The League of the Leopard Part 36

"Before or after I take these boys to the coast, I have an account to settle with Rideau. You will help me?" he said; and when he had made his purpose plainer, a dozen of his special bodyguard came forward, protesting their willingness to follow.

They set to work at once, and there was much to be done. Arms required to be stripped and oiled, loads packed for transport, and Dane drilled his men an hour or two each day. A number of days pa.s.sed before all was ready, and then the combined forces looked fit for whatever they might have to do; their leader recognized that the work might be arduous.

It was early in the morning, and all waited for the word to march, when Dane stood bareheaded beside a little cross on the bluff beyond the camp. For a few moments his eyes grew misty as he glanced down at the date and name he had painfully hacked upon it. He felt that he would never meet the equal of the man who slept beneath.

"Good-by, comrade. You will be long remembered," he murmured thickly; then he solemnly recorded a vow that while Rideau went free and unpunished his own affairs would wait. Dane owed the dead man a duty, and he had taken upon himself a pledge which he meant to discharge thoroughly.

It was with as little parade of weapons as possible that the expedition headed for the coast, for the men had their orders and Amadu saw they were carried out. Those who carried matchets wore them hidden under their cotton robes, while at times the rank and file were allowed to straggle unchecked, with small semblance of discipline, in a drawn-out line. The discipline, however, was there, and disaster would have overtaken any bushmen who attempted to profit by the apparent lack of it. Dane did not order defenses of any kind to be raised at night, and generally had his tent pitched apart from the main camp; so that when they had made wide detours through dense forest and reeking swamp, some of the black men commenced to murmur as well as wonder at his recklessness. Amadu, Monday, and the negro, Bad Dollar, with whom he held long conferences, realized, however, that their leader was by no means inconsistent, even if they did not know that he was to all intents and purposes the victim of a monomania.

When it was too late forever to tell him so, he realized what his fallen comrade had been to him; and remembering how Maxwell reached the river camp, it was with difficulty that he refrained from breaking out into fits of baresark rage at the thought of their third partner's treachery. The knowledge that it was necessary to pit an intelligence unhampered by senseless fury against the enemy's cunning alone restrained him; for he felt that Rideau, who had probably heard by this time of his relief, even if he did not know it earlier, would strike again to ensure his own personal safety. He had no lack of opportunity, but, either by accident or by judgment, for long refused to fall into the trap, however temptingly Dane baited it.

CHAPTER XXIII

AN EYE FOR AN EYE

The expedition wandered southward leisurely, and Dane grew more savagely sullen as they pa.s.sed dripping forest and foul mora.s.s in safety, until at last he ordered his tent to be pitched one sunset, fully a hundred yards from the camp. The light was failing when he stood outside it looking about him with a curious suggestion of antic.i.p.ation in his face.

They had reached the southern fringe of the Leopards' country, and another week's march should place them in touch with French officials.

The forest was comparatively open, the cottonwoods growing well apart; and gazing between the long rows of towering trunks streaked by blue wood smoke, Dane could catch the shimmer of a sluggish creek. It was deep and miry, and haunted, as he had seen, by huge saurians, but a little produce evidently came down that way, for the bush path on either side was connected by a native ferry.

As he made a last survey the light died out; and his lamp was lighted when Amadu, Monday, and Bad Dollar came softly into the tent. Dane stood upright, but the rest crouched low among the cases, that they might not reveal their presence on the illuminated canvas. Monday growled a protest as he noticed how his master's figure was projected against it by the light; but his comments fell unheeded, for there was a definite purpose behind the white man's imprudence.

"Again I found the footsteps," Amadu reported, using a mixture of several tongues, as well as broken English. "The men who made them were tired, and have doubtless followed us far. They will surely be satisfied when they see us resting to-night."

Monday grinned wickedly; Bad Dollar flung back his woolly head and broke into a silent laugh; and Dane felt a thrill of satisfaction as he glanced at the speaker. The four formed a curiously a.s.sorted company; but one purpose dominated each of them equally, and the leader was contented with his a.s.sistants.

"One wore boots and trod in the soft places as no black man would," said Amadu, reading the unspoken question in the white man's eyes. "Another wore sandals, and went cunningly, as did the rest, walking as we do upon our naked feet. Still, they left this behind them among the thorns."

He held out what Dane was not surprised to see, a small tuft of leopard's fur, and laughed harshly.

"Ho, ho! We shall try whether they are devils with lead and steel!"

"The ferry canoe?" asked Dane briefly; and Amadu nodded.

"I go to see to it, and afterward it will need good witchcraft to find it. If any one would go south in a hurry he must swim to-night."

"There are crocodiles in that stream," smiled Dane. "You will take men you can trust and hide them where the path winds down to the water, Amadu. Monday, you will see that until I call, no boy leaves the camp, but let them lie down with their matchets beside them. Bad Dollar will wait with me; and I will borrow Cappy Maxwell's gun to-night, Amadu."

Sitting low among the cases now, Dane made careful preparations for his own share in the approaching tragedy. That it would prove one he felt certain. He cleaned Maxwell's gun with a loving care, polishing the inside of the barrel until it glistened, and touching each part of the action with oil. The weapon was a heavy, single eight-bore, with a rubber pad on the heel; part of this Dane cut away, leaving the steel bare, because he knew that at close quarters the b.u.t.t of a heavy gun may prove as deadly as the muzzle. It was with a curious stirring of recollections that he saw the dead man's initials cut into the elevated rib, and because of them his face was the sterner as he laid down the weapon. At short range in the darkness it was likely to prove more formidable than any rifle, and--for Dane was wholly under the influence of the monomania--his own safety counted for little if he could use it with due effect.

Presently he reloaded half a dozen cartridges with heavy B pellets, crimping the wads down almost affectionately, and thrust one into the chamber and the rest into his pocket. Never were cartridges filled with greater care. Then he laid two of the colored lights Maxwell had brought beside the tent door, made sure he could find them by feeling alone, and placed a tin match-box in one pocket where it could be most quickly grasped.

At last all was ready, and Dane sat perched high on a deal case between the lamp and the canvas for a while. Any one in the forest could, of course, see him clearly; but though Dane expected his foes would strike that night he did not fear a long-range shot. Rideau, he knew, must have recognized that his late a.s.sociate could lay a formidable complaint before the authorities, who, regarding his inland journeys with suspicion, would be glad to fasten any charge upon him, and perhaps equally glad of an excuse to send an expedition up into the Leopards'

country.

After lying for a time on the matting at one end of the tent, he rose and turned the lamp out; the watching then was not cheerful, and it was comforting to feel the weight of the big gun upon his knee. The last hum of voices had died away in camp, the fires burned low, and except for an occasional floundering beside the creek, the bush was strangely silent.

The darkness was now intense. The wild animals would await moonrise to begin their hunting; what Dane expected would happen before then. He could not see Bad Dollar, who crouched somewhere near the entrance of the tent, though he heard his file grate softly upon a matchet, and could picture him running a black thumb along the keen-edged blade at every cessation.

Confused memories crowded upon Dane, with Maxwell stalking through them all. He saw him again, alert, indomitable, resourceful, quelling the mutinous, cheering the dejected, and tending the sick. He saw him gasping his life away in that very tent, with, regardless of his own agony, words which would brighten all his partner's future upon his lips; and again a gust of pa.s.sion stirred the lonely man in every fiber.

It pa.s.sed, and--for Dane was not for the time being wholly sane--left behind it a coldly murderous resolution.

Suddenly there was a touch upon his leg. Without a sound Bad Dollar had wriggled toward him. Turning as silently as he could, Dane crawled to the entrance, where he crouched with his right heel beneath him, behind the drawn-back sheeting which hung slackly. It was so dark that he could scarcely distinguish the nearest cottonwood; but though his ears failed to localize any definite sound he became conscious of some danger approaching. Under different circ.u.mstances Dane would have felt distinctly uneasy, knowing, as he did, that the thick gloom sheltered those who sought his life. Then, however, he feared only that he had not accurately loaded the cartridge, or that the damp had spoiled the fulminating mixture inside its cap; and his fingers were woodenly steady as they tightened on the gun.

He felt with one hand for the socket of the signal light and found it, stretched out a foot and pressed it against Bad Dollar when he touched him again warningly; and then the vague sensation of impending danger grew into shape at a recognizable sound. Noiselessly almost, but not quite, somebody or something was crawling toward the tent.

Dane suspended his very respiration as he strained his eyes, and listened. He could see nothing, and his ears seemed filled with a dull throbbing, but in spite of this he could hear the faintest of rustlings on two sides of the tent at once, and knew that, because no white man could move in such a manner, his dusky enemies were coming. One seemed to be making for the end of the tent, where his bed was spread; the other was creeping toward the entrance to prevent the escape of the victim in case his comrade failed at the first attempt. It was done with so little noise that Dane found it hard to realize he had creatures of flesh and blood to deal with, and not the malevolent devils the bushmen believed in. Bad Dollar made no further movement, and Dane crouched woodenly still, only sliding his forefinger inside the guard of the trigger when at last a spray of leaves swished softly a few yards away.

Then he heard somebody breathing close beside him, and knew that sudden death stood hidden behind the slacker sheeting which began to roll back very slowly; and yet, while the throbbing in his ears grew louder, he remained impa.s.sive another few seconds. He had awaited that moment patiently; and he meant to strike decisively, for his dead comrade's sake. There was no light. The night was black and thick; but some sense beside that of the optic nerve made it evident that part of the moving sheeting was more rigid than the rest because it rested against human flesh. Knowing that at the next move the a.s.sa.s.sin would fall over him, Dane felt for that portion of the sheeting with the muzzle of the gun while his forefinger contracted on the trigger.

The barrel found something that yielded as he added the last ounce of pressure; there was a detonation; the white man fell backward with his eyes filled with smoke and two fingers gashed by the trigger guard; and something that struggled convulsively fell upon the canvas and bore it down.

The tent collapsed behind Dane as he slipped from under it; but knowing how the heavy B-shot would at that distance smash through bone and muscle, he paid no more attention to this a.s.sailant. First he snapped out the spent cartridge and crammed another home, then, striking a match, touched the signal light. It smoldered for a moment, then a column of blue fire swept aloft, and its radiance which beat athwart the towering trunks showed a striking spectacle.

Close behind the white man a shapeless heap of fur and black flesh lay quivering upon the over-turned tent. Half-seen for a second a dim figure, whose garments were not those of a native, vanished among the remoter trunks. Men with weapons came flitting out of the shadows which shrouded the camp; and about thirty yards away a monstrous object with the head of a beast and the legs of a man was slinking toward a creeper festoon. Dane flung the gun to his shoulder and fired as it ran, but the glare of the light beat transversely along the barrel, blinding him.

Springing clear of the filmy smoke, he saw the second a.s.sailant was still running, and he sprang forward without waiting to reload. The light would last but a few more seconds. Still, the object moved at twice his speed, and might have escaped but that as he blundered on, choking in his haste, a diminutive figure ran forth to meet it, and the beast flung an upper limb aloft. Dane saw the spear which had been meant for his destruction draw back to stab; but the negro, Bad Dollar, sprang sideways, and his broad matchet, long filed to a razor-edge, flared under the last flicker of the light as he swung it round his head. Then there was sudden darkness, a thud and a crash.

Dane, guessing that Bad Dollar's matchet had bitten deep, and that his carrier comrades would see his victim did not escape, turned at top-most speed in the direction of the creek. Men came running behind him; but a heavier sound was audible through the patter of their feet, and he knew that one who was not barefooted fled for his life near ahead. He was running fast, but Dane, flinging the gun down, knew that he was gaining, and remembered that the man he sought would find his pa.s.sage barred across the creek. So they ran, straining every sinew in a desperate race. Now and then one smashed through a thorn brake, or staggered, catching his foot in a creeper vine, but neither went down, and the gurgle of the creek grew nearer all the time. Dane raised his voice, and though his cry was barely articulate it proved sufficient, and as Amadu's hail came back in answer the footsteps before him grew slower, and a tongue of flame shot up.

So far there had been no miscarriage, and to furnish light for the climax a torch had been kept ready by one of Amadu's men. It showed first the group of grim black figures which guarded the narrow path to the water through tall cane, and then a man in European dress who stood still, gasping with fear and rage.

It was Victor Rideau.

"See that no boy fires on him unless he moves!" Dane made shift to cry; and Rideau, turning, met him face to face.

"I have expected you a long time," Dane said brokenly, for the race had taxed his strength, and once more he was shaken by a fit of futile rage.

"Now I can't tell you how I regret we did not meet just five minutes earlier."

This was an adequate expression of the pursuer's feelings, for as his enemy stood gazing about him in abject terror, Dane felt he could not strike him down in cold blood, and he longed fiercely that he might be provoked to some fresh violence.

"Can you understand, you thief and midnight a.s.sa.s.sin, that there is not enough room in this country for both of us?"

"I comprehend nothing, camarade," Rideau answered calmly. "What would you of me?"

"Satisfaction!" Dane tried to choke down his fury. "There is a long account between us, and we could have settled it with less difficulty if you had had the courage of your confederates a few minutes ago. As it is, you can choose between a dash for the forest and a volley as you go, or a journey down to the coast in my custody. There you will be turned over to the authorities. I reserve myself the privilege, if they do not render you incapable of further mischief."

Rideau laughed.

"There I should denounce you for the plunder and killing of the Indigene. The Administration has no charge against me. I am good friend of the sous official, me. My friend, you are excite, and talk foolishly."

"If the chief of the Administration is a friend of yours, his own words don't bear it out. I can substantiate quite sufficient against you; and unless I'm greatly mistaken, the man with the cross on his forehead lies riddled with big shot beside my tent. A number of my boys will swear to his ident.i.ty. In the meantime I have no further words to waste with you.

I intend to give the Administration the first opportunity for rewarding you. It will be time for me to take further steps if they do not profit by it as I think they will."

Dane felt that he was weak; but even in his pa.s.sion there were things he could not do, and his enemy's helplessness was his protection. Also, he knew that justice is tempered with discretion throughout much of that country, and he hoped that if the Authorities suspected Rideau of different offenses, but could not convict him, they would see that this charge did not miscarry.

The a.s.sumption of indifference faded from Rideau's face, and with a swift glance over his shoulder he drew out his hand from under his jacket. Dane afterward decided that he saw, what all the rest were too intent to notice, that the torch was burning out; for with an evident effort and a shrug of his shoulders he answered quietly.