CHAPTER X
A NIGHT IN THE REEDS
It was good to sit around the glowing embers where the buffalo-steaksizzled and threw out an odour that made their mouths water, good tosip the hot coffee and to look out upon the great wilderness risingup to the distant watershed of the lower bank of the Congo. From thecliff above starlings flew out to seek their feeding-haunts wherethe big game fed; and there was a familiar visitor near them in theblack and drab stone-chat, whose scolding chirp they had so oftenheard in England among the gorse and bramble. The metallic cry ofguinea-fowl down by the little river had a farm-yard ring; but thechatter of parrots flying overhead was still new, and so with manyother calls, so that they sat munching in silence, with eyes andears too much engaged for speech, even if the buffalo-steak had notgiven their mouths other occupation. They saw the vultures speedingfrom out the uttermost reach of the blue vault to feed upon thecarcass of the dead monarch, the whereabouts of the feast havingbeen detected from their distant haunts by a keenness of sight whichfor swiftness outdoes wireless telegraphy. They swept on likefrigates of the sky, heads thrust down, and the vast wings seemingto bear them on without beat or motion.
After breakfast the two boys left the camp for a little hunt ontheir own account, while Mr. Hume remained to help the chief curethe buffalo hide. They struck out down the river, passed the reedsout of which the lion had sprung, saw the cluster of vulturesstanding round the body of the lion, and then they saw a troop ofantelope grazing in a patch of mimosas. After a careful stalk,Compton fired, and the herd dashed off together, with the exceptionof one, which took its own course at a slower gait.
"You hit him, Dick."
"Yes; and we'll get him. You go to the left, and I'll keep him awayfrom the river."
The two dashed off, each on his own line, and for several minutesthe stricken animal led them through fairly open country, with everypromise of a speedy run, for it was evidently hard hit. Then, takingadvantage of an old watercourse, it turned to the right, and whenCompton recovered the track he had lost touch with Venning. He gavea "coo-ee," and then getting a view of the antelope making down tothe water, he turned it with another shot, and sprinted to overtakeit. Yard by yard he gained in this final burst, and shifted hisrifle to his left hand in order to have his right free to use thehunting-knife. Another effort and he was almost within touch; butthe buck also had a reserve of power, and, gathering its quarters,it made a couple of bounds, which carried it into the shelter of athin sprinkling of reeds. Compton responded, and in a few strideswas so near that he flung himself forward in an effort to getastride the animal's back. The buck slipped forward, letting himdown, and, when he rose he saw the white tail whisking round acorner in the reeds. On he dashed down a narrow path, which twistedand turned so sharply that he could only see a few yards ahead; buthe was never in fault, as when he could not see the game he couldhear it plainly, so he never slackened. The chase went on alwayswith the prospect of success tantalizingly before him, until at lasthe was at fault in a little clearing where the reeds had been beatendown, and from which there branched several lanes. He stopped tolisten, but the buck had stopped too. Then he searched for theblood-trail, and, finding it, set off once more, and this time,after another chase lasting about ten minutes, the buck wasovertaken and despatched. Then he threw himself on his back andpanted for breath. When he had recovered he sat up and wondered, forhis hands and bare arms were bleeding from a number of cuts thatbegan to smart most painfully. The sharp saw-like edges of the reedsbad cut into his flesh, and in the excitement he had not noticed theinjuries. Thanks, however, to the regulations enforced by Mr. Hume,he carried in the pouches of his belt a little store of quinine,vaseline, and meat lozenges. He rubbed the vaseline on the cuts,mopped his face, and felt all right. Then he put his hand to hismouth and gave a "coo-ee." The call was strangled in the reeds. Hecalled again, fired off his gun, and waited, but he could hearnothing but a soft whispering. The reeds reached above his head,and he could see nothing but the matted stems around him and theblue sky overhead. He gave a grunt of impatience, lifted the buck,hoisted the body on his shoulder, brought the fore legs round on oneside, the hind legs on the other side, and secured them before himwith his handkerchief. Then he stooped for his rifle, and plungedinto a path with the object of tramping straight through to theouter edge, when he would get his bearings for the camp.
This was more easily intended than carried out; for the reeds closedin so as to hamper his movements, and in a short time the path raninto other tracks, which doubled here and there without any decideddirection, and led him into little dens. In one of these there wasthe bleached skull of a buffalo, and he sat down on this toconsider.
He got the direction of the sun from the shadows, made a rough guessat the points of the compass, and then started off again, pickingout a path that seemed wider than the others, and which led in theright way. After steady tramping, he found himself back at the veryspot where he had killed the antelope. It was a nasty shock, but, inno way dismayed, he tried to pick up his old spoor, and after apatient search he hit it off, and went on with a little laugh. Hehesitated when he entered another little open space, but finallykept on in the same direction, and finding the way easier, steppedout confidently, although the weight of the buck was beginning totell, combined with the closeness of the air in these long aisles.At last the reeds thinned, and he stepped out into the open. Heslipped the legs of the buck over his head to stretch himself, andthen a little cry of disgust broke from his lips, for the place hehad come to was not the outskirts of the reeds at all, but merely anopen space, larger than any he had met before, with a little grassmound in the centre. Mounting this, he could see a run of trees inthe distance, and in between a sea of green leaves, giving backmyriad points of light under the rays of the sun. Queer soft noisescame out of the white rows of reeds all around, and from the vastexpanse a continual murmur that was something like the moaning ofthe wind in the pines.
He fired his gun off and listened. A faint far-off answer he thoughthe heard; but when he fired again he could detect no sound but thewhispering murmur. He cut a couple of stout reeds, fitted one intothe other, tied his handkerchief to the top, and planted the pole onthe mound. Then he placed the buck at the foot of the pole, coveredit with an armful of reeds, took a long look around, and started offonce more. He was resolved to keep straight on, path or no path, butafter a tussle with the serried ranks of reeds, with their razor-like leaves, he soon gave up that idea as hopeless, and took againto the paths--going very slowly, and taking his direction atintervals. But, try as he would, there were the kinks and twists inthe paths which turned him out of his course. The endless game-tracks formed a worse snare than any he had been in of humancontrivance; and at places, moreover, the ground was boggy, catchinghold of his feet, and exhausting him by the heavy going. Severaltimes animals broke cover and crashed away unseen. At one spot inthe ooze he saw the form of a huge crocodile, and at another placethe menacing head of a python was reared above the tops of thereeds, with his forked tongue flickering about the blunt nose.These sights, and the sudden snorts from unseen beasts, bred in hima growing feeling of uneasiness, which in turn weakened his powersof reasoning, so that he blundered hither and thither in a sort ofreckless fury, until he went flat, face downwards, in black mud,that gripped him at every point. If he had struggled he would havebeen hopelessly bogged, but luckily he recovered his wits, and sethimself slowly to extricate himself. His left foot was in up to theknee, and his left arm was sinking each moment, when he steadiedhimself and drew his knife. Beaching out, he cut a swathe of reeds,drew them towards him with the knife-blade, packed them under hischin and breast, then rolled over on to this firmer support, after astrong and steady pull. Repeating the performance, he managed to getone knee on to a bedding of reeds, then with one violent effortfreed himself and reached hard ground.
This incident shook him up so, that coming, after another effort, tothe open where he had left the buck, he gave up the struggle,
seeingthat he must think of some other plan if he wished to get alive outof this prison.
First he rested until his strength came back, then he cleaned hismud-covered rifle, and scraped the black ooze off his clothes withthe knife. Then he heard a murmur in the reeds--a snap, then arustle; a long pause, then a rustling again. He stood up with rifleready, and he saw a reed shake about ten yards away, then heard itsnap. He shouted, and the rustling ceased, to break out after aninterval on the other side. Again it was resumed in the front, andin a little while it seemed to him that the reeds were alive withthe stealthy rustlings of beasts and reptiles, all moving towardshim. A reed bent again a little way off, and he fired in thedirection. There was a crash and a growl, followed by a peculiarmoaning from the opposite side. From somewhere deep in the sea ofgreen there came the hoarse bellow of a bull crocodile. Nothing nowcould have induced him to enter that bewildering labyrinth again,and he looked about with a shudder, for the day was sinking to itsclose, and the night would soon be upon him. There was only onething that could protect him in the night, and that was fire. With afeverish energy, regardless now of the rustlings about his littleisland, he began to cut the tallest of the reeds that were hard andsapless, and these he banked in six heaps round the base of themound; and when the task was done he reared a bigger pile in thecentre as a reserve.
Then the black of the night swept over the reeds quick almost as theshadow of a cloud, and with the dark came a sad rustling, as of athousand whisperings. It was still and not still. Up in the sky wasthe quietness of a still night, the stars watching and brooding overthe silence; but down below, in and out of the miles and miles ofavenues, stretching every way through the millions of smoothgleaming stems, came a whispering as if creatures were moving tip-toe, moving up nearer and nearer, treading carefully, watching andlistening. An owl brushed like a shadow overhead, and his loud"whoo-whoo" floated away in sadness and sorrow.
He sat with his back to the reserve heap of reeds, and waited withhis rifle over his knees for the signal to fire his first pile.There was as yet no clear meaning in those mysterious whisperings.What he listened for was a sound that he could interpret, and itcame very soon in the grunt of a leopard, harsh and grating. Thereeds rustled just before him, and then there came a sound, regularand strange--a thump and a swish, then a thump and a swish. Creepingforward, he put a match to the heap, then went back; and as the redflame crackled through the hard shining stems, he saw a dark formcrouching beyond, the green eyes blinking in the reflection, and thetufted tail nervously jerking from side to side. It was that madethe strange noise. As the flame grew, the leopard sprang up andturned away, stopping for a long stare over its shoulder.
Light fragments from the burning pile floated high up like fire-flies, and far over the white sea of leaves shone the reflection.Others saw it from the far outer edge, and through the night camethe report of a gun, and then faintly the echo of a "coo-ee." Heshouted back hoarsely, and though he knew his friends could notpossibly force the way to him through that barrier, impenetrableexcept by the devious game-tracks, he was greatly cheered.
His mind was taken off his loneliness for a time, and he suddenlyfound that he was fearfully hungry. So with his handy knife hestripped the skin from a hind leg of the antelope, cut off a finesteak, and scraping out a layer of glowing embers, placed the meaton. With the cooking and eating of his supper the time wentcheerfully; but meantime the flame had died out, and somethingalighted with a thud just behind. He whipped round, but could seenothing, and moved to the fire to kick some of the live coals to thenext heap. In that instant the antelope was seized and carried offin a couple of bounds just inside the reeds, for he heard plainlythe tearing of the flesh, the snarls, the growling, and thecrunching of bones. He crouched near the fire, for it was notpleasant to think of that stealthy approach and that bold foray, andwondered whether the buck would satisfy the pair of fiercecreatures. The fire flared up, crackled fiercely, sending up, asbefore, its fiery messengers into the air, then gradually died downto a glowing heap; and the leopards were still at their meal,purring now, a monstrous cat-like purr. There was comfort in it,however, for it seemed to him to tell of hunger satisfied, and by-and-by they indeed went off, grunting to each other. Then therecame a long spell of silence. He gathered the unburnt fragments thatfringed the two heaps of embers and piled them on one of the heaps.They blazed up, and by the light he rearranged the other stacks offuel. He realized that he could easily be struck down by a leopardif he ventured away from a fire, and he hit on the idea of buildinghis fires in the shape of a cross, one at the top, one at thebottom, one on each side, and space inside for him to lie down.Inside he made a bed of reeds, from which he could draw supplies asthey were needed. He fired the top pile, and then, after a longwait, the bottom one, and when that had burnt down to embers, andthe night was far advanced, he stretched himself out, protected byfour smouldering heaps of ash, that glowed like four red eyes in thedark.
He looked up at the stars for a long time as he rested in his lonelycamping-ground, and then dropped into an uneasy sleep. Somethingawoke him very soon, and his eyes opened on the dark vault above. Abooming noise reached him. It was the grunt of a lion this time, butfar off--a deep monotonous sound made by the lion on the trot, withhis mouth near the ground. It was very far off, and with a sigh ofrelief he closed his eyes. And then he heard the sound again, andknew it was not the lion that had awakened him. He rose on his elbowand peered about, but the darkness came right up to the ash-heaps,looking white now instead of red. He placed a handful of dry reedson the nearest heap and blew. There was a glow, a flicker, and thena flare. In the reflection he saw dimly a patch of white, thenanother patch next it. This roused him, so that he set all the fourfires going again, and, with his rifle ready, he stood up to seewhat manner of visitors these were with the white marks.
He had heard slight noises as he fed the fires, and now the reedsrustled, but he could see no living form. Sitting down, he laid afew handfuls of reeds ready to each fire, then waited with shakennerves, for there was something mysterious about this visitation.The fires flared up and sunk back to red embers, and yet there wasno sign. The embers took on a covering of grey ash, then therustling began anew, and the white objects reappeared. He turned hishead, and saw that they stretched right round! What the dickens werethey? He strained his sight, and, at first indistinctly and thenclearly, he saw the gleam of eyes above each white patch. Softly helaid a few reeds on the embers, and as they crackled he saw one ofthe white objects move. As the flame mounted up, he made out ananimal with round ears and brindled hide, staring nervously at thefire. It was a wild-dog! Only a dog, and with a "shoo!" he thoughtto scare the creature off. The yellow eyes went from the fire to hisface, a red tongue slithered out over the black nose, and the dogsat down again. All round were the white breasts of the pack, asthey sat in silence and stared. He searched about for a missile,found an empty cartridge, and threw it. A dog leapt up and sniffed.The circle seemed to close in.
He shouted at them, and they gave back a yelp, but never stirred.
"All right," he said grimly, then aimed at a white breast and fired.The pack scattered into the reeds; there was a beating and kickingnoise, followed by a wild rush, a savage snarling and snapping ofteeth. Dog was eating dog; and, with a feeling of disgust andcontempt, he prepared himself to rest. A little later the whitecircle was complete again, and the silent inspection was continued.This got on his nerves, and, springing over the fire with his rifleclubbed, he gave two sweeping blows. The dogs slipped away from hisfront, only to reappear with threatening growls on his flank. Heleapt back to safety and fired; but the light was bad, and hemissed. Piling on a few more reeds, he emptied his magazine rapidly,facing all parts of the circle, and making some hits, as he judgedfrom the howling that went up.
"There!" he shouted savagely, "will that satisfy you?" The pack fellupon the wounded, and was back again into position, coming closerand closer as the fires died down.
Then he remembered t
he stories he had heard of the persistence ofthe wild-dogs--how they would drive off even a lion from his prey--and he fell to counting his cartridges. There were only five left.He counted the dogs. There were more than fifteen, as far as hecould reckon; and if he reduced them to ten, he could not hope towithstand the final rush of ten big-jawed and active animals. Evenif he could keep them off in that open space, he could not staythere another day; and if they tackled him in the reeds, he wouldhave no chance. He began to rack his brain for a scheme; but whilehe thought, the circle closed in until quite plainly he coulddistinguish the staring eyes all centered upon him. He piled on morefuel, and as the flames sprang up they fell back. As the flames dieddown, they advanced as by a given signal. He kept on adding to thefires until his fingers, groping for fresh reeds, found none, andthe sweat broke out on his forehead. In one hour at least therewould not be light enough from the smouldering heaps for him to seea mark, and then--something had to be done!
No doubt the watchful eyes saw the sign of fear in his face. At oncethe circle closed in, and this time he could see that several of thedogs were not sitting, but standing, as if ready for the finalspring. He fingered a cartridge, then suddenly flung it into thetopmost heap of glowing ash. The eyes of the pack followed themissile, and for a second each dog looked at the heap. As theylooked there was a report, and a mass of live embers was scatteredhigh and wide, over them, over the opening, into the fringe ofreeds. With wild yelps of fear and pain the pack broke, and Comptongroveled on the ground with his hands before his face, for he hadflattened himself just in time to escape being blinded by theburning dust, some of which, however, did get into his eyes. Alittle fly in the eye, as many a cyclist has found to his cost, isenough to engage the entire attention for five minutes, but ahandful of ash gives more anguish to the square inch; and whenCompton succeeded in opening his inflamed vision upon the scene, atransformation had happened in the writhing interval. The air wasfull of a sharp crackling and little explosions, and the first thinghe saw was a slender tongue of flame running up a tall reed, andquivering for a moment high above. Other flames ran in and out amongthe withered white sheaths that had dropped off, and mounted up thesmooth stems, and then there came a wandering puff of wind, whichrustled over the bending tops and fanned the little serpent-tonguesof fire into one devouring flame.
He had no wish to be roasted. Once more using his knife to cut downa sheaf of stems, he made a flail of these, and beat out the fire towindward. And as he worked on the one side of the little clearingthe fire grew on the other side, and then raced along, leavingbehind in the blackened area many separate fires, where masses ofreeds had been beaten down. And the smoke went up in a growing cloudthat blotted out the sky--went up and fortunately rolled awaytowards the great river under the sufficient strength of the wind;otherwise he would have been suffocated. The cracking of the reedswas like rifle-fire breaking through the roar of the flames, and nowand again the crashing of animals on the stampede could be heard. Helooked out upon his work with awe, stood and gazed spellbound,wondering if such a sea of flame could ever be stopped, fearing thatit would spread out into the bush beyond, and run up into the forestand devour every tree until stopped by the mighty river itself. Ashe looked, he heard some creature before him writhing in theblackened track of the fire, and presently he made it out--a greatcrocodile convulsively lashing its powerful tail. Going near withcautious steps, he put it out of its misery with a ball under theforearm; then he went on over the scorched ground very slowly, forthe burnt reeds were like sharp stakes to the feet. And as hefollowed, the fire died out before him, and began to eat its wayright and left, working back through the reeds against the wind.Then he heard the report of a gun, and as he stepped from the burntarea on to the short grass that had offered no fuel for the fire,something came springing around him, and before he could pulltrigger it was off with a yelp into the darkness under the canopy ofsmoke. "Coo-ee--coo-ee! Compton--ahoy! Compton!"
Compton croaked and hobbled on.
Then the creature yelped about him again, and his friends wereshaking him by the hands.
"You know," he said with a croak, "I didn't mean to set fire to theplace."
"Thank God, my boy, you did," said Mr. Hume, fervently. Then helifted the boy up in his arms.
"I can walk," said Compton; and, to prove it, his head rolledhelplessly on his shoulder.
Mr. Hume strode off to the river, and washed the layer of soot offthe blackened face, laved the red eyes, and moistened the crackedlips and parched tongue. Then he gave the boy a soothing drink,rubbed oil on his feet and face; rolled him in a blanket, andcarried him up to the camping-ground under the precipice.