Long Odds

by Harold Bindloss

There was, he knew, a piece of the broken cooking pot the West African usually loads his flintlock gun with embedded in his leg. That, at least, was evident, but he did not know who had shot him, and, indeed, was never any wiser on that point. It was, perhaps, a negro who had supposed him to be a trader or official against whom he had some grievance, but, after all, that seemed scarcely likely, and Ormsgill fancied it was some dusky sportsman who had fired at a venture when he heard a movement, and had then gone away as fast as possible when he saw that he had hit a white man. This appeared the more probable because they were not very far from the coast, where men do not often attempt each other's life, and Ormsgill had only been struck by one piece of iron.

In any case, the faintness was leaving him by the time the startled boys came up and found him sitting in the shadow. It was evident that the wound was not very serious in itself, but he realized that a man could not expect to travel far in that climate with a piece of iron rankling in his leg. Somebody must cut it out for him, and he did not care to entrust any of his thick-headed carriers with the operation. Without being much of a physiologist he knew that there are arteries in one's leg which it is highly undesirable to sever. He also recognized that while the thing was, perhaps, possible to one with nerve enough, he could not get it out himself, which was, however, rather more than one could reasonably have expected of a man born and brought up in a state of civilization, for there are a few points on which the primitive peoples excel us. Still, the life he had led had made him hard, and when he had quieted the boys he bound up the wound, and filling his pipe with hands that were tolerably steady, lay still awhile to consider.

He could not push on towards the interior as he was, and there were, he believed, one or two doctors in the city, which was not very far away. He was aware that he was liable to be arrested there, but it seemed possible that he might enter it unobserved at night and purchase secrecy from any one who took him in. In such a case he would be the safer because it was about the last spot in which those interested in his capture would expect to come across him, and in a few more minutes he had made up his mind. Though the hammock is not so frequently used as a means of conveyance in that country where the trek-ox is generally available as it is in most other parts of Western Africa, he had provided himself with one.

"Get the hammock slung," he said. "We will go on towards the west when you are ready."

Half an hour later the bearers hove the pole to their woolly crowns, and plodded on again. They were not men of any great intelligence, and were usually content to do what they were told without asking questions, which was a custom that had its advantages. They had also an unreasoning and half-instinctive confidence in the man who led them, and in due time they plodded into sight of the town one night when the muggy land breeze was blowing. Like other West African towns, the place straggles up and back from the seaboard bluff, with wide spaces between the houses, and nobody seemed stirring when Ormsgill's boys marched into the outskirts of it. Remembering what the priest of San Thome had told him of the man whose wife he had sent the girl Anita to, he presently bade them stop outside the building which stood well apart from the rest. Some of them were roofed with corrugated iron, and some with picturesque tiles, but the top of this one was flat, which Ormsgill was pleased to see. He recognized that it was built in the older Iberian style which is not uncommon in Western Africa and ensures the inmates privacy. There are no outbuildings where this plan is adopted. The house stands four-square and self-contained, presenting an almost unbroken wall to the outer world, though there is usually an open patio in the midst of it. One of the boys rapped upon a door, and when it was opened by a negro his comrades unceremoniously marched down an arched passage under the building until they reached the enclosed patio. Ormsgill had impressed them with the fact that the most important thing was to get in.

Then lights appeared at one or two windows, and when a little, olive-faced gentleman in white linen with a broad sash about his waist came down the stairway from a veranda Ormsgill raised himself in the lowered hammock.

"You will forgive this intrusion, Señor," he said.

The other man made him a little formal salutation. "I," he said dryly, "await an explanation."

Ormsgill offered him one, and the little gentleman looked at him thoughtfully for a moment or two.

"I have heard of you—from the fathers up yonder who are friends of mine," he said. "Perhaps it is my duty to inform the Authorities that you are here, but in the meanwhile that is a point on which I am not quite certain. You can, at least, consider this house as yours until we talk the matter over. The boys may sleep in the patio to-night, but they will first carry you in."