Haviland's Chum

The latter was intended to convey that, under the great sorrow which had fallen upon him, Haviland might consider the past overlooked, and that although he was going home now, it was not under expulsion.

Chapter Sixteen.

Hunted

On, through the steamy forest, heavy and damp with the tropical rain; on, over stodgy swamp land, whose miasmatic exhalations rise misty and foul in visible vapour, the fugitive is wending. Toiling for very life is he, dragging with infinite labour each spent footstep over the yielding and spongy ground, drawing breath in long gasps; and ever throughout his entire frame that sinking and yet sickening and agonising sensation of feeling utterly spent; wounded too, in more places than one, unarmed and without means of defence – a solitary fugitive in the mighty heart of that vast stretch of African forest land. What chance has he?

He stumbles on, and a sigh of relief, of thankfulness, escapes him, as his feet once more tread firm ground, though, did he but know it, the soil of the washy swamp, by closing over his footsteps, has rendered him invaluable service in hiding his spoor from his enemies. That he has enemies, more than one furtive and anxious glance behind – if nothing else – would serve to show.

A pitiable spectacle, his clothing in rags and plentifully soaked with blood – his own blood – still welling from and clotting round his wounds, as he toils onwards, his heavy unkempt beard matted with it as it trickles from a gash in his head, his progress beset by a whole cloud of flies and voracious winged insects, yet the fugitive is a well-built, strong-framed man of medium height, and well below middle age; strong indeed he must be, for in this deplorable plight he has covered many a weary mile, nor before him is there any hope of succour or refuge. Yet the sheer dogged instinct of self-preservation buoys him up, keeps him ever moving forward, anywhere so that it is only forward.

The low-lying ragged rain clouds roll back over the tree tops, and the dull blaze of the sun, watery through the tropical mist, but intensely piercing and penetrating as though focussed through the lens of a burning-glass, envelops him in an overpowering fold of heat, His brain reels, his uneven steps are more staggering than ever. Why keep on? Why struggle further? The spears and hatchets of his enemies were more merciful. Yes, but the fire, the lingering death of torment by that or any other form, or at best the yoke and slave chain, and being weaponless, he has no means of selling his life dearly, or even of ending it with his own hand when the last hope had vanished.

Ah! the welcome shade of the trees is gained at length. The lay of the land is flat, with a scarcely perceptible undulation, and alternates in open spaces – mostly swampy – and forest, the latter, however, not thick with undergrowth. Once within the shade, cool by comparison, the fugitive sinks to the earth. With bursting heart and labouring lungs, his strong frame weakened by continual loss of blood, he can go no further. A lurid mist is before his eyes, and a feeling of intense lassitude, of dissolution, overpowers him, and he lies unconscious.

Not for long, however. All creation – human, animal, insect, even vegetable life – seems leagued together against the hunted man. Great black ants, attracted by the blood from his wounds, are crawling over him, and soon their sharp bites have the effect of bringing him back to himself again. But on the whole the infliction is salutary, for it acts as a spur; and, staggering to his feet in quick loathing, the fugitive shakes off the horrible insects, and drags on his weary way.

The solitude is intense, but not so the silence. The call of bird voices echoes through the shade; some shrill and piping and not unmelodious, others harsh, half human, almost menacing; the screech of cicalas too, loud, vibrant, distressing to overwrought and weakened nerves. Green lizards of some size dart scramblingly through the scattered bark or lie motionless, with head erect, and ruby-like eyes dilated, as they watch the intruder; and a great tree spider, huge, hairy, and hideous, shoggles up a trunk within a yard and a half of the wanderer’s face.

And now hunger is gripping the unfortunate man; thirst, too, which the slimy swamp water he has drunk – though, in prudence, sparingly – has not availed to stave off for long. The day is waning, moreover, and well he knows that another night spent in the forest spells death. And still no sign of human habitation or friendly succour; yet how should there be, seeing that the red scourge of the slave-hunter, or of warring barbarian clans, equally ruthless, has swept this zone of terror and of blood, leaving it a howling waste of uninhabited wilderness. Or even were things otherwise, why should those he half hoped to meet prove any more desirable than those from whom he fled, here in the dark places of the earth, where anything in human shape, any fellow creature, was almost synonymous with a cruel and ruthless enemy? But the enduring courage, the bulldog tenacity of purpose, which characterise the true explorer or up-country adventurer, whatever his nationality, is to this man an ever present force. The traditions of his order that no hardship, no peril, however great, however hopeless, is without abundant precedent, are with him now, to steady his staggering steps as he plunges forward, to uphold and cheer his despairing mind.

There is light ahead; a break in the skies. Only another tract of open swamp, is the first thought of the fugitive; and yet with it a sort of instinct – hardly more, although the creation of experience – warns him, tells him, that human habitation lies at hand. With renewed strength and quickened steps he presses forward to the edge of the forest line and peers forth.

At the sight which meets his gaze his heart gives a great bound. His instinct has not been at fault. There, in the midst of the open space, are the thatched roofs of a native village – and a village of some size.

It is situated in the open – in the midst of an amphitheatre of forest which engirdles it on three sides, the further being bounded by a line of jagged rocks of no great height. But around it there is no sign of life. No human forms are issuing from or entering its low stockade, no sound of human voices comes to him from within it. Perhaps they are sleeping throughout the heat of the day. And then he pauses.

What will be his reception? Hostile possibly. Yet here lies his only hope. To remain as he is means certain death. He will warn the inhabitants of yonder place of the proximity of his enemies and theirs, that it not strong enough for defence, which is more than likely, they may save their lives – and his – in timely flight. And, having decided upon this line of conduct, he steps from his hiding-place, and proceeds to cross the intervening space.

But as he draws near the village, he is conscious of a renewed sinking of the heart; for now he perceives that the stockade is broken down in several places, and what he has hardly noticed before in his excitement and hunger as he snatched at the bunches of millet – a field of which he is passing through – that the crops are trampled and torn about, as though hurriedly foraged. And then, as he gains a wide breach in the stockade, and is about to step through, a sight meets his gaze which is not entirely unfamiliar, but which somehow or other never seems entirely to lose its horror and repulsion.

Strewn around in scattered profusion are hundreds of bones. Skulls, too, grinning up out of the long herbage which in some instances has sprouted right through the battered orifice which has let out the life, producing the most hideous and ghastly effect. Everywhere they lie, grouped in batches, mostly just within the stockade, though others are not wanting immediately around the low-roofed grass huts. Well enough does the fugitive know these signs. The fate of this village has been that of many another in the blood-stained heart of the Dark Continent. Its inhabitants have been surprised, and all who have shown resistance, or for any reason were not worth carrying away, ruthlessly massacred, regardless of age or sex – as not a few skulls of diminutive size lying around eloquently proclaim. His supposed place of refuge is but a village inhabited by the dead.

Grim and gruesome as this thought is, a new hope springs within the hunted man’s resourceful mind. His pursuers, even should they suspect the direction he has taken – he is satisfied that they have lost his spoor, or they would have been upon him long since – will forbear to follow him here. The last asylum they will dream of him seeking will be this village of the dead. There is comfort in this, at any rate, and now, his next thought is to collect the ears, or rather bunches of millet – there is still plenty left which is not crushed and trampled – and as he devours great handfuls of the grain, he remembers that where there is a village there must be water. Fortified by even this sorry food, rough, indigestible, unwholesome as it is, he renews his search and is soon rewarded. He has no difficulty – save for the exhaustion of dragging along his weary frame – in finding water, which, though slimy, and tepid and unpalatable, is still water – and having slaked his thirst, he crawls back to the village again.

The sun has sunk beneath the ridge of black rocks, and in the brief gloaming the miasmatic vapours seem to roll up thicker than before. One by one, the stars twinkle forth into the hot misty sky, and soon the reddening glow of a broad moon suffuses the tree tops, flooding with its spectral light the open space and whitened relics of those who erewhile tenanted these silent and primitive dwellings. Gigantic bats are flitting to and fro, uttering their strident squeaks, and the forest depths begin to resound with the howling of hyaenas, and the shrill baying of hunting jackals. To the fugitive the sounds are not without a certain sinister significance. Well he knows that the hyaena is the most cowardly of beasts, but he remembers too, how in these regions of constant massacre, even the most cowardly of beasts can hardly have failed to lose all respect for the dominant animal, Man – seeing that he, at any rate dead, constitutes an easy and abundant form of prey. He realises his own enfeebled state, and knows that the otherwise cowardly carnivora will realise it too. Even now, he can descry grisly, blunt-snouted shapes, skulking about in the moonlight, allured by the scent of fresh blood – his own blood to wit – nor does the occasional subdued shout he utters avail to alarm them overmuch, or cause them to retire very for. The stealthy patter of their footfalls seems ever to increase – to be drawing nearer and nearer.

Hitherto he has shrunk from entering any of the huts; now, however, the instinct of sheer self-preservation prescribes that course. Selecting one, a large oblong structure, whose wide low-pitched roof forms a kind of verandah all round it, he crawls within. But it has no door, and his strength is not equal to questing about for a substitute for one – indeed, hardly is he within when he stumbles forward, and sinks to the ground. The pain of his wounds has become intolerable, a deadly faintness seizes him – and before his final unconsciousness his hand closes with convulsive grip upon the skull belonging to a fleshless skeleton lying there within.

Huge spiders – hairy monsters, the size of a man’s hand – crawl over the prostrate form, then, startled by the instinct that here is life, scurry back to the shelter of the thatch again. A wicked-looking centipede draws its shining rings in disgusting length along the ground in the stripe of moonlight, and flying beetles whirr and buzz in and out of the doorway; and there, among such surroundings, lies the dying explorer – his sands of life run out – every object which might meet his failing gaze, that of loathing and horror and repulsion.

But, outside, the whole place is alive with stealing, skulking shapes. Here and there a subdued snarl, or some snapping, is audible, but they are all converging on one point – the structure which as their scent informs them contains fresh blood; and the pointed ears and bared fangs of the hideous, blunt-snouted brutes, show plain in the moonlight. And now the foremost is standing snuffing within the open doorway, while others are stealing up, by dozens, behind the first.

Chapter Seventeen.

The Scream in the Forest

“How much further to this village of yours, Somala?”

“We are there now, Sidi. What you call one hour’s march.”

“Always that ‘one hour’ story!”

And the speaker turns away somewhat shortly. The question, put in a kind of mongrel Swahili dialect, was put shortly and with a touch of impatience, for the torrid equatorial heat makes men irritable – white men, at any rate – and the first speaker is a white man. The second is a negroid Arab, hailing from the island of Pemba.

Through the moonlit forest the long file of men is wending, like a line of dark ghosts. There are perhaps three score of them, and most of them carry loads. Some few do not, and of such are the two who have been conversing.

“But,” rejoins the Arab, “it may be written that when we arrive there we shall find no village. Mushâd’s people have been busy of late, and this village lies in his return path.”

“I don’t care whether we find any village or not, so long as we find the water,” is the reply. “What do you say, doctor?” – relapsing into Anglo-Saxon, as he turns to another man, the only other white man of the party.

“Why, that it’s time we did find some. This swamp water is awful bad drinking stuff.”

Under the broad moon it is almost as light as day, and as this strange band emerges into an open space its concomitant elements can be seen to advantage. The man who had first spoken, and who seems to be its leader, is tall, supple, and erect, with straight, regular features; the lower part of the bronzed face is hidden by a thick brown beard, not guiltless even here in these wilds of some attempt at trimming. This, together with his alert and weather-beaten appearance, gives him a much older look than his actual years, for he is quite a young man. The other, he addressed as “doctor,” and whose speech is dashed with just a touch of the brogue, is much older. He is a man of medium height, with a quiet refined face, and his hair is just turning grey. Both are armed with a double-barrelled express rifle, revolver of heavy calibre, and sheath knife. The Arab, Somala, and a few others are also armed with Martini rifles; but the bearers of the loads, who are composed of half a dozen nationalities, carry no firearms, though each has a sheath knife of some sort strapped round him – long or short, straight or curved or double-edged, but all wicked-looking weapons enough.

The line swings along at an even, wiry-paced walk, to the croon of some wild, weird melody. Then, as, the open space passed, they re-enter the forest shade, they stop short, the whole line telescoping together – loads colliding, and men falling with them in confusion. For, from the sombre, mysterious depths in front comes a most horrible and appalling sound.

A scream, so awful in its long-drawn intensity – so fraught with terror and energy and despair – surely such a cry could never have issued from a human throat. Louder and louder it peals through the grim midnight shades, as though some unknown and gigantic monster were in the last throes of a despairing struggle with countless and overwhelming assailants. Of those who hear it, the superstitious natives huddle together, and trembling in every limb, too scared even to bolt, stand bunched like a flock of bewildered sheep. All save a few, that is, for those immediately in attendance on the leaders come of more virile nationality. Even the two white men are conscious of a wave or superstitious fear thrilling through their veins, possibly the result of climate and condition.

“Sidi,” whispers Somala, impressively, indicating the direction whence proceeds the horrible sound, “the village is yonder. Mushâd has been there, and that is the voice of the dead.”

“Not so. It is the voice of some one or something very much alive,” answers the leader. “And I intend to find out all about it. Eh, doctor?”

“Why, of course.”

“Those who are men and not cowards, come with me,” says the leader, shortly.

Not a man of his armed followers hangs back. Even the frightened porters, in terror at being left to themselves in this demon-haunted place, will not stay behind; for, like all natives of an inferior sort, the presence of a resolute white man is to them a potent rallying influence.

Soon the forest opens out again, and there, in the moonlight before them, lie the thatched roofs of a considerable village. Again peals forth that awful, blood-curdling scream, proceeding right from among those primitive dwellings.

“Come along! Let’s make a dash for it!” warns the leader, under the natural impression that some human victim is being barbarously done to death at the hands of its inhabitants. His swarthy followers do not share this opinion, their own pointing to the supernatural, but they will go with him anywhere.

Even as they advance, quickly but cautiously, the leaders are wondering that no volley of firearms or spears greets them. There is something of lifelessness about the place, however, which can be felt and realised even before they are near enough for the scattered skulls and bones to tell their own tale. Now they are through the stockade, and now, rising from right in front of them, peals forth that awful scream once more, and with it a most horrible chorus of snapping and growling and snarling. And rounding the corner of one of the primitive buildings the whole explanation lies before them. A weird and terrible sight the broad moonlight reveals.

In front of one of the huts is a human figure. Yet, can it be? It is that of a man of tall and powerful build, his body covered with blood, his clothing in rags, his hair and beard matted and streaming, his rolling eyes starting from their sockets. In each hand he brandishes a short white club, consisting, in fact, of the leg-bone of a human being, as he bounds and leaps, yelling his horrible, maniacal scream; while around, on three sides of him, a densely packed mass of beasts is swaying and snarling, now driven back by the sheer terror of his maniacal onslaught, then surging forward, as the man, ever keeping his rear secured by the hut door, retires again.

But it is an unequal combat that cannot last. Even the prodigious strength and courage of the assailed cannot hold out against the overwhelming numbers and boldness of the assailants.

Then the tables are turned – and that with a suddenness which is almost laughable. Their approach unperceived, these timely rescuers simply rake the closely packed mass of hyaenas with their fire. The cowardly brutes, driven frantic with the suddenness and terror of this surprise, turn tail and flee, many rolling over and over each other in their rout, leaving, too, a goodly number on the ground, dead or wounded. The latter the natives of the party amuse themselves by finishing off, while their leaders are turning their attention to the rescued man.

“I say, old chap, you’ve had a narrow squeak for it,” says the younger of the two. “We seem to be only just in time. Good thing you yelled out as you did, or we shouldn’t have been that.”

The other makes no reply. Gazing vacantly at his rescuers, he continues to twirl his gruesome weapons, with much the same regularity of movement as though he were practising with Indian clubs prior to taking his morning bath.

“How did you get here?” goes on the leader, with a strange look at his white companion.

“Eh? Get here? Ran, of course.”