NATIVE DOINGS, AND A CRUEL MURDER--JIM SCROGGLES SEES WONDERS, AND HAS A
TERRIBLE ADVENTURE.
It took two whole days and nights to restore Ailie to her wonted
cheerful state of mind, after she had witnessed the death of the
gazelle. But although she sang and laughed, and enjoyed herself as much
as ever, she experienced the presence of a new and strange feeling, that
ever after that day, tinged her thoughts and influenced her words and
actions.
The child had for the first time in her life experienced one of those
rude shocks--one of those rough contacts with the stern realities of
life which tend to deepen and intensify our feelings. The mind does not
always grow by slow, imperceptible degrees, although it usually does so.
There are periods in the career of every one when the mind takes, as it
were, a sharp run and makes a sudden and stupendous jump out of one
region of thought into another in which there are things new as well as
old.
The present was such an occasion to little Ailie Dunning. She had
indeed seen bloody work before, in the cutting-up of a whale. But
although she had been told it often enough, she did not _realise_ that
whales have feelings and affections like other creatures. Besides, she
had not witnessed the actual killing of the whale; and if she had, it
would probably have made little impression on her beyond that of
temporary excitement--not even that, perhaps, had her father been by her
side. But she _sympathised_ with the gazelle. It was small, and
beautiful, and lovable. Her heart had swelled the moment she saw it,
and she had felt a longing desire to run up to it and throw her arms
round its soft neck, so that, when she saw it suddenly struggling and
crushed in the tremendous jaws of the horrible crocodile, every tender
feeling in her breast was lacerated; every fibre of her heart trembled
with a conflicting gush of the tenderest pity and the fiercest rage.
From that day forward new thoughts began to occupy her mind, and old
ideas presented themselves in different aspects.
We would not have the reader suppose, for a moment, that Ailie became an
utterly changed creature. To an unobservant eye--such as that of Jim
Scroggles, for instance--she was the same in all respects a few days
after as she had been a few hours before the event. But new elements
had been implanted in her breast, or rather, seeds which had hitherto
lain dormant were now caused to burst forth into plants by the All-wise
Author of her being. She now _felt_ for the first time--she could not
tell why--that enjoyment was _not_ the chief good in life.
Of course she did not argue or think out all this clearly and
methodically to herself. Her mind, on most things, material as well as
immaterial, was very much what may be termed a jumble; but undoubtedly
the above processes of reasoning and feeling, or something like them,
were the result to Ailie of the violent death of that little gazelle.
The very next day after this sad event the travellers came to a native
village, at which they stayed a night, in order to rest and procure
fresh provisions. The trader was well-known at this village, but the
natives, all of whom were black, of course, and nearly naked, had never
seen a little white girl before, so that their interest in and wonder at
Ailie were quite amusing to witness. They crowded round her, laughing
and exclaiming and gesticulating in a most remarkable manner, and taking
special notice of her light-brown glossy hair, which seemed to fill them
with unbounded astonishment and admiration; as well it might, for they
had never before seen any other hair except the coarse curly wool on
their own pates, and the long lank hair of the trader, which happened to
be coarse and black.
The child was at first annoyed by the attentions paid her, but at last
she became interested in the sooty little naked children that thronged
round her, and allowed them to handle her as much as they pleased, until
her father led her to the residence of the chief or king of the tribe.
Here she was well treated, and she began quite to like the people who
were so kind to her and her friends. But she chanced to overhear a
conversation between the doctor and Tim Rokens, which caused her
afterwards to shrink from the negroes with horror.
She was sitting on a bank picking wild-flowers some hours after the
arrival of her party, and teaching several black children how to make
necklaces of them, when the doctor and Rokens happened to sit down
together at the other side of a bush which concealed her from their
view. Tim was evidently excited, for the tones of his voice were loud
and emphatic.
"Yes," he said, in reply to some questions put to him by the doctor;
"yes, I seed 'em do it, not ten minutes agone, with my own two eyes.
Oh! but I would like to have 'em up in a row--every black villain in the
place--an' a cutlass in my hand, an'--an' wouldn't I whip off their
heads? No, I wouldn't; oh, no, by no means wotiver."
There was something unusually fierce in Rokens' voice that alarmed
Ailie.
"I was jist takin' a turn," continued the sailor, "down by the creek
yonder, when I heerd a great yellin' goin' on, and saw the trader in the
middle of a crowd o' black fellows, a-shakin' his fists; so I made sail,
of course, to lend a hand if he'd got into trouble. He was scoldin'
away in the native lingo, as if he'd bin a born nigger.
"`Wot's all to do?' says I.
"`They're goin' to kill a little boy,' says he, quite fierce like,
`'cause they took it into their heads he's bewitched.'
"An' sayin' that, he sot to agin in the other lingo, but the king came
up an' told him that the boy had to be killed 'cause he had a devil in
him, and had gone and betwitched a number o' other people; an' before he
had done speakin', up comes two fellers, draggin' the poor little boy
between them. The king axed him if he wos betwitched, and the little
chap--from sheer fright, I do believe--said he wos. Of coorse I
couldn't understand 'em, but the trader explained it all arter. Well,
no sooner had he said that, than they all gave a yell, and rushed upon
the poor boy with their knives, and cut him to pieces. It's as sure as
I'm sittin' here," cried Rokens, savagely, as his wrath rose again at
the bare recital of the terrible deed he had witnessed. "I would ha'
knocked out the king's brains there and then, but the trader caught my
hand, and said, in a great fright, that if I did, it would not only cost
me my life, but likely the whole party; so that cooled me, and I come
away; an' I'm goin' to ax the captin wot we shud do."
"We can do nothing," said the doctor sadly. "Even suppose we were
strong enough to punish them, what good would it do? We can't change
their natures. They are superstitious, and are firmly persuaded they
did right in killing that poor boy."
The doctor pondered for a few seconds, and then added, in a low voice,
as if he were weighing the meaning of what he said: "Clergymen would
tell us that nothing can deliver them from this bondage save a knowledge
of the true God and of His Son Jesus Christ; that the Bible might be the
means of curing them, if Bibles were only sent, and ministers to preach
the gospel."
"Then why ain't Bibles sent to 'em at once?" asked Rokens, in a tone of
great indignation, supposing that the doctor was expressing his own
opinion on the subject. "Is there nobody to look arter these matters in
Christian lands?"
"Oh, yes, there are many Bible Societies, and both Bibles and
missionaries have been sent to this country; but it's a large one, and
the societies tell us their funds are limited."
"Then why don't they git more funds?" continued Rokens, in the same
indignant tone, as his mind still dwelt upon the miseries and wickedness
that he had seen, and that _might_ be prevented; "why don't they git
more funds, and send out heaps o' Bibles, an' no end o' missionaries?"
"Tim Rokens," said the doctor, looking earnestly into his companion's
face, "if I were one of the missionaries, I might ask you how much money
_you_ ever gave to enable societies to send Bibles and missionaries to
foreign lands?"
Tim Rokens was for once in his life completely taken aback. He was by
nature a stolid man, and not easily put out. He was a shrewd man, too,
and did not often commit himself. When he did, he was wont to laugh at
himself, and so neutralise the laugh raised against him. But here was a
question that was too serious for laughter, and yet one which he could
not answer without being self-condemned. He looked gravely in the
doctor's face for two minutes without speaking; then he heaved a deep
sigh, and said slowly, and with a pause between each word--
"Doctor Hopley--I--never--gave--a--rap--in--all--my--life."
"So then, my man," said the doctor, smiling, "you're scarcely entitled
to be indignant with others."
"Wot you remark, doctor, is true; I--am--not."
Having thus fully and emphatically condemned himself, and along with
himself all mankind who are in a similar category, Tim Rokens relapsed
into silence, deliberately drew forth his pipe, filled it, lit it, and
began to smoke.
None of the party of travellers slept well that night, except perhaps
the trader, who was accustomed to the ways of the negroes, and King
Bumble, who had been born and bred in the midst of cruelties. Most of
them dreamed of savage orgies, and massacres of innocent children, so
that when daybreak summoned them to resume their journey, they arose and
embarked with alacrity, glad to get away from the spot.
During that day and the next they saw a great number of crocodiles and
hippopotami, besides strange birds and plants innumerable. The doctor
filled his botanical-box to bursting. Ailie filled her flower-basket to
overflowing. Glynn hit a crocodile on the back with a bullet, and
received a lazy stare from the ugly creature in return, as it waddled
slowly down the bank on which it had been lying, and plumped into the
river. The captain assisted Ailie to pluck flowers when they landed,
which they did from time to time, and helped to arrange and pack them
when they returned to the canoe. Tim Rokens did nothing particularly
worthy of record; but he gave utterance to an immense number of
sententious and wise remarks, which were listened to by Bumble with deep
respect, for that sable gentleman had taken a great fancy for the bold
harpooner, and treasured up all his sayings in his heart.
Phil Briant distinguished himself by shooting an immense serpent, which
the doctor, who cut off and retained its head, pronounced to be an
anaconda. It was full twenty feet long; and part of the body was cut
up, roasted, and eaten by Bumble and the trader, though the others
turned from it with loathing.
"It be more cleaner dan one pig, anyhow," remarked Bumble, on observing
the disgust of his white friends; "an' you no objic' to eat dat."
"Clainer than a pig, ye spalpeen!" cried Phil Briant; "that only shows
yer benighted haithen ignerance. Sure I lived in the same cabin wid a
pig for many a year--not not to mintion a large family o' cocks and
hens--an' a clainer baste than that pig didn't stop in that cabin."
"That doesn't say much for your own cleanliness, or that of your
family," remarked Glynn.
"Och! ye've bin to school, no doubt, haven't ye?" retorted Phil.
"I have," replied Glynn.
"Shure I thought so. It's there ye must have larned to be so oncommon
cliver. Don't you iver be persuaded for to go to school, Bumble, if ye
iver git the chance. It's a mighty lot o' taichin' they'd give ye, but
niver a taste o' edication. Tin to wan, they'd cram ye till ye turned
white i' the face, an' that wouldn't suit yer complexion, ye know, King
Bumble, be no manes."
As for the trader, he acted interpreter when the party fell in with
negroes, and explained everything that puzzled them, and told them
anecdotes without end about the natives and the wild creatures, and the
traffic of the regions through which they passed. In short, he made
himself generally useful and agreeable.
But the man who distinguished himself most on that trip was Jim
Scroggles. That lanky individual one day took it into his wise head to
go off on a short ramble into the woods alone. He had been warned by
the trader, along with the rest of the party, not to venture on such a
dangerous thing; but being an absent man the warning had not reached his
intellect although it had fallen on his ear. The party were on shore
cooking dinner when he went off, without arms of any kind, and without
telling whither he was bound. Indeed, he had no defined intentions in
his own mind. He merely felt inclined for a ramble, and so went away,
intending to be back in half-an-hour or less.
But Jim Scroggles had long legs and loved locomotion. Moreover, the
woods were exceedingly beautiful and fragrant, and comparatively cool:
for it happened to be the coolest season of the year in that sultry
region, else the party of Europeans could not have ventured to travel
there at all.
Wandering along beneath the shade of palm-trees and large-leaved shrubs
and other tropical productions, with his hands in his breeches pockets,
and whistling a variety of popular airs, which must have not a little
astonished the monkeys and birds and other creatures--such of them, at
least, as had any taste for or knowledge of music--Jim Scroggles
penetrated much farther into the wilds than he had any intention of
doing. There is no saying how far, in his absence of mind, he might
have wandered, had he not been caught and very uncomfortably entangled
in a mesh-work of wild vines and thorny plants that barred his further
progress.
Jim had encountered several such before in his walk, but had forced his
way through without more serious damage than a rent or two in his shirt
and pantaloons, and several severe scratches to his hands and face; but
Scroggles had lived a hard life from infancy, and did not mind
scratches. Now, however, he could not advance a step, and it was only
by much patient labour and by the free use of his clasp-knife, that he
succeeded at length in releasing himself. He left a large portion of
one of the legs of his trousers and several bits of skin on the bushes,
as a memorial of his visit to that spot.
Jim's mind was awoken to the perception of three facts--namely, that he
had made himself late for dinner; that he would be the means of
detaining his party; and that he had lost himself.
Here was a pretty business! Being a man of slow thought and much
deliberation, he sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree, and looking up,
as men usually do when soliloquising, exclaimed--
"My eye, here's a go! Wot is to be done?"
A very small monkey, with an uncommonly wrinkled and melancholy cast of
visage, which chanced to be seated on a branch hard by, peering down at
the lost mariner, replied--
"O! o-o-o, O! o-o!" as much as to say, "Ah, my boy, that's just the
question."
Jim Scroggles shook his head, partly as a rebuke to the impertinent
little monkey and partly as an indication of the hopelessness of his
being able to return a satisfactory answer to his own question.
At last he started up, exclaiming, "Wotever comes on it, there's no use
o' sitting here," and walked straight forward at a brisk pace. Then he
suddenly stopped, shook his head again, and said, "If I goes on like
this, an' it shud turn out to be the wrong course arter all--wot'll come
on't?"
Being as unable to answer this question as the former, he thrust both
hands into his pockets, looked at the ground and began to whistle. When
he looked up again he ceased whistling very abruptly, and turned deadly
pale--perhaps we should say yellow. And no wonder, for there, straight
before him, not more than twenty yards off, stood a creature which, to
his ignorant eyes, appeared to be a fiend incarnate, but which was in
reality a large-sized and very ancient sheego monkey.
It stood in an upright position like a man, and was above four feet
high. It had a bald head, grey whiskers, and an intensely black
wrinkled face, and, at the moment Jim Scroggles' eyes encountered it,
that face was working itself into such a variety of remarkable and
hideous contortions that no description, however graphic, could convey a
correct notion of it to the reader's mind. Seen behind the bars of an
iron cage it might, perhaps, have been laughable; but witnessed as it
was, in the depths of a lonely forest, it was appalling.
Jim Scroggles' knees began to shake. He was fascinated with horror.
The huge ape was equally fascinated with terror. It worked its wrinkled
visage more violently than ever. Jim trembled all over. In another
second the sheego displayed not only all its teeth--and they were
tremendous--but all its gums, and they were fearful to behold, besides
being scarlet. Roused to the utmost pitch of fear, the sheego uttered a
shriek that rang through the forest like a death-yell. This was the
culminating point. Jim Scroggles turned and fled as fast as his long
and trembling legs could carry him.
The sheego, at the same instant, was smitten with an identically similar
impulse. It turned, uttered another yell, and fled in the opposite
direction; and thus the two ran until they were both out of breath.
What became of the monkey we cannot tell; but Jim Scroggles ran at
headlong speed straight before him, crashing through brake and bush, in
the full belief that the sheego was in hot pursuit, until he came to a
mangrove swamp; here his speed was checked somewhat, for the trees grew
in a curious fashion that merits special notice.
Instead of rising out of the ground, the mangroves rose out of a sea of
mud, and the roots stood up in a somewhat arched form, supporting their
stem, as it were, on the top of a bridge. Thus, had the ground beneath
been solid, a man might have walked _under_ the roots. In order to
cross the swamp, Jim Scroggles had to leap from root to root--a feat
which, although difficult, he would have attempted without hesitation.
But Jim was agitated at that particular moment. His step was uncertain
at a time when the utmost coolness was necessary. At one point the leap
from one root to the next was too great for him. He turned his eye
quickly to one side to seek a nearer stem; in doing so he encountered
the gaze of a serpent. It was not a large one, probably about ten feet
long, but he knew it to be one whose bite was deadly. In the surprise
and fear of the moment he took the long leap, came short of the root by
about six inches, and alighted up to the waist in the soft mud.
Almost involuntarily he cast his eyes behind him, and saw neither sheego
nor serpent. He breathed more freely, and essayed to extricate himself
from his unpleasant position. Stretching out his hands to the root
above his head, he found that it was beyond his reach. The sudden fear
that this produced caused him to make a violent struggle, and in his
next effort he succeeded in catching a twig; it supported him, for a
moment, then broke, and he fell back again into the mud. Each
successive struggle only sank him deeper. As the thick adhesive
semi-liquid clung to his lower limbs and rose slowly on his chest, the
wretched man uttered a loud cry of despair. He felt that he was brought
suddenly face to face with death in its most awful form. The mud was
soon up to his arm-pits. As the hopelessness of his condition forced
itself upon him, he began to shout for help until the dark woods
resounded with his cries; but no help came, and the cold drops of sweat
stood upon his brow as he shrieked aloud in agony, and prayed for mercy.