CHAPTER XI
THE LAND OF THE SHADOW
It was towards the end of the afternoon when the skipper of theWest-coast mailboat, peering through his glasses, made out two palmsthat rose apparently straight out of the sea. He watched them for someminutes, and then took their bearing carefully upon the compass, beforehe rang for half speed and called Austin to the bridge.
"That's your island, and we'll run in until I get under six fathoms," hesaid. "After that it will have to be the surfboat, and I fancy you willbe very wet when you get ashore."
It seemed to Austin that this was more than probable, for although therewas not an air of wind to wrinkle it, a long heave came up in vast, slowundulations out of the southern horizon, and the little mailboat swungover them with sharply slanted spars and funnel. She stopped once for afew moments while the deep-sea lead plunged from her forecastle, andthen, with propeller throbbing slowly, crept on again. She had come outof her course already under the terms of the bargain Austin had madewith the Las Palmas agent, for some of those steamers have the option ofstopping for odd boatloads of cargo and passengers wherever they can befound along the surf-swept beaches, and since no offer he could makewould have tempted her skipper to venture further in among the shoals,Austin had fixed upon that island as the nearest point of access to the_Cumbria_. He did not, however, know how he was to reach her when he gotthere.
In the meanwhile they were slowly raising the land, or the nearestapproach to it to be found in that part of Africa, which consists ofmire and mangroves intersected everywhere by lanes of water. It layahead, a grey smear streaked with drifting mist against which the palmsthat had now grown into a cluster rose dim and indistinct, and a thinwhite line stretched between themselves and it. The skipper appeared towatch the latter anxiously.
"There's considerable surf running in on the beach, and I'm a littleuneasy about my boat," he said. "I suppose it wouldn't suit you to go onwith us, and look for a better place to get ashore to-morrow?"
"No," said Austin, decisively. "I'm far enough from where I'm goingalready, and one would scarcely fancy that there are many facilities forgetting about in this country."
The skipper made a little gesture of resignation. "That's a fact," hesaid. "Well, I can't go back on the agent, but if the boat turns you andthe boys out before you get there you can't blame me."
Austin laughed. He had got many a wet jacket, and had once or twice hadto swim for it, in the surf of the Canary beaches, though he was quiteaware that there are very few places where the sea runs in and breaks asit does on the hammered coast of Western Africa. Indeed, as he watchedthe blur of steamy mangroves grow clearer, and the filmy spoutingincrease in whiteness, he could have fancied that nature, in placingthat barrier of tumbling foam along its shore, had meant it as a warningthat the white man was not wanted there. The air was hot and heavy, thesky a dingy grey, the sea a dim, slatey green, and there came offacross the steep heave a dull booming like the sound of distant thunder.
It was not an encouraging prospect, and Austin knew from what he hadheard about the country that he was not likely to be more favourablyimpressed with it upon closer acquaintance. He also felt that if therewas not quite so much at stake he could very willingly leave the salvingof the _Cumbria_ to Jefferson and take the next steamer back again. Hecould fix upon no sufficient reason for his being there at all, sincethe very uncertain profits on a quarter share in the venture did notaccount for it. In one respect, also, Jacinta's favourable opinion couldscarcely be of any practical value to him, since she would naturallymarry a man of means by and by, and forget all about him. Still, shehad, dropping now and then a barbed word which rankled in his memory,striven to stir him to endeavour; and now he was watching the spraydrive across a beach of Western Africa, while he wondered what theresult of it all would be, and whether he or the men he had brought withhim would escape the fever. So far as he was concerned, it did not seemto greatly matter. He had taken life easily, but he realised that it hadvery little to offer him, and it was, perhaps, fortunate that he did so,since it is, as a rule, broken men and those who have nothing to fallback upon who accomplish what is most worth doing in the lands that liebeneath the shadow.
In any case, it was clear that he had broken down the last bridge behindhim when the mailboat stopped and lay rolling more wildly than everathwart the long swell. A big surfboat sank down her side amidst aclatter of blocks and complaining of davit-falls, down which a clusterof almost naked black men slid on board. It was not an easy matter todescend after them. The steamer rolled one way, the boat another, whilethe latter swung up one moment almost level with her rail and swoopeddown beneath a fathom of streaming side the next. Austin, Bill, thefireman, and the Canarios, however, accomplished it, and there was awaving of hats among the cluster of passengers who watched them above.Then the negroes, perched six or seven on either side, took up thepaddles, and Austin was sensible of a momentary sinking of his heart asthe boat slid out from the rolling steamer. She was a part of thecivilisation he had been accustomed to, and when a sonorous blast of herwhistle came throbbing after him in farewell he sighed.
He would, however, at least not look behind, and sitting in thestern-sheets, out of the paddlers' way, he tossed the Canarios a bundleof maize-husk cigarettes, and passed one to Bill, the fireman, whoglanced at it scornfully. Then he made himself as comfortable as hecould upon the box of dynamite while he lighted another, for thatcompound of nitro-glycerine is supposed to require a detonator, andnobody is very particular who has lived in Spain. The black men wantedcigarettes, too, but Austin did not hand them any. The island was stilla good way off, and it seemed to him advisable that they should devotetheir attention to their paddling.
They did it, swaying rhythmically, with toes in a loop of fibre, andnaked black bodies that straightened suddenly and bent again, while somekept up a measured hissing and the rest broke into a little dolefulsong. A brawny man, with a blue stripe down his forehead, stood uprightgrasping the sculling oar astern, and the boat swung along smoothly,with big, dim slopes of water rolling up astern of her. They, however,grew steeper as she drew in with the shore, and the easy dip and swingbecame a succession of fierce rushes, during which she drove onwards,lifted high, with the foam seething to her gunwale, and then swoopedsuddenly into the hollow. When she did so Austin, glancing aft, couldsee a great slope of water that grew steeper and steeper as it camespeeding after her.
Then the slopes became ridges that frothed above and roared, and thepaddles whirled faster, while the big muscles bunched beneath thehelmsman's skin, and the veins began to stand out on his sable forehead.The boat no longer sailed inshore. She sped like a toboggan on an icyslide, though it seemed to Austin that the comparison was faulty,because she went fastest uphill, while when he rose upright for a momenthe could see no shore at all. There was only a succession of parallelwhite ridges in front of them and a filmy cloud of spray. The afternoonwas also wearing through, and the vapours from the steaming swampsobscured the dingy heavens.
It was even less consoling to glance astern, for the surf that sweepsthe fever coast was evidently rather worse than usual that day, as it isnow and then for no very apparent reason. The ridges had become walls,with great frothing crests and sides that were smeared with spumy lines.They had the vast, slow lift and fall of the ocean behind them, and wererunning up a smoothly slanted plane of shoals.
The black men paddled faster, and they no longer sang. They hissed andshrieked and whistled, while the thud of their paddles rose in astrenuous rhythm like the tapping of a great drum, and the craftcareered at furious speed beneath them, driven by the sea. The foamstood feet above her now when she sped along, very like an arrow, andboiled in over her high, pointed stern every now and then. There was afoot of brine inside her that swilled to and fro, and every man wasdripping, while the roar of the tumbling rollers had grown bewildering.They appeared to be crumbling upon hammered sand not very far away.
How the negroes meant to beach her, Austin did
not know, and he wascontent that it was their business and not his. The Canarios wereevidently uneasy, for, sailormen as they were, they had never runthrough surf like this; but they were also of Iberian extraction, and,when discussion is clearly useless, and the last crisis must be faced,the Spaniard is, at least, as capable of calm resignation as most othermen. In any case, there is certainly no better boat-boy than the WestAfrican Kroo, and Austin left the affair to the helmsman, when there wasa sudden horrifying crash that threw three or four of the paddlers downtogether. It was evident that they had touched bottom, but, fortunatelyfor them, the swirl of the shore-running sea dragged them off again, andthey went up, not more than half swamped, sideways, with the foamseething into her, on the next roller. Then the spouting chaos aboutthem seemed to suddenly melt away, and Austin, wiping the water from hiseyes, saw that they were sliding round a sandy beach into a little bay.
In another few minutes they were out on the sand, though they toiled forthe next half hour helping the negroes to tilt the great boat and runher in again when they had emptied the water out of her. It was done atlast, and Austin felt almost sorry, while he was once more sensible ofvague but unpleasant misgivings when the negroes drove her lurching outinto the spray. Night was not very far away, and he had no notion ofwhere he was to sleep, or what he was to eat, for that matter, since theprovisions the steward had given him were, for the most part, saturated.A little muddy creek oozed down amidst the mangroves across the bay, andthere were a few huts, apparently made of rammed soil, beside it, aswell as a canoe. The light was going when they reached them, and Bill,who went into the nearest, came out suddenly.
"There's a dead nigger inside," he said.
Austin looked at him with a little smile. He had reasons for surmisingthat the man's nerves were good, but his voice had an uncertain tone init, and his eyes were anxious.
"Well," he said, "I suppose one must expect to come across a dead niggernow and then in this country."
Bill glanced furtively over his shoulder towards the hut, as though hedesired to be rather farther away from it.
"That one wasn't nice to look at," he said. "What did they leave himthere for when there's a creek just outside the door, and where are therest of them? I'd like to know what he died of. It might be catchin'."
Austin was once more sensible of a little thrill of apprehension as helooked about him and considered the question. On the one side a tuft ofpalms dominated the narrow strip of sand, but the little ridge of highland behind it was covered with apparently impenetrable jungle.Elsewhere the dingy mangroves rose from black depths of mire on slimyroots and pale stems that glimmered, blanched, amidst the drifting steamthat clung about them. Night was close at hand, and, though there was nosign of the land breeze yet, the air was thick and heavy with a hot,sour smell. The clamour of the surf made the deep silence more apparent,for there was no sound of life about the clustered huts. Austin knewthat the black man is frequently stricken by the pestilence, and as hestood there on the little strip of desolate beach he felt his couragemelting away from him. The Canarios he also saw were standing closetogether and murmuring excitedly, while every now and then one of themwould glance askance at the huts.
"If there was any niggers but dead ones in the place they'd have beenout by now," said Bill.
"The _Cumbria_ should lie about north from here up the biggest creek,"said Austin. "If we borrowed the canoe yonder you could find your way toher?"
"I'd try that, or anything, so long as it was to get out of this."
He glanced towards the hut again, and Austin, who could not quiteexplain it, then or afterwards, became sensible that if he waited muchlonger he would say or do something that would not be seemly in one whowas there as leader. He felt that had he been alone he would probablyhave turned and run.
"Well," he said, as quietly as he could contrive, "we will run the canoedown. I believe some of the things they get are infectious now andthen."
He had no need to repeat the order. The Canarios jumped at the word, andin another few minutes they had launched the canoe and were paddling herout of the creek clumsily, as men unaccustomed to the oar might do. Itopened into a wider one, through which the heave of the sea pulsedlanguidly, until they crawled round a point and the streamy mangrovesclosed in on them. Then suddenly the thick, hot darkness fell.
They moored the canoe to a slimy stem, and lay down in her, packed likeherrings; but in spite of the mosquitoes Austin slept a little of thenight. He was glad when all the swamps steamed again as the dawn brokesuddenly upon them; and when they had eaten they took up the paddles.The mists thinned and melted, the sun that sucked the damp from theirdew-soaked clothing scorched their skin, and the glare from the yellowwater became intolerable. Still, it was evident that it would not beadvisable to waste any time, and through the long hot hours the canoecrept on.
Now she slid into steamy shadow among the mangrove islets, skirtingbelts of mire, and now crept, a slender strip of hull, packed withwearied and perspiring humanity, across broad reaches of flaming waterthat moved on inland under her, streaked with smears of yellow foam. Itwas evident to Austin that the flood tide ran longer than usual there,as it sometimes does about an island, or the Guinea stream had backed itup along the shore. The stream, however, did not only set up the creek,but slid through the forest, where the trees rose on arched roots abovethe water; and here and there they had to paddle hard to avoid beingdrawn into branch-roofed tunnels that smelt like open sewers. The refuseof leagues of forest seemed to lie rotting there.
By afternoon Austin's hands were bleeding, and one of his knees was rawwhere he pressed it as a point of resistance to paddle from on thecraft's bottom; but he took his place when his turn came, though hiseyes were dazzled, and the headache that had crept upon him was growinginsufferable. He was now distinctly anxious as to when they would reachthe _Cumbria_, for, though Bill said she lay up a big muddy creek northof the island, he appeared by no means sure that was the one, and Austinfelt he could not logically blame him. Creeks, it was evident, werebewilderingly plentiful in that country, and there were no distinctivefeatures in the scenery. Dingy, white-stemmed mangroves, fermentingmire, and yellow water, were all the same, and as they crept on pastbend and island there was no sign of change.
The shadows lay black upon the water when they stopped again, all ofthem horribly cramped, and aching in every limb; but when they had satportentiously silent, with the craft moored to a mangrove root, for halfan hour or so, Bill stood up in the bow.
"Did you hear anything, Mr. Austin?" he asked.
Austin fancied that he did, though for a moment or two he was not surethat it was not the ticking of his watch, for the sound, which was veryfaint, had a beat in it. Then it grew a little louder, and he felt acurious thrill of satisfaction.
"Engines!" he said sharply. "It's the launch."
She swung out, apparently from the mangroves, in another few minutes,and came on towards them, clanking and wheezing horribly, with theyellow foam piled about her, but Austin felt that he had never seenanything more welcome than that strip of mire-daubed hull with the plumeof smoke streaming away from it. Then she stopped close alongside them,and Austin shook hands with Tom as he climbed on board.
"Did you come across any niggers, sir?" asked the latter.
"No," said Austin. "How's Mr. Jefferson?"
"Comin' round," said Tom, with a grin. "I've worked most of thefever--an' the sunstroke--out of him. It was a big load off me when, asI took him his mixture one morning, he looks up at me. 'Who the devilare you poisoning?' says he, quite sensible, an' like himself again."
"You were coming down to look for us?"
"We were--an' uncommonly glad to see you. The blame niggers is gettingaggravating. Came down, two canoe loads of 'em, a night or two ago, an'only sheered off when we tumbled one o' them over with a big lump o'coal. Wall-eye dropped it on to the man in the bow of her from thebridge, an' so far as we could make out it doubled him upconsiderable."
W
all-eye was apparently the squinting Spaniard who acted as fireman, andwhen he saw Tom glance at him he stood up, with a grimy hand clenched,and unloosed a flood of Castilian invective. Austin, who smiled as hewatched him, felt that while most of what he said could not beeffectively rendered into cold Anglo-Saxon, it was probably more or lesswarranted. In the meanwhile the launch was coming round with backedpropeller, and in another moment or two she was clanking away into thedarkness that descended suddenly, towards the _Cumbria_.