"Why, Joe, my lad," he said at last, in a voice I did not recognise, it
was so full of emotion, "you've driven me half-wild. How could you get
in such a fix?"
"Jimmy get in big fix," said an ill-used voice. "Nobody glad to see
Jimmy."
"I'm glad to feel you," drawled a well-known voice. "I can't see you.
How are you, Joe Carstairs? Where have you been?"
"Jack, old fellow, I'm glad!" I cried, and I grasped his hands.
"That will do," said the doctor sternly. "Are the savages after you,
Joe?"
"Yes, in full pursuit, I think," I said. "But my guide. I can't leave
him."
"Your guide? Where is he?"
"I don't know. He was here just now. He brought us here."
"Jimmy-Jimmy say um goes back along," said the black. "He no top, big
fright. Gyp bite um."
"One of the blacks, Joe?" said the doctor.
"No, no!" I said, so excited that I could hardly speak coherently. "A
white man--a prisoner among the blacks--like a savage, but--"
"No, no," said Jimmy in a disgusted tone; "no like savage black
fellow-fellow. Got a dust in head. No tink a bit; all agone."
"His mind wanders, being a prisoner," I stammered. "He is with the
blacks--a prisoner--with my father."
"What?" cried the doctor.
"He has a fellow-prisoner," I faltered. "I am not sure--it must be--my
father!"
"Mass Joe find um fader all along," said the black. "Jimmy find um
too."
"Be silent!" cried the doctor. "Do I understand aright, Joe, that your
father is a prisoner with the people from whom you have escaped?"
"Yes--I think so--I am not sure--I feel it is so," I faltered.
"Humph!"
"Have you seen him?"
"No," I said. "I did not know he was there till I was escaping."
"Jimmy see um. All rightums. Find Mass Joe fader."
"You saw him, Jimmy?" I panted.
"Iss. Yes, Jimmy see him. Big long hair beard down um tummuck."
"You have seen him--the prisoner?" said the doctor.
"Yes; iss Jimmy see um. Shut up all along. Sittum down, um look at
ground all sleep, sleep like wallaby, wallaby."
"He means the poor fellow who helped us to escape," I said sadly.
"Jimmy see Mass Joe fader," cried the black indignantly. "Jimmy take um
right long show um."
"The man who brought us here?"
"No, no, no, no!" cried Jimmy, dancing with vexation. "Not, not. Jimmy
see um Mass Joe fader sit all along. See froo hole. Big long beard
down um tummuck--long hair down um back. Um shake um head so, so. Say
`hi--hi--ho--hum. Nev see home again. Ah, my wife! Ah, my boy!'"
"You heard him say that, Jimmy?" I cried, catching him by the arm.
"Jimmy sure, sure. Jimmy look froo hole. Den fro little tone an hit
um, and den black fellow come along, and Jimmy lay fas' sleep, eye shut,
no move bit."
"He has seen him, Joe," cried the doctor. "He could not have invented
that."
There was a low whining growl here again from Gyp, and Jack Penny
drawled:
"I say, sha'n't we all be made prisoners if we stop here?"
"Quick!" said the doctor; "follow me."
"And our guide?" I cried.
"We must come in search of him another time. If he has been with the
blacks for long he will know how to protect himself."
I was unwilling to leave one who had helped us in such a time of need;
but to stay meant putting ourselves beyond being able to rescue my
father, if it were really he who was our guide's fellow-prisoner. The
result, of course, was that I followed the doctor, while a snuffling
whine now and then told us that Gyp was on in front, and, in spite of
the darkness, leading the way so well that there seemed to be no
difficulty.
"Where are we going?" I said, after a pause, during which we had been
listening to the cries of the savages, which appeared to come from
several directions.
"To our hiding-place," said the doctor. "Jimmy found it before we lost
him, and we have kept to it since, so as to be near you."
"But how did you know you were near me?" I said.
"Through Gyp first. He went away time after time, and I suspected that
he had found you, so one day we followed him and he led us to the
village."
"Yes?" I said.
"Then we had to wait. I sent messages to you by him; and at last I got
your answer. To-night we were coming again to try and reach you,
perhaps get you away. We meant to try. I should not have gone back
without you, my lad," he said quietly.
The cries now seemed distant, and we went slowly on through the
darkness--slowly, for the trees were very close and it required great
care to avoid rushing against them; but the doctor seemed to have made
himself acquainted with the forest, and he did not hesitate till all at
once the shouts of the blacks seemed to come from close by upon our
right, and were answered directly from behind us.
"A party of them have worked round," whispered the doctor. "Keep cool.
They cannot know we are so near. Hist! crouch down."
We were only just in time, for hardly had we crouched down close to the
ground than the sound of the savages pushing forward from tree to tree
was heard.
I could not understand it at first, that curious tapping noise; but as
they came nearer I found that each man lightly tapped every tree he
reached, partly to avoid it, by the swinging of his waddy, partly as a
guide to companions of his position.
They came closer and closer, till it seemed that they must either see or
touch us, and I felt my heart beat in heavy dull throbs as I longed for
the rifle that these people had taken from me when they made me
prisoner.
I heard a faint rustle to my right, and I knew it was Jimmy preparing
for a spring. I heard a slight sound on my left just as the nearest
savage uttered a wild cry, and I knew that this was the lock of a gun
being cocked. Then all was silent once more.
Perhaps the savages heard the faint click, and uttered a warning, for
the tapping of the trees suddenly ceased, and not the faintest sound
could be heard.
This terrible silence lasted quite five minutes. It seemed to me like
an hour, and all the while we knew that at least a dozen armed savage
warriors were within charging distance, and that discovery meant certain
captivity, if not death.
I held my breath till I felt that when I breathed again I should utter a
loud gasp and be discovered. I dared not move to bury my face in my
hands or in the soft earth, and my sensations were becoming agonising,
when there was a sharp tap on a tree, so near that I felt the ground
quiver. The tap was repeated to right and left, accompanied by a
curious cry that sounded like "Whai--why!" and the party swept on.
"A narrow escape!" said the doctor, as we breathed freely once more.
"Go on, Gyp. Let's get to earth; we shall be safer there."
I did not understand the doctor's words then, but followed in silence,
with Jack Penny coming close up to me whenever he found the way open, to
tell me of his own affairs.
"My back's a deal better," he whispered. "I've been able to rest it
lately--waiting for you, and it makes it stronger, you know, and--"
"Silence, Penny!" said the doctor reprovingly, and Jack fell back a few
feet; and we travelled on, till suddenly, instead of treading upon the
soft decayed-leaf soil of the forest, I found that we were rustling
among bushes down a steep slope. Then we were amongst loose stones, and
as the darkness was not quite so dense I made out by sight as well as by
the soft trickling sound, that a little rivulet was close to our feet.
This we soon afterwards crossed, and bidding me stoop the doctor led the
way beneath the dense bushes for some little distance before we seemed
to climb a stony bank, and then in the intense darkness he took me by
the shoulders and backed me a few steps.
"There's quite a bed of branches there," he said aloud. "You can speak
out, we are safe here;" and pressing me down I sat upon the soft twigs
that had been gathered together, and Jack Penny came and lay down beside
me, to talk for a time and then drop off to sleep, an example I must
have followed. For all at once I started and found that it was broad
daylight, with the loud twittering song of birds coming from the bushes
at the entrance of what seemed to be a low-roofed extensive cave, whose
mouth was in the shelving bank of a great bluff which overhung a
silvery-sounding musical stream.
Some light came in from the opening; but the place was made bright by
the warm glow that came from a kind of rift right at the far end of the
cave, and through this was also wafted down the sweet forest scents.
"Jimmy's was a lucky find for us," said the doctor, when I had partaken
of the food I found they had stored there, and we had talked over our
position and the probability of my belief being correct. "It is shelter
as well as a stronghold;" and he pointed to the means he had taken to
strengthen the entrance, by making our black followers bind together the
branches of the tangled shrubs that grew about the mouth.
In the talk that ensued it was decided that we would wait a couple of
days, and then go by night and thoroughly examine the village. Jimmy
would be able to point out the hut where my father was confined, and
then if opportunity served we would bring him away, lie hidden here for
a few days till the heat of the pursuit was over, and then escape back
to the coast.
I would not own to the doctor that I had my doubts, and he owned
afterwards to me that his feeling was the same. So we both acted as if
we had for certain discovered him of whom we came in search, and waited
our time for the first venture.
It was dangerous work hunting for food at so short a distance from the
village, but our black followers, aided by Jimmy, were very successful,
their black skins protecting them from exciting surprise if they were
seen from a distance, and they brought in a good supply of fish every
day simply by damming up some suitable pool in the little stream in
whose bank our refuge was situated. This stream swarmed with fish, and
it was deep down in a gully between and arched over by trees. The bows
and arrows and Jimmy's spear obtained for us a few birds, and in
addition they could always get for us a fair supply of fruit, though not
quite such as we should have chosen had it been left to us. Roots, too,
they brought, so that with the stores we had there was not much prospect
of our starving.
In fact so satisfactory was our position in the pleasant temperate cave
that Jack Penny was in no hurry to move.
"We're just as well here as anywhere else," he said; "that is, if we had
found your father."
"And got him safe here," he added after a pause.
"And the black chaps didn't come after us," he said after a little more
thought.
"And your mother wasn't anxious about you," he said, after a little more
consideration.
"You'll find such a lot more reasons for not stopping, Jack Penny," I
said, after hearing him out, "that you'll finish by saying we had better
get our work done and return to a civilised country as soon as we can."
"Oh, I don't know!" said Jack slowly. "I don't care about civilised
countries: they don't suit me. Everybody laughs at me because I'm a bit
different, and father gives it to me precious hard sometimes. Give me
Gyp and my gun, and I should be happy enough here."
"Don't talk like that, Jack," I said in agony, as I thought of him who
had helped me to escape, and of the prisoner he had mentioned, and whom
the black professed to have seen. "Let's get our task done and escape
as soon as we can. A savage life is not for such as we."
That day we had an alarm.
Our men had been out and returned soon after sunrise, that being our
custom for safety's sake. Then, too, we were very careful about having
a fire, though we had no difficulty with it, for it burned freely, and
the smoke rose up through the great crack in the rock above our heads,
and disappeared quietly amongst the trees. But we had one or two
scares: hearing voices of the blacks calling to each other, but they
were slight compared to the alarm to which I alluded above.
The men, I say, were back, having been more successful than usual--
bringing us both fish and a small wild pig. We had made a good meal,
and the doctor and I were lying on the armfuls of leafy boughs that
formed our couch, talking for the twentieth time about our plans for the
night, when all at once, just as I was saying that with a little brave
effort we could pass right through the sleepy village and bring away the
prisoner, I laid my hand sharply on the doctor's arm.
He raised his head at the same moment, for we had both heard the
unmistakable noise given by a piece of dead twig when pressed upon by a
heavy foot.
We listened with beating hearts, trying to localise the very spot whence
the sound came; and when we were beginning to breathe more freely it
came again, but faint and distant.
"Whoever it was has not found out that we are here," I whispered.
The doctor nodded; and just then Jack Penny, who had been resting his
back, sat up and yawned loudly, ending by giving Jimmy, who was fast
asleep, a sounding slap on the back.
I felt the cold perspiration ooze out of me as I glanced at the doctor.
Then turning over on to my hands and knees I crept to where Jimmy was
threatening Jack with his waddy in much anger, and held up my hand.
The effect was magical. They were silent on the instant, but we passed
the rest of that day in agony.
"I'm glad that we decided to go to-night," the doctor said. "Whoever it
was that passed must have heard us, and we shall have the savages here
to-morrow to see what it meant."
The night seemed as if it would never come, but at last the sun went
down, and in a very short time it was dark.
Our plans were to go as near as we dared to the village as soon as
darkness set in, place our men, and then watch till the savages seemed
to be asleep, and then, by Jimmy's help, seek out my father's prison,
bring him away to the cave, and there rest for a day or two, perhaps for
several, as I have said. But the events of the day had made us doubtful
of the safety of our refuge; and, after talking the matter over with the
doctor, we both came to the conclusion that we would leave the latter
part of our plan to take care of itself.
"First catch your hare, Joe!" said the doctor finally. "And look here,
my lad; I begin to feel confident now that this prisoner is your father.
We must get him away. It is not a case of _try_! We _must_, I say;
and if anything happens to me--"
"Happens to you!" I said aghast.
"Well; I may be captured in his place!" he said smiling. "If I am,
don't wait, don't spare a moment, but get off with your prize. I don't
suppose they will do more than imprison me. I am a doctor, and perhaps
I can find some favour with them."
"Don't talk like that, doctor!" I said, grasping his hand. "We must
hold together."
"We must release your father!" he said sternly. "There, that will do."