Part 26 (1/2)
Kenneth lay on his oars, and let the boat float wherever the tide cared to take her.
”What a lovely night, Archie!” said Kenneth at last. ”What a lovely colour is in the sky! The clouds are gold, the sea is gold, the consuls' houses and the sultan's palace are roofed in gold, the lofty palm-trees are tipped with gold, and the waves are rippling and lisping on sands of gold.”
”Ah!” replied Archie, ”my dear brother, your thoughts are steeped in gold. Morosco's stories have given you gold fever--but there, I won't laugh at you, for I tell you I know all your longings, and I, too, have the same.”
Kenneth stretched across the thwarts and pressed his friend's hand.
”You'll go,” he said, ”you'll come with me into the interior. You'll brave danger? Everything?”
”Everything,” replied Archie. ”We are young, strong, healthy, hearty; why should we not? But,” he continued, ”while you have been dreaming I have been scheming. Zona, an Arab friend of mine, and a soldier, has been on expeditions into and beyond the Logobo country already; I have spoken to him, he is willing to venture with us. And so will Harvey.”
”Harvey?” said Kenneth.
”Yes, he is like ourselves, a Scot. He will, he says, do or dare anything for a change.”
”Hurrah!” cried Kenneth.
He was so excited now that he must needs bend to his oars again, and the light skiff in which he rowed seemed actually to skim the water like a skipjack. For his actions were keeping pace with his thoughts. And all the way down to the Cape, in what was to be their last voyage in the _Brilliant_, there was little else talked about by the three friends but their coming adventures in the land of gold.
When paid off, they took pa.s.sage, for cheapness' sake, in an Arab dhow to Zanzibar. It was a long voyage in such a craft, and a rough one in many ways, for they got little to eat except dates and rice. But what cared they? The rice, in their eyes, seemed like little nuggets of gold. They reached Zanzibar safe and sound, and made haste to see Zona, the Arab chief, and arrange everything.
Zona brought with him a bold but honest-looking black boy. He was to be their guide through the country beyond Logobo. This boy, called Essequibo, came from there. Nay, let me rather say had been dragged from there by cruel and heartless slave-dealers.
Though an Arab, Zona had a good heart. He had first seen little Essequibo asleep on the rude steps of the slave auction mart at Lamoo, and his soul warmed to the poor lad. Dreaming the boy was of his far-off home in the interior, of the little village among the cocoa palms, where his mother and father lived ere that terrible night when the Arabs fell on them with chains and fire,--fire for the town, chains for the captives. Dreaming of home, dreaming that he was back once more, roaming with his brothers and sisters in the free forest, through the jungle, over hills purple with glorious heaths, through woods dark even at midday, or by the lakes where the hippopotami bathe and wallow, and where under the pale rays of the moon the deer and hart steal down to drink, their every movement watched by the wary leopard.
Though but a child when stolen from his home, and at the time of our tale in his fifteenth year, Essequibo had not forgotten a single hill or dale or creek or even tree of his native country. He was bold, bright, and faithful, as will be seen.
The preparations for the great journey had been very simple, perhaps too much so, for they consisted mainly in arms and ammunition. Kenneth, with all the simple faith of his countrymen, had put Nannie's old Bible in his wallet. In his wallet, too, Archie had slyly deposited the flute.
”An old Scotch air,” he had said, ”may help to 'liven us up when things look black and drear.”
They had travelled thus far almost without adventure. They were now in the very heart of the warlike Logobos, but as yet had seen nothing more terrible than the denizens of forests and river I have already described.
CHAPTER NINETEEN.
THE SEARCH FOR THE LAND OF GOLD.
Scene:--Daybreak on the unknown river. The stream is a good mile wide here; its banks are lined with a cloudland of green, the great trees trailing their branches in the water. A sand bar at one side, jutting far out into the river, tall crimson ibises standing thereon like a regiment of British soldiers. The mist of morning uprising everywhere off the woods and off the water. One long red cloud in the east heralding the approach of the G.o.d of day. Silence over all, except for the dip of the oars--they are m.u.f.fled--as our adventurers' boat rapidly nears the sh.o.r.e to seek the friendly shelter of the tree-fringe.
”So far on our way, thank heaven,” said Kenneth, as soon as the boat was hidden and the party had landed on a little bank deeply bedded with brown leaves.
”So far, and now for breakfast.”
Yes, now for breakfast, reader, and a very frugal one it was; some handfuls of boiled rice and a morsel of biscuit steeped in the water to make it go down.
This had been their fare for days and days, but added thereto was the fruit that Essequibo never failed to find.
Fish there were in this great river in abundance, fish that they had plenty of means of catching too, but none of cooking without danger; for smoke might betray their presence to an enemy more implacable and merciless than the wildest beast in the jungle.
The long hot day pa.s.sed drearily away. They sat or reclined mostly in a circle, carrying on a conversation in voices but little over a whisper.