Long Odds Part 30

"I came up behind Herrero most of the way, and when there were signs that we were getting closer I sent one of my boys on to creep in upon his camp two or three days ago. From what he told me when he came back I fancied there was mischief on foot, and I pushed on as fast as possible. Considering everything, it seems just as well I did."

The other man appeared unwilling to let his gaze wander beyond the veranda, which was in one way comprehensible. There was shrinking in his face, and his voice was strained and hoa.r.s.e.

"It was so sudden--it has left me a trifle dazed," he said. "I am almost afraid the trouble is not over yet."

Ormsgill smiled rea.s.suringly. "I scarcely think--you--have any cause to worry. There is no doubt that Herrero inspired his boys, and attempts of this kind, as no doubt you are aware, have been made on mission stations before, but it's certain he would disclaim all knowledge of what they meant to do, and will be quite content to let the matter go no further. That is, at least, so far as anybody connected with the Mission is concerned."

"I am afraid he may find some means of laying the blame on you."

"It is quite likely," and Ormsgill laughed. "After all, it's a thing I'm used to, and, you see, I'm proscribed already. As it happens, so is Nares. He should never have left me. I have no doubt Herrero, who has friends in authority, will endeavor to make him regret his share in to-night's proceedings."

Nares glanced at one of the rigid figures that lay beneath him in the moonlight. He saw the naked black shoulders, and the soiled white draperies that had fallen apart from the ebony limbs, and a little shiver ran through him. The heat of the conflict had vanished now, and the pale light showed that his face was drawn and gray.

"I struck that man," he said. "I don't know what possessed me, but I think I meant to kill him. In one way, the thing is horrible."

"Well," said Ormsgill dryly, "it is also very natural. The impulse you seem to shrink from is lurking somewhere in most of us. In any case, the man is certainly dead. I looked at him as I came up."

He stopped a moment, and leaned somewhat heavily upon the bal.u.s.trade with his eyes fixed on the dusky form of the negro. "The meanest thing upon this earth is the man who sides with the oppressor and tramples on his own kind. Still, though I think what I did was warranted, that was not why I shot those men. One doesn't always reason about these matters, as I fancy you understand."

He turned, and looked at Nares who, after a momentary shrinking, steadily met his gaze. The man was wholly honest, and the thing was clear to him. He had struck at last, shrewdly, in a righteous cause, and n.o.body could have blamed him, but, as had happened in his comrade's case, human bitterness had also nerved the blow.

"Well," he said slowly, "you and I, at least, will probably have to face the results of it."

Again Ormsgill laughed, but a little glint crept into his eyes. "As I pointed out, we are both of us outlawed, with the hand of every white man in this country against us, but we have still a thing to do, and somehow I almost think it will be done."

Then he turned to the man in charge of the Mission. "Nares is coming away with me. There are several reasons that make it advisable. It is very unlikely that anybody will trouble you further about this affair, and if the blame is laid on us it can't greatly matter. The score against one of us is a tolerably long one already--and if my luck holds out it may be longer. There is just another point. Shall I take those two boys below away for you?"

"No," said the other man quietly. "There is, at least, one duty we owe them."

Ormsgill made a little gesture. "The bones of their victims lie thick along each trail to the interior, but, after all, that is probably a thing for which they will not be held responsible. In the meanwhile, there are one or two reasons why I should outmarch Herrero if it can be done. When Nares is ready we will go on again."

Nares was ready in a few minutes, and shaking hands with the two men who went down the veranda stairway with them, they struck into the path that led up the steep hillside. Ormsgill's boys plodded after them, but when they reached the crest of the ridge that overhung the valley Nares sat down, gasping, in the loose white sand, and looked down on the shadowy mission. He could see its pale lights blinking among the leaves.

"It stands for a good deal that I have done with," he said. "It is a strange and almost bewildering thing to feel oneself adrift."

"Still," said Ormsgill, "now and then the bonds of service gall."

Nares made a little gesture. "Often," he said. "Perhaps I was not worthy to wear the uniform and march under orders with the rank and file, but I think the Church Militant has, after all, a task for the free companies which now and then push on ahead of her regular fighting line."

"They march light," said Ormsgill. "That counts for a good deal. It has once or twice occurred to me that the authorized divisions are a little c.u.mbered by their commissariat and baggage wagons."

Nares sighed. "Well," he said softly, "every one must, at least now and then, leave a good deal that he values or has grown attached to behind him." He stopped a moment, and then asked abruptly, "You have heard from the girl at Las Palmas. Desmond would bring you letters?"

"No," said Ormsgill, "not a word. She had no sympathy with my project--that she should have was hardly to be expected. One must endeavor to be reasonable."

"There must have been a time when you expected--everything."

Ormsgill sat silent a minute or two, and while he did so a moving light blinked among the trees below. It stopped at length, and negro voices came up faintly with the thud of hastily plied shovels. It seemed that the terrified converts were coming back and the missionaries had already set them a task. Ormsgill knew what it was, but he looked down at the rifle that glinted in the moonlight across his knee with eyes that were curiously steady. The thing he had done had been forced upon him. Then he turned to his companion, and though he was usually a reticent man he spoke what was in his mind that night.

"There certainly was such a time," he said. "No doubt it has come to others. For five long years I held fast by the memory of the girl I had left in England, and I think there were things it saved me from.

Somehow there was always a vague hope that one day I might go back to her--and for that reason I kept above the foulest mire. One goes under easily here in Africa. Then at last the thing became possible."

He broke off, and laughed, a curious little laugh, before he went on again.

"I went back. Whether she was ever what I thought her I do not know--perhaps, I had expected impossibilities--or those five years had made a change. We had not an idea that was the same, and the world she lives in is one that has grown strange to me. They think me slightly crazy--and it is perfectly possible that they are right. Men do lose their mental grip in Africa."

Nares made a little gesture which vaguely suggested comprehension and sympathy before he looked at his comrade with a question in his eyes.

"Yes," said Ormsgill quietly, "I am going on. After all, I owe the girl I thought she was a good deal--and to plain folks there is safety in doing the obvious thing." His voice softened a little. "It may be hard for her--in fact when I went back she probably had a good deal to bear with too. One grows hard and bitter when he has lived with the outcasts as I have done."

Nares understood that he meant what other men called duty by the obvious thing, but the definition, which he felt was characteristic of the man, pleased him. He was one who could, at least, recognize the task that was set before him, and, as it happened, he once more made this clear when he rose and called to the boys who had flung themselves down on the warm white sand.

"Well," he said, "we have now to outmarch Herrero, and there is a good deal to be done."

They went on, Ormsgill limping a little, for his wound still pained him, and vanished into the shadows of the bush, two weary, climate-worn men who had malignant nature and, so far as they knew, the malice of every white man holding authority in that country against them. Still, at least, their course was clear, and in the meanwhile they asked for nothing further.

It also happened one afternoon while they pushed on through shadowy forest and steaming mora.s.s that a little and very ancient gunboat crept along the sun-scorched coast. Her white paint, although very far from fresh, gleamed like ivory on the long dazzling swell that changed to a shimmering sliding green in her slowly moving shadow, for she was steaming eight knots, and rolling viciously. Benicia Figuera, who swung in a hammock hung low beneath her awnings, did not, however, seem to mind the erratic motion. She was watching the snowy fringe of crumbling surf creep by, though now and then her eyes sought the far, blue hills that cut the skyline. Her thoughts were with the man who was wandering in the dim forests that crept through the marshes beyond them.

By and by she aroused herself, and looked up with a smile at the man who strolled towards her along the deck. She had met him before at brilliant functions in Portugal where he was a man of importance, and he had come on board in state a few hours earlier from a little sweltering town above a surf-swept beach whose citizens had seriously strained its finances to do him honor. He was dressed simply in plain white duck, a little, courtly gentleman, with the look of one who rules in his olive-tinted face. He sat down in a deck chair near the girl.

"After all, it is a relief to be at sea," he said. "One has quietness there."

Benicia laughed. "Quietness," she said, "is a thing you can hardly be accustomed to Senor. Besides, you are in one way scarcely complimentary to the citizens yonder."

"Ah," said her companion, "it seems they expect something from me and it is to be hoped that when they get it some of them will not be disappointed. I almost think," and he waved a capable hand, "that before I am recalled they will not find insults bad enough for me."

Benicia felt that this was quite possible. Her companion was she knew a strong man as well as an upright one, who had been sent out not long ago with ample powers to grapple with one or two of the questions which then troubled that country. It was also significant that while he was known as a judicious and firm administrator his personal views on the points at issue had not been proclaimed. Benicia had, however, guessed them correctly, and she took it as a compliment that he had given her a vague hint of them. Perhaps, he realized it, for he watched her for a moment with a shrewd twinkle in his dark eyes.

"Senorita," he said, "I almost think you know what I was sent out here to do. One could, however, depend upon Benicia Figuera considering it a confidence."

The girl glanced out beneath the awnings across the sun-scorched littoral towards the blue ridge of the inland plateau before she answered him.

"Yes," she said, "it was to cleanse this stable. I almost think you will find it a strong man's task."

Her companion made a gesture of a.s.sent. "It is, at least, one for which I need a reliable broom--and I am fortunate in having one ready."

"Ah," said Benicia, "you of course mean my father. Well, I do not think he will fail you, and though he has not actually told me so, I fancy he has, at least, been making preparations for the sweeping."

The man looked at her and smiled, but when a moving shaft of sunlight struck him as the steamer rolled she saw the deep lines on his face and the gray in his hair. He, as it happened, saw the little gleam of pride in her eyes, and then the light swung back again and they were once more left in the shadow. Yet in that moment a subtle elusive something that was both comprehension and confidence had been established between them.

"Dom Clemente," he said, "is a man I have a great regard for. There is a good deal I owe him, as he may have told you."

"He has told me nothing."

The man spread his hands out. "After all, it was to be expected. He and I were comrades, Senorita, before you were born, and there was a time when I made a blunder which it seemed must spoil my career. There was only one man who could save me and that at the hazard of his own future, but one would not expect such a fact to count with your father. Dom Clemente smiled at the peril and the affair was arranged satisfactorily."

Again he made a little grave gesture. "It happened long ago, and now it seems I am to bring trouble on him again. Still, the years have not changed him. He does not hesitate, but I feel I must ask your forbearance, Senorita. You have, perhaps, seen what sometimes happens when one does one's duty."