CHAPTER X
A NIGHT IN THE REEDS
It was good to sit around the glowing embers where the buffalo-steak sizzled and threw out an odour that made their mouths water, good to sip the hot coffee and to look out upon the great wilderness rising up to the distant watershed of the lower bank of the Congo. From the cliff above starlings flew out to seek their feeding-haunts where the big game fed; and there was a familiar visitor near them in the black and drab stone-chat, whose scolding chirp they had so often heard in England among the gorse and bramble. The metallic cry of guinea-fowl down by the little river had a farm-yard ring; but the chatter of parrots flying overhead was still new, and so with many other calls, so that they sat munching in silence, with eyes and ears too much engaged for speech, even if the buffalo-steak had not given their mouths other occupation. They saw the vultures speeding from out the uttermost reach of the blue vault to feed upon the carcass of the dead monarch, the whereabouts of the feast having been detected from their distant haunts by a keenness of sight which for swiftness outdoes wireless telegraphy. They swept on like frigates of the sky, heads thrust down, and the vast wings seeming to bear them on without beat or motion.
After breakfast the two boys left the camp for a little hunt on their own account, while Mr. Hume remained to help the chief cure the buffalo hide. They struck out down the river, passed the reeds out of which the lion had sprung, saw the cluster of vultures standing round the body of the lion, and then they saw a troop of antelope grazing in a patch of mimosas. After a careful stalk, Compton fired, and the herd dashed off together, with the exception of one, which took its own course at a slower gait.
"You hit him, Dick."
"Yes; and we'll get him. You go to the left, and I'll keep him away from the river."
The two dashed off, each on his own line, and for several minutes the stricken animal led them through fairly open country, with every promise of a speedy run, for it was evidently hard hit. Then, taking advantage of an old watercourse, it turned to the right, and when Compton recovered the track he had lost touch with Venning. He gave a "coo-ee," and then getting a view of the antelope making down to the water, he turned it with another shot, and sprinted to overtake it. Yard by yard he gained in this final burst, and shifted his rifle to his left hand in order to have his right free to use the hunting-knife. Another effort and he was almost within touch; but the buck also had a reserve of power, and, gathering its quarters, it made a couple of bounds, which carried it into the shelter of a thin sprinkling of reeds. Compton responded, and in a few strides was so near that he flung himself forward in an effort to get astride the animal's back. The buck slipped forward, letting him down, and, when he rose he saw the white tail whisking round a corner in the reeds. On he dashed down a narrow path, which twisted and turned so sharply that he could only see a few yards ahead; but he was never in fault, as when he could not see the game he could hear it plainly, so he never slackened. The chase went on always with the prospect of success tantalizingly before him, until at last he was at fault in a little clearing where the reeds had been beaten down, and from which there branched several lanes. He stopped to listen, but the buck had stopped too. Then he searched for the blood-trail, and, finding it, set off once more, and this time, after another chase lasting about ten minutes, the buck was overtaken and despatched. Then he threw himself on his back and panted for breath. When he had recovered he sat up and wondered, for his hands and bare arms were bleeding from a number of cuts that began to smart most painfully. The sharp saw-like edges of the reeds bad cut into his flesh, and in the excitement he had not noticed the injuries. Thanks, however, to the regulations enforced by Mr. Hume, he carried in the pouches of his belt a little store of quinine, vaseline, and meat lozenges. He rubbed the vaseline on the cuts, mopped his face, and felt all right. Then he put his hand to his mouth and gave a "coo-ee." The call was strangled in the reeds. He called again, fired off his gun, and waited, but he could hear nothing but a soft whispering. The reeds reached above his head, and he could see nothing but the matted stems around him and the blue sky overhead. He gave a grunt of impatience, lifted the buck, hoisted the body on his shoulder, brought the fore legs round on one side, the hind legs on the other side, and secured them before him with his handkerchief. Then he stooped for his rifle, and plunged into a path with the object of tramping straight through to the outer edge, when he would get his bearings for the camp.
This was more easily intended than carried out; for the reeds closed in so as to hamper his movements, and in a short time the path ran into other tracks, which doubled here and there without any decided direction, and led him into little dens. In one of these there was the bleached skull of a buffalo, and he sat down on this to consider.
He got the direction of the sun from the shadows, made a rough guess at the points of the compass, and then started off again, picking out a path that seemed wider than the others, and which led in the right way. After steady tramping, he found himself back at the very spot where he had killed the antelope. It was a nasty shock, but, in no way dismayed, he tried to pick up his old spoor, and after a patient search he hit it off, and went on with a little laugh. He hesitated when he entered another little open space, but finally kept on in the same direction, and finding the way easier, stepped out confidently, although the weight of the buck was beginning to tell, combined with the closeness of the air in these long aisles. At last the reeds thinned, and he stepped out into the open. He slipped the legs of the buck over his head to stretch himself, and then a little cry of disgust broke from his lips, for the place he had come to was not the outskirts of the reeds at all, but merely an open space, larger than any he had met before, with a little grass mound in the centre. Mounting this, he could see a run of trees in the distance, and in between a sea of green leaves, giving back myriad points of light under the rays of the sun. Queer soft noises came out of the white rows of reeds all around, and from the vast expanse a continual murmur that was something like the moaning of the wind in the pines.
He fired his gun off and listened. A faint far-off answer he thought he heard; but when he fired again he could detect no sound but the whispering murmur. He cut a couple of stout reeds, fitted one into the other, tied his handkerchief to the top, and planted the pole on the mound. Then he placed the buck at the foot of the pole, covered it with an armful of reeds, took a long look around, and started off once more. He was resolved to keep straight on, path or no path, but after a tussle with the serried ranks of reeds, with their razor- like leaves, he soon gave up that idea as hopeless, and took again to the paths—going very slowly, and taking his direction at intervals. But, try as he would, there were the kinks and twists in the paths which turned him out of his course. The endless game- tracks formed a worse snare than any he had been in of human contrivance; and at places, moreover, the ground was boggy, catching hold of his feet, and exhausting him by the heavy going. Several times animals broke cover and crashed away unseen. At one spot in the ooze he saw the form of a huge crocodile, and at another place the menacing head of a python was reared above the tops of the reeds, with his forked tongue flickering about the blunt nose. These sights, and the sudden snorts from unseen beasts, bred in him a growing feeling of uneasiness, which in turn weakened his powers of reasoning, so that he blundered hither and thither in a sort of reckless fury, until he went flat, face downwards, in black mud, that gripped him at every point. If he had struggled he would have been hopelessly bogged, but luckily he recovered his wits, and set himself slowly to extricate himself. His left foot was in up to the knee, and his left arm was sinking each moment, when he steadied himself and drew his knife. Beaching out, he cut a swathe of reeds, drew them towards him with the knife-blade, packed them under his chin and breast, then rolled over on to this firmer support, after a strong and steady pull. Repeating the performance, he managed to get one knee on to a bedding of reeds, then with one violent effort freed himself and reached hard ground.
This incident shook him up so, that coming, after another effort, to the open where he had left the buck, he gave up the struggle, seeing that he must think of some other plan if he wished to get alive out of this prison.
First he rested until his strength came back, then he cleaned his mud-covered rifle, and scraped the black ooze off his clothes with the knife. Then he heard a murmur in the reeds—a snap, then a rustle; a long pause, then a rustling again. He stood up with rifle ready, and he saw a reed shake about ten yards away, then heard it snap. He shouted, and the rustling ceased, to break out after an interval on the other side. Again it was resumed in the front, and in a little while it seemed to him that the reeds were alive with the stealthy rustlings of beasts and reptiles, all moving towards him. A reed bent again a little way off, and he fired in the direction. There was a crash and a growl, followed by a peculiar moaning from the opposite side. From somewhere deep in the sea of green there came the hoarse bellow of a bull crocodile. Nothing now could have induced him to enter that bewildering labyrinth again, and he looked about with a shudder, for the day was sinking to its close, and the night would soon be upon him. There was only one thing that could protect him in the night, and that was fire. With a feverish energy, regardless now of the rustlings about his little island, he began to cut the tallest of the reeds that were hard and sapless, and these he banked in six heaps round the base of the mound; and when the task was done he reared a bigger pile in the centre as a reserve.
Then the black of the night swept over the reeds quick almost as the shadow of a cloud, and with the dark came a sad rustling, as of a thousand whisperings. It was still and not still. Up in the sky was the quietness of a still night, the stars watching and brooding over the silence; but down below, in and out of the miles and miles of avenues, stretching every way through the millions of smooth gleaming stems, came a whispering as if creatures were moving tip- toe, moving up nearer and nearer, treading carefully, watching and listening. An owl brushed like a shadow overhead, and his loud "whoo-whoo" floated away in sadness and sorrow.
He sat with his back to the reserve heap of reeds, and waited with his rifle over his knees for the signal to fire his first pile. There was as yet no clear meaning in those mysterious whisperings. What he listened for was a sound that he could interpret, and it came very soon in the grunt of a leopard, harsh and grating. The reeds rustled just before him, and then there came a sound, regular and strange—a thump and a swish, then a thump and a swish. Creeping forward, he put a match to the heap, then went back; and as the red flame crackled through the hard shining stems, he saw a dark form crouching beyond, the green eyes blinking in the reflection, and the tufted tail nervously jerking from side to side. It was that made the strange noise. As the flame grew, the leopard sprang up and turned away, stopping for a long stare over its shoulder.
Light fragments from the burning pile floated high up like fire- flies, and far over the white sea of leaves shone the reflection. Others saw it from the far outer edge, and through the night came the report of a gun, and then faintly the echo of a "coo-ee." He shouted back hoarsely, and though he knew his friends could not possibly force the way to him through that barrier, impenetrable except by the devious game-tracks, he was greatly cheered.
His mind was taken off his loneliness for a time, and he suddenly found that he was fearfully hungry. So with his handy knife he stripped the skin from a hind leg of the antelope, cut off a fine steak, and scraping out a layer of glowing embers, placed the meat on. With the cooking and eating of his supper the time went cheerfully; but meantime the flame had died out, and something alighted with a thud just behind. He whipped round, but could see nothing, and moved to the fire to kick some of the live coals to the next heap. In that instant the antelope was seized and carried off in a couple of bounds just inside the reeds, for he heard plainly the tearing of the flesh, the snarls, the growling, and the crunching of bones. He crouched near the fire, for it was not pleasant to think of that stealthy approach and that bold foray, and wondered whether the buck would satisfy the pair of fierce creatures. The fire flared up, crackled fiercely, sending up, as before, its fiery messengers into the air, then gradually died down to a glowing heap; and the leopards were still at their meal, purring now, a monstrous cat-like purr. There was comfort in it, however, for it seemed to him to tell of hunger satisfied, and by- and-by they indeed went off, grunting to each other. Then there came a long spell of silence. He gathered the unburnt fragments that fringed the two heaps of embers and piled them on one of the heaps. They blazed up, and by the light he rearranged the other stacks of fuel. He realized that he could easily be struck down by a leopard if he ventured away from a fire, and he hit on the idea of building his fires in the shape of a cross, one at the top, one at the bottom, one on each side, and space inside for him to lie down. Inside he made a bed of reeds, from which he could draw supplies as they were needed. He fired the top pile, and then, after a long wait, the bottom one, and when that had burnt down to embers, and the night was far advanced, he stretched himself out, protected by four smouldering heaps of ash, that glowed like four red eyes in the dark.
He looked up at the stars for a long time as he rested in his lonely camping-ground, and then dropped into an uneasy sleep. Something awoke him very soon, and his eyes opened on the dark vault above. A booming noise reached him. It was the grunt of a lion this time, but far off—a deep monotonous sound made by the lion on the trot, with his mouth near the ground. It was very far off, and with a sigh of relief he closed his eyes. And then he heard the sound again, and knew it was not the lion that had awakened him. He rose on his elbow and peered about, but the darkness came right up to the ash-heaps, looking white now instead of red. He placed a handful of dry reeds on the nearest heap and blew. There was a glow, a flicker, and then a flare. In the reflection he saw dimly a patch of white, then another patch next it. This roused him, so that he set all the four fires going again, and, with his rifle ready, he stood up to see what manner of visitors these were with the white marks.
He had heard slight noises as he fed the fires, and now the reeds rustled, but he could see no living form. Sitting down, he laid a few handfuls of reeds ready to each fire, then waited with shaken nerves, for there was something mysterious about this visitation. The fires flared up and sunk back to red embers, and yet there was no sign. The embers took on a covering of grey ash, then the rustling began anew, and the white objects reappeared. He turned his head, and saw that they stretched right round! What the dickens were they? He strained his sight, and, at first indistinctly and then clearly, he saw the gleam of eyes above each white patch. Softly he laid a few reeds on the embers, and as they crackled he saw one of the white objects move. As the flame mounted up, he made out an animal with round ears and brindled hide, staring nervously at the fire. It was a wild-dog! Only a dog, and with a "shoo!" he thought to scare the creature off. The yellow eyes went from the fire to his face, a red tongue slithered out over the black nose, and the dog sat down again. All round were the white breasts of the pack, as they sat in silence and stared. He searched about for a missile, found an empty cartridge, and threw it. A dog leapt up and sniffed. The circle seemed to close in.
He shouted at them, and they gave back a yelp, but never stirred.
"All right," he said grimly, then aimed at a white breast and fired. The pack scattered into the reeds; there was a beating and kicking noise, followed by a wild rush, a savage snarling and snapping of teeth. Dog was eating dog; and, with a feeling of disgust and contempt, he prepared himself to rest. A little later the white circle was complete again, and the silent inspection was continued. This got on his nerves, and, springing over the fire with his rifle clubbed, he gave two sweeping blows. The dogs slipped away from his front, only to reappear with threatening growls on his flank. He leapt back to safety and fired; but the light was bad, and he missed. Piling on a few more reeds, he emptied his magazine rapidly, facing all parts of the circle, and making some hits, as he judged from the howling that went up.
"There!" he shouted savagely, "will that satisfy you?" The pack fell upon the wounded, and was back again into position, coming closer and closer as the fires died down.
Then he remembered the stories he had heard of the persistence of the wild-dogs—how they would drive off even a lion from his prey— and he fell to counting his cartridges. There were only five left. He counted the dogs. There were more than fifteen, as far as he could reckon; and if he reduced them to ten, he could not hope to withstand the final rush of ten big-jawed and active animals. Even if he could keep them off in that open space, he could not stay there another day; and if they tackled him in the reeds, he would have no chance. He began to rack his brain for a scheme; but while he thought, the circle closed in until quite plainly he could distinguish the staring eyes all centered upon him. He piled on more fuel, and as the flames sprang up they fell back. As the flames died down, they advanced as by a given signal. He kept on adding to the fires until his fingers, groping for fresh reeds, found none, and the sweat broke out on his forehead. In one hour at least there would not be light enough from the smouldering heaps for him to see a mark, and then—something had to be done!
No doubt the watchful eyes saw the sign of fear in his face. At once the circle closed in, and this time he could see that several of the dogs were not sitting, but standing, as if ready for the final spring. He fingered a cartridge, then suddenly flung it into the topmost heap of glowing ash. The eyes of the pack followed the missile, and for a second each dog looked at the heap. As they looked there was a report, and a mass of live embers was scattered high and wide, over them, over the opening, into the fringe of reeds. With wild yelps of fear and pain the pack broke, and Compton groveled on the ground with his hands before his face, for he had flattened himself just in time to escape being blinded by the burning dust, some of which, however, did get into his eyes. A little fly in the eye, as many a cyclist has found to his cost, is enough to engage the entire attention for five minutes, but a handful of ash gives more anguish to the square inch; and when Compton succeeded in opening his inflamed vision upon the scene, a transformation had happened in the writhing interval. The air was full of a sharp crackling and little explosions, and the first thing he saw was a slender tongue of flame running up a tall reed, and quivering for a moment high above. Other flames ran in and out among the withered white sheaths that had dropped off, and mounted up the smooth stems, and then there came a wandering puff of wind, which rustled over the bending tops and fanned the little serpent-tongues of fire into one devouring flame.
He had no wish to be roasted. Once more using his knife to cut down a sheaf of stems, he made a flail of these, and beat out the fire to windward. And as he worked on the one side of the little clearing the fire grew on the other side, and then raced along, leaving behind in the blackened area many separate fires, where masses of reeds had been beaten down. And the smoke went up in a growing cloud that blotted out the sky—went up and fortunately rolled away towards the great river under the sufficient strength of the wind; otherwise he would have been suffocated. The cracking of the reeds was like rifle-fire breaking through the roar of the flames, and now and again the crashing of animals on the stampede could be heard. He looked out upon his work with awe, stood and gazed spellbound, wondering if such a sea of flame could ever be stopped, fearing that it would spread out into the bush beyond, and run up into the forest and devour every tree until stopped by the mighty river itself. As he looked, he heard some creature before him writhing in the blackened track of the fire, and presently he made it out—a great crocodile convulsively lashing its powerful tail. Going near with cautious steps, he put it out of its misery with a ball under the forearm; then he went on over the scorched ground very slowly, for the burnt reeds were like sharp stakes to the feet. And as he followed, the fire died out before him, and began to eat its way right and left, working back through the reeds against the wind. Then he heard the report of a gun, and as he stepped from the burnt area on to the short grass that had offered no fuel for the fire, something came springing around him, and before he could pull trigger it was off with a yelp into the darkness under the canopy of smoke. "Coo-ee—coo-ee! Compton—ahoy! Compton!"
Compton croaked and hobbled on.
Then the creature yelped about him again, and his friends were shaking him by the hands.
"You know," he said with a croak, "I didn't mean to set fire to the place."
"Thank God, my boy, you did," said Mr. Hume, fervently. Then he lifted the boy up in his arms.
"I can walk," said Compton; and, to prove it, his head rolled helplessly on his shoulder.
Mr. Hume strode off to the river, and washed the layer of soot off the blackened face, laved the red eyes, and moistened the cracked lips and parched tongue. Then he gave the boy a soothing drink, rubbed oil on his feet and face; rolled him in a blanket, and carried him up to the camping-ground under the precipice.