he had taken upon himself a pledge which he meant to discharge
thoroughly.
It was with as little parade of weapons as possible that the expedition
headed for the coast, for the men had their orders and Amadu saw they
were carried out. Those who carried matchets wore them hidden under
their cotton robes, while at times the rank and file were allowed to
straggle unchecked, with small semblance of discipline, in a drawn-out
line. The discipline, however, was there, and disaster would have
overtaken any bushmen who attempted to profit by the apparent lack of
it. Dane did not order defenses of any kind to be raised at night, and
generally had his tent pitched apart from the main camp; so that when
they had made wide detours through dense forest and reeking swamp, some
of the black men commenced to murmur as well as wonder at his
recklessness. Amadu, Monday, and the negro, Bad Dollar, with whom he
held long conferences, realized, however, that their leader was by no
means inconsistent, even if they did not know that he was to all intents
and purposes the victim of a monomania.
When it was too late forever to tell him so, he realized what his fallen
comrade had been to him; and remembering how Maxwell reached the river
camp, it was with difficulty that he refrained from breaking out into
fits of baresark rage at the thought of their third partner's
treachery. The knowledge that it was necessary to pit an intelligence
unhampered by senseless fury against the enemy's cunning alone
restrained him; for he felt that Rideau, who had probably heard by this
time of his relief, even if he did not know it earlier, would strike
again to ensure his own personal safety. He had no lack of opportunity,
but, either by accident or by judgment, for long refused to fall into
the trap, however temptingly Dane baited it.