The Romantic Adventures of Mr. Darby and of Sarah His Wife

by Martin Armstrong

  What a blessed relief it was to escape from the hateful Umwaddi Taan into the dim and solemn retreats of the jungle. Borne upon the shoulders of twelve specially elected Mandrats, Mr. Darby at last fulfilled his ambition and under ideal conditions, for a bodyguard of his subjects swept from his path all those creatures which for less fortunate travellers detract from the enchantment of the jungle. Though it is laid down that a cat may look at a king, the black panthers of Mandratia were not allowed the most cursory glance at Mr. Darby; snakes and the more aggressive parrots were sent summarily about their business; the fire-ants and tarantula spiders which beset the paths of adventurous commoners, found him utterly inaccessible. Only mosquitoes and the pium flies took their toll as they had done in Umwaddi Taan.

  But on one horrible occasion the vigilance of the King’s bodyguard was defied. A fine speciman of the giant Iggarù, that loathsome snake whose touch Punnett had once compared with that of a cow’s tongue, contrived an audience with the Sovereign by the monstrous device of secreting itself in the royal couch. But the creature’s diabolical ingenuity was of little service to it. The screech with which Mr. Darby greeted his unexpected bedfellow summoned his bodyguard in a flash and the creature, which proved to be fifteen feet long and five feet in circumference, paid for its sacrilege with its life. This was the only time that nature was permitted to infringe the sanctity of the King.

  c If only we could get into communication with Gamage’s, Punnett,’ said Mr. Darby as they halted one evening in a village clearing;’ if only we could send an order to Gamage’s for some mosquito curtains, it would be what I should call perfect, absolutely perfect.’

  ‘If it was possible to write to Gamage’s, sir, we might already be on our way home,’ Punnett replied sadly.

  Stage by stage, Mr. Darby progressed through his dominions. Long days through the strange twilight of the jungle, a twilight sometimes variegated by pools, ponds, and lakes o glaring sunshine where a fallen tree had left a rare hole in the green roofage or the natives had carved a clearing,—a twilight electrified sometimes by a hanging shower of mauve or scarlet orchids, a noisy flock of green parrots, or the brief apparition of a huge metallic blue butterfly. Nights in some remote clearing, where bonfires slashed the sultry darkness with the flickering scarlet of flame. Other nights in jungle villages, among scenes of barbaric enthusiasm, where black demons danced and yelled and called down destruction on the King’s enemies. Nights, the best of all, in villages on the sea coast, where the jungle receded and the clusters of thatched huts nestled among rocks; where sometimes a delicious sea breeze, smelling of brine, freshened the stagnant air and called up, in the King’s mind, memories of seaside holidays with Sarah at Scarborough or Saltburn.

  The last village to be visited lay neither in the jungle nor on the sea coast, but on the high summit of Umfo, the ankle-bone of the Peninsula. It was the village of the Head Chief Umbahla, the largest and most important in Mandras. All day the sweating bearers hoisted the royal litter up rocky paths of an extreme steepness, hoisted it out of the hot, tree-shrouded, stagnant jungle-atmosphere into the clean upper airs of the mountain. With a leap of the heart Mr. Darby found himself suddenly lifted, as through a trap-door on a tower, out of the green-roofed dimness of the forest into stark daylight; saw below him the vast green matted roofage oi the jungle, like the congregated roofs of an immense cathedral on whose tower he sat, and breathed an air that was like wine to his torpid senses. Here and there the rolling greenness flashed miraculously into scarlet or lilac or yellow where the tangle of orchids and lianas broke through the tree-tops in a riot of bloom.

  There they halted so that the King might enjoy the spectacle of his kingdom and the bearers take breath and ease their aching muscles. They seemed to be standing on the summit of the world: yet the mountain, gaunt and treeless now, still rose sheer behind them, for they had not yet reached the top of the tower. They had merely emerged from the interior on to an open gallery upon which stood the bare, domed crown of the mountain. Now, as if by an external stair, began the ascent of the dome. For many hours yet the toiling bearers strained and sweated, while beneath Mr. Darby’s wondering gaze the jungle-roof dropped lower and lower and miles of undulating treetops, reaches of curving, silvery-gleaming shore, and boundless tracts of an ocean blue as heaven and translucent as a crystal opened out into an ever growing immensity. Away to the north the green of the jungle died abruptly into a tract of red sand. It was the band of desert that divided the territory of the Mandrats from that of the Tongali, the northern boundary of Mr. Darby’s dominions.

  Upwards and upwards still their slow journey progressed through the long, hot afternoon, till it seemed to Mr. Darby, seated upon his lurching litter, that he was being thrust slowly aloft out of earth into Heaven.

  At last the steepness decreased, the ground flattened out; they were rounding the crest of the dome; and an hour before sunset they paused on the summit where another wonder revealed itself. For the summit of Umfo is the lip of a huge crater, an inverted dome set in the top of the greater dome of the mountain; and, looking down into the great bowl Mr. Darby saw, wonderfully displayed beneath him, hundreds of beehives faultlessly disposed in a formal pattern. It was the village of Umbahla. For a long while he gazed down upon it, fascinated by its exquisite order after the riotous disorder of nature through which he had travelled. But as he gazed, the peaceful scene changed, became alive. Swarms of bees poured from the hives, circulated like a flow of brown blood through the veins and arteries of the village, flooded into the central heart where they coagulated into a great brown clot. Then the clot stirred, boiled, broke into patterned fragments, and in a series of formal evolutions wove and unwove itself towards that part of the bowl from whose high rim the King and his followers looked down upon it. Umbahla and his people were coming to welcome the King to their village.

  The ceremonies and dances of that final evening exceeded in wildness and splendour all that had preceded them. It seemed to Mr. Darby that he had landed not in Heaven, not in Hell, but in an insane amalgamation of both. By the time the festival was ended Mr. Darby’s brain was in a whirl and his bodily strength exhausted.

  Next morning, soon, too soon, after dawn, the village awoke, and Mr. Darby and his suite accompanied by the whole population poured down the slopes of Umfo and set out in triumph for Umwaddi Taan. They reached it on the evening of the second day.

  And there, as on the evening of his coronation ten months ago, Mr. Darby to his amazement found the whole tribe congregated. Every village that he had visited in his long progress through his dominions had emptied its population, as if for another great festival, into the King’s Clearing. And there, in the celebrations that immediately followed, Umbahla and the twelve chiefs, assisted by choruses of their villagers, extolled the nobility and bravery of their King, the mighty Daabee Taan whom the gods had sent to restore the Mandrat people to their former greatness.

  What was it all about? What did it mean? Mr. Darby ordered Punnett instantly to find out; and when the night was far advanced, when silence had fallen on Umwaddi Taan and the bonfires were burning low, Punnett returned to the royal hut with the unpalatable truth.

  ‘I’m sorry to say, sir, we’ve gone and declared war.’

  Mr. Darby’s mouth fell open: terror blazed from his spectacles.’ War, Punnett? But who declared war? Not us, not me, certainly.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Punnett sadly. ‘I’m afraid we did, sir. A little mistake, sir! A misunderstanding, so to speak. It turns out that when a king travels round his kingdom, anyway in these parts, it always means he’s going to declare war. It’s a sine qua non, if I may say so. I wish we’d known it before, sir; I wish Professor Harrington had made a note of it.’

  Mr. Darby’s cheeks had fallen in. ‘But it’s … it’s ridiculous, Punnett!’ he stammered. ‘It’s against common sense. It’s … it’s outrageous! Outrageous! You mean to say that just because I take a … ah … a little tour round the country, I … ah
… what I should call automatically declare war?’

  ‘That’s it, sir!’ replied Punnett with a melancholy smile.’ That’s the trouble with savages, sir; you never know where you have them. The most harmless thing you do or say, sir, especially when you happen to be King, may turn the tap on, so to speak.’

  ‘Then,’ said Mr. Darby in great consternation,’ you must go and … ah … countermand the war at once, Punnett. Tell them from me that they’ve mistaken my meaning, that I don’t want a war. Not in the least! Far from it! Anything but! Quite, quite the … ah … contrary!’

  With a melancholy and deprecating smile Punnett shook his head.’ I daren’t do it, sir, if you’ll excuse my saying so. They’re so wrought up, as you saw this evening, sir, that nothing would stop them now. It’ud be as much as our lives are worth to try, and I promised Mrs. Darby I’d look after you, sir.’

  Mr. Darby’s face had shrunk with terror into the face of a rabbit. ‘Then what, in Heaven’s name, Punnett, are we to do?’

  ‘Try and get a good night’s sleep, if I may suggest it, sir. We’ll need it.’

  ‘And let the war go on?’

  ‘And let the war go on, sir. It’s much safer to let it go on than to try and stop it.’

  There was silence in the hut. Punnett stretched himself on his mattress: it might have been supposed that both were asleep. But Mr. Darby was far from sleep. He was thinking, feverishly and furiously.’ By the way, Punnett/ he asked after some minutes,’who is the … ah … the enemy?’

  ’ The Tongali, sir. There’s no others available.’

  • • • • • • • •

  In spite of Punnett’s wise advice, not a wink of sleep did Mr. Darby sleep all that night. About four a.m. he fell into a dull stupor from which, all too soon, he was roused by a low rumble like far-distant thunder. With terrifying speed it grew to the formidable drumming of rain on an iron roof, grew from that to the all-confounding roar of a hundred swooping aeroplanes, and then died away gradually to soft remote thunder again. Then again it increased, boiled up once more to the same terrifying pandemonium, and sank back in the same sustained gradations to a long threatening mutter, heavy with menace.

  ‘What is it, Punnett?” whispered Mr. Darby, aghast.

  ‘The war drums, sir,’ said Punnett.‘ I’d better be getting you up, sir’

  Chapter XXXVI

  Punnett Hands Over

  Upon the long nightmare of the days that followed it would be painful to dwell. The first terrifying advance into Tongal, during which Mr. Darby, preceded by the roar of drums and surrounded by a great horde of braves in full war-paint, was rushed on his lurching litter through miles of jungle, across the parching, red, snake-haunted belt of desert, and into the north-east corner of Tongal, from which, among horrible scenes of butchery, he was promptly driven; the subsequent retreat, a headlong joggling midnight course, harassed by pursuing Tongali, flights of poisoned arrows, and encounters with huge Ompàs, the highly poisonous snakes that haunted the desert, upon whom in their headlong course through the darkness they were continually blundering; the mad nights of war-dance and howling war-chant by which his excitable subjects heartened themselves for a new effort; all these appalling events, although throughout them Mr. Darby never once used his legs, served to reduce his growing corpulence as no amount of exercise could ever have done. Had not Punnett, only a little less imperturbable than usual, been his constant attendant he would have died of terror at the outset; and when, after all the sufferings of the advance and, worse still, of the retreat, he realized that they were to advance again, it needed all Punnett’s efforts to persuade him that death itself was not better than another such ordeal.

  ‘Just grin and bear it, sir, if I may use the expression. It’s bound to end sooner or later. I find, sir, that if I take no notice of their goings-on, I get through pretty comfortably.’

  ‘Take no notice, Punnett,’ wailed Mr. Darby, ‘when the air’s alive with poisoned arrows?’

  ‘Well, taking notice won’t help you, sir, if I may say so. It only upsets the nerves. If an arrow’s going to get you, it’ll get you whether you take notice or not. I should have thought, if I may say so, sir, that you might have got a bit of a thrill out of it, and you such a one for adventures.’

  ‘I’ve had enough and more than enough adventures, Punnett,’ said poor Mr. Darby, ‘and more than enough jungle, too, and more than enough of foreign parts. I’d give a hundred thousand pounds, Punnett, and welcome, to wake up and find myself at home.’

  ‘Well, I’ve never been a one for adventures meself, sir,’ Punnett replied, ‘and the more I see of them the less I like them. So when there’s adventures about, sir, I do my best to take no notice of them, as I was saying. When things get very bad I find it helpful to fancy it’s all a show, the sort of thing you might see at Wembley, if you understand my meaning, sir.’

  Mr. Darby dismissed the suggestion with a weary sigh. ‘No amount of fancying’ll turn this into Wembley for me, Punnett.’

  ‘Then bear in mind, sir, that, fancy or no fancy, you’re King of the Mandrats.’

  Mr. Darby’s features collected themselves; he raised his head, a light came into his spectacles. ‘Thank you, Punnett,’ he said in a firmer voice than he had commanded for many days. ‘Thank you for recalling me to … ah … myself. Get me my shaving-water. I must be ready when the moment comes.’

  This conversation had taken place at five o’clock in the morning. Long before the drums sounded the advance Mr. Darby was ready. Newly shaved, pale but calm, he sat in the doorway of the royal hut awaiting the moment when Umbahla would come with the other chiefs to summon him to battle.

  But the summons never came. Instead of the grim rolling of the drums, a wild, unaccountable clamour broke out suddenly from every quarter of Umwaddi Taan and in the growing light Mr. Darby saw a confusion of figures hurrying madly to and fro. His kingly calm rocked on its none too secure foundations. ‘Punnett!’ he shouted into the hut, ‘Punnett! Something seems to have … ah … gone wrong. Please see what’s the matter.’

  Punnett ignoring the ladder, leapt from the platform to the ground and ran across the clearing. The clamour increased. Something struck smartly against the wooden platform not a yard from where Mr. Darby sat. It was an arrow. Fixed slantwise in the floorboard it vibrated for a moment with the force of its impact. Mr. Darby promptly rolled sideways into the shelter of the hut and waited, crouching against its wall in a fever of agitation. The twang of footsteps on the latter announced Punnett’s return.

  ‘We’ve been surprised, sir,’ he said, his words punctuated by the smart crack of arrows transfixing the walls of the hut. ‘The Tongali have surrounded us. It’s touch and go, I’m afraid, sir, but we may pull through.’

  The innermost nature of a man is revealed only in moments of desperate emergency. At Punnett’s terrible announcement Mr. Darby was suddenly transformed. ‘May pull through?’ he shouted, ‘But we must.’ He rose to his feet. ‘Give me my robe, Punnett,’ he commanded, unconsciously echoing another royal person at a famous literary crisis; ‘put on my … ah … crown.’

  Crowned and robed he stepped out on to the platform and, oblivious of the hiss of arrows, stood there, not perhaps metrically speaking but in the true, spiritual sense of the term, every inch a king.

  ‘Call my bearers,’ he shouted. But there were no bearers to call. The great arena of the King’s Clearing was bare, bare but for the circumference along which a violent agitation of bronze bodies swayed and gesticulated in a pandemonium of hoarse cries and rattling war-drums. Sometimes a figure dropped to the ground, writhed convulsively and lay still; sometimes the circumference bulged inwards, let in a driblet of blacker and stockier figures who were instantly set upon, beaten down or driven to frantic attempts to escape outside the fatal circle. Thwarted for a moment, Mr. Darby glanced angrily about him. Then, careless of his sanctity and of his royal dignity, he stooped down, set the palm of his right hand on the floor of the
platform and leapt to the ground. Like a lean and hungry wolf Punnett leapt after him and followed him across Umwaddi Taan to where the circumference showed signs of breaking. A javelin, missing the King by a hair’s breadth, struck the ground between them, and Punnett snatched it up in mid course. But before Mr. Darby was half way across the great arena, a long wailing cry rose suddenly above the clamour and, as though an overstretched cord had snapped, the circumference shattered into fragments and a rabble of Tongali swept into Umwaddi Taan. Mr. Darby and Punnett paused, stood still, and from all sides the swarming enemy closed in on them. They closed in till they were within touch, but they did not touch the King. They stood, staring at Mr. Darby with their keen white eyes, and Mr. Darby, his spectacles blazing defiance, his hands clasped behind his back, stared back at them.

  Punnett raised the javelin above his head. ‘The King is sacred,’ he shouted in Mandratic.

  Though Mr. Darby stood on Mother Earth, technically unsanctified, the enemy did not dispute Punnett’s claim.

  ‘The King is sacred,’ a hoarse voice replied, and a Tongali, whose head-dress showed him to be a chief, stepped into the ring that surrounded them. ‘The King is sacred. He shall be carried to the Queen.’

  Thereupon, as on the occasion when Mr. Darby and Punnett were captured by the Mandrats, the savages plaited their javelins into a litter, and Mr. Darby, who now that resistance was vain resisted no longer, was lifted on to it and raised shoulder high. Punnett, and five captured Mandrat chiefs, their arms bound behind them, followed. There were no other prisoners, for the Tongali spared only chiefs among the hundreds that fell into their hands. Closely guarded against surprise and rescue, the victors and their prisoners crossed the corpse-strewn Clearing and plunged northwards into the jungle.