But more delightful to Stas than these marks of humility and homage was the news that Bassa-Narok lay only about thirteen days’ distance and that the denizens of the village in which they stopped at times received from that direction salt in exchange for doom-palm wine. The local king had even heard of Fumba, as the ruler of the people called “Doko.” Kali confirmed this by saying that more distant neighbors so called the Wahimas and Samburus. Less consoling was the news that on the shores of the great water a war was raging, and to go to Bassa-Narok it was necessary to cross immense, wild mountains and steep ravines, full of rapacious beasts. But Stas now did not much heed rapacious beasts, and he preferred mountains, though the wildest, to the low plain country where fever lay in wait for travelers.
In high spirits they started. Beyond that populous village they came to only one settlement, very wretched and hanging like a nest on the edge of a chasm. After that the foot-hills began, cut rarely by deep fissures. On the east rose a hazy chain of peaks, which from a distance appeared entirely black. This was an unknown region to which they were bound, not knowing what might befall them before they reached Fumba’s domains. In the highlands which they passed trees were not lacking, but with the exception of dragon-trees and acacias standing alone they stood in clusters, forming small groves. The travelers stopped amid these clumps for refreshment and rest as well as for the abundant shade.
Amid the trees birds swarmed. Various kinds of pigeons, big birds with beaks, which Stas called toucans, starlings, turtle-doves, and countless beautiful “bingales” flitted in the foliage or flew from one clump to another, singly and in flocks, changing color like the rainbow. Some trees appeared from a distance to be covered with many-colored flowers. Nell was particularly charmed by the sight of paradisaical fly-catchers and rather large, black birds, with a crimson lining to the wings, which emitted sounds like a pastoral fife. Charming woodpeckers, rosy on top and bright blue beneath, sped in the sun’s luster, catching in their flight bees and grasshoppers. On the treetops resounded the screams of the green parrot, and at times there reached them sounds as though of silvery bells, with which the small green-gray birds hidden under Adansonia leaves greeted one another.
Before sunrise and after sunset flocks of native sparrows flew by, so countless that were it not for their twitter and the rustle of their little wings they would be mistaken for clouds. Stas assumed that it was their pretty little bills which rang so, while in daytime they were scattered on single clumps.
But other birds flying in little flocks, which gave real concerts, filled both children with the greatest surprise and ecstasy. Every little flock consisted of five or six females and one male, with glittering metallic feathers. They sat on a single acacia in this particular manner: the male was perched on the top of the tree and the others lower, and after the first notes, which seemed like the tuning of their little throats, the male began a song and the others listened in silence. Only when he had finished did they repeat together in a chorus the last refrain of his song. After a brief pause, he resumed and finished, and they again repeated; after this the whole flock flew in a light wavy flight to the nearest acacia and the concert, composed of the soloist and chorus, again resounded in the southern stillness. The children could not listen enough to this. Nell, catching the leading tune of the concert, joined with the chorus and warbled in her thin little voice the notes resembling the quickly repeated sound of “tui, tui, tui, twiling-ting! ting!”
Once the children, following the winged musicians from tree to tree, went away over half a mile from the camp, leaving in it the three negroes, the King, and Saba. Stas was about to start on a hunting trip and did not want to take Saba with him, for fear that his barking might scare away the game. When the little flock finally flew to the last acacia on the other side of a wide ravine, the boy stopped Nell and said:
“Now I will escort you to the King and after that I shall see whether there are any antelopes or zebras in the high jungle, for Kali says that the smoked meats will not last longer than two days.”
“Why, I am big now,” answered Nell, who was always anxious to make it appear that she was not a little child, “so I will return alone. We can see the camp perfectly from here, and the smoke also.”
“I am afraid that you may stray.”
“I won’t stray. In a high jungle we might stray, but here, see how low the grass is!”
“Still, something may happen to you.”
“You yourself said that lions and panthers do not hunt in the daytime. Besides, you hear how the King is trumpeting from longing after us. What lion would dare to hunt there where the sound of the King reaches?”
And she began to importune:
“Stas, dear, I will go alone, like a grown-up.”
Stas hesitated for a while but finally assented. The camp and smoke really could be seen. The King, who longed for Nell, trumpeted every little while. In the low grass there was no danger of going astray, and as to lions, panthers, and hyenas, there plainly could be no talk of them as these animals seek prey during the night. The boy after all knew that nothing would afford the little maid greater pleasure than if he acted as though he did not regard her as a little child.
“Very well,” he said, “go alone, but go directly, and do not tarry on the way.”
“And may I pluck just those flowers?” she asked, pointing at a cusso bush, covered with an immense number of rosy flowers.
“You may.”
Saying this, he turned her about, pointed out to her once more for greater certainty the clump of trees from which the smoke of the camp issued and from which resounded the King’s trumpeting, after which he plunged into the high jungle growing on the brink of the ravine.
But he had not gone a hundred paces when he was seized by uneasiness. “Why, it was stupid on my part,” he thought, “to permit Nell to walk alone in Africa. Stupid, stupid. She is such a child! I ought not to leave her for a step unless the King is with her. Who knows what may happen! Who knows whether under that rosy bush some kind of snake is not lying! Big apes can leap out of the ravine and carry her away from me or bite her. God forbid! I committed a terrible folly.”
And his uneasiness changed into anger at himself, and at the same time into a terrible fear. Not reflecting any longer, he turned around as if stung by a sudden evil presentiment. Walking hurriedly, he held the rifle ready to fire, with that great dexterity which he had acquired through daily hunting, and advanced amid the thorny mimosas without any rustle, exactly like a panther when stealing to a herd of antelopes at night. After a while he shoved his head out of the high underwood, glanced about and was stupefied.
Nell stood under a cusso bush with her little hand outstretched; the rosy flowers, which she had dropped in terror, lay at her feet, and from the distance of about twenty paces a big tawny-gray beast was creeping towards her amid the low grass.
Stas distinctly saw his green eyes fastened upon the little maid’s face, which was as white as chalk, his narrow head with flattened ears, his shoulder-blades raised upward on account of his lurking and creeping posture, his long body and yet longer tail, the end of which he moved with a light, cat-like motion. One moment more one spring and it would be all over with Nell.
At this sight the boy, hardened and inured to danger, in the twinkling of an eye understood that if he did not regain self-command, if he did not muster courage, if he shot badly and only wounded the assailant, even though heavily, the little maid must perish. But he could master himself to that degree that under the influence of these thoughts his hands and limbs suddenly became calm like steel springs. With one glance of the eye he detected a dark spot in the neighborhood of the beast’s ear, — with one light motion he directed the barrel of the rifle at it and fired.
The report of the shot, Nell’s scream, and a short, shrill bleat resounded at the same moment. Stas jumped towards Nell, and covering her with his own body, he aimed again at the assailant.
But the second shot was entirely unn
ecessary, for the dreadful cat lay like a rag, flattened out, with nose close to the ground and claws wedged in the grass — almost without a quiver. The bursting bullet had torn out the back of its head and the nape of its neck. Above its eyes, gory, torn, white convolutions of its brain oozed out.
And the little hunter and Nell stood for some time, gazing now at the slain beast, then at each other, not being able to utter a word. But after that something strange happened. Now this same Stas, who a moment before would have astonished the most experienced hunter in the whole world by his calmness and coolness, suddenly became pale; his limbs began to tremble, tears flowed from his eyes, and afterwards he seized his head with the palms of his hands and began to repeat:
“Oh, Nell! Nell! If I had not returned!”
And he was swayed by such consternation, such belated despair, that every fiber within him quivered as if he had a fever. After an unheard-of exertion of his will and all the powers of his soul and body a moment of weakness and relaxation had come. Before his eyes was the picture of the dreadful beast, resting with blood-stained muzzle in some dark cave and tearing Nell’s body to pieces. And of course, this could have happened and would have happened if he had not returned. One minute, one second more and it would have been too late. This thought he plainly could not banish.
Finally it ended in this, that Nell, recovering from her fear and alarm, had to comfort him. The little upright soul threw both her little arms around his neck and, weeping also, began to call to him loudly, as if she wanted to arouse him from slumber.
“Stas! Stas! Nothing is the matter with me. See, nothing is the matter with me. Stas! Stas!”
But he came to himself and grew calm only after a long time. Immediately after that Kali, who heard the shot not far from the camp and knew that the “Bwana kubwa” never fired in vain, came leading a horse to carry away the game. The young negro, glancing at the slain beast, suddenly retreated, and his face at once became ashen.
“Wobo!” he shouted.
The children now approached the carcass, already growing rigid. Up to that time Stas did not have an accurate idea as to what kind of beast of prey had fallen from his shot. At the first glance of the eye it seemed to the boy that it was an exceptionally large serval; nevertheless, after closer examination he saw that it was not, for the slain beast exceeded the dimensions of even a leopard. His tawny skin was strewn with chestnut-hued spots, but his head was narrower than that of a leopard, which made him resemble somewhat a wolf; his legs were higher, paws wider, and his eyes were enormous. One of them was driven to the surface by a bullet, the other still stared at the children, fathomless, motionless, and awful. Stas came to the conclusion that this was a species of panther unknown to zoölogy, just as Lake Bassa-Narok was unknown to geography.
Kali gazed continually with great terror at the beast stretched upon the ground, repeating in a low voice, as if he feared to awaken it:
“Wobo! The great master killed a wobo!”
But Stas turned to the little maid, placed his hand on her head, as though he desired definitely to assure himself that the wobo had not carried her away, and then said:
“You see, Nell. You see that even if you are full-grown, you cannot walk alone through the jungle.”
“True, Stas,” answered Nell with a penitent mien, “but I can go with you or the King.”
“Tell me how it was? Did you hear him draw near?”
“No — Only a golden fly flew out of those flowers. So I turned around after it and saw how he crept out of the ravine.”
“And what then?”
“He stood still and began to look at me.”
“Did he look long?”
“Long, Stas. Only when I dropped the flowers and guarded myself from him with my hands did he creep towards me.”
It occurred to Stas that if Nell were a negress she would have been pounced upon at once, and that in part she owed her preservation to the astonishment of the beast, which seeing before it for the first time a being unknown to it, for a while was uncertain what to do.
A chill passed through the boy’s bones.
“Thank God! Thank God that I returned!”
After which he asked further:
“What were you thinking of at that moment?”
“I wanted to call you, and — I could not — but—”
“But what?”
“But I thought that you would protect me — I myself do not know—”
Saying this she again threw her little arms around his neck, and he began to stroke her tufts of hair.
“You are not afraid, now?”
“No.”
“My little Mzimu! My Mzimu! You see what Africa is.”
“Yes, but you will kill every ugly beast?”
“I will.”
Both again began to examine closely the rapacious beast. Stas, desiring to preserve its skin as a trophy ordered Kali to strip it off, but the latter from fear that another wobo might creep out of the ravine begged him not to leave him alone, and to the question whether he feared a wobo more than a lion, said:
“A lion roars at night and does not leap over stockades, but a wobo in the white day can leap over a stockade and kill a great many negroes in the middle of the village, and after that he seizes one of them and eats him. Against a wobo a spear is no protection, nor a bow, only charms, for a wobo cannot be killed.”
“Nonsense,” said Stas, “look at this one; is he not well slain?”
“The white master kills wobo; the black man cannot kill him,” Kali replied.
It ended in this, that the gigantic cat was tied by a rope to the horse and the horse dragged him to the camp. Stas, however, did not succeed in preserving his hide, for the King, who evidently surmised that the wobo wanted to carry off his little lady, fell into such a frenzy of rage that even Stas’ orders were unable to restrain him. Seizing the slain beast with his trunk he tossed it twice into the air; after which he began to strike it against a tree and in the end trampled upon it with his legs and changed it into a shapeless, jelly-like mass. Stas succeeded in saving the jaws, which with the remnants of the head he placed on an ant-column on the road, and the ants cleaned the bones in the course of an hour so thoroughly that not an atom of flesh or blood remained.
XIX
Four days later Stas stopped for a longer rest on a hill somewhat similar to Mount Linde, but smaller and narrower. That same night Saba after a hard battle killed a big male baboon, whom he attacked at a time when the baboon was playing with the remnants of a kite, the second in order of those which they had sent before starting for the ocean. Stas and Nell, taking advantage of the stay, determined to glue new ones continually, but to fly them only when the monsoon blew from the west to the east. Stas placed great reliance upon this, that even if but one of them should fall into European or Arabian hands it would undoubtedly attract extraordinary attention and would cause an expedition to be despatched expressly for their rescue. For greater certainty, besides English and French inscriptions he added Arabian, which was not difficult for him, as he knew the Arabian language perfectly.
Soon after starting from the resting-place, Kali announced that in the mountain chain, which he saw in the east, he recognized some of the peaks which surrounded Bassa-Narok; nevertheless, he was not always certain, as the mountains assumed different shapes, according to the place from which they were viewed. After crossing a small valley overgrown with cusso bushes and looking like a lake of roses, they chanced upon a hut of lone hunters. There were two negroes in it and one of them was sick, having been bitten by a thread-like worm.* [* Filandria medineusis, a worm as thin as thread, and a yard long. Its bite sometimes causes gangrene.] But both were so savage and stupid and in addition so terrified by the arrival of the unexpected guests, so certain that they would be murdered, that at first it was impossible to ascertain anything from them. But a few slices of smoked meat unloosened the tongue of the one who was not only sick, but famished, as his companion doled out food
to him very stingily. From him, therefore, they learned that about a day’s journey away there lay straggling villages, governed by petty kings, who were independent of one another; and afterwards, beyond a steep mountain, the domain of Fumba began, extending on the west and south of the great water. When Stas heard this, a great load fell off his heart and new courage entered his soul. At any rate, they now were almost on the threshold of the land of the Wahimas.
It was difficult to foresee how their further journey would progress; nevertheless, the boy in any event could expect that it would not be harder or even longer than that terrible journey from the banks of the Nile which they had undergone, thanks to his exceptional resourcefulness, and during which he had saved Nell from destruction. He did not doubt that, thanks to Kali, the Wahimas would receive them with the greatest hospitality and would give every assistance to them. After all, he already well understood the negroes, knew how to act towards them, and was almost certain that, even without Kali, he would have been able somehow to take care of himself among them.
“Do you know,” he said to Nell, “that we have passed more than one-half of the way from Fashoda, and that during the journey which is still before us we may meet very savage negroes, but now will not encounter any dervishes.”
Complete Works of Henryk Sienkiewicz Page 647