Long Odds

by Harold Bindloss

He did not think he slept, for he was conscious of the pungent smell of the wood smoke all the time, but at last he roused himself to attention suddenly, and looked about him with dazzled eyes. He could see the faint blue vapor hanging about the trunks, and hear the boys' low voices, but except for that the bush was very still. Yet he was certainly leaning on one elbow with every sense strung up, and he knew that there must be some cause for it. What had roused him he could not tell, but he had, perhaps, lived long enough in that land to acquire a little of the bushman's unreasoning recognition of an approaching peril. There was, he knew, something that menaced him not far away.

For a moment or two his heart beat faster than usual, and the perspiration trickled down his set face, and then laying a restraint upon himself he rose a trifle higher, and swept his eyes steadily round the glade. There was one spot where it seemed to him that the outer leaves of a screen of creepers moved. He did not waste a moment in watching them, but letting his arm fall under him rolled over amidst the grass which covered him, for it was evidently advisable to take precautions promptly. Just as the crackling stems closed about him there was a pale flash and a detonation, and a puff of smoke floated out from the creepers.

Ormsgill was on his feet in another moment, and running his hardest plunged into them, but when he had smashed through the tangled, thorny stems there was nobody there, and except for the clamor of the boys the bush was very still. Still, this was very much what he had expected, and looking round he saw the print of naked toes and a knee in the damp soil before his eyes rested on the brass shell of a spent cartridge. He picked it up and turned it over in his hand, recognizing it as one made for a heavy, single-shot rifle of old fashioned type, which had its significance for him. He fancied his would-be assassin had been lent the rifle by a white man who in all probability knew what he meant to do with it. Then he glanced at the cartridge again, and noticed a slight outward bending of its rim. There was a portentous little glint in his eyes as he slipped it into his pocket.

"Some day I may come across the man who owns that rifle," he said.

He stood still for another few moments, grim in face, with his jacket rent, and a little trickle of blood running from one hand which a thorn had gashed. Every nerve in him tingled with fierce anger, but he knew that the man who runs counter to established customs has usually more than misconception to face in Africa, especially if he sympathizes with the oppressed, and he was one who could wait. Then the boys came floundering through the undergrowth, one or two with heavy matchets, and one or two with long flintlock guns, but Ormsgill, who recognized that pursuit would certainly prove futile even if they were willing to undertake it, drove them back to the fire again.

"We will start when I have eaten," was all he said.

Anita brought him his meal, and stood watching him curiously while he ate, but Ormsgill said nothing, and in half an hour they went on again and spent the rest of that day and a number of others floundering amidst and hacking a way through tangled creepers in the dim shadow of the bush. It was a relief to all of them when at last the thatched roofs of San Thome Mission rose out of a little opening into which the dazzling sunlight shone. Ormsgill was received by an emaciated priest with a dead white face and the intolerant eyes of a fanatic, who supplied him and the boys with a very frugal meal and took Anita away from him. Then he read Father Tiebout's letters, and after he had done so sat with Ormsgill on the veranda.

"Father Tiebout vouches for you—and your purpose," he said, watching his companion with doubt in his eyes.

"If he had not done so I should probably not have been welcome?" said Ormsgill, smiling.

The priest made a little gesture which seemed to imply that he did not intend to discuss that point. "The girl would be safe with the people he mentions. They are good Catholics."