Chapter 12
A Black Scoundrel
When Jane Clayton regained consciousness she saw Anderssen standingover her, holding the baby in his arms. As her eyes rested upon theman expression of misery and horror overspread her countenance.
"What is the matter?" he asked. "You ban sick?"
"Where is my baby?" she cried, ignoring his questions.
Anderssen held out the chubby infant, but she shook her head.
"It is not mine," she said. "You knew that it was not mine. You area devil like the Russian."
Anderssen's blue eyes stretched in surprise.
"Not yours!" he exclaimed. "You tole me the kid aboard the Kincaid banyour kid."
"Not this one," replied Jane dully. "The other. Where is the other?There must have been two. I did not know about this one."
"There vasn't no other kid. Ay tank this ban yours. Ay am very sorry."
Anderssen fidgeted about, standing first on one foot and then upon theother. It was perfectly evident to Jane that he was honest in hisprotestations of ignorance of the true identity of the child.
Presently the baby commenced to crow, and bounce up and down in theSwede's arms, at the same time leaning forward with little handsout-reaching toward the young woman.
She could not withstand the appeal, and with a low cry she sprang toher feet and gathered the baby to her breast.
For a few minutes she wept silently, her face buried in the baby'ssoiled little dress. The first shock of disappointment that the tinything had not been her beloved Jack was giving way to a great hope thatafter all some miracle had occurred to snatch her baby from Rokoff'shands at the last instant before the Kincaid sailed from England.
Then, too, there was the mute appeal of this wee waif alone and unlovedin the midst of the horrors of the savage jungle. It was this thoughtmore than any other that had sent her mother's heart out to theinnocent babe, while still she suffered from disappointment that shehad been deceived in its identity.
"Have you no idea whose child this is?" she asked Anderssen.
The man shook his head.
"Not now," he said. "If he ain't ban your kid, Ay don' know whose kidhe do ban. Rokoff said it was yours. Ay tank he tank so, too.
"What do we do with it now? Ay can't go back to the Kincaid. Rokoffwould have me shot; but you can go back. Ay take you to the sea, andthen some of these black men they take you to the ship--eh?"
"No! no!" cried Jane. "Not for the world. I would rather die thanfall into the hands of that man again. No, let us go on and take thispoor little creature with us. If God is willing we shall be saved inone way or another."
So they again took up their flight through the wilderness, taking withthem a half-dozen of the Mosulas to carry provisions and the tents thatAnderssen had smuggled aboard the small boat in preparation for theattempted escape.
The days and nights of torture that the young woman suffered were somerged into one long, unbroken nightmare of hideousness that she soonlost all track of time. Whether they had been wandering for days oryears she could not tell. The one bright spot in that eternity offear and suffering was the little child whose tiny hands had long sincefastened their softly groping fingers firmly about her heart.
In a way the little thing took the place and filled the aching voidthat the theft of her own baby had left. It could never be the same,of course, but yet, day by day, she found her mother-love, envelopingthe waif more closely until she sometimes sat with closed eyes lost inthe sweet imagining that the little bundle of humanity at her breastwas truly her own.
For some time their progress inland was extremely slow. Word came tothem from time to time through natives passing from the coast onhunting excursions that Rokoff had not yet guessed the direction oftheir flight. This, and the desire to make the journey as light aspossible for the gently bred woman, kept Anderssen to a slow advance ofshort and easy marches with many rests.
The Swede insisted upon carrying the child while they travelled, and incountless other ways did what he could to help Jane Clayton conserveher strength. He had been terribly chagrined on discovering themistake he had made in the identity of the baby, but once the youngwoman became convinced that his motives were truly chivalrous she wouldnot permit him longer to upbraid himself for the error that he couldnot by any means have avoided.
At the close of each day's march Anderssen saw to the erection of acomfortable shelter for Jane and the child. Her tent was alwayspitched in the most favourable location. The thorn boma round it wasthe strongest and most impregnable that the Mosula could construct.
Her food was the best that their limited stores and the rifle of theSwede could provide, but the thing that touched her heart the closestwas the gentle consideration and courtesy which the man always accordedher.
That such nobility of character could lie beneath so repulsive anexterior never ceased to be a source of wonder and amazement to her,until at last the innate chivalry of the man, and his unfailingkindliness and sympathy transformed his appearance in so far as Janewas concerned until she saw only the sweetness of his charactermirrored in his countenance.
They had commenced to make a little better progress when word reachedthem that Rokoff was but a few marches behind them, and that he had atlast discovered the direction of their flight. It was then thatAnderssen took to the river, purchasing a canoe from a chief whosevillage lay a short distance from the Ugambi upon the bank of atributary.
Thereafter the little party of fugitives fled up the broad Ugambi, andso rapid had their flight become that they no longer received word oftheir pursuers. At the end of canoe navigation upon the river, theyabandoned their canoe and took to the jungle. Here progress became atonce arduous, slow, and dangerous.
The second day after leaving the Ugambi the baby fell ill with fever.Anderssen knew what the outcome must be, but he had not the heart totell Jane Clayton the truth, for he had seen that the young woman hadcome to love the child almost as passionately as though it had been herown flesh and blood.
As the baby's condition precluded farther advance, Anderssen withdrew alittle from the main trail he had been following and built a camp in anatural clearing on the bank of a little river.
Here Jane devoted her every moment to caring for the tiny sufferer, andas though her sorrow and anxiety were not all that she could bear, afurther blow came with the sudden announcement of one of the Mosulaporters who had been foraging in the jungle adjacent that Rokoff andhis party were camped quite close to them, and were evidently upontheir trail to this little nook which all had thought so excellent ahiding-place.
This information could mean but one thing, and that they must breakcamp and fly onward regardless of the baby's condition. Jane Claytonknew the traits of the Russian well enough to be positive that he wouldseparate her from the child the moment that he recaptured them, and sheknew that separation would mean the immediate death of the baby.
As they stumbled forward through the tangled vegetation along an oldand almost overgrown game trail the Mosula porters deserted them one byone.
The men had been staunch enough in their devotion and loyalty as longas they were in no danger of being overtaken by the Russian and hisparty. They had heard, however, so much of the atrocious dispositionof Rokoff that they had grown to hold him in mortal terror, and nowthat they knew he was close upon them their timid hearts would fortifythem no longer, and as quickly as possible they deserted the threewhites.
Yet on and on went Anderssen and the girl. The Swede went ahead, tohew a way through the brush where the path was entirely overgrown, sothat on this march it was necessary that the young woman carry thechild.
All day they marched. Late in the afternoon they realized that theyhad failed. Close behind them they heard the noise of a large safariadvancing along the trail which they had cleared for their pursuers.
When it became quite evident that they must be overtaken in a shorttime Anderssen hid Jane behind a large tree,
covering her and the childwith brush.
"There is a village about a mile farther on," he said to her. "TheMosula told me its location before they deserted us. Ay try to leadthe Russian off your trail, then you go on to the village. Ay tank thechief ban friendly to white men--the Mosula tal me he ban. Anyhow,that was all we can do.
"After while you get chief to tak you down by the Mosula village at thesea again, an' after a while a ship is sure to put into the mouth ofthe Ugambi. Then you be all right. Gude-by an' gude luck to you,lady!"
"But where are you going, Sven?" asked Jane. "Why can't you hide hereand go back to the sea with me?"
"Ay gotta tal the Russian you ban dead, so that he don't luke for youno more," and Anderssen grinned.
"Why can't you join me then after you have told him that?" insisted thegirl.
Anderssen shook his head.
"Ay don't tank Ay join anybody any more after Ay tal the Russian youban dead," he said.
"You don't mean that you think he will kill you?" asked Jane, and yetin her heart she knew that that was exactly what the great scoundrelwould do in revenge for his having been thwarted by the Swede.Anderssen did not reply, other than to warn her to silence and pointtoward the path along which they had just come.
"I don't care," whispered Jane Clayton. "I shall not let you die tosave me if I can prevent it in any way. Give me your revolver. I canuse that, and together we may be able to hold them off until we canfind some means of escape."
"It won't work, lady," replied Anderssen. "They would only get usboth, and then Ay couldn't do you no good at all. Think of the kid,lady, and what it would be for you both to fall into Rokoff's handsagain. For his sake you must do what Ay say. Here, take my rifle andammunition; you may need them."
He shoved the gun and bandoleer into the shelter beside Jane. Then hewas gone.
She watched him as he returned along the path to meet the oncomingsafari of the Russian. Soon a turn in the trail hid him from view.
Her first impulse was to follow. With the rifle she might be ofassistance to him, and, further, she could not bear the terriblethought of being left alone at the mercy of the fearful jungle withouta single friend to aid her.
She started to crawl from her shelter with the intention of runningafter Anderssen as fast as she could. As she drew the baby close toher she glanced down into its little face.
How red it was! How unnatural the little thing looked. She raisedthe cheek to hers. It was fiery hot with fever!
With a little gasp of terror Jane Clayton rose to her feet in thejungle path. The rifle and bandoleer lay forgotten in the shelterbeside her. Anderssen was forgotten, and Rokoff, and her great peril.
All that rioted through her fear-mad brain was the fearful fact thatthis little, helpless child was stricken with the terriblejungle-fever, and that she was helpless to do aught to allay itssufferings--sufferings that were sure to come during ensuingintervals of partial consciousness.
Her one thought was to find some one who could help her--some woman whohad had children of her own--and with the thought came recollection ofthe friendly village of which Anderssen had spoken. If she could butreach it--in time!
There was no time to be lost. Like a startled antelope she turned andfled up the trail in the direction Anderssen had indicated.
From far behind came the sudden shouting of men, the sound of shots,and then silence. She knew that Anderssen had met the Russian.
A half-hour later she stumbled, exhausted, into a little thatchedvillage. Instantly she was surrounded by men, women, and children.Eager, curious, excited natives plied her with a hundred questions, noone of which she could understand or answer.
All that she could do was to point tearfully at the baby, now wailingpiteously in her arms, and repeat over and over, "Fever--fever--fever."
The blacks did not understand her words, but they saw the cause of hertrouble, and soon a young woman had pulled her into a hut and withseveral others was doing her poor best to quiet the child and allay itsagony.
The witch doctor came and built a little fire before the infant, uponwhich he boiled some strange concoction in a small earthen pot, makingweird passes above it and mumbling strange, monotonous chants.Presently he dipped a zebra's tail into the brew, and with furthermutterings and incantations sprinkled a few drops of the liquid overthe baby's face.
After he had gone the women sat about and moaned and wailed until Janethought that she should go mad; but, knowing that they were doing itall out of the kindness of their hearts, she endured the frightfulwaking nightmare of those awful hours in dumb and patient suffering.
It must have been well toward midnight that she became conscious of asudden commotion in the village. She heard the voices of the nativesraised in controversy, but she could not understand the words.
Presently she heard footsteps approaching the hut in which she squattedbefore a bright fire with the baby on her lap. The little thing layvery still now, its lids, half-raised, showed the pupils horriblyupturned.
Jane Clayton looked into the little face with fear-haunted eyes. Itwas not her baby--not her flesh and blood--but how close, how dear thetiny, helpless thing had become to her. Her heart, bereft of its own,had gone out to this poor, little, nameless waif, and lavished upon itall the love that had been denied her during the long, bitter weeks ofher captivity aboard the Kincaid.
She saw that the end was near, and though she was terrified atcontemplation of her loss, still she hoped that it would come quicklynow and end the sufferings of the little victim.
The footsteps she had heard without the hut now halted before the door.There was a whispered colloquy, and a moment later M'ganwazam, chief ofthe tribe, entered. She had seen but little of him, as the women hadtaken her in hand almost as soon as she had entered the village.
M'ganwazam, she now saw, was an evil-appearing savage with every markof brutal degeneracy writ large upon his bestial countenance. To JaneClayton he looked more gorilla than human. He tried to converse withher, but without success, and finally he called to some one without.
In answer to his summons another Negro entered--a man of very differentappearance from M'ganwazam--so different, in fact, that Jane Claytonimmediately decided that he was of another tribe. This man acted asinterpreter, and almost from the first question that M'ganwazam put toher, Jane felt an intuitive conviction that the savage was attemptingto draw information from her for some ulterior motive.
She thought it strange that the fellow should so suddenly have becomeinterested in her plans, and especially in her intended destinationwhen her journey had been interrupted at his village.
Seeing no reason for withholding the information, she told him thetruth; but when he asked if she expected to meet her husband at the endof the trip, she shook her head negatively.
Then he told her the purpose of his visit, talking through theinterpreter.
"I have just learned," he said, "from some men who live by the side ofthe great water, that your husband followed you up the Ugambi forseveral marches, when he was at last set upon by natives and killed.Therefore I have told you this that you might not waste your time in along journey if you expected to meet your husband at the end of it; butinstead could turn and retrace your steps to the coast."
Jane thanked M'ganwazam for his kindness, though her heart was numbwith suffering at this new blow. She who had suffered so much was atlast beyond reach of the keenest of misery's pangs, for her senses werenumbed and calloused.
With bowed head she sat staring with unseeing eyes upon the face of thebaby in her lap. M'ganwazam had left the hut. Sometime later sheheard a noise at the entrance--another had entered. One of the womensitting opposite her threw a faggot upon the dying embers of the firebetween them.
With a sudden flare it burst into renewed flame, lighting up the hut'sinterior as though by magic.
The flame disclosed to Jane Clayton's horrified gaze that the baby wasquite dead. How long it had bee
n so she could not guess.
A choking lump rose to her throat, her head drooped in silent miseryupon the little bundle that she had caught suddenly to her breast.
For a moment the silence of the hut was unbroken. Then the nativewoman broke into a hideous wail.
A man coughed close before Jane Clayton and spoke her name.
With a start she raised her eyes to look into the sardonic countenanceof Nikolas Rokoff.