AN EXCITING CHASE.
To say the truth, it was the very vaguest of hopes to which Mrs. Weldon
had been clinging, yet it was not without some thrill of disappointment
that she heard from the lips of old Alvez himself that Dr. Livingstone
had died at a little village on Lake Bangweolo. There had appeared to
be a sort of a link binding her to the civilized world, but it was now
abruptly snapped, and nothing remained for her but to make what terms
she could with the base and heartless Negoro.
On the 14th, the day appointed for the interview, he made his
appearance at the hut, firmly resolved to make no abatement in the
terms that he had proposed, Mrs. Weldon, on her part, being equally
determined not to yield to the demand.
"There is only one condition," she avowed, "upon which I will
acquiesce. My husband shall not be required to come up the country
here."
Negoro hesitated; at length he said that he would agree to her husband
being taken by ship to Mossamedes, a small port in the south of Angola,
much frequented by slavers, whither also, at a date hereafter to be
fixed, Alvez should send herself with Jack and Benedict; the
stipulation was confirmed that the ransom should be 100,000 dollars,
and it was further made part of the contract that Negoro should be
allowed to depart as an honest man.
Mrs. Weldon felt she had gained an important point in thus sparing her
husband the necessity of a journey to Kazonndé, and had no
apprehensions about herself on her way to Mossamedes, knowing that it
was to the interest of Alvez and Negoro alike to attend carefully to
her wants.
Upon the terms of the covenant being thus arranged, Mrs. Weldon wrote
such a letter to her husband as she knew would bring him with all speed
to Mossamedes, but she left it entirely to Negoro to represent himself
in whatever light he chose. Once in possession of the document, Negoro
lost no time in starting on his errand. The very next morning, taking
with him about twenty negroes, he set off towards the north, alleging
to Alvez as his motive for taking that direction, that he was not only
going to embark somewhere at the mouth of the Congo, but that he was
anxious to keep as far as possible from the prison-houses of the
Portuguese, with which already he had been involuntarily only too
familiar.
After his departure, Mrs. Weldon resolved to make the best of her
period of imprisonment, aware that it could hardly be less than four
months before he would return. She had no desire to go beyond the
precincts assigned her, even had the privilege been allowed her; but
warned by Negoro that Hercules was still free, and might at any time
attempt a rescue, Alvez had no thought of permitting her any
unnecessary liberty. Her life therefore soon resumed its previous
monotony.
The daily routine went on within the enclosure pretty much as in other
parts of the town, the women all being employed in various labours for
the benefit of their husbands and masters. The rice was pounded with
wooden pestles; the maize was peeled and winnowed, previously to
extracting the granulous substance for the drink which they call
_mtyellé_; the sorghum had to be gathered in, the season of its
ripening being marked by festive observances; there was a fragrant oil
to be expressed from a kind of olive named the _mpafoo_; the cotton had
to be spun on spindles, which were hardly less than a foot and a half
in length; there was the bark of trees to be woven into textures for
wearing; the manioc had to be dug up, and the cassava procured from its
roots; and besides all this, there was the preparation of the soil for
its future plantings, the usual productions of the country being the
_moritsané_ beans, growing in pods fifteen inches long upon stems
twenty feet high, the _arachides_, from which they procure a
serviceable oil, the _chilobé_ pea, the blossoms of which are used to
give a flavour to the insipid sorghum, cucumbers, of which the seeds
are roasted as chestnuts, as well as the common crops of coffee, sugar,
onions, guavas, and sesame.
To the women's lot, too, falls the manipulation of all the fermented
drinks, the _malafoo_, made from bananas, the _pombé_, and various
other liquors. Nor should the care of all the domestic animals be
forgotten; the cows that will not allow themselves to be milked unless
they can see their calf, or a stuffed representative of it; the
short-horned heifers that not unfrequently have a hump; the goats that,
like slaves, form part of the currency of the country; the pigs, the
sheep, and the poultry.
The men, meanwhile, smoke their hemp or tobacco, hunt buffaloes or
elephants, or are hired by the dealers to join in the slave-raids; the
harvest of slaves, in fact, being a thing of as regular and periodic
recurrence as the ingathering of the maize.
In her daily strolls, Mrs. Weldon would occasionally pause to watch the
women, but they only responded to her notice by a long stare or by a
hideous grimace; a kind of natural instinct made them hate a white
skin, and they had no spark of commiseration for the stranger who had
been brought among them; Halima, however, was a marked exception, she
grew more and more devoted to her mistress, and by degrees, the two
became able to exchange many sentences in the native dialect.
Jack generally accompanied his mother. Naturally enough he longed to
get outside the enclosure, but still he found considerable amusement in
watching the birds that built in a huge baobab that grew within; there
were maraboos making their nests with twigs; there were
scarlet-throated _souimangas_ with nests like weaver-birds; widow birds
that helped themselves liberally to the thatch of the huts; _calaos_
with their tuneful song; grey parrots, with bright red tails, called
_roufs_ by the Manyuema, who apply the same name to their reigning
chiefs; and insect-eating _drongos_, like grey linnets with large red
beaks. Hundreds of butterflies flitted about, especially in the
neighbourhood of the brooks; but these were more to the taste of Cousin
Benedict than of little Jack; over and over again the child expressed
his regret that he could not see over the walls, and more than ever he
seemed to miss his friend Dick, who had taught him to climb a mast, and
who he was sure would have fine fun with him in the branches of the
trees, which were growing sometimes to the height of a hundred feet.
[Illustration: The insufferable heat had driven all the residents
within the depót indoors.]
So long as the supply of insects did not fail, Benedict would have been
contented to stay on without a murmur in his present quarters. True,
without his glasses he worked at a disadvantage; but he had had the
good fortune to discover a minute bee that forms its cells in the holes
of worm-eaten wood, and a "sphex" that practises the craft of the
cuckoo, and deposits its eggs in an abode not prepared by itself.
Mosquitos abounded in swarms, and the worthy naturalist was so covered
by their stings as to be hardly recognizable; but when Mrs. Weldon
remonstrated with him for exposing himself so unnecessarily, he merely
scratched the irritated places on his skin, and said--
"It is their instinct, you know; it is their instinct."
On the 17th of June an adventure happened to him which was attended
with unexpected consequences. It was about eleven o'clock in the
morning. The insufferable heat had driven all the residents within the
dépôt indoors, and not a native was to be seen in the streets of
Kazonndé. Mrs. Weldon was dozing; Jack was fast asleep. Benedict
himself, sorely against his will, for he heard the hum of many an
insect in the sunshine, had been driven to the seclusion of his cabin,
and was falling into an involuntary siesta.
Suddenly a buzz was heard, an insect's wing vibrating some fifteen
thousand beats a second!
"A hexapod!" cried Benedict, sitting up.
Short-sighted though he was, his hearing was acute, and his perception
made him thoroughly convinced that he was in proximity to some giant
specimen of its kind. Without moving from his seat he did his utmost to
ascertain what it was; he was determined not to flinch from the
sharpest of stings if only he could get the chance of capturing it.
Presently he made out a large black speck flitting about in the few
rays of daylight that were allowed to penetrate the hut. With bated
breath he waited in eager expectation. The insect, after long hovering
above him, finally settled on his head. A smile of satisfaction played
about his lips as he felt it crawling lightly through his hair. Equally
fearful of missing or injuring it, he restrained his first impulse to
grasp it in his hand.
"I will wait a minute," he thought; "perhaps it may creep down my nose;
by squinting a little perhaps I shall be able to see it."
For some moments hope alternated with fear. There sat Benedict with
what he persuaded himself was some new African hexapod perched upon his
head, and agitated by doubts as to the direction in which it would
move. Instead of travelling in the way he reckoned along his nose,
might it not crawl behind his ears or down his neck, or, worse than
all, resume its flight in the air?
Fortune seemed inclined to favour him. After threading the entanglement
of the naturalist's hair the insect was felt to be descending his
forehead. With a fortitude not unworthy of the Spartan who suffered his
breast to be gnawed by a fox, nor of the Roman hero who plunged his
hand into the red-hot coals, Benedict endured the tickling of the six
small feet, and made not a motion that might frighten the creature into
taking wing. After making repeated circuits of his forehead, it passed
just between his eyebrows; there was a moment of deep suspense lest it
should once more go upwards; but it soon began to move again; neither
to the right nor to the left did it turn, but kept straight on over the
furrows made by the constant rubbing of the spectacles, right along the
arch of the cartilage till it reached the extreme tip of the nose. Like
a couple of movable lenses, Benedict's two eyes steadily turned
themselves inwards till they were directed to the proper point.
[Illustration: Before long the old black speck was again flitting just
above his head. _Page_ 432.]
"Good!" he whispered to himself.
He was exulting at the discovery that what he had been waiting for so
patiently was a rare specimen of the tribe of the Cicindelidæ, peculiar
to the districts of Southern Africa.
"A tuberous manticora!" he exclaimed.
The insect began to move again, and as it crawled down to the entrance
of the nostrils the tickling sensation became too much for endurance,
and Benedict sneezed. He made a sudden clutch, but of course he only
caught his own nose. His vexation was very great, but he did not lose
his composure; he knew that the manticora rarely flies very high, and
that more frequently than not it simply crawls. Accordingly he groped
about a long time on his hands and knees, and at last he found it
basking in a ray of sunshine within a foot of him. His resolution was
soon taken. He would not run the risk of crushing it by trying to catch
it, but would make his observations on it as it crawled; and so with
his nose close to the ground, like a dog upon the scent, he followed it
on all fours, admiring it and examining it as it moved. Regardless of
the heat he not only left the doorway of his hut, but continued
creeping along till he reached the enclosing palisade.
At the foot of the fence the manticora, according to the habits of its
kind, began to seek a subterranean retreat, and coming to the opening
of a mole-track entered it at once. Benedict quite thought he had now
lost sight of his prize altogether, but his surprise was very great
when he found that the aperture was at least two feet wide, and that it
led into a gallery which would admit his whole body. His momentary
feeling of astonishment, however, gave way to his eagerness to follow
up the hexapod, and he continued burrowing like a ferret.
Without knowing it, he actually passed under the palisading, and was
now beyond it;--the mole-track, in fact, was a communication that had
been made between the interior and exterior of the enclosure. Benedict
had obtained his freedom, but so far from caring in the least for his
liberty he continued totally absorbed in the pursuit upon which he had
started. He watched with unflagging vigilance, and it was only when the
hexapod expanded its wings as if for flight that he prepared to
imprison it in the hollow of his hand.
All at once, however, he was taken by surprise; a whizz and a whirr and
the prize was gone!
Disappointed rather than despairing, Benedict raised himself up, and
looked about him. Before long the old black speck was again flitting
just above his head. There was every reason to hope that it would
ultimately settle once more upon the ground, but on this side of the
palisade there was a large forest a little way to the north, and if the
manticora were to get into its mass of foliage all hope of keeping it
in view would be lost, and there would be an end of the proud
expectation of storing it in the tin box, to be preserved among the
rest of the entomological wonders.
After a while the insect descended to the earth; it did not rest at
all, nor crawl as it had done previously, but made its advance by a
series of rapid hops. This made the chase for the near-sighted
naturalist a matter of great difficulty; he put his face as close to
the ground as possible, and kept starting off and stopping and starting
off again with his arms extended like a swimming frog, continually
making frantic clutches to find as continually that his grasp had been
eluded.
After running till he was out of breath, and scratching his hands
against the brushwood and the foliage till they bled, he had the
mortification of feeling the insect dash past his ear with what might
be a defiant buzz, and finding that it was out of sight for ever.
"Ungrateful hexapod!" he cried in dismay, "I intended to honour you
with the best place in my collection."
[Illustration: For that day at least Cousin Benedict had lost his
chance of being the happiest of entomologists. _Page 435._]
He knew not what to do, and could not reconcile himself to the loss; he
reproached himself for not having secured the manticora at the first;
he gazed at the forest till he persuaded himself he could see the
coveted insect in the distance, and, seized with a frantic impulse,
exclaimed,--
"I will have you yet!"
He did not even yet realize the fact that he had gained his liberty,
but heedless of everything except his own burning disappointment, and
at the risk of being attacked by natives or beset by wild beasts, he
was just on the very point of dashing into the heart of the wood when
suddenly a giant form confronted him, as suddenly a giant hand seized
him by the nape of his neck, and, lifting him up, carried him off with
apparently as little exertion as he could himself have carried off his
hexapod!
For that day at least Cousin Benedict had lost his chance of being the
happiest of entomologists.