Kitabı oku: «The League of the Leopard», sayfa 9

Maxwell, with a few picked men, led the way, after giving Dane orders not to follow him too closely with the main body; but the latter found it hard to restrain his carriers, who desired to leave the site of the camp as far behind them as possible.

Dane had lagged a little behind the long line of colored headgear, cases poised aloft on woolly crowns, white draperies, and patches of sable skin, which wound on before him through the green of the tangled jungle, when Maxwell's voice came back sharply.

"Lead your boys wide into the bush, Hilton! Break through for several hundred yards, and send them on before you. Turn back and rejoin me alone when you strike the trail again!"

It was done, though Dane fell over an ant-heap and into a network of horrible thorny trailers which tore the flesh about his ankles. Hurrying back along the trail, he found Maxwell standing behind a screen of resplendent creepers, lighting a cigar with a hand that was not quite steady. His eyes were positively savage, and a patch in the center of each cheek was gray. Startled as Dane was, it was nevertheless soothing to find that his comrade shared some, at least, of the weaknesses of their common humanity. He could not mistake the intensity of Maxwell's anger.

"Prepare yourself for a surprise, Hilton, and then see what awaits you beyond that bush," he said. "I had partly expected it, but when I came upon it the sight almost sickened me."

Dane's nerves were tolerably good, but when he passed the creepers he experienced a shock of nausea and halted abruptly. Two black men were scooping out a trench, while another crouched near by, crooning something while he ran his thumb caressingly up and down a matchet blade. He looked up at the white man's coming, and his face was a study. Horror was stamped upon it; but a slow, relentless ferocity was written there too. This Dane saw with his first glance, but after the second he turned his eyes away. Maxwell was right. They had found the missing sentry. The object – for there was little resemblance of humanity left in what lay a foul blotch on the forest before him – was stretched across the trail; and the neck was twisted so that the face, left whole, looked down the pathway the way the expedition should have come, distorted and ghastly, with its changeless grin of pain. Words appeared superfluous, but Dane's sensations demanded relief in speech.

"Horrible! horrible! But what is the matter with Bad Dollar? He looks positively murderous!"

"It is not surprising," answered Maxwell. "The African is not always admirable in his domestic relations, but what lies yonder was his brother."

Dane, stooping, patted the negro's head.

"It will be a bad day for some of the Leopards when he settles that score. Listen to me, Maxwell. Heaven knows whether through greed I am responsible for part of this; but I most solemnly promise that if ever I can find the master fiend who inspired the murderers, I'll avenge that poor devil, as well as Lyle, the trader, whatever it costs me. We're partners in this affair, Bad Dollar!"

It is probable that the naked heathen attached little meaning to the words, but he understood the hoarseness of the white man's voice, and the steely glint in his eyes. He laid his black hands on the speaker's foot.

"It is a bargain," Dane said gravely. "I mean to keep it, Maxwell."

"You are a little impetuous," was the quiet answer. "Some day there will, I hope, be a reckoning; but a wise man says little and awaits his opportunity. Our turn has not come yet. When it does I do not think you will find me dilatory. Meanwhile, I'm puzzled. There are points connected with this affair which are far from clear; but those fellows have finished and we will go on again."

Beyond instructing Dane and his immediate followers to keep the occurrence secret, Maxwell said nothing further until noon had passed, when Dane asked a question.

"Why did the Leopards make their first move now, when we could, if we wished it, retreat, instead of waiting until we had penetrated farther into their country?"

"It is a pertinent question," said Maxwell. "For one thing, this is, after all, King Shaillu's country, and they possibly fear that if we once have speech with him, the headman, who, so the French officers told me, has a hankering after civilization, might extend us protection. But that does not quite account for everything. You remember Miss Castro's mention of the following shadow? Events have proved her predictions signally correct hitherto, and I am inclined to fancy that the worst danger still lies behind us and not before."

Maxwell vouchsafed no further information, and though Dane knew it was well the expedition had for its leader a man unmoved alike by excess of anger or misguided pity, he could not help retorting: "You foresee a good deal, Carsluith. It is unfortunate you could not more often prevent it. Why could you not have told me more of what you anticipated?"

Maxwell laughed good-humoredly.

"Isn't it apparent that what I prevent from happening does not occur? As to the last question, perhaps the African's answer, 'You never asked me,' is the best. One dreads so much that it appeared useless to harrow your feelings until I was certain."

The march through headman Shaillu's dominions left upon Dane only a series of blurred impressions. He was too sick to notice definite details most of the time; but he decided that under no circumstances could it be considered a cheerful country. For days together the expedition floundered through dripping forest so laced and bound with creepers that at noon the daylight could hardly filter down. The atmosphere resembled that of a Turkish bath; moisture splashed upon the broad leaves everywhere, and the heat and the gloom together produced a distressing lassitude. This the white men made strenuous efforts to resist, knowing that they might blunder into an ambush at any moment.

It was evident that their enemies had not lost touch with them; for in spite of their keenest vigilance, a carrier was twice spirited out of camp at night. Once Dane, making the rounds with a lantern, came upon a sentry huddled beneath a cottonwood. He had paid a heavy penalty for his drowsiness. Even Maxwell showed signs of temper at this, and the expedition waited two nights in camp while its leaders prowled through the forest in an attempt to surprise the assassins. It was, of course, a failure. They returned at sunrise, muddy, ragged, and savage, having neither seen nor heard anything suspicious.

The fact that they never did see their persecutors was the most harassing feature of it all; and at last Dane grew by turns murderously resentful and subject to fits of limp dejection, in which the fever had doubtless a share. The few villages they passed were empty. Where a river crossed their path the canoes had been taken away; and at intervals detachments of the carriers fell sick mysteriously. When they limped out into a waste of crackling, sword-edged grass, the glare and dust and heat were bewildering, and after a few days Dane longed for the forest again.

Still they held on, and one evening they marched, blanched in face, and very weary, into sight of one of the strongholds of headman Shaillu.

CHAPTER XII
WEALTH IN SIGHT

A stockade ran round the village, and rows of thatched roofs loomed above the frowning wall of timber, but instead of the usual clamor, there was dead silence as, with some semblance of order, the footsore and spiritless carriers limped in through the open gate. Nothing except a few lizards stirred in the first sandy avenue, and the oppressive stillness remained unbroken by the voice of man or beast. The sun hung low above the parched grass in the west, and crimson splendors blazed behind the huts; but a strange musky odor replaced the pungent fragrance of burning wood which at that hour hangs over each African village.

"The whole land seems dead," Dane said slowly, leaning heavily on his rifle as he spoke. "There are times when one could almost fancy, Carsluith, that you and I were ghosts – indeed, at the present moment you don't look unlike one; but what is the meaning of this latest riddle? This is the black headman's capital, isn't it?"

Maxwell smiled mirthlessly, as he stood, with beaded forehead and shoulders bent, glancing toward the weary carriers. His face was worn and hollow, though his eyes were bright, and his clothing was dropping in tatters from his weary limbs. The glare behind him emphasized the lividness of his pallid skin.

"It is one of them. I believe he has several," he said. "Whether he fears reprisals from some plundered neighbor, or pestilence, I naturally don't know; but, as his absence will save us a good many presents and much loss of time, it is not material. Still, we might find some clue in one of these huts."

Maxwell entered the nearest, then moved into another, and stayed there some time, leaving Dane in the sandy avenue before it; the carriers were resting at a distance. The sun dipped, and as Dane watched the night creep up swiftly from the east, it struck him that there was a curious uncanny feeling about the place. It was a relief when his comrade returned, looking graver than ever.

"Did you find any one inside?"

"I did," was the answer. "Unfortunately the man, as well as the one in the next hut, was dead, and had, I fancy, been so for some time. He probably died of a plague, which explains why the town is empty. We may find something more conclusive in one of the larger huts."

Dane decided that the discovery of two dead Africans was sufficient, and said so; but Maxwell persisted, and it was almost dark when they halted outside what appeared to be the headman's dwelling. Nothing could be distinguished in the interior, but Dane could hear creeping things rustle in the thatch, and the peculiar odor he already had noticed drifted forth from the hut. This was all, but he felt an instinctive repugnance to entering, and when Maxwell passed him, he caught him by the shoulder to suggest that they should light a lantern first. Hardly had he done so than what appeared to be a puff of colder air sighed close past his ear, and Maxwell, whipping out his revolver, hailed him to run round the hut as he leaped into the room. Dane did so, finding another entrance at the rear, and a broad space between the dwelling and the nearest hut. Nobody, he felt almost certain, would have had sufficient time to cross it, but the space was empty. When he went in Maxwell had torn down and lighted strips of palm-leaf from the thatch, but the name that leaped up showed them no sign of living humanity. Maxwell's countenance was very grim.

"You saw nobody outside there? I hardly thought you would," he said. "Our animal instincts are sometimes more useful than our powers of reasoning, Hilton. It is probable that if you had not checked me, I should now be on my way out of this land of surprises. What we heard was a diminutive arrow, no doubt with the venom there's no cure for upon its point. It could not have been shot at us by either of the Africans yonder."

Dane, glancing at the two awful huddled figures, swore softly and viciously.

"It is time we struck back, Carsluith," he urged. "I'll call up our boys and surround the huts."

"It would be useless," said Maxwell, shaking his head. "You have not realized these fellows' ingenuity, even yet. Further, if the boys saw what we have seen it might be disastrous."

A horror of the whole country where such things were possible came upon Dane and he moistened his dry lips with his tongue.

"I would give ten years of my life to stand face to face with the leader of these devils."

"Perhaps you will some day! I am puzzled among other things by their pertinacity. The heathen is unstable, and one almost feels that there must be something stronger than the native's spasmodic purpose behind what we have endured. In any case, it will be pleasanter to camp outside the town to-night."

They had some trouble in inducing their followers to quit the promised shelter, but both felt easier when they had repassed the stockade gate. That was apparently their enemies' last effort, for they were not molested during the rest of their journey; and eventually Maxwell halted his worn-out men beside a shrunken river. It came down out of a chaos of jungle-covered hills, rippling over sharp sand, with tall bluffs on the opposite side of it; and within five minutes every carrier was rolling and splashing in the lukewarm stream.

Dane quivered with eagerness as he watched Maxwell, who, looking up from a paper in his hand, smiled inscrutably.

"Yes. From Niven's description we have reached our goal at last. I was almost afraid his memory or imagination had betrayed him," he said. "That must be the bluff he camped on, and this, according to his assertion, the river which sprinkles its sand with gold. However, he hinted that it would pay better to prospect the higher pools. I want you to test his statement, Hilton. The result of the experiment promises to be eventful."

Maxwell's voice was slightly uneven, but his fingers seemed steady as he lighted one of their few last cigars. Dane felt his own knees weak beneath him, and his voice was hoarse when he hailed a carrier whose load consisted of prospecting tools. Carrying a tin dish and a small shovel, he waded into the shrunken river. There was a patch of sand near its center from which he filled the metal basin, and then halted with a curious sickly feeling, afraid almost to test its contents. He had sunk too much of his slender capital in the venture, and his future depended upon that test. Its issues were prosperity and the realization of the hope that had sent him to Africa, or a weary struggle for daily bread; and the climate-weakened man felt that, after all they had dared and suffered, he could hardly face failure. The perspiration trickled into his eyes, and oozed from his hair, and he stood still, knee-deep in the nameless river, for the space of almost a minute.

Then, stooping suddenly, he dipped the vessel and whirled it round and round until partly empty. There was a color about some of the particles remaining that caught his attention; but he would not trust a partial test, and continued the washing until, except for a very trifling residue, the pan was empty. Still, Maxwell made no comment and asked no question, for, if one was now swift in action, the other was great in silence.

Dane straightened himself, and waded back with dry lips and tickling throat, but with triumph in his eyes; and Maxwell laughed softly as he grasped the hand he stretched out.

"What have you found?" he asked.

"Enough to prove your dead friend right, and encourage us to search for something better!" Dane spoke as calmly as he could. "It is only stream gold, and doubtless readily worked out, but heaven knows how much more there may be up yonder where this came down from."

"You think – "

"That Niven was not mad, but eminently sane! I'm not a practical gold prospector, but I couldn't well help learning a little of the theory when working on the drawings of hydraulic mining machinery. It's a question of the velocity of the current and specific gravity – for even with a stream behind gold grains of any size don't travel far; and their matrix lies in yonder hills, or beyond them, somewhere."

"We'll go on again to-morrow," said Maxwell quietly.

For a week they hewed a way through the jungles on the hillside, or waded up the bed of the river where it promised an easier road; and finally, daring to penetrate no farther, they pitched camp on a palm-crested bluff overhanging a breadth of dry sand and a deep pool beneath a fall. Since leaving Shaillu's stronghold they had neither been followed by their persecutors nor seen anything with life in it. Maxwell left all operations to his friend's direction, and toiled beside him for several days like a galley slave, digging and blowing out with explosives a new channel to empty the pool, besides hewing troughs to bring down the water from above the fall.

Once more the burning day was drawing toward its close when, with the roar of the last shot rolling across the encircling forest and the water frothing muddily down its new outlet, Dane stood beside his comrade, leaning on a shovel, and wondering greatly that the latter could think of anything beyond the result of their experiment.

"The jungle seems to mock us, does it not?" Maxwell remarked. "Already its silence has swallowed the feeble din we made; and the next flood will obliterate forever all traces of your workings."

"Then you don't believe that this is the beginning of a new era, and that those who follow us will change the future of this wilderness?" asked Dane with a show of incredulity.

Maxwell pointed to the jungle fading into the dimness of the east.

"I do not. Look at it," he said. "It has stood so from the beginning, a place of everlasting shadow, for the naked bushmen to hunt each other in; and it will be the same long centuries after you and I are gone. It is too old and changeless for even the Briton to subdue. Phœnician, Roman, Arab, and Moor have all tackled this all-absorbing Africa; and while the brown men have left a plainer stamp on it than the white men, how much has any of them done? Still, all this is beside the question, isn't it? It will be enough for you and me if we can return home safely with some small augmentation of our capital. Hadn't you better resume your digging, Hilton?"

Dane did so, stripped to the waist; and great fires were blazing before he came up out of the river, exultant.

"I can't promise a fortune, but there should be sufficient to pay us for all our toil," he said. "Those little grains will realize almost four pounds an ounce."

They set out a carefully treasured bottle of lukewarm wine that night in the tent, and duly emptied it, though, perhaps for the same reason, neither of them ate much; and afterward they sat long talking under the smoky lamp. It was a night to remember, for it is not often one enjoys the same thrill of triumph twice in a lifetime. Maxwell was unusually communicative; and long afterward Dane could remember how he leaned against a deal case, worn, thin, and haggard, but with a smile of satisfaction on his hollow face.

"Success appears within sight at last, but it is well to take good fortune soberly," he said. "I am, however, sensible of an insane desire to do something extravagant when I remember all that word implies. You have seen Culmeny, Hilton, but it is hardly possible that you can realize the affection I have for the old place. It was fast falling into ruin before my father improved its finances a little by painful economy; and, because we generally fought and plotted for the losing side, the poor acres about it have been starved overlong. Now, after many an arduous search for the wherewithal, I can hope it may be granted me to restore a measure of its former prosperity. The Culmeny mosses could be turned into plow-land and pasture with the aid of a little money."

"You are a young man, Carsluith," Dane replied suggestively. "Being merely one of the swarming people, I don't know that love for – an ancient dwelling – would have exacted so much from me. Drainage schemes are no doubt useful, but was the extension of them your only ambition?"

Maxwell laughed good-humoredly, though a trace of shadow crept back into his face.

"No," he said slowly; "there was a time when they took a very secondary place. Every one has his weaknesses, and even now I have not quite got over mine."

The friendship between the two men had never been demonstrative, but it was deep enough to make Dane's comment no liberty.

"I can guess. The old story, no doubt. 'It was the woman who tempted me!' She treated you badly?"

"No," Maxwell answered quietly, looking hard at his companion. "She – God bless her – could treat no one harshly. It was my own folly to dream that she, with her fresh young beauty and the light-heartedness of innocence, could find anything congenial in such a taciturn, somber man as myself. Well, that romance is over, but it has left its mark; and now all that I hope for is that Culmeny will flourish for a brief space under the last of an unfortunate family."

Now there are limits beyond which even one who has sickened and fought and suffered beside a trusted comrade may hardly go, and Dane repressed the question which trembled on his lips. Nevertheless, he afterward fancied that if he had asked it then Maxwell would have answered him; and the revelation probably would have made a vast difference in the future of both of them. Dane did not, however, ask.

He was partly dazed by his own good fortune, and, when at last they ceased from speech, he sat in contented silence conjuring up roseate visions of the future. It was true that he had quarreled with Lilian, or she had quarreled with him; but during the time of stress and struggle the importance of the difference between them had – so it seemed to the man – steadily diminished. He could recall significant trifles which suggested that the time would come when the woman would no longer enforce the terms of their compact; and he felt that it was at least possible that, returning triumphant, he would find that she had already forgiven his supposed offenses. So hope rose victorious over doubts and dejection; and Dane was nodding, dreaming, while still half-awake, golden dreams, when Maxwell's voice recalled him to the laborious present.

"It is past midnight, and the task before us will tax our uttermost energies. Isn't it time to turn in, Hilton?"

Dane nodded.

"We will begin at sunrise," he said; "work every possible hour, and start back for England whenever the yield falls off. It is better to make sure of a portion than risk the whole by straining for too much; and fortune does not appear to favor white men overlong in this country. Even if we were but half satisfied, it should not be difficult to float a company."

Maxwell shook his head.

"Your first suggestion shows some discernment, Hilton; the second, less. Even a wildcat company promoter would fight shy of this mine; and it is tolerably certain that we have both the cross-marked man and Monsieur Victor Rideau still to reckon with."

Dane stretched himself out on some matting when Maxwell turned out the lamp, but he did not immediately sleep. The hot African darkness hemmed in the little tent, but he could see his comrade's figure dimly outlined against it as he sat rigidly still in the entrance. Then it struck him that they were very far away from all help from civilization, with a secret in their possession which already had cost the lives of other men. The roseate visions faded, and a sense of impending trouble preceded slumber. It was significant that Dane's fingers sought the pistol that lay beside him.

"Not asleep yet?" asked Maxwell. "What is troubling you?"

"I don't quite know," Dane answered. "I was going to ask you the same thing. Carsluith, if Rideau or the other rascal interferes with us further before I have won sufficient to float my patent, some of the party won't go home again."

The sun had just cleared the forest when, one morning soon after Dane had set his flume and washing gear to work, he sat at breakfast before a swinging table in their extemporized mess tent. Maxwell, who had just risen, stood in the entrance, partly dazzled by the growing brightness. Suddenly some of the Krooboys commenced to chatter excitedly, and a negro's voice rose above the commotion:

"White man lib for across the river!"

Maxwell, springing into the tent, snatched up a pair of binoculars; and the table overturned with a crash as Dane scrambled to his feet.

"The devil!" he exclaimed, staring stupidly at the figure below which saluted them with uplifted arm.

Maxwell frowned as he sharply closed the glasses.

"No," he said, "not exactly. It is Monsieur Victor Rideau."

Ten minutes had passed before the man Dane had seen at Castro's factory came smiling into camp, and the miner glanced at him curiously. He was short, but somewhat burly and broad-chested for a man of pure Gallic descent. His hair was very crisp and black, his face swarthy, and his fingers suspiciously like those of the negro. He was, considering the country, neatly arrayed in white duck and shoes with pointed toes. Monsieur Rideau had evidently traveled in a hammock.

"Felicitations, camarades," he began, with, it seemed to one observer, an excess of amiability. "It please me greatly to meet the friend of my own color in this country of the devil, so I leave all my boy behind there and push on with much expedition to salute you."

"That was very kind," said Maxwell shortly, never moving his eyes from his enemy. "The eagerness was mutual. My friend here upset our breakfast equipage in his hurry to greet you. The cook, however, will get you some more presently."

Dane fancied he read satisfaction in his comrade's face when the other answered:

"I have the breakfast already. You smoke now. I have these from Cuba – he is smuggle. No? That is the pity; but we talk at least. I have affaire of importance to discuss with you."

"So I presumed," said Maxwell, with no excess of civility. "Our tent is hardly fit to enter, but there is still shade here. Please consider us attentive listeners."

"Bien!" Rideau carefully laid a silk handkerchief on a fallen cottonwood before he took his seat. "I come to search the gold mine, and find two men of my own color have find her already. Me, I am not greedy. I say there is the plenty for three. So I make proposal. I go the partner with you."

"Suppose that does not suit us?" Dane broke in.

Rideau lifted one shoulder and stretched out the other arm with an air that was not wholly Gallic, but rather suggested the grimaces of a negro.

"It would be the pity. You know how we say, 'J'y suis– ?' As an American captain I have once small difference with tell me when he establish himself all day on my veranda: 'I'm here, Mr. Shylocker, and until I get what I've come for I stop right where I am.' Shylocker, I tell him, is a compliment not comprehended of me. That was a man of determination, but I vanquish him, my friends."

Hitherto something in the speaker's fastidious neatness and excessive bonhommie had, because his welcome was the reverse of cordial, prevented Dane from taking him seriously. Now there was a glint in his dark eyes which suggested that he might prove dangerous; and Dane surmised that the last sentence was meant as a warning. In any case, his blood took fire at its veiled insolence.

"It seems to me you could only have found your way here by means of a map stolen from me!" he said hotly, rising as he spoke.

Maxwell silenced him with a gesture.

"That is beside the question, Hilton. Monsieur Rideau is here, and, as he informs us, here he means to stay. The first question is whether, if we do not wish it, he is able to."

Rideau took up the challenge with outward good-humor.

"I have of camp boy two, or perhaps three, for every one I see of you. Most he is also arm with the good rifle. If there is the bad understanding, somebody is possibly get kill, which is distressing to me. Beside, the barbaric indigene he go chop us separables, as the nigger say. United we are invincibles, voyez vous?"

"I believe I do," Maxwell answered, in a tone which suggested that he saw considerably more than the other's words revealed; and Dane watched the pair, as for some seconds they lapsed into silence – the Briton motionless and almost too rigid in bearing, with an expressionless face; the swarthy adventurer smiling out of shifty eyes, while his fingers betrayed his impatience.

Then Maxwell spoke abruptly.

"Your proposal demands serious consideration. I would prefer to give you an answer this time to-morrow."

"Bien," Rideau acquiesced; and after a detailed account of his adventures, which Dane surmised was wholly fictitious, he took his leave.

"The savage has his virtues as well as his failings," said Maxwell, looking after him. "That man, however, is neither French nor negro, and such as he usually combine the vices of both sides of their ancestry. What do you think of his proposal, Hilton?"

"I should have dismissed him with four expressive words. Why did you promise to consider it at all?"

Maxwell smiled dryly.

"Because I intend to do so. I will give you my reasons this evening when, after a day's consideration, I shall have them ready in a more definite shape. In the meantime, we had better continue the mining."