Samba Part 22

But it was too late to think of that. Certainly no move could be made while Elbel was close by with a considerable force. If Elbel took advantage of his superiority to hold the camp closely invested, there would never be any possibility of moving at all. Deprived of water, Jack must soon choose between the alternatives--to surrender, or to make a sally at the head of his men and put all to the hazard of an open fight.

Two days pa.s.sed. Jack kept a close watch on Ilola through his field-gla.s.s; all seemed quiet there, and of Elbel himself he saw nothing. What was his amazement, when at daybreak he took his stand on the platform overlooking Ilola, to see Elbel marching out at the head of the greater part of his force, and making for the river bank. He waited an hour, and when they did not return, and the patrols had not appeared, he sent out a couple of men by a roundabout way to follow the movements of the force, and allowed the usual water carriers to go out with their calabashes. These, returning soon with water, reported a strange thing. From the women of Ilola whom they had met on a like errand at the river, they had learnt that Elobela had set off with his men in their smoke-boat, and that Boloko had been left in charge of the village with about as many men as he had brought at first. Several hours later Jack's scouts came back, and said that they had followed along the bank the course of Elobela's launch; he was going rapidly down the river. They could only suppose that he was making for the headquarters of his company some hundreds of miles away.

"What did I say at all at all?" remarked Barney when Jack told him the great news. "He's no gentleman, that's as plain as the nose on his face, sorr. A man who will take two lickings and thin run away is not fit to wipe your shoes on."

"You seem disappointed, Barney, but frankly I'm very glad. I could fling up my hat and cheer if I hadn't to keep up my dignity before these natives. Though I fear we haven't seen the last of Mr. Elbel by any means. We shall have him upon us sooner or later with an overwhelming force. But sufficient unto the day; my uncle should be back long before that, if Elbel doesn't meet and stop him on the road.

Well, we now have a chance to move our camp, for if Elbel is on his way to headquarters he can't get back for weeks. And first of all, Barney, take a dozen men and bring in that food that's waiting in the forest.

We shan't be able to move for a day or two, at any rate; we must choose our site more carefully this time."

Thinking over the matter, Jack was not long in coming to the decision that the best place to establish his new camp would be near the cataract. From his recollection of the ground above it he thought it was admirably situated from a strategical point of view. It would have the incidental advantage of protecting Mr. Martindale's claim.

The one disadvantage was its distance from the sources of food supply.

But this caused Jack to give serious consideration to a matter which had once or twice dimly suggested itself to him. He had been more and more impressed with the necessity of his party being self-supporting, so far as the staple articles of food were concerned, if they were to make a long stay in this country. He remembered how Stanley during his search for Emin Pasha had been able to sow, grow, and reap crops at Fort Bodo in a remarkably short time. Why should not he do the same?

When he was joined by Mr. Martindale's contingent a large quant.i.ty of food would be needed. No doubt they would bring stores with them; but these could not last very long, especially in view of the unexpected drain upon the resources of the expedition caused by the arrival of the fugitives from Banonga and elsewhere.

"I wonder what Uncle will say when he sees them," Jack remarked to Barney, when he opened up to him this question of food supply. "You remember at Banonga he said he wasn't going to start a boys' home; this is still more serious--a sort of convalescent home for non-paying patients."

"'Tis meself that isn't wan little bit afraid uv what the master will say. Sure don't I know to a letther what 'twill be! 'My gracious me!'--don't ye hear him, sorr?--'what in the world will I want wid all these disgraceful lookin' objects? This ain't business. I'm not a philanthrophy, an' I don't exactly see my way to run a croosade.' An'

thin he'll say, 'Poor fellow!' an' 'Poor wumman!' an' 'Poor little chap!' an' he'll dive his hands into his pockets an' suddenly remimber himself that money is no manner uv good in this counthry, an' he'll say: 'We must kind uv fix up some sort uv something for 'em, Barney.'

Didn't I know 'm by heart the first day I drove him in London, and he went up to the horse and opened his jaw an' looked in his eyes an' says 'He'll do.' Sure I'd niver have named me little darlint uv a Pat to 'm if I hadn't known the kind uv gintleman he was at all."

Jack smiled at Barney's way of putting it, but admitted the truth of the portrait. Mr. Martindale was indeed a capable man of affairs--an example of the best type of the American man of business, the embodiment of the qualities by which the extraordinary commercial prosperity of the United States has been built up. But Jack knew that he was more than a man of business. His was a big heart, and it was one of the minor vexations of his life that he had to take some trouble to conceal it.

Jack's final conclusion was that there was not only every prospect of an extended stay if this mining scheme was to be followed up, but that the number of persons to be provided for would be more considerable than it was possible at present to calculate. Obviously, then, it behoved him to employ the time before Mr. Martindale's arrival in preparing for contingencies.

Elbel's departure had immediate consequences in Ilola. His presence had in some measure curbed the worse propensities of his black followers: they could only be brutal in obedience to orders; but the moment he was gone they began to show themselves once more in their true light. Before a day had pa.s.sed Imbono came into the camp to complain of the insolence and rapacity of Boloko and his men. Jack advised him to do nothing to give Boloko any excuse for violence, but he had still to plumb the depths of savagery and brutality in the men whom the Free State Government callously allowed the trading companies to employ in the exploitation of rubber. He had still to learn that where violence was intended, not even the shadow of an excuse was any longer considered necessary.

One morning Imbono came to him in a frenzy of rage and indignation.

His third wife had been tending her cooking pot when Boloko came up and asked what food she was preparing. "A fowl," she replied civilly.

"Give it me," he demanded. "It is not yet cooked, O Boloko," the poor woman answered. "You refuse me, Ngondisi?" cried the ruffian. "Lift your hands and open your eyes wide that I may see the white of them, or I will shoot you." Ngondisi in terror obeyed. "You do not open them wide enough," said the wretch with a laugh, and he lifted the gun and fired; and the woman fell upon her face; she would never open her eyes again.

But Boloko had in this case reckoned without the spirit of confidence engendered in the natives by the discomfiture of Elbel. He had only ten men in the village when the incident occurred; the rest were absent, levying toll on Imbono's other villages a few miles distant.

Even while Imbono, with tears of anguish, was telling Jack what had been done, the spark had been applied to the tinder. An extraordinary commotion was heard in the direction of Ilola: shots, yells, the war cry of infuriate men. Rushing out with Imbono, Jack arrived in the village to find that retaliation had at last been wreaked for months of wrong. It was difficult at first to make out what had happened. It appeared that in Imbono's absence the men of the village had suddenly seized their arms, and flung themselves in one desperate rush upon Boloko and his men. What cared they if several of their number fell before the tyrants' rifles? Heedless of wounds they closed about the forest guards; there was a brief hand-to-hand fight, eight of Boloko's men had fallen to weapons wielded with the energy of despair, and of the party only Boloko himself and two men had made their escape into the forest.

Elate with their victory, the men of Ilola had hastened off to the other villages, to surprise the guards there. It was too late now to recall them, but Jack had arrived on the spot just in time to rescue one man, whom the villagers were on the point of ma.s.sacring. The white sous-officier who had been wounded in the fight before Jack's camp had been placed in Imbono's hut. Roused by the sound of firing, he had dragged himself from his mattress and, rifle in hand, came to the entrance of the hut just as Jack entered the gate with the chief. The villagers had forgotten him; but when they saw in their power a white man, one of those to whom all their afflictions were due, a band of them sprang towards him with uplifted spears. He fired: one of the men fell. The rest paused for an instant, and were on the point of dashing forward to make an end of their enemy when Jack rushed between them and their prey, and cried to them in Imbono's name to stay their hands.

Reluctantly, with lowering countenances, they obeyed the command of their chief's white brother. No mercy had been shown to them: why should they show mercy? But when Imbono reminded them that the slaying of a white man would bring upon them the hordes of Bula Matadi, and that Elobela had already gone down the river, probably to bring many soldiers back with him, they sullenly drew off, and allowed Jack to remove the man to the safety of his own camp.

The Belgian knew no English, but Jack had a fair working knowledge of French which he found was equal to the occasion. The man explained that he was an ex-noncommissioned officer of the State forces, whose services had been enlisted by Elbel in dealing with the refractory natives. He seemed quite unable to understand Jack's point of view.

To him the natives were so many parasites, the goods and chattels of the State, with no property and no rights.

"Why, monsieur," he said, "we pay them for the work they do; we have a right to demand labour of them for nothing. See what we have done for their country! Look at the rubber stations on the river, the fine buildings, the telegraphs, the cataract railway; where would all these blessings of civilization have been but for the n.o.ble self-sacrifice of King Leopold?"

Jack gave up the attempt to argue with him that the country belonged primarily to its natural inhabitants, forbore to point out that King Leopold had expressly declared that he had the advancement of the natives at heart. He contented himself with insisting that the actions of which Elbel and his minions had been guilty in Ilola were contrary to the law of the Free State itself. He was much struck by the Belgian's answer.

"Ah, monsieur, we have no book of rules, no code of laws. What can we do? We are the only law. Yes, monsieur, we are the only G.o.d in the Maranga."

Next day Jack went with Imbono and Lepoko to the waterfall, to survey the place as a possible site for a camp, or, to speak more strictly, a settlement. The chief was troubled and displeased at the prospect of the removal of his blood brother's camp, but made no urgent remonstrance. On arriving at the spot, Jack at once detected signs that some one had recently been making investigations there. He had no doubt that this was Elbel. The secret of the gold had probably been disclosed in an incautious moment to one of his escort by the men who had accompanied Mr. Martindale on his second visit. Elbel already knew enough of the American's business to make him keenly interested, and alert to follow up the slightest clue. Knowing what he now knew of the methods of the State officials, Jack was ready to believe that Elbel would strain every nerve to get Mr. Martindale hounded out of the country, in order to have an opportunity of turning the discovery of gold to his own profit. Could his sudden departure from the village, Jack wondered, have been his first move in this direction?

Carefully examining the ground above the waterfall, Jack saw that a good deal would have to be done to make it suitable for a settlement.

He heard from Imbono that during several months of the year the stream was much broader than at present, and at the point where it debouched from the hill, three or four miles below, it and other streams overflowed their banks, forming a wide swamp, almost a lake, some ten miles from east to west and more than half a mile broad. This, during the rainy season, practically cut off all communication from the direction of the village. On the far side of the hill the bluffs were so precipitous as to make access very difficult. This isolated hill formed therefore a kind of huge castle, of which the swamp for half the year was the natural moat.

It seemed to Jack that the most convenient site for his new camp was the slope of the hill immediately above the cataract. The incline here was very slight; the hill face only became steep again about a quarter of a mile from the fall; there it rose abruptly for fully fifty or sixty yards, sloping gently for the next half mile. Jack saw that if he built his entrenched camp in the neighbourhood of the waterfall, it would be to a slight extent commanded by an enemy posted on the steep ascent above. But by raising his defences somewhat higher on that side he hoped to overcome this disadvantage.

With a little labour, he thought, the soil around the cataract could be made suitable for planting food-stuffs. It was virgin soil, and owing to the slight fall of the ground at this spot, and to the fact that it was partially protected by the contour of the hill against floods from above, the leaves that for ages past had fallen from the thick copses fringing the banks, and from the luxuriant undergrowth on the small plateau itself, had not been washed down. These deposits had greatly enriched the alluvium, and Imbono said that large crops of manioc, maize, groundnuts, and sweet potatoes could easily be grown, as well as plantains and bananas and sugar cane.

On returning to his camp by Ilola, Jack told Barney the results of his investigation, and announced that he had definitely made up his mind to settle on the new site.

"Very good, sorr," said Barney; "but what'll become uv Ilola? Beggin'

your pardon, sorr, 'twas a very solemn affair, that ceremony uv brotherhood, an' though sure it had niver a blessing from a priest--an'

like enough Father Mahone would think it a poor haythen sort uv business--still, to the poor n.i.g.g.e.rs, sorr, it may be just as great a thing as if the priest had blessed it in the name uv Almighty G.o.d."

"Well, what are you driving at, Barney?"

"Why this, sorr. The chief and you made a bargain to help wan another; an' sure ye've kept it, both uv you. Well, if we go away, there's no more help for either uv you, an' 'tis Imbono will be most in need uv it."

"You mean that I'm deserting my ally, eh?"

"Bedad, sorr, isn't it me that knows ye'd niver do it? But I just speak for the look uv the thing, sorr. Sure niver a man knows betther than Barney O'Dowd that things are not always what they seem."

"To tell you the truth, Barney, I've been thinking it over on the way back. I could see that Imbono doesn't like the idea of our moving, though he was too polite to mention it----"

"'Tis a rale Irish gintleman he is, sorr," interrupted Barney.

"There's no doubt that Elbel, or Boloko, or both, will come back sooner or later. Leaving me out of the question, the slaughter of Boloko's party won't go unpunished. To overlook that would ruin the authority of the forest guards for hundreds of miles round. Well, what does it mean when they return? They'll make a terrible example of Ilola.

Imbono and his people will be wiped out. And you're quite right in believing that I couldn't stand by and see that done. But you see what it involves. We must plan our camp so as to be able to take in the whole of Imbono's people from the three villages--I suppose about four hundred in all, children included. That's a large order, Barney."

"True it is, sorr. But you wouldn't keep out the childher, poor little souls; an' mighty proud uv Pat they are, too. Besides, sorr, they'll all help, ivery soul, to build the camp; many hands make light work; an' ye couldn't expect 'em to set up a lot uv huts for us barring they saw a chance uv bein' invited now and again, at least as payin' guests, sorr."

"Well, Barney, I'd made up my mind to it all along, but I thought I'd like to sound you first. So all we've got to do now is to relieve Imbono's suspense and set to work. We'll start with clearing the soil for crops. It will take some time to plan the new camp, and we've always this one to retreat to. Take Lepoko over to Ilola and make the announcement yourself, Barney."

"I will, sorr, wid the greatest pleasure in life. 'Deed, 'twas meself that took the news to Biddy O'Flaherty whin her pig had won the prize at Ballymahone Show, and was just coming away wid a penny in me pocket when I met Mike Henchie. 'An' what would ye be afther, Mike?' says I.

'Carryin' the news to Biddy O'Flaherty, to be sure,' says he. 'Arrah thin, 'tis too late ye are,' says I. 'Isn't it meself that's just got a penny for that same news?' 'Bedad,' says he, 'what will have come to Biddy at all?' 'What is it ye'd be maning?' says I; 'sure she didn't give me a penny,' says Mike, 'last year whin I brought her the news.

She gave me a screech and went black in the face, an' sure 'twas for the same fun I'm here this blessed minute?' 'Husht!' says I. 'Biddy didn't win the prize last year at all. 'Twas Patsy M'Ma.n.u.s.' 'An' who is it this time but that same Patsy?' says Mike. 'But I heard the judge wid me very own ears give it to Biddy!' says I. 'Deed so,' says he; 'but some wan renumbered him that Patsy had won it two years on end. "Me old friend Patsy!" says he. "Sure I couldn't break her heart by spoilin' the third time. I'll give it to Patsy," says he.' An'

Patsy hadn't shown a pig at all that year, sorr."

CHAPTER XVI

The House by the Water

With characteristic energy, Jack next day set about the work in earnest. He posted sentinels several miles down the river and on the only forest paths by which a force was likely to approach, to give him timely notice if the enemy appeared. Then, with as many men as he could muster, and a great number of women, he hastened to the waterfall, and began the work of clearing the ground. He had decided to start from the site of the proposed settlement and work outwards, so that the crops would be as much as possible under the protection of the camp: it would never do to raise a harvest for the enemy to reap.

He placed Mboyo, Samba's father, in command of all his own people who had turned up, and of such people from other tribes as now came dropping in daily, the news of the white men who helped the negroes and feared not Bula Matadi having by this time spread abroad in the land.

Every new contingent of fugitives brought a fresh tale of outrage, causing Jack to persevere under the discouragements with which he met, and to vow that he would do all in his power to protect the poor people who looked to him for succour. What the ultimate result of his action would be he did not stay to consider. It was enough for him that a work of urgent need lay ready to his hand.

He did not blink the fact that he and his followers were now in reality in revolt against the const.i.tuted authorities of the Free State.

Elbel, it was true, was only a servant of a concessionnaire company, vested with certain trading and taxing privileges; but government as understood in the Free State was conducted by the delegation of powers from the central authority to private or corporate trading concerns.