The Fire-Gods A Tale of the Congo - Charles Gibson (short novels in english .TXT) 📗

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I--THE EXPLORERS’ CLUB

   CHAPTER II--ON THE KASAI

   CHAPTER III--THE WHITE WIZARD

   CHAPTER IV--THE HIDDEN RIVER

   CHAPTER V--THE STOCKADE

   CHAPTER VI--CROUCH ON THE WAR-PATH

   CHAPTER VII--THE WHITE MAN’S BURDEN

   CHAPTER VIII--LEAVE TO QUIT

   CHAPTER IX--A THIEF BY NIGHT

   CHAPTER X--THE BACK-WATER

   CHAPTER XI--IN THE LONG RAVINE

   CHAPTER XII--WHEN HOPE DIES OUT

   CHAPTER XIII--BACK TO THE UNKNOWN

   CHAPTER XIV--"BLACK IVORY"

   CHAPTER XV--CHOLERA

   CHAPTER XVI--THE OPEN CHEST

   CHAPTER XVII--THE TABLES TURNED

   CHAPTER XVIII--FREEDOM

   CHAPTER XIX--THE PHANTOM CANOE

   CHAPTER XX--THE RATS ESCAPE

   CHAPTER XXI--BACK AT THE "EXPLORERS’"

THE FIRE-GODS - CHAPTER I (THE EXPLORERS’ CLUB)

The Explorers’ Club no longer exists. To-day, as a matter of fact, it

is a tea-shop in Old Bond Street--a small building, wedged between two

greater ones, a fashionable milliner’s and a famous Art Establishment.

Towards the end of the last century, in what is known as the

mid-Victorian era, the Explorers’ Club was in the heyday of its glory.

 

The number of its members was limited to two hundred and fifty-one. In

the inner smoking-room, through the green baize doors, where guests were

not admitted, both the conversation and the company were at once

remarkable and unique. The walls were adorned with the trophies of the

chase: heads of elk, markhor, ibex, haartebeest and waterbuck; great

lions and snarling tigers; mouflon from Cyprus, and the white leopard of

the Himalayas. If you looked into the room through the glass peep-hole

in one of the green baize doors, you might have thought at first that

you beheld a menagerie, where the fiercest and the rarest beasts in the

world were imprisoned in a single cage. But, presently, your attention

would have been attracted by the great, sun-burnt men, sprawling in the

leather chairs, dressed in tweeds for the most part, and nearly every

one with a blackened briar pipe between his lips.

 

In those days, Africa was the "Dark Continent"; the source of the Nile

and the Great Lakes were undiscovered, of the Congo nothing was known.

Nor was this geographical ignorance confined to a single continent: in

every part of the world, vast tracts of country, great rivers and

mountains were as yet unexplored. And the little that was known of

these uttermost parts of the earth never passed the green baize doors of

the inner smoking-room of the Explorers’ Club.

 

There, in an atmosphere blue with smoke, where a great fire roared in

winter to keep the chill of the London fog from the bones of those who,

time and again, had been stricken with the fevers of the equatorial

parts, a small group of men would sit and talk by the hour. There great

projects were suggested, criticised and discussed. A man would rise

from his seat, take down a map of some half-discovered country, and

placing his finger upon a blank space, announce in tones of decision

that that was the exact spot to which he intended to go. And if he

went, perhaps, he would not come back.

 

At the time our story opens, Edward Harden was probably the most popular

member of the Explorers’ Club. He was still a comparatively young man;

and though his reputation rested chiefly upon his fame as a big game

shot, he had rendered no mean service to the cause of science, as the

honours heaped upon him by the Royal Geographical Society and kindred

institutions fully testified.

 

It was early in June, and the height of the London season, when this six

foot six of explorer walked up St. James’s Street on the right-hand

side. Somehow he felt that he was out of it. He was not one of the

fashionable crowd in the midst of which he found himself. For ten years

he had been growing more and more unaccustomed to the life of cities.

It was a strange thing, he could break his way through the tangled

thicknesses of an equatorial forest, or wade knee-deep in a mangrove

swamp, but he could never negotiate the passage of Piccadilly.

 

As he stood on the "island" in the middle of the street, opposite

Burlington House, he attracted a considerable amount of attention. He

was probably the tallest man at that moment between St. Paul’s and the

Albert Memorial. His brown moustache was several shades lighter than

his skin, which had been burnt to the colour of tan. His long limbs,

his sloping shoulders, and the slouch with which he walked, gave him an

appearance of looseness and prodigious strength. Also he had a habit of

walking with his fists closed, and his arms swinging like pendulums. He

was quite unconscious of the fact that people turned and stared after

him, or that he was an object of exceeding admiration to small boys, who

speculated upon the result of a blow from his fist.

 

He had not gone far along Bond Street when he cannoned into a young man,

who received a ponderous blow in the chest from Harden’s swinging fist.

The explorer could hardly have been expected to look where he was going,

since at that moment he was passing a gunsmith’s where the latest

improvement of elephant gun was on view in the window.

 

"I beg your pardon!" he exclaimed in eager apology.

 

"It’s nothing," said the other, and then added, with a note of surprise,

"Uncle Ted, by all that’s wonderful! I might have known it was you."

 

Edward Harden seldom expressed surprise. He just took the young

gentleman by the arm and walked him along at the rate of about five

miles an hour. "Come and have lunch," said he.

 

Now Max Harden, in addition to being the explorer’s only nephew, was a

medical student at one of the London hospitals. As a small boy, he had

regarded his uncle as one of the greatest men in the universe--which, in

a physical sense, he was.

 

A week before Max had come of age, which meant that he had acquired the

modest inheritance of a thousand pounds a year. He had also secured a

commission from the Royal Academy of Physicians to make sundry inquiries

into the origin of certain obscure tropical diseases in the district of

the Lower Congo. This was precisely the part of the world to which

Edward Harden was about to depart. Max knew that quite well, and his

idea was to travel with his uncle. He had been to the Explorers’ Club,

and had been told by the hall porter that Mr. Edward Harden was out, but

that he would probably return for lunch. It was about two minutes later

that he collided with his uncle outside the gunsmith’s shop.

 

To lunch at the Explorers’ Club was in itself an achievement. That day

several well-known men were there: Du Cane, the lion hunter; Frankfort

Williams, back from the Arctic, and George Cartwright, who had not yet

accomplished his famous journey into Thibet. Upon the walls of the

dining-room were full-length pictures of the great pioneers of

exploration: Columbus, Franklin and Cook. It was not until after

luncheon, when Max and his uncle were seated in the outer

smoking-room--through the green baize doors, it will be remembered, it

was forbidden for guests to enter--that Max broached the topic that was

nearest to his heart.

 

"Uncle Ted," said he, "tell me about this expedition? As yet I know

nothing."

 

"We’re going up the Congo," answered Harden simply; "and it’s natural

enough that you should know nothing about it, since practically nothing

is known. Our object is big game, but we hope to bring back some

valuable geographical information. The mouth of the Congo was

discovered by the Portuguese in the fifteenth century. Since then

several trading-stations have sprung up on the river, but no one has

penetrated inland. It is known that about five hundred miles from the

mouth of the river, a tributary, called the Kasai, flows from the south.

Of the upper valley of that river absolutely nothing is known, except

that it consists of the most impenetrable forests and is inhabited by

cannibal tribes. It is there we propose to go."

 

"Who goes with you?" asked Max.

 

"Crouch," said Harden; "Captain Crouch. The most remarkable man on the

Coast. Nobody in England has ever heard of him; but on the West Coast,

from Lagos to Loango, he is either hated like sin or worshipped like a

heathen god. There’s no man alive who understands natives as well as

Crouch. He can get more work out of a pack of Kru-boys in a day than a

shipping-agent or a trader can in a week."

 

"How do you account for it?" asked Max.

 

"Pluck," said Harden, "and perseverance. Also, from the day he was

born, a special providence seems to have guarded him. For many years he

was captain of a coasting-packet that worked from St. Louis to Spanish

Guinea. He fell overboard once in the Bight of Biafra, and lost a

foot."

 

"How did he do that?" asked Max, already vastly interested in the

personality of Captain Crouch.

 

"Sharks," said Harden, as if it were an everyday occurrence. "They swim

round Fernando Po like goldfish in a bowl. Would you believe it? Crouch

knifed that fish in the water, though he’ll wear a cork foot to his

dying day. He was one of the first men to force his way up the Niger,

and I happened to be at Old Calabar when he was brought in with a

poisoned arrow-head in his eye. At that time the natives of the

interior used to dip their weapons in snake’s poison, and no one but

Crouch could have lived. But he pulled through all right. He’s one of

those small, wiry men that can’t be killed. He has got a case full of

glass eyes now, of all the colours in the rainbow, and he plays Old

Harry with the natives. If they don’t do what he wants, I’ve seen him

pull out a blue eye and put in a red one, which frightens the life out

of them. Crouch isn’t like any one else I’ve ever met. He has the most

astonishing confidence in himself; he’s practically fever-proof; he can

talk about twenty West African dialects, and he’s a better shot than I

I believe the only person he cares for in the world is myself. I

would never dream of undertaking this expedition without him."

 

"I suppose," said Max, a trifle nervously, "you wouldn’t think of

including a third member in your party?"

 

Edward Harden looked at his nephew sharply. "What do you mean?" he

asked.

 

"I mean," said Max, "that I have undertaken to investigate certain

tropical diseases, such as sleeping sickness and malarial typhoid, in

the very districts to which you are going. I thought you might not

object if I came with you. I didn’t know I had Captain Crouch to deal

with."

 

Edward Harden rose to his feet and knocked out his pipe in the grate.

 

"For myself," said he, "I should be pleased to have you with me. Are

you ready to start at once? We hope to sail next week."

 

Max nodded.

 

"H’m," said the explorer, "I must ask Crouch. I think he’s in the

club."

 

He went to one of the green baize doors at the other end of the room,

opened it, and looked in.

 

"Crouch," said he, "do you mind coming here a moment. There’s something

I want to ask you."

 

He then came back to his seat and filled another pipe. As he was

engaged in lighting this, a green baize door swung back and there

entered one of the most extraordinary men that it was ever the lot of

the young medical student to behold.

 

As we have said, the Explorers’ Club was in Bond Street, and Captain

Crouch was dressed after the fashion of a pilot; that is to say, he wore

a navy-blue suit with brass buttons and a red tie. He was a very small

man, and exceedingly thin. There seemed nothing of him. His head was

almost entirely bald. He wore a small, bristling moustache,