Miss Trimblerigg’s travels have since been published in two large volumes, with photographs taken by herself of things never seen before, and of some, towards the end, which Mr. Trimblerigg would rather she had not seen. For the scientific side of her work, two rival societies awarded her their gold medal for the year—the first time these had ever been won by a woman; for the other and more adventurously experimental side, she received an address of commendation from certain philanthropical and humanitarian societies and other bodies with crank notions, whose zealous leaflets and public meetings give them an appearance of life, but whose influence in the world is negligible.
Davidina had as her companions two other whites, husband and wife, whom she chose for the curious reason that they were both deaf and dumb,—very insensitive therefore to shock, very uninterfering and very observant of the natural phenomena that lay around them. By this means she secured undisputed control of the expedition, and as much insulation for her moral experiment as was practically possible. The deaf-mutes were a great success with the natives whom she employed as carriers: they regarded them as holy mysteries, and held them in as much awe as they did Davidina herself. Another curious choice she made was to have in her following no native Christians. For this particular experiment she regarded the unspoiled pagan as the better material; and there was plain horse-sense in it, seeing that before long her following not only looked upon her as a goddess, but worshipped her as well. This great sin (though by some it might be regarded merely as an example of Relative Truth) Davidina committed for more than a year and over a space of 2,000 miles with great apparent success, and was not punished for it. It was not my affair: those who read this record will have discovered before now that I do not hold myself responsible for Davidina: she belonged, and belongs still, elsewhere; and what were her inner beliefs or her guiding authority I have never been able to discover. She never applied to me. And yet between us we shared, or divided the conscience of Mr. Trimblerigg. The phenomena of the spiritual world are strange, and many of them, to gods and mortals alike, still unexplained.
Davidina, then, went upon her travels unarmed—unarmed, that is to say, with civilized weapons of war, or even of the chase—but by no means unprovided for. Weapons of a certain kind she had, weapons of precision, very subtle and calculated in their effect. But these were aimed not at the bodies but at the minds of those denizens of the forest and swamp and high table-land whom she encountered in her march. Every member of the expedition carried a toy air-balloon: and they had mouth-organs and bird-warblers; and the two deaf-mutes carried concertinas on which they played with great effect tunes by no means in unison. Natives, chiefs and warriors, coaxed to the encounter—often with difficulty—wept and bowed down to their feet as they performed; also they blew soap-bubbles which had an even greater effect, so that word of them went far ahead and on all sides, and the route they followed became populous.
Upon Davidina’s shoulder, for mascot, sat a small pet monkey in scarlet cap and coat; and he too, when the occasion fitted, carried a toy air-balloon. And as it went by land or by water, the expedition, instead of going secretively and silently, made music and song, and bird-warbled; and waving its toy air-balloons, and blowing its soap-bubbles—with nods, and wreathed smiles, and laughter, and hand-clappings—was safe by ways that never varied but never became dull.
Again and again, in the dense forest jungle, ambushers who had hung in wait for them, fled howling at their approach—first to report the heavenly wonder to the heads of their tribe, then returning as watchers from a distance to be won by the beauty of their sound and the delicacy of their going—the decorativeness, the ritual, the blithe atmosphere of it all. And at the next settlement to which they came, the natives in holiday attire would turn out to greet them with propitiatory offerings, and songs which had no tune in them, but which meant that all was for the best in this best of all possible worlds.
Month after month, sometimes camping for weeks, sometimes marching in the track of rivers or skirting swamps, the expedition wore its way steadily on, making for the point of the compass to which it had set its face, north-north-by-west. And still word went ahead, through a thousand miles of virgin forest; and Davidina coming after, continued—however bad her theology might be—to prove the thesis she had set out to demonstrate; always triumphal in her progress, successfully collecting botanical specimens, her course unpunctuated by gunfire and unstained by blood. For when, in the languages of the native tribes they became variously known as the Music-makers, the Ball-bearers: the Breathers of the breath of life, their way was not made merely safe but prepared before them, and a choice of many roads was offered them. Runners from a hundred miles distance to right and left of their route would come entreating them to turn aside and do honour to communities waiting to welcome them.
For food they depended entirely on the skill of the native bow-men, slingers, trappers, and blowers of darts who formed their company; for Davidina had quite correctly calculated that if by this means the natives could support themselves in life, they could also support an expedition in which the whites were only as one to ten. Had these followers deserted, she and her two companions would speedily have starved. It was a risk—not greater, she maintained, than the carrying of fire-arms; and since some risk must be taken, that was the one she preferred.
In the end she had actually to face it and come through on her own; but the goal of her itinerary was then not far.
It happened one night, after a heavy march that, without knowing it, she had pitched her camp upon the confines of the Ray River Company’s sphere of operations,—at the point, therefore, where civilization might be said to begin. When she turned in for the night all appeared to be well. Outside her tent the native guards sat motionless upon their haunches looking out into the black bush; the toy air-balloons floated dreamily on their pole in the centre of the camp, and about its base all the impedimenta of the expedition stood neatly piled: there was then neither sign of danger, nor prospect of alarm, for up to that time nobody knew that they had touched civilization.
But during the dead hours, some sense—sight, or sound—of peril lurking ahead: native runners, perhaps, from a distance, or hidden dwellers in the surrounding forest, had struck the hearts of her followers a blow. In the morning the camp was empty. The cases of botanical specimens lay undisturbed, but the toy air-balloons had vanished. The pipes, the soap, the bird-warblers, the monkey, and the two concertinas remained, also a small amount of food—rice, flour, extracts of meat, and other medicaments which white men think that they require when travelling. It was panic not the loot-instinct which had cleared the camp of its carriers.