CHAPTER XXII
ON TO THE COAST
Nature, untrammeled by human inventions, takes her own way swiftly in the fever land, and the sun had hardly cleared the cottonwoods when Dane found himself mechanically following a tattered hammock borne high on the heads of dusky men. Though there was somber cloud above, dazzling brightness beat into their set faces, and flashed on glistening blade and long gun-barrel borne by those who marched behind. There was no word spoken. Only the patter of naked feet and the jingle of steel broke through the impressive hush, for that morning every leaf hung limp and still. It was with all solemnity that Carsluith Maxwell set out on his last journey.
Dane halted by the eastern gate of the stockade, watching the black men swing past him file by file; they were as strange a company as ever followed a British gentleman to his grave—Moslem bandit, woolly haired bush thief, stalwart, heathen Kroo, brown desperadoes who had fought the French under the banner of the great Sultan, and two-legged beasts of burden from the steaming swamps. Still, unstable and unreasoning, with the light-heartedness of a child and the cruelty of a devil, as many were, it gave the watcher a mournful pleasure to see that one and all had come to pay respect to their dead leader; and he showed his wonder when Amadu cried aloud, and the glinting flintlocks swung together, with muzzles to the rear. Dane guessed that the dusky adventurer had not learned to reverse arms in the service of any hinterland Emir.
He followed, seeing as one walking in a dream, the sinuous line of sable limbs and white and blue draperies wind on through deepening shadow. When Amadu cried again, the moving figures fell apart on either hand, and Dane was left with their leader and the bearers beside a shallow trench, on which one shaft of sunlight fell. He cast his ragged hat down on the sand, and in a voice which seemed to belong to some other person recited such fragmentary portions of the last office as he could remember. No one moved among all the silent company, but there was an inarticulate murmur when at last the solemn words broke off.
Dane remembered nothing further beyond the dull thud of shovels; his eyesight seemed to fail him, until presently he found himself moving dejectedly back to camp behind the straggling company. He must have slept when he reached his tent, for the sun was low when Monday and Amadu stood outside the entrance, calling him. When he rose wearily, Amadu pointed to the groups of men waiting without.
"Them boy lib for savvy what you do now, sah," he said in the coast palaver.
"I can't tell them just yet," Dane answered. "What do they wish themselves?"
It was a few moments before his meaning dawned upon Amadu, for the white man felt too dazed to frame his thoughts in other than everyday English.
"Them carrier bushmen lib for beach and go back to his own country one time," said Amadu. "Say this country belong to the Ju-ju."