The Pools of Silence Part 12

A great hullaballoo broke out, and almost immediately the soldiers appeared, driving the seven villagers before them with their rifle-b.u.t.ts.

They were not hurting them, just pushing them along, for this was, up to the present, not a punitive expedition but a fatherly visitation to point out the evils of laziness and insubordination, and to get, if possible, these poor wretches to communicate with the disaffected ones and make them return to their work.

Adams nearly laughed outright at the faces of the villagers; black countenances drawn into all the contortions of fright, but the contortions of their bodies were more laughable still, as they came forward like naughty children, driven by the soldiers, putting their hands out behind to evade the prods of the gun-b.u.t.ts.

Berselius had ordered the tents to be raised on the sunlit gra.s.s, for the edge of the forest, though shady, was infested by clouds of tiny black midges--midges whose bite was as bad, almost, as the bite of a mosquito.

Meeus spoke to the people in their own tongue, telling them not to be afraid, and when the tents were erected he and Berselius and Adams, sitting in the shelter of the biggest tent, faced the seven villagers, all drawn up in a row and backed by the eleven soldiers in their red fez caps.

The villagers, backed by the soldiers and fronted by Meeus, formed a picture which was the whole Congo administration in a nutsh.e.l.l. In a sentence, underscored by the line of blood-red fezzes.

These seven undersized, downtrodden, hideously frightened creatures, with eyeb.a.l.l.s rolling and the marks of old chain scars on their necks, were the representatives of all the humble and meek tribes of the Congo, the people who for thousands of years had lived a lowly life, humble as the coneys of Scripture; people who had cultivated the art of agriculture and had carried civilization as far as their weak hands would carry it in that benighted land. Literally the salt of that dark earth. Very poor salt, it is true, but the best they could make of themselves.

These eleven red-tipped devils, gun-b.u.t.ting the others to make them stand erect and keep in line, were the representatives of the warlike tribes who for thousands of years had preyed on each other and made the land a h.e.l.l.

Cannibals most of them, ferocious all of them, heartless to a man.

Meeus was the white man who, urged by the black l.u.s.t of money, had armed and drilled and brought under good pay all the warlike tribes of the Congo State and set them as task-masters over the humble tribes.

By extension, Berselius and Adams were the nations of Europe looking on, one fully knowing, the other not quite comprehending the tragedy enacted before their eyes.

I am not fond of parallels, but as these people have ranged themselves thus before my eyes, I cannot help pointing out the full meaning of the picture. A picture which is photographically true.

There was a little pot-bellied boy amongst the villagers, the old woman of the grindstone was holding him by the hand; he, of all the crowd, did not look in the least frightened. His eyeb.a.l.l.s rolled, but they rolled in wonder.

The tent seemed to take his fancy immensely; then the big Adams struck his taste, and he examined him from tip to toe.

Adams, greatly taken with the blackamoor, puffed out his cheeks, closed one eye, and instantly, as if at the blow of a hatchet, the black face split, disclosing two white rows of teeth, and then hid itself, rubbing a snub nose against the old woman's thigh.

But a rolling white eyeball reappeared in a moment, only to vanish again as Adams, this time, sucked in his cheeks and worked his nose, making, under his sun hat, a picture to delight and terrify the heart of any child.

All this was quite un.o.bserved by the rest, and all this time Meeus gravely and slowly was talking to the villagers in a quiet voice. They were to send one of their number into the forest to find the defaulters and urge them to return. Then all would be well. That was the gist of his discourse; and the wavering line of n.i.g.g.e.rs rolled their eyes and answered, "We hear, we hear," all together and like one person speaking, and they were nearly tumbling down with fright, for they knew that all would not be well, and that what the awful white man with the pale, grave face said to them was lies, lies, lies--all lies.

Besides the old woman and the child there were two young girls, an old man, a boy of fifteen or so, with only one foot, and a pregnant woman very near her time.

Adams had almost forgotten the n.i.g.g.e.r child when a white eyeball gazing at him from between the old woman's legs recalled its existence.

He thought he had never seen a jollier animal of the human tribe than that. The creature was so absolutely human and full of fun that it was difficult to believe it the progeny of these downtrodden, frightened looking folk. And the strange thing was, it had all the tricks of an English or American child.

The hiding and peeping business, the ready laugh followed by bashfulness and self-effacement, the old unalterable impudence, which is not least amidst the _prima mobilia_ of the childish mind. In another moment, he felt, the thing would forget its respect and return his grimaces, so he ignored it and fixed his attention on Meeus and the trembling wretches he was addressing.

When the lecture was over they were dismissed, and the boy with the amputated foot was sent off to the forest to find the delinquents and bring them back. Till sunrise on the following day was the term given him.

If the others did not begin to return by that time there would be trouble.

CHAPTER XIV

BEHIND THE MASK

The Silent Pools and the woods around were the haunts of innumerable birds. Rose-coloured flamingoes and gorgeous ducks, birds arrayed in all the jewellery of the tropics, birds not much bigger than dragon-flies, and birds that looked like flying beetles.

When they had dined, Adams, leaving the others to smoke and take their siesta, went off by the water's edge on a tour of the pools. They were three in number; sheets of water blue and tranquil and well-named, for surely in all the world nowhere else could such perfect peace be found.

Perhaps it was the shelter of the forest protecting these windless sheets of water; perhaps it was the nature of the foliage, so triumphantly alive yet so motionless; perhaps beyond these some more recondite reason influenced the mind and stirred the imagination. Who knows? The spirit of the scene was there. The spirit of deep and unalterable peace. The peace of shadowy lagoons, the peace of the cedar groves where the sheltering trees shaded the loveliness of Merope, the peace of the heart which pa.s.ses all understanding and which men have named the Peace of G.o.d.

It was the first time since leaving Yandjali that Adams had found himself alone and out of sight of his companions. He breathed deeply, as if breathing in the air of freedom, and as he strode along, tramping through the long gra.s.s, his mind, whilst losing no detail of the scene around him, was travelling far away, even to Paris, and beyond.

Suddenly, twenty yards ahead, bounding and beautiful in its freedom and grace, a small antelope pa.s.sed with the swiftness of an arrow; after it, almost touching it, came another form, yellow and fierce and flashing through the gra.s.s and vanishing, like the antelope, amidst the high gra.s.ses on the edge of the pool.

The antelope had rushed to the water for protection, and the leopard had followed, carried forward by its impetus and ferocity, for Adams could hear its splash following the splash of the quarry; then a roar split the silence, echoed from the trees, and sent innumerable birds fluttering and crying from the edge of the forest and the edge of the pool.

Adams burst through the long speargra.s.s to see what was happening, and, standing on the boggy margin, holding the gra.s.ses aside, gazed.

The antelope had vanished as if it had never been, and a few yards from the sh.o.r.e, in the midst of a lather of water that seemed beaten up with a great swizzle-stick, the leopard's head, mouth open, roaring, horrified his eyes for a moment and then was jerked under the surface.

The water closed, eddied, and became still, and Silence resumed her sway over the Silent Pools.

Something beneath the water had devoured the antelope; something beneath the water had dragged the leopard to its doom, and swish! a huge flail tore the speargra.s.s to ribbons and sent Adams flying backward with the wind of its pa.s.sage.

Another foot and the crocodile's tail would have swept him to the fate of the antelope and leopard.

The place was alive with ferocity and horror, and it seemed to Adams that the Silent Pools had suddenly slipped the mask of silence and beauty and shown to him the face of hideous death.

He wiped the sweat from his brow. He was unarmed, and it seemed that a man, to walk in safety through this Garden of Eden, ought to be armed to the teeth. He turned back to the camp, walking slowly and seeing nothing of the beauties around him, nothing but the picture of the leopard's face, the paws frantically beating the water, and a more horrible picture still, the water resuming its calmness and its peace.

When he reached the camp, he found Berselius and Meeus absent. After their siesta they had gone for a stroll by the water's edge in the opposite direction to that which he had taken. The soldiers were on duty, keeping a watchful eye on the villagers; all were seated, the villagers in front of their huts and the soldiers in the shade, with their rifles handy; all, that is to say, except the n.i.g.g.e.r child, who was trotting about here and there, and who seemed quite dest.i.tute of fear or concern.

When this creature saw the gigantic Adams who looked even more gigantic in his white drill clothes, it laughed and ran away, with hands outspread and head half slewed round. Then it hid behind a tree. There is nothing more charming than the flight of a child when it wishes to be pursued. It is the instinct of women and children to run away, so as to lead you on, and it is the instinct of a rightly const.i.tuted man to follow. Adams came toward the tree, and the villagers seated before their huts and the soldiers seated in the shade all turned their heads like automata to watch.

"Hi there, you ink-bottle!" cried Adams. "Hullo there, you black dogaroo!

Out you come, Uncle Remus!" Then he whistled.

He stood still, knowing that to approach closer would drive the dogaroo to flight or to tree climbing.

There was nothing visible but two small black hands clutching the tree bole; then the gollywog face, absolutely split in two with a grin, appeared and vanished.

Adams sat down.

The old, old village woman who was, in fact, the child's grandmother, had been looking on nervously, but when the big man sat down she knew he was only playing with the child, and she called out something in the native, evidently meant to rea.s.sure it. But she might have saved her breath, for the black bundle behind the tree suddenly left cover and stood with hands folded, looking at the seated man.

He drew his watch from his pocket and held it up. It approached. He whistled, and it approached nearer. Two yards away it stopped dead.

"Tick-tick," said Adams, holding up the watch.

"Papeete N'quong," replied the other, or words to that effect.