Fresh fuel was heaped on the fire, and all danced round the place in a weird and uncanny way, only old Jack Sprat refraining from joining. All at once they stopped, and Jack Sprat calling to me to come out, said, “Fetich say you be good; man make good for you; he catch good. Now two tree hour Tom he take you. Canoe lib for riber; four day catch good man he send you one bery big riber where plenty ship come. You catch go your country.”
I thanked the old man for all he was doing, and asked what I could do for him if ever I got back to England.
“Dat be long time,” he said, “and me old. P’raps me die, but tell good men come and make trade for Tom, make book, and no trade with Okopa.”
CHAPTER XI.
AN EXCITING JOURNEY.
I now returned to my hut, and waited anxiously for the time when I was to start, for I could not feel safe so long as I was anywhere in the neighbourhood of Pentlea, Camacho, and the other slavers. Though the two Americans might be inclined to befriend me, they were only two, and evidently did not possess much influence.
At last I heard the cocks crowing, and Jack Sprat came and said, “Now, massa, Tom him be ready.” I jumped up at once from my bed, and found Tom with a torch of palm branches ready to start. Jack Sprat gave me the gun I had used the day before. Both he and the fetichman whom I had seen performing in the night rubbed some stuff on my forehead, and the latter bound round my wrist a piece of knotted string on which were two little sticks, of which my old friend said to me, “Him be bery trong fetich for true.”
I tried to thank the old man for all his kindness; but he would not listen to me, and putting his two hands on my shoulders he gently forced me out of the village, barring the gate behind Tom and me.
I followed Tom along the path which led to where I had been frightened by the snake, and on the stream we found a small canoe made of bark, about eighteen inches wide and twenty feet long, in which a man was waiting for us. Tom made me get into this frail and rickety specimen of naval architecture, and though I had to kneel down in the middle and grip either gunwale with my hands to prevent capsizing the craft, I was astonished to see that Tom and the other man were both able to stand up and paddle.
We were soon flying down the stream, the little canoe trembling under their powerful strokes. In less than a quarter of an hour I saw that in front of us was open water. Immediately afterwards we ran alongside of a canoe manned by a dozen men, into which Tom and I got, and we then commenced the ascent of the Ogowai.
Though we were some way up the river beyond Okopa’s and Hararu’s villages, Tom insisted on perfect silence, as on the other bank all the villages acknowledged Okopa’s authority. We paddled up close under the bushes on Hararu’s side, to avoid the current, and also to be seen as little as possible. The middle of the canoe had a thatch of palm leaves over it, which had been prepared for me by the orders of Jack Sprat, and underneath I found some packages of beads and cloth and other things likely to be useful to me, arranged so that I could either sit or lie down comfortably.