The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier Part 24

Through the Danakil country, between Errer Gotto and Oder, not long ago travelled the caravan of William Northrup McMillan, conveying the sections of several steel boats with which he purposed navigating and exploring the Blue Nile from its source to Khartoom, a region that had never been traversed by white men. In the party was M.

Dubois-Desaulle, a gay and reckless ex-officer of the French Foreign Legion who had long served in Algiers against raiding Arab sheiks. He harbored no fear of the unorganized wild tribesmen through whose country they were travelling. McMillan knew them better, however; he held his command under strict military discipline, marched in close order with scouts out, forbade straying from the column, and _zareba_-ed his night camps. For the march was a severe one and he had neither the time nor sufficient force to search for or to succor missing stragglers.

Urged with the rest never to go unarmed and to stay close with the caravan, Dubois-Desaulle's only reply was a laughing, "_Jamais!

Jamais. Je ne porte pas des armes pour ces babouins! Je les ferai s'enfuir avec des batons! N'inquietez pas de moi._"

Interested in botany and entomology, holding the natives in utter contempt, repeatedly he strayed from the column for hours without even so much as a pistol by way of arms, until finally McMillan told him that if he again so strayed he would be placed under guard for the balance of march. But the very next day, riding a mule with the advance guard led by H. Morgan Brown, Dubois-Desaulle slipped un.o.bserved into the bush, probably in pursuit of some winged wonder that had crossed his path.

Camp was made early in the afternoon on the banks of the Doha River, and a strong party, with s.h.i.+kari trackers, led by Brown, was sent out in search of the straggler. Night came on before they could pick up his trail, and nothing further could be done except to build signal fires on adjacent hills; but all without result. Anxiety for his safety crystallized into chill fear for his life, when the dull glow of the signal fires was suddenly extinguished by the next morning's sun; for the desert knows neither twilight nor dawn--the sun bursts up blood-red out of shrouding darkness like a rocket from its case, and at once it is day.

An hour later Brown's s.h.i.+karis found the place where Dubois-Desaulle had strayed from the column, followed his trail through the bush hither and thither for two miles, to a point where he had found a native warrior seated beneath a tree. They read, with their unerring skill at "sign" lore, that there he had stood and talked for some time with the native, and then pressed on, rider and footman travelling side by side, till, within the shelter of especially dense surrounding bush, the footman had dropped behind the rider--for what dastardly a.s.sa.s.sin's purpose the next twenty steps revealed. There stark lay the body of gay Dubois-Desaulle, dropped from his mule without a struggle by a mortal spear-thrust in his back, the manner of his mutilation a Danakil's sign manual!

Immediately messengers were sent to the caravan bearing the news and asking reinforcements. At this time the indomitable chief, McMillan, was laid up with veldt sores on the legs, unable to walk or even to ride except in a litter. Promptly, however, he despatched Lieutenant Fairfax and William Marlow, with about thirty more men, to Brown's support, with orders never to quit till he got the murderer. By a forced march, Fairfax reached Brown at four in the afternoon.

When journeying in desert places and amid deadly perils, it is always an unusually terrible shock to lose one from among so few, and to be forced to lay him in unconsecrated ground remote from home and friends.

So it was a sobbing, saddened trio that stood by while a grave was dug to receive all that was mortal of their gallant comrade. And within it they laid him, wrapped in the ample folds of an Abyssinian _tope_; stones were heaped above the grave--at least the four-footed beasts should not have a chance to rend him!--and three volleys were fired as a last honor to Dubois-Desaulle, ex-legionary of the Army of Algiers.

Tears dried, eyes hardened, jaws tightened, and away on the plain trail of the murderer marched the little column. Turning at the edge of the thick jungle for a last look back, the three noted an extraordinary circ.u.mstance that touched them deeply and made them feel that even the savage desert sympathized. A miniature whirlwind of the sort frequent in the desert was slowly circling the grave; and even as they looked it swung immediately over it and there stood for some moments, its tall dust column rising up into the zenith like the smoke of a funeral pyre!

Then on they marched and there they left him, sure that by night lions would be roaring him a requiem not unfitting his wild spirit.

Just at dusk the party reached a large Danakil town into which the murderer's trail led, and camped before it.

Told that one of his men had killed their comrade and that they wanted him, Ali Gorah, the chief, was surly and insolent. He refused to give him up, said that he wished no war with them, but that if they wanted any of his people they must fight for them. Then guards were set about the camp and the little command lay down to sleep within a spear's throw of thousands of Ali Gorah's wild Danakils. The night pa.s.sed without alarms, and then conference was resumed. Fairfax cajoled and threatened, threatened summoning an army that would wipe Danakil's land off the map; but all to no purpose. The chief remained obdurate.

Early in the day a courier was sent to McMillan with the story of their plight and a request for supplies and more men. These were instantly sent, leaving McMillan himself well nigh helpless, fuming at his own enforced inaction, alone with the Marlow, his personal attendant, a handful of men, and a total of only two rifles, as the sole guard of the caravan for ten more anxious days.

Daily councils were held, always ending in mutual threats. Fairfax could make no progress, but he would not leave.

One day Ali Gorah lined up two thousand warriors in battle array before Fairfax's small command and ordered him to move off, under pain of instant attack. But there Fairfax stubbornly stayed, in the very face of the certainty that his command could not last ten minutes if the chief should actually order a charge. His dauntless courage won, and the war party was withdrawn.

In the meantime some of his Somalis had learned from the Danakils that the murderer's name was Mirach, and that he was the greatest warrior of the tribe, a man with trophies of all sorts of royal game and of no less than forty men to his matrimonial credit. By the eleventh day mutual irritation had nigh reached the fusing point. Fairfax had carefully trained a gun crew to handle a Colt machine-gun that McMillan was bringing as a present to Ras Makonnen, the victor of the field of Adowa, and debated with his mates the question of risking an attack.

Luckily, however, the previous day McMillan had bethought him of a letter of Menelek's he carried, a letter ordering all his subjects to lend the bearer any aid or succor he might need. This letter he sent by his Abyssinian headman to Mantoock, the nearest Abyssinian Ras and a sort of overlord of the Danakils, with request for his advice and aid.

Promptly came Mantoock, with only one attendant, heard the story, begged McMillan to have no further care, and raced away for Ali Gorah's village, where happily he arrived in mid afternoon of the eleventh day, just as Fairfax was making dispositions for opening a finish fight.

Mantoock's first act was to advise Fairfax to withdraw his command and rejoin the caravan; and, a.s.sured that Mirach would be brought away a prisoner, Fairfax a.s.sented and withdrew. Then Mantoock entered alone the village of Ali Gorah and there spent the night. What pa.s.sed that night between the Christian and the pagan chiefs we do not know.

Probably little was said; nothing more was needed, indeed, than the interpretation of the letter of the Negus and the exhibition of the royal seal it bore. Full well Ali Gorah knew the heavy penalty of disobedience.

So it happened that near noon of the twelfth day Mantoock brought Mirach into McMillan's camp, accompanied by thirty of his family and the headmen of the tribe, Mirach marching in fully armed with spears and s.h.i.+eld, insolent and fearless.

Asked why he had done the deed, Mirach replied:

"I was resting in the shade. The Feringee approached and asked me to guide him to the river. I told him to pa.s.s on and not to disturb me.

Then he stayed and talked and talked till I got tired and told him not to tempt me further; for I had never yet had such a chance to kill a white man. Still he annoyed me with his foolish talk until, weary of it, I led him away into the thickets to his death and won trophies dear to Danakil's maidens."

Three camels, worth twenty dollars each, or a total of sixty dollars, is usual blood-money in Abyssinia. When that is paid and received, feuds among the tribesmen end, and murders are soon forgotten. But Mirach was so highly valued as a warrior by his people that they offered McMillan no less than three hundred camels for his life. They were dumbfounded when their offer was refused.

Disarmed and shackled, Mirach remained a sullen but defiant prisoner with the caravan for the next two weeks' march, when the crossing of the Hawash River brought them well into Abyssinian territory and made it safe to rush him forward, in the charge of a small escort, to Adis Ababa.

There he was tried beneath the sombre shade of the famous Judgment Tree, condemned, and two months later hanged in the market place: and there for days his grinning face and shrivelling carca.s.s swung, a menacing proof to the wildest visiting tribesmen of them all of the vast power of the Negus Negusti.

CHAPTER XV

DJAMA AOUT'S HEROISM

"Throughout Somaliland, among a race famous for their fearlessness, the name of Djama Aout is held a synonym for reckless courage. He did the bravest deed I ever saw, a deed heroic in its purpose, ferociously sage in its execution; the deed of a man bred of a race that knew no longer-range weapon than an a.s.segai, trained from youth to fight and kill at arm's length or in hand grapple; a deed that, incidentally, saved my life."

The speaker was C. W. L. Bulpett, himself well qualified by personal experience to sit in judgment, as Court of Last Resort, on any act of courage; a man who, at forty, without training and on a heavy wager that he could not walk a mile, run a mile, and ride a mile, all in sixteen and a half minutes, finished the three miles in sixteen minutes and seven seconds; a man who, midway of a dinner at Greenwich, bet that he could swim the half-mile across the Thames and back in his evening clothes before the coffee was served, and did it; and who has crossed Africa from Khartoom to the Red Sea.

If more were needed to prove Mr. Bulpett's past-masters.h.i.+p in hardihood, it is perhaps sufficient to mention that he voluntarily got himself in the fix that needed Djama Aout's aid, although in telling the story he did not convey the impression that his own part in it was more than secondary and inconsequential.

"We were big-game hunting, lion and rhino preferred, along the border of Somaliland," he continued. "Besides the pony and camel men, we had four Somali _s.h.i.+karis_, trained trackers, who knew the habits of beasts and read their tracks and signs like a book; men of a breed whose women will not give themselves as wives except to men who have scored kills of both royal game and men.

"_Sahib_ McMillan's personal _s.h.i.+kari_ was DJama Aout; mine, Abdi Dereh. At the time of this incident the _Sahib_ had several lions to his credit, while I yet had none. So the _Sahib_ kindly declared that, however and by whomsoever jumped, the try at the next lion should be mine. The section we were in was the usual 'lion country' of East Africa, wide stretches of dry, level plain with occasional low rolling hills, thinly timbered everywhere with the th.o.r.n.y mimosa, most of it low bush, some grown to small trees twenty or thirty feet in height.

"To cover a wider range of shooting, we one day decided to divide the camp, and I moved off about four miles and pitched my tent on a low hill, which left the old camp in clear view across the plain. Early the next morning I went out after eland and had an excellent morning's sport. Returned to camp shortly after noon, tired and dusty, I took a bath, got into pajamas and slippers, had my luncheon, and was sitting comfortably smoking within my tent, when one of my men hurried in to say a messenger was coming on a pony at top speed. Presently he arrived, with word from the _Sahib_ that he had a big male lion at bay in a thicket bordering the river and urging me to hurry to him.

"This my first chance at lion, I seized my rifle, mounted a pony, without stopping to dress, and, followed by Abdi Dereh and another _s.h.i.+kari_, dashed away behind the messenger at my pony's best pace.

Arrived, I found the _Sahib_ and about a dozen men, _s.h.i.+karis_ and pony men, surrounding a dense mimosa thicket no more than thirty or forty yards in diameter. Nigh two-thirds of its circ.u.mference was bounded by a bend of a deep stream the lion was not likely to try to cross, which left a comparatively narrow front to guard against a charge.

"'Here you are, Don Carlos!' called the _Sahib_, as I jumped off my pony. 'Here's your lion in the bush. Up to you to get him out. Djama Aout and the rest will stay to help you while I go back and move the caravan to a new camp-site. No suggestion to make, except I scarcely think I'd go in the bush after him; too thick to see ten feet ahead of you,' and away he rode toward his camp.

"The situation was simple, even to a novice at the game of lion-shooting. With my line of shouting men forced to range themselves across the narrow land front of the thicket and no chance of his exit on the river front, only two lines of strategy remained: it was either fire the bush and drive him out upon us or enter the bush on hands and knees and creep about till I sighted him. The latter was well-nigh suicidal, for it was absolutely sure he would scent, hear, and locate me before I could see him, and thus would be almost complete master of the situation. Naturally, therefore, I first had the bush fired, as near to windward as the bend of the river permitted, and took a stand covering his probable line of exit from the thicket. But it was a failure--not enough dead wood to carry the fire through the bush and it soon flickered and died out. Thus nothing remained but the last alternative, and I took it.

"Dropping on hands and knees, I began to creep into the thicket. Soon my hands were bleeding from the dry mimosa thorns littering the ground, my back from the th.o.r.n.y boughs arching low above me. For some distance I could see no more than the length of my rifle before me or to right or left. Presently, when near the centre of the brush patch, Abdi Dereh next behind me, a second _s.h.i.+kari_ behind him, and Djama Aout bringing up the rear, I caught a glimpse of the lion's hind quarters and tail, scarcely six feet ahead of me.

"I fired at once, most imprudently, for the exposure could not possibly afford a fatal shot. Instantly after the shot, the lion circled the dense clump immediately in front of me and charged me through a narrow opening. As he came, I gave him my second barrel from the hip--no time to aim--and in trying to spring aside out of his path, slipped in my loose slippers and fell flat on my back.

"Later we learned that my first shot had torn through his loins and my second had struck between neck and shoulder and ranged the entire length of his body. But even the terrible shock of two great .450 cordite-driven b.a.l.l.s did not serve to stop him, and the very moment I hit the ground he lit diagonally across my body, his belly pressing mine, his hot breath burning my cheek, his fierce eyes glaring into mine.

"Though it seemed an age, the rest was a matter of seconds. Abdi Dereh, my rifle-bearer, was in the act of shoving the gun muzzle against the lion's ribs for a shot through the heart, when a shot from without the bush--we never learned by whom fired, probably by one of the pony men--broke his arm and knocked him flat. Then the second _s.h.i.+kari_ sprang forward and bent to pick up the gun, when one stroke of the lion's great fore paw tore away most of the flesh from one side of his head and face, and laid him senseless.

"Freed for an instant from the attacks of my men, the lion turned to the prey held helpless beneath him, and with a fierce roar, was in the very act of advancing his cavernous mouth and gleaming fangs to seize me by the head, when in jumped Djama Aout to my succor. His only weapon was the _Sahib's_ .38 Smith & Wesson self-c.o.c.king six-shooter.

His was the quickest piece of sound thinking, shrewd acting, and desperate valor conceivable. I was staring death in the face--he knew it at a glance. Just within those enormous jaws, and all would be over with me. The light charge of the pistol, however placed, would be little more than a flea-bite on a monster already ripped laterally and longitudinally through and through by two great .450 cordite sh.e.l.ls.

Indeed the lion was not even gasping from his wounds; his great heart was beating strong and steady against mine. Of what avail a little pistol-ball, or six of them?

"All this must have raced through Djama Aout's brain in a second, in the very second _s.h.i.+kari_ Number Two was falling under the lion's blow.

In another second he conceived a plan, absolutely the only one that possibly could have saved me.

"Just at the instant the lion turned and opened his jaws to seize and crush my head, forward sprang Djama Aout; within the lion's jaws and into his great yawning mouth Djama Aout thrust pistol, hand, and forearm, and, though the hard-driven teeth crunched cruelly through sinews and into bone, steadily pulled the trigger till the pistol's six loads were discharged down the lion's very throat!

"Shrinking from the shock of the shots, the lion released Djama Aout's mangled arm and freed me of his weight. Unhurt, even unscratched by the lion, I quickly swung myself up into the biggest mimosa near, a poor four feet from the ground, within easy reach of our enemy if he had not been too sick of his wounds to leap at me.

"Having fallen from the pain and shock of his wounded arm, Djama Aout rose, backed off a little distance, and stood at bay, the pistol clubbed in his left hand.

"While apparently sick unto death, the lion might muster strength for a last attack, so I called to Marlow, who, under orders, had waited without the thicket, bearing an elephant gun. Ignorant of whether or not the lion was even wounded, in the brave boy came, crept in range and fired a great eight-bore ball fair through the lion's heart.