CHAPTER TWELVE.
LIFE IN THE WILD.
Dawn of the following morning, which in that latitude preceded therising of the sun by but a bare quarter of an hour, witnessed theawakening of the white men's camp to a scene of brisk activity; for theafter-dinner conversation of the previous evening between Dick andGrosvenor had resulted in their arrival at a decision to make animmediate start on the long trek which they hoped would end in theirdiscovery of the mysterious white race, which rumour persistentlyasserted to exist somewhere in the far interior of the great DarkContinent, and the approximate situation of which they had gleaned fromtheir friend Mitchell, the Natal sugar planter.
Breakfast was soon over; and while Jantje and 'Nkuku were away,rounding-up the cattle and driving them in, preparatory to inspanning,Dick and Grosvenor opened a case and proceeded to reward munificentlythe gang of Makolo labourers who had helped them in the acquisition ofthe rubies, with a generous distribution of beads, brass wire, emptytobacco tins, lengths of coloured print, and toys, finally dismissingthem happy in the possession of what, to these simple savages, waswealth beyond anything that they had ever ventured to dream of. Then,the cattle being inspanned, the little party headed away inland, in anorth-westerly direction, striking a small stream by which theyoutspanned, three hours later. On that day week they struck a river ofsome importance flowing through an exceedingly fertile country aboundingin game, and the upward course of this river they followed for the nexteight days, although it led them somewhat out of their way; for theyfound, upon scouting in the direction which they wished to pursue, thattheir direct course would soon carry them into an arid, waterlessdistrict, infested, moreover, by tsetse fly, to enter which wouldinfallibly result in a serious loss of cattle. And the preservation oftheir cattle was now, or very soon would be, a matter of vitalimportance to them.
At length the two leaders of the expedition, industriously scoutingdaily toward the direction in which they wished to travel, found thatthey had reached a point where it would be safe for them to leave theriver and strike away toward the west and north-west, and theyimmediately did so, the country in that direction being free from fly,and consisting of wide-rolling plateaux, rising one beyond another,somewhat like broad, shallow steps, with a solitary, lofty hill risingin the extreme distance. This district was well watered by a number oftiny rivulets, and was clothed with rich young grass thickly dotted withclumps of mimosa, palmetto, and other tropical growth, amid which gameof various kinds could be seen moving, including a small herd ofgiraffes.
This was much too good an opportunity to be missed. The friendstherefore, after taking careful note of the spot where the immenseanimals were feeding, returned to the wagon and, having providedthemselves with an abundant supply of ammunition, changed their saddlesfrom the horses that they had hitherto been riding to the two which hadbeen presented to them by King Lobelalatutu, and cantered off, aftergiving Mafuta--whom they left in charge of the wagon and stock--strictinjunctions to make for a certain indicated spot, and there outspan andawait them.
The light breeze which was blowing happened to be favourable to theirapproach, and they had arrived within a hundred yards of the large clumpof mimosa in which they had last seen the giraffes feeding, when a heavyswishing and crashing of branches caused them to draw rein; and the nextmoment an enormous elephant emerged from the thicket, and stood lookingabout him as he flourished a great branch of foliage in his trunk, withwhich he seemed to be keeping the flies at bay. For a few seconds heseemed to be unaware of the presence of the hunters, and stood angrilyswitching the branch about his head and back, grunting and grumbling tohimself, as though he was not in precisely the best of tempers. He wasan immense tusker, by far the biggest that the travellers had thus farencountered, and that he was the hero of many battles seemed evident,for both his tusks were broken off short, leaving only about a foot ofjagged ivory protruding from each jaw. The first impulse of the twohunters was to swing themselves gently out of their saddles and take ashot at him, for the huge beast was standing in a very favourableposition, nearly broadside on; but Grosvenor, happening to notice thebroken tusks, settled back into his seat again, murmuring, as he did so:
"Let's leave the poor beggar alone, Dick; he's not worth shooting. Seehis tusks?"
It was practically impossible for the animal to have heard Grosvenor'svoice, for he purposely spoke in low tones, in order to avoid attractingthe elephant's attention; yet as the words were spoken the huge brutefaced sharply round toward the two horsemen, and stood attentivelyregarding them for a moment. Then, tossing aside the branch with whichhe had been whisking himself, he threw up his trunk, and, trumpetingsavagely, charged straight toward them.
"No use waiting; let's scatter!" shouted Grosvenor, and, obedient to atouch of the heel and bridle, the two magnificent horses which thefriends bestrode swerved round as though upon pivots, and dashed off ina direction at right angles to each other. For an instant the greatbeast seemed disconcerted at this manoeuvre, and appeared unable to makeup his mind which enemy he would pursue, first following one of them fora yard or two, and then turning in pursuit of the other; but presentlyit seemed to dawn upon him that he could not possibly hope to overtakeboth, and his final choice was Grosvenor, whom he settled down to chasein grim earnest, his long trunk outstretched to its utmost limit, hisimmense ears flapping furiously, and his small eyes sombre withconcentrated hatred. As soon as Dick saw that the brute had definitelymarked down Grosvenor as his prey he turned his bridle and rode in adirection parallel with that which was being followed by pursued andpursuer, and began to shout loudly, in the hope of again causing theelephant to hesitate, even if he could not altogether divert him fromhis pursuit of Grosvenor; but the ruse was vain, the monster glancedviciously once in Dick's direction, but refused to be diverted from hisfell purpose.
At the beginning of this singular race there had not been the slightestdoubt in Dick's mind as to its ultimate result; he felt absolutelyconfident that, suberbly mounted as they were, they would be able togallop away from their pursuer and elude him with the utmost ease; butnow, to his consternation, he began to realise that, so far at least asGrosvenor was concerned, escape was distinctly doubtful, unlesssomething could be done toward altering the existing conditions. For,strong and speedy as were the horses, they were frightfully handicappedin the race by the grass, which at this particular spot happened to beunusually long--reaching as high as the horses' shoulders--tough, andtangled, rendering it exceedingly difficult for them to force a passagethrough it, while to the huge bulk and momentum of the elephant itseemed to offer no obstacle at all. The great beast was rapidly gainingupon Grosvenor, and as rapidly forging ahead of Dick, upon whom it beganto dawn that, unless something were speedily done to prevent it, atragedy must inevitably ensue.
He looked anxiously about him, and saw that, at a distance of about amile, the patch of long rank grass came to an end and was succeeded byshort smooth turf, over which the going would be everything that couldbe desired; but it was much too distant to be of any service in thepresent emergency. For the elephant was gaining at every stride andmust inevitably overtake the fugitive long before he could reach it,while the horses were already beginning to show signs of distress asthey plunged panting through the obstructing tangle, in the midst ofwhich they were constantly stumbling as their outflung feet encountered,and were caught in, some especially tough patch of the knottedvegetation.
What was to be done? Something; and that right quickly if-- As thethought was flashing through Dick's brain he saw his friend's horsestumble heavily, make a desperate effort to recover himself, and finallyroll over and disappear completely with his rider in the dense ocean ofgreenish-grey vegetation, while the elephant, a bare fifty yards in therear, threw up his outstretched trunk and trumpeted a loud blast ofsavage exultation. There was now but one thing to be done, and the onlyquestion in Dick's mind was whether there was time enough left and,excited as he was, whether he had the necessary steadiness of h
and to doit. But it must be attempted, at any rate, so, unslinging his rifle, heset it at full cock as he galloped, held it pistol-wise in his hand,pointed it full at the huge bulk of the elephant, and pulled thetrigger. The jar of the recoil nearly dislocated his elbow, and for afraction of a second he feared that all was lost. But even as the feargripped his heart, turning him sick and faint, the enormous beastsuddenly halted, swayed unsteadily for a moment on his great pillar-likelegs, and then collapsed in a heap. As he did so Dick, to his intenserelief, saw the prostrate horse and rider scramble to their feet almostwithin arm's length of the fallen monster.
"Mount and ride, you duffer!" shrieked Dick, as he saw Grosvenor stand,apparently stupefied, staring at the prostrate beast; "he may be onlystunned; and if he gets up again nothing can save you. Or, betterstill, empty your magazine into his skull as he lies."
"There is no need, my dear chap," answered Grosvenor calmly; "it wouldonly be a sinful waste of valuable cartridges. The brute is as dead asmutton; your bullet caught him behind the ear all right, and is no doubtdeeply embedded in his brain. It was a splendid shot, especiallyconsidering that it was fired from the saddle, and at full gallop too.I congratulate you on it, old man. And, before I forget it, let methank you for saving my life. If you had not fired as promptly as youdid he would have had me, sure as fate, and I should have been a goner--eh, what?"
Although Grosvenor spoke in a tone of light raillery it but thinlydisguised the depth of feeling that stirred him, as Dick fully realisedwhen he pulled up alongside his friend and they exchanged hand-grips.Lightly as he spoke of the incident, Phil knew right well that he was onthe very edge of disaster at the moment that Dick pulled trigger, andthough he would fain have treated the whole adventure as a joke he wasnone the less grateful to Dick for his timely intervention, and thepressure of his hand was quite as eloquent as much outpouring of words.
"By Jove," exclaimed Dick, as he swung out of his saddle and loosenedthe girths, to enable his horse the more readily to recover his wind,"what a monster! He is far and away the biggest elephant that I haveever seen; and if his tusks had been unbroken they would have been aprize worth having, if only as curiosities. As it is, I don't think itwill be worth while to waste time in cutting out the stumps; do you?Poor beggar, he must have been suffering pretty badly from toothache;see how tremendously that left gum is swollen. That means an abscess atthe root of the tusk that must have been dreadfully painful. No wonderthat he was in such a dickens of a bad temper! Well, he is of no valueto us, except as a contribution to our larder, so we may as well begoing. We will mark the spot where he lies, and send Mafuta and Jantjefor one of his feet, which will furnish us with an epicurean dinner to-night. And now I suppose we may as well go and look for the wagon, forof course the giraffes cleared out directly the rumpus began."
They camped that night in the midst of a wide plateau dotted here andthere with low _kopjes_ of outcropping granite, and clothed for the mostpart with _melkboom_ interspersed with patches of low thornbush and sun-dried grass; and, from the fact that they had met with no water sincenoon, they greeted with much satisfaction the discovery of a shallowwater-hole of some two acres in extent, within about half a mile ofwhich they outspanned for the night, an hour before sunset. They didnot care to approach nearer to the water than this, for upon inspectingthe place they became aware, from the spoor in the mud all round themargin, that it was the favourite if not the only drinking place for allthe animals in the neighbourhood, and past experienced had taught themthat the nocturnal sounds emanating from such a spot were the reverse offavourable to sleep. Moreover, they had detected among the most recentspoor that of lions; and for the sake of their cattle they preferred tokeep at a respectful distance from a place frequented by such formidableanimals.
At one spot this miniature lake was bordered by a patch of reeds ofconsiderable extent, which looked as though it might harbour a few wildduck; therefore, as soon as the wagon was outspanned, the two friendstook their shot guns and a couple of dogs which had manifested sometalent at retrieving, and made their way toward the reeds, warningJantje to be careful to water the cattle as far as possible from thespot toward which they were making. Leo, the lion cub, by this timevery nearly half-grown, would fain have accompanied the sportsmen, forhe had developed an extraordinary attachment to both of his whitemasters. He loved nothing better than to accompany them on theirrambles, and was as obedient as any of the dogs, with whom he was on thebest of terms; but it was deemed best on this occasion that he should betaken to water on a leash, with the cattle, and return with them to thewagon. He was therefore left behind, much to his disgust.
Choosing what seemed to be advantageous positions, the two sportsmen,each accompanied by a dog, carefully ambushed themselves among the reedsat a distance of about a hundred yards from each other and, crouchinglow, patiently awaited the course of events. They had not long to waitfor proof of the soundness of their judgment, for they had not been inposition more than half an hour--by which time the sun, magnified totwice his size by the evening vapours through which he glowed,palpitating like a ball of white-hot steel, hung upon the very edge ofthe horizon--when a whirring of wings warned them to be on the alert,and a moment later a flock of some fifty teal, which must have beenfeeding on some far-off marsh during the day, settled down upon thesurface of the water, with much splashing and loud quacks ofsatisfaction at having once more reached what they doubtless believed tobe a haven of safety. But if they really entertained any such beliefthey were most deplorably mistaken, for that fate which rules thedestiny of wild duck ordained that they should settle on the precisepatch of water that was fully commanded by both sportsmen, and somethree seconds later both guns spoke practically at the same instant, andup went the teal again with a great whir of wings and loud cries ofconsternation, leaving behind them a round dozen or more of dead andwounded floating upon the rippled surface of the water.
By the time that the whole of the "bag" had been retrieved the dusk wasdeepening into darkness, and star after star was twinkling into viewfrom the vast, cloudless, purple dome above. The two friends,therefore, scrambled forth from their hiding places and, perfectlysatisfied with themselves and all things else, prepared to make theirway back to the wagon.
They had not progressed above two dozen paces beyond the margin of thereeds, however, when Grosvenor, who was leading the way along a narrowtrack through the coarse grass, uttered a sharp ejaculation, and haltedsuddenly in his tracks, the next moment stamping violently on somethingjust before him.
"What is the matter, old chap?" demanded Dick, stepping quickly to hisfriend's side.
"Snake!" replied Grosvenor briefly, and in a rather tremulous tone ofvoice; "trod on him--unintentionally of course--and the beggar turnedsand bit me. Take that--and that--and that, you brute--"
"Where is the thing?" demanded Dick anxiously.
"There," responded Grosvenor, pointing to a writhing, twisting somethingthat squirmed on the grass as he ground the heel of his heavy boot onit.
"Take your foot away, man, and let me have a look at it," commandedDick; and as the other did as he was ordered Maitland bent down anddirected a quick, keen glance at the reptile, about six inches of whosebody was crushed almost to a jelly. Then, quickly pinning the flat,heart-shaped head to the ground with the muzzle of his gun, he pulledthe trigger, and thus effectually put an end to the creature'sexistence. With the barrel of his weapon he deftly whisked the stillwrithing body half a dozen yards away into the long grass, and thenturned sharply to his friend.
"Sit down, old chap, quick," he said, "and show me where you werebitten."
Somewhat startled by his companion's abrupt manner, Grosvenor seatedhimself on the ground and drew up his left trouser leg, pulled down hissock, and revealed two small punctures close together in the lower partof the calf of the leg, barely visible in the fast-decreasing light.
"I see," ejaculated Dick, fumbling in his waistcoat pocket as he spoke."Take your pocket hand
kerchief, quick; tie it round your leg below theknee, and with the barrel of your revolver twist it as tight as youpossibly can, tourniquet fashion, so as to stop the passage of the bloodinto your body. Now," as he drew forth and opened a penknife, the bladeof which he made a point of always keeping razor-keen, "I am going tohurt you a little bit, so set your teeth and bear it, old man."
"All right; go ahead," responded Grosvenor. "Was the brute venomous,then?"
"Can't say," responded Dick evasively, as he quickly slashed the fleshacross and across over the two punctures; "but we are not taking anymore chances to-day, my boy."
The blood, instead of spurting from the knife wounds, oozed forth thickand sluggishly; whereupon Dick, without a second's hesitation, appliedhis lips to the gashes, which were close together, and sucked stronglyfor about a quarter of an hour, spitting out the blood which graduallybegan to flow a little more freely. Finally, when the flow had ceased,he groped in his pocket and produced a small case containing a stick oflunar caustic; then from another pocket he drew forth a box of matches,which he handed to Grosvenor.
"I'll relieve you of this," he said, laying his hand upon the revolver,the barrel of which Phil had twisted in the handkerchief and had beenholding in place all this while, "and you can start striking matches, sothat I may see what I am doing." Then, giving the revolver an extratwist or two, he pulled out his own handkerchief and deftly secured theweapon in place, after which he proceeded, by the light of the matcheswhich Grosvenor struck, one after the other, carefully and thoroughly tocauterize the wounds.
"There," he remarked cheerfully, with a sigh of relief as he finishedhis task, "that is as much as we can do here. The next thing is to getyou back to the camp as soon as possible."
"All right," assented Grosvenor. "But," he added, as he attempted torise, "I'm afraid I shall have to get you to help me, old chap; Icouldn't possibly--"
"Of course you couldn't," responded Dick, "and I don't mean that youshall try. Just sit where you are for a little while longer, and leaveme to arrange things." Therewith he drew a whistle from the pocket ofhis hunting shirt, and upon it blew three piercing blasts in quicksuccession that, in the breathless stillness of the night, might havebeen heard at least a mile away. He repeated the signal at briefintervals for about ten minutes, when answering shouts were heard,whereupon he drew three or four matches from the box, bunched themtogether, ignited them, and held the tiny torch aloft to guide Mafutaand Jantje, whose voices he recognised. A minute later they botharrived upon the scene, anxious to know what was amiss, and receivedDick's hurried explanation with many _Au's_! of surprise andapprehension. Then, in obedience to his brief but concise instruction,they hurried away again at a run, to return with very commendablecelerity, bearing Grosvenor's hammock and a long pole, hacked from thenearest tree they could find. The hammock having been spread upon theground, the patient was, under Dick's anxious supervision, laid verycarefully upon it, so that there might be as little movement of his bodyas possible; and finally, the hammock having been securely lashed to thepole, the whole was raised upon the shoulders of the two blacks and bythem borne to the camp. Arrived there, the hammock was, still with theutmost gentleness and care, slung inside the tent, the lamp was lighted,and Dick proceeded to examine his patient afresh.
By this time the wounded limb had become terribly swollen, and Grosvenorcomplained of severe pain about the injured region. This, of course,was not to be wondered at, considering the rather heroic treatment towhich the leg had been subjected, and Dick was not very greatlyconcerned about it. But what caused him to look very grave was the factthat his patient also complained of feeling cold, and manifestedsymptoms of approaching delirium, while his whole body was now beginningto be convulsed, at rapidly shortening intervals, by spasms of violentand uncontrollable twitching. Without wasting a moment Dick now hadrecourse to alcohol, freely dosing his patient with neat brandy, in thehope of inducing a condition of intoxication--for he knew that if hecould succeed in this the excess of alcohol in the system wouldneutralise the venom, and his patient would be saved. But it was notuntil he had administered nearly a quart of the spirit that the desiredsymptoms began to appear; and it was long past midnight before thetwitching convulsions entirely ceased and the patient sank into adeathlike sleep; by this time also the swelling of the limb wasperceptibly subsiding; and when at length Dick turned down the lamp anddisposed himself to take such rest as he might be able to snatch in afolding chair by the side of his friend's hammock, he had thesatisfaction of knowing that the crisis was past and Phil would live.
Up to this moment the young doctor had been far too busy and altogethertoo deeply preoccupied in attending upon his patient to give anyattention to, or indeed be more than vaguely aware of, what washappening outside the tent, although there certainly had been momentswhen sounds of a more than usually alarming character had reached hisears so distinctly and obtrusively as partially to distract hisattention for the fraction of a second or so; but now that Grosvenor wasasleep and safe, and Dick began to feel that he also would be the betterfor a little rest, outside sounds began to obtrude themselves upon himwith a force and persistency that would not be denied, and he awoke to aconsciousness of the fact that something quite out of his ordinaryexperience was happening.
At first he was disposed to attribute the babel of sound that reachedhis ears to the fact that the party were outspanned in close--almost tooclose--proximity to the only water that, so far as he knew, existed formany miles round, and which was consequently the regular drinking placefor every living creature in the neighbourhood, as he and his chum hadalready ascertained. Indeed the incessant bellowing, snorting,trumpeting, roaring, splashing, and squealing that, slightly mellowed bydistance, penetrated to the interior of the tent, was quite enough tojustify such an idea. But he had scarcely settled himself in his chairbeside Grosvenor's hammock, and closed his eyes in the hope of wooingsleep to them, than he became aware of other and nearer sounds,dominating the first, the sound of crackling flames, frequent low,muttered ejaculations, the occasional soft thud and swish of feetrunning through long grass, followed by a shout or two which was almostinvariably responded to by a low, angry snarl, while the clashing ofhorns, the rattling of the trek chain, the almost continuous lowing andmoaning of the oxen, the stamping of the horses tethered to the wagon,and the whining of the dogs, indicated the extreme restlessness anduneasiness of the animals. The disturbance was so much greater thanusual that Dick finally felt called upon to investigate. So, risingfrom his chair, he cast a quick glance at his patient which assured himthat all was well there, and then, raising the flap of the tent, steppedforth into the open air.
The first sight that greeted him was that of about a dozen firesarranged in a circle round about the tiny camp, in the ruddy-yellow,flickering glare of which he saw Mafuta, Jantje, and 'Nkuku flittinghither and thither, tending the fires and feeding them from an enormousstack of thorns and branches piled up near the wagon, while Ramoo Samee,the Indian groom, stood with the horses, talking to them, caressingthem, and soothing their excitement by every means in his power. Mostof the oxen, instead of lying down, were on their feet, their tailsswishing agitatedly from side to side, their heads turning quickly thisway and that, their ears twitching, their nostrils distended, sniffingthe air, their hoofs stamping the earth impatiently, while their eyesglowed and shone in the light of the fires, and ever and anon one oranother of them would throw up his head and give vent to a low, moaningbellow, which told, as eloquently as words, their state of terror. Asfor the dogs, they were all huddled together beneath the wagon,shivering with fear, their tails between their legs, and their lipsdrawn back, revealing their fangs, in a sort of snarling grin. Leo wasthe only animal who did not seem very greatly perturbed, but even he wasawake, and lay crouching at the extreme end of his tether, his eyeslambently aglow, and his tail softly beating the earth now and then.
"Ho there, Mafuta!" called Dick, as he stood taking in the scene andadmiring the gene
rally romantic effect of it all--the glowing fires, thewavering columns of smoke, the uneasy animals, the flitting figures, thegreat bulk of the wagon with its white canvas tent aglow with thefirelight, and the mellow stars raining down their soft radiance; "whatis all the disturbance about?"
"Lions, baas," answered the Kafir as he paused for a moment, his armsfilled with a great bundle of branches which he was carrying to thefires, and his great bronze body shining with perspiration; "we arebeset by them; and if the fires were allowed to die down they would rushin upon us, and kill or stampede the whole of the oxen and horses. Seethere--and there--and there," he added, pointing into the darknessbeyond the glow of the fires.
Dick looked, but could at first see nothing, his eyes as yet beingdazzled by the light of the flames, but presently, looking in thedirection toward which Mafuta pointed, he caught sight of first one pairof greenishyellow orbs, and then another, and another, gleaming out ofthe darkness, until finally he counted no less than seven pairs of eyes,all intently staring inward. By the flitting to and fro of some ofthese pairs of eyes Dick perceived that certain of the lions wereregularly making the circuit of the camp, some in one direction, some inthe other, apparently searching for an unguarded spot at which theymight venture to make a dash; but there were three pairs of eyes thatremained stationary, as though their owners were patiently awaiting asignal of some sort. These, Dick decided, were the most dangerous oftheir foes, and at the same time the most easy to deal with, because oftheir immovability; so, returning to the tent he first cast a quickglance at the still soundly sleeping form of Grosvenor. Then he took uphis bandolier, threw it over his shoulder and adjusted it in position,seized his rifle and satisfied himself that it was fully loaded, andagain made his way outside.
It took a minute or two for his eyes again to adjust themselves to thepeculiar conditions of the light, but presently he again caught sight ofone of the motionless pairs of eyes, and, sinking upon one knee, heraised his rifle to his shoulder, carefully brought its two sightsaccurately in line with a point midway between the two glowing orbs, andpressed the trigger. The sharp, whip-like crack of the weapon wasanswered by several low, snarling growls, and a swishing of the grasssuggestive of several heavy bodies bounding away through it, while thestationary and moving pairs of eyes vanished, as if by magic; and aminute or two later some four or five of the oxen lay down where theywere tethered to the trek chain, with a sigh of obvious relief.
"They are gone, baas," remarked Mafuta, as he again passed with morefuel; "but we must keep up the fires; for they are almost certain tocome back again. They are young lions who have been driven away fromthe pool, and not allowed to hunt there by the old ones, and they arehungry. Yes, they will come back again; and you will perhaps have tokill two or three more before they will go away and leave us alone."
"Do you think, then, that I got the fellow I fired at?" demanded Dick.
"Yes, baas," answered Mafuta with confidence. "I heard the bulletstrike. You will find the beast, dead, out there, when the day breaks.But see, yonder, baas, they are slinking back; there is one pair of eyesover there, and I saw another in that direction--yes, there they areagain. Ah! now they are gone--but, look there, baas, see you those twopairs? No, no, do not shoot yet; wait until they come quite close;then--shoot and kill. Where is that _schelm_, Jantje, and why is he notfeeding the fires? If they are not kept up we shall yet lose half ouroxen!"
The Adventures of Dick Maitland: A Tale of Unknown Africa Page 12