Part 29 (1/2)
A faint sparkle crept into the eyes of the younger man, for there was also a capacity for righteous wrath in him, but his elder companion raised a restraining hand.
”What can we do that will not bring down trouble on our followers'
heads?” he asked.
Nares had not slept for several nights, and that coming on top of his other troubles had its effect on him, for he was, after all, very human, and the white man's self-restraint is apt to grow feeble in that land where his pa.s.sions usually grow strong. Now and then, indeed, it breaks down altogether suddenly.
”Somebody must suffer for every reform,” he said. ”It seems that a sacrifice is demanded, and the ban is upon us still. Here, at least, the cost of man's progress is the shedding of blood.” Then he made a little forceful gesture. ”They are arming in the bush. In another month or two there will be very grim doings at San Roque.”
The older man changed the subject abruptly. ”You have your own course to consider. Have you come to a decision yet? I almost think if you surrendered to a responsible officer the Society has influence enough to secure your acquittal. After all, there are a few honest men upon the coast.”
Nares looked at him with a curious little smile. ”It is possible that I might escape with my liberty, but not until those who hate us had blackened my character and flung discredit upon the aims and methods of the men who sent me here. Is my acquittal worth what it would cost your Society? Would the folks down yonder miss such an opportunity as my trial would afford them of making us out political intriguers and destroyers of authority?”
He broke off for a moment, and laughed softly. ”Still, they can't very well have a trial without a prisoner, and I shall wait in the bush until Ormsgill overtakes me. I have left word for him here and there with men who I think will not betray me.”
”Why shouldn't you stay here?” asked the younger man.
”And bring the authorities down upon you? You know the cost of harboring me. Still, I will wait a day or two. Ormsgill must go inland by the road through the next valley, and if he has escaped the troops, there should be news of him any hour now.”
The others said nothing further. They knew those in authority had, perhaps, naturally little love for them, and would make the most of the opportunity if it became evident that they had sheltered a proscribed man. After all, they had a duty to their flock and the men who had sent them out. Nares, who guessed their thoughts, smiled at them.
”It is all decided,” he said. ”When Ormsgill comes up I, believing as I do in the straitest teaching of the Geneva fathers, am going into the interior with him to accomplish the work he has undertaken for the repose of the soul of the rum trader Lamartine.”
Again his companions made no answer. After all, the creeds now and then grow vague in Africa, or, perhaps, in the anguish of life in the dark land they are purged of their narrowness and amplified. Besides this, it was evident that Nares was a trifle off his balance. There was silence for the next half hour. One of the men had toiled with the hoe among his flock that day, and the other had come back from a long march to a native village. The night was clear and cool and wonderfully still, and the peace of the garden valley crept in on them. One could almost have fancied the mission had been translated far from Africa, where tranquillity that is not tempered with apprehension seldom lasts very long. Then a sharp cry, harsh with human pain and terror, rang out of the soft darkness, and the man in charge of the station rose quietly from his chair.
”Herrero's men are here. Our time has come at last,” he said.
The others rose with him, and stood very still for a moment or two listening until the cry arose again more shrilly, and there was a clamor among the unseen huts. The crash of a long flintlock gun broke through it, and in the midst of the uproar they heard a patter of naked feet. Half-seen shadowy figures swept past among the leaves, and a red glare that grew momentarily brighter leapt up behind the mango trees.
”Herrero's men,” said the older man again, as though in the bitterness of the moment that was all that occurred to him.
They followed him down the stairway, though none of them knew what they meant to do, and, while now and then a half-naked figure dashed past them, down a narrow path between the trees, until the thatched roofs of the village rose close in front of them. One of them was blazing fiercely, and in another few minutes they saw a little group of dusky figures scurrying to and fro with burdens in the glare. A man among the latter also saw the newcomers, for apparently in drunken bravado he flung up a long gun, and there was a flash and a detonation as he fired at random. Nares saw him clearly, a big, brawny man swaying half-naked on his feet with short cotton draperies hanging from his waist, and his truculence was a guide to his profession. He was one of the hired ruffians who escort the labor recruits to the coast, and the African has no more grievous oppressor than the negro who acts as the white man's deputy.
Still, the missionaries saw very little more just then, for at the flash of the gun a swarm of terror-stricken boys who had been lurking there broke out from the shadow of the outlying huts, and swept madly up the path. Nares ran forward to meet them, calling to them in a native tongue, but it was not evident that they understood him, for they ran on. He felt one of his comrade's hands upon his shoulder, but he shook it off, and clutched at one of the flying men nearest him. He was overwrought that night, and his patience had gone. An unreasoning fury of indignation came upon him, and in the midst of it he remembered that it was most unlikely Herrero's boys would do more than attempt to overawe any one who might venture to resist them with their guns. Yet here was a flock of st.u.r.dy men flying in wild panic from a handful of ruffians. Perhaps this was natural. The men had seen what came of resistance, and had been taught drastically that it was wisest to submit to the white man and those whom he permitted to persecute them.
In any case, Nares's efforts availed him nothing, for the crowd of fugitives surged about him and his companions and bore them along.
They could neither make head against it nor struggle clear, and were jostled against each other and driven forward until the crowd grew thinner abreast of the mission house where several paths that led to the hillslopes and the bush branched off. Then at last they reeled out from among the negroes, and while they stood gasping, Nares looked at the man in charge of the station with a question in his eyes. The latter made a little gesture of resignation.
”That is certainly Herrero's work, and I think he has given them rum, but there is nothing we can do,” he said. ”They may burn a hut or two, but they can be built again, and the boys--I am thankful--have taken to the bush. We will go back to the house.”
This was not exactly to Nares' mind, but he recognized that there was wisdom in it, and they went up the little stairway and sat down once more upon the veranda. Now and then a hoa.r.s.e shouting reached them, and the glare of burning thatch grew brighter, but n.o.body came near to trouble them. After all, a missionary's color counted for something, and it was a perilous thing for a negro who had not direct authority to meddle with him. Still, the older man's face was troubled.
”They will go away by and by, and there is, fortunately, very little in the huts,” he said. ”There is only one thing I am anxious about.
Our store shed stands in a thicket among the trees yonder close beneath us. We built it there not to be conspicuous, and they may not notice it, but it is only a few weeks since our supplies came in--drugs and cloth, besides tools, and goods that we could not replace.”
Nares made a little gesture of comprehension. He knew that the finances of the stations in that country are usually somewhat strained, and that when supplies went missing on the journey from the coast, as they sometimes did, the efforts of those they were intended for were apt to be crippled for many months.
”The place is locked?” he said.