Across the Cameroons: A Story of War and Adventure

It was some minutes before he realized what it was. Then the truth came upon him as in a flash. It was not a star at all, but a camp-fire that was burning on the hill-side.

The thought that he was not alone in this desolate and silent region was like the nectar of the gods to one who is faint and weary. The boy cared not in the least who camped on the mountainside; he decided to find out for himself. If they were savages, they could murder him; it would matter little to him. If they were friendly, they might allow him to warm himself by the side of the glowing embers. At any rate he would hear some kind of human speech.

It took him three hours to reach the fire, where he found two men, seated facing one another. A cry of exultation escaped his lips when he recognized Jim Braid and the younger guide.

At once Cortes sprang to his feet as if alarmed.

"Where is my brother?" he asked.

Harry tried to speak, but was not able to do so. He sank down by the side of the fire.

"Some calamity has happened!"

Harry bowed his head.

"And the Black Dog?" asked Cortes.

"He also is dead," said Harry, speaking for the first time.

"Dead!" cried Cortes, without expression in his voice.

"Yes," said Harry. "And the Sunstone is lost, and von Hardenberg will starve to death in the Caves of Zoroaster."

Cortes seated himself once more upon the ground, extending his hands towards the fire. There were no tears in his eyes; his voice was without a tremor.

"When you feel able to do so," said he, turning his face to Harry, "will you please tell me what happened."

Harry related the story from beginning to end. He told how Fernando and himself had followed the sheikh across the mountains, and of how they had run the man to earth upon a narrow ledge at the top of an enormous cliff. He then described the struggle that had taken place, with its grim and terrible conclusion.

When the boy had finished speaking, Cortes looked up at the moon.

"In four hours," said he, "it will be daylight. We can do nothing till then. When the dawn comes we will search for the bodies."

At that he lay down upon the ground, but it was evident he had no intention of going to sleep.

He had shown little or no emotion on hearing of his brother's death. There was black blood in his veins, and, with the more savage races, death is a simple and everyday affair. For all that, there is no reason to suppose that he did not feel the great loss he had sustained.

A long time elapsed before Harry, too, was able to sleep. And, when at last he did so, he was for ever struggling on the brink of an unfathomable abyss, so that he was little rested when at daybreak he was awakened by Cortes.

Without waiting for food, they set out at once upon their way, passing slowly down the hill-side. They soon reached the stream, and thence turned to the south. It was Harry who led the way. When he judged that they were parallel to the place where the tragedy had happened, they crossed the stream and walked straight for the cliff.

At the foot of the precipice was a kind of terrace, upon which grew scattered trees, about the roots of one of which were boulders. Lying on his back, across one of these rocks, they found the body of the Black Dog of the Cameroons.

The two boys looked away whilst the guide examined the body, and then, stooping, picked up something from the ground. Presently Cortes touched Harry on the arm.

The boy turned and set eyes upon the Sunstone.

CHAPTER XXXV-A Brother

Leaving the body of the wretched man where they found it, they continued to search among the trees; but nowhere could they discover any trace of the elder guide.

"His body cannot be far away," said Harry. "They fell together."

It was then that, at the sound of a faint cry from somewhere far above them, all three looked up. And the sight they beheld was appalling.

Hundreds of feet above the place where they stood, sheltered by a cranny in the face of the cliff, there grew a gnarled and twisted shrub, a kind of withered tree. In the midst of this, caught like a fish in a net, was a man who, even as they watched him, moved, twisting like a thing in pain.

Cortes scanned the face of the cliff; but, look where he might, he could discover no way by which it was possible to ascend to the place where his brother was suspended in mid-air.

Running back several yards, he regarded the precipice above the withered tree. It was equally inaccessible from above. Then he raised his hands to his mouth and cried out in a loud voice, calling upon his brother by name.

The answer came in a voice so weak that Cortes had to hold a hand to an ear in order to catch the words.

"I am in pain. My arm is broken. Can you not come to my assistance?"

The younger brother looked about him in despair.

"Can nothing be done?" asked Harry.

"Let me think," said Cortes, and lifted a hand to his eyes. On a sudden he cried out to his brother. "Can you hold out for two days?" he asked.

"For two days!" came the answer. "It is too long."

"You must!" cried the other. "Take the belt from your waist and bind yourself to the tree. Then, when your strength is gone, you will not fall."

Whilst the elder man obeyed these injunctions, Harry turned to Cortes.

"What do you intend to do?" he asked.

"We have no rope," said the guide. "Fernando is at least fifty feet from the path above, and there is no rope fifty feet in length nearer to this place than Kano or Sokoto. However, there is-as you know-a rope-like creeper that grows in the bush. I intend to go back as far as the jungle."

"Can you get there in time?" asked Braid, incredulously.

"My wound is now healed," said the man, "my strength returned. I can but do my best."

Cortes looked up again at his brother.

"Courage!" he cried. "In two days I return."

So saying, he bounded off upon his way. As they watched him pass down the valley, springing from rock to rock, it was apparent that he meant to do all that was humanly possible to effect the salvation of his brother. Even as they looked, his figure grew smaller in the distance, and in a few minutes he was lost to view.

To describe in detail the journey of the younger guide across the mountains would be tedious. The thing can be summed up in a few words: it was magnificent, heroic. Mile upon mile he covered without pausing for breath. For the most part he kept to the valleys, where the atmosphere was stifling and humid, crossing the mountains only when by doing so he could cut off several miles.

He had food with him, but he seldom stopped to eat. Now and again he drank at a mountain stream, but seemed to grudge the time even for this.

At sunset he was still bearing onward. He had cast aside the greater part of his clothing, and the perspiration poured off him, and the veins stood out upon his temples like knotted strands of cord. For all that, he went on and on beneath the stars, whilst the moon marched in the heavens. It was a race for the life of his brother.

As Cortes hastened on his way, his thoughts continually went back to the perilous situation in which he had left Fernando, and every thought was, as it were, a spur to his endeavour. No sooner had he pictured in his mind's eye that struggling, writhing figure, hanging, as it were, betwixt earth and sky, than he shot forward with renewed energy, clenching both fists and teeth in his strong determination.