Samba Part 35

In the morning the river journey was begun. It continued for several days, until with their arrival at the falls progress by water was interrupted, and a long portage had to be made.

It was just at this point that they met a party of Askari marching in the other direction. As soon as they came in sight the leader of Jack's escort cried--

"O etswa?"[1]

"O!" replied the leader of the approaching band.

"Where are you going?"

"To the camp of Elobela."

"What have you got in those bundles?"

"Cartridges for Elobela's guns."

"Bolotsi O! He will be glad of them. He has very few left."

"Has he killed many people?"

"No. But Lokolobolo captured nearly all his cartridges."

"Mongo! Who is Lokolobolo?"

"Here he is! An Inglesa who has built a fort and fights Elobela. But we have got him at last, and he goes with an old Inglesa to Boma. Oh!

he will fight no more."

"O kend'o?"

"O!"

During the river journey Mr. Martindale had grown steadily weaker. He fought hard against his illness; he had a new motive for desiring life; and Jack, observing his occasional rallies, hoped still that he would pull through. But he was so weak when lifted from the canoe that he fainted, and Jack feared that he would not survive the day. He rallied again, and once more Jack had a gleam of hope.

The horrors of that overland march will haunt Jack's memory till he dies. For some time the Askari had been ill-using the carriers. The greater part of the stores which Mr. Martindale had taken up the river had been appropriated by Elbel, and the food left in the canoes was not sufficient for full meals for the whole party. It was the carriers who went short. They had to bear the burdens, to make frequent journeys to and fro up the steep river banks, while the Askari looked on and had the best of the food. When the portage was begun, one of the canoes was added to their load. The other was left hidden in the bush to be fetched later. Weak from lack of proper nourishment, they could go but slowly, and Jack's blood boiled as he saw them quiver, heard them shriek, under the merciless chicotte. Before the first day was ended, two of the men fell, worn out with hunger and fatigue. Jack heard shots behind him, and saw that the wretched men had been put out of their misery. On the second day another man succ.u.mbed; what little life was left in him was beaten out with the clubbed rifles of the Askari. Three men ran away during the night, preferring the perils of the forest to the certain fate that awaited them at the hands of their fellow-men. Only two carriers were now left, and since these were useless they were shot in cold blood. Jack's heart was like a stone within him. These atrocities recalled the worst horrors of the old Arab slave-raiding days; and he was unable to lift a hand to oppose them. If he had been the only white man with the party he felt that he would have risked anything in an effort to save the poor wretches; but while his uncle still lived he could do nothing that might involve his own death.

The bearers being all gone, the Askari had to take turns themselves in carrying the canoe, the remainder of their provisions, and Mr.

Martindale's litter. This necessity did not improve their temper or their manners, and the litter-bearers went so carelessly over the rough ground that Jack was constrained to protest. He implored, he threatened, feeling that the only chance for his uncle was to make more frequent halts; the fatigue of constant travelling would certainly kill him. But the Askari roughly replied that they had orders to continue their journey without delay, and the march was resumed. After his protest Jack was forced to walk at a distance from the litter, and even when the caravan halted for food he was not allowed to attend his uncle. Sick at heart he plodded on, torn by his anxieties, yet still nourishing a hope that when they arrived at a station where a doctor might be found, and whence the journey would be continued by steamer, all might yet be well.

But one evening, when the halt was made, he heard his uncle faintly calling. The sound of his voice struck a chill through him. In desperation, s.n.a.t.c.hing a rifle from the guard next him, he threatened to shoot any one who tried to keep him from the dying man.

"It's all up with me, old boy," said Mr. Martindale feebly, when Jack knelt by his litter. "Elbel is having his way. I shan't see another morning."

Jack gripped his hands; they were chill and clammy. A lump came into his throat; he could not speak the yearning affection that filled his heart.

"Bend down, Jack; I'm afraid I cannot make you hear.

Remember--remember what I have said; it is my bequest to you--the cause of the Congo natives. Do what you can for them. Fight! It is called the Free State; fight to make it free. I cannot see the future; all is dark; I dread what may await you in Boma. But buck up, dear fellow.

Barney--remember him. Go to the British consul; tell him all. Your people have generous sympathies; wake them up; wake them up! If they are roused, all this wrong will come to an end."

"I will do all I can, Uncle," murmured Jack.

"Don't mourn overlong for me. I've had a good time. And this year the best of all. I wouldn't lose it, Jack. Tell my friends I'm not sorry; I'm glad, glad to have seen with my own eyes something that's worth doing. And I have faith in the future--in my fellow-men, in G.o.d. What is it about wicked doers? 'They encourage themselves in mischief, and commune how they may lay snares; they imagine wickedness and practise it. But G.o.d shall suddenly shoot at them with a swift arrow; yea, their own tongues shall make them fall.' How does it go on? I cannot remember. 'The righteous shall rejoice----.' Jack, are you there?"

"Yes, Uncle, I am here," replied Jack, tightening his clasp.

"Is it the fifteenth Psalm? 'He that walketh uprightly----' I cannot remember, Jack.--Is that boy Samba better? Poor little chap! No father and mother!--Barnard said there was gold; why can't he find it?--No, that's not a nugget, that's---- Only a dog, eh? I'm kind o'

set on dogs...."

And so he rambled on, muttering incoherently in his delirium; and Jack did not stir, but remained cramped while the slow hours crawled on, and nocturnal insects hummed, and frogs croaked, and the leaves faintly rustled above him.

Then, as the dawn was creeping up the sky, Mr. Martindale opened his eyes. They rested on Jack's pale drawn face, and the dying man smiled.

"Buck up!" he whispered. "Remember! 'Though I walk through the valley of the shadow....'"

And so he died.

[1] Are you awake? (the morning greeting)

CHAPTER XXV

A Break for Liberty

With his own hands Jack dug a grave near the brink of the river, and there he laid his uncle to rest. The Askari looked on stolidly as he gathered stones from below the bank and heaped them to form a low rude cairn. Then he went back with them to their camping-place. He could not touch the food they offered him, and when they told him the time was come to march he got up silently and moved away mechanically with the rest.

He trudged on among his captors, a prey to utter dejection, conscious of nothing but his irreparable loss. He saw nothing, heard nothing, of what was going on around him, walking automatically in a kind of stupor. His uncle was dead!--for the moment the world had for him no other fact. By degrees, as his first dazed feeling pa.s.sed away, he recalled little incidents in his past life that till then had lain dormant in his memory. He remembered the first time he had consciously seen his uncle, when he was a child of four, and he was dragged in all grubby from the garden, face and hands stained with strawberry juice, to see a big man with a red face, who laughed at him, and showed him a rough yellow lump that he wore on his watch-chain. He remembered the letter when his father died; and that other letter when his mother died; and the first visit to school, when, shown into the headmaster's study, the headmaster being absent, Mr. Martindale had made friends of the dog, and was found by the great man in the act of balancing a pen on the animal's nose. He remembered too the delightful holidays, climbing in Switzerland, roaming in Normandy, gondoliering in Venice.

Odd things came to his recollection, and there was not one of them but recalled some trait of character, reminded him of some past happiness.

Then as he walked his grief took on a new complexion--a longing for vengeance on the miscreant whom he regarded as directly responsible for his uncle's death--morally as culpable as if he had with his own hands committed the murder. Was this villain to remain unpunished? The thought of Elbel induced a new change of feeling. What of the natives who for so many months had looked to him for guidance and leadership?

What was Barney doing? Had Samba escaped the clutches of his enemy and got back to the fort? Was the fort, indeed, still there? He remembered his promise to his uncle. At the most solemn moment of his life, under the very shadow of death, he had vowed to do all in his power to help the negroes of the Congo--and here he was, himself a prisoner among soldiers of this iniquitous government, on his way to an unknown fate.

Thus recalled to actuality, he roused himself and began to think. He had no longer his uncle to consider; that good man was beyond reach of chicanery and spite. Why should he go to Boma? Nothing good awaited him there. He would be thrown into prison on arrival--supposing he ever arrived; he would be tried, sentenced no doubt: at Boma in such cases there were none of the law's delays; he might never be heard of again. What chance was there of fulfilling his uncle's wishes there?

Was not his place at the fort, at Ilombekabasi, with Barney and Imbono and Mboyo, the people for and with whom he had already toiled and fought? There at the fort was tangible good to be done; he felt an overpowering impulse to return to his friends. Elbel had been worsted; if the resistance could be still further prolonged surely the Belgian would withdraw, though it were only to gather strength for a crushing blow; and the interval might be seized to migrate with the whole community into the forest or across the frontier.

But there was the rub. Between him and the fort there was a band of well-armed Askari and several days' journey by river and forest. Even if he escaped the former, what chance was there of success? A white man was very helpless in these African wilds--easily seen and followed, not used to fend for himself in obtaining the necessaries of life.

Even Samba, forest-bred, had barely survived the perils of a solitary journey: how could a white man expect to fare so well?

Yet, so strong was Jack's longing, he resolved that, be the difficulties and dangers what they might, he would seize the barest chance of escape that offered itself. Anything would be better than to be carried on to Boma, with the terrible uncertainty, not merely regarding his own ultimate fate at the hands of an unscrupulous officialdom and a tainted judicature, but still more as to the fate of his friends at Ilombekabasi.

From that moment his whole mental att.i.tude changed. He did not forget his grief; that pitiful scene by the river's brink could never be effaced from his mind and heart; but he resolutely set his wits to work to find an avenue of escape, and the mere effort brought relief to his sorrow. No longer was he inattentive to his surroundings. Without allowing his guards to suspect him, he was keenly on the alert, watching everything.

It was not until the midday meal that accident befriended him. The Askari came to a village which had clearly been for some time deserted--another monument, Jack supposed, to King Leopold's rule. He took refuge from the burning heat, which did not appear to incommode the negroes, in one of the empty and half-ruined huts. There he ate his meal of rancid _kw.a.n.ga_--all that his guards would allow him.

While he squatted on the floor eating, his eye was attracted by a bright light, the reflection of the sun on some polished surface in the wall of the hut. Out of sheer curiosity he stepped across, and drew from the interlaced wattles the head of a small axe. Its edge was very sharp, as Jack found to his cost when he drew his finger across it; and although in parts rusty, it appeared to be of very fine steel, too fine to be of native workmanship. Wondering who had been its owner, and how it came to be stuck, separate from its shaft, into the wall of a rough native hut, he slipped it into his pocket; it might prove a weapon of value to an otherwise unarmed man.

There was nothing to cause his guards to suspect him when the march was once more resumed. In an hour or two they came to a place below the series of rapids where it was safe to launch the canoe. There the party divided. The carriers being all gone, the canoe left behind could only be fetched by some of the Askari; and after some squabbling, ten of them went back, the rest promising to wait for them at a convenient spot down the river. As they paddled away, Jack gathered from the talk of his escort, in a dialect which had some slight resemblance to that of the men of Banonga, that they expected to arrive at this place, an old camping-ground of theirs by the river, before nightfall. They had placed him in the bow of the canoe, a light one suitable for portage, with no platform, and therefore nothing between him and the water but the thin side.

Keenly he watched the banks, hoping to be able at a favourable moment to turn his observations to account. But except for a few hippos half hidden in the long gra.s.s or reeds at the river-side, and here and there a crocodile basking on a rock or sandbank, its scaly back scarcely distinguishable from the soil, the river was deserted. Forest lined the banks on both sides, its continuity only occasionally broken by clearings showing signs of burnt villages. The trees were beginning to throw long shadows over the water; sunset must be fast approaching; still no means of escape had suggested itself. Yet escape, if effected at all, must be effected soon, for he did not know when, with his transference to a steamer, his immediate fate would be sealed.