The Fire-Gods A Tale of the Congo by Charles Gibson (e book reader pc TXT) 📖

and

waited.

 

For five minutes he never moved, and during that time he heard no one

either on the banquette or among the huts. Then he thought of Crouch

and his uncle. He imagined the suspense which they endured. He

realized that they must believe he had died in silence under the knife.

Presently, whether he fired or not, he knew that they would attempt to

rush the gate.

 

It was, therefore, no longer necessary to remain undiscovered. It would

aid their purpose better if some one saw him and he fired. His object

was to create an alarm, to draw the attention of the garrison to

himself, whilst Crouch and Edward, followed by the Fans, bore down upon

the gate.

 

He stepped out from his hiding-place, and walked down the line of huts

until he came to that which was Cæsar’s. He looked in. It was

deserted, though a candle burned low upon the table.

 

At that he placed a finger round the trigger of his revolver, and fired

three shots in rapid succession into the ground. Then, standing in the

doorway of the hut, he listened.

 

Absolute silence reigned. The truth burst upon him as in a flash: the

stockade had been abandoned. And at that moment there was a great

crashing sound as the gate swung back upon its hinges, and Crouch and

Harden burst into the fort.

 

 

THE FIRE-GODS - CHAPTER XX--THE RATS ESCAPE

 

Edward Harden, rifle in hand, led the way, followed by Crouch and the

four Fans. As they entered the stockade, expecting to be attacked from

all sides in the darkness, they opened out in accordance with a

pre-arranged plan. Crouch turned to the left and Edward to the right;

and then, taking post on the banquette, they stood ready to fire.

 

For a few seconds there was absolute silence. The situation was so

unlooked for that they could not, at first, realize what had happened.

Then Crouch’s voice was lifted in the night.

 

"By Christopher, the rats are gone!"

 

Max, guided by the sound of these words, found the sea-captain in the

darkness, and confirmed his suspicions. He said that he had been

several minutes within the stockade, and had neither seen nor heard a

living soul.

 

It seemed as if the valley of the Hidden River would maintain its

reputation to the last. There was no end to mystery. Time and again

were they confronted with facts that they were wholly unable to explain.

 

It was M’Wané who found a lantern in the hut which had formerly been

occupied by de Costa; and with the help of this they searched the huts,

one after the other, in the hope of being able to discover Cæsar’s line

of retreat.

 

It was not possible that the Portuguese and his Arab attendants had left

the stockade by way of the gate. By day, the garrison had been under

the constant observation of their sentinel on the hills. Every night,

as soon as it was sufficiently dark to permit them to approach, the

stockade had been surrounded. They found nothing suspicious in any one

of the huts, until they came to Cæsar’s, before which the yellow flag

still unfurled itself upon the wind. Here they discovered that the ruby

chest had gone.

 

Now, it would require four men, at least, to carry this heavy chest to

the water’s edge, and even then, the task could not have been

accomplished without noise. It was impossible to believe that the

garrison had passed through the little investing force by dead of night.

And yet, as far as they could see, there was no other means of escape.

Cæsar and his slave-drivers had vanished as suddenly and unaccountably

as if they had been spirited away.

 

They separated and searched the stockade from end to end. It was M’Wané

who gained the first clue, who came running breathlessly to Crouch.

 

"Master," he cried, "the wood-stack has been moved."

 

Within the stockade they had noticed on their arrival a great quantity

of firewood, which had been cut in the adjacent forest. On approaching

this, Crouch saw at once that the wood-stack had been pulled down as if

in haste. Calling out to Edward to bring the lantern, he awaited

further developments. No sooner had Harden arrived than the mystery was

solved.

 

Leading downward into the ground was a broad flight of steps. A kind of

tunnel had been formed under the sand, about four feet wide and six feet

high, revetted by wooden beams. So all the time Cæsar had been at

liberty to escape, whenever he felt that he was sufficiently recovered

of his wound to undertake the journey.

 

When Cæsar had constructed his stockade in the heart of the wilderness,

he had been prepared for all eventualities and had neglected nothing. He

had unlimited labour at his disposal. Knowing the nature of his

business, and the hatred with which he was likely to be regarded by the

neighbouring tribes, he had thought it likely that, at some future date,

he might be called upon to undergo a siege. That siege might last for

several months, by which time his provisions would be exhausted and he

obliged to retreat. As far as they were able to discover, the

subterranean passage had been made during the absence of de Costa on a

two-months’ journey to the Coast, in order to procure fresh supplies of

dynamite. From the fact that the half-caste knew nothing whatsoever of

the passage, it seems likely that the Portuguese had all along intended

to desert his companion at the eleventh hour.

 

Without a word, Edward Harden descended the steps, holding the lantern

on high to guide his friends who followed. The passage lay in a

bee-line throughout the whole of its length. It was about three hundred

yards long, and whilst it ran through the sandy sub-soil in the crater

of Makanda, both its walls and roof consisted of solid logs. For the

last hundred yards it pierced the living rock, and at last came forth in

the impenetrable darkness of the forest.

 

By the aid of the lantern they were able to discover a path which led to

the left, and after a few minutes’ walking, this brought them to the

river bank. Here, in the soft mud, was the indentation of the bows of a

canoe. Moreover, the place was so screened by trees and tall reeds that

no one, passing either up or down the river, would suspect for a moment

that here was a mooring-place. It was here that the "phantom canoe" had

lain, to be brought upstream by two or three of the Arabs from the

stockade on the night of the attack.

 

No sooner did Crouch observe this evidence of the means Cæsar had taken

to escape, than he shook his fist in the air.

 

"He’s gone down-stream," he cried. "But, I’ll follow him, if he leads

me a ten-years’ journey through the wilderness. I’ll overtake that man,

and I’ll kill him. I swear it. I swear that I’ll never set eyes upon

the shores of England again, until I know that he is dead."

 

And that was the oath of Captain Crouch, which--when we have got to the

end of the story--will prove to us that oaths are very futile after all.

The strength of man is limited; in face of the wonders of the universe,

his knowledge is indeed small. He may be strong and brave and

unswerving of his purpose; but, after all, where men teem in cities, no

less than in the heart of the illimitable and mighty forest, there is a

greater Power than anything that is human--the all-pervading Spirit of

the Universe, before whom the foolish vows of men are of infinitesimal

account.

 

Crouch had flown too often in the face of Providence not to be aware of

that; but, just then, he was well-nigh mad with wrath and restless with

excitement. Snatching the lantern from Edward’s hand he raced along the

passage, until they found themselves again within the stockade.

 

Still, the captain never paused. He passed through the gate, and thence

ascended the hills. They found the slave-camp absolutely silent. On

every hand the unhappy negroes lay stretched upon the ground, and there

in the middle of them was de Costa, nature striving to maintain the

spark of life within that fever-stricken body, by means of healthful

slumber. On the eastern horizon, beyond the unknown hills which they

had seen from Solitude Peak, the dawn was rising in a flood.

 

With scant ceremony Crouch awakened first de Costa, then every one of

the slaves. Through the medium of the half-caste he spoke to the

natives as follows--

 

"We found you slaves, we have made you freemen. Are you grateful for

what we have done?"

 

A murmur arose from the crowd. They said that they were mindful of what

they owed to the white wizard and his brave companions.

 

"Then," said Crouch, "you can help us. We are going down-river. We

must start at once. We must take all our baggage, our stores and

ammunition. There are six canoes at the kraal, and these will be

sufficient. But we will need porters to make the journey through the

jungle to the Kasai. If you come with us, to carry our loads and

canoes, we will pay you in cowrie shells and beads, brass rods and

cloth."

 

To a man they volunteered, and not five minutes later a caravan of fifty

carriers, protected by seven rifles, descended to the lake before

Makanda.

 

In less than an hour the canoes were loaded, and then the expedition

shot down the stream, the canoes following one behind the other in

single file. Crouch led the way, his quick eye sweeping either bank in

search of the place where Cæsar had embarked. Max, in the last canoe

brought up the rear.

 

As the canoes gained the point where the sandy plain around the

settlement gave place to the density of the jungle, all turned and

looked back upon Makanda. To the slaves, many of whom had worked for

two years under the whip, without hope of ultimate salvation, it was as

if they looked their last upon their prison doors. As for the

Englishmen, they remembered that grey, steaming morning when they had

first come within sight of the stockade, when Cæsar had fired at them

from the water.

 

All that had happened in the weeks that followed was like some strange,

swift-moving dream.

 

It was midday when they reached their old camp at Hippo Pool, and Harden

and Crouch disembarked, to see if they could find traces of Cæsar’s

escape on the line of their former portage.

 

They met with instant success. Some one had passed within the course of

the last few hours.

 

In consequence, the loads were disembarked. Three canoes were sunk, and

the remaining three lifted high and dry upon the bank. It was whilst

this work was in progress that Crouch, to his infinite delight,

discovered his case of glass eyes, which he had left in camp on the

morning of their adventure at Leopard Marsh.

 

They were obliged to halt for a few hours for food. They had brought

with them a week’s rations for their men: plantain flour, soaked manioc

and ears of corn. It was two o’clock when the caravan began to move

through the jungle towards the Kasai. They eventually reached one of

their old camps by Observation Pool. Their progress was necessarily

slow. The slaves were in no fit condition to do a forced march through

the jungle; and that night it was decided that Edward and Max and the

Fans should push on ahead, in an endeavour to overtake the fugitives,

and failing that to bring back the Loango boys to help. Crouch was to

follow with the caravan with what dispatch he could.

 

In two days, the advanced party reached the place where the creek turned

to the south. Cæsar’s tracks still followed the old route direct to

Date Palm Island.

 

On the fifth day of their journey from Hippo Pool, they came upon a

place where Cæsar had turned to the north. Edward was an experienced

tracker, but it did not require the eye of an expert to see that human

beings had turned from