CHAPTER XVI
ACROSS THE LAGOON
As the night came stealthily creeping over wood and water, sending hosts of birds with loud scoldings to their chosen roosting-places— for out of those myriads of trees only certain trees were selected— the boat was put in near the right bank. The levers were muffled, and the "lookout," with a bill-hook ready to fend off any snag, and a bull's-eye lantern to shoot a sudden light, took up his position in the bows. She crept on slowly through the pitch darkness, the crew easing off at times to listen as some loud noise broke the silence—the plunge of a hippo, the snort of an angry bull, the swirl of a fish, or the cry of an otter from the bank. In one of these silences a whisper came from the bows.
"Look," said Venning; and he flashed the bull's-eye on the bank.
The others, glancing along the streamer of light, saw reflected two bright eyes, a gleaming muzzle, and the tips of curved horns.
"A buffalo," whispered Mr. Hume.
As the boat drifted slowly past, they watched the bright eyes, and the eyes of the animal followed them. Out of the intense blackness only those points were visible—the luminous eyes, the shining muzzle, and the tips of the horns. The rest was left to the imagination; yet the picture seemed to stand out of a shaggy forest bull, his fore feet on the brink of the water, and his head thrown up.
"What a picture for a flash-light photo!" muttered Venning, longingly.
"What a mark for a shot!" sighed Mr. Hume. "And red meat would be very welcome."'
As they slipped away the buffalo snorted, crashed into the forest, and battered his way on a course parallel to them to get another view of that mysterious light, for presently they heard his snort again. A little further on a bull hippo charged at them, but the glare of the light full in his eyes stopped him, and he remained open-mouthed, so that all they saw was a yawning gulf bristling with ivory. Mr. Hume, who had picked up his Express at the first snort, laid it down again with a laugh.
"Took the fight out of him that time, Venning; but it's a little risky."
"Keeps one wide awake, at any rate," said Compton.
"We'll continue for an hour or so and then tie up, for we may have a heavy day to-morrow."
For a couple of miles the boat felt its way through the dark without incident, and then the look-out signalled another discovery.
"Light ahead!"
The Okapi was brought broadside on, so that the crew could have a clear view of the river; and they sat for some time in silence, looking at the strange object—a tiny but steady glow of fire.
"Shut off the bull's-eye, Venning. We'll make for mid-stream, and approach the fire with caution."
The boat moved out into the current, then worked up very tenderly while Venning steered, with his eyes fixed on that little speck of red. Slowly they advanced, cautiously were the levers pulled over and shot back, so that there should be no noise, and silently the smooth craft cut into the darkness. But light travels far, and they seemed to get no nearer.
"I believe it's a light in a boat," muttered the lookout.
The others slowed up, and they listened, but they heard no sound of paddles, only innumerable stealthy whisperings from the woods.
"It is stationary," said Mr. Hume, "and ashore, as you may see from its fixity. Beep her away. We can't be too careful."
They made a long reach down, going very warily, and taking care not to keep their eyes solely upon the fire; for a light is a good lure to draw the careless into an ambush, unless they are on the look-out for danger in a different quarter.
"I can't see any one about," said Venning, who was using the night- glasses.
In complete silence they came at last opposite the fire, but no sooner had they passed it than it went out.
"Put her round," whispered Mr. Hume.
The boat answered her helm like a well-trained horse, and they went back on their course to see if they could fetch the light again.
"Yes, there it is."
"Then it's a signal," muttered Mr. Hume; "only to be seen by some one coming up-stream."
"Suppose it is meant for us?"
Mr. Hume went forward with his Express, and relieved Venning at the helm.
"We'll creep nearer in this time, but be ready to make a dash if it proves to be one of Hassan's watch-parties."
This time the Okapi hugged the shore, and stopped when it came opposite the light.
Out of the darkness came a low laugh. "I have been awaiting you, O great one; but you came so softly that I should not have known except for these wise ones here."
"Welcome, Muata!" The boat was run in now without further pause, and Mr. Hume leapt ashore with the line. "And who are the wise ones, chief, that could smell us out in the dark?"
"Who but the jackal and the wise woman?"
"You found your mother, then! I'm very glad—very glad. And what about Hassan? He has passed this way, and made his sign at the village where we left the old Arab."
"The Arab thief comes up the little river with many canoes and the whole pack of man-eaters. So we three will get into the shining canoe, if the great one wills, and make good the time before sunrise."
"The boat is ready."
Muata called. The fire was put out, and presently two figures appeared within the range of the bull's-eye lantern—a woman and the jackal. The woman halted to speak a few words to Muata, then she put a hand on the hunter's shoulder and peered into his face. She laughed and said something.
"What says the wise woman, Muata?"
"Lion—not gorilla. Haw! We heard the story from the little men how the great one cleft the skull of the gorilla; and how they called you my father, after the man-monkey. But I told her you were more lion than ape, and she has judged for herself."
Mr. Hume laughed, and held a hand to help the woman into the boat; but she stepped aboard unassisted, and moved forward, the jackal following very humbly.
"And the river-man?"
"He struck the trail of three man-eaters, and followed them, seeing red. Maybe he slew them and was slain, for there was much noise, and he did not return. So we here are all till we reach the hiding- place."
The boat was pushed off, and Muata took one of the levers.
"Let the young lions sleep," he said. "We can have no better watch than we now have. See! the jackal smelt you while you were still afar, and the chiefs wife heard the noise of the boat before I did. Wow! We are safe while they watch."
"Does the chiefs wife smoke?" "Ow ay! tobacco would please her heart." Mr. Hume passed a pipe and tobacco to the woman, and Compton gave her a lighted match. She took them as if they were ordinary objects of her life, lit the pipe, and by the flame of the match leant forward to peer into the boy's face as she had stared at Mr. Hume. And she spoke a word or two before turning her face to the bows for the long watch.
"The river runs into the sea; but the river is always full. That is her word, young lion."
"Which means?"
"I told her you were the white man's son, and she has seen for herself. Maybe her words mean that when the father is gone the son takes his place. But in time you will know, for her meaning is sometimes hard to understand. Now sleep, you two, for there is great need for us ahead."
Without more ado the two "young lions" rolled themselves in their blankets and enjoyed the rare luxury of an untroubled sleep, and when they awoke they were in a vast lagoon, out of which stood the bleached skeletons of dead trees, with gaunt bare branches, in all manner of fantastic shapes. But it was only the trees that were dead, for the astonished eyes of the boys rested on such a multiplicity of animal life as they had never before seen. Birds roosted on the aforesaid dead branches—sooty ibis, white pelicans, crows, kingfishers, and here and there, like sentinels on the topmost branches, a white-headed eagle, with his hooked bill, dominating the scene. Wheeling through the air were strings of duck and wisps of snipe in battalions, rows of cranes with their long legs trailing, and on the surface of the smooth water, on scores of small islands, formed originally by uprooted trees, and under the water, there were yet innumerable creatures. It was certainly grand hunting for all. There were flies and gnats for the frogs, tadpoles and the spawn of frogs for the little fishes, little fishes were preyed on by the ducks and the big fishes, while the birds and the big fishes in turn provided breakfast, dinner, and supper for the crocodiles. Apparently the crocodiles were too tough, too musky, and too powerful, to serve as food for any other animal higher up in the scale; but it is not to be supposed that they had merely to open their jaws to snatch a meal, for there were shallows all about where the waders could go to sleep in peace, standing on one leg. And there they stood, regiments of them—crested cranes, blue cranes, black ibis, pink ibis, flamingoes, and wild geese.. And the noise was tremendous!
The Okapi sailed under a gentle breeze right into the thick of this sportsman's paradise, and from the low islands armies of mosquitoes gaily advanced to meet her until they formed a moving cloud around her, only kept off from eating up the crew by the merciful intervention of the canvas awning and mosquito curtains.
"What a magnificent specimen of the spoonbill bittern," groaned Venning. "If we had only brought an air-gun—for I suppose we cannot fire."
"Look at those fat geese in a row," said Compton. "What a stew they would make. Just one shot, sir."
"It won't do," said Mr. Hume. "A single shot would raise noise enough to wake the seven sleepers."
"There is another way," said Muata.
"What way?"
"A line such as you used for fish—see." He shaved off some thin shreds of buffalo biltong, chewed it, and dropped it astern. An inquisitive teal watched him keenly, and, as the boat went by, made a swoop for the fragment. The incident was noticed, and a big gander, curiously tame, came sailing up, arching its neck in imitation of the swan. The boys were at the lockers in a flash, drew out a couple of lines, bent on a large hook, buoyed it, by the advice of Mr. Hume, between two floats, baited the hooks, and payed the line over the stem, while Muata dropped over a few more pellets. There was a flotilla of duck and geese following in the wake of the Okapi, and in less than a minute there were two bites. Compton had the black and grey gander, while Venning had a fat duck in tow. The Okapi was backed full speed astern and the astonished fowl pulled on board before they knew what had happened. The geese sheered off at once, speaking to each other in subdued tones, but in the next quarter of an hour three more ducks were added to the bag. Then a piratical craft appeared in the very thick of the peaceful convoy, opened its broadside, as it were, and engulfed a couple. There was a swirl in the water, a resounding smack made by a long scaley tail, and a third fowl went the way of the others. Beating their wings, the duck rose with loud quacks to seek the safety of a shallow, and the leery green eyes of the piratical crocodile appeared above the disturbed water.
"You old thief!" cried Venning.
"It is his hunting-ground," said Muata, with a chuckle, as he passed the birds to his mother, who began at once to pluck them.
"Out with the big pot and the preserved vegetables," said Compton.
"We'll have one big feast, even if we go hungry for a week."
The pot was got out, water from the lagoon was boiled, strained, and boiled again, then, as each bird was cleaned, it was cut up and placed in the pot, the offal falling to the share of the jackal. It was a great meal, of soup, game, cabbage, potatoes, onions, and carrots, all mixed up, and when it had been eaten down to the last drop, with a dose of quinine for safety, and a cup of coffee for comfort, they were all shiny and happy. The oily fat from the birds, which formed a layer on the top while the mess was boiling, had been carefully removed, and when it had cooled, Muata and his mother rubbed it over their faces, necks, arms, and hair until they glistened.
"Well, I'm sugared!" said Compton.
"Fat very good for the skin," said Muata, showing his teeth. "You try."
"Better for the guns, chief.''
"Wow! and for the big knife;" and the chief polished up his Ghoorka blade, while the boys greased the rifles and stared at the chief's wife, thinking, as they stared, of the adventures which she had been through since she fled from the kraal of her husband, driven out by the slave-hunters. They had seen old black women at the villages, wrinkled old crones, phenomenally thin; but this woman was not much wrinkled, and she was not thin. Neither was she ugly as those others had been, for she carried herself straight, and there was a dignity about her actions whenever she moved her long bare arms. But they came to the conclusion that she was not a person to sew on buttons, for there was a hard look about the eyes, and the whole cast of the face was set and stem. It did not seem possible that she could smile, and, remembering the careless laughter of native women, who were amused at anything or nothing, she was a mystery to them. So they very soon gave up trying to make anything out of her, and turned their attention to the lagoon, which stretched away a good ten miles on either hand to the dark fringe of forest. Evidently the forest had grown where the shallow waters now were, as the dead trees testified.
"The land has sunk about here," said Venning, "and underneath there must be a coal-bed in process of formation. Now, if there were hills around, and a nice clean sand-beach, I should like to spend months here."
"Too many mosquitoes!"
"Besides," said Mr. Hume, striking in, "there are hills."
"Where? Over there? Why, that's a cloud!"
"Perhaps so; but the cloud rests on a hill-top. Isn't that so,
Muata?"
"Those be the gates to the Place of Rest."
"By Jimminy! How far?" This was something to be excited about.
Muata held up five fingers. "So many suns will rise and set."
"And does the forest lie in between?"
"Between and beyond."
"And the Place of Rest, is that forest also?"
"The sun shines there all day," said the chief; "and a man can see his shadow lengthen. The little ones play on the white sand, the women and the girls work in the gardens on the open slopes of the hills, and the men——"
"Well, what about the men?"
"They lie in the sand like lizards, and talk like parrots."
It was the chief's wife who spoke scornfully, using the language they had mastered.
"Wow!" chimed in the chief, "they are timid people, the men; but the time is at hand when those who will not fight will be set to do women's work in the gardens."
The woman nodded her head grimly. "The time is at hand when the reapers will work, not in the cornfields, but about the fires where the men sit. Hassan is to be feared; but he can only enter if he is helped from within."
"I listen, O wise one," said the son, sternly. "Even if I weed them all out so that there are none left but Muata and these three white strangers, your counsel shall be followed."
"It is well," said the mother, nodding her head.
"You seem to have little faith in your people," said Compton.
"Haw! They grow fat and timid. They have no fight in them. Once before, when I was a boy, I beat them; but they have forgotten."
"I rather think, chief, that they would be as well off under Hassan as under you."
"Hassan would yoke them in and drive them out through the forest into the plains. A man must fight for his kraal. That is the law."
"It is the law," said the woman.
"And that is the Place of Rest?" said Venning, lingering on the sight. "More like a place of trouble for some; but, at any rate, if there are hills and open places, I shall be glad to get there. It would be a real treat to have space enough for a trot. But, I say, it is time you two slept."
"That is just what I have been thinking," said Mr. Hume.
The two boys took the levers, but Muata declined to rest. He said there were two openings leading from the lagoon to the hills—one a broad channel, commonly used, the other a smaller channel.
"We will take the little river," he said, "so that Hassan, who will follow the other track, will not know of our going. But it is hard to find this little water-path, and I must search for it."
"Don't go up a track that will not give water for the boat. Are you sure that it will carry us?"
"Ow ay! there is water enough, great one. So sleep well."
For a couple of hours the boys worked the levers, and at the end they came upon a thicket of reeds, along which the Okapi skirted, while the chief and his mother kept a keen outlook. Twice they plunged into the reeds on a false trail; and then, as they lay off scanning the oily water for trace of a current, the woman held up her hand.
"It is Hassan," said the chief.
Venning reached for his glasses, and far back over the shining lake he saw little black specks emerging, as it were, out of the forest.
"Canoes," he said; "a great many."
If they did not find the outlet soon they would be sighted. Muata and his mother spoke a few words rapidly, and then he signalled to the crew to enter the reeds. This done, and the boat screened, he slipped into the water and disappeared shorewards. For some time he was away, during which the flotilla of canoes came into view like a flock of ducks, still so far off that the boys could not hear the sound of paddles. Presently Muata splashed back, and, towing the boat, made across a barrier of reeds that had been banked up, forming a sort of natural breakwater, and most effectually hiding the mouth of the stream he sought. Mr. Hume was awakened, and the entire crew, taking to the water, managed to hoist the boat over the barrier. This done, they climbed on board again, and were soon in the mouth of a dark river, almost overhung by great trees.
"That is well done," said Muata. "Now we can sleep, great one; for the other river runs far from this, so that Hassan's men will not hear us."
They were soon asleep. Even the chief's wife stretched herself out with the jackal at her feet, and the two boys were left in sole charge. They had been toughened by the rough-and-tumble of their strange experiences, and inured to the brooding silence and dark avenues of the forest; but they entered into a scene that tried their nerves. The trees closed in as they advanced, and very soon they entered a leafy tunnel, lit up by a faint light that barely showed up the slimy banks, covered by a network of snake-like roots. The little waves churned up by the screw splashed softly upon the roots, making the only sound that disturbed the sombre silence of the place. So low was the leafy roof at places that branches rustled on the awning.
"Fix up the big lantern in the bows, old man," said Compton, who was facing up-stream. "There is not light enough to steer by. Better sit up there with the bill-hook while I work the levers."
Venning went forward, and soon a shaft of light pierced the gloom.
For a mile or more they threaded this tunnel, and not a sign of life was there the whole way. When they emerged from the darkness into comparative space and light, the boys wiped their faces, which were clammy with moisture.
"A few more experiences like that, Dick, and we cross the river for good."
"Eh?"
"Why, man, it's the Styx. It has given me the shivers."
"Quinine," said Compton; and they dosed one another there and then. "I say, I'd give the whole five hundred miles square of this forest for one little glade in Epping."
"Bother!"
"Of all the squirmy, snaky, gloomy, airless, sunless, moist, decaying masses of misery, I think this is the worst."
"It is, Dick; it is. There's not a butterfly even."
"Thunder! It's raining fire! No; it's an ant S It's raining ants, by gum!"
"You ass, you've hooked the bill into a nest. There—that round, black thing—like a football. They're running up the bill-hook."
There was a splash as the boat was shoved off, then muttered exclamations and a yelp from the jackal: Many scores of ants had invaded the Okapi, and each ant, full of murderous rage for the wanton attack upon the nest, seized hold of the first soft thing it came across, and once it gripped it held on like a bull-dog. War was waged on the invaders, and when the last had been discovered and crushed, there was no sleep in the savage eyes of the awakened.
Incidents like these alone varied the monotony of the dreary days they spent in that mournful slough, and if it had not been for the regular exercise at the levers, and the hope of a speedy release from their surroundings, the young explorers must have succumbed. As it was, they lost colour, became pale, languid, and heavy-eyed; and Mr. Hume, noting the signs of the dreaded wasting sickness with anxiety, did not spare himself or Muata when it came to their turn to work the levers.