The Pools of Silence Part 8

"Ca.s.sava bearers," said Felix.

It was, in fact, a crowd of natives; some thirty or forty, bearing loads of Kw.a.n.ga (ca.s.sava cakes) to Yandjali. They were coming along the forest path in single file, their burdens on their heads, and when the leaders saw the white men they stopped dead. A great chattering broke out. One could hear it going back all along the unseen line, a rattlesnake of sound. Then Felix called out to them; the gun-bearers and the white men stood aside, and the ca.s.sava bearers, taking heart, advanced.

They were heavily laden, for most of them had from ten to twenty Kw.a.n.ga on their heads, and besides this burden--they were mostly women--several of them had babies slung on their backs.

These people belonged to a village which lay within Verhaeren's district.

The tax laid on this village was three hundred cakes of ca.s.sava to be delivered at Yandjali every eight days.

The people of this village were a lazy lot, and if you have ever collected taxes in England, you can fancy the trouble of making such people--savages living in a tropical forest, who have no count of time and scarcely an idea of numbers--pay up.

Especially when one takes into consideration the fact that to produce three hundred cakes of ca.s.sava every eight days, the whole village must work literally like a beehive, the men gathering and the women grinding the stuff from dawn till dark.

Only by the heaviest penalties could such a desirable state of things be brought about, and the heavier and sharper the punishments inflicted at any one time, the easier was it for Verhaeren to work these people.

Adams watched the ca.s.sava bearers as they pa.s.sed at a trot. They went by like automatic figures, without raising their eyes from the ground. There were some old women amongst them who looked more like shrivelled monkeys than human beings; extraordinary anatomical specimens, whose muscles, working as they ran, were as visible as though no skin covered them. There were young women, young children, and women far advanced in pregnancy; and they all went by like automatic figures, clockwork marionettes.

It was a pitiable spectacle enough, these laden creatures, mute looking as dumb beasts; but there was nothing especially to shock the eye of the European, for it is the long-prepared treason against this people, devised and carried out by nature, that their black mask covers a mult.i.tude of other people's sins and their own untold sufferings.

Had they been white, the despairing look, the sunken eyes, the hundred signs that tell of suffering and slavery would have been visible, would have appealed to the heart; but the black ma.s.s could not express these things fully. They were n.i.g.g.e.rs, uglier looking and more depressed looking than other n.i.g.g.e.rs--that was all.

And so Adams pa.s.sed on, without knowing what he had seen and the only impression the sight made on his mind was one of disgust.

One fact his professional eye noticed as the crowd pa.s.sed by. Four of the women had lost their left hands.

The hands had been amputated just above the wrist in three cases, and one woman had suffered amputation at the middle of the forearm.

He spoke of this to Berselius, who did not seem to hear his remark.

At noon they halted for a three hours' rest, and then pushed on, camping for the night, after a twenty-five miles' journey, in a break of the forest.

CHAPTER IX

BIG GAME

Just as going along the coast by Pondoland one sees English park scenery running down to the very sea edge, so the Congo has its surprises in strips of country that might, as far as appearance goes, have been cut out of Europe and planted here.

This glade which Felix had chosen for a camping place was strewn with rough gra.s.s and studded here and there with what at first sight seemed apple trees: they were in reality thorns.

The camp was pitched and the fires lit on the edge of the forest, and then Berselius proceeded to take tale of his people and found one missing. One of the cook boys had dropped behind and vanished. He had been lame shortly after the start. The soldiers had not seen him drop behind, but the porters had.

"How many miles away was it?" asked Berselius of the collected porters.

"Nkoto, nkoto (Very many, very many)," the answer came in a chorus, for a group of savages, if they have the same idea in common, will all shout together in response to an answer, like one man.

"Why had they not told?"

"We did not know," came the irrelevant answer in chorus.

Berselius knew quite well that they had not told simply from heedlessness and want of initiative. He would have flogged the whole lot soundly, but he wanted them fresh for the morrow's work. Cutting down their rations would but weaken them, and as for threatening to dock their pay, such a threat has no effect on a savage.

"Look!" said Berselius.

He had just dismissed the porters with a reprimand when his keen eye caught sight of something far up the glade. It wanted an hour of sunset.

Adams, following the direction in which Berselius was gazing, saw, a great distance off, to judge by the diminishing size of the thorn trees, a form that made his heart to leap in him.

Ma.s.sive and motionless, a great creature stood humped in the level light; the twin horns back-curving and silhouetted against the sky told him at once what it was.

"Bull rhinoceros," said Berselius. "Been lying up in the thick stuff all day; come out to feed." He made a sign to Felix who, knowing exactly what was wanted, dived into the tent and came back with a .400 cordite rifle and Adams's elephant gun.

"Come," said Berselius, "the brute is evidently thinking. They stay like that for an hour sometimes. If we have any luck, we may get a shot sideways before he moves. There's not a breath of wind."

They started, Felix following with the guns.

"I would not bother about him," said Berselius, "only the meat will be useful, and it will be an experience for you. You will take first shot, and, if he charges, aim just behind the shoulder--that's the spot for a rhino if you can reach it; for other animals aim at the neck, no matter what animal it is, or whether it is a lion or a buck; the neck shot is the knock-out blow. I have seen a lion shot through the heart travel fifty yards and kill a man; had he been struck in the neck he would have fallen in his tracks."

"Cow," said Felix from behind.

Out of the thick stuff on the edge of the forest another form had broken.

She was scarcely smaller than the bull, but the horns were shorter; she was paler in colour, too, and showed up not nearly so well. Then she vanished into the thick stuff, but the bull remained standing, immovable as though he were made of cast iron, and the two awful horns, now more distinct, cut the background like scimitars.

The rhinoceros, like the aboriginal native of the Congo, has come straight down from pre-Adamite days almost without change. He is half blind now; he can scarcely see twenty yards, he is still moving in the night of the ancient world, and the smell of a man excites the wildest apprehension in his vestige of a mind. He scents you, flings his heavy head from side to side, and then to all appearances he charges you.

Nothing could appear more wicked, ferocious, and full of deadly intent than this charge; yet, in reality, the unfortunate brute is not seeking you at all, but running away from you; for the rhino when running away always runs in the direction from which the wind is blowing. You are in that direction, else your scent could not reach him; as your scent grows stronger and stronger, the more alarmed does he become and the quicker he runs. Now he sights you, or you fire. If you miss, G.o.d help you, for he charges the flash with all his fright suddenly changed to fury.

They had got within four hundred yards from the brute when a faint puff of wind stirred the gra.s.s, and instantly the rhino shifted his position.

"He's got our scent," said Berselius, taking the cordite rifle from Felix, who handed his gun also to Adams. "He's got it strong. We will wait for him here."

The rhino, after a few uneasy movements, began to "run about." One could see that the brute was ill at ease; he went in a half-circle, and then, the wind increasing, and bringing the scent strong, he headed straight for Berselius and his companions, and charged.

The sound of him coming was like the sound of a great drum beaten by a lunatic.

"Don't fire till I give the word," cried Berselius, "and aim just behind the shoulder."

Adams, who was to the left of the charging beast, raised the rifle and looked down the sights. He knew that if he missed, the brute would charge the flash and be on him perhaps before he could give it the second barrel.

It was exactly like standing before an advancing express engine. An engine, moreover, that had the power of leaving the metals to chase you should you not derail it.

Would Berselius never speak! Berselius all the time was glancing from the rhino to Adams.

"Fire!"

The ear-blasting report of the elephant gun echoed from the forest, and the rhino, just as if he had been tripped by an invisible wire fence, fell, tearing up the ground and squealing like a pig.