CHAPTER XLI.
JOSHUA AND THE OLD WIZARD.
For two weeks the natives mourned for Minnie. Their grief was sincere, notwithstanding that it was expressed in barbarous fashion--such as painting their bodies white with pipeclay, and inflicting painful gashes upon their breasts and arms with shells and stones. They observed Joshua gathering wild flowers to place upon her grave, and every day after that, the women and children collected the prettiest and rarest flowers they could find, and decorated Minnie's grave with them. During this time a terrible feeling of desolation came upon Joshua. If Opara failed to keep the promise he had given Minnie, what would become of him? He thought of some words Dan had spoken to him in one of their boyish conversations, when they were talking of Robinson Crusoe. Dan had said he thought it strange that Robinson did not forget how to speak his native language, and had wondered that he didn't go mad. This remembrance was terrible to Joshua. At night, when he was alone in his hut, he would speak to himself, and would tremble at his voice; and stopping sometimes with half-uttered words upon his tongue, would be seized with sudden terror as at an unfamiliar sound. But at the end of a fortnight, Opara came to Joshua, and said, "Our days of mourning are over; but the image of our daughter will dwell forever in our hearts. To-night we hold a council. Shall we tarry yet a while, or shall we prepare to depart?"
"I have a message for my brothers and hers," replied Joshua. "They live southward. Is that the direction Opara will take?"
"Opara will do as he has promised," said the old chief with dignity, "and will accompany you to the south."
"My sister will be glad if her message is delivered soon;" and Joshua's heart beat quickly at the prospect of deliverance.
Opara gravely bent his head; and that night it was decided that twenty young men and doctors of the tribe, including Opara, should start in a couple of days, with Joshua, for the south. When Joshua was informed of this, he went to Minnie's grave, and shed tears of joy, and gathered a little of the earth, and placed it in the bag round his neck which contained his most precious possessions. On the appointed morning they started early, accompanied by the entire tribe; but by noon all the stragglers had departed. In a few days their road lay through very rough country, where, although fruits and birds were plentiful (it being summer), Opara said they would not be able to live in the winter. Their great difficulty was to obtain water, for the creeks and watercourses were drying up; and Joshua was filled with admiration at the resources of the natives, who found water in places--digging it out of trees, indeed, very often--were a stranger would never have dreamed of searching for it. When Joshua saw them strike their stone weapons into a tree whence cold bright water flowed, he could not help thinking of Moses striking the rock. A favorite food with them was a species of shrubby plant which they called Karkalla, and which yielded a rich luscious fruit; and they ate, with intense relish, many species of grubs which they cut out of the bark of trees.
Among the party was one famous wizard and doctor, who was not disposed to look upon Joshua with the same friendly eye as the others did. When Minnie was ill, he had been especially desirous of exercising his arts upon her, and of restoring her to health, by which means his reputation with the tribe would have been enormously increased; and when Minnie died, he entertained the belief that he could have saved her if he had been allowed. This doctor's name was Nullaboin, and he had joined Joshua's escort because he thought that he might, by watching Joshua's movements, obtain some kind of knowledge that might be useful to him.
During the latter days of Minnie's illness Joshua had not played his accordion, which, it must be borne in mind, the natives had never seen. Joshua had kept it jealously concealed in its covering of fur, and had never played it in sight of the natives. It was at the end of the second week of their journey, when Joshua was looking out anxiously for traces of white settlers, that a circumstance occurred which boded him great danger. He had wandered, as he had been in the habit of doing every night, a long distance from where the natives pitched their camp. From time to time Opara and his party had met natives of different tribes, with whom they had conversed (though sometimes with difficulty, for their dialects differed) concerning the white men; and on this morning a strange native had given them such information as led Opara to tell Joshua that he believed he would soon be able to deliver Minnie's message to her brothers. Interpreting by this that the stranger they had met had seen something of Englishmen, Joshua, in the night, wandered farther from the camp than usual, in the vague hope that he might come upon traces of his countrymen. He saw none, and yet thought they might be near. An idea struck him. "Why should I not play my accordion?" he thought. "I might be within a short distance of my deliverers, and not know it. The sound of civilized music might reach their ears, and they would come to me." He acted upon the thought without delay. For the first time for many weeks, he took his accordion from its covering (it was slung round his shoulders by a strap of dried skin), and walked through the woods, playing, and swinging the instrument in the air, so that the sound should travel far. He little dreamed of the effect he produced. Nullaboin was tracking him--had tracked him every night in his wanderings. Hitherto Nullaboin had learned nothing; but now directly the music struck upon his ears, he was so amazed as almost to betray himself. The idea that flashed through that cunning savage mind was as singular as it was original. It was neither more nor less than that Joshua held Minnie's spirit imprisoned in the strange instrument from which the melodious sounds proceeded. They were the same as used to proceed from Minnie's hut, when it was imagined she was speaking with invisible shapes. What wonders might he not perform, could he obtain possession of that power! The mysterious spirits of air and heaven would speak to him, and would tell him strange things. But how could he obtain it--how? Joshua was strong--too strong for him. He was an old man--ay, he was an old man, and these spirits, if he could speak to them in their language, might teach him how to become young again. The courses of his blood quickened through the old wizard's veins at the wild hope, and he picked up a stone and cut at his breast in his excitement. He could not hope to wrest the magic power from Joshua singly. He must enlist his companions on his side. His influence was great, but Opara's was greater. He dreaded that aged chief. "If Opara knows," was his cunning thought, "Opara will claim it for himself. No, no; it is mine Nullaboin's. Here me, Pulyalanna! Strike Opara with your thunder to-night! Strike him dead! He has lived long enough." But as he thought, he started away in terror. Among the trees some twenty yards away, he saw a crouching figure, which he took to be one of the fabulous Purkabidnies, that roam through the woods at night to slay black men. It was but the charred stump of a tree, but it was sufficient to cause Nullaboin, the wizard, to fly from the spot in direst terror, towards the camp. He lay awake until Joshua returned, and noted with his lynx eyes that Joshua wore the magic instrument strapped round his shoulders. The following day he took occasion to speak to Joshua in a subtle manner, as thus: "Nullaboin dreamt last night of his daughter the Star."
Joshua nodded.
"She spoke to me. Her voice was like the voice of the birds. I shall see her soon."
Joshua gave him a startled look.
"Has her brother seen her?"
"No."
"Has she not spoken to him?"
"No."
"Nullaboin is a great mintapa, and his daughter knows his power."
All this was Greek to Joshua, and he did not encourage the old wizard to continue his revelations. But during that day and the next, Nullaboin was busy working upon the credulous minds of the younger natives, and found but little difficulty in inflaming their curiosity. Joshua's eagerness had become almost painful by this time; and when they were travelling over plains, every speck on the horizon became a horseman in his anxious eyes. Occasionally they had to make their way through dense scrub, where there were but few trees; but for the most part their road lay through the woods, where tall timber was abundant. Under any other circumstances, Joshua would have found the life he was leading wonderfully interesting, fatiguing as it was. Now they were wending their way through a gully, the heights on each side of which were so thickly wooded as almost to shut out the light of heaven; now they were on a plain somewhat thinly dotted with trees when suddenly a young savage would dart off in pursuit of a bee which his wonderful sight had detected fifty feet high in the air. Away buzzed the bee through the clear air, and, with his eyes fixed upon the tiny insect, after it flew the savage joined by other young men of the party, the older men following more leisurely. With unerring sight the hunters ran until the bee settled upon a tree; and with wondrous speed the bee-hunter, seeing the sugar-bags in the topmost branches, climbed the trunk, cutting notches in the bark for his toes with his stone hatchet, until he reached the sweet store, with which he loaded himself, and then rejoined his companions. Now they caught an enormous guana, more than five feet in length, upon which the natives feasted; and saw strange specimens of the mantis, which looked like rotten pieces of dead twigs until they were touched, when they crawled away by the aid of their abundant misshapen limbs. Now they came to a place where, surrounded by almost impenetrable scrub, in which patches of wild bananas grew, were a number of fresh-water lagoons, filled with reeds and weeds of every description, and abounding in screeching cockatoos and beautifully-colored ducks. While Nullaboin was busy with his scheme for obtaining the magic box in which he imagined Minnie's spirit was imprisoned, some members of a strange tribe came to the party, one of whom, to Joshua's amazement, was singing in imperfect English a verse of the ballad, "He promised to buy me a bunch of blue ribbons."[[1]] The singer knew no other words of English: but he contrived to make Joshua understand that he had been among white men, which, indeed, was sufficiently evident from his singing.
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[Footnote 1]: A fact.
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"Opara," said Joshua, with sparkling eyes, "my brothers are near."
"It is well," was Opara's simple reply. "Opara will have performed his promise. When his daughter returns to her tribe, she will thank Opara."
But by this time Nullaboin's plans were matured; and that night, when Joshua wandered into the woods, his heart filled with grateful feelings towards the faithful savages, he was followed stealthily by Nullaboin, and a half-a-dozen braves who had joined in his plot.
"At last!" thought Joshua, visions of happiness to come floating before his eyes--"at last! Perhaps to-morrow I shall see the faces of my countrymen, and then, and then"-- But he could not think clearly; for as the images of those dearest to him came before him, the false face of Solomon Fewster seemed to cast a shadow upon his happiness. He leaned against a silver-leaved gum-tree, and tried to calm himself, and in a little while succeeded. Ellen was true to him, he was sure. And Dan? "Is he training his birds still?" he thought "How has he borne his great grief?" He saw before him the dear old kitchen in Stepney, exactly as he had seen it last; every chair and every piece of crockery was in its exact place. Every detail of those last few minutes at home presented itself clearly to him: his yearning look at the old familiar room; his walking up the stairs to the street-door with his face hidden in his mother's neck, and she caressing him, as she had done when he was a little child. Almost unconsciously he had taken out his accordion, and his fingers were wandering over the keys, playing softly those airs most in consonance with his thoughts. He even murmured the words of "Tom Bowling:"
"Here, a sheer hulk, lies poor Tom Bowling,
The darling of our crew."
"Dear Old Sailor! How glad I shall be to see his honest face!" And he saw the Old Sailor take a wedding-ring out of a piece of silver-paper, with a triumphant expression upon his face, as he had done in that memorable interview in Gravesend, when--whiz! Good God! what was this? The sky seemed to come down upon the earth, and he sank through it--down! down!--
Nullaboin, snatching the accordion from the falling man, hugged it to his naked breast, and glided swiftly away, followed by his confederates. They must have traversed full four miles before they paused, and then they looked cautiously around, to assure themselves that they were alone. The old wizard had kept the instrument tightly pressed to his bosom during the flight, so that no sound had proceeded from it; but now, when they paused, his grasp relaxed. His hand was on the keys: and and as the accordion gradually distended itself, a slow wail issued from it, which so terrified him that he let it fall to the ground, so that the weak and plaintive sound was followed by a harsh and sudden jangle of all the notes. Appalled at this angry cry, which was to them full of fearful meaning, the younger savages, with palpitating hearts and dismayed faces, flew from the spot, and left Nullaboin alone with the terrible prize. He stood like a statue for many minutes, although the thick beads of perspiration were rolling down his face and beard, and then cautiously approached the prostrate mystery. Encouraged by its silence, he stooped over it, and, after his savage fashion, entreated it to speak to him. No answer came. What should he do? A sudden light came into his eyes. Minnie's spirit was imprisoned there, and she was angry. He would release her. He lifted the accordion gently from the ground, and timidly pressed his finger upon one of the higher keys. The response was gentle, almost piteous; it was an appeal to him.
"O Star of the tribe!" he whispered, "Nullaboin will set you free. Make him great!"
He took a small green-stone mogo (hatchet) from his girdle, and carefully cut a long hole in the cloth. He held his hand over it to grasp the spirit; but he saw nothing, heard nothing. He waited; nothing came. He took it in his hand, and waved it up and down; no sound issued from it. The spirit had fled, and the old wizard was left despairing.
Joshua felt no pain. A delicious sense of rest was upon him. Of all the memories that came to him in his dreams, the happy holiday he had spent with Dan and Ellen on the Old Sailor's barge was the most vivid. He lived once more through the whole of that happy day--stood in Dan's room in his holiday clothes, with food for the birds which were to be presented to the Old Sailor--went down to breakfast, and saw Ellen's yearning look as they talked of the coming pleasures of the day--saw her run out of the room and run in again, almost mad with delight because Susan had obtained permission for her to accompany the lads--rode in the creaking cart through dingy Whitechapel--saw Dan swinging in the hammock and gazing at him affectionately while he was rowing--heard every word of the Old Sailor's sea-stories over again--sat on the deck in the twilight in a state of delicious happiness by Ellen's side, and went down into the saloon, and heard the Old Sailor sing, and then Ellen, her favorite song of "Bread-and-cheese and Kisses." After that a darkness came upon him, and he opened his eyes, and saw the stars shining in the heavens; but they were shut out immediately afterwards, and he was standing on the deck of the "Merry Andrew" the night the ship struck on the rocks; holding Minnie in his arms; the dead faces of his shipmates crowded upon him, rising from the cruel sea with the exact expression upon their features that they wore when he last saw them; then came his encounter with the Lascar in the woods; and that memory brought to him the face of Solomon Fewster, which lingered long; but it faded in its turn, and gave way to other fancies, the most enduring of which was the river near which Minnie was buried, and the refrain of her words, "So restless there, so quiet here!" dwelt in his mind through the long night.
When he awoke it was daylight. He struggled to his feet, but could scarcely stand for weakness. He had been struck by a boomerang on the temple, and had lost a great deal of blood. He was so weak and bewildered that, even now that he was awake the past incidents of his life were strangely mingled in his mind. It was not until after long mental pondering and sifting of incidents that the true knowledge of his position and of what had occurred to him dawned upon his senses. He looked round for his accordion; it was gone. Then he thought, "Opara has betrayed me at the last moment. They have stolen my accordion, and they have left me here for dead. But they may return at any moment to strip me of what I have about me." Weak and faint as he was he crawled cautiously towards the most thickly-wooded part of the forest, and there concealed himself. "What now?" he thought. "Must I wait for death?" For indeed he was too weak to walk. His heart almost fainted within him.
"Now, when I was so near to deliverance," he groaned aloud, shedding bitter tears, "to be thus dashed back to misery!" But even as he uttered the words, he heard the crack of a stockman's whip. Crack! It rang through the woods and through his heart. Not the mockery of a whip-bird this time! No, no; it was too near; and it was followed by the sound of horses' hoofs and by the sound of English voices. Thank God! thank God!