Tom Burnaby Part 20

Meanwhile the fugitive, taking advantage of this miraculous succour, had stopped running, and was now engaging the only remaining Arab in a singular duel. He was swinging the chain upon his wrist like a flail, the Arab using the musket in his left hand to parry its clanking strokes. It was an unequal contest. The negro's force was spent; the chain was no match for weapons firmly held. The Arab was just about to rush in with his knife under the negro's guard when he was struck smartly behind the knee with Tom's thick staff, and as he half fell his panting opponent brought the chain down with one tremendous sweep and stretched him senseless.

The rescued negro flung himself face downwards on the ground, gasping, almost sobbing, with relief. Tom looked round for the Arab whom he had first struck down, and caught sight of him speeding back into the forest. The big negro was dead; one of the prostrate Arabs was stirring, the other still lay unconscious.

Tom sat down to rest, propping his head on his arms, and panting from his exertions. Mbutu stood anxiously scanning the fugitive, who by and by turned over, and looked at his rescuers with eyes that plainly told how puzzled he was at the mystery of their intervention. He was a fine-looking man, with strong muscular frame, and a face of great intelligence and some refinement of feature. About his close woolly hair he wore two thin fillets, and a dozen necklaces of string encircled his neck, a number of small wooden charms dangling from them; from a longer string a cube of wood hung upon his breast. Mbutu, after gazing at him in silence for a moment or two, suddenly addressed to him a few words in a Bantu dialect. The man started, fixed his eyes in keen scrutiny on the boy's face, and then answered him in the same language.

A rapid dialogue ensued, and Mbutu, turning eagerly to his master, exclaimed:

"Him Muhima, sah; Muhima like Mbutu; him chief, name Barega. Say sah him fader and mudder; him gib sah hut, and food--eberyfing belong him."

Tom smiled wearily. His recent exertions had, he felt, precipitated the inevitable collapse. He was approaching the last stage of exhaustion.

"I'm glad, Mbutu," he said. "But had we not better be going? These Arabs may belong to a party, and we shall almost certainly be pursued and outnumbered. I can hardly walk, but the chief's village may not be far. Can he take us there?"

Mbutu again spoke with his compatriot.

"Yes, sah," he said at length. "Village five marches ober dar. Say must go all too quick."

"Five marches! I can never do it."

"Try, sah, try; must do it," cried the boy imploringly himself trembling with pain and fatigue.

"One more try, then. Can we first knock off the man's chains?"

The negro, himself exerting tremendous power with fingers and wrist, managed, with Mbutu's a.s.sistance, to break off both chains, leaving simply the circles of iron about his wrist and ankle. The three then prepared to start; but as they turned Tom felt a touch of compunction for the two Arabs prostrate on the ground, but still alive.

"I don't like leaving them to perish. What can we do for them?"

"Nuffin, nuffin, sah," cried Mbutu. "All too bad lot. Chief kill."

"No, I can't allow it," said Tom sternly. "Go to the dead negro, and tear a strip off his loin-cloth. If you peg it to a tree it is bound to attract the attention of their companion when he returns with help."

Mbutu having, with rather an ill grace, done his master's bidding, the Bahima chief led the way into the forest towards the south-west, Tom and the boy, each with a musket in his right hand, following him painfully.

They never knew that, just as they disappeared among the trees, half a dozen little naked figures sprang silently out of the wood on the other side. They darted to the fallen Arabs, pierced them through and through with their spears, and then, despoiling them of their clothing, vanished again into the forest as noiselessly as they had come.

CHAPTER XI

The Valley of the Shadow

Barega Tells His Story--Malaria--The Major Writes Home--The End of a Long Vigil--Mabruki: Medicine-man--A Moving Dialogue--On The Brink

Ignorant of how the pigmies had rounded off their work, the travellers accompanied the Bahima chief along the narrow path into the forest. At first he went too fast for them, until Mbutu explained that they had been wandering for twelve days through the forest, and were on the verge of starvation. He told also how his master, like the chief himself, had been a prisoner among Arabs, and had escaped when barely recovered from a terrible wound inflicted on him during a great single-handed fight with the Arab chief. Mbutu did not fail to impress his compatriot with the rank and prowess of the Englishman. As for his present worn and enfeebled condition, that was obvious to the most casual glance. On hearing all this the rescued Muhima expressed his sympathy with a grace and courtesy that seemed to Tom wonderfully well bred, and further acquaintance with the people confirmed his belief, first formed from his knowledge of Mbutu, that Central Africa contains some of Nature's gentlemen.

As they went on their way, Tom asked the chief through Mbutu to tell his own story. He was nothing loth, and at once began a narrative which beguiled more than an hour of weary walking. It was often interrupted by questions from Mbutu, who, as he translated, mingled comments and explanatory remarks with the chief's own statements. Stripped of these annotations, and rendered into straightforward English, it ran somewhat as follows:--

"You ask me for my story? Know then, O white man, that I am Barega, a chief among chiefs, owning no man lord. Not of a handful of men and a few hundred cattle am I chief; no, I am Barega; many chiefs own my sway; my rule extends over ten times thirty Bahima, great hunters all of them, and mult.i.tudes of Bairo like the stars of heaven. No menial delvers of the soil are we Bahima; no, we tend countless herds of cattle and goats, whose flesh we eat and milk we drink. And I--I am Barega, a mighty chief. The Bugandanwe is mine--the king-drum handed down from my father's fathers through a hundred years, whose sound strikes terror into the souls of our enemies, and even disquiets Magaso himself, the devil that haunts our groves and feasts on our bananas. Bananas!--I eat them not; my meat is the flesh of oxen, sheep, and goats; but the Bairo eat them, the Bairo our servants, whose blood is not our blood, nor their ways our ways.

"Know this, O white man, son of the Great King, for thou didst find me a prisoner, and 'tis not well that thou shouldst think me one of the common people, born of slaves. No, I am a mighty chief. Four years have I ruled my tribe, and there are none like them in all the earth for strength or wealth, for skill in hunting or prowess in war. My father had many sons, but out of them all he chose me to rule after him. True, I have an elder brother, Murasi is his name; and a younger brother, Mwonga; but Murasi is a reed, a straw blown hither and thither by the breath of Mabruki, my medicine-man, who quaffs lakes of museru and then weeps rivers of tears. As for Mwonga, he is but a boy, and him I keep as my chief mutuma, head of the fifty boys who guard my dwelling and fulfil my behest, and whom I train in arms and all manly doing. Murasi I did not slay; no, nor does he languish in the prison where he lies; he is fed with good food and wine. The white man wonders? True, other chiefs would have slain him, but I am merciful, I do but keep him in prison. Were Murasi free, he would plot against me, work mischief among my people, try to rob me of my hut and place. He must not be free; it is I, Barega, that say it.

"I was a prisoner with the Arabs--cats, jackals, beasts unfit to herd with the Bahima's dogs! I hide my face; it shames me to have been their captive. And yet it was no shame; if any man cries shame, I say he lies. I was far from my village, hunting great elephants. Twenty of my best spearmen were with me, tall men and big of heart. We were far in the forest towards the setting sun, and one day we saw, in a glade beyond us, a herd of elephants with tusks longer than a man and whiter than milk. My men stretched their net and dug a pit, the skewers cunningly planted at the bottom, so that they might drive the animals therein and take them thus. But that, forsooth, is poor sport for a hunter like Barega. 'No, let us take them with our spears,' I said, 'and have true tales of a mighty killing to tell about our fires of winter nights.' Know, O white man, that we Bahima tell truth and no lies. So then did we stalk those n.o.ble animals, but they lifted up their trunks and smelt us, and straightway uttered a great voice and fled.

But we are fleet of foot; no pot-bellied sluggards are we, like the Ankole; no, we are slim, and straight, and lithe of limb as thou seest; we are thy cousins, O white man! Swiftly then did we pursue the elephants; leopards could not have gone more silently. They forgot us, and stayed to rest and pluck the tender leaves at the ends of the branches. Not a word, not a cry. I was in front of my men; the chief must ever show the way. I marked the prince and lord of the elephants and said: 'He is mine; let no man touch him.' I poised my spear; I flung it with aim swift and sure; it smote behind the ear; the beast fell. Ere he could rise, another spear, and another, from this same right hand pierced him, and in a little he died.

"Two other elephants had fallen to the spears of my men, the rest had fled. Then did we make a camp, and sat us down to rest by our spoils.

The sun went down, and as we sang our hunting-song around our fire, behold! there came out of the forest, silently, like the servaline, a band of Arabs. Around us they made a ring, and with their loud fire-sticks they slew ten of my people. I sprang to my feet; not mine to flee; no, I hurled at them my last spear, and then a blazing brand s.n.a.t.c.hed from the fire. See, there is the scar on my hand to-day--the mark of the fire. But they were more than we; they threw themselves upon me, and put their cursed ropes upon my hands and feet. Then they carried me and my ten men to a fortress many marches in the forest, and loaded me with the chains of slaves. Many days was I thus fettered; then, at the rising of the sun they came to me and said: 'Dog!'--woe is me, that I, Barega, was called a dog!--'take us to your village.'

'Pig!' I cried, 'I would rather die!' Then did they beat me with their whips till, in my pain, I called on Muhanga, the Mighty Spirit that upholds the sky and rules the thunder and rain, to slay me. Yet I bethought myself: 'They will not all come to my village till they have spied it out.' I know their ways. 'I will deceive them; I will lead them into the forest, and then Muhanga will send a storm, and I shall escape.' And then a band of them loosed me, and fettered me with other chains, and made me walk with them, my hands bound together, my two feet linked to a block of wood between them, so that I hobbled slowly and with pain.

"Then came we into the forest, by winding tracks that I knew well. Nine nights ago the sky opened, Muhanga threw his flaming spears and poured out his floods. The Arabs cursed Muhanga; I praised him in my heart.

They crouched in hollow trees and in big bushes to escape the storm.

'Let the dog wash,' they said of me. But in the black darkness, when the thunder roared, I wrenched my hands apart till a link snapped, and then with my free hand tore at my ankle-chains until I had wrested one of them from the block. I could not cast off my fetters altogether; the storm began to abate, and I dared not stay. I ran and ran hard through the night, and for days and nights after, away, away, far from the tracks I knew. Woe is me! An evil spirit must have led mine enemy!

To-day, when the sun rose, I saw them close upon me, but only four of them; the others, I make no doubt, were searching for me otherwhere in the forest. I ran from them, but the clank of my chains called them after me, and when I was nigh to falling, thou camest out of the forest, O white man, and smotest them even as Muhanga smiteth in his wrath, and didst save me, and I hold thee in my heart for ever. But they are many and will now pursue us; they will come with their whole band, and with their fire-sticks will seek us out, to kill me and all my people.

Therefore let us make what haste we can, and in my village the white man shall live in peace; he shall see my wives and warriors and all my gathered store; he shall eat my best cattle and drink my newest milk and strongest wine till his cheeks are round and his muscles firm again. I, Barega, have said it."

Such was Barega's story. Tom had listened with an interest that for a time made him forget his feeling of intense weakness. He walked along as well as he could, stooping occasionally to avoid creepers, using his musket now as a staff, now as a means of fending off obstructions. But he felt that collapse ere long was inevitable, and all that he could hope for was that he might retain sufficient strength to reach the Bahima village before he broke down.

The collapse came on the second evening after their adventure with the Arabs. They had fed mainly on roots, and drunk from the rills they met at intervals along the track. Barega's woodcraft served them well when even Mbutu's was at fault, but all three were racked with the gnawing pains of hunger. Sores had broken out in several parts of Tom's body; his head was never free from pain; and on the evening of the second day, just as they stopped to find a camping-place for the night, he tottered, and would have fallen but for the ready support of Mbutu's arm.

"It's no good, Mbutu," he said, with an attempt to smile; "I'm done up.

I can't hold out any longer."

"Soon get well, sah," said Mbutu, helping him tenderly to recline with his back against a tree. But the boy was in reality stricken with terror lest his master should die. He had recognized the dreaded signs of malaria, and there, in the midst of the forest, with no medicines at hand and no nouris.h.i.+ng food, he feared that there would be but one end, and that speedily. Tom fell into a heavy sleep almost as soon as he lay down, and Mbutu held an anxious consultation with the chief. What could be done? They could carry the invalid between them, but progress would be slow, and he needed immediate attention, and above all, something to protect him from insects during the day. They were still at least three days' march from the village. Mbutu was almost in despair, when the chief made a suggestion. Let them build a gra.s.s hut, he said, at a reasonably safe distance from the track, and let Mbutu watch his master there while he himself hurried on alone to his village. They were not far from the edge of the forest, which was already becoming thinner. He would start at once for help, and could cover the distance to the village at a run in a night and a day.

The plan seemed feasible, and indeed the only possible one under the circ.u.mstances. To force a way for a quarter of a mile from the track, clear a s.p.a.ce, and build a gra.s.s hut upon it was the work of rather more than two hours. When it was done, the two Bahima gently carried Tom to the resting-place and laid him down on a comfortable couch of leaves, and then the chief, tightening his strip of bark cloth around his loins, started, promising to travel, without resting, through the night, and to use his utmost speed.

Mbutu, left alone with the invalid, spent the last half-hour of daylight in collecting a small quant.i.ty of ripe berries, and then sat down to watch. He dared not light a fire in case the Arabs happened to be near enough to see or smell the smoke. It was no small testimony to Mbutu's devotion that he was so willing, for all his dread of goblins, to remain with his master, unable now to talk the boy's fears away or to defend him against danger.

As Mbutu sat, touching his master's hand and brow occasionally, and trembling as he felt how hot they were, he suddenly remembered that he had seen him put a packet of the quinine given him by the missionary into his vest pocket. He wondered whether it was still there. The Arabs were not likely to have taken it; he only feared lest, with the wettings it had suffered, the drug should have lost its virtue.

Gently lifting the burnous which he had thrown over his master, and feeling in his clothes, he was overjoyed to find in the pocket where he had seen it put a small paper packet, showing only too plain signs of the soakings it had gone through. He opened it, the paper dropping to pieces under his touch. There was a little something there, not a powder any longer, but a paste. Was there the least remnant of virtue in it? There could be no harm in trying a dose, and Mbutu carefully and tenderly put a small quant.i.ty of the paste between Tom's parted lips.

Twice again during the night he repeated the dose, anxiously feeling the invalid's brow each time, as though hoping for an instant result. Not for a moment did he close his eyes, but when he felt drowsiness stealing upon him he rose and walked to and fro before the hut, murmuring the half-forgotten words of some fetish spell he had learnt when a child.

But he had little faith in fetish now. If only the white medicine-man were there! He had unbounded confidence in Dr. Corney O'Brien.

Dr. Corney O'Brien was, alas! more than a thousand miles away, sitting in the smoking-room of the Mombasa club, waiting with some impatience for Major Burnaby to finish the letter he was writing at the table. It was a letter home, to Mr. Barkworth, and the doctor knew why his friend's face wore such a look of concern as his pen scratched over the paper.

... "I thought," he wrote, "that I knew my nephew pretty well, but I know only now--alas! too late, I fear--what grit there was in him. We old stagers are too much inclined, perhaps, to pooh-pooh the enthusiasms of our juniors. The boy was built for a soldier and nothing else, and I blame myself now for not moving heaven and earth to get him into the service. When I saw him come into camp that evening, I own I was at first desperately annoyed with you for allowing him to follow us up; although I could not help admitting it was an uncommonly plucky thing of the youngster to undertake such an enterprise through a strange and savage country. He showed both courage and resource in the adventure with that rascally Portuguese; but what I feel most proud of is the grit with which he stuck to his task when every step must have been agony.

But for him the expedition might easily have come to grief. The enemy's plan was as good as any I ever met with; if it had come off it would have been touch and go with us. You may be quite sure that in my report home I have taken care to represent in its true light the service he did us. Nothing has yet been heard of him. I've offered the most tempting rewards. He either died of his wound, or is a prisoner with the Arabs.

In the latter case the strange thing is that no attempt has been made to get a ransom for him. Perhaps the Portuguese is in some way concerned; if so, then G.o.d help him! I have asked Father Cheva.s.se to do what he can--the missionaries have as good a chance to get news of him as anyone,--and be sure that I will let you know if anything turns up. I am ent.i.tled to come home on furlough, but I've arranged to stay out here a month or two longer. It was very pleasant to get your cable of congratulation, and to hear of all the nice things said of me at home; but you'll believe me when I say that I'd give it all up and drop out of sight gladly, if by so doing I could get a glimpse of Tom."

For three terrible nights and days Mbutu kept faithful watch over his sick master in the forest. It seemed an age to the poor boy. Tom was unconscious almost all the time, his eyes burning bright, his cheeks flushed, his lips ever and anon muttering and babbling of things incomprehensible to Mbutu. The Muhima hardly dared to leave him for a moment, and when he did leave him, wore himself out in scouring the forest within a short radius in search of food. He ventured on the second day to light a fire, over which, in a bowl he carved out of hard Wood, he tried to brew a decoction from some leaves and berries, for he found it impossible to get his master to take such solid roots as those on which he barely sustained himself. The quinine was soon exhausted.

Fortunately there was plenty of good water, and at short intervals he poured a small quant.i.ty between Tom's parched lips. He hoped that the pigmies would again provide food, but there was never a sign of the little people. As hour after hour dragged slowly by, the boy fretted, feeling his helplessness, in an agony of grief for his master, and beside himself with despair when, after brief intervals of semi-consciousness, Tom relapsed into delirium, tossing and moaning on his couch of leaves.

At sundown on the third day after the chief's departure Mbutu was walking restlessly up and down the track, peering into the tunnel of foliage. The night before, he had been scared by the cries of animals in his near neighbourhood, and his nerves were in a state of tremor. He had kept a large watch-fire burning beside his master's hut, for he felt now that, even if it did attract the Arabs, it was no worse to be slain by them than by wild beasts. More than once during this third day he had put his ear to the ground, hoping to hear the tramp of feet from the direction in which Barega had gone. Now he walked farther along the path, thinking that, if the chief had reached his village, as he had promised, in a night and a day, surely there had been time for him to return. He lay down again and pressed his ear to the beaten path. The air was still, not a leaf rustled; the sounds of day had ceased, and the nightly hum and murmur had not yet begun. What was that? Faintly, like the sound of ripples on a stream, rather a movement than a sound, something touched his ear. He got up and ran still farther along the track, then flung himself down again. He could hear nothing but the throbbing of his heart. He held his breath; yes, the sound was growing, growing; it was the sound of running feet. Was it of animals or men? It was too regular, too heavy, to be the pad of animals; it was coming nearer! He almost screamed in his excitement. Thud! thud! thud! nearer and nearer--not one sound now, but many sounds conjoined. Yes, his doubts were gone; it was a force of men, running steadily towards him.

He got up, and stood, his lips parted, his eyes astare, his body bent forward in the direction of the sound, every nerve tingling, every sinew tense. Minute after minute pa.s.sed; he stood alone in vaulted darkness.

Now the sound was audible through the air: the steady thud of runners, broken in upon at moments by the faint far jingle of metal. Hark! there was the hum of voices, like the sound of water stirred by gusts of wind.

Louder and louder it came; Mbutu's sharp ears were strained towards it.