There was no doubt in his mind that the end had come
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Though the struggle thus far was short and sharp, the unhappy people within the walls were only too conscious of its developments. To their strained senses it seemed that at any moment the door must be burst open and they swept into the clutches of merciless savages. They could not tell who was living or dead. The incessant shooting and the howls and agonized cries of the negroes drowned all other sounds. Evelyn thought she heard Warden addressing some order to the Hausas, but she could not be sure. Hume, in whom the man was rapidly supplanting the missioner, wished to take a personal share in the defense, but his wife clung to him in an agony of terror, and implored him not to leave her. While trying to soothe the distracted woman he reflected that he would probably prove more of a hindrance than otherwise in the fighting line. If he used a gun at all it must be as a cudgel, for he did not even understand the mechanism of the breech–block.
Bambuk, though a Mohammedan and a Foulah, was no longer a fighting man. He had waxed fat and prosperous, and he waited now for death with the fatalism he had displayed ever since he knew for certain that the men of Oku were bent on looting Kadana.
Evelyn, leaning against the door, with every faculty on the alert for the slightest indication of Warden’s welfare, nevertheless let her mind stray in the most bewildering manner. She was devoid of fear. If given her choice, she would be out there in the thick of the struggle, using her puny strength on behalf of the man she loved. Instead, she was condemned to inaction. The intolerable darkness became oppressive, and her memory flew back through time and space to the sunlit day when she sat with Warden and Peter Evans in the little dinghy of the Nancy, and saw the grim face of the Oku chief dancing about on the blue waters of the Solent.
What a trivial incident it was in some respects—yet what a mighty upheaval it portended! No matter in what direction her whirling thoughts took her, the carved calabash seemed to be mixed up with events in a way that was hardly credible. It brought her and Warden together. That chance meeting on a summer morning gave them a bond of interest which quickly strengthened into affection and love. Then it led them into the intricacies of a political plot, sent Warden to London, caused him to encounter Mrs. Laing, with all the heartache and misery that resulted therefrom, and cast him ashore at Rabat to become a slave and a desert wanderer. She herself had been equally its sport. Her knowledge of the men of Oku alone induced Figuero and Baumgartner to conspire against her. If she had never seen the gourd it was more than probable that she would never have gazed on the Benuë River. And how persistently that weird creation of Domenico Garcia’s skill had clung to either Warden or herself. It was not to be shaken off. Even now, when they were on the very threshold of death, it was lying there in her room, shrouded in a canvas case. She could almost see its evil scowl everlastingly threatening mankind.
Though a fresh outburst of firing startled her highly strung nerves she felt somewhat of a thrill of supernatural awe at the fancy that the carved image of the by–gone King of Benin had forced its way back to the actual locality in which its human prototype had ruled millions of those very men who were now clamoring for the lives of herself and her companions.
It was a strange notion, and it dominated her for a moment to the exclusion of all else. Could it be possible that there were subtle forces at work of whose existence she was wholly unaware? Had these unhappy blacks some power at command which was denied to those who lorded it over them? Of late she had read a good deal concerning the supposed origin of Obi rites in West African fetish–worship. She had never seen a real ju–ju man until that afternoon, but his appearance and antics were sufficiently striking to create a vivid impression quite apart from the tragic sequel to his incantation. The queer belief that the calabash was in some degree responsible for the bloodshed going on within a few feet of where she stood so took hold of her that she found the continued darkness unbearable.