CHAPTER XXV
A Break for Liberty
With his own hands Jack dug a grave near the brink of the river, and there he laid his uncle to rest. The Askari looked on stolidly as he gathered stones from below the bank and heaped them to form a low rude cairn. Then he went back with them to their camping-place. He could not touch the food they offered him, and when they told him the time was come to march he got up silently and moved away mechanically with the rest.
He trudged on among his captors, a prey to utter dejection, conscious of nothing but his irreparable loss. He saw nothing, heard nothing, of what was going on around him, walking automatically in a kind of stupor. His uncle was dead!—for the moment the world had for him no other fact. By degrees, as his first dazed feeling passed away, he recalled little incidents in his past life that till then had lain dormant in his memory. He remembered the first time he had consciously seen his uncle, when he was a child of four, and he was dragged in all grubby from the garden, face and hands stained with strawberry juice, to see a big man with a red face, who laughed at him, and showed him a rough yellow lump that he wore on his watch-chain. He remembered the letter when his father died; and that other letter when his mother died; and the first visit to school, when, shown into the headmaster's study, the headmaster being absent, Mr. Martindale had made friends of the dog, and was found by the great man in the act of balancing a pen on the animal's nose. He remembered too the delightful holidays, climbing in Switzerland, roaming in Normandy, gondoliering in Venice. Odd things came to his recollection, and there was not one of them but recalled some trait of character, reminded him of some past happiness.
Then as he walked his grief took on a new complexion—a longing for vengeance on the miscreant whom he regarded as directly responsible for his uncle's death—morally as culpable as if he had with his own hands committed the murder. Was this villain to remain unpunished? The thought of Elbel induced a new change of feeling. What of the natives who for so many months had looked to him for guidance and leadership? What was Barney doing? Had Samba escaped the clutches of his enemy and got back to the fort? Was the fort, indeed, still there? He remembered his promise to his uncle. At the most solemn moment of his life, under the very shadow of death, he had vowed to do all in his power to help the negroes of the Congo—and here he was, himself a prisoner among soldiers of this iniquitous government, on his way to an unknown fate.
Thus recalled to actuality, he roused himself and began to think. He had no longer his uncle to consider; that good man was beyond reach of chicanery and spite. Why should he go to Boma? Nothing good awaited him there. He would be thrown into prison on arrival—supposing he ever arrived; he would be tried, sentenced no doubt: at Boma in such cases there were none of the law's delays; he might never be heard of again. What chance was there of fulfilling his uncle's wishes there? Was not his place at the fort, at Ilombekabasi, with Barney and Imbono and Mboyo, the people for and with whom he had already toiled and fought? There at the fort was tangible good to be done; he felt an overpowering impulse to return to his friends. Elbel had been worsted; if the resistance could be still further prolonged surely the Belgian would withdraw, though it were only to gather strength for a crushing blow; and the interval might be seized to migrate with the whole community into the forest or across the frontier.
But there was the rub. Between him and the fort there was a band of well-armed Askari and several days' journey by river and forest. Even if he escaped the former, what chance was there of success? A white man was very helpless in these African wilds—easily seen and followed, not used to fend for himself in obtaining the necessaries of life. Even Samba, forest-bred, had barely survived the perils of a solitary journey: how could a white man expect to fare so well?
Yet, so strong was Jack's longing, he resolved that, be the difficulties and dangers what they might, he would seize the barest chance of escape that offered itself. Anything would be better than to be carried on to Boma, with the terrible uncertainty, not merely regarding his own ultimate fate at the hands of an unscrupulous officialdom and a tainted judicature, but still more as to the fate of his friends at Ilombekabasi.
From that moment his whole mental attitude changed. He did not forget his grief; that pitiful scene by the river's brink could never be effaced from his mind and heart; but he resolutely set his wits to work to find an avenue of escape, and the mere effort brought relief to his sorrow. No longer was he inattentive to his surroundings. Without allowing his guards to suspect him, he was keenly on the alert, watching everything.