CHAPTER X--HOW THE WILD MEN CAME AND LOOKED AT ME
I have called him a man, and so he was, though, in very truth, at thattime I had never seen his like. He was small in stature, little tallerthan myself; and there was something about him that was more animal thanhuman. I cannot account for this, unless the explanation be found inthe scared look upon his face, especially in the eyes--the eyes of ahunted beast.
He was not black, but light brown of skin, though there was so much dirtabout him that I was not even sure of that. His hair was lank and long.All matted with mud, it fell about his ears. He wore no clothing, savethe skin of some small, wild animal hung loosely round his waist; and heheld in one hand a long bamboo rod, which I took to be a blow-pipe.
Now, I believed that this savage would kill me out of hand, defencelessas I was. But he stood staring at me for a long time, with his wildeyes and his mouth widely opened.
So, by degrees, my courage returned to me, and with it something ofhope. I tried to think--and it is no simple matter to be reasonablewhen one is exhausted by starvation and tortured both in body and inmind.
It was manifest, in the first place, that I had no means ofcommunicating with this man. I could neither speak to him nor sign,since I knew no word of any barbarous language, and my hands were boundfast to my sides. But I did the only thing I could do--I moved my mouthas if I were eating, hoping against hope that he would take my meaning:that I was starving and begged for food.
And the more I mouthed at him and made grimaces, the more he stared atme, and the more frightened did he seem. For the better part of fiveminutes I swear he never moved an inch, and then, quite suddenly, hetook to his heels and dived into the woods.
For a little time I could scarce credit it that he had left me to myfate. But when a full hour had passed, and I realised that it waspossible that the wild man might not return, my sense of lonelinessbecame even more oppressive than before, and to tell the truth I cried.
I am, in the evening of a long, adventurous life, at times of areflective disposition, and I have considered often the strangecomplexities of human nature, for I have seen many men and places in mytime. When I first beheld the savage, I was alarmed beyond measure thathe would put the life out of me by means of his murderous-lookingblow-pipe. I would, at that moment, gladly have had him on the otherside of the world. And when he left me so suddenly, without sign orsignal of either hostility or friendship, I felt no less dismayed.
I was so utterly alone in that great silence, in the shadow of thosemute, majestic trees. Not even the wild inhabitants of thatinhospitable region would come and have done with it and kill me.
And thus, indeed, I burst into tears, and cried as children cry. Ithink sheer weakness and the pain that I had suffered had much to dowith it; and in any case it all seemed to me so pitiful and hopeless,for I was over-young to undergo such cruel privations.
I slept again until the evening, when I was awakened of a sudden by astrange noise like the chuckling of a hen.
I opened my eyes and looked upon the same wild man who had regarded mebefore. But this time he had brought three others with him--all four aslike to one another as so many beans. And there they stood, in a row,immediately before me, one of them--as I have just expressedit--chuckling like a hen.
I could not for the life of me make out whether or not he was laughing.He might have been amused, amazed, or angered. There was no expressionupon his face. The noise seemed to come from somewhere out of histhroat. When I opened my eyes and looked at him, he ceased at once; soI am inclined to think he had behaved thus in order to awaken me.
I judged that the man I had seen earlier in the day had stood at adistance of about twenty paces from me; but now, made bolder bycompanionship, he had approached to within about twelve yards from thepalm-tree to which I was bound. They were all armed with blowpipes, butthey made no hostile movement; they just stood staring at me with theirmad eyes, speechless and looking more afraid than I was.
All on a sudden, I was impelled to cry out. I shouted as a dog yelpswhen trodden on, asleep upon a mat.
"Give me food!" I cried. "Have pity on me! I am starving!"
And at that they vanished, all the four of them. They scattered likebirds, swiftly and in silence. At one moment, I beheld them; at thenext, they were nowhere: they might have been spirited away.
They did not return that night, which was the most miserable of all.Hunger was now gnawing at my vitals. There was a foul taste in mymouth, and I felt so weak and lifeless that it was as if the slowbeating of my heart shook my whole frame, making it hard for me tobreathe. Also, I was again consumed by a raging thirst; but the worstof the whole matter was the seeming hopelessness of my situation; fornow I verity believed that my end was drawing near.
Though often our endurance is strained to the utmost, and there aretimes when we are weighed down by grief and trouble, I know that thegood God is merciful, that it is well to bear the ills we have sobravely as we may, in the firm conviction that faith and a stout heartto hope will conquer in the end.
The sun rose in that lone place upon my misery; and a little after, camethe wild men again; and this time they were nine in number, for Icounted them as they stepped in single file forth from the darkness ofthe woods.
They stood gazing at me as before; and now I was wise enough to hold mypeace, though by then--if the truth be told--there was little strengthwithin me; for, even as I looked at them, my eyelids dropped and my headnodded on my shoulders like that of a drunken man.
They came closer than ever, to within an arm's length of me, and onetimidly extended an arm and touched me, and then drew back quickly as ifhe had burned his fingers.
"THEY CAME CLOSER THAN EVER, TO WITHIN AN ARM'S LENGTH OFME."]
I saw now that I had nothing to fear from them, that it was a keenstruggle in their untutored minds as to whether fear or curiosity shouldwin. I did my best to smile.
It was a senseless, mirthless smile, forced upon lips that were dry andburning and eyes grown dim throughout long hours of watching anddespair; and yet--by the grace of Providence--it achieved its simplepurpose.
For, forthwith, like a tribe of monkeys, they set to talking amongthemselves; and never had I heard such gibberish. They waved theirhands, and made mouths and faces at one another that were astonishing tobehold. They touched me repeatedly, fingering my tattered clothes; andone tugged so violently at the sleeve of my shirt, which had been tornto ribbons upon the thorn trees in the forest, that he pulled it offalmost from the shoulder--and then began the monkey-house again.
The very sight of my white skin, where it had not been tanned by thesun, set them jabbering for the space of half-an-hour; and all that timeI kept my silence, fearing that, if I should speak, they would disperselike Sussex rooks at the sound of a farmer's gun.
I had read and heard of fierce savage black men, cannibals and the like,who regarded as their natural foes all of alien race, whom they puthorribly to death. But these wild people were shy as antelopes; andthough they might have been dangerous if handled wrongly, there wasnothing to fear from them in the case of one placed at so great adisadvantage as myself.
I did nothing, then, but let them talk it out; and in the end, one ofthem took a bone knife with an edge like a saw, and cut through thefibre that bound me to the tree.
The others stood a little apart with their long blow-pipes, ready toriddle me with darts that I learned afterwards were poisoned. But nosooner were my hands freed than I pointed a finger straight down myopened mouth--a gesture which no one could mistake.
That set them talking once again; and when they were through with it,they took me with them back into the woods. In single file we wormedour way through the thick undergrowth of the forest, until at length wehit upon a footpath where they travelled fast and silently, thesestrange men of the woods. By then my strength was well-nigh exhausted.Both in mind and in body I was come to the end of my powers ofendurance; and I could go no farther.
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And so, thereupon, they carried me, taking it in turns among themselvesto bear my weight, for they were not strong men, but thin of limb andshort in stature.
We journeyed until nightfall, and then camped in the forest. They gaveme food--roasted manioc and crushed bananas; and then I fell asleep.
At daybreak--though in those dark places we saw little of the sun, andthere was small difference betwixt night and morning--we were on themarch again, and about midday struck the course of a considerable riverwhich we followed up-stream for a distance of many miles. From thisvalley we turned into that of a tributary, and reached our destinationin the evening.
This was a small village of rude huts, inhabited--as I afterwardsdiscovered--by the various members of a single family. I had walkedmany miles upon the second day, and found myself on arrival at thevillage as greatly fatigued as ever, suffering also from a stiffness inthe joints, due to the cramped position I had been forced to assume whenbound by the liana to the tree. So that after my simple meal thatnight, I again fell asleep, and slept, I verily believe, as I never didbefore or since. For not only was I spent and weary, but I had now thecomfortable assurance that these wild people would do me no bodily harm.For the time being, at least, I was safe.