Chapter Eleven.
Native Doings, and a Cruel Murder—Jim Scroggles Sees Wonders, and has a Terrible Adventure
It took two whole days and nights to restore Ailie to her wonted cheerful state of mind, after she had witnessed the death of the gazelle. But although she sang and laughed, and enjoyed herself as much as ever, she experienced the presence of a new and strange feeling, that ever after that day, tinged her thoughts and influenced her words and actions.
The child had for the first time in her life experienced one of those rude shocks—one of those rough contacts with the stern realities of life which tend to deepen and intensify our feelings. The mind does not always grow by slow, imperceptible degrees, although it usually does so. There are periods in the career of every one when the mind takes, as it were, a sharp run and makes a sudden and stupendous jump out of one region of thought into another in which there are things new as well as old.
The present was such an occasion to little Ailie Dunning. She had indeed seen bloody work before, in the cutting-up of a whale. But although she had been told it often enough, she did not realise that whales have feelings and affections like other creatures. Besides, she had not witnessed the actual killing of the whale; and if she had, it would probably have made little impression on her beyond that of temporary excitement—not even that, perhaps, had her father been by her side. But she sympathised with the gazelle. It was small, and beautiful, and lovable. Her heart had swelled the moment she saw it, and she had felt a longing desire to run up to it and throw her arms round its soft neck, so that, when she saw it suddenly struggling and crushed in the tremendous jaws of the horrible crocodile, every tender feeling in her breast was lacerated; every fibre of her heart trembled with a conflicting gush of the tenderest pity and the fiercest rage. From that day forward new thoughts began to occupy her mind, and old ideas presented themselves in different aspects.
We would not have the reader suppose, for a moment, that Ailie became an utterly changed creature. To an unobservant eye—such as that of Jim Scroggles, for instance—she was the same in all respects a few days after as she had been a few hours before the event. But new elements had been implanted in her breast, or rather, seeds which had hitherto lain dormant were now caused to burst forth into plants by the All-wise Author of her being. She now felt for the first time—she could not tell why—that enjoyment was not the chief good in life.
Of course she did not argue or think out all this clearly and methodically to herself. Her mind, on most things, material as well as immaterial, was very much what may be termed a jumble; but undoubtedly the above processes of reasoning and feeling, or something like them, were the result to Ailie of the violent death of that little gazelle.
The very next day after this sad event the travellers came to a native village, at which they stayed a night, in order to rest and procure fresh provisions. The trader was well-known at this village, but the natives, all of whom were black, of course, and nearly naked, had never seen a little white girl before, so that their interest in and wonder at Ailie were quite amusing to witness. They crowded round her, laughing and exclaiming and gesticulating in a most remarkable manner, and taking special notice of her light-brown glossy hair, which seemed to fill them with unbounded astonishment and admiration; as well it might, for they had never before seen any other hair except the coarse curly wool on their own pates, and the long lank hair of the trader, which happened to be coarse and black.
The child was at first annoyed by the attentions paid her, but at last she became interested in the sooty little naked children that thronged round her, and allowed them to handle her as much as they pleased, until her father led her to the residence of the chief or king of the tribe. Here she was well treated, and she began quite to like the people who were so kind to her and her friends. But she chanced to overhear a conversation between the doctor and Tim Rokens, which caused her afterwards to shrink from the negroes with horror.
She was sitting on a bank picking wild-flowers some hours after the arrival of her party, and teaching several black children how to make necklaces of them, when the doctor and Rokens happened to sit down together at the other side of a bush which concealed her from their view. Tim was evidently excited, for the tones of his voice were loud and emphatic.
“Yes,” he said, in reply to some questions put to him by the doctor; “yes, I seed ’em do it, not ten minutes agone, with my own two eyes. Oh! but I would like to have ’em up in a row—every black villain in the place—an’ a cutlass in my hand, an’—an’ wouldn’t I whip off their heads? No, I wouldn’t; oh, no, by no means wotiver.”
There was something unusually fierce in Rokens’ voice that alarmed Ailie.
“I was jist takin’ a turn,” continued the sailor, “down by the creek yonder, when I heerd a great yellin’ goin’ on, and saw the trader in the middle of a crowd o’ black fellows, a-shakin’ his fists; so I made sail, of course, to lend a hand if he’d got into trouble. He was scoldin’ away in the native lingo, as if he’d bin a born nigger.
“‘Wot’s all to do?’ says I.
“‘They’re goin’ to kill a little boy,’ says he, quite fierce like, ‘’cause they took it into their heads he’s bewitched.’
“An’ sayin’ that, he sot to agin in the other lingo, but the king came up an’ told him that the boy had to be killed ’cause he had a devil in him, and had gone and betwitched a number o’ other people; an’ before he had done speakin’, up comes two fellers, draggin’ the poor little boy between them. The king axed him if he wos betwitched, and the little chap—from sheer fright, I do believe—said he wos. Of coorse I couldn’t understand ’em, but the trader explained it all arter. Well, no sooner had he said that, than they all gave a yell, and rushed upon the poor boy with their knives, and cut him to pieces. It’s as sure as I’m sittin’ here,” cried Rokens, savagely, as his wrath rose again at the bare recital of the terrible deed he had witnessed. “I would ha’ knocked out the king’s brains there and then, but the trader caught my hand, and said, in a great fright, that if I did, it would not only cost me my life, but likely the whole party; so that cooled me, and I come away; an’ I’m goin’ to ax the captin wot we shud do.”
“We can do nothing,” said the doctor sadly. “Even suppose we were strong enough to punish them, what good would it do? We can’t change their natures. They are superstitious, and are firmly persuaded they did right in killing that poor boy.”
The doctor pondered for a few seconds, and then added, in a low voice, as if he were weighing the meaning of what he said: “Clergymen would tell us that nothing can deliver them from this bondage save a knowledge of the true God and of His Son Jesus Christ; that the Bible might be the means of curing them, if Bibles were only sent, and ministers to preach the gospel.”
“Then why ain’t Bibles sent to ’em at once?” asked Rokens, in a tone of great indignation, supposing that the doctor was expressing his own opinion on the subject. “Is there nobody to look arter these matters in Christian lands?”
“Oh, yes, there are many Bible Societies, and both Bibles and missionaries have been sent to this country; but it’s a large one, and the societies tell us their funds are limited.”
“Then why don’t they git more funds?” continued Rokens, in the same indignant tone, as his mind still dwelt upon the miseries and wickedness that he had seen, and that might be prevented; “why don’t they git more funds, and send out heaps o’ Bibles, an’ no end o’ missionaries?”
“Tim Rokens,” said the doctor, looking earnestly into his companion’s face, “if I were one of the missionaries, I might ask you how much money you ever gave to enable societies to send Bibles and missionaries to foreign lands?”
Tim Rokens was for once in his life completely taken aback. He was by nature a stolid man, and not easily put out. He was a shrewd man, too, and did not often commit himself. When he did, he was wont to laugh at himself, and so neutralise the laugh raised against him. But here was a question that was too serious for laughter, and yet one which he could not answer without being self-condemned. He looked gravely in the doctor’s face for two minutes without speaking; then he heaved a deep sigh, and said slowly, and with a pause between each word—
“Doctor Hopley—I—never—gave—a—rap—in—all—my—life.”
“So then, my man,” said the doctor, smiling, “you’re scarcely entitled to be indignant with others.”
“Wot you remark, doctor, is true; I—am—not.”
Having thus fully and emphatically condemned himself, and along with himself all mankind who are in a similar category, Tim Rokens relapsed into silence, deliberately drew forth his pipe, filled it, lit it, and began to smoke.
None of the party of travellers slept well that night, except perhaps the trader, who was accustomed to the ways of the negroes, and King Bumble, who had been born and bred in the midst of cruelties. Most of them dreamed of savage orgies, and massacres of innocent children, so that when daybreak summoned them to resume their journey, they arose and embarked with alacrity, glad to get away from the spot.
During that day and the next they saw a great number of crocodiles and hippopotami, besides strange birds and plants innumerable. The doctor filled his botanical-box to bursting. Ailie filled her flower-basket to overflowing. Glynn hit a crocodile on the back with a bullet, and received a lazy stare from the ugly creature in return, as it waddled slowly down the bank on which it had been lying, and plumped into the river. The captain assisted Ailie to pluck flowers when they landed, which they did from time to time, and helped to arrange and pack them when they returned to the canoe. Tim Rokens did nothing particularly worthy of record; but he gave utterance to an immense number of sententious and wise remarks, which were listened to by Bumble with deep respect, for that sable gentleman had taken a great fancy for the bold harpooner, and treasured up all his sayings in his heart.
Phil Briant distinguished himself by shooting an immense serpent, which the doctor, who cut off and retained its head, pronounced to be an anaconda. It was full twenty feet long; and part of the body was cut up, roasted, and eaten by Bumble and the trader, though the others turned from it with loathing.
“It be more cleaner dan one pig, anyhow,” remarked Bumble, on observing the disgust of his white friends; “an’ you no objic’ to eat dat.”
“Clainer than a pig, ye spalpeen!” cried Phil Briant; “that only shows yer benighted haithen ignerance. Sure I lived in the same cabin wid a pig for many a year—not not to mintion a large family o’ cocks and hens—an’ a clainer baste than that pig didn’t stop in that cabin.”
“That doesn’t say much for your own cleanliness, or that of your family,” remarked Glynn.
“Och! ye’ve bin to school, no doubt, haven’t ye?” retorted Phil.
“I have,” replied Glynn.
“Shure I thought so. It’s there ye must have larned to be so oncommon cliver. Don’t you iver be persuaded for to go to school, Bumble, if ye iver git the chance. It’s a mighty lot o’ taichin’ they’d give ye, but niver a taste o’ edication. Tin to wan, they’d cram ye till ye turned white i’ the face, an’ that wouldn’t suit yer complexion, ye know, King Bumble, be no manes.”
As for the trader, he acted interpreter when the party fell in with negroes, and explained everything that puzzled them, and told them anecdotes without end about the natives and the wild creatures, and the traffic of the regions through which they passed. In short, he made himself generally useful and agreeable.
But the man who distinguished himself most on that trip was Jim Scroggles. That lanky individual one day took it into his wise head to go off on a short ramble into the woods alone. He had been warned by the trader, along with the rest of the party, not to venture on such a dangerous thing; but being an absent man the warning had not reached his intellect although it had fallen on his ear. The party were on shore cooking dinner when he went off, without arms of any kind, and without telling whither he was bound. Indeed, he had no defined intentions in his own mind. He merely felt inclined for a ramble, and so went away, intending to be back in half-an-hour or less.
But Jim Scroggles had long legs and loved locomotion. Moreover, the woods were exceedingly beautiful and fragrant, and comparatively cool: for it happened to be the coolest season of the year in that sultry region, else the party of Europeans could not have ventured to travel there at all.
Wandering along beneath the shade of palm-trees and large-leaved shrubs and other tropical productions, with his hands in his breeches pockets, and whistling a variety of popular airs, which must have not a little astonished the monkeys and birds and other creatures—such of them, at least, as had any taste for or knowledge of music—Jim Scroggles penetrated much farther into the wilds than he had any intention of doing. There is no saying how far, in his absence of mind, he might have wandered, had he not been caught and very uncomfortably entangled in a mesh-work of wild vines and thorny plants that barred his further progress.
Jim had encountered several such before in his walk, but had forced his way through without more serious damage than a rent or two in his shirt and pantaloons, and several severe scratches to his hands and face; but Scroggles had lived a hard life from infancy, and did not mind scratches. Now, however, he could not advance a step, and it was only by much patient labour and by the free use of his clasp-knife, that he succeeded at length in releasing himself. He left a large portion of one of the legs of his trousers and several bits of skin on the bushes, as a memorial of his visit to that spot.
Jim’s mind was awoken to the perception of three facts—namely, that he had made himself late for dinner; that he would be the means of detaining his party; and that he had lost himself.
Here was a pretty business! Being a man of slow thought and much deliberation, he sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree, and looking up, as men usually do when soliloquising, exclaimed—
“My eye, here’s a go! Wot is to be done?”
A very small monkey, with an uncommonly wrinkled and melancholy cast of visage, which chanced to be seated on a branch hard by, peering down at the lost mariner, replied—
“O! o-o-o, O! o-o!” as much as to say, “Ah, my boy, that’s just the question.”
Jim Scroggles shook his head, partly as a rebuke to the impertinent little monkey and partly as an indication of the hopelessness of his being able to return a satisfactory answer to his own question.
At last he started up, exclaiming, “Wotever comes on it, there’s no use o’ sitting here,” and walked straight forward at a brisk pace. Then he suddenly stopped, shook his head again, and said, “If I goes on like this, an’ it shud turn out to be the wrong course arter all—wot’ll come on’t?”
Being as unable to answer this question as the former, he thrust both hands into his pockets, looked at the ground and began to whistle. When he looked up again he ceased whistling very abruptly, and turned deadly pale—perhaps we should say yellow. And no wonder, for there, straight before him, not more than twenty yards off, stood a creature which, to his ignorant eyes, appeared to be a fiend incarnate, but which was in reality a large-sized and very ancient sheego monkey.
It stood in an upright position like a man, and was above four feet high. It had a bald head, grey whiskers, and an intensely black wrinkled face, and, at the moment Jim Scroggles’ eyes encountered it, that face was working itself into such a variety of remarkable and hideous contortions that no description, however graphic, could convey a correct notion of it to the reader’s mind. Seen behind the bars of an iron cage it might, perhaps, have been laughable; but witnessed as it was, in the depths of a lonely forest, it was appalling.
Jim Scroggles’ knees began to shake. He was fascinated with horror. The huge ape was equally fascinated with terror. It worked its wrinkled visage more violently than ever. Jim trembled all over. In another second the sheego displayed not only all its teeth—and they were tremendous—but all its gums, and they were fearful to behold, besides being scarlet. Roused to the utmost pitch of fear, the sheego uttered a shriek that rang through the forest like a death-yell. This was the culminating point. Jim Scroggles turned and fled as fast as his long and trembling legs could carry him.
The sheego, at the same instant, was smitten with an identically similar impulse. It turned, uttered another yell, and fled in the opposite direction; and thus the two ran until they were both out of breath. What became of the monkey we cannot tell; but Jim Scroggles ran at headlong speed straight before him, crashing through brake and bush, in the full belief that the sheego was in hot pursuit, until he came to a mangrove swamp; here his speed was checked somewhat, for the trees grew in a curious fashion that merits special notice.
Instead of rising out of the ground, the mangroves rose out of a sea of mud, and the roots stood up in a somewhat arched form, supporting their stem, as it were, on the top of a bridge. Thus, had the ground beneath been solid, a man might have walked under the roots. In order to cross the swamp, Jim Scroggles had to leap from root to root—a feat which, although difficult, he would have attempted without hesitation. But Jim was agitated at that particular moment. His step was uncertain at a time when the utmost coolness was necessary. At one point the leap from one root to the next was too great for him. He turned his eye quickly to one side to seek a nearer stem; in doing so he encountered the gaze of a serpent. It was not a large one, probably about ten feet long, but he knew it to be one whose bite was deadly. In the surprise and fear of the moment he took the long leap, came short of the root by about six inches, and alighted up to the waist in the soft mud.
Almost involuntarily he cast his eyes behind him, and saw neither sheego nor serpent. He breathed more freely, and essayed to extricate himself from his unpleasant position. Stretching out his hands to the root above his head, he found that it was beyond his reach. The sudden fear that this produced caused him to make a violent struggle, and in his next effort he succeeded in catching a twig; it supported him, for a moment, then broke, and he fell back again into the mud. Each successive struggle only sank him deeper. As the thick adhesive semi-liquid clung to his lower limbs and rose slowly on his chest, the wretched man uttered a loud cry of despair. He felt that he was brought suddenly face to face with death in its most awful form. The mud was soon up to his arm-pits. As the hopelessness of his condition forced itself upon him, he began to shout for help until the dark woods resounded with his cries; but no help came, and the cold drops of sweat stood upon his brow as he shrieked aloud in agony, and prayed for mercy.
Chapter Twelve.
Jim Scroggles Rescued, and Glynn and Ailie Lost—A Capture, Upset, Chase, Escape, and Happy Return
The merciful manner in which God sends deliverance at the eleventh hour has been so often experienced and recognised, that it has originated the well-known proverb, “Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity;” and this proverb is true not only in reference to man’s soul, but often, also, in regard to his temporal affairs.
While the wretched sailor was uttering cries for help, which grew feebler every moment as he sank deeper and deeper into what now he believed should be his grave, his comrades were hastening forward to his rescue.
Alarmed at his prolonged absence, they had armed themselves, and set out in search of him, headed by the trader and led by the negro, who tracked his steps with that unerring certainty which seems peculiar to all savages. The shrieks uttered by their poor comrade soon reached their ears, and after some little difficulty, owing to the cries becoming faint, and at last inaudible, they discovered the swamp where he lay, and revived his hope and energy by their shouts. They found him nearly up to the neck in mud, and the little of him that still remained above ground was scarcely recognisable.
It cost them nearly an hour, with the aid of poles, and ropes extemporised out of their garments, to drag Jim from his perilous position and place him on solid ground; and after they had accomplished this, it took more than an hour longer to clean him and get him recruited sufficiently to accompany them to the spot where they had left the canoe.
The poor man was deeply moved; and when he fully realised the fact that he was saved, he wept like a child, and then thanked God fervently for his deliverance. As the night was approaching, and the canoe, with Ailie in it, had been left in charge only of Glynn Proctor, Jim’s recovery was expedited as much as possible, and as soon as he could walk they turned to retrace their steps.
Man knows not what a day or an hour will bring forth. For many years one may be permitted to move on “the even tenor of his way,” without anything of momentous import occurring to mark the passage of his little span of time as it sweeps him onward to eternity. At another period of life, events, it may be of the most startling and abidingly impressive nature, are crowded into a few months or weeks, or even days. So it was now with our travellers on the African river. When they reached the spot where they had dined, no one replied to their shouts. The canoe, Glynn, and the child were gone.
On making this terrible discovery the whole party were filled with indescribable consternation, and ran wildly hither and thither, up and down the banks of the river, shouting the names of Glynn Proctor and Ailie, until the woods rang again. Captain Dunning was almost mad with anxiety and horror. His imagination pictured his child in every conceivable danger. He thought of her as drowned in the river and devoured by crocodiles; as carried away by the natives into hopeless captivity; or, perhaps, killed by wild beasts in the forest. When several hours had elapsed, and still no sign of the missing ones could be discovered, he fell down exhausted on the river’s bank, and groaned aloud in his despair.
But Ailie was not lost. The Heavenly Father in whom she trusted still watched over and cared for her, and Glynn Proctor’s stout right arm was still by her side to protect her.
About half-an-hour after the party had gone off in search of their lost companion, a large canoe, full of negroes, came sweeping down the river. Glynn and Ailie hid themselves in the bushes, and lay perfectly still, hoping they might be passed by. But they forgot that the blue smoke of their fire curled up through the foliage and revealed their presence at once. On observing the smoke, the savages gave a shout, and, running their canoe close in to the bank, leaped ashore and began to scamper through the wood like baboons.
Only a few minutes passed before they discovered the two hiders, whom they surrounded and gazed upon in the utmost possible amazement, shouting the while with delight, as if they had discovered a couple of new species of monkey. Glynn was by nature a reckless and hasty youth. He felt the power of a young giant within him, and his first impulse was to leap upon the newcomers, and knock them down right and left. Fortunately, for Ailie’s sake as well as his own, he had wisdom enough to know that though he had possessed the power of ten giants, he could not hope, singly, to overcome twenty negroes, all of whom were strong, active, and lithe as panthers. He therefore assumed a good-humoured free-and-easy air, and allowed himself and Ailie to be looked at and handled without ceremony.
The savages were evidently not ill-disposed towards the wanderers. They laughed a great deal, and spoke to each other rapidly in what, to Glynn, was of course an unknown tongue. One who appeared to be the chief of the party passed his long black fingers through Ailie’s glossy curls with evident surprise and delight. He then advanced to Glynn, and said something like—
“Holli—boobo—gaddle—bump—um—peepi—daddle—dumps.”
To which Glynn replied very naturally, “I don’t understand you.”
Of course he did not. And he might have known well enough that the negro could not understand him. But he deemed it wiser to make a reply of some kind, however unintelligible, than to stand like a post and say nothing.
Again the negro spoke, and again Glynn made the same reply; whereupon the black fellow turned round to his comrades and looked at them, and they, in reply to the look, burst again into an immoderate fit of laughter, and cut a variety of capers, the very simplest of which would have made the fortune of any merry-andrew in the civilised world, had he been able to execute it. This was all very well, no doubt, and exceedingly amusing, not to say surprising; but it became quite a different matter when, after satisfying their curiosity, these dark gentlemen coolly collected the property of the white men, stowed it away in the small canoe, and made signs to Glynn and Ailie to enter.
Glynn showed a decided objection to obey, on which two stout fellows seized him by the shoulders, and pointed sternly to the canoe, as much as to say, “Hobbi-doddle-hoogum-toly-whack,” which, being interpreted (no doubt) meant, “If you don’t go quietly, we’ll force you.”
Again the young sailor’s spirit leaped up. He clenched his fists, his brow flushed crimson, and, in another instant, whatever might have been the consequence, the two negroes would certainly have lain recumbent on the sward, had it not suddenly occurred to Glynn that he might, by appearing to submit, win the confidence of his captors, and, at the first night-encampment, quietly make his escape with Ailie in his arms!
Glynn was at that romantic age when young men have a tendency to think themselves capable of doing almost anything, with or without ordinary facilities, and in the face of any amount of adverse circumstance. He therefore stepped willingly and even cheerfully into the canoe, in which his and his comrades’ baggage had been already stowed, and, seating himself in the stern, took up the steering-paddle. He was ordered to quit that post, however, in favour of a powerful negro, and made to sit in the bow and paddle there. Ailie was placed with great care in the centre of the canoe among a heap of soft leopard-skins; for the savages evidently regarded her as something worth preserving—a rare and beautiful specimen, perhaps, of the white monkey!
This done, they leaped into their large canoe, and, attaching the smaller one to it by means of a rope, paddled out from the bank, and descended the stream.
“Oh! Glynn,” exclaimed Ailie, in a whisper—for she felt that things were beginning to look serious—“what are we to do?”
“Indeed, my pet, I don’t know,” replied Glynn, looking round and encountering the gaze of the negro in the stern, at whom he frowned darkly, and received a savage grin by way of reply.
“I would like so much to say something to you,” continued Ailie, “but I’m afraid he will know what I say.”
“Never fear, Ailie; he’s as deaf as a post to our language. Out with it.”
“Could you not,” she said, in a half-whisper, “cut the rope, and then paddle away back while they are paddling down the river?”
Glynn laughed in spite of himself at this proposal.
“And what, my pretty one,” he said, “what should we do with the fellow in the stern? Besides, the rascals in front might take it into their heads to paddle after us, you know, and what then?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” said Ailie, beginning to cry.
“Now, don’t cry, my darling,” said Glynn, looking over his shoulder with much concern. “I’ll manage to get you out of this scrape somehow—now see if I don’t.”
The youth spoke so confidently, that the child felt somehow comforted, so drying her eyes she lay back among the leopard-skins, where, giving vent to an occasional sob, she speedily fell fast asleep.
They continued to advance thus in silence for nearly an hour, crossed a small lake, and again entered the river. After descending this some time, the attention of the whole party was attracted to a group of hippopotami, gambolling in the mud-banks and in the river a short distance ahead. At any other time Glynn would have been interested in the sight of these uncouth monsters, but he had seen so many within the last few days that he was becoming comparatively indifferent to them, and at that moment he was too much filled with anxiety to take any notice of them. The creatures themselves, however, did not seem to be so utterly indifferent to the strangers. They continued their gambols until the canoes were quite near, and then they dived. Now, hippopotami, as we have before hinted, are clumsy and stupid creatures, so much so that they occasionally run against and upset boats and canoes, quite unintentionally. Knowing this, the natives in the large canoe kept a sharp look-out in order to steer clear of them.
They had almost succeeded in passing the place, when a huge fellow, like a sugar-punchean, rose close to the small canoe, and grazed it with his tail. Apparently he considered this an attack made upon him by the boat, for he wheeled round in a rage, and swam violently towards it. The negro and Glynn sprang to their feet on the instant, and the former raised his paddle to deal the creature a blow on the head. Before he could do so, Glynn leaped lightly over Ailie, who had just awakened, caught the savage by the ankles, and tossed him overboard. He fell with a heavy splash just in front of the cavernous jaws of the hippopotamus! In fact, he had narrowly escaped falling head-first into the creature’s open throat.