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

the portage and followed an elephant track to the

Kasai. For a moment, Harden was undecided how to act. If he continued

on his way to Date Palm Island, some days might be wasted before he

again picked up the trail. In the end he decided to send Max and the

three Fans to the north, and go himself with M’Wané to the Island.

There he would load up the canoe, send half the boys down-stream on the

look-out for Max, and bring the others back to the portage to assist the

slaves.

 

The following morning he shook hands with his nephew, and continued on

the old route with which he was now familiar. He had not gone far,

however, before he noticed bloodstains on the leaves of the undergrowth;

and presently, to his utmost surprise, he came across one of the Loango

boys wounded by a bullet in the leg, and crawling painfully on hands and

knees towards the river.

 

This boy said that he had been hunting in the jungle--for they were

short of food on the Island--when he had come across a caravan

consisting of six Arabs and a white man. They were carrying a canoe

half-filled with supplies, and a great box which appeared to be

excessively heavy. The white man who led the way, seemed to be very

weak, for he staggered as he walked. Indeed, it is impossible to

imagine the hardships that the tall Portuguese underwent upon that last

and fateful journey. So anxious was he to save his rubies, to gain the

sea-coast in safety, that he had not brought with him sufficient

supplies. In consequence, he and his men were starving and, as we shall

see, they had an even more deadly foe to reckon with.

 

M’Wané, picking up the wounded boy in his arms, carried him like a baby

throughout the rest of the journey to Date Palm Island. There the man’s

wound was attended to, and he was placed in a canoe which was ready

loaded two hours after Edward had reached the river.

 

Once more Harden set forth upon his old track, leaving instructions that

the canoe was to drop down-stream on the afternoon of the following day.

The Loango boys from the Island, though they had complained of being

short of food, were in fine condition; and the party came up with Crouch

at the end of the second day. Thence they made better headway and,

following Cæsar’s trail, arrived eventually at the river, where they

found not only Max and the Fans, but the party from the Island.

 

And now followed a race down the river after the slave-drivers and their

chest of rubies. The three canoes which had been carried from the

Hidden River, were embarked on the Kasai. The slaves who had acted as

porters on the journey were given the option of finding their own way

back to their villages or going down to the Congo in the canoes. There

was never the slightest doubt that the majority would choose the former

course. Half their number had come from the Pambala village on the

slopes of Solitude Peak, and a score from other villages farther to the

south-west. In all there were only five who desired to journey to the

Congo, and these were men whom Cæsar had captured in the land of the

Bakutu.

 

The current of the river was so swift that the four canoes shot

down-stream at a great velocity with little help from the paddles. On

the upper reaches of the great river, rapids and waterfalls were

frequent, and at such times it was necessary to carry the canoe to

unbroken water. At each portage they found traces of Cæsar and his

Arabs. Once the camp-fire of the Portuguese was still alight, and soon

after that, on rounding a point, they came in sight of a canoe.

 

They thought at first that they had overtaken Cæsar, but they were

doomed to be disappointed. With the aid of their fieldglasses they

ascertained that the canoe was coming towards them, working slowly

up-stream against the force of the current.

 

They were still more surprised when they recognised, seated in the stern

of this canoe, the white solar topee and the black coat of a European.

A few minutes later Crouch was within hail.

 

"Who are you?" he asked, with both hands to his mouth.

 

And the answer came back in the accent of Aberdeen: "James Mayhew, of

the Scottish Missionary Society."

 

That, indeed, was so. This man alone, attended only by a few native

servants, was forcing his way in the absolute Unknown, in order to bring

the enlightenment of Christian knowledge into the depths of an endless

forest, inhabited by cannibals and dwarfs. They had time only to

congratulate the missionary upon his courage, and to wish him every

success. Crouch gave Mr. Mayhew directions as to how to reach the

Hidden Valley, and told him that, if he found his way to Solitude Peak

and said that he had come from the "White Wizard," he would find many

converts among the liberated slaves and the people of the village.

 

On being asked whether he had seen the Portuguese and his Arabs on the

river, the Missionary answered that he had passed them not an hour ago.

The Arabs had been paddling furiously, as if their lives depended upon

their reaching the Congo with as little delay as possible. As for the

Portuguese, he had been lying as if sick, in the body of the canoe, with

his head propped against a great ironbound chest.

 

Crouch waited to hear no more. Waving his hand to the Missionary, he

gave orders for the journey to continue.

 

That evening, they expected to arrive at Cæsar’s camp, but by midnight

they had come to the conclusion that the man was resolved to push on

without halting for food.

 

It was now that M’Wané and his four companions--the three that had gone

to Solitude Peak and the one who had been left at the Island--asked to

be put ashore. They said they were not far from their own people, and

were desirous of returning home. For all that, they were extremely

sorry to leave their masters, the great white men who had overcome the

Fire-gods.

 

When they left, there was much hand-shaking. Each man was presented

with a rifle and several rounds of ammunition, in addition to that they

received enough beads, brass rods, and cloth, to gladden the hearts of

any savage who ever roamed the equatorial forests.

 

Throughout the night the canoes paddled to the north-west. All this

time de Costa lay in the body of a canoe, groaning with ague and

shivering from fever. It is a strange thing that in the close and humid

atmosphere of the forest there is little malaria or malarial typhoid,

which cause such havoc among the white men on the great rivers of the

Congo Basin. For it is above the surface of the water that the

mosquitoes swarm, which breed these fell diseases.

 

At daybreak they sighted Cæsar. They saw his canoe for no longer than

an instant as it rounded a bend in the river. The natives plied their

paddles with a will, and Crouch, in the vanguard of the pursuit held his

rifle ready to fire.

 

All day long, beneath the blazing tropic sun, with the insects droning

in their ears and the yellow seething water rushing onward to the sea,

this strange race continued.

 

Three times did they catch sight of the fugitives; once in the morning,

once at mid-day, and the last time when the afternoon was drawing to a

close.

 

By then they were not five hundred yards in the rear. It seemed

probable that the Portuguese would be overtaken before night. Throughout

that day native settlements on either bank of the river had been

frequent. They were but two hundred miles above the point where the

Kasai joins the Congo, to the north of Stanley Pool.

 

At last they entered a broad reach, where the river was straight as a

Roman road. On either side the jungle rose to the height of about two

hundred feet--a tangled mass of vegetation, of creepers, vines,

convolvuli, so densely interwoven as to give the effect of endless

walls. Far in the distance, at the end of this long reach, they could

see an island standing in mid-stream, as if it floated on the surface of

the river.

 

Resolved to overtake the man before darkness set in and assisted his

escape, they urged the canoes forward, until Cæsar recognised himself

for lost. Two shots from Crouch, and Cæsar’s canoe drew in to the bank

of the island.

 

As they approached they saw the Portuguese lifted out of his canoe in

the arms of his faithful Arabs, and deposited on the bank. Then the

Arabs, taking their rifles in their hands, opened fire on their

pursuers.

 

They realized at once that resistance would be hopeless. The Loango

boys, after many weeks of inactivity on Date Palm Island, were spoiling

for a fight. Not all of them were armed with rifles, but the odds were

two to one against the Arabs, who knew that they could always trust the

white men to show mercy. No sooner had the Englishmen set foot upon the

island than they delivered up their arms.

 

Had Crouch shot them on the spot these men, who for two years had been

scourging slaves with their whips, had got no more than they deserved.

As it was, their weapons were not given back to them, and they were

turned adrift upon the great river, with a week’s provisions, to find

their way back as best they might to some settlement of their own kith

and kin.

 

And then the Englishmen were able to give their attention to Cæsar. The

tall man lay upon the ground, rigid as in death. The whole party

gathered around him, with the exception of de Costa, who was himself too

ill to land upon the island.

 

Cæsar’s complexion was a dull, slaty-blue. His face was drawn and

haggard, his eyes had sunk deep into their sockets. As Max pushed his

way through the inquisitive Loango boys, who stood gaping at the dying

man, Cæsar struggled to a sitting position, and supporting his back

against a tree, looked savagely about him.

 

"Stand back!" cried Max. "It’s cholera!"

 

It was then he realized the truth. Cæsar had thrashed one of his slaves

for no greater crime than having contracted the pestilence that was

ravaging his camp. Max had snatched the whip from the man’s hand and

brought down upon his face and hands and back the cruel thong, whose

very touch was contagion. And thus was the vengeance of God, upon one

who had done evil all his days, taken from the hands of Captain Crouch.

 

Max was actually on his way back to his canoe to procure his medicine

chest when the man looked about him, rolled his eyes to the heavens, as

if he who had shown so little of mercy to others thought to find it

there. Then he fell back with a groan, and lay cramped and twisted in

the agony of his death.

 

That night, they buried him upon the island. They filled ammunition

boxes with the rubies, and burnt the chest against which Cæsar had

rested his head. And then, they left him in the starlight, in the midst

of the great stillness of the lonely river, to make his peace with God.

 

 

 

THE FIRE-GODS - CHAPTER XXI--BACK AT THE "EXPLORERS’"

 

The green baize doors are just the same as ever; and in the inner

smoking room is Edward Harden, as large and clumsy-looking as on the

morning when we met him first at the top of St. James’s Street, except

that, perhaps, he is more sun-burnt and somewhat haggard.

 

It is winter; the London fog is without, and a great fire is roaring in

the grate. And before that fire is seated a young gentleman who now,

for the first time, is enjoying the privileges of a member.

 

Edward rose to his feet, and looked at the clock.

 

"It’s six," said he. "Crouch ought to be here."

 

Max Harden consulted his watch, as if