Black Ivory by R. M. Ballantyne (online e reader TXT) 📗

them that he had perfect confidence in the good faith of the white men, and said that he meant to take charge of them. He then entertained his black brothers hospitably, gave them a few presents, and sent them on their way. This done he returned to his guests and told them that they were free, that their captors were gone, and that they might go where they pleased, but that it would gratify him much if they would consent to spend some time hunting with him in the neighbourhood of his village.

“Now,” said Disco, after Yambo left them, “this is wot I call the most uncommon fix that ever wos got into by man since Adam an’ Eve began housekeepin’ in the garden of Eden.”

“I’m not quite sure,” replied Harold, with a rueful look, “that it is absolutely the worst fix, but it is bad enough. The worst of it is that this Yambo has let these rascals off with all our fire-arms and camp-equipage, so that we are absolutely helpless—might as well be prisoners, for we can’t quit this village in such circumstances.”

“Wot’s wuss than that to my mind, sir, is, that here we are at sea, in the heart of Afriky, without chart, quadrant, compass, or rudder, an’ no more idea of our whereabouts than one o’ them spider monkeys that grins among the trees. Hows’ever, we’re in luck to fall into the hands of a friendly chief, so, like these same monkeys, we must grin an’ bear it; only I can’t help feelin’ a bit cast down at the loss of our messmates. I fear there’s no chance of their findin’ us.”

“Not the least chance in the world, I should say,” returned Harold. “They could not guess in which direction we had gone, and unless they had hit on the right road at first, every step they took afterwards would only widen the distance between us.”

“It’s lucky I was beginnin’ to mend before we was catched,” said Disco, feeling the muscles of his legs; “true, I ain’t much to boast of yet but I’m improvin’.”

“That is more than I can say for myself,” returned Harold, with a sigh, as he passed his hand across his forehead; “I feel as if this last push through the woods in the hot sun, and the weight of that terrible slave-stick had been almost too much for me.”

Disco looked earnestly and anxiously into the face of his friend.

“Wot,” asked he, “does you feel?”

“I can scarcely tell,” replied Harold, with a faint smile. “Oh, I suppose I’m a little knocked up, that’s all. A night’s rest will put me all right.”

“So I thought myself, but I wos wrong,” said Disco. “Let’s hear wot your feelin’s is, sir; I’m as good as any doctor now, I am, in regard to symptoms.”

“Well, I feel a sort of all-overishness, a kind of lassitude and sleepiness, with a slight headache, and a dull pain which appears to be creeping up my spine.”

“You’re in for it sir,” said Disco. “It’s lucky you have always carried the physic in your pockets, ’cause you’ll need it, an’ it’s lucky, too, that I am here and well enough to return tit for tat and nurse you, ’cause you’ll have that ’ere pain in your spine creep up your back and round your ribs till it lays hold of yer shoulders, where it’ll stick as if it had made up its mind to stay there for ever an’ a day. Arter that you’ll get cold an’ shivering like ice—oh! doesn’t I know it well—an’ then hot as fire, with heavy head, an’ swimming eyes, an’ twisted sight, an’ confusion of—”

“Hold! hold!” cried Harold, laughing, “if you go on in that way I shall have more than my fair share of it! Pray stop, and leave me a little to find out for myself.”

“Well, sir, take a purge, and turn in at once, that’s my advice. I’ll dose you with quinine to-morrow mornin’, first thing,” said Disco, rising and proceeding forthwith to arrange a couch in a corner of the hut, which Yambo had assigned them.

Harold knew well enough that his follower was right. He took his advice without delay, and next morning found himself little better than a child, both physically and mentally, for the disease not only prostrated his great strength—as it had that of his equally robust companion—but, at a certain stage, induced delirium, during which he talked the most ineffable nonsense that his tongue could pronounce, or his brain conceive.

Poor Disco, who, of course, had been unable to appreciate the extent of his own delirious condition, began to fear that his leader’s mind was gone for ever, and Jumbo was so depressed by the unutterably solemn expression of the mariner’s once jovial countenance, that he did not once show his teeth for a whole week, save when engaged with meals.

As for Antonio, his nature not being very sympathetic, and his health being good, he rather enjoyed the quiet life and good living which characterised the native village, and secretly hoped that Harold might remain on the sick-list for a considerable time to come.

How long this state of affairs lasted we cannot tell, for both Harold and Disco lost the correct record of time during their respective illnesses.

Up to that period they had remembered the days of the week, in consequence of their habit of refraining from going out to hunt on Sundays, except when a dearth of meat in the larder rendered hunting a necessity. Upon these Sundays Harold’s conscience sometimes reproached him for having set out on his journey into Africa without a Bible. He whispered, to himself at first, and afterwards suggested to Disco, the excuse that his Bible had been lost in the wreck of his father’s vessel, and that, perhaps, there were no Bibles to be purchased in Zanzibar, but his conscience was a troublesome one, and refused to tolerate such bad reasoning, reminding him, reproachfully, that he had made no effort whatever to obtain a Bible at Zanzibar.

As time had passed, and some of the horrors of the slave-trade had been brought under his notice, many of the words of Scripture leaped to his remembrance, and the regret that he had not carried a copy with him increased. That touch of thoughtlessness, so natural to the young and healthy—to whom life has so far been only a garden of roses—was utterly routed by the stern and dreadful realities which had been recently enacted around him, and just in proportion as he was impressed with the lies, tyranny, cruelty, and falsehood of man, so did his thoughtful regard for the truth and the love of God increase, especially those truths that were most directly opposed to the traffic in human flesh, such as—“love your enemies,” “seek peace with all men,” “be kindly affectioned one to another,” “whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them.” An absolute infidel, he thought, could not fail to perceive that a most blessed change would come over the face of Africa if such principles prevailed among its inhabitants, even in an extremely moderate degree.

But to return, the unfortunate travellers were now “at sea” altogether in regard to the Sabbath as well as the day of the month. Indeed their minds were not very clear as to the month itself!

“Hows’ever,” said Disco, when this subject afterwards came to be discussed, “it don’t matter much. Wot is it that the Scriptur’ says,—‘Six days shalt thou labour an’ do all that thou hast to do, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. In it thou shalt do no work.’ I wos used always to stick at that pint w’en my poor mother was a-teachin’ of me. Never got past it. But it’s enough for present use anyhow, for the orders is, work six days an’ don’t work the seventh. Werry good, we’ll begin to-day an’ call it Monday; we’ll work for six days, an’ w’en the seventh day comes we’ll call it Sunday. If it ain’t the right day, we can’t help it; moreover, wot’s the odds? It’s the seventh day, so that to us it’ll be the Sabbath.”

But we anticipate. Harold was still—at the beginning of this digression—in the delirium of fever, though there were symptoms of improvement about him.

One afternoon one of these symptoms was strongly manifested in a long, profound slumber. While he slept Disco sat on a low stool beside him, busily engaged with a clasp-knife on some species of manufacture, the nature of which was not apparent at a glance.

His admirer, Jumbo, was seated on a stool opposite, gazing at him open-mouthed, with a countenance that reflected every passing feeling of his dusky bosom.

Both men were so deeply absorbed in their occupation—Disco in his manufacture, and Jumbo in staring at Disco—that they failed for a considerable time to observe that Harold had wakened suddenly, though quietly, and was gazing at them with a look of lazy, easy-going surprise.

The mariner kept up a running commentary on his work, addressed to Jumbo indeed, but in a quiet interjectional manner that seemed to imply that he was merely soliloquising, and did not want or expect a reply.

“It’s the most ’stror’nary notion, Jumbo, between you and me and the post, that I ever did see. Now, then, this here bullet-head wants a pair o’ eyes an’ a nose on it; the mouth’ll do, but it’s the mouth as is most troublesome, for you niggers have got such wappin’ muzzles—it’s quite a caution, as the Yankees say,”—(a pause)—“on the whole, however, the nose is very difficult to manage on a flat surface, ’cause w’y?—if I leaves it quite flat, it don’t look like a nose, an’ if I carves it out ever so little, it’s too prominent for a nigger nose. There, ain’t that a good head, Jumbo?”

Thus directly appealed to, Jumbo nodded his own head violently, and showed his magnificent teeth from ear to ear, gums included.

Disco laid down the flat piece of board which he had carved into the form of a human head, and took up another piece, which was rudely blocked out into the form of a human leg—both leg and head being as large as life.

“Now this limb, Jumbo,” continued Disco, slowly, as he whittled away with the clasp-knife vigorously, “is much more troublesome than I would have expected; for you niggers have got such abominably ill-shaped legs below the knee. There’s such an unnat’ral bend for’ard o’ the shin-bone, an’ such a rediklous sticking out o’ the heel astarn, d’ee see, that a feller with white man notions has to make a study of it, if he sets up for a artist; in course, if he don’t set up for a artist any sort o’ shape’ll do, for it don’t affect the jumpin’. Ha! there they go,” he exclaimed, with a humorous smile at a hearty shout of laughter which was heard just outside the hut, “enjoyin’ the old ’un; but it’s nothin’ to wot the noo ’un’ll be w’en it’s finished.”

At this exhibition of amusement on the countenance of his friend, Jumbo threw back his head and again showed not only his teeth and gums but the entire inside of his mouth, and chuckled softly from the region of his breast-bone.

“I’m dreaming, of course,” thought Harold, and shut his eyes.

Poor fellow! he was very weak, and the mere act of shutting his eyes induced a half-slumber. He awoke again in a few minutes, and re-opening his eyes, beheld the two men still sitting, and occupied as before.

“It is a wonderfully pertinacious dream,” thought Harold. “I’ll try to dissipate it.”

Thinking thus, he called out aloud,—“I say, Disco!”

“Hallo! that’s uncommon like the old tones,” exclaimed the seaman, dropping his knife and the leg of wood as he looked anxiously at his friend.

“What old tones?” asked Harold.

“The tones of your voice,” said Disco.

“Have they changed so much of late?” inquired Harold in surprise.

“Have they? I