A Master of Fortune Part 12

"Speaking as a doctor," said Clay cheerfully, "I may tell you that your unprofessional opinion is rot. Now, if I'd a brother sawbones here to perform amputation, I might have a chance--say, one in a thousand."

"Your leg ought to be cut off?"

"Just there, above the knee. That'll mortify in twenty hours from now.

Thank the Lord I never wasted much morphia on the n.i.g.g.e.rs. There's plenty in stock. So it won't worry me much."

"Look here," said Kettle, "I will cut that leg off for you."

"You! My good Skipper, you're a handy man, I know, but what the blazes do you know about amputation?"

"You've got to teach me. You can show me the tools to use, and draw diagrams of where the arteries come."

"By the powers, I've a great mind to. There's something pretty rich in giving an amputation lecture with one's own femorals as a subject."

"You'd better," said Kettle grimly, "or I shall cut it off without being taught. I like you a lot too well, my man, to let you die for want of a bit of help."

And so, princ.i.p.ally because the grotesqueness of the situation appealed to his whimsical sense of humor, Clay forthwith proceeded to pose as an anatomy demonstrator addressing a cla.s.s, and expounded the whole art of amputation, handling the utensils of the surgeon's craft with the gusto of an expert, and never by shudder or sigh showing a trace of the white feather. He carried the whole thing through with a genial gayety, pointing his sentences now with a quip, now with some roguish sparkle of profanity, and finally he announced that the lecture was complete and over, and then he nodded familiarly at his wounded limb.

"By-bye, old hoof!" he said. "You've helped carry the rest of me into some queer sc.r.a.pes, one time and another. But we've had good times together, as well as bad, you and I, and anyway, I'm sorry to lose you.

And now, skipper," said he, "get off your coat and wade in. I've put on the Esmarch's bandage for you. Don't be n.i.g.g.ardly with the chloroform--I've got a good heart. And remember to do what I told you about that femoral artery, and don't make a mistake there, or else there'll be a mess on the floor. Shake hands, old man, and good luck to your surgery; and anyway, thank you for your trouble."

I fancy that I have made it clear before that Captain Kettle was a man possessed not only of an iron nerve, but also of all a sailor's handiness with his fingers; but here was a piece of work that required all his coolness and dexterity. At home, on an operating table, with everything at hand that antiseptic surgery could provide, with highly trained surgeons and highly trained nurses in goodly numbers, it would have been a formidable undertaking; but there, among those savage surroundings, in that awful loneliness which a white man feels so far away from all his kin, it was a very different matter.

It makes me shiver when I think how that little sailor must have realized his risks and his responsibility. It was a situation that would have fairly paralyzed most men. But from what can be gathered from the last letter that the patient ever wrote, it is clear that Kettle carried out the operation with indomitable firmness and decision; and if indeed some of his movements were crude, he had grasped all the main points of his hurried teaching, and he made no single mistake of any but pedantic importance.

Clay woke up from the anaesthetic, sick, shaken, but still courageous as ever. "Well," he gasped, "you've made a fine dot-and-go-one of me, Skipper, and that's a fact. When you chuck the sea, and get back to England, and set up in a snug country practice as general pract.i.tioner, you'll be able to look back on your first operation with pride."

Kettle, shaken and white, regarded him from a native stool in the middle of the hut. "I can't think," he said, "how any men can be doctors whilst there's still a crossing to sweep."

"Oh," said Clay, "you're new at it now, and a bit jolted up. But the trade has its points. I'll argue it out with you some day. But just at present I'm going to try and sleep. I'm a bit jolted up, too."

Now, it is a melancholy fact to record that Dr. Clay did not pull round again after his accident and the subsequent operation. To any one who knows the climate, the reason will be easily understood. In that heated air of Central Equatorial Africa, tainted with all manner of harmful germs, a scratch will take a month to heal, and any considerable flesh wound may well prove a death warrant. Captain Kettle nursed his patient with a woman's tenderness, and Clay himself struggled gamely against his fate; but the ills of the place were too strong for him, and the inevitable had to be.

But the struggle was no quick thing of a day, or even of a week. The man lingered wirily on, and in the mean while Kettle saw the marvellous political structure, which with so much labor and daring he had built up, crumbling to pieces, as it were, before his very eyes. A company of Arab slave-traders had entered the district, and were recapturing his subject villages one by one.

At the first attack runners came to him imploring help. It was useless to send his half-baked soldiers without going himself. They knew no other leader; there was not a negro among them fit to take a command; and he himself was tied. He said nothing to Clay, but just sent a refusal, and remained at his post.

Again and again came clamorous appeals for help against these new invaders, and again and again he had to give the same stubborn refusal.

His vaunted New Republic was being split up again into its primitive elements; the creed of the South Shields chapel was being submerged under a wave of red-hot Mohammedanism; and the ivory, that hard-earned ivory, with all its delicious potentialities, was once more being lifted by alien raiders, and this time forever beyond his reach.

Clay got some inkling of what was going on, and repeatedly urged him to be off at once and put things straight in person. "Don't you worry about me, Skipper," he'd say. "I'll get along here fine by myself. n.o.body'll come to worry me. And if they did, they'd let me alone. I'm far too unwholesome-looking to chop just now."

But Kettle always stolidly refused to leave him. Indeed, with difficulty (for he was at all times a painfully truthful man) he used to lie to his patient and say that there was no need for him to go at all; that everything was going on quite as they could wish; and that he was vastly enjoying the relaxation of a holiday.

But in sober fact things were going very much awry. And every day they got worse. Even his original bevy of troops, those he had brought up with him into the country on the stern-wheel launch, seemed to grasp the fact that his star was in the descendant. There was no open mutiny, for they still feared him too much personally to dare that; but in the black unwatched nights they stole away from the village, and every day their numbers thinned, and the villagers followed their lead; and when the end came, the two lonely white men had the village to themselves.

Clay's last words were typical of him. Kettle, with devotional intent, had been singing some hymn to him, which he had composed as being suitable for the occasion. But the dying man's ears were dulled, and he mistook both air and words. "You're a good fellow to sing me that," he whispered. "I know you don't like striking up that sort of music. By Jove! I heard that song last at the Pav. Good old Piccadilly Circus."

And then a little later: "I say, Skipper. I'm close on the peg-out.

There's a girl in Winchester--but hang her, anyway. No, you've been my best pal. You're to have all my share of the loot--the ivory, I mean.

You savvy, I leave it to you in my last will and testament, fairly and squarely. And Skipper, I'm sorry I ragged you about your mug on those New Republic stamps. If ever a man deserved what he wanted in that line, you're--you're--"

The voice failed. "Yes?" said Kettle, and stooped nearer.

Clay feebly winked. "You're him," he whispered. "So long, old c.o.c.k."

Captain Kettle buried his friend in the first gold of the next dawn under a magnolia tree, which was hung with sweet-scented blossoms, in the middle of the village. During the heat of the day he composed a copy of verses to his memory, and when the sun had dropped somewhat, he went out with his knife to carve them on the tree above the grave.

It appeared that the village was not so completely deserted as seemed to the eye, or, at any rate, that he had been watched. On the newly turned earth was a chicken, which had been sacrificed in the orthodox fashion; and for once he beheld the sight without resentment.

He raised his hat to the dead, and "Doc," he said, "this hen-killing is bang against my principles, but I won't say anything now. I guess it's some n.i.g.g.e.r's way of showing respect to you, and, by James! you're a fellow that ought to be admired. If only it hadn't been for that tree falling down, there'd have been two men round here that would have left their mark on Africa, and you're one of them. Well, old man, you're gone, and I hope you're looking down this moment--or up, as the case may be--to read this bit of poetry I'm going to stick above your head. It's worth attention. It's about the best sample of rhyme I ever hoisted out."

CHAPTER V

THE LOOTING OF THE "INDIAN SHERIFF."

Captain Kettle dived two fingers into the bowl of odorous, orange-colored palm-oil chop, and fished out a joint suspiciously like a n.i.g.g.e.r baby's arm. He knew it was a monkey's; or at least he was nearly certain it was a monkey's; but he ate no more from that particular bowl.

The tribe he was with were not above suspicion of cannibalism, and though their hospitality was lavish, it was by no means guaranteed as to quality.

The head-man noticed his action, and put a smiling question: "You no like dem climb-climb chop? Tooth him plenty sore?"

"No," said Kettle, "my teeth are all in good working order, daddy, thanks. But now you mention it, the monkey is a bit tough. Not been stewed long enough, perhaps."

The head-man gave an order, and presently a woman at the cooking fire outside brought another calabash into the hut, and set it at the little sailor's feet. The head-man examined and explained: "Dem's dug chop, too-plenty-much fine. You fit?"

"I fit," said Kettle; "that'll suit me down to the ground, daddy. Stewed duck is just the thing I like, and palm-oil sauce isn't half bad when you're used to it. I'll recommend your pub to my friends, old one-eye, when I get home."

He dipped his digits into the stew, and drew forth a doubtful limb. He regarded it with a twitching nose and critical eye.

"Thundering heavy-boned duck this, of yours, daddy."

"Me no savvy?" said his host questioningly.

"I say dem dug he got big bone. He no fit for fly. He no say quack-quack."

"Oh, I savvy plenty," said the one-eyed man, smiling. "Dem not quack-quack dug, dem bow-wow dug. You see him bow-wow dis morning. You hit him with foot, so."

"Ugh," said Kettle, "dog stew, is it? Yes, I know the animal, if you say he's the one I kicked. I had watched the brute eating garbage about the village for half an hour, and then when he wanted to chew my leg, I hit him. Ugh, daddy, don't you bring on these delicacies quite so sudden, or I shall forget my table manners. African scavenger dog! And I saw him make his morning meal. Here, Missis, for Heaven's sake take this dish away."

The glistening black woman stepped forward, but the head-man stopped her. There was some mistake here. He had killed the best dog in the village for Captain Kettle's meal, and his guest for some fastidious reason refused to eat. He pointed angrily to the figured bowl. "Dug chop," said he. "Too-much-good. You chop him." This rejection of excellent food was a distinct slur on his menage, and he was working himself up into pa.s.sion. "You chop dem dug chop one-time," he repeated.

The situation was growing strained, and might well culminate in fisticuffs. But Captain Kettle, during his recent many months' sojourn as a lone white man in savage Africa, had acquired one thing which had never burdened him much before, and that was tact. He did not openly resent the imperative tone of his host, which any one who had known him previously would have guessed to be his first impulse. But neither at the same time did he permit himself to be forced into eating the noxious meal. He temporized. With that queer polyglot called Coast English, and with shreds from a score of native dialects, he made up a tattered fabric of speech which beguiled the head-man back again into good humor; and presently that one-eyed savage squatted amicably down on his heels, and gave an order to one of his wives in attendance.

The lady brought Kettle's accordion, and the little sailor propped his back against the wattle wall of the hut, and made music, and lifted up his voice in song. The tune carried among the lanes and dwellings of the village, and naked feet _pad-padded_ quickly up over dust and the gra.s.s; the audience distributed itself within and without the head-man's hut, and listened enrapt; and the head-man felt the glow of satisfaction that a London hostess feels when she has hired for money the most popular drawing-room entertainer of the day, and her guests condescend to enjoy, and not merely to exhibit themselves as _blases_.