“What is the matter?”
“They say Ho be far. Four shillings no be enough money to tote hammock to Ho.”
I was furious. They had made the agreement. I had given exactly what they asked, but where I had made the mistake was in doing more. Now what was to be done? I did not hesitate for a moment. I marched straight back to the cocoa-store.
“Tell them,” I said, “they can go home and I will pay them nothing. I will walk.”
Now if either the agent or those hammock-boys had given the thing a moment's thought, they must have seen this was sheer bluff on my part. It would have been a physical impossibility for me to walk, at least I think so; besides, I should have been entirely alone and I had not the faintest notion of the way. However, my performance of yesterday had apparently not impressed them as badly as it had impressed me, and just as I was meditating despairingly what on earth I should do, for I felt to give in would be fatal, into the store came those men bearing the hammock, and it did not need Swanzy's interpreter to tell me, “You get in, Mammy. They go quick.”
We were out of the village at once and into the country. It was orchard-bush country, thick grass just growing tall with the beginning of the rains, and clumps of low-growing trees, with an occasional patch of miniature forest that grew so close it shut out the fierce sun overhead and gave a welcome and grateful shade. We passed the preventive service station on the Border—an untidy, thatched hut, presided over by a black man, who looked not unlike a dilapidated, a very dilapidated railway porter who had been in store for some time and got a little moth-eaten—and I concluded we were at the end of British territory; but not yet. The road was bad when we started, and it grew steadily worse till here it was very bad indeed. It became a mere track through the rough, grass country on either side, a track that admitted of but one man walking singly, and my boys dropped the hammock by way of intimating that they could carry me no farther. They could not, I could see that for myself, for not only was the track narrow, but it twisted and turned and doubled on itself, so that a corkscrew is straight in comparison with the road to Ho.
And once more fear fell upon me. I was alone with men who could not understand a word that I said, who could not speak a word that I could understand, and since only in a Gilbertian sense could this track be called a road at all, that it could lead to anywhere seemed impossible. There were no farms, no villages, not a sign of habitation. A fool-bird called cynically, “Hoo! hoo! hoo!” and I hesitated whether I would rather these eight men walked in front of me or behind me. I decided they should walk in front, and they laughingly obeyed, and we walked on through the heat. Many-coloured butterflies, large as small birds, flitted across the track. Never have I seen such beautiful butterflies, blue as gentian, or as turquoise with a brilliancy the turquoise lacks; purple, red, yellow, and white were they, and it was only the utter hopelessness of keeping them prevented my making any attempt to catch them. Evidently I was not as afraid as I thought I was because I could reflect upon the desirability of those butterflies in a collection. But I was afraid. Occasionally people, men or women, in twos or threes, came along with loads upon their heads, and I tried to speak to them and ask them if this really was the road to Ho, but I could make no one understand and they passed on, turning to stare with wonder at the stranger. There were silk-cotton trees and shea-butter trees and many another unknown tree, but it seemed I had come right out into the wilds beyond human ken or occupation, and I had to assure myself again and again that these carriers were decent peasants, just earning a little, something beyond what came from cocoa or palm oil, with wives—probably many wives—and children, and the strange white woman was worth a good deal more to them safely delivered at her destination than in any way else. We came to a river, and by a merciful interposition of Providence it was dry, and we were able to ignore the slippery, moss-grown tree-trunk that did duty as bridge, and, scrambling down into its bed, cross easily to the other side, and there, in the midst of a shady clump of trees, was Grant with all the carriers.
So it was the road to Ho after all, and, as usual, I had worried myself most unnecessarily. I sat down on my precious black box that contained all my money, and Grant got out a tumbler, squeezed the last orange I possessed into it, filled it up from the sparklet bottle, and I was ready to laugh at my fears and face the world once more.
Again we went along the tortuous path, and then suddenly the Border!