The Message

by Louis Tracy

  CHAPTER XVII

  THE SETTLEMENT

  When Warden found that the expedition consisted of a hundred sailorsand over three hundred Hausas, he was anxious that an advance shouldbe made on Oku at once. The town lay in a bush clearing on high landoverlooking the Benu?, not many miles distant from the mission station.He argued that he and Beni Kalli could guide the troops by the bushpaths, and that an attack carried out at dawn would demoralize an enemyalready shaken by an unforeseen repulse at Kadana.

  Every one admitted that he was right from the military point of view;but Hudson, the political officer accompanying the column, shirked theresponsibility of taking a step that implied the existence of a tribalwar. He argued that while they were fully justified in driving off theassailants of the mission and in demanding the punishment of thoseengaged in it, together with the fullest compensation for loss of lifeand property, yet they had no proof that the King of Oku sanctioned theraid.

  "When he refuses our terms," he said, "we shall destroy his town anddepose him if he escapes with his life. Under the circumstances, Icannot sanction a forward movement until negotiations have failed."

  Bellairs, of course, had to take his orders from the administration,and Warden had no power to over-ride the man whom the Government haddeputed to visit Oku. He knew that Loanda, second only in importance toM'Wanga, was among the slain. He had seen M'Wanga himself exercisinghis savage warriors day after day and taking care that they were taughthow to handle the modern weapons to which they were unaccustomed. Hewas aware of the exact date named for the rising, and was preventedonly by several weeks' delirium of fever from stealing off downstream in good time to warn the authorities. But he was not in hisown territory, for the Benu? runs through Northern Nigeria while hewas attached to the Southern Protectorate, and, above all, he was asoldier, to whom obedience was the first duty. So he refrained fromweakening Hudson's position by demonstrating how mistaken was thedecision arrived at. He even hoped that, in some mysterious way,matters might be adjusted without further slaughter.

  The proper course to adopt was to strike hard and promptly. Failingthat, he trusted to the strange workings of the native mind to bringabout a peaceful settlement. Though strong in spirit he was broken inbody. He had done in five months that which a few men had taken yearsto accomplish, while the majority of those who essayed the task hadfailed, and paid the penalty of failure by dying.

  When the officers of the expedition gathered in the mission that nightand listened to his story, their minds went back to the days of MungoPark, and Clapperton, and Lander, and Barth, and the rest of the famousband of explorers who had traversed the wilds of the West Africanhinterland during the close of the eighteenth and the early years ofthe nineteenth centuries.

  Nothing to equal Warden's journey had been done of recent years. Itstood alone, a record of almost unexampled fortitude and endurance.

  He would never have reached the upper waters of the Niger were it notfor the blue cotton wrap taken from the Prophet of El Hamra when thatunamiable person was left bound and gagged at Lektawa. So deeply hadthe Blue Man's repute penetrated into the desert that among Mohammedantribes the mere sight of his robe was more powerful than an armedescort. In a hasty search through the Prophet's apartment, Wardenfound his own revolver, two Remington repeating rifles with a supplyof cartridges, and a stock of gold dust in quills, the most portableform of desert currency. The blue rag supplied moral, the arms and goldmaterial aid, but the tremendous journey still remained an undertakingfraught with every possible danger. Not until the small party reachedTimbuktu could they regard themselves as possessing even a moderatechance of ultimate success. In that city Beni Kalli left his daughterwith relatives. No consideration would part him from the Seyyid. Herewas a master worth serving, one who never thought only of himself, butwho was ready at any moment to risk life or limb in aid of those whowere faithful to his interests. Moreover, he showed rare sport, andBeni Kalli was a born adventurer.

  So the pair came down the Niger, and, when Warden learned that matterswere quiet at Oku, he formed the daring plan of preserving hisincognito even from the British officials at towns in the more settledregions. He fancied that by maintaining his pose as an Arab fire-brandhe might venture to enter Oku itself. He had spoken nothing but Arabicduring so many months that he was now far more glib in the languagethan many genuine Arabs who could not boast his experience of diversetribes and varying dialects. He deemed it best to let none know of hisscheme. The slightest hint that he had crossed the Sahara would quicklyfind its way to Oku, and it was his safeguard throughout that the Mahdiof the Atlas had sent him to carry the fiery torch of Islam to theremotest strongholds of the faith. Oku was frankly pagan, its peoplecannibals when occasion served, but between them and far-off Moroccolay the strong link of hatred of the white man's rule.

  Evelyn listened in silence while her lover discoursed. Her eyes shoneand her lips were parted. More than once, when some deft hint conveyedto her that his thoughts dwelt ever with her, a tender little smiletold him that she understood.

  Colville, who insisted on joining them when the surgeon had dressedhis injuries--for a ricochetting bullet had torn a jagged wound inhis shoulder as well as broken his collar-bone--had heard from Lagossomething of the gourd. He asked Warden what had become of it.

  "It is among my belongings at Lagos," he said. "At least, I hope so.The skipper of the _Water Witch_ was a decent sort of fellow----"

  "It is here," said Evelyn quietly.

  "Here!"

  Half a dozen voices cried in concert, but she was looking at Warden.

  "You gave it to me at Cowes?" she went on.

  "Yes, I did, but----"

  "But I refused it. Well, when they told me at Lagos that you weresurely lost in the desert, I asked for it. I--I--almost believed itwould bring us together again."

  "Let's have a look at it," chimed in Fairholme.

  She was strangely reluctant at first, and her unwillingness to producethat sinister carving was not to be wondered at, for she had seensufficient of the men of Oku during the past few hours to disturb herdreams for many a year. But Warden joined in the chorus of persuasion,and she brought the canvas bag from her room.

  "Please open it," she said to her lover. "I dare not. Though I confessto an uncanny confidence in its power, I am still afraid of it."

  He drew forth the calabash with a sudden movement, hoping to startlesome of the onlookers by the extraordinary vitality of DomenicoGarcia's masterpiece, but Evelyn alone was affected, and she uttered acry of dismay.

  "It is ruined!" she exclaimed. "The moist heat has destroyed thelacquer! Even the eyes have gone. Oh, Arthur, please do throw it awaythis time. The thing is dead!"

  In her excitement she had used exactly the right phrase. The man ofOku was dead, in fact decomposed. His face had melted away, his mosaiceyes had fallen out, the mocking smile worthy of a triumphant demon hadfaded from his thick lips. In truth, the mask on the gourd was a meretravesty of its former self.

  Warden was quite as bewildered as the girl.

  "Well," he cried, "that is really the most amazing coincidence I haveever known. It knocks any of my adventures into a cocked hat. Justthink of it--this thing lived, I tell you. It was a superb creatureof genius. It must have been found two hundred years ago when somePortuguese or Spaniards looted Benin. It was brought to England only tobe lost in a sailing ship that foundered on the east side of the Isleof Wight. After passing a couple of centuries under the sea, it bobbedup serenely one day last August, disturbed from its resting-place whenthe Emperor's yacht struck the sunken wreck. I firmly believe it wasmade within a few miles of this very place, yet it survived through theages until the hour when the Oku power is broken for ever, and nowit is destroyed. Did you ever hear anything like it? Surely this is athing not dreamed of in our philosophy."

  None but Evelyn among those present could share his opinion. It wasimpossible for any one who had not seen the calabash on the deck of the_Nancy_ to picture the
malign fascination of that graven face.

  But Warden was convinced of his theory. To please his lady, he badeBeni Kalli take the gourd and throw it on the smoldering embers ofthe mission huts. And so ended the pilgrimage of the grim contrivancefashioned by Domenico Garcia to carry his story to the world that hadforgotten him. It perished in the ashes of the old Kadana, on the sitewhere a new enterprise would soon mark the practical inception ofHume's day-dream.

  Nor was the hour far distant when all in that room remembered Warden'semphatic words. Next day came messengers from the King of Oku. Hismajesty deplored the excesses caused by the evil counsels of certainprofessors of ju-ju. These men, difficult to control, were aided andabetted by a notorious Portuguese half-caste, one Miguel Figuero towit, who had helped the Oku rebels by importing arms from foreignterritory and generally disturbing the peace of the kingdom.

  "I have now dealt with Figuero and the others," said M'Wanga throughhis envoys. "They will trouble the land no further."

  He meant that he had nailed them to trees as a guarantee of goodfaith, when, in the small hours of the morning, he grew fullyassured that his guns were useless, his river flotilla captured,and his army broken up. Unfortunately for the success of his suddenconversion to British notions of law and order, that which was onlya minor disturbance in a native state assumed the gravest politicalsignificance when a number of troops of a foreign power crossed theborder at various points with the avowed object of restoring peace to aprovince in which the armed might of Britain was set at nought.

  The strongest party of these unlooked-for allies marched on Oku. Itscommandant, Count von Rippenbach, seemed to be intensely surprisedwhen he found the city in the grip of a British column, and its king aprisoner awaiting trial by court-martial. He was not only surprised,but intensely chagrined, and was so unwilling to return to his ownterritory that there were "alarums and excursions" in various centersof diplomacy before he swallowed his wrath, invited the Britishofficers to a farewell dinner, and marched back to the Cameroons.M'Wanga was found guilty of murder and high treason, and was dulyhanged in front of his own residence. Pana, the third of the negrovisitors to Cowes, was banished to St. Vincent, and the clearance amongthe witch-doctors which Lord Fairholme so ably initiated was carried agood deal further.

  Among the effects of the arch-plotter Figuero were found documents ofsuch highly inflammable nature that they were promptly interned inthe deepest dungeons of the Record Office. But some of his belongingshad a more direct interest than state papers for the two people withwhose fortunes he was so curiously bound up. Warden came across anothercopy of the very page of the newspaper he bought at Cowes whereinwas described the accident to the imperial yacht. In the same packetwere an extract from Evelyn's stolen letter, in Rosamund Laing'shandwriting, several complete letters written to him by the girlherself after leaving Lochmerig, and his own long letter delivered toher in Las Palmas by Peter Evans.

  It amused him afterwards to enclose these _pi?ces de conviction_ andthe scrap of tattooed skin with the full report he was asked to sendto the Colonial Office, and there is reason to believe that an UnderSecretary for Foreign Affairs borrowed the said report for perusal, andtook it with him to wile away the tedious hours of a week-end at theseaside ordered by his doctor.

  Warden and Evelyn were married at Old Calabar, with Colville as bestman and the Earl of Fairholme _in loco parentis_. The bride's dresswas merely a confection of white muslin, but she wore a ruby brooch,roughly contrived by a native jeweler, that would have evoked the envyof many a royal dame. The finest wedding present to the happy pair wasthe bequest of Rosamund Laing's estate. Poor woman! she had fencedin her gift with no restrictions. Indeed, in her will she hinted atremorse, for she expressed the hope that Arthur Warden would be happywith the woman of his choice.

  No one--least of all those acquainted with West Africa--will besurprised to learn that Warden resigned his commission when the affairsof Oku were settled. His first care was to visit Lisbon, and insurethat the name of Domenico Garcia should never again be forgotten in thememorial services for the dead, while every year, in August, a specialmass is sung in the Cathedral of the Patriarch for the "repose of thesoul" of the ill-fated artist. Two years later, Evelyn and he were onboard the _Nancy_, running into Falmouth before a lively breeze, whenPeter Evans pointed to a steam yacht.

  "There's the old _San Sowsy_," he said.

  Evelyn instantly turned her binoculars that way.

  "You are mistaken, Peter," she cried. "The Baumgartners sold her beforethey went to South America. She is like the _Sans Souci_, but thatvessel's name is _Rover_."

  "Beggin' your pardon, mum, but us pilots never troubles about a craft'sname. W'y, I've known 'em to be re-christened w'en they was on'y fitfor the extry insurance of a castaway. That's the _San Sowsy_ rightenough. Chris, there's a picter postcard of 'er in my locker. Fetch it,an' we'll run close alongside."

  "By Jove, you went to a yacht's agent to get that card for me when Iforgot to note the _Sans Souci's_ exact lines, although I was asked bythe Under Secretary to observe them carefully," said Warden.

  Why did you fail to recognize the girl? _Page 116_]

  "That's it, sir. It's an old sayin' an' a true one--Keep a thing tenyears an' it'll come in useful at larst."

  "Fancy you forgetting anything, Arthur!" cried his wife. "You are theone man in the world whom I should never have suspected of missing anitem like that--it might have been so important."

  "Some places have a phenomenal effect on the memory, my dear. I went toPlymouth with the special object of jotting down all the _Sans Souci's_features, but I took a stroll on the Hoe, and my mind at once becameutterly obtuse to every consideration save one."

  "Oh, don't be silly! How could I guess you would bring Peter's postcardin evidence against me?"

  But she blushed most delightfully, so the recollection of that eveningat Plymouth must have been very pleasant, and present happiness is aptto shed its golden light on the days that are past.

  THE END

  FOOTNOTE:

  [1] Pronounced "Neela Mool-la," and meaning literally, "Blue Priest."

  TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:

  --Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected.