The League of the Leopard Part 18

"The sound rose from behind the tuft of palms," Maxwell said quietly.

"Take six of your best men, Monday, and see who is missing. No--stay where you are, Hilton! It is advisable to break them in to this kind of thing."

Monday went reluctantly, and returned to say that one of the sentries and his gun had vanished completely. Then a half-naked man with a matchet burst through the wondering group which had gathered about the pair, demanding a.s.sistance to search for his brother.

Maxwell glanced at him, hesitated, and, while Dane protested, shook his head.

"We could never track them, even in broad daylight; and some of the rescue party would not come back," he explained. "By this time the poor devil is certainly dead, and I feel convinced that we shall find him to-morrow without searching. Amadu, tell your boys to fire on any man trying to leave the camp."

Maxwell kept watch himself henceforward, and Dane retired to the tent, resigned though far from contented. He had learned that, if his ways were a trifle autocratic, his comrade was a leader who could be trusted, and though he longed with a vindictive yearning to search the forest, rifle in hand, he did not consider it judicious to question Maxwell's authority.

It was a relief when morning came, and somewhat silently they began the march again. The path wound up a ravine, through climbing forest that rotted as it grew, where grotesque and ghostly orchids sprouted from each crumbling bough, and there was scarcely room for two men abreast in the rutted trail. It had been worn deep by the pa.s.sage of naked feet; for gum, skins, and a little ivory came down on the heads of slave trains out of Shaillu's country.

Maxwell, with a few picked men, led the way, after giving Dane orders not to follow him too closely with the main body; but the latter found it hard to restrain his carriers, who desired to leave the site of the camp as far behind them as possible.

Dane had lagged a little behind the long line of colored headgear, cases poised aloft on woolly crowns, white draperies, and patches of sable skin, which wound on before him through the green of the tangled jungle, when Maxwell's voice came back sharply.

"Lead your boys wide into the bush, Hilton! Break through for several hundred yards, and send them on before you. Turn back and rejoin me alone when you strike the trail again!"

It was done, though Dane fell over an ant-heap and into a network of horrible th.o.r.n.y trailers which tore the flesh about his ankles. Hurrying back along the trail, he found Maxwell standing behind a screen of resplendent creepers, lighting a cigar with a hand that was not quite steady. His eyes were positively savage, and a patch in the center of each cheek was gray. Startled as Dane was, it was nevertheless soothing to find that his comrade shared some, at least, of the weaknesses of their common humanity. He could not mistake the intensity of Maxwell's anger.

"Prepare yourself for a surprise, Hilton, and then see what awaits you beyond that bush," he said. "I had partly expected it, but when I came upon it the sight almost sickened me."

Dane's nerves were tolerably good, but when he pa.s.sed the creepers he experienced a shock of nausea and halted abruptly. Two black men were scooping out a trench, while another crouched near by, crooning something while he ran his thumb caressingly up and down a matchet blade. He looked up at the white man's coming, and his face was a study.

Horror was stamped upon it; but a slow, relentless ferocity was written there too. This Dane saw with his first glance, but after the second he turned his eyes away. Maxwell was right. They had found the missing sentry. The object--for there was little resemblance of humanity left in what lay a foul blotch on the forest before him--was stretched across the trail; and the neck was twisted so that the face, left whole, looked down the pathway the way the expedition should have come, distorted and ghastly, with its changeless grin of pain. Words appeared superfluous, but Dane's sensations demanded relief in speech.

"Horrible! horrible! But what is the matter with Bad Dollar? He looks positively murderous!"

"It is not surprising," answered Maxwell. "The African is not always admirable in his domestic relations, but what lies yonder was his brother."

Dane, stooping, patted the negro's head.

"It will be a bad day for some of the Leopards when he settles that score. Listen to me, Maxwell. Heaven knows whether through greed I am responsible for part of this; but I most solemnly promise that if ever I can find the master fiend who inspired the murderers, I'll avenge that poor devil, as well as Lyle, the trader, whatever it costs me. We're partners in this affair, Bad Dollar!"

It is probable that the naked heathen attached little meaning to the words, but he understood the hoa.r.s.eness of the white man's voice, and the steely glint in his eyes. He laid his black hands on the speaker's foot.

"It is a bargain," Dane said gravely. "I mean to keep it, Maxwell."

"You are a little impetuous," was the quiet answer. "Some day there will, I hope, be a reckoning; but a wise man says little and awaits his opportunity. Our turn has not come yet. When it does I do not think you will find me dilatory. Meanwhile, I'm puzzled. There are points connected with this affair which are far from clear; but those fellows have finished and we will go on again."

Beyond instructing Dane and his immediate followers to keep the occurrence secret, Maxwell said nothing further until noon had pa.s.sed, when Dane asked a question.

"Why did the Leopards make their first move now, when we could, if we wished it, retreat, instead of waiting until we had penetrated farther into their country?"

"It is a pertinent question," said Maxwell. "For one thing, this is, after all, King Shaillu's country, and they possibly fear that if we once have speech with him, the headman, who, so the French officers told me, has a hankering after civilization, might extend us protection. But that does not quite account for everything. You remember Miss Castro's mention of the following shadow? Events have proved her predictions signally correct hitherto, and I am inclined to fancy that the worst danger still lies behind us and not before."

Maxwell vouchsafed no further information, and though Dane knew it was well the expedition had for its leader a man unmoved alike by excess of anger or misguided pity, he could not help retorting: "You foresee a good deal, Carsluith. It is unfortunate you could not more often prevent it. Why could you not have told me more of what you antic.i.p.ated?"

Maxwell laughed good-humoredly.

"Isn't it apparent that what I prevent from happening does not occur? As to the last question, perhaps the African's answer, 'You never asked me,' is the best. One dreads so much that it appeared useless to harrow your feelings until I was certain."

The march through headman Shaillu's dominions left upon Dane only a series of blurred impressions. He was too sick to notice definite details most of the time; but he decided that under no circ.u.mstances could it be considered a cheerful country. For days together the expedition floundered through dripping forest so laced and bound with creepers that at noon the daylight could hardly filter down. The atmosphere resembled that of a Turkish bath; moisture splashed upon the broad leaves everywhere, and the heat and the gloom together produced a distressing la.s.situde. This the white men made strenuous efforts to resist, knowing that they might blunder into an ambush at any moment.

It was evident that their enemies had not lost touch with them; for in spite of their keenest vigilance, a carrier was twice spirited out of camp at night. Once Dane, making the rounds with a lantern, came upon a sentry huddled beneath a cottonwood. He had paid a heavy penalty for his drowsiness. Even Maxwell showed signs of temper at this, and the expedition waited two nights in camp while its leaders prowled through the forest in an attempt to surprise the a.s.sa.s.sins. It was, of course, a failure. They returned at sunrise, muddy, ragged, and savage, having neither seen nor heard anything suspicious.

The fact that they never did see their persecutors was the most hara.s.sing feature of it all; and at last Dane grew by turns murderously resentful and subject to fits of limp dejection, in which the fever had doubtless a share. The few villages they pa.s.sed were empty. Where a river crossed their path the canoes had been taken away; and at intervals detachments of the carriers fell sick mysteriously. When they limped out into a waste of crackling, sword-edged gra.s.s, the glare and dust and heat were bewildering, and after a few days Dane longed for the forest again.

Still they held on, and one evening they marched, blanched in face, and very weary, into sight of one of the strongholds of headman Shaillu.

CHAPTER XII

WEALTH IN SIGHT

A stockade ran round the village, and rows of thatched roofs loomed above the frowning wall of timber, but instead of the usual clamor, there was dead silence as, with some semblance of order, the footsore and spiritless carriers limped in through the open gate. Nothing except a few lizards stirred in the first sandy avenue, and the oppressive stillness remained unbroken by the voice of man or beast. The sun hung low above the parched gra.s.s in the west, and crimson splendors blazed behind the huts; but a strange musky odor replaced the pungent fragrance of burning wood which at that hour hangs over each African village.

"The whole land seems dead," Dane said slowly, leaning heavily on his rifle as he spoke. "There are times when one could almost fancy, Carsluith, that you and I were ghosts--indeed, at the present moment you don't look unlike one; but what is the meaning of this latest riddle?

This is the black headman's capital, isn't it?"

Maxwell smiled mirthlessly, as he stood, with beaded forehead and shoulders bent, glancing toward the weary carriers. His face was worn and hollow, though his eyes were bright, and his clothing was dropping in tatters from his weary limbs. The glare behind him emphasized the lividness of his pallid skin.

"It is one of them. I believe he has several," he said. "Whether he fears reprisals from some plundered neighbor, or pestilence, I naturally don't know; but, as his absence will save us a good many presents and much loss of time, it is not material. Still, we might find some clue in one of these huts."

Maxwell entered the nearest, then moved into another, and stayed there some time, leaving Dane in the sandy avenue before it; the carriers were resting at a distance. The sun dipped, and as Dane watched the night creep up swiftly from the east, it struck him that there was a curious uncanny feeling about the place. It was a relief when his comrade returned, looking graver than ever.

"Did you find any one inside?"

"I did," was the answer. "Unfortunately the man, as well as the one in the next hut, was dead, and had, I fancy, been so for some time. He probably died of a plague, which explains why the town is empty. We may find something more conclusive in one of the larger huts."

Dane decided that the discovery of two dead Africans was sufficient, and said so; but Maxwell persisted, and it was almost dark when they halted outside what appeared to be the headman's dwelling. Nothing could be distinguished in the interior, but Dane could hear creeping things rustle in the thatch, and the peculiar odor he already had noticed drifted forth from the hut. This was all, but he felt an instinctive repugnance to entering, and when Maxwell pa.s.sed him, he caught him by the shoulder to suggest that they should light a lantern first. Hardly had he done so than what appeared to be a puff of colder air sighed close past his ear, and Maxwell, whipping out his revolver, hailed him to run round the hut as he leaped into the room. Dane did so, finding another entrance at the rear, and a broad s.p.a.ce between the dwelling and the nearest hut. n.o.body, he felt almost certain, would have had sufficient time to cross it, but the s.p.a.ce was empty. When he went in Maxwell had torn down and lighted strips of palm-leaf from the thatch, but the name that leaped up showed them no sign of living humanity.

Maxwell's countenance was very grim.

"You saw n.o.body outside there? I hardly thought you would," he said.

"Our animal instincts are sometimes more useful than our powers of reasoning, Hilton. It is probable that if you had not checked me, I should now be on my way out of this land of surprises. What we heard was a diminutive arrow, no doubt with the venom there's no cure for upon its point. It could not have been shot at us by either of the Africans yonder."

Dane, glancing at the two awful huddled figures, swore softly and viciously.

"It is time we struck back, Carsluith," he urged. "I'll call up our boys and surround the huts."

"It would be useless," said Maxwell, shaking his head. "You have not realized these fellows' ingenuity, even yet. Further, if the boys saw what we have seen it might be disastrous."

A horror of the whole country where such things were possible came upon Dane and he moistened his dry lips with his tongue.

"I would give ten years of my life to stand face to face with the leader of these devils."