The League of the Leopard Part 35

Maxwell said little further. He slept or lay unconscious for some time, and then just smiled for a moment as his eyes rested on the grim sentinel with the bronze limbs and raw blue draperies, guarding the entrance. When he next roused himself he laid his chilly hand on one of Dane's, and showed a faint sign of pleasure when his comrade's fingers closed upon it. Once again he murmured, but it was rather by the movements of his lips than by audible sound that Dane gathered the message:

"You will tell her I kept my promise."

That was his last effort, for when the night was almost gone the fingers which lay limp in Dane's grew rigid. Then Dane stood up stiffly, desolate, knowing that the spirit of Carsluith Maxwell had pa.s.sed to find such rest as may be reserved for the souls of loyal gentlemen. But the dust claims that which sprang from it quickly in that land, and the comrade he left to mourn over him found his own endurance heavily taxed before the aliens who had helped him at his task took up their stations with weapons girt about them, a barbaric guard of honor, at the dead man's head and feet. It was Amadu who strapped the big revolver by its lanyard to his master's wrist, when, scattering a few of the heavy-scented lily blossoms, Dane folded the tired hands. Then they kept their vigil together, and it did not seem incongruous that dusky cattle thief and soldier of fortune should watch beside the English adventurer.

Humanity is greater than color and creed, and it was as those who had suffered together they did their dead due honor.

The rain had ceased and a dazzling sunrise flamed across the forest when Dane stooped for a last glance at Carsluith Maxwell. The pain had faded from his face, and he lay in impressive serenity as one who rested with his work well done. Then the lonely survivor went out into the brightness of the morning with a grief that found no expression mingled in his heart with the l.u.s.t of vengeance.

CHAPTER XXII

ON TO THE COAST

Nature, untrammeled by human inventions, takes her own way swiftly in the fever land, and the sun had hardly cleared the cottonwoods when Dane found himself mechanically following a tattered hammock borne high on the heads of dusky men. Though there was somber cloud above, dazzling brightness beat into their set faces, and flashed on glistening blade and long gun-barrel borne by those who marched behind. There was no word spoken. Only the patter of naked feet and the jingle of steel broke through the impressive hush, for that morning every leaf hung limp and still. It was with all solemnity that Carsluith Maxwell set out on his last journey.

Dane halted by the eastern gate of the stockade, watching the black men swing past him file by file; they were as strange a company as ever followed a British gentleman to his grave--Moslem bandit, woolly haired bush thief, stalwart, heathen Kroo, brown desperadoes who had fought the French under the banner of the great Sultan, and two-legged beasts of burden from the steaming swamps. Still, unstable and unreasoning, with the light-heartedness of a child and the cruelty of a devil, as many were, it gave the watcher a mournful pleasure to see that one and all had come to pay respect to their dead leader; and he showed his wonder when Amadu cried aloud, and the glinting flintlocks swung together, with muzzles to the rear. Dane guessed that the dusky adventurer had not learned to reverse arms in the service of any hinterland Emir.

He followed, seeing as one walking in a dream, the sinuous line of sable limbs and white and blue draperies wind on through deepening shadow.

When Amadu cried again, the moving figures fell apart on either hand, and Dane was left with their leader and the bearers beside a shallow trench, on which one shaft of sunlight fell. He cast his ragged hat down on the sand, and in a voice which seemed to belong to some other person recited such fragmentary portions of the last office as he could remember. No one moved among all the silent company, but there was an inarticulate murmur when at last the solemn words broke off.

Dane remembered nothing further beyond the dull thud of shovels; his eyesight seemed to fail him, until presently he found himself moving dejectedly back to camp behind the straggling company. He must have slept when he reached his tent, for the sun was low when Monday and Amadu stood outside the entrance, calling him. When he rose wearily, Amadu pointed to the groups of men waiting without.

"Them boy lib for savvy what you do now, sah," he said in the coast palaver.

"I can't tell them just yet," Dane answered. "What do they wish themselves?"

It was a few moments before his meaning dawned upon Amadu, for the white man felt too dazed to frame his thoughts in other than everyday English.

"Them carrier bushmen lib for beach and go back to his own country one time," said Amadu. "Say this country belong to the Ju-ju."

No man could have blamed the carriers. They had in their own fashion done their utmost, and Dane almost shared their opinion about the locality; but he pointed to other men of lighter color and soldierly aspect.

"Do these want to lib for their own country one time, too?" he asked.

Amadu laughed mirthlessly, and fingering the hilt of the straight blade glanced at Monday, whose face was very grim, and the little negro, Bad Dollar, crouching close by with a polished matchet in his hand.

"They say they follow you if you be fit to hunt them Leopard or go chop them dam Rideau."

"They shall have an answer to-morrow," said Dane. "Monday, see there is order in the camp. Tell them no man is fit to reach the coast himself, and must wait until I go with him. There is something I want to ask you, Amadu. What you did was well done, but who taught you how, when a white soldier is buried, men carry the gun. Your master has gone, and I am Cappy now."

As it were mechanically, the big dusky alien closed his heels together, while his hand went up to his ragged turban and fell again with a rigid precision.

"I had suspected it already," said Dane, half-aloud. "Sit down and tell me about it. Monday, see no boy leaves the camp."

The others disappeared, and Dane was glad when the man obeyed him. He was respectful and intelligent, and Dane felt the need of company. It seemed that the same feeling troubled Amadu.

"The white man has guessed," he said, in a strangely mixed idiom. "I carried an Emir's standard in the North, in the dry country where men fear Allah, and there is corn and tobacco. My master mocked at the Sultan, refusing his tribute, and the Sultan's hors.e.m.e.n came upon us while we slept. They wore fine iron chain and carried the guns which come south through the desert from where no man knows, but for an hour a handful of us held the gate with the sword. Then when other gates went down and the huts burned behind us, some one brought my master's horse, and he rode out upon them. There were less than a score of us living then, but we carried the standard almost through their midst, and when my master went down, I and three others stood over him. The Sultan had fewer men and horses when at last a gun-b.u.t.t struck me down."

Amadu flung his head up as he halted, and his eyes glittered when they fastened on the listener's face.

"The Sultan was served by men, and not by such as the heathen who follow the little white man," he said.

Dane could draw the intended inference, and when he nodded Amadu appeared satisfied.

"When I lay in the gra.s.s next morning only the wall remained of the town," continued the dusky soldier of fortune. "There were sufficient heads hung about it already, so I fled south to serve the White Queen, as others of my people had done. We would follow the strongest, and knew how the great Emir of the West had mocked the white men who do not speak your tongue. So I came south and learned the drill, and wondered if the English were mad when they sent a lad with the face of a woman to lead us. There were twenty of us, all broken men who had lived by the sword, and some laughed when for the first time our officer spoke to us. Others answered him openly, and, perhaps not understanding all, he said no word to them; but when one night four men returned carrying plunder they had stolen from the heathen, and, mocking at his orders, threatened him, he shot their leader. He stood alone before us, very slight and slender, with the smoke of the pistol curling about him, and any one of those who stood by could have crushed him with their hand; but we went back to our huts when he told us, and henceforward obeyed him.

"It happened that when time had pa.s.sed, and we knew our officer, as he knew us, we went up with him to chastise certain thieves, and came upon a stockade across the path, with many men who carried guns behind it.

The sun hung low over the forest, and we feared treachery when one held out a palm branch; but refusing to heed us, our officer went forward alone to speak with the heathen. He stood as he used to stand, with one hand on his side, so, holding in the other only a little cane, the stockade ten paces from him, and we waiting, as he had bidden us, it may be a hundred, behind him. A wise man would not have done so, but the one who led us feared nothing. He spoke, and his voice came clear through the shadow as he stood twisting his cane a little, one lonely white man demanding submission from the heathen. Then a gun flashed, and he fell forward on his face, and with a cry for vengeance we swept the stockade.

The heathen did not wait for the steel, and most of them escaped, for darkness fell suddenly upon the forest.

"We knew they would fly to the stronghold of a thief in the country of the white men who speak a different tongue, where, when certain thieves had done so, our leader might not follow; but when we had buried him we made a plan, and swore to send many of the bushmen after him. The night was far spent when we crept softly about the stockade of that heathen village, but men drunk with palm wine made merry within, doubtless boasting how they had slain our leader. It was one who had served the Sultan, climbing the stockade, drove his bayonet through the watcher at the gate, and no man saw us slip from hut to hut until we gathered softly about the headman's house, where in honor of the strangers who had killed a white man there was feasting.

"Three we could count on held the door, the rest went in, and there remained no one living when they came out again. Then we burned the village, and I went back to the outpost of the next white Captain and told him what we had done. He had eyes like the Captain Maxwell, and listened very quietly, tapping with his fingers on the table--so--but another white man whom I did not know, smote it, calling upon Allah in the speech of the English.

"Then the Captain looked hard at me, asking, 'You had no order?'

"'No. He was our master, and those bush thieves killed him treacherously,' I said boldly, and one white man nodded to the other.

"'You were wise to speak the truth in this,' said the Captain. 'Your master would never have given that order; but there are men who will not believe the rest of your tale.'

"'By salt and by fire,' I was answering, when he lifted his hand.

"'I said there are men who will doubt you, and say you shot your leader.

Even if that is not so, you have killed many of our good friends'

people.' When he said this the listening white man laughed a little.

'Their nation will demand rest.i.tution, and it is possible the Commissioner will hang you for what you did--which would not please me, for you are a good soldier, Amadu. Now you must wait in prison until we hear from him.'

"Again the white man smiled, and I could not read all that was in the Captain's face as he looked at me, but his friend spoke, in the speech of the English, saying that if he did something he would be condemned.

So I was laid in prison, and stayed there several days, fearing greatly that I, who had carried the Emir's standard, should hang like a common bushman, until one night the comrade who brought me rations set down a treble quant.i.ty.

"'Am I to hang, a fat man, to please the white men who speak differently?' I asked him, but he answered nothing.

"It was near midnight when I heard the silver whistle, and a sound of running feet, after some one called the guard. Now I did not wish to hang, and Allah gave me understanding. The roof was of whitened iron, but the door was not strong, and they had left me my rifle, which was not usual. The door went down at the second blow, and no man saw me as I fled for the bush, taking the rifle and three days' food with me. Still, I knew it would not be well for me to remain in the country of the English, and when no man would hire me, I took service with my last master. Two I had were killed before him, but neither was his equal, and I shall not find such another in all Africa--though my service is not completed yet."

Again there was a mutual understanding between the pair, and when Dane nodded Amadu went out softly. The story had interested and also encouraged him, for he knew he would not be left without a helper in what he had still to do. Now that the numbness which followed the blow had begun to pa.s.s, there was sufficient to occupy his attention, and Dane never closed his eyes that night. The gold won would suffice to cover the cost of the two expeditions, and leave a balance which would enable him to launch his invention. Dane feared that, situated where the mine was, no company could be induced to handle it. It appeared certain that the climate, the sicknesses, and the hostility of the natives would between them prevent any private adventurers from working it successfully. Nothing could be done for some months at least, until the rains had ceased; and before morning the one white man who knew the river's secret had decided to keep it and send no more of his countrymen to their deaths in the Leopards' country. At the best, the mine lay in no-man's-land, and he had not even a black ruler's doubtful concession for reckless speculators to operate upon.

What Dane had seen and suffered had humbled his pride. Maxwell's last news still thrilled him, and he determined he would do what might better have been done earlier--ask the woman for whose sake he had pressed on into that forest to wait until he had made further progress in his legitimate profession. So far, the way was clear, but even before his comrade left him a desire for vengeance had been growing stronger within the survivor, and now a sullen fury filled the lonely man, who had pledged himself to demand a full account for any breach of trust, and had not hitherto failed his promise.

At sunrise, leaving his tent unrefreshed, he called the men together and addressed them first collectively.

"I will take you all back to the coast, and you will receive more than you bargained for when you get there," he said, rendering it, however, into the seaboard tongue. "Still, as the bushmen may try to stop us on the way, you will not start until you are rested, and I think you ready.

We may not go quite the shortest way, but no boy shall suffer for it who serves me well."

There was an approving shout when the listeners grasped his meaning, but Dane called Amadu and Monday aside.