Night Alarms
In the course of an hour or two Mr. Martindale's canoe reached the
camp, on a piece of rising ground immediately above the river. Here he
found the rest of his party--some fifty strong West African
natives--the three canoes in which they had come up stream lying nose
to stern along the low bank, only the first being moored, the others
roped to it.
The party had reached the spot three days before, and were resting
after the fatigues of their journey. These had been by no means
slight, for the men had had to haul the canoes through the rapids, and
sometimes to make portages for a considerable distance. Fortunately
the canoes were not heavily laden. They contained merely a good stock
of food, and a few simple mining tools. This was only a prospecting
trip, as Mr. Martindale was careful to explain before leaving Boma.
His friend Barnard's instructions had been clear enough. The discovery
had been accidental. Coming one day, in the course of his wanderings,
to the village of Ilola, he happened to learn that the chief's son was
down with fever. The villagers had been somewhat unfriendly, and
Barnard was not loth to purchase their goodwill by doing what he could
for the boy. He cured the fever. The chief, like most of the negroes
of Central Africa, had strong family affections, and was eager to give
some practical token of his gratitude for his son's recovery. When
taking the boy's pulse, Barnard had timed the beats by means of his
gold repeater. The chief looked on in wonderment, believing that the
mysterious sounds he heard from the watch were part of the stranger's
magic. When the cure was complete, he asked Barnard to present him
with the magic box; but the American made him understand by signs that
he could not give it away; besides, it was useful only to the white
man. Whereupon the chief had a happy thought. If the yellow metal was
valuable, his friend and benefactor would like to obtain more of it.
There was plenty to be found within a short distance of the village.
The chief would tell him where it was, but him alone, conditionally.
He must promise that if he came for it, or sent any one for it, the
people of Ilola should not be injured; for every month brought news
from afar of the terrible things that were done by the white men in
their hunt for rubber. Perhaps the same might happen if white men came
to look for gold.
Barnard gave the chief the desired assurance, undertaking that no harm
should come to him or his people if he showed where the gold was to be
found. The American was then led across a vast stretch of swampy
ground to a rugged hill some three or four miles from Ilola. Through a
deep fissure in the hillside brawled a rapid stream, and in its sandy
bed the traveller discerned clear traces of the precious metal.
Barnard explained to Mr. Martindale that Ilola was several days'
journey above the rapids on the Lemba, a sub-tributary of the Congo,
and provided him with a rough map on which he had traced the course of
the streams he would have to navigate to reach it. But even without
the map it might be found without much difficulty: its name was well
known among the natives along the upper reaches of the river, the chief
being lord of several villages.
So far Mr. Martindale's journey had been without a hitch, and he was
now within three or four days of his destination. It was the custom of
the party to stay at night in or near a native village. There a hut
could usually be got for the white men, and Barnard had told them that
a hut was for many reasons preferable to a tent. Sudden storms were
not infrequent in these latitudes, especially at night--a tent might be
blown or washed away almost without warning, while a well-built native
hut would stand fast. Moreover, a tent is at the best uncomfortably
hot and close; a hut is more roomy, and the chinks in the matting of
which its sides commonly consist allow a freer passage of air. The
floor too is dry and hard, often raised above the ground outside; and
the roof, made of bamboo and thatched with palm leaves and coarse
grasses, is rain-tight.
Up to the present Mr. Martindale had met with nothing but friendliness
from the natives, and a hut had always been at his disposal. But he
had now reached a part of the river where the people knew white men
only by hearsay, and could not distinguish between inoffensive
travellers and the grasping agents whose cruelty rumour was spreading
through the land. The people of the village where he wished to put up
for this night were surly and suspicious, and he decided for once to
sleep in his tent on the river bank instead of in a hut.
The party had barely finished their evening meal when the sun sank, and
in a few minutes all was dark. Samba had been handed over to Barney,
whose hospital experience enabled him to tend the boy's wound with no
little dexterity, and the boy went happily to sleep in Barney's tent,
his arm round Pat's neck. Jack shared his uncle's tent. He had been
somewhat excited by the scenes and events of the day, and did not fall
asleep the moment he lay down, as he usually did. The tent was very
warm and stuffy; the mosquitoes found weak spots in his curtains and
sought diligently for unexplored regions of his skin, until he found
the conditions intolerable. He got up, envying his uncle, who was
sound asleep, his snores vying with the distant roars of hippopotami in
the river. Taking care not to disturb him, Jack stepped out of the
hut, and understood at once why the air was so oppressive. A storm was
brewing. Everything was still, as if weighed down by some monstrous
incubus. Ever and anon the indigo sky was cut across by steel-blue
flashes of forked lightning, and thunder rumbled far away.
Jack sauntered on, past Barney's tent, towards the river bank,
listening to noises rarely heard by day--the grunt of hippopotami, the
constant rasping croak of frogs, the lesser noises of birds and insects
among the reeds. The boatmen and other natives of the party were a
hundred yards away, beyond the tents he had just left. Sometimes they
would chatter till the small hours, but to-night they were silent,
sleeping heavily after their toil.
He came to a little eminence, from which he could look down towards the
stream. Everything was black and indistinguishable. But suddenly, as
a jagged flash of lightning momentarily lit the scene, he fancied he
caught a glimpse of a figure moving below, about the spot where the
nearest of the canoes was moored. Was it a wild beast, he wondered,
prowling for food? Or perhaps his eyes had deceived him? He moved a
little forward; carefully, for the blackness of night seemed deeper
than ever. Another flash! He had not been mistaken; it was a figure,
moving on one of the canoes--a human form, a man, stooping, with a
knife in his hand! What was he doing? Once more for an instant the
lightning lit up the river, and as by a flash Jack guessed the man's
purpose: he was about to cut the mooring rope!
Jack's first impulse was to shout; but in a moment he saw that a sudden
alarm might cause the natives of his party to stampede. The intruder
was alone, and a negro; Why not try to capture him? Jack was ready
with his hands: his muscles were in good order; he could wrestle and
box, and, as became a boy of Tom Brown's school, fight. True, the man
had a knife; but with the advantage of surprise on his side Jack felt
that the odds were fairly equal. He stole down the slope to the
waterside, hoping that the darkness would remain unbroken until he had
stalked his man. A solitary bush at the very brink gave him cover;
standing behind it, almost touching the sleeping sentry who should have
been guarding the canoes, Jack could just see the dark form moving from
the first canoe to the second.
He waited until the man bent over to cut the connecting rope; then with
three long silent leaps he gained the side of the foremost canoe, which
was almost resting on the bank in just sufficient water to float her.
The man had already made two or three slashes at the rope when he heard
Jack's splash in the shallow water. With a dexterous twist of his body
he eluded Jack's clutch, and swinging round aimed with his knife a
savage blow at his assailant. Jack felt a stinging pain in the fleshy
part of the thigh, and, hot with rage, turned to grapple with the
negro. His fingers touched a greasy skin; the man drew back, wriggled
round, and prepared to leap overboard. At the moment when he made his
spring Jack flung out his hands to catch him. He was just an instant
too late; the negro had splashed into the shallow water on the far side
of the canoe, and disappeared into the inky blackness beyond, leaving
in Jack's hands a broken string, with a small round object dangling
from the end. At the same moment there was a heavy thwack against the
side of the canoe; and Jack, mindful of crocodiles, bolted up the bank.
He turned after a few yards, shuddering to think that the man had
perhaps escaped him only to fall a victim to this most dreaded scourge
of African rivers. But if he was indeed in the jaws of a crocodile he
was beyond human help. He listened for a time, but could detect no
sound betraying the man's presence. Pursuit, he knew, was useless.
Except when the lightning flashed he could scarcely see a yard beyond
him.
[Illustration: A midnight encounter]
Jack did not care to disturb his uncle. He went round the camp, found
Nando with some difficulty in the darkness, and ordered him to send ten
of the crew to occupy the canoes for the rest of the night. Then he
went back to his tent, bound up his wound, and stretched himself on his
mattress. He lay awake for a time, wondering what motive the intruder
could have for damaging the expedition. At last, from sheer weariness,
he dropped off into a troubled sleep in which he was conscious of a
deluge of rain that descended upon the camp.
The morning however broke clear. Jack told his uncle what had occurred.
"Humph!" grunted Mr. Martindale. "What's the meaning of it, I wonder?"
"Do you think it was a move of that Belgian fellow, uncle?"
"Mr. Elbel? No, I don't. He has no reason for interfering with us.
I've bought the rights from his company, and as they'll get royalties
on all the gold I find, he's not such a fool as to hinder us."
"But Samba, uncle?"
"Bah! He was egged on to demand the boy by that villainous-looking
nigger, and his dignity being a trifle upset, he thought he'd try it on
with us. No, I don't think he was at the bottom of it. I've always
heard that these niggers are arrant thieves; the villagers were
unfriendly, you remember, and most likely 'twas one of them who took a
fancy to our canoes. Glad you frightened him off, anyway. What about
your wound?"
"It's nothing to speak of--a slight flesh wound. I washed it with alum
solution, and don't think it will give me any bother."
"Lucky it's no worse. We'll set a careful watch every night after
this. And take my advice: if you can't sleep, don't go prowling about;
it isn't safe in these parts. Try my dodge; shut your eyes and imagine
you see forty thousand sheep jumping a patent boundary fence in single
file; or if that don't work, say to yourself: 'How much wood would a
woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck would chuck wood?'--and keep on saying
it. I've never known it fail."
"Perhaps it's a good job I didn't know it last night," replied Jack,
laughing. "We should have been minus four canoes."
"And all our stores. But don't do it again, there's a good fellow.
I've paid double passage, and I don't want to go home alone."
The camp was by this time astir. The natives, chattering like monkeys,
were busily preparing their breakfast. Barney was engaged in a like
service for the white men, and Samba proved himself to be an adept at
cleaning the fish which some of the men had caught in the early morning.
"Sure an' he'll be a treasure, sorr," said Barney, as he handed Mr.
Martindale his cup of tea and plate of broiled fish.
"Is the boy getting better?"
"As fast as he can, sorr. 'Twas want uv food more than wounds that was
wrong wid him. All he really needs is a dish uv good honest murphies
twice a day, and sorry I am they do not grow in this haythen counthry."
It was one of Barney's crosses that the only potatoes obtainable _en
route_ were the sweet variety. Mr. Martindale rather liked them--a
weakness which Barney regarded with sorrow as an injustice to Ireland.
Breakfast finished, the canoes were manned and the expedition resumed
its journey. Samba kept the negroes amused with his songs and chatter
and clever imitations of the cries of birds and beasts. His restless
eyes seemed to miss nothing of the scenes along the river. He would
point to what appeared to be a log cast up on the sand and exclaim
"Nkoli!" and utter shrill screams: and the log would perhaps disappear,
leaving no trace, or move and open a sleepy eye, and Barney ejaculate,
"A crocodile, by all the holy powers!" Once he drew Jack's attention
to a greenish lizard, some eight inches long, creeping down an ant-hill
towards a tiny shrew mouse. Spying the enemy, the little creature
darted down the slope, and took a header into the water; but the lizard
came close upon its heels, sprang after it, and dragged it down into
the deep.
"And what do you make of this?" said Jack suddenly, showing Samba the
amulet he had torn from the neck of the midnight marauder. The boy
started, stared at the piece of bone, looked up in Jack's face and
exclaimed--
"Bokun'oka fafa!"[1]
"Him say belong him uncle," Nando interpreted.
Samba spoke rapidly to Nando.
"Him say belong berrah bad uncle on smoke-boat, sah. Him say how massa
get him?"
Jack related the incident of the night, Nando translating to the boy,
who listened gravely, but smiled at the end.
"Why does he smile?" asked Jack.
"He say him uncle no lib for good any more: lost medicine ring; he no
fit for do bad fings any more: get cotched ebery time."
"Begorra, sorr, 'tis like me very own uncle Tim, who niver had a day's
luck after he lost the lucky sixpence given to 'm by a ginerous kind
gentleman for holding a horse in Sackville Street whin he was a bhoy.
He had always been unlucky before that, sorr, and sure the lucky
sixpence would have made a rich man uv him in time; but he lost it the
very same day, sorr, and had no luck at all at all."
"Well," said Mr. Martindale, laughing, "if the loss of this amulet
means that the owner will never succeed in any tricks against us, I
congratulate you, Jack. Will you wear it yourself?"
"No, uncle; I'll give it to Samba."
But Samba, when the charm was given to him, looked at it seriously for
a moment, then his face broke into a beaming smile as he slipped the
string about Pat's neck.
"Mbua end' olotsi!"[2] he cried, clapping his hands.
Pat barked with pleasure and licked the boy's face.
"They're great chums already," remarked Mr. Martindale pleasantly, as
he bit the end off a cigar.
That evening, when the time for camping came, there was no village in
sight from the river, and Nando reported that the nearest lay too far
from the stream to suit his employer. The banks were thickly wooded,
and it appeared as if there would be some difficulty in finding a space
sufficiently clear for a camp. But at last the travellers came to a
spot where a stretch of level grassland ran wedge-like into the
vegetation. At one end the ground rose gradually until it formed a
bluff overhanging the river at a considerable height. This seemed as
favourable a place as was likely to be discovered, and here the camp
was pitched, the evening meal was eaten, and the travellers sought
repose.
The night was very dark, and deep silence brooded over the
encampment--such silence as the dweller in towns can never know. Not
even the shriek of a nocturnal monkey or the splash of a fish pursued
by a crocodile broke the stillness. Every member of the party was
asleep. But all at once, Samba, lying just within the flap-door of
Barney O'Dowd's tent, one arm pillowing his head, the other clasping
the terrier, was disturbed by a low whine. He was awake in an instant.
He had never heard Pat whine; the dog barked at everything; why had he
changed his manner of speech? Samba got up: Pat had left him and stood
in the entrance to the tent; the whine had become a growl. The boy
followed him, stooped and felt in the dark for his head, then lifted
him in his arms and went out, laying a hand on the dog's muzzle to
silence him. Like other terriers, Pat objected to be carried.
The whine had wakened Barney also; Pat and he had passed many a night
together. He heard the slight sound made by Samba's departure, and
rising, went out in his stockings to follow him. He walked a few yards
in the direction he supposed Samba to have taken; but it was too dark
to see him, and neither boy nor dog made any further sound. Barney
retraced his steps, and, wandering a little from the way he had come,
stumbled over the sleeping body of one of the men placed as sentinels.
He gave him a kick.
"Get up, you varmint!" he cried. "Is that the fashion uv keeping
gyard?"
But as soon as he had passed on the man rolled over, gave a grunt, and
was fast asleep again.
Meanwhile Samba had walked on towards the river bank, stopping at
intervals to listen. He heard nothing; not even the usual nightly
sounds came to him; the surrounding forest seemed asleep. But
suddenly, Pat became restless and uttered a rumbling growl. Samba held
him close and whispered to him, and the dog apparently understood, for
the growl ceased. Then Samba caught the faint sound of paddles
up-stream--a sound so familiar to him that he could not be mistaken.
He crept cautiously along, up the gradual ascent, until he came near
the summit of the overhanging cliff. Moving stealthily to the edge he
peered over; but in the blackness he could see nothing. The sound had
ceased.
Feeling his way carefully with his bare feet, Samba slowly made his way
down the grassy cliff until he came near the water's edge, then crept
along the bank up stream. Again Pat uttered his low growl, but was
instantly silent in response to the boy's whispered warning. Samba
seemed to find his way by instinct over the uneven ground. Now and
again he heard a beast scurry away at his approach and rustle through
the bushes or plunge into the river; but he was not afraid: there was
little risk of encountering a dangerous animal, and he was too far
above the sandy level to stumble upon a crocodile lying in wait.
He went on steadily. It was not a native custom to move about in the
dark hours, and, remembering what had happened the night before, he was
intent upon discovering the business of the mysterious paddlers. After
Pat's last smothered growl he proceeded more cautiously than ever. At
last the sound of low voices ahead made him halt. Whispering again to
Pat, who licked his hand as if to reassure him, he set the dog down and
crept forward again, bending low, and taking care, dark as it was, to
avail himself of every bush for cover. To judge by the voices, a large
number of men must have gathered at some point not far ahead. He drew
still nearer. All at once he halted again, and laid a hand on Pat's
neck. Among the voices he had distinguished one that he knew only too
well: it was that of his uncle Boloko. He stood rooted to the spot
with dismay.
A few minutes later his quick ears caught the sound of men moving off
at right angles to the river in a direction that would enable them to
skirt the cliff and come upon the sleeping camp through the forest in
its rear. In a flash he saw through their scheme. Bidding Pat in a
whisper to follow him, he turned and hurried back, climbing the face of
the cliffs with a panther's surefootedness, and racing along at his top
speed as soon as he came to the downward slope. With Pat at his heels
he dashed into Barney's tent.
"Etumba! Etumba!"[3] he exclaimed breathlessly. "Ba-lofundu bao
ya!"[4]
And Pat chimed in with three rapid barks.
[1] My father's younger brother.
[2] Good dog!
[3] Fight! (the natives' alarm signal).
[4] The villains are upon us!