CHAPTER IX
Gone Away!
Through the Net--A Call in Passing--A Chase in the Dark--On theTrack--Signals--The Little People--Ka-lu-ke-ke--Visions of the Night
It was desperately cold. Since he had left Kisumu, Tom had spent everynight under a blanket, and, standing now with his back to the tree, arope about his waist, another about his legs, a third tying his arms, hehad 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 bitterconstraint; tried the strength of the ropes by straining at them withall his might; gave up the effort in sheer impotence, and wonderedwhether he should live to see another dawn.
"The blackguards!" he said to himself. A whimsical smile twitched hislips as he caught sight of the eight men set to watch him, squattingaround a fire some distance away, and beguiling the time with a gamesomewhat resembling knuckle-bones. He fixed his eyes on the fire,following the leaping flames, indulging his fancy in imaging strangemonstrous shapes; then recalled chestnut nights by the big-room fire atschool; by and by found himself whistling "Follow up" and "Forty yearson", at which the watchers dropped their dice and their talk for amoment and turned their listening faces towards him. Then the numbingcold began its soporific work. He felt dazed; fantastic visions dancedbefore his eyes. Presently his lips moved without his knowing it,framing foolish remarks at which it seemed that another self waslaughing; then his head bent forward, and he slept.
Somewhere about midnight it seemed to him in a dream that water wastrickling down his neck. He awoke and threw back his head and hitchedhis shoulders, and felt that it was not water but something sinuous andsolid, caught between tie back of his head and his coat collar. Whilehe was wondering whether a snake had sought refuge there from the cold,he felt the intruder withdrawn, or rather was conscious that he hadjerked his head away from it. The next moment the cold thin line, of heknew not what, wandered round and tickled his nose. Again he moved hishead away. Now fully awake, he concluded that a strand of some creepingplant was dangling from the tree, and hoped forlornly that hisdiscomfort, already not far short of actual torture, was not to beincreased in any such irritating manner. He could not bend low enoughto scratch his nose. The detestable thing seemed to follow him. Hemight move his head to left or to right, jerk it back or bend itforward, but he could not avoid the persistent tickler, which he had nowrecognized by the wan light of the moon, in her fourth quarter andsailing high, as the leafless tendril of a creeper.
He was tempted to call out to the watchers, and ask them to relieve himof this torment. But at the same moment he noticed that the eightnegroes about the smouldering fire had dropped their heads on theirknees, and that the creeper was swinging to and fro with a regularpendulum movement that was hardly natural, and was certainly not due tothe wind, which blew fitfully in sudden gusts. It flashed upon him thatsomebody, perhaps the hakim, was up the tree, signalling to him.Bending his head back as far as he could, he peered up into thebranches. At the same instant, the dangling switch ascended before hiseyes; he gazed more intently, and by the faint glow of the fire frombelow, rather than by the filtering rays from the moon, he distinguisheda crouching form at the fork of bough and trunk. It might have been ananimal, but while Tom was still gazing up in a kind of dull amazementthe form moved, a human arm was stretched downward, and within the graspof a human hand a long blade caught a glint of red light from thewatchers' fire. Tom longed to snatch at it. There it was, three feetabove his head! He tore desperately at his fastenings, but the cordsonly cut into his flesh. "Come down and cut me free!" he whispered; butjust then one of the Manyema turned his head, the knife was instantlywithdrawn, the figure crawled back upon the branch, and disappeared fromview.
Tom wondered. Surely the hakim, if it was the hakim, was not going todesert him. He waited and fretted; minute after minute passed; therewas no sound, no sign. His heart sank; somnolence was again creepingover his senses when, nearly an hour after he had been first awaked, heheard a faint rustle in the tree above him. He looked up; there againwas the form, its features indistinguishable in the foliage. As he gazedhe saw a rod let down; the long knife was swathed about the end. Itcame lower; it reached the level of his hands, and stopped. He lookedat it with wonder; then from the tree came a whisper:
"Cut; quick!"
He almost laughed at the absurdity of the suggestion. His hands weretied; his arms were bent in front of his chest, elbows and palmstogether, and strong cords were wound tightly about the wrists andforearms. But there was the sharp blade turned towards him, within halfan inch of the ropes, held stiffly as though some malicious elf werebent 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 feltits pressure. Was the thing possible? He tried to pull his crampedarms apart, and found that, firmly as they were bound, he could movethem up and down for about an inch. He made a downward movement, theropes scraping against the blade; up again, then down, again, again,with increasing rapidity as his excitement grew. One of the guardsheaved a great sigh; Tom instantly stopped rubbing, and when the negroturned 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 hisarms, shifted his position, and gave himself again to slumber. Then theknife moved again, the rubbing was resumed; one strand gave way, thenanother, the tension was slackened, and with one final wrench Tom foundhis aching hands free!
He pressed them under his armpits to warm them and remove something ofthe pain; but the figure above was impatient, insistent. He lowered theknife still farther, and pressed it against the rope around Tom's waist.Tom took it. A few moments' sawing severed that rope also; then hestooped to his feet, and with three sharp strokes upon the cords abouthis ankles his last bonds were snapped, and he stood once more a freeman. The negroes still slept, and the fire had died down upon itsembers.
What was he now to do? Who was his obliging friend? He had little timeto wonder; the rod was withdrawn into the tree; a few moments later itcame down--the knife was gone.
"Climb up, sah!" came the eager whisper.
Tom grasped the rod, set his feet upon the knobby bole, and withexertions which strained the muscles of arms and legs to the verge ofcramp he heaved himself into the leafy bough. The figure there clutchedhim as he was on the point of falling. "Sah! sah!" it said with a sobof joy. Tom gripped Mbutu's hand, and sat for a minute breathless,peering down towards the circle of sleeping negroes. The wind blew withincreasing 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 hewas to get clear away he must exercise all his cunning. There was thehut 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 ofmen on the alert, and there was but a slender chance of escaping from somany. Beyond the village, three hundred yards away, was the thin outerbelt of the forest; could he but gain that, Tom thought, he might hideand elude pursuit. There was danger from wild beasts, no doubt; but awild beast was less dangerous than the vengeful Portuguese. It must bea dash for life and liberty, he saw. How was he to escape immediatedanger 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 tohimself, and proceeded to put his plan into operation. Tying the knifeagain to the rod, but at an angle to form a crook, he let it down, andhooked up the severed cords that lay at the foot of the tree. He swiftlyknotted them to form two strong ropes. Then bidding Mbutu secure theknife and fol
low him, he crept cautiously along the bough towards thehut. The wind was stiffening to a gale; the horned moon was dippingbehind the forest, and the hut lay in shadow. He came to the end of thebranch, and crawled on to the roof, Mbutu following close. Moving onlywhen the swaying bough rustled against the thatch, drowning all othersounds, he made his way cat-like across the roof, reached the edge, slidover, and slipped noiselessly down one of the wooden posts supportingthe thatch at the distance of a foot from the wall of the hut. He wason the ground on the side farthest from the tree. For some moments hestood 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 hadformed offered a better chance of escape than a mere dash for theforest. Taking off the turban with which he had been provided by thehakim, he opened it out, and folded the sheet of linen over and overuntil it made a long tight roll. In a few whispered words he explainedhis 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 insidethe hut. On a rude table a small rushlight was burning, by whoseglimmer he saw the chief stretched upon his back on a narrow plank, hisburnous cast aside, his long form covered with a red blanket. He wasfast asleep, with his mouth open, his breath coming and going with longsoundless heaves. With heart beating violently in spite of himself, Tomstole behind the Arab, and then whispered to Mbutu that he was to holdthe man's head when he gave the signal. Both then stooped; Tom gave anod; Mbutu pressed the chief's head down firmly with both hands, and atthe same instant Tom stuffed the rolled turban into his mouth, andknotted it beneath his neck. He wriggled and half rose upon his elbow;instantly Mbutu's arms were thrown around him, and he was pulledbackward 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 swiftlytied the chief's ankles together. Now that it was impossible for theArab 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; withthe remaining cord Tom bound the Arab's arms together, and in fiveminutes 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, hewas going to walk boldly through the camp. If they met anyone, Mbutu wasto 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 withoutbestowing another glance on the prostrate form, whose eyes were glaringat him with all the fury of impotent rage, he walked slowly out of thehut, Mbutu a yard behind.
They went quickly, stepping in the shade of the huts. Their way led pastthe hut in which the Portuguese was sleeping. The African native issensitive to the slightest tremor of the ground, and one of the negroeswho 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, thetall 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 mimicrythat surprised his master, addressed him in a few quiet words, biddinghim keep good watch over the senor, while Tom walked on with a dignifiedair, as though the negro were beneath his notice. When out of the man'ssight they quickened their steps. They reached the outer circle ofhuts, evaded the watch-fires placed at intervals, crossed the fence andditch, and, breaking into a run, plunged into the dense bush at the edgeof the compound. The fugitives had barely gone two hundred yards whenthey heard a great outcry in the camp behind. One of the eight guardshad awoke and rekindled the dying fire. Glancing at the tree, hediscovered that the prisoner was gone. He roused his companions, andwith mutual upbraidings they began to dispute who should venture toinform the chief of the escape. Their voices rose in altercation, andDe 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 hismaster's hut, whence in a moment issued the Portuguese, swearing greatoaths at being disturbed when he so much needed rest, and for the momentnot understanding what his man said. A glance at the tree apprised himthat his anticipated victim had escaped his clutches. Heedless of thenews that the chief had but just before been seen walking through thecamp, he rushed to the hut, and finding Mustapha there bound and gagged,began with frantic haste and fearful imprecations, in which he could notrefrain from mingling taunts, to cut him free. Both men were besidethemselves with fury. The whole camp was by this time alarmed, andArabs and Manyema alike cowered before the wrath of their infuriatedsuperiors. De Castro ran wildly about crying for torches, whileMustapha ordered every man in the camp to set off in search of theescaped prisoner, and despatched parties in all directions. He wenthimself to the hakim's hut, believing that the Arab seen walking in theprisoner's company must be Mahmoud and no other. Meeting the gravephysician as he came out to enquire the reason of the uproar, the chiefroundly accused him of effecting or conniving at the release of theEnglishman. The hakim's face showed neither surprise nor pleasure; hewas as coldly imperturbable as ever. Quietly denying that he had hadany hand in the escape, he asked the Arab what he expected to gain bywild ill-directed searches in the dark; the torches and the din wouldonly give warning to the fugitives, and help them to elude pursuit.Mustapha saw the absurdity of his proceedings, and chafed under thecynical scorn of the physician, whose calling and character enforced hisunwilling respect. Turning on his heel, he ordered drums to be beatento recall the search-parties, and enquiry to be made for the traitor inthe camp; and when De Castro came up to him, foaming with passion andshouting that the whole thing had been planned to spite him, Mustaphabade him keep a still tongue in his head, or he would find himself inthe Englishman's place. It wanted still more than three hours tosunrise, and giving orders that the search should be diligently resumedat dawn, the chief returned to his hut.
In the meantime the outcry had at first caused the fugitives to hastentheir steps; but, fearing that the rustle and crash of their progressthrough the bush would arrest the pursuers' attention, they droppedbehind a fallen tree. Not many minutes afterwards a party of Manyemawho had outstripped the rest, keeping close together in their mutualfear, came within a few yards of Tom's hiding-place. There was onemoment of suspense, then they passed on with torches burning; but soonthe tap-tap of the recalling drums sounded through the wood, and theyturned, passed within a few paces of where the panting fugitives laycrouched, 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 tillall 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 asbest they could in the increasing darkness, among trees, profuse grass,and creeping plants that threw their sprays in intricate mazes acrosstheir path. When they had gone about a mile from the camp the forestbecame so thick that it was impossible to proceed farther that night.Mbutu suggested that they should climb a tree as the best protectionfrom prowling beasts, and wait until morning. To this Tom agreed, andfinding a trunk easy to climb, they got up into its lower branches, andmade themselves as comfortable as possible. Their ascent caused acommotion among the feathered denizens of their shelter, and Mbutudeclared he heard the gibber of a monkey angry at the disturbance of hisancestral home; but they rested without molestation till the dawn sentfeeble glimmers through the foliage, and during that time Mbutu told hisstory.
His master's disappearance, he said, had caused the
utmost consternationand distress to the whole force. After some hours of fruitless searchnext morning, the major had sorrowfully decided that he must completethe object of his expedition, leaving all further efforts to find Tomuntil his work was done. Promising, then, a rich reward to any nativewho should give him information as to the young man's fate, he hadcontinued his march, and arriving at the native chief's village, after astubborn fight had burnt it to the ground. Most of the inhabitantsfled, among them the chief. The major then returned rapidly over histracks, and spent several days in searching far and wide through thecountry. Mbutu, meanwhile, had felt sure from the very first that hismaster was not dead, and had accompanied the expedition in the hope thatere long some trace of him would be found. Then, giving up hope ofthis, and learning that the major had decided to return to Kisumu, hehad resolved to go on the search alone. Slipping away from the columnsoon 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 ofprecaution, appropriated the burnous and turban of one of them. Then hesought for the trail of the retreating Arabs, believing that his masterwas 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 hadsighted the Belgians, and there he was for a time at fault. But heencountered 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 thecamp he had descried the caravan, and from that moment he dogged itpatiently and warily, at one point of the route creeping up so closethat he was able to see, from the shelter of a bushy tree, the figure ofhis master among the Manyema guard. Then he followed up more cautiouslythan ever, in the hope of discovering some means of effecting theprisoner's release. No opportunity had offered, and his heart sank whenhe saw the Portuguese join the caravan, still more when, as he peeredfrom a safe hiding-place among the trees, he saw the Arab chiefaccompany De Castro to the hut where Tom lay. The tying-up had made himdesperate. He had thought at first of creeping up and cutting hismaster free, but every time he took a step forward towards the tree oneof the guard moved, or some noise had startled him, as a mouse peepingout from its hole is startled by the faintest sound of movement. Thenhe had the happy thought to climb the tree, and endeavour to cut hismaster's bonds from above. The discovery that he could not reach was atfirst agony, but he was strung up to a pitch of desperation that set allhis wits on the alert. He had crept back into the forest and cut therod 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 oncemore safe among his own people.
"Poor old Uncle," said Tom, when Mbutu had ended his story; "how I wishI could let him know I am alive and well and free! And you, Mbutu, howam I to thank you for your faithful service? I can tell you this: thatwhen I do see my friends again, you shall not be forgotten, my boy. Butwhere are we? What are we to do? Do you know anything about this partof 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 theArab caravan had lately been travelling was the last clear stretch bywhich their stronghold could be reached. It was wedge-shaped, narrowingas it became engulfed in the forest. The few natives whose hamlets weredotted about it were all in the Arabs' pay, and were treated withspecial and unusual consideration, in order that they might be disposedto give early tidings of an enemy's approach. Mbutu assured his masterthat the Arab chief would at once acquaint the natives all through thatdistrict with his prisoner's escape and offer a reward for his capture,expecting him to make his way eastward, where every path and cross-roadwould 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 readingin one of Stanley's books about this forest: hundreds of miles long, andhundreds broad; one could drop Great Britain and Ireland into it, to saynothing of the kingdom of Man. But I suppose," he said, turning againto Mbutu, "after a time we could safely make a turn to the south-eastand 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 thesouth-west, then looked puzzled, and finally confessed that in the darkhe 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, nomudder, no pickin: no nuffin--only sah."
"Poor fellow! Well, I see nothing for it but to go into the forest assoon as it is light. We've nothing to keep us warm at night; no foodexcept these nuts I brought. I have no watch and no compass: you'venothing but a knife; we're both desperately poor, Mbutu, and we'll haveto live on our wits, I'm afraid.--Hark! what's that?"
The dawn came up like thunder, indeed. Through the wood resounded thethud-thud of many drums of various tones, some rattling a rapid rat-tat,others booming with deep, hollow, reverberating notes. Mbutu turned hisear towards the sound, listening with peculiar intentness for severalminutes. Then he shook his head.
"Not know dat!" he said. He explained that many tribes had their ownindividual codes of drum-signals, which could only be recognized bytheir own friends. By means of these information was often telegraphedfor miles in a very few minutes, the note of the drum reaching far, andbeing taken up and repeated from point to point. Though he had neverheard these particular notes before, he surmised that the Arab chief wasalready signalling the escape of his prisoner. It was clearly time to beoff. Slipping down from the tree, the two fugitives struck into theforest in a south-westerly direction, and were relieved to hear thedrum-taps becoming ever fainter and fainter as they proceeded. When thesounds had died away altogether, they sat down on a fallen tree and madea frugal breakfast of nuts, sipping up the gigantic beads of dew whichcovered the spreading leaves of plants near the ground. Then they aroseand 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 andthe rivers flowing into it. Tom began to be oppressed by a sort ofnightmare feeling, which damped his spirits and made him drop his voiceto a whisper when he spoke to Mbutu. The silence was awful. Treeslarge and small, packed so close together that there seemed at adistance barely room to squeeze between them, rose up, some straight ofstem, some twisted and warped, others snapped off high above the ground,their foliage interlacing and shutting off all view of sky and sun, thespace beneath as dim as the aisles of some vast cathedral. From tree totree ran huge festoons of creeper and vine, weaving intricate patternswith each other, clinging in great coils about the trunks. At everyfork and on every branch huge lichens were embossed, with broadspear-leaved plants, and clusters of orchid and liana. The soddenforest floor was covered with bush and amoma, save where a group offallen trees, split or scorched by the lightning, had made a gap and letin the sunlight, and there innumerable baby trees had sprung up,jostling each other in their eagerness to catch the stream of light andheat.
At one point Tom sat down to rest on a prostrate moss-covered trunk. Itcrumbled into rottenness under his weight, and, looking, he saw that ithad been mined by countless termites. Red ants scurried after oneanother in the wrinkles of the bark, and a huge blue scorpion darted outof a hole, causing Tom to start back with loathing. Near at hand was ashallow pool, green with duckweed, its surface covered with leaves oflotus and lilies, and a green, greasy scum of microscopic plants. Abovethis was a crooked tree, whose trunk seemed to have broken out in greatulcerous sores, from which swollen globules of gum exuded, dropping withheavy pong into the pool. Not a sound broke the stillness; the silvertrill of the mavis, the strident caw of rooks, the brisk chirp of
grasshoppers, all the myriad sounds of an English wood, were absent; andTom, gazing into the confused mass of green, his feet chilled on thespongy humus, felt that he was surrounded in very truth by death inlife.
Marching on again along a narrow path which seemed a mere tunnel in theforest, Mbutu had often to use his knife to cut away obstructivegrowths--great sprays of thorn that grabbed at their clothes, caughtthem under the chin, and seemed bent on cutting their throats.Presently they came to an abandoned clearing, where the vegetation nowgrew more luxuriantly than ever; the charred poles of native hutscovered with climbing plants of vivid green, mingled with white andpurple flowers, forming bowers fit for Titania the fairy queen. Justbeyond was a stream, dashing over rocks between banks covered withvegetation, some of the larger trees bending over the current at theheight of fifty feet, thus forming a huge shed beneath which hundreds ofboats might have been sheltered. Here Tom got Mbutu to cut him a stoutcudgel of hard wood from one of the stooping monsters, thinking it mightprove useful as they progressed. The pedestrians drank their fill of thedelicious water, crossed on the rocks, and forced their way up theopposite bank into the forest again. Half a mile farther on they cameto a trickling stream, and beyond it, in a hollow, under a dense canopyof foliage so thick that, but for twinkling points of blue here andthere, the sky was invisible, they lighted upon tiny, cage-likehabitations no more than three feet high, made of sticks and leaves, anderected in a narrow clearing between clumps of gigantic trees. Mbutustopped short and uttered a low cry of alarm, looking round with evidentapprehension.
"What is it?" asked Tom in surprise, for the boy had hitherto shownhimself 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 hadled him half a mile farther into the forest. He then explained that hereand there, in such small clearings as they had just traversed, theredwelt little communities of strange dwarf-like people, whose nakedbodies were covered with a thin down, and who lived a sort of elfinlife, stealing about from glade to glade, hardly ever visible, asdifficult to discover as mice in a corn-field. They were skilled inwoodcraft and the chase, agile and fleet of foot, and so well versed inpoisons that with their toy-like bows and arrows they could kill fowl,and men, and even elephants, with a mere scratch. They could shoot threearrows so rapidly that the last sprang from the bow before the first hadreached its mark. They fed on grubs and beetles, honey, mushrooms, androots, besides coneys and hares and other spoils of the chase, and had asweet tooth for the potatoes and bananas cultivated by their tallerneighbours. Mbutu said that he was not afraid of ordinary negroes orArabs, they could easily be avoided; but if he and his master stumbledinto 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 wentoff by himself to find food, and luckily came upon a deserted clearingwhere bananas were still growing. He returned with a luscious bunch,and after eating and resting a while, the travellers again resumed theirmarch. The heat of the afternoon had brought out myriad insects thatbuzzed about their heads, darting in every now and then to sting. Bees,wasps, and ticks innumerable sported hither and thither across theirpath; sometimes a flock of pigeons would clatter out of a tree, and highover their heads shrilled the mocking notes of parrots.
As the afternoon wore on, the heat became oppressive, suffocating. Anominous heaviness brooded over everything; the dimness deepened intodarkness, and a feeling as of an approaching calamity crept over Tom.Suddenly he heard a faint rumble like artillery far away; through anarrow opening in the forest he saw a spear of white flame dart acrossfrom tree to tree; then the silent trees rustled, swayed, and smotetheir tops one against another like masts straining under heavy canvasin a hurricane. Then roared the thunder; forked lightning flashedpale-green across the tree-tops, and the massive trees bent and reeledlike rushes, recovering themselves from the first blow, staggeringforward, jerked back by the climbing plants around them, clashing,roaring, screaming like fierce savage warriors in mortal fight. Tomstood still, amazed at the wild warfare, deafened by the reverberatingthunder-claps, blinded by the scathing flames of lightning, yetexhilarated as he watched the fray. Then out of the black sky poured adeluge of rain, sheet upon sheet, hissing like water poured on hot iron,every drop as large as a crown-piece, penetrating the cotton garments ofthe travellers, drenching them in a moment to the skin. For threeminutes the torrents fell; then, as suddenly as it had begun, the stormceased, its fury was extinguished, the sky cleared, the trees stoodstill, and there was nothing to mark the terrific elemental strife butthe streaming foliage, the soaked ground, and two giant stems which,cleft by the lightning, had crashed down and overwhelmed many smallertrees beneath them.
"Whew! that was a storm indeed!" said Tom. "What are we to do now? Wecan'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 sortof inclined path leading from the ground up into the forks of treesstill standing. Tom and the Muhima nimbly climbed up until they werealmost at the top of a giant of the woods, and there they sat amid thefoliage and easily dried their dripping garments in the fierce sunlight.When that was done they felt hungry, and after they had reached theground, Mbutu found some small berries which he assured his master wereperfectly good to eat. Then they went on again. It was impossible totell how far they had come. Tom had left the direction to Mbutu, whoseemed to find the way by instinct. Judging by the height of the sunthat it was now about four o'clock, Tom wondered how they were to passthe approaching night. They had seen no human beings, and few livingcreatures at all save insects and snakes; Mbutu, indeed, assured hismaster that beasts of prey were not much to be dreaded in such denseforest, though he would not be surprised if an elephant should comerushing out upon them.
They were sitting at the edge of a clearing, with their backs against ahuge tree, to rest for a few minutes before starting for the last hour'swalk, when Mbutu suddenly clutched Tom by the sleeve. At the samemoment Tom heard a curious rhythmic chant, beginning on a low note,skipping three or four tones, and then descending to a chromatic notemidway between. Then out of the forest to their left came a strangeprocession, a line of some thirty little naked figures, well-formed,cheerful-looking, diminutive men less than four feet high, trottingalong in single file, their passage absolutely soundless save for thecrooning chant in time with their footsteps. "Ka-lu-ke-ke,ka-lu-ke-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. Withoutturning their heads they rapidly crossed the glade, and disappeared likegnomes 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 quitean interesting lot of little fellows. I liked that song of theirs muchbetter than the 'man all alone', you know. We have a saying in mycountry, 'little and good'; many a little man has been a hero. There'sBobs, you know; ever heard of Bobs? Well, I'll tell you all about himsome day. I declare I'm sleepy; there's no hut for us to-night; I thinkwe 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 wellto-day, I think; now for our leafy bed."
Mbutu was asleep as soon his head touched the bough on which he hadperched himself. But Tom was awake for hours, pondering on many things.The night-wind swayed the branches all around him, waking a chorus ofcreaking stems, swinging boughs, rustling leaves. From below came theceaseless 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 stickrattled against iron railings; this, Mbutu explained afterwards, was asoko or chimpanzee amusing himself with striking upon a tree. Once Tomwas startled by a sudden crackle, followed by a rending and rushing anda heavy thump that shook the fork on which he lay. In the morning hefound that a dead tree had fallen, crashing through the forest andoverwhelming many a living tree with its weight. All these sounds,breaking in upon the sad rustle of the foliage, filled Tom's soul with asense of forlornness. By and by the sounds were unheeded; his mind wasoccupied with thronging memories and thoughts. He was reminded of thesleepless nights he had sometimes spent in his father's parsonage,hearkening to the rooks in the trees just opposite his window. Hethought of his boyish ambitions; of the pride and eagerness with whichhe had listened to his uncle Jack's stories when he came on rare visitsto 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; heardthe din of the engine-shop, and felt once more the dissatisfied longingof that dreary time. That appeared now to be far back in a dim remotepast. It was only a few weeks since he had left England, and yet howmuch had happened in the interval! The events of years seemed to havebeen compressed into days. His thirst for adventure was more thansatisfied; yet here he was, in the heart of an African forest, with whocould 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 ofweariness and pain, of aimless wandering in the immeasurable forest,where he would finally drop and die, a prey to jackal or vulture. Hestrained his eyes, as though to see if these were in very truth bodilyforms surrounding him; then upon his mental sight another scenerose--reminiscences of his brief captivity with the Arabs; stark formslying in chains upon the swampy path; men and women and children sobbingout their lives in slavery; the slaver's cruel whip descending on thebacks of young boys and maidens, who writhed and shrieked and fellbleeding and exhausted, many to rise no more. His own dark fancies fledthe horrors of the slave-trade came home to him. He forgot his own punytroubles, and even his present extremity. Once more he registered thevow that, if he were spared, he would strike a blow, however feeble,against this hideous traffic in humanity. Suddenly there fell upon hisinward 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; thewind itself lulled and the rustle of the leaves around him ceased.Looking up through the canopy of green, he saw one star faintlytwinkling. His depression passed away; he found himself murmuring thelines 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; hefelt contented and at rest; and with recollections his uncle, Dr.O'Brien, Mr. Barkworth, and the padre making a dancing medley in hisbrain with hippos and crocodiles, Arabs and pigmies, he at last fellinto a dreamless sleep.
Tom Burnaby: A Story of Uganda and the Great Congo Forest Page 11