Approaching the River--Reconnoitring--The Fight on the Bluff--Checking a Rush--Timely Help--A Hand-to-Hand Struggle--At Fault
Tom was that day amazed to see what could be done in an hour's time by a force of Askaris capably directed. By half-past twelve the officers' tents had been rolled up, the baggage repacked, a meal swallowed, the carriers marshalled, each with his proper load, and the order of march arranged. Before one the whole column had moved out towards the scene of the anticipated fight. Scouts led the way, under Lieutenant Mumford. Then came the advance-guard, two companies of Askaris and a Maxim-gun, with Captain Lister. At a short interval followed more Soudanese, with Major Burnaby; then came the carriers with their guard, and finally the rear-guard, of which Tom found himself in command. Dr. O'Brien hovered about, first at one part of the column, then at another, in case of what he called "evenshualities".
Before giving the order to march, the major beckoned Tom apart.
"Tom," he said, "here's a rifle and a revolver for you. You know how to use the rifle, at any rate. Fate seems to have a hand in this, and as you're here, you must make yourself useful."
Tom's eyes gleamed as he took the weapon, and he mentally resolved to bear himself worthily, whatever was in store. His elation was a little dashed when his uncle went on:
"You'll consider yourself in command of the rear-guard. Judging by your conduct since you left Kisumu, you are able to win the respect of the natives, and that's everything. You'll find the non-coms. a steady set of men; and remember, you must rely on them and yourself. You mustn't worry me with questions about this, that, and t'other thing."
"All right, Uncle! I'm only too glad to be able to do anything."
"Very well then; I'll send for you if I want you."
Tom wished that he could have been with the advance-guard, but he kept that to himself, hoping that the chances of the day would give him an opportunity of doing even the smallest thing to justify his uncle's confidence. Then the march began. Askaris and carriers tramped on in single file, the Zanzibaris chattering and laughing in spite of the loads on their heads, it being one of the crosses of the major's existence that their tongues were never still. Some of them had kerosene cans slung round their necks, in clanging emptiness, for they had not as yet been needed, the rivulets along the route having furnished plenty of good drinking-water. Others carried bales and provision-boxes cleverly poised on their heads, each load averaging from forty to fifty pounds; while the rest bore large bags of onions (a favourite food with the native troops), tent-poles, pots and kettles, and other paraphernalia of the camp.
The pace was slow, and, thanks to the doctor's careful ministrations, Tom was able to keep up without difficulty. He would not confess even to himself that a full day's rest would have been grateful to him. The mid-day sun beat down upon the marching column with scorching ferocity. For some distance the narrow path led over rolling country, broken here and there by rocky excrescences, with not an inch of shade, the only relief being afforded now and again by a brook, in which the men bathed their aching feet. At length, however, the appearance of scrub and trees ahead proclaimed the proximity of a larger stream. Tom had been wondering all the way what tactics his uncle would employ to checkmate the plans of the Arabs. He saw now that scouts were being sent out on each flank, and word was passed down the column for the carriers to group themselves instead of marching in single file, and for the rear-guard to close up. While moving in open country the major had decided to make no change in the usual method of marching, so that nothing might suggest to the enemy, if he was on the look-out, that any special precautions were being taken. But now that the column had entered a wooded region, and was nearing the expected scene of operations, he thought it well to make his force more compact, especially as the path had here broadened into quite a respectable road. The scouts on the flanks had orders not to penetrate more than half a mile into the forest on either side, the trees being close enough together to prevent anything in the nature of a rush beyond that limit.
It was now nearly three o'clock. The major ordered the guide to be brought to him, and questioned him on their distance from the river. Learning that it was no more than three-quarters of a mile ahead, he called a halt and sent for his officers.
"Now, gentlemen," he said to the little group, "I assume that the story told by the guide is true. Our scouts have not sighted the enemy, which is pretty clear proof that if there is an enemy at all he is hiding. I am going to send sixteen picked men up the rear of the bluff--you see it rising yonder--from which, according to these men, the logs are to be flung down on to the bridge. Our fellows will dispose of the eight or nine Arabs who, it appears, are to manage the logs. They will then give the signal awaited by the enemy, who, we may suppose, are in hiding at least half a mile up and down stream, and these will come on, expecting to find us cut in two at the bridge and generally in confusion.--Well, what is it, Mumford?"
"I was wondering, sir," began the lieutenant, rather taken aback at finding his thoughts half-guessed-at by the major; "I was wondering what would happen if our men failed to dispose of the Arabs on the bluff."
"The enemy's plans would be spoilt, at any rate, and the engagement would develop on other lines. But the chances are in our favour. The bluff, as you see, is thickly wooded, and our men should be able to creep up quite noiselessly and get within striking distance without being seen. Besides, we will distract the enemy's attention. Remember, they are relying on our complete ignorance of their scheme. They will be impatient to see us cross the bridge. Well, I shall send a few scouts over to guard against a possible attack from the other side, and Captain Lister, with two or three men, will feign a careful examination of the bridge itself. The delay will probably be unexpected, and I count on this to enable our men to scale the bluff unperceived.
"Meanwhile the carriers will park all the baggage in a semicircle about the bridge head, under guard. I shall divide the force, taking part with me to repel the attack from the north--Mumford, you will work the Maxim--and leaving you, Lister, to meet the attack from the south. Doctor, you will come with me, I think, as mine will be the larger force; and Tom, you will remain in charge of the baggage."
Tom tried to look pleased, but his face fell in spite of him. There was no help for it; he must obey orders and accept his strictly defensive part with a good grace.
"I cannot tell you our precise positions yet until scouts have been up and down the river and reported on the nature of the ground. Meanwhile, Lister, you will send forward, say, five scouts over the bridge, and the rest of us will move slowly behind you."
Tom's pulse quickened as he listened to these plain directions. He wished he could change places with Captain Lister, as that officer went forward with the advance-guard to perform the task allotted him. In less than fifteen minutes the bulk of the force reached the bridge head. The scouts had already crossed, and were disappearing into the wooded country beyond. Other scouts had been sent out on each flank to examine the country up and down stream, and the captain, with two sergeants, was inspecting the bridge with a critical eye. On reaching the river-bank the major found that the water ran deep and the sides were precipitous. The bluff was inaccessible except from the rear, rising sheer up from the bed of the river and the path. Both up and down stream the country was dotted with scrub, and at the distance of about a hundred yards on each side of the path began a belt of forest, through, which the scouts were picking their way in skirmishing order.
"We have less than three hours of daylight left," said the major to Captain Lister at the bridge head, "so that we must put this business through as rapidly as possible. I hope you ordered the scouts to proceed cautiously, and not go too far. Half a mile will suit our book."
"Yes, and here are the down-stream fellows returning." A sergeant came up to the major and reported that, having skirted the bluff and crossed a belt of thin forest, he had come within six minutes to an open space, with a frontage of about two hundred yards and a breadth of some four hundred and fifty. This was absolutely free from trees or bush, but on the other side of it the forest was much thicker.
"Depend upon it, then, the Arabs, if here at all, are hiding in the forest beyond the clearing. We have them, Lister. If there are any up-stream they are evidently farther away. As the forest is much denser in that direction I think a hundred men with you will suffice to beat off any attack on that side; you must get your men to cut down some trees and form a rough abattis. The rest of the force will come northwards with me. We must take advantage of that clearing. Now it's time to send up the bluff and account for the log-rollers; that will prove conclusively how far these men have told the truth. I think we understand each other."
Captain Lister nodded. In a few minutes his men were busy felling the trees with the thickest foliage. They cut a wedge in the trunks with their axes, then toppled them over in the same direction as the strokes had fallen, so that they formed a high and almost impenetrable barrier.
Meanwhile Tom had already arranged the baggage in a semicircle about the bridge head, hidden by a jutting rock from anyone who might be at the summit of the bluff. Within the enclosure thus formed the carriers were assembled, and the rampart itself was defended by twenty-five men.
Fifteen of the most trustworthy of the Askaris, under Sergeant Abdullah, were by this time scaling the bluff from the rear, darting from tree to tree with wonderful celerity, their feet bare, their right hands clutching their rifles with bayonets fixed. They drew nearer and nearer to the summit, maintaining as even a line as the nature of the ground permitted, each man being about two yards from the next. When they came within a few yards of the top, and saw by the growing light that beyond them the trees had been felled, they moved still more warily. Thus they advanced to the very edge of the forest, and halted. Peeping from behind the trees they saw nine Arabs in front of them, not twenty paces away. Some were talking in low excited whispers, two were lying flat on their faces, peering over the three shaven tree-trunks that lay in readiness at the very edge of the precipice, and turning occasionally to make some comment on the proceedings.
On the logs rested half a dozen short, strong poles, evidently to be used as levers. The Arabs had expected the marching force to cross the bridge at once, and the delay had at first caused them much amazement and concern. But seeing the scouts pass over and scatter on the other side, and the careful examination of the bridge made by Captain Lister and his sergeants, they had apparently concluded that these were only the white man's usual measures of precaution, and were reassured. They had themselves taken the precaution to post a sentry a hundred yards down the bluff behind them, but this man, finding after a long delay that nothing had happened, edged gradually nearer to his companions, and when he saw them looking with intense interest over the ridge, his curiosity was too much for him. He quickened his pace and joined them, and from that moment caution was thrown to the winds.
Just as the Askaris reached the utmost verge of cover, and stood for an instant to take breath after their climb, one of the Arabs gleefully pointed to the scouts returning over the bridge. His companions instantly moved towards the brink. Sergeant Abdullah saw that the moment had arrived. He gave a nod to his men, they sprang forward with great leaps, remembering the major's injunction to make no noise. Before the Arabs were aware of their danger the enemy were upon them. Seven of the nine were despatched with the bayonet in a trice; one contrived to inflict a terrible wound on his assailant before he too was stricken down; the ninth man, with a howl of fright, sprang over the precipice and disappeared into the stream below.
The first part of the task of the sixteen was accomplished. Climb and all it had occupied but twenty minutes. There remained to give the signal expected by the Arabs in hiding. On the ground lay a white flag embroidered with the crescent. Abdullah stooped down, and hastily divesting one of the fallen Arabs of his burnous, he threw it over his own uniform, then picked up the flag, and walked northwards some thirty yards along the bluff to the edge of the declivity, whence he obtained a view of the open space and the forest beyond. Then he waved the flag, making three curious circular movements with which he was clearly familiar; he saw an answering signal from the edge of the forest more than half a mile away; then he returned to his companions, and hurried downhill with twelve of them to rejoin Captain Lister's force, leaving two to follow more leisurely with the man wounded.
In the meantime the major had rapidly moved his three hundred men northwards through the woodland. On the way he left fifty of them in open order on a wide arc to cover his right flank. Coming to the open space reported by the scouts, he was overjoyed to find it an outcrop of bare rock, broken in surface, cleft by fissures, and thus difficult to advance over. His quick eye marked at a glance the possibilities of the situation. He posted a hundred of his men about a yard apart, just within the edge of the forest, and stationed a second hundred twenty yards behind them as a reserve. The remaining fifty he told off to guard the left flank against surprise from the river-bed. At the extreme right of his position, a few yards in advance of the firing-line, stood one solitary thorn bush growing on a patch of soft earth amid the rock. This would form, as the major saw at once, an excellent screen for the Maxim; but to place the gun in position at once would certainly attract the attention of the Arabs. He therefore ordered Lieutenant Mumford to be in readiness to move it forward as soon as the enemy emerged from the wood.
"Now, my men," he said to the sergeants when his dispositions were complete, "when the signal is given from the bluff the Arabs will come out of the forest yonder and cross this open space. They know nothing, as I hope and trust, of our presence. They will not expect us here. Reserve your fire till they are within two hundred and fifty yards--the bugle will give the signal,--then fire. That will check the rush for a moment. There will be time for a second volley; then be ready to charge. Mr. Mumford, you will bring the Maxim into action as soon as they are well out in the open. Now mind, men," he added, turning sternly to the eager Askaris, "not a whisper till the word is given."
The men stood at their posts, fixing their keen eyes on the trees a quarter of a mile in front of them, their mouths set, their nostrils quivering. It was a trying ordeal. Minute after minute went by, and still there was no sign of the enemy. The men began to fidget, and the major, knowing the impetuous nature of the Soudanese, feared lest a single incautious movement or exclamation should wreck his plans. Then suddenly a hundred doors seemed to open in the green wall opposite, and out of them poured almost noiselessly a flood of tall, white-robed, turbaned Arabs. They kept no order, expecting to find their enemy in confusion by the bridge. In this careless confidence they rushed on pell-mell, clutching their rifles by the middle. Over the rocky ground they came, bounding like panthers, making no sound save with their quick breathing, eager, exultant, some waving flags, their leaders brandishing scimitars, a few with silent drums jolting against their thighs. Then a bugle rang out clear and shrill; from the trees and undergrowth in their front flashed forth a withering volley. The nearest of them went down like grass before the mower. There was an awful silence, broken only by the groans of wounded and dying men. Those of the foremost Arabs who were left alive halted in consternation, hesitating whether to advance or fly. But behind them a host of their Manyema allies was thronging from the woods. These had heard the volley, but had seen nothing of its effect. Imagining that the expected collision had taken place earlier than had been anticipated they pressed on furiously, now uttering savage cries, beating drums, invoking Allah and the Prophet. Thus the halted front ranks were driven on by the mass behind; Arabs and Manyema were crowded together in an unwieldy congested heap. Another volley rang out in front of them; the rattle of the Maxim, now playing across the crowded space, added its terrors to the scene. The stricken host fell in heaps before the pitiless hail of lead; then, in uncontrollable panic, they turned tail and fled, trampling each other down in their terror, carrying all before them in one irresistible rush to the shelter of the wood.
And now, with a fierce yell, the Soudanese darted after them with the bayonet. But in the lull that followed the first wild onset, the major's ear caught the sound of heavy firing in his rear. Captain Lister was evidently engaged. The major at once recalled the men from their pursuit, and, leaving Lieutenant Mumford with a hundred rifles to meet a renewed attack should the enemy recover from their panic, he hurried back with the main part of his force to support the hundred with Captain Lister up-stream.
He found the little body hard pressed. At the sound of firing to the north, a force of three hundred and fifty Arabs, supported by nearly five hundred natives, had emerged from their place of concealment in the forest. Checked in their rush by the abattis, they had made a second impetuous charge, losing heavily from the well-directed volleys of Captain Lister's men. But they had soon perceived the smallness of the force opposed to them, and, dividing into two bands, they made simultaneous attacks at both ends of the line. The Soudanese at the river-end staggered, and, being more exposed than the rest of the line, gave way. Instantly a few score Arabs broke through, and, true to their rapacious instincts, made direct for the baggage. Tom, who had been eating his heart out with impatience, saw that he was likely after all to have his fill of fighting. It seemed almost impossible that his handful of men could hold their own against the wild rush of the enemy, but the steady nerve which had served him so well in many a mimic battle did not fail him in this his first experience of real warfare. Bidding his men kneel and rest their rifles on the piled boxes, he waited till the Arabs were within fifty yards, then gave the order to fire. The assailants broke like a wave upon a rock. The most of them fell prone; a few, with desperate courage, came on till the Askaris could almost feel their breath; then cold steel completed what the bullet had begun.
In the meantime the other end of the British line was yielding before repeated rushes, being hampered by the necessity of guarding the left flank against the black crowds of Manyema pressing perilously near. It was at this critical moment that the major returned with his exultant troops. Charging downhill at tremendous speed, they swept to the support of their comrades, and after a severe hand-to-hand fight against great odds, they drove the enemy steadily back into the forest, with terrible loss.
It was now half-past four. The fight at the clearing having been won without a single casualty on the British side, Dr. O'Brien was free to attend to the thirty wounded men who, with about half as many dead, bore witness to the severity of the struggle by the abattis. Meanwhile, Captain Lister was leading his men in pursuit of the fugitives. Suddenly the crackle of musketry broke out again far away to the north-east. The major turned at the sound. He caught sight of the rampart of baggage, of the stricken forms lying close beneath it, of Tom standing among his men.
"Tom," he said, with quick resolution, "I want you to take your unwounded men up to Mumford and see if he is really being attacked again. Some of the less severely wounded can guard the baggage. If he wants help send your boy or one of the men back to me, and I'll move up in support."
The major's tone was quiet and matter-of-fact, as though his command was quite in the ordinary course of things. Tom needed no repetition of the order; vowing that Uncle Jack was a brick, he started at once with twenty-five men and Mbutu. He had been hoping against hope for such a moment. Only with the greatest difficulty had he refrained from leaping into the fray by the abattis when he saw Captain Lister so hard pressed and defending his position so gallantly.
He reached Lieutenant Mumford's force at an opportune moment. The Arab chief, after his men had been hurled back by the enemy, had striven desperately to rally them. Collecting some two hundred and fifty of the survivors, and hearing, as the major had done, the sound of brisk firing to the south, he conceived the idea of making a circuit and joining his friends above the bridge. He had already made some progress in that direction, and had actually come into touch with the extended line of flankers, when he was informed by a scout, whom he had sent to reconnoitre, that the British commander was withdrawing the larger part of his force to the assistance of a second body up-stream. The Arab instantly wheeled round; his band was being augmented every moment by returning fugitives, and he saw an opportunity to fall upon and overwhelm the small British force left behind. Lieutenant Mumford quickly divined his intention, and foresaw the direction of the threatened attack. He at once changed front, and, turning the Maxim round at right angles to its former position, left it in the hands of a non-commissioned officer, while he himself took the general command. He posted his men on two sides of a square, thus forming a wedge. The position was partly protected by undergrowth, but the trees were not so close together as to afford complete cover, and the advantage of the ground lay rather with the massing Arabs.
Tom arrived just as a first charge had been repulsed. Firing in sections, the Soudanese had laid many of the Arabs low, and the onset was checked for a moment. But the Arab chief was in no mood to brook cowardice or hesitation. Conspicuous by his huge stature and a red sash over his shoulder, he rallied his men once more. They came on through the scrub, with defiant cries of "Allah-il-Allah!" firing as they came, and taking advantage of cover to make rushes and draw nearer and nearer to the British lines. Tom's twenty-five men were a welcome reinforcement, for a dozen of the little force were already hors de combat, and the Maxim had jammed. Quickly ranging themselves with their comrades, the new-comers brought their rifles to their shoulders and fired, and once more the Arab advance was checked.
"Couldn't we try a charge?" suggested Tom to the lieutenant. "My men are eager to have at the enemy."
"Yes; now is the moment. It's touch and go. Men, fix bayonets; charge!"
Mumford at the left of the line, Tom at the right, followed immediately by Mbutu, they sprang forward with a resounding cheer. Past the bushes, dodging in and out among the trees, the gallant little force made at the enemy. The Arabs had collected in a comparatively clear space within the forest, and as the charging Askaris came upon them they parted into two bands, which moved away from each other as though to take the attacking party on both flanks. Mumford immediately wheeled half his line to the left, shouting to Tom to deal similarly with the right-hand body.
"Now, my boys," cried Tom, "we've not done much to-day. It's our turn at last. Come along!"
The willing men followed him with a yell. No turbaned force could stand against them. The Arabs broke and scattered, and the headstrong Askaris dashed after them in mad pursuit. The chief, with half a dozen devoted followers, made a gallant attempt to check the rush. He stood, a giant among his men, swinging his curved scimitar, passionately objurgating the fugitives, and even cutting some of them down as they ran. But neither his example nor his threats availed to stay the rout. His men fled for their lives. He himself seemed to bear a charmed life; though he formed so conspicuous a target, he was as yet untouched. Now Tom marked him as he stood in deep impotent wrath, alone, save for a body-guard of four. Tom's eye flashed with a sudden resolve.
"Mbutu," he cried, "and you, Sadi, come with me and capture that big fellow. Now, one, two, three--with me, boys!"
Giving his rifle to Mbutu he sprang forward, revolver in hand, followed by the Muhima and a huge Somali private, who had been laying about him doughtily with his rifle clubbed. The chief saw the three speeding towards him, and like a gallant warrior stayed to face his foe. The Somali, leaping with tremendous strides, was the first to get to close quarters. With his clubbed rifle he beat down the bayonet of one of the Arabs and stretched him upon the ground; but it was his last stroke, for the chief made a lunge forward, and with his keen blade pierced him to the heart. He fell against Tom, knocking his helmet off his head, and out of his hand the revolver with which he had just accounted for one of the chief's body-guard. Quick as thought Tom pounced on the fallen man's rifle, and was erect again just in time to beat off the descending scimitar. It was now a desperate hand-to-hand fight, bayonet against sword. The red beams of the setting sun caught the curved blade as it swept about Tom's head and body, but not for an instant did his keen eye falter. Following his opponent's every movement, and grasping the rifle firmly with both hands, he parried thrust and beat aside lunge, ready to strike home if he saw the hair's-breadth of an opportunity. Now the lessons of the sergeant-major at school bore good fruit; and if that officer could have seen the flower of his cadet corps bearing himself so manfully in this fierce duel, he would have owned himself content.
All this time Mbutu, agile as a cat, had been desperately engaging the two remaining Arabs, determined to prevent them from going to the chief's assistance, and burning to pay off old scores upon the kindred of his former persecutors. The level rays of the sun, coming from behind his back, dazzled his opponents' eyes, so that they had much ado to elude the thrusts of his bayonet. At length he got within the guard of one of them, and wounded him in the sword-arm. As they fought they had edged close up to where Tom and the Arab were still in deadly conflict. With indomitable pluck the wounded Arab stooped, picked up his sword with his left hand, and before Mbutu, now hotly engaged with the last man, could interpose, the Arab smote at Tom from below with a stroke which wounded his defenceless head, and he fell to the ground. That same instant, Mbutu ran the fourth man through the body, and, turning to despatch the wounded Arab, received a deep cut from the chief's sword in his right shoulder.
Only Tom's fallen body, impeding the Arab, saved the Muhima from a second desperate blow. The blood-stained scimitar was raised to strike a third time, when a distant bugle rang out. The chief's arm was stayed in mid-air; he gazed eagerly over Mbutu's head into the forest. No British troops were to be seen; but the Arab, after a moment's irresolution, appeared to decide that the bugle-call was the signal for another advance, and fearing to be cut off entirely from his friends, he turned and disappeared among the trees. Mbutu, however, had recognized the notes of the recall, and wondered what he was to do. He bent down to examine his master's prostrate body. Finding that he still breathed, he tried to lift him, but loss of blood from his wound and his own fierce exertions had exhausted him, and he laid Tom gently down, feeling anxious and distressed. A minute's consideration showed him that he must follow the retiring troops and bring assistance. He started at once in the gathering darkness, but being weaker than he had supposed, he could walk but slowly. It was more than half an hour before he reached the British lines, just after Lieutenant Mumford had rejoined the major, who had set his men to form a strong zariba. To the major's anxious enquiry for Tom, Mumford replied that, having seen him go off to the right and not return, he had taken it for granted that he would come into touch with the main body. At this moment Mbutu staggered up. In faint, laboured tones he explained what had happened, and begged that a party might be sent at once to bring his master in.
The major gave a gasp of relief when he heard that his nephew, though wounded, was still alive.
"Thank God!" he exclaimed. '"Now to find him before it is quite dark."
The major himself, with twenty men, accompanied Mbutu in search of his master. The Muhima nearly fainted as he started, and Dr. O'Brien, giving him some brandy and hastily bandaging the torn shoulder, declared that he too must go in case of "evenshualities". The party hurried off, and went as quickly as Mbutu's condition permitted, supported as he was between Fadl and Abdullah. With native sureness he led them, as the sun set across the river, straight to the spot where he had left his master. It was just light enough to see several human forms strewn upon the trampled grass. Mbutu bent down to examine the bodies, and the little party shivered as the long whine of a jackal came swelling up from the distance, waking its echo from the rocky escarpments of the river. The Muhima went swiftly from body to body, then uttered a forlorn and heart-broken cry.
"Not here! not here!" bewailed.
Major Burnaby and the doctor both stooped in consternation. There were five bodies. One was that of Sadi the Somali, the rest were Arabs. Tom was no longer there!
A dreadful silence fell upon the group. Mbutu stood as though paralysed. The major and Dr. O'Brien looked mutely into each other's eyes.
"Toots!" ejaculated the doctor at length, giving himself an impatient shake. "Recovered consciousness and walked off, of course he did. That's what it is, to be sure. Must have been a slight wound, you see."
"What can we do, Doctor?" said the major. "We can't search for him in the dark; we might be cut down by the Arabs anywhere. The moon rises late; he will hardly find his way."
"Get back to camp and blow a blast on your bugles and send up rockets; he will hear one or see t'other, and come into camp. Never fear, that young fellow's safe enough. He didn't come dancing here from the ends of the earth to be sent to kingdom-come by Arabs."
Dr. O'Brien's cheerfulness, though it was more than half assumed, somewhat reassured the major. The party returned rapidly to camp, and there bugles were blown and rockets skied as had been suggested. But though the blare and the illumination were continued far into the night, the major watched for Tom in vain, shuddering as he heard the melancholy howl of jackals far and near, and longing for the dawn.
With the Raiders--The Hakim--Mustapha--A Trap--In a Slave Camp--Man's Inhumanity--De Castro Again--De Castro Eloquent
A few minutes after Mbutu had left his master to go on his painful quest for help, four big Manyema warriors came bounding through the forest. They carried spears, the iron heads of which were as yet clear of blood. When they caught sight of the six prostrate bodies in the narrow glade they halted, and with one consent bent down to rifle the dead. They had stripped two of the Arabs of what small articles of value they possessed, when the negro who had stooped over Tom's body uttered a sharp exclamation, at which his companions left their gruesome occupation and came hastily to his side. As he was tearing a button from Tom's coat, the eyes of the apparent corpse had opened for an instant, and the body had moved uneasily. The four men stooped, peering at it, talking excitedly, and waxing hotter and hotter in argument. Three of them were for spearing the body at once, declaring that, from the nature of the wound, death was inevitable, and that they might as well hasten matters and share the spoil. But the man who had come first upon the scene obstinately opposed this course. It was the body of an Englishman, he said; there was still life in him; and it would tend very much to their advantage to keep him alive and carry him to the Arab chief, who would no doubt reward them handsomely for so valuable a prize. As a final argument, he reminded his friends that they had been among the first to bolt from the field, and as they were aware of the punishment that awaited them, it was well to propitiate the chief and save their skins. This argument had its effect, and without wasting more time on the fallen Arabs, they prepared to carry Tom away.
The leader tore a strip from the burnous of one of the Arabs, and deftly wound it about Tom's head, to prevent further loss of blood from the deep gash at the base of his skull. The rest as quickly fashioned a litter out of two spears and another burnous; and before Mbutu had walked halfway to the British camp, his master was being borne by the four Manyema swiftly in the opposite direction.
He was still unconscious when the men placed him on the litter. The terrific blow inflicted on him by the Arab, followed by his heavy fall, had been very near causing concussion of the brain, and the loss of blood he had suffered would of itself have deprived him of consciousness. Indeed, but for the opportune arrival of his captors, and the interested thoughtfulness of the man who had bandaged his head, there can be no doubt that Tom Burnaby would in a short time have done with mortality and become a prey to jackals and vultures.
As the Manyema hurried on with elastic stride, the gentle swinging motion of the litter appeared to revive him partially. The moon had just risen, and Tom, opening his eyes, fancied that he was being borne along by the Soudanese who had carried him into camp the day before. His lips moved, and the bearers started when they heard their helpless prisoner muttering light-headedly until he dozed again into quietude.
After the negroes had tramped for about an hour, following a narrow track by the light of moon and stars, they were stopped by an Arab who came suddenly out of the forest, and demanded of them who they were. He looked with interest at the pale face of the sleeping stripling in the litter, and informed the carriers that he himself was one of a number of scouts left at various points along the track of the Arab chief, to direct stragglers to head-quarters. After the second repulse, and his single-handed fight with Tom, the chief had made no further attempt to rally his men, but struck due north, picking up several parties of fugitives on the way. At the distance of some few miles from the scene of his disaster he knew of a ford over the river, at which he crossed, continuing thence his march in a westerly direction until he reached the right bank of the River Ntungwe, not far from its entrance into Lake Albert Edward. There he encamped for the night, leaving word of his whereabouts, as has been shown, and appointing a general rendezvous at a village on the farther bank of the Rutchuru.
All this the four Manyema learnt from the Arab scout, who, while speaking, had helped himself to Tom's watch and chain, roughly telling the negroes that he would shoot them if they breathed a word of that little performance to the chief. He then allowed them to proceed. They soon afterwards struck into a path leading to the ford, crossed the river under a ghostly moonlight, and reached the encampment an hour before dawn.
Their arrival was not the important event they had anticipated. Shortly before, the Wanyabinga chief against whose village the British expedition was directed, and who had brought a contingent to the Arab force, had come into camp to plead with the Arab for one more attempt to destroy Major Burnaby's little army. He had himself done all he could, he said; he had "eaten up" all his rivals in the neighbouring villages for a score of miles round, in order to starve the British force; his knowledge of the country had proved invaluable to the Arabs in their raids for ivory; and it was due to information given by him that the ambush from which he had expected so much had been planned. It was unfortunate, a calamity only to be ascribed to some ju-ju or medicine-man, that the ambush had failed; but for all that, he contended, his services still merited some reward. If his lord Mustapha was not prepared to make a direct assault on the expeditionary force, he might at least help in the defence of the speaker's village, which was encircled by a triple stockade, and impregnable, he thought, if strongly held.
Now the poor Wanyabinga chief had all along been the dupe of his astute Arab ally. Mustapha had used him entirely for his own ends. He had instigated the acts of insubordination and treachery which Major Burnaby was proceeding to punish, persuading the credulous negro that the white man would before long be altogether expelled from the lake country, and promising, when that happy day came, to establish him, the native chief, as King of Uganda. But the Arab was furious at the failure of his cherished scheme. He was beside himself with rage, ready to vent it on whatever person or thing came first in his way. His answer to the black chief's plea was a brutal laugh, a curse, a jibe. The Wanyabinga attempted to bring him to reason. "When I am king of Uganda," he said, "I will repay your kindness with hundreds upon hundreds of slaves, and untold wealth of ivory." "You king of Uganda!" retorted Mustapha derisively; "you will one day carry my wash-pot and tie the latchets of my shoe!" The man protested, whereupon the Arab flew into a passion, and, drawing his sword, declared flatly that he would slice the importunate wretch into little pieces if he did not immediately withdraw from his presence. The negro hastily departed, nursing wild purposes of vengeance in his heart.
It was just after this scene that the four tired Manyema brought Tom into the camp. They sought an interview with the chief. He declined to see them. They sent word to him that they had with them a wounded officer of the British force. His answer was that they might kill him and eat him if they pleased. Astonished and crestfallen, they were considering with one another what to do with their captive when the chief's hakim appeared on the scene. Put in possession of the facts, he advised the men to attempt nothing further with Mustapha in his present temper; in the meantime he himself would be answerable for the prisoner. The negroes were loth to let him go without some tangible recompense for their labour; but when the Arab glared at them, and threatened them with the mysteries of his art, with superstitious fear they left their unconscious burden and went moodily away.
Tom owed his life to the skilful tendance of the Arab physician. With such rough appliances and medicaments as he had at hand, the hakim dressed Tom's wounds; he then placed him in a comfortable position by his own watch-fire, and sat by him until daylight.
Tom awoke with the dawn, conscious of a terrible pain at the back of his head, and a feeling all over him of emptiness and collapse. He was too feeble even to be surprised when he saw the grave face of the Arab a few feet from his own.
"Where am I?" he whispered, and wondered at the scarcely audible sound of his own voice. The Arab shook his head. He knew no English. He went away, and returned presently with a cup of some warm liquid, which he administered in drops on a horn spoon. Tom was grateful for the attention; the Arab fed him thus for ten minutes, and the food revived him, bringing a touch of colour into his pale cheeks.
Almost immediately afterwards the order was given to strike camp. By eight o'clock the crowd was in motion. During the night some four hundred Arabs had rallied to the chief, as well as a number of their black allies. But the majority of the Manyema had had their confidence in the Arabs dismally shattered by the event of the previous day, and had dispersed to their homes.
The chief, knowing that he was new in the territory of the Congo Free State, felt pretty secure from pursuit by the British, and had decided to continue his march westward towards the Rutchuru at a moderate pace. He stalked along with downbent head before his troops, reminding Tom, when he saw him presently, of Napoleon in Meissonier's picture of the retreat from Moscow. The hakim had seen him early in the morning, and spoken to him of the English prisoner; and the chief had curtly bidden the physician tend him carefully, as he might be valuable as a hostage. As for him, he had other matters to attend to. Tom learnt later what these other matters were.
The hakim sought out the four Manyema who had brought Tom to the camp, and ordered them to resume their task. The Arab walked by the head of the litter, and when the sun rose higher, he arranged a linen screen above Tom's head, which served to defend him from the burning rays and in some measure from insects.
At mid-day the chief halted to dispose of the business that weighed on him. He first called up the Wanyabinga chief, who had clung to the band in the hope of the Arab's relenting. But Mustapha told him bluntly that if he accompanied the caravan farther it would be as a slave. The man stood trembling for a moment as though paralysed; then muttering awful imprecations, he collected his few tribesmen, brandished his spear thrice, and bolted amid his men across the swamp. Having reached a safe distance he halted, led a chorus of execration, and hurling his spear in a last desperate defiance at his late ally, he turned and disappeared into the bush.
Then the Arab formed a court of six of his leading men, and summoned before him two miserable wretches whom Tom had noticed marching painfully, with shackled feet and wrists, under a close guard. They were charged with cowardice during the first terrible fight on the previous afternoon. In due form they were condemned to death and led away, and shortly afterwards Tom heard two shots. In affairs of this kind the Arabs waste no ammunition.
The march was resumed, and now that he had attended to his other matters, the chief had time to take some notice of Tom, He came up to the litter, and started when he saw that the prisoner was none other than the stripling who had held him in such desperate fight. He grunted, as though in displeasure at discovering his doughty opponent still alive; then a faint smile wreathed his lips, and the cloud that had darkened his face all day cleared away. He spoke rapidly to the hakim, who nodded his head and replied gravely. Tom of course understood nothing of what they said, but he inferred that the physician had declared him out of danger, and that the Arab was calculating on turning the capture to some profit. Giving Tom another glance, in which there was a tinge of admiration for a warrior worthy of his steel, Mustapha returned to his place at the head of the caravan.
Late that night they reached the right bank of the Rutchuru. The chief and his men had slept for but one hour during the past twenty-four, and were too tired to attempt a crossing. They formed a zariba on a stretch of dry ground about half a mile from the river, intending to continue the march next day towards their stronghold beyond the hills. Tom was again carefully tended by Mahmoud the hakim, and, thanks to his fine constitution, was steadily gaining strength.
Next morning, just as the Arabs were breaking up camp, one of the scouts who had already been sent across the river returned with the news that, some distance beyond the farther bank, he had descried from an eminence a body of about a hundred men in uniform preparing to march. They were commanded by a white officer. The question naturally flashed into Mustapha's mind: "Could they be a part of the British force sent out in search of the missing officer?" He had already heard, from one or two late stragglers from the force which had engaged Captain Lister, of the rockets sent up and the bugles sounded when darkness had fallen after the fight, and he had no stomach for encountering a vengeful search-party. The force just discovered, it was true, was in a quarter where the British were little to be expected, but it was well to be on the safe side. Hoping that his troops had not yet been seen, and that if they had been seen they would be mistaken in the distance for a peaceful caravan, the Arab determined on a strategic move. Instead of crossing the river, and thus coming upon the other force at an acute angle, he moved off in a north-easterly direction, as though making for the south-eastern corner of Lake Albert Edward, leaving a few trusty scouts to watch the movements of the unknown troops. But this was only a feint. After marching for a few miles he swung round suddenly to the south-east, cut across the track of his previous day's march, pressed on rapidly over the swampy ground, and struck the Rutchuru some ten miles from his first position, the river bending there almost due east. There he crossed, and, finding a stretch of comparatively clear and level ground between the forest and the hills, he halted his men, to rest them after their forced march.
Not many minutes afterwards a scout came up at full speed to say that the unknown force was following hot-foot at their heels, and taking a more direct line, having evidently divined the object of the trick. The news was hardly out of his mouth when another scout followed and informed the chief that the pursuing force was composed of Bangala, and was unmistakeably Belgian, and not British. Mustapha smiled grimly. His four hundred Arabs were a match, he thought, for a body of Bangala of one fourth that number, and rather than run the risk of being dogged and harassed, he determined to chance a fight. Sending his transport on in advance, under an escort of fifty Arabs and a crowd of negroes, he proceeded to prepare a hot welcome for his pursuers.
He knew every inch of the ground. Between his halting-place and the foot of the hills intervened a swamp some two miles long and half a mile broad. It was crossed by two paths, one leading straight to the hills, the other intersecting the first at right angles about a quarter of a mile from the outer edge of the swamp. The whole region was mere mud and water, except along the paths, with elephant-grass at least twelve feet high standing up in all directions.
Mustapha made his dispositions rapidly. He posted a hundred of his men on the second and shorter path, about two hundred yards to the left of the main path, at a spot where they were absolutely concealed by tall grass. At the farther end of the main path he placed another hundred, with orders to offer a feeble resistance to the Belgian troops, and to retire before them into a dense copse at the base of the hills. A third hundred were stationed some three hundred yards north, at the edge of the swamp, on a line curving to the east, so that they commanded the right flank of the advancing force. These positions had hardly been taken up when the Belgian scouts, having crossed the river, advanced cautiously to the edge of the swamp and began to move forward along the main path. Just as they came to the crossways they caught sight of a few Arabs retiring in their immediate front, these having been instructed so to do in order to lure them on. The plan worked perfectly. Not troubling to examine the crosspaths, they returned with the information that the Arabs were retreating to the hills, obviously desirous of avoiding an engagement. The Belgian commandant, who had arrived but recently from Europe and was burning to distinguish himself in the pursuit of raiders, ordered his men to press forward rapidly. The Bangala advanced in single file, their commandant at their head, between hedges of grass, sometimes in their haste slipping knee-deep into the swamp.
They came in sight of the end of the path, and were met by a few shots from the Arabs there assembled, who then retired in apparent trepidation. At the same time the Arabs stationed to the north opened a brisk fire on the Bangala's right flank, to which they replied vigorously, but ineffectively, for the grass was too high to allow them to see the enemy or take careful aim. The commandant, at the head of the column, ordered a halt, and was amazed now to hear shots in his rear. The Arabs posted on the crosspath had begun to fire on the rear of the slender column. Fearing for his transport, which he had left under a small guard at the edge of the swamp, the commandant made the fatal mistake of ordering a retreat. His men turned about and began to run back. Meanwhile the Arabs behind them had come from their place of concealment and taken up their position at the crossways on both sides of the path, and those at the other end, who had pretended to retire, returned in brisk pursuit. Caught between two fires, the Bangala were thrown into a panic. The commandant was hit, and speared as he lay; his men, paralysed with fright, either stood until they were shot down, or plunged into the swamp and met their death in the ooze.
Mustapha, with grim exultation in his face, then swept down upon the feebly-defended transport. The Bangala, after firing one shot, threw down their arms and begged for mercy. They were given a choice between instant death and slavery; and in the upshot, when the Arab chief continued his journey westward, he was richer by the whole of the Belgian baggage and a slave-gang of twenty Bangala, with as many more negro carriers.
Tom in his litter had been sent forward with Mahmoud the physician and the Arab baggage. At the sound of firing his heart leapt with the thought that it was perhaps his uncle who had overtaken the Arabs. The watchful hakim observed his excitement, and dashed his hopes with a shake of the head. At that moment a slug, shot from who knows where, dropped within a yard of Tom's litter. The Arab started and let fall an exclamation in German.
"Do you know German?" asked Tom eagerly in the same language. He felt quite friendly towards the grave hakim with the high narrow forehead and the long straggling beard.
"Yes, a little," said the Arab in surprise. "I lived a long time in Bagamoyo, when the Germans first came, and I have learned to speak a little in their infidel tongue."
"I can't tell you how glad I am. I've been longing to have someone to talk to now that I am getting better. Who is firing away over there?"
"Belgians."
"Oh!" Tom looked glum, and the Arab's lips wore a queer little smile.
"You may give up hope of rescue," continued the Arab. "We are miles and miles away from your friends, and they would never find you."
"What am I to expect, then? Better shoot me at once--if they think of keeping me as a prisoner."
"You have rich friends, no doubt; they will pay."
"Ransom! Much I'm worth! What are you taking me right away from my friends for, then?"
The Arab shrugged.
"You can judge," he said.
And indeed, when Tom thought of it, he saw that the chief was wise in seeking his remote and inaccessible stronghold before opening communications with the British authorities.
It took two days to reach the village appointed by the chief as the rendezvous for his scattered force. Tom was carried all the way in the litter, the hakim refusing to allow him yet to try to walk. They talked together in German, but though the Arab spoke freely enough about things in general, giving the captive many bits of curious and interesting information, he was very reserved on all matters relating to the chief's aims and plans and movements.
On reaching the village the chief announced his intention of remaining there for three days, to give his friends and allies ample time for rejoining him. From the hut in which the hakim had fixed his quarters Tom had a clear view through the village. He saw a scene which haunted his memory and imagination for many a long day. Within a fence of banana stalks stood a series of low sheds, many lines deep. Between them, and around, were packed rows upon rows of naked negroes, standing, lying stretched upon the ground, or moving about in utter listlessness. Young men, women, children, all, save the very youngest, were chained and fettered; their necks were encircled with iron rings, through which a chain passed, binding the wretched creatures together in gangs of twenty. Tom saw one man raise his hand to his neck to ease it of the galling band; another, worn to a skeleton, lay panting his life out by a heap of filth; two tiny black boys were innocently playing with the links of the chain that bound their mother to other women. The look of agony and despair upon the faces of the grown slaves, still more the happy unconsciousness of the little children, touched Tom to the heart, and there and then he vowed, if in God's providence he ever escaped from that place of horror, to do all in his power to help stamp out the cruel trade. He poured out his indignation in fierce words to the Arab, who smiled and shrugged, remarking simply, "Allah is good." Tom tried to reason with him, but found him absolutely incapable even of understanding what the pother was about. "There always had been slaves, there always would be slaves; Allah is good."
Tom turned away, impatient and sick at heart. His eye fell on an adjacent enclosure, in which the relics of innumerable raids lay scattered or heaped up in profusion. Drums, spears, swords, assegais, bows and arrows, knives, ivory horns, ivory pestles, wooden idols, the wardrobes and paraphernalia of sorcerers, baskets, pots, hammers--thousands of things, useful and useless, bore witness to the Arabs' depredations. As he looked, a picture seemed to form itself in his mind. Through the darkness of night he sees stealthy, long-robed forms creep towards a sleeping village; no sound issuing from the gloom save the drowsy hum of cicadas or the croak of distant frogs; when suddenly the glare of torches gleams upon the huts, the thatch bursts into flame, and the scared sleepers wake amid the rattle of musketry, some to meet swift death with momentary pain, others--alas! the youngest, the strongest--to wear out their lives in the lingering death of slavery. Tom brushed his hands over his eyes, and begged the impassive Arab to take him away.
On the third morning of his stay in the village Tom observed that the chief was in a towering rage. He asked the physician, as the caravan again moved out westward, what was the cause of his master's disturbance. Mahmoud refused to explain. The truth was that one of the scouts despatched by the chief to the scene of his fight with Major Burnaby had returned with the news that he had discovered, on the bluff, the corpses of eight of the nine men placed there to hurl down the logs. Up to that moment the chief had been entirely at a loss to account for the failure of the ambush so carefully arranged, and had only nursed vague suspicions. But the fact that the ambush had failed, as now reported, in the very first detail, coupled with the nonappearance of De Castro, whom he had expected to join him immediately after the battle, convinced the chief that he had been betrayed, and by his supposed friend, the Portuguese. Chewing the bitter cud of his wrath, Mustapha ordered his men to set off early in the morning, including in the caravan six hundred of the slaves.
Tom was no longer borne in a litter. The hakim had declared him well enough to walk. He was provided with a linen turban to protect his head, and with a gourd and wallet to hold water and food for the day. That he was a prisoner was left in no doubt by the guard of six men, armed with loaded rifles, who marched with him, three in front and three behind. The six were changed every three hours, a precaution against any attempt on Tom's part to become too friendly with his guards, unnecessary in the circumstances, for when, from sheer tedium, he ventured to address a few words to them, they shook their heads in unfeigned ignorance of his meaning.
Indignant as he had been at the sight of the herded slaves in the village, his blood boiled at the scenes which met his gaze during the march, and his fingers itched to get to grips with the slave-traders. "If I were only Hercules, or Samson, or any of the fabled giants of old!" he sighed, chafing at his impotence. The slaves were driven on without remorse or ruth, the heavy whip descending upon their shoulders or curling about their loins at any sign of lagging. Mothers carried their babies till they collapsed from exhaustion, strong youths fell, utterly spent, by the path-side. Some of the weaklings were butchered as they lay, the rest were left to die of famine, or perchance to be enslaved again if haply some Good Samaritan found them and nursed them back to strength.
Besides these actual evidences of present cruelty, the path itself bore witness to savageries in the past. Leading, like all native paths, up hill and down dale, crossing rocky uplands or traversing dense forests, it had been trodden with no attempt to find the easiest way, sometimes winding like a snake where a straight course would have saved miles, sometimes making a straight line up a precipitous ascent where a circular route would have been more expeditious. If a tree had fallen across it the obstruction was not removed, but a new path was trodden round it, joining the original path again at a point beyond. At more than one spot Tom saw a skeleton across the track, and there the path made a little divergence of two or three yards, returning to its course at the same distance on the other side. In answer to Tom's question the hakim told him that if a man died on the road he was never buried, but left to the beasts of the field and the fowl of the air. The loop formed by the path about the body remained for ever, though the obstacle in course of time disappeared. Several of the grisly skeletons there encountered had the iron rings still about their necks; and with each, fuel was added to Tom's wrath, and strength to his resolve.
Towards noon, on the second day after leaving the slave-village, Tom, marching among his guards, felt more than usually dejected in spirit. He held his head high, and preserved an undaunted mien before the Arabs, but in reality he was beginning to despair of ever beholding England and his friends again. For one thing, he was physically out of sorts; the villages in which the long caravan encamped at night were not models of cleanliness, and he was sometimes too sick to swallow the unsavoury foods provided for him. Moreover, he had been terribly plagued with the jiggers, the scourge of African travel,--insects which pierced the skin and laid their eggs beneath it, these in their turn becoming worms that caused intolerable pain and irritation.
Towards noon, then, when he was feeling particularly unhappy, he observed signs of commotion in the column ahead. The chief, posted upon an ant-hill, was looking eagerly into the distance at a group of men whom he had descried upon the sky-line a mile away. He ordered the caravan to halt, and, suspecting from the smallness of the group that it might be the advance scouts of another force led by Europeans, he despatched fifty of his men to reconnoitre. They divided into two equal bands, and went off through the bush on either side of the path so as to surround the little party, and, if it proved hostile, to cut off its retreat.
Mustapha, in the meantime, collected the best of his fighting-men around him, and waited intently for his scouts to reach the strangers, who had halted upon an eminence and seemed to be hesitating whether to advance or to retire. But after a short period of indecision the group moved slowly towards the halted caravan. It proved, as it came more distinctly into view, to consist of ten men, all fully armed. They were soon met by the Arab scouts, with whom they exchanged, not shots, but friendly greetings, and who turned and escorted them towards the caravan. As they approached, something in the bearing of the leader seemed familiar to Tom, and it was with a thrill almost of dismay that he recognized him, a hundred yards away, as indubitably his old enemy, De Castro.
It was a different De Castro, however, from the brisk and alert pursuer whose clutches he had so narrowly escaped. The Portuguese was haggard and worn; his self-confidence had vanished; his clothes were in tatters; even his green coat was sober and subdued, for constant exposure to the sun had bleached it to a dirty gray. His hunt for the Arab had evidently been particularly arduous, and there was no eagerness in his tone as he greeted his friend Mustapha.
Tom had been watching the chief, and wondering at the ominous scowl that darkened his face, growing ever blacker as the Portuguese drew nearer. To De Castro's greeting the Arab replied with a curse; then turning, he gave a sharp word of command. Twenty of his men sprang forward, and the wayworn new-comers were disarmed in a twinkling, standing helpless with dull amazement. A change instantly came over the attitude of the surrounding Arabs, the ready smile of welcome gave place to a dark scowl, and many a forefinger moved suggestively to the trigger. The Portuguese, after the first shock of surprise, gave vent to a torrent of indignant remonstrance, to which the chief turned a deaf ear; whereupon De Castro, with a shrug that seemed to say: "He's in one of his tempers", held his peace, and accepted the situation with stoical indifference.
Tom, in the meantime, had watched the scene with curious eyes, careful to keep out of the man's sight. "Strange," he thought, "that both of us, after our former tussle, should be prisoners in the same hands!" When the march was resumed, the Portuguese was sent forward under surveillance to the head of the column, Tom being nearer the centre, puzzled beyond measure at the incivility with which the chief had received one supposed to be bound to him by special ties.
Camp was pitched that night at the verge of the forest, in a deserted and half-ruined village, the stockade of which was broken down at many points of its circumference. Tom, in charge of the hakim, was located in a hut near the centre of the village, some distance from that appropriated by the chief. The chief's hut was the principal habitation, but it was little less ruinous than the rest. The thatch was broken in places, and there were two apertures in the walls wide enough to admit a full-grown man. It was overshadowed by a large and bushy tree, one of whose branches, springing from the trunk some fourteen feet from the ground, and bending down under its weight of foliage, overhung the roof, actually grazing it as the freshening breeze swayed the bough.
Tom, reclining on the grass before the hakim's hut, to eat his evening meal in the cool air before turning in, saw the Portuguese led under guard into the presence of the chief. In a few moments the sun went down, but Tom still sat, wondering what was going on at the interview. Once he thought he heard the sound of angry voices raised in altercation, but in the absence of the moon he saw nothing more, and by and by re-entered the hut, and sought the rough blanket that formed his only bed. At first he could not sleep for thinking over the, to him, unexpected arrival of the Portuguese. "It bodes no good to me," he thought. "Things are bad enough, but may easily be made worse. That villain will tell how I treated him; how he saw me afterwards with his runaway boy on the track of the expedition; that it must have been through our information the ambush came to grief. Heavens! what's to be the end of it all?" More than once during the march he had had thoughts of attempting to escape, but he had barely recovered his full vigour, and not the shadow of an opportunity had as yet presented itself. He pondered and pondered until his anxieties were drowned in quiet sleep.
It seemed but a minute later, it was in reality an hour, when he was awakened by the glare of a torch held close to his face. The smell of the pitch-soaked tow clung to him for months afterwards. Dazed at first, he soon made out the swarthy features of the Portuguese behind the torch, and met his keen eyes peering closely at his own. The Portuguese clicked his tongue, and uttered an exclamation of gleeful and vindictive satisfaction. Turning to the Arab chief, who stood behind, just within the doorway, he cried in Arabic:
"It is the very man!"
Tom lay watching. Now that a crisis was manifestly at hand, his tremors had ceased; his very life depended on his coolness and nerve. De Castro had begun an impassioned speech to the grave Arab. If Tom could have understood it, he would have heard him say:
"You charge me, forsooth, with being a traitor, with betraying you to the English--me, De Castro, the best hater of the English in all Africa! There you have the man who spoilt your game--our game. Man, I call him--that cub yonder, who tricked my boy away from me, and paid him, no doubt, to spy on me!"
("Wonder if he's telling the chief how I punched him!" thought Tom, noting the gleam and gesture of anger in his direction.)
"And you talk of accepting a ransom for him! Bah! 'tis the idea of a white-livered fool! Ransom! Mustapha, you were not always like this. Once upon a time you would have been hot for revenge--your wrath would have been satisfied ere the sun went down. Now you will sit supine after a shameful defeat, and take its price in gold!"
The Arab winced under the sting, and Tom saw him scowl as he laid his hand on his scimitar. He was beginning to speak, but the Portuguese gave him no time.
"Threats! I care not a straw for your threats. Come, Mustapha, do not let us quarrel. Think! Who was it started this parrot-cry, 'Down with the slave-trade'? Who was it stopped the raids for ivory, and hounded your people out of their ancient haunts till they have no rest now for the soles of their feet? Who was it strewed the sands of Egypt with thousands of your kin who were struggling in Allah's name to rescue the country from the Ottoman tyrant? You know who. We have had enough of these accursed English in Africa. But for them the Arabs would have been masters of the continent from Zanzibar to the Atlantic, from Tanganyika to the Great Sea. Bad enough, the swines of Belgians; but they can be bought. You can't buy these insolent dogs of English! Will you be deafened by their barking, and lacerated by their bites? Do you, like a poltroon, throw up the game? If not, let there be no talk of ransom, no faltering; let it be blood for blood, till Africa is our own again."
The Portuguese had waxed more and more vehement, but Tom was cool enough to look on critically as at an oratorical performance, and he even smiled the usual British smile at the fervid, unrestrained eloquence of the Southern races. De Castro went on in calmer accents:
"Come, Mustapha, your men will think you afraid to touch a white man if you allow this bear's whelp to be bought off. They will say: 'Give Mustapha so many gold pieces, and you may draw his teeth!' My friend, hand the cub over to me. I will make an example of him for his countrymen to shiver at!"
The taunts, even more than the arguments, of the Portuguese had roused the cruelty in the Arab's nature.
"Do as you like with him," he said impulsively. "It will teach them a lesson. I can trust you, no doubt, señor," he went on with a half-sneer, "not to let him off too easily. As for me, I have no taste for butchering curs; I prefer to employ others."
The Portuguese glared for an instant, but, too glad to get the long-coveted prey into his own hands, he pocketed the affront.
"So be it. To-morrow's sun will see what shall be done with him. Meanwhile, haul the dog from his kennel. Why give him a comfortable hut? Treat him like the rest."
The chief nodded. The Portuguese went to the door and called in three of the usual guard of six.
"Here, men," he said, "the chief orders you to remove this prisoner. Take him and tie him to yonder tree, and see to it that he does not escape."
As the men approached, Tom sprang to his feet and prepared to resist any handling by the Arabs. At this moment the hakim, who had stood in a corner of the hut, came forward and spoke a few words in the chief's ear. But they seemed only to strengthen the Arab's resolve. He bluntly told the physician to mind his own business,--that his intervention was vain. By this time Tom saw that resistance was hopeless; a struggle would probably end in his being butchered; and while there was life there was hope. He suffered himself to be led out. The Portuguese himself superintended the tying-up, the tree being the stout acacia shading the chief's hut. Eight men were set to watch the prisoner during the rest of the night, and with a look of malignant satisfaction in his evil face, the Portuguese, no longer suspected or distrusted, repaired, a free man, to his own quarters.