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

after the other. Thus it is that

I have collected a great store of tusks."

 

Edward Harden made a wry face.

 

"I have heard of that manner of hunting," said he. "It is much

practised on the East Coast. I consider it barbarous and cruel."

 

Cæsar smiled again.

 

"I told you," said he, "you would not approve."

 

Harden swung round in his chair, with a gesture of disgust.

 

"I would like to see the ivory trade stopped," he cried, in a sudden

flood of anger, very rare in a man naturally prone to be unexcitable and

mild. "I regard the elephant as a noble animal--the noblest animal that

lives. I myself have shot many, but the beast has always had a chance,

though I will not deny the odds were always heavily on me. Still, when I

find myself face to face with a rogue elephant, I know that my life is

in danger. Now, there is no danger in your method, which is the method

of the slaughter-house. At this rate, very soon there will be no

elephants left in Africa."

 

"I’m afraid," said Cæsar, with a shrug of the shoulders, "we would never

agree, because you’re a sportsman and I’m a trader. In the meantime, I

will do all I can to make you comfortable during your stay at Makanda."

 

"Is that the name of this place?" asked Max.

 

"Yes," said the Portuguese. "There was a native village when I came

here--just a few scattered huts. The natives called the place Makanda,

which, I believe, means a crater. The hills which surround us are

evidently the walls of an extinct volcano. But, to come back to

business, I can provide a hut for your Fan attendants, but they must be

ordered not to leave the stockade. You have noticed, perhaps, that I

employ a few Arabs. I am fond of Arabs myself; they are such excellent

cooks. An Arab is usually on sentry at the gate of the stockade. That

man will receive orders to shoot any one of the Fans who endeavours to

pass the gate. These methods are rather arbitrary, I admit; but in the

heart of Africa, what would you have? It is necessary to rule with an

iron hand. Were I to be lax in discipline, my life would be in danger.

Also, I must request you and your friends not to leave the stockade,

unattended by either de Costa or myself. The truth is, there are

several hostile tribes in the neighbourhood, and it is only with the

greatest difficulty that I can succeed in maintaining peace."

 

"I’m sure," said Harden, "you will find us quite ready to do anything

you wish. After all, the station is yours; and in this country a man

makes his own laws."

 

"That is so," said Cæsar; and added, "I’m responsible to no one but

myself."

 

This man had an easy way of talking and a plausible manner that would

have deceived a more acute observer than Edward Harden. As he spoke he

waved his hand, as if the whole matter were a trifle. He ran on in the

same casual fashion, with an arm thrown carelessly over the back of his

chair, sending the smoke of his cigarette in rings towards the ceiling.

 

"Most of us come to Africa to make money," said he; "and as the climate

is unhealthy, the heat unbearable, and the inhabitants savages, we

desire to make that money as quickly as possible, and then return to

Europe. That is my intention. For myself, I keep tolerably well; but

de Costa here is a kind of living ague. He is half consumed with

malaria; he can’t sleep by night, he lies awake with chattering teeth.

Sometimes his temperature is so high that his pulse is racing. At other

times he is so weak that he is unable to walk a hundred paces. He looks

forward to the day when he shakes the dust of Africa from his shoes and

returns to his native land, which--according to him--is Portugal,

though, I believe, he was born in Jamaica."

 

Max looked at the half-caste, and thought that never before had he set

eyes upon so despicable an object. He looked like some mongrel cur. He

was quite unable to look the young Englishman in the face, but under

Max’s glance dropped his eyes to the floor.

 

"And now," said Cæsar, "there is a hut where I keep my provisions, which

I will place at your disposal."

 

At that he went outside, followed by the two Hardens. De Costa remained

in the hut. Crouch was still asleep.

 

Cæsar called the Arab from the kitchen, and, assisted by this man and

the five Fans, they set to work to remove a number of boxes from the hut

in which it was proposed that the three Englishmen should sleep.

Blankets were spread upon the ground. The tall Portuguese was most

solicitous that his guests should want for nothing. He brought candles,

a large mosquito-net, and even soap.

 

Supper that evening was the best meal which Max had eaten since he left

the sea-going ship at Banana Point on the Congo. The Portuguese was

well provided with stores. He produced several kinds of vegetables,

which, he said, he grew at a little distance from the stockade. He had

also a great store of spirits, being under the entirely false impression

that in tropical regions stimulants maintain both health and physical

strength.

 

After supper, Cæsar and Captain Crouch, who had entirely recovered from

his faintness, played écarté with an exceedingly dirty pack of cards.

And a strange picture they made, these two men, the one so small and

wizened, the other so tall and black, each coatless, with their

shirt-sleeves rolled to the elbow, fingering their cards in the

flickering light of a tallow candle stuck in the neck of a bottle.

Crouch knew it then--and perhaps Cæsar knew it, too--that they were

rivals to the death, in a greater game than was ever played with cards.

 

They went early to bed, thanking Cæsar for his kindness. Before he left

the hut, Edward Harden apologized for his rudeness in finding fault with

the trader’s method of obtaining ivory.

 

"It was no business of mine," said he. "I apologize for what I said."

 

No sooner were the three Englishmen in their hut, than Crouch seized

each of his friends by an arm, and drew them close together.

 

"Here’s the greatest devilry you ever heard of!" he exclaimed.

 

"How?" said Edward. "What do you mean?"

 

"As yet," said Crouch, "I know nothing. I merely suspect. Mark my

words, it’ll not be safe to go to sleep. One of us must keep watch."

 

"What makes you suspicious?" asked Max. Throughout this conversation

they talked in whispers. Crouch had intimated that they must not be

overheard.

 

"A thousand things," said Crouch. "In the first place, I don’t like the

look of Arabs. There’s an old saying on the Niger, ’Where there’s an

Arab, there’s mischief.’ Also, he’s got something he doesn’t wish us to

see. That’s why he won’t let us outside the stockade. Besides,

remember what the natives told us. The tribes the whole country round

stand in mortal fear of this fellow, and they don’t do that for nothing.

The Fans are a brave race, and so are the Pambala. And do you remember,

they told us that every evening there’s thunder in the valley which

shakes the earth? No, he’s up to no good, and I shall make it my

business to find out what his game is."

 

"Then you don’t believe that he’s an ivory trader?" asked Max.

 

"Not a word of it!" said Crouch. "Where’s the ivory? He talks of this

store of tusks, but where does he keep it? He says he’s been here for

two years. In two years, by the wholesale manner in which he has been

killing elephants, according to his own account, he should have a pile

of ivory ten feet high at least. And where is it? Not in a hut; not

one of them is big enough. I suppose he’ll ask us to believe that he

keeps it somewhere outside the stockade."

 

"I never thought of that," said Harden, tugging the ends of his

moustache. "I wonder what he’s here for."

 

"So do I," said Crouch.

 

Soon after that, at Crouch’s request, Harden and Max lay down upon their

blankets, and were soon fast asleep. As for the captain, he also lay

down, and for more than an hour breathed heavily, as if in sleep. Then,

without a sound, he began to move forward on hands and knees across the

floor of the hut.

 

When he reached the door he came into the moonlight, and had there been

any one there to see, they would have noticed that he carried a

revolver, and there was a knife between his teeth.

 

As quick as a lizard he glided into the shade beneath the walls of the

hut. There he lay for some minutes, listening, with all his senses

alert.

 

This man had much in common with the wild beasts of the forests. He was

quick to hear, quick to see; it seemed as if he even had the power to

scent danger, as the reed-buck or the buffalo.

 

His ears caught nothing but the varied sounds of wild, nocturnal life in

the jungle. The stockade was not more than a hundred paces distant from

the skirting of the forest. Somewhere near at hand a leopard growled,

and a troop of monkeys, frightened out of their wits, could be heard

scrambling through the branches of the trees. Farther away, a pair of

lions were hunting; there is no sound more terrible and haunting than

the quick, panting noise that is given by this great beast of prey as it

follows upon the track of an antelope or deer. Then, far in the

distance, there was a noise, so faint as to be hardly audible, like the

beating of a drum. Crouch knew what it was. Indeed, in these matters

there was little of which he was ignorant. It was a great gorilla,

beating its stomach in passion in the darkness. And that is a sound

before which every animal that lives in the jungle quails and creeps

away into hiding; even the great pythons slide back into the depths of

silent, woodland pools.

 

But it was not to the forest that Crouch’s ear was turned. He was

listening for a movement in the hut in which slept the Portuguese

trader, who went by the name of Cæsar. After a while, seeming

satisfied, he crawled on, in absolute silence, in the half-darkness,

looking for all the world like some cruel four-footed beast that had

come slinking from out of the jungle.

 

He reached the door of the hut, and crept stealthily in. Inside, he was

not able to see. It was some little time before his eye grew accustomed

to the darkness.

 

Then he was just able to discern the long figure of the Portuguese

stretched upon his couch. Half-raising himself, he listened, with his

ear not two inches from the man’s mouth. Cæsar was breathing heavily.

He was evidently fast asleep.

 

Still on hands and knees, as silently as ever, Crouch glided out of the

hut.

 

Instead of returning by the way he had come, he turned in the opposite

direction, and approached another hut. It was that which belonged to

the half-caste, de Costa, whom he had met five years before in St. Paul

de Loanda.

 

Once again he passed in at the door, silently, swiftly, with his knife

still in his teeth.

 

This hut was even darker than the other, by reason of the fact that the

door was smaller. Crouch sat up, and rubbed his eyes, and inwardly

abused the universe in general because he was not able to see.

 

Suddenly there was a creaking noise, as if some one moved on the bed.

Crouch was utterly silent. Then some one coughed. The cough was

followed by a groan. De Costa sat up in bed. Crouch was just able to

see him.

 

The little half-caste, resting his elbows on his knees, took his head

between his hands, and rocked from side to side. He talked aloud in

Portuguese. Crouch knew enough of that language to understand.

 

"Oh, my head!" he groaned. "My head! My head!" He was silent for no

longer than a minute; then he went on: "Will I never be quit of this

accursed country! The fever is in my bones, my blood, my brain!"

 

He turned over on his side, and, stretching out an arm, laid hold upon a

match-box. They were wooden matches, and they rattled in the box.

 

Then he struck a light and lit a candle, which was glued by its own

grease to a saucer. When he had done that he looked up, and down the

barrel of Captain Crouch’s revolver.