Through the Net--A Call in Passing--A Chase in the Dark--On the Track--Signals--The Little People--Ka-lu-ké-ke--Visions of the Night
It was desperately cold. Since he had left Kisumu, Tom had spent every night under a blanket, and, standing now with his back to the tree, a rope about his waist, another about his legs, a third tying his arms, he had nothing to defend him from the keen air but the clothes he stood in, and was unable to gain warmth by movement. He chafed under this bitter constraint; tried the strength of the ropes by straining at them with all his might; gave up the effort in sheer impotence, and wondered whether he should live to see another dawn.
"The blackguards!" he said to himself. A whimsical smile twitched his lips as he caught sight of the eight men set to watch him, squatting around a fire some distance away, and beguiling the time with a game somewhat resembling knuckle-bones. He fixed his eyes on the fire, following the leaping flames, indulging his fancy in imaging strange monstrous shapes; then recalled chestnut nights by the big-room fire at school; by and by found himself whistling "Follow up" and "Forty years on", at which the watchers dropped their dice and their talk for a moment and turned their listening faces towards him. Then the numbing cold began its soporific work. He felt dazed; fantastic visions danced before his eyes. Presently his lips moved without his knowing it, framing foolish remarks at which it seemed that another self was laughing; then his head bent forward, and he slept.
Somewhere about midnight it seemed to him in a dream that water was trickling down his neck. He awoke and threw back his head and hitched his shoulders, and felt that it was not water but something sinuous and solid, caught between tie back of his head and his coat collar. While he was wondering whether a snake had sought refuge there from the cold, he felt the intruder withdrawn, or rather was conscious that he had jerked his head away from it. The next moment the cold thin line, of he knew not what, wandered round and tickled his nose. Again he moved his head away. Now fully awake, he concluded that a strand of some creeping plant was dangling from the tree, and hoped forlornly that his discomfort, already not far short of actual torture, was not to be increased in any such irritating manner. He could not bend low enough to scratch his nose. The detestable thing seemed to follow him. He might move his head to left or to right, jerk it back or bend it forward, but he could not avoid the persistent tickler, which he had now recognized by the wan light of the moon, in her fourth quarter and sailing high, as the leafless tendril of a creeper.
He was tempted to call out to the watchers, and ask them to relieve him of this torment. But at the same moment he noticed that the eight negroes about the smouldering fire had dropped their heads on their knees, and that the creeper was swinging to and fro with a regular pendulum movement that was hardly natural, and was certainly not due to the wind, which blew fitfully in sudden gusts. It flashed upon him that somebody, perhaps the hakim, was up the tree, signalling to him. Bending his head back as far as he could, he peered up into the branches. At the same instant, the dangling switch ascended before his eyes; he gazed more intently, and by the faint glow of the fire from below, rather than by the filtering rays from the moon, he distinguished a crouching form at the fork of bough and trunk. It might have been an animal, but while Tom was still gazing up in a kind of dull amazement the form moved, a human arm was stretched downward, and within the grasp of a human hand a long blade caught a glint of red light from the watchers' fire. Tom longed to snatch at it. There it was, three feet above his head! He tore desperately at his fastenings, but the cords only cut into his flesh. "Come down and cut me free!" he whispered; but just then one of the Manyema turned his head, the knife was instantly withdrawn, the figure crawled back upon the branch, and disappeared from view.
Tom wondered. Surely the hakim, if it was the hakim, was not going to desert him. He waited and fretted; minute after minute passed; there was no sound, no sign. His heart sank; somnolence was again creeping over his senses when, nearly an hour after he had been first awaked, he heard a faint rustle in the tree above him. He looked up; there again was the form, its features indistinguishable in the foliage. As he gazed he saw a rod let down; the long knife was swathed about the end. It came lower; it reached the level of his hands, and stopped. He looked at it with wonder; then from the tree came a whisper:
"Cut; quick!"
He almost laughed at the absurdity of the suggestion. His hands were tied; his arms were bent in front of his chest, elbows and palms together, and strong cords were wound tightly about the wrists and forearms. But there was the sharp blade turned towards him, within half an inch of the ropes, held stiffly as though some malicious elf were bent on tantalizing him. Again came the eager whisper:
"Cut, cut; up and down, up and down!"
The knife moved closer, it touched the rope about his wrists; he felt its pressure. Was the thing possible? He tried to pull his cramped arms apart, and found that, firmly as they were bound, he could move them up and down for about an inch. He made a downward movement, the ropes scraping against the blade; up again, then down, again, again, with increasing rapidity as his excitement grew. One of the guards heaved a great sigh; Tom instantly stopped rubbing, and when the negro turned sleepily to look at the prisoner, he saw him tied to the tree, his head bent on his chest, his eyes closed. The man stretched out his arms, shifted his position, and gave himself again to slumber. Then the knife moved again, the rubbing was resumed; one strand gave way, then another, the tension was slackened, and with one final wrench Tom found his aching hands free!
He pressed them under his armpits to warm them and remove something of the pain; but the figure above was impatient, insistent. He lowered the knife still farther, and pressed it against the rope around Tom's waist. Tom took it. A few moments' sawing severed that rope also; then he stooped to his feet, and with three sharp strokes upon the cords about his ankles his last bonds were snapped, and he stood once more a free man. The negroes still slept, and the fire had died down upon its embers.
What was he now to do? Who was his obliging friend? He had little time to wonder; the rod was withdrawn into the tree; a few moments later it came down--the knife was gone.
"Climb up, sah!" came the eager whisper.
Tom grasped the rod, set his feet upon the knobby bole, and with exertions which strained the muscles of arms and legs to the verge of cramp he heaved himself into the leafy bough. The figure there clutched him as he was on the point of falling. "Sah! sah!" it said with a sob of joy. Tom gripped Mbutu's hand, and sat for a minute breathless, peering down towards the circle of sleeping negroes. The wind blew with increasing force, rustling the leaves, and the branch swayed heavily, grazing the hut's thatched roof.
"No time fink, sah," said Mbutu. "Must run away!"
But now that he was free Tom had recovered his wits, and saw that if he was to get clear away he must exercise all his cunning. There was the hut in which the chief, his enemy, lay; there were the guards, sleeping, it was true, but likely to wake at any moment. Around was the village, filled with Arabs, Manyema, and slaves; an alarm would set hundreds of men on the alert, and there was but a slender chance of escaping from so many. Beyond the village, three hundred yards away, was the thin outer belt of the forest; could he but gain that, Tom thought, he might hide and elude pursuit. There was danger from wild beasts, no doubt; but a wild beast was less dangerous than the vengeful Portuguese. It must be a dash for life and liberty, he saw. How was he to escape immediate danger of detection?
His quick eye noticed that Mbutu wore the burnous and turban of an Arab. With a leaping heart he saw in a flash of thought his way made plain. It involved manifold risks. "Never venture never win," he said to himself, and proceeded to put his plan into operation. Tying the knife again to the rod, but at an angle to form a crook, he let it down, and hooked up the severed cords that lay at the foot of the tree. He swiftly knotted them to form two strong ropes. Then bidding Mbutu secure the knife and follow him, he crept cautiously along the bough towards the hut. The wind was stiffening to a gale; the horned moon was dipping behind the forest, and the hut lay in shadow. He came to the end of the branch, and crawled on to the roof, Mbutu following close. Moving only when the swaying bough rustled against the thatch, drowning all other sounds, he made his way cat-like across the roof, reached the edge, slid over, and slipped noiselessly down one of the wooden posts supporting the thatch at the distance of a foot from the wall of the hut. He was on the ground on the side farthest from the tree. For some moments he stood and listened. There was a sound of voices not far to his right, and he thought he detected a low murmur from two or three quarters. Evidently there were many still awake. Tom decided that the plan he had formed offered a better chance of escape than a mere dash for the forest. Taking off the turban with which he had been provided by the hakim, he opened it out, and folded the sheet of linen over and over until it made a long tight roll. In a few whispered words he explained his plan to Mbutu; then, signing to the boy to come after him quietly, he crept through one of the holes in the wall, and found himself inside the hut. On a rude table a small rushlight was burning, by whose glimmer he saw the chief stretched upon his back on a narrow plank, his burnous cast aside, his long form covered with a red blanket. He was fast asleep, with his mouth open, his breath coming and going with long soundless heaves. With heart beating violently in spite of himself, Tom stole behind the Arab, and then whispered to Mbutu that he was to hold the man's head when he gave the signal. Both then stooped; Tom gave a nod; Mbutu pressed the chief's head down firmly with both hands, and at the same instant Tom stuffed the rolled turban into his mouth, and knotted it beneath his neck. He wriggled and half rose upon his elbow; instantly Mbutu's arms were thrown around him, and he was pulled backward and held in a firm grip. Tom had meanwhile run to his feet, and, whipping one of the lengths of cord from his pocket, he swiftly tied the chief's ankles together. Now that it was impossible for the Arab to stand, Tom bade Mbutu assist him. There was a short struggle, the Arab striving to wriggle out of Mbutu's grasp. It was in vain; with the remaining cord Tom bound the Arab's arms together, and in five minutes after their entrance the chief lay securely gagged and bound.
Without losing a moment Tom donned the Arab's burnous and turban.
"Do you know the nearest way to the forest?" he asked Mbutu.
The Muhima nodded, and Tom told him that, relying upon his disguise, he was going to walk boldly through the camp. If they met anyone, Mbutu was to address him in his own tongue in such a way as to disarm suspicion. Tom reckoned on his own height to enable him to pass for the chief. There was a box of matches by the rushlight; he put that in his pocket, caught up a small bag of nuts that lay beside the Arab, and without bestowing another glance on the prostrate form, whose eyes were glaring at him with all the fury of impotent rage, he walked slowly out of the hut, Mbutu a yard behind.
They went quickly, stepping in the shade of the huts. Their way led past the hut in which the Portuguese was sleeping. The African native is sensitive to the slightest tremor of the ground, and one of the negroes who had accompanied De Castro, and was acting as sentry over him, crouching over a watch-fire, heard the footfall of the two fugitives, and came round the hut towards them. He dimly saw, as he supposed, the tall form of the Arab chief stalking by, accompanied by one of his men. He stepped back, and at the same moment Mbutu, with a power of mimicry that surprised his master, addressed him in a few quiet words, bidding him keep good watch over the señor, while Tom walked on with a dignified air, as though the negro were beneath his notice. When out of the man's sight they quickened their steps. They reached the outer circle of huts, evaded the watch-fires placed at intervals, crossed the fence and ditch, and, breaking into a run, plunged into the dense bush at the edge of the compound. The fugitives had barely gone two hundred yards when they heard a great outcry in the camp behind. One of the eight guards had awoke and rekindled the dying fire. Glancing at the tree, he discovered that the prisoner was gone. He roused his companions, and with mutual upbraidings they began to dispute who should venture to inform the chief of the escape. Their voices rose in altercation, and De Castro's sentry, hearing the noise, came to see what had happened. As soon as he knew that the Englishman had escaped, he ran to his master's hut, whence in a moment issued the Portuguese, swearing great oaths at being disturbed when he so much needed rest, and for the moment not understanding what his man said. A glance at the tree apprised him that his anticipated victim had escaped his clutches. Heedless of the news that the chief had but just before been seen walking through the camp, he rushed to the hut, and finding Mustapha there bound and gagged, began with frantic haste and fearful imprecations, in which he could not refrain from mingling taunts, to cut him free. Both men were beside themselves with fury. The whole camp was by this time alarmed, and Arabs and Manyema alike cowered before the wrath of their infuriated superiors. De Castro ran wildly about crying for torches, while Mustapha ordered every man in the camp to set off in search of the escaped prisoner, and despatched parties in all directions. He went himself to the hakim's hut, believing that the Arab seen walking in the prisoner's company must be Mahmoud and no other. Meeting the grave physician as he came out to enquire the reason of the uproar, the chief roundly accused him of effecting or conniving at the release of the Englishman. The hakim's face showed neither surprise nor pleasure; he was as coldly imperturbable as ever. Quietly denying that he had had any hand in the escape, he asked the Arab what he expected to gain by wild ill-directed searches in the dark; the torches and the din would only give warning to the fugitives, and help them to elude pursuit. Mustapha saw the absurdity of his proceedings, and chafed under the cynical scorn of the physician, whose calling and character enforced his unwilling respect. Turning on his heel, he ordered drums to be beaten to recall the search-parties, and enquiry to be made for the traitor in the camp; and when De Castro came up to him, foaming with passion and shouting that the whole thing had been planned to spite him, Mustapha bade him keep a still tongue in his head, or he would find himself in the Englishman's place. It wanted still more than three hours to sunrise, and giving orders that the search should be diligently resumed at dawn, the chief returned to his hut.
In the meantime the outcry had at first caused the fugitives to hasten their steps; but, fearing that the rustle and crash of their progress through the bush would arrest the pursuers' attention, they dropped behind a fallen tree. Not many minutes afterwards a party of Manyema who had outstripped the rest, keeping close together in their mutual fear, came within a few yards of Tom's hiding-place. There was one moment of suspense, then they passed on with torches burning; but soon the tap-tap of the recalling drums sounded through the wood, and they turned, passed within a few paces of where the panting fugitives lay crouched, and retraced their steps to the camp.
"All go back, sah!" whispered Mbutu gleefully. "No catch dis night. All jolly safe now, sah."
"I hope so," said Tom. "It was a narrow shave, Mbutu. We'll wait till all is quiet, and consider what we had better do."
"Must go on, sah; black men gone; rest by and by; time fink by and by."
They rose and pursued their way into the forest, picking their steps as best they could in the increasing darkness, among trees, profuse grass, and creeping plants that threw their sprays in intricate mazes across their path. When they had gone about a mile from the camp the forest became so thick that it was impossible to proceed farther that night. Mbutu suggested that they should climb a tree as the best protection from prowling beasts, and wait until morning. To this Tom agreed, and finding a trunk easy to climb, they got up into its lower branches, and made themselves as comfortable as possible. Their ascent caused a commotion among the feathered denizens of their shelter, and Mbutu declared he heard the gibber of a monkey angry at the disturbance of his ancestral home; but they rested without molestation till the dawn sent feeble glimmers through the foliage, and during that time Mbutu told his story.
His master's disappearance, he said, had caused the utmost consternation and distress to the whole force. After some hours of fruitless search next morning, the major had sorrowfully decided that he must complete the object of his expedition, leaving all further efforts to find Tom until his work was done. Promising, then, a rich reward to any native who should give him information as to the young man's fate, he had continued his march, and arriving at the native chief's village, after a stubborn fight had burnt it to the ground. Most of the inhabitants fled, among them the chief. The major then returned rapidly over his tracks, and spent several days in searching far and wide through the country. Mbutu, meanwhile, had felt sure from the very first that his master was not dead, and had accompanied the expedition in the hope that ere long some trace of him would be found. Then, giving up hope of this, and learning that the major had decided to return to Kisumu, he had resolved to go on the search alone. Slipping away from the column soon after it passed the scene of the ambush, he had cut into the woods, and coming upon the dead bodies of Arabs, he had, as a measure of precaution, appropriated the burnous and turban of one of them. Then he sought for the trail of the retreating Arabs, believing that his master was among them. Fortunately they had marched in almost a straight line, so that he tracked them easily until he came to the river where they had sighted the Belgians, and there he was for a time at fault. But he encountered a native, who informed him of the sharp fight at the swamp, and put him on the right track again. Two days before he arrived at the camp he had descried the caravan, and from that moment he dogged it patiently and warily, at one point of the route creeping up so close that he was able to see, from the shelter of a bushy tree, the figure of his master among the Manyema guard. Then he followed up more cautiously than ever, in the hope of discovering some means of effecting the prisoner's release. No opportunity had offered, and his heart sank when he saw the Portuguese join the caravan, still more when, as he peered from a safe hiding-place among the trees, he saw the Arab chief accompany De Castro to the hut where Tom lay. The tying-up had made him desperate. He had thought at first of creeping up and cutting his master free, but every time he took a step forward towards the tree one of the guard moved, or some noise had startled him, as a mouse peeping out from its hole is startled by the faintest sound of movement. Then he had the happy thought to climb the tree, and endeavour to cut his master's bonds from above. The discovery that he could not reach was at first agony, but he was strung up to a pitch of desperation that set all his wits on the alert. He had crept back into the forest and cut the rod to which he had tied the knife; and now, with touching earnestness, he assured his master that he would never leave him until he was once more safe among his own people.
"Poor old Uncle," said Tom, when Mbutu had ended his story; "how I wish I could let him know I am alive and well and free! And you, Mbutu, how am I to thank you for your faithful service? I can tell you this: that when I do see my friends again, you shall not be forgotten, my boy. But where are we? What are we to do? Do you know anything about this part of the country?"
"Yes, sah; know lot, sah. Forest ober dar, ober dar, ober dar."
He pointed successively in three directions--north, south, and west.
"Then we must go to the east, eh?--the other way, you know."
"No, sah, nebber do; all Arab dat way."
And then he went on to explain that the open country through which the Arab caravan had lately been travelling was the last clear stretch by which their stronghold could be reached. It was wedge-shaped, narrowing as it became engulfed in the forest. The few natives whose hamlets were dotted about it were all in the Arabs' pay, and were treated with special and unusual consideration, in order that they might be disposed to give early tidings of an enemy's approach. Mbutu assured his master that the Arab chief would at once acquaint the natives all through that district with his prisoner's escape and offer a reward for his capture, expecting him to make his way eastward, where every path and cross-road would be narrowly watched.
"In that case we had better strike southward into the forest," said Tom. "A pleasant prospect!" he mused. "I have some recollection of reading in one of Stanley's books about this forest: hundreds of miles long, and hundreds broad; one could drop Great Britain and Ireland into it, to say nothing of the kingdom of Man. But I suppose," he said, turning again to Mbutu, "after a time we could safely make a turn to the south-east and reach the River Rutchuru again? What about your own country, Mbutu? Couldn't we make for that?"
"'Fraid no, sah; my country days and days ober dar." He pointed to the south-west, then looked puzzled, and finally confessed that in the dark he was not quite sure of the direction. "My people all gone dead, sah; live man all stole, huts burnt in big fire. No; Mbutu no fader, no mudder, no pickin: no nuffin--only sah."
"Poor fellow! Well, I see nothing for it but to go into the forest as soon as it is light. We've nothing to keep us warm at night; no food except these nuts I brought. I have no watch and no compass: you've nothing but a knife; we're both desperately poor, Mbutu, and we'll have to live on our wits, I'm afraid.--Hark! what's that?"
The dawn came up like thunder, indeed. Through the wood resounded the thud-thud of many drums of various tones, some rattling a rapid rat-tat, others booming with deep, hollow, reverberating notes. Mbutu turned his ear towards the sound, listening with peculiar intentness for several minutes. Then he shook his head.
"Not know dat!" he said. He explained that many tribes had their own individual codes of drum-signals, which could only be recognized by their own friends. By means of these information was often telegraphed for miles in a very few minutes, the note of the drum reaching far, and being taken up and repeated from point to point. Though he had never heard these particular notes before, he surmised that the Arab chief was already signalling the escape of his prisoner. It was clearly time to be off. Slipping down from the tree, the two fugitives struck into the forest in a south-westerly direction, and were relieved to hear the drum-taps becoming ever fainter and fainter as they proceeded. When the sounds had died away altogether, they sat down on a fallen tree and made a frugal breakfast of nuts, sipping up the gigantic beads of dew which covered the spreading leaves of plants near the ground. Then they arose and went on their way.
By this time they were well on the outskirts of the great Congo Forest, which stretches for hundreds of miles westward of Lake Albert Edward and the rivers flowing into it. Tom began to be oppressed by a sort of nightmare feeling, which damped his spirits and made him drop his voice to a whisper when he spoke to Mbutu. The silence was awful. Trees large and small, packed so close together that there seemed at a distance barely room to squeeze between them, rose up, some straight of stem, some twisted and warped, others snapped off high above the ground, their foliage interlacing and shutting off all view of sky and sun, the space beneath as dim as the aisles of some vast cathedral. From tree to tree ran huge festoons of creeper and vine, weaving intricate patterns with each other, clinging in great coils about the trunks. At every fork and on every branch huge lichens were embossed, with broad spear-leaved plants, and clusters of orchid and liana. The sodden forest floor was covered with bush and amoma, save where a group of fallen trees, split or scorched by the lightning, had made a gap and let in the sunlight, and there innumerable baby trees had sprung up, jostling each other in their eagerness to catch the stream of light and heat.
At one point Tom sat down to rest on a prostrate moss-covered trunk. It crumbled into rottenness under his weight, and, looking, he saw that it had been mined by countless termites. Red ants scurried after one another in the wrinkles of the bark, and a huge blue scorpion darted out of a hole, causing Tom to start back with loathing. Near at hand was a shallow pool, green with duckweed, its surface covered with leaves of lotus and lilies, and a green, greasy scum of microscopic plants. Above this was a crooked tree, whose trunk seemed to have broken out in great ulcerous sores, from which swollen globules of gum exuded, dropping with heavy pong into the pool. Not a sound broke the stillness; the silver trill of the mavis, the strident caw of rooks, the brisk chirp of grasshoppers, all the myriad sounds of an English wood, were absent; and Tom, gazing into the confused mass of green, his feet chilled on the spongy humus, felt that he was surrounded in very truth by death in life.
Marching on again along a narrow path which seemed a mere tunnel in the forest, Mbutu had often to use his knife to cut away obstructive growths--great sprays of thorn that grabbed at their clothes, caught them under the chin, and seemed bent on cutting their throats. Presently they came to an abandoned clearing, where the vegetation now grew more luxuriantly than ever; the charred poles of native huts covered with climbing plants of vivid green, mingled with white and purple flowers, forming bowers fit for Titania the fairy queen. Just beyond was a stream, dashing over rocks between banks covered with vegetation, some of the larger trees bending over the current at the height of fifty feet, thus forming a huge shed beneath which hundreds of boats might have been sheltered. Here Tom got Mbutu to cut him a stout cudgel of hard wood from one of the stooping monsters, thinking it might prove useful as they progressed. The pedestrians drank their fill of the delicious water, crossed on the rocks, and forced their way up the opposite bank into the forest again. Half a mile farther on they came to a trickling stream, and beyond it, in a hollow, under a dense canopy of foliage so thick that, but for twinkling points of blue here and there, the sky was invisible, they lighted upon tiny, cage-like habitations no more than three feet high, made of sticks and leaves, and erected in a narrow clearing between clumps of gigantic trees. Mbutu stopped short and uttered a low cry of alarm, looking round with evident apprehension.
"What is it?" asked Tom in surprise, for the boy had hitherto shown himself absolutely fearless.
"Bambute, sah!" he whispered; "little tiny people, berrah tiny small. Dey shoot poison, sah: one scratch, man dead."
And Mbutu pulled his master away, and did not quit his hold until he had led him half a mile farther into the forest. He then explained that here and there, in such small clearings as they had just traversed, there dwelt little communities of strange dwarf-like people, whose naked bodies were covered with a thin down, and who lived a sort of elfin life, stealing about from glade to glade, hardly ever visible, as difficult to discover as mice in a corn-field. They were skilled in woodcraft and the chase, agile and fleet of foot, and so well versed in poisons that with their toy-like bows and arrows they could kill fowl, and men, and even elephants, with a mere scratch. They could shoot three arrows so rapidly that the last sprang from the bow before the first had reached its mark. They fed on grubs and beetles, honey, mushrooms, and roots, besides coneys and hares and other spoils of the chase, and had a sweet tooth for the potatoes and bananas cultivated by their taller neighbours. Mbutu said that he was not afraid of ordinary negroes or Arabs, they could easily be avoided; but if he and his master stumbled into a nest of dwarfs, he feared they would not escape with their lives.
At noon Tom sat down upon a recently fallen trunk to rest. Mbutu went off by himself to find food, and luckily came upon a deserted clearing where bananas were still growing. He returned with a luscious bunch, and after eating and resting a while, the travellers again resumed their march. The heat of the afternoon had brought out myriad insects that buzzed about their heads, darting in every now and then to sting. Bees, wasps, and ticks innumerable sported hither and thither across their path; sometimes a flock of pigeons would clatter out of a tree, and high over their heads shrilled the mocking notes of parrots.
As the afternoon wore on, the heat became oppressive, suffocating. An ominous heaviness brooded over everything; the dimness deepened into darkness, and a feeling as of an approaching calamity crept over Tom. Suddenly he heard a faint rumble like artillery far away; through a narrow opening in the forest he saw a spear of white flame dart across from tree to tree; then the silent trees rustled, swayed, and smote their tops one against another like masts straining under heavy canvas in a hurricane. Then roared the thunder; forked lightning flashed pale-green across the tree-tops, and the massive trees bent and reeled like rushes, recovering themselves from the first blow, staggering forward, jerked back by the climbing plants around them, clashing, roaring, screaming like fierce savage warriors in mortal fight. Tom stood still, amazed at the wild warfare, deafened by the reverberating thunder-claps, blinded by the scathing flames of lightning, yet exhilarated as he watched the fray. Then out of the black sky poured a deluge of rain, sheet upon sheet, hissing like water poured on hot iron, every drop as large as a crown-piece, penetrating the cotton garments of the travellers, drenching them in a moment to the skin. For three minutes the torrents fell; then, as suddenly as it had begun, the storm ceased, its fury was extinguished, the sky cleared, the trees stood still, and there was nothing to mark the terrific elemental strife but the streaming foliage, the soaked ground, and two giant stems which, cleft by the lightning, had crashed down and overwhelmed many smaller trees beneath them.
"Whew! that was a storm indeed!" said Tom. "What are we to do now? We can't go on in this sopping state."
"I know, sah; climb tree, dry clothes in sun."
"A novel drying-room!" said Tom with a smile. "Well, let's try it."
The fallen trees lay across others in such a way that they formed a sort of inclined path leading from the ground up into the forks of trees still standing. Tom and the Muhima nimbly climbed up until they were almost at the top of a giant of the woods, and there they sat amid the foliage and easily dried their dripping garments in the fierce sunlight. When that was done they felt hungry, and after they had reached the ground, Mbutu found some small berries which he assured his master were perfectly good to eat. Then they went on again. It was impossible to tell how far they had come. Tom had left the direction to Mbutu, who seemed to find the way by instinct. Judging by the height of the sun that it was now about four o'clock, Tom wondered how they were to pass the approaching night. They had seen no human beings, and few living creatures at all save insects and snakes; Mbutu, indeed, assured his master that beasts of prey were not much to be dreaded in such dense forest, though he would not be surprised if an elephant should come rushing out upon them.
They were sitting at the edge of a clearing, with their backs against a huge tree, to rest for a few minutes before starting for the last hour's walk, when Mbutu suddenly clutched Tom by the sleeve. At the same moment Tom heard a curious rhythmic chant, beginning on a low note, skipping three or four tones, and then descending to a chromatic note midway between. Then out of the forest to their left came a strange procession, a line of some thirty little naked figures, well-formed, cheerful-looking, diminutive men less than four feet high, trotting along in single file, their passage absolutely soundless save for the crooning chant in time with their footsteps. "Ka-lu-ké-ke, ka-lu-ké-ke," they sang, their voices low and pleasant and melodious, their motions lithe and graceful. They carried bows and arrows, and one, who appeared to be their chief, had a light spear in addition. Without turning their heads they rapidly crossed the glade, and disappeared like gnomes in the forest on the other side.
Mbutu heaved a sigh of relief.
"Bambute!" he said. "No see us dis time; plenty poison dem arrows."
"So those are your pigmies, eh? Upon my word, Mbutu, they looked quite an interesting lot of little fellows. I liked that song of theirs much better than the 'man all alone', you know. We have a saying in my country, 'little and good'; many a little man has been a hero. There's Bobs, you know; ever heard of Bobs? Well, I'll tell you all about him some day. I declare I'm sleepy; there's no hut for us to-night; I think we had better climb that big tree there and sleep on the lowest fork, eh?"
"All right, sah! No dago man now, sah," he added.
"That's true; but we aren't out of the wood yet! We have done well to-day, I think; now for our leafy bed."
Mbutu was asleep as soon his head touched the bough on which he had perched himself. But Tom was awake for hours, pondering on many things. The night-wind swayed the branches all around him, waking a chorus of creaking stems, swinging boughs, rustling leaves. From below came the ceaseless scraping chirp of crickets, the shrill piping call of cicadas, the tuneless croak of frogs. In the distance he heard the harsh, rasping cry of the lemur, and a strange sound like the noise of a stick rattled against iron railings; this, Mbutu explained afterwards, was a soko or chimpanzee amusing himself with striking upon a tree. Once Tom was startled by a sudden crackle, followed by a rending and rushing and a heavy thump that shook the fork on which he lay. In the morning he found that a dead tree had fallen, crashing through the forest and overwhelming many a living tree with its weight. All these sounds, breaking in upon the sad rustle of the foliage, filled Tom's soul with a sense of forlornness. By and by the sounds were unheeded; his mind was occupied with thronging memories and thoughts. He was reminded of the sleepless nights he had sometimes spent in his father's parsonage, hearkening to the rooks in the trees just opposite his window. He thought of his boyish ambitions; of the pride and eagerness with which he had listened to his uncle Jack's stories when he came on rare visits to the parsonage; of the blow to all his hopes when his father died. Then he lived again in thought through the long months at Glasgow; heard the din of the engine-shop, and felt once more the dissatisfied longing of that dreary time. That appeared now to be far back in a dim remote past. It was only a few weeks since he had left England, and yet how much had happened in the interval! The events of years seemed to have been compressed into days. His thirst for adventure was more than satisfied; yet here he was, in the heart of an African forest, with who could tell what new experiences in store for him?
And as his mind rolled question after question round an empty ring, eerie shapes seemed to creep out of the darkness, mocking and jibing, whispering words of evil augury, prophesying comfortless days of weariness and pain, of aimless wandering in the immeasurable forest, where he would finally drop and die, a prey to jackal or vulture. He strained his eyes, as though to see if these were in very truth bodily forms surrounding him; then upon his mental sight another scene rose--reminiscences of his brief captivity with the Arabs; stark forms lying in chains upon the swampy path; men and women and children sobbing out their lives in slavery; the slaver's cruel whip descending on the backs of young boys and maidens, who writhed and shrieked and fell bleeding and exhausted, many to rise no more. His own dark fancies fled the horrors of the slave-trade came home to him. He forgot his own puny troubles, and even his present extremity. Once more he registered the vow that, if he were spared, he would strike a blow, however feeble, against this hideous traffic in humanity. Suddenly there fell upon his inward ear the cry of the Arabs in the fight by the bridge: "Allah-il-Allah! God is God!" A solemn quiet brooded upon his mind; the wind itself lulled and the rustle of the leaves around him ceased. Looking up through the canopy of green, he saw one star faintly twinkling. His depression passed away; he found himself murmuring the lines of a poem that had been a favourite with his father:
"God's in His heaven,All's right with the world".
Thoughts of all the good things of life crowded through his mind; he felt contented and at rest; and with recollections his uncle, Dr. O'Brien, Mr. Barkworth, and the padre making a dancing medley in his brain with hippos and crocodiles, Arabs and pigmies, he at last fell into a dreamless sleep.
Slow Progress--Forest Life--Hunger--Overtures--A Change of Diet--In Straits--A Man Hunt--At Bay
Tom awoke when the darkness was fading, and a ghostly light showed him the still sleeping form of Mbutu hard by.
"Wake up, my katikiro," he said cheerily. "I shall have to teach you those lines about the sluggard, my boy. Come, what about breakfast?"
Mbutu was wide awake in an instant. He slid down the tree with the agility of a cat.
"Me get breakfast, sah," he said, "jolly good breakfast."
He was out of sight before Tom, in a more leisurely way, had descended. Soon the Muhima returned, his arms full of magnificent mushrooms. He put them down at the foot of the tree and disappeared again, this time remaining somewhat longer away, and bringing back with him some red berries of the phrynia and the oblong fruit of the amoma. Tom made a wry face as he bit one of the berries, and Mbutu laughed and explained that the kernel was the edible part; but he found the tartish amoma fruit refreshing, and of these and the mushrooms, fried over a twig fire, he made a satisfying meal. Then they started on their way, taking their direction from the rising sun, of which they caught a glimpse through the trees.
But soon the sun was hidden from their view, and they had to tunnel their way through creepers, rubber-plants, and tangled vines. The heat was like the damp heat of a hot-house many times intensified, and they sweated till they were wringing wet. Sometimes they floundered into thick scum-faced quagmires green with duckweed, into which they sank knee-deep, the stench exhaled from the slough almost overcoming Tom. Then came a new patch of thorn, which Mbutu had to cut away laboriously with his knife, Tom standing by chafing at his inability to assist. When they got through, after taking more than an hour to traverse half a mile, their clothes were in tatters, and Tom's rueful look provoked a smile from Mbutu.
"Soon get used to it, sah," he said cheerfully. "No clothes; all same for one."
"Which means, I suppose, that I'm only very much in the forest fashion! Well, it's hot enough for anything; certainly too hot to talk. Let us rest."
"Berrah soon, sah. I see coney track; rest ober dar."
Following up the slight track which his sharp eyes had discovered, he led the way to a spot where a camp had evidently been formed not very long before. The ground was cleared, and several logs of various lengths lay about. On one of these Tom sat down thankfully to rest.
"It's time for dinner, I'm sure. I'd give anything for a glass of cider, but, as that's out of the question, can you find me some water anywhere, Mbutu?"
"Oh yes, sah; camp here, must be water."
He went into the undergrowth, and returned by and by with a broad leaf of the phrynia held cup-shape in his hands, brimming with delicious water from a rivulet. After quenching their thirst and eating a few berries they went on again.
Marching began to be monotonous. There was little variety. Sometimes they crossed the track of an elephant or a buffalo; once they came upon a stretch of fifty yards of flattened undergrowth exhaling an unpleasant musky smell, and Mbutu explained that that was the trail of a boa-constrictor. Later they crossed a track evidently made by human footsteps, and once Tom was only saved from falling into a deep elephant-pit by Mbutu snatching at him as he trod at the edge. Always there was the bush to be penetrated; colossal trees to be avoided; riotous creepers to be dodged; and Tom was very glad when night came and Mbutu found him a hollow tree to sleep in.
On this night the parts were reversed, for while Tom fell into a sound sleep at once, Mbutu sat up, watchful and anxious. He had been disturbed by the sight of leopard scratches on the trunks of teak, and as a measure of precaution had borrowed his master's box of matches and kindled a fire--a slow process with the damp wood. But he was still more disturbed by the scarcity of food. He had noticed during their last hour's walk the almost complete absence of the edible plants on which they had fed hitherto, and he feared that they might have reached one of those regions of the forest where food, except wild animals to be hunted, is unprocurable. Before he at last closed his eyes he tore a strip off the burnous girt about his loins, and contrived to make with it a running noose, which he hung a foot or two above the ground upon a spray of thorn. This was a simple snare into which he hoped that a coney or some other small animal might run its neck before morning. But when the dawn broke, the noose was still hanging empty, and Mbutu, after a scrutiny of the bush, announced that his master would have to dispense with breakfast. Tom took the news lightly, in order not to discourage his companion.
"Cheer up!" he said. "It won't be the first time I've been for a tramp before breakfast. There's plenty of dew, I see, so that we can have a drink, and perhaps by the time we're sharp-set we shall be in the land of plenty."
So they started cheerfully enough, making still towards the south-west. But Tom's confidence proved to be not justified. The character of the vegetation had somewhat changed. It grew as thick as ever, but while many of the plants bore attractive-looking berries, Mbutu informed his master that they were all poisonous. They did come upon a mass of wild bananas, but only the cultivated fruit is eatable. Even when they reached what had once been a clearing, where a grove of plantains might have been expected, they found that elephants had been running riot, and the vegetation there was trampled into a pulp. Once Mbutu uttered a cry of joy on catching sight of a small arum bush; he sprang forward, dug up the roots with his knife, slit them into slices, and roasted them over a fire. That was all the food they obtained that day. It had been very hot, the air had seemed almost solid, and the foetid exhalations from the soft places they had passed made Tom feel sick and disconsolate.
When they stopped for the night, Mbutu again lit a watch-fire, and set his noose. In the morning he was wakened by a faint cry, and, springing up, he saw that a coney had been caught in the snare, and had at that moment been pounced on by a wild cat. He was too hungry to allow himself to be forestalled. He picked up his knife and made for the cat, which turned its head without relaxing its hold, and showed its teeth as though inclined to fight. But when Mbutu was almost upon it, with an angry snarl it loosed its prey and sprang up into a tree. The coney was already dead, its neck broken by the cat's fierce onslaught. Mbutu had the animal half-skinned when his master awoke.
"What are you about?" cried Tom, horrified at seeing Mbutu lifting a piece of raw flesh to his mouth.
"Hungry, sah; coney berrah good."
"But you can't eat it raw, surely! Ugh! you'll make me sick."
Mbutu put down the morsel with a look in which mingled emotions were expressed.
"Make fire in two ticks," he said resignedly, a phrase he had heard Tom use; and in a short time he was toasting some steaks at the fire, while his master searched for fruit. He found a few berries, and both he and Mbutu ate their meal ravenously, feeling still hungry when they had finished.
The fourth day of their forest march was but a repetition of the third. They found almost nothing eatable, and even good water was scarcer than on the previous day. At one point a huge puff-adder lay coiled in their path, and Mbutu wished to kill it, assuring his master that the reptile was too sluggish to defend itself. But Tom shuddered, and bade him come away. Later in the day Mbutu suddenly flung his knife at a tawny creature with black spots and a long, striped, bushy tail--a genet cat, as Tom afterwards discovered,--but the weapon missed by barely an inch. That was the last chance they had that day of securing animal food, and they had to content themselves with a few dry and unpalatable, though perfectly wholesome, roots, which Mbutu grubbed up, and the leaves of herbs growing low.
Both the travellers had spoken jestingly of their hunger, for each was unwilling to depress the other; but it was a hollow pretence. Both, but Tom more especially, were already feeling the weakening effects of privation.
Before they settled for the night, Tom thought it well to speak plainly to Mbutu. His own uneasiness was deepened by his feeling of responsibility for the boy.
"Mbutu," he said gravely, "if we do not find food to-morrow we shall begin to starve. I don't know what starvation means; it is too horrible, almost, to think of. Yet we must face the possibility. Now, I brought you into this, and it isn't fair that you should come to harm on my account. If we find no food to-morrow, I think you had better go on without me. You can make your way more easily than I, and if you come to a village and get food you can bring me some; if not, go on; it is better for one to starve than two."
"No! no! no!" said Mbutu vehemently; "sah fader and mudder. Food come by and by; no die dis time."
But the poor boy, when his master had fallen asleep, looked anxiously at his pinched face. The cheeks were thinned and drawn, there were dark sunken patches below the eyes, and his tall frame seemed even taller and thinner. Ever since the young Englishman had saved him from De Castro's whip, Mbutu had cherished a sentiment of absolute devotion for him, only intensified by the hazards of their later adventures. He would have laid down his life for him, and indeed, though Tom had not noticed it, the boy had already stinted himself even of the little food he had obtained. "My master is much bigger than I," was his half-formed thought, "and needs more to keep his strength up."
The morning of their fifth day in the forest broke dull and depressing. Huge blankets of mist clothed tree and shrub, and a light breeze set up strange cross currents which rolled great white billows one against another, swirling and eddying, twisting and twining like animate things. Tom shivered as he awoke; the violent changes of temperature had made him somewhat feverish, and his sunken eyes, unnaturally bright, seemed for a moment to gaze out vacantly upon the encircling walls of misty green. His limbs ached, and he got up stiffly. Mbutu was not in sight, but returned presently, bringing with him some cassava tubers and arum roots which he cooked for his master's breakfast. Tom found it difficult to eat them. He smiled a weary smile.
"We shall have to tighten our belts to-day, Mbutu," he said. "Did you ever hear of that? Twist your burnous more tightly round your loins and you won't feel the pain so much. And we must be careful of our matches, too. The box is half-empty and we can't get any more."
"Make fire with wood, sah," said Mbutu.
"But wouldn't that be difficult with the damp stuff around us? We must keep up our courage and get on. We can't tell the way till the sun is up, and indeed I'm afraid we shall never see the sun in this thick forest."
"Me climb tree, sah; see sun den."
Mbutu began to clamber up into the foliage, and springing dexterously from branch to branch ascended to the top, where, a hundred and fifty feet from the ground, above the rolling banks of mist, he caught sight of the red sun rising above the limitless expanse of waving green. Descending rapidly, he told his master he was now sure of the direction in which they should go, and before seven o'clock they had begun again their painful march.
Tom had to stop frequently to rest. The gnawing pains of hunger told more seriously upon him than upon the Muhima, for his life for the past three weeks had been more than hard, making unaccustomed demands upon his strength. He still felt the effects of his wound. They found a few berries and edible roots, and if such supplies, meagre as they were, continued, Tom hoped to stave off actual starvation.
"Surely we shall come to a native village by and by," he said hopefully. "Even the pigmies might take pity on starving men."
But Mbutu shook his head; he had no faith in the compassion or generosity of pigmies; he knew of them only as dangerous foes. In the afternoon they reached a spot where the ground began to slope downwards, and the vegetation appeared still thicker and more entangled.
"Coming to ribber, sah," said Mbutu eagerly. "Perhaps huts; perhaps catch fish."
Fifteen minutes later, in truth, they came suddenly to the brink of a river, through a hedge of creeping-plants covering every inch of ground from the water's edge to the green-black forest behind. The current was fairly strong, and the water was tea-coloured, suggesting iron in solution, swirling with dingy froth around a few boulders that stood out above the surface here and there. Mbutu, scanning the opposite bank, uttered a cry of joy. The stream was some fifty yards wide, and on the other side there was a narrow rift in the vegetation, so narrow indeed that Tom did not discern it until it was pointed out to him.
"Path, sah!" said Mbutu. "'Spect huts ober dar. Huts, food. Plenty food, oh yes!"
They sat down for a few moments to rest on a rock at the edge of the stream, gazing in silence at the gurgling water. Suddenly Mbutu twitched his master's sleeve and pointed to the farther bank. Just emerging from the leafy hedge, through the narrow opening, was a diminutive and graceful little woman, copper-coloured, with raven-black hair, a broad round face, and full lustrous eyes. Three iron rings were coiled spiral-shaped about her neck. She was crooning happily to a tiny brown child toddling by her side, and on her head a small pitcher was cleverly balanced. She came down to the water's edge and stooped to fill her pitcher, still chanting softly a quaint song that Tom thought wonderfully pretty. Her boy leant over the water in comical mimicry of his mother.
"Bambute woman, sah," whispered Mbutu.
Low as the words were uttered, the channel between the high banks acted as a sound-board, and the sharp ears of the little woman heard them. She looked up, gave a startled cry, and stepped back. At the same instant the tiny fellow, alarmed by his mother's cry, lost his balance and toppled over into the water. The stream there was deep, flowing in strong and steady current. For one brief moment the mother seemed dazed, and Tom looked at the little brown bundle floating down stream as at some picture, not an actual thing at all. Then the woman screamed, dropped her pitcher, and forced her way along the bank, wringing her hands and moaning pitifully as she saw the stream bearing her little son away.
"She can't swim!" cried Tom, realizing the situation.
He sprang up, leapt on to the first boulder, then to the second two yards from it to the left, and took a header into deep water. Excitement lent him strength; he forgot where he was, forgot all his late sufferings, forgot the danger of chill and crocodiles; all that he saw was the drowning child, all that he thought of was his duty to save it. He struck out energetically, the current assisting him. As yet the stream had borne the child along upon its surface, but just as Tom arrived within a dozen yards of him he sank, and the mother's heart-broken cry echoed from the forest. Tom quickened his stroke, and, gathering his breath, dived just beyond the spot where he had last seen the brown body. It was difficult to make out anything in the tan-coloured water, but he fancied he saw the little black head, threw out his right hand, caught a foot, and in a few seconds was safe at the surface again, the boy in his grasp.
By this time Mbutu had reached his master's side. He relieved him of the burden, and together they swam to the shore, where Tom turned the pigmy urchin on his face and slapped his back and worked his arms about till the little fellow recovered his breath. A lusty cry soon proclaimed that there was vigorous life in the tiny body. Then they carried him with some difficulty along the steep bank to the path by which he had come from the forest. They caught sight of his mother darting like a timid gazelle among the trees. Mbutu at Tom's command called to her to come and fetch her pickin, using all the dialects he knew; she stopped and faced the strangers again, but evidently understood nothing of what the Muhima said, and was too much scared to approach them. In spite of his exhaustion, Tom could not help smiling at the woman's fears.
"Put the little beggar down," he said, "and see him run."
"Want food, sah," expostulated Mbutu; "woman gib food."
"But she wants her baby first; perhaps she thinks we are cannibals, and mean to make a meal of both of them."
Mbutu shrugged, and set the boy, now fully recovered and crying lustily, upon his feet. Instantly he scampered off with wild delight to his mother. She snatched him up, smothered him with kisses, then threw him over her back and ran fleetly into the forest. In vain Mbutu called to her to bring food, shouting that the big white man would give his buttons, his coat, anything, for a chicken and some plantains. His voice only made her run the faster, and soon a turn in the narrow path concealed her altogether from view.
"We'd better go along the path after her," said Tom. "There must be a pigmy village somewhere near, and they're surely human enough to give us food."
Mbutu shook his head.
"Bambute much bad people," he said. "See white man; no fink; shoot one, two, three; sah dead."
"But we saved the youngster."
"Bambute no stop fink. Woman say big sah, berrah big; Bambute no wait; all come in one big hurry, shoot sah. Better go away too quick."
"Well, you ought to know them better than I." (He suddenly, in one of those odd flashes of memory that come at the most unlikely moments, remembered Mr. Barkworth's positive statement: "There's no gratitude in these natives!") "Let us go, then; lead the way."
They scrambled along the bank, stumbling over rocks and projecting thorn-sprays, Mbutu urging his master to hurry, lest the whole pigmy village should come hot-foot at their heels. It seemed strange to Tom that the little people should feel animosity against inoffensive travellers who had actually done them a service, but he relied upon his boy, in whom he had seen no signs of cowardice. The fact was that Mbutu had never before actually come into contact with the pigmies, and knew them only by hearsay. He had a child's dread of the unknown, and the stories he had heard prompted him to keep as far as possible out of harm's way.
Tom's exertions, acting on his enfeebled frame, had worn him out, and but for Mbutu's entreaties he would have refused to budge. His clothes were drying in the sunlight, but he was chilled to the bone, and terribly hungry. Mbutu insisted that they ought to hide their trail by wading in the stream where it was shallow enough, and thus, alternately on land and in water, they covered rather more than three miles. Then Tom declared that he could go no farther, and sat down upon a dry rock to rest, while Mbutu scrambled up the bank and into the forest in search of food. He brought back a handful of papaws and amoma fruits.
"Why, this is quite luxurious!" said Tom, delighted at getting a change from the disagreeable roots on which he had subsisted for the past few days.
"Sah wait bit," said Mbutu with a knowing smile. He waded out to a large rock in mid-stream, threw himself flat upon it, and peered over into the water. A few moments passed; then Tom saw the boy's knife flash as he plunged his arm into the water. He drew it up, and there was a fine fish, somewhat resembling a trout, gleaming on the point. He looked round triumphantly at Tom; then bent once more over the water, and soon speared another fish in the same way. When he had caught four he returned to the bank, and asked his master for the box of matches.
"Why, they're soaked; absolutely useless, Mbutu. You'll have to make fire some other way."
Mbutu at once cut a small block of hard wood from a tree, and scooped out a little hollow in it. Then he found a thin straight switch, and sharpened it at one end. He inserted this in the hollow of the block, and began to twirl it round rapidly in both hands. He was out of practice, and looked rather blue when no fire came; but, persevering, he succeeded after some minutes in kindling a spark. He then lit a fire, slit and cleaned the fish, and had the delight of offering his master some appetizing broiled fish-steaks. Not content with this, he returned to the rock, rapidly captured half a dozen more fish, and then, throwing on to the fire the leaves of plants that made a thick smoke, he attempted a rough-and-ready process of dry-curing. This done, he searched about till he found a thin and flexible tendril, on which he strung the dried fish, declaring gleefully that his master would certainly have a good breakfast next day.
There being still two hours or more of daylight left, as they judged by the position of the sun, they walked on again, feeling refreshed in body, and more cheerful in mind than they had been for a week. They still clung to the edge of the stream, and at one point narrowly escaped treading on a crocodile basking by the bank, where it was indistinguishable from a log of wood. Mbutu was only warned of the danger by a sudden startling flash of light. Jumping back, he pointed out that the glare was the reflection of the sun in the saurian's greedy eye. By and by they came to a tributary flowing into the river on the right hand. It was a fairly large stream, about thirty yards broad at the point of ingress, and as its course was from the south-east, Tom decided to turn and follow it up. While tramping below the left bank, which was high and steep, and finding the walking rather easier than it had been hitherto, the ground being rocky, they came to a deep inlet, at the bottom of which there was a cavern; half-hidden by vine-sprays trailing over the bank.
"The very place for our night's rest," said Tom.
They entered, strewed leaves and grass on the smooth dry floor, and slept soundly till daybreak. Though his limbs ached when he rose, and he was still feverish, Tom felt better than on the previous day, and ate heartily of the broiled fish and roots which Mbutu had prepared for him. Then, leaving the cave, they walked for about half a mile, and found that the stream bent suddenly round to the left. Mbutu climbed a tree, and told his master that he could see the water for some distance, forming a loop and winding away towards the north. Arabs would certainly be ranging the country in that direction; there was nothing for it but to strike into the forest again, and pursue their journey to the south or south-west.
Tom was not reassured by the aspect of the forest. While there was less of tangled undergrowth and thorn, the trees appeared to be thicker and larger than ever. There was no sign of edible plants, but the animals were even more numerous, and the insects more multitudinous and irritating. As they crossed a babbling rivulet, apparently a tributary of the stream they had recently left, they were met by a cloud of moths reaching from the water's face to the loftiest tree-tops, and looking, as it approached, like a glittering shower of lavender-coloured snow, the particles whirling about in the slight gusts that blew along the course of the streamlet. Farther on, a dozen tree stems, thrown down during a recent storm, lay across one another at various angles, completely blocking the way, and the travellers found that the easiest mode of proceeding was to clamber up one of them that sloped at an angle of forty-five degrees, and to scramble thence on to another, and then to another sloping downwards, until they reached terra firma again. Their progress was terribly slow and arduous, and long before the mid-day heat rendered rest imperative, Tom felt thoroughly exhausted. His clothes were now a miscellany of rags, his boots mere gaps. He noticed what appeared to be ulcers breaking out upon his arms, and found that the exertion of walking and climbing made him faint, and produced a keen pain in his chest. He had had nothing to eat since the last of Mbutu's fish was consumed, and with the faintness and hunger came inevitable dejection of mind.
While he rested on a log, Mbutu went off alone to search again for food, but could find nothing but a few withered berries and some fungi, which, suspicious as they were, Tom was fain to swallow.
"We must try again," he said presently. "I am beginning to think it would have been better to follow the stream and chance the Arabs. I can't keep up much longer, Mbutu."
The Muhima was speechless, though his eyes eloquently expressed his anxiety and affection. Before they resumed their journey he cut his master another stout staff from a sapling of hard wood, the first having been lost in the stream. After struggling through the forest for about an hour, every step more painful to Tom, they came suddenly upon an unexpected scene of desolation. It was a wide clearing, on which a village of considerable dimensions had at one time stood; the blackened ground told a tale of burning and rapine. Beyond it there were whole groves of banana-trees scorched and ruined, hundreds of palms lying prostrate, and acres of ground, once cultivated, now denuded of every vestige of life. Near a heap of ashes lay a number of charred bones, and Tom shuddered as he passed on.
Beyond this area of destruction the forest was less dense, and Mbutu by and by discovered a narrow track which he declared was the pathway of pigmies. He looked round apprehensively, fearing every moment lest swift arrows from unseen bows in the brushwood should put a sudden end to their lives. Once he exclaimed that he heard the clash of spears amid the foliage, but Tom assured him it must be simply the rustling of stiff leaves. As the evening shades were falling, the boy asserted positively that he saw little faces peering at him from the trees, and Tom, with a weary sigh, answered:
"I do not care, Mbutu. Elves or sprites or human beings, they don't concern us unless they bring us food. Perhaps the pigmies have been shadowing us all the way since we saved that boy; why should they wish to hurt us? If you see one again, call to him. Call now; perhaps there is a settlement near; we might miss many in this wild forest."
Mbutu plucked up courage to call, but the only answer was a manifold echo from the trees, the squawk of parrots, and what sounded like the barking laugh of the hyena. Tom could walk no farther; he felt that he would fain rest for ever. On this night Mbutu built up a small hut of leaves and twigs for his master, and lit a watch-fire to scare, away wild intruders. For supper they gnawed some leaves, but Tom fell into the sleep of exhaustion in the middle of his scanty meal, and Mbutu sat for hours watching him uneasily. He, too, was at last overcome by fatigue, but not until he had thoughtfully heaped enough fuel on the fire to last until dawn. Tom woke first. He rose feebly and staggered oat of the hut, his forehead hot, his hands clammy; and there, between the still burning fire and his rough shelter, was a huge bunch of plantains! He could scarcely believe his eyes. He called Mbutu, but the boy did not stir. He went to him and shook him.
"Where did you get them?" he asked. "Have you eaten some yourself?"
Mbutu sprang up and stared, not understanding what his master meant, and believing that he must be light-headed. When Tom pointed to the plantains, the boy gave a gasp and looked up in the trees and all around in amazement. Without another word both began to eat ravenously, and not till they had nearly finished the bunch did Mbutu suggest an explanation of the godsend. The spirits of his ancestors, he said, must have been watching over him, or perhaps the Great Spirit of whom he had heard the White Father speak, and who really did seem to care for the black man and white man alike, as the missionary had averred. Tom let the boy talk on. Suddenly a hare-shaped animal darted across the ground in front of them; there was a whirring sound; the animal fell, a short arrow piercing it to the heart. Mbutu sprang up, and ran towards it; then started back, and looked about him with wide scared eyes. Nothing happened; the skilful marksman did not appear to claim his prize; the morning stillness was not broken by so much as a rustling leaf. Mbutu again moved towards the animal, treading delicately, and stopping at every second step to glance fearfully around. He seized the animal, and ran back swiftly with it.
"Bambute, sah!" he whispered, in a tone of awe. "Sah him friends. Sah sabe pickin; Bambute much glad. Oh yes! no want food no more; Bambute gib food."
Again Tom seemed to hear Mr. Barkworth's voice: "There's no gratitude in these natives! I know them." He wondered whether the fact was as Mbutu had surmised; whether the woman had brought her people to see the white man; whether they had dogged the travellers all the way, or had come upon them by accident. Mbutu was already skinning the animal, and preparing it for the fire. Never was flesh more welcome to starving men. Refreshed and strengthened, Tom rose with renewed hope to continue his march.
But next day the old dejection returned. Of the pigmies there was no sign; no heaven-sent food was placed at their feet; they trudged on and on, almost blindly, always hungry. So four days passed, days upon which Tom could never look back without a shudder of horror. Stories of prisoners starving in barred dungeons recurred to his mind; and he wondered which was worse, slowly to pine away in confinement, within bare stone walls that invited death, or to die in the midst of vigorous life, with liberty to range immense spaces. "Death is only death after all," he thought, and he remembered Gordon's words, quoted by Mr. Barkworth: "Heaven is as near the hot desert as the cool church at home". But his mind revolted against death. "I am young--young!" his heart cried. "I want to live, to do things. I am not a broken horse or a rusty engine. No, Tom Burnaby, I'll never forgive you if you chuck it all up yet." And he braced himself and plodded on.
Just after noon, on the fifth day after the pigmies' present, the travellers found that the forest was thinning somewhat; the trees were farther apart, and there was a renewal of the low bush, not so dense or so obstructive as it had been for the past few days. Presently they came to an almost open glade, and Mbutu pointed to a track crossing the direction of their march from clump to clump. It was not four hours old, he declared; the footprints were still soft and clearly marked. They were too large to have been made by pigmies. The weary travellers sat down on a heap of leaves, hastily collected, to talk the matter over, Mbutu being in favour of going in the same direction as the footprints, which must lead, sooner or later, to a village. Suddenly they heard a rapid thud-thud as of heavy footsteps on the sodden ground, accompanied by a curious clanking, suggesting to Tom the sound of a loose horseshoe on a turfy moor. As they were wondering what it might be, a tall black figure, scantily clad, ran out of the forest on their right, labouring heavily, the sweat rolling off his face and body, his eyes protruding with eagerness and fear. Tom had just noticed that part of a chain, with a broken block of wood attached to it, hung from a gyve on the man's left ankle, and another chain from an iron circlet about his left wrist, when three Arabs and a negro came out of the wood at short intervals in hot pursuit.
Tom and Mbutu were partially concealed from the strangers by the straggling bush. Pursued and pursuers had almost crossed the wide open space, the foremost Arab but a yard behind, when the fettered negro stopped short suddenly, turned round, and with a desperate movement of his left arm struck the Arab full in the face with the dangling chain. The Arab dropped, and the hunted man turned again to flee, but the rest were almost upon him. Tom saw that, encumbered as the negro was, he must inevitably be run down in a few moments. Instinctively taking the weaker side, and forgetting his own exhaustion, he sprang up, and sprinting with all the speed of which his tired limbs were capable, he dashed after the pursuers, followed closely by Mbutu. The chase had evidently been a long one; hunters and hunted were breathless, and trod heavily. In the excitement of the moment Tom dashed along at a speed of which a minute earlier he would have thought himself utterly incapable; and he soon saw that he was gaining rapidly on the Arabs. They had muskets, which he inferred they had already fired, and had had no time to reload. He had his staff, and Mbutu clutched his knife.