Samba Part 43

He laughed and clapped his hands like a child.

"It was Pat that showed me where Samba was," said Jack to Barney.

"Nando was tied up in a hut with him--he must have been captured with dear old Uncle--and the wretch saved himself by burning his ropes through and left Samba to perish in the flames. Pat dragged me to the spot."

"The darlint is worth his weight in gold," cried Barney delighted.

"That's twice he has saved Samba, sorr. Black men and white men are brothers, or ought to be, and there's niver a doubt that dogs are cousins at the very least. And beggin' your pardon, sorr, I'll take a pleasure in kicking Nando whin I get a look uv him. 'Tis a little military discipline he needs, to be sure."

"You can give him that in the fort. And by the way, you'll find a lot of rifles here; the enemy either hadn't time to get hold of them or else threw them away. Arm some of our spearmen; they can tell the muzzle from the stock at any rate, and if any attempt is made to rush the fort they could do a good deal of damage at close quarters. And keep scouts out. We don't know the exact whereabouts of Van Vorst's main body, and it won't do to risk anything. But I hope you won't have any trouble."

Bidding Barney farewell, Jack called up Makoko and Lingombela, and sent them out with orders to discover the exact position of the flotilla, and to return at daybreak. An hour afterwards, with a hundred and fifty picked spearmen, sixty rifles, and a body of carriers with food for three days, he began a night march to the river. He himself was unable to walk. His wound was becoming more and more painful, but he had said nothing about it to Barney, being resolved not to spare himself while anything remained to be done to complete his work. Four men, relieved at frequent intervals, carried him in the litter of which he had made such effective use to gain an entrance to the enemy's camp.

This time, he thought with a smile, there was no pretence about it.

He guessed that Van Vorst's flotilla would be found about half way between Ilola and the spot where Mr. Martindale's canoes had been hidden. It was one day's march across country, a much longer distance by the river. For some hours he followed the path on which his uncle and he had been escorted by the Askari. The recollection of that march brought sad thoughts to his mind. Lying in the litter amid his men, as the column wound its slow way along the forest track, the red glare of their torches throwing weird shadows around, he had plenty of time for melancholy reflections. The incidents of his uncle's last days were burnt into his memory. He remembered the drawn, wasted features, now pale with exhaustion, now bright with the hectic flush of fever; the quick uneasy breath; the slow labouring voice. He remembered the tale of persecution and wrong. More than all he remembered the earnest, pa.s.sionate words in which the dying man had bequeathed to him the cause of the Congo natives, and besought him to use his utmost strength on their behalf. "Dear old Uncle!" he thought; "I am trying to do what you would have wished me to do. I can't do much; this is only a small corner of the plague-ridden country; how many thousands of poor people are without even such help as I can give! But it will be something if only the few hundreds in Ilombekabasi can regain and keep a little of their former happiness; and Uncle would be pleased; he is pleased, if he knows."

Then the other side of the picture stood out sharply to his mental view. He saw the fleeing crowds of the enemy; the jammed gateway; the camp enclosure strewn with dead and wounded. Once or twice, even, his marching column came upon wounded men, too weak to crawl away into the bush, and he could do nothing for them. This terrible loss of life, this misery--was not this too due to the evil government of a monarch who, far away, in wealth and luxury and ease, spoke with two voices--one the voice of beneficence, benignity, zeal for peace and good order; the other the voice of greed, avarice, the callous demand for riches even at the price of blood? "Botofe bo le iwa! Rubber is death!"--the woful proverb haunted him like a knell: death to the dwellers in this well-favoured land, death to the minions of the power that oppressed them, death to those who, like his uncle, dared to make a stand for freedom and found themselves engulfed in the whirlpool of injustice and wrong.

As Jack approached the river, these gloomy thoughts gave way to the necessities of the moment. Lepoko, leading the column, announced that the river was very near. Then Jack ordered the torches to be put out, and the men to creep forward even more silently than they had already done. Had news of the storming of the camp been carried, he wondered, by fugitives to the flotilla? Since they had left the direct path to the river and struck obliquely towards it there had been no sign of fugitives. He supposed that the scared enemy had kept to the route they knew, and would follow the river bank until they reached the canoes. This involved many extra miles through the winding of the stream, unless the flotilla had come farther up than he thought was likely.

The princ.i.p.al danger was that some of Elbel's scouts, knowing the country better than the majority of the garrison, might already have taken the short cut Jack was now taking and would reach the flotilla before him. There were two white officers in charge; they might set off at once to the relief of their superior and reach the fort while Jack was still absent. Would Barney be strong enough to hold out against them?

The march was continued with brief rests throughout the night. Shortly after dawn a man sprang panting out of the thicket to the right of the path, and hurried to Jack's litter.

"O Lokolobolo!" he cried, "I have news!"

Jack saw that it was Lofundo, sub-chief of Ak.u.mbi.

"It was in the smoke and the flame, Lokolobolo. I saw Elobela, with fear in his face, climb over the fence and rush out into the night.

After him I sprang--I, and Bolumbu, and Iloko, and others. It was Elobela, the cruel, the pitiless! After him, into the night! but first Iloko tired, then Bolumbu, then the others. I, Lofundo, I did not tire; no; was it not Elobela whose men ill-used and slew my people and burnt my village, and who with his own hands flogged my son? I ran and ran, hot on his trail, and in the morning light I came up with him, and saw him with fear in his face; and I had my knife; and now Elobela is dead, yonder, in the forest."

"Is it far, Lofundo?"

"A little march in the forest, Lokolobolo."

Jack had himself carried to the spot. There, beneath a tree, covered with felled branches and leaves to protect it from beasts, lay the stark body of Guillaume Elbel. Jack could not help pitying the wretch whose zeal in an evil cause had brought him to so miserable an end.

But as he thought of the misery this man had caused--the ruined homes, the desolated lives: as he remembered his uncle, lying in his lonely grave, and Samba, lacerated by this man's cruel whip, pity froze within him.

"Cover him up," he said.

He waited while his men buried Elbel, there at the foot of the tree.

"Let us go!" he said; "we have work to do."

When Jack's column, according to Lepoko, was still an hour's march from the river, Lingombela, one of the advance scouts, came back with a negro in his grasp. He had captured him, said Lingombela, as he was running from the river into the forest. Jack questioned the man through Lepoko. He said that his name was Bandoka, and he had been a paddler in Mutela's flotilla, and had suffered many times from the chicotte; he showed the marks on his back. Just after daybreak several men had come rushing madly into the clearing on the river bank where the soldiers of Bula Matadi had halted for the night. There was great confusion in the camp. He had heard it said among the paddlers that there had been a fight up the river at the Inglesa's fort, and that the men of Elobela had been badly beaten. The paddlers had already heard the name of Lokolobolo. The fugitives said that Mutela was sorely in need of help, and the white officer had at once started up the river in swift canoes, with most of the fighting men, leaving the rest to follow with the carriers. In the confusion attending the departure of the force with three days' stores, Bandoka had contrived to slip away into the forest. He would rather brave anything than endure further service with Bula Matadi.

Jack's first thought on hearing this news was that it simplified his position. The Congo officers had two days' journey before them; it was strange if he, with his lightly equipped force of men thoroughly acquainted with the country, knowing the short cuts through the forest, the fordable places on the river, could not do much to impede and hara.s.s their advance. But on subsequent reflection a still bolder course suggested itself to him. Was it possible to cut off the main body from its stores? The fighting men under their white commander had already started up the river; the stores would follow more slowly; Jack's line of march would strike the river at a point between the two portions of the enemy's force. If he could capture the stores, would he not have the main body at his mercy?

"How many fighting men are left to escort the canoes?" he asked.

"Him say no can tell. He run away plenty soon; plenty much nise, all talk one time."

In the absence of precise information Jack could only conjecture. The news brought by the fugitive from Elbel's camp was such that a force despatched in support would probably consist of at least two-thirds of the available combatant strength. The officer must be aware that a body of men that could defeat Elbel with his seven hundred mixed troops could scarcely be met with less than two hundred and fifty rifles. No doubt he would expect to be joined by some of Elbel's men; the full magnitude of the disaster would hardly be known; and like any other white commander he would be inclined to discount the alarmist reports of the fugitives. It would be safe to a.s.sume, thought Jack, that not more than a hundred rifles had been left with the stores. How many of the paddlers were also fighting men, how many impressed like Bandoka, it was impossible to guess.

"Bandoka is sure the white officers are not coming through the forest?"

he asked, as the bare chance of meeting them occurred to him.

"Sartin sure, ma.s.sa. Dey come in boats. Bandoka he fit to paddle in white man's canoe. 'No, no,' he say; 'me no like dat. White man lib for go too fast; me know what dat mean; dat mean chicotte!' Den he run away, sah."

"Well, I wish I knew a little more about the men with the stores."

"Know plenty more one time," said Lepoko, pointing ahead. "Dat am Makoko."

Makoko, a scout in a thousand, had brought just the news Jack most desired. He had counted the fighting men on the canoes: there were a hundred and ten with rifles and more than two hundred with spears. On each cargo canoe there was a rifleman--to encourage the paddlers, thought Jack. The flotilla had just started when Makoko left the river, at least two hours after the main body had left. One white officer had gone with the swift canoes, a second remained with the stores. The line of boats was headed by two large war canoes, each containing twenty riflemen besides the paddlers; and two similar canoes similarly manned brought up the rear.

It was clear to Jack that the enemy was doing everything possible to hasten progress. But the canoes were heavily laden, and the paddlers had the stream against them. Meanwhile Barney must be warned of the approaching expedition. Jack was not anxious about the fate of the fort. Behind the walls Barney's hundred and twenty riflemen and three times as many spearmen could easily hold their own. The enemy's machine gun, a deadly weapon in the open, would be of little use against stone walls. So, confident in Barney's ability to sit tight, Jack sent Lingombela back through the forest to give him timely notice of the troops coming towards him by the river.

The arrangements made by the officer in charge of the convoy of stores, as reported by Makoko, were well enough adapted for progress through a country in which the natives, even if hostile, were armed only with bows and arrows or spears. By keeping in mid-stream the canoes were practically out of danger from the banks, and an enemy on the water could be effectively dealt with by the leading canoes, carrying a strong force of riflemen armed with Albinis. The similar force acting as a rearguard discouraged any tendency on the part of the crews of the store-boats to bolt down stream. And each canoe had a forest guard ready with a chicotte to stimulate the paddlers' zeal.

Jack felt sure that by setting an ambush at a suitable point he could produce a panic among the guards and paddlers almost as effectual for his purpose as the panic in Elbel's camp. But he had a not unnatural shrinking from such a course. An ambuscade--concealing oneself to shoot another man down--went against the grain with him. He knew that it was fair by all the rules of warfare, and warfare had been thrust upon him by the State troops. But he preferred if possible to attain his end by other means, involving the minimum of bloodshed and suffering. The scenes in Elbel's camp and in the forest were too fresh in his memory for him to court a repet.i.tion of this wholesale destruction, even of the savages who wore the uniform of King Leopold.

The disposition of the enemy's forces suggested a plan whereby his end might be gained with little or no serious fighting. If the plan failed there still remained the alternative of an attack in force on the long-drawn-out line of the flotilla.

He had noticed, when coming up the river to Ilola with his uncle, that, about half a day's paddling from the flotilla's point of departure, the channel was divided by a small island. Only on the near side was the river navigable at this season, even by canoes; on the other side the channel was wide but shallow, thickly beset by sandbanks. By striking to the left and taking a short cut through the forest known to Makoko, the river bank opposite this island could be reached in two hours' hard marching. There would still be a good margin of time to make all necessary arrangements for carrying out his plan before the head of the convoy came into view. The men had already had a couple of hours'

rest; the worst of their fatigue after the night march was gone; there was now no time to be lost, and Jack gave the order to move off under Makoko's lead.

Before midday the troops were halted opposite the island, a lozenge-shaped eyot about a third of a mile in length and a hundred yards across, covered with rank vegetation and patched with one or two clumps of large trees. On reaching the spot Jack left his litter to superintend the men's work, in spite of his stiff leg. He posted scouts in each direction, up and down the river, to guard against surprise, then set the men to cut a large number of tough creepers which abounded in the forest, and by twisting and knotting the tendrils to make a rope about eighty yards long. While this was being done with marvellous speed by the expert negroes, a few saplings were uprooted and lashed together to form a raft, too slight indeed for serious navigation, but strong enough to convey a few men at a time across the river. When the rope was finished one end was taken across to the eyot and firmly secured to one of the large trees; the other end was left for the present loose. The place where the rope entered the water on each side was carefully screened from view, and a few stones attached to it at intervals sank it beneath the surface of the stream.

Jack directed the work untiringly, encouraging the workers with praise.

"Bravo!" he cried, when all was done. "Now we'll have some chop, Lepoko."

"Plenty hungry, ma.s.sa," returned the man. "Men all want to know somefing, ma.s.sa."

"Well, what is it?"

"Dey say: 'Lokolobolo make us do plenty fings. What for? We lib for do anyfing for Lokolobolo; no fit to know what for.' Dat am what dey say, sah."

Jack smiled.

"Well, Lepoko, I'll tell you in confidence, and I know it won't go any further. We're going to see an exhibition of swimming."

"Me no like big talk like dat," said Lepoko, looking puzzled.

"Here's little talk, then. Men no want to swim; we want to see them swim. Savvy?"

"Me know all 'bout dat, sah," cried Lepoko delighted, and he went off to tell the men, Jack smiling at their satisfaction with an explanation that explained so little.

The whole force had a meal, keeping almost perfect silence in obedience to an impressive order from Jack. They were concealed within the forest fringe. When the meal was finished a dozen men with rifles were sent across to hide themselves amid the vegetation on the island, and all waited with rifles ready.