Part 26 (1/2)

Hatteras turned his head quickly towards his companion, almost suspiciously. Then he looked back into the darkness, and after a little he said:--

”It's not only the things you care about, old man, which tug at you, it's the things you hate as well. I hate this country. I hate these miles and miles of mangroves, and yet I am fascinated. I can't get the forest and the undergrowth out of my mind. I dream of them at nights.

I dream that I am sinking into that black oily batter of mud. Listen,”

and he suddenly broke off with his head stretched forwards. ”Doesn't it sound wicked?”

”But all this talk about London?” cried Walker.

”Oh, don't you understand?” interrupted Hatteras roughly. Then he changed his tone and gave his reason. ”One has to struggle against a fascination of that sort. It's devil's work. So for all I am worth I talk about London.”

”Look here, d.i.c.k,” said Walker. ”You had better get leave and go back to the old country for a spell.”

”A very solid piece of advice,” said Hatteras, and he went home to the Residency.

II.

The next morning he had again disappeared. But Walker discovered upon his table a couple of new volumes. He glanced at the t.i.tles. They were Burton's account of his pilgrimage to al-Madinah and Mecca.

Five nights afterwards Walker was smoking a pipe on the verandah when he fancied that he heard a rubbing, scuffling sound as if some one very cautiously was climbing over the fence of his compound. The moon was low in the sky and dipping down toward the forest; indeed the rim of it touched the tree-tops so that while a full half of the enclosure was bare to the yellow light that half which bordered on the forest was inky black in shadow; and it was from the furthest corner of this second half that the sound came. Walker bent forward listening. He heard the sound again, and a moment after another sound, which left him in no doubt. For in that dark corner he knew that a number of palisades for repairing the fence were piled and the second sound which he heard was a rattle as some one stumbled against them. Walker went inside and fetched a rifle.

When he came back he saw a negro creeping across the bright open s.p.a.ce towards the Residency. Walker hailed to him to stop. Instead the negro ran. He ran towards the wicket gate in the palisades. Walker shouted again; the figure only ran the faster. He had covered half the distance before Walker fired. He clutched his right forearm with his left hand, but he did not stop. Walker fired again, this time at his legs, and the man dropped to the ground. Walker heard his servants stirring as he ran down the steps. He crossed quickly to the negro and the negro spoke to him, but in English, and with the voice of Hatteras.

”For G.o.d's sake keep your servants off!”

Walker ran to the house, met his servants at the foot of the steps, and ordered them back. He had shot at a monkey he said. Then he returned to Hatteras.

”d.i.c.ky, are you hurt?” he whispered.

”You hit me each time you fired, but not very badly I think.”

He bandaged Hatteras' arm and thigh with strips of his s.h.i.+rt and waited by his side until the house was quiet. Then he lifted him and carried him across the enclosure to the steps and up the steps into his bedroom. It was a long and fatiguing process. For one thing Walker dared make no noise and must needs tread lightly with his load; for another, the steps were steep and ricketty, with a narrow bal.u.s.trade on each side waist high. It seemed to Walker that the day would dawn before he reached the top. Once or twice Hatteras stirred in his arms, and he feared the man would die then and there. For all the time his blood dripped and pattered like heavy raindrops on the wooden steps.

Walker laid Hatteras on his bed and examined his wounds. One bullet had pa.s.sed through the fleshy part of the forearm, the other through the fleshy part of his right thigh. But no bones were broken and no arteries cut. Walker lit a fire, baked some plaintain leaves, and applied them as a poultice. Then he went out with a pail of water and scrubbed down the steps.

Again he dared not make any noise, and it was close on daybreak before he had done. His night's work, however, was not ended. He had still to cleanse the black stain from Hatteras' skin, and the sun was up before he stretched a rug upon the ground and went to sleep with his back against the door.

”Walker,” Hatteras called out in a low voice, an hour or so later.

Walker woke up and crossed over to the bed.

”d.i.c.ky, I'm frightfully sorry. I couldn't know it was you.”

”That's all right, Jim. Don't you worry about that. What I wanted to say was that n.o.body had better know. It wouldn't do, would it, if it got about?”

”Oh, I am not so sure. People would think it rather a creditable proceeding.”

Hatteras shot a puzzled look at his friend. Walker, however, did not notice it, and continued, ”I saw Burton's account of his pilgrimage in your room; I might have known that journeys of the kind were just the sort of thing to appeal to you.”

”Oh, yes, that's it,” said Hatteras, lifting himself up in bed. He spoke eagerly--perhaps a thought too eagerly. ”Yes, that's it. I have always been keen on understanding the native thoroughly. It's after all no less than one's duty if one has to rule them, and since I could speak their lingo--” he broke off and returned to the subject which had prompted him to rouse Walker. ”But, all the same, it wouldn't do if the natives got to know.”

”There's no difficulty about that,” said Walker. ”I'll give out that you have come back with the fever and that I am nursing you.

Fortunately there's no doctor handy to come making inconvenient examinations.”

Hatteras knew something of surgery, and under his directions Walker poulticed and bandaged him until he recovered. The bandaging, however, was amateurish, and, as a result, the muscles contracted in Hatteras'