Chapter 10

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_ Chapter X

The night was stormy and dark. The rain was falling, and the ground in Alec's camp was heavy with mud. The faithful Swahilis whom he had brought from the coast, chattered with cold around their fires; and the sentries shivered at their posts. It was a night that took the spirit out of a man and made all that he longed for seem vain and trifling. In Alec's tent the water was streaming. Great rats ran about boldly. The stout canvas bellied before each gust of wind, and the cordage creaked, so that one might have thought the whole thing would be blown clean away. The tent was unusually crowded, though there was in it nothing but Alec's bed, covered with a mosquito-curtain, a folding table, with a couple of garden chairs, and the cases which contained his more precious belongings. A small tarpaulin on the floor squelched as one walked on it.

On one of the chairs a man sat, asleep, with his face resting on his arms. His gun was on the table in front of him. It was Walker, a young man who had been freshly sent out to take charge of the North East Africa Company's most northerly station, and had joined Alec's expedition a year before, taking the place of an older man who had gone home on leave. He was a funny, fat person with a round face and a comic manner, the most unexpected sort of fellow to find in the wildest of African districts; and he was eminently unsuited for the life he led. He had come into a little money on attaining his majority, and this he had set himself resolutely to squander in every unprofitable way that occurred to him. When his last penny was spent he had been offered a post by a friend of his family's, who happened to be a director of the company, and had accepted it as his only refuge from starvation. Adversity had not been able to affect his happy nature. He was always cheerful no matter what difficulties he was in, and neither regretted the follies of his past nor repined over the hardships which had followed them. Alec had taken a great liking to him. A silent man himself, he found a certain relaxation in people like Dick Lomas and Walker who talked incessantly; and the young man's simplicity, his constant surprise at the difference between Africa and Mayfair, never ceased to divert him.

Presently Adamson came into the tent. He was the Scotch doctor who had already been Alec's companion on two of his expeditions; and there was a firm friendship between them. He was an Edinburgh man, with a slow drawl and a pawky humour, a great big fellow, far and away the largest of any of the whites; and his movements were no less deliberate than his conversation.

'Hulloa, there,' he called out, as he came in.

Walker started to his feet as if he were shot and instinctively seized his gun.

'All right!' laughed the doctor, putting up his hand. 'Don't shoot. It's only me.'

Walker put down the gun and looked at the doctor with a blank face.

'Nerves are a bit groggy, aren't they?'

The fat, cheerful man recovered his wits and gave a short laugh.

'Why the dickens did you wake me up? I was dreaming--dreaming of a high-heeled boot and a neat ankle and the swirl of a white lace petticoat.'

'Were you indeed?' said the doctor, with a slow smile. 'Then it's as well I woke ye up in the middle of it before ye made a fool of yourself. I thought I'd better have a look at your arm.'

'It's one of the most aesthetic sights I know.'

'Your arm?' asked the doctor, drily.

'No,' answered Walker. 'A pretty woman crossing Piccadilly at Swan & Edgar's. You are a savage, my good doctor, and a barbarian; you don't know the care and forethought, the hours of anxious meditation, it has needed to hold up that well-made skirt with the elegant grace that enchants you.'

'I'm afraid you're a very immoral man, Walker,' answered Adamson with his long drawl, smiling.

'Under the present circumstances I have to content myself with condemning the behaviour of the pampered and idle. Just now a camp-bed in a stuffy tent, with mosquitoes buzzing all around me, has allurements greater than those of youth and beauty. And I would not sacrifice my dinner to philander with Helen of Troy herself.'

'You remind me considerably of the fox who said the grapes were sour.'

Walker flung a tin plate at a rat that sat up on its hind legs and looked at him impudently.

'Nonsense. Give me a comfortable bed to sleep in, plenty to eat, tobacco to smoke; and Amaryllis may go hang.'

Dr. Adamson smiled quietly. He found a certain grim humour in the contrast between the difficulties of their situation and Walker's flippant talk.

'Well, let us look at this wound of yours,' he said, getting back to his business. 'Has it been throbbing?'

'Oh, it's not worth bothering about. It'll be as right as rain to-morrow.'

'I'd better dress it all the same.'

Walker took off his coat and rolled up his sleeve. The doctor removed the bandages and looked at the broad flesh wound. He put a fresh dressing on it.

'It looks as healthy as one can expect,' he murmured. 'It's odd what good recoveries men make here when you'd think that everything was against them.'

'You must be pretty well done up, aren't you?' asked Walker, as he watched the doctor neatly cut the lint.

'Just about dropping. But I've a devil of a lot more work to do before I turn in.'

'The thing that amuses me is to think that I came to Africa thinking I was going to have a rattling good time, plenty of shooting and practically nothing to do.'

'You couldn't exactly describe it as a picnic, could you?' answered the doctor. 'But I don't suppose any of us knew it would be such a tough job as it's turned out.'

Walker put his disengaged hand on the doctor's arm.

'My friend, if ever I return to my native land I will never be such a crass and blithering idiot as to give way again to a spirit of adventure. I shall look out for something safe and quiet, and end my days as a wine-merchant's tout or an insurance agent.'

'Ah, that's what we all say when we're out here. But when we're once home again, the recollection of the forest and the plains and the roasting sun and the mosquitoes themselves, come haunting us, and before we know what's up we've booked our passage back to this God-forsaken continent.'

The doctor's words were followed by a silence, which was broken by Walker inconsequently.

'Do you ever think of rumpsteaks?' he asked.

The doctor stared at him blankly, and Walker went on, smiling.

'Sometimes, when we're marching under a sun that just about takes the roof of your head off, and we've had the scantiest and most uncomfortable breakfast possible, I have a vision.'

'I would be able to bandage you better if you only gesticulated with one arm,' said Adamson.

'I see the dining-room of my club, and myself seated at a little table by the window looking out on Piccadilly. And there's a spotless table-cloth, and all the accessories are spick and span. An obsequious menial brings me a rumpsteak, grilled to perfection, and so tender that it melts in the mouth. And he puts by my side a plate of crisp fried potatoes. Can't you smell them? And then a liveried flunky brings me a pewter tankard, and into it he pours a bottle, a large bottle, mind you, of foaming ale.'

'You've certainly added considerably to our cheerfulness, my friend,' said Adamson.

Walker gaily shrugged his fat shoulders.

'I've often been driven to appease the pangs of raging hunger with a careless epigram, and by the laborious composition of a limerick I have sought to deceive a most unholy thirst.'

He liked that sentence and made up his mind to remember it for future use. The doctor paused for a moment, and then he looked gravely at Walker.

'Last night I thought that you'd made your last joke, old man; and that I had given my last dose of quinine.'

'We were in rather a tight corner, weren't we?'

'This is the third expedition I've been with MacKenzie, and I assure you I've never been so certain that all was over with us.'

Walker permitted himself a philosophical reflection.

'Funny thing death is, you know! When you think of it beforehand, it makes you squirm in your shoes, but when you've just got it face to face it seems so obvious that you forget to be afraid.'

Indeed it was only by a miracle that any of them was alive, and they had all a curious, light-headed feeling from the narrowness of the escape. They had been fighting, with their backs to the wall, and each one had shown what he was made of. A few hours before things had been so serious that now, in the first moment of relief, they sought refuge instinctively in banter. But Dr. Adamson was a solid man, and he wanted to talk the matter out.

'If the Arabs hadn't hesitated to attack us just those ten minutes, we would have been simply wiped out.'

'MacKenzie was all there, wasn't he?'

Walker had the shyness of his nationality in the exhibition of enthusiasm, and he could only express his admiration for the commander of the party in terms of slang.

'He was, my son,' answered Adamson, drily. 'My own impression is, he thought we were done for.'

'What makes you think that?'

'Well, you see, I know him pretty well. When things are going smoothly and everything's flourishing, he's apt to be a bit irritable. He keeps rather to himself, and he doesn't say much unless you do something he don't approve of.'

'And then, by Jove, he comes down on you like a thousand of bricks,' Walker agreed heartily. He remembered observations which Alec on more than one occasion had made to recall him to a sense of his great insignificance. 'It's not for nothing the natives call him _Thunder and Lightning_.'

'But when things look black, his spirits go up like one o'clock,' proceeded the doctor. 'And the worse they are the more cheerful he is.'

'I know. When you're starving with hunger, dead tired and soaked to the skin, and wish you could just lie down and die, MacKenzie simply bubbles over with good humour. It's a hateful characteristic. When I'm in a bad temper, I much prefer everyone else to be in a bad temper, too.'

'These last three days he's been positively hilarious. Yesterday he was cracking jokes with the natives.'

'Scotch jokes,' said Walker. 'I daresay they sound funny in an African dialect.'

'I've never seen him more cheerful,' continued the other, sturdily ignoring the gibe. 'By the Lord Harry, said I to myself, the chief thinks we're in a devil of a bad way.'

Walker stood up and stretched himself lazily.

'Thank heavens, it's all over now. We've none of us had any sleep for three days, and when I once get off I don't mean to wake up for a week.'

'I must go and see the rest of my patients. Perkins has got a bad dose of fever this time. He was quite delirious a little while ago.'

'By Jove, I'd almost forgotten.'

People changed in Africa. Walker was inclined to be surprised that he was fairly happy, inclined to make a little jest when it occurred to him; and it had nearly slipped his memory that one of the whites had been killed the day before, while another was lying unconscious with a bullet in his skull. A score of natives were dead, and the rest of them had escaped by the skin of their teeth.

'Poor Richardson,' he said.

'We couldn't spare him,' answered the doctor slowly. 'The fates never choose the right man.'

Walker looked at the brawny doctor, and his placid face was clouded. He knew to what the Scot referred and shrugged his shoulders. But the doctor went on.

'If we had to lose someone it would have been a damned sight better if that young cub Allerton had got the bullet which killed poor Richardson.'

'He wouldn't have been much loss, would he?' said Walker, after a silence.

'MacKenzie has been very patient with him. If I'd been in his shoes I'd have sent him back to the coast when he sacked Macinnery.'

Walker did not answer, and the doctor proceeded to moralise.

'It seems to me that some men have natures so crooked that with every chance in the world to go straight, they can't manage it. The only thing is to let them go to the devil as best they may.'

At that moment Alec MacKenzie came in. He was dripping with rain and threw off his macintosh. His face lit up when he saw Walker and the doctor. Adamson was an old and trusted friend, and he knew that on him he could rely always.

'I've been going the round of the outlying sentries,' he said.

It was unlike him to volunteer even so trivial a piece of information, and Adamson looked up at him.

'All serene?' he asked.

'Yes.'

Alec's eyes rested on the doctor as though he were considering something strange about him. The doctor knew him well enough to suspect that something very grave had happened, but also he knew him too well to hazard an inquiry. Presently Alec spoke again.

'I've just seen a native messenger that Mindabi sent me.'

'Anything important?'

'Yes.'

Alec's answer was so curt that it was impossible to question him further. He turned to Walker.

'How's the arm?'

'Oh, that's nothing. It's only a scratch.'

'You'd better not make too light of it. The smallest wound has a way of being troublesome in this country.'

'He'll be all right in a day or two,' said the doctor.

Alec sat down. For a minute he did not speak, but seemed plunged in thought. He passed his fingers through his beard, ragged now and longer than when he was in England.

'How are the others?' he asked suddenly, looking at Adamson.

'I don't think Thompson can last till the morning.'

'I've just been in to see him.'

Thompson was the man who had been shot through the head and had lain unconscious since the day before. He was an old gold-prospector, who had thrown in his lot with the expedition against the slavers.

'Perkins of course will be down for several days longer. And some of the natives are rather badly hurt. Those devils have got explosive bullets.'

'Is there anyone in great danger?'

'No, I don't think so. There are two men who are in a bad way, but I think they'll pull through with rest.'

'I see,' said Alec, laconically.

He stared intently at the table, absently passing his hand across the gun which Walker had left there.

'I say, have you had anything to eat lately?' asked Walker, presently.

Alec shook himself out of his meditation and gave the young man one of his rare, bright smiles. It was plain that he made an effort to be gay.

'Good Lord, I quite forgot; I wonder when the dickens I had some food last. These Arabs have been keeping us so confoundedly busy.'

'I don't believe you've had anything to-day. You must be devilish hungry.'

'Now you mention it, I think I am,' answered Alec, cheerfully. 'And thirsty, by Jove! I wouldn't give my thirst for an elephant tusk.'

'And to think there's nothing but tepid water to drink!' Walker exclaimed with a laugh.

'I'll go and tell the boy to bring you some food,' said the doctor. 'It's a rotten game to play tricks with your digestion like that.'

'Stern man, the doctor, isn't he?' said Alec, with twinkling eyes. 'It won't hurt me once in a way, and I shall enjoy it all the more now.'

But when Adamson went to call the boy, Alec stopped him.

'Don't trouble. The poor devil's half dead with exhaustion. I told him he might sleep till I called him. I don't want much, and I can easily get it myself.'

Alec looked about and presently found a tin of meat and some ship biscuits. During the fighting it had been impossible to go out on the search for game, and there was neither variety nor plenty about their larder. Alec placed the food before him, sat down, and began to eat. Walker looked at him.

'Appetising, isn't it?' he said ironically.

'Splendid!'

'No wonder you get on so well with the natives. You have all the instincts of the primeval savage. You take food for the gross and bestial purpose of appeasing your hunger, and I don't believe you have the least appreciation for the delicacies of eating as a fine art.'

'The meat's getting rather mouldy,' answered Alec.

He ate notwithstanding with a good appetite. His thoughts went suddenly to Dick who at the hour which corresponded with that which now passed in Africa, was getting ready for one of the pleasant little dinners at the _Carlton_ upon which he prided himself. And then he thought of the noisy bustle of Piccadilly at night, the carriages and 'buses that streamed to and fro, the crowded pavements, the gaiety of the lights.

'I don't know how we're going to feed everyone to-morrow,' said Walker. 'Things will be going pretty bad if we can't get some grain in from somewhere.'

Alec pushed back his plate.

'I wouldn't worry about to-morrow's dinner if I were you,' he said, with a low laugh.

'Why?' asked Walker.

'Because I think it's ten to one that we shall be as dead as doornails before sunrise.'

The two men stared at him silently. Outside, the wind howled grimly, and the rain swept against the side of the tent.

'Is this one of your little jokes, MacKenzie?' said Walker at last.

'You have often observed that I joke with difficulty.'

'But what's wrong now?' asked the doctor quickly.

Alec looked at him and chuckled quietly.

'You'll neither of you sleep in your beds to-night. Another sell for the mosquitoes, isn't it? I propose to break up the camp and start marching in an hour.'

'I say, it's a bit thick after a day like this,' said Walker. 'We're all so done up that we shan't be able to go a mile.'

'You will have had two hours rest.'

Adamson rose heavily to his feet. He meditated for an appreciable time.

'Some of those fellows who are wounded can't possibly be moved,' he said.

'They must.'

'I won't answer for their lives.'

'We must take the risk. Our only chance is to make a bold dash for it, and we can't leave the wounded here.'

'I suppose there's going to be a deuce of a row,' said Walker.

'There is.'

'Your companions seldom have a chance to complain of the monotony of their existence,' said Walker, grimly. 'What are you going to do now?'

'At this moment I'm going to fill my pipe.'

With a whimsical smile, Alec took his pipe from his pocket, knocked it out on his heel, filled and lit it. The doctor and Walker digested the information he had given them. It was Walker who spoke first.

'I gather from the general amiability of your demeanour that we're in rather a tight place.'

'Tighter than any of your patent-leather boots, my friend.'

Walker moved uncomfortably in his chair. He no longer felt sleepy. A cold shiver ran down his spine.

'Have we any chance of getting through?' he asked gravely.

It seemed to him that Alec paused an unconscionable time before he answered.

'There's always a chance,' he said.

'I suppose we're going to do a bit more fighting?'

'We are.'

Walker yawned loudly.

'Well, at all events there's some comfort in that. If I am going to be done out of my night's rest, I should like to take it out of someone.'

Alec looked at him with approval. That was the frame of mind that pleased him. When he spoke again there was in his voice a peculiar charm that perhaps in part accounted for the power he had over his fellows. It inspired an extraordinary belief in him, so that anyone would have followed him cheerfully to certain death. And though his words were few and bald, he was so unaccustomed to take others into his confidence, that when he did so, ever so little, and in that tone, it seemed that he was putting his hearers under a singular obligation.

'If things turn out all right, we shall come near finishing the job, and there won't be much more slave-trading in this part of Africa.'

'And if things don't turn out all right?'

'Why then, I'm afraid the tea tables of Mayfair will be deprived of your scintillating repartee for ever.'

Walker looked down at the ground. Strange thoughts ran through his head, and when he looked up again, with a shrug of the shoulders, there was a queer look in his eyes.

'Well, I've not had a bad time in my life,' he said slowly. 'I've loved a little, and I've worked and played. I've heard some decent music, I've looked at nice pictures, and I've read some thundering fine books. If I can only account for a few more of those damned scoundrels before I die, I shouldn't think I had much to complain of.'

Alec smiled, but did not answer. A silence fell upon them. Walker's words brought to Alec the recollection of what had caused the trouble which now threatened them, and his lips tightened. A dark frown settled between his eyes.

'Well, I suppose I'd better go and get things straight,' said the doctor. 'I'll do what I can with those fellows and trust to Providence that they'll stand the jolting.'

'What about Perkins?' asked Alec.

'Lord knows! I'll try and keep him quiet with choral.'

'You needn't say anything about our striking camp. I don't propose that anyone should know till a quarter of an hour before we start.'

'But that won't give them time.'

'I've trained them often enough to get on the march quickly,' answered Alec, with a curtness that allowed no rejoinder.

The doctor turned to go, and at the same moment George Allerton appeared. _

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