Part 24 (1/2)
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.