A Revolt at Ilola
Every day since the advent of Elbel, Jack had been conscious of the
growing danger of his position. A negro village, in the grip of rubber
collectors; adjacent to it, a little settlement occupied mainly by
negroes, many of whom were fugitives from a tyranny illegal indeed, but
regularized by custom; in both settlements, natives who looked to him
for help against their oppressors. It was a situation difficult enough
to daunt the pluckiest lad not yet eighteen. But it is lads like Jack
Challoner who make one of the prime glories of our Anglo-Saxon race.
Is not page after page of our national annals filled with the deeds of
youths--drummers, buglers, ensigns, midshipmen--who have stepped
forward in moments of crisis, and shown a noble courage, a devotion to
duty, and a capacity beyond their years?
Jack did not quail before the responsibility his uncle had all
unwittingly thrown upon him, even though he knew that his victory over
the Belgian might enormously increase his difficulties. Already he had
wondered why Elbel had not put his settlement in a state of siege. The
only conclusion he could come to was that the man was little more than
a blusterer, without enough imagination to conceive the right means to
adopt, or destitute of sufficient organizing power to put them in
force. It would have been a comparatively simple matter, seeing his
overwhelming strength in point of numbers, to prevent Jack from
securing his needful supply of water from the stream; but day by day
Elbel had allowed the women with their calabashes to go and come
unmolested. Surely, Jack thought, he would now at any rate take that
most obvious step towards the reduction of his enemy. And as he sat in
his hut that evening, his head racked with pain from long thinking, he
felt sick at heart as he realized how the fate of these poor people who
had sought his aid seemed to depend on him alone.
Just as darkness had fallen, the chief Imbono came into the camp.
Elbel had forbidden any one to leave the village, but the chief had
bribed the sentry and been allowed to pass. He came to report that his
young men had just returned from their rubber hunt after a week's
absence in the forest, and learning of what had taken place, were bent
on exacting vengeance for the insults and injuries inflicted on their
people by the forest guards and by Elbel himself. With his defeat the
Belgian's prestige had utterly gone, and to the ignorant negroes the
opportunity seemed favourable for revenge. But Imbono, more far-seeing
than they, had come to ask advice. He had great difficulty in holding
his men in. Should he let them loose, to work their will upon their
oppressors?
Jack earnestly advised the chief to do his utmost to restrain them.
"Believe me, my brother," he said, "if they do as you say they wish to
do, it will almost certainly bring ruin upon you. Elobela will be only
too glad to have an excuse for visiting upon you the rancour caused by
his reverse. True, he failed to force my camp; but he is still
stronger in arms and men than I. I could do nothing to help you; for
if I once move out of the shelter of my stockade, I shall be at
Elobela's mercy. In the open it is only rifles that count."
"I will do as you say, O Lokolobolo. But it is hard for me, for since
the coming of Elobela my people do not obey me as they used to do. If
I say, do this, Elobela forbids it; if I say, refrain from this,
Elobela bids them do it. It is hard for them to serve two masters.
But I will tell them what my brother says; I can do no more."
"You have another white man with you now, besides Elobela?"
"It is true, and he was struck by one of the balls from your guns, and
is now lying sick in my hut: they have turned me out, and Elobela has
said that I am no more to provide food for you, my brother, either from
Ilola or from my other villages. But one of my young men told me that
the party you sent out have obtained a supply, and wait in the forest
until you bid them bring it in."
Jack thanked the chief, who returned to his village.
The news he brought was not of a kind to lessen Jack's anxiety. What
he had expected had at last happened. He had little doubt that the
commandeering of food would soon be followed by the stoppage of his
water supply. Without access to water the camp was doomed. It was
possible that if he made common cause with Imbono their united forces
might overcome Elbel's forest guards; but the attempt could be made
only at a terrible risk, and if it failed the whole population of the
two settlements must be annihilated. Jack saw now that the presence of
his camp so near Ilola was a source of danger to it. This could not
have been foreseen; but how much better it would have been, he thought,
if he had chosen a different site. At another spot, remote from the
village, with a more defensible position, and near a good water supply,
the present weaknesses would not have existed, and at all events Imbono
might not have been involved in the consequences of the quarrel with
Elbel.
But it was too late to think of that. Certainly no move could be made
while Elbel was close by with a considerable force. If Elbel took
advantage of his superiority to hold the camp closely invested, there
would never be any possibility of moving at all. Deprived of water,
Jack must soon choose between the alternatives--to surrender, or to
make a sally at the head of his men and put all to the hazard of an
open fight.
Two days passed. Jack kept a close watch on Ilola through his
field-glass; all seemed quiet there, and of Elbel himself he saw
nothing. What was his amazement, when at daybreak he took his stand on
the platform overlooking Ilola, to see Elbel marching out at the head
of the greater part of his force, and making for the river bank. He
waited an hour, and when they did not return, and the patrols had not
appeared, he sent out a couple of men by a roundabout way to follow the
movements of the force, and allowed the usual water carriers to go out
with their calabashes. These, returning soon with water, reported a
strange thing. From the women of Ilola whom they had met on a like
errand at the river, they had learnt that Elobela had set off with his
men in their smoke-boat, and that Boloko had been left in charge of the
village with about as many men as he had brought at first. Several
hours later Jack's scouts came back, and said that they had followed
along the bank the course of Elobela's launch; he was going rapidly
down the river. They could only suppose that he was making for the
headquarters of his company some hundreds of miles away.
"What did I say at all at all?" remarked Barney when Jack told him the
great news. "He's no gentleman, that's as plain as the nose on his
face, sorr. A man who will take two lickings and thin run away is not
fit to wipe your shoes on."
"You seem disappointed, Barney, but frankly I'm very glad. I could
fling up my hat and cheer if I hadn't to keep up my dignity before
these natives. Though I fear we haven't seen the last of Mr. Elbel by
any means. We shall have him upon us sooner or later with an
overwhelming force. But sufficient unto the day; my uncle should be
back long before that, if Elbel doesn't meet and stop him on the road.
Well, we now have a chance to move our camp, for if Elbel is on his way
to headquarters he can't get back for weeks. And first of all, Barney,
take a dozen men and bring in that food that's waiting in the forest.
We shan't be able to move for a day or two, at any rate; we must choose
our site more carefully this time."
Thinking over the matter, Jack was not long in coming to the decision
that the best place to establish his new camp would be near the
cataract. From his recollection of the ground above it he thought it
was admirably situated from a strategical point of view. It would have
the incidental advantage of protecting Mr. Martindale's claim.
The one disadvantage was its distance from the sources of food supply.
But this caused Jack to give serious consideration to a matter which
had once or twice dimly suggested itself to him. He had been more and
more impressed with the necessity of his party being self-supporting,
so far as the staple articles of food were concerned, if they were to
make a long stay in this country. He remembered how Stanley during his
search for Emin Pasha had been able to sow, grow, and reap crops at
Fort Bodo in a remarkably short time. Why should not he do the same?
When he was joined by Mr. Martindale's contingent a large quantity of
food would be needed. No doubt they would bring stores with them; but
these could not last very long, especially in view of the unexpected
drain upon the resources of the expedition caused by the arrival of the
fugitives from Banonga and elsewhere.
"I wonder what Uncle will say when he sees them," Jack remarked to
Barney, when he opened up to him this question of food supply. "You
remember at Banonga he said he wasn't going to start a boys' home; this
is still more serious--a sort of convalescent home for non-paying
patients."
"'Tis meself that isn't wan little bit afraid uv what the master will
say. Sure don't I know to a letther what 'twill be! 'My gracious
me!'--don't ye hear him, sorr?--'what in the world will I want wid all
these disgraceful lookin' objects? This ain't business. I'm not a
philanthrophy, an' I don't exactly see my way to run a croosade.' An'
thin he'll say, 'Poor fellow!' an' 'Poor wumman!' an' 'Poor little
chap!' an' he'll dive his hands into his pockets an' suddenly remimber
himself that money is no manner uv good in this counthry, an' he'll
say: 'We must kind uv fix up some sort uv something for 'em, Barney.'
Didn't I know 'm by heart the first day I drove him in London, and he
went up to the horse and opened his jaw an' looked in his eyes an' says
'He'll do.' Sure I'd niver have named me little darlint uv a Pat to 'm
if I hadn't known the kind uv gintleman he was at all."
Jack smiled at Barney's way of putting it, but admitted the truth of
the portrait. Mr. Martindale was indeed a capable man of affairs--an
example of the best type of the American man of business, the
embodiment of the qualities by which the extraordinary commercial
prosperity of the United States has been built up. But Jack knew that
he was more than a man of business. His was a big heart, and it was
one of the minor vexations of his life that he had to take some trouble
to conceal it.
Jack's final conclusion was that there was not only every prospect of
an extended stay if this mining scheme was to be followed up, but that
the number of persons to be provided for would be more considerable
than it was possible at present to calculate. Obviously, then, it
behoved him to employ the time before Mr. Martindale's arrival in
preparing for contingencies.
Elbel's departure had immediate consequences in Ilola. His presence
had in some measure curbed the worse propensities of his black
followers: they could only be brutal in obedience to orders; but the
moment he was gone they began to show themselves once more in their
true light. Before a day had passed Imbono came into the camp to
complain of the insolence and rapacity of Boloko and his men. Jack
advised him to do nothing to give Boloko any excuse for violence, but
he had still to plumb the depths of savagery and brutality in the men
whom the Free State Government callously allowed the trading companies
to employ in the exploitation of rubber. He had still to learn that
where violence was intended, not even the shadow of an excuse was any
longer considered necessary.
One morning Imbono came to him in a frenzy of rage and indignation.
His third wife had been tending her cooking pot when Boloko came up and
asked what food she was preparing. "A fowl," she replied civilly.
"Give it me," he demanded. "It is not yet cooked, O Boloko," the poor
woman answered. "You refuse me, Ngondisi?" cried the ruffian. "Lift
your hands and open your eyes wide that I may see the white of them, or
I will shoot you." Ngondisi in terror obeyed. "You do not open them
wide enough," said the wretch with a laugh, and he lifted the gun and
fired; and the woman fell upon her face; she would never open her eyes
again.
But Boloko had in this case reckoned without the spirit of confidence
engendered in the natives by the discomfiture of Elbel. He had only
ten men in the village when the incident occurred; the rest were
absent, levying toll on Imbono's other villages a few miles distant.
Even while Imbono, with tears of anguish, was telling Jack what had
been done, the spark had been applied to the tinder. An extraordinary
commotion was heard in the direction of Ilola: shots, yells, the war
cry of infuriate men. Rushing out with Imbono, Jack arrived in the
village to find that retaliation had at last been wreaked for months of
wrong. It was difficult at first to make out what had happened. It
appeared that in Imbono's absence the men of the village had suddenly
seized their arms, and flung themselves in one desperate rush upon
Boloko and his men. What cared they if several of their number fell
before the tyrants' rifles? Heedless of wounds they closed about the
forest guards; there was a brief hand-to-hand fight, eight of Boloko's
men had fallen to weapons wielded with the energy of despair, and of
the party only Boloko himself and two men had made their escape into
the forest.
Elate with their victory, the men of Ilola had hastened off to the
other villages, to surprise the guards there. It was too late now to
recall them, but Jack had arrived on the spot just in time to rescue
one man, whom the villagers were on the point of massacring. The white
sous-officier who had been wounded in the fight before Jack's camp had
been placed in Imbono's hut. Roused by the sound of firing, he had
dragged himself from his mattress and, rifle in hand, came to the
entrance of the hut just as Jack entered the gate with the chief. The
villagers had forgotten him; but when they saw in their power a white
man, one of those to whom all their afflictions were due, a band of
them sprang towards him with uplifted spears. He fired: one of the men
fell. The rest paused for an instant, and were on the point of dashing
forward to make an end of their enemy when Jack rushed between them and
their prey, and cried to them in Imbono's name to stay their hands.
Reluctantly, with lowering countenances, they obeyed the command of
their chief's white brother. No mercy had been shown to them: why
should they show mercy? But when Imbono reminded them that the slaying
of a white man would bring upon them the hordes of Bula Matadi, and
that Elobela had already gone down the river, probably to bring many
soldiers back with him, they sullenly drew off, and allowed Jack to
remove the man to the safety of his own camp.
The Belgian knew no English, but Jack had a fair working knowledge of
French which he found was equal to the occasion. The man explained
that he was an ex-noncommissioned officer of the State forces, whose
services had been enlisted by Elbel in dealing with the refractory
natives. He seemed quite unable to understand Jack's point of view.
To him the natives were so many parasites, the goods and chattels of
the State, with no property and no rights.
"Why, monsieur," he said, "we pay them for the work they do; we have a
right to demand labour of them for nothing. See what we have done for
their country! Look at the rubber stations on the river, the fine
buildings, the telegraphs, the cataract railway; where would all these
blessings of civilization have been but for the noble self-sacrifice of
King Leopold?"
Jack gave up the attempt to argue with him that the country belonged
primarily to its natural inhabitants, forbore to point out that King
Leopold had expressly declared that he had the advancement of the
natives at heart. He contented himself with insisting that the actions
of which Elbel and his minions had been guilty in Ilola were contrary
to the law of the Free State itself. He was much struck by the
Belgian's answer.
"Ah, monsieur, we have no book of rules, no code of laws. What can we
do? We are the only law. Yes, monsieur, we are the only God in the
Maranga."
Next day Jack went with Imbono and Lepoko to the waterfall, to survey
the place as a possible site for a camp, or, to speak more strictly, a
settlement. The chief was troubled and displeased at the prospect of
the removal of his blood brother's camp, but made no urgent
remonstrance. On arriving at the spot, Jack at once detected signs
that some one had recently been making investigations there. He had no
doubt that this was Elbel. The secret of the gold had probably been
disclosed in an incautious moment to one of his escort by the men who
had accompanied Mr. Martindale on his second visit. Elbel already knew
enough of the American's business to make him keenly interested, and
alert to follow up the slightest clue. Knowing what he now knew of the
methods of the State officials, Jack was ready to believe that Elbel
would strain every nerve to get Mr. Martindale hounded out of the
country, in order to have an opportunity of turning the discovery of
gold to his own profit. Could his sudden departure from the village,
Jack wondered, have been his first move in this direction?
Carefully examining the ground above the waterfall, Jack saw that a
good deal would have to be done to make it suitable for a settlement.
He heard from Imbono that during several months of the year the stream
was much broader than at present, and at the point where it debouched
from the hill, three or four miles below, it and other streams
overflowed their banks, forming a wide swamp, almost a lake, some ten
miles from east to west and more than half a mile broad. This, during
the rainy season, practically cut off all communication from the
direction of the village. On the far side of the hill the bluffs were
so precipitous as to make access very difficult. This isolated hill
formed therefore a kind of huge castle, of which the swamp for half the
year was the natural moat.
It seemed to Jack that the most convenient site for his new camp was
the slope of the hill immediately above the cataract. The incline here
was very slight; the hill face only became steep again about a quarter
of a mile from the fall; there it rose abruptly for fully fifty or
sixty yards, sloping gently for the next half mile. Jack saw that if
he built his entrenched camp in the neighbourhood of the waterfall, it
would be to a slight extent commanded by an enemy posted on the steep
ascent above. But by raising his defences somewhat higher on that side
he hoped to overcome this disadvantage.
With a little labour, he thought, the soil around the cataract could be
made suitable for planting food-stuffs. It was virgin soil, and owing
to the slight fall of the ground at this spot, and to the fact that it
was partially protected by the contour of the hill against floods from
above, the leaves that for ages past had fallen from the thick copses
fringing the banks, and from the luxuriant undergrowth on the small
plateau itself, had not been washed down. These deposits had greatly
enriched the alluvium, and Imbono said that large crops of manioc,
maize, groundnuts, and sweet potatoes could easily be grown, as well as
plantains and bananas and sugar cane.
On returning to his camp by Ilola, Jack told Barney the results of his
investigation, and announced that he had definitely made up his mind to
settle on the new site.
"Very good, sorr," said Barney; "but what'll become uv Ilola? Beggin'
your pardon, sorr, 'twas a very solemn affair, that ceremony uv
brotherhood, an' though sure it had niver a blessing from a priest--an'
like enough Father Mahone would think it a poor haythen sort uv
business--still, to the poor niggers, sorr, it may be just as great a
thing as if the priest had blessed it in the name uv Almighty God."
"Well, what are you driving at, Barney?"
"Why this, sorr. The chief and you made a bargain to help wan another;
an' sure ye've kept it, both uv you. Well, if we go away, there's no
more help for either uv you, an' 'tis Imbono will be most in need uv
it."
"You mean that I'm deserting my ally, eh?"
"Bedad, sorr, isn't it me that knows ye'd niver do it? But I just
speak for the look uv the thing, sorr. Sure niver a man knows betther
than Barney O'Dowd that things are not always what they seem."
"To tell you the truth, Barney, I've been thinking it over on the way
back. I could see that Imbono doesn't like the idea of our moving,
though he was too polite to mention it----"
"'Tis a rale Irish gintleman he is, sorr," interrupted Barney.
"There's no doubt that Elbel, or Boloko, or both, will come back sooner
or later. Leaving me out of the question, the slaughter of Boloko's
party won't go unpunished. To overlook that would ruin the authority
of the forest guards for hundreds of miles round. Well, what does it
mean when they return? They'll make a terrible example of Ilola.
Imbono and his people will be wiped out. And you're quite right in
believing that I couldn't stand by and see that done. But you see what
it involves. We must plan our camp so as to be able to take in the
whole of Imbono's people from the three villages--I suppose about four
hundred in all, children included. That's a large order, Barney."
"True it is, sorr. But you wouldn't keep out the childher, poor little
souls; an' mighty proud uv Pat they are, too. Besides, sorr, they'll
all help, ivery soul, to build the camp; many hands make light work;
an' ye couldn't expect 'em to set up a lot uv huts for us barring they
saw a chance uv bein' invited now and again, at least as payin' guests,
sorr."
"Well, Barney, I'd made up my mind to it all along, but I thought I'd
like to sound you first. So all we've got to do now is to relieve
Imbono's suspense and set to work. We'll start with clearing the soil
for crops. It will take some time to plan the new camp, and we've
always this one to retreat to. Take Lepoko over to Ilola and make the
announcement yourself, Barney."
"I will, sorr, wid the greatest pleasure in life. 'Deed, 'twas meself
that took the news to Biddy O'Flaherty whin her pig had won the prize
at Ballymahone Show, and was just coming away wid a penny in me pocket
when I met Mike Henchie. 'An' what would ye be afther, Mike?' says I.
'Carryin' the news to Biddy O'Flaherty, to be sure,' says he. 'Arrah
thin, 'tis too late ye are,' says I. 'Isn't it meself that's just got
a penny for that same news?' 'Bedad,' says he, 'what will have come to
Biddy at all?' 'What is it ye'd be maning?' says I; 'sure she didn't
give me a penny,' says Mike, 'last year whin I brought her the news.
She gave me a screech and went black in the face, an' sure 'twas for
the same fun I'm here this blessed minute?' 'Husht!' says I. 'Biddy
didn't win the prize last year at all. 'Twas Patsy M'Manus.' 'An' who
is it this time but that same Patsy?' says Mike. 'But I heard the
judge wid me very own ears give it to Biddy!' says I. 'Deed so,' says
he; 'but some wan renumbered him that Patsy had won it two years on
end. "Me old friend Patsy!" says he. "Sure I couldn't break her heart
by spoilin' the third time. I'll give it to Patsy," says he.' An'
Patsy hadn't shown a pig at all that year, sorr."