The Sky And The Forest
Page 25
Fleuron came up to report; he had been with the advanced guard and on reaching the gate had moved along the defences to his right in search of a weak point.
“Dense undergrowth -- undergrowth of a difficulty quite incredible -- as far as I can see, Captain,” said Fleuron. “At the only weak point there was a palisade like this one. That was when I turned back. I left half my guard there. This Loa will have palisaded all points, one may be sure. I will try in the other direction if you wish.”
“There would be no advantage to be gained by that, I fancy,” said Talbot.
He could send a note back to the Lady Stanley and have the six-pounder sent up to him. A few rounds from the gun would make short work of those palisades. But the day was already far advanced; to unship the gun and bring it ashore, and mount it on its traveling carriage and drag it along the path, would take hours, days perhaps. Or he could make use of a more primitive method of attack; burning faggots piled against the palisades under a heavy covering fire from rifles would burn the palisades down. But that would take time too; he would have to wait for the embers to cool at first one barrier and then at the other.
“Oh, damn it all to hell,” said Talbot in a fit of pettish irritation.
He wanted to end this business quickly. He had enough men -- too many of them, for that matter. Why should he trouble to keep them alive? There could not be more than a few old men left to defend the town. He issued his orders harshly and savagely; and Fleuron, noticing the expression on his face, bit off short the protest he automatically had begun to raise at his first realization of what was in Talbot's mind. A hundred riflemen, strung among the trees, prepared to cover the attack. Fleuron and Talbot took rifles, too, but that was not for the same purpose. The Batetela headman and the twenty men with axes who were selected for the attempt looked at the rifles in the white men's hands. Those rifles, if they refused to move, meant certain and immediate death; the poisoned arrows from the defences meant death not quite so certain and not quite so immediate. Their teeth and eyeballs gleamed in the twilight as they chattered to each other debating the hideous choice. An angry word and an impatient gesture from Talbot settled their decision. They gripped their axes and they ran with despairing haste up the broad path. A shaft of sunlight reached over the tops of the trees and illuminated the little crowd as they came to the foot of the menacing palisade. Their axes rang against the stubborn cane fastenings. They hacked and hewed feverishly, with excited cries.
Here came the arrows, surely enough. Two men backed away, with feathered shafts hanging from the barbed heads driven deep into them -- the whole group followed their example and broke back again, but Fleuron stepped forward and shot one of them mercilessly, and they turned back again to their task. The rifles helped them; the Remington bullets went crashing through the undergrowth in search of the bowmen hidden there who launched those arrows. Fleuron shouted an encouragement -- or a warning. It reached the ears of the axmen and added to their exertions. Frantically they hacked and pulled, treading their dead and wounded underfoot. One man reached up and clutched the upper horizontal bar, flung his weight on it and was joined by two others, and their united exertions tore the thing down. Two uprights were dragged aside so that they leaned drunkenly in opposite directions. There was a passage of some sort through the first palisade, and Fleuron, yelling loudly, recalled the survivors of the axmen. By giving them a chance of life he could expect greater enthusiasm from those that would have to follow them.
The arrangements for the final assault were quickly made. A hundred spearmen on either side of the entrance were to attack straight before them, plunging directly into the undergrowth and struggling through as best they could. They might turn the flank of the defence should it be prolonged. Another body of axmen was collected to deal with the farther palisade. A hundred spearmen were to follow on their heels, and turn to right and left after passing the nearer palisade and seek out the defenders who might be hidden in the undergrowth along the entrance path. Spearmen, newly brought into the ranks of the Army from the forest, were cheaper than the riflemen who had been given training in the use of firearms. Along the path was ranged the main assaulting column, destined to burst through when the way should be cleared for them. They were excited and eager, keyed up at the thought of entering into the legendary mysteries of Loa's town.
Sweating and shouting, Talbot and Fleuron hastened about to get all in order.
“Go!” shouted Fleuron at last, and the attackers hurled themselves forward.
Talbot watched the axmen burst through the first palisade. The spearmen followed them. Throughout the belt of undergrowth came muffled shouts as the assaulting spearmen plunged and struggled in the entangling mass. As he had expected, the entrance path was sown thick with poisoned skewers, but he had sent in enough men to be able to bear losses. He saw one of the axmen climb straight up the second palisade, poise himself for a moment, and then leap down beyond it. Mad with excitement, the man did not delay a moment, but rushed straight ahead, waving his axe, towards the town. It was time.
“Go!” roared Fleuron again, and the waiting column charged yelling up the path.
For a while the whole entrance was jammed as they forced their way through the wreck of the first barrier; then they flowed on to reach the second one just as it began to give way. Talbot saw them pouring forward and nodded to his escort. They closed round him as they had been drilled to do; there was less chance of a poisoned arrow reaching him when he was surrounded by human bodies. They were wild with excitement, chattering and shouting as they hurried forward with Talbot in their midst. They entered the narrow path through the undergrowth, so narrow that the files on each side of him pressed up against him so that his nostrils were filled with the smell of their sweating bodies, and they picked their way through the shattered barrier while the undergrowth round them still echoed with the cries of the attackers plunging about after the last few defenders. They hurried up the path and through the second barrier, emerging into the main street of the town, the sunshine blazing down upon it.
Their point of entrance was about the middle of it; at the ends to the left and right it widened out into something like open squares; street and squares were lined with large substantial houses constructed of split boards thatched with leaves. At the far end to the right Talbot's eye was caught by a large area of greenery, with straggling trees emerging out of it, filling the whole centre of the square. That must be the sacred grove, and near it must be the chief's house and the treasury and the important buildings. It was thither that he directed his escort, hurrying down the street while around him he saw and heard the hideous sights and sounds of a town taken by assault. He would have to beat these fiends off their prey, but first he had better secure the treasury and put a guard over it.
But round about the grove there was no sign of any chief's house. This looked like the poorer end of the town, as one might say. Here were the forges with their stone anvils, a small heap of charcoal yet remaining, the boxlike bellows lying beside it, and everywhere inches deep in the dead sparks of a thousand years' of smith's work. The houses contained nothing except poor domestic utensils and moaning women. The sacred grove was not at all impressive on close inspection. It was small; a single short path led to a little clearing in the centre, and in the clearing there were a few human bones, but not very many, and no treasure whatever.
The palace of this Loa must be at the other end of the town after all. Talbot cursed and hastened back up the street. Halfway along he met Fleuron, busily engaged in the organization of conquest. His escort stood guard over a herd of frightened women who crouched and huddled together with rolling eyes as they heard the shrieks of those whom Fleuron had not been able to protect.
“Have you seen this Loa, Sergeant?” demanded Talbot.
“No, Captain. Unless he is among those old men, and I am sure he is not.”
None of those trembling grey heads could belong to the man who had conquered all this area of Afric
a and who had inspired the devotion which had caused his army to annihilate itself in his defence, Talbot pushed on up the street towards the farther open space. Of course. He had been a fool not to see the large houses there. That most distant one, with the decorated gable ends, must be Loa's palace. There were herds of frightened women here, too, women with babies in their arms, women standing weeping with little children thrust behind them. The tide of the assailants was only just beginning to lap up as far as here. The sun blazed down into the open space as Talbot strode up it, with his disorganized escort hastening after him.
There was an eddy among the women clustering round the big house. They parted, and two people advanced from among them. Talbot knew Loa when he saw him; there could in fact be no mistaking him. He had been tall, although his height was lessened because his back was a little bent. He walked stiffly but with immense dignity, his head back despite his bent shoulders. He was corpulent without being obese -- maybe advancing years had already removed the fat of middle age. Over his shoulders hung a leopard-skin cloak, vivid in the sunshine; about his neck and arms were spiral ornaments of iron, and in his right hand glittered an axe, brightly polished to reflect the sunlight. Beside him hobbled a skinny old woman, her thin breasts swinging with the exertion of keeping up with him. As she hastened along at his side she never took her eyes from his face, craning forward and peering up to see it.
Talbot sorted hurriedly through his memory for words.
“Stop!” he shouted, in one of the few dialects in which he had any mastery.
He threw his left hand up, palm forward, in the universal gesture commanding a halt; his right hand held his revolver ready. Loa did not appear to hear him -- certainly he did not look at him. He continued to stride forward, his eyes directed at a point over Talbot's head. One of Talbot's escort dropped on one knee beside him, and levelled his rifle.
“Stop!” shouted Talbot again.
This Loa, if he could by any lucky chance be won over, might be useful, seeing the devotion he could inspire. With him as a local under-governor, it would not be nearly so difficult to organize the district for rubber collecting and ivory hunting. But Loa only walked forward, with the pitiless sky overhead looking down at him, the friendly forest far away, beyond the houses. Talbot's revolver was cocked and pointed at his breast, but apparently Loa did not see it, nor the levelled rifle of the kneeling escort. Then at the last moment Loa sprang, whirling back the axe for a last blow.
But the stiffness of his fifty years betrayed him; he could not leap fast enough to catch the white man entirely off his guard. Talbot just managed to leap aside, in a most undignified fashion, without even time enough to pull the trigger. But the rifle of the kneeling escort had followed Loa’s movements, and the bullet struck Loa in the side as he poised on one foot with the axe above his head. From side to side the heavy bullet tore through him, from below upwards, expanding as it went. It struck below the ribs on his right side. It pierced his liver, it tore his heart to shreds, and, emerging, it shattered his left arm above the elbow. So Loa died in that very moment, the axe dropping behind him as he fell over with a crash. The rifleman tore open the breech, slid in another cartridge, and slammed the breechblock home. The skinny old woman saw Loa fall, and looked down at his body for one heartbroken moment. She uttered a shrill scream, and then raised her spider arms. It was as if she were going to attack Talbot with her fingernails; perhaps that was in her mind, but there could be no certainty about it, for the rifleman pulled the trigger again, and the skinny old woman fell dying beside the body of her Lord.
The End