CHAPTER IX: Gone Away!
Through the Net--A Call in Passing--A Chase in the Dark--On the Track--Signals--The Little People--Ka-lu-ké-ke--Visions of the Night
It was desperately cold. Since he had left Kisumu, Tom had spent every night under a blanket, and, standing now with his back to the tree, a rope about his waist, another about his legs, a third tying his arms, he had nothing to defend him from the keen air but the clothes he stood in, and was unable to gain warmth by movement. He chafed under this bitter constraint; tried the strength of the ropes by straining at them with all his might; gave up the effort in sheer impotence, and wondered whether he should live to see another dawn.
"The blackguards!" he said to himself. A whimsical smile twitched his lips as he caught sight of the eight men set to watch him, squatting around a fire some distance away, and beguiling the time with a game somewhat resembling knuckle-bones. He fixed his eyes on the fire, following the leaping flames, indulging his fancy in imaging strange monstrous shapes; then recalled chestnut nights by the big-room fire at school; by and by found himself whistling "Follow up" and "Forty years on", at which the watchers dropped their dice and their talk for a moment and turned their listening faces towards him. Then the numbing cold began its soporific work. He felt dazed; fantastic visions danced before his eyes. Presently his lips moved without his knowing it, framing foolish remarks at which it seemed that another self was laughing; then his head bent forward, and he slept.
Somewhere about midnight it seemed to him in a dream that water was trickling down his neck. He awoke and threw back his head and hitched his shoulders, and felt that it was not water but something sinuous and solid, caught between tie back of his head and his coat collar. While he was wondering whether a snake had sought refuge there from the cold, he felt the intruder withdrawn, or rather was conscious that he had jerked his head away from it. The next moment the cold thin line, of he knew not what, wandered round and tickled his nose. Again he moved his head away. Now fully awake, he concluded that a strand of some creeping plant was dangling from the tree, and hoped forlornly that his discomfort, already not far short of actual torture, was not to be increased in any such irritating manner. He could not bend low enough to scratch his nose. The detestable thing seemed to follow him. He might move his head to left or to right, jerk it back or bend it forward, but he could not avoid the persistent tickler, which he had now recognized by the wan light of the moon, in her fourth quarter and sailing high, as the leafless tendril of a creeper.
He was tempted to call out to the watchers, and ask them to relieve him of this torment. But at the same moment he noticed that the eight negroes about the smouldering fire had dropped their heads on their knees, and that the creeper was swinging to and fro with a regular pendulum movement that was hardly natural, and was certainly not due to the wind, which blew fitfully in sudden gusts. It flashed upon him that somebody, perhaps the hakim, was up the tree, signalling to him. Bending his head back as far as he could, he peered up into the branches. At the same instant, the dangling switch ascended before his eyes; he gazed more intently, and by the faint glow of the fire from below, rather than by the filtering rays from the moon, he distinguished a crouching form at the fork of bough and trunk. It might have been an animal, but while Tom was still gazing up in a kind of dull amazement the form moved, a human arm was stretched downward, and within the grasp of a human hand a long blade caught a glint of red light from the watchers' fire. Tom longed to snatch at it. There it was, three feet above his head! He tore desperately at his fastenings, but the cords only cut into his flesh. "Come down and cut me free!" he whispered; but just then one of the Manyema turned his head, the knife was instantly withdrawn, the figure crawled back upon the branch, and disappeared from view.
Tom wondered. Surely the hakim, if it was the hakim, was not going to desert him. He waited and fretted; minute after minute passed; there was no sound, no sign. His heart sank; somnolence was again creeping over his senses when, nearly an hour after he had been first awaked, he heard a faint rustle in the tree above him. He looked up; there again was the form, its features indistinguishable in the foliage. As he gazed he saw a rod let down; the long knife was swathed about the end. It came lower; it reached the level of his hands, and stopped. He looked at it with wonder; then from the tree came a whisper:
"Cut; quick!"
He almost laughed at the absurdity of the suggestion. His hands were tied; his arms were bent in front of his chest, elbows and palms together, and strong cords were wound tightly about the wrists and forearms. But there was the sharp blade turned towards him, within half an inch of the ropes, held stiffly as though some malicious elf were bent on tantalizing him. Again came the eager whisper:
"Cut, cut; up and down, up and down!"
The knife moved closer, it touched the rope about his wrists; he felt its pressure. Was the thing possible? He tried to pull his cramped arms apart, and found that, firmly as they were bound, he could move them up and down for about an inch. He made a downward movement, the ropes scraping against the blade; up again, then down, again, again, with increasing rapidity as his excitement grew. One of the guards heaved a great sigh; Tom instantly stopped rubbing, and when the negro turned sleepily to look at the prisoner, he saw him tied to the tree, his head bent on his chest, his eyes closed. The man stretched out his arms, shifted his position, and gave himself again to slumber. Then the knife moved again, the rubbing was resumed; one strand gave way, then another, the tension was slackened, and with one final wrench Tom found his aching hands free!
He pressed them under his armpits to warm them and remove something of the pain; but the figure above was impatient, insistent. He lowered the knife still farther, and pressed it against the rope around Tom's waist. Tom took it. A few moments' sawing severed that rope also; then he stooped to his feet, and with three sharp strokes upon the cords about his ankles his last bonds were snapped, and he stood once more a free man. The negroes still slept, and the fire had died down upon its embers.
What was he now to do? Who was his obliging friend? He had little time to wonder; the rod was withdrawn into the tree; a few moments later it came down--the knife was gone.
"Climb up, sah!" came the eager whisper.
Tom grasped the rod, set his feet upon the knobby bole, and with exertions which strained the muscles of arms and legs to the verge of cramp he heaved himself into the leafy bough. The figure there clutched him as he was on the point of falling. "Sah! sah!" it said with a sob of joy. Tom gripped Mbutu's hand, and sat for a minute breathless, peering down towards the circle of sleeping negroes. The wind blew with increasing force, rustling the leaves, and the branch swayed heavily, grazing the hut's thatched roof.
"No time fink, sah," said Mbutu. "Must run away!"
But now that he was free Tom had recovered his wits, and saw that if he was to get clear away he must exercise all his cunning. There was the hut in which the chief, his enemy, lay; there were the guards, sleeping, it was true, but likely to wake at any moment. Around was the village, filled with Arabs, Manyema, and slaves; an alarm would set hundreds of men on the alert, and there was but a slender chance of escaping from so many. Beyond the village, three hundred yards away, was the thin outer belt of the forest; could he but gain that, Tom thought, he might hide and elude pursuit. There was danger from wild beasts, no doubt; but a wild beast was less dangerous than the vengeful Portuguese. It must be a dash for life and liberty, he saw. How was he to escape immediate danger of detection?
His quick eye noticed that Mbutu wore the burnous and turban of an Arab. With a leaping heart he saw in a flash of thought his way made plain. It involved manifold risks. "Never venture never win," he said to himself, and proceeded to put his plan into operation. Tying the knife again to the rod, but at an angle to form a crook, he let it down, and hooked up the severed cords that lay at the foot of the tree. He swiftly knotted them to form two strong ropes. Then bidding Mbutu secure the knife and follow him, he crept cautiously along the bough towards the hut. The wind was stiffening to a gale; the horned moon was dipping behind the forest, and the hut lay in shadow. He came to the end of the branch, and crawled on to the roof, Mbutu following close. Moving only when the swaying bough rustled against the thatch, drowning all other sounds, he made his way cat-like across the roof, reached the edge, slid over, and slipped noiselessly down one of the wooden posts supporting the thatch at the distance of a foot from the wall of the hut. He was on the ground on the side farthest from the tree. For some moments he stood and listened. There was a sound of voices not far to his right, and he thought he detected a low murmur from two or three quarters. Evidently there were many still awake. Tom decided that the plan he had formed offered a better chance of escape than a mere dash for the forest. Taking off the turban with which he had been provided by the hakim, he opened it out, and folded the sheet of linen over and over until it made a long tight roll. In a few whispered words he explained his plan to Mbutu; then, signing to the boy to come after him quietly, he crept through one of the holes in the wall, and found himself inside the hut. On a rude table a small rushlight was burning, by whose glimmer he saw the chief stretched upon his back on a narrow plank, his burnous cast aside, his long form covered with a red blanket. He was fast asleep, with his mouth open, his breath coming and going with long soundless heaves. With heart beating violently in spite of himself, Tom stole behind the Arab, and then whispered to Mbutu that he was to hold the man's head when he gave the signal. Both then stooped; Tom gave a nod; Mbutu pressed the chief's head down firmly with both hands, and at the same instant Tom stuffed the rolled turban into his mouth, and knotted it beneath his neck. He wriggled and half rose upon his elbow; instantly Mbutu's arms were thrown around him, and he was pulled backward and held in a firm grip. Tom had meanwhile run to his feet, and, whipping one of the lengths of cord from his pocket, he swiftly tied the chief's ankles together. Now that it was impossible for the Arab to stand, Tom bade Mbutu assist him. There was a short struggle, the Arab striving to wriggle out of Mbutu's grasp. It was in vain; with the remaining cord Tom bound the Arab's arms together, and in five minutes after their entrance the chief lay securely gagged and bound.
Without losing a moment Tom donned the Arab's burnous and turban.
"Do you know the nearest way to the forest?" he asked Mbutu.
The Muhima nodded, and Tom told him that, relying upon his disguise, he was going to walk boldly through the camp. If they met anyone, Mbutu was to address him in his own tongue in such a way as to disarm suspicion. Tom reckoned on his own height to enable him to pass for the chief. There was a box of matches by the rushlight; he put that in his pocket, caught up a small bag of nuts that lay beside the Arab, and without bestowing another glance on the prostrate form, whose eyes were glaring at him with all the fury of impotent rage, he walked slowly out of the hut, Mbutu a yard behind.
They went quickly, stepping in the shade of the huts. Their way led past the hut in which the Portuguese was sleeping. The African native is sensitive to the slightest tremor of the ground, and one of the negroes who had accompanied De Castro, and was acting as sentry over him, crouching over a watch-fire, heard the footfall of the two fugitives, and came round the hut towards them. He dimly saw, as he supposed, the tall form of the Arab chief stalking by, accompanied by one of his men. He stepped back, and at the same moment Mbutu, with a power of mimicry that surprised his master, addressed him in a few quiet words, bidding him keep good watch over the señor, while Tom walked on with a dignified air, as though the negro were beneath his notice. When out of the man's sight they quickened their steps. They reached the outer circle of huts, evaded the watch-fires placed at intervals, crossed the fence and ditch, and, breaking into a run, plunged into the dense bush at the edge of the compound. The fugitives had barely gone two hundred yards when they heard a great outcry in the camp behind. One of the eight guards had awoke and rekindled the dying fire. Glancing at the tree, he discovered that the prisoner was gone. He roused his companions, and with mutual upbraidings they began to dispute who should venture to inform the chief of the escape. Their voices rose in altercation, and De Castro's sentry, hearing the noise, came to see what had happened. As soon as he knew that the Englishman had escaped, he ran to his master's hut, whence in a moment issued the Portuguese, swearing great oaths at being disturbed when he so much needed rest, and for the moment not understanding what his man said. A glance at the tree apprised him that his anticipated victim had escaped his clutches. Heedless of the news that the chief had but just before been seen walking through the camp, he rushed to the hut, and finding Mustapha there bound and gagged, began with frantic haste and fearful imprecations, in which he could not refrain from mingling taunts, to cut him free. Both men were beside themselves with fury. The whole camp was by this time alarmed, and Arabs and Manyema alike cowered before the wrath of their infuriated superiors. De Castro ran wildly about crying for torches, while Mustapha ordered every man in the camp to set off in search of the escaped prisoner, and despatched parties in all directions. He went himself to the hakim's hut, believing that the Arab seen walking in the prisoner's company must be Mahmoud and no other. Meeting the grave physician as he came out to enquire the reason of the uproar, the chief roundly accused him of effecting or conniving at the release of the Englishman. The hakim's face showed neither surprise nor pleasure; he was as coldly imperturbable as ever. Quietly denying that he had had any hand in the escape, he asked the Arab what he expected to gain by wild ill-directed searches in the dark; the torches and the din would only give warning to the fugitives, and help them to elude pursuit. Mustapha saw the absurdity of his proceedings, and chafed under the cynical scorn of the physician, whose calling and character enforced his unwilling respect. Turning on his heel, he ordered drums to be beaten to recall the search-parties, and enquiry to be made for the traitor in the camp; and when De Castro came up to him, foaming with passion and shouting that the whole thing had been planned to spite him, Mustapha bade him keep a still tongue in his head, or he would find himself in the Englishman's place. It wanted still more than three hours to sunrise, and giving orders that the search should be diligently resumed at dawn, the chief returned to his hut.
In the meantime the outcry had at first caused the fugitives to hasten their steps; but, fearing that the rustle and crash of their progress through the bush would arrest the pursuers' attention, they dropped behind a fallen tree. Not many minutes afterwards a party of Manyema who had outstripped the rest, keeping close together in their mutual fear, came within a few yards of Tom's hiding-place. There was one moment of suspense, then they passed on with torches burning; but soon the tap-tap of the recalling drums sounded through the wood, and they turned, passed within a few paces of where the panting fugitives lay crouched, and retraced their steps to the camp.
"All go back, sah!" whispered Mbutu gleefully. "No catch dis night. All jolly safe now, sah."
"I hope so," said Tom. "It was a narrow shave, Mbutu. We'll wait till all is quiet, and consider what we had better do."
"Must go on, sah; black men gone; rest by and by; time fink by and by."
They rose and pursued their way into the forest, picking their steps as best they could in the increasing darkness, among trees, profuse grass, and creeping plants that threw their sprays in intricate mazes across their path. When they had gone about a mile from the camp the forest became so thick that it was impossible to proceed farther that night. Mbutu suggested that they should climb a tree as the best protection from prowling beasts, and wait until morning. To this Tom agreed, and finding a trunk easy to climb, they got up into its lower branches, and made themselves as comfortable as possible. Their ascent caused a commotion among the feathered denizens of their shelter, and Mbutu declared he heard the gibber of a monkey angry at the disturbance of his ancestral home; but they rested without molestation till the dawn sent feeble glimmers through the foliage, and during that time Mbutu told his story.
His master's disappearance, he said, had caused the utmost consternation and distress to the whole force. After some hours of fruitless search next morning, the major had sorrowfully decided that he must complete the object of his expedition, leaving all further efforts to find Tom until his work was done. Promising, then, a rich reward to any native who should give him information as to the young man's fate, he had continued his march, and arriving at the native chief's village, after a stubborn fight had burnt it to the ground. Most of the inhabitants fled, among them the chief. The major then returned rapidly over his tracks, and spent several days in searching far and wide through the country. Mbutu, meanwhile, had felt sure from the very first that his master was not dead, and had accompanied the expedition in the hope that ere long some trace of him would be found. Then, giving up hope of this, and learning that the major had decided to return to Kisumu, he had resolved to go on the search alone. Slipping away from the column soon after it passed the scene of the ambush, he had cut into the woods, and coming upon the dead bodies of Arabs, he had, as a measure of precaution, appropriated the burnous and turban of one of them. Then he sought for the trail of the retreating Arabs, believing that his master was among them. Fortunately they had marched in almost a straight line, so that he tracked them easily until he came to the river where they had sighted the Belgians, and there he was for a time at fault. But he encountered a native, who informed him of the sharp fight at the swamp, and put him on the right track again. Two days before he arrived at the camp he had descried the caravan, and from that moment he dogged it patiently and warily, at one point of the route creeping up so close that he was able to see, from the shelter of a bushy tree, the figure of his master among the Manyema guard. Then he followed up more cautiously than ever, in the hope of discovering some means of effecting the prisoner's release. No opportunity had offered, and his heart sank when he saw the Portuguese join the caravan, still more when, as he peered from a safe hiding-place among the trees, he saw the Arab chief accompany De Castro to the hut where Tom lay. The tying-up had made him desperate. He had thought at first of creeping up and cutting his master free, but every time he took a step forward towards the tree one of the guard moved, or some noise had startled him, as a mouse peeping out from its hole is startled by the faintest sound of movement. Then he had the happy thought to climb the tree, and endeavour to cut his master's bonds from above. The discovery that he could not reach was at first agony, but he was strung up to a pitch of desperation that set all his wits on the alert. He had crept back into the forest and cut the rod to which he had tied the knife; and now, with touching earnestness, he assured his master that he would never leave him until he was once more safe among his own people.
"Poor old Uncle," said Tom, when Mbutu had ended his story; "how I wish I could let him know I am alive and well and free! And you, Mbutu, how am I to thank you for your faithful service? I can tell you this: that when I do see my friends again, you shall not be forgotten, my boy. But where are we? What are we to do? Do you know anything about this part of the country?"
"Yes, sah; know lot, sah. Forest ober dar, ober dar, ober dar."
He pointed successively in three directions--north, south, and west.
"Then we must go to the east, eh?--the other way, you know."
"No, sah, nebber do; all Arab dat way."
And then he went on to explain that the open country through which the Arab caravan had lately been travelling was the last clear stretch by which their stronghold could be reached. It was wedge-shaped, narrowing as it became engulfed in the forest. The few natives whose hamlets were dotted about it were all in the Arabs' pay, and were treated with special and unusual consideration, in order that they might be disposed to give early tidings of an enemy's approach. Mbutu assured his master that the Arab chief would at once acquaint the natives all through that district with his prisoner's escape and offer a reward for his capture, expecting him to make his way eastward, where every path and cross-road would be narrowly watched.
"In that case we had better strike southward into the forest," said Tom. "A pleasant prospect!" he mused. "I have some recollection of reading in one of Stanley's books about this forest: hundreds of miles long, and hundreds broad; one could drop Great Britain and Ireland into it, to say nothing of the kingdom of Man. But I suppose," he said, turning again to Mbutu, "after a time we could safely make a turn to the south-east and reach the River Rutchuru again? What about your own country, Mbutu? Couldn't we make for that?"
"'Fraid no, sah; my country days and days ober dar." He pointed to the south-west, then looked puzzled, and finally confessed that in the dark he was not quite sure of the direction. "My people all gone dead, sah; live man all stole, huts burnt in big fire. No; Mbutu no fader, no mudder, no pickin: no nuffin--only sah."
"Poor fellow! Well, I see nothing for it but to go into the forest as soon as it is light. We've nothing to keep us warm at night; no food except these nuts I brought. I have no watch and no compass: you've nothing but a knife; we're both desperately poor, Mbutu, and we'll have to live on our wits, I'm afraid.--Hark! what's that?"
The dawn came up like thunder, indeed. Through the wood resounded the thud-thud of many drums of various tones, some rattling a rapid rat-tat, others booming with deep, hollow, reverberating notes. Mbutu turned his ear towards the sound, listening with peculiar intentness for several minutes. Then he shook his head.
"Not know dat!" he said. He explained that many tribes had their own individual codes of drum-signals, which could only be recognized by their own friends. By means of these information was often telegraphed for miles in a very few minutes, the note of the drum reaching far, and being taken up and repeated from point to point. Though he had never heard these particular notes before, he surmised that the Arab chief was already signalling the escape of his prisoner. It was clearly time to be off. Slipping down from the tree, the two fugitives struck into the forest in a south-westerly direction, and were relieved to hear the drum-taps becoming ever fainter and fainter as they proceeded. When the sounds had died away altogether, they sat down on a fallen tree and made a frugal breakfast of nuts, sipping up the gigantic beads of dew which covered the spreading leaves of plants near the ground. Then they arose and went on their way.
By this time they were well on the outskirts of the great Congo Forest, which stretches for hundreds of miles westward of Lake Albert Edward and the rivers flowing into it. Tom began to be oppressed by a sort of nightmare feeling, which damped his spirits and made him drop his voice to a whisper when he spoke to Mbutu. The silence was awful. Trees large and small, packed so close together that there seemed at a distance barely room to squeeze between them, rose up, some straight of stem, some twisted and warped, others snapped off high above the ground, their foliage interlacing and shutting off all view of sky and sun, the space beneath as dim as the aisles of some vast cathedral. From tree to tree ran huge festoons of creeper and vine, weaving intricate patterns with each other, clinging in great coils about the trunks. At every fork and on every branch huge lichens were embossed, with broad spear-leaved plants, and clusters of orchid and liana. The sodden forest floor was covered with bush and amoma, save where a group of fallen trees, split or scorched by the lightning, had made a gap and let in the sunlight, and there innumerable baby trees had sprung up, jostling each other in their eagerness to catch the stream of light and heat.
At one point Tom sat down to rest on a prostrate moss-covered trunk. It crumbled into rottenness under his weight, and, looking, he saw that it had been mined by countless termites. Red ants scurried after one another in the wrinkles of the bark, and a huge blue scorpion darted out of a hole, causing Tom to start back with loathing. Near at hand was a shallow pool, green with duckweed, its surface covered with leaves of lotus and lilies, and a green, greasy scum of microscopic plants. Above this was a crooked tree, whose trunk seemed to have broken out in great ulcerous sores, from which swollen globules of gum exuded, dropping with heavy pong into the pool. Not a sound broke the stillness; the silver trill of the mavis, the strident caw of rooks, the brisk chirp of grasshoppers, all the myriad sounds of an English wood, were absent; and Tom, gazing into the confused mass of green, his feet chilled on the spongy humus, felt that he was surrounded in very truth by death in life.
Marching on again along a narrow path which seemed a mere tunnel in the forest, Mbutu had often to use his knife to cut away obstructive growths--great sprays of thorn that grabbed at their clothes, caught them under the chin, and seemed bent on cutting their throats. Presently they came to an abandoned clearing, where the vegetation now grew more luxuriantly than ever; the charred poles of native huts covered with climbing plants of vivid green, mingled with white and purple flowers, forming bowers fit for Titania the fairy queen. Just beyond was a stream, dashing over rocks between banks covered with vegetation, some of the larger trees bending over the current at the height of fifty feet, thus forming a huge shed beneath which hundreds of boats might have been sheltered. Here Tom got Mbutu to cut him a stout cudgel of hard wood from one of the stooping monsters, thinking it might prove useful as they progressed. The pedestrians drank their fill of the delicious water, crossed on the rocks, and forced their way up the opposite bank into the forest again. Half a mile farther on they came to a trickling stream, and beyond it, in a hollow, under a dense canopy of foliage so thick that, but for twinkling points of blue here and there, the sky was invisible, they lighted upon tiny, cage-like habitations no more than three feet high, made of sticks and leaves, and erected in a narrow clearing between clumps of gigantic trees. Mbutu stopped short and uttered a low cry of alarm, looking round with evident apprehension.
"What is it?" asked Tom in surprise, for the boy had hitherto shown himself absolutely fearless.
"Bambute, sah!" he whispered; "little tiny people, berrah tiny small. Dey shoot poison, sah: one scratch, man dead."
And Mbutu pulled his master away, and did not quit his hold until he had led him half a mile farther into the forest. He then explained that here and there, in such small clearings as they had just traversed, there dwelt little communities of strange dwarf-like people, whose naked bodies were covered with a thin down, and who lived a sort of elfin life, stealing about from glade to glade, hardly ever visible, as difficult to discover as mice in a corn-field. They were skilled in woodcraft and the chase, agile and fleet of foot, and so well versed in poisons that with their toy-like bows and arrows they could kill fowl, and men, and even elephants, with a mere scratch. They could shoot three arrows so rapidly that the last sprang from the bow before the first had reached its mark. They fed on grubs and beetles, honey, mushrooms, and roots, besides coneys and hares and other spoils of the chase, and had a sweet tooth for the potatoes and bananas cultivated by their taller neighbours. Mbutu said that he was not afraid of ordinary negroes or Arabs, they could easily be avoided; but if he and his master stumbled into a nest of dwarfs, he feared they would not escape with their lives.
At noon Tom sat down upon a recently fallen trunk to rest. Mbutu went off by himself to find food, and luckily came upon a deserted clearing where bananas were still growing. He returned with a luscious bunch, and after eating and resting a while, the travellers again resumed their march. The heat of the afternoon had brought out myriad insects that buzzed about their heads, darting in every now and then to sting. Bees, wasps, and ticks innumerable sported hither and thither across their path; sometimes a flock of pigeons would clatter out of a tree, and high over their heads shrilled the mocking notes of parrots.
As the afternoon wore on, the heat became oppressive, suffocating. An ominous heaviness brooded over everything; the dimness deepened into darkness, and a feeling as of an approaching calamity crept over Tom. Suddenly he heard a faint rumble like artillery far away; through a narrow opening in the forest he saw a spear of white flame dart across from tree to tree; then the silent trees rustled, swayed, and smote their tops one against another like masts straining under heavy canvas in a hurricane. Then roared the thunder; forked lightning flashed pale-green across the tree-tops, and the massive trees bent and reeled like rushes, recovering themselves from the first blow, staggering forward, jerked back by the climbing plants around them, clashing, roaring, screaming like fierce savage warriors in mortal fight. Tom stood still, amazed at the wild warfare, deafened by the reverberating thunder-claps, blinded by the scathing flames of lightning, yet exhilarated as he watched the fray. Then out of the black sky poured a deluge of rain, sheet upon sheet, hissing like water poured on hot iron, every drop as large as a crown-piece, penetrating the cotton garments of the travellers, drenching them in a moment to the skin. For three minutes the torrents fell; then, as suddenly as it had begun, the storm ceased, its fury was extinguished, the sky cleared, the trees stood still, and there was nothing to mark the terrific elemental strife but the streaming foliage, the soaked ground, and two giant stems which, cleft by the lightning, had crashed down and overwhelmed many smaller trees beneath them.
"Whew! that was a storm indeed!" said Tom. "What are we to do now? We can't go on in this sopping state."
"I know, sah; climb tree, dry clothes in sun."
"A novel drying-room!" said Tom with a smile. "Well, let's try it."
The fallen trees lay across others in such a way that they formed a sort of inclined path leading from the ground up into the forks of trees still standing. Tom and the Muhima nimbly climbed up until they were almost at the top of a giant of the woods, and there they sat amid the foliage and easily dried their dripping garments in the fierce sunlight. When that was done they felt hungry, and after they had reached the ground, Mbutu found some small berries which he assured his master were perfectly good to eat. Then they went on again. It was impossible to tell how far they had come. Tom had left the direction to Mbutu, who seemed to find the way by instinct. Judging by the height of the sun that it was now about four o'clock, Tom wondered how they were to pass the approaching night. They had seen no human beings, and few living creatures at all save insects and snakes; Mbutu, indeed, assured his master that beasts of prey were not much to be dreaded in such dense forest, though he would not be surprised if an elephant should come rushing out upon them.
They were sitting at the edge of a clearing, with their backs against a huge tree, to rest for a few minutes before starting for the last hour's walk, when Mbutu suddenly clutched Tom by the sleeve. At the same moment Tom heard a curious rhythmic chant, beginning on a low note, skipping three or four tones, and then descending to a chromatic note midway between. Then out of the forest to their left came a strange procession, a line of some thirty little naked figures, well-formed, cheerful-looking, diminutive men less than four feet high, trotting along in single file, their passage absolutely soundless save for the crooning chant in time with their footsteps. "Ka-lu-ké-ke, ka-lu-ké-ke," they sang, their voices low and pleasant and melodious, their motions lithe and graceful. They carried bows and arrows, and one, who appeared to be their chief, had a light spear in addition. Without turning their heads they rapidly crossed the glade, and disappeared like gnomes in the forest on the other side.
Mbutu heaved a sigh of relief.
"Bambute!" he said. "No see us dis time; plenty poison dem arrows."
"So those are your pigmies, eh? Upon my word, Mbutu, they looked quite an interesting lot of little fellows. I liked that song of theirs much better than the 'man all alone', you know. We have a saying in my country, 'little and good'; many a little man has been a hero. There's Bobs, you know; ever heard of Bobs? Well, I'll tell you all about him some day. I declare I'm sleepy; there's no hut for us to-night; I think we had better climb that big tree there and sleep on the lowest fork, eh?"
"All right, sah! No dago man now, sah," he added.
"That's true; but we aren't out of the wood yet! We have done well to-day, I think; now for our leafy bed."
Mbutu was asleep as soon his head touched the bough on which he had perched himself. But Tom was awake for hours, pondering on many things. The night-wind swayed the branches all around him, waking a chorus of creaking stems, swinging boughs, rustling leaves. From below came the ceaseless scraping chirp of crickets, the shrill piping call of cicadas, the tuneless croak of frogs. In the distance he heard the harsh, rasping cry of the lemur, and a strange sound like the noise of a stick rattled against iron railings; this, Mbutu explained afterwards, was a soko or chimpanzee amusing himself with striking upon a tree. Once Tom was startled by a sudden crackle, followed by a rending and rushing and a heavy thump that shook the fork on which he lay. In the morning he found that a dead tree had fallen, crashing through the forest and overwhelming many a living tree with its weight. All these sounds, breaking in upon the sad rustle of the foliage, filled Tom's soul with a sense of forlornness. By and by the sounds were unheeded; his mind was occupied with thronging memories and thoughts. He was reminded of the sleepless nights he had sometimes spent in his father's parsonage, hearkening to the rooks in the trees just opposite his window. He thought of his boyish ambitions; of the pride and eagerness with which he had listened to his uncle Jack's stories when he came on rare visits to the parsonage; of the blow to all his hopes when his father died. Then he lived again in thought through the long months at Glasgow; heard the din of the engine-shop, and felt once more the dissatisfied longing of that dreary time. That appeared now to be far back in a dim remote past. It was only a few weeks since he had left England, and yet how much had happened in the interval! The events of years seemed to have been compressed into days. His thirst for adventure was more than satisfied; yet here he was, in the heart of an African forest, with who could tell what new experiences in store for him?
And as his mind rolled question after question round an empty ring, eerie shapes seemed to creep out of the darkness, mocking and jibing, whispering words of evil augury, prophesying comfortless days of weariness and pain, of aimless wandering in the immeasurable forest, where he would finally drop and die, a prey to jackal or vulture. He strained his eyes, as though to see if these were in very truth bodily forms surrounding him; then upon his mental sight another scene rose--reminiscences of his brief captivity with the Arabs; stark forms lying in chains upon the swampy path; men and women and children sobbing out their lives in slavery; the slaver's cruel whip descending on the backs of young boys and maidens, who writhed and shrieked and fell bleeding and exhausted, many to rise no more. His own dark fancies fled the horrors of the slave-trade came home to him. He forgot his own puny troubles, and even his present extremity. Once more he registered the vow that, if he were spared, he would strike a blow, however feeble, against this hideous traffic in humanity. Suddenly there fell upon his inward ear the cry of the Arabs in the fight by the bridge: "Allah-il-Allah! God is God!" A solemn quiet brooded upon his mind; the wind itself lulled and the rustle of the leaves around him ceased. Looking up through the canopy of green, he saw one star faintly twinkling. His depression passed away; he found himself murmuring the lines of a poem that had been a favourite with his father:
"God's in His heaven,
All's right with the world".
Thoughts of all the good things of life crowded through his mind; he felt contented and at rest; and with recollections his uncle, Dr. O'Brien, Mr. Barkworth, and the padre making a dancing medley in his brain with hippos and crocodiles, Arabs and pigmies, he at last fell into a dreamless sleep.