"You, Chon Shalloner!" he shouted. "You make de natives to rebel, and more, you make dem to do murder. Dat man, who I sent to the fort, he lie now outside, a dead man. Some vun dat come viz you he stab him in de back. You English hombog, I teach you. Dey shall know of dis in Boma."
Jack did not condescend to answer him, and Elbel flung out of the tent. If his messenger was dead, he had paid the penalty of his treachery. Jack could only pity the poor wretch for meeting with such an end in such a service. No doubt it was Samba's doing. Jack remembered now the groan and the fall outside. Had Samba escaped? He was anxious on the boy's behalf, but it was impossible to ascertain what had happened to him. From Elbel's manner and words he inferred that Samba was safe. And as for Elbel's indignation at the deed Jack was not impressed by it. When he thought of the murders and maimings this man was answerable for, he could find no blame for the faithful boy who had punished as his instincts taught him, the spy who had betrayed his master.
Jack was left alone with his uncle. He looked vainly round the tent for a restorative—a drug, a flask of brandy, even a cup of water. There was nothing. He bent over the still form, and touching the brow, gently, felt it burning with the heat of fever. He knew that his uncle was accustomed to keep a small phial of quinine pills in his waistcoat pocket, and searching for that he found it and persuaded the sick man to swallow a little of the medicine. Then he sat on the foot of the bed, not knowing what to do.
How fully his forebodings had been justified! It had been a mistake to leave the fort. And yet he could not rue it, for otherwise he might never have seen his uncle again. He looked at the face with the half-closed eyes; how thin it was! how pale! The ruddy hue, the rounded shape of health, were gone. Where was that bright twinkling eye that looked so shrewdly out from beneath a shaggy brow? What sufferings he must have undergone! At that moment Jack looked over the past months to the day when he so light-heartedly bade his uncle good-bye, and so cheerfully accepted the charge laid upon him. How he wished they had never been parted!
And then another thought drove out his regret. But for this parting Ilombekabasi would never have been, and several hundreds of poor black people would almost certainly have been tortured, mutilated, done to death, in the name of law. Could he have done otherwise than he had done? Had Providence, moving in mysterious ways, arranged all this—that one should suffer for the sake of many? He did not know; he could not think; his mind seemed to be wrapt in a cloud of mist, through which he saw nothing but the present fact—that his uncle lay before him, sick—perhaps unto death.
By and by a negro entered, bearing food and palm wine. Mr. Martindale could not eat, but the wine revived him.
"Jack, old boy!"
Jack knelt by the bedside, clasping his uncle's hand.
"Jack, I must tell you what happened."
"Don't, Uncle; you will distress yourself."