CHAPTER XXVI
THE DAY OF RECKONING
There was silence in the village for almost a minute after Gavinvanished into the hut, and the men who had pursued him stood still,apparently irresolute. The entrance was dark and narrow, and theycould not see inside, but it was evident that they recognized it was avery determined man who awaited them in its shelter. He was alsowhite, which had no doubt its effect upon the negro mind, since itusually happens that when a race or caste asserts its superiorityloudly enough its claims are admitted, especially when they are backedby visible force.
So while the seconds slipped away the negroes stood hesitating, andglancing at one another as well as at the hut which lay in the shadow.Their ebony limbs and scanty draperies were forced up against theglaring dust and sand in a flood of searching brilliancy. Nares, whofelt his nerves tingle, could see the tension in their dusky faces andthe oily gleam of their bodies as the perspiration broke from them.There was something curiously suggestive of pent up fury in the posesthey had fallen into. In the meanwhile he could not move. Indeed, thebig negro who held him fast had savagely drawn his arms behind hisback, and the strain in the muscles was becoming almost intolerablypainful.
Then several men broke away from the others and ran towards the hut,and once more Nares held his breath. He could have shouted as he sawthe first dark form bound on, clutching a long Snider rifle in bothhands, but he restrained himself. In another moment or two a thinflash blazed from the doorway of the hut, and the man went down with ashrill scream and lay clawing at the sand. Nares heard no detonation.He was only conscious of the little curl of blue smoke in the entranceof the hut, and the black object that writhed in the pitiless glare infront of it. Then the fallen man's comrades stopped, and a littleshiver ran through him as he turned to Ormsgill, who nodded as if heunderstood him.
"You can only face it," said the latter. "They would scarcely listento their Headman, and I can't move a limb. It's a single-shot rifle.They're bound to kill him." Then he broke off with a little gasp."Ah," he said a moment later, "two of them are trying it now."
Nares did not wish to look, but he could not help it. The scene heldhis gaze, and he saw the two figures move cautiously towards the hut,keeping one wall of it between them and the doorway as far as theycould. This, however, did not serve them. The deadly fire flashedagain, and one negro who collapsed suddenly fell on his hands andknees. Then there was another streak of sparks and smoke, and thesecond man staggering forward went down headlong with a thud. SeveralSniders flashed, and there was silence again.
"It's too much," said Ormsgill. "I can't stand this."
He struggled furiously, and he and the men who held him swayed to andfro, a cluster of scuffling, staggering figures for a moment or two.The effort, however, was futile, and he stood still again with hisarms pinioned fast behind his back and the perspiration dripping fromhim while the Suzerain looked at him from his stool with a little grimsmile.
"It is not your affair," he said.
Ormsgill said nothing, though the veins were swollen on his foreheadand his face was suffused with blood, and at a sign from the Headmanthe negroes who held him relaxed their grasp a trifle. Nares alsostood still, with every nerve in him thrilling. The man inside the hutno doubt deserved his fate, but that did not seem to count then, andthe missionary felt only a sympathy with him that was almostoverwhelming in its intensity. It was one man against a multitude, forthere was no sign that Herrero was making any effort, and, after all,that man sprang from the same stock as he did. Then deep down in himhe felt a thrill of pride, for Gavin was making a very gallant fightof it. It was in many ways a shameful work that he and his comrade haddone, selling proscribed arms to the people who had turned against himnow, fomenting discord between them and their neighbors, anddebauching them with villainous rum, but, at least, he made it clearthat the courage of his kind was in him. This was all at variance withNares' beneficent creed, but the man was dying, indomitable, a whiteman.
Those who meant to kill him drew back a little farther from the hut,and standing and squatting flung up the long rifles. They were by nomeans marksmen, but the hut was large and built of cane and branchwork. The heavy Snider bullets smashed through it, and for a fewminutes the stagnant air was filled with the jarring detonations.There was no answering flash from the hut and Nares could see that itsshadowy entrance was empty. Then as the ringing of the Sniders diedaway and a man here and there stole forward cautiously it seemed tohim that a dimly seen white object dragged itself towards the doorwayand crouched in it. He did not think it would be visible to theassailants, for they were keeping a little behind the hut, but it wasclear to him that the one man against a multitude was bent on fightingstill.
The straggling figures crept on, moving obliquely towards the perilousentrance, that the hut might shelter them, until they massed togetherfor a dash at it. Then the flash blazed out again, and one of themdropped. Another went down screaming a few seconds later, and then theforemost broke and fled, and there was a sudden scattering of thosebehind. There were a host of negroes, but they shrank from thatunerring rifle. They were evidently willing to face a hazard, but thiswas certain death. Then the Suzerain of the village signed to thenegroes who held Ormsgill, and they led him forward.
"It seems it may cost us a good deal to kill that man," he said. "Goand see what terms he will make with me. An offer of a few good rifleswould have some weight just now."
Ormsgill went, and crossing the hot space of dust and sand walked intothe hut. Dazzled as he was by the change from the glare outside, hecould see almost nothing for a moment or two. The place was alsofilled with an acrid haze, but by degrees he became accustomed to thedimness and made out Gavin lying against the wall. He looked up with alittle wry smile, but Ormsgill moving nearer saw that his face wasgray and drawn. There was dust on his thin duck clothing, and in twospots a small dark-colored stain.
"You are hit?" he said.
"Yes," said Gavin, "I'm done." He gasped before he spoke again withevident difficulty. "They plugged me twice before they made the lastattempt. I could just hold the rifle. If they'd kept it up they'd havegot in."
"Where's Herrero?"
Gavin appeared to glance across the hut, and Ormsgill saw a huddledfigure lying in the shadow. It did not move at all.
"Yes," said Gavin, "I think the first bullet that came in quieted him,and I wasn't sorry. He was worrying me. Lost his nerve, though henever had very much. Well, I suppose you have come to make a bargainwith me?"
"Something like that. Our friend yonder hinted that he would probablydo a good deal for a few rifles."
Gavin smiled dryly. "It isn't worth while now. As you have no doubtnoticed, I can hardly talk to you."
He stopped for a moment with a heavy gasp. "This was my last kick, yousee."
"Ah," said Ormsgill, "is there any other little way in which I couldbe of service? Any message you would like sent on?"
The man made a painful effort, but Ormsgill had now some littledifficulty in hearing him. "None," he said. "They have forgotten meyonder, and, perhaps, it's just as well. Our folks--my mother was CapeDutch, you know--believe in everything as it used to be, but I'm likemy father; there was always a kick in me. One of your Colonialvacillations cost him his farm, for, though he said he was ashamed ofhis country, he wouldn't recognize the Boers as his rulers. I,however, got on with them until I vexed the authorities by something Idid in resentment of the--arrogance of certain mine-grabbingEnglishmen. I believe I might have made terms if I'd truckled to thema little, but that was a thing I wouldn't do, and so I came out here.There are probably more of us with the same nonsensical notions."
Ormsgill said nothing for a moment or two. He had also lived among theoutcasts, and knew what comes of disdaining to regard things from theconventional point of view. Something in him stirred in sympathy withthe dying man, and he sat down in the dust and laid a hand on hisshoulder. Gavin made no further observation that was intelligible,until at last he feebly rais
ed his head.
"If you wouldn't mind I'd like a drink," he said.
Ormsgill rose and walked out of the hut calling in the native tongue.The men who squatted about it in the hot sand still clenching theirSniders apparently failed to understand him, or were unwilling to dowhat he asked, and some time had slipped by when at last one of thembrought a dripping calabash. Ormsgill went into the hut with it, andthen took off his shapeless hat as he poured out the water on the hotsoil. Gavin lay face downwards now, clutching his deadly rifle, butthere was no breath in him. Then Ormsgill went back quietly to wherethe Headman and his Suzerain were sitting.
"I am afraid you can not have those rifles. The man is dead," he said.
After that he and Nares were led back to their hut, and when it wasmade clear to them that they were expected to stay there Ormsgill satdown in the shadow and pulled out his pipe.
"We wondered what was going on, and now the thing's quite plain," hesaid. "It's rebellion."
"How was it they didn't creep round the hut from behind?" asked Nares,who felt a trifle averse from facing the point that concerned themmost.
"Lost their heads, most probably," said Ormsgill. "Didn't think of it.Any way, they'd have had to make a dash for the door eventually.Still, it would have saved them a man or two, and our friend theSuzerain noticed it."
"Why didn't he point it out to them?"
"I fancy he wanted to see how they'd stand fire, and break them in.Felt he could afford to throw a few of them away, as he certainlycould, and he only stepped in when the thing was commencing todiscourage them."
"It's quite likely you're right," and Nares looked at his comrade witha little wry smile. "Still, after all, I'm not sure it's verymaterial."
The lines grew a trifle deeper on Ormsgill's worn face. "No," he said,"the real question is what our dusky acquaintance means to do with us,and we have to face it. Personally, I don't think he means us anyharm, but it's certain he won't let us go until he and his friendshave cleaned out San Roque. You see, in an affair of this kind thefirst blow must be successful, and he has probably a lurking suspicionthat we might warn Dom Erminio. The trouble is that once the rebellionbreaks out it will be almost impossible for us to reach the coast."
He spoke quietly, but there was a strain in his voice, and Naresguessed what he felt.
"I suppose he wouldn't be content with our assurance that we'd saynothing?" he suggested.
"Would you make it?"
Nares sat very still for a few moments, with a curious look in hiseyes, and one hand closed, and his comrade once more recognized thatthere had been a change in him of late. He had the fever on himslightly, and while that is nothing unusual in those forests, he hadgrown perceptibly harder and grimmer during the last few weeks. Nowand then he also gave way to outbreaks of indignation, which, so faras Ormsgill knew, was not a thing he had hitherto been addicted todoing. Still, the latter was aware that the white man's mental balanceis apt to become a trifle unsettled in that land.
"I can't tell. It's a question I've grappled with in one shape orother before," he said. "The land is full of iniquities and horrors,and I think that some of them can only be washed out in blood. Thatlaw stands as it has always done. The great trade road to the south ofus is paved with the bones of the victims, and they still come down todie, worked out in a few years on the plantations. It is a thing thatcan't go on."
He opened and closed a thin hand savagely while his voice rose to aharsher note. "For one man killed by the bullet if war breaks out ahundred perish yearly under the driver's lash on the great roads and,I think, among the coffee plants. They are dumb cattle, here and inthe Congo. They can not tell their troubles, and they have no friends.How could they when the white man grows rich by their toil andanguish? Still, this earth is the Lord's, and there are men in it whowill listen when once what is being done in this land of darkness isclearly told them. One must believe it or throw away all faith inhumanity. I think if it rested with me I would let these bushmen comedown and crush their oppressors, since it seems there is no other wayof making their sorrows known."
He broke off abruptly, and seemed to shrink back within himself, forit was, after all, but seldom he spoke in that fashion. Ormsgillnodded.
"It's a very old way of claiming attention, and one that's sometimeseffective," he said. "They might have tried it before, but, you see,those beneath the yoke have their hands tied, and those who aren'tsomewhat naturally don't care. That's one of the things which havehampered most attempts at emancipation. Only our friend the Suzerainhas sense enough to realize that if they sit still much longer theyoke will be tolerably securely fastened on all of them. I think hehas the gifts of a leader, but there is another man of the same kindon the coast. I mean Dom Clemente, and I'm not sure he'd be willing tohave the land swept out in that unceremonious fashion. In fact, onecould almost fancy that in due time he means to do the cleaning up,tactfully, himself."
He stopped a moment, and smiled somewhat grimly before he went onagain. "After all, this doesn't directly concern either of us. It's alittle hard that now when the thing we have in hand is in one senseaccomplished and neither Domingo nor Herrero can worry us, we shouldbe kept here indefinitely at the pleasure of this back-countrynigger."
He glanced at the dusky men who squatted not far away in the shadowwatching the hut. They had Snider rifles, and it was evident they werethere to see that nobody came out. Then he sat moodily silent awhile,with a curious hardness in his lined face. He was lame and worn-out.The climate had sapped the physical strength out of him, and the woundin his leg still caused him pain. Also, struggle against it as hewould, the black dejection which preys on the white man in that landwas fastening itself on him. The thing was hard, almost intolerablyso. He was a captive with the opportunity of accomplishing his taskreceding every moment further away from him, for it was clear thatonce the rebellion broke out it would be almost impossible for him toconvey his boys across the track of it to the wished-for coast. Sometime had slipped by when Nares roused himself to ask another question.
"Are these people likely to meet with any opposition from the nativeswhen they march?" he said.
"That," said Ormsgill reflectively, "is a thing I'm not quite sureabout. There is one Headman of some importance between them and thelittoral. You know whom I mean, and it would make things difficult forour jailers if he remained on good terms with the authorities. Infact, in that case it seems to me these folks would have a good dealof trouble in getting any further. What he will do I naturally don'tknow, but if I was in command of San Roque I would make every effortto keep him quiet and content just now."
After that he once more sat silent, apparently brooding heavily,until the sudden darkness fell and the pungent smoke of the cookingfires drifted about the village. Then, soon after food was broughtthem, he sank into restless sleep.