Kitabı oku: «Long Odds», sayfa 16

He swung the bar high with both hands, and it descended on the negro's crown. The man went backwards, but another who carried a long gun sprang over him, and the heavy bar came crashing down on his naked arm. Then it whirled again, and there was a curious thud as it left its mark upon a dusky face. There was a clamor from the men below, a gasp behind Nares, and a folded canvas chair struck the next negro on the breast. He, too, lost his balance, and in another moment the stairway was empty except for one of the dusky men who lay still upon the lower steps of it. Nares stood on the veranda, with a suffused face, and the perspiration dripping from him, and smiled curiously when the man in charge of the station glanced at him with wonder and a vague reproof in his eyes.

"I am not sure that I have anything to regret," he said. "They are coming back again."

Herrero's boys were once more at the foot of the stairway, trampling on their comrade as they scrambled over him, but there were now two men with extemporized weapons at the head of it who stood above them and had them at a disadvantage. Nares was, however, never quite clear as to what happened during the next few minutes, for an unreasoning fury came upon him, and he saw only the woolly heads and dusky faces as he gasped and smote, though he was vaguely conscious that now and then a shattered chair somebody whirled by the legs swung above his head. Then a long gun flashed, and the detonation was answered by a sharper, ringing crash. One of Herrero's boys screamed shrilly, and the half-naked figures went scrambling down the stairway. They had scarcely floundered clear of it when a man in white duck appeared in the space below, and flung up a rifle, and another of the boys who went down headlong lay writhing horribly in the sand. After that there was a shouting and a patter of flying feet, and further dusky men with matchets and Snider rifles poured out of the path that wound down the hillside. Nares quietly laid the bar he held against the wall, and turned to the others with a gasp.

"It's Ormsgill," he said.

CHAPTER XXIV
BENICIA MAKES A BARGAIN

Except for the two unsightly objects that lay in the soft moonlight, there was no sign of Herrero's boys when Ormsgill walked up the stairway with a rifle in his hand. A little smoke curled from the breech which he opened before he shook hands with Nares.

"It's fortunate I knew where you were, and came round to pick you up," he said, and turned to the head of the station, who leaned upon the balustrade apparently shaken and bewildered by what had happened.

"I came up behind Herrero most of the way, and when there were signs that we were getting closer I sent one of my boys on to creep in upon his camp two or three days ago. From what he told me when he came back I fancied there was mischief on foot, and I pushed on as fast as possible. Considering everything, it seems just as well I did."

The other man appeared unwilling to let his gaze wander beyond the veranda, which was in one way comprehensible. There was shrinking in his face, and his voice was strained and hoarse.

"It was so sudden – it has left me a trifle dazed," he said. "I am almost afraid the trouble is not over yet."

Ormsgill smiled reassuringly. "I scarcely think – you – have any cause to worry. There is no doubt that Herrero inspired his boys, and attempts of this kind, as no doubt you are aware, have been made on mission stations before, but it's certain he would disclaim all knowledge of what they meant to do, and will be quite content to let the matter go no further. That is, at least, so far as anybody connected with the Mission is concerned."

"I am afraid he may find some means of laying the blame on you."

"It is quite likely," and Ormsgill laughed. "After all, it's a thing I'm used to, and, you see, I'm proscribed already. As it happens, so is Nares. He should never have left me. I have no doubt Herrero, who has friends in authority, will endeavor to make him regret his share in to-night's proceedings."

Nares glanced at one of the rigid figures that lay beneath him in the moonlight. He saw the naked black shoulders, and the soiled white draperies that had fallen apart from the ebony limbs, and a little shiver ran through him. The heat of the conflict had vanished now, and the pale light showed that his face was drawn and gray.

"I struck that man," he said. "I don't know what possessed me, but I think I meant to kill him. In one way, the thing is horrible."

"Well," said Ormsgill dryly, "it is also very natural. The impulse you seem to shrink from is lurking somewhere in most of us. In any case, the man is certainly dead. I looked at him as I came up."

He stopped a moment, and leaned somewhat heavily upon the balustrade with his eyes fixed on the dusky form of the negro. "The meanest thing upon this earth is the man who sides with the oppressor and tramples on his own kind. Still, though I think what I did was warranted, that was not why I shot those men. One doesn't always reason about these matters, as I fancy you understand."

He turned, and looked at Nares who, after a momentary shrinking, steadily met his gaze. The man was wholly honest, and the thing was clear to him. He had struck at last, shrewdly, in a righteous cause, and nobody could have blamed him, but, as had happened in his comrade's case, human bitterness had also nerved the blow.

"Well," he said slowly, "you and I, at least, will probably have to face the results of it."

Again Ormsgill laughed, but a little glint crept into his eyes. "As I pointed out, we are both of us outlawed, with the hand of every white man in this country against us, but we have still a thing to do, and somehow I almost think it will be done."

Then he turned to the man in charge of the Mission. "Nares is coming away with me. There are several reasons that make it advisable. It is very unlikely that anybody will trouble you further about this affair, and if the blame is laid on us it can't greatly matter. The score against one of us is a tolerably long one already – and if my luck holds out it may be longer. There is just another point. Shall I take those two boys below away for you?"

"No," said the other man quietly. "There is, at least, one duty we owe them."

Ormsgill made a little gesture. "The bones of their victims lie thick along each trail to the interior, but, after all, that is probably a thing for which they will not be held responsible. In the meanwhile, there are one or two reasons why I should outmarch Herrero if it can be done. When Nares is ready we will go on again."

Nares was ready in a few minutes, and shaking hands with the two men who went down the veranda stairway with them, they struck into the path that led up the steep hillside. Ormsgill's boys plodded after them, but when they reached the crest of the ridge that overhung the valley Nares sat down, gasping, in the loose white sand, and looked down on the shadowy mission. He could see its pale lights blinking among the leaves.

"It stands for a good deal that I have done with," he said. "It is a strange and almost bewildering thing to feel oneself adrift."

"Still," said Ormsgill, "now and then the bonds of service gall."

Nares made a little gesture. "Often," he said. "Perhaps I was not worthy to wear the uniform and march under orders with the rank and file, but I think the Church Militant has, after all, a task for the free companies which now and then push on ahead of her regular fighting line."

"They march light," said Ormsgill. "That counts for a good deal. It has once or twice occurred to me that the authorized divisions are a little cumbered by their commissariat and baggage wagons."

Nares sighed. "Well," he said softly, "every one must, at least now and then, leave a good deal that he values or has grown attached to behind him." He stopped a moment, and then asked abruptly, "You have heard from the girl at Las Palmas. Desmond would bring you letters?"

"No," said Ormsgill, "not a word. She had no sympathy with my project – that she should have was hardly to be expected. One must endeavor to be reasonable."

"There must have been a time when you expected – everything."

Ormsgill sat silent a minute or two, and while he did so a moving light blinked among the trees below. It stopped at length, and negro voices came up faintly with the thud of hastily plied shovels. It seemed that the terrified converts were coming back and the missionaries had already set them a task. Ormsgill knew what it was, but he looked down at the rifle that glinted in the moonlight across his knee with eyes that were curiously steady. The thing he had done had been forced upon him. Then he turned to his companion, and though he was usually a reticent man he spoke what was in his mind that night.

"There certainly was such a time," he said. "No doubt it has come to others. For five long years I held fast by the memory of the girl I had left in England, and I think there were things it saved me from. Somehow there was always a vague hope that one day I might go back to her – and for that reason I kept above the foulest mire. One goes under easily here in Africa. Then at last the thing became possible."

He broke off, and laughed, a curious little laugh, before he went on again.

"I went back. Whether she was ever what I thought her I do not know – perhaps, I had expected impossibilities – or those five years had made a change. We had not an idea that was the same, and the world she lives in is one that has grown strange to me. They think me slightly crazy – and it is perfectly possible that they are right. Men do lose their mental grip in Africa."

Nares made a little gesture which vaguely suggested comprehension and sympathy before he looked at his comrade with a question in his eyes.

"Yes," said Ormsgill quietly, "I am going on. After all, I owe the girl I thought she was a good deal – and to plain folks there is safety in doing the obvious thing." His voice softened a little. "It may be hard for her – in fact when I went back she probably had a good deal to bear with too. One grows hard and bitter when he has lived with the outcasts as I have done."

Nares understood that he meant what other men called duty by the obvious thing, but the definition, which he felt was characteristic of the man, pleased him. He was one who could, at least, recognize the task that was set before him, and, as it happened, he once more made this clear when he rose and called to the boys who had flung themselves down on the warm white sand.

"Well," he said, "we have now to outmarch Herrero, and there is a good deal to be done."

They went on, Ormsgill limping a little, for his wound still pained him, and vanished into the shadows of the bush, two weary, climate-worn men who had malignant nature and, so far as they knew, the malice of every white man holding authority in that country against them. Still, at least, their course was clear, and in the meanwhile they asked for nothing further.

It also happened one afternoon while they pushed on through shadowy forest and steaming morass that a little and very ancient gunboat crept along the sun-scorched coast. Her white paint, although very far from fresh, gleamed like ivory on the long dazzling swell that changed to a shimmering sliding green in her slowly moving shadow, for she was steaming eight knots, and rolling viciously. Benicia Figuera, who swung in a hammock hung low beneath her awnings, did not, however, seem to mind the erratic motion. She was watching the snowy fringe of crumbling surf creep by, though now and then her eyes sought the far, blue hills that cut the skyline. Her thoughts were with the man who was wandering in the dim forests that crept through the marshes beyond them.

By and by she aroused herself, and looked up with a smile at the man who strolled towards her along the deck. She had met him before at brilliant functions in Portugal where he was a man of importance, and he had come on board in state a few hours earlier from a little sweltering town above a surf-swept beach whose citizens had seriously strained its finances to do him honor. He was dressed simply in plain white duck, a little, courtly gentleman, with the look of one who rules in his olive-tinted face. He sat down in a deck chair near the girl.

"After all, it is a relief to be at sea," he said. "One has quietness there."

Benicia laughed. "Quietness," she said, "is a thing you can hardly be accustomed to Señor. Besides, you are in one way scarcely complimentary to the citizens yonder."

"Ah," said her companion, "it seems they expect something from me and it is to be hoped that when they get it some of them will not be disappointed. I almost think," and he waved a capable hand, "that before I am recalled they will not find insults bad enough for me."

Benicia felt that this was quite possible. Her companion was she knew a strong man as well as an upright one, who had been sent out not long ago with ample powers to grapple with one or two of the questions which then troubled that country. It was also significant that while he was known as a judicious and firm administrator his personal views on the points at issue had not been proclaimed. Benicia had, however, guessed them correctly, and she took it as a compliment that he had given her a vague hint of them. Perhaps, he realized it, for he watched her for a moment with a shrewd twinkle in his dark eyes.

"Señorita," he said, "I almost think you know what I was sent out here to do. One could, however, depend upon Benicia Figuera considering it a confidence."

The girl glanced out beneath the awnings across the sun-scorched littoral towards the blue ridge of the inland plateau before she answered him.

"Yes," she said, "it was to cleanse this stable. I almost think you will find it a strong man's task."

Her companion made a gesture of assent. "It is, at least, one for which I need a reliable broom – and I am fortunate in having one ready."

"Ah," said Benicia, "you of course mean my father. Well, I do not think he will fail you, and though he has not actually told me so, I fancy he has, at least, been making preparations for the sweeping."

The man looked at her and smiled, but when a moving shaft of sunlight struck him as the steamer rolled she saw the deep lines on his face and the gray in his hair. He, as it happened, saw the little gleam of pride in her eyes, and then the light swung back again and they were once more left in the shadow. Yet in that moment a subtle elusive something that was both comprehension and confidence had been established between them.

"Dom Clemente," he said, "is a man I have a great regard for. There is a good deal I owe him, as he may have told you."

"He has told me nothing."

The man spread his hands out. "After all, it was to be expected. He and I were comrades, Señorita, before you were born, and there was a time when I made a blunder which it seemed must spoil my career. There was only one man who could save me and that at the hazard of his own future, but one would not expect such a fact to count with your father. Dom Clemente smiled at the peril and the affair was arranged satisfactorily."

Again he made a little grave gesture. "It happened long ago, and now it seems I am to bring trouble on him again. Still, the years have not changed him. He does not hesitate, but I feel I must ask your forbearance, Señorita. You have, perhaps, seen what sometimes happens when one does one's duty."

Benicia smiled, a little bitterly. "Yes," she said, "I know that the man who is so rash as to attempt it in this country is usually recalled in disgrace. Still, it is not a thing that happens very frequently. Dom Clemente is to be made the scapegoat."

"I think," said the man gravely, "I may be strong enough to save him that. It is possible, as I have told him, that he will be recalled – but what he has done will stand."

He spoke at last as a ruler, with authority, and a trace of sternness in his eyes, but his face changed again.

"Señorita," he said, "if it happens, I think you will not grudge it, or blame me."

The girl saw the opportunity she had been waiting for. "As you have admitted, you owe my father something, and now you have asked something more. Is it not conceivable that you owe me a little, too. I am an influence here – and it would be different in Lisbon if Dom Clemente was sent home again. Besides, sometimes he will listen to me. Now and then a woman has made a change in a man's policy, and, though it is a little more difficult when the man is one's father, it might be done again."

"Ah," said her companion, "you wish to make a bargain."

"It would be too great a condescension, Señor," and Benicia laughed. "I want a promise that is to be unconditional. Some day, perhaps, I shall ask you to do something for me. Then you will do it whatever it is."

The man looked up at her with a little dry smile, but, as he admitted, he owed her father a good deal, and he was not too old for gallantry. Besides that, he had the gift of insight, and a curious confidence in this girl. He felt she would not ask him anything that was not fitting.

"The request," he said, "is a little vague, and perhaps, I am a trifle rash, but I almost think I can promise that what you ask shall be done."

Benicia, reaching out from the hammock, touched him with her fan. "Now," she said, "I know what you think of me. How shall I make my poor acknowledgments? Still, there is another thing. You will discover presently that the brooms of the State are slow. There are two men not among its servants who have commenced the sweeping already. I think Dom Clemente knows this, but you will not mention it to him."

Her companion glanced at her sharply with a sudden keenness in his eyes, but he said nothing, and the girl smiled again.

"When you hear of them I would like you to remember that they are friends of mine," she said. "You will, of course, recognize that nobody I said that of could do anything that was really reprehensible."

"I might admit that it was unlikely," said her companion.

"Then," said Benicia, "when the time comes I would like you to remember it. That is another thing you will promise."

She flashed one swift glance at her companion, who smiled, and then looked round as Dom Clemente and two of the gunboat's officers came towards them along the deck. She roused herself to talk to them, and succeeded brilliantly, now and then to the momentary embarrassment of the officers, who were young, while the man with the gray hair lay in a deck chair a little apart watching her over his cigar. She was clever, and quick-witted, but he knew also that she was like her father, one who at any cost stood by her friends. At the same time he was a little puzzled, for, in the case of a young woman, friend is a term of somewhat vague and comprehensive significance, and she had mentioned that there were two of them. That appeared to complicate the affair, but he had, at least, made a promise, and it was said of him that when he did so he usually kept it, though it was now and then in a somewhat grim fashion. There were also men in the sweltering towns beside the surf-swept beach the gunboat crawled along who would have felt uneasy had they known exactly why he had been sent out to them.

CHAPTER XXV
DOMINGO APPEARS

The carriers had stopped in a deserted village one morning after a long and arduous march from the mission station, when Ormsgill, lying in the hot white sand, looked quietly at Nares, who sat with his back against one of the empty huts.

"If I knew what the dusky image was thinking I should feel considerably more at ease," he said. "Still, I don't, and there's very little use in guessing. After all, we are a long way from grasping the negro's point of view on most subjects yet. They very seldom look at things as we do."

Nares nodded. "Anyway, I almost fancy we could consider what he has told us as correct," he said. "It's something to go upon."

The man he referred to squatted close by them, naked to the waist, though a few yards of cotton cloth hung from his hips. An old Snider rifle lay at his side, and he was big and muscular with a heavy, expressionless face. As Ormsgill had suggested, it certainly afforded very little indication of what he was thinking, and left it a question whether he was capable of intelligent thought at all. They had come upon him in the deserted village on the edge of a great swamp an hour earlier, and he had skillfully evaded their questions as to what he was doing there.

It was an oppressively hot morning, and a heavy, dingy sky hung over the vast morass which they could see through the openings between the scattered huts. It stretched back bare and level, a vast desolation, towards the interior, with a little thin haze floating over it in silvery belts here and there, and streaking the forest that crept up to its edge. The carriers lay half-asleep in the warm sand, blotches of white and blue and ebony, and the man with the rifle appeared vacantly unconcerned. Time is of no value to the negro, and one could have fancied that he was prepared to wait there all day for the white men's next question.

"It's not very much," said Ormsgill reflectively, referring to his comrade's last observation. "Domingo, it seems, is up yonder – but there are one or two other facts, which I think have their significance, in our possession. Herrero is coming up behind us, and, though there are no other Portuguese in the neighborhood, we find this village empty. I should very much like to know why the folks who lived in it have gone away, and I fancy our friend yonder could tell us. Still, it's quite certain that he won't."

"Herrero evidently means to join hands with Domingo," suggested Nares. "It's quite possible, too, that he will do what he can to prevent us buying the six boys from the Headman, who, it's generally believed, does a good deal of business with him. It's a little unfortunate. In another week the thing might have been done."

Ormsgill nodded as one who makes his mind up. "When in doubt go straight on – and, as a matter of fact, we can't afford to stop," he said. "Provisions are going to be a consideration. We'll push on and try what can be done with Domingo and the Headman before Herrero comes up."

He turned to the negro, and Nares amplified his question.

"Yes," said the man, with the faintest suggestion of a grin, "I know where Domingo is, and if you come to our village it is very likely that you will see him. I will take you to the Headman for the pieces of cloth you promise."

He got up leisurely, and Ormsgill, who called to the boys, looked at Nares as they plodded into the forest that skirted the swamp.

"It's quite certain the man was waiting for somebody, and it wasn't Herrero, or he wouldn't have gone away," he said. "That naturally seems to suggest he might have been on the lookout for us. In that case I should very much like to know what was amusing him."

It was not to be made clear until some time later, and in the meanwhile they pushed on for a week through straggling forest with all the haste the boys were capable of, though Ormsgill's face grew thoughtful when they twice passed an empty village. The fact had its significance, for little labor recruiting had been done in that strip of country. Still, its dusky inhabitants had apparently forsaken it, and it became more evident that something unusual was going on. Once only they met a native, or rather he blundered upon their camp when they lay silent in the thin shadow of more open bush on a burning afternoon, and their guide roused himself sharply to attention when a patter of footsteps came out of the stillness. Somebody was evidently approaching in haste, and Ormsgill glanced at Nares in warning when the negro who lay close beside them rose to a crouching posture and drew back the hammer of his old Snider rifle. It was clear that strangers were regarded with suspicion in that country. Then the man drew one foot under him, and sat upon it with the arm that supported the rifle on his knee, and an unpleasantly suggestive look in his heavy face. One could have fancied that he meant to kill, and Ormsgill stretching out a hand laid it on his comrade's shoulder restrainingly.

"Wait," he whispered. "In the meanwhile it's not our business."

Nares waited, but he felt it become more difficult to do so as the footsteps grew plainer. He could hear the little restless movements of the boys, but he had eyes for little beyond the ominous half-naked figure clutching the heavy rifle. It dominated the picture. Tall trunks, trailing creepers, and clustering carriers grew indistinct, but he was vaguely conscious that there was an opening between the leaves some sixty yards in front of him, and his heart throbbed painfully with the effort the restraint he laid upon himself cost him. Then a dusky figure appeared in the opening, and stopped a moment, apparently in astonishment or terror, while Ormsgill was sensible of a sudden straining after recollection. The man was leanly muscular and dressed as scantily as any native of the bush, but there was something in his appearance that was vaguely familiar. In the meanwhile he was also conscious that their guide's arms were stiffening rigidly, and when the man's cheek sank a little lower on the rifle stock he let his hand drop from Nares's shoulder. As it happened, he was close behind the negro, and in another moment would have clutched him.

Just then, however, the stranger sprang forward and a little acrid smoke blew into Ormsgill's eyes. There was a detonation and he contrived to fall with a hand on the ground instead of upon the crouching negro with the rifle. When he looked up again the man who had narrowly escaped from the peril by his quickness was running like a deer, and vanished amidst a crash of displaced undergrowth, while their guide flung back his rifle breech with clumsy haste. When he turned round there was no sign of the stranger and Ormsgill was quietly standing on his feet. Only a few seconds had elapsed since the man had first appeared.

The guide made a little grimace which was expressive of resignation as he turned the rifle over and shook out the cartridge, and in another minute or two they were going on again. When he moved a little away from them Ormsgill looked at Nares.

"It's probably just as well our friend does not know I meant to spoil his aim," he said. "I haven't the least notion why he wished to shoot that man, and very much wish I had, but I can't help fancying that I've seen him before – at one of the Missions most likely. I should be glad if anybody could tell me what he is doing here."

There was nobody who could do it except, perhaps, their guide, but Ormsgill surmised that he was not likely to supply him with any information. He was not to know until some time later that the man in question had once served Herrero, who had beaten him too frequently and severely, and that as a result of this he met Pacheco the Government messenger in a deserted village after another week's arduous journey. In the meanwhile he pushed on, limping a little, through marsh and forest until their guide led them into a large native village where he expected to find the last of Lamartine's boys. This one, at least, was not deserted. In fact, it appeared unusually crowded and, as Ormsgill was quick to notice, most of its inhabitants were armed. He had, however, little opportunity of noticing anything else, for he was led straight into the presence of its ruler, who sat on a low stool under a thatched roof raised on a few rickety pillars in the middle of the village. He was dressed in a white man's duck jacket, worn open, and a shirt; and every person of consequence in the place had gathered about him. The guide presented the newcomers tersely, and it seemed to Ormsgill that the manner in which he did it was significant.

"They are here," he said. "I have done as I was bidden."

The Headman spent some time examining the collection of the sundries they offered him and made a few indifferent attempts to restrain the rapacity of his retainers, who desired something, too. Then he asked Ormsgill his business, and nodded when the latter explained it briefly.

"The six boys are certainly here," he said. "Still, I do not know just now if I can sell you them. That will depend – " Nares understood from the next few words that he desired to be a little ambiguous on this point. "You have, it seems, some business with Domingo, too?"

Nares said it concerned the boys in question, but as the labor purveyor had no claim upon them the matter could be arranged with the Headman, who grinned very much as the guide had done, while a curious little smile crept into the faces of some of the rest.

"Then," he said, "I think he will be here in a day or two. Some of my people have gone for him, but I am not sure that he will have much to tell us when he comes. In the meanwhile you will stay with us a few days, and when I am ready to talk about the boys again I will send for you."

He made a sign that the interview was over, and several of his followers who were armed escorted the white men and their boys to the hut set apart for them. They left them there with a plainly worded hint that it would be wise of them not to come out of it, and when they went away Ormsgill looked at Nares.

"I suppose you're not sure what that Headman really meant," he said. "A man naturally has you at a disadvantage when he doesn't wish to make himself very clear and talks in a tongue you don't quite understand. I wish I knew exactly why he chuckled."

Nares looked thoughtful. "He seemed to know we meant to visit him."

"It's evident. How I don't quite understand. We traveled fast. Still, he did know. In the meanwhile we can only wait."

They waited, somewhat anxiously, for several days, knowing that Herrero, whose presence promised to complicate affairs, was drawing nearer all the while. There was, however, no other course open to them, for when they attempted to leave the hut a big man armed with a matchet who kept watch outside informed them it was the Headman's pleasure that they should stay there until he was at liberty to talk to them.