Part 40 (1/2)
Closer and more miasmatic than ever the atmosphere seemed to weigh him down; and alone in the darkness of the hut, with loathsome insects scurrying around and over him, the whole scene came back in all its vivid ghastliness, and again he saw those dreadful eyes glowering at him, the quick, sudden stab out of nowhere, and the limbs of the stricken savage quivering and contorting on the stone which was spattered with his blood. He groped his way to the door and went outside. Anything would be better than this consciousness of being penned up with these awful memories, to say nothing of the long-legged horrors which rendered rest impossible. He drank in the outer air-- heavy, fever-laden as it was--with infinite relief, but not for long.
Clouds of stinging insects, mosquitoes and others, soon found him out, and forced him to the conclusion that the legged horrors within, being harmless, were at any rate more tolerable. But it was a wearied wreck of a man, indeed, upon which the second morning dawned.
He was about to set forth upon another round of exploration--no matter what he might discover anything was better than the fearful mental strain involved by sitting still--when he became conscious of an unusual stir among those around, as near akin to excitement as those morose, repellent savages seemed able to reach. A man was coming towards him; and now every fibre of his being thrilled with joy, with an indescribable sense of relief. It was a white man!
A white man, a European! No matter what low outcast from his colour this might be he was a white man--and already Wagram looked upon him as a brother. And yet--and yet--as the man came up Wagram could not but realise that his first estimate of him was likely to be the true one, and his hopes sank somewhat.
They sank still more--in fact, to zero--as the new-comer stood confronting him. He was a tall man, as tall as himself, but his hard, bearded face was repellent in the extreme, and the fierce glare of his rolling eyes did not inspire confidence.
”Well, pard, are they making you comfortable here?” he began shortly.
”I don't know about comfortable; but if it's a little rough I've no cause for complaint,” answered Wagram pleasantly. ”At any rate I've escaped with life--though how I got off that waterlogged hulk I haven't the faintest idea.”
”I know all about that,” interrupted the other roughly. ”What I want to know is, how did you get on to her? Eh? How the devil did you get on to her?”
The fierce eyes played upon Wagram's face as though they would penetrate his brain. Decidedly this man was a rough customer--very; still, he was a white man, and might not be so bad at bottom. At any rate he would be susceptible to a very substantial reward. So he told the story of the wreck of the _Baleka_, and how he himself had nearly gone down with the s.h.i.+p in trying to save a child that had been lost below.
”Serves you devilish well right for interfering in what doesn't concern you,” was the rea.s.suring comment on this piece of information. ”Look here. Have you the remotest sort of notion as to where you are?”
”A very faint one: somewhere on the west coast of Africa, I take it.”
The other laughed harshly.
”That's near enough,” he said. ”Let me tell you this, then. You're among the most devilish set of cannibal n.i.g.g.e.rs this world ever produced. You'd have been eaten body and bones before this if--it hadn't been for me.”
”In that case I cannot be too grateful for your interference; and, as a fellow-countryman, I am going to make further demands upon your kindness by entreating you to show me the way out, to facilitate my return to civilisation. And, I a.s.sure you, you will not find me ungrateful.”
These last words he p.r.o.nounced with some diffidence. In the man's very ferocity of roughness Wagram's ear had not been slow to detect a refined accent of speech. Whatever the other might have come to he was certain that he was of gentle birth, and therefore hesitated to offer him material reward. The next words convinced him that he need have felt no such misgiving.
”What'll you make it worth my while to land you--say at Sierra Leone, this day month?”
”Anything in reason. You shall name your own price.”
”Suppose I say ten thousand pounds, not a s.h.i.+lling less? How's that?”
It was an enormous sum, remembering the resources probably at the stranger's command; yet if Wagram hesitated momentarily it was less on that account than because a misgiving shot across his mind that if he agreed too readily this desperado, from whom he inwardly recoiled more and more, once he had reason to believe he was dealing with a rich man, would hold him captive until he had drained him to the bottom of even his resources; so he answered:
”It's a stiff figure--very stiff; still, I think I might even promise that.”
”You think, do you? Well, come this way.”
He turned abruptly, Wagram following. As they pa.s.sed between the palmetto huts the forbidding inhabitants raised their heads to stare for a moment, then dropped them stolidly again. They walked on in dead silence, for the stranger uttered no further word. They pa.s.sed into the forest, still quite close on the outskirts of the town, and came suddenly upon a strong stockade. Before the gate of this several savages stood as though mounting guard. They were fully armed with large, wicked-looking spears, axes, and great curved-bladed knives.
”I don't allow them any rotten gaspipe guns,” said the stranger grimly; ”only things they know how to use. And they do know how to use these, by G.o.d! Look there.”
Wagram looked. They had reached the gate by this time. Within the enclosure were cl.u.s.tered a number of human beings chained together in couples by the leg. The place was in a state of indescribable filth, and the personal appearance of its occupants recalled to Wagram that of the wretched victim of yesterday.
”Prisoners?” he said.
The other nodded, then led the way on again. Soon a hum of voices greeted Wagram's ears, and at the same time a horrible acrid odour a.s.sailed his nostrils.
”Takes a little getting used to, doesn't it?” said his guide. ”Look!”