“Then you will want weapons. Pick up the knives and tuck them in your waist cloths. Now lead the way. Better still. We will cut a vine and hold on to it. Then there will be no straggling.”
A little later the three set out, the leader setting the direction along the path without a moment’s hesitation.
“It will lead us to the main war road,” he explained, “and after that all will be easy. There is but one way to the Pra, for the forest is too thick for many paths to be cut. Follow, white chief, and I will take you to the river.”
All that night the trio kept on through the forest, their way made easy by the path cut and kept free of undergrowth with constant labour. Now and again they would call a halt, for the two captives whom Dick had rescued were still very feeble, and their feet and ankles were greatly swollen. But it is wonderful what an amount of ill-treatment a native can put up with at times, and how marvellously they recover from the most serious of wounds. True, they have as a rule little stamina, and sickness cuts them down by the hundred. But perhaps because of the life they lead these natives of Africa often show less sensitiveness to pain than do Europeans, and therefore can put up with injuries which with the majority of white men would prove quickly fatal. And so, in spite of the hours that these men had been dangling, they were able to march, for the wounds in the cheeks were of small consequence. When day dawned many miles intervened between themselves and Kumasi.
“We will seek for a hiding place and rest,” said Dick, as the light beneath the trees grew stronger. “As the afternoon comes we can push on again. Let us gather some fruit and have a meal.”
Late on the following afternoon three weary men, one a white youth dressed in tattered clothing which showed signs of much travelling, tottered across the bridge which the engineers had erected across the Prahsu, and made for the hutted camp of the British. On all sides men were bustling to and fro. Natives were carrying bales and boxes on their heads, sailors and soldiers were lolling about the open camp fires, smoking their pipes and yarning, while at the far side of the bridge was a kilted sentry, striding to and fro. He stared at the new-comers, brought his rifle from the slope, and dropped the bayonet level with Dick’s chest.
“Not so fast, me lad,” he said gaily. “Where from? Whom do you want to see? ’Alt, or there’s going to be trouble.”
That brought them up suddenly and set Dick laughing.
“A fine welcome after two months’ absence,” he said. “Sentry, I want to see the Chief of the Staff, and after that Mr Emmett. As for where I’ve come from, Kumasi is the answer. Now, how long have you been here?”
“My business, young feller,” was the reply, when the sentry had recovered from his astonishment at being answered in his own tongue, for Dick might have been of any nationality. “Yer want the chief, do yer? ’Ere, Corporal McVittie, take these fellers to the sergeant of the guard.”