Chapter Fourteen.
The Bolt Falls.
“I say, you fellows, there’s no end of a row on,” pronounced Wood major, joining a group of others.
“No! Is there? What about? Who’s in it?” were the eager inquiries which hailed the good news. For a row at Saint Kirwin’s was, in its generation, akin to the Coliseum sports in theirs, inasmuch as it afforded pleasurable excitement to the multitude. To the small minority directly implicated it afforded excitement too, but the reverse of pleasurable. This particular group, however, being presumably clear of conscience, hailed the news with unfeigned satisfaction.
“Why, the small room at the end of Williams’s dormitory are all in it, I believe,” explained Wood major. “Cetchy’s been caught getting out late at night.”
“What, Cetchy? Haviland’s chum?”
“Rather. We’re going to see something, I can tell you.”
“Then Haviland’s in it too,” said some one else.
“I expect so. I believe the whole room’s in it.”
“A case of Cetchy caught,” remarked a puffy-faced fellow who set up for being a wag.
“Oh, shut up, Cross. We don’t want Clay’s second-hand wheezes,” was all the appreciation he met with. “Why we’ve yelped at that in all its variations till I believe we’d sooner do his impos. than get off it by putting him in a good humour over that ‘honk’ any more. Go on, Wood. What have you heard about it?”
“Why, Smithson minor told me. He’s rather a chum of Cetchy’s, you know. The first he knew of it was seeing Cetchy come out of Nick’s study looking precious puffy about the chops. Nick had been socking him all over the shop, he told Smithson; and then Nick came out himself, and maybe Smithson didn’t slink off. Oh, no.”
“Well, we shan’t hear anything about it till to-morrow morning,” said Cross. “Sure to come on at morning prep. Great Scott, but there’ll be some swishing on!”
“Haviland won’t take it, I expect.”
“He’ll be jolly well expelled then.”
“He won’t care. I know he won’t take a swishing. I hated him when he was a prefect, but now I hope he’ll score off Nick.”
“P’raps he’s not in it.”
“Not in it? Why, the whole room’s in it.”
And so the discussion ran on; the while, however, the news had somehow leaked out, and the presage of a row—and a very big row at that—hung over the school like a thundercloud.
It will be necessary to go back.
For a day or two after the exploit chronicled in the last chapter our two midnight marauders plumed themselves on their feat of arms, and delighted to meet and fight their battle over again in a secluded corner of the playing fields, the only thorn in the rose being that they had lost the air-gun, abandoned during the precipitancy of their flight, and, of course, the pheasant. This, however, they decided was of small account compared with such a glorious experience as had been theirs, and they positively glowed over the recollection of their adventure. But they were a little premature in their elation. Retribution was at hand, and this is how the bolt fell.
To a group of boys strolling along a field-path not far from the school it was not strange that they should meet a keeper. What was strange to them was the gun in the hand of that worthy.
“That’s a rum sort of gun you’ve got there,” said one of them. “I say, let’s have a look at it.”
The keeper merely shook his head. Then an idea seemed to strike him, and he stopped.
“Yes, it be a rum gun, bean’t it, young genelmen?” he said, extending it to them, but not loosing his hold of it. “That be one o’ they new-fangled air-guns. They don’t make no bang when they goes off.”
The group gathered round interested. The keeper explained the working of the weapon, and from that got to talking on other matters—in fact, was extraordinarily chatty and affable, which was remarkable, because between gamekeepers and the Saint Kirwin’s boys a state of natural hostility existed.
“I’ve heard tell,” he went on at last, “that there’s a black African young genelman up at the school there. If that’s so, I’d like to make so bold as to see he. I ’ad a brother servin’ in the wars again they Africans over yonder, and ’e told me a lot about ’em. Yes, I’d like to see he.”
Now, under ordinary circumstances, this request would have caused them, in their own phraseology, to “smell a rat.” Perhaps in this case it had that effect all the same; but then, as ill-luck would have it, the group the keeper had struck in this instance happened to be Jarnley and his gang. Here was a chance to pay off old scores. Here was a noble opportunity for revenge, and it would in all probability comprehend Haviland too. Jarnley, Perkins, and Co. were simply jubilant.
“There’s no difficulty about that, keeper,” said the former, genially. “You go to the gate of the west field and ask any fellow to point you out Cetchy. I expect he’ll be there now. Cetchy—mind, that’s the name.”
“I’ll remember, sir, and thankee kindly. Mornin’, young genelmen.”
Three-quarters of an hour later our friend Anthony, having, in obedience to an urgent summons, hastened, though not without misgivings, to present himself in the Doctor’s study, found himself confronted by a tall red-whiskered keeper, while on the table, exposed on a sheet of newspaper, lay his lost air-gun and the corpse of a fine cock-pheasant. Then he knew that the game was up.
“Yes, sir. That be he, right enough,” said the keeper. “I saw him several times as I was a chevyin’ of him. There was a good moon, and I’d swear to him anywhere, sir. There was another with him, sir, a tall young chap, but I never got a chance of seeing his face. But this one, I can swear to he.”
“Very well,” said the Doctor. “You had better go down to the porter’s lodge, and wait there in case I should require to see you again.”
The keeper saluted and retired.
“And now,” went on the Doctor, in his most awe-inspiring tone, “what have you got to say? On the night of Tuesday, you and another—with whom I shall presently deal—were found by the man who has just gone out in one of Lord Hebron’s coverts. That pheasant lying there was killed by you with that air-gun. Now, who was with you?”
“I don’t know nothin’ about it, sir.”
“What?” thundered the Doctor, rising from his seat; and the next moment Anthony received a terrific box on the ear which sent him staggering against the table, followed up by another on the other side, the force of which wellnigh restored him to his original equilibrium. “So you would add lying to your other misconduct, would you? Now, answer my question. Who was with you?”
But the question was addressed seemingly to empty air. The Zulu boy, thinking to detect another hostile move, had incontinently dived under the table.
Here was a situation wholly outside the Doctor’s experience. He was a violent-tempered man when roused, especially when his dignity had sustained, as he thought, any slight, but he had too much sense of that dignity to embark actively in the chase of a boy who had got under the table of his own study. Not for a moment, however, was he nonplussed.
“Come out and stand where you were before,” he said, “and that at once, or I shall send for two prefects to drag you out, and shall cane you now as I have never caned a boy before, and that in addition to whatever punishment I shall decide to inflict upon you for your other offence. Do you hear?”
Anthony did hear, and being, like most of his race, of a practical turn of mind, had rapidly decided that it was better to be thrashed once than twice; wherefore he emerged from under the table, and stood upright as before, but with a quick and watchful eye, ready to dodge any further hostile move on the part of the Doctor.
The latter, for his part, had had time to think; and in the result it occurred to him that it was scarcely fair to judge this raw young savage, for he was hardly more, with the same severity as the ordinary boy. So he would refrain from further violent measures for the present.
“Who was with you?” he repeated remorselessly, and in a tone which in all his experience he had never known any boy able to hold out against. But he reckoned without the staunch, inherent Zulu loyalty.
For now Anthony shifted his ground. No power on earth would have induced him to give his accomplice away—they might flog him to death first. But by confessing his own criminality he might save Haviland.
“No one with me, sir. I all alone,” he answered volubly. “That man tell big lie. Or praps he seen a ghost. Ha!”
The Doctor looked at him with compressed lips. Then he rang the bell, and in the result, within a minute or two, the keeper re-appeared.
“Now Anthony,” said the Doctor, “repeat to this man what you have just told me.” Anthony did.
“Why you tell one big lie? Ha! You saw me, yes, yes. No one with me. I alone. How you see other when other not there?”
“Come. That’s a good ’un,” said the man, half amused, half angry. “Why I see he as plain as I see you.”
“See he? Ha! You see a ghost, praps? You ever see a ghost in Hangman’s Wood, hey?” and rolling his eyes so that they seemed to protrude from his head, and lolling his tongue out, the Zulu boy stared into the face of the dazed keeper, uttering the while the same cavernous groan, which had sent that worthy fleeing from the haunted wood as though the demon were at his heels.
“Good Lord!” was all the keeper could ejaculate, staring with mouth and eyes wide open. Then, realising what a fool they had made of him, he grew furious.
“You see ghost, yes? Praps Hangman’s ghost, hey?” jeered the boy.
“You young rascal, you!” cried the infuriated keeper. “This ain’t the first time by a long chalk you’ve been in my coverts, you and the other young scamp. There was another, sir,” turning to the Doctor, “I’ll take my dying oath on it—and I hopes you’ll flog ’em well, sir—and if ever I catches ’em there again I’ll have first in at ’em, that I will.”
“You bring another big dog. I kill him too,” jeered the descendant of savage warriors, now clean forgetful of the dread presence of the headmaster, and the condign punishment hanging over himself. “Kill you, praps, Hau!” he added with a hideous curl of the lips, which exhibited his splendid white teeth.
“See that, Doctor, sir?” cried the exasperated man. “The owdacious, abandoned young blackamoor! But his lordship’ll want that dawg paid for, or he’ll know the reason why. And ’e’s a dawg that’s taken prizes.”
Now Dr Bowen, for all his unbending severity, was a thorough Englishman, and, as such, an admirer of pluck and grit. Here these two boys had been attacked by a brute every whit as savage and formidable as a wolf, and that under circumstances and amid surroundings which, acting on the imagination, should render the affair more terror-striking—viz., at midnight, and in the heart of a wood; yet they had faced and fought the monster, hand to hand, and with very inadequate means of defence, and had overcome and slain it. In his heart of hearts the feat commanded his admiration, and moreover, he was devoutly thankful they had not sustained serious injuries, for the sake of his own responsibilities and the credit of the school. Yet none of these considerations would be suffered in any way to mitigate the penalties due to their very serious offence. He had further been secretly amused at the scene between Anthony and the keeper, though outwardly the grimness of his expression showed no trace of any relaxation.
“That will be a matter for future discussion,” he replied to the keeper. “Now I shall not require your further attendance. I have sufficient to go upon to put my hand on all concerned, and you can rest assured that they will be most severely punished.”
“I hopes you’ll flog ’em well, Doctor, sir,” was the keeper’s parting shot, “and especially that there young blackamoor rascal. Good-day, sir.”
Chapter Fifteen.
Sentence.
The big room was full. Every form room, always occupied at morning preparation, was emptied of its contents, for all had been convened, by special proclamation, to the large schoolroom, now to become, for the time being, a species of hall of justice. So, even as at prayer time, arranged in the rows of lockers according to dormitories, the whole three hundred and fifty or so of boys chattered in a continuous and undertoned buzz—restrained, but not silenced, by the prefectorial calls:
“Quiet there!”
“You, Jones. I’ve spoken to you before already.”
“Brown, come to me afterwards in the fourth form room.”
“Now, then, that bottom row. Stop that shoving about! D’you hear?”
And so on.
Yes, the excitement was intense. There had not been such a row on, said some one, since that in which Thurston’s gang had been caught smoking. They had set up a kind of divan in a dry ditch, which, being unexpectedly raided, they, and their pipes and tobacco, had been seized in close conjunction the one with the other—and Thurston and five other big fellows had been flogged. Or, said others, since a far worse case of another kind, wherein some fifteen fellows of all ages had been swished. And now all sorts of wild rumours began to go round. All the fellows in the small room at the end of Williams’s dormitory were going to be swished—so extensive was the order sent to the gardener for the manufacture of birch rods, declared some, who affected to be in the know. But the centre light of all the excitement and conjecture was Haviland. He was not a prefect now, and therefore could, constitutionally, be swished. But—would he take it? That was the point—would he take it? Some opined that he would not—others that he would have to.
“Silence! Ss-silence there!” roared the prefects, with a force and unanimity that hushed the room in a minute. For it meant that the Doctor was coming in.
You might have heard a pin drop in that hitherto buzzing assemblage as the Headmaster ascended to the big desk in the middle and signed for the door to be shut. Then it was seen that there stood before him of culprits exactly one dozen, of whom all but two were in varying stages of funk.
The Doctor, you see, acting upon his usual thorough and whole-hearted method, had wasted no time in elaborate investigations. He had simply sent for Haviland and taxed him with what was charged, and Haviland, disdaining to prevaricate or make excuses, had owned his whole share in the alleged misdoing, and rather more, for he had endeavoured to shield Anthony by declaring that the Zulu boy had been entirely influenced by him; nor would it have helped him any way to have denied the matter, for the Doctor meanwhile had ordered the search of every box in the dormitory, and there in Haviland’s box was the coil of cord, and in that of Anthony the blood-stained weapon. Further, with the same thoroughness, he had chosen to consider the whole room as in a degree implicated.
Now, confronting the whole school, speaking in his most awe-inspiring tones, the Doctor commenced his harangue. He dwelt on the complaints that had been coming in for some time past of serious depredations in the game preserves of the neighbouring landowners, and how such were entirely detrimental to the credit of the school, as also to its interests in another way, for the time had now arrived when it had become a grave question whether the reasonable liberty which had always been its privilege should not be withdrawn. Here a stir of sensation went through the listeners, who began to think that this rare excitement, even to those not the most active participants in it, had its unpleasant side.
Fortunately, though protracted, detection had overtaken the offenders, he declared—the principal offenders—as sooner or later it invariably and surely did, let them be certain of that, and, with detection, chastisement immediate and condign.
“It should be a matter of shame and grief to all of us,” he went on, “that one who for so long has held a position of responsibility and trust should be the ringleader in these occasions of disorder and grave offence—leading astray not only his younger schoolfellows, but also one whom the humane and civilising spirit of a noble and self-sacrificing organisation has rescued from a life of barbarism and degradation, and sent here, where every opportunity is placed in his way to become a credit to that organisation, and a shining light in the noble endeavours to rescue from heathenism his barbarous fellow countrymen. I refer to Anthony, upon whom, I trust, the punishment I am about to inflict will act as a salutary warning and prove the turning-point in his school life. The other boys in the room I hold in a lesser degree to be participants in the grave scandal—I will not say breach of rules, because obviously such an offence as to get outside the school walls surreptitiously at night is one that no rule need be definitely formulated to cover.”
Here two or three of the smaller boys implicated began to snivel. The whole lot would be swished, of course, they thought, and, indeed, such was the opinion of the whole school. It was precious hard lines, for they had no more hand in the affair than anybody else in the room; but such was the Doctor’s way.
“As for you, Haviland,” he continued, “it is simply lamentable how you have time after time betrayed your trust and shirked your responsibilities—in short, gone from bad to worse. I had hoped you would have taken warning when I was obliged to suspend you from your office, and have behaved in such wise as to justify me in shortly reinstating you; but, so far from this, you seem to have become utterly reckless and abandoned. You are nearly grown up now, and should be setting an example; but, instead of that, you are using the influence which your age and strength give you in the eyes of your schoolfellows, to lead your juniors into mischief and wrong-doing. It is clear, therefore, that there is no further place for you among us. Yet I am reluctant, very reluctant, to proceed to such an extreme measure as your public expulsion—”
Now the excitement had reached its height. Haviland was going to be swished, not expelled, decided the spectators, but—would he take it? Haviland standing there, his lips compressed, a set frown on his brow, was of the same opinion, except that he himself, and he only, held the answer to the question. He would not take it—no, decidedly not. They might expel him and welcome, he did not care, he was past caring; but submit to the indignity of a flogging at his age he would not.
“Therefore,” continued the Doctor, “I shall take time to consider so grave and painful a matter; and, meanwhile, you will be withdrawn from all intercourse or contact with the rest of the school. Anthony I shall, of course, soundly flog. I shall also flog Smithson minor and Mcmurdo; and, as for the other boys in the dormitory, on this occasion I shall confine myself to severely warning them.”
There was a sort of audible sensation among the listeners, but it was nothing to what followed. For now Haviland lifted up his voice:—
“Please, sir, Smithson and Mcmurdo had no more to do with it than the man in the moon.”
The Doctor frowned as he gazed sternly at the speaker.
“Keep silence,” he said, in a curt tone. Haviland obeyed. He had made his protest in the name of fair play. He was not concerned to take any further risks. But those who saw—those who heard—was ever such a thing witnessed before at Saint Kirwin’s? The Doctor—the awful, the dreaded Doctor—expostulated with, and that before the whole school! Why did not the very heavens fall?
The public floggings at Saint Kirwin’s were public in the sense that they could be heard by all but seen by none, for they took place in a small room adjoining the big schoolroom, and the audience were able to estimate how each of the victims “took it.” In the present instance, Smithson and Mcmurdo got off with a comparatively slight infliction, and, beyond a smothered yelp or two, “took it” well. But when it came to Anthony’s turn, they wondered if it was going on for ever. He received, in fact, a most relentless swishing, but for all the sound that escaped him—whether of cry or groan—he might just as well not be undergoing chastisement at all. The school was lost in admiration of his pluck and endurance; and, afterwards, when he emerged, showing no sign of pain, but scowling savagely, and muttering in his own tongue—the word having been given to dismiss—he broke forth:—
“What they do to Haviland?”
“Well done, Cetchy! Well done, old chap! You did take it well. Biggest swishing Nick ever gave. He’d have stopped if you’d yelled out,” were some of the congratulations showered upon him. But of them he took no notice whatever.
“D—n! What they do to Haviland?” he repeated, stamping his foot, and scowling savagely.
“I’m afraid he’ll be expelled, Cetchy,” said some one. The others thought so too.
“What’s expelled? Sent away?”
“That’ll be it.”
The Zulu boy made no answer. He gazed from one to the other, and then his eyes began to fill, and great tears, which the most savage flogging ever administered within the walls of Saint Kirwin’s had failed to wring from him, rolled down his cheeks. “Haviland sent away! perhaps not even allowed to bid him good-bye. No, that was too much.”
“Never mind, Cetchy, old chap. Perhaps it won’t come to that, after all,” were some of the well-meant attempts to console him. But he would have none of it, and turned away, sorrowful and speechless.
The while, in many a group, recent events were being volubly discussed.
“I always hated Haviland,” declared one youngster emphatically. “He was such a brute when he was a prefect. But I like him now, since he cheeked Nick. He is a plucky beggar.”
“Now then, get along to your places—sharp, d’you hear?” commanded two or three prefects, breaking up such groups—for it was preparation time.
Haviland, after a day and a half of solitary confinement—retirement would perhaps be a better word, for he was not under lock and key—had reached the stage of sullen resignation. Of course he would be expelled.
There was no hope, and now that it had come to this, and he had had time to think, he felt that he would give anything for another chance. Then his heart hardened. The Doctor had driven him into it, had simply persecuted him with an unrelenting spite: and his thoughts were bitter and black and revengeful. In the midst of which a sound of firm footsteps was heard outside, and the door opened, admitting—the Doctor. A hard resentful scowl came upon the young fellow’s face, and he gazed sullenly before him.
“Haviland, you are to go home immediately.”
“Of course,” thought Haviland to himself. “Now for it! I am to be shot out, and the old brute’s going to preach me a humbugging canting sermon first.”
But there was no sternness in the Doctor’s voice as he went on. It was solemn, almost affectionate.
“I am sorry to say I have received bad news, I fear very bad news, but—we must hope for the best.”
“What, sir?” shouted Haviland, springing to his feet. “Who is it? Who?”
“Your father.”
Haviland’s face went deadly white. He staggered forward, and in his agony of grief seized the headmaster—the terrible headmaster—by the coat sleeve.
“Is he—is he—?”
“Alive, yes. But, my poor boy, you must go to him at once. Everything is arranged for you to catch the earliest train for London, and you have just a quarter of an hour to get ready in.”
“Tell me, sir, what have you heard?” besought Haviland piteously.
Dr Bowen, like many hot-tempered men, was at bottom soft-hearted, and now he could hardly control his voice to reply, so deeply was he affected. For the telegram which he had received was to the effect that Haviland’s father had met with a street accident, and was not expected to live till night. If his son arrived in time to see him again, it was all that could be hoped.
“Remember, Haviland,” he said, after conveying this as feelingly as possible, “that, after all, while there is life there is hope, however small. Go now and get ready. In view of this great grief which has been sent you I will say nothing of what is past, except that when you return to us next term, I am sure you will redeem what is past and start afresh.”
The latter was intended to convey that, under the great sorrow which had fallen upon him, Haviland might consider the past overlooked, and that although he was going home now, it was not under expulsion.
Chapter Sixteen.
Hunted.
On, through the steamy forest, heavy and damp with the tropical rain; on, over stodgy swamp land, whose miasmatic exhalations rise misty and foul in visible vapour, the fugitive is wending. Toiling for very life is he, dragging with infinite labour each spent footstep over the yielding and spongy ground, drawing breath in long gasps; and ever throughout his entire frame that sinking and yet sickening and agonising sensation of feeling utterly spent; wounded too, in more places than one, unarmed and without means of defence—a solitary fugitive in the mighty heart of that vast stretch of African forest land. What chance has he?
He stumbles on, and a sigh of relief, of thankfulness, escapes him, as his feet once more tread firm ground, though, did he but know it, the soil of the washy swamp, by closing over his footsteps, has rendered him invaluable service in hiding his spoor from his enemies. That he has enemies, more than one furtive and anxious glance behind—if nothing else—would serve to show.
A pitiable spectacle, his clothing in rags and plentifully soaked with blood—his own blood—still welling from and clotting round his wounds, as he toils onwards, his heavy unkempt beard matted with it as it trickles from a gash in his head, his progress beset by a whole cloud of flies and voracious winged insects, yet the fugitive is a well-built, strong-framed man of medium height, and well below middle age; strong indeed he must be, for in this deplorable plight he has covered many a weary mile, nor before him is there any hope of succour or refuge. Yet the sheer dogged instinct of self-preservation buoys him up, keeps him ever moving forward, anywhere so that it is only forward.
The low-lying ragged rain clouds roll back over the tree tops, and the dull blaze of the sun, watery through the tropical mist, but intensely piercing and penetrating as though focussed through the lens of a burning-glass, envelops him in an overpowering fold of heat, His brain reels, his uneven steps are more staggering than ever. Why keep on? Why struggle further? The spears and hatchets of his enemies were more merciful. Yes, but the fire, the lingering death of torment by that or any other form, or at best the yoke and slave chain, and being weaponless, he has no means of selling his life dearly, or even of ending it with his own hand when the last hope had vanished.
Ah! the welcome shade of the trees is gained at length. The lay of the land is flat, with a scarcely perceptible undulation, and alternates in open spaces—mostly swampy—and forest, the latter, however, not thick with undergrowth. Once within the shade, cool by comparison, the fugitive sinks to the earth. With bursting heart and labouring lungs, his strong frame weakened by continual loss of blood, he can go no further. A lurid mist is before his eyes, and a feeling of intense lassitude, of dissolution, overpowers him, and he lies unconscious.
Not for long, however. All creation—human, animal, insect, even vegetable life—seems leagued together against the hunted man. Great black ants, attracted by the blood from his wounds, are crawling over him, and soon their sharp bites have the effect of bringing him back to himself again. But on the whole the infliction is salutary, for it acts as a spur; and, staggering to his feet in quick loathing, the fugitive shakes off the horrible insects, and drags on his weary way.
The solitude is intense, but not so the silence. The call of bird voices echoes through the shade; some shrill and piping and not unmelodious, others harsh, half human, almost menacing; the screech of cicalas too, loud, vibrant, distressing to overwrought and weakened nerves. Green lizards of some size dart scramblingly through the scattered bark or lie motionless, with head erect, and ruby-like eyes dilated, as they watch the intruder; and a great tree spider, huge, hairy, and hideous, shoggles up a trunk within a yard and a half of the wanderer’s face.
And now hunger is gripping the unfortunate man; thirst, too, which the slimy swamp water he has drunk—though, in prudence, sparingly—has not availed to stave off for long. The day is waning, moreover, and well he knows that another night spent in the forest spells death. And still no sign of human habitation or friendly succour; yet how should there be, seeing that the red scourge of the slave-hunter, or of warring barbarian clans, equally ruthless, has swept this zone of terror and of blood, leaving it a howling waste of uninhabited wilderness. Or even were things otherwise, why should those he half hoped to meet prove any more desirable than those from whom he fled, here in the dark places of the earth, where anything in human shape, any fellow creature, was almost synonymous with a cruel and ruthless enemy? But the enduring courage, the bulldog tenacity of purpose, which characterise the true explorer or up-country adventurer, whatever his nationality, is to this man an ever present force. The traditions of his order that no hardship, no peril, however great, however hopeless, is without abundant precedent, are with him now, to steady his staggering steps as he plunges forward, to uphold and cheer his despairing mind.
There is light ahead; a break in the skies. Only another tract of open swamp, is the first thought of the fugitive; and yet with it a sort of instinct—hardly more, although the creation of experience—warns him, tells him, that human habitation lies at hand. With renewed strength and quickened steps he presses forward to the edge of the forest line and peers forth.
At the sight which meets his gaze his heart gives a great bound. His instinct has not been at fault. There, in the midst of the open space, are the thatched roofs of a native village—and a village of some size.
It is situated in the open—in the midst of an amphitheatre of forest which engirdles it on three sides, the further being bounded by a line of jagged rocks of no great height. But around it there is no sign of life. No human forms are issuing from or entering its low stockade, no sound of human voices comes to him from within it. Perhaps they are sleeping throughout the heat of the day. And then he pauses.
What will be his reception? Hostile possibly. Yet here lies his only hope. To remain as he is means certain death. He will warn the inhabitants of yonder place of the proximity of his enemies and theirs, that it not strong enough for defence, which is more than likely, they may save their lives—and his—in timely flight. And, having decided upon this line of conduct, he steps from his hiding-place, and proceeds to cross the intervening space.
But as he draws near the village, he is conscious of a renewed sinking of the heart; for now he perceives that the stockade is broken down in several places, and what he has hardly noticed before in his excitement and hunger as he snatched at the bunches of millet—a field of which he is passing through—that the crops are trampled and torn about, as though hurriedly foraged. And then, as he gains a wide breach in the stockade, and is about to step through, a sight meets his gaze which is not entirely unfamiliar, but which somehow or other never seems entirely to lose its horror and repulsion.
Strewn around in scattered profusion are hundreds of bones. Skulls, too, grinning up out of the long herbage which in some instances has sprouted right through the battered orifice which has let out the life, producing the most hideous and ghastly effect. Everywhere they lie, grouped in batches, mostly just within the stockade, though others are not wanting immediately around the low-roofed grass huts. Well enough does the fugitive know these signs. The fate of this village has been that of many another in the blood-stained heart of the Dark Continent. Its inhabitants have been surprised, and all who have shown resistance, or for any reason were not worth carrying away, ruthlessly massacred, regardless of age or sex—as not a few skulls of diminutive size lying around eloquently proclaim. His supposed place of refuge is but a village inhabited by the dead.
Grim and gruesome as this thought is, a new hope springs within the hunted man’s resourceful mind. His pursuers, even should they suspect the direction he has taken—he is satisfied that they have lost his spoor, or they would have been upon him long since—will forbear to follow him here. The last asylum they will dream of him seeking will be this village of the dead. There is comfort in this, at any rate, and now, his next thought is to collect the ears, or rather bunches of millet—there is still plenty left which is not crushed and trampled—and as he devours great handfuls of the grain, he remembers that where there is a village there must be water. Fortified by even this sorry food, rough, indigestible, unwholesome as it is, he renews his search and is soon rewarded. He has no difficulty—save for the exhaustion of dragging along his weary frame—in finding water, which, though slimy, and tepid and unpalatable, is still water—and having slaked his thirst, he crawls back to the village again.
The sun has sunk beneath the ridge of black rocks, and in the brief gloaming the miasmatic vapours seem to roll up thicker than before. One by one, the stars twinkle forth into the hot misty sky, and soon the reddening glow of a broad moon suffuses the tree tops, flooding with its spectral light the open space and whitened relics of those who erewhile tenanted these silent and primitive dwellings. Gigantic bats are flitting to and fro, uttering their strident squeaks, and the forest depths begin to resound with the howling of hyaenas, and the shrill baying of hunting jackals. To the fugitive the sounds are not without a certain sinister significance. Well he knows that the hyaena is the most cowardly of beasts, but he remembers too, how in these regions of constant massacre, even the most cowardly of beasts can hardly have failed to lose all respect for the dominant animal, Man—seeing that he, at any rate dead, constitutes an easy and abundant form of prey. He realises his own enfeebled state, and knows that the otherwise cowardly carnivora will realise it too. Even now, he can descry grisly, blunt-snouted shapes, skulking about in the moonlight, allured by the scent of fresh blood—his own blood to wit—nor does the occasional subdued shout he utters avail to alarm them overmuch, or cause them to retire very for. The stealthy patter of their footfalls seems ever to increase—to be drawing nearer and nearer.
Hitherto he has shrunk from entering any of the huts; now, however, the instinct of sheer self-preservation prescribes that course. Selecting one, a large oblong structure, whose wide low-pitched roof forms a kind of verandah all round it, he crawls within. But it has no door, and his strength is not equal to questing about for a substitute for one—indeed, hardly is he within when he stumbles forward, and sinks to the ground. The pain of his wounds has become intolerable, a deadly faintness seizes him—and before his final unconsciousness his hand closes with convulsive grip upon the skull belonging to a fleshless skeleton lying there within.
Huge spiders—hairy monsters, the size of a man’s hand—crawl over the prostrate form, then, startled by the instinct that here is life, scurry back to the shelter of the thatch again. A wicked-looking centipede draws its shining rings in disgusting length along the ground in the stripe of moonlight, and flying beetles whirr and buzz in and out of the doorway; and there, among such surroundings, lies the dying explorer—his sands of life run out—every object which might meet his failing gaze, that of loathing and horror and repulsion.
But, outside, the whole place is alive with stealing, skulking shapes. Here and there a subdued snarl, or some snapping, is audible, but they are all converging on one point—the structure which as their scent informs them contains fresh blood; and the pointed ears and bared fangs of the hideous, blunt-snouted brutes, show plain in the moonlight. And now the foremost is standing snuffing within the open doorway, while others are stealing up, by dozens, behind the first.
Chapter Seventeen.
The Scream in the Forest.
“How much further to this village of yours, Somala?”
“We are there now, Sidi. What you call one hour’s march.”
“Always that ‘one hour’ story!”
And the speaker turns away somewhat shortly. The question, put in a kind of mongrel Swahili dialect, was put shortly and with a touch of impatience, for the torrid equatorial heat makes men irritable—white men, at any rate—and the first speaker is a white man. The second is a negroid Arab, hailing from the island of Pemba.
Through the moonlit forest the long file of men is wending, like a line of dark ghosts. There are perhaps three score of them, and most of them carry loads. Some few do not, and of such are the two who have been conversing.
“But,” rejoins the Arab, “it may be written that when we arrive there we shall find no village. Mushâd’s people have been busy of late, and this village lies in his return path.”
“I don’t care whether we find any village or not, so long as we find the water,” is the reply. “What do you say, doctor?”—relapsing into Anglo-Saxon, as he turns to another man, the only other white man of the party.
“Why, that it’s time we did find some. This swamp water is awful bad drinking stuff.”
Under the broad moon it is almost as light as day, and as this strange band emerges into an open space its concomitant elements can be seen to advantage. The man who had first spoken, and who seems to be its leader, is tall, supple, and erect, with straight, regular features; the lower part of the bronzed face is hidden by a thick brown beard, not guiltless even here in these wilds of some attempt at trimming. This, together with his alert and weather-beaten appearance, gives him a much older look than his actual years, for he is quite a young man. The other, he addressed as “doctor,” and whose speech is dashed with just a touch of the brogue, is much older. He is a man of medium height, with a quiet refined face, and his hair is just turning grey. Both are armed with a double-barrelled express rifle, revolver of heavy calibre, and sheath knife. The Arab, Somala, and a few others are also armed with Martini rifles; but the bearers of the loads, who are composed of half a dozen nationalities, carry no firearms, though each has a sheath knife of some sort strapped round him—long or short, straight or curved or double-edged, but all wicked-looking weapons enough.
The line swings along at an even, wiry-paced walk, to the croon of some wild, weird melody. Then, as, the open space passed, they re-enter the forest shade, they stop short, the whole line telescoping together—loads colliding, and men falling with them in confusion. For, from the sombre, mysterious depths in front comes a most horrible and appalling sound.
A scream, so awful in its long-drawn intensity—so fraught with terror and energy and despair—surely such a cry could never have issued from a human throat. Louder and louder it peals through the grim midnight shades, as though some unknown and gigantic monster were in the last throes of a despairing struggle with countless and overwhelming assailants. Of those who hear it, the superstitious natives huddle together, and trembling in every limb, too scared even to bolt, stand bunched like a flock of bewildered sheep. All save a few, that is, for those immediately in attendance on the leaders come of more virile nationality. Even the two white men are conscious of a wave or superstitious fear thrilling through their veins, possibly the result of climate and condition.
“Sidi,” whispers Somala, impressively, indicating the direction whence proceeds the horrible sound, “the village is yonder. Mushâd has been there, and that is the voice of the dead.”
“Not so. It is the voice of some one or something very much alive,” answers the leader. “And I intend to find out all about it. Eh, doctor?”
“Why, of course.”
“Those who are men and not cowards, come with me,” says the leader, shortly.
Not a man of his armed followers hangs back. Even the frightened porters, in terror at being left to themselves in this demon-haunted place, will not stay behind; for, like all natives of an inferior sort, the presence of a resolute white man is to them a potent rallying influence.
Soon the forest opens out again, and there, in the moonlight before them, lie the thatched roofs of a considerable village. Again peals forth that awful, blood-curdling scream, proceeding right from among those primitive dwellings.
“Come along! Let’s make a dash for it!” warns the leader, under the natural impression that some human victim is being barbarously done to death at the hands of its inhabitants. His swarthy followers do not share this opinion, their own pointing to the supernatural, but they will go with him anywhere.
Even as they advance, quickly but cautiously, the leaders are wondering that no volley of firearms or spears greets them. There is something of lifelessness about the place, however, which can be felt and realised even before they are near enough for the scattered skulls and bones to tell their own tale. Now they are through the stockade, and now, rising from right in front of them, peals forth that awful scream once more, and with it a most horrible chorus of snapping and growling and snarling. And rounding the corner of one of the primitive buildings the whole explanation lies before them. A weird and terrible sight the broad moonlight reveals.
In front of one of the huts is a human figure. Yet, can it be? It is that of a man of tall and powerful build, his body covered with blood, his clothing in rags, his hair and beard matted and streaming, his rolling eyes starting from their sockets. In each hand he brandishes a short white club, consisting, in fact, of the leg-bone of a human being, as he bounds and leaps, yelling his horrible, maniacal scream; while around, on three sides of him, a densely packed mass of beasts is swaying and snarling, now driven back by the sheer terror of his maniacal onslaught, then surging forward, as the man, ever keeping his rear secured by the hut door, retires again.
But it is an unequal combat that cannot last. Even the prodigious strength and courage of the assailed cannot hold out against the overwhelming numbers and boldness of the assailants.
Then the tables are turned—and that with a suddenness which is almost laughable. Their approach unperceived, these timely rescuers simply rake the closely packed mass of hyaenas with their fire. The cowardly brutes, driven frantic with the suddenness and terror of this surprise, turn tail and flee, many rolling over and over each other in their rout, leaving, too, a goodly number on the ground, dead or wounded. The latter the natives of the party amuse themselves by finishing off, while their leaders are turning their attention to the rescued man.
“I say, old chap, you’ve had a narrow squeak for it,” says the younger of the two. “We seem to be only just in time. Good thing you yelled out as you did, or we shouldn’t have been that.”
The other makes no reply. Gazing vacantly at his rescuers, he continues to twirl his gruesome weapons, with much the same regularity of movement as though he were practising with Indian clubs prior to taking his morning bath.
“How did you get here?” goes on the leader, with a strange look at his white companion.
“Eh? Get here? Ran, of course.”
“Ran?” taking in the woeful state to which the unfortunate man had manifestly been brought. “Why did you run? Who was after you?”
“The devil.”
“Who?”
“The devil.”
“But—where are your pals? Where are the rest of you?”
“Pals? Oh, dead.”
“Dead?”
“Rather. Dead as herrings, the whole lot. Fancy that!”
The coolness with which the man makes this statement is simply eerie, as he stands there in the moonlight, a horrible picture in his blood-stained rags. More than a doubt as to his sanity crosses the minds of at any rate two of his hearers. Nor do his next words tend towards in any wise dispelling it.
“They were killed, the whole lot of them. Cut up, by Jove! I’m the only man left alive out of the whole blessed crowd. Funny thing, isn’t it?”
“Rather. Who killed them, and where?” And there is a note of anxiety in the tone of the question.
“We were attacked by Rumaliza’s people couple of days’ march back. They surprised us, and I am the only one left alive. But, I say, don’t bother me with any more questions. I’m tired. D’you hear? I’m tired.”
“I expect you are. Well, come along and join us. We’re going to camp down yonder by the water. You’ll want a little overhauling after the cutting and wounding you seem to have gone through, and here’s the very man to overhaul you—Dr Ahern,” indicating his white comrade.
But the response to this friendly overture is astounding.
“Oh, go away. I don’t want you at all. I didn’t ask you to come, and I don’t want you here bothering me. When I do I’ll tell you.” And without another word the speaker turns and dives into the hut again. The two left outside stare blankly at each other.
“A clear case for you, doctor. The chap’s off his chump. Say, though, I wonder if there’s anything in that yarn of his about being attacked by Rumaliza’s people.”
“Might easily be. We’ll have to keep a bright look-out, if any of them are around. But we must get him out.”
“We must.”
The same idea was in both their minds. It was not a pleasant thing to have to creep through that open door with the probability of being brained by a powerful maniac waiting for them in the pitchy darkness beyond.
“I’ll strike a light,” says the younger of the two men. And, taking out his match-box, he passes quickly through the aperture, at the same time striking a couple of wax vestas.
The object of his search is lying in a corner. Beside him, gleaming whitely, are two fleshless skeletons. There is a third, all battered to pieces. It is a weird and gruesome spectacle in the extreme.
But the unfortunate man’s dispositions seem scarcely aggressive as they bend over him. He does not move.
“He’s unconscious,” pronounces the doctor. “That simplifies matters. Pick up that end of him, and we’ll carry him out.”
Chapter Eighteen.
After Ten Years.
“I say! Was I very ‘dotty’?”
“Pretty well. But that’s only natural under the circs.”
“Talk much, and all that sort of thing—eh, did I?”
“Oh, yes. The usual incoherencies. But that’s nothing. We’re used to it. In fact, we now and then take a turn at it ourselves when this beastly up-country fever strikes us. Eh, doctor?”
“We do,” answered Dr Ahern, turning away to attend to the unpacking and examination of some scientific specimens, but not before he had added:—
“I wouldn’t talk too much if I were you. It won’t hurt you to keep quiet a little longer.”
A fortnight had gone by since the rescue of the solitary fugitive when in his last and desperate extremity; and, indeed, nothing but the most careful tending had availed to save his life even then—that, and his own constitution, which, as Dr Ahern declared, was that of a bull. Several days of raging and delirious fever had delayed the expedition at the place where it had found him, and then it had moved on again, though slowly, carrying the invalid in an improvised litter. At last the fever had left him, and his wounds were healing; by a miracle and the wonderful skill of the doctor he had escaped blood-poisoning.
The latter’s back turned, the convalescent promptly started to disregard his final injunction.
“I say,” he went on, lowering his voice, “it won’t hurt me to talk a little, will it?”
The other, his tall frame stretched upon the ground, his hat tilted over his eyes, and puffing contentedly at a pipe, laughed.
“I don’t know. Doctor’s orders, you see. Still—well, for one thing, we’ve been wondering, of course, who you are, and how you got into the hobble we found you in.”
“Well, I’m Oakley, and I’ve been inland a year and a half in the plant-hunting line.”
“That so? I’m Haviland, and I’ve been up rather more than two years in the bug-hunting line, as the Americans would call it. Ornithology, too.”
“So! Made a good haul?”
“Uncommonly. We’ve got some specimens here that’ll make our names for us.”
“Let’s see them,” said the other eagerly. “I was—am, in fact—keen on beetles, but I’m professionally in plants now.”
And then these two enthusiasts set to work comparing notes. They clean forgot about the circumstances of their meeting or knowing more about each other; forgot recent perils and the brooding mysteries of the wilderness, as they hammered away at their pet subject, and talked bird and beetle to their hearts’ content. In the midst of which a displeased voice struck in:—
“I’d like to ask if that’s what you call keeping quiet, now.”
Both started guiltily.
“My fault, doctor,” said Haviland. “I let him go on. He’s in the same line as ourselves, you know.”
“Is he? He’ll be in a different line from any of us if he gets thinking he’s all right before he is. Sure, the constitution of a bull won’t pull a man through everything—not quite.”
The patient accepted this grave rebuke with a smile, and lay still. He had not yet put these friends in need in full possession of the facts of his misfortunes, but there was plenty of time for that.
Ten years had gone by since last we saw Haviland, in imminent danger of expulsion from Saint Kirwin’s, and which it is probable he only escaped through a far greater grief than that—the death of his father; and for the most part of that period his career has been pretty much as we find him now—a wandering one, to wit. He had not returned to Saint Kirwin’s, for the potent reason that the parson had left his family in somewhat of straits, and the eldest member thereof was old enough, at any rate, to do something for himself. This had taken the form of a bank clerkship, obtained for him by an uncle. But to the young lover of Nature and the free open air and the woods and fields, this life was one that he loathed. It told upon his health at last, and realising that he would never do any good for himself in this line, the same relative assisted him to emigrate to South Africa. There he had many ups and downs—mostly downs—and then it occurred to him to try to turn his much-loved hobby into a profession. He obtained introductions to one or two scientific men, who, seeing through the genuineness of his gifts, offered him employment, sending him as assistant on scientific expeditions, and finally entrusting the leadership of such entirely to his hands. And he succeeded wonderfully. He had found his line at last, and followed it up with an entire and whole-hearted enthusiasm.
Yet such expeditions were no child’s play. A capacity for every kind of hardship and privation, indomitable enterprise, the multifold perils of the wilderness to face, starvation and thirst, the hostility of fierce savage tribes, treachery and desertion or overt mutiny on the part of his own followers, and the deadly, insidious malaria lurking at every mile in the miasmatic equatorial heat. But the same spirit which had moved those midnight poaching expeditions at Saint Kirwin’s was with Haviland now, and carried him through in triumph. Young as he was—well under thirty—he had already begun to make something of a name for himself as a daring and successful exploring naturalist.
He had kept in touch with Mr Sefton, as much as a correspondence of the few-and-far-between order could so be called, and from time to time obtained the latest news about Saint Kirwin’s. Among other items was one to the effect that after his own departure the Zulu boy, Anthony—otherwise Mpukuza—had turned out badly, had become so intractable and such a power for mischief that the missionary who had placed him there had been invited to remove him. This was done, and they had lost sight of him. Probably he had returned to his own land and reverted to savagery; and this, Haviland thought, was very likely the case. Yet he himself had been in Zululand, and had made frequent inquiries with regard to Mpukuza, but could obtain no satisfactory information, even in the locality where the boy was said to hail from. It was no uncommon thing for missionaries to take away their children and place them in schools, declared the inhabitants, and one case more or less was not sufficiently noteworthy to remain in their recollection. Nor did they know any such name as Mpukuza, and in the ups and downs of a somewhat struggling and busy life the matter faded from Haviland’s mind as well.
As time went on the injured man, in spite of the steamy heat and a drained system, had recovered so as almost to regain his former strength; but, before this, the information he had given to Haviland and the doctor about himself had caused a change in their plans. Briefly, it amounted to this. His expedition, consisting of himself and a German botanist, together with a number of porters, had been surprised at daybreak by a party of Arabs and negroes who he had every reason to believe constituted a gang of Rumaliza’s slave-hunters. So sudden had been the attack that the whole party was completely overpowered. His German comrade was shot dead at his side, and he himself got a cut on the head with a scimitar which nearly put an end to his days, together with a spear thrust in the shoulder. He had a distinct recollection of shooting two of the assailants with his revolver as he broke through them to run, and then for the whole day some of them had chased him. He had been wounded again by a spear, thrown by one who had out-distanced the others, but he had managed to shoot the thrower. Then he had lost his revolver while extricating himself from a swamp into which he had sunk waist-deep; and thus that most helpless object on earth, an unarmed man, and badly wounded into the bargain, had taken refuge in the deserted village to die.
“And precious hard dying you intended to make of it, old chap,” had been Haviland’s comment. “Why, it was the finest thing I ever saw in my life, the way you were laying about you with those old shin-bones. Make a fine subject for one of those groups of sculpture. The Berserk at Bay, one might call it. Eh?”
Well, it was no laughing matter at the time, they all agreed. But the worst of it was, Oakley had explained, that the ruffians who had surprised his camp had, of course, seized everything, including the whole of the specimens he had collected during this expedition, which latter would, therefore, be so much time, trouble, and expense absolutely thrown away. As for his bearers, such of them as had not been massacred had, of course, been seized as slaves, and his property as loot; but it was just possible that the marauders, finding the botanical specimens utterly valueless to themselves, might have left them on the ground, in which event they could be recovered.
If, in their heart of hearts, Haviland and the doctor were not exultant over this idea, it is hardly astonishing; for, at the rate they had travelled while bearing the injured man in their midst, to return to the scene of the tragedy would mean about a fortnight’s march, and that not merely of a retrograde nature, but one which would take them very near an exceedingly dangerous belt of country. But here was a brother scientist, the fruits of his toil and risk, the reward of his enterprise, thrown away, with just a chance remaining of saving them. It was not in these two, at any rate, to let that chance go by, merely at the cost of an extra fortnight’s march and a certain amount of potential danger.
Well, the march had been effected, and here they were at last on the site of Oakley’s ravaged camp. A ghastly spectacle met their gaze. Many of the bearers had been massacred, and the ground was literally strewn with bones, either clean-picked by the ravenous carnivora of the surrounding wilderness, or with mangled tatters of flesh and sinew still depending. Skulls, too; in many cases with the features yet remaining, but all showing the same hideous distortion of the terror and agony which had accompanied their deaths. The remains of the ill-fated German botanist were identified and reverently buried, but everything in the shape of loot which the camp had contained had been borne away by the rapacious marauders.
But to the delight of Oakley, to the delight of all of them, his conjectures had proved correct. Following on the broad track left by the retreating raiders they came upon the lost specimens. The cases had been broken open, and, containing nothing but dried plants, had been thrown away and left. Some had suffered, but the bulk were entirely uninjured, and in his exultation the tragical fate which had overwhelmed his companion and followers was quite overlooked by this ardent scientist. The loot, too, of the camp was nothing. His precious specimens were recovered—that was everything. The doctor and Haviland, moved by vivid fellow feeling, rejoiced with him, and that exceedingly. Yet, could they have foreseen what was before them, their exultation might have been considerably dashed. Their adventures had been many, their lives had been largely made up of perilous and startling surprises; but the greatest of these was yet to come, and that, perchance, at no very distant date.