This sudden supply of food necessitated our making camp where we were,
and cutting the meat up into strips to dry, while, apparently on the
principle of making their hay while the sun shone, the blacks lit a fire
and had a tremendous feast, both Jack Penny and I laughing heartily to
see the solemn face of Jimmy as he devoted himself to the task of
storing up an abundance of food, ready for emergencies.
At our table, as the doctor called it, we contented ourselves with the
turkey-like bird, which was delicious, but we tasted the wild pig, a
piece of which, fairly well roasted, was brought to us in the most
solicitous manner by Ti-hi, who smiled contentedly as he saw us begin to
partake thereof.
We set it aside, though, as soon as the black had gone, for the doctor
pronounced it strong and musky, and Jack Penny behaved very rudely,
according to the ordinary etiquette of the dinner table, and exclaimed:
"Oh, law!"
It was a glorious sunset, and the place where we were encamped, as we
styled it, was once more beneath a huge tree. For a time I was
listening to the birds' screams and cries from the forest, and then all
at once they ceased, and a long-drawn howl, which recalled the horrors
of our night-watch, arose from a distance. Then the sun sank, and
darkness began to come on very quickly. First the sky paled and a star
or two began to twinkle, then all above us was of a deep intense purple,
studded and encrusted with points of dazzling light, and, like the
doctor, tired out with loss of rest, I began to yawn.
For our evenings were not devoted to amusements. Our day only had two
divisions, that for work and that for rest. As soon as the arduous toil
of the day was over, and we had partaken of food, we were ready for
sleep; so this time Jack Penny was set to watch with Ti-hi and Gyp, and
we lay down on a bough-made bed.
One moment I was lying on my back gazing up at the stars, and first
thinking of my mother and how anxious she must be as to how I was
getting on; then wondering where my father was likely to be, and whether
we were going to work in the best way to find him; the next moment I was
dreaming that Gyp had run after and caught a wild man of the woods by
the tail, and had dragged him into camp, howling dismally.
It did not fit into my dream that wild men of the woods were not likely
to be possessed of tails for Gyp to tug, and if they were, that they
would have striven to crush the dog by one blow of the hand; my dream
arranged itself, and the howling was continued as I started up, all
wakefulness, and saw a dark figure bending over me and looking colossal
as seen against the ruddy light of the fire.
"Is that you, doctor?" I said.
"Yes, Joe; wake up. I want you."
"What's the matter--has that horrible thing come again?"
"No," he said; "the black is very bad."
"What! old Jimmy?" I cried.
"Yes. That is he howling."
I jumped up with a curious sensation of suffocation at my chest, for,
startled from a deep sleep into wakefulness, it occurred to me that
something dreadful was going to happen, and that we were to lose the
true-hearted, merry, boyish companion of so many years. Like a flash
there seemed to come back to me the memory of dozens of expeditions in
which he had been my faithful comrade, and this was like a death-blow to
our hopes, for, in spite of his obstinacy and arrogance, Jimmy would
have laid down his life to serve me.
"Let us go to him, doctor," I said. "Make haste!"
Our way to the black lay past the camp fire, where Jack Penny was
sitting with Ti-hi, and the former spoke excitedly as we drew near:
"I say, doctor, do make haste and give him a dose of something to do him
good, or else put him out of his misery."
"Jack!" I said in disgust.
"Well, he's awful bad, you know, and he ought to have something. Mind
how you go to him. I went just now and he began hitting at my legs with
his waddy, and then he poked at Gyp with his spear for going up to smell
him."
"He won't hurt me," I said sadly; and as another doleful cry came from
among the bushes, I led the way to where the poor fellow lay, horribly
swollen and writhing in agony.
Two of the blacks were watching him, and from what we could make out it
seemed that Jimmy had alarmed them by his restlessness, and that they
had fetched him back when he ran some distance and fell, and laid him
where he now was, in too much agony to stir.
"What is the matter with him, doctor?" I said excitedly, as I went down
on one knee and took the poor fellow's hand, which he grasped
convulsively, and laid flat directly upon his chest--at least that is to
say, nearly.
"I hardly know yet, my lad," said the doctor. "Perhaps he has eaten
some poisonous berry. You know how he tastes every wild fruit we pass."
"And will it--will it--"
I could say no more, for something seemed to choke my voice, and I
looked up imploringly in the doctor's eyes.
"Oh! no, Joe, my lad," he said kindly, "not so bad as that."
"Jimmy bad as that--Jimmy bad as that," moaned the poor fellow; and as
just then Jack Penny threw some light twigs upon the fire, the blaze
showed me the swollen and distorted countenance of my poor companion,
and a strange chill of apprehension came over me.
We watched by him all night, but he grew worse towards morning, and at
last he lay apparently stupefied, free from pain, but as if the berry,
or whatever it was that he had swallowed, had rendered him insensible.
Of course, continuing our journey was out of the question, so all we
could do was to make the rough brushwood pallet of the sufferer more
comfortable by spreading over it a blanket, and I did little else but
watch by it all the day.
I felt hurt two or three times by the rough, unfeeling manner in which
the doctor behaved towards the black, and I could not help thinking that
if Jimmy had been a white man the treatment would have been different.
This worried me a good deal, for it seemed so different to the doctor's
customary way; but I took comfort from the fact that poor Jimmy was as
insensible to pain as he was to kindness, and in this state of misery I
hardly left him all day.
Towards evening the doctor, who had spent the time overhauling and
cleaning our guns and pistols, came to me and insisted upon my going to
Jack Penny, who had just got a good meal ready.
"But I am not a bit hungry, doctor," I cried.
"Then go and eat against you are," he said. "Lay in a moderate store,
and don't," he added meaningly, "don't eat more than is good for you."
I looked at him wonderingly, and got up without a word, feeling more
hurt and annoyed with him than ever, and the more so as he looked at me
with a peculiar smile as he twisted a stout cane about in his hands.
"How's Jimmy?" said Jack Penny.
"Dying," I said sadly, as I took my seat before him.
"Oh! I say, not so bad as that, Joe Carstairs! It takes a lot to kill
a fellow like Jimmy. He'll come all right again. Here, set to and have
a good feed. You must want it awfully."
"I can't eat," I said bitterly. "I liked poor old Jimmy. A better
fellow never breathed. He saved your life yesterday."
"Ah! that he did," said Jack; "and it's all right. The doctor says--
Hullo! what's that?"
I started to my feet, for a horrible scream rang through the woods from
the direction where poor Jimmy lay; and a pang shot through me as I felt
that it was a new throe being suffered by my poor black comrade--comrade
soon to be no more.