Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  “Schillingschen has three cartridges,”’ sad Will. “One each for you, me and Fred Oakes! I’ll stay and trick him some more. I’ll think up a new plan. I don’t care if he gets me. I’d hate to face Fred without my rifle, and have to tell him the enemy is laying for him with it through my carelessness.”

  It was my first experience of Will with hysteria, for it amounted to that. I remembered that to cure a bevy of school-girls of it one should rap out something sharply, with a cane if need be. Yet Will was not like a school-girl, and his hysteria took the pseudo-manly form of refusal to retreat. I yearned for Fred’s camp-fires, and Fred’s laugh, hot supper, or breakfast, or whatever the meal would be, and blankets. Will, with a ruthless murderer stalking him in the dark, yearned only for self-contentment. All at once I saw the thing to do, and thrust my rifle in his hands.

  “Take it,” I said. “Hunt Schillingschen all night if you want to. I’m going back to tell Fred I’ve lost my rifle, and was afraid to face you for fear you’d laugh at me. Go on — take it! No, you’ve got to take it!”

  I let the rifle fall at his feet, and he was forced to pick it up. By that time I was on my way, and he had to hurry if he hoped to catch me. I kept him hurrying — cursing, and calling out to wait. And so, hours later, we arrived in sight of Fred’s fires and answered his cheery challenge:

  “Halt there, or I’ll shoot your bally head off!”

  Lions had kept him busy making the boys pile thornwood on the fires. He had shot two — one inside the enclosure, where the brute had jumped in a vain effort to reach the frantic donkeys. We stumbled over the carcass of the other as we made our way toward the gate-gap, and dragged it in ignominiously by the tail (not such an easy task as the uninitiated might imagine).

  Once within the enclosure I left Will to tell Fred his story as best suited him, Fred roaring with laughter as he watched Will’s rueful face, yet turning suddenly on Brown to curse him like a criminal for laughing, too!

  “Go and fetch that Mauser of yours, Brown, and give it to Mr. Yerkes in place of what he’s lost! Hurry, please!”

  It was touch and go whether Brown would obey. But he happened to be sober, and realized that he had committed tho unpermissible offense. Fred might laugh at Will all he chose; so might I; either of us might laugh Fred out of countenance; or they might howl derisively at me. But Brown, camp-fellow though he was, and not bad fellow though he was, was not of our inner-guard. He might laugh with, never at, especially when catastrophe brought inner feelings to the surface.

  “Take the shot-gun if you care to,” Fred told him, as he passed Will the rifle. “I’ll unlock the chop-box presently, and let you have some whisky!”

  This last was the cruellest cut, but it did Brown good. When Fred kept his promise and produced a whole bottle from the locked-up store Brown refused to touch it, instead insulting him like a good man, cursing him — whisky, whiskers, whims and all, using language that Fred good-naturedly assured him was very unladylike.

  Before dawn the boys, peering through the gaps between the camp-fires, to distinguish lions if they could and give the alarm before another could jump in and do damage, swore they saw Schillingschen, rifle in hand, stalking among the shadows. Nothing could convince them they had not seen him. They said he stooped like a man in a dream — that big beard was matted, and his shirt torn — that he strode out of darkness into darkness like a man whose mind was gone. We purposely laughed at their story, to see if we could shake them in it. But they laughed at our incredulity.

  “My eyes are good eyes” answered Kazimoto. “What I see I see! Why should I invent lies?”

  It was not pleasant to imagine Schillingschen, mind gone or not, with or without three cartridges and a rifle, prowling about our camp awaiting opportunity to do murder.

  “Come to think of it,” said Fred, “we’ve no proof he hasn’t a lot more than three cartridges. It’s hardly likely, but he might have cached some in reserve near where we found his camp pitched. More unlikely things have happened. But the bally man must go to sleep some time. He seems to have been awake ever since he escaped. We’ll be off at dawn, and either tire him out or leave him!”

  “I’ll bet he’s got one or more of those donkeys,” I answered. “He’ll not be so easy to tire.”

  “Suppose you and Will go and sleep,” suggested Fred. “Otherwise we’ll all go crazy, and all get left behind!”

  There did not remain much time for sleeping. The porters, being used to the tents and their loads now, got away to a good start, heading straight toward the frowning pile of Elgon that hove its great hump against a blue sky and domineered over the world to the northward.

  There were plenty of villages, well filled with timid spear-men and hard-working naked wives. Now that we had trade goods in plenty there was no difficulty at all about making friends with them. They had two obsessing fears: that it might not rain in proper season, and “the people” as they called themselves would “have too much hunger”; and that the men from the mountain might come and take their babies.

  “Which men, from what mountain?”

  “Bad men, from very high up on that mountain!” They pointed toward

  Elgon, shuddered, and looked away.

  “Why should they take your babies?”

  “They eat them!”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “We know it! They come! Once in so often they come and fight with us, and take away, and kill and eat our fat babies!”

  All the inhabitants of all the villages agreed. None of them had ever ventured on the mountain; but all agreed that very bad black men came raiding from the upper slopes at uncertain intervals. There was no variation of the tale.

  One thing puzzled us much more than the cannibal story. We heard shooting a long way off behind us to our right — two shots, followed by the unmistakable ringing echo among growing trees. Had Schillingschen decided to desert us? And if so, how did he dare squander two of his three cartridges at once — supposing he were not now mad, as our boys, and his, all vowed he was? His own ten men began to beg to be protected from him, and the captured Baganda recommended in best missionary English that we seek the services of the first witch doctor we could find.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  THE SONG OF THE ELEPHANTS

  Who is as heavy as we, or as strong?

  Ho! but we trample the shambas down!

  Saw ye a swath where the trash lay long

  And tall trees flat like a harvest mown?

  That was the path we shore in haste

  (Judge, is it easy to find, and wide!)

  Ripping the branch and bough to waste

  Like rocks shot loose from a mountain side!

  Therefore hear us:

  (All together, stamping steadily In time.)

  ’Twas we who lonely echoes woke

  To copy the crash of the trees we broke!

  Goad, nor whip, nor wheel, nor yoke

  Shall humble the will of the Ivory Folk!

  Once we were monarchs from sky to sky,

  Many were we and the men were few;

  Then we would go to the Place to die —

  Elephant tombs* that the oldest knew, —

  Old as the trees when the prime is past,

  Lords unchallenged of vale and plain,

  Grazing aloof and alone at last

  To lie where the oldest had always lain.

  So we sing of it:

  —— —— —— —— —— —— —— * The legendary place that every Ivory hunter hopes some day to stumble on, where elephants are said to have gone away to die of old age, and where there should therefore be almost unimaginable wealth of ivory. The legend, itself as old as African speech, is probably due to the rarity of remains of elephants that have died a natural death. —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —

  (All together, swinging from side to side in time, and tossing trunks.)

  ’Twas we who lonely echoes woke

  T
o copy the crash of the trees we broke!

  Goad, nor whip, nor wheel, nor yoke

  Shall govern the strength of the Ivory Folk!

  Still we are monarchs! Our strength and weight

  Can flatten the huts of the frightened men!

  But the glory of smashing is lost of late,

  We raid less eagerly now than then,

  For pits are staked, and the traps are blind,

  The guns be many, the men be more;

  We fidget with pickets before and behind,

  Who snoozed in the noonday heat of yore.

  Yet, hear us sing:

  (All together, ears up and trunks extended.)

  ’Twas we who lonely echoes woke

  To copy the crash of the trees we broke!

  Goad, nor whip, nor wheel, nor yoke

  Have lessened the rage of the Ivory Folk!

  Still we are monarchs of field and stream!

  None is as strong or as heavy as we!

  We scent — we swerve — we come — we scream —

  And the men are as mud ‘neath tusk and knee!

  But we go no more to the Place to die,

  For the blacks head off and the guns pursue;

  Bleaching our scattered rib-bones lie,

  And men be many, and we be few.

  Nevertheless:

  (All together, trunks up-thrown, ears extended, and stamping in slow time with the fore-feet.)

  ’Twas we who lonely echoes woke

  To copy the crash of the trees we broke!

  Goad, nor whip, nor wheel, nor yoke

  Shall humble the pride of the Ivory Folk!

  We had laughed at Fred’s suggestion that Schillingschen might have ammunition cached away. Fred had sneered at my guess that the German might ride donkey-back and not be so easily left behind. Now the probability of both suggestions seemed to stiffen into reality.

  Day followed day, and Schillingschen, squandering cartridges not far away behind us, always had more of them. He seemed, too, to lose interest in keeping so extremely close to us, as we raced to get away from him toward the mountain. If he was really crazy, as his trembling boys maintained, then for a crazy man blazing at everything or nothing he was shooting remarkably little. On the contrary, if he was sane, and shooting for the pot, he must have acquired a big following in some mysterious manner, or else have lost his marksmanship when Coutlass bruised his eyes. He fired each day, judging by the echo of the shots, about as many cartridges as we did, who had to feed a fairly long column of men, and make presents of meat, in addition, to the chiefs of villages. It began to be a mystery how he carried so much ammunition, unless he had donkeys or porters.

  Soon we began to pass through a country where elephants bad been. There was ruin a hundred yards wide, where a herd of more than a thousand of them must have swept in panic for fifteen miles. There were villages with roofs not yet re-thatched, whose inhabitants came and begged us to take vengeance on the monsters, showing us their trampled enclosures, torn-down huts, and ruined plantations. They offered to do whatever we told them in the way of taking part, and several times we marshaled the men of two or three villages together in an effort to get a line to windward and drive the herd our way.

  But each time, as the plan approached development, ringing shots from behind us put the brutes to flight. It became uncanny — as if Schillingschen in his new mad mood was able to divine exactly when his noise would work most harm. Our fool boys told the local natives that a madman was on our heels, and after that all offers of help ceased, even from those who had suffered most from the elephants. We began to be regarded as mad ourselves. Efforts to get natives to go scouting to watch Schillingschen, and report to us, were met with point-blank refusal. Rumor began to precede us, and from one village that had suffered more than usually badly from passing elephants the inhabitants all fled at the first sign of Brown, leading our long single column.

  We followed the herd. Its track was wide, and easier than the winding native foot-paths; and we were willing enough to jettison loads of trade-goods if only we could replace them with tusks. The chase led up toward Elgon, over the shoulder of an outlying spur, and upward toward the mountain’s eastern slopes.

  As long as we kept in the wake of the herd the going presented no difficulties. We knew by the state of the tracks and the dung that the herd was never far ahead. Frequently we heard them crashing through trees in front of us. Yet whenever we came so close as to hope for a view, and a shot at a tusker, invariably a regular fusillade from the eastward to our rear would start the herd stampeding with a din like all the avalanches.

  Streams by the dozen flowed down from the mountain’s sides, their banks crushed into bog where the elephants had crossed. Our donkeys grew used to being tied by the head in line and hauled across (for in common with all herds of donkeys, there were a few of them that swam readily, and many that either could not or refused). The flies in the wake of the elephants were worse than the tetse that haunted the shore of Nyanza.

  We had no trouble now from our boys. We could even let the Baganda’s hands loose. They feared the cannibals of the higher slopes, but were much more afraid of the madman to our right rear. Our difficulty lay in compelling them to keep a course sufficiently to eastward, and in calling a halt each day before men and animals were too utterly tired out. Yet for all their hurry, we did not gain on the man who made them so afraid.

  Elephants, once thoroughly scared, will run away forever. Our boys openly praised the herd in front for its speed and stamina, hoping it would continue on its course and oblige us to keep the madman with the rifle at a safe distance to our rear. But it seemed he had an easier line than we, or else his frenzy gave him seven-league boots, for he even began to gain on us, keeping along our right flank at a distance of several miles, and driving us nearly mad in the frantic effort to keep our column from turning and running away to the westward. If we had relaxed our vigilance for a moment they would have broken line and fled.

  It was old volcanic country we were marching through, densely wooded, virgin forest for the most part, with earth so warm at times that it was not easy to believe the crater of Elgon quite extinct. Even at that low level we came on blow-holes nearly filled in with dirt and trash, serving as fine caves for beasts of prey. We went into one for about three hundred paces before it narrowed into nothing, and would have camped in it but for the stink. It smelt like a place where the egg of original sin had turned rotten. Fred said that was sulphur, with the air of a man who would like it believed that he knew.

  At last the enemy must have made a night march, for he passed us, and the following dawn we heard him shooting to our right in front. That morning it was simply impossible to make the boys break camp. They swore that the ghost of Schillingschen had gone in league with the elephants to destroy us, and they preferred to be shot by us rather than murdered by witchcraft.

  Beyond doubt they would have bolted and left us had that camp not been an almost perfect one, on rising ground with two great wings of rock almost enclosing it, and a singing brook galloping through the midst. There was only one gap by which elephant or man could enter (unless they should fall from the sky), and they closed that by rolling rocks and dragging up trunks of trees.

  After a useless argument, during which we all lost our tempers and they were reduced to the verge of panic, we decided to leave them there in charge of Brown and those porters, except Kazimoto, who had rifles. The armed men promised faithfully to die beside Brown in the only place of exit rather than permit a man to pass out; and the rest all agreed it would be right to shoot them if they attempted to desert; but we left the camp together — Fred, Will, I, and Kazimoto, with Will’s personal servant and mine bringing up the rear — wondering whether we should ever see any member or part of the outfit again. It felt like going to a funeral — or rather from it — more than likely Brown’s.

  Kazimoto and the other two should have been carrying spare rifles; but Brown had refused to remain b
ehind unless we left him all but the one apiece we absolutely needed. We took the boys more from habit than for any use they were likely to be; and my boy and Will’s bolted back to the camp almost before we were out of sight of it, Kazimoto begging us to shoot them in the back for cowards.

  “Huh!” he grunted. “They are afraid of death. Teach them what death is!”

  We heard Brown challenge them as they approached the camp, and hoped he thrashed them soundly. But it turned out he did not. He himself had grown afraid; for the fear of a crowd is contagious, and spreads nearly as readily from black to white as from white to black. He broke open a chop-box and consoled himself with whisky.

  Forcing our way through vegetation that crowded around a spur of volcanic rock, it soon became evident that the whole of the huge herd was breakfasting not far in front of us, tearing off limbs of trees, and crashing about as if noise were the only object. We climbed and attempted to look down on them, only to discover that the part of the forest where we were consisted of a narrow belt, with a mile-wide open space beyond it between us and the elephants. The wind was from them toward us, but that did not wholly account for the amount of noise that reached us. It was the fact that the herd was twice as big as we imagined. There were elephants in every direction. We could see and hear branches breaking with reports like cannon-fire.

  Kazimoto was as steady as an old soldier, a great grin spreading across his ugly honest face, and his eyes alight with enthusiasm. This was the profession he had followed when he was Courtney’s gun-bearer, and he kept close to Fred with a handful of cartridges ready to pass to him, whispering wise counsel.

  “Get close to them, bwana! Go close! Go close! Wind coming our way — smell coming our way — noise coming our way — elephant very busy eating — no hurry! No long shooting! Go right up close!”