The Great Quest Part 40

For an hour we lay hidden among the rocks, with the world spread out before us in the moonlight. Here and there were small points of fire, which shone as if they were stars reflected on water,--we knew, of course, that there was no water, and that they must, therefore, be lights of village or camp,--and twice, at a distance of half a mile, men pa.s.sed with torches. But for the most part we lay shoulder to shoulder, with only the moon and the twinkling points of light to awaken our meditations.

I thought of Uncle Seth dead in the gra.s.s by the spring down to which he had gone so bravely. I thought of the hut in which, so far as we knew, still lay the skeleton and the bag of pebbles. And while I was thinking thus, I heard to the southeast the sound of gunshots.

First came several almost together like a volley, then another and another, then two or three more, and after that, at intervals, still others.

O'Hara looked first at the sky and then in the direction of the shooting. "They're attacking a trader's caravan," he said. "There'll be white men in it, surely. The thing for us to do, my lads, is to join up with them. They'll have food."

"Aye, but how?" asked Gleazen.

As if in answer to his question,--a terribly discouraging answer!--we heard, when we stopped to listen, coming up to us out of the night from every side, near and far, the throbbing of drums.

"Aye, 'how?'" O'Hara repeated.

"Can we not," I asked, "work down toward them and break through the blacks?"

"The war has gone to the coast by now, and they are attacking all comers. But it's us they're keen on the trail of, all because Bull built his house on a king's grave and a blithering idiot killed a devil. 'Tis true, Joe. If we could work down toward them, come three o'clock in the morning, it might happen even as you say."

There were no torches, now, to be seen; no voices were to be heard.

There were only the fixed lights shining like stars and the steadily throbbing drums. Whether or not, back on our trail, the blacks were still hunting for us, we did not know; but by all signs that we could see, they were settling quietly down for the remainder of the night.

"And if it don't happen like you say," O'Hara added as an afterthought, "we'll be nearer the river surely, and there may be hope for us yet."

At that he looked at Gleazen and smiled, and Gleazen softly laughed and nudged Matterson, at which Matterson swore, because Gleazen's elbow had touched a wound. Then they all three looked at one another and laughed; and remembering the board in the centre of the hut and the law that neither side should trespa.s.s on the part allotted to the other, I heartily wished that we had another such board and another such law. We had agreed upon our truce under the stress of great danger. Take away that danger, I thought, and there would be nothing to keep the old coals of hate from springing into flame anew.

Down from the hilltop we went, slowly picking our way among the boulders, to still another brawling stream at the foot. There we drank and waited and reconnoitred, and finally, convinced that we were in no immediate danger, pushed on after our guide, O'Hara.

He first led us down the ravine and through a wild and wooded country; but within two miles the sound of drums, which had become louder and nearer, warned us of a village ahead, and, leaving the stream, we climbed a hill, pa.s.sed through scattered patches of plantains and yams, from which we took such food as would dull the edge of our hunger, came down again into dense timber, worked our way through it, and emerged at last into an open s.p.a.ce above a broad plain.

And all this long way faithful Abe Guptil had half carried, half dragged the great body of Matterson, who fought hard to keep up with the rest of us and strove to regain the strength that his wound had taken from him, but who despite his bravest efforts, still was sadly weak.

As well as we could judge by the interminable drumming, there were villages on our right and on our left and behind us. By the stars we estimated that it was still an hour before dawn, and by lights on the plain we guessed at the location of the camp of which we had come in search.

We had already wandered so far from the road by which we had come to the mountain, that it seemed as if only a miracle could bring us back to the place on the river where we had left our boat; but in that respect O'Hara was no mean worker of miracles, for his years in Africa had given him an uncanny judgment of direction and distance.

"Yonder will be the river," he said, pointing slightly to the left; "and yonder will surely be the camp where we heard guns firing.

Below there'll be a road and the camp will be on the road. I know this place; I've been here before."

With that he once more plunged down the steep declivity and through a growth of scrubby trees to a great prairie, where, even as he had said, a road ran in the direction that our journey led us. Fire not long since had burned over the meadow, and spears of gra.s.s from fifteen to twenty feet high had fallen across the road and tangled and twisted so that most of the time we had to bend almost double as we walked. But in that early morning hour there were no travelers on the road except occasional deer, which went dashing off through the gra.s.s; and it crossed many streams into which we plunged our hot faces. With water for our thirst and plantains for our hunger, we fared on, until, just as dawn was breaking, we came in sight of the red coals of a fire.

O'Hara raised his hand and we stopped. "The n.i.g.g.e.rs are ahead of us," he whispered. "Beyond the n.i.g.g.e.rs will be the caravan surely, and beyond the caravan there'll be more n.i.g.g.e.rs."

"The question, then, my friends," said Arnold, slowly, "is whether to go round them and on alone, or to go through the blacks and take our chances on a friendly reception from whoever is camping just ahead."

"That," said O'Hara, "is the question."

"There's no doubt but they're traders," Gleazen muttered. "We'll have to fight before we reach the river. The more on our side, the merrier, I say, when it comes to fighting."

By our silence we a.s.sented.

Arnold raised his hand. "It is by surprise, gentlemen, or not at all. Are you ready?"

Breathing hard, we pressed closer together.

"Quickly, then! Together, and with speed!"

Arnold's voice snapped out the orders as if we were a company of military. There was something so commanding, so martial, in his manner and carriage, yet something that fitted him so well and seemed so much a part of his old, calm, taciturn, wise way, that I felt a sudden new wonder at him, a feeling that, well though I thought I had known him, I never had known him.

Then, brought all at once into action by the energy and force of his command, as was every one of the others, I started at the word as did they. Together we ran straight through the camp of sleeping blacks,--so strong was Matterson's spirit, so great his eagerness, that he now kept pace with us almost without help,--straight past the coals of their campfire, over the remnants of their evening meal, over their weapons and shields strewn in the road, and on toward their picket-line. As they woke behind us, bewildered, and groped to learn the cause of the sudden disorder, and realized what was happening, and started up with angry cries, we leaped, one after another, actually leaped, over a black sentry nodding at his post, over a frail barrier that they had thrown up to conceal their movements, and charged down upon a threatening stockade behind which lay the caravan.

That the caravan kept better watch than their besiegers, we learned first of all; for even as we leaped the barricade and came racing down the road, a gun went off in our faces and a cry of warning called the defenders from their sleep.

"Don't shoot!" O'Hara yelled. "We're white men! Don't shoot!"

All now depended on the men of that caravan. Were they friends or foes, honest men or thieves, we had cast the dice, and on that throw our fate waited.

I heard Gleazen bellowing in Spanish and Arnold Lamont calling in French; then up I came with Matterson and Abe to the crude, hasty rampart of mud and gra.s.s, and over I tumbled upon a man who cried out in amazement and raised his gun to strike me down, only to desist at the sight of my white face, which was no whiter than his own. Arnold was ahead of me; Gleazen and Matterson came in, almost at the same moment; then came Abe; and last of all, dumb with terror, O'Hara, who had tripped and fallen midway between the two barricades and had narrowly escaped perishing at the hands of the negro guards.

In we came and about we turned, side by side with the strange whites, and when the hostile spearmen showed signs of rushing upon us, we gave them b.a.l.l.s from musket and pistol to remember us by, and they faltered and drew back. But that the end was not yet in sight the thudding of their drums and the growing chorus of their angry yells unmistakably told us.

"Ha! Dey t'ink dey git us yet," one of the strangers cried, hearing me speak to Arnold in English. "Dis one beeg war. Where he start, who know? Dey fight, how dey fight! Dey come down upon us--whee!

Gun, spear--when we start we have feefty slave. Ten we loos' before war hit us so we know and hit back. Ha! Dis one beeg war!"

"How far, tell me," gasped O'Hara, "has the fighting gone?"

"Leesten!" The stranger lifted his hand. "Hear dem drum? One here--one dar--one five mile 'way--one ten mile 'way! Oh, ev'ywhere dem drum! Hear dem yell! How far dis war gone--dis war gone clean to Cuba! Dis one beeg war, by d.a.m.n!"

"Has the war," I cried, "reached the mission on the river?"

"Ha! You t'ink you see dat meession, hey? Dat meession, he fall down long since time, I'll bet. One good t'ing dat war he do."

If only I had never seen the girl by the river, I thought. If only I could have forgotten her! I turned away. Yet even then I would not have spared one iota of my brief memories of that girl with the strong, kind face and quiet voice. If I never saw her again, I still had something to hold fast. How many times, since Seth Upham went down to die by the spring, had I thought of that girl as one of the few people whom I should be glad to see again, and how many times had I wished that she did not think so ill of me!

"Tell me, you man, where from you come?" the stranger now asked.

"You come _pop_! So! Whee!"

At that Gleazen spoke in Spanish, and the man turned like a cat taken unawares and looked at him with shrewd, keen eyes. Then Matterson came up to them and likewise began to talk in Spanish, and others crowded round them.

Arnold, after listening for a moment, drew me to one side. "See," he murmured.

Following his gesture, I looked around the camp and saw, in the middle of the clearing, thirty or forty cowering negroes bound fast by bamboo withes. Behind them and mingling with them were bullocks and sheep and goats. Moving restlessly about in the light of earliest morning were numbers of male and female slaves; and on every side were baled hides and bundles of merchandise: ivory, rice, beeswax, and even, it was whispered, gold.

"I fear, my friend," Arnold said in an undertone, "that our hosts are more to the taste of Gleazen than of ourselves."

"You have heard them talking," I whispered. "Tell me what they said."

"Only," replied Arnold, "that _we_ have a ship and _they_ have a cargo; that it will be to our mutual advantage to join forces."

I looked again at the captive negroes, and again thought of the girl at the mission and of the evil that she had attributed to me.