Part 14 (1/2)

At last I landed on the very sh.o.r.e where Querlaouen lived. Again I shouted, ”Querlaouen, where are you?” I called his wife. The silence of death was there.

I advanced, but lo! when I reached the village, it was deserted. Not a soul was seen. The jungle was the thickest where his little clearing had been. The houses had tumbled down. Desolation was before me. The gra.s.s had grown to a man's height in the little street.

What a pang of sorrow shot through my heart! I could not help it. I shouted, ”Querlaouen! my friend Querlaouen, what has become of you? You are not dead, are you?” and I looked with profound sadness on the scene around. Days that had pa.s.sed came to my memory.

I retraced my steps, disappointed, and with a foreboding heart. On the river bank, just as I was on the point of stepping into the canoe, a Bakalai came out from the jungle. He had recognized me, and came to meet me.

As soon as I saw him, I cried out, ”Where is friend Querlaouen?” His answer seemed so long in coming--”Dead!”

”Dead!” I exclaimed; ”Querlaouen dead!” and, I could not help it, two tears rolled down my cheeks.

”Querlaouen dead!” I repeated again. The recollection of that good and n.o.ble savage flashed upon me as fast as thought can flash, and once more and in a low voice I said, ”Dead! Querlaouen dead!”

When I became composed again, I asked, ”How did he die?”

”One day,” said the Bakalai man, ”a few _moons_ ago--it was in the dry season--Querlaouen took his gun and a slave along with him, and went out into the woods to hunt after an elephant which had the day before destroyed a whole plantation of plantain-trees, and had trampled down almost a whole patch of sugar-cane. His slave, who accompanied him, but had left him for a few minutes to look at one of the plantations close by, heard the report of Querlaouen's gun. He waited for his return, but Querlaouen did not come back. He waited so long that he began to feel anxious, and at last set out to seek him. He found him in the forest dead, and trampled into a shapeless ma.s.s by the beast, which he had wounded mortally, but which had strength enough to rush at and kill its enemy. Not far from Querlaouen lay the elephant, dead.”

How poor Querlaouen, who was so prudent a hunter, could have been caught by the elephant, I could not learn.

The man said it was an aniemba (witchcraft) that had killed Querlaouen; that Querlaouen's brother had bewitched him, and caused, by witchcraft, the elephant to trample upon him.

The brother was killed by the mboundou which the people made him drink; for they said his brother made him go hunt that day, when he knew the elephant would kill him.

That family, who really loved each other, and lived in peace and unity, was then divided asunder. The brother being killed, the women and children had gone to live with those to whom they belonged by the law of inheritance, and were thus scattered in several villages.

With a heavy heart I entered my canoe, but not before giving a bunch of beads to the Bakalai who had told me the story of the untimely death of poor Querlaouen.

We ascended the river silently, I thinking of the frailty of human life, and that perhaps a day might come when some elephant would trample upon me, or some ferocious leopard carry me away in his jaws, or some gorilla would, with one blow of his powerful hand, cut my body in two. Perhaps fever might kill me. I might encounter an unfriendly tribe and be murdered.

I raised a silent prayer to the Great Ruler of the universe to protect me, and said, ”G.o.d, thou knowest that I am guided only by the love of discovering the wonders of thy creation, so that I may tell to my fellow-creatures all that I have seen. I am but a worm; there is no strength in me. What am I in this great forest?” Oh how helpless I felt.

The news of Querlaouen's death had very much depressed my spirits, casting a heavy gloom over me.

To this day I love to think of friend Querlaouen, of his family, and of his children, and of the great hunts we have had together.

We finally approached Obindji's town, and soon were landed on the sh.o.r.e, where his little village was built with the bark of trees.

I need not say what a welcome we received. But lo! what do I see?

Querlaouen's wife! She had come here on a visit. As is customary in that country for friends who have not seen each other for a long time, we embraced.

The good woman was so glad to see me. She still wore the marks of her widowhood. Her hair was shorn, she wore no ornament whatever, and did not even wash.

She spent the evening with me, telling me all her troubles, and that, as soon as her season of widowhood was finished, she was to become the wife of Querlaouen's youngest brother. ”But,” added she, ”I will never love any one as I loved Querlaouen.” She was to live in the mountains of the Ashankolo.

This was probably the last time I was to see the wife of my good friend Querlaouen, the Bakalai hunter, and all the friends.h.i.+p I ever had for her husband was now hers; so I went quietly to one of my chests, and, taking a necklace of large beads, fixed it round her neck; then put my hand on the top of her head, and gave her a _bongo_ (a law), which was, that she must never part with these beads, and that, as years would roll by, she must say, ”These beads came from Chally, Querlaouen's friend.”

The old woman was so much touched that she trembled, and tears stood in her eyes.

After keeping the necklace for two or three minutes round her neck, she took it off, for a woman in mourning can not wear any ornaments. She said she would keep the beads till she died, and then they should be buried with her. I gave her some other presents, which she hid, ”for,”