Chapter Thirty Two.
The Open Door.
Those who have fallen among barbarians have seldom been without the experience of their detainers desiring to hold some kind of converse with them, however hostile the burden of such might be. Wagram, however, was absolutely without this experience, for these people were not only totally unable to communicate with him by word of mouth but showed absolutely no inclination to do so.
He had tried to communicate with them by signs, but found that he might as well have been signalling to the surrounding trees. They stared at him but made no sort of response. His physical wants were mechanically attended to, and that was all. They eyed him with stony indifference, not as another human being out of whom they might or might not extract material advantage, but simply as an ox being fattened for the shambles. This, however, fortunately, he did not know.
The night following upon the horrible event he had witnessed in the forest was one of the most fearful experiences he had ever known. Closer and more miasmatic than ever the atmosphere seemed to weigh him down; and alone in the darkness of the hut, with loathsome insects scurrying around and over him, the whole scene came back in all its vivid ghastliness, and again he saw those dreadful eyes glowering at him, the quick, sudden stab out of nowhere, and the limbs of the stricken savage quivering and contorting on the stone which was spattered with his blood. He groped his way to the door and went outside. Anything would be better than this consciousness of being penned up with these awful memories, to say nothing of the long-legged horrors which rendered rest impossible. He drank in the outer air—heavy, fever-laden as it was—with infinite relief, but not for long. Clouds of stinging insects, mosquitoes and others, soon found him out, and forced him to the conclusion that the legged horrors within, being harmless, were at any rate more tolerable. But it was a wearied wreck of a man, indeed, upon which the second morning dawned.
He was about to set forth upon another round of exploration—no matter what he might discover anything was better than the fearful mental strain involved by sitting still—when he became conscious of an unusual stir among those around, as near akin to excitement as those morose, repellent savages seemed able to reach. A man was coming towards him; and now every fibre of his being thrilled with joy, with an indescribable sense of relief. It was a white man!
A white man, a European! No matter what low outcast from his colour this might be he was a white man—and already Wagram looked upon him as a brother. And yet—and yet—as the man came up Wagram could not but realise that his first estimate of him was likely to be the true one, and his hopes sank somewhat.
They sank still more—in fact, to zero—as the new-comer stood confronting him. He was a tall man, as tall as himself, but his hard, bearded face was repellent in the extreme, and the fierce glare of his rolling eyes did not inspire confidence.
“Well, pard, are they making you comfortable here?” he began shortly.