The Ivory Trail by Talbot Mundy (top fiction books of all time TXT) 📗

"Take the shot-gun if you care to," Fred told him, as he passed Will the rifle. "I'll unlock the chop-box presently, and let you have some whisky!"

This last was the cruellest cut, but it did Brown good. When Fred kept his promise and produced a whole bottle from the locked-up store Brown refused to touch it, instead insulting him like a good man, cursing him—whisky, whiskers, whims and all, using language that Fred good-naturedly assured him was very unladylike.

Before dawn the boys, peering through the gaps between the camp-fires, to distinguish lions if they could and give the alarm before another could jump in and do damage, swore they saw Schillingschen, rifle in hand, stalking among the shadows. Nothing could convince them they had not seen him. They said he stooped like a man in a dream—that big beard was matted, and his shirt torn—that he strode out of darkness into darkness like a man whose mind was gone. We purposely laughed at their story, to see if we could shake them in it. But they laughed at our incredulity.

"My eyes are good eyes" answered Kazimoto. "What I see I see! Why should I invent lies?"

It was not pleasant to imagine Schillingschen, mind gone or not, with or without three cartridges and a rifle, prowling about our camp awaiting opportunity to do murder.

"Come to think of it," said Fred, "we've no proof he hasn't a lot more than three cartridges. It's hardly likely, but he might have cached some in reserve near where we found his camp pitched. More unlikely things have happened. But the bally man must go to sleep some time. He seems to have been awake ever since he escaped. We'll be off at dawn, and either tire him out or leave him!"

"I'll bet he's got one or more of those donkeys," I answered. "He'll not be so easy to tire."

"Suppose you and Will go and sleep," suggested Fred. "Otherwise we'll all go crazy, and all get left behind!"

There did not remain much time for sleeping. The porters, being used to the tents and their loads now, got away to a good start, heading straight toward the frowning pile of Elgon that hove its great hump against a blue sky and domineered over the world to the northward.

There were plenty of villages, well filled with timid spear-men and hard-working naked wives. Now that we had trade goods in plenty there was no difficulty at all about making friends with them. They had two obsessing fears: that it might not rain in proper season, and "the people" as they called themselves would "have too much hunger"; and that the men from the mountain might come and take their babies.

"Which men, from what mountain?"

"Bad men, from very high up on that mountain!" They pointed toward
Elgon, shuddered, and looked away.

"Why should they take your babies?"

"They eat them!"

"What makes you think that?"

"We know it! They come! Once in so often they come and fight with us, and take away, and kill and eat our fat babies!"

All the inhabitants of all the villages agreed. None of them had ever ventured on the mountain; but all agreed that very bad black men came raiding from the upper slopes at uncertain intervals. There was no variation of the tale.

One thing puzzled us much more than the cannibal story. We heard shooting a long way off behind us to our right—two shots, followed by the unmistakable ringing echo among growing trees. Had Schillingschen decided to desert us? And if so, how did he dare squander two of his three cartridges at once—supposing he were not now mad, as our boys, and his, all vowed he was? His own ten men began to beg to be protected from him, and the captured Baganda recommended in best missionary English that we seek the services of the first witch doctor we could find.

  Who is as heavy as we, or as strong?
        Ho! but we trample the shambas down!
  Saw ye a swath where the trash lay long
        And tall trees flat like a harvest mown?
  That was the path we shore in haste
        (Judge, is it easy to find, and wide!)
  Ripping the branch and bough to waste
        Like rocks shot loose from a mountain side!
  Therefore hear us:

(All together, stamping steadily In time.)

        'Twas we who lonely echoes woke
        To copy the crash of the trees we broke!
        Goad, nor whip, nor wheel, nor yoke
        Shall humble the will of the Ivory Folk!

  Once we were monarchs from sky to sky,
        Many were we and the men were few;
  Then we would go to the Place to die—
        Elephant tombs* that the oldest knew,—
  Old as the trees when the prime is past,
        Lords unchallenged of vale and plain,
  Grazing aloof and alone at last
        To lie where the oldest had always lain.
  So we sing of it:

——————————————- * The legendary place that every Ivory hunter hopes some day to stumble on, where elephants are said to have gone away to die of old age, and where there should therefore be almost unimaginable wealth of ivory. The legend, itself as old as African speech, is probably due to the rarity of remains of elephants that have died a natural death. ———————————————

(All together, swinging from side to side in time, and tossing trunks.)

        'Twas we who lonely echoes woke
        To copy the crash of the trees we broke!
        Goad, nor whip, nor wheel, nor yoke
        Shall govern the strength of the Ivory Folk!

  Still we are monarchs! Our strength and weight
        Can flatten the huts of the frightened men!
  But the glory of smashing is lost of late,
        We raid less eagerly now than then,
  For pits are staked, and the traps are blind,
        The guns be many, the men be more;
  We fidget with pickets before and behind,
        Who snoozed in the noonday heat of yore.
  Yet, hear us sing:

(All together, ears up and trunks extended.)

        'Twas we who lonely echoes woke
        To copy the crash of the trees we broke!
        Goad, nor whip, nor wheel, nor yoke
        Have lessened the rage of the Ivory Folk!

  Still we are monarchs of field and stream!
        None is as strong or as heavy as we!
  We scent—we swerve—we come—we scream—
        And the men are as mud 'neath tusk and knee!
  But we go no more to the Place to die,
        For the blacks head off and the guns pursue;
  Bleaching our scattered rib-bones lie,
        And men be many, and we be few.
  Nevertheless:

(All together, trunks up-thrown, ears extended, and stamping in slow time with the fore-feet.)

        'Twas we who lonely echoes woke
        To copy the crash of the trees we broke!
        Goad, nor whip, nor wheel, nor yoke
        Shall humble the pride of the Ivory Folk!

We had laughed at Fred's suggestion that Schillingschen might have ammunition cached away. Fred had sneered at my guess that the German might ride donkey-back and not be so easily left behind. Now the probability of both suggestions seemed to stiffen into reality.

Day followed day, and Schillingschen, squandering cartridges not far away behind us, always had more of them. He seemed, too, to lose interest in keeping so extremely close to us, as we raced to get away from him toward the mountain. If he was really crazy, as his trembling boys maintained, then for a crazy man blazing at everything or nothing he was shooting remarkably little. On the contrary, if he was sane, and shooting for the pot, he must have acquired a big following in some mysterious manner, or else have lost his marksmanship when Coutlass bruised his eyes. He fired each day, judging by the echo of the shots, about as many cartridges as we did, who had to feed a fairly long column of men, and make presents of meat, in addition, to the chiefs of villages. It began to be a mystery how he carried so much ammunition, unless he had donkeys or porters.

Soon we began to pass through a country where elephants bad been. There was ruin a hundred yards wide, where a herd of more than a thousand of them must have swept in panic for fifteen miles. There were villages with roofs not yet re-thatched, whose inhabitants came and begged us to take vengeance on the monsters, showing us their trampled enclosures, torn-down huts, and ruined plantations. They offered to do whatever we told them in the way of taking part, and several times we marshaled the men of two or three villages together in an effort to get a line to windward and drive the herd our way.

But each time, as the plan approached development, ringing shots from behind us put the brutes to flight. It became uncanny—as if Schillingschen in his new mad mood was able to divine exactly when his noise would work most harm. Our fool boys told the local natives that a madman was on our heels, and after that all offers of help ceased, even from those who had suffered most from the elephants. We began to be regarded as mad ourselves. Efforts to get natives to go scouting to watch Schillingschen, and report to us, were met with point-blank refusal. Rumor began to precede us, and from one village that had suffered more than usually badly from passing elephants the inhabitants all fled at the first sign of Brown, leading our long single column.

We followed the herd. Its track was wide, and easier than the winding native foot-paths; and we were willing enough to jettison loads of trade-goods if only we could replace them with tusks. The chase led up toward Elgon, over the shoulder of an outlying spur, and upward toward the mountain's eastern slopes.

As long as we kept in the wake of the herd the going presented no difficulties. We knew by the state of the tracks and the dung that the herd was never far ahead. Frequently we heard them crashing through trees in front of us. Yet whenever we came so close as to hope for a view, and a shot at a tusker, invariably a regular fusillade from the eastward to our rear would start the herd stampeding with a din like all the avalanches.

Streams by the dozen flowed down from the mountain's sides, their banks crushed into bog where the elephants had crossed. Our donkeys grew used to being tied by the head in line and hauled across (for in common with all herds of donkeys, there were a few of them that swam readily, and many that either could not or refused). The flies in the wake of the elephants were worse than the tetse that haunted the shore of Nyanza.

We had no trouble now from our boys. We could even let the Baganda's hands loose. They feared the cannibals of the higher slopes, but were much more afraid of the madman to our right rear. Our difficulty lay in compelling them to keep a course sufficiently to eastward, and in calling a halt each day before men and animals were too utterly tired out. Yet for all their hurry, we did not gain on the man who made them so afraid.

Elephants, once thoroughly scared, will run away forever. Our boys openly praised the herd in front for its speed and stamina, hoping it would continue on its course and oblige us to keep the madman with the rifle at a safe distance to our rear. But it seemed he had an easier line than we, or else his frenzy gave him seven-league boots, for he even began to gain on us, keeping along our right flank at a distance of several miles, and driving us nearly mad in the frantic effort to keep our column from turning and running away to the westward. If we had relaxed our vigilance for a moment they would have broken line and fled.

It was old volcanic country we were marching through, densely wooded, virgin forest for the most part, with earth so warm at times that it was not easy to believe the crater of Elgon quite extinct. Even at that low level we came on blow-holes nearly filled in with dirt and trash, serving as fine caves for beasts of prey. We went into one for about three hundred paces before it narrowed into nothing, and would have camped in it but for