CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.
ARRANGEMENTS FOR PURSUING THE ENEMY, AND SUDDEN CHANGE OF PLANS.
"You seem to be taking it easy, old boy," said a voice close to myelbow.
I started, and looked up hastily.
"Ah! Peterkin. You there?"
"Ay; and may I not reply, with some surprise, _you here_?"
"Truly you may,--but what could I do? The men ran away from me, whetherI would or no; and you are aware I could not make myself understood, notbeing able to--But where is Jack?"
I asked this abruptly, because it occurred to me at that moment that heand Peterkin should have been together.
"Where is Jack?" echoed Peterkin; "I may ask that of you, for I amignorant on the point. He and I got separated in endeavouring to escapefrom the scrimmage caused by your valiant attack. You seem to havescattered the whole force to the winds. Oh, here he is, and Mak alongwith him."
Jack and our guide came running into the camp at that moment.
"Well, Ralph, what of Okandaga?"
"Ah! what of her indeed?" said Peterkin. "I forgot her. You don't moanto say she was not in the camp?"
"Indeed she was," said I, "and so were Mbango, and his wife Njamie, andone or two others whom I did not know; but my men went at them with suchferocity that they fled along with our enemies."
"Fled!" cried Jack.
"Ay; and I fear much that it will fare ill with them if they areovertaken, for the men were wild with excitement and passion."
"Come, this must be looked to," cried Jack, seizing his rifle andtightening his belt; "we must follow, for if they escape our hands theywill certainly be retaken by their former captors."
We followed our comrade, without further remark, in the direction of thefugitives; but although we ran fast and long, we failed to come up withthem. For two hours did we dash through bush and brake, jungle andmorass, led by Makarooroo, and lighted by the pale beams of the moon.Then we came to a halt, and sat down to consult.
"Dem be gone," said our wretched guide, whose cup of happiness was thusdashed from his hand just as he was about to raise it to his lips.
"Now, don't look so dismal, Mak," cried Peterkin, slapping the man onthe shoulder. "You may depend upon it, we will hunt her up somehow orother. Only let us keep stout hearts, and we can do anything."
"Very easily said, Master Peterkin," observed Jack; "but what course doyou propose we should follow just now?"
"Collect our scattered men; go back to the village; have a palaver withKing Jambai and his chiefs; get up a pursuit, and run the foxes toearth."
"And suppose," said Jack, "that you don't know in which direction theyhave fled, how can we pursue them?"
"It is very easy to suppose all manner of difficulties," retortedPeterkin. "If you have a better plan, out with it."
"I have no better plan, but I have a slight addition to make to yours,which is, that when we collect a few of our men, I shall send them outto every point of the compass, to make tracks like the spokes of awheel, of which the village shall be the centre; and by that means weshall be pretty certain to get information ere long as to thewhereabouts of our fugitives. So now let us be up and doing; time isprecious to-night."
In accordance with this plan, we rapidly retraced our steps to the dell,which had been appointed as our place of rendezvous. Here we found thegreater part of our men assembled; and so well-timed had Jack'smovements been, that not one of them all had been able to overtake orslay a single enemy. Thus, by able generalship, had Jack gained acomplete and bloodless victory.
Having detached and sent off our scouts--who, besides being picked men,travelled without any other encumbrance than their arms--we resumed ourjourney homeward, and reached the village not long after sunrise, to theimmense surprise of Jambai, who could scarcely believe that we hadrouted the enemy so completely, and whose scepticism was furtherincreased by the total, and to him unaccountable, absence of prisoners,or of any other trophies of our success in the fight. But Jack made apublic speech, of such an elaborate, deeply mysterious, and totallyincomprehensible character, that even Makarooroo, who translated,listened and spoke with the deepest reverence and wonder; and when hehad concluded, there was evidently a firm impression on the minds of thenatives that this victory was--by some means or in some way or otherquite inexplicable but highly satisfactory--the greatest they had everachieved.
The king at once agreed to Jack's proposal that a grand pursuit shouldtake place, to commence the instant news should be brought in by thescouts. But the news, when it did come, had the effect of totallyaltering our plans.
The first scout who returned told us that he had fallen in with a largebody of the enemy encamped on the margin of a small pond. Creeping likea snake through the grass, he succeeded in getting near enough tooverhear the conversation, from which he gathered two important piecesof information--namely, that they meant to return to their own lands ina north-easterly direction, and that their prisoners had escaped bymeans of a canoe which they found on the banks of the river that flowedpast King Jambai's village.
The first piece of information decided the king to assemble hisfollowers, and go off in pursuit of them at once; the second piece ofnews determined us to obtain a canoe and follow Mbango and hiscompanions to the sea-coast, whither, from all that we heard, weconcluded they must certainly have gone. As this, however, was ajourney of many weeks, we had to take the matter into seriousconsideration.
"It is quite evident," said Jack, as we sat over our supper on the nightafter receiving the above news--"it is quite evident that they mean togo to the coast, for Mbango had often expressed to Mak a wish to gothere; and the mere fact of their having been seen to escape and takedown stream, is in itself pretty strong evidence that they did not meanto return to their now desolated village, seeing that the country behindthem is swarming with enemies; and of course they cannot know that wehave conquered the main body of these rascals. I therefore propose thatwe should procure a canoe and follow them: first, because we must at allhazards get hold of poor Okandaga, and relieve the anxiety of ourfaithful guide Makarooroo; and second, because it is just as well to goin that direction as in any other, in order to meet with wild animals,and see the wonders of this land."
"But what if King Jambai takes it into his black woolly head to declineto let us go?" said Peterkin.
"In that case we must take French leave of him."
"In which case," said I, in some alarm, "all my specimens of naturalhistory will be lost."
Jack received this remark with a shake of his head and a look of greatperplexity; and Peterkin said, "Ah, Ralph, I fear there's no help forit. You must make up your mind to say good-bye to your mummies--bigpuggies and all."
"But you do not know," said I energetically, "that Jambai will detain usagainst our will."
"Certainly not," replied Jack; "and for your sake I hope that he willnot. At any rate I will go to see him about this point after supper.It's of no use presenting a petition either to king, lord, or commonwhile his stomach is empty. But there is another thing that perplexesme: that poor sick child, Njamie's son, must not be left behind. Thepoor distracted mother has no doubt given him up for lost. It will belike getting him back from the grave."
"True," said I; "we must take him with us. Yet I fear he is too ill totravel, and we cannot await his recovery."
"He is not so ill as he seemed," observed Peterkin. "I went to see himonly half an hour ago, and the little chap was quite hearty, and glad tosee me. The fact is, he has been ill-used and ill-fed. The rest andgood treatment he has received have, even in the short time he has beenhere, quite revived him."
"Good," said Jack; "then he shall go with us. I'll engage to take himon my back when he knocks up on the march--for we have a march beforeus, as I shall presently explain--and when we get into a canoe he willbe able to rest."
"But what march do you refer to?" I asked.
"Simply this. Mak, with whom I have had a good deal of conversati
on onthe subject, tells me that the river makes a considerable bend belowthis village, and that by taking a short cut of a day's journey or soover land we can save time, and will reach a small hamlet where canoesare to be had. The way, to be sure, is through rather a wild country;but that to us is an advantage, as we shall be the more likely to meetwith game. I find, also, that the king has determined to follow thesame route with his warriors in pursuit of the enemy, so that thus farwe may travel together. At the hamlet we will diverge to thenorth-east, while we, if all goes well, embarking in our canoe, willproceed toward the west coast, where, if we do not overtake them on theway, we shall be certain to find them on our arrival. Okandaga hasoften longed to go to the mission station there, and as she knows it isin vain to urge Mbango to return to his destroyed village, she willdoubtless advise him to go to the coast."
"What you say seems highly probable," said I; "and I think the bestthing you can do is to go to the king at once and talk him over."
"Trust Jack for that," added Peterkin, who was at that moment deeplyengaged with what he called the drumstick of a roast monkey. "Jackwould talk over any creature with life, so persuasive is his eloquence.I say, Ralph," he added, holding the half-picked drumstick at arm'slength, and regarding it with a critical gaze, "I wonder, now, how thedrumstick of an ostrich would taste. Good, I have no doubt, thoughrather large for one man's dinner."
"It would be almost equal to gorilla ham, I should fancy," said Jack, ashe left the hut on his errand to the king.
"O you cannibal, to think of such a thing!" cried Peterkin, throwing thebone of his drumstick after our retreating comrade.--"But 'tis alwaysthus," he added, with a sigh: "man preys upon man, monkey upon monkey.Yet I had hoped better things of Jack. I had believed him to be atleast a refined species of gorilla. I say, Ralph, what makes you lookso lugubrious?"
"The difficulties, I suppose, that beset our path," said I sadly; for,to say truth, I did not feel in a jesting humour just then. I wasforced, however, in spite of myself, to laugh at the expression ofmingled disgust and surprise that overspread the mobile countenance ofmy friend on hearing my reply.
"`The difficulties,'" echoed he, "`that beset our path!' Really, Ralph,life will become insupportable to me if you and Jack go on in thisfashion. A man of nerve and sanguine temperament might stand it, but toone like me, of a naturally timid and leaning nature, with the additionof low spirits, it is really crushing--quite crushing."
I laughed, and replied that he must just submit to be crushed, as it wasimpossible for Jack and me to change our dispositions to suit hisconvenience; whereupon he sighed, lighted his pipe, and began to smokevehemently.
In the course of little more than an hour Jack returned, accompanied byMakarooroo, and from the satisfied expression of their faces I judgedthat they had been successful.
"Ah! I see; it's all right," said Peterkin, raising himself on oneelbow as they entered the hut and seated themselves beside the fire."Old Jambai has been `talked over.'"
"Right; but he needed a deal of talk--he was horribly obstinate," saidJack.
"Ho, yis; ho! ho! horribubly obsterlate," added Makarooroo incorroboration, rubbing his hands and holding his nose slyly over thebowl of Peterkin's pipe, in order to enjoy, as it were, a second-handwhiff.
"Here, there's a bit for yourself, old boy. Sit down and enjoy yourselfwhile Jack tells us all about his interview with royalty," saidPeterkin, handing a lump of tobacco to our guide, whose eyes glistenedand white teeth gleamed as he received the much-prized gift.
Jack now explained to us that he had found the king in a happy state ofsatiety, smoking in his very curious and uneasy-looking easy-chair; thathe had at first begged and entreated him (Jack) to stay and take commandof his warriors, and had followed up his entreaties with a hint that itwas just possible he might adopt stronger measures if entreaty failed.
To this Jack replied in a long speech, in which he pointed out theimpossibility of our complying with the king's request under presentcircumstances, and the absolute necessity of our returning at someperiod or other to our native land to tell our people of the wonders wehad seen in the great country of King Jambai. Observing that hisarguments did not make much impression on the king, he brought up hisreserve force to the attack, and offered all the remainder of our goodsas a free gift to his majesty, stipulating only that he (the king)should, in consideration thereof, carefully send our boxes of specimensdown to the coast, where the messengers, on arriving, should behandsomely paid if everything should arrive safely and in good order.
These liberal offers had a visible influence on the sable monarch, whosepipe indicated the state of his mind pretty clearly--thin wreaths ofsmoke issuing therefrom when he did not sympathise with Jack'sreasoning, and thick voluminous clouds revolving about his woolly head,and involving him, as it were, in a veil of gauze, when he becamepleasantly impressed. When Jack made mention of the valuable giftsabove referred to, his head and shoulders were indistinctly visible amidthe white cloudlets; and when he further offered to supply him with afew hundreds of the magical paper balls that had so effectually defeatedhis enemies the day before, the upper part of his person was obliteratedaltogether in smoke.
This last offer of Jack's we deemed a great stroke of politic wisdom,for thereby he secured that the pending war should be marked by theshedding of less blood than is normal in such cases. He endeavouredfurther to secure this end by assuring the king that the balls would beuseless for the purpose for which they were made if any other substanceshould be put into the gun along with them, and that they would onlyaccomplish the great end of putting the enemy to flight if fired at themin one tremendous volley at a time when the foe had no idea of thepresence of an enemy.
All things being thus amicably arranged, we retired to rest, and sleptsoundly until daybreak, when we were awakened by the busy sounds ofpreparation in the village for the intended pursuit.
We, too, made active arrangements for a start, and soon after weretrooping over the plains and through the jungle in the rear of KingJambai's army, laden with such things as we required for our journey tothe coast, and Jack, besides his proportion of our food, bedding,cooking utensils, etcetera, carrying Njamie's little sick boy on hisbroad shoulders.