Samba Part 19

"That may be, but I can't take the responsibility."

"Cannot we get the people out uv the scoundhrel's clutches widout fighting, sorr? The bhoy escaped, to be sure."

"True; how did you get away, Samba?"

The boy explained that he had been imprisoned separately from his parents: he did not know why. They had been chained by the neck and fastened to a tree in front of Boloko's hut; he had been roped by the ankle and secured to another tree farther away. In the middle of the night he had wriggled and strained at his bonds until, after much toil and pain, he had released his foot. Then, when the sentry's back was turned, he had slipped away, stolen behind the huts, and with great difficulty clambered over the stockade.

"And are your parents still chained to the tree?"

Samba did not know. He had not ventured to approach them after releasing himself, for his sole hope was in the Inglesa, and if he were recaptured he knew that his parents' fate was sealed. But if the Inglesa wished, he would steal back into the village and see if the prisoners were still at the same spot.

"That will never do," said Jack. "The boy would certainly be caught, Barney."

"That's the truth, sorr. But 'tis the morning for Lingombela to go to the village for eggs; could he not find out what you wish to know?"

"He's a discreet fellow. Yes, let him try. He must be very careful.

I wonder that Elbel has not forbidden our men to go into the village; and if he suspects any interference there'll be trouble."

Barney went out to send Lingombela on his errand. Meanwhile Jack got Samba to tell him, through Lepoko, how he had found his parents. The boy gave briefly the story of his wanderings, his perils from the wild beasts of the forest, his hunger and want, his capture by the Bambute, his escape, his adventure with the crocodile, his second capture and more successful escape under cover of a great forest storm. Jack was deeply impressed at the time; but many of the details came to him later from others, and each new fact added to his admiration for the indomitable young traveller.

The pigmies who had captured Samba at the river were a different tribe from those with whom he had lived in the forest. Like those, however, they made much of him, giving him plenty of food, but never letting him go out of their sight.

One night, a fierce tempest swept through the forest, snapping great trees and whirling them about like feathers. Thunder crashed, lightning cut black paths through the foliage; and the Bambute cowered in their huts, dreading lest these should be crushed by a falling tree or scorched by the lightning's flame, yet feeling safer within than without. But Samba rejoiced in the elemental disturbance. Reckless of the terrors of the storm in his fixed determination to escape, he stole out when the uproar was at its height and plunged into the forest. All other peril was banished by the fury of the tempest. Once he pa.s.sed a leopard within a few feet, but the beast was too much scared by the lightning to seize the opportunity of securing an easy meal.

After many days of wandering and privation Samba came within a day's journey of what had been his village. Stumbling accidentally upon one of his fellow-villagers, he told him his story, and was taken by him to a cave in the forest where several of the fugitives from Banonga were in hiding, some badly wounded. Samba came to them like a sunbeam.

What he told them about Mr. Martindale gave them courage and hope.

Some set off at once to seek out the Inglesa whose praise Samba was so loud in singing; they would implore his protection: others, more timorous or less hardy, dreading the long and toilsome journey, resolved to remain where they were, for they were at least in no straits for food. None of them could give Samba any news of his parents: so after remaining a day or two with them he went on alone.

He reached the site of the desolated village in the evening, and took refuge in the branches of a tree. His intention was to push on next day and search the forest beyond the village. But with morning light something impelled him to wander round the scene of his happy childhood. Here had stood his father's hut; there, not far away, the old chief Mirambo had dwelt. It seemed to Samba that the place was altered in appearance since he had left it in company with Mr.

Martindale. An attempt had been made to repair the ruins of Mirambo's hut. Somewhat startled, Samba approached it curiously, and was still more startled to hear low groans proceeding from a spot where a corner of the site had been covered with rough thatch. Entering, he discovered with mingled joy and terror that his father and mother lay there, nearly dead from wounds and starvation.

With the negro's instinct for returning to his old haunts, Mboyo had come back with his wife to Banonga, and managed to rig up a precarious shelter in his father's shattered hut. Then his strength failed him.

He had been wounded in the attack on the village, but had made good his escape to the forest with his favourite wife. His other wives and children had disappeared; of them he never heard again. The unwonted exposure soon told upon his wife Lukela; she fell ill, and, weakened as Mboyo was by his wounds, they were unable to scour the forest as they might otherwise have done for food. As the days pa.s.sed their condition had gone from bad to worse, and at last they had painfully, despairingly, made their way back to their old home, to die.

But Samba did not mean them to die. He set himself at once to rescue them. As he knew well, there was little or no food near by; the wanton destruction of plantations had been very thorough. They were too weak to travel. He emptied his tin, to which he had clung through all his wanderings, of the food it contained, and making a rough barrier for them against wild beasts, cheered them with hopeful words and started back on his tracks for a further supply of food.

When he reached the cavern where he had left his fellow-villagers, he found it empty. Apparently even the timid ones had set off to seek the protection of the good Inglesa. He could do nothing that night, but next morning he went down to the stream whence they had obtained their supply of fish and plied his spear until he had caught several. Then he made the long journey back, filling his tin as he went with berries and nuts and anything else from which nourishment could be obtained.

His parents were already a little better, thanks to the food he had already given them, and perhaps also to the new spirit awakened in them by the unexpected arrival of their dearly loved son.

Thus for several days Samba watched over them, making long journeys for food. Each time he left them his absence became more prolonged; food was harder to get, and he was less able to hunt for it. While his parents slowly regained a little strength, Samba weakened from day to day. At last he could scarcely drag one foot after the other; he was worn out by the terrible fatigue of constant marching through the forest, and by want of sleep, for he stinted himself of rest so that his parents might be left alone as little as possible. More than once he sank exhausted to the ground, feeling that he could go no farther, do no more. His strength was spent; his head swam with dizziness; a mist gathered before his eyes. Thus he would remain, half conscious, perhaps for minutes, perhaps for hours; he knew not: he had lost count of time. Then with the enforced rest the small remnant of his strength returned to him, and with it the memory of his parents' plight. Upon him depended the life of the two beings he held dearest in the world.

As the perils to which they were exposed were borne in upon his fevered intelligence he would struggle to his feet, and grope his way painfully along the forest track, his feet blistered, his flesh torn with spikes and thorns: above all, a dreadful gnawing hunger within him, for he would scarcely spare himself sufficient food for bare sustenance while his parents were ill and in want.

This dark and terrible period was illumined by one ray of hope. His weariness and toil were bearing fruit. Day by day his parents grew stronger; in a fortnight they were able to move about, and a week later they were ready to start for the cavern. But now it was Samba who required tendance. He could walk only a few yards at a time, supported by Mboyo, who almost despaired of reaching the cavern before starvation again overtook them. But the weary journey was completed at last, and after a few days' stay at the cavern within easier reach of food, the party became fit to undertake a longer march, and set out hopefully for Mr. Martindale's camp.

Jack could only conjecture what the terrors of that march had been, for before Samba's story was finished Lepoko returned from the village. He reported that Elobela, furious at the boy's escape, had announced that he would double the punishment to be meted out to his parents. This practice of striking at children through parents, and at parents through children, was so much the rule in the Congo system of tax collection that Jack did not doubt Elbel would carry out his threat.

Meanwhile the two prisoners had been removed from the open air before Boloko's hut at the far side of the village, and conveyed to a stoutly-built fetish hut near the stockade. This change of quarters had provoked murmurs not only from the villagers, but from Elbel's own men. The fetish hut was sacred to the medicine man of the village, and even he affected to approach it with fear and trembling. The whole population was talking about the desecration of the hut by the presence of the two captives; men were shaking their heads and saying that something would happen; and the medicine man himself--a hideous figure with his painted skin--did not fail to seize the opportunity of inflaming the minds of the villagers against the impious white man.

But no one ventured to remonstrate with Elbel. He meanwhile had gone off with a number of forest guards to an outlying village, leaving orders that the captives were to be watched with particular vigilance.

Samba's face was an image of despair as he listened to Lepoko's report.

What hope was there of his parents' rescue now?

"Poor little chap!" said Jack. "After going through so much for them he'll be heart-broken if he loses them now. What can we do for him, Barney?"

"Faith, I can see nothing for it, sorr, but to lead a storming party.

And I would go first, wid the greatest pleasure in life."

"That's out of the question, especially as Elbel's away. All's fair in war, they say, Barney; but I shouldn't like to attack the village in Elbel's absence. In any case I don't want to fight if there's any other way. Samba, run away with Pat; don't go beyond the gate; I want to see if I can think of any way of helping your parents."

Both the white men were touched by the boy's wistful look as he left the hut. Jack stuck his legs out straight in front of him, plunged his hands into his pockets, and bent his head upon his breast as he pondered and puzzled. Barney sat for a time leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, smoking an old clay pipe. But he soon tired of inaction, and rising, proceeded to open a tin of oatmeal biscuits in antic.i.p.ation of lunch. He had just wrenched the lid off when Jack sprang up with a sudden laugh and slapped him on the shoulder.

"I have it, Barney!" he cried. "They said something would happen; well, they were right; something shall happen, old man. And it's your doing!"

"Mine, sorr! Niver a thing have I done this blessed day but smoke me pipe, and just this very minute tear a hole in my hand wid this confounded tin."

"That's it, Barney! It was the tin gave me the idea. You know how giants are made for the Christmas pantomimes?"

"Divil a bit, sorr."

"Well, don't look so surprised. Empty that tin of biscuits while I tell you, and when that's empty, open another and do the same."

"Bedad, sorr, but all the biscuits will spoil."

"Let 'em spoil, man, let 'em spoil. No, I don't mean that, but at present I think more of the tissue paper in those tins than of the biscuits. We'll make a framework, Barney--any stalks or sticks will do for that--and cover it with that tissue paper, and paint a giant's face and shoulders on the paper, and we must find some coloured gla.s.s or something for the eyes, and something white for the teeth. We have some candles left, luckily. Don't you think, Barney, a lighted candle behind the paper would make a very decent sort of bogie?"

"And is that the way, sorr, they make the giants at the pantomime?"

"Something like that, Barney. But what do you think of the idea?"

"'Tis the divil's own cleverness in it, sorr. But I'll niver enjoy a pantomime any more, now that I know the way 'tis done. And how will ye go to work wid the bogie, sorr?"

"Why, we'll make the framework to fit my shoulders. Then you'll see.

The first thing is to get it made. Go and get the materials. We shall want sticks about three feet long, and ngoji cane[1] to tie them together, as there are no nails here. And you must send over to Imbono and ask for some colouring matter. Red and black are all we shall need. I don't know what we shall do for the eyes; there's no coloured gla.s.s handy, I suppose. We must do without if we can't find anything.

Now, hurry up, Barney, and send Lepoko to me."

For the rest of the day Jack and Barney were very busy in the hut. It was an easy matter to put the bamboo framework together. The tissue paper from the two biscuit tins proved just sufficient to cover it.

When this was done, Jack sketched with his pencil as ugly a face as his artistic imagination was capable of suggesting, then laid on the pigments with his shaving brush, no other being at hand. He gave the giant very thick red lips, opened in a hideous grin, heightening the effect by carefully tying in a number of goat's teeth. The eyes presented a difficulty. No coloured gla.s.s could be found among any of the villagers' treasures, and after several attempts to supply its place with leaves, petals of red flowers, and gla.s.s beads stuck together, Jack decided that the best effect would be made by leaving the eye slits empty. The making of the bogie was kept a close secret between himself and Barney; but he got some of his men to make two light bamboo ladders, which they did with great expedition, wondering not a little to what use Lokolobolo would put them.

In the afternoon, as soon as he was a.s.sured that his bogie would turn out a success, Jack sent Lepoko into Ilola to foment the villagers'

fear that the desecration of the fetish hut would certainly be followed by a visit from the offended spirit. He was to talk very seriously of a great medicine man he had once met on the coast, who knew all about the spirits of the streams and woods, and those who protected the forest villages. One of these spirits, said the medicine man, took the form of a giant, and any mortal upon whom he breathed would surely die.

Jack knew that this story would be repeated by the villagers to the forest guards, and would soon be the property of the whole community.

Reckoning upon the fact that Elbel had his quarters near the gate of the stockade, and that the fetish hut was on the opposite side of the enclosure, not far from the stockade itself, so that the whole width of the village separated them, Jack hoped to create such a panic among the superst.i.tious sentries that he would have time to free the captives before Elbel could intervene.

At dead of night, when he believed that the enemy must be sound asleep, Jack left his camp silently, accompanied only by Samba. He himself carried the bogie; the boy had the ladders. But even his own parents would not have recognized the Samba of this midnight sortie. Jack had been much interested on the way up the Congo by a kind of acacia which, when cut with an axe, exudes a sticky substance, emitting in the darkness a strong phosph.o.r.escent glow. With this substance a series of rings had been drawn on Samba's body, and he wore on his head a number of palm leaves arranged like the Prince of Wales's feathers, smeared with the same sticky material. He made an awful imp in attendance on the horrific monster.

Samba stepping close behind Jack to avoid observation, the two made their way stealthily around the village, keeping within the fringe of the encircling forest. Then Jack fixed the bogie upon his shoulders, lighted the candles placed in sconces of twigs cunningly constructed by Barney, and crept forward towards the stockade, closely followed by Samba, both bending low so as to escape discovery before the right moment.

Lepoko had reported that two sentries had been placed over the fetish hut. Jack guessed that by this time their nerves would be at pretty high tension, and that they would not improbably be keeping a safe distance from the awful place they had been set to guard. One of the ladders was planted by Samba against the stockade. On this Jack mounted, and the hideous countenance rose slowly and majestically above the palisade.

A small oil lamp swung from the eaves of the hut. By its light Jack saw the two sentries some distance away, but near enough to keep an eye on the entrance so that the inmates could not break out unnoticed. At first they did not see the apparition. To quicken their perception, Jack gave a weird chuckle--a sound that would have startled even st.u.r.dy English schoolboys in the depth of night. The negroes turned round instantly; there was one moment of silence: then shrieking with fear they rushed helter-skelter into the darkness.